So here's the deal: Satsuki is an academy comprised of any and all manga, games, and anime that I deem worthy of attending. D So the students attending are all overzealous fighters that probably shouldn't be in the same class for the sake of any nearby cities. This first chapter will be relatively short compared to any following, because each chapter (excluding this one, obviously) will be divided into three parts, each one using a third person limited point of view, switching respectively between the three characters. Those particular characters are these: Yukira (an enigma, of sorts), Kat (a friend with questionable skills), and Serraphim, whose name is obviously derived from seraphim, the highest class of angel. For convenience, her nickname is Serra. Ah, by the way, Satsuki is a Japanese word meaning 'killer's aura.' It means the aura surrounding a person just before they are about to kill another person. This is to explain the trio's shock about the name of the academy.
"No. No way, man," said Serra quickly, staring at the ornate gate before her. The wrought iron gate looked like something out of a nightmare, made even more so by the way the metal was twisted like it had grown into that shape, towering well above them. Behind the gate, a dark forest loomed.
"Dude, this looks like something straight outta my bad dreams." Kat muttered i Way to echo my thoughts, Kat, /i Serra thought to herself, then, taking what she considered a huge chance, she turned her back to the gate to instead face her two friends.
"Quick, somebody think of a silver lining. I can't think of a good thing about this."
Yukira, leaning against one of the many trees, smiled slightly, and Kat said, "Well, you see, if it really turns out this is so bad, we can climb over this creepy fence and hitchhike back to proper civilization." Serra shook her head, not even daring to look at the fence again.
"No, we can't. There's barbwire looped on the top. And, we're up in the mountains. 'Civilization' is thirty miles away." Too short to reach the sharp thorns of the wire, Kat just looked up and stuck out her tongue.
"You've got to be kidding me," Kat yelled, her head lifted to the sky, "This is just insane! We're transferred deep into the mountains of Europe, there are no roads and no way to get to them anyway, the school is named creepy, and, worst of all, this is a i boy's /i school!!"
Serra quickly slapped her hand over Kat's mouth and whispered, "Sh. If you don't say it out loud, maybe it won't be true, and this really will be a nightmare. Ouch!" Serra removed her hand from Kat's teeth, and Kat replied, "Oh, yeah, and I'm sure Santa looks fantastic in spandex, too."
Yukira finally spoke, "Here's a silver lining for you: we were transferred together, and that's what counts."
Kat nodded, getting her point, and said, "Fuck yeah it is. That's pure gold, that is."
"So...I guess we go in."
"Yeah, can't miss class on our first day."
The trio made their way through the gate, and into the trees, which were equally eye-twitching. Serra walked first, then Yukira, then Kat, who was stopping continually to tap the trees.
"What the hell are these trees made of? There's something flowing through them, like, some sort of liquid," Kat said, biting her lip, and Serra and Yukira looked closer at them. Indeed, the trees were moving slightly, like flexible tubes as something poured through them.
"They're our energy source," announced a voice from above, in the leaves, and their heads snapped toward the sound. In the lighter section of the shadows, there stood a boy with flaming red hair that defied gravity, dressed in an outlandish leather cloak and a leather book bag hanging from his back.
"Who the hell are you?" Kat said, displaying her extensive vocabulary, and the boy responded, "The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"
Serra said quickly, trying to save the situation, "Are you a student here?"
"No, I'm just running through the mountains inside the gates because I got lost while hiking through these cold-ass mountains."
"Funny," she responded, "Now, seriously, which way's the school?"
But Serra found herself talking to the tree, as the boy smirked and disappeared pixel by pixel, leaving them alone again.
"Jerk." Kat slung her own almost-empty bag over her shoulder and kicked a tree. "Energy source, my ass."
"It's nine already. We better get going," murmured Yukira, glancing at the watch strapped to her bag, and they started off again, deeper into the shady trees and closer to the school which they knew nothing whatsoever about. Soon, however, Serra saw a glimpse of light through the trees ahead, and they rushed forward, out of the darkness and into the light.
They gasped in unison and shielded their eyes from the sudden burst of sunlight to get a better look at the amazing sight before them.
They stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking a huge valley nestled between snow-capped majestic mountains that reached far into the clouds. Below them were more trees that stretched on and then just stopped at the edge of well-kept grounds. The grounds held several smaller buildings, a maze of a garden, and a gigantic glistening lake that had a single dock in the water. But beyond the grounds was the real shocker. It was a castle, by far the biggest Serra had ever seen, even in pictures, and it stood like some ancient slumbering beast, waiting to swallow them up and teach them something, a scary prospect. There were towers that looked like nothing they had ever seen before, including one that looked as if it were topped by a huge mechanical bubble, and another that extended horizontally, straight over the lake.
"Holy--" muttered Kat, and it broke the spell.
"It's time to cause some chaos." said Yukira mischievously, rubbing her hands together in delight. You see, the trio wasn't transferred for any normal reasons, and this wasn't any normal school. This all-boys' school was a private school for troublemakers and people that didn't belong in proper society, and in this case, the girls' punishment fit the crimes.
"I knew I brought this thing for a reason," grinned Serra, pulling a folded-up board out of her bag and locking it into place.
"But you didn't being one for us?" asked Yukira heavily.
"Well, it's a good thing we have our own," Kat smirked, and pulled one out of her own bag and unfolded it, while Yukira set hers on the ground. Serra thought back to the last time they had used their airboards. It had been just last year, she reminisced happily, that they had used the school's freezers to ice over all of the halls and then used the boards to play freestyle hockey, using the principal's office as one goal and the computer lab as the other. Their boards had been confiscated and they had earned a transferal to their next school, which had been in Wisconsin. Naturally, the trio had broken in and gotten their boards back.
The boards served as normal snowboards when turned off, but if the grav-mag was switched on, then the boards reacted to metal and could hover a couple feet above grounds using magnets to propel them away from the metal frame.
"I'm switching mine on. Let's see if there's some scrap metal in these mountains." Serra kicked the nose of the board down, pressing the sensor, and then the board rose into the air, taking Serra with it. "All right!! Bonzai!!" She shouted into the cool mountain air, and kicked off the edge of the cliff. Yukira and Kat quickly followed, skimming over the rocks and dirt and falling fast and far into the trees below.
"Ya know, I bet we're getting grab on the boards because there's metal underground! There must be a framework system running under the entire castle grounds!" Yukira yelled to them as they began weaving through the trees. The dense area of trunks made it an intense challenge to not run into them head-on, but the trio had a lot of experience on the boards, and they laced themselves through the foliage expertly. Then they hit the clearing where the grounds started, and Serra pulled up too fast; her board jerked and she slipped, the nose of the board plummeting and hitting the ground. Serra flipped off the board and tumbled several feet away as her board shot up in the air as her weight left it and the magnets pushed away from the ground. i So /i this i is why most people wear collision cuffs, /i She thought as she quickly used her hands to grab onto grass to slow her momentum. Then Serra slid backwards over the slick grass and stood, catching her board in the middle of a perfect flip.
"Very nice," said Kat, clapping, and Serra bowed dramatically.
"Impressive," came another cheerful voice, and the three turned to face a man with a pinstriped hat, clogs, and a grin from ear to ear. "I'm Urahara, one of the professors here at Satsuki. And you—you must be the new students."
"So what's the deal with this place? The trees, the castle—" Kat gestured to the expansive set of buildings, and then continued, "—it's all pretty much overkill, right?"
"Not at all. Many our students require special classes, and just very number of them requires…a lot of space," Urahara responded without so much as blinking at Kat's wildly flailing arms. Serra tilted her head and folded up her airboard, sliding it into her bag, and then asked, "So are we going to class now, or a tour, or what?"
He answered merrily, "You're going to meet the headmaster, actually." He began walking, almost skipping ahead, and the trio followed him slowly, not sure if this man was sane enough to be trusted.
"Something's wrong with this guy, seriously. What kind of man past three i skips /i?" mocked Kat, none too quietly. Serra, ignoring Kat's disdain, whispered to Yukira, "You've been unusually quiet today. What's up?"
Yukira looked back over her shoulder quickly, then answered softly, "Ever since we got here, there's been a whole lotta people watching us. I haven't been able to figure out from where, though, and it's bothering me." They didn't get a chance to talk any further, as Urahara had skipped so far ahead that they had to jog just to make it in the massive castle doors after him.
Inside, the place was even more incredible. Urahara waved the room off as their entry hall. It was at least three stories high, with three sets of stairs leading up and out into various other wings, and even more extra paths on the ground level. Strangely organic pillars reached up to support the higher surrounding floors, and there was no specific light source of any type, it just seemed to emanate a soft glow from nowhere. However, upon closer inspection, Serra noticed that the glow i did /i come from something; floating in the air like diurnal fireflies were small mechanical creatures. There were hundreds in the room, floating about; they looked like tiny stars but their light was not that bright, so as to give the room its peaceful glow.
"Serra!" yelled Kat, and she snapped out of her reverie. Urahara had already turned one of the many corners, and they were about to lose him. Serra ran to catch up with Kat and Yukira, and when they finally caught up with Urahara, he was speaking to a small wrinkly woman in fighting gi.
"Ah, there you are. Thought you'd already gotten lost. If you weren't, don't worry, you will be. Kat, Yukira, Serra, this is headmaster Genkai." Urahara bowed out of the way, leaving the diminutive woman to talk to the trio. Her severe gaze cut into them, like she was studying their most inner potential.
"Welcome to Satsuki Academy. As you should know unless you dropped in from the sky, this school is a private school. For boys. Meaning your circumstances here are—special, to say the least. I'm sure you know your living arrangements here?"
There was shocked muttering among them, and Yukira spoke, "Living arrangements? Surely you don't mean—?
Serra chorused, "We're actually—"
Genkai cut both of them off, and said calmly, "All of your respective parents and your many previous school administrations believe you to be a threat to society, and have issued a formal statement decreeing that you are to live here and not leave without supervision until the age of twenty-one. You'll be here for—you're all seventeen, correct?—for the next four years."
Serra felt her jaw drop and she quickly closed it, instead letting her eyes reach maximum diameter.