A Deal

Gliding through the, slightly murky, water, I make my way towards a flight of stairs that leads down to the first floor.

After exploring the upper portion of the shrine for the past half hour or so, I really hadn't found anything by else worth mentioning…

There were other, smaller, living areas, which also had their fair share of bones and such. Yet other than the remains of the deceased, there was nothing particularly interesting.

Drifting downward on the stairs, rays of light break through the patchy celling, causing a beautiful atmosphere to form in this desolate shrine.

Reaching the end of the first segment of stairs, I turn around before heading down the next segment, distracting myself with the scenery.

Peeling my eyes away from the beautiful rays of light, my vision is instead planted on another corpse, leaning on a wall at the end of the staircase.

This skeleton is wearing a shrine maiden esque outfit, a broom held between her arms and legs, partially leaning on the wall.

Stoping for a moment I take in this scene, a slight twang in my heart, before moving on, deciding it's best not to dwell here too long.

Over the next hour I explore the much larger first floor, finding nothing more than skeletons and junk in the shrine.

Yet, just when I'm about to think this was a waste of time, something catches my eye,, or rather my senses.

'There's a… empty space behind this wall…?'

Staring blankly at the nondescript wall, I focus in on my senses. And just as I had thought, behind the wall is an empty space that… leads down, yet it's still part of the shrines structure.

As I continue to investigate the strange wall, a familiar voice makes it self known… in an unfamiliar way.

[Hey… maybe we should leave… I don't think there'll be anything interesting back there!]

Big mans voice rings out in my head… carrying a certain unease, unlike his normal enthusiasm.

And despite my reliance on him… I can't help but ignore his words, his demeanor raising a slight suspicion in me.

'No, it's fine… I don't mind if theres nothing interesting here… I'm doing this for fun after all.'

Silence is his only response… making me wonder what's making him act so strange.

Continuing my investigation on the wall, I give up on trying to find a natural way through, instead deciding that I'll use a more forceful way.

Backing up a little, a start to put my plan into work using hydro motion.

Swiping my tail forward, I start to manipulate the current created by my movement, the water in front of me vibrating in excitement.

Slowing the currents momentum down to less than a crawl, I start to expand it until a wall of violently vibrating water is planted in front of me.

With a single motion of my mind, I let the wall of water go, using a slight bit of my energy to shield my body.

*chhhhhh BOOM*

The wall of violence races cowards, crossing the short distance between it and the other wall easily. As they make contact, I can barely tell what happens on collision, other than the complete destruction of the wooden wall.

As the dust, which had risen during the collision, starts to settle, my vision becomes clear, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the other side of the wall.

Three rocky walls, a celling, and a sharp drop is what I find on the other side of the wall. This secret area seemingly had been concealed by a cave of sorts, considering the rough stone walls.

Shrugging in my mind, I move forward, starting to descend into the shrines 'basement'.

Sinking lower and lower, a certain feeling starts to rise in my heart… a very strange one.

This feeling is… it's the feeling of want… a connection… a feeling that I have to keep going no matter what…

As this feeling continues to rage on in my heart, my mind starts to race, it's only goal is to reach whatever is causing this feeling.

Thinking about it now, the feeling is actually vaguely familiar, making me think of a certain statue I had previously encountered.

Finally, after so much time descending into the darkness, I finally spot the exit to the long drop, marked by a brilliant pink and blue glow.

As I reach the end of the long, dark shaft, a brilliant sight comes to my fishy eyes.

A wide open cave sprawls across my vision, filled with bright and glimmering pink and blue gems, lighting up the dark cave.

On the floor of the cave, in all there glory, are various fish themed statues, each is drastically different from the last. Along the walls in areas lacking any gems are carvings of various aquatic creatures and landscapes.

'No… not far enough!'

And although that feeling grows stronger, it's still not close enough, still too far.

So, with a slight twist in my body, I bolt forward, utilizing my abilities to the fullest to get to the source of this feeling as fast as possible.

As I continue onward, using my abilities even better than I had consciously, a faint voice enters my ears.

[HEY get —— out ——- ___ —— —— —- —- there — ———— — ——- ——- kill—- —- you!]

Big mans voice sounded out, that I could tell, yet the words and what they mean failed to register in my mind.

Ignoring Big Mans further cries, I accelerate my speed even further, barely registering exactly how fast I'm going.

Then I come to a halt, the world slowing down from its blur, a mass of water passing by me from behind, caused by my own speed.

My surroundings had unknowingly shifted, finding myself in a dark narrow cave, dimly lit by dull grey crystals. The statues which had previously stood tall over the cave are now shattered and ruined, sitting along the ground.

In front of me, the narrow cave opens up significantly into a large dark cavern.

Multitudes of strings cascade over the open space, dangling hundreds of slips of paper over the dim cave.

The papers, which could easily number one the thousands, all have various characters on them with unknown origin.

Yet seeing these, I could make an easy guess as to what it is… seals.

Over, on the other side of the large cavern, is a house… or at least part of a house. The house is Asian in design, party extruding from the cave wall, light comes from inside of the house, passing through a paper sliding door.

'This… this is it!'

Speed. I had become the embodiment of speed. As I rushed towards the house on the other side of the cave, I easily used hydro motion to destroy each and every talisman strung throughout the cavern.

In moments, I had reached the cavern and destroyed each piece of paper, in turn bursting right through the house into its interior.

Yet, as soon as I had shot through the sliding door, nothing happened…

My surroundings shifted into nothing, the previous feeling had disappeared and… everything was gone.

"My… how amusing… such a cute thing was the one to free me and… what a nasty parasite too…"

A voice rung out in the darkness, confusing me as I had not noticed my conscious come back.

I tried and failed to move, drawing out a giggle from the voice.

"I feel kind of bad for you… heh… since you were such a good girl to free me… how about a deal?"

As the voices word echo around in the void, the surrounding darkness starts to congeal together, creating a vague human shaped form.

The previous void had been revealed to be… a simple house interior, coated in darkness.

Still unable to move, I witness as the darkness further forms itself into the shape of a girl. Without any further talk, the darkness pops, revealing it's true form.

Crouching in front of me, with a massive grin, is a girl. She's rather short, around five foot, with short chin length blonde hair and light blue eyes. The girl is wearing… a hoodie, and slippers….

"So how about it?"

—- —- —-

Guess I'm back, huh.

If your wondering about what the hell is going on than… me too.

But for real, next chap will have everything explained… but if your wondering than I took someone's advice on the previous 'chapter'.

Anyway, I'll spoil a bit now but…

Big man is out of here, and we're going to a new world soon.

Uhm… Webnovel is still fucked with it not saving any written drafts, so that kinda pisses me off.

Also, I did a real shit job of describing the girl at the end of this chapter but…

If you want to know what I was thinking, lookup 'Hyde' from Grandchase.

This chapter was kind of a rush job but I'll try to do better next time… probably.

I guess I want to say thanks (?) for you guys not giving up on me yet, or whatever.

I feel kinda shitty about not uploading for so long, but only a little…

Toaru or ToG?

These are like… my two favorite series… and I really want to write them in but…

I feel like MC wouldn't fit in ToG and if I write Toaru I would have to rewatch the series.

Honestly, why isn't there a some sort of website that has anime episode transcripts or something… that'd make it so much easier to have to rewatch shit and try to fit each science on a timeline.

If you could tell, I'm very lazy when writing…

Eh that's all for now… nice talking with you guys… bye bye.