The office of Lionhard Wayne was almost unprovided of every light. Everything was shady, and, while you were there, you could only the silhouette of the headmaster. At that moment, Lionhard was absorbed in his thoughts, but the sound of the door that opened creaking awakened him from his trance.
One of his students came in and bowed significantly, wishing his regards to the principal.
"Miyazaki..." mumbled Lionhard, "I called you here because I need you to perform a task for me. Will you do everything I order you to do?"
"Obviously, sir," answered the student.
"Good. Now, do you know the school of which my brother, Gabriel, is currently the headmaster?"
"Yes, sir."
"You see, I don't know anything about that school. I don't know how many students there are, which are their abilities, and how strong they are. I want you to infiltrate in his school and bring me those pieces of information. Thanks to your abilities, it won't be much difficult."
"I'm sure I will be able to satisfy your requests, sir."
The student bowed again and proceeded to exit the office, but before he shut the heavy door behind his back, the voice of the headmaster caused him to turn back.
"Miyazaki, do not disappoint my trust."
"Don't worry, sir..." said the student, with an arrogant smile on his face, "I never did, and I have no intentions to begin now."
The door closed in a loud creak, leaving Lionhard alone again, with only the sounds of his thoughts to keep him company.
Tetsuo yawned. He was walking through the corridor that linked his room to the main classroom. He knew damn well he now had to endure two boring hours of Maths and another extremely boring hour of History. He spent the time that separated him from those classes preparing both physically and mentally at that agony, but then, when he opened the classroom door, he found out no one was there. For a moment, he remained disoriented, and after that, he smacked his hand to his face.
How could he have forgotten? That day was the 21st of December, and that only meant one thing. Twice a year, falling exactly on the two solstices, at the school were being held the Tsuyo Exam Tests, in which all the students exposed their powers in order to properly classify them and ranking them based on several factors.
Without hesitating a second, Tetsuo hurried to the huge gym the school was provided with. The Tests had probably already started, he thought, but fortunately, when he reached the others in the gym, he discovered the preparations weren't completed yet.
He sat on the floor beside Mayumi and Yuka, and they both, as expected, made fun of him for arriving late. Normally, Tetsuo would have started an argument for something like that, but, in the mornings, he had to carburate the gears of his brain, and he hadn't enough strength to start arguing.
Carelessly, he turned to the technicians busy at preparing the gym for the Tests. Since the students were finally allowed to release the full potential of their powers, they necessarily had to do so in complete safety. The walls were covered in fluffy mattresses and multiple mannequins were positioned in the center of the place, waiting to be used as sacrificial victims. An obstacle course was attached to the walls and it covered almost the entirety of the gym.
While the first students were performing the Tests, Tetsuo looked blandly at the huge poster hanging from the wall in front of him, where all the details of the Tests were being displayed. Usually, a Tsuyo was classified while keeping in mind five main factors: the Ability, or Power, showing how much the Tsuyo strengthened the user and the average sheer force the user had while using his Tsuyo and not; the Versatility, describing, based on the creativity and the smartness of the user, the number of ways he could use his power to overcome all kinds of difficulties; the Stamina of the user, or for how long the user was able to maintain his power active without breaks; the Intelligence of the Tsuyo organism itself, stating how far would the simple parasite go to protect its user without him realizing the entity of the threat; the Range, or else, the distance in which the user and the effects of his Tsuyo could separate from, before making those effects disappear.
Besides those five traits, a Tsuyo could also be categorized in active and passive: an active Tsuyo is the one the user has full control of, and the one he can choose whether to activate or not, based on the circumstances, like Tetsuo's Tsuyo.
On the other hand, a passive Tsuyo is the one the user has no control of, which could be either always active, or being activated by something other than the user's will, like Lionhard's Tsuyo.
There was also another trait in which the Tsuyo could manifest itself, but it was so rare in the school were present only two individuals with such a trait: the extra-corporal Tsuyo, manifesting its power thanks to an external object.
"Akushidoi Fumio!" shouted Gabriel, the headmaster, which was always present at the Tests. Tetsuo suddenly raised his head and observed the beginning of the Tests.
Fumio stood up and walked embarrassed to Gabriel, while his classmates were giggling quietly. He entered a small cubicle of glass, in which he remained, silent, waiting for his Tsuyo (that was belonging to the passive type) to activate.
Tetsuo, who knew what was going to happen, had to control himself not to start laugh. Fumio was a friend of his, and he remembered what happened to him when he felt embarrassed...
With a loud and short noise, Fumio farted. The gas ascended to the top of the cubicle into an open hatch, directly connected to a cage, in which a little mouse was squeaking.
When the gas reached the mouse, it stopped moving, but it began to roll onto the floor of the cage, convulsed while emitting rapid and acute noises. The mouse, if such a comparison could be made, was laughing.
All students observed the scene, at first hilarious, becoming way and way more creepy. The mouse continued to laugh without interruptions until he eventually collapsed to the ground, not breathing anymore. Fumio's fart had killed it. That was his ability: farts that had a similar molecular composition to nitrogen oxide, also known as hilarious gas.
Gabriel, trying to break that embarrassing silence, turned to Fumio and started clapping.
"Amazing, Fumio! Your power has improved since last time! Now, you managed to kill the rat! I think your Ability rate just increased from C to B! That's something to be proud of! Isn't that right, guys?"
"Yeah, sure," stated the students in one, single, lazy voice.
Every main factor in which the Tsuyo was classified had five ratings: staring from the lowest, D, C, B, A, and S. The S-class Tsuyo were the most powerful ones, and there were only a few individuals in that school that could boast such an honor.
Fumio's Tests continued, and a huge part of the students already lost interest in the Tests. The thing they were waiting for the most was Tetsuo's Test, in which they would have been able to look at some of his finest girls.
Fumio got a B in Ability, a D in Versatility, since, let's be honest here, there weren't many things he could do with its power; A in Stamina (passive-type Tsuyo users usually had high ratings in Stamina), C in Intelligence, and D in Range since his farts couldn't obviously travel much distant from his body.
The Tests took, by average, all morning. Tetsuo didn't care much about the Tsuyo of students he didn't know but followed with attention the Tests of his friends.
Kusori Doro stood up from the mass of students and approached Gabriel. Her power had always fascinated Tetsuo: she had an extra-corporal type of Tsuyo, a very rare condition. With the help of a belt, supplied with two lateral pockets, she was capable of generating, inside those pockets, little bags of all possible kinds of hallucinogenic substances, including all types of drugs and narcotics. With a power like that, she could count on a solid A in both Ability and Versatility, high ratings in Stamina, but low Intelligence and Range: summing all of that, a B-ranked Tsuyo.
Next, it was time for Sonya Kokorodo, Tetsuo's lover, to be tested. While she was walking, she wawed at Tetsuo and winked at him.
Her power, though, was not as strong as her feelings for Tetsuo. She could change the dimensions of every object she touched to her will, but an ability like hers wasn't really that useful. Because of her low ratings in Power, Intelligence and Range, she had a Tsuyo belonging in the C class.
Mikyo Hashida was also an interesting one. She was Mayumi's best friend, and she had a great relationship with Tetsuo, too. Even Sonya didn't see her as a threat.
Her power was relatively simple, even though incredibly powerful: she could teleport her or other people with her in every place came into her mind, with the only disadvantage of 5 minutes of delay between teleport and the other. Easy to say, an S-class Tsuyo.
Next in the queue was Mayumi, Tetsuo's little sister. Her power was similar to Kusori's because she was the only other student in the school to possess an extra-corporal Tsuyo.
Indeed, her ability manifested itself in the pillow she always dragged with her, the one she was holding while crying, after seeing the lifeless body of her mother. If that pillow entered in contact with another person, it could absorb the vital energy of the victim, and Mayumi was later able to recharge her energy with that of those being hit by the pillow.
Because of that, she always referred to her pillow, jokingly, as her 'personal battery'.
She had A in Ability, a B in Versatility, a wonderful S in Stamina, a less wonderful C in Range because the victim had to remain close to the pillow in order to active her power, and B in Intelligence. Final rating: A.
And now, the moment all the male students had been waiting for. When Gabriel pronounced those two fateful words ("Tetsuo Sabetsu!") all the boys awakened from their trance and suddenly, the atmosphere in the gym was vibrating with expectation and horniness.
Tetsuo, perfectly aware of all of that, took his time standing up and walking towards the headmaster. He then stopped, waiting for Gabriel to officially start his Test.
"Let's begin with the Ability exam." he said.
When Tetsuo was being examined, he never held himself. When he spawned all the girls he was capable of, the gym was filled with the cheerings and the screams of approval of all the male students, while the female ones watched that familiar scene with disgust.
The Ability exam consisted of how many mannequins one could take down in just ten seconds, at a maximum of 25. Tetsuo's girls struck them all down within the first half of a second.
"Result: S!" shouted the headmaster, but his voice was almost overcome by the screams of happiness of the students.
Both the Versatility and Stamina exam resulted in an S because there was no need to prove the versatility of Tetsuo's girls, obvious to the eyes of everyone, and Tetsuo's resistance was one of the greatest in the schools.
The score in the Intelligence Test was also an S, like the Range one. It consisted of blinding and deafening the user, while random attacks came from every direction.
His girls easily defended their master from the threats.
Every year, the scenery was the same: all students put all their efforts in scoring well at the Tests, but Tetsuo's performance blinded them all with his perfect, all-S rating.
Tetsuo came back to his seat, tired. He watched Yuka's performance, whose ability allowed him to endure his arms to the level of metal.
He also followed the Test of Nives Tsuno, the new student, who had stimulated his interest. Apparently, her ability (if you get the reference), seemed to be a fusion between the Cancel of Babylon, from the famous anime series Fate Stay/Day, and a Stand from the popular manga Jojo's Ordinary Adventure. She could create several golden portals from which arms or legs could pop out and occasionally help her in her fights, giving her an S-type Tsuyo.
After that, the Tests finally came to an end, and the student body was sent to lunch. A boy, in particular, hurried more quickly than the others to the school canteen. He decided to explain to his girlfriend, with which he argued the day before, everything that had happened with that other girl that stole him a kiss. Unluckily, he never managed to do that, because, while he was running towards the canteen, he met a student who he didn't recognize. He was so preoccupied with his girlfriend he didn't even notice he was all alone in that corridor with that strange student. And then, he committed the worst mistake, when, by pure chance, he met his eyes.
The boy stopped, while the other student immediately lost consciousness. Miyazaki observed his now soul-less body before carrying it away from prying eyes. That was his Tsuyo: he could take control of everyone who watched him in the eyes, although only for once per person. The only other disadvantage was he had to hide his original body, which had now become an empty shell.
It seemed luck was on his side that day. The corridor where he was at the moment was extremely close to the school library. Lionhard knew that, upon that library, there was an abandoned attic students were not allowed to enter. And all the students were having lunch in the canteen at that moment, and no one would surely notice the absence of one of them.
Miyazaki had no trouble dragging his own body to that attic, which managed to find almost instantly. As he thought, the door was locked, but he always brought with him a clip, and that lock wasn't much difficult to open.
He left his old body in the attic, and then came back to the canteen, to avoid any suspects.
"So, what are we gonna do after lunch?" asked Yuka to the rest of his group, while eating ferociously a chicken thigh.
"Theoretically, we should study for Wednesday exam..." sighed Mayumi, waiting for the inevitable response.
"No way!" said, as predicted, Tetsuo. "We never study after the Tests. It's like a tradition, and no one disrespects traditions."
"Never truer words have been spoken." approved Yuka.
"What if we go to that attic in the library again?" said Tetsuo maliciously.
"Why do we have to do that kind of stupid thing again?" cried Mayumi in despair. "We are going to get caught sooner or later!"
"Don't be silly," Tetsuo shushed her, "No one ever goes there, and I heard some interesting news about what the Headmaster keeps in there."
"Now you are acting silly. Mr. Wayne would never hide something important in that place, he is smarter than that."
"Then why is forbidden for the students?"
"Probably it's just unsafe."
"Bullshit," said Tetsuo, after swallowing a bite. "If it was just unsafe like you claim, they would simply write it in the 'No Entry' sign. Anyway, since Yuka and I are the majority, we are going here."
"I hate you two so much." hissed Mayumi behind her breath, but still followed the two of them leaving the canteen.
"I'm still thinking it's a bad idea." whispered Mayumi when she and the rest of the group arrived the trapdoor in the ceiling that led to that famous attic.
Tetsuo, completely ignoring her, used her girls to help him climb the bookshelves that he previously moved under the trapdoor, and then reached it. He was already preparing a burglar girl, capable of unlocking the heavy lock that sealed the trapdoor, but he then realized that lock had been previously broken open.
"It seems another fella had our same idea." said Tetsuo, before opening the trapdoor. He crawled over it and laid on the floor of the attic. Some seconds later, both Yuka and Mayumi managed to enter the attic.
Immediately, their attention was captured by the dead-looking body left in one corner of the room. It was turning its back to the group, so they couldn't clearly see what its face looked like.
Mayumi covered her mouth with her hand, trying to suffocate an incoming scream. The sight of bodies, apparently dead, may have awakened something inside her, like some sort of post-traumatic stress.
"Ohi, Tetsuo..." stuttered Yuka, "That body... It can't be... right?"
"I didn't expect something like that..." said quietly Tetsuo. He was the most cold-blooded of them all, but he was still surprised by something like that. He couldn't imagine his kind Headmaster hiding bodies in the attic.
Tetsuo approached the body.
"What the hell are you doing!" screamed silently Mayumi.
Tetsuo spawned a girl that got even closer to the body. The moment the girl touched the body, it was immediately shaken by convulsions, and Tetsuo made the girl disappear almost instantly. That reaction had made them all jump.
Miyazaki opened his eyes. He recognized the ceiling of the attic in which he had hidden his body, and he felt annoyed. If someone managed to touch his old body while he was possessing another one, his ability was immediately deactivated. Luckily, he had prepared himself for a drawback like this to happen, and he decided to play dumb.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, while gently massaging the back of his head.
"Students like you shouldn't be allowed to enter this attic!"
He also had had the common sense to wear the Tsuyo Kubetsu's uniform, to make his recital more convincible.
"I could ask you the same question..." said Tetsuo, starting to feel suspicious. There was something in that guy's attitude that he couldn't understand at all.
"Unlike you, I was being put here," explained Miyazaki. "Yesterday I broke into a room and destroyed the windows. I was punished by the Headmaster that closed me here."
Tetsuo looked briefly at Mayumi, and she gave him the same look. They both knew perfectly Gabriel would never do such a thing to one of his students.
"What about the lock? It had been broken up before we entered."
"Yes, the Headmaster broke it because he couldn't find the key. But he moved the bookshelves from behind the trapdoor. There is a 5-meter distance from the floor to the ceiling, and that's enough to break both your legs."
Tetsuo thought about what the guy had just said. Those bookshelves, to be honest, were realized in a true light wood, and it was possible even for a student to move them aside for short distances. But the whole situation still smelled to him.
"Okay, I believe you," he lied, "Listen, which class are you in?"
"2-B" answered Miyazaki without hesitating a second.
"2-B, you say? Well, that is really strange..." mumbled Tetsuo, "But I know everyone in that class, and I never saw your face before. And you can't have just arrived, because that kind of information travels quickly here, and we would have known you before you even stepped foot inside the school."
Now Miyazaki was starting to lose his temperance. Those guys were extremely sharp, and one or two lies couldn't fool them. So, he decided to pull another trick out of his sleeve.
His glasses fell on the floor, for what Tetsuo and the other viewed as a mistake. But in reality, he had secretly learned to make his glasses fall without someone else noticing. And now, his power was free to strike.
Yuka's eyes met Miyazaki's, and he gained control of the first, while his old body collapsed on the floor once again.
"This guy really likes passing out, huh..." said Yuka (or Miyazaki), while observing sideways Tetsuo and Mayumi.
"Well," he said, "I think we should ask someone for help. If this dude, as he said, is locked here since yesterday, he's surely starving."
"Hold on," said Tetsuo, deep in his thoughts, "Isn't it strange that the moment I said I never met him, he passes out? I mean, he surely has a Tsuyo, right? And we don't know what kind of powers he has."
"Yes, you are surely right," agreed Yuka, "But I'm still thinking we should ask for help. It's not normal for a person to lose consciousness out of nowhere. And if he is attacking us with his power, since we don't know what kind of ability he has, it would be safer for us to retreat."
Now Tetsuo's attention was focused on Yuka. Maybe he was just imagining things, but he could have sworn he saw the eyes of the guy and Yuka's meeting each other for a second.
"Umm, it's not like you, Yuka, to ask help from an adult. You are always the one that wants to do all by himself."
When Tetsuo saw the worried expression on Yuka's face, his suspects began to gain a defined shape.
"Ok, so why don't we go to the fourth Führer?" asked Tetsuo with a smile.
"The fourth Führer?" repeated Yuka. Miyazaki knew he couldn't hesitate too much or his camouflage would fall apart with him.
"Sure, let's go meet him," he exclaimed, standing up and heading to the trapdoor.
"Him?" said Tetsuo, "But the fourth Führer is not an him... It's an her."
But before Miyazaki even thought of an adequate response, a lightening fist hit him on his jaw. The punch was so powerful Miyazaki passed away in a matter of seconds.
Miyazaki opened his eyes again. He found himself sitting on a comfortable chair, in an illuminated room. While his eyes adjusted themselves to the brightness of the room, he managed to understand which kind of room he was into. In front of him, there was a mahogany desk, filled with all kinds of papers, and behind that, a huge window that covered the entire wall. The other walls hospitated bookshelves and other armchairs.
But was the window that caught his attention. He approached it and saw that it showed the courtyard of the school. He closed his eyes multiple times, not believing what he was seeing. The students he was observing in the yard... were they playing? Why weren't they busy studying or exercising? Such disrespect towards their headmaster...
"I know what you're thinking." said a calm voice behind him.
He turned and at first, he thought Lionhard was standing in front of him. But he knew that was impossible, so he figured out that was his infamous brother, Gabriel Wayne.
"You are wondering why are those students allowed to waste their precious time in those kinds of useless abilities?
It's because the school you were in rejected that. It rejected the concept of playing, socializing, even the concept of friendship. All those things are prohibited in my brother's school, is that right?"
"The Headmaster said those activities distract us from our duties. I see them only as futile wastes of time."
Gabriel shook his head.
"No, that is what my brother has taught you to think. Those are not your ideas, your beliefs, but someone else's. I need you to think with your head again. And, if you want to achieve that, you'll need a little push in the right direction."
He opened a medicine cabinet and pulled a syringe out of it, filled with an unusual-looking red liquid. He got close to Miyazaki and asked him to show his bare arm to him. Miyazaki obeyed, without even flinching a muscle. He felt like he couldn't avoid following Gabriel's implicit orders.
"You see, this liquid comes from one of my old students, and it's composed of her blood and some other chemical elements, to keep it stable. Her power made everyone she touched obligated to tell the truth to her. Thanks to my research on the matter, I was able to extract from her the essence of her Tsuyo."
Miyazaki felt a warm substance flowing in his body, that made his mind relax. He couldn't even think of two thoughts at the same time. Just the simple concept of lying was completely unreachable.
"I want you to explain to me what your Tsuyo is."
Miyazaki began telling him everything, without even thinking of shutting his mouth or saying something that wasn't the pure truth.
"That's how my Tsuyo works. The only disadvantages are that my power immediately deactivates if someone touches my body while I am possessing someone and that my Tsuyo is a passive-type power.
It's always active. So my Headmaster built a special type of glasses that shielded my Tsuyo. Whenever I want to possess someone, I just have to take off my glasses."
"Intriguing. And listen, what do you think about your school?"
"It's hell. Personal relationships between students are forbidden, and one only has to train and exercise all day in all kinds of military and fighting skills. Because we only sleep 5 hours per night, most of us suffer from sleep deprivation, but our teachers do nothing to remedy the problem."
"So, you don't have free time at your school?"
"There is not even the concept of free time in our school."
"Do you have any hobbies?"
"What is a 'hobby'?"
Gabriel stopped for a second. The situation was way worse than he thought.
"And what do you think about our school?"
Miyazaki didn't answer at first, too busy recollecting his thoughts.
"Your school is like a dream becoming reality. Here, I'm sure I could make some friends, even if I'm not quite sure what a 'friend' is. This is what life should be, a place filled with good intentions and good sentiments."
"If you had the occasion, would you betray your old ideals and comrades of your old school and join ours?"
"Without hesitating a second."
"Even if it meant obeying to me, no matter what kind of order I give you?"
"Yes. I can't go back to that school. Life is not supposed to be like that."
"Understood. Very well then. Miyazaki, am I right? If you leave my office you will found Tetsuo, Mayumi, and Yuka, the three students that brought you to me. They will show you your classrooms and your room."
Miyazaki's expression exposed his surprising feelings.
"Welcome to Tsuyo Kubetsu, Miyazaki. Now, you are my student."
Miyazaki was overwhelming with joy, but he tried his best not to show that to Gabriel. He stood up, whispered a quiet 'thanks, sir', and left the office.