Blood Curse Academia - Orientation

Chapter LXXVI (76)- Adoring Fan

Kizu always looked forward to his brewing classes. He usually knew everything mentioned during the class curriculum, but the time he was given after each class to work on his own personal projects proved invaluable. With so many raw materials in front of him, what felt like infinite possibilities were at his fingertips. Working on brews both excited and relaxed him simultaneously.

He currently sat at a side table mashing ingredients with a mortar and pestle. He had a stack of paper copies of his flier for the school ball beside him. The enchanted object used to duplicate the drawing left him with hundreds of copies, but no adhesive to stick to the walls. And, while creating an adhesive paste was a simple process, it became a bit trickier as he tried to time it to dissolve at the same time as the enchanted copies would disintegrate in a couple weeks. He didn’t want to leave giant gooey smears on the academy walls.

“Excuse me,” a quiet voice said.

Kizu turned to see the smallest student he had ever seen standing behind him looking down at his feet. If he hadn’t been wearing a blue academy uniform, Kizu wouldn’t have assumed the boy to be old enough to be a student.

“Do you need something?” Kizu asked. He glanced at his current concoction. If he let it sit for too long, it would solidify.

The boy said nothing, only fidgeting while not looking up.

Thinking it odd, but harmless, Kizu returned to his paste. He almost had it. If he added crushed blister beetles, the added acidic component might be enough to bring it all together. But finding the appropriate quantity for the ratio would take some trial and error.

“You’re Kaga Kizu,” the boy squeaked. It wasn’t a question seeking confirmation, but instead sounded more like an accusation.

Kizu twisted his head back to face him again as he continued to stir the brew in front of him.

“Yes.”

The boy took a deep breath then looked up at him with clenched hands. “My name is Kimura Harumi. I want to ask you to please help me with my brewing.”

Then the boy bowed at a stiff ninety degree angle and held it for several seconds.

“Kimura?” Kizu said. “As in Officer Kimura?”

“Yes.” Harumi mostly unbent himself but still kept his head bowed to the ground. “He’s my father.”

“Okay.” Kizu processed that. He supposed the boy looked a bit like his father. “And why are you asking for my help?”

Kizu noticed tears dripping onto the stone floor, wettening it.

“I’m a failure. I am almost the worst brewer in all of Wave Edge Academy. Please. Please help me.”

Kizu noticed the ‘almost the worst’ and stifled a chuckle. As bad as this dramatic kid might be, at least Ione was always there to be worse.

“What makes you think I can help you? To be honest, I’m not really all that good myself.”

“You’re a master brewer!” The boy shot up from his bowed position to one as stiff as a plank. “Everyone knows that. The first years all talk about you in our common room. You’re a prodigy at everything, passing through the rankings with an ease unheard of. But you specialize in brewing.”

“It’s not that I’m good at brewing. Everyone else here is just really horrible at it.”

Harumi stared at him blankly, as if unable to understand. Then something in him clicked. “Then please teach me to not be horrible!”

Kizu rubbed his eyes with a hand, before recalling how terrible the habit was while actively brewing. Thankfully, his hands had been relatively clean. Accidentally sticking his eyelids shut right now would be extremely annoying. Just to be safe, he went over to the well pump and washed his hands and splashed a bit on his face.

“What are you brewing right now?”

“An adhesive.” Kizu passed him the paste. “Here, stir clockwise. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Harumi took the mixture and launched into the task with gusto. After instructing him to slow down, Kizu got out his scrying orb and looked up the boy’s rankings.

Kimura Harumi, first year- Combat- 699, Astronomy- 752, Divination- 716, History- 280, Politics- 398, Rejuvenation and Restoration- 789, Conjuring- 778, Brewing- 799, Numerology- 674, Music- 547 (bugle), Enchanting- 741, Illusion- 768, Elemental- 687.

Not the best standings, but not terrible for a first year. He seemed to be especially decent at history and politics. Likely a result of being raised by a government employee. Kizu noticed that they’d be in Conjuring F and Rejuvenation and Restoration F together next semester. Better to try to build bridges early on.

“Fine,” Kizu said. “I’m not a teacher and I don’t really need an assistant, but, if you want, I’ll let you know the next time I brew something and you can come watch.” That had pretty much been all the training he received from the crone, so if it worked for him, it might also work for Harumi.

The boy’s face lit up and his cheeks' dimples folded as he struggled to hold back his smile. He looked positively giddy at the prospect.

“However, in payment I need help posting these around the academy.” Kizu gestured at the stack of fliers. “I’m supposed to have them all up before the Student Council meeting tonight.” He glanced at his scrying orb again for the time. “Which is two hours from now.”

“Consider it done!” Harumi snatched up the stack of flyers, almost greedily. Before Kizu could explain he only needed to distribute some, the boy had run off with the paste and papers in hand. The paste hadn’t been completed yet either.

Lacking the energy to chase after him, Kizu decided to instead turn his attention to cleaning up his workspace.

He wondered if he could get a brewing space situated down on his ship. Aoi had converted the captain’s cabin into her own necromantic laboratory, it only seemed fair that he should have his own space too. Maybe in the cargo hold. But getting a decent sized cauldron down to Owl’s Respite would be a pain. Let alone all the ingredients. And he reluctantly admitted to himself he had just promised to let Harumi spectate his brewing as well. That would be difficult to do if he was down at the ship. Better to stick to the academy facilities for now. Still, slowly building towards a real set-up further down the road seemed like something to consider. It wouldn’t hurt to start collecting things now.

When he finished cleaning up, he went through his inventory list that he had made a few months back of the academy’s brewing supplies. From there, he separated what he viewed as priority ingredients from the ones he considered redundant or unnecessary for his own future cache. He found the process surprisingly fun as he got to hypothesize about different brewing combinations. And, even if he was a long way off from having his own laboratory, it didn’t hurt to know what he needed to keep an eye out for.

When the time came for the Student Council meeting, Kizu reluctantly dragged himself out of the brewing cavern and up to the tower where the meeting was held.

When he entered, Ione lay sprawled out on her chair with her head and legs resting on the armrests. She didn’t acknowledge his entrance as she snoozed.

“Where’s Sene?” he asked after looking around the room. Her absence was bizarre. Never once had he ever seen her arrive late to Brewing S. And she took the Student Council meetings even more seriously than classes.

Ione opened an eye, lazily glanced around, then shut it again. Then she stretched out like a lazy house cat and yawned.

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “Usually my sister is pretty punctual. Never missed an appointment before. Maybe she got trapped in a time dilation chamber. Heard the things can keep people from helping out their friends in even the direst of situations.”

Kizu stepped over to the window and stared down at the academy spread out below. “I’m sorry, I tried getting out as fast as possible.”

She sat up and popped her back. Then she grinned at him. “Relax, Kizu. I’m just making a joke. No need to always take things so seriously.”

Before Kizu could come up with a dry retort, Sene barged in.

“Sit down,” she barked at him. “We need to get started now.”

“I’m not the one who’s late,” Kizu muttered as he took his seat.

If Sene heard him, she didn’t acknowledge it, instead she launched into the meeting, skipping the normal roll call and procedures. Kizu couldn’t help but start to feel a seed of worry. Sene was married to those protocols. And a glance over at Ione showed a similar concern on her face.

“I just got out of a meeting with Professor Kateshi,” Sene said. “Terrible news.” She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, as if bracing herself for her own announcement. “She decided to hijack our theming and instructed me that we have to turn the ball into a masquerade.”

Kizu shared a look with Ione.

“Is that a problem?” he asked, hesitantly. “We have plenty of time, right?”

Sene looked as if he just asked if acid was a healthy snack.

“Is that a problem?” she repeated, aghast. “Of course it’s a problem! We already got everything rolling with our preparations. The catering has already been scheduled. The decorations are already arranged. Your fliers should be up. And not only that, what do you think this says about Professor Kateshi’s opinion of us? She felt the need to step in and change everything.”

“Will it cost us more money?” Ione asked.

“Well, no. Professor Kateshi allotted us an extra budget. But that just shows even less faith in our skills to properly budget. It’s humiliating.”

“Did she say why she is altering the ball to a masquerade?” Kizu asked. “Is there a reason for it?”

“I am not in the habit of questioning my superiors’ instructions,” Sene snapped at him.

Kizu rolled his eyes and sat back in his seat. At least this didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

“As a result of this unplanned disaster, we’ll need to take today’s meeting in a different direction than I originally planned,” Sene continued. “We need to do damage control and rethink the distribution of our resources in light of the new information.”

Kizu glanced over at Ione who had her forehead planted on the table. He wondered what Sene would do if he followed Ione’s example. Likely flay him alive and drape his skin out the Student Council room’s window. So, he listened with half an ear as Sene reviewed everything from the previous meeting. It sounded like nothing actually changed, besides the fact that now he needed to get a mask for the ball. Kateshi probably just phrased it as a suggestion that Sene was now taking it way too seriously.

“And of course,” Sene said. “We will need to recall all the fliers and rework them into something appropriate for a masquerade.”

Kizu jolted to attention. “Wait, you can’t be serious! I just posted hundreds of them around campus.”

“And how else will everyone know to bring a mask to the masquerade? If it’s not in the missive, it will just be a normal ball.”

“But the adhesive paste I used to stick the flyers to the walls is designed to be semi-permanent,” Kizu protested. “I can’t just take the flyers down without tearing the whole paper apart.”

“Good thing we still have ‘plenty of time,’ right?”

Kizu opened his mouth to continue arguing but Ione spoke first.

“You’re not winning this one, Kizu,” she said, her voice muffled as she spoke into the table. “Retreat and live to fight another day.”

Kizu frowned. She had a point. He didn’t see a path forward that would lead him to actually swaying Sene. He folded his arms and leaned back, forfeiting.

“Good,” Sene said with a nod. “Now that that’s settled. I want to clarify that we don’t actually have plenty of time. That was meant as a jab for your earlier comment. You need to have this completed in the next 24 hours, though preferably sooner, before misinformation takes root in the student body.”

Kizu groaned. Hopefully Harumi didn’t mind doing him another favor.