You owe me one

Minutes before the Kaedekura art gallery collapses…

Shizune had ran off from her apartment as if possessed, simply deciding that she would take no precautions that would compromise her ability to reach the four delinquents. It took her a moment before noticing a viable path that her magical abilities allowed her to traverse: the rooftops.
By taking a second to prepare the necessary magical enhancements, she immediately leapt atop her apartment building, and jumped to the next building over, soon getting into a rhythm. Through roof-hopping, she can take a straight diagonal path to the art gallery and reach that destination even faster than a car would on the ground. She also found the approach inconspicuous enough, correctly assuming she wouldn’t be sighted by random passersby for more than a second, if at all.

As she ran and vaulted from building to building, she tried to gain as much height as possible without straying from the most optimal path, yet a nagging feeling of something observing her started to be strong enough to actually distract her. It didn't take her more than a moment to find Jagasaki looking at her from above, sitting atop a water tank, with an interested look that all but screams that he was enjoying seeing Shizune’s attempt.
-“I told you to stay home, damn it! Awakened come out at night!” she looked back while resuming her movement, and something felt off.
“How did you get here? I didn’t feel your presence”

The demon lazily shrugged.
-“I teleported”
Shizune almost tripped thanks to that admission, stopping the jump she was about to make to look back at Jagasaki in disbelief
-“You can do that? Why didn’t you tell me!?”
The spirit’s answer was as simple as it was aggravating:
-“You never asked”

Shizune rubbed her face with her hands. A part of her expected that answer.
-“Ito and his friends are about to get killed by a wraith at the art gallery I showed you the other day, can you teleport there?”
With another lazy shrug, Jagasaki answered.
-“I could”
-“Good, then go and kill the wraith inside” A moment of hope shined on Shizune’s face, hoping that finally something was getting solved without major difficulties.

-“I won’t” The dismissive attitude of the towering figure cut like a knife, but it only served to exasperate Shizune.
-“What, why?” Just as easily as that hope sparked it was starting to be snuffed out with the demon explaining himself .
-“The wraith doesn’t interest me one bit”

Shizune couldn’t even complete her tired sigh before she continued requesting assistance, only to provoke more prideful and curt replies.
-“Well, you can get the guys out of the building”
-“I’m a warrior, not a babysitter”
-“There’s four teenagers going to die!”
-“Four idiots that keep disrespecting their superiors” An argument that Shizune couldn’t contradict, but also one that she did not care for.
-"They might be four idiots but I don't want them dead !"

Looking ahead and considering the timing of the alarm, Shizune was certain that she had almost nil chances of making it there on time, even at her quickest. This was her best option, so much that she opted for an approach that she didn’t approve of.
"You were sealed in my family's relic, so you have to listen to me, it's an order!"
-“You didn’t unseal me. And even if you did, I don’t just take orders” Jagasaki vigorously stood up, taking a long step forward and facing Shizune, challenging her.

The situation finally overwhelmed Shizune.
-"God damn it, what are you even good for!? You just appear one day and you’re just another mess I need to clean up from those two sacks of trash!” Despite knowing well that Jagasaki is much more powerful than her, she had reached her limit. “You’re the only one that could save them now! It wouldn’t even take you any effort, and you just don’t want to!? Do innocent lives really mean nothing to you!?”

From Shizune’s rebuke, Jagasaki was assaulted by a memory, seeing the one that sealed him five centuries ago; Mitsushima Sakihime. Her face was paler than Shizune’s, her black hair was longer and straighter than Shizune’s and her eyes were of a bright red rather than the muted maroon Shizune possesses. The differences between them were like those between a queen and a commoner, yet the faces were practically the same, and the incensed question was the same the woman from his past asked after their first confrontation. The words spoken so long ago fused with the ones spoken in the present, tricking most of Jagasaki’s senses against his will.
Shizune’s tirade on itself didn’t reach him, but that bout of memories brought with it a feeling the demon couldn’t properly process, feeling only a tightness in its chest and neck, and a profound sense of regret.

"You can go away and be someone else’s problem for all I care, I’m done with you!” Shizune finished the conversation, and decided to still try to reach the group herself, despite knowing it would be too late. The demon didn’t even contradict Shizune or challenge her again, simply giving a solemn declaration aimed at nobody:
-“A finger”

That strange statement was followed by Shizune’s sounds of anger and confusion, asking without words what he meant, which Jagasaki answered by raising the pointer finger of his left hand.
“For them, I will only move a finger”
And with that, the demon dissipated in a flash of bright violet lightning, leaving Shizune bewildered and in want of an explanation, but she nonetheless continued her run towards the art gallery.

-------------------------------------------------

-“Let’s say he’s… a family friend”
Chou’s question breaks the extremely uncomfortable silence that started since Shizune entered the hospital room where the entire Ito Gang was, their leader deep asleep on the bed near the window. Chou himself doesn’t even know why he asked ‘Who was that guy with the white mane ’ out of all possible questions, but this is around the time the three teenagers were coming to a realization that everything they experienced two hours ago tonight truly happened, and any other question would’ve felt just as arbitrary.
Shizune’s reply answered nothing, but it felt sufficient.

-“That was the monster in your notebook” Baku says, rather uninspired, but picking up the courage to address Shizune.  For her part, she moves a chair right behind her with telekinesis and sits on it in front of the three in a rather imperious manner, completely done with any pretense of normalcy or humility.
-“A grand deduction, worthy of the man with the second-lowest grades in our class”
Baku is too stupid to realize this is an insult, so he innocently nods, leaving Shizune a bit stumped on how to continue.

“... Anyway... you see why I told you not to go there, right? You really should listen to people when they talk” She then looks at them in a way they can just taste her displeasure.
-“For real we weren’t gonna go! But boss--” Baku doesn't get to give the explanation that Shizune already dismissed.
-“Spare me that. It’s on me for believing Ito’s stupidity wasn’t contagious and terminal” Shizune shows her hand to Baku, stopping him, and Chou raises his head in his unconscious friend’s defense.
-“He’s never left us alone when we needed him so we wanted to be there… He gets in trouble very easily”
-“Oh really? I never would have guessed ” Shizune crosses her legs, again with her hands on her pockets, feeling confident and enjoying her unrestricted sarcasm.
“Really, it's a wonder how it took him this long to almost die if what people say about him is true... Did he really give the math teacher a wedgie?” This was a good moment as any to ask something she overheard days ago and that stuck on her mind.
-“No, that was the chemistry teacher” Chou clarifies.
-“Figures” Shizune responds, deadpan.
-“He slapped the ass of the math teacher” Chou clarifies once more, as if that factoid was important.
-“That ass do be fat tho...” Atsu nods and jokes. His leg had finally stopped hurting thanks to the painkillers and he felt oddly at peace with everything.
-“Don’t make me regret saving your lives” Shizune states, plainly.

-“Sorry… you right. This is on us. We fucked up. You didn’ wan’ us to get hurt, and we fucked up anyway ” Atsu says, trying his best to have a cool head, worthy of someone he now had gained a lot of respect for. “It ain’t easy to believe there’s some monster out there, we thought it was somethin’ else. We just didn’ want to… leave him alone ” he explains, moving a bit on the bed and looking at Shizune quizzically.
“You some kinda… wizard?”

-“To put in on terms your umeboshi brains can understand, yes"  Shizune responds, slightly high-nosed. "I happen to be descended from a rich lineage of spellcasters and I’m quite the prodigy, if I do say so myself." She continues, now less prideful, but still rather imposing.
"I possess the ability to use magic because I am what's called an Awakened, which, on simple terms means my soul has become physically tangible and thus I can manifest magic through it, but that's already more than what you need to know. There’s a non-insignificant number of people like me that know things Innocents… we call people like you Innocents, by the way - that know things Innocents can’t even see and fight things much worse than what you saw tonight" Shizune's explanation touches on so many topics that the three teenagers struggle to absorb everything at once. 

"I live in a world 'normal' people like you shouldn’t know about, and let’s leave it at that, because I really don't care to explain anything else. Do you get what I'm saying?” She says, trying to get to the point of why she’s talking to them right now, completely skimming over the most important thing: how an Awakening looked like, and thus allowing the Ito Gang to get easily sidetracked.

-“So it’s like the Men in Black ” Baku says, punching his open palm as a sort of ‘eureka’ gesture.
-“W-was that an alien, Mitsuki-san?” Chou asks, terrified.
Shizune mutedly takes off her glasses and cleans them, reconsidering some life choices she’s made up to this point in her life.
-“No. That was not an alien.” She explains, with a marked tiredness the trio is so familiar with, as they hear it half the time they engage one of their teachers.

Shizune puts on her glasses again.
“That was a spirit that underwent a complex decaying process I don’t care to explain to you three, and generally Awakened don’t like the idea of common people spreading that knowledge or even having it. The public at large doesn’t listen to those claims, but handling this information carelessly can cause future unforeseen problems, so it’s generally agreed that Innocents should be subject to memory erasure or memory replacement, as a way to avoid any potential problems" She explains, now a bit more patient.
"There’s some Innocents the Awakened community at large trusts and are left alone… you guys don’t qualify at all: You’re loud, troublesome, and frankly quite deficient in the ‘common sense’ department. As I’m the only Awakened you’ve come in contact with so far and I do know the spell that can alter your memory, it’s my responsibility to see that you don’t remember what happened tonight"

-“So you’re going to make us forget with magic” Chou is crestfallen but seems to have accepted his fate.
-“No. That’s the thing: I won’t do it” Shizune says, and the three fall silent, because they can tell Shizune is going to keep talking.
“I want you guys to remember. Or, rather, I want you guys to owe me one. And you’re going to pay me by stopping your childish harassment, in addition to dissuading that sleeping imbecile from even talking to me again” she says, pointing at Ito.
“You seem like the only people in the galaxy that could make him think twice about anything, and I’d rather finish my last school year with the most peace I can afford at that awful institute. I have more important things to take care of, and unlike you, my time is worth its weight in gold” She leans towards them and squints.
“If I erased your memories, you wouldn’t understand the gravity of the situation, so I’m just making sure”

She then hands them some small paper notes.
“It’s not likely, but in case another Awakened starts asking you questions, just use these instructions and they’ll leave you alone. And needless to say, if I find out you guys started mouthing off -and if you do, I will-, I’m going to curse you so that you go bald before your twenties and never get a girlfriend” Shizune says, quite convincingly. Even if she can't curse them with something so overly specific , the three fully believe that she means what she says.

Atsu looks at the paper Shizune just gave them and how much is written in it, despite not being bigger than the palm of his hand. The care and attention to detail isn’t casual.
-“You’re a good person, Mitsuki”  The young man slowly raises his head to meet Shizune’s gaze, who can’t even fathom what’s being said to her, and Atsu chuckles at her almost offended gesture. “Jus’ that”

Shizune leans back slightly in surprise but immediately begins correcting her classmate.
-“What? Don’t get things wrong here, I’m just covering for myself. If someone found out I let you guys die, then I would get blamed for it, and I don’t want to have a bad reputation, even Awakened get their resumes looked at, you know?” she stands up, annoyed. “Besides, you think I care ? If you had gone to die by the countryside I wouldn’t have done anything, but news travel fast here in Osaka” she leans forward, squinting.
“And l just told you, you owe me one, and I’m going to cash it in. This isn’t charity.”  She looks at the sitting trio from above, putting her hands on her pockets after pointing at each of them.
-“I guess that makes sense” Chou responds, being the first one to believe what Shizune says, with the other two thinking about it for a moment, then nodding.

Shizune is satisfied that the three seem to understand, but Baku has one last question.
-“So, the Awakened, right? They erase people’s memories if they see something they don’t, so there’s like, lots of people out there that saw something crazy but don’t remember?”
-“Well, not every awakened has that kind of power, but many do and it’s good common sense to at least know someone who can. Learning how to deal with innocents is very important” Shizune explains.

The three nod, then Baku continues with his next statement.
-“So you guys are like the Men in Black”

Shizune’s face instantly conveys the faint but deep-rooted chagrin she feels, looking at Baku in the same way she would look at a burned dinner, only to then wordlessly leave the hospital room.

Just like she predicted this morning, this day did end up being outstandingly terrible.