9:45 A.M on the 8th of April 2024.
Cherry trees are blooming…birds are chirping…and I’m taking a stroll, skipping classes like always.
Even if I agreed to the contract of that devil of miss Kamiya…well I’m not going to make her life any easier.
She wants to tame me into a normal and proper student?
“What a dumbass!
Who does she think I am?
A pre-teen that is charmed by her adult look and voluptuous body hoping to be her pupil and toyboy?
Well…NOPE!
I am the legendary and scummiest student in the newest “International University” of the Deneb "metro-state", Brain Eater!
And I swear on my whole collection of "vanilla tag" r-18 comics that my determination and purity SHALL NEVER FALL for that old hag!”
These were the thoughts I proclaimed in my mind, in the middle of the courtyard of the campus, in front of the entrance of the northern building... or at least I thought I was only thinking.
Because… I now notice that I’m being stared from a bit round and chubby tall man, sit on the bench under the cherry tree at my right, that wears a grayish-blue gym suit and a light gray hat with a visor.
Upon the suit, he also wears a really large green apron that fits the extra-large size of this man…whose eyes are barely visible since now he has a serious expression on his face and his very big and bushy eyebrows are partially covering them.
This man has is the perfect description of the lived man.
He’s also hairy and it seems that he cares a lot of his shaved beard with a smooth goatee…
But all of that masculinity and manly feeling I get from him…. goes away once I see the flip-flops with strawberries he wears and I realize he is drinking some banana juice boxes that are sold to elementary school kids.
But, will the case…that this singular figure it’s a dear acquaintance of mine.
Yeah…there’s no mistakes.
I could never forget the name on that access badge and the :
Wind Groceries: they come to your house fresh, delicious, and fastly! written on the apron.
“No matter what you wear or do…you always look like you have seen something that makes you want to… cover your eyes. Am I right, Benkei?”
I’m trying to break the ice with this joke…but I remembered too late with who I am talking with.
Even if he looks like a goofy character from some children cartoon or anime…the name of this man is Hirabayashi Benkei…no…my bad… he is THE Hirabayashi Benkei, one of the “Four Heavenly Kings of Chiba” or known as “The Sturdy Bear of the Mountains, Benkei”.
He used to be one of the most Influent “Yankii gangs” leaders in the “Old Chiba” prefecture.
And even If nowadays he’s just a grocery seller…well, I bet my ass that I would be at the hospital if the one that slapped me before was Benkei and not Tsurugi.
I am already mentally prepared to implore the immense beast in front of me to let me live another day… but he suddenly decides to open his mouth:
“Ohhhhhh….Those green eyes and the heavy bags under them...See if he’s not Guren’s son!
You were telling me something?”
SAFE! He didn’t even notice me!
“No, not really. It just happened that I was walking around and chilling a little bit... once I saw you from afar drinking here with a rather perplexing face.
There is something wrong?”
The large man drinks up his juice and got up from the bench, within his arms a collection of empty boxes of what it seems his favorite drink, and he starts to walk towards the nearest trash can while gesturing to me to follow him.
“Uh…I seem so worried even from afar? How could you tell it, young Ashikaga?” he asks.
“Well…yeah…kinda. You look like you have seen hell.
Usually, I can see at least half of your eyes.
Today instead I’m seeing only a shadow under your eyebrows.”
My answer made the bear of the mountains stop for a brief moment, before restarting to walk at a slow pace.
“Ohi, Ashikaga… my eyebrows are that thick?”
“Sorry Benkei…but yes, they are.
They are the thickest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I’m sorry ”
“…Kuhahahahahahahah!”
After responding from the bottom of my rotten soul to that question, the Old-Boy started laughing nonstop and tasting every single drop of the sincere laughs I’m now hearing…
“I see that you are always blunt regarding this topic! Kuahahahaha!
What a little rascal you are, Ashikaga! Kuahahahaha!”
…But once we trashed the boxes and started to return at the entrance of the northern building…all of that brief amusement it’s already gone and now it seems that he wants to give voice to his troubles:
“I was thinking about the south area of what it was the Chiba prefecture… and how everything changed so fastly.”
I am now staring at the face of Benkei.
I can’t figure out what he’s thinking without seeing his eyes... but for most of the people that were born in the last century, this historical period it’s harsher of how already it is.
From that cursed 21st December of 2012... humanity it’s gone through an incredible rush in developing our technologies. Technologies…that could make us live for at least another day.
Starting from that day… humanity lost 70% of its territories in one week to pitch-black abominations that fall from the cracks that appeared in the sky.
Those creatures were of the most bizarre forms: someone looked like earth animals, other like fishes, and other ones like some strange kind of mutant entities.
But what they have all in common… it’s the fact that they don’t watch in face anyone and kill without giving any sign of emotions or hunger when doing that.
They are walking, flying, and swimming incognito to us humans… and so we started to call them like that: Enigmas.
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Now, 12 years later… we, the survivors of that catastrophe, live inside the energy barriers emanated from the “Alphanium Reactors” located inside the territories of each different metro-state.
And for someone like Benkei, with a free and untamable spirit… the idea of settle down in one area for the rest of his life cause it’s the only place safe where is located “the mineral of miracles”…well it must be suffocating.
“Are you sick of living inside the barrier?” I ask.
“It’s nothing like that, young man.
Me not going around and travel for the whole country it’s not anymore an idea in my noggin since a lot.
It’s just…”
“It’s just?”
“…I still not accomplished a promise…a promise to your old man.”
Silence falls between us and the only sound we can hear it’s the soft blow of the wind.
“I…no, we promised to him to take you someday to see the stargazing spot were we used to drink at night”
“The stargazing…spot?”
The bear smiled in response to my curiosity before continuing to talk:
“Yeah, there is a pretty clearing with a lake near your old hometown.
I, your father, the other Heavenly Kings, and our subordinates used to group there each full moon night to toast to our alliance and our future together…as a big family.
A pretty questionable family, yeah, but still a family.”
I let a sincere smile break through my face, thinking about what a pleasant situation it could have been if at the time I was there, toasting and partying with them
“Under those stars, we expressed our wishes at that time.
One wished to become a chef, another wished to buy the motorbike of his dreams…and your father met for the first time and proposed to your mother under that sky.”
While hearing that I lift my head, towards the sky, trying to view with my imagination the dazzling stars and comets of hopes that Benkei it’s now describing.
…But I can’t.
Now the sky is shining with some hexagons made from the radiations of the barrier...and remembers me of the fact that we live in a cage.
An enormous container that stops us to reach heaven and freedom.
“The stars… I don’t like them.” I say to the man next to me while in my mind flashes the memories of the light entity that took everything away from me.
And suddenly…I feel the big hand of Hirabayashi on my shoulder, holding to me while he speaks:
“Ren… trust me...they are not so bad.
They are like us.
They are bright and aliments our fantasies… but in the end… sometimes they feel lonely, powerless, and without hopes in the immense vastity of the dark universe.
But..if you show how amazing, unique, and unreplicable they are…they are going to caress you with their light and take you out from the darkness.”
“Ahh... since when you like to give enigmatic pieces of advice?
You know I also understand rarely this kind of stuff.”
The giant laughs for a brief moment after my reaction and gives me a couple of smacks on my back.
“Try your best. Your 22 years old bright brain should resolve it in no time.
I already delivered the groceries to the campus canteen a while ago…so I guess I need to take my leave.
The van’s still packed with stuff to deliver.
See you around, rascal.”
"Yeah see you around, Old-Boy.”
The bear-like “titan” waved his hands at me and starts to walk towards the main gate of the university… but he suddenly stops to ask me one last question:
“Ohi, Ashikaga, before I forget….”
“Yeah, spit it out Benkei. What’s up?”
“You aren’t bullied, right? You have a BIG, red slap mark on your face!”
…Damn it.
If Benkei knows about my attitude in class and the fact that I’m bullied…he’s going to destroy and rebuild ten times the whole campus!
Come on brain, don’t leave me alone now!
Tongue, say something!
I…I…I…
“I groped a girl and she slapped me.”
…
The wind’s now breezing on my completely drenched in sweat face.
It’s futile to resist.
I am now ready to take the divine judgment from the titanic palms of Hirabayashi… or I should say “I was”?
…
Yeah, I should.
Because it seems that the only response that I’m going to get from him will be… a thumbs up while he cries emotionally.
And so here I am, watching at the back of that lived man.. that is making tears upon tears while he walks towards the main gate.
But, what is the reason for that sudden cry…no one will ever know that.
Anyway…guess that now I’ll go to where I originally planned: the rooftop of the northern building.
Yeah… the cove of us, “the three calamities” of this campus!
...
10:05 A.M on the 8th of April 2024.
Our hero finally entered the northern building…but what he doesn’t know is that his “vengeful joker” lifestyle… will reach an end in less than a week.
A peculiar individual started a phone call in a cafè not too far away from Ren’s location:
“Yes, I’m located at point S and I just accomplished my mission.
I confirm… he entered in contact with “Armored Pleiad”
It will not take too much before he starts to awaken…what we are going to do, Boss?”
The voice on the other end of the call sighed and fall silent for a couple of second before proclaiming this:
“It’s time, mate.
…Let operation “Sirius” begin!”