The beast saunters up to where its prey sits, motionless and blindfolded, tied against a chair. It watches her chest as she breathes, one white eye and one red one focused on the rising and falling, its tail thumping against the concrete floor to her rhythm. It has a treacherous smile on its face, all teeth until its forked tongue slithers between them. It looks at its guest, taking in her appearance so it can see just how distorted her features become when put under extreme pain.
The prey is of average height, with a very curvy body type, indicating that the beast will have no trouble eating for the next few days. Before its master had put the blindfold onto her, the beast can remember seeing her scared eyes were a light, almost translucent, bluish-green color behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Small strands of her hair are matted with sweat to her forehead, turning black compared to the straight brown locks that fall to her collarbone. It looks forward to this meal, and has to praise its master for this being its first main course.
The cybernetics in its right eye scan the features of the woman unconsciously, then confirm her identity as Kojishi Fuyuse. A relatively quiet and unassuming woman with no real claim to fame for herself, save for being the mother of the much more noteworthy Kojishi Kyousei.
Said relation is exactly why she is now slowly coming to, her wrists rubbing against the coarse ropes holding her in position, unable to see the towering black scaled lizard monster that's sizing her up.
"H-Hello?!" she asks, her voice cracking on the final syllable. "Where am I?! What's going on here?!"
The beast will give her no answer, nor will its master, who is watching the events from the cameras placed in the room prior. She can merely continue to cry as the creature slinks toward her with a hungry gleam in its eye.
There is a well-known university that caters only to the most specifically and uniquely talented students across the world, cultivating their talents with changing majors every year, specifically to bolster their strengths. This prestigious institution is known simply as Futures University, located in a small, relatively unknown area of Japan, where the only people that get to know about its location are those personally invited to attend on full scholarship.
Futures University has seen many graduating classes, small, seemingly ragtag groups of young adults with varying, sometimes contradictory interests and pursuits, and every single one becomes famous for just how skilled at their craft they are. For the most part, graduates won't disclose their status as alumni, but a few have openly stated that they owe their success to their alma mater. A world-class magician from Norway claims to have graduated from the first ever Futures class, the current world champion in kickboxing has praised her lessons at the university, and there's even a multi-generational orchestra full of Futures graduates called Mirai's Soundscape.
Despite this, no one has ever stumbled upon the campus without being specifically instructed on how to get there. It's one of the most simultaneously well-kept and open secrets in the world.
A young man stands on the quad, staring at a statue of the founder, Kamiya Shinichi. His dark hazel eyes scan the white marble, taking in every feature. While Mr. Kamiya died many years ago, he was still young - about 35 years old by the time he founded Futures University, and only 42 when he passed away from complications due to cancer. The statue is of him at his peak, with sharp features befitting how intimidating his legacy is. The young man is already shorter than most other men, but compared to the height of the effigy in front of him, he feels like a speck of dust.
There's a lump in the young man's throat as he swallows down. He'd been invited to Futures only a few months ago, and his family had all been so incredibly supportive, but he had been, quite frankly, scared shitless. There were years and years of prestige and legacy attached to this place, and he was so young. He had never been particularly talented, at least, he didn't think he was. So why was he being called here, to the pinnacle of upper education?
He closes his eyes and steps toward the admissions office.
"Hey... you good?"
When he opens his eyes, he finds himself met with a harsh, blinding overhead light and another man kneeling over him. He squints as he adjusts to the sudden shift, raising a hand to shade himself, and turns his head so he can look at the other person fully.
The first thing he notices is that he's very handsome, and he mentally chastises himself for that observation. He has dark brown hair, styled in twists and with an undercut, and gorgeous icy blue eyes. His skin is a light brown, but there are some vitiligo patches on his neck and right hand. Stubble covers his sharp jawline. He wears a dark gray, tattered tank top and some red joggers with zippers across either knee, with a red flannel jacket tied around his waist, and black sneakers. On his left forearm, there are loosely wrapped bandages, and on his wrist, there's a chunky black bracelet.
The boy smiles at him. "Oh, good. Glad I didn't have to do anything drastic to make sure you got up. You've been out way longer than anyone else here, you know that, right? We were scared that you were just straight up dead."
"Wh... what do you... mean? Anyone else here?" the young man manages to croak out.
The stranger nods. "Right. Just now realizing that you don't know what's going on because you were asleep. Uh, for starters, hi, I'm..." His sentence trails off as he checks the black bracelet on his wrist. A moment passes before he nods. "I'm Bite."
The young man's eyebrows raise, a suspicious frown forming. "What... kind of name is that?"
"I don't know. I can't remember any other name than Bite. So, that's my name. What's yours?"
He opens his mouth, like his name will roll off his tongue, but for some reason, it doesn't come to him. Bite looks at him, expectantly, for a second or two, before putting up his wrist and pointing at the bracelet.
He raises his own left wrist, finding a bracelet of his own, with a small screen facing toward him, red text scrolling by. It says Galaxy.
"My name is... Galaxy."
"No fair! That's such a cool name. Why did I have to get stupid Bite?"
Galaxy puts his arm down, and reaches behind himself to push himself into an upright, seated position. He's happy to know that he's still wearing the same clothes that he was wearing earlier - a purple and yellow patterned button-down shirt under a black bomber jacket with worn out elbows, ripped up black jeans, and clunky black boots - and sighs in relief. He reaches up to his ears and makes sure that every earring is in its rightful place, then checks his other hand to see that the rainbow colored bead bracelet is still there, too.
"So, what's up with the others?" Galaxy asks, still hung up on that.
Bite clasps his hands together. "Oh, right. Sorry, slipped my mind. Um, there are 18 others, not including us. Pretty sure we were all headed to Futures University prior to this, but now we're in here, and nobody remembers anything after being in the quad in front of admissions. That, plus, we all have weird one-word names and can't remember our real ones."
Galaxy can't help but blink with wide eyes as he attempts to process the new information. "I gathered the name thing, but, uh... did we all get kidnapped? Is this some kind of hazing, or initiation ritual? Do you think this is part of orientation?"
"Ah, yes, orientation, famous for making you dis-oriented," Bite snarks back, smiling with beautifully perfect teeth.
Galaxy smiles too, despite himself. "As much as I appreciate the levity, I would appreciate thoughts on the reason why we're not at Futures right now even more, believe it or not."
"Not sure. It's possible that it could be some weird initiation thing, but it's also entirely possible that because we all got invited to Futures, we got kidnapped by some weird rich bastard with a talent complex."
That would make sense. A lot of people would do anything for the opportunity to hone some kind of craft at the most prestigious university in the world, especially those with enough money and influence to take it for themselves. Galaxy had grown up poor, with nothing but what little money his family made babysitting local children to buy things. He had gawked at the chance to attend Futures at first, because he couldn't even begin to imagine how much money in tuition fees that could possibly cost. The most sought after private university on planet Earth wouldn't just award a full-ride scholarship to someone like him, no matter how "talented" he was. His mom even considered taking on the loan debt for herself before he immediately vetoed the idea. He knew what money did to a person, what money could do for people. Even those in the class above him lived lives that he'd thought were unattainable for years of his life.
Bite reaches over to put a hand on his shoulder, shaking him out of his thoughts. "Hey, uh, sorry to interrupt your reverie or whatever, but I feel like maybe we should introduce you to everyone else. We've all already made our introductions to one another, but you were the last to wake up, so... yeah."
Galaxy's head turns sharply to look at the other man, meeting gorgeous blue eyes and immediately feeling his cheeks turn hot. "Uh, you're probably right."
Bite gets up on his own, wiping his hands off on his joggers, before outstretching a hand to help Galaxy get up. He takes it, slowing himself a bit before seeing a raised scar on Bite's clavicle. They look like claw marks, but the wound doesn't look new. He wonders how the taller boy got them, but doesn't ask.
"Shall we?" Bite asks, nodding his head toward the nearest open hallway.