When she transferred to Tokyo Jujutsu High, Kento Nanami hardly spared her more than a courteous nod. Another colleague, another sorcerer drafted into the endless fight against curses—there was no reason to dwell on her presence.

But as the months crept by, something began to unsettle him. It wasn’t obvious, not at first—just a faint unease curling in his gut whenever she was near, something he would describe like a premonition, odd.

He noticed the way her gaze lingered on him sometimes, sharp yet searching, as though she were trying to puzzle out the same riddle as him. She was feeling it too, he had no doubt, but neither of them mentioned it.

The first time their shoulders brushed in the hallway, both of them recoiled instantly. Not from embarrassment, but from pain. A searing jolt lanced through their skin, like electricity biting at exposed nerves. Too sharp, too sudden to be dismissed. And still, they dismissed it anyway, hurling quiet accusations at probability, grasping at the safety of numbers, at logic, maybe static discharge. They both knew it was a lie.

Because logic could not explain what happened when they finally touched—truly touched.

His hand had closed around her wrist in the heat of a mission, a reflex meant to keep her from stumbling into danger. But the moment their skin met, the world split open.

It wasn’t a simple flash of memory. It was a vision. Blurred at the edges, bleeding together in chaos—shouts, blood, the clash of curses, the echo of steel and screams. And through the haze, her eyes locked onto his, burning with something fierce, something desperate. She wasn’t fighting beside him. She was dragging him back, saving him from a fate he couldn’t quite grasp, her hands stained crimson, like the price had already been paid by her.

When they both stagger back, the battlefield was clear, eyes locked in shock, both of them panting.

For the first time, Nanami knows logic won't help him.