SHOUT OUT to the wonderful Midnight Phantasma, who was kind enough to give us our first request. I just want to say again that if you have a job for Kanda (or the rest of the crew) that you must see, tell us!
(terms you NEED TO KNOW: block = half hour; hour = two blocks/one hour)
-The Black Order Academy-
The entrance to the music room had the typical black name plate tucked into a plastic sheath firmly attached to the door. It read 'Marian Cross'.
The nametag of their teacher, on the contrary, spelled out an entirely different name: Allen Walker. Additionally, he appeared to be a teenager—early twenties at best—with white hair. Not platinum blond. Not bleached. Pure, natural white. And he had some kind of tattoo/scar running down from his forehead across his right eye. The unusual combination made him look like a gangster or Yakuza.
So why, pray tell, was a pseudo Yakuza working at a public* school?
"Ah, I think this is the part where I'm supposed to do introductions," Allen murmured as the last of his first hour** students filed in the doorway, yawning and still half-asleep at 8am. "Good morning, everyone. As you may have noticed, I'm not the music instructor you may be used to. For the time being, I am substituting for Marian Cross, whose name was in your syllabus. He has left me in charge of his position while he flees from his debt collectors, who may periodically question you about his whereabouts. If they ask, he's probably drinking, gambling, making women lust after him, and accumulating more debts in one of the two local pubs, The Grey Lady or the Pup and Gander, on the North Side for the next two weeks.
"Anyway, I'm Allen Walker and I have ten years' experience in music composition, compilation, directing and various instruments including the piano, pipe organ, harpsichord, guitar, mandolin, and various other instruments. If you have any further questions, please ask me after the hour. Now, since this appears to be a new class for many of you, we'll be starting small. We're going around the room, so please state your full name, your reason for taking this class, and what musical experience each of you have. This will give me a better idea of how to set up this class."
A hand raised in the front row, and he looked at a tall teenager with dark skin, a long lanky frame loosely covered by the requisite black slacks and jacket, sapphire blue collared shirt, and dress shoes, with a matching blue butterfly pin holding back dark bangs.
"Yes…?"
"Tyki. Tyki Mikk. I'm taking this class because all the other classes to fulfill our arts credits are boring, and I've played violin for maybe five years. So I had a question, one relevant to the class, I assure you."
Ah, a smart ass. He was used to these types. "Make it short. We need to get a little done today after the intros."
"I know this is a music class and all, but doesn't the syllabus already lay out the semester? What would you need to know our musical experience for?"
He took a short glance over the teenager, who couldn't have been many years his junior. Small calluses on the fingertips of his left hand, scarcely noticeable. Probably only two years of violin then, if the calluses were still slightly swollen, and not his personal interest. Parental influence or, more likely, trying to impress the ladies. Much smaller indents on right hand, balanced between all fingers and thumb nearly evenly. Allen took a brief look at his eyes and the small crinkle just to the side of his eye, near his beauty mark. Could be a side job as a magician, but he didn't look the type to take a job until his parents pushed him to, which left either a minor thief or a poker player. Either way, he still had a tell, though it wasn't too obvious.
Good, this was the type he could handle. His lip tilted up in a dark, manipulative smile. The students could sense the shift in the air and unconsciously fiddled in their seats.
"Tyki, my reason for wanting to know your experience is because I would like to take a hands-on approach to this class, unlike your regular teacher who would likely sit here, tell you to do whatever you want, and brood in the corner. You are going to break up into groups, based on what talents you have, and either choose pieces to learn how to play or write up your own. Then, for your midterm and semester finals, we'll be going on fieldtrips for three days each. I will set you up on the best street corners downtown, and whichever group can make the most gets a perfect score. The next best group will get ten points less, the third best twenty points less, and so on. Besides active participation and the occasional surprise test, when you will perform for your classmates and I, these will be your only grades." He smiled at his class, hands clasped together. "Please do your best, because if you receive failing marks, you will not get your fine arts credits."
The whole class sweat-dropped, slumping in their seats. Wasn't this supposed to be the easiest fine arts class? Hadn't their upperclassmen said that it was an impossible class to fail unless you irritated the teacher?
"Ah, Mr. Walker," the petite girl at Tyki's side raised her hand—more specifically, her lollipop. In a gothic style outfit, hair put up into tight, neat curls, and with the delicate way she held herself, she could have been mistaken for a child-sized porcelain doll. "Oh, sorry, I'm Road Camelot, seven years' experience in choir singing, five in flute and piccolo, and I'm taking this class because I heard that beautiful women could not fail this class."
Yeah, the upperclassmen had mentioned that bit too. There had been quite an emphasis on that rumor.
"The money we make for our finals, where is it going? Do we get to choose a charity or can we keep it?"
A dark aura fell across the room, seeping from their substitute teacher who was beginning to look more and more like a creature out of Hell in the visage of a human. Were those…horns they saw behind his ears? Maybe they should have gone with that innocuous art class instead. The teacher was strict, but he surely wouldn't have made them fear for their lives.
"Of course the money will be going to a charity. This job pays practically nothing, especially as a substitute. With this alone, I can feed and clothe myself, as well as pay the bills for my flat. The money we make during finals goes towards paying Master Cross's debts, which he dumps on me when he runs off with his women."
Oh my. They might not be surviving this class. Almost immediately, the students knew that they shouldn't bring any money or expensive possessions into this room unless they wanted to donate it toward Allen Walker's 'charity.'
"Okay!" The horrifying aura vanished as quickly as it appeared, the horns returning to whatever dimension they had emerged from, and Allen's eyes lighting up with a sweet, excited glow. "With that explanation, let's move to the next student. You are…?
"Good~ morning, everyone!" Their overly excitable gym teacher didn't even need to yell to get his voice across the gymnasium. The girls, just out of the changing room, got their first look at the gym instructor and immediately set to whispering in groups, sneaking peeks and wishing that the young redhead would also change into shorts and a t-shirt for the class. "I'm Lavi Bookman, Jr. Along with my lovely assistant, Daisya Bar-" a soccer ball came flying at his stomach. He flew backwards and hit the wall as his 'lovely assistant' glared menacingly. The soccer ball rolled backwards, seemingly knowing where its owner was expectantly waiting. Many of the boys chuckled as the female population cried tears of sympathy.
Lavi picked himself back up as if this were a usual occurrence, swiping a hand through his hair to remove the drywall dusting his bright hair. "Along with Daisya Barry," he corrected, "I hope to get you all in tip-top shape for the spring festival, as I'm sure all of you are looking forward to making your class the champions."
That was hard for the males to argue with. They chuckled amongst themselves, jokingly flexing muscles and declaring their best sports.
"With that," Lavi clapped loudly to get the attention of the auditorium of students, "let's go on a short morning jog! I'm sure all of you are still a bit tired, so to get you all acclimated after your lazy summers, let's go on a short run of the school! Don't worry about speed at all. This is all participation points for the first two weeks." He jumped up and down in place, practically radiating energy as his hair bounced with him. "Follow after me!"
Kanda Yuu's eyes lazily tracked the sluggish forms of his students as they made their way to the desks that he had marked with their names. How the brats could still be tired at nine in the morning? He didn't know what was worse: trying to drag his damn students into paying attention or calming them down after their lunchtime sugar rush. At least he wouldn't have to memorize their names, with a paper in front of him clearly labeling who sat where.
The exact moment the second hand on the clock mounted above the door passed the sixty second mark, he shot a ruler at the door, slamming it shut. He nodded at the sound of the lock automatically clicking shut, mildly pleased that the beansprout with the old man hair had been able to install it. It simply took too much time and effort to lock the door himself and wasted precious seconds.
He scoffed at the four students locked out of the classroom, knocking on the door and asking to be let in. This would teach them that even on the first day, they would see no mercy from him. Slackers. Kanda marked them all absent on his attendance sheet before submitting it to the principal's records. It would make his day if he could discipline at least a few of his students on the first day.
Once the morning rituals were completed, he started writing the first dates and facts on the whiteboards perpendicular to his desk. "The bubonic plague, or Black Death, is believed to have started in central Asia, travelling along the Silk Road—which you should know about from your required world civilizations class from last year—and is recorded to have reached the Crimea by 1346." Students scrambled to wrench notebooks, pens and pencils from their bags while Kanda heartlessly continued to cite facts from memory alone. The first day was always amusing, no matter how well-prepared his students were. None of them ever prepared for a lecture before the class started.
"It was transmitted to rat fleas living on the black rats that often stowed along on Oriental merchant ships, spreading the plague throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. The pandemic killed somewhere between 75 to 200 million people across three continents. The 30-60% of Europe killed either through the disease or subsequent infection if they lived occurred at the peaking of the plague from 1348 until 1350. We will be starting this class with reports of the religious, social and economic upheavals that this plague created specifically in Europe, and the profound effects on European civilization and resulting history as a result. Choose a topic that you can write an eight page essay on and get to it. Any questions?"
A dozen hands shot up, the rest still frantically scribbling the information down before their devil teacher could wipe the information from the board. Kanda rolled his eyes. Brats. "Front row, dark hair, blue shirt. What do you want." If his students mistook that as a question, rather than the command that it was, then they would still have plenty of time to catch on.
"When is the paper due?"
"Friday." Startled whispers started up as the damn brats went into bloody panic attacks. He slammed the teacher's copy of their textbook on his desk. Many students left the class still having heart palpitations fifty minutes later. "There will be two more lectures on the topic before then, so you won't need to do a ton of general research if you pay attention and take good notes.*** Now are there any more questions or would you actually like to have me do the lecture?"
Heads nodded, so he continued. "An epidemic dies out after a few months because it has no host for the bacteria to survive in. However, this does not mean that it cannot sit out in a reservoir, such as a rodent or flea, so sooner or later, it breaks out again. The aftershocks resonating after the initial arrival of the Black Plague was called the Second plague pandemic. It was present in Europe in every year between 1346 and 1671. In the first half of the 18th century, a plague epidemic followed the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russian allies, killing about 100 thousand in Sweden and three times as many in Prussia. Outbreaks in the 18th century marked the retreat from most of Europe, and Northern Africa saw similar effects in the next hundred years. The Islamic world saw repeats of the plague nearly every year between 1500 and 1850.
"A Third pandemic spanned from 1855 until 1959, starting in China and spreading to all inhabited continents, killing ten million in India alone. Australia saw twelve outbreaks, resulting in a thousand deaths, predominantly in Sydney. The first North American plague epidemic was the San Francisco plague of 1900 to 1904, with a second outbreak in 1907 and recurring minor cases from 1944 until 1993. Most cases occurred in four western states—Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico—and in 1995, plague was confirmed in the States from nine western states. Should the bacterium develop drug-resistance, it would again become a major pandemic. One case of the drug-resistant form was found in Madagascar in 1995, so I'd be a bit more cautious if one of your friends starts sneezing."
A shudder went through the whole class as Kanda continued to drone on.
"Now most of this week's lectures will focus on the initial and secondary epidemics in Europe, because of all the idiots the plague hit, Europe had the largest number—at least, before the plague. Being the idiots that they were, they tried all sorts of ridiculous methods to stop the disease, including blaming and killing populations of friars, foreigners, beggars, pilgrims, lepers, Roma and, obviously, Jews. Several cities managed to wipe out whole populations of—"
"Goooooood~ morning, Yuu!"
Kanda's eye twitched, as did a vein in his forehead. "Stupid rabbit," Lavi ducked, the heat of the ruler nearly searing a line in his scalp before it slammed into the wall behind him, leaving a considerable, smoking hole in the classroom and external corridor. "I am in the middle of a class, and if you ever call me that name again, there will be nothing, nothing left of you."
"Ah, eh heh. But Yuu," the next ruler was a full centimeter closer, successfully setting fire to a few strands of his hair, which he quickly extinguished, "I also have a class!"
"And what does that have to do with my class?"
"It's part of our lap!"
"…"
"Ah, here they are now! Gotta go!"
The gym teacher dashed across the room, pulling open a window and leaping down from the second floor before the students blinked, much less figured out what had just transpired. Wait, hadn't that door been locked? Moments later, a line of students flooded through the now-unlocked doors to follow Lavi's jump out the window. "Mr. Lavi didn't mention any jumping!" one of the runners complained, and his female running companions glared him into submission.
With a prominent vein still spasming unhealthily in his forehead, Kanda settled back against a brick wall, a moving barricade effectively keeping him from his desk. "Class, we've had a change of schedule," he loudly declared, immediately catching the attention of his students. "I think we need a bit of fresh air. If the class as a whole can knock out a quarter of that idiot's class, I will give you an extra week on your essay." He hadn't even finished his sentence before students started arming themselves, a manic gleam in their eyes. "And if you can take down the head idiot, Lavi Bookman, Jr., no class tomorrow."
Half a second later, the classroom was completely empty.
The third hour of school was no less boring than the first two for many students. Most who walked into the art room knew the teacher personally, Marie being more amiable than most instructors, and did a double take when they recognized the teenager—no, wait, was that an adult?—perched on his desk. Those who didn't recognize him were still momentarily stunned by his appearance.
"Ano…aren't you the music teacher from first hour?"
Yes, Allen Walker, the substitute music teacher, was also subbing in for Marie.
"I guess I should explain. One second." The bell rung a minute later, but he left the door open. Allen wasn't fond of the automatic locks he'd been asked to put on the doors, namely because he had to get up and move to the back of the classroom every time someone needed extra supplies from one of the cabinets. "Your normal teacher for this class will be Noise Marie, who I'm told many of you already know. Marie had a third operation done on his ears yesterday to fix damage from a car accident two summers ago, so hopefully he won't have to wear those bulky hearing aids anymore." He smiled as the class cheered. "My name is Allen Walker, and I'll be your substitute until Marie's recovered enough to be moving around."
"Do you know about how long that will be?"
He didn't look over fast enough to determine who asked, but he didn't mind the interruption. Marie wasn't joking when he said he gave his students a lot of free reign during the half hour class. "When he gave me notes for your class, the doctors were still guessing two to four days to allow his hearing to settle. Some final tests still need to be run to determine how effective the surgery was. Any other questions?"
A boy raised his hand and he nodded. A hard candy crunched in his mouth as he spoke, so Allen guessed that this was the Skin Bolic that Marie had mentioned as one of his best students. It was hard to miss someone so distinctively tall and…large. "Where's Mr. Tiedoll?"
Well, that was blunt. Marie hadn't been exaggerating that either.
"Froi Tiedoll is your normal substitute for all of the fine arts classes," he began, for the purpose of the first years that hadn't meant their resident artist yet, "but this year he will be on…er…something of an extended holiday."
Skin raised his hand again. "He was in the gardens just this morning."
Allen sighed. He really didn't want to go into this. "Yes, and he probably will be for most of the week. Tiedoll is…something of an eccentric, but as one of the longest serving teachers of the school and a major contributor, we all try to give him a little slack. He's something of a hobo when he finds something he wants to paint, so if you see some blankets and a tent crop up on the grounds, leave them alone."
Were all of the teachers at this school weird?
"Now, unless there are more questions…" he glanced around, and at a lack of interruptions or hands went on, "…Marie tells me that he usually spends the first class walking through the location of all the equipment and utensils. Additionally, I'll go through a brief overview of how to handle some of the larger equipment and what kinds of safety risks they each have.
"Pencils, pens, markers, and most anything that writes is in the top drawer of the corner cabinet," he read off the notes in front of him, pointing in the general direction with one hand. The new students all turned to look, while previous students scribbled on the backs of tests or took naps. "Paint brushes, paints, acrylics, and the works in the drawer below that. Most of the paper—construction paper, origami sheets, and all that—is in the bottom, and the only thing you won't find there is the scratch paper, which has been resigned to the cardboard box next to my desk. If you have any extra from home or from another class, Marie says that, like last year, you are free to donate it so long as it is in decent condition and unmarked on at least one side.
"In the cabinet by the door, on the opposite side of the room, there are cl—"
"I, Lavi Bookman, Jr., shall be your model this fine day."
Allen's class turned to the doorway, curious to see who they would be drawing and what could make their teacher put off such an ominous aura.
Lavi, despite his brilliant red hair, green bandanna and generally loud demeanor, had somehow—somehow—managed to get on to the art room's back table without anyone noticing. This was especially incredible because—to the gleeful squeals of the girls and the horrified gagging boys—he was completely and utterly…stark naked. He winked at them, striking a pose to inappropriate to state without raising this story's rating. "Paint me like one of your French girls."
The girls swooned in their seats, blood streaming from their noses. Many of the boys felt scarred for life. Which they would be.
"Lavi," Allen growled, two octaves lower than his normal voice. "What. The. Bloody. Hell. Are you doing in my classroom—"
He tossed his hair with a wide grin. "I just thought I'd stop by, since my next class isn't till this aftern—"
"—with no clothes on?!"
The grin wavered. "Ah, I figured you wouldn't… Umm, Allen? What are you…? Yes, that's a…a very lovely t-table… C-could you not smile like…yeah, like that? Oh. Ah, hi Allen's class. Glad to meet you all. I think I may have overstayed my EEEEK!" He ducked as a towel, three books and a large table were all thrown his way. "Yuuuuu! Allen's being meeeeeeeean!"
A third voice emanated from down the hall. "Shut up, fucking rabbit!" The redhead thanked his super ninja skills, and his crazy grandfather that bashed them into him, as he barely dodged a katana breaking the sound barrier.
There are math classes, and there are math classes taken right after lunch break during the dreaded sixth hour. All Black Order Academy students can tell you this, and will, given the chance, because there is only one math teacher in the whole school who willingly took that hour for his introductory calculus class.
"To ensure that all of you have sufficiently covered the prerequisite subjects in your previous mathematics classes regarding trigonometry, we will be having a short quiz over the basic trigonometric functions and equations that we will be utilizing on a daily basis."
A thump emanated from the back of the classroom as a student's head slipped off the palm of his hand to fall noisily on his desk, the fourth to suddenly fall asleep within the first sixteen minutes of the class.
Arystar Krory III was the sixth in his family to head the mathematics department of the Black Order Academy. It was a long and glorious tradition among the Crowleys to have a deep love for numbers, and though not all of them taught full-time, the only child of the eighth generation of nearly purebred family had dreamed of achieving this position since his own days in the Academy. When he saw four full blocks of time available, he gladly picked them up for two back-to-back classes: Calculus I and Calculus II. His third class, a geometry class, was later in the day and only went three days a week.
As their time began, Krory's students were too engrossed in either the ridiculously long 'short quiz' in front of them or were much too unconscious to notice that their teacher's face was growing quite pale.
Unfortunately for Krory, his family was not nearly as fond of biology as it was of mathematics, and as a result, might have forgotten what happens to pure-bred families.
That's right, you former/current biology students. The Crowleys had a dark, dark secret, one that had appeared four generation previous and carried through the bloodline as a nearly dominant trait.
Vampirism.
From outside the classroom, a long, piercing female cry echoed throughout the winding hallways.
"Yes, yes, we all heard it. Please continue class. We have a student with epilepsy in Mr. Krory's class and our nurse is already heading down to give the girl her medication." There was a short pause as he listened to the teacher. "No problem. Thank you for reporting it, but please go back to your class."
Reever Wenham placed the phone down as lightly as he could before he slammed a hand on the table. "KOMUI!" His shout was followed by…nothing. The vice principal and front desk worker hit his head twice against the cool marble before getting up from his seat. "KOMUI! We have work to do!" He walked past the offices of the non-teaching staff members as well as his own before reaching the principal's door "KOMUI!" He kicked the door in, knowing well in advance that it wouldn't be locked or even completely shut.
In front of him was what could be accurately described as a pile of paperwork. Somewhere beneath there was entombed a desk, open laptop, three picture frames, a desk chair, dozens of pens and pencils, the official school seal, a giant stuffed bunny, fifteen assorted mugs—he wasn't sure how many would still be full at this point—and the Black Order Academy's principal, Komui Lee.
Reever eyed the mound of papers carefully before instinct and years of experience led him to notice the small bit of fabric from a beret poking out from four papers that appeared to detail school expenses. He grabbed a miraculously unburied megaphone from a chair in the corner of the room, turned it on to full blast, and yelled, "Lenalee is getting married, Komui!"
There was a sudden explosion of paper and a flurry of movement somewhere in the middle of the mess. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LENALEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
The vice principal swatted a map of the school grounds from his eyes. "Komui, you have to start getting home at a better time. You can't sleep in the office all the time."
When the flurry of paper died down, a man pulled himself back into his paper infested chair, hardly noticing the crumpling beneath him as he tied back his shoulder length blue hair with a yawn. "Bak had me up late last night working on the Asian branch's expense reports, since Rouvelier chewed him out last time he did it wrong. More paperwork?" He unleashed his teary Bambi eyes on his vice president, who rolled his own towards the ceiling.
"I would have dumped that on your pile." The two took a moment to observe the stacks of aforementioned substance encircling the room. "It's Krory."
"Ah, and on the first day of classes." Komui retrieved his glasses from a miniature stack of paperwork. "I was hoping we could go at least one year incident-free. There was a brief glare in Reever's eyes as the principal fixed his glasses back into position. "Time for an exorcism."
"Is it true that your brother is the principal?"
"Of course. My brother is a very proficient linguist, so he is invaluable to the Academy for communicating between branches.
"How fluently do you speak Chinese?"
"Though I was born in China and attended primary school in one of the coastal branches of the Black Order Academy, I have hardly used it in, oh, fifteen or sixteen years. Occasionally I have conversations with friends and family back in China as well some of the local shopkeepers, but I have to carry a Chinese-English dictionary for words that I don't often hear."
"Have you always wanted to teach English?"
"Of course not, but I've always loved to read. As a child in a poor family in China, books were my way of knowing that there was something else out there. My brother and I both had to work, even when we were very little, so I had very little time for exploring. Books were my way of discovering the world and having small adventures without leaving my house..."
While Linali's female students sat enraptured by her adorable yet strong nature and her wonderful way of answering their questions with little stories, the boys were similarly captivated by her long, pale legs and the mini skirt that would occasionally creep up a little too high when she shifted on her padded stool in front of the classroom. Due to this unique mixture, Linali was always highly requested by underclassmen (and women) looking to fill their English credits. Had any other teacher been in charge of Asian literature, they wouldn't have had a fourth of the students that she did. By popular request, she taught one Chinese language and culture class in the morning in addition to her three English classes.
"…and when I finished school, I felt that it was important for me to spread my love of reading to other childr—" She stopped as the cell phone on her desk rang. Her family and friends knew when she was teaching, so it was probably something important. "One second. I need to take this." The boys sighed as her skirt fell back down to sit just above her knees. Linali's tall boots clicked against the tile until she leaned over her desk to grab her mobile. "Linali Lee."
She recognized the number in time to hold the device at a sufficient distance from her ear as to not be deafened by the loud, "LINALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" that emanated from it.
"Nii-san, you need to stop doing that," she scolded.
"B-but Linali…"
"You could have called on the school phone."
"It's work-related," she heard his voice take on a more serious tone, "but not that kind of work."
"Nii-san, I still have a full forty minutes of class left. Lavi's in class, but I'm sure you can find someone else who has a free block. Goodbye, nii-san."
"LINAL—" The English teacher snapped her cell phone shut and set it back on her desk before heading back to her previous position. "Now, who else has a question?" She sighed as a class full of kids' hands shot up. This was why she got this over with on the first day.
"Between 1900 and 1904, the pl—" Kanda's eye twitched as his personal phone rang. Could he not have a single class without some kind of interruption?
He stalked to the side of the room to snatch his mobile from the bag at the foot of his chair, tossing his whiteboard marker at a poor student he noticed sleeping behind his textbook in the back of the room. A loud yelp, followed by a cry for an ambulance made by another student were clearly audible, but he paid them no heed. "What, Komui?"
"Ah, Kanda, there's some exorcist work that needs to be done. You remember Crowley's…?"
"You told me no work while I'm teaching. If you can't find anyone by next block, I'll be available then."
"But K—"
"Isn't this what you pay the beansprout for?"
"Not ex—"
"Forty minutes. Call me then." He hung up.
Students that had begun to gather around the pool of blood rapidly spreading from the student with the marker imbedded six inches in his skull, but they rapidly retreated to their desks when Kanda finished his call. The history teacher grabbed a new marker and returned to the board. "Between 1900 and 1904…"
He would choose exorcisms over snot-nosed brats any day of the week, but honestly, there were only so many interruptions he could handle before he would have to resort to killing a staff member.
Allen was listening to another student's musical experience, having just finished spending his break time fixing a projector that had gone on the fritz in Miranda's German class and acting as assistant nurse after Kanda's class's killing spree of Lavi's gym class. He sighed, wondering how this school was going to keep standing with the two of them teaching in the same building, when the cell in his pocket vibrated against leg. Turning his body to the side to appear that he was still listening, he covertly glanced at the caller ID. Ah, Komui was the principal, so he supposed it would be acceptable to answer. He silenced the boy narrating his many, many years of private tutoring in all the instruments and styles ever devised in human history with the raise of his pointer finger, though it had made him drool to think how many ways this child could help pay back his master's debt—and he knew the experience wasn't entirely made up, by the looks of his fingers, palm and left shoulder.
"Principal Lee needs me for a moment, if you don't mind. Please don't make too much noise and stay in your seats." The students murmured to each other, and as he stepped out, he also locked the inside door. Even if the kids didn't stay in their seats, he at least knew they wouldn't be wandering the halls and getting into trouble with other teachers.
"Yeah, Komui? What do you need?"
"THANKYOUFORYOURKINDNESSALLENI'MSOGLADYOU'REFREEBE CAUSEEVERYONEELSEWASYELLINGATMEEVENTHOUGHINEEDANEO RCISTAND—"
"Okay, Komui," he tentatively held the phone a good distance from his ear. "I didn't catch a word you said, so what do you need done?"
"Has Cross ever mentioned Krory?"
The man seemed to be as bipolar as they come, he silently thought. "Yeah, he mentioned that I should keep an eye on him, because if he doesn't monitor his blood intake, he could attack someone on the grounds."
"That's pretty much exactly the case. The lock on Krory's door malfunctioned, so his students are trapped inside with him. There are blood packs in the fridge in his classroom, and the nurse is readying her room for the students." To treat any blood loss and replace their memories. He didn't add the last part, but it was what he was implying. "And when Kanda's class ends at the hour, I'll send him down to help."
"Please send another teacher to my classroom to substitute me for the next few minutes, Komui."
ten minutes later...
Allen stood—distinctly unhappy—in the doorway of the nurse's office, Crowley thrown over one shoulder in a fireman's carry… Except Krory was much too tall for the shorter-than-average Allen, so his feet and knees dragged on the floor behind him, and the sometimes-vampire was attached to his fellow teacher by his teeth. It was then entirely understandable that Allen was pissed that on his first day of school/enforced-labor-to-pay-off-his-Master's-debt , he had to substitute in for three teachers (not including his permanent substitution of Cross, obviously), fix sixty-nine various appliances ranging from jammed windows to malfunctioning computers, bandage seventy-seven students and the gym teacher after Lavi and Kanda's repeated idiotic attempts to annoy/mutilate the other (though they couldn't be called attempts, since they were quite successful), AND THEN he has to kick down a door (he didn't want to know how much that would cost him) to rescue a classroom of students being sucked of their blood only to be stabbed in the leg by a terrified student flailing a pencil around AND THEN was unable to get the blood pack in the fridge open (bloody, friggin' plastic) while holding off a bloodthirsty vampire, so he finally resorted to jamming his wrist into Crowley's fangs to get rid of the whole damn problem. The substitute music teacher was now currently looking at a room not suited to hold the number of students that filled it and a nurse too overworked to notice a new, moving addition to the injured literally piling up around her.
The current block ended, and Allen only noticed this because there were students milling about in the hallways, looking intently at classroom numbers and the names tagged below them. He was about to dump the man drooping over him on the floor in the nurse's office to look for some duct tape for his mouth when Kanda passed by. An unnerving mix of relief and dark amusement filled his face as he tapped the history teacher on the shoulder.
"What?" Kanda took in the bloody stripes in less than a second with a disinterested glance. "Finished up, beansprout?"
"It's seventh hour, so this," he managed to hoist Krory—with a loud, obnoxious sucking sound from where he had attached himself to a vein in his shoulder—off himself to toss him on to Kanda, "is now your problem." As Kanda staggered under the sudden weight dropped on him, Allen took a moment to note his hairband, then another to look at the pencil still sticking out of his leg. "And for your troubles," he pulled the pencil out with a small wince, twirled it between two fingers, and stuck it through his fellow teacher's ponytail. He stuck a fist under his chin and nodded dramatically. "I was right. The blood splattering does match your attitude."
"Beansprout!"
He cheerfully wiggled his fingers in a small wave back to the sword-carrying teacher with no care for his own wellbeing in the slightest. "Toodaloo~!"
"Hey, Yuu, what's Crow-chan doing on your AHHHH GET 'IM OFF ME! HE'S TRYING TO BITE ME! WHY, CROW-CHAN?! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!"
All in all, Allen thought, he'd had worse days.
A/N: I kid you not, Sekai and I were crying the whole time. This thing is hysterical. I could barely see the screen while I was typing, so I hope spell check caught the brunt of it.
*This is for our non-UK readers: Public schools in the US (where most of you are from, if our stats are correct) are generally free and used by the majority of students. Public schools in the UK are more like US private schools (expense-wise) mixed with boarding schools. Think Eton College. If confused, Uncle Google and Aunt Wikipedia are always happy to clarify. For those of you in the UK, I'm sorry if this isn't exact, but my boarding school is a little different than yours.
**This is for everyone: Tons of schools work on different systems. In the district where I live, there are easily four different time setups for classes. So I'm using the system the majority of US universities utilize: the "screw it all" method. Classes are measured in half hour blocks, and most classes go for an hour (thus, "first hour"). However, I have had history classes for two and a half hours, two days a week and lab classes for one hour, three days a week, and two hours for the day we have our lab. Classes can be as early as 6 or 7 in the morning, and end as late as 9 at night. Scheduling is a bitch, and you have to experience it to understand the methodology.
***Does this ever happen? Yes. On the first day of school? Yes, it does. I basically just narrated the first five minutes of my integrated English and U.S. History class. If it hadn't been an exclusively honors class, kids would have been found brain dead on the floor after class. Hell can't be any worse than that two and a half hour long class. Kanda's students don't know how good they have it.