Celebration/Good Times

The atmosphere quickly lightened while everyone was having fun and talking about various things and cracking jokes to make the others laugh, while I just decided to take a glass of wine that I had 'found' and sample its contents in the corner on the far side of the room, away from everyone else. I had also noticed that the lightning mage Verm was also skipping the festive atmosphere, much like me and Kyrm. Verm noticed my momentary gaze and began walking over towards me, a similar glass in hand.

"It is your birthday, so why are you not joining the festivities?" Verm cocked his head to the side, a confused look on his face.

"I'll get to it later, right now I'm relaxing as much as I can before I have to be peppered with questions." I responded, taking another sip of my wine.

"So you are afraid of talking to them, or is it that you are socially awkward?" He asked, with his confused expression becoming more pronounced as he pondered his own question. It's scary how much this dude got from me saying a simple, normal sentence. Well for me it is.

"Yeah, yeah. Say what you like man." I gulped down the contents of my glass and began to walk over towards Adam, Senaris, Rin, and Saya who were having a presumably lighthearted conversation, however when I got close they immediately stopped talking while Adam gave me an approving nod and a wink, Senaris just stared at me like usual, and the duo of Saya and Rin had a subtle blush touch their cheeks as they adverted their gazes.

"You'll have to excuse me, I need to use the restroom." Adam gave and exaggerated bow before walking past me and patting my back, leaving me with the three girls.

"So, what were you all talking about? It seemed like you were having a good time." I asked while trying to spot another bottle of wine. Surprisingly, I figured out that I couldn't get intoxicated during a time when Jayne had brought a 'few' bottles of expensive alcohol to drink after a session of training. Senaris spoke in her usual, emotion deprived voice "They were talking about how they thought you looked cool when you were fighting the instructor earlier." Saya and Rin had steam practically exploding from their head as they cursed Senaris for being a traitor.

"Pffff, haha! So I looked cool huh?" I mused while thinking back to when I saw everyone's faces light up when I used the energy from the insignia.

"Yeah! You were like, really badass!" Saya said slightly louder than I guess she wanted too, as Adam had bursted into a boisterous laughter, causing Saya to fall silent.

A soft smile spread across my face as I said "Thank you, Saya." In an unusually kind voice. Saya's face lit up in a spectacular smile as she laughed slightly.

"Alright you rock-brained flirt animal," Kabuto grabbed me by my shoulders and pushed me towards the dining table "get your ass in your seat! It's party time!" Damnit, why does he have to be so embarrassing...

So here I was with a cone shaped hat on me head, a fork in my right hand, and a napkin around my neck. I look fucking ridiculous. Everyone sang some kind of birthday tune before Kabuto tried to slam my face into the cake, but thankfully he's weak so I didn't budge. Other then that, the rest of the time was actually quite enjoyable, especially when Kabuto took a few gulps of wine and got knocked out. That was pretty damn funny in itself.

Adam and I had a few good conversations and we hit it off quite well after we got to know each other while having a few glasses of wine and some cake. I mean hell, even Kyrm came down for a drink or two, and he's actually kind of tolerable when he has alcohol in him.

The night passed by relatively quickly and before we knew it, it was already first light. Soon after I had gotten dressed there was a knock on the door, and after I opened it I saw that it was the Headmaster. I invited her in and she informed me that we would have today off in preparation for a special kind of 'class' that we would be taking the next day. At the time I didn't give a single damn because I had time to sleep! After telling everyone the news I fell on to my bed like a wet noodle and quickly snoozed off.

However, I was only afforded about an hour of sleep before a rather loud knocking woke me from my blissful relaxation. I grumbled as I practically wobbled to the door, only to open it and find a rosy faced Senaris. That was enough to snap me out of my tired mood, as she looked almost ethereal when she had a change of expression.

"I've been told that you wanna party, ahehehe. Wooooo I feel good!" She was struggling to stand straight and slurring her words quite a bit. Now I understand why she's acting completely different. I bet Kabuto or Adam is up to this.

"Haaaa...look, Senaris I think you should go lay down. You don't want to embarrass yourself now do you?" I gently put my hand on her shoulder and guided her back to her room while dodging all of her attempts at grabbing my arm or my body. Cheeky bastard. When I finally got Senaris to lay down I was, sadly, wide awake so I did what a reasonable person would do. Grab a bit of wine and watch the sunrise.

I was able to easily vault up to the roof and find a comfortable perch as I sat and watched the various people walk out from their residence and start their day while the sun was still rising. It was honestly very refreshing to sit in the warmth of the sun with a nice, cool breeze flowing through the academy grounds. Just as I had expected, I heard two sets of footsteps down below before they fell silent and reappeared behind me, accompanied by two voices.

"Drinking so early? What the hell Yuu..."

"Ahaha, go easy on the guy. It was just his birthday y'know!" Adam had his arms crossed with a big smile across his face while Kabuto had his hand in his pocket and the other pushing up his glasses.

"Care to join me fellas?" I asked while swishing around the contents of my glass, but it seemed that Adam was far ahead of me as his smile grew even larger before he revealed a bottle of potent alcohol known as 'Rejuvenator', a type of alcohol that is supposedly more potent than a stamina potion. With a hearty laugh I gulped down the rest of my wine and filled my glass to the brim with the alcohol and enjoyed the throat burning liquid alongside two of my comrades...no, my friends.

The minutes passed by rather slowly as we enjoyed the pleasant feeling of the cold breeze and warm sun together. These minutes slowly turned into an hour and Adam and I decided to head back down since Kabuto had gotten tipsy rather quickly. As we walked into in the door with Kabuto in tow we came across the sleepy duo of Saya and Senaris, both of which had very prominent blushes on their faces as they hurried along before I could even greet them. Adam shook his head with a small smile as we continued to half drag our fellow friend over to his room, mainly because he had little sleep so we were trying to do him a favor.

After we got Kabuto settled in Adam looked at me and pat my shoulder, saying "Hey, do you wanna go and mess with Saya and Senaris? They seemed pretty on edge after you know what." in a quiet tone before winking at me.

"No, no I don't think that would be too good of an idea anyways." Even though I had a big smile on my face, I found myself shaking my head in exasperation at my new friends mischievousness. Adam had left me to my own devices after saying that he wanted to catch up on some sleep himself, so now I was doing something I wouldn't expect that I would have missed so much. Training.

I never stopped while in the wide expanse of flat terrain. I was a flurry of movements, each slight twist and turn further increasing my potency in battle. The wind whistled around me as I moved faster than most people would be able to follow, that is unless they're a better fighter than me...

Anyways, by the time I was beginning to feel a little tired I noticed that it was almost the afternoon and literally everyone, even Elaris, was standing off to the side with wide eyes. I walked over to them with a casual wave and smile. "Hey guys, didn't notice you there, ahahaha..." Kabuto was the first to speak, saying "Damn, I've watched you train before...but this was just, this was on a different level..."

"I can help you guys get to that level of expertise if you really want to." I said with a shrug. Wait why the hell did I just say that!?

"Really???" My ears were bombarded with questions as almost everyone had immediately wanted to know my 'secrets' on training my body and my seemingly limitless stamina. Thankfully I have amazing people who know when it's getting a little 'stuffy' for me. Adam, Lyra, and Kabuto eventually herded everyone away while promising to make a schedule for future training sessions. I was watching everyone walk back inside while talking excitedly when I noticed how hungry I was. I think they heard my stomach growling because Lyra had turned her head and started to laugh before grabbing Senaris and Kabuto and skipping away to what I assumed, or hoped, was the kitchen, and I was right! About 20 minutes later my nose was greeted by the sweet smell of food, a delicious looking piece of fried meat made my mouth water profusely.

We all sat down and I began to demolish the food out on the table, leaving no one able to grab seconds. I was actually just as surprised at how much I ate, because usually I'm a very light eater. Maybe it was because of the training? Oh well.

"Damn, not only are you freakishly strong, handsome, have almost infinite stamina, but you're also a glutton? How cliché." Adam shook his head with a wry smile, causing everyone to chuckle slightly, even the expressionless Senaris had a small smile on her face. It's amazing how such simple words can get a massively positive outcome. And that fact really amazed me at the time considering this was my first time experiencing a lot of things. But at that moment I had realized something, this place seemed warmer with everyone gathered and laughing with each other...

"Hey, Yuuki. What do you think that training is that Headmaster told you about?" Saya had her hand raised like she was in class with a smile still adorning her lips.

"Actually, I don't know. But I do have a feeling that it has to do with the whole 'We're training you to kill Demons' sort of thing." I said while continuing to eat my food. I noticed that the whole room had gone quiet, most likely at the mention of the Demons and their threat still fresh on their minds. "Pff, don't worry about it guys. I promise that I'll do what I can to help each and every one of you during the war, if it even comes." I said with wink. Surprisingly, everyone adopted a warmer expression before Kabuto said "Now that's more like it! Finally I can see you enjoying life and being nice Yuu!" ruining the mood...