Chapter 2 - \Rivals_ff7856h
A certain high school in District 7 was currently undergoing its special periodical Power Development Scan. It was slightly different from the normal System Scan, which was always being held throughout Academy City. Only Level 0's and Level 1's were allowed to participate while higher level espers had their scan a lot later in the month. Those not participating were still required to come to school and do individual reviews on their lessons, however, they could relax anytime as long as they were done.
One reason for separating the scanning periods for espers was because the school was made up of a large percentage of Level 0's and 1's. The workload would be too much if the school also scanned other levels at the same time so the administration decided to focus more on developing espers who were lagging behind in their curriculum by giving them more frequent scans.
However, the process was not as orderly as the administration had hoped. The students ended up with different testing venues with different schedules.
It was far from order.
It was a battlefield.
The long hallways were occupied by a surging wave of students going in multiple directions.
1st year? 2nd year? 3rd year? It did not matter. Honorifics were dead within these halls.
A 2nd year boy curled his arms like a rugby player and pressed on relentlessly, not caring whether he was up against a senpai from a club or a beautiful well-endowed class representative.
A couple of girls grouped together and formed a triangular formation that plowed through a corridor in a certain part of the school's main building.
Some freshmen took a stealthier approach by going through the windows of classrooms in the first floor and following the long path through the grounds.
Students of the same class secured their classroom for use as a rest stop in between their skirmishes.
Each student applied their own tactic after much experience from past scans.
While all that was going on, the delinquent Takayama Akito was sitting down on one of the benches several feet away from the main building for first years. It was hectic outside as well, but he did not particularly mind. He only had two items on his checklist for today's scan, one of which, the General Psychometry Assessment, was already done earlier this morning. The other one was the Personal Reality Progress Analysis which was supposed to be held in Room 103 of the main building near the entrance.
With narrowed eyes that seem to be facing a seriously unreasonable trial, he quietly stared at the entrance.
The mass of moving flesh inside the building can be seen from where he was sitting through the gaps of the windows and entrances.
However, that was not where his attention was...
There stood a tall, peculiar high school girl crossing her arms in the midst of the moving crowd of students. Her long black flowing hair was tied up in a ponytail. She had fiery amber-colored eyes that made her stand out extremely well.
It would have looked like a scene out of a romance novel where the main protagonist, a boy, falls in love with a mysterious beauty on the first day of school had it not been for the lack of sakura blossoms dancing in the air. And the fact that Akito's expression was not something like fascination or infatuation, but something similar to a situation where he eagerly selects his favorite can of coffee from a certain vending machine and got milk tea for some unknown reason instead.
Tch… A troublesome person has appeared... The boy groaned.
Like a watch dog- No- Like a guardian of hell looking on all the poor sinners lining up to be punished, she stood unflinching with her back to the entrance, monitoring for any accidents or trouble that may occur.
After hearing that another scan was going to be held on this day, she instantly volunteered to help out the discipline committee. Though not being part of the student council herself, being the only Level 4 in the entire school gave her enough recognition to give out orders to people.
So it seemed an obstacle was in the way of Akito's path.
Going through a different entrance was not an option because of the congestion of people will only delay him further. But he absolutely didn't want to go through the entrance where this girl stood.
The mission parameters required Akito to pass through the entrance which was heavily guarded by a demon, and make his way through the numerous students clogging the building's hallway. The latter was no problem at all compared to the former was what the boy thought.
Suddenly a female voice rang out which startled every student in the area.
"Oi! You two! Button up your shirt and take off those god damn piercings now!"
Tatemiya Haruka shed off the visage of a rare beauty and went full demon mode.
The Level 4's hair rose up as if being blown upwards by a strong demonic aura.
This was the boy's chance. There was no point in blending in with the crowd outside while approaching the entrance when his hair sticks out too much was what he thought as he analyzed all the possible routes, he just had to move quickly!
Thus began Takayama Akito's own battle.
Like a master ninja, he sneaked through the pathway to the entrance stealthily, jumping from shadow to shadow made by trees that spread throughout the grounds.
After reaching a distance of 10 meters from the entrance, he made for one last sprint while Haruka still had her back towards him.
Desperation covered his entire face, as if he was a prisoner who was trying to sneak past a warden guarding the only path to his freedom.
The opponent was a Level 4, the pride of the entire school and also rumored to have withstood an attack from a certain Level 5 from Tokiwadai Middle School.
An esper battle could really push one's limits was what he thought (though all he did was to simply sneak past her inside a noisy school building.)
He did not bother to take a quick glance at the commotion. He just headed toward the goal in front of him.
His mind was now celebrating at his victory after finally being only a few feet away from the designation.
"Baka..."
"… Eh?"
As he passed through Haruka, he could have sworn he heard a quiet voice but shrugged it off in the end.
At that time,
"Haruka-san, wasn't that Takayama-san just now?" An innocent-looking young girl appeared out of the hectic crowd, catching her breath.
"HAHH?!" The discipline committee stand-in made a sound unbefitting of a girl like her.
"Ehh? You didn't see him?" The girl named Aki pointed at the direction where the boy went. She was not afraid of Tatemiya Haruka's demon mode.
"Of course I saw him," Haruka spoke while she continued her observation of the hallway. "It's just that I don't have time to deal with idiots like him right now."
"Hmm~ are you sure?" Another girl appeared out of the crowd, one with a natural ojou-sama aura. Her long brown hair curled at the ends, and her bust size was enough to turn heads. Actually, the crowd slowed down a bit as they approached her, catching short glimpses of her beauty before continuing with their struggle.
"What do you mean, Saki-san?" Aki, the slightly plain girl of the three, inquired to the other girl.
"Tatemiya-san was obviously at the entrance so she could bump into Takayama Aki-" Saki stated in an as a matter of fact tone but was cut short.
"No! It's not like that!" Haruka denied frantically, her long hair swayed as she shook her head.
Saki and Aki just stared at Haruka with faces that say: Ahh.. she's really bad at lying.
"Anyway, what are you guys doing here? Aren't you going to study in the library?" Haruka changed the subject of conversation.
In a soft and gentle voice, "We heard that you were assisting the discipline committee so we thought that you needed some help." Aki spoke out.
Unlike the two long-haired girls, Aki did not stand out much. Her black shoulder-length hair covered a bit of her face and her stature was about below average compared to her classmates.
"Not me. I was just bored." Saki said as she raised her hand to disagree.
"Tatemiya-san! Thank you for your hard work~!' A student from the discipline committee appeared suddenly among the crowd and approached Haruka to relieve her from of her duty as a hall monitor.
The three girls headed for the roof which had a resting area after buying lunch from the vending machine in the cafeteria.
The ruckus inside the school slowly dissipated after an hour.
"Are you free today, Haruka-san? Want to go to Seventh Mist?" Aki opened the bento box she selected from the vending machine.
"Sorry, I have Judgment work to do later, maybe some other time?" Haruka made a sheepish smile before taking a bite on her hotdog.
"A busybody as always…" Saki took a sip from her milk tea.
Haruka did not mind the comment as she herself was aware of her own faults.
"Come to think of it, there has been a lot of news regarding Skill-Outs recently. Something about illegal weaponry hidden in warehouses scattered across districts.'
"Yeah, we have been really busy with surveying the area for anything suspicious. Though, we haven't encountered anything yet…"
"Hmph! I would not be surprised if that Takayama Akito was in the middle of it all." Saki spoke in an ojou-sama like tone.
"No… that's impossible. He would never do something like that." Haruka rejected the idea casually.
"What makes you think so?"
"Because we've have been rivals since our second year of middle school." Haruka made a reassuring smile.
"That vulgar delinquent was your rival? Are you joking?!" Saki crushed the carton of milk tea in her hands.
"Umm... Sorry Haruka-san, but I agree with Saki-san. He does seem quite intimidating." Aki added.
After noticing what a mess she made, Saki quickly threw away the carton at the trash bin and quickly wiped her hands.
Akito did not have a good reputation around school. He always had a hostile vibe that made people avoid him. There were rumors that he had beaten up some students from another school.
"That's just him being out of his wits with some problem or something. Don't worry about it." Haruka spoke nonchalantly.
Aki and Saki couldn't understand what Haruka just said.
"B-but how could he be on par with you Tatemiya-san?! Based on our test scores, he's nothing more than an idiot!" Saki asserted her argument.
"Oh he wasn't just on par with me. He was on a completely different dimension. Didn't you know? He is actually really smart. I think he skipped a grade once during middle school." Haruka said casually.
Aki and Saki made disgruntled expressions. They found it hard to believe that someone who picks fights with other people would be someone very intelligent.
"But that's how Academy City is you know…"
Academy City only paid attention to a student's ability as an esper. No matter how talented a student was, if he was only a Level 0, then he was no different from a flunked experiment. That is what Takayama Akito is to Academy City.
Inside a certain private room...
"Hmmm… your numbers have improved." A man wearing a white lab coat took a sip from his coffee before continuing. "But you're still far from showing a significant spike to your psyche which shows that you are in the reaches of displaying a psychic ability. And I mean really far. There's practically a wide margin that you have to overcome. Though maybe applying special parameters would yield more conclusive results…" He spoke with little enthusiasm in his voice as he analyzed the depressing data from several documents he held in his hands. His face seemed like he would be popular with young girls, although he was a man in his later 20's. He had narrow framed glasses and jet black hair that parted sideways.
The delinquent, Takayama Akito, slumped on a stool on the other side of the researcher's desk, not fully interested in comprehending all the technical terms that were being said as his mind wandered about the room from time to time.
There were several shelves which had books of different variety. Each had titles that seemed to be related to research in AIM, Quantum Physics and Brain Neurons.
It's just going to be the same thing no matter what I do. He thought while looking around the small office.
"But don't look so down," the man made a wide grin as he looked at the sulking young boy. "Your steady progress is apparent in the data records so it may not be long before you could fly, shoot laser beams out of your eyes or manipulate gusts of wind to blow away women's skirts to see that they were coincidentally wearing thongs or whatever you youngsters are into these days."
"Don't joke around, you lousy teacher..." The boy replied with an annoyed tone as he began to suspect that he was some kind of special magnet that attracted weird people.
"You're no fun." The man sighed at his student's lack of humor. "And after all this time that I have been taking care of you…"
Where have I heard that before… The boy frowned. A lot of people have been calling him gloomy or serious, but he didn't care. "Isn't this your job in the first place?" Akito sounding displeased.
"Speaking of which, have you ever caught a glimpse of Usui-sensei's underwear?"
"How far off am I from reaching Level 1?" Akito ignored the man's inquiry.
"Well… perhaps you just need a stimulus to change the state of your brainwaves to one that can invoke a Personal Reality, which will come naturally of course so you don't have to worry."
Of course, Takayama Akito did not believe that. He knew for a fact that a lot of the students in Academy City remained as a Level 0 even as they graduated from high school. It won't "come naturally" as this man said. It was all probably just a lie used to console him. It was already October and he was still hasn't made any progress. In video game terms, he was the pretty much the same as a novice player who just started. He had been trying and trying while following every single known method but nothing ever happens.
Finally looking serious, the man spoke before reaching a piece of paper and a pen from his desk. "Oh, and I'm prescribing you different drugs this time, I'll just record the data during the next scan." It was common knowledge in Academy City that researchers applied certain drugs on their test subjects, whenever they deem it relevant in their study. Of course, these drugs had no adverse effects whatsoever on the subject's physical or mental condition but the subject's psychic conditions, is what Akito knew.
Akito took the slip of paper from the researcher's hands. "By the way... This will be the last time we meet. Go find someone else to experiment on. I'm sure you've still got a lot of students aside from a Level 0 like me."
"Oh?" The man tilted his head quizzically at the boy. "Why is that, Takayama-kun?"
"I've given up. All of this is just a waste of time," he spat out. "I'll just stay as a Level 0 all my life. I don't care about these god damn powers anymore."
The man narrowed his dark eyes behind his glasses. His elbows rested softly on his wooden desk. "Well, if that's what you wish."
Silence engulfed the room. Akito didn't expect the researcher would agree so easily, but he was glad he did.
"You are right, I have plenty other research subjects apart from you so it's not like having one less will make any difference. But it will be sad not having you around anymore, especially when I have been looking over you for a long time." The researcher shook his head. "Well, if you have fully set on this, then I guess there's no helping it. Don't regret this, Takayama-kun."
The boy stood up and faced the door with his hands in his blazer's pockets. "I won't, Kihara-sensei..."
"So, idiot, how was it?" Tatemiya Haruka was leaning on the wall beside a door when the boy she was expecting came out.
The massive congestion filling up the hallways from before was now nowhere to be seen. Instead, only a few students passed by, enjoying the free time they have now that the System Scan was over.
The orange sunlight fell over the two through the windows.
"Same as usual, idiot…" The young boy closed the door to the room he was previously in.
And thus, the two exchanged verbal insults casually, just as usual. In Japan, it was a custom for younger people to refer to their elders with utmost respect, but being the youngest of the two, he ignored such annoying things whenever he was with the girl. That must be the sign of how close they were.
"You don't have to get your panties in a bunch every time I see the results of my power level." The boy sighed.
The girl turned red like an apple after hearing that remark. "Hey, you brat, I just wanted to see if you were finally taking things seriously, but you're still just slacking off as usual."
"Yes~ I'm no match for the great Tatemiya Haruka." Akito shrugged lazily. "But seriously, there are a lot more people out there who deserve more of your attention than me, like that Railgun or whatever she was called," although he did not know the identity of the famous Railgun from Tokiwadai Middle School himself. But he heard many interesting and amazing rumors about her like the one where she fought a giant Powered Suit on a certain freeway.
Those sounded like outrageous stories for a normal high school student like him. Even though this city was filled with espers, those feats sounded too unrealistic. Were Level 5's really that strong? The boy wondered about that a lot.
Akito silently muttered, "It was a mistake for me to be here..."
He remembered all his shortcomings after arriving at Academy City. He was so full of ambition at first, doing all he could in the Power Curriculum Program to become an esper. But now he was tired. Tired of climbing such a steep wall where he cannot see the top. All the efforts he made didn't get him anywhere, making all the time he spent studying felt like such a waste.
A tone played on the school's PA system, announcing the end of the school's Power Scan.
The two ignored the tone as they stood in the middle of the school's halls.
Was there even a reason for him to continue living in Academy City? He contemplated as he tried to walk away from the girl.
"So are you saying that you're just going to give up?" The girl said.
"Haven't I already?" The boy replied with his back towards her. "I just don't have the knack for this like you do."
"I know we haven't hung out for a while but that doesn't mean you can just abandon our race!" Haruka shouted.
"Race? I'm a Level 0 and you're a powerful Level 4. There was no race to begin with."
Haruka clenched her fist, ready to beat the boy up but then an idea came into her mind, to which an evil smile formed on her face.
"Heh~ Look who's suddenly sulking in the corner. What was it? 'Watch me, I'm going to be a Level 5 and the supreme ruler of this realm!' Something like that?" Her eyes looked at him playfully as she snickered.
"H-hey! I didn't say anything like that!" A bit of red flooded his face as he looked at her and raised his fist in front of him. "And who the hell says 'supreme ruler of this realm', huh?!"
All his worries were abruptly forgotten for a moment.
After seeing the boy's amusing response, the girl smiled and said, "Looks like you still have some fire left in you. We're still first years, Takayama. You don't have to rush 'cause I'll always be cheering you on!"
"….." The boy's eyes widened, feeling the girl's relentlessness enter his body, though she didn't notice. He noticed emptiness he had been feeling inside him disappear. Suddenly, his blood began to heat up as if he was a runner who finally made it to the finals. It seemed that no matter what he did to push her away, she will only come back stronger.
"And when you finally reach the top, I'll be here to smack you down~!" The girl raised her fist and gave a cheerful grin.
And then after a moment, Akito resigned himself to the girl's unreasonable demands. "Hmph… Don't you have Judgment duties or something?" Finally, he turned around once more and waved goodbye to Tatemiya Haruka. A tiny smile appeared on his face.
Thus the clock started to move. The normal Level 0 boy who had thought his life would continue peacefully as he tried once again to grasp the special powers he had longed for in this city full of advanced science and technology will face a challenge he could never hope to imagine. Science and… Both of those intermingled as he walked on this route with the limited knowledge he had.
I've been trying to stop myself from adding battle scenes regarding espers because I wanted to follow the story line inside my head but damn finally... next chapter will have an esper fight.
No appearances yet from canon characters but I promise they will appear.