[quote=SwordfishKnight]
Five days. Five days remain until I receive my glorious mask.
[/quote]
[i]Night of the First Day. 108 Hours Remain.[/i]

Anyway, Day 4 of my Christmas advent/challenge thing. Every day until Christmas, I'll make a post featuring either the character from the Arcana assigned to the day (apologies in advance if I fuck up their personalities) or an event of my choosing if no relevant character exists for the Arcana. Arcanas are assigned numerically, as in Fool (0) was the fourth, and the World (21) is Christmas Day. Stories have no set theme and they have no minimum length. Next Arcana is the Empress, Kissu's very own Leiko Hamada. This is really stupid, probably very out-of-character, and entirely based on a stupid joke, but here it is.

Basic updates and schedule can be found [url=https://arcvalerik.titanpad.com/1?]here![/url]

[hider=Day #4][i]It blinked.[/i]

Leiko wasn't sure of it at first, but the tiny little squids were [i]definitely[/i] not stationary on that plate. She instantly regretted giving in to Kami's insistence on ordering kalimari as a starter for the evening. The place had a good reputation for having high-quality cooks and ingredients with trust-worthy sources, so having [i]living squids[/i] with seasonings on top of them being served to them irked her to no end. At least, she was fairly certain they where still alive.

 [i]But,[/i] maybe she was just hallucinating a bit! The drama club president had stood up nearly the entire night studying all her lines for the upcoming school play, because, after all, she had to make sure it went without a hitch and herself was the perfect place to start. Even then, though, she had gotten several hours of sleep anyways and had even taken a quick power nap before meeting up at the restaurant with the others. Looking around, nobody else seemed to paying any attention to both the fact that the food had arrived or that it [i]was alive.[/i]

That is, until Kami rose a fork. Leiko instantly felt her hand reach for a utensil and her hand soon found itself clasped around her own form. Kami, seeing it as a challenge for the appetizer, shot out his arm in attempt to steal away the largest morsel from the dish. Unfortunately, Leiko's bold attempt to steer Kami's fork away failed tragically, merely stabbing one of her own, though she scrapped it off quickly and wiped the fork even quicker. She could only watch on in a mixture of fear, concern, and anguish as Kami rose the kalimari chunk to his mouth victorious and took a chunk out of it. She wasn't entirely sure immediately, but it soon registered in Leiko's mind that she had heard a tiny squeal from the hopefully now deceased squid piece

It was then that she decided that she was in fact not hallucinating about this kalimari dish before them. These squids were very much fatally undercooked and very much being served to them. She debated saying something to Kami and the others, but none of them seemed particularly disturbed by anything but she felt it to be extremely rude and possibly dinner-ruining if she were to accuse the restaurant of serving them literally uncooked squid. But if it wasn't just her mind playing tricks on her, then there was the very real issue that Kami could get tragically sick from consuming the appetizer, which would be a detriment considering him being an experienced asset in the mirror world investigations...

She had to act. [b]Immediately.[/b] In one swift movement, she reached her hand out as if she were going to take a kalimari for herself, but instead "accidentally" knocked the whole dish to the side and off the table, sending the entire contents of the plate all over the wood flooring. Everyone at the table turned and gasped at the sight, but Leiko only stared without a break at the "food." They were actually [i]crawling away.[/i] And [i]nobody else noticed[/i]. She returned herself back to the table awkwardly, setting her fork back in position as quietly as possible. 

"[i]Maybe I AM hallucinating,[/i]" She thought to herself, lowering her head to the table as she did so.[/hider]