(Yotsuba Tatsuya, Age 12)
Tatsuya woke up as usual, at 0700 every day. He quickly got up, and spread his feet 50 centimeters apart before doing hamstring stretches, nearly touching his elbows to the ground. After a few seconds of this, he stood up and tied back his jet black hair, which reached behind his shoulders (living in a college town/hippieville, I only realized now that this is a notable feature to most people. Sorry for the potential inconsistencies.) into a high ponytail and sat back down again, grabbing his keyboard and checking his mail. Mostly, all the mail that Tatsuya received had to do with the various book orders he sends, as he receives a large package of them every second Monday morning. Mostly they were just confirmation emails.
Standing back up again, Tatsuya moved into the kitchen area, which was in fact the same room as his living area, separated by a bar style kitchen counter and sink which he used to do his cooking. He opened a cabinet and procured a wooden cup of considerable size, and filled it with water from the sink that had been collected by his gutters on the roof. When he first implemented this system, Tatsuya spent three days completely remodeling the roof, but because now he had pressurized water and he didn't have to walk three minutes to a river which meandered through his lands, he considered it to be worth the effort.
Tatsuya also pulled a wooden bowl of wild fruits out of the pantry. After rinsing his hands he consumed his meal in silence. Afterwards, Tatsuya rinsed the bowl and grabbed a pinch of salt, which he had found a small vein of, and poured it onto his tongue. He followed this up with the rest of the water in the cup.
Having consumed his breakfast, Tatsuya grabbed a black coat and walked out the door, locking it behind him. One would think that he would have a problem with bears, but he created, with the help of magic, a high solid stone wall around his residence, which he could jump over by making the ground into a sort of trampoline, but bears could not. He made sure to build his house overlooking a bluff, though, so that he could still tell by the sunrise that it was daytime.
Tatsuya softly jumped the wall, his eye slightly glowing, before setting off into the woods. First, he set off to check the various deer traps he had set. Being in Hokkaido, there was a vast population of deer to be had, especially because no one was allowed to hunt on or even to enter Tatsuya's lands except for the one Yotsuba delivery man that delivered his books and terminal. Even then he was only allowed to enter when Tatsuya specifically let him in, on an individual basis, and Tatsuya was with him until he left.
The first two traps were empty, but the third trap had a deer in it. Tatsuya had designed pitfall traps using salt licks as bait, and caught a deer once every week or so. He had even once caught a bear, which he used as a blanket during the cold winters. Tatsuya quickly used his magic to manipulate a sharp obsidian knife with a bone handle that he kept in his coat pocket, in a deerskin sheath. The knife cut the throat of the unfortunate deer in one quick motion, before wiping itself on nearby grass and returning to Tatsuya's hand.
Tatsuya then waited for the deer's soul to leave its body before replacing it with his own and lifting the carcass. He lifted the 40 kilogram deer onto his strong but thin shoulders and positioned the wound to the back of him. This was done so as not to have any blood removed from the carcass by gravity fall on Tatsuyas precious few clothes. When he returned home he would bleed the deer and remove the meat, before turning the hide into leather and burying the bones and entrails. After hanging the deer to bleed, Tatsuya left to check his other traps, which were empty.
Returning home, Tatsuya ate a small lunch of salted venison stew after dressing and preserving the deer he had killed earlier. Tatsuya's pantry now contained 60 kilograms of venison that could be consumed. After lunch, Tatsuya again left his house to practice the martial arts he had learned years ago. He had hung a wooden post from a tree and covered it with deer hides, anchoring the bottom to a stone weight with a periodically replaced vine rope. He used this target to practice kicking on, which can injure the knees and hips if done without one.
An hour of sweat later, Tatsuya returned indoors to grab a pair of clothing, which he brought along on the three minute journey to the river. He also brought a book on human anatomy, his newest subject of fascination.
Having reached the river, Tatsuya quickly stripped and entered the cold water. Without taking note of the low temperature of his bath, he quickly set about washing his arms, legs, torso, and finally hair. Afterwards, he retrieved his dirty clothes and washed those in the river too. This got them to be relatively clean, and Tatsuya would burn pine needles underneath them once he finished drying them to remove the scent of bodily odors. Because Tatsuya was only twelve, the amount of odor coming from him was mostly negligible, allowing him to bypass the difficult and painful process of using a washboard and nearly boiling water.
Hanging the wrung-out clothes on the limb of a tree, Tatsuya sat down on a nearby stump and shook his hands dry before pulling out his book while his limbs, torso, and hair did the same. Even though he only had a couple of minutes to read, he was able to process and understand twenty pages of the dense textbook, a feat which would cause most college students to weep at their comparative incompetence. That being said, it was a superhuman reading speed brought about by Tatsuya's absolute focus.
Finishing the chapter, Tatsuya used the surrounding air to quickly dry his hair and put on the alternate set of clothes, and his long jacket on top of that. These were all black to avoid staining. Tatsuya then burned some surrounding pine needles to scent his now dry clothing, causing them to smell faintly of pine resin before hanging them on his arm and setting off to return home.
(Same place, just change in pace)
Upon returning home, Tatsuya saw a black unmarked SUV parked in front of his house, and a stocky man wearing a black tuxedo and black sunglasses standing near the driver's side door. There was a noticeable bulge in the shape of a small firearm on the person's blazer, above the left lung. Immediately Tatsuya unsheathed and threw his knife, while simultaneously using magic to pull the man's gun through his bulletproof tuxedo and into Tatsuya's hand. The knife then stopped at the man's throat and Tatsuya stepped forward into the stranger's vision. The stranger slowly lifted his hands to head level.
"... Who?" was the question that Tatsuya asked. Before the stranger could answer, however, one of the doors to the SUV opened and out came a middle aged man wearing a maroon suit, with matching hair color. This prompted Tatsuya to aim the pistol, a 9mm black desert eagle at the new potential threat, while simultaneously raising and compacting some dirt over the man's hands to make him unable to use a CAD, as Tatsuya had seen an abnormal control of the person's psions as he came out of the car.
"Calm down… please." said the person in the maroon suit. "My name is Kuroba Mitsugu, and I was sent by Yotsuba Maya to retrieve you and bring you to my place of residence.
Tatsuya tilted his head and questioned "... Why should I… believe?" The man who called himself Kuroba Mitsugu nodded towards the interior of the car and said "In there is a document from Maya-sama in a code that I cannot read. She wishes you to have it."
Without taking his eyes off of either of the intruders, Tatsuya slowly retrieved the document, which was contained in a yellow legal envelope. He then retreated to a safe distance and opened it. Contained within the envelope was a single slip of paper which read, in a wingdings-like code, "Pack some things and go with this man. -Your mother, Maya." Upon reading this message, written in a code which he had only shared with his mother and Hayama, Tatsuya relaxed. He dropped control of the dirt, and recalled his knife before sheathing it. He also ejected the magazine and unchambered the bullet, catching it and replacing it in the magazine. However, he did not return the handgun, choosing to instead tuck it behind his waistband.
Wordlessly returning indoors, Tatsuya took his terminal and a couple of books which he hadn't read, and stuffed them into a deerskin bag. He then took a drink of water and ate some venison jerky in case he wasn't able to eat anything in the next couple of hours. He then left and jumped back over the fence, much to the surprise of the guard. Placing his deerskin bag over one shoulder, Tatsuya entered the backseat of the SUV, again, wordlessly.
"Let's try this again." said Mitsugu, who was waiting in the backseat. "My name is Kuroba Mitsugu. Until the Toshu says otherwise, I will be taking care of you." "... I am… Tatsuya." was the response that came. Tatsuya's voice had gone from just quiet like earlier to quiet and breathy, likely a result of his vocal cords having atrophied from disuse. Mitsugu noticed this, gave a wry smile, and left his guest to his own devices. Tatsuya pulled out a book and started reading.
I seem to have gotten all of the poetry out of my system. Also, I think I'm really bad at dark souls. It took me two hours to kill Vordt of the Boreal Valley, the second boss… gj me. Please review, and please point out any flaws that I may have in writing style or story flow. Even if it is the most toxic criticism ever, it's better that "great story" or whatnot. Just please try to be specific about what in particular you don't like, or think I could do better, because otherwise I can't fix it. Thanks for reading!
