It has been a month since I started school at Chiba Academy. Gotta say, it's been pretty smooth so far. The courses ended up being not so hard after all -a relief- and the Academy in itself was great.

"Hey Tengo-kun !"

"Tengo-kun."

"Hey Suzuki, Tanaka." I greeted with a smile my two friends approaching.

I was eating in the cafeteria right now -the food's insanely good here- and planned to meet up with the two of them in class earlier. They plopped down beside me with their food.

"Ugh, finally time to relax !" complained Suzuki as he stretched. Kiyota Suzuki was about the same height as me, with green eyes, brown hair and an energetic face.

"Don't forget, school's not over yet." teasingly reminded Tanaka. Hashito Tanaka was slightly taller than us both, with hazel eyes and a head full of hair of pale blond hair.

Us three were in the same class, and while we weren't desk neighbors, we still befriended each other pretty quickly.

...

3 weeks ago

I walked inside of the Chiba library .As a respectable bookworm, I hoped to join the Literature Club. Unfortunately, I forgot one small thing : I don't know where to register at ! I was told to go search for related staff or students here by one of the teachers, but in my excitement, I forgot to ask her details...

'This isn't the first time my rashness bites me back. I seriously need to learn from my mistakes already. Not like saying that this late isn't gonna help, though.'

I heaved a sigh as I stood between the books. To add on that, the library was huge, as expected of Chiba Academy. I was about to resume my search when-

"Hey, are you searching for something ?"

I turned to look at who spoke to me. Two students came closer, one of the same height and the other slightly taller than the both of us. Both wore friendly smiles.

"Yeah, I am." I answered with a little hesitation." And you guys are...?"

"Ah, sorry, we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Hashito Tanaka, and I'm in the same class as you. Nice to meet you." the taller one calmly presented himself and shook my hand.

"The name's Kiyota Suzuki. Nice to meet you !"the shorter voiced a more energetic presentation and shook my hand.

"Nice to meet you guys too. I am Ki Tengo." I presented myself with a smile." And yes, I'm looking to register into the Literature Club. Think you can help ?"

...

And since they were members of the club and great guys, we naturally became friends. Both of them were in the same class as me, and I didn't know it, but let's ignore that...

"How're you doing with classes ? I really stressed too much about it when I came here." I said between two mouthfuls of food.

"Haha, same here. I just wish I'd be able to do better on math." Suzuki groaned.

"You're too hard on yourself. Even me and pretty much everyone else in the class struggle with it."

"You have better grades than me, though."

"Not easy, I'm telling you. Besides, I can't beat the multifunction Tanaka-kun here~." I answered while putting on a fake serious face.

"Geez, stop already with this. Multifunction is too much, I told you." replied Tanaka awkwardly.

"Hard to find another way to describe you, man." I wasn't joking. This guy, while performing in academics pretty well was also very efficient when it came to sports, and got a handsome face to boot. Literally the star of the class. Well, if this place wasn't Chiba Academy, that is.

You could find this type of person easily by just looking at the students coming and going here. Funny enough, that's where I thought : 'This school's pretty amazing, after all.' Not that I doubted it, but you know: Nothing like such a display of 'stars' to impress someone.

And just like that, I kept leisurely chatting with my friends during lunchbreak.

...

...

I, Welt Yang, passed through the corridor of ME Corp and made to the elevator. It automatically took me to the highest floor : Raiden Ryoma's office.

I had been called by Einstein telling me that there was an urgent update on Ki Tengo, an individual who caught the attention of Ryoma a while back, possibly possessing an unknown stigmata.

I opened the door to his office. Einstein and Ryoma were already there, having sorted out the intel before I arrived and saluted me.

"Sovereign"

"Sovereign"

Both bowed their heads. I nodded and greeted them. "Einstein, Ryoma."

"Thank you for coming here on such a short notice, Sovereign." Ryoma respectfully thanked him.

"It's nothing. Also, it's rare for you two to talk about urgent business so I had to come as quick as I can." I reassured the two of them.

"Thank you .Then please take a seat and let's begin the meeting." Einstein closed the room with a remote. We were now completely isolated from the outside. Such secrecy was needed for cases like this.

A screen descended from the ceiling as I sat. Ryoma then quickly went over the findings about Ki Tengo that appeared on the screen. Nothing was new information to me, but telling it again had to be important.

Then, they moved on to the point of this meeting.

"To sum it up, we were wrong." Einstein began. "We thought that Ki Tengo possessed an unknown stigmata and that he could help us immensely in our study of them. But that was a misunderstanding. According to the tests we performed on him under the guise of a medical inspection a month earlier, along with this month of observations, we concluded that Ki Tengo...

...doesn't have a stigmata...yet."

"What ?" I was baffled. It made no sense. "...Explain.ยป I urged her to continue.

"During the Honkai outbreak he was involved in years ago, we indeed saw a stigmata appear on his chest. His situation then stabilized and improved, though he did possess enough Honkai Adaptability to survive without that extra help. However, when we analyzed his DNA recently, there was no trace of any stigmata in his genes. We managed to pick up quite a few other clues:

1 - For the past years since the incident ,Ki Tengo was under the influence of a stigmata. That much is certain.

2 - But that stigmata wasn't his. Nothing more than traces of it remains in his body after its briefs manifestations.

3 - His Honkai Energy adaptability went up. We've theorized that it is one of the stigmata's effects on him."

Einstein paused for a second, then continued. "In light of this, I decided to have sensors and other observations equipment placed in his house, directed only towards the study of his peculiar situation, of course. While we don't know exactly how, Ki Tengo is in fact receiving power from an external source, though that source seems to fail at building a proper connection. But its repeated attempts have teached us something important. The results bring us to the 4th and most troubling finding.

4 - The direction from where this power's origin points to is Imaginary Space."

Einstein didn't need to say more. I put a hand on my chin, thinking. A stigmata appearing on someone ,that stigmata's origin direction seemingly being Imaginary Space : that seemed to be the imminent signs of a Herrscher awakening.

But those signs had been here for years : days wouldn't have been that weird, maybe a month at the limit, but years ?... It just didn't make any sense.

"So, this is why you called me here." I realized. They both nodded. "This situation is a complete mystery."

We were in the dark.

It was evident that Ki Tengo was going to very soon undergo huge changes : the spike of stigmata activity proved that the connection was growing stronger, more stable.

"It" was imminent, whatever "it" was.

Author's note:

I wonder if I'm rushing things too much here. Feels like too many plot elements chapters and not enough relax, slow-paced chapters got out :/. What do you guys think ? Be sure to tell me. If you've liked, drop a fav/comment ! Constructive advice is appreciated since it's my first story. Thanks for reading and I'll see you later ;) !