Decompression

Hajime woke up to an unfamiliar roof over him.

'Where am I?' he thinks while looking around him. As he tries to get up, a weight pulls him back down onto the bed. "Huh?"

Hajime looks down at the blanket that was covering him and removes it to find a nude loli vampire clinging onto him. He quickly looks around and only found a lump of blankets on the ground, which he can only assume was Selena. 

With a sigh, Hajime tries to wake the little vampire. "Hey, wake up" He says while shaking her. However she just clings to him tighter like a koala. Getting more annoyed, he squeezed her ass, but she made a noise that brought about a whole new problem he didn't want to deal with. So he used a quick application of Lightning Field on his clingy friend? Girlfriend? He was stuck in an awkward state of mind that he has been plaguing his mind for the past week.

Yue, getting up from the ground after the shock, looks up at Hajime with tears in her eyes, "You're awake?"

"Well yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He was thrown for another loop when Yue launched at him and knocked him back onto the bed.

"That battle was so much closer than it should have been," she says, crying onto his chest. "If it wasn't for whatever Selena did, we might have been dead or maybe even captured." She says, recalling the states both Hajime and Selena were in at the end of the battle.

"Speaking of which, why am I naked?" He asks with a raised brow.

"You were dirty. So I cleaned you up" Yue responded while licking her lips.

Not wanting to think about the implications, he looked at the lump on the ground that hadn't moved the entire time. He threw a pillow at the lump only to see it roll away as if it really didn't want to wake up. Selena ended up falling off the edge of the area onto the stone floor.

"Oww" groggily waking up, Selena jumped to her feet and looked right and left, looking for enemy attack. Feeling a cold breeze, she looked down and saw that she was in her birthday suit. Quickly covering herself with the blanket, she saw the bed in front of her eyes, and saw Hajime looking at her with a serious look. "What are you looking at you Perv. You already have your girl all over you."

"Of course," Yue says with a smirk while gripping Hajime tighter around his waist.

"Oh shut up!" Hajime yells, while tossing another pillow at Selena's face. She caught the pillow, hugged it, and gave Hajime a thumbs up with her right hand.

After calming down a bit, Hajime finally addresses the elephant in the room, "Okay, so what the hell happened after my lights were almost knocked out? I saw that dragon, I guess for lack of a better term, tackle you Selena. Then the next thing I knew there was thunder striking that thing to death. Soon after, I fell unconscious since I felt no immediate threat."

"That's not surprising, since the two of you ran right though mana like it was water. Though I'm not sure what you did, Hajime. All Selena and I saw was the area glow red and you were dodging everything as if it was too slow. How did you do that?" 

"I'm not sure, one moment everything was coming at me, and the next thing I knew, everything from my point of view was too slow and it all just passed by." 

"How long have we been out, Yue?" Selena ends up wearing the blanket like hoody so as to not drag it on the ground old in grand habit kick in that moment. It did not escape Hajime and Yue noticed but didn't say much. 

"It's been a few hours I guess? When I came here, the top of this place was dark. And only recently did it look like it was shining as if the sun was in the sky. 

"I see, did you look around?"

"No, hmph, I had to clean that cow over there and lick you spotless." Her tone changed mid sentence when it came to cleaning her man. 

"Oi, Hajime, I didn't know you were into that," Selena says, cracking a smile. 

"Anyways, we should probably see what is in that house." Clearly not want to start his day with teasing from his friend. 

"We should see if there are any clothes, since I'm out of outfits again. Hmph," Selena says, recalling destroying too many to count at this point. 

"It's your fault you treat them like a disposable piece of equipment." Yue states, as she glared at Selena.

Seeing that it was time to start exploring the residence, Yue goes and grabs the pants that she hid by one of the pillars, and hands it to Hajime to put on. Turning around, Selena started to walk towards the front entrance, with Hajime and Yue following suit.

"Where are our backpacks anyway?" Hajime asks as he looks at Yue. She pointed near the pillar they came to see that they were there. "Aah, I see. Thanks Yue '' As he is patting her head. Yue was wearing the bear pelt like when they first met. "It seems your clothes also end up getting damaged in the struggle for our lives."

After a bit of exploring, the trio only were able to enter three rooms so far. "This place is stupid i can even open ninety percent of this place with my powers." Hajime was annoyed that this place seemed to be able to repel his skill. 

Selena smirks at him, "You know, that just means you have a long way to go to call yourself a master synergist. 

"So what I'm hearing is that someone doesn't want new equipment." He says, smiling evilly at Selena all the while

"No please." Selena begs, falling on her knees. "You are the worst." Yue could be heard giggling behind them.

"Well, I guess you're right," he replies, smiling at the fact that the ceiling he thought he had reached was just the base of the proverbial mountain he had to climb.

"It was so weird, nonetheless, for a house to be down in this place given the hell it took us to get here." Yue said to be in the conversation.

"Yea, hey there's another flight of stairs" Selena points out the stairs to the third floor. She was glad she was not leading the way so that she could see the different emotions on Hajime's face. 'It is nice to see him not filled with killing intent, or constantly on alert.'

When they got to the top, there was only one room on this floor. The inside of the room was bare, except for a magical circle in the middle with pillars going around the room. On the other side of the circle, there was a finely dressed skeleton sitting on a chair.

"The mavericks are weird. Why not let your end be on your bed?" Yue looked at the skeleton that was at the other end of the room that was just sitting there looking at the magic circle of all places. "He was also missing the same arm as Hajime," Yue pointed at the missing left arm. 

"Yea. It makes you wonder, with all their magic being in the age of the god, a cut arm could be restored" Hajime wonders aloud.

"…" Selena narrows her eyes in confusion, 'I wonder what the hell happened in the past?'

"Let's not fret about the little things right now. You go first Hajime, Yue and I will be right here in case the worst happens."

"Heh, you'll jump into action in your birthday suit?" Hajime smirks at Selena.

"Huu, you are the worst! Now hurry up and go on you mongrel."

"Pervert" Yue states, glancing over at Selena.

"Great, now I'm going to have a weird nickname like you Haji."

"Who said you didn't already? Hehe"

Giggling noise could be heard from Yue.

Not wanting to be the butt joke, Selena pushed Hajime onto the magical circle harder than was strictly necessary. 

"Hey, why you." At that moment a ghost-like construct projected itself on top of the skeleton. Hajime instinctively pointed Donner at it, but then noticed something, "It's not alive. Hmm this feels like a projection."

"It looks like ultra reality." Selena murmurs to herself, recalls the way that the books have described this scene. As she murmured to herself, Yue glances at her in confusion. The best that she could guess from the wording, was that it might mean life without being truly alive.

Everyone looks to see that his missing arm had what seems to be an artifact. 

"I congratulate you on overcoming my trial. My name is Oscar Orcas. I am the man who created this labyrinth. I suppose to the world I'm known as a maverick." It seemed the dead man sitting in front of them was Oscar Orcus, the creator of the Great Orcus Labyrinth. While Hajime and Yue were surprised to see the creator Selena was worried to see him use the same arm that Hajime will end up using instead of restoring it with restoration magic that they should all have the ability to use back then. 

"By the way, please spare me any questions. This is nothing more than recording I left behind, so I unfortunately cannot answer any queries you may have. I want to tell those who made it this far why it was that we, who learned the truth of the world, chose to fight against the god…" So much emphasis was put on that world alone as he rubbed his metal arm, as if recalling terrible memories. "So I decided to leave a message. And this was the simplest form to convey that message in. I want you to know…" his eyes turn every so slightly as if we are looking at Selena instead of looking ahead.

"I know not what they go by now, but in my era, they went by the name of The Church of Light. Be wary of them, even during my time, there were many things that were set up for their plans." The story he wove for them was completely different from the history Hajime head learned from the Holy Church records, or the stories Yue had been told about the mavericks. Now the trio knew that what had been messing with them in the last boss fight was that the Church of Light set up traps for some reason. 

His take was one of the mad gods and their descendants who fought against them. A short time after the Age of the Gods, the world was engulfed in strife. Humans, demons, and even the beastmen all fought against each other in a never-ending war. Their reasons were as numerous as their battles. Land, resources, personal values, greed, but most important among them was theology. 

In that age the races and countries were split up into numerous factions, each of which had their own god. And it was each tribe's god that incited its people to fight against who worshiped others.

After some time, a group appeared that sought to put an end to this centuries-long war. They call themselves Liberators. They were descended from one of the gods. Their leader was someone who had, by coincidence, happened to learn of the gods' true intentions. It appeared that gods were using the various races like pawns, playing a grand game of chess with the world as their board. The leader of the Liberators couldn't stand their sickening disregard for life, and began looking for comrades who felt the same way he did.

After finding like minded people to join his cast they appointed eight of them to be the vanguard in the fight against the gods. But, before they could get things started, they had a turn coat that sold them out and left the group in a weakened state due to them sabotaging them. Only to soon be called enemy of god forcing them to go into hiding and lose many of their loved ones and comrades. 

The seven strongest Liberators were the only ones remaining. With the entire world against them, they realized they wouldn't be able to defeat the gods or their turn coat comrade, since it took the seven of them just to stand toe to toe with him. So they scattered to the end of the planet and built huge Labyrinths to hide themselves in. They created a series of trails, praying that someone who could clear them might one day appear, so they could bequeath their powers onto them in hopes that these new warriors would carry out their dreams.

After he finished his long speech Oscar smiled peacefully. "I have no idea who you are or why you chose to fight your way down here. Nor do I have any intention of forcing my own dreams of the gods' demise onto you. I simply wanted you to know what it was we fought, and died for… As reward for hearing me out, I shall grant you my strength. How you use it is entirely up to you. Remember, change cannot occur without sustained effort and an unprecedented level of commitment." 

Hearing those words at the end was a surprise, not because Selena had heard them so many times over with her one hundred sixty hours before, but from whom they come from and she recalled playing Persona 3 and the opening speech for Mitsuru. 'Why the hell is he refereeing that of all things?!'

"Hmm, he is oddly even trying to inspire us. That old man, even in death he wished us the best of luck." 

"What are you going to do?" Yue asks with a slight till of her head. 

"Me? Nothing. I could care less about this war. I just want to go home." Hajime looks towards Selena and sees her in own little world once again. "Hey Selena, what's up?"

"Umm," she re-focus on the moment, letting the significance of those last words die in the back of her mind for now. "Sorry, I missed the last few seconds of what the two of you were talking about."

"Ugh, whatever. Just get in the circle you two." He says, exasperated.

"Why?" Yue asks with a tilt of her head.

"It is ancient magic so who knows, it might help."

"Okay, I guess," Yue shrugs, as she pulls Selena along as they switched places and the same message started to play again. Yue and Selena felt a stinging in their head at that moment as the information was imprinted into their minds.

"So," Hajime starts, "what do you want to do, girls?" 

"Well, I am with you. My strength will be at your disposal." Yue says without a second thought.

"That's easy, it is to help you," Selena smiles all the while clearly not wanting to answer the question as she starts playing with her hair twirling it in circles.

"That's not what I mean. Do have a goal in mind for yourself. You know I want to go home at the end of our journey."

"Look Hajime I'm going to be honest, I just don't know," Selena says, smiling all the while. "I'm not a hero. I'm not going to fight those gods we heard about, but from the looks of it, we may not have a choice in the end. So the best thing I can do is prepare while we try to find a way home, but we are only three people, so we sure keep an open mind while we travel around. I'm not saying we go out of our way to help but for those that stumble across our path I like to extend a help hand."

Yue and Hajime were both surprised it was almost as if she had been preparing this little speech for weeks. It told a lot while not directly answering the question at its core. Both decided not to call her out since neither could tell that she was lying. Hajime knew that, when she was good and ready, she would answer. This had happened a few times back in Japan, like the time she took him out for his birthday, much to his great reluctance.

Hajime took a moment to go to Oscar's skeleton and took the ring from its hand and gathered the bones. 

As the process finishes up Hajime walks over to the door. "Let's give the guy a proper burial since I don't like to leave his remains where we will be living for a while."

Soon after exiting the house they went to the left side of the house and Hajime made a hole to lay the bone to rest. He also made a tombstone that had the following written on it: Here lays Oscar Orcas. 

"Let's find some clothes and, since he clearly was a Synergist, he must have a workshop. I want to see what Oscar came up with," Hajime says, mostly hoping that the arm the projection had would be in the workshop.

"Oh, he must have been a hoarder in his life too," Selena says while gesturing at Hajime.

"Hmph"

With their now ring unlocking more of the house, they found more rooms that were now available to them. They now had access to the library, the master bedroom, a guest room, a kitchen, a storage room for golems, and a few other spare rooms. Finally, at the back of the house, they found Oscar's workshop.

When they entered the last room everyone stared to see metal, hammers, a smiting area and, on the wall, was the metal arm they saw from Oscar's projection not too long ago. "I'm going to stay in here," he said while going over the book that was on the shelf, most likely explaining how the artifact worked. "You two should go back to the bedroom to find clothes to wear, since I don't think you want to walk around in your birthday suit."

"Ok, we will be back later," Yue says, seeing Hajime was already engrossed with the workshop and trying to find out how to use the protected arm to replace his miss arm. She grabs Selena's only free arm since the other was being used to keep the sheet covering her body. 

Soon both of them made it to what looked to be the master bedroom and Yue started throwing cloth into the bed to see what they picked. Seeing a white undershirt, Selena picks that and black button up shirt to go over it. "Hey Yue, do you think that now that we have more materials, we will be able to make better outfits. 

Yue just looked at her as she wore a single shirt like a dress since she was so small. "When are we going to talk about it?" Yue came right in front of Selena, clearly wanting to talk about the last fight. 

"I don't know what you mean? We won after all didn't we? There isn't much to say." She plays with her bangs twisting them due to her feeling very uncomfortable with this line of questions being bought up. 

"No, that is not what I meant." Pointing at her arm where her scar is hidden. "When we were fighting, that last move nearly killed you. Do you have any idea what that would have done to Hajime if you just died like that." Her eyes are boring into Selena like she could see her soul. 

Selena looked away, "It's okay, he has you to help him out if that came to pass. I know you like him and you will watch out for him in my stead. Don't get me wrong I just did what I thought would get us the win in that situation since Hajime was tired and between the two of us I had a sure fire way to slow him down allowing you to shoot him down." 

Yue slapped Selena in the face at that moment. "I don't understand why you do this to yourself. You know he has feelings for you too, and yet you don't do anything with it! Just be straight with him, quit leading him on, will you. And as for your attempted suicide, I'll miss you too. I didn't have many friends back when I was queen, much less someone who could be my equal." She end up hug Selena at the end of that little rant. "Just don't go trying to be a hero, there always another way that doesn't involve kill yourself for us please."

Selena started to cry she just couldn't bare to see one her favorite character she read about show so much emotion for someone other that those she true came to hold dear. "I'm sorry, Yue. I just thought with or without me the two of you would be fine. It's not that I don't have feelings for him, it's just that I don't see him in a romantic way. Honestly… he was always a strong person back in our world, it is just that he is stronger now. He can be really stupid sometimes, so I hope that you can be there for him too."

"He is not the only stupid one, you are stupid for thinking that you can easily be replaced." Yue grumbles into her chest.

"Thank you, Yue. I promise to look out for myself." Squeezing Yue a bit tighter to her chest

"Good, you better. Also can you let go now?" At this moment the air in the room became charge with both using body strengthening one to hug the other to try and break up from this moment.

"Mmm? I don't think I will. You're just so fun size. Let's stay like this a while longer, Yue. I couldn't help it, your reactions are just soo cute that I just want to squeeze you! I just want to hold you tight and swing you around! I didn't think you care about me. The two of us just never had some time to ourselves for some girl talk.

With a huff of exasperation, Yue bites the side of her boob drink blood since she wouldn't let go. 

Melting under her touch Selena slumps to her knees. "No fair, that's cheating. I wasn't ready for the attack. It has been a time since there isn't any monster trying to attack us."

"Oh no, I was just teaching a cow how to behave. Also your blood taste very refreshing, like water just barely came down the mountain."

"Is that so? Then how does Hajime blood taste?" She had honestly forgotten the little details of the story given all of the time that has past. 

"He tastes like fine wine." She says, licking her lips seductively

'I'm not a wine person myself, mostly beer and even then not the expensive kind.' Selena thought to herself. 

After a while the two just spend time talking about making new outfits for the party, the meat left over from the final boss, how Yue froze it for them so as to not go to waste, and other minor things like about hair care and what not. 

xxxx

"Oh, you two are back. How did it go?" 

Selena's clothes just barely fit her show off a bit of her mid drift since chest was kind of big. And Yue end up wearing a single shirt like a dress since she was so small. "Uh Yue, what look are you going for there?"

"It's not my fault everything here is just too big here."

"It bet she wishes it was something you wore than she would be more delighted." Selena teased.

Yue slapped Selena's butt. "Quite, you don't need to say that." Smirking all the while.

Hajime was dumbfounded since up till this point neither of them were on such friendly terms. "I feel as though I miss something here."

"That for us to know and you never to find out." Selena retorted, with Yue humming in agreement.

"Well whatever. So I need a bit more time and help with the arm. Yue I don't get some of these terms about magical nerve endings. But even after I get arm on, I want to train. That last fight was too close for comfort," He says, balling his fist and recalling how he was just a spectator at the end of the fight. 

"Yea, now that we got the time, I can teach you martial arts. All this time you have been watching and learning from my close encounters, but you mix it up in your own stances. If someone as strong as us gets close to you, you might be in trouble right now." Selena says while having a serious gaze at Hajime.

"Yea, I know," heaving a sigh, thinking about how much his butt is going to hurt, learning from her.

You need to work on your magic too, Selena. It takes too much time for some of your casts. I also want you to try to pull on other elements more instead of having to take in a breath, especially since water is something I can create for you. I also haven't seen you use wind much, and I seen wind skill is there too. It is best to have more tools, even if you have those," Yue says as she points at their guns. "Hajime hit his targets more often than you."

"Oh don't worry, Yue. You will be joining us for close combat training too," Selena smirks at her. "Such a lovely lady like you will always draw attention to herself."

"I don't need it. I will always have my magic, hmph" Yue turns away from the two, not wanting to get her butt kicked by the cow.

"So we got a plan. I need a few days with Yue while we get this arm on me and after we will be training and get more equipment made for the trials ahead. Man, I bet they won't be able to recognize me when they see us next time, Selena" Hajime says, recalling their classmates, Ryutarou the muscle head , Shizuku with her blade always poised to attack, Kaori only able to recall her face as he fell in to the depths of hell, and someone else kept escaping his mind, but decided to move on since too much work to try and recall it. (Poor Endou)

"Okay I'll go get the food ready for us while you two work that thing out." Selena walks out the room, leaving Yue and Hajime together to go over the notes clarifying things for Hajime as to allow him to understand the process of connecting his new arm to himself.