The air in the dimly lit room was thick with unspoken tension. Fifteen figures, their faces obscured by the deep shadows, sat perched on abnormally high chairs. Before them, Jean stood, hands casually holding a stack of paperwork.
"Well, I assume there's no problem with me being summoned here?" Jean's voice was laced with sarcasm.
"A human with no experience with Neavu Rituals? That's the height of it!" one of the masked figures boomed. "He should be cleansed and have his memory erased."
Jean placed a hand on his chin, a subtle smile creeping onto his features.
"But you do know doing that would make him literally forget everything about being human, right?"
"Jean, you dare defy me!?" another figure exclaimed, their tone rising.
"There's only a handful of Essence users appearing on Earth each decade," a third added. "Unless he's here to study the Values, he should be eliminated."
"But I disagree," Jean said, his tone calm as he adjusted his hoodie, obscuring most of his face. "There's something... something unique about him. His essence... it adapts."
"Even so, we can't place him in the practical ritual youth program."
"I won't agree." Jean waved his hands nonchalantly. "You may be the great elders of old, but there will always be a new generation, always a new way of doing things."
"The ancient society of essence manipulation and ritual practice is not to be tampered with!"
"What's the harm in bringing in just one boy?" Jean chuckled, walking away. "Y'all should relax. I'll tutor him personally." He left the elders seething with disdain.
"Problem is, he's been acting on his own impulse and disregarding our societal practices," one elder grumbled.
"What can we do now? It's Jean of the Vandetta family."
A collective sigh filled the room.
_____
The Crime Scene
June 16, 2015
The high school gym was a scene of unspeakable horror. Mortified and twisted bodies lay strewn across the floor. It was a Wednesday.
Police officers lingered, their faces etched with confusion, as forensics meticulously collected samples.
4:13 PM
The official report read: "Investigation has concluded that the cause is incomprehensible and therefore null with sound logic."
Enter: Neavu Personnel.
A sleek black car pulled up, and a platinum-blonde woman stepped out, shielding herself from the drizzling rain with a blue umbrella. She walked toward the crime scene perimeter, where an officer blocked her path.
"Sorry, lady, this is a crime scene."
Elizabeth didn't fret. She reached into her pocket, producing a card with her face and identification.
"I'm with the Neavu Ritual Society."
She walked toward the mangled corpses, her steps measured. An energetic vibration filled the air, shifting the mood from hopeless to something... expectant.
Jean appeared out of thin air.
"Yo."
"Yo,"
Elizabeth replied, unfazed by his abrupt entrance.
"Seems like we've got a lot on our hands, huh?" Jean mused.
"I guess you could say that." Elizabeth's lips quirked into a slight smile. "Ritualist? An unregistered essence user? This doesn't seem to be the handiwork of the Gundam."
"We'll find out soon enough... For now..." Elizabeth slipped on a glove and pulled out a small, portable wooden charm—a carving of a creature with a large head and a small mouth. A strange essence oozed from it.
She knelt, opening a blue-covered notebook, and held the charm over the bodies.
The charm whined and cried, coming to life as it neared the corpses. A smile crept onto Elizabeth's face as she jotted down details.
"I was sure I'd seen something like this before. The residual essence doesn't align with a human being."
"So... an Avenging Soul?" Jean asked.
"A soul, but not an avenging one. This one's smart." Elizabeth tapped her head, a sly smirk playing on her lips.
"So it is a Ritualist," Jean said, lifting his hoodie slightly, his eye visible for a split second.
"How are you so sure it's a Ritualist? I said it doesn't belong to a human."
"It has two distinct spiritual essences mixed together: one's human, the other's a Lingering Soul. They're mixed, but the soul's spiritual essence overshadows the other."
Jean bent down, pointing at the hand marks and strangulation on each corpse's neck.
"You see that? That's human deeds, as in physical touch. Lingering Souls can only interact with the world via a host. This is a human."
"Is that right?" Elizabeth asked.
"I sure am. I'm never wrong!" Jean replied with a wide smile, giving a thumbs-up.
Elizabeth stuffed her charm back into her jacket and pulled out another tool: a pair of glasses, each marked with a sigil. "It seems it went west from here, if my tool isn't out of shape."
"Nah, you're right, I can see it too... Hold up!" Jean whipped out his cellphone, rapidly dialing a number. He mumbled into the phone when it picked up.
"I'm sure you can take care of this nuisance, right, Jean?"
"Yeah, sure, sure. Just drop the coordinates of this Ritualist's whereabouts."
Elizabeth gave Jean the exact coordinates, forming a map from another charm she possessed. Jean waved her off like a child as she drove away, likely headed for another investigation... or a smoke break.
"She's definitely going smoking," Jean chuckled.
__
An abandoned train station reeked of rust, damp air, and an unsettling presence. Nature's claws had claimed every corner, with moss growing from nothingness.
Footsteps echoed, a clear sign of multiple presences in the large, empty area. A hooded figure, a boy, and two girls trailed behind the hooded man, who had a small, inexplicable smile plastered on his face.
The brown-haired boy with a black undercut walked calmly, his steps measured, but an unknown weight of intense atmosphere rested on his bones. The two girls were a stark contrast: one with dark black hair wore a stoic and monotonous expression, while the other beside her was focused on what they had to face.
"Jean... I don't think I like the vibes this place is giving me," June muttered, the hairs on his arms standing up, a small bead of sweat trickling down his face.
"Don't worry about it..." Jean waved June's worry away.
"You cut off our class schedule today for what, exactly?"
"I'm pretty sure Sir Hughes covered the theoretical aspects of essence, its types, and origins, right?" Jean asked.
"Barely..." June said, a vein twitching on his forehead as his mind flashed back to Sir Hughes's lecture yesterday. The teacher had briefly explained Essence, then simply picked up his materials and walked out, leaving June and the rest bewildered by the brevity of his 'derailed' lecture.
"That fish-eyed teacher didn't even explain that much," Rayla expressed her thoughts on Sir Hughes's teaching methods.
Jean chuckled. "Good old Hughes... By the way! This is a more practical exercise. You can't just learn essence; you have to see why it's learned."
Jean explained, pulling a paper charm with a sigil from his baggy jacket. It burned bright blue, covering the majority of the area before spreading further.
The light blinded June for a second. Rayla stood still, as did the stoic-looking girl.
The area morphed, glitching. The trains transformed into large intestines, the platform into bones and cartilage. June looked beneath himself, seeing the incomprehensible phenomenon. The abandoned train station had revealed its true form: a form of flesh.
Jean laughed warm-heartedly, his behavior a stark contrast to the environment June found himself in. "It's like we're inside someone! But how? This place was just a train station a while ago!"
Jean stopped laughing, a look of pure confusion on June's face. Rayla had an annoyed expression, while the other girl had wide, deadpan eyes.
"I thought you'd know what this is by now...?" Jean said.
"Well, I don't," June pouted, folding his arms.
Jean smiled again as he began explaining. "Remember that barrier you said you saw that looks like ink? That's also called a forbidden area. Depending on the individual, he or she will interpret that differently, brushing off what they saw."
"Then how did I see it as a black ink wall?" June countered with another question, tilting his head in curiosity.
"Because only those whose brains recognize their spiritual essence as another component in the body can see areas like that. This person's forbidden area is different in the sense that it's manifesting their interpretation of the world. In this case, maybe he or she was a biology enthusiast. You can tell a lot about an opponent through how they craft their area."
"But that doesn't explain why I can't see this myself."
"Because it's of a higher caliber—not a problem for me, though, but for you," Jean said with a wink.
June nodded in understanding, appreciating Jean's straightforward explanation for the first time since they'd met.
"Well then. I'm off as well!"
Rayla snapped her neck at Jean, who had vanished in a nanosecond. "Damn it!"
"What!" June turned to see Jean gone and Rayla mumbling insults under her breath.
"He's always like that... Son of a— Whatever. What's important now is finding the culprit." Rayla threw a large dagger to June, who caught it with practiced ease. She turned to the stoic girl. "Are you with us, Jenna?"
Jenna nodded in silence, concurring with Rayla.
June wasn't too relaxed with Rayla's determination to complete a mission only God knew how dangerous, but he followed her quietly through the flesh-infested maze.