[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/YoKUPWv.png[/img]

[right][hr][color=gray][b]Sapporo, Japan[/b]
Ishin Academy, April 7th[/color][hr][/right][/center]
Uchimura Mifune was [i]sweatin’[/i].

Sometime after having boarded the bullet train to Sapporo, the anxious teenager was inflicted with the presence of a nemesis most insidious: a decision-point. Stuck within the zooming capsule-vessel, time allowed his enemy to fester like moist darkness to fungi. The decision-point in question: would he trust himself to navigate the rest of the way to Ishin, or would he hopefully find a sounder teenaged mind to shepherd him? If he was to be lost, he would be late - and that, he had been certain, would be the end of him.

The youngster’s feverish mind had worked in triplicate as he sat, thoroughly encaged within himself (a terrible place, to be certain), and conjuring up twin parables with which to torment him.

The first spoke of the winged man, who spat on all the others in his high and mighty confidence, bravado derived from the fact that it was he - and he alone - who could lead his tribe to the promised land, for he bore wings where his brethren remained land-bound. So convinced of his infallibility, he refuted the pleas of his kinsmen who said to him: “that orange ball in the sky that hurts to look at? That can’t be the promised land!”

So, the winged man of the first parable had trusted himself, flew into the sun, and died. 

The second spoke of the stranger in the swelter, him of parched throat and weary mind, who spotted the shadow of another man amongst the desert sands. Desperate for oasis, for sanctuary, he hunted the shadow to follow the man. Only, for scorching days and frigid nights, the stranger followed him into nothingness. Finally, unable to withstand the torment any longer, he ripped his parched throat to ribbons screaming: “oi, fucko! [i]Where are you going?[/i]” To which the man with the shadow, also dying, replied: “I was running away from you, you creepy stalker!”

And so, both the guide and the follower of the second parable had died as well. 

Really, the clashing parables did nothing to help him past his decision-point. 

In the end, he needn’t have worried, for - in his infinite worrying - he had become nervous enough where he decided his own thought processes simply weren’t an option to begin with. He followed the sight of the unknown savior in the Ishin uniform, and played the ‘stranger in the swelter’, already convinced he was doomed to agonizing demise and destruction. And as the "man and his shadow" proved to be a worthy guide, a whole host of other panicked thoughts took hold of him - what if, for example, everyone thought he looked a straight [i]goon[/i]? 

Therefore (and again), while Yachiyo had been announcing herself, Uchimura Mifune was sweatin’. 

“[color=#C85285][b]U-Uchimura Mifune…[/b][/color]” He spat out, eyes wide as if bound by traumatic flashback.