Chapter 1

　　It was the cusp of being nineteen, or perhaps the unripe dawn of becoming twenty. It was graduation day, a time for endings and new beginnings.

　　"It’s… it’s collapsing!" someone shrieked.

　　"Everyone, get out of the way!" another voice commanded.

　　Who could have known that on such a momentous day, a scene of peaceful celebration would devolve into a warzone? The year’s representative, who had been giving a speech on stage just moments before, was already missing half his body.

　　CRASH—

　　BOOM—

　　The aftershock of the explosion sent my head spinning. As sections of the ceiling began to give way, red warning lights flashed from all directions, blurring my vision. I was nearly crushed by debris, but a classmate grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. I staggered, trying to regain my balance.

　　"What… What is happening…?" I mumbled to myself.

　　No clear answer came. The scene around me was a living hell, and no one seemed to understand what was going on. Just then, a flicker of blue flame danced through the half-demolished gymnasium.

　　"Look over there! Someone from the esper class is here to help!" a student cried out in relief.

　　"Idiot, can’t you see?" another snapped back. "One of them must have gone into a rampage."

　　"What? Who would rampage now?"

　　"I don’t know! Just run!"

　　Amid the panicked murmurs, my eyes met a pair of blue ones, glowing as if the flames themselves had become irises. The moment was fleeting. The blue-eyed esper gave a casual flick of his hand toward where my classmates and I stood.

　　THUD—

　　An unstoppable force shoved us backward just as a massive steel beam slammed into the spot where we had been standing. It was a strange, ambiguous moment—had the esper saved our lives, or had he deliberately sent the beam there?

　　Before I could puzzle it out, another deafening explosion behind me felt like it would shatter my consciousness.

　　"Geumi, snap out of it! So Geumi!" a friend yelled, their voice frantic.

　　"Oh god, what do we do? Someone get a healer-type esper!"

　　"Where are all the teachers?"

　　The urgent cries of my classmates blended with the ringing in my ears. My vision, once bright, began to flicker like a dying light. As I drifted into unconsciousness, the afterimage of the esper lingered with a strange flutter in my chest. Everything else faded to a blur, but I knew, somehow, that I would never be able to forget that piercing blue gaze.

　　It was the last thing I remembered of my graduation.

* * *

　　Espers and guides make up about ten percent of the world’s population, their abilities typically manifesting during their formative years. Once awakened, they are primarily tasked with handling the anomalous phenomena that appear across the globe. However, due to the recurring incidents of espers losing control of their newly blossomed powers and going on rampages, the world’s governments decided to establish specialized academies in each country as a preventative measure.

　　The Special Abilities Academy. Not only did the name have "Special Abilities" in it, but it was a school that claimed to teach them professionally. As a student who had to attend, it was a rather deplorable name—so garish it was practically an advertisement for being an institution exclusively for ability users.

　　Regardless of its origins, the institution, commonly known as the SAA, became a place where espers and guides under the age of nineteen received mandatory education. Initially, there was backlash from Utill, an esper rights protection group, who claimed the academy’s true purpose was to gather and monitor all ability users. Their argument wasn’t entirely wrong; the SAA’s founding purpose was indeed to isolate these ticking time bombs from the general public.

　　Despite the controversy, the SAA remained undeterred. It offered exceptional terms: special admission for all students regardless of their rank, free tuition and board, and a two-person dormitory room. The benefits didn’t stop there. After successfully completing the elementary, middle, and high school curricula, students could register with a government-accredited center and begin their official careers. It was a win-win situation: the nation cultivated elite ability users, and the students received high-quality, systematic education. This symbiotic policy allowed the SAA to grow into a reputable educational institution without major issues.

　　Of course, just as light casts a shadow, this place had its dark side.

　　A dark side like the goddamn situation I was currently in.

　　"This… this can’t be right, can it?"

　　Having just turned nineteen… no, wait. Since I died and came back, maybe it’s more fitting to say my second time being nineteen. In any case, here I was, nineteen again, re-reading the Guiding Pair Matching List in my hand for the third time.

　　B-Class guide So Geumi / S-Class esper Yoon Geonwoo

　　Guiding Match Rate: 94%

　　A 94% match rate was a number so high it was hard to believe even seeing it with my own eyes. At this point, I had no choice but to accept the reality I had been desperately denying for the past week.

　　It’s exactly like the dream.

　　After the explosion at the graduation ceremony, my first thought upon waking was that I’d just had a long, terrible nightmare. The familiar ceiling of my dorm room. The empty bed of my roommate, who had left for winter break. Everything was exactly as it had been a year ago, except for the massive nosebleed that had soaked my white sheets.

　　But now, a week later, I was beginning to suspect that what I’d dismissed as a nightmare had been all too real. Every moment from that "dream" was repeating itself without a single deviation. And to top it off, I seemed to have gained a strange new ability.

　　Temporary Pair Confirmed

　　My thoughts were a tangled mess as I stared at the words at the bottom of the page and squeezed my eyes shut. Confirmed by whose authority? Normally, upon entering the final year, students were given the chance to choose a "temporary" pair based on their match rate. It was customary for the esper and guide to agree mutually, but once again, the SAA had taken matters into its own hands.

　　No. Not with that bastard Yoon Geonwoo again.

　　espers manifest the energy in their bodies into unique, special abilities. They could wield extraordinary powers, but each use caused toxins to accumulate in their system, increasing the risk of a rampage. The only beings who could purify an esper’s contaminated body and prevent these catastrophic events were guides. Therefore, it was a mandatory part of the curriculum for graduating espers and guides to form temporary pairs to familiarize themselves with this system.

　　However, things were different if your partner was Yoon Geonwoo.

　　He held the record for the youngest esper to ever awaken. He was the only S-Class at the academy and one of only three in the entire country. A top-tier esper trailed by a tail of flashy titles. But he had one fatal flaw: he was a guide-hating hothead who refused all guiding.

　　As a powerful S-Class esper, he required regular guiding for safety, but for some unknown reason, he rejected every guide, regardless of their rank or match rate. Because of that, I had a painful memory from my past life of him unilaterally terminating our pairing after just one month.

　　"See the percentage there?" the SAA’s Vice Director said, tapping the number on the sheet again. "We checked the match rates for the entire high school division, not to mention Central’s database, before making this assignment."

　　I know, I have eyes. I just wanted to pretend I didn’t.

　　"Is this really okay? I’m only a B-Class. How can I possibly care for an S-Class…?" I asked, suppressing my complicated feelings and repeating the same line I had before. I knew his answer would be the same, but this was a sort of confirmation ritual for me.

　　"Among the guides who don’t have a pair yet, you’re the only one with a match rate over 90% with esper Yoon Geonwoo," he explained. "With a number that high, you should be able to manage him with intense, repeated guiding, even with the rank difference."

　　Oh, of course. The Vice Director gave the exact answer I expected. His tone was praising, but his words were pure bullshit. This man was impossible to read, always wearing that inscrutable smile.

　　"That sounds incredibly risky…" I countered.

　　"Why? Worried you can’t do it well?" he cooed. "Everyone struggles at first, but you’ll get the hang of it if you keep at it."

　　"Are we… still talking about guiding?"

　　"Haven’t you learned by now? A guide’s most important duty is to purify an esper’s body."

　　Was he insane? Even if we were graduating seniors eligible for temporary pairings, we were still students. Was this really something a school’s vice director should be saying?

　　Unbelievable, even hearing it a second time.

　　Of course, I had mastered all the basic guiding protocols through my coursework. But I had no experience with high-intensity guiding, so accepting his proposal was out of the question. In the past, I had simply nodded meekly at this point, but now, something inside me was boiling with anger.

　　"I don’t know about that," I said, my voice sharp. "It’s a world where I’m busy just trying to protect myself." My nerves were frayed, and I couldn’t stop myself from firing back. The Vice Director’s eyebrow twitched, as if my reaction was unexpected. It was a small act of rebellion, but it brought a tiny thrill of satisfaction.

　　"Besides, even if I use the method you’re suggesting, there’s a problem with me caring for an S-Class esper alone."

　　"And what problem is that?" he asked, a flicker of interest in his eyes.

　　"The quality of the guiding might be good because of the high match rate, but the absolute quantity will be too low. Once esper Yoon Geonwoo starts using his abilities in earnest, the guiding deficiency will become even more severe."

　　My timid defiance seemed to amuse him. He watched me with the same shitty attitude as someone observing the final struggles of a fish caught in a net.

　　"So?"

　　"With this kind of rank difference, he’ll need guiding at least three times for every single field mission. It’s just too inefficient."

　　"Since you know the method, you just have to execute it," he said dismissively.

　　"Pardon?" I asked, startled.

　　He gave my entire body a slow, deliberate once-over, a serpentine smile playing on his lips. "Three times a day. And if that’s not enough, you can just do it more, can’t you?"

* * *