Standing here, I realized something important after we stepped out of the portal and immediately went to buy some snacks.
Isadora is in a bad mood right now.
How do I know, you ask?
She's refusing the ice cream and popsicles I'm offering her.
The two things she absolutely loves and consumes on a near-daily basis.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked with a wry smile, tearing open the KitKat in my hand and taking a bite straight from the bar. Not snapping it into neat little sticks like what a normal civilized person would do.
We were outside the same convenience store we always stopped by after finishing our errands in Mato. The two of us occupied a wooden bench, the place quiet around us.
It was well past midnight. A cold wind brushed against our skin, while the sky stretched endlessly. Dark, vast, and littered with stars.
Letting out an irritated groan, she leaned back against the bench when she heard my question.
"Don't mind me. I'm just pissed at a certain someone right now," Isadora said, massaging her forehead. "I can't believe I let my temper get the better of me."
"Who exactly are you talking about?" I asked, sitting down beside her. I cracked open a bottle of Ramune, having just finished my chocolate.
"Well… while you were busy dealing with the gate and all that Shuuki nonsense, I had my own little adventure in Mato." She clicked her tongue.
Finally, she accepted the popsicle, tore it open, and bit it clean in a single mouthful before continuing.
As she began recounting her side of the story, she apparently decided it was the perfect moment to acknowledge our ever-present stalkers. Which explained why she chose to appear just as one of them was out for a leisurely stroll while I was occupied entertaining Chief Uzen and the gang.
She had initially planned to offer a simple greeting, perhaps even a "friendly reminder." Instead, the encounter rapidly spiraled into a heated exchange, the two of them locked in what I can describe as a petty contest over who could provoke the other more.
Just hearing how their interaction unfolded from beginning to end left me quite surprised.
If everything she said was true, then Isadora had essentially been striking sparks beside a powder keg with the way she treated the woman.
A walking explosive.
A literal explosion waiting for the slightest excuse to erase her from existence.
It was nothing short of a miracle that no fight broke out. Though, in truth, it very well might have, had Isadora not chosen to leave at precisely the right moment, just as the tension between them reached its breaking point.
That said, something valuable did emerge from that disastrous conversation. Thanks to the encounter, we finally learned what they called themselves.
They claimed to be a group of beings destined to bring ruin upon humanity.
The Eight Thunder Gods.
And the black-haired, snake woman wearing a kimono who had been observing us for far longer than we realized?
Her name was Shikoku.
That alone was useful information about the ones we were about to face.
Isadora also pointed out that, despite calling themselves gods, they were nothing more than glorified humanoid Shuuki. Powerful, yes, but devoid of any true divinity.
"I may be angry at her right now, but I'm pretty sure she's feeling far worse than I am," Isadora said with a smirk. "I went full throttle. Didn't stop for a second. I called her a voyeur, a bitch, and █ █ █ ███ █ █ ██ █ █ ███ ██████ ███ ██."
She continued, unleashing a stream of language sharp enough to make even the most thick-skinned adult wince.
Playing online games had thoroughly rotted her brain, leaving it marinated in toxicity and weaponized insults.
I'll admit, it made me feel slightly bad… though not nearly bad enough to sympathize. The Thunder Gods were, by every measurable standard, insufferable based on what she told me.
That said, I suspected my partner may have gone just a little too far.
Claiming that Shikoku smelled like expired breast milk. Saying that she looked like someone who will still clung and suck her mother's soggy tits.
That was apparently the breaking point.
The woman snapped, shouting before launching an attack with some kind of black, disgusting sphere while using some snakes to attack Isadora.
Which, coincidentally, marked the exact moment Isadora decided retreat was the superior strategy.
Lesson learned.
From now on, I will refrain from deploying "your mother" jokes against this particular group of enemies.
Taking a deep breath, Isadora rose from her seat. With a casual flick of her wrist, she summoned a speaker and microphone into her hand.
"I'm dedicating this to that black bitch I met earlier, so sit back and don't mind me, partner." She glanced at me and snorted.
Sliding on a pair of shades, she lifted the mic to her lips and began to rap as the beat started playing.
♪♫♪ Step up, medals click, light the night,
Taka-eye, Tora-claw, Batta-kick, I'm the trio bite.
You call yourselves gods? More like frauds,
Caught in a paper-thin sync.
You call yourselves gods? Boy, your lightning's a blunder.
You thunder with bluster, I thunder with hunger.
OOO in the booth, triple core, triple threat.
Medal drop, chest pop, lightning learns respect.
Medal spin, grin wide, thunder gets the chop.
Beat slam, lamps out, gods cough, lights drop.
This ain't just a diss.
It's the final thunder audit. ♪♫♪
My mouth literally fell open when she started rapping. I didn't even know what to say as she poured out her frustration in verse.
I wasn't sure if her flow made sense, but I let her continue. If this was what she needed to feel good, why not let her?
As her energy began to ebb, she dragged out the last line of her verse, finishing with a sharp "Yoh."
For a moment, she simply stared at the microphone in her hand, her expression hollow. Then her fingers tightened.
She hurled it to the ground.
Turning to me, she pulled off her glasses. Without hesitation, she snapped them cleanly in two.
"Hideo, I've made up my mind."
"About what?"
"We're going to beat the hell out of those Frauds!!"
She started beatboxing, cupping her hand over her mouth.
"Hey yo, motherfucking Thunder Gods!
You better watch out, you better not frown.
Kamen Rider's rolling in, and he's taking you down.
You better step back, or get tossed around,
Cause justice is riding, and he's the talk of the town!"
========
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Coming home from the convenience store, I changed into more comfortable clothes and sprawled across my bed, phone in hand. Sleep wouldn't come, so I decided to scroll through some Ourtube Shorts.
[Stayin' still, eyes closed. Let the world just pass me by]
[Villain: Surprise attack! You've gotten soft.
Surprise Attack: Heh? You wish. I'm never soft.]
[You fucking donkey! THIS IS RAW!!!]
[One-dollar gun vs. one-million-dollar gun— which is stronger?]
[We decided to visit the controversial therapist Dr. Victor Blane]
Sleepiness crept in as the videos flickered past, shifting from one to another while my thumb lazily swiped the screen.
I closed my eyes, letting my body slowly shut down. Each breath felt like a gentle reboot, draining the fatigue of the day and letting my tiredness slip quietly out of my system.
Seeing that, Isadora gazed at his sleeping figure. She looked at her hand, then his body, and finally peered into his insides before stopping.
"Nothing's out of the ordinary for now," she sighed in relief as she saw the core medals inside him doing nothing—just remaining there, without any suspicious activity.
Regrettably, that wouldn't last forever. The moment he started using combos… but despite their destructive nature, they would become one of their greatest assets.
The antithesis of wishes.
The void and the end of all things.
A medal not meant for peace, but to obliterate everything in its path.
"It was quite a shock to know that I was supposed to be the original vessel for these medals," Isadora said, sitting at the table with a melancholic sigh.
A failure of an artificial being, who only accidentally came to life by coincidentally being compatible with a broken Core Medal.
Closing her eyes, Isadora rested her chin on her hand, lost in contemplation. She could only curse why her very existence had to be so goddamn complicated and messy.