Chapter 5_Fighting with Rage

At school, Tomiko planned how to tell Aio about how the dive went. She wanted to embellish the details so it wasn’t obvious she was only doing it for the money. She also wanted to leave out the whole ‘person coming out of the back of her neck’ aspect, but that was more to save face. It was an embarrassing detail she did not want anyone to know. She hoped that Chimon would not tell anyone. That may be something a boy would want to brag to his friends about.

Thinking of Chimon, she wondered what class he was part of. Tomiko did not remember anyone from school that looked like him. He would have had to have been a student at her school in order to post the quest. Unless he was from another school and had someone else post it for him.

That idea didn’t line up with Tomiko’s impression of Chimon. He did not strike her as the kind of person who could find connections for such a task.

Tomiko made some effort to look out for Chimon in the halls and as she passed by the other classes. She was not sure why. It wasn’t like she wanted to see him at school. Far from it. She was hoping to keep their interactions strictly about the job.

At lunch, Tomiko finally had a chance to talk with Aio about the previous day.

“So.. how did it go?” Aio asked.

“It went fine.” Tomiko responded.

“Oh don’t be so tight lipped! You know I want to hear more than that. I’ve been dying to know.” Aio said in a playfully whiny tone.

"Ok, ok. I'll spill. We went to one that ripped in her apartment building. It was just the two of us the whole time." This seemed like the safest lie, because it lowered the chance of Aio actually knowing the portal she was referring to, and catching her on misinformation.

"Oh lucky! I hope her place didn't increase her rent because of it. Who did you go with? I don't recall who you told me it was."

That was because Tomiko avoided the question last time she asked. She knew she would not be able to get away with doing it again.

"Um... what was it again… I'm not the best with names…" Tomiko stalled for time. "I think she went by Shadow Seeker."

"Oh, I see. She only goes by an alias. That's kinda lame. The name is way too edgy too." Tomiko thought it was clever, but tried to withhold a reaction as Aio continued. "Well, I suppose she may have her reasons. Did you meet inside the other world then? Otherwise it would be kinda pointless to go by an alias if we went to the same school."

"We met inside the tear. She told me how to get to it beforehand" Tomiko responded a little more rushed than she would have liked. It could not be helped because she had to think on her feet to avoid a hole in her story.

"Huh. And the building let you in? A lot of building managers require a resident to pick up and sign guest's in. That became a rule at my place and it is suuuuuper annoying. They even require us to show our key card to the person at the front desk or they won't let us on the elevator. Like, all of the staff knows I live there. They've seen me like a thousand times!"

Tomiko zoned out a little as Aio explained a recent interaction she had with a desk staff attendant. She wanted to use the time to think through her story and preemptively cover any holes, but she got a bit distracted. When Aio brought up the fact that she had an elevator in her building, she remembered that Aio actually lives in a pretty nice building. Aio's family was not what anyone would call 'rich', but they were well off enough for Tomiko to be very jealous of. There was actually a lot to be jealous of; her apartment, her hair, her phone, her packed lunches, her large network of friends, her figure, her boyfriend…

"How much did you end up making?"

Aio's question brought Tomiko back to the conversation.

"Oh… uh…" She was caught completely flat footed. "Like… 10,000…" she said quickly trying to think of what would be the right amount to say without causing alarm.

"10,000! How long did you spend diving?" Aio replied, shocked at the amount of money. Her eyebrows raised and her mouth left a little agape. Tomiko chose poorly.

"Like… three hours." Tomiko replied, slightly panicked. She tried to think of a number that would make the amount of money less significant, but her brain froze up, so she just said the real amount of time and hoped for the best.

"Wow. Three hours. I would have thought you would only want to spend less than an hour in a portal to start with. Good for you. Still. 10,000 in three hours is a pretty good rate. Better than what Senichi makes bussing tables.

Tomiko thought to herself 'who was Senichi again'. It sounded vaguely familiar, so it must have been a boy in one of Aio's social circles. Senichi. Tomiko made a quick mental check to confirm it was not Aio's boyfriend, before disregarding them as someone not relevant enough to remember.

"Did they say whether or not you could continue? That could really help you afford that game console I'd been recommending to you."

Tomiko put some effort into not getting mad at her. She really didn't like it when Aio recommended she buy things. It made her feel left out, or like she was failing as a friend.

Tomiko did not have very many friends left. She couldn’t afford to get mad at her. Was she really mad at Aio? Who else could she be mad at after she said what she said?

She registered suddenly that Aio had asked her a question. "Yes! She said I could come by anytime I wanted, just as long as I gave her enough time ahead to prepare. So I will probably be doing that after practice most nights." Tomiko was glad that she was able to work in that she would be unavailable after practice for the foreseeable future.

Aio, playing her own game of networking, made a small mental note of the clue Tomiko just dropped, that whoever this mysterious client was, they had lots of free time.

"Ok, just don't overdo it, daddy would be really disappointed if something happened to our star performer" Aio wanted to give more substantial words of caution. She knew it would be unwelcomed though. She had seen the expression on Tomiko's face when the topic of money was brought up. It was becoming a more frequent occurrence, but she wanted Tomiko to be happy. Offering to share in things that made her happy was the best Aio could come up with.

They changed the topic. For the most part Aio just talked about highschool gossip and recent trends while Tomiko tried to care about it.

Classes continued after lunch, and before long it was time for practice.

Tomiko was back in her element. Running.

The rush was refreshing and familiar. Running really was something that brought Tomiko joy. It wasn’t an opposition sport like kendo was. Well, there were aspects of kendo that did not require being at odds with another person. Maybe she liked the non-contact aspect of it. The only risk of injury was your own ability to judge your limits.

Tomiko wasn’t the best at judging her limits though. She has a general understanding of how to maintain herself to perform, but she didn’t like giving up. Competition was very weak, to the point where she could see success in even men's heats at her distance. However she leaned closer to the end of burn out instead of losing. It was worth it. She found something she was good at… or at least something no one else tried to be good at.

Practice ended. She waved Aio good-bye, as she was talking with her dad, the volunteer coach. They would both leave by car as usual shortly after everyone left.

Aio's dad turned and did a small hand wave too after noticing his daughter was. Tomiko already had her back turned though, so he looked a little silly. This happened often.

He shouted some words of advice at her. "Make sure to get some protein in, and lots more water!"

Tomiko gave a casual salute without turning around as she kept walking away. She couldn’t make out what Aio said to him after, but she imagined it was something along the lines of "Dad stop! She already knows that. You're just being embarrassing." Then he would let out some hardy, comedic laugh that would earn him an eye roll from his daughter. They had a pretty healthy relationship like that.

…

In the alley, Tomiko found Chimon in the dumpster again. She didn’t bring her sword with her since she had already identified that Chimon wasn’t really a threat. She could definitely take him bare handed. She still managed to pull off just as loud a thud by kicking the side of the dumpster like she would a soccer ball.

Chimon popped out of the bin again with his hands in the air. He was once again clutching his game console.

'What would be so fun about tapping away on a screen,' Tomiko thought to herself.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah. Let me just save my progress."

That meant no to Tomiko, but Chimon was fairly quick to crawl out of the bin.

Once again, they entered the tear in reality.

Tomiko found herself at the front of the cave. That made sense to her, because last time it didn’t bring her into the cave. Still, for some reason she was expecting to find herself back in the middle of the starting field. She was not sure why she had that preconception. Maybe because that was how she started the day before.

“To level up some more I recommend we clear the cave a few more times”

“Ok” Tomiko responded.

She, once again, kind of assumed that because they cleared the cave yesterday, that it would not be repeatable and that they would move on to something new. She wasn’t sure why she thought this would be the case. Even the day before, when they went back into the cave the second time, the monsters they defeated toward the beginning of the cave needed to be defeated again. Maybe she thought that they were just different monsters that made their way more forward toward the entrance.

They went through clearing the cave with ease. It didn’t pose nearly as difficult a task as the day before. Tomiko’s first impression was that her experience with combat was making it easier, but even the damage she took from each attack seemed much less. Unless Chimon was lying.

Then she remembered that Chimon mentioned leveling up earlier. She didn’t really know what that meant, but too much time had passed for her to ask about it now. She just assumed it had something to do with her getting stronger and kept moving.

After defeating the cavebear boss at the bottom and collecting the reward, Chimon warned her that he was going to warp them back to the outside of the cave so they could do it again. Tomiko didn’t have anything to add, so she just waited for him to do it. It took longer for Chimon to do so, because he was waiting for some sort of response from her; a nod, a wave, or maybe even an insult. After 30 seconds of awkward silence, to Chimon at last, he warped them out.

The next time completing the cave took even less time. It was probably around twenty percent less. Part way through the cave, Tomiko wanted to do something else. Waiting for bats to swoop before striking was getting a bit too routine and tedious. She was not necessarily bored. It just seemed to her that there were more interesting things to be doing elsewhere.

Tomiko decided to express this to Chimon. “Is there something else we should be doing?”

This phrasing pulled into question Chimon’s ability to lead rather than actually reveal how she felt. Chimon felt the pressure of such words, but Tomiko had not made a conscious effort to make him feel as such. It was a subconscious defensive measure.

“Oh… uh… yeah… I think you're high enough a level to go to a different area. Let's try the misty hills next.”

Chimon was actually planning on running them through at least two more times, but didn’t want Tomiko’s interest to wane too much. Maybe he was just being too cautious with leveling up.

They walked the path to the next battle ground. Or, it started with a walk, but Tomiko noticed that her legs weren’t sore and began running. They should have been because of the work out she had earlier at practice. It was nice. This meant that she could keep running for even longer during the day. She thought of a funny scenario where she would just keep going into other portals until her legs got tired so that she could continuously run. This wouldn’t be needed however, because in addition to a fresh set of legs gifted to her, they did not seem to get tired.

Oddly, this actually disappointed Tomiko a bit. She missed the pain in her legs that came from pushing them to her limits. Without it, running felt too… mechanical. Like it truly was just the process of getting from place to place quicker.

Tomiko didn’t lose her sense of touch in the other world. It was more so that pain was removed from something the body would use to respond to stimuli.

“Wow” Chimon said out of nowhere after being quiet for most of the trip. “Your stamina is incredible! I didn’t think that I will ever need to give you a status update on that. You could probably go a full two hours before it runs out.”

Tomiko was embarrassed by that time estimate. She didn’t think it would be such a sense of pride for her, but it was. Or, maybe it was because he was setting a limit on her ability. That must have been what it was.

“I can go longer than that.” Tomiko told him in a defiant tone.

“I don’t doubt that you could in the real world, but I’m looking and the gauge and you already used about a tenth of it. Still, even depleting stamina for this long without resting is very impressive.”

Tomiko was not satisfied with the compliment.

Not much long after, they made it to a sign post. It had a picture of a skull with a red ‘X’ running through it.

“This sign should be indicating that there is danger up ahead, but it makes it look more like a warning for the dead to keep out!” Chimon said with a snicker.

Tomiko was not impressed, so she decided not to dignify his attempt at humor with a response.

Chimon noticed, and decided to continue like he had not said anything. “Just up this way will be enemies. Unlike the last area, these ones will appear out of thin air around you after reaching certain spots on the ground. It is best to move around slowly, so as to not encounter too many at once.”

Tomiko wanted to take that as a challenge, like running in large loops to make as many enemies appear at once as possible. She decided against the idea as it may upset Chimon too much. He was the client after all. Maybe she could work toward doing something like that when she got stronger. She made a mental note to come back to the area.

Walking past the sign, it did not take long for an enemy to appear. A creature formed about ten feet away from Tomiko.

The creature was about two feet tall. It had a humanoid figure, although its head was large for a creature so short. The green of its skin was dull, but not too far off from that of the green grass of the area. It was as though it had formed from the hill itself, but got slightly washed out of color in the process. In contrast to the faded skin was its beady, bright, lime eyes. They glowed with an intensity showing its desire to kill. Because the creature had four limbs and walked upright, Tomiko thought it should have clothes, but its body was only covered in what could be described as crags.Though its skin looked like rocks, it shifted and bent as the creature moved around. Hopping back and forth, before it leapt half its original distance away to strike.

“What is this thing!” Tomiko shouted as she blocked with her drawn sword. She had heard a few different names be thrown around to describe such creatures, but she wasn’t familiar with the differences to know what this one should be called. She didn't like asking for the term, but figured if she slipped up and ended up referring to one by the wrong name she would get corrected. This was the far worse option.

“These are Grembos.” Chimon replied confidently while Tomiko swung her sword that pushed back the small attacker.

Of all the terms she had overheard, Grembo was not one of them. She had heard of goblins, gremlins, Gnomes, imps, and even trolls, but definitely not Grembos.

“That’s a stupid name” Tomiko said as she closed the distance to strike at the Grembo.

“Ah, I thought it was unique!” Chimon retorted in a defensive tone, leading Tomiko to suspect he was the one to come up with the term. It would make sense if he was one of the only people to dive in this portal.

When Tomiko got to the Grembo and took it out with a quick two slashes and a jab of her blade, two more formed from the air.

“Try not to approach, they will usually try to lead you to where more will spawn.”

Spawn was a bit of an odd term choice, but she understood what he meant by it.

‘More of the same’ Tomiko thought, realizing that she would need to implement a similar tactic to that of the bats. The whole reason she wanted to stop battling in the cave was because the method of fighting was annoying her. She just wanted to rush in and beat the monsters up, not wait for them to strike and then counter. Was that how all creatures in this world would need to be defeated? Add it to the reason no one wanted to continue exploring this world.

Well, that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. The trader did warn Tomiko that the money she was making was envy worthy. Even Aio was surprised with a lessened estimate. And as bothersome as it was to Tomiko, the combat wasn’t that bad. It was actually more realistic to her experiences with kendo. Anticipating the opponents move, looking for an opening, and capitalizing on it in quick bursts.

Each Grembo only took two good hits to defeat. They evaporated back into the air from which they came.

“Are they actually defeated, or are they just retreating to… respawn.” She tried using the same term as Chimon to seem more professional. “The way they disappear is different than those in the cave”

“I don’t think so, because if you run around in the same area that you have already covered they don’t respawn.”

“Well, what if they move to a different area to respawn?” She countered, still trying to make her idea sound like it had merit. She continued up the hill as she spoke.

“No. That shouldn’t be the case either, because after about forty Grembo’s they stop spawning altogether.” Tomiko could feel Chimon’s bubble moving around, as though he was looking around for something.

“Well, what if they can only respawn a couple of times each!” Tomiko rebutted in a more defensive tone.

“Oh… um… I guess that’s possible.” Chimon knew that it was not possible, because he had fought all forty of them at once before. However, he decided to hold that information to himself. Tomiko’s tone was scaring him a little.

They slowly made their way up to the top of the hill. Only ten came out during the hike, so they did fairly well to avoid as many as possible.

At the top of the hill was a large patch of loosened dirt. Tomiko was about to ask if something was buried, but before she could, the ground began to shake.

A creature made its way out of the ground, but it didn’t do so in a manner that resembled digging. It was more so that the dirt in the uncovered patch of land lifted itself upward as it molded into a larger Grembo. It stood about twice the size of Tomiko, and had a darker brown body compared to the others with faded green. Tomiko couldn’t help but notice this one was also much more plump than the other Grembos. The others did not strike her as thin, having a torso the shape of a cylinder, but the one now standing before her was reminding her of a pumpkin.

“No more of the tiny Grembos will spawn now that the big chonker is out. You will need to dodge its attacks.” As Chimon said this, the large creature pulled back its arm to ready a strike.

Tomiko got into an evasive stance. She moved back and forth using the palms of her feet, ready to get out of the way in any direction needed.

The large Grembo took a large lunge forward as it extended its arm into a punch. Tomiko had locked onto the fist, and was keen to notice it was drifting a bit to her right side as it approached. With ease, she leapt to the left while staying light on her feet ready for whatever came next.

Having missed the powerful strike, the large creature lost its balance from the reckless lunge, and fell forward onto the ground.

“Now is the time to lay on damage!” Chimon shouted

Tomiko should have guessed as much. The wait, dodge, strike pattern was only one more step from wait and strike. Although, this fight was a bit more satisfying than the others. She bolted forward and let loose a flurry of blows as the mass struggled to get up.

It took fifteen seconds of attacks before the large Grembo slapped its arms on the ground in a stabilizing stance. Then, it shifted its form back into an upright position, with what were its arms now serving at its legs.

Tomiko leaped away from the creature as it became upright. It let out a growl that read as a battle cry, before reaching down to the ground to scoop up some dirt.

It looked like another chance to strike, so Tomiko rushed in to quickly slash before retreating to the other side of it. That was the plan at least, because when the large Grembo saw her approach, it delivered a surprisingly swift kick that sent Tomiko flying backward. She landed with a tumble, and the creature continued to grab at the earth, pulling out two large chunks to throw.

“Ah!” Contributed Chimon “That hit took eighty percent of your health. Quick, grab a health item”

Tomiko leapt back to her feet so she could be ready to dodge the incoming lumps of earth. She hoped she could use one of them as cover once it landed, but the improvised projectile phased back into the earth as it hit the ground.
The Large Grembo reached back down to grab two more lumps of dirt. While it did, Tomiko used the opportunity to pull out a health item from Chimon’s bubble. It was the bag of peas that her edamame had turned into yesterday. Had she really not used a health recovery item yet. She tried to remember a time where she may have, but nothing came to mind. Maybe her health replenished after each time she left a combat area or something. She didn’t have access to seeing her current health, so it wasn’t something she could monitor. It was also not something she wanted to keep asking Chimon for.

Tomiko held the bag to her lips, and tilted it up in a motion to snack. The beans didn’t actually enter her mouth, like, it seemed she ate them, but it was more of a warm feeling that poured over her. She looked over herself as the bruises and cuts on her arms and legs she didn’t even notice were suddenly fading away.

“It should throw another punch after a few more volleys of dirt. Close the distance a little so that it notices you are in range for a strike” Chimon coached.

“What’s my health now?” Tomiko asked, wondering how effective her afternoon snack was. Not that it consumed the real world counterpart after coming to this world. She had put it back in her kitchen after yesterday's dive.

“You're at fifty percent!” Chimon said as they avoided more lumps of earth being hurled at them.

‘What? Only thirty percent recovered’. That was not even enough to survive another strike from the large Grembo. Tomiko was pretty disappointed with how little help her starting equipment was. She started to wish she had brought more with her. Then again, there wasn’t much else she owned that would probably be very useful. It was fortunate that she even had a weapon at home to bring with her, let alone the foresight that she had to bring it with her, even if it was only intended to be used as a self defense precaution.

If she could not take another hit from the boss, Tomiko would need to fight a lot more carefully.

She kept dodging the earth mound as she made her way closer to the enemy. Just as planned, the large Grembo readied a punch when Tomiko was just barely out of its reach. It once again overextended as she leaped to the side. Tomiko rushed in with a flurry of strikes, before the creature slapped the ground. She took the time to put distance between it and herself while it formed. Then got ready to dodge and do it all over again as it reached down for lumps of dirt.

“You’re doing great!” Chimon said, not having much else to contribute as Tomiko was doing fine on her own.

Tomiko did not need the encouragement. Or, she didn’t think she did. But really, she was very stressed about the situation. It was true that if they died they could easily try again, but that wasn’t the main problem swirling in Tomiko’s head. While they would have to restart and have wasted time that they could have spent making more money, getting more drops specifically, she was more concerned about the way it would make her look. Tomiko was the one that made a fuss over wanting to move on. While Chimon agreed she was strong enough, it was her that insisted she was strong enough to handle what was next. If she failed now during this fight, it would be proving she was wrong. Not only would she be embarrassed from failing to do something she set out to do, but failing in judgment of her own abilities.

She was feeling a lot of pressure, and Chimon’s commentary wasn’t helping. It only brought more attention to the fact someone else was there. Watching her. Judging her. Tomiko couldn’t take the compliment for what it was.

As the large Grembo hurled its dirt, she approached once again. It was getting more difficult to dodge, as the creature seemed to be moving quicker and more aggressively.

Tomiko noticed the large Grembo had become more red in color too.

“One more round of hits should finish it!” Chimon shouted, his knowledge of the world, or basic video game tropes, showing through.

Once again, Tomiko didn’t appreciate the comment. It seemed obvious to her after he pointed it out, but she didn’t actually know the change in color would be an indicator of health. How dare he assume she didn’t know. But more so, how dare he be right. He always seemed to be aware of what Tomiko did and didn’t know. It was frustrating.

Tomiko got distracted by her frustration.

And then… she slipped up.

She had gotten in close enough for the creature to punch, but she failed to notice the mound of dirt that was still in its hand. It flung it at her faster than she was able to dodge at such a close range.

‘It’s over’ Tomiko thought to herself, as the dirt hit.

It knocked her to the ground.

She felt so much regret as she fell. Tomiko’s mind raced to excuses as she readied herself to be sent back to the real world. What would she say to Chimon? Should she say anything? What would his reaction be? Probably disappointment. She was not ready to be faced with disappointment.

“Get up, it’s about to strike!”

What! She wasn’t dead, but there was no way she could have survived that last attack.

Tomiko opened her eyes. She noticed lots of damage done to her arms, still in view before her as she laid on the ground. Her attention quickly shifted to the large Grembo, as it did indeed have its arm pulled back readying the same powerful punch she had seen before.

Time slowed down for Tomiko. She knew exactly what to do. As the fist approached, she rolled out of the way, pushing herself up off the ground as she did. The large creature landed where she had just been moments ago. Already in striking range, she slashed repeatedly with all her might.

Then finally… it was defeated.

The large Grembo disappeared after bursting into a puff of brown smoke. It quickly dissipated, leaving behind a large crystal and a pair of golden bracelets. The bracelets were inscribed with runes that glowed orange.

Any normal person would be very curious about the legendary item that dropped after defeating a boss; but Tomiko was more interested in the crystal. The size was larger than any she had seen yet in this world, and would no doubt convert into a lot of money. She was actually a bit disappointed with the item paired with the currency, as she knew the trader would not accept it for cash.

She grabbed both items and shoved them in Chimon’s bubble for safe storage in her inventory.

After the rush of the fight and awe of the reward had settled, Tomiko remembered something very important that bothered her during the last moments of the fight. Her hit point miscalculation.

She didn’t have a lot of time in the moment to process her emotions, but she was sure Chimon lied to her about how much health she had left. She hadn’t gotten hit once during her fight with the normal, or small, she wasn’t quite sure, Grembos. The kick that she received, if Chimon was to be believed, took out eighty percent of her health. That was way more than any creature had dealt to her in the entire time she had been in this world. And on top of that, the health item ‘supposedly’ only brought her back up to fifty percent. There was no way she could have survived another attack.

Chimon wasn’t sure how to take Tomiko’s silence. He saw that her eyes were closed and her brow furrowed. Definitely deep in thought. It would be a bad idea for him to prod, as he was well aware how scary her temper could get. There was just no telling what she was thinking about.

On the other hand, he was itching to move on to the next activity.

“So… want to move on to the next area, or try this area again?” He interjected. “I would like to get you out of here so we can reset your health.”

“Speaking of health…” Tomiko started very pointed in tone “what the heck was that back there? Why did you feel the need to lie to me? Huh punk!”

Tomiko had come to the conclusion that Chimon had lied to her about her health for a reason. She thought he was giving a low estimate to make her be more cautious. Tomiko hated the idea of him manipulating her. She just hated being manipulated.

“W-w-what do you mean!” Chimon stuttered.

‘So that’s the game he’s going to play’ Tomiko thought. Seeing as Chimon was playing dumb with her, she decided to be direct with her fury.

“You lied to me! You lied about how much health I had left! You didn’t think I could win if I knew the truth so you lied to me so I would fight your way!” Tomiko felt hot. Her rage steamed from her like an oven. Her body clenched as she delivered every accusatory word.

She breathed heavily standing in her own anger. Chimon already drifted out of sight behind her head, as if it would somehow calm her down. He needed to clear the air, no matter what reaction came after.

“The projectile attack does less damage than the timing punisher kick. You were still alive because that hit only took forty percent of your health. Still substantial, but not nearly as bad as the kick. They both have a knock back, which is why you fell to the ground. It’s something we haven’t had happen yet, so I can understand the confusion.”

Tomiko just stood there, still tight and braced in the same stance. But all the anger had left her, as a different emotion swept in and took control. It was regret.

She was frozen, wishing she was anywhere but there at that moment. She was stuck thinking of all the things that could have been done to avoid this situation; Chimon could have told her this information earlier, he could have taken them to a different location, or even the old cave and told her it was a different one, he could have yelled back and made the conversation be less one sided. But it wasn’t his fault, Tomiko was the one who assumed wrong and made a fool of herself. She could have backed out when the situation was getting too stressful, or been fine with losing and starting again, or stayed in the cave longer to train so they wouldn’t be in this situation.

But none of these sidesteps would fix the real problem. The real reason that she put herself in such a corner. The fact about herself that she was not ready to admit. It wouldn’t be revealed today, as she still needed to do more searching before she would be aware of it herself.

In the meantime, in that moment, Tomiko stood paralyzed with fear of her own actions. She was not capable of making things right. Her mind couldn’t come up with the answer, only the regret of her actions.

“Um…” Chimon let out, trying to say anything that would help, but not sure what to do.

“I… need to be alone right now.” Tomiko finally said in response to Chimon’s attempt at words.

“Good, we’ve been at it for a while, I think we can call it a day.” Chimon jumped at the opportunity to leave the situation. “I can go ahead and log us out.”

Tomiko loosened up a little, as they went back to the real world.

Once back, Chimon was quick to pull out the payment for the day's dive. He presented it with a respectful bow, but without saying a word.

Tomiko tried to say something, anything. But nothing came to mind. She thought about how much she wanted to reject her payment for how poorly she treated him earlier. A small part of her knew that it would be the right thing to do. But it would be admitting something she wasn’t ready for at the moment. She fought back her hand as it reached out to take the money. It felt wrong, It was money she didn’t deserve.

But she also needed it, for a very different reason.

She gripped the bills, before slowly placing it in her pocket. She felt gross. Like she had just stolen from a child.

Chimon, wanting to give Tomiko some space, gathered his stuff and began to leave the alley way. Before moving out of sight, he turned back to Tomiko and waved, saying “We made good progress today. I think tomorrow we could even take on a different area before we leave.”

He then left to the streets. But not very far, as he intended to return after she left.

Tomiko continued to stand there, lost in thought.

Then she snapped again. She needed to break something. She spotted her target no more than three feet away. An empty tin can that had long lost its label.

Tomiko let out a ferocious roar before punting the can as hard as she could. It flung up into the air and bounced off the walls of the back alley three times before landing. She snapped her attention to where the prey had landed, and kicked it again before it had a chance to stop skidding. She repeated this four more times before it got caught on a window fence three stories up.

She huffed with her remaining aggression.

One of the employees opened the back door of the candy shop. He was holding a broom and was probably on his way to tell whoever was making the racket to be quiet; but a quick death glare from Tomiko returned them back into the store.

That was enough. She wasn’t angry anymore. It was let out there in the back alley. But only what needed to boil off the surface. She still held everything else bottled up as she left.