Woo! Chapter 3! Cranked this one out pretty fast O: Be prepared for a convoluted AAAADVENTURE!
Anyways, please enjoy!
Chapter 3 - Stranger to the World
Human beings are complicated creatures capable conjuring many emotions and reactions of the like. Many of which are baseless and illogical as some may see it. Emotions come to us without a need for an explanation, as we have become accustomed to feeling 'emotion' and have come to terms of understanding with it.
With that said, the loaded question of 'what exactly is emotion', wouldn't be the hottest topic you'd bring up at parties. But for our heroine sitting attentively in psychology class, such a topic has never been more thought provoking.
As such, the topic for today's lesson was about love and all its associations. How convenient. The teacher had explained all the different variations of love; love for one's possessions, looks, attributes, interests, actions, lifestyle, etc. Along with the basic understanding of love: to genuinely care about one's well-being, and how it leads to intimacy and relationships. She then thought back during the interview for the Newspaper Club, and how she declared her 'relationship' with Natsuru. Sure she cared about Natsuru, even if he had only become aware of her existence not too long ago. She could feel some sort of connection to Natsuru, essentially having been linked to his thoughts and emotions. It may not be the kind of 'love' the teacher was lecturing about, but it was definitely something.
Female Natsuru's thoughts jumped from Natsuru over to Kaede. She shuddered at the thought of someone like her claiming to be in love with her, that's not love, that's just a freaky, unhealthy obsession. What kind of person, who says she's in love with you, uses you in attempts to kill your friends?
Female Natsuru then remembers something extremely important, she had not seen Kaede at all today, and this class was the last class before the end of the school day. She had either been avoiding her the entire day, or she really was over at the boys' side, possibly lying in wait to attack Natsuru. But the girls from her class had claimed that she wasn't in her own class either. Something was definitely off; and she had to act quickly before she makes her move, whatever it may be. At the moment, Female Natsuru knew that Natsuru wasn't in any trouble, as she would feel his distress if something were to happen.
"Excuse me sensei", Female Natsuru says as she slowly stands up. "My head is really bothering me, may I have your permission to go to the infirmary?" Normally this kind of excuse wouldn't work for a high school student, but seeing as how Female Natsuru had returned to school from her 'illnesses', it was a valid excuse. After excusing herself from the class, she broke into a sprint towards the courtyard.
As Female Natsuru made her way to the tall, concrete wall topped with barbed wire that separated the boys and the girls, she had noticed a drowned out voice in her head. "Sakura-san?", it echoed. Female Natsuru's eyes widened from this with an, "Oh shi-". Something had interrupted her, pain, which was reverberating from her lower abdomen and crawling out to her entire body. She doubled over and slowly fell to her knees with her arms around her stomach. No doubt he suffered an assault from Kaede by surprise. She had to get to Natsuru, she just had to, and with all her willpower, she forced herself up and shot off at an incredible speed using her Kampfer agility all in one motion. She landed on the boys' courtyard and tumbled over from the disorientation. She quickly recovered, still maintaining some speed and continued to press on in a staggering sprint towards his classroom. Now Female Natsuru could feel pain covering her upper body, like being hit with a barrage of punches. "Dammit Natsuru, at least block or something!", she yelled out.
She prayed that she would make it in time.
Natsuru was exhausted from all the abuse he had received from the other classes about his new supposed, 'girlfriend'. At this point, he wouldn't even bother with trying to explain himself, as he would just be met with outrage and more insults about his blandness. He let out a heavy sigh as he thought about the things that were yet to happen and how much crap he'll get from it.
His daydreaming was broken by, "Senou, Senou-kun, you have a special summons from the Student Council President. It seems urgent", said the teacher. "Ah, and here's a pass to get to the girls' side for you", added the teacher. His heart sunk when he heard this, Shizuku wants to talk to him, she has never called him from class. Paranoia took the best of Natsuru, as he walked over to receive the pass, all he could think about was how she was going to make him suffer, all thanks to those lovely rumors.
Natsuru took the pass and looked it over, he noticed a small note attached to the opposite side of the info. "Why does he get to go to the girls' side?", shouted a student as Natsuru made his way out into the hallway. He looked over at the small note. "Come to the roof", it said. Now he was truly worried for his life. But seeing it as how our hero has no choice, he bravely makes his way to death's doorstep, where he may endure the torment of the beautiful demon known as Shizuku. Oh my.
And there he was, waiting on the other side of the door that led to that infamous roof. He opens the door and steps out into the open area of the roof. Much to his joy, the President was nowhere to be found, no, someone else was waiting for him. The girl with the light orange hair stood by the railguard, looking at him, and then let out a small smile. Natsuru didn't know what to make out of the situation. A part of him was glad to see the girl he was infatuated with, but the other part was afraid. Here is the girl that had pretty much turned him down and despised him and sought to see him and his friends dead. What's worse is that he was alone, with no possible chance of rescue or backup.
"What's wrong Natsuru-san?", Kaede said playfully. "Aren't you glad to see me? I'm glad to see you, now we can play for a little."
"What do you mean play for a little?", asked Natsuru.
"I think you and I know very well just what I mean", replied Kaede. "Now that I don't have to worry about hurting my beautiful soulmate, I can do whatever I wish to you", said Kaede passionately.
"So it was your doing!", exclaimed Natsuru. "How did you do it?"
"Oh that's not important right now, I think you should be more worried about yourself", said Kaede. "I'm not going to kill you, no not just yet. I want to watch you squirm. I hate you, you know? Your disgusting face, always getting in between me and my love."
This left Natsuru in a state of shock, never before has he seen such malice and hatred directed toward him by the one he was fond of. In an instant, Kaede was already in front of Natsuru. She geared up for a kick and delivered it with all her might right into his gut. Natsuru was knocked backwards along with the wind out of him. "Damn...that hurt", he mumbled. As he regained his footing, he took aim at Kaede, lifted up his hand, and let loose a fireball. But the fireball was smaller and much slower than usual, as Kaede easily dodged it and advanced towards Natsuru, unleashing a volley of punches. His body felt heavy and slow, "I am in Kampfer mode right?", he thought to himself. Why was he feeling so weak? He couldn't keep up with her punches. Finally she had stopped, only to prepare for another devastating attack. Before Natsuru could react, she sent him flying towards the wall near the entrance with a double iron palm straight to his chest.
He slammed into the wall leaving a small crater and fell to the floor with a sharp grunt. His body was writhing in pain; he tried to look up at Kaede, as she was walking towards him as if she was going for a stroll at the park. Everything was fading away, his consciousness was slipping, what could he possibly do in his current condition, he was at the mercy of Kaede. Then he let himself slip into the darkness as he closed his eyes, and fell unconscious.
When Natsuru had come to, he found himself lying in a bed; he was most likely in the infirmary, as the bed was small and the mattress stiff as a board. He attempted to sit up, but flinched from the pain of his wounds from earlier. Everyone had gathered in the infirmary when Female Natsuru found him and brought him here. Female Natsuru had just finished explaining herself and the situation to Akane, Mikoto, and Shizuku.
"This is all your fault then!", shouted Mikoto. "If you'd have just never come, Natsuru wouldn't have gone through this!"
"That's not fair, everything was beyond my control. And what exactly would you have me do? Just disappear?", rebutted Female Natsuru.
"That's exactly what I want", said Mikoto as her hair turned white and drew her sword.
"Mikoto, put down your weapon", ordered Shizuku sternly. "You're being illogical. I understand that news of this is a shock to you and to the both of us. (Akane + Shizuku) But even if you did kill her, it would only make things worse. Kaede would no doubt come to seek out revenge on all of us."
"Let me ask you this", Shizuku said as she looked over to Female Natsuru. "Why did you decide to keep this a secret from us?"
"I know that you must feel a little betrayed, but I meant no harm in doing so", Female Natsuru said sincerely. "We didn't know whether or not Kaede knew about this ordeal, so we thought it was best to keep quiet about it, so as not to cause unwanted attention if everyone were to take action."
"Well so much for your little plan", the red haired Akane said with her Gehewr aimed at Female Natsuru. "You've only caused more trouble being involved!"
"I had no cho-", Female Natsuru said, but was interrupted by Shizuku.
"Calm down, both of you", Shizuku ordered. Now she was getting irritated. "Now is not the time to be fighting amongst ourselves."
"I don't care!", shouted Mikoto.
"We should just kill her now!", added Akane. "For all we know, she could be lying and possibly be in cahoots with Ka-"
Akane was interrupted by a thud and the scream of pain coming from Natsuru, who was now on the floor. They all rushed over to him. "Stop…fighting", he said with difficulty. As Female Natsuru made her way to help him off the floor, she was pulled back by the collar by Mikoto.
"Don't you touch him", she snapped.
"But I-"
"You've already done more than enough", Mikoto said as she turned her back towards Female Natsuru.
Shizuku and Akane guided Natsuru slowly back to the bed, where he sat down. "You guys need to stop fighting", he said. "This wasn't her fault, so leave her alone."
"But! She could be one of them!", said Mikoto.
"No, she isn't. Please believe me, everything that happened to me was my own fault. I was too careless. She was only doing what I had told her to do. And she was the one who brought me to the infirmary right?", said Natsuru as he looked over to Female Natsuru. "Trust me, she's one of us."
Female Natsuru looked up as she knew Natsuru was covering for her.
"If that is what you say, then I'll take your word for it", said Shizuku.
"Well aright, if Natsuru is okay with it, then so am I", added Akane.
"Whatever!", Mikoto said with a scoff before storming out of the infirmary.
"Wait! Mikoto!", shouted Akane.
"Just leave her, she usually gets like this from time to time, she'll be okay", explained Natsuru.
"More importantly, how are you feeling? Are you okay?", asked Shizuku.
"Surprisingly, I feel fine. In fact, I think I feel better than when I met with Kaede on the roof", said Natsuru as he stood up and stretched his limbs. "I felt so weak for some reason when I was attacked by Kaede, but I feel fine now!"
"Hmm, that's interesting. Based off of what that Natsuru told us, I think the problem may be connected to you two splitting. It's possible that when you two split, your powers may have been split accordingly as well", said Shizuku. "I think a test is in order."
The 4 of them made their way to rooftop where Natsuru was attacked. It was midday and almost the entire faculty and student body had gone home.
Shizuku guided Natsuru to the center of the open area. "Stand right here", she said. She then made her way across from him and turned to face him. "Now I want you to attack me with everything you've got", said Shizuku.
"What? Why do you want me to do that?", asked Natsuru.
"Just do it, I'll be fine", said Shizuku.
Natsuru thought back to the time where he had conjured his first fireball while fighting Akane. He recalled the thoughts he had during that time and pictured the fireball in his head. He could feel the intense heat originating from the palm of his hand, but was not singed by the fire. Much to his surprise, the fireball he had created was not what he had expected. It was huge, about 4 to 5 times the size of his normal fireballs. The massive fireball left his palm with no effort made by him with a tremendous initial velocity. Shizuku's eyes widened as she saw the flaming ball of death fly towards her; she could feel the blistering heat hitting her face. She quickly jumped out of the way barely making it past the large fireball as it whizzed past her and made its way towards Akane and Female Nasturu, who were spectating. Female Natsuru quickly jumps in front of Akane, who was frozen in place. She clenched her right hand into a fist and nailed the fireball with an uppercut, like a shoryuken. The fireball spiraled into the air where it made a large explosion. Everyone was left staring at the carbon remains of the once great fireball.
"What the hell…", said Natsuru.
Shizuku was left speechless. It was impossible, how could his power have multiplied? Although she didn't know the specifics behind the separation of the two or the nature of the Kampfer avatars, she had assumed with basic logic that his power would have decreased. Which makes sense, if you were to split a battery into two separate entities, you would naturally get two batteries that have less of a charge than when they were combined. What could possibly be affecting Natsuru now than when Kaede had attacked him and claimed that he felt weaker than ever? She had a hypothesis.
"Hey Natsuru", Shizuku said as she looked over at Female Natsuru. "Where were you when you said you started feeling the punches from Kaede?"
"The hallway of the boys' side", Female Natsuru plainly replied.
"Hmm, would you mind going over to the boys' side outside the school gate? There's something I would like to see", asked Shizuku. "We'll meet up with you after we're done."
Female Natsuru nodded and left without a word. The three waited for a little while until they were sure that she had reached her destination.
"Now Natsuru, try shooting a fireball at me again", said Shizuku.
Natsuru pictured the fireball in his mind again and fired it with all his power. But this time, he didn't feel the same scorching heat of the fireball at his palm; instead he saw a pathetic fireball, much like the one he shot at Kaede. It was slow and Shizuku had just effortlessly sidestepped to avoid it. It flew by and disintegrated into the air with a puff of smoke…
"Now I think I understand", said Shizuku out loud. "Well, let's go get the other Natsuru shall we?"
"Wait, what do you mean? Do you know the cause of my weakness?", asked Natsuru.
"Yes, I'll explain it when we get to her so I won't have to repeat myself", replied Shizuku.
Female Natsuru was waiting for them to meet up with her. All the while, she was thinking to herself if she really was causing nothing but trouble for Natsuru. They've only met less than 24 hours ago, and yet, she has already given him problems. Female Natsuru looked down at her feet and felt a strong sense of guilt; this was her first time feeling such a thing. It kept tugging at her like some annoying dog that wouldn't let go of your bag. She has never felt so dejected before.
"Hey!" Female Natsuru looked and saw Natsuru along with Shizuku and Akane walking towards her.
"Ohai!", she replies with a forced smile.
"Are you okay?", asked Natsuru.
Female Natsuru simply nods and cracks another smile. Shizuku clears her throat to get everyone's attention.
"I think I know the reason as to why you were feeling so weak, Natsuru", said Shizuku. She points at Female Natsuru. "It has something to do with her. It seems that the strength of your power depends on the distance between you and her. That's why you were feeling so weak, while you were at the rooftop of the girls' side; she was all the way over at the boys' side. Although I don't know the exact distance where you start feeling weaker, I can only guess that it is within 30 meters."
"Wow, you're not the Student Council President for nothing!", complimented Natsuru.
"Ah, have you started to finally see me as a woman?", prodded Shizuku.
"No! I mean uhh-anyways! I should get going, it's getting dark", Natsuru said nervously.
"If that's the case, I should come along", said Akane.
"No no, it's okay Akane. I can't trouble you to do that. I should be okay, as long as I have her with me!", Natsuru said as he looked to Female Natsuru. She avoided his glance and shifted her gaze to the floor.
"W-well okay then, please be careful", said Akane.
"I shall see you two later, be on your guard", said Shizuku.
With that, Natsuru and Female Natsuru left for Natsuru's house. It was quiet and the air was a little stiff. "Hey, are you okay?", asked Natsuru with a worried look on his face.
"Yeah, I'm fine", replied Female Natsuru. This only made her feel worse. Not only did she bring about more trouble for Natsuru, but he was showing so much undeserved kindness towards her. Although it was unintentional, it was like adding injury to insult, even though she knew that he sincerely harbored good intentions towards her.
Natsuru and Female Natsuru made their way into the house, only to be met with more silence. Natsuru knew that something was definitely wrong with her, but couldn't wrap that dense head of his around the problem. "Hey, talk to me. Even though you say otherwise, I know something's wrong, so please, talk to me. I feel bad not being able to do anything for you", he said in a gentle voice.
"…Stop it", Female Natsuru mumbled.
"Huh? Stop what?"
"Stop it…please stop, I don't deserve your kindness", Female Natsuru choked. She looked down and something overtook her, she felt something wet running down her face, tears, that was new for her too. She slowly slumped to her knees as Natsuru followed her down, grabbing her arms. "All I've done is cause you harm and trouble. I couldn't even help you when you were being attacked by Kaede. Maybe Mikoto is right, maybe I should just disappear", Female Natsuru quietly said.
"No way! I'd be dead for sure if you were to leave! Everything that's happened wasn't your fault; don't blame yourself for something that was out of your control. Listen, I'm a pretty hopeless guy, so I need you to stick around for a while to help me out if I ever get into any trouble", Natsuru said with a chuckle.
Female Natsuru looked at Natsuru, whose face was gleaming with a kind expression and understanding eyes. "Please?", Natsuru asked with a smile.
Here she was, not even being in existence for a whole day. Yet she has felt the emotions and gone through the motions of decades of a human life. It was definitely a lot for her to take in, as she looked at Natsuru's gentle expression, and felt a sense of, dare I say, love. Being loved. And returning that love. As she, someone who has no connections in this world and has brought about trouble to the only person she has consciously ever known, from her perspective, receives neither punishment nor malice. But instead, is shown kindness and forgiveness in this world she barely knows.
Her vision blurs, her deep blue eyes begin to water and relinquishes herself to the man in front of her. Natsuru holds her tight and fast, as her body trembled in his grasp and as she tightens her grip on him, she lets out small whimpers of a cry and buries her head into his chest. This wasn't the first time someone had cried in his arms. When he and Mikoto were younger, she would always cry when she got hurt and would go running to his arms. But this was different; it was a feeling he had never felt before, is this that warm, fuzzy feeling that people have always talked about? Something had just felt right about it, as he looked down and saw her face, it only made him want to hug her tighter. Natsuru had come to an important realization today. The girl in his arms was indeed special and undoubtedly different from the rest. Natsuru closed his eyes and rested his chin on her head, comforting her as she let her anguish pour out.
He had a feeling that this was the start of something new.
Sum notez:
I realize that I made Kaede pretty damn crazy lol. But it's all in good fun I swear.
I personally don't like to add honorifics in character speech in my writing, because it seems a little weird to me. But then I'll go ahead anyway and add them at other times just cause it sounds weird when I say it in my head without the honorific. Yes, strange pet peeve of mine ._.
The last section of the chapter wasn't intended to be super gooey and lovey stuff. I just wanted to convey some deep emotional stuff without being too blunt or sacrificing formality. In any case, I hope it's enjoyable.
This is my first big fanfiction story. And I was honestly worried that no one would like it or if my storytelling wasn't up to par with the other great authors here. But I am ecstatic to see the positive feedback I've been getting, means a lot to a newbie like me :D So expect to see more and more chapters in the future unless I run out of ideas. Please feel free to comment or give me a few pointers on how to improve my story or some new ideas. THYAAAAANKS.