Blood dripped down from Raito’s mouth. His white bodysuit armor filled with rips revealed bruised and bleeding skin. A helmet cracked in half laid by his feet. Sweat dripped from his black hair. His hazel eyes were locked onto his opponent. Across from him stood a man who appeared to not have a single scratch on him, laughed. Raito shouted out, “I may be down, but I’ll never forfeit this fight! I rather die trying to defeat you!”

Then a mysterious voice yelled out from above, “You won’t have to do this alone!” A man fell out of the sky, wearing the same type of armor as Raito. The man landed on his feet and got into a fighting position, ready to help.

With overwhelming excitement, “Hiro! I thought you were dead!” Yelled Raito.

“We are heroes! When evil is around, justice will be there to stop it! So, until there are no longer villains like Vile, I can never die!” Hiro exclaimed.

Believing Hiro had died, Vile snickered to himself. “You could have lived a normal life and continue to let me believe I had killed you. But now, I’ll make sure you stay dead!” Vile then charged at both Raito and Hiro.

Raito and Hiro looked at each other and nodded their heads in agreement. “We will end this with one attack!” They both yelled. Both began to pull their right arm back to gather energy into their fist. “Juuuuuuustice…..punch!!!” They shouted as they threw out their fist towards Vile. A blast of energy had started to head towards Vile and…….

“Raito! You’re going to be late for school. Get up, just because you’re about to graduate doesn’t mean you should start slacking off,” said Raito’s father while drinking his coffee to start the day. Upon hearing his father’s voice, he jumped up only to realize that the entire fight was nothing more but a dream.

“I’m up I’m up!” He shouted as he rubbed his eyes. He looked over to the poster next to him that had a picture of Hiro and Vile. This wasn’t the first time Raito had dreamt of fighting alongside his favorite fictional character; he became slightly disappointed knowing none of it was real. Realizing he was cutting it close, he tried to look for clothes to wear. With comics and drawing paper all over the floor, it took longer than it should have to find a pair of clean clothes. As Raito tried to run out of his room, his left foot slipped on a comic book that was left on the floor. He was able to catch himself before falling luckily. “I really need to start organizing my stuff better.”

Making his way downstairs, he swung by the kitchen to see his mother sipping her tea and his father switching from bites of toast to swigs of coffee. Raito stopped by his father and picked up his own piece of toast to hold him till he got to school. “I’ll eat something at school. Love you,” he said to his father with a one-arm hug. He turned to his mother, who was still waking up and kissed her cheek. Still learning to speak Japanese, he tried his best to say goodbye to his mother and to have a good day. With the final goodbyes to his parents, Raito practically shot out the door and ran down the block.

Raito had a passion for creating fantasy stories since he was five when he first saw an action-packed anime that left his little eyes sparkling. From that day forward he had tried to imitate those characters by trying to fight, act, and talk like his childhood heroes on TV and in comic books. Thanks to his mother and relatives in Japan, he was learning how to read and write in Japanese to keep his heritage alive. Funny how something as little as animation and comics can change a whole person’s life in an instant.

While at school, Raito tended to daydream about living in a more exciting world. During lectures in class, he would spend most of his time drawing his favorite fictional characters. To improve his drawings, he took several art classes which is where he would practice drawing his own characters.

He had always been a reserved guy when around people but this didn’t stop him from making friends at school. The friends he did make were just friends while in school. Outside of school, Raito would lock himself up in his room to continue drawing but also to practice his Japanese. In all honesty, he never really minded being by himself but did grow envious of kids at school that would hang out outside of school. This type of jealousy only grew bigger when he found out his friends were spending time together without inviting him. The only time they would ever invite him is if they needed a ride since he had his own car.

As the bell rung for school to be over, Raito saw his friends talking to each other. Despite them being far away and whispering among themselves, Raito could hear every word as if he were part of the conversation. Not wanting to make them invite him, he simply began walking home without saying goodbye. While walking, he decided to take out a manga from his backpack. The manga is part of a series called I Am Hero, which was Raito’s favorite manga series. While most kids idolize sports stars or TV stars, Raito preferred fictional characters. Instead of going straight home, he decided to stop by a comic bookstore that was on the way. He was sort of a regular at this comic bookstore, which happened to be a popular spot for locals. He knew everyone that went there and had even tried to make friends there. But making friends at the comic store never really stuck. Besides their love for comics, he never had anything else in common with the people at the store. He also couldn't stand the smell in the store, so he only stayed long enough to see if there were any new comics or mangas that piqued his interest.

Upon entering the store, the manager greeted Raito. “You’re a major fan of that I Am Hero series, right? We just got the sequel series, We Are Hero.”

Excited, Raito walked over to the bookshelves to quickly pick out the new manga. Upon seeing the cover and skimming through the pages, he noticed that they had a new main character. At the end of the original series, Hiro died so he was very curious about how they were going to continue to series. “Huh, this new character reminds me a lot of a previous villain that Hiro had to defeat. Hopefully, it’s just as good.”

Getting ready to leave, Raito took a quick look around to see who was here. That’s when he noticed a new customer standing near a bookshelf of used comics; new customers were rare for the store. The new customer was wearing a tie-dye shirt with green moss color harem pants and had blond hair that was long enough to pass his shoulders. Not someone you would imagine being at a comic bookstore. Raito paid for his new manga and left the store. Not wanting to wait, he started reading his new manga right away. While walking, he could hear footsteps not too far away from him, it sounded as if someone were following him. When he stopped, so did the footsteps. When he started to walk again, he could hear the footsteps moving again. Getting a little freaked out he turned around to see... nobody.

“So, you ARE the new Gift of Sound,” said a voice. Raito quickly turned back around to see… no one. “You’re getting close,” the voice continued to tease. At this point, Raito’s skin started to crawl. Thinking that maybe this voice wasn’t talking to him continued his way home. “You’re giving up already? I’ll give you a hint. Look up.” Once again, Raito froze and realized that this voice was talking to him. Wanting to solve this mystery quickly, he threw his head back to look up. To his surprise, he saw the same guy that was by the used comic bookshelf. Only this time he was laying on his stomach and floating above Raito!

“You found me! My name is Flight and it’s nice to officially meet you,” Flight gushed as he lowered himself down next to Raito.

“How…. how...how did you do that.” Raito stuttered.

With a smile on his face Flight chuckled, “Oh that’s easy, I’m the Gift of Flight. I can fly and I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while but never had a good opportunity.”

As Raito looked at Flight, his terrified expression slowly turned to excitement. His eyes were ready to pop out of his head. “Superpowers are real? Superpowers are real!? Superpowers are REAL! What’s a Gift? Am I a Gift? Why are they call Gifts?”

It turned out that Flight had been following Raito around for about a week but didn’t know how to approach him. Raito usually drove to school and on occasion walked instead, like today, since it was only about a ten-minute walk. Originally, Flight was going to introduce himself at the comic bookstore when Raito was alone. But since Raito was walking home, this led to the perfect opportunity to test Raito’s Gift. Flight had noticed that Raito would often cover his ears as if something was making a loud sound; even when no one was around him. This led Flight to assume that Raito was the Gift of Sound and wanted to test out his theory. “So long story short, you’re like me. A person who possesses a Gift and has powers based on their Gift,” Flight explained.

“So how did I end up with these powers? Am I secretly an alien, did some magic being give me these powers without me knowing, am I humanity's last hope?! Why is it that my power is super hearing!?” Raito rambled on as a million thoughts went through his head.

“Wow! Calm down their buddy. It’s nothing like that…well the magic being is kind of close to the truth. Your powers aren’t limited to only super hearing but instead the ability to manipulate all sound. I guess I should quickly answer your first question on what a Gift is. In all honesty I don’t even know what Gifts are exactly. All I know about them is this; Gifts are some type of divine beings that live inside of us,” Flight said as he poked Raito’s chest. “There is a total of thirty Gifts and each Gift possesses a different kind of power.”

“And I was chosen to be the Gift of Sound!?”

“I wouldn’t go that far but if that helps you better understand the current situation...yah you were chosen to be the Gift of Sound,” Flight teased.

As Flight looked into Ratio’s gleaming eyes, he could feel Ratio’s immense passion of being told he was a Gift. It was like he had just told a five-year-old that they had real superpowers.

Raito, unable to control his happiness went on to ramble to himself about starting his own origin story and being the main character in a new comic book story. But after a brief period of awkward silence as he rambled on to himself, and Flight just standing next to him, decided to ask another question. “You said there are only thirty Gifts and there are like six billion people that live around the world. How do you know I’m a Gift? I don’t see any markings on my body or anything,” Raito questioned while checking out his arms and stomach for any marks.

Flight assured him that there wasn’t anything physical that Raito had that identified himself as a Gift. Each Gift had unique powers but they also had special traits. Traits were bonuses each Gift had, and these traits don’t always relate to their Gift. Sometimes Gifts never discover what their trait was. “My trait is that I can sense Gifts in a fifteen-mile radius. It’s hard to explain but each Gift feels different like each Gift has its own unique scent. It helps me out a lot when determining if what I sense is a Gift I’ve meet already or if it’s someone new. Finding Gifts is sort of my job I guess you can say. Whenever I find a new Gift, I report it to Soul. He’s the guy I sort of work for but he’s not really my boss. He’s more of a friend I can trust.”

“Man, how ironic that you can fly, and your parents named you Flight,” Raito said scratching his head as he tried to understand everything.

“Flights not my real- I mean not the name I was born with. I used to be an orphan. My parents died when I was five,” Flight said softly as he lowered his eyes to look down slightly. Realizing the sudden change of the current mood, Raito tried to apologize but Flight reassured him that it was okay. It happened a long time ago and there was no way for Raito to know. “Well my job here is done, just one last thing to mention. You should never use your powers out in the open. I only did it for a split second so you would know I was a Gift like you-” Flight began to explain.

“Well of course!” Raito said, cutting Flight off. “That’s superhero 101 because if people were to find out that would put my loved ones in danger. Every time the super villain finds out the identity of the hero they always go after their family and friends. A hero must know when to use his powers and when not too!”

“That’s not exactly where I was going with this. Gifts must remain a secret and if you expose yourself. You might attract attention from a Gift you don’t want to get mixed in with.”

“Well if I can’t use my powers out in the open then what can I do with them?”

“Generally, most Gifts use their powers to help them earn some money. A Gift that goes by the name Morph uses her powers to be an actor, she only performs in plays though. The idea is to use your Gift in a way that doesn’t appear that you have powers. You’re the Gift of Sound so maybe be a singer or a musician!”

“I don’t know if I’ll be comfortable with using my powers for things like that. I should use these powers for good like maybe stopping criminals!” Raito roared.

“DON’T!” Flight yelled.

Realizing his outburst, Flight recomposed himself to tell Raito to stay away from using his powers to stop crime. Despite being a Gift, he still had a fragile human body, and one gunshot to the chest would still kill him.

Not wanting to upset Flight anymore, Raito agreed to not use his powers to stop criminals. With Flight’s task being over he handed Raito a piece of paper with his number on it. “I plan on staying in town for a few days. To take a break from traveling, it can get exhausting. If you have any more questions or just want to talk, call me.” The two then parted ways.

Raito had always dreamt about having superpowers and now, just like a story in a comic book, he was given an opportunity to be a hero. Even though he said he wouldn’t stop crime the idea of being a hero still roamed in his mind. With fantasy starting to mix with reality, Raito started to become blind in his ambition to be a hero. The idea of being shot, beaten up, stabbed and all other dangers that can happen when playing hero didn’t even register with him.

Once he made it home, he quickly ran up to his room to stare at the poster with Hiro and Vile fighting. “I’ll be just like you Hiro,” he whispered to himself. Fantasy and reality are about to become one of the same for Raito, and so does the dangers of living in a fantasy world.

Raito, a boy who wished to create fantasy worlds is now about to enter one himself. But there was one more story we must visit. The story of a man that every Gift feared. A Gift so powerful that his mere presence would make anyone beg for their life, Leech. At first his Gift meant nothing but that all changed when he met Timekeeper. Leech’s Gift is the ability to steal other Gift’s power by consuming their heart. His relationship with Timekeeper is simple, when he wanted someone gone, he called for Leech to deal with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Please man! I’ll double whatever Timekeeper is paying you! What’s so wrong about us running a side job? He makes so much money that losing a few thousand bucks is like cheap change!” A man pleaded on his knees with tears running down his eyes; afraid to look up and face the man who was about to end his life. The man could hear a hysterical laugh above him. He then saw a foot swing back and kicked him in the face, knocking him back. “Please Leech, don’t!” The man continued to shout out. Now on his back he could see Leech standing over him, with his signature smile. Leech’s smile had been known to be incredibly intimidating because no one could ever tell what he was thinking of or what his true emotion was. This has led people to believe that killing was like ecstasy for Leech, and his smile was genuine because nothing got him off more than seeing someone die before his hands. Above his smile was his mask that he never took off, a cheshire cat mask that is grey with turquoise stripes. With the bottom half of the mask broken off.

“I don’t want your money, besides like you can double what Timekeeper pays me,” Leech laughed. Leech then proceeded to sit on the man’s chest, grabbed the man by his hair, and pulled it near Leech’s face. “If I let you go... then the next guy is going to ask for the same thing... and then the next guy and... well you get the point. Besides, I must make an example of scum who try and go behind Timekeeper, he knows all and sees all remember?” The man was too terrified to speak a word and couldn’t break eye contact with the piercing eyes on the mask knowing that behind it, are the eyes of his soon to be killer. Suddenly, the man heard a finger snap and his body began to feel hot.

“Let’s see how long your body can survive while being set on fire.” The man struggled to get up while the flames on his body began to consume him. The man yelled out to Leech to stop but all he got in response was Leech’s laughter while he sat on the man’s chest. Leech than turned his head to look at three men paralyzed by fear with their backs against the wall. “Now, while he’s being burned alive. What do you think I should do to you guys for helping this piece of shit selling drugs in areas that are declared a no drug sell zone,” Leech hissed as he got up.

“He made us do it! We’re innocent!” one of the men pleaded.

“You see. I feel like you’re lying to me because if he made you, all you had to do was report it. I detest liars like you can’t believe,” Leech said as he walked over to the man who spoke up.

Leech then proceeded to grab the man by the hair and slammed the man’s head into the wall, “Because liars will say anything to get out of a situation, they know they fucked up in!” Leech giggled while bashing the man’s head into the wall over and over again. Leech only stopped when the skull completely shattered by his inhuman strength. “As for you two, I’ll let you go under one condition. You never show your face to me ever again,” Leech murmured, “considered it a second chance.” As the men ran out of the warehouse, they could still hear Leech’s laughter.

The men then proceeded to feel a sharp pain in their chest as they flopped down onto the floor... motionless. Unknown to them, Leech had sent an electric shock wave at them forcing their hearts to burst and die right where they stood. “Like I would leave any survivors.” After a kill like this, Leech would call in the cleaners that worked for Timekeeper, and the deaths would go unreported as if they never died or even existed.

Life is not like a comic book and soon Raito will learn this lesson. The life of a Gift is to either use their power for wealth and fame or end up dead by the man who seemed to control the lives of all Gifts, Timekeeper.