Hakari Hiragana was sitting at the rooftop while conversing with Koneko, by conversing it means he was just keeping her company.
For a year now him and her have become somewhat inseparable friends. Hakari had dirty white hair and dark eyes and he had a secret, he was born with immense psychic powers and he could subtly remember his past life but that was it.
His past life's mind was too weak and instead got devoured, in fact it wouldn't be an Overstatement to say that Hakari has an entire psychic dimension to himself, he was sure due to his appearance psychic beings have begun to awaken one by one all across the world.
But that was currently not his problem, he was quite low-key and didn't want to involve himself with that.
Like Koneko, he liked peace and quiet so it wasn't surprising that they became such inseparable friends. "Do you want to hang out at my place today?."
Koneko didn't respond immediately. She remained perched on the edge of the rooftop, her small frame framed by the orange glow of the setting sun. She took a slow, methodical bite of a chocolate bar, the crinkle of the wrapper the only sound between them.
For Hakari, the silence wasn't awkward—it was familiar. His psychic awareness allowed him to feel the steady, rhythmic hum of her presence, which was far more honest than words anyway.
"Is there more chocolate?" she asked softly, her golden eyes shifting toward him.
"Little kitten, you really shouldn't eat too much sweets, how about i tell my mom to make some fish soup."
"Fish soup," she repeated, the corner of her mouth twitching in a way that—to anyone else—would look like nothing, but to Hakari, was a clear sign of interest. She hopped down from the ledge with the grace of a feline, landing soundlessly on the concrete. "Your mom makes the good kind. Not the oily kind."
Hakari chuckled, standing up and dusting off his uniform. "I'll make sure she knows. She'll probably be thrilled to see you again anyway. I think she likes you more than she likes me at this point."
As they began to head toward the rooftop door, Hakari felt a sudden, sharp ripple in the air—a psychic static that prickled at the back of his neck. It was faint, like a radio station tuning in from a thousand miles away, but it was distinct. Somewhere in the city, another "awakening" was fluttering to life, drawn perhaps by the sheer gravity of his own dormant power.
He masked the slight furrow in his brow. He didn't want to deal with entities or destiny today; he just wanted to enjoy the evening.
When they reached the street and out of the school, Hakari suddenly asked a question that startled Koneko. "Little Kitten, do you think the supernatural exists."
Hakari is not aware of supernatural creatures except for himself and the other psychics, the memories from his other self are gone and have fully assimilated with his vast mental world which he deemed to be the psychic dimension or also known as the Source Of Psychic Power.
Koneko paused mid-stride, her signature stoic expression faltering for a fraction of a second. She didn't look at him directly, instead focusing on a stray cat crossing the street a few meters ahead.
For a member of the Gremory household, the question was loaded. She lived in a world of devils, fallen angels, and ancient magic—a world she assumed Hakari was blissfully unaware of. She caught the scent of his aura; it was calm, vast, and oddly deep, but he never gave off the aggressive energy of a Sacred Gear user or a rogue mage. To her, he was just Hakari—her quiet, dependable anchor.
"Why are you asking?" she asked, her voice maintaining its usual monotone, though her tail (hidden beneath her skirt) gave a tiny, nervous flick.
Hakari gave a mysterious smile. "Hmmm maybe because my little kitten is phenomenal."
Koneko stopped walking entirely. She looked up at him, her golden eyes searching his face for any hint of a joke or a hidden meaning. The word "phenomenal" hung in the air, weighted with a significance she wasn't sure he understood. For a moment, she wondered if he had seen her use her inhuman strength, or if he had sensed the feline spirit she kept tightly suppressed.
"I'm just Koneko," she finally muttered, turning her head away to hide the faint dust of pink creeping onto her cheeks. "There's nothing phenomenal about me."
"Well I would disagree, you're a great friend and also a good person." Hakari said with a small laugh, if he wanted he could read her mind and listen into her reaction but he wasn't the type to go around and interfere with people's privacy.
"Besides," Hakari added, breaking the silence, "the world is too big for there to be nothing else out there. Sometimes, I look at the stars and feel like they're looking back. Or I look at you, and I feel like I'm looking at something... special."
Koneko's pace slowed. She was used to being called "cute" by the school's persistent admirers or "valuable" by those in the underworld, but Hakari's brand of appreciation was different. It wasn't about her utility or her looks; it was about her presence.
Though his words did make her feel a bit strange, she hid her face away from Hakari "Don't say things like that," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the distant hum of evening traffic. "It's weird."
Hakari just grinned, his hands tucked into his pockets. He could feel the "static" from earlier growing slightly more insistent, a persistent itch at the edge of his consciousness. It felt like a beacon was being lit somewhere in the industrial district—a raw, unrefined burst of psychic energy. It was someone new, someone frightened.
Not now, he thought, mentally pushing the sensation into the depths of his internal dimension. The vast, starry expanse within his mind swallowed the signal, silencing the noise. He wouldn't let some stray telepathic flare ruin the walk home.
"Is it weird to appreciate a friend?" Hakari asked playfully. "I'll have to remember that. Next time I'll just tell you that you're grumpy and eat too much chocolate."
"I'm not grumpy," Koneko countered instantly, though the tension in her shoulders had finally bled away. She walked a little closer to him, her sleeve occasionally brushing against his arm. "And I don't eat too much."
He chuckled at her adamant behaviour. "Really, then you dont want to eat my mother's fish soup?."
Koneko went quiet, her pace faltering for exactly one heartbeat. The threat of losing out on the soup was the only thing capable of truly shaking her resolve. She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing into a tiny, feline glare that lacked any real heat.
"That's foul play," she whispered.
"Is it?" Hakari teased, his dark eyes glimmering with a warmth that seemed to defy the cold, vast power slumbering within him. "I thought you didn't eat too much. Surely missing one bowl of soup wouldn't be a problem for someone with such legendary self-control."
Koneko puffed out her cheeks slightly—a rare, unguarded show of emotion. "I'll eat it. Just to be polite to your mother."
"Of course. For the sake of politeness," Hakari agreed, his voice dripping with mock-seriousness.
Soon the two arrived at Hakari's house and entered, of course they both took of their shoes.
"Mom, I'm home! And I brought a guest," Hakari called out, his voice echoing through the modest, warm hallway.
The scent of simmering dashi and ginger already wafted through the air, a domestic comfort that stood in stark contrast to the cold, cosmic scale of the dimension Hakari carried within his soul. From the kitchen, a cheerful voice responded, followed by the rhythmic thump-thump of quick footsteps.
"Koneko-chan! Oh, it's been far too long," Hakari's mother, Shizuka, appeared, wiping her hands on a floral apron. Her eyes lit up the moment she saw the petite girl standing behind her son. She bypassed Hakari entirely, heading straight for Koneko with a radiant smile.
"I was just starting the broth. You're just in time."
Koneko gave a polite, stiff bow, though her eyes were already drifting toward the kitchen. "Thank you for having me, Hiragana-san."
"Go on, you two, get settled in the living room. Hakari, don't just stand there like a statue, get her some tea!"
Hakari gave a helpless shrug toward Koneko, a silent 'See? I told you' passing between them. As Koneko moved toward the table, Hakari paused. For a split second, the world around him seemed to lose its color, turning into a grainy, silver-and-black landscape.
The "static" he had felt earlier hadn't gone away; it had mutated. It wasn't just a psychic awakening anymore.
Within his mind he spoke.
[I see..Emotions....it seems the psychic dimension is beginning to create...Life, Psychic creatures who were born from the emotions of the neglected psychics.]
Once upon a time, Hakari was in charge of helping the newly awakened psychics stabilize but he had gotten tired of it and his dimension decided to create mindless creatures of emotions that will appear into this reality once a psychic that was about to awaken is attacked.
They will go on a ceaseless rampage and once the psychic awakened they would stop protecting them and turn on them, it is a simple indigenous method but it was also inefficient.
But what could he do, who was he to stop the natural evolution of an entire dimension, the psychic beasts were weak but they were strong enough to stop normal humans.
"Hakari?."
Hearing his mom, Hakari immediately went to do his task. "Coming."
After he was done preparing the tea, he took it to the small table and then sat next to Koneko, they weren't that much apart from each other so their shoulders occasionally brushed. Koneko was staring intently at the steam rising from her cup, but Hakari could tell her focus was split. Being a Nekomata, her senses were naturally sharper than a human's, and she seemed to be picking up on the sudden, heavy stillness that had settled over him in the hallway.
"You're being loud," Koneko murmured, her voice a low vibration.
Hakari blinked, startled out of his internal monologue. "Loud? I haven't said a word."
"Your head," she clarified, tapping her own temple with a pale finger. "You have that look. Like you're listening to something far away. It's distracting."
Hakari reached for his tea, the ceramic warmth grounding him. He marveled at her intuition. She couldn't see the silver-and-black landscape or the shifting tides of the Source, but she could feel the ripples he left in reality just by existing.
"Just thinking about the soup," he lied smoothly, though his mind was already calculating.
If the psychic beasts—the Egregores born from suppressed trauma—were beginning to manifest, the local "supernatural" authorities would eventually take notice. He didn't know about Devils or the Gremory family specifically, but he knew that any flare-up of energy usually attracted predators or 'protectors.'
I'll have to stabilize the rift tonight, he thought. If I don't, these mindless manifestations will start appearing in the shopping districts. That would be too noisy.
"Liars don't get second helpings," Koneko said, her golden eyes locking onto his. She didn't believe him for a second, but she didn't push. In their year of friendship, they had established a silent pact: some secrets were meant to stay buried, as long as the person holding them remained the same.
Hakari thought for a second then hesitated for a bit but he quickly came to a decision. "Is that so...then let's improve our relationship and we can stop lying to each other."
The air in the room seemed to thicken, not with the heavy psychic static Hakari was used to, but with a sudden, localized tension. Koneko's hand, which had been reaching for her tea, paused mid-air. She didn't pull away, but her body went as still as a statue, her golden eyes widening just a fraction as she processed his words.
"Improve our relationship?" she repeated. The phrase sounded clinical, but her heart—which Hakari could hear thumping like a small, trapped bird—suggested otherwise. "We're already friends, Hakari."
"Yeah but being just friends would make me feel guilty about lying to you."
Hakari leaned back slightly, the casual mask he wore every day slipping just enough for a hint of his true, vast nature to peek through. "Friends keep secrets to protect each other," he said, his voice dropping to a gentle hum. "But I think we've reached a point where the secrets are starting to feel like walls. And I don't like walls between us."
Koneko set her cup down with a soft clack. She looked at him, really looked at him, searching his dark eyes. She felt the weight of her own secret—the devil wings, the power of the Nekomata, the contract she served under Rias Gremory. She had always assumed that telling him would break the peaceful life he lived. She saw him as a fragile, precious piece of normalcy in her chaotic world.
"You first then," she challenged, her voice small but firm. "If we're breaking walls, you show me yours first."
"I'll take that as you agreeing to take our relationship further, now then hold my palm."