They took the canal shortcut when the clouds cleared.
The rain had stopped for nearly an hour by the time school let out, and Osaka was blooming in that golden-light way it did after long weather — everything gleaming, puddles rimmed with sun, rooftops dripping.
The canal path wasn't the fastest way home.
But it was quieter.
And Lisa liked the smell of the water.
The bridge itself was barely wide enough for two bicycles. A rusted metal frame, painted green once, now mostly corroded gray. It arched over the canal where the water rushed fast and brown, carrying leaves and lost toys toward the floodgates two blocks east.
Kyo always walked slightly behind her.
Not out of shyness — it was just how he moved.
Like a shadow a step removed from the world.
Lisa paused halfway across.
A candy wrapper was stuck in the corner of the railing, spinning in the breeze like it wanted to take flight.
She reached for it — careless, leaning too far—
Her shoe skidded on wet metal.
Clang.
The rusted rail snapped.
One bolt. Then two.
And Lisa pitched forward.
Kyo moved.
There was no thought. No plan. Just velocity.
One hand on the metal beam. The other stretching out—
"Lisa—!"
Her fingers slipped from the edge.
He leapt.
The fall should have broken them.
The embankment was concrete.
The drop — more than four meters.
Lisa's head should have struck first.
Instead:
The air folded.
The world tilted, shimmered.
Not like magic.
Like pressure shifting inside out.
Kyo's body twisted midair. His arm wrapped around Lisa. A ripple of force coiled outward from his spine and hit the canal wall like a silent explosion.
The dust didn't rise. It hovered.
Their impact barely left a mark.
They hit — and didn't break.
Time snapped back.
Kyo gasped — sharp, loud — lungs seizing like he'd never used them before.
Lisa lay half-curled on top of him, unconscious, one hand clenched around her uniform collar. Her hair was wet. A trickle of blood ran from her elbow.
Kyo stared at the sky.
His chest was humming.
Not pain — not adrenaline.
Something deeper.
Like all the motion around him had remembered his name at once.
He sat up slowly.
Dust and pebbles hovered in a circle around his legs — defying gravity by an inch. The air shimmered.
He looked down at his hands.
His left palm glowed faintly — under the skin — a pulse of pale gold, like backlit glass seen through fog.
He clenched it. The light vanished.
"Lisa," he said, hoarse.
She stirred. Eyes fluttered open.
"Ow…"
She looked at him, dazed.
"You caught me?"
He didn't answer. He was still staring at the wall across the canal — where the waterline had rippled in a perfect ring outward.
Then, softly — barely louder than the water moving behind her — she whispered:
"Thanks, Kyo."
That was all.
But it landed like gravity.
Across the street, half-concealed behind the tinted window of a parked surveillance car, a man in a black field jacket lowered his binoculars.
No rank pins. No insignia. Just a wrinkled manila folder open on his lap, filled with grainy printed photos and minor anomaly logs.
His eyes tracked the canal wall, then the kid below it.
He let out a long, tired sigh.
"Well, shit."
He leaned back in the seat. Scratched his chin. Reached for the comm button on the dash.
Then stopped.
Smiled.
Not wide. Just the corner of his mouth.
The kind of smile you give when a bet pays off in the worst way.
"Not today," he muttered.
"Let the kid breathe."
He clicked the folder shut.
Didn't report it.
Didn't write a word.
Then turned the ignition and drove away.