With a groan, Mirai Senshin fluttered her eyes open, finding herself in a dim room she barely recognized as her own dorm. Gazing around the room, it took her a few seconds to realize she had fallen on her side and was resting on her left cheek. Groggily, she pulled herself up into a sitting position, but now her cheek stung with a pink glow on its usual tan complexion.
Rubbing her cheek, she thought, “Perhaps meditating on my bed is smarter.” Saving that thought for later, the blue-eyed maiden shuffled over to the window and brushed the deep blue curtains to the side. Immediately, she shielded her eyes from the sunlight threatening to make her go blind. Once her eyes had adjusted to the brightness, she squinted at the setting Sun and its orange skies. “I may as well go find something for dinner,” she mumbled before pulling her curtains closed.
Taking a moment, the young woman fixed her blouse and pants while slipping on a pair of slippers. Then, after locking her dorm room, she sauntered through the second-floor hallway, until she neared the stairs.
Without taking a step further, she could hear a multitude of conversations. Some spoke of the year’s classes, others chatted about next week’s activities with the utmost excitement, but there was one that got stuck out like a sore thumb.
At the base of the stairs, there was a voice that Mirai recognized. It sounded arrogant, even when complaining, though the logistics of that occurrence went ignored. So, while gritting her teeth, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
“So what are you going to do about it?” An unfamiliar, feminine voice asked.
“I’m going to make that bitch pay for it!” The arrogant boy shouted back. “I spent my entire stash on that sword! Now, it’s fucking shattered!”
“You can’t, Menelaus. Mr. Klein already told everyone that any damages to personal property in a duel are sanctified. So, you can’t just sue her for it.” The girl retorted, her voice growing louder with every word.
Spacing out for a moment, the blue-eyed girl upstairs thought about the situation going down below her. Apparently, she broke the Menelaus guy’s sword and he wants her to pay for it. While she could do that easily, given that it seemed to be fairly cheap, the other girl was right. Since she broke it in a duel, she was only responsible for taking her prize, not paying for collateral damage.
“I don’t give a fuck!” Menelaus shouted, breaking Mirai from her thoughts. “She’s just some cheating bitch! She probably used that Tuning thingy to cheat too! There’s no way she can be so strong!”
Tired of the meaningless chit-chat happening down under, the Tuner steps down and takes a deep breath. “Unfortunately for you, the only cheat I used was my heritage. Surely you will not fault me for who my parents were?” She asked the brunette boy with sarcasm oozing from her mouth.
“I don’t fucking care about your lame-ass excuses!” Menelaus shouted before shoving away a brunette girl to grab Mirai by the collar. “You little cheat! Fight me again!”
Raised on her toes, the Senshin put her hand on the boy’s chest and felt his ribs through his shirt. Ignoring that, she smirked and whispered, “Try me.” Before anyone knew it, Menelaus dropped to the ground, gripping his chest for his life. Stepping back, Mirai grabbed her head, covering her eyes with her hand to soothe the sudden rush of pain.
In the sudden silence that enveloped nearly half of the first floor, Menelaus was the first to recover. When he rose back to his feet, he stumbled back and grabbed the brunette girl he was talking to for support. Then, he removed his hand from his chest. There, on his chest, were five holes, each distinctly thin and sharp, concealing the scrawny body underneath.
After a few more seconds of odd silence, Mirai held onto the railing of the stairs for support and took her hand away from her face. In her fixed glare, all the floor’s occupants were free to see her eyes. Yet, instead of a sapphire blue hue, the orbs were blazing crimson.
“Look away if you know what’s good for you,” she growled out with her canines on display. When her fellow students just continued to stare, she hardened her glare and shouted, “Look away!”
In pure fear, everyone swiveled around. Meanwhile, the now-crimson gaze of Mirai latched onto Menelaus. When their eyes met, all he could do was stumble back with a gaping expression. “Wha… What did you do!?” He exclaimed, drawing the attention of a few brave souls.
Scowling at the cowering brunette, Mirai brought her hands together and just let her mana flow. Responding to her call, the energy erupted from her body in a stream of living flames that snaked around her figure. From her scowl, a sadistic grin grew wide at her latest revelation.
“It’s not what I did, it’s what you did, fool.” She spat out with her cruel gaze preying on the sweater-wearing student. “But you can’t even recognize it. A pity.” She rambled on as the flames continued its dance around her. “A Catalyst contains some of the purest mana. But the purer mana is, the less inclined to an element it becomes. So, let’s just say, you got me so mad that I’m boiling with anger!”
From her spot beside Menelaus, the brunette girl stared at Mirai in a mixture of awe and confusion. “I’ve heard of emotionally-stunted transformations… but seeing it is so… so…”
“Insane? Terrifying? Oh, there are so many words you could use. But let’s settle on astounding. Yes, yes, that’s an excellent description,” Mirai rambled on while her flames began to flicker and grew closer to her body. “Hm? It seems our little meet-and-greet is over. Guess I’ll just kill you some other time, brats.”
With a sudden tremor, Mirai went through a head-splitting wave of energy, making her feel as if every limb of her body was pulled away from each other. Thankfully, it was over as soon as it came.
Shaking her head, she gazed around at the startled expressions on the onlooker’s faces. Not giving so much as a word to the small crowd, she strolled away and left the dormitories.
She knew her eyes had gone from sapphire to crimson, and finally, silver, but no one needed to tell her that.
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After a long walk, a silver-eyed Mirai arrived at the core of Lumír’s school, the cafeteria. And… the brown-haired girl from earlier was standing right in front of the doors.
Not letting the moment faze her, Mirai walked up to her and stopped. “Excuse me,” she muttered, yet the brunette stayed still. Raising her melodic voice, she repeated, “Excuse me,” with the hope that her tone was sincere rather than neutral.
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She stood still. No words needed to be said. The only thing shared between the two was a cold gaze.
“What was that?” She asked, finally breaking the silence. When Mirai feigned ignorance, the brunette crossed her arms. “You know what I mean. The whole eye thing. What was it?”
“Ah, this one is the bossy one. Figures,” Mirai absentmindedly noted. “It is part of being a Catalyst-turned-Tuner, I suppose. I doubt it has been recorded into any book, considering my situation is already unique. For now, you should pay it no mind and move on. It has never been too troublesome for me to remain calm under most pretenses, so unless you want to die, you will be relatively safe.”
Waiting for her to move, Mirai looked behind her at the bustling cafeteria. Though the girl just continued to stay still, feet planted firmly in front of the doors.
“We are far from done,” the taller girl growls out. “You aren’t stable and I need to understand that power. If there’s nothing like it, then that’s even more of a reason to study it!” She exclaimed, only for the two to enter a period of silence again.
That silence remained unbroken until Mirai’s stomach rebelled against it and growled. “Perhaps we can discuss this over supper.”
In an attempt to dispel the awkward moment, the brunette nodded and stepped out of the way.
Before either of the girls knew it, they were seated at a circular table across from each other. In front of Mirai was a bowl of rice porridge filled with various extra ingredients while the brunette kept a medium-rare steak close to her. Beginning her meal, Mirai expected a barrage of questions or speculations, either one would annoy her really. Thankfully it was held off until the third sip of her porridge.
“Do you even know what that thing was?” She asked, her food untouched.
“Not exactly, but I can make plenty of hypotheses.” The now-silver-eyed girl responded. “The most prominent of which is possible with several people, but I highly doubt they would attempt to accomplish something even remotely similar.”
“And that would be?”
“Creating a mental space, undergo the Tuning Ritual, allow one of the Senshin family’s spirits to nestle within that mental space, and only enter it after three months of adjustment.” She briefly listed with her eyes trained on her food rather than her (unwanted) companion. “Of course, the danger to your mana reserves and mind alone should be enough to draw away most people, but the legality of such a situation may reinstate the death sentence.”
For a few seconds, the brunette just stares. “Senshin family spirit?”
“Spirits. Plural.” The Senshin corrects automatically. “The Senshin family has basically monopolized the ability to interact with spirits. So, unless you have some Senshin genetics, you would have to go under a ritual to even hear a spirit—which my family has also monopolized.”
“Spirits? You mean like the Arcane Spirits?”
“Not like. We literally work with the Arcane Spirits on a personal level. There was even someone who wrote a book about a crazy person who fell in love with a ghost, but that turned out to be a very distant cousin of the Senshin family that could only see the spirit he was bonded to.” She rambled, indifferent about all the information she was spilling to the girl whose name she had yet to learn. “But eat your food before it gets cold. It tastes better warm.”
Muttering something about a mother hen, the brunette sliced off a sliver of her steak with her gaze still following the silver-eyed girl. For a brief period of silence, the two just continued eating.
“It is rude to stare,” Mirai spoke up when she finished the last of her porridge. “Though if you are trying the solve the infinite puzzle that is me, then just ask for a hint.”
The brunette expected some sort of malicious or snarky smile to curl up on the girl’s lips. Instead, her expression remained neutral and her silver eyes shone toward the other girl’s chubby cheeks. She avoided eye contact was just the third thing that the brunette had taken note of.
After a few more seconds of staring, the brown-eyed girl asked, “Why do you speak like that?”
“The answer you seek has many layers; are you sure you want to know?” Mirai asked with half-lidded eyes rising to meet the chocolate sheen of her peer.
“I’m sure.”
Letting out a sigh, the silver-eyed girl answered her, “My dialect stems from the need to maintain a visage and watch what I say to my elders, though the former may become especially useful very soon. It is similar to formal vernacular, where using contractions is fairly uncommon and addressing someone by his or her family name is polite,” she noted before sharpening her gaze. “Speaking of which, you have yet to introduce yourself.”
Blinking as she took in that information, the brunette cleared her throat. “I am Sophia Gardnir. Apologies for not addressing that matter at an earlier time,” she said in a tone that made it seem like a stick was stuck up her butt. “God, how do you keep that up? I feel like I was going to choke.”
“You did look quite uncomfortable, Miss Gardnir,” Mirai remarked with the expected snarky tone repressed by her ever-calm demeanor. “Perhaps you should go back to asking a multitude of questions that no one has thought to ask.”
“Oh, I will take you up on that matter,” she awkwardly replied with her half-finished meal waiting to be eaten in front of her. “Then, what about other Catalysts? Are they like you?”
Humming along with her thoughts, Mirai eventually found her answer when Sophia resumed eating. “All Catalysts share some similarities, but just as other Attuned differ, we differ too. So, while our reserves are pure and contain nearly every element, that range varies considerably. Naturally, that principle applies to most aspects of what makes us unique, but I believe you wanted to know if they will suffer from whatever abstruse power has been given to me. Of that, I am unsure.”
“Which means that it could happen, but it’s something you don’t understand yet?” Sophia asked with a raised eyebrow and a raised fork that held her next piece of meat.
“Precisely,” Mirai nearly clapped, but something urged her to remain still. “Now, do you have any questions on topics that would be more relevant to our studies?”
“Well, what electives are you taking?”
“I believe I am taking each, save for herbology.”
“Really? Why not?” The brunette asked, leaning closer until her stomach pressed against the edge of the table.
Glancing around the cafeteria, the silver-eyed girl sighed. “Truly, I believe I would find little use in it, even if I become a healer or alchemist. Plants are fascinating specimens, but I simply do not see it as a viable tool in the future.”
“Which includes…”
“Family matters, Miss Gardnir,” she finished with a hint of a threat boiling underneath her mask of perfect emotionless. “Surely you had not assumed I would settle down for something dangerous now, would you?”
“I suppose not,” the other girl grumbled.
“If you would, we have time for one more question before it is too dark to walk back.” Motioning toward the windows, the two noticed the fading orange hue coating the scenery.
Despite this, Sophia just tilted her head. “Don’t you use warp gates?” By the smaller girl’s lack of response, the brunette giggled mockingly. “Are you serious? You can use warp gates to get all around the academy! Walking would be a nightmare for your feet!”
“Duly noted.” Now it was Mirai’s turn to grumble.
“And for my last question, why have you answered my questions for so long?”
Pausing at that thought, Mirai was tempted to shrug and leave. Instead, she did something sincere and came up with the best logical answer. “I suppose I find your company oddly tolerable. Though it is pleasant to find someone with such a thirst for knowledge, even if this information is quite readily available in Lumír’s facilities.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” Sophia exclaimed, bursting up from her seat.
“I assure you, I am not.” The shorter girl teased before standing up as well. “Now, would you do the honor of showing me to these warp gates?”
“Sure, but I’m sitting next to you in class tomorrow.”
“Noted.”