The Mandate of Khaos: Curse (ch. 20)

Whatever Siegfried was about to say in response to my threat, he didn't get the chance. A blast of pure magical energy, easily the size of a large tree trunk, abruptly engulfed him, obliterating the storefront of the cafe and everything in the immediate vicinity.

I looked back at Sakura, and—

Well… I guess it was conservative? At least compared to the usual magical girl costumes, I suppose. It still didn't seem very combat-effective, but what did I know?

Either way, I had no more time to ponder Sakura’s new look, as a second figure emerged from the swirling dust and debris.

A tall, slim, black-haired man—didn’t look a day over twenty—with his hair tied up in a man bun, a prominent bang falling over the left side of his face. He had particularly large earlobes, each adorned with black, large circular earrings.

Suguru Geto.

That—that's a young Suguru Geto. What the fuck—

"How utterly devilish, to not give a damn about civilian casualties," Siegfried laughed, seemingly not caring much for it himself, which led me to suddenly notice the absolute lack of screams. Of sound. No human, car, animal, nothing. The area was completely devoid of life, save for two people, and two soon-to-be corpses.

"Either way, to explode that sword…" Suguru Geto drawled, his tone suggesting he'd rather be anywhere but here. "Fate, Time, or Reality…" he seemed to muse, before shrugging dismissively. "Whichever it is, we can't let someone with powers relating to any of those three remain on the side of those parasites."

"I call dibs on the Red Dragon Empress!" Siegfried roared, throwing himself towards Sakura.

I barely had time to register the threat before I had to throw up my arms to block a vicious kick from Suguru Geto.

The force of the impact sent me flying backward, slamming into the wall behind me. I could thank my recent acquirement of the Uchiha Trait for preventing the collision from leaving me with anything more than a few bruises.

"You need not worry," Geto said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "You shall be joining your sister again soon." In death, went unsaid but heard all the same.

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more.

Suguru Geto looked at me as if I were a particularly interesting bug pinned under glass. "Hm, it did not take much for you to go insane, it seems."

Insane? No, I was not insane. In fact, I had never felt more sane in my entire life.

Hate, it seemed, had that effect on me.

There was hate in me, hate like there had never been before, hate that turned the ants that had been tapdancing on my left eye into elephants that rejected the laws of physics and learned how to jump on both of them.

My eyes burned with hate. Swirled with hate. Hate for the beings that were intent on stealing my quiet life from me. Hate for the beings who dared to threaten Sakura. Hate for my own powerlessness.

There was hate in me.

Grief. Grief over the lost peace. Grief over my lack of power. Grief over the fact I knew Sakura was most likely blaming herself for all of this, and what that would do to her self, to the improvements she had gone through.

There was grief in me.

Love. Love for Sakura, who always wanted what was best for me. Love for the friends I had made. Love for the people who accepted me. Love for this new life I was living.

There was love in me.

"YOOUUU FFFUUUUUUCCKKKEEEEERRR!"

Feat: Fully awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan

Reward: One Gold Trait Ticket

My left eye burned with Foresight. The foresight I had always yearned for whenever I had to make a decision. The foresight of experience that would tell me if the path I was intent on taking was worth following, or if there was only pain and suffering to be found on it.

This power, this Foresight, I instinctively knew, would tell me if it was a mistake to roll in this very moment. It would provide me with Advantage—but without the chance of choosing the previous result, as it would never have existed to begin with, even if the new one was even worse.

One path. Among the infinite amount, it would warn me if the one I was on would lead to disaster, but only once for each decision.

Alas, it did not need to be used. For once, luck seemed to be on my side.

[Curse Devouring Physique]

|Elite Trait|

Your physique is unique, it devours curses like a hungry animal. If you get cursed your body starts fighting against it and slowly eating the curse, the strength of the physique scales with your maximum energy. Completely devouring a curse increases your maximum energy slightly, devouring more of the same curse has diminished returns. You also recover energy faster in places with more negativity.

Foresight was a power that, when coupled with my other recent acquisition, with Hindsight, would appear nearly unbeatable. As I dodged blows, as my body magically recovered from attacks it had been hit by, as I killed Geto's summons (and ignored the notification screens that appeared), as I used and abused my newfound powers—it was truly a situation where two minuses got together and made a plus.

Uchiha Obito could only recklessly abuse his Mangekyo because of the game breaking bullshit that were Hashirama Cells. Everyone else was fated to slowly go blind. With the amount of times I had just used mine, I should be visibly deteriorating already.

It was, by all accounts, a terrible ability for anyone that did not inherently possess or have access to a potent method of rapidly healing ocular damage.

Alas, I did not need Hashirama Cells, because my senses were fucking Undeniable.

The energy drain, however, was a problem. Traits did not come with the energy of their original worlds. Instead, they used whatever energy the user natively had access to as a replacement. It was fortunate that, unlike Hindsight that had multiple aspects that would raise the cost of using it exponentially, Foresight seemed to be a rather low cost ability.

Still, I was only human. If not for the Uchiha Trait, I would have been ass fucked multiple times over already. Using Foresight on the Silver Ticket I just got had taken more from me than I was expecting too. It was one of the few uses of it that exponentially raised the cost of using it. At full tank, I probably could barely foresight a Gold Ticket, as the energy required seemed to grow multiplicatively with their rarity. If not for the Curse Devouring Physique Trait I had obtained, I would have likely passed out after that careless use of Foresight. Worse yet, it too was an Ability built around energy.

In other words:

XVII - The Star has been used. All energy and stamina has been restored. All Ability Cooldowns have been reset.

Cooldown: 9d 23h 59m 59s

I needed to finish this, and I needed to finish it now.

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Feat(s): Victory against multiple of Suguru Geto's summons.

Reward(s): 2 Bronze Ability Tickets, 1 Silver Ability Ticket

1st Bronze Ticket:

[Sprout] {Foresighted (0.2 below average), Manually Rejected}

|Common Ability|

You are able to communicate with and control plants in your range to a minor degree. You can order plants to start growing faster, and imbue them with your energy to make them grow even faster. You can also change their general shape slightly.

[Double Jump]

|Common Ability|

You are able to jump off of thin air for once as if it were a physical surface.

2nd Bronze Ticket:

[Bat Form]

|Uncommon Ability|

"Vampirism was too expensive" You are able to turn into a bat or a bat hybrid at will. Gaining enhanced agility, senses, sonar, flight, claws, and sharp teeth as well as any other characteristics the average Bat would possess.

Silver Ticket:

[Measure King] {Foresighted (1.0 below average), Rejected}

|Common Ability|

Measure once, cut twice. Allows you to know the exact dimensions and measurements of anything you come across just by taking a look at them.

[Ukaku]

|Rare Ability|

Tokyo Ghoul - Allows you to manifest a wing-like biological appendage made of special RC Cells that allow it to freely go from fluid-like water to tough as steel. These wings can release a barrage of high-speed armour piercing feathers at will with good precision or sweep in slicing motions to attack like a steel whip.

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{No.} Ddraig refused her.

Sakura almost cursed. Almost. She was far too busy dodging a flurry of blows to actually curse.

This is all my fault.

"Come on, come on, come on!" The swordsman taunted, his voice laced with mocking glee. "Don't tell me this is all the holder of the Boosted Gear can do?! Oh wait, that's right—you're not the true holder!"

{BOOST!}

Sakura would, in most scenarios, simply ignore her opponent's trash talk. It was idiotic to let their words influence her, and besides, there was really only one person whose opinion truly mattered to Sakura.

This one annoyed her though, because it was an unintended blow. Thanks to Amethyst she had access to the full capabilities of the Red Dragon Emperor's Gauntlet. Unlike most, Sakura's newly implanted Sacred Gear was working at one hundred percent efficiency.

She just did not have enough time yet to train with it!

This is only happening because of what I did.

And that was exactly why—

{No.}

Sakura paused, her thoughts momentarily derailing as a third voice chimed in.

{They're... they're not giving it their all. They don't want to kill you.}

…what? That wasn't Ddraig’s voice. That was Amethyst, her tone uncharacteristically subdued. Sakura could believe that Ddraig had enough battle experience to notice that, but Amethyst?

'Explain.'

{BOOST!}

{The beings you're fighting right now… they're members of the Hero Faction, a human supremacist faction in all but name. There are four prominent individuals in that Faction, known as the Four Champions. They are, one and all, at least Satan Class.}

Sakura's lips thinned. 'And I'm fighting one of them.'

Amethyst was uncharacteristically silent.

'I am fighting one of them, right?' Sakura pressed, a chill creeping down her spine.

{…Suguru Geto is a man with the ability to absorb any Yokai he has defeated and then summon them to fight for him. Ajuka… suspects he may not be limited to Yokai too.}

Suffice was to say, that powerset clearly did not belong to the man in front of her.

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't go growing distracted on me!"

'DDRAIG!'

{Didn't you just hear the Rod, twerp? I won't let my holder sacrifice a part of their body for literally no apparent benefit. Even if you get stronger, he'll just stop holding back enough to match you. This one may not be one of those Champions or whatever, but he is still far stronger than you.}

This shitty dragon—!

{BOOST!}

She couldn't keep up. This was her fifth boost, which meant her power had been multiplied thirty-two times from what it had been originally, and she felt no closer to being able to match the swordsman's speed, let alone launch a counterattack. Worse yet, she only had, at best, one more boost left in her. Her body wouldn't be able to take any more than that. She was already starting to feel the strain at thirty two times, sixty four would push her to the limit.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked, trying to stall for time, for another ten seconds, for information.

The swordsman paused. "Oh, have you noticed? Or maybe the dragon inside you told you. Still, I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm only here as muscle. Planning is usually up to that guy and the high and mighty 'Once and Future King'. Well, to be honest we aren't even supposed to be fighting... but exploding that sword, well, as Sugu said, it's best to be able to keep a watchful eye on people able to do that rather than let them develop in the hands of those like your master." The white haired man said, spitting the last word out like a curse.

Sakura swore as she saw him resume his combat stance, closing the distance between them with unnerving speed. She frantically created multiple air shields in front of her, a desperate, futile attempt to buy herself time. As a Devil, her magic drew from her imagination. The Kaleidostick, coincidentally or not, worked in a similar way, limited only by the Magical Girl's imagination.

What this meant… was that Sakura was screwed twice over because of how unimaginative she was!

And was it any wonder? Since infancy, she had spent all her time within the confines of the Matou household, unable to form meaningful connections, to enjoy the type of entertainment normal kids took for granted… To some, perhaps, that might have strengthened their imagination, turning it into their only escape.

For Sakura, though, it had dulled it, atrophied it, until she was nothing more than an emotionless doll. Only recently, only recently did she…

And I fucked it all up.

"If I had to guess," the swordsman spoke, his voice casual as he effortlessly shattered each of her shields, "I'd guess the reason he's taking his sweet time rather than telling me to finish this is because he wants to evaluate you."

Evaluate us? It did not take long for it to click. The only reason not to kill them immediately, to go through this entire song and dance… was if they wished to recruit them.

Still, "I have become a Devil." For a human supremacist faction to be attempting to recruit her, no, perhaps they only wished for—

"The bossman is working on a fix for that shit. Some of the Reincarnated Devils were turned unwillingly, and bossman is a bleeding heart like that." He spoke carelessly, yet whoever it was he was referring to, the swordsman clearly respected him a great deal.

"What about the Pure-Blooded Devils?" Sakura asked, and she knew, by the way his head tilted, as if confused, that his answer wouldn't please her.

"What about them?" Death, then.

Unacceptable, Sakura thought, her gaze hardening. Such an outcome was completely unacceptable. Rias and Sona were nii-san's friends. If they died, nii-san would be sad, and as such, Sakura could not accept a future that included their deaths.

Because nii-san cared for them—

"Sakura-chan! How can you not have read Jojo before?! Come here, grab all of these—yes, of course you can take them home—tomorrow I want you to—"

"Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan, Sona is being mean to me! What do you mean what did I do to deserve it?!"

Yes, because nii-san cared for them—

"Hm, why are you looking like that. You're a member of my peerage, so you must be happ—no no no, not that fake crap, put that smile away and never show it to me again. I want a real smile, a true smile, and I'm either gonna tickle you until I get it, or you're gonna tell me what the problem is and we'll solve it together. My nii-san is the Lucifer you know? I'm sure we can solve whatever is ailing you."

Indeed, it was because, it was because—

"I know how she is. But Rias… she really cares, you know? I know it must not make sense to you, as you've only known each other for a week, but to be part of her peerage, to her that is—"

"I understand." Sakura had answered Sona.

Nii-san was her sun. Nii-san was her Earth. Sakura was merely the moon, orbiting him, being brightened by his light. There would be no light in her life without him. There would be no reason to go on without him.

Rias Gremory… was a star in the sky. Something to look at when nii-san's light was momentarily hidden from her. A star's absence would be unnoticeable, most would say. Yet, for a girl who had never had any stars to look at until now, its disappearance would be a deeply felt loss.

The rest of their club too, were slowly turning the previously dim sky into a lit one. Sakura couldn't lose that. She couldn't.

Something exploded nearby. She looked to the side, where nii-san had been standing. Now, a ghostly skeletal figure was surrounded by a dark, fiery lilac aura. Its arms were unproportionally long, and its hands unproportionally large, even taking the monstrous arms into account.

Siegfried whistled appreciatingly, muttering something about not having expected the brother to be that special. She couldn't fault him for thinking so at first sight, it was quite hard to see through nii-san in so little time. To see that, despite the way he presented himself, he was the most special of them all.

"Nii-san, what are you doing?" She had asked, upon catching him frowning at his own hands. It had been a few days after they met what would become the members of the Occult Research Club for the first time.

"These hands… they're quite small, are they not?" She had inclined her head to the side, not understanding. She had heard that complexes about dick size were common in boys his age—nii-san did not have much to worry about there, she felt. Definitely at least above average for his age, going by the tents he pitched whenever Sakura bent down a bit too much—but a complex about hand size?

Not that it mattered of course. Average, small, big, micro or macro, short or tall, thin or fat, complying to traditional beauty standards or not, just as sure as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, Sakura loved Shinji, exactly as he was.

It had taken her a bit to understand what he had truly meant. The things those hands had to hold onto, they had just multiplied, and they would keep multiplying, because nii-san was a loveable fool. Because nii-san wanted to love, wanted to be loved. Sakura would be there to drive away the undeserving, but she could do nothing to the others.

Her brother was a greedy man. A controlling man. The moment his hands grabbed onto something, he refused to let go, to share, to abdicate. That was why only one thing would destroy him more than someone betraying him.

Nii-san could not betray others for that reason. Because a man can leave only so much of himself behind before he is a man no longer, and nii-san, as had been established, was a rather greedy fool of a man.

Even if he was not, no matter how small, Sakura would not permit any part of him to be left behind. Because even the smallest piece of him, was worth the entire world twice over for Sakura.

"Swordsman-san," she said, smiling, reaching the same conclusion Shinji had.

{Boost!}

There was only one possible path. He smiled at her, as if knowing what she was going to say next, and displaying his approval.

Sakura Asutaroto uttered only a single sentence in return.

"I'm gonna fucking kill you."