The fire that protects

Hiro’s fire spread through the cloud in an instant. The warm, solid footing Kumi had shaped under their feet went soft all at once, the vapour tearing away from the heat in a hiss.

Then they were falling. They dropped from one storey up, just enough time for Kumi’s stomach to lurch into her throat. Instinct yanked her arm down. She grabbed at the air beneath them, dragging what was left of the cloud into a thicker, denser cushion. Mist surged up from the concrete, trying to meet them. She couldn’t pull it together fast enough.

Kumi hit the asphalt sideways, the impact knocking the breath out of her chest. The world flashed white around the edges. Cold, damp fog billowed over them, hiding everything in a wet, grey smear. Somewhere close by, someone yelped; someone else swore. Kumi lay there for a heartbeat, ears ringing, then forced herself up onto her elbows. Her palms were scraped raw where they’d skidded; a hot sting ran up her knees.

“Rin? Yuna?”

“I’m okay!” Rin’s voice came from her left, muffled by the mist. She rolled over and sat up, hair sticking out at every angle. Yuna was slower. She pushed herself upright with a wince, one hand clamped to her side. A jagged tear ran across her shirt just below the ribs, the fabric dark with fresh blood. Kumi’s chest squeezed.

“Yuna…”

“I’m fine,” Yuna said automatically, though her face had gone one shade paler. The fog thinned. Hiro burst through it, yanking his flames back under his skin, and his eyes went straight to the cut at Yuna’s side.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice tight. “I thought that cloud was safe to stand on.” He crouched beside Yuna and snapped open the front pocket of his bag. A compact first‑aid kit emerged. He tore it open with quick, practised movements, hands steady in a way that made Kumi’s teeth clench. “I apologise for hurting you three,” he said, already peeling back the torn fabric to check the wound. “Hold still, please.” Yuna obeyed, jaw clenched.

“What’s it to you?” Kumi said. The words came out sharp. Hiro didn’t look up at her right away. He pressed a pad of gauze gently against Yuna’s side, then taped it in place with strips of white, his fingers careful. Only when it was secure did he straighten, eyes finally meeting Kumi’s.

“Teacher’s safety as well as all of yours is my responsibility,” he said. “Kaen or no, if someone is getting hurt, I want to help.” As he spoke, the light seemed to dim. Clouds that had been ragged and thin a few minutes ago thickened overhead, drawn in by the knot twisting tighter in Kumi’s chest. Shadows gathered. “So, when I see someone creating clouds, pulling off whatever it is that’s happening here, I have no choice but to get involved.” Kumi’s fists clenched so hard her nails bit into her palms.

“Kumi,” Yuna hissed under her breath, catching her eye. “Don’t.” Too late. Something inside Kumi slipped its hold.

“You don’t get to talk about responsibility,” she said. Her voice came out low and shaking. “You don’t get to act like you’re protecting everyone.”

Hiro’s shoulders stiffened. He finished smoothing the tape down, then sat back on his heels. “This isn’t about-” Of course it was about that.

He was the perfect golden boy everyone loved. Class rep. Top of the class. The boy on posters and news feeds, shown in slow motion with his hand outstretched, fire swirling tame and bright around him as the announcer said his name. Hiro, the miracle kid who had appeared when the pit opened a few years ago, and the Kaen started climbing out. Hiro, who stood with first responders and firefighters in every clip, flames following his every step.

Hiro, who didn’t save everyone. The memory rose whether Kumi wanted it or not. Flames licking up the sides of buildings as she and her parents ran, sirens screaming from every direction, smoke thick in her throat. The pit, a dark mouth behind it all, belching out monsters from hell.

A Kaen towering over the street, fifteen metres of raging fire. Her mother’s hand in hers one second, gone the next. A burning grip closing around Mum’s body, just for a second – just long enough. The flash as fire swallowed everything that made her Mum and left nothing but a shape.

Hiro had blasted onto the scene a second later, riding a wave of fire that tore the monster’s flames away. He’d driven a spear of white‑hot heat through the Kaen’s chest, dropping it in a shower of sparks. The cameras later had frozen that moment: the hero, the falling monster, the cheering crowd. They never showed the part where the Kaen’s husk hit the ground, and her mother’s body tumbled out of its hand, charred and still. Some hero.

“Ms Amaya,” Hiro said quietly. “I’ve already apologised about your mother. If you want me to say sorry, I will say it again. As many times as you want.” He swallowed. “But please understand. I can’t save everyone.”

Thunder rumbled overhead, low and warning. The clouds had pressed closer without Kumi noticing. Hiro’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing. He could feel it too – the pressure changing, the taste of metal in the air.

“Then what’s the point of you?!” Kumi shouted. The crack of thunder that answered her made Rin flinch. A jagged vein of darker grey ran through the sky. Hiro got to his feet in a quick, defensive motion.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I… I’ll go. Just… Please stop bothering Teacher. We can talk again when you’ve calmed down.” He swung his bag over his shoulder and turned away.

A white flash tore the sky open. The bolt came down fast, aimed straight at where he’d been standing. Hiro threw himself sideways on instinct, boots skidding on wet asphalt. The lightning slammed into the empty ground with a boom that made Kumi’s teeth rattle.

“I’m calm right now,” Kumi said through her teeth. Above them, the storm cloud swelled, fed by her fury. Another knot of electric light gathered in its belly. “So, answer my question while you’re still here,” she went on. “What is the point of a stupid kid with powers going around saying he’s a hero if you’re not going to do your damn job and save everyone?!”

Hiro’s jaw tightened. “Ms Amaya,” he said coldly, “I think you really need to think about what you’re doing.”

“Make me,” Kumi snapped.

She dragged another cloud down out of the roiling sky, this one lower and denser, directly over his head. Rain began to pour, a hard, needle‑sharp sheet. Hiro sighed, shoulders dropping. He tossed his bag aside, where it landed with a wet thump near the school wall.

“All right then,” he said, falling into a stance. Kumi flung out her hand. The hanging cloud obeyed, emptying itself in a hammering volley of water. Hiro sprang forward toward her, flames licking at his heels. Kumi shoved both palms out. Wind slammed into him in a horizontal gust, shoving him back. Under her feet, air thickened and rose. A compact cloud formed and lifted her up, giving her height. More clouds flickered into existence around her shoulders like ghostly cannons, muzzles pointed at Hiro.

Kumi jabbed a finger. One of the side clouds spat a cluster of hard, packed snowballs. They shot toward Hiro in a stuttering arc. He threw up a hand. Fire bloomed, batting the snow aside in a burst of steam, then condensed into small, bright fireballs that he hurled back at her.

Kumi yanked her clouds out of the way. The fireballs streaked past, punching harmless holes in the sky and bursting above the playground. She pulled a new cloud into being close in front of her, pouring hail from its underside. Hundreds of jagged, ice‑white stones shot out all at once.

Hiro cursed as the first few caught him on the shoulder and arm. He slammed both hands down. A wall of fire roared up from the asphalt, tall and solid as a building. The hail hissed to nothing as it hit. He built another wall, and another, boxing himself in, buying time. Flames met above his head, forming a dome.

Fine. Kumi widened the cloud over his head until it became a lid, then squeezed. Rain hammered down in a concentrated torrent. The fire‑dome sizzled and warped, a glowing hand of flame bursting up through the water, fingers tearing the cloud apart. Kumi spun wind around in her palm and flung it. A tight mini‑twister ripped into the dome’s side, tearing at the flames. The walls wavered, then collapsed.

Hiro was exposed again, just in time for another wave of hail to slam into him. One stone caught his temple; he hissed in pain, blood mixing with water down his cheek. Enough. He wreathed himself in fire, a full‑body blaze that turned him into a rough silhouette of light, and hurled himself into the air.

“You damn monster!” Kumi shouted up at his fiery shape. “You look just like a Kaen!”

“I only want to help!” he shouted back. He flung strike after strike at her – spheres of flame, tongues of heat. Kumi sacrificed one of her snow‑clouds to soak up the worst of it, letting it evaporate into a burst of steam, then conjured a fresh rain‑cloud at his blind side. It dumped a hard, blue‑tinged downpour onto his back.

Hiro staggered mid‑air. Kumi hit him again. And again. His return fire grew wilder, less precise. Fireballs shot off in every direction, some slamming into the school wall and leaving blackened scars, another catching a bush by the fence and turning it into a brief, ugly torch before Hiro swore under his breath and yanked the flames away, sucking the fire into his hands until only a smoking skeleton of branches remained.

He lunged at her, clawed hands glowing. Kumi dropped her footing cloud in a sudden lurch, then flipped herself under it, hanging from the underside by sheer will. An icy mist burst from the cloud’s surface, straight into Hiro’s face. He coughed, fire sputtering.

“Why are you doing this?” he yelled, voice ragged. “I grieved for her, too. I was at her funeral!”

“I didn’t want you there!” Kumi thickened the mist into proper snow, letting it pile up on Hiro from every angle. His flames guttered, shrinking under the weight of cold. For the first time, she saw something like fear in his eyes.

Rin, who’d been hovering at the edge of the mayhem with her ever‑present water pistol, squeezed off a weak jet that arced nowhere near Hiro and fell back to the asphalt in a sad splatter.

“What are you doing? And you brought that thing to school?” Yuna shrieked.

“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared for Kaen! And I have to help Kumi!” Rin shouted back.

“No, we have to stop this!”

Kumi barely heard them. From a cloud she’d been holding back behind her, she pulled more than just snow. She shaped it into an arm – a massive, rough limb of packed white that shot forward and grabbed Hiro around the middle, pinning his arms.

Above them, the darkest cloud yet rumbled ominously, swollen with charge. Kumi dragged Hiro closer to it. She ordered the strongest the clouds had to offer. The sky answered.

A blinding bolt lanced down from the swollen cloud, straight towards her opponent.

Hiro desperately flared, lighting up in a massive ball of orange. The sudden burst of heat freed him from Kumi’s grip and blasted him sideways, just far enough that the lightning that fell a heartbeat later hit empty air instead of his chest.​

He swung back around, teeth clenched, and conjured a fireball as big as a house, shotgunning it straight at her. Kumi threw every cloud she had into its path and yanked hard on the wind, letting the blast chew through vapour while she kicked herself clear. She hit the ground in a skid, caught her balance, and sprinted in a wide circle around him.​

The fireball tore itself apart in a roar of steam. Fog billowed over the yard in a thick, rolling wall. Kumi lost sight of him completely.​ She sliced her hand through the air; part of the fog thinned. With her other hand, she pulled the wind tight, twisting it into a spinning column. The newborn tornado grabbed the rest of the mist and hurled it round and round, a whirling, white‑grey cage. Somewhere inside, Hiro shouted as it caught him off guard.​

Yes. Kumi set a storm cloud brewing on one side and a fat rain cloud on the other. The rain cloud hovered neatly over the spinning mess. She wrung it out for all it had, sending a solid sheet of water pouring into the tornado. Hiro lurched as it drenched him; his flames spluttered and went out.​

Again. A narrow, hard stream of blue shot from the storm cloud and clipped his shoulder. Again. The rain, whipped around by the tornado, kept slamming into him even when she wasn’t aiming.​ Kumi finally dropped one arm. The tornado tore itself apart. Hiro dropped out of the shredded winds and hit the ground in a shallow, muddy puddle, coughing as he tried to heat himself back up and failed.​

“Are you … done?” he spluttered.​

“Kumi, that’s enough!” Yuna cried.​ Kumi hesitated for half a second – and then hurled the prepped storm cloud straight at his face. White‑hot lightning burst from it with a crack. Hiro screamed as the shock rammed through him; his body jerked, then collapsed, stunned, on the asphalt.​ His clothes weren’t burned through, but smoke curled faintly from his sleeves. His hands were planted on the wet asphalt, fingers digging into tiny cracks. The fire that had danced so easily in his palms earlier was gone.

Something small and red dropped on the ground a short distance away, knocked loose by the blast. Yuna, still clutching her side with one hand, moved first. She bent and picked it up between thumb and forefinger, wincing at its warmth. “Hey,” she said, staring. “He dropped this.” Hiro sucked in a sharp breath.

“Kumi,” he said hoarsely. She looked at him.

His eyes weren’t right. They were changing shape – he was changing shape. His skin darkened to the colour of volcanic rock, and fire ran under it like thin red lines pulsing at his temples and along his neck. His teeth sharpened.

He looked, for one horrible heartbeat, like a dead Kaen. Kumi’s breath stumbled. The rain faltered around them, drops slowing as her focus slipped.

“Give it back,” Hiro said. There was something rough in his voice now, an edge that scraped. “Please. I can’t-” He broke off, doubling over as a fresh pulse of heat shuddered through him. Sparks jumped along his fingers, then fizzled, leaving only shaking hands. Yuna froze, the red stone warm and steady in her palm. Kumi moved before she could talk herself out of it.

She darted forward, snatched the stone from Yuna’s hand, and clutched it to her chest. For a second, something roared up her arm: heat meeting storm, fire licking at the edges of her inner sky.

“Kumi, don’t-” Yuna began.

“Run,” Kumi said. Rin didn’t argue. She grabbed Yuna’s wrist with her free hand. The three of them turned and bolted, shoes slapping through shallow puddles, breath tearing in and out of their chests. She didn’t look back at Hiro. She just ran away from the monster, the supposed hero of the city. The same Hiro who lay paralysed on the ground.