Teammates

"Sora, Sora! It is the 14th of January 2079. The sun has been up for 23 minutes, and the weather forecast says it will rain all day long! Average temperatures will be 19°C in the morning and 29°C in the early afternoon. The important events of the day are: first day of class. A message was left by Suki Fuyu, your former teacher, yesterday at 9.17 pm. BEEP : 'Hey, I forgot! Don't forget to make friends! You're not going to be alone all your life, are you? Good luck for tomorrow !'"

"Gnnaaahh!! ..."

"What a pain, when she's just a former teacher... Tsss... "

Sora got up slowly. As soon as she took off the sheet that was on top of her, she realized that her little shirt was lying on the floor. She had undressed again while she was sleeping. She sighed for a long time before turning off the alarm clock, which continued to emit increasingly high-pitched beeps.

The young Japanese girl went to her refrigerator, took out a jar of strawberry jam, and spread it on rice bread. She ate two slices of buns and a slice of smoked ham.

After breakfast, Sora prepared to go to school. She spent more time brushing her hair than anything else.

When it was time to get dressed, she realized that she had no clean clothes left, so she decided to use those from the day before.

'They're just clothes after all, and anyway, it's not as if I've been wearing them for a week, but only for a day.'

After getting dressed, she hurried out of her small flat. Although she woke up at 7.00 am, her classes started at 8.00 am, and it took her about 30 minutes walk and bus ride to get to the school, which was located at the western end of the town of Suva.

As soon as she stepped outside the building, the first raindrops fell on her immaculate face. Very quickly she rolled up her left sleeve and revealed a small white bracelet.

She tapped the bracelet very lightly three times. The bracelet quickly emitted a pale light, and in a few seconds, a fine halo surrounded Sora. This halo very quickly became invisible to the naked eye but continued to perform its function: rain was now falling on it.

It was a weak force field, capable of repelling weak interactions. It drew its strength from the heat emitted by the user's body, as well as from the surrounding particles, hence the photon emission at start-up. Then, the energy produced by the impact of the raindrops was self-sufficient to maintain the protective halo.

Protected from the rain, she resumed her journey serenely. It took her exactly twenty-eight minutes to reach Xenia.

When someone arrived in front of this school that offered training from the beginning of high school to the five years of academy that followed, for a total of eight years, the first thing that struck us was its size: in fact, the territory occupied by the school was more than 3 square kilometers.

Each person had to enter through the main gate more than twenty meters long and guarded by nearly a dozen of arcanists, otherwise, he had to confront the powerful force field surrounding the school, established by a powerful arcanist, ranked S+.

Most of the buildings were of reasonable size, while three others stood out: the first was a building nearly three hundred meters long and fifty meters wide, specially designed for the theoretical courses of the high school students, while another three times as large was reserved for the theoretical courses of the academicians and some of their training rooms. The last one was a gigantic coliseum, the incredible arena of Xenia where all the arcanists of the place fought.

Sora, on the other hand, was not the least bit intimidated by these demented architectures, and calmly crossed the gate. Ignoring the hundreds of people around her, she quickly made her way to her classroom, with classes starting only ten minutes later.

As she walked through Xenia's long corridors, she stopped in front of one of the countless doors. When she walked through it, three young teenagers and a slightly more mature woman were already in the room. She ignored them, focusing her gaze on a table and chair at the far right of the room, near the farthest window.

This was the place Sora had occupied the day before. This place was not currently occupied, and she intended to keep it as long as she could. So she did not hesitate for a second and sat down.

The people in the room stared at her briefly, before their gaze turned to the next person who came in.

A few minutes later, everyone was gathered in the room, and the Bloody Princess was about to speak, as a teacher.

"So, welcome back everyone. Today will again be a special day for all of you, because not only will you be attending your first theory class this afternoon, but you will also have a special morning. Indeed, this morning each of you will join a team. Flexibility between teams is quite low, for many of you your team has already been decided. If you want to learn more, I invite you to open the file available on your desktop."

Sora, who was casually listening to her teacher, turned her gaze towards her table. The appearance of the table was very similar to that of a glass table. A tactile hologram was projected onto it.

This was an evolution of the old technology of tactile computers. These holographic computers were simpler to use and had the same functionality. In addition, they could be attached to a piece of furniture, such as a table, desk, or even a cupboard, to have multiple functions.

Sora opened the only file on the holographic table's desk. This file was first and foremost a table of names and numbers from 1 to 5.

"Each of you will join one of these five teams of four people. I have already divided some of you into teams, according to your symbiosis and what I have learned about your personalities. It will then be up to you to recruit your last members from among those not yet distributed. Well, only three members do not have a team, and teams 2 and 5 are already complete. Once your team is full, come and see me to finalize the official documents. You will then be free to get to know each other until your next class, this afternoon, with another teacher."

Sora lingered longer on the table, looking for her first name:

TEAM 2     * CAPTAIN

Lei LIWEI*      GRAVITATIONAL ATTRACTION

Loki RAGNA      SHADOW DANCE

Sora AKANE      FLOWER PRINCESS

Lily SILLYA      OCEANID

Her eyebrows frowned slightly as she read the few words in the painting. Two of the three people on her team looked familiar.

Tss-. I've got the D+ and the guy with the shadows... I don't know the fourth one, but I hope she won't be a pain in the ass like a certain snow woman... But... What's this title?'.

Sora suddenly got up from her chair and rushed to her teacher's office.

"No, but am I dreaming? What's this title far too cute for me? I'm not a princess!"

Lorena stared at her pupil as she disembarked at full speed, and her expression quickly turned into a barely restrained burst of laughter.

"Well, I thought that looked pretty good on you! Plus you're probably the only person in the world who has this singularity, so there's no official name! I've chosen a title for you, nothing too serious!"

"No, but, what do you mean, nothing serious? It's illegal, yes! Let me change! It's up to me! I should have a far cooler name like 'The Carnivorous Flower' or 'The Bramble Demon'! Not this sugary name! "

"Are you listening to yourself? What are these moldy names? Anyway, we can't change anymore, your team is already fixed, I took the liberty of sending the team foundation declaration to the director... Too late!"

Sora frowned more and clenched her fists. Small crystal pearls flowed from her ruby-colored eyes, and her gaze was such that it seemed to be able to pierce anything.

Finally, she gave up the discussion and returned to her seat.

"Well, the princess apparently gave up..." A boy in the class whispered.

Unfortunately, it didn't escape Sora's ears. Quickly, she fixed her gaze on the young man, who was frightened by so much murderous intent in one gaze. However, this only amused the rest of the class even more.

"Haha, she's really a princess: beautiful, unapproachable, and above all, a real tigress!"

" " Hahaha " "

Most of the boys and some of the girls laughed.

"It's incredible, in less than a day we found the princess of the class. Hey, do you know what group she's in?"

Sora decided to ignore them and sat down in her chair again. Sitting down, she couldn't stop herself from sighing for a long time. Eller closed her eyes and calmed down.

"Uh, you know, I think this title suits you quite well."

"Khh, sorry?"

Sora clenched her fists again and decided to look badly at her comrade who had just challenged her. The second she looked at her, however, she was incredibly startled: this girl was absolutely beautiful, even more than herself or her former teacher.

Her physique was simple, but it was precisely this astonishing simplicity coupled with her incredible natural beauty that made her look so much like a goddess. Her face was absolutely perfect, her hair a blonde rarely seen in this part of the world, and her eyes looking like the most perfect aquamarines, everything about her was capable of charming any human being. Her gaze was sweet and devoid of malice. Her skin seemed so soft that she only seemed to ask to be caressed.

Sora, destabilized, saw all her hostility disappear instantly. Instead, her cheeks reddened slightly.

"Who... Who are you?"

On hearing this question the girl, who was sitting on the table just opposite Sora, opened her eyes:

"Oh, excuse me, that was quite rude from me. My name is Lily Sillya, I am a member of your team."

Sora quickly came to her senses and replied:

"Tss- To be called a princess by someone like you is a bit of an upside-down world."

Once again, Lily opened her eyes. This reaction almost always made Sora laugh because it made her look cute.

"But... How do you know I'm a princess? Oops, I shouldn't have said that!"

"What do you mean, you're a real princ... "

Hearing Sora's words, Lily hastened to block the movements of her comrade's mouth with both hands.

"No please forget what you just heard! In fact, don't! You must have just heard wrong! After all, what would a princess be doing in such a place after all?"

"Hahaha"

A young man's laughter could be heard in the background. Sora took Lily's hands out of her mouth and turned to the young man on her right.

"Indeed, Lily is a princess." he said. "The last princess in the kingdom of France! That makes her prestigious, doesn't it? Hahaha."

"Who are you?"

"I am Loki Ragna, nice to meet you, I am one of your team members. I was one of the last three people yesterday to achieve their symbiosis, with you. Unfortunately, you probably didn't notice me, you were so concentrated."

"Nice to meet you, so you and Lily know each other?"

"Indeed, I'm the son of a german bodyguard, so I've already met her a few times."

"HEY! Loki, who permitted you to talk about me like that without permission? No, it's not going to be okay to tell truths about girls your age like that!"

So Lily began to hammer Loki with small blows.

"Hey, you guys look like you're having a lot of fun here!"

"Oh, a newcomer! "cried Lily.

Sora immediately recognized the person who had come to join their small group.

"It's you! "she said, pointing at her.

"How we meet again, princess!"

By reflex, Sora instantly grabbed her by the collar.

"Repeat that once and I'll have some fun punching you !"

"Hahaha"

Instead of panicking or defending herself, Lei's reflex was to laugh.

"OK, I'm sorry, I'll call you Sora, is that OK?"

"That's better. Tell me. I've got a question for you. By any chance aren't you a swordswoman?"

"Yes, indeed, how do you know? »

"Nothing, you just remind me of some people who also wield the sword. »

"Good. What should we do now that we are together?" Lily asked.

"As captain, I propose that we should introduce ourselves in a more detailed way." replied Lei.

"I prefer to train personally, especially since we can introduce ourselves while we train."

Loki laughed again:

"So our princess wants to become stronger?"

Sora didn't have the strength to get angry again, this time she made up her mind.

"I'll be waiting for you at the training ground."

"But you don't even know how to train! "said Loki.

"I'll improvise!"

Thus went Sora.

"She is gone." Assured Lily.

"We let her go like that? "Asked Lei.

"Shouldn't we join her?" retorted Lily.

"Let's join her. "Suggested Loki.

"She's right anyway. We must become stronger. So we might as well start now. " Confessed Lei.