Chapter 3: Moonjump
As the bell rang, signalling the start of recess, Karma entered the classroom. Immediately he was targeted with many stares from his classmates, judging his messy appearance as he made his way to his seat while leaning towards his injured side. Ayumu, next to his seat too stared at him, but with an actual concerned look on his face.
"What happened to you?" Ayumu asked as Karma took a seat beside him.
Karma sighed and rubbed his side, still sore from the fight earlier. "I got into a fight with Rento," he explained.
Ayumu's eyes widened. "Rento? The blonde Rento?"
"Yeah, that guy."
"That guy is a thug. Are you okay?"
He looked as surprised as anybody at the news of Karma of all people getting into a fight.
Karma groaned, "I am fine."
"But how?" Ayumu asked. "I mean how the hell did you end up in a fight?"
"Can we talk about it later, I need something to eat first," he said, hoping to change the subject.
Ayumu didn't persist with the question but the concern didn't leave his face. Then he suggested, "Do you want to hit the roof for lunch?"
Hearing this Karma's face immediately turned pale. His face turned to Ayumu, looking him dead serious in the eyes.
"Okay, I'll tell you what happened... but only if you promise me that you will not go anywhere near the school roof for the next eight days."
"Wh - What? Why?"
"Just promise me. I'll tell you when I can."
'By when I can I mean; when I don't sound like a complete loon when I say that I time-travelled into the past.'
The dead serious look on Karma's face didn't waver but neither did the confusion on Ayumu's. A few moments passed by before Ayumu finally said, "Alright, I promise I won't go anywhere near the school roof, okay... Now tell me what happened?"
Karma sighed in relief. The thing with rebel reactance is a person naturally grows about curious about something they told, Ayumu was the same as far as Karma knew, but there was another thing about him. Ayumu was perhaps the only person in the school or maybe even the town who held any kind of weight to the word promise. He even took even simple promises seriously and perhaps now that would now hopefully help in his survival.
"Alright, here is what happened?" Karma said back into his casual expression, but before he could say something from the corner of his eye he spotted two familiar faces looking at them.
Ayumu furrowed his brow. "Here is what happened and next?"
Karma looked at Ayumu, he hesitated, not wanting to worry his friend if his hunch was wrong.
Before Karma could respond, they were approached by two delinquents, Mikami and Handa, members of the Lead Wing gang, which was Rebto's gang. Both Karma and Ayumu tensed as they came nearer.
Ayumu nervously whispers to Karma, "Who are they? Are they from Rento's gang?"
Karma's eyes narrow as he recognizes the two boys. "Yeah, they're from the same gang. But why are they approaching us?"
Mikami and Handa come to a stop in front of them, smirking. Miami sat down on the empty seat in front of him.
"Yo, Madarame. We heard about what happened with Rento. That was pretty impressive, man," Mikami said, his eyes scanning over Karma, looking for any injuries. "But you know he was one of us, right?"
Karma tenses up, excepting a fight to break out at any moment. Against someone scrawny like Rento, Karma was confident he could take him out, but with someone large and wide as Handa and someone tall and big as Mikami, he stood no chance.
"What do you want?" Ayumu stood up and glared at them. If anyone between both of them stood a chance against the delinquents it was Ayumu, unlike Karma who quit every activity he ever joined in too early to learn anything useful, Ayumu had attended a Karate Dojo since he was a child.
Mikami chuckled. "Relax, man. We're not here to start anything. In fact, we came to offer you something," he says, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and offering one to Karma.
Karma shakes his head, declining the offer. "I don't smoke. And what could you possibly offer us?"
"Us? It is only for you and it's an offer you can't refuse." Mikami grinned. "One of the rules of this gang is. If you aren't affiliated with another gang, and you get into a fight with a Lead Wing member and if you win, you can take over his position. The chance to take over Rento's position, man. You proved yourself by beating him, so now it's your turn to join the gang. So you in?"
Karma's mind raced. Things took an unexpected turn again today.
Ayumu looked at him. "You seriously aren't going to say yes, are you?"
Karma gave a wry smile and then looked back at the thugs. "Do I get time to think?"
"Take your time, man. But if you're interested, we're going to a karaoke bar tonight to celebrate. You're welcome to come," Handa says, handing Karma a flyer with the bar's information.
Karma takes the flyer and watches as the two boys walk away. Ayumu looks at him with concern. "What are you going to do?"
Karma sighed, leaned back against the chair and threw his head back. "I don't know. This day... this fucking day is driving me mad. How about we just have our lunch and not talk about this, okay."
Karma and Ayumu didn't talk much after this until they reached the back of the school where their classmates won't be staring or listening. They took their seats behind the building wall and waited for one of them to speak up.
Ayumu decided to be one to speak up, "How has the day been?"
"Already told you," Karma answered, "it's driving me mad."
There was a pause after that. It was Ayumu again who decided to break the silence.
Ayumu asked, "How is your injury?"
"Hurts less than before," Karma answered, "still hurts like a bitch."
Ayumu sighed. "So are you going to take them up on their offer? You know they were the ones who attacked me a month ago after losing the Karate tournament."
"Wait... the guys who attacked you are from the Lead Wing gang?"
"You didn't know?"
"You never told me."
There was another brief pause. "You are gonna take them up on their offer?"
"Hell no," Karma scoffed. "I only said I needed more time to think because I didn't want a fight to break out at that moment. But enough about me, let's talk about you."
Ayumu looked at him. "About me? What about me?"
Karma sighed. "How are you feeling about Ryouka dating that college guy Aihara?"
Karma saw Ayumu frown. The dating part surely stung him. Ayumu had a crush on Ryouka for the longest time, he even planned to ask her out of the day after they got attacked by ten Lead Wing guys but fortunately; Aihara was there and managed to take them down single-handedly. Then it turned out Aihara asked Ryouka out before Ayumu could, and then he never did.
"It just stings a bit, I missed my chance," Ayumu said, "but Aihara is a decent guy and I don't want to ruin it for Ryouka."
Karma looked at Ayumu with concern and asked, "Are you still upset about it now?"
Ayumu sighed and put down his chopsticks. "I'm not upset," he said. "I just don't like being seen as weak by her. It's still bothering me."
Karma nodded sympathetically. "I get it," he said. "But you know you're not weak, right?"
Ayumu shrugged. "I guess."
Karma took a deep breath and steeled himself. It was finally time to ask Ayumu the big question. He leaned in closer. "Hey, man, are you doing okay?" he asked. "Is your depression at a level where you would consider suicide as an option?"
Ayumu turned to look at him with a cringed expression. "Are you making a joke?"
Karma scanned Ayumu's face with his eyes. Every micro reaction. He thought the suicide part was a bad joke and his reaction to it was as genuine as Ayumu could possibly produce.
"Yeah, you are right?" Karma chuckled and leaned back. "It's a bad joke. Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about sports."
The rest of school time was unexpectedly normal. Karma made a conscious effort to interact less and less throughout it all and just pass through all this, but during the dismissal, he couldn't help but look up at the looming building from the spot he saw Ayumu's dead body, this was something he needed to prevent.
Karma came back home as was routine and washed his face in the bathroom mirror. His eyes stared at his reflection but his mind wavered to someplace else.
He pushed aside the incident with Hazuki-sensei this morning into the same place in his mind which stored his life-shaking impact from all the supernatural that invaded his life. Ayumu's life was the pressing issue that he needed to put his full focus on.
'Ayumu wouldn't kill himself, he has no intentions of suicide, unless something drastically changes in the next few days he wouldn't even think of it.'
Then there was the other possibility Karma entirely ignored.
'Maybe the death was entirely an accident. Maybe Ayumu just tripped on something and fell. Everyone was hollering suicide and the idea was so implanted deep in my mind that I didn't consider any other possibility. But what was he doing there during the dismissal? I need to check out for such possibilities tomorrow.'
Then there was the last possibility. Something he feared.
'Ayumu was murdered, but who would do such a thing? The Lead Wing gang first comes to mind, but among them who? The ones who attacked Ayumu and Ryouka.'
They seemed to be prime suspects of doing something like this. Even if Karma prevented Ayumu from going to the roof for eight days, the murderer may try some other way.
'I need to explore every possible angle and Lead Wing gang would be a good start. Unluckily, Ayumu didn't clearly recognise any of the guys who attacked him clearly. Fuck... I need to find out the rest on my own.' Karma thought about the Karaoke bar. 'Luckily, they are the ones inviting me. 6 pm it is, so I have bit more than two hours.'
Then it was for Karma's own issue he needed to face. The elephant in the room. Karma placed his hand on the bathroom mirror and just like with the mirror in the school, violet light appeared and scattered on the mirror then arranged itself into the same set of arcane symbols as before with slight differences.
[ Name: Sin Eater
Vitality: 60
Strength: 70
Defence: 40
Dexterity: 130
Spirit: 110 ( - 30 ) ( Growth Locked )
Arcane: 100
Sub Stats-
Endurance: 50
Charm: 40 ( -100 )
Perception: 130 ( -10 )
Status-
Severe lack of endurance
Skills-
???
Quests -
- Fall of Ayumu ]
'Why has it changed?' Karma thought but was quick to put that aside. 'I'll just ask the Outsider tonight.'
Then he took the golden key out of his pocket to take a good look at it.
'Now what's this for?' Karma thought about it. He held the key in front of the mirror and almost jumped back when the symbols changed.
[ Active Skills slot -
( I ) Insert Key to unlock ]
Others then the symbols changing something else changed in the very mirror it was on. The space left to the words 'Insert Key to unlock' sank inwards into a slot which seemed to go deep into an absolute black void.
Instinctively Karma had an idea of what goes there and some intrusive thoughts in back of his head told him to insert the key. Karma took a deep breath and chose not to ignore them.
"Whatever happens happens," Karma muttered and jabbed the key into the slot and the fingertips with which he held the key joined. The key had disappeared into nothingness before he could even realise it.
Then he felt something. Sharp, as if his entire body was taking one constant jolt of weak electricity. A strange energy, like lighting, spread around his body and was quick to adjust to him though, a snug and comfortable fit, like a second set of skin. He almost felt naked. Strange Arcane symbols appeared in his head and Karma in his mind knew what they meant.
'Moonjump.'
But as Karma thought about it, it made him feel… kind of strange. He thought of stepping back and found himself bouncing on his toes and honestly believed that he'd never felt so light. It was as if his body weight hardly existed. Feeling as if he could go out and win a slam dunk competition he took a hop and promptly drilled his head off of the ceiling.
Falling into a heap on the floor he held his mouth after biting his tongue, "Ahhhh."
Pain aside, the important thing was that he hadn't even tried. He'd barely pushed his toes off of the ground. The feeling then disappeared.
"What the fuck was that?"
[ Skill: Moonjump
Cost: 100 Arcane ]
[ Arcane: 0 ]
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone