Long ago, there was an incident. Well….not so much an incident as a nuclear war which devastated the planet and killed off most of humanity. But that's not really what's important here. While most humans did die, the ones who lived adapted to survive. Their long, twisted ladders of DNA laughing in the face of every scientist that had once declared superhuman abilities impossible.

It was kinda funny but, according to the history books, there used to be whole artistic movements about mutants. These powerful beings had been mainly a small fringe group in all those depictions though. Rare being who grouped together to save the world from aliens or some shit. More likely, though, these so-called superheroes probably stuck together for survival since a lot of people wanted to kill the freaks and their epic battles were just them defending themselves. Some of those characters could fly. Shoot lasers from their eyes. Some were born that way. Others were gods or fell into a giant pot of radioactive waste. In hindsight, that last one hadn't been too far off the mark. A couple big mushroom clouds and boom. Mutants were the new norm.

Crazy how quickly the world could change and yet how many things stayed the same. Nature had laws, after all. Genetics were still very much a thing. For all the imagination and creativity in the past, abilities were pretty predictable and most fell into neat little boxes.

Take empaths for example. You had your standard influencers, of course, who could make you feel or think a certain kinda way. Some could look at you. Some had to touch you. Others sent out tendrils of power like the world's creepiest jellyfish. Then you had the equally as common shields and conductors who weren't all that useful. Only difference between those two worthless powers was that shields blocked like, well, a shield. Conductors let the energy flow through them like a lightning rod. Couldn't be influenced. That's…that's pretty much it. Not much else to them. You had feeders that could, in theory, gobble up all the happiness in the world and use it to gain ultimate power. You had empaths who could affect your perception of the reality and make you think you were standing in the middle of a non-existent jungle. You had moderators who were only useful in the medical context where they could regulate an out-of-control empath without going insane. Your mind readers…

Basically, empaths were a dime a dozen but that was because empathic traits tended to be secondary abilities. Most of the time. There were always exceptions.

Next on the most common ability list were the kinetics. People who could use their mind or bodies to move shit they shouldn't be able to move. Pretty cut and dry.

Then you had the less common naturopaths. People who could control one or more elements in one or more states. Earth. Water. Air. Fire. Space. That last one was freaking insane and thankfully rare. These types were heavily, heavily regulated though. If society left these types roam free, there wouldn't even be a world to live in. It'd be gone. Having a bunch of assholes who go around able to manipulate physics? Create dark matter and play with gravity? Turn invisible? Walk through walls? Half of them were able to breathe in places without oxygen which made for fantastic firemen. Yet for all that cosmic power, most of the powerful space centric naturopaths died young. Their bodies might have evolved to play god but the human body wasn't exactly compatible with god like power. Sad really. Every other naturopath got cool, fun powers like the ability to make their own ice cubes out of thin air, or having a built in lighter. Space naturopaths had the ability to disrupt the natural order but they had to slowly kill themselves to do it. Fun stuff.

Of course, one can't forget the technopaths. That was almost as diverse an ability as empathic ones. There were people who made the things and the people who made the things go. These were your standard electromagnetics, your mimics, your inventors. For all their diversity, they were pretty predictable too. A lot of hackers. A whole lot of government and plant workers.

There were those the very unfortunate animorphs. Their appearance and abilities usually tied to an animal of some sort. No one liked to talk about that ability. Made them uncomfortable. Everyone liked to talk about the aviators though. And the healers. Everyone wanted to fly and solve life threatening medical emergencies. The ability to travel the world for free and being able to cheat death? Who wouldn't want that?

Another ability most people wanted? Manifests. The makers of things out of thin air. It's sister ability decay was a different story. Less desirable. Creeped people out. No one wanted to worry about whether you'd accidentally turn their baby into goo while playing peek a boo. One touch. One look. Poof they're gone. Not great.

There were unique abilities too. Rumor was the first so-called mutant could steal the abilities of others and a whole bunch of other random scary shit but there was a lot of crap people made up about the war and it's aftermath. Most of it wasn't true. Not that it mattered in the grand scheme of things. That was five hundred years ago and most everyone nowadays had more than one gift. The ever-growing pot of genetic soup opened the door to the impossible.

So, in consideration of all of that, you'd think people would be more understanding. Given that mankind lived in a post-apocalyptic world where radioactivity made 80% of the surviving population manifest abilities, you'd think that it wouldn't matter if someone was different. You'd think they'd be kinder to one another and accepting of people. Especially if certain people, by themselves, were strong enough to be a one man army. Logically, people would flock to someone who most likely would be the champion like his father before him. Everyone wanted to be friends with him, right? You think they'd be understanding if - at the ripe age of three - someone accidentally killed said extremely powerful father because they couldn't control their powers.

You'd think that, right?

Wrong.

Humanity might've survived but people still sucked. Those who weren't blessed with a purely humanlike appearance were treated like second class citizens. Especially if they were powerful and showed promise because that was deemed a threat. Funny enough, those weaker little shit humans exerted the only power they had and bullied the crap out of everyone that didn't fit their average mediocre mold. The logic, one could only presume, was that powerful beings alone posed much more of a threat than a bunch of them teaming up together. In any case, their efforts were successful at keeping the more powerful up and comers in line.

Nobody wanted to be all alone. Especially in a world that basically required social connections to survive.

Inuyasha remembered sitting on the bleachers waiting for someone, anyone to pick him to be on their team but he was always someone's unwanted last player. The one the team got stuck with. The weird kid. The freak. This trend continued into adolescence. Sure, he'd gotten into the academy on merit. Didn't even need to take any tests to prove he was worthy of being there to compete for the top twenty spots. Still, despite having top marks academically, no one wanted to sit with him at lunch. No one invited him to the birthday parties. He'd been rejected whenever he applied for club memberships. Everyone had made it very clear he was unwanted.

Life got a whole lot shittier after his mother died few months back. Now he wasn't the freak only his mother loved. Nope. Now he was an orphaned freak who was going to spend the next three weeks alone in the dorm while everyone else got to go home for the holiday season. Not even the cleaning staff was going to stay here. The kitchens weren't going to be open. And he didn't have money to order take out much less have food delivered. He had been left with nothing. Nothing at…

"Are you using these?" a tall ebony haired boy asked as he appeared seemingly out of nowhere- his oddly covered hand gesturing at the two empty chairs. So stunned was Inuyasha that anyone was talking to him that he said possibly the most pathetic, desperate statement of his life. The words sounded so hopeful. So excited. So…unlike him.

"You can sit there..."

A small piece of Inuyasha's soul curled up and died as the good looking teen pulled back the chair only to pick it up and placed it at a different table where two young rather pretty girls sat waiting. God, they were staring and this was obviously a cruel joke but it was too late.

"If you want..."

As they all three glanced back at him, Inuyasha averted his eyes and tried his best to ignore the accompanying whispers. Probably laughing at how pathetic and awkward he'd just been. Maybe they'd even done it on purpose. After all, this was high school where large groups of horny, stressed, angry and hierarchical assholes were trapped together. Not just that. This was the Academy so it was a bunch of incredibly powerful people whose parents had too much money and no sense. Who thought their shit didn't stink and that they were better than everyone else. That they not only stood a chance in the upcoming selection process but that genuinely believed they'd win for sure. The real world hadn't hit most of these bastards. The worst thing that happened in their lives thus far had probably been something like that one time they got food poisoning.

In short, the only thing Inuyasha was going to miss about high school was the door hitting him on the way out. In the meantime, he got to the butt of cruel jokes and vicious rumors.

Inuyasha glanced over again and one of the girls blindly nodded towards him. Yep. They were definitely talking shit about him. Set that prank up beautifully. They choose their desperate victim well.

Well, that sucked but it didn't matter. One day soon, nobody would ever laugh or look down at him again. Right now, though, he needed to focus on making his depressing holiday plans. After all, he did have one last present from his mother. She'd wrapped it and mailed it to the academy right before the accident and her subsequent death. Most likely it was something stupid like socks and underwear. Snack food. Soap. The question became where he could get a tree or whether he'd need to make one. After all, there had to be a tree. No matter what was in that parcel. Despite them living in abject poverty, his mother somehow always made sure she had a tree for the holidays. And he had a present. Which needed a tree. He needed a tree...

Setting his jaw, Inuyasha reached up to wipe away the single traitorous tear under the guise of pushing his bangs away from his face. This was not the time to start crying.

"Looks like we have an extra chair and need an extra person," a girl's soft voice offered sweetly from a freakishly close distance, "Do you want to sit with us?"

It took Inuyasha a minute to clear his mind and by the time he did, the girl who'd been whispering about him at that table who'd stolen his chair was already holding out a napkin.

"I don't need your pity," Inuyasha snapped hatefully as he glared up at her and blocked the tendril of power that reached out to calm him down, "Or your help. I had something in my eye is all."

The warm tendril probed for a moment as the two maintained eye contact. And then the girl hummed in what seemed like an approving yet suspicious manner while her sweet smile widened. Freaking empaths. Always trying to screw with people instead of minding their own business. Manipulate little shits.

"My friend has some eye drops if you need them," the girl offered as she remained standing with the napkin outstretched, "Everyone gets dry eyes in the winter."

Inuyasha bristled at the newcomer's continued intrusion into his pity party.

"I said I don't need your pity…"

"And I said we have one chair too many. We also have an offer for you if you'll hear us out," the girl interrupted in that abrasively saccharine tone, "You do know the selection process is starting in the spring, right?"

Inuyasha did know. Training for the damn thing was the only activity keeping him sane at the moment. Really, given the fact that he already prequalified for third round candidacy based on his stats from strength to stamina to pain tolerance, he didn't need to train at all but to wait or get waived through would be suicide. So many people died past a certain point. The Final Selection was so gory they stopped airing it in public. That hadn't stopped anyone from trying to get that golden ticket to a good, easy life. It sure as hell wasn't stopping him.

"Well, we need a fourth. Miroku," she paused and waved at the young man who had taken the chair in the first place, "The thief for reference. He's been watching you in the gymnasium and thinks you'd make a great addition to our team. We want to offer you that position."

"I'm entering the selection alone," Inuyasha huffed as he snagged the napkin out of her hand and tossed it away, "Like I said, I don't need your pity."

"Well, we need your pity," the girl countered as she folded her arms across her chest, "We're powerful on our own defense wise but we need another offensive member to even our stats."

"Sucks to be you then," Inuyasha scoffed hatefully before letting his power flare when a second warm tendril began trying to probe for a weakness, "Stop trying to fucking get inside my head. That trick won't work on me."

Something pleased crept into her expression - like whatever she suspected was correct - before she gave him an apologetic smile.

"Look, I'm sorry for trying to feel you out but we're short on time. Break starts Monday. Everyone is going home," the girl offered before clearing her throat and adding, "I've saw you're from the Capital. So am I. If you decide you're interested over break, I can give you my registry number and…"

"I don't want your number," Inuyasha ground out as he picked up his tray, "If you're really so desperate , there's a whole cafeteria here filled with assholes who'd probably love to be…"

"Again we don't want them. We. Want. You," the girl huffed - her sapphire eyes flashing dangerously, "What about that is so hard to understand?"

"Well for starters none of you have even looked my way much less talked to me before," Inuyasha damn near snarled, "Do you even know my name?"

"Inuyasha, I literally sit next to you in biology class," the girl sighed dourly, "That's me saying hi to you every morning and asking you how you're doing. Do you even know my name?"

Blushing faintly, Inuyasha would admit the girl looked vaguely familiar but he honestly didn't remember ever talking to her a day in his life. Wouldn't have been able to pick her out in a crowd. Although, to be fair, mother died three weeks into the semester and everything after had blurred together into a hellish soup. He went to class. Went to the gym. Did his homework. Went to bed. Ever since Mother died, he'd been running on autopilot trying to do the bare minimum to get by and not fail out. Mother would have been so disappointed if she…

"My name is Kagome. Ka-go-me," the girl finally sighed before gesturing over at the two individuals watching these events unfold, "That's Miroku and Sango. I'm an empath but I can manifest weapons, barriers and make things go boom so I'm on defense and-"

"Ah yes, 'making things go boom.' Textbook defensive strategy," Inuyasha mocked scathingly, "Again, I don't need your pity. I…"

"You are from the Capital, right?" the girl asked as her blue eyes pleaded with him to reconsider, "Just come by over break and I'll show you why my stats are defense orien…"

"I'm staying here over break all my myself so you can shove your offer right up your ass," Inuyasha hissed hatefully before going rigid and freezing upon realizing he'd given too much away. For a moment, he continued glaring at the girl then he turned and left the cafeteria. The next day Kagome noticed Inuyasha wasn't in biology. Which was weird. What was even stranger was the fact that the teacher didn't even call out Inuyasha's name in roll call. Another day went by and again Inuyasha wasn't present. The third day was what broke the camel's back and after a short blunt conversation with the teacher, Kagome learned exactly why Inuyasha was staying here over the break. Why he hadn't put in the effort and learned her name. Why he was so certain she approached him out of pity.

It also gave her an idea.