5 Chapter 0: Another Day in Neverland (4)

Shogo Kuroiwa was having a fine morning.

Just now, he was phoning a friend of his to tell him about how he managed to get himself the nicest cold drink ever. He had been in Moonshine, the most famous coffee shop in the city, a coffee shop that served Pontemus exclusive beverages of all kinds. It was a great franchise that had many locations throughout Neverland. But the best always came from the original, that was what Shogo thought — he didn't have average taste in coffee after all.

From the first time he walked into a coffee shop with his father, he developed a unique taste for coffee, even went as far as to write down in a notebook about all kinds of coffee beans he found. By the time he was eighteen-years-old, he had already tasted and had his own collection of all the world's coffee beans. Being a collector like that made his old man, who himself was a coffee fanatic, very proud.

Most recently, however, he began to favor the taste of iced coffee. It was a new territory he never explored yet seemed very familiar with. Shogo's life goal was to explore the wonderful world of coffee with all its different shapes and tastes.

Moonshine, although it was a coffee shop, specialized in cold beverages and iced coffee, so Shogo was sure he was bound to find something new within.

The sweet aroma surrounding the place; the chill music calmly seeping through the walls; the people snapping pictures of their drinks at their tables. It all captivated him enough to make him want to buy their entire menu. But like any person, he had restraints. He had to be logical about his new purchase decision. Purchasing a bad drink wasn't anything new for a collector like him, but he wanted this time to be something special and good.

Everyone who walked through that shop ordered the same kind of drink they always get and walked out in the same amount of time they always spend — the common cases of the habitual syndrome. Shogo wasn't like that, however. He took his sweet time to pick just one drink, completely disregarding the "queuing theory."

"Does he need help? I don't think he can see anything."

Among those irritated in the line behind him, there were those concerned for his well-being, thinking he was just blind and needed help. That was due to the fact that he was sporting shades wherever he went. However, his sight was in perfect condition, those shades were just a preference of his.

But, at last, after he was on the verge of being kicked out, he narrowed down his choices between a Chocolate Crunch or Mango Jelly.

"Uh, do you need help?" Two girls, who happened to be directly behind him in the line, walked up to him.

"Do I, I wonder?" He rubbed his chin while in thought, then pointed at the Mango Jelly "You see, this one seems to be interesting, but from that little description over there, I feel like I've had it before. And that other one… well, I have no idea what'll be like. I do want something new…" He sighed, "I don't know, the choices are too hard."

The two girls were genuinely dumbfounded by the guy. They grew suspicious of him. Was he pretending to act like he was in a crisis to attract someone like them? Perhaps he was just a guy trying to pick up girls. One of them thought so, she had encountered many guys to recognize this formula within him. But the other girl was already enchanted by his pretty face, even if his eyes were covered.

And why wouldn't she?

Shogo wore a bright and innocent smile on his face; a smile that was cute in the girl's eyes. Other than his million-dollar smile, he was quite the tall man, possibly the tallest one in the place at the time. His beige-colored hair wasn't a complete mess, it was still tidy enough to make him look decent. Even with his plain black overcoat, which made him look similar to those quiet serial killers in movies, he still looked dazzling, and absolutely charming to the girl.

"Can I have your number?" The girl blurted.

"What?!!!!" The other girl turned her head in surprise, before silently kicking her with her elbow.

"I-I mean, you can just buy the new one, then. I-If that's… that's what you want, I mean…"

"Right!" Shogo snapped his fingers, "Why didn't I think of that? Thank you!" He swiftly held the girl's hand before bowing slightly to thank her.

The girl was speechless, glancing away from Shogo's direction.

He ended up buying the Chocolate Crunch as intended. Following that decision, a loud exhale came from the line behind him, they were relieved that he was finally done.

"Hmm," he took a sip out of the drink, "It is good! That's very, very good. Wow, I'm impressed. Thanks for the recommendation!"

The girl still had no words to speak with, she was lost in her own world.

Instead of asking the girls to hang out together, Shogo simply waved at them and walked out, happy with his drink like a child who just received their Christmas present.

Both girls were surprised. One couldn't believe that that guy really just wanted a drink and leave, and the other was disappointed that her charming prince had left.

"Wait— T-That's it?!!"

No one understood what went through Shogo Kuroiwa's mind.

※※※

Twenty minutes after walking out of Moonshine, Shogo, still with the drink mostly full and cold in his hand, found himself in Clockwork Town. He wasn't the type to just drink something and be done with it just like that, he was the type to taste and take a while to digest that taste. Every sip tasted different that way. Of course, being totally engrossed in his iced coffee, that oblivious young man knew absolutely nothing about the evacuation. He managed to slip by as the authorities were setting up the barrier. Even with that, the empty streets weren't enough to detract his attention from his wonderful drink.

Once again, he breathed in the cold scent, enveloped in chocolate, emanating from the cold coffee. It was still Autumn, so it wasn't yet cold enough for him not to be able to distinguish the air from the scent of his drink. As he crossed the street, he felt a jolt of caffeine surging into his throat, mixed in with the ice-cold taste of chocolate. There was no feeling better than this.

But that feeling wasn't going to last much longer.

Fate worked in mysterious ways, and it had Shogo happen to be in the same street as the rampaging creature within Clockwork town. It ran at breakneck speed, tearing down everything in its way. Yet he remained heedless to it, passing the crosswalk with ease. He was right in the middle of the street. If the flying bricks and stones and the falling buildings around him didn't kill him, then the dragooun kicking or stepping on him surely would.

"Watch out!"

A voice called out from the distance. It was then that he finally awoke from his trance. However, it was already too late. Running away wasn't going to do any good. The distance between him and the enormous creature was closing in faster than an average person's reflex.

*BAM*

The blast from the two clashing blew almost everything in less than a second. Buildings that were still somewhat standing became nothing but mere rubbles.

Shogo Kuroiwa wasn't having a fine morning.

※※※

Nathan, who tried to warn Shogo earlier, was caught in the crash as well. When he came to, he was stuck in the debris below ground. There was nothing to see. Everything was foggy as the dust enveloped the environment. Nathan wasn't sure if he had lost his ability to hear from the blast or if everything became quiet all of sudden. The dragooun's roar was gone. Its rumbling steps had no effect anymore.

Was the storm finally over?

To escape from all this dust, Nathan used the ruins around him to elevate over these clouds of dirt. Even from above, he couldn't see anything down at the street. He looked around the other blocks, the dragooun was nowhere to be found. It was as if everything, all the rampage, came to a halt at that very crosswalk.

"What happened?"

Right behind him came Juno on the back of her owl. After witnessing the blast from afar, she feared that something might have happened to Nathan. But aside from a few scratches here and there, he was fine.

Juno couldn't wait for an answer — Nathan was in a world of his own from the shock. Thoughts of the dragooun's whereabouts didn't cross her mind at all. All she wanted to know was the source of that blast. She quickly aimed her pen at the clouds of dust below, before writing a spell of her own.

When she finished, the dust began to clear.

Nathan's anxiety skyrocketed in those few seconds. The tension of what lied ahead affected Juno as well. From Nathan's soulless expression, she assumed the worst, that a catastrophe had happened.

As the dust cleared, the result before them wasn't that shocking.

Shogo was still standing.

With the drink in his hand and the wry smile still plastered on his face, Shogo was standing and the dragooun lied on the ground, knocked out from the blast.

No, Juno and Nathan weren't hallucinating. The image before them was as clear as day and as true as every fact that ever existed.

But it all made sense. There was nothing in this world that could stop an unstoppable force than an immovable object. And that was Shogo.

It wasn't all out of nothing, however.

Right in front of him, glowing as bright as a neon sign, was a Japanese symbol, floating there in the air. That symbol was the catalyst for the blast. A powerful protective aura that protected the user's surroundings, that was what the symbol did, the symbol that stood for "Shield," the character that was one of many belonging to the Art of Gen-Kotaba, the Japanese style of writing.

Shogo Kuroiwa was an author.

[STUDENT FILE #18157]

Full Name: Shogo Kuroiwa

Age: 18 years old

Birthdate: June 9

Gender: Male

Height: 189cm

Literary Element: Art of Gen-Kotaba

Rank: 3rd Year Elite Student (Luxsworth Academy)

Note: Leader of Team A10

[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]

[Literary Technique Activated: Shield]

This technique of his had created an invisible wall. That wall, coupled with the dragooun's impact, resulted in the blast from earlier.

"Right then," he spoke in his usual friendly tune, while flipping his pen through his fingers, "Pretty rude of you to slam into me, little guy. I could've dropped my chocolate crunch."

Even after realizing the situation, Shogo still stood there in the middle of debris, talking to the unconscious dragooun, the very same dangerous dragooun that could potentially wake up at any minute.

Nathan and Juno both looked at each other in disbelief, before descending down to get to a closer level to Shogo. He was their aforementioned leader who had gone off somewhere without even discussing the details of the plan with them.

Starting from first grade, students in the academy were required to form or join teams, it didn't matter if they were of the same grade or not. These teams contribute to extracurricular activities such as field missions to receive scores and coins. Scores, different from test grades, graded each individual student based on their skills and contributions in field missions, which determine their ranks after graduation. Of course, depending on how well a student performed in their mission, they also got rewarded in the form of coins, in other words, money. Everyone preferred these field missions, even if they were more or less a cheap public service so to speak, as they learned actual experience in the society instead of just learning from books.

Right now, both Nathan's and Juno's scores weren't looking too good. If that dragooun wasn't properly secured soon enough, they were going to worry about much more troubling matters than losing scores.

"Oh hey!" Shogo noticed them and waved, "Have you tried the Chocolate Crunch? I thought it was going to taste weird, or perhaps like Hot Chocolate. It's got a blend of chocolate sauce — plenty of chocolate sauce, really — crushed biscotti, cacao nibs-"

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Nathan shouted "I'm out here losing my breakfast, trying to contain a rampaging monster because someone forgot to discipline her owl and you're sipping coffee like you didn't just nuke the neighborhood!"

Shogo was left speechless looking at Nathan. "Iced coffee."

As he went on rambling about his obsession, the dragooun regained its consciousness. It wasn't hard to notice it slowly get back on its feet.

Nathan and Juno quickly backed away, but Shogo was as oblivious as ever — that was what a normal person would think.

However, nothing gets past Shogo.

"I won't deny, though," he glanced at his drink, checking it from all angles, "It does taste quite familiar in some aspects."

Not only was the dragooun up and ready for action, but Shogo's shield was starting to wear off. His concentration was elsewhere after all, so its power started to deteriorate on its own. The dragooun breathed out audibly and stared Shogo down like a bull preparing to dive head-first into its target. It was no mystery that the giant creature was tempted by him, a mere human, the size of an insect to it, who managed to hold it off without effort. But it wasn't smart to that extent, it was more so angered by the impact that knocked it out.

"Can't you whip something out to take it out?" Nathan asked Juno.

"Scripts against dragons require them to meet the conditions depending on their elemental capabilities," Juno answered, maintaining her cold composure.

— Back to your usual facade, huh.

Nathan thought. "We already know what it is. Didn't you see the ice shield?"

"Yeah, I know, I'm working on it."

It was true. As she conversed with Nathan, she was scoping the pages of her book for elemental scripts. There were many scripts that dealt with the ice element, and there were even more that dealt with each type of elemental dragon. Juno still had a doubt in her mind that any of these scripts would work, she was dealing with a hybrid of a Paragon-Grade threat for the first time. Yes, she might have read about it before, but that was all it was for her then, a bunch of incomplete text in a book. Now, it was a full-fledged creature with a roar enough to drop the birds in the sky dead.

And just when she thought she found the right spell, the dragooun pulled another trick it had under its wings.

"Oh right!" Shogo exclaimed, "You should try the Goma back at my home—"

Smoke came out of the dragooun's nose. Not too long after, its neck started throbbing from bottom to top until it reached its mouth. In an instant, a channel of flames engulfed the street ahead in all its entirety.

It was a staggering surprise. Juno was in disbelief.

The dragooun possessed not only two elemental sources but ones that were in contrast to one another. Normally, if this could be called "normal," a dragon would die if it possessed two such elements, but no dragon in the world ever had more than one element.

"Ah man, the ice is melting." Shogo, who was now standing (still with his drink in hand) on top of the debris beside Nathan, commented. Knowing him, it was a breeze to dodge the flames in that instant. "He's really short-tempered, huh."

Done with its attack, the dragooun quickly returned back to its rampage.

The three students did nothing to stop it.

Both Nathan and Juno were now sure that they couldn't terminate that creature, it was of the rarest and strangest kind. A hybrid dragon that can not only shift its size but bend elements of opposite nature at will? That was going to make headlines in the newspaper soon — so long as they had that creature contained.

"(So, how's that date going?)" Shogo, who was in another world to himself, whispered to Nathan.

"W-What?" Nathan narrowed his eyes. Sweat began to form around his face.

Shogo glanced over to Juno, who was engrossed in her book effortlessly looking for a solution to stop that creature of unknown nature. He chuckled.

"Will you knock it off? It's really not the time." Nathan regained his composure, "Are you gonna help us, or do you still need your caffeine fix?"

Shogo was a very skilled author, even for his age. Despite his laid-back and seemingly careless personality, his on-the-field skills were enough to secure him a spot among the elites within the academy. He was a walking contradiction. His appearance, which consisted of all black clothes: black shades, raincoat, pants, and shoes. They all fed into his non-existent bad-tempered personality and presented him as non-approachable when in-fact, he was the nicest guy a person could ever meet. However, the contradictions didn't stop there, as some would call him "the most reliable unreliable guy." All of this would guarantee him the fame that he never wanted or cared for.

One thing that was a fact: Shogo Kuroiwa was one of the strongest authors to ever exist.

"I can do anything, my friend — the impossible even. So if I do anything, would I really be doing anything?"

Nathan cocked his head and sighed, Shogo's words were as strange as ever. "Don't try to justify your laziness with some bullshit philosophy."

"It's not, really. More of a life code, if you really look into it."

"I think I got it…," Juno called out to them, breaking off their conversation. She jumped off her owl and onto the debris to show the two what she had uncovered in her book, "From what we know, this dragooun can use both ice and fire, which is unprecedented for a creature of this type. Since the corresponding elemental scripts are unlikely to work against it when it counters them with another, I thought we had run out of options to conceal it. But then I remembered one element that works against both…"

"Metal?!" Shogo sipped the last of his drink, making an irritating sound.

"No…," she gave him a look of dismay, "It's Earth…"

"(Ouch… almost close, though.)"

She opened back her book and presented it to them, "Earth can break through ice and put out fire. It's the perfect counter to this combination. Thing is… I'm not particularly sure Earth spells can hold down the dragooun."

"Then what do we do?" Nathan asked.

"I could use a summoning circle, and utilize the power of Earth through a spirit. But we'll need to corner the dragooun, hold it in its place. Activating the chant takes a while — especially after the Vishnu chant almost knocked me out."

"Leave it to us, then," Shogo shook his drink.

"Oh, so you're actually going to help?" Nathan wondered.

"I'll just make sure it doesn't run off."

"Whatever you do, do it fast!" Juno exclaimed, "We need to move, and contact the others. It's now or never."

Juno called for her owl and hopped on top of it. Nathan once again used the debris below him as a way to traverse. This time, Shogo accompanied him. The three hurried off to chase after the dragooun.

If everyone in the team played their cards right, then their success was guaranteed. Zoe was a non-combatant, all she was good for was providing intel and the "pages" that the others needed. Emiya had already more than enough to hold herself against the dragooun with her skill. Nathan just needed to use his old tricks once again to distract the dragooun and he would be all set. Keeping the dragooun at bay was going to be a breeze for Shogo, so there was no worry on his part. All their efforts combined should leave Juno to deliver the final blow and contain that beast.

However, there still remained a missing member.

"Does anyone know where Lloyd is yet?" Juno realized.

"That idiot stayed up all night watching movies again, I doubt he'd be any help now," Nathan answered. Despite his different personality from Lloyd, he was a very close friend to him, and he understood him better than anyone on the team. If you wanted something done, never rely on Lloyd. That was what Nathan believed.

"So he's really keen on getting suspended, I see," Juno expressed her disappointment.

"Oh, he's coming, don't worry about that," Shogo cheerfully responded, "I just got off the phone with him — already filled him in on what's going on. He's on his way."

"He better be," Nathan said.

"Well, if he's not… He and I are going to have a very serious talk."

Even though Shogo still maintained his uplifting tone, the words he spouted had this threatening aura surrounding them.

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