Carl was seventeen when he first began to dream about shadows that whispered.
They didn't frighten him—they felt... familiar. Comforting, even. They curled around his feet like cats, moved along the walls when he walked through dark hallways, flickering like memories he couldn't quite grasp.
He told no one. Not even his mother.
By the time he entered university, Carl was a different person. Brilliant. Cold. Focused. He studied quietly, sat alone in the cafeteria, and didn't engage in campus life.
But there was something coiled inside him. Something waiting.
Then it happened.
==========
It was evening. The sky bruised with storm clouds. Carl was heading back from the library when he felt it: a pulse in the air. Like static. Like a nightmare waking up.
The screams came next.
He ran towards them—not away. His legs moved without thought. His heart pounded, not in fear... but rage.
In the courtyard near the science building, he saw it. Or rather—them. The same species as the one that had murdered his father.
They weren't animals. They weren't human. Twisted, hulking shapes with limbs too long and eyes like pits of night. Black mist steamed from their bodies as they shrieked and tore through anything in their path.
Carl froze. For a second the memory of his father's dying face flashed before his eyes.
Then something inside him snapped.
The rage that had been buried for over a decade erupted—pure, black, and ice-cold.
The shadows around him surged like a tide.
From beneath his feet, darkness blew upward, wrapping around his arms and shoulders like armour. His eyes turned black as ink. They sensed it.
Carl didn't scream. He didn't roar.
He whispered: "You shouldn't have come here."
And the shadows obeyed.
They moved with him like wolves in formation. Lashing, piercing, dragging the monsters into the black. One tried to leap at him, but tendrils of shadow impaled it midair. Another ran—Carl raised his hand, and the shadow split the earth beneath it, shallowing it whole.
No mercy. No hesitation.
He was silent as he killed them. Not out of calm, but focus. Precision. This wasn't justice. It was revenge—sharp and cold as obsidian.
When this last creature fell, dissolving into smoke, Carl stood alone in the blood-streaked courtyard.
Breathing hard. Eyes still black.
Then—his knees gave out. The shadows melted into the ground. He knelt, gripping the pavement.
Images filled his mind—his father's final smile... the blood... the promise unkept.
"I couldn't save you," he whispered. "But I made them pay."
When campus security and emergency services arrived, all they found was a boy sitting in the middle of a scorched courtyard, surrounded by silence.
Carl didn't speak when they asked what happened. He simply stood, dusted himself off, and walked away.
But deep within him, the shadows remained. Listening. Waiting.
And Carl knew one thing for certain: That night in Tokyo would never happen again.
==========
Carl sat quietly in the passenger seat of his mother's car, staring out the window as the city passed by in a blur. The AHCA headquarters loomed behind them now—tall, cold, and metallic—like the weight of the future pressing down on him. His mother's hands were firm on the steering wheel, but he could see the worry in her eyes every time they stopped at a red light.
"I'm proud of you," she said gently, her voice breaking the silence. "You didn't hesitate to protect others."
Carl—or rather, Haruki Kureyama—nodded. "I didn't do it to be a hero," he murmured. "I just… didn't want anyone else to die."
Especially not you, he wanted to say, but the words caught in his throat.
After the university incident, where monsters had erupted out of a rift during finals week, Carl had used his newly awakened shadow manipulation ability to defend his classmates. No one expected a quiet student like him to suddenly fight back so fiercely—and win.
The AHCA staff had been shocked when they tested him. A-level Awakened. That was rare. That was power. That was responsibility.
The kind of power that his father never had.
"They said I should be a hunter," Carl told his mother, not meeting her eyes. "They said with my level, I could get a license easily. Good money, good reputation… but…"
His voice lowered. "I don't want it."
She stayed silent, listening.
"I saw what it did to Dad. He wasn't even a hunter. Just a B-level Awakened. He fought that A-level monster alone to protect me. And he died." Carl clenched his fists. "I don't want to end up the same. I don't want you to lose me too."
His mother finally pulled over and turned to him. Her eyes were glossy with tears, but there was no fear in them—only strength. "Haruki," she said, using his real name, "your father died to protect us because he loved us. If you choose not to be a hunter, I will never blame you. But if you ever choose to fight, promise me one thing."
He looked up.
"Don't fight out of anger or revenge. Fight only when it's your heart telling you to protect someone. Like your father did."
Carl nodded slowly. "I promise."
And for the first time in days, the shadow under his feet stilled—calm, obedient. It no longer pulsed with rage or confusion. It was quiet, just like him.
He had power. He had pain.
But most importantly, he had purpose.
And that was enough for now.