Izuka

"Even if it's destined to be lost and disappear someday. The story is saved here without being forgotten by the world."

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The sun slowly rose on the distant horizon and slowly changed the night into a bright early morning, hopefully though. As the sky was covered by thin grey clouds. The sunlight broke through them, causing the sky to be tinted with bronze and yellow.

Beneath the sky, the streets were rapidly increasing with people walking to and fro.

Skyscrapers slowly turned their lights off and trains began to operate. Slithering on its rail to its destination. 

Casual, school uniform, office suit, and whatnot. Among these people, there was a young man in his school uniform staring at a glass window of a cafe.

"A polar bear?" He wondered to himself in surprise. He rubbed his eyes to make sure what he was seeing was an illusion but the bear was too real for it to be one.

As he gazed at a four feet polar bear holding a vacuum cleaner wearing an apron, the bear noticed his gaze and waved him with a smile as it showed its white teeth. 

He replied with the same action. The bear then moved to and fro along with the vacuum cleaner.

He decided it might be best to start walking before anyone thought that he's weird.

Probably someone in a suit, he said to himself as he walked away.

There were few people around him wearing the same uniform, walking on a sidewalk with vehicles passing them.

After a few minutes of walking, he arrived at the school gate. With hot coffee in his right hand and a bunch of donuts in a plastic bag in his free hand, he stopped as soon as he entered the school gate and surveyed the environment.

He found somewhere to sit and eat there.

Instead of walking into his class and eating there, he thought it might be perfect to sit here near the school gate.

Some students entered the gate as they talked with their friends and smiled, once in a while giggling. Some had this gloomy face and some didn't even bother to make an expression.

For instance, this young man that Ryu recently met. He walked into the school with a nonchalant face and his hands in his pocket.

His face was gentle yet has sharp eyes. A rare contradiction.

"Narukami Shinra!" He called out the name as he waved his hand. Making his presence more noticeable than the others. As he called out his name, Ryu quickly averted his gaze as soon as their eyes met.

Narukami ignored this. He walked in Ryu's way.

Other students didn't mind Ryu's stand-out presence, instead, "morning, Ryu."

"Morning."

They greeted him with a wave.

Then, the person whose name was Narukami Shinra approached him and with a smile, he said, "morning."

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Ryu sat on a long bench while Narukami stood beside him. Both watched people entering school as they chatting.

"Your eyes are like usual, so scary," Ryu said humorously as he slightly lifted the bag of donuts to him.

"Here, try some." Ryu offered with a smile and Narukami nodded.

With a rustle, he grabbed one donut and after eating it, he said, "not that I want to be born with these eyes."

Without waiting for his reply, Narukami asked, "How long have you been waiting?

After swallowing three donuts at once, Ryu answered but before he did, Narukami murmured, 'Just how large your mouth is?'

He was a bit surprised when seeing him opened his mouth to eat those donuts simultaneously.

"Just arrived, right Narukami." He put his finger one by one into his mouth. He doesn't want to let the sweetness of the donut on his fingers went waste. 

It might be better to clean it off with his mouth.

"Yeah?"

"On my way to school. I saw a polar bear cleaning a cafe with a vacuum cleaner." He then drank the hot coffee in one gulp.

He gave it to Narukami. The latter put it into a trash bin next to his right. 

"Are you sure it's not a person in a suit? People do crazy things to promote their business," he guessed calmly. 

His eyes examined each student entering the school and when he saw a person with a tired face pass him.

"Target found," he whispered. 

"I see, should I go then?" Ryu suggested.

"No need, I'll handle this."

Ryu nodded. 

This was Ryu and Narukami's routine, to observe each student if they have Foul in their body.

"I'll do it after the first break. That person's state isn't dangerous, no need to hurry." Narukami informed his plan.

The foul inside the person's body was no near the dangerous limit. Foul was often used as a mark by an Anomaly, a prey mark to be precise.

"Un," Ryu nodded.

"Why don't you sit?" He added.

"It's cold."

How can you eat comfortably with your butt in the cold?

"Cold? It feels weird hearing that from you. Anyway, It's fortunate that our winter uniform is warm." Ryu said.

The air was below ten degrees Celsius, not a minus, and quite strange if you see someone sitting on a cold bench. Normally, one would look somewhere warm or something.

Not that Narukami was going to judge, everyone was different.

Later on, the students near the gate started whispering and combining that with more than fifty students, their whispers became loud.

Such whispers were, 

"She's here!"

"The cold beauty of the school!"

"Her beauty could be compared with top idols!"

"She's going to debut as an actor in that big movie, right? How cool!"

"Seriously? She is fit as an idol!"

Hearing those words, Narukami and Ryu turned their heads simultaneously to the school gate, black iron gates that can slide to one side.

"Who's coming?" Narukami asked cluelessly.

A black, fancy car stopped by the gate and a man in a black suit opened the door on the passenger's seat.

Slender legs coming out of the car and the figure of a girl exited the car.

Black hair, sharp gaze, curvy waist, and slim. A blue flower hairpin on her right bangs.

She walked into the school nonchalantly, ignoring the eyes focusing on her.

"You don't know who she is? Right… Sorry. She's a freshman in our class, just like me, her name is Kuroda Aya."

Ryu forgot that Narukami had something to take care of for a year. That was why he didn't attend school for the whole twelve months.

Anywho, the sea of students that blocked her path was moving away as Kuroda Aya walked.

Giving her a path.

At this point, the sight made Narukami reminiscent of his past life when he cut the sea to slash an opponent that was on the other side of the continent.

"Oh…"

"You seem not impressed."

Compared to the goddesses I've met and known what they had achieved, this girl is only a speck of dust compared to them. Narukami thought to himself.

"It's amazing I guess for a girl of her age."

Ryu laughed awkwardly, "ahaha… So even the name didn't ring a bell? She was once scouted by a professional agency."