The day passed by quickly and Saneko returned to her home, opening the door to the house with a loud yawn. As she entered, she kicked off her dress shoes and removed her suit.
"I'm back!"
Mrs. Sarakana walked out from her room and gave Saneko a smile.
"Welcome home. I'm just finishing up some details on the logo I was working on."
Mrs. Sarakana was never able to cultivate any abilities no matter how hard she tried. Therefore, she decided to get a job working from home as a freelance graphic designer, as that was always a passion of hers. She was undeniably talented, but she didn't get many clients.
"Oh alright."
"How was your first day?"
"Surprisingly not that bad. The teacher wanted us to create an aura, and I blew all of the other students out of the water. They were left speechless. Other than that, we didn't do much. It was the first day after all."
Saneko is living proof that intelligence does not equal wisdom. While she constantly uses 100% of her brain and would absolutely be able to solve any equation or riddle given to her with ease, she lacks every function of common sense.
"I'm so happy you had fun! Did you make any friends?"
"Ha! As if. My job is to be the lone wolf vigilante that everyone admires, not to be buddy buddy with some background characters."
Saneko put her hands on her hips in what she considered to be a heroic pose. You might have guessed it by now, but Saneko has a severe case of main character syndrome
"Oh classic Saneko. Alright, well you go get changed and I'll finish my work."
With that, Saneko entered her bedroom and hung her suit on the door knob. She then changed back into her lazy clothes as she put it. She didn't have many outfits because she valued quality over quantity, or more accurately, comfort over quantity. The clothes were definitely not of high quality.
Saneko laid the rest of her uniform on an unused chair that was in her bedroom and flopped down on her bed. She thought about something the teacher said before she left school earlier today. She mentioned something about how tomorrow there would be a group project to see who could cultivate enough power to manipulate an element, as high ranking cultivators should be able to do so. A cocky grin appeared on Saneko's face as she imagined showing off to her classmates again.
Saneko then heard the garage door opening. She hopped out of bed, realizing her dad had just returned home from work. She exited her bedroom just as her dad opened the door to the house, holding a banana smoothie in his hand. Saneko's eyes instantly widened and she started drooling.
"Hello! Sorry I'm late. I just remembered that it was your first day of school, and you did help me teleport to work this morning, so I thought I'd repay you with one of the banana smoothies you love so much."
Saneko grabbed the smoothie, moving so fast that it appeared as if she hadn't moved at all. Her dad looked down at his hand, realizing he was no longer holding the smoothie, and that Saneko was now holding it and sipping on the straw with a happy expression on her face.
"Hehe. Well I hope you enjoy it."
Saneko no longer cared about the world around her. The world might as well have faded away and the heat death of the universe could have happened right then and there and she wouldn't have cared in the slightest. The taste of the smoothie was the most important thing to her at this moment.
She returned to her bedroom, sitting on the bed and kicking her legs gleefully as she sipped on the smoothie. There was a serene sound of silence, only interrupted by the constant sound of the clock ticking. As she sipped on her smoothie, she took out her phone to watch MeTube. As she unlocked her phone, she saw the date. She hadn't really been paying attention to the week days as of recently, so it surprised her to see that it was already Thursday. She didn't understand why the first day of school would be on such a specific day, but it didn't bother her, in fact it made her more excited for the weekend. On Saturday, her favorite power fantasy as of recently, "Silent Road: How I Became the Strongest in Another World", releases it's third episode.
This excitement caused Saneko to, instead of watching funny videos, watch analysis videos on the series. You know, the ones that make it seem like the series has a deep story when it really doesn't.
"Wow, this video is three hours. Well, might as well get comfy."
Saneko tucked herself into bed with her smoothie in one hand and her phone in the other, preparing to watch the video. Her obsession with this genre only continued to grow stronger and stronger. She rested her head on a tattered pillow she had that was in such bad shape due to her horns tearing through it, and pressed play on the video.
As the night passed and the sun rose in the morning, the blankets over Saneko were all disheveled, with one of her legs poking out from them entirely. Her empty smoothie cup was on the floor and her phone was on her head as she was snoring loudly. She was a very restless sleeper.
A knock on her door was heard and her mom walked in.
"Hey. You're late for school again. Is this going to be a pattern?"
The sound of Mrs. Sarakana's voice woke Saneko up, causing her to choke from her snoring. She coughed a bit and sat up, causing her phone to fall from her head onto to her lap. She rubbed her eyes and spoke in a very tired voice.
"What time is it?"
"Time for you to go to school."
Saneko looked down and grabbed her phone, turning it on to see that it was 7:00 am, and her class starts at 7:10 am. She scratched her head and sighed.
"I'll just teleport to school."
"Nuh uh missy, you have to walk like everyone else."
"But whyyyyyy?"
"No one has ever heard of a cultivator who has learned teleportation. You'd stand out like a sore thumb."
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Saneko grumbled to herself. The fact her mom wouldn't let her teleport was aggravating for two reasons. Firstly, because she would be late for school again. And secondly, because she wanted to stand out. That was her entire goal. But she didn't want to upset or disappoint her parents. They treated her well after all.
"Alright fine. Just let me change."
Without responding, Mrs. Sarakana walked up to Saneko and touched her lock of hair that would not go down.
"You also need to you get your little cowlick fixed. You look so messy."
Saneko swatted her mom's hand away with an irritated expression.
"No! Now just leave so I can get dressed for school."
"Okay okay."
Mrs. Sarakana left the room and Saneko started putting on her uniform. Despite herself, she really did like the uniform.
As she began to leave the house a few minutes later, she opened the front door and waved to her mom who was in the living room.
"I'm off."
"Have a good day."
"Yeah yeah."
Closing the door, Saneko straightened her suit and walked down the street. The school was a ways off, and she was extremely tempted to teleport, but tried to keep to her word. Saneko then thought about the heroes on the news who worked for the Hero Foundation. They were pretty popular as they had been killing monsters that attacked cities all over the world. She remembered one specific hero who went by the name Light Strike. His powers revolved around his speed.
"Hold on, cultivators might not be able to teleport. But they definitely can upgrade their speed."
This gave Saneko enough validation to do the same. In the blink of an eye, she had arrived at the gate of Anetop Academy. She had a smug expression on her face as she thought to herself about how she technically kept her word.
"See, I didn't teleport. I just ran really fast."
Some people who were walking by saw what had just happened and whispered to each other as they pointed to Saneko who was now walking into the school.
"Did that girl with the horns just teleport?"
"I think so."
Saneko entered the school and walked down the hallways to her class. She was about to put on her main character person again, but there was no one in the hallways, which did seem odd. When she arrived at the HRS class, she opened the door, but no one was there either.
"Was school cancelled? What's going on?"
A teacher that Saneko was unfamiliar with walked down the hallway and peered into the class after noticing Saneko standing there.
"Are you an HRS?"
"Yeah... I mean *ahem*, I am Demon Babe. I was assigned to this class as I have powers beyond your mortal comprehension."
"Umm... okay... well, the rest of the HRS class are outside in the back doing a class project. You should have been told about this yesterday."
Of course, Saneko did remember this. She had just thought about it last night and her memory was perfect after all. She simply didn't know where the project would actually take place, but admitting this was not an option for her.
"Of course I knew. Who do you take me for? I was just retrieving my... stuff."
"You don't need to bring anything. Just go outside."
"Hmph. You don't understand anything do you? Alright, I will go, but just be warned, what I was about to retrieve was incredibly special."
"Special? What was it?"
"Now you'll never know."
Saneko walked down the hallway cryptically with her hands in her suit pockets like usual. In her mind, she played it off perfectly, although the teacher was bewildered. She stared at Saneko walking down the hallway with a baffled expression.
'What just happened?"
When Saneko arrived outside of the school, she walked up to the rest of the class who were paired up in groups. Mrs. Gaud looked up to see Saneko arriving and called out to her.
"Ah, the 'superior being' just arrived. Well, you're late and everyone else is already paired up in group, so I'm afraid you'll have to do this project alone."
"Ha! Excellent. I don't need lowly comrades to assist me in such a trivial task."
"I don't know what else I was expecting out of you. Anyway, all of the other students are trying to use their combined powers to harness an element. Mark and Kal are teamed up and are going up right now. Just watch them."
Saneko turned to see the two boys raising her their arms to the sky. Right above them, a small cloud formed and snow flakes began to fall on them.
"As you can see, harnessing an element can manipulate things such as the weather. It's a fundamental construct, so it's a very important ability to have, even if your use of it is limited. You missed it, but Chloe actually made it rain all around us."
Saneko clicked her tongue and scowled, gazing over at Chloe. She absolutely despised the perfect girl trope. Just knowing Chloe did well was enough to make Saneko want to go up immediately.
"I shall go next."
"Up to embarrass yourself again huh?"
"Deflection deflection. Why am I not surprised. All mortals are the same."
Once Mark and Kal had exhausted their powers, the cloud dissipated and the students clapped for them. Saneko walked up to where they were and all of the students groaned, remembering her from yesterday.
Saneko stood in front of all of them, unsurprisingly, she had both of her hands in her suit pockets. Saneko smirked and began to speak in a commanding tone.
"Under the heavens all things will fall like humans, even the stars and the gods, but one thing is eternal, and that is me."
The students didn't know what was worse, the fact that Saneko just said that, or the fact that she genuinely thought what she said was cool.
Mark, who was now back with the other students, looked over at Chloe and tilted his head. He too remembered Saneko's over confidence and "failure" the day before.
"Why is she even in the HRS class with us? We all know Reader was wrong. And based on the Mr. Contray and Ms. Kay's expressions, they knew too. All she'll do is bring down our reputation."
"Well... I don't know either."
Chloe understood where Mark was coming from. It wasn't just him, everyone in the class felt the same way about Saneko, but Chloe couldn't shake off a sense of unease. Yesterday when Saneko claimed to expand her aura, Chloe felt something. It was like the world in front of her turned a tiny bit darker, but no one else seemed to notice it.
Saneko's teeth were shown off in her cocky smirk, and dark clouds formed all around the school, no, the country. Mrs. Sarakana, who was working on one of her logos, got an alert on her computer that read, "nation-wide thunderstorm."
"Oh Saneko..."
Heavy rain, and even hail began to pour down. The students covered their heads and started screaming. Sana began to scream in terror at what was happening.
"WHY? WHAT'S HAPPENING?"
Power lines snapped all across the nation, leaving WiFi signals down. Emergency sirens rang out and TV channels were all redirected to EAS alarms. The meteorologists had no clue what they were even looking at. Such an event had never happened before.
"This isn't the product of nature."
"Could it be a level 100 monster?"
"Monsters rely on strength, not power. Something like this is the product of God... or The Devil."
Saneko stood still, the wind blowing her hair and suit dramatically. Her purple eyes shined in the darkness of the thunderstorm. Lightning struck behind Saneko as thunder roared. It lit up her body in the darkness. She played it off as cool as she could, but her mind raced with excitement.
"I AM THE COOLEST!"
Mrs. Gaud began to yell to the other students while pointing to the school.
"QUICK! RUN TO THE SCHOOL AND TAKE COVER!"
As the students ran to the school, Saneko realized that with no one to pay attention to her, there was no point to keep this up. She had her fun already, so the clouds started to clear. The students who were running towards the school slowed down and looked up to the sky.
A boy with blue dyed hair and blue eyes to match named Liam Smith was hyperventilating, barely able to speak.
"What... what was that all about?"
"Do you now understand who you are in the presence of?"
Mrs. Gaud, who was also in a state of panic, turned to Saneko and began to scold her.
"Saneko! What the hell are you doing standing there? Can't you see that the weather in unpredictable right now? Do you have a death wish or something?"
Her words confused Saneko. Wasn't it obvious that this was her doing?
"N..no I did that. It was me."
Mrs. Gaud waved Saneko into the school.
"Hurry up! We don't know when something like that might happen again?"
"BUT IT WAS ME!"
The class began to walk into the school, fearing the weather and ignoring Saneko entirely. She immediately ran after them and tried to put on her main character persona again.
"I suppose you are just too horrified to acknowledge my presence right now. I understand.
As Saneko attempted to use reverse psychology to convince the class that she was the cause of the storm that had just happened, Chloe walked behind her, looking at her closely. Everyone else ignored Saneko, more focused on safety, but Chloe knew that something was off.
"What are you Saneko?"