Eyes scrunched with absolute tranquility, the intensity of which seemed to grow further and further inflamed until it reached a crescendo. Where the power within the air seemed to swirl like a vortex around my head.
Until it flushed through my body. A gasp that echoed well and truly within both mind and body. I sniffed and as if by cliched fate, I recoiled back at the smell of which.
A flush began to burn my face. Until I finally took a step, to use this newfound speed and power, all to hurry back to that house of mine.
Step after step was taken. Ignorant - intentionally - of the gazes upon my back, the smirks and pointed fingers. As if this was some sort of comedy routine.
This… not the humiliation that I had felt at defeat, nor the condescending glare they both had given to me… it was this that truly brought anger to my features.
A scrunch of my forehead that I would… could not let go of. And so when my feet touched the features of my bathroom, a hurried hand had turned the knob with but a second to spare between moments.
A breath taken, in relief as that black gunk, the smell, was washed off of my body by heated water.
"Okami" I called, my hair wrapped in a towel in order to ensure that it dried correctly. And - as the curious fox he was - he entered the room, a tilt of his head the only signal that he was even slightly interested in the scene that he was to witness.
I sighed. Smoke billowed from my mouth with the heat and smog that clouded the room.
"Be a dear and grab me some clothes… I care not what they are."
He nodded and with a glint in his eyes yipped.
"Be quick."
I turned back to the mirror, crimson eyes greeted me. Their glow within the smoke laden room seemingly the only feature that stood out.
I looked down and found myself staring at a bunch of clothes, the same that I had discarded moments earlier, in an effort to divest myself of the filth.
"Okami~" I sang, my smile did not quite reach my eyes. He only looked to the side, a smile spread across that maw of his.
I just sighed. Again and again. Was this day to be full of sighs?
My head shook in an effort to conceal the amusement I felt at that little prank of his.
"I… cleaned them…" He muttered, finally having lost that smirk of his.
"Alright, if you say so." Okami was still just a child, I would not let a newborn - no matter the intellect - bother me so much.
I had made a promise, and I would carry it out dutifully. Even if it brought me great benefit. I still found myself greatly attached to that little bundle of fur.
When I took another inspection of that pile of clothes, he was right, he had cleaned them.
I bunched them up and brought them to my nose, and instead of the stink that I had come to expect from that breakthrough to the next step.
Mid Elementary, yes the name was quite… as others would put it, lame. But it was still accurate.
I was in the middle of the elementary realm, above most and below most. In the middle as it said.
Although I doubt that any could beat me, in a contest of pure strength, sure. But with the skills and experience I came to bear, there was no chance for them.
Except.
I dropped the towel. I cared not for if Okami looked, he was but a fox. Draped the clothes over my body, and with one last movement picked the fox onto my shoulder.
Where his tail wrapped around my neck. A buried head within my chest.
"Rest…"
I spoke. Softly, oh so gently.
After a moment, he was placed within the bed. Tucked in and his breath even.
I took a look at what he had done while I was away.
My nose had sniffed out the scent of ink and I followed it, all the way into the small library.
Where a pile of books awaited me. A knowing smile on my face.
"Okami."
I started to put the books away. Only there was one that seemed to stand out, two if the other was to be counted.
But by the fresh ink, by the smudged script that seemed as if a newborn had written it - I could still read it for sure, I had seen worse - but still.
"Did you write this?"
I took a look, at the two books, one a manual on the rose cultivation style that had been stuffed within the shelfs and the work that Okami had made.
They were eerily similar. Except for one fact.
That the one Okami had made, it was so much more advanced, like every topic that the manual had offered, they were taken to their logical extreme within his scrawlings.
"Am… am I not the…"
I struggled to even think it.
If one were to think about my life within the bounds of a story book, then I would be the main character.
Vengeance. Check.
Reincarnation. Check.
Power and Knowledge. Check.
I had all of it. Except for one factor.
That fox, he was smarter, more talented than even I.
"He~"
"Hehe~"
"Hahaha~"
I laughed at the irony of it all. I had thought myself special. But was I really.
Yes, I was talented, and yes I had reincarnated. But with the right luck, the right circumstances any could be.
But this… this was pure and utter talent. Monstrous talent that I would doubt any within this planet could contain.
I was once called a once in a generation genius. One that could only be seen every ten thousand years. But if I was that… then what was Okami.
A once in a… the scale of which just left me. Left me with only a laugh on my tongue.