Toushirou still wasn't sure whether he should have missed being outside or not. It had been five years, but those hadn't passed for him. It didn't feel like such a long time, and yet it had been. His sense of time was all messed up and it was frankly ticking him off.

The heat didn't help. In fact, it helped so little that he decided to flex his power a bit to the point where anyone who got within a fifteen foot radius would feel a sudden, wintry chill. He was just making sure he still knew what he was doing, really. No ice, no frost, just cold. He still had control. This was good.

He didn't bother sitting in one place for long; skewed time perception or not, he just had the urge to move. Nothing hurried or playful about his movement. He was simply . . . refamiliarizing himself with the grounds. That was all. Things changed after five years. New buildings, new paths, new gardens, new people . . . Old people, too.

But not him. No, he was still who he was five years ago. And even if he wouldn't say it, there was something deeply unsettling about all that.