title: Psycho Busters: The Novel     Book One
author: Yuya Aoki
description: ----- Original Message -----<br /><br />Chapter 1 The Ghost Girl Deep in the forest, the trees were several hundred years old, and so large that they looked like pillars for the ceiling of the sky. And in this forest was heard a terrible sound, like the ground rumbling. A swirl of fierce energy was coming toward me.<br /><br />It was a spell cast by the six Evil Mages who had surrounded me.<br /><br />Warrior of legend. Now there is no escape.<br /><br />This was the Evil Mage who was wearing a hideous flesh mask. He looked at me and grinned. A flesh mask is a cursed mask made from the face of a murdered man. This mask becomes a part of the face of its wearer. In time, it would drain all human feeling out of its wearer and, in exchange, grant amazing magical powers. Evil Mages were willing to make such bargains with the devil if it meant gaining the power to do whatever they wished.<br /><br />I was facing my death. But worried about the trembling princess clinging to me, I fought my fear and laughed boldly.<br /><br />Its all right. Youre with me. Ill beat them back with my dragon sword! I raised my sword above my head.<br /><br />Now I was a warrior. I was a holy knight who had been given an ancient sword with which I would defeat the Evil Mages and save the princess. Every fiber of my being was prepared for battle.<br /><br />My sword got its power from the forest and could repel evil magic. The forests power began to pour into me. After the battle, what waited for me: peace and prosperity, or frustration and despair?<br /><br />I gathered all my power into the sword and called down the thunder. The thunder roared and brilliant light simultaneously lit up every dark nook and corner of the forest.<br /><br />The final battle had begun.<br /><br />Still at it, Kakeru? My oldest sisters laughter snatched me back to the real world.<br /><br />Its silly to play with dolls and talk to yourself! Especially when youre in the ninth grade. This was my youngest sister, who was in her second year of high school.<br /><br />When my oldest sister said, And the skanky clothes you put on those girl dolls. Gross! in a voice so loud the neighbors could hear, my next oldest sister added gleefully, Are you kidding?! Ooh, yuck, youre not doing kinky stuff in the middle of the night with those dolls, are you?! They were exploiting the situation like a couple of gangsters trying to extort money. Then they tried to snatch the figures away.<br /><br />I quickly put them away in my deskthe holy knight figurine, which I guess you could say did look a little like me, and the princess in her dress, which I have to admit was a little revealing.<br /><br />Shut up! You cant just barge into peoples rooms whenever you want! I didnt have time to hide the six Evil Mages. They stood idly on top of my small study desk, in a circle, like they were playing duck, duck goose.<br /><br />My mother grabbed one. Kakeru! Its dinnertime! How many times do I have to call you? And I didnt know you were still playing with dolls! Dont you think its time for you to grow up? You have your high school entrance exams next year! She just kept going on and on.<br /><br />Yeah, I know!<br /><br />I stood up and turned off the lights, hoping it would encourage my mother and sisters to leave.<br /><br />They werent dolls. They were figurines, now a world-class fine art in Japan. And I wasnt playing. I was creating an original fantasy world. I didnt want them thinking they were just plastic toys. These were my own original characters that I had fashioned myself out of model-making material. But these people just didnt get it.<br /><br />When I got downstairs, it smelled like onions everywhere. Mom had put onions in the curry again. I hate onions. Why couldnt she just cut me a break, just this once? Why, even though I asked her every time not to put any in? Why couldnt she just listen to me? The smell of raw onions makes me want to throw up. And cooked onions are too sweet, have a weird texture, and are impossible to swallow.<br /><br />Ooohh, smells good, doesnt it, Kakeru. Lots of onions, the younger of my two older sisters said, flaring her nostrils. She knew I hated onions and said it on purpose to upset me.<br /><br />My oldest sister couldnt resist making the same dig. Oh, wow, all those onions make it look so good, she said, laughing to herself and clapping her hands.<br /><br />I always ask you not to put onions in, I complained as I sat down at the dinner table.<br /><br />But my mother said, just as if she had not heard me,This curry is sweet and delicious. Its got lots of onions in it. Onions clean out your circulatory system. Theyre so good for you. And then she served me some, from a ladle heaped with onions.<br /><br />I sighed. Did these people hate me or something? I wasnt a good student like my oldest sister, who had gone on to a famous university, and it wasnt like I was as good at sports as the youngest of my sisters, who was on the gymnastics team at school. I had already disappointed my parents expectations when Id failed to get into private school for junior high, so now I was going to a neighborhood public school that didnt have that great a reputation. And since Im always getting beat up and bullied, my mom doesnt think all that much of me. People say that Im willful because Im the baby of the family. Of course, I was only claiming rights that were naturally mine, but my mom and my older sisters say it was just selfishness.<br /><br />But I do have one good thing going for me, even if it sounds bad to say it about myself. Im pretty good-looking. I have a nice face. I think I have features like an idol in one of those Johnny and the Associatesstyle boy bands. My sisters all have narrow eyes like Mom, but I have double-lidded eyes like my dad.<br /><br />Maybe thats why hed always had a soft spot for me when I was little. I was so happy back then. He bought me all the modeling materials I wanted, and he always praised the figurines I made. But then, one year ago, everything changed when he was sent to his companys branch office in Kyushuwithout his family. Now, surrounded by my mother and older sisters, I feel like Im being pressed in on all sides. At first I resisted, but with each of them talking three times as much as I do, and since three times three equals nine, nine against one was no contest.<br /><br />My dad and I have the same taste in food, so now meals were never anything I wanted to eat. It was always what my onion-loving mother and older sisters wanted. If I was watching anime on TV, one of my sisters soon came and switched it to one of those meaningless variety shows. My room had no lock on the door, and before I knew it, my mothers and sisters clothes were hanging all over the place. Even worse, my mom had taken over one of the drawers in the built-in dresser in my room.<br /><br />There was no place for me. Not one place in this house I could call my own, where I could relax completely.<br /><br />It wasnt like school was a refuge for me, either. Especially because Id gone into a new class when I went into ninth grade, and hadnt really gotten close to anyone. Of the forty students in my class, three were your classic burnout type who almost never came to school, ten were the kind of halfhearted delinquents who dyed their hair weird colors and snuck off to smoke cigarettes, and five were bookworms who always had their cram-school textbooks open during lessons or lunch break. The remaining twenty were just perfectly average. Itd been almost one month since the new school year started and I could hardly remember their names.<br /><br />Also, my friends from my class the year before started studying hard for high school entrance exams the moment they became ninth graders, and were somehow distant, even when I saw them at school. Yeah, we dont have time to just hang out and play. When I noticed they felt that way, I started distancing myself from them.<br /><br />Kakeru, are you listening to me? said my mother, setting a cup of water violently down in front of me.<br /><br />Huh? What?<br /><br />See? You werent listening, were you? I knew it. My sister was making fun of me again.<br /><br />What, Mom? What were you talking about? I said.<br /><br />My mother said dejectedly, Its okay. You can make dinner yourself.<br /><br />Id been helping her make dinner a lot of nights for a good reason: Golden Week, a whole week of vacation, started the next day, and I would be staying by myself at the house. Id decided two weeks ago. When I had heard that Dad was going on a business trip overseas, and he couldnt go to Hawaii with us, I figured the whole trip was off, but naturally my sisters stubbornly insisted right in front of me that we could go without Dad. Gradually my mother got excited about it, too.<br /><br />Heaven forbid. Going to Hawaii without Dad would be no fun at all. Im not the greatest swimmer, and unlike my sisters, I had no desire to go shopping for fancy stuff from designer stores. Itd be like our trip last summer to Guam all over again, when my mom and sisters wore me out dragging me to duty-free shops while my dad played golf. If Dad wasnt going, then I wasnt goingand when I said this, my mom and two sisters looked thrilled.<br /><br />Yes. Rebellion! I would use this chance to show them I could stand up for myself, too.
zlib_text: **A Psycho and his Disciple**
  
    
    
  
  Jon Athan
  
  Copyright © 2016 Jon Athan
  
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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and
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   _ **WARNING**_
  
    
  
  This book contains scenes of intense violence and unpleasant themes. Some
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  Certain implications in this b