Chapter 7: Zebuth!

Cahaya POV

"Nice to finally meet you in the flesh, Cahaya-kun your father always talks so much about you.", I look up into the slit-like eyes of the big lizard in front of me.

'Wow, so they look like this in reality! Hope I don't react like this to everything new.', I wonder.

Then, I flick my tongue in curiousness and bring it back to the top of my palate, 'Hmm, ph of the soil normal, humidity too, the smell of petrichor (dry dirt after rain) from Dad, mine a mix of the same and extremely spicy, and Gosha smell is slightly acidic and… a bit dangerous, he is a komodo dragon, after all.', I hush the instinct to appear bigger, my body sees him as a threat, this is new but not unexpected.

"Nice to finally meet you too, Gosha, Dad talked a lot about you, I am so very grateful to you for everything you've done and for saving my life!", I utter rapidly with no small amount of uneasiness. First impressions are the most important but I'm nervous, it's ultimately my first interaction with a 'stranger' in more than a decade.

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"Boring.", I sleepily mumbled in my arms, the first 2 hours were interesting, feeling the bump on road, seeing villages, and animals working in harmony between herbivores and carnivores, everything was nostalgic and new but the novelty of it wore off fast. We were in this car for ways too long, only stopping once at a gas station.

"Son, wake up, you can see Zebuth and the seas from here.", my Dad shook my shoulder, making me groan.

"Urg, wha…wow.", I gawked in amazement at the illuminated skyscrapers, the bigger tower in the city where the Beastar resided, and their reflection on the seas, accompanied by the sun disappearing below the seas. More cars could be felt and heard. Birds were flying around the buildings, probably doing their jobs.

'Beautiful', was my only thought.

I continued to gawk at everything, like the country bumpkins I was. I felt the car halt in its course. Jolting me out of my reveries. I gazed outside and saw a Hotel, it had a sign that said 'Every species is welcome!'.

The two adults were already getting out, followed by me just after noticing them doing it. 

"Are you sure you want to sleep here, and not at my flat?", asked for the third time Gosha, clearly concerned about where we should sleep.

My Dad explained again, "You are too kind for your own good, Gosha-sama. You don't have to worry about us. We don't want to take advantage of you, more than we already did. I bid you adieu."

I said my goodbye too but with a chuckle that caused my gills to quiver, "Goodnight 'Uncle Scaly' Gosha, hope to see you soon." He looked embarrassed at what I called him, it's his fault, shouldn't have told things that will bite his scaly ass back later.

I was slithering to the hotel, my green ventral scales feeling the hard concrete, I looked around, some animal predators and herbivores alike were staring at me with mostly curiosity, and awe, but some with fear, disgust and animosity sometimes a mix of everything. And stares were also directed at my Dad walking next to me but he appeared unfazed.

'Huh just like Dad said, but the stare is kinda irritating me and is very much annoying me, too. I will need to get used to it but uuugh, whyyy can't you just do something else or at least don't stare like this!', I glared dagger back, with my gills fully extended (like the Jurassic Park dilophosaurus not the one IRL) at the animals that stared at me and my Dad with disgust making most of them flinch and put their ears down and tails between their legs. Bunch of cowards.

We then entered the Hotel, and I struggled to ignore all the eyes on me. 

The clerk, a black burly female gorilla with tiny glasses, glanced at us with bored eyes, before saying in an even more bored tone, "Good afternoon, one room with two beds and a meal for two is 13 500 yen." My Dad paid and she simply give us the electronic key and told us the direction. 

Ok, she must have seen some shit to be this unfazed by us compared to others because there are less than 500 but that's a nice change from outside.

40 minutes later, we were going to sleep, "Cahaya how do you feel about your first day outside?", asked my Dad.

I thought with a furrow of my non-existent brow before answering, "Overwhelming, everything is so overwhelming, the smell in the air, the lack of vegetation, the noise of the city, everything is so different compared to the forest.

Things are similar but also different from what I read. Herbivores and carnivores seem to live in peace, they appear to be way more mammals than any of the other classes.

The way some animals stared at us was as if we were some kind of monster! And that infuriated me. Do they think because we are amphibians, a minority, that they are better than us? When most of them flinched and ran away when I glared back at them.", I finished my speech, irritated. 

It was the first time I was looked at like this, I had never been looked at like this in my past life, as far as I can recall.

"Cahaya, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, you'll have to get used to it or change the land society's opinions as a whole, something nearly impossible. 

Since most fear what they don't understand and they don't like that feeling, they twist the truth, lie, generalize and see and hear what they want. 

To replace this fear with something else, resulting in stereotypes, contempt, disgust, hate, and violence, more fear creates inequality and there are way more. And if we include instincts it only gets more complicated. Not everything is black and white.", he declared with unhappiness.

'Why can't he be wrong for once?', was my thought, followed by a simple "Ok'', I yawned, brought the comforter with my tail over my body, and then promptly fell asleep.

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Third POV

The next morning they woke up at 6 a.m and at 6.30 a.m were dressed both in formal clothes, Mamoru in a three-piece suit, blue tie, white shirt and black shoes. His son wore a navy blue blazer and a white shirt, the snorkelling bag lower than usual. 

They passed by a government office, and made an ID for Cahaya, which indicated his name, that he is a naga, an amphibian, he was born in Asia the 05/01/395, a photo of his face and his signature.

It's easy for marine animal to make an ID due to their nature of popping out of nowhere and dying out of nowhere, and even easier with a sea-scholar; since they are essentially researchers and scientists that know Old Seaspeak, only take one or two true Students and treat them as if they were their own flesh and blood if they aren't there children in the first place.

They can be considered the leading experts in their respective domains.

Mamoru's speciality is in archaeology and palaeontology just like his father.

He proved his status as a sea-scholar with his password, in a mix of Old and Current Seaspeak accompanied by 2 other languages, on a big and blocky computer unconnected to the Internet.

He stated that nagas as a species exist and are amphibians, so they exist and are amphibians, period. Not even the Beastars could have a say in the matter.

And it's not like he lied, he hated lies with a passion however, he loved loopholes. 

His son can effectively be considered a new species, he called himself a naga, he is part amphibian, it demanded your class, not your classes and he was born in Japan an Asian country. No lie, only the truth.

He made a bank account for his son, at Sea Treasury, a bank that specializes in marine animal customers, the conversion of marine money, Seashells to land money Yen and vice versa. (I will only use two types of money, Seashell are similar to euro, 1S = 140¥)

Cahaya will be given 15 000¥ or 107S of pocket money monthly. If need more he will earn it by doing odd jobs.

Mamoru bought a smartphone and a green phone case made for marine animals. Cahaya snorted in amusement at the name of the mark; they were Pear for the phone and BeetleShield for the case.

And the days passed with them continuing on their shopping spree, until the hour of the meeting.

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Present time.

Cahaya POV

So we did take the herbivores subway to get from the commercial centre of Zebuth to Cherryton Academy and I'm happy to say that I am not traumatized by train, yay!

We were still stared at by a lot of animals, well I didn't like it, like at all. The only 'good' thing is it was only staring, cause I would have probably snapped and that would have ended badly for everyone involved.

Going back to the present, the Academy was at the top of a big hill, that was next to a city and the sea, and it was huge and beautiful. It looked like a village, the main building was more than six stories tall and had multiple bridges connecting it to smaller ones.

It was simply breathtaking.

We entered it, I simply followed my Dad, we were in front of the main building. I felt footsteps on the ground.

"Hello I am Gon the headmaster of this institute, you must be Mamoru-sama the sea-scholar and Cahaya-kun his Student.", said the tall buff Siberian tiger, wearing a black three-piece suit, black rectangular glasses hiding a claw scar on his left eye.

One thing I noticed about myself, during my short stay in the city.

I don't like larger, taller or heavier animals than me, they make me have this animalistic urge to hiss, fan out my gills and fins, to appear bigger and taller, more threatening and my instincts prepared to attack at any moment.

My instincts seemed to get stronger as I grew and entered puberty.

We introduced ourselves, Dad's humble as always said the 'sama' wasn't necessary.

He then asked us to follow him into his office, where old trophies and old photos of past best students were on the walls and shelves.

Next to his desk was Dad, I coiled around myself in a somewhat seated position and him in front of us. 

On his desk knick knack could be recognized as well as a picture of him smiling with his wife and his two cubs, both looking adorable.

"So, let me welcome you to Cherryton Academy again, Mamoru-san and Cahaya-kun.

Mamoru-san, Just like you asked, you will be the first teacher of this Academy for Forbidden History also known as True History, a class only accessible to the top 5% grader senior and college students and under a heavy contract of secrecy for them, their lucky normally it's only a black and white screen with a flowing text 'lecturing' them.

Personally, I'm in the dark about what it teaches since I'm not authorized to know.", he said then paused and smiled at me.

'Forbidden? Contract of secrecy? Do they fucking censor the past like this! The headmaster doesn't even know it either and he is okay with that! Who are the morons who dared to censor the past!?', I thought in outrage, for the past life 'me' and the present life 'me' would have the same reaction of fury, but I still appeared calm and paid attention to what Gon-san said.

"Cahaya-kun you will enter the next week as a freshman and we will need to make your student ID, new uniforms for you, your timetable, your room is already prepared, and a lot of things will need to be talked about this next week, for your comfort.", he announced calmly.

I nodded.

"You are a very special student for me and Cherryton Academy, you are the first amphibian in this school, you are going to have the chance to meet others of your age group, and being the Student of a sea-scholar and future sea-scholar makes you a potential Beastar, already.", he said joyfully but at the end sounded a bit hopeful and desperate.

'Hmm potential Beastar, might as well try to aim for this title, power is power after all and as a hybrid I will need a lot of it, not only for me but for those I care about.' I looked at my

Dad appears calm on the surface when with large carnivores but he always has something like handguns, pepper sprays, knives and tasers on himself. He knows he is defenceless against most, so he takes precautions but he is by no means an exceptional fighter.

He taught me basic self-defence with or without weapons and marksmanship that as a half-spitting cobra, came nearly instinctively to me.

"Gon-san I would like to talk about the restrictions on.....

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Just like that, one week passed between Zebuth and Cherryton, shopping, exploring, getting acclimated to all the eyes on me, talking about the school and a lot more.

My first day of school in this life was going to start and I was excited, anxious and motivated to thrive in this world of beasts.