The Limbless Wonders (NEW CHAPTER: 7/20/14)
Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 4:53 am
by SpunkySix
In response to a topic about how Rin would react to prosthetic arms, I came up with a simple concept:
Her and Emi would team up and form a superhero duo called the Limbless Wonders. She'd be the Armsy Artist and Emi would be Pirate Lass and they'd be completely unstoppable. Also they'd have a sidekick in the form of Generic VN Guy and their top secret base would be the roof of the school because apparently nobody else ever really goes there.
This is the result of it. I hold the right to remain true to my vision, but feedback is more than welcome. Also, it's important to note that this story takes place beginning two months after Emi's good ending, and treats everything that happened in her route as canon, assuming that Hisao did not follow Emi at her house. It may also contain spoilers for any and all routes but especially Emi's, so be wary.
Without further ado, I proudly present:
The Limbless Wonders
-Act 1: Prologue, Chapter 1: Katawa 2: Armed Anew-
"Huh" Rin said, not really to either of her friends, or to herself even. The word just hung in the air and faded away, like a half-formed thought that was too free-spirited to resist wandering. She took a fleeting look at the metal objects in front of her, and then her eyes took after her thoughts and wandered as well.
Rin's companions waited and watched eagerly to see what she would do. Emi, the legless track star at Yamaku Academy, bounced from metal support to metal support, unable to contain the sense of growing suspense within her. Hisao, her weak-hearted and otherwise totally unremarkable boyfriend, stared ahead intently, half expecting Rin to simply fall asleep before making a decision.
Instead, Rin's eyes finally wandered back towards the dual forms on the table in front of her. She let out what sounded like a sigh, looked up, stared off in to the space somewhere between her peers and spoke.
"I don't like 'em. Too clunky." she judged, causing Emi and Hisao to visibly deflate. They had both saved up a lot of money to buy Rin prosthetic arms, and to hear that she didn't even want them was a major disappointment, and as Hisao noted to himself, a major waste of yen and time. He would never get back the hours he had spent tutoring kids in chemistry and biology, and Emi's track fundraisers seemed to be for naught.
"Couldn't you at least try them on?" the light brown haired girl asked, eliciting a shrug from Rin.
"I guess" she said, pausing thoughtfully. "I mean, I don't think I could stop you if you tried to put them on yourself. Definitely couldn't punch you."
Emi giggled at this, grabbed Rin's new left arm, untied the knot on Rin's shirt sleeve and placed it on the matching nub. Hisao did the same for the opposite side, and in mere moments, Rin was armed and mostly disinterested.
The tension was palpable. Rin looked down at her bare feet and hardly anybody bothered to breathe. Excruciating seconds passed, and Hisao finally decided to break the silence.
"So... how are they?" he asked, hoping that she had changed her mind.
Rin looked stunned, as if she hadn't considered that she might want to have an opinion on those new limbs hanging from her shoulders. She then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and came to a conclusion.
"Meh" she said, shrugging it off. Once again, the hope in her friend's eyes quickly vanished. "They're okay".
At this, the two floundering gift givers glanced at each other, grimacing. In the short time this exchange of looks took place, Rin grabbed her fork with her toes and began to dig in to her ramen meal, expensive fake arms hanging limply at her sides, as if they too could feel dejection.
The trio was up on the roof for lunch, and seeing as they had been defeated, Hisao saw it fit to do what they had really come there to do and eat. As he picked up his own fork and began to munch away, however, he noticed a glint in Emi's deep green eyes. He had seen this look many times before, mostly on the track. It was a look that said "I'm not giving up and you can't make me". It was Emi at her Emiest. All at once, he became confident that the situation would work itself out, and he continued to gobble up his lunch, satisfied that his role in convincing Rin of the importance of arms was through.
"Rin" Emi began, a hint of mischief in her voice. "I have an idea." she continued.
"An... idea?" Rin questioned, not so much concerned as she was mildly surprised. Emi was more of an action person than an ideas girl. "Those can be dangerous. So I've heard."
"Yes, well, this one isn't, not for you anyway." Emi said, raising one of Rin's eyebrows with her words and giving Hisao momentary pause. What was she thinking? "See, I'm going to make an offer, no, a bet. One that you can't refuse" Emi revealed. Ah, so that was her plan then.
Emi made bets with Rin occasionally, and never seemed to lose them. If Rin was aware of this, then her face did not show it.
"Okay." Rin said, accepting the bet without a care. "If I can't refuse, then that's that."
Hisao could see that Emi was enjoying leading Rin to her eventual loss, and that she lost a bit of her edge when Rin gave in so easily.
"Don't you want to at least hear the bet first?"
At this, Rin only shrugged. An awkward moment passed, and Emi took the silence as a "yes".
"Well then, the bet is this: I bet you that you can't go a whole day without using your feet to pick things up and only using your new arms. I bet you five hundred whole yen that you can't!" Emi declared.
Silence.
"See, it's really easy for you to win!" she added, her eyes lighting up and her twintails bouncing along with her excited bobbing. She knew she'd win, but it was always fun putting yen on the line.
"Okay." Rin said, now standing up and facing away from the lunch table and staring up at the clouds, looking for one that she had lost some time ago in her room.
Before Emi could celebrate, the school bell went off, signaling the end of lunch period and the beginning of classes. The three friends began to head down to the class rooms with the bet fresh in their minds. Emi knew she'd win. Hisao knew Emi would win. Rin, on the other new hand, didn't really consider winning to be relevant. It was more about trying something knew for a friend. Besides, maybe the prosthetics could give her a new perspective on life.
"Hey, guys, do you think new arms is a perspective?"
Re: The Limbless Wonders (Updated 2/10/14)
Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 3:33 am
by SpunkySix
Sea wrote:Oh. My. God.
YOU ACTUALLY DID IT!
aside from almost getting banned suggesting you do this, I love it! Now you must develop for Rin a dark backstory so she can take up her vigilante mantel and fight the forces of Omega-Kenji. Or something else, idk.
Yeah, sorry about that, by the way. That was AT LEAST 60% my fault, probably more. It might be kind of a silver lining that I wouldn't have considered actually writing this without the suggestion, though, so there's that.
As for the story, yeah, I'm doing it, thanks for the approval! It's fun, so I'll be doing it REGARDLESS of support, and I think I have the time to update semi-regularly. Without spoiling too much, Rin's background and issues will be explored, (since they haven't been made truly apparent in this timeline yet) and Kenji is definitely a main villain. There will be others, but, well... we're not there yet. There needs to be a few set up chapters first before we get in to uber action battle tiem.
-Act 1: Prologue, Chapter 2: Hands, Floors and Nerves-
Back in the relative comfort of the art room, Rin hopped up on to the window sill, landed expertly on her rump and turned so that she could lean against the nearby wall. It was a comfortable position to think in, and she needed a moment of clarity now more than most days. There was yen on the line.
Rin looked at her new metallic left arm. It was dull and gray, but sturdy and functional as well. For a moment, she bent it at the elbow, wiggled her new fingers, and then lost interest and let the thing fall back to her side. She examined the other arm, and noted that it was roughly the same, but maybe slightly longer. Was it slightly longer? She couldn't tell.
Observing all of these things and thinking about fake arms quickly grew tiresome. So, like she had made a habit of doing, Rin decided she would fall asleep. It was a brilliant plan, really. She couldn't pick things up with her feet in her sleep, as far as she knew, and school was only in session for extra Summer classes and extracurricular activities as it was, so the teachers would care even less than usual that she was absent. All she had to do was spend the rest of the day blissfully unaware, and the yen would be hers. Not that it mattered much, of course, it just seemed like it was in the spirit of a bet to want to not lose.
Rin leaned her head back and her red hair fell just above her eyes, which slowly closed in preparation for slumber. Just as everything was about to go black, however, she noticed something flashing about her arms in her peripheral vision. The something was green, and moved about jarringly before disappearing as quickly as it appeared. No sense worrying about it though, as it was probably nothing, unless it wasn't, in which case it was something. Little did Rin know, as she dozed off, that the flash she had seen was a very important something that would change her and her closest friend's lives drastically and forever.
Suddenly, light. Bright, piercing light. And a voice.
High pitched, cheery. Emi.
"Hey sleepy head, get up! It's no fair if you sleep through the whole day."
Rin turned to face Emi, took a moment to get a bearing on her surroundings and then spoke up.
"It isn't?" she asked, looking off at an especially average paint can in the far left corner of the room.
"No, of course not! I said you had to use your arms for stuff, remember?" Emi answered, slightly exasperated.
"Hm... I thought you said that I couldn't use my feet to pick things up, not that I had to pick things up at all."
Emi's eyes widened upon hearing this. There was no way she was going to be loopholed out of winning a bet. Not like this. There was a prize on the line.
"Hisao!" Emi shouted. "Tell Rin that she's misremembering what happened!"
In response to this, Hisao frowned, looked away and scratched at the back of his neck before sighing deeply. He was going to take some heat for this one, and not the good kind caused by friction and skin.
"Uh, Emi, I think Rin's right. You only said that-" Hisao paused. Emi was giving him a death glare, and it was absolutely vicious. Fortunately for Rin, Hisao was feeling particularly daring on that day. "You only said that Rin had to not use her feet to lift. There was nothing about her having to lift anything in the terms of the bet." he finished, sealing his fate. There would be no fun to be had with Emi on that particular night.
"Well," Emi began, her eyes still glued to Hisao's and shooting daggers in to them. "In that case, I guess I'll let your sleeping slide, Rin." she continued, slowly turning away from Hisao and causing him to fidget uncomfortably. "But could you at least shake my hand, just once?" she asked with puppy dog eyes, more than a little defeat revealed in her voice now that anger had given way to grudging acceptance.
Brief consideration. Silence, and then-
"I think I can, but maybe I can't." Rin answered, her legs dangling off the side of the sill and swinging back and forth lazily.
"I'm sure you can!" Emi shouted, some joy returning to her voice. She did want to win the bet, but in the end, she cared for Rin and wanted her to learn to use the prosthetics she had been given to allow her to do things she previously could not, like dressing herself, or brushing her teeth, and it was nice to see her taking even a small step in the right direction.
With that, Emi leaned forward, and stuck out her hand. By this point she was beaming, and the contrast between Emi's glee and Rin's complete indifference caused Hisao to grin.
Rin hesitated, looked around, and then jerked her steely hand clunkily towards Emi's. As their fingers closed around each other's, Emi turned to Hisao and spoke.
"You do it too, so Rin can use both arms!" she suggested, giggling as she lifted Rin's arms up and down. In truth, Rin's mind had moved on to more interesting subjects, like the smell of red and the taste of turquoise, but if it made her friend happy to bounce a piece of junk connected to her shoulder around, then it was fine by her.
Hisao stuck out his left hand to meet Rin's and awkwardly grasped it. This made Emi giggle more, which made Hisao laugh, which made Emi remind him that she was still going to have a talk with him later about his handling of the bet rules. This stopped Hisao's laughing, but before he had time to plead his case, a green spark shot up from both of Rin's hands.
The sparks took off in to the air like rockets, making Emi gasp and causing the trio to let go of each other's hands in surprise. The sparks bounced around in the air and then, without warning, darted towards Emi and Hisao. One spark hit Emi in her left "leg" and then bounced over to the right one, causing them to light up a toxic green to match the sparks.
The other flew straight as an arrow in to Hisao's chest, right where his heart was. He collapsed like a carelessly handled Jenga tower and everything went black. He could hear his heart beat, and see it throbbing in the dark as well. Unlike usual, however, the blackness did not turn red, but bright green.
A few minutes later, it was Hisao's turn to wake up to the sound of Emi's voice.
"Hisao!" his lover shouted through tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. It had been a while since Hisao's heart had failed him, and she had forgotten just how scary it could be. It was worse than she had remembered, and she couldn't take any more silence. Her head dropped to Hisao's chest, and she began to sob hard enough to shake her tiny frame. "P-please, don't, leave me." she begged in between sobs.
"I-I'm okay..." Hisao muttered, glad to be alive, but too groggy to remember why.
"Hisao!" Emi shouted, her eyes lighting up like Christmas lights and her arms wrapping tightly around her boyfriend. "I was so worried!" she giggled, overwhelmed with relief and totally forgetting about the bet, which would seemed so silly then if she were to have remembered it.
"Did I, have a heart attack?" Hisao asked, holding a hand up to this forehead, still disoriented and dizzy.
"Yeah, Rin went to get the nurse and everything though, so you're going to be okay!" Emi shouted, more as a celebration than as an explanation.
Before Rin could return with the nurse, however, an explosion powerful enough to shake the floors boomed throughout the entire school building, nearly deafening Emi and Hisao. For once, Hisao found himself envying Shizune's handicap. Once the sound stopped, the pair uncovered their ears and heard rubble crashing down in the halls as well as paints and sketch pads falling from the shelves nearby.
"What the Hell was that?!" Emi loudly asked, her ears still ringing slightly.
"No idea!" Hisao yelled back.
A tense minute passed, with Hisao and Emi both pacing back and forth, giving each other the occasional worried glance, and trying to figure out what to do. Should they get out of the building while they still could, or risk investigating what had happened?
Suddenly, both of their backs straightened like boards and their minds focused on a single thing.
"RIN!!!" the duo yelped in unison.
With that, they rushed to the door and burst out in to the hallway to find their friend without a moment's hesitation. Something was going on, and like it or not, they were going to find out what if it meant keeping Rin safe.
NEXT TIME: What was that noise? Where is Rin? And those green sparks, what were those?! All this and more, answered next time in, THE LIMBLESS WONDERS
Re: The Limbless Wonders (Updated 2/11/14)
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:23 am
by SpunkySix
Before I begin, a few things to note/respond to:
1. Thanks. Writing for Rin is tougher to get right than I thought it would be. I've come to see that she's not just weird or cloud cuckoo, she's a very specific type of strange that has a very specific reason behind it. Because of this, there's a relatively small sweet spot for getting her right. I've read Clearer Than Words and picked up a few things, and will hopefully improve my handling of her characterization as the series continues.
2. Hisao's heart attack was meant to have lasted for at least five or so minutes, or at least he was out that long. Perhaps that should have been more clear. That seemed reasonable based on the fact that they seem to get shorter near the end of the route.
3. Nurse is... still here. You'll see. Things will start making sense and people will start to appear, and it should ideally be awesome.
4. You caught me. it was mentioned that Rin can't dress herself so Emi does it for her, but I just guessed that brushing her teeth would be tough to do with feet. If she can, then it would at least be easier with arms, in theory. Glad my spelling was tight!
5. I'll be splitting this chapter in half for post size, just to be safe. Might not need to, but it can't hurt.
-Act 1: Prologue, Chapter 3: Dark Discovery-
Hisao and Emi skidded to a stop, scanned the hallway and dashed off in the direction of the explosion, guided by piles of fallen ceiling tiles and clouds of dust. Emi picked up the pace and blew by Hisao, who was thanking his lucky stars that he had decided to wake up early every day the past school year to do laps with her. Every week day, anyhow.
The couple flew down another hallway filled with debris and made a turn at the end of it. Upon rounding the corner, Emi put on the brakes hard and gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. Not expecting this, Hisao continued on, only to slam in to his girlfriend's back and send them both crashing to the floor.
"Sorry!" Hisao blurted out, embarrassed by his failure to react but distracted by more pressing matters and thankful that he hadn't triggered yet another heart attack. He could only handle so many.
"It's fine," Emi mumbled, her eyes darting around the hall like little radars looking for a Rin-shaped blip. What she saw terrified her. In the middle of the hallway, a boy in thick glasses and a striped scarf was doubling over in pain, and radiating an unsettlingly dark energy. Surrounding him was complete and utter destruction; almost all of the ceiling tiles in the area had fallen, floor tiles had been torn up and cracked, creating a small crater around the boy, and the door to the one of the classrooms as well as the wall surrounding it had been blown in. Whatever had happened, it had been caused by something powerful and vengeful.
"Rin!" Emi cried out, shutting her eyes tightly and shaking with fear. She had gone to get the nurse, and Emi was worried that she had been caught up in the destruction.
"Hanako!" Hisao shouted between sprinting-induced gasps for breath, partially out of surprise that she was hurt let alone at school still, and partially to get her attention. Emi opened her eyes and looked up, confused. Slumped against a wall with cracks made from a heavy impact in it across from the damaged classroom was a purple-haired girl with scars running down the right side of her face. Emi somehow had not seen her there before Hisao called out to her, and was startled when her eyes slowly opened and she weakly raised her arm to point towards something with a single thin, shaky finger.
Following the direction of the pointed finger, Hisao and Emi watched as Rin stepped out gingerly from behind the pile of rubble, looked back and forth as if checking for something and then retreated back to her hiding spot. She had looked oddly purposeful, but she was okay, which elicited a sigh of relief from both of her panicked friends.
"First you, now Rin! I can't keep doing this 'I think my friends are dying' thing, it's gonna drive me crazy!" said Emi, her shaking hands each grasping one of her twintails and her face contorted in to an almost comical look of discomfort that Hisao had only seen once before in the sports supply shed.
"Sorry about that, I know it has to be pretty inconvenient." Hisao joked, hands still on his knees despite the fact that his breathing had slowed down considerably. At this, Emi giggled, allowing the worry to flow out of her with each passing moment.
"Hey, man," the boy in the striped scarf grunted through grit teeth, one hand grasping at a broken tile for support and his head barely held up to look in Hisao's direction.
"Kenji?" Hisao muttered to himself, shocked at the sight of his neighbor in the halls. He hadn't seen him more than twenty feet outside of his room since Summer began, even on weekends, so it seemed odd to him that he would be out with so many people around. What was going on?
"I'm still hurt here. Real bad. It looks like I might have taken one of the feminists out, but if we lose me, we're fucked." Kenji managed to spit out before groaning and rolling over on to his side in agony and humiliation. He couldn't believe he was allowing girls to see him in such a vulnerable state.
This got the couple's attention, and managed to make them feel guilty as well. They were so wrapped up in their gladness for Rin's safety that they had forgotten that there were two students currently in serious danger. Upon realizing this, they ran towards their hurt peers, only to to come to a screeching halt upon hearing a stern voice roaring at them from behind the rubble.
"Stop!" the familiar voice boomed, echoing through the halls. Shortly after, a man with purple hair stepped out from behind the rubble, followed by Rin and a worried looking blonde girl with a cane. "I know you're concerned about your friends," he acknowledged in a serious tone that let the two young adults know that if they took another step forward, he'd have their heads. "But they need their... space right now." he finished, emphasizing his point by pushing both of his hands forward in to the air and signaling for Emi and Hisao to back up.
"But Nurse," Emi protested, planting her prosthetic "feet" firmly in to the ground, cracking a tile further than it had been cracked before in the process. "Are they going to be okay?" she asked, her voice slightly cracking as well from the toll the recent events were taking on her nerves.
"I think so," the nurse answered, a wry smile beginning to turn up at the corner of his lips. "But I need to run some tests on them first, just in case. You know, the usual. Heart rate, blood pressure, general knowledge of advanced chemistry..." the nurse's voice trailed off as he mentally patted himself on the back for his own lame joke, making Emi smile and roll her eyes, which landed on Hanako, making her smile vanish and be replaced by a much more somber expression. People in her school were severely hurt, and she was beginning to realize that she really needed to stop forgetting that. The nurse must have noticed this change, and quickly spoke up to relieve Emi of her guilt.
"No, but really, they'll be alright. I have some... concerns, about their condition, but that's not for you to lose sleep over. Right now, you just need to let me do my work and don't worry yourself too much about the details. They'll be back on their feet in no time. Maybe not as fast as you'd be, but still."
Satisfied with this explanation, Emi returned to a slightly Emmier state of mind. The smile on her face reappeared, she thanked Nurse for his efforts and then turned around and began to walk back towards the art room. Hisao followed suit, jogging to catch up to Emi and hold her hand as they walked.
"Coming, Rin?" Emi called out over her shoulder.
"There's only one way back to the art room." Rin stated matter-of-factly. Hisao turned his head to look over at Emi, who translated for him with a quick, cheerful head nod. Sure enough, Rin was right beside them a few seconds later, looking as disengaged as ever. It was as if she had not, in fact, just witnessed a powerful explosion that caused part of their school to be torn apart. In fact, none of them were really acting like anything odd had happened, and for a minute, everything seemed normal, until-
"I wonder what could have caused so much damage so quickly." Rin thought aloud.
"Had to be something crazy." Emi responded, wondering where this train of thought was going.
"Hisao, you spend a lot of time with Mutou, right? How would something like that happen?"
"With that much damage in such a short period of time, something would have to blow up or bounce around really fast, enough to create a force of maybe, I don't know, 3000 psi." Hisao concluded, satisfied with his approximation.
"No, I mean, what kind of hard would be needed to do that?" Rin asked, scrunching up her brow and looking uncharacteristically outwardly focused on something in her mind.
"You mean, the dimensions?" Hisao asked, not really sure what she meant. "Those would be pounds per square inch, or the amount of force applied to each inch- wide part of the wall." he explained.
"No, I mean..." Rin struggled for the right words. Emi, seeing this, finally decided to say what had subconsciously been on her mind since the group left the scene of the incident.
"Do you mean, what could do something like that without leaving behind evidence of what it was?" Emi asked, looking serious as well. It was hard to be cheery with so much going on that was so difficult to understand.
"Yeah, that." Rin said, her expression reverting to a more neutral state of Rininess.
With this, all three of the students stopped. The question was right there in front of them all and staring them in the face, but there didn't seem to be a satisfactory answer. After letting it sink in just how strange what had just happened was, Hisao spoke up.
"I have no idea." he admitted, taken back by his own lack of awareness of anything that could possibly do such a thing. "It shouldn't be possible. And now that I think of it, it seemed like Nurse didn't want us to know much about it either. He sure spent a lot of time keeping us away when he could have been tending to the injured. Something isn't right here."
This statement swept across Hisao and the girls like a cold breeze and chilled them to the bone. Even if none of them wanted to admit it to themselves, and even if they could keep up their act of normality, they all knew in their hearts that something very strange and very dangerous was developing, and they were smack dab in the middle of it, like it or not.
NEXT TIME: The secret of green sparks is revealed, (for real this time!) as well as the nasty side effects of the dark energy in, THE LIMBLESS WONDERS
Re: The Limbless Wonders (Last Updated: 5/17/14)
Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:15 pm
by SpunkySix
This took an obscenely long time to get up, but I think now that it's here things should go smoother from here on out. Editing help credits go to AaronIsCrunchy. And now, after far too long, I finally present to you:
-Act 1: Prologue, Chapter 4: Things Heat Up-
At the sound of his alarm, Hisao rolled out of bed with a groan, got dressed and headed out to the track to meet Emi for a run. This had become so routine for him that he could hardly remember what it was like not doing it. After a good mile and a half for Hisao, (and an extra half for Emi) the pair cooled down and went off to see the nurse for a check-up, same as always.
Unlike usual, however, they were stopped in the hallway by another pair of students on their way to the office. This abnormality in their day marked the first in a long series of abnormalities, each one stranger than the last.
"Emi! Hiichan!" the pink-drilled abnormality spoke up, far too loud for so early in the morning. Hisao and Emi had gotten used to being approached by the student council duo of Misha and Shizune, so usually it wouldn't have fazed them, but they generally waited until a little later to make their rounds during the Summer.
"Yes?" Hisao prodded, hoping to get more out of Misha than a bothersome nickname so that they could end the conversation quickly and move on.
"Um..." Misha droned, looking over at her mute companion for guidance. Apparently she hadn't thought much further than names before shouting them out. Watching for hand signals, she soon perked up and turned back to Emi and Hisao, a renewed sense of purpose in her eyes.
"Are you okay? Shiichan says that you witnessed some scary stuff yesterday, and is concerned that it will affect your productivity!" Misha announced, folding her arms and beaming, proud of her relatively quick recovery.
"We're fine," Hisao said plainly, turning to his companion. "Isn't that right, Emi?"
"Well, I'm missing a leg or two," Emi said, trying to keep a straight face. "But otherwise, yeah, we're fine! I mean, really, Nurse didn't even seem all that concerned, so why would we be?"
The response Emi got was unsettling. Rather than a smile, what she thought was her reassuring response was met with a couple of frowns from the council members. Misha turned to Shizune, nodded, and then addressed the still-sweaty couple.
"You seem to be confused," Misha began. "Without meaning to worry you, the nurse was very concerned about what happened yesterday. He was running around all over, getting various treatment tools out, taking care of his patients and making important-looking phone calls all day after you left! Heck, he still is!" A pause. A nod. "He looked like he had seen a ghost! It's surprising that you didn't see him like that!" Misha added, obnoxiously loud.
Hisao and Emi exchanged looks of fear, which only served to confirm their newfound worries. Hisao opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, not sure what there was to say at that point. Misha raised a finger and began to speak up again, likely due to Shizune's observation that Misha's wording had not been comforting in tone, but she was instead interrupted by Emi, who wanted nothing more than to get away from her at the moment.
"Well, that's odd! See ya!" Emi said in a voice of false friendliness, waving goodbye and pulling Hisao with her as she fled the scene, leaving the student council at a loss. As they continued to move away from their unwanted conversational partners and towards the nurse's office at a brisk pace, it was Hisao who this time managed to speak first.
"Something's not right here." he noted.
"No shit!" Emi responded, slightly freaked out. Whether consciously or not, the two of them had set aside their worries and managed to trick themselves into feeling fine after their run-in with the dark energy in the halls. Now though, they were being made to acknowledge them, and it was quickly whittling away at their nerves.
"Why would Nurse hide whatever this is and how serious it is from us?" Hisao asked, mostly to himself. "Obviously he doesn't want panicked students on his watch, but this sounds like it goes deeper than that. Sure, Misha has the tendency to exaggerate, but if she's not flat out lying, then it would appear that Nurse was pretty frazzled, which doesn't happen often. Usually he knows what to do, or at least acts like it. What could bother him so much?" he wondered out loud.
Emi smiled at this. Even in a situation so strange, Hisao just couldn't shut his inquiring mind off, and seeing him so focused on the problem at-hand calmed her down some, plus it was super cute. Before she could suggest finding out though, they had arrived at the nurse's office, which was-
"Closed!" Emi yelped as she threw her hands up in frustration. Now how were they going to get their answers? "Dammit!"
Unaffected by Emi's fluent French, Hisao thought for a moment and then offered up a solution. "There's this book I've been wanting to check out, about a kid who goes into space and leads an army against some aliens. Kind of weird, but I've heard good things about it," Hisao explained, slightly put off by Emi's blank stare in his direction, which had "what's your point?" written all over it. "Anyways, why don't we walk down to the library and check it out, and maybe we'll see Nurse on the way there?" He finished, relieving the tension and bringing Emi's face back to a more neutral cheeriness.
"Good idea!" she said approvingly, and the two of them clasped hands and headed off towards the library. They didn't get far, however, before being stopped by Rin, who looked uncharacteristically ecstatic about something. Before either of them could ask what, they were already being answered.
"Both of you, I need to show you something!" Rin blurted out, smiling from ear to ear.
This shocked Rin's friends, who barely ever saw the girl grin, let alone show this much emotion. Without a second thought, they followed Rin over to the art room, and were taken back by what they saw. The whole room was filled with butterflies of every color! Some were big, others had spots, and they were all fluttering around the room as if they were doing some sort of complicated, erratic flying routine that only they understood. What was more, they all looked like they were melting for some reason.
"What's going on?!" Emi shrieked, as Hisao stared on in bewilderment. "Rin, don't tell me you found these outside and let them in!" she went on, more than a hint of accusation in her voice.
"I made friends with butterfly vomit!" Rin laughed, still absolutely enthralled. Her eyes were practically glowing, and her cheeks were almost as red as her hair. She was totally oblivious to the risks involved with bringing a bunch of creatures into the school for no particular reason, and it showed.
"What?" Hisao finally asked after some hesitation, puzzled more than he had been before the artist had "explained" the situation.
It took some time to process the short question, but Rin suddenly became somber when she did. It was as if the butterflies around her all began leeching off of her happiness at the same time and using it as fuel to flap around the room.
"I made friends with..." Rin's voice trailed off. She grew serious for a brief moment, then brightened up a bit. "Here, let me show you!" she said cheerily, and just like that, she was back to looking overjoyed again.
Rin deftly picked up a nearby paintbrush with her toes and tossed it up into the air. She then reached out and caught the brush in her new bionic hand, clumsily fumbling with it to get it into position. It was clear that she had been practicing with her hands, but was not experienced enough to be natural with them yet. Once the brush was ready, she put it to the canvas by her side, her arms started to glow a faint neon green and she began to talk as she worked.
"This is exactly what I did. I was using my new hand like this, and I thought, 'What should I paint? It's not like I just knew what to paint all of a sudden, I had to think about it, or at least I had to think about not thinking about it so that I could think of something. So I started thinking about things that I like, and of course then I thought of the sky, but the sky is so big and there's just too many skies to paint all at once and they're all so different in so many places at so many times and I couldn't just make them all at once, or at least I didn't think I could, and-" Rin abruptly put an end to her own jumbled info dump just as she finished her painting. She gave a satisfied nod, then turned to look at her friends, who were in complete shock at this point.
"And in the end, I made friends with butterfly vomit, because I like butterflies!" Rin said, putting a cap on her long-winded explanation. Neither Hisao nor Emi were paying the slightest bit of attention to her words though, as they were far too fixated on the flittering blue insect that had sprung to life and flown off of the canvas to join its sloppy butterfly brethren in the art room air space.
Nobody spoke for a good thirty seconds. Emi's jaw hung agape and she found herself unable to blink, as she was completely fixated on the life-bringing canvas before her. Finally, it was Hisao that broke the silence. "How. Is that. Possible?" he asked, almost unable to form the words with his dry throat. Rin shrugged. It was clear that she didn't know, and that she didn't care either.
"So, where were you guys going?" she asked, startling her captivated audience with her almost surreal change of topic. Was this really happening?
"Uh..." Emi attempted an answer, but words failed her. It was as if she had suddenly entered a dreamy wonderland, and simple language no longer worked for her.
"We were going to the library, to check out a book." Hisao pitched in, shaking his head to snap out of the daze he was in. "Do you... want to come with us?" he offered, less out of politeness and more out of an attempt at normality.
Rin thought this over for a few seconds. She was going to take a nap, but all the recent excitement had made her feel awake, so maybe a walk was what she needed to get the jitters out.
"Probably." she answered, then headed for the door, paintbrush still in (fake) hand. Hisao followed after, this time pulling an unresponsive Emi along with him. "Oh." Rin said in her more usual monotone, giving the other two pause. "Follow me, guys!" she commanded with a friendly voice, causing the butterflies in the room to swarm together and follow their parent painter out the door, the other two still trailing behind in total disbelief.
The walk to the library was dead silent. Nobody knew what to say, so nobody said anything. As they entered the library, Rin told the butterflies to wait outside. They dropped down to the floor and patiently obeyed.
The library was mostly empty inside. Unlike usual though, a loud voice boomed within, and the trio of friends couldn't help but see for themselves what all the commotion was about.
In the center of the room was the young librarian Yuuko and the shy student Hanako, who was bruised from whatever had happened the day before. Hanako was normally nearly invisible, but today she was absolutely livid, and she was letting Yuuko know it.
"I d-don't need help!" she screamed angrily, making Yuuko flinch and glance around the room nervously. "I'm f-fine, leave me alone! I can handle myself, and I don't need you butting in to my business! I hate you, you stupid, stupid p-piece of-" before she could finish, Yuuko raised a single finger and interrupted reluctantly.
"Please, Hanako, I know you're probably fine," she started, speaking quickly and just barely loud enough to be heard. "It's just that something happened yesterday, and the nurse wants to check to make sure it wasn't too serious. He just wants to protect y-"
"No!" Hanako bellowed out defiantly, stomping on the ground for emphasis. Yuuko shut her eyes tight and began to quiver. She hadn't meant to upset the girl, but now she was being made to face her wrath. "I don't need you t-telling me what's good for me! I don't need Mutou and Lilly following me around and trying to guilt me into going to the nurse's office all day, and I d-don't need some know-it-all school nurse trying to poke around in my business and pull me into m-medical tests! None of you know how strong I am, and for the last time, I don't. Need. To be protected!" she roared, picking up a book from a close by shelf and whipping it at the librarian's chest, eliciting a hurt cry from her. Tears began to roll down Yuuko's face, and she fell to her knees with her hands on her head, wondering just how she had managed to mess everything up so badly yet again.
It was at this point that Emi decided action needed to be taken. "Hey!" she called out to Hanako, pointing at her in disgust. "Stop hurting her!" she demanded, still surprised that Hanako would stoop so low. She didn't know her especially well, but she seemed better than that at least.
"Okay," Hanako said with an eerie calmness. "I'll stop hurting her."
At first, Emi relaxed as a confident smile grew on her face; she hadn't expected things to be that easy to cool down, but as it turned out they were, and all that was needed was somebody to take control of the situation.
The smile was quickly wiped off her face, however, as Hanako began to chuckle to herself. Her mocking laughter echoed inhumanly off the library walls. The girl pulled her purple hair over to the side, revealing her scars for everybody in the room to see. Her laughter grew louder and louder until it boomed as the scars on her face pulsated and twisted. They extended themselves and spread out until they covered her entire face, and as they did, they began to harden and fade first to grey, then to black. The shadow energy from before emanated out from her body, and her black lips formed a wicked, grotesque sneer.
"Instead," Hanako spoke, her voice now a low, nearly unrecognizable demonic growl. "I'm going to hurt YOU!!" she roared, arching her back in pain as her entire body burst into flames. Startled, everybody in the room took a tentative step back except for Yuuko, who was still on the ground with her eyes firmly shut.
Panicked, Hisao decided that now would be a great time to head for the door. He bolted, hoping that the others would follow. Unfortunately for him nobody did, and Hanako hurled a ball of black and crimson fire at the door which exploded upon impact. Fortunately for him he was still outside of the blast range when it happened, but now his only clear escape route was blocked, and he was trapped in the library with the rest of his friends.
"Nobody leaves!" Hanako's voice thundered. "Not until you've all learned what it's like to feel true pain. To feel ugly! You all take your appearance for granted, yet you think you know hurt. You've never hurt before. Not like this!"
A single fireball much like the one before was chucked at Hisao, and this time, there was nowhere for him to run. Cornered, Hisao ducked and tried to make amends with every god he could think of before blacking out. When he came to, the first thing he noticed was that Hanako was still ablaze and throwing a tantrum in the center of the room. The next thing he noticed was that Emi's prosthetic legs were lit up with the same green that Rin's arms were earlier that day. The last thing he noticed was that he was still very much alive.
It was Rin's turn to be surprised now, even if her voice didn't reveal it. "How'd you go so fast, Emi?" she asked in a complete monotone despite the circumstances.
"No idea." Emi responded flatly, still in awe herself. She had managed to sprint over to Hisao, grab him and return to the spot she started in before the ball of fire even hit the ground. "I guess I'm just that good!" she said, a huge grin forming on her face as she gave the thumbs up to her pal.
"Shut up!" Hanako's voice crashed down on the group, spoiling the moment. "I won't be ignored!" she roared as she took a step towards her targets, enraged that they weren't focused on her and the suffering she would bring. Hanako charged forward, violently thrust a newly formed flaming shadow claw at Emi and tossed her across the room like a ragdoll.
It was at this moment that Yuuko chose to open her eyes. She saw Hanako on fire. She saw an amputee flying through the air like a crumpled paper ball. She saw the room begin to spin and prayed that at least the rare braille book section would be safe, but then she didn't see much else. The librarian passed out with an overwhelmed moan, and Hisao and Rin stepped forward to drag her over to safety behind a book shelf while Hanako was still focused on her makeshift shot-put.
"Yaaagh!" Emi yelped, flailing around for something solid. What she finally hit was the ground, knocking the air out of her lungs and making an "oof!" sound as it did. The tiny girl stood up shakily, then rushed at Hanako at a speed never before seen from a Yamaku track runner, or anybody else for that matter. Within a second she crashed into her attacker, knocking her back some. The flames were hot, but Emi was moving too quick to be burnt. She charged Hanako again and again, angering her more and more with each impact.
"What's the matter? Things too HOT for you?!" Emi asked, giggling at her own corny joke as she noticed Rin doing... something, out of the corner of her eye.
"Fuck you!" Hanako's voiced boomed, shaking the library as it did. Clearly she wasn't amused. With one of her claws, she reached back and smashed the cocky runner in her face as she approached again, swatting her into one of the book shelves like she was a fly. The book shelf Emi hit fell back from the force of the impact, and she smashed into another, and then another before slamming into the wall in the back corner of the room, cracking it some as she did.
"Uuuugh... damn..." Emi groaned, placing her palm on her aching head and trying to see clearly. Everything had become a daze-induced blur, and her temples throbbed with pain. She tried her best to stand, but was unable to get her body to cooperate.
"This is what happens when you don't take me seriously." Hanako stated, taking a menacing step in Emi's direction. "This is what happens when you act like I'm just some little bug that you can ignore." Another step, this one hard enough to shake the ground. Another failed attempt from Emi to stand up. "You know what happens?" Hanako asked, enjoying every second of lead-up to her prey's demise with a sick, rage-fueled glee. "You get BURNT!" Hanako shot back with one of her own twisted jokes, then inhaled. Emi couldn't see well, but she had a strong hunch that Hanako was about to send a blast of fire breath her way, and she knew that she was finished.
Just as Hanako was going to exhale, a rough sound caught her attention, and she turned to face it. She wanted to focus completely on her victim, to see every ounce of pain on her face and hear every bit of hurt in her voice as she was fried, and she did not want any disturbances. As it turned out, the disturbance was- "Rin?"
Rin waved mechanically in Emi's direction, visibly causing Hanako to tense up. "What do you want?" the girl on fire asked, heating up even more than she had been before.
"I hope you like vomit, Flameko!" Rin yelled back. At this, Hanako became furious, turned back to Emi to finish her off and breathed in deeply. This time as she was about to barbecue Emi, she heard the sound of a wall being busted down. Quickly losing any last trace of patience she had left, Hanako turned around to silence the source of the noise so that she could broil Emi in peace. What she saw only brought her complete confusion.
A swarm of butterflies had busted the door open and burst through the flames in front of it, and were headed Hanako's way. Before she could burn off their wings, the insects began to flap all around her, surrounding her and clouding her vision in a dense fog of technicolor wings.
Seeing her opportunity, Emi tried one last time to rise and managed to clamber to her false feet. Once in an upright position, Emi wasted no time getting back at Hanako, who was still too distracted by paint bugs to notice her. She took off, dashing around Hanako in quick, tight circles until a cyclone began to form around her. Emi took a step back and admired her work as Hanako spun and then stumbled around, disoriented.
As Hanako stomped around in an effort to regain her balance and the butterflies cleared out, she got a lucky swing in at Emi's head, this time knocking her out cold. Planting a flaming black foot firmly in the ground, then another, Hanako took a moment to orient herself, then moved toward Emi. Hanako was not wasting any more time, and was fully prepared to do the girl in for good. Raising a burning fist, she swung forward, eager to burn a hole in Emi's chest. As she swung though, a searing pain shot up through her, and she began to smoke, giving her agonizing pause.
Hisao watched on from afar. He thought it was clever of Rin to draw up a big splash of water on one of the shelves like that, and was amazed at how she could guide it through the air without even needing anything to hold it in. Still though, he felt like he should do something to help other than watch over Yuuko. But what? It hadn't been since he first arrived at Yamaku that he had felt so useless.
Meanwhile, Hanako was absolutely seething, and quite literally fuming. She tried to vent her anger and drown her pain with words, but nothing but horrible growling would emerge from her throat. Finally, she reached out at Rin with a now extinguished arm and slammed her down onto the ground as hard as she could. Rin was now down for the count too, and Hanako knew it. Taking deep, labored breaths, Hanako collected herself and tried to decide which girl to tear into first.
"Wait!" Hisao shouted at Hanako, leaping out from behind the bookshelf that he had hid Yuuko behind. "Wait." he repeated, raising his arms slowly as a gesture of peace.
"I won't!" Hanako snapped back. She tried to turn her attention to her soon-to-be-victim, but found herself fixated on Hisao's gaze. "Please..." Hisao started, trying desperately to remain calm. The lives of his girlfriend and his best friend were on the line, and he wanted nothing more than to keep them safe. Suddenly, everything went black.
Hisao looked around. He heard his heart hammering in his chest, and he felt like he was inside of himself, somehow. Time had ceased to exist, and his consciousness seemed to float aimlessly within the dark nothingness that surrounded him. Or at least, mostly surrounded him. It was like he was having a heart attack, but... different. Hisao noticed something near him, but too far away to make out. Squinting, he was able to see two sets of words floating along with him. His heart beat picked up the pace, pounding away like a wild drummer. The words read "I don't want to hurt you" and "This isn't about how strong you are".
What? Hisao thought to himself. What was going on? He focused, trying to make sense of it all.
In an instant, everything flashed green, and Hisao was back in the library. Without thinking about it, Hisao blurted out, "This isn't about how strong you are!". Somehow, this had caught Hanako's attention. Taking a few quick breaths, Hisao continued on. "Nurse doesn't think you're weak, and neither do Yuuko, Mutou or Lilly. They all know you can handle this. It's just that, some things are beyond our control no matter how strong we are, and they want to be sure that this isn't one of those things." Hisao paused, amazed at how quickly he had thought to say that. Where did it even come from?
"B-but then..." Hanako relaxed some, and stepped away from the other girls. Some of the black scars on her face had turned to gray or disappeared altogether. "But then how come they want to do that if they don't even c-care about me?" Hanako asked. Hisao wasn't sure, but he thought it looked like she was about to cry, even through her dark scarring.
"They do care about you, Hanako. And so do I. Whether you want to believe it or not, we want nothing but the best for you. And they can help you, even if you're strong enough to make it on your own. But you have to let them." Hisao finished, a genuine smile on his face. The circumstances were different, but it wasn't the first time he had given a speech like this, and he wondered if it wouldn't be the last time.
Hanako's entire body began to shake. The scars on her face receded until all that was left was her usual scarring. Her lower lip quivered, and she looked around in horror at what she had done. The library was torn up, and the two girls behind her looked savagely beaten. Had she really done this over something so simple as a misunderstanding? The emotion of it all overtook her, and she fell to her hands and knees, sobbing. The dark aura around her faded away, and the flames in front of the library doorway disappeared without a trace.
The nurse burst into the room, looked around in a panic, and turned to Hisao. "What. The Hell. Happened here?!" he asked, completely exasperated. His hair was mussed up as if it had been pulled on, and there were bags under his eyes. "I've been trying to get in here for way too long, and there was a fire but the alarm didn't go off and all these butterflies for some reason, and..." he looked around at the absolute mess that the library had become, and at the crying and passed out girls on the ground, trying to decide how to even react to such a scene.
Hisao took a moment to plan out his next action. As he did, Emi began to come to and slowly, laboriously shake Rin, who also started to wake up. He could tell Nurse the truth, which he'd never believe. He could just make a run for it, though that would draw suspicion towards him. Or he could take a third option.
"No idea" said Hisao. "I just woke up myself." he added. The nurse sighed at this, rubbed his temples and opened his mouth to speak. At a loss, he only managed an exhausted, "Go have lunch" to which Hisao responded by nodding and walking towards the doorway to where Emi and Rin had already gathered, along with Yuuko, who couldn't seem to remember much at all.
"Hey!" Nurse called after Hisao, more sure of himself than before. When he saw that he had the boy's attention, he grumbled, "I want to talk to you in thirty minutes, or sooner if you're hurt and you need me, in my office. All of you. I need to talk to Hanako alone, and then we're getting to the bottom of this. I'm not sure I buy that none of you know what happened here, and if any of you are lying, I'm going to find out."
Hisao gulped audibly, but agreed to join his companions in the nurse's office after lunch. Once he, Emi and Rin were sure that Yuuko was well enough to be by herself, the three of them left her to recover and walked out into the hallway, where Hisao stopped and turned on his heels with great haste. He pulled Emi into a passionate, "holy crap that just happened but we're still alive" kiss then looked up, his face taking on a hardened expression.
"We need to have a meeting on the roof. Right. Now!"
END OF PROLOGUE
