Chapter 28 : Tempus Fugit - A goddamn moron.
I have mixed feelings as I look at my latest drawing.
It's a nude, a backshot if I have to be specific, of a young woman, either at the high end of teenagehood or the cusp of adulthood, with blonde, silky hair falling artfully on either side of her shoulders as she sits on what I suspect is ground level with her legs put to the side, one of her arms up holding her body, some kind of fabric, a robe if I had to bet, pooling formlessly around her lower body.
So far, pretty standard idle fantasy drawing, you could say.
And it would have been the case but for two reasons.
For one, I didn't decide to draw it, since this particular drawing was pulled straight from my connection with the Warp-
-and for two, I have a very powerful sense of déjà-vu as I stare apprehensively at the massive tattoo ornamenting the back of the woman depicted.
A skeleton, clad in white shroud with golden inlays, his boney face strangely serene and his arms spread wide, in a welcoming, inviting, gesture, alien and idyllic white and gold vistas in the background, two banners enshrining it whole, one above, one bellow.
"From beyond, he watches…" I mutter under my breath in a daze-
-before, with a whole body shudder, putting the drawing aside and under locks in my drawer.
I stay silent, mulling over what happened for a beat, my eyes distractingly looking at the art supplies I had wanted to break in.
I sigh softly, rising from my seat at my bedroom's desk.
And I elect to put the event out of my mind in favor of another bout of Psyker training.
Hopefully, the next time I let myself be the Warp's mouthpiece by letting it borrow my non-existent drawing skills, it will be a little less ominous and creepy.
ENTRY: Alpha-023
ANNO:0 - LOCAL:2009
LOCAL DATE: MAI, 4TH
BEGINNING RECORD
"I still haven't got any success with my Warp-based Telekinesis and Telepathy, and it is starting to drive me spare.
"Allegedly, it is supposed to be the very first manifestation of a Psyker's capabilities, yet, for some reasons, I have this very powerful impression that it'd be more productive to talk to this metaphorical brick wall rather than keep banging my head against it.
"I tried every emotion I possibly could think of, positive, negative and even neutral, yet nothing seems to do the trick.
"At this rate, the Golden Week will have ended before I'll even have made any sort of progress on this particular problem.
"At this point, I should probably cut my losses and try focusing on something else, but alas, I'm a bullheaded moron at the best of times when confronted with a frustrating problem, and so I'm still at it.
"Let's hope I'll have a moment of genius, because I really don't see why it keeps eluding me."
ENTRY: Alpha-023
ENDING RECORD
I was engaged in a very heated contest with the ball bearings in my hands while being seated in the Basement-
-and I approximately had as much success at making those moves with my mind as I had for the past week since I started doing it.
Frankly, it was maddening.
It should've been easy, this kid was baby-psyker stuff, so why the fuck wouldn't they just move!
With a frustrated huff, I drop the fistfull of ball bearing to the side, going for another read of the relevant pages in the guide that Skully had left displayed in front of me.
I know the damned thing by heart by this point, but maybe this time it'll click, who fucking knows?
I spend a few minutes, half bitching, half focusing on the relevant chapter, and, when I'm confident that no new lines of text have manifested from the ether while I wasn't looking, I sag a little bit.
"…Allright, looks like this thing is a bust, at least for today, but what about the next chapter?" I mumble to myself, a little dejected at my failure, Skully dutifully trilling his acknowledgement of my wish before displaying the next chapter on the holoplane-
-and I instantly pause.
"Meditation? But I already know that shit?" I blurt aloud, a little lost.
Hell, you could even argue that I know the meditative breathing pattern explained in the three topmost paragraphs like the back of my hand at this point-
I blink as an idea comes to my mind.
"Skully, mind displaying the name of the chapters in the correct order for me?" I hazard.
My servo-skull trills his assent, the content of the holoplane shifting once more, one that I instantly start to give a focused glance-
-only to swear immediately, one of my fists hitting the meditation-mat thingy in anger.
"I can't believe I'm such a goddamn moron!"
ENTRY: Alpha-026
ANNO:0 - LOCAL:2009
LOCAL DATE: MAI, 7TH
BEGINNING RECORD
"I can't believe I'm actually that much of a dumbass.
"I wasted literally days trying to crack Warp-based Telekinesis, only for the answer to be right in front of me from the get go.
"One good look at the contents table of the 'how to' guide in Skully's database, and the answer jumped at me.
"Simply put, I was overthinking it.
"See, Telepathy and Telekinesis are baby-Psyker stuff for a reason, because that's actually the first thing a Warp sensitive can manifest without really knowing the hows, whats and whys of Warp manipulation.
"Why?
"Because it doesn't require an active connection to the Warp in the first place.
"And that's exactly where my problem is: I cannot cut the connection I have with the local Immaterium, at least not fully.
"And, as my last days spent trying to move things with my mind have proven already, as long as I don't find a way to dampen it in an effective manner, then those two avenues of progress will be cut from me for the moment.
"I only have so much psychic potential, after all, and it is already taken by my permanent state of communion with the Immaterium and its Voices.
"On the other hand, that also can explain why the other techniques, even those I came by myself by using the emotionally charged nature of the Immaterium, came as easily as they did for me.
"I am, for a lack of a better phrasing, extremely in tune with the psychic-soul stuff of the local universe, to the point that it doesn't want to let me go.
"I have no precise idea why, but my best theory is that the current state of affairs is due to me presently being the sole sensitive in this universe.
"And so it acts like a jealous girlfriend because I'm the only one who can talk/commune with the thing.
"Sure, it can locally take the aspects of the nearby sapients, what with their emotional imprints shining like bonafide beacons in the Immaterium all the time, but the connection is just a one-way street, and frankly not even that good, as opposed to mine.
"I'm its sole way out of a closed room with very murky windows, and it has firmly decided, quite unilaterally, to put its foot in the door after it was opened at long last.
"All of this to say that my sole hope to even master base-bitch Telekinesis will require me to first develop an ungodly amount of control over my connection, just so I can be able to narrow the opening as much as possible, for a lack of a better metaphor.
"The Tl;Dr of all of this is that I'm going to double down on my meditation sessions in the hope of gaining further mastery of the connection, and not let it be fully in the hands of the Warp like it is now.
"Only then, I will be able to advance."
ENTRY: Alpha-026
ENDING RECORD
May quickly flew by, as well as the beginning of June, before I was finally able to show some progress with my Telekinesis, since I stubbornly clung to the idea that I needed to master it before trying to go a little barmy with my esoteric capabilities.
Let me tell you, though, watching those god forsaken ball bearings finally wobble in the air after this much time sunk into the practice was positively exhilarating.
But of course, that wasn't all that happened during this time.
"Huh?" I blurt out, a little dumbly.
"Huh?" Rias echoes, like we are doing a comedy skit, Akeno to her side only elegantly raising an eyebrow at the current happenings.
As it had more or less become the custom, the three of us were having our bimonthly tea time at the heiress' hou- manor this Sunday while talking about this and that, just high school girls doing high school girls things, really, while both sides carefully avoided talking about anything even tangentially supernatural so as to not arouse suspicion.
Kiba only very occasionally stayed nowadays, because, for one, he was a bit out of the loop of Kuoh High-School, what with him not being present in it yet, and, for two, high school girls talk.
Saying that the guy was bored out of his skull when we were talking about this kind of thing would be putting it very mildly.
Today, though, a certain white haired Yokai had elected to stay with us, the catgirl having apparently decided that a nap wasn't worth losing on the pastries Rias had somehow provided, and elected to stay with us.
She hadn't contributed very much to the discussion, that's for sure, but I didn't care at all, and her King was apparently fine with her gobbling sweets like they were going out of fashion.
Devil physiology probably shielded them from the consequences of gluttonous behaviors anyway.
As was customary when I visited the Gremory heiress nowadays, I had been blasting my aura on Serene mode-
-except that, if the catgirl currently hugging my midriff in her sleep as she mistakes my thighs for a pillow is anything to go by, I may have been a little more heavy-handed than usual.
"I-I'm sorry, Prima-chan-" Rias, going a little red on her face, instantly apologizes for her Rook's behavior-
-only for me to raise a hand, prompting her to stop as I give her a soft smile.
"It's alright," I answer, my voice barely above a whisper, "I don't mind."
If anything, I have to actively stop myself from squealing in delight.
I'm giving a lap pillow to a real life catgirl!
How absolutely rad is that?
Slowly, gently, one of my hands comes down on her head, Koneko slightly tensing in her sleep for a beat, before relaxing.
My smile widens even further as I start gently combing her hair, and, after a long, tense, minute, I feel her get even more boneless if it is even possible -considering cats are half-liquid, it isn't that surprising-, radiating Contentment in the Immaterium.
I lock my eyes with Rias and her Queen-
-only to see them being a bit taken aback, probably because I'm the first person outside of her peerage with whom the white haired girl ever dropped her guard if I had to guess.
"Sorry, I had to prioritize." I tell the Gremory heiress with a wink, "So, you were saying that you had some difficulties with the coursework?"
"R-Right, I did!" The crimson headed devil gives one last glance to the peacefully sleeping kitten, a soft smile of her own quirking up her lips, before bringing back her focus on me.
I had to admit that I wasn't really in the discussion after that, since I was busy living the dream of every otaku that ever otakued.
Pet the catgirl -the non-lewd way-: successful.
[AN: I did say that the timeline was going to accelerate. I just didn't expect for it to take this long because I had to set up relationships and do some characterization.
We pet a catgirl! It is glorious!
Hope you enjoy, xoxo]