Stress Relief

Later that day, Tsuruko was finally out of her room, exercising. It'd been an indeterminate amount of time since Gary left, learning of her origins, learning of her parentage, and finally, discovering an expansion of her origins as well as the existence of a world before her own.

But all of those...it felt like the revelations hit her like a sack of bricks; all at once.

Wearing black spats and a matching sports bra, Tsuruko rushed across the harbour of the port town. Once again, she wasn't using any of her robotic enhancements; attempting to see if her body was powerful without them.

There was no planet-busting war machine—only Tsuruko Sejren.

Tsuruko let out a deep sigh; though it wasn't one of disdain.

Ever since they had met, Excellen had been nothing but helpful and supportive of her. From their first encounter, where she was one of the first to extend her hand to Tsuruko,

"Gyahahahahaha, listen, Tsuruko. If something is too far away to ever reach, you just give up. But that ain't the case for us. By stacking everything up, we can make it close enough to grasp the stars in the night sky. It is a bit dangerous, but it's as easy as climbing up on the table and standing up on our tiptoes. Then we can reach the cupboard. There's no need to call in our parents to get it for us. You know what I'm saying? Don't give up!"

Her words inspired her,

Even though Excellen knew that Tsuruko wasn't really a good people person, she always offered her help to Tsuruko without Tsuruko needing to ask.

And even now, she was the only one who didn't give up on her when Tsuruko gave up on herself.

Every day she would come into Tsuruko's room, and spend the rest of the day trying to get her to be productive once more.

She was somebody who never let her down.

Even so...she couldn't understand what was going on.

That part in her life that was once Gary's place was slowly being replaced by Excellen.

"Hey, you!" Kaguya's demanding voice called out to Excellen, whom was too busy cooking.

Quickly searching through the pantry, Excellen scouted the continents. All she wanted was to bake a cake for Tsuruko. "No. No. No. No. Aren't those poisonous? No. No. No. Wait, we have this? No. No. No. No..." Excellen's train of thought departed, as she finally found all the ingredients she needed. "No. No. No. No- ah, here we go."

Excellen donned a pair of fuzzy oven mitts, completely ignoring the blue-haired pest in the room.

"Dammit you, I need some help...!"

Slowly, she poured the mixing over the base, before placing it in the stove. All seemed right with the world; she had nothing else to worry about at the moment—oh, shit. "....Oh hey, Kaguya."

"What took you so long!?" The stuck-up lady haughtily declared, "Were you too intimidated by my magnificent presence to acknowledge me?"

"Your nasally-sounding voice is intimidating, alright." Excellen snarked back, as she turned around once more, waiting for the cake to finish—that'd be in twenty minutes. "Are you here to throw around petty insults towards me and the person I care for the most, or is it actually important?"

Unlike Tsuruko Sejren, Excellen Kilekion didn't take any crap from people who had nothing better to say than insults.

"Okay, I need help. I was saved by a blue knight with a red visor. Is that Sejren?"

Excellen didn't mince words. "Yup."

Kaguya's hands began shaking. "So...that means...?" She began to panic. "I'm an abomination!"

"So what if you have an different taste than what you believed." Excellen sighed, disappointed with Kaguya's panicking. "Is it really the end of the world? So what, you like chicks and everyone except you knew."

"Wait, how did you know?!" Kaguya exclaimed; her voice reaching outside of the room.

"It's an inborn ability—it's called..." Excellen's voice became much more dramatic. "Gaydar."

"..." Kaguya wasn't sure what to think. "...Are you serious? Maybe that's why I could tell—"

"Naw." Excellen chuckled, amused by Kaguya's bigoted naiveté. "You were all over Deen when you thought he was a chick. It was pretty obvious."

Not to mention, the massive hateboner she had for Tsuruko and Rosa.

Kaguya stammered, "Then how do I get rid of these disgusting feelings!?"

"A cure for homosexuality is nothing but a stupid fantasy believed by ignorant homophobes..." Excellen paused briefly; her tone going from relatively informal to somewhat pissed off. "...And my parents." There was no regret or sadness in her voice; just mild annoyance. "Why are you so mad about it? It's part of who you are."

"But I liked guys before...!"

Excellen shrugged. "Then you're bisexual I suppose. Bi meaning 'two', so that means you like both guys and girls. It's so easy to understand even you should get it."

"But that's unnatural—" Kaguya had no time to react properly; Excellen's fist zoomed in, missing her nose by the width of a hair.

"Enough. I won't stand for you insulting people like myself. It's not unnatural or disgusting, and it doesn't make you an abomination. It's part of being human—just because some of us are different than you, doesn't mean that you have any right to treat us like garbage." Excellen's voice became far gruffer. "I know you've had such a tough life, always used to getting everything you wanted, and not attempting to show empathy towards others. Always whining about how everything is just handed to you—it pisses me off. We all have problems bigger than yours. Tsuruko's just discovered she's a god-slaying super robot from another dimension created to kill some guy, Giselle is her long-absent mother, and she's gone through millions of years of god knows what, Deen's just a normal guy, he needs to put up with the worst boss ever, and it seems like he's got an inferiority complex, Zanma's time-displaced and he's struggling to fit in, and I'd rather keep my problems to myself. We've all got bigger problems than you, and look at us; we don't bitch and moan about them all the time. I know that you think you had a lot of bad breaks and this is the worst thing to ever happen to you. Well, boo hoo. Poor you. You know, people like Tsuruko and Deen attempted to reach out to you. But you pushed them away. Now you have no one. I don't give a damn about your social status, so anything you can threaten me with won't affect me. Listen here, Kaguya Kobayashi. You're just a big, selfish, worthless waste. And until you make at least an attempt to show genuine kindness to those who reach out to you, then don't expect any help to be just given to you. I won't help you now, but if you come back to me and speak like an actual damn person, then I'll do everything in my power to help you come to terms with yourself."

Kaguya attempted to reply, but found that she was so furious that she could not produce coherent words. She instead chose to settle for releasing some extremely angry sounds before storming off.