NOVEL WEB 11 – Sister
It was a few days before Hisashi could even think about approaching his family again, but as much as he wanted to he couldn't just stay away as that pained him even more than he already was being unable to communicate with them. He started visiting the house again and after and eventually walking his sister to school again though making sure to keep more distance now hoping she wouldn't notice with her weak spiritual perception.
Unlike his hopes though Reina did notice shortly after he started coming by again. At first she was terrified, thought about hiding it and was even concerned that she was going crazy. However the aftermath of the guys that were sexually harassing was very clear so there was no question something happened. The authorities had eventually deemed it as a heart attack suspecting since the 5 victims were all connected and they all died in a relatively short timeframe they must have consumed something that induced the heart attack in all of them, because as unlikely as that seemed it was the most believable answer and Reina was too afraid to say anything about what she worried may have been some kind of hallucination after she calmed down and that this would just lead to a quick trip to the looney bin.
However it is kind of hard not to notice a giant blur repeatedly showing up near your house and around you. She decided for the moment to just act like she couldn't see it and watch how things go before making any big moves. At first she was terrified any time she noticed the blur, but as time went on and it didn't seem to do anything she calmed down a lot though remained quite cautious.
This went on for a few weeks when she started noticing that the blur started getting clearer over time. Also she had noticed it would follow her to school before leaving her alone during school. It seemed wholly uninterested in being around her while in school and it wasn't always there after school. It seemed to be most consistent around her house and following her to school. Why wasn't it doing anything else though?
'Now that it's getting clearer it's doesn't look like a human at all, but it's behaving like a person. Do I have a ghost stalker?' she once again started questioning if she was actually losing her marbles as none of this made any sense at all.
As more time went by she also noticed that it was regularly making some kind of sound while she was walking school. At first she could barely make out the sound but over the weeks it become a little clearer, though she couldn't make out exactly what the sound it was making was.'
'Is it...talking to me?' she wondered confusedly. She wasn't sure at first, but
The strangest thing of all was that although the creature was becoming clearer and clearer and seemed to be stalking her which should have made her increasingly terrified. Strangely a feeling inside her was growing that she was familiar with this creature. It felt vaguely like when you see a classmate from a long time ago and they look very different, but there is something uncanny about them and you feel familiar when you run into them on the street or at the store not having seen them in years. There is no instant recognition, but a familiar feeling telling you that you should know them, but you just can't figure out why. She couldn't figure it out even as more time passed.
'Ok, it's gotten clear enough to where it's clearly something anyone would call a monster. It looks like a bug, but it's so big it wouldn't even fit in my bedroom. Why does it feel like I should know it though? I'm sure I've never met a giant bug before. Is it maybe the ghost of a normal bug and it just got really big after dying? I've never kept or been around any bugs though. If it wasn't for it following me for months now I would think it was stalking me to eat me, but I can't imagine it hasn't already had plenty of chances for that.' she was starting to think maybe she wasn't going crazy as the changes and improvements seemed to be slow, but consistent and expected that if she was really losing it then the changed would be more erratic, not so consistent.
Due to the familiar feeling she decided to pay more attention to it and listening to it ask it "talked" to her. At first it just sounded like some bassy grumbling from the depths of hell, but over time it started clearing up some turning into something that sounded like a demon talking rather than hell itself. She couldn't quite understand it yet, but felt if it kept improving she might actually be able to understand it eventually.
Meanwhile Hisashi was spending every moment not spent with his family hunting any hollow or animal souls in overdrive which had lead to an explosion in his stats and spirit power. He was itching for more missions though. Stats are indeed nice, but you need the skills to use these stats to the best effect. Take speed for example. Sure you can be fast, but without mastering a skill like Shunpo or Sonido there is no way you are going to catch up purely based in stats as the skills act like a multiplier to the stat. Well theoretically you could but it would take forever to get to the point where he could outspeed even a mediocre Shinigami's Shunpo, let alone monsters like Byakuya or even worse Yoruichi.
'System Status Panel.' he requested.
[Status Panel]
[Name: Saito Hisashi]
[Soul Age: 49]
[Race: Hollow]
[Rank: Hollow]
[Level: 10 -> 34]
[XP: 2183/4960]
[Stats:]
[Strength: 5 -> 19]
[Dexterity: 16 -> 30]
[Constitution: 10 -> 15]
[Intelligence: 5 -> 6]
[Spirit Power: 63 -> 1391]
[Available Stat Points: 0]
[Passive Skills:]
[Spiritual Energy Absorption]
[High-Speed Regeneration]
[Acidic Touch]
[Active Skills:]
[Soul-Body Separation]
[Spirit Power Concealment]
He had put a point in to Intelligence just to see what effect it had and it seemed the biggest difference was on how well he could control Spirit Power and his skills. Definitely useful, but much more useful when he actually has more spirit power and skills to use so for now it's been on the back burner. There also seemed to be a bunch of small bonuses like slightly enhanced learning speed, memory, calculation ability, reaction speed. In general a bunch of things either completely or at least in part related to his brain. Although good things to improve the bonus was small enough that though noticeable it wasn't enough to convince him to invest purely based on those until the larger benefits to spirit power and skill use became big enough. For now he needed power and fast though and improving his physical stats seemed to be the quickest way though to make sure he could control the Grand Fisher situation completely.
