"...Are you alright?"
Jayce's voice snapped me out of my daze, asking because I didn't respond the first time.
"I'm fine.", I said as I accepted Jayce's hands to lift me up.
As he effortlessly lifted me up, I wondered about the chances of meeting THE genius of Piltover academy.
'If I befriend him... then the resources of the academy is mine.'
I'm aware that my thoughts are not the purest..? But to be fair, the only thing on my mind was my weapon's creation.
Once I get that, my power would be significantly boosted.
Like, the S in significant.
But again, there's a problem.
I'm a weeb.
Do the math. You only need one thing to calculate my chances of making friends anybody, much less JAYCE, who probably has thousands gunning to be his friend.
Wait... there's a stereotype about this. If you act like you don't know who he is, he'll automatically like you.
That... may work.
Keyword; may.
"The name's Jayce, yours?"
"The name's Iginer. Shaun Iginer. Nice to meet you, Jayce."
"Likewise, Shaun."
I anticipated that an awkward pause was about to come and was going to break the silence, but Jayce was one step ahead of me and did it first.
"So, what's your first class? I can lead you there as an apology for knocking you down earlier."
Alright. At this point, I'm getting suspicious of my protagonist powers. Where the hell is this luck coming from?
An aspect? Nah. Why would they take an interest in me?
An otherworldly god? Even more far-fetched.
You know what? I should stop thinking about this lest my thoughts wander somewhere unsafe...
I cleared my mind and focused on befriending Jayce.
As I was about to answer him, I realized that I had no answers.
Even better. He might help me find my class.
"I don't think what my first class is. You know where I can go?"
"Of course! Follow me. We're gonna go to the office. Someone's gonna be there, probably."
I pretended not to notice his 'probably' at the end, and nodded.
We walked together and attracted many gazes, mostly female.
Of course, there were a few odd ones too, but they were the minority, so I ignored them.
I heard whispers of; "What is Jayce doing with that guy?", and "Who is he?"
The whispers were kind of annoying, but fortunately not intolerable.
I kind of understand protagonists who don't want to attract attention now.
We turned a corner and walked through a long hallway, then arriving at the office.
"Hello?", Jayce said as he knocked on the door.
We waited a minute but no answers came, so he opened the door and entered.
When the door opened, a strong smell of iron rushed into our noses, and red paint started flowing towards us.
Only that it wasn't the smell of iron nor was it paint flowing. It was blood.
We stiffened, especially me, but I snapped out of it when Jayce rushed into the office.
I hesitated to follow after him because that would mean getting blood on my hand, but I chided myself for thinking about useless things like that. Someone could've died after all.
Blood splashed as our feet hit the ground repeatedly, especially Jayce, now that his lower body was almost painted with blood.
"Sh*t! Maria?!? Where are you!?"
Jayce called out for someone, but no one was responding.
He might've given into despair if not for a chair being knocked over.
When the chair crashed onto the ground, our attention was immediately ripped from whatever it was before, and we rushed over.
Well, more like he did, but I followed after him. I'm only a weakling after all.
"J..ayce....", a voice weakly sounded out from underneath a table.
"MARIA? MARIA!"
We rushed towards the source of the sound, and knelt next to a heavily wounded teen.
Our gazes froze at the horrific sight of her wounds.
For lack of better words... her abdomen was ripped out.
We could see the floor through her stomach.
I very nearly puked, but I knew that this was not an appropriate time to do so. Someone's dying. And that someone is very clearly special to Jayce.
"Am I going to die..? I don't want to die Jayce..."
"It'll be alright. You'll be okay. An ambulance is coming."
With his last words, his gaze turned to me, a desperate look in his eyes, signaling me to call for an ambulance.
It's too late. She won't make it. Ambulances take at least 4 minutes to arrive.
There were many factors, but the most crucial one was that I didn't have Piltover's version of a phone, even if it was semi common among people nowadays.
Jayce should know this better than I do.
The first stage of grief is shock and denial.
Subconsciously, he already knows that she's dead. There's no saving her.
...Except for me.
I've never tested my rewind on others.
Will this work...?
No, that's not important. It'll definitely work.
The reason behind my hesitation was exposing myself.
Could I trust Jayce?
Maybe.
Could I trust Maria?
As I was fighting over my choice of saving or not saving her, she coughed one more time.
"Jayce... I don't want to die... I love you..."
Man what the f*ck?
Confessing before your death is the worst thing to do.
"I love you too... Maria..."
Alright that's the final straw.
Imagine how grateful he would be if I saved the love of his life.
I moved next to Maria and placed my hands on her.
Jayce looked at me, puzzled to what I'm doing, while Maria couldn't feel anything at all. After all, at this very moment, her life is slipping away from her grasp.
I channeled the power of the watch and directed it onto Maria.
Again, space and sound broke down, and I was standing on an empty voice with Maria's body laying on the 'ground'.
This time, the world didn't rebuild itself forcefully.
It gave me a choice.
A series of translucent screens appeared before my eyes, and I instinctively understood that every screen was 1 minute.
I looked for the screen that was 10 screens before the first one, and found it quickly.
I looked into that screen, seeing a happy Maria without grotesque wounds.
I selected the screen, and the world started rebuilding itself.
This time, I wasn't the one being affected, but Maria was.
Jayce looked puzzled as he saw Maria's wounds slowly disappearing, but he had a light in his eyes when he saw it.
When she was completely healed, she was about to sit up, but then she passed out.
Oh. So the strain is not on the person performing the rewind, but the person it's affecting?
Call me Dr. Iginer now.
A/N: If you couldn't tell, Maria is an OC that I made. Stuff might not necessarily line up with Jayce's lore or even the series Arcane coming out. This IS a fanfiction