Author's Note: This took way too long to write. I tried an experiment with dictating earlier today, and it was going great until I realized that my bluetooth microphone wasn't supported by my laptop. So all the prose I had spoken for that 20-30 minutes (not sure how long, but it was long enough that I was pretty much done) was not written down and I had just been talking to myself like a crazy person. So disheartening. Still, it's promising if I find a headset that doesn't kill my wallet and is supported by my laptop. I expect that my writing output will increase dramatically. I could have used my afternoon to dictate something else, and then the time I spent this evening rewriting this could have been spent on a
third thing. I coulda been the next tree.
[] Say something (pick as many as you wish)
-[] "Yes, I will save you as well," you say to the boy, "What do you need me to save you from?"
-[] "I'm afraid you're wrong about me not being able to stop you. I will be saving her."
[] Now that you're done talking, attack!
-[] The Large Man
-[] The Priest
-[] Don't attack the Pretty Boy, just dodge his attacks. Go for the Priest first, he seems the most dangerous.
6: An Encounter With Tofu
It looked like you had to respond. The problem was what to say. It didn't seem like you could talk your way out of this.
The priest seemed very serious. He had to be, considering he was offering 5,000,000 yen to a random highschooler.
You decide to respond to the boy first. After all, you don't know how long before the subtle pull to activate your powers expires.
Ignoring the priest momentarily, you turn to the boy. "Yes, I will save you as well." You immediately feels a tingling flow through you, starting from the crown of your head flowing down to the tips of your fingers and toes.
"What do you need me to save you from?" you finish, trying to act as if nothing had changed. However, you notice that both the Priest and the Large Man had taken a step back.
Did they know you used your power?
The boy was staring at you with a dumbfounded look upon his face, as if you had done something particularly amazing. Or stupid.
"Episode!" the priest hissed at the boy dropping all pretense of gentleness, which jolted him out of his shock. He too stepped away from you.
Were you that frightening?
"What did you do?" demanded the priest. People
did know when you used your power, though you weren't sure how. You filed that fact away as you considered how to respond.
For a moment you are tempted to say something utterly ridiculous, like you are from the moon, in the hopes that they'll either underestimate you or be too confused to coordinate.
No, you should just be direct. It was going to come to blows, so you might as well get started. After all, Hachikuji had said you were superhuman, right?
Still you should say something before you attack them.
You might not be a hero of justice, but you weren't a villain either.
"I'm afraid you're wrong about me not being able to stop you. I will be saving her." you declare.
You had always wanted to say something like that.
"Kill him!" the priest ordered, the large man instantly moving towards you, with the boy following after a mere moment of hesitation.
Your heart begins racing, as you reflexively brace yourself. It's at this moment that you notice something.
They're slow.
No, that's not it. It would be better to say that you're fast. Amazingly fast.
You take a long moment to study the large man take a step towards you. How he moves his large body smoothly and efficiently, and what to a normal person must be surprising quickness.
The boy is still taking his first step, having just lifted his massive cross from the ground. You notice a faint red glow seems to be coming from his eyes. Did he always have that?
The priest is still standing off to your left, letting the other two attack you. He's the one who was giving the orders. He was also the one who attacked you when he arrived. He was the most dangerous one here, you decided.
You breathe in, concentrate and focusing on the priest, you leap.
You land in front of him, almost losing your balance as the concrete shatters beneath your feet.
You had never been in a fight. Well, you had roughhoused with your sisters, but that didn't really count. So it wasn't surprising that knowing how to throw a punch was the limit of your knowledge. Not that you had punched your sisters. With them, it was mostly the other way around.
Still, even though it might be the limit of your fighting skill, you figure that if you were this fast there was no way you could lose. You were supposed to have superhuman strength too, right?
You ball up your fist, and throw a straight punch.
You had thought you were prepared for all sorts of outcomes. For the punch to land and the priest to go "oof." For him to fly away in a crumpled heap.
You were even prepared for him to miraculously dodge it, or even catch it like some manga character.
You were shocked.
It was like punching air. No resistance.
Utterly shocked.
That you cracked concrete just by moving quickly should have been a clue.
To put it simply, you punched him, and he died.
You don't know if he ever even saw it coming.
You're pretty sure he never saw the fist that killed him.
You were so shocked you could only focus on a single sensation.
A texture that reminded you of wet tofu.
...
It's two loud crashes, quick in succession, that break you out of your haze. You turn in time to see someone get hacked apart where you had just been standing, their head almost comically bouncing off the pavement and rolling to your feet.
Wait.
Isn't that your face?
You look up to find the boy and the large man staring at you, both still standing with their weapons embedded in...well...what appeared to be your corpse.
That was unsettling.
No, it was beyond unsettling, it was...
The large man withdrew quickly, his wavy sword vanishing in some sort of trick. His movements were now much harder to follow. Was he always this fast?
The boy stared beyond you to where the priest...had been. It's only a moment before he moved to follow his larger compatriot, his face overcome with an emotion that you couldn't quite place.
Had they been close?
"Wait! Don't attack! I'll make a deal!" the large man shouts at you.
You barely have time to register his words before the pretty boy lands next to the man and swings the cross through his leg.
Screaming in effort, the large man swings his sword that he suddenly had in hand, but he encounters only a mist.
Where had the boy gone? You were barely able to follow what was happening, much less understand it.
If you had more fighting experience, would you be able to keep up, or were true battles always this confusing?
"Episode!" The man growled through clenched teeth as he struggled to stand. "If you stop interfering, I'll report you as dead."
It was at this point that you noticed that the bubble containing the woman had begun to glow almost blindingly.
[]Press the Attack
-[] What's your plan?
[] Panic
[] Try to strike a deal
-[] What do you say?
[] Try to find the Boy
-[] What do you do?
[] Wait for a moment. The glowing means something is happening, so you should just wait for it to finish.
[] Write-in something else
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