Chapter 2: No Place for the Weak

Die

Leave this school.

You're not wanted.

Weakling

Alma Torran is no place for trash like you.

And yet again another pile of threatening letters. It has been a week since Hakuryuu first started at Alma Torran and he already has someone sending him threatening letters every morning. He knows very well that the students at Alma Torran wouldn't accept someone like him. Nether the less, he must continue on with his mission. He has no time to be bothered with something as petty as simple threatening letters.

As Hakuryuu left on his way to his classroom, a mysterious figure hiding in the shadows had been watching Hakuryuu ever since he opened his shoe locker.

Now this was getting just ridiculous, the first thing that greets Hakuryuu when he enters his classroom is a bucket of ice cold water that falls down on his head. After he changed into his PE uniform, he finds graffiti on his desk with threatening words and phrases like the hate letters he received. What's worse was that it was scratched into the desk so he couldn't erase the words from his desk.

Just as Hakuryuu reached inside his desk to find his textbook, he found nothing but crumpled up balls of paper. As soon as he opened one of the crumbled paper balls, he frowned at the words on it.

Only the proud and the strong belong at Alma Torran there is no need for the weak.

Since the paper balls had occupied most of his desk, he had to dispose of the unnecessary materials one of which had accidentally dropped on the floor picked up by a Hakuryuu's neighbor and roommate, Judal. Judal only frowned as he read the paper.

"Hey Hakuryuu."

"Yes." Hakuryuu didn't know why Judal had suddenly called out to him.

"From now on you're gonna stay by my side 24/7."

"No thank you." Hakuryuu politely declines Judal's offer.

"Are you sure? With you being targeted like that I'm just worried about you." Judal lowers his head looking down on his desk.

"Yes, your feelings are more than enough."

"B-But if something were to happen to you, I wouldn't know what to do!" Judal cried.

Hakuryuu was shocked to see Judal's crying face. He didn't know that he cared that much about him. Maybe he wasn't as pig headed as he thought he was.

Judal's trembling made Hakuryuu have second thoughts about Judal's offer.

"Ku ku ku... Bu ha ha... I can't take it anymore! Gyahahahaha! You actually bought that! You're more gullible than I thought."

"You..." Hakuryuu grabs his collars. He is clearly not pleased to have been tricked by him. He felt like an idiot for believing him.

"It's not like I lied when I said you'd be with me. You're going to be with me whether you like it or not."

"After pulling that stunt do you really expect me to want to be anywhere near you."

"That's why you have no say. I'm just doing as I please."

"Then find someone else to bother. I have no time to be your source of entertainment." After all, Hakuryuu usually spends most of his time either training or looking for clues to his missing brothers.

"Eh, is that so? Yet you have time to sneak into the principal's office..."Judal whispers the last part loud enough within Hakuryuu's hearing range.

!

He was seen. This does not look well. He should have known better than to be so impatient as to do that. All his hard work into finding his brothers was for naught.

No. He must fulfill his mission. He has to. It is his responsibility and duty to find his brothers. He must not show any weakness.

"What exactly are you after..." Hakuryuu sends a glare at Judal.

"Nothing much. Just let me do as I please and I'll let you do as you please. Fair trade?"

Hakuryuu doesn't have many options to choose from. If he refuses, it is likely that Judal will report him. If he accepts his offer, he won't be able to search as much. But at least it's better than the first option.

"Don't worry I have no intention of restraining you..." 'For now.' "... From doing whatever you're doing."

It didn't look like he was lying so Hakuryuu decided to trust Judal's words for now, but he'll have to put off looking for clues connecting to his brothers until night time when the stalker magi is asleep.

"For today, king candidate and household students will be training together. You can form households amongst yourselves or choose to remain by yourself, but be warned that this is training so you'll be sparring between others as well. And I expect to see results."

With that said, the student started forming their households. Since this is a combined classed between several other classes, there were quite a number of households. A good majority of the students were already in households except for Hakuryuu who chose to be by himself. His cousin, Kouen, had offered him to join his household with his household members: Kin Gaku, Kokuton Shuu, Seishuu Ri, and Shou En, but Hakuryuu showed no interest in joining his cousin's household when he refused. One of Kouen's household members with snake like hair, Seishuu Ri, had commented on how ungrateful Hakuryuu was for not thanking Lord Kouen for giving him an opportunity of a lifetime yet refused Lord Kouen's generous offer. Another one of Kouen's household members, a large robust man with nose similar to that of a pig's, mustache, and black teeth, had noted that Hakuryuu was a pitiful boy who could not realize Kouen's greatness. Kouen on the hand was intrigued by his younger cousin who chose to remain by himself with no one to aid him. Just exactly how will he fair against his enemies all by himself.

"Now that everyone is ready. You can start sparring amongst yourselves. This is to make yourself stronger so treat this as if this were an actual battle. And by no means are you to hold anything back. Just be sure not to destroy the barrier around the field as we need that to keep any damage from the school." Their teacher concluded. He is a tall man with long dark green hair, three vertical red dots on his forehead, and a goatee.

Once their training had begun, two groups were already at each other's throats. They were the households of Kouen Ren and Sinbad. Both groups were known for their hostile relations with each other since they are always fighting for the top seat at Alma Torran. They were the only two metal vessel users who owned more than one djinn. Kouen had three djinn while Sinbad had seven.

The intense atmosphere around the two groups made it hard for the others to train as they could not take their eyes off what could be one of the most exciting matches of the day. However there was one individual who chose to practice his spear techniques by himself while the others watched in awe at Kouen and Sinbad's face off.

"Hey new kid, how about a match between me and my buddies?" A tall green haired man with a scar over his right eye and an eye patch over his left eye approached Hakuryuu who was practicing alone. Like their teacher and his two friends, he had three red vertical dots on his forehead. His two companions were a creepy old man sitting in a wheelchair and an unattractive large muscular man. Even if Alma Torran accepted anyone with power regardless of age, ethnicity, race, or history, Hakuryuu wouldn't have thought that there would be an old man among the students. Even their teacher looked younger than him.

"That is fine." Hakuryuu saw no harm in declining their proposal. Since the time Hakuryuu used to find clues to his brothers was limited thanks to a certain black haired magi, Hakuryuu would make use of his spare time to train.

"Good." The green haired man slyly grinned. "We better move to someplace more remote. We wouldn't want to disturb the others from their excitement."

"This should be good enough." The young man stops followed by Hakuryuu and behind him were the man's two companions.

The moment they stopped a large black hand with an eight pointed star on its palm came crashing down on Hakuryuu ready to crush him.

"Oi, oi, Zurmudd you should have been more patient."

"But Byoln, sensei said to treat this like an actual battle right? In battles, only a fool would wait for his enemy to attack him." The large muscular man named Zurmudd defended himself.

"Fool, what was the point in doing that we already had the advantage of three to one. What more could you need!" The old man commented. "But it is strange, I thought you only fought like that against females."

"Apollonius is right there was no need for that Zurmudd. At least wait until we see how strong he is. But if he was taken out by a simple attack like that, then I guess he didn't amount to anything. Judging from how he was before, he was probably just some run of the mill spearman."

"We'll just tell sensei that he-" Byoln and his two partners, Apollonius and Zurmudd, began to leave until monster like creatures attack them from behind. They managed to dodge a critical hit but not unscathed.

"What was that?"

The three could not believe what had just happened when they were suddenly attacked by monster like creatures. They looked at the direction in which the creatures had came from seeing the silhouette of a person in all that dust floating around. The wind blows the dust clouds away revealing an unharmed Hakuryuu djinn weapon equipped. Hakuryuu's weapon is in the form of a dual two sided spear.

"Interesting so he's a metal vessel user…" Byoln took back what he had said before. It looks like Hakuryuu wasn't some lucky kid who by some miracle managed to get into Alma Torran. "Then there's no need to go easy on the kid."

"Indeed I look forward to see how this young lad will fair against my dark metal vessel!" Apollonuis's dark metal vessel which are black spheres float in the air around him.

"Normally I would pulverize him if he was a girl, but I'll make an exception this time." More giant hands materialize from Zurmudd heading towards Hakuryuu.

"Zaug Al Adhra" Hakuryuu uses his spear as a bow and an arrow firing more monsters at the hands. Some of them had been annihilated by the hands when they touched the palms of the hands.

"Anything that touches my hands are annihilated. Your pitiful creatures stand no chance against my almighty hands." Zurmudd laughs as he gloats over his superior skills.

"Is that so..." Unfortunately for Zurmudd, Hakuryuu had already melted all of Zurmudd's hands with the acid released from his creatures.

"You little brat... Extreme magic Al-Yad" A large magic circle appears above their heads. Hands come out of the edge of the magic circle spinning around creating a tornado. "No matter how many pets you make all of them will just be blown away by my extreme ma-" A wooden dragon attacks Zurmudd trapping him in its mouth with his sharp teeth gnawing at his body like a chew toy.

"In the eye of the tornado is the only safe spot. As long as I remain in the center, your attack will not hurt me."

"That idiot. Getting all hotheaded like that, what was the point of working together if he doesn't cooperate." Bylon shows no remorse over his comrade's defeat. "Well he did let us have a glimpse of the metal vessel's power so I guess he wasn't completely useless."

Hakuryuu couldn't get why those two were so calm despite the state their comrade was in. Even if he didn't kill the man, they should have at least showed some kind of anger at Hakuryuu for defeating their friend.

A ray of light released from one of Apollonuis's dark metal vessel had almost hit Hakuryuu from behind if he had not dodged it.

"Not bad kid. Let's see if you can dodge this." Byoln aims to his rapier at one of Hakuryuu's eyes. Hakuryuu manages to dodge a fatal blow but not fast enough to come out unscathed when he received a cut on his right cheek.

Before Hakuryuu could retaliate, several rays of light emitted from Apollonuis's dark metal vessel had already rained down towards him. He manages to avoid each of them one by one.

'This is more dangerous than I thought. Dealing with one is one thing but two at the same time is another.'

!
"Gack!?" Out of no where Hakuryuu is stabbed in the side by something that looks like Byoln but had a shadowy disfigure.

Byoln had used his dark metal vessel to create a shadow doppelganger to stab Hakuryuu while he was distracted by Apollonuis's attacks.

"No hard feelings kid, but like sensei said treat this like an actual battle. Don't worry I'll tell teach' that ya fought bravely like a warrior." Byoln holds up his rapier ready to finish off Hakuryuu.

'I'm going to die….' Hakuryuu froze as he was about to be killed by Byoln. All his hard work for nothing.

"See ya, kid!"

Hakuryuu braces himself for death as he shuts his eye.

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Nothing? No pain. No blood. No death. Nothing at all. Hakuryuu slowly opens his eyes to see why he wasn't dead yet.

Surprised wasn't the word Hakuryuu would use to describe the scene before him. He had not expected to see Judal in front of him protecting him from Byoln's attack.

"Judal, what is the meaning of this? You're not suppose to be here. This training is exclusive to only metal vessel and household users. Magis and magicians should be in class right now under Chancellor Matal Mogamett" Byoln grips onto his frozen arm. He would have been successful in his attack had Judal not intervened.

"Then what are you small fries doing here? If I recall you're neither metal vessel nor household users either."

"It's true our dark metal vessels are only imitations of metal vessels, but that doesn't make us any different. Now then Judal, will you step aside?"

Judal just glares at Byoln. It is clear to Byoln that Judal clearly has no intention of backing down.

Distracted by his conversation with Byoln, Judal had not noticed one of Apollonius's black balls behind him. From behind, Apollonius's dark metal vessel had released a ray of light aimed at Judal.

"Magis are just like magician they all look down on my genius work! It was a pity I didn't get to play around with the magi. Who knew magi were so weak. Well they are only a little bit stronger than magicians not that it'd make a difference. Gyahaha- Ack!" Several shards of ice are imbedded into Apollonius's body.

"W-Why? My Al Flash should have destroyed that wretched magi." Apollonius coughs up blood due to his severe wounds from Judal's ice attack. Judal on the hand didn't have a single scratch on him. How could that be possible? Under those circumstances, there should have been no way for Judal to come out without as much as a scratch on him from that attack. Apollonius takes a good look at Judal's surroundings. Flowers? Why were there flowers around Judal? And huge ones at that. They weren't there before.

"I didn't know you could do this... Hakuryuu."

"All I can simply do is bring out the special characteristics of any plants that touch my metal vessel. All plants require sunlight in order to grow so I used these flowers to absorb the light which why they grew to be like this."

'He's stronger than I thought.' Judal chuckled to himself thinking how entertaining it was to be with Hakuryuu.

Seeing how there was no other worthy opponent to face besides Sinbad, Kouen had left class in favor of his room where he needed to confirm something.

'Hakuryuu Ren...'

As far as he knew, his father only had one older brother who had several children. Although he never met all of them, he had met his cousins: Hakuren Ren and Hakuyuu Ren. They would always be talking about how much their younger siblings. Although they never told him their names, they sometimes blurt out several things about their two younger siblings by accident like how cute they were or how adorable they were when they tried to make them dinner before. And one thing for sure is that they never mentioned having a younger sibling with a scar on his face. So who exactly was Hakuryuu?

Kouen knew that it wasn't coincidence that Hakuryuu had the same surname as him and his family. Even with the scar on his face, he greatly resembled Hakuren and Hakuyuu. There was also something about Hakuryuu that seemed familiar. In order, to find out who Hakuryuu really was Kouen searched in his room for the key to finding out Hakuryuu's identity.

Kouen continued rummaging through his belongs not caring about the mess he just made.

!

"Here it is!" In his hands, Kouen found what he needed held onto an old photo album that belonged to Hakuyuu before he and his brother disappeared.