Yin

Yin is very much antisocial. She rejects things like love and friendship as not based on logic and hindering daily life. She tries to stay rational most of the time, always looking for the best possible result for her. Usually that works very well for her, as she rarely feels any kind of emotion and if so she needs a lot of time to interpret it. Her expression is mostly neutral emotionless. She does smile occasionally for a split second. But usually it goes right back to neutral right away.

Yin lived as a pretty normal teenager for the first 17 years of her life. She didn’t have special abilities and lived in a normal home, with her brother Shinji and her parents who neglected them a bit, often being on journeys together leaving the children alone at home. Yin liked to use her computer a lot, learned programming and even hacking. She had fun with logic, maths, physics etc. Meanwhile her brother got into gang activities, first just dealing with drugs to gain some extra money, but soon doing drugs himself, skipping school all the time and so on. Yin never had any close relationship with anyone in her family. So when her parents died in an accident on one of their journeys she was really numb about it, not really caring too much. From that point on her older brother gained custody for her, didn’t really care too much though. He didn’t do much more apart from giving her a bit of money to live on each day and paying the rent.

One day after school Yin saw her brother turning into an alleyway. Curious about why he went there, she followed him. He met up with a guy who kinda looked a little... off. So she watched them. It seems the guy wanted to buy information from Shinji, but he apparently didn't have them. Yin just wanted to go as she witnessed something she didn’t expect. The guy pulled out a knife and before she could even blink, it was sticking out of Shinji’s chest. Yin just watched how her brother died.
Instead of getting emotional, sad, angry or whatever else she started thinking. No Shinji… That meant no rent at first. She might have to move under a bridge and trying to live off garbage as food. Maybe she could work out something with government aid. These were her first thoughts. But before she could think them through, The guy noticed her. Naturally, as she watched him committing a crime, he was about to kill her as well, following the no witness rule but he changed his mind when he saw her expression. Cold, Rational. Not at all bothered by the corpse on the ground. He thought she was interesting and introduced himself to her as Akaya. She did not see that coming but that was a great opportunity. If he wasn’t gonna kill her, maybe she could take advantage of the situation in a way. "Yin, the sister of that dead guy", she introduced herself calmly. Whoever that guy was, it seems like he was impressed by her reaction. “You seem awfully untouched by his passing. Interested in a deal?” “The alternative would be you killing me? Sure, tell me about it”, she replied, not even showing a fragment of emotion over her brother or even fear for her own death. It seems the guy expected the reaction, he grinned as she understood. He went on explaining the details. He'd turn her into something called an Esper, which would grant her special abilities, including eternal youth. Death would only be possible through an accident or homicide. Age wouldn’t be a bother anymore. In turn she'd have to help him with some kind of thing has to be taken care of He’d explain the details later. The whole story didn’t make much sense but Yin knew how fast he killed Shinji. There was no other way to escape certain death.

Akaya exchanged Phone numbers with Yin, then sent her home, telling her he'd call her to explain everything. She was slightly surprised. That’d give her time to plan an escape or find another way out of this. However Akaya seemed to know what she was thinking. “Look down”, he said. What she saw was yet another surprise. her shadow was moving around slightly “I’m watching you. And in case you do anything... “ He went on smiling and pointed at Shinji’s corpse. the shadow grew and a small black hole appeared, slowly sucking in the corpse. A small finger movement and the black hole disappeared before the ground could be sucked in. “Well, that would be cleaning done. See you tomorrow” And with these words he left the scene. Yin was quite impressed by the ability but she understood. Whoever this guy, Akaya was, he knew what he was doing. She liked that. His actions made sense and were easy to understand. For a split second her face showed a smile. Sure whatever he did wasn’t quite logical but it happened. So it had to be real. The whole Esper thing seemed a lot more likely now as well. Yin went home, it’d take some time until anyone would find out what happened, so she should be able to live in the house for a few more days.

The next day the teacher at school announced an exchange student, who just moved to this city, now living with his grandfather. Yin recognized the guy who walked in the room. It was none other than Akaya. He did look quite a bit different (more natural eye color, the Kanji on his face was gone) but Yin still recognized him. Everyone in the class was curious about him, trying to get his number/ infos about him, he was instantly popular in class. Of course when he walked home with the outsider Yin, who doesn't really have anything to do with anyone from class, usually described as creepy and someone to keep away from, they were a little shocked.

They went to Akayas home together and met up with Shonin, whom Akaya introduced as his grandfather. He said Shonin would explain everything. He said he was a creature with super human abilities. His species was called 'Numbers' based on the fact that there are 20 of them who all have a number assigned to them. The god - Eldrion - ruled over them, until a while ago he got assassinated by a creature from another dimension, even stronger than a god. Apparently most of the numbers either got killed or decided to work with him out of fear. Some Numbers who weren't present at the time - like Shonin are currently somewhere on earth hiding. He insisted, he’d do something about it hif he could, but he just isn't strong enough to do anything as he gave up his abilities for knowledge a long time ago. He lived on earth ever since and... apparently adopted a child once, which was Akaya's mother. He's now looking for 6 people to turn them into espers and make them fight the creature who killed Eldrion. The first being his 'grandson' Akaya. For the element of darkness. Light, Fire, Water, Air and Earth were still missing. It was necessary to have at least one of each element to beat that being, too many would cause a commotion though, thus the goal was to find only one of each element. As Akaya somehow gained the ability to tell the element of a person by looking at them when he became an Esper (which is apparently unusual), he was the one looking for suited individuals, while Shonin took care of the device, that’d actually turn them into Espers. He called it holy water.

Of course this whole explanation seemed somewhat fantastic and hard to believe, including the idea that Akaya was only an average normal high school boy who just happened to be an esper, but there was no reason for her to reject the story. It’d only increase her risk of being killed after all. “I’ve thought about it since yesterday. I still stand by my word of course, however I’d like to propose another condition. My brother paid the rent for the apartment we lived in so far but he can’t do that anymore. I think I’ll be kicked out by the end of the month. Will you help me with that? In return I’ll help you with your problem as good as I can.” Upon her request Shonin looked at her confused. “Oh, yeah that’s my fault” Akaya explained with an excusing smirk. The other seemed like he didn’t really know how to reakt, but a few seconds later he got himself together. “Fine, she can live here… The house is big enough.” “Alright, then that’s settled. Go on and do your holy water thing”, Yin went on.
He pulled out a small vial containing a golden liquid. He put a drop of it on a knife, then handed the weapon over to Akaya. He just smiled. Then he stabbed Yin with the knife. She didn’t expect that. She couldn’t even react, it was so fast. As she looked down, she saw the handle sticking out of her chest. But there was no pain, no blood. Nothing. She was alright. Akaya pulled out the knife and she carefully put her fingers on the wound… Well there wasn’t one. Her clothes had a hole in them but she herself was perfectly fine. Her eyes widened in a moment of surprise but soon she adapted to this new information. So this is how one becomes an Esper. The water was probably the reason why the knife had a different effect. A short moment after, she felt a weird sensation in her body. Some kind of energy was filling her up. Looking down to her hands, she discovered a slight glow around them, some little flashes built up between her hands. Right. She was supposed to gain some kind of ability. Intuitively she tried to control the electricity around her and formed it into a ball of light, which became smaller and smaller until she made it disappear. It all felt surprisingly natural to her. She could easily control that ability despite having it for only a few seconds by now.
“Not bad”, Akaya said to her obviously impressed. “I needed a bit longer to get the hang of it. It seems you’re good at adapting to new things, aren’t you?” He smiled. Satisfied with how everything worked out. Shonin didn’t really look that pleased, but he didn’t say anything. They spent the rest of the day Moving Yin’s stuff to the house.

Later in the evening as Yin was about to go to bed, she overheard a conversation between Shonin and Akaya. Shonin seemed upset. “You know… I’ve been accepting you but what you’re doing now is just reckless!” “I don’t know what you mean, ‘grandpa’” He replied with a sarcastic smile, obviously satisfied with whatever he did the last few days. The way he pronounced Grandpa was kinda weird. The old one got even more upset. “Yeah of course not. You killed someone. Okay. That was to be expected. But then you go and bring his sister here? Don’t you think that’s reckless?” “Didn’t you see her before? Her abilities are insane for a human. I’ve never seen someone with so much potential, it’s incredible to have her on our side.” “Exactly that’s the point, what if she wants revenge now?!” Akaya sighs. Then his expression changes. It was serious. Almost scary. “Do you not trust my judgement, Shonin?” His voice sounded cold, menacing. It seemed like the old one wanted to counter again but upon looking in Akaya’s face, he gave up. “As you wish.” Obviously not quite convinced. Akaya’s expression changed back to his usual smirk in the brink of a moment “Glad we can agree on something”
Yin now knew for sure, that the story she heard before wasn’t the whole truth. She also knew she could probably escape with her newly gained ability pretty easily. However she saw no reason to do so. She didn’t know what to take Revenge for, she didn’t know where she would escape to. She just gained a place to live, that was probably better than any of the places she lived at before and well… As the whole esper thing was true, there was probably an actual thread, she’d be targeted, now that she had that ability. Maybe she could choose to work with the enemy but that would be a huge risk. Staying here and helping them would be her best option for now. She also had something to occupy herself with now.

Over the next few days, the two of them tried to live a normal life. They went to school each day, they ate together like a family, Shonin kinda took over as a parenting figure, as well as helping her with the use of her abilities. She picked up on how to control it soon. In fact her abilities improved so much she could cause actual lightnings. She could use the light to transport herself in immense speed, turn on electrical devices without power and so on. Additionally she overheard a few more interesting conversations. It seemed like contrary to what she first thought, Shonin wasn’t really the one initiating the plan, but it was Akaya. Apparently a Number as well, just like the old guy. In fact, old guy might be the wrong word. Akaya despite looking young seemed to be a lot older than Shonin. He had immense knowledge of almost everything. Well that all kinda explains how he looks too. Apparently he was once known as the god of death. What a title. At some point Yin just stepped into the room during one of these conversations. As Shonin jumped up, asking her with shaky voice: “How much have you heard?”, clearly unsure what to do, she just brushed it aside. “If you want me to know the whole truth, why not tell me directly? It’s not like you didn’t know I could hear you this whole time.” Shonin just looked kinda shocked and desperate from one to another. Akaya just started laughing. “It was fun wasn’t it? Would be boring if I had just told you.” He took his pipe, a beautiful one with a dragon ornament on it and puffed out a ring of smoke in the air. Right now he really didn’t seem like the casual teenager at all. He didn’t have contact lenses, his red eyes glared at yin, seemingly glowing in the dimly lit room. The kimono he wore gave him almost a majestic sort of presence. While his appearance was that of a young guy he seemed wise. He sighed. “Well, I guess by now you already know most of it.” He asked her to sit down, Shonin did too. Then he started explained everything.
Eldrion the god of this world - didn’t actually create any living being. He only set the parameters so life could develop on its own. None of the other gods did that in their world. After all, a lot of patience is necessary for that to work. Patience none other than Eldrion had. He was always the weird one within the gods. In the end his experiment was a success. After thousands of years, humans developed. A species resembling the form of gods. There was also something else unique about Eldrion, he was incredibly bad at creation, Which is also why he needed several attempts to finish his first living creation and maybe also the reason why he choose to make the world as he did. His first successful actual creation happened to be Akaya. There’s a good chance though, he did base the numbers on the ideas of someone else though. Within his time Eldrion made 20 successful creations, the 20 Numbers. Akaya being number one, Shonin being number 2. Many others dead by now, some who might’ve joined the enemy, some who might’ve ran away. In fact, the only two known to be alive and actively trying to take down that being were in the room with Yin right now.
Akaya who got put under a curse by the being, who attacked them, which didn’t even leave him access to a tenth of his abilities.. Just a bit less than the power Yin can use right now. Additionally his scythe was sealed. A suiting weapon can increase a person’s power drastically as well. All he could do was trying to get away. He did have the holy water for occasions like that luckily, as the first Number Eldrion trusted him with it. He would’ve preferred to rely on Numbers to help him, however that wasn’t possible as he didn’t know where they were. He could only turn humans into espers. His only choice. By having one of each element - the stronger, the safer - they could perform a specific spell that would most likely kill the being now occupying the temple - as Eldrion’s former residence was called. However they were working on research to break Akaya’s curse as well as trying to find strong humans to join the plan as strength would most likely help against the being’s minions who’d certainly find them sooner or later. And once he killed all 20 Numbers he’d start changing the planet into something worse than one could ever imagine.
On the note of Espers, he explained, he hadn’t even found Shonin when he met Yin the first time. He was looking for information from Shinji, who couldn’t help him. As he got aggressive, Akaya killed him.

A few days ago, this story would’ve sounded as fantastic as the first one to Yin, but by now it made sense. What she saw, her ability, the things she observed around Akaya and Shonin, in fact, it made a lot of sense.
“I see. So that’s how everything went down. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”, she asked. Shonin looked worried. “I don’t get why you told her the story… What if she doesn’t want to fight anymore by now? Now she knows how weak she is compared to you at full strength… And you had no chance beating him with the help of 18 others your strength.” Akaya sighed. “Well, we didn’t have a plan. We were unprepared. Some unfortunate things happened too… Just don’t talk about that failure too much. I mean… You weren’t even there”, he replied to Shonin. “Despite that... “, he turned towards Yin, getting closer to her and stroking her hair, kind of like a pet. She just let it happen. It felt nice. She didn’t remember the last time someone did that to her. “This girl is perfect. She might just surpass the level of a Number, don’t you think?” he smiled. Yin looked down on her hand. A small flash of light appeared for a short moment. She didn’t realize how impressive her ability was. But that was good. That would most certainly increase their chances. She didn’t want to give away this life she just got. So the plan had to turn out successful. “I decided to tell you the truth. But you know our cover story. As soon as anyone else will joins us Shonin will be the nice old grandfather and both of us are casual teenagers, alright? Others might not take it as well as you do.” Yin nodded. That was understandable.

Throughout the next few days life went on normal. School, training abilities, hanging out with Akaya, looking out for people who’d fit in the Group of espers. Well… Akaya was the one looking.
After a while Akaya decided, to look out for a weapon suiting for Yin. As she was very fast and speed oriented, he suggested something of short range. So in the end they decided to get blades for her, she could attach to her arms. Once she had the weapons, he suggested she’d get used to them by practicing without using her ability at first. He trained with her a bit, but he decided the best option for her would be to get real life experience. This was the time, he started bringing her with him to the Underground. He knew some people there. Very shady and untrustworthy ones, however they often had incredibly useful information. Rumors, weird stories, leads to the minions of the godkiller, as they went on calling their enemy by now. Often they’d get into fights with them. Instead of Akaya getting rid of them right away, he let Yin do the job. At first she wasn’t that good at fighting and often had to use her abilities to strike them down, but soon she improved. As Akaya already predicted, killing these people didn’t pose any emotional complications for her at all.
They tried to avoid encounters with Minions at the time, only trying to observe them with Akaya’s abilities. They didn’t want to draw any attention to them right now, as 4 Elements were still missing. However that should change soon.

Looking out for potential supporters turned out harder than expected. Akaya could tell the element but not their strength. If there strength was lacking they wouldn’t turn into espers, they would just die. Despite that he’d also have to find ways to convince them of their plan. With Yin it was easy. He had a feeling she’d be suited. He kinda knew immediately that she’d be on board with him. But so far that hasn’t happened to him with anyone else.
So after a while they changed strategy. Instead of finding people with suited element, they were looking for people with suited personality. Something Yin could do as well. Someone who’d be willing to die in order to rescue the world. And if they happened to have a fitting element, they’d be turned into Espers. Well they’d try to.

Surprisingly Yin was the first one who got an idea. On a break at school, she overheard a conversation between Ryo, the class president and member of the student council with his girlfriend Haruka from a year below. At first Yin only listened, because she didn’t have anything better to do but soon she got an idea. They were talking about a magical girl anime Haruka asked Ryo to watch. Haruka seemed obsessed with it. Not really with the anime itself, more with the Idea that came with it. Magical girls. She loved them. So much so, she even tried to incorporate one. Apparently she wasn’t only obsessed with their cute looks, but also with their dedication to safe the planet. And that’s when a thought crossed into Yin’s mind What if they’d offer her to become something… somewhat similar to a magical girl?

Akaya was on board with the idea, so operation Haruka could begin. As the girl walked along the corridor back to her own classroom, expecting nothing special to happen, she heard a voice. “The earth is in danger.” She turned around, but there was nobody. Because Yin already disappeared using her ability to become faster. Haruka was confused. But she brushed the incident aside. The next day something similar happened. “We need your help!” was what the voice said this time. Now Haruka started taking this a bit more serious. And when she found a note with an address she should go to as soon as possible in her locker, she was about to go. But she was afraid, what if it was a trap? Then she heard the voice again. “Follow the light” she was confused, but soon she saw something she couldn’t explain. A ball of light was… floating in the air? It gave off a blueish cold light. small flashes came out of it. This was the final piece to convince her. There had to be something supernatural going on. She followed the light - which was caused by Yin, who was walking behind her - until she got to the address on the note she found. She rang the door Unsure what to expect. Yin meanwhile got in the house through the back door without Haruka seeing her.
Shonin opened the door. He looked like a wise old man. Even if tired. His clothes were unusual for the time period, his hair longer than the hair of usual old people. “I see my message reached you. Please come in.” He greeted Haruka. “Did you… Make the light ball? The Voice? Everything?” He just looked at her, sad. “Come in, my child. You’ll find out everything soon.” Since everything felt somewhat magical and unreal, Haruka did not even think about being suspicious. Both of them took their seat inside the house, where Shonin told her a similar story to the one Yin heard when she first met them. Both Akaya and Yin entered the room during the story and took place left and right to Shonin. He explained to her, that they choose her because she had a great chance to be successful, but there was still a chance it might fail. He ended his explanation with a question. “Are you willing to risk your life to get back this world?” First she was unsure. This was indeed her dream, however this is the first time she got confronted with a phrase like ‘risking your life’. After taking a deep breath, she said: “I’m willing to risk my life. Please let me help you!” Akaya pulled out the knife, Shonin put the golden water on it, then he stabbed her.
She was a lot more confused and scared by the whole situation than Yin was. But it was successful. She became an esper.

Haruka didn’t learn control over her abilities even remotely at the same pace Yin did. She had by far more difficulties. As Akaya estimated her potential he figured she’d probably be able to get as strong as he was right now, while Yin already passed that mark. When Akaya said, that this wasn’t bad for a human, Yin first started realizing, how insane her abilities were. Of course strength isn’t everything. It only measures basically the amount of energy they could use before getting tired, not strategy or general control. Still, having a huge pool of energy is incredibly helpful in battle. With practice strength can be increased but everyone has a different limit at which it is impossible to improve further. At least not this component of the ability.
Luckily Haruka managed to make improvements on controlling her ability soon, so she could create plants, that grew at the pace she wanted, in the direction she wanted, she could create flowers growing on them emitting special odors, which had differing effects on people. Haruka took all her tasks very seriously, trying to improve as much as possible. But she soon learned that something was off. She’d occasionally ask Yin why she lives with Shonin, but the only reply she’d get would be “It’s complicated” - not very satisfying. She’d also watch Akaya and Yin going out in the evening, prepared for battle, even though they said they would try not to cause any commotion until all six elements were present. When she tried to follow them once, Akaya noticed and warned her to stay home. She could maybe join them as soon as her abilities got better. That made her feel somewhat distant from the other two. Yin didn’t feel anything towards her at the time really. To her she was only there to fulfill her task, that was it.
Haruka kept her bad feeling about Yin and Akaya to herself. She would’ve loved to talk to her boyfriend about it but she couldn't. He didn’t know about anything. She took the secretive part of it very serious. Obviously though he picked up on something, since she was behaving differently. Spending a lot of time somewhere without wanting to tell him where (training) generally being absent and a bit off most of the time. As Ryo tried to get her to talk one day, Yin and Akaya watched the scene.

As soon as Haruka left, Akaya started talking to him. “Arguing with your girlfriend?” “None of your business” The other one just replied, clearly not really fond of Akaya. It was pretty clear Ryo didn’t like him from the first day on. There was no specific reason for that. He just didn’t like the vibes Akaya gave him.