Orochi Tanaka was, by the metrics most young men were measured in, normal. He was 34 years old, worked for the Kame-Yu Department store a few blocks down from where his apartment was located, had a hobby for creating oil paintings once in a while, and he owned a cat. The part about him that was, by all measures, not normal, was that he could store items within paintings. This ability had one day come naturally to him at age five-and-a-half, when he felt an impulse to reach for an apple within a painting and the item simply blinked out from the canvas and into his hand. Since then, he had used this ability on and off throught the years, never really questioning why or how he had acquired such a bizarre capability. He had used it for plenty things, such as painting a fridge full of delicious food to take supplies from whenever he needed to, finding out that items within paintings regenerated after a few hours. One time, when he felt lonely, he tried to paint himself a friend,...
The machinery hummed deeply as the elevator ascended through the black and tall Spire, Damian stood in the center of the cramped space, sorrounded by neon blue screens displaying brief segements of information the trial ahead, "Remember! Everything within the simulator is NOT real and you cannot die! Give the fight your all, but don't be too reckless!", a message displayed in big bold letters crowned all others, a disclaimer that was more eerie than anything, if the claim was true, why would it need to be written so visibly? still, Damian had to time to pay such things any attention. The elevator came to a sudden stop, and the doors opened to a clinical white room with a chair in the center. A Datascope headset rested on the seat, the most recent tech in digial simulations. Damian walked calmly towards the machine, set his weapon under the scanner light, and sat down. He put the headset over his eyes and laid down, shifting in place trying to find a comfortable position...