Next thing Hirune knew Kala kept almost every weapon she tried to pick out of her reach. The first weapon she wanted to choose was a cool looking sword that seemed to have a skeletal handle with nerve endings that morphed as it's blade. Kala said she couldn't use it because it drained too much energy and that it was too complicated to use for someone as new as her. The second weapon Hirune tried to pick was this weird flail that had 2 endings. One ending could open and close like a mouth and the other was a dagger that could open up like a peacock's tail. Kala said she needed more training for it, and it kept on going like this until Hirune just gave up and told her she didn't need a weapon.
As they walked back, Hirune saw the jester again. She nudged Kala, which she ignored. So, she shoved Kala into the wall then forced her head into the jester's direction, "Do you see that jester?" Kala frowned and slowly took Hirune's hands away from her face, "I don't see anything there. What are you talking about?" They stared at each other for a moment. Then she looked at the jester again as Kala kept on walking. The jester was getting closer. "Can we hurry up a bit? We clearly don't get along so maybe hurrying it up a bit would be better. That's just me though." She glanced back at her and groaned as she walked faster.
When they got outside, everyone else was there already. "So, why do you lack a weapon?" Ellen asked in an interrogating tone. Hirune shrugged, then raised her shoulders a bit. She knew it was only a matter of time until Mr. Let's talk nonstop got to her. "Ellen, can you like... Put out the fire before it starts?" She sighed with a slight giggle, "Hey Clint, could you use that whistle that makes the car appear." Clint nodded and pulled a silvery whistle that looked like a Rolls Royce from the 50's. Which when he whistled it a large cloud of fog came out of it, then when it dispersed a silver Rolls Royce from the 50's that was slightly tweaked in order for it to have as many seats as a modern-day SUV. "So, how'd that work?"
"You act as if he has any idea. Sure, he's socially smart, but he's not that bright. He got it after he pleased Vereta. The goddess of time and reincarnation." Hirune stared at her, thinking.
There were myths of 10 gods. In Triste they were taught about the myths, but they never taught them any way to worship or anything like that. Hirune always found that curious, why teach them about it if they weren't going to use it in their day-to-day life? She always knew the answer, but it was kind of annoying to her either way. But she was curious now, Vereta, the goddess of time and reincarnation, known for being the first of the 10 deities, and for giving all the other deities their spots in the pantheon. "So, how did he even get the attention of a god?" "Oh, he accidently burned a rift she was making to introduce new ideas into this world." Hirune just stared at her. At this point she was wondering why she even questions things anymore, finally accepting that if she's going to have to change her mind set for a little while in order to understand what's going on.
They all hopped into the car. Clint in the drivers seat, Ellen in the passenger seat, and Kala, Tundra and Hirune in the back. Hirune was curious about the jester and was about to ask about it. Then she remembered that she's here because they think she's a witch of some sorts. Then she thought that maybe telling them about the fragment she consumed would help her situation out a little. After all, this would give her some answers for Namulenza.
"I ate a purple fraction of an artifact." Ellen eyes suddenly got serious, "Wait, you consumed a part of who's artifact?" "Namulenza," She said casually. "Hirune, sweety, hone-" "Stop calling me pet names." ... "Alright, but as I was saying. Have you, met her in any way shape or form?" She shook her head. She was obviously lying, but Ellen didn't seem to catch on. "Ok, good. That's good." Ellen started staring at a map and giving Clint directions as white girl music blasted on the radio.
Hirune let her head fall down with a discreet sigh of relief. Then as soon as she did, she shrieked as she saw the decapitated head of the shadow jester on her lap laughing at her. "You, ok?" She nodded hard. She had to figure out what that shadow jester thing was, and why only she could see it. She could always ask Ellen, but she already gave Ellen a risky lie that if she slipped up a little could get her caught. "Hey Ellen, I'm kind of curious about Namulenza. After all I did consume parts of her artifact, so I was wondering if you had any books related to her?" Ellen didn't even look back at her. But she could slightly see her face from the angle she was at, and she looked as if her entire family was just killed in front of her eyes. The rest of the ride was pretty quiet. To everyone but Hirune who could hear the jester's dreadful laugh throughout the entire car ride.
They eventually reached their destination. Hirune got out of the car looking as if she just got in a car crash that involved an unnecessary number of trucks. Everyone else on the other hand, looked like they were brand-new cars polished to the point they borderline glowed. Hirune looked around at the scenery. All of the roads were grey bricks, with slight metal indents in it that allowed single cart trolleys to go around the city. The structures were all wood though. Which Hirune found pretty peculiar. If anything were to set on fire only the people would risk getting burnt, which sure, limited collateral damage. But it certainly did heighten death rates. But why were they here?
Ellen turned to them, "Alright guys. According to our insiders, we've brought a noob on an extremely important mission." They all looked at her, then at Hirune, then back at her, then expressed visual worry. Besides Clint. Clint seemed a little too excited to have a noob with them. "So, Hirune," She took a deep breath, "Oh, I'm SO going to regret my next decision. In order for you to unlock your powers you have to focus on your core, then force it to shatter into a million pieces then fix it." They stared at each other for a moment. "Excuse me, wha-" "You heard that right. That's why I was so worried earlier. If you can't break and fix your core, then you might go mad. This is unique for people who consume Wichuza artifacts. Everyone else just has to focus." Hirune laughed nervously. Was she seriously about to try this? What if she's lying? "How can I be sure I can trust in you."
"I mean...I've been the nicest person here to you. You should trust me at least a little." She sighed. She was seriously about to do this.
She focused up, trying to imagine her core. Focusing her entire mind to it. What she saw was exactly what she expected, a dark misty orb with a reverberating wave of red and purple. Not that many colored waves, but just enough to show that she still had emotions, and that Namulenza was lying in there somewhere. She then realized, how would she break this? Wouldn't this basically kill her in a way?
She tried to exit this little fixation of her imagination, but she couldn't. Well, what now? Does she risk it or not? It's not as if there's a different way of leaving. Hirune thought for a moment, trying to figure out her next move. The only thing she could think of was making a small hole into her core to see inside then patching it up again. So, she tried it.
She focused on applying pressure to a tiny spot in her core, then it shattered. Just as luck would do her, her core was extremely fragile. She scrambled to fix it, throwing as many pieces as she could at each other and hoping they stuck.
Eventually, she had like 10 different miniature walls that she had to piece together back into the orb. But the walls didn't match up. How was she going to fix this? Then she just started breaking the walls again, then breaking the pieces of the walls again, and again, and again. Eventually she was just seeing a bunch of dust. Then suddenly she felt as if her head was blown up into a veil of red mist.
"What were you trying to do?" a voice laughing sinisterly exclaimed from her left. She sighed while tilting her head left and glancing up at her. "Well, you do get lonely here by yourself I imagine, I just wanted to visit." She scoffed, "Well whatever you were doing, you did it the right way." She stared at her for a moment. She did it the right way? Was she SUPPOSED to die to fix her core? She looked puzzled, like a toddler trying to understand taxes. "Well, I'm sending you back now. This is new to you, but you're going back 10 seconds into the past before you died. So you can't change events unless you already reached a requirement that death doesn't take away from you."
Hirune was back to Ellen yapping about her having to break her core. "you ha-" "I already did it." She stared at her. "What?" "I just did it. Right now." She seemed baffled, she didn't even finish explaining it what did she mean she already did it? "Show me. To use your powers just... Well, whatever feels right to you. Using your powers as to do with your own personal way of thinking about things." Hirune focused up, trying to find whatever felt right. Her nails were getting a little long- Wait why's she closing her eyes that jester might catch her off guard! She quickly opened her eyes.
A small lizard came out of her shadow and something that was coming out of her nails instantly retracted when she opened her eyes. She heard Kala hold in a laugh, Clint looked like he just saw the coolest thing ever, and Tundra and Ellen looked unamused yet curious. Hirune was left disappointed.
"Try again. Don't close your eyes this time. Do the nail thing again." Hirune wasn't sure why. Maybe it was to get her practice in, but maybe, just maybe she should practice somewhere more private. But she was starting to trust Ellen a bit more. She focused on her nails, and these cool fang-like dark wobbly claws came out from underneath them.
"Well now that we know what your powers are. It might seem a bit crazy that the first mission we're taking you on has to do with arson... Yeah, everyone could die it's something light." Ellen brushed it off as if it was nothing and so did the others. But Hirune was freaking out. Internally of course but how was she supposed to do anything?
"May I ask, can we stop them before they light anything on fire?" They all laughed as if she was joking. "Yeah, no. We have no clue where he is we need him to start and soon." Hirune sighed. Why did she have to stop and stare out into the ocean on that day? Then suddenly Clint turned around and pointed, "It's started up south! Let's hurry it up!" They all ran, besides Tundra and Hirune. They looked at each other. She giggled nervously, "So, do you want to go first?" He just stood there. Unamused and waved his hand forward as of to signal her to go ahead.
'Dang it he can read me like a book!' she thought.
Then she started running South, but she was pretty slow, when she looked behind herself Tundra was just jogging and keeping up. How could she go faster? She looked at the way the others were running, or she tried. She couldn't really tell if they had fancy shoes, or a fancy running form, but they were certainly way faster than her. She looked behind her at Tundra again.
Then looked at his feet, he was sliding on ice. Now, how could she mimic that? She suddenly stopped and took her shoes off. She was going to try and do the nail thing again, but on her feet, and in a way that would let her go faster. She tried it as she ran, and as the same dark thing that made the same fang-like claws, made her slip and fall flat on her face. She then felt someone trip over her. She looked up and saw it was Tundra. He got up, and surprisingly enough helped her up. "Listen, I don't want to talk, but that was embarrassing to see even for me. So instead of trying to completely mimic me, try to fine tune it. Don't slide, instead try to add power to your steps or something like that. The others are doing the same."
Hirune nodded and tried again, instead of imagining it like sliding on ice, she imagined it like very elastic springs. Which she would soon regret. As she caught up, she realized she was getting a little too, much force on the springs, and as she accidently got in front of them, she took one extra step and went flying over buildings.
Somehow, it worked out both negatively and positively. Positively because she landed on the guy, she could tell by the flamethrowers and fuel canisters all over the area. Negatively because now, she was alone with a pyromaniac. She quickly got off of him and took three steps back, fearful for her life as a sense of dread and realization came over her. Not because she'd die, even though that thought was still terrifying to her at least she knew it wasn't permanent now if she did. But because when she came back, she'd come back while flying at this guy. She couldn't help but laugh. This short loop would certainly be something.
"Ugh! who the hell are you?!"The pyromaniac said standing up. "Doesn't matter anyways, you're going to die now!" He started shooting his flamethrowers at her. Even though she knew she'd come back, she still had to try and defend herself if she was going to loop more than 3 times. Get a good feel of his fighting style. She focused with her left hand, and by barely focusing the fang-like claws, she made a whole pair of jaws come out of her palm that devoured the flames. How did she do that? Was it the adrenaline? Her life is on the line so that'd make sense, but right now isn't the time to think about it. She looked at the guy again, feeling more confident in her abilities. Then she smirked, but not a nervous smirk, not a fearful smirk, no nothing like that. It was the smirk of a completely and utterly insane person when she saw his expression. He had a dreadful grimace on his face as he desperately threw gas canisters at her, which with her right hand she cut into 4 pieces. Oh, her confidence was increasing, but so was her lack of empathy for this man. The gasoline splattered all over her, but she didn't care, the jaws were still in her left palm, she'd just eat the flames again, and that's exactly what she did when he tried to burn her again, but this time as she devoured the flames, she closed the gap between him and her. Then stabbed through his skull, a shattering sound coming from it as brain pieces and blood shot out of his head, the tendons barely holding on. She let his body slide off of her claws. She was never told to kill him, and she did it in a heat of the moment thing.
So, in order to make it blend in she poured some gasoline on him and used his flamethrowers to light it on fire.
'Oh god, oh god, oh god! What have I just done?! I just killed someone? Why? How? What happened? No, no, I know what happened! I know what I did! But why! How did I let myself do that?! What came over me? I wouldn't do that no. I didn't do it, it was an accident yeah, and accident,' these sorts of thoughts repeated over and over again in her head as she tried to convince herself it wasn't her fault.
Then left in a panic. This panic wasn't fake though, because she had just killed a man without knowing if it was morally right or wrong. After all he was going to commit arson on a city where every building was made of wood, and that'd make him a genocidal pyromaniac, but she was not mentally prepared to kill anyone, especially in such a horrible way. She couldn't help but throw up as soon as she got outside, and forced herself to stay conscious as she waited for the others to arrive, hoping it'd be soon so they could put out the fire.