Chapter 9: Fun, Depression, and Off to Gremory

AUTHOR RANT

I went to disney land with my family over the weekend so I posted Minday's chapter on Friday.

Ight, some of yall are dissatisfied with my current pace and decisions with the MC in the story. This is my first time writing anything and I'm still trying to figure out how I can make this enjoyable for everyone. If you want a giga chad from chapter one, go read A Sleeping Dragon on fanfiction.net. If you dont like my fic thats cool. If you do, thats also cool. I do have plans for character development in the future, but it's going to be a steady climb to it. This is my way of having fun and sharing it, if you are not interested and offended by it, click your 'back' button. I aint stopping you. If you wanna join me to see this story flesh out to the best of my ability, then I'll be glad to have you.

Now that my rant is over, enjoy.

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After eating and having a second internal crisis over the fact that I might just have gotten tamed by Kuroka's food, I proceed to lead the two nekoshou to one of the recreational halls.

Their eyes widened at the sight before them. Modern arcade games like DDR, air hockey, zombie shooter, etc, drink and snack bar, mini golf, rock climbing, billiards tables, a room that leads to a laser tag arena, and the main attraction, a large bowling alley 16 lanes accross.

I personally took a cursory glance when I first toured the mansion a year ago, but now that I take a good look, I am once again in awe at the handiwork of the Reality Marble. And I'm not the only one since the nekomimi sisters are as dumbfounded as I am.

I sneakily pull out my camera and snap a picture before quickly putting it away.

*KO-HON*

"Well, we've eaten quite a hearty meal earlier, so why not burn off some calories? Take a shot at everything, see what your favorite game is."

The girls look over at me with some excitement in their eyes, nod, and take off into the place to have some fun.

No matter what she's been through, Ultimate or not, Kuroka is still just a kid at this point, mature for her age, but still a kid. Naturally when she sees something fun, she wants to try it. Shirone is Shirone, nuff said.

I head over to the drink bar and pour myself some strawberry lemomade before heading over to the arcade section to have some fun myself. I think the last time I went to the arcade was 25 years ago.

Damn, I'm old.

But thanks to ROB, I have a new chance at life and I'm going to make full use of it. Though I think that being in the body of a child has also had an impact on my mentality since I'm really excited to see what this place has to offer. Child growth hormones and all that junk is probably messing with my head.

Meh, food for thought.

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* CRASH *

"HELL YEAH, STRIKE BABY!!"

It has been 2 hours since we came to the recreational room and we have had a shot at just about everything here.

Currently, the girls and I are having a bowling tournament, 1 person to a lane cuz we can, and I just took the lead.

Now, being supernatural beings, everything in this room is all stupid easy for us, so I made the rule of restricting our power to that of a regular human while in the room so that way everyone can have fun. A little difficult at first but we all got the hang of it.

With that rule in place, bowling got a bit more fun and challenging and I have taken the lead from Shirone. Surprisingly Shirone is a beast when it comes to bowling despite never playing it before and she has managed to stay in the lead throughout the entire tournament.

Meanwhile Kuroka. . .

Well she looks like she has lost all meaning in life. And I have plenty of pictures.

The scorboard is

Zell - 110

Shirone - 108

Kuroka - 21

I would despair too, if I was in her place.

The pins are reset and the last frame is ready to go. We all take position, and take our shots, Kuroka reluctantly does so.

* CRASH *

STRIKE, FUCK YEAH

I look over to my side and see that Shirone has also gotten a strike. This is a close game. Kuroka . . . well, she can rest now.

Shirone and I wait for the pins to reset preparing ourselves for the potentially final throw.

Pins set, lane clear. Aim, FIRE!!

* THUMP *

FUUUUUUUCK, GUTTERBALL!!!! WHYYYYYY!!?

I freeze for 20 seconds, before looking over in despair at Shirone, who just scored all 3 strikes from the last frame.

Shirone: "V"

She's doing a guts pose with her hand in front of her with 2 fingers up.

I fall to my knees in despair looking up to the sky. Kuroka joins me seconds later as we stare into the ceiling at nothing.

Shirone just walks off towards the snack bar for some chocolate, uninterested in the despair she has caused.

In a lifeless tone I look over to my fellow companion wallowing in despair and depression with me and ask.

"Agreement to never challenge Shirone to a bowling game ever again?"

In a similar lifeless tone she responds

Kuroka: "Agreed"

We proceed to spend the next 10 minutes curled up in depression.

Shirone does a cute head tilt.

Shirone: "Mm?"

And shrugs it off, walking over to the arcade area.

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After the event that Kuroka and I agreed that never happened, we decided to take a nap, us to prevent depression, and Shirone because she got tuckered out.

After waking up and having some top quality chocolate brownies to wake us up, we decide we've rested enough and agree to continue on our journey towards the Gremory territory.

The girls change into some new kimonos that I provided for them, black with a golden obi for Kuroka and snow white with blue paw prints and a black obi with golden paw prints for Shirone. After they finished changing, they met me in the entrance hall of the mansion, ready to take off.

Although they did look at me wierd when they came down. Did I do something?

Meh, whatevs.

"Alright let's get going."

They both nod and I will us out of the marble.

We emerge where we originally landed after escaping, the make shift grill still set up but the fire has been out for a while. As for the monster carcass, it's nowhere to be found.

I look over to the girls, eyes now open and staring at their surroundings incredulously.

"Let's go."

I unfurl my wings and start floating while Kuroka nods and picks up Shirone, unfurling her wings following me.

I get my bearings together and proceed to fly east towards Gremory territory full speed ahead. Kuroka casts a small barrier around Shirone and follows.

Though neither of them has asked questions, I am ready to redirect them. I don't trust Kuroka enough to let her walk away scot free. I'll have her swear on the River Styx, the most sacred oath that ensures actual death - soul and everything - if broken, so that she doesn't go around blabbing about the pearl.

If she says anything about it before that, I wouldn't mind being Shirone's caretaker for a few years to help her search for her "missing" sister. That being said, I don't want it to come to that if possible.

From what I remember from the series, the Gremory territory has a couple cities all in one place with a lake and flowing river nearby, so we can probably try to find a river flowing from the east and follow it and that might lead us to the city. Though I don't exactly want to get lost for a few days following a winding river to the middle of nowhere.

Now then, if the map that I read a while ago in one of the Naberius mansions is correct, then I estimate we should arrive at Gremory territory within 2 or so days. 1 and a half if we forgo breaks.

I relay that to Kuroka and she says she's alright doing it in one shot, Shirone just nods and proceeds to eat a chocolate bar she smuggled out of the marble. Where the fuck did she pull that out from?

With that question in mind, we fly full speed ahead eastbound. Time to fuck around with the timeline.