tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28799610529300641342024-03-19T05:41:18.217-07:00Nico H Verse One convenient place through which my creative endeavors can be found and accessed.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17713600827949212367noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-246893760131736702020-05-21T17:00:00.006-07:002021-10-31T10:55:30.760-07:00Update for 2020: A Complete Site ReworkingWow, my previous update post aged very poorly, didn't it? After all, I did none of those things I said I was going to do in 2019. As it is, my goals have shifted quite a bit. Everything I expressed in the 2019 update <b>is something I intend to someday do</b>, but currently, my focuses are elsewhere. As it is, I wouldn't consider anything on this site to be reliable canon. It all needs to be revised and reworked, so <b>everything here is outdated. </b>I will not be locking or deleting any posts, keeping them up for archive purposes, but this site will no longer be about those.<br />
<br />
Instead, I am going to redesign the site, and keep it here as a hub location for my other works, as I do already have this url printed on all of my business cards. Again, to reiterate, this site can be considered a <b>launching pad</b> to find my other creative endeavors in other places. I'll actually update this same post with whatever my most current project is as time goes on, so it will remain at the top of the page. Thank you for your support!<br />
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<br /><h1 style="text-align: left;">
Current Project- <a href="https://entropicfloat.blogspot.com/">Entropic Float</a>: This World Will Decay And Disappear.</h1><div>Entropic Float is a visual novel regarding the experiences of fourteen people who've been trapped inside a magical construct known as the Anomalous Clocktower. Missing memories of how they came to be there, certain aspects of their past life, and of course, every loop but the current one, can those who awakened inside the anomaly find a way out?</div><div><br /></div><div>Step into the shoes of Rashmi Jamil, Kanatsun, and Amelie Macon at different times of day as you seek a resolution. In each loop, you'll also be challenged to make the right decisions to overcome Entropy, in the hopes that the protagonists' memories might make it through to another version of themselves if the loop doesn't end in tragedy.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-10196714385759011422019-02-05T06:10:00.000-08:002019-02-05T06:10:07.414-08:00Update for 2019: What To ExpectI've been a bit quiet here over the past few months I'm afraid, though at least I did make note that I'm on hiatus from regular updates. In the time I've been gone, I've been working on all sorts of things, primarily a Danganronpa-themed work featuring many characters both familiar to readers of these stories (Sayaka, Yuuri, Kanoshi, just to name a few) and unfamiliar. This work updates on archiveofourown near-daily, so if you're looking for more content with these characters but now in a Killing Game, you can check that out <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/15401829/chapters/35745441">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Now, to get to the business of what's happening on this site <b>currently.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I am actually in the process right now of editing and revamping <b>Checkboxes</b>. I was unsatisfied with its current state and unable to continue the story. So far I've completed editing on the first two chapters, and I'll soon be tackling the rest. Unfortunately, it may take a while, given I do have a lot on my plate with other works and with school. Similarly to Mahou Shonen, once the first arc of Checkboxes is thoroughly edited (the start through to the end of the school trip) it will be released as an ebook and paperback through amazon.<br />
<br />
I hope to release throughout the coming year <b>Arc Three: Kyoto X Morgue </b>of <b>Mahou Shonen: Just Say No</b>. Just like the first two arcs, it will be posted here first, then edited and adapted into an ebook/paperback available through amazon. It's likely this is an event that will mostly take place during the summertime; I expect at least four of the eight chapters to an arc will be released in summer. No particular update schedule, they'll arrive when I finish them.<br />
<br />
I'm also interested in continuing both <b>Bad Dreams</b> and <b>Evil Meet Justice</b>. The other stories featured on this site can sit on the backburner for the time being, but I am planning to improve the chapters of those I've already posted and continue work on them at some point. I'll probably also edit <b>Akuma No Imouto</b> for amazon release at some point during the year, but I won't make promises on any statements from this paragraph.<br />
<br />
<b>Finally,</b><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;"><i>Life On A String: Mercury </i>has just released on kindle ebook and amazon paperback!</span></h3>
<div>
That's right, the third book in the Life On A String series is now available! For those unfamiliar with Life On A String, here's the tea:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-String-Mystery-Nico-H-ebook/dp/B078YC3WKN/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1549375733&sr=1-6">Life On A String: Mystery</a> is the first book in the series, and it's a slow-burn enemies to lovers slice of life featuring Korekara's delinquent girl gang well before Box Hako ever got to the school. There's only hints of a larger story and character foundation in this book, so if all you want to read is the plot, you only <i>really</i> need chapter 8 of this book to understand the later ones. At the same time, it's called Mystery for a reason, and one eventual plot aspect will be less satisfying without the entire experience of a particular character.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-String-Medic-Nico-H-ebook/dp/B07HL491Q5/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1549375733&sr=1-5">Life On A String: Medic</a> is the second book in the series. The slow-burn romance comes to a point and the characters involved begin dating, which means it's time to open up their world a little more. The main character starts to make real friends, the love interest works on coming out of her shell, and the groundwork is quietly being laid for the bigger story.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ND5NYTK">Life On A String: Mercury</a> is the third and latest book in the series, in which the story finally finds itself on the 'other side of the world'. The characters go from dealing with interpersonal conflicts to an actual antagonist, secret organizations, and people with powerful ESP abilities. The main characters are adults now, and it's time to deal with adult problems.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-36362803456925876102018-09-21T13:56:00.002-07:002018-09-21T13:56:50.384-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Sixteen<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "montserrat" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-----First Chapter</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-family: "times new roman";"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/09/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-fifteen.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After Sayaka left, and the buildings rebuilt themselves, Rei turned back into her... Not human form, but out of her magica form, and returned to the basement. Tsukune decided to follow her back down, trailing behind her as she returned to Apollo, who was waiting there, concerned, "How did it go?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Tsukune said, "Akabane-chan's first monster was the second highest power level that has been encountered yet, though at least it wasn't one of the most intimidating types. Yamaguchi-san almost died, so she's already leaving with Blade. We defeated it, though."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's kind of terrifying," Apollo said, "But, everyone's okay?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Pretty much," Rei said, shrugging, "Yamaguchi-san can't transform for a few weeks, but otherwise, she's managing. And going home, though. Plus, there's this theory that the monster was specifically sent to target her, so you don't have to worry about me. A monster that strong isn't about to just show up here again."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, I guess that much is good," Apollo said, then sighed as he leaned against the wall where he sat on the floor, "I thought that it would be safer for you to actually be able to hold your own against those things, but..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It still is," Rei said, "If I wasn't involved in that fight, it might not have been defeated. And if it's not defeated, the damage stays. And since this one actually attacked the school, when it got teleported right on top of it, you and I could have ended up that damage that stayed."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh," Apollo said, "I guess that's a good point. But, you know, I don't want to lose you, Reicchi."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know," Rei said, looking away from him, "After all. We're all each other has left."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You..." Apollo said.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, I remembered," Rei said, "The fact that Yamaguchi-san showed up here made it so I couldn't keep pretending. Natsuki is dead. Everyone from the science club is, except for us. Almost everybody who attended Korekara... She killed them."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She did," Apollo said, "And there's nothing we can do about it now. Do you want to leave?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No," Rei said, "Somebody has to be here. In case others come back. Like Yamaguchi-san did. Besides, my research isn't finished yet. Now that I can actually fight the monsters, I can get much more information."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you sure you can handle things here on your own?" Tsukune asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei turned and wrinkled her nose, "Are you... Flirting with me, Madara-kun?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Absolutely not!" Tsukune exclaimed, taking a step back but otherwise not seeming visibly flustered, "I promise you, that wasn't my intention at all. I actually don't flirt with anyone, ever. I'm just concerned that, as a new magica, you might not be able to handle this territory all on your own."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Rei said, "That's good to know. But don't worry about me or anything. I can handle it, and from what I've seen, you have other obligations. You can't just take a break from a quest like that to help me protect a territory that nobody in the world even cares about."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I care about it," Tsukune said, holding his hands behind his back as he glanced away, "Wang-kun, he's got his own goals. He wants to find his little sister's body, and use magic to bring her back. She was one of the students who died here, and she was also... My best friend. Wang-kun is only thinking of this as the place where Mayu died, but I see it differently. Mayu loved going to school here. When she was here, she said, she suddenly didn't feel as useless. She felt like if she really wanted to, then people would actually let her be their friend, in person and everything. We became friends because we both felt useless, a lot of the time. So if this place helped her not to feel that way, even for a little while, then it means something to me too."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't think I ever met her," Rei said, "I mostly just kept to myself and the science club, though."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, like I said, she didn't actually try to make friends," Tsukune said, "She just liked the possibility that she could, here. She was still kind of a loner, like, everyone in that chatroom. Except for Kyousuke-san, I guess. Well. He's not social either, but he used to be a teacher, which isn't exactly the chosen profession of a true loner, you know?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No," Rei said.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I got it!" Apollo gave his two cents, "So, don't worry, Reicchi. I can explain it to you later in a way that makes sense."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thanks," Rei said, then raised her eyebrows in Tsukune's direction, "But, even if you do care about this place, you've got more important things to do. Come back after you've found the missing ones. I'm sorry that I ended up giving you a red herring... And that's the worst I can do. I can't steal you from your mission too."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I understand," Tsukune said, "But if you ever need help, don't hesitate to ask. Maybe I won't be able to make it in time, but somebody would, okay? If you're up against something that's too strong for you... Retreat, or just stay alive until you can get backup, understand? Don't try and be the hero."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why are you telling me all this?" Rei questioned, "You just met me. Why do you care?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I haven't told anybody else this, not even my roommate," Tsukune said, holding a hand close to his chest, "But when I first became a magical boy, I lost a friend of mine. My best friend, at the time, since Mayu was already gone. He thought that we could handle it on our own. He wouldn't retreat or let up, or even hide for a minute, he didn't want to risk the damage becoming permanent. If he'd just gone into a defensive stance, he would have lived long enough to be rescued by the same magica who came for me. And you kind of remind me of him, Akabane-san. So I don't want the same thing to happen to you."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei blinked a few times, then ended up just whispering her response, "Okay, I understand. What was his name?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"His magical name, I don't even remember. It never really mattered much. But his real name was Sugawa. Sugawa Nagata," Tsukune explained, then froze in confusion when he saw the look on Rei's face, "What? Did you know him?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Not personally, but I know why he was so reckless," Rei answered, "And why I remind you of him. We've mourned the same person. Natsuki... Natsuki Nagata was the president of the science club. And after her uncle went to prison, Sugawa basically raised her. There's no way that it's a different person with that full name... And he was older than you, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, by a few years," Tsukune said, "I think he was twenty-eight. I don't have romantic relationships or anything, so it wasn't weird... So, that would put him at ten years older than a Korekara third year at the time of the attack, assuming that she was a third year, being a club president?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Rei said, "So chances are, you know, he probably didn't actually care if he got defeated when he did. I was wondering what happened to the older ones after Natsuki died... I only heard that the other triplets ended up dying soon after the attack, themselves. Even though most of her family were raised separately, they were still close. Matsuda and Aikoi were really sick for a while after Natsuki lost two limbs... So I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't live long either, if she died. I tried to deny that for a while, though. I blocked it out, that I knew she was dead. I wanted to believe she lived."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I understand," Tsukune said, "Well, if that's the case, then aren't you the one who's left to carry on the memory of Natsuki? That means, you need to be careful. Don't do the same thing Sugawa did."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I won't," Rei said, "Believe me. I won't do anything dumb, not anymore. I'll be okay."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I trust you," Tsukune said, then turned around and walked away from Rei.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Could he consider her a friend? They'd bonded quite quickly after they met, and he even prompted some degree of enthusiasm from her. He wanted her to be safe, so much so that he even admitted what had happened to Sugawa, which he saw as one of his own biggest failures. After all, shouldn't he have been able to prevent it? Even with Sugawa being reckless, shouldn't Tsukune have been strong enough to protect him? It was a disappointment. Being turned down by Rei was a disappointment too.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The mission wasn't important to him. He'd only been roped into it because he happened to be part of the team which others regarded as the 'Tokyo Magica'. Unlike Yuuri and Sayaka who both seemed invested in the idea of hunting down this big, bad villain who was threatening magic-kind, and unlike Kanoshi who wanted to rescue Horace, Tsukune had no emotional investment in the overall mission, and neither did Zhou. Zhou only played along because investigating this could also lead to information regarding Mayu, and Tsukune supposed that he wanted to help in that endeavor. At the same time, though, he had something else to prove.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">was</i> strong enough now that he could have protected Sugawa, and seeing in Rei a mirror of his friend in some ways, knew that he was strong enough to protect her. He wanted to stay and help her, make sure that she'd survive. Kanoshi and Zhou may have been his friends online, but they were stronger than him, both of them were, they didn't truly need his protection. But Rei had turned him down, all because he was being dragged along on this mission that didn't matter to him at all.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Or maybe not because of the mission. Maybe it was really because Rei was put off by him, that he considered her a friend while she still viewed him as a stranger with whom she had no form of connection. Maybe he'd just freaked her out. Either way, he'd been shot down in his offer to help her. It wasn't that he thought Nagasaki even needed a magica to guard it; But he knew that Rei, of all people, would guard a place like this with her life.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Maybe he couldn't stay here and protect her, but maybe he could enlist somebody else, just to keep an eye on her. It wasn't obsessive; She was just so much like Sugawa. Sugawa, the big-brotherly figure who came and filled a role that Tsukune never knew he needed filled. It was like they were family, for the time that they knew each other. He felt like, where Sugawa had been an older brother to him, Rei could be a responsible younger sister.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">How stupid was it, that he scraped for anything resembling family? A family that would actually care about him, unlike his real one. And he realized it was pathetic. First it was Sugawa for legitimate reasons, now it was Rei just because she was the slightest bit similar to him. He started to wonder if, maybe, that was what he and Kyoko really had in common. Maybe she never raised a hand against him because she saw something else in him. Someone else.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">And he was definitely getting too much into his own head, if he was starting to think that he could be anything like her. There were so many ways that they were different. Kyoko was a shining star, who could turn at any second into an absolute black hole. Tsukune was neither of those things. He was moderate. Basic. Not necessarily emotionally balanced, but he wasn't in the garbage either, while nobody really thought that he excelled at anything.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He probably just needed to get some rest. Though he'd technically been sleeping for weeks while locked into the vision that Future Style put him through, everyone knows that a sleep filled with nightmares could never even try to be a rejuvenating one.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">----</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Zhou decided to go off on his own to investigate the town. Kanoshi and Yuuri were fine at investigating, from an objective standpoint, but as far as Zhou was concerned they didn't even know what they were looking for. Finding any hint of where the magica who disappeared could be, that was the aim, and any hint was much too broad of an idea. Zhou had something specific he was searching for. He was looking for bodies, or logos, or paperwork. He wasn't looking for information on the missing magica, but information on where the recovered bodies were sent after the massacre. Even the families which would have wanted to have a proper funeral never received the bodies of their loved ones.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He knew it was important to find the missing magica, of course. He was worried about them, as much as he could worry about people he'd never actually met, whose plight began after his own personal one. Maybe it was selfish of him, but the thing was, they'd already determined that this location had nothing to do with that problem, but it still had everything to do with his. This was where Mayu died. This was where he could find his information, when the main investigation had nothing to be found.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Not to mention, Zhou could basically scan the entire town for the few specific things that he was looking out for, using his magic. Such versatile magic as his was quite overpowered, but it did have its disadvantages. It took heavy concentration, more than most other types, and it did take quite a bit of magical power too. After all, he basically had to ignore small fry to even stand a chance at accumulation. He probably could actually go down to level three and still break even, but with his overall goals in mind, it wasn't worth it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He and Mayu both, had always been selfish, hadn't they? He thought with their upbringing they might be humbled, but every time he stopped to think, neither of them had ever done a single truly self-sacrificing thing in their lives. They wouldn't have ever turned on each other, sure, but they were always looking out for themselves. Even now, the fake Mayu in that vision had emphasized it. Zhou wanted her back for selfish reasons. Knowing Mayu, she wouldn't want to be brought back to life if she'd already been killed.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">But he was lost without her. He needed her around, and he didn't even know exactly why. She was always a reason for him. A reason to succeed, a reason to survive, a reason to raid the fridge at midnight because if she didn't complain about how hungry she was, he wouldn't eat. Without Mayu, he had no reason to do anything. He didn't love what he did for a job. He didn't care about protecting the world. It was always to help her, and even now, it was to help Mayu. To bring her back. So that he could have direction again.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">What a terrible cycle it was.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">---</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri sat on a chunk of rubble, holding a teacup in one hand. Kanoshi didn't know when Yuuri had gotten that, but he knew it was from Rei's basement. He sat down next to him with a heavy sigh, "Do you think that Yamaguchi-chan is going to be okay?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Yuuri said, "I mean, come on. She's Red. Do you really think that she could die before we did?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's fair," Kanoshi noted, "If any of us would end up being the sole survivor, it's her, but... I'm worried. She always seemed like such a strong and perfect magical girl, but today..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Today you got to see her big human flaw bleed into her magical girl work," Yuuri said, shrugging, "She's got a temper. A bad one, and we see it all the time, she's brash and aggressive, just like me. And that monster pissed her off, so it clouded her judgment. It's not like when humans piss her off and she has time to think, formulate a plan of revenge, set up her magic. Her magic means nothing against monsters, and there's no time to think hard."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I guess," Kanoshi said.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We're similar in a lot of ways, me and Sayaka-chan. That's why we were friends before you even became a magical boy," Yuuri said, "We have magic that works better on humans and magica than on the monsters we're meant to be fighting. We've been through a hell of a lot of shit. And we've got impulsive tempers."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Kanoshi said, "And that's what worries me about you, too, you know. I don't want it to get you in trouble. Though, I guess that I never thought about how Yamaguchi-chan had the same sort of issues. She came out of nowhere and always just, really seemed like she completely knew what she was doing."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She's just as much a disaster as I am, underneath it all," Yuuri said, "She just doesn't let it hinder her as much. She was always more skilled at combat than me, even as a human, and she became a magical girl within a month of the distributors showing up to begin with. She never told me exactly when, but it can't have been long after Horace did. She's got all sorts of experience on her side. But, at the same time..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She's still a kid," Kanoshi finished, "Well, she's nearly an adult now, chronologically. But, I get it. Acting like she's just so much better than us all of the time glosses over the fact that she's <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">not</i> an adult yet. She's still growing up and she's still got so much to think about, but she got wrapped up in this stuff that's so much bigger than her. I don't think... Anybody younger than you, Ruka-kun, should be a magica. They've got enough to worry about."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course you'd say that," Yuuri chuckled, "I think you're right, though. And Sayaka-chan didn't even get to have a normal childhood before, either. I just... You know, you ever wonder why she became a magical girl in the first place?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course I wonder," Kanoshi said, "Never asked, though."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri nodded, "Yeah, me neither. But, with the way she was acting here, and with what Akabane-san said to her, just before she got beheaded during that last fight... And the timing of it all... I kind of have to wonder. The way that she survived, that's what Akabane-san said. The way she survived the massacre, I think, maybe... She was still in critical condition when she became a magical girl."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Wait," Kanoshi said, "You mean..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If she hadn't become a magical girl," Yuuri said, "Sayaka-chan would be <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">dead</i> right now. That's my theory, anyway."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"And she still came back here?" Kanoshi questioned, "She really shouldn't have..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, she determined that after the fact," Yuuri said, "And Akabane-san said it too, though, not in as many words. Box Hako is still out there. She didn't die. She's somewhere."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That..." Kanoshi trailed off, "Well, that doesn't really surprise me, to tell you the truth. In the nightmare that Future Style gave me, I actually met her. I know that <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">was</i> just a nightmare, sure, but I guess that in a way it prepared me to hear that news. Do you think there could be some truth to those things?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Yuuri said, "I certainly hope the fuck not!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Me too! Obviously..." Kanoshi said, waving his hands in defense, "But it's possible, isn't it? It's a bad thing, a really bad thing, but that doesn't mean that it's totally implausible that there could be a grain of truth. It's not like the stuff will really happen like it did in the nightmares, they were way too surreal for that."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Even so," Yuuri muttered, "I don't want any of the stuff from that nightmare to come true, except, I guess there's one bit I'd be okay with. In the vision, the reason I thought it could be real for a little while, was because it confirmed my suspicion that Hikari didn't die, that she ran away."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"My vision said the same thing too," Kanoshi admitted, "It showed me Ayano and Hikari, but they were magical girls now. And they taunted me for being a bad teacher, which... I guess isn't really like either of them, now that I think about it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's probably just because Hikari's disappearance had a big impact on both of us," Yuuri said, "It was pulling from our brains, for what would fuck us up. I want to believe that she's not dead, that she just got out, but at the same time I know that it's not likely. Maybe the fact that I saw it in that nightmare makes it even less likely, not more likely."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You never know," Kanoshi said.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I really don't want to get my hopes up," Yuuri rebuked, "I'd rather think that it's nearly impossible. Then I won't end up disappointed."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's true," Kanoshi said, with a heavy sigh as he looked up at the sky, "How did we get here? I mean. How was this one tragedy exactly horrible enough to send the world towards the apocalypse? Everything's happened because of Box Hako's actions, right here, in this town."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Maybe it was engineered this way," Yuuri said, "I mean, it wasn't really her. It was the AI that got hacked. Whoever made her do this knew exactly what they were doing, probably. Nishimura was allowed to escape so that she'd open the portal and invite strong magic into the world. It's kind of worse, to think that maybe somebody knew the full impact their actions would have on the world, that somebody wanted to see the world in this state, but at the same time..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's too much to just be coincidence, I agree," Kanoshi said, "That group that took credit for the incident, I don't know a lot about them, but this doesn't seem like it goes against their ideals. The real question isn't why they'd want the world to end up like this, but how they knew that this would happen."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can answer that," Tsukune said, and they turned to see him approaching from behind, "I couldn't help but overhear. The thing is, I thought about this too. And the reason they'd know this would happen, is, that they actually didn't. Have you heard of espers?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Everyone who doesn't live under a rock has heard of espers, but are you saying they're real?" Yuuri questioned.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tsukune groaned, "There are demons and monsters and magica in this world. Espers are just people who are more in tune with a population's psychic energy than most, that's way more plausible than any of those things which are obviously real. Anyway, my guess is that Box Hako is an esper, and that AI is aware of it. It's done vastly different things in vastly different timelines, and this one is just the perfect storm. The outcome that the hackers wanted, the worst possible timeline stretching out from Hako-sama's actions."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hako-sama?" Yuuri asked, giving Tsukune a hard stink-eye.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yes," Tsukune said, "If my theory is correct, then in some sense, she's like a God, isn't she? Her actions irreparably altered the course of history for this version of the world. And since we're trapped here in this version, she's to blame for everything that's happened to us since then. And, if Akabane-chan and Yamaguchi-san's conversation is correct and we're interpreting it right, Hako-sama isn't even finished yet. She's become a magical girl and continued taking action to modify our destinies."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Do you think she could be responsible for the kidnapping?" Kanoshi asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tsukune shook his head, "No... I mean, from the thinking I've done, from what little I know about her, there's no reason she would want to do something like that. I'd imagine it's more likely that she can command others to do as she wants, it would suit her personality more than the power that seems to be behind the disappearances. It wouldn't shock me if she was working together, in some capacity, with whoever <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">is</i> responsible. So from where we stand, we have four main enemies."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Four?" Yuuri asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah. Monsters, Magica Killers, The Kidnapper, and Box Hako," Tsukune explained, "Assuming I'm correct. Again, I could be very wrong. I know it wasn't until recently that I ever bothered to exhibit the fact that I'm good at making deductions, and when even I doubt me, other people certainly should. Even so, I'd say that I'm probably correct at least on the matter of these four enemies. Magica Killers being the bottom twenty-nine in the rankings, of course. Any of those who don't fit into the rankings are bound to be quite ineffective. Which also means that the Kidnapper and Hako-sama are <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">not</i> killing magica, or not doing it at a high enough rate to outdo the horribleness even of Future Style, who is <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">not</i> a killer. They're acting in different ways, since we already know that those two have to be both unranked and under the purview of a less famous distributor than any of the ones we're personally familiar with. The sort who only have one or two in the entire rankings."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"God, Madara-kun," Yuuri said, "Why didn't you pull out any of these theories before?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Because I didn't trust in them enough before," Tsukune said, "This trip wasn't a bum lead at all, from where I'm standing. We did get additional information. In fact, if not for Future Style's interference, I probably couldn't have come up with this. But now that we know, thanks to her, and thanks to that monster, that the kidnapper's ability is to teleport things undetected... We can also assume that the kidnapped magica are indeed <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">somewhere</i>. If not for that information, I couldn't have determined that we have multiple enemies here, or most of what I just told you, to be even <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">potentially</i> true."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Still," Kanoshi said, "At least we have some idea of what we're up against now, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Yuuri agreed, "It's good to know, at least a little bit... So, basically. We have to be prepared at any time for an unexpected, high level monster to be dropped directly onto our location?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"As far as I can tell, yes," Tsukune said, "Except for the time it takes for the magica responsible to replenish that power. Though I guess if they saved it up, they could do it several times in a row..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">---</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka Yamaguchi sat on the train, returning to Tokyo. Tokyo was her home now. More a home than Kobe, more a home than Nagasaki. Both of those places had been ruined for her after the massacre. One for obvious reasons. The other... For reasons that she would prefer not to think about.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka had no idea how Yuuri had managed to go a full week with a self-inflicted cut in his question mark. Admittedly, it didn't hurt anywhere near as badly now as it had in the moment she received her injury, but at the same time, the burning sensation that persisted across her chest was so bad that if she failed to distract herself for even a moment, she felt like she was going to throw up. And it wasn't as if she had a low pain tolerance. Blade did admit to her that the burn she had across the entire thing was less life-threatening but more painful than the cut Yuuuri had, but even so, she couldn't imagine he had any comfort during his recovery.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sitting on the train for hours on end, Sayaka didn't even care about hiding her tattoos at all. She'd shed the black undershirt and let the ones on her arms be fully visible, just because she wanted to let the burn breathe. She didn't have the right sort of outfit to actually let the mark see sunlight unless she was actively holding her shirt away from it, a button-up would have been a better idea, she knew. At the first transfer, she wasn't able to buy any clothes, but at least a few snap-activated ice packs to keep it from hurting quite so horribly as her trip continued.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade made no qualms about being visible either, sitting right next to her on the train. Others gave them a wide berth, as usual, when they traveled like this. Sayaka was glad for that. She didn't want anybody to see her in pain, more vulnerable than she could actually ever remember being before. Well, once or twice. Still, this was the most vulnerable she'd been since becoming a magical girl, and that somehow seemed worse. She didn't become a magical girl for the same reason as Yuuri, to be able to keep herself from ever getting hurt by anybody again. That wasn't why she did it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She did it because she didn't want to die.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She'd been with Blade since the very beginning. She was its first magica in this world. That was why they were so close. Why Blade spent so much time with her. Why she was its favorite. It had nearly burnt itself out giving her that opportunity, taking an extra long time to recharge after turning her. She couldn't speak at the time. She wasn't awake. Blade had gone to great lengths to communicate with her in spite of it, in her mind, to give her the opportunity to come back to life. Box had nearly killed her. Sayaka was skilled, she was capable, and still she didn't stand a chance. It was like Box had practiced over and over again. She knew exactly what to do to get past Sayaka's defenses.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She couldn't protect anybody. She couldn't even protect herself.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Maybe that was why she didn't care about Blade's lie. Some part of her already knew it. Her question mark avoided placing itself anywhere that she was already injured by Box, and she made a miraculous recovery. She survived the single most tragic event in the history of Korekara Academy, not because she'd spent her entire life in combat, not because she'd trained and trained to stay alive, but because Blade thought she was worth it to save.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After something like that, though...</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After she had practically gotten killed by a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">classmate</i> of hers, of course her family wanted nothing to do with her. She was a disgrace. She'd failed. Failed so badly she would have had each of her fingers cut off for it if they even thought for a moment about letting her stick around. She didn't take her chances. She ran away. Like Kaiba did. As if she couldn't tell, that Kaiba was operating on her own now. They were the same, in that respect. They'd run from the mob and become magical girls instead, from one dangerous lifestyle into another.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Red..." Blade started, about halfway through the trip, the first words that it tried to speak from where it sat, right next to Sayaka the whole time, "I really am sorry, you know. About lying. And about what happened..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It doesn't bother me," Sayaka said, her voice shaking in spite of her best efforts. It just hurt too much, "The lie, I mean. I sort of thought that this was the case all along. I knew it in my subconscious, at least, enough. My nightmare showed Kyousuke with a bullet through his eye. Rukkun with his right arm cut off. As for what happened, this was my own fault. I was an idiot. I didn't think that her magic would hurt me the way it did. And I thought that... If this happened to me, I'd still be able to fight. That I'd be strong enough to weather the pain."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Nobody is, though," Blade said, "That's the point of making the pain so terrible. So you can't do it to yourself. Though, I guess somebody with enough adrenaline could still manage. It'd basically be a death sentence. I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad that you let yourself be incapacitated."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Blade," Sayaka said, "Why me? Why save me? Of everybody who they were trying to rescue..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You were the one who wanted to live the most," Blade said, "It doesn't have to do with thinking you would be the best magica, of those girls. I wish I could have saved all five of you. But the other four girls who ended up dying in the hospital, who were in a condition just as critical as yours, they weren't fighting to survive. As you were making your contract with me, Sayaka, two of those other girls died, because they simply weren't trying to live. They didn't have the willpower to go on, after such a traumatic event. You did. So I saved you. I didn't want to save somebody who would resent me for it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She took a deep breath before speaking again, "The version of you that was in my nightmare asked me why I wanted to become a magical girl. Why I'd take the chance to extend my lifespan like this, frozen at this physical age, when I'd always be a victim my whole life. When being in this position would just give me more time to suffer."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's not what life is about," Blade said, shaking its head, "I don't think so. It's not at all about the time you spend suffering. It's about the friends you can make, and the good you can do. It's about what you want, not about what is forced upon you. You and I are a lot alike. That's why I wanted somebody like you. We both want to live a while longer. We both want to do more before we die. We both want to tip the scales in the direction of our own happiness, no matter how long it takes."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I understand," Sayaka said, "This too will pass..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It will," Blade agreed, relaxing against her side.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">When they both woke up, it was to a horrific crunching sound. They startled, and looked up to see that the ceiling of the train was collapsing inward. Sayaka rushed to the door and forced it open, conjuring up all of the strength she could muster in her current physical state. She and Blade left the car just in time, because before their eyes it was crumpled the rest of the way under the weight of what looked like an elephant's foot, but was somehow wrong. The coloration looked sickly, especially the toes, which were yellow and infected. It was immediately clear that this was a monster.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you kidding me!?" Sayaka shouted at the foot, though she didn't stop moving, running along the path at the side of the subway tunnel to find a way out of here. Clearly, this was a dangerous place to be at this moment. With her mark incapacitated, she even lacked her usual benefit of having magical-level endurance without transforming, and she was never more grateful for the fact that she was an athletic person in general. She was also grateful that the train hadn't gone far since the previous stop, and she soon reached one. Upon arriving to the station, she found that this was, in fact, Tokyo. She didn't hesitate to climb the stairs aboveground, and found that the monster who held ownership of that foot was an absolute unit.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs5QIxlVocwL3UTspUEqzb36fsLv0LCCWxMoAGMv5TmQfGbMlekILSJeLfnbAV6QZgZRgq8brZRK0orEI5zN1JoZUcJnAkk5CBtkA51aoGHa92G8CSwg7zM5sjlsMLhgaOJO11wmJ2sA-o/s1600/mont2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs5QIxlVocwL3UTspUEqzb36fsLv0LCCWxMoAGMv5TmQfGbMlekILSJeLfnbAV6QZgZRgq8brZRK0orEI5zN1JoZUcJnAkk5CBtkA51aoGHa92G8CSwg7zM5sjlsMLhgaOJO11wmJ2sA-o/s320/mont2.png" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It towered above the city, and kept its weight on nine other legs as it wiggled that foot free. Its legs were incredibly long, each one matching the height of most high-rises in the area. The main body of the thing was amorphous, looking quite like a snake as it weaved around the roofs it wasn't quite tall enough to clear. At either end of the slinky torso was a mouth, wide open and with rows upon rows of teeth like leeches.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">And, fighting against it alone, was Fukushima. Kaiba. Armed with her massive sword, and utilizing water from every fire hydrant around, that she'd popped open with her blade for her own purposes. She used both of these factors for a combination, attacking the monster with both and simultaneously utilizing both for mobility. It didn't seem like Kaiba had any trouble avoiding its attacks and striking back against it, but she had to keep moving, she couldn't stay still. And Sayaka could see in Kaiba's face the toll that this strategy was taking on her, heavy breaths breaking through the mask.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">At first glance, she seemed unscathed other than this exhaustion, and Sayaka let out a rough breath, tipped with her concern, "Where's her backup? This thing's level six, she needs at least one person helping her..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"They're in Kobe," Blade assumed, "Where this monster was supposed to show up."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Another one got teleported!?" Sayaka questioned, "Are you serious?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I thought this might happen," Blade said, "Not that it would be here, per say, but I thought when you defeated the level seven in Korekara, another one could be sent immediately. After this, we'll probably be in the clear for at least a month, but... Someone who sent two things after you already, probably wouldn't have stopped preparing at two."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Then, I have to help her!" Sayaka exclaimed, then found an unprompted and awful sound fall from her mouth as her attempt to transform fell flat, shooting pains throughout her body.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Red, no!" Blade exclaimed.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She tried again, and fell onto the ground.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sayaka!" Blade yelled, leaping towards her, and in that moment restraints wrapped around her body, fully immobilizing her. Blade landed on her arm, leaning toward her face with the closest thing to a distraught expression its face seemed capable of, "You can't do that! You can't possibly transform when you're injured like that, all you'll do is hurt yourself even more..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But... Kaiba-nee..." Sayaka said, and Blade was struck by how pathetic she sounded.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, she's holding her own just fine!" Blade assured her, "She might even beat it before the backup gets here!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Her hands..." Sayaka said, "Look at her hands, Blade! Her mark is in her palm!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade turned to look, and spotted what Sayaka was referring to. Kaiba looked unharmed, but her hands were bleeding. There was dark red blood on the hilt of her sword, and Blade realized why. While Kaiba had in fact done a spectacular job at avoiding any attacks from the monster, she was paying a price for that. Too much friction on her sword, with the extent she was using it. Even with the endurance monster, she could at least pace herself, not to mention the fact that with it being a slime type she was mostly just using her magic. That clearly wouldn't fly with this creature.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Blade!" Sayaka interrupted its train of thought, "You have to let me go!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No! I don't have to do anything!" Blade said, "You can't do anything. You can't transform. There's nothing that you can do right now."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Just because you've never seen anybody transform while their mark is injured doesn't mean it's impossible! You told me that somebody could fight through the pain if they had enough adrenaline and I'm pretty goddamn sure I'm in that state," Sayaka protested.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">she's </i>in that state," Blade said, flicking its tail in Kaiba's direction, "And even if you could transform, what would you do? It's probably too late, if she's already bleeding that much."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Then you have to tell her," Sayaka sobbed out, "Just tell her what's going to happen to her if she keeps this up! If she's still standing then there's still time, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade almost tried to protest. Give its excuse about how dangerous it was to be spreading this information, but it knew that if it refused Sayaka's request, no matter what happened after, then she would hate it. And Kaiba would probably die either way. Blade knew that Sayaka needed it. Especially once Kaiba died. Especially then. If she pushed it away, then she wouldn't have anyone left to take care of her. Everyone else in her life thought that she was just too strong, too capable to ever need anybody taking care of her. Kaiba always looked out for her, though. Blade did too. Sayaka needed at least one of them in her life. So it bit its tongue, and instead, leapt away to jump between buildings until it got close enough to Kaiba, "You need to stop. If you put much more friction on your hands, then you'll die! Your question mark is what keeps you alive and if the connection is entirely severed, then you're going to die!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You think I couldn't have figured that out the minute that it started hurting more than anything in my life!?" Kaiba questioned, not slowing down even for a second, "What are you doing back here, anyway?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I came back with Sayaka," Blade explained, "She got injured though, and she can't transform right now. She's down on the ground right now and she <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">begged</i> me to come and tell you this. She doesn't want to see you die."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There's nobody else here," Kaiba said through heavy pants, "And just look around, Blade. I can't just let this damage to the city fly. I can't let it become permanent. This place is Sayaka's home, Kotomi's home... And it's Tokyo. It's too important to let a monster like this wreak havoc. Destroy the subway system like this... this is bigger than me."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There's nobody else here because this monster was supposed to show up in Kobe," Blade said, "So your backup from the surrounding cities went there instead, because a level six is still a pretty good catch, for a group. For one person, though... Fukushima, this monster was sent here knowing you'd be facing it alone. If you let yourself get killed by it, that's exactly what the one who sent it here wants!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It doesn't matter if it's what the person who sent it here wants. I can't turn my back on this city," Kaiba said, "I have to defeat it, even if it <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">does</i> kill me. And if that happens, I'll give my magic over to Sayaka. She may as well get something out of needing to see this."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...I really can't convince you?" Blade asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Nah," Kaiba said, then slipped her mask from her face and grinned in its direction, "I never thought I'd have a heroic death."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEa3coneBgAKFlfXRzYsyXyf-latU5QP6gPT9o3ihGqVw49Ot_Jy7H15O580xQL4JUBWE2usjTaKQbtQ9I0sigNE6ZQX2TWRtCD6Ct90p1P4hH_oEhuTZz1TcQMbCCYfr5ObfiCifEVN3T/s1600/Smile.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEa3coneBgAKFlfXRzYsyXyf-latU5QP6gPT9o3ihGqVw49Ot_Jy7H15O580xQL4JUBWE2usjTaKQbtQ9I0sigNE6ZQX2TWRtCD6Ct90p1P4hH_oEhuTZz1TcQMbCCYfr5ObfiCifEVN3T/s320/Smile.png" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade jumped back down to where Sayaka was lying on the ground, tied up. It stared at her for a moment, and she looked so weak. Exactly as weak as she'd looked in the hospital when it first made her into a magical girl. For all of her posturing, she was scared, and small, and had no idea what to do. And Blade had to make it worse.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sayaka..." Blade said, quiet, worried, "I told her. But, she didn't want to listen. She refused to stop fighting."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No," Sayaka breathed, staring wide-eyed at Blade, "You told her the truth?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I told her more than the truth," Blade said, "I told her it would kill her. I told her you begged me to tell her that. I told her that if she dies here, then she's giving in to the one who sent that monster here. But she's a righteous person and a good magical girl, Sayaka. She said that she'd go down fighting. That she'd die a heroic death. Even if this was what the person who sent that thing here wants, she can't just let it destroy the city."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka could have chosen not to believe Blade. To think that it didn't say anything at all like that to Kaiba, to keep its own secret. But she did believe it. Blade listened to her request, and even that hadn't been enough.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She took a deep breath, then whispered, "Can you please untie me?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Promise you won't transform?" Blade asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It wouldn't do any good now," Sayaka said, squeezing her eyes nearly shut, closing them just in time to not see the final moment of Kaiba's last endeavor. The monster was defeated, Sayaka saw that much, but she didn't see Kaiba drop to the ground. Blade undid the restraints, and Sayaka sat up, eyes still closed. She felt a strange surge of energy, as if she'd actually been involved in the fight against that monster, but stronger. She opened her eyes, and Kaiba's body was right there. A few feet away from her.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Her eyes were shut, and there was a smile left behind on her face. She'd been transformed back to her usual attire, but for some reason, the mask she normally wore was just as absent as the one for her magical outfit had been. The sword was gone, and her hands were open. In her palm, Sayaka saw the abrasions which had worked their way through the mark, severing its line and her life along with it. Out from the mark, a black goo seemed to be oozing out. Sayaka crawled over, reached out, and touched it. It burned to touch, like acid, and she withdrew her finger quickly. She noted that it was starting to eat away at Kaiba's hand.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It won't destroy her body," Blade assured her, "Just her hand. It'll take a while. Until that's done, she's technically still alive. But, she can't control any of her own muscles, or anything like that. She can just feel the pain of her hand being eaten away slowly by the acid. That's what makes dying as a magica so utterly painful. But you knew that already, more or less."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She's still in there...?" Sayaka questioned, then reached out and grabbed Kaiba's other hand in both of hers, "Can she hear me?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't know," Blade said, "That's not something we ever considered. We barely know how our own magic works... The only reason we even know that the melting pain is still felt is because we've taken a visit to a magica's mind during that period before. Nobody was trying to talk to that one, though."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Kaiba-nee..." Sayaka whined, leaning against the body, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... This is all my fucking fault, if I'd just stayed here, or if I hadn't got myself hurt in Korekara... There's so many little things that would have fixed everything if they were different but instead I had to be selfish and run off with those guys back to Korekara because, fuck, I needed to prove myself? Prove that I could go back there in spite of everything? But I couldn't. I really couldn't. And now you're gone, because of me."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sayaka..." Blade said.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm done," Sayaka said, voice flat as she turned to look at it again, "I'm done trying to deal with this bullshit. Who cares about Stripe. Who cares about Horace. I'm staying here. Right here. I'm never going on one of those fucking investigations again. I'm <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">done</i>."</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-2443647407227217042018-09-21T13:56:00.001-07:002018-10-15T15:38:34.211-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Fifteen<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "montserrat" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-----First Chapter</a></div>
</div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/09/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "montserrat" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Rei blinked, staring at the distributor who had just made her that offer. Before she could say anything, Kanoshi spoke up.</span><br />
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey now! She's obviously in a pretty vulnerable state right now, you'd be taking advantage of her by getting her to make such a big life decision like this!" He protested.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade sighed, "Normally, I would agree with you, Kanoshi Kyousuke. However, these are special circumstances. She can remember monster attacks, living in an area without any active magica. It's a matter of time until she'd end up getting seriously hurt, or killed, and with no magica here she'd just stay dead no matter what. She's got loads of potential, though. Her type of demon magic is exactly the right sort to be amplified through becoming a magical girl... Her raw power levels are nearly to the level of yours!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Will she end up outranking me?" Kanoshi asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, of course not, I just said that she's nearly to your level, not at or exceeding it. And she won't really rank up unless she starts traveling, the monsters that do pop here won't be nearly enough to really climb her. But, they will be enough to make having her defeat them worth it. She's practically already living the life of a magical girl, but not reaping any of the rewards. It's only fair she gets the opportunity," Blade said, "Right, Rei Akabane?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'd like the chance to actually defeat those things, rather than just incapacitating them," Rei said, "And I know that I'm emotionally vulnerable right now, but those monsters have nothing to do with it... Honestly, I can't imagine any reason that I shouldn't go ahead and do it. It's not like it will even matter very much if I died. I'm only even studying these things because I'm interested in them... I'm not exactly the sort of person to want to keep holding on at the end of the world."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's not the end of the world, though," Tsukune said, "We're already adapting to the new and frightening way of the world with monsters and magic in it. That's not the end at all."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Actually, she's kind of right," Blade said, looking up at Sayaka, "I make sure all of my magica know that, so clearly my comrades are just as bad at their jobs as I thought! Of course, I always knew I was the superior distributor. I have consistency, unlike Oh One lucking out with his immediately high-ranking magica... No offense to you Kanoshi Kyousuke. In any case, yes. The arrival of monsters to a world almost always signifies that it's beyond all hope, it's beyond saving. Monsters are a bastard product of magic and negativity given form. Worlds with enough magic to create monsters, but not enough to create magica, are almost always doomed. Sometimes, light finds its way back to those worlds and they recover, but not often. Magica are the only means of defense against these things. In some worlds, magica are able to bring enough hope to rescue the world. In most cases, all we can do is extend the lifespan of a doomed world."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Extend the lifespan of a doomed world?" Yuuri questioned, "That's bullshit! There's no way that this world is doomed, we're getting stronger faster than the monsters are!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course you are," Blade said, "The death of a universe is not a sudden thing. This world would be declared dead at the time when monsters have wiped all major industrial areas off the map and eradicated at least ninety percent of sapient life. Without magica, that would happen about one hundred years after the arrival of monsters, because humans are pretty tough! With magica, though, that number can be extended to about one thousand, if not more. By the time that the phrase 'it's the end-times' can kick in, everyone you care about will either be a magica too, or be dead. It's not something to really be concerned about. Of course, this is just what I've heard, and observed in less-interesting universes. For all I know, none of this could be relevant to your particular universe at all."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Would have been nice to know that we were in the actual apocalypse," Zhou mumbled.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Jesus Christ, suck it up," Sayaka hissed at them, "It's not a big deal! I mean, it's a thousand years off at this rate. Would you really think you were living in the endtimes in the year 1000, if somebody told you about the idea of y2k then? No, it doesn't fucking matter yet. That's really not something you need to worry about."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't think that I'll live to see that," Rei said, "Regardless of if I became a magical girl or not. If becoming one can help postpone the end of the world, then I may as well do that. Make something useful of myself while I have the chance."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"In that case," Blade said, "I need your direct verbal consent, Rei Akabane. Will you become a magical girl?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yes," Rei said, "I will."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Very well then," Blade said. Its ears and its tail flicked about, then there was a bright flash of light. None of the magica present had ever actually witnessed the christening of another magica before, but as it turned out, there wasn't really much to see. When the blinding flash dissipated, Rei was simply standing there. Well, not quite Rei now. Blade revealed her name, "Welcome to the world of magic... Pretty Fighter Ribbon Wire."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDVkrK20MXR4Z8ZrBE6AM2RP4HYtIZ2GEVzxps7btk1kveo0k_urFLhSI8-d7FNZHkJRKv7Bxlzj6ngQC1w5tkLdJJMjhldd7uwRitRul56yWUmA4B7exKWeMN2NzYK1PWxcbdscfuE2K/s1600/wire.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDVkrK20MXR4Z8ZrBE6AM2RP4HYtIZ2GEVzxps7btk1kveo0k_urFLhSI8-d7FNZHkJRKv7Bxlzj6ngQC1w5tkLdJJMjhldd7uwRitRul56yWUmA4B7exKWeMN2NzYK1PWxcbdscfuE2K/s320/wire.png" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty Fighter Ribbon Wire</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ah, I see," Rei observed, looking down at her hands. Her weapon took the form of long talons at the end of her fingers, reaching out from the oversized sleeves. Her outfit resembled a kimono, but pulled up short, puffed out, ruffled. The red irises overtook her whole eyes, and there were curly, draconic horns sprouting from her head, "I'm an electric dragon themed magical girl, I guess. But why is my name Pretty Fighter Ribbon Wire? Couldn't there be something more fitting?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's just how Blade names its magica," Sayaka explained, "For example, I'm Pretty Fighter Ribbon Red. Its kidnapped magica is Pretty Fighter Ribbon Stripe."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, I see," Rei said, "If I'd known that, maybe I would have waited for some other distributor to come along..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Rude!" Blade exclaimed, "I'll have you know I'm a wonderful distributor and all of my magica are very happy to have me!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...I'll admit it, yeah," Sayaka said, shrugging one shoulder as she twirled a tuft of hair in her other hand, "Blade is pretty great."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You'll admit that you like the alien creature that made you into a magical girl, but you won't even admit that you like us, your actual friends?" Kanoshi questioned.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka just turned and glared at him.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Akabane," Tsukune said, having transformed into his own magical boy form, "Look? We've both got horns."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We do!" Rei exclaimed, showing some amount of excitement, however subtle, for the first time since the magica had arrived, "I think that's pretty cool..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah me too," Tsukune agreed, slightly shuffling in place, "And you have electric powers right? I have fire powers. That makes us kind of the same! Right? Cause, my magical boy name, it's Infernal."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're right," Rei agreed, also making the same, strange shuffling motion where she stood. Kanoshi decided this just had to be a special form of communication between emotionally cagey people, or something along those lines. He wasn't going to question it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"And it's a good thing we got that sorted out, too," Blade said, looking up at the ceiling, "Because I think that a certain sort of creature that starts with an M and ends with onster has decided to pay this fine ghost town a visit!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, shit," Zhou said, and transformed immediately, then turned back to Rei, "What's the quickest way out of the building?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We don't need to be quick," Rei said, then glanced over to Apollo, "I'll tell you the whole story when we're done, okay? I know you won't remember any of it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thanks, Reicchi," Apollo said, giving her a salute.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Anyway," Rei said, starting to stroll leisurely back towards the ladder up into the school. In the meantime, everybody else had also transformed, "Does being quick matter? As long as we defeat it, the damage is undone, yes? That's how it works?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It is," Yuuri said, falling in right behind her, "And I guess you're right, that we don't <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">need </i>to be quick about it, but we kind of do try to get things sorted out sooner rather than later."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Rei said, "It isn't like there are any consequences left, if you fail in a place like this. The monsters don't bother the school. Outside of it, there's not even anybody left."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There's nothing here," Sayaka said simply from the back of the line, "Everything's already been destroyed and everybody's gone. Except for you and Apollo... This town does make it seem like the apocalypse after all."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Rei agreed, "I mean, this is where it all started..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Akabane," Sayaka said, "You know, with what happened here..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know," Rei said, grabbing the ladder and turning to look at Sayaka, past the magical boys, "It's hard for you to be here. It's hard for me too, but with you showing up, I need to face it now. Natsuki is dead. She's not MIA. The list says she's MIA, but I saw her die in front of my eyes. I don't know why they didn't find her body. But she's dead. The person I cared about most... And hiding out here, I could ignore it, without anybody from the outside world. But you're here. And I know how you survived, now. Nobody she got to could live under normal circumstances. Natsuki's gone."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ah-" Sayaka made a sort of surprised, strangled sound. The others thought for a second that it was because of something Rei said to her, but the look of utter shock on Rei's face said differently. They turned around.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">There was something very wrong, seeing Pretty Fighter Ribbon Red without a head, without the ribbons around her twintails that really emphasized her magical name. It didn't take long for them to locate it, hanging glassy-eyed in the talon of the monster who had just broken through the roof. The monster which had just attacked the school, where Rei had claimed they never attacked. The monster which was level seven, and had attacked Red. Killed Red-</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">But, Kanoshi realized, her body was still moving. Not twitching, not having final spasms, but drawing her weapon. Turning, and adeptly but blindly, cutting into the talon of the beast. Slicing through one, but also cutting into the cheek of her own head. She pulled the weapon back, and let her head fall to roll across the floor. Kanoshi scrambled to scoop it off the ground on a sudden, impulsive hunch, to place it back on her neck. He still had some healing power from the last fight, so he siphoned it into her, and watched as the wound healed over, tying her head to her body once more and bringing the light back into her eyes.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Jesus Christ, Red!" Yuuri exclaimed, firing smoke in the monster's direction before it decided to retaliate again, "What the fuck was that!?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How should I know?" Sayaka questioned, positioning herself to leap into the air, "This thing's level seven and there's just the six of us, we have to get to work! We can figure this shit out later..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Maybe you should sit out?" Zhou questioned, "Since you were just beheaded and all?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm alive, so I'll fight," Sayaka snapped in his direction, then jumped, using the end of her axe to dig into the monster's skin, swinging around to land on its back. Kanoshi flew up to follow her, and got a good look at the beast. It was as large as the entire school, its claw now holding onto the ledge of the hole it had punctured into the basement. It was a gigantic, leathery mass, its skin a putrid shade of purple. It had a multitude of eyes on one side, and that was the only indicator of a front or backside to the thing. Three pairs of arms, or legs, they looked the same, all long and spindly and ending in those awful claws which had somehow not killed Sayaka.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghGy4zW85wR9uTCJL0GHNLg0eDlJJO_JGuV2GlqV_51pQEe_WpYydkiogq2DaeeMR8auvbe2l8cELelnYDA7z_KI49HIObbHeEg3_omT8T5U1gD2Ce9oy_rdBbxpwNhCHjdhkQUVFmY_SZ/s1600/monst.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghGy4zW85wR9uTCJL0GHNLg0eDlJJO_JGuV2GlqV_51pQEe_WpYydkiogq2DaeeMR8auvbe2l8cELelnYDA7z_KI49HIObbHeEg3_omT8T5U1gD2Ce9oy_rdBbxpwNhCHjdhkQUVFmY_SZ/s320/monst.png" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi immediately set to work, blocking swipes from the creature as much as he could. Its claws could reach all the way around, stretching to easily reach Sayaka at full force, even when she was stood on its back, hacking away. Kanoshi did his best to protect her while he could, and it wasn't long until the others joined the fight. Tsukune from a distance, targeting the eyes with his artillery. Zhou started using his songs to gather and hurl debris from the down at the thing, and Yuuri provided cover with his smoke while also firing at the eyes with his own weapon.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei, meanwhile, started in with the same method as Sayaka, slicing at the beast, though from a different location.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey, Wire!" Sayaka called out after Kanoshi narrowly protected her from another slice. The monster really seemed to be focusing on her, "Why don't you use some of that 'extra strong' magic of yours instead of just doing the same sort of shit I'm already trying and failing at? Roast this fucker! The skin's too thick!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't know if-" Rei protested, but she was interrupted.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Just fucking do it!" Sayaka shrieked, and it suddenly showed through that she was actually shaken by her near-death experience, and afraid that this same monster could get to her again. She wasn't thinking straight. She was terrified. But she was the veteran, so Rei thought maybe she'd know something that she didn't. So Rei used her magic. The monster roared out in pain, but didn't yet fall. Sayaka screamed, and fell over sideways, then rolled off of the monster's back.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She's fine, just keep fighting!" Blade spoke, and though it wasn't shouting, its voice was heard by all of the magica who needed it. Kanoshi hesitated, but he could only afford to for a second before he needed to block another attack. He started funneling the healing power he was gathering from the strikes into Sayaka, trying to undo the damage that had been done by Rei's electric attack. He, too, thought that it would be a bad idea to use that magic, but assumed that Sayaka knew what she was doing, or maybe that she planned to jump away at the last minute.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">And with that, now that the way was clear anyway, Rei was continuing to use her magic. It was making an impact, albeit, not an especially huge one. The monster was slowly roasting, but that didn't impede its combat ability. It made an odd and somewhat disgusting noise, then hurled something from its eyes. Kanoshi swooped about to block the one globule that was flying straight in Tsukune's direction, but he couldn't get the other bits. Yuuri dodged easily, though, and Zhou blocked the bit flying at him with a chunk of building. Where the glob collided with Zhou's debris, the concrete and metal seemed to simply disappear, dissolving away entirely on impact.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi doubted it would have such an immediate effect on a magica, they were made of tougher stuff than that, but it would certainly hurt and would definitely scar. Even with Kanoshi's magic, he could only occasionally heal somebody well enough that the injury wouldn't even leave some sort of scar behind. That was the thing, with being magical. Pain was only reduced a bit, and scarring would still happen, the big difference was just that they could recover from much more severe injuries.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Even more severe than Kanoshi originally believed, now that he'd witnessed Sayaka live through being thoroughly beheaded. The strange thing about it was that her head certainly was dead for as long as it was detached. He saw it in her eyes. What could the explanation for that be? He couldn't think too hard about that right now. Tsukune, with his large weaponry, was the least mobile or able to defend himself of the present magica, so Kanoshi shifted his focus to protecting him over any of the others. Even Rei could at least move around.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi was blocking enough high-power attacks from the monster that although his teammates continued to be injured, he could fix them up with ease. Occasionally Yuuri or Rei would fail to dodge, but they'd hardly have time to wince before Kanoshi had their injuries healed. As he got the hang of his powers, they'd evolved, giving him the ability to tell even without looking when people around him were in need of healing magic. Though it took a while, much longer than any of the fights that Kanoshi had actually yet been involved in since he wasn't steady in his abilities at the time of the level 8 endurance monster's appearance, the beast was eventually felled.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">As soon as the thing fell over dead, Kanoshi and Yuuri rushed to Sayaka's side, while the others gathered the orbs that the monster dropped and made sure that they were out of the way of the repairs that needed to be made to the buildings. Magica could in fact get trapped inside the auto-repairs, and while escape wasn't difficult, it did cause some damage that <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">wouldn't </i>be resolved. Most magica who actually cared made sure not to let that happen.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade was sitting next to Sayaka when the others arrived to check on her, and she was back in her civilian attire, sitting up but clearly disoriented.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you okay?" Yuuri asked, holding a hand out only partially in her direction, not sure what to do about this, "Why did you do that?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I dunno," Sayaka said, coughed once, then shook her head, "To both questions, I dunno. I guess I just wanted to get rid of the monster that almost killed me as quick as possible, so I didn't even think that Wire's magic could backfire like that."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, about that," Kanoshi said, "How, did you survive that...?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'll explain it," Blade said, then turned and glanced at Sayaka, "And, why you can't transform again right now, either. I'm sorry, Red. This is... The single lie by omission that I've told you. The lie we've all told all of you."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"A lie...?" Sayaka questioned, eyes widening as she inched, still seated, away from Blade, "What? What the fuck did you lie about?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We never explained anything about the way that you, as a magica, would die," Blade said, "We were open with the fact that it could easily happen, and the fact that it could be seriously painful for you, and all of that. Everything about how awful dying would be after entering the world of magic. But we never told you the one thing that would probably make you refuse to become magica. Magic isn't meant for happy people. And the thing is, once you're magical, there isn't actually any way to willfully die."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Huh?" Sayaka asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You felt it, right?" Blade prodded, then glanced at Yuuri too, "And you too, Yuuri-kun. The question mark. When you hurt it, it's an overwhelming pain. Worse than anything you've ever felt. That's a defense mechanism, actually. That's the thing. The only way for you to die is for that mark to be completely severed apart. Cut in half. Or, not in half, but you know. The line of the mark, if broken, will kill you. And because of the pain, you can't do that to yourself. It's not possible. Even the toughest person in the world couldn't actually, physically continue causing themselves harm when in that much pain."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's..." Kanoshi was nearly speechless to hear it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Any other injury," Blade said, "You can recover from. The location of your question mark has one other function, besides the matter of what ability you retain in human form. It's what animates your body, not your brain, anymore. So any part of your body that's still physically connected to it can move. Red has the advantage of having a midsection mark in that she can generally continue with any severed limb or, even her head. Smokescreen, with an arm mark, has the disadvantage where losing that arm would leave, basically, only his hand functional. So, yes. We didn't tell you. Becoming a magica gives you an Achilles Heel. One weakness, and you can't exploit it yourself. And it's also why dying as a magica is such a painful thing. I'm sorry. We don't generally mention this fact, because..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So many magica never would have done it if they realized that they could only die if somebody, or something else killed them," Sayaka clarified, "But, why didn't you tell <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">me?"</i></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Blade said, "Technically, for explaining this fact to you guys, I'm going to get in trouble. It's not allowed, not one of our rules, it comes straight from the ones who sent us here. I know it wouldn't have changed your mind. Probably the opposite. But, I mean, Yuuri-kun..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I probably wouldn't have done it if you told me before, you're right," Yuuri said, turning away and glaring at the ground, "Can't do anything about it now, and I mean, I'm more willing to stick around now that there's a purpose to my violence and all. At the same time, though, lying like that. How do I know it really is the single lie you things have told us? You act like you care and like we're your friends, like we're partners, but you can't even be upfront about the impact it has on our actual lives? That you're not just pulling us into the world of magic, but in doing so, chaining us to the world of the living like that?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wouldn't say it's chaining," Blade said, "Monsters attack indiscriminately, so they can still kill you. And Skorgles doesn't actually care about the rules, so you can bet that almost any magica killer knows exactly what they're doing. Obviously we'd rather you knew, both because we do want your informed consent in becoming magica, and because not knowing your own weak point, and your invincibility otherwise, is quite the strong disadvantage, you know?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I understand," Sayaka said, "But... I'm also your magical girl. You can't expect these others, who don't even have a reason to care about you, to trust you after this."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm not about to trust SC or Oh One either," Yuuri said, "None of them. I don't care if they were ordered not to tell us, they could have broken the rules. Skorgles did. I'm not saying I want any of you to be more like it, cause I know that it's a fucking awful distributor, but. What's the worst that can happen to you for breaking the rules, if that one's still around and active?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Skorgles..." Blade sighed, looking down, "Never acted like this before. As soon as we got to this universe, though, you humans started rubbing off on it. It's been convinced into a final act of hedonism. After this universe is finished, it won't be coming with us to the next one. During our performance evaluations, it will be erased from existence, just the same as the universe that it made its mistakes in. I... Probably won't be erased for telling you, but if you spread the information too far, or I tell too many others..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Rukkun," Sayaka said, "No matter how upset you are, you wouldn't want them to be erased, would you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You've killed people for less," Yuuri snipped back, "Why shouldn't I spread the information, make sure everybody knows? If you're telling the truth that it'll be a millennium before the world ends, I'd say that's still a pretty good lifespan for you."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"A millennium is just a fraction of my intended lifespan," Blade said, "This is my first true universe. The only one I've been to with humans who have free will and complex emotional thought. Killing me now would be like killing a baby. There's so much more I have to do! So many more friends I have to make!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Friends to make and to lie to," Yuuri said.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ruka-kun!" Kanoshi admonished him, "You'd really kill a baby?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Blade is not a baby! It's probably even lying about its natural lifespan," Yuuri protested, "And I wouldn't even kill it directly, that's not even possible! But don't you think that magica deserve to be aware of something like this? Isn't that worth letting one shitty cat get killed when all this is over?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't want to lay down my life for magica who aren't even mine," Blade said, its ears twitching, "I'm not a monster. I'm not so cruel that I'd value myself over other lives. But at the same time, you're all doomed anyway. More doomed than I am. And I'd still sacrifice myself for those I actually care about, if it came to that. But right now? It's not imperative. And you wouldn't be saving anybody who really matters."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"And how are you going to stop me?" Yuuri questioned.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade sat there in silence for a moment, but it wasn't long before it spoke up again, "I want to convince you that it wouldn't do enough good to be worth snuffing my life out when it's barely begun. But if you really insist on spreading this information, then I'm afraid I would have to physically restrain you. I am capable of that, you know. We have abilities that can only be used in the effort of preventing our own magica from going rogue."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm not yours, though," Yuuri said, "I doubt those abilities would even work on me."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"They would," Blade said, "I have permission, specifically for the four of you, because Red works with you so often. I need to have the authorization to supervise this entire group. So, why not just do things peacefully?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're bluffing," Yuuri said.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't think it is, Ruka-kun," Kanoshi said, frowning in Yuuri's direction, "It's... Not a big deal. Eventually, enough magica will figure it out on their own anyway."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"By the time that happens..." Yuuri trailed off.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It would be too late, right? But the thing is, you don't have any way of spreading the word to non-magica anyway," Kanoshi said, "You wouldn't prevent anybody, anyway. And don't try to act like it was the fact it's a disadvantage to people who are already magica that made you want to spread it. I know you better than that."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri didn't answer, and Kanoshi knew that he was correct. He didn't necessarily want to be correct; After all, it was depressing that Yuuri's thought process was that others shouldn't get trapped, as he did, in a situation where a suicide attempt was basically impossible. Kanoshi hated that one of his students had a mindset like that, hated that he was so well aware of that mindset. Yuuri was a self-destructive young man, the type who honestly would be seriously disappointed at the idea that if he decided to die, he couldn't. Like he hadn't been through, made it through one of the worst childhoods Kanoshi had ever seen.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">What, Kanoshi wondered, could possibly be worse? Be awful enough to prompt somebody who soldiered through so much to commit suicide? What could Yuuri be anticipating would do that to him?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't want..." Yuuri mumbled, "To be like you, Blade. I don't want anyone to find out that I knew about this and didn't tell them. I don't want to betray my friends. I don't have a lot of those. They're important to me. Too important to risk it by keeping this shitty, dangerous secret for you."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know," Blade said, "I understand. Because I feel the same way. I don't want to keep the secret either, and I do consider my magica to be my friends. But I was ordered to. Hopefully, others can understand that, like me, you were ordered to keep the secret."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What if I tell people I figured it out on my own?" Yuuri asked, "What if I say that I realized it, that time when I cut my own arm, and then now, when the only part of Yamaguchi-chan that still has fresh burn marks is her question? That nobody had to explain it to me?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Most people won't really realize you're smart enough to do that," Blade said, "I think you would have, if I didn't say it. But, come on. You know who you are. Will other people believe you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay, so, maybe not!" Yuuri exclaimed, "But Yamaguchi-chan is smart, I can say it came from her, or she can tell people instead! They'll believe her!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But then it traces back to me even closer," Blade said, "Then it's one of my own magica saying it. And even if it makes sense, it's still a lie. You'd have to be able to lie really convincingly. And I wouldn't even know if I was in trouble, until everything was already done. We can't even push the boundaries then pull back if it doesn't work. If the folks in charge find out, at all, then I'm done for. And I can't even know if that's the case ahead of time. So, please. Help me."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Okay," Sayaka said, then turned and locked eyes with Yuuri, "Don't worry about it, Rukkun. The information will get out on its own soon enough. You won't need to lie for Blade."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri understood the meaning in that look, and he nodded in understanding.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Anyway," Blade said, moving on and brushing against the side of Sayaka's arm, "Red, you can't transform until that burn's healed up. It won't leave a scar on the mark, so it <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">will</i> get better, it'll just take a few weeks. You'll also notice that Kyousuke-san's healing had no effect on that bit. Usually, it just takes a certain amount of magic to heal an injury. But to heal something like that... Well, he would need to absorb an attack with <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">double</i> the intent of the one that caused the injury. If the intention was to kill for the sake of killing, then to heal it, he would need to absorb an attack that was meant to kill out of a burning hatred, or something with similarly strong emotional motivation."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Jesus," Sayaka scoffed, wrinkling her nose, "And what if the original attack did have strong emotional motivation?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Then," Blade said, "You just have to wait. It's not like it's that important. A healer still couldn't save you if an attack was going to kill you, no matter what the intent. The only real reason to heal an injury like that would be to let you get back in the fight sooner. and if you got hurt in that way to begin with, it's probably for the better that you take some time off of fighting."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What I want to know," Rei said, having approached the scene after retrieving the orbs intended for her and Sayaka, since having the same distributor meant they didn't both need to reap the rewards, "Is why this thing attacked the school, when none of them have before."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It didn't know how things work around here," Blade said, "Because it didn't form here. While you were fighting, I checked the site. This particular monster... A level seven leather-skin power type was meant to appear in Moscow today. This monster isn't from here. It was sent here, somehow."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How can you tell?" Tsukune asked, also having arrived.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, it's right," Zhou answered before Blade got the chance to, "If it formed here, we would have noticed it sooner. And when it broke through the roof, there was a wave of magic that came off of it. A wave of... Magica energy."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why would a magica do something like that?" Blade questioned, not to anybody in particular, "Even the magica employed by Skorgles, the worst of the worst, the truly evil who kill anyone and anything... They still work to kill monsters. They still help. They still need orbs! And magic power!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"A magica is doing it because the monsters just don't have any way to combat the website themselves," Tsukune concluded, "Somebody will always play Devil's Advocate. I can't say that this means the website will always be inaccurate. It probably takes a good chunk of power to do something like this, and if the magica responsible was anywhere in the rankings, they'd already be caught doing this. That must mean they don't have a ton of access to magic, so they can only port these monsters occasionally."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Teleporting one here of all places, though..." Rei mumbled, "Why? And why now? Could this person have possibly known that you were going to be here?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Isn't it obvious?" Tsukune asked, changing back to his human form and crossing his arms with a heavy sigh, "Future Style also showed up here, undetected. That's the same sort of magic. Whoever transported Future Style, also transported that monster. They confirmed our presence and our destination through her. And the time we spent in Future Style's vision was also an excuse for that person to build up enough power by the time we got here, to actually send that unexpected monster."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I see..." Sayaka mumbled, staring at her own knees now, "It wanted to kill me. It targeted me immediately, and afterward, too. I was obviously the target. Whoever this person is..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Maybe it's two people," Zhou said, "Another magica could have some sort of undeniable command magic. That would be a kind of horrifying team-up, and also explain how everything that happened here... did."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'd say that's likely," Tsukune said, "And there's one positive thing to be gained from this information here, though. Blade, it was kind of you to let us all be privy to the top secret information. And the fact that the monster used the element of surprise to behead Red, instead of attack her mark, means that these conspirators don't actually know how to kill magica, even though they wanted at least one of us dead."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I shouldn't have come here," Sayaka said, standing up with her fists clenched, "I should have known better... Now I've nearly died in this place twice," She was shaking as she spoke, her voice for once in her life betraying a quiet sort of fear over her usual, loud demeanor, "Why did I come back here? Why did I think I should come with you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't know, Sayaka," Yuuri said, sincere as he addressed her so directly, using only her first name to try and show that it was all he could think to say, "But maybe, if you hadn't come, you really would have died. That monster would have been sent to Tokyo, while all the rest of us were down here. It would have just been you and Rokujo-nee."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Maybe," Sayaka admitted, "But part of me thinks that monster was sent to me, in a place like this, to send a message."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What message?" Kanoshi asked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei decided to give an answer, "The message that Box is still alive, and she's not finished with her classmates yet. Right?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka didn't confirm or deny it, but it was obvious that she agreed anyway as she finally got to her feet and started to walk away, "You guys can wrap things up here. Make sure that it really was a bum lead. I'm going back home. To Tokyo, to Kaiba-nee. Away from here."</span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-38737ca0-7fff-418b-dd84-a629607e4afc"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/09/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-sixteen.html">Next Chapter -></a></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-71669951527949846292018-09-21T13:56:00.000-07:002018-09-21T13:56:34.154-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Fourteen<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "montserrat" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/03/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-family: "montserrat" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Sayaka called Blade using Tsukune’s phone, much to his surprise. He didn’t have Blade’s number himself, and who memorized phone numbers these days? Sayaka, apparently.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Blade picked up on the second ring, and immediately rapid-fired questions into Sayaka’s ear, “Red!! Where are you?? What happened? Are you okay? Are the others okay? Do you have time to answer all my questions right now or is this your attempt at giving me a call to track you by?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“It’s fine now,” Sayaka answered, wandering over to sit down on one of the room’s beds, facing the door, “It wasn’t, we ended up getting stuck in Future Style’s nightmare visions so she could harvest our fear. But now we’re in Nagasaki, in a hotel room, and everything’s fine. We’re planning to resume our investigation where we left off. Will you join us here?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Of course I will!” Blade exclaimed, “Send me your GPS information and I’ll be right there.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Hold up-” Sayaka said, “How did you know it was me before I said anything? I’m calling from Madara-kun’s phone.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Of course I would know that it’s you! I’ve been worried sick. Plus, you’re my favorite magica, I’d be a terrible Distributor if I didn’t know the sound of my Master’s breathing by now,” Blade said through the phone, then Sayaka sent the info, and it appeared in the room, “Ah! Good to see you’re all in one piece.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Stop referring to me as your master, it’s not like you’d ever really obey me,” Sayaka said, rolling her eyes as she crouched down to hold her hand out towards Blade, “I missed you, you know. It didn’t feel like three months for me, but it was still rough.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Are all of you holding up okay? I know that Future Style can be tough to handle. Oh, but also… It didn’t even seem like she was in Japan. We didn’t even think that she could be the problem. We knew you were still in the country, but we couldn’t pinpoint where it was,” Blade said, “I was starting to worry that Green really would have to become my new favorite! She’s surpassed you in rank, Red, but you’re still my favorite since you’re still alive. I’m not about to forget about you!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Good to know,” Sayaka said, then stood up straight and turned back to the others, narrowing her eyes, “If any of you lack the emotional fortitude to continue with our investigation as planned, speak now, or forever hold your piss.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“You mean peace?” Zhou asked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Did I fucking stutter?” Sayaka questioned, then pointed a finger at each of them in turn, “You’re all pathetic, but come on! Uphold your honor as men and finish what you started, or else, you’re off the team now, and no running away later.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“I won’t back down,” Kanoshi said, standing and holding his hands close to his chest in determined fists, “If this lead can point us toward Horace, then we have to follow it. For him, and all the other missing magica, before it happens to anyone else. It’s not like we took off on this investigation without any idea that we could be postponed, or encounter interference. We should have expected this, and it’s not a reason to quit.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Color me impressed, Moron-sensei,” Sayaka noted, dropping her arm back to her side, “And the rest of you?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She received nods all around as the rest of the guys stood as well, and she couldn’t help but smirk at that. At least, if she had to be around people like this, they weren't as pathetic as they could have been. She at least had backup as she was returning to one of the only places in her life she had ever shown weakness. Even if this was the backup.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">---</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi was shocked to see Korekara Academy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">In spite of the fact that it had been the stage for one of the most brutal massacres in the modern age, especially in this country, the building hadn't been knocked down. It had hardly been touched since then. Maybe there was a superstition, that a place so filled with death had to be somehow haunted. It stood as a daunting force in front of the group, and Kanoshi felt his stomach doing flips. Box Hako. That one girl could turn a place of learning into such a stark place of terror, the kind of place that would still carry urban legends on its name long after every victim was forgotten... How had she fallen so far?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Wasn't there anything Kanoshi could have done? He'd been her teacher once, after all. He taught her, and he noticed that she was struggling, that she was somebody who was easily manipulated or intimidated into doing things she clearly didn't want to, and he was told by his bosses that there wasn't much to be done. While schools tended to claim they wouldn't tolerate bullying, there were so commonly such politics to consider as what a reprimand would do to the bully, or to the bully's parent who could cause a big stir that the victim's parent hadn't yet bothered to. Unless Box had thought to make her problems the school's problems too, his hands were unfortunately tied.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">And then she'd done this. Well, the Assis-co AI chip had, using Box as its vehicle. But was that just because, for some reason, the AI decided the best thing to do was to kill everyone in the building? Or was there already that potential inside Box, that it only unlocked? Was the glitch just a matter of the tech being built to help handle issues, and the way it deemed to handle Box's issues were to act on her most primal desires? It wasn't like Kanoshi could ever know the answer, but that didn't mean he would ever... Could ever stop wondering. Maybe even if Box hadn't ever been his student personally, he was still a teacher at heart, and it was the duty of a teacher to be there for students. Was there nobody ever there to help Box? Could she have been helped?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Was this outcome... Inevitable?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Come on," Tsukune broke the silence and strode toward the doors, past a small cross made of wood that had a grey ribbon tied around the left arm. The only form of memorial this place bore for the ones who'd died here. As Tsukune opened the main door, everyone else fell in behind him, following inside the intimidating building.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Inside was worse than outside, by far. While the outside was that of a ghost school, a building that had been abandoned and left for time to ravage, unkept, the inside was a veritable horror house. The drywall was marked with scrapes and blood spatter, while the pools on the floor had hardly been touched, left to coagulate in such a manner that they looked almost as if, nearly two years after the fact, they'd still be somewhat wet and sticky to the touch. The bodies may have been removed, but it was still obvious where they'd been.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">But somehow, most striking beyond any of that, because that was at least the sort of thing that everyone was expecting to see, was the fact that all of these things were well-lit. The lights were on in the hallways.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You'd think they would have cut the power by now," Yuuri noted, staring up at one of the lights. It was stable. Not even flickering, "What's the point...?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Obviously, they did cut the power," Sayaka said, stepping past the others to be at the front of the pack, "But somebody else got the power back somehow."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How can you assume something like that?" Kanoshi asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Idiot," Sayaka scoffed under her breath, "We followed the information and the feeling of magic this far, so of course the person we're looking for is here somewhere. It doesn't feel like magica magic, though, I'd assume that it's a demon. In fact, I could probably tell you who it is, from the press release of who died, who survived, and who was listed as still missing following all recovery efforts. Unfortunately, I'll assume that we're hitting a dead end here."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You can't say that yet," Kanoshi protested, "Just because you have those cards, doesn't mean that's all the cards! This demon could still know something that's of interest to us, you know."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We're still going to <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">talk</i> to her," Sayaka griped, "But I would say that you shouldn't expect much of anything to come of it, okay? It's nothing to really get excited about. Come on, we're going to the science club's room."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">With Sayaka's command, they followed her, and she threw open the door to the science room. It had been cleaned up, as well as possible. It was obvious that something had still happened here. The walls held the evidence, even after being cleaned. Sayaka strode inside, then crouched down to the floor in the corner of the room. She lifted the floor up, revealing it was a trapdoor with a ladder down. She looked to the others, and explained before they started to question, "An upperclassman of mine told me the secret of this room, back when things were normal. She was in the science club, and thought that I might find the information useful, for some reason. She was a friend of Kaiba-nee's, so I can only assume that's why she thought that I should know about it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Huh..." Zhou trailed off, "I guess, even before the massacre, this school had its secrets..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Far too many of them," Sayaka noted, then leaned into the hole and yelled out, harsh, "Akabane-san! I know you're in there, and you have some serious explaining to do!"</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaWAzW4u8xRL1PcddpFAK9deJZSGZ-6bwCckPgXO7ZD-P7YpWWqgOswWH-jQzwt4GXdkJxPZ1Oof2T_aNPylCXyvThGnPCVzRkS3pz_6u5lDalNNMLy7np9DLGpI9NBQ-JC9rsS8UCvl4L/s1600/Reicchi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaWAzW4u8xRL1PcddpFAK9deJZSGZ-6bwCckPgXO7ZD-P7YpWWqgOswWH-jQzwt4GXdkJxPZ1Oof2T_aNPylCXyvThGnPCVzRkS3pz_6u5lDalNNMLy7np9DLGpI9NBQ-JC9rsS8UCvl4L/s320/Reicchi.png" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rei Akabane</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay," A voice answered, unbothered and simple, "Come down here. Bring your friends. I'll put the kettle on."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Come on, guys," Sayaka said to the rest of them, then started to climb down the ladder into the depths of the science club room. Everyone hesitated a moment, but did follow her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi took note of the person who'd invited them down as soon as he hit the ground. She had a striking appearance, but a plain expression, as if several magica showing up to where she was hiding out was entirely everyday. She had light blue hair cropped close to her ears, and a smooth, dark complexion, but most striking was the proof she was a demon. Those red eyes stood out even more than the rest of her, and she narrowed them in Kanoshi's general direction as she spoke, "What exactly do I have to explain to you people, might I ask...?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We've been getting reports of weird monster activity around here, and you're the only source of magic for miles," Yuuri noted, stepping towards her, "What're you doing, hanging out in a ghost town, demon girl?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, right, that," The demon noted, "Well, I can explain <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i>. You really didn't have to come all the way here, but I'll be a nice host while you're here anyway. Oh, for those of you who I haven't met before, my name is Rei Akabane. As you've noticed, I am a demon, but I was in the human world before Nishimura-san opened the portal. My sister and I came here for research purposes, as we both have interest in Earth Sciences that are more easily studied from the human world. I am an electrical elemental. Let's have some tea. Any preferences? I have many types. I raided the bubble tea store after the owners committed suicide."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How can you say that like it's nothing?" Zhou questioned, his voice quivering, "What happened at this school, and in this town... It has to be the most despairing event in all of human history. How can you just act like it doesn't mean a thing to you? That's so disrespectful!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why should I respect the most despairing event in all of human history? I am not, and never have been human," Rei said, turned and walking away as soon as she was finished speaking. She approached the teakettle she had set upon a hot plate intended for research purposes, "So why don't you answer my question? A tea variety? If you don't say anything, I'll just give you all my personal favorite. Plum black tea."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Wang-kun," Sayaka whispered to him, "Don't be too hard on her, o-okay?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Did you just <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">stutter</i>?" Yuuri asked, having overheard, and Sayaka blushed so hard she might have actually been able to see the color in her own cheeks.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I did not, idiot!" She protested, crossing her arms over her chest, "All of you, please be sensitive!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Kanoshi agreed, shooting his own glares at his other peers. That seemed to make them back down. Aggression from Sayaka was nothing new, but aggression from Kanoshi meant that something really was serious. He'd noticed the stuttering too, but he wasn't about to comment on it. After all, this had been Sayaka's high school for several months. Even if she tried to distance herself, she was bound to care about some of the people here, and given that Box was still listed as missing, Sayaka clearly hadn't been able to stop her. Sayaka wouldn't have kept it secret or hid the body. Sayaka was among the people who'd hardly escaped with their lives. This school was a tomb for many, and an endless well of survivors' guilt for a few. Even if Sayaka was tough, and wanted to act the part, she was obviously affected by being back here.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay, looks like it's Plum Black Tea all around, then," Rei said, picking the kettle up with her bare hands. She brought it over to a lab bench where she'd lined up mugs, and filled five of the six before the kettle slipped from her hands, to the floor. She took one step backwards, then slowly brought her hands up and looked at them, her palms red and beginning to blister in places.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka stepped in before anybody else could react, "Don't worry, Akabane-san. I don't need any tea."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay..." Rei said slowly, then turned to look at Sayaka and smiled, but somehow that seemed worse than the blank look, "I'm sorry that I'm so clumsy. I guess I've always been this way. Usually..." She trailed off, her smile turning confused and her eyes darting back and forth, "Who was it, that usually keeps me from doing things like that?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Nobody said anything. A silence hung over the room. Sayaka seemed to be groping for some sort of reply to that, but she wasn't coming up with anything that would work. Kanoshi watched her struggling, then took a deep breath and stepped forward, speaking up, "E-Excuse me, Akabane-san, sorry to be a bother, but since you haven't put the teab-bags in just yet, I'm actually fond of plain green tea. Do you think I could have that?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei snapped her head up, then her expression returned to normal, and she gave a slow nod before speaking as she went toward the cabinets, "Yes, of course. I have to be a good host, after all. That's kind of you to say, leaving more of the plum black tea for me, even though I'm sure you did actually prefer it... I can't say I won't take it if you give me an out to be selfish, you know."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course," Kanoshi said, "We're intruding on you, anyhow. At least one of us should have the common decency to give you an out to be selfish."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's fair," Rei said, "Thank you very much. How did you ever learn those sort of manners, though?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I guess I'm just good with people," Kanoshi lied. Actually, that tactic of distraction was one that he had to use often back when he was still teaching. He still missed it. Teaching had always been his dream job, after all, and he'd lost that to this life instead. Hopefully, though, he could help enough people this way. All he'd ended up doing as a teacher, in the end, was failing his students. If he could protect people as a magical boy, then that was okay. And if the skills he'd learned teaching middle schoolers ended up helping in situations like these, then that was all for the better.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're very kind," Rei said, dropping the teabags into the mugs full of hot water. Plum black tea in four, green tea in one. Between Kanoshi's efforts and Sayaka's, it seemed like some sort of problem had been avoided, though not a one of them could actually work out what exactly that problem would have been. Rei was definitely an odd one.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Meeting her was interesting, though. She was a demon who'd come to the human world before the black magic portal had been opened, and she was the first of that kind that Kanoshi met, as far as he knew. After the opening of the portal, there had been some demon children who transferred into the school he taught at, with barriers between the two worlds broken down so much. Even so, there was culture shock there. Rei seemed completely adapted to human life, even emulating it to the best of her ability in the ruins of the school she'd been attending.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">In order to be admitted to Korekara Academy, Kanoshi knew, Rei had to have been considered to be at the top of her field given her age. In this case, it seemed, that was electrical work. The girls admitted to Korekara had all sorts of talents, but Box... The one who'd ruined the lives that everyone had built in this town, Kanoshi thought she had been a lovely girl, but she didn't have any particular talents. He remembered she was so surprised to receive the invitation, and her entire family moved to Nagasaki with her. Maybe he should have known back then, that something was off. Box wasn't admitted to Korekara for any talent, she was admitted because Assis-co, the creators of the chip in her brain, were sponsors of the school.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was that company's decision to send Box here that led to the destruction of all that this town had once known, but, Kanoshi thought, maybe that was the intention all along. Assis-co was not directly responsible for the fact that their AI was hacked, but they probably knew that it was <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">possible</i> that could happen. And it was still being tested, too. Maybe Box was sent to Korekara because something like this had the potential of happening. While everybody there was talented, it was also a small school, and it already had a record of murders, suicides, and accidental deaths among its student body that it couldn't be held accountable for; In part because all of those talented students were also known to be problem children.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">So maybe, Kanoshi thought, as morbid as the thought was... In the case that something like this might happen, was Box brought here because it wouldn't be as terrible as if she did such a thing at a more populous school, with a greater number of individuals who would be missed? Though, he doubted they anticipated the fallout that the entire town would leave the area after something like that. The quick-growing economy of alumni businesses and people moving into town from other areas fell apart, and now nobody lived here. They all packed up and moved within six months, if they even lived that long. Nobody wanted to stay around a place of death.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Well, almost nobody. Rei was still here.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So, Akabane-san," Kanoshi addressed her, to voice his thoughts as she handed him his tea, "Why did you stick around here?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I didn't have anywhere else to go," Rei said with a slight shrug, "Besides, Yamaguchi-chan came back here, right? So others might come back too. That's always a possibility. I want there to be somebody left. They need somebody left, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That makes sense," Sayaka said, staring down at the ground, "But, how can you stand to be in a place like this, alone most of the time? I came back, but only because I had to. I don't plan on staying in the area at all."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Understandable, have a good day," Rei said, lifting a hand to her own cheek, "I'm not alone, though. Someone else is living here with me. I don't think you ever met this person, though. Did you ever speak to Box Hako prior to her hospitalization?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Absolutely not," Sayaka said, "I never gave a shit about her."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So you never met my friend," Rei said, then gestured for Sayaka and the others to follow her, "Come on, you should meet him. He's in the back room, though. I'll let him know that we have visitors."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">With that, everyone followed after Rei, and she turned to hit the back of her knuckles against a heavy steel door set into the far wall of the basement, "Apo-kun! We have visitors. It's Sayaka Yamaguchi and a handful of grown ass men."</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8dACo_hDMvLkZLf8bpMtiMplbcAL-vkc33Xano_-TulqRj8km-FUqaWqFGGpXh5B3_IjlkW_WOIbwfd2X_5zoukkb_p2CzEn9d8oPtP6wu2lGASFMO5_8vANJqVEW9BtdKWIWEwSKAJY/s1600/Apollo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8dACo_hDMvLkZLf8bpMtiMplbcAL-vkc33Xano_-TulqRj8km-FUqaWqFGGpXh5B3_IjlkW_WOIbwfd2X_5zoukkb_p2CzEn9d8oPtP6wu2lGASFMO5_8vANJqVEW9BtdKWIWEwSKAJY/s320/Apollo.png" width="142" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apollo Ai</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's certainly a weird assortment, and don't call me Apo-kun in front of people who haven't met me yet..." A voice floated back through the door, then moments later, it opened. Standing before them was a young man, dressed in a white vest over a lavender t-shirt, with jeans. His skin was a pallid shade of grey rather than anything sensible, but it looked okay on him, probably because of the fact that his hair matched his vest and his eyes matched his shirt, with strange mechanical-looking freckles spattered across his nose.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"This is Apollo Ai," Rei gestured to him, introducing him, "He was Box Hako's first AI before it was replaced during her hospitalization. That was sort of the science club's fault, cause we stole him from her brain. And we made him a body, too. Isn't it impressive?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well that's one way to solve one of the biggest mysteries of my time at this school, I guess," Sayaka deadpanned.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If you're thinking of blaming Reicchi for what happened," Apollo spoke up, fidgeting in place, "Please don't. I would have been just as susceptible to being hacked as Box's new AI was, if I'd stayed in her head. My new body might have even been used instead of her, if it was actually finished by the time the hack happened... But at that time, I couldn't move, so that AI was used instead. It was just circumstance."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wasn't thinking of blaming her," Sayaka said, "The only person to blame for what happened is whoever hacked that AI, I'm not an idiot. I know what constitutes being responsible for something."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But, can't multiple people contribute to something bad happening?" Zhou asked, quietly, "It's still possible that what the science club did..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's not," Sayaka snapped, turning to face him, "And don't you imply that it is, again. It's just not possible. Nobody inside of Korekara Academy had anything to do with what happened, it was just a tragedy! We're lucky anybody got out alive at all..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ah, you do have a point there," Kanoshi noted, "Chances are that whoever did this... Wanted to hurt everybody at Korekara, including Box Hako herself. She was always mild-mannered, so I can only imagine that making her go through hurting her own classmates firsthand didn't do much for her mental health."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Or her physical health," Sayaka noted, crossing her arms, "She's probably dead, right? Even if she was listed as MIA, there's no way that she stopped without getting killed."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi wasn't so sure about that, but he realized it was only because of her appearance in the vision Future Style had put him through. Box, like Ayano and Hikari, was just one more example of how Kanoshi was unable to help his students. One more way of showing him his fears, and nothing else, because that was what Future Style's visions were. Just nightmares, preying on her targets' worst insecurities. Kanoshi couldn't put any stock in them, couldn't assume that Box was still out there just because she'd appeared in his vision. If Ayano and Hikari represented his failure as an individual teacher, then Box represented the failure of the school which had employed him.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">There should have been plenty of opportunities to save her, but no teacher ever stopped to wonder if this impressionable young girl might need some help or some adult support besides her parents who never witnessed the same things they did. Kanoshi couldn't blame his ex-coworkers for letting Box go on to end up hurting people under the influence of some hacked chip in her head, but he could blame them, and himself, for letting Box reach the point that was possible. Like Apollo just said, if it wasn't Box, it would have been somebody else who ended up doing exactly the same things. Box herself could have been saved, though. Couldn't she? Kanoshi wanted to think it could have been possible, and that was where the insecurity was born.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Right," Rei agreed, "The fact that her body was never found doesn't mean anything. If she died outside of the school, for example, nobody was looking there. And then, by the time somebody might have looked there, a monster probably ate the carcass. There are a lot of those around here. I can't seem to figure out what draws them to an area, though, no matter how much Apo-kun and I study them. You'd think it was population, or suffering, but as far as I can tell, an equivalent number seem to spawn between here, Antarctica, and other towns and cities throughout the world. Maybe it has something to do with tectonic plates, or weather patterns... Those would require longer-term analysis, though, so I can't yet say."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You've been studying the monsters?" Yuuri asked, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but, how the Hell?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm a demon," Rei said, "And with nobody around, I don't have to hold back or anything. I can put them to sleep with large bursts of electricity, investigate them while they're unconscious, then come back here to hide out until they're done. That's why the town's in such disrepair... Though, I guess that they leave the school itself alone, for some reason. The campus has never sustained any damage. Maybe it's because the black magic portal was made here, and they have some form of respect for the thing that allowed them to form?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That seems plausible," Tsukune said, then looked to Apollo, "So how's the robot body treating you, eh?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Pretty good," Apollo answered, stepping out of the room to wander aside with Tsukune, "We've talked before, haven't we?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Right," Tsukune said with a nod, "I recognized your voice right away, we've run into each other in a few games, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Mhm," Apollo agreed, "While my body was still being built I didn't really have anything better to do, that's why I was playing those MMOs and stuff."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You gave me a rare fish once," Tsukune said, "That I needed for a quest."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I spend most of my time in those games fishing, yeah," Apollo admitted, "Whatever the fish was, chances are I had a full stack in my inventory... I had at least ten stacks full of most common fish. I didn't need to sleep or anything, just power off for a few hours once a week, so I was just able to keep fishing."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's pretty cool," Tsukune said, "I mean, I think so anyway."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's been a while since I played any online games except for Overwatch," Kanoshi said, "But, that's a really good way to make the best of being a robot guy!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, I don't exactly consider my state as a robot guy to be a handicap, but I agree. I am making the best of it," Apollo said, giving a short nod, "I just wish this town were a little closer to the ocean or a river, then I could try to fish for real, now that I am fully mobile! Unfortunately, I cannot leave Korekara Town. Seeing that my mind is still Assis-co technology, were I to go out in the rest of the world it would surely end badly for me. I shouldn't even still be functional, as most of the AIs of my sort were shut down remotely immediately following the attack."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There is a stream," Sayaka spoke up, "It's not much, but it's there. A lot of people don't know it's actually part of Korekara Town because the property was purchased from the next town over only about... Maybe six or seven years ago? There is a bridge over it that some people say is cursed, but you know, that's dumb. It's not cursed. There might be a few fish in the stream anyway, at least during the rainy season when it gets big enough to connect with a lake out east."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thank you," Apollo said with a nod in her direction, "I'll keep that in mind, assuming... Reicchi, it's not cursed, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course it isn't cursed," Rei said, "I just didn't think it would have any fish. But, now that Yamaguchi-san mentions it, it might get some when it's really rainy, yeah..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Next time it rains a lot, can we go have a look?" Apollo asked, seeming to give Rei the strongest puppy-dog eyes any android could ever be capable of.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sure," Rei said, waving him off, then turned to the group of magica, "Anyway. You came to see me because I'd been studying the monsters, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well technically," Blade popped its head out of Sayaka's bag, joining the conversation, "We came here because the monsters were behaving strangely, and anything particularly odd is important to investigate at a time like this. But what we found was even more interesting. You're able to witness the monster attacks?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's right," Rei said, "I'd assume it's because I'm a demon, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, not at all," Blade said, "Actually, it sounds like you have a unique ability that only certain humans and demons have, period. Usually <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">only</i> magica can see the monsters, but the odd non-magica gets the ability. As far as we've observed, the ability... Well, it's more like a curse, mostly applies to young girls and really old men."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh," Rei said, "Well, I don't think it's much of a curse. I haven't died yet even though there aren't any magica around here to defeat the monsters or anything, but I guess that maybe I'd dislike it if I did get killed but didn't die and had to remember dying. But so far, it's just given me the opportunity to study the things. Anyway, is that all you needed from me? Forgive me, but I may actually be feeling a bit overwhelmed to be social with all five... six of you, at once."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thanks for remembering I'm sapient!" Blade chimed in.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Anytime, shitty kitty," Rei said with a nod, "Anyway... How was my subtle way of asking you to leave?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Not especially subtle," Zhou said, "But understood. We'll get out of your hair."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Wait, wait," Blade spoke up, "Actually, before we go. I usually don't offer this to demons since becoming a magica just slightly improves the abilities you already have, but, you're different. Your abilities actually have a combat application, and since you've just been stuck living with the monsters anyway, wouldn't it be nice to get the chance to do something about them? What I'm trying to say, Akabane-chan, is do you want to become a magical girl?"</span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/09/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-fifteen.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Next Chapter -></a></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-d3e5c7db-7fff-d2aa-bb09-7125594bfde9"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-23104619498321283682018-03-17T00:00:00.000-07:002018-09-21T13:50:42.539-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Thirteen<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "times new roman";">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/03/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-twelve.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotW4ZTzq6jP3x29bfywczDMPCE_CAi6fUYiKr86T5NpURlzrBCX_i8PMOG-Fn_WH8KwQlSbwDT-zzUMpZ7jattFjS25GPdVW5dSk1udtdNMQPxENBsWGxyEXQtqx6LV8sA94ZKD5k_UOp/s1600/Misa.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotW4ZTzq6jP3x29bfywczDMPCE_CAi6fUYiKr86T5NpURlzrBCX_i8PMOG-Fn_WH8KwQlSbwDT-zzUMpZ7jattFjS25GPdVW5dSk1udtdNMQPxENBsWGxyEXQtqx6LV8sA94ZKD5k_UOp/s320/Misa.png" width="113" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Misa Jiang</td></tr>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pretty Fighter Ribbon Green was in the running to become Blade’s favorite. That was what it told her, anyway. She was in the running, if Ribbon Red couldn’t be found, to become Blade’s best friend. It was told to her in a matter-of-fact tone, but she could tell anyway that this was just Blade’s way of masking how worried it really was for Red’s well-being. Where could she have been for the past few weeks? Nobody had any idea what could have become of the five magica who’d vanished off the face of the planet while on a mission to investigate another mysterious disappearance.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-07ca3779-3422-e380-8cef-a659bb93f2f9" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Green knew that it couldn’t be the same, though. That much was clear from the evidence. The fact that Oh One could still tell that those five were in Japan was enough for her, though perhaps if she had been privy to anything but texts and phone conversations from the only other sapient species on this planet, she’d think differently about the situation. As it was, she was concerned for those magica, but she was sure that they’d turn up at least. Would they turn up okay, would they turn up unchanged? That was up for debate, but why did she have to be involved in those things anyway?</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pretty Fighter Ribbon Green, known to most as Misa Jiang, had bigger problems than worrying about magica in Japan, when she had to worry more about citizens in Japantown. As far as she could tell, she was the only magical girl currently working to protect San Francisco; And she was blind. There were no shortage of magica throughout California, and before she had contracted they were willing to pop over to fight some monsters if they were in a position to, but now the burden of guarding the city rested with her.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2meUI3WRIw7BSeOvfUcJmA4AojxwWvId9Krb2hIh_55qFP8mmQV4ftS3UxfhGQuiD6GUkGA6S9LTSizofiQypoNcst35DHZFfYG62h-8ikxs6pp4pYUpS6awlJqR1lCZGVu8OAFQmrWOy/s1600/green.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2meUI3WRIw7BSeOvfUcJmA4AojxwWvId9Krb2hIh_55qFP8mmQV4ftS3UxfhGQuiD6GUkGA6S9LTSizofiQypoNcst35DHZFfYG62h-8ikxs6pp4pYUpS6awlJqR1lCZGVu8OAFQmrWOy/s320/green.png" width="148" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty Fighter Ribbon Green</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She got outside help sometimes, but sometimes wasn’t enough to keep her from feeling bitter. This was the biggest responsibility she’d had to deal with in her entire life. She had contracted because it was something to do; she lived with her family who paid all of her expenses and would never take independence as an answer with her disability a bigger hindrance in their minds than in hers. She had a part time job anyway, but she only worked three shifts a week, and those were in the mornings. She didn’t count on how many monsters there would be, though.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She didn’t even have time for her other Magic anymore. The card game, Magic The Gathering, that is. After magica had become a real and feared phenomenon in this world, the game came under a degree of scrutiny, but it wasn’t so easy to shake nerd culture, and the game couldn’t exactly be changed at this point to reflect the concept of magic suddenly becoming such a widespread icon of misery. The controversy died down, and the connection was forgotten. Misa had at least expected to have Fridays free to meet up with her friends at her favorite comic book store to play, but monsters ate up all her time. If she ignored them, though, they’d eat up all her friends.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Were you expecting to hide your mark with kneesocks? That’s a bonehead move if I ever heard of one. Socks slip,” A voice broke Misa out of her thoughts, and she froze where she stood. She moved without a cane or a guide dog, mostly relying on landmarks to find her way around. Right now, she was holding onto a railing that she was very familiar with. This voice was not familiar at all.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m not trying that hard to hide,” Misa answered with a shrug, “I’ll cover up out of courtesy, but what do I care what a stranger thinks of me? Anyone whose opinion I want to hear already knows,” She paused, then let a smirk onto her face, “Well, unless you wanna thank me for protecting the city.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“...Thank you indeed,” Another, equally unfamiliar voice said, “You’ve kept it well, Ribbon Green.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Misa froze to hear her name. Should she have been using a glamor after all? It seemed unnecessary when she was alone all of the time, but-</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Allow me to introduce ourselves,” The original voice spoke again, “We’re Angels.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Angels…?” Misa questioned, freezing up even more. She’d heard of Angels. They were a duo who hovered around the one-hundred mark. Their power was strong and they fought plenty of monsters, but they also had a tendency to kill humans, and had once or twice offed a particularly abusive magica, “Aren’t you from Nagasaki? What are you doing in San Francisco? Uh… You barely have accents, so are you transformed right now?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We are. There’s nobody around, and unlike you, we use glamors,” The second voice answered, “We’ve decided to move, for reasons relating to our lives as humans more than our lives as magica. With some false papers to fudge our ages, there’s more job opportunities for us here.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“However,” The first voice again, “We would never move in on your territory without consulting you first. You’ve been doing a great job… We would understand if you want to keep the spoils of war for yourself.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Truth be told, I was just thinking to myself how nice it would be if I had some help around here. It feels like I’m fighting multiple monsters every single night around here…” Misa sighed, putting more of her weight against the railing, “Hell, if you could at least take Friday nights, that’d make you the bomb dot com.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Ah…” The first member of Angels seemed a bit surprised at how easily Misa decided to let them in, but of course she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, “Well, thank you, Green. That’s very kind of you.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">---</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I mean, not really,” Misa said, shrugging her shoulders. Despite never having been able to witness visual social cues, she’d picked up on using them in high school with the help of a boyfriend who may have been more interested in manipulating her body than actually teaching her anything. That was a weird thing he was into, and her blindness just gave the opportunity for her to indulge him. She was glad to have it, though. Speaking felt more natural with physical cues, “You’re helping me, here. Anyway, what can I call each of you? Since as magical girls, you have the same name and all.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That’s a good question,” The second member of Angels said, “Using our real names would be a bad idea, since people think that we’re dead. You can call me Xizhi, like the Sage of Calligraphy.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Jeeze, that’s specific. Did you already think about this?” The other one teased, “You really thought you’d need a codename? Well, okay, I thought of one too. Addams.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Like the Addams Family?” Misa asked, “That’s edgy. I didn’t know Nagasaki had Goths.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m not goth, I just like dead bodies,” Addams defended herself, “And it isn’t edgy! My own childhood dreams aren’t edgy! Xizhi, tell her that I’m not edgy!”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“She’s absolutely edgy,” Xizhi said, “Anyway, Green. We’ll take responsibility for Friday nights, and the rest of the week, we can cooperate with you. As long as there aren’t too many others passing through or anything, it’s just two different distributors between us, so even level ones can still give us equal rewards, if I’m remembering the collaborative rules right.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mm,” Misa groaned, “Cooperation? I mean, yeah, sure, sometimes. I’m just super tired, though. It’d be nice if you could just handle it yourselves some nights, just so I can finally catch up on sleep.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Er... Okay,” Addams said, “That’s kind of weird, you know. Most magica don’t want to lose any opportunity to get stronger or get the rewards for fighting a monster. Are you sure?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t need to get stronger or collect any magic, or other rewards, or anything,” Misa said, “I don’t have any goals. I became a magical girl because I wanted to make my life more interesting, not for any other reason. Seems like everybody else has something they want to accomplish with magic, but I can’t help thinking that’s a good way to end up screwing yourself over. Monkey’s Paw and all that.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Huh?” Addams questioned, “You mean, you became a magica without any ulterior motive, even knowing how bad it is?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah,” Misa said, “Bite me. I don’t care. I wanted to fight monsters as a hobby, then it took over my life. Seriously, the fact that you two are here now? That’s a total relief. I’m grateful as Hell.”</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We’re glad to help,” Xizhi said, “We have our own reasons to want to fight monsters. We can take over any time that you need us to.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">~~~~</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hey, hey,” Zhou heard a voice he wasn’t expecting to hear anytime prior to completing his goal, but it was clear as day, “Whatever you do, don’t turn around, okay?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“...Mayu?” Zhou asked, hesitant, as if the voice would disappear if he identified it.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Keep moving and don’t turn around,” Mayu’s voice said, “If you stop walking or if you turn and look, then I won’t be Mayu anymore. I’ll be a big scary monster, worse than any of the ones that you’ve fought before. So just keep going. I’ll talk to you from here.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay,” Zhou said, just now taking in his surroundings as he started to walk. It seemed to be an awfully manmade place. Smooth floors and smooth walls, and barely any light to help him see those things. It was unsettling, hearing his own steps echo and Mayu’s behind him, “What’s going on here?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t know,” Mayu said, “I actually don’t have any idea why you need to keep moving forward, and not look behind you. I just know that it’s what you have to do. So how have you been?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Not very good,” Zhou said, “But I’m trying my best.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Mll1Gi86f3yAp9VyVRZ0mQgKqhZPXNha-slqf1Yrh3hwXdISBLLE4y3Gw8zgRfI2QLMUltoZYeG1B2jP6_t1UHp5GORzypHnSYlVMT58291-1KzPxv4x69iLj1UJr7guDdWGa_MBg7yp/s1600/tunn.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Mll1Gi86f3yAp9VyVRZ0mQgKqhZPXNha-slqf1Yrh3hwXdISBLLE4y3Gw8zgRfI2QLMUltoZYeG1B2jP6_t1UHp5GORzypHnSYlVMT58291-1KzPxv4x69iLj1UJr7guDdWGa_MBg7yp/s320/tunn.png" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why?” Mayu asked, “For my sake? I don’t think I ever did anything to deserve people trying for me, you know. It isn’t as if I ever tried a day in my life.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sometimes people just love other people,” Zhou said, “And trying doesn’t need to factor into it at all. You were good enough at something to get into the school that killed you. And I know that you had friends who cherished you just as much as I did. You definitely deserve people trying for your sake.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You can say that,” Mayu said, “But I know that you’ve thought it too. I’m useless. I was useless. And because you became a magical boy for my sake, my uselessness is rubbing off on you. It’s my fault you’re so tired all the time. It’s because you’re doing it to bring me back. Why would you want someone like me, who’s only brought you trouble, in your life again?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Because you didn’t deserve to die,” Zhou said.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“There are plenty of people who didn’t deserve to die. Even just in Korekara. Why not save them all?” Mayu asked.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Because I knew you. I didn’t know them,” Zhou answered, “And I only just got enough power for you, after months as a magical boy. Who knows, maybe by the time I find your body, I can bring back some of the others too, maybe I’ll have enough power then. Can you tell me who to save?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No,” Mayu said, “You didn’t know them, after all. Neither did I, really. I didn’t make friends. I just know that there was no way everyone who died there but me deserved it. I might have deserved it. I never did anything to make my life worth living, after all. I just sat around, playing games, all the time. The only thing I ever did for you was pick a lock. That’s it, isn’t it? There’s no reason for you to have any desire to bring me back. You have so much power now, no lock could stand in your way. That’s all I was ever good for.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mayu, don’t talk about yourself that way…” Zhou said, wanting to turn around and shake her by the shoulders, “Were you always this self-deprecating.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Don’t you turn around,” Mayu said, “Only a little. Not this much, for sure. But that was the real me. Wouldn’t it be funny? Wouldn’t it be funny if what I’m saying to you is what you think of me? What you’ve secretly thought of me all along? Like you’re only trying to bring me back because you don’t like how it feels to live your life without a parasite like me?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Shut up,” Zhou said.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You could make me shut up,” Mayu said, “If you turned around. But then you’d have to fight an especially horrifying monster, so I guess you just have to decide which is the lesser of two evils. By the way, I forgot to mention earlier. Walking’s a little too slow. You might want to go faster.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay,” Zhou said and sped up his step, continuing down the seemingly endless corridor. Occasionally it would seem a little less empty, like there was something on the ground, but when he turned his eyes to look it would be gone. A mouse trap, an empty water bottle, a frog? He thought for sure that he saw all of those things, but never in his direct line of sight, “Do you know how I ended up here?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Don’t you?” Mayu asked.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Only a little,” Zhou said, “I was in the train station, and then I was here. I don’t know how this happened, though. I can’t imagine how I got from point A to point B.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That’s dumb,” Mayu said, “You’re really dumb. Did you know that? Did you know that you’re really dumb, if you can’t even figure out how you ended up here with me?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Is this the afterlife?” Zhou asked, “Am I dead too, and as punishment for becoming a magical boy, I’m with you, but it’s not quite you, and I can’t turn to see if it’s you or an impostor?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That’d be a really special Hell,” Mayu said, “But no, you’re still alive. For now, anyway. It’s not that easy to kill a magica, after all.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I wish that I understood what was happening here,” Zhou said, and it was more a matter of fact than anything else. It didn’t demand or even ask for any sort of response, it was just a statement tossed out into the echo chamber before him. He wished he understood. And that was it. Mayu became quiet behind him, and all he could hear was footsteps. His footsteps, running. Hers, walking behind him. Both sets, reflecting off of the smooth walls and ceilings of the most empty place that Zhou hade ever been.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This went on for what seemed like forever. Zhou, for once in his life, wasn’t getting tired at all. Nothing was changing either. It was like an eternal trek to nowhere, with the one thing he’d been chasing after this whole time trapped, unobtainable, behind him. He decided this had to be a vision, but he wouldn’t underestimate the power of visions. He knew that Lionhardt, who wasn’t very strong at all, could create a pocket dimension. Then there was Red’s ability, he thought. She could make an illusory maze, but she was limited to mazes, right? This was not a maze. A maze had to have turns. Had to be confusing in nature.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This was a corridor. As strange a corridor as it was, corridors were not confusing. There was nowhere to turn. Zhou didn’t think that Red would betray them at this point, either. She wouldn’t stand to benefit from it in any way. Betraying just him? No way, he didn’t do anything to get on her bad side. He’d never done any of the things that she seemed to think were worthy of punishment. Though he supposed she could just be bloodthirsty after all, but if that was the case, why wait this long to act? He knew that while he and others may have been higher ranked than her for various reasons, if it came down to a fight, even four against one, she would win. She was beyond capable even before she became a Magical Girl.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If she wanted them dead, or wanted to do whatever this was, then there was no reason for her to wait to do it. She gained nothing from earning their trust and then betraying it outside of a fast food joint in a train station. There would be far better times to turn on them than this.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You’re thinking again, aren’t you?” Mayu asked.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“How could you tell?” Zhou answered with a question.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You’re slowing down,” Mayu said, then with some urgency, “You need to run!”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why do I need to run?” Zhou asked.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You need to know when to run away,” Mayu said, “Because it might not be me behind you, you know. I could have been the horrifying monster this whole time, but with your little sister’s voice, right? You know that’s possible. It’s probably more plausible than this being me.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I know it’s not the real you,” Zhou said, “But it’s not just to voice. You’re still Mayu in some ways. If I had to kill you, though, I could do it. There’s definitely one thing that makes me certain that there’s no way you’re the real Mayu.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why’s that?” The fake Mayu asked, innocently.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Because,” A different voice sounded out from behind Zhou, and on instinct, he turned around, only to bring his arms up to protect his face when he saw an incredibly bright light, and after the sound of an explosion, that voice spoke again, “The real Mayu would have given a verbal tic by now. Am I right, Zhou-kun?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Madara-kun…?” Zhou questioned, peering past the burnt wreckage of what looked like a crash test dummy on the ground to see Tsukune was standing beside one of his turrets back down the corridor, “Are you… Really you?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Last I checked, yeah,” Tsukune said, lifting one of his hands to look it over, “But, wow. I am offended. You’re actually seeing me, instead of me reskinned to somebody else in your life. Are you actually intimidated by me?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I mean, kind of? You were one of Mayu’s friends, you probably knew her really well, and you’re also strong, and cool, so… I’d definitely say that you’re intimidating,” Zhou said, “But what’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I figured out how to hop between visions and snap you guys out of them,” Tsukune said, “But for everyone else, I didn’t look like me, I looked like somebody else who’d already shown up in the vision. I guess you wouldn’t have anyone but Mayucchi in yours though, right? If that’s the case, then it makes sense that I’d appear as myself. Mayu couldn’t get shot by Mayu. Anyway, you’re the last one. Come on.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“How’d you snap yourself out of your vision?” Zhou asked, “And what are these things, anyway?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Huh? Oh, right. Well, it was pretty easy for me. I just disobeyed whatever the people in the vision told me. Stay there, and I’d go somewhere. Point me in a direction, I went the other way. Made the whole thing kind of disjointed, like if you watched a movie by flipping at random through the scene select screen instead of just hitting play. Whatever these things are, which I really don’t know, they were made ahead of time. Screw with the natural order of things and it’s bound to fall to pieces,” Tsukune explained, tapping his turret and letting it dissipate into specks of magic, which he caught in his hand.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Who’d do something like this to us?” Zhou asked, “And why?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Let’s get out of here and meet up with the others,” Tsukune said, “Then we can all put our heads together and figure it out. Hey, you’re lucky, by the way. You cracked the vision’s integrity way sooner than everyone else did. They’re all at least mildly traumatized. You pulled the long straw this time around.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Forgive me if I’m not jumping for joy,” Zhou said, “How do I know you’re not also some weird part of this vision, huh?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tsukune just stared at him for almost a full minute, then shrugged before speaking, “I mean, you don’t. It’s not like I have any way of proving that I’m the real Tsukune Madara or anything. But even if I am just part of the vision, what’s it matter? You could at least try letting me take you out of here. If it doesn’t work, you didn’t really </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lose</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> anything.”</span></span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That’s fair,” Zhou admitted, then stepped toward Tsukune and held out a hand, “Fine, then. If you’re really Madara-kun. Take me by the hand and lead me to the land.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah, whatever,” Tsukune said, then grabbed Zhou’s wrist and wrenched it toward the ground, dragging him down. And just a moment later, they were no longer in a corridor at all, but what seemed to be a normal hotel room. There were two queen beds. Kanoshi was sitting on one, Yuuri on the other, and Sayaka was sitting at the desk in the corner, “Welcome back to the world of the living.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hey guys,” Zhou admitted, this did seem real.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hey,” Sayaka waved from the corner, standing up as she did, “So we’re all here now?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Looks like it,” Kanoshi said, rolling his shoulders, “Tsukkun, it didn’t take very long for you to get Zhou-san…”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah, cause unlike all of you buffoons, it didn’t take very long for his vision to crack,” Tsukune explained, “Ny’all got issues.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Ny’all?” Sayaka questioned.</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I thought I’d make my statement less offensive through humor,” Tsukune said, “Did it work?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Not really,” Yuuri said, “But I mean, you’re right anyway.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I am,” Tsukune said, “If you weren’t so caught up in your problems, then maybe you wouldn’t have even needed me to rescue you. That’s a serious issue, clearly. You need to learn to distance yourself from your fears and troubles.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That’s easy for you to say, without knowing the majority of what we saw, or what it means to us,” Sayaka said, “It’s not like I’m easily frightened, you know.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’d wager that what I saw was more objectively terrifying than any of you,” Tsukune said, “So I don’t need to know what you saw or what it means to you. I was able to break my own vision, and none of you were. That means that in at least one way, I’m stronger than all of you.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sayaka scowled and grabbed at the collar of her shirt, but Yuuri jumped up and grabbed the back of her hand, pressing it against her collarbone with enough force to keep her from following through, at least for a few seconds while he hissed, “You better not transform here. I’m pretty sure that none of us can exactly afford to be on the hook for property damage. There’s no monster around, so even just pulling your weapon here would cause some permanent bullshit.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“He’s an asshole!” Sayaka protested, shouting past Yuuri, “Who do you think you are, calling yourself stronger than me, huh? Even if we just go by the official rankings, I seriously outclass you!”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah, probably,” Tsukune said, turning away with his arms crossed, “But you’re kind of an idiot emotionally, you know. Get a handle on your temper, and then maybe we can say you outclass me in emotional fortitude. But evidently, I’m the most stable one here, and you just have to accept that fact.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s true,” Kanoshi said, standing up now and looking around at everybody, “Tsukkun </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the only one who was able to break out of his own vision. The rest of us just stumbled through them, exactly what whoever did that to us wanted, probably.”</span></span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I might know who,” Sayaka said as Yuuri released her, clenching her fists at her sides instead, “I’m the most veteran magica out of the lot of us, so I’ve kinda heard some stories about a very weird magical girl. She does everything she can to stay exactly at the thirtieth worst spot in the rankings, and her powers work in kind of a unique way, like all Desire Train magica. She doesn’t get magic power from defeating enemies, but from instilling fear. She’s called Future Style.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Thanks for the introduction, darling,” Someone’s voice sounded out in the hotel room, and then a magical girl in an outfit that resembled something that a pop star whose gimmick was to ‘be weird’ threw open the door of the wardrobe from inside. She stepped out and put a hand on her hip, looking at them all over dark sunglasses. There was a lot of black in her outfit, but it was unmistakably strange, “But, seriously. Not one of you actually finished the shit I prepared for you. At least I didn’t try that hard or anything.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What the Hell was that all about!?” Yuuri snapped in her direction, “How did you know all of that about us?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t know anything about you,” Future Style said, “And I don’t care, either. My powers did all the work. And if you want to know why </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, then that’s easy. Five magica all in one place? It’s a goldmine. Magica have always got stronger fears than humans do! With a human, I run the risk of using more magic scaring them than I’ll get for it. Magica? I always make a profit. And that’s it.”</span></span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You put us all through our own personal Hells, just because you wanted to get some magic power?” Kanoshi asked, “Wow… I never thought I’d say this to a person, but you’re truly rotten.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Wow, I’m so hurt,” She said, holding a hand to her chest, “I’ve never been called anything worse than rotten in my entire life. Anyway, yeah. It’s just what I do. Don’t like it? Too bad, so sad. I don’t care.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Rukkun and I should have both been able to tell that you were here,” Sayaka said, “But we couldn’t detect you or your magic. How exactly did you accomplish that?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I promised I’d keep that a secret,” Future Style said, “But you know, what good’s a promise anyway? I guess I won’t break it. I’ll bend it, though,” She flipped her hair back over her shoulder, then gave her answer, “There exists a magica whose entire power is to conceal the location of another one. They made it seem to the distributors like I was still back in Boston, when I came here to see what kinda fear I could drum up from numbers four and nine while I heard you were traveling together… Oh, and I guess the rest of you, too.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m number twenty-fucking-seven!” Sayaka shouted out, “I can understand excluding fifty and sixty-two, but I’m still a pretty rare find.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t give a shit,” Future Style said, then turned away from the group, toward the door, “Anyway, this is a hotel in Nagasaki, so it’s not like I even really interfered with your whole shitty mission. Unless you look at a calendar I guess. I’m done with you guys, I’m out.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Wait!” Kanoshi called to her, and she stopped where she stood, but didn’t turn to look at him, “How did you know that we’d be traveling together far enough ahead of time to come here and plan this?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Tch,” She scoffed, raising a hand as she kept walking, “Pretty sure you can figure that our without an answer from me. If you can’t, I guess you really are dumbasses. Seeeya!”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And with that, she was gone. Yuuri ran to the door and opened it, but despite only hesitating for a second, she was nowhere to be seen out in the hallway. He stepped back and shut the door again, sighing as he turned back to his teammates, “What a bitch.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“She said that we shouldn’t look at a calendar,” Tsukune said, then reached into his pocket, finding his phone was completely dead. He looked to the pile of bags in the corner of the room, then retrieved his charger. It only took him a minute to get it powered up, to find that the date read September fifteenth. They’d left Tokyo in July. He muttered to the others, “Well, whatever those visions were, time was definitely weird in them. We lost three months.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Three months?” Yuuri asked, then groaned, covering his face, “Well, I’m definitely fired. From my day job at least.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Me too,” Kanoshi said, sitting back down on one of the beds, “I guess we’ll both just have to find something else, somehow.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Here’s a hot idea,” Sayaka said, “Stealing. I mean I wouldn’t recommend it if you can avoid it, but damn is it easy when you’re a magica. Just follow the big rule, right? You steal from big rich chain stores, nothing that’s local and struggling.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I won’t need to do that,” Yuuri said, “Like I said, I’m losing my </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">day job</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. There’s always more work to be found, it’s just exhausting. So let’s just drop it, okay?”</span></span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“...Okay,” Sayaka said, then changed the topic on her own, “Regardless of our lost time-”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oh, thank God,” Tsukune interrupted her, and she turned to glare at him. Her glare only grew more intense when he elaborated, “SIF didn’t have a Maki event during our lost time.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Nobody cares about your trash waifu, Madara!” Sayaka snapped, then took a deep breath to calm herself before continuing her statement, “Anyway. We’re in Nagasaki now. Has anyone seen Blade?”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I guess that it didn’t get captured with us,” Zhou said, “Do we really need your distributor here? We can investigate without it.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah, we do,” Sayaka said, “It’s my friend, and while you’re all adults, I’m a teenager. I need some trustworthy supervision around you guys,” She noted, then rolled her eyes, “Not that you’re competent enough to be a threat to me, if we’re being honest.”</span></div>
<b style="background-color: #d9d2e9; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Even without competence as a factor,” Tsukune said, “I’m pretty sure Zhou-kun is the only one who even </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">might</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> like girls. You couldn’t have picked a safer group of adult men to hang around.”</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I totally could have,” Sayaka said, “A group of yakuza, who I could actually rely on in a fight, maybe? And that’s just off the top of my head. I get your point, though. And my point? We need to put this bullshit behind us and focus on what we came here for. And we need a Distributor to point us in the right direction, so, Madara-kun? Since you’ve actually got your phone charged, call one of them. I’d prefer Blade, obviously, but I guess it’s your choice who to trust.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/09/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter.html">Next Chapter -></a></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-82662896654379809482018-03-03T11:19:00.000-08:002018-03-16T11:44:31.448-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Twelve<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "times new roman";">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/02/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-eleven.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"SugarcaneSugarcane!" Rose Elmore exclaimed, reaching her arms out for the distributor that she'd befriended as it jumped up into her lap. It felt particularly gritty to the touch, as if its fur was completely full of sand, "Hey, it's been a few weeks. Where've you been?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I've been around," It shook its head, leaning against Rose, "Two weeks ago, Oh One and I got news that some of our magica have gone missing. We went back to Japan to investigate, since our teleports had charged again, but with no luck we came back here, since we did tell Lani that we'd be around for a while..."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDhV7_dke6QrlkW06ARuAXkxo-cCYNiy9ee09ym9OIBqBDhG1PCvcu4t9IHTT13uA-nMb-sWFgSlzrqeixZh5BJYS5T-jjgxe0uJ-gGlNKcAgKbFPSzOTfIXg2A5BGiaJicgDbf9G1q0fB/s1600/Rose.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDhV7_dke6QrlkW06ARuAXkxo-cCYNiy9ee09ym9OIBqBDhG1PCvcu4t9IHTT13uA-nMb-sWFgSlzrqeixZh5BJYS5T-jjgxe0uJ-gGlNKcAgKbFPSzOTfIXg2A5BGiaJicgDbf9G1q0fB/s320/Rose.png" width="110" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rose Elmore</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I missed you," Rose groaned, petting the thing, "You're so nice to talk to," Rose was a human, but unlike most humans, she was able; or rather, cursed to remember monster attacks even when they were defeated. Usually, any humans caught in the pocket dimension would either die quietly at the monster's hands if it wasn't defeated in time, or forget about the attack if it was. Rose was one of the few who recalled things which happened while the pocket dimension was active, and that was absurd at times. She remembered dying several times. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"> SugarcaneSugarcane had been the one to explain to her why those situations happened, though it couldn't offer an explanation on how Rose was able to remember those things which most humans never did. Nonetheless, it reassured her to know that it wasn't just nightmares or hallucinations of a bizarre kind, but actual incidents which went undetected by society. Rose understood how humanity hated magica, if the only attacks that humans would remember were the ones that failed to be stopped.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">A monster who was left unchecked for too long, or who killed off all of its combatants, would eventually fade out of existence, but not before causing a level of destruction similar to a strong earthquake or hurricane. Rose had never experienced an undefeated monster, though. For the past year and a half, since the monsters had first started attacking, there had always been Graveyard, and a couple of months later, Uamake, which was lucky as the monsters seemed to become more powerful.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Only Graveyard and Uamake, though. Rose lived up in the more temperate, mountainous region of Hawaii, better known as 'The Big Island'. Those two magica fought to protect the entire island chain, and they'd never failed to stop a monster. Never forfeited or failed to engage, and obviously, never died.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">As capable as they were, Rose worried, and she'd been thinking for a long time that she ought to do something, anything to help, but she'd never come in contact with a distributor. Never until SugarcaneSugarcane came back to visit those two, who were both its magica, and happened to encounter Rose and her stand-out level of bizarre self-awareness in the midst of a monster attack. After that, they'd become friends, but it had never asked Rose if she wanted to become a magical girl.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There's been a lot of magica disappearing lately, huh?" Rose questioned, kicking her legs out over the fence she was seated on. She lived on a ranch, and the cows wandering around in the pen behind her were friendly, even to the strange ugly cat, "I heard about it on the news, and now this..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sugarcanesugarcane said, "Yeah, that's true. I'm really worried, actually. Nothing like this happened in any of the universes I went to before, and Oh One contacted the council. They've never seen anything quite like this, even in truly human universes. All they told us was that things on this level of strangeness are common in this sort of world, but that they couldn't explain the actual situation in any detail."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rose sighed, shaking her head, "Go figure, that our universe would end up getting so screwed up, yeah?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sugarcanesugarcane agreed, "None of us were prepared for this. That's the scariest part of this all... We have no clue what we're doing, not really. Every distributor in this universe has only ever worked with less-conscious universes in the past."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Hey, what makes you move on from one universe to another?" Rose asked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That depends. Sometimes the universe doesn't need us anymore. Sometimes, after centuries, the world ends. The thing is, with this universe, we'll probably stick around for at least a thousand years. The monsters will eventually become too strong to defeat anymore, and everything will fall to ruin... And we'll move on to another universe that's recently been introduced to monsters and magic."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rose looked up at the sky before she gave another response, "So sooner rather than later, those things will get more powerful than Uamake and Graveyard can handle? That website's saying that the island chain's in for a lot of level five and up monsters..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why are <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">you</i> looking at Ribbon's site?" Sugarcanesugarcane questioned, but answered her question anyway, "That's right, though. Those two are strong, indeed, Uamake is strong beyond belief... But even she has limits. Her strength level is probably equal to that of a level six. Fizzy Pop, Goddess, and Prince Horace are equal to a level seven; the only way to defeat a monster is through strategy, since magica can just barely rival their raw power. Two magica could never defeat a level eight on their own."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Can I ask my real question now?" Rose wondered, and SC gave her a nod in confirmation, "Why haven't you asked me to become a magical girl?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Isn't that obvious?" It stared up at her, "You became my friend, as a human. You put your trust in something like me. I'm not going to betray that trust by asking you to throw your life away. You became my friend even knowing the type of creature that I am, I'm not going to play into the fears you may have had about interacting with me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Would I be worth it?" Rose asked, then paused and rephrased her question, "I mean, you know how much potential any given human has as a magical being, right? Would it be worthwhile to make me one, or do I not have enough potential?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You have plenty of potential, Rose!" It flicked its tail, sitting up in her lap and looking up at her face, "A ton, actually! And I know you well enough that I could even tell you what sort of power and weapon you'd probably end up with! But it really is an awful thing, to be a magica. We always feel so guilty when we create new ones, but it's better than all of us just starving, and all of this universe being destroyed by monsters at a breakneck pace. I won't ask you to become a magical girl."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAE1K15Mzk3wgb0D4xRPzPMIPkVve2rTq0c5xM1ROJexOBMosL6XedVT8w4cMVF27WHBE9MJYOf9zoZUPW0i51Dp0a1ObzeLiCEIjlAXR4KY3MGoreGsat_iVhy0_FgQ4xY3s32_8-HqM8/s1600/third+eye.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAE1K15Mzk3wgb0D4xRPzPMIPkVve2rTq0c5xM1ROJexOBMosL6XedVT8w4cMVF27WHBE9MJYOf9zoZUPW0i51Dp0a1ObzeLiCEIjlAXR4KY3MGoreGsat_iVhy0_FgQ4xY3s32_8-HqM8/s320/third+eye.png" width="136" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Third Eye</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rose hesitated a moment, bringing a hand up to her cheek, then took a deep breath and spoke again, "There can't be much worse than being a human who remembers monster attacks. At least if I was a magica, I could do something about them."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But if you were a magica, you could be killed and stay dead during the attacks."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rose squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, "No, I'm going to do it! I already have to suffer when monsters attack, and I want to be able to help Uamake and Graveyard. They've been fighting alone for so long."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If you're sure about it, then I won't try to tell you otherwise. Just remember that you brought it on yourself and please don't blame me," It moved onto the fence beside her instead, looking her over, "Please, confirm in no uncertain terms your verbal consent to become a magical being."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I want to become a magical girl. I understand the ramifications of it and I will not pin any regrets I may have on my distributor friend," Rose confirmed, poking its nose.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span id="goog_1401090322"></span><span id="goog_1401090323"></span>"Very well then. You will become the third protector of the island chain. And, fittingly enough for that position, you will be Third Eye, the Sniping Magical Girl."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-----------------</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi was seated across from his father.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Though they'd kept in touch, it had been years since they'd seen each other in person. Kanoshi was just so busy with work, and his father so busy with avoiding the city at any and all costs. Those factors didn't exactly gel with each other, but now, here he was. He didn't understand it. He hadn't been going north of Tokyo. He was headed south, to Nagasaki.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hello, Kanoshi," Shoyu Kyosuke wasn't the picture of the person who he was. Nobody meeting him would ever think that he was riddled with anxieties too harsh to leave his hometown; he had a large frame, and his face had two settings. Gentle, and stern, both strong and nearly-stoic images that would never give the impression that he feared anything, "It's been a while."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, Dad. It has," Kanoshi scratched the back of his head, looking away, "I'm sorry."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Don't apologize. I always figured that we'd lose touch when you found somebody to rely on, but instead you only had your career. You're nearly thirty years old and you've never even had a girlfriend. Well, as far as you've told me," Shoyu said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi hesitated, but answered with a lie, "That's right. I'm focusing on my work, that's all. I don't need anybody to rely on, I just need to be somebody that other people can rely on."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Shoyu groaned, adjusting his hands on the cup of coffee that he held, "That was a test, Kanoshi, and you failed it. Why can't you just be honest with me? You know that I'll always support whatever decisions you make."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Is that support because you support me, or is it because you're too much of a pushover to make the decision not to?" Kanoshi questioned, staring right at his father. He took a deep breath before he spoke again, "Fine, if you want me to be honest with you, then I will. I've never had a girlfriend, but since I've moved to Tokyo I've had a few boyfriends. One was another teacher at Aoba Middle, one was a guy I met at the terrible sweaters store. I also had a... something with a magical boy, and became one myself."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm disappointed in you," Shoyu said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know," Kanoshi closed his eyes and dipped his head, "Of course you are. You always said that I'd make a great dad someday."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Now you never will."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know," Kanoshi gave a solemn nod. That was the truth. It had always been his plan to, single or not, adopt a child once he was thirty-five. He'd never pass the background checks as a magical boy, but... "Not legally, anyway."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Son, I swear, if you steal a baby-" Shoyu started.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi shook his head, "I'm not going to steal a baby! I just mean, if I happened to find some wayward street urchin with nowhere else to go, what's to stop me from Dad-ing that child? Maybe I can't adopt for real. I'm okay with that, though. If it happens, it happens, but I have other people I need to protect now. You know that as a magical boy, I'm protecting you too, right?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know that much," Shoyu said, leaning back in his chair "Yes, I understand that. But here's the thing, Kanoshi. If you needed to tell me all of that a second time, could you do it? Could you look me in the eyes and say all of those things again?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi hesitated a moment, but steeled himself and gave an answer, "I could. I don't know why I didn't do it in the f-first place. I'm not ashamed of who or what I am. I could say what I just said to you a million times over, to a million different people."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's true," Shoyu chuckled, "You could, I can tell. Because you're strong underneath it all. Because you're not me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I always thought I'd grow up to be just like you," Kanoshi noted, looking around the room, "Warts and all. That I'd inherit your flaws, but also..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But also my virtues. Unfortunately, you've failed time and time again to live up to the image of me," Shoyu sighed, then stood up from his chair, "But this is a conversation that could do you some good, were you to actually have it, son," With those words, he disappeared right before Kanoshi's eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi stared at the space where he had been, then took a deep breath and turned his gaze to the palms of his own hands. So many people found it an inevitable horror, to end up the same type of person as their parents; he never had. His father was a good man, and as Kanoshi forged his way on through the world, he began to doubt that he was the same.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi stood up from the table and pushed his chair back in, then gathered his own untouched mug of tea (he always hated tea) and his father's, emptied. He placed them into the sink, knowing his way around well. This was his childhood home, after all. He wandered to the nearest window and peered out, seeing that the outside world was vacant. It was empty, a void.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That just confirmed what his father had said to him. That wasn't really a conversation. It was a chat with his own idea of his father, and this was some variety of dream. It felt awful real for something which objectively wasn't, but who was he to make that call? Instead, he decided to wander the house and see if there was anything else out of the ordinary. As far as he was concerned, he was pretty sure he'd just fallen asleep on the next train, though he didn't recall boarding. That wasn't unusual in any way, though. It was easy to forget mundane things when dreaming.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi took a deep breath as he stepped through the threshold into the hallway, looking down at the archway on the right which pointed into the living room, just beyond a door that belonged to a closet. The left side had one door and a staircase towards the end, and that door held a bathroom. Kanoshi doubted anything of interest would be in there, or in the closet, so he walked down the hallway, noting as he went the artwork which hung on the walls. That was new. His father never hung a thing on a wall, for fear of hurting the property values if he ever did sell the house.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He stepped into the living room and took a look around. It seemed... Normal. Just the same as it had ever been. Nearly undecorated, just with essential furniture for the most part. Kind of sad. Kanoshi at least kept some knicknacks in his own home, and though he'd never gotten something as mature as a painting, he did hang posters and those inspirational canvas things. With that in mind, he turned back to the hallway and decided to examine that artwork more closely.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">They were out of place, and when he looked again, he realized that their subjects were out of place too. What appeared at first to be simple, idyllic landscapes had something off about them. There were small figures in the background, and when he squinted, they almost looked like people he knew. Humans he knew. As he moved from image to image, none of them were magica he'd met. Other teachers from Aoba Public Middle, or students who he knew to have moved on to good high schools and, hopefully, good lives. In these images, they looked mildly distressed. Not afraid of anything, or distraught, but just a little uncomfortable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Still, nothing changed when he finished looking through them, so he peered into the living room again, and much to his surprise, he saw two of the three students who'd been taken by the Vagrant Killer sitting there. Ayano and Hikari. He took a deep breath, then walked in and sat down directly across from the two of them, folding his hands in his lap, "Hello."</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7DUZ04PnyjCokfpeXZ59NcfmrGmERrNHUTvHD3bUHKvU6zilG2YA3nWHeUI7wrGqWONhd8RAP9fKSoaAtld6ZuYlOIfgRXRws9gxJDL_tq7TZp9aCoIXSSde9WnSox46u83Wb9zr08MAd/s1600/ayanonew.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7DUZ04PnyjCokfpeXZ59NcfmrGmERrNHUTvHD3bUHKvU6zilG2YA3nWHeUI7wrGqWONhd8RAP9fKSoaAtld6ZuYlOIfgRXRws9gxJDL_tq7TZp9aCoIXSSde9WnSox46u83Wb9zr08MAd/s320/ayanonew.png" width="113" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ayano Ueda</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hi, Kyosuke-sensei," Ayano greeted him, leaning against Hikari with her feet over the arm of the couch. She wasn't a little child anymore. Not an adult, either, but in between. She was Sayaka's age, after all, though they both had a bizarre youthfulness that a worse man than him might call 'loli'. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How've you been?" Hikari asked as well. She looked a bit more mature than Ayano, though their age was the same, since she lacked that childish quality, "Still teaching at Aoba?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm afraid not," Kanoshi shook his head with a heavy sigh, "After the incident with the three of you, when something else happened recently I got told I would be fired soon. Then I became a magical boy, and got fired on the spot."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Ayano nodded, pushing her glasses up, then held out her right hand, showing a question mark on her palm. Hikari did the same with her left as Ayano spoke again, "That's understandable. It happens."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Did you become magical girls to escape the Vagrant Killer?" Kanoshi questioned, looking between the two, "Wait, that doesn't make sense. Magica didn't exist when Ueda-san first rejoined society..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Hikari shifted where she sat, "You'll notice that Barasu-kun is missing. We became magical girls to get revenge on the person who killed him. I know you always tried to teach us not to hold grudges, sensei, but we couldn't let it slide."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You... You mean to tell me that he really is dead?" Kanoshi said, leaning forward with his hands pressed to his knees, gripping the caps till his knuckles turned near-white, "He... I always thought, that if Ueda-san was alive, then all three of you were."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How can you really believe that? This is a dream and yet, we've told you it," Ayano giggled, bringing a hand up to her mouth, "Which means you believe it in part of your heart. That is, unless this isn't a dream. It's up to you, isn't it?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Don't say shit like that," Kanoshi shook his head, then froze and covered his mouth with both hands before uttering a sheepish, "Sorry, kids."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I mean, it doesn't matter if what we're saying is real or not, does it?" Hikari questioned, straightening up, "Regardless of what happened. We're either dead, or living in Hell. You let us down, big time. You let everyone down. Us, and my brother, and the kids who got killed. Everyone. It doesn't matter how hard you tried, I challenge you to find a single person who doesn't feel let down by the school system."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's not possible. It isn't, but that's not the fault of teachers. I felt left down as a student, and I feel let down now, having been a teacher. Still..." He sighed, bringing both hands up to his forehead, "You're right about that. I wasn't as good a teacher as I could have been, and I guess it's probably for the better that I ended up needing to stop when I did. I can't imagine I would have improved any."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Do you think you could have saved me?" Another familiar voice sounded behind Kanoshi, and he turned to see Yuuri standing there. He didn't look normal, however. There was blood seeping through his clothing, and it seemed as if he was flickering in and out of existence as he stood there, his appearance changing a bit each time. Occasional he was missing his right arm. Kanoshi couldn't do anything for a while, just staring at him, trying to process what he was seeing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ruka-san," Kanoshi stood up and walked around the armchair to approach him, brow furrowed in concern as he reached out for him, afraid to actually try and touch him out of concern that his hand would go right through, "What are you talking about? What happened to you?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri shrugged where he stood, leaning toward Kanoshi with a sickening grin, "I never told you that I failed to graduate high school, did I? Yeah, you helped me get there, but I was too fucked up anyway and I got myself arrested. Nothing you ever did could have been enough for me, and now I'm practically walking dead. What happened to me? What's going to happen to me? What's the difference, sensei?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I guess there isn't any," Kanoshi sighed, shaking his head as he took a step backward, "I don't think I could have saved you, Ruka-san. There's only so much that I could have done, and I did that much, and that's it. That's all I've got. It's not like I could go back in time and keep you from ever getting hurt."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri brought a hand up to Kanoshi's head, making contact and curling his fingers into his hair, pulling on it uncomfortably while that grin didn't change, "Why would you dare to get close to somebody like me? Why would you even try? Why in the world would you seek me out now, long after we knew each other? Did you seriously think that you could do anything for me? It's just a matter of time before I kill somebody. That somebody could be you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You'd never do that," Kanoshi froze, staring into Yuuri's eyes. Somehow, this was beginning to feel less and less like a dream. It was feeling more real with every passing moment, but it still didn't make sense to him. These were fake scenarios, that much he knew, but that was where the line blurred. These weren't the type of worries that he would have come up with himself, even subconsciously.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri didn't offer an answer to that, and Kanoshi was lucky to see the gleam as he pulled a pocketknife from his jacket, moving directly for Kanoshi's throat. He pivoted out of the way, then wrenched his head away from Yuuri's hand, turning to dash up the stairs. As he went, he tore off his eyepatch and tried transforming which, to his surprise, worked. With his shield, he had nothing to fear.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Downstairs, Hikari and Ayano were cheering Yuuri on as he chased Kanoshi up the stairs, lips pulled back to bear his teeth in a savage and cruel smile. Kanoshi had to wonder if that was actually how he looked when he got in fights, as a human; he doubted it. Yuuri had never seemed to derive any sadistic pleasure from fighting monsters, or other magica as it seemed in his short battle with Lionhardt.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">For some reason, Kanoshi noted that Yuuri wasn't transforming. In fact, his image had seemed to settle into the vision of him without a right arm altogether, thus missing his mark. He bore down on Kanoshi, who blocked the knife swings without much effort at all. It wasn't difficult, which seemed strange too. Kanoshi knew that Yuuri's aim was his best combat trait, so it shouldn't have been this easy to deflect his attacks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Still, he just kept coming. He kept attacking, until he wasn't anymore. Kanoshi found himself standing at the head of the stairs, though he'd been sure that he had been backing down the hallway. On those stairs was Yuuri, sprawled over them midway down. His limbs were all bent at unnatural angles, excluding of course, the missing arm. His head was cracked open, the disgusting sound of blood as it dripped all the way down the stairs filling Kanoshi's ears. He froze and looked at his shield, finding it similarly stained.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He hadn't done that, though. He was just backing down the hallway, defending against Yuuri's attacks. He wouldn't counterattack; that wasn't something that he would have done. His breath caught in his throat as he backed up again, and he jumped in surprise as his back hit the wall behind him, whirling to find it really was just an empty wall. He took a deep breath, then crept down the hallway again, opening a door to his left which led into what had been his childhood bedroom. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was still just the way he left it. Devoid of most of his belongings, since he'd taken them to Tokyo with him when he'd moved out, but there were a few things about that he'd decided he didn't need to bring. Extraneous clothing that he rarely wore, for example, leftovers of his high school style, before he discovered the joy of wearing really horrible sweaters and t-shirts with phrases that didn't make sense, when it was too warm for sweaters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The biggest difference from the way that Kanoshi had left the room was that there was somebody sitting on his bed. When she turned to look at him, he recognized her as Box Hako. Her odd, lilac eyes seemed empty and devoid of feeling as she stared at him, seeming to look right through his soul.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Hako-san?" Kanoshi questioned as he stepped into the room, lowering his shield and holding up one hand with his palm out toward her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hi sensei," Box gave a slow blink, then swung her legs out over the side of the bed to get to her feet, walking closer to him with deliberate steps, "What are you doing here?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"This is my dad's house," Kanoshi answered, "I should be asking you that."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Box looked around for a while, then crossed her arms over her chest and turned her gaze to the floor, "I'm hiding. That's the same reason you're here, right? You're hiding because you hurt somebody without realizing it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's right," Kanoshi groaned, leaning back against the door, "Well, I don't know what happened. I don't think I hurt him."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That doesn't matter," Box brought an arm up and tapped his nose, keeping her finger there, "Even if you knew you didn't hurt him, just thinking that you didn't is even more worthless. The law isn't going to care."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm above the law," Kanoshi shook his head, "Arresting a magical boy is basically impossible."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That could change," Box noted, pulling her arm back, then gave him a smile, "But I guess that the police who are downstairs looking for you would be the lesser of two evils, compared to me. I am a menace to the entire country of Japan, after all. You have no idea what I could do. How about I give you a headstart? Run."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi hesitated for only a moment before he turned and opened the door again, this time using the wings which came with his transformation to avoid needing to step over Yuuri's body as he made his way down the stairs, and noted that there were indeed police downstairs. He barely even glanced at them before he returned to the living room, diving past Ayano and Hikari to crash through the window, out into the void.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">There wasn't anything, even after Kanoshi had entered the darkness. It was really just an endless stretch of nothing, as far as he could tell. Pitch black. He couldn't find any walls on either side of him, but there was a floor. He flew up rather high and couldn't find a ceiling of any type. With that in mind, Kanoshi continued along through the emptiness. He floated for a little while, but then landed to walk instead. Despite his transformation allowing for flight, it was still tiring.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It had almost freaked him out, the first time that he'd flown. The cartoonish wings that were a part of his costume had full feeling in them, and it would be bizarre for anyone to suddenly have two more limbs than previously. He'd gotten used to it eventually, but it had been strange at first, and he still preferred using his much more familiar legs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">As Kanoshi made his way through the darkness, he wondered if there was any reason to be out here. He turned to see the house behind him, but it was gone. There wasn't even a speck of light in that direction, and he couldn't go back. Why would he want to go back, though? There was more for him out in the dark unknown than disappointing familiarity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After a few more steps, he got the feeling there was something in front of him. To avoid bumping into it, he stuck his arms out in front of him, and before he'd even fully extended them his fingers brushed against a wall. So there was something out here. Kanoshi lifted his right hand to place his palm flat against the thing as he continued walking now, deciding that he should follow the rule of thumb for traversing a maze and cling to one side.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">And there was a side to cling to; it was definitely not just one wall sticking out in the middle of nothing. He just kept moving, following along on the right side. He kept his shield in his left hand, ready to use it if something happened and he needed to. It felt like a very long time before anything else happened, and when it did. it startled him. He was just walking along when suddenly, something wrapped around his ankle. He turned to see what it was, and found that he was being grasped at by the hand of somebody on their stomach. He couldn't tell who it was with the lighting like this, though he was certain it was somebody else that he knew.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He kicked his foot and took off, wrenching free of the grip by taking to the air. As he continued along he looked down at the ground and could see movement in the shadows, assuming that those were more people he'd met before, reaching out to grab at him. He avoided them by staying up in the air as he moved, still keeping his fingertips against the wall so that he wouldn't end up going in circles. As he was moving along, he suddenly felt something on his wing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">No, <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">in</i> his wing. Something pierced straight through his left wing, and he turned his head to see what it was. A purple sword, and it was glowing. He hardly had time to realize who that weapon belonged to before he was jerked violently back by it, crashing down onto the floor. The grasping bodies had disappeared from the ground, but Kanoshi would have almost preferred they hadn't, as it hurt much more to be dragged onto the hard ground. He squinted at the blade and realized that it had pinned his wing to the floor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He was breathing heavily now as he struggled against it. He recognized this sword, of course he did. It was Horace's. Why was it here? Why was <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">he</i> here? If the sword was moving in this way, it had to be telekinetically controlled by Horace's power, which meant that he needed to be somewhere. Kanoshi had to remind himself that this was not reality. Box would not have been inside his father's home, and Yuuri would not have attacked him. Well, not like <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i> anyway. Not so badly. Kanoshi didn't doubt that something could go wrong, but he would never be able to block Yuuri's attacks that easily.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That was the real sticking point that assured him that the Yuuri who attacked him wasn't really him, and that extended to the entire place. Kanoshi grimaced as he continued trying to free himself, but he couldn't reach the handle of the sword, and grabbing onto the blade with his hands to try and pull it out would likely just cut his hands clean in half.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Moments later, he felt a weight on his back as a heeled boot dug into the area between his shoulderblades, pinning him down with his cheek pressed to the ground. He grunted out, "Horace, why are you doing this?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why wouldn't I?" The apparition questioned back in exactly the voice that Kanoshi was expecting of it, "I mean, it's not like you know enough about me to make an educated guess on what I'm capable of. For all you know, I kidnapped the other magica and went off the grid with them. The rankings really are arbitrary things, a bad person could get to number one by playing at morals and having enough power."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi grimaced at those words. That was far from what he thought about Horace, too. More proof that this was a poorly constructed nightmare, but that didn't keep it from being a nightmare. He spat back, "Yeah, right... If you were the kidnapper, like hell you'd have left me behind. Maybe you <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">can</i> play at morals, but you can't play at how obsessed with me you were."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The apparition leaned more of its weight against him, and Kanoshi could tell that something in his back would break if this kept up. He had some healing built up from blocking the fake Yuuri's attacks, which luckily seemed to have held the same level of malicious intent as these current assaults, but he wasn't going to use it until he was freed, since that would just be a waste of power. The false Horace hissed, "I already ruined your life, I can end it too."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Like that would have an effect here," Kanoshi taunted back, though he wasn't actually sure.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Fake-Horace pointed his other sword at Kanoshi's eye. Shit, he forgot there were two swords. It growled out, "If I killed you here, then you'd never see the light of day again."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi had enough of this. He forced his leg under himself to get some traction against the floor, managing to lay enough of his sole flat against the floor to push off. The apparition of Horace lost his balance, falling to the floor. There was a terrible tearing noise as the sword which was pinning Kanoshi's wing down went straight from the center through to one side with the force of his movement. He'd utilized his free wing to get enough force to manage it, but it was just one burst of movement before he fell over, rolling up against the wall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He took a deep breath, tightening his grip on his shield as he healed his injuries, though it seemed the damage to his wing would mostly have to heal on its own. He was able to resolve the damage that had been done by the false magica, but the tear that he'd created in his escape was an injury with an altogether different intent that he couldn't resolve with his powers. There were some limits to it, after all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Much to his surprise, the image of Horace didn't pursue him, seeming to have disappeared in full. Moments later, the wall behind Kanoshi but a little further to his left lit up in a bright explosion, which in the flash of light, revealed behind him the grasping bodies, now clearly corpses. Among them he spotted a number of magica besides Horace; There were the ones that he knew personally, excluding Yuuri. Sayaka in particular looked to have died a gruesome death; there were also some he'd never met, and the one he'd met for only a few moments, Lionhardt.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Somehow, looking at all of these, he felt a heavy guilt. He didn't know why; for some of them, it was simple, he'd made promises to protect the people close to him. Why should he feel guilty to see the body of someone who'd only met him in combat for a few moments of vicious attacks? He didn't have long to think about it, because in the faint glow of the lingering flames on the heavy wooden wall was his father.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Come on, Kanokun," The voice didn't belong to the man who spoke, but it was a comforting one nonetheless, and Kanoshi stood to follow him without hesitation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/03/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Next Chapter -></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-31081393739404183552018-02-17T11:17:00.000-08:002018-09-17T11:18:28.510-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Eleven<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/02/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-ten.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Kotomi-chan!" Kaiba greeted her friend as she approached the lot, and Kotomi looked up from her van. She waved back with a wrench, then messed around a little bit more before she shut the hood, just clearing up anything that might cause a problem if she left it that way, and walked up to Kaiba, "How are things going with you and Sayaka?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Well," Kotomi wiped her forehead with a shrug, "I dunno. We're mostly getting along fine, but that kid is <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">stubborn</i>. She gets annoyed anytime I say that I'm worried about her at all. I tried to keep her from going with the rest of Tokyo's magica to check out the lead in Nagasaki, but she wouldn't listen at all. She probably wants to prove that she can go back there without freaking out."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Of course she does," Kaiba laughed, leaning against the edge of the sparse chain-link which surrounded the lot, "Well, she'll be fine. How about you, though? How have you been in general?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Fine, I guess," Kotomi shrugged, stepping around to the other side of the fence to stand next to Kaiba, "I could never imagine going back to Korekara, you know."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Me neither," Kaiba shook her head, then paused and corrected herself, "No, that's not quite right. I couldn't go back there, but if there was some reason that I needed to... If I had to do it to help somebody, I could. I wouldn't be okay after, though. And it isn't like I... was even as involved as she was."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"It's kind of weird to live alone, after having Sayaka-chan with me for a while," Kotomi groaned, looking up at the sky, "You wanna live with me while you're covering Tokyo, Kaiba-chan?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"I thought you'd never offer. I mean, really, where'd your respect for your elders go anyway?" Kaiba laughed, slinging an arm over Kotomi's shoulders, "You're a good kid, Kotomi-chan."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"You say that to everybody."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"That's because it's what everybody I know needs to hear most."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;"> ~</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Blade had never been more worried in its life, but even it was surprised by the panic that Oh One flew into when it finally decided to conference in that entire posse and inform them how it had absolutely lost track of their magica that it was supposedly keeping an eye on. It had tried searching on its own to resolve the situation for a good five days before it gave in and called. Still, it waited out its friends worry before it spoke again, "Oh One, I wouldn't usually tell you about this for posterity's sake. I'm only telling <i>all</i> of you because if one of you knows, the others deserve to. So, buddy, tell me. Can you still detect what country the magica are in?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Oh, right," Oh One stopped its hyperventilating in seconds, then spoke up again, "Okay, well, I can. They're still in Japan. The weird thing is that I'm not picking up on anything else abnormal in the country. Nobody new has arrived in the past month. Even Lionhardt's back in the states."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"That is strange," Blem added in, "I'm trying to think about who would have reason to do something like this. Marvelous, maybe?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Marvelous would make sense," Must Pope agreed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">SugarcaneSugarcane didn't, "There's no sign of our magica either, right Blade? If it were only Red, then I could blame it on Marvelous, but even as a magical boy he'd never be ambitious enough to kidnap multiple people."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"And how can you be sure of that?" Blade questioned. It was sliding its phone along the ground as it went, still searching as best as it could on foot.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"It's not like you're the only distributor who gets to know magica who don't belong to it," SugarcaneSugarcane answered, "I got to know Marvelous pretty well. Skorgles isn't against it. Well, it kind of encourages us to meet its magica, like somehow meeting them will make us give up on the rankings too? I can never figure out that thing's motivations. Anyway, the important part is just that he doesn't make sense to be the criminal in this situation."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Blade had to admit that SugarcaneSugarcane had a point, "Right, and if it was only Red who got kidnapped, the others would have let me know before they went looking for her on their own. One of them would at least send me a text, and that didn't happen. They all just sort of vanished into thin air. At least Oh One can still tell they exist. It's probably just something weird."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Oh One spoke up again, "Well... Maybe whatever's causing the others to be undetectable is also applying to a magica who decided to take ours hostage for some reason? I can't imagine why any of this would be happening, but that is a potential explanation for it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Blade sighed, "Even if I found them, what could I do about it...? I just want them to come back safe."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">------</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Yuuri found himself in an absolutely empty landscape. There was nothing in any direction. He blinked a few times, took several deep breaths, then took a sweeping glance around before he simply shrugged and muttered to himself, "Well, okay."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">It wasn't surprising to him that something like this would happen. Well, it wasn't as if he predicted suddenly waking up in a land without anything else, or that he could predict that, but it wasn't shocking. Not really. Something <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">like</i> this should happen to him, because things always happened to him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Not that everything he suffered for was something which happened to him, of course. He knew this, he knew that he was just as likely to make himself suffer with a bad decision as something bad was to happen to him at no fault of his own. There was always somebody to blame, though. Yuuri decided in this case, that he would blame himself after all. It was most likely that this was limbo. Purgatory, an afterlife intended for anyone who wasn't especially good or especially bad.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Huh, funny. Yuuri always expected that if there was a middling level of the afterlife, he'd still fall short of it. Were Heaven and Hell the true and real concepts that his mother had taught him when he was young, and was there a limbo in between, Hellbound had always been his fate. That was what his mother told him. That was what he told himself, too.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">It wasn't as if he'd grown into a fine young man who never sinned. It wasn't as if he was a very good kid to begin with. Still, he accepted limbo as a pleasant surprise, and sat down, crossing his legs. It wasn't like he had anything else to do, he may as well enjoy it. Nothing to do. No obligations and no entertainment, nothing either way. The idea of nothing was comforting, for a moment. Then it wasn't.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Being alone with his thoughts? This wasn't purgatory. It was Hell after all, a specific Hell for him and his own definition of torture. The traditional kind wouldn't work on him, after all he'd been through in life. Instead, he would have to think, without any distractions. No alcohol, no cigarettes, no fights to get in and no manga or trashy television. No monsters, no friends, no baking supplies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">It was really just him, and he got to wondering. How was it that he'd died? The last thing he remembered was the train ride, chatting with Kanoshi and Sayaka. She'd said that they reached their stop, stood up, then nothing. Yuuri did have memory lapses on a somewhat regular basis, so it didn't shock him that he'd forget what happened to kill him. Given the situation of his final memory, perhaps it had something to do with the train station. Had he fallen on the tracks?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Had he thrown himself onto them?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He wouldn't put it past himself, but there was one bit which didn't line up. He'd had an episode a week ago, so why exactly would he have another one so soon after? Sure, he felt bad that he'd accidentally insulted Tsukune, but not <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i> bad. There wasn't anything he could recall which would have triggered a breakdown, but there was one thing he had to consider. The episode the previous week.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Yuuri remembered the pain he'd felt, and he remembered thinking in that moment that if he were to know how it felt to die, that moment had to be it. He'd been completely overcome; but one little scratch couldn't kill him, right? And it wasn't as if he'd die of shock. If he was the type to suffer a death like that, it would have happened the day he found out that his mother's actions were criminal. That he was allowed to feel anger towards her and towards those men she invited into his room.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Still, it made sense. If he'd died that night, then of course he would depart on a trip immediately after. These versions of her friends were figments of his imagination to ease his transition from being alive, to not being alive at all. Their stop was the afterlife, but... There was one flaw in that theory, too. Why would his imagination create a Tsukune who would become angry with him?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">So that was wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Nonetheless, Yuuri wasn't going to discard the notion that he'd died, but he decided to stop entertaining the potentials. Maybe he did throw himself in front of a train, for some reason, or maybe he died in some other way. The time he lost always came back to him eventually, he just spent a few days or weeks wondering what he did in those hours that were absent. It was a definitive absence, too, not just the vague concept of not knowing quite what he did between noon and six. It was a conscious feeling of having nothing between those hours on that day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He'd remember it sometime. Did time even count here? He pulled out his phone to check. Well, the clock was still showing up. He waited a while to see if the number changed. It did, and didn't seem to be taking an especially long time to do so, either. Well, that proved that time passed. He checked while he was at it, but of course his phone couldn't get any type of connection either. That wasn't surprising.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He put his phone away, then sighed and stood back up. The least he could do was walk around, anyway. Maybe this place only looked empty, and there was some other torture awaiting him somewhere else. Even that would be better than just being left to his own mind like this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">And eventually, he did find something. Well, not exactly. He came across a slight difference in the landscape, that was all it seemed like at first. Rather than flat dirt, it was a field of stones, all oval-shaped, and looking as if they'd be a pain to try and traverse. He turned around, and the emptiness was broken. Before him stood the director of Aoba Public Middle, who addressed him immediately, "Ruka-kun. No wonder you never graduated high school, if you give up at such a small challenge as this."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"So I am dead. Figures we'd end up in the same Hell," Yuuri narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, "I thought I was done with you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">The director stepped past him, toward the stones, "Right, after you ordered a hit on me of course. Too bad we've met again."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"I didn't order a hit on you," Yuuri protested, turning back to the stones. He didn't want to turn his back on this man, not anymore, not right now.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Sure you didn't. What was it that the girl who killed me said? If you didn't want her to kill me, you wouldn't have admitted to her the full extent of what I did?" The director questioned, then crouched down to the rocks, "If you deny your flaws like that, you'll never pass this trial."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Trial? I thought I was in Hell. What possible motivation could I have to do anything?" Yuuri questioned, glancing at the rocks for just a moment, and when he looked up the director of the school was gone. Vanished in a second. Yuuri groaned, and turned his attention back to the rocks, only to realize upon closer inspection that they had words written on the undersides. All sorts of words, though they all seemed to be some sort of descriptor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Well, the motivation to do anything in Hell was for something to happen, he had to admit. Even something bad. Seeing the director of Aoba Public Middle was definitely not his idea of a good time, but at least that was something exterior he could direct his disdain toward. It took him a long while of thinking again to figure out what the words on the stones could mean, based on the hint he'd received. Denying his flaws. With that in mind, he decided, it made sense that he should be expected to search through the rocks and pull out any with words which described him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">The first one that he found was only a few rocks in. "Selfish". Well, he definitely wasn't a selfless and giving man by anybody's standards, so that was his to claim. He lifted it from the bed of rocks and set it to the side. Nothing happened, and he sort of assumed that something would if he picked up one which he wasn't supposed to. To test the theory, he reached for one which definitely didn't describe him. "Pacifist".</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Yeah, I don't think so," His mother's voice echoed around him and the rock flew back into the pile, hitting his arm as it went. So there was an indicator of how well he was doing, that was reassuring. Sure, it was a somewhat painful indicator, but that was better than nothing. If nothing happened, he was on the right track. If the rock flew back to the field, injuring him while his mother's voice expressed disgust, then he was wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">As he continued searching through the pile, he didn't pick any of the wrong ones again. It was pretty disappointing to him, that as he went along he was collecting primarily negative items. Actually, all negative items. Almost every negative phrase among the rocks was something that applied to him, though he didn't hesitate to grab them. Still, when he thought he'd exhausted everything that described him, nothing happened.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He took a deep breath, then started grabbing things which he didn't personally think described him, but that others may think of him, starting with "murderer". That one flew back to the pile, thank goodness. He continued on, but couldn't find any more negative items which described him. Did he miss a positive? He'd only grabbed three, maybe four, because he didn't see a lot to like about himself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Yuuri," His mother's voice interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to see her standing atop the pile of rocks he'd pulled aside as accurate descriptors. Well, it wasn't exactly her. There was something off; she looked younger, that's what it was. The woman who stood before him was his mother as she looked before she had children, "You know there's more than this."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"There really isn't," He shook his head, staring at the words. He'd overturned all the rocks so he could scan for words without picking each individual one up, "That... That pile is all that I am."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Hardworking, Skilled, Merciful, and Team Player. Yeah, that's all you've got going for you?" Komaru questioned, stepping down from the pile, "Like you'd survive this long if you were this awful, with only those in your favor," She stepped past him, into the field, "But you know, I don't blame you for not picking up anything else. If you admit that you have a trait which you admire in others, then you're dragging them down to your level. If you can be as good as them, they can be as bad as you, yes?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Yuuri refused to humor this apparition of his mother with an answer. She was right, of course she was. Yuuri didn't want to say that he was compassionate, because Kanoshi was compassionate. Even as he did some things just for the sake of kindness, Kanoshi always did more than him. Nonetheless, when he set the rock with compassionate written on it to the side, it didn't fly back out.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Likewise was loyalty. Yuuri wasn't sure that he considered himself loyal. He'd lay down his life for his friends, but they'd more likely do it for him. Kotomi and Sayaka both embodied the idea of loyalty so much more than he ever could, but he needed to stop comparing himself to others. if he was ever going to get an accurate picture of himself. After those two, he found another four, for a total of ten positive traits. That number was still dwarfed by the negative traits, but he was uncomfortable even accepting that much was admirable about him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Good," Komaru laughed, stepping up to him, "I think that's it, now. That's the thing to remember, though. Even bad people like you have something good going for them. I have my admirable traits. That poor man you got killed had some too. Everyone who ever hurt you had plenty of good things going for them. Some people probably think they're good people."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"How could you say that?" Yuuri questioned, standing up and walking toward her, "You're not a good person, and none of them are either!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"It depends who you ask. Somebody who met me when I looked like this might think I was a good person. Somebody who met me now will think I'm a bad person. Someone who met me a long time ago and continues to know me now? Who knows what they'll think. It's all timing and priorities," Komaru moved closer to him with a cocky smirk, "But you wouldn't know about that, would you? Nobody's<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"> ever </i>thought you're good."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"That's because I'm not a habitual liar. I don't spend my time trying to make people like me, or think that I'm something that I'm not. If anyone wants to like me in spite of my being a terrible person, then that's their loss," Yuuri answered, raising his eyebrows, "The only people who could ever think for even a second that I'm good are the customers at the grocery store where I work, who would never know anything about me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"You keep acting like you're fine with being a bad person, but the fact that you went straight for the negatives... For someone your age to be so aware of your flaws really means that you hate yourself for them, right?" Komaru asked, tilting her head to the side, "It took me years to realize I was bad. And that's the thing to think about. You're bad. You will never be good."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Of course I know that," Yuuri scoffed, slipping his hands into his pockets, "That doesn't mean I have to enjoy it. Hell, I would never enjoy it. I wish I could be different than this, but I can't change who I am."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Yeah, Onii-chan?" Another voice spoke up, and Yuuri turned around to see Hikari standing there. Unlike the apparition of his younger mother, she seemed to have more of an air of reality to her. She appeared in the way that she likely would look at this point, at age seventeen, "I thought you blamed who you are on Mama."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-e_G7ZxyLjopAXNU87x3A03-HUAYMjKl3YfFqAc4CYGYTwUV4AXcynnzPUjJrzZmoUF-qVApMaAStSlJEuxtPZ1GSmM4ZbIXZhnVGo6zelJdMF3TJp-lFdr-oig-rr612n3CODh3w5te/s1600/Hikari.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-e_G7ZxyLjopAXNU87x3A03-HUAYMjKl3YfFqAc4CYGYTwUV4AXcynnzPUjJrzZmoUF-qVApMaAStSlJEuxtPZ1GSmM4ZbIXZhnVGo6zelJdMF3TJp-lFdr-oig-rr612n3CODh3w5te/s320/Hikari.png" width="122" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Hikari Ruka</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"That's obviously not true, since you turned out better than I did," Yuuri noted, stepping up to his little sister, "I'm just rotten, aren't I? I always have been, and that's why she did what she did to me. I wasn't good for anything else to her."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"I would have ended up the same, if she didn't go to jail when she did. But the damage was already done," She got up on her toes and looked up at her brother, "But also, if she didn't go to jail when she did, you wouldn't have been free, right? I bet, Onii-chan, you would have been poisoned by the way she thinks. Maybe you would have even become so obedient that if she told you to, you'd kill someone."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Yuuri shook his head, "I wouldn't do that. I'd never do something like that, no matter what."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Hikari brought both hands to her face, covering her mouth as she giggled, "Never ever? But onii-chan, you didn't even know that Mama was doing something wrong in the first place! A few more years, and maybe you would have been the one who murdered me, instead of the Vagrant Killer. Don't you think it would have been more fitting if you got killed?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Of course I do," Yuuri nodded with a groan, "You never did anything wrong. Maybe... I could have been infected by her. Maybe you're right. Who knows what would have happened if..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"That's the thing, though. There's no way to know what would have happened, all we can even begin to do is wonder at what could have happened," Hikari explained, then took a seat at the top of Yuuri's pile of descriptive rocks, crossing her legs, "What did happen was that Mama ruined your life, then got arrested, and I got killed. You were totally left alone to pick up the pieces."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"I had a bunch of bad luck," Yuuri agreed, "And a bunch of undeserved good luck. There were so many times that I should have died, and I didn't. And I don't know why that happened. Why I've survived so long. Why you got killed, and I didn't. Life's not fair. You'd have been better off surviving, but instead I'm just here, this walking disaster. I still don't even know how I ended up dying, but I'm not counting on it being anything other than self-inflicted."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Onii-chan, I have a question for you," Hikari folded her hands in her lap, "What would you do if it turned out this isn't Hell? If as it turns out, you're alive? Are you actually going to do something with this experience, or just go back to your regular misery?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"You already know the answer to that," Yuuri responded, sitting down next to her, "I won't. I've never done much of anything that's worthwhile, and I never will. I won't bother."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Yeah, you won't," Hikari shrugged, "But there is one thing you should probably think about, okay? One rock which doesn't describe you, out of all of these, was murderer. You've never killed anyone, Onii-chan. That includes yourself."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Huh. That's a good point," Yuuri nodded, leaning back. He looked up to the sky, noticing that there weren't any clouds, or a sun. It was just blue all the way, "I find it weird to think about, though, that it could be anyone's fault but my own. There'd be no such thing as an accident when it comes to me. If I fell or something like that, it would be a subconscious desire to be killed during the event."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Hikari closed her eyes, then slipped an arm onto her brother's shoulder, "That's the thing about dying. You can never even know if it really happened, or how, if it did."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"We're not talking about me anymore," Yuuri stood up and turned to look at her, "We're talking about you. I don't know if you're really dead, and it's never made sense that the Vagrant Killer would attack an innocent child. Three innocent children, with one of them showing up again?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"I know what you're thinking," Hikari nodded, "I know that part of you thinks that I got killed, and another part is convinced that I ran away with my two best friends because unlike you, I couldn't handle the situation at all, in any way. I just ran away from the truth. You stayed and dealt with it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Physically, sure," Yuuri clicked his tongue, "In fact, that trip I was making out to Nagasaki was the first time that I've left the Tokyo area in my entire life. But... I've always been running away. I even ran away from my own thoughts when I got to this place. It's how I ended up here, with these rocks, and now it's all just making me confront my bullshit even more. I'm always just looking for ways not to have to think about any of it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Hikari stood up as well, then walked out across the field of rocks, holding her arms behind her back as she went. She didn't say anything, but Yuuri followed her anyway. Now that he'd gathered everything which described him, the texture of the surface wasn't accurate to its appearance, as if a sheet of smooth glass had been laid down across the top of the rock field.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">As Yuuri followed along behind his younger sister, he looked around at the landscape which continued to be desolate and empty. As soon as he looked back to her, she'd disappeared, and he was alone once more. He stopped walking, and sighed, dipping his head to look down at the leftover rocks beneath his feet. Well, he decided to at least get beyond the field. He continued walking, then stopped as soon as he was on dirt again, and aimed his gaze out at the horizon. There was still nothing out there.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">There was never anything out there for him, was there?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He was afraid of that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">This whole time, he'd only been going on the idea that maybe by some miracle, there was something out there for him. Something better, something good and pure and more amazing than anything he'd ever had before, but that was a lie, and deep down he was afraid that was the case. It was the truth, though. There was always nothing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">That was why he became a magical boy, after all. Becoming a magica meant that your life was over, and he didn't even hesitate. His life had never even started, so he wasn't at all afraid to dive into something like this. It was a way of killing himself without really doing it. Someday, a monster or some other magica would kill him, and until then he was just pressing on to try and avoid being hurt again, searching for something he knew he'd never find.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He wasn't really dead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Maybe the fact that he wasn't really dead was what scared him most. As a magical boy, wasn't he supposed to be able to avoid situations like this? If this wasn't Hell, it meant that somebody had gotten the better of him to trap him in this place. He hated that idea. He took a deep breath, then pulled the bandages off of his arm. His marking seemed unmarred, and he hoped there wasn't anything left of the injury. He willed a transformation, and it worked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He felt a little more confident with his revolver in his hand. It helped, anyway. He took a deep breath, then continued walking forward. As he went, the hard dirt beneath his feet softened, eventually turning to sand. He looked down and confirmed that it was, indeed, sand. He kept moving, and looked up to see that there was an ocean out in front of him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">The empty landscape had given way to a beach, complete with seaweed and driftwood. Yuuri had never been to a beach like this. Not as far as he could remember, at least, though it was a rather generic beach that could easily be based on one he'd seen in a photograph or a movie. He sighed and, despite knowing that sand and leather was a very uncomfortable combination, sat down. The ocean was pure and blue before him, bright.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">Out beyond it was something dark and shadowy, but he wasn't going to worry about that. Not right now. It was far away, and he was ready to face it if it got closer. He took a few deep breaths, then before he could think about anything else, found his head immersed in the sand. He forcibly sat back up, sputtering, then looked up the arm of the hand which had thrust him down, only to find that it belonged to somebody he didn't recognize at all. Somebody he'd never even met.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He was dressed in a rather standard business suit, the creases pressed to his form, and he wore a look of disdain as he, without even seeming to exert any force, pushed Yuuri down again. Yuuri fumbled for his revolver and pointed it straight at the mystery man, only to find that when he fired it, the man avoided it without much difficulty. Without any difficulty at all, actually. He fired one more time as his face was once more immersed in the sand.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">He continued to struggle, but suddenly, he couldn't feel his right arm at all. It was numb; more than numb, it felt as if it wasn't there at all. Yuuri gasped for air and only got a mouthful of sand. He writhed under the hand of this mysterious man, trying and failing to get any traction against him. As he moved he only found he was burying himself deeper into the beach beneath him, until suddenly the pressure was gone and he sat back up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">The man who'd been holding him down was faceless; not in the meaning that he was insignificant to Yuuri, but there was a hole where his face should be, the edges of his flesh glowing like embers. Yuuri just breathed, trying to compose himself, then took a look around, hoping that whatever had stopped his attacker was not even more dangerous and out to get him next.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">The weapon was nowhere to be seen, but the person responsible seemed to be the apparition of his mother, the youthful version. Nonetheless, the way that she was standing seemed off, an unbecoming posture of her, and when she spoke her voice belonged to somebody entirely different, "Now, Tatsuya. That's very unbecoming, even for you. Let's go, Yuuri-kun. It's about time that we blew this popsicle stand. In the figurative, metaphorical sense, if that wording's got you on edge."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"Who... Are you?" Yuuri questioned, getting to his feet and squinting at the figure who wasn't far away, but still had the very same appearance, with no flaws.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #20124d;">"It doesn't matter <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">who</i> I am, what matters is that I'm here. Follow me if you want to live. Or if you don't want to live, which seems more likely coming from you. Either way, you're coming with me."</span></div>
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<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/03/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-twelve.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Next Chapter-></span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-41037437249306790542018-02-03T00:00:00.000-08:002018-09-21T13:49:34.242-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Ten<div style="font-family: "times new roman";">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/01/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-nine.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Ayodele Kayode was nervous. Biting her nails, really, and it was definitely pissing off her sort-of, maybe, but not really boyfriend, who was being kind enough as to help her set up a website to utilize her newfound powers through. She just couldn't help her nerves, though; it was a heavy responsibility she'd been handed, as Pretty Fighter Ribbon Velvet! She was definitely not the first magica in the country, not even the first magica in Lagos alone. There were plenty, but she still felt the pressure.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She had a lot riding on this, after all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ayo, could you quit that?" Kachi frowned, looking up from his work with a glare in her direction, "If you're just going to be acting on your terrible nervous habits, you could at least have the common courtesy to act on them somewhere else. Go across the room, where I can't hear you biting your nails."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She pouted, put stopped hanging over Kachi's shoulder and went to the other side of the apartment that the two of them shared, and looked out the window. Lagos was a lively city. She really liked it here; it was a shame that she'd have to leave, but Kachi was banking on it, and she couldn't bring herself to deny him anything. It was almost like they were dating, but without any of the real romantic trademarks that seemed to come along with it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Not to mention, dating was kind of a weird thing to do in the first place. They were of a similar opinion on that matter, as far as she was aware. Maybe it was because neither of them had grown up in the city, but in suburbs instead, where it wasn't at all uncommon for people they knew to marry before the word dating even dared to cross their lips. It was simply a matter of prudishness, in that case, Ayodele thought. Christianity was common in the southern states of Nigeria, and her family was no exception, nor was Kachi's, and the idea of abstinence until marriage could very easily be pushed to such an extreme of not daring to do so much as kiss before putting a ring on it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Something that had to be the same all around the world was that cities would be more open than towns, and that was just a given. With the population density, and people coming from all over, and people from all over walking all over the city at all hours, it was impossible to live in a bubble. It was when she and Kachi moved to Lagos for school that Ayodele had realized her discontent. It was the difference between the values her family espoused, and the values she'd met with in school.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It had taken enough effort just to get her family to <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">let</i> her come to Lagos for college, and as soon as she arrived she began hearing so many things which outright conflicted with her upbringing. As she did, she grew apart from her family, but she couldn't really make friends here either. She was caught in between, and her only lifeline was Kachi. Maybe that was why she'd become a magical girl the day he said that he wanted to move to a different country. Cape Verde maybe, he said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She needed a way to make sure that happened. To make sure she could go with him and make sure she could help. Well, to make sure she could go with him. If Kachi had the go-ahead to look out for number one, he'd find a way to pull it off. Still, Ayodele didn't want him to go alone, but didn't trust in her own abilities to get there with him by her own power. Now, it was different.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">As a magical girl, she was above what anyone else thought of her, and if she was able to be as useful as Blade told her she could be, then it would be an easy ride. She would never need to participate in combat, and all of the other magica would look out for her. She could easily travel, and the ad revenue from the website, if every magica actually used it, would be more than enough for her to live comfortably.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was a purely logical decision, becoming a magical girl.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How's the website coming, Kachi? Is what Blade wants too difficult?" Ayodele asked as she moved away from the window again, giving her friend a nearly-desperate look.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's not too difficult at all. Your cat friend didn't want anything especially complicated, you know. I'm perfectly capable of doing this," Kachi assured her, "In fact, you wanna go ahead and transform and I can start throwing some raw data in?"</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbKS2aEM2kS-mWLaBhX-DgcWoeobF-xyvr4WC407JwhOXAHsysAtr_elEDlLUY5O6QjHHR_8aBe0F3HYOukq0i4CMv4MODYLtvbDrcosdpaUNaQNOjBHzISfp9rGkcz24v6QRa47RkgAQ/s1600/Ribbon+Velvet.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbKS2aEM2kS-mWLaBhX-DgcWoeobF-xyvr4WC407JwhOXAHsysAtr_elEDlLUY5O6QjHHR_8aBe0F3HYOukq0i4CMv4MODYLtvbDrcosdpaUNaQNOjBHzISfp9rGkcz24v6QRa47RkgAQ/s320/Ribbon+Velvet.png" width="104" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Pretty Fighter Ribbon Velvet</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure thing!" Ayodele nodded, then pulled down her shirt to let the question mark on her collarbone breathe, transforming as soon as it was revealed and she was able. She didn't much like hanging out transformed, because even though the outfit looked fabulous on her, the minute she changed she was bombarded by upcoming information.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You feel okay? Wanna start giving me some?" Kachi questioned, making sure he wasn't pushing her too far, "Maybe after you speak them aloud, the predictions will stop buzzing around in your head?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Good point," Ayodele nodded, "I don't feel good, but I'm okay. Uh," She started giving out information, which Kachi typed in just as quickly as she could speak. His theory was correct; once she said the predictions, they stopped buzzing, at least. She didn't forget them entirely, but the urgency disappeared and stopped hurting her head as much. Instead, it was replaced by a different urgency.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Ayodele clutched her arms around her stomach and gave Kachi a look of pure horror, then put a hand over her mark and transformed back, taking deep breaths and shaking her head, "I got through the monsters. All of them, but it didn't shut down. I saw... That something really terrible, and not a monster, could be happening to a group of magica. <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Right now. </i>I didn't want to see that, Kachi. I didn't."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay," Kachi nodded, reaching a hand out towards her, "It's okay, and now we know. The furthest you can predict out is eight months before you run out of monsters. It also only seems to be predicting level five and above, which is how we got through all of them so quickly. Blade said that one through four are really common, then five and above get progressively rarer."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Blade! That's right, I have its number," Ayodele pulled her phone out, frantically pushing her hair back from her face with one hand as she used the other to find the contact she'd made. 'Cat' with a knife emoji after it. That was a pretty good description for an ugly cat named Blade, she thought. She hit call, then shouted into the phone while it was still ringing, realized her mistake, then waited for the distributor to pick up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-------</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">As Blade was stepping off the train along with its favorite magical girl and her adult friends, it noticed that the group's missing member rejoined them from the next car over, then started to vibrate in place. It froze, then called out, "Red! I'm getting a call, lemme step aside to take it. I can run fast so I'll catch up with you before the next train leaves!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No problem, we were gonna stop and eat something anyway," Sayaka nodded, waving to it as she kept walking. It found a quiet spot, then hacked up its phone and answered.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ayodele Kayode! To what do I owe this pleasure? Am I also speaking to Kachi Nigwe?" Blade questioned, but it immediately regretted answering in such a pleasant fashion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I worked through all of my monster predictions. I gave Kachi all the raw data, and after I hit eight months out, I stopped getting monster predictions and suddenly started getting predictions about other magica! I couldn't get specifics, but I think that some are in danger! Something really bad is about to happen, if my powers are to be trusted..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Your powers are definitely to be trusted. I, however, have no idea what to do about that. If it's not related to a monster, and you didn't get any other details except 'some magica are in danger', then honestly, I'm not in a position to do or solve anything. I'd say, you're an individual, so you have nothing to worry about, okay?" It was starting to panic a little bit, in case this ambiguous danger was another disappearance of unknown nature, "Don't panic," It could at least make the innocent messenger calm down, though.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay," Ayodele answered, taking deep breaths audible through the receiver, "Just... I'm worried. Can you call me again later and tell me if everything turned out fine, as far as you know?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can absolutely do that. Now, I'm missing out on table scraps! Not that I get any nourishment from them, but they sure are tasty. Gotta go, doll. Seeya soon!" With that, Blade hung up, then looked up and across the train station. It waited a moment, then realized something was strange about Sayaka's location signature. Strange being that she was <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">very</i> quickly leaving its range, "...Shit."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It had just teleported all the way from San Francisco, so now it was stranded here while its favorite magical girl, as well as her adult friends, were a group of magica in danger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-------------------</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">When Sayaka woke up, she was still in the train station. That was what it seemed to her, anyhow. She knew that she'd woken up; of course she did. She hadn't stayed alive this long only to be unable to tell when she'd been knocked out. When was it? Right, she and the boys had just approached a fast food restaurant. They were at the doorway, not in line yet. That seemed like a conspicuous place to knock somebody out, so maybe she was mistaken. This was a big train station. It was never empty.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Not like single stops. This was a full-on station. There should have at least been a souvenir shop that stayed open all hours of the night, but she didn't see any lights, or any people. That left her with one conclusion; this wasn't the station. It may have looked like the station, but it wasn't. Her first thought, with that in mind, was Lionhardt. This area seemed much too large, however, and she wasn't even sure his powers would work on somebody unconscious. Who else was there?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka had to admit, she didn't know Goddess's power, but even so, why would she even be on that girl's radar? Perhaps she was after Zhou, or Kanoshi, with all their power built up. That would make sense, because she was a power-hungry despot who built up strength just to turn more of her human followers into magica at her whim. Still, she'd always played somewhat fair in the past, usually targeting magica who didn't make it on the rankings but still had a good amount of power to be gathered.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It didn't make sense for her to change that M.O. now of all times, so Sayaka discarded the possibility. She discarded all possibilities. It wouldn't make sense for her to just keep pondering what this situation could mean, when she should have just been figuring out how to get out of it, and what she could do to accomplish such a thing. She decided it wouldn't be straightforward; she could not escape up the stairs. The stairs hardly even looked real, blurry.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Instead, she decided, she'd have to go through the train system. It switched between underground and aboveground in many places, after all. She'd just follow the tracks until she saw sunlight again. Or moonlight. She didn't know how <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">long</i> she'd been out, after all. With a sigh, Sayaka made her way to the tracks and hopped down, finding a maintenance path that she could walk along. That was convenient enough, and she pushed thoughts of confusion out of the way for now as she just made her way along, one step at a time. It was just one step at a time. Nothing else mattered right now.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It wasn't like she hadn't been in weirder situations. Hell, this situation wasn't entirely unlike her own power of the illusory maze. With that, she found her mind wandering again despite her best efforts. What if this tunnel just went on forever? What if this place was some sort of honest-to-goodness pocket dimension, and it was also where Stripe and all the rest of the best magica had been taken? Had the kidnapper decided they were unsatisfied and decided to take second best?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That was one thought Sayaka couldn't banish from her mind. All the others, she had a good argument against, but the idea that she had joined the ranks of magica who vanished without a trace... She didn't stop walking, but she pulled her phone out to see if she could get some service. Nothing, not a scrap of cell service, let alone 4G or wi-fi. She pouted to be without those things, but the phone still worked, so she decided to distract herself from all the walking with one of the less-internet-dependent mobile games she had downloaded.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sure, she didn't play anything NEET-y like SIF or DGF, but everyone had at least one time-wasting mobile game they liked. In Sayaka's case, she was fond of match puzzles. Bejeweled knock-offs, one might call them, though she had no idea if that was actually the first iteration of these match puzzles. In any case, with such a huge initial download, she had to have at least a hundred more maps to burn through after the ones she'd already completed. This was a good one which used ads instead of in-app purchases, so she could play right up until her battery burned out.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Though, playing them with no internet connection and thus no way to show the advertisements was sort of taking advantage of the app developers' good faith, but she didn't care right now because it wasn't like she had a choice in the matter. The game served as a good distraction for about an hour of walking before her phone's battery hit 15% and she decided to preserve that remaining bit in case, by some miracle, she came across service after all. She tucked her phone away and looked around, only to freeze where she stood.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She hadn't reached the surface without realizing in her engrossment with the game, no, she hadn't done anything quite like that. She thought it was worse, however. She looked around the subway only to see, that while she was busy ignoring her surroundings, they had shifted quite dramatically. The walls no longer looked anything like walls at all. In fact, they looked like hands. So many hands, all of them reaching, reaching out toward her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka could almost swear, now, that she heard some sort of disgusting, visceral sound. It was the kind of scream that could only come of a man being tortured, but it was both distant and omniprescent all at the same time. It surrounded her with all its power, but the sound itself was quiet, too quiet. As if, no matter which direction she looked, she would be too late to save whoever was screaming.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She swallowed her concern and adjusted her backpack before she continued walking, hunched into herself now. She didn't want any of those hands touching her, she knew that much beyond absolutely any shadow of a doubt. They looked like the type of hands which would gladly stick themselves into all manner of places without a second thought. At the same time, they were the hands of businessmen on the subway, the hands of that director of the middle school that Yuuri went to, and the hands of... Him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The first man she'd killed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Kiyoteru Tanaka!"</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcslhUc45bqMN84U01mO9Trzf7p6RPQ-qh6xoBeIxgmnNdQkA_jXpQViTzDAavSjHKgh6BWf7G0rA-gDw9bTeQeQ-xrQeD_ePiMb_GVpbpMRJTzsZZcvEAz6bzomsSRu4mwwWvh8dh13au/s1600/Kiyoteru.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcslhUc45bqMN84U01mO9Trzf7p6RPQ-qh6xoBeIxgmnNdQkA_jXpQViTzDAavSjHKgh6BWf7G0rA-gDw9bTeQeQ-xrQeD_ePiMb_GVpbpMRJTzsZZcvEAz6bzomsSRu4mwwWvh8dh13au/s320/Kiyoteru.png" width="105" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kiyoteru Tanaka</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Just as Sayaka thought it, she could have sworn that she heard his name shouted down the tunnel with confidence. Just his name, in an unassigned voice, but if that much could happen, she became concerned that the next time she heard it, it would be in his own voice. She sped up now, running down the path, only to find that the further she went, the narrower the walls got.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She couldn't bear to get any closer, so she stopped. She stopped and made the mistake of turning to look behind her. As soon as she'd turned around, there he was, in front of her. He seemed so tall. He seemed just as much taller than her as he'd been the first time they'd met, when she was six and he was alive, and he referred to himself as 'the better type of lolicon'. She wanted to say she wasn't afraid of him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She wasn't, but the minute he appeared, she still shut down. It wasn't fear, but still a defense mechanism, she became solid and blank. Vacant, feeling almost like she was only a long-dead ghost possessing her own body, because that was better than being real before him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hello Sayaka-hime," He spoke, tilting his head to the side, "I see you've become a magical girl. Ever the perfect princess for me. Would you like a candy apple?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't like apples," She answered without inflection, as she would do through the entire conversation. She knew by now that this couldn't be real, but that didn't mean she wasn't feeling the impact of having this man stand before her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"They're red."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't like apples."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But they're red."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But I don't like apples."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay. How about a lollipop?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sure," She took it from him and put it in her mouth.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I fooled you. The lollipop is apple-flavored."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're wrong," She answered, staring him down with her grey eyes glassy, "That's the thing with lollipops. They're always cherry. No matter what the label says or what color they are. Green, or purple, it's all the same. It's just cherry."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Clever," Kiyoteru chuckled, leaning down to look her in the eyes, "Will you spend another night with me, Sayaka-hime?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, oji-san, I'm a lesbian," She answered, standing her ground. A step in any direction would be her downfall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You know, in the real world, you wouldn't be able to deny me if I ordered you to," He stood up straight again, smirking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So you admit this isn't the real world. What is it? It's good for you that it's not real, because in the real world, I know you're dead. I killed you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You can say that," Kiyoteru shrugged, "But you know now, don't you? There's no way to be sure anymore. The dead can return. You've even teamed up with an aspiring necromancer, so how can you be sure that I'm still dead?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can't be sure, but who's to say you'd ever find me?" Sayaka shot back, though she still didn't betray any emotion in her voice or face.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Good point, but I should also tell you, I wouldn't waste my powers just to get you back in bed with me, Princess," Kiyoteru cocked an eyebrow, "I could make you do anything, you know. Even kill your friends. Any of them. Good, or very good. Ones you protect, or ones who protect you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka finally broke through her dissociative state and glared at him, speaking with conviction, "I would never do something like that, no matter what powers you supposedly have!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">At her harsh words, Kiyoteru seemed to disappear into mist, one piece at a time, floating away. She took a deep breath, then stood up straight and turned back around again, ready to face the narrowing tunnel now that she didn't have the looming dread that Kiyoteru might suddenly appear behind her. The tunnel was gone, though.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Instead, all she saw before her were buildings. Familiar buildings. She was back in Tokyo. Had she still been under the impression that this was reality, or even some distortion of it, then she might have been surprised. As it was, she was piecing together a new theory. Nobody else knew about Kiyoteru, and certainly didn't know enough to create such a pointed dialogue from him. Whatever this situation was, it was something of a nightmare.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Created from her mind, anyway, but it was far too real to be a dream. There was a particular feeling to being awake, to being truly awake. She felt that right now, and so she knew, there was no way that this was a dream. She was moving throughout it, wholly, herself. Thus, she came to one probable conclusion. If she died in this nightmarish setting, she would die in real life. It wasn't an unusual idea; plenty of premises of dying within alternate worlds in which death should be safe existed as fiction, and there was no way to disregard something like that in this day and age.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka knew now that she was at least making some type of progress, so she continued on into the city which looked like Tokyo. Certain details were perfect, and others were merely loose interpretations. More proof, she decided, that the information to create this world was coming from her own thoughts. She'd been living in the city for a while, and she was good at memorizing layouts, but Tokyo was a big place. Anywhere she knew well, seemed to be just fine. Anywhere she didn't go to often, wasn't.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka had absolutely no idea where she ought to go next, however. She went to the apartment building where Yuuri and Kanoshi lived, the insides of their apartments bare and lacking when she pushed the doors open. She didn't know what sort of wallpaper or carpeting there might have been inside either of their homes. Kanoshi's had a computer, which when she tried it out lacked internet connection and seemed to have nothing but video games installed, not even default programs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">There was a kotatsu, too, in the middle of the floor, and that was the extent of the possessions that Sayaka knew Kanoshi owned. Yuuri's didn't even have a single piece of furniture, but a few scattered liquor bottles, cigarette butts, and pocket knives. She found that a little absurd. Of course the two of them had furniture, but she supposed it was only the things that she knew for certain they owned, with some small amount of detail.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Depressing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She stepped out of Yuuri's apartment and closed the door, then hopped out onto the fire escape of the building. She realized she hadn't even thought to test if she could transform here, so she pulled her t-shirt over her head to reveal the marking and willed the transformation to happen. It did, which she was glad for. Now she could travel more freely through the city.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka's first additional stop was her favorite sweet shop. It was empty of people, but the counters were fully stocked. She looked back and forth, then jumped behind the counter and slid it open, filling one of the store's pastry boxes with strawberry cupcakes, red velvet cookies, and crimson-colored raspberry mochi. Plus, a few other sweets too. It wasn't as if she only liked red food, she just found a lot of them to be her favorites. All sorts of flavors could satisfy her sweet tooth, though. All sorts but apple.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">With the box full of sweets that she already started eating as she walked, Sayaka made her way towards her next stop. The empty lot that Kotomi had repurposed into a home seemed like it could have some sort of significance, so she approached it. She was just walking this time, so by the time she reached the lot, she'd finished off her box of sweets and dropped the empty cardboard into a convenient dumpster.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The lot was empty. Well, that much was evident, because it was considered empty at all times given that it had absolutely no property value anymore, but what stood out to Sayaka was that Kotomi wasn't there. She checked the storage units, and none of her stray cats were either. It was yet another meaningless layout. Nothing happened or changed around her. After what happened with the tunnel, she knew there had to be something somewhere which would change.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She couldn't just be stuck here, alone, for all time? What if she'd had the chance to escape by interacting differently with Kiyoteru, and she squandered it? Was this empty, lonely Hell of howling winds and desolate streets her grave? The concern from earlier that this was the result of a disappearance similar to the others came creeping back.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Was Stripe dealing with an equally empty version of the Hollywood Hills, wandering it without anybody to yell at over not being vegan? Well, she kind of thought he'd deserve it, but there were others. Fizzy Pop, and Horace. Sayaka didn't know either of them very well, but she felt that they wouldn't deserve something like this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She didn't deserve something like this, herself. She really didn't. She wasn't a bad person. She would still be in the top hundred, even without Blade's ability to reduce the damage done by reputation-harming actions. She had to wonder if the same thing had happened to her friends, or if they were back in the real world, wondering where she'd gone? If nobody else would, Blade would worry. It was kind and friendly to her, and she was its favorite. She believed it when it said that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">With this thought, she took a deep breath, then took off in the direction of the nearest subway stop. She found it, and as expected, there was a train waiting there. She stepped up to it and boarded, sitting down. She and Blade often had conversations in subway cars that they got all to themselves thanks to her obvious magica presence, and Blade's obvious distributor existence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It pulled away from the station at a breakneck pace, faster than it ever seemed to move. Though it didn't appear to be that way, it seemed as if there were no walls on the front of the train by the way that as soon as it began to move, she felt a heavy breeze from that direction throwing her hair to the side. She braced herself by grabbing onto the pole by the door, shifting over to sit as close to her anchor as possible.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're wondering what's going on, aren't you?" Blade appeared in the seat across from her. Well, not quite. It looked like Blade at first glance, but if Sayaka focused, was off, somehow. As if it had some small features moved a few millimeters over.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I am," Sayaka answered, pulling her legs up onto the seat, "I know this place isn't real... But what is it? Where have I ended up?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm sure that you've got a lot of theories. You're worried that this is a disappearance like the ones which happened to each distributor's highest ranking magica. That's understandable. You don't want to believe that you've been kidnapped again. No matter the nature of this place, you were. You were kidnapped. It happened again. That's because you are a victim. No matter what you do or how many people you kill, you will never shake that fact. You are a victim. You will continue to be victimized for your entire life. Knowing that, why did you decide that you should never die?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Blade would never say such a thing to me," Sayaka clenched her fists, refusing to look at this poor recreation of the creature she considered one of her closest friends.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's funny that the place which you consider home is Tokyo," It chuckled, "But I guess that's because you can't go back to Kobe. And you think you could go back to Nagasaki, but nothing waits for you there. Do you think that going there will excuse you from someday telling those friends of yours why you really became a magical girl? That they'll figure it out just by going to the place where you once came close to death, to escape?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka shifted in her seat, leaning on her hand, "They're not such good friends that they ever need to know."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh really? Is that so?" Blade questioned, its head turning a good ninety degrees in one moment. The movement wasn't there at all; it just changed to that appearance. Sayaka had been trying to avoid looking at it, but she still saw this, and grimaced, "If they're not such good friends, then which one of them will you watch die, I wonder?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"W-What!?" Sayaka questioned, only to find her head involuntarily turned to look to the left, where the breeze was coming from. Instead of the wall, now, it seemed to be some sort of screen. She went to look away, but found that she was frozen in place and couldn't move at all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If you don't care, as much as you claim you don't care..." Kanoshi appeared on the screen, aiming these words at her as he stood there. She squinted, only to see that there was a bullet hole straight through his eye. The eye that held his mark, of course, "Then what do you care?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, Yamaguchi-chan," The image shifted to Yuuri now, on his knees and clutching a stump of a right shoulder, "If you're so much more competent than all of us, doesn't that mean that before anything could kill you, you'd have to see us all die first...?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It changed once more, to Kotomi, but much older than she was, "And of course you'll outlive a human like me, too. Someday, you will be all alone. Everyone will abandon you, just like the oyabun did."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka squeezed her eyes shut and shouted, "Kotomi doesn't know about that! The least you could do is make this shit make sense!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"But we're just getting started, Sayaka," The thing which tried to resemble Blade spoke, "You've got a lot to unpack, Princess."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">And behind her, the next train car down, suddenly exploded, bringing the train to a halt. Her hair settled again, and she turned to see what had just happened.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Follow me," A man who looked, but didn't sound at all like Kiyoteru Tanaka spoke.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She listened.</span></div>
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<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/02/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-eleven.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Next Chapter -></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-39107262501149303902018-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:002018-09-21T13:51:37.948-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Nine<div style="font-family: "times new roman";">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/01/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-eight.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're really going?" Kotomi questioned, frowning as she pulled open a can of beans that she fully intended to straight-up drink, "I mean, isn't this totally not your assignment, or whatever? Do I need to call Kaiba-chan?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, you don't," Sayaka rolled her eyes as she finished packing things up into a bag, provisions and the like, "Kaiba-nee doesn't ever need to know that I'm doing this. I'm not breaking any rules, Blade is fine with me doing it, and you should be too, Tanako-chan. We both know that I'm more capable than any of those idiot men, if they run into any real danger then they're going to need me there."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi sighed, stretching one arm out above her head as she lifted the can of beans to her lips, but didn't consume any yet, talking over the edge of it, "You can say that, and I guess I appreciate what you're doing for Rukkun and all, but I still think you'd be better off staying here..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Since when do you worry about me?" Sayaka questioned, turning to look at Kotomi. She glared while her benefactor downed the beans.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Once Kotomi had finished chugging the entire can of beans, she answered, "I worry about you since what happened to him, okay? I look at you, and I see a kid who's in over her head. The others are adult men, and maybe you are better at combat than them, but they're more prepared to handle the consequences of their decisions, you get me?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka scowled, "You're only what, four years older than me? You graduated the year before I got to high school. You can't say I'm a kid in over my head when you and Rukkun are hardly adults to begin with."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi groaned, tossing the now-empty can to the side and adjusting her mask back on now that she was no longer eating, "I can say that, and I am saying that. Plus, I may be twenty, but I ain't a magica. Chew on that, yeah? Don't lump me and Rukkun together when we both know I'm better at making life-altering decisions than he is."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7KSIXK_Se2-hCRuuElGl7DuK1OmtpA7Rg7G7_bptwHLCusoEhJIzT-iacq3JbYG7htRK0lzepXQYdnLEUt5RwhjUjyaRUOrsPuDxzWwWYnPbRCDYHgI6liHbTn-egWDAUJQ3SzRI5yOG/s1600/summersayaka.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7KSIXK_Se2-hCRuuElGl7DuK1OmtpA7Rg7G7_bptwHLCusoEhJIzT-iacq3JbYG7htRK0lzepXQYdnLEUt5RwhjUjyaRUOrsPuDxzWwWYnPbRCDYHgI6liHbTn-egWDAUJQ3SzRI5yOG/s320/summersayaka.png" width="140" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka Yamaguchi (Summer)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, shut the fuck up," Sayaka brushed her off and shrugged the backpack onto her shoulders, "You know I don't have any regrets. I never will. Yeah, I know what happened to him, and I don't care. I've endured plenty of pain in my life, if my mark ever got hit, I'd endure that too. It isn't like I'm about to die. Nobody has ever died while in the top 30."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi stood up and reached out, grabbing Sayaka's knapsack from behind, "Maybe so, but you know what has happened to people in the top 30? Mysterious, unsolvable disappearances. So forgive me for not exactly having faith in you based on your <i>ranking</i>."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka spun back around, snapping, "Stop acting like you understand! You're not a magical girl, and you just live your life free and easy from one job to the next. You're not in any position of authority over me, and as grateful as I am for it, I never needed your pity! Let me be."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Fine," Kotomi sighed, releasing her grip on the backpack to turn away, looking at the ground with a defeated look, "You're right. I don't understand, and I never will. Just be careful, okay? Please be careful. Or as careful as you can be. I don't want to be the one to explain to Kaiba-chan that I let you go get yourself killed, okay?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka laughed, shaking her head, "I won't get killed. You won't have to tell Kaiba-nee anything."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Have fun storming the castle," Kotomi gave her final, good-natured offer of a goodbye, and Sayaka nodded before she transformed, leaping up onto a nearby building to make her way towards the train station that she and the rest were departing from. The train trip to Nagasaki prefecture from Tokyo was a long one with a number of transfers, but it was the only option for a group of five magica. One magica could get through airport security with some extra measures, but a whole group would definitely be denied flight on the same plane. Too risky.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka arrived at the train station in good time, and she was the second of their group to arrive. She landed nearby, transformed back, and walked the rest of the way. Upon arrival, she spotted Tsukune, who was standing there beside a woman who she recognized, oddly enough. She wasn't expecting to recognize that woman, but she did, and she approached the pair of them, hands clasped behind her back, "Shirato-san! I didn't know that you knew Madara-kun."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hm?" Kyoko looked down, being a good deal taller than Sayaka, then offered her a smile which seemed quite forced, "Oh, Shinku-chan. It's a pleasure. I can't say I expected to see you here!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka froze, then tilted her head to the side, "Oh, I don't use that name anymore. Didn't you hear when I was on the list of survivors? My real family name is Yamaguchi. Anyway, Madara-kun and I met a few months ago. How do you know each other?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kyoko shrugged, "After Korekara, I was kind of homeless. I mean, we all were. Headmaster Kira didn't give a damn about us survivors after that happened... I decided I needed a roommate, and he was on the streets too, so I decided if I was going to claw my way out of Hell, I may as well be kind enough to bring somebody with me," She laughed a little, "Don't worry, just because he's a homeless guy several years older than me doesn't mean he's doing perverted things to me!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka glanced around, then smirked, "Honestly, Shirato-san, I would worry about it the other way around. Last I checked, Madara-kun is a very nonthreatening adult man. You, on the other hand, are a very threatening adult woman," She turned to Tsukune, her tone still joking but with a slightly concerned undertone, "Madara-kun, show me on the doll where Boss Idol Kyoko touched you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She leaves me alone, Red. Don't worry," Tsukune crossed his arms over his chest, looking between them, "I can't say that for most people she meets. A real man-eater, this one, but I'm safe. Anyway, I hope you don't mind, she wanted to visit another city along our way, I couldn't be bothered to remember which one, so she's getting on the same train as us."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka adjusted her backpack, "Why would I mind? It's not like it matters to me. I don't care about the five of us as a unit at all, it'd be Moron-sensei that you'd really have to run it by. He's the one who keeps thinking we're a team. Him and Rukkun, anyway."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Right," Tsukune mumbled, shifting between his feet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kyoko paused a beat, then looked between the two of them, coming to a conclusion, "Oh! I get it. Okay, so that's what this is about. Jesus Christ, there's five of you in this city? I can't decide if that number is absurdly low or absurdly high. I kind of thought that Tokyo was more of a hide of scum and villainy, but I also can't say I thought there were that many of you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Don't talk so loud about it, we're in public," Tsukune chided Kyoko, and she actually took a step back physically, seeming to signal her backing down socially as well as her posture turned to a more relaxed one, "And stop acting like I'm the only one who's not a criminal."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well..." Kyoko brought up, adjusting her hat, "Yamaguchi-chan <i>is</i> a criminal. A career criminal. But I'll take you at your word."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Only one of the others besides her is a criminal. Kano-kun and Wang-kun are perfectly fine people who just also happen to be... You know?" Tsukune was really not doing a great job of socializing with the woman who he shared an apartment with. Conversation wasn't a normal thing between them. Luckily, he would soon be rescued from the situation when one of the aformentioned non-criminals arrived.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hello there," Zhou greeted them, sleepily. He didn't ever seem to be rested. He had luggage too, a suitcase which he rolled up onto the train platform and immediately sat down on. He was also making quite the fashion statement; he was wearing a flannel and a t-shirt, and normal shoes, but those were paired with pajama pants and a travel pillow worn like a necklace, "Tsukkun. Yamaguchi-sama."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Those are indeed our names," Sayaka noted, turning to him with a scrutinous look, eyebrows raised, "We're going on a train, you know. The travel pillow really necessary?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Zhou looked up at the ceiling of the train station, kicking his legs out in front of himself. He was short enough that he could do that when seated on a rollerbag, though the intelligence of the action seemed a little lacking, "There's a false culture associating travel pillows with air travel specifically. Travel, implies that they are perfectly acceptable for any and all uses as long as one is moving from one location to another. It isn't as if nobody ever wants to sleep through a train trip."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How can we rely on you if you intend to sleep through a train we are leaving on in the mid-morning?" Sayaka demanded, putting her hands on her hips.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tsukune stepped forward, "I think, maybe, it means we can rely on him more. If he sleeps a lot now, then he'll be awake during any fights we might get ourselves into, right?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Precisely," Zhou pointed at Tsukune, then laughed a bit, "Though I must admit, even I find it annoying how often I'm resting these days. It doesn't make much sense, I used to be capable of function on only four hours a night, but ever since I made that contract, I just need to sleep all of the time. I think it's because my intention is to rescue Mayu. Her favorite thing to do was sleep, so now that's bleeding onto me. I guess that means my fixation is a little unhealthy..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, whatever. Unhealthy fixations are commonplace these days. We got a stalking problem in the country," Sayaka waved it off, "So it's not so weird that you want to save your dead sister. That's the plot of at least four animes, anyway, so we can let it slide."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Jeeze, Ruka-san, I told you that we'd be late..." The three who were already at the station turned to see the approach of their final two members, who seemed to have decided to collaborate their travel given that they lived in the same building.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Kyosuke-san," Yuuri rolled his eyes as he checked the time on his phone, trailing behind, "We're not late. Everyone else was just early. Even the human embodiment of oversleeping, somehow."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hello," Kyoko waved, "I'm Madara-kun's girlfriend."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No she's not. My girlfriend is the video-game recreation of Maki-chan I made using Ambition's spectacular DGF app," Tsukune corrected her in a deadpan, moving to stand in front of her, "This is my roommate. She's staying on the line at our first transfer, so none of us have to put up with her for very long."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sometimes I forget how much of a NEET you are," Sayaka noted, "Then you say shit like that and I remember why I didn't want to work with you in the first place."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Girls, girls, you're both pretty," Yuuri joked, trying to diffuse the situation, but he somehow only made it worse, in that Tsukune turned away and ran off to stare at the map of the different train lines as if it was a fascinating book. He looked over at that whole situation with scrutiny before looking back to the others who were still present, "Uh... What'd I say?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Zhou gave an exaggerated shrug, "Beats the fuck outta me!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh my God, are you telling me, none of you know? Holy <i>shit</i>" Kyoko burst out laughing, bending over herself in her raucous cackling, "How don't you know? I've seen his outfit, you know! It's a spandex catsuit, and like, this group that has at least two obviously gay men didn't even notice that what should, y'know, be an extra clear package in a catsuit... Isn't?" She turned to Yuuri with a lopsided grin, "Wow, you were just the <i>biggest</i> asshole!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, I see," Zhou tilted his head to the side, "Perhaps I am mistaken, seeing as I haven't known him for an especially long time, but it has been long enough that I can honestly say I didn't take him for the type. Being that, he is such a nihilist I honestly doubted he would have the capacity to care enough about gender dysphoria to act on it. Clearly I was mistaken."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Obviously," Kyoko groaned.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Shit," Yuuri grimaced, still staring over at Tsukune, "Not just caring, caring well enough that none of us could even tell. And I was just, accidentally, the biggest asshole. The has-been's right."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...So you do recognize me," Kyoko froze, glaring at him, "Doesn't matter, you're still worse right now."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm not going to refute that," Yuuri groaned.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi looked between everybody, then held his arms close to himself as he wandered over to Tsukune, "Hey, Tsukki. You know that Ruka-san didn't mean anything, right? He was quoting a movie to try and get you to stop fighting. Like a joke."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tsukune turned to Kanoshi, his one visible eye narrowed and clearly burning with anger, though his voice didn't reflect it at all, "I know he didn't mean anything by it, that doesn't magically make it that I'm not filled with a vicious fury."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Tsukki-" Kanoshi started again, only to be cut off.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's not how this works, Kano-kun. I'm not mad at Ruka-san, but I am mad, and I need some time to cool down, okay? I'm sick of this trend of people insulting me without knowing what the Hell they're even saying," He scoffed, "You calling me a mag, Ruka-san calling me a girl. I'm really goddamn tired of not being able to even be mad <i>at</i> anyone because it's always an accident. If someone was being an asshole on purpose, I could just set them on fire."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I... I don't think that's a good solution," Kanoshi mumbled.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tsukune rolled his eye, "Look, I'd put them <i>out</i> before any permanent damage was done. Just ,let them experience the feeling of being burned alive for a few seconds. I can't do that to people who don't mean anything by it, though."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can't say I understand your philosophy," Kanoshi shrugged, "But please try not to set anyone on fire on the train at least, okay? I understand if you'd rather sit alone. We've already discussed tactics, so it's not important that we all stay together during the travel."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, I know," Tsukune nodded, then walked onto the train as it pulled up. Kanoshi regrouped with the others, and they got onto an entirely different car from Tsukune. Kyoko slid in next to Sayaka, with her being the only other magica that she actually knew. Kanoshi sat beside Yuuri, and Zhou sat across the aisle from them and promptly laid his head down on the table in front of himself. Long-distance trains tended to have those when the subway cars usually didn't.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So, I got a question," Kyoko started, leaning forward with one hand twirling her hair, "While you hunks are off doing whatever it is you're leaving for, what's Tokyo gonna do if any of those monster things show up? Aren't you leaving the city totally unprotected?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We aren't," Yuuri explained, drumming his fingers against the table, "A few others are covering for us. Last I heard, it was Fukushima being sent to Tokyo. She can get backup from nearby cities if anything really bad shows up, too."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What sort of name is that? That's distasteful," Kyoko questioned, then shifted in her seat with a smile, "Oh, let me guess her power! Fukushima must have either earthquake or tsunami powers, right?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Close," Zhou answered without lifting his head, "Fukushima can control any water she can visually see, so I guess she could cause a tsunami, explaining the name."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Wow, okay," Kyoko picked at her nails, "Anyone know who she really is? I'd like to give her my number."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She's too old for you," Sayaka answered, tilting her head to the side, "I don't think you ever met her in your brief time at Korekara, actually. Her name's Kaiba Rokujo. She's about eleven years older than me, and my only Onee-san back home."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kyoko paused, took a slow blink, then stared at Sayaka, "How come your last name is the syndicate's, and hers isn't? That doesn't make much sense."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was an orphan, I didn't have a last name. I became Yamaguchi when I was adopted," Sayaka explained, shifting, "Kaiba-nee was caught in crossfire. Her older brother who she was living with picked a fight with the mob, that obviously didn't end well, and she was given the choice to go back to her parents or join. She chose to join."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, that makes sense," Kyoko nodded, then looked across the table, "Hey, what are your tragic backstories, huh? Why did you become magical boys?" She then leaned over to shout, "You too, Sleepyhead!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"My sister died at Korekara, now let me rest," Zhou answered, and that was a satisfactory response.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was a middle school teacher..." Kanoshi started to explain.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, you were at Aoba Public Middle, huh?" Kyoko concluded before he'd even finished, then stretched an arm over the back of her seat, "I heard things about that school. All sorts of things. I don't blame you for freaking out after the sort of stuff I've heard goes down there!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Right," Kanoshi nodded, turning to look out the window, "Yeah, that's true. Actually, what made me become a magical boy was when I got told I'd be fired at the end of the school year. Parents were making false correlations between my class and bad things happening to their kids. Several Korekara victims had been my students before, and those kids who disappeared a few years ago, and with the murders earlier this year... It was too much, I guess."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It was bullshit, is what it was," Yuuri jumped to his defense, glowering, "With Kyosuke-san gone, there isn't a single good teacher left at that school."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, goody," Kyoko giggled, leaning in Yuuri's direction now, "Does that have anything to do with <i>your</i> tragic backstory, hot stuff?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri rolled his eyes, "I'd appreciate if you didn't call me hot stuff, but yeah, sure, fine. I'm trouble. I smoke, and I get in fights, and I'm a disaster, okay? I'm the one person here who actually fits the profile of who you'd expect to become a magical boy, and that's the extent of what I'll tell you because that's the extent anyone who meets me generally figures out."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kyoko blinked a few times, then raised her eyebrows, "Huh, so you don't like pretty girls calling you flirty nicknames?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't like pretty girls, period," Yuuri responded, "Well, I'm sure you're delightful as a friend. Or not, since Madara-kun doesn't seem to like you much."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Weird, I could have sworn that out of all of you lot, you'd be the most likely one to be straight. Or at the very least, bi," Kyoko glanced over to Zhou, "Hey you! Mister Sandman! What's your sexual orientation?"</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQUPZu3kdqvcCT4QdCAuJUcYbInucbRUu7HlJJcGwvEz2QBEpuZlHApGmynFCCHOxt-sLalIGGUnU6GPscDJo2FeLHZHtA_Vt9PUtq5UY0TSiVA9SW86x3VoUFxhSZxeLSMqhTUAbKaB8/s1600/Kyok.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQUPZu3kdqvcCT4QdCAuJUcYbInucbRUu7HlJJcGwvEz2QBEpuZlHApGmynFCCHOxt-sLalIGGUnU6GPscDJo2FeLHZHtA_Vt9PUtq5UY0TSiVA9SW86x3VoUFxhSZxeLSMqhTUAbKaB8/s320/Kyok.png" width="186" /></a><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Tired," Zhou answered with a grumble, sitting back up, "Have enough respect to let me sleep, okay? Anyway, I used to be bisexual, I guess. I haven't thought about it in a while. I've had crushes, and in college I dated a few different people, but I haven't really cared about that sort of thing for a whi- And there you go," Zhou noticed as Kyoko pushed her way past Sayaka, coming to sit down next to him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I've always wondered what it would be like to date a magica," Kyoko pressed up against him, "Well, for as long as magica have existed, anyway. I've had sex with people on drugs before and that was a hoot, so I bet that magic would be even cooler."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't have time for dating right now," Zhou leaned away from her, just bored by her seduction attempts, "I need to spend all my time sleeping, working, and fighting monsters. That's a very full schedule."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You have the same job as me! I have plenty of free time," Kyoko protested, "I mean, I've seen you around. I fill in on guitar! You know two instruments, right? Piano and violin? You must see more work than me, but that's still not a huge load."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I sleep at least fourteen hours a day, and that's when I'm especially busy. It's usually much more," Zhou explained with a laugh, "It's a pain, actually, I think it's because I'm working so hard for Mayu. I mean, I'd be glad to try going on a date with you once this is all sorted out, but I doubt I'd make for a good dinner conversation partner if I just wanted to go home and sleep the whole time."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's good enough for me," Kyoko decided.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So, Rukkun," Sayaka started, ignoring the one-sided conversation that Kyoko took up with Zhou as he drifted off again, "Your arm. How's it healing up? Anything else weird happen with it?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri held up his arm, bandage still wrapped around where his mark was, "It's fine. Healing up no problem, it wasn't a deep cut or anything. The scab fell off yesterday, but I'm keeping it bandaged just in case until I need to transform. Oh One said that the only way it would get worse would be if I re-injured it, or if I tried to transform before the injury was fully healed. Apparently the only time the mark actually gets used is while transforming to magica from human."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's good to know," Sayaka nodded, leaning forward, "So if it gets hit in battle, we can technically keep fighting. We can finish off the fight, anyway, assuming we can get through the pain. Rukkun, what did you say it felt like again?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It felt like every inch of my body all at once was being stabbed by seven simultaneous knives, or you know, something in that neighborhood," He answered, rubbing his fingers against the edge of the bandage, "I don't think anyone would be in a position to continue fighting a monster after experiencing it for even a moment."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I would be," Sayaka rested her chin in one hand, elbow on the table. "Kyosuke-kun. Wouldn't you be? Wouldn't you fight through the pain for the sake of the rest of us, if you were injured during a really important battle?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi looked over to her, having been invited into the conversation, and shrugged, "I'd definitely try, but I mean, I could probably heal it if it happened during battle. In order to heal a wound, I need to block a hit with the same level of intent as the one that inflicted it. I couldn't heal Ruka-san's because there was no way to recreate his intentions, but if it were a monster, I'd just have to block the next hit. So I guess it would just be the moment, and then I'd fix it, so yeah. Roundabout, but in the end I would."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I guess that's true," Sayaka sighed, "Well, it makes sense that I'm the only one strong enough to fight through it without something like that, but it doesn't exactly bode well. You do realize we're investigating strange monster behaviors? We have no idea the type of battles we might end up in once we reach Nagasaki."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Yuuri shifted in his seat, "That's true, but I trust in everyone's abilities. Plus, I'm getting close to a breakthrough on smokes, I might be able to make a stronger acid that actually has an effect on the monsters, but not on magica or civilians. It'll take more magic than creating smoke usually does, but I'm sure it would be helpful!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Good," Sayaka laughed, "You always were the most useless in combat, for real. I mean, you're good for what you are, but that baby revolver..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay, yes, my weapon isn't the best," Yuuri chuckled, shaking his head, "But I'm a good shot, and I'm working to improve upon my magic. I'm just as capable as the rest of you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, that's true," Sayaka agreed, then giggled again, "I'm only teasing, Rukkun! Besides, you're like, super effective against humans and other magica. Kyosuke-kun told me all about what you did to Lionhardt, which sounds way more impressive than anything I've seen you pull off against a monster."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It wasn't that impressive. I just subdued him," Yuuri shook his head, "We barely engaged, really."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's what's impressive about it!" Sayaka insisted, leaning across the table with an enthusiastic smile, "The fact that you were able to finish off the fight so quickly, without doing much at all, is actually really great. That does take skill. Sometimes combat doesn't hinge on holding your own throughout, but just one move to prevent a battle before it happens. That was the sort of thing I had to do all the time when I was a human, and I still do it when I can."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well... Thanks?" Yuuri shrugged, "Doesn't feel that way to me, but I guess that's because the type of fights I tend to get into on a human level usually have more honor than that in question. Like, catching somebody by surprise and ending the fight before it's began is widely regarded as playing dirty. If anyone catches you fighting like that, you'll have more to deal with than the original one-v-one you avoided."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka rolled her eyes, "Well, street fighting is different, I guess. That's like when two cats get in a fight over some roadkill that they found..." She froze, then sighed, "Oh, good grief. Tanako-chan's rubbing off on me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What do you mean?" Kanoshi questioned, furrowing his brow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, right," Yuuri turned to Kanoshi to explain, "Kotomi-chan has a thing for cats. She feeds a lot of strays, and even built a cat playground in a storage unit for the particularly friendly ones. It's not just her mask design that's cat themed, she really is just... Like that."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She's my favorite human!" Another voice butted in, and Sayaka looked down to see that Blade had decided to appear in the seat which had previously been occupied by Kyoko, "I don't think she'd make a very good magical girl, since she doesn't care about much and she's already witnessed its horrors firsthand, but she is a great human indeed!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Glad to see you could join us, Blade," Sayaka noted, looking down at it, "Weren't you busy with Ribbon Green in San Francisco?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was, but how could I leave my girl to go off into dangerous and trauma-linked territory all on her own?" Blade questioned, jumping up onto the table, "Misa is going to be fine while I'm here. She's really climbing up those rankings! She might surpass you soon, you know. Not that that will change anything. You're always going to be number one in my book! I just can't resist your tsundere charms!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Are any of your distributors going to be joining us?" Sayaka questioned of the magical boys across from her, ignoring Blade's comments about the odd friendship that the two of them shared.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yes," Yuuri nodded, scratching his neck, "Oh One went with SC to check up on Uamake and Graveyard in Hawaii, but Blem is going to meet us in Nagasaki, and Must Pope will probably join us at one of our transfer stops. I forget which one."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wonder if they'll manage to recruit anybody new while they're at it," Blade commented, looking up at the ceiling, "Those islands could use some extra protection; not that I'm doubting Uamake, but you have to admit, she's got to be tired handling an entire island chain all on her own. Any monsters that form in the nearby oceans will be going there, too."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Since when do you encourage Oh One's posse?" Sayaka questioned, glaring at the shitty cat with a click of her tongue, "I thought you had a bitter rivalry."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Come on, your info's outdated!" Blade protested, "That bitter rivalry was just before Kanoshi Kyosuke became a magical boy. Since then, I've contracted Ribbon Green and Ribbon Velvet! Both of them are spectacular, and I think Misa could even reach the top ten! And Velvet's just the sort of magical girl we needed at a time like this, you know. Rivalries are silly to have when we're all in a state of confusion and crisis."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you really capable of confusion and crisis?" Yuuri asked, leaning towards the distributor, "I mean, do you have a full range of emotions like humans have?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"A full range and beyond," Blade answered, "But humans could never understand that. In any case, we're all very confused, and very in crisis. Of course we would be, if you think about it. We've never encountered a mysterious disappearance like these before, let alone the number of them. Except for Skorgles, who seems to have dropped its compassion somewhere along the line, of course we'd set aside our differences to solve the mystery."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi joined the conversation, "You said that Velvet's the type of magical girl needed at a time like this. What does that mean? Does she have a special power?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yes, bingo," Blade nodded, looking to Kanoshi as it answered, "Actually, it's useless in combat. She's making a website, though. She's clairvoyant towards monsters. Being, she can tell when, where, and what level monsters are going to spawn. We're working with a human friend of hers to create an easy web interface to RSVP to certain battles, sorted by level, area, and of course, calendar date and time of day. After that first level eight, and with magic's best all missing, it's a much-needed creation."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri blinked a few times, "Hey, that's exactly what I've been all freaked out about! It took so much work from such powerful magica to take down that first one. Fizzy Pop and Horace were both involved, and they're both gone. I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to take down something so strong without them..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Everyone's getting better every day, and we're still making new magica," Blade answered, swishing its tail, "And with Velvet giving everyone a chance to know about it and plan, that makes it easier. The magica of sixteen different distributors can involve themselves in battle with a level eight and still get rewards, and if a bunch of magica all know, for example, that a level eight is spawning in Brazil in four months, they can plan around that. Quantity over quality can still save the day."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's a good point," Yuuri agreed, then pulled his phone from his pocket, frowning as he muttered at it, "Jesus Christ, Yamada. I can't cover for your shift, I got this time off for a reason and that reason was not so that I'd be free to relieve your lazy ass of Saturday evening duty..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I should get a job," Sayaka noted, looking up at the ceiling wistfully, "I'd love to be able to angrily mutter out loud at unfortunate texts from my coworkers."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Very funny," Yuuri rolled his eyes as he tapped away at his phone with his thumbs, giving back a response that was a somewhat more polite version of the gripes he had.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka paused, then tilted her head to the side, "Oh, no, I'm being serious. I don't get hired for any hit jobs these days, so it gets a little... boring. Not that I don't love living with Tanako-chan, but she won't take me along on transport jobs or anything, so I don't have anything to fill up my days," She pouted as she leaned on the table again, "Plus, I'm still just sixteen. I went to school in the first place to try and experience normal childhood, but that didn't pan out. Part time jobs are another normal part of growing up, though, so maybe I should experience it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If you have the opportunity to not work a part time job, I would absolutely not recommend that you do," Yuuri shook his head with a bitter chuckle, "Anyone who never has to spend a single moment in customer service is somebody whose life should be the envy of everybody."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Heh," Sayaka laughed, then looked up as she felt the train stopping. She pulled out a small notebook from her pocket, then returned it as she stood up, shifting her bag, "Sorry Blade, no room for you in here, you'll have to walk across the station. This is our first transfer. After this, we have about a five-hour stretch on the same train before we need to transfer a few more times on some shorter distances," The others followed her, and she tapped Zhou as she passed by him to get his attention. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and joined his fellow magical boys in following her, "I hope that Madara-kun knows this is where we're transferring..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Don't worry, he'll catch up to us," Kanoshi noted with a slight, quiet laugh, "Tsukki's good like that. He's very reliable. He's the only person I've ever met who has never had his LP sitting on full."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka shook her head with a groan, "As if I'd know what that means. Whatever, I'll take you at your word."</span></div>
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<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/02/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-ten.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Next Chapter-></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-32928557181133252212018-01-13T00:00:00.000-08:002018-09-17T11:31:26.437-07:00Checkboxes Chapter 13<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/checkboxes-chapter-twelve.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/01/checkboxes-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><--------First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I am Iwako Same, and I have to say, there are many things that I do not expect to see at a moment's notice. I do not expect to see vehicles indoors, I do not expect to see animals which are not native to Japan (Or at the least, common invasive species) and I do not expect to see that a food item has suddenly become inedible. All of these are unlikely scenarios that don't often cross my head as something to expect, though I know they're all possible.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Likewise is what I happen across this morning. Improbable, but clearly possible, as it's just happened. I open the door to the infirmary, my infirmary, and I find the target of my disdain is standing there, looking like an absolute fool before my eyes. Of course she is, because why would she have anything better to do than continue to bother me? She wasn't a very competent spy, but if she was in here alone, then she could have found any number of confidential things.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Not that I keep incriminating papers just lying about, but my computer at work is a desktop, and all the encryptions in the world might keep an IIA agent from getting remote access, but a determined one who had the keyboard in their hands would stop at nothing to access my email, files, and anything else they want from me.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sakazaki Yuu," I address her, and she's startled. Well, that's a good sign. She was startled, but not sleeping on one of the cots, instead curled up in the corner of the room, hugging her knees to her chest. I look at the door, and it wasn't locked or anything. She very well could have left, so I do have some confusion on why she didn't leave by now, what she could possibly be so afraid of.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I swear, Doctor, I didn't look through any of your things," She's hyperventilating as she forces the words out, "I came in here because I was hiding from something, and you know, that would be really, really bad spy etiquette I wouldn't do something like that to y-"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Get out," I cut her off. She's rambling, and I can't say I give a damn about what spooked her, either. It doesn't seem like the type of thing which should matter to me. I don't even care to address the fact that she's clearly already aware that I know what she is, "Get out of my infirmary. We'll discuss this on Sunday. I think, Sakazaki, it may finally be time for you to retire from your position. Box Hako will be a fitting replacement."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...I understand, Doctor," Sakazaki nods and rushes past me, back out into the hallways where the other students are filing in for the day. I groan, and sit down at my desk. My computer... The monitor's off, but I left it on when I left. As soon as I turn on the screen I realize. I left it in the middle of a number of updates, which are still going. I really let them pile up. I set them up to run overnight because they lock up the computer's functions while they're going.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">They're still going.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I suppose, maybe Sakazaki didn't get into my computer, if that's the case. Nonetheless, finding her here first thing in the morning, and in such a strange way... It's unsettling. I know that she's still in contact with the main branches, so I may need to make her disappear if our plans are to go off without a hitch. If she were to find out about Apollo...</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Well, if she told the main branch about Apollo, then everything would be ruined. Roxie would likely be terminated as well, and I have no idea what that would do to my dear Mitsu-kun. Mitsuru, I mean. Well, I don't know why I'm correcting my thoughts. I can call him a cute nickname in my head if I so please.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">In any case, now that she's shown some degree of caring beyond observing me through aid periods, it's likely that I'll need to dispose of her. Her direct superior is somebody who I personally am on good terms with, and who Mitsu-kun will be mad at me for upsetting, but I just can't risk it. If Tina wants to hate me for it, then I suppose she will, and there's nothing I can do about it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It's gotten so far that I can't just let it fail now. I don't even know the details of the project, but what I do know, is that it would be very easily compromised if somebody found out.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-------------</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Today, I think, is a pretty good day. I made plans with my new friend group to hang out in the evening, since Sayaka has the day off of work. School went normally, and in the time between it ending and when we agreed to meet up, I think that I should make an effort to convince Rei to let me check the cameras, as Natsuki told me the first day back at school after the trip.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She wouldn't let me check them, but she couldn't control what Rei did if I could convince her. That was a quest objective if I ever heard one! Shizuka told me last night about all sorts of game stuff while we ate her pasta, and I think it helps to think of my life lately as something like that. And boy, do I have a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">lot</i> of quests!</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Finding Rei to talk to her seemed difficult at first. She's in my class, but she always gets out of the classroom right away, and I can never seem to find her after that. Today's a Wednesday, though, which means that the science club is meeting. Therefore, I know exactly <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">where</i> she will be, the only tough part now is getting an audience with her. I take a deep breath, sighing it out, then knock on the door for the science club.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Hako-chan," Yamiko answers the door, speaking slowly, and I'm caught off guard.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"O-Oh, you joined the science club too?" It seems a little odd to me that a God of Death would join this club rather than the occult club.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course I did. I love studying animal biology... Birds especially," She answers, staring a hole right through me, "That's been my hobby for a very long time now. Hirocchi and I wouldn't be together if we didn't have things in common, and we both love science. What do you want anyway? Were you looking for her?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"She still attends club?" I ask, still just confused by the situation.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course. Akabane-chan and Nishikikouji-senpai can see her just fine, and Nagata-senpai just has to take us all at our word," Yamiko answers, then gives a slow blink before she asks me again, "So what is it that you want, if you're not here for her?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was looking for Akabane-chan, actually," I explain, leaning to try and look around Yamiko. Despite her small frame, she's thoroughly blocked any view I could even try to get into the clubroom, "Is she available to talk right now? I have something I need to ask her."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...I guess," Yamiko shrugs, then closes the door. A few moments later, Rei opens it and fixes me with a hard stare. I fidget under her unrelenting gaze.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What do you want?" She asks, tilting her head to the side. Her eyes are red, just like Yamiko's. That bit seems odd to me, but I won't ask about that. I need to stay on-message for once in my life.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wanted to ask if I could use your cameras to check something," I get right to the thick of it, for emphasis pointing up at one of the cameras in question above my head, "I'm sure you know by now, I'm not sure I was actually sick. I think there may have been some type of foul play at hand, so I'd like to see if anything happened to be captured on my last day before the coma."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei redirects her gaze to the camera I'm pointing at, then takes all the time in the world to shrug, her shoulders hanging for a long time in a tensed position, as if held up by strings, "Oh, those? No, I'm afraid that I can't let you see any of that footage. Privacy reasons. I can certainly take a look for you. What, as far as you're aware, was the date and time of the potential mishap?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," I think back, trying to determine exactly when it was, "I think it was June twenty-sixth? It was sometime near marine day, anyhow. I do know what the time was, though. Seven-thirty PM, because I left something at the school and came back after hours to retrieve it. Which is kind of weird, I know, I was breaking the rules, but I still ended up here and I still ended up... In the hospital."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well that does give one very obvious suspect," Rei speaks, narrowing her eyes, "June, after hours? The only person who's likely to have been here at that time is Yuu-senpai. I can't see what possible reason she would have to do something like that, though. Unless you're hiding something, Hako-chan."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Me?" I question, holding a hand to my chest, "What would I be hiding? I'm just your average Korekara student."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's the point," A smirk plays at Rei's features, which surprises me. I can't say she struck me as the type to smile much, "You are a Korekara student, and everyone here has got something wrong with them, or something wrong that happened to them at least. Everyone has something to hide. Some type of secret. Don't you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh... Well, I'm not really in the business of just giving my secrets away," I give a nervous chuckle, shrugging. It somehow did slip my mind that everyone who doesn't know probably is under the impression that I've got some horrible secret, like most of them do. Just thinking about what happened to Natsuki is enough to make me shudder, and she says that there's plenty worse than her.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Well, I guess that if I had to number trauma, then Sayaka had it worse for sure. Shizuka, maybe, but I don't really think that 'worse' is the right word to use in this case. After all, the extent of how bad something which happens to somebody is, is how much that person is impacted by it. One person's worst case scenario is different from another person's, so their worst days to date would have just as much variance. It's horizontal awful, not really a sliding scale.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I assumed as much," Rei steps out from the doorway and shuts the door behind herself, leaning in a strange contortion to look up at my face. She's much shorter than me, but seems opposed to looking me directly in the eyes, "In that case, I have to wonder... are you in the business of trading your secrets, then?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can trade," I nod, rolling my shoulders, "Sort of, anyway. There's some things which I'm not supposed to tell anybody ab-"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know about Artemis," Rei stares right through me, "I know you had an AI called Artemis, before your coma. You don't still have her, do you? The coma was related to your AI. I know that much, but I want to know more."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How could you possibly know that?" I question.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei stands up straight again, looking past me, "That's my secret. After I tell you, you'll have to answer my questions. Will you agree to that deal?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yes, I can abide by that," I nod. If she already knows that much, the seal is broken, and I can't get in trouble for breaking the rules.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Okay. See, I know about Artemis because I'm an electropath," Rei explains, pointing to her eyes, "Do you know what these mean?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I hesitate a moment, but I figure it can't hurt to just give a theory, "Do they mean that you're a demon? They're the same type of red as Tori-chan's eyes."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei nods, "Yes, she did tell me that you knew about her. You know, it's only because there are so few demons that it's not common knowledge yet. Humans are gradually coming to accept our existence, though I don't blame them for finding it odd in this day and age. Every type of magic we once used, humans learned to harness in entirely non-magical ways. Science is amazing. And with such amazing science, why take an explanation like magic for anything?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I can't help but be curious, "Are you a shinigami too?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, I'm nothing like that. I'm hardly powerful at all, really. I'm just an electric elemental. My little sister is a water elemental," She explains, and even goes so far as to demonstrate it by pulling out her phone and showing me the battery level, which jumps up to 100% after a small spark seems to jump from her fingertip to the phone's charge port, "I can manipulate electricity. Things like this. I can mess with magnetic fields, too, and I can tell when an electronic device is being used. The moment I met you, I knew you had that chip in your head. So tell me about it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I take a deep breath, then steel myself to give a real answer, "Akabane-chan... It is an AI, you're right about that. I was in a coma for months because Artemis got... stolen by somebody, is the working theory. My body shut down because it didn't know what to do without that part of my brain, so I needed to get a new one. This one's an updated version, it has less of a personality than Artemis did, but more functionality. It's been helping me make friends."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rei gives a slow nod, shifting between her feet, "If I had to pick between those, I'd prefer the old one. If you had an AI with a good personality, then why would you need one that helps you to make friends? Though I suppose you do strike me as the type to be dissatisfied with anything short of a true human connection."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Artemis was my friend too. Why do you think I'm so worried about finding out who stole her? I'm really worried," I rub the sides of my arms, glancing around, "I just hope that wherever she is, she's happy, and helping whoever took her as much as she always helped me-"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can't speak with any authority," Rei interrupts me, "I can't claim to know anything about this situation, I have no part in it, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that wherever... Your AI ended up, they'll be happier there than they ever could have been trapped inside of your head."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That's comforting, somehow, "Thank you, Akabane-chan. And... You'll check those cameras for me? It doesn't make any sense to me that it would have been Yuu-senpai. Actually, I can't say that it makes sense to me that anybody would have done it. I know some people aren't fond of me, but stealing my microchip is a little extreme."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's a good point," Rei says with a nod and a contemplative look, "You got these from Assis-co, right? Their biggest industry competitor is Feru Innovations, of course. There's always the possibility of corporate espionage to consider, though I can't imagine how a random employee would have gotten onto campus. Maybe they followed the steps you took to break in? I will absolutely check and see if I've got anything on camera."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Nagata-senpai thought that convincing you would be an impossible task," I giggle, "She said that she wouldn't do it for me, but that I was free to try my very best to convince you."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Natsuki said that?" Rei gives me a wide-eyed look, but regains her composure moments later with a soft smile, "Huh, she'd never say that under normal circumstances. It would be a hard no, no negotiation, no going behind her back to me. I guess that she does have a soft spot for you," She pauses, then a laugh more bitter than anything I've heard before escapes from her lips, "Maybe it's for the best she has no time for things like that..." It's barely a murmur to herself as she returns to the science club meeting.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I'm left standing alone in the hallway, but not for long. I'm looking up at this hallway's camera when I can see, reflected in the shining black of its dome shape, that Sayaka has walked up behind me. I didn't even hear her. I take a few more breaths and put on a smile before I turn to face her with a greeting prepared, "Ah, Sayaka-chan. Did I make you come looking for me?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wouldn't call it looking for you," She rolls her shoulders, glancing around, "You're out in the open, in the middle of a hallway, in front of exactly the club I would expect you to be in front of. So, no. You didn't make me come looking. However, yes, I did come to fetch you because whatever business you had with the innovators of the future had you miss our meeting time."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course it did," I groan, falling into step with Sayaka as she leads the way to the others without a moment's hesitation, "I... Well, I can trust you. I was asking about Akabane-chan's security cameras, because I want to know what happened to me."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka nods, "Yeah, that makes sense. That's why I figured you'd be here. You've been curious a lot lately, haven't you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I can't help but offer up a nervous chuckle in response to her question, "I guess I have been. I'm a curious person. I want to know what happened to me, and I want to know what happened to the class of 2015, and just... I want to know about this place. I could never live with it if the same thing as what happened to that class happened again, and I could have done more to stop it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What happened to the class of 2015 is never going to happen again," Rena states as she approaches me, clearly having overhead. She has a sad look in her eyes, "I can't say that it won't happen because No Boys will protect it from happening again, but the thing is... That year was the perfect storm, so I've heard. They look to blame a teacher, or a dead student, but Kaiba-kun says that it really was just a string of disastrous consequences. The kind of alignment of everything terrible that can only happen once in a century."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why do you believe that?" Amai questioned, stepping up to stand next to Rena with her brows furrowed, "Why would you believe it if she says it? She works for the school."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rena pauses, then looks between the rest of us before giving a slight shrug, "Kaiba-kun doesn't work <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">for</i> anybody. She was always going to send people to Korekara, they just finally buckled and gave their blessings. Besides, I didn't just hear it from her. There were other members in the school when it happened."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It doesn't matter what really happened," Sayaka shakes her head and continues walking despite the fact that the others have convened, "It happened, and we can't change that. Let's forget about it and just focus on having fun this evening, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Easy for you to say," Amai rolls her eyes, "We're going to see your dumb movie."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Um," I cover my mouth to stifle a giggle, "Amai-tan, since when do you think romantic comedies are dumb? Last I checked..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Nobody asked for your opinion, Box!" Amai snaps at me, her face flush with embarrassment. I just let that giggle free. Mission accomplished. That's the definite benefit of making new friends while having known her since we were kids. I can make fun of her all the time.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">We go to the movie, and it's good. Everyone but me tears up at the sappy ending, which I find hilarious. This new group of friends I've found all front like they're tough, but they aren't, and that's becoming more and more obvious. Well, maybe they <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">are </i>tough, but not when it comes to bad romcoms. It's kind of endearing. By the time we're finished, however, it's late, and we need to part ways to go home and get some sleep before the upcoming school day. That's the problem with weeknight movies.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-----</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">My name is Riko Asahi, and I almost went to Korekara Academy.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I had my reasons to refuse the invitation, however. I had an older sister who went to that school, and for most, that's enough to want to attend a school themselves. Especially a private school, if they've got something to prove. I have to admit I felt the same way for a little while there, but the thing is, most people haven't heard firsthand the sort of horrors that await at Korekara Academy. Usually, the majority of a class graduates, but not the graduating class of 2015. There were fourteen of them. By the end of 2013, all but one of them were dead.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That one was my sister, so of course she got the blame. Why wouldn't they pin it on her, when she was dead too? It didn't take long at all, after the rest of them were gone. She was the only one who saw the incoming first years, and then she disappeared too, and I was left alone. I've never really been alone before. Yui was always there, ready to help me handle people. Ready to translate, because I never learned a single spoken language, and I can't much comprehend it out loud. It's not that I can't hear, but I learned to write, and I learned sign language. I've never been able to speak.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I guess that's why Korekara wanted me. They wanted my sister so she wouldn't be left out when a little further down the line, I got a legitimate invite for my 'troubled' nature. The speech problem is a physical thing, though, the result of a disease, so I can't say I fit their image of a traumatized youth. Not the way that Yui's classmates must have, to end up that way. I have all of her letters in a box, every single one, and they tell a story that I'll never share. How everything just fell apart before her eyes.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Why should Kira be surprised I'd refuse the invitation after hearing about something like that? I'd rather just work on fixing my own life. Learning what to do with myself now that I'm alone without Yui's help, and now that I'm the sole heir to my family's company. Whose bright idea was that? Surely there's some other relative, maybe less immediate than me but more competent. Yui was the one who could run a company.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I'm just the shadow who followed her around.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Today is different, though. Today, I've gotten a personal letter. Not addressed to Asahi, meaning me, in the business manner, but addressed to Riko Asahi, handwritten. It's barely noticeable that it isn't just a font with how precise it is, but every 'a' looks a little bit different from the others. I snatch it up before anybody else has a chance to see this oddity, and take it with me to my room. I pull it open and find that it's written as being from a doctor. Not one of my doctors, but 'Doctor Iwako Same'. I recognize that name. Yui knew her. She was new in the infirmary Yui's first year.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After checking the sender, I read the actual letter. It's similar to the type Yui would send me, telling me the horrors of that school, for a paragraph or two. The second half is speaking of somebody who's not a horror of the place at all, but curious. Somebody who's expressed an actual desire to find out what happened to the class of 2015, and that I'm the only possible link to that past. She also asks me that if a sweet girl with orange hair comes calling and asking me about Yui, that I don't reveal anything.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I was never planning on revealing anything, but this statement just makes me want to do it. A student who wasn't even there for the year, but wants to learn about it? I guess that makes sense, in a way. The ones who would have been there, third years now, were probably so shook by the incidents that they would prefer not to dig any deeper. This one obviously sees it more as a mystery to unravel than a tragedy, sure, but the very fact that I've been warned against teaching her what happened...</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Not like that matters, seeing as I don't have a name of this student. Iwako's too smart to do something like give me the name. I have no idea what she's up to, but it can't be anything good if she's on Kira's side, as it seems to me she is. I have no way of getting in contact with the curious girl to give her the information that I have. Really, this letter is inconsequential. How would anyone even find out that I had anything to do with that year?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Most people don't think of me, and I very much doubt a single remaining third year at that school has any intention of thinking about that time at all. I can only imagine they feared that the fate of the upperclassmen would befall them too, their second year.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">---------</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rena arrives home pretty late. She immediately goes to her room and changes from the uniform into pajamas, which she returns to the living room in moments later. She sits down on the couch next to Umi, turning her attention to the TV. Kaiba's the only one who's able to use the remote, but we all have similar taste in television, so that's not too much of an issue. Today, it's pawn stars.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How was the movie?" Umi asks without looking up from her phone.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rena shrugs, "It was fine. I mean, I wasn't really the one who wanted to see it, but it wasn't bad either. Hako-chan has been asking about the class of 2015 a lot, though. She seems to be under the impression that something so awful couldn't just happen."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's what Kira wants them to think. Let her," A Korekara Alumn named Kotomi waves it off as she walks into the room and approaches to lean on the arm of the couch, "Why bother trying to explain the truth to anyone who doesn't have to deal with it? The only reason I tell new members about what happened is cause I don't want any of you blaming Asahi-chan, or Mars-sensei, or any singular person but Kira for how Meiko died. She was one of us, so you need to be able to honor her properly."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rena sighs and presses her hands between her knees, "I know. It's Kira's fault for mixing those personality types so badly, if we have to blame anyone. The thing is, though, shouldn't Hako-chan be allowed to honor Meiko properly if she wants to?" She glances away, "I know she isn't one of us, but..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi hesitates, then looks to the ceiling as she answers, "That's too complicated. Besides, if we started just telling anyone about all of that, who knows what could happen to us. Kira doesn't have any limits to what she'll do."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Rena pauses before looking to Kotomi, "Have you ever... Met the headmaster?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Me?" Kotomi points to herself, and Rena nods. She gives an answer, "I haven't. Almost nobody has, and very few people ever will. Even Kaiba-chan's only spoken with her on the phone. I guess that's part of how she's able to get away with so much. If nobody knows who she really is, then she never needs to see any consequences for her actions."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh," Rena notes, leaning back against the couch as she crosses her arms, "I guess... You do have a point there, huh? We've already suffered because of her, so if we start spreading real information, she wouldn't hesitate to hurt us, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Kotomi agrees with a heavy sigh, "I know you weren't here when Meiko was around, but if you'd met her, you would understand. The fact that she was in that class was always going to turn out badly. She was such a sweetheart, she'd always help us up when we fell down. Maka-chan would have died if Meiko wasn't around during her first year... But don't go asking her or Netsu-kun about it, okay?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We won't," Umi says, shaking her head as she finally sets her cell phone down in her lap, "I understand that it was traumatizing for them. You already saw some of your classmates die, and you had graduation soon, but they had just gotten to the school and suddenly, everyone was dying. Right? Is that the reason?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It is," Kotomi nods, looking over toward Umi now, "Wouldn't you feel the same yourself?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Umi hesitates, then stands up as she shrugs, "Well, I can understand it. I don't think I would be so afraid, myself, though. I am not very easy to kill, or even to injure."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I roll my eyes and finally decide to join in on the conversation, speaking up from the corner in which I've been reading while sat on the floor, "Umi-chan, you do realize that four of the dead killed themselves? It wasn't just physical warfare going on between the students that year."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Randy-kun?" Umi questions as she steps toward me, hands on her hips, "Just how long have you been sitting there? There's still space on the couch. Anyway," She flips her hair, "I am not so weak mentally, either, though my upbringing may give a different impression."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm reading," I answer, closing the book on one finger as I look up at her, "I can do that over here just fine."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You say that," Umi notes, "But I don't think you can be very comfortable here. Is it because of Rena-san and I? It's perfectly fine if you come sit with us."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you sure about that?" I question, standing up, "Last year, you were <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">pretty</i> shocked to see me here when I got back from my business trip."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She squirms a bit under my statement, which actually satisfies me more than it should. I <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">am</i> trying to respect her sensibilities, but there's still a cruel part of me that enjoys calling attention to ways that I've been wronged in the past. She gives a good answer, though, "You can't blame me for that. The group's called No Boys, so how was I supposed to know that you're Kaiba-san's close friend? I was convinced you were an intruder."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I can't help but laugh at the explanation now, holding up my arm to point near my elbow, "Yeah, that was pretty obvious. I still have the scar from where you hit me. Well, maybe I should take it as a compliment that you looked at me and immediately thought I was a strange man. Proves I'm less feminine than I feared."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Heh. Well, anyway... I'm sorry that I misjudged you at first. Don't let that turn you off of spending time with me, okay?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," I nod and offer her a smile, "Thanks, Umi-chan. Oh, and Kotomi-chan? I think you should tell that girl about what happened to Meiko."</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-38475012223220834152018-01-12T10:35:00.003-08:002018-01-12T10:35:56.148-08:00New Book!My NaNoWriMo Project from this past year is now available!<br />
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078YC3WKN<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-19160865389010174062018-01-06T18:19:00.000-08:002018-03-05T15:54:02.343-08:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Eight<div style="font-family: "times new roman";">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "times new roman";">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/12/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-seven.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri Ruka was at work when the first sign of something being wrong dropped, when he first got the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The several different news stations which played in the grocery store included one American station, since Shibuya was such a common tourist location. The station was obviously in English, which Yuuri wasn't about to comprehend when he wasn't transformed, but there were Japanese captions added in at a delayed rate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He tended to read those captions when work was slow, and work was always slow on weekdays, with his midday shifts. Except for people who wandered in to grab prepared foods for lunch, nobody was doing their grocery shopping at the time of day when everyone with an office job was at work, and kids who could be sent on errands or shopped for themselves were at school. What he saw today on that news station, however, was shockingly relevant.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Usually, the American station meant nothing to him. All his friends were right here in Japan, so even hearing about bad things happening overseas didn't tend to have an impact on him. This one did.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We have today discovered that the ex-child star Clarence 'Tyler' Hale, better known these days as confirmed magical boy 'Pretty Fighter Ribbon Stripe' has disappeared. His grandmother is insisting that the disappearance is strange, as he is usually upfront with her when he leaves to perform magical activities. We recommend that any in the Hollywood area exercise special caution over the next few days. Even if this known magical boy hasn't decided to go on a crime spree and has indeed gone missing in a strange manner, that strange manner may also endanger humans."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri was confused by that broadcast, but it made him worry. Stripe, he knew, was Blade's highest ranking magica. Not at all the type to get killed by Lionhardt, or to be caught off-guard enough to vanish without a trace in the first place. That wasn't normal. Nothing about magica was normal, of course, but this was unusual even in that context.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">With the day crawling by at such a slow, awful pace, Yuuri unfortunately had plenty of time to stew on this information. It was even more unfortunate, then, when Sayaka walked into the store, hands on the straps of her backpack. She walked straight up to Yuuri's aisle, but before she was able to say anything to him, he reached over the counter and tore her backpack away, throwing it onto the ground behind the register to stomp on it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">A sharp pain coursed through his entire body, which told him he had been correct in his assumption that Blade was in the bag. Distributors weren't fragile, but they weren't invincible either, so one of the stipulations of contracting with one was that any magica who attempted to utilize their superior combat abilities and size to attack a distributor would find whatever pain they inflicted quadrupled back to them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Blade!" Yuuri hissed, picking the bag up again and shaking it till the distributor fell out, "Care to explain what happened to Pretty Fighter Ribbon Stripe!? Is that same disappearing act gonna happen to Sayaka!? What about me, or Kyosuke-san, or Uamake, or Horace!?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey, hey, calm down!" Blade shook its head, climbing out of the register area to sit beside the plastic bags at the end of the conveyor belt, "I have no idea what happened to Stripe. He's definitely not dead, that's all I know. I can't tell where he is. Oh One can't even tell what country he's in, either... And Prince Horace has also disappeared."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We came here to talk to you about it," Sayaka said, frowning, "In the future, please don't take that as an invitation to start kicking Blade around. What seems to have happened is each distributor's highest ranking magica have vanished off the grid in full. Fizzy Pop, Diamond Dust, and Forever Sparkling Into Eternity are<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">also</i> gone."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Uamake?" Yuuri questioned, citing Sugarcanesugarcane's best magica. He'd never met her, but he respected her abilities. The entire island chain of Hawai'i had two magica, and she was one of them. If she and all her power had vanished, then that area could very well be left without meaningful protection.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No," Blade answered, "Only Horace. I think whoever's behind this considered your whole posse as just one distributor, or maybe... Uamake, Lullabye, and Snowy Rose just never received their letters of commendation. There might be a connection between those and these disappearances, since at the time this morning when Stripe disappeared, Sayaka had actually become rank 27, and him rank 28."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka nodded in agreement, "Right. If it was actually based on rankings, then I would have been the one to disappear. But five months ago, when everyone got those letters of commendation, he was above me. So I'm guessing that's at the heart of it. Blade and I are going to start an investigation to see if there's anybody who has one but never opened it, to try and figure out if there's a magic signature of some sort, something to tell us what type of magic was used, even if we can't figure out who used it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you sure that's a good idea? What if you get taken in the process of the investigation, huh?" Yuuri questioned, leaning towards her, "Why don't you let me handle it?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Cause I don't want you disappearing either, idiot?" Sayaka curled her lip, glaring at him, "Plus, you'll have your own job to do. Distributors are meeting up later this month to put together a plan of action, and it's pretty damn likely your posse's going to be saddled with the job of actually rescuing the missing magica once they've been located. Way more dangerous than just playing detective."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri nodded, then sighed as he leaned against the register, "Figures that something like this would happen, God. Fizzy Pop and Prince Horace... That level eight never would have been beaten without them there, right? What are we supposed to do about the next one?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"..." Blade looked down, "Don't know. But some newer magica we've all been collecting are promising. I've made three since that monster, after all. Ribbon Green has potential," It explained, "And as much as I hate to admit it, it isn't like Skorgles' magica ignore monsters. There was one of them at that level eight battle anyway, and a lot of them are very strong. Usually they fight monsters which appear away from urban areas, since they aren't good people, but something so strong is a good draw for them anyway, even if the side effect of it is helping civilians."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"And we're all getting stronger, too," Sayaka noted, "Everyone who's already a magica is improving a ton, which is why the rankings don't shift much. We're all becoming powerful as time goes on. I think that five months from the first level eight, the next one would have to be much easier to defeat, assuming its power stays the same."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can only hope," Yuuri shook his head with a grimace.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-----</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The missing person's reports rolled in over the next few weeks as people realized that the magica in their lives weren't coming back. The soonest ones came from people who had no idea their relative had magic, of course, but even those who knew came to the conclusion that something was wrong. The heir to an important company, Riko Asahi, was declared missing, and any magica who knew anything could surmise, even through glamours, that she was one member of Fizzy Pop, the less enthusiastic one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm glad to see that we've all gathered here," Chikd was the first at the distributor meeting to speak, "Even you, Skorgles. I was surprised that you decided to grace us with your presence."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Skorgles looked around the room. They'd picked an old hotel's rec room, using the pool table as a conference table, "I wouldn't miss it for anything. Just because I don't care about rankings and I encourage my magica to murder yours, doesn't mean I haven't been impacted by these disappearances. One of mine went missing too, after all, and it's imperative that you know it wasn't Goddess, but Solar Applause."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Solar Applause..." Blade mumbled, "26th lowest in the rankings, but that<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">would</i> be your highest rank, wouldn't it, Skorgles? So that's a good point. It is the highest rank, or it was the highest rank five months ago. Solar Applause received a letter of commendation, right?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Skorgles nodded, "Yes. I'll assume that you know because Stripe received one too."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"All of our missing magica got them," Captive Ham added in, looking around the table, "Forever Sparkling Into Eternity was so surprised and proud. She didn't even know until then that she was my best magica at rank 44..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm worried about Diamond Dust," Desire Train sighed, staring at the ceiling, "My magica all kind of think that I'm a jerk, but I do care about them. Diamond Dust's husband... He knew that he was a magical boy, and was the second one to file a missing person report after Stripe's grandmother. We need to find our missing magica, because we know that they aren't dead. There's no way we can let this go without discovering the truth behind their disappearances."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's right..." Oh One mumbled, dejected. It seemed to have nothing but sadness in its voice, "Guardian Angel is so worried about Prince Horace, and so am I, and so are all our friends. My posse and our magica, especially in Tokyo, want to do all that we can to find the missing magica."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey," Skorgles spoke up, its voice a bit condescending, "Wasn't Guardian Angel the last person to be seen with Prince Horace? And didn't he rocket to spot number four as soon as you contracted him? Haven't you considered that it could be an inside job by a magica?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Must Pope looked over at Skorgles, eyes wider than normal, "Why would you bring up that possibility? That implicates your magica more than it could possibly implicate any of ours!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's where you're mistaken. Not a single one of my magica would ever kidnap a high ranking magica without killing them. Even Giftwrap wouldn't let her own desires get in the way of collecting magical power," Skorgles laughed, "If you're so mistaken on the Modus Operandi of mine, how can you be confident in any of yours?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"The only magica of mine that I'd ever think would do this," Desire Train spoke up, "Wouldn't have. I can never predict Future Style, but I do know that she wouldn't take part in making Forever Sparkling Into Eternity disappear. That's the only thing I would ever put past her."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Captive Ham nodded along, "I think that's true. Sparkling and Future were friends. When it comes to my magica... Sunday Devil doesn't like consequences, so he'd be a suspect if the disappearances were unranked magica between the bottom thirty and top hundred. And similar to Skorgles' magica, there's no way Lady Justice would ever keep anyone alive if she kept them this long. She's impatient."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So it isn't a magica belonging to a superpower," Blem spoke up, waving its eyestalks, "If it's a magica at all, then it's somebody unranked, or in the rankings who's a fluke, not a trend. I'm not convinced it is a magica, though. All of us... This is our first truly human universe, right? Our group's first foray into a world fully capable of free will and creative thought. Every other universe we've dabbled in, the humans have been tools, not people, before we even got there. So of course things would be more interesting here."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's right," Sugarcanesugarcane agreed, "We would never have a conversation like this in our past universes. I think what Blem is saying is that... Monsters level 9 and 10 may actually have the ability to spawn in a world like this. We have no idea what those could be. For all we know, monsters really could be responsible for this."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Nonsense," Skorgles scoffed, "Monsters can't think that much. It's the only way most of your weak little magica can stand a chance against them, after all. All those small fry have going for them is strategy, not power. The only magica who can actually match a monster in power levels are probably Goddess, Bluebird, Prince Horace, Uamake, or Fizzy Pop. And lest we forget, two of those in the list have disappeared off the face of the planet."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Skorgles..." Captive Ham spoke up, "Who is Bluebird?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"The second worst magica, of course. She's surpassed Sunday Devil. She became a magical girl last July. It's been almost a year for her now, since it's June," Skorgles answered, "Goddess created her, which is why you all didn't know when she came into existence. I've only recently convinced her to go public on the rankings."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There are a lot of year-old magica now," Must Pope noted, "I'm surprised, less of them have died than I was expecting. Well, of course there's still been a lot of death, but less than I would have thought would happen. The rankings hardly even shift around that much."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course," Oh One spoke up again, this time masking its sadness behind the fact that it, as the top distributor, had more information about the universe available to it, "Not only is this a truly human world, but there's also the matter of magical culture as it existed before we arrived. Admittedly, we did base our methods on that culture, deeming it more effective in this universe than calling our magically gifted beings mages, wizards, or any other term... But it also seems that thanks to these correlations we created, everyone already knows what it means to be a magica, and what has to be done. The dangers, and the required skills. It isn't often we recruit somebody who just can't handle the job."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Their distrust of us leads them to be more effective magica," Blem added in, "Thanks to the divide between stories about magical girls who are all sunshine and rainbows, and the stories where becoming a magical girl is just some ploy to get something else more sinister from them, nobody knows what to think of how upfront we are with the dangers of becoming one. Still, if they think our goal is for them to die fighting monsters, that only motivates them to fight harder."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Enough philosophical talk," Desire Train snapped, then grumbled, "We need to determine what tasks should be given for the purpose of resolving the case of these missing magica! I vote that we still focus on fighting monsters, but with a side goal of finding these magica. Wherever they are, they'd still just die if we dropped monster-hunting to look for them. We all need orbs."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"My posse and our magica will follow up on dangerous leads," Oh One decided, "Blade and I already discussed that would probably be the case. It's going to try and figure out what type of magic could be at play here."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm not going to participate in this side-quest," Skorgles decided, and none of them could really argue with it. It always did what it wanted, no matter what anybody said to it. All they could ever hope to do was stay out of its way and avoid starting trouble with the one distributor who relished in it, "I don't care that Solar Applause is missing, and with your top magica all out of the way, it just makes my goal easier. Informing you of my own magica's situation is the most kindness I'll show to you."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's more than anyone expected of you," Sugarcanesugarcane confirmed, swishing its tail, then looked around the table, "Anyway, Captive Ham. The rest of your magica aren't especially strong or high ranking, right? With that in mind, I think that you should follow up on less dangerous leads. Desire Train, your ability may be useful too. The magic used might not bypass your skill of telling where in the same city as you somebody is, so if you have a magica with travel magic, that could be very helpful of you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course," Desire Train agreed, "I'll gladly do that. I don't have any magica like that right now, but I can try to create one, since I have a charge currently."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can assist you," Sugarcanesugarcane offered, "I'm able to appear at somebody's most likely moment to become a magica. I can take you along when doing that until we find someone who's likely to end up with a travel ability, like a... Devoted flight attendant? I don't know. Usually I wouldn't offer help to my rival, but if it will help to find Prince Horace and the other missing magica, then of course I will."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why thank you," Desire Train nodded, "That is one thing we can all agree on. We can't have magica disappearing like this, none of us want that. So we can work together for this purpose."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">---------</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri Ruka felt, for the first time, that he might regret having become a magical boy. It was strange that now was when he became so worried, with everything Sayaka had said to reassure him, but that really didn't help. Her statement that a level eight monster could be defeated without Horace and Fizzy Pop hinged on the idea that a level eight now was exactly as powerful as the last one. That couldn't be assumed</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was the kidnapping in general that shook him more than the idea of fighting a monster so strong without the best magica, however. His reasons for becoming a magical boy were simple enough; he wanted to have agency over himself and his choices. If it was possible for anything or anybody in this world to kidnap the<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">strongest</i> magica out there, then what choice did he have?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was terrifying. For the past month, he'd been fighting through it, carrying on despite the dread which sat in his stomach. He could be fine, if he tried, but trying all of the time was just something he wasn't capable of. Not tonight, anyway. There was a trigger for it, of course. He'd been to see his mother.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That was never a good idea, of course, and he certainly hadn't wanted to go. It was required of him, however, because of an incident while he was in high school. A violent outburst against the wrong person had earned him a probation period, and to this day he was required to "see firsthand the effect of prison" by having regular meetings with his mother, even with the technical probation finished.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Not that they could do anything to him if he broke the rules, given he was a magical boy now, but he'd had the fear of authority put into him. Of this authority. Logically, he knew that he could give up on the whole deal and nothing would go wrong. Still, he found himself going. She was just as awful as ever, every time. Prison didn't dull her blade at all. Just seeing her face reminded him of how his life had been ruined, and she always asked about Hikari.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Hikari... Yuuri had never felt bitter towards his little sister. He only envied that she had been spared the full wrath of Komaru Ruka. She almost hadn't been. It had almost been her, until Komaru's criminal contacts informed her that thanks to the number of people<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">like her</i>, there wasn't much demand for young girls. Her son was a much more viable option to sell off at this point. Hikari still needed to feel the sting of knowing her mother had considered it, and she was so young then. Yuuri was the better part of five years older than her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He didn't blame her for running away. Everyone thought that Hikari was murdered by the Vagrant Killer, but Yuuri didn't buy into that, especially when Ayano resurfaced. His theory was that his sister, tired of growing in the shadow of their mother's misdeeds, ran away with her best friends. She was still out there somewhere, but he didn't worry about her. She would be fine. He didn't say that to Komaru, though. Their mother could think Hikari was dead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">His sister didn't need to keep living in that shadow, even as he was forced to. If he ever stopped seeing his mother, it would still hang over him, because it influenced his entire life and the way he saw the world, interacted with the world. It was the reason he was in this hole now. Becoming a magical boy was his attempt at clawing his way out of that hole.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">But now that the dirt was falling back in around him, he found himself lying on the floor of his apartment, looking up at the ceiling. He was probably going to lose the client he bailed on tonight, and he didn't really care. As he tackled adulthood, he did begin to understand why his mother did such an awful thing to him. Everything costs so much, and he could barely afford rent on his grocery store wages, let alone any other bills or food. His mother wanted nice things, and she didn't want to work, and both of those ideas were beyond him. He<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">still</i><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span>needed to supplement his income.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He put his hand up in the air, staring at the question mark on his arm. He'd been drinking that night, more than he probably should have. The edges of his vision were blurry, and he definitely didn't want to try standing up. He could sit up, though, so he did. He kept looking at the mark, and he wondered. He'd been warned to avoid letting it come to harm, but he was just depressed enough and just drunk enough to want to find out what that could be.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He pulled his pocketknife from his jacket, and flipped the blade out, narrowing his eyes at it. It wasn't like he'd never cut human flesh before, but it hadn't been his<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">own. </i>He wasn't quick to draw it, but he also wasn't against bringing a knife to a fistfight if he had to. Being kind of a scoundrel about town led to some situations like that; it was a shame that as a magical boy, he was known for prostitution, and as a human he was known for petty crimes, but it was better than having his flaws all on display at once.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He certainly considered the former a flaw, but only as it reflected on himself. It wasn't something he wanted to do, or enjoyed at all. It was something he wanted to leave behind, but instead all he could do was take pains to make it 'less awful'. The petty crimes and violence didn't bring him so much shame, since those did bring him friends like Kotomi. That much was in his nature, and he felt at home with people like her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Even so, it felt like a flaw right now. Like another aspect of aftermath, not a part of his personality like it was. Just more aftermath, and he wasn't fond of that idea in the least. He figured, even if harming the mark resulted in some horrible fate like the loss of his magic, or his death, it was fine. He sighed, and brought the knife to his mark, applying light pressure. He saw one drop of blood bead up, then everything went foggy and sharp all at the same time, like smoke with a strobe light inside of it. He tossed the knife across the room and gritted his teeth as that feeling crashed down on him. His entire body hurt, all of it, more than he'd ever felt before.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was only a second. No, half a second, it wasn't any time at all, and as quickly as it had come, it disappeared. He fell forward onto his hands, breathing heavily, and retched, unable to even move to avoid emptying the contents of his stomach directly onto the floor. He stayed there for what felt like forever, but had to only be a single minute when he heard a knock on the door. God, he didn't want anybody to see him in this state. He didn't answer at all. Even if it was Kotomi, the worst she'd seen him was this drunk, not in this much overall disrepair.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Another knock came, accompanied by a shout through the door, concerned, "R-Ruka-san? Are you okay? I heard you scream!" Of course it was Kanoshi. He groaned. He didn't even realize he'd made a sound, but with the amount of pain he'd felt, it made sense. He didn't respond, but Kanoshi just wouldn't give up, "If you don't answer then I'll break the door down!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"God!" Yuuri yelled at the door, getting off his hands to sit back again, coughing as he moved, "I'm fine, sensei! Just leave me alone!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He realized his mistake right away, but not before Kanoshi opened the door, realizing that Yuuri had forgotten to lock it. Quietly, he moved to sit down next to him and sighed, keeping his voice gentle, "Ruka-san, that's exactly what you said to me the day your mother was arrested."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Fucking, call Kotomi," Yuuri groaned, bringing an arm up to cover his face, "You don't gotta see me like this, okay? She can deal with me. She can deal with my bullshit, I won't make you-"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Shush," Kanoshi stood back up, "I understand," He did, too. He realized that though Yuuri spoke as if he was trying not to inconvenience Kanoshi, it was that he would prefer Kanoshi didn't see him in this state. He would do the same thing himself, though. He wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him the night that the high-ranking magica disappeared; he'd been hit especially hard by Horace's vanishing, and had only recovered in the weeks following thanks to the help of the other Tokyo Magica.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He turned around and pulled out his phone; Kotomi had given her his number, 'just in case', and this had to be one of those just in case situations. He sent her a text saying that Yuuri was having a bad night and needed her. She responded straight away, saying she'd be right there. Kanoshi wasn't going to leave Yuuri completely alone until she arrived, but he would do as much as he could for Yuuri, just staying in the room but not looking at him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi was there much sooner than Kanoshi expected, and she motioned for him to leave the apartment. He complied, and she went to sit next to Yuuri once he was gone, "Hey, Rucchi. The fuck happened to you this time?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He moved his arm away from his face to look up at her, eyes puffy, and shook his head, "Can't keep saying shit's happened<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">to</i> me. This time, I just fucked up, yeah? This ain't anybody's fault but mine. I had to see my mom today, so I came home and got drunk off my ass. Not coping well, that's what this is, and nothing else. The missing magica on top of it, and..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi nodded, then stood up and went to his kitchen, retrieving a roll of paper towels, "And you did whatever made you puke your guts out, yeah? That never happens when you drink," She started doing her best to clean up the floor, but kept her eyes on him, "You better tell me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I only wanted you here because you were the lesser of two evils to see me, compared to my<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">middle school teacher</i>," Yuuri sighed, but he answered anyway. He couldn't get away with keeping it from her, "I wanted to see what would happen, if I injured my question mark," He held his arm out, "Turns out, it's just a ton of pain. More than anyone could imagine. More than I could imagine before it happened."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"More than you could imagine's quite a feat," Kotomi noted, holding her own hair back with one hand as she cleaned with the other, "Look, I'm not against magica or anything, but if you're gonna be one then you damn well better be careful about it. If you're gonna do stupid shit anyway, you may as well be a human. I'm in fights all the time, and I get by just fine, because I'm<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">smart</i>, okay?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If you're so smart, then why are you wasting time on a fucked up idiot mag like me?" Yuuri questioned with a bitter chuckle, which earned him a glare.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Cause you're my friend, and cause you've been my friend for a while now. If you can't understand that, then you really<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">are</i> an idiot," She shook her head with a grimace, "It ain't like you've never been there for me when I've screwed up. I know you'll find a way to pay me back for this. You always do, even when you don't need to..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">--------</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oi, Moron-sensei," Sayaka got Kanoshi's attention as soon as he left Yuuri's apartment, and he jumped half out of his skin.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Y-Yamaguchi-san!? What are you doing here?" Kanoshi questioned, holding his arms in close to himself. Even after fighting against monsters alongside her, she was intimidating on a personal level. Especially since she continued to insist on calling him a moron.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She shrugged, stepped up from the wall she'd been leaning against, "I live with Tanako-chan now, and I figured it'd be faster if I brought her. That van of hers may be great, but even it can't bypass eight-pm traffic around this neighborhood. Figured we should get here as quick as possible. So what happened to Rukkun?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Your nickname for him is so much kinder..." Kanoshi sighed, holding a hand to his own forehead, "I don't know. He wanted me to call Kotomi instead of helping him myself, I think he was embarrassed. So I wasn't about to pry."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Lame," Sayaka scoffed, looking away, "You could have at least peeked! Come on, if you called, then you gotta know something about it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I heard Ruka-san scream from my apartment under him, then I came up here to try and find out what happened. He didn't answer the first time I knocked, then he yelled at me to go away, but I got worried because he said it the same way he said it back when some... stuff happened when he was my student, eight years ago now."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka narrowed her eyes, staring right through him, "Yeah, I know what happened. With that in mind, you still turned your back on him until I brought Tanako-chan here?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi fidgeted under her gaze, shifting between his feet, "I know if I was in that situation, I'd want to be left alone if I asked to be... I was trying to respect Ruka-san. He <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">is</i> an adult."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">In response to this, Sayaka just turned away from him and crossed her arms, "Yeah, I'd wanna be too. If <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">you</i> found me for sure, I'd probably tell you to get Kaiba-nee, but you know what? She's nowhere around here. Tanako-chan might not have been either. What people want in crisis is never what they really need... You should have kept an eye on him."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What does it matter if I should have? I didn't, and it worked out fine," Kanoshi defended himself on principle, but there wasn't much conviction in his voice, "I'm a teacher, not a therapist. I don't know how to deal with adult problems at all. I barely know how to deal with kid problems as it is!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You were a teacher," Sayaka tilted her head, glancing back at him, "You're not a teacher now, because you became a magical boy. I won't expect you to know how to deal with adult problems, or kid problems, but I swear to <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">God</i>, Kyosuke-kun, with Prince Horace gone you're the oldest magica in Tokyo. So you better learn how to deal with magical problems. You're a support type, so <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">act</i> like it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Yamaguchi-san," Kanoshi gave her a nervous smile, "You really care, huh?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No!" She snapped back, bringing her hands up to try to hide the embarrassed blush on her face, "You're my comrades, not my friends. I just don't want to go back to how tough it was to fight on my own if you screw up and all end up dead because you're a bunch of grown men less competent at being adults than a damn schoolgirl!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sure," Kanoshi chuckled, then turned as he heard the door of Yuuri's apartment open again. He was surprised to see Yuuri there rather than Kotomi. He frowned, "Everything good...?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri leaned against the doorframe to steady himself, and nodded, "Kotomi talked some sense into me. I won't do anything so stupid again. I... don't want to talk about it, but I guess I do have to warn the two of you. It really is important that you don't get even a little hurt, where your mark is. If you do, you'll regret it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hello everybody," Oh One appeared suddenly, again. It did that often, "Well, Kanoshi and Yuuri, I suppose. I'll talk to the others soon. It seems that you're not having a good night. I hope I can remedy that. I have good news. A possible lead, we'll investigate as soon as possible. Some monsters have been behaving strangely in Nagasaki prefecture, so I'd appreciate if your team could make your way in that direction. After getting your affairs in order to leave for a period of time, of course."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm good to go anytime," Kanoshi nodded, straightening up, "The eSports league that recruited me is salary, so as long as I play often and stay well-ranked when I am able, it's fine to go on hiatus."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"My boss knows I'm a magical boy, and I pick up so many extra hours and shifts to help out," Yuuri agreed, holding a hand to his head, "I can leave... The day after tomorrow. I'll need some recovery time."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Recovery time?" Oh One questioned, its eyes immediately going to the small wound on Yuuri's arm. It made a strange, concerned noise, taking a step backwards, "A week. We'll need to wait at least a week. Yuuri, don't do any fighting until that's fully healed. That's an order," With that said, it turned around, "Anyway, I'll go speak with Infernal and Lullabye. You two... Ugh, stay out of trouble, okay? Get some rest."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Oh One took off again to inform the others of this lead, and Sayaka pulled out her phone. She was informing Blade of her intentions to join her 'comrades' in their investigative trip to Nagasaki. It would be the first time she went back to that prefecture since the Korekara Massacre, a year and a half later.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">At least this time, she'd have people she could rely on. Yuuri and Kanoshi would definitely protect her; and that was just what they were thinking, too. Of course they'd all have each other's backs. Sayaka still tried to mask her involvement in their battles by showing up fashionably late, but being friends with adult men wasn't unusual for her, once they proved she could trust them. That was her life back in Kobe, after all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi was excited to follow this lead. Some part of him was optimistic, and another part knew that optimism was unfounded, but maybe this strange monster activity really could lead them to the missing magica. That was the best case scenario, and Kanoshi was hoping it would be the one which they ended up with. Even with the blow to his confidence of the incident occurring in the first place, even with whatever just happened to Yuuri... He still felt that becoming a magical boy wasn't a mistake.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">If he hadn't become one, after all, how could he hope to <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">help</i> with any of those issues? As a magica himself, he stood a chance at protecting everyone he cared about, a better chance than he ever could as a human. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That was what mattered in the end.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/01/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-nine.html"><br /></a>
<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/01/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-nine.html">Next Chapter-></a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-83075933823180076572017-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:002017-12-25T06:00:18.084-08:00Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!Remember how I had a special post last year for <a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/02/happy-valentines-day_14.html">Valentine's Day? </a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, now I've got some Christmas-themed art!</span><br />
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One is a speedpaint of Ayano Ueda, in honor of the recent release of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Color-Strawberries-Nico-H/dp/1539671844">The Color Of Strawberries</a>", a novel featuring the cute calligraphist who's been mentioned from time to time here in these serials... As the protagonist, this time! Her history and the beginning of her future find an explanation in this novel~<br />
Here's the art on its own:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWSCVJRyc9BiWc63Kec8bAPxhyphenhyphenO7VUhwT6Ciow9DO0rt0o5TueWciZegkHY8COctngiT_JBrNV9TrU6vWtBBgRUvoqExOlprwMMjFfXt1Tl1gumy33v5NWg6S7XqGDMTb1BXmrCzuEK87w/s1600/santa+baby.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWSCVJRyc9BiWc63Kec8bAPxhyphenhyphenO7VUhwT6Ciow9DO0rt0o5TueWciZegkHY8COctngiT_JBrNV9TrU6vWtBBgRUvoqExOlprwMMjFfXt1Tl1gumy33v5NWg6S7XqGDMTb1BXmrCzuEK87w/s640/santa+baby.png" width="342" /></a><br />
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Next up is another speedpaint of Amai and Box, childhood friends whose relationship finds complication in the serial right here on this site, <a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/01/checkboxes-chapter-one.html">Checkboxes</a> ~!<br />
Once again, the art by itself:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ_z4CkefvujpOudvSGXltQqV10exB687nsSUndrIEvGuy8uOLjfOxjjNZpNVxoJu8WbcLGt00WR74wK79l7RJXkntCp52tL75m8hjWPqMNKYaDvEAtHEiilRdATBgmqWzAn4JEtmzxm-h/s1600/merr+crisis.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ_z4CkefvujpOudvSGXltQqV10exB687nsSUndrIEvGuy8uOLjfOxjjNZpNVxoJu8WbcLGt00WR74wK79l7RJXkntCp52tL75m8hjWPqMNKYaDvEAtHEiilRdATBgmqWzAn4JEtmzxm-h/s640/merr+crisis.png" width="498" /></a><br />
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And for good measure... Here's Kanoshi in a Terrible Christmas Sweater.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjebKl_US8KWH6EJ3Xf5l5gLuDKFmArybPQTQa75jIWZrWkVPVRe93cpK0UoO-u7kVNiZ95govDKlrk3ry_0Yo9MZKB8PKAZliWMA4ng0nrJHjK6037DF17IVJU9XEAF-OM-eRVByBiuHwp/s1600/Jingle.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjebKl_US8KWH6EJ3Xf5l5gLuDKFmArybPQTQa75jIWZrWkVPVRe93cpK0UoO-u7kVNiZ95govDKlrk3ry_0Yo9MZKB8PKAZliWMA4ng0nrJHjK6037DF17IVJU9XEAF-OM-eRVByBiuHwp/s640/Jingle.png" width="208" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-88265681989621827552017-12-23T14:03:00.000-08:002018-09-21T13:53:11.663-07:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Seven<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<div style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/12/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-six.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Kano!" Horace exclaimed the moment he burst into Kanoshi's apartment upon his return to Tokyo. He and Fukushima had, after exhibiting the true spirit of gay/lesbian solidarity, parted ways immediately upon arrival to the city. She had to search for Ribbon Red, and Horace had to check in on the magical boy he'd left behind with only two weeks of minor practice against level one and two monsters, small fry that weren't capable of much property damage and were only really taken on by magica who had nothing better to do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Horace?" Kanoshi asked, looking up from the stove. He'd been working on cooking himself dinner, though it was a bit late. He'd gotten caught up in his games again and lost track of the time, but decided to make a real dinner despite that fact, since he had the energy for it that way. He was shocked to see that Horace had returned, and doubly shocked to see him in such an unkempt state. Even after tying his hair again, receiving healing and stamina from FMV, and transforming out of his magical form, it was obvious he'd been working hard these past six weeks. Kanoshi never thought Horace would dare to let himself be seen in such a way.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yes, that's me," He nodded, leaning against the door behind himself once he'd closed it, sighing as he saw that Kanoshi seemed okay, "I never meant to leave you here by yourself all this time. I heard about the level five monster, I trust that nothing else strange happened in my absence?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Kanoshi thought back as he stirred his vegetables in the frypan, "The day that you left, I got attacked on the subway by a magical boy called Lionhardt, but I guarded against him pretty well until Smokescreen showed up to help me," He turned, and gave Horace a sweet smile, "You know Smokescreen! He was helping me move out!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yuuri Ruka is Smokescreen?" Horace asked, then gave a shrug as he wandered further into the house, "Huh, who knew. I guess that's why he finally decided to stop being a mysterious loner, his friend became a magical boy."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah!" Kanoshi nodded in confirmation, "There's Ribbon Red, too, and some others! They're all pretty cool. Red's not anywhere near as bad as I thought she was when I first heard about her... She's just a yakuza kid with strong convictions. I want to be able to protect her, like all of the other magica in this city."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Horace chuckled, then dropped to sit down at Kanoshi's kotatsu, stretching out over the tabletop of it, "You don't need to worry about Red at all. She's been a lone wolf for so long, just becoming willing to work with other Tokyo magica at all means she'll be fine. We met way back, before I even investigated her murders. She was fighting some monsters in Italy since she was in the area anyway on a 'business deal'."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You could have told me that before I got terrified of her!" Kanoshi protested, then looked at Horace, "...You really are exhausted, huh? Let me give you some of this stir-fry, and you can tell me all about the level eight monster."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Thank you," Horace nodded, taking a few deep breaths. He hadn't eaten at all while battling that monster. Orb-wise, he was fine, because Oh One's magica who were too far away or just unable to participate still beat the little ones, but he was starving from a human perspective. The magic was going to keep him alive, no matter what, but that didn't mean he wasn't in severe discomfort right now. He'd had good timing to arrive back in the city, as Kanoshi served him a bowl of veggies, chicken, and rice just moments later. He ate a good half of it before he spoke again, "I hope you never have to fight a level eight endurance class."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So what were all of this one's specs?" Kanoshi asked. He was still learning what Monster Specs were in the first place, but he could only learn quicker if he made sure to hear about them as often as possible.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Level Eight, Endurance Class, Slime Type," Horace answered, glad to finally have the pains in his stomach answered, though he slowed down so that it wouldn't shock his system too much. Kanoshi's cooking was pretty good, even if Horace in all of his pickiness was avoiding all of the carrots and any piece of chicken which looked like it even had a tiny chance at having texture issues, "We could only attack from a distance, getting in close enough to use melee weapons was... Not a good idea," He sighed, "A low-ranking magica from Kyoto tried, after us higher levels engaged it. He never stood a chance. Close combat with that beast, and it would just consume you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi stayed silent for a few moments before he spoke again, "How many magica died?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Just the one, but that's only because we had good communication and figured out the situation right away. We figured out that it was impossible to get close to without being killed, since it was a gigantic sludge type, but that it moved slow enough that we could handle it at a distance," Horace explained, now leaning on one hand with his eyes cast at the table below, "Besides, that magica rushed in without stopping to listen to what we had to say. None of us up here in the top 100 would ever do something so stupid as jump in to such a huge fight without asking if any of its weaknesses and strengths were determined yet."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm glad there weren't more," Kanoshi gave a slow nod as he chewed his own food, "It still took a huge toll on a bunch of you though, right? That's pretty horrifying, if you think about it. I know the curve is pretty sharp between each level after four, and if an eight is that much stronger than a seven..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's nothing you need to worry your pretty head over, Kano," Horace forced a smile as he said this, though it wasn't as difficult as he expected it to be. He had Kanoshi's presence to thank for that, he decided. This man just emanated kindness everywhere he went, "This is the only eight to appear in over a year of magica and monsters existing. If those are this rare, the higher levels must be once-in-a-lifetime events."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi took a deep breath to calm his nerves about the situation, taking in Horace's words, and realized he was more worried about the safety and well-being of his fellow magica in the case such a strong creature appeared than he was for his own. It wasn't that he was confident in his abilities to defend and heal himself since the day he kept up with Lionhardt, though that could have been a factor too. It was simply that he <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">was</i> rank four.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"> Only three magica existed with more raw power than him, at least, only three who were aligned with good. Oh One did say that the overall lowest ranking magica was actually on par with Horace when it came to power levels, but she was just so awful as a person that she reached the bottom in no time at all. That was all that <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">any</i> of the distributors would tell Kanoshi about the worst of the worst. Even so, Kanoshi worried for others because even at rank four, he was unsure and afraid. If he was, then wouldn't everyone else be even more?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So..." Horace started again, "Lionhardt... I thought he would have given up on you by the time I had to leave. I'm very sorry, I never should have left you undefended with no warning like that. I didn't know Smokescreen was even in the city, and Lullabye's unreliable."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Wang-kun, you mean?" Kanoshi asked, tilting his head, "He didn't seem unreliable to me, just committed to a goal. I don't think any of us could rely on any magica to know and come to our aid at the drop of a hat. I was lucky Smokescreen's one of SC's magica, so that he had a line of contact with Oh One and could know that Lionhardt came to Japan."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That concerns me a little bit," Oh One noted, and the two magica just turned to see it, confused at its appearance. It hadn't been there a moment ago, "Oh, sorry to startle you! I ported in a few moments ago, and I didn't want to interrupt. Anyway, Lionhardt arrived in the country very suddenly, and was gone just the same way. He must be getting help from a magica with some sort of travel magic, probably teleportation. Usually, Lionhardt has just been a nuisance I need to watch out for with new magica, but if he's working with somebody, then he's more of a real threat."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"He isn't very strong at all, though," Horace frowned, "How could he be a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">real</i> threat to us, even if somebody's helping him?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, if every single new magica gets snuffed out, then that's terrible. The rankings will stagnate and everyone will get lazy, and as time goes on if no new magica get to live very long, and existing ones fall to various reasons... then we're doomed. Distributors, Magica, this entire world even. While the rest of us distributors have moral compasses and want to rank well, Lionhardt's owner... Skorgles would love to get a monopoly on the monsters of this world, leaving the rest of us to starve. It doesn't care about humans."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi and Horace just sat in silence for a few moments, until the former spoke again, quiet and timid, "That's awful. So... Skorgles is the owner of the worst magica that exist?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Just as my posse and I hold the majority of the top ten spots, Skorgles holds the majority of the entire bottom thirty. And with that, the strongest magical girl, Goddess," Oh One explained, rubbing its face against the kotatsu, "Horace is still the strongest of the magical boys, though. Anyway, let's talk about something happier! Isn't it cool that this new Tokyo Magica team everyone's buzzing about is all my posse? Well, and one of Blade's, I guess."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can only hope," Horace began, "That this apparent team is not opposed to the idea that I might participate as well. It could be that they've only rallied around Kano."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hm," Oh One nodded, leaning forward, "That may be the case with Smokescreen, but he was also the one to involve Ribbon Red. Lullabye has never been opposed to working with others, but was of the belief nobody would want to. And Infernal is new to the area. He and his roommate recently moved into the city, but he did also know Kanoshi Kyosuke through the internet before arriving here. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-----------</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kaiba Rokujo was not a happy person.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">So with that out of the way, she checked all the boxes for the type of person to become a magical girl. As it was, she was a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">good</i> one. Rank fifteen as Fukushima, the Tsunami Magical Girl. Her weapon was a zanbatou even larger than the one shecarried with her and used on a regular basis, and her magic was to command any water within her frame of vision. The sword for busting pipes, that made her a threat to reckon with. </span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAouDgd2KvaNKlcFm1kp2lU883BTbS4wlW_VbTMDGzpDKxl7cPTn4Z98l-i7y-PwXh9NMWIkloQRtOPsEILd0Qxx2aT-dAxXLFskAWSJnducszImMecrhGzprhz2b81Welgzfs7bsdQiIB/s1600/kaiba.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAouDgd2KvaNKlcFm1kp2lU883BTbS4wlW_VbTMDGzpDKxl7cPTn4Z98l-i7y-PwXh9NMWIkloQRtOPsEILd0Qxx2aT-dAxXLFskAWSJnducszImMecrhGzprhz2b81Welgzfs7bsdQiIB/s320/kaiba.png" width="99" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kaiba Rokujo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She was able to use this ability to contribute to the level 8 sludge monster in Kyoto which some had taken to calling the 'Kyoto Engulfer' despite her weapon being one without any range. She was proud of her part in that fight, but after resting up, it was just another memory to add to the collection. It meant nothing real to her or anybody else. What held more meaning for Kaiba was hearing that name. Pretty Fighter Ribbon Red.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">In Tokyo, having rested in a cheap motel that balked at the weapon she wore, Kaiba decided to capitalize on her distributor's unique ability. She texted Desire Train, and it appeared before her soon after. She spoke to it immediately, "So you had a teleportation charge ready? That's convenient. Anyway, I know she's in this city. Where exactly is Pretty Fighter Ribbon Red?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Most distributors could tell the location of any of their own magica, or targeted humans, from within a certain radius. Desire Train's power was to extend that ability to any magica or human within the same city or town. Only useful in metropolitan areas, but useful nonetheless. As for teleportation charges, Kaiba had been told that distributors could teleport anywhere, but had a cooldown to teleport again consisting of twice the time it would have taken them, on average, to catch a plane there.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was a universe-specific restriction, given that plenty of universes did not have airplanes.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ribbon Red?" Desire Train asked, tilting its head to the side, "Why do you want to know about her? She belongs to Blade. That is not worth bothering with. Blade always gets the weirdest magica."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I think I might know who she is. As a human, I mean," Kaiba explained, leaning forward, "And if that kid really became a magical girl, damn, she needs a good talking to."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Fine," Desire Train did not sound happy, but indulged her, "Red is asleep on a roof. The roof of a love hotel. I can only assume she just murdered one of its patrons."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kaiba couldn't help but let a soft chuckle escape her lips as she leaned back on the motel bed, "That just confirms even more, that she's who I think she is. Go on then, take me to her."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Fine," Desire Train swished its tail then stepped out onto the fire escape. Kaiba transformed for the added mobility, then followed as it jumped across the town to find the rooftop which Red rested on. It didn't take long to reach her, to find her there, but Kaiba wouldn't wake her, remembering a simpler time, so long ago. It was more than ten years now, that girl was just a fussy child who hated naptime and loved learning to fight.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Everything had changed though, and now Kaiba knew for certain that Sayaka absolutely would have become a magical girl. She transformed back, knowing that Sayaka would prefer to recognize her in this way than as a magica. When day broke, and Sayaka woke up, she just sat up and stared for quite a while before she spoke, "Kaiba-nee. What are you doing here?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wanted to see you, Shorty-san!" Kaiba laughed, kicking her legs in front of her where she sat with a goodnatured smile across her face, "Isn't that much obvious? I wouldn't have just stumbled across the roof where you happened to be sleeping. A love hotel, though? There's plenty of perfectly good beds to sleep on inside, so why choose the roof?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka glared at her, "They wouldn't sell a room to a kid, dummy. And if I snuck in, I'd just get woken up by whoever next rented the room. And for that matter, I wouldn't call beds which exist for the purpose of fornication to be perfectly good beds," She tossed her hair back and groaned, "Anyway, it isn't like I'll die out here, so I'm fine."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"And why's that?" Kaiba smirked as she stood up, stepping closer to Sayaka. She didn't even wait for an answer before she leaned down and pulled the buttons on her practical younger sister's shirt apart, "Could it be this marking?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How did you know that I- And where my mark is!?" Sayaka snapped, holding her arms close to herself as she pulled away from Kaiba, "It isn't any of your business anyway!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kaiba just stared at her for a while before answering, "I'm your only Onee-san in the Yamaguchi-gumi, Shorty-san. It most certainly is my business. I heard your magical name and knew it had to be you," She held out her hand, "As for the mark, it appears somewhere significant in some way, even if you don't realize it. Yours appeared one of the only locations you didn't yet have tattoos. Mine appeared on the palm of the hand which I lost all my fingertips on."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka continued to simply stare for a few moments before giving a response, "I should have known, Kaiba-nee. It doesn't shock me at all..." She frowned, "It's for different reasons though, right? You were depressed because of Korekara. I... I just wanted to be of more use to the Yamaguchi-gumi."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I hear you've been killing," Kaiba noted.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, here I go killing again," Sayaka gave a bitter chuckle, "I can't hold myself back, you know? I could barely stop myself when I was human. How... How and why would I ever restrain myself from ridding the world of its filth now that I have full reign to do so?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kaiba gave a slow nod, pulling out her sword and holding it up horizontally, squinting at how the sun reflected off its blade, "If you did anything else, I would be forced to assume some impostor had taken your place."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You know me so well, Kaiba-nee," Sayaka laughed, then stepped closer to her, "I know a really good sweets shop around here, you know. Want to chat over some baked mochi?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't," Kaiba shook her head, "Because I have somewhere else to take you instead. You've been having trouble finding a place to stay, haven't you? It's really showing. Magic can only keep your hygiene and appearance so good," She gestured for Sayaka to follow her, "And even though you never joined my gang, I could never leave one of my girls behind. Come on."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka hesitated, but this <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">was</i> Kaiba. Sympathy was something she avoided, pity and handouts. From her own people, though... An important part of being in the yakuza was relying on and trusting the others, something which had taken Kaiba so long to learn that she couldn't possibly hope to wield a katana or any of its variations, stuck with an oversized and imprecise weapon instead. Sayaka had only faltered one time, maybe twice if she counted <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i>. Refusing Kaiba now could be another mistake on her record, though. Imperfection... was unacceptable.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Fine," She mumbled as she followed Kaiba, not knowing where she was being led. She knew this city quite well by now, but had no idea what Kaiba could know about and want to take her to. It was only a block away that she recognized the objective. An old storage unit facility, mostly cleared out to be an empty lot with a few remaining crates. Known to anybody who knew anybody in the backstreets of Tokyo as the home base of Kotomi Tanako. Sayaka screwed up her face, "You know Tanako-san?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Kotomi-chan is a friend of mine!" Kaiba grinned, turning back around, "We kept in contact even after No Boys broke up, you know. She was a member, but I guess you wouldn't know since you never joined. She graduated two years before you arrived at the school..." He smile fell, "She was a third year when the class of 2015 disappeared. That was a rough year for us in No Boys, probably the first bit of our dissolution."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka turned back away and flipped her hair, "I don't think Tanako-san wants to help me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Just as she said this, Kotomi was wandering out from behind one of the crates, stretching. She adjusted her mask, then paused and looked over to see the two who'd arrived at her lot. She waved, then wandered over, "Kaiba-chan! What brings you to Tokyo?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Kotomi-chan!" Kaiba exclaimed in response, then grabbed and hugged her. Kaiba was awful tall for a Japanese woman, and Sayaka was awful short for any human being. Kotomi was somewhere in the middle, "I found out that my cute little crime-syndicate imouto's been sleeping outside all the time. I know you live here, so I was thinking..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi pulled away from the hug, then looked over to Sayaka, "Hey, I know you! You're the one the Yamaguchi-gumi sent to uphold the alliance around here, yeah? I do some transporting for the mob sometimes, so I've heard stories. Is it true that you love candy and hate lolicons?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka stayed silent for a bit before she gave her wary response, "...Yes."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why didn't you think Kotomi-chan would help you?" Kaiba asked of Sayaka, looking to her again with the expectation of an answer reflected in her eyes.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I heard things about you too, Tanako-san. That you're strict about what you'll transport... And when. I don't think you want anything to do with somebody as reckless as me," Sayaka explained, "I also heard you're just into petty crime, not the big stuff. Usually people like that aren't fond of me. Though," She paused, now just talking to herself, "I guess Rukkun is an exception."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi looked her over for a few moments with a serious expression, then just broke down laughing, "Rukkun, eh? Well, only Rukkun I ever knew is probably the same one you've met. Violent magical boy who works at a grocery store in Shibuya... If the two of you get along, and you know Kaiba-chan to boot, then I don't care <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">what</i> sort of big crimes you're involved in, you're okay in my book. As long as that recklessness doesn't put <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">me</i> in danger. Plus, you're what, twelve? Can't have you sleeping outside, come on."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm sixteen," Sayaka mumbled, but followed when Kotomi gestured for her to walk across the lot. Kotomi led her to her van, parked next to one of the remaining storage units. She pulled open the back of the van, then the crate as well, and dragged out a mattress.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I've got a few of these stocked up, I sleep in my van and you can too. I've built a shower in one of the units, too. It runs off rainwater, and actually gets hot water. It's pretty ideal. I'm glad to share it. Go shower right now," Kotomi pointed to the unit in question, "No offense, but you stink. It's obvious you haven't had a real bath in weeks."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka made a face in her direction, but relented and went to bathe. It was actually two units, the inner one with tile flooring, to keep the steam from getting everywhere. Sayaka left her clothing in the first unit, then stepped into the second one.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Once she figured out how Kotomi's Macgyver of a shower functioned, it was actually nice, the first bit of relaxation she'd gotten in months. Weeks was an understatement, but she supposed that her magic had helped the actual length of time keep from showing so much. Another perk of this existence. Did Kotomi know about her, about Kaiba? She knew about Yuuri, so Sayaka could only imagine that she did and just didn't care.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was nice to see that there were some humans who didn't buy into the scares of magic, even if those humans were a part of society's underbelly. Sayaka realized that she wasn't even clear on what exactly Kotomi <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">did</i>. Transporter was an ambiguous term which could apply to any number of jobs, though it was usually on a smaller scale than smuggler. And Sayaka too had no idea what sort of terms Kotomi had in her 'strictness' regarding her jobs.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Somehow, she doubted that even living with Kotomi, she would find out.Once she'd finished showering, she stepped back out into the vestibule unit, only to find that her dirty clothes had been switched out for new ones. They were her style, so she assumed she had Kaiba to thank, and changed into them. There were even a new pair of shoes. Once dressed again, and with her hair pulled into pigtails once more, Sayaka wandered back out into the lot.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kaiba and Kotomi were sitting next to a camp stove out on the concrete in folding chairs, with a third one sitting open and empty. Sayaka approached, then took the seat, leaning toward the stove to see what was being made. Eggs and sausages. She looked to Kotomi, "Western style breakfast?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You did just wake up, didn't you?" Kotomi questioned, glaring, "And I don't care how traditional you are, right? With me, there's never gonna be such a thing as rice and fermented soybeans for breakfast."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka gave a slow blink, then nodded, "Sausage is better than natto, I agree. Usually I make chocolate chip pancakes, with whipped cream, to go with them though. The Americans have perfected the idea of starting the day off with some fleeting joy."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kaiba just laughed, covering her mouth with her hands even though she wore a mask which already hid it. Kotomi couldn't help but join in on her laughter, and make a comment of her own, "You really are fond of sweets, eh? If you weren't so active, you'd probably get fat eating like that."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka shrugged, glancing away, "I don't care about that. I think that even if I just lived a normal life, I'd still eat sweets all the time," She patted her own cheeks, "But I guess if I put on any more weight than this little chub, I would look even younger, so maybe it's for the better..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi chuckled at her a little more, then handed her breakfast, then one to Kaiba and one for herself. After eating, she gathered up the leftovers and stood up. Kaiba blinked, then wondered, "Giving all that food to them?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi nodded, eyes bright as she wandered towards one of the other storage units. She opened it up, and it was empty. She gestured for the other two to step in with her, closed the unit, then opened the adjacent one in the same sort of set-up she'd used for the bath. Rather than a shower behind this one, however, there were a bunch of makeshift structures, and as Kotomi set the leftovers down, a number of cats came out of the structures. Normal strays.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Well, except for one.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Blade?" Sayaka questioned, not even thinking before she spoke in her shock.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hello!" It laughed, looking to all the other cats who rushed to the leftovers, "Funny seeing you here. Sorry I didn't mention that I was back in Tokyo, but I wanted to take advantage of this Kotomi Tanako's playground first... Just because I don't eat food like normal cats doesn't mean I don't like climbing structures and scratching posts and comfy places to sleep!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka looked to Kotomi for her opinion on the distributor's presence, and she just shrugged before saying, "I love all cats, even if their favorite hobbies are ruining lives."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Lives are already ruined by the time we get to them, you know," Blade shook its head, but knew that Kotomi's statement was in good humor. It turned to Sayaka, then, "So, Sayaka! It's good to be back. I had to check in with Tyler, but you know how he is. I can only take so much of him at a time. You're definitely my most favorite!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's nice," Sayaka mumbled, crouching down to pet its slimy head with a vacant expression, "So my backpack's going to be heavier again. Great."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Would you prefer I sat on your shoulder instead?" Blade asked.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'd <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">prefer</i> you walked by your own damn self," Sayaka rolled her eyes, mumbling, "But I guess it can't be helped with you, huh? Fine. I've made friends with some magica in Oh One's posse, though, so you better not be a pain to them."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade blinked, "Why would I bother its magica? My rivalry is only with Oh One, and it is a friendly one!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Because I never know what to expect with you," Sayaka rolled her shoulders as she stood back up, "So how <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">is</i> Tyler?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well..." Blade trailed off.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">----------</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, Blade! So good to see you again!" Tyler Hale laughed, sitting in his home in the Hollywood Hills with his forty-seven sticks of vegan jerky when his distributor jumped in through the window of his room. He smirked and put down his snack and grabbed a piece of paper from his desk. This room was an absolute mess, He waved the paper around, "Look at this thing! A letter of commendation! I got it in the mail and I've been so excited to show you."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Commendation? How did you deserve <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i>??" Blade questioned, looking around the room. It wasn't fond of cleanliness by any means, but even it thought this was ridiculous, so it started to at least try removing the trash by eating it. Anything other than orbs that a distributor ate basically just got deposited into a pocket dimension.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tyler gave Blade a sideways look with an annoyed sigh, "You could at least pretend to be proud of me! Obviously it's because I'm your highest ranking magica, even if you like Red more. It's because she's been doing all that murder lately."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Don't talk like that," Blade wrinkled its nose, "It isn't like you've been on your best behavior yourself, or you'd be more than one rank above her. Play nice with the other magica!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tyler rolled his eyes, transforming so he could mess around with his weapon, twirling the shiv between his fingers, "Why should I play nice when I'm so much better than all of them? I <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">should</i> be higher than I am, I only attack bad people... And I don't kill them! I just beat them up!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You beat up innocents," Blade noted, "Not having all the same beliefs as you doesn't make them bad people. They aren't hurting anyone, so to the cosmic forces, it looks like you just want to do torturing. It's bad. You gotta stop."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can't <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">help</i> it!" Tyler whined, stabbing his weapon into the desk in front of himself, "When I see somebody eating a hamburger, I just gotta stab 'em. It's not like there's any <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">real</i> consequences for my actions, so I may as well!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Blade sighed and shook its head, "You never change. Well, enjoy your poorly written letter of commendation. I'm going back to Red. At least she appreciates my advice."</span><br />
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<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/01/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-eight.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Next Chapter-></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-75591671580569761472017-12-09T18:57:00.000-08:002018-03-05T15:54:28.141-08:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Six<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-five.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The day after Tokyo's magica had worked together to do battle against a particularly durable level 5 monster, every one of them was returning to their regular routines. Just because things had taken a turn for the unusual the previous night didn't mean that anything would change when the sun rose.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri was watching the news on his terrible television in his less than terrible, for the neighborhood, apartment. He wasn't the sort of person to care much about the news until he'd started working at the grocery store, which had about six different varieties of the news on its televisions. Thanks to that, it had become a habit for him to actually know what was going on in the world. It would just feel strange for him not to continue watching at least one of those news networks at this point, and today he'd decided on a local one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It seems that the Tokyo Metropolitan Area continues to be plagued by magica. Earlier this morning, the director of Aoba Public Middle School was found dead in his office. The situation of his death matches what we've been seeing from time to time since October, a truly brutal murder evidently performed by a magical being. Unlike the previous victims, who seem to have been killed with a single blow to the head, the director was found with antemortem wounds covering his body which, experts have stated, are likely the result of an axe. We'd like to urge everybody here in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area to exercise special caution to avoid this magica, and if anybody knows anything about its identity, you'll see the tip line number scrolling across the screen now."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That news didn't shock Yuuri, but he decided he would give Sayaka a call anyway. The five of them had exchanged contact information last night, though Sayaka had assured them that she wouldn't need to be notified of any battles, with her experience lending her every opening she needed to know when a monster was attacking, and if it had yet been engaged. She picked up on the second ring, though, "Rukkun? Whatcha want?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I heard that the director of Aoba Middle was found dead this morning," Yuuri explained, getting straight to the point of his call. He couldn't help but let his voice reflect the amused smirk on his face. Just because he refrained from killing anyone himself, didn't mean he couldn't be glad the bastard was dead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The line was silent for a few minutes before Sayaka spoke again, "I know you know what I do, what my personal mission is... You never would have told me the full extent of how he hurt you if you didn't want me to do this, right? Since I know you <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">personally</i>, I threw in a little extra hurt for the guy. Maybe I'm a merciless assassin, but one-shot one-kill is only fun if you aren't pissed off."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Awh," Yuuri threw on a mock tone of affection, "You were pissed off on my behalf? I'm touched."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka, on the other end of the phone, looked out over the city. She'd slept on a nearby roof that night, taking it in stride thanks to the position of her mark. Even when not transformed, she had that level of magical endurance, which meant she couldn't possibly die of exposure. Couple that with the level of pain she could withstand, as a member of the yakuza with full tattoos and one prosthetic finger, and sleeping on a roof in the snow was a breeze.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Just let me know if you ever want me to do it again," Her voice was quiet as she said this, then she shut the phone and let it fall down to the streets below, to be crushed under a car. She could get another with the same number, no problem. However, she wasn't keen on showing weakness, and unwarranted sympathy like this was nothing but that. Why should she make an offer like that to somebody whose only real connection to her was the fact that they'd both taken on the burden of magic?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She looked down at her hands, and clenched them into fists as she dropped them back to her sides and turned around, leaving the building again via the fire escape. Getting a place to live... Wasn't super plausible for her. She was physically about fifteen, and technically sixteen. Not to mention, a magical girl. Even yakuza connections couldn't get her easy real estate. Maybe if it was just her age and lack of a credit score, a bribe and a threat could suffice to get her a steady place, but even with her mark's inconspicuous placement it was hard to hide that she was a user of magic.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Maybe for some, it was as simple as covering up, but she knew her entire life that couldn't be enough. Covering her tattoos and using a fake name didn't keep others from getting suspicious she had yakuza connections. Covering her magical marking could never be enough to keep something she had pride in a secret. It was there in the way she spoke, the way she carried herself. Her sharp temper often gave her away, because with her outbursts came the revelation of her convictions. Yakuza convictions. Magical convictions. There were views she held in such intense regard that gave her away the moment somebody spoke a wrong word.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It wasn't <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">her</i> fault.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Even with her convictions, she knew they were out of place. Her burning hatred for perverted lolicons seemed odd to some of the yakuza here in Tokyo, the ones who hadn't grown up around her. Trafficking of young girls was a part of the yakuza business plan, but that was different to her, she'd been dulled to it since she was a small child. Young women from Korea, Malaysia, China, promised good jobs then sold off... She'd had the idea put in her that it was their own faults for trusting so blindly in foolish ideas. She believed that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">There was a difference between selling young women and abusing children, which she held firm on. Trafficking was an atrocity too, she didn't <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">deny</i> that, but it was an atrocity which she couldn't be bothered to become angry with. Why should she, when it was paying for her lifestyle and was a long-standing facet of organized crime? She never claimed to be a good person. If she did, she probably would have hesitated before deciding she would use her magic to rid the world of those she, only on her own judgement, decided were scum.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She was getting a good feeling, though, that she'd find some place to settle down sometime soon. She passed by the apartment building which both Yuuri and Kanoshi called home, and stared at the steps before continuing on. Even that place wouldn't take her, she'd tried before. One factor which kept a normal person from renting a normal apartment would fly there, even two. Her own cavalcade of them? She was a disaster waiting to happen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi spotted Sayaka through his window as he drank his coffee at noontime, having slept late after staying up to play games and fight a monster the previous night. He'd had an unsettling dream when he did return home and sleep, and thanks to it, wondered if he should call out to Sayaka and invite her inside. He decided against it, though. He decided that he ought not act on subconscious thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was because she looked so young. A high school first year wasn't far removed from a middle-schooler, and while he knew and respected how worldly she was at her age, he couldn't help but feel protective of her. That image in his dream, of the childish magica being strangled inside the huge fist of a terrifying monster left him wanting to work for her protection, but he knew she wouldn't want or appreciate that. She was the type to insist on forging her own path forward, no matter how much others wanted to support her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">If Kanoshi were a member of the yakuza himself, one of her 'Onii-sans', then maybe she'd let him say that he wanted to protect her, but they were from different worlds. He wasn't one of her people. With that thought resolved and the dream pushed to the back of his mind, Kanoshi finished the third cup of coffee that he needed to feel functional that morning, then hopped onto his computer to play more video games. Was it pathetic to do this after he'd already been up till the most unfortunate hours of the night before playing games? Yes, it kind of was, but he didn't care.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After all, eSports drafts were soon, and he'd been in the top 500 on Japan's competitive servers since a month after the game launched. Some people considered him, 'ChikaMikan', the top mercy player for the region, though he wasn't so sure about that. It wasn't like his playstyle of mostly pocketing one player was a very good way to play the game, he just happened to be a master of pocketing. One very specific niche that he excelled at. Things were looking good for him to be invited to a Pro Team soon, but if he didn't, he'd already had interviews with people at the grocery store where Yuuri worked, and he was frankly overqualified, so he had that lined up if eSports didn't work out for him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The new apartment was small, smaller than the space he was used to having at his disposal, but it was still enough for what he needed. He kept it a little bit less clean than the last one thanks to the feeling that he lacked storage space, but otherwise, it worked for him. He had never <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">needed</i> an apartment the size of the last one that he had, and Yuuri wasn't lying when he said three people could live here without too many problems. There was no real living room space, but the kitchen could fit his kotatsu in it, and though the overall square footage of the place was less, there were three other rooms rather than the two of his last one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">What he'd need a second bedroom for, he didn't know, but it was nice to have, and the change in layout made Kanoshi realize just how much <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">extra</i> space he'd had before, space that was just empty floor he never really used. It wasn't that he enjoyed this place over the old one, but he did work to rationalize it in his mind that it wasn't so bad. He wanted his old apartment. He wanted his old <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">job</i> especially, but he knew those things were impossible now, and he was forcing himself to come to terms with it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Three hours later, after Kanoshi had played several rounds which he won, across town, Tsukune Madara was just waking up. His roommate was already at work, which he was grateful for. He didn't want to deal with her any day, but after battling a monster he was especially loathe. What he'd said to Yuuri about coming to Tokyo for the sake of helping Kanoshi was only a half truth. The other half of the matter had to do with his personal life.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTkHv4z8TsygCMpvBv2JKnMhJ7vfbRgQCH7WoIFb4jY7lscP1ALlZ88pCsshA18kgXuQ4Nho81lFJy8UAg4LCm6Lzp2UexwMsZjXjwhDzbUd_eTAB4ESsMK8TADMWzPDluvf06CDDTKgz/s1600/kyokoo.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTkHv4z8TsygCMpvBv2JKnMhJ7vfbRgQCH7WoIFb4jY7lscP1ALlZ88pCsshA18kgXuQ4Nho81lFJy8UAg4LCm6Lzp2UexwMsZjXjwhDzbUd_eTAB4ESsMK8TADMWzPDluvf06CDDTKgz/s320/kyokoo.png" width="86" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kyoko Shirato</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kyoko Shirato was her name, and she was a pain in the neck by profession. She was barely an adult, having been attending Korekara Academy as a third year student when the massacre occurred. Tsukune often found himself bitterly wishing that she <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">had</i> perished, rather than crashing in to ruin his life. She would call him a friend sometimes, a boyfriend others, depending on if she was attracted to the person she was referring to him around. If it was somebody especially ugly in her eyes, or one of those attractive people was into cuckolding, she would even say that Tsukune was her husband.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He considered himself none of those things to her. She was a scoundrel, a con artist. She had found him right after the massacre, when the two of them were both living on the streets, and she was an excellent actress who made him believe she was something of an angel, come to offer an alliance to get them both out of the hole they were in. She was a devil, though. He'd made a deal with the devil, that's the sort of person Kyoko was.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">A deal was the right thing to call it, though, because she'd followed through on her promise. She'd gotten them out of that hole, gotten an apartment which they could both live in comfortably. She paid bills, and rent, and for food for the both of them, but at what cost? Tsukune didn't begrudge her the way that she made her money, of course. She could be charming, and she could use that to her advantage. She was an unabashedly sexual woman, and she could manipulate that fact about herself even if she didn't quite realize what she was doing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kyoko could make promises to get things out of people, whether she followed through or not. Then there was the flip side, where certain men and women would be glad to pay her just to make her leave them alone. She'd used those skills to pull herself and Tsukune out of the gutter, then gotten a job at a nearby concert venue. Tsukune had to admit that the only time he found Kyoko especially tolerable was when she played her guitar. She had real skills, so it was no wonder she was able to get hired as a stand-in guitarist for any bands who might need her services.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That scoundrel, Kyoko... Tsukune might actually admire her for all of her abilities, if not for his own strained relationship with her. There was a price to his existing in the same space as her, he knew. Existing at all always seemed to have a price, and Kyoko exacted a sharp one. If Tsukune was going to continue to profit off of her behaviors, he needed to do a few things for her. Buying her alcohol was one of those, as she was still too young to do so. Keeping the apartment clean. She'd discovered early on that he could burn water, so cooking was out of the question.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">In general, he was at her beck and call. It wasn't a pleasant arrangement, but even though he could get away from it now that he'd become a magical boy, he didn't. Was it Stockholm Syndrome? He wondered about that. He had no reason to care about Kyoko at all, but he never took a single out that he had to get away from her. He could have just let himself die, plenty of times. He could just use his magic to go somewhere else and never think about her again. Even so, Kyoko was an idol once. Not like his fictional ones, but she still was, and she still made good music.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Even if she'd only escaped Korekara out of being absent that day, she was a survivor. Even if she was a bad person, she'd still extended a hand to Tsukune, and she never hurt him with that hand. Even as she hurt others, she showed him that kindness of never going too far. It wasn't that she even fully understood that what she was doing was wrong, but something about Tsukune kept her from seeing him in such a way that she <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">would</i> cross that line with him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">To her, he probably seemed like a kicked puppy. A pet project, somebody to say she was working hard for instead of just herself in the wake of an awful tragedy. She'd only escaped with her life because she was such a recent transfer, who got lost in the cracks, but she'd still made connections at that school before it was all destroyed, and she knew she could have easily been there. Tsukune could see it in her eyes, sometimes, and the way she spoke if ever the incident came up. She was not a careless bad person, but an unknowing one, and she still felt guilt over her "luck" in surviving the massacre despite anything she'd done.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">So perhaps that was why Tsukune stayed? He was Kyoko's kicked puppy, but she was also his. That was how he saw her. A kicked puppy underneath everything which she did wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He had magic, and she didn't. He avoided speaking to her, only needing to indulge her requests a few hours a week, and as long as he did that and turned his blind eye to it all, he'd use this magic he held to protect her. Kyoko Shirato... Whatever it was that made her want to help him, of course he'd return the favor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He was a devil too, after all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After musing on his relationship with Kyoko, Tsukune checked to see if Kanoshi had woken up yet. The most recent log-in on his dgf account confirmed that he had, but thanks to Zhou's lack of NEET hobbies, he had no way to tell if <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">he</i> had yet woken up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Zhou had, though he expected to go back to sleep in the next twenty minutes. He lived in a house which had been marked as being for sale for two decades now, which had never sold. A bit outside of the Tokyo area, but still close enough to a train station that getting into Tokyo wasn't a problem. The house looked nice, and it wasn't haunted or anything, but there was too much structural damage. Things were always falling apart, so much so that by the time Zhou got to it the entire interior was, for lack of a better term, boneless. 'Open Concept', but the second floor was on the verge of collapsing in, and the foundation was uneven too, another time bomb of the architecture.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">A time bomb of the architecture for a human, that was. Zhou made it his home, utilizing his magic in quiet ways to keep it standing. It made him feel bad at times to continue using magic for this sort of thing, but Sayaka did bring up a good point; he was already approaching enough magic to bring Mayu back, but didn't have a single lead on where her body could be. There was no way to turn her into a magical girl without her body, after all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Was it selfish of Zhou to take liberties to live somewhere this nice, to live comfortably? Yes, he decided, it was. He had also decided when he became a magical boy, a year after his sister's death, that he wouldn't apologize for being selfish anymore. It helped to know there were others waiting to greet Mayu when he pulled her back into the world of the living, but it was only his own desire to bring her back. His entire life, he felt bad taking anything he felt he didn't deserve, but he'd discarded those worries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Why should he worry about something like that? Didn't he deserve to be happy? Didn't he deserve to do anything to achieve that happiness for himself, given that he didn't drag anyone else down as he did? He wanted to live in this nice house. He could afford nice food because he didn't have to pay rent, or bills either since his magic could easily substitute for electricity and heating. He would take those things, because nobody suffered for it. Nobody else wanted this house anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">So it was fine for him to take. It was. This city owed it to him, anyways. He was the highest-ranking magica in Tokyo. Well, unless The Prince decided to stick around long-term, but somehow, Zhou doubted that would happen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-----</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Horace was not so well-kept at all times.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Right now, in fact, he was exhausted. Panting, unclean, with all of his hair fallen out of his ponytail and into his face. He was sweaty, overexerted, he found himself disgusting. His head wouldn't stop pounding. He'd made Oh One obscure the truth of this battle; Sure, a number of lower-ranking magica were taking shifts in the battle, but the higher ranked ones weren't taking any breaks.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Fukushima</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">With a level 8 Endurance Test Type, they couldn't afford it. Level 8 was the highest level that anybody had yet encountered, 9 and 10 being terrifying creatures of myth which Horace could hope never came to terrorize their world. So it was that he hardly looked humanoid anymore by the time the beast finally dissipated, leaving behind a total of ten orbs. There were more than ten magica involved, but it seemed that everyone belonged to the same 10 distributors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Horace didn't bother making himself presentable at all before collapsing onto the ground.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">One of the other magica who'd participated, Fukushima, approached Horace, then dropped to her knees beside him as well. She took deep breaths, then spoke to him, her words strained. Despite her mask, Horace could tell that she was forcing a smile, "We really did it, huh...? We beat that thing?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We sure did," A lower-ranking magical boy who'd taken shifts to attack stepped up, limping and weak as well, "Fukushima-san, you're rank fifteen, right? And Prince Horace, and..." He glanced around, "Fizzy Pop are here too, right? If we had so much trouble taking down a level eight..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Nine and ten seem impossible, right?" Horace spoke up from the ground, his voice blank, "But... That's not correct. I had to hold back to avoid injuring other magica with my telekinesis. Were I to truly go all out, I could have beaten this monster on my own... In double the time. With Fizzy Pop also going all out with me, the same amount of time. Were Uamake to join in, it only would have taken one week. But that's not realistic. I'm this tired now... I dread to think how I'd feel had I given it my all."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Pop"</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"He-ey~! Princey!" A shrill voice called out to Horace, and he sat back up to see that one half of the two girls which made up the magica Fizzy Pop was waving to him. She was supporting the other one, who was clutching something in her left hand. Horace decided to call the excited one Pop, and the exhausted one Fizzy. That was the unique aspect of the distributor Chikd; it created two magica at once for the same magic cost as creating one, but their powers would be worthless if separated, thus turning two humans into one functioning magica.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What's up...?" He questioned, blinking slowly. It seemed that Fizzy had given all of her remaining energy over to Pop, with that exuberance which hadn't been present during the battle. Those two had a very useful magic. Both of them were archers, and for every shot one of them made which landed where intended, the other's damage output doubled, up to a cap of 2048x. Rewarding Marksmanship, was the name they called that power by.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We were grabbing our orb and found a weird letter with our name on it! There was one for you too, so we picked it up. Oh, and we brought your orb too. Here you go!" She grinned as she tore the items from Fizzy's hand then tossed them at Horace, "Oh, don't let me forget next time we see each other, when we're in better shape. I owe you a bear hug! Awesome work, and it was great to meet you, even if it had to be while fighting a big ol' beast."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You'll certainly be seeing a lot more of me. I have a few reasons I'd like to remain in Tokyo for a bit longer yet," Horace explained, bringing his arms up to tie his hair back. How was he regaining his strength so quickly? He looked around to see another duo of Chikd's, called FMV, who were from South Korea. They were magical boys at rank 80, but had been much higher in the past, falling only because other magica were more active and had more raw power. FMV's power was interesting. One healed injuries, the other healed stamina, their only combat prowess on their own being their weaponry, throwing spears. He waved a hand in thanks towards their direction, knowing that his small revitalization was thanks to them.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Fizzy"</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You'll have to tell us about it some other time! We promised our family we'd be home in time for dinner this evening, since the health bar was so low earlier. Seeya~!" Pop giggled, then jumped into the air carrying Fizzy. They were both gone from view by the time Horace turned to Fukushima again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You got somebody to go back to, Fukushima?" Horace wondered.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Me?" She questioned, pointing at herself, then shook her head in response, "No, not anymore anyway. I'm not about to reveal my identity, but I lived in Korekara. After the massacre at the school... Who would wanna stay there? My friends and I used to all run around together, saying that it was our duty to protect the girls in that town. How could I stay there after such a failure?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm very sorry to hear that," Horace frowned, extending a hand toward her, "Are you at least finding new purpose as a magical girl?" He'd known of the massacre long before he ever set foot in Japan, the entire world knew what happened and collectively decided not to trust the company responsible for that AI anymore. It wasn't until he met Kanoshi, however, that Horace was honestly hit by how awful the situation was, the idea of it. So much death, all in one place, and of such promising youths was terrifying as soon as it became real.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Hearing that something had happened was one thing, but meeting somebody who'd been personally impacted by it was another. Horace had met Kanoshi right around the one-year marker of the horrific event which had changed the course of history for the worse, and had seen firsthand that the teacher was still grappling with the fact that several of his own former students had been there. With that perspective, it was impossible to stay an onlooker, and meeting someone else who'd been even closer to the tragedy...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's not a big deal now," Fukushima sighed, holding her hands to her chest. She'd looked so strong before, but was now showing weakness as she spoke about her connection to the town where nobody survived, "It was at first, but it's been a while now. I lost my friends and I lost the very thing I wanted to defend with my life, but that was just another chapter in my life. I've moved on to other things."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That much is clear," Horace nodded in agreement, then looked down to the letter he'd been handed. It had his name on it, and nothing else. He was a bit wary of what could be inside, but there was nothing which posed a real threat to him, so he supposed there could be no harm in opening it up. There were no traps inside, just an unceremonious piece of computer paper. Typed on it in a boring font, badly spaced, was a short explanation that this was a letter of commendation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What's that?" Fukushima leaned over, narrowing her eyes at it, "I... Can't read that very well, but is it a letter of commendation? My distributor, Desire Train, told me that its highest ranking magical boy Diamond Dust, over in America, got one of those in the mail. It doesn't know anything about why they're being sent out, but it thinks that they're just harmless bits of praise being given to the best magica that each distributor has."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, that would make sense, but I'd think that if the cosmic forces which determine the rankings wanted to applaud us for our hard work, they'd put a bit more effort into the letter. This is just pathetic," Horace groaned, but stuffed it into his pocket, "Well, I really should head back to Tokyo. I left Guardian Angel to fend for himself when I came over here..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"For himself?" Fukushima questioned, leaning towards him, "No, that can't be true. I heard that Tokyo's magica just defeated a level five rock-golem type in one night."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Really? But..." Horace frowned, "I thought that Tokyo's magica were only Guardian Angel and Lullabye."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Huh? No way," Another magica who'd helped in the battle walked up, speaking English. Someone with a travel ability who'd come to help out, "I stopped by there on my way to this fight, and there were three more. Smokescreen, Ribbon Red, and Infernal."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So that's where Smokescreen operates..." Horace noted. Thanks to Oh One, he did know that the magica Smokescreen was in Japan, but had no idea what part of the country. Sugarcanesugarcane said that particular magical boy wanted to be left alone by others.Horace had to wonder what changed, if he'd suddenly become involved enough to be known amongst magica as one of Tokyo's protectors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ribbon Red?" Fukushima questioned, wide-eyed, "Who... Who is that?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What do you mean?" The magical boy who'd mentioned the Tokyo magica wondered, "It's not like anybody knows who she is <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">outside</i> of being a magical girl. She's always using glamours."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What I mean is that 'Ribbon Red' is exactly the sort of title I'd expect somebody that I used to know to end up with," Fukushima explained, standing up straight, "You're going back to Tokyo, right Prince-san? Mind if I tag along? I'd like to become acquainted with this magical girl."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, sure thing," Horace nodded, FMV's revitalizing finally gotten to a point that he could stand up and felt capable of making his way back to the city. He couldn't use his telekinesis on certain creatures such as magica (though humans were fair game), distributors, or monsters, but just about everything else was fair game. He could easily just levitate an item and stand on it, or sit as the case may be. The city's destructive had undone itself, but there was a fire escape which had been broken prior to the battle, so he took the debris from that and motioned for Fukushima to join him as he took off back in the direction of Tokyo, using another piece as a windshield to avoid getting bugs in their faces as they traveled at absurd speeds.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Traveling like this was an air traffic hazard which some magica didn't care about, flying wherever they pleased. Horace, meanwhile, had enough control over his magic to fly close to the roofs without worrying about crashing into them, and as long as he didn't go anywhere near an airport, he wouldn't cause any problems for any planes. Both he and Fukushima had glamours on anyway, so it wasn't a concern of his that humans might see them. Let them see, it wasn't like it mattered.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So," Horace started, "This is going to take a few hours. You the type who's willing to open up about your past, or are we gonna take this in silence?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Somewhere in between," She answered, leaning against him, "I guess it doesn't matter, if you know who I am. I mostly just use glamours because everybody else does, because it's expected. There's nobody I'm trying to hide it from, not really. I was the head of a girl gang back in Korekara, called No Boys Allowed. There were requirements to join, but no real requirements to stay in. Be a girl who wasn't attracted to men, that was the extent of it. I wouldn't kick anybody out for fluid sexuality, or gender realizations. We were a family... Until we weren't anymore. Until we failed to protect those girls, and just... fell apart. I haven't seen any of them since the massacre."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I understand," Horace nodded, looking up at the sky, "Sometimes, even the strongest bonds rely on something else, and if that something else gets lost along the way... You miss them, right? Even though you've moved on?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Fukushima hesitated, but then nodded, crossing her legs where she sat, "Of course I do. They were my family. Our home was a place where the girls society would look down upon and forget about could be loved and even revered by others. But our world now has no use for such a thing. Our world spits upon the only people keeping it from being utterly destroyed, they have no love left in their hearts for anybody, especially not delinquents."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Horace stayed silent for a while along their flight, before he spoke up again, only as loud as he needed to be to be heard over the wind, "Do you know how many of your past members became magica? Do you think Ribbon Red was one of them?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Red? No, she never agreed to join," Fukushima shook her head with a bitter chuckle, "Red and I go even further back, if she's who I'm thinking of. I knew her when she was a little kid for real, and didn't just look like one. I don't doubt that others from No Boys went on to become magica, though. Delinquents are exactly the sort to end up using magic, after all."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"They are, aren't they?" Horace agreed, staring ahead into the night as city lights began to appear on the horizon.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Fukushima just nodded, closing her eyes. They certainly were, she thought. They were all like her.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/12/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-seven.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Next Chapter -></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-17914024346953834192017-11-25T09:15:00.000-08:002018-03-05T15:54:52.313-08:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Five<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/10/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-four.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri stood at the train station, even though it was much too late at night for any trains to be running anymore. It was raining; downpouring, which was odd for this time of year. In late December it would be snowing, but the weather didn't always elect to make sense. It had been a few weeks now, since Yuuri had threatened the director but failed to get Kanoshi's job back to him. Horace was still fighting the level 8 monster in Kyoto; Oh One said that it was under control, but the monster was the sort which took a very long time to kill. All of the magica in the area were taking shifts beating on it over the weeks. As long as somebody continued to engage with the beast, it wouldn't cause any property damage. Yuuri thought that an endurance test like that sounded miserable.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He was glad to have gotten Kanoshi moved into an apartment in the same building as himself. Not out of some strange desire to be closer in proximity to a teacher who had gone on to become his friend, but because he knew that Kanoshi likely would have become depressed if he didn't have a solution to the eviction problem as soon as possible, and Yuuri didn't want to see him like that. Now, as he stood and shivered in this December rain, he was just worrying what would happen if a monster like the one that Horace was away fighting right now came to his own city. Who were even all the magica here? He doubted that Ribbon Red had stuck around after killing her target. Infernal, who had more formally introduced himself as Tsukune Madara, was promising in talent but lacked drive. Kanoshi was a powerful healer, but that didn't mean much without DPS to heal.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">There was Lullabye to consider, but Yuuri had never met the man himself, just hearing secondhand stories from Blem about the magica that distributor had contracted. With Horace in Kyoto and Oh One following that prince anywhere, most communication with the distributors was over phone now. The rest of Oh One's posse had scattered to check on their different magica around the world while their leader was preoccupied. Yuuri still had no clue how the distributors texted so well, given their method seemed to be 'hack up a cell phone like a hairball then hit it with their faces', but he was glad that they did. It would have been a pain, not to be able to keep in touch over a long distance.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey," A voice snapped Yuuri out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see a young girl had just sauntered up to stand next to him. She looked like a child, but moved like somebody with a lot of experience, "Your mark is showing," Yuuri was startled by her statement, and checked his arms. In his preoccupation today, he'd rolled up the wrong sleeve fashionably when he got out of work. He decided he was cold enough to leave them both rolled down, and flushed with embarrassment as he looked away.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sorry you had to see that," He apologized.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's fine. You're Smokescreen, right?' She steps closer to him, staring right through his eyes from her diminutive height.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...How could you possibly figure that out?" He asked, looking away with a frown. Had he forgotten to put a glamour on while fighting a small fry monster in the past few weeks?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Don't worry, you didn't forget your glamours. I can just tell it's you because of what you did. Yeah, I heard about it. That director? So soon after Moron-sensei became a magical boy... And you're the only other person he ever talks to. It's not too hard to figure out you must be the one who did that," She explained, then crossed her arms in front of herself, "That impotence smoke, though? That's personal. He another one of the men who paid to have you blow 'em?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What are you-" Yuuri snapped, taking a step backwards to keep himself from hitting a child. She doesn't falter at all, though, and just unbuttons her shirt with a blank expression. Nestled perfectly between yakuza tattoos on her chest is a question mark, and moments later she's transformed, forgoing a glamour for the first time ever. Yuuri just stared at her for a moment, then chuckled, "Red, huh? Could've told me that <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">before</i> you demonstrated a freakish knowledge of my past."</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawozgO0lKb9YaxBHnDItXecH5uLTbAgNGDbFjxJ2BAsKbsguUfkckcY2aX1HS_hmNY53b4OzSVYIFfBfcN5yX4gxkvTTgLU9dAIF9z9PCY6u_P57T2B9KMDPtKSDwlIsapbiWlbMC2DvH/s320/ribbon.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="144" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Pretty Fighter Ribbon Red</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawozgO0lKb9YaxBHnDItXecH5uLTbAgNGDbFjxJ2BAsKbsguUfkckcY2aX1HS_hmNY53b4OzSVYIFfBfcN5yX4gxkvTTgLU9dAIF9z9PCY6u_P57T2B9KMDPtKSDwlIsapbiWlbMC2DvH/s1600/ribbon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></a><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If you're going to open up about that past to a magica who's using a glamour, you should be prepared for any stranger to know," She lodged her weapon in the concrete, leaving it there as she stepped up to the platform and sat down, dangling her feet out over the tracks. She gestured for Yuuri to join her there, and he did, "Hopefully, I'm the last mystery, though. I can't imagine you blab about that to just anybody. I'm ~special~, right Rukkun?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He put his chin in his hands, glanced at her, then transformed as well. It was weird to be sitting there in casual clothing when she was definitely not, "I told you because I was scared of you. I didn't know your gig except that you targeted sexual deviants. Kinda had to say that I'd been a victim if I thought you were gonna kill me for selling my services."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I only kill those who truly deserve to die. I was <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">there</i> to kill your client, though, so at least you have bad taste," She waved a finger in the air, "I forgot to say it sooner, but that's clever. Using transformed glamour to keep your sex work separate from the rest of your life. Innovative use of this curse we got. So, we're friends, right? Tell me about this director guy. You never answered my question, if he was one of the guys your mom got paid to let fuck you up?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri hesitated to answer, but he knew one thing for certain. Red, whatever her real name was, had to have a reason for her victimology. That reason was probably not unlike Yuuri's own purpose when it came to causing others harm. With that in mind, he groaned and answered, "Yeah, he was. One of the first that she let pay extra to go beyond blowjobs and heavy petting..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can see why you'd want him to suffer," Red nodded, her pigtails bouncing on either side of her face, "Disgusting. How long do those pellets last again?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"The impotence one's a month, it's getting close to running out..." Realizing the amount of time that had passed was unsettling. One monster could really take this long? How would he handle it if something like that ever came to this city? Well, "Red, what are you doing still in Tokyo?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She blinked a bit at the conversational whiplash before answering, "A month, huh? Well, I've been hanging around since I came by in October. Tokyo's rife with crime. Some of my Onii-sans have got monsters in Kobe covered without me... And the sweet shops in Tokyo are <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">sooo</i> good!" She giggles a bit and kicks her feet in top speed at that statement, "Mm, now I want some manju, but it's too late at night, ugh. Maybe that cheesecake place is still open, though..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's a respectable enough reason,"Yuuri chuckled, "You're pretty strong, so I'd be glad if you stuck around longer. You've heard about the monster in Kyoto, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She looks up at the sky with a sigh as she nods, "Yeah, I heard about it. It's been almost a month, and I hear it's only half-beaten. Blade's really mad that none of its current magica can go participate, since the thing's only weak to ranged weapons."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Who else has Blade got, besides you?" Yuuri wondered. He didn't know who any of Sugarcanesugarcane's other magica were, but it sounded like Red was aware of her comrades.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There's pretty fighter ribbon stripe, who uses a shiv... and a few other ribbons, I think? All I know is that we're all close-combat. Brown had guns, but he's dead now," Red stood back up and looked around the landscape, "Blade should have another charge real soon, though, so maybe it can get ahold of somebody else with a ranged attack somewhere in the world. It's been almost two months, that's about how long it takes to charge for most of 'em."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, unless their ability's to charge extra fast. Hey, Red?" Yuuri questioned, "What's Blade's ability?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Call me Sayaka, that's my real name," She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, "Blade's ability? Its magica experience less-drastic loss of ranking. That's how I can kill humans and still hover around rank twenty-eight. Chikd's human-killers, for example, are all the way down around rank one-hundred, even though we target the same sort of people, and just about as often."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri stood up as well, "Sayaka-chan. That's a cute name," He chuckled, messing around with his revolver, "Everything about you's pretty cute, except for the brutal murders of course."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She stared off down the train tracks, "I like to think even my brutality is endearing," She mumbled, then took a step backwards and pulled her gigantic axe from the concrete, grabbed Yuuri's wrist, and swung it out over the tracks. Before Yuuri could even process what had happened, they were moving. Fast... Too fast. Sayaka's axe was embedded in the side of a train, and she was holding onto the handle with just one hand as she kept Yuuri with the other one. He had no idea what was happening. It hadn't looked to him as if a train was arriving, and at this time of night, there <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">shouldn't</i> have been one. He was about to yell at Sayaka when she explained without even raising her voice, "This train's going straight to the level five monster which just appeared in Shinjuku."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Wh- How do you know that!?" Yuuri questioned, trying to adjust his position so his body wasn't flapping around in the wind quite as much.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sugar must have explained it to you when you contracted," Sayaka answered. "The longer you're a magica, the more abilities like the ones the distributors have you acquire. Two months, and you know when a new magica's been created. Five months, and you know when a monster spawns without being told by a distributor. Nine and you can tell when magic's being used, and a year lets you know if somebody would be willing or not to become a magica. Horace is the only one with that ability so far, but I'm getting close at eleven months. We've got a working theory that two years allows Distributor-level teleportation, but that might not be the case since some magica have teleportation magic as their skill."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I knew about those skills, but that doesn't exactly answer my question!" Yuuri was coming up on his five month marker himself, so he'd soon be getting that power-up, "And holy shit, Sayaka-chan! Eleven months!?"</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisJJyl-K1fHO1RcqhYosIizOIbj71s-gEa_tYC4CAucEtpLkf2HD6gKfeIvd1bX0B4rXbUZI95yBMv1kGGawvaC6zGtWt8v60rj9xb8I22lpQ8E1jWZlGO5G9LZ1Q41-FOlYjj7ka1AXf/s1600/Yamaguchi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisJJyl-K1fHO1RcqhYosIizOIbj71s-gEa_tYC4CAucEtpLkf2HD6gKfeIvd1bX0B4rXbUZI95yBMv1kGGawvaC6zGtWt8v60rj9xb8I22lpQ8E1jWZlGO5G9LZ1Q41-FOlYjj7ka1AXf/s320/Yamaguchi.png" width="144" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Sayaka Yamaguchi</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She glanced back at him, then tossed him through a window into the train and followed after, as she was getting sick of speaking over high speed winds, "Yes, eleven months. I was the first magica to contract in Japan, when Blade got here. Of course I seized upon the opportunity to grow stronger, and be of even more use to my family... Anyway, this train's going towards Shinjuku, and I can tell it's being controlled by magic, so I have to assume whoever's moving it wants to fight the monster."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Your family," Yuuri thought it over for a moment, "Those tattoos, and you mentioned Kobe. They're the Yamaguchi-gumi, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She smirked at him as he got to his feet from being tossed, "Clever, Rukkun! That's right, and I'm proud of it. I was already a stellar enforcer and assassin, but now I have power beyond the limits of humanity, as do a few of my Onii-sans back home. The yakuza may be old-fashioned, but we didn't keep selling heroin when we started getting shipments of oxy. We stick to tradition, but you h<img height="16" id="lzazzmxvhxrv" src="data:image/gif;base64,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" width="16" />ave to be on the cutting edge when it comes to illicit activities," She reached back out of the window and pulled her axe into the traincar as she explained.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Welcome aboard," Another voice spoke, and the two magica turned to see a third one there. His emerald eyes had a faint glow to them, and a quiet song seemed to be emanating from the question mark on his neck, "Ribbon Red. Smokescreen. It's lovely to finally make your acquaintance. I am Lullabye."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Lullabye? <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">You're</i> the one controlling this train?" Sayaka questioned, leaning against the handle of her weapon with eyebrows raised, "The one, the only, number nine?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Please, no need to act as if that's an impressive feat. I only climbed that high because I'm trying to build up enough power to create a magica myself," Lullabye chuckled, raising a hand to his mouth, "I only fight higher level monsters like this one because otherwise, I don't make a profit on magic. I really rely on using power to win, which makes it difficult to save up unless I'm careful about it. I'm sure that once I've brought her back, I'll fall much further down the rankings."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So, do you want some help on that level five?" Yuuri asked, stepping forward, "I've been working with Infernal on some small fry, and it seems like every participant in a battle gets the same rewards as if they'd done it solo as long as the number of fighters doesn't exceed double the monster's level."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That would be appreciated," Lullabye nodded, then sat down in one of the train's seats, "I would have thought you'd prefer not to work with me, since I only go after the big catches..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8J0IKuXiHiSFNz760zaEu1tdR28bto_vmQhSiWVfssFOtHh0HJ1Nv_Yq3qum8DQHz-DvYxjORCLKxufQuUcpGGHeAap2iE9Zni4UcHxcjiVBUfFoRFiwcV3igGnZFFRorbKJzKWqnd2r/s1600/zhouguca.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8J0IKuXiHiSFNz760zaEu1tdR28bto_vmQhSiWVfssFOtHh0HJ1Nv_Yq3qum8DQHz-DvYxjORCLKxufQuUcpGGHeAap2iE9Zni4UcHxcjiVBUfFoRFiwcV3igGnZFFRorbKJzKWqnd2r/s320/zhouguca.png" width="164" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Lullabye</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Yuuri sat down as well, but Sayaka stayed standing with her weapon, and he addressed Lullabye, "Nah dude, your reason for doing that makes sense. I'm not about to hold it against you. I waste magic on dumb things all the time, but I don't need to use it to win, so if we teamed up we could fight lower levels without needing any magic at all. Sayaka-chan?" He turned to her.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Just because we're friends doesn't mean I'll be joining any teams," She pouted, looking away from him, "I'll help defend Tokyo, obviously, but it'd look real bad for me to be the only magical girl among a bunch of grown men! There's just no way I could ever agree to any official alliance."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Despite what she said, though, Yuuri had faith that Sayaka would be there if they ever needed her. She was a powerful magica, very high up in the rankings. She'd be higher if she wasn't a murderer; and she was <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">much</i> higher than Yuuri. He knew there were two reasons for that. She had a better magical ability than he did, and he didn't have the buffer against reductions that she did. That was just the problem with being a violent person.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">He didn't worry too much, though. Sugarcanesugarcane didn't mind that he kept falling down the rankings, since it was actually in possession of the number three magica. Oh One's posse would have had a monopoly on the top ten spots if not for Fizzy Pop, one of Chikd's duos who seemed to embody everything that magical girls should be, and had impressive power to boot, pulling the second place spot.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Brace for impact," Lullabye warned the two of them. Yuuri grabbed onto a support pole, and Sayaka positioned herself between the wall and her weapon. Moments later, the train crashed directly into the monster, the back few cars completely collapsing against it. Lullabye nodded to the others and flew out of the smashed window, the music from his mark cutting out and his eyes closing as he dropped control of the train. Yuuri and Sayaka leapt out as well, getting onto the roof of the train which was embedded in the monster and taking up a battle stance.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The beast was tall, so the train ramming had only disabled one foot, but at least that meant the creature wouldn't be able to run too far, and the battle would be restrained to a single location. Sayaka launched herself into the air immediately, swinging her axe around to come down on the left eye of the monster. This one seemed to resemble a towering golem, but it shrieked in pain when she hurt its eye. Piggybacking on that idea, Yuuri shot smoke pellets in Sayaka's direction to cloak her before the monster regained its sight on that side.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Lullabye, meanwhile, was playing another song, this time one which turned the asphalt below the monster's feet into quicksand, further securing it in place. He started throwing out his weaponry then, little letter zeds which seemed to behave as throwing knives with sharp edges the whole way around. Against a monster, something like those were just distractions, even more than bullets. At least Yuuri did damage, but the 'health bar' which seemed to show the monster's endurance didn't decrease at all until Lullabye emptied his entire clip into its skin, and even then, just a small bit. Yuuri could see how Lullabye needed to rely on his magic.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Lullabye!" Yuuri shouted towards him, "Save your magic, right? You've already done plenty, Red and I can do the rest!" As he said that, Sayaka landed on top of the thing's head and started hacking away with quick but heavy swings of her battleaxe, spraying the monster's clay-colored blood in every direction. Even so, Yuuri noted that the bar above its head wasn't going down nearly enough. Another one with a large health pool, or was it just high defense?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">When he was about to yell to Sayaka to help him figure the thing out before they wasted their energy on potentially inefficient attacks, he was smacked to the ground. He was so preoccupied that he forgot it could attack back. He slid across the gravel when he hit the ground, scraping against the outsides of his arms. He kept his marking safe and away from harm. He didn't know what would happen if it was to suffer injury, but he'd been warned against it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The golem raised its hand again in a fist, moving to bring it down on Yuuri before he could get back up, but before that could happen there was a loud, explosive noise, and the monster's fist was blown clean off, smashing into a building three blocks away as the wrist sprayed that liquid clay blood over the entire area. Yuuri knew that noise by now; he got to his feet and saw, as he expected, Tsukune standing there. As Infernal, he had a very interesting skillset; his weaponry was heavy-duty artillery weapons, such as rocket launchers on tripods, but they lacked triggers. He could only ignite the gunpowder to fire them by utilizing his flame magic, which did make it hard for any other magica he was fighting against to commandeer them. His ranking game in at 50, 12 ranks higher than Yuuri. He thought that Tsukune would rank even higher if he actually cared about anything, but he always looked bored in battle and didn't have a cause he was fighting for.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The golem reeled back in pain, and Yuuri noted that having its hand blown off had put a huge dent in its health bar. So it was weak to that sort of attack. As it was recoiling from its injury, Sayaka couldn't keep her purchase on its head anymore, the chunk of rock that she'd lodged her axe into crumbling and sending her hurtling toward the ground. Lullabye hurtled towards her, seeming to be a floating type magica, and caught her in the pillow that he carried as part of his costume. After setting her down gently, he looked to the blast's origin and a grin split his face when he called out, "Tsukkun!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey, Zhou," Tsukune gave a halfhearted wave back, then moved on to aiming his next weapon at the monster's chest. He doubted his ability to hit its head with something that had enough firepower to do huge damage, since the head was disproportionately small compared to the rest of the creature. As he was distracted with aiming, the golem grew spikes out of its back, shards which it began to fire wildly. Tsukune didn't even blink. The rest of the magica present covered their faces as best they could, some of the rock shards grazing them. Sayaka got one embedded in her wrist, which she didn't bother plucking out because bleeding would be more distracting than having a rock shard stuck in her wrist.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tsukune didn't get hit with any shards, though, Yuuri noted when he looked back in that direction. Kanoshi had arrived as well, and blocked all the shards which had gone in that direction. He looked to the three magica on the ground, and Yuuri told Sayaka that she'd have to remove the shard if she wanted her injuries healed. Kanoshi had blocked more shards with his shield than had even gone in the general direction of those three, so he had more than enough magic to patch them up before he returned to the sidelines to keep out of targeting range until he was needed once more.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Or that would be the case, if Tsukune didn't immediately fire off another blast as soon as Kanoshi was out of the way, blowing a hole clean through the golem's chest. It investigated its own injury for a moment, looking down at the hole in its chest, then fell over, collapsing down onto the ground. Due to its feet being mired in the road beneath it, its ankles cracked and broke, and that was the last straw for the rest of the beast's endurance bar. It was defeated. It dissipated into magic power which was given to each participant in its full amount, and left behind five orbs. One for each magica belonging to a different distributor.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">When Kanoshi had first seen that happen, he'd wondered how it could be that the creatures cared about the number of people who had fought against it. He'd messaged Oh One asking about it, though, and received an answer. The monsters were the only food source for distributors, and that was the core of what they were; the only problem was that Distributors couldn't fight them on their own, needing to imbue others with the ability to use the planet's magic to battle against them.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">It was still a matter of feeding, however, and it only made sense that if the distributors' tools to that end worked to become more efficient, they would be rewarded with a greater yield. With the golem defeated, the group of magica watched as the damage to the city undid itself, and life went on as usual. It seemed that monster battles occurred in a similar way to Lionhardt's magic, only on a much greater scale. A pocket dimension, which if not dispelled by destroying the monster, would impact the real world.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">There was the issue of magica who believed they were stronger than they actually were. If one of them initiated a fight and was defeated before anybody else arrived, then the monster would have a free pass to cause as much destruction as it wanted. Since becoming a magical boy himself, Kanoshi finally understood. It <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">would</i> be easier to fight monsters far from society, and there were plenty of those. City centers could always use more magica, because there were far worse consequences if all of them were defeated.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Even Zhou, who had already gone back to his human form, preferred offering protection even when he was trying to collect power for a reason. A monster buffet out in the hinterlands would get him there a lot faster, but he thought that if he was going to be a magical boy for such a selfish reason as bringing back a person <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">he</i> wanted to see again, the least he could do was use his position to help people.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Pretty Fighter Ribbon Red?" Kanoshi asked as he flew down to land in front of her, eyebrows raised, "You're that Korekara student who called me Moron-sensei?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, I dropped the glamour," Sayaka nodded, twirling her axe behind herself before she stuck it into the ground again, "I figure it's not necessary anymore, since most of us here in Tokyo already knew who was who. It's better to be transparent with this sort of thing after a certain point."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, I hope that we can work together to protect the city!" Kanoshi nodded, giving a short bow to her out of respect. Her power really was impressive, since she was pulling rank 28 even as a killer of humans. Kanoshi himself sat at rank 4, which he honestly found very strange. Some said that it was a result of him being so new, it was calculated based on his power level and the fact that he'd given that level of power over to becoming a support. That alone was a show of his willingness to help others, which stood out to the universal forces which seemed to decide rankings that nobody much understood.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kanoshi had to work hard if he wanted to keep his spot, because if he made a mistake, that could easily plummet. Given his lack of combat abilities, it did seem that maintaining a high ranking would be the only way to build up magical power. Sayaka didn't need her ranking to stand on, since she had such brutality she could defeat monsters up to level three on her own without utilizing any magic, though anyone in the top 100 did get a bonus to the rate at which it built up.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm sure as Hell not keen on working with lolicons, but I guess you've all proven yourselves to be better men than that. Well, except for you, Lullabye," She turned to look at him, narrowing her eyes, "I don't know a thing about <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">you</i> yet."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"The name's Zhou Wang," He introduced himself with a wave, now feeling awkward that he was the only one to have transformed back yet, "I'm not a lolicon either. I always liked people my own age. Actually, I don't even know if I have <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">any</i> preferences anymore. I've been kind of distracted from everything since I became a magical boy in October, trying to collect magic. I want to bring back my little sister who was killed in the Korekara Massacre."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Mayu, right?" Sayaka questioned, tilting her head to the side as she dropped her transformation as well, axe disappearing behind her to leave only its gouge in the pavement, "A second year. We never really spoke to each other, but I know that she was kind and sweet.I hope you succeed in your goal. I'd really like to get to know her."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm going to do it," Zhou held his hands in close to himself, balling them up into fists in his determination, "I can't just let her life end the way it did. She had so much more time, and she never got to experience life for real. It was always through a screen, because she thought she couldn't belong with other people who would judge her for her... uselessness."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's why we had that chatroom," Tsukune stepped in, also having discarded his magical form now, his voice sounding just as bored as ever, "Mayu-chan sought out NEETs and Otaku like her, because if we all felt that we ourselves had some degree of worthlessness, then she didn't have to be afraid. We were all just the same. Sometimes, the only way to live as somebody with little self worth is to find others with just as little."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Zhou-kun," Kanoshi held his hands to his chest, "I know that you'll succeed. You'll bring Mayu back, and then we can all work together. Even if she's scared at first, all of us will be there to help her. I guess that she's kind of a common threat between all of us, if we look at it that way."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I've almost gathered enough magical power. At this rate, it might just be a few more months until I have enough that I could bring her back... but once I do, I still have to find where they're keeping her," Zhou explained his goal, "I know that her body's being preserved somewhere as evidence for the Korekara Massacre, I just need to find where that is."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That could take years," Sayaka mumbled, leaning back against a wall as she rebuttoned her shirt, glad that with the hour of the day there were no civilians to see the gathering of so many magica in one place. That would be cause for alarm, "Korekara's board are infamous for their abilities to cover up anything and everything. They convinced the entire country to barely bat an eyelash over the slow elimination of the entire graduating class of 2015, acted as if a pair of students who were murdered off-campus had never existed in the first place, and there's still nobody who <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">really</i> knows who Headmistress Kira is. If they don't want anybody to know where their morgue is, then nobody will."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I know. But... If I can't use magic to at least discover that much, then what's the point? Even if it does take years for me to do it, I'll find where they're keeping her body, and I'll bring her back," Zhou insisted, then dropped his arms to his sides, "...What are all of us doing awake at this hour anyway? I'm basically nocturnal these days, but the rest of you..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was up late playing video games," Kanoshi explained, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly, "Ruka-san sent Tsukki and I your coordinates, so we met up and came here to help. Er, I mean, Madara-san!" Kanoshi looked to Tsukune, flushing in embarrassment, "I'm so used to using your online nickname, I'm sorry!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't care what you call me. For all I give a shit, you could call me Doraemon and I'd still answer to it," He responded, then turned to everyone else to give his own explanation, "I'm nocturnal, too. I sleep during the day, while my... Roommate, is at work, and I do freelance programming online to make cash myself. Boring code monkey stuff. Monsters appear more often at night anyway, so it makes sense for magica to adjust their schedules to match that, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Rukkun and I were hanging out at a train station, chatting," Sayaka jumped in, pointing her thumb back towards Yuuri, "I dunno why he was there, but I saw him and decided to have a little chat about how I managed to deduce who he was through the glamour. Let that be a lesson not to rely on it too much, okay? Magica, and humans who know a lot about us, still have ways to determine who might be a certain magica based on context clues."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was just there being introspective and shit. I like the aesthetic of stations when the trains aren't running," Yuuri added in, then pulled his sleeve down to cover up his mark. Zhou had already pulled the collar on his turtleneck back up, and Tsukune had unpinned his bangs. Kanoshi was the last one to hide his, slipping the eyepatch back on. Sayaka took a deep breath, then looked up at the sky as she shivered. All of them had gotten thoroughly soaked by the heavy rain, and the temperature was dropping, too. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The rain was changing to snow as they watched, staring as it left a light coat over the city which they protected.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/12/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-six.html"><br /></a>
<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/12/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-six.html">Next Chapter -></a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-70708353167749183642017-11-19T06:25:00.000-08:002017-11-19T06:25:45.835-08:00Evil Meet Justice Chapter 5<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/evil-meet-justice-chapter-four.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/evil-meet-justice-chapter-one.html"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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Marc approaches his house, opening the door as soon as he reaches it. He's agreed to go to the beach with his friends, of course, but he was having second thoughts at needing to stop at home to get his swimsuit. Despite what he'd said to Mallory, he really isn't keen on stopping in. He spends time with friends to get <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">away</i> from his family.</div>
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Well, his mother's fine, if a bit overwhelming in her compassion. His father's the one who he tries to stay away from, when he can. Aside from the occasional business trip, it's difficult, since Joe Fitson will take any excuse he can find to take a day off; it's a polarizing effect, for the most part. A few days staying well into overtime at the office, then a few days where he finds some excuse to work from home or take more PTO than he was probably meant to have.</div>
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Were Marc his own father's boss, he'd fire him, but he unfortunately isn't. Instead, the higher-ups all agree that they can let Joe's behavior slide on the simple fact that he's been working so long, and anytime they've even tried to get somebody trained to <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">assist</i> with his workload it hasn't worked out. Marc wonders if that's because the trainees couldn't stand his father's absurd organization methods on the data he's responsible for, or if they just couldn't stand his personality. 'Both' seems to be the answer which makes the most sense.</div>
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Lucky enough for Marc, his father isn't in the dining room when he opens the front door. With that potential off the table, he sighs in relief and makes his way upstairs to his room, to get his swimwear. Swimming at Myna Beach was never <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">warm</i>, but he hadn't gone hypothermic yet either. Still, it was generally agreed that it was safer to swim in that water with a bit more fabric on, so most people use rash-guards. He's never seen anyone but tourists attempting to wear bikinis to that beach.</div>
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With the swimwear retrieved, Marc gets changed into it and stuffs his dry clothing into a tote bag so that he can change back when they're done, since he's planning to continue hanging out with Chris for as long as he's able to. He doubts he'll be able to stay over tonight, what with Chris's cousins visiting, but at least he can eat dinner at the Gonzalez house.</div>
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On the matter of Chris's cousins, he's already decided that he's not especially fond of the orange-haired one. It's got nothing to do with the fact that he doesn't shower enough, either; rather, that guy's been acting weird towards Mallory. Marc may not be able to pinpoint the reason why he feels protective of her, but that doesn't change the fact that he is. Something about that guy just makes him feel... Uneasy.</div>
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That's the best way he can describe it. Unease is the way that Dawson Packard makes him feel. It isn't a matter of feeling possessive over Mallory, because of anyone in the world, she's the most impossible to possess. And if it were Marc who Dawson was fixating on, he thinks he'd be equally as put off by it. He doesn't want to go thinking the worst of his best friend's cousin, but he also isn't about to turn a blind eye to it. Just because somebody is someone's relative doesn't excuse them from being suspicious.</div>
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Once Marc's changed and has everything he needs to bring with him, he moves to duck right back out of the house without being noticed, but his mother's walked into the kitchen. She smiles at him, and he freezes as he waves, then gives in and walks into the room, keeping his voice low, "Hey, Mom. Is Dad home?"</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Not right now," Marc's mother, Deborah, shakes her head as she answers, "He went out to get a few small things for his woodworking, that's why his car's still here. He should be back soon, if you need something from him?"</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Marc taps the counter, frowning, "The opposite, actually. I was hoping to miss him altogether."</div>
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"Well, you should if you get going soon. What were you up to?" Deborah asks, tapping her fingers on the counter in front of herself. She doesn't even question why her son wants to avoid his father; she would avoid him too, if she had the opportunity. It wasn't that she saw him as an absolutely awful husband, or even a bad person necessarily, but she had been young and too starry-eyed. Joe Fitson was fine, she thought to herself, but he was not worth giving up on her dreams for.</div>
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She had truly been a fool, but that was all in the past now. There was nothing she could have done about it, because she didn't have anything that really compelled her as grounds for a divorce. It wasn't like she needed a sturdy reason, but it would help her to avoid losing anything. Were she to divorce Joe, she didn't want to take anything from him, but she didn't want to lose a thing to him either. Most especially not her son. Deborah seemed to many like the model of a housewife, not worth much more than the meals she cooked, but she did have a college degree. She had passed the Bar Test, too.</div>
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It is weird, she thinks, being a lawyer who'd never had the chance to tackle a single case. Joe couldn't technically stop her, she knew, but there was something about being with him which kept her from finding any opportunities. Maybe it was pathetic that she let an idea like that; Just the idea, control her, but she never claimed to be a person of strong character.</div>
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"I was hanging out with Chris and the others," Marc answers, "I just stopped by to get my swimsuit, since Chris decided he wants to go by Myna Beach. The others are going to meet me along the way if I just walk a little bit faster. They are <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">slow</i> as a group."</div>
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"Friends do tend to be," Deborah chuckles, lifting her hand up to pick at her nails, "I won't keep you longer, okay? You should get going. Enjoy the day with your friends, sweetie. If you happen to run into Jacob, could you tell me how he's doing? I lost his number again."</div>
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"Mom," Marc rolls his eyes as he wanders toward the door, "Sure, if we somehow end up either getting arrested or going to John and Mallory's house, I'll let Jacob know you said hi, and that you need his number again. Or you could just call the town's non-emergency crime reporting number and hope he picks up."</div>
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"He's the father of my son's new friends, can you blame me for wanting to be on good terms with him? You never know when you might need a favor from somebody. Now shoo!" As Deborah tells him to shoo, he's already got the door open and one foot out. As expected, he catches up with his friends without a problem. When he arrives back to the group, they're discussing school lunch.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
That's a nice, generic subject that everybody has some thoughts on, an easy way to break the ice in a group.</div>
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Marc joins in seamlessly, "So is it a universal thing that absolutely no potatoes served at a school can ever actually have anything resembling the texture of potatoes?"</div>
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"Good point," Mallory says, pushing her glasses up, "I do not see school potato as potato, but as gouache. That's what it is, really."</div>
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"What the Hell is gouache?" Dawson questions, ever the uncultured one.</div>
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"It's a type of paint," Mallory explains, "And a style of painting, at the same time. It's extra-thick, so it gives the painting a bit more of a three-dimensional feel. Anyway, I don't have to worry about school lunches anymore. John makes bagged lunches for both of us!"</div>
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"I hate to toot my own horn, but they are pretty good," John says, pressing his fingertips together, "I make a mean sandwich. I use a lot of fresh produce from my garden too, when it's in season."</div>
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"You'll have to let me try one sometime," Tina gives John a smile, "Just the facts that they're sandwiches made with fresh produce makes them sound great. And I trust Mallory's judgment, too."<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />"Don't trust my judgment," Mallory holds her hand up, "I mean, I can tell when a food's good, for sure. But I also like a lot of food's that are definitely not good for real. Like peanut butter and banana sandwiches-"</div>
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"Those are good, though," Dawson interrupts.</div>
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"With mayonnaise," Mallory finishes.</div>
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"Oh," Dawson doesn't know what to say.</div>
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"Mallory," Marc shakes his head in disbelief, "I like mayonnaise as much as the next guy, but that is a bad mayo."</div>
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"Huh, well," Mallory holds a finger to her chin, looking up at the sky, "I think it's good, yeah, but it is a bad mayo for sure. That's the kind of thing I really love. Plus, if all the food I eat is disgusting to other people, then I never have to worry about my lunch getting stolen when I one day work in a soul-sucking office job."</div>
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"Remind me never to let you cook for me," Chris mutters.</div>
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"Come on, Christopher," Mallory scoffs, "Like I'd ever cook for you anyway. I can barely cook for myself. Cereal is too much cooking for me most mornings, and that doesn't even involve heating anything up. Just putting it together."</div>
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"You can cook pancakes," John adds in, unhelpful.</div>
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"Just because I can doesn't mean I want to," Mallory answers, putting her hands back behind her head, "It's not like food is even all that great, really. I just eat to sustain myself, or just because the food happens to be there... Unlike you and Dad, John. You gluttons."</div>
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"I eat fruit," Marc adds in his two cents, useless as they are, "That's about all that I eat for the sake of eating, otherwise, yeah, food's not like an amazing experience or anything weird like that."</div>
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"I can't even believe I'm friends with you right now," John shakes his head, holding two fingers up to his own temple as he sighs, "I mean, honestly. Food is an art form, people! It's tied in with culture, climate, and all sorts of things like that. You really should enjoy food! It has so much personality!"</div>
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"I do enjoy it," Mallory shrugs, "But I wouldn't be crying myself to sleep if I had to go a month eating nothing but ration-bars, or cardboard."</div>
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"Mallory..." Tina starts, raising her eyebrows with a coy smirk, "You like the taste of ration-bars, don't you?"</div>
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Mallory turns red at this statement, whirling on Tina with her cheeks puffed out, "No, of course not! Nobody likes the chalky texture and near-tastelessness of ration bars!"</div>
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"Sounds to me like you're praising them for those facts," Tina waved a finger in front of herself, "Come on, you need to be honest with me, and with yourself. Embrace your love of the blandest food mankind has ever created and admit that the only reason you'd be okay with spending a month on them is because you secretly love them."</div>
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"I dug this grave for myself by saying how much I like terrible foods," Mallory groans, backing off with a slump of her shoulders, "Yes, you're right. Unfortunately, I do enjoy the lack of flavor that ration-bars offer. That doesn't change my statement, though. I don't think delicious food is a necessity to enjoy life."</div>
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"Yeah, me neither," Dawson agrees with her, and Tina resists the urge to kick his shin with the lies he's telling, "In fact, I'll even eat foods that I hate. It's just to stay alive anyway, so why does taste exist?"</div>
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"Well, on second thought," Mallory notes, "Food is actually pretty cool. The fact that different people can taste things differently and appreciate or hate them is kind of fascinating, even if I don't think that tasting good things is all that important to happiness... I still don't want to eat foods that are disgusting, like strawberries."</div>
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"Who doesn't like strawberries?" Dawson questions.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Me," Mallory gives her answer in a matter-of-fact way, without any hesitation, "I like other fruit, but strawberries and strawberry flavored things just make me gag. I won't ever eat another strawberry if I can help it."</div>
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"Hey," Chris butts into the conversation, pointing behind himself, "Yo, everybody. Come on. Let's turn right here."</div>
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"But that's not the way to Myna Beach..." John says, looking around and trying to figure out why Chris is acting so strange. Unfortunately, they aren't able to react in time due to confusion, and a voice that the majority of them aren't fond of hearing speaks up behind them.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Ah, Marc. Where are you and your friends off to dressed like that?" Joe Fitson had been walking back from the store on the opposite side of the street, and crossed to speak with the group, "Isn't the weather a bit off for swimming?"</div>
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"The temperature's fine, even if it's a little cloudy. It doesn't look like it will rain today," Marc answers, looking up at the sky, "So we're going to Myna Beach for a bit. Oh, these are Chris's cousins, by the way."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"...Charmed," Joe notes, keeping his attention on his son, "And you're sure that swimming is all you're doing?"</div>
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"What else would we be doing, going on an expedition to find some hotsprings to take a dip in?" Mallory involves herself, hands on her hips, "We're wearing swimsuits. What could possibly be suspicious about that?"</div>
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"You could be going to a party," Joe answers, waving his hand in the air next to himself, "A degnerate party with somebody who owns a hot tub... Like, say, Evan Temmer?"</div>
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John freezes up at the mention of that name and steps forward, almost protective of Marc, "We don't talk to Evan anymore and you know it, Joe."</div>
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"I don't <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">know</i> anything," Joe responds, clenching his fists, "And you should watch your tone, John Shingle. My son has kept secrets from me before and I'm right to worry that he'll do it again, so forgive me if I don't believe that a gaggle of teenagers aren't up to no good."</div>
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"Dad," Marc glares at him, "We really are just going swimming. Chris is on the swim team, remember? Swimming is too important to him for it to be used as an excuse."</div>
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"I guess there's nothing I can do based on suspicion," Joe sighs, and throws his hands up as he turns back around, "Whatever. Don't say I didn't warn you if you do something stupid. and face the consequences for it."</div>
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With that, Joe Fitson leaves the group behind. There's silence for a while before Tina speaks up, "Who's Evan Temmer?"</div>
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"Evan's a kid in my grade, likes acting as if he's older than he is. He's pretty rich, so he's pretty popular," John answers, folding his arms over his chest, "We used to hang out with him a lot, but he... Well, he turned out to be a little bit of an asshole. I guess rich guys sometimes are, right?"</div>
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Marc hesitates, but does add in an explanation of his own, "I dunno if he was really trying to be an asshole, though. He just didn't know how to take no for an answer, in certain situations. Truth is, when he asked me out I might have said sure, let's give it a shot, if not for my dad."</div>
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"Of course," Mallory steps in, "Word travels fast in a small town like this one, you know? Even though Marc turned him down, Evan spread a rumor that they <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">were</i> dating. Joe freaked out, and we had to come up with some story about us all hating Evan now just to get him to lay off Marc a little bit. You can probably tell he didn't lay off much."</div>
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"Goddamn," Dawson shakes his head in a dismissive fashion, "What the Hell was that about? Gay people just don't have any sense of boundaries, huh?"</div>
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"We're still friends with Evan. We just don't hang out outside of school anymore, because he pulled that one dick move, and now Joe'll be up all our asses if he sees us in the same place," Marc wrinkles his nose at Dawson, "It has nothing to do with his sexuality, and that was just one boundary that he admits he fucked up on."</div>
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"It's straight guys who don't know what boundaries are," Chris jokes, "So I've heard, anyway. I guess anyone can cross the line, but every rumor has a reason."</div>
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"If some guy did that to me, I'd beat his ass," Dawson puts his hands behind his head, "You can do what you want, I guess, but don't expect me to meet this Evan guy. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who'd pull that is a huge tool. Telling someone you're dating a person when you're not? Who would do that?"</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Dawson," Tina mutters, trying to communicate that he ought to stop talking without making it seem as if she's outright defying him.</div>
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"Look, Dawson," Chris stops walking as his feet touch the pebbles of Myna Beach, "I dunno what you're hearing from anyone, but if you're going to hang out with me and my friends, you have to be a little bit nicer than that. Evan's a good guy, and I hear enough trash talk about him from Joe. I don't need to hear you ragging on my friend, too."</div>
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"Even assholes deserve a second chance," John doesn't seem quite as forgiving as the others, but he's got a light tone as he says this, "Really, as long as they're trying to get better, assholes need friends to encourage them to change."</div>
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Dawson looks between everyone, then huffs through his nose as he walks away down the beach, leaving the rest of the group behind. Nobody bothers to try going after him, or even calling out for him to calm down. Eventually, Mallory turns to Tina, "Your brother is kind of a dick, no offense."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"None taken," Tina shrugs, "He is."</div>
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"Though... Even assholes deserve a second chance?" Mallory questions, looking to John. He shakes his head at her, but she puts both hands on her hips and separates her legs in a determined stance, "There's gotta be something worth somebody's time in that guy, and I'll find it. Well, not like I think he'll be worth <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">my</i> time, but somebody's, you know?"</div>
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"I wouldn't recommend that," Tina says, and everyone else agrees with her. Chris, too, isn't especially fond of his emotionally maladjusted cousin. It's beginning to seem like nobody does, but that can't be true. Dawson has plenty of friends at school. Maybe somehow, some types of people are drawn to someone as absurdly crude as Dawson Packard.</div>
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"Come on. What's the worst that could happen?" Mallory asks, then wanders down the beach towards the water, "Anyway, Chris. I'll race you. Ready to stomp me?"</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Always," Chris jokes back, dashing down to stand next to her, waves lapping up at their toes. John runs forward as well to cheer his sister on, leaving Marc and Tina standing at the head of the beach, looking down.</div>
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Marc looks to Tina, then speaks up, quiet, "You should stay here."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"What?" Tina questions, eyes wide as she turns to look back at him, "I don't- Why?"</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Marc shrugs, "Because you're fitting in with us? I feel like you'd be better off here than back in New Mexico."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Huh," Tina hesitates, bringing her arms up around herself, "Well, maybe you're right, but... I wouldn't make you deal with Dawson any longer than you need to. Seems like nobody's getting along great with him."</div>
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"I'm not saying Dawson should stay here. I'm saying you should," Marc steps closer to Tina and reaches out, putting a hand on her shoulder, "I'm pretty sure that Chris's family would let you stay with them. If they wouldn't, then I know for a fact that Jacob; I mean, Mr. Shingle, would."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Tina chuckles a bit, "You know John and Mallory's Dad well enough that you call him by his first name?"</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Nah, he's just one of those types of dads who says you should call him by his first name. Everyone calls my dad Joe because they hate him and it's disrespectful, but Jacob's always just trying to be the cool dad," Marc explains, "I guess it kind of works? As much as a police officer can be the cool dad, anyway. He's trying his best."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
TIna nods before she speaks again, "He sounds nice. Well, that explains why John and Mallory are such sweethearts..."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Yeah, they were actually raised well," Marc agrees with a small laugh, "I mean, if you ignore all the snark, those two are some of the nicest people I've ever met. Mallory's even saying she'd give Dawson a chance to prove he's not as obnoxious as his first impression? That takes a certain type of person for sure."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"Heh. Yeah, that's saying something," Tina admits, "Maybe it's shitty for me to say this about my own brother, but I don't think that there's anything there for Mallory to find. He's... Well, he's probably a walking trash bag. I don't mean that as an insult, I mean it as, there's not any good there. And a trash bag could have been filled up with something to donate to charity or something, but he just got garbage."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"You think that he could have been better?" Marc asks, not seeming at all put-off by Tina's terminology. Despite it being rude and a bit cruel, he just finds himself agreeing with what she says.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"I dunno. Maybe. I guess there's still time, he could mature some more," Tina says, "He could end up being a better person. And he probably could have been better from the start if we weren't left alone all of the time... Well, I'm just thinking about things which aren't true right now. It's pretty pointless to think about what-ifs like that. And Hell, maybe he really isn't as bad as I think."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"You're defending him now?" Marc asks, and Tina just shrugs in response. He scoffs, "Don't. Just... Don't bother, okay? I didn't like the guy from the moment I met him, so obviously, there's something about him that's really unlikable. You don't need to stand up for a guy like that just to try and sound like you're a better person for not hating him. You're allowed to dislike people. Even if they are related to you..." He hisses, scratching the back of his neck as he looks away.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Tina leans to look at his face, "So you don't get along with your father too well, huh? I mean, he really seems like kind of a dick."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"He is," Marc groans, dropping his arm to his side, "My dad's... Well, he's just the kind of guy who's way too proud of having a son? You know, he's always encouraging me to be more masculine and shit like that. It's pretty goddamn lame."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"I know someone like that," TIna suddenly recalls, "Back in New Mexico. Her name's Anna, and she's really obsessive over having a daughter. She makes her dress up all the time, makes her act especially girly. And in a way my friend appreciates that, but it can also be annoying to have somebody putting such specific expectations on you..." Tina thinks for a moment, "I guess, even I've experienced having expectations put on me, but I can handle them. I like having an idealized version of myself to strive for."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"I don't," Marc says, "I don't like having people expect anything of me. Makes me feel like I don't have room to grow or change... Like I just gotta stick to a mold, you feel?"</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
"I get it," Tina agrees, and she does. She can see it in him, the effects of growing up like that. The entire group is at the age when they begin to develop a real sense of self-questioning and identity, and it can be suffocating to start having those thoughts in a situation where one has always been willing and ready to let their identity be shaped by someone else.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
---</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Jacob Shingle likes to think of himself as a good man. At least, that's what he tries to be. It's not like he has any scale to measure himself against, and he's certainly made his own fair share of mistakes in his lifetime, but he still holds onto the idea that he's a good person. He is a good person.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Jacob has two children, and he lives with the two of them in a somewhat nice two-story house. He's never left his hometown of Mesteri because he has a stable job and the real estate market here is absolute garbage, which for anyone looking to afford a home, is great news. The island's inconvenient and lacking in jobs, has been since shortly after the conclusion of World War II. It's a dying town, but he calls it home, and he doubts he'll ever leave. This is where he'd hoped to build a future with his wife.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Even with her gone, he doesn't want to leave that idea behind.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
John, the elder of his two children, is fifteen now. He seems to keep to himself for the most part, and unlike most parents, Jacob is glad for that. Fifteen was how hold he himself was when John was born, and though he doesn't regret the outcome of that ordeal, he wouldn't wish the experience on anyone but his worst enemy. It was hard to deal with all the guilt and scorn at the time, but he and Adelaide had worked through it enough that she was already pregnant with Mallory by the time the pair was graduating.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
There was just that much love between them. It's been eleven years now since she died, not soon after Mallory was born. At least John has a few fond memories. It's been over a decade, and Jacob knows that he'll never truly be over her. Nonetheless, he keeps moving forward. It's a very important thing to do, he's well aware. Jacob has to be there for his children, and even when he was still in active mourning, he's always made sure to put them first.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
His career choice is even linked to his children, in a way. He became a police officer because there's a shortage of them in Mesteri, and an abundance of crimes that go utterly unnoticed. Having been a teen himself not too terribly long ago, Jacob's work with the police sometimes makes it seem like he's the only one who's really trying to keep the kids safe. There's juvenile crime all over, and in a town such that everyone knows everyone, anyone who knows their neighbor's doing something illegal will probably keep quiet out of fear for their own secrets being revealed.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Jacob doesn't have those qualms, though. He doesn't have secrets at all; It isn't that only his nearby neighbors have a grasp on the more unsavory aspects of his life, but his secrets were already all up on display in the past. Perhaps now that his kids are reaching the point where they're transitioning from children to adults, he'll have to be a little more concerned, but for the time being he's happy to keep tabs on everyone and act on anything which is truly unsavory.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
At least, as much as he's able to learn about. People are more careful with their gossip around a police officer, so he doesn't hear as much as other people might. He knows enough, though, and he's busted several people with this tactic in his career. He has a deep-seated desire to bring due legal process to anyone who needs it, especially the worst type of people in the world who always seem to fly under the radar in towns like this one.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
There's still a shortage of police, even compared to the town's population, but Jacob likes to feel that he's making some small difference to that situation. Obviously, he's not about to single-handedly stop all crime in Mesteri, but he can certainly work to make sure that he stops everything he can.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
A comfort to him is that recently, his children have made another friend. They're both very kind kids, but they have sarcastic streaks and introverted hobbies that keep them from being too sociable. Their friend Chris introduced them to his own childhood friend, and Jacob's glad for that. Deborah Fitson is a lovely, compassionate woman. She's a bit flighty and forgetful, but she has her own fair share of talents.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Joe, meanwhile... Jacob can't say that he's fond of Joe Fitson, the few times that they've met. It could be that it's only a reflection of his offense at meeting such a brazen homophobe with his own bisexuality in mind, but that man definitely rubs him the wrong way. It's a wonder that somebody as kindhearted as Deborah wound up with a guy like that, but Jacob can't presume to know how they got together.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
It's a strange family, he thinks. Not that they're especially odd in any measurable way, but he just can't understand what they're doing in Mesteri. He knows that they moved to town before Marc was born, but they bought quite a nice house, and a nice car, and Joe's income is certainly enough that they could have settled down to start a family in someplace nicer than this.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Especially considering that they moved here from Kansas. It would be one thing to want to get out of Seattle, away from the city to have a child in a quiet town, and there's a variety of options for housing here that would give them the benefit of picking and choosing for individual features in a home... But it wasn't like most of the midwest wasn't in the same position. There were plenty of great homes for raising a family in those states. Really, it doesn't make sense for anybody to move here from that far away.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
As far as he knows, they don't even have any family in this area. That's the most confusing part. Well, he doesn't have time to dwell on that sort of thing today. He's visiting his mother to help her with some housework projects; Hanging some framed puzzles that she's recently finished putting together, fixing a leak in the roof. Jacob always spends his days off in one of two ways; Doing something fun with his children, or finding something else to busy himself with.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
He doesn't like to be bored, and there aren't a ton of televisions shows which interest him in a particular amount, so he finds himself with strange hobbies. When he's not messing around his own home or helping his mother at hers, he enjoys baking and putting together model vehicles. Planes, boats, whatever kits he can buy for cheap that he thinks will look good on shelves around the house. He finds it funny that he's ended up with such a stereotypical dad hobby, but it does help give the house some life that it wouldn't have otherwise.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
He's still a single dad after all, and though he makes good enough money, it's not so much that he can splurge on real decor for the house. Any extra money he ends up with goes toward his children, because he had a great childhood right up until he screwed it all up for himself. He wants to give his kids the world, or at least their own pleasant childhood where he can.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-48071079988382780762017-11-11T13:36:00.000-08:002018-09-17T11:31:14.198-07:00Checkboxes Chapter Twelve<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/10/checkboxes-chapter-eleven.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/01/checkboxes-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><--------First Chapter</a></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Fucko promised yesterday that it would give me answers soon, and I suppose I'm enough of a wet noodle to allow that to placate me for the time being. I don't feel bitter about it, though. Not in the least bit, which may seem strange, but it's good enough for now just to be assured that there are answers for me, even if I can't be provided with them yet. It's like wondering if you'll be receiving a birthday gift, and then being assured that there is one on the way, but the shipping's been delayed so it will arrive a little late. In the meantime, I just need to listen to what it decides I should do next. Today is Tuesday, so I won't be able to talk to anybody in the Light Music Club after school. </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I know that Fucko will tell me who I'm supposed to be talking to, but I can't help but try and figure out who it could be each day that I'm supposed to have a conversation with. I have to assume it's somebody I haven't talked to much yet, so maybe one of the other members of the occult club...</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box;">Wrong.</i></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I don't need this.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box;">Anyway, the real situation is this. At lunch, you should speak with Maka Nishikikouji, then after school you'll want to have a conversation with Shizuka Inbo.</i></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Oh, Maka. We haven't talked much yet, just a few passing words on the school trip and when she was in the science room yesterday. I'm sure Fucko won't give me direction on where she eats her lunches, so I decide to go searching for her instead and find that she's sitting under a tree in the courtyard, eating french-fries out of a takeout box with chopsticks. I walk up to her and crouch down, then sit cross-legged a few inches from the ends of her feet. She sets her chopsticks down and pulls her mask back up over her face from around her neck before she speaks, "Ah, hello, Hako-chan... What brings you here?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I just want to have a conversation," I shrug, pulling out my own lunch from my bag. It's leftovers from last night's dinner. Rice and grilled chicken were good warm with fresh vegetables, but I mixed in some seaweed salad to have it cold today, "Is that okay? You can keep eating. It's fine if I see you without the mask on, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's rude..." Maka mumbles, then startles in place and waves a hand around as she corrects herself, "Rude to you, not rude to me! The mask is a symbol that I stand for protecting the girls of this town, you included, so to remove it in your presence feels like I'm saying that I don't intend to protect you, which isn't the case at all..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Is that why when we all ate together the first day in Kyoto, you all kept your masks on? I thought you were just scared of city germs," I note.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Nope," Maka shakes her head, "It was out of respect for you and Shorty-chan."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I see Kaiba-san's nickname rubbed off on you," I chuckle, feeling a bit bad for Sayaka. I am glad that Kaiba doesn't know me well enough to come up with an embarrassing nickname for me, but then again, Sayaka didn't seem too bothered by it. It's all in good fun, it seems, "I don't need protecting, though, so it's fine. You can eat with convenience instead!" I lean towards her, 'Why are you eating fries with chopsticks, though?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, that's simple," Maka answers, lowering her mask at my permission, then holds up her right hand, "I grew up in a place that taught me the left hand is unclean, and it's kind of ingrained. I'm left-handed though, and the first knuckles on my right hand don't move. All I can do is flex the fingers themselves and move my thumb, I can't do anything like make a fist or do fine-motor tasks. Picking up finger food is impossible, too, so I just use utensils. They exist to be used, after all, I may as well use them even if it's for a less conventional purpose."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That makes sense," I agree, starting to eat my own lunch, "Where did you get that, anyway? I didn't think there was any western takeout in town."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Maka glances at the bag, and I note that there's not even a logo yet, it's just a brown paper bag, "It's a new place. I heard about it, and decided to try it. Here, try some! I think it's pretty good, though I'm not exactly a meat connoisseur."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That is good!" I am not a meat connoisseur either, though. In fact, I am not a connoisseur of anything, "I bet everyone here would be happy to hear a place like that's opened up in Korekara, you should spread the word!" </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wish I could," She shrugs, stretching out, "But, you know, I don't have a lot of presence at all. It's hard to get anyone to pay attention to me in the first place. I think you're actually the only person outside of No Boys who has ever acknowledged me. It's a shame... I even do my best to stand out. I dyed my hair, and I tie my neckerchief, and I wear yellow shoes. None of that seems to get me noticed, though. Kaiba-kun says it's a skill, and I guess it is, but I would still prefer to have a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">different</i> skill than natural stealth, maybe?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I shrug, "It happens. People end up in situations that aren't preferable all the time, but you know, I do think that it's important that you find a way to use your talent for a good cause. If you have a unique ability, something that most people need to <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">learn</i> to do but that you're naturally good at? Use it to help people, then do what you really love to do for yourself."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you in a situation which isn't preferable?" She questions, and I freeze. Am I? Would I prefer to be anything other than following Fucko's instructions? I guess it depends. Somebody would need to be doing what I am, instead. I'm using my talent to help people just the same as I just told Maka to do, and I'm proud of myself for it. It's still strange to think what I'd be doing if this burden belonged to somebody else instead. Probably just sticking to Amai all the time, like when we were little kids. Or, if I'd never been in a coma, with her and Hiromi and Sayuri. It's for the better, though, that we went our separate ways, so I'm not even sure now that I'd want that change.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No," I answer, and it's the truth. My situation is preferable. I wouldn't want to have any other responsibility than this. I wouldn't want to be anyone else but me; and having a different experience would have made me a different person than I am right now. I'll let time take its course to decide who I'm going to be, and I won't change that.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box;">That same fate which seems to desire the deaths of all your friends?</i></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I wouldn't mind if somebody else changed my fate. And I'll change the fate of others, too. I would never do anything, though, to try and alter the path I'm supposed to take as a person. And it really does feel like the path I'm meant to take, at least for now, is the one that Fucko's leading me down.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">----------------</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">After school, I set about looking for Shizuka, as I was instructed to speak with her today. She isn't anywhere I'd expect her to be, though. Nowhere to be found, even, when I start looking in the places that I would <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">not</i> expect her to be. How am I supposed to follow my instructions if the girl I need to speak with is not around? Nobody's even seen her that I ask, so I decide to ask Kemuri. She'll know if Shizuka left the campus, anyway, though I'm not sure how I'm supposed to speak with her if she's not even around. Unfortunately, even she has no clue where Shizuka could be. I'm thinking about giving up, since Fucko's once again giving me the 'telling you the details would break the rules' schtick. I don't understand how the rules are more important than me actually completing my goal, though. I sigh and sit down against the wall in the hallway.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hako-san?" Somebody questions, and I look up to see Iwako standing over me. She's standing as if somebody taped a ragdoll to a stick, in contrast to her usual sharp posture. I guess she's not trying to be intimidating right now, "What are you doing here? Are you waiting for somebody?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, I was looking for Inbo-chan, but nobody's seen her today. Doctor, do you know where she is?" I question, standing up to look her in the eyes with my hands behind my back. She only holds eye contact for a moment before glancing away.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I-Inbo-san...?" She stutters. I never took the doctor for the type of woman to stutter.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," I nod, "Shizuka Inbo. I guess I can't just assume you know who everybody in the school is though, huh?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She pauses a moment, taking one deep breath before she answers me, "I do know who Shizuka Inbo is. She's not the first in her family to attend this school, however. I'm sorry, I was remembering her elder sister..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, her sister attended?" I ask, pushing against the ground to get to my feet, brushing the dust off the front of my skirt.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Iwako hesitates, then gestures for me to follow her, turning back around to enter the infirmary again. She unlocks it, her movements slow and unrefined. This seems very unlike her. I follow her into the infirmary, and she closes the door behind us, then just throws the key onto her desk. She pushes her glasses up her nose before she speaks again, "I can trust you, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'd like to think I'm trustworthy," I answer.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It isn't a matter of <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">you</i> being trustworthy," Iwako shakes her head, "It's a matter of me being able to trust you. There's a big difference there. I know you're trustworthy, but I also know that you're talking to a lot of people. I don't know if you would keep quiet if you learned of a crime."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I definitely would. I have, so far," I nod, "I would never tell the police about a crime. Usually crimes aren't that bad. When they are bad, it's better to leave things to the vigilantes. Incarceration rates may be high in this country for people who go on trial, but indicting can be a problem for a lot of the things which I think are actually terrible to do."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"In that case, I suppose I can tell you. You've been informed of Yui Asahi, and the rest of her graduating class, yes?" Iwako asks, and I nod, so she continues, "Inbo-san's elder sister was in that class. She was a nice girl, but everything was so chaotic for that class. Sasane... Well, Ikimura-sensei, she wasn't assigned to that class that year. The english teacher at that point was a woman named Mercury Mars. We thought she was trustworthy, but it seemed she engineered the downfall of that class, since she disappeared shortly after Asahi-san's death. Meiko Inbo was one of that year's innocent victims."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh..." I mumble, shifting between my feet, "So it's because of that teacher, what happened to them that year?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Iwako shrugs, "We never could have known that. We only suspect her because she disappeared without a trace in the end of it all. Everyone said she was a good teacher, they liked her. I guess we're only even pinning it on her because we don't want to believe that everything would have happened without her there. The public release blames Yui Asahi, though, because... We didn't want to admit that we'd made a mistake in our hiring process."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Some people think that it's a conspiracy," I note.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't blame them, it's pretty conspiratory," Iwako gives a bitter chuckle, "Meiko was murdered by one of her classmates, and Mars-san brought her to me in a panic. I wasn't able to save her... So I killed her killer. I contributed to the loss of that class. It was this day two years ago, that Meiko died. So, I sent Inbo-san home early. She came to me looking for advice on her mental health, and all I could do for her was tell her to go back to her house and rest."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Doctor," I ask, taking a step towards her, "Can you tell me more about the class of 2015?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can't," Iwako shakes her head, "I wish that I could, but there's more important things for you to be worrying about right now. I'm sure you'll find out more about them someday in the future, but I'm sure you have things to focus on. Oh, you wanted to speak with Inbo-san, right?" She turns to her desk and scribbles something out on a scrap of paper. Her handwriting is awful. She hands me the paper, "Her address, assuming she didn't go back to her <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">family</i> home."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thank you, Doctor," I nod, then look down at the paper. I should have expected that Shizuka doesn't live in one of the dorms, given she comes from such a rich family. I recognize the street name, though, so I get going. It's still close enough to the school to walk, though it may take me a while. Half an hour of walking at a brisk pace, a while, it turns out, but I find myself in front of her home. It's quite large, but not as big as I expected it to be. I knock the door, and I don't get an answer, but it swings open. I frown and step inside, even though that's probably a bit rude of me to do. I don't see her anywhere.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Just investigate, it should be fine</i>.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I think it's weird to just wander around somebody's house, uninvited, trying to find them... But I'll do as Fucko says. It turns out that though the house is large, the rooms are not; the first floor consists of a fairly normal layout, with a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and empty bedroom which I'm assuming is the one that Shizuka uses. Upstairs, however, just seems to be made up entirely of small rooms off of branching hallways, each one with a different theme. They don't appear lived in at all, more like photographs of fake houses used to advertise things in catalogs. As I'm searching through all of these different rooms, I eventually stumble across the one that Shizuka's actually in, though I don't say anything after opening the door. She seems to be on camera right now, which makes sense. I know she makes gaming videos and streams. The room is themed like an ultra-cute kitchen, and it looks like she's playing a cooking-themed game.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">So I now understand the nature of all of these rooms. She's really dedicated to her gaming channel, it seems. I like seeing that; it's a nice reminder, when I'm trying my best to help everyone through their traumas, that everyone is also working hard at those talents which they all have. That's what Natsuki was saying to me yesterday. Everyone here is recognized for excellence, but there are still, for some reason, dangers. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">As talented as everyone at Korekara is, that excellence had no future for them before being invited here. As long as the faculty can twist it around when releasing information to the media, there's nothing to be done but accept it. It's survival of the fittest. We fail, then we die. We succeed, then we go on to rise above the rest. It's a test of youth. Even with the declining birthrate, nobody really wants anyone who's incapable of contributing society to continue living here, even if they say they're better than that.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I understand it, now, but I won't fight it. I'll go with the flow, honestly, because I'm the same as everyone else. I don't want anybody to die. But were I told that somebody did something self-destructive and died because of it, and that a certain place just gathers up the people who'd do that kind of thing, I wouldn't blame the place which gathered them. I'd feel bad, and wish it didn't happen, but being told that it's someone's own fault, what sort of outrage could I muster? Even when I might be targeted by this same type of media manipulation someday, I'm not angry at all.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Ten minutes later, after I've gone to wait in the hallway, Shizuka walks out of the recording room and sits down next to where I'd slid down to sit on the floor. Neither of us say anything for a while, until she speaks up, playing with her hands in front of herself, "Hako-senpai. Why did you come here?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was looking for you after school today," I shrug, "Then Same-Hakase told me this was the anniversary of when your sister died at Korekara two years ago, and gave me your address."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Meiko..." Shizuka sighs, looking up at the ceiling, "We were going to share this house, before that happened..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I have to take time to think before I speak again. I want to avoid being disrespectful, "Why did you decide to attend Korekara after it killed your sister?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Korekara Academy didn't kill Meiko," Shizuka answers with a shake of her head, "How could you blame the school for what happened to her, when it was just one student?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's what everybody does," I note, "Korekara Academy is dangerous, that's the opinion."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Everywhere is dangerous," Shizuka mumbles, crossing her legs, "The whole world is just full up with danger, and there's nothing to be done about that. Just because certain places get a reputation... That doesn't mean they really are any more dangerous than others. It just means that the truth has been made clearer there. Meiko could have been killed just as easily while on a train, or in our own family home. So of course I won't blame Korekara Academy. Anyone who does is an idiot."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I stay quiet for a while longer again, sitting on my hands. Trying to explain the way that I feel about our school, "Well, of course it's not the school itself, but I hear things. People think the faculty have a hand in it all."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't care if they do," Shizuka answers, glaring at the far wall, "I don't. I blame only the person who killed Meiko, and she's dead too. It's closure, I have closure. I'm not going to open myself up to other possibilities when I'm already content in what I have. Of course I'm still grieving! Anybody would," She hisses, then returns her tone to a mellow one, "Why would you bother theorizing that more people are against you than probably are?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Shizuka has a good point, and it's one that I haven't heard before. Now that I think about it, it's probably important that she disregard conspiracy theories and worst case scenarios, as somebody whose made a name for herself on the internet. So many people look to her for entertainment, so many people looking to criticize her every move. It goes beyond the raw skill she needs to play games well on stream, she also has to give them charisma and a collected appearance. To let herself think for even a moment that the people she works so hard for might be after her head, I can only imagine that would be unbearable. </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">That definitely provides some perspective to the idea that ignorance is bliss. That saying always seemed strange to me before, but I can understand it as it relates to this particular situation. Maybe that's why Amai is always talking about how weird things are common knowledge. She'd rather be ignorant and blissful than admit that something's wrong.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Anyway," Shizuka starts again, eventually, as she stands up, "Since you're here anyway, I guess I may as well make two portions for dinner..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, it's fine, you don't have to!" I'd hate to impose, "My parents actually live in Korekara too, so I can always eat dinner with them. I did show up unannounced at your house and just walked in and went searching for you. I think I've caused you quite enough trouble for one day."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Trouble? I mean, I have to cook my own food anyway. The least you could do to make all that up to me is let me actually be a good host for once in my life," She rolls her eyes, then holds a hand out to me. I take it and stand up, then she goes downstairs to the real kitchen rather than the prop one, and I follow.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So what game were you playing?" I ask, deciding to make small talk now that the heavy topic's out of the way. I still don't know quite what Shizuka's real reason for being invited to this school is, it can't be a result of Meiko's death given they were planning to live together when Shizuka arrived. My earlier decision still stands, though. I won't press her on the matter, because she has better friends to open up to.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Huh? Oh, I set up my wii in there. I was working on one-hundred-percent completion on Cooking Mama. I guess that's not really an impressive game, but I think after completing a no-deaths stream of Dark Souls I deserve to play something a little less hardcore," She shrugs, opening up the fridge, "Is it fine if I make pasta primavera? I have a lot of vegetables I need to use before they rot."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Sounds good to me," I nod, "I mean, you're being nice enough to offer me dinner, you don't have to ask me what I'd like... Make what you want to, and I'll eat it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Pasta Primavera indeed," She decides, pulling out several bell peppers and cherry tomatoes from her fridge. Most grocery stores outside of metropolitan centers only carry produce in season, so I'm a little surprised to hear that she's got two vegetables whose seasons are decidedly not October. I guess when you're rich you can get any type of food you want anytime, no matter where you live.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Shizuka's food is good, though obviously not mind-blowing like Amai's is. That's only to be expected, since her talent is video gaming and she isn't even in the cooking club. It's still pretty great, and I would almost say it's unfair that she actually has <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">two</i> talents, but she's just so much better at the one she was admitted for that I wouldn't call them comparable.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Either way, her food's better than either of my parents', and <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">way</i> better than anything I could do myself, given that I learned almost nothing spending my first year in the cooking club. I really was mostly just in it to spend time with Amai. I'd have joined it again when I got back, probably, if not for Fucko's instruction to aid at the infirmary.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I'm glad that I am the infirmary aid, though. Iwako is actually nice, at least to me, and she seems to have information about the class who all died. I also get the feeling that she knows what Fucko and I are trying to do, since when I started asking about that class she told me that I have more important things to worry about right now. I guess she's right about that.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">---------</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Apollo, come in," The communicator inside my ear buzzes with those words, waking me from sleep. I sit up and rub my eyes.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Apollo here. Roxie?" It could be any number of a few different people, but I'm pretty sure I recognize her voice, "What do you want?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Don't be rude," She continues. I stand up and wander around the room, pacing despite the fact that I've been advised against moving around too much for the time being. Something about it wearing away on my joints until later on. I can't say that worries me much, though, and talking on the phone while sitting still just feels very tedious, "Do I have to want anything to contact you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I freeze where I stand, then deadpan, "Yes."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, I don't," Roxie says, shocking me, "I don't need anything from you, I just wanted to update you on the situation. Everything is proceeding just the way that Fucko wants, though the subject is beginning to become curious about unrelated matters, such as how the AI knows what needs to be done, or what happened to the class of 2015. You still have some influence, right? Do you think you could push her back on track?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Influence or no influence, it's impossible to change what she thinks. Now, why is it a problem if she wonders about those things? Is the control function broken?" I question, tapping my fingers on a desk as I lean against it, "I thought I witnessed it working just yesterday."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Witnessed?" Roxie questions.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"This is what happens when you don't check in, Roxie, you don't even know what sort of options I have at my disposal. This whole place is wired with security cameras. Collaboration between Kira and the club," I can't help but taunt her as I power up the monitors again, just to check them. I don't expect to see anything but Sakazaki and Yamiko around the school grounds in the middle of the night, but I may as well have a look around, "Very useful asset, as long as we don't let it fall into the wrong hands. Lucky for us, Sakazaki Yuu is the only possible leak, and our esteemed president has her under control."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you sure that Kira's not the wrong hands?" Roxie asks, and I think about that for a moment. Well, we couldn't have gotten these set up <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">without</i> permission from the headmaster, so it's not like that's even a relevant part of the equation. Roxie continues speaking, though, "And isn't it very suspicious for you to be spying on an all-girls' school like this, Apollo?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"As a man, yes. As me, Apollo, no. As men go I'm not exactly on the scale of likely to peek at the girls' locker rooms," Just as I say this, I notice something on one of the screens. That's... Odd. I expand it to the full monitor rather than just the quarter it was taking up to get a better look, and just as I was worried, there's somebody standing in the middle of the courtyard, wading in the fountain, "Hey, Roxie? Any info on an unidentified student who stands in the fountain on this night?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You know where I get my data, right? What possible reason could she have ever had to witness this?" Roxie questions, and I realize that she's right. This is a variable we couldn't have possibly predicted, and unknown variables have a habit of throwing things off. I realize what I have to do. There's only one option, I can't go investigate it myself. I have to outsource.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Roxie, I'm gonna have to call you back," I say, then hang up on her before making another call.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Hello?" Sakazaki questions, answering without a hint of grogginess. It's nearly two in the morning, she should be asleep. Then again, she is a disaster. I'm pretty sure she's been drinking from the pitch of her voice, but I can just hope it's been a light beer night rather than any heavier liquor.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yuu-senpai," I refer to her with respect despite not technically being her underclassman. I'm still younger than her, "It's Apollo. We've met once before. I need you to take on a mission for me."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"A mission?" She questions. Good, I've piqued her interest.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"In the courtyard right now, there's a girl wearing the Korekara uniform who has waded into the fountain at the center. I can't make out her identity. Think you could find that out for me?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Can do, Apollo sir!" Sakazaki agrees, and stays on the line as she makes her way out to the courtyard. I watch her on the cameras, though I keep my focus on the courtyard camera. The girl standing in the fountain hasn't moved. Sakazaki arrives in the courtyard, then approaches the fountain. Since the only way to identify the girl is to see her face, and to do so would require shining a flashlight at her, Sakazaki doesn't bother to be stealthy. She moves to the edge of the fountain then calls out, "Hey, you! What's the big idea?" The girl in the fountain turns to face her, and she exclaims immediately, "T-Tomoe-chan!?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Saka...zaki..." I can hear Tomoe through the communicator as she steps toward the wall of the fountain, reaching out, "Please, don't make us... go back there..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Us?" Sakazaki asks a clarifying question, and on the screen I can see another silhouette behind her. The frame is human, but the slow, creeping movements like a cat stalking its prey. Animal and unnatural. I act on instinct.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yuu!" I shout, "Get out of there, now!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"H-Huh?" She questions, then Tomoe grabs for her wrist. She avoids it and starts running, only for both of them to chase after her. Tomoe's legs hardly seem to be moving, but she's keeping up with the other's savage movements. As she's running, Sakazaki yells back at me, "It's Tomoe and Nami, but... it's not them! Apollo, they're Class X agents, aren't they?? What are they doing here!?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Good inferring," I can't help but praise her observation, "They're definitely not human. Nami and Tomoe Kaguya died gruesome deaths, and-"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinlTaC-HVPyp8d5smRpvDMWrGgWKSgetqJZYObSOD2GqDNeYEFeD3rYObJmlc74dnIOPwFYGpo1eLj1yZv6Nsq47iTzmyhRX6-cux_ZMVEg6K0DIyPxcUptPOBL-OE90x3yrxC-6bUBd42/s1600/twinss.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinlTaC-HVPyp8d5smRpvDMWrGgWKSgetqJZYObSOD2GqDNeYEFeD3rYObJmlc74dnIOPwFYGpo1eLj1yZv6Nsq47iTzmyhRX6-cux_ZMVEg6K0DIyPxcUptPOBL-OE90x3yrxC-6bUBd42/s640/twinss.PNG" width="534" /></span></a><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's the thing," Sakazaki continues, checking the doors as she goes for one that's not locked which she could hide inside, "Tomoe's got an eyepatch, it's on the same eye that those thugs- That she got hurt. You have any clue what the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hell</i> those scientists are up to this time?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're more in with 'Assis-co' than I am at this point," I answer, "I know less than you do. If I had to hazard a guess, though, Kira sent off the bodies for experimentation. Maybe they're being controlled by AIs. Robots in flesh bodies," It's the only theory I can think of, since I know that those scientists haven't dabbled in demon magic since Ren Massou-Kobayashi turned up dead. Given the fact that Fucko could, if it wanted, take complete control of Box's body means it's also entirely possible that a corpse could be managed by an AI, if all organs and the like were restored to normal working order first. I can't imagine Doctor Same could manage a process like that, since she splits her time between surgery and chemistry, but there's always Doctor Martin... </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I really fuckin' hate Kira sometimes!" Sakazaki sounds like she's on the brink of tears, but manages to get one of the doors open. The infirmary. She shuts it tight behind herself, and locks it. There's one loud crash against the door as the thing which used to be Nami tries to get inside, but then the both of them give up and instead make a break for the school gates, both escaping into the night and out of my field of vision. Don't make them go back there. Were they trying to force Sakazaki to help them escape? Why were they at Korekara in the first place? I run back through the footage from earlier in the night, and my suspicions are confirmed. Certain cameras were disabled for a short time. Whoever created those two wanted to show them off to Kira. Further investigation of the footage proves to me that they must have escaped from Kira's office, but probably received some sort of halt command which was only broken when Sakazaki appeared.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">I worry about that.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Things have been going so well. Box is doing so well. I'd hate for Fucko to have to start all over again. I call Roxie again.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Please put the appearance of Class Experimental agents Nami and Tomoe Kaguya into your permanent databank. Maybe we'll know what to do about them the next time around."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2018/01/checkboxes-chapter-13.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black;">Next Chapter-></span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-81466369159653148142017-11-04T13:13:00.000-07:002018-09-17T11:43:04.752-07:00Evil Meet Justice Chapter Four<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/10/evil-meet-justice-chapter-three.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/evil-meet-justice-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Dawson has the sense not to do anything to Tina when she arrives back, anything but a strict talking-to. He knows that if he does anything to her physically, his aunt and uncle will notice and become suspicious, with the trip coming up so soon. They weren't especially observant people; if they were, they would have taken Dawson and Tina in a long time ago. After all, they were good people. If they knew just how neglected their niece and nephew were, they wouldn't stand for it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tina manages to keep to herself for the rest of the evening, and she and Dawson take the bus to the airport early the next morning. He stinks, as most teenage boys do, so it's unpleasant to be next to him on the plane. Even so, she's able to fall asleep, and when she wakes up, the plane's already in descent in Seattle. She's glad for that. Once they're on the ground, she and Dawson get their baggage, and she's hardly pulled her suitcase off of the carousel when she looks up and sees her cousin rushing towards them, calling out, "Tina! Dawson! How was your flight?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey Chris!" Tina greets him with a wave and a smile, "It was nice, I got a good catnap in."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbPlRBrWH8mJems3hkdz0kjweEMaPL18qVpgAMItFjTaesFa5FdUFx0Zf38sAYsETsSbWKAKM9jfp9Krr4Bb2VqXs6aM9On18FjsswvUwjhFFbgg82lVBN6V0O5BpnzmwSYBxB5Qn7qPi/s1600/Chris.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbPlRBrWH8mJems3hkdz0kjweEMaPL18qVpgAMItFjTaesFa5FdUFx0Zf38sAYsETsSbWKAKM9jfp9Krr4Bb2VqXs6aM9On18FjsswvUwjhFFbgg82lVBN6V0O5BpnzmwSYBxB5Qn7qPi/s320/Chris.png" width="112" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Christopher Gonzalez</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I wasn't able to fall asleep, so it was miserable. I just read a book I had assigned for English class. I'd hope it would be boring enough to put me to sleep, but then it was interesting, so now I'm tired and I know things," Dawson complains. Tina has no idea why he'd be so upset about being able to get some of his homework done, but she doesn't claim to understand him.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, it sounds like you had a productive time," Chris shrugs, then points out toward the door, "My dad's gonna bring the car around to pick us up, he'll drive us out to Mesteri. It's kind of a long drive, so if you want to get some more sleep, go ahead! You had to wake up pretty early to catch your flight, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I will attempt to sleep," Dawson groans, dragging his luggage with him as he goes on ahead towards the door.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I won't," Tina says, falling into step with Chris to follow after her brother, "I'm well-rested, and I want to get caught up! It's been too long since we last hung out."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, it has," Chris nods with a slight laugh, "I mean, I could definitely do with seeing less of Dawson, but the two of you are pretty much a package deal, at least for now. Maybe when you're older..." He shrugs.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, maybe," Tina agrees, staring at her brother's back, "He doesn't seem to enjoy seeing you very much when you visit us, so I guess he probably would have preferred to stay home than to come visit. You wanted us to meet your friends though, right? Are they nice?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"My friends are the nicest," Chris smirks as they reach the curb and his father pulls up. Tina might not know a great amount about her parents, but she knows that Chris's dad is her mother's brother, and that was the only way she found out her mother's maiden name, which television seems to make out to be as an important thing for people to know. Chris helps the twins load their bags into the trunk, then offers Dawson the shotgun seat so he and Tina can chat in the backseat, less distracting than one of them twisted around to look behind. Dawson's reluctant for a moment, but decides he would like the front seat.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Once Tina is situated in the passenger-side backseat, with Chris in the other one, cupholder between them with an empty water bottle in it, she speaks again, "So tell me about those nice friends! It'd be impressive to know about them before I meet them, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Impressive or creepy depending on who you ask, but I think these friends would appreciate knowing that I talked them up ahead of time," Chris notes, shifting in his seat, "So there's Mallory, who draws a lot and has some pet birds. She wants to get a parrot of some sort, but they're a long-term responsibility so she probably has to wait till she's living on her own. Marc's kind of a jock, he plays basketball, but he's the nice type of jock. And John loves gardening, he's always giving away fresh vegetables, which is cool."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Those are some very concise descriptions," Tina giggles, holding a hand up to her mouth, "I can't wait to meet them."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I can," Dawson complains, but then asks a question a bit quieter, "Is Mallory cute?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I feel like I'm not the right person to ask that," Chris responds, "You'll just have to wait and see for yourself."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Why are you not the right person to ask? You gay?" Dawson questions, turning to stare into the backseat.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I couldn't tell you if John or Marc are cute either!" Chris shakes his head in protest, "I don't really get what qualifies as attractive, that's all. I think all my friends look nice, I guess, but I could never hazard a guess if anyone else would want to flirt with them or anything. I don't really understand that stuff."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"So you're a late bloomer," Dawson notes, dismissing him to turn back around and try to go to sleep. Chris frowns, and directs his next protest to Tina instead.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't think I'm a late bloomer, I'm a year older than you guys. I think I'm just not super into that whole romance thing, period," He leans against the car window, "That's fine, isn't it?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Tina agrees, "I think it'd be more convenient, to never have to deal with all of that stuff. When I get to high school, I bet everything's going to get even more chaotic as everyone tries to date."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey, Tina," Her uncle calls from the front seat, "You and Dawson, your birthday's this week, right? Do you want us to get you a cake while you're here?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I dunno, we don't usually celebrate it. Cake's always a good thing to have, though!" Tina decides, leaning forward, "So I won't say no, if you want to get us one!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Since your brother's asleep," He chuckles in response, "You can decide the flavor."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Chocolate ice cream cake," Tina doesn't even hesitate in her response, which Chris laughs at a bit, then smiles because that's his second favorite type of cake himself, second only to carrot cake with good cream cheese frosting. His father agrees to Tina's decision of flavor, and promises that he'll get it for her closer to her actual birthday, since it's in the middle of the week. With that sorted out, Tina turns back to her cousin, "So what have you been up to anyway? How's eighth grade treating you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's fine," He shrugs, then raises a finger in the air, "Right, by the way, Mallory and Marc are seventh graders like you. John's a high school freshman now. I should have mentioned that sooner."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Are you incapable of getting along with people in your own grade?" Tina pokes fun at him.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hum, well, it's difficult," Chris shrugs, "People my own age have known me a lot longer, they had to deal with me when I was an extra obnoxious child, before I joined the swim team as a way to get all that energy out. I was really disruptive all through elementary school."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I remember," Tina nods, "When you visited when we were younger, you'd always chase me and Dawson around with water guns. You would hide all the ones you weren't using, though, because you knew if I got ahold of one I'd shoot you in the face."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I was doing you a favor, it's so hot where you live! I was just trying to refresh you, in all of my ADHD glory," Chris laughs, shaking his head, "For real, though, swim team really helped me to calm down. I play pickup games with Marc sometimes too, though he always beats me because I <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">suck</i> at basketball. Hey, maybe we can all play one together?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We'd have to figure out a fair split, though. Dawson and I don't really play, but I'm athletic and he's tall..." Tina holds a finger to her chin.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I already know how to split it up. You, me, and Dawson against Marc, Mallory, and John. Those latter two aren't athletic in any way, so they'd make for a good handicap for the guy who's actually on the school's team," Chris offers, bouncing his leg where he sits, "Of course, we can just wander around and hang out, too. There's a lot of abandoned buildings around here. Some of them are transient communities, but a lot are just fun for teens to wander around. I think last time you were visiting, we were still too young to be trusted to wander the town without getting infected with lots of tetanus."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, it has been a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">while</i>. You always come down to Albuquerque," Tina notes.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's because Kim and I have full time jobs, so it was tough to have more children to keep an eye on. It was easier to just send Chris down to you as an Unattended Minor," Chris's father, who Tina remembers is named Fernán. She'd forgotten her uncle's name for a bit there, but being reminded that his wife is named Kimberly jogged her memory regarding his. She decides not to mention the fact that her own parents were almost never home while Chris was visiting. He continues, "Now that you're all basically teenagers, though, I think we can trust you to your own devices while we're working."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Great," Tina agrees with a nod.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Anyway," Chris takes control of the conversation again, "Have you guys decided if you're going to move up here for high school yet?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't know," Tina shrugs, "I would like to, but I think Dawson's against it, and I know that Mom and Dad won't let us make the move unless we both agree on it. Still, it'd be nice to live closer to you. I have to feel kind of isolated, there's not a lot of kids in my neighborhood. Just this one friend we have, Arturo. I'm sure if we moved further away, though, I could talk to him on the phone," Dawson doesn't tend to let her make calls, but there's no way Arturo could 'steal' her away if there's miles between them, so hopefully she'd be allowed. That's the one reservation she has about moving, now, since she discovered that Arturo was always more her friend than Dawson's.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Who knows, maybe he'll come around," Chris offers, then looks out the window again, "Oh, we just turned onto Highway Zero! It's not far now, the highway only starts like... Ten miles from the bridge."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Y'know, I heard the bridge might get demolished sometime in the next decade," Fernán joins in the conversation <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">again</i>. It seems that he just wants to be the cool uncle, "Now that Mesteri's such a ghost town, the upkeep on such a long bridge is just a big loss of money. It might be more efficient to run a ferry."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Will it be a car ferry?" Chris asks.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Do you <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">think</i> the mayor is that kind?" Fernán questions.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Not in the least," Chris relents.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, we'll probably have to keep this car parked on the mainland and just use your mother's to get around on the island," Fernán explains, tapping the steering wheel, "If they decide to do that, anyway. If the population goes back up, keeping the bridge will definitely be worth it, but right now there's just not enough people who need to use it regularly."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, at least there's a good bus line," Chris shrugs it off, "And they're an independent company, right? So town politics can't shut it down."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, it shouldn't be a big problem for people with just one car who work on the mainland, I think the gas to cross the bridge probably costs about as much as a bus ride from anywhere in town to the docks so it wouldn't be a serious change," He realizes something, then speaks to Tina, "Ah, sorry! I keep an eye on town politics, since I've received an invitation to be on the planning board! I'm wondering if I should accept or not."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I think that you should," Tina says, leaning toward him, "You definitely know your stuff about Mesteri..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thanks," Fernán chuckles, staring off across the horizon, "I sure will, if you and your brother end up moving here. Investing in the town for just my own son seems a little selfish, but for my sister's kids too? That'll keep me from seeming like I've got self-centered intentions when budgeting out the high school."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm pretty sure that will still come across as nepotism," Tina teases. This is nice; her extended family is so much better than her immediate. This is the type of life she wishes that she could have, but there's Dawson, always Dawson. He's the problem.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">-----------</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Marc Fitson</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The day after Tina and Dawson arrive, Chris invites his friends over for his cousins to meet. Marc is the first to arrive, walking in the front door without even knocking. He just waves hello as he immediately raids the fridge, coming up with a plum that he bites into, then talks through a mouthful as he wanders across the linoleum in the direction of the living room, "What's up, Chris? These your cousins?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No," Chris rolls his eyes, "They're just some strangers I invited in to watch Frasier."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well," Marc swallows his bite of plum, but takes another one right after, seeming to have something against talking without his mouth full, "It's nice to meet you. The name's Marc Fitson. Basketball player. Peach and Plum appreciator. Smartest guy I know."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'm Dawson Packard," Dawson answers, looking up at him, "And this is my twin sister Tina. I was born ten minutes sooner so I am the older twin. I'm probably smarter than you. I like swords. I hate all fruit."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"If you hate fruit," Marc raises his eyebrows, finally speaking without a mouthful of plum, "Then you're definitely less smart than me. Fruit is some of the best shit this world has to offer. I mean, meat and veggies are good and all, but fruit, man. Fruit."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't like you," Dawson states, matter-of-fact.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Please excuse my idiot brother," Tina speaks, looking up at Marc. He's so tall for a thirteen year old. So damn tall, "He doesn't like anybody."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Damn," Marc chuckles, then looks up and turns around when he hears a knock on the door, "Yo, that'll be Mallory and John, I'll go let them in," He goes to the door and opens it, "You do realize that knocking is one hundred percent unnecessary here?"</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Mallory Shingle</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's impolite!" Mallory frowns, pushing her glasses up her nose, "Marc, you're impolite all the time!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Whatever you say, Bluebird. Come inside," Marc teases as he steps back into the house, gesturing for the other two to follow. John isn't quite as tall as Marc, which seems weird given the difference in their ages, but growth spurts are growth spurts. Mallory is kind of tall too, but both she and John are on the heavier side, so it seems more proportional. They're obviously related, with the same nose and hair color.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Greetings and salutations!" John waves, taking off his shoes before he steps onto the living room carpet, "Chris, it's an honor to meet your family!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Stop being weird, John," Mallory chides him as she steps past, walking straight up to Tina and Dawson, "Hi there! Do you like birds?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I have no opinion on birds," Tina answers truthfully.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Birds are the coolest," Dawson answers, lying. Tina gives him an odd look as he continues talking, "Mallory, huh? Can I call you Mal?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Um," She fidgets where she stands, glancing away, "I don't know, uh, my grandma's the only person who calls me that, so it would be kind of weird..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Cool beans," Dawson has never in his life said cool beans before, and he seems to be totally ignoring the guys to focus on Mallory. Tina is suspicious of this behavior, "So what do you like to do?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">John Shingle</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I draw..." Mallory mumbles, taking a few steps to the side. She seems uncomfortable with the attention, "Um, my big brother and I watch a lot of television together, too! John, why don't you tell them what sort of things we watch?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh yeah!" A wide smile splits over John's face, "Just yesterday, we watched this really weird movie called Devilman: The Birth. It's very quotable. I wouldn't mind watching it again with everybody if you'd think it'd be a fun thing to do!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't give a shit," Dawson dismisses John, then turns back to Mallory, "You draw, huh? Do you think you could draw me?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"How mean..." John mumbles.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't know," Mallory shakes her head, "I don't do portraits, the closest I get to drawing people is using them as reference for gesture drawings, so I don't think I could really draw you well."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Isn't it really important for artists to study anatomy? I could help you with that," Dawson offers.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No thank you!" Mallory squeaks, then starts walking back to the kitchen, "I'm going to go over here now!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Hey Bluebird," Marc chases after her and opens the fridge, "There's plums in here. Want a plum?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Ah," She gives Marc a sweet smile and nods, "I'd love one!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Now that's passive aggressive if I ever saw it," Dawson mumbles, resting his chin his palms, "Am I actually that repulsive?" Chris and Tina refrain from answering.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">John stares out into the kitchen for a while, then turns to Dawson and shrugs, "Usually, Mallory isn't shy at all. She wasn't when she greeted you either, right? I'm guessing that you freaked her out with that nickname."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Dawson screws up his face in confusion, then scoffs, "Seriously? Mal seems like a normal nickname to me. More normal than Bluebird, for sure."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You!" Marc calls from the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, pointing at Dawson, "Are you ragging on my nicknaming skills? I'll have you know that Bluebird is a great one."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Great's a bit of an overstatement," Mallory chimes in as she walks past Marc, now with a plum of her own, and sits down on the far end of the couch. John reads her movement and sits next to her before Dawson has a chance to move over there, "It's dumb, but I guess I like it a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">little</i>."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Dawson frowns, then stands up and walks over to stand in front of John and Mallory, "Hey, sorry. I think we got off on the wrong foot there. I didn't mean to freak you ou-"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"The Mal thing? That's nothing," Mallory shakes her head, "Sorry John, you were wrong. I don't care about that. I awkwardly evacuated the room, Dawson, because you smell like ass. When's the last time you took a shower?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Two weeks ago," Dawson answers without a pause, as if this is a normal thing.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're turning thirteen this week, right?" John questions, leaning back on the couch with an amused smirk, "Probably should have started when you were eleven. Teenagers smell bad, it's the natural state. Make an effort, okay? Take me, for example. I smell like flowers. That's because I take a shower every day, and use good shampoo, and use bodywash. Soap works too."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Do not rely on body spray," Chris adds in, standing up to pace around the room as he speaks, "Marc tried that."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Did not work, and body spray doesn't even smell that great," Marc explains himself.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"God, I get it," Dawson rolls his eyes, "I'll go take a shower <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">right. Now," </i>With that, he stomps off toward the bathroom. The others feel a little bit bad for spotlighting his lack of hygiene in such a way, but only a little, because he really did smell awful. Sometimes humiliation is the best motivator. With that sorted out, Mallory shifts in her seat and addresses Tina.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Is your brother always like that?" She questions, adjusting her glasses again with narrowed eyes.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Like what? Smelling bad, or insufferable?" Tina asks, "Because the answer is both. He always smells bad and is always just that insufferable."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Mallory gives a slow nod, then reaches into the messenger bag she brought with her and pulls out a sketchbook. John leans over and sees that she's drawing Chris's living room, and frowns, "Don't you ever get tired of drawing the same thing over and over again?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, I'm bored, and there's nothing better to draw than this living room," Mallory answers, then glances around the other people in the room, "No offense to all of you, but I <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">am</i> bored, and I will do anything I can to remedy boredom as soon as I encounter it. Why should I spend any time doing nothing and disliking it?" </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's a good philosophy to have," Chris notes, then turns to his television, "I guess sitcoms aren't the most enthralling thing ever. Do you want to do something else? I don't have any video game consoles, but we could change the channel, or play a board game. I guess it'd be rude to go outside before Dawson joins us again."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Who cares if it's rude? If we go outside, maybe there will be a pigeon I can draw," Mallory shrugs as she shades in the coffee table on her drawing. She's drawn this same room so many times now, and from so many different angles, because she is very often bored while at Chris's house, "All of your board games are awful."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"They're not awful!" Chris protests, and Marc puts a hand on his shoulder.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Chris," Marc sighs, shaking his head, "We've been meaning to tell you this for a long time now, but... Five different licensed versions of Monopoly is not a board game collection. It is, in fact, the worst. Every time we play, one of us starts cheating just to make it end sooner. I'm sorry that you had to find out this way."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You must have a few other games. Scrabble?" Tina asks, stifling a laugh at the idea of everyone cheating at Monopoly out of boredom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, Tina," John shakes his head with a heavy groan, "I guess this is something you didn't know about your cousin. Chris here... Only owns different versions of Monopoly."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Mom and Dad prefer reading to playing games, so our entire game collection is just the ones I want! And what I want is Monopoly!" Chris protests, holding his fists in close to himself in earnest, "Property management is the greatest form of entertainment provided to us mere mortals!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You need a new hobby," Mallory groans, standing up, "Start writing or something. Mere mortals? Talking like that, you could write fantasy or something... Become more interesting."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't want to become more interesting," Chris sighs, but it sounds defeated, as if he actually is going to take his friend's advice. She glances toward the bathroom door, then rolls her shoulders in a shrug and opens the door to the backyard, stepping outside and approaching a bird that's sitting in the grass. It's a dreary day, but most days in Mesteri are. Even days with blue sky don't feel clear. It may be an island in the Pacific, but it's still part of Washington state. It's the opposite of tropical. Marc follows Mallory, only to see that she's crouched down a few feet from the bird and is now drawing it. He notes that it's a ratty pigeon. A rock dove, to be specific. He hates that he knows that, and blames Mallory for giving him the useless information. After waiting for Dawson a little while longer, Tina, John, and Chris also step outside, but keep their distance to avoid frightening the bird away, sitting down on a garden wall near the door. The garden itself has nothing growing in it, though.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Once Dawson rejoins us," John starts, scratching the back of his neck, "You guys wanna go wander on the beach?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"There's a beach?" Tina asks, "I thought the whole place was just steep drops."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Mostly is, but there is some beach a little further out. There aren't any roads by it, though, and it's not like we ever get any weather to qualify as a beach day. It's more pebbles than sand, too," Chris explains, kicking his legs, "But the water's nice there, and the pebbles are smooth! It's good for swimming!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Swimming, huh?" John asks, then turns to look at Mallory and sees that she's done with the pigeon, closing up her sketchbook again, and thus calls out to her, "Mallory! Did you happen to bring our swimsuits?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She looks over at John with a bit of surprise, then up at the sky. None of those clouds are dark enough to rain, she notes. He would ask her that even if a thunderstorm was rolling in. With the lack of impending downpours determined, she nods in his direction, then approaches to speak at a normal volume, "They're in my bag, back in the house. Are we going down to Myna Beach?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Chris wants to go swimming, so we might," John nods, then looks over to Marc, "Fitson! You up for a swim?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Up for it? Sure," Marc shrugs as he walks over as well, hands on his hips, "Jeans are awful when wet, though. I'll have to stop at home for some trunks. Don't think yours will fit me, Chris," He chuckles, looking over his much shorter friend, "If it's Myna Beach, though, we'll pass my house anyway."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Mallory grimaces at that statement and raises her eyebrows, "Your dad off work right now?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"He is," Marc shrugs, shifting his weight between his feet, "I mean, come on. He's not <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i> bad. You can tolerate being within the same thirty yards as him for a few minutes, can't you?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course I can," Mallory rolls her eyes, "But can you?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Marc pauses at that question, then shrugs and gives a nod, "Yeah, it should be fine just to stop and grab my swimsuit. He can't possibly give me a hard time for that."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tina looks between the two of them, and furrows her brow, "What's the problem?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Huh?" Marc turns to her, then gives her a smile which seems a little bit fake, "Oh, it's nothing. My dad's kind of overcritical at times, that's all."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"He's always been that way," Chris notes, standing back up again. He'd only sat down for a few moments, "Kind of one of those guys who thinks any kid of his has gotta extoll every single virtue he's got. 'No son of mine is going to quit basketball', that sort of thing."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Tina nods, pressing her hands together, "Oh, I see. That's pretty rude to do, though. Hobbies are one of the few things that children are able to choose."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Marc shrugs, walking towards the door back into the house, "I mean, I'm lucky that I <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">like</i> basketball. What's really annoying about it is that my dad thinks I'm going to go pro with it, or something. Just because I'm tall, doesn't mean I'm good enough for that. And I'm definitely not too cool with the idea that I'm having my future career decided when I'm not even in high school yet."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Well, at least you've got us," John pipes in, clapping a hand against Marc's back, "We won't ever let you sell out! See, I told you there was a benefit to having weird friends."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Marc chuckles, a bit awkward as he opens the door back into the house, "You're not <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i> weird. Anyway, I wouldn't trade you for the world. Is that strange to say, when we haven't known each other <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i> long?" Marc and Chris have been friends for years, as have Chris and Mallory, but the actual combination of those friendships into one group was only about half a year ago.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Mallory steps up next to Marc, ducking into the house behind him as she speaks, "A little bit strange, absolutely. Lucky for you, I feel the same way. Chris has good taste in friends, or at least decent taste. You're cool, I guess."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Is there such a thing as a direct compliment from Mallory Shingle?" Chris questions with a laugh, also stepping inside and gesturing for Tina to follow as well, which she does. John walks in last, latching the door behind himself.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"A direct compliment? From my mouth? It's less likely than you think," Mallory jokes, crossing her arms over her chest, "You probably think I'd do it at some point, but no. Never. I will never be genuine and open about my emotions with anybody!" She gives her best rendition of an evil laugh, "I'll be the next big supervillain! Emotionally-Reserved-Man!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Wouldn't that be Emotionally-Reserved-Girl?" Dawson questions, having finished his shower and returned to the living room. Rather than getting dressed, he's just got a towel wrapped around his waist. He seems to be trying to show off his muscles, but they aren't great muscles at all. Especially if he gets compared to his sister's washboard abs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Mallory turns around and pouts as she pushes her glasses up her nose, "It's my joke, I can name my supervillain idea anything I want to."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, but you're saying the supervillain is <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">you</i>, so," Dawson brings his arms up to his sides in an exaggerated shrug, "I'm just saying, it doesn't make a lot of sense."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She puts her hands on her hips and groans, but before she can get into a fistfight that she would surely lose, Tina steps forward, speaking in a loud voice, "Dawson, you should put your swimtrunks on. We're all going down to Myna Beach. We're all getting changed into swimsuits here, except we have to stop at Marc's house since he didn't bring trunks and he's wearing jeans."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"The beach, huh? I kind of thought beach days were usually sunny," Dawson notes, peering out the window, "But I guess as long as it's warm enough..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"The temperature's nice today," Chris confirms, "And the water's not usually too cold, either. It'll be a great day to go for a quick swim," He laughs as he says this, and stretches his arms out over his head, "So, once we get there, who wants to race me?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Absolutely nobody," Marc answers, crossing his arms, then points toward the door, "Anyway, I guess I'll go stop by my house while you all get changed, meet me in my driveway?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Will do," Mallory nods, snatching her swimwear from the bag and running to the bathroom Dawson just vacated to get changed. Everyone else agrees as well.</span></div>
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<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/12/evil-meet-justice-chapter-four.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/evil-meet-justice-chapter-5.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black;">Next Chapter -></span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-64670193016258295072017-10-28T00:00:00.000-07:002018-03-05T15:55:41.478-08:00Mahou Shonen Just Say No Chapter Four<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/09/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-three.html"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The excitement Kanoshi Kyosuke felt at becoming a magical boy only lasted one evening. The morning after he'd first transformed, he went about his normal routine, going to take a shower. After he'd left the shower, he looked himself in the face, in the mirror. That was when any joy he'd felt at succumbing to his desire dissipated in full. There were many consequences that he'd expected, but this was one which he most definitely did </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. His eye... His eye looked strange. Sitting in his right eye, </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> his eyeball, layered over his iris and pupil, was a pink question mark. When he moved his eye, it moved too; it was his marking. He knew that he was going to get one, but... In his eye? How was he supposed to hide it long-term?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using hair to hide it would be unreliable, and how could he explain to anyone who knew anything about him why he'd begun wearing an eyepatch every day? Styles like that only worked on popular idols, people who legitimately lost an eye, and kids in occult clubs. Weren't the marks usually meant to be easier to hide than this? Horace excluded, he supposed. Himself excluded as well, it now seemed. Well, wearing an eyepatch for </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> day wouldn't be suspicious. He had a few in the medicine cabinet in case he came down with pinkeye, which was especially common in a school environment. Children carried almost as much disease as rats did, it often seemed. At least it left Kanoshi prepared for this situation. He sighed and got ready to go to work. Throughout the course of the day, he consistently told the same lie. He'd gotten a bee sting by his eye. Pinkeye wasn't going around the school right now, so he couldn't use the reason he owned eyepatches as a working excuse.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucky for him, everyone seemed to accept that excuse, so it worked for now. He had to figure out a better solution than this, though. He was already losing his job when the school year finished, but if it came to light that he'd become a magical boy, there was no chance he'd even keep it that long. Not to mention, his apartment. With a mark this tough to hide, and if he was fired over it, he'd most certainly be evicted as well. Both of these things, he realized, were inevitable; and, just as he expected, he was only able to hold it up for two weeks. In those two weeks, he and Horace had been practicing by sparring, but he still hadn't fought any monsters himself. It turned out that the fighting monsters for sustenance factor of being a magica wasn't as big a deal as humans thought; It was more of a hivemind type of thing. As long as </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of any given distributor's magica fought a monster every few days, all of them would stay alive, though a number of distributors would cut off magica who </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">never</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> fought a monster. Oh One was kind, though, and understood that Kanoshi needed to start off with a lower-level monster, and none had appeared anywhere nearby.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The same day that Kanoshi was fired from his job when somebody decided his bee sting must have been healed by then and removed the patch to check, his landlord approached him and stated that he would have to vacate his apartment as soon as he could get his belongings boxed up. He'd witnessed Kanoshi leaving the building late at night for magica practice, and though he was careful not to transform until he got to the practice locations, it was easy to assume his suspicious behavior after everything which had recently happened in his life. Of course, this was just piling things on, but Kanoshi had already hit rock bottom by making the decision to become a magical boy in the first place. He went into the city to pick up boxes, and decided that his best bet was to stop by the supermarket Yuuri worked at to see if they had empty shipping boxes he could use.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was probably a petty concern, but Kanoshi was quite upset at the thought of leaving behind his furniture, since chances were he'd have to stay in a hotel for a few days and he wouldn't be able to bring it. His hard-earned real bed and kotatsu... Those two pricey purchases he'd made just because he valued comfort, and he'd have to leave those behind because of the choice he'd made.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a mistake. Even for people who it worked out well for, becoming a magica was a mistake. There was no reward a happy person would want from it, so it was a mistake. However, Kanoshi was unhappy. Just because he was being further harmed and inconvenienced by the fact he'd become a magical boy didn't mean that he regretted making that mistake, though. The root of his unhappiness was his inability to protect anybody, and becoming a magical boy had solved that problem. It couldn't help him to become happy again, but it was a reward he would, as an unhappy person, cherish.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Upon arriving at the supermarket in Shibuya, he went straight to see Yuuri. It was empty at this time, since he was there midday on a weekday again. With his job entirely lost and a deadline of 'as soon as possible' on his eviction, he'd come looking for boxes the morning after his landlord had given him the news. Yuuri noticed as soon as he saw him that he wasn't in the highest spirits, "Kyosuke-san? Did something happen?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kanoshi approached the register with a heavy sigh as he explained his situation, "I got fired, and evicted. I mean, well, I was losing my job anyway. I think I told you that, though, that it's a publicity issue with the number of children from my class who'd encountered misfortune, but then I got more fired and lost my job right away. And lost my apartment too, and-"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kanoshi was interrupted, but not by anything that Yuuri said. Rather, Yuuri reached out over the conveyor belt and snatched Kanoshi's eyepatch, not seeming shocked at all at what he saw. Kanoshi was about to panic, but Yuuri kept his voice level and matter-of-fact, "I thought so. I couldn't think of any possible reason </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> would be fired on the spot and evicted. Well, when I heard you were losing your job at the school, I thought it was kind of a matter of time. I mean, no offense, but that's kind of all you had going for you. Lose that, and you're just a bag of nerves."</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'm sorry..." Kanoshi closed his eyes and hung his head, grimacing through his words, "I'm sorry, Ruka-san. I've become a bad role model."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Bad role model...?" Yuuri questioned, then shook his head with a lighthearted smirk, "Hey, I wouldn't say that. Anyway, don't worry too much about any of that, okay? My apartment building's so trashy they'll let anyone in. Magica, drug dealers, prostitutes, gang members... Doesn't matter to them. The maintenance crew is good, though, and the apartments have plenty of space for two or even three people, plus they're cleaned out between tenants so it's up to you how much of a mess they get. Obviously, the neighborhood's not great, and you're gonna want to carry a weapon in the elevators, but otherwise it's a sweet place."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Ah," Kanoshi was shocked at the advice, looking up to Yuuri again. He seemed sincere, "Thanks, but I also don't know how I'm going to afford a new place... I have enough in savings to put down a deposit, though. It would be nice to be able to move my furniture instead of blowing all my savings to live out of boxes in a hotel while I try to find a place..."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"As long as you have the deposit, it should be fine," Yuuri shrugged, "And you can find a job after that. I heard lots of people are willing to hire Magica. Oh, and you said that you like video games, right?"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yeah, I'm pretty good at playing supports," Kanoshi answered with a nod, holding his hands close to himself, "Um, actually, the reason I came here was to ask if you had any leftover boxes from shipments that I could use."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"No problem, I'll even help you move," Yuuri waved off his question, then continued, "It's not weird at all for esports players to do something like wear an eyepatch or a mask, so maybe you could do something like that. Or, if you really want to compromise your morals, I hear it's pretty easy to get away with bank robberies as a magica, thanks to that Glamour spell thing which lets you keep people from recognizing you..."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'm not about to rob a bank!" Kanoshi shook his head, then looked away from Yuuri, "Why... are you helping me? I've done something illegal, something which nobody should do..."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yuuri seemed to think over that question for a moment, as if even he wasn't quite certain why he was putting effort into helping Kanoshi, but he seized upon an answer, "First off, I'm not the most law-abiding citizen myself. But more importantly, I want to help you because you helped me. When the other teachers gave up on me, back in middle school, you were there to help me still get a passing grade when everything in my life was falling apart. I think the worst moment of my life was finding out that what my mom was doing </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> wrong, and everything I'd been told about it being normal was a lie, and I was right all along to hate it... And you were the only adult who was there for me when that happened. So if you think of it that way, isn't it obvious that I wouldn't care that you'd become a magical boy? I know what rock bottom feels like, and one decision won't ruin your life if I can do anything about it."</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Ruka-san..." Kanoshi felt a smile spreading over his face. He was touched by his former student's kindness.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Plus," He looked away, scratching the back of his neck, "Kyosuke-san, if you can't find another job by the end of the month, I could probably get you one here. You'd make a better coworker than some of these high school kids, at least. Trust me, your stutter wouldn't be a problem."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I could probably do that," Kanoshi agreed with a shaky nod.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Anyway," Yuuri leaned forward, handing back the eyepatch, "I'm guessing you're supposed to leave as soon as possible? I'll stop by once my shift's over. Got anyone else who'd be willing to help out?"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yeah," Kanoshi said, "I have a friend who's a magical boy and can use telekinesis, he already said he'd help me too. I'm thinking of renting a truck to hold the stuff, I can get an okay rate on one since it's so weird to own a car in the city. Business at rental places around here is so good that they don't need to overcharge..."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"No need to do that," Yuuri shook his head, "I know a chick who's into the whole dajiban thing. Plenty of space in the old thing. I'll get her to help us out, then you can save some money while you're job hunting."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Will she really be willing to help?" Kanoshi questioned.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Of course she will," Yuuri laughed, :"Tanako-chan's always ready to show off her van in any way. Helping people move is just one of many ways she can prove she's done a great job refurbishing it."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--------------</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MoHbXjb_7BSssX8Kv3wXh_JaJO9eGgYBKYONUQRK3-0dZqwKgJF2O_KzbcpFXsS8f_kZn3shH_HjR9YAGMeA4YcYQOE1p5PPsHMFEg-S6c8-C3mekwo4-fTfKA9GedLcXDkBQP5L01kT/s1600/kotomi.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MoHbXjb_7BSssX8Kv3wXh_JaJO9eGgYBKYONUQRK3-0dZqwKgJF2O_KzbcpFXsS8f_kZn3shH_HjR9YAGMeA4YcYQOE1p5PPsHMFEg-S6c8-C3mekwo4-fTfKA9GedLcXDkBQP5L01kT/s320/kotomi.png" width="92" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Kotomi Tanako</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just as Yuuri had promised, his friend Kotomi Tanako arrived with her van and with Yuuri once his shift was over. Kanoshi and Horace had already been working to fill up the boxes, so when Yuuri arrived, they just started bringing things out to Kotomi's van. Horace stayed in his transformation, making eye contact with the landlord as he used his powers to move boxes, daring him to say something. There wasn't anything to be done, though. Kanoshi was already leaving.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once all of the boxes were in Kotomi's van, as well as Kanoshi's bed and kotatsu, Yuuri said that he'd have Kotomi take him ahead and start unloading the van at the apartment building. Horace was about to say something, but Oh One did instead, "Horace," It started, bumping its head into his leg, "Sorry to interrupt this mundane situation, but a level eight monster has appeared in Kyoto. I think you should definitely help out with that."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"...You're right," Horace groaned, turning to Kanoshi, "Look, I'm sorry, but there are duties to being a prince, even if it's just a prince of Magica. I'll see you later though, okay Kano?"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"That's fine!" Kanoshi laughed, waving his hands, "You've already helped me out a ton, way more than you needed to! Go do what you have to," As soon as he finished saying that, Horace nodded in understanding and took off. Kanoshi watched him go, then went to take public transportation to his new building. There was no more room in the van, but he was fine with that. He was used to taking trains, and it wasn't that late at night yet, so it wouldn't even be intimidating.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anxious as he was, at least he knew how to handle living near a city. It was strange that he'd be moving to a more urban area soon, but that was just the way life went, he supposed. Strangely enough for this time of day, Kanoshi was able to find a traincar without anybody on it. He was even wearing his eyepatch, so it wasn't like anyone was scared off by his mark. Actually, most of the cars seemed barren. It was never </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> empty in Tokyo. He began to think that something might be wrong.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even so, he just occupied himself with a book, ignoring the sense of unease. It was just public transportation, after all, so what could be so wrong with it? After a while, as it was a bit of a long trip between districts, he stood up glanced into the other cars. Still empty. He frowned, and turned his back on the door.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was his first mistake. He'd hardly even looked down the row of seats when he felt something hit his back. No, hit was much too mild a term for what he felt. He looked down, and saw a sword coming through his stomach.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks to that 'magical endurance' Horace had mentioned, Kanoshi didn't go into shock. Instead, he pulled the patch from his eye and transformed in a split second, then used the wings of his transformed self to propel himself away from the sword, looking up to see a magical boy standing there. He wasn't Japanese, and definitely didn't look pleasant in any way. Were it not for the question mark, Kanoshi wouldn't have thought him a magical boy at all, but a drunk.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtVpd_eVjT1fyJqh8UUCuNn9OXYD6hvLGZbOc4Hxoomp-Ya6eiwb2g_9kwAVRN_F1eF2It8iyAFa4nOc1UFXIWg7xGkuPInaFWoO7uHuVljkFoFdux29qIzO4G27tnhAkQuuvpn95vdyJb/s1600/lionhardt.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtVpd_eVjT1fyJqh8UUCuNn9OXYD6hvLGZbOc4Hxoomp-Ya6eiwb2g_9kwAVRN_F1eF2It8iyAFa4nOc1UFXIWg7xGkuPInaFWoO7uHuVljkFoFdux29qIzO4G27tnhAkQuuvpn95vdyJb/s320/lionhardt.png" width="90" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Lionhardt</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The magical boy didn't say anything at all, just lifting his sword again and rushing Kanoshi, who lifted his shield just in time. He immediately felt the rush of power through him as the blade connected, a measurable amount of ability which he was storing. All he needed to think was that he should heal his own wounds, and it was done. That was convenient, but seemed to enrage the magical boy, who shouted unintelligibly and swung his sword again. When Kanoshi managed to block this one as well, he summoned several more to his side, all of them hacking crudely at him.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He couldn't block every strike, but the ones which did connect with him were swiftly healed with the power he gained from blocking the rest, though he was panicking nonetheless. The pain still existed, even if only for a moment before he healed it away, and he found tears running down his face.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Just die already you goddamn newbie!" The magical boy shrieked, "How are you good enough to defend against me already!?"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I don't know what you're talking about!" Kanoshi wailed, another strike ringing against his shield. It was so small, but at least he seemed to be able to move it fast enough to block attacks. He accredited that reaction time to the video games he'd played. It seemed that this drunkard magical boy was about to shout again, when a gunshot sounded. It embedded itself in the wall above Kanoshi, and appeared to have grazed the other magical boy's cheek.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He turned around, scowling, and Kanoshi looked past him to see a magical boy who looked familiar, but seemed to be using a glamour to avoid being recognized. He was holding out a revolver with a cocky smirk on his face as he taunted, "Lionhardt. I should have known you'd come here when you found out a support magica had been created... But lucky enough, it seems Guardian Angel could hold his own until I arrived."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Smokescreen... Why do you have to interfere? This doesn't concern you," The magical boy who was apparently called Lionhardt grimaced, raising swords again and pointing them toward the one who seemed to be called smokescreen, "If I want to carry out natural selection, who are you to bother-"</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTqH9K0Ml788dHa-3Jg1vecBdioYAh4sZRS0LE7nbfxFX4Ex_L7ORvDHNs1p5cWH7pNYbnx9tMV1HVTMi1vtxVXtmvQV7I0PFtbX4DHGOrO52YD21GDX4VGBp4t630_IwsQ0vD_HzbVdT/s1600/Yuuriguca.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTqH9K0Ml788dHa-3Jg1vecBdioYAh4sZRS0LE7nbfxFX4Ex_L7ORvDHNs1p5cWH7pNYbnx9tMV1HVTMi1vtxVXtmvQV7I0PFtbX4DHGOrO52YD21GDX4VGBp4t630_IwsQ0vD_HzbVdT/s320/Yuuriguca.png" width="144" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Smokescreen</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lionhardt couldn't finish his statement, not because Smokescreen said anything, but because that gun was fired again and he found a bullet in his windpipe. He choked, then coughed a few times through it, trying to hack it out. He shot Smokescreen a furious look, then jumped out of the window. As soon as he did, the subway car was full of people, and there was Kanoshi, in his magical boy form. He also launched himself out the window, not in a show of spite, but to avoid the social awkwardness.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He smacked into the wall on the side of the subway, but there was luckily a maintenance path on the side, so he fell onto the concrete there and was safe from further harm. Smokescreen seemed to have followed right after him, so Kanoshi used any leftover power to heal both himself and Smokescreen. Smokescreen dropped his arms to his sides, sighed, then said, "Glamour Release," in English.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As soon as he said that, Kanoshi realized why he seemed familiar, recognized him. It was Yuuri. He got to his feet, slowly, just staring at his former student for a long while before he spoke, "Ruka-san, you..."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yeah, I'm a magical boy. I've been one for a while now. About four months, actually. That's how I knew my apartment building would allow you to live there," Yuuri explained, holding a hand out to him and revealing his question mark was on his arm. No wonder he always wore longsleeves when his job allowed short-sleeved polos in its uniform as well, "You can ask, but I won't tell you why I did it."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I don't need to ask," Kanoshi shook his head, "You've </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">never</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> been a happy person, right?"</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Nah," Yuuri shook his head, twirling the revolver on his finger, "Life's kind of been caught between terrible and tolerable, just about the whole time. Truth is, I wouldn't have normally done something like this, though. I don't drink to excess and I've never considered drugs, hardly even use cigarettes, it doesn't take the edge off. I was in a really bad place when that Distributor... Sugarcanesugarcane, it said it was called, approached me. I agreed without thinking, and somehow, this </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> take the edge off."</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"It does?" Kanoshi asked, stepping closer with a tilt of his head.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yeah," Yuuri nodded, now crossing his arms, "Strange, isn't it? But that's the thing, I'm in control now. That's what stands out about it. I'm not dulling any pain, but I can </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">prevent</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it." </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I get it," Kanoshi nodded, balling his hands up, "My reason... I want to be able to protect others. And it's admirable, to do it to protect yourself, too."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'm fine with being injured while fighting," Yuuri explained, "I know that I can win. I won't ever let anybody ruin me again. I'll grow stronger... So I can be certain that nobody can lay a hand on me if I don't want them to."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I want to protect you, Ruka-san!" Kanoshi exclaimed, holding his shield out to Yuuri with determination, "Like you protected me today, and I want to help you become strong enough to protect yourself!"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Kyosuke-san..." Yuuri stared at him, then his smirk turned to a genuine smile, "I was worried if I told you, you'd lecture me about how irresponsible it was that I'd become a magical boy for such a petty reason as covering my own ass."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"That's not petty at all," Kanoshi shook his head, then looked down the subway tunnel, "How did you know that I needed help?"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I got a text from Oh One saying that Lionhardt was in the area. He's a notorious hunter of new magica, so I assumed he'd be going after you, and since you told me what line you were taking, I was able to catch up. Lionhardt's ability is called the Incognito Trap. He can turn any small area into an alternate dimension which normal humans can't enter, but only if it's possible for his target not to notice the shift," Yuuri explained, leaning back against the wall, "Of course, he waited till there was that level 8 alert, since The Prince has been keeping such a close eye on you."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I need to become stronger," Kanoshi decided, fidgeting with his sleeves, "I can't rely on Horace, and I can't rely on you always coming to rescue me. I had no idea what to do there except just keep getting beat up by him. I need to be able to hold my own, independent of anybody else."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I think it's fine if you stay the way you are," Yuuri spoke, his voice soft, "Supports are rare. Who knows, maybe you'll be the one to unite Tokyo's magica into some sort of working group, since being healed mid-battle can give a ton of advantages."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"A team? That's a little too much like the animes, right? It's not like we'll be bound together by the power of friendship to beat any enemy," Kanoshi mumbled, lifting his arms to stare at both of his palms, "We're all the type of people who would give up on normalcy for some reason or another."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"We get along though, right? And you and Horace do, too. Working together could still be worth something," Yuuri offered, kicking at the ground with the toe of his boot, "I think so, anyway. I could be wrong... I just think that a level 8 monster in Tokyo wouldn't be possible right now. Nobody bothers coordinating their attacks."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Who knows. Maybe," Kanoshi sighed.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-----------------</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The director of Aoba Public Middle was not expecting to say any of the school's past students that day, especially not one who barged in the front door without so much as buzzing in with the reception. He slammed the electric lock hard enough to unlatch it, stormed in, and went straight past the office staff to the director's office. Even in his surprise, however, he greeted the student, remembering his name after all this time, "Yuuri Ruka-kun. To what do I owe this pleasure?"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Ain't a pleasure, you and me both know that," Yuuri curled his lip as he stepped closer, hands in his pockets, "You only remembered my name cause of all the shit I caused you, right? No director would remember a kid who wasn't either excellent or awful, and I sure as Hell wasn't excellent."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Ruka," The director dropped his polite behavior, narrowing his eyes, "What do you want? If it's your transcript, the office staff can help you with that."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"If I wanted my transcript, I'd just send an email. That's easy enough to do," Yuuri shook his head, "I'm here for a much more serious reason, director. Aoba Middle has an admirable goal, offering education for kids who wouldn't get it otherwise, but you know... I think there's only one teacher who was actually committed to that goal, and you know what? You're the moron who just fired him."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You mean Kyosuke?" The director questioned, furrowing his brow as he stood up, "You must be mistaken. Is he crying wrongful termination? There's nothing wrongful about this at all. The school could be sued or even shut down if we kept a magical boy on staff. I bet he didn't even tell you that was the reason."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'm well aware of why he was fired, but I wouldn't say that's a good enough reason," Yuuri stepped closer to the director, glaring up at him, "You kept your job after you did worse, after all. Besides, if he's a good teacher, what's it matter if he spends his nights fighting monsters? Long as he doesn't let the kids find out, there ain't a single reason he can't continue teaching."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I did worse?" The director asked, shaking his head with a grimace, "Are you really going to compare that to becoming a </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">magica</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? If those were even on the same scale, it's pretty obvious which is more terrible. Becoming a magica is a one-way ticket to committing crimes without consequence!"</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Huh, that's funny, I really thought that getting away with crime was your favorite thing to do," Yuuri taunted, holding his hands out to either side of himself, "Maybe you oughta become a magical boy, then."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yuuri!" The director snapped, stepping forward again, "You can't blame me for that! It was your mother. I paid </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">her</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> told me that you were just an especially youthful adult. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> told me that it was just part of the experience I paid for that you'd resist. I was horrified when you enrolled in this school. Had I known you were a child..."</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You would never have done it? I doubt that. I think if you were into having an especially youthful adult struggle against your advances in the first place, then you're a pretty awful person," Yuuri lifted a hand and pushed the director against the wall with ease. Having his mark on his arm meant he had all the same strength he would if he were transformed, and to strength like that, humans were mere insects, "I let you off the hook, though, because Hell, all you </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> did wrong was pay a prostitute. My mother was a damn good liar. However, if you're going to fire the only teacher at this school who actually took the time to offer me help, then I at least have to hold a mirror up to </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">your</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> wrongdoings, yeah?"</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I am sorry, Yuuri. I never wanted to cause you, or anyone, any harm. I grapple with the reality of the part I had in making your childhood so terrible, every day of my life. However... This school, it's all I can do to try and be a good person. If I kept Kyosuke employed, we could be closed down, and there wouldn't be a public middle school in the area at all anymore. If Aoba wasn't here, then you wouldn't have gotten an education past primary school. I mean, chances are pretty high you'd still be getting sold by that woman!" The director sounded sincere, but that last bit cut deep. It was a slip-up said in spite, some self-righteous anger that Yuuri would imply he wasn't filled with regret for his </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">small</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> part in his childhood misery.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"That's bullshit!" Yuuri shouted, getting in his face. He was acting in fury to mask the fact that this entire conversation had him on the brink of tears, "I never would have lived that long! God, it was because just that one person. Kyosuke-sensei... Was there to tell me it was fine! When I found out it really was wrong, what happened to me, I was going to die, but then he said it. It was so dumb. He said... 'Ruka-san, I know you have a lot going on, but just tell me if you ever need some extra help. I'd hate for this to keep you from getting into high school, because I think you have potential.' That's what he said to me, and that's what kept me from just giving up on it all. It was only because of him. So don't you dare claim that </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ever did any good for me. This school's goddamn worthless without a teacher like him. I wish it </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">would</span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> shut down."</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Now, come on, let's be rational adults here," The director knew he'd made a mistake, and began looking for a way out of the situation, only to find that he was really backed into a corner.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I guess I can't change your mind," Yuuri mumbled, reaching for the right sleeve of his jacket with his left hand, "But your actions have consequences. You have to suffer some sort of punishment."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Please," The director protested, but Yuuri just grinned as he rolled his sleeve up to show the question mark on his arm.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Get fucking bent," Yuuri hissed in the moment that he transformed, immediately holding his revolver up to the director's face, "Here, you ever played Russian Roulette?"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Y-You..." The director stuttered, then narrowed his eyes, "Of course you're one of them! I should have expected this from you!"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Where did all that regret for how you hurt me go?" Yuuri questioned, tilting his head to the side, "Anyway, here's the game. I have one chamber with a real bullet in it. One with a blank. The remaining four hold smoke pellets with different properties. One will render you unable to walk for one week. One will prevent you from sleeping for four days. One will cause you to, for three months, be unable to be at a comfortable temperature. Always too cold or too warm. This last one's my favorite, impotent for a month. I think that would suit you especially well. Oh, and smokes as powerful as these only work on humans, so I don't have to worry about getting caught in it too."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You're sick. You're goddamn sick and twisted," The director accused him between heavy, sharp breaths. He was scared. Good. That was exactly what Yuuri was going for.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I guess I am," He embraced the accusation with a smile, spun the chamber on his revolver, then fired at the director's forehead. Smoke filled the room, and Yuuri noted the color of it. The sleep curse. Well... He thought for only a moment before he fired twice more, dispensing two more of the smoke pellets. Temperature and impotence. He smirked. That was a veritable cocktail of inconvenient misery. He didn't wait to see the director's reaction, instead turning to walk out of the office, releasing his transformation as he went, back to just a normal human in appearance. Yuuri hadn't put a real bullet into any of the chambers; he didn't want to tank his rankings by killing anybody, but he needed to get revenge. Revenge for Kanoshi's firing, but also just the pent-up anger he had towards anyone who had believed his mother's lies about him when he was a child.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe it was a little petty of him. It had been seven years since his his mother was arrested, but he still wasn't over it. He wanted everyone who hadn't thought critically when it came to using him to pay some sort of price; The director firing somebody who he considered to be a dear friend was just the inciting incident for targeting him. He'd already gotten some degree of revenge on a number of the others, but now he could claim it wasn't so selfish. He did this to defend somebody's honor, not just his own. That man would be inconvenienced for three months by the curses that Yuuri had set upon him with the use of that smoke. It was particularly useful against humans; there wasn't a lot he could do against other magica with his smoke, just using it to obscure his movement and create some distracting, acidic clouds. He didn't need to do a lot against other magica, though. He had good aim, and hadn't encountered a real challenge in his four months of being a magical boy so far.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8md5UkYv7s4rbvUduHXSEfkFFeMlYL2PEy4SX1gNyN_qVIvkrOToUTy8Gjz6jIecPP1-aqfw1IBdUXKCifg4lHvpWdIBArJtx3Gf-jfRPRf-2sIBD8UUoSMDB3OLkRtnDftkjO2AlRty/s1600/Tsukuca.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #d9d2e9; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8md5UkYv7s4rbvUduHXSEfkFFeMlYL2PEy4SX1gNyN_qVIvkrOToUTy8Gjz6jIecPP1-aqfw1IBdUXKCifg4lHvpWdIBArJtx3Gf-jfRPRf-2sIBD8UUoSMDB3OLkRtnDftkjO2AlRty/s320/Tsukuca.png" width="116" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Infernal</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Hey you," Somebody interrupted Yuuri's thoughts, and he looked up to realize he'd wandered a bit away from civilization, into the woods near the middle school. The voice he'd heard came from the top of the hill, and he peered up to see who was standing there. He didn't recognize this magical boy who continued to address him, "I'm new in town. Is it common for Tokyo's magica to torture humans? Where I come from, that's a good way to lose ranking."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"How did you know what happened in there?" Yuuri asked, staring up at the unfamiliar man in confusion.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"This distributor is named Blem, it can see through walls," He gestured to Blem, who blinked slowly, then waved at Yuuri with its eyestalks.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Hello, Yuuri Ruka," Blem greeted him, "This is Must Pope's magica from Hokkaido. He's called Devilman. Just kidding. He's called Infernal. He decided to come to Tokyo when Oh One told him that Kanoshi Kyosuke became a magical boy."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I never thought Kano-kun would really do it," Infernal noted, holding both hands to his cheeks in a melodramatic show, "But now that he has, I want to show my support. I think you do too. And since we've been contracted by distributors in the same posse, there's no reason any of us would backstab to climb higher up the rankings. Let's work out an agreement."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I think that's a great idea."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-five.html"><br /></a></span>
<span style="color: #555555; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/mahou-shonen-just-say-no-chapter-five.html">Next Chapter -></a></span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-5900f250-d1bb-dd8d-db92-99a77bc49216"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-18846207823643551272017-10-14T00:00:00.000-07:002018-09-17T11:17:52.438-07:00Checkboxes Chapter Eleven<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/09/checkboxes-chapter-ten.html" style="background-color: #b4a7d6;"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/01/checkboxes-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #b4a7d6;"><--------First Chapter</a></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">It's strange to be back from the school trip.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">School starts back up the day after our return, even though we arrived so late at night. I guess they figure that if kids want to sleep in, we'll be tardy, given that nobody cares much about being on time anyway. It's very kind of the school to give the accessibility necessary for its student body to be composed of the sort of people it invites, not deducting points for missed classes. As long as the work gets done; and it's really not a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">whole</i> lot of work, since I've pretty much caught up on what I missed in three months already while keeping up with the new.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">It isn't the schoolwork which makes graduates of Korekara capable, it's the fact that we learn how to live. I guess maybe that's why it has that reputation of being so dangerous, too. Anyone can take on real life if they've survived a high school full of people who, just like them, have already experienced some sort of trauma. It's a good thing, though, that those employers who take Korekara at its word for its prestige don't find out how lenient the academic curriculum really is. Though, I don't feel like I'm actually missing out on any information, even if the method of teaching it is different. Maybe I won't <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">remember</i> anything since I'm just learning it for long enough to do the work, but if my middle school experience is anything to go on, I wouldn't remember traditional schooling any better.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I don't have any directives yet, on what I'm supposed to do this week, at least not during the school day. I find myself looking for someone to eat lunch with again, and end up with Haruka and Takeda, since I can't seem to find Amai. They're sitting in the cafeteria, sharing one meal which is on the larger side of portions. I walk up and wave to them, "Hi there. Fukui-chan, Takeda-chan, is it okay if I sit here with you?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Ahh, Hako-chan! It's more than okay," Haruka nods, pulling out a chair, then gestures between Takeda and me, "Takkun! You remember Hako-chan, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Hm?" Takeda looks up, then checks her fingers. I did notice on the school trip that she'd taken my advice of using colored elastics, but I was too worried then to actually feel proud that I'd been able to help her, "Ah, yes! Good to see you again, Hako-chan! It seems you're always helping me out."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I'm always helping everybody out! So, how's the flute practice going?" I ask, trying to make small talk with this pair I don't know very much about.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Hm, pretty good, thanks for asking!" Takeda grins, balling up her hands, "How about your whole... Helping people deal?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I can't tell for sure, but I don't think it's going <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">badly</i>," I answer with a bit of a laugh.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Oh that's wonderful to hear!" Haruka smiles, holding her hands to her cheeks, "I think it's almost romantic, in a way, to have a goal like that... Ah, am I using the word 'romantic' correctly there?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Yes, in one of its definitions anyway. Romantic is a weird word that way, it can mean all sorts of things even though it's just the same word the whole time," I hold a finger to my chin as I think about this, "It can mean being in love with somebody, or just being somebody who's hopeful and optimistic. I guess those go hand in hand, though, because if you fall in love you're hopeful and optimistic that you'll be together forever."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Either that or you're just a nihilist," Somebody else speaks up, and I turn to see one of my classmates, a member of the science club named Rei Akabane, "And you have a pessimistic outlook. You want to be together forever but you're hopeless when it comes to the idea of it."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ZauvauNd7NgCKoPNU_Uox8d7FBcDuUzXcFi06vG2DqrHyI0Y1TL_WIjpWx0Oj0Fw46lYeLgp_TcEIz8PCi2AP1qw3-hiOvahEqYtYz4afIKH3kcY7TYtVKgm4aaK5ZHkcM4hpjs2L1rt/s1600/rei.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6; color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ZauvauNd7NgCKoPNU_Uox8d7FBcDuUzXcFi06vG2DqrHyI0Y1TL_WIjpWx0Oj0Fw46lYeLgp_TcEIz8PCi2AP1qw3-hiOvahEqYtYz4afIKH3kcY7TYtVKgm4aaK5ZHkcM4hpjs2L1rt/s320/rei.png" width="104" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Rei Akabane</span></td></tr>
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<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Well, that's a sad way of looking at being in love. Why be in love if that's the way you feel about it?" I question, screwing up my face in confusion.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"It's not like people who feel that way can help it," She answers, staring off at a far wall, "But some people are simply unobtainable, in a romantic sense. Yet, people still fall for the unattainable, and it's really quite sad. That's when love is neither hopeful nor optimistic, and it's just another tragedy that we as those who've been selected to lead the path into the future must endure."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"That sounds really unpleasant," I frown at her, clasping my hands together, "Who do you have these unachievable feelings toward, Akabane-san?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I can't say," She shakes her head and starts to walk away, "Someone who's so wrapped up in work, there's no time to show tenderness to anybody, I suppose."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"You suppose?" I question her again, but at this point she's already gone. I sigh and return my attention to my own lunch.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"That was weird," Haruka notes, picking up a tomato, "I wonder what Akabane-senpai's deal is. Butting in to a conversation which isn't hers just to offer a pessimistic worldview?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I agree," Takeda nods, and I realize the way that Haruka worded her statement. She included a recap right there, so that even if the event had already slipped Takeda's mind, she would understand the situation anyway. I can see why these two get along; Haruka's very conscious of Takeda's disability and works to accommodate her without it seeming out of place.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"It was weird, yeah, but not <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">that</i> weird, considering," I shrug it off, "We are at a school which invites people who've been through some pretty bad stuff, almost exclusively. Can you really expect anyone to react normally to just about any social situation?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"That is a good point," Haruka agrees with me, then looks around the cafeteria, "If you think about it, it's a wonder any of us have managed to make friends at all. I guess we ought to just encourage everybody at every turn!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"We should, probably! That's what I'm trying to do these days, though I might not be the most efficient at it since I'm not an adult and can't be a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">role model </i>but at least I can be a good friend, and I think that's close enough," I can't help but laugh a bit at myself. What am I doing with my life? My best, that's what. I just have to hope that my best is enough. Suddenly, the bell rings for classes to return to session, so I say goodbye to Haruka and Takeda, and wait during class for Fucko to give me some direction. I need to know what I'm doing, because if left to my own devices, I definitely wouldn't follow this very specific set of instructions. Too specific for me to happen upon it by coincidence.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Okay, Box, today is the day that you're going to talk to a very difficult girl. Natsuki Nagata. As I said, she has her reasons to be civil towards you, but that doesn't mean talking to her will be easy.</span></i></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I'm definitely up for the challenge, even if I did hear that Natsuki is a bully. She's a third year, and if she has enough of a social circle to beget cruelty towards others, she'll probably know more about this school than introverts like Mishio or Sayuri, and maybe be more willing to part with that information than the council president who has a duty to maintain confidentiality. Yumiko could only tell me so much about the graduating class of 2015, who in fact, never did graduate.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I look for Natsuki first in the science room, but she's nowhere to be seen. I ask her clubmates, though, and Maka informs me that she's gone to the back of the school, where the dumpsters are. I think that's a bit odd of course, but I make my way over there, and Natsuki is standing there. She's got her robotic arm holding down the lid of a dumpster as she works to drill nails into it to seal it shut. I frown and walk up to her, "Nagata-senpai? What are you doing?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Sealing this dumpster so that the trash stays inside," She answers, setting down the drill gun to put her real hand on her hip, "Why are <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">you</i> here?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I was looking for you," I explain, then look at the dumpster in question and note that it's not the one connected to the chute for the debris from the incinerator, "Uh, I think that Yuu-senpai lives in there."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"That's correct," Natsuki nods, and there's a clattering noise from inside, "Like I said. I'm sealing the trash inside."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I'm... Sorry, but I can't just let you seal up one of our classmates inside of a dumpster," I raise a hand up, then pat the dumpster with it, "Yuu-senpai? You okay in there?"</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvqh2UToVHxwlFPZY0bbc-uT2fkuxlGJl_RWShEHLXNIASAK1H-_wACYaRmf8Fw2R8xvOnadzhL3EZQdaV-scYl07qcJP1zF6-_4RBg1wnm7cpMOvqZRKKoNLvSXOTgjuC-Pqwl5bvRXJk/s1600/natsuki.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6; color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvqh2UToVHxwlFPZY0bbc-uT2fkuxlGJl_RWShEHLXNIASAK1H-_wACYaRmf8Fw2R8xvOnadzhL3EZQdaV-scYl07qcJP1zF6-_4RBg1wnm7cpMOvqZRKKoNLvSXOTgjuC-Pqwl5bvRXJk/s320/natsuki.png" width="106" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Natsuki Nagata</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Me? Oh, I'm fine!" Sakazaki answers, shouting through the plastic, "It's not like is the first time I've been Cask of Amontillado'd."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"What possible reason could there be for doing this?" I question, leaving it vague so that either of them could answer me if they so chose. Sakazaki's the one who calls out again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I'm a sneaky rat!" Her answer isn't at all satisfactory, though.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"She knows too much," Natsuki elaborates, "Caught her snooping around the science room, trying to use Rei's cameras, and figuring out all sorts of other things we've been working on. It's bad form to allow somebody like that to continue operating freely."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Rei's cameras?" I question, furrowing my brow.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"It's fine if you know as long as you don't try to use them yourself. Or go snitching to anyone who'll care. Rei Akabane has surveillance set up around the whole school, and it's been useful plenty of times in the past," </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Surveillance cameras?" I move from the dumpster, leaving Sakazaki to her fate for the time being, "If that's the case, I have to wonder... Do you think you'd have recorded what happened to me in June?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"What happened to you in June? Oh, right, that sickness thing is just a cover story. Well, I guess I probably <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">could</i> take a look through and see if I've got any information on that, but I can't make any promises. Plus, it'll cost you!" She waves a hand in the air as she says this, smirking.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Cost me? Well... What will it cost? I can pay the price," I say, looking all around, "I'd really like to know the truth."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I hear that you've got some Assis-Co tech at your disposal," Natsuki says with a condescending chuckle, "And I'm very interested in that company. I've already got to look inside their doors and security systems, the easier things to get ahold of, but I get the feeling what you have is something a little bit more unique than that. Now, I'm not asking to take it from you, but I want you to tell me everything you know about it."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I..." I start, then sigh, "I'm afraid that I just can't do that. I'm supposed to keep quiet about it. It's bad enough that Tachibana-senpai figured out I had it at all, but hers is similar to mine, so why don't you just ask her about it? I can give you anything but info on Assis-co, so..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"That's a shame," Natsuki groans, looking up at the sky, "I really want to get to know how Assis-co and Feru Innovations make all their stuff. Those companies are on the cutting edge of technology, right? If I want to ever go to space, I have to get in with them. Me and Rei made a pact, you know. We'll both work extra hard and get a job working together at one of those companies' labs, and she can make robots, and I can grow tomatoes in space."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"If your goal is to go to space and grow plants, why do you need to know how things are built?" I ask, confused by her reasoning.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Rei taught me how to mess around with electronics, and I think that's the easiest way to get in on the entry level with those places. I'm not the best at it, but I did make my own prosthetics, and they haven't failed me yet. So... I'll use this skill to achieve my dream," She balls up her fist, then grabs the drill gun again, "Of course, I can't do that if this garbage woman runs and blabs to somebody she shouldn't about what the science club's been up to!"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"...Well, it's admirable that you're so ambitious, but I still think you shouldn't be trapping your enemies inside of dumpsters," I say, watching as she continues to seal Sakazaki in.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Don't worry about me, Hako-chan! I'll get out!" Sakazaki reassures me with another yell from inside.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"She always does," Natsuki agrees in a monotone, rolling her eyes, "And don't call her my enemy. This dirty, sneaky, garbage rat is still my friend, even if she's a thorn in my side at every turn," She then addresses Sakazaki, "Sakkun, explain to Hako-chan, will you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I deserve to be Cask of Amontillado'd again because since my first year I have not stopped meddling in the science club's activities and I need to be punished to ensure that I don't tell anybody who shouldn't know, such as my boss. I wouldn't want to anyway, but Natsucchi is paranoid so I humor her!" Sakazaki answers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Well, if you're fine with it, then I guess I can't keep standing up for you," I mumble, then turn back to Natsuki, "Isn't there any way I could convince you to let me look at that camera footage without breaking any rules?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I guess there is <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">one</i> way," Natsuki shrugs as she finishes off the final screw in the dumpster, then crosses her arms, "I'm head of the science club, sure, but if you can convince Rei, they <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">are</i> her cameras. She could give you permission just like I could. But be warned, chances are she'd ask the same price I am. Whatever tech you've got is definitely rare, and we can't just let you hold onto it without sharing. You know that sharing is important, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I do, but I'm afraid that I just can't," I shake my head, "I'm not allowed to. Anyway, could you let me know if you change your mind and decide to let me see?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Well," Natsuki pauses, then groans, "I <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">guess</i> I could just do you this one favor, but like I said, there's no guarantee those cameras captured what happened. Just because there's surveillance all over the school doesn't mean every minute of every day gets recorded. They're only active when they detect motion, or when Rei's watching them, and the motion sensors wouldn't necessarily pick up whatever happened if there was too much movement. They're tuned to not record when students are just milling about, after all."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I guess that's a smart way to keep from recording anything extraneous. What is she watching for on those cameras anyhow?" I wonder.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Nothing in particular, to be honest with you," Natsuki answers, wandering back towards the front of the school. I follow her, "Rei just likes people-watching, and to get permission for putting the cameras up from our faculty advisor, she agreed to tune them to detect certain levels of motion, to help catch trespassers. We've had a few problems with those at this school, you know. Some people even say that the class of 2015 were all killed by somebody who never should have been on campus in the first place..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Do you think that's true?" I ask, and now that I know they're there, I can spot some of Rei's cameras around the campus.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"No," She doesn't even hesitate, grimacing, "Even if it wasn't a student, I don't believe that what happened to that class was a mere accident, the result of a stranger. We all know the status of this school, and about a quarter of the deaths that year were suicides. Another quarter were assumed to be foul play, and half were assumed to be unfortunate accidents. Even if it was somebody from off-campus who caused all of that, I'd say it was on the orders of a faculty member. Things were getting too boring around here for somebody upstairs, so they arranged to revitalize the rumors on how awful this place is. Besides, there's one other thing to think about. When anyone's killed off-campus, it gets covered up," She pushes her glasses up her nose, the grimace turning to a pained grin as she laughs bitterly, "Have you thought about it? Headmaster Kira. That's a suspicious name, isn't it? There's a reason we're picked. We've suffered enough that we won't be missed, but talented enough to be a benefit to society should we survive. This place is still in operation, even after what happened to my upperclassmen, and that's because the publicity painted it as natural selection, not tragedies..." Her volume is mounting, "All anybody even cared about was when the heir to the Asahi Company got killed, and even then they decided to pin the blame on her!?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Nagata-senpai-" I start, a bit shocked to find that she's showing so much emotion on this topic. I didn't take her as the type.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"That's why... I can't stand it, when our peers go ahead and throw their reputations in the gutter, you know? I want to at least be able to fool myself into thinking that if everyone at this school got killed one day, somebody would give half a damn that we were gone..." She clenches her fists and shakes her head, "We can't give them ammunition. Most people think that Korekara is just an especially good, prestigious reform school, so all they gotta do to say we deserved to die is pull up the list of what we've done wrong and say we just failed to get reformed and it ended up being our downfall. We're the nation's most talented, but if we seem like we haven't been good members of society, then it's fine if we die. Talent doesn't mean anything when we haven't been good girls..."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Is that why you're a bully?" I ask, holding my hands to my chest, "I heard from Akashiya-san, that you..."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I may have made a comment on how she should do something about those rumors, yeah," Natsuki shrugs, sticking her tongue out partially and biting down on it with her canines as she huffs, then speaks again, "What's it to you if I wanna get my classmates to make a bit of an effort to preserve their reputations?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"You could do it in a way which isn't cruel," I offer.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Cruelty's all that gets through to some people," Natsuki grimaces, kicking at a pebble with her prosthetic leg, "It's not like I meant for Hanamura-chan to start poking fun at her for it! Shouldn't have even heard me, the conversation should've been a private affair between me and Akashiya-kun. I wanted to motivate her to shut down the rumors, that's all. I know she isn't actually doing any of that, I mean... She has a legitimate part time job, and with the stipend the school offers anyone in the dorms, there's no reason she'd need to do that shit if she wasn't living beyond her means. Say a student here was doing compensated dating to support her mother, I wouldn't say a word about it. If you're gonna ruin your rep like that, you need a good reason."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Nagata-senpai," I hold my arms behind my back and dash to stand in front of her, turning to face her, "I feel like I understand you a lot more now, even if I don't agree with your methods. Could you tell me... What happened to you?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"What happened to me?" She asks, and I note a moment of genuine surprise on her face, "You mean these?" She points to her prosthetics, "Funny, that's the first time anyone's asked me that and meant it! It's an easy comeback. You genuinely want to know?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I want to know everything about everyone," I explain, "You're using cruelty to try and keep us safe, right? If it really is a conspiracy, then the faculty wouldn't have anyone killed if there's no way to believably twist it into being no big deal. Point out all our flaws, and we'll want to change them, and we'll stay safe. I want to keep everyone safe by becoming friends with them, though. Sometimes all it takes to keep somebody from ending their own life is one person caring, sometimes one conversation can prevent an accident. I guess if we're attacking from both sides, nobody will get hurt, right? But you're forsaking yourself, by becoming so cruel. They'd report your death like you weren't a genius at all, just a bully through and through. So I need to be your friend too. If nothing else, if you die, I'll set the record straight."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Good grief," Natsuki laughs, then pulls her glasses off to look me in the eyes, "Well, after a speech like that, how can I refuse? You wanna know what happened to my arm and my leg? I'll tell you. My uncle cut 'em off."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"What!?" I wasn't expecting that answer, at all, and it shows. I'm shocked, shook to my very core at this statement. Her uncle did <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">what</i>?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I come from a pretty big family, it's easy for things to be lost in the cracks. My parents always had a problem handling all of us, never meant to have so many. Three was what they wanted, but Matsuda, Aikoi and I were triplets. Five children? No wonder they started sending us off to different relatives," She explains, not seeming at all bothered by the horrible story she's telling, as if she was just talking about her most recent shopping trip, "I ended up with my uncle. I don't even remember his name, actually. It's not like I only knew him as a little kid, but I dislike him so much I'll disrespect him by ignoring the fact he has a name. He was always a weird guy, and we kept to ourselves. He let me plant a garden in his front yard, and I got along with his girlfriend, though I wouldn't consider her my aunt. We always ate dinner together, but never had a real conversation. He was the sort of man who had the opinion that the opinions of children mean nothing."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Anyway," Natsuki continues, "That's enough waxing poetic about him, it's not like I want to defend him. His girlfriend left him when I was in middle school, and that was when he started actually talking to me. I kind of wish his girlfriend had thought to warn me that the reason she'd left him wasn't just because of his occasional violent habits, but because he'd admitted to her that he was aroused by the idea of amputation. She didn't tell me till my first year here at Korekara, I guess she felt guilty. Particularly, creating a pleasure doll by amputating all four limbs. That's fine I guess, when it's the stuff of doujins, but it was the final straw when his desire to do that to her seemed too real. I <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">don't</i> forgive her, for not warning the child under his care who had been growing into a plain, but nonetheless desired young woman."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"That's terrible," I frown, and notice that my eyes are wet.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"You asked to hear it. This is Korekara Academy, and I'm sure my story's not even the most gruesome here. He didn't kiss me, or take my virginity, or force me to do anything. Cutting me up was enough for him, and he went into the other room. I never saw him naked. He had me wear a swimsuit when he did it, too, I guess he wasn't really into kids, or incest, or both. I'm lucky for that," She crosses her arms after putting her glasses back on, "Most of our classmates don't have good luck like I do. Anyway, He cauterized the wounds after that, and started homeschooling me. He was trying to be kind, get rid of the guilt I guess. He was <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">very</i> drunk when he did it, might have been on drugs too. Not like that's an excuse. I ran away a month later, which he didn't think I'd be able to do, and I lived with my oldest brother Sugawa until I was invited to Korekara."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"It's horrifying that a man like that exists," I can't help but say, even though I know she'll just laugh again. She does. I try to defend my position, "Well, I know there are a lot of bad people in the world! I just... Somebody who loses so much self control when under the influence of substances that he could cause permanent damage like that?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Morals are just another type of inhibition, and things like that do away with inhibitions. For plenty of people, that's a good thing, but for plenty it's a bad thing. A man with a shitty temper who knows better than to hit his wife... When sober. A lonely housewife who knows better than to cheat on her husband with her son's friends... When sober. A university student who knows better than to try jumping into a pool from fifteen stories up... When sober," She adjusts her glasses again, "My uncle knew better than to actually cut somebody's limbs off, when sober. What scares me more are people like Shirato-san, who don't know better when they're sober. People who don't need drugs or alcohol to do bad things."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"What... Are you talking about Kyoko Shirato?" I question.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"I am indeed. I'm not a good person at all, but even I hate her. Maybe it's naive of me, but I choose to believe what I hear about people unless they've given me a reason not to. Shirato-san is scum. Shirato-san is a mess. Shirato-san is the worst person in this school by <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">far,</i>" She complains, tossing her hair back, "When it comes to her, she's one of those people who I hope doesn't learn a thing if I'm cruel to her, because I genuinely just hate her guts. As an idol, her fans put a certain level of faith in her, and she betrayed that trust time and time again. Just because you're a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">star</i> doesn't mean you get a free pass to skip on getting consent."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"What are you talking about?" I question, now worrying. Ayano wanted to get to know Kyoko, does this mean that she's in danger?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"Why don't you ask her yourself? I heard she was going to stay after today, in one of the empty classrooms, because that pathetic little first year wanted to talk with her," She pauses, "Ugh, there's a good number of pathetic little first years. The one with the little kid backpack."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">"...Thanks," I mumble, then just wave goodbye to Natsuki as I run towards the classroom, ignoring the ringing in my head. Fucko's saying something, but I'm so worried at the moment that I can't even interpret what it's trying to tell me. It's only when I reach the empty classroom and go to open the door, only to have my hand wrench itself away against my will that I stop to listen.</span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I can't believe you made me do that. I thought that as long as my instructions didn't go against your true nature, I wouldn't have to take control of your body at all. You need to listen.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Ayano is in danger and I need to get inside the classroom. I lift my hand toward the door again, only to take four steps backward without meaning to.</span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I don't want to control you, Box, but I will if I have to. You cannot interfere. She is not in danger. In fact, it's important that those two get together. I told you before that Kyoko Shirato is a potential problem for Sakazaki Yuu's continued survival, right? And I made sure you introduced Ayano and Kyoko. It's true that Kyoko has caused some terrible harm, but Ayano will be safe.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I need more of an explanation than this. I can't just accept the vague instructions now.</span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Fine, then. Were Ayano and Kyoko not to date each other, Kyoko would force herself on Sakazaki Yuu. In a fit of jealousy, Ayano would stop taking her medicine and kill Sakazaki, then go on to attack a number of Kyoko's fans. As it stands... Kyoko will not see Ayano as an object of lust, and Ayano will naturally come to the conclusion that she loved the idea of Kyoko, the idol, more than the real Kyoko.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">How can Fucko possibly know all of this? I'll readily admit that it hasn't been wrong before, but I would love to know how it has such intimate knowledge on my classmates and everything that goes on with them.</span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">If I told you the truth, you would never believe me. Not until we have results, so just go ahead and back off from this classroom, okay? Go home. There's nothing left for you to do today. All you had to do today was get Natsuki to open up to you; she will be a valuable asset before the month is up.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I'm tired, I'm so tired of not knowing what's going on. I feel like it's more unbelievable that Fucko knows these things than whatever reason it has for knowing them, but I suppose I can't argue with it too much. It's a piece of highly advanced technology, and I'm just some impulsive kid whose only talent is making friends. I don't want to rebel against it. I don't want to disobey it, or stop being of use to my peers and to Assis-co, I just wish that I understood.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I want to understand.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Please.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Let me understand.</span></div>
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">I promise I'll explain it all soon.</span></i></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/checkboxes-chapter-twelve.html" style="background-color: #b4a7d6;">Next Chapter -></a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-44551839456169272552017-10-11T11:38:00.001-07:002017-10-11T11:38:14.628-07:00Another Anime Con!Hey everybody! Your favorite serial author Nico H here to say that I'll be attending Another Anime Convention this upcoming weekend, October 13th-15th! Not only attending, but manning a booth, and if you're lucky you might get a chance at a volume collection of Mahou Shonen Just Say No's first arc for only 5$ ! What's so special about that? Well, the first arc is chapters 1-8, and as of right now, only 1-3 are available online! You could get an exclusive look if you come by...<br />
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Booth 416 at Another Anime Convention in Manchester NH!</h2>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-6530641217707214782017-10-11T11:35:00.000-07:002017-10-11T11:35:37.608-07:00Reading Order GuideI've heard that some people have been interested in a guide to what order they should read these serials, if the intention is to read all of them. The truth is of course that they can be read in any order; For any which are ongoing, it's perfectly fine to just read them as they update. However, here are some variations in the experience you may have reading them if you decide to read in a particular order.<br />
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Checkboxes <b>before</b> Yokaishiteru: Once Checkboxes is completed, this will be a chronological progression with only about a week between the ending of Checkboxes and the beginning of Yokaishiteru, both occurring in the same location. Yokaishiteru's first few chapters are also lighter fare, so could be good for recovering.<br />
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Checkboxes <b>after</b> Yokaishiteru: Since even as Checkboxes isn't done yet, Yokaishiteru's beginning reveals its ending, reading Yokaishiteru first colors Checkboxes in a different light with the knowledge of where it will eventually lead.<br />
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<b>Mahou Shonen Just Say No </b>is a standalone story, without active ties to the others. It can be read at any point without difficulty. There are overlapping characters and situations, but as it happens in a different timeline, it's not a big deal. However, if you either <b>read MSJSN before every other story </b>or <b>read every other story before MSJSN,</b> you'll be able to pick up on the differences between the timelines.<br />
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<b>Akuma No Imouto</b><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i> is more of an ensemble story, with its premise of collecting secrets from various characters, but chronologically occurs in the year 2020, which is further in the future from any of the other stories. Otherwise, its own plotline doesn't tie in to other plots.<br />
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<b>Evil Meet Justice </b>and <b>Bad Dreams</b> both take place back in the 90s, and are two sides of the same coin. They also take place in different parts of the United States (New Mexico and Washington, Boston and Texas respectively.) and both serve as exposition for the overarching themes of the International Intrigue Agency and The Order in the other stories, as well as telling about their own characters.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2879961052930064134.post-76112334815549759972017-10-07T07:46:00.000-07:002018-09-17T11:43:24.761-07:00Evil, Meet Justice Chapter Three<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/09/evil-meet-justice-chapter-two.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-Previous Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/08/evil-meet-justice-chapter-one.html" style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><-----First Chapter</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">That evening, that night, even the next morning; they’re all blurs to her, but wonderful blurs. Fun ones. Good times of a particular nature that she can hardly even say she’s ever experienced before; no, if she thinks about it, she really hasn’t. She’s never before been in a room of people her own age that she’s on friendly terms with. Dawson had always been there. She’s experiencing... freedom. Freedom and friendship.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">There was nothing about her job which said she couldn’t make friends, nothing which said her training was at all intended to inhibit her social growth in any way, nothing that stood against her having emotions as long as she refrained from expressing them in the line of duty. Nonetheless, these things were as alien to her as if she’d been strictly ordered against fraternization and feelings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She couldn’t even claim the tragedy of her profession as a factor of her upbringing. This was entirely her own fault, if she got down to it. She could blame Dawson, of course, for her seclusion... However, his influence was as strong as ever now, she only decided for the first time to defy him. The only factor in her life that she could pin on the job was how mature she was for her age.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box;">If you want justice, find something concrete.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">As soon as she’s finished with her breakfast, always a splendid production when a friend lives at a restaurant titled Casa Del Pancake, she borrows a bit more money from Arturo with the promise to pay him back and makes her way out, arriving at the stop a good ten minutes before her bus is supposed to arrive. It’s a different bus than the one which leads into the city, so if she misses one it’s not so easy to get the next one. This is the bus to the shooting range, after all, and that’s quite a ways away from downtown Albuquerque.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box;">People are in pain all over the world, constantly, at any and all times.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">The bus pulls up, she steps on. Her sneakers sound strange on the stairs, so she looks down. The bus driver’s got mats for the bus stairs, welcome mats that have silly puns written on them. A playful introduction, as if this isn’t the bus thats only stops are suburbia and a shooting range. She chuckles a bit, not at the puns, but at the absurdity of it. Hands her money over to the driver, who gives her a wide grin and a thumbs-up. She smiles back, and waves as she turns to find her seat. This bus is always empty, more or less. She supposes that’s how the driver can be so friendly, and remember all of the passengers too.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box;">You can’t help them. Find a serial killer. That’s justice.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She sits, and stares out the window, and remembers the first time she heard those words which she regurgitated to Arturo. How old was she? Four. She was four, and it was a week before her fifth birthday, when she went to orientation. When that woman... No, that girl, she couldn’t have been older than sixteen, explained what was going on. She said those words first in Japanese, then in English, then in Spanish. They sounded natural each time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">The room had no features. She can remember, though. She can remember that there were other people there, people she had never seen before and would never see again. Their faces are blurred now, but that’s unimportant. What matters is that she is not alone. She is not the only young person out there with a memory of a red-haired woman, raised from childhood just like she would be, explaining the future.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Tina Packard was chosen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She has no idea why, but she can only assume it was the result of some poor decision on the part of a family member of hers, that she should be spirited away to orientation at such a tender young age. The only words she really recalls from that meeting are the ones she told Arturo. The ones that stuck with her, because they were in response to a question she asked. After being told that she had been selected to be trained as a young member of a group titled the ‘International Intrigue Agency’, she asked if that meant they were crusaders of justice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She asked if it meant that she could save people from suffering.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">That woman said she couldn’t. Not in the way she was thinking, anyway. To these people, everyday pain was trivial. If only one person was being hurt, then it was fine. Nothing to be concerned with. The IIA was intended to combat greater threats.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box;">Some people are simply intended to go through Hell.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She sets her head against the window. It vibrates, and feels horrible, but something about the cool glass is comforting nonetheless. When that woman said those things to her, did she know? Could she have known, that Tina must have been one of those people who was fated to suffer? No, that’s impossible. The words she said were terrible, yes, but not cruel. She was not malicious, that woman. She was only doing her job. Only doing exactly what Tina did herself, just the day before.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Told somebody what she had been taught. An employee of the IIA would have been told exactly the same thing, after all. International Intrigue Agency, even the name conveyed that feeling. Justice was something larger. Justice was not retribution for people who hurt another person, it wasn’t giving an injured party a chance at relief. It was protecting the world. It was retribution for people who harmed multiple people. People in multiple countries... or, federal cases that needed to call in outside help.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">And of course the IIA’s agents are considered the top force the world has to offer. Operating outside of any single country, regulations are unimportant. As long as they continue offering help to countries they take children from, there will be no backlash. Tina’s been told that she’s as competent now, at age twelve, as some FBI agents are. By the time she’s an adult, she’ll be a force to be reckoned with, by anyone. Anyone but her brother, that is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She knows that it’s psychological.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She could stop him easily, if he tried anything...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Assuming that she could actually be stirred to action.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She knows that she’s stronger than him, and yet, she also knows that he has complete power over her. Perhaps that’s how more seasoned IIA agents feel about their higher-ups. A group of scientists, physically weak, but superior merely by virtue of asserting the fact that they are undeniably the ones in charge. She hasn’t spoken to anyone in the IIA but that woman at orientation and her shooting instructor, but she knows nonetheless what those scientists are capable of, even if she could beat each one of them in an arm-wrestling match in such youth as hers. It’s better to be complacent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Only stand against people she’s told to. That’s something she’s been taught, in part, but what she’s learned on her own is that it translates to complacency. She feels robotic. She’ll do anything she’s ordered to by somebody in a superior position, even if it means defying, attacking, killing somebody else. The answer to her question back then... no IIA agent is a crusader of justice. That implies autonomy. They’re merely puppets, soldiers, manufactured beings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">And yet, in this complacency, she is complacent in that fact.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Nonetheless, she knows that she could stop. She could give up on this easily, they wouldn’t come after her. She could turn her back on the IIA at any time, but she won’t. Not because she’s been groomed into being obedient to them, but rather because of the person who did it. He always reminds her she could leave. He’s by far the least complacent agent they have, and thanks to him, she won’t leave.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">He’s the one who makes her think that maybe, she can take matters into her own hands. She knows what those scientists can do, but she doesn’t fear them. She always clung to that, only as proof of her individuality, but with Arturo’s words, it means something more to her. It means that she can go against them. If she sees injustice in her life... who’s to stop her from standing against it? As long as she’s a valuable asset to the agency, they won’t touch her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">She’s pulled out of her thoughts when the bus grinds to a stop, and looks up, waiting only a second before she stands and gets off of it. This bus stays at its stops for quite a while, a good ten minutes, but she doesn’t want to risk it in case for some reason the driver decides today is the day to go fast.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">As soon as she gets out of the sliding doors, the summer heat hits her, almost as strong as the sounds of the range. No need to wonder if those are fireworks; for once, it’s most certainly gunshots. She takes a deep breath of dry air before walking up the short path from the bus stop to the building. As soon as she gets in, there he is. Ssnad.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Oi!” He turns around to greet her without even looking first. Probably just recognized her by the way she opened the door, “Tina Packard! How’s it going, anyway?” He asks, ruffling her hair, but before she can answer he speaks again, “Wait, no, let me guess,” He grins, cupping his chin in his free hand, “You look tired, but happier than usual. So if I had to say... I think that you’ve probably made some friends, and slept over last night? Great job, kiddo!”</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvQH-bT4xOWsr71oy5z6kwEHtxgOvtjRh61fYBKmOQJSQf2f9JUmBma_orMugN2BJfXSzSLfM9v8EijqLwT7-kHcwXyviuwQMJgGyKqvedLXPugtrixe8B8Mh5VwlyB97P-iT3PPNyIjJl/s1600/ssnad.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvQH-bT4xOWsr71oy5z6kwEHtxgOvtjRh61fYBKmOQJSQf2f9JUmBma_orMugN2BJfXSzSLfM9v8EijqLwT7-kHcwXyviuwQMJgGyKqvedLXPugtrixe8B8Mh5VwlyB97P-iT3PPNyIjJl/s400/ssnad.png" width="127" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">ssnad</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Yeah,” She nods, and doesn’t even question how he figured it out so well. Of course he did; in all the years she’s known him, he’s been like this. He’s only twenty-two, but looks a lot older, and has been training her for the past seven years. Even when he was fifteen, though, he looked about twice his age. He’s built large, and the entire right side of his face is covered in burn scars from an accident that apparently occurred when he was very young. Only the left side of his scalp can grow hair, so he just shaves all of it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Y’know what? How bout, to celebrate you making friends, we do something a little different today? All your training so far’s been with pistols, right? Well, that’s cause the knockback on a rifle’s bound to be a little much for a kid, but I think you’re probably strong enough to try it out by now...” He trails off, then crosses his arms, staring off into space. Tina frowns, then gets up on her toes and waves her hand in front of his face, “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Thinking about what?” She leans herself to the side to stay within his vision field, on his left as he starts walking. She keeps up with him easily, since he naturally walks rather slowly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“You, your training, all that sort of thing,” He shrugs, then slides his hands into the pockets of the navy-blue vest he always seems to wear. It used to be a bit oversized on him, but now fits just right, as if it was a gift from somebody who could predict what size he’d end up being when he was grown, “You know, I started teaching you when I was fifteen. My first missions started a year before that. My training partners... Sasane, she’s a year older than me, and they had her working as a translator just as soon as they made me a teacher. And Iwako...”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“What about her?” Tina asks, enthralled by what he’s saying. It’s so rare that he tells her anything about himself. Ever since she questioned his scars, he hasn’t told her much at all, although he did part with that information easily. Perhaps he only wanted to earn her trust, by dispensing with one of many secrets.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Well, she was always brilliant. She’s a doctor, you know, but that’s not exactly the right thing to call her. She’s what people call an angel of death,” He chuckles a bit, under his breath, but seems somehow sad, “Do you know what that is, Tina? It’s a Doctor or Nurse who kills their patients. The IIA uses her ruthlessly. There are a lot of criminals taken alive who probably shouldn’t be, after all. Many of them injured in the process. Doctor Iwako Same, she ends them.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“I see...” She notes, going over all she was just told in her mind, useful information that she wouldn’t want to forget, “So, I guess this agency has a lot of different ways to use people and their skills...”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“It does,” He nods, then sighs as he pulls one hand back out of his pocket to gesture for the range assistant to get a rifle, “Too many ways. I joined of my own volition, but most people don’t. Usually, the agency just decides that some child has the potential to be useful, and starts training them. They say you’re allowed to leave, but you know... it’s hard to turn your back on something you’ve known since childhood.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Yeah...” Tina nods as the assistant hands her the rifle, then repeats herself a bit louder when she realizes she could barely hear herself over the headphone-like sound mufflers, “Hey, I’ve got a question though. Why don’t I have training partners, like you apparently did?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Part of it’s because I volunteered instead of just being picked for it,” He explains, stepping closer to adjust her arms just a bit, for a better stance. His hands are guiding, like a teacher’s should be, and he doesn’t touch her any more or for any longer than necessary, “And part of it’s because there were so many kids being trained, at that point. Sasane was picked for her skill with languages, and Iwako was already working in hospitals by age six.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“That’s sort of scary? Isn’t it dangerous, to teach somebody like that how to be one of the most physically competent people in the world?” She wonders out loud before firing off a shot. A near-miss, but at least she hits the target, and she doesn’t budge from where she’s standing. She’ll probably end up with a bruise by her collarbone, but otherwise it seems she’s strong enough to handle the gun.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Maybe, but I really don’t know. The IIA will use criminals if they seem useful, after all, and Iwako definitely did. She’s completely stable, and very intelligent, if a bit... emotionally difficult,” He explains while giving her a thumbs-up for a good first shot, “She compulsively commits murders, see. All the IIA had to do to make her useful was point her in the direction of people they wanted dead. Even if she wasn’t all that useful, the scientists wanted to add to their ranks, and study someone like her. It’s not every day they could experiment on somebody whose family is considered a myth.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Right,” She nods as she readies another shot, “I almost forgot that the higher-ups are more concerned with the human condition than </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">actually</i></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"> protecting the world. Too bad I’m just a routine kid, right? I bet they’d be happier they picked me if I had something fascinating about me...”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Except that you are fascinating to them,” He notes, and in her shock she fires again. This time she does miss the target. Frowning, she puts the gun down and turns to him. She doesn’t even need to ask for him to know he has to explain better, “You were fascinating since orientation. Even before you were taught anything, you were compelled by the idea of justice. Everyone at HQ is waiting to see what you end up doing in your life, you know.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Well, that’s just plain wrong,” She crosses her arms and looks away, “Right there at orientation, my dreams about that sort of thing were crushed. They told me my idea of justice was wrong, and I believed them. There’s nothing out of the ordinary anymore about me.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“You know,” He bites his lower lip, tapping his foot, “Why don’t we head out, right? It’d probably be better if we talked about this in private, kid.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Already? But, I hardly did any practice at all yet,” She frowns, disappointed, “I wanna know the answers, yeah, but I don’t want to sacrifice my training for it... Wouldn’t you get in trouble?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">“Nice to know that you care about my situation,” Ssnad chuckles, putting his hands into his pockets in a relaxed position, “But, Tina, I won’t get in trouble for </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">anything</i></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">. I’m kind of in a gray area. I can get in trouble for some things, but not the things </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">everyone</i></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"> can get in trouble for, and the things I </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">would</i></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"> get in trouble for are things I’d never do.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Let me see if I've got this straight," Tina pauses, trying to think her way through what Ssnad's told her in the past ten minutes, "They seriously don't even care what you do, because you joined up willingly when you were a kid?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yes, that's basically what it boils down to," Ssnad can't help but let out a hearty laugh as he puts a hand on her back and leads her away from the shooting range, "So unfortunately, you never got the chance to get same 'fire me, I dare you' attitude that I've got, but who knows. Maybe if you're an especially good agent, you'll end up in a similar position yourself. I can't honestly say I know what's going to happen, after all, it's your life. I'm just honored to be a part of it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thanks," She's genuinely grateful for the way that he's phrased that. It's her life. The fact that he uses the term honored is a bit strange to her, but it makes her feel good, a glowing sort of pride in herself which she just couldn't shake even if she wanted to. The way that he talks to her is so different from the way her own parents do, <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">when</i> they do. It's an uncommon occurrence in the first place, but even so, they never make her feel proud. She receives praise from them for all that she does, but pride is something which seems devoid. She's not proud to succeed at living without them, because she wishes things were different. She isn't proud that she's keeping Dawson alive, because every single time she heats up a frozen dinner for him, he gets more and more obsessed with her. She's proud to hear that her mentor believes she has free will, though. It's a very odd thing to be so empowered by.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">Ssnad leads her to a hotel, as it's the easiest place to get a room to talk in private. They've done this plenty of times before, but it seems like there have been some recent hires, because Tina doesn't recognize the man at the desk. She approaches, following two steps of distance worth behind Ssnad, as he was obviously going to be the one to buy the room. Tina has never heard of a hotel which allows check-in when under eighteen, and this is one of the only ones, according to Ssnad, that allows check-in under 21, which was important for a few years of her training. The fact that there's only a decade between them is still odd to her, because he always seems to wise and knowing, and... Fatherly, though she supposes she doesn't have any real gauge on what fatherly <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">is</i>.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Heh, cute chick you've got here," The man at the desk chuckles when he sees the pair of them, comparing their starkly different features and already come to the conclusion that there was no way they were related, "Looks kind of young though. Hey, girl, can I see some ID?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I don't have an ID, I'm twelve. Thirteen next week," Tina answers, screwing up her face, "Why?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, I thought so," The guy at the desk turns to Ssnad again, "Buddy, whatever you're trying to do here, I won't be an accessory to-"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oi," Before anyone can even blink, Ssnad's got his handgun out, and he's pointing it straight at the employee. While the employee is wide-eyed and scared, as are a few other guests, Tina's just smirking to herself, and a similar look adorns a few other employee's faces, with the rest of them just looking bored, "What sort of man are you to look at a twelve-year-old and think whoever's with her sees her as a sexual being? The only people who should think about twelve-year-olds having sex are other twelve-year-olds. Every weekend we come here in order to discuss important business where we can't be overheard, and plenty of people on your staff can and would attest to that fact."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Jesus Christ, you could have said that without pulling a <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">gun</i>," The man at the desk puts his hands up, grimacing as he looks around, "And nobody even cares?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Not in the least," The woman working the other desk line answers, punching numbers into her screen. She's very pale to be living and working in New Mexico, Tina notes. Actually, upon closer inspection, it seems that she's albino, "You brought this on yourself. Though it's kind of included in the job description by now. If you get a gun pulled on you by Mister Ssnad more than once, then you'll probably be fired. It's a sign that you haven't improved at all. Mister Ssnad has been coming to this hotel for six years, four months, fifteen days. His gun-using ways have become a staple."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Thanks very much, Miss Shijian," Ssnad thanks the albino girl, who smiles at him and gives a short bow in response.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"No, thank you, Mister Ssnad," She tucks her long hair back behind her ear, then turns to help the next customers. Tina and Ssnad make their way up to the room to talk.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That girl at the front desk..." Tina starts as she sits down at the table in the hotel room, "You know each other?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You could tell, huh?" He chuckles, folding his hands in front of himself, "Actually, I'm the one who got her this job, as a favor to a friend of mine. You've heard of Alice, correct?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course," Tina nods, "You told me before, Alice Chekhovich is the IIA's leading psychology researcher, right?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah, and getting Miss Shijian this job was a favor to her," Ssnad explains, "Actually, I try my best to help Alice out whenever I can, because she's one of the good ones. There's this project starting up, for example, trying to recreate the effects of a certain genetic structure. Alice has advised against using Doctor Same's psychological experiences in that project. She's always trying to help her friends, too. When she was a child, she went through something quite drastic, and has a number of friends from that time who are working through mental illness and trauma. Miss Shijian is one of those."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I see," Tina nods, "That's very kind of her, and very kind of you to help her accomplish it, too."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"We're just trying our best to be good people. You'll do that too, won't you, Tina?" Ssnad questions, looking away. He won't make eye contact as he says this, and sounds sad.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Of course I will," Tina stands back up, pressing her hands against the table, "I have to, after all... I made a promise with my friend, that we would both follow our dreams to help as many people as we can."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"That's not what I'm asking," He shakes his head, "I know that you'll help people. I want to know that you'll <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">try</i>. There are always going to be times when you fail, after all. You can't beat yourself up over those failures. Especially now... Justin has expressed concerns that we're going to have a lot more responsibilities soon. That a group is growing in power and ambition, and could become our enemy. There are going to be people... Many people who we can't save, we can't protect. I don't want you to hold yourself to such a high standard that you end up in a bad situation, beating yourself up over things you can't control."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I won't let that happen," Tina decides, "I won't-"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You already <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">have</i>, Tina, so I can't honestly believe you when you say that."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"What... What do you mean?" Tina questions, furrowing her brow in concern. As far as she can tell, she hasn't set any impossible standards on herself.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"You're already too hard on yourself. When it comes to Dawson, anyhow. You subject yourself to his abuse just because he'll 'hurt somebody else' if you don't. You don't know that, and you don't have to do that. You could move in with somebody else. I'm traveling between here and Japan too often to trust myself with taking care of you, but I have plenty of connections who would be willing. All you have to do is say the word, and you won't have to deal with him anymore. I want to help you before it's too late. You don't know if he'll become more bold," Ssnad sighs, "I don't want to just sit and watch as you subject yourself to suffering."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I'll... Think about it," Tina gives him a tense nod, digging her fingernails into the palm of her hand, "I mean... It's a compelling offer. And I don't know, actually, if there's anybody else right now that he could redirect to, so maybe I should take you up on that. We're visiting our cousin in Washington for spring break, so I guess I'll have an answer for you after we get back."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Oh, Washington?" Ssnad asks, raising his eyebrow, "Where in Washington? I know some people up there. I mean, that's where a bunch of Alice's friends are from."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"It's not Seattle or anything, it's an island town that used to be an industry hub during World War Two, but sort of became a ghost town when the factories shut down. It's called Mesteri," Tina explains, "The only real interesting things there are Highway Zero and the 'Home for Wayward Youths'."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"...Wow, would you look at that. Small world, huh?" Ssnad laughs a bit, holding a hand over his mouth in a sort of half-facepalm, hiding just how much amusement he was getting out of such a coincidence, "Alice made her friends in that Home for Wayward Youths. It was a pretty awful place before she reformed it, you know."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I heard," Tina blinks a few times before she starts laughing too, "I can't believe this! We're in New Mexico, so how do we both have connections to that <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">one</i> town?"</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"I guess it was just a matter of time. I have connections all over, so eventually you'd have to have a connection to the same place as me," Ssnad notes, "Though it definitely is weird that it's Mesteri, Washington, and not a city with a higher population."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Tina nods, biting the inside of her cheek as she thinks through how odd it really is, "Well, I think it's kind of cool, actually. Dawson and I might end up moving up there for high school, Mom says, so at least if I move it's to somewhere you already know... Assuming I don't decide to stop living with Dawson, of course."</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">"Yeah," Ssnad nods, and he feels as if she has no intention to take him up on his offer to get her out of that awful situation. It isn't that she doesn't want to escape it, but she really is worried that if she isn't there to absorb his issues, he'll find somebody else to push them on. Maybe part of it, too, is that she feels like he's come to rely on her so much that he'd just end up dead if she was to leave now, and she didn't want that on her conscience. Bad as he is, she doesn't think he deserved to die, and she certainly doesn't want to be responsible for it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">And Ssnad can tell. He's dealt with enough people just like Tina, and he's going to continue dealing with more. She has a complex, so it's impossible for her to disconnect from the situation and think rationally about it. It would be easy for her to just stop being involved with Dawson at all, would be the easiest thing in the world with the options she's being given, but she won't.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She's worried about the well-being of others to a fault, and Ssnad needs to take his own advice that he's given her. He can't save everyone that he wants to, and Tina is one of those people who just has to be left to her own devices. left to make her own decisions, even if they <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">are</i> bad decisions. It's fine.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">The conversation turns to practical discussion, just working through various new IIA related information which is pertinent to Tina, and talking about her continued training. Nothing which is all that peculiar. The psychological talk is done with, and it's just the usual fare from that point on. Ssnad buys her some fast food after they leave, as she prefers it to that hotel's room service, then he drives her home rather than having her take the bus back. The usual schedule; she has always only taken the bus <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">to</i> the firing range rather than back from it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">With today's training finished, Ssnad drops her off a few blocks away from her home. He recommends that she find somewhere else to go if she can, but she knows that she has to face the demon eventually, and since she never came home yesterday, going out again today would just make it worse when she <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">did</i> go back, which she at least needs to do for the sake of the spring break trip to Mesteri. She rarely gets to see her cousin, but they get along when they do meet.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">She sighs and holds her arms in close to herself as she makes her way back to her house, steeling herself for whatever Dawson has to say about her overnight disappearance yesterday. It'll be fine, she assures herself. Things will work out.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;">They have to.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #d9d2e9;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://nicoserial.blogspot.com/2017/11/evil-meet-justice-chapter-four.html"><span style="background-color: #d9d2e9; color: black;">Next Chapter -></span></a></div>
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