Chapter 2- Brain Burst

September 27, 2056

As distrustful as Marth was with people outside of his friend group, he decided to go against his instincts and meet up with Kuroyukihime in the lounge by the school cafeteria, both of which were located on the first floor. He hadn't told the others about his brief encounter with the student vice president, much less that she had asked to meet him. If he did, that would probably cause them to worry. He wanted to figure out what Kuroyukihime was up to before telling his friends about it.

Unlike the cafeteria, which was filled with long cheap tables, the semicircular lounge was arranged neatly with refined round white tables. On one side it was bordered with trees while back had a large window letting in the autumn sunlight in. With how luxurious it seemed, there was an unspoken rule that only second and third years were allowed here.

Marth himself was a third-year student, but this was his first time in the lounge. He already gets enough negative attention just for simply existing. He didn't need to make it easier for his fellow students to target him even more, hence why he preferred the courtyard, which was more spacious.

Half the students were chatting away with drinks in their hands or in full dives in the school network. He was partially tempted to just turn back and go have lunch with Kisara and the others. There was the chance Kuroyukihime was just pulling his leg so the other students could bully him some more. It wouldn't be the first time a student pulled that stunt on him, but Marth got back at them by secretly frying their motor bike's engine with a surge of his lightning magic.

"Is she even here?" Marth wondered as he examined the room.

He soon noticed a group of six students gathered in the very back of the lounge, a combination of second and third years. That was likely the entire student council having another one of their meetings. Of course, the one who had the strongest presence out of all of them was teenage girl with straight jet-black hair that fell towards her waist. She wore a black blazer jacket and shirt, as well as a dark gray pleated skirt and black tights. There was no doubt about it. That was indeed the most popular girl in Umesato High School, Kuroyukihime.

He still couldn't tell if the school idol was even human or not. She had a presence that rivalled his own, only it felt more graceful and elegant. Could a human of this era radiate such a thing? Just what is she?

Already Marth noticed that the other students in the lounge were becoming aware of his presence, save for the student council who was too preoccupied to notice the disturbance. With his heightened senses, he could hear them bad-mouthing and insulting him. He sighed in annoyance. It would seem that most humans will never accept him. How disappointing.

Wanting to get this over with so he could meet up with his friends, he made his way to the very back table the student council members were occupying. The first to notice was a third-year female student sitting in the very front. She tilted her head and gave a polite, yet forced, smile at the demon.

"Oh…did you need something?" she asked gently.

"Yeah," Marth said dismissively, not really caring to be polite. He just wanted to get straight to the point. "Your vice-president asked to meet me here."

Four of the other student council members looked surprised and instantly turned their heads towards the school idol. "What?" one of the council members cried out. "Is this true, Hime? Did you really ask this fre…I mean student to come here?"

Kuroyukihime gave a slight smile, seemingly amused by her colleagues' reactions. Meanwhile Marth simply scoffed at their predictable nature. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered interacting with the other students if they disliked him this much, as little as he did. It's kinda sad that aside from Kazuto, Asuna and Shino, there was only one other teenage human that he could call his friend, and she attended a different school.

"Well, well," the student vice president said calmly as she turned her gaze to the demon. "You came, Marth Umbris." She then turned her attention to the other council members. "We'll finish this later today. Let's break for now."

None of the other council members protested about the sudden dismissal, but a few did grumble about Marth's presence. They all began to get up and walk away, except for Kuroyukihime, who gestured for the demon to take the seat beside her. He pondered over whether to do it, but eventually relented, though he did not look amused.

"Any particular reason why you asked me to meet you in one of the most public areas of the school?" he asked in annoyance as he leaned into the table while resting his head on his hand. "I don't need your help to create any more bad rumors about me."

She was unfazed by his tone and simply reached into the left pocket of her blazer and pulled out something long and thin. It was a silver cable with two plugs. She brought her long black hair around to the back with her left hand and inserted one plug into the terminal of her Neurolinker (which was a piano black), before offering the other end to Marth. Now if his sheer presence didn't cause enough of a stir already, this act definitely did as students began turning their shocked gazes to the duo. "No way!" and "She can't be serious." Those were some of the reactions the other students were having right now.

Even Marth was taken aback a little. Kuroyukihime was inviting him to have a direct wired transmission, or "direct" for short. Normally, communication happened only through Neurolinkers wirelessly connected to that area's network server, protected by several layers of firewall security. Connecting directly with a wire, however, rendered 90 percent of those protective barriers useless. If you were skilled enough, you could sneak a peak at another user's private memory and potentially set up a malevolent program.

Because of this, directing was typically done with people the user trusted completely, like family or romantic partners. Heck, there were even couples that used very short cables to reflect their level of intimacy. The XCB cable Kuroyukihime was holding out was about two meters, so length wasn't a problem. The implication of it, however, was the problem.

"Okay, we're done here," Marth said simply as he prepared to stand up. "I have no intention of playing your game. You're not the first girl to pull this kind of stunt on me."

Clearly not taking no for an answer, Kuroyukihime grabbed the sleeve of his black blazer to stop him. "You haven't even heard me out and you're already making assumptions about me," she replied. "Just give me five minutes and all will be explained."

Marth didn't answer immediately. Instead he turned his gaze to the gawking students, wondering what ideas were racing through their heads right now. After what felt like an eternity, he let out a reluctant sigh and sat back down. "Fine. Five minutes."

He took the other end of the cable and plugged it into his ash gray Neurolinker. The moment he did, a warning that read "wired connection" flashed before his eyes. The message quickly faded as the figure of Kuroyukihime popped against the backdrop of the lounge.

She still had that faint smile on her lips, but when she spoke, those pale lips did not move. Instead, her smooth voice sounded straight into Marth's brain.

"I apologize for asking you to come all the way over here, Marth Umbris. Can you neurospeak?"

The skill of having a conversation without moving your lips, instead going through the Neurolinker. That was childsplay for Marth as he had a ton of practice thanks to his mother's telepathy magic, though he obviously couldn't tell her that. He simply nodded and replied with, "Yeah. This better not be a prank."

Surprisingly, she laughed at that. "So mistrusting, though I guess it kind of makes sense given your history. I'm sending you an application program to your Neurolinker. If you accept it, the world you have known until now will be destroyed and rebuilt into something you can't conceive."

Boy that totally didn't sound suspicious. Just what was Kuroyukihime planning, her agenda? Did she somehow learn the truth about him, that he is a demon? She simply smiled again and quickly flicked the tip of her pale finger. A beeping sound quickly followed, along with the holo dialogue: "Open Brain Burst 2039? Yes/No".

For some strange reason, despite this supposedly being his own system display, the window felt like it had a will of its own, begging for an answer. Naturally common sense said that opening an unknown app sent by a direct connection by someone you didn't know practically screamed dangerous. The obvious thing to do was to yank out the cable and leave. But strangely enough, Marth continued sitting in his chair.

His "world" wasn't really anything special. He faced constant discrimination from his peers for something he couldn't control yet had to keep largely secret for his own protection. If it wasn't for his friends and family, he might have turned out even more cold and bitter than he already was. Honestly he couldn't really imagine his reality getting any worse than it already was.

Against his better judgement, he raised his right hand and poked the "Yes" button with the tip of his index finger. He saw her white face suddenly colored in a slight surprise before regaining her slight smirk.

In an unknown location, a man was scrolling through the code of a certain game, making sure that everything was running properly. While he and his partner were expert programmers, even their coding had more than a few bugs and glitches to them. Hard to imagine that they've managed to keep their game hidden from the authorities for the longest time, but that was largely because of their game's…unique requirements for installation.

Speaking of which, a notification of a new applicant suddenly popped into his view. Curious as to who the potential candidate was, the man selected the notification to bring up the personal information of the person. Needless to say, he was surprised by who it was.

"Marth Umbris," he mused to himself. "So it has begun. The flames of war have not yet spread, but they will eventually come to affect all three realms. I sure hope Merlin knows what he's doing on his end."

Normally someone like Marth Umbris wouldn't fit the criteria to install Brain Burst, but given the Mage of Flowers's advice, he decided to make an exception, and it probably won't be the last time he would do this. This wouldn't be the first time he bestowed his game program to someone like the young demon. With a mere flick of his wrist, he overrode the program's rule and allowed it to install into the new candidate's Neurolinker.

Still, he was curious to see how the demon would fare in this virtual world. While he could easily view it with his special privileges, he felt a more hands-on approach would be more appropriate. However, he couldn't go himself. He and his partner vowed to keep their existences largely a secret from their playerbase.

Of course there was also her. She could easily observe the new player without raising any alarm. He tapped a button on his virtual console and said, "Circe, I have a new mission for you."

Immediately after he selected the "Yes" button, an enormous blaze suddenly filled his vision. He instinctively jolted but quickly recovered as he noticed a title amongst the orange flames. The design even reminded him of older fighting games that had released decades ago. The text read: "Brain Burst".

The installation continued for about thirty seconds, which was huge for a Neurolinker app. Still, how exactly was this app supposed to reshape his entire reality? So far there was nothing at all impressive about it. Soon the download reached 100 percent and the icon disappeared, replaced with the flaming text of "Welcome to the Accelerated World" written in English, which then turned into sparks and scattered.

Accelerated world? What the hell was that supposed to mean? He waited for a few seconds to see if anything dramatic would happen, but nothing changed. The only thing that did change was the intensity of the stares from the other students.

"Uh, was that Brain Burst program supposed to do something?"

"So you managed to install it," Kuroyukihime mused with her still knowing smile. "Although I shouldn't be too surprised. I had a feeling that you would have the aptitude for it."

"Huh? Aptitude? For this?"

"Mm-hm. Brain Burst can't even be installed in people without high-level cerebral nerve reaction speed. For instance, high enough to get an absurd score in a virtual game. When you saw those phantom flames, the program was checking your brain's reactions. If you didn't have the aptitude, then you wouldn't have been able to see the title logo. But…still you managed to surprise me somewhat. It took me around two minutes before I accepted such a dubious program. I even worked out a whole speech to persuade you, and it seems like I had wasted my time with it."

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for that? Anyway, what's this program supposed to do."

"Don't be so impatient. You need to mentally prepare yourself a little first. We can get to the detailed explanations once you do. We have plenty of time."

Marth glanced at the clock displayed in the bottom right of his field of vision. Lunch break was almost halfway over. It didn't seem like they had a lot of time.

"Can we just get to the point already? I—" He was then interrupted by the voice he didn't want to hear.

"Hey, freak! I finally found you!"

Marth couldn't help but roll his eyes before he glanced behind him to see a red-faced Araya storming over to him. The school bully quickly noticed the slender figure of Kuroyukihime and the cable connecting her Linker to the demon's as soon as he got close. His rage was soon replaced with shock.

"Can I help you with something, Araya?" Marth said coldly, but kept a passive expression on his face.

It took a few moments for the bully to find his voice. "Yeah. You owe me an apology for yesterday and lunch. Did you really think you could get away that easily?"

"Actually, yeah I did," Marth said matter-of-factly. "What you don't seem to understand is that your little bullying routine only really works when the person is intimidated by you. Not once have you ever managed to scare me. I just played along so you'd target me instead of my sister. Now, though, I don't have to resort to such means to protect her, so get lost."

That clearly wasn't the answer Araya was expecting as his face practically ignited into flames. "What was that? Take that back, freak, or you'll regret it!"

Marth rose to his feet and glared at the bully, freezing him in place. "Oh, really? Care to have a repeat of yesterday? I'll be more than happy to put you in your place."

"So you're Araya?" After a brief moment of surprise, the school bully suddenly cracked a flirtatious smile on his face. Apparently he was pleased that the school idol knew his name, though given her next words, he probably wouldn't be too happy. "Marth was just talking about you. He said that you were sent to Umesato High School from a zoo."

As much as he hated to admit it, he actually found some amusement at the thought of Araya in the confines of a zoo. He was pretty much all muscle, no brain. And as what happened next proves, easy to provoke.

"What the hell?! You're deadmeat, you freak!"

Araya tightened his right hand into a fist and pulled it back. In the meanwhile, Marth was preparing to catch it with his inhuman speed, only for a sharp voice to send an order directly to his brain. "Now! Shout it! 'Burst link'!"

While initially confused, he pushed past it and shouted, "Burst link!"

Suddenly a loud screech filled the air as the world suddenly came to a halt. All color was instantly drained, leaving only a transparent blue behind. Everything, ranging from the lounge, the students, even Araya himself, were now a monochromatic blue.

Araya's fist was a few inches to Marth's face. A bit too close for comfort, but he could still stop it in time if he so wished. He looked himself over to see that he was no longer in his school uniform, but his avatar for school's virtual world. Directly beside him was a pure blue image of his real body, perfectly frozen like the rest of the world.

He turned around to see Kuroyukihime still sitting in her chair, knees pressed together and her back held straight. However her body and the cable stretching out from her neck was all a transparent blue, like a crystal. Standing next to her was her avatar, clad in a rather revealing black dress with swallowtail butterfly wings and carrying a folded black parasol. She was still retaining her mysterious smile.

"Okay, what the hell is going on here?!" Marth demanded. "Is this a full dive or some kind of out-of-body experience?!"

"Ha, neither," Kuroyukihime's avatar replied cheerfully. "Right now, we are operating in the Brain Burst program. We have accelerated."

"Accelerated? What?"

"Exactly. Everything around us looks like it has stopped, but in actuality, it hasn't. Our consciousnesses are simply moving at extremely high speeds."

She took a few steps, causing the silver gems decorating the helm of her dress to glint, before stopping beside the real Marth and Araya, the ones that were frozen and monochrome blue. Using the tip of her parasol, she pointed straight to the fist of Araya's right punch. "This fist, although we can't see it, is moving very slowly, crawling forward. Like the hour hand of a clock. If we waited like this for quite some time, eventually it will close the distance and make contact with your cheek."

"I see," Marth said with slight interest as he folded his arms. "So that means that our souls haven't left our bodies. This is basically all happening in our heads."

"You learn fast. That's exactly it. This blue world that we see is the real-time world, but we're not viewing it optically. Take a look under the table."

Confused, Marth did what he was told and crouched down to peer under the blue table. Strangely enough, while the table was made out of wood, there was no texture to be found on its underside. Instead it was as smooth as plastic."

"I think I get it," he spoke up as he rose back up. "This blue world is some kind of 3-D reconstructed image, my guess using the social cameras of the lounge as the source. Anything that's in the cameras' blind spots are supplemented by estimates. Gotta admit, that's kind of clever."

"Wow," Kuroyukihime said with a smile. "Got it right on your first try. I knew picking you was the right choice. Now you're probably wondering how this happened. As you should obviously know, Neurolinkers aren't equipped with a time stopping feature. Do you know the principle behind the Neurolinker's operation?"

"Yeah," Marth said with a nod. "I don't know everything, but I remember reading how it connects to your brain cells wirelessly at the quantum level to send in images, sound, and sensations while simultaneously canceling out the reality of your senses. Basically the ultimate VR and AR device."

"Exactly. It's very different to the NerveGear and Amusphere devices from the twenty-twenties or the implants of the thirties. A quantum connection is not a physiological mechanism. Thus, you don't have the burden on the brain cells, and you get this unexpected excess…or so two certain people realized."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm guessing that you know what people called the basic operating frequency of the computers. The base clock?" Getting a nod of confirmation, she continued with, "Depending on the set scale, you overclocked the signal, which carved up time like a pendulum on the motherboard to run the CPU. And human brains, our consciousness works the same way."

"What?" Marth didn't even bother to hide his surprise, but was also slightly relieved by her word choice. Maybe she didn't know his secret after all. "So where's this pendulum inside of us?"

"Here," Kuroyukihime answered immediately. She wrapped her arms around the real Marth, placing her right hand on the center of his back.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

"Right now, your clock is a little faster. Do you get it now? It's your heart. Your heart is not only pumping blood, but its beating makes a basic clock generator determining the driving speed of your thoughts." She kept her hand where Marth's heart was, almost like she was teasing him. "For instance, when you try to stop your body, your heartbeat will speed up depending on the situation. Think of a racecar driver. Why? Because you need to accelerate your thoughts, your awareness of the situation, your judgement. Or like a pair of lovers touching each other. You accelerate to more deeply experience each minute, each second."

Now that she mentioned it, Marth did remember how his mind seemed to accelerate in combat, especially against the shadow beasts of Eternus. In a life-or-death battle, every second counted, every action. Make one mistake, even a slight one, and you could lose everything that you held dear. That was a lesson that Scathach literally beat into him during the early parts of his training. The battlefield was not a place of mercy. It was kill or be killed.

Kuroyukihime slowly dragged the tip of her finger on Marth's chest upward, stopping right at his neck. "With each beat of your heart," she continued, "the quantum pulse signal generated is sent back to your central nervous system, driving your brain, your thoughts. So what do you think happens when the Neurolinker around your neck captures that signal and overclocks you?"

A chill ran down Marth's spine as he put the pieces together. "Your thoughts…are accelerated?"

"Exactly. And without any kind of negative impact on your body or brain cells. Right now, in this moment, our Neurolinkers are overclocking the signal generated by a single heartbeat, riding the wireless quantum signal and sending information to our brains. In fact, it's doing so at a rate or more than a thousand times the norm!"

A thousand times. That meant that one second in the real world was a thousand seconds in this blue one. If you did the math, then that would be sixteen minutes and forty seconds. Honestly this was feeling more like magic than technology.

"Oh, whoops," Kuroyukihime suddenly spoke up. "I'm sorry, but I got so caught up in explaining things, I used up too much time. I completely forgot that the real you is about to be sent flying."

She wasn't lying. Araya's punch had moved a little during their discussion. It was getting dangerously close to the real Marth's face. At this rate, he might have to put a bit more effort to evade the bully's attack.

"Just to cover all bases, how long does this acceleration last?"

"In theory, forever. But due to the limits of the Brain Burst program, the longest you can stay accelerated is thirty felt minutes, or one-point-eight real seconds."

"Okay, and can I leave this place whenever I want?"

"Of course. In fact you can easily use this as a way to avoid a punch. You accelerate, carefully assess the situation, release the acceleration, then leisurely take action."

He didn't even need acceleration to avoid Araya's attack. As a demon, his physical strength and speed were greater than an average human, with both only getting stronger thanks to Scathach's harsh training methods.

"But don't avoid it. It's actually rather foolish of him to hit you here, Marth."

"Wait what?!" Marth's eyes widened in disbelief. "You want me to get hit?!"

"Of course. Araya has always chosen to assault you outside the view of the social cameras, but now his deeds are front and center for all to see. There are even other students as witnesses. All thanks to my simple provocation."

Clever. So that's why Kuroyukihime asked to meet him in the lounge. It was so she could bait Araya out expose his bullying ways in front of the social cameras. She could have given Marth Brain Burst anywhere she wanted. This location was chosen to help rid him of a certain nuisance that had been plaguing him for too long.

"Alright," the demon said solemnly. "I'll play along with your little game. Is there anything else I should do?"

"As a matter of fact, there is. When Araya hits you, leap back to the right with everything you've got. Don't forget to turn your head to the right as his fist hits you."

"Okay. Wait, if I go that direction, I'll knock into you. Is that really a smart choice?"

"Don't worry about me," Kuroyukihime answered with a shrug. "I know what I'm doing. Anyway, we're nearly out of time. Hurry and line up with your real self."

Both avatars lined back up with their real selves, with Marth waiting for further instructions. "Alright. Now I'll tell you the command to release the acceleration. 'Burst out'!"

"Burst out!" Marth repeated firmly.

A jet-like roar suddenly shattered the silence, with the blue world slowly regaining its former color. Araya's once static fist began regaining momentum, getting closer and closer to Marth's cheek.

As he prepared to leap backward as instructed, he turned his head ever so slightly to the right, the punch sinking in slightly. And then the world returned to normal. As everything rushed back in at once, Marth felt the fist slam into his cheek, his lip probably bleeding. At the same time, he flew his body backward and collided with the chair behind him.

His back colliding with the floor, he took a moment to gather his breath while making sure to cover his bleeding mouth. Unlike humans, demons had black blood, the color of darkness, so he couldn't risk that being seen. Thankfully demons heal faster than humans, so the small cut should be gone in a few minutes. Sitting back up, he glanced behind him to see Kuroyukihime lying limp against the lounge window. Her bangs were disheveled and a single trail of blood ran down her cheek. Weirdly enough, he thought he could see sparkles of golden light in the blood but he dismissed it as his imagination.

"Uh, are you okay?" Marth asked as teachers suddenly grabbed Araya and his goons, the redhead now horrified as he realized his mistake.

"I'm fine," Kuroyukihime answered calmly. "It's just a minor cut. Now Araya will never bother you or Kisara again."

"Anyone ever tell you that you're reckless?"

"You wouldn't be the first one to say that. Anyway, don't take off your Neurolinker before you come to school tomorrow. And you can't make a global connection, not even for a second. We'll meet back here at the same time."

"Fine, whatever," Marth said aloud as he disconnected the cable from his Neurolinker. The bleeding had gone away so he could simply wipe any remaining blood away without any fear of being discovered. "Later."

And with that, he walked off, ignoring some of the teachers' protests for him to go to the nurse's office. He still couldn't get a good read on what Kuroyukihime was planning with him. So far she seemed like a decent person, but that was how they all acted before they inevitably stabbed him in the back. One way or another, he will find out her objective. If she seeks to use him for her own benefit, then he'll cut ties with her like all the rest.

He needed someone to talk to about this. Someone outside Umesato High School. Luckily he had the perfect person to contact. He accessed his contact list and quickly typed a message to certain someone, asking if they could meet with him after school.

Marth was sitting by a small table near the window of a small café, drinking a cup of hot cocoa with a side of fries for a snack. As per Kuroyukihime's instructions, he had disconnected from the global net, but not before confirming that his friend would be able to meet with him. This café was called Dicey's and it was kind of their place. It had a very rustic feeling, what with all the wood, but that gave it all a unique charm.

The owner was a middle-aged black man named Andrew Gills, nicknamed "Agil". While he may seem like a shrewd businessman, deep down he was actually a good man. He was one of the few humans Marth actually trusted, with him even knowing that he was actually a demon. As a matter of fact, Andrew occasionally joined in with his training, acting as a sort of tank for the group. He was actually pretty good with an axe. Strangely enough, Marth always felt a weird sense of familiarity from the older man, like they had met before, but he couldn't remember where.

Andrew was currently passing the time by cleaning some of the mugs while behind the counter. Business here was always slow in the afternoon, but things always seemed to kick up right when the sun goes down.

"So you and her are having another date here, huh?" Andrew said mischievously as he continued polishing his mugs. "You know there are classier places to take your girlfriend out to, right?"

It took everything he had to not spit out his drink, though he nearly hacked up a lung from all the coughing. "First off, she's not my girlfriend," Marth said hastily. "Second, this isn't a date. I just need some advice and feel like she's the best candidate."

"Uh huh," the older man replied with a raised eyebrow. "Keep telling yourself that."

Marth just rolled his eyes at that. "Whatever. And thirdly, this place is classy enough. Why do you think me and the others keep coming here?"

The jingle of a bell rang crisply as the café door swung open. A beautiful girl with long straight brown hair and blue eyes strolled inside. She wore a blue school uniform complimented by a royal blue skirt and a sky-blue Neurolinker. She was around eighteen years old and had a very…voluminous chest to say the least. A brown school bag was slung over her shoulder.

The high school scanned the café closely, her hair slightly swaying from the subtle movement, before noticing Marth and cracking a warm smile. She made her way over to him sat just across from the demon, setting her school bag to the floor.

"I'll have my usual, Agil," she said clearly.

Andrew let out a light chuckle. "Coming right up, Fuko." He then made his way into the kitchen, leaving the teens all alone."

"Sorry for calling you so suddenly, Fuko," Marth said sincerely.

She simply shook her head in understanding. "Don't worry about it. That's what friends are for. Besides, it's the least I can do after what you did for me."

Fuko Kurasaki wasn't one of Marth's childhood friends. Instead the two of them had met two years ago by pure chance. For some reason Fuko was in a depression of sorts (though what caused it was a mystery) and nearly got dragged into a terrible incident had the demon prince not been in the area to save her. Ever since then, she has remained on good terms with him that he rarely kept secrets from her, even the truth about him.

As they waited for her food, Marth explained what had happened earlier today. Needless to say, Fuko was shocked, though not as much as he had expected.

"A Neurolinker app that gives people the power of acceleration?" she pondered aloud as Andrew delivered her sandwich and tea. "That's…unheard of to say the least."

Marth had a feeling that she knew more than he was letting on, but unlike with other humans, he was willing to give Fuko a pass. She's had bit of a hard life and has only recently started recovering from her depression. He didn't want to push her into revealing anything she wasn't ready to talk about. He still had some traces of compassion left in him.

Choosing his words carefully to not trigger anything negative, he replied with, "It was pretty incredible. I never would have thought that there would be a program capable of bypassing the security of the social cameras to create 3-D images of the real world and accelerate the user's consciousness. It can make even the weakest human dangerous. Imagine what it can do in the hands of a demon like me."

"Indeed," Fuko said thoughtfully, her words just as carefully phrased. "You were already fast thanks to your biology and Scathach's training. This Brain Burst program might just make you invincible."

Marth let out a chuckle, a rare sight even when among friends. "I wish. Something tells me even with acceleration, Mom and Scathach would still kick my ass."

The brunette giggled ever so cheerfully. "Well Rias is the Demon Lord of Lust while Scathach is pretty much an immortal witch with a cursed spear. You'd probably need a god to bring just one of them down."

"Well then I guess it's a good thing we know a god who occasionally visits from time to time. Anyway, what do you think I should do? I'm not sure if I can trust Kuroyukihime."

"Hmm. That's a tough one. We don't even know if she knows the truth about you. For now, it might be best if you play along to see if you can learn anything from her. It might be best to keep it a secret from Kisara and the others. They worry enough about you already. Might be best to not add to it."

"Too true," Marth said in agreement before finishing off the last of his cocoa. "Anyway, I feel a bit better talking with you. Once I find out more, let's tell the others about this program."

Fuko gave slight nod while smiling. "Okay. Anyway, since we're here, why don't we go to Dun Scaith for a little sparring. I think you're overdue for a good thrashing."

The demon simply chuckled at that. It was times like this where he felt that Fuko was more like a demon than a human. While she may be kind, she had a savage side underneath. She would fit quite well in Eternus.

"Okay," Marth replied. "After you finish eating, we'll go."

"Alright. I look forward to beating you again."

"We'll see about that."

To be continued

And with that, the second chapter is done. I was hoping to include the nightmare sequence and Marth getting dragged into his first duel, but this felt like a good stopping point. The important part of this chapter was to show the two sides of Marth's personality, the coldhearted being who distrusts the world, and a person who cares for his friends. I hope this chapter shows that Marth's character is pretty different than it was in Black Wolf. Anyway, I'll see you guys next time!

P.S. If you leave a spam review like "Hm", "..." or something incredibly vague, I'm blocking you right away. I am sick of those reviews as they don't tell me anything. If you make a review, please make one that's constructive (either positive or negative).