> "I don't even know anymore. Everything feels so messed up."
> We might want to cut back on our anime and manga consumption.
>"Just take it slowly, feed it to me piece by piece..."
>You refrain from telling him about whatever chrono-fuckery just occurred, but otherwise tell him all the details you've left out before when you came over for your...late night visits.
>"That...that is quite messed up. Is this Natalie girl trustworthy?"
>The question hangs for a while, as you're unsure how to answer. Hell, the question makes you wonder if Phisher himself is trust worthy. Everything has just gotten so strange so
quickly, as if your strange topsy turvy world was taken for another spin just for the heck of it.
>You resolve to cut back on the manga and anime.
>Something
resets in your head. You feel something...like some kind of stopwatch?...inside you, waiting to be used. The effort required to trigger it seems...miniscule. The urge to activate it is almost irresistible. Your mental clock tells you...something about 30 seconds...and 13 seconds? Time feels strange...it feels...
malleable.>That siren voice whispers once more. '
Time...stop at our command~'
>Time
stops.
>The greyscale recoloring of the world around you happens yet again. The doctor freezes. The plug-in fan in the clinic stops. Out the window, you see a car in the middle of transit. The slight distance between it and the ground, due to the bumpiness of the road. The wheel, completely locked into place. The bobblehead behind the driver's wheel, frozen. Time has stopped.
>You leave the bed and walk towards the window, slowly. Seconds tick off in your head.
>13...12...11...10...9...
>It feels natural. As if you had been doing this all your life. And yet at the same time it feels strange and foreign. You stare at your reflection in the glass. Your blue eyes glow ever so slightly, like beacons behind your long bangs.
>5...4...3...
>Is this what just awoke...? Is this your power?
>2...1...
>Time resumes.
>The doctor stares at you in shock. To him, it must have seemed as though you just...disappeared. And reappeared. Suddenly...you don't feel so bad anymore. In fact...you feel great.
>"At the very least, Doctor," you say, finally managing to find your voice. "She's not lying about me having a superpower."
>...
>After a quick checkup on your wound, which is looking good, and a few more sessions of testing out your new power, you feel pretty good about yourself. School starts tomorrow. Natalie returns the text with her last name: Hinan.
>You've more or less discovered the limits of your time stopping. 30 seconds of charge are required for a 13s period of time stop. You cannot interrupt your time stop after you have activated it. You don't have to use it immediately after the 30s charge period is over.
>You do not discover any record of the name 'Izayoi' in the exorcist manifest.
>...
>School begins the next day. It's particularly cold, despite the shelter it provides. (more or less your fault) There's a bit of time before classes begin. You could look for Natalie, find your friends, check out the boiler room and its status, or you could just lounge around. You could even fiddle with your time stopping ability, if you wanted. It seems like there's much to discover in terms of that.
>Honestly, as you consider your options for today, the next few days won't be very interesting. The next Phantasm even should be in about 2 weeks.
>When you're at school, what do you focus on? Friends or academics? Or do you skip school? Your grades can stand it for a bit. Or do you want to do something else?
>When you have free time, what do you do? Further research on this whole situation? Training, possibly with Natalie? Experimentation with your new power? Socializing? Or something else?