Sparks Of Resistance

The television flickered relentlessly in the Takahashi apartment, casting harsh blue light across walls crowded with family photos and stacks of newspapers. Lines of static tore across the screen like tiny fractures, warping the images until the city outside seemed barely recognizable.

“—reports from across Tokyo indicate multiple incidents of electrical surges affecting pedestrians, vehicles, and household electronics,” the anchor’s voice trembled, steady yet strained. “Authorities urge all citizens to avoid using electronic devices until further notice.”

Hina Takahashi sat cross-legged on the tatami, palms lightly pressed against her knees. The mats beneath her vibrated faintly—not sound, but a subtle, restless pulse, echoing the city beyond the walls. Sparks tickled the tips of her fingers, tiny, impatient, as though the air itself was waiting for her next move.

The smell of ozone hung thickly, sharp and metallic, biting at the back of her throat. Her chest tightened. The apartment that usually smelled of breakfast and faint electronics now carried the weight of tension, as if the building could sense the storm approaching.

Haruto stood near the breaker box, glasses slightly askew, fingers hovering uncertainly over switches. “We need to shut everything down,” he said, voice tight. “Lights. Computers. Phones. If this is some kind of cascading surge, being connected could kill us.”

Hina nodded slowly. Her mind flicked to her parents’ shop—old wiring, flickering neon signs, radios always playing. The thought sent a jolt through her chest. “I have to check on Mom and Dad,” she said, voice steadier than she felt.

Haruto’s expression was relief mixed with fear. “Alright. But don’t do anything reckless.”

Hina almost laughed. Reckless had left the building hours ago. “I won’t,” she said. And in her gut, she meant: I can’t stop.

The streets of Tokyo had changed. They no longer flowed like orderly rivers. They thrashed.

Sparks snapped in the air like cracking bones. Phones exploded in hands. Traffic lights screamed as their circuits overloaded. Neon signs shivered violently, some shattering, others blazing blindingly. The electricity was not misbehaving. It was hunting.

Hina gripped Yui’s hand, heart hammering, every nerve alive. Ground yourself. Her feet pressed into the pavement, every step anchoring her. The city’s pulse surged up through asphalt and steel, a thousand invisible currents converging beneath her awareness. She did not fight the electricity. She guided it. Bent it. Redirected it.

A surge leapt from a fallen streetlamp. She twisted it downward, into the nearest sewer grate. Sparks hissed, danced, and vanished into the earth. The car engine behind her sputtered violently, then calmed. The currents obeyed, bending to her instinctual commands.

Breath burned in her lungs. Her legs trembled. Sweat slicked her collar. Every step was an effort of focus, will, and trust in something she couldn’t name.

People convulsed in the streets. Sparks crawled across skin like glowing veins. A man screamed as his radio exploded. A woman fell as sparks leapt from her smartwatch into her chest. Hina guided each discharge, each arc, bending chaos into calm.

She felt the hum of the city as a living thing. Not the electricity itself, but the flow beneath it, the release point, the ending. She wasn’t creating power; she was giving it a path, a way out.

By the time they reached her parents’ shop, her body was trembling, legs heavy, lungs burning. Sparks danced faintly across her fingers, harmless now, obedient.

Her father’s eyes widened behind the counter. “Hina?”

“No time!” she yelled. “The electricity is unstable. Follow me. Don’t touch anything. Stay close!”

They ran together, currents bending harmlessly around them, her power expanding and contracting like a breathing thing. The city responded beneath her steps, swallowing energy greedily. Every drain, metal railing, streetlamp acted as a channel, each bolt finding its way into the ground through her guidance.

By the apartment, Haruto and Yui rushed forward, relief crashing like waves.

“You’re safe,” Haruto breathed.

Hina sank to her knees, chest heaving. Sparks danced along her fingertips, faint, playful, alive. “I don’t understand it completely,” she whispered. “But I can feel where the electricity wants to go. I can guide it. Stabilize it.”

Her mother knelt beside her, gripping her hand. “You’re protecting us.”

Hina nodded. “For now.”

Across the city, Renji Nakamura stood on a rain-slick rooftop. Electricity danced along his skin in violent arcs. Every street, every neon light, every circuit fed into him like a roaring tide.

And then—

Something resisted.

A stabilizing current, grounded, calm, weaving through the chaos. Not just a trace, but a presence. Someone was fighting the storm.

Renji’s breath caught. He followed the thread instinctively. Sparks hissed, curling in midair, drawn toward an unseen force.

Back in the Takahashi apartment, Hina closed her eyes, feeling the pulse surge beneath the city, responding to her will. The currents aligned subtly, bending around a single, distant point.

Somewhere, far above the chaos, a voice boomed: layered, metallic, and impossibly calm.

“You cannot stop this.”

Renji stiffened. Recognition slammed into him like a thunderclap. Dr. Ishikawa—the Master of Electricity—hovered above the streets, wrapped in arcs of lightning, eyes glowing white.

“I have surpassed that name,” Ishikawa said. His voice rippled through the rain, through the cables, through the city itself.

Renji clenched his fists. Sparks leapt violently between his fingers. “You’re hurting people.”

“They are inefficient vessels,” Ishikawa replied, calm, deliberate. “You, however… you survived.”

The truth hit Renji like lightning. This had not been an accident. Not a lab mishap. Not random chaos.

“This was evolution,” Ishikawa continued.

Renji took a step forward, legs shaking, energy flaring along his arms. “I’ll stop you.”

“You are not alone, boy,” Ishikawa said. “I feel her. The grounding force. The resistance.”

Renji’s pulse spiked. “Her?”

“Yes. Even united, you are sparks against a storm.”

Lightning exploded outward, forcing Renji back. Ishikawa’s voice echoed, taunting. “Grow stronger. I will enjoy breaking you both.”

Back in the apartment, Hina’s eyes clenched shut. She felt him—raw, unstable, burning, a predator within the currents. And above that, somewhere far beyond… something vast and cold, waiting.

Her fingers curled into fists, sparks dancing faintly, harmlessly. “I can do this,” she whispered. “I have to.”

The city pulsed, caught between destruction and control. Two sparks burned brighter. Two currents waiting to collide.

The storm watched, and it was patient.