Neigh jabbed his thumb to his chest, donning a triumphant smile. “Right on the money! You’re looking at the guy in charge of the creation and distribution of ‘em! So, if ya ever need something that can help you bring out the best in your Path, I’m your man! But till then,” he walked by Reito, heading to the podium in front of the class, “get ready, you lot, I’m back in business, so let's get it on!” He proclaimed with a cocky grin.
“Yes, Mr. Banner!” The class answered back in unison.
“Neigh looked at Reito with a quizzical expression. “Well, what are you waiting on, an invitation? Get up to your seat already, go on,” he said, basically shooing him away.
Now, genuinely stumped, Reito nodded his head and headed to the seat he had sat in before the whole fiasco started. From a hyperactive kunoichi to a hot-blooded muscle-bound meat tank. And now, suddenly, an eccentric otaku teacher with an ability any arsonist would drool over takes the stage. There was only one conclusion he could come to after his experiences: THIS PLACE IS INSANE! PATHOS OR NOT, HOW DOES ANYONE DO THIS?!
***
“Now that I’m back in the fray, and we seem to have gotten some fresh meat, Mari-chan and I’ll give you all a bit of a refresher course! So, clean the gunk outta your ears and listen up! Especially you, new kid,” he commanded, singling Reito, who was now at his seat, out.
He responded with an awkwardly raised hand. “S-sure, I guess... Explain away, Teach.”
“Tch, a review, all because of one bastard, why the hell did Usodachi have to show up?”
“If he knew what was good for him, he should’ve just skipped.”
“I’m the talk of the town as always... Great. Thanks, Teach,” Reito mumbled, wishing in that instance that his Path let him turn invisible instead.
“Alright, alright, quit your murmuring,” Neigh asked of his class, bringing up a hologram screen with a map of the city behind him. “Now, can anyone tell me why the Academies were originally established?”
A male student promptly spoke up.
“It’s because of the Ono Family and Pathos-centric disasters, right?”
Neigh pointed forward, exaggeratedly. “Correctamundo! The disasters were one thing—disruptive events caused by Pathos who’d just awakened an ability—like earthquakes, floods, and general mass destruction. Most of them were done out of ignorance and inexperience—but the Onos were a different beast. They were a pretty big deal a couple years back; a familial clan of cold-blooded assassins who’d do anything for money and used their skills to complete personal mission after mission. If that wasn't enough—they even had Yakuza ties.
All of this is because of Shion’s folks, too? I mean, I know she tries to lay low because they were a problem in the past...but I didn’t think this place was a result of it...
“Keep in mind, this is when Pathos just started popping up, so a lotta defense-oriented resources were expended on quelling them. To make sure a large crime group like that doesn’t rise up again, while, at the same time, hoping to aid those who gave rise to powers, the Japanese Government gave the king headway to build the City. Now you guys can learn to properly use their abilities and be steered in the right direction—morally, of course. This brings us to my next point. Hey. Get up here,” he demanded, pointing Reito’s way.
He looked around then pointed to himself. “Huh...? Me?”
“No, the guy inside you, Doppio. Of course, I meant you. And be quick about it,” Neigh half-joked.
Reito groaned, stepping up to the front podium while the rest of the class focused on him. Neigh sat his pillow against the wall.
“We’ll be apart for one brief second, Mari-chan, sorry, it’ll be a pain for me too,” he said, petting the top of it before he turned back to Reito while reaching under his lab coat. “Alright, kid, do me a solid.”
The class began to snicker.
“This’ll be good; it’s one of his best “lessons”.”
“And pretty funny too. Can’t wait to see the look on Usodachi’s face!”
Reito raised an eyebrow. Best lesson? What are they talkin’ about…? “What kinda favor...?”
Neigh unveiled a pistol of all things, cocked it, and placed it into Reito’s hand. “I needja to dome me. Preferably, right between the eyes,” he asked of him, pointing at the bridge of his nose. “Easy, right?”
“.......Huuuuuh?!” Reito exclaimed, stepping back and dropping the gun.
“What’s the problem? Just do it.”
“Yeah, go on ahead and dome him already so we can move on.”
“Is everybody in this school crazy or somethin’?! You’re askin’ me to take a guy’s life, who wouldn’t do a double-take at bein’ asked that?!”
“Don’t think too hard about it,” Neigh reassured Reito while raising one finger in a “come on” gesture, “just close your eyes and let it rip!”
Reito shook, scared of what would happen if he did just that. But considering Neigh asked him to shoot him, he began to think it would be okay. He had watched a lot of anime and remembered wise mentor characters who would do similar showcases, if not with a bullet, some other weapon. With minimal effort they’d swat it away like it was nothing. So, he picked the pistol off of the ground and raised it in front of his teacher’s face, slowly pressing the trigger, his fingers still trembling.
“Okay...fine! Since everyone’s on my back, drop dead!” He shouted, closing his eyes and finally pulling the trigger.
With a loud “Bang!” the bullet hit Neigh square in the face, making him fall back onto the ground with a thud.
Reito started sweating bullets. Deflect it? Yeah, right, this guy’s a bigger nerd than I am! He concluded, thinking there was no way Neigh didn’t die. I killed him, but he asked me to! Wait, does that mean I assisted in suicide?! I could go to jail for this, and to top it off, there’re tons of witnesses! Damn it, Teac-!
Before he could dwell on it more, he heard footsteps in front of him, making him slowly open his eyes. The first thing he saw was the bullet bounce on the ground in front of him with a small “clank”. Then, he looked up, seeing Neigh rising to his feet.
“Yeowch! It gets the point across, yeah, but it still leaves a mark,” Neigh said, rubbing the mark left on him by the bullet. “See, I’m not dead, and I’m not Neigh the friendly ghost, either.”
Reito took a step back, grabbing his chest. “....How are ya...alive, exactly...?”
“Not like it's anything special,” Neigh responded, stooping down to pick up the bullet that was now crushed like a can from hitting his head. “See, anyone here would’ve survived that. When you become a Pathos—your body undergoes a unique metamorphosis as it gets used to your ability. Your skin and skeletal system get tougher. You get a bit stronger, too. Long story short; a normal bullet like this isn’t anything more than a minor annoyance—even to you. Of course, we can still be pierced with something if it’s sharp enough, but blunt weapons aren’t much of a threat to us unless we’re hit several times over. Well...unless it’s a part of an ability or made of a special material.”
Reito thought about it, and when he looked back, the more truth Neigh’s words held. He’d been bounced off of and put through buildings just a few days ago, and all that came from it was a little blood and a slight stinging in his back.
“A punch from another Pathos can hurt like hell as well, and... Well, I don’t wanna rattle anyone’s brain with any more technical jargon, so I’ll just sum it up,” he concluded, taking the gun from Reito to it again, before raising a fist in the air triumphantly. “We're pretty much mutants―freaks of nature―just plain weird as hell! Get it?! It’ll take a lot more than some weak ass bullet to send any of us packing!”
Neigh’s proclamation spawned an uproar of laughter from the other students.
“I never get tired of seeing him do that, ha-ha! What a riot!”
“I know. It’s things like this that actually make him seem kinda cool!”
“That’s Mr. Banner for ya!”
“You can take a seat, kid, and thanks for your help with the demonstration. Judging by the look on your face,” Neigh examined Reito’s stunned expression with a smirk, cupping his chin with two fingers, “I think you’ve got the gist of it.”
“Errgh... Couldn’t you’ve used a less hardcore example to show how we’re tougher than normal?”
He pondered Reito’s question for a bit. “Hmm... Yeah, I guess I could’ve, huh...? Well, that’s enough of that. Back up to your seat with you!”
At least give it more thought than that! Having his question basically ignored, he walked back to his seat.
Neigh picked up his pillow and proceeded to address his class once more. “Okay, moving on,” he segued, turning to the map behind him, “There are four schools in the system, built with a rank-based progression system in mind: Kita, Azuma, Nishi and Minami.
“Like a hierarchy sorta thing, right?” Reito asked.
“Exactly like that,” Neigh snapped, confirming the answer. “Everyone starts out at any of the schools depending on how high you score on the Path assessment, but if you weren’t there for whatever reason, you just begin at the Kita and get plopped into the lowest rank. To be promoted to a higher one, you’ve gotta reach a benchmark rank by the time one of the two Ascension days hit, which is the day you’re officially instated into an upper school. The first is for the top two in the school in the middle of the month, and the second, at the end of the month, promotes the top thirty.
Reito picked apart the slew of the information in his head. So, the quickest way to move up is to become either the second or best fighter in the school... A pretty tall order.
“Speaking of rankings, it affects a lotta things. Take your living conditions, for example. You can start with a small dorm that’s serviceable enough to live in, being sent around 1000 Glint bi-weekly. To be honest, even though Japan switched it out for yen a few years back, I kinda like it. Plus, it's fun to say! Anyway, to make transactions simple, your Student Card and S.P. act as credit cards. But after a few hard-fought months, you can end up in essentially a penthouse with more money than you know what to do with! And since the Academy and its respective dorms are in different parts of the city, you also get access to a lot more shops and pleasantries! Mari-Chan and I have personally been to a cafe or two over on the Nishi side, and the service was top notch, perfect for a date!” he elaborated, rubbing his face against his pillow.
“....................”
“...................”
The whole class just gave blank looks.
“Not interested in date spots, huh? I suppose that’s fair. I guess we can move on to the last bit—matches. Obviously, the best way to get used to something you just got is to use it, constantly. And what better way than a good clean fight.”
“The rules of matches are simple: Knock out your opponents by any means necessary, but no killing! We don’t need another syndicate of killers in the making. Meichi INCs’ tech makes environmental generation a sinch, so if you need to, you can choose one to simulate depending on how you fight and what ability you have. If you ever feel like the fight’s going nowhere for you, yielding is always an option. On top of that, there’s a tournament called the Cuatro Clash that takes place every so often or so that’ll give you a chance to shoot up the ranks even faster. There are even special stipulations you can put on matches, depending on the situation.”
“Mr. Banner! I’ve heard some students from the upper schools get to travel on some sort of missions. That true?”
“Ah, yeah—special missions. I usually don’t mention ‘em because they're more of an upper school thing, but I guess since you guys caught wind of it, I’ll enlighten you. If you get high enough in the rankings, you can take up missions that’ll have you apprehending rouge Pathos and criminals, doing specific objectives; a lotta different stuff. The City’s restricted to invite-only, unless you take up an occupation here. Even still, sometimes, Pathos who arrive here get the idea in their head that they can skip a few steps and rule through reputation and power alone.”
Like that Lizer guy... Reito recalled.
“Same goes for the rest of the world—there’s plenty of Pathos causing trouble everywhere you look. So, to balance it out, the Academy’s curriculum trains you all to get strong enough to apprehend ‘em. There’s criminals out there with all sorts of Paths, just like you guys—but there’re only a couple types: Transformation—which allows your body to change its shape and form. It could be into something like an animal, be it wolf or bear, or a weapon, like a blade or gun. Then—there’re Command types, which give you control over something. Or—in rarer cases—the ability to produce it as well. The rarities usually fit into a subcategory, like my Burnout, which we like to call—Natures. Lastly, Boost type—which can give you a wide variety of abilities that don’t fit in the former two classifications. Think something along the lines of making your skin harder or being able to move at blazing speeds.”
Boost type...guess I’m one of those, then. I kinda hated this power before, but the name sounds kinda cool. Maybe I jumped the gun when I called it shitty, Reito began to realize.
“But not all men are born equal.” His teacher added, holding up a finger. “Contrary to popular belief. Paths hammer that saying in hard. If the types are presented from strongest to weakest, the list goes: Command, Transformation, then Boost. Mostly because the former is touch activated or just a meager basic attribute enhancement more often than not. Like former Treasurer Zeno’o’s food powered super strength,” Neigh said, turning his back to the class.
Reito slammed his head on the desk in front of him in defeat. The weakest type… The weakest, outright worst... What’s with my luck?
The class chuckled, looking at Reito and starting to whisper.
“He slammed his head down when Mr. Banner mentioned Boost types...”
“Guess that means the Path he used against Zeno’o is actually one of the weakest! Lucky us, he’s no competition with a power like that!”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, though,” Neigh reassured. “Even if you’ve got a weaker power, I’m sure everyone of you can make the best of it. After all, becoming a Pathos hinges on two things: An immense buildup of stress and an extremely strong will,” he said, bringing both his hands together in a clap. “Put those together, and that’s how a Pathos is made—and with those two ingredients, anything’s possible! So, keep on keeping on, and try to become the King or Queen! Whaddya say to that, class?!”
Every student but Reito put their fists in the air.
“You’ve got it, Mr. Banner!”
The class cheered and went into an uproar at Neigh’s encouraging words, but Reito didn’t seem too invigorated by them.
“Strong will, huh? ...Must be some kinda mistake,” Reito mumbled to himself, laying his head into his arms.
(Continued in Part 3)
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