Chapter 8: A Boring Life (8)
"Okay, so skeletal muscle fiber is going to be replaced by...something. Not sure what yet. And it works by, uhh...contraction? Negative feedback force? Fucking hell, how am I supposed to learn all of this in just a few months? My body is going to be a mess…"
Resisting the urge to groan in frustration at the constant piling on of terms and methods that made less than zero sense to him Nanashi instead continued to grumpily read the book Ayaka had provided to him, an entire damn dictionary on bodily parts and operations that left him feeling more confused than ever at the sheer breadth of knowledge he had to learn.
"Screw it, just let me die."
Despite the growled words the youth kept plugging away at the material, forcing himself to read the words and terminology and not just gloss over it. You'd think the very real and literal deadline he was working on would have made it an easier task but nope! Boring reading was still boring reading.
"Can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually miss Manaka being around to explain things. She always makes it easy to understand...even if she'd probably do so by slicing open my arm or something equally absurd."
Feeling his lips quirk in a motion that he wasn't sure was a grimace or smile the boy continued on his walk home, making liberal use of the cane provided so as to avoid the obvious and highly suspicious glow of reinforcement magecraft illuminating his frame.
Time passed quickly and within thirty minutes Nanashi was just about a block or so away from his house...and sighed as he could hear agitated voices just ahead of him, distant shapes still blurry due to the night sky and his none too powerful eyes.
Just what he needed, a street dispute to spice up his stroll home, the onset of exhaustion and sore feet ensuring that he had less than zero patience for that kind of crap.
"They better not be arguing right in front of my freakin' door…"
Drawing closer to the confrontation Nanashi frowned as he began to pick out more and more details of the spat, finding the scene rather odd. There were a few adults present, sure...but they all seemed clustered around someone more his height than another fully grown person, the scene only getting weirder as he noticed the smaller figure had a baggy and frilly type of dress, long blonde hair...wait.
Was that Abigail?
Picking up his pace and feeling the first stirrings of worry the boy drew closer, finally able to parse out distinct words as yes, it was none other than Abigail standing outside his house, surrounded by people he vaguely recognized as his neighbors, nice enough people that rarely kicked up a fuss and certainly weren't the types to harass a little girl just passing through or waiting by his doorstep.
And yet there they were, appearing more like an angry and vengeful mob than they did quiet and composed individuals, crowding the much smaller frame of the blonde, body language agitated and confrontational.
"Okay, NOW what the hell is going on? Can't I get a normal night for once?"
Grumbling to himself Nanashi sighed before deciding to reluctantly approach-
-and gaped as one of the younger men, a guy who worked construction part time and was in decently good shape, straight up punched the girl clean across the face, knocking her to the ground in a dazed sprawl of tangled limbs.
"The fuck?!"
His horrified yelp went unheard as the girl weakly rose to her knees, thin arms trembling as he saw what might have been blood dripping from her lips.
The scariest part? The guy didn't look vindictive, victorious or any other triumphant emotion...he looked terrified, leaping back from the downed and shivering female like she was some kind of apex predator, screaming, "You see what happens, witch?! Get out of here, go! We don't need something like you in this neighborhood, leave us be!"
"The hell is he talking about, what's Abigail done to him that deserved THAT?!"
Power walking towards the confrontation Nanashi felt his lips peel back from his teeth in agitation, drawing closer as the crowd only grew more frightened and frenzied.
"She's not a little girl, a little girl wouldn't be like...like that!"
"Why is she even in our neighborhood, she doesn't live here!"
"You hear that, gaijin?! Take whatever you are and get out of here!"
"If she won't leave on her own then this should help!"
A well-to-do man dressed in business attire hefted a golf club over his shoulder, eyes wide with existential terror as he swung down at the blonde's shivering form-
-and found himself neatly bodychecked into a sprawling heap, a small albino boy with his body aglow snarling, 'What the fuck is the matter with you people, do you have any idea what you were going to do to her?!"
"We know exactly what we were going to do to that thing!"
"Stay out of this if you know what's good for you, little boy! Let the adults handle things!"
"He's not afraid of her? He must be with that, that witch!"
Nanashi couldn't believe what he was hearing, ears picking up the sound of clicking metal and a glance behind caused his gut to tighten, one of the trembling and horrified crowd approaching the weakly standing blonde with a pocket knife, dry tongue vainly trying to wet equally dry lips-
"DON'T!"
-and his right arm raised itself, verdant green magic circuits flaring to life along the limb as he didn't even vocalize the spell, simply launching a brute force blast of wind that staggered and knocked aside the danger, the gathered crowd gaping and whispering furiously as the boy quickly knelt down, helping Abigail the rest of the way to her feet.
"Are you all right? They didn't do anything else that-"
CRACK!
The english-looking girl's bright blue eyes widened as Nanashi slumped forward, eyes wide and unfocused as the man who he had tackled earlier held his club in shaking hands, the rest of the crowd silent as death, a steady trickle of red leaking from the boy's skull as he hung limply in Abigail's grasp.
"I...I didn't...he was supposed to…"
Without a word the rest of the crowd dispersed, casting frightened gazes over their shoulders as they retreated to their homes, the man with gold club heaving as if he'd run a marathon on no notice whatsoever, stumbling back to his house with fearful motions as the sudden violence brought an abrupt end to the mob mentality.
"Nanashi, Nanashi!"
Feeling very real fright the blonde desperately tried to call out to her fading friend, head limply rolling as crimson slowly pulsed from the injury to his skull.
"Inside...we need to get you inside!"
Ignoring her own injury that had mostly rewound itself by this point the blonde hauled the boy to the front steps of his house, scrabbling around in his pockets for a key as the thing was locked, cursing her own relatively weak physical strength.
"You shouldn't have intervened, Nanashi. You can be hurt and killed. For myself such a feat is not quite so simple."
Her lips twitched into a small smile as she pushed open the front door.
"...It was very brave of you regardless."
"Like hell...I could just let them...wail on you."
Bright blue eyes snapping wide in shock Abigail swiveled her head to stare into her friends now awake and mostly alert gaze, his head alight with what she recognized was reinforcement magecraft.
"Nanashi! Are you all right, do you need help?! My apologies, but healing arts are not something I am well versed in-"
"It's fine...just set me on that couch gently...or else I'm going to-"
The girl flinched at how the albino suddenly retched, clear fluid expelled from his throat onto the messy carpet below as he weakly stated, "That. Gods my head hurts…"
"Don't worry, I'll call an ambulance-"
"No! No...number by telephone, call that...friend in moonlit world...can fix memories and my head…"
Wincing at the reality that their more secret sides had been revealed to the other in probably the worst possible way Abigail settled for gently laying the heavily injured boy on the couch, his eyes going hazy again as his magecraft seemed to slip, Abigail cursing the fact that her abilities were restricted to her and only her as she went to do as he suggested in regards to calling a friend, possibly a fellow magus.
"True, it was clear that he was quite special right from the onset, with how Sut-Typhon reacted to his mere presence. And I no doubt raised quite the number of suspicions simply by mere proximity and the strange reactions of others...but I had hoped it would be a topic brought up later, if not at all."
Picking up the phone and spending a brief moment attempting to remember just how one worked she began to input numbers-
"Stop."
-and offered an unimpressed glare at the manifested tentacles that were a hairsbreadth away from latching onto her friend.
"I wondered why you were so silent. Attempting to sneak past my attention and slaughter him before I could react. For a being of your power and strength that is quite the pathetic scheme."
The blonde smirked at the Outer God's thwarted fury and petulant anger, ebony flesh and pale suckers violently trembling as they attempted to rend Nanashi limb from limb...but in this reality she was in control, the god could only act through her body and her will, never against it.
Attempt to force or change her mind? Certainly...but never subvert it.
Calmly strolling through the web of raging tendrils as her simple and familiar dress gave way for her more esoteric attire - something she likened to the outfit of a priestess, with no small amount of dark humor - the blonde idly commented, "Not one but twice you have attempted to kill him, to do away with what you perceive as a threat...you will do no such thing."
Abigail spun on her heel, facing down the fury of an outer god with a smug smile even as the third eye on her forehead blazed with enough fury to burn her skin.
"He is my friend. One of less than a few quality hours spent with, true...but how many are resistant to the curse you laid upon me, that have accepted me despite it? How many are immune? How many can still see me as Abigail Williams, not as the Foreigner, not the Key to All Things?"
She spread her slim arms wide as if in benediction, mocking the god with, "I do believe you're jealous, aren't you? That your perfect little peephole into this reality has something other than you now, isn't that right?"
Unstoppable rage poured into her mind, searing at the corners of her consciousness as she merely smiled.
"By all means...try and hurt him. I'll stop you each and every time."
Nanashi awoke to pain, heat and nausea, head aching as if a branding iron had been applied to it.
And with that heat came hallucination and uncertainty, mind intact enough to realize that in its damaged state - that fucker with the club was going to get a foot right between the legs, just wait for it - things might not be entirely accurate or even real.
…
He hoped that was the case, because awaking to discomfort wasn't anything new. Waking up to a nightmare that would haunt his memories for years to come was.
Because no more than a meter away, facing him head on and with absolutely no sense of distance whatsoever was Abigail.
Being assailed by one of the most terrifying and traumatizing creatures he had ever seen, a brutal and nauseating sight that left him speechless with its cruelty.
Slim legs and arms pulled so wide the bones looked wrong, suspended spread-eagled in the air like some twisted version of the Vitruvian man. Midnight tentacles similar to those of some benthic sea monster holding tight as they descended upon her body, creamy flesh adorned in some odd attire of butterfly streamers and a single legging, leaving her more intimate areas on open display for his feverish gaze to wander over.
And aforementioned intimate areas were experiencing something that made his mind reel, convulse and just plain reject what he was witnessing.
Savagely large tentacles pushed themselves into her holes, distending the flesh so badly that it bled and trembled, lithe torso, navel and chest ravaged and stretched so wide that it looked as if they would burst, a thousand snakes wriggling and twisting beneath her fair skin as her petite throat and mouth bulged, a sickeningly thick appendage sprouting from a wrenched jaw and split lips, the length of disgusting flesh covered in blood and gastric acid as it flailed mindlessly, whipping and slashing Abigail's distressed body and sending streamers of ruby liquid to paint the floor below, gurgles and choked cries grating on his ears like a thousand chalkboards meeting a million nails.
And through it all his feverish brain could only focus on the bright blue eyes of his latest and equally strange friend, full of misery, pain and despair...yet somehow not broken, staying strong through an ordeal he couldn't even fathom, a third eye blazing like a star upon her brow as it steamed and smoked with eldritch fury.
An ordeal she had already suffered once before, as his mind flashed back to the mess that had been left on his bedsheets the one night she had stayed before.
…
Why? Why was it always like this? Someone chained, restrained and beaten down by forces outside their control?
She with this cretinous monster, he at school with bullies he had done no wrong against-
"Is this really the best decision? We still don't know how his mystic eyes work exactly, for all we know-"
-Manaka being forced to share a mind with an all knowing power that prevented her from experiencing practically any kind of novelty or joy in life-
"Of course it is, he's not even a real child, merely a tool. He's perfect to fulfill our ambitions and we can simply remove the eyes afterwards if it fails, he's replaceable-"
-and him slave to his own weakness, unable to help a friend - however new and unknown - when she was in a distress he had never before seen or encountered.
"Be a good boy, Nanashi...and show us the way."
TO HELL WITH THAT.
He was done being weak, done being trapped inside of a shitty body with a shitty life in a shitty mind and he was DONE being helpless.
This was a nightmare? Him forced to watch a pretty, nice and slightly weird girl go through hell?
He could fix that...he'd make it a nightmare for the monster.
Delving deep into the sight his mystic eyes provided him he stared upon the mountain of purpose, power and danger he had sensed in the girl when he first laid eyes on her...and followed his instincts just like he'd done years ago for a purpose he didn't want to remember.
"LET HER GO!"
He shouted out his will-
-and the universe obeyed with an otherworldly scream reverberating across space and time to mark his success.
Abigail pitched forward, limbs broken and organs all but eviscerated as she pissed, puked and shat out every liquified bit of muscle and innard that had been oh so tenderly caressed by the petulant and childish god she was contracted to.
"In other news...it's Monday."
Tiredly exerting her will over the Outer God's power she held dominion over in this reality a copy of her body from another time overlaid itself on top of her broken one, fixing and rejuvenating itself unto she was back to normal within five seconds, as if the ordeal had never occurred in the first place.
Then she stopped to wonder why an Outer God was cowering and shivering like a corned prey animal, refusing to even so much as approach the arbitrary distance that allowed it to interact with the outside world through her.
It...had been doing something to her, right? She had all the signs of being raped and ravaged by the god's tentacles but couldn't for the life of her remember when it had done so, or how.
"No...that's not quite right."
She could remember in unfortunately perfect detail what had happened to her, why it had happened...but now how. Not what did the deed.
She let her gaze drift over to Nanashi, the boy standing upright on shaky feet, head freely leaking crimson as his dull ruby eyes...didn't seem quite so dull anymore, a strange mysticism sticking to them like a mirage in the desert.
"LET HER GO!"
A ball of soft, loving warmth seemed to spread throughout her body, the girl remembering the furious and demanding shout that he had released upon seeing her typical plight-
-and then he'd done something. Something she knew he'd done but for some reason couldn't remember certain details about, something that had sent Sut-Typhon screaming in terror and existential dread to the furthest reaches of her mind.
...Who was this sickly, weak boy that held some strange power that could cow a creature subject only to the most primeval and oldest of universal rules?
"Nanashi?!"
A startled yelp left Abigail as the boy suddenly collapsed, heaving and retching as his eyes began to drift and roll in their sockets, skin clammy and sweaty as she belatedly realized he'd been weak and in dire need of aid before he'd attempted to help her.
"The number, where's the number...there!"
Quickly dialing the appropriate buttons Abigail held her breath as the line rang, worriedly staring at Nanashi as he groaned and writhed in evident pain-
[Sajyou residence, Haruki speaking-]
"Please, Nanashi said to call this number if he needs help, there's been a magecraft accident and he needs immediate aid!"
There were an agonizing number of seconds held in silence, the man on the line not speaking a word...and then he swiftly uttered, [Understood, we're on our way.]
The line began to beep and Abigail wasted no time in returning to Nanashi's side, dabbing at his brow with one of her butterfly-themed tassels and trying to keep him from jostling too much.
"You called them friends, Nanashi...I can't help but wonder what they are like, to be so close to one such as you."
"LET HER GO!"
Another shiver wracked her body, one of the sweetest and most exciting feelings she had felt in...a long time causing her to smile.
"I'm sure they must be lovely people."