"It's not time manipulation,” Niche muttered. "Maybe some kind of paralysis? But you haven't gotten close enough to inject me with anything."

  He strained to create a small flame, working hard to grow it bigger.

  Fire always works, right?

  Growing his flames into a large ball, completely encompassing his body to portray Niche as a living fire.

  Before Niche throws the flame, he notices something.

  Although it doesn’t hurt me, I can still feel the heat from the fire. Most of my body feels the same temperature, but…my legs. They feel…cooler somehow.

  Looking down, Niche noticed the outline of chains where the flames had "blank spaces."

  That’s it. Invisible chains are wrapped around my legs. These chains still hold properties of normal metal, so their specific heat is high. This means I can sense the invisible objects by sensing where the temperature is cooler. This shifter must be able to control the element of light, bending the light so these chains appear invisible.

  Suddenly, his flames disappear.

  Nice try. You wanted me to think I stopped my flames, but really you just bended the light to make them look invisible. I know this because I’m still exerting energy, and I can feel the heat of the fire. This confirmed my suspicion: you can bend all light, not just light emitted from your own body. Also, you cannot change any other properties of objects besides their appearance.

  He looked for the shifter, but she had disappeared.

  "You can shift light. Make things invisible," he proudly said out loud with a hint of arrogance in his voice.

  The shifter landed a blow to his head with another invisible throwing weapon.

  “Fuck!” he jolted.

  Shit. I still gotta take this guy seriously, she can do some serious damage.

  Blood now leaking all over his face, Niche realized he could sense everything inside his flames because they were extensions of his body.

  I can sense any element around me. The shifter can’t get too close because I’m covered in flames, so I guess I’ll wait for her to approach me.

  Using heat to sense the entire environment, he noticed an axe flying at him.

  There. I know the exact position of the opponent seeing the deceleration of the object and the direction it was thrown in. She must be…

  "Raizen!" Niche called out.

  I was kinda getting used to this cat form, Raizen thinks.

  Almost instantly, Raizen merges back into the sword. In the middle of this process, Niche dashes in the direction of the shifter, not wasting an opportunity or letting her change her position. Niche slices Raizen clean through the shifter, killing her instantly.

  The boy drops to the floor out of breath.

  “Wow,” Niche says, panting. “Thanks for the help, Raizen. I didn’t even have to move, you just guided my hands. How the hell did you do that?”

  “Not every person know how to wield a sword. I had to train over the years to wield myself, Raizen says, now shifting back to his preferred cat form.

  “Yeah. Hopefully I’ll learn how to use you so I don’t need to rely on your efforts. I felt powerful, but I also feel like I wasn’t in control. I’ll work so I won’t have that powerless feeling again,” Niche says on the floor. “But now, my energy is completely drained. That took so much energy out of me, all I can do is lay down.”

  After a while, he continues. “You know, this floor is actually pretty comfortable. Theres no bugs here and it’s so much cooler than being under the sun. You know, I could -”

  The crevices that were letting natural light into the cave were slowly being covered by something unknown to Niche. Niche notices the increasing darkness, and when his eyes adjust to the normal darkness of the cave, footsteps in the distance interrupt Niche’s rant, which Raizen wasn’t even listening to anyways.

  “The grand Nishihara, now lying flat on the ground like a car ran over him. Pathetic,” a voice is heard in the distance.Not another person I have to fight. Where the fuck are all these things coming from?

  “Don’t worry, Niche. I’m not here to fight you,” Venus jokingly chuckles. “You’re too weak, and definitely not worth my time. But…these things behind me have been starving. It’s my job to feed them this week, and I haven’t found the time to buy them food. So, I guess you’ll have to do. Not my ideal feed, but these guys will start eating me if I don’t feed them.” He smirks, turning back around to face deeper inside the cave. “And I know I won’t be able to fight off these beasts if they got a hold of me. No one can,” he says, now walking deeper into the cave.

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  Giant humanlike figures started walking towards Niche.

  These things. What the hell are they? They don’t seem like actual people, and they definitely aren’t shifters. They move with jerky, unnatural movements, and they don’t even look human. Could this be the anosognosia thing Raizen was talking about?

  "What is happening?" Niche said, struggling to get up.

  No. That mental disease Raizen told me about applies to things who think they’re conscious. These beasts… they don’t look like they have consciousness at all. They seem to rely purely on instinct. Like a wild dog.

  This rumbling woke up Raizen who, as a cat, was visibly scared, his fur standing on end. He quickly merged back into his sword, transforming into his human form to wielding his own blade.

  The creatures’ slow pace now inevitable brought them just a few feet away from Niche and Raizen.

  "Stay back!" Raizen shouted, slashing at the first creature that approached. His blade cut through it, but more kept coming from the shadows.

  "What are these things?" Niche demanded, still too weak to stand.

  "Failures," Raizen said through gritted teeth, cutting down another one. "When powerful entities try to create... things... not everything forms correctly."

  The voice of Venus calls out, one last time, faintly, “See you around, sun bearer.”

  More creatures shambled forward. Now up close, the group looked more than large blobs of matter.

  "Reality doesn't like being forced into new shapes," Raizen continued, backing up as more emerged. "There are always... byproducts. Errors."

  One of the creatures grabbed at Niche. Its mouth opened to reveal a mass of shifting debris and garbage.

  "Someone had to put these somewhere," Raizen explained, slicing its arm off and striking it down. "Couldn't just leave them wandering around. So places like this exist."

  "Dumping grounds," Niche realized.

  "Exactly. All the mutations, the broken pieces, the experiments gone wrong; they all end up here. Keeps the surface world clean." Raizen was breathing hard now, overwhelmed by their numbers. "These things... they survive by eating waste. Garbage. Anything discarded. Really, all they are is just garbage."

  The creatures were surrounding them now. Dozens of them.

  "This cave is designed to keep them contained," Raizen said desperately. "Nothing imperfect is supposed to leave."

  "And we're stuck in here with them," Niche said.

  "I can't hold them all back," Raizen wheezes as more hands reached for them.

  The first creature grabbed Niche's arm and pulled him up twenty feet into the air. The mutant squeezed Niche’s body with his free hand, twisting Niche’s arm as the boy screams and his bones shatter. More hands seized Niche’s other limbs from all directions.

  This was Usui's doing. All this was a trap, set by none other than my enemy! Niche thought through the pain as he began being torn apart systematically.

  Raizen fought desperately but there was too many grabbing at Niche. The creatures weren't malicious, they were just following their nature to consume and dispose of waste.

  They tore him apart piece by piece and eaten him until nothing remained of Niche.

  Niche’s Mind (Consciousness), Present

  In that space between life and death, Niche’s consciousness fractures. Looking around, Niche notices he’s in an empty surgery room.

  Where…where the hell am I? I was just being torn alive a second ago.Looking behind him, Niche sees a boy.

  “Who the hell are you, boy?” Niche asks. “You look like me, but…younger.”

  “I could ask the same thing,” the boy replies. “You look like me, but you’re…broken.”

  After this comment, Niche, now looking at himself, notices his physical condition. His arms are torn off, half his face is absent, and the other half is bloodied.

  “You were wondering where you are,” the boy continues.

  “How the hell did you know that? Can you read my thoughts?” Niche asks surprised.

  “No. I am your thoughts. Your subconsciousness. That is me. This place is your mind. The reason you don’t feel pain here is because we are in your subconscious.”

  “Why am I eaten then? Shouldn’t I be whole in my own mind.”

  “’Should be?’ This is how you see yourself, Niche. This version of you is what you are.” The boy’s demeanor changes. “Niche, please. I—I don’t want to die,” the boy says to this broken version of himself.

  Niche doesn’t respond. He stays quiet while tear stream down the boy’s clear face.

  Niche walks over to his crying self.

  Raising the boy’s chin, Niche says, “You won’t die. I will save you.” Niche kneels beside the kid. “Whoever you really are, I don’t know. You might be lying, but to me, you’re my brother.”

  Cave, Present

  Raizen, now just a sword, lies down on the cold cave floor. The mutants don’t try to eat him for some reason; maybe they don’t detect him as trash. The cave is quiet now, as the mutants stay still, unmoving, like zombies with no humans to eat.

  Suddenly, one of the mutants begins to rumble. That mutant explodes, his remains flying everywhere. Over half of the other mutants also explode simultaneously. The surviving mutants, completely unaware of their surroundings, stay still, each of their distorted faces looking blankly at nothing. A heart from one of the exploding mutants slides across the cave floor leaving a bloody trail in its path. Around this heart, bones started coming back together, along with cartilage, blood, and veins. This process disturbs some of the mutants, who run to the forming body to discard of the garbage. Their efforts were in vain, as while they bit and tore different parts of the body, the parts regenerated. Niche’s entire bone structure eventually reformed, and his skin followed.

  As Niche regained his consciousness and controlled his muscles to stand himself up, a slight red glow illuminated Niche’s body.

  You did it, Niche, Raizen thought. You’ve unlocked the true power of the sun: immortality.