Chapter XI (11)- Piano and Pudding

Saying his farewells to Harvey, Kizu took out his orb and let it direct him toward the music room. Although, he didn’t need its guidance for long. Once he reached that wing of the academy, he knew which way to go by the volume of noise.

As it turned out, the Music F class was not notorious for its lovely melodies and synchronizations. He watched as different students played wildly different instruments. Everything from giant drums that students slammed their elbows into, to a horn that wrapped around a student’s neck, looking like a choking hazard. There were a few normal looking instruments, but they seemed like anomalies. He stared at the little stand, trying to figure out where to go.

“Those of you without instruments, please make your way over here,” a voice said, just barely audible over the noise.

A haggard man wearing the robes of a professor and disheveled scarlet hair stood in the corner scribbling notes in a small leather book. Kizu approached him.

“Name?” he yelled.

“Kaga Kizu.”

“What instrument would you like, Kaga Kizu?”

“I don’t know.”

“A lot of these students use traditional instruments from their homeland. They’re often loud and obnoxious. But parents are usually excited when the student decides on one of those. Do you have anything like that?”

He dredged up childhood memories, trying to remember any sort of instrument. His mind vaguely recalled Anna playing lullabies on a piano.

“Piano?” he asked.

The professor rolled his eyes.

“Of course, a piano,” the professor said. Kizu barely made the words out amongst the noise. “Imagine an F student who takes on a nice small viola or bugle. Or even better, a whistle. No, it has to be a piano.” Then, he said louder, “Go stand in the back with the other percussion students. Next class I’ll have a piano in the back for you.”

Kizu did as commanded, taking his place where the professor pointed. A student who had been hitting the massive drum grinned at him as he approached. He was Tainted, with sandy hair and scales across his cheeks that accented his dimples. His uniform had been modified slightly, the sleeves cut at the shoulders to expose the full length of his arms.

“Welcome!” he yelled. Then he held something out to Kizu with one hand and pointed to the side of his head with the other. “Put these in your ears!”

Kizu took the object. He almost cried out as the things writhed in his hand. Two slug creatures squirmed on his palm. He looked up at the other student, thinking he must be making a joke. But, as he looked closely, he noticed a gray slug in the other student’s ear cavity. With a deep breath, Kizu stuck the things in.

Immediately, the world’s noise smothered all around him. He looked up at the boy expectantly.

“They eat noise,” the boy whispered to him. “Live off the stuff. But if you speak softly, they don’t bother with your noise. Name’s Gregor.”

“Kaga Kizu,” Kizu tried to say, but his voice was muted.

“Quieter,” Gregor instructed.

Kizu repeated himself, quieter this time.

“Perfect. Let me introduce you to the other percussionists.” Gregor pointed at a Tainted woman with mismatching eyes and talons in the place of fingers. “That’s Tara, she’s my other drummer.” He gestured at a tall student who looked borderline an adult, with facial hair sprouting from a chin. “That’s Yon, he does miscellaneous stuff. Whatever sound effects we don’t already have.” Then he pointed to a Hon girl with black bangs sitting on the floor in the corner. She looked bored. “And that’s Ione. When she bothers to play, she uses a triangle.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Kizu whispered. They all nodded with the exception of Ione, who appeared not to hear him. She was instead poking at one of the slugs on the ground.

“What do you play?” Tara asked.

“I think I’m being assigned a piano.”

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“Bit boring,” Gregor lamented. “You should switch it before it becomes finalized. Go crazy and get an organ at the very least. You’ll make the whole academy shake with something like that.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Tara interjected. “Play whatever you want.”

“Or just play whatever gets handed to you,” Yon offered. “It’s worked for me. No commitment necessary this way.”

“Shut up you two,” Gregor said. “Ignis just started the lesson.”

The three other students removed the slugs from their ears and focused up front where the professor stood.

“-and as most of you know, I’ll be your professor for Music F,” the professor said as Kizu peeled the slugs out of his ears. Ignis sounded exasperated as he continued. “Music constructs a magic that’s unique. It’s subtler than any other. It can be used to bolster and agitate, but also can soothe and rejuvenate. It’s a matter of weaving your magic into your instrument. But, to get to the point where you can do that, you must first learn the instrument. As a result, it is unlikely you will be performing any acts of magic in this class. You must first learn how to play”

Kizu heard the class groan in unison. Then Professor Ignis picked up a baton from his desk and waved it in the air like a wand. Everyone picked up their instruments and blurted out noises as the baton swung in the air. Ignis grimaced with each wave, but kept at it.

Kizu spent the class sitting back and watching as students puffed into their instruments and slammed their fists along the strings. He kept the slugs in his ears, otherwise the performance would have been completely unbearable. Recollecting on Harvey’s beautiful performance during the combat placement test, he saw that the class had a long way to go before they reached anywhere near competent.

When the dismissal bell sounded, notably louder than usual to be heard over their ruckus, Kizu let out a sigh of relief. He filed out of the class and said his goodbyes to the other percussion members. They insisted he keep his slugs and even gave him a little wooden case to keep them in.

“Okay orb, what’s next?”

“You now have a free period. The cafeteria is open and serving meals.”

Lunch. His stomach growled with the thought. His trade earlier of breakfast for sleep seemed significantly less clever now.

As he followed the orb to the cafeteria, he started to recognize the hallways. The academy was becoming more familiar to him and he almost believed he could put his scrying orb away and get there himself. Almost. But while a part of him was tempted to test out his navigation, he decided not gamble his lunch. So the orb stayed out.

Unlike his previous visit, the cafeteria was packed with students. He had to battle his way to an empty seat, lunging for a spot on the bench as soon as the previous occupant vacated. Snatching up the menu, he scanned it. Today it mostly contained seafood. He pressed a finger against a seaweed wrapped omelet, water, and a tapioca pudding.

The food appeared in front of him and he dug into it. Scarfing it down with fervor.

“Slow down, you’ll choke,” some said, sitting down across from him at the table. He looked up and saw Emilia. Her sharp-toothed grin reminded him a bit of Harvey. Her golden hair fell down her shoulders with slight waves. While she seemed a lot less animalistic than some of the other Tainted he’d met, she still maintained a bit of a wild edge to her. Two of her friends sat down on her left, the bench’s occupants making way for them.

Kizu still held the small omelet in his hand. Slowly, he set it back on his plate and picked up the dreaded sticks everyone else used to eat.

“Sorry,” he said reluctantly. “I didn’t mean to come off as rude.”

“Not at all,” she said. She selected something on her menu and a bowl of noodles appeared in front of her. “It’s a Hon themed lunch today. But you eat like people back at my home. Watch, when we get some Edgeland food on the menu, you’ll find it way easier. Hon food is infamously trickier. It takes a while to figure it out.”

Despite her words, she ate her noodles with the provided sticks perfectly. Her two friends chatted to one another in a low enough volume that their words were lost in the cafeteria’s noise.

“Do you miss it?” Kizu asked, trying to break back into conversation.

“What? Edgeland? Hardly. I was there just three days ago. Here I get my own villa. The only family that harasses me here are the cousins I allow to bother me.” She ate some more noodles. “And the food is at least a bit more diverse. And you? How are you enjoying academy life?”

“The dorms are fine,” Kizu said. “And the classes are interesting. Some students are friendlier than others.”

“Hold up, you said dorms?” one of her friends interrupted, sounding incredulous. “Aren’t you technically considered a third year? They’re seriously making you stay in the dorms?”

“Oh, the academy isn’t. But it seemed like a better option than sharing my family’s villa with my younger brother.”

“Who is?” the other friend asked.

“Kaga Finn.”

Emilia leaned in closer. “Really?” She considered. “Can you scowl for me?”

Kizu frowned.

“That’s it! Now I see the resemblance. He’s in my conjuring class. I remember my cousin telling me he was an absolute killjoy disappointment in comparison with his sister. Apparently she knew how to throw a party.”

“Your cousin knew Anna?”

“I suppose so. That was her only mention of her that I remember. My cousin graduated last year though, otherwise I would introduce you to him.”

That planted the seed of an idea. If he did his math right, there was a chance some of the fifth years might have known Anna back when they had been first years. All he needed to do was first meet some fifth years.

“I see,” he said. He picked up a spoonful of the pudding. “Did you know she was expelled?”

“Your sister?”

“I’ve never heard of a student being expelled,” one of her friends said, butting in. “Not in the last twenty years. The last one was because he blew up a lavatory near the second year girls’ dorm.”

The bell rang, cutting off any more discussion. The moment after Emilia and her friends stood and left, Kizu shoveled the pudding into his mouth, hoarding it like a chipmunk. The pearls squished under his molars and the juice burned the inside of his cheeks. He wiped his mouth with a napkin. It tasted delicious.