Akira learned early that pain was not the enemy.
Fear was.
The storage shed behind the orphanage was barely large enough to stand in comfortably. It smelled of dust and old wood, and the single bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered more often than it stayed lit. No one came here at night. No one looked for him here.
That was why Akira chose it.
He sat cross-legged on the cold concrete floor, sleeves rolled up, a small towel folded neatly beside him. His breathing was slow, measured—not because it calmed him, but because he needed it to.
If his heart raced, everything fell apart.
He pressed his fingernail into the pad of his thumb.
The skin broke.
Blood surfaced immediately, bright and warm.
Akira closed his eyes.
Lift.
The blood obeyed.
It rose from his thumb in a thin stream, hovering in the air like a suspended thread. His body tensed instantly—not from effort, but from instinct. Every part of him screamed that this was wrong, that blood belonged inside him.
He ignored it.
The thread wavered, thickening as more blood followed. Akira felt the familiar dizziness creep in, subtle but present, like the world leaning just slightly to one side.
"Too much," he murmured.
He forced the flow to stop.
The blood hesitated, then froze—solidifying in midair, darkening as it hardened. It was no weapon. No edge. Just a narrow rod, uneven and fragile.
It cracked a second later and shattered onto the floor.
Akira exhaled sharply and leaned forward, resting his forehead against his knee.
Again.
The second attempt lasted longer.
The third failed immediately.
By the fifth, his vision blurred at the edges.
This was the pattern.
He trained in silence, marking time not by minutes but by mistakes. Every failure taught him something. Too much volume made the construct unstable. Too little concentration caused collapse. Pain sharpened focus—but panic destroyed it.
The blood did not respond to desperation.
It responded to control.
Sweat soaked into his shirt as he wiped his thumb clean and sealed the wound with practiced pressure. His hands trembled faintly—not from fear, but from strain.
This is exactly how it starts.
The thought surfaced unbidden.
A flash of red.
A girl standing alone, her expression gentle and unbearably tired.
Akira's chest tightened.
"I won't follow that path," he whispered, though he didn't know who he was arguing with.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
The shed became routine. So did the pain.
Akira learned his limits—not by pushing past them, but by brushing against them carefully. He learned how much blood he could spare before his legs weakened. How long he could maintain solidification before the construct degraded. How breathing affected stability.
Anger ruined everything.
Sadness was manageable.
Calm was king.
One night, after a particularly bad day—whispers, stares, a caretaker flinching when he reached out—Akira sat in the shed longer than usual.
His hands were steady.
His mind was not.
He cut his palm this time, deeper than before.
Blood flowed freely.
He shaped it instinctively, without thinking, drawing it into a familiar form—
A blade.
The moment it took shape, the air seemed to sharpen around it. The blood darkened, edges refining themselves with terrifying ease. The weight of it settled into his hand as if it belonged there.
Akira froze.
This was different.
This was right.
The memory echoed again, stronger this time. Not a warning—an understanding.
This power doesn't care what you want. It cares what you can bear.
His arm trembled. Pain radiated up to his shoulder as the blood demanded more. His vision swam.
"Not yet," he whispered.
With effort that made his teeth ache, Akira dissolved the blade.
The blood splashed to the floor, harmless again.
He collapsed back against the wall, breathing hard, his palm throbbing as he pressed the towel against it.
He laughed softly—once, breathless and hollow.
"So that's how it is," he murmured.
Control wasn't about stopping the power.
It was about choosing when not to use it.
As he left the shed and slipped back into the orphanage, unnoticed as always, Akira felt something settle inside him.
He wasn't strong.
Not yet.
But he understood the rules now.
And understanding was the first step toward mastery.