A Curse Upon Thee 25
…and his goddamn chest made him suffer for it.
He skidded back, barely managing to stay upright as air left him in a harsh wheeze.
The heat was almost as bad as the pain.
Almost.
He didn’t have much to compare it to, nothing he could remember at least, but a Kyoto summer felt like hell on Earth, the air thick enough to make a meal out of. Humidity — or whatever you called it — was thick enough that it settled over the packed dirt of the training ground like a wet blanket. Even the shade didn’t help, the towering pines ringing the perimeter doing little to nothing when it came to keeping him from suffering.
Brutal midday sun beating down on his shoulders, Finn McHale only had one question that he needed answered. Who… in the hell did I kill to deserve this? Maybe not in this life but definitely in a past one, he’d been Hitler or some other dictator and this was just the punishment.
That’s… He wheezed again, half-bent over and hands on his knees. That’s gotta be it. If it wasn’t that, he couldn’t think of any other reason, a sweet innocent seventeen year old deserved this kind of torture. And the fuckin’ heat too.
Again, the heat was a secondary problem, mostly because he was currently too busy actively bleeding from three different places on his face to focus on that. More than anything else, he was seriously starting to think that agreeing to this “special, personalized training session” had been the worst mistake of the last three months of his life.
“AGAIN!”
Blue eyes went wide, a lungful of air exploding out of his mouth as a massive fist drove itself squarely into Finn’s ribs. Spit flew free from his mouth as he was literally lifted off the ground with force far beyond human. The world turned to a blur as he was launched backward, grunts and groans forced free from empty lungs as his body skipped and skidded across the dry packed dirt, a trail of dust kicked up behind him.
Finn rolled over onto his back, a long trench beind him as he layed there like the victim of a car accident. Hell, he honestly looked it, body bruised and his dark-red Kyoto High summer uniform smeared all over with a thick layer of dirt. One hand rose to his mouth as Finn coughed hard, a wet spray staining his palm with something that looked just like the copper he could taste in the back of his throat.
“Your cursed energy circulation!” An impossibly loud voice bellowed chest-first across the training ground, Finn almost shutting his eyes in hopes it would go away. “Is PURE! ABSOLUTE! TRASH!”
Every syllable landed hard and maybe a fraction as heavy as his fists did, the rolling Kansai rhythm leaving his giant senpai and hitting his ears. “How did you even manage to make Grade 3 with this incredibly sloppy-ass reinforcement?” The massive third-year student gestured around himself, the shirtless psycho taking up more space than any one human should. “TELL ME!”
I dunno, you ogre. Finn swallowed a mouthful of blood as he bit back the first insult that popped into his head. You guys just grabbed me off the street. Granted, they did save him from getting eaten by a giant floating eyeball, but still.
Fuckin’ psychos. Finn pushed himself up onto aching elbows, a cocky grin forced to life through split lips as he smiled past his own blood. The man a good distance away from him stood tall and massively built with shoulders like boulders and muscles wider than barbells, the man a walking tank that moved — and hit — like a goddamn freight train. “Natural… talent?”
“WRONG!” Aoi fucking Todo crossed the entire distance between them in a single step, Finn’s eyes going wide even as he tried to crabwalk back.
Nonononono… His crabwalking meant nothing against the reach of his senpai as the big man hauled Finn straight up by the high black collar of his sleeveless uniform jacket. One arm held him effortlessly off the ground, higher and higher until the red soles of Finn’s sneakers dangled uselessly above the dirt. …please don’t punch me again.
“I WILL DO JUST THAT!” The teenager with the scar and topknot didn’t bother to lower his volume even with Finn less than a foot from his mouth.
Finn blinked. Did he hit me hard enough that I’m talking out loud?
“YES!”
“…damn.”
“You see what I mean? Just a stubborn gaijin who refuses to die!” Finn’s skull rattled again in a way that definitely didn’t help his concussion, Todo rattling him as he laughed. “But stubborn doesn’t beat actual POWER!” He shook Finn once, violently, rattling his teeth in his skull, before dropping him back to the ground. “Stubborn doesn’t beat refined TECHNIQUE! Stubborn just means you bleed longer than everyone else!”
…that doesn’t make sense.
But then again, he was feeling a concussion right now. It might make a lot more sense after a quick nap or something.
From the shaded sidelines near the equipment shed, the wooden joints of a certain student’s puppet body whirred and groaned. “His juryoku control is improving.” Mechamaru tilted his head just a little to the side. “Slowly.”
A black-haired beauty sat back on a wooden bench, slouched in the deep shade as she examined the polish on her nails like it was the most important thing in the world. “He’s still gonna get killed on his very first real solo mission.” She scoffed loud enough for Finn to hear even from where she sat, the sound filled with as much disdain as she could fit into a single breath. “It’s a waste of bandages.”
“Um, maybe we should stop?” Kasumi Miwa clutched the hilt of her sheathed katana, the thing more a security blanket than a weapon considering she rarely got to use it. “He’s… he’s bleeding a lot…”
“This is exactly why I don’t do close-quarters combat.” The blond teenage witch Finn knew as Momo hovered a good ten feet above the ground sat comfortably on her broom, small arms crossed tight over her chest. “You groundlings are completely insane.”
“ONE MORE ROUND!”
Todo threw his massive head back with a bellow that spiraled into a laugh, Finn staring up at the literal ogre of a teenager who was somehow, some-fucking-how, only a year older than him. He hadn’t actually met his notorious senpai until today of all days, months and months after being yanked off the streets of Kyoto by some scary lady with a white dress and a scar.
Absolutely everyone in Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College had talked endlessly about the impossibly-strong third-year, calling him all sorts of crazies, unpredictables, and downright insanes. With the guy constantly getting shipped out on high-grade missions back-to-back for months, Finn hadn’t had the actual chance to confirm the wild rumors himself.
Now, though… “You’re joking.”
It was feeling pretty fucking confirmed.
“ONE MORE ROUND!” Todo boomed out again, one thick beefy finger pointed right down at Finn, the redhead still trying to figure out how to stand”And this time, Tourist, you will SHOW ME YOUR CURSED TECHNIQUE!”
“I DON’T FUCKING HAVE ONE!”
“THEN PROVE TO ME YOU DON’T NEED ONE!”
Finn spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the dry dirt, wiped his chin with the back of his bruised hand, and forced his shaking legs upright. Fuck this guy. His juryoku was running low as it was already, reserves drained to dick from barely a single minute of this one-sided beatdown.
But the giant meathead was actually right about one thing: he was a gritty bastard.
The redhead grinned.
“THAT’S WHAT I LIKE TO SEE!” Todo’s grin widened to meet his. “NOW, GAIJIN! SHOW ME YOU DESERVE TO LIVE!”
…I don’t like the implications of that sentence. Even still, Finn charged.
A fast heavy hook flew out, Finn putting his shoulder into it. Todo met him head-on, massive open mitt of a hand palming a punch reinforced with red flickering Cursed Energy. The impact cracked loudly in the humid air.
“Predictable!”
Finn twisted his hips, hand still held in place, and drove his knee up and hard — aiming right for Todo’s ribs.
A thick forearm met the blow and blocked it without even moving, Finn gritting his teeth even as Todo grinned. “Obvious!”
He didn’t even feel it! Finn scrambled back from the brick wall of meat and noise that called himself a senpai, trying to pull back and create some goddamn dista-
A fist caught him dead in the center of the chest with another bark of a laugh, all the crushing force of a steel battering ram making the entire world shift sideways.
He didn’t even have time to blink before his back hit the ground, Cursed Energy flickering around him as his reinforcement failed him. Absolutely everything in his torso and spine hurt in deep sharp ways and Finn didn’t doubt at least one thing broke.
“PATHETIC!”
Todo-senpai loomed over him, those shoulders of his doing a good job in blocking the glare of the sun. His smile shone just as bright, though, fighting off the disappointment in Todo’s voice with something else. Pride, maybe?
Again, that could have just been the concussion.
“You fight exactly like a common street brawler, Tourist!” Todo pounded his bare chest, pecs rippling from the force of it as it rang like a drum. “Nothing but rage and reinforcement! But you know what?”
Finn tried to answer, mouth open, but there wasn’t enough air in his bruised chest to form a word just yet.
Todo’s grin went even wider. “I RESPECT IT!”
Another single hand hauled Finn back to his feet again, just a bit gentler this time. Todo even helped steady him as his knees wobbled just a little bit.
“You’ve got real heart, Tourist. REAL, beating heart.” Todo clapped him on the shoulder, friendly and firm and just forceful enough to almost send Finn right back down into the dirt. “But that’s the bare minimum. Even Miwa has heart!”
A quiet “awww” sounded across the field.
“You need something MORE. Something that makes you A MAN!”
“Working… on it.”
“WORK FASTER!” Todo stepped back, Cursed Energy suddenly flaring outward, thick, blue, and as oppressive as Finn expected for someone two full Grades above him. “Because you’re gonna need it for this next lesson.”
“Next…” Finn’s stomach immediately dropped into his sneakers. “…lesson?”
“TELL ME!” Todo pointed directly at Finn as his face suddenly got serious. “WHAT IS YOUR TYPE OF WOMAN?!”
Finn blinked sweat out of his eyes, more confused than he’d been since ogre-senpai punched him out into the training yard a full minute ago. “What?”
“YOUR TYPE OF WOMAN!” Massive arms spread out wide, Todo looked his way as he waited for the answer to the crazy question. “TALL? SHORT? ATHLETIC? DELICATE? BIG ASS? BIGGER BOOBS? WHAT MAKES YOUR BLOOD RISE, GAIJIN?!”
From the shaded sidelines, Mai suddenly made a sound that might have been a laugh, or possibly just her choking on air.
Finn blinked again, still unsure how bad this concussion was. “Are you… are you being serious right now?”
“YES!” Todo leaned forward, dark eyes blazing with more than just Cursed Energy. “A man’s taste in women shows the shape of his SOUL! His CHARACTER! His ESSENCE! So TELL ME!”
Blue eyes shot desperately toward the sidelines, begging for any kind of help. Miwa was useless as always, clinging to her sword. Momo was smiling. Mechamaru was… wood. And Mai… Mai was very deliberately not looking at him, but her slim shoulders were visibly shaking.
The wooden puppet tilted its head with a soft whir of gears. “You know this is the third time this week he has asked this exact question.”
“Fourth.” Momo’s correction came dryer than Mechamaru’s.
Todo completely ignored the peanut gallery. “WELL?!”
Finn allowed the thought to roll around his head for a second, blue eyes drifting back from Mai and over to Todo. “Strong…”
His voice came stronger, Finn finding his footing with it. “Confident, and doesn’t take shit from anyone, ‘specially not me.”
Bruised knuckles clenched tight as he formed fists at his sides. “And smart enough to be actually dangerous.”
Blood-stained teeth flashed at ogre-senpai. “With great legs and a nice juicy ass on top of all of that.”
Todo stared his way as the entire training ground went dead silent.
Then that scarred face split open, a massive grin that could only be described as aggressive aimed right at Finn. “MCHALE!”
“Wha-!”
Finn didn’t see the lunge, but he definitely felt it. Oversized arms wrapped around him in a bear hug that was as suffocating as it was crushing, at least one more rib creaking in pain as Finn bit down on a scream. “YOU UNDERSTAND! TRULY, YOU DO UNDERSTAND! THE STRONG WOMAN WITH OVERWHELMING PRESENCE! UNBREAKABLE SPIRIT! AND THE FATTEST A-“
“T-Todo-senpai!” Miwa’s voice cracked out. “Please stop right there!”
“I AM MERELY EXPRESSING MY PROFOUND JOY, KASUMI!” Todo released Finn, stepping back and planting his hands firmly on his hips. “McHale, I take back half of the insults I have hurled at you! A man with refined taste like yours can absolutely be TAUGHT!”
Mai’s shoulders were definitely shaking now, considering she wasn’t even bothering to hide her laughter at all.
“However!” Todo’s expression shifted all over again, a hunger fighting the pride he wore so brightly. “You must first pass one FINAL test!”
Finn blinked at the craziness. “…I really don’t like where this is going, man.”
“SURVIVE THIS!” Cursed Energy exploded outward in a wave of power, the training ground flooded with the raw power of a Grade 1, the one percent of this world. “AND I WILL!”
As Finn stared, he understood exactly why people talked about ‘Grade 1’ the way they did, and he especially understood why they had so much respect for Todo despite… despite his Todo-ness.
“CALL YOU!” Thick muscles bulged, blue energy wrapping around Todo-senpai’s frame like visible armor. “MY BRUZZA!”
Finn barely managed to get his forearms up in time.
It did nothing.
He’d never been hit by a bullet train before, never having jumped in front of one of the super-fast rail vehicles or really felt the need to. After taking that hit from Todo — “FUCK!” — he didn’t think he needed to anymore.
His reinforcement barely held, the strain too much for him, but the raw force of it still sent him sliding back, red-soled sneakers carving twin trenches in the dirt as he fought to keep on his two feet.
Todo was already on him before he even came to a stop.
Finn ducked the punch to his face, massive fist exploding with force enough to send his red hair fluttering in the wind. “Fu-!” Legs reinforced to his peak, Finn tried to scramble back, pushing for as much distance as he could manage.
Todo’s leg swept out before he could even take three full steps, catching Finn and sending him off his feet. Finn twisted mid-fall, moving with the momentum to spin as he drove his elbow hard toward Todo’s exposed temple—
“GOOD! LITTLE BRUZZA!” Todo caught it again, elbow in palm, as he grinned like he didn’t feel a thing. “BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”
He threw Finn.
Todo physically threw him, Finn launched like a javelin across the entire training ground at a speed that would put a car to shame. “Nononononoooooooo-”
The packed dirt silenced him as he crashed into it hard, reinforced body doing its best to keep him all in one piece even as thudded and thumped across the field. Knees tucked in, Finn pulled his body tight and forced himself into a roll, each and every bounce hurting less until he finally stopped. “…jesus!” Shaking his head, Finn came back up in a crouch, vision swimming as everything hurt.
By the time he stood up fully and blinked his head clear of a headache, Todo was already standing right there, hammer hands coming down with massive fists ready to pulp his skull like a rotten melon.
FUCK! Finn threw himself violently to the side, rolling away just as he felt the packed ground behind him — exactly where he’d been standing — crater apart.
“GOOD INSTINCTS, BRUZZA!” By the time he spun back and up to his feet again, his senpai stood casually in the center of the small crater he’d just created, breathing perfectly steady and that same grin never faltering for even a split second. “YOU ARE RAPIDLY LEARNING TO READ CURSED ENERGY MID-FIGHT! BUT-“
He vanished again.
Finn spun desperately not knowing where to run or duck or doge, throwing absolutely everything he had left in his tank into his torso until his entire chest burned a bright red. The brutal impact still took him off his feet, shattering his desperate defense and sending him sprawling.
He hit the ground hard, tasting dry dirt and his own blood, as the rest of his Cursed Energy finally guttered out on him completely, leaving him totally exposed.
Todo’s massive shadow fell heavily over him, blocking out the sun one more time as Finn just shook his head. “…if you’re gonna kill me, don’t yell anymore while you do it, please.”
“NOT BAD AT ALL, LITTLE BRUZZA!” The booming voice was actually approving, almost warm even. “A FULL NINETY-THREE SECONDS AGAINST A MERE TEN PERCENT OF MY POWER! MOST GRADE THREES WOULD NOT MAKE IT PAST THIRTY!”
Fuck you, you giant, impossible ogre. Finn tried to move his arm, but he couldn’t even twitch a finger.
“Rest.” A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, Todo’s grip and his voice both surprisingly gentle for some reason. “You have certainly earned it.”
“Idiot.” A dark-haired pretty face was suddenly there, knees hitting the dirt beside him. She kept her mask firmly in place, the mocking look she wore in public unchanging even now. Even still, her slim hands were visibly shaking as she checked his pulse with two fingers. “Wake up. I said, wake u-.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Finn McHale woke up to the sound of beeping, the sight of a familiar white ceiling above his head. “…oh.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Remember Who You Are I – 100 GP
Recover some of your missing memories.
Clinging to Life – 200 GP
Survive a fatal wound.
ROLL: “For some people, Pokémon are pets.” (0) [NPCs of Pokemon] {Control}:
And for you, pets are Pokémon. Any item, perk, or ability that is meant for “Pokémon” can also be applied to your other pets (or, if relevant, to animals or monsters you’re trying to make into a pet) or a sufficiently pet-like battle buddy. If you take the right perks or items, a pet wolf could do EV training, a dragon could be caught in a Pokéball, or a hamster could use Mega Evolution.
ROLL: Arme Vapula Heim (100) [HighSchool DxD] {Control}:
There’s strength in humanity, strength beyond any supernatural being – at least that’s this guy believes. A young man, but far stronger than he looks. He possesses no Sacred Gear, no fancy swords, renowned bloodline, nor any kind of exclusive powers… what he has is the hope of humanity itself in his heart. He’s a genius of peasants, capable of creating and mastering new martial arts in the middle of a battle, could make a new magic system from scratch that rivals even the devils or dragons’ own in versatility, or even lay out the blueprints for new weapons that would shake the world – and all such accomplishments can be easily taught and learnt by humans and humans alone. His talents would allow him to push humankind into equal ground with other supernatural factions, if properly cultivated. Calculating, thoughtful and the greatest friend one could ask for, his eyes burn with a coldness that won’t be ever laid to rest unless he exterminates all obstacles for human progress.
Grimoire Points: 500