Chapter 35: The Abengers Part 8

*Third Person POV*

'A familiar room…'

That was the first thought Kirari had after she woke up feeling refreshed.

And she wasn't wrong for thinking so.

She found herself back in the same bed in the same room that she woke up in after Tetsu and Rojiya first picked her up. It was the room in Abegawa Tenchu-Kai's Tokyo base.

After she lost consciousness due to Energy depletion, blood loss, and rapid loss of Health points, Kirari had no clue what happened.

Like last time, Kirari woke up on guard and used Electroreception. She found only one other person in the room.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake."

Natsumi, the red-head who looked like she was in her late twenties and was one of the causes for Kirari's black out, spoke up after she noticed that Kirari was awake. She sat in the same seat that Tetsu had been sleeping on the previous night.

[Natsumi image here]

"How are you feeling?" She awkwardly asked the little girl she had stabbed not so long ago.

"Besides a slight pain in my chest, I feel just fine." Kirari replied sarcastically.

She was actually in perfect health.

Natsumi grimaced upon hearing Kirari's words.

"Sorry… I- I did not mean to-"

"Pffft. That was a joke. I was trying to lighten the mood. Jeez, I could practically feel the guilt oozing off of you, you know." Kirari said to Natsumi after rising up to sitting position on the bed.

She might have been acting a bit too familiar with a person she technically just met, but she couldn't stand the depressing aura that Natsumi was letting out.

"Uh, what?" Natsumi muttered in confusion.

"I know that you didn't mean to stab and almost kill me. You were under Hitogami's control at the time. I get that, so you don't have to feel any guilt towards me. I completely forgive you." Kirari stated while putting her hands on her hips and puffing up her chest.

The image of benevolence she was trying to portray would have looked better if she wasn't wearing a black shirt that was clearly way too big for her, so much so that it was practically a dress. It was the smallest sized shirt that Natsumi could find at the time, and considering the state of Kirari's previous clothes, it was better than nothing.

"Besides… I'm alive aren't I?"

"…" Natsumi was speechless and didn't know what to say to this cute, innocent looking girl she nearly murdered.

Kirari noticed this, so she decided to change the subject.

"Oh, I forgot! I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Archer! I was just casually taking a night stroll when I passed by a certain warehouse. To my surprise, a gang war was taking place inside! Being the good Samaritan I am, I decided to help out after spotting some guys I recognized and somehow, I ended up here." She said, summarizing the night's events with exaggerated hand movements, and in a tone as if she was completely convinced that what she said was the absolute truth.

Amused by Kirari's actions, Natsumi finally let out a chuckle. She appreciated Kirari's attempt to try and lift up her mood, so she decided to play along.

"Okay… Well, I'm Natsumi. Nice to meet you. I'm sort of the head of the Information Gathering division of the Abegawa Tenchu-Kai gang. While following a lead on the opposing gang that had been doing business on our turf, I got caught by Hitogami. Because of this, the tensions between our gang and the Hitogami family gang rose. It became the spark that led to this war where so many lives were lost…"

'Aaaaand we're back to where we started. Is it her default setting to be so negative?' Kirari thought.

"… When I finally recovered, the first thing I saw was me stabbing you…"

"Right! About that. I've been meaning to ask, but what happened after I lost consciousness?" Kirari hurriedly asked to change topics and not let the mood drop any further.

"Well, Rojiya and Tetsu immediately ran over and practically kidnapped you from my hands."

Kirari tried to imagine the scenario Natsumi described in her head.

"Rojiya carefully laid you down and removed my knife from your chest. He started doing first aid while Tetsu gave me a brief explanation of what happened when he noticed that I was back to normal."

"I see… And this all happened only around one hour ago?"

"Right."

"What happened next?"

"There was blood continuously spilling from your mouth and blocking your air passages. Tetsu started panicking and wanted to resuscitate you-"

"MY DIO! PLEASE TELL ME HE DIDN'T DO MOUTH TO MOUTH!"

'The image of a middle-aged man doing CPR to my unconscious self…' Kirari shuddered at her thought.

"…"

"WHY AREN'T YOU SAYING ANYTHING?! Don't tell me… HURRGH... I- I think I'm gonna puke…"

"Well he was about to…"

"Huuuuurrrp…"

"… But Rojiya quickly stopped him."

"AH, DIO-SAMA! THANK YOU FOR BLESSING THIS ONE WITH THE SAVIOUR ROJIYA!"

Kirari got on her knees and put her hands together in front of her chest in a praying position.

"I definitely need to repay him somehow…"

"Hehe. Don't worry about that." Natsumi said with a slight chuckle.

"In fact, based on what they told me, it's us who owe you. If you hadn't shown up when you did, ATK may no longer exist at this point."

"Well, I did it for the EXP… and I did owe them a favor. So, I guess we can call it even." Kirari said after some pondering.

"So what happened after that?" She asked Natsumi while switching to a cross-legged position on the bed.

"You don't know?" Natsumi asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I wouldn't be asking if I did." Kirari sassily replied.

"Hmm. How do I explain this… Rojiya stopped Tetsu from resuscitating you because… your hair suddenly grew."

"… What?" Disbelief was plastered on Kirari's face.

"Yeah, it just suddenly grew out and changed to your current hairstyle. It's like you became a whole other person in an instant. The stab wound on your chest also disappeared and you started breathing again."

After hearing Natsumi's explanation, Kirari made a realization. She quickly opened her system status which she hadn't done all this time because of the chat with Natsumi.

===

Character: Fischl (Max)

Name: Kirari Kaminari

Age: 9

Level: 30/30

Health: 300/300 – Regen: 1 per minute

Energy: 300/300 – Regen: 5 per minute

Physical: 15 (Max)

Mental: 20 (Max)

State: Healthy

Mods (10/10):

-Aura: Gamer's Mind (20 Fixed): Mental Buff, Mental Debuff Immunity

-Full Rest (5): 1 Hour Sleep = Full Restore

-Sonic (5/10): +50% Movement Speed

===

Skill: Electromaster (Max)

-Power (10/10): 120,000V

-Range (10/10): 120m

-Efficiency (0/10): 1 Energy = 120,000V per second

-Special (10): Electro Control > 9000 (Kirari)

===

Vision: Familiar (Max)

-Power (10/10): 110% Skill Power

-Durability (10/10): 110% Character Health

-Cost (0/10): Summon = 100, Casting Moves = 100% Cost

-Special (10): Transform

===

'Full Rest… Is that why I felt refreshed when I woke up?' Kirari thought.

'Wait. When did I switch back to Fischl?'

Last she remembered, she had Lumine equipped when she was stabbed.

She opened the menu to change characters but was surprised at what she saw.

Instead of an option to change to Lumine, a timer counting down from around 23 hours was shown.

'24 hour cooldown? Did Lumine die and now I have to wait for the timer to end before I can use her again?'

Kirari thought about it for a moment before becoming excited.

'Doesn't this mean I have three lives?! If I unlock all three of my characters, then the only way to permanently kill me is to kill all three of them within a span of 24 hours after the first character dies!'

In Genshin Impact, when the active character runs out of Health and "dies", a party member with Health remaining will become the active character. The "dead" character can be revived with certain food items, however there is a cooldown. The player can keep playing so long as there is still a living party member. If the whole party dies, an option to respawn at a certain place will appear.

In Kirari's system, no food item is required, and the cooldown to revive a character is 24 hours. The respawn option is questionable and she has no plans to find out whether her system has it or not.

She decided that one character must remain alive at any time as her "Final Life".

'Wait… What if, before a character dies, I switch to a different character? Will the regeneration of Health and Energy take effect on an unequipped character while I have a different character equipped? Ugh. I should have paid attention to Fischl while I was using Lumine…'

Kirari's mind went into overdrive as she thought of the various implications of the newly discovered features of her system. She thought of various tests that she needed to do once Lumine revives.

'I still have to unlock Lumine's Skill and Vision. If I switch Visions while Oz is still summoned, will he un-summon or will I be able to have all three of my Visions summoned at the same time? There's also the Formas and Orokin Potatoes to consider. Once I max out everything, I should have at least three Potatoes and six Formas. Will I even get any more after maxing everything? Can I reach the "One Hundred Forma Losers Club" like in Warframe?'

Kirari was so engrossed in her thoughts that she did not notice the other members of ATK entering the room.

"Hey, Natsumi. How are you? What's up with her?" A bandaged up Rojiya asked Natsumi who had been trying to snap Kirari back to reality for the last few seconds.

Rojiya, Haruhisa, Souji, and Tetsu had been handling the clean-up of the war all this time. Even Takami, who had been injured before the war and was unable to participate, helped out as it was the least he could do. He was in charge of their gang's logistics after all.

They left Natsumi to watch over Kirari since she had already been through a lot and they thought she needed a break after what had happened to her.

"I don't know. We were just talking when she suddenly became all quiet."

"Hey kid. How you doin'?" Tetsu called out after he entered the room.

"… Hello? Kid? Archer? … Great. You broke her." Tetsu said to Natsumi after not getting a response from Kirari.

Natsumi grew a frown after hearing what he said. Tetsu had always been brash and usually she didn't mind. However, right now Natsumi wasn't exactly in a right state of mind due to her experience being controlled by Hitogami.

She wanted to say something to him, but he ignored her and walked up to Kirari. He started waving his hand in front of her blank face.

"Oooiii~ Anybody in there~? Hm? Wasn't your eye purple before? When did it change to this golden color?"

Tetsu noticed a change in Kirari that wasn't there before. He leaned over to try and get a closer look.

Just at this moment, Kirari returned from her overthinking, and the first thing she saw was Tetsu's face staring intently at her, only a few inches away from hers.

[Tetsu image here]

It was the same, traumatizing face of a middle-aged man that she imagined earlier during Natsumi's recounting.

Kirari, who had the Gamer's Mind mod equipped and had the capability to calmly and logically think things through while maintaining a peaceful state of mind, reacted instantly.

"IYAAAAA! [THUNDERSHOCK]!"

*SMACK*

Without any time to react, Tetsu was slapped across the face and smashed into a wall.

The crisp noise of buzzing electricity hung in the air after Kirari's slap incapacitated Tetsu.

Tetsu, the only man who came out nearly unscathed after the war, a fact that he had been rubbing into his comrades faces just a few moments earlier before they entered the room, was done in by a little girl's slap.

""…""

An awkward silence filled the room as everyone watched Tetsu's unconscious body slowly slide down the wall and fall to the ground ingloriously.

"How would you like to join the Abegawa Tenchu-Kai gang, Archer?"

Rojiya's sudden question broke the silence. Kirari was taken aback by his question and could only reply with…

"Nani?"

Chapter End.

A/N:

I enjoyed writing this chapter. Ended up a bit longer than I expected.

How do you guys feel about the revive mechanic?

I feel like it's not OP enough… sure it makes MC hard to kill, but in the end, it's not "Immortal" level… I should fix that…

Also, let me repeat that the Gamer's Mind that MC has is not exactly the same as the original Gamer's Mind of Han Jihan or the one Momonga from Overlord has that suppresses his emotions.

I compressed the Status a bit. I will only put the descriptions if it's something new or maybe I'll make a glossary.

P.S.: FISCHL SKIN HHHNNNGGGGG~ Changed cover image.