Chapter 35 : Tempus Fugit - I'm getting that thing, yesterday.

"Ya know, I'd be calling bullshit if I hadn't seen your results myself, Shoujo-chan." Toroko-san drawls, even as his hands keep shadowing the up and down motions of the weightlifting bar.

"What-" I start, before cutting myself as I have to inhale, my arms straining under the weight and my focus probably just short of ironclad, before slowly rising upwards.

My trainer and I cross our eyes, and he shakes his head.

Mentally acknowledging that I'm probably good for today, I set the bar in its resting spot, before exhaling deeply and going a little slack on the bench.

My respite is, alas, short-lived as I'm promptly greeted by a flying towel landing on my face, wrenching a yelp out of my lips.

I can only glare impotently at a totally unrepentant Toroko-san, already busying himself with putting away the disks he previously set up on the bar for me.

I sigh as I sit myself up, dreaming about the shower I'll be taking in the near future as I wipe away my sweat.

"So, what did you mean by that?" I ask conversationally, making the giant of a man pause, before throwing an 'are you kidding?' look my way over his shoulder.

"Ya remember ya let me set your training plan, yes?" He answers leadingly.

I frown.

"I do, yes?"

"Well, do ya know how much you just benched, Shoujo-chan?"

It's my turn to pause, before slowly shaking my head.

"100 kilos." He drops.

I do not give him my best impression of a dumbstruck ape at his declaration, but it is admittedly a near thing.

"What?" I answer, extremely intelligently, making him snort.

"Thought so." He chuckles, before shaking his head, straightening, making his way closer and dropping himself next to me, giving me a slightly complicated glance all the way.

We lock eyes once more, his black pupils staring intensely and I have to refrain myself from squirming.

He works his jaw for a bit, before sighing, his massive frame slumping a little.

"Your progress makes no damn sense, ya know?" He half-complains, half-grumbles, "Last weighting put you just shy of 62 kils, yet ya can lift nearly double that in barely four months of training, and, more impressively, ya don't look like it." He ends with a pointed look at my arms.

Side-effects of my Wellness channeling routine? I'm not putting on more apparent muscle mass.

My strength increases, of that there's no doubt, but it's more like I'm progressively increasing the quality of the muscle fibers to a ridiculous degree against plainly -and more normally- bulking up.

Which, you know, suits me absolutely fine, since I would've been slightly peeved to go full amazonian, not really my jam, but is admittedly fucking weird.

"Ya don't look like you're taking something, or I'd know by now, yet, if you keep going like that, ya'll be able to go to the World Weightlifting Championship and win the junior cat', easily." He stresses, still looking pointedly at me.

I don't necessarily miss the hidden message, though.

The implied 'what the fuck, girl?' is kinda loud and clear, his Bewilderment mixed with the grayish hint of Concern only making his own opinion even more evident.

I worry at my lower lip for a beat, my eyes shifty.

I essentially have two choices here.

Either I stay mum, don't commit any further and stop coming to the gym so as to avoid this kind of line of questioning coming back in the future-

I look back at Toroko-san.

I think back at all the conversations we had, mostly idle talk, but a few flashing back in my mind.

How he was proud of his family, his daughter and grandchildren in particular, how they meant the world to him, the lengths he went to guarantee their futures.

I think at how all of this could crumble like a sand-castle because a supernatural asshole had a flight of fancy and decided to take what wasn't theirs just because they could.

And, a little selfishly, I think about how keeping my secrets mentally grind at me, how playing the long con because one of the two devil heiresses of my goddamn school took a liking to me and has apparently decided that I was worth recruiting was starting to drive me spare, how glad I had a few weeks to just breathe and focus on only myself and getting closer to my goals.

-or I could pull the wool out of his eyes, and maybe, just maybe, indirectly save him some heartache in the future.

Either it's because he'd tell me to never come back because I was too hazardous to hang around, or because he'd go balls deep into Touki just to be able to protect his 'little princess', I don't know, but…

…But, in those few months, Toroko-san had been good to me, offering me a place where I could train without being judged, and even a few -slightly unsolicited, yet pertinent- love advice.

I sigh.

This wasn't my role to choose, in the end.

It was his.

And I always had been kind of a proponent for free will and liberty of choices.

Dark-blue eyes lock with dark ones.

"Do you really want to know?" I ask, my tone is a little hesitant and weak.

The mountain of a man looks at me, deep in thoughts.

A beat passes.

Then, he silently nods.

I take a breath, and I start talking.

I speak about a world hidden from the mundane, of magic, of martial arts, of wonders, of horrors.

I speak about what I know of its denizens, of the good ones, of the -distressfully more numerous- bad apples and what they get to.

I only half-lie when I tell him how I inadvertently stumbled right into it when I started to develop abilities of my own -not like I really chose to wake up like this one day, after all-, of the sheer, madness inducing, panic I went through when I realized how little I was compared to the giants of this world.

I tell him what I know about the pantheons, the last Great War and the 'suspicious disappearance' of one of its main actors.

I tell him about how YHWH made a system, empowering humans at birth and at random, in a bid to give them an edge in this world where they are the bottom of the barrel, how it is currently falling in pieces and how every faction tries to gather its 'lucky chosen'.

I tell him about heroic reincarnation, how I am one -sort of, since it was the closest thing to an in-setting explanation I could think of- with powers over the mind and matter.

And, more importantly, I tell him about my goals.

Survive, lay as low as possible and pretend to be just a normal girl, even as I put as many assets and redundancies in my sleeves, before getting the fuck away from a territory with an active pantheon and its agents traipsing around.

I don't tell him everything though, keeping the presence of the two heiresses close to my chest and all that implies, because the picture is already bleak enough as it is, and even less how about the world is supposedly doomed in three years, give or take a few months, because an unstoppable monster will be released in the near future…

…Neither do I speak about a hypothetical version of said future where everything ends up all right, nor how my presence and the butterflies I already made have potentially ruined it, or how it would keep me up at night if I wasn't spending most of those meditating instead of sleeping.

It takes, admittedly, hours to go through my tale, the gym remaining empty for the whole time, its low attendance -especially during Summer when it's both hot and humid outside- playing in both of our favors for once.

And, when I finally fell silent, my hands clasped in front of me and my head downcast, staring at the bleached concrete of the floor, I wait for his verdict, a little despondently, shielding myself to get my ass yelled at for being a nutjob and getting kicked out of the place faster than I can think of-

-which means that I'm understandably very surprised when a hand as big as two of mine lands on my shoulder, before giving me a solid, comforting shake.

"Ya got it rough, Shoujo-chan." Toroko-san simply says, giving me one last pat that I barely register as I look back at him, completely stunned.

So stunned that-

"Y-You believe me?" I stutter like a goddamn moron, even when his imprint in the Immaterium, right there, tells me so.

"I mean…" He trails off, before sucking on his lower lip, "Ya can bench press a 100 kil without breaking more than a cutesy sweat, in less than four months, with arms barely thicker than twigs. If that's not a kami damned proof you ain't spilling bull, then I don't know what that is."

I stare at him for a beat.

Then I snort, before shaking my head ruefully.

Under his puzzled look, I only wave his confusion away.

"Sorry, it's just…" I start, before pausing for a beat, "...I wasn't expecting laidback acceptance of all things after what I just spilled."

"Oh, it's not laidback, I'm very much internally freaking out." The giant of a man answers flatly, "I think I'm still processing. Say, could you…"

Feeling his Skittish Curiosity -an odd flavor, let me tell you-, I lightly shrug, opening myself to The Voices a notch more than usual-

-Rage and Hate flowing around and through me, coalescing-

-and culminating in a few jagged, blood-red tipped, cyan-coloured constructs, hovering and circling around my forearms, coiled like so many angry snakes.

Pretty telling that the emotions which come the fastest to me when I need a weapon are those two in particular, and I don't really know what to make of it.

Angron would be proud, I guess?

Shaking my head from the idle -and slightly scary- thoughts, I look back at Toroko-san, who's starring a little dumbly at my forearm-

-that is, until I dismiss them a couple of seconds later, not really wanting to give a demonstration in closed doors and break something with a Shard of Hatred.

Silence stretches for a beat, a tense and uncomfortable affair.

"That's it!" he ends up saying, loudly clapping his knees before rising himself fully, and I shy away a little, anticipating the worst-

-only for the gym trainer to instantly start pacing in front of the bench, his hands on his temples.

"Now, I'm freaking out." He growls, even as he stomps around, going back and forth the length of the bench.

I relax a little-

-but only he suddenly whirls on my position, brows furrowed and fists clenched at his side, Determination and Stubbornness almost drowning me, so heavy they weight in the Immaterium.

"Shoujo-chan!" He snaps, and I involuntarily straighten, "You said something about how martial arts could become more, right?"

I blink owlishly, before nodding like a bobble-head.

"Y-Yeah…" I start, a little haltingly, before scowling at myself for getting thrown off this much by the man, and furrowing my own brows in turn.

I take a deep breath, recentering myself and settling back in my meditative breathing pattern.

"Yes," I answer, with more certainty in my voice this time, "It's called Touki, basically weaponized life-force. Makes you hit harder, faster, shields you, all of those things."

"And you know how to get it?" He probes.

"I think so?" I not-quite answer, "Basically, you have to exceed human limits and be very, very stubborn."

"Hence the gym-bunny attitude…" He mumbles under his breath, making me glare at him, but he weathers it like a champ, "Well, that settles it!"

"Eh?" I answer confusedly.

"I'm getting that thing, yesterday," He stresses, his knuckles bone-white under the strain, so hard his fists are clenched, "Was starting to get out of shape anyway and stubbornness is kind of my thing.

"Because I'll be fucking damned before I let some magical assholes gets within spitting distance of my family without being able to fight back if they think they can do something funny!"

I… kinda should've seen it coming.

"You're sure? It's supposed to be hard and taxing." I point out.

He snorts derisively, before crossing his arms over his barrel of a chest, a lopsided grin on his face.

"Shoujo-chan, I know about efforts, sweat and tears, I'll be alright.

"But, in the light of what you told me, Imma gonna stop going easy on ya, ya hear?"

I sweatdrop, my face going flat-

-before sighing under his heavy, and strangely free of judgment, gaze.

I slowly nod.

"Works for me," I answer, "Getting extremely good at running away and potentially fighting back if push came to shove was kind of the goal anyway."

"Good." He answers with a final nod, "Then, come back at ten tomorrow, we'll get serious."

Taking the dismissal for what it is, I finally rise myself up from the bench, making my way toward the shower-

"And, Shoujo-chan?"

-but not before looking over my shoulder, locking eyes with Toroko-san's steely gaze.

"Good on ya for not getting a big head with all those fancy-schmancy powers." He grunts, his eyes darting toward my forearms for a flash, "Don't let those define ya, ya hear?"

I can't help it.

I smile back, something more genuine than since this whole conversation started.

"Wasn't planning on it." I answer simply, earning myself another firm nod, before about-facing to take a well deserved shower, at long last.

[AN: Partner in crime: getto!

This is more or less the logical consequence of the previous 'do you do drugs?' conversation, really, but I'm also reaffirming Prima's primary -eh- goals in this death world.

Mainly: fucking survive the future shitstorm first, then we'll see.

I mean, that's how I'd react if I was living in, you know, a freakin death world, soooo...

Hope you enjoy, xoxo]