3 The 10 Great Schools

"The process of the screening is, in actuality very simple. You go up on stage and demonstrate the extent of your power, or powers to the best of your ability. The challenge of passing the screening lies in putting on a demonstration that will catch the eyes of the judges from the various schools."

Asai interjected at this point "What kind of things are these judges looking for then?"

At Asai's question Momoka her finger on her chin and stopped for a moment to think. After thinking for a moment she answered;

"Well I think what they are looking for really depends on what schools they represent..."

"What schools they represent?" Asai, unfamiliar with how many schools there were, or even who the schools were, repeated this point in the hope that Momoka would enlighten him on this subject. Thankfully Momoka seemed to understand what he was hinting at and continued her explanation.

"There are only 10 great superhuman schools across the entire Galaxy and it has been that way for an extremely long time. Every single school wields an incredible amount of prestige and authority throughout the Galaxy, with most of them holding a strong voice in the galactic government. However, even though they all hold incredible authority they are not all equal. The 10 schools are frequently ranked on things such as; academic accomplishments, school competitions and also the accomplishments of the superhumans that graduated from their schools. If I remember correctly the previous ranking was Deus at the top and then; Prodigium, Ranshao Zhihun, Supremacy, Mezumo, Tenebris, Excousia, Yongheng de Yu, Sinbihan Angae and then at the bottom Angeli Sanitas academy. For the most part what the schools look for is a show of pure power however some academies whilst perhaps lacking in certain areas, specialise and excel at training people with certain types of powers. They tend to look for something different in a person. For example I watched a screening not too long ago where one of the participants made an assassination attempt on the Tenebris academy representative."

Hearing this Asai was quite shocked at the suicidal nature of this one participants demonstration. Although he didn't know much about the 10 great schools he could guess that the representatives at least would be very powerful and not people who an aspiring superhuman trainee could hope to match.

"What happened to that student?" Asai asked almost out of concern for this crazy participant.

"Well actually, he was accepted into Tenebris academy. The representative was very impressed by his assassination attempt, he was laughing and smiling and praised the young man's bravery."

"Eeehhh!?! Seriously?"

He attempted to assassinate the representative but, instead of the representative being mad and retaliating at the participant for trying to kill him he offered him a place in his academy with a smile on his face? Something is definitely wrong with this situation.

Noticing the surprise and confusion on Asai's face Momoka smiled and spoke up again.

"Don't be too shocked, Tenebris is a school that excels in raising superhumans who are specialized in undercover missions. Things like spying, espionage and assassinations and the like, so they look for qualities that lend themselves to those kinds of missions in participants at screenings. The point I was making is that while the majority of schools just look for pure power, some schools aren't just interested in that but whether the person's power fits the creed of the school. I think it's too late for you to think of anything too specific so I would recommend just demonstrating the most impressive use of your power."

Asai smiled and thanked Momoka for her help, her knowledge about the screening would be a big help to Asai when his turn to step up onto the stage came. However observing Momoka talk for a while now he had noticed something strange about the way she was talking, she constantly had her hand covering her mouth. He wondered if she had perhaps forgotten to brush her teeth this morning and was conscious that her breath may smell. However he quickly abandoned such unnecessary thoughts as he thought it was rude to make presumptions about someone who had helped him out so much.

" By the way Asai, if you don't mind me asking, what is your power, or powers?"

"Ah, I'm a telekinetic. It may not be as flashy as some of the powers out there but it's very useful. What about yourself? What's your power?"

"My power is control over air."

"Control over air?" Asai quickly interjected

"Yes, it allows me control over the air around me and so, by exciting the air in a certain space I can create spontaneous explosions in the air."

"Wow, that certainly is an impressive sounding power, I'm jealous."

Upon hearing Asai's words Momoka became flustered and again began to wave her hands in front of her.

"N-no, it's nothing spectacular like that, plus it's really hard to control a lot of the time."

Asai leant back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling.

"I'm sure you're just being modest, with such an impressive sounding power I'm sure you aren't gonna have much trouble getting picked by any of the schools. However I am starting to seriously worry about myself."

Upon hearing Asai's words Momoka's eyes seemed to light up and she turned and smiled unreservedly at Asai. Seeing this Asai's heart was warmed by the genuine smile of an absolute beauty.

"Hoh~, what do we have here?"

A loud and obnoxious voice from somewhere interrupted the blissful moment being shared by Asai and Momoka.

"Tch, what a pain." Asai thought. He looked up and saw one of the boys from the group of people with the over inflated egos from earlier.

"It looks like we have a country bumpkin and... oh, what's this? An alien too?"

"Eh, an alien?" Asai blurted out. Was he talking about Momoka?

"Dude? Are you serious? Look at her eyes! When was the last time you saw a human with orange eyes?"

Big egos voice really was frustratingly loud and it reverberated throughout the whole waiting room.

"Also I'm willing to bet..."

Big ego leaned forward and grabbed Momoka's face and squeezed her cheeks, Momoka let out a whimper as he savagely grabbed her face.

"Ah! Bingo! Look at those fangs!"

Big ego laughed as he forced her to show her fangs by squeezing her cheeks together. Tears began forming in the corners of Momoka's eyes. This must have been the reason why she was covering her mouth all that time. For something she was trying to hide so desperately to be revealed in such a violent manner and laughed at so cruelly, Asai had had enough.

"Get the hell off of her!"

He grabbed the arm holding onto Momoka's face and pushed it away, this caused big ego to react instantly. With the arm Asai had pushed away he formed a fist and punched Asai square in the jaw. The speed and force of the punch were incredible and caused Asai to crumble without much resistance. Right now, big ego had a terrible look on his face, clearly very angry that some had dared to tell him what to do.

"Who the hell are you, to tell me what to do? What difference does it make if I want to push around some insignificant alien?"

Asai couldn't believe what he was hearing, he had no idea that there would be people about who held these kind of racist views in this day and age.

"What difference does it make that she is an alien?" Asai asked, not able to comprehend big ego's reasoning.

"Hah? You might not have noticed but this is the super human screening." Big ego made a point of emphasising the word human in his sentence.

"So?" Asai retorted

"So aliens should go back where they came from and leave the rest of us to get on with it."

Asai could feel himself feeling with rage, he didn't know how much he could do with his level of power, but he could always use his trump card if he had to. Just as Asai was about to charge the boy down the woman who was at the door called his name.

"Can Asai Kinnosuke, Takechi Ando, Momoka Hiraga and Miya Katayanagi please make their way to the judging area please. I repeat, Can Asai Kinnosuke, Takechi Ando, Momoka Hiraga and Miya Katayanagi please make their way to the judging area please."

Looking up at the woman standing in the doorway big ego turned his back to Asai and Momoka,

"Hmm, I guess you two losers got lucky today..."

Big ego's words rang in Asai's ears as he tried to calm down. So his name was Takechi? What a jerk Asai thought. Couldn't he have gone and found someone else to irritate? However when Asai looked around the waiting room he realized that they were the last ones to be called up. He had been so absorbed in his conversation with Momoka that he hadn't realized that everyone else in the room had already been called. He went over to Momoka who was clearly shook up by what had just happened.

"Are you ok?"

Momoka looked up at him and nodded weakly, but it was clear to Asai that she was not ok. Asai just hoped that she could pull it together in time for the judging. Whilst holding these thoughts in his mind Asai stepped out once again into the main hall.