Three blocks from the drenched battlefield, we met back up with the girls. Everyone was shaken up after seeing even half of the battle, and they were wary of me being there. Their last perspective was me about to shoot Natsu, after all. My sister, however, had it so much worse. She was kidnapped from the school and dragged to the scene as a hostage. Even now, she was trembling. I walked up to her, but Kaori and Chika stood in my way.

  "Zuzu?" Yui looked over at me. "Zuzu!" She pushed past the other two and leaped into my arms. "Zuzu, you're okay! I was so scared that something had happened to you!" She was shaking to the point that I had a hard time holding the both of us up.

  "Yeah, sis, I'm okay," I said as I pet her head and stroked her hair.

  "They came out of nowhere," her voice started cracking. "I was so scared!" Her voice shattered, and she burst into tears. She collapsed, and we buckled down to the ground where she buried her face in my chest.

  "Kazu, what the hell just happened?" Chika loomed over me with piercing eyes.

  "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Chika. I didn't want to have to get you or Kaori involved at all, but he already knew about both of you. I should have told you what was going on, I know that."

  "But you didn't, did you? You thought that by keeping us unaware, you'd protect us? You almost killed Natsu! Our friends got hurt! People died! What would you have done if your little plan didn't go the right way?!"

  "You think I wanted any of this?!" My rage broke, and I gave her the coldest glare over my shoulder. "All of that was probably the best possible outcome. None of this was supposed to happen, damnit!"

  Now I've done it. I'm losing my head again. All of that training to remain calm in any situation has gone completely out the window. I need to get out of here before it gets any worse.

  The rain slowed to a stop, and I stood up with Yui in my arms. Everyone else stood like statues among the frozen downpour. Chika's face was covered in anger but starting to take in the shock of my outburst. Nina wore a disdainful look as she averted her gaze. Kaori's face expressed concern as she reached for Chika's shoulder. Natsu and Denki looked down with a sort of bitterness across their faces. Hiro knelt by Rito who had collapsed, likely struggling with the true potential of his power and the realization that he had inadvertently ended a life in a matter of seconds. As much as it pained me, I turned and started carrying my sister through the petrified concrete jungle.

  She wasn't really heavy, or maybe that was because I had been training. Certain things were always slightly haunting to me when time was frozen: hair remained perfectly in place, eyes retained their exact glimmer, even clothes stayed the same. All of these things could be overridden if I touched the person and modified something about them, of course. Carrying her and thinking about the odd intricacies of my ability, I suddenly remembered a deeply repressed memory from The Purge.

  *  *  *  *  *

  His designation was Number 26. We were as good of friends as two enforcers could be. He had long blond hair that was brushed over and undercut much like mine. His blue eyes were hardly seen since he would often be laughing or smiling about something or another, usually at something I did. His ability was that he could make copies of himself or others if he had some of their blood. We had all gathered in the briefing room, an extremely long room with chairs for each of the Numbers and a large board for whoever to use to say their piece. It was a day just like any other until the Commander walked into the room.

  It was weird enough to see him away from high headquarters. For him to visit us personally, something big was happening. He hovered over the microphone in front of the board and gave a long winded speech. At the end, however, came the reason he had graced us with his presence: any meta not working for Eclipse had been officially labeled a domestic terrorist and was to be eradicated. The Purge had begun. While most of the Numbers stood in shocked silence, there were those who cheered. Not even an hour after the announcement, Number 26 and I got our first target.

  Without wasting any time, I dragged Number 26 to the location of the meta. She was a young woman living in the middle circle as a florist, a good use of her water manipulation ability. I brought us to an alleyway close to the back door of the shop. It was at that time that the rain began. This was long before I made my rules of engagement, but even without them to guide us, we still made a plan. Up the stairs we went until we stood outside her apartment above the shop. We made quick work of the lock and quickly peeked inside. Only two lights were on, her bedroom and her bathroom. We split up to check each, and I never saw Number 26 alive again.

  I stopped time just before going into the bedroom. It took a minute to make sure that no one was inside, but I resumed the flow once I was sure. I trusted that Number 26 could handle her by himself, and I relaxed when I heard the thud. I started to head back when I got the feeling that I should step back. When I did, she walked in ready for a fight. She wielded a blob of water, and there was no sight of him. I barely mustered enough concentration in time. Before me was a watery grave bound for my head. I ducked out of its way, put a cut so deep in her throat that I scraped bone, and slipped out of the room to get to him.

  He was on the floor, lifeless. She used the same technique I almost received to drown him where he stood in a matter of seconds. Whether she knew we were coming or whether she was just always ready for trouble since she lived alone, she had destroyed our plan and killed my only friend in less than a couple of minutes. I picked him up and walked over to the meta. Time resumed, and I watched her struggle, choke on her own blood, and bleed out on her floor unable to do anything. Her eyes screamed in terror as the light fled from them in her final moments. I walked out and carried Number 26 back to our level's headquarters. My friend was the first death in the Numbers during the Purge all because a plan that I had made went wrong.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  *  *  *  *  *

  Yui and I finally made it home, and I released my hold on time. She was even more shaken, and she threw herself out of my arms. All of the exhaustion hit me at once, and I collapsed.

  "Zuzu!" Her voice hit my ears shortly before I lost consciousness.

  When I came to, I was in my bed. I looked around to find Yui asleep by my bedside. It was almost 10pm, and the rain had passed. I carried her back to her bed. As I turned to leave, she caught my arm and pulled me in. She was still sound asleep, but something in her reacted to me being around her and trying to leave.

  She really is a next level bro-con. I can't stay like this. I've got to get back to my own bed and figure out how I'm going to fix my friendships.

  "Zuzu," she mumbled, still asleep.

  Fine, you win. I'll sleep here tonight. Only because I don't want to use my ability on my sister.

  I had barely finished situating myself when another wave of exhaustion slammed into me. I had been on high alert basically all the time for almost two months. Even without that, everything at school was already picking up quickly leaving little to no time for training without freezing to do so. The comfort of the bed, the weight of the blankets, even the warmth of my sister's body lulled me into a deep sleep like I hadn't experienced in a long time.

  Morning came far too soon, and the sun seemed to force its way into the room. I was too tired from the day before to get up at the crack of dawn, so I turned back over.

  Half an hour won't kill anyone. Why is my bed so warm, though?

  "Zuzu," a soft voice mumbled.

  Everything came rushing back to me, and I quickly rolled back over to jump out of my sister's bed. I wasn't fast enough, though. With an almost unmatched strength, she pulled me back under the covers. She held me so tight, it felt like she tried to pull me into herself. I tried to struggle to get out, but against her unnatural grip, I was helpless. I begrudgingly accepted my fate.

  I got my extra half hour in bed, but going back to sleep proved impossible. Yui held me close to the point of almost constricting me like a snake. Her morning breath crept around my ear and across my face. Her hands traced the outline of my torso, and it was hard to believe that she was actually asleep. The sun that had woken me up ended up saving me. It shined right in her eye causing her to loosen her grip to roll over in her usual groggy manner. I wasted no time and got out of her room as quickly as possible.

  "Oh? Kazuma?" my mother's voice sounded beside me. "Waking up your sister for breakfast? Thank you. I was just coming up to get the two of you. I'm surprised you didn't go out for a run or something this morning."

  "The last couple of weeks have been really tiring," I responded. "I thought a day or two of rest would help. I'll wake her up."

  Back into the lioness' den I go.

  After we ate breakfast together and mother went to bed, Yui and I stood in the kitchen washing the dishes. It seemed like she had completely forgotten the day before. I set my last dish down to dry.

  "Hey, sis," I started. "Are you okay? You know, after everything that happened?"

  She stood there in silence for a minute looking down at her dishes. The faint smile she wore previously faded away, and her eyes seemed to get cloudy.

  "Zuzu, you saved my life, and I don't even really know what happened." She turned to me and grabbed my hand. "Please. Please help me understand why any of that happened"

  I took her hand in mine. "I will, sis." I walked her over to the couch and sat us both down. "This is going to sound crazy, but I have this... ability. I can stop time and move around while it's stopped. I can even rewind time or jump forward by a couple of minutes. How long I've been able to do it, I don't know. I figured out that I could at the end of last school year. Remember the day I went to the mall with Chika? There were others like me there. We got into a fight, and they ran off; we ended up running into them again when we went to the water park. After that, I got a letter from a crime boss telling me to kill them. When I didn't do it, he... well, you know the rest."

  She stared into my eyes desperately looking for any indication that I was lying. She didn't find any, and she leaned back on the couch. I refused to let go of her hand, not until I knew that she would be okay. We sat in silence for a while. Every so often, she would look up, and our gazes would lock. My smiles were met with blank expressions.

  "Zuzu," she said finally. "I had no idea. I'm so sorry." She pulled me into a hug. "Every part of me still wants to protect you like I did when we were kids, but I guess you really don't need that anymore."

  "Just because I don't need a guardian doesn't mean I don't need my sister, though," I said, trying to reassure her. "You protected me; now, it's my turn to protect you."

  "Zuzu, you're really trying to make your sister fall completely for you, huh?"

  "And you made it weird, good job."

  We laughed for a solid few minutes before she got up, gave me another hug, and went back to her room. Given the circumstances, the revelation went surprisingly well. I could only hope that patching my relationships with my friends could go as well. I spent the weekend doing school work and having my messages ignored by said friends.

  When I returned to school the following Monday, I went alone. None of my friends acknowledged my existence in class. Every time I tried to talk to them, they either brushed me off, left in a hurry, or ignored me all together. My lunch was spent on a bench under a tree in the courtyard. The first year representative hurried out after the council meeting. I walked the halls of the school in solitude, the noises from clubs still going filled my ears. The way home seemed longer than it had ever been before. I checked my phone when I got home — still nothing. If our group would ever be the same, it wouldn't be for quite some time.