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Chapter Text

Hino Akane was going to wake up at exactly 3:05 in the morning, which is when her training would commence, Feu reported. 

Now, Feu wasn't their real name, and, sure, it was just French for Fire, but Feu liked it, so, there. They were going to keep referring to them-self as Feu unless Akane told them to call them-self something else. She was their new vessel, and they would listen to her. But Feu had a feeling Akane wouldn't do that.

Anyway, she was scheduled to wake up soon. 

Right on cue, Akane's eyes blinked open. She spent a minute tossing and turning, trying to get back to sleep. When she realized it was pointless, she sat up in her bed and looked directly at Feu. 

Feu had been described as many things, but the most accurate one by far was a small fire with an even smaller body. Their head to body proportions were similar to the style of anime known as 'chibi' but Feu had a little more of a terror factor engraved into them. Akane didn't react to Feu's presence for a few seconds, before muttering "what the fuck" and then dropping back down into her bed and going back to sleep. 

Well, Feu supposed their first meeting could have gone a little better, but given their track record? Akane's reaction to meeting Feu for the first time was probably one of the best. 

She would be great, Feu could tell. Yes, Feu nodded to them-self, she was going to be great. 

With a new found confidence, Feu sat down at Akane's desk, and waited. 

Akane woke up to the sound of her alarm, like she did every day. Her alarm (which was set on her phone) was set as Screamo music, so she would have extra initiative to get up and out of bed in the shortest amount of time possible. Her phone was on her desk, so every morning she would wake up to the sound of Screamo and launch herself over to her desk to stop the noise. 

Only today, before she reached her desk, the noise stopped. 

Akane got to her desk and looked over at where her phone was, and found a small fire with a body holding her phone what the FUCK

"Oh! Good morning Akane!" The fire spoke, setting down her phone carefully and walking over to her, "I'm sorry about turning that noise off. It was quite unbearable to me. I can turn it back on if you like?" 

"You- you are talking."

"Yes, I am," 

"You are made out of fire," 

"It does appear like that, doesn't it?' 

"You- phone- the fuck?" Akane managed to say before sitting back down on her bed, bewildered. The small fire floated off her desk and joined her on the bed. 

"Ah, I suppose you must be incredibly confused." The fire turned it's head to Akane and smiled (it could SMILE whaaatt the fuuuucckk) "My name is Feu, I am the elemental spirit of fire. I am one of many spirits. There's also air, water, earth, metal, gravity, so on and so forth." The fire paused, looking to see if Akane was understanding. Then it seemed to jump, as if remembering important information. "OH! And ice. I always forget they and water separated."

"They what?"

"Never mind, that is a conversation for later." The fire (Feu, was that it's name?) stood up and moved closer to Akane, "Besides these elementals, there are also spirits for Light Matter and Dark Matter. Neither of them is good, and neither of them is evil. They... how should I put this? They only have one goal: to conquer the other. Everything else to them is meaningless, which includes all living things. Because of this, many of us elemental spirits take on vessels- living things that can wield our power- and have them help out the ... situation. Some elementals and their vessels bond with Light Matter and fight for them, others do the same with Dark Matter." The fire sighed, "Both of those kinds of elementals are dangerous in their own right, and many of them are fools." 

"So if the elementals bonded to either Dark or Light Matter are dangerous... then what are you?" 

"I'm- well, I'll get to that. Many elementals have their own goals, and don't bond to Light or Dark Matter. Some do good, some do evil, and some don't even take on vessels, but rather just... exist. Air is an elemental that does good. Ice usually does evil. Lightning is usually pretty neutral. And it sometimes depends on the vessel. But whatever the elemental does, good, evil or neutral, it gives something back to either Light or Dark Matter. Am I explaining this well?" 

"I think so," Akane reassured Feu(?), "The actions of each elemental feed back to Light and Dark Matter?" 

Feu nodded,"And so do the actions of every living thing. If either of them gets too much, it leads to an imbalance in the universe. Similarly, if an individual has too much of one kind of energy they are giving, they are imbalanced and are vulnerable to corruption."

"Corruption?" 

"It's nasty," Feu said bitterly, "A cheap way for Light and Dark Matter to get power and labor. The living thing's soul is taken over by that certain energy and it transforms them into monsters that only obey Light or Dark Matter and their servants,"   

"That sounds awful," Akane breathed out, unsure of how to respond. Feu gave her a sad look and continued. 

"Yes, it is. And it's our responsibility to fix it," 

"What do you mean?"

The fire seemed to light up (heh) and it floated off the bed and into the air. 

"As the fire elemental, I have no connection to either Light or Dark matter. Fire is life giving, but also destructive. I am the only elemental truly and completely balanced."

"That sounds a little self centered," Akane murmured under her breath. The fire rolled it's eyes. 

"I wasn't always the only balanced elemental. When water and ice were one, we worked together as a duo. But, ah, they couldn't handle it." Feu trailed off, a sad look in its eyes. 

"Oh," Akane said, "I'm sorry," 

"Don't be, it wasn't your fault." Feu coughed a bit and started again, "Anyway, that was the past. Now, only the fire vessel can purify the corrupted souls and keep the world balanced. And you, Hino Akane, are my next vessel." 

Akane's jaw opened and shut. And opened, and shut. Feu and she were at an impasse for thirty seconds before Akane's mom yelled at her from downstairs. 

"Akane if you don't get down here soon you're gonna be late for school!" 

Akane blinked out of her trance and immediately swore to herself, "Shit!" She ran over to her closet, "Shit, shit shit!" 

"So," Feu floated over to her,"When do you think you can begin your training to become a True Vessel?" 

"A what? Never mind, I don't have time for anymore exposition. I have to get ready for school," 

"Ah, school. I remember when Daniel was in school," 

"Daniel?"

"Your predecessor," Feu got a dark look on its face. "Don't worry about him. We can continue talking on your way to school," 

"You are NOT coming with me to school,"

So, yes, Feu did come with Akane to school. It wasn't her choice, and if she'd had her way Feu would still be in her room, most likely in her closet, where they couldn't get up to any trouble.   

(On the way to school Akane learned Feu's preferred pronouns were them/they. It was better than calling them it every time she referred to them in her head.)

Akane also learned on the way to school that Feu had a plan to begin training (whatever that meant) right after school ended. Whooo. 

She had been mentally preparing herself for the worst, on her way to school. She had heard horror stories from Nagisa about all the times Mepple wouldn't listen and they almost got outed, and she knew exactly what Candy was like when it came subtly. She recognized the fact that the universe had given her a mascot character, and she just prayed that she had gotten a Tarte instead of, say, a Milk. 

"Akane-chan!" Miyuki's voice called out from behind her. Akane turned her and gave her a huge smile. 

"Miyuki! How are you doing?" 

"I'm doing great! Feeling pretty ultra happy!" Miyuki beamed. "I finished all my homework early and got a full nine hours of sleep! There's nothing the world can throw at me that I can't handle!" 

"I wish I had that level of confidence right now," Akane groaned, thinking about Feu and all the duties they had been carefully describing in detail before Miyuki got here. 

"What do you mean?" Miyuki asked, concerned. Akane stopped short, realizing what Miyuki was probably thinking. Well, now was as good as time as any to tell her about Feu.

"Well-" 

"She can't see me," Feu interrupted. "Until you get past a certain point in your training, no one but other vessels can see me. Even when they can, this whole vessel thing is a secret. I know you two are close, but she can't know." 

"Well..?" Miyuki got closer to Akane. "What is it?" 

"Umm.." Akane glanced at Feu for aide, but all they did was give her a small smile, "I didn't really get the English homework. Kinda worried about it."

"Ooooohhhh," Miyuki face lit up, "You didn't get it either? I was worried I was gonna be the only one just writing down random stuff and hoping the teacher doesn't notice."

Akane sputtered, unaware of how successful that lie would be. "Is that why you finished your homework early?" 

"...Maybe." Miyuki gave Akane an awkward smile, and Akane couldn't help but laugh. "Don't laugh at me Akane-chan!" 

"Why are we laughing at Miyuki?" Nao's voice entered the conversation. Yayoi was with her, and Akane assumed Reika was already at the school. These early morning hangouts started as an accident, when the team was first getting used to being around each other. Now, if one of them (who wasn't Reika) was absent on these walks, everyone else would panic. They were a nice constant in chaotic times. 

Like now, for instance. Feu hadn't said anything else (yet) and for that, Akane was grateful. She had no idea how she was going to interact with them and make it look normal. Akane could only hope people wouldn't think she was crazy. Or worse. 

Wait, what would be the worst possible scenario? Akane knew she probably shouldn't go down that path, but now she was intrigued. 

"And that's why I can't eat coconuts- Akane are you listening?" Nao jolted her out of her mental spiral. "Come on now, leave all the zoning out until school starts!" 

Akane laughed a little at that. "Sorry, just didn't get a lot of sleep last night." 

"Because of the English homework?" Miyuki asked. Akane stared at her for a little bit, before remember the excuse she had given her. 

"Yep. Lost half of my lifespan on that paper, honestly," 

Yayoi nodded aggressively, "Why are there so many irregular verbs in English? It's like they don't want us to learn it!" 

"I didn't think that worksheet was that hard," Nao muttered, "But now I'm worried I was overconfident," 

"Reika better prepare herself for an avalanche of questions," Akane quickened her pace, making her way to the front of the group, "I always say, if it doesn't work the first time, have Reika do it," 

The others nodded in agreement. Feu looked on, curious, before floating over to sit on Akane's shoulder. 

"You have good friends," they said, "That's important," 

Akane was about to respond, but then decided against it. It would be nice if her friends didn't think she was crazy just yet. 

Instead, she opted to watch Nao and Miyuki animatedly discuss their English answers as they moved past her. 

"Perhaps more than friends," Feu mused. Akane must have made a face, because Yayoi asked her if she was okay. 

"I'm fine, really," She rubbed her neck, shoving Feu off of her shoulder in the process, "Just remembered something stupid my brother said the other day," 

"Are you sure it's not because you're in love with Nao?" Yayoi whispered to her. Akane's face turned bright red. 

"I don't know who's giving you this information but it's incorrect," She managed to say. Yayoi smiled smugly. 

"Whatever you say," 

"Yayoi I will stab you if you keep this up," 

School was... well, school was school. They went over some things, reviewed others. Feu didn't make a scene (not like they could make a scene, since no one could hear or see them) and nothing else out of the ordinary happened. 

Then school ended, and Feu ushered her off to a secluded area. She gave a half hearted excuse to her friends about why she wasn't walking home with them, and then followed Feu to the newly named 'training spot'. 

"Oh, this is perfect!" Feu mused, looking over all the open spaces, "Wonderful for what you're about to learn!"

"What am I about to learn, exactly?" 

"How to control light!" Feu exclaimed cheerfully. Akane gave them a look and Feu explained further, "As the fire vessel, you have many powers under your belt. One by one, you will learn how to control them until you become a True Vessel,"

"Okay," Akane said, mainly to herself, "Okay, let's do this," 

"Great!" Feu rubbed their hands together- although, Feu didn't really have hands. Or feet. Their body looked kind of like a Powerpuff Girl body. But saying 'rubbed their arms together' sounds weird, so we're all just gonna pretend Feu has hands to rub together. Okay? Okay. 

Anyway, Akane's first official training session had begun. 

"We're going to start we some meditation," Feu smiled, gesturing for Akane to sit down. She did. "Good. Now close your eyes, and just be ,"

And, well, Akane didn't fully understand that a first. But then she spent thirty minutes meditating and something ... clicked.    

She gasped audibly when it happened. All the noise in her head stopped, and she could really, truly hear all the noises around her. 

"That happened quickly," Feu commented, "It took Daniel much longer to just be ," 

"Is this like... a vessel thing?" Akane asked, opening her eyes. Feu nodded.

"This version of being is only for vessels. You let go of the barriers holding you back and become open to learn you new skills," the small fire stretched a bit, "Meditating for that long sometimes makes me sore, though," 

Akane stood up and stretched as well, "Now am I going to learn how to control light?" 

"Yes. I need to to focus on that feeling of being ," 

Akane followed Feu's instructions, and when she figured she was focusing enough, she motioned for them to continue. 

"Good. Okay, now focus more specifically on one feeling. The one that sticks out to you," 

That was a little more difficult, but eventually Akane found what Feu was describing. It was a warm, soft feeling. Akane kind of wanted to latch onto it and not let go. 

"Found it?" Akane nodded in response. "Wonderful. Now latch onto it and don't let go," 

Well. That was convenient. Akane did just that. She shut her eyes and grabbed the feeling with her mind. 

When she opened her eyes, there was a small ball of light in her hands, it was around the size of a ping pong ball, maybe even smaller. 

"Holy shit," She said, eloquently. Feu snickered. 

"Holy shit, indeed," They agreed. "Try drawing circles with it," 

Akane took a deep breath and grasped the ball of light with one hand. Then she drew a small circle with the ball of light. It worked. She let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and started having more fun with it. She drew bigger circles, then a few stars, and after a while she was just waving her hands around as the light moved with it. 

Feu watched her, silently. They didn't tell her to stop, or to try something else. They just observed. Akane couldn't complain, she was having the time of her life playing around with the light, but she had to wonder what Feu was thinking. 

"Should I be learning how to use light to attack?" Akane wondered aloud, once the joy of playing with light died down a little. Feu floated over to her and gave her a pat on the head. 

"You think too much," They told her, their voice soft "but alright. Focus the energy into one beam and shove it out."

Akane pondered those instructions for a few seconds before deciding screw it I've already committed and did what they suggested. Focusing all the energy into one beam wasn't that hard, and pretty soon, Akane had a huge ball of light in her hands. She looked at Feu for aide, but all they did was motion for her to keep going. 

Shove it out, they had said. While it might not be the best choice of words, Akane had an idea of what they were saying. So she took the energy in her hands and Pushed. 

Pushing was different from pushing. One was a way to open a door (pushing) and the other was an exposition of energy bursting from her fingertips (Pushing). 

It felt incredible. 

A beam of light shot through the training area. Nothing seemed to be harmed, per say, but many of the animals in the area were blinking obsessively, some were even rubbing their eyes, trying to gain back their vision. The light beam had cause some real vision damage for anyone who looked at it directly.   

"Controlling light isn't the best for direct attacks," Feu explained, "But it is great for distracting you enemy and temporarily blinding them," 

"Cool," Akane said, a wicked grin on her face, "Let's try that again," 

All in all, they spent around four hours practicing and training. Akane didn't even realize how long it was until her parents started calling her, asking her where she was. She felt kinda bad that she didn't tell them she was going to be home late, but it had been years since she came home on time, and she really didn't expect training to last that long. 

"Akane, you better have a good excuse this time," her brother told her from behind the counter, "I think Mom was about to call the police," 

"Yeah, yeah. Sure she was." 

"I'm serious! They thought you were kidnapped or some shit," 

Akane rolled her eyes, well aware that her parents knew that no kidnapper would want to deal with her . If anyone tried to kidnap her, they would return her in an hour. 

"Akane, there you are!" her mother ran up and gave her a hug, "Where were you? We thought you got hurt on your way back from school."

"Not kidnapped?" 

"God no, no kidnapper would ever want you," 

"Thanks, mom,"

Akane managed to worm her way out of the conversation without her parents asking to many questions. She didn't really give them an excuse for what she was doing, but they let it go because they trusted her. She grabbed a bit of food, went up to her room and shut the door. She still had a bunch of homework to day, after all. 

Feu bugged her for some of her food, and she gave it to them without much of a fight. She wasn't really in the mood to eat. 

She also wasn't in a great mood to do homework either, but then again, was she ever?

She tried, she really did, to force herself to focus on the math problems in front of her, but her mind kept going back to that afternoon, and the feeling of controlling light. She sighed and closed her notebook. She wasn't going to get this done tonight, as preferable as that would be. 

Instead, she chose to lie down on her bed, and create a new ball of light. It was small, and fit into her palm nicely. Feu floated over the bed as well, and lied down near her head. 

"It doesn't create heat," Akane noted aloud, "I wonder why," 

"Because it's just the light part of fire," Feu told her, "You'll learn how to control temperature later on," 

Akane sat up, "I'll learn how to control WHAT?" 

The next day after school, Akane once again left her friends to go practice her newfound abilities. Both Miyuki and Reika asked if things were okay at home, which they were. Nao gave her a half hearted wave and told her to, 'stay safe' and Yayoi looked at her with a knowing smile and whispered before she left:

"I won't tell anyone you're just avoiding your feelings," 

To which Akane responded, "I've been in love with her for literally forever, why would I be running away now?" 

Or, well, she thought that. In reality she just shoved Yayoi away and groaned in her general direction. Same difference. 

Feu led her back to the same spot as yesterday, and they began with meditation exercise again. Feu said it was important to connect with being frequently in the early stages of training, losing that connection could make the vessel have to relearn all the basics. Both Akane and Feu agreed they didn't want to do that. 

Then, after they were done meditating and had stretched a bit, the real fun began. Akane started small, creating a ball of light around the size of the one she created last night. She drew a few circles with it, just messing around. 

"You seem to be comfortable," Feu observed. "Make the ball bigger, and see how that feels," 

Akane obliged, and made the ball a little bigger. It wasn't as easy to control as the smaller ball, but it was easy enough. She decided to risk making it even larger. Pretty soon, she had a ball of light as big as a bowling ball. That ball was much harder to control, and she regretted making it immediately.  

"Don't get too carried away Akane," Feu advised, watching from a distance, "You have to work your way up gradually," 

"Thanks for the advice, flaming fortune cookie," Akane grumbled, struggling to keep the ball under control. She about had it, too, when a horrific scream pierced through the sky. Akane jumped and lost the ball of light, and even Feu looked a little shaken. 

"What was that?!" Akane exclaimed. Feu made their way over to her and landed on her shoulder. 

"That," they said, " was a corrupted soul. We need to go find it right now."   

Flash forward a few seconds, and she and Feu were running through the woods near their training spot, searching for any sign of corruption. Well, Feu was searching, and Akane was mainly just the legs. She had no idea what corruption looked like, and therefore, was little help. 

"Over there! No! Not your right, MY right!"

"Feu I can't see where you are pointing, I hope you know that,"

"Curse my tiny, adorable arms!" They shrieked. They floated in front of her, "Over THERE!" 

Akane looked in the direction they were gesturing, and saw a nice bush. The bush was also covered in gross, dark slime that was bubbling. Akane gagged a little at the sight. "I'm assuming we have to follow that?" 

Feu nodded,"Be prepared for a fight Akane, we might just get one," 

And they did. 

When Akane and Feu found the corrupted soul, it was feeding on a deer. There was no way to hell what gender it had once been, as most of the head and body had been clawed up and mutilated. Akane felt nauseous, but one look from Feu told her she needed to push that down. 

"That's an animal," Feu confirmed, "You should be able to distract it with light," 

Akane took a deep breath and nodded. She quietly walked over to the former animal, hoping to get a sneak attack. (In her defense, she had never done this before, she had no way of knowing how naive that was.)

The animal snarled and whipped its head back to Akane. She choked at the sight. The animal's face wasn't solid, it was moving around into more horrifying features by the second. She froze in place, unsure of what to do. 

"Distract it!" Feu yelled from behind her. Right. Distract it. She focused on creating some light. The creature launched itself at her, and she managed to get a small ball of light just in time to draw a circle with it, temporarily distracting the creature. It followed the circle with its eyes, not moving any other part of its body. 

Okay, Akane thought, time to try something else.

Remembering the feeling she had the day before when she created her beam, Akane started to move her flow of energy into the ball. It grew slightly larger, but the creature didn't seem to notice -or care about- the difference. It was completely mesmerized by the light. Akane felt kind of bad about what was about to happen. 

She shot out her beam. It felt just as amazing as it had the last time. The creature screeched, and clawed at its eyes, desperately trying to regain it's vision. While it was confused, Akane pulled out some of the martial arts classes she had taken when she was younger and kicked it in the head. It fell to the ground, unconscious. 

"Well that went better than expected," Feu said nonchalantly, "Daniel's first purification took much longer. But, ah, that could be because he wasn't really... It doesn't matter."

Akane was curious, but didn't want to push Feu into telling her things they weren't ready to. They would tell her in due time.

"Anyway, now is when you learn how to purify souls," Feu smiled at her, clearing trying to ignore whatever other feeling was lingering beyond the surface. "Go to the creature and draw a circle on its forehead," 

Akane did just that. Then, once she was done with the circle, she felt compelled to draw something else. She looked up to Feu, who motioned for her to continue. She then drew a fire symbol and kissed the beast's forehead. 

"Be at peace," She whispered, not really in control of her own movements. After she said those words, the beast lit up. It glowed a bright yellow, and all the gross goop and weird things making it horrifying melted away. In a few seconds, it transformed into an ordinary wolf. 

"Hino Akane," Feu floated up to her," you have just purified your first soul."

And this was only the beginning.    

Chapter Text

Feu was happy with Akane's progress. They had had a lot of vessels over the years, and if they were to rank them on a scale from one to ten, Akane would be in the upper half already, without question. Her control of light had improved greatly over just a few days, and they could tell she was itching for more of a challenge. Now, usually, Feu would wait a little longer to teach their vessel how to control fire, but this time, Feu thought, this time maybe they should move a bit quicker. 

When they told Akane that she was going to learn how to control fire, the look on her face was something Feu would treasure for years. She was quite an adorable vessel, this one was. 

"So, Akane, as you know, you're going to learn how to control fire today. Any questions?" 

"Yes, actually," Akane spoke up, "How many powers do I actually have?" 

Feu blinked, a bit surprised Akane was asking that specific question. Nevertheless, they answered her, "Well, all vessels have increased speed,strength and agility, as well as True Sight. Since I am a balanced elemental, you can purify souls, and later on will gain healing abilities. As the fire vessel, you can control light, fire, and temperature, and will later gain a specific skill unique only to you," 

"Now I have so many more questions," Akane deadpanned, "First one is what is True Sight?"  

"True Sight is... difficult to explain," Feu admitted. "It's like seeing things the way elementals see them. You can see the feelings and motivations of the living things around you. It makes more sense once you use it." 

"Okay," Akane paused, before asking another question, "And the specific skill? What is it?" 

"I don't know. Each vessel gets a different one. Daniel could turn himself into fire. Another one of my vessels had a sword. It varies," 

"Do you have any idea what mine will be?"

"Well," Feu hesitated. They normally did have some sort of feeling when it came to the specialized skills. They would normally be able to tell if it was going to be physical, more magical, fire related, light related, and all the other variations these skills had. With Akane they had a feeling it was going to be ... big. "I don't really know. I think it will be a showstopper, that's for sure." 

Akane stayed silent for a while, processing the information. Eventually, she responded.

"Cool,"

They walked the rest of the way to the training spot in silence. 

Once they got to the spot, Feu lead Akane through some more mediation exercises. If she was going to learn a new skill, she would have to be very connected to her being . Akane did the exercises without complaint, which Feu was grateful for. Not all of their vessels were as gracious as Akane. 

"Are you ready to begin?" They asked, making sure she was 100% ready to go before beginning this experiment. Akane nodded enthusiastically, and Feu was once again reminded of how precious their new vessel was. 

"Wonderful! Do you remember how you first connected with you powers over light?" 

Akane scrunched up her face a bit, (which was super adorable!!!) before nodding. 

"Good. I need you to go back into that mindset," Akane nodded again, and closed her eyes. It was always so fun to watch humans connect to their being in the beginning. They had this notion you had to close your eyes to feel it. Feu thought it was hilarious. "Are you there?"

"Yep," She said, popping the p. Goodness, this child might just be the death of them. 

"Do you sense the same feelings as you did before?" 

"Yes," 

"Can you pinpoint which one lets you control light?'" Akane's eyes squeezed tightly together at that statement. After a few seconds, she said she could. "Now, can you feel any other feeling that feels similar?" 

"Well..." Akane trailed off, her lips pursed, "Yes, but it's... how do I say this? It's like it's warmer somehow,"

"That's the one. Do you think you can connect to it?" 

"I can try," She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. On her second cycle of breath, she had a small fire in her hands. "... Oh," She said softly. 

It wasn't like the first time she had controlled light. Akane's reaction was more subdued. She was more absorbed with just watching the flames curl in her hand, rather than play around with them. 

"It feels... different," Akane said, "Like there's something wrong," 

Well. That wasn't good. Feu focused more of their energy onto their own True Sight, and found that Akane had a mental block.

"Something is preventing you from fully connecting with the fire," Feu told her, "It's a mental block, but I can't figure out what it is exactly."

Akane frowned and extinguished the fire. 

Akane couldn't get the feeling controlling fire out of her head. It wasn't at all like controlling light, and not in a good way. When she held the fire in her hands, it felt like it wanted to escape her, if that made any sense. And, to make things worse, she couldn't shake the feeling, and it was ruining her mood. 

Miyuki had noticed, of course. She always noticed when Akane was in a bad mood. After Miyuki pointed it out, all of her other friends noticed it as well, and she was bombarded with questions asking about it. 

"Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"If it's because you need help with homework, I would be more than willing to help," 

"Are there problems at the restaurant? You know you can count on us to take up some shifts if needed," 

But it was Yayoi who brought up the most incriminating question. 

"Is it because of love troubles?" She asked, excited. Everyone else gaped at her boldness, and their heads whipped over to Akane for her response. 

"No," She said calmly. Yayoi raised an eyebrow and kept pushing. 

"Are you sure? Cause I see you staring at someone in our class an awful lot," By this point, Miyuki, Nao and Reika had squeezed in as close as they could, watching intently.

"Yayoi, do you ever pay attention to who you're looking at when you disassociate? Also maybe you should spend less time focused on what I'm doing in class and more time trying to learn," 

A few 'oh damns' were whispered, and Reika even said, "She has a point Yayoi, you should pay attention in class more," Yayoi waved them all off, unwavering. 

"You're dodging the question, Akane. I think, if we got you to confess to your crush, it would improve your mood quite a bit," 

"It would not ," Akane insisted. "They don't like me back," 

"How can you be so sure? You haven't even confessed yet!" 

"Yayoi, drop it ." Akane's tone turned harsh. Yayoi stopped short, realizing she'd gone too far. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," She said, "I just thought... I don't know. Don't count yourself out of the race just yet, Akane. I'm sure your crush likes you more than you think. " 

It was a sweet sediment, but Akane's mood had now worsened. 

Feu floated onto Akane's head, "You're frustrated," 

"I wonder why," 

Feu stayed silent after that. 

Akane walked in front of the rest of the group, her friends either not talking at all, or whispering in hushed voices they thought she couldn't hear. They were worried about her, and she felt bad that was the case. She didn't want to be on a short fuse today, but the gross feeling of controlling fire had consumed her thoughts, making her even more irritable than normal. 

Miyuki was the one who broke the silence. She walked up to Akane and said, "Akane-chan, you know we're just worried about you, right?"

"Yeah," Akane said, still grouchy. 

"Well-" Miyuki was interrupted by a huge explosion. A giant monster had fallen from the sky and was making a huge scene.

"Precure!" It yelled, "I will destroy you!" 

"Why do they only attack on our way to school?" Nao grumbled.

"Because it's inconvenient for us," Akane shot back. 

"Let's just get this over with," Miyuki got her Smile Pact out, "How many times is this Reika?" 

"This is the 27th time we've had to face a monster on our way to school," 

"You think I'll win the bet against the Yes Precure 5 team?" Miyuki asked Reika. Reika pondered for a little bit. 

"I think there is a good chance we'll win the 'Who Fought More Monsters in Our First Semester' bet," Reika concluded. 

"Great!" Miyuki smiled. "Okay girls, let's transform!"

As Cure Sunny, Akane realized, controlling fire felt much different. It was freer. It didn't want to escape, she just used the fire as an extension of herself and the fire responded beautifully. It felt natural, while the other fire felt... upset. 

The fight didn't take that long, this wasn't the first time the Smile team had been attacked by some rando with a thirst for vengeance. However, Akane felt almost... refreshed afterwards. It was like her palate was cleansed after the awful experience she'd had with the other fire. 

Feu looked onward, not saying a thing to her. It wasn't until she was going to get her lunch that they spoke about what had happened that morning. 

"I have a theory about why it's so hard for you to control fire," Feu said to her quietly. Akane perked up, and quietly asked what it was. "I think," Feu said, perched on Akane's shoulder, "That you are holding the fire back."

"What?" 

"When you were controlling your powers as Cure Sunny, did you stop the fire from doing what it wanted?" 

"No, but when I was controlling it the other day, it felt dangerous. Like if I let it go it would hurt people," 

"That makes sense, fire is dangerous. However, I think you are trying to control fire as if it were light. Controlling light means forcing it into one small area, containing it, while controlling fire is all about letting go. Do you understand?" 

"Yeah, actually," Akane gave Feu a little pat on the head. Once they put it like that, and with her knowledge of how controlling fire as Cure Sunny, it made more sense. "Do you think we can do a little experiment right now?"

"If you can find a secluded place, I don't see why not," 

Since it was lunchtime, it actually wasn't that hard to find a secluded area. There was no one on the roof, surprisingly, and Akane had always been fond of that spot, so they decided there was the perfect place to test out their new theory. 

After once again checking to see if anyone was around, Akane connected to her being . She found the warmest feeling and latched onto it. Once again she was hit by a feeling of needing to escape, but this time she let it. 

And it felt so much better. The fire in her hands didn't feel wrong, it felt natural, like a part of herself.

"I think it worked," Akane smiled at Feu. Feu frowned. 

"No, it didn't." Akane's smile dropped and Feu quickly spoke again,"I mean, this is a definite improvement, but you won't be able to master fire until this mental block is completely and 100% dealt with." 

"Oh," Akane let the fire die. "Okay." 

They sat in a slightly uncomfortable silence for a while, before Yayoi came crashing through the door to the roof.

"There you are! Gah, I was so worried when you didn't join us for lunch! Well- we all were and we all split up to look for you, but I'm really glad that I found you first because I still think I need to apologize for this morning!" Yayoi gasped out in one large breath. Akane blinked. 

"...Do you want to sit down?"

"Yes please," Yayoi walked over and sat next to Akane, still breathing quite heavily. 

"You good?" 

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Yayoi sighed, and pushed a few stray hairs out of her eyes, "Listen, Akane, I'm really sorry for pushing you to talk about your crush this morning,"

"I know?" 

"No, you don't ." Yayoi insisted, "I know feelings are hard for you to talk about, and I know you didn't want anyone knowing about your crush on Nao and I still kept at it. I should've read the mood better. I'm so, so sorry," 

"It's okay," Akane told her, "I was being extra grouchy this morning, it made sense to push me," 

Yayoi flared up in anger, "Stop doing that." 

"Doing what?" 

"Pushing your feelings away, pretending they don't exist. You did that with Brian, remember? And now you're doing it with Nao, and I want to make sure you stop." 

"Okay now I'm confused," Akane admitted. Yayoi looked at her and began again. 

"Remember when you first moved here? And you were super quiet and shy, kind of like me?" 

Akane did remember that, but she preferred to not remember that time of her life. Feu floated in between the two girls, interested in what Yayoi had to say.   

"Even since I've met you, I wondered what was going on in your head," Yayoi continued, "At first I thought you were like me, just really shy. But then you started becoming more outgoing, and I thought maybe you were just nervous about moving to a new place. After we became friends, I thought I understood what you were feeling. But later I realized... no one really knows what you're feeling. Like, we get the general idea, that your in a bad mood or a good one, but we never understand the root of why you're feeling the way you do. " Yayoi looked at her, "It's like you're scared of being vulnerable," 

"Wow," Akane said, "way to call me out like that," 

"Akane, can you take anything seriously?!" Yayoi exclaimed. 

"You just talked about how I have a hard time talking about my feelings and you expected a response that wasn't lackluster?" Akane shot back at her. Yayoi laughed. When she looked at Feu, she could see they were smiling too. 

Good. 

"Hey, Akane, why were you on the roof in the first place?" Yayoi asked. 

"Uhh..." She glanced down at Feu (who was making wild gestures that she couldn't interpret), "Business reasons." 

Yayoi laughed again. 

After hearing Akane's friend speak, Feu thought they had finally come up with the real reason why Akane was having such a hard time controlling fire. Akane was holding some part of herself back, probably due to some past trauma. Fire couldn't survive in those conditions, which is probably why every time Akane tried to control it had ended up... less than stellar.

But now, Feu had a plan. 

When they brought Akane back to their training spot, Feu once again lead Akane though some meditation. This time though, Feu dove into the meditation head first. 

"Akane, are you comfortable?" Feu asked her once Akane had sat down and closed her eyes. Akane nodded. "Now start focusing on your breathing. What does it feel like to breathe in and out?" 

Once Feu thought Akane had gotten into that mindset, they went onto the next step, "Now, focus on your stomach. Pay attention to how it feels for your stomach to rise when you breath in, and then fall when you breath out," Akane's face scrunched up, indicating she was really focusing. Feu thought it was just the cutest thing. "After you've done that for a while, go back to focusing on your breath. You can stop whenever you want,"

Akane stayed in the meditation for quite a while. Feu couldn't blame her, it was nice to escape and be mindful of the present. 

It was a sad truth that most vessels always had some trauma. Whether it was in the past, present, or future, all of Feu's vessel had some traumatic experience. They weren't sure what Akane's was, but she definitely had them. 

"Okay," Akane breathed out, "What next?" 

"Summon your fire," Feu instructed. Akane got a small fire going in her hand, and Feu continued, "Now I'm going to ask you to do something a little... tenuous, to say the least. Can you think of every bad thing that's ever happened to you?" 

Akane took a sharp breath in and pursed her lips, and Feu didn't even need True Sight to see that she had done the task. "Akane, I want you to throw all those bad memories into the fire. Let them burn,"

Akane looked up at Feu, confused. She had no idea what they were telling her to do, Feu reasoned. So they floated over to Akane's hands (where the small fire was) and pushed them closer to her chest. 

"Let them burn," Feu whispered to her. 

And Akane did. 

Akane was not completely over her traumas, she might never be. It didn't matter at that moment though, because she had, for a split second, accepted them as a part of her, ready to be ignited. The fire burned bright as it swirled around her, and Feu smiled.    

The world had no idea what they were going to get, Feu thought. They were going to be blown away once Akane became a True Vessel. 

On the way back from training, Akane got the chance to test out her newfound fire abilities on a corrupted soul. The soul had destroyed some benches, which wasn't too bad, but then it headed towards to houses, and so Akane got right to business. Feu was really proud.   

She made quick work of the corrupted, and managed to hold her own with just fire for a good amount of time. She beat her past time, and purified the corrupted soul in under four minutes. The soul turned back into it's original form (a white cat) and was soon on it's merry way.  

Feu cheered for her once she was done, and Akane flushed a bit. 

"Are you going to cheer every time?" She asked, embarrassed. Feu nodded seriously. 

"Every time,"

"Great," Akane sounded annoyed, but she was still smiling. Feu decided that when Akane was smiling was when she was the cutest. 

Chapter Text

Over the course of the next few days, Akane found physical tasks a lot less grueling than she had before. Feu explained it was just her increase strength and agility kicking in, and Akane had zero complaints about those powers. While controlling light and fire took practice and concentration, the strength and agility increase just happened . One day she would have a hard time lifting something, the next day it was lighter than a feather. 

It really hit her, how strong she was becoming, when her family's restaurant received new supplies one afternoon. Her parents were having trouble picking up the boxes, and with her dad's bad back, caution was necessary. Her parents were considering calling someone for some help, when Akane (who had just gotten back from school and had no idea the boxes were so heavy) entered the scene, picked up five boxes without much effort, and carried them into the house. Her parents looked on, aghast.

"Is our daughter on steroids?" Her mother whispered to her father. 

"I honestly couldn't tell you," He whispered back. 

(Fun fact: Akane had no idea the boxes weighed around two tons each until her brother came home, saw Akane carrying five at a time, and went to help out, only to discover he couldn't pick them up. He called her a freak, and Akane had a mini existential crisis. Twas a great time.)      

However, besides that, everything was pretty normal. Yayoi teased her about her crush, Candy nearly outed them to strangers a few times, they were attacked (putting them above the Yes team in terms of how many times they were attacked) and Feu got into the habit of laying down on Akane's head. It was kinda weird at first, but since no one but her could see Feu, there was really no reason for them not to do it. Akane was used to it by now, and would get slightly freaked out if she didn't feel Feu laying on her head.  

Right now, for instance, Feu was laying comfortably on her head as she did her history homework, quietly humming along to the music Akane was playing to help her focus. as they hummed, Akane remembered a question she'd been meaning to ask them for some time now. 

"Hey Feu?"

"Yes?"

"Why did the water elemental separate?" Not long after she said that, Akane jolted a little as Feu's familiar warmth disappeared from her head. Feu floated down to look Akane in the eye, and began to speak. 

"They started separating their abilities," Feu said quietly, "Their ice side always had leaned more toward Dark Matter, and once they started using just water more... well, I didn't notice what they were doing to themselves until it was too late. They split apart, the water side of them working with Light Matter, and the ice side of them working with Dark Matter."

Feu floated down next to Akane's homework, "The water elemental doesn't interact with me or my vessels anymore. Ice and their vessel... that's another story," Feu got a dark look in their eyes and stopped talking. Akane figured she had stumbled into some bad memories. Not wanting to pressure her little friend into taking a bad trip down memory lane, she quickly changed the subject. 

On another, unrelated note, that night she learned that Feu had personally seen the French Revolution, and was going to be a great asset in helping her history grade. 

In their few precious minutes before class started, Yayoi cornered Akane right away with a new way to ask out Nao. Akane shot it down, of course. 

"Do you remember what happened when you all tried to help me ask out Brian?" Akane gently reminded her. As Yayoi groaned at the memory of that failure, their other friends joined them around Akane's desk. 

"What's all this about?" Reika asked, looking sideways at Yayoi, who was still groaning as if she were in pain. 

"I just reminded Yayoi of the many failures to confess to Brain," Akane told her, "The pain is still fresh," 

Miyuki groaned a little herself before sitting down in her seat, "I was sure that the Cinderella method would work," 

"I was 100% confident all of your suggestions would fail," Akane leaned back in her chair, "But did you listen? No," 

"Speaking of failures," Nao entered the conversation, "The history homework last night? What even was that?" 

"If you needed help you could've called me, Nao," 

"I know but-" Nao was cut off by their teacher telling everyone to sit down. The next thing the teacher asked them to do was take out their history homework, as they were discussing it in class. Akane watched as Nao's face contorted in terror. Akane snickered a bit at Nao's fear, before feeling a bit guilty (since she had asked Feu for a bit of help), and then realized it seemed like she was staring at Nao (she wasn't!) and Yayoi was probably going to tease her about it. She averted her gaze to another one of her classmates, Okada Mayu, who also seemed to be terrified at the idea of sharing her work with the class. 

Now, Akane wasn't that close to Mayu, but the look on her face made Akane concerned. She shrugged it off, thinking Mayu's friends would probably take care of it, and if they didn't then she would step in. And maybe Akane was just overthinking things, and Mayu just didn't understand the assignment (like Nao), but once this was all over she would be okay. Akane couldn't tell for certain so she wouldn't act just yet. 

"Are you okay Akane?" Feu asked her softly from on top of her head. Akane nodded slightly, just enough for them to understand her without anyone else noticing. "Okay, but if you need anything, let me know," 

"I will," Akane murmured. The teacher looked at her, and gave a big smile. 

"Hino! Did you just volunteer to answer the first question?"  

Fuck. "Umm... yes?" No. NO. STOP THAT. Too late now.  

"Great!" The teacher looked at her unexpectedly. 

"1789?" 

"Correct!"

Akane gave a sigh of relief as the teacher went on to the next question. She really needed to remember that communicating with Feu, when there were other people around, couldn't involve any actual talking. As someone who loved to talk, this was hard for her. 

And there were other factors at play, like the kind of question Feu would ask and her response. Trying to appear sane was an art, not a science. 

Later in the day, they had gym class. As she got changed for gym, Feu floated off of her head and in front of her face. 

"Listen," Feu said, "your body has become stronger, faster, and more agile in order to help you become a True Vessel. It's going to be a lot easier for you to build muscle mass now, and people are going to start to notice the changes eventually. It would be better to hold back until you actually have the muscle mass, that way people don't start questioning how you suddenly became that strong." 

Akane nodded, "I get that, but since I'm in gym, couldn't I try to see what my limits are? Like, whether I got stronger or faster first? Or if-"

"Well," Feu interrupted her, motioning for her to look around and see the people looking at her (Akane blushed and turned back to Feu), "all fire vessels have more strength and agility than speed. You will probably not get that much faster, so I think you can go ahead and push yourself in that front. However, in any tests of strength, you need to hold back. Do you understand?" 

Akane flashed them a huge smile and nodded. She was given permission to go all out in terms of speed, and boy, was she excited. Maybe she would be able to keep up with Nao. 

If you can keep pace with her maybe you two can go on jogs together? A voice in the back of her head whispered. That would be cute. 

It would, but Akane had no way of knowing she even that fast just yet. She just had to wait a few minutes, and then she would think more about the jog-date thing. 

As Akane left the changing room and headed outside, she saw Mayu again. Mayu was standing by herself, and she had a distant look on her face. ( One that Akane recognized, from a long time ago. ) Akane was just about to go over to her and ask if she was okay, but was interrupted by Miyuki calling for her. 

"Akane! Do you want to have a race with the rest of us?" 

A race? Of course she would want to. "I'm coming!" She ran over to Miyuki, taking one last glance at Mayu before pushing her out of her mind. She could worry about that later. 

Akane lined up with her friends and got into position. This was the perfect opportunity to see how fast she had actually become! She glanced up and saw Feu cheering for her, and she knew there was no way she was holding back. 

"3.. 2...1.. GO!" One of their classmates shouted for them, and then they were off. Akane passed Yayoi without any trouble, and passed Reika and Miyuki not long after that. This wasn't new, she was always more athletic than them. What was new, was her easily catching up with Nao, and then proceeding to zoom past her. Before she knew it, the race was over, and she had won. 

She wasn't even breathing heavily. 

"Uh," Feu floated back to their natural position on top of her head, "I think I might have underestimated how fast you would get," 

"Akane!" Nao gasped out, finally catching up to her, "Since when were you that fast?" 

The other girls joined in the chaos, all of them out of breath. 

"Tell me your secrets!" Yayoi said, clinging onto Akane's arm. 

"Drugs," 

Nao burst out laughing. Akane smiled despite herself, because, while it was almost never her goal to get Nao to laugh, when she did, it was magical. Yayoi gave a little nudge, smirking. Akane flicked her forehead.

Mayu still had that look on her face. 

"Sorry guys, I have to leave early again," Akane was really starting to hate that excuse. She needed a new one. 

"Again?" Miyuki whinnied, "Pretty soon we'll never get to see you!" 

"What on earth are you doing that is so urgent?" Reika asked. 

"I already told you, drugs." 

"You keep saying that and eventually someone is going to believe you." Reika warned gently. Akane laughed and waved goodbye to her friends. She would make it up to them another time, she decided. Perhaps with food. 

Feu seemed to be pretty excited about training today, which was either really good or really bad. Although, with the way Feu was bouncing around, Akane couldn't help but feel excited. Maybe she was finally going to learn the one thing she desperately wanted to learn.  

"Am I learning how to control temperature today?" She asked Feu, trying to hide the excitement in her voice. 

"No," Feu shook their head, "I think we need to wait a little while longer. I got ahead of myself teaching you fire as soon as I did, and I want to make sure you can really control fire and light before moving on to other things," 

"Oh," 

"Oh, come on now! It won't just be that! We're also going to see how much you strength, speed and agility has increased! No holding back!" 

Akane perked up after hearing that. Ever since she had first noticed how strong she was getting, she wanted to test the limits. Was it possible she was as strong as she was when she was Cure Sunny? That would be so fucking cool. 

"But first, you need to connect with your being ," 

Akane nodded, closed her eyes, and started taking deep breaths. In, out, in, out. Just like that, she had once again connected to her being .

"This is getting easier," She reported happily to Feu. 

"That's great!" Feu beamed, "Eventually you'll be able to just be instantly, without any lag time." They clapped their hands (once again, Feu did not really have hands, but we will not say 'clapped their arms' because that sounds super weird). "However, for right now, I need you to summon a ball of light," 

Akane did. Light was easy for her, and creating a small ball of light was like booping Yayoi's nose to her (ie: it was easy, and she was very willing to do it). 

"Now, try to summon some fire at the same time."

Akane scrunched up her face in concentration (Feu squealed quietly) and focused on summoning fire. Right when the small flame appeared, the ball of light disappeared.

"Damn it," She swore quietly. Before Feu could say anything, she tried again. The second time wasn't much better than the first, with the fire sputtering out as soon as the ball of light was summoned. She was about to try again, when Feu interrupted her. 

"Don't be upset," they said calmly, "we'll keep working at it. I just wanted to see where you were." They patted Akane on the head, "Come on, let's go work on some attacks," 

"Right!" 

Akane had taken a few self defense classes before, and combine that with all of her experience as a Precure, and Akane would say she was in pretty good shape in terms of her skill as a fighter. 

Sadly, being able to punch monsters while being transformed into a super heroine version of yourself did not translate into being able to fight for real. Feu gave her hard, detailed instructions that she had a hard time understanding, let alone following. 

"Well," Feu eventually said, "you have good instincts, you just don't have any real training. Maybe you should join a dojo."

Joining a dojo wasn't a bad idea, Akane thought. She would have to look into that later. 

Before they left, Akane got the idea to try jumping as high as she possibly could. When she was transformed, she could jump around monsters while attacking them, and she wanted to see if she could do the same maneuver with her vessel powers. So, (before Feu could object) she launched herself off the ground, and found that, yes, she could jump much higher than she could before. Unfortunately for everyone involved, she did not have the same level of control over her body as she did while transformed. Akane vaguely heard Feu yell something at her before she started coming down to the ground. Realizing she wasn't going to land on her feet, Akane's brain short circuited, rewired itself, and came up with a new plan in a time span of around five seconds. 

She shot a burst of fire out of her hand, propelling her into the air again, and giving her a few more seconds to change her landing position into a more safe one. She landed in a crouched posture, her head pointed toward the ground. 

"Akane!" Feu shouted out. Akane's head jerked up, not used to hearing that tone of voice come from Feu. "What were you thinking? That was very reckless!" The small fire chewed her out. Akane stood back up. 

"Sorry. I'll be more careful from now on," Akane looked Feu in the eyes, "But it worked out, didn't it? I mean, that was pretty cool." 

"It worked out now ," they stressed, "But it might now work out later . You just need to tell me if you're planning on doing something reckless, so I can make sure you don't get hurt."

"Okay, I will," Akane promised. Feu sighed. 

"I think that's all we're going to do today. However, tomorrow morning, be prepared to wake up early. We going to start some more physical training," 

Akane couldn't help but feel that this was probably a punishment. Some part of her recognized she deserved it, but the rest of her was still on the high of managing to land that jump and hadn't realized the situation at hand. 

Then a separate third part of her remembered that she had English homework, and she quickly booked it home. 

(Another Fun Fact: If Akane was running home from the training spot, it normally took about 14 minutes. Now, it took only 6.) 

Getting up at 5 in the morning was not Akane's ideal morning, but Feu had been extra pushy, and after what happened yesterday, she didn't want to cross them. She just put on her workout hoodie (it was her workout hoodie because she had to cut the arms off, and didn't keep her nice and worm in the winter anymore) and went outside. 

Feu had been making her jog around the city, and while she jogged, they told stories about the elementals. Now, jogging wasn't very fun, but the stories were entertaining enough. 

"And I told Mizu, 'Going around blessing random pools is crazy. What even happens to the people who fall in?' and THEY said, ' The ones I deem worthy become mermaids!' and I just had to look at them, because they couldn't comprehend what an absurd idea that was! They really thought they were blessing the poor souls, but I could tell they were just inconvincing them," Feu paused, a small smile on their face, "I got them to unbless most of those pools. But, knowing Mizu, there's probably some hidden that even I don't know about," 

As Akane jogged past her school (for the FIFTH time. Being super fast had its downfalls.) Feu started to get quieter. 

"Akane, I think something is over there," They said, gesturing to the school. "Something... not good," 

"Want me to go check it out?" She asked, slowing her pace down. Feu nodded. She started jogging over the school. It was so early, not even Reika was up yet. What on earth would be at the school. 

Akane reached the entrance, and saw a girl standing there. As she got closer, Akane recognized the girl. It was Mayu! 

"Mayu! What are you doing her-" Akane was cut off by Mayu turning around to face her. Her eyes were a dark void and she was crying blood. On closer inspection, it looked like her skin was melting off. 

"Oh my god," Akane breathed out, horrified. She had seen Mayu just yesterday, and while she hadn't been looking her best, she hadn't been looking like that . 

"That's a corrupted soul, alright," Feu said to her. "Do you think you can help her? This is the first human soul you've had to face."

"Yeah, I got this," Akane pushed a little false confidence into her voice, hoping it would fool her as well as Feu. Taking a few breaths in, Akane connected with her being , just in case. With her heart heavy in her chest, Akane faced her first human foe. 

Mayu unhinged her jaw and screeched . 

The sound made Akane's ears bleed. 

She could see the sound waves coming from Mayu's mouth in dark, slimy circular shapes. It was only because of this that she managed to get out of where the sound was aimed at to a safer area. 

"I forgot to tell you," Feu semi screamed amidst all the noise, "corrupted human souls get some sort of power!" 

Power? Great. It seemed like Mayu got some sort of sonic scream, which was pleasant. If Akane could get her to stop screaming, then she would have the upper hand. 

"Mayu! Are you still in there? Come on, we can talk about this! Whatever's going on, I am willing to listen!" Akane shouted, hoping Mayu was still in there and that they could finally talk.  

"What are you doing." Feu whispered. Mayu turned to the source of the noise, her shrieks turning with her. Instinctively, Akane jumped up into the air, the same maneuver she had tried yesterday. This time though, she had a bit more of a plan. When she shot the fire out of her hand, she shot it at Mayu. Mayu stopped screaming, stunned, and Akane landed. 

Akane went to grab Mayu, but she started screaming again. Akane ducked under the noise and pulled Mayu's legs out from under her. Mayu fell on her face, and the screaming stopped again. Akane went to purify Mayu, but hesitated for just a second when she saw the melty parts of Mayu's skin on the pavement. Mayu opened her mouth to scream again, but Akane covered her mouth before she could make a sound. With her one hand on Mayu's mouth, she used the other to draw the circle and fire symbol.

Pressing her lips to Mayu's forehead, Akane whispered, "Be at peace," 

And just like that, Mayu was back to normal. She was unconscious, luckily, because otherwise there would need to be some explaining. Not wanting to leave her at the school's entrance, Akane picked her up and took her to the police station. She told the police she had found Mayu unconscious near the school (which was true) and didn't want to leave her there. The police asked her a few questions, but released her in time for her to get ready for school. 

Akane took her time to walk to school that morning. She was still processing everything that had happened. Mayu had become corrupted . Why? She didn't say a word to Feu, and Feu stay on top of her head, quiet as well.

When Miyuki and the others joined her, Miyuki was the first person to acknowledge Akane's silence.    

"Akane-chan, are you okay?" 

"Eh?" 

"You've been acting kind of off recently. I'm worried." 

"Me too," Nao jumped in, "Are you possessed or something?" 

"What? No," 

"Possessed with love maybe?" Yayoi whispered. Akane swatted her. 

"I'm just worried about Mayu. She seemed a little off yesterday, and then I found her unconscious at the school's entrance when I was on a jog this morning," 

"You WHAT?" 

Mayu came back to class later in the day. The whole class swarmed her with questions, about what happened, and if she was okay. Their teacher tried to stop the chaos, but her efforts were in vain. 

Akane ended up talking to Mayu after all. Mayu had some questions of her own, about how Akane had found her, and things like that. Then she thanked Akane for helping her. 

"Don't worry about it," Akane said to her,"I just did what needed to be done," 

Akane got up to go to her seat, but turned back to Mayu at the last moment, "You know Mayu, if you ever need to talk to someone, I'm always available," 

Mayu smiled, "I'll keep that in mind," 

And, well, Akane felt a little bit better that day. 

Chapter Text

“Doi Itsuo runs a gym that gives martial arts classes on Mondays and Thursdays, do you think that will work?” Akane said, her eyes scanning the gym’s website. Feu paused, considering, but answered in due time. 

“That will work,” They decided, “Anything else this gym offers?”

Akane’s eyes lit up (Feu held back a coo), “Yes! Doi-san just released a new way to get a gym membership. If you do volunteer work at the gym, you become a member for free!” 

A nice offer, Feu agreed. However, they knew their vessel, and they had some concerns. 

“Akane, do you really believe you will be able to handle all of the work? Your vessel training on top of your school work and being a Precure is already a lot,”

“Don’t worry so much Feu, I got this!” Akane spun around from her desk, “It’ll just be like an extra workout,” 

“Whatever you say, Akane,” Feu sighed, still unsure, “Whatever you say,” 

Early the next day, before school, Akane went to this gym to talk to Doi-san. He greeted her energetically, excited that someone was taking advantage of his new program. 

“You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve done this kind of thing,” He explained while showing Akane around, “Most people quit once they learn how hard the work is. Are you gonna quit, kid?”

“No sir!” 

Doi-san laughed. “I love your enthusiasm kid, but there’s no need to be so formal. Just call me Itsuo-sensei, like everyone else,” 

“Yes Do- Itsuo-sensei,” 

“So you start your volunteer work whenever you start going to the gym on a regular basis. When do you think that will be?” 

“As soon as possible.” Akane answered him honestly.

"Wonderful! Do you think you can help me carry those boxes over there?" 

Akane ended up running to school. She didn't mean to spend all that time helping Itsuo-sensei, but she did, and was now paying the price. However, in her haste, she forgot just how fast she had become in a short period of time, and ended up running into her friends anyway. And by running into them, she quite literally ran into them. 

"Are you guys okay?" Yayoi's voice said from above the pile Akane, Miyuki, and Nao were currently in. A few groans were her response. Akane tried to untangle herself from the pile, and then just fell onto Nao again. She heard some snickering and went to glare at Yayoi. To her dismay, Feu was the one who was laughing. 

Traitor. 

Eventually they got untangled, and Nao asked Akane why she was in such a hurry. 

"I thought I was running late," 

"Really? We've got tons of time!" 

"Ehe, yeah, we do," Akane laughed halfheartedly. She would've been late if she had ran her normal speed, but it didn't really matter now. A few jokes on her behalf later, and it was like she wasn't even late to begin with. The walk to school was completely average, and Akane had to admit she missed this kind of normalcy. Things had been hectic since she started her training to become a True Vessel, and this breathe of fresh air was sorely needed. 

"So like, in the Hunger Games, which one of us would die first?" Miyuki asked, beginning the kind of conversation they had almost every day on their walk to school.

"Nao," Akane replied immediately. "She would see a bug while the countdown was happening, freak out, and then get blown up," 

"Oh yeah? When would you die?" Nao retorted. 

"Immediately after that, from laughter," 

"Reika would win," Yayoi added helpfully.    

"Yeah, I know she would win, which is why I asked you guys when she's not here!" 

"I think, if Nao didn't kill herself," Akane continued, "She would have a good chance. She's the person who's known Reika the longest, after all," 

"Just because I've known her the longest, doesn't mean I'll be able to plan against her," Nao mused, "I probably team up with her," 

"Is Candy included in this-kuru?" Candy asked from inside Miyuki's bag. Miyuki nodded, and everyone soon changed their answers. 

"So Candy would die first, right?" Yayoi asked in confirmation. Akane and Nao nodded in agreement. 

"Why would Candy die first-kuru????" 

"You would get squished at the Cornucopia," 

"What-kuru??!!!" 

The rest of the walk to school was spent discussing how each of them would die in the Hunger Games, which Distract they would be from, and things like that. A fun way to pass the time, for sure. The only downside was Feu had no idea what the Hunger Games was, and Akane had to quietly describe the story to them while they were walking.

Well, she didn't have to. But Feu was curious and Akane was willing to recited the entire plot of the Hunger Games at any time, so maybe it wasn't a downside. 

As expected, Reika was already at the school, and had been taking care of the flowers. She waved to them as they arrived. Candy was still feverishly arguing that she wouldn't be the first one to die when they entered the school, but was shushed by all five girls when they entered the building.

Their teacher started class with a discussion of ethics, and the idea of lying. She had really gotten into philosophy recently, and all her students were suffering. 

"So, really, is lying ethical? Break into groups and discuss this issue," 

Everyone halfheartedly split into groups. Naturally, all of the Smile team formed a group. Reika had taken many notes over the subject of lying and was excitedly presenting them to their group. After she finished her passionate speech, she asked the others what they thought. 

"Uh-y'know- lying's bad," was Nao's brilliant answer. Miyuki nodded in agreement. Yayoi and Akane shared a look, both of them silently communicating their disagreement. 

"But is it always?" Reika continued. "I mean, aren't we lying to our family and friends by not telling them we're Precure?"

"But that's different-"

"Is it?" 

Akane's eyes wandered away from the table, already bored with the conversation before it happened. She set her gaze on Feu, who had been wandering around the classroom. They loved looking around Akane's school, and since no one could see them, Akane let them wander as they pleased. They never went off too far, as they always had to return to their natural spot on top of Akane's head to tell her how exciting this all was. Feu was floating around next to the teacher, having the time of their life. 

But then they weren't. Their expression changed into a scared one, and they quickly flew over to Akane. 

"Something's wrong," They said. Akane opened her mouth to speak, but then realized how crazy she would sound, so opted to write down her question instead. Make it look like she was taking notes on Reika's lecture or something. 

What is it? 

"I think there's a corrupted soul in the building. It feels like it's above us? Yes, it's on the roof." Feu told her. 

What should I do? 

Feu opened their mouth to speak, but then closed it again. Just as they started to speak, a wave of energy surged across the school. Colors became muted, and most of the class began to move in slow motion. None of her teammates were affected, and they were just as confused as she was.  

"Candy? Any idea what's happening?" Nao asked. Candy was frantically looking around, and it took a few seconds for her to answer the question.

"There's dark magic here-kuru." Candy answered.

"Ok, got that. Where is it?" Nao pushed on. 

"Uh..." Candy trailed off, sinking deeper into Miyuki's bag. Meanwhile, Feu had grabbed Akane's ear and had started trying to drag her to the roof. 

"There's going to be another surge like that!" Feu warned, "We need to get to the roof NOW." 

"I have an idea!" Akane addressed the group, desperately trying to seem like there wasn't a god-like spirit pulling on her ear. "We split up! We can cover more ground that way. If any one finds anything suspicious, text the group chat!" 

"That's not a bad plan, Akane-san." Reika mused. "What will the groups be?" 

"Uhh... we each go by ourselves?" 

Reika nodded in understanding. "Very well. Let us be off."  

Without wasting any time, Akane sprinted to the roof. When she got there, she saw something in the shape of a man, at least. The man was covered in clocks, that were in turn covered in blood and other bodily fluids. Swallowing her disgust, Akane went to attack.

She started with a punch to the stomach, which sent the man flying across the roof. He was back up in no time and charged at her. He wasn't that fast, so Akane managed to dodge and grab his right arm. She threw him over her shoulder and pinned him on the ground.He grunted and then started shaking violently. 

The shaking made Akane loosen her grip, and he escaped. There was another surge, and everything that had been moving slowly stopped moving at all. Akane reasoned this soul's power had something to do with time, but it wasn't affecting her. She would have to ask Feu about that later. Then, the man became a blur and the blur circled Akane, preparing for an attack. One arm appeared out of the blur and punched her in the stomach. 

Shaking away the shock and pain, Akane summoned her fire and shoved it into the the moving blur. It shrieked in pain, and the blur turned back into a semi-man. The man fell onto the ground. Akane walked over to her, ready to purify him and get this over with. 

He snarled and grabbed her ankle. He then yanked her ankle, causing her to fall down.  He started dragging her closer, which Akane was not a fan of. However, she took advantage of this by grabbing his face and drawing her symbol for purification on it. She gave his forehead the requisite kiss, and murmured, "Be at peace,"

The clocks disappeared, one by one, and soon all that was left was an unconscious man.  

"Akane!" Feu appeared. "This time freeze will be over in around 30 seconds! Find your friends and get back to class, I'll deal with this guy,"

"Got it!"

Akane ran around the school looking for her friends, but when she found them, she discovered they were moving in slow motion. They were affected? That was another thing to ask Feu. She barely managed to carry them all back in time and promptly laid down on the ground in pain after the time freeze ended. 

"Akane-chan?" Miyuki blinked back to reality. "What- I thought- Are you ok?" 

Akane gave her a thumbs up from the floor. 

"Hino-san!" Their teacher shouted. "Get off the floor!"

"I'm sorry," She said as she pushed herself up, "The philosophy just got to me and I was overcome." 

The class pitied her enough to spare her a few laughs, which was nice of them.However, the real fun part was going to be explaining what the hell had happened to her friends. This was made extra difficult because Akane herself was still iffy on most of the details. 

"Just to make sure I'm not going crazy," Nao started, "There was a bad guy and we went to go deal with it, right?"

Everyone nodded. Nao let out a sigh of relief.

"As far as I can tell, something happened after we were separated that lead to us coming back here," Reika rested her head on her hands, pondering what could've happened. "Akane-san?" She asked. 

"Hm?" Akane responded, desperately trying not to appear suspicious. 

"You seemed to be the most affected by the change. What happened to you when you went off on your own?" 

"Ahaha, well, you see-" Akane stopped short. Feu had covered her mouth with their hands (once again, they do not really have hands). Pretending she just needed to cough, Akane eyed Feu, letting them know it was okay to talk. 

"Tell them you found the bad guy and he completely froze time. The only reason you weren't affected was because you were touching him at the time." Feu told her. "Tell them you defeated him and brought everyone back." 

Akane finished her fake coughing spout and relayed the story Feu had given her. The others seemed to believe her story well enough, and everyone continued discussing the moral ramifications of lying. Akane still had one thing on her mind, however. 

Why were my teammates affected but I wasn't?

As if they were psychic, Feu answered their question. 

"Your friends have magic, which provides some defense when it comes to corrupted souls that have powers like freezing time. Things like brainwashing and forcing people to move in a certain way, they have defense against that. Any sort of physical power they are just as susceptible as anyone else. As a vessel, you are immune to non-physical powers, and have defense against physical powers." 

Useful abilities, for sure. Akane nodded her head to indicate that she had heard Feu, but this had unintended consequences. 

"Akane, did you just agree to the statement that lying is good?" Nao and Miyuki shrieked. 

"That wasn't the statement!" Reika countered. Nao stuck her tongue out at her. 

Akane smiled to herself. This was nice.

One their way home after school, Akane once again had to part from her friends early. This time though, she had a legitimate excuse. 

"I joined a gym!" 

"Really?" Yayoi responded in shock. "Like, you aren't just saying that?" 

"Nope! It's run by this man named Doi Itsuo and it's not that far from my house." Akane told them. 

"I should join a gym," Nao mused. Meanwhile, Miyuki physically recoiled at the idea. Akane smiled and said her goodbyes, before heading off. It took her a very short time to get to the gym, and once she was there she was immediately put to work. Itsuo-sensei had figured out she was pretty strong and made good use of her abilities. Once he was satisfied, he started her actual workout regime.

While being super strong and fast was really useful, it did not help her against a full two hours of nonstop weights and punching bags and so much more. It would be worth it in the long run, but Akane went to bed that night right after she got home. She woke up in a cold sweat at 3 am, because she realized she had not started any of her homework. It was a great night. 

Feu was sympathetic and made coffee for her. She chugged the whole cup before heading off to school. 

These three things happened in the following order: 

Akane realized she had forgotten to eat breakfast and started running to her house. 

Akane ran past Nao and Miyuki as she was running to her house. 

Akane skid down the sidewalk before she could run into Yayoi, causing Yayoi to scream and fall onto the ground, terrified. 

This chain of events lead to Akane gently calming Yayoi down after her 'near death experience'. Yayoi's words, not Akane's. 

"You could've killed me!" 

"Yes, yes, I know. Can you stand up?" Not waiting for a response, Akane started lifting Yayoi up easily. 

"You were going... pretty fast there, Akane." Nao noted. Akane laughed meekly, in an attempt to appear, as the kids say, chill. It worked, but only because Reika wasn't there. 

"I'm starting to think you're actually doing drugs," Yayoi poked Akane's cheek. "Why were you in such a hurry to try and kill me?" 

"You know to much about me," Akane responded. "You needed to be taken out," 

There were a few laughs. Miyuki went to check up on Yayoi, but noticed something else. 

"Akane, the bags under your eyes are huge! Did you get enough sleep last night?"

"Do I ever?"

Nao laughed and punched her arm. Akane must've made some sort of love struck face because BOTH Feu and Yayoi gave her the exact same knowing look. She stuck her tongue out at both of them.   

Feu floated over to their natural place on Akane's head, where they began talking about how their training would go today. 

"I was thinking of teaching you some new ways to use your fire and light powers." They said, "Before we move on to learning new skills. Sound ok?"

"Sounds great." 

They got to school without much trouble. An odd occurrence, considering how often villains had been attacking the Smile team recently. Reika met them at the school, and morning lessons went on without anything mentionable. 

Ok, that was a lie. At exactly 10:32, Feu was playing around with the chalk dust, when they sneezed. Chalk dust went everywhere, and no one but Akane knew what was the cause. The class exploded with theories about ghosts and crypids (which was not great for Nao) and it took their teacher a full ten minutes to get the class to calm down. Besides that, it was pretty normal.

Then came lunch. Lunch was doomed from the very start, as Akane had also forgotten to pack her lunch. She was content to starve, but her friends each gave her a little something. 

Just as their conversation was getting good (they were discussing the morality of white chocolate), Feu alerted Akane about another corrupted soul. 

"The soul is not quite at the school yet, but it will be here soon. We should purify it before it gets near other people," Feu reasoned. Akane racked her brain for a good excuse, but found none. 

Instead, she claimed she had left something in the classroom and was going back to get it. This excuse meant Akane had to first go in the direction of the school until she got out of sight from her friends, then go back around to find the corrupted soul.

This soul looked like it was made out of wet cement, and it was flinging said cement everywhere. A great look, for sure.   

It noticed her rather quickly. Before Akane could completely dodge, it flung some of it's cement at her. It landed on her hands, and the cement froze. 

"Oh shit," Akane said to herself. Feu was less demoralized.

"Akane, are you familiar with dragons?" 

Akane blinked. Dragons? What did they have to do with anything- ooooohhhh. 

Akane connected to her being and summoned her fire. Instead of using her hands to control it, she focused all her energy to her mouth. The soul came in for another attack and Akane Pushed the fire out of her mouth. The stored up energy caused an explosion, and the soul was knocked back. It tried to get up again, but collapsed as it could not hold itself together in the heat. Akane's hands were freed (the cement holding them together melted) and she purified the soul.

On the way back to lunch, Akane asked Feu an important question. 

"So if I can breathe fire like a dragon, can I also shoot light beams out of my eyes?" 

"I don't see why not!"

"Wonderful."

Hoshizora Miyuki wasn't one to worry. To her, there was so much going on in the world that worrying about small thing was pointless! This mentality did not help her grades, but it was hers nonetheless. 

However, recently, Miyuki had been worrying. A lot. About her best friend, Hino Akane. 

Akane had been ... distant lately. Like she had something to say but couldn't say it. This frustrated Miyuki to no end, because she could tell something was happening, she just couldn't decipher what. This frustration was increased by the fact that normally Akane was an open book. Even while their other teammates were hiding something, Miyuki could always turn to Akane and find something real, something concrete. Now, Miyuki was agonizing over Akane's every word, trying to find the hidden meaning inside of them. 

She had confessed some of her worries to her other friends, but they had dismissed them. Well, they had dismissed them at first. As Akane drifted further away, Nao and Reika started to get more concerned. Yayoi was the only one who thought Akane was acting perfectly normal. 

Or-well- Yayoi was the only one who didn't seem worried by Akane's strange actions. This lead Reika to believe Yayoi knew what was wrong with Akane, and the whole team (sans Akane) interrogated her. Yayoi remained vigilant and didn't tell them anything, which was annoying. 

Today brought some new concerns, as Akane nearly killed Yayoi running this morning, had forgotten her lunch, and then left abruptly during lunch because she 'had left something in the classroom'. Akane never left anything in the classroom! And even when she did, she didn't care about it enough to leave lunch!

Miyuki wished she had a truth spell, like in some of her fairy tales, to figure out just was going on with Akane. 

"You're really worried about her, aren't you?" Yayoi spoke, awakening Miyuki from her daze. 

"Eh?" 

"Akane. You're really worried about her." 

"Yeah." Miyuki agreed. "Something's wrong, I just don't know what."

"So you've said." 

"This is just so frustrating, y'know? Like, if something's wrong with her, she should just come talk to me! I'll listen!" 

Yayoi laughed, causing Nao and Reika to turn from their conversation to listen in. "Miyuki, you're a wonderful friend, but Akane wouldn't talk to you," 

Miyuki scowled, "Why not? I'm her best friend!" 

"Akane wouldn't talk to you because she hates talking about her feelings! Getting Akane to actually, honestly, talk about her feelings is like trying to cut a diamond with scissors!"

"Pointless and on the verge of idiotic," Reika murmured. Nao and Miyuki looked at her. "What? It's true!" 

"Come on Yayoi, you aren't giving Akane enough credit." Nao interjected. "If Akane was really in trouble, she'd come to us for help. She may not come to us about all of her feelings, which is perfectly okay," she stressed in Miyuki's direction,"but if she was hurting, she would know that we'd be there to comfort her in a heartbeat!"

Yayoi pondered Nao's statement, before giving a cheeky smile. "Let's ask her ourselves!" 

"WHAT?!" Miyuki found herself screeching, Nao with her. Confronting Akane about her hiding things from them? There were so many ways that could go wrong! 

Alas, it was too late. Akane was coming back, and Yayoi was already on her way to confront her. A million different scenarios flashed through Miyuki's head at once. Would Akane tell them what was happening? Or would she stop being friends with them? What would Miyuki do if Akane stopped being her friend? 

"Akane, would you say you're good at talking about feelings?" Yayoi asked, sitting Akane down. Akane shrugged. 

"I mean, with other people's feelings I'm okay, but with my own feelings? Hell no," 

Yayoi smirked at Nao and Miyuki. Reika leaned in with her own question. 

"But you do know that if something is really wrong, you can talk to us." 

"Yeah, yeah. I know,"

"Would you actually talk to us? Please answer honestly, you know how many of us here feel about lying." 

Miyuki saw Akane squirm, before sighing. 

"I don't- I like to think that I would talk to you guys, like how I like to think you would trust me with your problems, but I just- I don't know." Akane forced out. "There's some things that are just... hard for me to say." 

"We understand." Reika put her hand on Akane's shoulder. "And we won't make you say those things." 

Akane visibly relaxed. But now Miyuki had her own question. And her own, blunt, way, she asked it. 

"Is everything okay? You've seemed distant lately." 

Akane blinked, a little surprised at the question.  

"Yes, everything's fine." 

"You aren't lying, are you?" Nao sat down next to Akane. Akane pursed her lips. 

"Things have just been... busy. I got a new job- sorta. Once I get used to the new schedule, it'll be fine." She gave one of her signature smiles, and Miyuki believed her. Miyuki believed her with her whole heart. 

Later that day, Akane went back to the dojo, prepared for another session of hell training. What she got instead was a pat on the back from Itsuo-sensei, who was just proud she had come back. Their training was a breeze compared to the day before, and Akane felt refreshed when she left the dojo, instead of exhausted. 

On the walk home, Feu (once again perched on her head) complimented her on her ability to keep a secret. 

"The job excuse was a good one," They patted her head. 

"Well, that's kind of what this is, isn't it?"

"You aren't wrong." 

Then Feu told her something even better. They told her, in a few days, she would start learning how to control temperature. Just in time too, as a heatwave was predicted to hit their hometown at around the same time. 

Akane went home that night feeling alive, like nothing could bring her down. 

(There was another corrupted soul she had to fight at midnight, but even that could not crush her positivity.)  

Chapter Text

Over the course of the next few days, Akane got into the habit of going to the gym in the morning. She had even spaced it out just right so she and Feu got some extra training in before she headed off to school. Feu was much more careful about training her to control temperature than they were about fire, so they were taking their sweet time teaching her. So far, the most they had done was increase the temperature by a few degrees. 

Itsuo-sensei was much harder on her. He never made her do anything too difficult, but he was never easy on her either. She had made a mistake, showing him how strong she was that first day, and would regret it for the rest of her life. 

Maybe not the rest of her life, but you get the point. 

The heatwave that had hit her hometown was in full swing, and some people had even started wearing their summer uniforms to combat the heat. Akane was beginning her summer long struggle of ‘I need to eat but it’s so hot I don’t want to eat anything’ a month before summer even started. Feu was not a fan of this struggle and always made sure to get Akane to eat something, whether she wanted to or not. 

Today, Feu had a special task in mind. 

“There’s a special way to utilize temperature control during heat waves like this,” Feu explained on their morning run (yes, that had become a thing, much to Akane’s chagrin). “You decrease the temperature around your body, which allows you to cool down without causing terrible environmental effects.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Akane breathed, exhausted from running in the heat, “How do I do it?” 

“Er- you kind of have to control temperature all day- no breaks- until it sticks. It’s not fun,”  

“What are you talking about? It sounds like heaven.” 

“Ha ha. Very funny. You just need to increase it- or decrease it- by one degree. People aren’t going to notice that kind of shift.” 

“Got it,” 

After a quick stop at home to change into her uniform, Akane connected to her being to begin her day of temperature control- no breaks. She was praying she managed to stay connected to her being all day when she ran into Nao. 

Nao flashed her a blinding smile, and as Akane clutched her wounded heart, she could tell today was going to be a good day. 

As Akane and Nao were walking to school, all their other friends had already met up for … other purposes. Well, Yayoi assumed there was a reason Reika had summoned them this early in the morning. 

“I was hoping Akane would be here as well, but I suppose we can fill her in later,” Reika mused. Yayoi was now interested. They were going to fill in Akane but not Nao? How the turn tables… 

Reika took a deep breath and Miyuki and Yayoi both leaned in to hear what she had to say.

“Today’s the day I’m going to confess to Nao. I would like your help,”

No sooner had the words left Reika’s lips, Miyuki began to squeal with joy. She wrapped Reika up in a hug and refused to let her go. Yayoi, on the other hand, was beginning a breakdown that would last the rest of the day. 

Her predicament: In hindsight it was obvious that Reika liked Nao, and had probably liked her for a long time, which kinda meant she got first dibs on Nao romantically. HOWEVER, she noticed Akane’s feelings first and was way too invested in Akane and Nao’s potential relationship to fully support Nao and Reika. Then there was the fact that Nao was a human who had feelings of her own, and maybe Yayoi should stop thinking about her as a prize to be won. Regardless, she needed to warn Akane.  

“Reika? I would like to be the one to catch Akane up, if that’s alright,” Yayoi smiled gently, hoping to appear innocent. Reika separated from Miyuki and nodded. 

Yayoi found Akane walking with Nao, in the mists of an intense conversation. 

“So THEN,” Akane was saying, “I grabbed his man bun-” 

“Akane!” Yayoi grabbed her arm, “We need to talk.” 

“Now?”

“Yes, now!” 

Without another word, Yayoi had dragged Akane off, leaving Nao alone, and very, very confused. 

Yayoi continued to drag Akane until she was sure none of her friends would be able to find them. Akane meagerly protested the entire time, but since she had yet to break from Yayoi’s grip, Yayoi could tell Akane was a little interested in what she had to say. 

“Yayoi… what the hell,” Was what Akane eventually said when Yayoi had triple checked they weren’t followed. “What’s going on?”

Yayoi turned to her, her face solum. “Reika’s going to confess to Nao today,”

“Ok, and?”

“OK, AND?!”

“What do you want me to say? ‘Oh no, my friend’s confessing to my crush crying noises’?” 

“Yes? No- I don’t know. I thought you’d have a bigger reaction.”

“Why?”

“Because you're about to enter a love triangle???”

“Am I???”  

“Yes, you are!” Yayoi pinched her nose, “Look, we don’t have a lot of time. If we want you to have a proper place in the running, you’ve gotta confess to Nao like… right now.”

Akane was already leaving. 

“Hey!” Yayoi began to follow her, “What are you doing?”

“Walking away.” Akane said bluntly. Yayoi was not so willing to let her. 

“Are you really okay with just walking away from love?”

“Yes.”

Akane left Yayoi alone and very, very disappointed.

Reika was unable to talk to Akane until lunch. Yayoi had dragged her off, and by the time Akane came back, Nao was there as well. It was a shame, as Reika wanted to discuss her confession plans with Akane as soon as possible. She loved Miyuki and Yayoi, but their ideas of confessing were… intense. She hoped Akane would provide a more stable plan. 

“Reika!” Reika turned to the sound of the voice and saw Akane waving at her. She smiled and waved back.

“The math test was a direct attack on my well being,” Akane said, sitting down next to Reika. 

“I thought it was fine,”

“Of course YOU did, Reika, you human calculator,” Akane teased, but there was no real malice behind it. The two of them lapsed into comfortable silence. 

Then it became slightly uncomfortable. Reika considered speaking, to make sure Yayoi had informed her about what she wanted to do. Akane beat her to it. 

“Yayoi told me you want to confess to Nao,” 

“Yes, I do,” 

“Why now?”

“I suppose… it’s because our lives are threatened constantly, and I’m tired of hiding my true feelings. I’m tired of being scared of what they mean.” 

Akane hummed quietly. “I’m guessing you want this to be a meaningful confession?”

“Yes.”

“And there is no way Yayoi or Miyuki is going to come up with one,”

“I’m afraid most of us, including myself, are terrible when it comes to romance. You’re the only one with experience,” 

"Just because I have experience doesn't mean I'm any good,"Akane rubbed the back of her neck, “Tell you what, you and I plan something together right now. And if it’s bad… well, at least it’s authentic to who we are as unromantic disasters.”

Reika smiled. “Understood,”   

They began to plot.

Nao was having an… interesting day. All of her friends were acting strange, which wasn’t unusual, per say, but it was never good. Yayoi had dragged Akane off in the morning in a fit, Miyuki kept squealing whenever Nao talked to her, and Reika was being strangely quiet. 

It all came to a head during lunch. Well, towards the end of lunch. Miyuki came up to her, somehow even more squeally than the rest of the day. When Nao asked what was going on, Miyuki just squealed some more and handed her a letter. 

But not just any letter. 

It was a love letter. 

Nao promptly freaked out.

It all started to click. Miyuki was trying to confess to her. This was not good, considering she had feelings for someone else, and while Miyuki was a great friend and all, there was no way she could see herself in a relationship with her. 

She needed to figure out a way to reject her, but still respect her feelings and tell Miyuki she still wanted to be friends, and oh God she was going to screw this up so bad . 

In an act of desperation, she went to the only friend with any knowledge of romance (who was also the one acting the least weird). 

“AKANE YOU GOTTA HELP ME,” Nao semi-shouted as she barged into the almost empty classroom. The other students (wisely) decided to head out, as they realized something was about to go down. 

Akane turned toward Nao, and, upon seeing her distress, had the audacity to SMIRK, as if this situation was funny!

“What is it, Nao?” Akane asked, still smirking. 

“Miyuki wrote me a love letter but the thing is I don’t like her and I was wondering if you knew any way to kindly reject someone?” 

“You are aware that breathing is a thing, Nao? Calm down.” Akane said. “Are you 100% sure she wrote you a love letter? I mean, it’s Miyuki.” 

“I’m pretty sure. It has a heart on it and everything.” 

“Did you read the letter?” 

“... I did not.” 

“... Nao-”

“I know.” Nao sighed. “Let’s just read the damn thing.”

The letter opened like this:

“Dear Nao,

I know you’re probably freaking out right now, but there is no need to worry. I have feelings for you and wish to confess them, but I will not be upset if you do not like me back. I have kept these feelings hidden from other people, as well as myself, for far too long. If you would do me the kindness of meeting me at the South entrance of the school after school ends, I would be grateful.

Your Secret Admirer. ”

“You should go!” Akane said brightly. Nao wasn’t so convinced. 

“You think so?” 

“Yeah! I mean, You don’t know who it is, so it could be the person YOU like!”

“I guess..”

Akane put her arm around Nao’s shoulder. “Oh, is poor Nao scared of the possibility of having to reject someone?~” 

“No!” She wiggled out of Akane’s hold. “I’ll go, I’ll go!”

Akane smiled at her and went back to her seat.

Feu was confused. This was not new, humans were confusing to Feu in many ways. Each of them was different, too. That meant Feu often thought they had figured out how humans worked with one vessel, but was proven wrong with the next one. 

Case in point: Akane’s choice to help her friend Reika confess her feelings, even though she would be confessing to Nao, who Akane had a crush on. 

Now, there were many levels of confusion going on for Feu. They never really understood humanity’s concept of romantic love, or why it was shameful to have romantic feelings for someone, or many of the other aspects about it. 

Mainly, though, in this particular instance, Feu was confused as to why Akane was willing to give up her chance to be in a romantic relationship with the girl she liked. Most of their vessels (Daniel especially) would do their best to get into romantic relationships with the ones they liked. 

Maybe Feu was missing something. Who knows. What they did know, however, was that Akane was upset. And her choice seemed to be the reason she was upset. Wasn’t it counterintuitive to choose the choice that made you upset? Was there some sort of rule Feu was missing? Just… they were confused. 

Thank the Gods that Feu was an elemental, and didn’t have all these human constructs keeping them down. 

School had just ended for Akane and she had started home, Feu sitting gently on her head (where they belonged).

Feu was about to ask her why she made those decisions, but was stopped by an all too familiar feeling. 

“Akane, there’s a corrupted soul near here,” They said. Akane stopped in her tracks. 

“Where?” 

“South? Yes, the soul is south.” 

“Like near the south entrance of the school?” 

“Maybe.” 

“Wonderful,” Akane turned around and began to run towards the south entrance. 

The run was short, as they found the corrupted soul right at the south entrance. The soul was not interacting with any of the students, instead, it was curled up in a ball next to the school. It was almost as if the soul was avoiding the other students. As soon as it saw Feu and Akane, however, it snarled and pounced in their direction. 

It was also, unfortunately, very fast. 

“Why? Why does God hate me?” was what Akane was saying as she ran around the school getting chased by the soul.

The soul snarled again and jumped. Feu barely had time to warn Akane before the soul crashed down on top of her. They wrestled for a bit, until Akane managed to shove it off. 

This soul growled, throwing some dirt into Akane’s face. Akane coughed, then lunged towards the soul. She grabbed it by it’s shirt and threw it against the wall. 

She gave it the requisite kiss, murmured, “Be at peace,” and the soul melted back to normal (a young high school girl).

Feu was so proud of her. She was getting good at this. They told her as much, while she was carrying the unconscious girl to a bench. Akane set the girl down gently. She went to make sure people hadn’t seen them, while Feu watched over the girl. 

Soon, the girl was awake. She seemed confused at first, but eventually got up and began acting normal. Feu smiled and floated back to Akane. 

“The girl seems to be okay,” Feu said to Akane. She didn’t seem to be listening, so Feu told her again. 

“That’s- that’s great,” Akane whispered back to them. Feu noticed the hurt in her voice. Concerned, they turned to the direction Akane was looking. There, at the south entrance, was Nao and Reika, locked in an embrace. 

It appeared Reika’s confession had gone well. 

“Akane? Are you okay?” 

“M fine.” She turned away from the south entrance and began walking. 

“Isn’t home that way?” Feu pointed north. Akane nodded. 

“I just- I want to go for a walk before I go home. Ok?” 

“Okay,” 

Akane was fine, okay? She was fine. 

Or maybe she wasn’t fine. Didn’t matter. She would be fine eventually, that’s what mattered. Everything is fine. 

Was she under the bridge she always goes to when upset? Yes. Did that have to do with anything? Of course not! She just really liked this bridge! 

Really, she liked bridges in general. There was nothing SPECIFIC about this bridge she liked. 

Where was she going with this? She had a point.

Feu hadn’t said anything to her since she purified the corrupted soul. They were content to rest on her head and let her work through her own issues, it seemed. 

That is, if she had issues. Which she did not. She was fine. 

Akane buried her head in her knees and groaned. As fun as denial was, it wasn’t working as well as she would’ve hoped. 

Yayoi found her a minute later. At first, she didn’t say anything. She just sat down next to Akane. 

Eventually, she spoke. 

“How are you doing?”

“I’m… I’m going to be fine,” Akane settled on saying. Yayoi frowned. 

“I didn’t ask how you were going to be, I asked how are you now ?”  

“I-” Akane’s voice cut off. “I don’t know,”

Yayoi pulled her into a hug. “Understandable. I wouldn’t know how to feel either.”

Akane tightened the hug. “But… I can’t say I regret my actions.”

Yayoi sighed, “I was confused at first, I’ll admit. But… there really was no other action you would’ve taken, was there?”

“Not really, no.”

Yayoi maneuvered out of the hug to look at Akane in the face. “You’re a good friend, Akane,” 

When Yayoi left, Feu floated down to eye level. 

“I don’t know if this helps,” they said, “But you’ve kept your temperature increased by one degree all day. You can now reap all the benefits of temperature control,”

Akane smiled. 

Later, at Itsuo-sensei’s gym, she would get another chance to deal with emotions.  

“Bad day?”

“You could say that.”

“... Wanna punch things until you feel better?”

“Hell yeah.”