Zukiwa of Choukou High

~ Monday, the twenty-first of October, 8:22~

"Brother Kaharu? Where are you going?"

Kaharu had departed at his usual time in the morning, walking somewhat close to his normal route on his way to the train station. But he'd failed to notice that Amatsuyu crossed a certain road on his way to school that left Kaharu exposed to his viewing. Shortly after trying to hurry up his journey, he had been spotted by Amatsuyu, who approached him as quickly as he could.

Kaharu wore a frown as he continued to walk with a note in his hand, detailing the potential school sites and other odd thoughts, while ignoring Amatsuyu's question. Amatsuyu continued

"Does this have anything to do with the texts you sent yesterday? I'm really sorry, but I can't do that so quickly!"

"Kinda, but as I said, you don't really have to care. Go to school now."

Amatsuyu scratched his hair in confusion as he replied

"You do realize that saying that will just make me more curious. Even then, I can't just abandon my Overlord so suddenly. If you're skipping, then I'll follow along!"

"Overlord…?"

…

~ 9:02 ~

"Yes, I'll become a Subshrine of yours!"

The train shook for every bump it stumbled upon on its way to the written destination, Kaharu forcefully nodding every time it did. Not only did he get irritated at the subtle, forced movement of his body, but also at the line uttered by Amatsuyu. He asked slowly

"Subshrine? What the hell's that?"

Amatsuyu showed an estranged face as he peeked his face very close to Kaharu's body, making him even more annoyed. He asked

"You don't know what a subshrine is?"

"I don't, the geezer's pretty restrictive! More importantly, move your face away from me!"

A push landed Amatsuyu back to his original placing with people silently staring at their scene, which ultimately didn't bring any pressure to them whatsoever. They continued their loud talking as they occupied seating spots in the train, Amatsuyu went on to explain what it was

"My shrine basically becomes a 'subordinate' to yours, so you get all of my follower stats and such, and you can order me around when it comes to shrine matters."

Kaharu was both pleasantly surprised by the tidbit and slightly creeped out. Although his pleasure outweighed the other by a large margin, which painted a slight smile on his face as the train kept running through urban scenes where people went on with their daily activities. Mostly older people, there was barely anyone his age out walking in the streets as he looked out of the window behind him. Except for students with peculiar school uniforms and such. Kaharu had seen himself as a typical delinquent for a while, since he made his change.

But he paused as he felt a strange guilt in his heart. Being in fights and such were commonplace for him, but after having gotten into the rhythms of going to school, sitting in that adult-filled train car felt odd.

His epiphany made his senses heighten slightly, and suddenly it felt oddly hot.

But he must've been imagining it, since Amatsuyu looked completely fine. Instead of anything even slightly worrisome, he wore a smile on his face. Kaharu realized as the looked around the cart that the others seemed fine as well.

He was suddenly alone in his mounting agony.

He displayed a woozy facial expression, but he quickly regained confidence in himself as he looked down towards his school uniform, shining in its saturation like it usually did.

His escape laid there as they exited the cart, after the announcement

"Next station: Kawaburaku Station"

People lounging around the plateau he stepped onto, the city district he'd entered shimmered in the autumn sun as he stretched his shoulders, Amatsuyu creeping forth behind him. He approached a vending machine, brought up a couple of coins that made a crunchy noise in his hand as he slipped them into the machine.

He took his orange juice out of the pocket it landed, and walked back to the slightly confused Kaharu Kahari, who commented

"Orange juice? I prefer---"

"Instant coffee, right? I bought it, brother!"

"Oooooh, thanks."

Amatsuyu felt a rushing warmth as he handed the coffee, hearing those words of praise. But there was a bitter realization for him to have felt as he had stood in front of the vending machine, picking what to buy. The reason he'd figured Kaharu liked Instant coffee came from an intuition developed from the fact that there were weird similarities between his former god-complex state and Kaharu Kahari that he could draw quickly.

A grueling, uneasy feeling reached Amatsuyu's face as his brilliant smile faded to a neutral expression, Kaharu noticing it quickly. He said

"You doin' okay, Amatsuyu?"

He quickly woke up and answered with a salute

"Yessir!"

"Alright, I'm going then."

"We are!"

"Right..."

Although his face had flipped back to a faint smile, his eyes displaying the same energy, his heart was still in a bit of a craze. Like walking through a sandstorm with a compass, he knew the direction to walk in, but not the destination. He thought to himself

- It's fine, right? I mean, he was the one who defeated that god-complex-ridden state of me after all. -

They started walking towards the first school Kaharu had labeled on the note he'd been carrying around, catching occasional glances from people around them. The center of that district was bigger than Kaharu was used to, the buildings seemed to reach higher into the sky and the streets seemed to be more flourishing than the ones he was used to. He felt a subtle excitement as he wandered towards his destination, although he felt annoyance at the modernistic architecture, filled with glass, shining what felt like a spotlight onto his face occasionally as he walked.

Just outside a small shop selling cheap candy, rusty gates stood, presenting a slightly smaller school building to Akumu High School. With the label "Tsuugaku academy" staring them at the face, Kaharu entered the gates with a

"Let's see if it's this then."

...

~ Monday, the twenty-first of October, 9:43~

A student squatted down outside of the main school building as he stared towards the well-taken-care of gates in front of him. His squatting didn't make his statue any smaller as his large build, covered in a wine-red school uniform with yellow stripes that raced from one end to the other across it, could easily be seen if people walked towards the main entrance for any reason. The fact that the sign stating "Choukou High" in front of him wasn't tilted in destitute disturbed him, it seemed as though his attempts from that morning hadn't worked properly.

Watching carefully if anyone was around, he took out a lighter and a cigarette out of his packet.

*Kucchaa*

Smoke left the tip of his cigarette as he continued to squat. Although it was a mundane task he was performing, he didn't feel any boredom at all as he continued to puff on the long object. His emotions were already flaming enough to throw away any sentiment of boredom quickly.

He stood up, almost making the earth around him quake. Seeing a couple of high school girls walk by him, he called out

"Hey, girls! Wanna get some 'private lessons'?"

They didn't respond, as the anxiety and fear from seeing the guy made them hurry their walking up. The student with a wine-red school uniform chuckled to himself as he started walking towards them.

While walking, he accidentally bumped into a more shy student, holding a multi-colored pen and a notebook, who was knocked a couple of meters forward, but managed to hold onto everything.

Another student, with a normal school uniform, suddenly arrived before the student and yelled

"Zukiwa! Don't do that!"

*BAM*

The student was quickly thrown to the side as Zukiwa threw a punch at him, saying

"Shut up. You're not in any position to talk to me."

He then continued walking, saying

"Hey, ladies…!"

…