Amari Chiharu's Story

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Amari Chiharu
LOCATION ║ Power and Ability Use
CURRENT TIME ║ 8:30 AM
DATE ║ Monday, Sept. 11th, 2023

#80C6F9 ║ #FAE12A
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Chiharu sat quietly near the front of the classroom, tapping her fingers against the desk in boredom as Mrs. Masumi went on with her lesson. The day had been rather uneventful so far, and perhaps wasn't her favorite. The first class had started with her having to team up with some other kid to spar off, which had ended somewhat okay, she supposed. They at least both displayed their powers well enough, with her blocking the attacks with her forcefields from the male classmate, while he attacked her with all she had. To say she wasn't exhausted from that would be a lie. It wasn't easy keeping up a forcefield and moving it around to shield herself, all while keeping the energy keeping it up strong enough so it wouldn't shatter.

So now she was sitting in the classroom, trying to keep herself awake as the woman went on about several people, answering several questions, stealing away a phone and somehow making it disappear...of course, that was fine with Chiharu, as long as she didn't really have to do anything for a while.

But of course, her wish of staying and doing nothing for a while was quickly dashed away as Mrs. Masumi spoke up after a minute or so of silence.

"No more questions then, I suppose?" She looked over them once more, to double check and make sure she wasn't wrong. "Alright, then we're moving on. If you have anymore questions, you can come to me after class, or ask me if we have any leftover time." Chiharu watched her as she began moving over to the desk, and then picked up several posterboards that had been leaning against it. "Alright, we're going to be doing a small group project, and it's easy. It should only take around fifteen minutes to finish." She placed them on top of one students desk, and then looked around. "I'll be placing you in groups of five myself. Each of you will be discussing your abilities, and what you can do with them to have a positive impact on today's society, perhaps talk about how you could help in certain job industries, or other things like that."

Group work? Why? Chiharu let her shoulders droop. Can't we just do this on our own...?

"It'll be a good way to get to know everyone in your class year, since I'm sure most of you haven't exactly been able to hit it off with anyone so far. Not to mention, others can help with giving you ideas on how your powers might work, broaden your horizons a bit." Mrs. Masumi began walking through the desks, looking at each of them. "I'll start by numbering you off. One, two, three, four..."

Chiharu let out a long sigh, watching her number off each person. She, herself, had ended up as a three, and she was hoping that she would get stuck in a group with people who were at least...okay enough.

"Three." The red haired guy from before, who had asked a question. "Three." Another male classmate, one with a particularly emotionless expression. "Three." A girl with dark hair, who was rather pretty if she did say so herself. "Three." The blonde, spiky haired kid who Mrs. Masumi had mentioned before in an answer to a question. So, these were the ones who would be in her group. They didn't seem too bad. Maybe she wouldn't have a hard time working with them...or she could just do her own thing while they worked on theirs.

"Okay, everyone, ones are here, twos here, and threes here," she pointed to a spot near the back, by the windows of the classroom, "fours here..."

Finally, after she finished listing off everyones' spots, she clapped her hands once, and then nodded. "I'm giving you all twenty-five minutes. Use it wisely, you have to present to the class after we're all finished. Go ahead, grab your posters, some markers, and get in your groups."

The class immediately began to move around, getting up from their spots. Chiharu did herself, and she found her way through the small blockage of students in the aisles of the desks to her group's spot.

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Dialogue Color – #3b0000
Thought Color – #5c2020

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Quite the underscore. Nao's lips tightened when their teacher emphasised the word lives. It almost felt as if mrs. Masumi was on the defensive. Of course - Nao swept aside, that was to be expected. The media hadn't exactly been kind to the awakened and the school was still far from completely turning the image around. Still, mrs. Masumi proved she wasn't blind to the dark underbelly of their side of the conversation. Nao could respect that sense of realism, but she struggled to think of herself as a doctor or rescue worker. Nao stifled a smile, the very suggestion felt positively ridiculous. She nodded along with the explanation, after which the teacher moved on to preparing the class for the following exercise.

Nao's eyes followed mrs. Masumi's finger in order to predict her number as the teacher systematically grouped the students. Nao soon deducted she would be in the same group as a particularly tired-seeming blonde girl in the front, at the same time when mrs. Masumi assigned Alfred to the same group. When the blonde girl's gaze fell upon her, Nao already had herself equipped with a polite smile, one Nao extended as then she glanced at Alfred.

Less pleased, Nao was to learn the third member of their ensemble was Lucien, inwardly sighing that in group discussion, she couldn't as easily uphold the unspoken silence agreement she'd just made with her neighbour. The final member of their group was the boy she'd seen Alfred running up to earlier, his sparring partner, if Nao's memory served her.

As Lucien and she were already sitting next to one another, Nao gestured to the others to come their way to the back at the window-side of the class. As they were making their way, Nao took three chairs from their now vacant desks to place near Lucien's desk. Habitually, Nao remained standing until everyone had sat down, as if she were receiving her classmates as guests in her home. “Ito Nao.” She bowed to her two blonde classmates respectively, before sitting down.

A short silence followed, as past introductions none of the others seemed to spark the talk. She had hoped to have a little more time to think about what she could say, but between that and a lingering silence, Nao decided to go first. “I'm a teleporter, I can move myself from one place to another.” She prompted, but no legitimate career choices came to mind. “I admit I've not thought about this subject very much... I rather thought society preferred I keep my abilities hidden.”

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Kasahara Kosei
LOCATION ║ Power and Ability Use
DATE ║ Monday, Sept. 11th, 2023

#C52325 ║ #0B5F6A
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Kosei stood up from his desk as Mrs. Masumi gave them an "okay," and awkwardly shifted around the other students as he tried to make his way to the other side of the classroom, where she'd asked those in his group to go. He mumbled a sorry to those he bumped into, before finally he'd arrived at their spot. Looking up, he found that he had been grouped up with Alfred again, along with the girl he had seen him with after their last class. Then there was silent male who looked like he had no interest in this entire thing, and the blonde female who looked like she would gladly take a nap if she was allowed to. He guessed it was going to be an interesting group.

He quickly sat down on the chair that the dark haired girl had gotten for him, offering a quick "thank you," to her before he found himself comfortable. "Ito Nao" and a quick bow was how the dark haired girl introduced herself, and Kosei sat quietly for a moment. She seemed to be rather formal, which kind of felt somewhat strange to him in this kind of school setting, but it wasn't bad or anything. "Um, I'm Kasahara Kosei, it's nice to meet you all." He barely finished before the other girl, his blonde classmate, spoke up. "Amari Chiharu. Pleasure to be working with you all." Her voice dripped with sarcasm in the last bit, and Kosei had alreadu figured out by now that she really wasn't in a very good mood, and probably would have preferred to be somewhere else at the moment.

As the short silence was again broken by Nao, Kosei listened quietly, trying to think of anything himself. No one really seemed to be interested in talking or helping to keep the conversation going in this group, as the awkward quiet followed once again, and the blonde let out a near silent sigh, biting his lip for a second before looking back up and trying to force himself to relax. "Electrokinesis is my ability." He said, looking around at the others. "I haven't really thought much about what I could do either. I guess rescue work is a possibility, but I'm not really sure how I'd even do in that field." He shrugged. "I feel the same way about...society wanting us to keep our abilities hidden, like Nao. It sure has seemed that way in the things I've heard and seen."

"You would be surprised." Chiharu suddenly spoke up. "You see, not all of society is about the whole getting rid of us or keeping us hidden. Some of them would prefer maybe...worpshipping us, or treating us like some kind of higher being, which surprisingly isn't much better." She shrugged before leaning back in the chair, and closing her eyes for a moment.

"Oh, forcefields is my ability, by the way, and I would prefer to stay away from any dangerous types of occupations, as convient as having a forcefield would be in those kind of areas."

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Lucien Ashford
LOCATION ║ Power and Ability Use
DATE ║ Mon, Sept 11, 2023

#C5612A ║ #C5992A
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After the very short exchange with Nao, the class started to fill up with more students and the emotions pouring off of them meant that Lucien was struggling not to let anything show. When the class finally started, Lucien had listened to the information about what the class would entail, followed by the brief question and answer session. And then, of course, came something that Lucien decided he would severely dislike.

Group work.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, he was grouped with Nao as well. Although she seemed equally displeased at being grouped with him as well, given the emotions he could feel. The other three members of their group consisted of a blonde girl he had briefly spied during their previous class, the red-headed male that had been talking to Nao at the start of the day and the blonde boy who had been the red-head's partner during the previous class.

It was somewhat unsurprising that Nao introduced herself first once the group was settled into chairs. Of course, he had somewhat figured out her ability already from their spar earlier, but having that confirmed was useful. Teleporting. Oh how his friends would have loved for him to have an ability like that. Nao then mentioned that she hadn't thought much about the uses she could have for her ability. Although this class seemed to be for figuring that out.

What was surprising was the blonde male speaking up next, given the nervous energy that seemed to cling to him, Lucien figured that he would have to be prodded into actually speaking up. The other blonde piped in with her name and her displeasure for group work was obvious through both her tone of voice and her emotions. Lucien silently agreed with her.

Kosei, the blonde male, stated his ability to be electrokinesis. It sounded like it could be a rather powerful ability if used right, especially given society's reliance on electricity. Kosei visibly forced himself to relax as he spoke, although Lucien's ability still picked up the nerves he was clearly feeling. The blonde hadn't thought much about it either apparently.

'Is everyone going to be like that?' Chiharu spoke up again here, interjecting that some people worshiped the awakened, as opposed to hating them. That said, she soon leaned back in her chair before mentioning that her ability was forcefields and immediately stated her desire to stay away from dangerous situations. Lucien could understand that as well. Danger was something he would have enough of once he finally left the academy, he had no desire to go looking for it in the meantime.

Given that three of the five people in their group had now spoken up, Lucien glanced over at the red-head as he silently pondered whether to speak up next or not. Figuring that he might as well get it over with, his nails discreetly dug into the palms of his hands, the pain helping Lucien to focus his emotions more.

"Lucien Ashford. My ability is Pathokinesis, and something involving crowd control seems likely to be in my future." He hadn't lied, it was entirely possible that he would be sent on some sort of job in the future where crowd control was needed.

His part out of the way with, Lucien glanced at the last member of their group, who seemed to have three silver balls floating around him. A confused look briefly flickered across Lucien's face, was he seriously feeling emotions coming from those things?

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Alfred Komatsu
Location || Classroom: Power and Ability Use
Date || Monday, Sept. 11th, 2023

#029729 || #002BD9
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A group project? Should be a good way to get some face time with at least some of the people in the grade here. I already know at least 2, so I’m better off than most.

Alfred thought this to himself once Mrs. Masumi started talking about the small project. He sat patiently, getting out his books and tools for writing as she started poking numbers at people. He only paused long enough to hear which number he was assigned before pulling out pencils and the like to help with the creation of the poster. He didn’t know who he was paired with until he sat down. He gave a smile to everyone as he took a seat, but was also slightly disappointed. He had already met Nao and Kosei, and while he didn’t necessarily know Nao’s ability, he had gotten a good read on her as a person and that was good enough. Kosei was the guy who kicked Alfred’s ass in sparring. Alfred smiled a little bit as he remembered that bit, already formulating strategies to combat it for next time. While two of the people in his group he hadn’t met, he had been hoping for it to be entirely new so that he could branch out and hopefully meet everyone in his grade.

Alfred dragged an empty desk towards the group so he would have a space to write on, and took the poster paper they were given, placing it in front of himself. He dug into his bag and pulled out several markers, one for each member of the group. Nao was the one to take charge of the conversation, something Alfred expected of her if it wasn’t him. She got the ball rolling, and he learned her ability. He took out the brown marker, putting her name down with a bit of a flourish, underlining it, and then describing her ability beneath it. A teleporter? Interesting. There were many applications for such an ability, depending on the limitations associated with her power. Alfred already thought of several helpful positions Nao could occupy in order to help people, if she could also teleport people as well. Even if she didn’t, she had options aplenty.

The next one to speak was Kosei, which honestly surprised Alfred. He had thought the kid would have been last and required a bit of poking to get talking, but here was speaking up on his own. Granted, Alfred shouldn’t be judging the kid based entirely off of one class worth of interactions, so maybe he wasn’t as nervous or shy as he displayed but had a hidden reserve of strength to him that he could pull on in times of need. Either way, Alfred already knew Kosei’s power as he pulled a red marker out and wrote Kosei’s name with a different style this time. Underneath he put Kosei’s title of his ability, but he also wanted to write ‘Giant headache inducing power’ underneath it. Electricity was not something Alfred was used to having hurled at himself or his angels, so Kosei had caught him off guard. Either way, he was proud that the kid sought the initiative to speak to the group on his own. Maybe he didn’t require as much help as Alfred thought. Not to mention his ability had several practical applications, mainly concerning power to be honest but he would never be out of a job should he decide to go that route.

With Kosei’s little bit out of the way, that left the two people he hadn’t introduced himself to yet. Amari Chiharu, a blonde girl who seemed to drip sarcasm and venom like a leaky faucet dripped water. Reserve Judgement Al, see who she is first. Alfred grabbed a blue marker, and like the others, wrote her name down slightly different from the others. There was a bit of discussion regarding society wanting Awakened to keep their abilities hidden, but Amari chimed in, stating that some people wanted to worship them and treat them as Gods. That hadn’t been Alfred’s experience, but it felt like she was speaking from history rather than speculation. She then added onto her thought like a side note that her ability was forcefields. She didn’t have any desire to put herself in harm's way, and while Alfred could understand the mentality he couldn’t agree with it. She had an ability that literally stopped harm in its tracks and she would refuse to use it to help people? There had to other applications for such a thing, but he would require more information before he could even begin to guess.

The next one up introduced himself as Lucien Ashford. He was curt and got right to the point, if anything he came off as incredibly apathetic, although if Alfred was correct in remembering the definition for Pathokinesis, it was understandable. It had something to do with emotions, right? Manipulation of such a thing, maybe projecting them into other people? Reading their emotions? Alfred would have to look up the definition later to be sure, but for the time being he went with his gut. He grabbed an orange marker, following his own standard and writing Lucien’s name differently. Lucien stated that his ability could be used for crowd control, but would that really be the only case? Manipulating someone’s emotions felt like an invasion of the mind to Alfred, and he had a hard time thinking up anything other than potential riot control as a career choice for Lucien. Alfred wrote down several notes on the paper, tapping the marker against his chin. There had to be something better than this, where his ability wouldn’t be considered a breach of privacy or the like. Maybe a therapist? Would that fall under mind probing? Who knows…

Alfred felt someone poke him slightly and he looked up to see all eyes on him. “Oh, my bad. Sorry, was thinking about everything you guys were saying.” Alfred put down his markers for a moment, allowing his orbs to float a bit closer to the back of his head. “Unfortunately, my ability isn’t as easy to explain as the rest of you. Some of you may have already noticed that I have these weird metal balls constantly floating around me.” Alfred held out a hand and one of orbs split off a small chunk of its body. That chunk floated down to his hand and ‘sat’ in it. As he moved his hand, the small metallic liquid slid between his fingers. “There’s no real name for them as far as the rest of the world is concerned, so I simply call them my Guardian Angels. They follow my orders but act like lost puppies sometimes. They can do a number of things…” The small orb hopped out of Alfred’s hand and into the middle of the table. It turned into a frog, and made the motion to make the sound ‘ribbit’ even though no noise was heard. It then turned into a cube, then a triangle, and then ended up making a very miniature version of Alfred sitting in the desk. “Versatile things really, but aside from commanding them I myself don’t have any actual powers.” Alfred glanced down to see his angel mimicking him as he talked and moved. Stop it. Alfred stated. “So, I don’t really know what kinda job I would want or get, since they’re always with me. I’ve always been interested in being a firefighter or even a police officer, but I wonder if these things will hold me back or help with that.”

Alfred looked down to see his angel was ignoring him and still mimicking him perfectly. He took a hand and quickly swatted the angel, which turned into a liquid and started sliding around on his arm. Alfred paid it no mind as it weaved around his wrist and fingers. “And in terms of society wanting our powers to keep hidden, while I don’t necessarily disagree with you Amari, it’s been my experience that the vast majority wish that we would keep out of sight and out of mind. Like Mrs. Masumi stated, there’s always a resistance to change and that’s how most of the world reacts...at least from my point of view.”

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Dialogue Color – #3b0000
Thought Color – #5c2020

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Great. Nao mentally recoiled at the intonation of Chiharu's introduction. Perhaps this was more acceptable for normal teenagers, but the lack of composure left a sour taste in Nao's mouth. It wasn't like the academy was Nao's first choice to be either, but at least the girl could try be a little more graceful about it. Her brow narrowed for a split second before it relaxed. They're inexperienced, Nao. She surmised to herself, but it would be a while before she could get used to it.

Taking turns the students spoke up. Manipulating electricity, generating forcefields, certainly abilities Nao could find use for – although her first ideas weren't exactly to the benefit of society. Then Lucien spoke up, uttering the word “Pathokinesis.” Nao tried to dissect the word. Pathokinesis, the manipulation of pathos- that jerk can control emotion! Nao almost sighed of relief upon the realisation. Yet as soon as the shame dropped off her shoulders, it was replaced by a sense of dread. Even if her self-control was not to be blame for this morning, Lucien could make her lose it, courtesy of his presence alone.

Last to speak was Alfred. “Some of you may have already noticed-” He began, to which Nao raised an eyebrow and inwardly commented; Really now, morning? Nao did listen attentively, as Alfred's explanation and subsequent demonstration if his angels connected the dots in Nao's head. Her prior experience with them began to make a little more sense.

“Why, worship would certainly make some things... Easier.” Nao followed, as her own future came to mind. A god wouldn't be put on trial. In spite of Chiharu's antagonism, however, the blonde girl was certainly onto something interesting.

“I'm not sure if this fits the purpose of this class, but does having powers necessitate we use them? I would rather be defined by my choices than what I was born with.” Nao posed to the group. Though food for thought, it was not a topic Nao deemed they would have the time to discuss. She glanced shortly at the clock, before cutting back to the original topic at hand with a gracious smile, “What if I don't want to be a delivery girl?”

Nao put her index finger to her lower lip. “I think you have plenty interesting options, Kasahara – was it?” Nao's eyes shifted as she moved the conversation away from herself – even if she half-expected Alfred to notice it. “Cost defines the accessibility of many technologies. Imagine you could help make medical equipment more affordable.” Nao mused out loud, rekindling the memory of how expensive a keeping a stray bullet out of the books wound up being.

“And Alfred, the fire departments already use drones-” Nao prompted,“Do you think your angels could be useful scouts? There's a lot of places people and drones can't safely go in a fire.” She asked, leaving out her initial thoughts of Alfred as a partner in crime. His angels' versatility as surveillance was hardly limited to emergencies.

Nao sat back and folded her hands on her lap, content with the material she'd brought to the table, and looked around the group with a polite smile before motioning to the A2 Alfred had written their names on. “I'm sure you all have many ideas. Please share them.”

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Amari Chiharu
LOCATION ║ Power and Ability Use
DATE ║ Monday, Sept. 11th, 2023

#80C6F9 ║ #FAE12A
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Chiharu listened to everyone as they spoke, keeping herself from butting in on the conversation for the time being. She couldn't help but give a quiet laugh to herself as she watched Alfred write everyone's names down. Each with a different style and look. Creative, and cute, she thought. And hey, at least theirs would look pretty and well done when they had to put it up for the rest of the class to see.

As Alfred got on with his ability, Chiharu watched the silver orbs strangely, but also somewhat curiously. They seemed...odd. But so did most of the other powers that people had, because none of them were normal. But she imagined that having three orbs of metal following you around would feel much more strange than just being able to summon up a forcefield.

But aside from Alfred, there was also Lucien who had introduced himself before. Pathokinesis? She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Surely it would make anyone feel cautious about him. He could do whatever he wanted with your feelings, right? Well, the blonde figured he would be someone she'd be sure to keep off her bad side. She didn't need him messing with her head.

At Alfred's last comment about society, Chiharu gave a quick shrug. "I didn't mean a lot of people want us to be treated as higher beings. I just wanted to point out that not everyone is like those who want us to disappear or stay low profile or something." She crossed her arms before looking away from him, and then back down at the spaces of his writing.

"I think Mrs. Masumi thought more in a way of what jobs our abilities could give us an advantage in? Maybe I'm wrong, but it's not like they can force us to be something we don't want to be. Then we'd be heading right back down the path to the problems the world just resolved two decades ago." She replied to Nao. "But, I do think others might try to push us or pressure us to become what they're wanting, or something along those lines, even if we say no a thousand times. Because wouldn't having a emotion manipulator at the scene of a riot or mob," she motioned over to Lucien, "or a teleporter who can travel longer distances in seconds to delivering objects be much better than a normal human, in the employer's eyes? I thinks so."

She listened quietly as Nao shared, and thought for a moment. Job options? Of course, there weren't really any she'd like to take or make a living out of that was associated with her ability somehow. When she thought about it, all she could come up with was creating some kind of defense when fighting against someone or something, especially those with abilities like her, so maybe the police force in the field of helping to defend those who can't defend themselves against her own kind. There was also disaster relief, which was a bit more "attractive," if she could even say that at all, than the others. Because she wouldn't have to be fighting or defending against something human, just the elements. Someone might even throw in helping inside of war zones or other dangerous, violent places to help defend innocents or those caught in the middle of it without any means of escape, but that was a very big nooo thank you from her. As much as it would be a good deed, if you want to call it that, she isn't sure she would even survive for very long somewhere like that.

"For job options associated with my ability, put me down with um...disaster relief, or something like that. You can throw in the police force with the field of stopping violence and danger caused by other Awakened if you want, I honestly don't really care."

Why should I anyways? It's not like I'm going to even go into those kinds of job fields anyways."

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Kasahara Kosei
LOCATION ║ Power and Ability Use
CURRENT TIME ║ 8:50 AM
DATE ║ Monday, Sept. 11th, 2023

#C52325 ║ #0B5F6A
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Kosei watched quietly from his spot, his arms crossed as he watched everyone speak and then Alfred write some of the things they said down. It was definitely interesting to hear the others, with their input, their abilities, and opinions on different things. Their abilities and the diversity in them was interesting as well, he found. Who would have thought that there would be so many different kinds and types? He'd never really seen or heard much of other powers while he was stuck back at his old hometown, but always assumed there was plenty of variety.

As he opened his mouth to try and maybe give some of his own input again, he was quickly cut of by Mrs. Masumi, who clapped her hands once to get everyone's attention. Kosei let out a quiet sigh and leaned back in his seat again. Nevermind I guess...I'll just have to keep it to myself unless we have time later or something. He shrugged, and then turned himself to he was facing their teacher, who patiently waited for everyone's conversations to die out. They wouldn't miss anything that she needed to say.

"Alright, I believe I gave you plenty of extra time, or so it seems. We only have five minutes left of class before you guys will be heading towards your next. So! That's most definitely not enough for everyone to present their posters, and I'd like for us to just wait until tomorrow to do that." She looked around at everyone, and then motioned to the front corner of the classroom. "For now, just place the poster boards here, and we can sort through them all and pick them back up tomorrow, okay? Once you've placed those down, you're excused." She nodded, and then moved back over to her desk, to continue typing up whatever it was she'd been working on before.

Looking over at the clock, Kosei realized that time actually had passed quite quickly since they'd gotten together as a group and tried to figure everything out to put on the assignment. He was okay with that, of course. A fast class is never a bad class.

Looking back at the poster board still sitting on the desk, Kosei gave a quicky nod and then held out his hand. "I can take that and put it up at the front of the class, if you want." He offered with a slight smile. He hadn't given much to the conversation, so he could at least just do this. Not that it really was much of anything, though.

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Alfred Komatsu
Location || Dorm
Date || Tuesday, Sept. 12th, 2023

#029729 || #002BD9
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Alfred continued to jot down notes and ideas as to everyone’s suggestions as they made them. Admittedly he was probably more focused on making the poster look neat, organized and artsy than he was contributing to the conversation, but that thought wasn’t entering his mind as the table went back and forth on their contributions to society and trying to give suggestions as to what their individual powers could be used for towards the betterment of everyone around them. Alfred heard something about fire department, drones, and his name and he simply hummed an acknowledgment as he tried his best to keep up with everyone. Eventually he heard the clapping of Mrs. Masumi’s hands, but didn’t actually stop working until after Masumi had already said her piece. Alfred didn’t have time to get everyone’s opinion on the poster, but it looked presentable at the very least. He gave a smile to everyone as he got up from his spot at the gathering and took the paper up to the front to be handed in. Hopefully it would be adequate and none of the potentially artsier people in his grade would berate his admittedly shoddy artistic stylings. Once that was done, he helped move some of the desks and chairs back into their proper places, gathered his things, and was out the door on the move towards his next class before he stopped to realize that maybe there might be people that he could be walking with, making connections and friends as he went along. He sighed to himself as he started thinking that maybe he should get himself better situated in the school before opening himself up to every person he bumped into. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was flagging him down, he set himself to memorizing his schedule and paths around the school for the rest of the day.

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It had been a long day for the most part, and his head still throbbed slightly from the electrocution therapy that Kosei had smacked him with earlier. He opened the door to his small dorm and threw his bag against the wall. His angels immediately took up separate spots around the room, either floating in place or generally making a nuisance of themselves as they seemed to grab things at random and toss them between each other. What registered as ‘contentment’ in his mind was the feeling he gathered from them as he made his way to the washroom and proceeded to wash his face and generally get ready for bed. The good thing about waking up earlier was a more alert feeling for the rest of the day, but it was never good if you expected or wanted to stay up later than 10pm.

After all the courses were said and done, Alfred had taken the time to take a thorough tour of the school on his own terms, doing his best to mentally memorize the layout so he wouldn’t have a problem getting around from this point on. He didn’t feel like his sense of direction was terrible, but it never hurt to be better prepared. As he finished brushing his teeth and splashing his face with warm water, he slipped his shirt off and wiped his face down with a towel before throwing it back into the bathroom, dark lines appearing underneath his eyes as the realization of just how exhausted he was started quickly infiltrating his body.

He flopped into bed, and was almost out in an instant, his Angels pausing for a moment before making their way to the center of the room and ‘clunking’ to the floor with a rather loud clatter. A few seconds later, there was a banging from the room above him but Alfred either didn’t register it or didn’t care enough to answer it with one of his own. One way or another, Alfred wasn’t conscious for too much longer after that.

---

The next morning brought forward the realization that maybe Alfred needed to pay attention to how and when he woke up, as he found a near repeat of the day previous. He found himself dressed and brushing his teeth before he was even fully aware of the situation. His Angels were milling around the dorm, doing random things associated with getting ready for school. One was slipping books into his backpack, another was toasting bread, and the third one was bouncing in place like a basketball. Alfred couldn’t really explain that one as he rubbed his eyes with his hands, his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth as toothpaste foam coated his lips. He really wasn’t awake enough for this.

Once he finished brushing his teeth, he splashed some cold water onto his face to shock his system into being more awake and aware, and immediately his Angels acted as if they had been shot, spinning around the room with the same speed as Alfred’s reaction to the cold water. They stopped long enough to ‘stare’ at him before continuing a rapid flurry around the room. Alfred ignored them, stepping through what could technically be considering a real life version of a bullet hell shooter without any problems as the orbs shifted to avoid him out of instinct. He checked his bag to make sure his books were packed properly, grabbed the bread out of the toaster and spread his choice of toppings onto it and shoved them into his mouth, and made his way towards the door. He took a quick glance to see what time it was before he opened the door to his room.

5am.

Alfred stopped, looking down at himself as he realized he was over 2 and a half hours early for class, but he was prepped and ready to go. Why was he awake? Had he been sleep-prepping and thought he had been real prepping? Alfred dropped the bag of books by the door, walking up to the Angels who were gathered in the center of the room. All three of them adopted the forms of puppies on the ground and hung their head. While they had originally gotten that idea from Alfred a few years ago, he couldn’t help but resent the fact that he was the creator of it. “Did you seriously just help me sleep walk through school prep?” The Angels held their heads lower, but Alfred could feel a sense of mirth coming from them.

They thought it was funny.

Alfred huffed, walking over to his desk and picking up a pencil before whipping it at the Angels. Naturally they caught it and threw it back at him, watching in what could only be classified as amusement as it bounced off of a very unimpressed Alfred’s head. He undid his tie, took off his sweater, rechecked his alarm clock and fell into the bed unceremoniously.

If this morning was any indication, this was not going to be a good day to be awake.