"Welcome to Griffin Academy. Are you a returning student or a newcomer?" The old man asks as he looks up from the mass of papers on the table.

"Newcomer," a boy's voice answers frankly. His dull brown eyes stare back at the old man as he is speaking.

"Name?"

"Phoenix."

The old man's eyebrows raises. "That's a name I haven't heard of in a while... Wasn't there a Phoenix a few years ag‒"

"Maybe. Are you finished?"

"A few more things. I need to check your age. Give me your hand."

Phoenix hesitates, before slowly giving the decrepit geezer his hand. He shivers as the cold, wrinkly, hand feels his.

"Hmmm? I thought only girls get manicures..." The old man mutters when he finds no blemishes on the boy's hands whatsoever. As if they are perfectly sculpted. The old man feels the boy's hand for a few seconds before letting go, allowing Phoenix to quickly retract his hands and wipe them furiously on his shirt.

"Bone age, 14." he says as he's writing it down. "One last thing and you'll be finished. Bring this slip to the man in the red up ahead and he'll grade your Gift."

Phoenix shudders as the old man mentions "Gift", confusing the old man. A trace of pain flashes in Phoenix's eyes before returning to his usual calm expression.

"Sorry, I thought I saw a ghost. It must be the heat getting to me." Phoenix laughs while scratching his head.

"..."

Youngsters these days. The old man shakes his head inwardly.

The old man hands Phoenix a little yellow slip but notices the boy doesn't move at all afterwards.

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

"My friend," Phoenix responds frankly once again before looking towards the next boy in line.

"Another weirdo." The old man rolls his eyes. He doesn't pay much attention to it though. There were all sorts of freaks and eccentrics in the Academy. With the amount of enrollments in the school there was only a minuscule chance that they would ever cross paths ever again.

"Name?"

"Tyrmes"

"...Bone age 14. Now go follow your little friend. He knows the way." The old man hands Tyrmes a similar yellow slip and shoos them both away.

Tyrmes walks over to Phoenix, whose expression looks a little dark.

"Are we really doing this?" he asks Phoenix.

"If I go home now, my mom's gonna nag me for years on end for not going. Which is arguably worse than risking death by going here."

"You'd rather die than get nagged by your mom for a bit?"

"Years, Tyrmes. Not a bit. Years. And yeah. I would literally rather die than go back home and listen to that for another year."

Phoenix shudders as he remembers all of the nagging he had been enduring the past few years.

Everyday, every few hours or so, his mom would start mumbling to nobody in particular. The funny thing was, instead of mumbling, it sounded more like loud pleading. And although she was mumbling to herself, everyone in the house, which was Phoenix's little brother and himself could clearly tell that she was talking about Phoenix.

"Oh I remember when Phoenix was in elementary school. He had so many friends! Everytime I picked him up everyone would be surrounding us outside of the classrooms. Kids would line up to give my little man a goodbye hug every day. He was such a handsome boy too with his sharp clothes that I picked out for him and his dashing short hair."

Then she would start swaying dramatically. Her expression was like that of a pious follower praying at the gods watching over her.

"Now my son won't even let me cut his hair anymore, and he wears oversized thrift clothing that he bought himself. Not to mention. He stopped talking to everyone at school...How did my son become like this? God's...give me back my son!"

Phoenix's eyes would always be rolled up so far back that one would only see the whites as he heard his mom's wails. And if he ever asked her to stop complaining about him. It'd be even worse.

"Oh so I'm not even allowed to be concerned for my son anymore? I'm a person in this household too and I can't be allowed to have my own thoughts? My son has abandoned me! He's going to leave me when I'm old in a nursery home and forget about me!"

And that would also be about the time where Phoenix would lose his will to live and try to snuff himself out with a pillow.

Nobody should ever have to go through such mental torture.

"That's harsh bro, your mom's such a nice lady."

"Nice doesn't mean she doesn't nag. In fact, I'd argue that she nags more because she's so nice.

You tell me then. If your mom nagged you for a year. Every. Single. Day. To do something with your life. And the only thing to stop her from nagging you was to go here and risk dying, would you go?"

Tyrmes laughs. He recalls the countless times that Phoenix came over and overheard his mother ranting about him out loud. "Alright. You got me there."

"Exactly." Phoenix starts to walk again.

"What if people find out you're here?" Tyrmes adds which makes Phoenix stop in his tracks.

"What if they do?" Phoenix adjusts his messy hair bun as he speaks calmly. "What are they gonna do?"

"I heard that Jacques and the others applied earlier this morning."

Phoenix goes silent for a moment. There is a conflicted look in his eyes for a split second before he returns to his usual composed self. "Jacques won't do anything. He's just an idiot. Even if he did, we'll cross that bridge when we reach that riverbank."

"I hope so."

Phoenix and Tyrmes heads over to the man wearing red. The man looks at both boys for a moment and shakes his head.

"Jeez… the recruits just get sadder and sadder looking every year." The man looks at both kids in disdain.

Tyrmes's expression immediately turns into annoyance while Phoenix remains unmoved.

"Follow me." The man gestures into the building he was standing behind.

The building is small and wooden, with a large empty space in the middle. Lined up on the other side of the empty space was a group of wooden dummies.

"Okay kids. Now show me what you can do."

Phoenix and Tyrmes both stare at the man with a mixture of confusion and fascination. There is a moment of awkward silence as they stare at the man.

"..."

The man coughs as he shakes his head inwardly. I don't get paid enough for this.

"This is the test to determine what grade you're put in. The more damage you can do to the dummies, the higher your grade. You can only use your Gift. Go on."

A flash of realization hits both Phoenix and Tyrmes after hearing the man's explanation.

Tyrmes walks over to the dummy and his expression becomes focused. The man who is watching the two of them notices Tyrmes's shadow flicker for a second.

A control type? His gift shouldn't be too bad. The man thinks to himself.

He then looks at the other boy and almost stumbles. The boy was standing in front of the dummy and was waving his hand in front of it.

A minuscule layer of dust is slowly being removed from the wooden dummy. It is barely noticeable. The man has to get up closer to actually notice any changes to the dummy. The sadder thing is that the larger dust bunnies stay on the dummy as if they weren't even affected by the boy's efforts.

"Boy, what is your gift?" The man walks up to Phoenix and asks.

"Gift of Filter." Phoenix replies monotonously as if already expecting that question.

"Gift of Filter? Isn't that the gifts of those wussies working in cosmetic stores who use it to extract blackheads from pores?"

"Yes sir."

"The gift that has never been seen at this academy before because of it's useless practicality in a life and death fight?"

"That's the one sir."

Lord have mercy.

The man stares at the boy in front of him who was just a second ago having trouble moving the larger dust bunnies from the dummy in pity. A dog's fart could legitimately do more than this kid.

"Why did you, with such a weak cosmetic type gift, join the school?"

"My mom wanted me to make more friends."

The man's eyelids convulse uncontrollably as he almost coughs up a mouthful of blood. At that moment, he couldn't help but feel like finding and pummeling the parents to death for making their kid join for such a stupid reason.

"Boy, I'm warning you now. Griffin Academy specializes in combat. This is no place for a cosmetic type gifted like you. After you join the academy, it'll be difficult to quit if you feel like you can't take it. If students could quit anytime they wanted, where would our face go? "

"I'm aware," Phoenix nods. He didn't say anything else. Which makes the man slightly annoyed.

The man shakes his head.

Cheeky brat. It's your funeral. Well, at the very least, the other kid should be doing okay.

The man turns his attention to Tyrmes and finds that his wooden dummy was also untouched.

"What happened?" he walks over with bewilderment written all over his face.

Tyrmes looks at him in confusion.

"Nothing. Why?"

"...What do you mean nothing? You have the gift of Shadow right? You should have been able to do some damage to the dummy."

"I mean nothing happened to the dummy. I guess I'm just too weak ahaha." Tyrmes laughs, his golden wavy hair bouncing up and down.

A cosmetic type and control type who are both more useless than dog farts... Both these brats are wastrels! His face turns red with anger as his veins nearly pop out of his forehead.

"Never… in my thirty years here… have I seen such a pathetic demonstration of gifts! F grades for both of you! Take these forms to the student office to get your schedules. Both of you are making my eyes sore by just existing. Now get!"

"Yes sir!" Phoenix and Tyrmes salute and sneak away before the man is aggravated any further.

As they are walking to the student office, Phoenix turns to Tyrmes and asks, "Why didn't you do anything to the dummy?"

Tyrmes rubs his nose and says sheepishly. "I was gonna, but then I saw you sweeping the dust off the dummies. Hahaha.

If I didn't do the same, wouldn't we end up in different classes?"

"You're so stupid sometimes. They're going to only bully me here. You have a chance to make a name for yourself at this place. It's worse to follow me around here and get involved.

"So what? We're sworn brothers right?" Tyrmes laughed, "You did the same for me back then."

"Idiot." Phoenix mumbles under his breath. He tries to say it with a stern expression but was unable to hide his smile.

They continue to walk down one of the paths. Soon, they reach a large stone building with beautiful glass tiles decorating it. The radiant glass was arranged to say "Student Office".

"Damn this place is nice!" Phoenix exclaims as they enter. "This place makes me feel more like a bum than usual."

"Oh so you knew you were a bum?" Tyrmes asked sarcastically.

"Shut up you mongrel."

"If anyone is dressed like a mongrel here, it'd be you."

"No, you."

"No, your face."

"We can't all dress edgy and drape-y like you, Tiramisu. Not everyone has such… extreme… tastes." Phoenix gestures to Tyrmes's beige turtleneck and black cotton drape coat.

Tyrmes gasps as if he had been slapped across the face. "How dare you! Our mom's have the same job. Don't tell me that you can't do better than thrift t-shirts and basketball shorts."

Now it was Phoenix's turn to gasp in offense. "How dare… you! You're just mad because your mom still buys your clothes for you. At least I'm not constantly feeling like a giant beanie is suffocating me!"

"What did you just say?"

"Ahem…" The girl standing behind the receptionist desk coughs lightly. She had been standing there the whole time Phoenix and Tyrmes had been bickering.

"..."

"..."

"..."

Phoenix gives Tyrmes a look and then hands the girl his papers.

Tyrmes returns the look more fiercely as he slams his papers down on the desk.

The girl writes some things down and then hands them two fancy looking watches.

"These watches should be with you at all times. They have a setting to project your ID, your schedule, your merit points, and an emergency button in case you're in trouble. You can also message and call your fellow classmates with this interface."

She demonstrates by taking out her own watch and going to a specific interface.

"Damn this looks pretty cool!" Phoenix examines the intricate design on the watch.

"Damn that watch is pretty fashionable!" Tyrmes finds that the watch matches with some of his outfits at home.

They notice her name in the top corner of the interface. It reads: Kimi- Year 2

"And with that you can head to your rooms now. Room number is on your schedule and you can unlock it by placing the hand with your watch on the doorknob.

Also one last thing. Don't break the watches or you'll have to pay 300 gold." The girl goes on her watch after that to message her friend and ignores the two boys.

300 gold! Tyrmes sweats inwardly. That's how much Phoenix and his mom would make if they added their income for an entire year!

"This academy is too luxurious, let's go before we accidentally damage anything and fall into indentured servitude." Phoenix's legs felt weak. Or maybe it was the watch that felt heavier ever since the girl mentioned it's cost.

They stumbled weakly out of the building like lifeless corpses.

"We're so poor…" Tyrmes mumbles.

"I didn't know I could reach this level of bum-ness in my lifetime."

Phoenix taps on his watch to look at the map. It covered a whole 2500 sq km. All the main buildings were in the same area, but it looked like they had special areas for higher level students. Most of the farther areas were forest or mountains. He searches for their dorm rooms which he finds in the f-grade sector of the academy. The dorm areas were separated by year and then by grade. Which showed how much land and resources the academy could spend.

Tyrmes also was checking out the map.

"Phoenix look! Right there!" Tyrmes points to a small collection of buildings near their dorm.

"What is it?"

"Heheheh. It's the girl's dorms. They're closest to our group of buildings! We could say hi to them from our windows!"

"Oh boy…" Phoenix shakes his head at Tyrmes who cackles loudly and does some sinister finger-tenting.

The dorms had 5 stories with 12 rooms in each of the bottom four stories. The exception was the top floor, which was one giant room. Tyrmes had heard that the top floor was reserved for the strongest person in the dorm. It was a way of encouraging the students to compete within their groups. A giant "1F" was pasted on the side of the building signifying their year and grade. When Phoenix and Tyrmes arrived, they instantly noticed how empty the 1-F dorm was.

"Where is everyone?" Phoenix brushes his hand over a railing surface and finds that his hand is covered in dust. "Why is it so empty?"

"I think maybe...we're the only ones here?" Tyrmes looks excited to have so much free space to himself. "Do you think… the flat is occupied?"

Tyrmes and Phoenix look at each other. And then at the stairs leading up to the fifth story.

"..."

"..."

"First one to the flat gets dibs!" Tyrmes breaks out in a sloppy sprint, Phoenix instantly starts sprinting as well. The two let out their shrilly war cries as they madly scramble up the flight of stairs.

"Hahaha! I'm gonna get there first!" Tyrmes nearly out of breath, is approaching the top of the stairs.

"Oh no you don't!" Phoenix grabs Tyrmes's collar and pulls him back, using the pulling force to pull himself ahead of Tyrmes.

Tyrmes stumbles backwards, catching hold of the railing as his shadow flickers.

"That's it... you've forced my hand. Get him Richard!"

Phoenix feels a cold figure hug his back and weigh him down significantly. He grits his teeth and carries Richard along, which slows his speed significantly.

"Why is Richard so… haaaah.. so heavy.." Phoenix starts to get a little dizzy.

"Haaah… haaah.. Maybe you're just weak…" Tyrmes starts to feel a little weak as well. He begins to pull himself up back up the stairs.

"Haaaah… This is unfair…haaah... you had Richard help you..."

"Haaah… you…started it… by fouling."

Both of them finally arrive at the 5th floor but end up wheezing as if they have bronchitis. Their hands touch the door at the same time.

"Get off me Richard!" Phoenix wheezes, inhaling a bunch of dust before bending over in a fit of coughs. Richard hops off and returns to Tyrmes's shadow.

"Truce…" they both wheeze at the same time before kicking open the door.

What they saw next made them both silent.

In front of them was a boy, sitting by himself in the huge flat. He had a blanket draped over his head and wrapped around his entire body. Short spiky red hair poked out from under his blanket. He had two large scars across his face. One stretched from his forehead down to his left eye. The other stretched over his face from his left eye, over his nose, ending on his right cheek.

At first glance he looked a little intimidating but then they noticed a few discrepancies. The blanket was large with a massive pink cat design on it. Also in his hands, he held a cup of instant noodles which he was fervently blowing into. The way he stared at the instant noodles was like a wolf that hadn't eaten for two weeks and had come across an oasis where baby sheep frolicked and played. Ultimately it made the scene seem a little strange.

The boy starts slurping his noodles loudly for a few more moments before realizing that there are two boys giving him strange looks.

"..."

"..."

"Uh... what's up?"