“...Fine.” After hurling such a wild accusation at the boy, she owed him at least this much. She didn’t want to make enemies with her classmates, or anyone for that matter, so clearing the air here was the most optimal solution. Emi sat up straight and glanced over to Gayle, who was waiting to hear what she had to say. This made her gulp. She could feel the pressure building as she began to open her mouth to speak. 

“H-Hey, Gayle was it?”

He nodded. “Mm-hmm. What's up?”

“Look, it… It was wrong of me to blow up at you the way I did back there and cause a big scene. I don’t even know you and I went and accused you of something so awful. That wasn’t fair to you at all. So for that…I’m sorry.”

“......”

“......”

““......””

A hush fell over the four teens. Emi and Gayle maintained their eye contact, never breaking it. Cady and Katsumi were watching the scene unfold with bated breath, closely analyzing both the scarlet-haired girl and the sapphire-haired boy. Reading their body language, they silently speculated on which of the two would break the stalemate first. Gayle finally satisfied their curiosity. 

“Um… That’s cool, I guess,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “But do I know you from somewhere?”

“H-Huh?!”

““Wha…?!””

Emi and the others exclaimed loudly at Gayle’s curt response. Here she was trying to carry the can for her wrongdoing and all she got in return was nonchalance. She was trying to apologize here! Was he trying to make a fool out of her?

“Why, you…” Her blood began to boil again. Having had just about enough of this boy, she stood from her seat and fixed him with a mean glare. Right when she was about to give him a piece of her mind, his eyes lightened up.

“Oh! It’s you, Red!” Gayle beamed, pounding his open palm with his fist. “Wow. I didn’t even recognize you with that cute expression. It’s like night and day! With the way you were scowling at me before, I’d figured that ‘angry’ had to be your default expression.” He let out a chuckle before stroking his chin in thought. “Hmm…Though, if I had to choose, I’d say this look suits you a lot better.” 

“......!” She growled at him ferociously. “You insufferable little…”

Cady stood up and put a hand on her new friend’s left shoulder. “Now look whatcha did, Sapphie.” She frowned at him, shaking her head. “You’ve gone and poked the drop bear!”

“Yeah, yeah. What else is new?” Gayle scrunched his face in annoyance and shrugged. “Getting angry all the time is bad for your health, y’know!” 

“You’re one to talk,” Katsumi chimed in, appearing to have fun with this exchange. 

“Urk!” Gayle clutched his chest, wounded by his friend's words. 

“Perhaps I wouldn’t be having this problem if someone didn’t up and jack my coffee!” Emi reached out her right hand to the boy expectantly. “And now that I know you’re some big shot noble—you owe me fifty grams!”

“What?! As if!” Gayle snorted at her, crossing his arms. “Because of you, I still have this gods-awful taste in my mouth! What that coffee did to my buds should be considered a capital offense!”

She lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar. “You know what—”

Before things could escalate any further, the classroom door swung open once again. Just as before, all students present broke from their conversations to focus their attention on the entrance. Had their homeroom instructor —who was now twenty minutes late —finally arrived at last? Emi certainly hoped so. If she had to sit in class any longer with nothing to distract her from this sapphire-haired dolt, she was going to have an aneurysm or worse! That hope was dashed only a few seconds later.

“......!”

In walked a bizarre-looking girl of average height and a mature figure. Her hair, flowing down her waist, looked as if it had been splashed with several coats of paint, A faded red with additional strands of blonde and blue that was styled into twin ponytails.

This was, in fact, the most extreme example of miasma exposure that Emi had ever seen.

The strange girl’s alternate uniform was far more risque than what even Yuki was wearing, consisting of a midnight blue vest embellished with the Phoenix Military Academy emblem over a black long-sleeved fishnet top that stopped just shy of her exposed navel (which had a piercing). Paired with this was a short black skirt and reddish-orange thigh-high stirrup leggings. It didn’t take Emi long to realize that the girl wore no shoes with her leggings, the bands at the very bottom wrapped tightly around her insteps and arches. The balls of her bare feet slapped against the Everwoodian Oak floors as she made her way to the front of the room. 

“Whoa…who’s she?” Emi wondered in a low voice, eyeing the girl curiously. 

“Beats me,” said Cady. “It’s odd, though. I picked up neither a scent nor sound comin’ from out there…”

 It may not have been obvious to Cady, but Emi and the other mages, even at their level, could easily deduce that the older girl was using her mana to mask her presence. Even now, they couldn’t pick up even a trace of energy from her. Had she not been in their line of sight, none of them would’ve noticed her. In any other setting, be it combat or general survival, an oversight such as this could spell fatal consequences. 

The older girl finally stopped in front of the podium and turned to face the dumbfounded freshmen class. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be humming something to herself. Emi took in the girl’s visage a bit more and noticed the tattoos on either arm underneath her fishnet sleeves. Due to the dragon-like shapes she could make out, Emi surmised that New Dragonia was the girl’s country of origin, where many followers of the Church of Gyrfyr remained. Around the girl’s neck was a mini orange necktie that had the ‘IV’ numerals stitched onto it.

A Senior? Is she here to relay a message from our instructor? That was the only conclusion Emi could come up with. 

“Ahem!” The girl coughed humbly as if requesting the class’s undivided attention. Not that she needed to, there wasn’t a soul in that room who dared look away from her. How could they? She finally opened her eyes, revealing a striking bright violet color that wandered around the classroom, seemingly appraising every student present one by one. 

She stayed like that for a while. Feeling a bit nervous, Emi turned to Katsumi for answers, but just like the rest of the class, his gaze remained solely on the older girl before them.

And then, without warning, the strange girl raised her arms, then positioned her feet outwards. She then put one foot in front of the other, her right heel touching the instep of her left foot. Bending her knees, the senior girl leaped into the air, twirling like a spinning top. The students gasped at this sudden happening before them. With not much else to do, watching was their only option. 

But at this moment, one question came to them collectively: Is…is she really…dancing?

When she finally landed, the girl broke into another dance, twirling, falling backward only to land in a full-bridge position. Pushing herself back to her feet, she leaped into the air once more, crossing her right leg in front of her left, raising her left arm while pointing her right one to the floor. Returning to the floor, with her arms still in their previous position, she began to sway her hips and undulate her torso in rhythmic motions. 

“......”

“......”

“......”

The class continued to watch on in silence as the girl shimmied and shook her entire body, bringing her arms together, her hands moving in a circular motion as if she were forming some sort of sphere. 

“......!” Emi was speechless. This was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Could this have been some kind of New Dragonian custom she wasn’t privy to? 

The senior girl then spread her arms outward, throwing her head back and looking up to the ceiling. After a brief pause, she crossed her legs for a final time and leaned forward, bowing. 

“......”

“......”

“......”

Is it…Is it over? 

No one took their eyes off the girl as she remained in that position a while longer. She was as still as a statue. To Emi, it didn’t even look like she was breathing. Before her concern could mount up, the senior girl then raised her head and her body returned to a neutral position. Without a single word, she spun on her heel and walked out of the classroom, shutting the door behind her. 

““““““......”””””

The students took a moment to ruminate on the passing moment. Not long after…

“The hell was that all about?!”

                                                 “Was that real?”

“Looks like that senior had way too much to drink last night!” 

                                                  “I’ll say! Either that or she was doin’ some kinda freshmen hazing ritual!” 

The classroom erupted with confused yet lively chatter. Many of the students present couldn’t make heads or tails out of what they’d just witnessed, but one thing was for sure, it was something they would never forget. 

“Heh. Well, that was certainly somethin’!” Cady beamed, tail wagging with excitement. “An interesting way to welcome a freshmen class, don’tcha think?”

“Honestly, I’m still trying to process the whole thing,” Emi admitted sheepishly.

“I see, so that must have been her,” Katsumi said, mostly to himself.

Upon hearing this, Emi turned to him. “Hm? What do you mean, Katsumi? You know who she is?”

He crossed his arms and nodded. “Indeed. That girl…was none other than the Ferine Fable herself…Shina Urahara.”

“Shina Urahara…” Emi repeated the name to herself. Why did it sound familiar?

Gayle turned to face Kat, slamming his hands on his desk. “Are you serious?! Project Galanga’s second strongest showed up here? What for?”

“I too share in your confusion, my friend. It is quite bizarre, to say the least.”

A lightbulb lit up within Emi. That’s where she’d heard the name before. Project Galanga was an elite faction exclusive to Phoenix Academy, consisting of five of its strongest students. The young woman dubbed “The Ferine Fable” certainly lived up to her epithet. Despite being ranked second only to “Black Fang”—the alias of Dante Leerex the school’s current ace—in truth, very few outsiders had ever seen Urahara in action. She never participated in any of the annual events, not even Academy Showdown. Thus, many folks often called her standing within Project Galanga into question, especially students who were gunning for a spot in the faction themselves.

That still doesn’t explain why she was here, Emi thought. And that dance, there has to be something to it. 

As she replayed the dance routine in her mind, she recalled that Shina had worn a solemn expression on her face throughout. What could it mean? 

Knock!

            Knock! 

                         Knock!

There was a sudden knock at the classroom door, the students looked over to see a tall grizzled man standing in the doorway. He sported neck-length black hair and a goatee with a gray streak in the middle. A big scar shaped like an ‘x’ sat on the left side of his brow. He was dressed in a blue sports coat over a white button-up, matching dress slacks, and black leather dress shoes. The students gazed at him with curiosity. Given what they'd just witnessed minutes before, they weren't exactly sure what to expect here.

“Good morning, class,” he said in a raspy voice, pushing up his oval-rimmed glasses with his fingers. “Please do forgive my lateness, I had a bit of business to attend to that needed to be dealt with swiftly.” He sported a look of bemusement at that last part. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he trudged over to the front of the classroom. “Y’see, normally, we’d start off these school years with an opening ceremony; our headmaster would give a long tired old speech about ‘applying yourself’ and ‘being the best students you can possibly be’, but get this: said headmaster decided to breach protocol and cancel the ceremony altogether and then take a trip across the country instead, leaving his faculty to pick up the slack…”

Emi remembered reading that on PMA’s virtual bulletin. While she did find it perplexing at first, she’d figured there was a plausible reason for it. However, upon hearing this from their instructor the moment he walked into class, coupled with the exasperation in his tone, Emi was getting the impression that the reason for the headmaster’s departure was anything but plausible. 

 Finally, the instructor stopped at the podium and faced his students. 

“So, one angry Kazam call, later,” he went on, “we finally managed to smooth things over with The Board, no one got suspended and/or terminated, and that’s why I’m standing here before you, twenty-five minutes late.”

“Twenty-seven,” a blue Oni boy called out.

“Ah, twenty-seven minutes, sorry.” The instructor smirked sheepishly at this. He didn’t seem too carefree, Emi thought. Perhaps she was too hasty in her earlier assumption about him potentially being a wild card. She mentally kicked herself for once again jumping the gun about a stranger. Disappointed in herself, she chose to stifle those thoughts and focus on the instructor. 

“Now that that’s outta the way, let’s get down to business!” He extended his right hand, palm upward. With a single wave, the blackboard behind him shifted. Seconds later, the board appeared to be made of concrete. Following his incantation, dew drops danced about his fingertips before dissipating into the air, forming a sphere-like shape above his palm. 

They’re forming letters!

“The name’s Martin Seagrain. Water mage. I’m a former student here at PMA, Class of 3120. Seems there are a lot of familiar faces in this class. That can only mean that some of your parents were probably classmates of mine…” His eyes fell on Emi. She tensed up at his gaze, bracing herself for what this could mean. “Why, some of which I’d consider to be good friends.”

“Oh?”

A warm smile spread across his face and Emi sighed with relief.  Thankfully, his words weren’t filled with indignation like she’d feared but rather admiration. I see…so she actually did have friends, she thought. Her mother never really spoke of anyone else during her time at Phoenix Academy, so Emi assumed that she didn’t get on well with her peers. Guess I was wrong.