Chapter 8: First Classes, Part One

Once again, Rin got barely any sleep that night, but for a different reason.

Whereas before it had been because she was just too excited, this time it was because the faceless object of her fantasies for the last couple of years was snoring peacefully just a bed's distance away from her.

All sorts of questions were assaulting her mind.

[Did she check my backpack? No no. There's no reason she'd do that. My tattoo shouldn't show either unless something triggers it, but I doubt anything will. Does she remember who I am? No, no, I had my disguise on that day. But, does she think I'm weird? Does she think I'm pathetic because I got my ass handed to me by that Seth dude?]

As frozen as she was on her bed, her body was on fire with embarrassment.

She put her pillow over her mouth and gave a muffled scream as suddenly, she noticed it was almost daytime. [Oh, no. Fuck, fuck. I didn't get any sleep!]

As much as she wanted the sun to take a break, the morning inevitably came. Elisa got up and without a word, she opened a bag and pulled out some leather armor and a towel. Rin tried her best not to act like a creep until Elisa walked out of the room.

[Fuck.] She thought. [This might be a real issue. No, no,] she shook her head. [Just control yourself. Easy. Just relax.]

After a while, once Rin guessed that Elisa wasn't at the showers anymore, she decided that it was her turn. So, swallowing her pride, she got up and went to the bathrooms.

However, as she drew closer and the sounds from within became clearer, she promptly realized something. There were sounds in there that she recognized. Sounds she'd made and heard for years now.

"Oh, oh fuck!" A woman whose voice she recognized was moaning behind the door. Rin froze on the spot.

Rin, of course, was well-acquainted with sex. And, everyone at this academy was, to her knowledge, an adult, so she wasn't too surprised to have something like this happen. It took a lot more than just hearing the casual sounds of the act to get her embarrassed.

The problem was that the sounds she was hearing seemed to be coming from Elisa herself.

So, Rin remained outside. She put her backpack next to her, put her back against the wall, and crouched.

[I'm... Uh... Just going to wait it out.] She thought, looking out the window ahead of her, up at the blue sky. As the sounds continued, she crawled away. [Maybe not that close.]

Ten minutes later, the door opened. Rin had expected to see Elisa exiting, but no. It was Seth. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and didn't even notice Rin as he nonchalantly moved to the other showers, behind the door marked "M".

Rin sighed. She took her backpack and walked into the showers. Sure enough, Elisa was standing there, getting dressed in the leather armor she had brought in.

Rin didn't say anything. She felt awkward enough. She tried to walk past, but Elisa spoke up.

"Oh, sorry, you heard that?" She asked. She didn't look too embarrassed at all though.

"Uh... Mhm." Rin nodded.

"... Ouch," she said, but the blonde then gave a somewhat hearty laugh and said, "sorry. I didn't think you'd be up yet. Then again, anybody could have been up right now. Sorry, yeah, that was stupid of me."

"No worries," Rin stated, "you uh, gotta do what you gotta do sometimes..." she added, walking into the showers. She saw Elisa raise a brow from a mirror's reflection and as Rin turned the water on and waited for it to heat up, the blonde said:

"You're taking this pretty well."

"Am I?" Rin asked.

"Eh, most people in Libera would have been screaming for the Divine by now." Another silky chuckle came out of Elisa and Rin went to reply.

"I'm not..." Whoa. No. She had nearly said "I'm not from Libera", but at the last second, she decided the less Elisa knew about her the better. The less anyone knew about her past, the better, however, in this case, this woman had been a prominent feature of her dreams for so long, the last thing Rin wanted was for her to connect her to who she used to be. So, she continued by saying, "I'm not like most people."

[I'm way gayer, for one.]

"I can tell," Elisa said. "Well, better hurry up. It's almost time for class."

"Yeah, I'll be out in a bit."

"Later then."

And as Elisa finished putting on her clothes, Rin was left alone.

In truth, what she'd just witnessed didn't make her feel too much. Just... Some slight disappointment and a bit of annoyance at seeing how casually Seth seemed to regard what he'd just done. Rin had only done it once with this woman and she could still remember how breathless she was after it. Seth, on the other hand, walked out with the nonchalance of someone who had just taken a piss.

But, none of that was her business. So, she took her shower and walked out a little while later.

When she reached the third floor, there was no one inside or outside the classroom her fellow students were supposed to be in though.

Instead, most of them were standing by a window, with their teacher by their side. Harriton Concord, their Essence teacher, had his elbows on the window frame and was looking down at something outside, with an analytical expression on his face. When he heard Rin approaching, he nodded hello and beckoned her over. Eve saw her coming and flew over to her.

"You nearly missed it!" Eve declared.

"Missed what?"

"The match."

Rin took up a spot near another window and glanced out. [What the hell's going on there?]

Maria Camille, the school's Combat Tactics and Dueling teacher, was standing around thirty feet away from Eli, the Physical Conditioning teacher. Maria was empty-handed, with her hands clutched behind her back while Eli had his ax out.

"What are they doing?" Rin asked.

"Eli is challenging Maria for her S rank." It was Harriton, the teacher, who answered. "They wanted to get it out of the way before the semester started."

"That's something you can do?" Alea Marina, that cocky-looking girl from before asked.

Harriton was watching the two of them closely. They were just standing there, opposite each other, and yet Harriton was acting like something could happen any moment now. The only other person watching this with anything close to the same amount of intrigue was the pale boy Dylan, whose crimson irises were fully focused on the schoolyard.

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[Actually...] Rin squinted, as she looked at him more closely. [Are his eyes... Glowing?]

Before she could find the answer to that question, the teacher continued.

"Yes," He explained. "To climb the ranks as an adventurer, one does missions, gets paid, and makes a name for themselves. As I'm sure most of you know, the ranks are divided as follows, from D, which is the worst, to C, B, A, and then S. However, the S rank is unique. See, there are only two ways to become Rank S." He smirked. "One is to kill a Rank S creature. Any at all will do. The other is to challenge and defeat a Rank S adventurer. If you try the latter and you win, the Rank S adventurer loses their rank, and you gain it."

Rin looked back at the two teachers standing on the academy's lawn. It was easy to forget that Maria was Rank S. She was almost shorter than Rin herself and she wore no armor. She was dressed like Rin's mom would dress on lazy Sundays.

Plus, unlike Cara, Seth, and Elisa whose bodies could speak for themselves, Maria appeared skinny, scrawny even.

"She's gonna get killed," Seth muttered.

Harriton burst out in laughter. It was one of those ramp-up laughs, where the more it went on the stronger it got. Everyone turned to him, confused. Wiping a tear away, he looked back at the schoolyard with a smile.

"You wanna know something?" Harriton asked.

"Yeah? What?" Seth replied.

"Maria was given the rank of S four years ago and she's held it ever since, even though men and women from all over the world have tried to challenge her. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because when it comes to fighting people, she's a genius." Harriton sighed. "I still remember when I challenged her. Fuck, that was stupid."

"You tried to fight her too?" Rin asked.

"Yup, so did Cara, actually," he stated casually, but Rin was shocked. [Cara lost to her?] "I had just gotten my Rank B at the time. It was, uh... Three years ago, I think." He laughed heartily. "I cannot believe I was that stupid. But, yeah, I did try."

"Why?"

"Same reason everyone else challenged her," Harriton replied. He swept back his silky grey hair and put a hand on his cheek as if he was remembering a fond memory, smiling. "The temptation of jumping ranks is, eh, pretty strong after you've been in this business for a while. I came here to work as a teacher and she was the first person I met. We talked, for a little while anyway. Maria isn't one for sharing too much, I think. But, I ended up finding out that she was Rank S through some of the others and... Back then, I was riding high because I did a few raids back-to-back that worked out for me."

"Raids?" Rin asked.

"Everyone was singing my praises talking about how powerful I was, gassing me up, and... Yeah, I believed my own hype. I walked up to her, no armor, no prep. I asked her to fight and she smiled back at me, just casually asked if I was sure and I said 'yeah'. And then she gave me the worst ass-kicking I've taken in years."

He laughed again as he recalled that memory.

"Having my ego crushed like that... It's something I will never be able to thank her enough for."

[That's your takeaway?] Rin thought. [I don't think I could ever be thankful for getting punched in the-]

Rin heard a crack come from the schoolyard and quickly turned her attention back to that area. Once she saw what was happening, her hands gripped the window frame tightly as she leaned a little to get a closer view. Maria had dodged an attack and, with just her bare fist, had broken through the man's steel breastplate.

It was one punch. One fist that Maria had connected and the other man's metal armor now featured a prominent crack where she'd hit it.

Eli grunted and brought his ax into multiple high-speed and heavy-looking swings, but Maria dodged all of them. Then, trying to tear off the woman's upper half, he swung horizontally with more power in the attack but Maria bent over backward, dodged the ax and when she stood back up, she kicked the man so hard he flew across the yard. He rolled three times, stopped, and got up. Maria's foot was still in the air, almost as a warning as she smirked at him.

[Is she human!?] Rin asked herself.

Eli stood and charged at her. It was so fast, Rin lost track of him! The giant of a man ended up skidding to a halt in front of Maria with his ax above her head. Then, Maria did something that went against everything Rin thought possible. Rin's lips split open on their own as she saw Maria defend herself by blocking the attack with her bare arms. Holding them up in a cross position, they stopped the ax just above her head.

Eli backed off, then he charged again but this time spun multiple times and his ax glowed as it moved on a collision course with Maria's body, but the woman flipped over Eli, landing behind him unharmed. The man cast some sort of spell that, at first, seemed to have no effect but then he slammed his ax into the ground and crystal spikes emerged. Maria dodged them all, kicked one, and propelled herself towards Eli, who stepped back away from her.

There were too many things Rin was asking in her mind by now. [How the fuck weren't her arms cut off? How is she that strong?] Regardless of what was going on in her head, the battle continued. After a missed swing, Maria kicked at Eli's wrists, the man dropped his ax out of pain and Maria caught it. One more kick sent Eli right back where he was before, but this time with Maria showing off his own ax in front of him.

She threw it down and shrugged, putting her hands behind her back once again and smiling.

"Do you concede?" She asked with a sweet voice.

"Fuck you."

"I'll take that as a 'no' then."

The man walked over to his ax slowly. Cautious that Maria would attack him out of nowhere, he sluggishly picked his weapon up and stepped back. Maria only smiled at him the entire time.

They did this song-and-dance around three more times. Every time, it ended with Maria standing firmly and Eli picking himself up.

"You'd do well to remember, everyone," Harriton said to the enraptured crowd, "just in case any of you ever get the dumbass idea of trying to challenge one of them. Rank S adventurers... Saying they're 'human' doesn't really do them justice." Harriton crossed his arms. "They're closer to gods than people."

"You know," Maria called out to Eli, "this isn't going that much different from how your last challenge went. I had wondered if anything changed. If you'd become stronger in some way, but it doesn't seem like it."

"Oh, I've got one more trick up my sleeve."

At that, Maria's smile faded a little, an annoyed expression briefly flashing on her face.

"Go ahead then. But, this next part will be the end of this little game." Maria let him know and Eli nodded. The man grabbed his ax and charged the same way he had earlier. He raised it and tried to bring it down on Maria's head. Exactly as before, Maria crossed her arms and stopped the attack.

But, as soon as her arms made contact with the ax, Eli grinned. Suddenly, he took one hand off the weapon, and quicker than Rin could see he made some kind of symbol in the air and the ax caught fire.

Maria didn't seem perturbed by this at all though. She simply pushed the ax away from herself and spun into a kick aimed straight at Eli's jaw. Her foot hit its mark and the man went down, unconscious.

"And, it's over," Harriton said. He turned and headed into the classroom as if nothing special had happened, but every single one of the students was shaken. [With adventurers like that,] Rin thought, [how are monsters even a problem? Is there anything out there that can contend with... Whatever Maria is?]

[Is that what I'm supposed to be? What the fuck?]

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