Welcome to the freak show
Afternoon light slanted through the broken windows, cutting across piles of debris and painting long, brittle shadows on the walls.
Itsuro sat near the window, back straight, an old paperback spread open in his hands. The cover was so worn the title had long since vanished. His eyes flicked across the lines without hurry.
Kenji was pacing the other side of the room, muttering to himself as he adjusted the angle of his camera. He’d set it on a rusted tripod aimed through the cracked window, trying different framings of the street below. Every few seconds he’d crouch, tilt, then stand up again, squinting through the viewfinder.
“The light’s garbage,” he said finally, half to himself, half to the air. “No atmosphere. All washed-out realism.”
Rin leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching him without much expression. Her voice came quiet, almost swallowed by the silence. “You sure about the new guy?”
Itsuro didn’t look up from his book. “Kentaro?” He closed the book, thumb holding the page he’d left off on.
“Yeah. You really think he’s worth bringing in? He’s… not subtle.”
Kenji adjusted the focus, the lens clicking softly. “He’ll give the shot some grit. Every production needs its monster in act two.”
That earned a quiet, humorless breath from Itsuro.
Rin frowned faintly. “You really trust him?”
Itsuro’s smile was thin, unreadable. He opened his book again.
The door creaked open behind them with a drawn-out grrrrrk.
Kentaro entered the room.
“Act Two monster, huh?” he said casually. “Didn’t realize I already had top billing.”
His tone was light, maybe even amused, but there was something behind it. It was hard to tell if he was joking, or if that he'd beat the first person that laughed along.
Kenji grinned wide, delighted. “Perfect! The villain enters, smirking from the shadows! You’ve got the delivery down—try it again with a little more menace.”
Kentaro ignored him and looked straight at Itsuro. “So that’s what I am to you, huh? The monster for the second act.”
Itsuro didn’t rise to the bait “If the shoe fits.”
Kentaro chuckled, crossing the room in slow, heavy steps. “And here I thought I was the worst there is out there.” He leaned one shoulder against the broken frame of the window, staring out at the city below. “And here I am, with this merry band of sellouts, huh? The kind of people who’d let everyone else burn if it meant surviving one more day.”
"Ha! Act two monster? By that standard we've been less than human before the opening credits even roll.” said Itsuro.
Kenji let out a low whistle. “Good line. Keep it. We’ll use it for the trailer.”
Rin, arms crossed, said nothing.
“Anyway, our Rin here is a bit worried you see? The best chance we have,” Itsuro continued, “is anonymity. As long as they don’t know we exist, we have the initiative. The moment our opponents realize there’s an organized faction moving against them…”
Kentaro tilted his head, waiting.
He shut his book with a soft thump. “We lose our greatest asset.”
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the faint hum of Kenji’s camera, still rolling, still framing the conversation as if it were a scene in some grim film.
Then Kentaro pushed off the window frame with a quiet laugh. “Huh. Didn’t expect that from you.”
“From me?”
“Yeah,” Kentaro said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I figured you’d be the type to try to get this over with on the first move."
Itsuro smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s because you haven’t read far enough into the script yet.”
Kenji let out a delighted click of the camera shutter, capturing the moment. “Perfect closing line. We’ll cut right there. You're really getting into the cinematic side of this, Itsuro!”
Rin sighed, under her breath. “…You’re all insane.”
Kenji crouched near the ledge again, one knee up, fiddling with the focus on his handheld camera. He muttered to himself while trying out angles.
“Too flat… too washed out… no narrative depth in the composition. Need more grime, more texture.”
Rin was sprawled against the wall behind him, picking at the loose paint with a chipped nail. “You say that about everything, man. It’s just a street.”
Kenji didn’t even glance back. “There’s no such thing as just a street. Every frame tells a story. Even this dump has character. It’s practically begging for a protagonist’s breakdown scene. Or a chase scene. Or a...”
"I get it! I get it okay?"
Kentaro flipped his lighter open and shut — click, clack — rhythmically. "You ever thought about starring in your movies?"
Kenji looked over his shoulder, mock offense on his face. “Hey, hey, I’m an auteur. I don’t join the cast; I direct the masterpiece.”
Speaking of directing…” Itsuro straightened a little. “We’ve got something lined up for today.”
Kenji perked up instantly. Rin glanced over, wary.
“Nothing like before,” Itsuro went on. “We’ve pulled little moves on the Idea World side. We know who the student council keeps close and how they fight, how they move.”
Rin frowned. “And? What’s today about?”
“Today,” Itsuro said, resting his arms over his knees, “we test something else. The other half.”
Kenji tilted his head. “The real world.”
“Yeah.” Itsuro nodded once. “Both sides have their uses. The Idea World gives us our Idolons, power, freedom, room to experiment. But it’s equal ground. They’ve got the same weapons there. Fighting them head-on means we’re just measuring who burns out first.”
Rin crossed her arms. “So we ditch the powers and go with… what, knives and fists?”
“Not ditch,” Itsuro corrected, “adapt. In the normal world, we risk our real selves. No armor, no separation. And they’d lose their safety net too, their pretty little spirits can’t come out to play.”
Rin sighed. “Yeah, great, realism. Means if we screw up, we actually die.”
Kenji grinned without looking up. “Art demands sacrifice, Rin-chan.”
"And about sacrifices..." Itsuro looked at Rin with a calm smile.
Kenji was about to mutter something when he froze, lens halfway raised.
“…Uh, would you look a that?.”
“What?”
Kenji zoomed in, grin spreading slow and wild. “You’re not gonna believe who’s strolling right through our establishing shot.”
Itsuro leaned forward. Down the street, in the glare of the sun, walked Shu Jinkō, the very picture of unintentional charisma.
For a moment, Itsuro just stared, cigarette forgotten between his fingers. “…You’re kidding.”
Rin looked up, half-curious. “Who?”
“Jinkō,” Itsuro said, exhaling through his teeth. “The president himself. I’ve been watching this route for a week and he’s never come through here once. Can't even plan around him...”
Kenji let out a low whistle. “Talk about divine timing. The hero walks right into our set before we even roll camera.”
Itsuro went still. Then, all at once, that calculating glint returned. “Alright. New plan.”
Rin blinked. “Wait—now? We’re doing this now?”
Kenji’s grin turned theatrical. “Improvisation, baby. Cinema vérité. The moment’s authentic!”
Midday sun hung low behind the rusted power lines.
An abandoned apartment block squatted at the corner like a half-dead animal, windows smashed, graffiti bleeding down its sides.
Across the street, in the third floor of a crumbling office building, Itsuro and Kenji crouched near a broken window. Itsuro had one elbow braced on the sill, gaze fixed on the street down below. Kenji crouched lower beside him, camera already rolling, muttering as he adjusted the lens.
“Framing’s good. Exposure perfect. If we get a scuffle, I’ll cut in for the close-ups—”
“Don’t,” Itsuro interrupted, eyes never leaving the street below. “He’ll notice the glare.”
Kenji scoffed under his breath. “You’re killing my art direction.”
Below, Kentaro made his entrance. He had one hand gripping Rin’s arm, the other jammed in his pocket, dragging her toward the gaping door of the derelict building.
Rin looked every bit the terrified girl—small, pale, wide-eyed. Her voice carried down the street, quiet but trembling just enough.
“P-please, let go—!”
A performance, but convincing enough.
Itsuro watched, calculating. “He’s playing it well. Not too rough, not too obvious.”
Kenji zoomed in on the pair, the camera motor whirring softly. “It’s got that grindhouse feel. Real Death Wish energy. Love it.”
Shu had already stopped mid-step the moment he caught sight of them. Kentaro’s rough grip on Rin’s arm, her voice trembling as she tried to pull away. The whole thing was too on the nose, too familiar. But instinct didn’t stop to ask questions.
He dropped his bag without thinking.
“Hey!”
Kentaro turned slightly, the movement slow, like someone used to being challenged. His eyes were narrow.
“What?” he said, voice low and rough. “You got business here, pal?”
“Yeah,” Shu said, already closing the distance. “Let her go.”
Rin looked up, her face pale and her eyes hidden under the fringe of her hair.
“Stay outta this,” Kentaro growled, and shoved her through the doorway of the half-collapsed building. The doorframe groaned under the impact.
“Hey!” Shu shouted again, sprinting forward.
From the building across the street, Itsuro’s calm voice broke the tension like someone announcing a cue.
“Hook’s set.”
Kenji’s grin split his face. “And the protagonist enters the trap! Beautiful blocking. So raw, so instinctive!”
Inside, the hallway was choked with dust and the kind of light that never quite reached the corners. Shu’s shoes crunched on broken glass as he followed, calling out: “You okay?!”
A faint reply came from deeper in. “P-please… help…”
He didn’t hesitate.
Shu jogged up the creaking stairwell, one hand brushing the rail out of habit, eyes sharp for any sign of movement.
He hit the top floor landing, breath steady despite the dust choking the air. The hall ahead was a mess of open doors and fallen ceiling tiles, the walls scored with old graffiti and claw marks of vandalism. He moved fast, checking one room after another.
“Hey—! You there?!”
No answer.
Every door he opened gave him the same view: collapsed furniture, birds’ nests, sunlight filtering through holes in the ceiling.
He slowed, scanning the corners. His instincts prickled.
“…Weird. Where’d they—” He slipped on a piece of newspaper. And then...
Crack.
A blow slammed into his forehead. The hit would' ahve landed on the side of his jaw if not for the slip.
Shu staggered, half spinning, the world flashing white for an instant before his heel caught on debris. He planted his feet again, shaking off the daze, just in time to see Kentaro stepping out from the shadows of the doorway, shaking his fist with a low, satisfied grunt.
“Damn,” Kentaro said, his voice carrying that lazy, delinquent drawl. “You got a hard head, Prez.”
Kenji’s camera zoomed in on the impact spot “Beautiful! Right hook, perfect composition, no overacting, he’s got the instincts of a natural brawler!”
"Because he is one, maybe?" said Itsuro.
Rin, meanwhile, was already sliding down a rusted fire escape at the back of the building, quiet as a cat. From their vantage point, Itsuro watched her go, not taking his eyes off the path she took.
“She’s out clean,” he murmured.
Kenji, still filming, snorted. “She better be. Our actress doesn’t do stunt work.”
Kentaro cracked his neck, the sound echoing down the ruined hall. “Alright, pretty boy. Let’s see if you’re really as good as they say.”
Shu rubbed his forehead. “Man, you hit like a train.”
“Yeah?” Kentaro stepped forward, lazy grin widening. “Then try not to get hit again.”
He lunged.
What followed wasn’t graceful, it was ridiculous. Shu ducked, half-slipped on a fallen beam, caught himself on a hanging pipe, only for the pipe to snap free, swing like a pendulum, and slam straight into Kentaro’s shoulder.
The impact echoed like a gunshot.
“The hell...?” Kentaro staggered back, blinking in disbelief.
“Sorry!” Shu yelled reflexively, even as he grabbed the detached pipe before it hit the floor and swung it back like a baseball bat. Kentaro blocked with his forearm, splinters of rust and dust flying.
Across the street, Kenji was vibrating behind his camera, whispering like a sports announcer. “He’s improvising! Look at that natural timing, pure cinematic instinct!”
Shu stumbled back again, tripped on a broken step, and dropped to one knee just as Kentaro’s punch sailed over his head and demolished the wall behind him. The debris fell right on top of Kentaro’s back.
“Ghh—!”
Shu looked up, pipe still in hand. “…You okay?”
Kentaro tore through the rubble with a laugh, blood running from a scrape on his temple. “You’re weird, man. You fight like a damn cartoon.”
“Uh, thanks?” Shu ducked another blow, lost his footing completely, spun on his heel and by pure accident, kicked a loose bucket that ricocheted off the wall and into Kentaro’s face with a CLANG.
Kenji slapped the wall beside him in delight. “Comedy and choreography! This is gold!”
Kentaro wiped his nose with the back of his hand, grinning wider. “Alright, alright, that’s how we’re playing it?”
He cracked his knuckles.
"I like it."
He charged again, faster this time. Shu barely kept up, stumbling through the chaos. Every move he made looked like a mistake that just barely worked: ducking too soon so Kentaro’s punch broke a doorframe instead, spinning around and accidentally shoulder-checking a support beam that collapsed in Kentaro’s path.
Kentaro’s breathing was steady. He’d started smiling for real about a minute ago. Shu, on the other hand, looked like a guy desperately trying to remember what comes after “duck.”
Kentaro’s fist slammed into Shu’s ribs. Shu staggered back, gasping, clutching his side.
“Damn,” he hissed. “Okay—okay, that one actually hurt.”
He swung again. Shu tried to block, misjudged the angle, and ended up half-catching the blow with his face. He spun, hit the wall hard, paint cracking beneath his shoulder.
Across the street, Kenji winced like it was a jump scare. “Ooooh, that’s a money shot. Real, gritty, raw!”
Itsuros' voice was clipped and irritated. “He doesn’t deserve that kind of framing.”
Kenji glanced sideways, eyebrows raised. “Oh, come on. You gotta admit it the guy’s got presence.”
Itsuro’s jaw tightened, his voice flattening into quiet disgust. “Presence? He’s a statistical anomaly. No, an impossibility. That idiot doesn’t win because he fights. He wins because the universe can’t stand watching him lose.”
Back inside, Shu ducked under a hook, barely, only for Kentaro to knee him in the stomach. Shu doubled over, wheezing, the air leaving him in a pained laugh.
“Y’know…” Shu coughed, grinning through it, “for a delinquent… you’ve got great form. You probably don't skip PE. ”
Kentaro snorted. “For a hero, you suck at fighting bad guys.”
He grabbed Shu by the collar, slammed him against the wall, and drew his arm back for another blow but Shu’s foot kicked out instinctively, catching on a fallen pipe that rolled right under Kentaro’s heel.
The bigger boy slipped, crashing forward. Shu barely managed to twist out of the way as Kentaro smashed through the drywall, leaving a man-shaped crater.
“Sorry!” Shu called, genuinely meaning it.
Kentaro burst out of the rubble a second later, bleeding from a fresh cut on his forehead and grinning like a wolf. “Oh, I like you!”
Shu blinked. “That’s, uh, great?”
He barely ducked the next punch, but this time Kentaro didn’t miss on the follow-up: a heavy uppercut that cracked Shu’s jaw and sent him reeling.
Kenji adjusted the camera, whispering, “And the hero falters...!”
“About time,” Itsuro muttered, his tone ice-cold. “Let him choke on that luck of his.”
Kenji grinned. “You sound jealous, boss.”
Itsuro didn’t look away from the scene below. “I don’t get jealous.” His voice lowered. “I just hate when the world bends to make idiots look divine.”
Kentaro wiped a streak of blood that ran down the side of his head, grinning. The gash on his temple was already knitting shut.
Shu noticed between labored breaths, still bent slightly from that last punch.
Shu exhaled slowly, eyeing the space for more wrecked walls, scattered pipes, broken furniture. His usual arsenal of accidental salvation was gone. Nothing left but empty air and cracked tile.
“Well,” Kenji muttered, “guess he's out of props.”
Kentaro’s grin turned feral. He saw that Shu was a sitting duck now. Nothing around to save his hide.
He stepped in, winding up. The floor groaned under the tension. Shu braced himself, nowhere to dodge.
Then, with a deafening CRACK—
The floor gave out.
Shu’s eyes widened a split-second before gravity claimed him. “—oh, come on!”
The tiles split in a jagged circle, wood beams snapping as Shu vanished through a cloud of dust. Kentaro’s punch cut through the air and hit nothing.
“WHAT—” he started—then stopped as the hole yawned wider.
From the street-facing window, Kenji’s camera caught the perfect shot: Shu’s figure tumbling into the dust-choked light below.
“Gorgeous!” Kenji shouted. “Accidental stunt work!”
Itsuro pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course. Of course the floor collapses now.”
Below, Shu landed in a half-roll, coughing up plaster, wincing as he sat up.
He looked up, just in time to hear Kentaro laughing above him. “You’re unreal, man!”
Kentaro stomped once on the edge of the broken floor—
—and the whole section collapsed.
He fell straight through the hole after Shu, debris and sunlight raining with him.
Shu scrambled to his feet, looking up at the massive figure plummeting toward him. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding—!”
They both hit the ground hard enough to shake the structure. Kentaro rose first, brushing dust off his shoulders, still grinning like a kid on a roller coaster.
“This is insane!” he barked between laughs. “You’re like a magnet for bullshit!”
Shu, sprawled in a pile of wood and plaster, groaned. “You’re telling me…”
Kenji’s delighted laughter echoed faintly through the broken walls from across the street. “You can’t buy this kind of footage!”
Itsuro, expression flat, muttered, “You can’t plan for it either.”
Shu barely had time to shake the dust off before Kentaro came swinging through it.
Shu ducked, blocked with his forearm, stumbled backward, then got kicked square in the chest and launched into a half-collapsed pillar. The entire support beam cracked from the impact.
Kentaro grinned wide, rolling his shoulders. What little damage he had sustained from Shu's lucky shenanigans was already healed.
He threw a punch; Shu side-stepped; the blow missed by inches and hit a support beam instead, bringing part of the ceiling down on himself. He burst out of the rubble laughing, dust in his hair, blood dripping down his chin.
“Unreal,” Kentaro said, still grinning like a maniac. “You actually live through this stuff?”
Shu winced, rubbing the back of his head. “Kinda, yeah.”
Kentaro swung again, and missed again, and his fist went straight through a rusted pipe. Steam erupted in a hissing burst, filling the room with a boiling white fog.
Shu’s silhouette staggered in the mist. He coughed, swung his arm to clear it, and nearly tripped over a fallen beam.
Kentaro laughed, low and delighted. “What, you running already?”
kicked a loose board into the steam. It ricocheted, hit a hanging metal sign, and bounced again smacking Kentaro square in the side of the head.
For a heartbeat, everything went still.
Then Kentaro turned back slowly, a stunned look on his face that broke into a sharp grin. “You’re kidding me!”
He charged again, laughing like a man possessed.
Outside, across the street, Kenji was wheezing with laughter behind his camera. “Slapstick is good every now and then!”
Itsuro’s tone was ice-cold, but even that was cracking at the edges. “God, I hate him.”
Down below, the mist cleared just enough to show Shu taking another blow to the stomach, doubling over. Kentaro followed up with a headbutt that sent him sprawling through the remains of a drywall partition.
Shu lay there for a moment, groaning. “You ever, like… get tired?”
Kentaro stepped through the hole, still laughing. “Nah. You’re too much fun to hit!”
Shu’s back hit another wall, this one half-crumbling and lined with shattered glass from an old window. His vision blurred for a second from the dust and the pain. When it cleared, he caught a flash of sunlight and through it, down on the street below, a small figure sprinting away.
The girl.
She was out, running full speed down the block, turning a corner and disappearing from view. She looked fine. Not even limping.
Shu exhaled, half-laughing through the blood on his lip. “...Well. At least she’s safe. Now I just need to get out of here myself...”
Kentaro tilted his head, cracking his neck. “You serious? You’ve been tryna to avoid actually fighting and now you wanna run?”
“Look, man, I just—” Shu barely had time to finish before Kentaro grinned wide.
“No, I get it. If you wanna run, I can help.”
He wound his arm back, knuckles popping, the grin on his face pure amusement.
“Wait—hold on, let’s talk abou—”
WHAM.
The punch hit Shu square in the chest. The air left his lungs in a single gasp, his body folding around the impact.
He tore through the window in an explosion of glass and dust, flying clean out of the third floor like a ragdoll caught in a storm.
Kenji’s camera caught it perfectly from across the street. The frame shook as he yelled, “Yes! That’s the shot! Perfect arc, perfect debris scatter!”
Itsuro muttered under his breath, deadpan. "Just wait and see."
Down below, Shu twisted mid-air, wind roaring in his ears. The street rushed up to meet him—
—then, miraculously, a delivery truck rumbled into view.
The boy landed on it just right, hitting the canvas tarp with a heavy thud that bounced once and left him sprawled flat. The truck driver didn’t even notice, just honked twice and kept rolling down the street.
Shu lay there, staring at the sky, coughing out a disbelieving laugh. “I… am so lucky.”
Back in the ruined room, Kentaro stood at the broken window, staring. For a second, he said nothing. Then his shoulders started shaking.
“…No way…”
He started laughing. Hard. The kind of laughter that came from disbelief and pure joy mixed together.
“Unreal,” he wheezed between breaths, gripping the frame to steady himself.
He threw his head back, roaring with laughter that echoed down the empty halls. “Holy shit, that was insane!”
Kenji was still filming, tears of laughter in his voice. “It’s perfect! What a transition to the next scene! Pure cinema!”
Itsuro just pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering in quiet defeat. “I hate him. I hate him so much.”
Kentaro, still laughing like a maniac, slammed his hand against the cracked wall. “That guy’s my favorite person now!”
Kentaro showed up first, still half-covered in plaster dust and with a small cut on his cheek that was already scabbing over. He was grinning ear to ear, jacket slung over his shoulder, enjoying the leftover adrenaline.
Kenji welcomed him “Perfect timing! The prodigal delinquent returns from his brawl with destiny!”
Kentaro dropped onto a crate, stretching his arms over his head. “Yo, camera freak, you get my good side?”
"I can't film what doesn't exist, sadly."
Itsuro didn’t even look up from where he leaned against a rusted support beam. “Try ‘returns from destroying two floors of property’ instead.”
Kentaro laughed. “What, you didn’t like the performance?”
“So,” Itsuro dryly ignored the question. “How did it feel? That's basically what we're up against.”
The metal door at the far end groaned open, and Rin stepped. Her eyes narrowed the moment they landed on Kentaro.
“Oh, hey, gopher girl. Sorry about earlier, the prez got in the way.” He leaned back lazily, grin widening to something deliberately crude. “If you want my attention, though, you can always ask nicely.”
Rin’s eye twitched. “…Excuse me?”
Itsuro didn’t even lift his gaze from the ground, though his tone carried a faint note of warning. “Kentaro.”
Kentaro snorted, hands raised. “Relax. I’m kidding.” He turned his smirk back on Rin. “Mostly.”
Rin muttered something under her breath.
“Ah, tension between the co-stars. Excellent for behind the scenes extras.” said Kenji already moving to capture the moment.
“Point that thing somewhere else,” Rin snapped.
Kenji pouted but obeyed.
Itsuro finally straightened, brushing dust from his coat. “Enough. You got your fun. Now tell me—what do you think?”
Kentaro rolled a shoulder, considering. “’Bout the Prez?”
“About everything,” Itsuro said.
Kentaro chuckled. “He’s… unreal. Guy’s like a magnet for freak coincidences. You think you’ve got him cornered, and the universe throws him a damn trampoline.”
“Truck, actually,” Kenji corrected, grinning. “He landed on one. though a scene witth a trampoline appearing out of nowhere...”
“Yeah, whatever,” Kentaro said, rubbing his chin. “Point is, I like him. Not in the ‘friends forever’ way, don’t get me wrong. But he’s fun to hit. Keeps things interesting.”
Itsuro’s eyes narrowed, gauging him. “So?”
“So,” Kentaro said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, “I’m in. You freaks wanna shake things up, I’ll help. Long as I get my fill and we make sure the plan doesn’t flop.”
Rin frowned. “You sure you’re not just in it for the fights?”
Kentaro smirked at her. “Who says I can’t have both?”