Chapter 9: Speed Trumps Flair

"Yay! We're back!" Katayoki, my Zanpakuto Spirit cheered from inside my head a moment after I sighed with relief over being done with all the bullshit that came with that last scenario.

"Oh, god please tell me I'm not going to have to live with you constantly backseating me for the rest of my life," I prayed to all the gods I could think of, most prominently the nebulous Gacha Gods I wholeheartedly had faith in… for the most part.

Sometimes.

When they weren't being assholes to me.

"Hey, I'm only dutybound to chime in when I feel it's necessary. That'll probably only be whenever you're most agitated or exasperated with all the chaos and nonsense around you," the spirit said.

"So, pretty much all the time then. Great. I just have to give up Gacha to be free from you, but that's not a good enough trade, sadly."

"I know right? We're going to have so much fun together. Hahaha…"

I ignored the maniacal laughter and spent the rest of my day browsing Remnant's Youtube. Fortunately, the world hadn't reached or even shown signs of having passed the era of brainrot content. Unfortunately, that was where a good portion of my broken humor found its basis, so I was left with only mildly interesting documentaries, news, otherworldly politics, and how-to videos to kill my boredom.

When I wasn't getting smarter or wiser — I forget which one it was that increased based on the more things I knew. Both, maybe? — I was listening to music. Again there was good and bad news. Rock and hip-hop were well developed genres with plenty of good songs to find and enjoy. Breakcore and anything more extreme than early Skrillex-like dubstep, apparently didn't exist yet.

"Maybe if you pray for a Music Skill, the Gacha Gods will bless you with the opportunity to bring that kind of music into this world," Katayoki commented and for once, I could look past his annoying presence and agree with him.

I didn't know the first thing about making music, but if I got the right Skills or Abilities, I wouldn't pass the chance to remake some of my favorite songs… If I could still remember whenever the time came. Even as I was right now, I didn't have the perfect recall to remember exactly how a full breakcore song went from start to finish; there were too many nuanced details in my favorite songs for my ignorant casual-listener mind to have even picked up before I woke up in Remnant.

Whatever.

When it was finally a reasonable time to go to sleep, I lied down on my bed and tried to will for the next day to spontaneously arrive.

"Hey you, you're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border between consciousness and unconsciousness. Walked right into this ambush by me! Ha!" Katayoki said and it took every fiber of my patience to not jump him.

"Is this a prank? Because I'm not laughing, man," I glared at him.

"Don't be like that," he sulked. "While your physical body sleeps is the best time for us to get some spiritual training done and bring your Reiryoku up. As you are now, you can't even summon me into the real world."

"Do I even really need to? No offense, but you're not really my kind of weapon. Unbreakable, regenerable, and whatever else you are, I don't know how to use a throwing knife," I said.

"Come ooooon," he whined at me like a teenager who didn't get their way. "I'm literally made from a piece of your soul! I was made in your image, suited specifically to be the perfect weapon for you! Can't you even try to figure out how to fight with me? A Throwing or Throwing Knife Skill is bound to drop eventually, and I'm more than just that."

"Oh, I so going to regret this," I cursed under my breath. "Fine," I sighed to which Katayoki cheered.

He summoned a copy of his weapon form and I did the same instinctively before we started fighting in the black void that was my inner world.

Now, if I thought his voice, presence and demeanor before were agitating to the extreme, that had absolutely nothing in comparison to the loathing and hate I had for his demented fighting style.

Despite throwing knives apparently being our thing, Katayoki liked to get in close and personal to stab at me like he was running for yandere of the year. His combat prowess was a one-for-one match for me in all regards, but because he was obviously more familiar with how to use himself as a weapon, I ended up getting cut a bunch of times.

When I tried to get away to buy time and figure out a strategy against him, he started chucking his throwing knife at me. I said "started" because I quickly found out what is special ability was when the first knife I dodged teleported back to his hand, leaving a cutting rift in the direct path it would have traveled to reach his hand.

The rift was unfathomably sharp and remained for a few seconds before dissipating. Those few seconds were enough for the spirit to chuck eight more knives at me. Leaving up to nine rifts as environmental hazards that made dodging his throws or stabs increasingly harder.

"Fight back! Fight back!" he laughed as the injuries continued to pile up on my spiritual body.

"Fuck you!" I cursed at him as I threw my knife once my frustrations got the better of me. Miraculously, I instinctively managed to use his special ability to recall my thrown knife and from there it became a never-ending game where we chucked knives at each other. The game was rigged in his favor as I never so much as grazed him, but I was content with the idea that eventually, one day, I might pay him back for all this trouble he was giving me.

At some point the void of nothingness began to ripple, leaving me scared for my life.

Katayoki on the other hand grew depressed as he kicked at the nothingness below him and remarked, "Aw man, it's already time for you to wake up? Oh well, there's always tomorrow…"

As his voice grew more and more distant, I found my consciousness slipping. It was like I was fainting as the edge of my vision grew darker and darker before the darkness of the void was suddenly replaced by the ceiling of my apartment's bedroom and my vision began to clear up.

[Congratulations! For training over a full night with your Zanpakuto Spirit, you have earned two Unique Gacha Coins!]

I take back everything I ever said against you, my dear Katayoki. From this moment and onward, you are my most precious and dear friend.

"Cringe, dude. Say it again but replace "friend" with "nakama" if you really want to upset me," he must have been doubled over laughing his ass off within my inner world.

Nevermind, then.

I moved past this terrible moment in my life and got ready for work. I was no longer in the mood to roll for more rewards. I felt like his laughter was cursed with bad luck, which would ruin the potential of my rewards. Besides, it would probably feel a lot better to wait until after I got a couple hundred Coins from my work at the restaurant to cash everything in all at once.

"Edging now, are we? I respect your degeneracy," Katayoki sagely said.

"Please stop," I almost begged.

When he didn't respond, I let out a silent prayer in thanks before moving on to my morning workout. Going to Beacon to training would only happen on the days were I was fully dedicated to working out. So, instead of doing that, I just ran towards the border and spent the next two hours sprinting as hard as I could while annihilating all the Grimm that were unfortunate enough to enter my line of sight.

The monsters of negativity were just that, and entirely devoid of any lifeforce or Ki. It was the only reason I didn't kill any more than a couple dozen on the two hours I was running laps around the Kingdom of Vale. With my endurance and raw speed, I managed to complete two and a little over two-thirds of another lap before I returned to my apartment to shower and get ready for my shift at the Bistro Cafe.

The morning workout resulted in me getting another 12 Rare Gachas for running the laps as quickly as I did and killing five Alpha Grimm, and 174 Uncommons for getting rid of regular Grimm. In comparison to my shift at work, that turned out to be light work.

Who knew that my newfound superhuman physical prowess would make a night and day difference in my efficiency and speed while working as a line cook? Let's also not forget that my Cooking had only been Level 3 on my first day on the job. That very night I'd gotten enough Gachas to improve Cooking to the max of Level 10.

Max Cooking gave me an intuition and ease for keeping track of everything I was doing in relation to any food I was dealing with. That extended beyond simply knowing how to cut something properly and for how long to keep something cooking without screwing up, all the way to running dozens of internal timers that constantly updated even when I was busy dealing with non-cooking-related tasks.

When peak dinner time arrived and the tension in the kitchen reached its all-time high, I was unable to feel pressured as I kept track of everything I was in charge of with effortless finesse. The chefs were still as short with me as they were with everyone else, but I couldn't find it in me to take it personally when I knew beyond a doubt that I was doing everything I possibly could and beyond what could be expected of a normal person. The only way to get any better than I was with what I was working with was to bend the laws of space and time or warp reality to make the process of cooking itself faster.

Halfway through the peak of dinner time, I noticed something in the restaurant had gone awry as I saw the manager make a few sporadic trips in and out of the kitchen. I didn't find out until a few minutes later, when the head chef asked everyone in the kitchen if anyone knew how to bartend.

"I can bartend. I can't promise a fancy show, but I can mix drinks correctly," I offered.

"Aren't you eighteen?" The head chef narrowed his eyes at me.

"What does being eighteen have to do with knowing how to mix drinks? I don't drink," I said.

"Doesn't matter, you're too young—"

"Are you familiar with our drink menu?" The manager cut the head chef off.

"Sure," I lied. I didn't have to be familiar, to be able to intuit the recipes even if they were house-made with Level 10 Cooking.

"This is a bad idea, Dave…" The head chef warned.

"Why? It's not illegal." The manager turned to me, "Just don't let anyone catch you drinking."

"I do not drink!" I was offended by his implication that I would drink if I thought I could get away with it.

He ignored me and brought me out of the kitchen and over to a side room where I could change into a bartending uniform. Bistro Cafe was high-end enough that I didn't even question why they had a uniform in my size ready to go; it wouldn't surprise me if they had extra sets for people of all different sizes.

Once in uniform, I went to the bar lounge and started putting my superhuman speed to the test. You see, the funny thing about bartending and mixology was that there was rarely any catalytic conversions involved. Almost nothing had to be heated over a flame or required time to make the involved reactions happen. It was all about combining the right amounts of the right ingredients… for the most part.

There was technique involved for a lot of specialty drinks, but that technique didn't hinge on something as slow as food being cooked through. The point was, I blitzed through all my drink requests, completing up to a dozen drinks a minute if I could get requests that used the right combination of ingredients lined up at the same time.

It was a show onto itself and more importantly, it was worth truckloads of Rare and even Unique Gachas once I managed to get the entire restaurant customer base entranced by my speed. It was a self-sustaining cycle after I got people's attention by making good drinks which people were all too keen to comment on. More people got interested, causing me to prolong the show which caused more people to get interested and in turn… You know.

"Oh, hey Velvet," I said once I noticed Velvet watching by the side with a few other servers who currently didn't have anything else to deal with.

It was getting late into the night, where only the bar and late-night menu would remain with a much smaller and specialized staff. It was also a Thursday so most people who ate out were already out of the building probably due to having the responsibility to show up to school or work tomorrow.

"Do you ever get tired?" She asked. "You've been at that for over two hours now and I don't think I've seen you slow down since you started."

"It's not as bad as it seems," I said while shaking a Margarita in one hand and a Daiquiri in the other. "Plus, I have a real nice incentive to keep me going, you know?" I said while flash-pouring both drinkings without allowing even a drop to spill out of their cups, serving them and moving on to make an Old Fashioned and White Russian in the next couple of seconds.

"Please don't tell me how much you're making in tips. I don't think my heart could handle it," she playfully said with a low laugh.

Yeah, that's not what I was talking about, but she wouldn't understand the value of my Gacha Coins sooner than she would think I was insane, so I didn't bother to correct her.

"Hey, if you learned the drink menu, you could do this too, you know? Uh, maybe? Can't really tell since I haven't seen how fast you can move or if your endurance is as good as mine. But if you're anything like your teammates, you could still pull it off no problem," I said.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said before taking a look away from me and leaving. Tracing what she was looking at, I saw the hostess at the front of the restaurant bringing a couple to one of the seats in her area.

I continued for the next couple of minutes until my shift ended at ten and a replacement for me had been arranged. I would have been more than happy to continue bartending for the rest of the day if management hadn't found a solution, but I wasn't too bummed to leave at my designated time.

More Gacha was always good until it started consuming my life. I had to hold on to that belief or the next thing I know I'd falling down a slippery slope that might or might not end in sucking dick for twenty dollars to get another hit of that goodest, greatest crack— I mean doing unspeakable acts in the name pursing the neverending concept of "more" Gacha.

It was all fun and games until I went psycho and started killing random people for Uncommon Gachas or something similarly insane. That, I felt, would only come to fruition if I took things too seriously and it didn't cost me anything to remind myself every once in a while.