Initiation

Nova felt a floating feeling before gravity took over and caused him to land on his butt.

When Nova's eyes recovered from the white flash of light, he found himself in the training yard.

『Aaah…. Why did she have to do that..?』[Nova]

Suddenly, he heard Hanzo's shouting come from nearby.

『Nova! Catch this!』[Hanzo]

When he turned toward the direction of the shout, a piece of wood was coming toward him.

He caught it on the skinnier side and examined it before he realized it was a roughly carved sword.

『Nice! Now take this!』[Hanzo]

Nova looked up and saw Hanzo coming at him with a similar sword.

He quickly raised the sword to block the swing, but ended up getting hit on the head anyways.

『My win.』[Hanzo]

『Ouch! What was that for?!』[Nova]

Hanzo spun the sword by the hilt around in his hand.

『It's club week. This is the weapon mastery club's training time.』[Hanzo]

Nova rubbed the injury on his head.

『Huh? Couldn't you have told me?』[Nova]

Hanzo cackled before he put a pin on Nova's uniform seamlessly.

『Nope. It's initiation time.』[Hanzo]

『Huh? What is th-』[Nova]

Nova suddenly blinked and he found himself in some kind of blank space with black and white squares on the walls and floor.

『...this. What the…?』[Nova]

Nova looked around and saw nothing except for a hilt that looked like a much more simplified Reischneid.

He grabbed the hilt to examine it, but suddenly heard Hanzo's shouting from behind him.

『Not again!』[Nova]

Nova quickly turned a 180 and imagined the hilt extending forth like Reischneid, striking Hanzo and sending him back a few feet.

『Huh?! You weren't supposed to know how to do that yet!』[Hanzo]

Nova was about to talk when Hanzo got back up with a bitter look.

『Tch. You got lucky.』[Hanzo]

He jumped backwards and faded into the background.

『Wait! Hanzo, you..!』[Nova]

He raised his hand toward the direction he disappeared in, but Nova was too late.

Suddenly, he heard another shout from behind him that sounded like a monster.

Nova turned around and was surprised to see Derenne rushing at him.

『HAAAAAH..!』[Derenne]

She swung at him, but he managed to block her fist with the blade of his sword.

Nova tried to channel mana through his body and twist the blade around her arm, but he wasn't able to.

『...I can't channel mana?』[Nova]

Using this chance, she jumped back and stared at him.

『Derenne, what are you doing?!』[Nova]

Once he had a better look of her face, he realized that she had an extremely fierce face, more typical of her more violent side.

『...Not bad.』[Derenne]

Her face suddenly returned to that of the timid Derenne.

『E...eeeh?! Ah… Bye, Nova!』[Derenne]

She lowered herself momentarily before jumping back and fading like Hanzo did.

『Hey! Wait! How do I get out of here?!』[Nova]

He ran after her, but to no avail.

Immediately after, he suddenly saw a huge shadow in front of him and felt a sinking feeling.

He rolled to the left and felt the impact of a huge mass slam next to him.

『Damn! I missed!』

Before he could even see who it was, they got out of the way and disappeared.

He immediately got off of the ground, stumbling a few feet to the left and raising his sword while tightening his stance.

When he did so, a person with black hair and yellow eyes materialized in front of him, already going for the strike.

Nova preemptively lunged at this person.

『I won't let you!』[Nova]

Upon the person's full materialization, they held a scythe that they raised above their head.

They began to swing the scythe at Nova's body, causing Nova to swing his sword with both hands in response.

The pole of the scythe and Nova's blade met, causing a flash of sparks to erupt from the clashing of metal.

After the pole scraped against Nova's weapon for a few extra seconds, the person's strength gave out and the scythe was sent flying above their head.

『You're not out of this yet!』[Nova]

Nova grabbed the pole of the scythe and prepared a True Gale attack against the assailant.

He pulled the pole and thrust forth with his fingers at the person with black hair and yellow eyes.

Though he thrust forth at a target that was in midair, the person shifted out of Nova's view somehow.

Once he had his arm out forward all of the way, he looked up to see a slim masked person with long black hair tied up into a high ponytail standing on the pole of the scythe.

Suddenly, they jumped off of the pole before they landed on and kicked off of Nova's shoulder.

『Hey!』[Nova]

Nova suddenly let go of the scythe out of surprise before the person grabbed the scythe from midair and landed gracefully.

『Stop! Don't go!』[Nova]

Nova ran after them before they swung their scythe around at a fast speed and jumped back.

『Damn it!』[Nova]

He shouted at the ceiling out of frustration.

『If you're gonna show up, do it now!』[Nova]

No sooner than he did, a knife whizzed past his head.

Nova quickly looked at the direction the knife came from before he saw a flash of incredibly pale yellow- almost white, and bright blue hair.

The knife suddenly came back somehow and was caught in the hands of his assailant.

He tried to swing with the sword before he realized that there was a string that was attached to his sword that was drawn to the knives that the person held.

Before the person could land the attack, Nova threw the sword at him and lowered his stance.

In this one moment, the person suddenly let go of his knives out of shock and was also left without a weapon.

『...Eh?』

Nova's leg raised up from the side and was barely blocked by the assailant's arm.

In retaliation, he stepped back a moment in order to restore his composure.

Nova got a full look at the person.

The person he was fighting had platinum blonde hair with streaks of bright blue and a face that made Nova feel strange.

『You...』[Nova]

They made eye contact and exchanged the same frown.

『...Am I done with the initiation thing yet?』[Nova]

The boy with the handsome face with bright blue eyes had a troubled face.

『Uh..?! I… I guess so?』