Chapter 3

In room 321, there was a meeting. Emily addressed the group of students in the room. "As you all know, student clubs start today. It's common for clubs to fight over students, and fistfights break out once in a while. So we're going to patrol school grounds to keep things from getting out of control. Before we do that, we have two new members joining us. Would they please stand up?" Karna and one other student stood up. Emily introduced them to the others in the room. A student pointed at Karna. "Is he and the other new guy going to be of any use?" Emily nodded. "Sean is a powerful esper, and I've seen Karna's skills in person. Anyways, that ends our meeting. Off you go now." All the students got up from their seats and began leaving the room, except for Karna and Sean. Emily walked over to them and gave them armbands. "All DA members are required to wear this in school." She took something out of her pocket. "These earpieces are two-way radios. If you catch someone misusing their powers or doing something they shouldn't be, use the earpieces to notify the school board." Karna and Sean took the earpieces and left the room.

Karna looked around the school as he walked. Nothing seems wrong so far, he thought. He continued walking until he saw Erica in the middle of a group of students. "Hey!" Erica yelled. "Get off me!" A girl grabbed her. "You should join the archery club!" A boy grabbed her more forcefully. "No, don't be an idiot. Join the kendo club!" As the students argued, Karna turned invisible. He ran towards Erica, made her invisible, and phased through the group of students along with her. Then the two ran until they were behind a building.

Karna turned himself and Erica visible again. "Thanks, Karna," Erica panted. "We didn't run that much, so why are so exhausted?" Erica blushed. "I'm not tired! I'm just surprised, that's all. I wasn't expecting you to come to help me." Karna looked around. "Well, whatever the case, nobody seems to be after you." Erica smiled. "Probably because they couldn't see us. I thought your ability was intangibility." Karna shook his head. "It's actually the ability to control atoms. I can do a lot of things, to be honest." Erica fixed her hair. "They grabbed me with too much force. My arm hurts a bit." She looked at Karna and saw his armband. "Oh, if you're not busy, can you be my bodyguard for a while? I don't want to run into another group of ecstatic club members again."

Karna and Erica watched as two people on the kendo club sparred. "It's so boring, don't you think? I mean it is staged after all," Erica complained. Karna continued watching. "Then why'd you come here?" Erica shrugged. "I used to like kendo, so I guess that's part of the reason why. But now I'm not so sure." Just then, a fight started. All the spectators who watched the sparring match gathered around the facility.

A black-haired boy and a skinny girl with green eyes were arguing at the center of the facility. "Ryan, the archery club finished using the facility. It's our turn now." Ryan smirked. "Lucia, the kendo club had enough time. It's our turn now. Or perhaps, you want to settle this with a duel?" Lucia nodded. "Fine by me," she retorted. People watched as the two grabbed swords and prepared to strike. Ryan moved first. He swung his sword at Lucia, who easily parried it, dodged his next strike, and pointed her sword at his neck. "I win, Ryan. Be a good loser and accept defeat. If this was a real sword, you'd be dead." Ryan grinned. "Oh, you want to fight with real swords now?" The sword in his hand turned gray and shiny. Ryan lunged towards Lucia, who tried to block his strike, but her sword broke, and she barely managed to dodge. "Hah! This is a real sword, Lucia. You sure you want to keep talking?" Ryan was enjoying this. He always hated that Lucia was better with a sword than him, and he wanted to change that. Ryan moved in for the final blow.

Before Ryan could swing his sword at Lucia, Karna stepped between them and looked at Ryan's sword. He must be using ferrokinesis, Karna thought. I'm guessing he put a steel coating around the sword. "Move it!" Ryan yelled. He swung at Karna but was thrown off guard when the sword harmlessly phased through Karna. Karna then proceeded to pin Ryan to the ground and turned on the earpiece he got from Emily. "This is a DA member. An incident occurred in the gymnasium. The person involved is injured, so bring in a stretcher." Karna looked around and saw shocked faces around the room. He heard people whispering about how a B class got into DA and sighed. Karna looked at his armband. You know, it wouldn't hurt if all the armbands had the school symbol on it, he thought. It's an easy way to curb discrimination by a bit.

Karna stood before the student council. Emily was the first to speak. "Let me get this straight. Ryan started the whole incident?" Karna nodded."Yes, but later on, he acknowledged his mistake, so I let him go." "Was Ryan the only one misusing his powers?" Nia asked. Karna nodded again. Rafe congratulated him. "Good work. You handled the situation well. You're free to go now." Karna left the room and saw Arisu by the door. "What happened?" Karna told her about the fight between Lucia and Ryan. "So, you're in the center of things again, as usual." Arisu grabbed Karna's hands and looked at him straight in the eye. "Karna, there's something I want to ask you." Karna tilted his head. "What is it?" Arisu blushed. She twiddled her fingers as she tried to speak. "Do you want to g-go out on a d-da," she managed to stammer before Lucia interrupted. "You're Karna, right? Thanks for before." Karna shrugged her off. "I was just doing my job." Lucia looked at Arisu, whose face was a red tomato. "What's with her?" Lucia asked. "I was going to ask Karna something, but you interrupted," Arisu grumbled. "So, is there something you want?" Karna asked. Lucia nodded. "Can I chat with you for fifteen minutes?" Karna nodded. "There's something I need to do, but once I'm done with that, I'll talk to you." Lucia started walking away. "Okay, I'll be at the cafeteria. I'll see you there." Arisu looked at Karna. "What exactly do you need to do?" Karna told her he was planning to read at the library for a while. He was about to walk off when Arisu stopped him. "Karna, be careful. I have a feeling this could be more than a little chat." Karna was perplexed by what she said. "How so? I think Lucia's probably going to ask me to join the kendo team." Arisu shook her head. "That's not it. You saw the bracelet on her right arm, didn't you?" Karna nodded. "I know. But she can't do anything to me in school, so I won't have to worry about now." Arisu grabbed his arm. "But I'm still worried about you. Please be careful, Karna. If anyone saw even a little bit of how strong you really are, they would swarm around you like flies, with only their own selfish interests in mind." Karna looked at her face and was surprised to see how concerned she looked. He hugged Arisu, much to her surprise. " I'm pretty sure nothing bad will happen, but thanks, Arisu, for caring about me." He smiled at her, and she hugged him back, reminding him again to be careful.

Karna looked around the cafeteria until he saw Lucia waving at a table nearby. He sat across from her and looked at the bracelet on her right arm. It looked like a little red snake coiled around her wrist. Its skin was marked with the letter s, colored in black. "Is there something wrong?" Lucia asked. "Huh? Oh, sorry, I was spacing out," Karna replied. "What did you want to talk about?" I won't be able to ask about that bracelet, Karna thought. "Well," Lucia began, "I want to ask you to join the kendo club." "Can I ask why you want me on the kendo team?" Karna asked. "Well, Karna, the thing is, the clubs that have more class A espers have a bigger budget than clubs that don't have a lot of them. So the clubs without them have decided to rally together and ask the school board to change these conditions." "Why do you want me to help?" Karna scratched his head. "I can't really see why I'd be needed for that." Lucia put her finger on her mouth. "Well, I thought you wanted to help, being a class B student and all. Don't you think it's wrong?" She listed more examples of discrimination that was common in school. "The school treats us like garbage!" "Well, we do get treated like garbage," Karna agreed. "But I'd say our classmates are more responsible for our harsh treatment than the school itself. Even though some school rules are discriminatory, most aren't." Lucia got up from her seat. "That doesn't mean it's okay!" she yelled. She realized she got a little too emotional and sat down. "Sorry about that. Anyways, are you going to join us or not?" Karna shook his head. "Thanks for the offer, but I won't be helping you. Although I agree that there is a lot of discrimination in this school, I won't blame the school for how immature its students are." Karna got up and walked out of the cafeteria.

A tall man swung his fist at Karna, to which the latter avoided. Karna punched and kicked, but all were blocked by the man. They exchanged blows until the man managed to kick Karna in the face after barely managing to dodge Karna's fist. "That's enough for today," the man said. Karna wiped the sweat off his forehead. "You're one tough teacher, you know that?" The man smiled. "Well, I am a major in the military." Arisu came into the room. "Mr. Ito, is Karna done for the day?" Mr.Ito nodded. He looked at his watch. "I haven't eaten in a while. Are you two hungry?" he asked. Arisu and Karna nodded. They followed Mr.Ito out of the room and into his car.

Mr. Ito took Karna and Arisu to McDonald's. The three sat at a table after receiving their food. Mr. Ito clapped his hands together. "It's been so long since I had a Big-Mac!" His mouth drooled as he looked at the sandwich. He eagerly began to eat the three that he ordered. He still goes crazy over fast food, Karna thought. Arisu giggled as she saw Mr. Ito gobble up the three sandwiches. "He hasn't changed." She slowly ate her McChicken sandwich, while Karna drank on a vanilla shake after eating a cheeseburger and some chicken nuggets. The three left the store after they were done eating.

Mr. Ito brought Karna and Arisu back to his dojo. "Ahh, that felt so good," Mr. Ito said as he rubbed his belly. Karna rolled his eyes. "Mr. Ito, if you're not busy, could I ask you something?" Mr. Ito nodded. Karna started asking questions about Scorpio. "Well, after receiving money from the Great Asian Alliance, they have grown considerably. They aren't a small organization anymore, despite what the government says. But one person in the organization has concerned the military." "Who would that be?" Arisu asked. "He goes by the name Flux. Like Vex and most of the other members in Scorpio, since they wear masks, we don't know his real identity. But our intelligence sources tell us that the two are planning something big, although we can't tell what." Karna thought about the bracelet Lucia was wearing. "Do they wear something other than masks?" Mr. Ito nodded. "We can't assume everyone in Scorpio wears them, but the members we've caught so far wear bracelets shaped like snakes." Karna and Arisu looked sternly at each other.

Back at home, Karna and Arisu sat next to each other on the sofa. Karna picked up the TV remote and pressed a button. "Filename, Scorpio. Open." The TV screen displayed information about the notorious group along with some other tabs on the screen. Arisu touched the one labeled "logos" and Scorpio's logo, along with a picture of a bracelet, showed up on the screen. Arisu pointed at the bracelet. "There's no doubt. I'm sure Lucia was wearing it." Karna nodded. " Asking Mr. Ito to give us military information was a good idea. It looks like we'll have to be careful." Arisu looked down at the ground. Should I tell him how I feel about him? It's just us two here, she thought. Karna opened another tab. "Scorpio claims to be an anti-esper movement, but the truth is that they have no problem using espers. They say that they wish to end discrimination by espers." Karna looked at Arisu, who was blushing as she stared at the ground. "Um, Arisu, is there something wrong?" Arisu realized she was daydreaming and snapped out of it. "No, nothing's wrong. You were saying something about discrimination by espers?" Karna nodded. "But Scorpio's real goal is to get rid of espers in this city. If this nation is drained of its military power, who profits?" Karna opened a tab labeled "The Great Asian Alliance." Arisu's eyes widened. " Wait, so that's why they gave money to Scorpio? They want to cripple America?" Karna pointed to a series of documents on another tab. "Based on the intel we have, it's the most likely explanation. The Great Asian Alliance is nothing but a massive group of terrorist organizations, very similar to Scorpio. Their ultimate goal is to cripple the militaries of the world's strongest countries, so they can become the strongest" Arisu looked at some other tabs. " It doesn't make any sense. Why would espers join them if they're only being used?" Karna smiled sadly. "Well, until recently, the military didn't treat espers better either. We know that well, don't we?" Arisu smiled sadly. "Yes, we do." She took Karna's hand and met his gaze. Her cheeks turned pink, but her eyes lit up as she spoke. "That's why I want to say this now. It may be my only chance. Karna, I love you." Karna's face turned crimson. "What? You say that now when we just found out a terrorist is in our school and probably after us?" he stammered. Arisu nodded with a smile. "I may not be able to say it later, so I'm saying it now. I love you, Karna." Karna blushed even more. He thought back to the past when they were little kids, and right now. He realized that he always had feelings for her. "Arisu, can I tell you something too?" She tilted her head. "What is it?" He laced his fingers with hers. "I love you too." Arisu's mouth fell open. Tears welled in her eyes as she began to smile. "Karna..." She embraced him as she went on top of him, kissing him as she did so.