Matou Shinji and the Broken Chains (HP/FSN CYOA)

[Skull Leader]

[X]Pick up the sword of light. Order the golem to charge the formation of wizards with the Shadow Sword. The golem will pierce their shield, draining/drinking its mana and causing the golem to self-destruct. Conceal it's approach with some flashbang ofuda. Time the explosion of the golem with a supercharged confringo aimed at the formation. Flow above the wizards after the explosion and lay the area with yin dragonfire. After the big strike, switch to dealing the giants with his dragon abilities and melee with the sword of light.

There is a modified plan of EmperorBR. Basically the same but Shinji uses the sword of light and changed some of the wording.

[Malorius]

[X]Pick up the sword of light. Order the golem to charge the formation of wizards with the Shadow Sword. The golem will pierce their shield, draining/drinking its mana and causing the golem to self-destruct. Conceal it's approach with some flashbang ofuda. Time the explosion of the golem with a supercharged confringo aimed at the formation. Flow above the wizards after the explosion and lay the area with yin dragonfire. After the big strike, switch to dealing the giants with his dragon abilities and melee with the sword of light

After some consideration, this one seems viable. Let's hope we can survive this by being reasonable instead of suicidally straightforward.

[Daiki]

[x] Pick up the sword of light. Order the golem to charge the formation of wizards with the Shadow Sword. The golem will pierce their shield, draining/drinking its mana and causing the golem to self-destruct. Conceal it's approach with some flashbang ofuda. Time the explosion of the golem with a supercharged confringo aimed at the formation. Flow above the wizards after the explosion and lay the area with yin dragonfire. After the big strike, switch to dealing the giants with his dragon abilities and melee with the sword of light.

Man, self destruction + confringo + yin fire.

Not going to leave a speck of dust, huh.

[Dracueri]

​[x]Pick up the sword of light. Order the golem to charge the formation of wizards with the Shadow Sword. The golem will pierce their shield, draining/drinking its mana and causing the golem to self-destruct. Conceal it's approach with some flashbang ofuda. Time the explosion of the golem with a supercharged confringo aimed at the formation. Flow above the wizards after the explosion and lay the area with yin dragonfire. After the big strike, switch to dealing the giants with his dragon abilities and melee with the sword of light

[alfheimwanderer]

Choice 9: [X]Pick up the sword of light. Order the golem to charge the formation of wizards with the Shadow Sword. The golem will pierce their shield, draining/drinking its mana and causing the golem to self-destruct. Conceal it's approach with some flashbang ofuda. Time the explosion of the golem with a supercharged confringo aimed at the formation. Flow above the wizards after the explosion and lay the area with yin dragonfire. After the big strike, switch to dealing the giants with his dragon abilities and melee with the sword of light.

---

Choice 10: With the arrival of a new set of enemies to replace the destroyed inferi, Matou Shinji saw little choice but to concentrate on one group of opponents - the ones who had plagued him since the beginning of the battle. The human pretenders, the wretches wielding sticks who had the audacity to raise their hands against their betters needed to die.

Now.

Even if their Fiendfyre - their imitation of the flame of hell - could not harm a great wyrm, they had sought to end him then and there, and such a thing deserved no less than death in turn. After all, the only ones who should kill were those prepared to be killed, yes? That was the rule for magi, and soldiers, and any who mattered.

And so, he - defender of Britain - would sentence these wretches to death.

Flowing forward, he scooped up the sword of light, marveling as its warmth filled him, the heat and sharpness of the ancient weapon most pleasing to his senses. He could almost feel the weight of its Mystery, of the history etched upon it by the blood of all it had slain.

Its thirst for human life, born of a curse that would only be quieted by the spilling of blood each time it was drawn.

The boy laughed, or would have, was he not already licking his lips in anticipation of the slaughter to come. Seeing the last expression of these arrogant fools as the life bled from their eyes would be...delicious...

All the more so that what would ensure their destruction them would not be this ancient blade, but a construct wrought of mortal hands.

'Golem. Charge the enemy position,' he ordered, even as he launched a barrage of ofuda to try and cover the approach of the lumbering, half-melted automaton, with him flowing from one place to another and blasting away with spells of fire and light that would blind as they impacted the fortress shield, keeping them from targeting him properly.

Such a distraction wouldn't last long, not against trained and disciplined forces like these, but it didn't need to - it only needed to last a handful of seconds, just long enough for the golem to arrive on scene and plunge its sword of darkness into the barrier, magical energies bubbling from it as it began to dissolve, the fell presence within devouring and devouring anything it could touch, until at last, a small portion of the overlapping shields collapsed.

'Detonate.'

His foes had no chance to react before the blast, which even the boy had underestimated, blew everything away.

Their shields crumpled, shredded into nothingness before what seemed like the hammerblow of a War God.

The bodies in its path were crushed and pulverized.

With his senses, Shinji thought there might have been a second explosion only a fraction of second after the golem's destruction, but he couldn't be sure, as he added a supercharged confringo to the mix.

All he knew was that when the terrible din faded, the darkness itself had been banished, and all that remained where the merely human wretches had stood was a massive crater in the ground, one torn clear through to the next floor, if not beyond.

The boy tried to remember exactly what was beneath him, what was below the Atrium, but caught up in thrill of battle, he couldn't recall, really.

'They're dead. That's all that matters,' he told himself, though he loosed a torrent of dark fire into the area below, just in case there were...survivors. Not that there would be. Nothing could survive that.

With that bit of pleasantness settled, he turned his focus to the giants, some of which had been knocked on their arses by the might of the explosion.

'Right. Time to die.'

The dragon grinned, Tyrfing held high as he flashed in, cutting, cutting, cutting, as blood spurted, beings roared, and lives were extinguished. Their armor...was useless. The resistance of their hides...was useless. Their futile struggle...was useless, as he killed and killed and KILLED, his laughter echoing through the Atrium as he reveled in the slaughter of his stricken foes.

Death. Death. Death. Death. DEATH!!!!!!

He'd shown them. He'd shown them all. Truly, in this moment, he was unstoppable.

...which made it all the more ironic that it was at that moment, a darkness deeper than that of the powders he'd released billowed up from the floor below, with the boy feeling a sense of all too mortal terror as he laid eyes on it.

At once, he sprung into the air, trying his best to get away from it, to escape what every instinct within him knew to be his death, should it touch him.

And then the ceiling collapsed, with followup explosions smashing an entire floor's worth of rubble down upon the boy as the darkness came up to meet him, and Matou Shinji knew no more.

[Lost - Hazel and Coral Wand, Robes of the Master Alchemist]

---

When Matou Shinji opens his eyes, he finds himself in a very strange place indeed. What is it that he sees?

[ ] The barren black sand of an endless desert
[ ] King's Cross Station
[ ] The room where the First Jinn was sealed
[ ] A vast cavern, with an immense chalice wrought of shadows looming in the distance

[skulkidcachi90]

[ ] The room where the First Jinn was sealed

[Daiki]

[x] The barren black sand of an endless desert.

[Dracueri]

​[x]The room where the First Jinn was sealed

[Malorius]

[x] The room where the First Jinn was sealed

Let's start the book with a nice and calming conversation.

[Skull Leader]

[x] The barren black sand of an endless desert.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like that the chances of the Jinn choice being bad greatly outweighs the chances of it having a positive effect.

[EmperorBR]

[x]The barren black sand of an endless desert.

[alfheimwanderer]

We currently have a TIE between [x]The barren black sand of an endless desert and [x] The room where the First Jinn was sealed.

I would like it if this tie was broken.

[Malgos]

[...] The barren black sand of an endless desert [...]

I would like it if this tie was broken.

That's my choice then.

[darkfan]

[x] The barren black sand of an endless desert.
Mystery choice for the win

[Cassius]

[x] The barren black sand of an endless desert.

[alfheimwanderer]

Choice 10: [x] The barren black sand of an endless desert

---

Choice 11: When he came to, the boy who called himself Matou Shinji opened his eyes to find himself standing under a black sky studded with cold bright stars, no sign of any other living thing as far as the eye could see, only the barren black sand of an endless desert.

A CURIOSITY.

The voice, if one could call it that, issued from all around him, reminding him of nothing so much as the slamming of coffin lids.

'Who?' He spun around turned about, reaching for the fire within him - only for his features to stay entirely human and with his magic eerily quiescent, as if it was entirely gone. Not that it would have mattered if it wasn't, for there was no one there, at least not that he could see.

"Show yourself!" the boy demanded, in a tone that he thought intimidating, though nothing responded. "NOW!" he shouted.As if in response to his words, the world shook with a rumble that rattled his bones and scattered any thoughts of unruliness. He...this wasn't the Ministry, was it?

NO. IT IS NOT.

'...who...?'Had the boy who called himself Matou Shinji experienced such a shock anywhere else in the world, would have trembled, yet as it was he simply felt...nothing, as if his body was but a mud doll. A thing of dirt, fashioned in his likeness. "Who are you?!"

THE ASSASSIN AGAINST WHOM NO LOCK HOLDS.

Shinji blinked.

"...Professor Lockhart?" the boy asked, confused. "This...this isn't funny! Where are you?!"

NO FURTHER THAN THE THICKNESS OF A SHADOW. WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARTS, THERE WILL BE I.

There was a pause, interminable as the universe itself.

AND I AM NOT YOUR PROFESSOR.


The boy opened his mouth to retort, only for his words to die in his throat as a figure materialized before him: a grinning skeleton in a very tattered black robe, wielding a scythe that gleamed in the cold light of the stars. A figure of fear and legend, from whom every mote of essence in his body, every cell, every atom of his being screamed at him to run.
Only he could not, for his legs would not move.

Not in this place that was no place, where things like light, color, sound, and more were only illusions, where nothing was true except the existence of the being before him. The embodied end of all things.“…Death.”

SO SOME HAVE CALLED ME, came the reply, like two slabs of concrete rubbing against one another. EVEN MATOU SHINJI.

The boy blinked.

"...what's so special about me calling you Death?" he asked. "That's what you are, right?"

THE QUESTION IS NOT WHO I AM, BUT WHO YOU ARE. FOR YOU ARE NOT MATOU SHINJI.

"W-what do you mean by that?" the boy questioned, feeling the urge to step back, to run, to cover his ears, though he knew none of it would do him any good.

MATOU SHINJI, WHOSE NAME YOU WEAR, DIED ON THE ISLAND.

"Wha...t?"the boy's mouth went dry as he heard this, the words resonating with-- "No!" he denied. "No...that's not true! That's impossible!"
SEARCH YOUR FEELINGS. YOU KNOW IT TO BE TRUE.

He tried to deny it. Tried to push away the truth of the words that...DEATH was saying, but he could not. And that inability filled him with an existential terror. For if he was not Matou Shinji...

'...who am I?'

A QUESTION THAT FEW ENOUGH EVER THINK TO ASK.

"Wait I...you can read minds?!"

YOU SPOKE ALOUD.

The boy didn't think he'd done anything of the sort, though he wasn't exactly planning on arguing with Death in the latter's domain, which this place was, or so he grasped.

"...do you know the answer then?"

NO. I ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, NOT WHO.

"And what is that?" he asked. "...not that it matters if I'm dead."

A SCRAP OF SOUL, THE ESSENCE OF A DRAGON, A HERO'S GIFT, AND THE HEART OF AN ELEMENTAL WITHIN A VESSEL OF MUD TURNED FLESH. A STRANGE AMALGAM WHICH IS NOT DEAD, BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER TRULY ALIVE.

"Not...dead?" the boy...the being asked, not quite daring to hope. "But then...why am I here?"

YOU FELL THROUGH THE VEIL. FROM ONE SIDE OF THE WORLD ONTO ANOTHER - YET THERE IS NO PLACE FOR YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE, NOT YET. THE PLACE FOR MATOU SHINJI WAS ALREADY FILLED WHEN HE DIED DESTROYING THE VESSEL OF AN OUTER GOD.

"I...does that mean I can go back?"

NOT AS YOU ARE.

"Then--"

TO RETURN TO THE WORLD OF FLESH AND STONE, A SACRIFICE IS NEEDED. The Grim Reaper intoned in a voice like centuries of erosion happening at once. WHAT YOU WERE. WHAT YOU ARE. WHAT YOU MIGHT BECOME. A SYMBOL OF HEROISM. OR PART OF YOUR NATURE.

There was a pause.

IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO GRANT YOU A SECOND LIFE AS A HUMAN, BUT THIS WOULD BE EVEN MORE COSTLY.

[ ]His memories - that which makes him who he is
[ ] The Noble Phantasms gifted to him by Perseus - Harpe and the Sandals
[ ] The last scraps of his humanity - what he was
[ ] The blessing of Gaia - his potential for growth
[ ] His earth affinity / nature as a partial elemental
[ ] Everything but his memories and his humanity - he wants to be reborn as a human, instead of remaining this...thing

[Daiki]

Welp, for me;

Memories - Out of question (renders the whole quest meaningless)
Noble Phantasms - Acceptable (loss of battle efficiency and mobility)
Humanity - No, just no (unfit for human society / become a potential danger (thus a target) / potential loss of emotions)
Blessing - No (Too good to give up on / affects growth a lot)
Earth Affinity - Absolute no - (Too much investment into it and relationship with Zelkova on the line)
Become Human - No (denies every single effort Shinji did to get where he is)

Which means I'll go with;

[x] The Noble Phantasms gifted to him by Perseus - Harpe and the Sandals.

Outside of the fact that I think losing the rest is worse, it kinda falls into line with the fact that Shinji doesn't perceive himself as a hero.

Still bitter to lose harpe though, for it's a major blow to our offense but we have to give up something.

As an onmyouji we have other offensive tools and movement options available even if we lose the phantasms.

Alf;

The boy opened his mouth to retort, only for his words to die in his throat as a figure materialized before him: a grinning skeleton in a very tattered black robe, wielding a scythe that gleamed in the cold light of the stars. A figure of fear and legend, from whom every mote of essence in his body, every cell, every atom of his being screamed at him to run.
Only he could not, for his legs would not move.

Not in this place that was no place, where things like light, color, sound, and more were only illusions, where nothing was true except the existence of the being before him. The embodied end of all things.“…Death.”

SO SOME HAVE CALLED ME, came the reply, like two slabs of concrete rubbing against one another. EVEN MATOU SHINJI.

That part appears twice in text.

[skulkidcachi90]

[ ] The Noble Phantasms gifted to him by Perseus - Harpe and the Sandals

[EmperorBR]

[ ] The Noble Phantasms gifted to him by Perseus - Harpe and the Sandals

[Dracueri]

[x]The Noble Phantasms gifted to him by Perseus - Harpe and the Sandals.

I agree with Daiki's point that the nps are the easiest to give up on.