In an old transit station where the lights cut too sharp and the vending machines hummed too loud, strangers kept their distance.

Touma had grown used to trouble. He was tired, not heroic. He noticed the man in the gray coat first—the procedural grip on the small-built teen’s wrist, the hand already sliding inside the coat. The boy stood frozen with blank terror, school bag still hanging from one shoulder.

Trouble outside could sometimes be outrun. Trouble that lived inside the skull could not.

The headache was already blooming. That was the first warning. Extra edges appeared on everything; the hum of the machines pressed harder. For half a second the world held. Then the second half arrived.

Touma moved. Six steps. He did not think of gallantry. It was recognition—something private and inevitable, like an appointment with gravity. The image of a paperknife sliding to the exact edge of thought, a pin driven through the inside of the world.

“Hey.”

The single word was enough. The recruiter’s hand released. The boy stumbled free. Relief came in a brief, clean wave—then the second half of it, colder, carrying the quiet cruelty of what had almost happened.

A memory hiccup followed. Familiarity slipped. The boy’s identity, any prior connection, stayed withheld. Touma only knew he had to keep moving, keep the kid quiet, finish the handoff. The headache stayed.