Khepri was mastering the art of sitting so still they appeared invisible. There was no evidence it would work but so far it seemed promising. They'd been sitting at the same table as Ryusei for several minutes now and still hadn't been noticed. It was rare that Khepri found a skill they were good at from the first try but perhaps they'd finally struck gold. All that remained to be seen was how effective it was. Did it only stop them from being seen if they remained still or did it extend to other senses as well?

"If I talk do you think I exist?" Khepri said out of nowhere, attentively waiting to see whether Ryusei would answer. They were curious whether they'd get a response. If he stayed silent Khepri truly would have mastered the technique in one go, but even if he spoke up the catbug would still be well on the way to discovering a skill they never knew they had; Or wanted for that matter. 

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Tags: Ryusei Hachisuka

The muted sounds of people shouting reached Khepri, distorted as if through water due to the buzzing in their ears and the loud thumping of their own heart. Why were they still talking? They were all rambling questions and asking for answers. How did any of those matter when someone just died? Khepri could still feel it. The turn of the earth. The ground beneath their feet spinning at a thousand miles an hour and the entire planet hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour. They could feel it, they were falling through space, all of them, both Khepri themself and everyone else in the room. Clinging to the skin of their tiny little world. Rui had let go. 

Why?

Logically she knew it was only natural that the world kept moving. Thousands of people died every day yet the planet was still spinning even after millennia of such tragic events. Emotionally putting one and one together was nearly impossible. The person in their arms wasn't moving. Their heart had stopped beating. Their memories were lost forever and a gap would be left in the lives of all who once knew them. How could the world still exist when reality was riddled in such gaping holes? Most importantly;

Why?

What was even the point? If something like this could happen. If something like this would just happen again. And again. And again and again and again, over and over until the end of time. Then why? She couldn't be brought back. Entropy was an inescapable truth. Once changed something could not be unchanged. Rui could never again be brought to her original state. Through the haze of tears the catbug could see something light up. Then a shock ran through them. Startled, Khepri opened her eyes and looked down at Rui. 

Dead eyes refused to stare back.

Frozen in place with their eyes wide open they watched as Rui stood back up and walked away, sniffling sobs still intermittently racking their form. They could tell she wasn't alive. Not truly. It was impossible. Their eyes honed in on the wound and bile rose in their throat. With a gulp they forced it back down, transfixed on the figure moving away like a puppet on a string. Khepri barely noticed themself getting to their feet, seeing it almost as an outside observer, their thoughts and actions remaining almost entirely disconnected.



Why weren't they stopping her? Why weren't they asking her what was going on? Whether they were alright, stupid as the question might be? Khepri didn't know. They scanned the area for any face they might recognize, grasping onto familiarity like a lifeline. Spotting the Masked Man they plodded after him, covered in blood and so pale they barely looked more alive than Rui. Idly a train of thought wondered what had happened to the Mushroom Man. Khepri hoped he was alright. Surely he was. They'd have known if something happened, right? Another sob wrenched its way out. They couldn't bear to think about it any more. Yet their new quirk would not let them abort the train of thought. Like a prisoner within their own mortal coil Khepri thought on, putting one foot in front of the other to keep going, hoping against all hope that this madness would end soon.

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TL;DR: Utterly traumatized, Khepri watches Rui go and plods after Facade on autopilot.

Tags: facade ,Rui Matsui ,Matsu

Khepri blinked in surprise as Jouma laughed and wiped away a tear. They couldn't help but wonder why he thought it worked like that. There was a specially inbuilt string to connect the bobber to the fishing rod, there was no way they could lose it and if they put bait on the hook where would the fish go once it's caught? They weren't trying to pull the bait back up, they were trying to get the fish! Still, ignorant as the man was he'd been nice enough to come along with them so Khepri wouldn't call him out on it. Why, they had just the perfect idea on how to make sure he didn't make a mistake without bruising his ego.

"Yeah, for normal fish. Have you heard of everything weird going on at the beach recently? The normal fish all swam away. We can't use the right method for things out of the left-field. That's the wrong direction."

Khepri knew plenty about directions. They'd tried to navigate using their moral compass once and arrived three days later than they'd intended. Using the right tool for the right job was very important. It was why Khepri really disliked the word goblet. How messed up was it that it meant 'cup' and not 'tiny goblin'?

"Hmm? Nah, he was a dog trainer," Khepri confidently replied just before the rod was nearly janked out of their hands. "See! Got something already!" They hoped it wasn't another barrel with one of those funny marks of a circle with some cornerless triangles in it like the one she'd found when she tried to use a net to catch fish that one time. Even if they didn't think ENRRA would show up all the way here it was bound to be annoying. 

"Yeah, food!" Khepri agreed to the unknown catch's self-assessment. Then they stopped talking as the air was driven out of their lungs when they rammed chest-first into the railing. Their pupils dilated as their grip tightened on the rod and they strained against the railing to pull in a deep breath. "Jouma. On three we need to pull." Khepri's left foot left the ground and settled firmly against the second bar of the railing before her right one wedged just right against the third bar. Activating their quirk the muscles in their legs bulged as much as they could in the moment before Khepri would kick off backwards with as much force as they could manage.

"Three!"

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Tag: Jouma Joukou

Khepri was tasering away at the mirrors in French until Not-Rui addressed her. A feeling similar yet different to the one Khepri had felt 27 hours ago went through them again. This one was shorter but hurt far more. Fear overtook them. Last time they lost their exoskeleton, ears and tail while gaining two fingers, toes and different ears. 

They looked down and saw what's up. Then they looked up and saw only their own hair. They had no mouth but still screamed. It was a silent scream, one that twisted the catbug's expression but produced no sound. From the corner of their eye they saw Not-Rui run away from them and heard her taunts but they were far too busy freaking out to contemplate whether the blonde's words were still reversed.

Raising their left hand to check their face their breath hitched -causing them to exhale deeply instead- when they failed to see it appear in their line of sight and something simultaneously hit their left leg. Panicking at the sudden attack that sent lightning coursing through them Khepri went down flailing, unaware that opening their hand and trying to check their face had caused her other arm's fist to clench around the taser and hit it against their leg instead. 

The back of their head hitting the ground hurt their face. It would have made sense what with their line of sight making them believe they hit the ground face first but they can feel their nose hurt just as much as the rest around it. Had that hit the ground first it would have either broken completely or caused their head to tilt when it hit the floor. There was no way the pain was spread that evenly. Not without the very specific circumstances of the waffle batter incident of 2097.

Something was off.

Khepri went still. They focused entirely on that deduction to refrain from panicking any further, getting lost in their thoughts instead and staring at nothing through empty eyes. 

Their mind churned. Once they took a moment to think about everything it wasn't difficult to figure out what the cause was. This had to be another variant or evolution of the reversed words. It helped that they'd had a similar theory before. Their senses had been reversed. Had their actions been reversed too? Khepri brought her left hand down and raised it once more. Feeling the pain of their arm slamming into the ground provided the final piece of data that confirmed the theory.

Putting their new quirk to use to process all of the feedback they had to deal with and keep track of the necessary motions Khepri slowly pushed themself up. Behind them they could see where Mushroom Man had chased after Not-Rui moments ago, their memories combined with their new processing speed allowing them to deduce what happened and which direction they headed in. From the other sounds they heard they figured there were bigger problems to deal with however. 

It took time and several immediate, minute adjustments to get themself back upright but before long Khepri managed to regain some modicum of mobility. Not enough to be at full or even half efficiency but enough to defend themself in a pinch. Turning their waist and head so the back of it was facing where they were looking before they fell Khepri took in the disastrous scene taking place on the other side of the mirror. Their heart dropped and they froze in place once more. Was that them attacking Not-Rui alongside Mushroom Man and Masked Man? But Masked Man was right there and Mushroom Man and Not-Rui had ran off in the opposite direction? Was what they was now a reversed scene of the three of them leaving Not-Rui alone or was this truly happening?

There was far too much going on for them to both figure it out, make use of their quirk to parse their scrambled senses and actions as well as intervene in time. Their mind ran through all the steps it would take. While it did so Khepri stood frozen in place. Whether it was for a moment or an eternity Khepri had not the capacity to find out. All they knew was the longer it took them to figure out what to do the lower their chances of success became.

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TL;DR:
Khepri's merry electrocuting is interrupted by their world getting turned upside down and they drop, taking a moment to figure out what is going on and straining to stand back up. When they do they spot what is going on, wonder whether it's real and freeze in place trying to figure out what to do about it.

Tags: Rui Matsui,Matsu,facade

Khepri blinked slowly at the blonde girl's words. Was it supposed to be a riddle? If so it was quite a strange one, were they supposed to figure out the question first and then try to find an answer? Even more surprising was that she seemed to know who they were. If Khepri hadn't been too busy pondering that to notice the sparks moving weirdly perhaps Khepri would have figured the entire solution out faster but alas, with them attempting to pursue each question to their conclusion they wouldn't get around to it until they'd made sense of Rui's words.

Their reversed sentence being understood by the Mushroom Man and his subsequent explanation to Facade finally put Khepri on the right track and much farther away from it once more when the mirrors would pass over them.

The loud crack right before the mirrors started moving startled them. Khepri's eyes darted from mirror to mirror to discern the cause behind this sudden change. Their gaze settled on one. They couldn't figure out why it seemed to be getting bigger and bigger but then it hit them.

And promptly phased right through them.

For a second Khepri considered that they might have been transported to a mirrored version of the world because of it. It seemed like a logical extension of whichever quirk was mirroring their speech. They knew it wasn't the case though. Khepri could feel it. The turn of the earth. The ground beneath their feet spinning at a thousand miles an hour and the entire planet hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour. They could feel it, they were falling through space, all of them, both Khepri themself and everyone else in the room. Clinging to the skin of their tiny little world and if they let go...

They hadn't ended up in a mirror world. They'd have felt the difference, that they were sure of. With that matter settled they turned to Facade to reply.

"Je ne pense pas qu'il ait tort."

Oh no. That complicated matters. Clearing their throat Khepri tried again just in case.

"Vous ne comprenez pas ce que je ne dis pas ?"

Nope. Still didn't work. That was quite inconvenient. Khepri realized they could now speak French but unfortunately they still couldn't listen French so they had no idea what they were saying. Pulling the large book they were carrying from their back they paged through it untill they found a page that was still blank and began to write instead to test if that got twisted up too. It didn't seem to. That was good.

Their newfound perfect memory combined with their constant observation even when they were zoning out far too much to normally retain any information meant they could actually figure things out now instead of forgetting about them the moment something else drew their attention, no matter how often they got sidetracked.

Khepri wrote as fast as they could. Which was quite the challenge because what they wanted to say had a lot of i's in it and drawing hearts for all the dots on top of them took time. They loudly cleared their throat several more times when they were finished in order to draw the attention of both Mushroom Man and Facade as they turned the book to face them. Written inside of it was this text:


At the same time as they held up the book they pointed their hand in the opposite direction of Rui. Once both Facade and Mushroom Man finished reading Khepri would slowly head in the direction they'd pointed at, checking that Facade and Mushroom Man were still close to them every step. Should either of them not follow Khepri would stop the moment they were three paces away from each other and refuse to go any further. On the way to their goal they'd make sure to poke every single mirror that came within reach.

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TL;DR:
Khepri figures out what the gimmick is just before it changes. Shortly after the mirror gets them they reply to Facade in fluent French before deciding to write everything they wanted to communicate down instead. Writing that they should do the opposite of whatever Rui says they'd begin to slowly follow the sparks provided everyone else comes along, poking every single mirror within reach on the way there.

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Tags: Rui Matsui,Matsu,facade,Mafdet Khepri

[attr="class","likedo"]

It was only much later that Khepri realized the net bridges had gotten loose and the sled left behind at some point. By the time they did they'd covered so much of the beach they didn't have the slightest clue where they started nor where they'd gotten separated from Yue. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky it'd take quite a while to get back too. Khepri shrugged. It'd be fine. Another sip of their now cold broccoli cheddar soup assured them all would be right in the world. They let out a content sigh. 

Well, not much else to do about it.

Turning on their heel Khepri headed to the nearest bus stop before ordering a taxi. Their legs were hurting far too much to walk all the way from wherever this was all the way back to the dorms. Taking the public transportation form that wasn't public seemed like a much better solution. They nodded to themselves. That sounded about right. Besides, they'd be coming back here soon enough anyway so they could always try walking back next time to check if the other option was better. They lost their usherette tray somewhere along the way and they were determined to come get it back sometime within the next few days so long as they didn't forget by the time they get home.

Surely they wouldn't, right?

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Tags: Yue "Bun" Tuzi