3: Preparation

Unsurprisingly, it only took Aya a few minutes to locate the rebels' headquarters in Aomori. It seemed that they hid in an abandoned Blight warehouse that they had taken over, a perfect place to store weapons. The issue was that Aomori was eight and a half hours away from Kawasaki.

"So how the hell are we gonna get to Aomori?" Shizen questioned. "It's not like we have a car or anything, and definitely nothing faster."

"I... don't know," Aya sighed. "Can't you use your power and turn something into a plane?"

"First of all, no, I'm still not that good at using my power so I sure as hell can't make a plane," he responded. "And second of all, we can't fly a plane."

"Speak for yourself," Aya said, crossing her arms.

"What, you're telling me that you could fly a plane?"

"I think I could learn pretty quickly."

"Bullshit. And even if you could, where would we land it?"

"That's irrelevant to whether I could fly it or not. And I can."

"Whatever, it's not gonna happen anyways."

"Then what's the alternative? Rent a car?"

"Why don't we just go on a plane the normal way, you know, as passengers?"

"Oh, yeah, I guess that would work."

Shizen laughed, finding it funny that Aya's intelligence sometimes made her overthink things. She glared at him before returning to her computer to get plane tickets to Aomori.

"Do we even have the money for this?" she asked.

"Of course. We're not poor," he laughed.

"Yeah, whatever."

Aya ended up securing their plane tickets and they would be leaving for Aomori in three days. They got right to packing, making sure that they brought as much as they could since they didn't know when or if they would be coming back. Also in the meantime, Shizen decided to practice using his matter manipulation. After all, it was very likely they would be coming into direct conflict with Blight soldiers and having to fight them. Shizen knew he could use his power for combat, whether it was morphing the area around him or turning random objects into weapons. The problem was that he had no clue how.

One day before they were leaving, Shizen was laying in his bed, trying to figure out how to transform something small and simple into something large and complicated. Maybe it was impossible because of the law of conservation of mass. But he had been able to make things slightly bigger and heavier, so surely it was possible somehow. Shizen reached over and grabbed a cup off the table beside him and held it up. He stared at it for a few minutes before putting all his focus on turning it into a gun. At first, nothing happened, but then Shizen started to visualize the gun and the parts that it was made up of.

Just like that, the cup began to morph into a pistol and he could tell that there was definitely matter being created. After a couple of seconds, Shizen now held a small, black pistol. There was no ammo in it, but he was confident now that he could make that too.

"Finally," he said, breathing a sigh of relief before walking downstairs to show Aya his feat. "Look who made a weapon."

Aya was focused on her computer before Shizen had come down, but her attention was now on the weapon he wielded.

"Holy shit, you actually did it," she said, her eyes wide. "How?"

"I just imagined the parts of the gun and what it would look like when it was completed. And then it just worked."

"So you just need to visualize it in your head? That should be easy enough to do, right?"

"Well, for a lot of things, sure," Shizen pondered. "But more complicated things are gonna be hard since I don't what parts they're made of or how their mechanics work."

"Hm, well it's a start for sure. We'll just have to make you familiar with other stuff in the future."

Shizen was satisfied with his progress, but he now set his sights on trying to manipulate his environment, hopefully to find a way to use his power for attack and defense. He stepped outside onto the street, looking around to make sure nobody was around who he could accidentally injure if things went wrong. He then crouched to the ground and touched the cold concrete. His goal was not to transform the concrete into something else, but rather change its shape and size, as well as move it around. Shizen imagined the concrete rising up and expanding to become a solid wall. Sure enough, the concrete started to shift in place, then protrude out of the ground. It rose slowly but eventually formed into a wall that was about Shizen's height and significantly longer and thicker. While creating a wall that slowly wouldn't be very useful, he knew he would be able to do it better and faster and he practiced. Regardless, Shizen was happy that he was learning to utilize the power that he had long neglected. Heading back inside, Aya looked over at him, awaiting what he had to say.

"I did it," he said, smiling. "It was slow, but I was able to make a wall. I just have to get better at it."

"Good," Aya replied. "That makes me feel a little better about going off to fight against the most powerful organization in the world."

"I feel a hint of sarcasm."

"Not at all," Aya giggled, turning back to her computer. "Anyways, you better get some sleep for tomorrow."

"How about you? You can't just stay up all night then sleep through the day like you normally do."

"Hey, I only sometimes do that!"

"You do that literally every day, without fail."

"Just go to sleep," Aya pouted. "I'll take care of myself."

Shizen was quite tired, so he decided to heed her words and go to bed, mentally preparing himself for their possible suicide adventure the next day.