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

[Malorius]

There are better ways for pointing out my failure to read the word correctly then that. Simply point out it was Blind as in can't see and be done

I was half-convinced that it was I who missed something obvious, which is why that statement was vague, actually (since both you and Daiki criticised it). Also, it is not really insulting, I think? I mean, it's more ironic, if anything. Don't take it close to heart, SL.

Anyway, can we use Explosive ofuda that way? It's a deafening explosion, but is it really all that bright, Alf?

[alfheimwanderer]

Anyway, can we use Explosive ofuda that way? It's a deafening explosion, but is it really all that bright, Alf?

One of Shinji's earliest applications of it was in fact flashbang ofuda! The yield can be adjusted for sound, light, and sheer force.

[Skull Leader]

Change my vote to [X] Blind everyone with ofuda

While I might say it is better to show as little of Shinji's skills to his fellow Hogwart students given next year's challenge, Harry already knows quite a bit about Shinji and ofuda so flashbangs are the base level thing we need to use if we want to even look like we are trying here. And it keeps people from seeing the more powerful stuff of Shinji.

[Malorius]

While I might say it is better to show as little of Shinji's skills to his fellow Hogwart students given next year's challenge, Harry already knows quite a bit about Shinji and ofuda so flashbangs are the base level thing we need to use if we want to even look like we are trying here. And it keeps people from seeing the more powerful stuff of Shinji

That's the spirit! Let them call Shinji a charlatan, mock his abilities as parlor tricks. But he will have power the Wizarding Britain knows not...

Admittedly, the plans of a possible Dark_Edge_Master anti-hero reveal suffer heavily from our earlier public exposure as Avada Kedavra throwing murderer. Oups?

[alfheimwanderer]

The verdict for Choice 411 seems to be clear: False!Shinji will blind them with SCIENCE ofuda!

---

Writing is in progress. Expect something by the weekend.

[Malorius]

Waiting warmly.

[alfheimwanderer]

Chapter 96. Indomitable

For George Weasley, the most tedious and frustrating part about the final challenge wasn’t the waves of enemies that came at him – the trained beasts and sentries which had to be destroyed or disabled to advance. Those he – and the forces entrusted to him – could deal with through the application of basic strategy or (occasionally) the simple expedient of massed fire. It wasn’t the fact that he had to deal with traps cleverly hidden in the walls or the floor, or that he had to navigate a confusing maze of tunnels in what would be near total darkness, save for the light provided by the wands of his men.

It was the fact that all these issues would have been nonexistent if he allowed himself to tap into the fullness of his power.

Walls, after all, were only an obstacle to bodies of flesh, just as the traps which had been prepared could not harm the intangible.

Magical beasts, which might be a danger under other circumstances, could be easily ripped apart – erased – using the power of the entity within his wand.

Sentries’ intentions and imminent actions could be deciphered with a glance, allowing anyone with some modicum of skill to evade their eyes – or wands.

And as for darkness – well, it was more a friend than a foe for someone like him, given that spirits needed neither eyes nor light to “see.”

But the boy had resolved to complete this trial using only abilities one might reasonably expect of a Hogwarts-trained Champion and a Stone Cutter, the latter of which gave him some latitude to go beyond the school’s stated curriculum, but not nearly as much as he would have preferred.

British wizards, after all, didn’t tend to be able to transform themselves into spirits, or control the power of an obscurus. Well, at least not the sort of wizard most decent folk liked to think about, with any dabbling in those forbidden realms of magic tending to make people think of a bloke as the next Grindelwald…or Voldemort.

‘Though…even then, it’s tempting. After all, who are the ones immortalized in stories, whose names and deeds live forever? Not Ministers nor Unspeakables, nor headmasters of Hogwarts. Not Aurors nor Quidditch players, nor ICW Representatives.’

None of those. The ones people remembered weren’t just normal folk…they were legends, those who were larger than life.

Heroes, villains, and their deeds.

Everyone knew of the Founders and of Merlin, while names of Hogwarts’ chief architect or the head of the wizards’ council had been lost to the ages.

Few knew the names of Damocles Rowe or Eldritch Diggory, names from hundreds of years ago, but all knew of Azkaban, the dark isle whose legacy of suffering reached to the present day.

Few knew the name of Leonard Spencer-Moon, after all, while everyone knew the name of Grindelwald, the revolutionary who had nearly overthrown all of Wizarding Europe before Dumbledore’s intervention.

Few knew the names of Mad-Eye Moody or Millicent Bagnold, whereas everyone knew – but was afraid to speak – the name of the Dark Lord Voldemort.

So yes, there was a part of him that wanted to toss caution of the winds, to crush his opponents together with this cheap “Castle Siege” scenario and truly gain eternal glory, not simply the pale imitation offered to the Champions of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. That he could was never in doubt - were he to stray from the terms of his self-imposed challenge, neither Viktor Krum nor Fleur Delacour would be able to so much as threaten him, much less defeat him – even if both of them Krum and Delacour came at him together.

After all, they were merely human, whereas he had become something far more than that.

‘But this isn’t the moment for that, nor the stage one that I should monopolize for my own benefit.’

For in the end, as much import as some gave it in the press, the Tri-Wizard Tournament was a terribly small thing, a petty thing when measured by the scaled of nations and centuries. A blink of an eye, quickly forgotten, no matter how mightily his competitors struggled for the meagre offering the Committee held up as a prize.

Could he become Tri-Wizard Champion. Yes, and easily.

Did he want to?

…no, not really.
He certainly didn’t want to be Magical Britain’s poster child for the superiority of their wizards, given that a victory here would steel their resolve, reaffirm in their minds that a single British youth was worth at least 2 of the very best any other nation could provide, that a war would not only be winnable, that victory was destined.

‘If I crushed Krum, I’d be playing into their hands. But I can’t let him win either,’ he noted. He could see it – the way the patterns shifted with every possibility and how certain means precluded certain ends, even if they were satisfying in the short term. ‘Neither of us can win this Tournament. Not if I want to ensure the best possible outcome.’

There was little enough he knew beyond that, but to be honest, he didn’t find the prospect of…not winning overly objectionable.

It wasn’t as if this Tournament was a true test of his abilities anyway…

“Something on your mind?” the doppelganger of Matou Shinji asked languidly, as he directed his ofuda to freeze the mechanism of a trap that would have otherwise opened up a pit underneath George and his squad of Aurors. “Even with everything you can do, you really need to pay attention down here. You might not end up dying, unlike the rest of us, but I’m sure you don’t want to end up losing in some horrifically embarrassing and painful way.” The doppelganger eyed him oddly. “They say public humiliation is a fate worse than death.”

“Only for politicians,” George quipped. “And I hope I don’t look like one of those.”

“Well no, you’re not conniving enough,” the doppelganger retorted, as a razor-thin smile graced his lips. “You might be a schemer of a sort, but you prefer…being a man of action, don’t you? Isn’t it difficult…holding back?”

George blinked. He’d not expected a construct to be so perceptive, but…

“Can’t say you’re wrong,” the Gryffindor admitted, with a bit of a chuckle. “But then, I have to save my energy for the climactic showdown with my fellow Champions, don’t I?”

“If that’s the excuse you want to go with,” the false Matou allowed.

They walked in silence for some minutes, with the doppelganger’s ofuda efficiently sealing off one trap, then another, and George occasionally giving the Aurors accompanying them some directions to blast there, raise shields now, or use some other environmental spell, all via some pre-arranged system of signals, taking out beasts and sentries before they could become an issue.

“You make this look easy,” the false Shinji remarked.

“Says the one doing the hard work.”

“Force is only useful when it is properly directed,” the other countered, his slate grey gaze meeting George’s gold. “And from what I see, you rank at the level of a Commander. Seeing traps and directing your allies just how to disable them, seeing creatures and rendering them harmless, ambushing would-be ambushers – we’re done all this and more, under your direction.”
“Well, I am a Champion,” the Hogwarts Champion deflected. “Perhaps that’s why I was chosen.”

The false Shinji didn’t quite laugh at him, but it was a near thing, as the copy of the Japanese boy sent a wad of explosive ofuda down the gullet of an oncoming troll and snapped his fingers, causing the talismans to detonate inside the creature’s vulnerable throat, blowing its head clean off, as its body, no longer under the control of its brain, lost its balance and went sprawling to the ground.

“Keep your secrets then,” the doppelganger replied, stepping over the troll. Beyond it was what looked like a dead end…until one took note of the steps carved into the stone, and how, far above them, there was something like a door or a hatch. “Anyway, here we are. One of the hidden entrances to the castle’s courtyard.” He smirked. “Maybe they won’t be expecting us. Or maybe the moment you climb up there, you’ll be hit with the Killing Curse. Who can say?”

“Well, if you’re so confident, why don’t you go up first?” George snarked, looking pointedly at the Shinji doppelganger. “Two waves of ofuda, you think? A wave to blind and disorient, and then a wave to seek out any nearby enemies and…explode on top of them?”

“Heh, the old shock and awe approach, then?” the false Shinji inquired. “Why if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were an American!”

“Perish the thought.”

---

Fleur flinched backwards as, for the briefest of moments, the cover of darkness was burned away by a blinding white light, followed by what sounded like rolling thunder – only thunder didn’t ring out again, and again, and again, in rapid fire pulses of sound and fury.

Not having expected such a thing, the young woman lost her grip on the ladder and fell backwards, landing with a ladylike squawk as one of the gendarmes with her broke her fall by levitating her clothing, giving her the moment she needed to grab onto one of the roughly cut handholds.

‘Merde.’

“Are you alright, ma’am?” the gendarmes called from beneath her. “You didn’t hit your head, did you?”

“Non,” she replied. “Que ce passe-t-il?”

“A battle, it seems,” the gendarmes answered, raising an eyebrow. “Perhaps Mademoiselle Lestrange drew a bit more attention than she could handle?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to her, but then, in her mind the Etoile Noire was effectively indomitable – a figure of terror and force best turned against her enemies. To her, the notion that Rachelle Lestrange could be beaten – that even a copy of her could be beaten – was inconceivable.

Lestrange, after all – or at least, this copy of her – had gutted trolls with a single, elegant movement, had blocked the spells of adversaries with shields of rune and steel, had destroyed a dementor, rendering the gendarmes with her largely redundant.

How could such a one be brought low?

She asked as much to the gendarmes, who simply looked at one another.

“Ma’am, even the strongest warrior can be defeated, by chance or inattention,” one of them responded. “Even you might have fallen, if we hadn’t reacted in time.”

“Oui, but I am not…Rachelle…” Fleur murmured, taking a deep breath as she resumed her climb. When she poked her head out above the top of the hidden door, she didn’t know what to expect, really. Would the Etoile Noire be fighting the elites of Durmstrang single-handedly? Had Lestrange run into Weasley and his companion, the copy of Matou, with the Japanese boy flinging his explosive talismans at her?

…and yet, what she saw – Lestrange sitting on the ground with her eyes closed, her sword balanced on her knees, as the light of distant explosions played across her face.

“…Rachelle? Are you…?”

Was the other girl wounded? Had she been cursed? Or—

“I am vell, Fleur,” the other responded, getting to her feet with an almost feline grace. “Zit vould seem zat le Matou et la Belette ‘ave arrived in ze courtyard.”

“Ah.” Fleur blinked, climbing out onto the surface and assessing the surroundings for herself. If there had indeed been a battle, one would not know it, as there was no trace one had taken place. No bodies, no scars from errant spells. “Mais…you are not hurt, yes?”

“Zey are fighting across ze courtyard, on ze other side of ze inner keep,” the false Rachelle explained. “I doubt zey know we are ‘ere. I vas quiet, unlike zem.” She held up a collection of wands in her hand, a sight that made Fleur pause. Had…had this copy of Rachelle just killed all the defenders around this point. “’umans are far more vulnerable to steel than dementors, n’est-ce pas?”

The part-Veela closed her eyes and shivered. Magical beasts were one thing, but people?

Well, this was only a simulation, so it wasn’t as if Rachelle had gotten yet more blood on her hands. She wanted to believe that the real Rachelle wasn’t quite this ruthless, though…

‘I do not really know ‘er,’ the blonde realized. She had come to get along with the petite potioneer, but understanding the Etoile Noire was not something she could really do, since in the end, they were simply too different.

There was too much of a gulf between them.

“Vat are your orders, Fleur?” the other asked, her voice warm, almost husky. “Vould you like me to stop ze other Champions? To assault ze keep and clear ze way to ze Tri-Wizard Cup? Ou…”

“Les gendarmes will come with me to le donjon,” Fleur replied, finding her voice at last. “Rachelle, you…” The part-Veela took a deep breath. “Wait outside le donjon. Stop any who would come after me, defenders…or Champions.”

The Etoile Noire rose to her feet and nodded.

“It vill be as you command, Fleur,” the petite blonde said solemnly. “Claim ze Cup. None shall get past me.”

“Ça marche...” the part-Veela agreed, before rallying the gendarmes – who had by now, climbed out of the hole onto the surface – and moving for the keep, hoping to make her way to the Cup and become Champion while the others were busy fighting one another for some scraps of the illusion called glory.

---

George smiled thinly as he surveyed the ground which the defenders of the courtyard had fought so desperately to hold, ground that was now pocked and cratered in the aftermath of the false Shinji’s vicious onslaught. The defenders had no doubt hoped to surprise anyone seeking to come up through the underground tunnels, perhaps because one of his less competent competitors had triggered some manner of trap.

Each of them was no doubt good at what they did as well, being simulacra based on some of Durmstrang’s finest, with experience accumulated over dozens of simulations training them how to fight against wand-users.

…but that was the problem.

They had expected to face a wand-user, not one who employed the eastern arts, who – when equipped with enough of the right kinds of ofuda – could stand against an army, unleashing dozens – no, hundreds, of pre-prepared spells in the time it took them to cast one. So their efforts availed naught but their own destruction, with them being melted, eviscerated, blown to shreds, or petrified where they stood.

Partway through this massacre, reinforcements had come in, with one of the defending Commanders dispatching a squad of broom-riders from the Keep to assault the intruders from the air, coordinating with one from the ground to try and turn the area around the entrance to the tunnels into a killbox.

In truth, it had been an impressive effort, one that would have stopped any normal wizard…but then George was not exactly normal. Hadn’t been, since the end of summer.

The fact that his companion, the false Shinji, wasn’t normal either, didn’t really need to be said.

Together, they had stopped both the ground elements sent against them, as well as the broom-riders, with the false Shinji using a combination of earth and explosive ofuda to send wave upon wave of shrapnel against those on the ground, while George calmly shielded himself against attacks with one wand, while blasting riders out of the sky with the other.

In this he had cheated, drawing upon satori abilities to enhance his aim, so that none of his shots missed – every shot stunned a foe, sending them falling into the killzone that Matou had setup, with their bodies ripped to pieces by jagged pieces of stone hurtling forth at unthinkable velocities, until at last, it was over.

“Heh,” the false Shinji said when it was all over. “That was harder than I thought it would be. Used up all the ofuda my original had on him too. Quite the loadout he has, I have to say. What do you think he wants to ki—”

George barely stepped to the side in time to avoid the telescoping polearm in the doppelganger’s hand, as the other’s wand had decided to grow into a full-sized staff, nearly taking off his head in the process.

“Wha—”

Thinking himself betrayed, George almost lashed out with a gout of darkness to erase the doppelganger from existence, only to hold at the last moment, as he noticed that although the elongated bludgeon aimed at his head had seemingly missed, cutting through only air, that there was a loud clack, as if it had hit another weapon.

Still, the power of an obscurus, once called up, was not so easily quelled, so he released it – only pointed about a meter or so away from its original target, towards whatever the doppelganger’s staff had hit.

A sound like a thousand nails on chalkboards rang out, and reality rippled, with the wave of darkness pulsing out, erasing the concealment that had protected both Rachelle Sondrol and Viktor Krum.

‘What...?’ George thought, surprised. ‘I didn’t even sense them, even with my pattern-reading.’

Sadly – or perhaps fortunately – the two had jumped back and raised some kind of odd shield using the runes engraved on their staves, meaning that they hadn’t been erased from existence, only injured slightly.

“Vat…are you?” Viktor asked, glaring at the Hogwarts Champion with hate in his eyes, his robes ragged and torn simply from the very brief time he’d been exposed to the manifestation of George’s wrath.
The Champion of Durmstrang’s expression tightened as he looked from the facsimile of the Japanese boy, who had singlehandedly wrought so much destruction upon the courtyard, to the one who had unerringly shot down every single rider, ignoring their attempts to evade. “Both of you…vat are you?”

“Oh, just your average British Wizard,” George said in a carefree manner, the glib response evoking rage in the Durmstrang Champion.

“Not with that spell! That spell…that was…”

“Oh, don’t you recognize a confringo when its thrown at you?” George quipped, with the other’s features twisting in fury at being mocked.

“Don’t lie to me, Weasley! That was—” But the Champion of Durmstrang didn’t complete his sentence, electing instead to throw a number of spells at George.

Streaks of red, blue, purple, and green raced for him, curses meant to turn him inside out, to rip him in twain, to boil his blood or worse, and yet George didn’t raise his wand, only snapping his fingers, as each and every one of the bolts of power was blocked by a shimmering haze.

A shield.

“How…?” Krum whispered. “You…if you are as normal as you claim, there is no vay you could conjure such a protection.”

George only laughed.

“Ah, but Viktor, I did no such thing,” the Gryffindor said with a cocky smile. “Nor did my colleague, who by the way, is sadly out of ofuda.”

“Then…” the Drumstrang Champion’s eyes blazed with an intensity rarely seen as he tried to figure out the puzzle before him and failed. “How…?”

George smirked.

“You’ll see,” he said, pointing his wand towards Krum, who braced himself, as if preparing for whatever his enemy would throw at him. Yet the next word to leave his mouth was not a spell at all, as he raised his wand to the sky. “Now!”

A flare of red light exploded from his wand, creating a shockwave that washed over the clearing, with Viktor having only a moment to process the meaning of this before red-robed men boiled out of the hole to the tunnels, magic blazing from each of their wands toward a hapless Viktor Krum.

It was no secret that Viktor Krum was one of the best duelists of Durmstrang, having honed his skills under the patronage of Lady Sylvana, the Commander of the Banner of Wolves. He was one of Durmstrang’s best combatants at that, having drilled in simulation after simulation, in wargame after wargame, as a defender, an attacker, or rogue.

…and yet, none of that training prepared him for the moment when he was set upon by an entire squad of Aurors.

Were he the next coming of Grindelwald, a Dark Lord unparalleled in skill and power, perhaps he could have won. Had he cast a Confringo just as the Aurors were beginning their assault, perhaps he could have stopped them in their tracks.

But as he was not a rising Dark Lord, and he had failed to react in that first critical moment, the battle was already decided.

He fought with the courage of a young lion, with the ferocity of a cornered badger, with the reflexes of a snake, with the cunning of an eagle, yet he could not stop the tide.

Not even Sondrol could, for all that at the moment she realized what was happening, she had leapt at the false Shinji, quickly overpowering him, her weapon lashing out to break his arms and legs, as he kept defending his core.
She was stronger than him in the melee, far more so, but it was never Matou Shinji’s job to defeat her – just to hold her off for a few precious seconds – long enough for what remained of the Aurors to subdue Krum, after he unleashed his last, most desperate assault.

Seeing her temporary ally defeated and knowing that she would soon vanish from this world with him, the doppelganger ceased her assault – or rather, simply did not deliver the final blow.

“…how did you sense me?” she inquired evenly, the runes engraved on her staff glowing as she raised the weapon in a salute. “That should have been impossible, especially against the background noise of the magic you were throwing around.”

“I didn’t,” the false Shinji croaked from where he lay on the ground, his broken body managing a small smile. “I sensed him.”

“Oh…”

In the next moment, both of the elite doppelgangers crumbled to dust, leaving George alone in the clearing with what remained of his Aurors.

“Hostile forces have been eliminated, sir,” the lead Auror reported. “Shall we make for the Keep?”

The Gryffindor boy smiled.

“Yes, why don’t we—”

But before he could finish his words, a chime sounded.

‘Hm?’ he wondered, though a part of him knew what this meant. ‘Ah, Fleur must have won…’

His thought was confirmed as an emotionless voice rang out over the castle and its lonely environs.

[A Winner has been decided. Congratulations to Fleur Delacour, Champion of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.]

‘Congratulations,’ George added silently. All in all, things had largely proceeded as he had foreseen, though he admitted that he had not anticipated Sondrol’s stealth being so effective that it could defeat the sensory abilities granted to him by the satori he was bonded with. ‘I do regret – slightly – not facing Krum as a duelist, but…c’est le vie, hm?’

---

Outside, as the announcement was made, and the Champions of the Schools escorted from the simulation chambers so that the Tri-Wizard Champion could be feted and honored, reactions were mixed.

The students of Beauxbatons were ecstatic, overjoyed that their Etoile had shown all the glory of their school.

“Vive la France!” some shouted, a cry that other picked up and echoed.

“Vive L'Accademia! Vive Beauxbâtons!”

The students of Durmstrang were resigned, as they’d been half expecting one of the other schools to win – they’d never won a single Tournament to date, and it was clear that this revival wouldn’t be the one to change that.

Some of them were stunned at the amount of destruction that a single Japanese boy had managed to put out, or at the deadliness of the Etoile Noire, with the Commanders finding solace in three things.

First, that the Etoile Noire was a highly unorthodox French Witch who fought much like one trained by Durmstrang, as ruthless and skilled with magic as she was in the melee, where she wielded that obviously magical sword of hers with aplomb. Second, that the doppelganger of their Marshal had fought well, defeating every opponent she had come across and almost managing to take out the Champion of Britain, had Krum stealth not failed him.

And third, that none of them could have anticipated the impact a single onmyouji could have on these war games – and that perhaps it was worth investigating the possibility of an exchange program
between Durmstrang and Mahoutokoro, as it was clear each school had something to teach the other.

The students of Hogwarts, however, were gravely conflicted.

Yes, their Champion had fought well, facing down an entire platoon of broom-riders on foot – and winning, yet the one who had saved him from being defeated at Krum’s hands – and had frankly, utterly dominated every encounter at range – was the foreigner named Matou Shinji.

Perhaps it was only right, some thought, that George Weasley not become Tri-Wizard Champion if his victory would in truth be a victory built on the efforts of the foreigner.

Aside from his uncanny aim – which some were calling mere luck – Weasley had not done anything to really impress them, after all. He hadn’t even been the one to take out Krum, calling instead on his squad of Aurors to merely subdue him when any true son of Britain should have rejoiced that they had the chance to face the Bulgarian in battle, or at the least, take his life, as his accomplices had taken the lives of so many of their loved ones.

Their sole consolation had been the fact that at least Krum, the Butcher of Bulgaria, had not won the day, despite his home field advantage. Even if the champion – a part-Veela –wasn’t even fully human, even if she had only won because she had not dared to face the British Champion on the field and had simply stolen the victory they rightfully deserved; even if Weasley’s lackluster demonstration had mostly been propped up by Matou, the fledgling Dark Wizard who cared naught about morals or human lives, at least Krum had lost.

If Britain had not won, at least neither had its greatest enemy.

---

Choice 412: When Shinji awakens from his dream, he remembers in full clarity what happened within it. How he, together with Luna, Rin, and a number of others, had been fighting against a number of black-cloaked figures - and how it had faded before he knew what would come as a result of his choices. Choices he'd apparently made before, in some future that might never be.

A phrase that the voice in his dreams had used bothered him.

That he had become unmoored from the anchors of Alaya.

What on earth did that mean? And why had the speaker seemed familiar to him?

Perhaps these were things he could ask Elesa...though she'd already done a great deal for him, and the last thing he wanted was to annoy her...

What does Shinji do that morning? (choose two)
[ ] Talk to Elesa about the dream - maybe she has some insight
[ ] Busy himself with preparations for the next stage of the labyrinth - the trials of force, whatever those were
[ ] Cook - it will help get his mind off things, he hopes
[ ] Play with the golden cord wrapped around his waist. Maybe he can puzzle out something about it
[ ] (write-in)

[skulkidcachi90]

[ ] Busy himself with preparations for the next stage of the labyrinth - the trials of force, whatever those were

[Malorius]

*sigh*

And once again, I completely forget how to game this system. What did we plan before? At what point are we really, with all the jumping POV and timelines?..

Ah, yes. Something something, all-in on PoaAP, something something, rest and recovery. Right.

Are these full actions or mini-actions here, Alf? Can we make ofuda, train, brew something or make some ofuda on short notice?

[alfheimwanderer]

What did we plan before? At what point are we really, with all the jumping POV and timelines?.

You, as Shinji, are about ready to head down into the deeper parts of the labyrinth, having already completed the trials of insight. You took time to rest and recover from your injuries, decided to take advantage of the stash of ingredients and try to puzzle out how to brew the Potion of All Potential, and have asked for some utility potions from Elesa.

Your stock of ofuda is not particularly high.

If you want to brew something or make ofuda, you can, but these will lock out other options aside from conversation.

[Daiki]

[x] Build Up Ofuda Stash.
[x] Busy himself with preparations for the next stage of the labyrinth.

Now is not the time to disperse his thoughts too much. He has a task to accomplish - hence preparations first.

[skulkidcachi90]

[ ] Cook - it will help get his mind off things, he hopes

[Skull Leader]

Back to the main event. Searching desperately for something that will allow for victory in this dungeon.

[X] Talk to Elesa about the dream - maybe she has some insight
[X] Play with the golden cord wrapped around his waist. Maybe he can puzzle out something about it

While yes we need to prepare for the ass kicking that Shinji will soon receive in the next part, Shinji still needs to get his head in the game here. Ignoring his dreams and working hard here is not what I consider a wise move, he will make mistakes. Yet we can't just do nothing to prepare. He needs to talk with his senpai...ah comrade.

Frankly I think that last dream's end is exactly the kind of stuff Elesa wants to know, given why she is even at this Championship in the first place. I think it would do some good bridging the two together in purpose. God knows we need that at this moment, given the number of times she has been annoyed by him. The cooking option might do this as well but I am not sure Shinji will be all together uplifted by cooking and would actually annoy Elesa by burning whatever food he attempts to make, giving that he is currently distracted with his thoughts.

As for the second choice pick, I am with either the Bridle or just working on his preparations (potions please). I pick the bridle over prepwork in the hopes that Shinji learns what it does so that we can use it for this upcoming trial. Sometimes the best tool against a monster is another monster and the Bridle can allow us to turn an enemy monster onto our side for a combat. I can see this making things so much easier for us, giving that it adds power to our side and allows for a better divide and conquer strategy.

Shinji's Ofuda might be low but given that Shinji is already resting AND doing potions for PoAP at the moment, I think we would be extremely pushing things if we attempt to make Ofuda at this moment. It takes magical energy to make Ofuda and would semi defeat the point of the rest. Plus he does not have time to make many ofuda at this moment. Yes I want more Ofuda but not at the cost of his rest or him working on his potions.

[alfheimwanderer]

If you really want to test Shinji's cooking stat, I'm sure his negative modifiers are gone by now...

[skulkidcachi90]

Change my vote from cook to:


[X] Play with the golden cord wrapped around his waist. Maybe he can puzzle out something about it

[Malgos]

That was fun, nice to see all his hard work paying off rather than getting stomped all the time, because his ambitions always lead to him being in over his head.

Talk to Elesa and prepare for the next stage of the labyrinth.

[Malorius]

Except MP can be replenished by itself with some time, even on the move. Ofuda, unfortunately, cannot.

[x] Build Up Ofuda Stash.

Since preparation takes both actions, my choice is clear. Also, any action spent on training Brindle will be inevitably wasted the moment Shinji gets another system shock and switches the artifact. Considering our track record and the specifics of the part ahead...

Also also, PoAP. Who wants to bet that we will enter another artifact roulette after that?

[Malorius]

@Malgos, are you willing to break the tie?

[skulkidcachi90]

Yeah to make it clear those are my votes.

[x] Build Up Ofuda Stash


[X] Play with the golden cord wrapped around his waist. Maybe he can puzzle out something about it

[alfheimwanderer]

That was fun, nice to see all his hard work paying off rather than getting stomped all the time, because his ambitions always lead to him being in over his head.

George has been doing quite well this year. Fred, however...I'm sure he's enjoying life without access to magic.

As for Shinji, well, he's still alive so far. He's a lot harder to kill than one would think!