*
A pair of red eyes peaked out under locks of rapidly shifting brown. A ragged breath escapes between two rosy lips, step after step her legs blitzed across the concrete pavement. There are no cars, floating or not, in this era. The walkways in residential zones were too narrow, and due to there being as many corners as there are houses, it's dangerous to use rapid transport that could take lives at a moments unnoticed. Instead, there are bike trails that lead towards the school at the centre of the zone, absent at the junctions, making it impossible for anyone to be lost.
Why was Corrine running? She was a classmate, one that blended into the background as the class bookworm... Where was she heading to, so desperately? This was her weekend run... This all started a couple days ago...
"Haah~? Her? No way she could do it!" (Lastia)
Foolishly, she spoke without thinking. Truthfully, she just wanted to stand out. There was an impasse in the investigation, and school reputation didn't matter much to Lastia anyway. So Yggdrasil believed that in this manner she could get information to come to her instead.
The veins in her temple buldged as she overheard the commotion, it was tough not to notice when everyone turned their dazed eyes towards Lastia. When did she become such a rude delinquent?
"Huuuh?! You think I'll lose to the likes of you?" (Corrine)
"Wha-wai!" (Mebi)
Her closest friend, Mebi, a petite girl with wavy dark blue twintails exclaimed in panic. They were both in the library club, and though their academic performance and tastes in genre differ vastly, they have grown fond of each other over the years. She was about to step out and mollify her friend when...
"Aahh!? Some guts you have there! How about we compete this Sunday!" (Lastia)
For how capable she claimed to be, Yggdrasil was still completely new to emotions, that easily included being provoked... She couldn't comprehend that she pissed off Corrine first, only to get provoked herself when replied to... Truly, self inflicted. Sariel watched with her jaw ajar, unable to understand what was happening. In fact, that was how most of the class reacted.
"Alright... Next is basketball. Remember class, the reward isn't that important. What you will truly earn would be the bonds you form with each other.
Anyway, we roughly still have a month before the actual day. These are temporary slots, but I recommend getting your name out now because from experience, these positions rarely change hands. " (Ms. Lin)
The homeroom teacher, Ms. Lin skillfully guided the class's attention away from the argument, and that was how we ended up in the current situation. By purposefully reciting an erroneous statement such as earning friendship, she managed to attract the students' attentions via irritation.
In the first place there aren't many team games, what little team games they had in the sports festival was conducted in duos at most. This festival focused on running, pole vaulting, dancing, spear throwing, cooking, bowling, and other vastly different competitions between classes. Every class in this year needed to send out a representative.
There was another sports festival earlier in the year where they had actual team sports. It was the feature of that festival and had participation from students of different years. This was not what we're currently enacting. My lungs burned as my legs kept pushing forward, building momentum. I was about 5 metres behind Corrine, it was no surprise to say it was a clean loss as I couldn't bridge that gap no matter how much time passed.
It was only later on that I heard that she regularly ran on the weekends!? I'm sorry, I didn't think a bookworm like her would be active in any capacity! I assumed it would be a cinch, forgetting the fact that I'm possessing a dead body. If I transform, it would be cheating. Not to mention magical girl identities have to be kept secret, or it would draw the ire of the sentinels. At worse, the school could encounter a 'gas leak' the next day.
*BOOM!! *
The wall in front of us bursts into dusts as the world slow to a monotonous grey. It felt like time gradually slowed before finally stopping, the birds in the distant clouds, the waning rays of light, the breeze and the accompanying Corrine... It seemed like I was watching them in slow motion before they finally halted to a stop. Naturally the loss of colour could only mean one thing...
They haven't appeared since that day when the calamity appeared. Traces, I didn't expect one to appear after they hadn't come for so long. I grasped my knees, rushing to rest my heart rate after so desperately running above my natural limit... Again, I don't believe Lastia was ever unfit. If there was an issue, it would either be my adaptation to her body or... This was simply how difficult manipulating dead bodies are.
It doesn't have blood pumping, the cells aren't alive but they aren't dead either. It's like time has stopped for the body, no respiration, no apoptosis. Naturally it also has no energy, only the momentum forcefully produced by my magical energy, like pushing a puppet's arm forward so fast and forcefully that it flies through the air. If I use my computation power to calculate and simulate every little buological process in the body, the massive density of active magic energy would force her to transform. Conversely, when I'm transformed I won't face as much of an issue.
When the dust cloud settled, what showed up was a massive hulking mass of muscles forming a wide upside down triangle shaped torso, arms, legs, but no head. Instead, the space between the collarbones opened up to form a massive jaw. A plant type Trace that lures its prey with mimicry. What I didn't understand was why it mimicked the predator, humanity wasn't the natural prey of any animal but the Traces.
Like how the baits on fish hooks are often insects or brightly coloured ornaments meant to resemble tasty insects. Prey was used as the bait, why mimicked the predator? It was unsettling to look at for sure. What was the 1 month gap between the calamity's defeat and this guy's appearance for? Something happened, something fundamental... The Trace lunged at her and a massive impact blows through her torso, leaving her blood spread over the wall behind her.
She looked down in confusion, eyes wide and hazy as her fingers scan over the massive hole in her body. It had just lunged, but it never made contact, yet there was an attack... When she looked up, the Trace had vanished too.
It was either a projectile or... An illusion. She was leaning towards the latter, seeing how her target was no longer in sight