Author's Notes: Hello everyone, I am the Almighty Afroduck, greatest winged beast in the universe. Awful jokes aside, I want to introduce you all into this story that came up in my head in my spare time, since ideas will torment me every time I'm about to go to sleep unless I write them down. This story is rated M, and it's not hard to imagine why it is considering the original material, but it'll generally be a light-hearted fanfic. Sure, it'll have its moments of drama and its ups and downs, but I figured why the hell not write it. What I will strive to do is try to make something that stands apart from the myriad of other stories on this particular fanbase that have been written before. Now, dear old Issei will be semi-true to his character, and semi-OOC, although it'll appear like he's a very different character at the time being. Let's just say even his name is different, but, I won't spoil anymore for you and let you read on. Hope you enjoy!
The Daemon and the Dragon
He walked lightly, feeling the licks of the early morning gust graze his neck and what little of his face remained free from his hair. Isambard Ouranos, or Issai, as he preferred people to call him, shaved regularly to a clean extent, almost to the point where people could question whether he was deprived of the miniature brown seeds growing on the lower half of his face. His messy mane for hair, however, was what enraptured his head and preserved its warmth like a symbiotic little beast with a will of his own. God knows how many times he tried to unsuccessfully comb it before giving up. The chaos of rich cinnamon strands above him had defeated him soundly in that regard. Still, enough space was left open above his nose so he could see between and through the tangles and out to the world before him.
His left, big green eye took on a shade so close to emerald, people could very well think that it glowed under a divergent angle. The right was covered with an eye-patch of the deepest midnight hues. It was enough to hide the socket entirely, but the rebellious faded scar underneath managed to stretch into a line just long enough to split his thick right brow into twins and graze his lower cheek to the height of his nostrils. Said cheeks had been amongst the last things to develop in the boy-turned-young-man, removing the childishness of a round face from his features. A humble pointed nose marked the bridge of the upper and lower hemispheres of his face, neither too big not too short nor too sharp. An average sized mouth with well-sized lips was made for easy smiles, and the jawline stood at a strong middle ground between oval and square, not too severe nor too weak.
His European heritage stood out there in Kuoh Town, the quaint little place that was amiable to its residents and welcoming to outsiders. A rather great place for a semi-urban settlement, painted with a plethora of green varying in the shape of well-kept grass or trees or bushes well distributed within the clean, grey streets, surges of life within the town. And that was without counting the backdrop of the beautiful mountain at its back, a variety of shades only nature could breed in the richest days of Spring. And somehow, it was mid-September and it maintained such life. Issei would admit that the tamed wilderness such sights provided were amongst the few things that he enjoyed spoiling himself with. It was perhaps one of the most important reasons he'd pick a small, lesser visited place like that over the grandiose of the lively, livid life cities boasted of.
The wind had a different taste for it, a clean one, a natural one. It was good to be away from the polluted environments the mountains of man had created. It was even more delightful to his ears, now free to hear the birds chanting the morning tunes as opposed to the squealing and shrieking of the quadruped metallic carriers that would herd together too close too early in the morning in an act to form a streets-seizing traffic as a homage to the weekday rush hour. It's always the little things, he thought, his walk soon coming to an end as he came up on the building of interest. The thin onyx posts bent into intricate forms to decorate the gates and their surrounding fences with graceful patterns and a wide selection of shapes, and the gates bent inwards as an offering of entry to the place.
The building was, if he had to describe it, walking the thin line between humble and magnificent for something of its size. The construction had classical tinges to it, obvious inspirations from the western civilizations apparent with the ark openings and the central tower and the classical stones that kept it erect. Yet in spite of its imposing size, its modesty was born from the simplistic elegance it displayed through complementary colors that were soft and pleasing to the sight along with the lush greens it offered in its patio and overall surroundings. He had not been sure at first if he'd enjoy time in the new school, especially starting at the final year, but his doubts had since been quelled. Some of them, at least.
Well, at least in terms of his place of stay, it'd be nice. The people it harbored was a whole other matter entirely. He could see a few girls here and there walking around aimlessly, too early to enter the closed gates of the main structure. They looked at him oddly, almost as if he were an alien of sorts. Well, this did use to be in an all-girls school up until a year ago, so unless half the population was hiding twinkie love-rods in their panties, I'm probably gonna look like something strange to them. He looked around and looked at his watch. Almost six in the morning… ah, why not? The sight of a tree was too tempting to pass up, and positioning himself at the right angle to shield his form from the rising sun, he put his back to it. Taking out his phone and touching the alarm clock app, he activated one for approximately forty-five minutes from the current time. A nap can't hurt.
The sound of rushing crowds was what woke him up. He got up groggily, taking note of some observers in the near and far distance of his vicinity, though the thoughts were pushed back to the back of his mind. The sun was up more confidently now, just enough to start painting the skies in lighter shades of cobalt. His eyes widened immediately, scrambling for his phone and reopening the freshly closed electronic clock and read the treasonous buzzer. [Time: 6:58 am. Alarm clock placed for 6:45 pm.] Thank you, Jesus. You really fucked me this time. That was the first thought that came to his mind as soon as he read the cybernetic numbers. His first bodily reaction, however, was to gasp strongly enough to suffocate all living beings in a five-mile radius.
The subsequent action was to storm into the place and run like hell. He had to use well-trained senses to see every student going in different directions and hear what every one of them said. By then, he knew it was just a bit too late. Hearing the right words let him know, much to his grievance, that his first class would be at the top floor. He thundered up to the tallest floor, stomps now echoing the rather empty hallways. He took in the numbers down the initial hallway, growing frustrated when he did not find the specific classroom that belonged to him. Midway through it forked, making the young man break a sweat, resolving the old trial and error method. And as it would happen, he went left, then came back, forwards, came back once more and finally right, luck mocking him as the last passage he picked had his class of interest. The action wasn't enough to truly form beads of sweat at his forehead, but beneath the locks, his skin held a shine to it by the time he got the right room.
"MORNING." It had been the first word that came to his head, forget 'excuse me' or 'sorry for being late'. Coupled with his war-cry had been his wild, semi-victorious grin upon finally getting to the classroom that had been so elusive to him for the past ten minutes. Apparently, introductions were over, as everyone had taken a seat except for a lonely desk in the middle of the row by the window. The teacher looked at him, eyes half-wide and with a well arched brow. She cleared her throat, setting a few stray strands of ginger behind her ear, the ones that had not been captured by the bun she held them in. Her thin glasses were tucked back up the bridge of her nose, amber eyes clear behind them. "A little late for the first day, but now's a good a time as any to introduce yourself, mister…"
"Isambard Ouranos, I'm from Athens, lived in Berlin for longer, it's a pleasure to meet you all." It wasn't that his introduction felt deceitful, but his relentless panting hindered the welcoming effect it should have had under normal circumstances. People looked at him weirdly, and that was besides the glares some of the male student body gave him or the contrarian shy looks some of females chanced at his direction. It was more of a general nonunderstanding at his posture and words. In return, his kind disposition dropped to a more neutral one, shrugging at the lot with a raised brow. The teacher cleared her throat again, making the young man look at her. "In Japanese culture, it is custom to end introductions with the phrase 'please take care of me'."
"Why? I do well enough taking care of myself, I don't really need anyone else doing it for me. Not since I stopped using diapers three years ago, at least." His answer was bluntly said, and might have been weird, even creepy if it had been spoken differently, but the mild-mannered and outright indifferent tone actually made the situation funny. One of the girls in the class with raven colored hair and vivid magenta eyes that denoted her Asian heritage raised her hand. When Issai looked at her, he felt rather unnerved by the size of her chest. He enjoyed a good sight just as any other boy, but the way they moved and bounced and their sheer size… he was more afraid they'd pop like water balloons. Milk balloons. The girl was quick, if not a bit impatient, speaking up before the teacher could call on her. "That's because the phrase 'please take care of me' is used more as a greeting than the literal sense of the words. It's closer to 'how are you doing?'."
"Oh, a'ight, gotcha. Still don't get how it works, but hey, that's why I'm here." With that, he walked over to the free place left in the classroom. He took out his notebook from his backpack and a pen out, though he remembered halfway through that his first lesson was history, so he wouldn't be taking down too many notes. He had gotten it out quickly and diligently, and most importantly silently, as to not disrupt the class, but he was left dumbfounded again when he found the whole class, including the teacher, looking at him again. This is racist. When he looked at the professor again in curiosity, her brows furrowed with mild signs of irritation. "We're in school right now, Mister Ouranos, not at a pirate-themed house party. Please take off that eye patch."
"Oooohhhhh, my bad professor, you're absolutely right. I had been feeling pretty adventurous this morning, but I was too egotistical to see how much it would disrupt your class." The class was left shocked by his attitude. One would think that he'd be angry at such a remark or grumpily doing what he was asked, but instead, his voice gained a liveliness and innocence that he had not displayed in his introduction. Even the smile on his face seemed genuine, as he worked around to taking off his eye-patch. When he did, many of the people inside gasped, which almost made him betray his smile in surprise. His glossy, blind eye looked at no one and everyone, the entire orb retaining a misty color. He was honestly shocked no one would have guessed the reason as to why he was wearing the eyepatch over the eye with the scar. Then again, it had almost faded enough to match his very pale complexion. But, he did not stop speaking.
"The doctors always did recommend me getting some fresh air every here and there, and I always forget how much I like looking people in the eyes with both of mine." And throughout all of this, his gentle grin never faded, and if it weren't for the obvious giveaway on his very face, no one might have known he had been lying the whole time. His pearly teeth were visible in a not-too-intense crease of the lips and his green eye was just as happy, but the pale eye had its lids twitching venomously, almost claiming a hateful life of its own with the loss of its primary function. Neither the emerald or the crystalline ores diverted their gazes from the teacher, however, both uniform in their direction. By now, the professor's face was red, shame and regret coloring it to the point that her freckles were no longer visible. "I-I apologize, Mister Ouranos, you may use your eye-patch."
His gentle grin grew just a bit wider, putting back on the obsidian rag over the ghostly sphere. Only an exceptionally perceptive sight would note the satisfaction that very lightly erased the creases in his face that might have otherwise shown tension. After the eventful yet still short introduction, the plan of the class was given over the next twenty minutes and the last thirty were class. Issai wrote down what he needed to write down and nothing more. For the better part of the class he only half listened, paying more mind to the clouds outside and the shape they took. There were plenty of things that crossed his mind, memories being the primary bulk of them. They brought a content feeling inside of him. We'll see each other soon enough again. Right now, I just need to relax and take a vacation.
And so, one class morphed into the next, one teacher replaced by another, one subject switched for a different one. Double history that day meant he had to write down very little, but on the others he was more involved with the classes and did put more of an effort on them. At least on those that didn't annoy him half to death. After nearly falling asleep a third time on Physics, he mentally grumbled, I should have slept more last night. I knew watching half a season of Game of Thrones was gonna fuck me, but I thought that would have been only in the psychological sense. But he survived, and finally recess-lunch came. It was rather strange, having gone to schools where both activities earned half an hour each and that they were at different times to give more of a breather throughout the day. In Japan, or Kuoh Academy at least, there was a whole hour dedicated to eating and then having some free time, which in hindsight was pretty great, since if he ate quickly enough, his recess would be that much longer.
"Isambaaard!/Sam!/Bardy!" That was what he heard when the bell rang when the hour-long break began. He was bombarded and nearly assaulted by a group of the girls from his class, with some from the second and even first year of the high school section also flocking him. He knew it was only the second year the academy had become coed, so the induction of boys must have come as a surprise, but he doubted his arrival warranted so much of it. In his mind he wondered if his body had an abnormal production rate of pheromones he released into the school's atmosphere. God knew how much his body had changed with his barely three-month-old surgeries. Still, he didn't really like people getting so close and personal with him when they'd just met. So he stepped away from the group. Either they didn't get the message, or they did and they decided to ignore it. He turned around and looked at them with a blank expression. He made a gesture mildly flailing his hands slightly up and down in their direction. "Shoo."
Then he started walking again. He was shocked again when he heard one, maybe two from the group of girls wailing at his motion. He didn't get it. He wanted breathing room and he expressed it in the most non-offensive way. The rest of them took it far better, though there were other girls in the opposite of the reaction spectrum that were already blushing and claiming that they'd won his heart. Thankfully, they were only as many as the girls who took it terribly. Well there's four girls I'm never gonna date. I breed enough insanity for myself, I don't need more incentives around me. And off to the cafeteria he went, lunchbox in hand, not being really sure what kind of quality the school had to offer. Paranoia in that regard always got the best of him. Then again, it did use to be an all-girls school. They should have higher standards than the shit we're capable of eating.
Finally there, he came to realize that the flock of girls wasn't the thing he had had to watch out for. There were quite a few groups of boys all giving him the evil eye, some simply resentful in their glares while others had rabid looks about them, foam drooling out of their mouths at his mere presence there. A'ight. First day and I've already made enemies with at least a third of the school. Can't say I haven't been productive. But goddamn, some of these guys are really overdoing it. Any angrier and I'd say they were born with swollen buttholes. He took a long look around and finally found a lonely table in the center, immediately smiling at the prospect and taking a seat at the middle. Immediately getting out his home-made, or rather home-bought food, he was about to dig in to the raw salmon, tuna and sticky serving of rice. The hall had been rather quiet when he started, but it got completely quiet halfway through.
He lazily craned his neck up and tilted his face at the two boys standing before him, probably younger but not by much. From the way they carried themselves, however, they might have been half Issai's mental age, which was saying something. Or a tenth. With the two posing angrily at him, the young man internally wept. I just want to eat. I waited the whole day just to eat. Just let me eat. The bald one opened his mouth to speak but the one with a mop of black hair and glasses too thick to see his eyes, a first for someone that wasn't Isambard, beat him to it. "That is OUR spot! We claimed it last year as the perfect vantage point from which to view all the breasts and bums this heavenly school has to offer! I'm Matsuda and he's Motohama, and–"
"–'we're Team Rocket'." Issai droned. His thinking process was working at a bare minimum, and his mode of interaction finally reverted back to simplistic reactions, as was his norm. That set forth some giggles and laughter around the mess hall. Still, his quick response did little to diminish the soul-burning glares the girls were giving the pair, and Isambard did not need to think much to figure out why. That had gotten incessant growling from the two in front of him, faces red to the point steam might have shot from their ears and nostrils were those things physically possible. Now it was Motohama's turn to talk. "NO! We're the Perverted Duo, and nothing will stand in our way of burning the image of all the sexiest girls in the school and building our own harems!"
"Oh, that's nice." And with that, he went back to eating. More giggles surged from the crowd around them, the brunette's lack of deference astonishing the two. Together they screamed, "BASTARD!"
"That's my name." He replied, returning his attention to the two. He raised a brow in question about what they wanted. The two, having learned that their philosophical and motivational speeches did little to move him, finally took a more direct approach. "YOU'RE IN OUR SPOT!"
"Oh." He went back to eating. The two were now mauve with fury. "MOVE!"
"Why? There's room for everyone." At his words, he signaled with a free hand the spots across him that were as empty as the ones next to him. His simple remark sprouted murmurs around him, generally along the lines of 'how can he stand those perverts'. Suddenly, Motohama raised a fist in the air. Issai eyed them much more cautiously now. "We'll show you! We are not about to be forced to submit because some new pretty-boy decided he could just displace us! PERVERTED DUO, ATTACK!"
"Now hold up, if you wanna have some sort of cursing throw down, that's fine by me, but no one's getting physical or threatening–" His words died in his throat when the two went and punched him, Matsuma in the working eye and Motohama in the chest. He had to admit, he didn't think they were actually going to go through with it, or he would have dodged them. The dual impacts were enough to somewhat push him back a little, though not really hurt him. He would bet a good sum of his savings that he knew pain better than most of the people in the school. His thought process ended when he heard the whole hall gasp, a mixture of distress, anger and second-hand embarrassment taking their breath away. The two in front of him now finally seemed to have noticed his eye-patch because they stepped back with raised hands in apologetic peace. "Uh, s-sorry mister pretty-boy! We didn't see you had an eye-patch or we wouldn't have–"
Matsuma shut up with a gaping mouth when he watched Issai quickly close the distance between the three. He grabbed both of his bald friend's arms with one hand rather uncomfortably, and raised them high above his head. With his right arm, he aimed a punch with a good amount of strength just below where Issai guessed the bald bozo's ribcage was. Motohama was purple again, but this time from lack of oxygen instead of lack of dignity, curling up into a ball on the floor and doing his very best to start breathing again. Motohama had been a tall boy, but Issai's height at six-foot-two helped him tower over most people, and a much more intimidating figure for Matsuma. With strength, he carried him and placed him down on the table where he had previously been eating. Like he did with the other, he grabbed his two arms with one hand, this time keeping them down. Carefully, he moved his other hand closer to the scared junior's face.
"P-please not the glasses, I won't mess with you again, just not the–" He stopped again, but not because of pain. He was surprised when Issai took his spectacles off carefully and dexterously, placing them on a chair away from the two. Matsuma sighed in relief when the punch that had left his friend on the ground landed on his left eye, the strength of it knocking him out and drawing a bit of blood just above the brow. Matsuma opened his gray-blue eyes, or at least tried to with the recently injured one, and grasped his face in pain, rolling and falling to the ground near where Motohama was finally regaining his strength. Issai grabbed a spare napkin from his lunchbox and grabbed the glasses on the chair, wiping them clean. Sitting down in front of the two scared second-years, he held out his hand and offered the smaller his glasses back. When Matsuma grabbed it, Issai didn't let go, making direct eye-contact with the two. He raised his patch to emphasize his point.
"Let's go over this one more time. We were having a… civil argument, with some goofs and gaffs here and there, but you decided to break the no-touching-rule because you couldn't handle taking a few jokes. I didn't steal your spots, there was more than enough room for all of us, but you guys had some sort of imaginary beef you wanted to settle. You guys wanna tussle again or would you rather we insult each other like good boys?" The two, and by extension the rest of the food court was left shocked by his response and the way he worded it. Non-threatening and even humorously, many, especially the Perverted Duo, assumed he would have taken a much more aggressive stance. When the two nodded rapidly, he let go of the glasses, after which the two took off in a flash. He raised a brow. He would have invited them to sit if they'd stayed.
He simply shrugged at that point, placing his eye-patch back on its place. At least now he could finally get back to his raw meal. God bless Japan. From then on out, the rest of the meal had been uneventful, though there had been the occasional girl proclaiming him a 'hero' for 'defending' them from the two perverts and a boy or two looking at him in fear. But, he finished quickly, and he was out of the cafeteria and building whole soon after. Grabbing his backpack and going to the patio, he found the large tree he'd slept on, where not too many students were around, settling there once again. From his backpack he dug out one of the old Les Paul models, tuning the strings before he connected the aux cord to his personal speaker box. The cubic amp device lit up at the touch of a button, vibrant with the fresh new batteries inside it.
Raising the volume just between medium and high, he gave his guitar strings a few strokes before checking the sound checked out fine. Taking his second speaker box and connecting his phone to it, he put on the playlist of modified songs within it. Drums started on his first one as he got into a comfortable position, opening and closing his hands to stretch out his fingers. When the six-stringed, musical gadget was meant to kick in, no sound came from the phone itself, but from the classical instrument in Issai's hands. The sound came loud enough to be heard well throughout the open front of the campus without being overbearingly loud to anyone but the man playing, which was heaven to him. Letting himself go and loosening up his mind, he started playing Foghat's Slow Ride.
"Slow riiide- Take it eeaassyy-" The cycloptic man mouthed along to the lyrics, though no sound came out of his mouth. He wouldn't damn others with bloody ears. Still, his contentment came not from singing, but from playing the strumming of the cords under his fingers. It made him genuinely smile, one of the few things that still did. And so, he played and played and played for the duration of the song. Halfway through, he felt a delicate finger tapping his knee, making him open his eyes without stopping at any point. A girl who must have been somewhere around his age looked at him with crossed arms. A bit on the short side, raven-haired in a bob-cut and fuchsia eyes, she had an expectant, stern look about her. He simply smiled wider and mouthed along the lyrics more clearly. Another girl ran to her side, hair equally as dark but freakishly long and hazel eyes, worriedly looking at the shorter girl and angrily at him.
When the song finally ended, to which he extended the final riff to as much as he could, he grabbed his phone and paused the playlist. Looking up expectantly at the pair in front of him, he waited for the introductions to come and what they wanted from him. A small crowd had formed in a subtle ring around the area where the music he played might have been heard better. His guitar had proven to be his most valuable ally, having turned lusty or hateful gazes into simply curious or pleased ones. Well, at least those that didn't look intimidated by the pair in front of him. Maybe they're the popular ladies of the school. Time to show them what I'm made of. "Afternoon. I'm Isambard Ouranos, resident mentally-handicapped pirate."
"So you are the new student. I'm the President of the Student Council, Sona Sitri, and with me is my VP Tsubaki Shinra. Would you care to drop the act and explain to me what you're doing?" What would have probably been a stern tone from her had been fairly intensified by his icebreaking joke, or at least he guessed as much. At that, Issai gave a mournful frown. Maybe she has teeth in her vagina. Unfortunately for said President, the young man's wall of lightheartedness and humor was nigh unbreakable. "Oh, just masturbating my guitar, I haven't heard her sing in a while. There's nothing wrong with practicing a bit here and there, right?"
"There's a reason as to why Kuoh has different clubs for its students, though it'd be more understandable in your case if it's still too early in the week for that information to be known." A'ight, so she's strict but fair instead of balls-chewing evil. Scratch the vagina-teeth, she might just have an itchy clitchy. He put his hands at the back of his head, leaning on the tree as he pressed on with his relaxed smile. "No, we haven't gotten clubs yet. Hell, I didn't even know this school had them, but that sounds fun. Now, if I do actually know how to read, then at some point I did learn that you can do what you want outside of the buildings so long as you're not harming the students, consuming any unholy substances or disrupting any classes they're teaching. As far as I know, I haven't broken any of those three yet."
"…No, you haven't." She sounded annoyed by that. I win. Teehee. His grin turned wide, bearing all his teeth as he took out some heavy headphones from his backpack, putting them on his ears this time as he pressed play on his tunes again. He didn't get to hear her second-in-command start complaining about 'how irritating he was being' and 'how he should follow the rules' by the time he started. He admittedly respected the President, though. She didn't approve of it with her arms crossed in his direction, but she didn't stop him either. In a ballsy, impulsive action, he started visibly mouthing along the lyrics to the pair, which might have even looked romantic under other circumstances. "Well you've heard about love giving sight to the blind-"
Three verses into Stevie Ray Vaughan's Pride and Joy and President Sitri took a one-eighty turn and started walking back to the campus. Her right-hand-woman spent another two verses glaring at him before following her commander haughtily. Issai had to make an effort not to laugh. He understood the sentiment and that the girl was honestly trying to be intimidating, but she just looked like she was walking with a spoon in her ass. That encounter turned out to be a blessing. A lot of the girls apparently held the pair to great esteem, and they didn't know how to take his mildly disrespectful disregard for their authority, providing some more distance from him. A lot of the boys now too seemed relieved that his purpose in life wasn't to seduce every woman on campus either. That made him neutral, and that put him in a much better mood.
Seven songs later, he realized he would almost be late to class again, stored again his equipment and instruments and ran inside once again. This time, the classroom seemed to have switched up, sporting a voluptuous redhead that everyone, including the girls, was fawning over. She was sitting next to the President, but he didn't see uptighty Tsubaki with her. Now that I think about it, she was in the first half of today's classes and I didn't really look at her. He had been too busy to notice when reliving the good days and practicing how to hallucinate without sleeping or the use of any kind of recreative drugs. He shrugged, reclaiming his seat by the window, cursing Yahweh, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Brahma, Odin, Zeus and the Flying Spaghetti Monster for cursing him with Chemistry Class. That was the first few minutes. The rest of the hour he spent trying to make amends with them and make promises to be a better person so they could save him from the torment.
Alas, no one answered, but he survived and resisted the ungodly lesson, taking notes anywhere and everywhere he could to aid him on the Achilles's Heel of his academic life. After that one came, quite fortunately, the last class of the day. It was rather unique, he would admit, as the last one was on Thesis work to help them get started on it and as a weekly 'check-up'. Given the fact that no-one had started that, he'd been more than relieved that he was done with the workload of the day. No homework for me then. Gotta enjoy that while it lasts. It was over even quicker than it started, the seniors enjoying an early departure when the teacher decreed so at the half-hour mark. Issai was on his way out when he bumped into, or rather, the pretty redhead bumped into him.
"Oops, I'm sorry. I must not have seen where I was going." She apologized, though she was not shameful about it nor abashed to be in his presence. If anything, she had something of a playful smirk, not too provocative, but certainly not shy. God, please don't let her be weird. She's doing so much better than everyone else as it is. He smiled back. "Bah, don't worry about it. I do it all the time, but the best part is that people can't get mad at me for doing it since they don't want to go on a guilt trip with the poor little cyclops."
She giggled at that, and it looked genuine too. This might just be the start of a beautiful… acquaintanceship. She crossed her arms, smile still in place as she leaned her weight from one leg to the other. He also noted that the way she placed her arms under her breasts, she was putting an emphasis on them purposely. At least she has the decency of being subtle about it. "You know, I was talking to Sona Sitri– yes, the strict, stick-up-the-butt school president– and she told me she caught you playing music outside during recess. While I have nothing against it and I do believe you played quite well, the focus of this conversation came to my attention from something else she asked you."
"Oh, it's about me being an illegal immigrant, isn't it?" The combo of his bad joke and his poker face made her laugh louder this time. "No, in the meantime, you can continue hiding from authorities in peace. What I meant was, I heard from her that you don't have a club yet. Now, the norm would usually be that tomorrow, during one of the three weekly hours for the club period, you'd get to choose one. Now, I am one of the Club Presidents, and it is well within my power to get people into my club ahead of time if they come to me first and I approve of them. It's a bit quick, I know, but I'd say you pass on that second requirement just fine from the way I see it, the only question is if you'd like to join?"
"A'ight, I'll bite. What's the club's name and what's it about?" Isambard was smiling, his shining green eye meeting the crimson-haired beauty's aqua-colored pools. She smiled wide now. "I'm head of the Occult Research Club."
…Oh. I see. His smile lost a great deal of its vigor. The one girl, the ONE GIRL who can talk to me normally and act normal in general and she's head of a satanic cult. Jesus, what'd I ever do to you?... Oh yeah, I take back the 'fuck you', I was out of line on that one. Sorry. But his mental musings never escaped his mouth. Instead, he turned his tragic frown into an unknowing one. "So… is there any chance about it being about Hide-and-Seek?"
"Hmmm, not quite. It's more around the mythology and ideology surrounding the devils and demons of Christian religion. It's very interesting, and I find it to be an invigorating subject. After all, without a Hell, Heaven would be meaningless, and without sin, there would be no virtue. You can't pick up a coin and settle on looking at one side alone, you must always look at the bigger picture." Yeah, I thought you might say that. At least the way she described it, she made it sound like a charitable activity. He internally sighed, which was promptly translated into an apologetic smile. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass. I'm not the most superstitious kind of guy, but I'm not gonna walk into a bathroom and say 'Bloody Mary, I killed your son' three times without a suitcase full of money and seven kinds of rocket launchers."
"Oh, that's a shame, but hey, it doesn't mean we can't be friends. Besides, we still share more than one class together, so it's not like this is the last time we'll see each other." Her smiled never faltered, so he grinned again as a courtesy to her amiability. The rushing crowds of senior leaving and running for home cut them apart, both being swept into opposite ends of the tides. He gave a final show of his rows of pearly teeth to her as the 'goodbye' he didn't get to say to her, and then rushed out of the building. He was thankful for the perfect excuse to rush out of the uncomfortable situation. Huh, I guess I've got the Messiah back on my side. Halleluiah.
When he was finally out and away from everyone else far enough, he got from his backpack his huge headphones, tuning himself out from the rest of the world. Searching on his phone for a song, he searched far and wide in his list of songs before reaching the one he wanted to hear. When he did, he was finally in an alleyway far enough away from the school to not have any students near. He mouthed along to the lyrics of the chorus.
"I throw myself out into the sea-"
No one was around, too many adults were still in work time and the streets were empty.
"Release the wave, let it wash over me-"
He raised his eyepatch and let his right orb breath again.
"To face the fear I once believed-"
Only instead of a misty white eye, the eye that opened was a powerful green in its entirety, there being no distinction from the iris and the sclera. And instead of a round pupil, there was only a black slit that started at the top of his sclera-iris and reached the very bottom.
"The tears of the dragon, for you and for me-"
Author's Notes: Aaand done, first chapter done and ready. Now, I know that in terms of geographic and natural origins, Issei is completely different, not to mention his name. But, I chose his name and his last name for the meanings they have, considering the fact that Isambard is, if I'm not mistaken, Germanic for 'Iron Giant', and Ouranos is Greek for 'Heavenly' or 'Divine'. I figured since I personally dislike the last name Hyodou so much I might as well give him an entirely new one and to tweak the first name while I'm at it. I liked the idea of giving him a more colorful background, and I figured I could make him green-eyed as well, which is a bit more unique than brown-haired, brown-eyed. Speaking of which, if you want a reference for his hairstyle, look up '50 Male Hairstyles - Revamped' and take a look at number 44.
So, now that this first impression for the story is done, I'd like to know your thoughts, and any and all constructive criticism is welcome. I'd rather get shit thrown at me if it helps me learn to write better than to have only positive comments and keep fucking up. So please comment on what you enjoyed and on what could be improved, and maybe I'll see you on the next chapter.
The Almighty Afroduck,
All Hail