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[attr="class","skulltitle"]間違い

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“Zen's a fucking moron. Don't compare your performance to theirs.” [break][break]

Her eyes turned back to Miroru. While she held no special consideration for her, Thea's dislike of Zen was enough to warrant a response. She immediately regretted it; now she had no choice but to participate in the conversation. Her mind angled more toward the present, not entirely, but enough so that Miroru's image was solid enough to get social queues from.[break][break]

Thea slumped further into her seat. “I just like watching things. Kinda, It's complicated,” It wasn't. “Like, I need background noise but things like TV and radio or whatever don't cut it.” What she meant to say was crowds were the easiest place to steal memories. She was like an addict, always looking for their next fix. “And well. Like, my quirks not much to show. It's not visual, ya know?” It also didn't help that once people grew aware of it, she'd lose access to all the fresh new memories this school had to offer. She knew they'd find out eventually, and in some ways, she was excited about it, if only for the fact that it would bring the solitude she craved. For now at least, she had other priorities.[break][break]

“I wouldn't worry if I was you. Nobody really cares what you did up there,” She wasn't lying. Most people didn't care for the displays at a talent show; they were mostly there for the performer themselves. “People who were going to like you will like you still, people who weren't... Well, fuck them.” Thea turned her head toward the fox-girl. “I don't think you wanna take pages from my book. It's kinda shitty.”[break]

[attr="class","skullinfo"]Notes

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[attr="class","skulltitle"]間違い

[attr="class","skullbody"]Goosbumps raised along her skin as adrenalin pumped through her veins. Farrin was close behind her, but there was precious little time to wait, and he intended to use none of it. The thugs multiplied, but the odds didn't deter Thea as her hands balled into fists. She was close. Too close, too fast. Like a woman possessed, she was threatening to run headlong into the first of the thugs. The thug threw the first punch aiming to catch her in the face as she ran. [break][break]






The fist moved in slow motion, her mind stretching the time she perceived till she absorbed every detail she could perceive. She could see the shifting weight of the thug, how he lined up his joints and aimed the initial blow, where it was intended to land. She wanted him to know the distance between them. She needed him to understand that it was his actions that lead to this, she was just the method through which it would happen. She stopped hard, transferring all the momentum into a Dempsey roll that went under the thug's fist. Two more blows came her way that bobbed and weaved around before she couldn't help but smile. [break][break]

“Is that it,” she cooed mockingly. Despite the expression on her face being ecstatic, her eyes remained hollow, glassy, and vacant. They peered not into the thug before her, but through him, into the countless versions of men like him, she'd seen before in countless lifetimes. They were all the same, save for small differences in ability and quirk. Whatever this man could throw, she'd seen it before; she'd seen it all before. [break][break]

Another man approached her flank while the rest of the thugs looked for opportune positioning to fight both her and Farrin. Catching the time-turner's stance in the corner of her eye, her smile grew deeper. [break][break]

“So yur one ah 'em lads that fites like yur da'.” Her accent switched to a mirror of his own. [break][break]

She threw a series of flicker jabs at the one on her flank, her arm flashing in the air as she peppered him in light punches. As she did, she shuffled her feet to keep the initial thug just out of reach. She was playing with her food, waiting for a moment to either strike or for them to escalate further. She wanted to use her quirk, but she was only going to do that if they did. [break][break]

“I cen hol' me own.” she smiled in response to his question.[break]

[attr="class","skullinfo"]Violence

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[attr="class","skullbody"]The smell of food was intoxicating. Taco Hut's burritos were a delicacy she'd had countless times. Maybe, she wasn't exactly sure if she'd had them or if they were just so prevalent across Japan that the host of memories she collected were somehow stained by the taste of mild sauce and discounted meats. “I'll take a large number 6, please.” she murmured as she arrived at the pile of burritos, taking one from the mound before taking a seat on an adjacent table. [break][break]

“Itadamikas,” she unwrapped the burrito what felt like a hundred times. Paper fell to the floor as she picked at the visage of it from years and weeks past. She wondered if she had eaten it already and was merely picking at the air. She didn't care enough to check. At least, that was until her stomach reminded her that she indeed existed in the present. She gave the now just enough hold of her mind to guide the food to her mouth; chewing was a secondary consideration.[break][break]

“Not lsd,” She took another bite of the burrito. “mif marf mof mih merc.” Speaking while chewing was not a skill of hers.[break][break]

Her eyes veered away from the group. Looking at them made her head hurt in ways she couldn't explain. Her mind raced to pull memories she didn't have and incomplete figures from the edges of her mind. It shouldn't be possible for her to forget things, but she couldn't think of anything else. In any case, she decided the best thing to do was to keep herself drenched in memory. Though she was going to do that regardless. It was more fun than whatever was going on here.[break]

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[attr="class","skulltitle"]間違い

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It was true. There wasn't a person at this school she would consider normal. Strange fates always seemed to congregate here, like the hand of god playing with dolls. She wondered why it was that those with the with the ability to be accepted here were always followed by the shadow of their past. Always haunted by choices they didn't even make.[break][break]

“Not something anyone should get used to.”[break][break]

They resumed the taste of painting. In part, Thea was relieved by what seemed to be the tapering off of the conversation, but there was an itch in the back of her mind. Somehow, she didn't minds talking to Farrin. She almost liked it. She tried again to drift off into another time, but her mind wouldn't let her. Parallel trains of thought each sticking to the present, she hated it, she hated living in the now more than anything. Her skin itched and time distorted as her mind ramped up, processing more information with each passing second. It drove her crazy.[break][break]

A scream came from some unknown victim. The sound of it elongated like words on a balloon filled to burst. She turned to the sound and then to Farrin. “No, I'm coming.” Her reply was quick, almost too quick, her words too fast as she compensated for her own perception of time. She still wasn't used to existing in this way, fully in the here and now. [break][break]

She ran toward the source of the yell without so much as waiting for the time turners reply. The shrine's walls did little to stop her. She scrambled up them as if she'd grown up doing so; the shrine maidens kids sure did, not that they ever told their mother. The hill on the other side was a different story. Unmanaged roots and loose earth gave way under her feet. She struggled to make a way down and maintain a full sprint; her only saving grace was already knowing what parts of the hill were the least treacherous.[break][break]

When she made it to the bottom, Thea finally saw the source of the commotion. A small group of men surrounded what appeared to be a lone salaryman clutching his bag to his chest. There was a bruise across his face and speckles of blood on the floor, on the fist of one of the assailants, and on the salaryman's otherwise pristine white collar. If she had any sense, she'd yell at them, maybe get their attention and send them running now that they'd been seen. She didn't want them to run, she wanted to fight them. There was only one thing she ever wanted to do when she was forced to live in the present, forced to be alive, forced to live and breathe each passing moment like any of it mattered.[break][break]


[break]

[attr="class","skullinfo"]Music

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[attr="class","skullbody"]It was unfortunate; the guy kept talking. Thea paused for a moment, bringing herself out of the past and into the present. If she was going to be engaged in small talk she may as well do it right. Maybe if she did it right, she could get to one of those awkward pauses and let the conversation wither away. [break][break]

“It's a beautiful place. Warm year-round, not bad if you can stand the heat. My home was,” She paused again, deciding whether or not to lie. She decided to lie. “Alright. Nothing much to say about it. Just a normal girl. Well, normal as you can be and end up going to UAU.” It was the most words she'd said consecutively to anyone since arriving. The fact that she was even engaging in conversation so comfortably was a surprise even to her. [break][break]

“Have we seen him before?”

“No, we haven't”

“I'm checking right now, nothing.”

“No, look, there's... something.”

[break]

Her mind fractured as she tried to piece together whatever it was about this boy that she recognized. The only things that came up were whisps of memories and illusions of time. “Maybe I'm finally losing it.” On some level, she hoped she was. [break][break]

“So everything you have is here, but it's still not home,” she turned to see what Farrin was eyeing out on the street. Nothing more than a cyclist enjoying the weather. “That's like, kinda sad.” She meant it. Even she had a home, though maybe not a tangible one. Whenever she wanted to, she could just fall into her mind palace, the total sum of her stolen memories. She was lucky like that, but where did Farrin go when things went south? “Hopefully, you find something to call home.” [break][break]

She turned back to painting the wall, her roller still dripping with paint. The sun reflected off her eyes as she did, making the orbs glow amber, even if only for a second.

[attr="class","skullinfo"]Farrin

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[attr="class","skulltitle"]間違い

[attr="class","skullbody"]The more things change, the more they stay the same. How many times had she been here doing this menial task? Watching the paint dry as she covered yet another swath of graffiti. She worked slowly, painfully slow. At some points she wondered if she was even moving, checking in to the present for only a moment to make sure she hadn't left Farrin working completely alone, or at least alone enough that he'd bother staff about her. Not that she really cared what staff thought. Especially if they're willing to sign tasks as boring as this. Who cared if a shrine got tagged, it's happened at least a dozen times before and it'll happen again. Maybe the shrine should have staff on hand. [break][break]

Her brief excursion in the present caught the tail end of Farrin's question. It took her a few seconds to parse and understand what it was he said, or at least it felt it did despite her answering almost instantly. [break][break]

“I'm from a small island in the Caribbean, The Dominican Republic.” She dunked her roller in the paint and brought it back up to the wall without any care for the excess spilling on the floor. “I only just got here. Arrived like a day or two before class.”[break][break]

If one thing had become a constant since arriving at UAU, it was being asked where she was from. The school was bursting at the seem with foreigners, yet only a few were anything other than European or American. It was a difficult adjustment for her to go from one monoculture to another, but she didn't let it bother her. Or, more specifically, she was too deep in the throws of her own self-induced psychosis to care. In the rare occasion that she wasn't, her eyes still gave off the same glassy hollow look that made people believe she was.[break][break]

Thea turned to look directly at the Chronomancer. His image in her eyes bent and contorted oddly as if trying to conform to a different shape. This was normal for her, but on rare occasion, occasions like just this instance, there was something off about the whole thing. Really, it had all started right when she arrived in Japan. Certain places or people wild overwhelm her with memory, old ones, ones that were somehow incomplete.[break][break]

“Sounds like your heart's somewhere else. Do you think about going back, or is there something missing here?” She tried to sound genuine, though her words carried as much mirth as what she felt for the task at hand; none. If she was lucky, Farrin might not even respond, and she could go back to being anywhen else until she was done.[break]

[attr="class","skullinfo"]Farrin