[Episode Zero] School Daze

[CadetNewb]

A prospective student of Nishi-Ku Academy High School finished off the paperwork to transfer in and handed it over to the person at the desk. It was nothing worth noting, other than the fact that said transfer student was an American. He went on to politely ask permission to go about the school grounds to get to know it better so he wouldn't get lost later on. A few brief words and a moment later, Duncan Leetenbaum was walking about as he pleased with a nametag on his chest. Of course, he didn't care a single bit about the education he was supposed to get at this place.

He was 'starting off fresh', so he decided to try out taking on a persona, which sounded fun enough. The false documentation Duncan handed over about being ill and all was specifically there for one thing, and one thing only; to ensure that Duncan had free reign to go about Osaka and search out the city for any curios and knowledge, magical or otherwise. Hence, why Duncan looked to be rather tired and languid despite his physique. His thoughts however, were anything but. 'This place isn't bad, and the same goes for the girls. Last time I acted like myself, but this time, I bet I can lure some in by acting as the friendly but infirm foreigner.' They were about some of the most lively thing that humans did. Duncan grinned to himself, but not due to the scandalous thoughts in his head. His detector spell went off, and it was near.

*****

Languid steps brought the young California boy to a familiar smell. Formaldehyde. 'Don't tell me they did something as kiddish as reanimating dead frogs.' Duncan mentally scowled. His expression however, was tired curiosity, as he came closer, ears picking up on some English. "Hello? Did I hear English?" He called out meekly. "Who's there, and what's that smell?" Duncan rounded the corner, and became rather downcast as his eyes settled on the bespectacled and bearded man in front of him, as well as the dead frogs on the floor.

'I hate being right all the time. It's so boring.'

[Kai]

Miyuki continued along the hallway, and then made another turn. While she didn't know the school completely, there had been a few locations which Hisoka had made sure she and Hana knew by heart, and this was one of them. "Just in case" he had said. Unfortunately, that 'case' was the first day of school. And we had almost gotten away with it... Stupid boy and his overdeveloped sense of justice or something... Miyuki seethed, mentally. Suddenly stopping, Miyuki found herself staring down the door to the office. She could hear footprints coming down the hallways, and wasn't sure Whether or not to go in, or see if maybe Aizawa-Sensei had followed them. If Miyuki was lucky, Nobody saw the mess in the science lab and the hallways around it. The girl Hesitated, her hand about to knock. Maybe he's not even here right now... But then Aizawa Sensei wouldn't have sent us here... She thought.

******
As Percival and Hana moved Hisoka down the hallway towards the Nurse's office, Hisoka continued to groan, occasionally stirring. He seemed to have his his head pretty hard, what with his mussed up clothing, and it was obvious he had something similar to a concussion, if not a full one, from whatever had happened. "Do... Do you think he'll be allright? Maybe.. Maybe we should put him down and go get a stretcher!" Hana suggested, in slightly panicked Japanese. She didn't know what to think after what had happened, especially since she didn't really know what had happened.

******
Miyuki Knocked. Once. Then twice. "Come in." came the voice of the Principal. This was her last chance. She could run now. No. No she could not. Swallowing her fear, Miyuki opened the door and stepped into the Principal's office. The door closed behind her with a 'snick' sound, and outside, though Miyuki wouldn't see, someone rounded the corner.

[Kokuten]

Percival grunted under Hisoka's weight, having a bit of trouble lifting the boy. Due to his untrained muscles, he had little in the way of 'manpower' so he had to appear a little weak to Hana has he began to heave a breath or two as they furthered on. When she suggested getting a stretcher, he looked at her incredulously.

"If we use time to go deliver a stretcher, that's decreasing time Nurse Watanabe can observe him." said Percy in his odd Japanese, opting to continue shoulder his weight. "Besides, he is precious to you, truth? It's better to put precious people into the hands of those who know what they are operating."

[Kai]

Hana nearly stopped walking, as her face turned scarlet. "I.. Umm.. That is to say... He is my friend..." Hana answered Percy's blunt statement. with her free hand, she tried to press her bangs down over her glasses, hiding her face more in embarrassment.

"He is your friend, who you imagine about in Valentine ways." chuckled Percy, breaking a bit of a sweat as they made their way down the halls, having to compensate for the weight given by her braking. "I know how it is. I was the same way." added the Welshman, blushing a little bit himself. Though, whether it was strain or embarassment remained a mystery.

Hana had no clue why Percy had taken such an interest in this. "Can.. Can we just keep walking?" she asked, her head now locked forward, not wanting to look at Percy. He kept saying such odd things and making Hana feel even worse about herself, and her inability to do anything other than watch from the sidelines. Even if Hisoka had been completely useless, he had at least stood up to fight. Or did he? That was a hallucination from the teddy bear and the Formaldehyde, right? Still. It was obvious they had both had the same hallucination, so even if it was fake, at least he tried... All she could do was watch. She wasn't even in the same League as Hisoka, anyway. He probably only kept her around for old times' sake.

"Right right." said Percy dismissively, keeping his pace reasonable, but a little slower. The desire to say something was earnest, but he tried to fight it back. Watanabe was such a nice person, and love was such a bitter cheat, which left a bitter taste in his mouth. She was shy, he could tell that much, and the subject was sensitive, so he tried to discern the best path to take. "You appear to knowledge a lot about Takahashi, at least. What's his behavior, beyond what I've observed today." he asked, a smile forming weakly on his face.

"He is very good at studying. One of the top students in all our classes." Hana answered, a little stiffly, as if trying to keep herself from breaking. It was fairly obvious by now that she was struggling to carry Hisoka, too, and Hisoka wasn't even particularly heavy. Fortunately, the nurse's office was just up ahead, and they would reach it soon.

"Oh?" went Percy, his observant eyes noticing her struggle. Suddenly, he was reminded of a technique Allistar, his father, had passed on to him from his old war days. The alchemist dipped forwad, and leaned Hisoka back, placing him across his shoulders into a corpsman's lift. All of his weight was on him now, and his legs hurt a little, but for some reason, it felt a little better than sharing the weight. "Then how about yourself?" said Percy, a bead sweat running down the edge of his face.

Hana's blush, if possible, seemed to deepen. Not only from Percy taking Hisoka's full weight, but also from the question. "Ah.. uhh..I'm just a normal student. I only got into the Academy because my mother is the nurse..."

"No one is just... Erg." Percy heaved Hisoka one good time to get up just right, and then continued, "No one is just a regular student. I'm proven to imagine that you've got just as wonderfully unique behaviors as Hisoka." It felt a little familiar, how much stock she took in the person she cared about, how little she put in herself. He wondered if this really was a normal thing, if the same exact case was uniform across the world. Still, despite his thoughts, he breathed a sigh of relief as they made their way to the Nurse's office. "You can't just bargain yourself minor like that."

Hana almost looked like she was about to cry. Percy was so strong, kind of like Hisoka, though in different ways. Still, he seemed to be trying too hard,almost like he wanted to prevent something. However, all it did was make Hana feel worse, especially since now she wasn't even helping carry Hisoka (whom made another groan). "Really... I'm nothing special..." she said, her voice growing quieter until it finally petered out into nothing, but that was just fine as they had reached the Nurse's office. Hana peered inside and saw her mother sitting at the desk, expectant.

"Oh! Hana-chan!" said Hana's mother delightedly as she saw her daughter, though the delight did not last when saw Percy, struggling with Hisoka on his back. The woman stood up and rushed over. "Oh my! What happened?"

"Ah... He fell." said Percival, heaving a sigh as he felt Hisoka's weight come off of him. He leaned back, popping his spine, before stretching out. "He fell really hard."

"These bruises from falling?" she said incredulously, before looking at Hana. "Hana-chan, is this true?"

Hana nodded. "He slipped on the wet floor. The formaldehyde was too strong and knocked us both out, after we got scared by a stuffed bear someone set up as part of a mean prank." she explained, fairly truthfully. She didn't want to mention her 'hallucination' as it was too bizare to be true. It had to be the effects of the Formaldehyde.

"A bear? Used in a prank?" said the Nurse-Mother, somewhat still in disbelief. She looked at Percy and opened her mouth to say something, but realized she didn't know his name.

"Yes, a prank, Kagami went to interview the principal about it." half-lied Percy, not picking up on the lack of a name part. Despite how strange it sounded, Nurse Watanabe seemed to pick up on the meaning.

"Oh my. Are you kids alright?" she went over to Hana after laying Hisoka down, "My little Hana-chan, you aren't hurt, are you?"

"Nnn." Hana answered, shaking her head. "I saw Hisoka slip first and stopped, but then got knocked out from the gasses." With her mother around, Hana seemedto be more able to put on a brave face and speak more calmly.

"Oh, are you sure? You aren't feeling any adverse effects, are you?" asked Hana's mother, placing a hand on her head. It seems she was a little more than concerned, "I can't believe someone would do something like this. It's so childish!"

Percy arched a brow at the two before turning his head towards Hisoka. The Welshman stepped over to his side and looked down at him. Though Japanese, Hisoka reminded him a lot of William, only more cowardly and no magic.

"I am fine, Mother!" Hana insisted, batting away her mother's hand and helping Percy get her mother's attention about Hisoka. "He hit his head really hard when he fell."

"Oh, he might have a concussion." said the Nurse, standing straight going over next to Percy to tend to Hisoka. She sat him up gently and inspected the bump on the back of his head. She squinted hard at him before setting him back down. "Hm."

"Hm?" Percy asked in return.

"Hm." was Nurse Watanabe's response, though it didn't seem to make Percy any less confused.

Hisoka chose that time to start quirming- apparently the effects of whatever had happened to him were wearing off. He began to groan slightly, and his face started looking more pained, but he wasn't quite awake yet.

Hana stood back, watching, but afraid to get any closer.Her face was wracked with worry and guilt that she had been so useless. Why couldn't I be in front? Then I would've fallen and he would be okay... she thought.

"He is simply out cold, I'll go fetch some ice for him, and stick it on his bump." said Nurse Watanabe, as she walked off to the far end of the office, looking for an ice bag. "You two watch him and let me know if anything happens."

Percy watched her walk off and caught Hana in his sights as the Nurse stepped passed her. He beckoned her to come on over before looking down at the boy. Percival was focusing, trying to figure whether or not this was purely physical, or somewhat magical in nature.

Hana remained where she was. She didn't exactly feel comfortable, with the worry combined with the way Percy had been asking such personal questions. Instead, she got an idea. "Uhhh... I wonder if you telling us about Wales would make Hisoka feel better. Mother tells me that even unconscious people hear things, so maybe it would help..." Hana blushed at her audacity, especially since she was the one who had really wanted to hear the stories in the first place, so she felt she was being selfish when Hisoka was hurt, but it was already too late.

That's... fervently rediculous. But... Percy gave her a confused look, before eying Hisoka questioningly. Science has taught me never to doubt any possible. Besides, what do I have to lose, besides what little credible image I have left. The Welshman gave a weak laugh to how weak that sounded.

"Ah! Where is that ice bag at!?" went Nurse Watanabe, furiously searching still. Despite how neat the place looked, it seemed that she couldn't locate this one little item.

"Takahashi." said Percy, aloud, but in a very loud way. "Do you remember the things I told you about Wales? About the green mountains and their green pastures that they flatten into? I miss it. I miss it a lot. I miss the the mid-summer rains and how they would bring out the lush grass and flowers in the afternoon sun. I miss walking lands dipped in the very ocean of history itself, blanketed by a iron curtain of wars, and showered with tranquility. My homeland had it's ups and downs, but all in all, it was a beautiful place. And we all have to appreciate beautiful things, right?"

Hisako didn't respond, but he also didn't seem tobe squirming or groaning as much. Whether this was due to the fact that he was now sat in a more comfortable, restful position, or if it was due to Percy's words, couldn't be told.

"It looks like it's working. Watanabe, you try!" said Percy, pleasantly surprised by the development. Though, he didn't seem to give much time for her to think about as he grasped her hand and pulled over to the bed. His eyes had lit up, desiring to see the results of this now somewhat scientific venture.

"Uwah!" Hana cried out, as she was pulled forward by Percy. not expecting this, she lost her balance and tripped, falling over Hisoka's midsection with a loud "oof!" and causing Hisoka to squirm again, mumbling something that sounded like 'not the bear' and weakly shoving at Hana. For her part, Hana turned beet red and began struggling to regain her feet, supremely embarrassed.

"C'mon, Watanabe." Percy encouraged, trying to keep her from falling over again by holding up his hands. "A woman's voice is more comfortable to a male."

"Ah, that's right, boy-san." said Nurse Watanabe, finally arriving with an ice pack and gently tucking it on the spot where she had found the cranial bruise. She looked over Hisoka, then at Percy, and then at Hana. "He should be fine. Just no more tripping, and exposing yourself." The mother ruffled her little girl's hair, before walking off to her desk. "I've got a little bit of filing to do, let me know if he has any trouble."

Percy blushed a bit at the exposing comment, having seen something he hadn't meant to see.

Hana continued to be the color of a certain crimson vegetable, and her face looked as if she were about to cry. "Sorry, I have to go!" she apologized, blusteringly, and ran out of the room, the door swinging wildly and flapping back and forth noisily before settling.

Hisoka woke up then, apparently just in time to watch Hana disappear. "Wha- What happened?" he asked, groaning and trying to feel the back of his head, since it hurt quite a bit.

Percy frowned losing yet another person to the situation. Even though he wasn't supposed to see them, Hana's pink and white striped panties were hard to miss. He looked down at Hisoka, noticing his awakening. The Welshman stood over him, and decided to explain the whole situation as thoroughly as he could.

"You tripped." said the young Caxton.

"But then..." He paused, to groan as his moving arm caused pressure ona tender spot on his ribcage "Why do my ribs hurt? I thought..I thought I saw a bear..." he spoke strangely, as if he wasn't entirely coherent, and his eyes still seemed to have trouble focusing.

"You tripped very hard on a wet floor. Apparently there was some teddy bear sitting in the hallway. That, mixed with all the fromaldehyde, made you pass out." Percival stuck his finger out in front of Hisoka's face to give him something to focus on. "Kagami went to talk to the Principal, and Watanabe just ran out."

"I... I see" answered Hisoka, scrunching his face up in a mixture of dull pain and concentration. "But why? No, it must've just been the fumes..." he didn't seem certain of something, and tried moving again, but found hismelf aching once more. "Why do I hurt all over, then?"

"I dropped you down the stairs." said Percy, lying through his teeth. If anything, Hisoka could not learn the truth of the situation, no matter what. "I asked Hana not to tell anyone. Not sure if she even remembers, either. She hit her head rather hard too."

"Boy-san? What was that?" asked the voice of Nurse Watanabe from behind the poor Welshman. To this, Percy calmly turned around to face a rather dissappointed looking Japanese nurse.

"I tripped at the top of the stairs, and dropped Takahashi." said Percy, with a rather plain face. He bowed, "Please forgive me." The Nurse slapped him on the head.

"I'm not the one you should apologize to!" said Nurse Watanabe in complete disbelief. Percy turned and bowed to Hisoka.

"Please forgive me." asked Percy of Hisoka, before being slapped on the head again.

"Don't act so impersonal about it!" scolded the woman, her understanding that he was a foreigner barely holding back her wrath.

"My humblest apologies, my dearest friend and cohort." went Percy, withholding the urge to laugh before he was hit even harder on the head, generating a nice, memorable sting.

"This isn't a joking matter!" growled the Nurse, losing her patience.

"I think she wants you to refer to me by name." Hisoka offered, chuckling a little but stopping with a slight grunt as it strained his somewhat tender, possibly bruised ribs.

"I'm sorry, Takahashi." said Percy, much to the satisfaction of Mother Watanabe. She crossed her arms and sighed, before turning her attention to his Hisoka.

"How do you feel, Takahashi?" she asked, holding her hand gently to his forehead, and looking him up and down.

"My head is still swimming a little, and hurts a bit. My ribs on the left side are very sore, and I think one of my ankles is twisted a little, Mrs. Watanabe." he responded, closing and opening his eyes several times to try and make his eyes point forward like they should be.

"Oh my. It seems you're going to miss the rest of the day." said Watanabe, patting the poor boy on the chest. "I'll call your parents and see if they can't take you home at the end of the day. For now." She bent over and kissed his forehead, "You stay right here and rest up!" She stood back up straight, smiling Hisoka before frowning at Percy. "And you, young man, are in a big trouble. How could you be so careless!?"

To this, Percy sheepishly shuffled his feet before looking up to answer.

"I'm not very strong... and I fell down a few steps, too." the Welshman tried to cover his alibi.

"That's no excuse. Your parents are going to hear about this." said Watanabe, harshly, before walking over to her table with a huff. Percival sighed, before looking back over at Hisoka, with a very tired expression.

"That is not necessary, Mrs. Watanabe. It's our fault he's in this whole situation." Hisoka admitted. "We're the ones who set off the fire alarm, in order to get the other inquisitive students to stop bothering him." he explained, a pained expression on his face, probably for multiple reasons. "We were all headed to the principal's office because we got caught" the young man finished, sheepishly.

"That doesn't change the fact he dropped you down a flight of stairs, Takahashi-kun." said Watanabe with softened expression. Despite the biting remark, it seemed that Hisoka had brought her down a little bit. "Your foolishness to start fire alarms is the principal's business, but doing something so detrimental to your health is my business, and my business points to calling boy-san's parents." She pulled out a pen and paper, her gaze went back to Percival. "What was your name?"

"Percival Caxton." said Percy without a delay, but causing a wave a confusion to wash over her face. Of course, she had no idea how to write that out in kanji. So Percy came and did it for her, complying absolutely, which was a little refreshing for her.

"Thank you." she said, when he wrote his name, and Percy stepped back over to his friend, Takahashi.

"This has turned into a mess..." Percival sighed.

[Straken]

Ruarc strode down the hall with determination in his step, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the empty hallway as he hunted down the magic he had felt just minutes ago. His face was stern and his eyes burned with annoyance as he wanted desperately to finally understand what was going on.

”Ruarc, you are starting to get angry. It isn’t like you to let something like this get under your skin, Laoise said to Ruarc from somewhere outside as she felt Ruarc grow tense.
”Ignorance is bliss, but I am getting sick of having no leads on anything. I want to get this matter resolved so I can go back to my nice quiet home,” Ruarc replied.
”Understandable, I miss my nest as well. Just be careful, you don’t think clearly when you get a temper.”
”I’ll be fine, I am just tired and a bit ornery. The sooner I find something out the better.”
”Just be careful, Ruarc, as your Guide I can’t help but worry about you sometimes.
”Thanks Laoise, I already said I would be fine.”

The Druid cut his last statement short as his right eye began to react to traces of residual magic. His eyes lit up as he felt he was closing in on his target and drawing closer to the end of his hunt. Ruarc finally zeroed in on the location and it put him right outside the principal’s office. A grin donned on his face as he stood in front of the door.

[Luca]

Mr. Miller eventually saw Ruarc, standing right there in front of the principals office. Huh, maybe he's not in on this prank. He pondered for a second as he took a closer look, and noticed that he was grinning, for what reason, Mr. Miller did not know. Then again...

"Ruarc Flynn," He used a full-name ultimatum to get the student's attention before standing in front of him with his arms folded, "Would you kindly care to explain why there are dead critters all over the floor?" He nodded his head sideways to indicate the dead things strewn on the floor, "If you didn't do it, I'd like to know who did. Something this elaborate requires more than one set of hands," He started to wonder how the children got the frogs out of the formaldehyde, and concluded that they were most likely to be using tongs.

"Furthermore, I was very worried about you," Genuine concern crossed the English Teacher's facial features, "We didn't even know whether or not there was a real fire, and just a false alarm. You could've gotten hurt."

[CadetNewb]

Duncan checked, and double checked again; the person he heard earlier and called out to, rather weakly, didn't so much as notice him and had left. Time was of the essence at this moment, and he needed every single second he could get. Thinking fast, the Spellcaster reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone, fingering an app. His lips moved silently as he read off of the spell-wiki, his energy starting to drain as the incantation took it's due payment. A small portal just a few feet wide opened up, the edges shifting and flittering in and out of sight. "Now, lets see what happened." Duncan put his palm out towards the scrying portal, and it moved to follow him as he pointed it towards the classroom from which the dead frogs had to have come from, 'revealing' what had happened much like how someone would use a black-light. Only, this wasn't incriminating in the embarrassing way, he thought.

The images were blurry, but that was to be expected; the act of peering back in time distorted the vision, and any magic used at the area of interest further degraded the signal. Still, what he saw was enough to know that something was up. Blurry silhouetted frogs went about, frolicking with numerous other items of the room; there was too much to see all at once, but something caught Duncan's eye; a single figure, blurred by a magical aura, strode into the middle of the mess. Another distortion appeared before pulsing, sending the entirety of the image into static. Duncan grunted before letting the scrying portal close. "Damn. Took more out of me than I thought it would have." he spoke, winded from the exertion. It took a lot of time and dedicated equipment to scry, and without it, the image was of low quality, with a large energy drain to boot. Still, his fine control allowed him to get a reasonably good image of what happened.

'So there's two other magic users here in this school, at the very least.' he mused, walking away from the room with a hand against the wall, breathing hard. 'Things just got interesting.' Duncan gave himself a weary smile, feeling as tired as he was pretending to be earlier. He made off to the Principal's Office to report the scene he stumbled across.

'And who knows, I'll probably get lucky. I usually do.'

[Straken]

Ruarc was startled out of his thought train by Mr. Miller’s interjection. The young Irishman stared dejectedly at the teacher unsure of what was going on. With English being a second language, and the teacher speaking rather quickly, he managed to catch only the basic idea of the accusation. He thought quickly about how to explain himself in English.
“What? Uh, tha alarm was my fault,” Ruarc said to the teacher hastily, resulting in him forgetting the negative in the sentence.

[Luca]

Miller listened to Ruarc. Clearly, Ruarc's English was accented and a second language, and he garbled a bit of what he was trying to convey, picking out the error. Miller then coughed, "Listen," He said in Japanese, knowing that Ruarc was Irish (according to the student files), "Can you repeat what you said, slowly? I don't want a garbled word to make you look like the bad guy."

He took a look around himself and noticed that more people were gravitating towards the Principals office. He didn't pay much heed to it, figuring that the drill had run its course and a few people had skipped ahead of the crowd. No worries there, Thought the Scotsman as Duncan walked by.

[Straken]

Ruarc gave Mr. Miller a confused look. He translated what the teacher had said and proceeded to repeat himself. “Ah. Ahm. Responsayble. Fur. Tha’. Ahlarm,” Ruarc said phonetically in English, this time slower as he tried to dispel confusion; unfortunately once again forgetting his negatives.

”Electronic translators are for losers,” Laoise said from somewhere outside.
”What do you mean?” Ruarc thought in response.
”Nothing.”

Ruarc looked the teacher in the eye and hoped desperately that he would leave. “I am too close, please don’t mess this up for me,” he thought.