"Suoh Kamiyama, F-rank quantity, SS-rank density, High Control.
"Oi, Oi, Oi, are you kidding me! S-rank density!" A student from the back of the class shouted.
Ichirou couldn't agree more with what his student had just said. The only way to increase density was through intense training that could take up years of your life. Most people were born with D-rank or C-rank density because of this fact, but someone with S-rank density didn't exist on the earth at the moment. Or at least that's what they thought.
With his testing over Suoh walked back into the crowd of students without a word but in his mind he was angry.
'6 years wasted training and not a drop more Aura in my body. What can I do to get stronger.'
After the talk that his density was so high finished they began talking about how he only had F-rank amounts of Aura.
A normal civilian has about a D-rank amount of Aura in their body. Someone suffering from a weak constitution or Aura deficiency had about E-rank amounts. F-rank was reserved for Teir 1 Psychic beasts and was unheard of in a human.
"Haha! All of that is wasted on him! Someone with F-rank Aura shouldn't even be allowed in this school."
The same cold look remained on Suoh's face as he received torment from his classmates.
'My training truly was useless.' He continued to walk into the crowd and eventually the gate that Ichirou had set up ahead of time without students noticing.
"All of you have been tested now so please enter the gate I have set up there." Ichirou motioned for his students to look over at the gate he was making visible, but as he did he saw Suoh halfway through the gate.
"It seems one of you has already found it. So please follow him back to the classroom."
By the time the rest of the students got back to the class, Suoh was already in his seat. He had gone to the podium to look at the schedule for the day so he already knew what was next.
"Now the school day will return to normal. First class you have is the international language Phonetic, next is math. The day will progress like a normal high school up until the second half of the day. After lunch we will start with gym, then go into Aura control and density training along with picking your hilt." Ichirou looked at his student with pity. He knew that Suoh had to have trained intensely to get to the level of control he was at, but he still seemed to be stuck at F-Rank.
After their sensei explained everything time seemed to flow like molasses. But eventually it was the afternoon and their second half classes would start soon.
Instead of Ichirou being in the classroom like they expected when they came back from lunch a tall woman was sitting in a chair at the front of the class.
The woman had dark green hair that stopped at her shoulders and pink eyes. The couldn't tell her high though because she was sitting in a chair.
"Hello class. I'm your second half teacher, Eliana Calimeris. I will be teaching all of you how to control your Aura better and eventually increase its density. Though increasing the density of ones Aura takes years, I can at least get you started."
Eliana eventually stood up after checking the attendance silently. "If you would all follow me to the gym. This time you don't have Mr. Ichirou's gates, so you'll actually have to learn how to get there the normal way."
Suoh stood up with the rest of his classmates and even walked with them. This was unusual for him. He almost always was at the front of the class or at the back. The reason for this was his rage. He was angry at himself for being so weak. Because of his weakness, a certain scene played over and over again in his head.
~~ Memory ~~
Suoh sat in the backseat of a car with his sister next to him. He felt his body moving and talking even though he wasn't doing either of those things.
That's right he remembered. He was stuck in the body of his 11 year old self.
"Mom! Guess what!"
Suoh looked forward to see a woman in her early thirties with light brown hair in the passenger seat of the car.
"Hm... I can't guess. What is it." The woman's voice brought an almost forgotten comfort and ease to his mind.
"I was finally able to do it! I can see the glowing lights around people!"
His mom's eyes widened and a smile came into her face.
"Is that so. Congratulations! It seems I can finally train you."
"Okay!"
"Don't forget about me!"
Suoh looked to his side to see his sister as a 10 year old. She looked almost the exact same except for her body being less developed.
"Don't worry I'll never forget about you Xana. You can even watch me and mom train. I'll be able to protect you then and be the strongest in the world!"
With that his sister's mood picked up. They continued on their way for a bit more talking about trivial things until the car suddenly slammed into the railing on the side of the highway.
"Ah!!"
Collective screams could be heard from within the car until they all stopped. Suoh opened his eyes to see the worst sight of his life. He had been thrown out of the car by his mother's Aura while the car was turning in mid-air.
He was in the middle of the road and he could see the entirety of the car. Pieces of metal were twisted in every which way, pushing into the car and possible his family and their driver.
His body was screaming out in pain. He had slight cracks in his bones that he knew would break them after he moved them even a little. Blood poured out of his arms and legs, with glass shards being embedded in his skink man
Ignoring the pain he felt Suoh tried to stand up, but only failed the first few attempts. When he was eventually able to stand up and hobble over to the car he ripped off the passenger side door that was falling off of its hinges, leading it to just drop to the floor to the side of him.
"No, no, no, what's happening!"
He looked into the car to see his mother impaled through the heart by a strange looking arrow. She looked as if she had coughed up blood and glass shards were stabbed through every part of her body. The driver was nowhere to be seen and his seat had no blood on it.
"M-mom. I-I-it's me, S-Suoh, your son." Tears started streaming down the young boy's face as he talked. "H-h-ha you got me. T-this isn't fu-funny."
He slowly stepped back from his mother and towards his sister's car door refusing to even think that his mother was dead.
When Suoh looked at his sister, he was mortified. Her stomach was impaled by some sort of metal rod and her her right arm had another rod through its shoulder. Blood was coming out of her mouth and dropped from her forehead.
"B-b-ut I-I was g-g-going to protect you."
"You might still be able to."
The voice of a woman could be heard from behind Suoh.
"Your mother is gone for good, I killed her, but your sister still has a chance. Hmm, I am a bit hungry lately, I know! I'll eat some of your Aura in exchange for saving your sister. But it'll cost you almost all the Aura you have to save her."
Suoh turned to look at the woman behind him and saw he face for the first time. She had long grey hair and green eyes that seemed to cut into your soul.
"I'll do it! A-anything! So please help her!" Tears streamed dow Suoh's face as he begged. He eventually fell onto his knees with the legs that shouldn't have been able to even move and bring him to the car where his sister and mom were.
"Okay, we have a deal. It might take you a bit, but I trust you can overcome this little problem."
"Huh?"
The woman opened her right palm and placed it against Suoh's chest. As if it was being sucked into a vacuum, his Aura was sucked up. The sensation left him with no energy to even move, but that wasn't needed. He fell down and was moved by the lady to where he had landed outside of the car earlier.
"I'll perform a change of physical state now, so all of your external injuries will be exchanged for her's. This is what you signed up for so here you go."
While Suoh watched her leave he was able to catch a glimpse of her Aura.
As if she was being teleported, Xana's body appeared in Suoh's arms. Soon enough all of her injuries were transferred to Suoh. He had to feel all of the pain Xana did in his weakened state from having most of his Aura ripped out of him along with his own injuries, causing him to faint.
Once the authorities found out many police officers and Agents were deployed. What they found was a trail of blood leading from the car to the middle of the road where Suoh laid in a protective position holding onto Xana.
"The boy must've been protecting his sister when the car hit, his injuries line up with the rods sticking out of the car. He even took his sister out of the car."
Upon further inspection they noticed the small trail of blood from the passenger seat leading to where Suoh was.
"He even tried to save his mom, the kid did do good enough to protect his sister even I he could do the same for his mom."
An ambulance arrived after a while and took them all to the hospital. Xana's injuries were less severe than Suoh's so she woke up after about a week. Suoh on the other hand was in a deep coma for a year.
~~ Memory Over ~~
'I have to find that woman so I can get some answers. But whatever she did to me is irreversible.' All of this was though without a hint of anger or malice. He just wanted answers. After everything that had happened he only held a few emotions close to him and became cold toward anyone who wasn't his sister.
Like he had been on auto pilot the class was already in the gym when he came to his senses.
Eliana was standing in the middle of the gym talking to the students. "Before any of you are even ready to use kinetic abilities in a fight you need to learn to fight without them. Today we'll be doing ability-less spars with hilts."
She walked over to a large door on the side of the gym and opened it.
"This is the school armory. After picking a hilt you'll only be able to change it twice during the school year. Upon graduation next year the hilt you used most recently will be awarded to you. Most of you were here for you first year and as such have your own hilts already but those who don't will be picking theirs today."
About a fourth of the class started walking to the armory, including Suoh. While he scanned the shelves he looked to the corner and his eyes widened.
Lying down on the floor was a black hilt that looked to have the tsuba of a katana and half the width of a broad sword. He went to pick it up and examined it closely.
He put some Aura into the hilt and a blade formed. Unlike the energy looking blade that most hilts had, this one looked metal and was just like the hilt in the fact that it looked like a katana with the width of half a broadsword. It was jet black just like the handle and had an indent near the base of the blade that could be used to catch other blades. It was about 25" long in all but the blade itself was 18" and was semi double sided meaning the front part had a full blade and the back had a sharp edge that came down from the tip of the blade by 1/4 of it.
He decided to choose it and grabbed a standard sheath for a hilt of its size and walked out.
'Who knew they would have a weapon I'd be interested in.' Suoh walked back to his classmates and stood silently in the back while he waited for the rest of his classmates.
When Eliana saw that everyone had chosen a hilt or decided not to she started talking. "We Agents use hilts for the purpose of amplifying our Aura. In the case of someone not using a hold because they chose to use their hands they are sometimes at a disadvantage in terms of reach and power, but have more flexibility in what they can do."
She double tapped her Nanotech wristband and a holographic screen appeared in the air in front of them.
"This random generator has everyone's name put into it. It's set to pick 2 out of the 30 students in our class resulting in 15 matches between everyone. The incentive to win your match are these."
Eliana pulled a slip out from her pocket and showed to the class. "This is a slip that allows you to prematurely gain a second hilt. After winning your first battle you will be pit up against each other in 5 groups of five. The members of the winning teams will all get one of these slips."
She took a dagger hilt out of seemingly nowhere and a double edged sword the same way. "Once you get a high enough rank as an Agent, you will have the choice to pick a secondary hilt."
Suoh glanced over to the armory again. 'This may be my only chance to get a second hilt.'
Agent ranks, they worked based ones amount of Aura. It's was highly believed that to reach a certain tier of strength one had to have a specific amount of Aura. That's why ranks were delegated mostly by what your Aura quantity was.
The ranks went from F-S. They each went off of the color a measuring orb shined for different ranks. When you actually became an agent you would start at the rank one lower than the quantity of your Aura and could only advance one rank past the amount of your Aura. Meaning that at most Suoh could hope to be an E-rank Agent, which also meant he would be unable to acquire a secondary hilt.
Eliana pressed some sort of button on her wristband, initiating the random name generator.
[Kyoko Kokawa vs. Jae-Seong Sang]
The first two names had be pulled. Kyoko walked up with an annoyed look on her face and her broadsword hit in hand.
Jae-Seong on the other hand walked up with a happy smile and his eyes having a clear ambition in them. He wore the standard red and black pre Agent uniform and had short grey hair swept to the left side of his face from a part and golden eyes.
The two stood across from each other and Jae-Seong revealed his hilt. It was a double glaive, the handle in the middle was long enough for two hands to comfortably fit with space to move.
"Start!"
As Eliana signaled for the start of the fight they each channeled their Aura into their hilts creating different effects. Kyoko's broadsword had a blue blade that was 3" wide and 4'6" long, being almost as tall as she was.
Jae-Seong's glaive blades featured a golden color matching his eyes and a unique shape. At first it appeared to be a normal glaive blade, but upon closer inspection you would be able to see that the backside of each of them was serrated.
The fighters rushed at each other holding nothing back. Kyoko was first to attack, going for an overhead swing. Jae slid the attack off using his blade, leaving Kyoko's blade to crash into the ground.
The result was incredible. In front of where her blade landed in the ground a shockwave caused there to be a large gash from the floor to the wall. In stead of getting distracted, Jae swiped downward towards Kyoko's abdomen.
Kyoko responded quickly before she was chopped in half and used her wrist to swing her sword backwards to block Jae's blade, showing good wrist strength. After that incident Kyoko focused on speed. She would send a flurry of attack that were mostly blocked except a few. Once that had gone on for a few minutes she jumped back.
"That was good enough, I need to end this now so I don't have to expose my swordsmanship style." Unlike how she had been holding her sword in only her left hand she finally put her right hand on the handle as well and bright the weapon down to her left side.
The next thing anyone saw was her dashing and jumping into the air, pushing her sword down against Jae's glaive. After a short struggle Jae was able to move her off of him.
"I'll try and finish this as well Kyoko-ssi." He twisted the handle in the center of his glaive splitting it into two blades. Kyoko reassumed her position with the sword on her left side again. The two ran at full speed, enhancing their legs with Aura and both using a deciding slash. Kyoko came out on top with her uniform basically unscathed, and Jae falling to the ground in exhaustion.
When she thought no one could see her she clenched her fist at her side and scoffed. "I thought someone would actually be able to beat me just now time." The slight anger on her face was unnoticed by all but Suoh who decided to ignore it in favor of finding something out about the new guy.
"I won't waste any time, someone help Jae-Seong as I get the next match ready." Suoh walked over and draped the boy's arm over his shoulder taking him to a bench in corner of the gym where he fell asleep.
[Hui-Yin Lin vs. Ignazio Carmine]
Hui-Yin came to the center of the gym with a hilt for some type of sword in her hand while Ignazio clearly had a long sword in hand.
One could describe Hui-Yin as sophisticated. The way she carried herself was elegant and her looks could back this up. She had dark blue hair that almost looked like shining black one in a one length bob to the right with no bangs. She had green eyes and small dainty lips that would almost always be pulled into a small smile.
Ignazio however was wild looking. His pitch black hair was messy but added to his charm. He had dark orange eyes with spots of green littered throughout them. A shit eating smirk was ever present on his face but made him look even more handsome in the end.
"Start!"
Hui-Yin activated her hilt and it formed into a dao. When Ignazio's long sword came to life the classmates attacked each other with full force, using Aura to enhance their every attack. Eventually Hui-Yin's dao was able to slash Ignazio's cheek. Multiple more hits were exchanged until Hui-Yin was able to yet again slash Ignazio, this time his chest.
When she swung her sword it seemed like she was writing Chinese characters in the air, but even when the slashes would repeat a word the order of the strokes would be different, stopping the opponent from predicting what attack was going to be used.
When Ignazio used his sword it's speed was nearly unrivaled. The only people that could keep up in pure sped that we've seen were probably Kyoko and Jae-Seong. But because of Hui-Yin's fighting style Ignazio's speed was negated and he lost from that point on.
It ended with Hui-Yi only having a few scratches but Ignazio having cuts littering his vest and arms.
"Let's get on with our next battle." Eliana had been pleasantly surprised by how much the students could do without use of their kinetic abilities. Granted most of them besides Kyoko and Hui-Yi who had only a little room to improve were far away from being masters at their respective weapons.
[Suoh Kamiyama vs. Kosuke Gotoh]
"Hah finally! I actually get to fight you, show me how good you really are!" Kosuke was looking forward to putting Suoh in his place. He had mistaken Suoh's cold nature as him thinking he was better than everyone and wanted to put him into place.
Suoh said noting and walked to the middle of the gym while Kosuke studied there confidently.
Kosuke was a unruly and rude boy who liked to act better than everyone but hated when people looked down on him along with the people lower than him. He had dark grey hair and brown eyes. His hair was wavy and looked soft. He wielded a Yari and used sōjutsu along with it.
This was a battle to silence an annoying person for both sides. They knew it was petty so they both subconsciously agreed to not do anything to bad to their opponent, the only question now is, which one would have the power necessary to make such a promise with overwhelming power.
"Start!"