"The Warring States Period, a time of strife, a time of . . . war. But of all the warriors to appear, none was more evil, more ruthless than the demon Oda Nobunaga.
"It all started when he was just a young samurai, wandering through the forest for a bit of leisure. He stumbled upon a mystical red jewel washed up in the riverbank. As soon as he laid eyes on this mysterious jewel, he was entranced. Before he knew what was happening, he was already crouching down to pick it up. And then, in a sudden burst of madness, he dropped the jewel into his mouth and swallowed it. And from within, came an explosion of power.
"The jewel was cursed, filled to the brim with evil power. Evil power that Nobunaga now possessed. He was transformed into a terrible monster that spread darkness and suffering throughout the land. Many warriors rose up to fight against this evil, but none stood a chance against his horrific power. With just one swing of his sword, entire armies were slaughtered.
"But just when all hope seemed lost, one day, a samurai by the name of Mitsuhide encountered a monk who had possession of a mystical blue jewel. The monk gave Mitsuhide the jewel and urged him to take its power in order to finally end the monster Oda Nobunaga's reign of terror.
"Mitsuhide accepted the jewel, swallowed it and gained his power. And then he went to confront the demon Nobunaga to defeat him once and for all.
"Their battle took place at Honnoji. It was a fierce duel that made the earth shake and the sky split, and lasted for three days and three nights, until finally Mitsuhide slew the demon and peace was restored to the Land of the Rising Sun."
Mirai put his paper down and looked at us.
"Well, what do you think? he asked.
Looking at him dumbfounded, Omoyo said, "What. The. Hell. Was. That?"
"What do you mean?" Mirai asked. "It's my history report, of course."
"THAT is supposed to be your history report?"
"Yep," Mirai said. "It's got the Mirai certificate of historical facts!"
"Historical facts, my foot!" Omoyo shouted. "That's all just crap pulled out of a delusional kid's fantasy! The only thing you got right is that Mitsuhide ended Nobunaga at Honnoji. But another thing, we were supposed to be writing about Ancient Egypt! Not about Japan's Warring States Period!"
"Stop wasting your breath, Homura," Isaneko said as she slowly flipped through the pages of a notebook. "You know that he wrote that on purpose. You should worry about yourself more than that idiot. More than a third of your math homework is full of mistakes."
"What!? Really?"
Mirai spun around as Isaneko held up the opened notebook to her face.
"See? There's a mistake over here, and over here."
It's been a few days since the fire at the Shirogami Shrine. While the fire was a pretty scary thing to happen at the shrine, luckily it was quickly taken care of and no one was hurt. Thanks to that, festival prep stayed right on schedule. Today was a break day from that, however, so me and the rest of the club were gathered in the clubroom to tackle our immense amount of homework. Or, at least we were supposed to.
We all know what Mirai did with his time, but I already finished my quota for the week, so while everyone else were poured over their books, I was on my phone, farming for some items for a limited time game event.
I looked up from my game for a brief moment and felt a sense of relief wash over me. After that testy exchange a few days ago at the shrine, I was worried that things would get awkward between everyone. So I was really happy to see that things were quite back to normal. At least on the surface.
While looking over the spoils of my latest quest, I reached for my water bottle but noticed that it was empty as soon as I lifted it off the table.
"Hey," I said. "I'm gonna go get a drink. Anyone want anything?"
"None for me, thanks," Omoyo said.
"I'm good," said Yuna's phone.
"I'll have green tea," Isaneko replied.
While standing in a haughty pose, Mirai spread his hand out to me and commanded, "Bring me nectar from the fruit of Yggdrasil, the World Tree!"
"So just tea for Isaneko. Got it. I'll back in a bit."
With that, I left the clubroom and headed for the vending machine on the first floor.
As I headed down the hallway, I happened to look out the window overlooking the sports fields. I could see the baseball club members jogging along the perimeter of the school while the soccer club was split for a mock battle. Since the volleyball club had practice in the gym (so I heard), the kendo club were gathered outside doing sword swing exercises. Track and field club members ran around them in a circle trying to beat their own time records.
You'd think to call all that shouting and action the sports kids did down below noisy and hectic. But where I stood, it was actually peaceful and quiet. Weird, I know. But that's what I felt. The air was heavy around me, but it was a sleepy sort of heavy and made me slow down a little. It was like all the scary things I've been through never happened.
But happened, they did. Since I'm not a mind reader, I have know idea what Yuna thought or felt after nearly being burned to a crisp, but I could never forget. I tried to get it out of my mind with some cute cartoons, but that only served as temporary relief.
Sometimes, at unexpected moments, my chest would clench and a bad feeling would rise to my throat and spread to the top of my head. That's been happening a lot ever since that day at the river when we found a victim of the Piper. And it happened again as I stared out the window and froze. It took the sharp pop of a metal bat hitting a baseball to wake me up and I quickly hurried down to get the drinks.
As I ran, however, I nearly ran into a guy.
"Whoa! S-sorry!" I said, bowing deeply.
"It's fine, it's fine," said the guy. "Just be careful and watch where you're going from now on."
"S-sure."
I watched his back as he disappeared down the hall before continuing on my way. For some reason, that guy was in a really good mood.
I had just reached the vending machine situated near the back entrance of the building and was about to tap my (parents') credit card over the machine's pay pad when suddenly, an angry shout reached my ears.
"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" screamed a girl.
"NOT UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHY YOU'VE BEEN SNEAKING AROUND THE SCHOOL!" screamed a guy.
"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"
Normally, I would ignore the screaming and let the teachers handle whatever drama was going on nearby. But this time was different. I couldn't ignore those two voices when I knew who they belonged to.
So, against my reservations, I abandoned the vending machine and rushed outside where I saw Kyouko and Yamimnura facing off against each other.
Yamimura was clad in rippling, blurry space, the telltale sign of a psychokinetic user's power. His Psy-Armor explained how he could see Kyouko who should be invisible to most people, but I still didn't get why they were having a shouting match with each other. (I also didn't realize it then, but I must have had my Psy-Armor on, otherwise I would have never heard Kyouko.)
No, scratch that. It was pretty obvious, even to me, why they were arguing.
"If you think I'm going to let you burn down this school and lay the blame on my family, you've got another thing coming!" shouted Yamimnura.
"For the last time, I'm not the arsonist!" Kyouko said. The frustration in her voice hinted that she might be reaching her breaking point.
"Then you'll have no trouble telling what you're doing here with the police!"
Yamimura raised his hand and approached Kyouko. I didn't know what he was planning to do, but I wasn't about to stay back to find out. As soon as he took a step towards Kyouko, I shouted, "Stop!"
Yamimura reeled back in surprise and turned around as I ran towards them. I jumped between him and Kyouko and spread my arms apart, heart beating hard and fast against my chest.
"Oota?" Yamimura shouted angrily. "What do you think you're doing, getting in my way like that?"
"Sorry, Yamimura," I said. "But Kyouko's a friend."
"Wait, what?" Kyouko looked at me with her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion while Yamimura gave me a doubtful gaze.
"A friend? Really?" Yamimura crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't tell me you're in cahoots with the arsonist."
"For the last time, I'm NOT the arsonist!" Kyouko shouted.
"Don't lie," Yamimura snapped back. "I saw you sneaking around at the shrine when that fire happened nearby. And now you're sneaking around over here. If you're really innocent then tell me what you're up to!"
I was at a loss for words. I could just come clean and say that Kyouko was Yuna's stalker (It's the truth!), but I was sure that answer wouldn't sit well with Yamimura. I tried to think of something to say, but I could only draw a blank.
But then, someone close by shouted, "I KNEW IT!"
"Now what?" I groaned as I turned around. I saw Shikouyama coming towards us with his face all red and his teeth bared in a growl. He looked sort of like an angry oni.
"I knew that you were up to no good, Yamimura!" he said.
"What are you talking about?" Yamimura said.
But Shikouyama shouted, "Don't try to play dumb! I caught you red-handed! You and Oota are working together to hurt Naoko! But whatever you got planned, it won't work! I'm going to stop you once and for all!"
I had no idea how Shikouyama could have come to the conclusion that I, of all people, would work together with Yamimnura to hurt Soushu. For one thing, I had no reason to. For another, it's just not in my nature to play assassin.
"No, wait, Shikouyama. I think you're misunderstanding something." I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen.
"Shut up!" he shouted at me. "I won't fall for your tricks!"
What tricks? I wanted to shout at him. I was a terrible liar. There was no way I could even think of tricking someone.
Suddenly, electric sparks appeared and danced around Shikouyama. Many of them gathered at his hands which he balled into fists.
"This ends now!" he shouted. And then he attacked, firing a punch at me that landed on my face. Thanks to my Psy-Armor, though, I was completely unharmed. And I didn't even feel a thing. It was still kind of annoying though.
So I cried out in dismay, "Hey! Are you crazy? Cut it out! You'll get us all in trouble!"
But Shikouyama was beyond listening to reason. He looked like a wild animal with rabies and attacked me like one, foaming at the mouth.
Again and again, he swung his lightning-clad fists. But I ducked, jumped and slid side to side away, causing him to miss each and every time. I had to. Even though my Psy-Armor keeps me from getting hurt, it's not like it's perfect protection. I can never know for sure if it'll fail me or not, especially against other psychic powers, so I try not to depend on it too much. Dodging should always be my first resort, however terrible at it I might be.
"Come on, man!" I shouted. "Quit it!"
Unable to keep my cool, I lashed out and pushed Shikouyama away. I might have pushed a little too hard because he flew and hit the ground about five feet away. I was really afraid I might have hurt him badly, but he stood right back up. As soon as he was done shaking a daze out of his head, he looked up and happened to lay eyes on Yamimura. His face twisted in repulsive anger and he screamed, "YAMIMURA!" before attacking him.
Shikouyama tried to tackle Yamimura to the ground, but Yamimura side-stepped away just in time before going for a tackle himself, clad in Psy-Armor. He sent Shikouyama flying further than I did, and followed up by shooting a missile of psychic energy from a finger gun. But Shikouyama challenged the missile head-on and punched it. He actually punched it! Who actually punches a missile flying to their face?
But Shikouyama wasn't going to stop at just that. As if he suddenly remembered the expression, "an eye for an eye," he gathered electro-magnetic energy at his palm, aimed it at Yamimnura and threw it at him. Yamimura jumped away and the electro-magnetic energy ball exploded against the ground. Shikouyama threw another one, and then another one, but Yamimura dodged them all.
As I watched, I noticed how Yamimura inched closer and closer to Kyouko.
Not good, I thought. If they kept that up, Kyouko was going to get caugh in the crossfire. I had to do something before that could happen, so I ran. I ran to her as Yamimura jumped in front of her. And then I pushed her as Yamimura jumped away.
And then -
BOOM!
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