The Rising Of The Anomaly - Chapter 191

Uh…should I intervene? No, no way, it’s too scary!

“Oh…I see. But, uh, why don’t you sit in your usual spot, since you’ve been sitting there for so long, I’m sure you’d be more comfortable there,” Persisted Suri, her smile more obviously strained now.

“I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine right here,” Came the firm reply.

Crap, some of the others are starting to notice…Mitchell in particular, was looking on with amusement. This is the worst.

“What’s going on here, you two fighting over a seat?” He inquired with an innocent smile, as he turned around and shifted his gaze between them.

“Not at all,” Responded Katie, her expression giving absolutely nothing away.

“Yeah, what she said,” Muttered Suri, as she relented and reluctantly headed for the seat right in front of me, taking Katie’s old spot.

I let out a quiet, internal sigh of relief, as the standoff finally ended. Aw, man, that was terrifying, I think I stopped breathing for a moment there. I then stiffened slightly in surprise as Katie subtly reached over and placed her hand on my knee for a brief moment, meeting my gaze as the corner of her lips faintly curved upwards, before she pulled her hand away and averted her gaze.

Not gonna lie, her being all expressive during our date was amazing, but that was just on another level. All it was was a brief, seemingly innocuous touch and glance, but it was enough to get my heart racing.

The upcoming X-Warrior Zone elections, the suspiciously long period of idleness of the Wights, and this so-called ‘love triangle’ or whatever it is…yeah, all the ingredients are there for this year to turn out to be an absolute shitstorm.

This creeping sense of paranoia and anxiety has been gnawing away at me for a while now, things have been way too peaceful lately…it just feels like we’re on the verge of all hell breaking loose abruptly and unexpectedly, and that it’s just around the corner.

It is because I’ve been conditioned to expect that over the last year or so? Every time things start to settle down, something devastating happens. I hope it’s just paranoia, I really do, but the fact remains that there are plenty of threats out there that are yet to be dealt with.

The warding radiation has kept Mutants well away from the Sanctuary and the outside bases, but if a Mutant really wanted to get into the Sanctuary like the Crocsnek did, it wouldn’t be impossible for them to force themselves to resist the radiation and make their way here.

Then, of course, there’s the Wights…according to Director Silva, they haven’t come within sight of our Bug-sized surveillance drones at all since Aku overran one of our bases to the south with Mutants, before we blew it up. Why haven’t they made a move in so long? Just what the hell are they upto?

Somehow, I doubt that they’re just chilling and kicking back…and the longer they take to strike, the more complex their plan might be, or at least, that’s how it feels. They’ve got at least four times the number of Anomalies that we do, but we don’t know what they’re all capable of.

And by now, it’s entirely possible that even more Wights have developed Anomaly powers. This really sucks, I hate not knowing…the more knowledge you lack, the less in-control you feel, and subsequently, the more helpless you feel. And I hate that.

Anyway, I guess there’s no point in agonizing over it, that won’t change a thing, all it’ll do is stress me the hell out. Oh, looks like the instructor’s finally here, five minutes late. Guess we’re about to start our first session of our Level K classes…

“Good morning, students, it’s nice to meet you all. This is my first day as an instructor at the X-Warrior Academy, and I’ll be in charge of your theory classes. My name is Junko Satou,” She introduced herself with a friendly smile.

Her face looks familiar…she had short, straight black hair that framed her face, with a cowlick lock of hair standing up at the top of her head. She had orange eyes, was slender and about average height, with an attractive physique.

Wait, she said her last name is Satou…is she related to Instructor Jin Satou? Now that I look at her more closely, she does bear a resemblance to him. I felt a slight sense of guilt as I noticed the resemblance…it was my fault that he died, he was one of the victims of my careless time travel experiments, his body currently in a vegetative state.

“Uh, excuse me, ma’am…I don’t mean to pry, but would you happen to be related to Jin Satou?” Inquired Lin curiously, as some of the others noticed how similar they looked too.

“Oh, um, that’s right. He’s my older brother,” She replied, a hint of sorrow appearing in her eyes for a brief moment.

Okay, yeah, I’m starting to feel pretty guilty now…I didn’t know him all that well, but the fact is that, if it wasn’t for him, most of my remaining classmates would probably be dead. So I’m grateful to him, and I am sorry that he ended up dying because of me.

“I’m sorry, instructor, I shouldn’t have asked-,” Began Lin, looking guilty.

“Oh, it’s fine, there’s no need to apologize,” She interrupted with a smile, before adding, “Anyway, let’s get started, shall we? We won’t be doing much studying today, since it’s the first day and all…instead, how about each of you introduce yourselves? It would make things easier if I was familiar with all of you. Oh, I suppose that I should go first…”

She gave us a brief explanation of what she does, she’s a K-Ranked X-Warrior who, until recently, was stationed at one of the outside bases, but had recently moved back to the Sanctuary.

After that, we each took turns introducing ourselves one by one. She seems nice enough, but more importantly, how’s her teaching style? If she’s boring, then it’ll be the same story as Levels J and Q…hopefully, she’s more interesting than Kumar.

Speaking of whom, I haven’t seen him in what’s felt like quite a while, I wonder what he’s been upto these days. I know that he’s no longer an instructor, having obstinately quit the position and started taking on more Missions as an Ace.

Honestly, I’m surprised they kept him as an instructor for a whole year, he was half-assing it so much that it wasn’t even funny. And he was definitely doing so intentionally, making it clear that he really didn’t want to be an instructor.

The Academy had hired a bunch of new instructors at the end of last year, since they were kinda understaffed in the last few months, so I guess they must have decided to let him go. He was made an instructor in the first place because he had issues with teamwork, since his powers aren’t exactly suited for working with others.

I don’t think that’s changed in the past year, but if nothing else, I’m pretty sure that he’ll be making an effort not to get sent back to the Academy again.

And that’s probably for the best, I mean…it’s kinda wasteful to have an Ace sitting on the sidelines, getting rusty. Getting back into the fray with some tough Missions is probably the best thing for him to do right now.

Anyway, it didn’t take long before everyone had introduced themselves, since there were only eleven of us in this class, an effective thirty percent decrease from how many we’d started with last year.

There’d originally been sixteen students in this class, and while it’s not uncommon for batches to lose students with each subsequent level, that’s usually due to drop-outs, not deaths. Of course, we weren’t the only batch that had lost a large number of students in the past year…

“Okay, now that everyone’s introduced themselves, let’s discuss what you’ll all be studying this year, what to expect of your classes and whatnot. It’ll mostly be the same as last year, just more advanced-…,” Began the new Instructor Satou, before trailing off as what sounded like someone clearing their throat faintly echoed out from outside the classroom door.

Huh? Is someone standing out there? Why?

“Did you guys hear something?” Someone muttered, as most of the others looked around with puzzled expressions…guess not everyone figured out where the noise came from.

“Oh, no, I completely forgot!” Exclaimed Instructor Satou, her eyes widening, before she addressed us, “Okay, uh, class, I have an announcement to make…you’ll have one more student joining you, due to the rather…unique circumstances. Please welcome him…come in, Mr Grey Cintor.”

The door then opened, and a familiar face walked in…huh? Why’s he here? Wait, is it because he’s the only one left in his class? Hey, no fair…he gets to skip Level Q!?

_____________________________________________

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don’t forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism!

Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.