Hello~ GPS in the house. Ironically, I'm directionally challenged, even though GPS doesn't stand for what you'd initially think it does.
This chapter was a little later than I intended, but I hope you guys are happy with it~
It's the longest chapter I've written, about 1.5K more than usual XD
Also, These next 2-3 weeks are gonna be really busy for me because of finals and last-minute homework rushes. If I can get the next chapter out next Sunday, I will. If not, you know what happened.
Disclaimer: Me no own.
Chapter 16: Blue & Yellow
Monday: April 30, 2038. 2:54 P.M.
Today was the last public work day (at least for Kuroko) before the start of the wonderful set of holidays known as Golden Week.
At the current moment, the college student was at the Kindergarten, helping clean up after a particularly messy session of finger painting. Several of the boys and girls had gotten it in their hair and on their clothes, not to mention just about every piece of furniture in the room; luckily for the learning center's owners, the paint was easily washed away with water.
Somehow, even Kuroko–with all his lack of presence–hadn't gotten out unscathed. His face and arms still had small, colorful handprints plastered all around that he hadn't had the chance to wash off. It was a good thing he was wearing an apron though, otherwise it could've turned out a lot worse.
Now that the day was nearing the afternoon, many of the children had already been picked up. The rest–who had all gathered in the Sunflower classroom–were running around with little rags and spray bottles. Whether they were actually helping or not, the bluenette wasn't really sure.
In the middle of his endeavors, the Kindergarten's doorbell rang, so Kuroko put down his paint-drenched cloth and went to answer it. As he walked down the hall, several children ran in front of him to reach it first.
One of the children grabbed the door handle and twisted it open, smiling and laughing that he was the fastest and had gotten there first. After doing so though, his grin faded. The rest of the children who had ran after him looked either shocked or scared at what they saw; some even started to tear up and scream as they ran to Kuroko's side.
The opened door revealed a tall man with a scowling face which quickly turned flustered after making the children run away. Sadly, the college student couldn't yet pay heed to him as he was busy calming down the hysterical little figures crowding him.
After hearing the commotion, Yamada walked out of the Hydrangea class which he'd been tidying up alone and into the hall.
"Ehh, umm. I'm really sorry about this. I thought this place was closed already," the man gruffly and apologetically said, not sure exactly what to do or how to react at the sight of cowering children.
This voice… it sounds familiar…
Looking up, Kuroko's eyes widened as they made contact with another blue pair which hadn't yet noticed him.
Yamada strolled past Kuroko and his group of kindergarteners and said to the man, "You're a bit early. Most of the children don't go home until three-thirty or four, Aomine-kun."
Yes, in all his tanned-skin glory, it was indeed Aomine Daiki of the Generation of Miracles that stood before the apron-clad men.
"Come inside," Yamada ushered, leading the tall man into the Sunflower class. A few more shrieks were heard as Kuroko and his group trailed after–most of them had stopped crying after the shorter blue-haired male had assured them that the other wasn't a bad person.
"Hello, Aomine-kun!" Kanagawa greeted him brightly. "Are you here to go over the final details of your work here?"
The same scowl from earlier appeared on Aomine's face, causing more children to shy away from him.
"His face seems scarier in real life", Kuroko couldn't help but note while consoling two scared girls by patting their backs.
"I'll be going now," one of the other helpers of the Kindergarten said after he finished scraping and wiping dried paint from one of the tabletops. In the room, only the owners, the two blue-haired men, and a handful of children were left.
While the other three adults seemed to be having a serious discussion, the powder bluenette went on with cleaning after he finished getting all of five-year-olds to calm down. From their conversation he heard phrases like "starting next week" and "try not to frown so much".
In the course of the next half hour, the majority of the children had left, and only two remained and were watching cartoons on a holographic screen–a privilege, at least in the kindergarten.
"Ah, since you're here, we'd like you to meet one of our helpers," Kanagawa said in a sing-song voice, "He's very kind and trustworthy, so I'm sure you'll get along nicely."
"Didn't your worker just leave?"
"We have another one today."
"Where? I haven't seen anyone else. Is he in another room?" the tan man asked, confused as his eyes wandered the classroom.
The couple sent each other knowing glances and sly little smiles. "Kuroko-kun," they called to the bluenette, who'd been watching the two children as they sang along to the theme song of the show they were watching.
Kuroko approached the taller bluenette, not stopping until he was at his side. "Hello, Aomine-kun," he deadpanned.
"GAHHH!"
The strangled yell left the other man's throat as he jumped to the side and promptly caught his leg on a bean bag chair, falling backwards over it.
"Tetsu! What are you doing here!?"
"I work here."
"Ah, you two already know each other? That's great then!" Yamada smiled, helping the fallen man up. "Aomine-kun here had volunteered to help at the kindergarten starting next week. He'll be here for a few months, so it's good that he has someone familiar to rely on."
Kanagawa looked at the clock and, after seeing the time, said, "I'm going to go home and take Minoru off mother's hands now. You boys play nice now". With a small kiss to her husband's cheek, she cheerily grabbed her bag and exited the room.
"So, why are you here?" Kuroko asked the tanned-skin man. In response, Aomine averted his eyes and mumbled something incoherent under his breath.
Yamada laughed. "Aomine-kun is currently training at a police academy, and he's very good at most of the assignments he has there."
Aomine sighed heavily, the grimace creeping back onto his features. "But I'm not good with children, so I'm going to try to get used to them. Apparently my face makes them cry, though, so one of my instructors suggested doing this."
"...Pft."
"You just laughed at me!"
"I am sorry, but that was quite unexpected. As long as you smile at them like you do online, I'm sure you'd be fine."
"I feel more comfortable in VR's–where there are no brats running around."
Kuroko gave a slightly disapproving expression, though it still looked like his usual poker face. "While you're here, you are not allowed to call them 'brats'. Also, you cannot talk about women's breasts or use any other obscene language."
"I know! I'm not stupid enough to do that!"
"I believe you are the type of person who would not do such a thing", Kuroko said, giving a visible, warm smile. Then the aura behind him turned black and seemed to become the epitome of misfortune and suffering when he added icily, "but if you do, even by accident, I will not hesitate to show you no mercy."
The taller man stiffened as he mentally felt the air chill to below zero. "You're seriously scary sometimes, Tetsu."
"That's the point."
After that death threat aura faded and the warmth returned to the room, the three men began to talk about the rules of the Kindergarten and methods the other could use in order to be less intimidating toward the kids.
A while later, a parent of one of the children walked into pick up her four-year-old. The other remaining little girl was also taken home by the lady too–her guardians couldn't make it and had asked the woman to pick her up because they lived in the same neighborhood.
Yamada stretched out at his desk and told Kuroko, "You can both go home now. I can close up after I finish up with scheduling next week's activities."
"Hm. Thank you, Yamada-san. I will see you next week then", the bluenette bowed politely and exited the room, Aomine trailing after.
"Come to think of it, we don't talk about our personal lives out of the game much, do we?" Aomine questioned. "I was really surprised when you came out of nowhere. At first I thought your invisibility was just an in-game skill."
"It seems many people would find it hard to believe, but it's been like this since middle school."
"Ehh? Seriously?"
"Yes. It is very inconvenient."
For a while, Aomine looked to be deep in contemplation before he asked, "so, have you ever snuck into the girl's locker room an–GAUHH!" He was unable to finish his sentence when Kuroko's fingers jabbed painfully at his rib cage.
As he keeled over, he cried, "I don't have DEF here you know! I didn't realize at first, but you're even more violent than Satsuki, it really hurts!"
"I will take that as a compliment," Kuroko said, reaching out a hand to the other. Quick as a wink, Aomine pulled him down and jabbed him back, making him groan a little at the pain in his abdomen.
The two men sat on the dirty sidewalk for a few minutes, stomachs in pain; they shared a laugh and a smile and, when it stopped hurting, helped each other up and continued on.
As they got off the grounds of the small facility, Aomine asked if Kuroko wanted to go get some food with him. The smaller man accepted the other's proposal and followed him to a fast food restaurant that looked almost familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it at first.
It took him a few seconds staring at it before he realized:
"Aomine-kun, is this… ?"
"Yep. it's Maji Burger. The one in the game is based off the restaurant chain in real life."
"Do they have-"
"Yes, they still have milkshakes."
When the smaller man disappeared, it took Aomine about a minute to find out that he'd already gone inside and ran to the line.
He chuckled as he pushed open the glass doors.
Monday: April 30, 2038. 2:54 P.M.
Akashi sat on a stone bench in Medias, watching a replay of some of the training the guild had done two days prior. The video was taken by Momoi since Spies were the only class that had a skill which could record at a wide range for an extended period of time. Others could have short clips unless they were spectators, though most people wouldn't use these kinds of skills on monster maps.
The day prior, Midorima and Momoi had helped with analyzing their fighting styles and created what they believed to be the most efficient training regiments for their members. Akashi admired the fact that the pinkette had such extensive knowledge of the game when she'd only been playing for a week.
He acknowledged her, but he still called her "Momoi-san" due to the fact he was a gentleman; gentlemen didn't just call women they'd just met by their first names.
But I digress.
Currently, the projection in front of the Sorcerer Elf was a long clip of the GoM fighting with the four boss monsters from last Saturday. His studies, partially mixed with feedback from Momoi's, came out to the following conclusions:
Atsushi's weakness is that he fights using mostly brute strength. It would be better if he grew more resistance to magic attacks, otherwise he'll die in one hit to any high-level skill that doesn't hit his shield. For the time being, it'll be more advantageous if his fighting style remains passive.
Daiki needs to fight using his head more. After the monster used the same pattern so many times, he should have been able to predict when it would have attacked. Although his DEF is low, his speed,power, and technique are greater than I would've expected, so he has no problems with that.
I have to teach him how to use that weapon quickly though, before it disappears. It doesn't seem he'd be able to figure it out himself.
Momoi-san is only of average speed and strength, but she is exceptional at strategic ploys and analytical observations. Her applications of skills are also admirable, and her social prowess will come in handy in the future.
Shougo is adept at using his weapon, but he sometimes over-uses his skills on other players. I'm worried about his behavior towards the other members, and he is not showing any signs of reforming himself. If this goes on, it will cause trouble for the guild as a whole.
Shintarou, as great as his skills are in just about every aspect, has too much pride. Unless he takes chances with his shooting and abandons his ego, the chances that he will be defeated grow almost exponentially. He also needs to learn to work better with the other members and rely on them.
As for Tetsuya… all his stats besides his magic power are quite distressing. Right now, if he were to fight in a group battle, his misdirection would probably run out in a matter of minutes–it may be difficult for him to hone it further. He would merely become a glass cannon in the event that the enemy would notice him.
It seems that we are missing something of the utmost importance.
Akashi's dual-colored eyes trailed after the pale bluenette and locked onto his weapon.
They seem to have modified it in the time I was not working on the project; the Phantom's Staff has not been evolving according to the original plan my group created. As it is now though, Tetsuya's strength does not look like it would pass mine in terms of raw power like it was initially intended to do.
The redhead closed the window and placed his attention on another he had open. The top of the page read, "Kiseki World Online Guild Ranking List", followed by a number of systematically ranked factions.
Because the Generation of Miracles hadn't yet participated in any group battles or purchased any type of building, they were still low on the list–by pure coincidence, number 613. Akashi supposed Midorima would've called it fate.
The red-haired man sent challenge letters to a number of the listed groups, starting with the ones in a range of about two-hundred spaces since the highest level ones wouldn't have taken such a 'weak' guild seriously–especially one with such a small amount of after doing so, a reply back was sent to the Magic-user by guild called, "Shinkyou".
If Akashi remembered correctly, they were ranked around the upper four-hundreds. He sent another message asking about the time the two guilds could meet. The other party replied, and when they were done, their battle was set to the next day at noon.
The Shinkyou guild did not expect in the slightest that they were going to be destroyed.
Tuesday: May 1, 2038. 11:50 A.M.
"Kyaaaaah! It's Kise Ryouta!"
Kise had only just logged into the game for the day when several fan girls spotted him and began to circle him with dangerous looks in their eyes. He started into a mad dash, hoping to lose them or tire them out sooner or later.
A few days prior, his hair and eyes and turned back to their original color while he had been in the middle of town; needless to say, it did not bode well for the young model. When he had finally gotten to safety that day (after sacrificing a couple of his items as distractions), he had noticed a small message blinking at the side of his person.
"Sorry Kise-kun, my co-workers found out about the little favor I did, so I had to change everything back to normal. Be safe, try not to get mobbed~"
The blonde had cried internally as he ran.
And now, the blonde was still crying inside. His speed was superior to the girls following him though, and he lost the majority of them by hopping building-to-building. In about fifteen minutes, he finally lost them by using a morphing spell he had copied from a party he'd joined.
Did I just say copied?
Indeed I did.
The day his hair had turned back to normal wasn't completely terrible for the Rogue–who, in the last few days, had actually become a Bandit.
After he had finished his level 3 class change, he had chosen his weapon by clicking the "Dagger" option once more. A blinking message had appeared before him:
"{Kise has obtained a unique item!}"
When he'd checked him inventory and equipped it, a new skill had appeared in his archive. Without even having to read its description, he could pretty much tell what it could do just by its name.
"{Copy}"
His weapon, a Living Weapon dubbed, "Memoria Blade of Gold", at first had the appearance of a plain dagger not dissimilar from the first he'd received. After training with the item though, it started to change in a way that more matched its title.
After a few levels, the simple handle had become adorned with gold linings on the caramel-brown background, and the blade was lightening in color. By the time the item became level 18, a level below Kise, the weapon's blade started to form a slight curve; it was also becoming a striking white in contrast to the drab gray it'd been previously.
From then on, he had joined a party of passer-bys–all gamers who either didn't know or care about the fact that Kise was a model. He had trained with them a few hours, copying their skills and learning how to use his newly-gained weapon.
Of course, there were limits to the weapon; for one thing, he couldn't copy a skill that exceeded the limits of his stat points.
Thankfully, at level fifteen, a new skill called "Rearrange" had become available in his archive. Because of it, the Blonde Bandit could copy the spells and skills of players multiple levels above him–as long as his stats were shifted in into the right categories at the right times. The ability did have a cool down time though, meaning he could only use the skills of one class at a time unless he wanted to sacrifice power.
Another boundary was the amount of skills Kise could copy. While his weapon seemed to be able to imitate an endless amount of them, he only had a certain number of slots. Because of that, he decided not to upgrade his class any further than he already had.
Finally, Kise had to be able to see the skill he was attempting to copy. If it was a non-instant spell, he would have needed to hear its chant. If it was a quick weapon skill, he would need to be observant enough to record the image into his mind. The mental strain was actually quite taxing if he wanted to learn something high-level.
And now, here he was, transformed into the appearance of a monster that resembled a large lizard. He decided to find shelter before the transformation time ran out, so he made his way to the PVP arena where he thought the females (and again, a few males) wouldn't think to look for him.
He was surprised when entering the large building forced him to turn back into his handsome self; luckily for him, the only people who noticed him didn't call attention to his person as he slunk into the shadow of a large pillar.
"What's with these guys?! They're all monsters!"
That was what Kise and several others in the PVP arena lounge heard emanating from one of the holographic panels on the Observation Wall.
The blonde turned his head toward the screens and his mouth fell open. He amplified one of the projections and turned up the volume (a feature private to each player).
There, in the holographic image were both of the Warriors from the video he had watched. In comparison to what he'd seen a week ago, both were even more overwhelming than he remembered. What's more, they were now fighting on the same team!
Underneath the images, a small tag read:
"Generation of Miracles vs. Shinkyou"
On the screen, Kise counted the members of the guild Aomine and Murasakibara were in as a grand total of six . The opposing guild, however, had more than forty. Even if the members of Generation of Miracles were strong, there was no way they could beat a guild with that many members!
About a minute later, Kise's thought would be proven terribly, terribly wrong.
It wasn't only Aomine that was crushing through his opponents as if they were bugs, the other members of the guild were proving just as powerful and unrelenting.
But still, Aominecchi is really cool.
There was a red-haired Mage who was dodging every attack from two rivaling Warriors and a few other Magic-users, who were chanting spells at him–from the way his lips were moving, Kise could tell the redhead was casting a spell of his own. With a devious smirk, a gigantic, swirling column of flames shot up and burned through one of the Fighters charging at him; he didn't even stand a chance as his HP fell and he turned to ashes and pixels.
A few paces away, Murasakibara stood lazily, only moving his shield as multiple enemies slashed at him. They managed to get his HP down to about 70% (though they had taken more damage from blowback), but his HP bar suddenly shot back up to full health and they were puzzled as to how and why.
In the next minute, he received a signal from Akashi and began pelting at his attackers with earth-shattering blows.
Literally.
In the back of the arena, a lone Archer stood, firing off arrows that hit their marks with top-notch precision. Some enemies were stuck to the soil, struggling against vines protruding from the ground. Others were simply impaled with the sharp projectiles. Kise noticed that whenever an arrow would sail anywhere close toward the man, it would be deflected or blow up in a darkly-colored explosion.
The guild also had a single female who was handling her small hand knife expertly as she slashed the throats of the other players–more as a psychological factor than for damage. Without even touching the ground, she gracefully flipped from one foe to another and back, more often than not causing them to hit each other in friendly fire. As the Bandit watched, small buff circle enveloped her, and again Kise was confused as to where it came from.
Finally, his eyes landed on the final member he saw.
This…! It's just like me!
The person on screen, a silver-haired Human player, was using skills from every class just as Kise had learned to do. Upon closer observation though, both his weapon and his ability were slightly different.
The blonde saw that whenever one of the rivaling guild members would use a skill, the Thief on screen would send it right back to them with extreme force. What was strange, however, was that his opponent's faces would crumple up in despair and shock afterwards, and could seemingly no longer use the spells they had just performed.
The Bandit watched in awe as the other guild was annihilated in a matter of minutes; most of the players in Shinkyou had either been killed or abandoned the battle. From the corner of his eye, a very tall black man appeared, his face contorted in bewilderment at the devastating defeat he'd just tasted. A brown-haired man with a similar expression materialized, and the two could only say things along the lines of, "We shouldn't have underestimated them."
The rest of the members of guild were clearing out the stadium, ashamed that they'd lost to such a small group in such a short amount of time.
A minute later, the group duel was completed. The Generation of Miracles had won without a single death on their record.
Their persons emerged from air, and they began toward the exit. Kise stood awe-struck for a second before chasing them as they started to walk out, overcome by the urge to come into contact with them in any way possible.
"Wait!" the model yelled, catching their attention before he grabbed Aomine's arm.
"Aominecchi, you guys are so cool!"
The Paladin looked puzzled. "…Aomine…cchi…?"
The Elf Sorcerer Kise had seen earlier scrutinized the blonde, along with his dagger.
"My name is Akashi Seijuurou, the leader of this guild. And you… you are Kise Ryouta, correct?"
"Ah yeah, that's me," the blonde smiled brightly and laughed, pointing to himself. The sharp heterochromatic gaze on him seemed to ask him to continue with his reason for approaching them.
"Um, are you recruiting new members?" he asked hopefully, a bit nervous to be in the focus of Akashi's study. The redhead seemed to be contemplating it silently and Kise's hopes were starting to veer into the ground when he didn't get an immediate answer.
A few seconds more and Midorima broke the silence. His head had veered across the lounge and back before he asked, "Where did Kuroko go? He was here just a second ago."
Kuroko? Who's that? I didn't see anyone else PVPing.
Murasakibara held his bag of potato chips into the empty space in front of it. "Kuro-chin~ Where are you? If you come out, I'll share my snack with you."
"Did he D/C or something?" Momoi wondered outloud.
"Maybe he needed to take a piss or a crap", Haizaki offered, picking his ear idly even though there was nothing there.
Akashi scanned across the room as well, but he too saw no signs of the missing Cleric.
"Tetsu! Where are you? Did you go to buy another milkshake or something?"
"…Ano, I am standing right here."
Where did he come from!?
To the rest of the guild members, Kuroko seemingly came out from thin air. His sky-blue eyes stared blankly at the new face. "I have been here the entire time."
Watching this scene unfold, Akashi's lips formed into a discreet and slightly calculating smile. Somehow, his face looked pleased with this event.
"Welcome to the Generation of Miracles, Ryouta," he said, opening a window and sending Kise a guild invitation message.
Huh…? That was easier than I thought….
Is it because I'm a model or something?
But still… this is a chance I can't let go. I've always been waiting for something like this.
Kise lifted a long, smooth finger in front of the "yes" option.
Before he could press it though, Akashi began to introduce the members of the guild one-by-one. A minutes or too later, he finished with the majority of the members, besides the Elf player who'd seemingly just arrived.
The redhead continued on with another sentence, this time with an artful expression full of amusement, though the blonde wasn't exactly sure why he seemed so entertained.
"This man here… ", he had started slowly, motioning toward the pale bluenette with the stoic face, "is Kuroko Tetsuya."
Is this invisible guy important or something?
Kise didn't think much of him so far, besides the fact he was almost ghost-like; His hand once again levitated toward the button that would finalize his acceptance into the guild.
"And from this day forward-"
He looks kinda weak. And short. A high schooler, maybe?
"-He will be your mentor."
"..."
"…EEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?"
{You have joined the guild, "Generation of Miracles."}
Omake:
Murasakibara held his bag of chips into the empty space in front of it. Actually, not quite empty.
Crrrccck.
Kuroko's face crushed the crunchy pieces of snack food.
[-571 HP, Kuroko:{4,649/5,220}]
The Cleric fell back onto the hard ground, clutching his eyes which salt had painfully spilled into.
All he had wanted was a potato chip.
KITAKORE! Kise is such a precious bby.
I just realized this is the second time I've ended a chapter this way.
Let me tell you a secret of this fic.
04/02/38 is the date KWO was launched. 04/02/38. 42 is the number said to be the answer to the universe and it's existence. 3 is the first chapter Kise appears in in the manga. 8 is his jersey number in Teiko. 3 + 8 is 11 (and we all know what 11 is). I'm sorry. I'm done with myself (though I'll still tell more secrets later on because there's worse stuff.)
I hide a lot of things, lol.
I'm sorry. I hid one in the omake. 4,649. (yo)n, (ro)ro, (shi), (ku)u. Welcome to the Generation of Miracles, Kise.
Thank you for reading this, your patience is very much appreciated.