My Enigmatic Life

(Yoko’s POV)

   After a long Biology lesson, my friends and I head to the cafeteria. We find an empty table and start to tuck in. Aniki actually woke up early and made me a bento, sauteed spicy chicken and chickpeas on a fluffy bed of rice with a side of cucumber salad. But what I’m really looking forward to is the jalebi he made. I’ve been away from home for a while now, so I’ve missed out on a lot of the Indian desserts that Auntie usually makes.

“Koyashi-sensei* gave us so much home-work today! What’s his problem?”, Akane complains.

“It’s Kobayashi-sensei, Aka-chan..”, Yuri corrects her with a nervous smile.

“If you need any help, I’ll have no problems with lending you a hand.”, Haruhi-chan says.

“Thanks for the offer, Haruhi-chan, but I’ll just get help from Daisuke-nii.”

Hmm, I can’t help but wonder why we’ve been given such little info on the World-Tree Templar. We pretty much know nothing about them in comparison to Midnight Fox, which is a relatively small organisation in the grand scheme of things.

Is it because we’re a rookie squadron? Or is it because The Enigmatic Society has that little information on them? If it’s the latter, then that’s cause for concern. Being ill-informed about a bunch of nefarious crims like them sounds like a recipe for disaster…

“Yoko-chan, are you okay? You haven’t said anything at all.”

Akane calls out to me, who’s lost in thought.

“Oh, I’m fine. I was just thinking about something work related.”

Yuri sighs.

“I was thinking about getting a part-time job, but my grand-parents say I’m too flighty to keep one for more than a few hours…”

What kind grand-parents you have.

“Don’t mind them, Yuri-senpai! Go out there and give it your best!”, Haruhi-chan cheers.

“Yeah! Your grand-parents are just a bunch of old losers if they talk to their only grand-child like that!”, Akane adds.

“If you want to give it a try, then go ahead. Don’t let them stop you.”, I nod.

Yuri, now teary-eyed, opens her mouth to say something. But unfortunately-

“Hey, stop!”

A loud voice interrupts. What’s going on?

Gazing into the crowd, I can see a gang of boys harassing who seems to be a group of first-year students.

“Jeez, it’s those boys from Class 2-D again. They’re totes annoying.”, Haruhi-chan frowns. “There’s not a day that goes by without them causing trouble.”

“I remember telling Daisuke-nii about them last year. How did anyone in that class even manage to graduate?”, Akane mutters contemptuously.

“I heard a rumour that they came together to blackmail the school faculty so that they could move up a year.”, Yuri whispers.

“I doubt that that’s the case.”, I say, not taking my eyes off of the scene unfolding.

A boy from the group of first-years shoves one of the hooligans, obviously fed up with their pestering.

“Don’t you jerks have anything better to do?”, he scowls. “Bullying your underclassmen doesn’t make you cool, you know?”

The supposedly infamous troublemakers just laugh at him. Haruhi-chan was right about them being irksome.

“Look at him! He’s trying to act tough in front of the chicks!”

“What a loser!”

“Let’s stop, guys! After all, we don’t look cool at all!”

The laughter gradually grows more and more raucous, until it grabs the attention of everyone in the cafeteria. Even those who were purposefully ignoring them can do so no longer.

The one looks to be the ringleader dons an evil smirk and slings his arm over the first-year’s shoulders. He’s on the short side, with sharp, ash-white hair and beady green eyes. He looks like a weasel, honestly...Which suits his behaviour, quite frankly.

“Listen, man. You don’t get it, do you?”, he says. “As a kouhai-”

He mercilessly knees the first-year in the stomach, causing him to bring up what he just ate.

“Gougggh!”

“Rentaro-kun!”

As begins to fall to his knees, the ringleader grabs him by the hair and brings him face-to-face.

“You don’t have any say in what your senpai does to you, got it?”

“You..*cough*..bastard..”

“Still being insubordinate, eh? Alright, I’ll fix that soon enough!”

He cocks back his fist and barrels it towards Rentaro’s face. Fortunately, the attack never lands, and that’s because I stopped it.

“Huh?! Who the hell are you?!”

“Where’d you come from?!”

The cafeteria breaks out into hushed conversation, but I ignore it, focusing my attention solely on the main perpetrator, who I have held tightly by his wrist. He looks shocked for a moment, but he quickly regains his smirk.

“Hello, onee-san. Is there something you want from me?”

“Let him go.”

“Ehhh? But I’m in the middle of teaching him a very important lesson, you know?”

I tighten my grip around his wrist until I can hear a slight grinding sound. He lets out a yelp of pain and quickly releases Rentaro, who falls down on all fours. Seeing this, I decide to let the weasel go.

“You-you bitch! Who do you think you are, huh?!”

“I thought that a kouhai didn’t have any say in what their senpai does to them.”, I respond flatly.

In a rage, he kicks at me with dangerous intent, but he’s a bit too slow. Nonetheless, he persists in launching a volley of attacks at me.

“Yoko-san! Be careful!”

Don’t worry, Yuri. This weasel is nothing to worry about.

“Stop running away and fight back!”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

My dismissive behaviour only seems to anger him further, but I don’t really give a damn, though. He needs some humbling after what he just did. All I have to do is just make a fool of him until a teacher arrives.

“Magick Missile!”

!

His mana is rising! He can use Magic?! And he’s going to use it in a crowded place like this?! If I just evade it someone could get hurt or killed!

I put up my arms to guard my face and use Reinforcement on them just in case, but the spell never comes. Instead, I get punched sharply in my stomach and collide with a nearby lunch table. A feint! It didn’t hurt too badly, but he still landed a solid blow on me.

“Yoko-chan, are you okay?!”, Akane asks hurriedly.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

“Oh? You fell for such a stupid trick, senpai?”, the weasel sneers. “Are you some kind of super otaku or something?”

Alright, now I’m getting angry. I’m going to kick his arse into the next decade.

“What’s going on here?!”

And, of course, a teacher decides to arrive now. Great.

   The weasel and I are currently sat in front of Mawatari-san, our school’s headmaster. He stares at the two of us for a moment before sighing heavily.

“I’ve come to expect these visits from you, Kukichi-san, but I’m in certain that this is the first time you've ever been to my office, Colen-san.”
“Indeed it is, Headmaster Mawatari. I apologise for my behaviour.”

“Hey, Old-timer. You doin’ alright? And I told you to call me Shoji.”

The weasel speaks to Headmaster Mawatari very loosely, but the latter shows no reaction to it other than another deep sigh. I’m guessing that this is a regular occurrence.

“Seeing as to how both your brother and cousin had a nearly clean record during their tenure, I’d figured it would rub off on you. What happened behind you and Kukichi-san?”

“Well, Headmaster Mawatari, the weasel-I mean-Kukichi-san was harrying a first-year, and even used violence against him. Seeing that, I decided to intervene.”

“Hey, did you just call me a weasel?!”

The headmaster nods slowly, a smile spreading on his face.

“I see, I recall those two got in trouble for something similar in their first year.”

“Oh! So being a busy-body runs in the family.”, the weasel says rudely. “Don’t worry though, onee-san, I’ll forgive you if you go out on a date with me!”

I resist the urge to punch him, and question Headmaster Mawatari on his reply.

“What did Aniki and Naoya-nii do, sir?”

“They, along with Chikara-san, Watanabe-san and Matsuoka-san, tied a male student to a chair and barricaded him in the abandoned storage room because he broke a female student’s glasses.”, he says reminiscently. “The poor boy was in there for the entire school day before they decided to let him out.”

I-I see…That kind of makes them sound like bullies, though.

“How are they all? Besides Watanabe-san, I didn't think that any of you would end up being affiliated with the Enigmatic Society.”

Eh?

Eh?!

“Wait, you’re in an Enigma Squadron too, onee-san?! That’s why you reacted when I was about to use Magick Missile! I actually thought that you were just some weirdo when you tried to block it.”

Again, I have to resist the urge to smack him.

“How long have you known that, Headmaster Mawatari?”, I ask incredulously.

“From when you all first joined.”, he explains. “Nishi no Oka Academy has had relations with the Enigmatic Society for about a century or so. As a matter of fact, the only reason Kukichi-san hasn’t been expelled is because of that connection.”

So that’s why Haruhi-chan suddenly transferred here! Blimey, it could only be considered fate that we all managed to be attending this school.

“What’s your squadron’s name, onee-san?”, the weasel asks.

“The Dawn Wolves.”, I say quickly.

“Oh! I remember you guys now! Leader Handa sure was pissed when your dead-eyed looking leader refused to give him more info!”

All the more reason not to like you. From this moment forward, I’ll make sure that neither I nor anyone I care about interacts with you.

“Now that’s all been cleared up, the two of you will be in detention together for the week.”, Headmaster Mawatari concludes.

Wot? Did I hear that correctly? There’s no way I did.

“W-w-we’ll be doing what, sir?”, I fumble.

“Please get along with me, onee-san!”, the weasel beams at me.

If any God can hear my plea, please give me a way to escape this situation.

…Oh, right. They’re all sealed away, apparently. Great.

 

¹*Koyashi can translated into fertiliser. Perhaps that's why it's important that Akane doesn't make that mistake.