Delusion Channeling

Fish don't bark. At least, that was what I thought. One day, me and Maia went to the Bridgepoint Aquarium. It was a lot smaller than say, Monterrey Aquarium, but it was still nice. The ambience was impeccable.

Me and Maia sat on a bench looking at a tank filled with jellyfish when it happened. Some guy came running down the hallway, screaming.

"FUCK YOU, MANGO!" He shouted with frenzied rage, "KOGASA WILL NEVER LOVE YOU!"

Me and Maia were obviously baffled at what this guy was doing. He threw his cap at the tank, and that was when I noticed the logo on it. It was of the Bridgepoint Aquarium. He seemed to be an employee, a janitor to be precise. A trail of water led away from him and to a discarded mop that had fallen on the floor.

The man walked up to me, his wrinkled face contorted into a scowl.

"SHE WILL NEVER LOVE YOU!" He screamed at me, causing me to jump back, into Maia's body.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I shouted. Maia scooted away from the janitor.

He took deep, yet strained breaths.

"AND JUST LIKE THAT BLUE-HAIRED HETEROCHROMIC FREAK, I GOT A SURPRISE FOR YOU!"

The janitor slapped me in the face. The impact was so strong that I instantly blacked out. The last thing I heard was Maia screaming, asking if I was ok.

The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed with the biggest headache of my life. Maia sat nearby, her face lighting up as she saw my eyes flutter open.

"Omigosh! David! Are you ok?"

I groaned in response.

As if on cue, a doctor walked into the room I was in. He smiled slightly as he observed that I was awake.

"Do... you know what happened to me?" I asked him.

"Oh, good. You're awake," he replied. "You endured quite the blow over at the aquarium. Fortunately, you won't be suffering from anything other than a possible concussion."

"Thank god..." I said. "So, can I leave now?"

"Essentially yes. Though I have to check some stuff first."

The doctor then tested my reflexes, stuff like hitting my kneecap with a mallet. It was all over in a couple minutes.

Me and Maia were relieved to have left the hospital. As we went to our hostel for the night, she caught me up on what happened. Apparently, the janitor was arrested by security shortly after I was knocked out by him. He would be interrogated soon, but it seemed like he just lost it.

We neared the hotel, passing by a small koi pond off to the side of it. That was when I heard barking. I looked around, confused. I didn't remember any dogs around the premises of the building. Maia noticed.

"David? What's up?" She asked.

"Um... do you see any dogs around here?"

"Uh... no? Why do you ask?"

I turned to the pond. The barking was coming from inside. What sounded like a legion of dogs was barking there.

I went to the koi pond without hesitation. I looked down at the koi, and they were all looking at me. They were barking at me, chastising me.

I started breathing heavily as Maia put her hand on my shoulder.

"Babe? What's up?" she asked.

"YOU WILL NEVER LOVE ME YOU FOOL!"

I backflipped seven times away from Maia as the koi continued to bark at me.

"DO YOU HEAR THESE FISH BARKING?!" I shouted.

"David, what the fuck?!"

Maia ran towards me.

"KOGASA, YOU DON'T DESERVE MY LOVE! YOU HETEROCHROMIC BEAUTY, YOU!"

"My name is Maia, not Kogasa!" she shouted. But it didn't matter.

"YOU DON'T DESERVE MY LOVE! ISN'T IT SURPRISING THAT THE FISH ARE BARKING? LOOK AT THEIR TONGUES!"

I ran to the hotel's wall, just outside a window, with Maia in hot pursuit. I looked at her like a cornered animal, waiting to make a run for it.

"David, stop!" she screamed. "You're making no sense!"

Her brown eyes sparkled, tears forming within them.

"YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE MAKES NO SENSE?"

Maia was taken aback by the question.

"This makes no sense!" she said.

"WRONG..." I snarled, kneeling to the ground.

"GUERILLA TYPHOON!"

Then, I detonated. You heard that right.

I only know this because of what people told me after I woke up in the hospital for a second time. My body, somehow intact, exploded with a 10t TNT equivalent force. I suffered from several broken bones, including a broken leg.

Maia, however, was less fortunate, but still miraculously alive. That was what the doctors told me when I woke up. However, one peculiarity was that, for two weeks after the incident, both me and Maia were referred to as 'Kogasa Tatara' until corrected.

This all went back to the fucking janitor.

A Bridgepoint native by the name of Jacob "Jack" Terrence Howard, he had been infatuated with the 'Touhou Project' for a few years. What nobody knew until my detonation was that he was a magician. Police and ORSoM investigators ended up finding out he was a magician by interrogating him.

Further testing by ORSoM people revealed his... unique power. While most magicians have a fairly logical power, such as controlling an element or telekinesis, his power involved channeling his delusions into reality through other people, hence the name given to it: delusion channeling.

He knew about this power for at least a decade based on a diary that was found during the investigation into my detonation. But he chose me to use his powers on for a really insane and petty reason.

It turns out that he was in a Discord server with a female cosplayer going by the username 'BrellaHandle.' She and Jack shared a favorite character in the francise, the aforementioned Kogasa Tatara. This character, the youkai of surprise based on my skimming of her wiki page, did have heterochromia.

After BrellaHandle shared a photo of her cosplaying as the aforementioned character, Jack became infatuated with her. The police recovered several days' worth of DMs of Jack advancing on BrellaHandle before she understandably blocked him.

This enraged Jack. He began shadowing her on all corners of the Internet, waiting for the moment to strike.

That was where I came in. Both me and BrellaHandle just so happened to be staying at the same hotel in Bridgepoint by sheer dumb luck. He had landed a job as a janitor at the aquarium a few months prior. He must've overheard us plan on going to the aquarium, and that was when he hatched his scheme.

BrellaHandle stayed on the first floor of the hotel, in a room right by the epicenter of my detonation. His screaming and wailing at the aquarium was a side-effect of him using his delusion channeling. The slap on my face was necessary for him to channel his powers through me, as was discovered during both testing and an investigation of the diary. After I went unconscious, I was effectively his puppet.

Jack had a mild form of control over my body and psyche which extended for even far distances. He must've been laughing like a madman once he detonated me over by the hotel.

BrellaHandle, somehow, managed to escape alive, but was just as injured as Maia was. Both of them would be permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

Me and Maia are doing ok now. We've learned to accomodate her newfound disability, and are closer than ever. Same with BrellaHandle. In fact, all three of us got along together. That sick fuck made our bonds stronger, and it's enriched our lives.

As for Jack... he was convicted on one count of assault and battery, one count of attempted first degree murder, as well as some other charges related to cyberbullying and harassment. He got slapped with a nice, long sentence.

He deserves it.

But one thing still confuses me.

Why the hell did he make the koi bark?

Not here yet.