A sea of faces moving in an unseen current, flowing like water to their destinations like a wide river down the aisles, There were plasma screens of arrival and departure times on the wall, in the arrivals lounge there was a curious mixture of bored and excited people. Amongst them, there was a girl with a blue ponytail and a man with spiky hair. Nana held a whiteboard that scribbled with 'Akamine Riku'.
Not long after, a young woman, younger than Nana, more precisely still a girl came to them, Shima welcomed her like an old friend, there was a casualness on his tone that wasn't quite right for the VIP guest. Both of them took her to a black SUV car. Shima pushed the button on his key, a beeping sound resounded from the car, inside it was a white leather seat, and it was big enough to accommodate 8 people. Nana helped the girl putting her baggage inside the trunk, though, she only brought one baggage and one plastic bag.
"How's New York?" Said Shima with a big grin, the kind that was so wide it was more as if he didn't bother to hide the hidden meaning
"Hm? Not bad. Ah, are you new?" The girl that named Riku, took something from a plastic bag and handed it to Nana
"Yes, ma'am! My name is Nanami Nana! Nice to meet you, and sorry for the trouble." Said Nana in a military tone, she acted weird because this was her first escort mission. Nana carefully grabbed the souvenir, because of the bumpy ride, their finger met, it was only an instant but Nana can feel that Riku hand was far rougher than hers, and the souvenir was (Mochi? and the package is from Narita Airport!?) Said Nana inside her mind.
Shima on the other hand, looking back and forth at her with the rearview mirror. "Oh, I don't have anything for you."
A slight looked of disappointment and relieved painted on Shima's faces. "I guess some people never change, anyhow an eye-patch again? did something happen with the artificial eye?"
"Hm? Yeah, It sometimes reflects the light, making it hard for the stealth mission."
A wavy, long and short, coiled around, her ivory-colored hair was a definition of untreated hair. There was a claw mark on her right cheek, and her right eye was covered in black eye-patch
**
A girl, a first year she saw, walking through the 3rd floor with a plastic bag on her hand, her long hair that hanging around at her right shoulder moved elegantly everytime she walked, her white skin that resembled a snow attracted the gaze of the other male students, she stopped at the door of class 2-4 and peeked inside.
There she saw a young man with a black man-bun hair, his head rested against the chair, he opened his mouth widely, a drool coming out from the bottom right of his mouth, his body slightly slipped halfway through the chair, at his side there were two others young man, one with a big body and thin mustache, the other was a tall man with very long hair and squared chin.
"You're an [Ability] user, right? are you looking for someone?" A girl with round glasses, her hair didn't even reach the bottom of her neck, she gave a slightly mature vibe.
"....Kamiya Nashi." Said Kurogane.
"Oh, work related? Takuya, could you wake Kamiya up?" The same girl yelled in a perfect tone, it wasn't loud nor small enough.
The thin mustache man named Takuya made a 90-degree angle with his hand. "WAKE UP!" and he did a karate chop at Nashi head.
****
My parents were shot, an Ivory haired girl turned to me, she did a karate chop at my head and said: "WAKE UP!"
"GAH!? the fuck!?" I woke up because of a shock and saw a number '1' flying out from my body.
"Tch, this is a revenge, didn't we promised to stay single until the day we graduate!?" What the hell... I still hadn't sorted my thought and he already said something nonsense... Ah, a Golden dot with a letter of Kurogane Yukino written above it standing in front of the door.
"...What kind of promise is that?" I rubbed my head, wiped my drool, stood up and walked to the door.
"Something matter?" Without saying a single word, she gave a plastic bag to me, I grabbed it and peeked inside.
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"Oh, my blazer, sorry to bother, but you don't need to come this way only to give it back."
"...The others already at the roof." Ah, already a lunch break huh, I vaguely can sense a jealous look from Takuya and Daisuke.
I turned my head around. "Sorry dude, I need to go with her."
"Tch! you already forget about us!" Said Takuya while he pretended to cry. Daisuke was... daydreaming? He glared at Kurogane with his sharp eyes and didn't even blink.
Anyhow, we walked to the roof and had a lunch, compared to the first day, the air was far more lively, conversation flowed like a river, everything from gossiping the teacher, math, an anime, sudden surge of Bear Shark appearance and many more.
"How about doing some request?" Said Asato.
"We have a training schedule today." Replied Kyo. Serizawa followed his words with a small nod.
"Sorry, we need to do something else either," I replied to him, yeah, last night right after I got home Akechi called me through the specialized phone, he didn't explain anything though.
"We? ah, I guess a C-rank must be busy huh, even though you guys aren't an officer." Asato replied back at my word.
"Well... you can go with Julia, she said she usually did a request and Monday and Friday."
"It's fine, I guess I'll just playing at the arcade."
"Is that so, ah right, Kurogane, could you wait for me inside your class? you have a tendency of being late after all."
"...Yeah, fine."
Though, after school over, I walked to the 2nd floor and only saw 3 Golden dots, well, this was a good thing right?. I opened the door of class 1-1 and saw Kurogane, she sat precisely right in the middle of the classroom, while some other student joking around at the class, she silently waited while reading a book with a straight posture.
"Oi~" I called to her, some others student looked at me when I said this, I guess an 'Oi' wasn't a good word for calling out someone. She stopped her reading, closed her book, put it back into her bag and walked to me, a light tapping sound faintly can be heard in the midst of waves of laughter.
We took a bus to the meeting place. Both of us sat side to side without saying any word, until she covered her nose and mouth with both of her hands and sneezed. A faintly high-pitched sneeze that came out from her mouth broke the silence atmosphere.
"God bless."
"....Sorry." *sigh* This was the only conversation we had until the bus reached our destination, we dropped down and walked quite a bit until we were at the front of a high brick wall topped with broken glass and razor wire, a shed with a security window stood with a black-yellow striped plank blocked the way in. A man with White dot pointed his head out of the window, his ears were full of piercing, another piercing located at the bottom of his mouth, two on the corner top of his left eye and a tribal tattoo can be seen at his neck.
"What are you looking for?" Said the tattoed man, faintly I can saw his name tag, it was written with Sada Morio, The same name written at the top of his White dot, replaced the 'Man A' that written before.
"Ah, Mori Akechi called us," I replied to him, he looked at me for a while and whispered something, it was only a glimpse but his White dot blinked into a Golden one.
"Oh? Are you an [Ability] user? How do you do that?" I can't help but ask.
"Ah, you're that [Mini Map] boy, right? I see, come in." He..he ignored my question. Morio pushed something from his shed and the wooden plank raised up.
We walked in and found ourselves in the middle of piles of dead and broken cars, waiting to be fed into the crusher. "Keep following the path and don't touch anything" Yelled Morio from behind.
Me and Kurogane silently walked, the scenery of wasteland filled with the rusting carcasses, heaped on top of the other. " [Map] " I said and I stopped walking, A Map with 39 Kilometer radius showed up, I moved my eyes, zooming it in and out, moving it around until I found another two dots stood still at the center of this iron graveyard.
"...New [Ability]?"
"Yep, well.., this isn't that useful, oh, by the way, I forgot to ask, but what is your level right now?"
"...3"
Kurogane: Cat Folk 5/5 [Cat Claws 1/5, Cat Senses 0/5] Force Claw 0/5, Rage 0/5. She spent her stats at AGI and STR.
"Oh? [Cat Folk] isn't [Free Ability]?"
"...No, it is [Mana Ability]"
"Hee..." Right, the three type of [Ability] the [Free] one like [Mini Map], or [Daily Spin] we can use this as many times as we wanted, or as long the condition was fulfilled. [Mana Ability] can be used as long as we had enough MP to pay, and [Stamina Ability] with SP ah, we arrived.
Akechi with his characteristic neat slick hair and next to him was a girl with red short hair seemed older than me. She wore the same colored green-white uniform, but it had the military vibe, rather than our white long sleeved shirt that etched with Rank emblem on our collar, the colored jacket, and trouser that reached down to just above our ankles. She wore a sleek green-white shirt with 4 Stars etched on her right shoulder, her shirt loosely hanging over her white leather trousers, a big belt tied the shirt from the outside, an additional sama colored vest covered her body and a pair of black boots that almost reached her knees.
"Oh, they're here, Leiko, stay with the girl, and you come with me."
I followed him from behind, he walked further into the depth of junkyard, after 15 minutes walking, I can hear the sound of something crashed down at a distance. "Oh, they already begin." Said Akechi.
He lighted up a big brown cigar and turned his body toward me.
"All right, let's begin your training, it's simple, try to turn off the fire on my cigar." Said Akechi while he removed his tie and blue-white jacket.