im reading. the 55 Minutes light novel for the first time finally. its the only OG universe LN i haven't read yet. i fear reading Beast would break me beyond repair, so i refuse to read it until im not crazy anymore. anyway. need to talk about this SOMEWHERE bc i keep frothing at the mouth about it.
Atsushi is SOOOO DID. like i doubt that was asagiri's intention writing him but. god. there's some excerpts in this LN that are just. God. Atsushi and the Tiger...... theyre so......
Atsushi closed his eyes and steadied his breath. He visualized a tiger—a white tiger. A ferocious white tiger that was the complete opposite of his weak self—a massive mouth that could swallow a human whole, powerful limbs like steel, forelegs that could knock down a tree, and hind legs strong enough to leap over a valley.
Like night cooling the ground, the frailty hidden deep down inside Atsushi grew until it was sinisterly ferocious.
The tiger was not of this world. It only existed within him. It was his arrogance and cowardice, his pride and sense of shame. The more he tried to hide his weakness, the more exposed it became, like a photographic negative.
There's a beast inside me, thought Atsushi. And that's not a metaphor. There's a literal beast inside me. Right now, he's howling and wildly feasting as he rampages. For some reason or another, he seems to have the power to negate wounds. Not the power to heal them or to recover but to negate. The reason he's able to do this isn't totally unrelated to my birth, probably. It's not unrelated to the suffering I've had to bear all these years.
The beast—the tiger—is a manifestation of something within me. I still don't know what that something is, but if he commands me to stand, then I can't not stand—just like if he negates my wounds, then my wounds have no choice but to disappear.
"A skill," stated the young man. "Have you ever thought about what skills are?"
"What skills are"? Of course I have. There hasn't been a day since I learned who the white tiger actually was that I haven't thought about skills. What was that tiger? Why did I have the power of one? How much of me is me, and how much of the tiger is me? Why did people have to suffer because of my skill?
like. come on. it's too easy.
and like... with Atsushi being the only one shown (to my knowledge) to actually Interact with his ability as if it were a separate entity to himself... (other than abilities like Kyouka's, Kouyou's, Mori's, etc where the ability IS a manifestation of a separate entity they can interact with. and also not counting Dead Apple obviously). and how, without Fukuzawa's ability, he had NO control over transforming, and he lost All memory when he was the tiger... how he can talk with the tiger, and ask it to help him... LIKE. COME ON.
like ok just gonna. *screams and sobs*
