The ending theme of "Farewell Battlers" played as Maria kicked open the door to Lily Class, Year Two, which was currently in use by the Anime Club.
"EMANUEL I JUST FOUND SOMETHING HUGE why are you four crying?" She shouted and cut herself short.
"It's just- I- you wouldn't get it," Emanuel sobbed.
"I told you we shouldn't have watched all of it at once," Dory said, choking back her tears. "'Farewell Battlers' is too good, you need time between episodes."
"O...kay..." Maria said as she looked at her classmates, and the other guy they knew. "Anyways, Emanuel, I think I found something big. Like, something real big."
"What is it?" Emanuel said, standing up and grabbing a tissue from Ken, who was handing them out to everyone.
"You remember how you told me all of that stuff two weeks ago? From that guy you two met?"
"Hi" Ano said as he pretended he was never crying. "It's me, I'm guy."
"Nice meeting you. Anyways, I couldn't find anything about reports of hybrid Feeders outside of Roma- nor has anyone used our tipline to report a hybrid they fought- but I did find something huge."
"Well, out with it already!" Ken said as the four of them gathered around Maria.
"Six months ago- remember, that's when this guy said he first started seeing hybrids, right?"
"This guy has a name," Ano interjected. "I'm Ano, Ano Esposito."
"Yeah great whatev- did you say Esposito?"
"Yeah. That Esposito."
"Damn... I am so sorry..."
"Yeah don't stress."
"Anyway, this guy- Ano- said he started seeing hybrid Feeders six months ago, right? Well, I found a report from a scientific journal; apparently, about six months ago, a group of scientists figured out the exact threshold of blood needed to create a Feeder."
The group went silent, and a collective chill went up their spine.
"You don't mean-" Emanuel whispered.
"Fifteen milliliters," Maria whispered. "If a volume of blood is less than fifteen milliliters, a Feeder won't emerge."
"...What is that, in, like, ounces?" Emanuel said after a moment of silence, embarrassed.
"It's a tablespoon," Maria said.
"Word..." Emanuel said slowly. "How big is a tablespoon? I don't do cooking."
Maria shook her head. "More importantly, do you understand what this means?"
"I do," Dory said, which surprised those gathered. "If a person wanted to, they could collect blood under that amount... and mix multiple different bloods together."
The group looked at each other in stunned silence. There have been historic records of people trying to control Feeders, but never to any avail. Their savage nature prevents them from being tamed in any way- all they seek is bloodshed. Since the Middle Ages, the practice of intentionally creating Feeders has been forbidden under most religions and all forms of government. For a person to go out of their way to not only create Feeders, but hybrids- it spoke to a level of evil and a taste for destruction that few could claim.
"Besides that," Dory continued, her face paling, "a Feeder's power is based on the amount of blood it has consumed. If a Feeder was made from a lot of blood... it would be very, very powerful. If you keep volumes of blood separate, you can control exactly how strong of a Feeder you made."
"Actually, that makes me think-" Emanuel said. "If a Feeder grows from drinking blood, how come it doesn't transform into whatever bled that blood in the first place?"
"Feeder biology is very complicated," Dory replied, smugly. "But it is a subject I am very familiar with. A Feeder does not have a digestive system, but instead it absorbs blood through skin with... 浸透 [osmosis]?" Dory looked at her brother.
"You got me, 知ったことない [no idea]." Ken pulled out his phone to translate.
"Feeders cannot be studied the way animals can," Dory continued once her brother translated for her. "Because they dissolve into ash when they die. The only way to study Feeder is to cut it open while it is alive. From these dissections, we have learned that Feeders do not have a digestive system. They absorb blood directly into their body, and add it to their mass. It can be assumed that the blood added to the mass of the Feeder is transformed from blood into tissue, and as a result loses the properties of the original blood."
Ken clapped for his sister, impressed by how far her English had come. Dory lightly smacked his hands, embarrassed.
"So basically," Ano said, rubbing his head as he struggled to wrap his head around all of the information, "rather than trying to control a Feeder and feed it blood to tame it, this person is trying to make strong Feeders by making a big Feeder from a lot of blood at once?"
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"Essentially," Maria responded, "yes. A genetically modified Feeder, in a sense."
"But why the multiple animals?" Ken rubbed his chin.
Maria thought for some time, then responded: "I would assume, due to the overall recent upward trends in Feeder strength, that this is either an accident or an act of convenience. This person has learned how to create strong Feeders from lots of blood- they might not always have enough blood from one creature on-hand to create a homogenous Feeder."
"A homosexual Feeder?" Ken asked playfully. "No but seriously, what does that word mean."
"It means it's made out of the same thing," Maria answered. Emanuel and Ano pretended he knew what the word meant, and nodded along.
"I get it," Ken said as he not-so-discreetly typed the word into his phone's notes app. "The Feeders have been getting stronger, I've noticed, and you're saying that all of those Feeders are these genetically modified Feeders, and only the hybrids are the ones we've been able to notice as different!"
"Exactly!" Maria agreed.
"Then let's find this motherfucker and kick his ass!" Ken exclaimed, and began to walk out of the classroom.
"Where the hell are you going?" Emanuel asked.
Ken paused, embarrassed. "I- you know, I was, you know..."
The other four laughed at Ken as he walked back into the classroom.
"That does bring us to the next problem," Maria said, wiping a tear from her eye. "We know what is happening, but not who is doing it or why. That should be our next order of business."
"Not to sound like a bitch," Emanuel chimed in after a pause, "but isn't this the part where we pass the baton to some adults? Like, this is some pretty serious stuff."
"It is," Ano said with a hungry gleam in his eyes, "so wouldn't it be that much more impressive if we did it ourselves? Can you imagine what people would say about us if we solved this whole thing?"
"We already did more than enough," Maria said, unnerved by the greed that seemed to overtake Ano. "Emanuel might be right- I think we should pass this on to the higher-ups and let them handle this."
"So, tomorrow?" Emanuel asked, as he prepared to grab his things. "It's already five."
"Actually," Maria responded, "I think Mr. Malzone is still here. He's told me that he usually stays until about seven, though I have no idea what he's doing."
"Well," Ken said, grabbing his own things, "let's go then!"
The five students knocked on the door to the faculty office. They heard no reply, and tested the knob- it was unlocked. They invited themselves into the dark room, seemingly uninhabited. Emanuel nudged Maria, asking her where her teacher was, and Maria reassured them that he would- should- be in here. Ken was the one to spot a dim light in the corner of the room, and the five made their way over. As they made their way between the maze of teachers' desks, they were able to see that the source of this light was a computer- a laptop, manned by their backup teacher, Sylvester Malzone, typing with incredible ferocity in his dark corner. They had frequently seen Malzone working on his laptop, but never exactly what he was doing, and now as they snuck up behind the man, their curiosity was peaked. At last, they came up directly behind him.
"Mr. Malzone!" Ken exclaimed from behind the teacher. "We have big news is that fucking League of Legends?"
Malzone slammed down his laptop in surprise. He turned in his office chair to look at the students, though he eyed his laptop as he did, fearing for his MMR.
"Bah, absolutely not, what do you mean?" he replied. "What is this big news, now?"
"Girl be so for real right now," Emanuel mocked in a disappointed voice, "was that League?"
"Of course not," Malzone glanced back at his laptop, again fearing for how the game was playing out without him, and bracing for the inevitable reports.
"Right..." Maria said as she stepped to the front of the group, to more directly speak with her teacher, trying and failing to hide the disappointment in her own voice. "I- We- came to a breakthrough in the hybrid Feeders case!"
"That's... wonderful. What might this breakthrough be?"
Maria relayed what the group had discovered earlier to Malzone, letting Dory interject as necessary to provide the more technical details. Malzone nodded along slowly, following her every word. Emanuel alone seemed to notice that he did not react with the same abject terror that the five of them had- he assumed that this was due to the adult's age, that he had grown older and wiser and more jaded against shock than the five teenagers, not unlike how his own father acted. Despite his assumption, he kept a close eye on Malzone throughout the explanation, his suspicions raised.
"I see..." Malzone said once Maria had concluded, his monotone voice betraying a lack of interest. "There has been a rather significant increase in the number of Feeder-related casualties as of late... you may be on to something. I will pass this information to the higher-ups."
"Will you?" Emanuel asked, noticing the man's cageyness. "Who do you plan on telling?"
"I will inform the deans and the headmaster-"
"Then let's go do that, right now!" Ano jumped in, seeming to catch on to Emanuel's skepticism. "Headmaster Esposito is my grandpa- I could call him right now and we could all report in."
"Now, I don't think that will be necessary, your grandfather is a very busy man." Sweat began to roll down Malzone's head, and his face began to turn red from exertion.
"Bullshit!" Emanuel shouted, his fists starting to glow blue as he shoved aside Emanuel and Maria as he moved to the front of the group.
"Whoa," Ken stepped back, shocked. "Emanuel, what's gotten into you-"
"This guy's not interested at all," Emanuel answered. "I'm willing to be that he's THE guy."
"Absolutely not, and I should have you expelled for even making the presumption! I've had nothing to do with the Chimeras at all! I will come clean with you, all I have done for the last six months is grind League of Legends!"
The group went silent. Malzone did not understand, and thought over his words, and once he realized what he had said raised a hand to cover his mouth in shock.
"The..." Ano said, heartbroken that Emanuel's suspicions were confirmed. "The whats?" As he said this, he clenched his fist, and a brilliant blue light flashed out of it, illuminating the entire room. He wound up his fist to strike-
In a red flash, everyone had fallen onto the floor. The ringing in Emanuel's head overpowered all thoughts he could attempt to make, leaving him dazed as he attempted to get up, struggling to see through the white spots in his vision. As he rose, he glanced around the room, surprised to see everyone else in a similarly discombobulated state. Everyone except for Malzone, who stood above all of them, surrounded on all sides by eight hallucinatory blue fists, slowly orbiting around him.
"We truly have failed you," Malzone said, shaking his head. "to think our students would resort to violence as their first option- truly, a failure as an instructor."
Emanuel and Ano stood up, followed shortly by Maria, and then Ken, who helped up Dory.
"So you ARE the guy," Emanuel said, clenching his fists.
"I most certainly am not THE guy," Malzone replied. "But I do work under them."
"So you're his henchman?" Ken asked, mockingly.
"I am one of them, yes- wait, fuck, I shouldn't be saying all this, should I?"
"Too late now bucko," Maria mocked as blue light coalesced around her hand, forming into the shape of a rope.
"Oh well..." Malzone looked down at his feet, and as he looked up a murderous glare crossed his face, showing the students a side of their instructor they'd never seen before that chilled them to their cores. "Luckily, you all won't be able to tell anyone when I'm done."