Yuriko's heart exploded in her chest. Real. This was real, and she wouldn't be taking any gambles to prove the contrary. 'Oh shit' meters per second squared was her magnitude; the direction? Anywhere but here. Nope. She shouldn't have gotten out of bed. Shouldn't have left the house. She hit her stride clumsily and her form corrected as she gained speed. From muscle memory, she knew this was as fast as she could run. Itadori Yuji. The star 'athlete' at her school. What was his top speed again? 100 meters in 11.5 seconds? A velocity of roughly eight point seven metres per second. The numbers! She baulked. Even now they wouldn't stop.
Maybe it was slow? An ambush hunter. Maybe it was still eating the dog and —oh god, that was Mr Hokaze. She pressed on. The fence wouldn't be far now. Her breath became laboured; each lungful was poison, but she couldn't afford to care. Couldn't stop. Couldn't be weak. It didn't matter.
With an ease almost contemptuous, the creature blurred behind her. Her pupils shrank as the acceleration hit her mind, then she soared as it hit her body. In her tumble, her eyes caught the tree, her favourite reading spot, splintering behind her like drywall around a hammer. The creature still in motion, was smirking. Yuriko rolled through mud that was mercifully wet, feeling her momentum seep into the soil. Dirt caked her bone-white hair. Unreal. The largest number she had felt since she awoke. It was too fast for its size. It was too fast for Yuji, let alone her. This wasn't something a human could outrun.
I should be dead, idle thoughts supplied, why aren't I —. The part of her brain that demanded survival made her body crouch. Wind roared, and another number sailed over her head. Roll. A thick claw slammed into the space she had occupied. Stand. If she couldn't run, then she would fight. This wasn't a choice the girl had consciously made. Two red eyes met four inhuman pupils. It wasn't even her only option. She could lay on the ground, protect her vital organs. Hope against hope, that help arrived. But it never would, a fact experience taught her. So, if not there in the 'comfort' of those four walls, she would fight here in the mud and in the open.
Yuriko picked up a branch as she rose and swung it with all her inconsiderable might. To no effect. The creature moved and once again she was airborne. This time she was caught in its palm before she could hit the ground. Pressure grew around her as it squeezed. Pathetic. It didn't even see fit to use both its arms to end her.
What was it she had wanted today? A little leisure? A fleeting moment to kill time? Now time was killing her.
It's funny how small it all seems. Hope. Ambition. Memento mori is the freedom from such delusions. Remember that you will die. Remember, that at any moment a quadrupedal, purple Michelin Man could turn you into a statistic. And from that perspective, the things we value do not seem to matter. Every person is a universe in and of themselves, but heat death is inevitable. So why forge stars out of dust, why place nebulas in the inner landscape of the world that is you? What do your little victories mean if they decay within your cradling arms?
Pain. Blistering pain coursed through her veins as the creature clenched harder.
Except they hadn't been delusions. Not to her. This park. That light novel. The time she had before her dad woke up. As small as it all seemed, these were all experiences she had gained through her own efforts. Even if they would get her killed today, they had made her happy for a while. Experiences were among the few things that she truly owned. Yuriko went to cram because it got her out of the house on the weekend. She read because it would get her out of her mind for a moment. From fiction to scientific journals. The top student in all of Sendai, was a title achieved through pure escapism. Not that it mattered now.
She had dreams, didn't she? Aspirations to finally own something concrete. That hope wasn't small. Not to her. It would have taken time, sure, but she would have done well at college, coasted off scholarships and saved money. She would have gotten a good job and moved to a good, quiet, neighbourhood. She would have had bookshelves full of literature, both academic and otherwise and no one could set the pace she went through it all. She would never have to be anywhere, or anyone, she didn't want to be.
Yuriko saw his smile in the creature's teeth, and the contrast — damn, it's almost the same. Despite herself, she began to laugh. A full blown, full body sort of laugh that rattled her bruising ribs. A manic grin cracked her face open as her eyes caught the dawn. They both felt it. She could tell when the creature shuddered. Her mercurial wrath. Formless energy rose to the surface like a drowning man breaking free of the waves. Yuriko willed it into her arms and pushed hard. Strength she never knew she had. Power, beyond humanity, surged into the motion. The hand that held her was warped against the sudden force.
This time Yuriko's shoes met the ground with a crack.
"BIRD!" Fluid began leaking from its eyes. Its mangled digits slumped onto the ground.
She moved her rage to her foot and stomped on the hand that was once large enough to contain her.
"You know," she said, as her laugh tapered off. "Whatever you are, I think I hate you. I think I'm gonna kill you, too."
The creature began to writhe under the pressure of her foot. So, it felt pain? Fear? Good. It swung its arm with desperate aggression, and she sprung back; the strength spreading to her legs. Even damaged, the entity was every bit as fast as it was when it first attacked, but she could track it with her eyes now. Its numbers made it even more predictable. Lean. She wouldn't risk getting in its range again. Jump. Maybe if she stalled it for long enough it would tire? Drop. A wide swing made her jump further back than she had planned. She found herself skidding and sliding until the next thing she found was her footing. Yuriko immediately knew a mistake had been made. Whether or not it was hers remained to be seen. The creature placed all four limbs on the ground again, and with a cocky "bird", it blurred again. Energy flared through its muscles as it gathered momentum quicker than it ever had before. The space between was closing as the air burned. Her legs weren't cooperating. She couldn't dodge in time.
Reality exists as a kind of clockwork. We experience triumphs and the clock ticks on. We endure tragedies, and still it ticks. Indifferent. We watch the clock hand move regardless of our pain, regardless of our joy, and sometimes it makes us forget that we are the gears. That without us, there is no clockwork. No reality. But there will come a time in every person's life when they reach out with all of their fear, with all of their good intentions, with all of their hope, to try to change an outcome with their willpower alone.
"No!"
Yuriko, thrust her hands into the world as she bellowed. For the second time that day, it responded.
Minus one. Every arrow of force she could feel pointing at her from the creature. Minus one. Every intent it had of harming her. Minus one. All its momentum. Displacement. Velocity. Acceleration. Every vector, transformed by minus one.
To say the creature exploded would be an understatement. Its vaunted strength; its snapping jaw. The power in its limbs. Everything that was once an agent, instantly rebelled against it. It didn't fly back. It wasn't injured. It couldn't even react. The creature simply ceased to be under a display of force rivalling ordnance. The blast wave dug a furrow along the ground, plucking out the grass as it went. What it didn't have in depth, it made up for in width; like a wave of photons diffusing from their source. An observer in the sky would have said the blast originated from her, but she knew better. Yuriko lowered her eyes to her shaking palms.
"Wicked."