Souls and Soulhunters

I was frozen in place on the sidewalk, completely unable to move. Only one thought crossed my mind: What the hell was happening?

If you wanted to get technical, physically I could move, but I just wasn’t processing my ability to move. The only thing that was processing was that weird shrine maiden girl approaching me.

“What are you doing? Move!”

A voice in my head spoke. It was the same voice of the girl who just headbutted me a few seconds earlier. I looked around, confirming exactly what happened since I honestly had absolutely no clue.

The weird shrine maiden girl continued to crawl towards me on all fours. She seemed to be snarling, like a feral animal.

“YOU. RELEASE THAT SPIRIT OR I’M GONNA TEAR YOU IN TWO!”

Wait. That sounded bad.

“Woah, woah!” I finally snapped out of my paralysis and took a step back. “I didn’t ask for this, ma’am. If you want this spirit then that’s none of my problem–”

“Really? Are you just gonna give me up like that?”

“What did you think would happen?”

My pleading with the increasingly aggressive woman was interrupted by the spirit in my thoughts. I should have just ignored her and kept begging for my life, but I ended up shouting at a voice only I could hear.

“Just think. It’s faster. That girl is a soulhunter. She wants to cut me up, eat me, and sell the remains for a profit!” the spirit girl argued.

“Okay, and how is any of that my problem? I’m not about to get torn in half for a spirit I don’t even know!” I mentally argued back.

“I might have interlinked our souls in a stunt… just… just trust me. I only need you for a brief second.”

“What do you mean you interlinked our souls?! What does that even imply?”

“Uh. For now, it means that our souls are bound. You can’t exactly get rid of me without uh… tearing yourself up too.”

“YOU’RE TAKING TOO LONG! I’LL JUST RIP YOU IN HALF AND TEAR OUT BOTH OF YOUR SOULS!”

“Eep—!”

The shrine maiden got sick of waiting for me, and decided to attack. At that moment, I realized that this was probably it. First day in the city and I die. This was how my pathetic, miserable life was going to end. No chance of redemption, and no chance to return home. And it was all my parents’ fault. Over a stupid exam.

My life flashed before my eyes: the failed exam, the time I spent wasting away instead of studying, and my desperate clinging for any lifeline. It was all coming back to me. Maybe if I died here, I would be free of responsibilities.

“I said… MOVE!”

The voice in my head echoed, snapping me out of my reminiscence. The next thing I know, my body was not torn to shreds by a shrine maiden’s claws. Instead, I was halfway down the street, moved before I could even process.

My legs burned. It just felt like I ran an entire marathon in under a split second, and then someone lit my calves on fire. Did I just move that fast? How fast did I even move? My body shook and trembled as I began to catch wind of my situation. The girl that attacked instead struck a wall, with her long nails lodged into it for a brief moment.

“I just had to save you. Now can you listen to me?”

“Whawhawha—”

My speech was incoherent. Even if I already knew magic existed, I didn’t know how anyone was supposed to process their feet moving a million kilometers per second to run down a street. What was I meant to say, or do?

“Look. My name is Miharu. We’re both in danger right now if you don’t do anything about it. This is your body after all.”

“What- who? What even happened?”

“Please. Please get over your stupor for like, ten seconds. Deep breath. Come on, I believe in you. You have this.”

“I don’t have anything!”

The soulhunter finally managed to get its nail-claws out of the wall, turning back towards her. “What was that? I didn’t know you could move that fast, human. No matter, because you’re still harboring that soul!”

“DO SOMETHING!”

“YOU DO SOMETHING!”

“I CAN’T DO SOMETHING UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING! AT LEAST TRY!”

The argument in my head continued as the soulhunter began to run towards me. Her claws were outstretched, and were ready to slice me in two. The spirit in my mind kept asking for me to act, but I don’t even know how to fight in the first place. What was I supposed to do at all?

In a brief panicked moment, I wound up my fist and threw a stray punch. No technique, no skill, just a pure attack. Before I could even realize my fist moved, it was already in front of me, dragging my entire body with it. Then it collided into the face of the woman approaching me.

That punch sent the woman flying down the street. She crashed into the ground and slid along it, with a notable impact in her cheek. “WHAT.”

The reaction she had was the same reaction I had. Absolutely no idea what happened, but it worked. I punched with a force that I have never punched with before.

“Great work!” I could feel Miharu giving me a mental thumbs-up. Though, I wasn’t fully convinced. The shrine maiden girl began to stand up again, rubbing her cheek. “You’re going to need to do a bit more than that to scare her off. Just, keep it up!”

“A bit more than that?! Can’t we just book it?” I complained back.

“Do you want her to chase you down to wherever you live? You gotta at the very least send her packing!”

I took a deep breath. It seemed like I had no choice. With powers I had no idea how to use, I needed to stand my ground. It was either that, or I die. And I wasn’t planning on dying just yet.

“What’s your deal? What did that spirit do to you?” the soulhunter shouted. “And do you seriously think I’m going to take you punching me on its-”

Before she could finish her sentence, she felt an immediate force crashing into her. My entire body. It came at her faster than even she could react. I had no plan, besides attacking. So, I had to just hope it was enough.

The two of us crashed into a nearby building, leaving both of us in a grapple. I kept on throwing wild punches, trying to keep the girl down. A kick to her stomach. A slap to her jaw. The one thing I could grasp about this power is that I could move fast. So, the best thing I could do was just, attack, attack, and attack some more.

However, as I struck, I felt the maiden reach out… and a sharp piercing force dragged through my face. Her long nails suddenly dug into my cheek, and it hurt. Badly.

“OW! OW OW OW!” I yelped and immediately jumped back. I leapt at such a high speed that I crashed into another wall. “Ow… what the… what the hell…”

Blood spilled out of my cheek, as I felt the entire thing was cut open. Instinctively, I grabbed it in pain. However, once my hand came to my cheek, it felt just as soft and smooth as ever… as nothing happened.

I looked down at my hand. There was still blood, but no wound, even though I had just gotten my face ripped open.

“See! I can help you! Don’t worry about getting hurt. As long as you avoid anything too bad, you can attack as much as you want!” Miharu said. For some reason, that instilled confidence in me. It was the first time in forever that I had this feeling.

But if I could bounce back from this, then I knew what I had to do.

The feral shrine maiden growled at me. Cursing me with every last breath. It seemed like my assault did do a number on her, and that was good. I just needed to finish her off.

“Hey,” I asked Miharu. “If you can make me move fast. Can you make other things move fast as well?”

“I don’t see why not. Just focus.”

Mid-mental conversation, the soulhunter performed another strike at me with her long nails. I just dodged at the last second, incurring another scratch on my cheek. It hurt like hell, again, but I had to trust in my spiritual companion to take care of me.

In response, I gave that girl a good knee to her stomach. One fast enough and with enough force to send her flying into the air. She went so high, that she cleared any house in the entire neighborhood.

“AAAAH-!”

I heard her yell as she was sent flying up into the skies. Then, I just needed to find something to throw. Quickly, I scavenged the sidewalk around me and found…

Well, I didn’t find anything. The street was surprisingly clean. On my person, I didn’t have much either. Just my phone and my wallet. However, I still needed something to toss at her before she came back down. In a last ditch effort, I took off one of my shoes, and with my best pitch, I tossed it directly at her.

I was never a baseball player, but I think that was my best throw I had ever done. A loud, ringing noise sparked in my ears as a cone of air surrounded my shoe. It struck the girl at a speed unimaginable to me before. Just like how I couldn’t process my movements before, I had no idea how I made that throw.

The soulhunter was sent screaming to the horizon. Far, far away than I could see. I thought that would be enough to scare her off for now.

My shoe dropped to the floor. It was completely ruined and ripped by me throwing it, a result of it moving at the speed of sound, probably. But luckily, it was only my second-best pair of shoes, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I took a moment to recover after that, while trying to fit on the remains of my destroyed shoe onto my foot.

“Can I go home now? And you go away? Like, no longer be linked to my soul?”

“Uh.. we’ll… talk about it.”

That didn’t sound too reassuring.