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*"Wahahahahahaha!"
*An enemy has appeared!
Command?
Attack
-Flee
*"How dare you mess with me for being a bad orange!"
*The enemy attacked before you were ready!
*"I'll make a worthless human like you taste endless pain!"
A punch in the stomach.
*Critical Hit!
A blow to the head.
*Punishing Hit!
You fall to the ground.
There is blood everywhere.
Your vision is fading...
...
*Mitsuo has been knocked out...
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"Hey, get back here! Don't think you'll get away that easy!"
I watched with amusement as Chie chased Yosuke around in a circle. I had shown her the picture of evil Prince Satonaka, and, as expected, she had not taken too kindly to it. Of course, Yosuke then took the opportunity to draw a "more accurate" picture of her. As a gorilla. He certainly wouldn't be coming away from this without a few bruises.
Diverting my attention away from the chaos, I took the time to read through the comics again.
Hmm...
Now that I thought about it, there were a lot of familiar elements in these comics, even more than I had noticed initially. For example, the titular hero always seemed to be getting into fights with gangs...Mitsuo was always talking about biker gangs, and how "insecure" they were. Also, the hero had to rescue the princess from the evil "King Moron". King Moron...Mr. Morooka? Mitsuo hated the man. Even the mere mention of his name would would cause him to deteriorate until his words were a mess of unintelligible rage.
What disturbed me even more, though, were the fates of these villains. While the deaths of minor characters were frequently glossed over, these villains were often...brutally killed. An amazing amount of detail seemed to go into the blood and gore that accompanied their death, and it was often unusually drawn out. It worried me a little, but I decided not to think about it too much. After all, everyone seemed to have a problem with the local biker gangs, and I had already seen countless death threats directed at Morooka.
Bringing myself out of my thoughts, I realized that the time had gotten away from me. I hastily stood and said farewell to my friends, who were still preoccupied with their own little quarrel. Yosuke stopped and waved before being barreled over by Chie. Smiling, I left them to their antics.
I stopped at the school gates, expecting him to be there. He wasn't.
I was concerned now. It's okay, I thought to myself. He's probably already waiting for me.
With this in mind, I made my way toward the bench that served as our hangout. However, it was empty.
Finding nothing else to do, I sat and waited. It seemed like hours had passed before I saw someone in the distance.
There he was.
...Why was he holding his arm like that?
I watched as he slowly made his way over to me and plopped down on the bench. "Hey, where've you been? I was worried about you."
"Don't be!" he shot back. I looked at him. He seemed pretty beat up; he was holding his arm as if it were broken or something, and he was bleeding in several places. And yet he expected me to ignore all of that.
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing," he replied hastily. "Some random biker guy was harassing me, but I took care of him."
I gave him an incredulous look. "Looks like he gave you a hard time. And what do you mean, you 'took care' of him?"
He looked deeply offended. "It's true! I scared them off! And then I...I fell down some stairs! Yeah, that's it." It didn't take a genius to tell that he was lying.
Wait a minute...'them'?
"So there was more than one?"
He seemed to realize that he had let it slip. "N-no!" he stammered. "T-That's not...I mean-" He interrupted himself as he winced in pain.
I sighed. It was obvious that I wasn't getting any more information out of him. "Here, let me help you," I said, reaching my hand out to him.
He shrank back. "Don't touch me!"
I reached out again. "Look, you're really beat up. You need medical attention."
"Stop it!" he shouted, swatting my hand away. "I'm not five years old, I can take care of myself!"
I was persistent. I kept trying to offer him help, but he wouldn't allow it.
"Please let me help."
"No!"
"I'm just trying to help you."
"I said no!"
"It's for your own good-"
Suddenly, I felt a blow to the side of my head. Before I knew what happened, I was on the ground. I lay there, stunned, then slowly brought a hand to my head. Taking it away, I looked at it. It was covered with blood. My own blood.
Still bewildered by the sudden blow, I slowly looked up. He was standing over me, breathing heavily, his hand still balled into a fist. He stared down at me for a good moment or two, then turned around and ran. I could still hear his footsteps as everything began to go dark...