《Tsuno》 Chapter 1 - Manifest R-R-R-RING!!! The loud sound of the ringing bell pounded in my ears, I had been taking a little bit of a nap and was having a nice dream about my crush. I have my head and my arms, I accidentally drooled a bit on whatever paper my teacher handed out, after adjusting my eyes a bit I looked up and then set sights outside of the window I was able to get a nice look at the sky, the grass, the sidewalk, people walking, I look at the class door where i see Norimaru walking towards me. ¡°Hey, I still need my copy of Deshin Rumble back, cmon Kizuno¡± He walks towards me bag in hand ¡°Ya, ya, ya, I know. I meant to bring it today but was in a little bit of a rush this morning, i was gonna take Rimoru to my house to study and whatnot, test is tomorrow and I barely paid attention to anything, come with¡± ¡°Huh? Sounds good to me, lemme message my dad real quick¡± ¡°Alright, I saw Rimoru outside by the gate waiting, let me pack up my papers real quick and I¡¯ll be there in a second¡± He walked out and I reached for my papers and placed them and the binder in my bag and made my way to the door. I headed down the hall, descended the steps almost shoulder to shoulder with others and made it to the bottom floor where I exited the building. With so many people roaming about the campus it was a tad difficult but I found Rimoru and Norimaru at one of the gates, I gestured toward them and went on my way to them. ¡°So, would you have any snacks at your place?¡± ¡°I have a little, just stay out of my fathers stuff and it''s all good¡± ¡°Alright, lets go¡± We walked off the campus, and we started talking, games, girls, events, and the usual stuff. Once we made it to my place, I opened the front door and removed my shoes. ¡°Kizuno, you know where to set it up right?¡± ¡°Yes¡± ¡°Where do you guys keep the snacks?¡± ¡°Norimaru come with me to the kitchen, what you want should be in the fridge¡± ¡°Alright¡± As Rimoru went up the creaky steps, Norimaru and I walked to the kitchen where I pointed to a cupboard ¡°There should be some chips in there if you wanna have some, but bring me the tea bags from in there, i''m gonna grab a kettle and get some water boiling real quick¡± ¡°Sounds good to me¡± He handed me the bags and with chips in hand reached into the fridge and pulled out some seafood ¡°Hey, don''t eat those, it¡¯s my dad¡¯s¡± ¡°Fine fine, what about this leftover gyoza?¡± ¡°That''s fine. Tell Rimoru to turn something on the TV and go get the table out of my closet, I¡¯ll take up the gyoza on my way up¡± After a little, the water was finally done and I grabbed the tea and gyoza as well as some fried rice from the fridge and brought it all up in a tray. Once I was upstairs and in my room, I walked in to see the news. They were talking about a new insect-like overbeast attacking a large building in some city a few 50 kilometers away from where we were. ¡°Some ant thing manifested in the middle of Nakajima¡± ¡°Japan''s Tsuno Capitol isn''t too far off from there, i''m sure they will have some guy on scene in a moments notice¡± The overbeast was like an ant in the back and in from like a mantis, except it had 4 arms and each were bladed and its head looks something like that of a wasp, the captions say its roughly 9 meters tall, people screamed, they all ran from the thing as it started swiping at buildings and entire chunks of rubble just everywhere And after Rimoru¡¯s comment a man appeared, an Overflowed no doubt, the way he looked, he had on a nice black suit, the man himself was somewhat pale and had black hair, a sword strapped to his back and what appeared to be on his wrist chains. Everything, the suit, the sword, the hair, the demeanor, the sheer sight, everything just screamed badass. ¡°that''s Kagaku Noisha, says he''s a grade 13¡± ¡°Amazing, wish I could do that, he''s gonna destroy that thing¡± Sure enough within seconds an arm on the thing was severed, then another, another, until even its six legs were gone, then instantly the head fell to the ground and soon you could see large groups of men swarming the area ¡°That was dealt with fairly quickly¡± ¡°How much money do you think the exoskeleton of that thing is gonna fetch?¡± ¡°Billions, says the thing was a Himo scale and those sell very well¡± ¡°They can use the material for all sorts of things¡± I set the tray down and sat down, the books and everything was set, notebooks, pens, highlighters, textbooks. All were set up and we began discussing and quizzing each other. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Rimoru was asking Norimaru about history of how our world came to be ¡°When was Tsuno first introduced into our planet?¡± ¡°Uh, think teach said somethin like a million years or something, he was on some talk about how only recently have we reached standards even similar to whatever advanced stuff they had¡± ¡°Yep, the earliest found stones without much Tsuno date to roughly 1.37 million years ago where its assumed it was a force brought by a meteor that struck us, there''s a massive crater in the middle of Kaska that supports this, the world even used to be nearly 8 times smaller¡± It was cool to think about the world much smaller, only 7 continents instead of 15, it was an interesting thought to entertain. ¡°How does that even happen?¡± ¡°It''s assumed that with the meteor theory it essentially drained Tsuno into the earth and it began to produce it for itself, and eventually living things started to adapt and become part of it too. Much is still speculation though, it''s also speculated what made the advanced civilization of the past fall apart and start from scratch was the overbeasts¡± ¡°Why didn''t they just fight them?¡± I looked at him plainly ¡°Dipshit, how long do you think evolution and adaptation takes?¡± ¡°Hey, I don''t know, why do you think i''m asking questions here¡± Rimoru put a hand up ¡°Chill both of you, let''s get back to work, i''d rather you dont fail a test.¡± We both got to work and knocked out the basics and then reviewed the more troubling or confusing things for Norimaru who wasn''t exactly the brightest but was always willing to give things a shot. He likes asking questions, never knowing why but he likes trying to understand things regardless of how hard they are. And the things he easily understands become masteries for him, he''s an athletic genius and an absolute whiz at games. Rimoru always just stuck to academics, he''s good at it too. In more recent years we all got closer and his parents are relatively strict and hes only really out for things like this. After we finished covering all the material and quizzing each other we just watched a movie and before too long they had to head home as it was already dark. It wasn''t until after he had already left that i remembered about Deshin Rumble, i guess ill just give it to him tomorrow. I myself cleaned up and scrolled on my phone until I was tired enough to sleep. Waking up in the morning, I got up very groggy-like and switched out of my clothes from the other day I couldn''t bother to change. We have 3 given pairs of the school Uniform so it was fine, I chose to wait until I was about to leave the house to change. I could smell my fathers cooking from the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and took a quick shower, after going down in underwear, I asked him how work was, he works at a company that buys property where Overbeast manifest and use the companies Overflowed personnel to kill the overbeast and sell its corpse and whatever parts of it that can fetch a price for some insane quantities of cash. My father just turned to me and looked me in the eyes. ¡°Honestly pretty bad, yesterday night 2 unexpected overbeast manifested, a large surge in them have happened in the last week¡± See usually an Overbeast manifestation can be detected days or even hours before it actually manifests, the Tsuno for it needs to concentrate and it essentially sucks Tsuno form its surroundings and then manifests once a threshold is met. Unexpected ones are usually the result of a rapid increase in development or near instantaneous development in which both cases are damage heavy and are often at the cost of lives. I look at him somberly ¡°That''s really unfortunate¡± ¡°Could have been infinitely worse, we were lucky some grade 13 guy from another agency showed up, our closest guy was 5 minutes away and only grade 8.¡± That insectoid we saw, huh ¡°Well good thing he was there¡± He looked away ¡°Ya, good thing¡± I walked in the kitchen and grabbed some rice to eat real fast. My dad offered me some fish to go along with it but I was already a little behind schedule so I declined. To my room I went, needed to put on the rest of my clothes and once that was done I grabbed my bag, a lunch from my dad, put on my shoes, and went out to walk to school. I quickened my pace a bit from usual and by doing so I barely made it to school before they closed the gates. Running now I hurried to class where I was just able to make it to my desk not even 2 seconds before I would have been considered tardy. The teacher went over the pretenses of the test and began to pass out papers. It was the same 30 minutes, no cheating, no bathroom, no glancing over, no nothing. I finally got my test and quickly answered most of it. I was bored and began staring out the window. Always bored in class just looking out there was a decent way to pass by the time, looking down though I noticed a faint glow coming from a sewer drain. On further inspection I saw something that rocked me to my core, scales forming. A Overbeast was manifesting, the blue glow from the grass now as it seemed to siphon to the growing scales, in less than two seconds more scales developed and I saw the ever so faint blue glow reach nearly eight meters high and scales cover it. I looked over to my class, jumping out of my chair now breathing heavily, even 10 seconds ago was perfectly fine and I started to weave past the desk and tripped on a bag. I yelled ¡°RUN!!!!¡± ¡°JUST RUN!!!!¡± I got up and pointed at the window and in it was a large yellow eye fixated on the interior of the class The following scene was screaming, within seconds the roof of the classroom was missing. I was hit in the head hard and my vision went black. When I woke up, I couldn''t see anything at first, only the feeling of oppressive heat, the taste of the smoke, the smell of it too and the egregious smell of blood, the sound of screams. After a bit I could just barely open my eyes. In front of me was my bag, I was pinned under a larger chunk of the ceiling, and a large pressure was felt on my legs and arm. I look up further and see splayed out on a rock my bleeding friend Norimaru. In the corner of my eye i saw his copy of Deshin Rumble torn I looked back at him, and he smiled. I look higher at his upside-down splayed figure and I see nothing, a trail of red, it''s not what I saw, but what I didn''t see that made me black out after vomiting and failed attempts at a scream. I woke up once again, specialized firefighters moving my dead friend''s corpse out of the way. They removed the large rubble pinning me down, I got a small look at my arm and it''s in tatters, I can''t even see my legs, my head wont turn that far back at the moment. Once again I see the 3 men next to me swiped away and Norimarus dead ragdoll body slammed in my direction, now staring me dead in the eyes. For the first time since yelling for my classmates to run i scream loudly ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH¡± ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH¡± ¡°GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I began to cry, my eyes teary and anger rushed over me. I see the giant Lizard. The flaming behemoth I saw was nearly 9 meters, no 10 meters tall, flaming mane that followed along its bag in spikes, the face was black scales that resembled charcoal in a way. ¡°I FUCKING SEE YOU¡± ¡°I''LL KILL YOU¡± I can''t contain myself anymore and scream more And suddenly it looks at me Locks eyes with me Glares at me I glare back I wont die here ¡°You have guts¡± I heard a voice coming from almost inside of my head ¡°I can''t have my host dying on me now can I¡± I look around and can''t see anything, the lizard has turned its back and began fighting some clearly weaker Overflowed individuals. I look out asking ¡°Who are you, where-¡± Im cut off ¡°Your damn mind, now shut up kid¡± Immediately I felt a rush, a pulsing sensation throughout my body, my body that''s down to just a bruised bloody mess feels better. I feel relieved and now can''t move my arm and my legs. All I have left of my uniform is my torn up pants. I stand up. ¡°Now, kill that thing¡± I don''t know what it was, who it was, or what happened. I had awakened. I get up, my hair longer than before, my shoes and shirt gone, my wounds healed, heavily scarred. I''m not the same person I was a minute ago. Standing now, I look over to Norimarus body, I close his one singular opened eye and step to where the window used to be, the wall itself is completely gone. Call it instinct but I tensed up my hand and a dagger of electricity appeared, and my body was encased in a thin veil of light blue almost like an armor. I start to grin I laugh I erupt in laughter It was hilarious The very thing that I was cursing at not too long ago while I was powerless is now about to be flayed by my hands. The lizard Overbeast looks at me and we make eye contact, it rushes toward me. I become still Once again a smile appears upon my face and i grip my newly found weapon and scream at the damn thing ¡°I WILL KILL YOU¡± ¡°DAMN BASTARD¡± Chapter 2 - Event and Aftermath Chapter 2 - Event and Aftermath ¡°I WILL KILL YOU¡± ¡°DAMN BASTARD¡± I stared down the approaching creature coming toward me. It looked somehow slower than before. I saw it moving its arm to take a swipe at me, I wiped the smirk off my face then immediately I jumped out of the way and onto the arm. Running up its arm, the scaly arm moving as I run up past its shoulder now and I jump right in front of its daunting face. Staring into its eye, me upside-down mid air as it just looks at me in bewilderment, maybe because I dodged its attack or maybe it was the disturbing grin that came back to my face, either way I didn''t care. After what felt like ages but was probably a second at most but I just stared into its eyes as I took my dagger then lodged it into the slithery bastard''s eye. Immediately purple liquid spilled out and it began thrashing about, I got my hand free and was slammed into an opposing building. Weary now I see the Overbeast running uncoordinated at me, blood spewing from its eye meanwhile I struggle to move as the impact of the crash injured the hell out of my legs. I''m not sure how long it takes for me to heal, but overflowed people have severely increased regeneration, I know that for sure. I try to conjure more daggers and I can only get two out in time as the massive thing was approaching and fast. I threw one at the beast foot as an attempt to slow it down, it worked minimally at best, but still it was enough to make it stumble and fall. Doing so however it''s only 5 meters away from me and a giant gust of fire comes my way, my legs feel moveable now at least I push off, my leg throbs with pain in response but I push through and with the other dagger in my hand I charge at it from above and stab the damn thing in the cheek. The scaly thing now seems so frail and feeble, a glass cannon if you would call it that, now in my grasp, or at least it seems so. I see a person coming, must be back up from an agency hopefully stronger than those other guys that tried, they clearly underestimated this thing before so this other guy is probably much stronger. Now with this dagger I remove it from the cheek after paralyzing it and try to gash open its belly as it makes failed attempts to move. Nothing happened. Absolutely ineffective. The thing starts to gain more movement every instant and it stands up and bats me into the air. Now airborne I look down to see the thing is about to blast me with fire, It felt almost instinctual but I coated my entire body with Tsuno. I feel the flames licking at me as a dash through them, from inside I see it intends to swallow me. I let it. Now in the mouth of the stupid monster I avoid the sharp teeth that threaten to puncture me and make my way down. After a few small moments I lower down from the mouth by basically wiggling down and now in its neck, I immediately gash its throat from inside, blinding myself with a flash of purple, going down further and into the beginnings of its stomach I made a massive gash. A surge of purple liquid soaks the area in a coat of blood, more than before at least. I stand up out of the monster''s belly and I look forward after clearing my eyes. Now I notice something, the eye is back and staring at me. The neck is not bleeding though I''m sure I cut all the way through. It must have healed, I noticed the stomach wound starting to close, the one on its cheek is already gone by now and the neck is almost closed up completely. I was surprised and because of this I wasn''t ready for its next attack. It blast me with fire again, this time unprepared im burned horribly My Tsuno heal factor couldn''t help the excruciating pain felt, the lizard charged at me and then began to wrap its tail around me, squeezing me. I look it dead in the eye once again as it opens its mouth and begins charging a really powerful blast. ¡°DAMN YOU¡± I scream ¡°GO TO HELL¡± There''s nothing i can do but scream ¡°YOU SHITTY DINOSAUR¡± But then, before i think it''s lights out i feel the pressure of the tail completely disappear and i see a figure standing there with a blade attached to a chain on each on of his fingers, he appears to be wearing thug like clothes and dark purple lipstick with a pair of really nice dress shoes The beast instantly falls to the ground as the man just stands there He pulls out what appears to be nail polish and begins painting his nails as the chains from rings on his fingers appear to not hinder him in any way. From my place laying upon the floor watching the fight I just hear him muttering under his breath and almost yelling in a whisper at the beast. I get up and begin to run at the monster with all I have. I conjure something, this time a sword. The monster is swatting at the bombardment of chains, distracted. It doesn''t notice me running up to it, but once it does I''m in close range, what I don''t see though is the massive tail about to slam into me.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. It does, slammed into a wall once again. That strike was weaker than the first one like that, it''s slowing down, getting weaker. I stay still, the man in purple lipstick is still talking to himself, louder now, I can understand some of what he''s saying. ¡°Stupid stupid lizard, how dare you, how dare? No, why, why did you? Stupid dumb dragon, god damn it why? My perfect perfect shoes, this is unacceptable, my beautiful perfect shoes ruined by a dumb dragon. The nerve that thing has blood on my shoes, I''ll show it what, I will, will. Curse you dumb dumb dragon. He began reaching into a bag for what looked to be a cloth and shoe shiner, he continued his rant, somehow able to clean his shoe even with several chains extending from his fingers. I healed enough to get up, slower than before but the Overbeast lizard was still batting away at the bladed chains, and this once again gives me a chance. I grabbed the electric blade I had dropped and ran at it again, noticing me, it once again tried the same move with its tail, and I jumped over it and then landed on it and ran along its back, this time, I''ll put as much power as possible, I''ll stab, not slice. I find the base of its neck, it''s hard when it''s moving but the distraction of the bladed chains is working perfectly. Now. I plunge my sword at the base of its neck and it begins to fall over. I jump off before it falls over completely and practically fall on my ass. I see the man who was basically screaming not too long ago just silent and walking towards me. I just sit there baffled and I see figures in the background behind the guy with the lipstick, I stand up to get a better view and then as I see the back up squad approach me I give a wave but I feel myself falling over as I faceplant into the ground and feel my entire body almost just stop entirely. I wake up next in a hospital bed, machines attached, I look to my right, there''s a table with 2 envelopes on it. To my left, another hospital bed, more appear to be beyond it but a series of curtains make me unable to see. It''s at this moment my father enters the room, he looks worried, very very worried. Of course he is, his son almost died and was in an accident, because of this it''s not a surprise that once we lock eyes he runs at me, teary eyed and gives me a hug. I haven''t seen him like this since mom died. ¡°Dad I-¡± That''s all i could get out before he shhh¡¯d me We stayed like this for a good minute before he broke away and he handed me one of the envelopes. ¡°Its from the Tsuno agency management of Japan¡± Almost like the very words spawned him in, the thug in purple lipstick walked in, this time in a suit, a very nice one and to match, the same shoes as when he was fighting the lizard Overbeast. He seems to still be muttering about something, hard to tell what though My dad turns his head and nods ¡°This is Glee Inomori, he¡¯s one of the combatants from the agency i work for, tells me he saw you fighting the overbeast the other day¡± ¡°Other Day? How long have I been out?¡± I wasn''t sure how much time had past ¡°Four days, you have been out cold for four days¡± ¡°Huh. Wait, is everybody okay? Were there survivors?¡± ¡°There were heavy casualties, fifty-six students, three low ranking Overflowed combatants, and 10 firemen all dead. Over two hundred injured.¡± I just laid there in silence, only sounds heard were from Glee who was still muttering ¡°I saw him¡± I started tearing up ¡°I saw Norimaru¡­ I saw him die¡± I look at my father and he looks back at me, he looked at me with a sorry expression ¡°There wasn''t anything i could do¡± My tears now gone, I asked him a question ¡°So what now? Where do we go from here?¡± My dad sighed ¡°Read the letter¡± I opened the letter in my hand and began to read it aloud ¡°In turn of recent events, we give our condolences. It was an unpredicted event that caught us off guard, we will attempt to patch up any physical damages but we understand more than anybody lives were lost and we can never fix that. With that being said you put forth courage and by some luck you have had a rapid awakening, a rare phenomenon where instead of overtime beginning to overflow your Tsuno from a young age, you immediately start producing large amounts of it in a surge that forces an overflux. You as a person are extremely rare and we wish to have you as a combatant in training at the Kuzunoha grounds, if you choose to accept, we will put you through basic testing and give you necessary time to say any goodbyes or settle any matters. With this, I hope you take care Head of recruitment department, Ijashi Shiria¡± ¡°They want you to become a combatant and fight more of those things¡± My dad looked worried This is something I had once thought about actually when I was like six or seven, being and Overflowed person and becoming a combatant, the idea of it just sounded cool and even now it still does. ¡°I think I want to¡± Glee looked up at me and stopped his muttering ¡°Good choice kid¡± He looked over to my dad now ¡°Daishi, I''ll send you the paperwork and whatnot, just give me the call when I need to get him¡± ¡°Thanks Glee¡± Dad waved at him as he left the room, then his eyes went back to me ¡°So, you sure you wanna be doing it?¡± I myself wasn''t too sure about it but now I have the opportunity most other people don''t, I can actually be somebody who can fight for others, I have the chance to improve, to get better and save people. That in itself sounded thrilling, exhilarating even, I can stop overbeast, kill them before they could kill other people like how that lizard murdered Norimaru. ¡°Yes¡± My dad once again lets out a sigh ¡°Fine, nothing much I can really do, even if I had you decline or you said no yourself they would still ask you, you still need to rest for a bit, the doctors said you would be discharged sometime tomorrow¡± ¡®Only five days to recover?¡± ¡°Yes, your healing factor has increased severely. You could probably regrow an entire limb if you were given a week, the doctors were astounded to see how fast you regenerate. Even for an overflowed individual your regeneration is way above average¡± ¡°Is that so?¡± I did recover broken limbs and several injuries in a fast manner, or a half assed job of it at least, the bare minimum to move around decently. ¡°I have work to do but I''m glad to see you are awake, I will be here tomorrow morning¡± ¡°Bye dad¡± I waved him out and for the rest of the day it was doctors asking questions, doing some tests and also just having me do things. It was all a tiring process, so I went to sleep early. I wake up the next morning and this time i stand up, for the first time in days i can walk, my legs are riddled with scars and my arm too, I must have done a lot of internal damage, running around swinging daggers while chunks of bone were digging into my legs I feel disbalanced at first and even almost fall over but after a minute or two i finally get a hold on things I call for the doctors and ask them for breakfast My door open, me expecting a nurse to bring me some food and instead its my father telling me to grab the other letter and to follow him We go out to the parking lot and to the car, once we are in I look at the envelope in my hands and open it Its from Rimoru Apparently it was given to me the third day I was in the hospital I began to read it as my dad was driving Kizuno, thank you, genuinely thank you. Norimaru is dead unfortunately, he was an amazing friend and other than you the closest person to me, his funeral was held yesterday, you were still unconscious but they did make an effort to reach out to you and tried seeing if you wanted to come. I also heard it was you who killed that thing. You of all people had an awakening. I''m in the hospital room as I''m writing this. Your arms, your legs, your face, everything is so scarred, there''s still a giant gash on your forehead. Thank you for saving us, I barely managed to get out, it was charging at me and when I thought I was about to die, it turned around to you screaming. I was confused at the time but didnt think about it, I ran. Maybe we can talk in person sometime but please give me a text or anything once you see this. -Yours truly, Yakamara Rimoru I immediately reached to grab my phone, forgetting I no longer had one, dad must have seen this because he talked to me ¡°They found your bag, anything they could salvage is still in there, think your phone is in there too¡± ¡°Thanks¡± We eventually got back to the house, dad walked up and opened the door, we went in and sure enough my bag was on the counter, charred and reeking of smoke but still, better than being completely toasted I see my phone in there, I grab it and notice it''s heavily cracked, I try powering it on and to my relief it''s just low battery. I go upstairs and plug it in, my father knocks on my door and notifies me that he will be out for a bit and that there''s some snacks in the cupboard and food in the fridge. I tell him to wait as I hear him walking down the stairs, I walk out my door and into the hallway, and down the stairs, I catch him by the door where I give him a hug. ¡°Thank you¡± He doesn''t respond but he returns the gesture and leaves with his head down. I go back upstairs and message Rimoru about what''s going to happen, I tell him about majority of what happened, leaving out Norimaru of course. He replied relatively soon and we talked back and forth with it mainly consisting of him asking me questions about my newfound abilities, he asked me questions such as ¡°How many can you make at once?¡± ¡°How big can the swords be?¡± ¡°Can you make just regular lightning or electricity?¡± ¡°What specifically can you do¡± I was going to go to my backyard to test out some of these questions and try to see what I can do, but before I finished going down the stairs I heard a knock on the door. Another followed a few seconds later, I texted Rimoru I would talk to him later as I needed to do something and with that I headed down the rest of the stairs and looked through the peephole. Standing out front of my door was Glee, I could almost hear the muttering from the guy from the other side of the door. ¡°Ill open it, just give me a second¡± As if he didnt hear me he knocked faster and louder, and when I finally opened the door he handed me a piece of paper. Before I could read it he pointed to a sleek black car ¡°Get in, we¡¯re gonna go through some basic testing trials¡± I looked down at the paper and it was a security ID card with my name and face on it as well as a code and a few other random things I followed him back to the nice looking car and we get in, after a few minutes of him talking on the phone to somebody, probably something to do with me, we sped off and away. Chapter 3 - Kickoff at Ground Zero Chapter 3 - Kickoff at Ground zero After getting off the phone with somebody, probably talking about me, Glee starts to drive. The ride is boring and throughout the entirety I can hear him muttering, he talks about things like fashion, prices being too high, discounts at grocery stores, what he should have for dinner tomorrow, if they even have food at ground zero. All just random gibberish to me besides random words that pop out. Through the hour-long car ride my dad messages me saying that Glee should be there soon, guess he didn''t know about him already having picked me up. I also talked a bit with people from school, asking if everybody¡¯s okay and checking up on friends, afterwards I looked up the incident, damages, images of the monster''s corpse, there''s even a few pictures I''m in. My heart stops when I get to the list of casualties¡­ Najima Horimara¡­ Abino Nori¡­ Rizu Fujima¡­ Ken Juzu¡­ Yashida Hanogara¡­ Mishimaru Yasuma¡­ Joshin Akima¡­ Tayuga Kizuzashi¡­ Maka Uzuna¡­ All from my class, the list was longer, I almost felt like throwing up. I didnt know all of them well but ive know Abino and Tayuga since I was like six, people like Maka, Joshin, Najima, Okomaru, Rizu, all of them¡­ they were all good people with lives ahead of them, every last one of them were robbed of a chance because of some stupid fucking overbeast. I was partially reluctant, i might have had my doubts before now I may have wavered in my confidence But now I know more than anything, I will kill every last one of those bastards, not a single overbeast will stand once I''m strong enough to take on anything. I need to get to that level of power though, I will, I have too. The car finally stopped and so did Glee¡¯s mumbling ¡°Get out, follow me and don¡¯t run off anywhere, stay close behind me. This is ground zero¡± After stepping out I began following him, both of us scanned out cards to open a gate, afterwards there was another security check by some guy, afterwards we ran into a door where somebody was waiting He was a relatively tall guy, he a white lab coat, underneath it was a black t-shirt and some regular jeans with a cool white belt and black hair that at the tips faded to white. ¡°Yo Glee, how ya been. It''s been a while man¡± He looked behind Glee and pointed to me ¡°Hang on, that''s Daishi¡¯s kid?¡± Glee looked up and responded ¡°Yes¡± The man walked up to me but it was Glee who introduced him ¡°This guys name is Livid, Livid Garui, he''s going to be your main tester¡± Before i say anything Livid stretches my arm, pokes at my shoulder, looks in my mouth I obviously back up ¡°Hey, what are you doing¡± He just hit me with a plain look ¡°Nothing, just checking a few things¡± Glee chimes in next ¡°Cmon Livid, we don''t have all day and your miniature test can wait for the lab¡± ¡°Aw fine¡± Livid had a toddler like pouting face now as he swiped his card and opened a door The room was large but riddled with several big machines of variety. There were people in lab coats and also some other people, likely people who recently reached proper overflow capacity. ¡°It''s been a while since I''ve got to work with an awakened, I truly can''t wait¡± For some reason he licked his lips ¡°Livid, you are hopeless¡± As soon as he said it Glee went back to sulking while following This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Here we are¡± Livid pointed to a machine, it was large, it had like a dome top with a large cable coming out and into the roof, and there was a vast array of buttons with a screen, there was also a white box with a camera lens hanging from the ceiling. He brings me over ¡°Need you to stand right here, and now stick your arm in that hole¡± He arranged me into proper position, I''m guessing that lensed box thing is a scanner of sorts, there''s probably something similar in this thing After a minute or two he gives me a thumbs up and tells me I''m fine now ¡°Holy shit!¡± Livid looked relatively surprised, he brings me over ¡°See this?¡± He points at a graph-like thing with a bar and some numbers, stuff I can''t really understand since it''s just a bunch of abbreviations and gibberish. There''s like a red box over one of the things and it''s like a container. ¡°Okay, let me show you the readings from the average recently overflowed certified individual, we just call em a ground zero off the name of the facility¡± He pulls up another similar looking thing that had a green box where the red one was and this time numbers and things by them I could actually understand, ground zero amountage equates to three hundred modules, the container like thing had a green line at the bottom¡± ¡°I don''t get it¡± He looked at me with a grin like that of a six year old who just got a new toy for Christmas ¡°You as an overflowed individual have essentially a capacity way above what is normal even by awakened standards, the difference between an average person and your average ground zero is nearly a hundred times smaller than the difference between you and the average ground zero¡± I look at him questioningly ¡°So is that good or bad?¡± ¡°Depends, it''s a miracle that your body didn''t just blow up when you were using any of your overflowed Tsuno, I''m more impressed that you apparently passed out from overuse¡± Its at this time Glee comes back, I never noticed him walk off but he came back with coffee in his hands and this time he has his usual hat off, he has dark blue hair that becomes white at the tips He looks over to the monitor that''s now back to my reading Immediately he drops his cup and looks in shock ¡°What?¡± Livid waves at him and points at the screen ¡°I know right, I was impressed, his capacity is five times that of even an average awakened¡± ¡°How does that happen though?¡± Before any answer comes he walks off and begins muttering, Livid looks at him and sighs ¡°Honestly with this alone I would be okay with putting you in grade five on the higher end, not quite at grade six level but I wouldn''t be surprised either if your combat brought you to a grade seven¡± Hearing this stunned me partially, I''ve seen what a grade seven looks like on TV, even at that level its incredible power ¡°I was wondering how you took down a Hino Class monster before hand, I get you were helped by Glee but even then I couldn''t make much sense of that but now I have no doubt¡± Livid started walking off and told me to follow, after a lot more doors we were in another room, surrounded by a transparent dome, a giant pillar in the middle, he had me go in alone saying he would direct me from the other side of the glass like stuff ¡°Alrighty, ima need you to take both your hands on that big ol pillar right there, should be little indents where ya need to put your hands¡± I walked up to the thing, I wondered what it did. I did has he said and put my hands there ZAP A small flash of light from my hands and when I try to move back my hands they won''t budge ¡°Don''t worry or panic, would rather not have ya freak out on me, that''s supposed to happen¡± I calmed down a bit and began to just stand still, out of the corner of my eye I see part of the wall fold out Out of it comes a massive machine gun I don''t get a chance to do anything before i see shots My feet, one of my arms, my cheek, and one through the torso I fell to my knees and began almost choking on the blood coming from the hole in my cheek, I look at the transparent material and through it i see Livid smiling a grim terrifying smile full of nothing but malice ¡°Get up¡± More shots followed My leg now, my foot was shredded, my shoulder now too The glass like veil turns full white and the gun now pointed at me once again, this time without even trying my Tsuno releases, not how I wanted though, last thing I saw before I fell unconscious was a massive surge of electricity as well as the entirety of the room I was just in absolutely shatter into nothing but a beautiful display of shards, glass, metal, plastic, everything develop into a veil of bright light, I woke up in a hospital bed with a splitting headache, my arms and legs were fine now, I still see the holes of the bullets that penetrated I appeared to be in a pocket of some hallway, the table to my right has nothing, behind it are some chairs, to my left is a curtain with another bed behind it. This setup is almost exactly like when I woke up from the fight with the overbeast. I lay up now, and walking in from the hall to the right is Livid and Glee Almost without thinking I launch at Livid, my hand in a fist and electricity coming off of it, my hand enveloped in the lightning Right before it would have hit his face, he caught it. Within less than a second I''m slammed into the wall, when i look up i see a smirking Livid whose hair is now fully white, his arms covered in black markings and most of all a shocked Glee ¡°Fucking moron, AHAHA, you actually though something that weak cheap shot could do jack shit to me, you are hilarious kid, now give me a good ass reason I dont decapitate you here and now?¡± A white glow emits from him and black particles surround him He raises his hand flat behind his head, then swings down I try to brace for it but nothing happens, I look up and see Glee blocking the shot with this own hand, his hair now a light yellow color, with a glow to him as well as small particles ¡°LIVID! THAT''S ENOUGH!¡± Immediately he looks from me and now to Glee and then back. He sigs and his hair goes back to black with the white tips, Glees returns to blue, and besides the crack in the wall from where he slammed me there was no damage. ¡°Alright that''s my bad, sorry for getting carried away. The dude literally broke an entire nine room quadrant, power was off for hours. ¡°Maybe you shouldn''t have been using the plasma globe on somebody with such a high capacity¡± ¡°But I had to know what would happen¡± Glee gives me a hand and helps me up Livid then pats me on the back ¡°There there, no harm no foul, and besides even if there was an issue, this is ground zero. There are no issues here¡± He smiles once again, something I no longer trust ¡°Follow me, Glee I think you might wanna see this, we got results of the plasma globe before it was completely obliterated¡± He continued to talk as we walked down the hall ¡°So as you know, most people who are overflowed develop it at a young age, usually it''s a steady process that happens overtime, and once you overflow even just once you limit the Tsuno production is gone. Some people have the misconception that this means there''s no limit however your body can only contain so much, because of this overflow Tsuno seeps into everything and believe it or not majority of Overbeast come from unused Tsuno from Overflowed individuals-¡± I cut him off ¡°What?¡± ¡°You are joking right¡± There''s no way he''s saying we are the cause for Overbeast ¡°No, and by the way, we aren''t the direct cause, I''m just saying we unintentionally speed up the process of manifesting Overbeast, they would come on their own anyways. Anyways as I was saying, your body can only hold so much of this and how much your body can physically contain in an overflowed state is your capacity, and usually with having high capacity you also take a long while to recover it all, with this it''s also hard to use a lot at once. You somehow can output your massive supply in such a short amount of time and also regenerate it a lot faster, as well as that your Tsuno healing factor also takes a lot less Tsuno than it should¡± ¡°Okay so?¡± ¡°What I''m getting at is, you kid are a freak of nature¡± He begins laughing ¡°Dont worry, everybody here is¡± We finally approach the final door where we enter and inside is a lot of monitors Livid leads glee to one on the far left ¡°See what I mean, this is what i was gonna tell you before somebody attempted to knock my teeth out¡± Glee once again surprised began staring intently at the monitor ¡°His capacity and output limits are far beyond what they should be¡± ¡°Yes, master Kuzanoha will be happy to receive him¡± Livid points at me ¡°You come with me, we have one more test¡± ¡°What is it? ¡°Combat¡± Livid¡¯s devilish smile appears once again and his hair now white, the black marks appear again and this time a black cloak appears as well as a serrated sword in his hand I look at Glee ¡°Don''t worry, you will be fine, if anything happens ill get you out of there¡± ¡°Come¡± Livid points to a door using his sword and we both enter, hes no longer smiling, hes still creepy though, the same malice i felt in the plasma globe I was feeling right then and there in that very moment There was a transparent glass like wall again, the rest of the room was al white and sleek, I could see Glee on the other side of the glass ¡°Ill be watching and keeping track of you two, Livid dont kill him¡± ¡°Oh dont worry, ill just scar the little guy up some more, give him a good souvenir from his time at ground zero¡± We now stand face to face, at this time I conjure up one of my electric daggers and point it at him Livid begins a count off ¡°3¡± ¡°2¡± ¡°1¡± ¡°GO!¡± Chapter 4 - Garui the Livid Chapter 4 - Garui the Livid ¡°Ill hold back a little¡± Livid''s hair starts to stick up, marks cover his face, his then licks his blade then his lips after saying that and points his sword at me, then he proceeds to count down ¡°3¡± I felt my body pulsate with a surging sensation ¡°2¡± My finger tips feel fuzzy and I look down to see electricity zipping and zapping all over ¡°1¡± I bring out an electric dagger ¡°GO¡± This time I was prepared. He charged directly at me, I moved out of the way and saw his sword slash exactly where I was standing less than a second ago. He''s prepared for it though and pivots, and is coming at me once again. I couldn''t move out of the way in time so I block the shot with my dagger and conjure another in my free hand His sword clashes onto my dagger but immediately I notice a dagger in his other hand that''s leading its way to my stomach I parry the blocked sword and block the dagger. His sword swipes down once again but not before I move out of the way, he throws his dagger at me and charges forward once again. His serrated sword comes down once again and i block it with my dagger, this time however my dagger is caught in the ridges of the sword and with two hands on the sword my dagger goes down with it he headbutts me and throws me away with a kick to the stomach. The kick launches me and I almost throw up, I slam into the hard white wall. I see him now armed with the dagger and sword I cant block the incoming strike and his sword stabs me in the shoulder He smiles as he brings up his dagger for a finishing blow, I have just enough time to bring up my dagger, to make contact with him. One hand with the dagger the other he uses to punch my arm out of the way, during this time I moved left slightly and when his dagger finally hits its the wall and not my head I move the sword out and headbutt him I swing his sword at him and he backs away touching the roof then he touches the ground and out of a circle a scythe comes out hes now enveloped in a white glow, and particles almost like snow, his black cloak is now white and he himself is shining ¡°Well played kid, you have good senses for a half assed excuse of a combatant¡± I don''t respond just yet, I need to buy some time so my shoulder has enough time to not be too hindered, I can feel it healing. ¡°You are skilled yourself, what grade are you anyways¡± He looks at me dead in the eye ¡°I don''t discuss my personal details with dipshits, be happy you even know my name¡± My shoulder feels a lot better the blood for the most part has stopped, its at this point he drops through the floor ¡°Huh?¡± Instead of answering he just sinks into the floor, I feel a presence behind me and turn around in time to block a shot from a scythe just in time before it would have struck my head. The sheer force from the strike sent me the other way and after parrying the scythes blade I came at his dagger in hand, right before I would have hit him he sidesteps out of the way and slams me to the ground with an elbow. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! The strike leaves me winded as it pummels me into the floor, I roll out of the way before the scythe blade comes down, conjure a dagger and I kick up and strike him in the chin Standing now I see the scythe of that maniac coming toward me and duck, I toss a dagger at his foot and conjure a new one as I attempt to strike his stomach with the new one. He jumps over the dagger aimed at his foot and performs a flip then ends with his heel kicking my head before I could slash him, the scythe follows up and strikes my lower back I cough up a lot of blood almost instantly, he drags the scythe up then once it reaches my chest he removes it, my insides completely sliced as my blood pools out below me. ¡°Such a waste of potential, like your father, talent wasted on those too stupid to use it¡± I''m choking on my blood now I can''t do anything but gag as my vision starts to fade to black Livid raises his scythe now ¡°What a waste¡± It comes down but before it hits me Glee is in the way of him with his own sword repelling the blow ¡°Oh come on, cant let me do shit around here without you always policing me¡± ¡°Even touch him, do it and I will kill you¡± I didn''t even really know Glee too well and he''s standing up for me ¡°Why do you care? Daishi fucked you over too¡± What did he mean? What could my father have possibly done? ¡°What he did shouldn''t affect Kizuno¡± ¡°SHUT UP! JUST SHUT IT! I''M TIRED OF YOU THINKING YOU ARE BETTER AND NOW I''LL PROVE IT TO YOU, I WILL HAVE YOU DEAD!¡± Glee''s hair turns a light pastel yellow and sticks up ¡°That''s not a matter in any of this, do you really want to pick a fight?¡± He''s glowing kind of like Livid is ¡°SCREW YOU!¡± He charges at Glee now, way faster than he was before and now his scythes blade is completely white and enveloped in a layer of black Glee blocks with with his scythe and another one is now in his hand, he uses it and almost slices Livid''s hand, the sword loops back and it''s aiming toward Livid''s neck but he ducks, parries the other sword with the scythe, and pulls a dagger from the floor, uses it to parry the sword that was coming for his neck then uses the blunt end of the scythe to strike Glee in the stomach Glee steps back and slices at Livid''s leg but misses as Livid himself also jumps back Livid now about to land on the ground just sinks right through it throwing a dagger at glees feet before he is all the way down and then Livid comes out the ceiling behind Glee Glee, aware of Livid''s positioning ducks, looks up, moves back, and then strikes. Livid then also strikes with his scythe and their blades clash, however the dagger he threw prior hit glee in the ankle, this distracted him just enough to where Livid was able to stab his side with another dagger Glee took advantage of the strength difference, his two hands vs Livid''s one, he knocks the scythe out of Livid''s hand Livid then knocks the sword from Glee who lets go of it and punches Livid square in the face He stumbles back and drops his dagger, Glee also jumps back holding his side where he was stabbed ¡°Nice, that was a lovely warm up, don''t you think so Inomori?¡± ¡°You know what Garui, yes it was¡± ¡°Stop pulling your punches and I''ll do the same¡± ¡°You make it sound like I have a choice in the matter¡± ¡°That''s right, you don''t. Oh Inomari, THIS WILL BE FUN!! AHAHAHA¡± Instantly Glee''s entire outfit changes into a shredded yellow crop top and a pair of light blue pants, his face is now tattooed with pink markings and he emits a light pastel pink glow he now smiles a gentle smile and his hair is now rising above him, he looks like the unfiltered expression of joy Livid''s entire outfit changes to to black, his hair, his cloak, his pants, his belt, his scythe, and he''s covered in even more markings, hes emitting a veil of black all around him then his hair, scythe blade, and cloak all change to red, a burning crimson of rage They eye each other Livid speaks first ¡°I''ve been waiting for this for so damn long, I no longer care about the boy, but if you hold back a bit I will kill him. GIVE ME A GOOD FIGHT INOMARI¡± He drops the scythe and then falls back, he appears out of thin air in front of Glee and swings at him with his fist, glee put his hands up, bit is too slow and Livid hits him in the face Glee ducks down and punches Livid''s stomach then uppercuts his jaw with his elbow, then he gets a shot at him in the face Livid takes a step backwards to avoid an incoming kick from Glee He grabs Glees leg and pulls him, he lands a punch to the face slamming Glee to the ground Livid mid air now rotates and lands and elbow on Glee''s chest and uses that to roll on his side and he sinks in the ground once again appearing above Glee from the ceiling Glee rolls out of the way as Livid tries to punch him, using this as a chance to get up, Glee now punches Livid who needs to orientate himself and then gets him in the face with a punch again, a kick to Livid''s leg and then an uppercut on Livid''s chin then Glee proceeds to kick him up Then he punches him in the chest so hard that Livid flies toward the wall and creates a massive crater roughly a meter or so deep Glee is jumping at Livid now with a kick, Livid sinks into the crater and Glee kicks the wall, Livid now behind Glee kicks him Glee falls through the wall and comes out of the ceiling where then Livid sinks through the floor and comes out above Glee who gets a heel kick to the head Glee attempts to retaliate but he slams to the floor ¡°GRAVITY SWITCH¡± Both me and Glee fall to the ceiling, the ceiling was now the floor likely because of what Livid just did Livid uppercuts the airborne Glee who gets hit to the now ceiling and sinks right through and onto the floor where he gets up and avoids a stomp from livid Livid isn''t done however and appears behind Glee now and gets punched in the chest as Glee seemed to have expected it Livid steps back and a scythe protrudes from the floor ¡°GRAVITY SWITCH¡± I fall back to the ground now and Livid uses this as an opportunity to strike Glee while hes still in the air, it hits and Glee pulls away now bleeding from his side, where he was struck before. Hes pooling blood now My injury is slightly better now, theres a lot of bleeding but most important things are healed now I would go in to help Glee but I know id surely die, they are both incredibly powerful and if I were to get involved there''s no way there''s any other result than me being cut into ribbons Glee now pulls out a pair of sickles attached to a chain and I see a few chains with bladed tips coming from his fingers He comes at Livid now, He strikes with one of the sickles and throws the other Livid pulls out a book from a circle on the ground ¡°Disperse¡± The bladed chains coming at him from underneath blow roughly three meters away But Glee pulls on the sickle in his hand and the sickle behind Livid gets him in the back Livid comes forward slightly and now strikes his scythe up just enough to get Glee in the face before he backs away Both now bleeding they stand there Still Its Glee who makes the first movement, arms start protruding from his sides each now having bladed chains attached to each finger on every hand and swords now also in all hands Livid smiles and he grows a pair of horns from his forehead as his skin becomes a dark red color, he tosses his book to the side and grabs another from a circle on the ground his scythe now grows a point at the tip of the staff part and a second smaller blade erects below the bigger Blade ¡°So Inomari, even driving me to this point¡­ It hurts ya know¡± ¡°I can''t say this is an enjoyable feeling either¡± ¡°Well for a good fight it''s well worth it¡± Livid charges at Glee now who sends all chains flying at him