11- Must Lew- Must Protect! I Swear It's Must Protect!

'Welp, that was kinda anticlimatic.' Cal shook his virtual head after seeing the spider just disappear into the sky and waiting for a dew seconds, just in case it was calling for its big bro. But there was no such thing.

Well, he was kinda exagerating. He thought he had a pretty good guess as to why the spider retreated immediatly after the first injury.

Self-preservation. Yes, that simple. If he went with the idea whatever was governing the world was semi intelligent even running on instinct, which plenty of things since now led him to believe was the case. Then it was normal, even more for a program that may not be able to heal normally or at all like a living organism. In that case, self-preservation was the number one priority, even more that like say... Threat elimination, or safegarding your territory from a weird intruder in green juggernaut armor.

Also, he had the feeling the spider he just fought was way weaker than whatever had assaulted him when making the three poems. And that too had retreated promptly after he had managed to lash back instinctively.

Of course, had no way to confirm if it was actually true. But he was good at guessing. And apparently very prone to overthink about things if his friends were to be believed. But he knew they were just jealous of his wisdom.

Realizing were his thoughts were going, he took a mental breath. It was time to get out of here, he had already learnt plenty. It would be enough for now.

Now, he just wanted to see someone else.

It had been, what? Maybe a dozen hours since he woke up today? And he already felt weird. Everything was just so silent, empty. This place was less so, and the background ambiance he had created helped too. But they were just distraction in the end.

Dismissing the thought and almost rolling his eyes at having the fleeting realization that he really did overthink. He focused his will and just, forcefully cut off his perception of the virtual world. And like being ejected by a wall of rubber, he came back abruptly to the physical world, feeling a bit dizzy from the abrupt change.

"Ah, that worked. Go figure." Shaking his head at his genius, he stood up and looked for something small in his surrounding.

Finding a spoon in the ustensil drawer he inspected it for a bit before casually wishing for it to rise in the air. 

And it fucking did. 

Grinning at the sight and thinking that he had already found how to progress his mind made the spoon wooble and fall back into the drawer with the rest of its kind.

'Not so easy huh?' Well, he kinda expected it. 

All in all, experimenting with his new training exercise and basically telekinesis power showed that he needed to constantly focus on the spoon and what he wanted it to do or his grasp would fall. 

And while yes he could just wish for that spoon to become a flying spoon and make circles in the air. It confirmed that doing an active and continuous change to the world was way harder than a one done deal or otherwise passive one.

It was like his brain muscle had all invested his stats in strength rather than dexterity. 

Further proof of that was that he could go as far as lift his kitchen table an entire metter up and down in the air fifty times before feeling the coming of a headache but couldn't for the life of him lift and control two spoons at the same time. He could alter a bunch of them at once but that was pretty much it.

It would otherwise be problematic to train up his mind muscles without it being inconveniant, considering the weight of the object he would need to lift, luckily, he had a simple solution.

Retrieving a pen from his room, he focused on it and wished for its weight to change. For its mass to increase. And for some reason, that seems to be a hard thing to do. His will just seemed to struggle to effectuate the change, it was increasing, but very slightly. 

Luckily, it didn't take that long to figure out why. He just needed to be more specific, more precise with his wish. Visualisation and context was the name of the game.

He could change the weight of the pencil in his hand to be the same as its equivalent in steel or other materials? Or he could set the weight to a precise unit of measurement and increase it accordingly. From a fraction of a kg, to 1, all the way to 20. Where he began to struggle to hold it aloft even with two hands since it was unwieldly. Fortunately, he could ease his load with his mind by easely lifting it in the air. 

After messing around for a bit, he settled on around 200kg. Where it began to actually be hard to move it around compared to before, the drain on him every second actually noticeable.

Especially as after all his previous manipulations today, he was feeling the strain. A pounding pain crackling behind his eyes. So he only manipulated the pen for a bit before deciding to not being dumb and resseting its weight to normal and dropping it.

Crashing on the couch, he massaged his temples and waited for the pain to pass. Which it did, after half an hour, fading to a mere faint throbbing that didn't occur him any pain... It seriously sucked, but hey, no pain, no gain. And apparently, this was applicable to mind muscles too.

He resolved himself to only train until he felt drained but not more than that. It wouldn't do to cripple himself for everything else since he planned to be training constantly. To that end, it would be better to lighten his training weight (pen) a bit.

That said, he thought he had done enough for now.

Time to let time resume its course.

That said, he stood up, cleared his throat and opened his arms.

"ZAAAA WAAAAA-"

—————

Standing before Sayori's house in his uniform, bag on his shoulder. Twirling a pristine pen in his hand, or at least trying to, as the object moved rather slowly and in jerks as it rotated around his fingers.

As he continued to wait, he would've checked his watch if he had one. He was pretty sure Sayori was cutting it close on time. Not that it really mattered since time would probably dilate or something so he arrive on time anyway. And even if it didn't, the hell the shadow teacher was gonna do? Put a mark on his report? Punish him? Call the director? As if. Dude was basically a collective hallucination catering specifically to him and Sayori. He was an imaginary friend that wasn't even a worthy to befriend.

It was as he was realizing how absurd it was to even insult the poor inexistent sod that Sayori decided to exited her house. Closing the door behind her, seemingly in a hurry. Upon catching a glimpse of him, she beamed a smile.

"Hey, you waited-" She trailed off and froze after a second of gazing at him, specifically, his new face. Her eyes going glassy with incomprehension and possible confusion, her head tilting naturally as she adorned a small uneasy and uncertain smile. 

She seems to struggle mightily with something for a few seconds before life came back to her eyes and she looked confused.

"Uh, where was I again?"

"Oh yeah! You waited for me!" Then she came running happily to Cal as if nothing had happened.

For his part, Cal struggled mightily to not ask her if she noticed if anything changed about him. He didn't want to take his chance and possibly break her, literally. But he still wondered what she was seeing when she gazed at him. Was she seeing him as he was, or was his appearance replaced by the one in her memory of himself. Perhaps it was her memory itself that was altered to acommodate his change? A possibility that made his heart clench.

"Of course I waited for you, I had to make a certain someone wouldn't run late because she wrote a certain poem at the last minute." Cal smirked knowingly as they began walking.

Sayori froze before looking at him with a sheepish expression. "H-how did you know?"

"I can read minds, how else?" He rolled his eyes.

"Woah! Really? What am I thinking about right now?" The orange haired girl said, her voice full of enthusiam as she began to squint, thinking really hard about something.

"Food."

"Wha- Okay what now?"

"You're thinking about me."

"Th-That's... Do it again, no chance you'll get it this time!" Her eyes widening in genuine surprise at his correct answer, she confidently followed up with asking for another round.

Cal stopped walking and turned toward Sayori, making her do the same, though she began to squirm slightly as she met his eyes who were gazing straight into her's. After a few seconds of that, she looked away from him, breaking the stalemate.

"W-well?"

Cal smiled teasingly as he answered. "You're thinking about your poem, afraid of if it'll hold up against the others. You're also wondering about mine, what it's talking about, and if I may have adressed it to someone in parricular."

Sayori looked shocked before she realized she had been put on the spot, making her look down and her cheeks flush red. When she further realized he was watching her she chuckled nervously and brought her fingers together.

"Huh, no?"

"No?" He chuckled. "Are you asking me if I'm wrong?"

Sayori looked embarassed and she very obviously decided it was time to jump forward in the subject. "Hehe, you really can read minds, huh? Could you read the other's as well?"

Shaking his head wrily at her obvious attempt at distraction, Cal began to walk forward again. Deciding to let her off the teasing hook. For now.

After a while, he gave her a look and said. "You know I was joking, right? I was right only because I know you so well. I probably couldn't pull it off with the other girls. Not now anyway."

After a pause in which he heard a distinct but slight slapping sound, she caught up to him and nodded repeatedly, a smile plastered on her face and her arms behind her back. "Of course, a joke! I knew that!"

After giving her another look, to which she smiled at him innocently, he shook his head and chuckled. She was so, so gullible. So easy to tease. He pitied her, really, poor her, of all people, she was stuck with someone like him. It'll be hard to refrain himself from bullying her too much.

Nonetheless, she was simply precious.

For that, and more, he would gives her an happy ending.

No matter what.