Beyond Your Expectations

"Thanks... really though, it's just a flesh wound, if I change back I will be fine." He switched forms as if proving a point, checking himself for any nicks and scratches in the process, "Wow, you melted a bit of my gilding off, you should be happy, Master Ren."
Miki's blade hummed lightly from the vibrations of his voice, which would have sounded sarcastic to any casual listener. He shifted back and lay with his limbs spread eagle looking at the sky for a few moments.

"If anything you should take care of yourself, unless you want me to help?" He sat up to turn his attention to Ren, noting that some of his skin had pinprick slits as an aftermath from the fight.The brunette gave a few cautious stretches with his shoulder and nodded in approval, his skin wasn't inflamed or hypersensitive anymore, just strained from over exertion. Miki was still acutely aware that his hands were shaking from the adrenaline and his heart was racing madly from the stimulus.

He had long since removed his hand from Ren's ankle and now touched it to his wrist, feeling the pulse under his calloused hands with little regard to Ren's personal space. "Sorry, that was rude..." He retracted his hand and brought it back to his neck, rubbing his shoulder while ghosting his thumb over his own pulse.
 
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Ren felt a little more at ease seeing Miki's reservedness, and smiled softly, shaking his head.
"No, it's fine. I don't mind at all."
He was silent for a moment, as if debating whether to ask something.
"Um... What did you mean when you mentioned a contract?" he inquired.
 
The brunette smiled replying with a matter-of-fact tone, "Some sentient monsters can bond themselves to another. They usually have different ways to do it, and it normally needs both party's consent, but there are exceptions. We usually only Contract as a last resort or as a bid for power, but there are more... intimate reasons as well, if it makes you feel better just think of it as a statement of intent and just leave it Master Ren."
Not that you can reject it anyway.
Miki smiled pleasantly and strolled around Ren, wary of any other injuries the latter might have, hugging the shorter teen from behind to rest his head on his shoulder.
 
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Ren was silent for a moment. He didn't really get it, but they were definitely friends now.
With all his stress and grief vented, there was plenty of room to rejoice.
His aura expanded. A grin spread across his face.

His feelings were powerful.
They were too large to contain for one boy.
He clenched his fists with excitement.
These feelings had a purpose.
The air of melancholy was destined to be pierced by this light from his soul.

An all-powerful urge took over.
The conditions were met.
The moment of salvation had finally arrived.
Everyone's hearts were to be mended by his own hand.

His true power... It was finally time to release it.

"Oh, hey, Miki," he asked warmly. "Are you hungry?"
 
Miki nodded, not noticing the shift in atmosphere, "I don't think I've eaten before..." he pointed to the plumes of smoke outside the Colosseum, "I saw some guys over there having a fire pit when I came in here... Are we joining them?" He released Ren and began striding forward a bit stiffly.
That's a bit more people then I'm used to...
 
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Valentina sighed and rested her head in her hands. She felt very alone even around everyone else.
 
Quin taps Val on the leg. He looks her in the eyes, seeing sorrow and sadness. "It's okay." He smiles at her, distracting himself from his emotions, wanting everyone else okay.
 
"Yep! We need to find Val, Kheire, Vivi, and Mister Quin! Maybe more! I'm going to make the biggest meal I've ever done!" he declared loudly.
There were very few things he could get so intensely excited about. Food was one of them.
"I'm going to get everything I can find and make everything I can from it! Just you watch me, Miss Renya!"

He froze, as if having realised something.
He slowly turned his gaze to Miki.

And then he shook his head.
No, no. That can't be right. It would be too coincidental.


"Come on, Miki! Let's get this stuff on the table within the hour!"
 
Vivi took one last route past the colluseum the white fox panting as it stuck close to the nekomata.
"Don't worry Renya, we're almost home!"
She took a pause.
"Of course it's necessary to walk him, you didn't have to come with me! wh-no, I'm not an idiot, shut the fuck up Renya!"
She ended with a pout, rounding the corner to see Miki and Ren. Her pout quickly turned into a smile, looking away from what she saw as Renya and waving excitedly, the fox taking this as a time to lay down on the grass. "Hey guys!"
 
Miki was slightly confused at the mention of Renya, wondering what reminded Ren of the spirit, before letting it go and trailing behind the short teen.
"Miss Neeakomi, hello..." He nodded slightly at the Nekomata and shifted his attentions to the fox.
It's so fluffy... I wonder what it looks like when it fights...
 
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Vivi unhooked it from its leash, not caring much since they were all near the dorms anyway.
"Hello, miki!" she greeted happily.
The white fox quickly jumped up and started running around happily, causing Vivi to pout.
"You weren't that hyper a minute ago!" she critized the small fox, who ignored her and continued to yip and run around.
 
Vivi popped her neck as she glared viciously at Ren "Sooo, Ren. I haven't seen you in battle before, up for a quick match?" she challenged the small boy.
Ren grinned. "You're just in time! I'm still a little fired up!"
Miki sighed, walking back the way they came to sit in the stands and not intervene in their fight. "Master just fought me... he shouldn't strain himself..."
Val sighs and sits next to him.
Vivi looked to her left with a big grin, nodding her head as she let the white fox run with her in to the arena. The fox quickly took its position in the stands, staying away from Miki as Vivi got into the preperation room. "I'll be right out!"
"Got it!" Ren called, taking his position.

This time, he was breaking through his limits.
The firing hammers fell one by one.
His hair sparked into life, a white light shining from it to match his eyes.
Power, Exinessence, mana...
Laws of physics and magic were flying about as his body began to accommodate the excess energy.
The Nekomata quickly changed outfits, this time favoring to wear one of her baggy jackets just in case of a quick need for defense. She pulled out one apple and a cup of orange juice from one of her enlarged pens, sighing as she sat down and leaned against the wall to calm and eat a bit. Just to get the blood pumping.

Ren's eyes were closed once she came out, as if he was meditating standing up.
He opened them just as she showed herself, waving to her as she entered.
"Are you ready?" he called.

"Fuck yeah, I'm ready!" she jumped up. "BRING IT BITTCCHEEES! WOOOOOOHOOOO!" she cheered while flexing and flipping around.
"W-well..." he said quietly, "a-after you...?"

Vivi shrugged. "Do whatever the fuck you want, I'm just looking at this beauty here." She stated boredly as she looked around the arena and around Ren, along with his position.
"Well, then... I'll begin," he said. "Excuse me."
Several beams of light shot towards the Nekomata, searing the very air it passed through as they fired towards her.
The Nekomata fell back, quickly jumping back up and using her axe to dig into the floor and keep her from moving back further. With a smirk, she threw out 2 smoke bombs and 4 runic bombs on all sides of Ren, running forward with a blunt attack with her axe in a motion for an overhead strike. What she smeared on her axe while gripping it was a bit of paint on a small stun grenade that would explode on impact with anything.

Ren immediately reacted, watching her actions carefully.
Instead of attacking again, he took evasive action.
In an instant, he entirely vanished, fading into the dust of the Coliseum.
Invisible, he began rushing around as he carefully navigated through the bombs, flanking his opponent as he did so and preparing his next attack.
Vivi scanned around the arena, growling to herself at the invisible dumbass. "What? Too fucking chicken now!? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST." she used a wind platform and smeared slime on it, jumping up high into the air and landing on top of a column, finally away from the large dust cloud.
Ren was silent. His stealth was too useful to waste now.
That said, this was a chance too useful to waste in itself.
He fired another laser at the column, aiming to either melt or shatter it.
Which didn't matter. The aim was to knock her down onto his own turf.
It didn't fall. The laser simply burned a hole through it. Ordinarily that would have been fine, had the hole been big enough.
It wasn't.
No matter. He could fix that.

Vivi took to putting her axe away and go for a more defensive type of strategy now, using 2 more plates with goop to jump to the other side of the arena quietly and smoothly. Turning into a cat, she used her small stature to hide behind a pillar, looking around more for any signs of Ren being somewhere while invisible.
Meanwhile, Ren had an idea.
Aiming carefully, he tossed a fireball towards the grenades she'd laid down earlier, detonating the smoke bombs from earlier in an attempt to distract his foe.
Vivi gave another grin as she pounced around obviously in the center of the arena, turning human and doing chicken movements. "BAHK BOK BOK BAHHHK BUH-BOK." she screamed as she took out her axe and knocked down the pillars nearest, dropping 2 bombs and hiding in the dust clouds to turn into a cat and run behind one, digging to the side of it to make a burrow.
Ren didn't see much of her movements, but he saw enough to make an educated guess as to where his prey had run off to. Spawning a triad of enormous lasers, he fired on the area around the two fallen pillars, decimating the ground in a single instant.
Vivi turned human and shivered slightly at the feeling of the lasers. "Oh god that was worse than being forced to take a bath by Kheire's pets..." she shivered once more before using wind platforms to bring herself up to still standing pillars, forcing her runic grenades to finally explode, hopefully damaging wherever Ren might be.
Ren's reaction time was fast, enough so to avoid the majority of the blast, with only burning shrapnel grazing his bare torso.
The invisibility was ruptured by the wound, dissolving it almost entirely as his cut glowed a faint white.
He shook his head, holding his hand out and preparing to fire another laser.
The Nekomata took this as her chance, pulling out her battle axe and positioning it below her for an uppercut technique, not bothering to stop her full speed ahead towards Ren.
Seeing her coming, Ren immediately took his chance. A double-palm strike against her abdomen shifted into another attack entirely.
From each fingertip, a laser exploded out.
From each hand split a phantasmal image, as if in a mirror.

With a final blow, Vivi shifted her axe to where the flat part of the blade faced the incoming lasers, but not all of them. During the attack, she took the other 5 lasers and knocked out.
The others, before Ren realized what was happening, had pierced right through him.
Gritted teeth caged a scream of agony, but the boy latched onto it. It was the only thing keeping him conscious, after all.
He kept his balance, panting furiously, staring down at the Nekomata with bewilderment.
With that, the match had ended by a close one, the Nekomata losing and the white boy victorious.
 
Miki looked down at the outcome, observing Ren's stance and guessing his best fit sword style. He could tell his current shape would only hinder his master and summoned his chained form to rectify this. The blade ran along his outer arm, letting his blood dribble to his keystone.

Breaking down the shape. The blade melted, streaming the matter back into his veins.
Reforging the base. A simple steam of steel made it's way up his hilt.
Piling materials. Building up the thickness and giving him room to work.
Forging.
Folding.
Forging.
Shaping the blade. The form was finally recognizable, even throughout and balanced to perfection.
Basic finishing.
Casehardening.
Sizing. From resting his head on Ren's shoulder he could get a guess of a decent length for the blade.
Sharpening.
Polishing.
Quenching. Miki produced the small vial that was hidden in the storage orb, uncorking the container and pouring the glittering substance unto the metal.

It was done in a matter of minutes, but Miki was no Craftsman, he just knew his way around his own body. The edge was slightly dull and it was certainly brittle from the quick job, but it worked as a starting point until he could get a real Craftsman to fix it. He would get Ren to test out the fit outside the Colosseum, but the first task was finding him...
 
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"Nonononononononononono!"
A panicked squeal of horror escaped down the halls of Schism Academy.

Ren was very, very not used to this kitchen.
The hob was too far from the stove, and the cupboards were too high, and the sink wasn't anywhere near any of them.
How do people use this place?!
The khorma was on the verge of boiling, the naan was about to burn, and the bhaji were still in the form of flour and whole onion.
He really, really had to rush the chutney if he didn't want to burn down the whole kitchen, but...

"...Hey. Where are the coconuts?"

He blinked gormlessly at the counter for a moment.

"W-where are the coconuts?!"

Screaming, he frantically got to work tearing apart the entire kitchen in search of the missing ingredient.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wondered why he ever had this idea in the first place.
 
Quin smiled and stayed by the fire and relaxed, slowly starting to fall asleep. "I just might take a nap guys." Quin smiled and payed across the log.
 
Miki finally found his way to the dorms, after getting lost a minimum of twenty times and befriending several members of the druid class that is. He pushed open the dorm's front door, almost immediately hearing the clangs of multiple pots and screams about coconuts.

Is this normal?

"Master..?" The kitchen was, frankly, a big mess. The smell of burning was strong in the air, a pot was boiling over, a mix of flour and onion was laid out on a counter, the cupboards were all flung open, and in the center of it all was Ren, with his head buried in the fridge, mumbling feverishly about coconuts. "Master Ren...maybe you should take a break... Would you like me to help?"

Miki was, as far as he knew, not a bad cook. He wasn't good by any means, but he was confident in not setting fire to anything, which was probably a better option as to...whatever was occurring at this moment.
 
"MIKI THANK GOODNESS HOLD MY NUTS FOR A SECOND" Ren exclaimed as he quickly pushed a large bowl full of cashews towards him, a sentence that would later become taboo to be repeated out of context.

The little white whirlwind sliced up a pair of mangoes and waltzed around the kitchen, taking bowls and trays and pans away from heat and switching them out.

A few seconds, he was breathing heavily, leaning against a worktop to keep his balance. He had stopped spinning, but his head still was.
"Whew. I think everything is safe..." he mumbled, looking around. "The naan looks a tiny, tiny bit overdone, but everything else should be perfectly fine..."
 
Valentina had stood up and was walking through the halls now. She was curious as to where everyone else was, because she had not seen Kheire, Ren, or Vivi for quite awhile now. Well, she had seen Vivi a couple of days before, but she hadn't seen Kheire or Ren since the mission. If Val was being honest with herself, she was more than a little worried about the state of her teammates.

After checking the coliseum, she had decided to check the kitchen, when she hears Ren yelling.

"Ren are you alright in there?" Valentina questioned, although she was fairly sure he couldn't hear her.

"MIKI THANK GOODNESS HOLD MY NUTS FOR A SECOND." She heard Ren yell.

What the fuck?
 
"Val!"
The small boy rushed his friend in a tight hug for a few moments.
"How are you feeling? Are you hungry? I'm making loads of food for everyone. Oh! Did you meet Miki already yet? We're contracted!"
The words came out of his mouth like bullets from a machine gun.
"Miki, this is Val. She's one of my best friends along with Kheire," he introduced her. "She's really kind and smart and knows a lot of languages."
With that, he stepped aside to watch the chaos [glow=#99ccff]FRIENDMAKING[/glow] ensue.
 
"Uhm." Valentina took a second to attempt to process all that had been said, "Well, nice to meet you, Miki, I sat next to you at the fight."
She looks at the boy for a second, nods, and turns back to Ren, "You know what, I am hungry."
 
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