Good...whatever the hell time this happens to be. It's currently 4:18 am, March 12th as I write up this welcoming to the latest chapter of Aono's Kaleidoscope... intentionally spelled incorrectly, for those of you who -and I know you exist- were grated by it. At any rate, those who have been wondering about the length of time since my last update... Well, I said that there would be times in which I wouldn't be capable of updating near as often as I like; a long-ass string of out-of-town job interviews required me obtaining a few odd jobs to pay for the gas... Here's hoping one of 'em yields some reward.
Now, to answer my reviewers.
PrankK1ng- Eh, you're on the right path... but you've still got to find the gold nugget in this enormous ball-park. Thank you, now if I could only capture it perfectly in describing combat, then I'd be completely pleased with myself on that point... Aside from watching early Naruto episodes and playing the games, and thereby attempting to put what I see into words, I've got no other way to know just what goes where, essentially. Asura is not, but they do have a connection which you'll learn about quite a bit later into the story.
Pyromania101- Haha, thank you, my friend. Well, unfortunately that won't really be a big, huge reveal- rather a gradual thing, with a flashback reveal, more than likely... and that's not for a while yet. Indeed, I try to do the best I can with my grammar, but there is only so much I can do with myself. Yes, he heads for Youkai Academy, and the many (mis)adventures that await him there.
That's precisely the reason that he and Izuna can at least moderately tolerate one-another.
Wow... Dude, that's horrid. Hate Kurumu, by all means, but don't kill her! No, I can't and I intend to make a stronger, more powerful drive for her as well... As a matter of fact, I have something planned for each and every one of the girls to add depth to their 'why' factor. I agree with you about Inner Moka- possibly far more than you, yourself, do... I have a plan, and let's just say that it lays somewhere in the mythologies of the eyes and a small four-lettered acronym...
Jasper- I thank you for your review... I like the brutal honesty, and while you are entitled to your opinions, I must point out that the best stories tend to have their slow moments of character development... perhaps not in the method mine has, nor not in the beginning, but that's just my style.
Yeah, that is one of my failings; I feel inadequate in my own writing if I don't add as much detail as possible... then I realize it's far too much and must re-write the chapter again. By the time I'm done, I'm almost back to where I started. As far as a strong following- like that of Lord of the land of fire; I could care less... Sure, I LOVE my fans, PrankK1ng and Pyro being the fore-front pair, but I write for my own enjoyment... it just so happens that they like it too.
As far as coming to read Rosario Vampire, and not anything crossed with Naruto- even in the slightest, well you seem to have trouble holding to your inhibitions, as you most certainly clicked on it, and even read to the third chapter after the tell-tale sign – the word, 'Kaleidoscope' was clearly obvious to anyone.
So in conclusion, thank you for being honest, but if you didn't want to read it in the first fucking place, why waste your time? Maybe you were trying to help, maybe you're a punk who just blew his load and needed something to waste the time between the ten minutes before you could do so again... either way, thanks.
DBZFTW- Well, I'm happy you decided to review, and I look forward to more from you. We'll see if he does... He'll at least have some sort of union with her and inner Moka, I'm sure.
Zenneon- Ah, yes, the infamous time-skip. Well, I was mentored in professional writing styles, and I have a rather obsessive/compulsive personality when it comes to following doctrines of instruction. I'm not saying that serious writers who are also on here writing fanfiction and take such liberties are ruining their work, I'm merely saying that I, myself, don't feel... right doing it. Thus, a series of ***, or dashes to indicate a time-skip will likely not be seen... but I'll do my best to add some kind of logging system... perhaps a time, date log between skips or something. Please don't take my pride in myself as a sarcastic jibe to you, I -as I just said- am slightly OCD over it, and pride myself in it.
Now, as for that offer of help you mentioned... I am without home internet and must travel to town to do so. As you can imagine, I'm a bit... out of date and behind on Rosario Vampire... In fact, I don't know what has happened in capu2 beyond the end of the visit to the Snow Village. If you could, describe in moderate-high detail in a private message or something equally as good, to bring me up to date on what has happened?
Prodigal Priest- Well, I thank you for entering into this one's domain then. I truly hope it can live up to your expectations, though if it doesn't, I still thank you for taking a look-see.
Gaara KOtS- I'm getting lazy, so forgive me for abbreviating your name some. Oh trust me, that's the one thing I can guarantee will not happen... Too many times I've seen, "Hi, I'm human.. I trust you won't use your good looks to get me alone and eat my face off." No, that's not going to happen.
DoomKnight1of24- Huh, so you weren't so 'one-of-a-kind', after all? Yeah, it's hard to make someone guarded and a little anti-social without vibes of pseudo-angst getting in there. You would be right about it being a little disjointed, as I tend to get writer's block half a page in or so and leave, then come back a few days later and attempt to get right back into it which leads to it having a small hitch. I must ask, is it highly perceivable, or was it hard to catch for you?
I hope it does, I won't mind if it doesn't become really huge... but I do have my dreams. Aye... I must now run off and take after you; let my eyes loose the fight against gravity... God knows I've had to re-write your answer-entry twice now.
Disclaimer: I HAVE NO RV FOR ME BUNGHOLE!
His eyes gazed at the odd off-yellow shuttle which had just pulled up before his house. The unmarked vehicle let loose a loud hiss as the air-breaks engaged and a small gust of air released from beneath the contraption. The low rumble of the idle engine echoed in the dewy morning's lukewarm breeze that tussled the leaves about the tree that hung over his house.
He cast an eye back and let a soft sigh escape at the sight of the empty drive-way. His mother's Suzuki Liana was gone from the drive-way and with it, the two occupants of the house which were allowed to drive it. The reason for this was that the naval office had called his father in two days early for his next three-month shift out on the waters because the Onoki, a sub-hunting destroyer, had found a convoy of personal submarines leaving Kyushu's south-western waters and heading for Chinese waters.
Upon forcing them to surrender, they found traces of cocaine and opium on-board as well as numerous traces of human discharge and excretions, hinting to human trafficking. The 'make-it or break-it' deal however, had been the detection of an unknown energy which, while not being consistent with nuclear residue, sent the crew's Geiger-counters haywire. Thus, they were putting a permanent guard to patrol Kyushu and the surrounding islands as well as the rest of Japan's waters with far more vigilance.
It sucked, but the boy understood why they had both left, after-all, his mother only had one car and someone had to drop Izuma off. The man feared buses for some reason beyond all description. With an ear-grating squeak, the double hinged doors of the bus folded in upon themselves and the boy stepped into the bus with little effort and passed the driver with nary a word.
Tsukune, as he passed him, glanced at the man from his peripheral and was rewarded with seeing the man doing the same to him with his eerie glowing eyes through the odd veil of shadows that shouldn't have been cast by the meager blue driver's cap on his head. Another thing caught his attention though, and that was that the man didn't seem to be looking at him, but through him- or more accurate, his soul. It was an odd sensation, to feel the prickling feeling one got when you knew someone was staring, inside of you.
Shaking it off, the brunette boy walked to about the middle of the bus and took his seat on the polyester green cushion and immediately moved to the window where his eyes shifted upwards and gazed through the window towards the clouds in the sky. A moment of vertigo accompanying the sounds of hissing and loud rumbling from the engine announced the bus's return to movement.
As he was transported through the streets of Kobe, Tsukune couldn't help but feel that, as they got further from the outskirts of the city, that he would soon be in for quite the surprise. This, of course, would normally have been pushed to the back of the boy's mind, yet due to his insurmountable amount of studying anything and everything he possibly could, he had come to one conclusion and it had become his new motto in life -even if it was slightly difficult to adjust to, human nature and all, "Believe and expect in the unexpected"
Some may call it being paranoid, but to Tsukune, he was perfectly fine with being labeled crazy because, unlike everyone living their comfy, cozy lives; Tsukune knew what the world really held in it's depths, even just on the surface of said pits. Yet, it seemed that the world as a whole would rather turn it's eyes away and ignore the cesspools, rather than assist those stuck in them, therefore he felt that his new-found life's motto fit well.
As far as his feeling of something odd about to happen, he was proven correct as they approached a tunnel that was on the scenic route around the southern coastline of Honshu. At roughly thirty feet from the tunnel, he felt the heated energy that he had become sensitive to feeling over the last few years flow through the metal vehicle and, after flashing his crimson eyes for a mere second, he was able to see that it seemed to be a silver cone-like twister sucking the bus into a vortex which culminated at the mouth of the tunnel up ahead. He would have acted on it, but the bus was clearly jostling from the energy affecting it and the bus-driver was not worried in the least. It seemed that, unless normal people couldn't feel it, the driver was used to such a thing and as such, allowed himself to calm some.
A deep, slightly raspy voice beckoned his attention, "So boy, you are the new student enrolling in Youkai Academy from this... region?" Without looking the boy knew that the only logical conclusion was that the bus-driver was talking to him, being that they were the only two occupants on the bus. He shifted an eye to look at the man side-long and nodded, "Yes; you picked me up after-all."
"So I did, so I did." The man chuckled out as they passed into the tunnel and the jostling finally came to a halt. The man glanced up into his rear-view to look at the boy directly and allowed a smarmy grin to peel itself into place, "You had best prepare yourself then, boy." His only response was the slight raise of an eyebrow from the boy as he still seemed to look out of the window save for his left eye looking him in the eye through the mirror.
"When we get out of this loooong and dark tunnel here in a few minutes, we'll be in front of the school." The boy merely shrugged his shoulders, "That's grand." The bus driver merely chuckled at his attitude and seemed to gain a more sinister edge to his voice, "I like your attitude, but Youkai Academy...," He trailed off to give a small cackle, "is a very terrifying place!"
Tsukune leaned his head away from the window and glanced at the man with a blank expression, his eyes the dull, seemingly concrete filled chocolate brown that they usually were, "So is Bangkok to anyone without a trustworthy local, and every place in the world that some crime syndicate calls home." The man's smile faltered slightly, but he cackled harder than before, "Oh, you're going to be an interesting one, boy!"
It seemed that the second he said that, a blinding white light encompassed the bus. There was no pinprick that got bigger, no time to get ready for it; the light just appeared a mere few feet before the bus, like the tunnel's opening just snuck up on them and blinded the boy for a moment as he held a hand in front of his eyes as the dull sound of the man cackling was suddenly drowned out by an odd 'whooshing' sound.
Shortly thereafter, right as his eyes were adjusting, the bus lurched forward accompanied by the air-breaks hissing and squeaking, followed by the squeak-accompanied clacking of the doors folding open on themselves. He blinked and gazed out of the bus' windows as the bus driver gave a silent chuckle, "We've arrived sonny boy, be careful now... hehe."
Tsukune picked his backpack up and slung a strap over one shoulder and let his eyes pass over the man as a small smirk developed on his lips, "It seems you've let me into your nightmares a little... if you call this place terrifying. Seems interesting, if nothing else. Good day." With that, he left a slightly speechless bus driver behind and walked away from the automobile towards a peculiar lake, 'Red algae? Hmm, it is far more common in lakes than rivers and oceans.'
The sound of crows cawing had him inclining his head to see a murder perched on the broken and decaying tree limbs overhead. One looked at him, craning it's head to the side so that it's beady black eye could get a direct look. Tsukune gave a small snort in amusement and turned, walking down the barely marked path towards the school in the distance -what seemed like almost two miles away.
He had made his way through the densely populate woods -though it was more of a tree-graveyard with nine in every ten trees dead- for almost thirty minutes when he heard the sound of tires on dirt and the unmistakable sound of metal slinking. 'A bike?' Tsukune pondered, only to see the front tire of the contraption zoom into the air over the hill he had just passed over. His eyes narrowed as his instincts from training took over and he jumped out of the way and into the woods, watching with bated breath as the figure on the bike landed shakily, but recovered fairly easily. He could have sword that he heard a female yell out, "Sorry!" but brushed it off as one of the birds -which had scattered upon the loud ruckus- calling out.
It took him almost ten more minutes to make it out of the woods with a good hundred meter walk left from the woods to the front of the school. The school itself was odd, but he liked the style; it was designed with a western style, mixed slightly with the Greco-Roman architecture and Gothic style. The building was white with paneling around it of blue and black. Several Victorian era windows decorated the front of the school and a set of mahogany double doors which were at least nine-foot in height stood before him.
He quickly pushed past the mismatched and clamoring mass of excited students who were slowly making their way into the building as well, though the speed at which they did made molasses seem like raging rapids. He quickly made his way to the auditorium which sat in the center of the main building. He absently noted the white-oak colored walls and the fact that every hallway through the school was dual-storied with the second floor being more of a balcony-walkway rather than a true upper floor and the same was true for the auditorium, taking the form of an opera-house.
He cast his eyes over the numerous seats available and quickly took his on the far right, next to some brunette kid with industrial piercings in his ears and the most vibrant orange eyes he had ever seen and a small girl who looked to be extremely young, clad in a dark beige mantle and a black witch's hat who was muttering to herself. Ignoring the two, he looked straight ahead and waited as the five-foot-eight man who was clad in outdated priest robes -which oddly looked like they had been liberated from an Egyptian tomb and styled with a little Japanese charm- stepped up and took center-stage.
"Greetings, students...," The deep and smooth voice of the Headmaster echoed out, his two glowing eyes shining much like the bus-driver's own, Tsukune observed, "I welcome you to Youkai Private Academy, the only institution in the world which will cater to all without discrimination towards the singular goal of mastering your skills. Towards that end we, here at Youkai Academy, offer the youth everything you should need to achieve the goals which you came here to master; if you feel that you are missing anything, then set up an appointment with myself and we shall see what can be modified, assuming you have not looked what you desire over."
The Headmaster turned slightly to his side and cast his gaze over each of the students as he intertwined his bony, slender fingers together over his waist, "We offer many classes: some common to a handful of you and alien to the rest, and vice-versa. We are very strict about following the mandates of this institution as well, should you fail to conform to them unless good reason is given, then you will find yourself progressing the ascending latter that is our punishment doctrine; conversely, do well and you will find yourself in favor of the faculty and perhaps being assigned aide positions, or being assistant to -or perhaps promoted to- overseer of the your club- you'll learn more of that later."
"Now, then," The robe-clad man exclaimed, though it was more of a dark chuckle, as he moved to the side while a young brunette woman pushed out a long set of rolling tables with five boxes on them, each labeled with a gaped alphabet; 'A' through 'E', 'F' through 'J', and so on. Motioning to the table, the Headmaster continued, "You all will file into a line before my secretaries here, through which your last name exists in the listed bracket. This is to be a good start of the year, young ones, so do mind the student handbook which will accompany your schedule. Good day to you all."
Tsukune heard the girl next to him mutter to herself something along the lines of 'having no competition from these barbaric idiots with no brains' as everyone stood at once and began to swarm the table up-front in a confused/eager mass. Tsukune quickly got into the first line for which his last name would fall and gazed passed the thirteen people before him -though he took note of the odd pink shade of hair that stood six people from the table- to the woman who sat at the table, square-frame brown glasses sitting on her nose as she flicked through the many papers in the box before handing one to the small-framed blonde boy who walked away with a nervous grin.
It took about twenty minutes for the entire line to file down to the point that he was one- no, scratch that, now he was directly before the table and the auburn haired woman glanced up at him with her equally scarlet eyes, "Name?" Tsukune's guarded eyes blinked once, their stony gaze trailing from her own curious one to the box below, "Aono, Aono Tsukune." She pursed her lips lightly and looked through the box for nearly a moment before she retrieved a paper-back booklet whose cover was a light puce color with the words 'Youkai Student Handbook' printed in Old English in a light arch in the center. Attached to the top-right of the booklet was a thin piece of paper with numerous listings along it, clearly his schedule.
Nodding his head in thanks, the teen took the offered items and walked off of the stage and out into the dual-decked hall-ways where the sounds of panicked running and calm, albeit amassed and intelligible, conversations going on permeated the air. He glanced to the left of his schedule and was proven correct in his assumption that his homeroom was to be placed there- 193, "First floor, room ninety three, hmm? Ms. Nekonome..."
He glanced around the immediate area with a frown; there was nothing to indicate which room were down what hall-ways. The faculty offices didn't go by the same numbering system, having one based around the roman alphabet, instead. He finally let loose a sigh and looked around his immediate area for someone who could be of assistance to him. As his chocolate semi-glare passed across the open halls before him, he caught the gaze of a black haired girl who was headed his way.
As she got closer Tsukune got a better look at her; almond-shaped eyes sat larger than most on her face on either side of a pert nose. Two almost beady black pupils and dark-brown iris' of the same distinction swept over to him as her finely plucked eyebrows lowered lightly over her eyes and the edge of her lips twitched into a small smirk. It would have made a lesser man nervous with fear. He, on the other hand, set her in his sights and remained still as he tracked her movements up to her with nary a twitch to betray his careless demeanor.
Dressed in a black double-breasted uniform with golden hemmed edges of which she absently adjusted the cuff of her left arm, the midnight-black haired girl stopped before him, her thin, silky straight hair shifting with the loss of motion, "Why are you standing around aimlessly?"
Tsukune narrowed his eyes a fraction, already not liking the tone the woman took with him, "I am looking for room one ninety-three, yet I find myself lost as there is little to go on in this section of the school, it seems." She seemed to gain a larger smirk and her eyes danced with derision, "So you didn't try to walk around and find anything? How stupid. Freshmen."
He took a breath as he felt a slight tinge of anger burn at his chest deep within the cavity where his emotions had once formed freely. This woman infuriated him, he decided. The boy took a step closer to her, "Do you, or do you not know the way around a school which you've clearly been attending?" She closed her eyes, "Hmm? Of course I do." "Well then," Tsukune began and stepped closer, "Let's forgo insulting the freshman and instead, give me the location of my homeroom."
She cackled, a high-pitched and harsh sound, "Why should I?" He didn't say a word, merely titled his head to the side and nodded slightly, whilst biting the inside of his lower lip, "What's your name?"
Her demeanor changed slightly, from being haughty and holier-than-thou to haughty, holier-than-thou, and compilable, "I am the second in command of the Public Safety Commission, Keito Higashi. Why do you want to know?"
He blinked twice in quick succession and narrowed his eyes slightly, "No reason, go about your business now." She scoffed and sauntered off with the damnable arrogance for which she had become famous for the previous year, not that Tsukune knew this. He glanced at her sidelong as his lips twitched to a smirk, "No, go on you oblivious woman, just know what is coming for you." With that comment, the boy proceeded to walk with a purpose to the far hallway and made a right.
Several feet down this hallway he made a left and found the 'Nineties' walkway. It was no difficult task at all to find his classroom just three seconds before he would have been late. He quickly gave two quick raps on the door with his fore and middle knuckles before opening the door and entering.
"Oh, hello there! You're late, you know?" The teacher greeted excitedly and then questioned, her eyes squinted slightly behind her diminutive oval reading glasses. Tsukune, who had walked straight in, panned his eyes to the side to look at the teacher, "Indeed. Your Public Safety members are very much lacking in assistance of students."
Oddly, the blonde teacher's two strange tufts of hair seemed to twitch and fall slightly as her mood suddenly plummeted, "You've met them already? Oh, I know, they're just terrible, but the charter states that as long as at least one member exists, it cannot be disbanded, even by the Headmaster." She then perked up slightly, "What's your name, then!"
"Tsukune Aono, Nekonome-sensei." She smiled and the two tufts shifted once again, pointing outward as they had before. Giving them a moment of a critical eye, Tsukune figured that he had merely seen something but had yet to completely discount that something was odd about the teacher. His eyes followed her arm out as she gestured to the far right of the room, where four empty seats existed; two on the furthest row right in a column, one diagonally ahead of the second-to-last seat, and one beside the last seat.
He looked back to the woman as she smiled, "Take one of the seats and we'll resume the lesson!" Giving a minor nod, Tsukune soon found himself seated in the second to last seat, absently noting that another odd shade of hair seemed to be shifting about in his peripheral; a cerulean head of hair to be exact, an odd color to be sure. He let his attention waver from that and focus back on the teacher who was... drawing something on the black-board, 'Who the hell uses those now-days? Every school has dry-erase boards... nice to see some antiquity for once.'
Tsukune frowned as the teacher moved away and immediately began to speak excitedly, tapping the board with a pointing baton, "As I was saying, Welcome to Youkai Academy!" Nekonome then pulled the baton away and held it at her waist horizontally, both hands gripping an end, "Today is not a school day; it is more of an orientation to get you used to the layout without any pressure. So, let's begin with the purpose of the academy!"
She suddenly jumped to the board in a fit of excitement that had the teen feeling oddly violated and confused, something he did not like feeling. Tsukune raised an eyebrow as the tapping of the chalk to the board lessened and turned into drags of drawing, and as the blond woman was in the way and successfully blocking his sight, he had to rely on sound to determine what was going on. He supposed for a moment, after seeing the bored looks on his classmates' faces, that he was being overboard with his expectation of something odd to be revealed, yet he couldn't help it.
Right as her minor bodily twitches indicated that she was about to move away, the door opened up, "S'cuse me!" The teacher's tufts of hair seemed to perk up, almost like ears as she turned her squinted gaze towards the door whilst the new arrival continued, "Sorry I'm late; I kinda got lost after the entrance ceremony, and couldn't find the ninety hall."
Nekonome waved it off with a smile, "Oh, that's fine. Don't worry about it, now choose a seat, miss?"
"Moka Akashiya, Nekonome-sensei," Moka replied with a smile and her off-jade eyes lightly sparkling.
"Alright Moka-san, please take one of the remaining seats."
The pinkette smiled and moved through the class towards the closest open seat, putting her diagonally in front of Tsukune. All the while through her movement to the seat, Tsukune was annoyed and astonished at how everyone in the class was acting so brash and blatantly proclaiming their lust towards the girl who seemed to not take a dash of notice.
Once she had sat down and gotten situated Nekonome began to speak, yet stopped when she noticed that none outside of Tsukune, Moka, and three others were paying attention. Tsaking her baton and tapping it on the board got half of the class' attention, yet the rest were too enthralled in the pink haired beauty to give their attention to anything else. That was until the woman seemed to narrow her eyes and a familiar burning energy filled the air followed by her rushing over and literally clawing the closest inattentive student's face, "Pay attention!"
That seemed to drag all but one or two heads from their longing gazes towards the young girl and return them to the rightful attentive place with Nekonome. With the class mostly at attention, save for the boy worrying over his face and the two still shifting between her and Moka, the blond's mood shifted instantly and she smiled, tapping the board once again, "As I was saying, once again; let's begin with the purpose of the academy!"
Tsukune's eyes shifted up towards the board and instantly narrowed slightly, his pupils contracting marginally. A large circle was drawn on the board, slightly oblong, but so minuscule that the brunette was the only one to notice it. Within the circle sat the word, 'Earth' with five stick-figures standing atop seeming to hold hands.
To the right of the representation of Earth sat an arrow with the words 'Humans', written in both English and Japanese kanji pointing towards the stick figures. This was odd, but not what caused his reaction; rather it was the illustrations below the Earth- a large box with an arrow pointed up to it with the word 'Monster' written in it and next to it, an excitable pop-bubble with, 'Coexistence'.
"This Academy's main purpose is to teach you all how to co-exist with humans!" She explained with a smile, her tufts twitching which, with this new revelation, Tsukune was sure were ears -badly disguised. She seemed giddy as she continued to explain, "The current situation on this front is that the humans have prospered and grown in numbers to the point that for every monster, there are one-hundred seventy-five humans. They have become the ruling force on the planet and have mastered technology to an extent that is unprecedented."
She pranced to the other side of the chalk-board and continued, even as something which Tsukune quickly determined was a tail slithered out from under her short ruby-colored skirt, "Humans are surprisingly skittish and hostile to things that they don't understand, a trait shared by most monsters, so due to their numbers and technological advancements, war is out of the question." The brunette boy heard the boy sitting beside him snort and clink his teeth against the piercing hanging on the left bottom lip.
"Therefore, for us Monsters to safely continue to survive, we must learn to continue to peacefully coexist with humans, as had been done exclusively for five centuries!" She then tilted her head to the side and smiled out to them with her eyes squinted, or perhaps closed tightly, "So for that very reason, all of you will be living your life at this academy in human form!"
Tsukune's eyes flashed crimson for just a moment before they settled back into their chocolate brown and he took a long, deep breath to calm himself. So, that's what this was, then; a school for monsters, for all of the things that go bump in the night -as the saying goes- so that they may exist in the light without the lingering thought of danger. It was definitely a far-fetched thought to say the least, but considering everything he had been through and all of the texts he had read, mainly those mythological in nature, he couldn't say it didn't make any sense.
Especially the five-century time-frame, where the last chronicled evidence of anything mythological in nature completely went cold. Beyond that, you began to hear of the Loch-Ness and of extra terrestrials, and things of that nature -not that he discounted any of that, merely that it didn't seem to fit with the mythological subjects.
His nervousness didn't fall away though, despite the fact that he had read a great deal about ancient Greek and Egyptian myths, including those dealing with the beings therein, he knew that more than half were carnivorous, and wasn't sure how those around him felt. Moreover, the texts were word-of-mouth and speculation at best by the current point in time, so whose to say that anything written about them was correct, or still relevant in modern times. The brunette eyed those around him warily, before taking note that they all seemed bored and took no notice of his fidgeting. They didn't know he was a human, or they didn't care.
The boy sitting next to him drew his attention, "Bah! Humans are only worth food and live-stock! So humans have technology, military hardware and all that junk; we have supernatural powers -to them- which would let us over-power them!" The dark, curly blond haired boy spoke, his voice coming out in a hostile hiss that could have been likened to boiling oil, "So why not eat all of the good-for-nothin' humans...? Actually, in the case of the women, use 'em as bed warmers and then eat 'em!"
Nekonome seemed to mewl disgustedly and sorrowfully as she pointed to him with her baton, "Because all humans would need to do is send a Nuclear warhead our way; they've used one before on their own kind, so they'd be willing to sacrifice their own again in order to get rid of a different threat." She then seemed to perk up a little bit, "Besides, Komiya-san, there are no humans on campus! If one even stepped foot in the barrier that surrounds Youkai Academy, they would have been killed!" She accentuated the word, then cocked her head to the side as her ear-tufts twitched and tapped her cheek, "...Or something like that."
Tsukune felt his body shiver involuntarily and glanced down at his hand, 'Then why am I still alive?'
The rest of the class went on without a hitch for the remaining thirty minutes that it was in session. During that time, a student poised a good question that Tsukune had been wondering, and that was how exactly the school was to help them integrate into human society.
Nekonome had replied by telling them that the school was recognized as a viable school to graduate from and was pulled by the weight of the few monsters who were higher up in the human political chain of command, thus in addition to the classes that would get monsters used to the culture of the human world -as well as training themselves to control their powers- there were human subjects as well that would go towards their high-school diploma and, if they chose, add college credit to their record.
The class had let out soon after and amidst the excited and jabbering masses of monsters disguised as human students, Tsukune walked through the corridors of the academy, his destination being the dorm room which he had been assigned to. He stood at the hallway where he had initially met that bitch, Keito, and turned. A placard hanging from the ceiling identified that going out the front and the left doors would lead to the dormitories, one leading to the freshman and sophomore dorms, and the other to the junior and senior dorms.
He quickly exited out of the left door and began to walk passed the small drink area, ignoring the pink haired girl whose eyes he could feel pass over him as she slurped on a can of tomato juice, in lieu of making it to his dorm in the shortest time possible.
The boy had taken a good thirty paces before he turned back upon hearing the voice of the boy who sat beside him grow loud and found him to be standing needlessly close to Moka, his face screwed up in lustful anger as he blocked her from moving away from him with both his arms on either side of her. He narrowed his eyes and slowly turned his heading as he heard, "You will not deny me, Moka Akashiya! You see, you're all alone and anyone who would help you, well..." He chuckled and smirked, his tongue creeping out to lick his lips insidiously, "They've all tried to stop me and learned their lessons, one way or the other."
"Please, Saizou-san, y-you don't want to do this... I, I could be your friend?" Moka tried to reason, attemtping to implant a suggestion in his mind that would be less detrimental than the one he was currently taken on. He snorted and narrowed his eyes into a glare, "Do you take me for a fool! You'll be my friend one way, or the other; my bed-friend and then my dinner-friend. Stop resisting the inevitable."
She whimpered and tried to jar away, but his arms bulged with unnatural muscle as he held her in place with some difficulty, "Oh, well I do like it when my prey tries to fight back. If you want it to hurt, then keep on, Moka!" She shivered and shrunk in on herself, trying to put some distance between the bully before her and her own self. Her off-jade eyes shimmered with tears as she looked around. She could try to escape, but that's what Saizou wanted; he wanted her to run so that he could get rougher with her, so that he was provoked into using force against her.
"What do you say? Let's ditch this area and go back to my crib?" Saizou questioned and she whimpered, her eyes shifting back and forth as she tried to keep her tears from falling. Her silence slowly caused his already high temper to inflate and he reached forward, gripping her shoulder roughly, "I said, let's go to my crib, Moka. Now."
The pinkette moaned in pain, one eye closing as she cringed and tried to shrink upon herself even more. The pierced boy before her leaned down and whispered, "If you come now, I may think about not devouring you so soon, after I tear into that snatch of yours, now let's go!" He turned around, yanking the girl with him only to come face-to-face with a slightly shorter boy.
Tsukune stared impassively at Saizou, his chocolate orbs as hard as onyx as they bored into the other boy's own slightly menacing coal-colored ones. Saizou grunted at the boy, "Move, worm. I've got business to attend to." Instead of complying, Tsukune merely tilted his head an inch or two to the side and tightened his eye-lids a smidgen.
His classmate's nostrils flared as he took a deep breath and spoke in the most menacing voice he could muster without resorting to his monster form, "What's wrong with you, stupid? I said, get the fuck out of my way!" The last Aono nodded once, "Oh, I heard you, but I would rather see you try to get passed me, if you can even do that."
"What was that, dumb-ass? You're going to try to fight me?" Saizou questioned with a dark grin and a single chuckle. The shorter boy merely stared at him with a perfectly dismissive and impassive expression. It was a testament to his training that when Saizou raised his arm far quicker than should have been possible and brought it smashing down, Tsukune caught it with his hand and didn't loose any ground, despite the fact that his arm was shaking terribly with the counter-force required to hold it off.
Further still was a testament to his mental and emotional blocks he had created that his body's pain, as well as his muscles' straining didn't crossover and manifest into his voice which was so stoically cold and dismissive of Saizou that it sounded every bit of a dirge, "Now, you've failed with your first attack, and the surprise has been taken from your assault; you're too little prepared to pull a fast one on me, and any attempt to prove otherwise will just end in you losing this fight."
He then released the taller teen's fist and stepped passed him to where Moka was being held slightly behind him and gripped his other wrist, "Move it, Komiya-san." The man seemed to contemplate rounding on the boy and ramming a fist to the back of his head, but he had a feeling that it wouldn't work out. With a guttural grunt, Saizou released Moka and began to walk off, "This isn't the end of it, Moka Akashiya! You will be mine!"
A soft wind blew past whilst Moka wiped the tears from her eyes and blinked as she watched her tormentor walk off into the woods, fuming. She then cast her eyes over to where the boy who she recognized from also being from her class had been standing and let out a sharp gasp; he was already to the edge of the trees, heading for the dormitories with his hands tucked into his pockets. She opened her mouth and stopped short for a mere second, before she decided to yell, "T-thank you!"
Whoever he was, he didn't seem to hear her as he kept on walking until his form melded in with the forest and was lost from sight. Moka lowered her head with a sigh and gingerly grabbed her shoulder with a wince, biting her lip. She looked down to where her tomato juice had been knocked to the ground during Saizou's assault and her eyes widened upon finding a new can, fresh and closed, sitting on the seat beside her.
Tsukune had arrived in his dorm room and upon unlocking the door, glanced about the room with a critical eye. The room was mildly furnished with room for improvement if one wished. To the left of the door was the kitchenette; a dual-sided fridge/freezer combo which sat snugly in the corner, and then two cabinets of western design with a rather generic faux marble top separated it from the four eyed black stove. Across from that sat a white oval island-bar that acted as the dining table, three stools were placed on either side and sitting on it, far against the wall was an undersized tan microwave.
The other side of the dorm had a three-cushioned couch, beige in color that sat on the opposite wall, next to a five-tiered bookcase, upon which there were several book which looked to be the text books for the classes on his schedule, presumably so that he could properly do any assigned work, or simply study. In front of the couch was a very small glass-top coffee table, stretching half the length of the couch.
Right of the couch, behind an enclave made by extending the wall half-way through the room and placing a sliding door in the remaining space was a four-poster bed, though it lacked the canopy which Tsukune assumed was present if one specified, or was in the female dorms. A light green comforter lay upon the bed like a captured cloud and seemed to be extremely soft and relaxing just by looking at it.
Tsukune had observed that the bathrooms were public with two on each floor, nearest the stairs that existed on the far ends of the building. He noted that it would likely be hell in the morning to take a shower and brush his teeth, much less taking an early morning break to drain his body of wasteful fluids.
Sighing he stripped his green blazer off as well as white button-up dress-shirt beneath it, leaving him in a snug, gray wife-beater. He walked over and sat down on his couch and closed his eyes, shielding his brown eyes from the world as they morphed into a deep, vibrant crimson and two tomoe swirled into being beneath their veil.
Immediately he heard the familiar toneless voice that he had grown semi-accustomed to hearing from time to time, 'Good day, boy. How hath thoust day gone?' He felt himself blink in annoyance and took a breath, an odd feeling much like the pressure of him pinching his nose was felt, "You're talking Shakespearean again."
The voice let loose the familiar bass-like thump that he had come to know was a laugh, 'It is not the fault of We that you read Shakespeare, and We happened to enjoy it more than you, boy. Quit complaining.' He once again found himself wishing -as he often did- that he could actually see the disembodied voice to actually glare at it, or perhaps strangle it from time to time. As it was, he merely grunted, 'Hn.'
A Series of thumps followed out, 'You'd not win the impending fight between the two of us, if you could. Let sleeping dogs lie, Aono.' Whilst Tsukune had not spoken to the voice on a true schedule, it happened around once a month for two years and during that time, Tsukune had learned much about the voice -not what it was, or what it represented, but more about how it functioned. He couldn't actually 'hear' anything vocal from it.
In truth, he found that the voice would access his memory and by sending emotions there, it could manipulate words that he, himself knew, and the imprinted words would be 'felt' in his mind and came across in a way that one would akin an absent-minded thought that they barely catch themselves thinking.
Beyond that, if he paid attention, he could feel the emotional tethers that it used to pick out the words in order to form a guesstimate of the voice's mood and intent with the words. Of course, he found that words taken from high-emotional experiences would jam his ability to detect the its tethers as he could only feel the residue of his own emotions.
The brunette also found that he could only communicate with the voice when his crimson eyes were manifested, as it opened his mind in several odd ways. For one, he found that the time-dilation he had attributed to adrenaline when he had killed Ishin had, in fact, stemmed from the eyes and that it seemed to connect to one of the two tomoe in his eyes.
Another thing he had found is that he only needed to glance at something with his eyes activated to instantly memorize it. He could scan a book in less than an hour and have all of that information available to him for all eternity; where most memories seemed to fade and lose their edge and clarity, everything he saw with the crimson eyes was as lucid -more so, in fact- than something freshly seen by his own chocolate pair. This, he found, stemmed from the second tomoe in his eye, though he couldn't trace how it worked.
'Pinwheels of Despair,' The voice intoned, and for the first time, it had a hint of masculinity flanking the overall genderless and toneless voice it usually had.
"What?" Tsukune's lips dipped into a small frown even as his eyes remained closed, "Despair?"
A feeling washed over him and Tsukune felt that he knew it had nodded to him in the eternal darkness that his mind currently was, 'They are called the Pinwheels of Despair to those of this world, and are a fabled thing. The eyes are as rare here as monsters are seen to be to the humans of these times.'
"How do you know this?" Tsukune questioned, an eyebrow raised minutely above its regular state of impassiveness, "Why have you never brought this up before?"
Tsukune waited for an answer, and in that dark, formless void that his outer mind was, it easily felt as if a good three hours had passed. He found himself growing ardently impatient and furious from the lack of reciprocation from the sentient entity. He could feel that the voice was still in contact with his mind; the odd invasive pressure on the 'back' of the formless space that was his mind proved that.
It had taken well over what felt like ten hours for the voice to make itself known and answer the brunette boy, and the normally chocolate eyed teen could literally feel the boiling flames of hot tar that was his fury in the pit of his stomach when the voice came without warning, 'We have been weak; it costs us a month's worth of gathering latent psychic energy and youki -the energy monsters use- from the atmosphere to speak even a few hours to you in the human realm.'
'And this place is far more saturated by youki, being a school devoted to monsters. Why bring this up?' He queried monotonously, both curious as to the connection of youki to the entity, and annoyed at its lack of answering his previous question. The brunette boy found that the voice sent the same impression of it nodding as before, 'We bring this up to answer the latter of your two questions; for us, running on so little energy is the equivalent of you having stayed awake for seven moons, and once you finally fall to sleep's dark embrace, being awakened within the second hour.' He couldn't help but get the feeling that, if the voice had a physical form, it would most certainly have dark bags of sleep-deprivation under its eyes.
"By that logic, you were incapable of focusing much on anything you were saying, and as such; incapable of informing me on such things." The voice nodded to the conclusion, 'Yes, you are very perceptive, boy.'
Tsukune found that he felt both sincerity and sarcasm from the voice's praise/mock of his perception and glared mentally into the darkness, only to receive a light thump of laughter in return, 'Do not strain yourself boy; as it stands, we are both formless here.' He felt the entity's pressure on his conscious move slightly, almost as if it were shifting positions for comfort, 'Now, you questioned us about how we knew about the eyes?'
"Indeed, how could you possibly know?" He inquired, as it was quite bizarre that some formless, nearly non-existent body in his mind would know more about his eyes than he, himself did. It was like having someone else hold the secret to your life, despite the fact that they are not living it; it was very fear-instilling and nerve-wracking.
'We are still weakened, but we will answer you this question. We know of the Pinwheels of Despair because we are the guardians over those who possess the eyes, though we have not manifested in many millennia, if your texts time-tables are accurate." The voice sent a wave of emotion that the boy quickly identified as nostalgia, "We have been with those that have held these eyes from the first, down to you -though we admit, you are the second to which we are able to speak with. We have watched as the Pinwheels of Despair turned from a tool, to an obsession; watched from afar as the eyes died out and, through the years, mutated and formed several replicas in many different forms, yet never matching the eccentricities and power of the original.'
"It must be a powerful manifestation, then, for not a single one to match up," Tsukune observed, though rather than feel a desire for it, he felt slightly aversive to the use, or even the thought of the eyes -he always had, slightly. There was just something about them that didn't sit well with him; like all was not what it seemed, and not just with the crimson orbs.
His answer came by way of a near-concussive force of emotion which was highly pensive, proud, and melancholic in nature, 'The Pinwheels of Despair are very powerful, more so than you can probably imagine with all the synapses in your mind firing at once. The eyes have the ability to render anything seen to its most intricate detailing, and store it for all eternity in your long-term memory; You can perceive the bio-energies of any being with perfect clarity, and time will slow itself to a crawl progressively as they gain experience. There is so much that they can do, so very much.'
Then, the voice gained a slight lugubrious tinge to its voice, 'Yes, it has all that power and more, but... don't ever, no matter any desire to do so, consider the Pinwheels of Despair a gift of any kind.' Confusion emanated from Tsukune's consciousness out towards the entity that conversed with him, and it responded, 'You will understand, once another tomoe spins in tandem with the others, a small fraction of why the Pinwheels of Despair are a curse to all who bare their mark. Pray that you never advance beyond the three tomoe, for you will never be the same child again, this I promise you.'
He noticed that the words seemed to be growing softer, weaker in their passing, 'You are losing power, aren't you?' An affirmative nod answered him, and as the pressure that was the voice moved away, he heard it give some parting words, 'The Pinwheels of Despair, during their prime, went by another name; Sharingan... Use it... boy.'
It is now March 26th, and I feel as though my progress is below par, as is my depth in this particular chapter. I hope that despite this, you all can enjoy this chapter. In other news, I checked out OnTheImportanceOfLungs' fanfiction, ' Wizard of the Kaleidoscope' and found that it bares striking similarity to some concepts in my own story. So, here is me saying that I had no clue, and any resemblance is purely coincidental. The 'Eyes of Misery' are his idea. At any rate, you should check out his story; it's pretty great and has an intriguing concept, holding the sharingan -and indeed, the other two doujutsu- in a standalone idea, rather than tying it to ninja and the such.
At any rate, I plan for this story to follow semi-loosely with the manga up until around the time that Tsukune would normally turn into a ghoul, somewhere around there. Oh, in a review or private message, I'd like to hear your own personal ideas to add depth to each of the girls' cultures. Keep in mind that I already have most of the ideas, and this is merely a compare and contrast, though I may decide to include some of your thoughts in with my own. Worry not, credit will be given where due.