Here's the second chapter! Sorry, I wanted to upload this earlier, but my cousin who's beta-ing for me was swamped by schoolwork. Or she was lazy. Well, on with the story!
Edit (19/5/2016): Rework complete!
"Ascion, get up!"
Hmm? Ascion thought hazily through his sleep induced mind. Probably nothing... Then he drifted back to the comfortable world of sleep.
"Ascion! The teacher's approaching your table!" Kaede desperately shook the boy but to no avail.
The math teacher glared down at the sleeping boy. Kaede, sensing that it was useless to try to avoid trouble by then, gave up trying to wake Ascion and instead prepared herself. For what? Well...
Ascion can be quite snappy if you suddenly wake him up for pointless reasons. Like paying attention to classes he had already understood.
Another thing about waking Ascion up. When trying to wake him up, you do not, under any circumstances, shock him awake. Soft voices and gentle shaking were fine, but anything worse was just asking for trouble.
"Acsion Wolf!" The teacher barked, slamming his palm against the boy's table.
Which was, of course, exactly what the teacher did.
With a yelp, Ascion was forcefully wrenched from his peaceful sleep, his mind immediately on high alert.
Status, fine, weapon, left, disruption, directly in front, shape, human, action, restrain.
This was Ascion's entire thought process as he quickly dissected his current situation with his mind still half asleep. Then, he reacted.
Hands closing around his staff, which he had placed against the wall on his left, Ascion disappeared in a flash of blue light. He reappeared behind the startled teacher, his arm curling around the man's neck in a choke hold as he kicked his teacher behind the knees, forcing him to kneel. His staff glowed ominously as he pressed it to his teacher's lower back.
This entire sequence of events, from Ascion waking up to him restraining his teacher, took a grand total of five seconds.
"Ascion." Kaede said tiredly as the boy blinked rapidly, trying to clear his mind of sleep. "Please, let go of the teacher."
"Huh?" Ascion asked eloquently. It was then that he realized that he was not under attack. Rather, he was still in class, and had essentially assaulted his teacher.
Not that he particularly cared at the moment, especially after had he deduced what had happened.
Letting go of his math teacher, Ascion stomped back to his seat, slumping down into it. His adrenaline rush had quickly faded away, and was instead replaced by large amounts of irritation and a tad bit of sleepiness.
"This had better be important." He muttered under his breath. Sighing deeply, Ascion turned tiredly to his teacher, who had stood up and regained his composure. "How may I help you, sir?" Ascion asked.
"Wolf!" The teacher shouted angrily, ignoring Ascion's question. "You dare assault your teacher?!"
Ascion rubbed his temples. "My apologies, sir, but as you can see, I do not react well to sudden shocks. It's part of my training."
The man's snorted. "Why do you even need such useless training for?"
Ascion stared at the man flatly. "Are you being serious here? It's ambush training, for situations like, say, being attacked in the middle of the night while we're out camping."
"I don't see your point." The man countered.
Ascion's stare turned, if possible, even flatter. He was struggling to stay polite, but his irritation at being woken up had only grown since then. The teacher wasn't making it easier to reign it in either. "Sir, is this how you react to an opponent who's wielding a weapon and charging towards you? By saying hello?"
The man flushed, but didn't say anything.
Ascion sighed again. "So, why did you wake me up for, sir?"
"I want you to stop sleeping and pay attention in my class." The teacher replied stiffly.
Ascion slapped his palm over his face and groaned. "Sir, I've already covered all of this myself."
"Well, if you think you're so smart, why don't you answer the questions on the board?" The man challenged.
Wordlessly, Ascion stood up, walking over to the whiteboard with a slouch. He grabbed the marker, staring blearily at the whiteboard. A few seconds passed, with Ascion doing nothing but stare at the questions.
Just as the teacher was about to break out into a lecture about paying attention, Ascion covered his mouth and yawned, before proceeding to answer all five questions on the board without even pausing to think or use a calculator.
Completing everything in a span of a minute, Ascion dropped the marker back onto the teacher's table and walked back to his own. The teacher stared at the board, gaping and slack jawed.
"There, proof." Ascion said, his eyelids half closed with weariness, before he sat back down.
The maths teacher shook himself out of his shock, quickly mumbling a "Thank you for your assistance, Mr Wolf" before resuming lessons as calmly as he could.
That is, until Ascion realized that his body now refuses to fall asleep even though he was still tired due to the sudden burst of adrenaline earlier on.
The poor math teacher could feel a sharp, murderous glare focused on him for the rest of his lesson.
Lunchtime arrived.
After the slightly pale math teacher (combat school teacher or not, Ascion had a very unsettling glare) left the classroom, Ascion dropped his glare, sighed, and went right back to sleep.
Luckily for the boy, the next few teachers had experience dealing with him from last year, and thus ignored the sleeping boy as they conducted their lessons.
After all, it was hard to stay annoyed at the boy who despite his sleeping, always handed up his homework on time, which was more than could be said for the majority of the class.
Back to the story. After some difficulty, Kaede managed to wake Ascion up. The two of them wandered out onto the school grounds, looking for a place to have their lunch.
Eventually, the duo settled for a lone tree situated near the school lake. Kaede lithely scaled the tree and settled on a thick branch while Ascion simply teleported himself up, sitting down next to Kaede.
"I missed eating together like this." Ascion sighed as they started on their packed lunches.
Kaede frowned. "Ascion, we just ate together last week. Remember? When we went mushroom hunting?"
"Of course I remember. That's the time a Blue Mushroom almost gave you a concussion." Ascion smirked, remembering how Kaede had shrieked and almost fell flat on her face when a mushroom shaped monster had hit her in the upper back.
Kaede blushed as she remembered that embarrassing incident. "Shut up, Ascion."
"Duly noted. Anyway, what I meant was that it has been awhile since we had peace at lunch. Most of the time, when we're outdoors, we would be on edge due to the fear of being ambushed by monsters." Ascion explained before he started to wolf down his packed sandwiches at an almost obscenely fast pace.
Kaede rolled her eyes, starting on her own lunch at a more sedate pace. "Ascion, calm down. Your lunch isn't going anywhere, and it's not like we're pressed for time."
Ascion swallowed his last bite before speaking. "Sorry, bad habit."
The two teenagers were soon chatting away contentedly, ignoring the cold, fearful, or sometimes murderous looks thrown their way.
Kaede sighed after the eighth group of students who passed under their perch hurried by, avoiding eye contact with the two teens. "Honestly." Kaede grumbled. "You would think that combatants-in-training would know better than to believe in rumours, especially rumours about a pair of thirteen year old teenagers."
As Ascion and Kaede were at the centre of numerous rumours and gossips, most students tend to shy away from them. These rumours included being suspected of murder, vampires, cruel fighters, and even a mad scientist. Although the part about being a mad scientist probably only applied to Ascion.
However, it wasn't like they looked or behaved any differently from the rest of the students.
Ascion had black hair that was just long enough to touch his shoulders, lined with a single streak of white at his fringe. He had blue eyes and perpetually pale skin that didn't seem to tan no matter how long he spends under the sun. He was of average height, at 1.57 meters tall.
Kaede had long, bright orange hair tied up into a simple ponytail. She had bright emerald eyes, and was slightly tanned. She was also of average height, at 1.54 meters.
All in all, the two teenagers were nothing out of the ordinary, considering the fact that people in the school had hair and eye of every colour one could possibly think of.
No, it was because when they were younger, they were deemed as weak, making them prime targets for bullies. However, they were now so good at fighting it was well nigh impossible to pick on them physically anymore.
Ascion, despite his laughably low mana reserves, has mastered the basic spell [Energy Bolt] to such a level that he could easily beat the advanced magic of other students in terms of destructive power. He was also very fit, hence able to dodge attacks and move around quickly without the use of magic. Ascion could even use his staff as a good melee weapon.
Kaede, compared to most marksmen, takes a longer time to fire an arrow. But when she shoots, she never, ever misses. Her arrows had always struck the bullseye, so much so that during practice, she had split her arrows down the middle with her shots fifteen times from three hundred meters. She was also adept at close combat, her kicks strong enough to split a panel of solid wood in half.
All in all, in comparison to the rest of the student body, Ascion and Kaede were definitely in the upper ranks in terms of their strength. This helped to keep bullies who rely solely on strength at bay. However, manhandling isn't the only form of bullying out there.
And so, the rumours started.
"They're idiots." Ascion said flippantly. "I don't exactly care what these idiots think."
Kaede sighed. Ascion didn't always have this jaded outlook towards people, but after this long...
Well, let it be known that even the nicest people have their limits, so there'll eventually come a point where they snap.
"Well then, let's not sit here for the rest of lunch." Ascion said cheerily, disappearing in a flash of blue light. "Let's go for a walk!" He called up to Kaede from the ground.
Kaede smiled, sliding smoothly off her perch and landing lightly. "Yeah, sure."
As they wandered across the school grounds aimlessly, the other students avoided them like the plague. Suddenly, Ascion spotted something of interest. Something few people enjoyed these days, in favour of computer games and studying.
Chess.
Ascion immediately made a beeline for the table, Kaede following close behind, though they stopped a few feet away. When the players saw them approaching, one of them was visibly uncomfortable, and probably only stayed in her seat because her opponent did the same.
The other, a white haired boy, merely nodded in acknowledgement before turning back to the game.
Ascion was rather surprised. Nobody in the school had ever acknowledged him so casually, apart from certain teachers. "Hey, Kaede, who is he?" He whispered to his companion. They were far enough from the table that their whispers didn't reach either players.
Kaede was similarly surprised. "I'm... not very sure. I think he's in our class, but neither of us have ever really taken note of our classmates."
Ascion nodded. "It might be nice to have another friend."
"You think so?"
"I don't know. I think we should, you know, find out more about him first. Make contact, get to know him better, the usual."
"Right. I'll be gathering information then."
To the two teenagers, "making friends" was a subject they never took lightly. They were far too removed from how "normal" works that looking up information on a potential friend was considered "normal".
After all, it wouldn't do if your supposed friend tried to set you up for an ambush.
Kaede still had the scars to prove it.
"Checkmate." The duo turned back to the chessboard at that proclamation to see that the white haired boy had indeed finished the game, leaving his opponent dumbfounded.
"O-One more time!" The girl exclaimed, but the boy shook his head.
"Time is up." He replied before starting to pack up his chess set.
"He's good." Ascion muttered.
"At what?"
"Chess. I was keeping an eye on the board. He baited his opponent into trapping herself." Ascion explained as they watched the boy walk away, with the slightly depressed girl trailing after him.
"For you to be praising someone at chess, he must really be something." Kaede remarked. "You're no slouch at it yourself."
"I'm not that good. I'm only at the Master rank."
"… Isn't that still very good?"
Ascion shrugged. "Yeah, but that was some time ago. I haven't played chess for more than three months, so I'm not sure if I'm still at that standard. I know that white haired guy is though."
Kaede frowned. "Wait, didn't he say that time was up earlier? What did he mean by that?"
Ascion thought about it. "I'm not actually sure..."
Kaede's face paled as she quickly whipped out her phone. The digital display indicated that lunch ended in five minutes.
"Kaede?" Ascion asked in concern when he noticed her face paled. "Are you feeling alri-"
Kaede clamped her hand around Ascion's wrist. "We're going to be late." And without another word, she took off, dragging the poor boy behind her.
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