The Hero Club's Misadventures! | 勇者部の災難! | Yuushabu no Sainan!

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Sophia was about to leave, when Hospitaler spoke up about club forms and what to do next. She stopped on her way out to help. "I don't remember seeing any club forms either," she said. "Maybe we'll get to those next time. Or we can ask the student council or someone for them and fill them out on our own," she wondered out loud. "It's funny that we weren't immediately accosted with the paperwork, come to think of it. Maybe this isn't a formal club..."

She considered the rest of what might be useful, and did her best to translate. "We're meeting this Saturday. So we can go wander around looking for paranormal...stuff." She shrugged. That seemed to sum it up ell enough. "If you've got a cell phone or something, I can call you, if you're worried about missing the meet up or something."



Runa didn't really have much else to do at school, so she left soon after the club president did. She was looking forward to the weekend, though. Helping people was always a good thing. She skipped along home, humming to herself. She made friends, although she didn't quite get what most of them were about. She'd just have to be a good girl until the weekend. And hope she didn't run into any trouble in the meantime...
 
[BCOLOR=transparent]After Johnathan escaped through the window and rounded the corner to the main entrance he heard a thud and the rustling of leaves and jerked his head in the direction of the sound. Though he couldn't directly see Sayuri through the walls of the building he could sense the wips of her distinctive energies grow stronger as she came towards the corner.[/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]It was only the first day and already two people tried to sneak up on him, it's time to put an end to this Johnathan thought. Before the source of Sayuri's energy could round the corner Johnathan jumped out from behind the wall, Looked into Sayuri eyes with his now grey enhanced eyes and and asked "Why are you following me" while keeping his right hand in his back pocket.[/BCOLOR]
 
Sayuri:

"Following you?" Oh. Just. GREAT. Now he thinks I'm after him, and nothing I say or do could ever convince him otherwise! "I'm not. I could just as easily ask 'Why are you lying in wait to ambush me?' but I won't because I really need to be going. I'm really sorry that I bother you so much. I'd probably better just go away and never come back. So, please excuse me," Sayuri said, trying to step around him.
 
Hospitaller shook her head at Sophia in a downcast manner.

"Cellphone. Lacking. Uh..."

Hospitaller, still wanting to know where she needed to go for that day, Dug in her school uniform. Eventually, she produced a folded map of the local area. When folded out, it revealed the local school and surrounding area, as well as topographical lines showing the various elevations nearby. It didn't seem like something purchased from the convenience store. The only describable things of note scribbled on the Japanese map were the school, and a red 'path' leading out from it. Likley Hospitaller's route from home. Additionally, a large red arrow pointed off one of the sides of the map, unlike the rest of the map written in Japanese Characters, this footnote was in Roman letters: 'Sancta Sedes, Roma'.

"Meeting Place. Where?"

Hospitaller said, looking up from her map to Sophia.
 
[BCOLOR=transparent]Johnathan stuck his arm out to stop Sayuri from getting past him then said "Actually 'I am lying in wait to ambush you'" crap I probably shouldn't have said that but something about this girl really get on my nerves "but I didn't expect you to come directly to me so quickly. As for the why, I want to know what you're hiding so you can tell me the easy way or thing will get much more difficult"[/BCOLOR]
 
Sophia leaned over the map and studied it carefully for a bit. "Hm..." It wasn't quite as useful as a basic street map, but it'd probably do. "I think it's somewhere around here," she pointed out the meeting spot they'd been given. Talk about a weird map, though. It was about as strange as everything else when it came to that girl. Sadly, she didn't know Latin. But now was as good a time as any to try a couple languages. "Do you speak English," she asked in English, before switching to German. "How about German?" And if neither of those worked, well, the broken Japanese would have to do. Not like Hospitaller couldn't get by.
 
Taking a pencil out of her skirt pocket, Hospitaller drew a dot in the location on the map Sophia pointed out. Even with a point marked out on the map Hospitaller still don't know exactly where the meeting location was, but she was content that with knowledge of the general direction she'd be able to pick up on everyone's presences if she kept walking in the dot's general location.

After pointing out the spot for on the map for her, Sophia did a most peculiar thing. She spoke to Hospitaller in different languages. The two different lines were distinctly different to Hospitaller, as one sounded like the language they used on the Fancy News Channel, and the other one Sounded like what Hospitaller's sister sometimes used. However, unfortunately, she couldn't decipher any of it.

["Ha-haroo?"] Hospitaller said as she tipped her head to the side. By that attempt, it sounded like Hospitaller's English vocalizations were even more shaky than her Japanese.

Realizing this, Hospitaller closed her eyes in apologetic embarrassment.

"Impossible."


But, just as quickly Hospitaller gave Sophia a friendly expression.

"But. Gracious."
 
Sayuri:

Sayuri stared at Johnathan in shock. "Oh. My. Goddess. You're threatening me!" she said. Being intimidated by the guy in an awkward social situation was one thing. Now that he'd crossed the line into a torture-interrogation scenario, she started to enter backed-into-a-corner-and-time-to-fight mode. "You're actually threatening me! Do you always attack girls you don't know on your first day of school?" Then she noticed he had a hand in his back pocket. Does he have a weapon? Should I power up? "You've hated me from the second you saw me, so why should I tell you about my problems?! It's not as if you're gonna help! Get away from me, you creep!" Or things are gonna get difficult! she added in her thoughts.
 
[BCOLOR=transparent]With the Magician's power Johnathan noticed the subtle changes in Sayuri's energies that indicated she wanted to try and get away but his power also let him pick out the peculiarities in the way she spoke. Despite her apparent anger Sayuri said that it was her problem, she didn't deny that there was a problem she just didn't want him involved, interesting. [/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]Johnathan took a step back and moved his hand from his back pocket to the side of his head touching his glasses. If she was going to run my knife would be useless and i'd need to be able to change quickly Johnathan thought then sighed and said "What's with you guys and your overreactions. I don't hate you But ya I am threatening you because I don't trust you and why should I! You come to the meeting late and distracted, then you start talking about monsters that I've never heard of before and when I tried asking about them you practically ran out of the room, then for some inexplicable reason you come back with an almost terrified look that you tried to hide on your face and to top it all off you either tried to follow me or you tried to escape through the window from something." Johnathan sighed again then continued " As for your problem, like Akane said 'this Club was born to solve problems' so you should at least tell me whats happening. I won't promise to help but if it's a threat I need to know about it." [/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]Hopefully this good cop tactic would work, if not, Johnathan thought, than the real interrogation would have to begin.[/BCOLOR]
 
Sayuri:

"Our overreactions? Waaaah?! You 'don't trust me' because I was five freaking minutes late to a meeting. Gee, I wonder how much you'd trust somebody who stalked you, ambushed you, wouldn't let you leave, then threatened you to make you give them information."

Sayuri sighed. "Look, I get it: you're some kind of clone super-soldier, you've been programmed and conditioned all your life so that your leaders can point you at some target, give you the kill order, and off you go to terminate the target with extreme prejudice without a moment's hesitation or second thought, and get it done exactly on time because the overall mission might depend on that. You weren't made to understand other people outside of tactical situations, or even that there's such thing as life that's not a tactical situation. Yours is not to question why, yours is just to do and die. Right?

"Well, here's something you don't get: there are lots of people, and things, and situations that have nothing to do with inserting into a target area and lining up head-shots. Those people and things and situations don't fit into your view of the world. Which means: you can't understand those people and things and situations. I bet you have no earthly idea why Akane-chan wants us to deliver cats to people, because cats have no tactical function. You've got no idea what somebody would even want a cat for, do you?

"I can't tell you my problem even if I wanted to because you can't understand my problem because it's not something you can just kill and call for evac." At the moment, Sayuri was glad she'd read a few military techno-thriller novels and seen some action movies; she hoped she was getting the jargon right. "I'll tell you one thing though: my problem is not a problem for anyone who's not near me. So all you have to do to make sure my problem never becomes an unwanted variable in whatever your mission is, is stay. away. from me. Because an unwanted variable might make you five minutes late for something, and you can't have that, right? And all I have to do to make sure my problem is not a problem for anyone else is be alone until I've dealt with it. So can we please just agree to go ahead and do that?"
 
Arthur made a quick mental note of the area's position on the map relative to the school. Any specifics he could just divine at his altar later. It shouldn't be too hard to find. It seemed to be just a bit north from the school, and to the west. Certain he'd find it easily, Arthur nodded a farewell to the other club members, walking away. He seemed to be the only one who was fine with the lack of paperwork- the less they knew about him the less chance there was they'd get in his way. He left the classroom and headed toward the front gate. He would walk home, as his apartment wasn't far from the school.

As he was about to exit the gates, mind deep in thought contemplating the benefits this club may have other than allowing him to remain at the school, Arthur sensed a presence he had not felt since he was a small boy. He turned to look, hoping the source of the aura was not the one he knew it was...
 
Sophia shrugged. "It was worth a try. I'm not sure where you're from, but it's obvious you're not native, and us foreigners have to stick together, right?" She smiled up at the older girl. "Well, I've got to go home before anyone gets worried. See you around...senpai." She waved to Hospitaller on her way out of the club room. So far, so good. No clear progress in...some matters, but there was time yet, and it was well worth enjoying the school life while she could. It really did beat some of the missions she could be going on. Nobody was trying to kill her yet, for one thing. Working with such a minimal team still felt like a risk, though. Still, she'd almost blown her cover today. Fake as they turned out to be, she thought Akira was pulling a gun on her. Her quick reaction had almost ended very badly.
 
[BCOLOR=transparent]"Is this some kind of joke to you?" Johnathan asked through gritted teeth and eyes that flashed brown from his growing rage. "Is this more of that sarcasm you use? Because that's some of the most hypocritical bull crap I've heard in my entire life! This is exactly what I mean when I say you overreact! Quit making this personal! [/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]Though you are right about one thing, I don't understand you which is exactly why I'm asking and trying to get the fucking facts so I can instead of relying on some bull crap idea of who I am and what I stand for like you! So fine I don't care what your problem is and I don't care how much you'll beg me to help now or in the future I wont help but incase you haven't noticed you're going to school in the middle of a city, you can't be alone and I can't let you leave until I can be certain that I can at least make sure no one else can get hurt from [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]your problem. [/BCOLOR]
 
Leaving the school, Jem thought over what had transpired in the meeting, specifically the two that seemed to both be part of some military secret. Well, its not the first time that children have known secrets.. As he got closer to the gates, he immediately stopped. His blood turned to ice. "It can't be him..... it's just not possible." He mumbled under his breath as he took a quick look around, his eyes settling on a student who was looking right back at him. "HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET HERE!" Jem yelled as he ran forward and grabbed the same person who had disappeared just before their master died. Realizing he was creating a scene, he quickly let go and tried to pull it off as a joke. "Got ya! Now, lets go." He didn't even look back as he walked over toward the library.
 
Arthur had two initial reactions to seeing Jem's face: The first, something in his stomach dropped like a stone. It was cold, and hard, and laden with primal terror one feels when someone who despises them approaches with an angry expression. The second was a strange combination of anger and instinct. This one occurred as Jem grabbed his robe, shaking him roughly, rage on his face and in his voice. Arthur was rubbing his rings with his thumbs, hoping it was not necessary to draw weapons in front of so many people. Just as quickly, the enraged Jem let go of him, adopting a friendly smile and tone, saying "Got ya! Now, lets go." just loud enough to dispel the worries of the students staring at the two.

Arthur quickly adopted the same ruse. "Nice one." he said with a laugh, following his "friend" before muttering just loud enough for the two to hear, "And I could ask the same of you, Jem." They entered the library, and Arthur took the lead, rapidly finding a secluded spot in the Historical Non-Fiction section other students tended to avoid unless they needed a book for a class. "Now, may I ask what exactly that was all about?" he asked in a quiet, harsh, and irritated voice.
 
Hospitaller waved as Sohpia left the room. After her departure, Hospitaller was the only one left amongst the glowing lava lamps.

"Helpful."

Hospitaller looked down at her map laid out on the table one more time, before folding in back up and stashing it away in her pocket. Things related to school was pretty much over for the day. It was time to head back.


Hospitaller stopped herself before exiting the door to the clubroom. She stepped on one of the many beads sparlwed around on the ground in front of the door and in the immediate hallway. It seemed that everyone had forgotten about the mess outside. It was dangerous, somone could possibly slip on one of those like marbles.

The short girl made fish with her hand and drew it back. As if she was about to make a cutting motion. As she followed through with this slash, she uttered quietly under her breath.

"Summon. St. John's Quill."

When the slash was finished, a strange looking item had manifested in Hospitaller's hand. There was no flashy effects, no pulse of power. It was as if Hospitaller had simply willed the item into existence. With her 'wand' in hand, Hospitaller pointed to a particular point in the ground. As if moving by their own will, the beads began to converge at that directed location. Next, Hospitaller began to will the beads towards the curtain that they had fallen out from...


After a few moments the curtain was the same as it originally was. A good job done! Certainly the club members would notice this and be gracious too! That's right. This time... this club will most certainly be different. Hospitaller thought to herself as her wand was held at her side. Along with the beads, and closing the door to the club room, it was also important to turn off the lava lamps in there. Hospitaller remembered being scolded by the Janitor for forgetting to turn off the classroom lights when she had after-school duty. The same logic likely applied to the many lava lamps sitting in the room. With that in mind, she walked back inside the club room, carefully trying not to let her want hit on the doorway.

If all else went well, Hospitaller would just turn out the lights close up the room and be on her way out of the school. Anticipating the promised club activities for the 'Cultist Club' to come.
 
Sayuri:

"No. I'm not joking. You wouldn't like me when I'm joking," she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She was sure this guy was such a khem* that he would fall for every prank and scheme that came his way. "Sorry," Sayuri said, pushing those thoughts and feelings away. Now would be a really bad time to get all Merywset-y.

She touched her fingertips to her temples, trying to release anger and frustration, and a rather ancient impulse to give Johnathan a chain-yanking he would never forget.

"Look... Every time I--or for that matter, anyone else here--has tried to explain something to you, even something that seems like it ought to be simple, you come back with some completely different understanding that's got nothing to do with what we actually meant. Sorry, I'm not saying you're stupid--it's more like we're speaking different languages. I know it sounds like we're both speaking Japanese, but it's like the words mean different things. Like, where you come from 5 year-olds are special ops soldiers. Where I come from, five year-olds are about this high," she said, holding a hand just above waist height, "and we don't even let them ride roller coasters, much less hand them guns and parachute-drop them into enemy territory. So what you mean by 'five year-old' and what I mean by 'five year-old' are not the same thing.

"It's probably that way for a lot of other things too. And that's why I can't explain my problem to you. Because it's complex. More complex than 'what is this "sarcasm" of which you speak, Sayuri?' And that means I have no idea what you'll think I'm saying, and no idea what you'll do in response. See, I don't want anyone--including you--getting hurt by my problem--or by you, if you go into War Zone Mode and start blowing shit up or something because killing people and breaking things is what you were born to do. So the best way I know of to protect you, me, and everyone else, is to keep you as far away from me and my problem as I can. Do you understand?"


*Ancient Egyptian: trans. "fool, dolt, ignorant man."
 
[BCOLOR=transparent]"Listen Bitch" thats it she crossed a line "don't you ever" Johnathan stepped forward "ever" his eyes flickered between grey, brown, and blue" try to tell me what I was born to do!"[/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]Blue eyes, that was new though Johnathans growing headache felt oddly familiar. Johnathan hadn't been this angry sense . . . That wasn't something he wanted to think about now and thankfully The Magician's power was keeping his rage logical if not under control. [/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]"And don't treat me like some pathetic kid! Believe me I can comprehend much more then you could possibly imagine hell I can even tell that something is whispering to your soul" well maybe whispering to her soul was the wrong term but Johnathan definitely noticed that something was influencing her energy in a way he had never seen before. [/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]"And don't even think for a second that I need you protecting me! No, what I need is for you to tell me what your fucking problem is and an apologie for that crap that just came out of your mouth!"[/BCOLOR]
 
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Sayuri:

Right, that does it. Should I power up? Not yet; fighting is what he's good at. It's pretty obvious where he sucks, she thought, leaning toward a different strategy. If she could run away, get to a public area with this maniac chasing her and cry for help, he'd do all the work of convincing everybody else that he was crazy and dangerous. "She's trying to summon the eldrich horrors of Yog Sothoth to destroy the world and then detonate a nuclear bomb! I've tried stalking her and ambushing her and threatening her like any normal guy would, and she still won't tell me everything I want to know!" Yeah, he'd have the Good Humor guys on the way with a new jacket for him before five minutes was up.

Except...he was crazy and dangerous. His eyes were changing colors again and again, and different flavors of magic of a more subtle variety than hers flashed through him. He'd start assuming everyone else "was in on" her "evil conspiracy" and probably attack them with whatever powers he had.

Furthermore, why was he here in the first place? If people would die on his world if he was late for a meeting, how many would die if he was gone altogether? It wasn't as if somebody like him could take a vacation. No, he was here on some Deadly Serious Missiontm​. From such an amazingly horrible dystopian Crapsack World that they either manufactured clone soldiers--or worse, sent actual five-year-olds to Special Forces boot camp. A place so regimented that nobody ever forgot to set their alarm clock, the trains always ran on time, there was never a traffic jam, and people were perfectly efficient cogs, like wasps in a hive. Because how else could you have a society where no one was ever late, for anything, ever?

It wasn't hard to guess what people from a world like that would think of a world like this, that wasn't constantly at war, where people could be weak and decadent enough to give cats to people instead of figuring out how to weaponize them, and perform militarily unnecessary cognitive actions like 'jokes' and 'sarcasm' and not care too much if someone didn't have the timing of a Swiss watch: soft target. A place where his besieged people could come, take over, then close the dimensional gate behind them so that their relentless enemies could not follow. If her hypothesis about him was right, then he was about a billion times as dangerous to the people of this world as Hospitaller was.

"See? You've just shown me that I can't explain anything to you. I said I didn't think you're stupid, didn't I? I said we're not understanding each other, like we're not speaking the same language, and you just assume that I'm insulting you, and there's not one single thing I could ever, ever say, that would convince you otherwise! You're so convinced that everyone's your enemy that you go around making them your enemies, whether they like it or not. Fine!"

With that, Sayuri stepped back with her left foot, turning her body to face him with her right shoulder. She extended her right hand, palm up, as if to offer something, but not to Johnathan.

"A'a Auset, Ur-Neteret, Ur Hekai! Nuk Ba Auset! Suten ta hetepu!"*

As she spoke, a circle of dazzling light appeared around her head, like a slice taken out of the Sun. More beams and halos of light, too bright to look at directly, shown from her body. The light around her head congealed into a golden diadem; the rest formed into a top and skirt of flowing, diaphanous pleated linen. In her hand was a slender staff, topped with a crystal lotus, crackling with magical power.

"I'll offer you a deal: I'll tell you what my problem is, if you tell me what your mission here is. And don't try to lie to me, because I'm magical. I'll know." The way the guy jumped to conclusions, believing anything, no matter how ridiculous and refusing to be convinced otherwise as long as it made her out to be worse in some way, Sayuri was pretty sure he'd just accept that as a new datum, raise his estimation of her threat-level to accommodate it, and either tell the truth or refuse to answer. Besides, if he thought stalking people, ambushing them, threatening them and demanding information was how you gained their trust and willingness to share, maybe that would actually work on him.

"So, you can either demonstrate an ability to cooperate, or you become my second problem," she said, raising her staff to a guard position.


Trans.: "Hail Isis, Great Goddess, Great of Magic! I am the Ba [spiritual element that can travel apart from the body] of Isis! I am restored!"
 
[BCOLOR=transparent]Johnathan was more surprised by Sayuri's sudden want to cooperate then her sudden change in appearance, maybe this girl just responds better to derogatory terms, that's good to know.[/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]Despite the name of his current ability being The Magician, Johnathan had never thought much about magic but then again his own abilities were fairly mystical in nature but nobody ever referred to it as magic. So then what was this girl capable of? Johnathan decided to take a step backwards and lowered his center of gravity just in case he needed more time to defend himself.[/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]With his Magician's eyes back under control for the time being Johnathan watched as the whispers in Sayuri's energy grew to become a more dominant force but he also noticed her energy tembeling, the tell tale sign of worry and he got the feeling she wasn't being completely honest with him about something. Then again even if she could tell if he's lying Johnathan still had his trump card.[/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=transparent]"Are you actually trying to threaten me?" Johnathan asked with a slight smile, If this came down to a fight I might enjoy taking this girl down "Even I know that in this culture it's rude to ask a question before answering the one posed to you, you idiot" Johnathan added the insult to make his argument more persuasive. [/BCOLOR]
 
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