Looking at himself in the mirror, the murderer adjusted his facial features to look the same way he'd usually look. Cleaning the drop of blood that had found its way to the back of his wrist, he closed the running tap and headed out of the bathroom. Passing by the door, adorned with many security measures, where he had kept the dead scientists, he left the room and locked it behind him.
...
Dom was heaving heavily as he kept on moving his limbs as fast as possible. The JKD was a technique that relied on speed and minimal movement and for someone who had been practicing for nine whole years, it was meant to to be easy.
Oh was he wrong.
Placing his palm sluggishly at his waist, Dom succeeded in blocking the kick thrown at him. His partner was in worse shape than he was. His opponent's sweat had already formed a mini pool beneath him and he kept on heaving heavier than Dom himself.
"Time out", the boy slumped on the floor, trying to control his breathing
"Weak ass.", Dom grunted as he also rested on the floor.
The training was taking a toll on him. Who knew that training with this boy would be tiring.
'I can't believe I've been training all this while and I didn't even get his name.', Dom slapped his head as he noticed his error.
"By the way, what's your name?"
"You are only asking that now?",he smiled. "It's Daniel, yours?", Daniel replied.
"What do you mean by that? You don't even know mine.", he smiled. After training for thirty minutes straight, they had both gotten closer. Now, Daniel could freely speak his mind to Dom.
"It's Dom."
"Dom? Like dumb? Who's named Dom?",
Looking at the boy who was having a good time as he kept laughing loudly, Dom simply smiled.
"I don't think it's a good idea to laugh."
After he said that, Daniel began heavily coughing.
"Water!", Daniel immediately began speedily crawling to the edge of the ring to get his water bottle.
Now it was Dom who was heavily laughing. Daniel began wheezing as he greedily drank the whole water in the bottle.
*RING
The alarm rang, signalling the end of that period.
"It was nice meeting you, see you around.", Dom picked his bag pack and headed out the Hall.
Daniel stared at the back of his new retreating friend. He was about to make a new friend and didn't want to waste such an opportunity.
"Wait, your contact info!".
"Oh yeah."
Dom headed back to give his phone number to Daniel, who immediately started typing it down.
...…
"What were you up to?", Nat asked as she finished swallowing a full spoon of rice.
Seeing the sight of huge amounts of food entering her mouth, while some found their way to escape as she spoke, Dom was certainly irritated. He stared at her with disgust clearly written on his face.
"I'm just so hungry. Having to use your arcanum for so long, drains a lot of stamina.", Nat said as she stuffed another spoonful of rice into her mouth.
Not wanting to stare at the disgusting sight, he quickly changed his focus to Aurelia.
Unlike the other female in the group, Aurelia was eating in a delicate manner, almost replicating that of a noble.
"So, how was your computer science class?", he asked as he tried replicating her eating style.
"Well, it was called off. The Professor was unavailable."
"Why'd he be unavailable on the first day of school?"
"He's the famous Professor Orson. It's obvious he wouldn't have much time on his hands.", she replied
"Professor Orson?", he had never heard that name before,but considering he was an orphan with very little knowledge, it wasn't shocking that he didn't know Professor Orson.
Aurelia signed and said
"Yes, the person that made that lens, rich bastard."
During their first period, when Dom had asked his friends for their contact info, they all brought out their touchable smart phones to receive his number.
He looked at them in confusion and asked if they hadn't gotten a lens like he had. They looked at him with hatred written over their faces, while Nat looked at him with a hint of envy.
They later regained their cool, since Professor Ken seemed to paying extra attention to them.
"I heard he was focusing on a new breakthrough in technology. It's probably why he wasn't available.", Atlas said as he scrolled through an article with Dr. Orson as its title.
With another alarm going off, Nat hastened her eating speed, finishing her mountainous food as fast as possible.
Rushing off to meet with her friends who already left her, she arrived more than ten minutes late for the next class.
...…
Dom heavily sighed once more as he slumped on his expensive bed. The first day of school was truly exhausting.
'I feel like my head is gonna explode.'
With the amount of knowledge the Professors of West Kendall High had imparted into the students on their first day, brains could have exploded.
From the terms learnt in the first class, to the JKD that he had to practice among many other martial art, the different kind of beasts he had been taught. The only lesson that saved his head from exploding wad mediation class, where students were only meant to mediate and rest.
Trying to soothe his head, he took of the lens and placed it on the bedside drawer.
'It's been three days now and I've still failed to know my arcanum.', he sighed.
For the past three days, he'd wake up and the first thing he'd try to do is activate his arcanum, but it's repeatedly been a failure.
He felt alone and secluded not knowing his arcanum and the feeling only intensified when he couldn't even attend professional classes with the others. At least he was able to practice the JKD and also make a new friend.
'Thinking about my new friend, is this how he also feels?'
Daniel would surely feel the same way as Dom and his might might even be worse since Dom didn't even see anyone hang out with him, meaning Daniel was all alone. Rather, his friend might have left him when they realized he didn't have an arcanum and that would have been way worse than what Dom was experiencing.
He headed to the bathroom once more to test his arcanum, but once again, nothing happened. He bit his lips as he stopped the tears from falling. He cleaned his face and headed back to his bed and with that, the lights went off.
...…
Dom woke up from his huge bed and started his usual morning routine since luckily, he woke up early. He did some light exercises, headed to the bathroom to have his bath, once again tried releasing his arcanum (failure). He wore his uniform and headed out to meet the rest.
...…
"How am I the last one to get here?", Dom asked as he walked towards his friends.
" 'Cause we woke up earlier.", Nat replied
"Earli-", about replying, he was suddenly cut off by Nat.
"Come on, I'm starving.", she said as she hurriedly made her way into the cafeteria.
Dom sighed as they all entered the cafeteria to eat their fill.
Finishing their food, they headed to their class.
They arrived at the hallway, when they saw three boys, all adorned in expensive accessories, ganging up on someone.
It was not surprising to see someone being bullied by the rich bastards. It was a norm on the roadside and it was also expected in the school, but what was surprising was to see Daniel being beaten.
"Guys, guys! Let's help. ", Dom said as he hurriedly took off his bag, ready to sprint towards Daniel.
"Is he a friend of yours?", Atlas asked as he also prepared himself to run.
"Yes.", not wanting to spend time on useless talks, Dom was about sprinting when Aurelia suddenly stopped him.
"Wait! Don't you see who that is?", she asked as she looked in the direction of one of the bullies. Out of the three bullies, this one seemed to be the leader since he was simply laughing at the sight and the accessories on his body looked more expensive than the rest.
"Why do we care?" Nat asked, ready to slaughter the boys.
"Start thinking with your head and not your fist. That's the Minister of Finance son."
Hearing Aurelia's words caused Dom to stop and think for a bit. If it was any other rich person's son, he wouldn't have given two fucks, but it was the Emperor's best friend's. It was a well known fact that the Emperor and the Minister of Finance were very close to each other.
"Also, have you forgotten that the school has seers for each and every hallway?", she added.
"If they have seers, then why aren't they here?",
If Dom was paying attention to his first lecture on Monday, he would have been aware that each hallway is assigned to a seer to serve as surveillance. Seers are known to be able to see further than awakened and can also see things that aren't within the normal human/awakened field of vision, so they could be in their homes and still be able to see what's happening in the hallways.
Noticing that no seer, had come out to stop the bullying, it was obvious that either the fucking seer had been bribed or he is just biased towards the junkies.
They could have chosen to film and report, but the bullies would obviously lie and who'd the principal believe? Four orphans with no power or three students with power?
Dom looked at Daniel as he kept on getting beaten, with blood coming out of the gap between his lips. He really wanted to help his fellow orphan, but he didn't want to risk his life and future for someone he just met. He needed to be rational.
Grinding his teeth, he turned his back to the scene and entered the class.
...…
Dom was unable to focus, he was physically present in each and every class, but he mentally was not. He watched as Daniel walked into the class, he didn't look like he was beaten up. It was probably the work of a healer. Daniel looked down as he made his way to his seat.
Dom felt his anger increase threefold but he didn't show it, since it'll only bring the teachers attention towards him. He saw the bullies walk into the room and the first thing that came to his mind was to jump across the seats and plant multiple blows on their stupid faces, but without an arcanum and with his bad physical strenght, there was little he could do.
Aurelia had brought up the opinion of inviting Daniel over to their and of course, Dom accepted.
As the alarm rang and everyone began making their way out of the classroom, he headed towards Daniel.
"Hey.", he greeted when he finally reached the boy. He had tried to calm himself before approaching him, but he couldn't. He was angry at himself for doing nothing and angry at those rich bastards.
"Hey, dude. What's wrong?", Daniel worriedly asked as he saw Dom face squeeze like paper.
Noticing that he looked like squeezed paper, he immediately changed his facial expression back to normal.
"Nothing, I just thought of something."
"Would you like to join my friends and I in the cafeteria?"
"Uh yeah, I guess."
Immediately he accepted the request, Dom brought him to the cafeteria to meet the rest of the group. With that, Daniel became a part of their group.