A/N: Hoo-boy! It's been almost a month, and I've finally had the time to stretch my fingers. Now, this one is not yet finished and I've only written it under the span of a single day to give you guys peace of mind. I'm here to reassure you guys that if this fic was dead, I would put a notice for it to be dead. I know you guys wouldn't want to hear what my personal life is like and I'll just leave it as me being busy.
BUT DAMN KAMACHI WHAT DRUGS ARE YOU ON AND CAN I GET SOME? NT22R!? What is this madness!?
Also because you guys have been trying to figure out the major hint I've left in First Night III, focus on the letters used in conjunction when the dragons mentioned MASTER. take those letters and rearrange them to two familiar words. Ignore MAJESTY for now.
Review Responses:
M1nhTre37: I'm very appreciative that you found it heartwarming. It won't be the last time you'll see Shion.
RgpO: Why thanks for the chart considering I probably won't be able to keep track of future relationships myself.
AznPuffyHair: Yeaaah...whew, what are we suppose to think of Kamijou Touma now that he's earned the respect of a poverty goddess. But yeah, Touma isn't going to overpower any oni while being drunk. And his meeting with Yuuka...I'll hold that one off for now.
shiroryuu012 : Oh please, I'm going to spoiler here that drunk Touma isn't his final form.
WiliamZ0: If there's one thing that Index 3 did right, it was making sure Touma looked damn handsome. I'm grateful for your helpful criticisms, that's why you guys are here, to make sure I'm aware of mistakes and improve them. Flandre is going to have an unexpected helper in her escape. I haven't even gone over what would happen if Touma decided to touch a youkai with IB. That's going to be a major plot point down the line. When is the Railgun manga ever going to go over the damn Angel dragon!? But yeah, the family tree of Suika, Rinnosuke and the implications of Suika being a half-youkai in the past will be interesting to go over with the two of them. The sword Rinnosuke owns came from the corpse of Orochi so its not a weapon of man or god.
Guest: I'm glad you're having a blast with my story.
Guest: Suika will learn of her ancestry with Tenryuu. But Touma hasn't defeated any dragons yet, not even his own.
Dark Tyrant-Fool: Again, not his final form yet.
Guest: Thank you for the compliment!
wiliamsusanto: Feel free to PM of your ideas, in fact, all of you absolutely have the permission to PM me and I look forward to them! Ah yes, the deal between fairies, IB, and the giant shadow causing nature to go haywire, I will go over it soon. You'll never expect what's going to happen with Cirno and the fairies.
IllusionBreaker: YES IT WILL!
KRKing: The better question is what won't she do to him?
SAD: It's dead when I say it's dead!
Disclaimer: To Aru Majutsu No Index belongs to Kazuma Kamachi, and Touhou Project belongs to ZUN. I don't own either of these properties.
Chapter 5: First night in Gensokyo V
"Hey, hey, Onii-chan." Koishi grabbed his attention by pulling his sleeve.
"Mhn?" Touma remaining ever so graceful in his sloppy footsteps on the mud turned his head over to give his undivided attention.
The duo had stepped over the boundary between Kourindou and the Forest of Magic earlier. They wondered, guided by Koishi's words in the impenetrable darkness.
The rain continued beyond its expiration line, though the weight of the shower lightened behind the coverage of the trees.
"Where do you live?" Koishi started with an innocent question as she clung on his waist. She and her clothes were wholly drenched the entire night and looked to find warmth from the nearest person.
"Uh… I have my own apartment room in the city." He answered with his best to not mess up his tone from his drunken stupor. Clearly, he wasn't doing his best.
"Oh. What are those?" Asked innocently from Koishi. She hopped behind him to find a grip on his back.
Before she led (kidnapped) Touma into the woods, she was disabled from using her flight magic, forcing her to walk along the ground. But it wasn't all bad being barred from the most efficient method of transportation. It just meant for them to take things slowly and personal.
Their interactions continued along in this string of questions by Koishi and Touma's earnest answers contributed to his intoxication resulting in honesty without a shred of deceit.
"Oh wow, you have electricity. I never knew what you could use it for." During their conversation, Koishi figured out how to climb on his back and gripped his chest from behind with her head digging into his back.
"Electricity has plee~nty o' uses. You've got lights, the AC, television, refrigerators to store food in case your roommates need food ASAP, you'd be hard pressed to find something electricity isn't involved with." Listing off the top of his head, Touma felt the weight of her body and coldness seeping into him from behind.
"Hmm? Onii-chan." Koishi's voice took a more intrigued turn from the last mention he brought up. "Are you living together with someone under the same roof? That's so daring!" Koishi exclaimed with mild shock. She had progressed her crawling onto the next stage and dropped her head over his shoulder. She also hugged his collarbone with her arms stretched beneath his armpits.
"Hehehe, yeah, I live with a close friend of mine," Touma answered enthusiastically by standing upright, causing her to latch on him tighter with her legs.
"Who? What kind of person are they like?" Koishi moved her head closer to Touma's where their cheeks touch.
The daringness of hers to invade his personal space made her scent waft over him, causing him to inhale a wet but sweet aroma.
"Index's a headcrab who lives off my living expenses. I took her in because we were friends, and because the higherups of her group wanted me to." Divulging private information, Touma continued to tell of his experiences with his roommate. "When breakfast arrives, I feed her three times the amount a normal person eats. When it's lunch, I make her four times. And if my bank account survived enough spending, I make five times for dinner. I can still hear her teeth making grating noises!" Suddenly exclaiming with horror behind his voice, Touma bent down by habit for which Koishi took this opportunity to climb up and sit on his shoulders.
"Ooh, she's a pet. That must mean you're a good caretaker. And? What's it like living with her?" Kicking her legs in the air from her position, Koishi claimed her rightful spot on top of Touma. She looked straight ahead of them and tilted her body side to side.
Somewhere far away, the same 15cm fairy was kicking the sprawled hawk on the ground.
"For one, she takes up my bed, so I took it upon myself to sleep in the bathtub." He casually said his sleeping arrangements to her. While she sat on his shoulders, he tried to fix his body gesture, so she didn't accidentally fall over.
"EHHH!? Onii-chan, you sleep in a bathtub!? That's amazing. You're incredible!" Koishi excitedly complimented him, hugging his head which covered his eyesight and squeezed his neck with her thighs.
"C-can't breathe…" He breathed out quietly from his throat, being blockaded by her thighs. He would've made a comment on how soft it was, but because of the lack of air reaching his brain, his mind pushed those thoughts to the side.
His body swerved around with his head tilting off balance. The unexpected motions gave Koishi some entertainment as she kicked the air and applied her body weight so he wouldn't fall to the side. She guided his steps, similar to taking the wheels of a jet ski.
"This is so much fun, Onii-chan!" She exclaimed as she pulled his head to the right when his body was tilting to the left.
"K-Koishi….! Y-your legs…!" Touma, having been denied air for too long, could only manage a few words after finding his balance again to stand still. Tapping his left hand on her leg to bring back her awareness.
"Oops! Sorry, Onii-chan…" Apologizing to Touma for her rough and irresponsible treatment, she loosened up her hold on him on cue and hung her head down.
"It's fine… I just wasn't expecting something like that. You should warn me next time before you do so." Scolding her carelessness for not having enough awareness of the person below her, he went back to walking and continued off from where he left.
"So yeah, Index also has a habit of biting my head whenever I mess up something important like failing to deliver food on time…" As quickly as she felt guilty (not really) earlier, Koishi resumed her cheerful demeanor with a lift of her head and outstretched her arms to the side in an airplane motion.
"Wow… so she keeps reminding you not to slack off from housework. That's an amazing pet you've found." Kicking back on her rightful seat, Koishi gestured for him to walk on aimlessly without any proper direction.
"A pet? No, no, no. One time, Index brought home a stray cat. I didn't want to accept it with our barren budget, but she forced me to." The conversation proceeded as the two weaved through the trees with a clear destination in mind and an unreliable navigator.
"Do you take care of your cat very seriously?" Curiously asking with some small weight behind it suddenly, she lifted his head with her hands to make eye contact with hers peered down.
"As serious as I am with Index. His name's Sphynx by the way."
Pacing forward without any forethought considering his head is staring into Koishi's, he smacked into a tree and almost fell over before Koishi exerted her body weight forward. He got hit against the tree a second time and leaned on it.
"Uuugh…" He groaned from his cheek, smooshed against the tree.
"Onii-chan is a very capable caretaker… maybe I should introduce you to Onee-chan." A compliment and a pull of her hands meant to rip him off the tree and a way to walking deeper into the woods.
"Your Onee-chan? Hey, since I already introduced someone I know, you do next. What's she like?" He asked with a good measure of eagerness.
"Hmm… she's everything not like me!" Koishi responded in kinda not so helpful description.
"C'mon, that's too vague for me to figure out…"
"Mou! Onii-chan is an idiot! Maybe I shouldn't tell you…" Koishi pouted cutely with her hands on his head.
"C'mon~, tell this idiot Onii-chan who your sister is." He asked again in a vain attempt, only this time with a more pleading tone.
"Okay… but only one time, so you better listen!" She demanded his full attention.
"What? I'm always listening!" Answering in an unconvincing tone belonging to a drunkard, Touma had half his focus fixed to something.
They traveled along, sometimes having to duck under a few branches, so Koishi didn't get hit, sometimes for Touma needing to watch his step of tree roots and the mud.
Lost in thought, there was a weird graveness in the air. As if an essential element was unavailable. It was eerie of the forest to be lacking something.
No wind carrying hollow sounds, no crickets or cicadas buzzing, no small mammals crawling on the mud, not even the chirping and flapping of wings belonging to birds.
Nothing audible was happening in the forest, not even the sound of rain registered to the ear.
Koishi may not have noticed, but Touma did.
There was no presence around them. Devoid of predatory eyes gazing upon them from a distance. It was strange to think of a forest being a ghost town, but it was fairly accurate.
The only sound was his own breathing and the steps he took. The wind did not pick up in the background. The more he surveyed his surroundings, the more he tried to rack his brain into a state other than distress.
"Me and Onee-chan live underground in a palace where the sun can't reach us. We live all alone with our pets. Her name is Komeiji Satori. She works all the time and doesn't have any for outside the palace or the surface."
"That doesn't sound good for her complexion." As Touma listened to his companion on his shoulders, he kept a vigilant eye, however useful that was in the dark and him being drunk.
"Onee-chan never comes out so now she's always tired with these heavy eyebags like this." Illustrating the condition of her sister, Koishi pulled the skin below her eye dramatically. But Touma wasn't watching so she slapped him behind the head.
"Ow! Clearly, she needs some sun. Like what you're doing. We gotta rescue your sister from the palace and bring her to the surface." Giving her some wild ideas in jest, Touma smiled unknowingly of what might the future hold.
"I know, right? But if it's the sun she needs, then Okuu's all she needs."
"Okuu?"
"One of my Onee-chan's pet! She has the power of the sun and maintains the Nuclear Furnace!"
"That's nice. Maybe I can meet her someday." He jokingly went along with her delusions in his mind. Unaware of the actual truth in her words.
"Yeah! If we can get you to Onee-chan, she might even give you a job and be our pet's caretaker. She's done enough on her own, so a helping hand is always welcome." She suggested with excitement at the bright prospects in the future.
In due response, Koishi reacted by kicking around on her seat and fidgeted wildly with exaggerated body motions. "Hey, hey! I can't walk properly if you move around so much!" He grasped his left hand on one of her ankles and was about to do so with his right before she cried out.
"No! Don't touch me with that hand!" Instinctively out of fear, she evaded the right hand from touching her leg. From hearing the distressed voice above, Touma dropped his right arm, hanging it loosely.
"Sorry."
"Mn, just don't put that near me."
The long trek continued onward in silence.
He didn't expect a reaction like that from her. But he got careless in his mind and almost rashly brought harm to his helper. There was no telling what would happen if he touched her with his right hand, and he wasn't planning on doing experiments.
To Koishi, that right hand was fire from a stove. Humans wouldn't find danger in it since they needed it for cooking and because they knew instinctively to avoid touching it. So, from a close distance, it was okay to watch, but making contact would be foolish.
It wasn't a strong reaction of rejection per se, but it was danger all the same.
The journey went on with no interruptions.
Before a creaking sound came from his right shoulder.
"…!"
"Hmm? Onii-chan, are you okay?" The concerned question coming from Koishi went unanswered as the boy stared at his shoulder trembling shoulder wide-eyed in terror.
The ominous sound from his shoulder had happened earlier today. Its return filled him with unprecedented dread. He didn't understand why this was happening. However, his concern was not limited to the area around his shoulder.
Someone else was right on top of him, and they were in far greater danger than he was.
"Koishi get off me!" The sudden outburst surprised her as he grasped her left leg and wrestled her off him. "Run! It's not safe being near me!"
The satori hanging from his left hand, however, wasn't paying attention. She steadied her eyes and locked them onto his right arm. Otherwise, she felt no embarrassment from being hanged upside down and letting her skirt flow down, revealing her green panties.
"Your right arm is acting weird again." The helpful comment of Koishi did nothing to ease him. "Let me see!"
This was what Koishi had wanted. The mystery of that right hand might come out again. She felt fear of it before and hid from it naturally, but the curiosity drove her mad. She wasn't thinking or acting rationally, she never could.
"You listen to me well and stay away from me, you understand!? Something's going to kill you!" Touma promptly let go of her leg and made a start to bail out from the immediate area.
He was denied as his body was seized.
A little before Touma's unique circumstance occurred, there was much joy happening in the Scarlet Mansion.
After Sakuya returned to the mansion with the grandiose vehicle in hand, she presented it to her big sister. When she rested her eyes on that magnificent conveyance, she fell in love.
"Sakuya, explain to me this glorious contraption you found yourself," Remilia commanded to the maid in a hustle as she pried it from her hands.
"Yes. Supposedly it's designed for sovereigns chosen to lead the new generation. The shopkeeper was very thorough in his description from its production to its purpose. It has no meaning until a buoyant passenger lays themselves to the seat." Attentively summarizing the vehicle, Sakuya was pleased to find her purchase very much fit her mistress' taste.
Plucking herself off the throne, she ran towards it gleefully. After carefully appraising its illustrious design and briefing from Sakuya, Remilia decided to sit upon it immediately.
The convertible car seat that came with it fitted her perfectly. It provided the utmost comfortability to her body size.
"Mistress might I add one more thing. There is a set of belts to fasten and provide protection from unexpected road bumps. If you don't mind, can I show you?" Sakuya requested in her desire to impress the mistress even more.
"Do so with haste. Show me everything this vehicle fit for a ruler can offer." Remilia accepted gracefully, crossing her arms and leg.
"With due pleasure." Bowing gratefully, she went to work immediately. Sakuya pulled the belts and fastened them to cover the mistress in a cross formation.
On display, the child-safety seat belts appropriately holding Remilia emitted the spitting image of charisma.
"Everyone at the party will love this new look on you, mistress," Sakuya commented on the side, inflating Remilia's already massive ego.
Oh yes, everybody at the party will definitely love her new look.
"Hmph, Onee-chan always get what she wants." Flandre off to side grumbled in jealousy over her sister.
She always had her way as she did as she pleased and demanded everything to her whim while the servants carried out her words with complete infidelity. Ok maybe not the fairies at least, they're mostly useless.
"Stupid Onee-chan not letting me come to the party like always…" Flandre spun around and walked away from the two being delighted over Sakuya's successful mission in providing a befitting vehicle radiating charisma equal to Remilia's.
Flandre walked below the stairs leading to her room and pulled out an 'eye' hidden in her skirt. Her previous grouchy mood uplifted from the sight of the one thing she can really look forward to as of now.
"Hah… it's just you and me now Touma." Flandre quietly addressed to the 'eye' in her hand. She was sitting on her bed, staying inside her room in the basement.
Flandre played with it, rolling it along with her hands and fingers without fluctuations skillfully without making it fall from her hands.
"Alright Touma, don't disappoint me now!" Said Flandre with undiluted glee. She held herself back and now all restraints came off.
It was playtime.
Flandre gripped the 'eye' hard to test its elasticity. After determining its quality on how it refused to break down under her hand using her vampire strength, she wore a beaming smile.
"You're the best Touma!" Flandre praised and threw it against the walls of her room. The 'eye' ricocheted across the four walls, floor, and ceiling in blinding speeds bringing a cacophony of cracking noises.
"Oh no… Koishi you alright? Urgh…" Touma voiced out to the girl below him.
"This doesn't feel bad Onii-chan! I love it!" Koishi called out from below his body as she squirmed, exploring his body.
"You're not embarrassed? Nothing uncomfortable happening for you?" Touma sputtered out from his gritted teeth.
"No, in fact, let's stay like this!" She reassured him on the contrary, she very much found this entertaining.
After losing feeling all over his body, he fell over on top of Koishi, pressing down on her. They were both in very compromising positions with pink dusting on the boy's cheeks. Koishi didn't seem to mind as much as he did.
"Urgh… I can't move at all… the only feeling in me is my right arm feeling like its being torn apart!" Touma grunted in pain from the tremors occurring on his right shoulder. It felt like something lodged itself into it and broke every molecule inside, separating the cells.
But at the same speeds the cells were being crushed and torn apart, they were rejoining together, fixing the damage so nothing was out of place on the surface.
Something was up with his arm. It has changed since he arrived in Gensokyo.
Touma was reminded of times where his arm regenerated or grew back in natural form from the shoulder after it was cut off numerous times.
It was almost like a rough, hasty patchwork being done to accommodate for immediate fastenings for future events before similar accidents could happen to the arm.
"Ok, I think I'm regaining control over my lower body." Touma tested out his lower limbs to see slow movement following his command. "Koishi, push me off to the side, please!"
"Buuuh, fine." Koishi pouted as she applied pressure to her arms below his chest, trying to lift him off.
"Not yet! I'm not satisfied yet, Touma! More, more, more!" Flandre screamed out to the 'eye' in jubilation. She caught it and promptly threw it above to serve it.
"Taboo [Lävatein]!" Flandre summoned to her hand a flaming sword and batted away the 'eye' to the wall, bouncing off it and leaving behind a web of cracks.
The 'eye' flying back to her was swatted again with a swing of her sword. This process repeated itself ad infinitum as the tempo of her swings and the speed of the 'eye' rapidly raised.
Ripple effects spread from the pounding to the 'eye', spreading into tremors across the entire mansion.
"Gah!" Touma cried as his body without his input pressed down on Koishi even further. Touma balled his right hand into a fist and slammed it down above and away from Koishi's head to prevent any unwarranted effects.
"Mmmmph… Onii-chan, I can't push you off if you don't want me to." Koishi complained under her breath where her cheeks were being crushed by Touma's bodyweight.
"Well if it's not so bad…" Touma replied in lethargy until he was brought back from the pain flaring up again. "No, I do want you to! Why would I not!? I don't know what's going on, but my body is shaking so much!" Touma tried to calm down both himself and her in his attempts to seize back control.
"Eheheh, that tickles!" Koishi giggled when Touma's left hand shot out and traveled under her shirt. The shaking of his body caused her to squirm as his left hand's fingers dangerously tickled her skin.
"Sorry!" Touma apologized bashfully, knowing and feeling the softness of her skin.
"Taboo [Four of a Kind]!" Flandre shouted her next spellcard, summoning three clones of her. All four of them had exuberant smiles splitting their faces. Everyone was enthusiastic about bringing everything to the next level.
"I've never done this before because nothing had been able to survive this point… but Touma can! You can handle it!" Flandre proclaimed with fever and reverence in her voice. On signal, the three clones brought their hands forward.
"Taboo [Lävatein]!" Simultaneously shouting the spell, each one had a flaming sword in their hands. The overbearing pressure emitting from the presence of four Lävateins existing at the same time had never been done before. It was like watching a nightmare.
The poor 'eye' was met with a fate no one would ever hand to someone, not even their most hated enemies.
The original Flandre threw the 'eye' and served it to a clone. The clone in response swatted it away to the next clone. And then the receiver swatted it again to the final one where it batted it back to the original.
The four Flandres continued the game as they swung their dangerous swords at the 'eye', making it fly towards the other where it met the same fate. It was a nightmarish game belonging to the devil.
"Gyaah!" Touma yelped in surprise with the surge of pain to his right shoulder. Not being through with the pain, Touma felt his left leg trust upwards in a knee jerk reaction.
"Kyah!" Koishi cried, having felt something hitting her thigh. In reaction, she gripped Touma's leg between her thighs to stop it from moving. She squirmed, even more, when the vibrating leg locked by her thighs had transmitted the vibrations to her body.
"Why is this happening!?" Touma continued to yell in dismay from his involuntary sexual harassment. He reviewed the compromising position they were in.
One, his whole body was pressing down on Koishi with her head below his neck. Two, his left hand continued its search below her shirt, feeling up her bare skin. Three, his leg was madly shaking between her thighs and hazardously right below her uncharted territory he desperately denied thinking about.
His drunkenness gave no help at all where he tried to push his thoughts away from feeling something under his pants.
He hoped for someone to come over and push him off Koishi. He also hoped nobody would actually be coming over for he was most likely to receive a well-deserved ass-kicking.
The two stayed pinned like this for a rough ten minutes. Ten minutes of agonizing torture with Touma stuck between pain from his right shoulder and rejecting the rising pleasure from fondling the little girl beneath him.
"Grr…! You think I'm going to let you continue this madness? Do you think you're in control? How about this!?" Touma finally felt a lapse in feeling with his right hand, exerting pressure on the ground and pushing his right side off Koishi.
Finally, having found freedom, he lied on the ground, twitching where his limbs jerked around erratically. Using his right arm, he crawled backwards with his back dragging on the mud to lean against a tree.
"You okay there Koishi?"
"Why'd you stop Onii-chan? I was having so much fun." Koishi rolled over with her body flat on the ground and staring at him.
"Huh? Oh. Okay, I guess if you want, we can do this again." He agreed easily with the girl and ensured they would do this again if she wanted. His reluctant disposition visibly reversed. He felt absolutely no reservations now that he was calm again with his dull mind. If he was completely sober, he would definitely protest in his characteristic restraint and as a natural member of society. But for now, he humored the girl.
The duo rested themselves for a time in order to recover mentally. The silence left much to desire and Touma was up to opening with a conversation with Koishi.
Only for the air to shift when he detected a moving object in front of their general direction.
It was closing the distance, having spotted them in turn.
Not understanding what to do, Touma sat still and waited for that object closing in on them. Running would do no good since it'll do poorly with his state of mind and the constant twitching of his body.
Rooted in place, he could do nothing but watch as that pale hue of blue gradually getting broader and closer within his peripheral view.
He felt goosebumps on his shivering skin. The temperature gradually dropped centered around that blue hue.
"Koishi! We need to run. You have any idea of where to go?" He futilely pleaded with his guide until he discovered a loss of presence near him. "Koishi! Where did you go...!? ...Who was I talking to just now?"
He looked over every direction and found nothing else but the blue hue coming closer. Deeply troubled, he raced his head to find what had happened.
He could not remember a reason for why he was in a forest when he was last outside Kourindou.
As Touma stood there in dismay, something shouted out to him in the distance.
"Hey, you! You have something really weird on you. Show it to me!"
When Touma turned his head over to that voice, the first thing that registered in his head was a hovering girl in blue.
The small girl in front of him gave an air of chilliness to his skin. There was a light blue hue emitted continuously from her body and froze the molecules in the air. Behind her was six icicle-shaped wings. His eyes met blue eyes below her blue hair. There was a blue ribbon tied on her hair and she wore a blue blouse with the rims at the bottom white with icicle shapes. The girl was facing him in a stern but childish face as she peered into his eyes.
"Huh? Who are you?" Touma asked with rising confusion. His mind was occupied with figuring out who was with him earlier, but he was sure in his mind this girl was not the one.
"I'm Cirno! I'm the strongest in Gensokyo!" The now named Cirno introduced herself. "You didn't answer my question! Show me that weird thing on you! Show me, show me!"
Raising an eyebrow from the demand of the proclaimed strongest of Gensokyo, Touma wondered what she was talking about. Her curiosity fit her childish manner perfectly. There was also an underlying arrogance to it which wasn't out-of-place for a child he expected.
Right now, he lacked the ability to find suspicion for strangers in a new world that could very much eat him at any time. Curse that oni who made him drunk in the first place.
"What weird thing? There's nothing on me that's strange…"
"Liar! I feel it! Something was calling to me! That's why I came here in the first place! Your hand!" Cirno promptly pointed to his right hand and from the guidance of her finger, Touma eyed his right hand too.
"You feel something from this? Is it danger? Does it make you want to run away?" Asked Touma sluggishly.
"Run away!? I'm the strongest, why would I run away from you!? I'm saying that your hand feels really weird and it's like what happened to nature earlier is happening around your hand! I would never run away from someone, never!" His question ticked her off where she went on a tangent complaining about how she was never a coward that ran from a challenge.
Her incessant denial made him suspect. "You were running away from something, weren't you?" Touma asked blankly.
Cirno's face turned red in anger as she pouted. "I'm not a liar, I never run away!" Releasing the breath she was holding, Cirno yelled at Touma for thinking otherwise.
"Uh huh, right, because you're the strongest." Touma parroted her quote earlier sarcastically. Something told him having to deal with this girl is going to eat away at his last brain cells before the alcohol could.
"Yeah, I'm the strongest! Hey, you're trying to distract me! Show me the weird thing in your hand already!" Cirno said with indignation and impatience, pointing at him to hurry up.
Complying since he wasn't in a rush, Touma outstretched his right arm to her. Satisfied with his willingness, Cinro got up closer to it and almost touched it before it was pulled back.
"Hey, what's the big idea!?" Cirno raised her head and glared at him.
"Uh, that's not a good idea I assure you." Touma hid his hand behind the other, clutching it close to his chest.
"What's so bad about it? Just let me touch it!" Demanded Cirno. She hovered over closer to him. Touma being stuck in a tight spot since the rest of his body still could not respond to his commands, turned his body to the side.
A pang of pain came back to his right shoulder and his arm twitched uncontrollably. Touma eyes wide could only watch in horror. His right arm jerked around and lashed out towards Cirno.
"NOOO!"
Touma shouted in fear, having closed his eyes not wanting to see what would happen. What met his right hand was something solid, but soft. His ears heard a fit of giggles in front of him. Slowly he opened his eyes and saw his hand touching Cirno's budding breast.
"Ehehehe, what is this? It feels really funny! I could just die from the touch!" Cirno grabbed the hand and raised it to rub her cheek on it. She felt the levitation provided by her magic falter so now she sat on Touma's lap. The aura around her disappeared too.
Touma watched her playful act with a pleasant smile on her face. His worst fears having been averted. Her expression was so light and innocent that rightfully belonged to a child. A wan smile not reaching to his sides sprouted from his face.
"Hah…haha, I was really worried for a moment there." Sighed a relieved Touma.
"Hmm? What's the matter?" Cirno abruptly stopped herself so she could look at him, seeing his relieved expression as if he had redeemed himself for a crime he didn't do.
"I was really worried you were going to die from that…"
"I would never die from a hand! I'm the stron-!"
"Yeah, yeah, you're the strongest I know. I know." He interrupted her, causing her to feel miffed up. He grabbed her hands with both of his and brought them close together between the two. "God, I'm so relieved you survived."
"No duh! What do you take me for?" She proudly proclaimed.
"How did it feel? You felt something from my right hand, right?" Touma implored her solemnly.
"Ehh… I felt really, really ticklish, like a zap!" Cirno answered roughly with uncertainty as to how she could describe the sensation.
The sensation experienced by her was similar to how one's hand would come into contact with a metal doorknob and receive a light shock in return.
"That's good, as long as it doesn't kill anyone." Touma convinced himself that his hand will not bring harm to the supernatural beings living in these lands. "Good, good, my legs are working again." As Touma said, his legs responded back, and the feeling of his body returned to him.
With a grunt, Touma stood upright slowly with Cirno being lifted off him to the side. Cirno's hands were still gripping his right hand.
"Uh, can you let go? It was nice meeting you Cirno and I had a pleasant time, but I've gotta find someone." Touma reasonable asked her for he had to find something missing from his memory.
"Nuh-uh! I found this hand so it's mine!" Cirno stated a rather unreasonable claim.
He had no more time to humor this girl and had to move to reach the shrine. He needed to find someone knowledgeable and with a good sense of direction this deep into the woods where he was now lost.
Then a great idea came to mind on how to lose this person.
"Hey, you claim you're the strongest right?" Touma asked with a wide grin.
"Yuh-huh!" Answered Cirno, pleased with someone finally understanding her status.
"Ehhh…but are you really? I don't know about that; I mean, I know someone who is actually the real strongest." Touma winked at her playfully.
And the taunt worked like a charm. Cirno set off from someone stealing her title of strongest was now swinging the hand in hers angrily. "Who!? Who dares calls themselves that when I'm the real one!?" Cirno said.
"Let's not focus on who it is, but why he's the strongest in the first place. Want to know?" Touma received a nod back from her. "It's because he's smart. How can you be the strongest if you're not the smartest?"
"I-I'm smart! Totally! I know rounding and fractions!" Cirno said to prove herself worthy.
"Ehh…but I'm afraid those aren't enough to really earn you the title of strongest, unfortunately." Touma watched her deflate lightly before she eyed him with fury and determination.
"Tell me how I can become the smartest! You know this fake strongest, so you know his secret to become smart right!?"
"I mean yeah, buuut…Ah, I just don't know if you're ready yet, it's going to take a lot of commitment." Hook line and sinker. The bait was successful.
"I can commit! I'm going to commit so hard; nothing can distract me!" Cirno declared with her resolve and pride on the line.
"Alright then, but I'm warning you, it's going to be hell. This is your choice." Touma relented to her resolve, turning to her and asked, "If a hen and a half lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs will half a dozen hens lay in half a dozen days? Even master mathematicians found it difficult to answer this question. If you successfully answer correctly, then you've got a shot at reclaiming your former title."
"Un." Cirno nodded and got to work on figuring out the answer.
"Oh, by the way, a little advice from me, try counting with your fingers." Touma helpfully commented to which Cirno let go of his hand and counted with her fingers. "Okay, I'm gonna go walk over this way so I can let you figure it out on your own. Bye." Touma turned around and walked away with slack steps, but Cirno could no longer hear anything as she stared at her fingers intently.
After some time had passed, Touma was away in the distance from Cirno where her blue hue was no longer visible in the dark. Now he had to worry over which direction to take in the endless darkness deep inside the forest.
Had Touma didn't become drunk and was sober, he could've asked Cirno the direction of the shrine. Then again, if he wasn't drunk, he wouldn't be here in the first place.
Now all alone in the dark, Touma wandered aimlessly with no sense of direction. He assumed from the complete and utter silence of the forest, the person he was looking for shouldn't be far. The chance of finding someone other the supposed person lost in his memory was unlikely and that Cirno was a rare chance. He resumed his keen awareness of his surroundings for any movement instead of relying on his eyes.
Behind a tree behind Touma, Koishi watched him from afar. She left his side without any real concrete reason; it was her nature to do nonsensical actions with no logic behind them.
If there was any sound reasoning behind her leaving, then it had to be when she heard a sound. Earlier she heard it, that right hand snarled at her.
"What are you hiding Onii-chan?" Koishi muttered with curiosity leaking from her voice. She eyed his right shoulder and peered inside.
Her power to manipulate unconsciousness can range not only to a person's unaware actions but the unconsciousness residing in their very cells — a human's embryo dreams within their mother's womb. Her powers can tap to the deep recesses of memories hidden behind their cells to reach the era of dinosaurs.
She dived into his right shoulder, a projection of herself flew into it, shrinking until it entered into a size ratio where her body was comparable to the cells.
Inside his right shoulder was a myriad of colors and veins going by in a systematic fashion of transporting blood and sending messages across the nervous system to the brain. Nothing seemed out of place inside.
But that was only true on the surface. She watched old cells having been torn asunder and separated now linking together. That wasn't strange naturally, but what was strange as to how they did so. It wasn't like reopening a broken link and leaving behind old wounds, no, it was like time reversed where the cells that should have been destroyed wholly returned and reborn from nothingness. That was impossible.
And the cells that returned were not the same as before. This wasn't restoring an old arm but reconstructing an entirely new arm above an old one.
The arm on the surface was completely normal. A normal arm belonging to a human. As if nothing was supposed to be out of place in the first place. And it was that fact that was indeed mysterious.
It was truly an arm of fantasy.
She wasn't getting anywhere by staring, so she put her hands to the nervous system and accessed the memory banks of the brain. Memories centered around the brain was far richer and more impactful then memories belonging to certain limbs.
Her eyes flashed black as she dived into the deep ocean of Touma's brain where she saw his conversation with the shopkeeper and an oni. This wasn't it, she needed to dig deeper, something a lot less recent.
Memories and imagery flew by like flat television screens on broken pieces of glass as she traversed carefully deeper and deeper. She didn't bother to look at them, she only had one goal, and that was any memory containing anything about that which resides beneath the right hand. She was inside a kaleidoscope of colors and patterns with new ones gracing her eyes every second. But she was met with a wall. The memories didn't go beyond half-a-year. That's not normal for a human. It was like the cells beyond this point were physically destroyed.
Flying across the colors in search for anything that occurred during this half-a-year, she eventually saw a glaring pitch-black hole far away to the side. Naturally her curiosity took over and soon she entered through, only to be met with an infinite space of black.
She saw beyond a white sun rising from a horizon. She saw fences clattered with billboards and barbed wires covering it from a distance barring all from entry. This was clearly a memory deeply repressed by Touma.
This isn't where she should be. Even her subconscious mind was rejecting this. Something screamed at her to leave. At times her powers allowed her to fish up people's repressed memories so they would confront their weaknesses.
Not this one. She wanted nothing to do with this. It was so beyond her, a dreaded feeling crept into her body. Out of the corners of her peripheral view, she saw it.
A young woman with blond hair, one green eye and wearing an eyepatch staring at her behind the fences. In her hands was a beautiful golden lance.
Death.
Divinity.
Absoluteness.
Unquestionable omnipotence.
Unmatched cruelty.
She was not something a mortal mind will ever contend with. The ancestral fear rested in Koishi flared all at once. Her instincts took over as her body assumed the fight-or-flight response. Expectedly flight took over and she flew back to the hole leading to the upper floors of the brain. The woman watched her silently leave behind the fences.
She was never going to return there. If she wanted to find anything deeper than that memory, then she had to go through with that woman, which was impossible. The brain was now off-limits.
But she hasn't given up yet on solving the mystery of Kamijou Touma.
She resumed her search within the nervous system and opted for looking inside the cells containing memories beyond that point where she didn't have to see that woman again.
She connected with his entire body to go beyond the emptiness over half-a-year using memories of muscle movement, the friction of air on the skin, the movements of the mouth, soundwaves touching the ear, etc. She recreated an image of an event long ago.
The landscape was limited, but it would have to do. She saw everything using not only the vision provided by Touma's eyes but vision around his entire body with perfect 360 vision. He was sitting on a rock right beside a lake throwing rocks at it during the night.
She heard him speaking to someone with a scarily calm and smooth voice. She held her breath and watched silently.
"Gods don't exist. What was my dad thinking looking for a shrine that blesses good fortune in a remote region where the shrine might not even exist? He said this was a shrine where he can find a recommendation to another shrine in Izumo, but it's just a waste of time."
…
"If I don't accept your existence, then you will have no reason to come out. As if I would accept something unscientifically founded like a ghost residing inside me…"
…
"Do you hear me? I'm in control. Leave my life right this instant. I won't accept you… I won't…"
…
Touma stood up and walked to the edge of the lake and peered down. What should have been his reflection was a ripple of sugar water. "Stop hurting others, I won't allow for it."
…
"I'm me. I'm Kamijou Touma. The God of Pestilence. That's fine. It's already better than allowing for something like you to roam free."
…
He raised his voice and roared at the unseen entity. "Quit showing up outside of where you belong! If I don't believe in you, you'll stay put and never have to show yourself! Do you hear!? Get out of here! Don't ever come out!"
…
"Heh…yeah right, as if you would listen to my words."
The entity had left, nothing had been done to denote its departure.
"Hey! Touma-chan! What're you doing yelling at the lake for!?" Someone yelled out to him from behind.
Koishi saw her and instantly recognized who it was. It was that frog goddess up on the mountain.
The memory ended there by Koishi's hand. It didn't matter to her what relation Touma had with the frog goddess, that wasn't important. She tried to go even deeper than that, but the images turned out to be really blurry using muscle memory.
There was another reason. She didn't want to be found in place of another person ostracized from society. She heard all she needed. Any further was going to give her pain and open old scars.
There was one last place to look. Earlier when she viewed through muscle memory, beyond the right wrist was nothing but a black blur. She couldn't access the cells belonging to that right hand.
And so, she traveled on foot below the shoulder along a path given by a vein. She reached halfway from the arm and stopped to the elbow where she saw an anomaly.
A deep, deep dark redness. A sea born sinister and divine. It was harmless to her but knowing that going further will invite death is indisputable. And yet she walked inside that sea. Her curiosity much like a cat willed her without permission.
The more she ventured down her surroundings grew to look like crevices. The deep red sea gradually faded away to show cubical crystals sticking from the crags like pyrite. It was like the Grand Canyon inside a right arm.
Each step she took there was a substance of tar clinging onto her but fell off with ease. No mortal mind should ever trespass into these corners. She could not see beyond the mist of dark red, only to follow the path of the vein she steps on.
The vein beneath her feat fizzled out and was replaced by a bridge purely of white light. The surroundings morphed again into a black and blue three-dimensional grid.
When she arrived at the entrance of the wrist, she saw something inexplicably out of place. It was an almost translucent gridded force-field intricately connected with hexagons like a beehive. The texture was full of circuitry like some sci-fi world within one motherboard.
In one instant, that motherboard phased into a force-field of movie film tapes with the black bars and white squares.
But both force-fields had one thing in common. There were broken locks and chains made up of some unknown material making them invisible across the entrance of the wrist. Sparks sizzled out from them to indicate their existence. The once pristine prison was now no more. The only thing holding what was ever inside were the barriers.
She felt the same danger as before when the right hand almost touched her leg coming from the force-field.
She eyed it and found a single spot that caught her eye. A crack. Not a large crack per se. It wasn't deep enough where she could see through the force-field.
But if she were to view the memory of the wrist, she might see what it was that left that mark. With her powers utilized, she traversed through the memories inside the regions of the wrist and found herself in a time where there was no crack on the barriers.
Then she heard a deep rumble. The force-field expanded outwardly without warning from its flat surface to a sphere.
The force-field was shaking. Something was trying to escape from within. The locks and chains provided no support with them destroyed. They rattled from the ripples of the source behind the barrier.
The blood inside her projection somehow went cold. There was terror behind that barrier. The quaking intensified. The hexagonal shapes had their in-between gaps distended.
An unbearable noise leaked from the gaps. That was a sound that belonged to no animal in the world.
The force-field settling down in place left nothing to be eased about.
A fluid spilled ever so slowly and ominously from the gaps. It was a deep, deep dark red born from the divine and sinister. This fluid was like a lump of matter in-between the states of liquid and solid. The water level rose with it to Koishi's knees.
She no longer heard herself breathing. She couldn't access her powers to escape from pure horror. Koishi was never a logical person, and this had been the result.
This was much worse than that woman from earlier.
Then the dam burst open.
Two gaps fully developed into holes the size of a fist poured out that baleful fluid.
She saw something solid flowing inside the fluid coming from the two holes. Two perfectly triangular surfaces that seemed to symbolize the artificial. Artificial objects like polygons existing inside a video game. They came out of the holes with perfect mass and crawled out onto the surface of the fluid, floating and rotating freely from the movements of the water. There were shadows inside the eggs with organic shapes that didn't exist in the world.
Koishi couldn't tell with her eyes, but her body and soul did.
The two eggs noticed her. They rotated themselves ever so menacingly. It was impossible to find which side was the front that it left her unstable mind aghast.
None of this made sense. They were just memories. And yet they founded her, they saw her, they had their focus on her.
Koishi only had the time to blink once. An instant later light filled those eggs from within. These illusions are going to inflict death.
She was about to die as of this moment.
Light filled the room and she was blinded.
Inside the white haze of the new world, something else forced itself outside the holes. Two serpentine shapes lashed out wide enough to fit through the holes. From one head, it expanded to become a dragon with claws protruding from where its eyes should be, the eye sockets. From the other a sharp head and chin with four horns.
The instant they appeared, the dragons opened their jaws and swallowed down both eggs. Reverting back to the thin serpentine form, they retreated back inside the barrier.
Koishi blinked her eyes and felt the wetness of tears streaming down her cheeks. Her mouth was left agape.
Who was it that saved her?
Koishi looked over at the barrier with more questions than answers for what Kamijou Touma truly is.
"Oh hey, would you look at that. A new chapter's been uploaded. I was beginning to worry over if we're going to adopt the Berserk scheduling."
There was an unknown voice both perverted and sinister reaching to her ears like the forked tongue of a poisonous snake.
Suddenly, the tips of claws protruded from the holes of the barrier.
"Greetings Komeiji Koishi, I've been watching you for quite some time. How've you been?" A polite greeting came from behind the barrier.
Koishi could not move her mouth to respond appropriately. She could only act out the perfect role of a fish.
"It's unbelievable that you've managed to get this far without shattering your mind, but if it's you then it isn't impossible now is it?" The voice said, mocking her lightly but found it appropriate that she was the one to reach this far. "You were smart to avoid touching Imagine Breaker. Had you did, you might not have survived from a slow and painful vaporization before it was allowed to complete its deal with Kamijou Touma. Things are running rampant here lately and the update to the right hand is running steady as long as you don't interfere."
Koishi stood there quietly, soaking in the information as she wanted.
"You've stepped into an utmost forbidden corner in the universe. I suggest you run back home, spend time with your family and not ruin what precious time we have left to contain the interior Kamijou Touma from escaping." A stern tone came from behind the force-field. The claws extended themselves closer to her slowly.
Interior Kamijou Touma? There were two? Koishi didn't feel her mind or thoughts, but they raced regardless in a sort of lucid dream. Scrambling for a semblance of sense to even associate that thing as Kamijou Touma.
"Do not be mistaken, this is but a memory still." The voice said. "I have the power to see within memories, to interact with them and yet leave no ripples into the present. That's just one of many subsidiary branches within my power. Those eggs you saw earlier can achieve the same but on a much higher magnitude than you could imagine."
The gaps and cracks left behind from that disaster's awakening were slowly being mended to return the barrier's former pristine form.
"Oh, but where are my manners?" The voice said. "You're naturally curious about many things. Perhaps you wish to know what I am?" The voice proposed to her.
If any being was capable enough to survive and contend with that thing, then yes. She very much like to learn of what his species were capable of.
"Species of the world bond together with their own to create societies. A society of intelligence is given rise to. From that point forward, intelligence gives way to imagination and significance. These become vital images and symbolism that move and design the path where they evolve. Culture is born from the movements of these symbols. They leave their mark and never truly disappear as they seared themselves into the collective unconsciousness — archetypes, prophecies, mythology, philosophy, and thousands more. Their range has no limit, they are how people view the world and in turn create realities of their own personal viewpoints." The claws extending themselves have already reached to the sides of Koishi.
"I have the power to manipulate these vital symbols that nurture culture, inspire movements and its destructive impulses that ruin lives…manipulating memes and so much deeper. Though I'm not really him, the one who wills these symbols is Tanin'iver, the accompaniment of Lilith and Samael." Introducing itself to the satori, the claws were slowly closing themselves around Koishi.
"You bear questions as to what Kamijou Touma is. Let me tell you now that the boy you've spent time with is no mere lie. He is what he believes he is. Just a normal boy." A voice filled with distortions and gleefulness expressed very obvious sarcasm. "As long as he believes it that is."
"Any further knowledge will drive you mad. Now you are to leave and never come back for both our sakes. You've seen all that you need. In the present, you'll meet me sooner than you'll believe." The claws of Tanin'iver has latched onto Koishi.
The Satori gave no remarks as she gagged uncontrollably. But that did not elicit any sympathy from the dragon.
"I command you to leave now before I show you a world that will leave your heart a throbbing mess."
The memory landscape ended. And she was right back where she started, in front of the present barrier. There were no claws, no eggs, but the sea of sinister fluids filled out the entire area. And the room within the wrist seemed a lot more expansive than before. The horizon to her left and right looked to have expanded thousands of kilometers.
When she looked at the shield there were hundreds of white serpentine forms latched onto it as if in purveyance for any unnecessary slights against it.
Behind it was a slight tremor and the white coils became restless.
Still feeling the seizures choking her, Koishi remained rooted at the entrance of the wrist. She saw that crack on the barrier deepen.
She was stuck inside, and there was no one to save her.
"Koishi!"
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