Chapter 5: Newfound Strength & Best Friend(?)
Monstrous Strength.
Pretty much what it said. A skill held by monsters or those with monstrous traits that allowed the user to receive a massive boost in attack power… naturally, coming at a price. You start to take on the appearance of whatever monster you're based on, and likely begin to mentally deteriorate until you might as well be a monster yourself.
Those cold facts, distant and clinical, repeated over and over in my head as I sat on the floor with my back to the ceiling. The aches in my body slowly faded, as did the pain on my chest.
" *Sigh!* I hate when life kicks you when your down," I mumbled to myself as I got up and walked to the restroom. Opening up a cabinet, I took out a black box and unlocked it.
*Click!*
With sound a treasure chest opening, the box freed Itself from the lock and revealed a simple black yet elegant Glasses, resting on a really soft black and golden cloth.
Looking up slightly, I smiled reading the note that is there, [ These should help you, got then from some red-head a while back for you-*Emiya Kiritsugu*].
' Red-head? Is that who I think It is?' I thought remembering something.
' Knowing who Dad is, then yeah, probably...' Shaking my head, I grinned and put the glasses on my face, stopping the pain in my eyes.
" Onii-chan!"
Hearing that cry, I quickly put locked the box and placed it back where it was, and walked back Into our room.
" Right here, Shiro," I said softly, laying down next to my cute little sister.
*Plop...*
Plopping her head on my chest, Shiro smiled," No more moving."
Stroking her long auburn hair that was already passing her butt, I chuckled," Why is that?"
" The nightmares don't come to me, when your by me," Shiro said simply, as she shivered In bliss having her hair played with so lovingly.
"... I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not..." I said, kind of confused on my side.
" It's a compliment. Your aura devours my bad feelings and turns them Into good feelings." Getting more comfortable, Shiro yawned and explained.
" Huh... So I'm like a good-luck Talisman..." I said, understanding my 'aura' and 'skills'.
" Yeah..." Yawning once more, she nodded cutely and closed her bright golden-brown colored eyes.
" Good Night." Kissing my cheek, Shiro began to fall Into dreamland.
" Love you." Kissing her cheek, I began staring at the ceiling blankly.
" Mhm, love you." Saying such, she fell asleep.
--
Blankly staring at the ceiling for a good while, I sighed,' Insomnia is going to beat my ass again, huh?'
Blinking my eyes, I rubbed them a few times and mumbled," Yeah...It is."
Time was running out. My physical training had hit a limit. Even with my modifications to It, I had only managed to reach D-Rank in strength and C-Rank in speed. With body, reinforcement mastered my strength reached B-Rank and my Speed A-Rank. But this required me to dedicated everything I had to reinforcement. During combat, I could perhaps keep my strength at C+ rank and B-Rank in speed. Meaning I needed some way to increase it further.
Hmmm...Perhaps I could enhance all my clothes and uniforms with runes?
With these thoughts, my timer started ringing waking up my little sister from her sleep.
~~
Now In class, my blank face alter Itself Into a smile that made the girls who saw It blush...
Oh yeah did I mention, my purple hair is now like Sasaki Haise's(Ken Kaneki) from Tokyo Ghoul, just make the white, black, and the black, bright violet.
...Well, If make sense In a way, because I look like a white-haired Ken Kaneki, just with black and violet hair being the only difference. However, back when I first woke up Into this fucked-up world I looked like a child version of Mikey from Tokyo Revengers, though it seems that "Place" changerd me even more.
" Yo, Kira!" Breaking my thoughts is Seaweed incarnated.
Yes, I'm talking about Shinji Matou. The one that is a jackass who is surrounded by beautiful women but doesn't deserve to even exist in the same universe as them, yes that Shinji Matou.
Sure He's a terrible person, but he is also a fantastic character in my opinion. I completely understand why he's so unpopular; everyone who commented hating him is 100% justified for doing so. But to me, Shinji is so well-written that I loop back to liking him.
The important point to make first here is that I can only like him because of the narrative. The story shows us how Shinji understandably came to be the way he is, but it never excuses the terrible things he's done. If the story and its characters had easily forgiven Shinji, I would hate him, but instead, it portrays him for all of his flaws and his inability to overcome those flaws and... It's fascinating to me. Ohhh~ I'm such a great person~(l̵̮̬͎̫̾̒i̵̢̬͔̍͛̋͠e̴̯̯̤̖̐̇).
I find him as well-written as Kirei, but there's a fine difference here. It's easy to love Kirei even if he's evil; maybe because he's evil. There's a certain suspension of disbelief there because it's hard picturing a real person like that. But Shinji? He's not evil, he's despicable, and this understandably hits too close to home for some. It's hard to like. You can imagine meeting a person like him in real life, and that only makes him more repulsive despite (by comparison to Kirei) being guilty of less heinous crimes.
Shinji is the most realistic bully I've ever seen written. It never makes him out to be stronger or better than the heroes, and definitely never cool, which is an unfortunately common trope with other bully characters. If anything, FSN lampshades it by showing Shinji's only popular because he has money.
Instead, FSN portrays Shinji constantly as weak and insecure, and someone who takes that out on others. But notice too that (due to having a cast made up exclusively of badasses), no one considers him threatening. He's a loser, and they all know he's a loser.
Shinji is meant to be the dark side to the "normal person" coin we have with the more heroic Shirou. Both of them start out way over their heads, but where Shirou finds self-actualization and strength through the dangers of the war, the stress boils Shinji alive.
It's worth noting here that several sources (interviews, the VN itself) imply Shinji isn't normally this awful, but that the war brought out the worst in him. We basically see him during his lowest moment, in the middle of a nervous breakdown. That makes it a little harder to get a good read on him.
All and all, he's alright person In my books... And oh did I mention, he can perform basic Magecraft and has worms Inside him.
How do I know you might ask yourself? Well, he told me, because I'm such a great friend(l̵̮̬͎̫̾̒i̵̢̬͔̍͛̋͠e̴̯̯̤̖̐̇).
So, Sakura's green light for me. And the funny thing about all of this is probably Shinji Is actually being a good person and brother(nothing hypnosis couldn't find out).
" Yo, you alive In there?" Shinji asked, seeing my now blank face that greatly resembles Kuzuki Sensei, a lot more with my glasses that no one questioned about.
Anime Logic at Its finest.
" I'm alive... Just thinking about some random stuff," I said, glancing to the window, seeing a passing Rin Tohsaka," Y'know the usual."
Following my gaze, he smiled seeing Rin," Oh I see. Did I perhaps disturb you peeking?" He chuckled at his thinking.
" Peeking...? Is called looking at someone from afar peeking now?" I asked with a smirk on my face.
" Yup. Especially seeing who you're looking at." He said as he sat down by me, pulling out some playing cards.
" You mean Tohsaka-san?" I asked, pulling out two black and golden playing dices, already knowing what's to come.
" Tohsaka-san? You mean Rin-chan, right?"
" Ugh! Rin-chan? Really?"
" What? Making fun of the oh great Rin-chan?"
*Shoosh!*
--
" Eh? Kira?" Shinji let out, seeing no signs of his best friend.
" Rin-chan...? Who let you call me that, Matou-san?" Hearing that voice behind him, Shinji's eyes widen, and started hauling ass down the school hallways.
" You fucking coward, you forgot someone!"
" Hahaha~ Shinji? Who's that?" He heard Kira's voice past his ears.
" Asshole don't you dare try to pull a Who's Rem on your best friend!"
" Best Friend?... Oh, you mean my dearest of dearest friend Shinji-kun? He's dead already."
Hearing that sarcastic statement, Shinji smiled as he yelled," Get back here, coward!"
" Fuhahahahaha~!"
~~