Chapter 46, We're Rivals Aren't We?

Nikami POV

After Shukona and Yasachu stared at each other for a while, Yasachu turned red and looked back at the two of us.

"W-was the cookies good?" Yasachu asked.

"Yes, it was great. The texture might be a bit rough on my tongue, but the taste itself doesn't have any problems. Perhaps too sweet for me actuall-" I started to speak a lot again.

"Y-yea- yea! It's super good!" Raijin interrupted me and she took another cookie to put in Yasachu's mouth.

"E-eh… St-strange… Shiromoru-sama talks a lot today…" Yasachu mumbled a bit, eating the cookie in her mouth.

Shukona swiftly took the bag off Raijin, stopping Yasachu in her tracks. She quickly took one and bit on it, giving it back to Yasachu.

"This… Tastes really unique and all, despite me eating a lot of sweets due to having a lot of tea parties… is it your own recipe?" Shukona asked, trying to stray away from that topic.

"Wait huh-" Before I could talk about how strange they were acting Raijin took another cookie and put it in my mouth.

"Shut up cookie." She snickered nervously.

"Stop wasting it." I grumbled, eating it anyway.

"We should probably go to class now." I looked up, then glanced at the entrance of their classroom.

"You go ahead." I turned my head towards the three.

"Errr… Th-the bell didn't ring yet right? I-I still want to talk to Shiromoru-sama more-" Yasachu spoke up, holding the bag of cookies in her arms.

"Oh, well, sure then, meet us in the cafeteria at lunch Nika. We will talk about this more later." Shukona patted me on the head before gently shoving Yasachu inside the classroom.

"Wh-wha? Wa-wait-" Yasachu tried to get back to me but was pushed by Shukona either way.

"Thank you for the pats, Shu…" I mumbled, looking down blankly at the floor.

"Well, uh, geez, you are super weird when you talk so much…" Raijin rubbed the back of her head, nervously laughing.

"I can't say you're wrong. But farewell, I'll have to go to class." I bowed down before turning towards the opposite direction, then started walking.

"I remember I found my homeroom while I was walking here." I blurted out, hearing footsteps behind me and felt my hand getting grabbed.

"Hey! Wait a sec!" Raijin called out, pulling on my hand, making me face towards her.

"What? Why did you grab my hand all of a sudden? What do you want?" I asked her, narrowing my eyes at the prince(ss).

"Sorry… It's just… Uh…" Raijin rubbed the back of her head and nervously laughed.

"Please let me go. I have to go to my homeroom." I told her, looking down at our two hands intertwined.

"Listen, I just… I'm scared you'll go away again. It's just that… This world constantly pulls us away. I… I don't want to be away from you again, after how many years we haven't seen each other. And come on! Can't you just wait for a bit? The bell hasn't rung yet… So… Stay with me for a while." Raijin explained, holding my hands more tightly.

"Wow. How emotional of you. We only have different classes, it's not like you'll never see me again. And you teased me for the same thing yesterday." I rolled my eyes.

"Listen to me, we will always see each other. We are in the same school after all, and… Besides. That girl is with you, soon enough you'll fall for her too." I looked away for a bit.

"I don't fucking care, I don't care about that right now! You really are such a fucking asshole! All I want right now is just some time with you." Raijin yelled out, gritting her teeth.

"I know I am." As I said that, the bell rang all around us. And I could see Raijin looking up and growling, her head turned down and grumbled, back to glancing at me.

"Gotdamn it…" Raijin took a deep breath, I could feel the gloves on her hand heating up. She was mad, extremely mad.

"Raijin Gakerumi." I spoke her full name, taking the gloves off her hand to hold them together.

"Wh-wha-" Raijin turned red, her hand now starting to go back to its normal temperature.

"You are my fiance, don't be scared if we won't see each other again," I spoke to her softly, looking down at our hands.

"Because, even if we were apart, remember that we will see each other again no matter what happens. And I kept thinking about you every day we were apart. As much as I hate to admit that, I was scared that you would hate me." I bit the inside of my cheek, I said another embarrassing thing.

"Damn this curse…" I mumbled, gripping her hand tighter as I slowly let it go and turned away. Now starting to walk away to my homeroom.

"He-hey wait a fucking second!" Raijin started to reach her hand towards me, putting back her gloves on.

"We will always meet. We are rivals, aren't we?" I stopped my tracks.

"..." Raijin went silent, putting her hands back to her side and nodded.

"Yea... I guess we are." Raijin nodded and rubbed the back of her head.

"We can't fight if we won't meet, so calm down, we are always going to be thinking of each other. Whether it will be rage or something else." I spoke to her, and started to walk again.

"I'll see you later, go back to your classroom. I don't want you to be late." I waved.

"Y-yea! Fine! You better not find another rival in your class! I'll seriously kick your ass if you do!" Raijin yelled back at me, turning as we both went in our way.

"I doubt that. No one in this world can make me feel excitement and irritation at the same time other than you." I mumbled, opening the door to my homeroom, and saw a familiar silver tail swinging.

"Oh! We have another classma-Huh? Nikami-sama? Woaaahh?! You're smiling?! What happened?! Who did this?! You are insanely prett-" Yuutsu grinned at me and her face glowed up as soon as she saw my smile. Wait, what smile???

I quickly shut the door, groaning in annoyance.

"I'm not smiling." I grumbled.

"Well, she is an extra, and I am an extra too… I should have seen the two of us being in the same class…" I mumbled, closing my eyes as I sighed.

"H-hey! Why did you shut the door on me?!" She forcefully opened the door and whimpered, her tail and ears fell down.

"Force of habit. Bye." I waved, getting inside the room and going past her.

"By-bye?! Just bye? Nikami-sama, please wait-"

So annoying… I wrote down on my book, sighing as I sat down on a chair away from her.

"Geez, the more you push away the more I want you to be mine you know~" Yuutsu winked at me, sitting down next to me.

"When will you just shut up, please." I rolled my eyes and groaned.

"Heeeeeeyyyy class! Please be seated! I am your homeroom teacher, pleased to meet you!" A shirtless man came in with a shirt over his shoulder, but his front was completely nude, he was waving around a piece of paper, and on his other hand a luminescent circle.

"What in the…" I blurted out, everyone around me gasped as well, what kind of careless and shameless teacher!

"Why isn't he wearing a shirt???" I asked myself, the other ladies in the room covering their own eyes or looking away with a red face.

However, that wolf beside me stared at him with shiny eyes. Her tail wagged intensely, staring at his 6 pack.

"Disgusting… I don't even get why you would like something such as manly muscles... Curves are way more prettier." I rolled my eyes, completely uninterested in this immodest man.

"Bu-but doesn't mean I'm gay or anything…" I mumbled at myself as quietly as I could.

"Oh uh, sorry, forgot bout that! Aha!" The teacher took the shirt on his shoulder and buttoned it up.

"I'm Raikurai, You can call me Kurai-sensei, as I said! I'm yer homeroom teacha." The man ran his hand through his brown hair, placing the paper and the ring on the desk at the front.

Weird accent. I wrote in my book.

"Okay, We'll do the introductions later, it's not like everyone will remember all our names right? We came here for magic, and so we shall give you that!" Raikurai huffed, tapping on the circle, grinning in confidence.

"Does anyone know what this thing is?" He asked, glancing all over at us.

"That's a Power Halo." I spoke out to him almost immediately right after, not hesitating in my words.

"Correct! What's your name?" He picked up the circle, waving it around.

"Nikami Shiromoru." I told him as the wolf beside me just peered towards me.

"Wha? How did you know that thing? Everyone is pretty clueless." Yuutsu whispered to me, pointing over at the other students behind her with her thumb.

"It's was…" I almost spoke out something, but quickly changed my thoughts.

From the game… I wrote it down.

"Nothing." I shook my head, looking back at the teacher, the circle now levitating in front of him.

"Everyone might have never heard of this before, but that is alright! Power halo's are tools used to give us information about your current magic state. It is similar to an element crystal but instead of revealing your element, it shows your skills in using said elements!" Raikurai explained, taking chalk from the table and going over to the board.

He wrote... Control, Speed, Strength, Distance, Mana, on the board.

"These are the five core skills. Control is how well you can handle your magic, Speed is how fast you can cast, Strength is how powerful you can cast, Distance is how far you can cast, and Mana is well… Self-explanatory, it is how much mana you have." He added, tapping the board with chalk.

"Well? Shall we start?" Raikurai gestured towards the levitating circle in front of him, grinning at everyone, and then laid his eyes on me.

"Why don't you come here first, Nikami?" He spoke, and right after I stood up, walking towards him.

"I wonder how much mine would be… I'm sure it has changed…" I mumbled to myself in front of him.

"Ahahahaha! No need to worry! Unlike element crystals, which we cannot change our elements, our skills can be upgraded! Now if you may, please place some mana." He laughed, pointing to the circle.

"Very well." I nodded to him, placing my right hand on the circle and the dim light quickly changed to blinding, a flash of light came there before going back to normal.

Glowing numbers and letters coiled around the circle, I blinked as I read them.

"Control 3/5, Speed 5/5, Strength 4/5, Distance 2/5, Mana 5/5." I spoke, reading the words.

"Why is my distance so low?" I blurted out, and even the teacher in front of me was surprised.

"Err, well, the more strength a person has, the lower their distance will be. Isn't it easier to burn a tree with your fingertips rather than setting it on fire without physical contact?" Raikurai chuckled nervously.

"Please elaborate." I asked.

"Well, a small lesson today…" Raikurai gave a thumbs up, and drew a stickman on the board, then drew a box outside of it.

"Everyone has an Area Of Concentration, for example, this box is your AOC. In this box, you can freely cast and it is all going to be strong." He pointed inside the box, then pointed outside the box.

"But, if it's outside your box, aka your AOC, it is a lot harder and weaker to cast. That is because mana circulates all around our body, and the stronger your mana output is, the more concentrated it would be. The closer it is to the mana source, that is you, the easier it is to cast." He explained to me again, with a grin on his face.

"But don't worry about it, we can fix this! This is why this school exists! To help all of you with your magic!" He exclaimed, trying to cheer me up.

"What about the people who have lower strength? Would they have a bigger AOC? If so, your phrase «The closer it is to the mana source, that is you, the easier it is to cast.» doesn't sound reasonable." I quoted him, asking a question about this. Still not hesitating on my words.

"Keyword on «easier», of course, it would be easier to cast near you. But people who have low mana output also have low concentrated mana, making them have a more flexible and large AOC. With that said, you are pretty blunt huh. Though you seem curious and smart for your age, you can sit down. A 19/25 is extremely impressive." He spoke to me, as I turned my back and walked over to my seat, grumbling.

"Tch. I wanted a 25/25…" I sighed, Yuutsu's ears perked up.

"It's alright! Come on, a 19/25 at your first measuring? You are very talented! I'm pretty sure I don't come close to that. I would love to have such a strong girl like you~" She winked, meanwhile, I just rolled my eyes.

"Stop it, you know it won't work on me. You really are so annoying." I glared over towards her, then back at the board. Seeing other people getting measured as well.

"Usually, 16 is the average on the first measuring." Raikurai put a scale on the board.

It said… 5-11 Poor. 12-15 below average. 16 Average. 17-21 Excellent. 22-25 Outstanding.

After that, all of the students got measured too, thankfully the wolf beside me was extremely talkative, so I had an excuse to talk back to her.

"Is that everyone? Alright! This is our first day, so let's take it easy, yea? This Power Halo may show us your skills, but it doesn't demonstrate them! How about we do a little hunt outside, so I could know what you all are capable of. Let's go in pairs… ah! The person beside you is your partner! Let's make friends!" He lifted his hands up and cheered, while I sat there and glanced over at the wolf.

"You have to be kidding me." I stared at her.

"Oya oya? We are partners! Let's hope I wouldn't hunt your heart too~"