Introducing like, 3 new characters. Sorry.

[therealkaichan]

Chapter Five

Academy Politics


It was still warm. The voices were moving closer, but they weren’t the usual voices. She could tell the usual voices, or the little noises, but these were different.
There was someone she wanted to meet. She didn’t know how that was, or why, or even how she could even want to meet someone... She wasn’t sure of anything. She hadn’t ever looked forward to anything before...

“Sir! We should...”

Everything else she couldn’t make sense of. It was noisy now. The noise hurt her. The lights hurt her. She hated everything. Or maybe she didn’t.

She couldn’t tell.

But maybe she could soon? Something inside her grew eager.


Kana woke up fully expecting to cough water, but it didn’t happen.

The strange eager feeling in her gut was still there as she reached for her right wrist again. Nothing. Nothing.

If anything, breakfast was out of the question. She got up, ready to get changed and get to class. At least she wouldn’t be getting there late this time, even if she had to make a small detour now.



The Snake Lady, Kana’s eternal arch-nemesis, was as usual at her desk. She was writing something, probably Kael’s schedule for the day. The only good thing that Kana could say about her was that she got her work done effectively.
“The Acting Director is busy right now.” She said, without even sparing a look at her, while still writing.
“I have to report to him urgently. It’s about Decree 2255.” That made the Lady leave her pen on the table all right.
“I will let him know.”

Decree 2255.
Kana was never one to invoke such a thing in vain, mostly because her pride wouldn’t allow her, but rules were still rules.

“Go in.” The Lady said without further word. She probably was as annoyed as Kana was by that stupid decree, even if for completely different reasons.

Kael was writing and Kana knew better than to interrupt him, so she just took a seat and took a small look around.
The office was as neat as always. Kana was surprised about how he always kept things so neat and so constant. The curtains, the picture of the younger brown haired twins and the little girl in Kean’s arms (it was strange to see a brown haired Kael after having seen him with his white hair for so long), the pencil on the right side of the desk, even the coffee mug reading ‘Kean’. It was as if that place were somehow impossible to change, no matter what you did.
“Good morning.”
“Hi. I uh... Had one of those dreams.” Her hand absently scratched her right wrist, looking for something that still wasn’t there.
“Tell me about it, Kana.”
“Ah... I could only hear a few words. It wasn’t really that big, but it’s the second one this month.”
“Do you think there is a reason for them to become more constant?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is there anything new you remember?”
“I think I was waiting for something or someone. I’m not sure what, but there was a feeling... Like the one I get when I’m about to get into a fight.” The scratching around her right wrist grew a little frantic at that.
“You were looking forward to that meeting... It’s interesting.”
“I heard a man’s voice... He seemed to be talking to a superior, since he said ‘sir’. But I couldn’t listen to what he said.” Her nails were leaving small red marks now, and yet she didn’t seem to stop.
“Kana.”
“Y-yes?” Kael’s voice had dropped a whole octave, and that caused Kana to stop cold.
“Here.” Kael reached for the coffee mug, and offered it to her. “I hadn’t started it yet, so go ahead.”
“Thanks...” Kana took the cup between her hands, making sure of keeping it there so she wouldn’t start scratching again. She didn’t understand why that happened and it made her feel really awkward whenever she caught herself doing it.
“There is no need for you to think anymore about that. This is good.”
“I... I want to remember already, Kael. This is stupid I can’t stand it!”
“Remember that the doctors said you have to take your time. Forcing the blocked memories to surface could damage your magic capabilities, and you have said time and again that you don’t want to risk doing that, right?”
“Yeah. I need my magic to graduate from here.”
“I’ve told you several times that you don’t have to force yourself. Nobody would mind if you took your time to recover before graduating, if anything Major Ahlgren would be quite relieved.” Kael’s hand reached for the coin in his pocket. Kana did feel a little bad about worrying him so much, especially after all the things he had done for her, but this was important.
“But I want to do this now. I have to.”
“Then don’t worry so much about your memory. Now drink your coffee, all things will come in time.”
“Okay...”

Kana drank her coffee in silence, just observing the office and Kael again. She never got why the guy was so kind to her anyway. He didn’t owe her anything, if anything it was exactly the other way around.

She owed him her life, and even her freedom. So why was he so nice to her?

“How is your new partner faring?”
“We are okay. The nice priest at the church really helped.”
“Darius is it? I’ve only met him once.”
“He was really nice to us... Especially to me, he explained a little more about the connections between partners.”
“He was a school teacher at some point or other while he was working with the church. He’s good at teaching brats.”
“That’s mean.”
“It’s but the truth. He’s the only person who can keep Attis on track anyway.”
“Ah... The High Priest was on a world of his own. He pretty much never noticed we arrived.”
“He used to be an investigator, and he never got over his love of knowledge. I can relate a little.”
“He was strange. There was something about him that was really unsettling.”
“Of course you would, his Anahata chakra is dysfunctional, and it clashes with yours.”
“I don’t get the chakra talk at all.”
“You should. The wheels are what moves the energy trough your body, it makes you live and it affects your magic directly.”
“I know that we are all messes of little wheels and stuff, but I don’t know how you can tell whose is working and whose isn’t. And how you can remember all those weird names.”
“Those are simply normal characteristics of a graduate of the White group. We work with other people’s energy so it’s only expected that we will be able to tell where it moves and how.”
“And that’s why the White group is totally not my thing.”
“Of course not. Our dear Kana is a typical candidate for the Black group, right?” Kael chuckled, leaning back on his chair.
“Yeah. That sounds like a lot more my thing. Beating crap up in glorious and magic-economic ways.”
“Then work hard. The group calls will be coming in in the next months, and unless you get at least decent scores on your exams, Black will be out of your reach.”
“I’ve been working hard!”
“By missing most of your theory classes, correct?”
“I’ll catch up in no time. I’ll show you.”
“I’ll look forward to it. You know that I want nothing more than your success, even if it means making you scrub the toilets with a toothbrush on a daily basis.”
“You are just mean.” Kana smiled, leaving the now empty mug in the table, as close as she could to its original location.
“I wouldn’t be if you were more well behaved.” He answered, quickly reaching out to put the mug just a little more to the right.
“I try. That’s the best I can do.”
“I know you do. I know you are a good girl, no matter how messy you try to be. But you should go now, it’s almost class time.”
“I’m going.” Kana was quick to stand and smiled. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“It’s fine. Now go.”
“Later!”

He saw her leave, as his hand reached for the coin once more, this time getting it out of the pocket.

A two-faced coin.

Two identical faces, one on each side of the coin, both facing the same way, yet never at the same time...

“Acting Director.” Tanit called out from the door and he looked up to see her.
“Tanit.”
“It’s almost time for your meeting with the Director.”
“Ah... It’s true. He does get quite unsettled if I get there late.”
“I will make sure everything is into place.”
“I don’t know where the Academy would be without you, Tanit.” Kael stood, putting the coin back on his right pocket and walking towards her. “Thank you for all your hard work.”
“I do this gladly.”
“I’ll be going to the meeting now. Hopefully this time I’ll manage to get the Director to actually greet the press for once. The rumours about his health are becoming really annoying.”
“It would certainly quell the rumors at least... The Academy’s reputation is suffering enough as it is.”
“I’ll try. Let’s see what comes up.”


The Director’s office was straight out of a movie. A dark room, with closed curtains and only artificial light sources. In there, the Director, General Caesar Evert, part of a long lineage of military fame, usually spent his time, making the bigger choices related to the Academy’s future.
Today his youngest grandson, private Dominic Evert was taking notes of what seemed to be the old man’s speech, not really minding the low light.
“Ah, if it isn’t Kael...!” The old man laughed, slowly getting up to greet him.
“Please don’t, sir.” Kael was polite as he quickly got closer to avoid making the man move the way up to him.
“Grandfather could use the exercise.” Dominic said from a little behind. He knew there was something about this strange white-haired man, but at the same time he didn’t quite think he was a bad man. He had, after all, kept the General’s reputation intact, even going so far so as to credit his own work to the older soldier. That didn’t stop Dominic from antagonizing the man, however. But that was another story.
“Private Evert. Good morning.” Kael smiled politely, not minding the younger soldier’s tone.
“You should know better than to spoil grandfather by now.” He scowled.
“His exercise should be done under medical control. That is not something I chose. If anything it is a shame that we had to have such an excellent mage step down.”
“Dominic, Dominic!” The General laughed a little, which was quick to turn into a cough. “You shouldn’t antagonize my successor this much. If anything, he will need your support once I finally retire.”
“You should’ve retired long ago grandfather.”
“I’m still young, even with this stupid illness eating me alive. I still have a few things to do, here and there too.”
“Still... It’s no excuse.” Kael chose this moment to clear his throat.
“It’s about time for our usual meeting, Director.”
“Then come in and close the door.”
Kael did as told, closing the door after quickly eyeing their surroundings. He then walked up to the Director’s desk, and the man motioned for him to sit.
“Do you need me here, Grandfather?” Dominic was quite eager to leave, but he wouldn’t be lucky today.
“Yes, stay.” The General answered, and the boy didn’t say another word. “So, Kael. How are things going with the investigation?”
“Everything is quiet. Neither the scientists, the investigators nor the medics were able to find anything on how the students died. There has been a bit of a theory that magic could have been used to stop their energy from moving, causing their bodies to simply stop working, but such a thing should have left some kind of residual magic.”
“So after all this time investigating we still don’t have a clue, do we?”
“No, sir. Not for a lack of trying, however.”
“You do understand that such a thing is exactly what has the government with their eyes on us, correct?”
“Yes sir. I have been working in keeping everything working as normal as possible in the Academy, so their spies shouldn’t have many things to report.”
“That’s good, good...” The sentence was abruptly interrupted by a coughing fit, and Dominic was quick to look for a glass of water so his grandfather could drink.
“You look unwell, sir. You should rest instead of worrying about these things.”
“This is my Academy.” The coughing was barely receding as the General got up, resting his hands on the table. “I have worked for years to have everything running in order, and I won’t just let this ruin everything!”
“Understood, sir.” Kael knew better than to discuss with the Director in these situations.
“Now leave. Bring me any news you may get immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”

Kael got up with no further word, just barely exchanging looks with Dominic. The young soldier didn’t say a word either, too busy attending to his grandfather so as to lose any time fighting over some silly thing.

Tanit was a few meters away from the door, waiting. She quickly walked up to Kael as soon as he came out.
“Tanit.”
“Acting Director, you have a meeting with the officer from the Ministry of Defense in seventeen minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“Was there any progress?”
“The meeting was as usual. I don’t understand why the General refuses to let us investigate any further.”
“Do you think there may be something he may be hiding?”
“Let’s not speak of things that sound like treason on the halls, Tanit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just fine. The Director has a few of his own men working on this. He must know what he is doing.”
“I understand.”
“Let’s go to that meeting, then.”





Kana arrived to class just on time. Aileen was the first to welcome her, by pretty much jumping on her and immediately starting asking all kinds of questions. Kana, who was more used to those things than she would like to admit, promised she would update Aileen on the situation as soon as they were in a place where they could talk without people all around them.

Aileen seemed satisfied with her friend’s answer for the time being, so she stopped asking so many questions and settled for what she considered the really important one.

“So... Did you meet any cute guys?”
“They were all too old or too young for you anyway.”
“O-oh...” She looked a little crestfallen at that. “Are you sure? Not even one that you could introduce to me, or even keep to yourself or something?”
“Not that I know.”
“That’s a bad trip then!”
“Well, I could introduce you to Hans, but you already know him. It would be nice if you could whip him into submission like you did with that other guy.”
“You mean Cole? I already told you he wasn’t whipped!” Aileen laughed a little. “At least not by me. Sister was really mean to him.”
“He was scared to death of her. Alyssa is creepy as hell when she wants to.”
“And that’s most of the time! But she’s also really nice, it’s just that nobody takes the time to meet her.”
“Not that she wants anyone to do so.”
“She’s a bit like you in that sense, right partner?”
“When the hell did you get here, you creep?” Kana rolled her eyes, punching Hans lightly on the shoulder, or as lightly as she could at least. Maybe she would get points for trying.
“A few seconds ago. Just in time to hear you being deep.” Hans chuckled before resuming the way to his seat. “Also, good morning, Ivers.”
“Hello!” Aileen smiled. “You two sure are getting along now!”
“Getting along is a way to put it.” Said Kana, though she didn’t seem as bothered by it as she would have been a week ago.
“Actually, the trip was wonderful for our budding relationship. Kana is just too shy to admit it.”
“Ew.”
Aileen laughed a little at that, but the changes were more than obvious to her, and she was really looking forward to finding out what exactly had caused a change that big.



Kana had always been the kind of person who loved the sound of deadlines as they went whooshing by, but with Kael’s mention of her grades, things had started getting a little more complicated.
Final tests season was approaching, and she knew she had to get up to date with the classes she had missed because of the incident.
That left her with two obvious solutions. She could try to bribe Alyssa to allow Aileen to let her use the shared notes of the sisters, or she could impose herself on her shiny brand new partner.

Somehow idea number two sounded more and more attractive the more she thought about it. Maybe she was turning into one of those strange creeps that only cared about lurking around their partner and didn’t even think of hanging out with other people?
She didn’t know what the symptoms were for that, after all.

And then she eyed Hans, who was sitting in his usual seat, with his usual smile, and paying attention to class as usual, and all of Kana’s worry just disappeared.

She still was really annoyed by his mere presence, so it was okay.



Of course, being as concentrated on her things, Kana didn’t even notice when she bumped into a taller figure. Her instincts usually took care of the silly bump-into-people situations, but it seemed like lately said instincts had been behaving pretty horribly.
“‘m sorry.” She muttered, not being quite sorry for the bump and more for looking really stupid.
“We just keep on meeting in the same way, don’t we?”

There was a long moment of silence before she looked up.

She blinked to make sure that it was the right guy, and yes, there he was. Just as Kana remembered him from the last time they had met, two years ago when he graduated. Uniform a mess, messy black hair, messy stub in his chin, and messy all over. Maybe he looked a little shorter but that was because she had grown a bit.

“Adir?”
“If it isn’t tiny Katherine, huh?”
“Kana, it’s Kana!” She half pouted half scowled at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Just work, as usual.”
“There has been a lot of people coming and going from the Central Quarters lately...”
“Well, that’s simply to be expected. Everyone is really unsettled by that incident.”
“It makes sense... But why would anyone even send you here? You are like, the worst person to investigate anything!”
“But I’m the best for beating crap up, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.”
“So, you are protecting important people then?” Kana couldn’t help but smile. It was nice to see that Adir hadn’t changed even one tiny bit.
“You could say that. More like moving information and geeks from one side to the other.”
“So... Do you know anything about the investigation? Not information, just if they are going well or not.”
“I can't say anything, not even that. But everyone is working really hard. The Director has a few of his men, and the Acting Director has been supervising everything really closely. A dedicated one, that creep.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Oooh... So it’s still a stingy topic?”
“Yes. The stingiest topic ever.”
“It’s okay, though. He is a creep, but he is good at his work and very responsible, so at least you could learn that from him.”
“So! How have you been doing?”
“Just fine, just fine. Working hard and going from one place to the other. Lots of traveling.”
“I did my first field mission.”
“Woah, really? They actually let you out, tornado girl?”
“Yeah. And for your information, I didn’t break a single thing.”
“Pictures or it didn’t happen.”
“Oh shut up.” They both laughed a bit at that. “Are you staying for long?”
“Just a few weeks at most. I have to stand guard with my appointed geek.”
“That’s fine. If you have any free time, let’s have lunch like we used to back then.”
“Sure will.”



With that they parted ways. When Aileen finally found her, Kana was all grins. Of course it was her duty as a Best Friend to find out exactly what had caused that reaction, so Aileen didn’t even think.
“What happened? You look really happy.”
“Adir is here on a mission.”
“Adir as in the 182nd’s Black Group’s Adir?” Aileen knew the answer more than clearly, but confirmation was always good.
“That’s right. He just came back after two years.”
“It’s no wonder then! He probably came with the groups that are investigating, right?”
“Yeah. He’ll probably be really busy but I’d like to hear how things are at the actual Quarters and not just the Academy.”
“We do get very little information about those things, don’t we?”
“It’s always about security reasons and stuff.”
“It does make sense, but I’d love to hear all about it anyway.” Aileen would quite love having such a wide gossip range, at least.
“I guess we can ask him a bit later. I can introduce you to him too.”
“I’d like that yes! I heard he was really good looking.”
“He’s a mess. If you are into ‘messy’ then yeah, you’ll love him to bits.”
“Well, messy does have its charm.”
“I guess. He’s okay, at least. And he’s a good guy too.”
“I remember you used to talk about him a lot before.”
“Yeah. He was a bit of a hero when I was younger.”
“Really popular too! Everyone used to talk a lot about him when he was about to graduate.”
“I’ll arrange so we can all meet, then. It sounds like it can be fun.”
“So... You still have to tell me about what happened in the mission!”
“I can't talk about what we did...” Kana trailed off and sighed. “But that’s totally not what you are curious about, is it?”
“Nope!”
“I thought so... Okay. I’ll tell you about that other thing.”

The explanation went on for a while, and Aileen was more than happy to take any information that she was given without complaints. To her credit, Kana did explain most of the story about the nice priest’s explanation of partnerships and her negotiations with Hans pretty accurately and without exaggerating that much.

“It sounds like you two should be able to work okay now, right?”
“Yes. I don’t really use that much magic for my style, so I have lots to spare. He’s also kinda good at the whole channeling thing, so I don’t mind.”
“You should’ve conceded a little since the beginning.”
“No way. Even if we are partners, I’m not making this easy for him.”
“Haha, you are terrible!”
“He doesn’t make it any easier for me either, okay.”
“That’s true... But you two seem to be getting along a lot better now.”
“Yeah... I guess accepting the fact that he is a natural asshole and not a fake one made it much easier.”
“So... How about the exams?”
“Agh... Don't even make me think of that. As much as his scores should help me, I have to get up to date or I’ll drown us both... And knowing miss Freeman, she will gladly save him and leave me to die.”
“You’re exaggerating a bit, aren’t you?”
“You know it’s true! She hates me.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘hate’... She just wants you to get your act together.”
“Together and away from her precious best student ever.”
“Well, I can understand why she does that. After all Hans is one of the best students this Academy ever had.”
“He’s also a bastard. Nobody seems to remember that.”
“He’s from a rich family, polite and nice to everyone. He’s also really handsome. You can't blame them for thinking he’s a little different to what you have seen.”
“I can, and I do blame them. Boo.”


The conversation was quick to go into tangents, Aileen wanted to hear about the church’s building and about the trip and several other irrelevant things, and Kana was glad to oblige.

Anything that didn’t imply talking more about Hans was okay for her.





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Notes: Ese momento en que crees que el capitulo es muy corto, pero resulta ser de mas de 4k palabras.

Pero este capitulo tiene tanto Kael que nada me importa chau.