How many aspiring shinobi does it take to replace half of the lights at the academy? The answer is definitely more than one, yet here Suzume was in the late hours of the evening doing just that. She had been at this task for the past two hours, and while she was becoming quite adept at it, her mind was beginning to drift from the boredom of it all. All of the students had left hours ago, and outside of the occasional staff that she had seen in the halls, she was practically alone in the academy. Standing on the desk in one of the classrooms, she reached up to push the long rube into place, her footing on the desk wobbling slightly as she tried to correctly align the bulb with its socket.
Biting her lip, she pressed a little harder until eventually she heard the faint click of it sliding into place. STill holding herself in place by keeping one hand on the ceiling, she let out a small sigh of relief. A sly smirk lit her face as she looked down from her perch, and she lowered herself slightly before hopping off the desk. The sound of metal scraping the floor jarred her as the table scooted out from under her, moving backwards instead of her hopping forward. The next moment was a blur as she crashed down onto the floor, her head smacking against the desk's chair as she collapsed onto the ground.
Barely retaining consciousness, her head swam around as she laid face first on the cold hard ground of the classroom. A sharp pain reverberated through her head, but she struggled to push herself up. The young wannabe kunoichi wobbled as she finally stood, her head hurting like hell as he eyes watered from the pain. Thankfully she was not still holding any of the bulbs, or the fall could have been much more dire than a minor concussion. She leaned forward onto the desk, pressing her head into her hands to try and get the pain to subside, and after a minute of still silence it began to lessen.
She pushed herself up, tears of pain blurring her vision as she turned to look at the desk that had slid a few feet back into its neighbors. Suzume clenched her fists, her mind clearing enough from the fog only to be obscured by an irrational hatred towards that desk. Clenching her fists she spun and reared back her foot to strike the disobedient piece of furniture. "You stupid!" She yelled out as she swung her foot into the desk. With a loud thud her foot connected, just as she had intended, but the results were not what her mind had imagined them to be. The pain in her head was swiftly joined by one in her foot as the desk braced itself against its neighbors and stoical resisted the force of her kick, nearly breaking one of her toes in the process.
She let out a cry of pain and hobbled back on one foot, bumping into another desk as she cried out, "Ow ow ow!" Managing to brace herself on one of the bystander desks before she fell once again, Suzume kept her foot up off the ground. Instead of her anger giving way to regret for the obviously stupid stunt, it redoubled itself and focused itself upon the source of all her current woes. Somehow that desk was the reason she was here. It didn't make any rational sense, but right now that desk was everything that she hated in the world and she wanted to see it broken, shattered and splintered into a million pieces.
Clearly not in a mood for thinking, she put her injured foot back onto the ground, turned and gave the desk another swift kick of retribution. Once again a sharp pain streaked through her other leg, the table jarring from the impact, but otherwise unphased from the encounter. Again she hobbled backwards, eventually letting herself collapse onto the ground as the pain in her first leg renewed itself from her hopping frantically on it. She curled her leg and took hold of her foot, pressing down on it to try and dull the pain as she rocked back and froth, now outright crying from pain and frustration.
"You stupid dumb fucking damned stupid freaking!" She was rambling in her curses, each filed with her irrational hatred towards it as she tried to fight back the urge to break into outright sobbing. She curled her legs up to her, pressing them both to the ground as she wrapped her arms around them both, forming a humanoid ball on the ground as she clenched them tightly. Surges of anger and frustration welled over her as she pressed her eyes shut, imagining that vile object being crushed into a small heap of wood and metal. The feelings were raw and pure, but soon gave way to other emotions as she continued to try and hide herself away from the world in her cocoon.
Fear of failing out of the academy, fear of being a disappointment to her clan, fear of letting down her parents all began to suffuse the wellspring that she was drowning in. Jealous of all the success the other students were having, jealous of how kids half her age were able to do this shinobi stuff with such ease, jealous that her few friends didn't have this weight on their shoulders. Hopelessness that she would never live up to the expectations set before her. Hopelessness that she may never control the blood of the Ox that flowed though her. All of the emotions swirled around, each thought crowding out the last as they all vied for control of her mind.
Metal scraping on hard tile slowly began to fill the room as Suzume remained nearly motionless from her small perch, only faintly rocking back and forth as she languished in her own pool of misery. The scraped grew louder as one by one the desks lifted up from the ground, hovering just a few inches in the air, as the blood of the Storm King pumped vigorously through her veins. As the seconds passed, the continued to lift higher and higher into the air until they all floated three feet from the ground, suspended by the magnetic field her body was subconsciously producing.
"Why is this happening to me," she sobbed out, all of her emotions leaking into her barely controlled whispers. "I-I-I can't do this." Still oblivious to her surroundings, her sadness began to win out over the other emotions. The desks began to wobble, slowly inching towards the ground as she sniffled. Suddenly a memory flashed through her mind, triggered by the sound of her own crying and the darkness blotted out her vision. Two large bulging eyes looked down at her, grotesque and inhuman as she inspected her. A faint line appeared below them, somehow illuminated by the bulbous stare. The line curled and twisted into a sadistic smirk.
"Oh, don't you look lovely..." Fear clenched her heart as she froze and stopped all movement, her heart racing despite the ice that coursed through her. The voice was not real, as fast as she knew he had never said those words, but nightmares had plagued her for so many nights that she had his voice ingrained into her mind forever. She could not remember his name, not did she ever want to, but that face and that voice would never leave her. Tears rolled down her face as she pressed it as hard as she could into her knees, gripping herself as tightly as her muscles would allow, as if she could escape the fear that gripped her so intimately.
"Don't resist, it is always more fun if they consent." Suzume began to shake and weep, and the hovering desks all trembled along side her. She began to mutter, "no" over and over, repeating it as if it were a sacred mantra that would ward away the demons, if only she could repeat the incantation quickly enough before they struck. The desk nearest behind her continued to shake with her, slowly lowering its legs down as it gently descended towards the ground. As it moved, one of its legs inched closer and closer towards the back of Suzume's exposed neck, and for but a moment it touched the bare skin...
An eruption of fear shot through her and she let out a terrified scream, imagining that faint touch to be his horrid finger touching her neck. Within an instant the desks all shot back away from her, as if an invisible eruption had burst forth from her, sending them smashing onto the walls, ceiling and floors with quaking force. Wood broke into shards and splinters and metal bent as they all impacted with the wall, the unseen force continued to press the mangled desks into the wall even after their initial impact.
Suzume finally broke out of her ball, her heart racing so quickly that it felt like it could explode any second. She looked around the room, her mind finally coming back to terms with where she was and that it was all in her head. Rapid heavy pants escaped her as her body fought for enough oxygen to supply her blood as adrenaline pumped through her. One by one the force lifted from the desks and when the first crashed onto the ground, they all followed suite in a manner of seconds. Further startled by the crashing, she looked around once again and saw the destruction that had befallen the room.
All of the emotions quickly leaked out from her, leaving her tired and numb, unable to grasp the gravity of what had transpired in the room. It felt as if she was looking at it all through a window, as if nothing felt truly real. She sat still in the center of the room for nearly five more minutes before she began to phase back into the window of reality, and everything began to sink in. The walls were dented, and one chair had managed to break through to an adjacent classroom. The desks were mangled and the metal frames that supported them were twisted and warped almost beyond recognition.
"Did I?..." She let the thought trail off as fear took hold once more. Hurriedly she rushed out of the room, knowing that if she was caught there, she would be in much more trouble than she already was. Her feet rapidly struck the ground as she ran, bolting down the hallway to a stairwell before she quickly began to make her way up. One, three, five, seven flights she ran without stopping as she reached the top floor of the academy. Her body unable to take a step further, she collapsed at the top step, nearly falling face first onto the ground if she had not managed to catch herself.
She tried to mouth the words, asking herself if she was really responsible for the carnage that she had just seen, but her lungs were struggling to breathe from the sudden exertion. She collapsed forward, rolling herself onto her back as she fell prone onto the floor, her chest pumping rapidly as she struggled to catch her breath. Her mind quickly fell to trying to think of excuses, any way to escape the punishment for causing that much damage to one of the classrooms. No one had to know though, right? No one saw her in there, and maybe no one had even heard the commotion, the building was practically deserted at this hour.
The small hope of solace helped to relax her enough so that she didn't send herself into another emotional spiral. She laid there for nearly half an hour, and never once heard a door open from the stairwell below her. It was a comforting silence to be sure. Her worries eventually resurfaced: Could she ever control this? Is she fit to be a shinobi, much less the heir to the Storm Lord? It was not rage not fear that consumed her, however. Her emotions were far too drained to conceive of anything but pure simple logic. No, she wouldn't. It had been months, and some of the students she had started with had already graduated and yet she still could not perform the simplest of techniques, nor could she control what power she did have.
She didn't want to give up, she could let herself give up, but a small part of her had already began to accept the inevitability of it all. She would fail out of the academy, somehow be stripped of her newfound title and would live as a blemish on her family for the rest of their days. All the hope that had poured into her would turn back on them, tainted by her failure and weakness. It was simply how it was going to be, but Suzume couldn't fully accept it. Part of her still clung onto hope, however small it was that she would find a way... No matter what.
Time continued to pass, and eventually she had enough strength to push herself up to a stand. She wanted to go home and go to sleep, but she still had her work to do. Even if she was going to fail out of the academy, she would not allow herself to be expelled for not following her punishment to the letter. So, she slowly made her way back downstairs and over the course of a few more hours, completed fixing the lights in two dozen more rooms across the building. No one knew that she was the student that had destroyed that classroom, and when she was asked point blank by the unfortunate teacher who owned it, she simply told him that the classroom was fine when she had last seen it the night before.
[Left Topic]
Biting her lip, she pressed a little harder until eventually she heard the faint click of it sliding into place. STill holding herself in place by keeping one hand on the ceiling, she let out a small sigh of relief. A sly smirk lit her face as she looked down from her perch, and she lowered herself slightly before hopping off the desk. The sound of metal scraping the floor jarred her as the table scooted out from under her, moving backwards instead of her hopping forward. The next moment was a blur as she crashed down onto the floor, her head smacking against the desk's chair as she collapsed onto the ground.
Barely retaining consciousness, her head swam around as she laid face first on the cold hard ground of the classroom. A sharp pain reverberated through her head, but she struggled to push herself up. The young wannabe kunoichi wobbled as she finally stood, her head hurting like hell as he eyes watered from the pain. Thankfully she was not still holding any of the bulbs, or the fall could have been much more dire than a minor concussion. She leaned forward onto the desk, pressing her head into her hands to try and get the pain to subside, and after a minute of still silence it began to lessen.
She pushed herself up, tears of pain blurring her vision as she turned to look at the desk that had slid a few feet back into its neighbors. Suzume clenched her fists, her mind clearing enough from the fog only to be obscured by an irrational hatred towards that desk. Clenching her fists she spun and reared back her foot to strike the disobedient piece of furniture. "You stupid!" She yelled out as she swung her foot into the desk. With a loud thud her foot connected, just as she had intended, but the results were not what her mind had imagined them to be. The pain in her head was swiftly joined by one in her foot as the desk braced itself against its neighbors and stoical resisted the force of her kick, nearly breaking one of her toes in the process.
She let out a cry of pain and hobbled back on one foot, bumping into another desk as she cried out, "Ow ow ow!" Managing to brace herself on one of the bystander desks before she fell once again, Suzume kept her foot up off the ground. Instead of her anger giving way to regret for the obviously stupid stunt, it redoubled itself and focused itself upon the source of all her current woes. Somehow that desk was the reason she was here. It didn't make any rational sense, but right now that desk was everything that she hated in the world and she wanted to see it broken, shattered and splintered into a million pieces.
Clearly not in a mood for thinking, she put her injured foot back onto the ground, turned and gave the desk another swift kick of retribution. Once again a sharp pain streaked through her other leg, the table jarring from the impact, but otherwise unphased from the encounter. Again she hobbled backwards, eventually letting herself collapse onto the ground as the pain in her first leg renewed itself from her hopping frantically on it. She curled her leg and took hold of her foot, pressing down on it to try and dull the pain as she rocked back and froth, now outright crying from pain and frustration.
"You stupid dumb fucking damned stupid freaking!" She was rambling in her curses, each filed with her irrational hatred towards it as she tried to fight back the urge to break into outright sobbing. She curled her legs up to her, pressing them both to the ground as she wrapped her arms around them both, forming a humanoid ball on the ground as she clenched them tightly. Surges of anger and frustration welled over her as she pressed her eyes shut, imagining that vile object being crushed into a small heap of wood and metal. The feelings were raw and pure, but soon gave way to other emotions as she continued to try and hide herself away from the world in her cocoon.
Fear of failing out of the academy, fear of being a disappointment to her clan, fear of letting down her parents all began to suffuse the wellspring that she was drowning in. Jealous of all the success the other students were having, jealous of how kids half her age were able to do this shinobi stuff with such ease, jealous that her few friends didn't have this weight on their shoulders. Hopelessness that she would never live up to the expectations set before her. Hopelessness that she may never control the blood of the Ox that flowed though her. All of the emotions swirled around, each thought crowding out the last as they all vied for control of her mind.
Metal scraping on hard tile slowly began to fill the room as Suzume remained nearly motionless from her small perch, only faintly rocking back and forth as she languished in her own pool of misery. The scraped grew louder as one by one the desks lifted up from the ground, hovering just a few inches in the air, as the blood of the Storm King pumped vigorously through her veins. As the seconds passed, the continued to lift higher and higher into the air until they all floated three feet from the ground, suspended by the magnetic field her body was subconsciously producing.
"Why is this happening to me," she sobbed out, all of her emotions leaking into her barely controlled whispers. "I-I-I can't do this." Still oblivious to her surroundings, her sadness began to win out over the other emotions. The desks began to wobble, slowly inching towards the ground as she sniffled. Suddenly a memory flashed through her mind, triggered by the sound of her own crying and the darkness blotted out her vision. Two large bulging eyes looked down at her, grotesque and inhuman as she inspected her. A faint line appeared below them, somehow illuminated by the bulbous stare. The line curled and twisted into a sadistic smirk.
"Oh, don't you look lovely..." Fear clenched her heart as she froze and stopped all movement, her heart racing despite the ice that coursed through her. The voice was not real, as fast as she knew he had never said those words, but nightmares had plagued her for so many nights that she had his voice ingrained into her mind forever. She could not remember his name, not did she ever want to, but that face and that voice would never leave her. Tears rolled down her face as she pressed it as hard as she could into her knees, gripping herself as tightly as her muscles would allow, as if she could escape the fear that gripped her so intimately.
"Don't resist, it is always more fun if they consent." Suzume began to shake and weep, and the hovering desks all trembled along side her. She began to mutter, "no" over and over, repeating it as if it were a sacred mantra that would ward away the demons, if only she could repeat the incantation quickly enough before they struck. The desk nearest behind her continued to shake with her, slowly lowering its legs down as it gently descended towards the ground. As it moved, one of its legs inched closer and closer towards the back of Suzume's exposed neck, and for but a moment it touched the bare skin...
An eruption of fear shot through her and she let out a terrified scream, imagining that faint touch to be his horrid finger touching her neck. Within an instant the desks all shot back away from her, as if an invisible eruption had burst forth from her, sending them smashing onto the walls, ceiling and floors with quaking force. Wood broke into shards and splinters and metal bent as they all impacted with the wall, the unseen force continued to press the mangled desks into the wall even after their initial impact.
Suzume finally broke out of her ball, her heart racing so quickly that it felt like it could explode any second. She looked around the room, her mind finally coming back to terms with where she was and that it was all in her head. Rapid heavy pants escaped her as her body fought for enough oxygen to supply her blood as adrenaline pumped through her. One by one the force lifted from the desks and when the first crashed onto the ground, they all followed suite in a manner of seconds. Further startled by the crashing, she looked around once again and saw the destruction that had befallen the room.
All of the emotions quickly leaked out from her, leaving her tired and numb, unable to grasp the gravity of what had transpired in the room. It felt as if she was looking at it all through a window, as if nothing felt truly real. She sat still in the center of the room for nearly five more minutes before she began to phase back into the window of reality, and everything began to sink in. The walls were dented, and one chair had managed to break through to an adjacent classroom. The desks were mangled and the metal frames that supported them were twisted and warped almost beyond recognition.
"Did I?..." She let the thought trail off as fear took hold once more. Hurriedly she rushed out of the room, knowing that if she was caught there, she would be in much more trouble than she already was. Her feet rapidly struck the ground as she ran, bolting down the hallway to a stairwell before she quickly began to make her way up. One, three, five, seven flights she ran without stopping as she reached the top floor of the academy. Her body unable to take a step further, she collapsed at the top step, nearly falling face first onto the ground if she had not managed to catch herself.
She tried to mouth the words, asking herself if she was really responsible for the carnage that she had just seen, but her lungs were struggling to breathe from the sudden exertion. She collapsed forward, rolling herself onto her back as she fell prone onto the floor, her chest pumping rapidly as she struggled to catch her breath. Her mind quickly fell to trying to think of excuses, any way to escape the punishment for causing that much damage to one of the classrooms. No one had to know though, right? No one saw her in there, and maybe no one had even heard the commotion, the building was practically deserted at this hour.
The small hope of solace helped to relax her enough so that she didn't send herself into another emotional spiral. She laid there for nearly half an hour, and never once heard a door open from the stairwell below her. It was a comforting silence to be sure. Her worries eventually resurfaced: Could she ever control this? Is she fit to be a shinobi, much less the heir to the Storm Lord? It was not rage not fear that consumed her, however. Her emotions were far too drained to conceive of anything but pure simple logic. No, she wouldn't. It had been months, and some of the students she had started with had already graduated and yet she still could not perform the simplest of techniques, nor could she control what power she did have.
She didn't want to give up, she could let herself give up, but a small part of her had already began to accept the inevitability of it all. She would fail out of the academy, somehow be stripped of her newfound title and would live as a blemish on her family for the rest of their days. All the hope that had poured into her would turn back on them, tainted by her failure and weakness. It was simply how it was going to be, but Suzume couldn't fully accept it. Part of her still clung onto hope, however small it was that she would find a way... No matter what.
Time continued to pass, and eventually she had enough strength to push herself up to a stand. She wanted to go home and go to sleep, but she still had her work to do. Even if she was going to fail out of the academy, she would not allow herself to be expelled for not following her punishment to the letter. So, she slowly made her way back downstairs and over the course of a few more hours, completed fixing the lights in two dozen more rooms across the building. No one knew that she was the student that had destroyed that classroom, and when she was asked point blank by the unfortunate teacher who owned it, she simply told him that the classroom was fine when she had last seen it the night before.
[Left Topic]