Yeah, I know it's really rambly at the beginning. It's an accurate representation of me in class.
Warning, this chapter, along with the rest of this story, includes heavy swear- like, upwards of two f-bombs a chapter, that's like, enough to have your would be PG-13 movie rated M. I may briefly bring up ideology/abuse it in this chapter because she dies, but I will never shame anyone of a certain ideology... with the exception of Nazism/ Faschism/ Totalitarianism- but hey! That's one extremely expected exception. In other words, nothing in this story will go past the content of what is in the Tales of series unless stated otherwise (becausewhodoesn'tlikemakingyourcharactersslowlygoinsaneduetotragedy?)
"Be stille, children!" my civics teacher says in his weird English-German-Spanish he does occasionally. Ignoring his call to attention, my dumbass GT classmates continue to chatter. Meanwhile, the dark cloud of the idea of assigned seating is looming over the heads of the kids at my table as we watch our teacher get annoyed.
Our teacher makes some joking comments about us needing to shut up and us being horrible children before we quiet down, although, that happens after he fakes motioning to put up a checkmark in the warnings until assigned seating boxes. He made another joking comment about us being horrible children before he went to explaining the lesson we would have today, Roles of the Executive Branch of Government, in other words, things you should know if you paid the slightest bit of attention in school for the past sixish years or so.
I think for a moment about how he always made jokes about us being horrible students before I laugh inwardly as I recall an event from a few weeks ago where I said, "Yes, I am a horrible child," and he responded, "You may be a horrible child but you're a pretty good pre-adult." Honestly, I have no idea what that really meant, so I've been chalking it up along with all the times people have called me very mature for my age, which has happened so much, I also don't really know what it means.
I'm half paying attention to the lesson as I start to sketch on the page we took notes on yesterday and are finishing for in this lesson. I absentmindedly look up to see the projector showing the information we need to write down, which I promptly did as my mind starts to wander as I look at the picture in the sleeve cover of my overstuffed binder.
Tuesday of this week was my birthday, and to commemorate the event, my friend managed to get three pictures, in colored ink printed off from the school's printer, of "MY SON!" for my locker. Due to the fact we didn't have any tape, she ended up ripping a hole into every paper and put them on the hooks of my locker where my jacket and backpack were supposed to be hung. Imagine my surprise when I saw the pictures, especially because I didn't think she was going to do it, even if I did tell her my locker combination.
Anyway, one of the pictures fell down and wouldn't stay up, so I took it out on a random whim. My first-period teacher offered tape to fix the tears in it for some reason I don't know, and that lead me to my seventh-period class where I'm sitting staring at the picture "MY SON!' and Raven standing back to back with their weapons out yet disengaged from a fighting position. "MY SON!" in the picture mostly facing away from the viewer and is is holding a tiger lily or fire lily or whatever it is up to his face and Raven is scratching his head while looking at the viewer.
I once did research to try to figure out what flower was being referenced in the game and I found about four. However, one of them wasn't a true lily in terms of plant families so that left about three of them. Only one of them was native to Asia, Lilium lancifolium, but it looked very different than what was displayed in Tales of Vesperia, so I ended up choosing the lily of European origin that had the most accurate common names to what was used. I believe I ended up going with Lilium bulbiferum. Yeah, I have a habit of researching useless junk.
We're soon given a group project about the roles the president has, causing me to look up more about Woodrow Wilson and the Paris Peace conference. I do the work we're given while chatting with tablemates about whatever comes up and considering that we're in Civics, politics was, of course, brought up, and I got into a minor spat about how Hillary Clinton was not a good candidate that I end once I see our teacher listening in. Honestly, I believe my tablemate came away from the argument far more perturbed that I am.
Honestly, the 2016 United States Presidential Election made me not want to talk to my peers about politics as the majority just parrot their parents and have no individual thought.
On a less controversial note, I glance at the clock to see read 2:13, in other words, two minutes until the freedom and the weekend where I can go back to planning my lesbian webcomic I comically have named "Lesbian Webcomic" for now. We're told to pack up and get ready to leave, a command which everyone listens to as the room erupts into sound. I talk to a few friends before the school's P.A. system starts to ding as a message that something is about to be said but is mildly blocked out by the chatter of the room.
My friends and I promptly shut up to hear the announcement while a group in the corner continues to shout until we hear the principle's voice, signaling something we should pay attention to is being said. It's just an announcement about the fire evacuation we had earlier that I overheard from another student asking the principle was just some dumbass pulling the fire alarm. The principle just says what I already knew before the P.A. system dings off and the bell rings.
I pull open the door as I am closest to it and go into a mad dash down the hall as tens of kids are already out of the classroom while I hope to get to my locker before the swarm. As the Social Studies classes are in a separate building from the main school, I run out the door and dash towards the school's doors which are already open from kids exiting the building. I fight my way through a swarm of kids to shuffle along some others to get to my locker before I input my combination and pull open the door.
When the door moves, the sight of two large pictures of "MY SON!" greet me while I pull my backpack onto the ground and shove my stuff into it as best I can. This problem of the afterschool rush would definitely be helped it the school let us carry backpacks, but no, of course not, we might die somehow. Just like how we can't have pencils out on the bus because if the bus suddenly stops, we might let go of the pencil and it could possibly fly into our eye.
I get up and sling my backpack over my shoulder before I wrestle through the crowd of kids to get to the real reason I was hurrying so much. The bathroom. My bus ride is roughly thirty to forty-five minutes and considering how much I had to use the bathroom, there's no way in hell I'm waiting that long.
Once I'm done, I realize that the hallways are almost abandoned at that I'm very much running late. I run/jog down the hallway and once I get outside I hear the buses starting, in a panic, I rush towards where I know my bus is.
Now, this may seem like a weird tangent to be going off to, but it will be very clear soon enough. I've never been a religious person, in fact, I'm probably a firebrand agnostic atheist. Yes, I know, I must be a Satanist who lack morality, you poor thing, I'll save you with Jesus, I've heard it all before. The only religion that could ever have my full and utter devotion is Pastafarianism, because then at least I can go to hell and still get all the benefits of heaven, only the beer will be stale and the strippers will have STDs. I recommend researching Pastafarianism, it's quite great. He boiled for your sins.
Anyway, why am I thinking about this? Probably because I just got slammed into by a car, got run over by it, and am now lying on the ground in pain meanwhile, blood is everywhere and I feel like shit. I'm vaguely aware of school staff members running towards me as I think about all the new safety regulations this is probably going to cause. "Okay kids, you might get run over by a truck, so we're going to have every bus approach the sidewalk in numerical order and you have to run quickly to get onto it, and if you miss it, well, too bad!"
The pain in my body starts to disappear as I feel myself go numb before it abruptly stops. I would assume I'm dead, but the problem is that my eyes are perfectly open and I can freely move my head and eyes to see around me. What I see is a blue sky with unmoving clouds, trees frozen in a breeze, and staff members of my school heading towards me frozen mid-sprint.
Now, let's see, oh dear, you had quite a life ahead of you, too bad you had to use the bathroom, hmm?
"And what's that supposed to mean?" I say to the feminine voice coming from no specific location.
It means you're dead at such a young age, poor thing. You'll never be able to see that spouse I made, oh well, wasted time I suppose.
"Perhaps this is a stupid question, but who are you?"
God, obviously.
I laugh inwardly as I say, "Which one?"
Whichever one you want, quite honestly. I suppose you might lump me in with Yahweh, though, most people in this country do.
"If you were the Christian god, you would have my entire life planned out and would know I would die here, which apparently you didn't as you've stated I have a life ahead of me," I respond as the cynical side of me takes over.
Oooo~ You're smart! A freethinker perhaps? Ah, you are! I rarely run into you people in this country! This is exciting!
I'm silent for a moment, not knowing what to say before I respond with "There's an anime called Youjo Senkei, or The Saga of Tanya the Evil where on death's doorstep, the main character, a cold-heart, possibly psychopathic Japanese salaryman, is greeted by "Being X", an intelligent design figure, or a god if you want. The salaryman is reincarnated into a World War 1/2 setting in the body of a girl named Tanya and rises through the ranks of the military while "Being X" forces them into dire situations to make them believe in god."
Oh, and you think this is what I'm going to do to you? Nah, I have no qualms if you believed in intelligent design, which, by the by, isn't true. The universe created itself! We have no power over creation, I was just joking about creating a spouse for you since most people believe it!
"Out of curiosity, if you believe that, how do you exist?" I ask, with genuine interest.
Evolution or natural selection as you call it. Is it so hard to believe that a being evolved to become immaterial?
"That sounds rather science-fictiony."
Well, we did, and our sole role is to pass judgment on those who die, well, that's not the right word, more like we tell you what your options are and let you choose. Speaking of which, we need to get to that, I'm on a tight schedule and I've already spent too much time with banter. Usually, I would give you options and let you sort it out, but you're a case where it's painstakingly obvious what you want so I'll just choose for you!
"What, what? What options?"
Options for a reincarnation of course! Geez, you're rather unprepared for life after death aren't you?
"What do you mean reincarnation?"
I mean that you'll be born again into a baby with the same personality but no memories of your past life, that's what.
I think over my next response for a few seconds in the hopes of finding a way to phrase my next statement without getting a volatile response before I say, "Do I have to forget everything? Wouldn't I have a different personality because I wouldn't know of my previous actions I did to shape it?"
You are correct but having memories of a previous life can be a large burden that many cannot bear, not to mention it would require reusing the same body unless we transplant your memories into the brain of another human being, give you full control of their body, and kill the mind of the host body, which is not something we've been allowed to do for about three thousand years since it creates needless complications.
"...If you put me in the right world, I might be able to live, right? I saw a video once where they were talking about traffic accidents in South Korea and how one of their friends had their chest run over by a car but she still lived with how fast they got her to a hospital."
You're right, she lived, but your injuries are severe enough that'll it'll take a team of healers to fix, and by severe, I mean your lungs are collapsing and you'll probably choke to death on your own blood if they can't fix it. I'll suspend your body's functions to stop your death, so you won't have to worry about this. I'll also make sure whoever finds you will think you're alive, so no worries on that front, but I must warn you. If you die here as a terrible person, there will be no incarnation, your soul will be drifting around an abyss of depression and despair. Knowing this, do you want to continue?
"Yes."
Fair enough, no going back now I guess, Steve will kill me if he finds out I'm breaking protocol, but he said it himself that one fuck up doesn't matter. I already input the world you'll be put into, so no changing that, but I'll put you in a place where you can get treatment easily enough, alright?
"Yeah..."
Good, I wish you luck and... I think you'll find you'll have a knack for magical theory, but do branch out, please. Now then, goodbye... Party Leader.
"What does Party Leader mean-"
I never get a chance to finish as my vision fades and the pain returns. In an act mercy, I could feel my brain letting me start drifting out of consciousness as time starts moving. I shut my eyes and let myself drift off in the hopes coming back in another place.
The Saga of Tanya the Evil is actually really good, though.
I originally was going to post this story one I got to where the party meets her, but that is no longer the case. I need to push myself into working on this.