Bewilderment

The sudden eruption of flames caught him off guard, and by the time he regained his senses, it was already too late; the entire room had been swallowed by a sea of fire.

What Ito found strange, however, was that despite the room burning fiercely, he could not feel a hint of heat, and even his clothes remained completely unscathed.

He reached out to touch the flames, and the fire behaved like a tame little bird, obediently clinging to his fingertips, dancing to his will and shifting its shape.

This is... a superpower? No, that's not right!

Ito hurried out the door and found that thick smoke had already spread. The alarm bells were ringing wildly, and people were rushing down the stairwell in a frenzy, accompanied by the continuous wailing and screaming of adults and children.

He could clearly feel the jubilant flames as if they were singing at the top of their lungs; every floor above his own had been ignited and was spreading uncontrollably in all directions.

The fire had come too suddenly and too violently, unlike other fires that gave people at least some time to react. Many were scorched awake in their beds, only to find they had nowhere to escape.

Ito lowered his head, pulled up his hood, and put on a mask to hide his face before joining the crowd fleeing downstairs.

By the time he reached the open space below, many people were already watching from a distance.

He looked back and upward; the apartment building resembled a cluster of burning roses, releasing a mesmerizing fragrance toward him.

"Mr. Ito!"

Ito's body trembled. He looked toward the source of the voice and saw his landlord.

The man lived on the third floor, which explained why he had gotten out so quickly.

"Mr. Ito, I'm so glad you're alright!" The landlord had a deep impression of Ito Seigo, not just because of his appearance and usual attire, but also because he had once followed the story of this 'White Dragon of the Fire'.

Ito felt a pang of guilt, wondering if the landlord had realized that the fire had actually started in his room.

However, in his earlier glance back, he had noticed that the floor below his was also billowing with thick smoke, so it shouldn't be easy to tell at a glance which unit had caused the blaze.

The surrounding crowd's discussions also leaned toward issues with the natural gas pipes; otherwise, it would have been impossible for so many floors to catch fire at once.

"I'm fine, but it was a close call." Ito tried his best to feign the appearance of a survivor. "I'm injured in a few places, though, so I need to go to the hospital."

"Right, right, go quickly, don't delay." The landlord nodded, then continued to stare at the fire with a worried expression, muttering to himself, "Sigh, it's gone, my building is all gone."

Ito left the scene discreetly, brushing past crowds of people who were holding up their phones to film while exclaiming and discussing the event.

He walked on until he reached a park, where he finally slowed his pace, clutching his chest with his right hand and gasping for air.

He knew all too well the horror of a fire.

Under such raging flames, even oxygen became a luxury. The high heat scorched the entire body, and every breath was choked by thick smoke, the turbid gases feeling as if they were burning his lungs.

Therefore, those living on the floors above him were surely doomed.

In other words, he had killed people.

Yet, he felt little sense of reality, perhaps because he hadn't witnessed their deaths with his own eyes.

As he fled the scene in a hurry, wasn't he also engaging in self-deception to avoid seeing the victims?

Sitting on a park bench beside a lonely streetlamp, he stared blankly into the distance at the night sky, which was tinted blue by the neon lights, and could see the rising smoke.

There was no going back.

Society was so advanced now; once the authorities investigated and saw that the fire had started in his room, he would undoubtedly be listed as a prime suspect.

He had no confidence in surviving an interrogation, nor did he want to be caught. How would he explain his ability? That a freak called The Faker gave him a round stone, and after swallowing it, he caught fire?

He also didn't want to become a freak studied day and night.

But if he wanted to hide, where could he go?

Although he had his wallet, he had little cash, and his face and clothing were too conspicuous; it was impossible to escape capture.

"I think... I have another ability?" Ito hesitated, and following his instinct, he attempted to activate a second power.

However, compared to manipulating flames, this ability didn't seem to cause any changes to him at all.

Only the ability, now integrated into his instincts, vaguely revealed its effect to him.

Lowering presence.

Something like the Stone Hat from Doraemon?

He glanced at a chain convenience store a short distance away, activated the ability, and walked toward it.

Inside the store, there were no customers, and a woman stood at the checkout counter, boredly picking at her nails.

The door chime rang, but she didn't even look up.

Ito didn't bother controlling his footsteps. He walked to the shelf, picked up a bag of potato chips—the crisp sound of the plastic packaging echoed—and stared directly at the woman.

Still, there was no reaction.

So, any noise he made himself would be ignored?

"Checking out."

The woman jumped, her body jolting violently.

"Gah! You scared me to death! You walk without making a sound!" The woman complained, patting her chest.

Ito didn't say much and paid as usual.

After walking out, he tossed the chips into a corner, circled around to ensure he was out of the clerk's line of sight, and then walked back into the convenience store.

The doorbell rang again as someone entered, but although the woman looked toward the door, her gaze didn't land on Ito at all.

It seemed that even if the other party realized his existence, he could reactivate his ability as long as he stepped out of their line of sight.

The bane of this ability was speaking voluntarily, touching others, and... He looked up and glanced at the surveillance camera.

After testing his ability, he formatted his phone, tossed it into the park pond, and began to wander aimlessly through areas with sparse surveillance.

As of now, he had no idea what he should use his superpower for.

If he could, he only wished he could trade all of this to bring his parents back.

Shiraishi Wataru, who had been keeping a close eye on him, felt a sense of disappointment; Ito Seigo was the first symbiotic target he had carefully selected.

Parents dead, disfigured, riddled with illness, dumped by his girlfriend, and the child he had saved had grown up to be a delinquent. He was practically a template for tragedy, and just as Shiraishi expected, such painful experiences had left his subconscious in extreme regret, which he could only suppress through self-numbing. Then, once Shiraishi bloodily exposed the reality to him, Ito Seigo could finally no longer avoid his own subconscious, his negative emotions detonated in an instant, and he directly mutated into what Shiraishi currently considered the most "supernatural" of abilities.

[Combustion]

Capable of manipulating flames; the user and even their clothing are immune to accidental injury from the fire; the more combustible materials nearby, the larger the fire and the greater its power.

There was even a passive ability that Ito Seigo himself was unaware of.

[Firework Knight]

Surrender control of the body to negative emotions; the [Combustion] ability is increased tenfold, the body becomes elementalized into fire, immune to all physical attacks, and the user can instantly appear in any flame within a hundred-meter radius of their perception.

It was a true case of "going dark makes you ten times stronger."