The Light That Blinds
Tatsuya Umeki
If Tatsuya had a choice, he would attend any school other than this one.
Really, you would think around the fifth time an entire room had to be closed off because the ceiling collapsed mid-battle someone would deem this place a safety hazard and shut it down, but somehow, it was still functioning. And intact. The latter was especially miraculous, since there were several fights going on right now and quite a bit of property damage.
(Tatsuya occasionally wondered what kind of godlike insurance policy this place had to be able to repair any of this damage. But frankly, it was the least of his concerns.)
Usually, Tatsuya just tried to stay out of the drama. Harder than it sounded, being the top student and all, but doable. For the past week, he'd managed to avoid any and all confrontation, holing himself up in the library for extra study time.
Alas, his luck had run out.
"I cannot emphasize this enough, the tail thing was an accident—"
It really was. He hadn't been paying enough attention to where he'd been going, too consumed by thoughts of tests, and had stepped on Acrylic's tail. And apparently, that was enough for a fight. If this school wasn't so prestigious, his parents would have pulled him out long ago...hopefully.
Wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible, Tatsuya drew his kendo sword from...somewhere, and whacked Acrylic in the face hard enough to break his nose.
With any luck, that would dissuade him.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."
Samus wasn't the first.
Acrylic
Acrylic hadn't been having a good day. This morning, a trio of bullies armed with a snowball launcher, a T-shirt launcher and a grenade launcher respectively had tried to shake him down for lunch money, citing a "purple tax" as their reasoning. Hke'd managed to fend them off with relative ease, mostly because the grenadier had left all their ammo at home, but it had still left the tailed tellurian in quite a sour mood. How dare they disrespect him like that?
And now, this upstart small-fry had stepped on his tail! His favourite appendage by far, treated like some kind of twig? That hurt his pride more than it hurt his body, and it was already quite physically painful.
"OW! Damn you," he'd shouted, whipping round to face Tatsuya whilst drawing his favourite toy sword and angrily scowling. "I'll teach you what'll happen if you, or anyone, disrespects me like that again!"
Acrylic raised his sword as he prepared to give Tatsuya the thwacking of his life. "Why don't you emphasize THIS, you-" he began, before being cut quite short by the direct and high-speed application of a kendo sword to his face.
Growling as he narrowed his red eyes, Acrylic stepped back to wipe away with his hand some of the (oddly blue) blood leaking from his nose, then redoubled his efforts by charging towards Tatsuya with a cry of "Get back here! I haven't taught you your lesson yet!" It seemed that, when he wasn't in a position to be caught off guard so easily, the two swordfighters were pretty evenly matched. Acrylic could block and evade his opponent's attacks while providing his own, but the same was true of Tatsuya as well.
Edited by TheGoldLeaf on Nov 2nd 2023 at 2:49:52 PM
Ay, you! It's Gold, and I'm noble!
The Light That Blinds
Tatsuya
Why is he bleeding blue— you know what, probably better I just don't ask questions.
"This isn't going to do anything," Tatsuya said dryly, walking down the hallway while simultaneously parrying Acrylic's blows. "All you're going to have to show for this is a broken nose."
This went on for some time, Acrylic swinging his sword at him while Tatsuya blocked every strike, trying to walk away in the process. With any luck, he'd get bored with how this was going nowhere, and leave to do something else. Which would be good, because Tatsuya had much more pressing things to worry about than battles. Like tests.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."
Fwomph
Conflict turns on the smallest of hinges...
Especially here, especially in this school. A brush in the hallway, distracting noise in class, any minor slight could set off the powder keg between any two students; today, for Susan, it was a matter of limited stockpiles of melonpan. Every single time the young miss Leone went up to get some of the mythic breadstuff of Japanese High School she had been stymied and today she decided enough was enough! All morning she had stalked one of the kids ahead of her in line, ready to enact the kind of high-octane thrill-fight she had seen so often at this school but had so far refrained from. And there was her target now...
She lept from her corner, the Boxcutter Blades in hand but the blades themselves not yet unsheathed from their plastic home; she in some way hoped this would not come to blows.
"Give me the melonpan and I walk away, got it!?"
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
Samus wasn't the first.
Acrylic
Acrylic stubbornly kept swinging, attacking and defending but only landing as many hits as he was taking - zero on both counts. Still, he was going to battle on until there was a clear victor. At least, that was the plan, until...
A rhythmic beeping began to sound from Acrylic's wristwatch, immediately snapping him out of his pride-fueled frenzy. Quickly drawing back, he muttered an "Oh crud, crud, crap, I'm gonna be late for physics class," as his expression subtly changed from one of anger to one of frustrated worry.
Acrylic hesitated for a moment before turning tail and running off. Just before he rounded the corridor corner, though, he looked back at Tatsuya and shouted "You may be very skilled, but you won't get away with disrespecting Acrylic next time!" Then, he leaves. Oddly enough, physics class wasn't to start for the next five minutes, so either Acrylic's watch was mistimed or his idea of 'late' was just yet another difference between him and the average student.
Ay, you! It's Gold, and I'm noble!
Kubo jumped back in surprise with a shout, having been brought out of the blissful daydream he had been having by her sudden approach, barely avoiding dropping his beloved melonpan, clutching it to his chest as if that would somehow make it safer.
"S-sorry but N-No way!" He said defiantly, "I've been waiting all morning for this and I'm not giving it up!"
Divine Basement Dweller
Ryota Watatsumi
"You know what, this game is pretty interesting once you get past all the mechanics and junk," Ryota said. Shuffling up the deck Yukiko lent him as they prepared for another match. "My dad once told me the only people who played card games were gambling addicts and scammers, but even then, you're still pretty cool Yukiko-san."
Ryota had approached Yukiko as she was playing with her MM cards. He took an interest in the game after he spotted a dragon among them and asked the girl to teach him how to play the card game.
In their first match, Ryota stumbled upon a particularly nasty combo. One of his monsters had an ability that allowed it to automatically revive itself the instant it hit the graveyard, while another item Ryota had instantly killed said monster the instant it came back into play. The end result was the monster getting stuck in an endless cycle of death and resurrection as if the wheel of Samsara was recreated with a handful of cardboard rectangles.
This kind of combo was appropriately called the 'Infinite Samsara Wheel' combo and usually involved another card that took advantage of the resurrecting monster's constant death and rebirth in some way. Like Ryota's Spirit Channeler, which granted him Vitality points whenever another monster dies and thus gave him infinite Vitality points!
Unfortunately, Ryota neglected the fact that Yukiko also had a Spirit Channeler on her side. Apparently, such occurrences are called 'Infinite Speed Samsara-Cycle,' which tended to drive games way further than any player was comfortable.
Sure enough, neither Ryota nor Yukiko wanted to try reducing infinite Vitality to zero. What were they, statisticians?
"Want to have another match?"
Edited by drearyArchon on Nov 9th 2023 at 10:19:34 PM
Everyone's just doing the best that they can.
Fwomph
Half a step back, a beat of hesitation.
"Okay. Guess we're doing this."
The keen sound of sliding metal, of revealed sharpness, and Susan throws herself into a charging run towards her quarry. She's on the front foot at the start of this fight...
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
The Light That Blinds
Tatsuya
Tatsuya breathed a sigh of relief as Acrylic finally stopped bothering him. "Thank goodness," he muttered under his breath, then headed off down the hallway to his next class.
Yes, he'd be early, but better early than late. Besides, maybe he could get some quiet study time in.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."
“Hey wait what are you— AH!” Was all Kubo had time to say before Susan’s strikes came in fast and plenty, slashing across his body, catching him so off-guard he could stumble backwards and try (poorly) to block her attacks.
“All this for a loaf of brea—OW!” He called out before a slash caught him across the forehead. He backed up even further, tripping over his cape as he did. As he attempted to scramble back to his feet, he reached for any of the rings in his pocket and put the first one he felt on his index finger. He closed his eyes and concentrated, focusing his mind on the summon until the ring called forth…
A very sleepy-looking bearded dragon.
“Are you kidding me right now?!”
St. Nishiyama High, just your average School in Japan. Its main building flanked by two wings, along with a large, expansive campus. Its students needs are provided for at every turn. Famous for its Track and Field Club, the recent wins at the National Swimming Championship and of course, looked favourably upon by the City Council for its long, prestigious history.
But if you were to ask people living in the Hata-Ward what they thought about the school, you would get quite a different answer. They wouldn't mention the snazzy and handsome Principal Kasegawa, the very epitome of middle-aged handsomeness, with his elegant glasses and silver-fox looks. They wouldn't talk about the strict Student Council, led by "Princess" Asuka Hiyotomi, whose prowess and diligence has become famous during the Peach Tree Incident. No, they wouldn't even care about the numerous championships or the fact that the powerful Yomitazu Zaibatsu is sponsoring the faculty.
The locals would rather talk about the recent explosions near the running track or the holes in the walls left behind from where foolish street-thugs tried to accost a student. They would chat about Class D, aka the "Weirdo Class", where all manner of strange and foreign students end up, who don't fit into the schools neat image. They would talk about rumors of hauntings and witchcraft and spirits. They would whisper about the mysterious School Nurse, ever busy patching up students who come in with all manner of strange and unexplained injuries. Really, prestigious St. Nishiyama High was weird, violent...and always the center of attention.
Your average japanese high school, surely.
And today was just another one of those average days, as one enters the school. Right next to the game, buried into the concrete wall, were two delinquents who had just tried to harrass someone. Their leader was flying through the air, flipping about and blocking a follow-up kick from the victim. Looking through his crossguard, he flashed a grin and rushed forward, grabbing the girl and pummeling her with a four-pressure-point combo. The girl grunted, then powered through the pain in a flash of ki and finally buried her fist into the thugs chest, kempo-style.
As the boy crashed right next to his buddies into the wall, a nearby window shattered and a girl dressed up in an expensive skirt jumped out and onto the courtyard. Laughing haughtily, she flipped her blonde Ojou Ringlets and pulled out several throwing knives. "You will never close the Drama-Club, Student President!", she screamed dramatically and flung them towards the broken window.
Metal clashed against metal, as the knives were parried in rapid succession by a metal baton. A foot on the window sill, Asuka Hiyotomi glared down at the blonde student. Her long red hair danced in the wind, contrasting with her darker, tanned skin. "We will see about that.", she just stated coldly. Then she jumped off the window. The blonde student jumped up to meet her and the two clashed in mid-air.
All of this was met by chuckled by Principal Kasegawa, who just stood at the window in his office and sipped a cup of tea. "Well, aren't our students lively today...", he noted, before turned around to a shadowy figure in his office. "Now...where were we?"
Just your average day in your average high school...