As the last bell rang, Issei got ready to go back to the Literature Club, and both of his friends just waved goodbye while gritting their teeth. He was happy to say the least, after continuing to create new poems he found out that a Great Grade poem could also have an effect, but at the same time wondered what made them so special.
Item
Poem of Cherry Blossoms
Grade: Great
Description: The weak scent of cherry blossoms that this poem emits is able to calm down some of the disturbed. It tells the story of a man who sees as the cherry blossom that he's taken a liking to withers away.
Effects: +15% Sanity Regeneration while in the user's inventory
Item
Poem The Color of the Electric Sheep
Grade: Great
Description: The reader gains the understanding and importance of moderate sleep, as they become mechanically attached to a strict sleep schedule. The tale shows two lovers seeing each other one last time as one of them falls to an eternal sleep, counting electric sheep.
Effect: +1 Temperance while in the user's inventory
This was the poem that Issei was going to show today, it wasn't a Magnum Opus, but the Great Grade was still higher than what most of the girls wrote, so he didn't think much about it.
Entering the club room he notices that they were talking to each other, as he got closer he realized that Monika was the only one missing. Sayori thought that Monika was hanging out with her boyfriend, which he didn't think was true like many of the other members.
Waiting for her to come back I could tell that Sayori continued with her persona, being happy around her childhood friend and talking to the other girls. As we waited Monika finally came through the door apologizing for taking too long to come.
While many of the other members seemed to ask what happened Issei didn't really care much, he was thinking of a way to get closer to one of the members, it didn't matter who, but he needed to complete the quest before today ended.
He thought that the best one to strengthen bonds with was Sayori, but he knew that he also needed to talk to the other member as it could come up pretty handy. Issei was still too concentrated on planning that he didn't realize that Sayori and Cordis went to get supplies.
Oh right, the festival was coming up soon and the members started making preparations, mostly Monika and Sayori, he personally didn't know what to think about it, he still had no knowledge on what they were going to do there.
Minutes passed and Issei then remembered that he still had his poems in the Mystery Storage, upon remembering, he got up and excused himself out of the room. "I'll be back, I'm just going to the bathroom." While unnecessary, he said the last part just in case.
Looking around making sure there was no one near him, he activated Mystery Storage to take out Poem of Cherry Blossoms, Poem The Color of the Electric Sheep and Poem of the Black Swan in case he needed it. He then spent a bit going around the halls to make his exit more believable.
While strolling through the academy, he heard a loud crash, getting curious he went to where he believed was where it happened. Inside the room was Sayori with a box of crayons that was on the floor.
"Hey is everything alright here?" Issei asked as he got closer to her. "Did you get badly hurt anywhere?" He now was next to her crouching to check on her forehead. "Where did Cordis go by the way?"
"He went to get a cold drink for my forehead, so he'll come back any time soon" Sayori then proceeded to ask him a question "But what are you doing here? Weren't you in the club room?"
"Well I was coming back from going to the restroom and I suddenly heard a loud noise coming from here, I came just to check what happened" Issei knew that this was the right time to try and gain more progress on the relationship mission he needed to do. "So, what will be the activity we will be doing at the festival?"
"Haven't the others told you? We're going to perform our poems!" Sayori excitedly responded while keeping her hands rubbing her forehead. "You know how people get on a podium and act? well it's basically similar"
He did not expect something like this for the festival, but at the same time there really wasn't much that could get the attention from a Literature Club so he guessed that this was the best thing that could be done.
While waiting for Cordis to come back they both kept silent, Sayori continued trying to recollect all the scattered crayons while Issei looked around. His gaze ended up on Sayori, this time while looking at her all he could think about was if she was genuinely smiling or if she continued to keep up a mask even with someone who knew how she felt.
He ended up asking another question "So, how long did you feel like this?" He knew he was starting to ask a bit more personal questions but curiosity and concern were the primary reasons why he kept pushing the subject.
Sayori kept silent for a bit only to respond without the happy tone she usually had "I've been feeling like this for my whole life really, the feeling of emptiness when I try something has been accompanying me for years now" "I know you haven't told anyone yet, so I appreciate it, I wouldn't really want the others worrying too much about me"
"But I told you that you could be a bit selfish" Issei tried arguing back trying to remind or even convince her to finally open up, he really had no reason to do so, especially since he only met her like 2-3 days ago. "I am not telling you to immediately do it, but rather open up little by little."
Sayori still seemed skeptical about this advice, it seems like my advice was not great, she then continued saying "You know? It's kinda funny, I've been hiding this from everyone else I hold dear and here I am telling everything to you, someone who've new in my life"
"I guess you want someone else to hear you, you are worried about what would happen if you told this to someone close, but telling your problems to a stranger who listens could feel more refreshing as you'd know that they wouldn't pester you much about it, making you feel even worse right?" Issei seemed to understand her point, but he still wasn't sure if it was even correct. Truthfully the only way he can even help her is just being there to listen to her woes.
"Hey Sayori, I cam- Oh, hey Issei, I didn't expect you here" Cordis seems to have finally come back from getting something to help Sayori, what he gave her was a cold bottle filled with apple juice.
"I was just strolling around when I heard the noise by chance and came here" As Issei said this, Sayori's character went back to the happy go lucky girl Cordis knew her as, Issei was quite surprised on how fast she could switch characters. "I should get going back to the club room, I'll tell them about what happened here if you want me to."
"Oh there's no need, we'll do it ourselves once we get there, right now I just want to have a chat with Sayori" Cordis seemed to not want Issei to explain it when he was never supposed to be here, he didn't want Issei to tell them as he thought it was something he needed to do himself.
"Well then, I'll see you in the club room then" Issei went out of the room heading back to where he was supposed to. Waiting there for the other two missing he checked back on the Relationship menu to see how much of an impact that interaction had.
Relationships
Story 1
Cordis 14/100 - 0/100
Monika 20/100 - 0/100
Natsuki 15/100 - 0/100
Sayori 48/100 - 0/100
Yuri 23/100 - 0/100
Now all he needs to do is to do a final push with Sayori, the best way to do so would be sharing poems yet again. This time he had Poem The Color of the Electric Sheep, he waited patiently as Cordis and Sayori finally came back.
"Well this is bad.'' Issei told himself as he didn't have any chance to really interact in a meaningful way with the girls. Yuri commented on how his writing degraded but not to a concerning point, she told him that sometimes you make better or worse poems. Natsuki just told him that she liked the theme while both Sayori and Monika were the only ones to really give an interesting take. The biggest problem is the fact that some of the descriptions gave some disturbing information to the point he had to keep quiet of them, pretending not to know what they were about.
When he had Cordis' poem in hand, it was just a white piece of paper, but to the girls it apparently had some writing in it. It seemed like Issei never was supposed to read it.
After sharing the poems, he went back to thinking about them while the others talked about the festival. He first took a look at Yuri's poem, since it was the one that really alarmed him
Item
Poem The Raccoon
Grade: Good
Description: The Raccoon represents the curiosity turned into excitement Yuri had as she cuts off the bread, the bread represents her arms as she continues to cut herself with the knives, just like a guilty pleasure it is her guilty snack.
Right now what Issei needed was to process what the actual fuck he had just read, he wanted to help Yuri but he knew that just asking her about it wouldn't work like it did with Sayori, Yuri wasn't confrontational and could not handle it if he decided to ask her himself, he had no idea how to handle this situation and so kept quiet until he saw a chance to really help.
Next up was Monika's poem, as always it was too much for Issei to understand as a Great Grade poem it seemed like needed to start taking literature lessons to understand it.
Item
Poem Save Me
Grade: Great
Description: Just like chaos, the many sounds and images play at the same time, making it impossible for someone to stay calm. Once you understand this chaos you will be able to understand that something didn't go well and so you rewind, to before this chaos happened and restart.
Again, too difficult for him to understand, he did notice that it said "Load me" in the end, mixing it with the title it did seem like it was a game, maybe she liked playing games and accidentally put the cartridge in incorrectly? That was too ridiculous but it was the most he could think of.
After that was Sayori's, this time just by reading it he knew what it was about, he talked about it with her, and he kept his mouth closed while they looked at eachother, knowing that he did understand the message, knowing some context of the writer, you end up knowing what they attempt to write.
Item
Poem Bottles
Grade: Good
Description: The bottles represent her ability to help others, as time goes on, due to the many people she's helped, it has come to a point where it is too much for her to handle, what were happy memories become a task that can no longer fulfill, as an alien thought invades her.
The last part was the only thing that Issei didn't really understand, maybe there was more going on than what he thought, but in the end he let it go as he didn't want to push the subject more than what he had done today.
Natsuki's poem was the last one he had to read, she seemed the most normal out of the female members of the club.
Item
Poem Amy Likes Spiders
Grade: Good
Description: While it may seem like a straight forward poem about ignorant people, it is in actuality the worried outlook of someone who sees a problem no one else can, even if she is considered a bad person, she is willing to sacrifice herself to show them how worrisome it is.
Issei could connect the dots a bit, if Yuri's poem was alarming, Natsuki's was what it seemed to be a way to reassure him that someone else does know, he decided on letting Natsuki handle this, as while she was able to see Yuri's problem, she wasn't able to see Sayori's.
As they all finished sharing their poems, he saw as they started practicing for the poem performance, each one of them would choose a poem to perform in front of the other members, he simply went with what the others did, clapping when the one on the podium finished or commenting how nice it was, he was a bit nervous as he didn't know how it would go for him.
"And now it's Issei's turn since Natsuki still doesn't want to go" Monika declared as Issei began walking towards the podium, before he could do anything time stopped as a panel showed up, it was similar to the one he had when creating poems, but unlike the others it showed the many poems he had, he needed to choose one of them to perform, so he checked at the probability of the ones he had.
"The Color of the Electric Sheep? No, it had a 55% chance of working, Poem of the Black Swan? uh, it's even lower, Well Written Poem? ... Yeah no" He looked through the many poems he had in his Mystery Storage, until he checked his last poem. "Poem of the Cherry Blossoms seems to have the highest chance of succeeding, at 85%, I guess I'll have to go with this one."
You are attempting to perform Poem of the Cherry Blossoms, would you like to proceed forward?
Chance of Success 85%
Yes/No
He had nothing better than this so he continued with Yes, as soon as he did, he found himself in front of a clapping audience of the other members. Issei had questions on what would make him skip forward in time and what would just make him lose control of his body.
"Wow Issei, that was a great performance, you've been doing great ever since you've joined" Monika kept clapping her hands as she praised him for the performance he didn't know happened. "Say what was your inspiration on creating this poem, it's quite different from The Color of the Electric Sheep you know?"
I was waiting for this moment, "Well, uh I kinda got inspired by Sayori for making this one" This surprised everyone in the room, but Monika seemed to find this situation funny, "Oh my, it seems like Sayori is quite popular with the boys in the club."
"Ah? Wait, does that mean that Cordis also made one inspired by her?" Well, that would make things a bit more embarrassing for Sayori, but truthfully I was worried that she would feel guilty from taking the attention of the members.
I did get inspired by Sayori, her fake personality was that similar to a cherry blossom, but knowing the truth it showed just how many threats kept the cherry blossom from leaving healthy, just like her, the cherry blossom was strong even against those threats, but in the end, she would end up consumed by the problems just like how a cherry blossom would wither away.
Wait, that's what the poem was about, did he really feel like that? But that would mean he took a liking to her, he didn't know for sure if he was in love with her or if it was simply the system's way of mentioning his attempts to comfort her.
The activities in the club came to an end as each of them decided on focusing on the preparations of the festival, Cordis and him didn't really have a role in it, but they assumed that they would get one the next day to help.
He made his way to his home, he saw as the quest still wasn't complete, it looked like he had to wait till the next day to see what new quest and reward he got. He went straight to his room to check on the relationships and stats he had.
Stats
Health 200/200 Sanity 100/100
Fortitude 2 Prudence 1
Temperance 6 (+1) Justice 1 (+2)
Role: Secondary Character
He still wondered how he could get his Prudence up since he was able to increase the other ones at least once, Epistemophobic's Nightmare didn't seem to work, so he guessed that it had to be from something else, maybe it had to be something he had to do with his own abilities, since Temperance went up as he successfully made use of the skill's boost.
He then switched to the Relationship tab, he hoped that his relationship with Sayori was high enough to make him complete the quest.
Relationships
Story 1
Cordis: 15/100 - 0/100
Monika: 24/100 - 0/100
Natsuki: 19/100 - 0/100
Sayori: 52/100 - 1/100
Yuri: 27/100 - 0/100
"What" Was the only thing that came out of Issei's mouth. When, Why, How did he get a Romance point with Sayori?! Was it because he said he was inspired by her? there is no way a simple compliment was enough to get a point like that, it just was too illogical.
"Right, there is no way that would happen, it must be because of the amount of times I've interacted with her" Issei tried making logic out of what he was seeing.
He then focused on creating more poems to clear his mind, he ended up trying making some without Epistemophobic's Nightmare, but the results were, as expected, terrible. It got to the point it felt like an unhealthy obsession on gambling to succeed on getting an item in a gacha game, but it was in one where you were almost guaranteed to get it.
He looked over the last few days as his life changed for what seemed like, the better, ever since he met that girl who tried confessing to him, his life has turned into an incredibly peaceful one where he is able to enjoy time with people aside from his two friends.
As he continued making poems he noticed that he was now out of notebooks. He was bummed over it, so he decided to go outside to buy some more notebooks and maybe walk for a bit. Taking some of his own money with him, he put on a jacket to go outside in the cold outside.
It was a chilly evening, he had just bought a few notebooks to continue writing and a bunch of pencils, while walking he went through the same bridge he had his first confession.
His mind was full of the questions he still had about the system, would he be able to meet any of the other members outside? or did they show up and disappear when they were out of his sight?
He wondered if any of the relationships he did end up in would transfer to the real world or if they were simply stuck in the reality created by the Writer's System. He also wanted to know what the other two locked options in the menu were.
Welcome to the Writer's System
Stats
Traits
Skills
Quests
Relationships
(Locked)
(Locked)
Event Log
Gallery
Help
He finally got home and kept looking at the menu while taking off his shoes. His parents were in the living room watching a movie. He quietly went up the stairs to make sure he didn't disturb them.
Finally in his room again, he took out the notebooks out of the plastic bag alongside the pencils. He proceeded to continue writing as many poems as he could.
Hours passed and he continued to write, it was almost midnight and he kept writing, instead of sleeping he told himself each time "just one more" only to repeat again and again, he caught on to the fact that he started to act as that time he lost control of his body while writing poems.
Realizing the severity of what could be called an addiction, he looked up only to see that the system had given him a notification, just as he finished using Epistemophobic's Nightmare.
You have obtained the trait (Unknown Sefirot)
He didn't know what it meant at all, two words that were unknown to him made him think that he may have gotten a negative trait, not all traits were good after all. He slowly opened the menu to go immediately to the traits. He then scrolled down passing Second Take, only to see the following.
Traits
(Deus Ex Machina): If the user has 1 Health or Sanity, activate this Trait. The user cannot lose Health or Sanity for an extended amount.
(Mystery Storage): Access to inventory with infinite capacity. If anyone notices, reduce health to 0.
(Unknown Sephirot): User deals triple damage against Biblical enemies. User is immune against Biblical enemies. Increases Stat gain.
"Wait so God is real?" That was all Issei could think of, there wasn't any mention of anything religious in the Literature Club so there was no way they had anything to do with it, right?
But that aside the trait was incredibly good even if the first two things didn't make much sense to him, the increase in the rate that he gained a new point in any stat was incredibly good.
"Maybe I should stop now" That was all Issei said as he got back to looking at the amount of poems he's made, unfortunately none of the Great Grade poems had any effects connected to them.
He slept away as his thoughts landed on what tomorrow would be like.
(A/N)
So that's it for now, a bit shorter than the last two chapters, but I legit spent my time writing this right after posting chapter 2.
You can smell the favoritism for Sayori from here lmao. But in all seriousness, Sayori seemed like the best one of the options since... You know, she doesn't stay around much. I also wanna repeat again, everything said in the fic should NOT be taken as advice.
You may also have noticed that the descriptions of the poems Issei has made have some sort of importance to them
Speaking of which now onto what the new skills and items introduced are based on.
Poem of Cherry Blossoms: Well, it's based on two things, one of which I am not saying since it will become important, but the other is obviously Sayori, truly, I give her too much screen time. But in all seriousness, my first idea on making something Sayori related was Cherry Blossoms, since she reminded me of them, low and behold apparently her name did reference them
Poem The Color of the Electric Sheep: Well, if you've heard a certain song which will also be somewhat relevant to the story, you know where I got the name from, if you're a Lobotomy Corporation fan, you may know. But you may think it is a reference to the novel "Do androids dream of electric sheep" which this line is actually based on.
Unknown Sefirot: Again, somewhat related to Lobotomy Corporation but not quite, in actuality it's more of a reference to a certain Yugioh Card, digging a bit may make you realize that maybe Issei could become quite OP... if it weren't the fact that there really isn't much action on the first few arcs.
And now back to scrapped content/ideas of last chapter.
Well first of all I was thinking of skipping all the poems, that was until I realized that I need to both make a decent amount of chapters for this arc as it could possibly be one of the longest.
Monika or any of the members aside of Cordis was supposed to show up in Issei's class to get him to the club, but thought it was kinda dumb since Issei already knows where it is and it would just drag the chapter more than it should (Maybe I should have removed the small interaction between Issei and Cordis instead, oh well, too late now).
Yuri was supposed to be the one crying instead of Sayori, but my bias for Sayori won, but it was also because it fit the theme of what I was going with in the Poem of the Black Swan.
And there really isn't much else to talk about, see you when I update again... which might be soon if I still have the rush to write.