Chapter 602: Mimicking Mai

This chapter is from Shizuka's perspective.

*Shizuka's thoughts*

"Minor's commentary"

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With the revelation that Minor was affecting Shizuka's facial expressions sometimes thing settled down a bit. Well, at least on the twin's side. Kat was already quite calm now that Enuko had left, it was mostly the 'internal' conflict between that raised the tensions but with Kat's comment the whole issue got derailed.

It was hard for them to keep fighting while also trying to work out exactly what Kat meant and seeing just how unaffected she was, it was hard even for Minor to continue to argument. Sure she was still unhappy with Enuko's decision, but Kat was here. What was the point of wasting time being angry when they could spend time together?

*Well do you want to take over then?*

"Maybe? I wouldn't be opposed I guess but I've had so much time with Kat already. She's already my friend maybe she can be yours as well? You need more friends Shizuka. You have… arguably one. I have just as many or more friends as you do if we want to get technical."

Shizuka was mildly annoyed at the fact Minor was correct. The voice in her head had a more robust network of friends then she did. Even if that voice was a real person, it didn't necessarily feel any better to acknowledge. I don't need your pity!

"It's not really pity it's more like sharing the love, I guess? Kat's great and I can't drive the body forever while she's visiting. You might as well start now rather then halfway through training because Kat will probably be distracted."

*What am I supposed to say though? I don't even know if we have anything in common. I haven't paid that much attention to the memories with Kat in them. A lot of them are boring because it's all walking and the ones from you moving around in my mind I basically impossible to view properly for some reason. I mean I have guesses but that's it.* 

"You'll be fine Shizuka"

*How can you know that? You were always the social one*

"Shizuka, we were babies when we died. You can't use that argument. Where did you even get the idea? I've talked to like… 3 people total. You, Kat, and Grandma."

*Huh… where did I get that idea?*

"So… is there anything you can tell me about the person who is training me?" asked Kat all of a sudden. Of course, from Kat's perspective a decent chunk of time had past without anyone saying and she'd tried to get the attention of the twins for a while before asking but that didn't quite work on. Now they were caught slightly on the back foot.

*Can we? Are we allowed?*

"Who cares if we're allowed? Enuko isn't here right now and clearly if she left us alone with Kat she trusts Kat not to murder us or something. Plus, what is Mai going to do? Complain we told Kat about her? She's going to take Kat as a weapons apprentice. Nothing we could reveal about her that Kat won't be able to figure out or just get told about. She'll need to know quite a few of the things like why she won't hurt Mai or what's going on the first time she transforms into Kat." 

*I… yeah you're right.* 

"Actually there is a decent amount we can share," said Shizuka out loud, her voice was slightly off tone after chatting so much in her mind but Kat didn't really notice. "The name of your teacher is Mai, she's a slime, a Queen Slime I believe though I'm not completely certain about that."

"Huh…" said Kat confused, "how would a slime teach me how to use fans? I mean… if she travelled with your grandmother, I'm sure she's competent but… how would I be able to use her weapon forms?"

"She can transform into whatever she wants" said Shizuka, "so she'll probably turn into you for the first day and get used to your form as she explains the basics. Learning as you do I guess. She'll learn a lot faster of course because she's used to changing forms a balance all the time but that's for the best. She can't correct you if she doesn't know what you're doing wrong."

"That's pretty cool" said Kat honestly and the sincerity really did carry in the tone.

"Yeah. Aunt Mai is awesome. Tell her what Mai's main job is!"

Shizuka rolled her eyes but stopped partway through and glanced at Kat, "Sorry, I wasn't doing that to you but to Minor's response in my head. I REALLY need to make sure not to get into that habit for when return to court. The fact my facial expressions change is already a big deal. Oh, and in case you're wondering Minor can tell if she's paying attention because my vision shifts.

"So… Mai" said Shizuka after a pause, "she was the teams rouge and all rounder I guess? An excellent spy at first because of her small size she could sneak around as a blob and get into strange little places to overhear things. Then when she got better and learnt how to speak properly she started impersonating people.

"Being a slime, she is also a bit of a support tank on occasion because of how hard she is to take down. Normal slimes struggle to keep their core hidden but because Mai can change what she looks like she can make it seems like she has no core or hundreds of cores all over her body, whatever she thinks is better against the thing she's fighting.

"The only part of the standard rogue kit that Mai has issues with is trap making and dismantling. Not having hands for a number of years made it hard then then later on she was strong enough to just let traps hit her a lot of the time. Most things aren't really equipped to deal with intelligent slimes. Swords can just go through her if she's careful."

"What do you mean by if she's careful?" asked Kat

"Well… slimes have two ways of keeping themselves together. The first is a thin vein of… not skin but I guess slightly tougher goop that keeps the rest of their more liquid insides together. It heals really rapidly but it's a bit fragile. They use it passively.

"The second way is a semi-permeable mana barrier. It's an instinctive thing and when you get to Mia's level of strength a slime can keep it on constantly without thinking about it at all, even in her sleep. That was actually something I was told took her forever, keeping her fake appearance when asleep" explained Shizuka.

"Sounds like I have an interesting teacher," said Kat. "Are intelligent slimes common?"

"No not at all," said Shizuka, "most slimes are weak things that reproduce by splitting once they have enough extra mana and mass. Mai is the only intelligent slime we know of but she insists that one in every ten trillion slimes is intelligent to her level. Which… well Enuko has told us specifically that Mai is underselling herself. One in ten trillion have sapience and the ability to think for themselves but Mai is a genius in her own class.

"Oh, and ten trillion slimes might sound like a lot… but they breed like… well the saying here is breed like slimes. They multiple at ridiculous rates when they find a good spot… and they can still spread rapidly even in a bad one. They eat practically anything they can dissolve and convert it to mass and mana while sucking in mana from the surroundings if there is enough. Any random cave will normally have a few hundred slimes if nothing stronger has completely eradicated them. Which is nothing compared to high mana areas. If a slime gets there they'll number in the millions in less then a year."

"Yeah. Compound interest is a scary thing"

"I can't really relate but I'll take your word for it. We don't have slimes in my home dimension" said Kat.

"Not sure if that's a good thing or not. They… really aren't too bad. Sure they can swarm you but with decent armour you can be safe for a while and kicking them away is a valid tactic. Hard to kill within being able to hit the core, but not hard to survive. Just walking at a mild pace in the opposite direction is enough to escape most slimes" explained Shizuka.

"What colour are slimes? Actually what colour is Mai?" asked Kat

"I don't know" grumbled Shizuka. "Yeah she cheats" "Mai likes to return to a 'default' form with a different colour every time it happens. One time it'll be blue, the next orange, the time after that yellow. She SHOULD have a default colour that she was born with but whatever it is Mai isn't telling. I'm not even sure if Grandma knows because I've heard she's had the ability to change colours for longer then Grandma's known her."