A/N:
DdraigTheDemon: Don't worry I will ignore the flamers. Thanks for the support.
DragonNightmare90: Thanks for the support.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, no flames, critique appreciated, some characters are OOC or OC
Chapter 3: The first seal
About a week after Umbra arrived in class, Prism has established a sort of routine. Prism walks up from the dorms, where he meets Moka, Tsukumi, Kurumu, and Umbra, then everyone walks to the school with everyone, followed by classes which ends up being ended by Kurumu barging into the classroom the moment the final bell rings, and he finishes the day by hanging out with everyone and going back to the dorms.
Today starts out just like any other day. Prism is tackled in a hug by Kurumu, who he explained Umbria's situation to the day after Umbra had chased him to the clearing, which is followed by bickering between Tsukumi and Kurumu in response to Kurumu's hug. Moka tries to mediate the situation while Umbra watches the fight with a slightly amused twinkle in her eye, the only emotion she shows on a regular basis.
Prism sighed before walking away. As he walked away, he called over his shoulder, "C'mon we're going to be late for class if you keep bickering like this."
Hearing that, Tsukumi simply said to Kurumu, "This isn't over," before running after Prism to the classroom.
Time Skip
In third period, Prism was attending his human sciences class. His teacher was a tall man with upwards facing white hair, a white lab coat, a pair of orange tinted goggles, and a pair of black slacks. His name was Victor von Stein, however he required his students to call him professor Stein, otherwise they would be one of the test subjects for his experiments of questionable legality.
For some reason, this class had no girls in it, despite Umbra's best attempt to get the exact same schedule as Prism.
As class continued, Prism began to feel something weird about the teacher's actions. He was constantly calling on Prism to answer questions. While this in itself wasn't odd, he was constantly glancing at Prism every second he could, with a grin on his face as if he knew something that Prism didn't know.
As the bell for the end of class rang, Prism started to get up out of his chair, but as he was leaving the classroom, Professor Stein said, "Prism, I need to see you after school to talk about your grades."
Hearing this demand, a chill went down Prism's spine, but he still nodded in understanding. After all, Professor Stein did still has control over his grades, even if he is a creepy teacher who plants terror in the hearts of his students with the threat of becoming the guinea pig for one of his dubiously legal experiments.
When Prism got to his next class, which had Umbra and Tsukumi in it, he told the girls about his meeting with professor Stein. Umbra volunteered to go into the classroom, however Prism quickly denied her and said, "It should be fine if you just wait outside. Nothing bad will happen to me if you are able to rush to my aid instantly."
Umbra nodded in reluctant agreement as Tsukumi opened her mouth to object. When Tsukumi thought about how useless she is as a normal human in this school for monsters. Sighing, she also agreed to Prism's idea and promised to tell Moka and Kurumu about it when she saw them in her next class.
When he heard the girls' acceptance of his strategy,
Time Skip
After classes got out, Prism met the four girls in front of Professor Stein's room. When he saw that all of them had stood beside them, he gave them a rare smile. This smile, caused Tsukumi, Moka, and Kurumu to blush bright red, even a slight pinkish hue appeared on Umbra's cheeks, although Prism didn't notice this because he had already turned around to walk into Professor Stein's room.
As Prism walked into the room, he instantly realized the atmosphere of the classroom was different. The room was dark, lit up only by the green glow from the mysterious potion bottles filled with an unknown green substance scattered around the room. In retrospect, those bottles should be the main thing to draw attention when anyone enters the room, yet Prism has never noticed them before.
"Hello? Professor Stein, are you in here?" Prism asked a bit annoyed about the lack of light in the room.
The door behind him slammed shut and symbols appeared on the walls. Professor Stein stood in front of the door clapping his hands together, "Bravo Prism I'm glad to see you're brave enough to accept my invit-"
Before Professor Stein finished speaking, Prism interrupted, "What the actual fuck? Why the hell are you clapping? And why do I feel a sense of vertigo?"
A vein on Professor Stein's forehead twitch as he said, "DON'T INTERRUPT ME!" Prism fell silent after that yell. Stein coughed and cleared his throat before saying, "Now to answer your questions in ascending order, because I'm a human who has obtained eternal life by draining yokai energy from my students, for dramatic effect, and that sense of vertigo your feeling is the result of cutting this room off from the outside world in a pocket dimension."
Prism nodded in understanding of the comprehensive answers to his questions. Then, he said, "Thanks for taking the time out of your evil scheme to answer my questions. However, this causes a new question to appear. Why did you answer my questions?"
Professor Stein said, "Thank you for the kind words, the answer to your new question is simple. Despite my evil scheme, I am still a teacher, a professor atYolai Academy, so it is my duty to answer any questions my students have for me, even if I'm about to drain their yokai energy and liquify their body into the solution in the potions scattered around my room."
Prism sweatdrops and asks, "Isn't that a weird thing for an evil teacher to do though?"
Stein put his hand under his chin, deep in thought before saying, "No, I don't think it's that weird."
After Stein says that, he points what looks like a vacuum at Prism and flicks the switch. Slowly, what looks like a thick black mist begins to flow out of Prism into the vacuum.
After five minutes of continuous sucking of yokai energy out of Prism, with no apparent effects on his body, Prism grabbed a chair from nearby and began to sit down in it and relax.
Stein, however, misconstrued this action as a sign that Prism was starting to become fatigued. He started to laugh, "Hihihihihihihihi! That's right, as your yokai energy is absorbed, you will eventually become more and more exhausted until your body becomes nothing but a shriveled husk, without a drop of yokai energy in your veins! After that happens, I'm going to liquify your body and put it in a glowing bottle like everyone else who came here before you!"
Prism sighed, and pulled out a pair of headphones to block out his teachers laughter. Before he went to sleep, he said to Stein, "What a shame, before today you were one of the few teachers at this school who I actually respected. To think you had such a perverted pastime, I guess it's true what they say, you can't always judge a book by its cover. What a shame."
Stein, in his rage increased the strength of the vacuum's suction rate, despite the danger that the vacuum could overheat, explode, and cause all the yokai energy he'd collected over the years to be dispersed.
As the suction rate increased, Prism began to feel slight fatigue after an hour of suction, but at that time, the vacuum was glowing red and releasing warning sounds. As Stein heard the alarm, but because the vacuum was on maximum suction, it was too hot to touch. When Stein saw that Prism was only looked slightly fatigued, he asked in fear, "WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU? EVEN THE A-RANK MONSTERS I SUCKED THE ENERGY OUT OF DIDN'T HAVE THIS MUCH YOKAI ENERGY! HOW COULD YOU, A LITTLE WEAKLING WHO FAINTED AFTER USING YOUR POWERS ON SAIZOU AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR HAVE THIS MUCH ENERGY?"
Prism sighed, "I'm the son of the S-rank criminal in the monster world, John Smith. As much of a bastard as he is, I can't find fault with the ridiculous amount of yokai energy he gave me. Even though my energy is sealed, that doesn't mean it isn't there. So unfortunately, your little homemade yokai extractor doesn't have enough storage for all of my energy. Now if you excuse me, I would like to go to sleep."
"... What?!" Stein was stunned into silence, he didn't imagine that the weak looking guy in his class that he looked at as a quick fix of yokai energy was actually an S-rank monster.
After staring in shock for several minutes, an explosion was heard from the vacuum. The vacuum had blown up and shattered into pieces of metal that, under the pressure from the huge amount of yokai energy, were crushed into dust. Seeing this, Stein wailed, "NOOOOOO!"
With that one word, his body began to rapidly age as the yokai energy escaped his body and joined the energy that had escaped the vacuum.
When Stein was nothing but dust floating in the air, all the yokai energy in the room converged into Prism, much to his surprise. Eventually, the air in the room settled and he felt another sense of Vertigo as the pocket dimension reconnected with the outside world.
Prism stood there in shock for a second before he asked the empty room, "What the hell was that?"
Prism looked around the room and saw all of the bottles of the previous students had shattered causing the green substance to be scattered on the walls.
Deciding to push what just happened to the back of his mind, Prism walked out of the room, only to be tackled in a hug by Kurumu, Tsukumi, and Moka. With a sigh, he looked to Umbra and asked, "What's been happening since I was gone? Have you gir-"
Before he could say anything else, he noticed tears in the corners of Umbra's eyes a second before she joined the hug for a second before her expression turned calm and she said, "What took you so long? We've been waiting for more than an hour now. Why was the room so quiet?"
Smiling wryly, Prism untangled himself from the group hug, and said, "The teacher was a human who extended his life energy by using yokai energy from his students before liquifying there bodies. He created a pocket dimension where he planned to use my energy to extend his life. When he tried to absorb my energy, he absorbed too much and his energy sucking device exploded causing all of the energy he has absorbed over the years to flow into me."
Umbra nodded before saying, "The next time you due this sort of stunt, we're not staying outside the door."
The other three girls nodded in agreement at Umbra's statement, causing Prism to sigh and say, "Alright, it's time for us to go to our dorms. See you tomorrow."
When Moka heard Prism's reminder, she puffed her cheeks out and poured before her face lit up as she had an idea. She quickly said, "We're not going to our dorm yet! Before we go to the dorm, you must buy us all a drink from the vending machine."
Umbra was uncomfortable at the idea of Prism buying her a drink, so she said, "How about I get the drinks?"
Kurumu smiles and quickly replied, "Don't be ridiculous Umbra, he made us wait outside the door for an hour, so he should be the one to buy us drinks as an apology. Besides, he's a man. As a man, he must take responsibility for his actions, so because he made us wait outside a door for an hour, in return he should walk with us to the vending machine and buy us drinks."
Umbra opened her mouth to object, thought about the points Kurumu brought up, and nodded her head in acknowledgment while saying, "Makes sense to me."
Prism stared in bewilderment before asking, "What makes sense to you? Are we listening to the same conversation?" After he got no response to his questions, he sighed and said, "Alright, let's go buy some drinks at the vending machine."
Everyone except Prism and Umbra cheered in victory as they walked toward the vending machine, causing Prism to give a wry smile and follow behind the girls as they chatted on the way to the vending machine to get drinks.
When Prism was done buying the girls their drinks, Tsukumi was drinking a mocha, Moka was drinking tomato juice, Kurumu was drinking water, while Umbra was sipping on some green tea.
As the five people were walking back to the dorms, they were unaware of the change that had occured in Prism's seal as a result of the yokai energy that flowed into his body. The first chain had gained a spiderweb of cracks on it that made it look like it would break at any time.
Time Skip
The next morning, Prism finished his shower without looking at his seal. As he walked out of the dorm, he said to himself, "It's not going to be the end of the world if I skip checking on my seal one day, I can always check on it later."
He would regret not checking his seal.
Prism joined Tsukumi, Umbra, Moka, and Kurumu as they began to walk to school. Umbra looked at him for one second before saying, "Prism, your human form is slipping. Your irises and pupils are the same color as your pupils and your hair had rainbow highlights in it that are the same color as your eyes."
Prism blankly stared at her, "What?"
Moka answered for her, "I think your seal is breaking, but I'd have to see it to be sure. Can you show us your seal?"
Prism's face turned bright red, and he uncharacteristically mumbled, "It's embarrassing to show my seal."
Moka replied with a bright smile and said, "You've seen my seal, so it's only fair I see yours."
Tsukumi meanwhile had her mind racing, I think I vaguely remember him saying his seal was different from Moka's because it was in the form of a tattoo and not an object. Where could a seal powerful enough to seal a S-rank monster be? Tsukumi noticed that Prism began to untie his tie causing a thought to go through her mind. Could it be...? Before she could finish her thought, Prism shrugged off his blazer, causing blood begin to flow out of Tsukumi's nose at the realization of where the seal is.
Prism turned his back to the girl's and took off his jacket and shirt slowly and put it across his arm causing his bare back to be revealed to the girls. When Moka turned bright red when she realized Prism had just taken off his shirt to show his seal. Meanwhile inside the rosary, a vampire's instinct to respect the strong acted up causing Inner Moka to start yelling to Moka 'Find a quiet place and tell him to let take off your rosary! I need to get some of that!' Outer Moka, in response to Inner Moka's suggestion and the images that were put into her mind by Inner Moka, flushes a deeper shade of red and had a nosebleed.
Tsukumi's nosebleed turned into a fountain of blood by the stimulus and caused her to pass out on the ground, while Kurumu stared with a blush and whispered, "Kami help me." After she said her prayer, blood dropped slowly down her face.
Umbra's face also had a faint blush watching Prism take off his shirt and jacket, however she was also less emotional about the view. She said in a slightly out of breath voice, "It looks like your first chain has a spiderweb of cracks in it."
Umbra's voice was a reminder to the others and they quickly inspected the seal rather than Prism's back. The seal had a golden sun on his left shoulder blade, a silver crescent moon on his right shoulder, and two interlocking eight-pointed stars, one black and one white, on the small of his back. Surrounding the seals that look like astral bodies, were nine gray chains that came off of the interlocking star symbol and connected to the sun and moon symbols to form a loop that has 9-rings on it. The outermost chain was spiderwebbed with cracks on it and looked like it would shatter at any time.
Seeing this, Moka's eyebrows knitted as she asked, "This is annoying. Before that chain completely breaks, you're going to be unable to assume human form."
Prism sighed and said, "Ok, I'm going to talk to the nurse about this. Can you tell Ms. Nekonome about this problem?"
Umbra nodded in a simple response. After Tsukumi got up and wiped the nosebleed away, she said, "Now that we have seen your seal, you don't have to keep your shirt off, Prism. Please put it back on, it's bad for my mental health."
Hearing Tsukumi's words, Prism quickly put his shirt and jacket on, before dashing away to the nurse's office.
As he ran around the corner, Kurumu noticed a slight pinkish tinge on his ears, showing that he felt embarrassed about having taken his shirt off in front of four girls.
When Prism escaped the girls, he quickly runs inside the infirmary to talk to nurse Mayumi about the change in his seal's condition. After about ten minutes of waiting, Mayumi walked into the infirmary with a look of slight annoyance on her face. When she saw Prism, that annoyance disappeared and became a business smile."Hello Prism. What can I do for you today?"
Prism replied with a smile of his own and said, "I came to talk about my seal. It appears to be close to breaking, and I want to take safety measures for when it breaks."
Nurse Mayumi's smile turned into a slight frown and said, "Take off your shirt then. I need to see the progress your seal has made in unraveling."
Prism's face turned red recalling when Moka told him to show her his seal and the girls' subsequent reactions, "Is that necessary? I can already describe what has changed in the seal. My first seal has a series of spiderweb cracks along it showing that it is near breaking."
Nurse Mayumi smiled coldly in response as she said, "Either you take your shirt off, or I use my bandages to rip them off and then send you to class without giving you a new change of clothes." Nurse Mayumi grabbed Prism's arms and legs with her bandages and grabbed the sides of his shirt with two more bandages to show she was serious.
Prism's face paled and quickly replied, "Alright! Alright! I'll take my shirt off, just remove your bandages from me!" After Nurse Mayumi's bandages were removed from his limbs, Prism quickly stripped off his shirt and turned his back to the nurse so she could inspect his seal.
After an awkward five minutes of Nurse Mayumi inspecting his seal, she nodded in what appeared to be satisfaction at her analysis and said, "Alright. You can put your shirt on and I'll give you my diagnosis.
When his uniform was complete again, Prism turned to the nurse and asked, "Well? What do you think?"
The nurse smiled and said, "You have about a month until the seal's completely unlocked, as you don't try to overdraft your powers during that time. Your hair and eyes will reflect your true form for three more days until you can control your human form. Since it's going to be the weekend tomorrow, you only have to worry about having that coruscating rainbow hair in school today, because it will have faded by the time the weekend has ended."
Done with her diagnosis, Nurse Mayumi wrote Prism a note and sent him to Ms Shizuka's class, causing Prism to sigh and walk towards the class of his language teacher.
In the hallways, Prism sees an odd girl sitting outside one locker. The girl looked up at him and stared at the boy as he walked down the hallway. She was a beautiful girl with golden hair that had what looked like blue highlights causing her hair to look like a cloud. Her modest B-cup breasts were outlined by her uniform.She was wearing a slightly modified school uniform that had golden circlets around her arms. However, the thing that stood out the most to Prism were her eyes. Her eyes had beautiful turquoise irises with orange cross shaped pupils.
Feeling slightly uncomfortable from her stair, Prism turned to the girl and asked, "Why are you staring at me?"
The girl calmly tilted her head and simply replied, "Your eyes and hair are beautiful. I've never seen anything like them."
Prism looked at the girl oddly for a second before saying, "I think your eyes and hair look better than mine," Prism then pointed to the locker next to her and asked, "Do you mind if I sit next to you for a bit?"
The girl put a finger on her chin for a second before saying, "Sure. I don't mind."
Nodding, Prism sat down causing the hallway to be plunged into a slightly awkward silence for a couple of seconds, then he asked, "What's your name? I'm Prism Smith."
The girl looked at the boy for a second before replying, "Nia Merodi."
Prism nodded and said, "That's a pretty name. I wish I had a name that sounded like that," Prism wryly smiled and continued, "Prism Smith doesn't quite roll of the tongue as well as Nia Merodi."
Nia nodded her head with a slight smile on her face as she said, "Prism Smith isn't that bad of a name. I think it suits you, your hair and eyes are the color of a rainbow, like what a Prism releases when white light passes through it. A Prism is something that makes beauty out of the simple things."
"To be named after a Prism, it sounds like your parents wanted you to live a life surrounded by all sorts of events. It sounds like they wanted you to live a free life."
As she finished this sentence, a tear rolled down her face as she whispered so quietly that Prism almost couldn't hear her, "Unlike me."
Hearing this and seeing the tear roll down Nia's face, Prism instinctively brushed the tear say and said, "Nia as beautiful name. I think I remember it means bright in Irish. That name shows that your parents want you to live a bright and happy life. You shouldn't dismiss your name so easily Nia. After all, the name is perfect to you from what little I know about you, a bright name for a bright girl."
Nia looked at Prism for a second before widely grinning and saying, "Thank you. No one has ever given me encouragement like that before."
Prism looked at the girl in silence before asking, "Is that why you're sitting outside in the hallway when you should be in class, because no one has said kind words of encouragement to you before?"
Nia shook her head and said, "No, no one wants to talk to me for some reason. I just decided to leave class to escape the looks I got from my classmates. They made me feel uncomfortable," Nia turned to look at Prism curiously before asking, "Why am I telling you this? Why do I feel so comfortable around you?"
Prism looked at the girl in surprise before thinking about her questions for a moment before answering, "I can't tell you why you are being so open, but I'd like to think it's just because I'm a person you feel you can talk to, I'd like to think you feel like I'm a friend."
Nia nodded before another question appeared in her mind as the bell rang, "Why did you stop in the hallway to talk to me?"
Prism stood up as he prepared to go to his next class and said, "I just talked to you on a whim. There's no deeper meaning to it. I just felt like it." As he left, he flashed Nia a smile before running to his next period, math.
Unknown to Prism, a faint pink blush appeared on Nia's face at the kindness that she was shown for the first time since she arrived at this school.
She held a lock of her hair in her hand and whispered to herself, "Prism Smith, thank you." Then she decided to head to class for the first time today.
Time Skip
Prism thought about Nia's words for the rest of the day, an eventful life huh, a wry smile appeared on his face as he thought of Tsukumi's presence at Yōkai Academy and all of the fights he had gotten involved in since the school year began. I don't think my parents have to worry about me not having an eventful life.
As that thought crossed his mind, the final bell rang causing Prism to realize that he had thought about his conversation with Nia nonstop the entire day. "What an interesting girl," Prism whispered when he thought of the friendly nature suppressed by the gazes of her classmates, causing a touch of distaste to appear in Prism's eyes. Unbeknownst to Prism, his mind had automatically put Nia Merodi on the same must protect list as Tsukumi and Outer Moka.
Prism smiled faintly and walked out the door with his book bag to meet up with the girls so they could walk back to the dorms together.
As Prism passed a bulletin board, he noticed a flyer for the club recruitment fair in three weeks. I hope I can at least have a peaceful day then because every monster would be focused on getting into a club, Prism thought as he made his way in front of the academy to begin his trek back to the dorms with Moka, Tsukumi, Umbra, and Kurumu.
Time skip
After school in the girls dormitory, Nia was thinking about her conversation with Prism. His words came back to her, 'A bright name for a bright girl.' He probably doesn't realize how much that meant to me. Nia thought as she thought back to the lasttime someone believed in her.
Flashback start
A six year old Nia was smiled at by a woman that looked like an adult form of Nia. "Come on Nia, you can do it! Speak for me!" The older woman smiled encouragingly.
Nia opened her mouth and said, "Mama."
Instead of the praise for successfully speaking that Nia expected, the woman stared at the young girl and quietly said, "I'm not your mother Nia. Your Mama's dead"
Nia stared at the woman with wide eyes as the woman walked away. Nia never saw the woman again.
Flashback end
Nia sighed as the old memory played in her head, before her eyes looked around her room and saw the white color on every surface, highlighting how empty the room was except for a single picture of baby Nia being held by her mother and father. An idea formed as she whispered, "I never want to feel like that again. I don't want to be abandoned by Prism."
She looked at the picture of her mother and father standing together holding her, and whispered, "I'll make him not want to abandon me. I'll become useful so he doesn't abandon me."
Nodding her head in agreement with her idea, a fire was lit in Nia's eyes as she confirmed her idea.
Little did she know that she was already on Prism's must protect list along with Tsukumi, meaning he will not abandon her willingly.
Immediately after confirming her conviction, Nia ran downstairs to the dorm kitchen and began to practice cooking with the help of several slightly unwilling taste testers that walk down to the kitchen for late night snacks. Many students would be confined to the infirmary for food poisoning over the course of the next few days. Nia would be condoned to the infirmary for cuts on her hand a week later, to the relief of the entire dorm.
This, however, will not be known to Prism for a long time to come.
A/N: A little bit of a shorter chapter, with the introduction of another character. To those of who have watched it, I added Nia from Guerren Laggan because I watched it while I was taking a break from writing this chapter. I really disliked the fact that my favorite ship was broken in the last episode, so I wrote a character who was based on Nia.
Anyway, thanks for reading, I will try to write the next chapter soon, please review.