Blood Curse Academia - Orientation

Chapter X (10)- Of Brothers, Wisps, and Stars

His orb guided him through the corridors back towards his dormitory. Supposedly, his enchanting class was down in this wing of the academy. Instead of doors, he was back in the halls filled with paintings. He watched as several other students entered a dull painting filled with desks and chairs. He pressed a hand up against it and a blink of an eye later, he stood in the classroom.

Notably more students attended the enchanting class than his F classes earlier in the day. At least twice as many. It made sense, he supposed, as those students likely required extra assistance from the professors. He scanned the students for familiar faces, trying to spot the girl from yesterday’s party who’d mentioned she attended the same class.

Finn sat in the middle of the class. He was scowling, though Kizu didn’t think he’d even noticed him yet. It was just his brother’s natural face. For a moment, he debated sitting down next to him. He remembered what Arclight had said earlier about how for the worst of the worst, the only way to go was up. The same sentiment had to apply to his relationship with Finn, surely. He doubted he could make it any worse.

His brother’s frown morphed into a look of pure horror when Kizu sat down next to him.

“How’s your first day back in classes?” Kizu asked him.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Finn spluttered. “You’re the worst at everything! I heard like ten different people say so yesterday!”

“Orb, what place am I in enchanting?”

“Your current placement is 382nd,” the orb said, bouncing slightly.

“So, to clarify, I’m not the worst in the academy?”

“No, there are currently 418 students beneath your enchanting level.”

He grinned and looked at his brother. “Sorry Finn, you’re stuck with me. Now, who teaches this class?”

Finn looked panicked as his eyes darted around the room in search of an escape route. A couple of their nearby classmates snickered at him.

“Go sit somewhere else!” Finn finally hissed. “People are laughing at you, and I don’t want to be associated with you.”

“I think our association was kind of arranged at birth,” Kizu said dryly, though he reluctantly stood up. “Relax, I’ll move.”

Finn gave him a little push on his back, separating the two of them as quickly as possible. He glared daggers at Kizu’s back as he moved down the row and claimed another seat.

“Do you know him?” a student asked Kizu. He wore a headband and had a lazy eye that kept drifting to the right.

“Yeah, he’s my brother.”

“Oof. I don’t envy you that. I had two classes with him last semester. Dude’s driven to be the best in the room at all times. Takes that leaderboard seriously and views us all as competition.”

“Doesn’t he have any friends?”

“Shouldn’t you know that? You’re his brother.”

“I’ve been away from home for a while,” Kizu quickly explained. “What else do you know about Finn?”

“Not much, and I don’t really care to learn more. Guy’s a snitch - not exactly best friend material, y’know? Anyway, that’s Professor Kateshi. We should probably shut up.”

Kizu recognized the tired-looking woman as the Restoration and Rejuvenation teacher that had checked up on all the students after the combat placement test. His hand reflexively went to the stud piercing his left ear.

“Yes, yes,” she told the room, exasperated. “Let’s settle down now. We’ve another semester ahead of us, and most of you should know the routine by now. Today we’ll be looking at enchanting scrap metal.”

She waved her hand and shards of metal appeared on the desks. Kizu picked his piece up and turned it over in his hand, careful not to cut himself on the edges. It truly embodied the word ‘scrap.’ It was a dull, rusty red, deteriorated to the point that its previous use was a complete mystery.

“Today I just want to see how you’re all doing after the long break. Enchant it to do something nice and I’ll walk around and see what you’ve got.”

Kizu stared at the bit of metal, wondering what to do with it. The crone had taught him a little bit of enchanting, when it amused her. He ran a finger down the edge of the shard and gave it a purpose. The simpler the purpose, the less it took out of him.

Stick.

He set the shard down on the desk and looked over at the guy with the lazy eye. He seemed to be concentrating really hard on his object. Kizu wondered what he was trying to do with it. Probably something complicated. Then a jolt of worry went through him. What if his spell was too simple? The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass himself in a class with Finn. But before he could work at undoing it, Professor Kateshi picked it up.

“Finished already?” She frowned at the bit of metal in her hand. Then her eyes widened. Her expression changed three times in rapid succession, from surprise, to irritation, to a slight smile.

“Sorry,” Kizu started. “I didn’t expect-”

“No, no, this is actually impressive. You’ve masked it quite effectively. I thought you hadn’t bothered to do anything to it until after I picked it up. Certainly, if I’d paid more attention to my spellsense, I would have noticed it, but still.”

She flipped her hand upside down, and the metal scrap stuck to her palm. She muttered something and then tapped the metal with her finger. It clattered to the desk.

“It’s been a few years since a student tricked me into picking up a cursed item.” Then she stopped and thought for a second. “Actually, I believe your sister was the last one to try something like that. You Kaga’s certainly are something, aren’t you?”

Kizu didn’t even need to look to know that Finn was glaring daggers at him. He sighed. If he embarrassed himself, Finn would be upset, but if he was too successful, Finn would be even more upset. Kizu was beginning to realize that nothing he did would satisfy his little brother. Nothing beyond disappearing into the aether forever. As the rest of the class went on, he wondered about how to please such an irritable person. Was it even possible to make a chronically grouchy person less moody?

When class ended, he didn’t bother trying to catch up with his brother, instead opting to sit back and wait for the room to empty out before rising. He approached the professor, who stood in the front, removing the enchantments from the class’ props.

“Pardon me,” he said awkwardly. Despite what Harvey had said the previous day about him being surprisingly sociable, talking to people still felt unnatural sometimes. Most of the crone’s friends hadn’t been the chatty sort. Not to him, at least. He mostly experienced conversations vicariously.

Professor Kateshi looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“You mentioned you knew my sister, Anna. Could you tell me about her?”

Professor Kateshi hesitated, and then rubbed her temples. “I knew you’d be trouble. Slip of my tongue - I need to watch what I say in the future. No, I cannot tell you about her. And what I know about her probably wouldn’t be what you’re interested in anyway.”

“You’re not allowed to talk about her at all? What did she do?”

“Truthfully? I’m not certain. Most of the professors aren’t. Now I’m sorry, Mr. Kaga, but you’ll need to hurry if you intend to reach your next class on time.”

With that, she ushered him out of the classroom and went back to her work.

The way up to the astronomy class was just a straight path upstairs. At first, he took the steps two at a time, in an attempt to make up for lost time, but that quickly left him exhausted. By the time he reached the top of the tower, his uniform stuck to him with his sweat acting like an adhesive. He got more than one quizzical glance as he collapsed onto the seat next to Harvey.

The classroom was unlike the others he had visited so far. The seats were simple cushions on the floor that circled around the room. The ceiling was a dome above their heads, and the center of the room remained clear of any furniture.

“Man,” Harvey said. “Everyone’s talking about you walking out of history class earlier. People keep asking me about it.”

“Really?” Kizu asked, a bit nervous. “Nobody’s said anything to me.”

“Well, at least two people asked. And one of them was a babe.”

“Two people is a far cry from everybody,” Kizu said dryly.

Harvey shrugged. “You missed the homework assignment, by the way. We’re supposed to have twenty pages read by tomorrow.”

“Homework? We just started classes today! None of the other classes have assigned me anything.”

“Yeah, neither have mine. Hopefully that trend keeps,” Harvey said with a sharp toothed grin.

The lights of the classroom dimmed down to darkness. Kizu felt a brief moment of panic, reliving the experience from earlier in the day, but a few rapid blinks later his vision had adjusted and he could see perfectly again.

A small ball of bluish light appeared in the center of the room. At first, he thought it was someone’s scrying orb, but as he looked closer, he couldn’t make out any sign of glass. It seemed to just be a blue light. Like a miniature star.

“Welcome,” it said. “For those of you who do not know me, I am Professor Grove. I will be your professor for this class.”

“What is that?” Harvey whispered, not as quietly as Kizu would have liked.

“She is a wisp, obviously,” a boy hissed beside Harvey.

They glared at one another. Then the domed ceiling overhead lit up with tens of thousands of stars, silencing both students.

It only took Kizu a moment before he began to recognize the familiar sky’s patterns. The crone’s midnight lessons returned to him.

“Astronomy is fascinating,” Professor Grove said. “It’s something that speaks to every culture across the world. In a way, the night sky unites us all. Like this academy, the stars belong to no one nation or creed, but to all living creatures of the surface. I look forward to broadening your horizons and deepening your understanding of the universe in this class. Using astronomy, we can see glimpses of the cosmic past and future. The stars reflect a magic that our current understanding barely grasps at.”

And so, she began with her lecture. Whenever she mentioned a specific set of constellations, they would light up brighter. Kizu listened with interest as she spoke about some of the more obvious constellations and how to find them in the night sky. However, every time she mentioned one, it was by some name unfamiliar to him. He did his best to remember that the Moth was now Jin and that the Gnarled Hand was now Besillna, Tree of Sacrifice, and so on. He noted with a bit of irritation that the academy’s names for constellations were a lot more reliant on the gazer’s knowledge of specific people and artifacts. On the flip side, however, he soon realized that each figure also brought with it a story. He made a mental note to find a book with some of those stories later.

Professor Grove’s voice was soothing, and with the constellations overhead, he felt almost at home in the class. When the bell rang and light returned to the room, he found himself disappointed that time had passed so quickly.

Harvey stirred beside him and Kizu was shocked to realize his friend had been sleeping through the lecture. Kizu had to practically haul him out the door.

“How did you manage to stay awake that whole time?” Harvey yawned, showing off his knife-like teeth. “It was so dark, and the wisp’s speech made me so sleepy. I can’t believe I’m the only one who fell asleep.”

Kizu didn’t know what to say. Astronomy had rejuvenated his energy, not leached it. He just continued on down the spiraling stairs, wishing silently that his uniform wasn’t made of such thick cloth.