||·Hawk·|·Keigo Takami·||

Clouds settled over the city in heavy gray billows, as if the sky had decided to hide the city from itself. Keigo Takami hovered in this gray silence—not too high to disappear from sight, but high enough that the voices below became an inaudible whisper. His wings trembled slightly in the gusts of wind, as if they wanted to carry him further, to a place where there would be no lights, no people, no expectations.

He looked down at the endless grid of streets and thought that from such a height, all human stories became the same: tiny figures rushing, colliding, hugging, arguing—and it all seemed strangely mundane, as if none of these dramas were worth climbing into the sky for. And yet, it was precisely for these very dramas that he had climbed. To be in time. To save. To be the one who showed up on time.

But now, in this lingering gloom, he felt as if he were floating not above the city, but above someone else's life. As if he were a guest who had accidentally wandered into a party where everyone knew everyone else, and he stood by the door, hesitant to leave or come closer. And even if someone below raised their head and shouted his name, even if thousands of voices merged into one ecstatic chorus—here, among the cold clouds, the sound would still be unable to warm him.

Keigo lowered his head slightly, and the wind ruffled his feathers, as if trying to shake him, bring him back to the task, remind him that he was a hero, that he couldn't stand still. He smiled crookedly—that same smile everyone loved: bold, confident, as if nothing could stop him. Only this time there was no humor in it. It was like old armor: heavy, familiar, but no longer protecting from the cold.

"Well, Hawk," he whispered to himself, barely hearing his own voice over the howling wind, "it's time to dive down again. To be needed again. To not just be myself again."

And he lurched forward, preparing to dive, but paused for a moment—just long enough to feel that emptiness. Not as an enemy, not as weakness, but as something of his own.