When Genbi woke up, the strong sensation of time passing was the first thing she noticed, not an abundance of pain or exhaustion. Her arms automatically fumbled to the side for her glasses, but could find none after a minute, causing her to grimace. A small clock that she could see well enough told her it was about eight.

"I slept until morning... more than 12 hours," she realized, not quite awake enough to be surprised. She took in her surroundings and found she had been brought to the hospital. What was she supposed to do with that knowledge, though? She felt fine, so could she get up? She remained sitting there, not really able to see anything for some amount of time that she eventually lost track of. Eventually, a weary-looking doctor stepped in at a hurried pace.

"Oh, you're awake," they stated, almost yawning. Before Genbi could ask any questions, the doctor quickly pulled out their phone and made a call. "Hold on a second."

The girl sat there, watching the phone conversation with the same element of discomfort and impatience as she once did as a small child, watching her parents ignore her in favor of some phone call or a conversation with some other adult she didn't care for. At least this doctor seemed to be hurrying to end the call.

"Gotta go," the doctor deadpanned, hanging up and hurrying out. "Wait--" Genbi started, reaching out to be replied to with the sound of a door snapping shut. With a sigh, she receded back against the pillow and waited some more... and some more... and finally, some more.

Some plentiful waiting later, Genbi noticed her bag was on the foot of the bed. She reached over and dragged it onto her lap, then began to fish through it, only to find her phone was missing. She began to panic and re-rummaged through the whole thing in repeat, only to hear a voice suddenly rise over the sounds of her desperately smacking random bullshit around inside her bag.

"Why didn't you get up?"

Genbi flinched and turned to find that -- with the sound of a wind chime -- a peculiar man had appeared in the room, sitting backwards on a chair to face her with a curious stare. When he received no answer, he repeated himself.

"I don't know," Genbi replied, finding herself staring in an almost hypnotized manner.

"You could've just stood up and walked around if you felt fine. Oh well, it can't be helped. More importantly, you must be very confused."

"Um... yes, who are you?" Genbi muttered.

"Hakuya Taniro. A pleasure to meet you! I'm Gojo-kun's sensei," the man explained, earning a quick rise out of the girl.

"Wait, where's Gojo-san? Is he okay?"

"I thought you'd say that," the man replied, chuckling. "He's doing fine. He's just resting now." Genbi relaxed, satisfied with that answer. The man seemed to notice, as his smile brightened a bit, but he didn't say anything else. The girl's mind began to ruminate on something, causing her stare to grow distant in the ensuing silence.

"I came to explain everything to you," Taniro continued. "But if you'd like Gojo-kun to fill in for me, we can do that. You'll just have to wait a while before he wakes up."

"I'd like that," Genbi muttered, nodding.

"Alright then. Well, I know I thought it strange that you didn't get up and look around, but I recommend you stay here or you'll find yourself with far too many questions and get all restless. By the way, we had to confiscate your phone."

"Wait, what? Why?" Genbi asked, unable to muster any real shock. It wasn't the first time she'd lost that privilege.

"You'll figure that out pretty quickly when you meet with Gojo-kun later."

"Okay," she said, giving up. Her shoulders drooped. "Um, where are my glasses?"

"Eh?" Taniro gave a peculiar look of surprise.

"My glasses. They're not at my bedside. I can't see that well, so maybe, they're..."

"Ah... I see," Taniro answered. For how blurry he looked, she could very obviously tell he had this childish air to him as if he were hiding something. "Well, I can only guess they were misplaced when I retrieved you and Gojo-kun. My bad, my bad."

"It's nothing."

"It's really not. I'm busy tonight, but I'll buy you a new pair ASAP. Deal?"

"You don't have to... I think that's asking for too much on my part, so--"

"Nope! It's settled. Besides, your parents will be weirded out. I want to make it clear that they don't know a thing about what's happened today. The official story is that you were hit by an idiot driver."

Genbi had a feeling that her parents would get mad at her for that regardless of how innocent the story made her seem. At the same time, Taniro going out of his way for her left her with confusing feelings of both guilt and warmth. She also figured that was a clue on why her phone had been confiscated.

"I see."

"Alright, it's settled! I'll try to come get you when Gojo wakes up, but if I'm not around, one of the staff around here will do it in my place." The man soon departed, waving goodbye, and left Genbi to sit there alone with her thoughts.

She already had too many questions to sit and wait on without having to get up and look around. Who is Gojo and Taniro? What happened last night? What are these powers? She reflected on the obvious questions in an endless cycle until it grew tiresome. Eventually, to pass some more time, she looked through her bag for things to do. She had a journal, a drawing pad, a tamagotchi, a book or two... with a sigh, she set the bag aside and decided now was the worst possible time to not have her glasses. She couldn't distract herself from her thoughts nor did she have the ability to sleep again.

"It won't hurt to look around a little," she thought. It didn't matter if what she saw confused her, because she was already plenty confused. Besides, she wanted to go see for herself if Gojo was okay. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slowly pushed off, only to find her legs had plenty of strength to carry her. She slowly crept out of the room and looked around as if she were scared of being seen. Truth be told, she was convinced this was a little bit rebellious.

The first thing she saw when she stepped out was a doctor rounding a corner down the hall. She froze up and prepared to slink back into her room.

"Everything feel alright?" the man suddenly called to her.

"Um... yeah," Genbi stammered. The man only nodded, then walked right past her. Her mouth took the shape of an 'o' and she stepped out of the room, newly confident that she wasn't breaking any rules.

The next few things she saw caused her to immediately question her decision... Boys and girls her age carrying weapons caused her to wilt, only to find they didn't even pass her a cursory glance. The sight of a tiny curse lingering on someone's shoulder caused her to almost yelp.

Ever since Genbi was born, she'd been privy to some concept of 'presence' in a way that other people could never relate to. She could recall countless times when she felt little curses staring maliciously at the back of her head. She had never needed her eyes to feel when such things were nearby.

"Everyone here is really strange," Genbi realized. The doctors, the students, the adults; they all walked around with this powerful, mystical feeling to them that overwhelmed her sixth sense. In hindsight, Naomaru Gojo was incredibly intimidating. His scornful words were accompanied by this fearsome force like gravity.

"Now that I think of it, none of them compare to Gojo-san, except for..."

What the hell was Hakuya Taniro? Just staring at the man, she found herself paralyzed. It called her back to the evil weight in the air from yesterday, rivaling its overbearing might. How could something like that sneak past her sixth sense? However, there was something far much more serene and natural to the sensation of Taniro's presence.