Chapter 3:
The Arma
The three girls, Kasumii, Kuichi and Jenny were one of the last one to leave the building to head for the dinning hall. They were ecstatic and couldn’t help but talk about their newly assigned Monikers.
“Isn’t my name so CUTE!!!” exclaimed Jenny, “They took part of my first and last names to make it! Sunny, that’s such a cute name.”
“It is very cute,” Kasumii said, “and it works with your ability. I like my Moniker, too.”
“Oh yeah, what was it again? Hydra or something like that, I didn’t really get it.” Jenny said a little confused looking.
“It’s Hydraoi.” Kasumii replied, “I think it’s a combination of Hydro, like water, and Aoi, which is Japanese for blue.”
“That’s pretty cool, what about you Kuichi?” Jenny asked, “Do you like your name?”
“Um, I like the ‘Star’ part, but the other part is kind of scary sounding.” She replied softly.
“I liked it,” Kasumii comforted her, “I thought it was really cool, it’s like it’s saying your super powerful, and yet still elegant and beautiful. You should be proud of your Moniker.”
“I guess.” Kuichi replied doubtingly.
They left the building. Outside, a number of other students, from new students to third years were walking to the Grand Dining Hall, luckily for them, because they didn’t have to find it themselves because they had not been told where it was located. They entered the large entrance they had walked through earlier, along with the other students. The group of about twenty or so students went down the long hallway until they reached a huge doorway at the end of it. The door opened to reveal a large chamber with tall vaulted ceilings and around ten large windows on either side of the room. Like many of the other rooms in the castle, the walls were finely decorated with gold and intricate designs. In the room were three sections of table, most likely for the division of the classes, they were set up in a circular shape surrounding a circular table in the center of the room, the large table had around thirty or so chairs, most likely to sit the staff and teachers. The large table to the left had a blue tablecloth which matched the material on the chairs, the table and chairs on the right were this way as well, only in green. Finally, the last table, centered in the room, and the shortest of the outer tables, had a purple tablecloth with some kind of gold material that looked as though it was made out of a golden cloud. The girls figured that the elegant table was obviously for the Third Years, so they decided to sit at the table on the left with the blue. As they sat down, a male student approached them.
“What do you newbies think you’re doing?” He barked at them. “This table is reserved for the Second Years only, you Firsties sit at the green table.”
“We’re very sorry,” Kasumii pleaded with the superior as the three girls quickly stood up, “It won’t happen again.”
“You’d better hope not.” He replied rudely as he sat down and the girls quickly walked away.
“He was very rude,” Kasumii said with a frown, “Hopefully not all of the Second and Third Years are that rude.”
“I agree with you,” Jenny replied, “But he was pretty cute though, wasn’t he?”
“Is that all you think about, Jenny, cute boys?” Kasumii said, somewhat aggravated.
“I’m sorry.” Jenny said obviously upset.
“No I’m sorry,” Kasumii replied, realizing she had hurt her friend’s feelings, “I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you like that. It was just that guy made me so mad! I hate people like that always thinking that their better than others.”
The girls chose a spot to sit near the end of the table and waited for breakfast to be served. They were seated several minutes, talking about whatnot as the other students filled in the remaining seats, then the staff showed up, taking their seats as well. Kasumii was so busy talking with her sister and friend, that she didn’t even realize who had sat down next to her, Zokeii.
“So what do you think we will be having for breakfast?” Kasumii asked the girls, “If all of the food is as good as the lunch and diner we had yesterday, than I might just explode from happiness!”
“So you like to eat then?” said a voice from beside Kasumii.
“Oh, Zokeii! I didn’t know you were sitting there!” She said, quite surprised, “I didn’t mean, I mean, what I meant to say was, I…umm.”
“Ha, it’s ok, I like a girl that knows how to eat,” He reassured her, “I can’t stand those people that starve themselves so that they can be ‘cool’, you know.”
“You know I like to eat, too!” Jenny burst into their conversation, “I once ate a whole pizza and half a chi…”
“Jenny,” Kuichi thoughtfully interrupted, “Can’t you see they are trying to talk.”
“Oh right! Sorry!” She said turning her head away in shame.
The doors in the back of the room, there were three of them, opened up suddenly and a swarm of dozens of Isadoras carrying hundreds of silver platter flooded the room, they were not aware that she could make so many duplications of herself. The four of them were so amazed at how many of them there were that they didn’t even realize one of the silver platters had been placed in front of each of them. As soon as they realized that they had been served, the multiples disappeared almost as fast as they had appeared, leaving the room much quieter, without the sounds of moving silverware and dishes and hundreds of feat. They lifted their lid to a shocking surprise; they all had different meals, Kasumii had a short stack of pancakes with extra syrup, Kuichi had homemade waffles, Jenny had eggs, sunny-side-up of course, and Zokeii got French Toast with powdered sugar. By the looks on their faces, it was apparent that they had just received one of their favorite dishes.
They enjoyed their meals and together as a group stood up and headed for their rooms to finish getting ready for their first class. As they reached the hall with there rooms, the four split to go to their separate rooms.
“Well, I’ll see you girls in class then, later.” Zokeii politely said as he opened the door to his room.
The girls waved bye to him as they walked into their rooms. As the two sisters closed the door behind them, the noticed a surprise awaited them on their beds, a clothes box. They walked over to them and written on labels were their names in a fancy script.
“What do you think it is?” Kasumii asked her sister as the two opened their packages.
As they lifted the lids off, they uncovered their new school uniforms. The uniforms were completely different from each other; the only thing matching was the colors. Kasumii’s uniform consisted of a navy blue halter top attached to long kimono-style sleeves that were slightly longer than her arms concealing her hands and revealing her shoulders the lower part of sleeves were pleated, a dark maroon skirt with pleats like the sleeves, it went to a few inches above her knees, knee length white socks and black mary-janes shoe with tall heels. Kuichi’s uniform however consisted of a long sleeved blouse, the same navy color as Kasumii’s top and it had pleated sleeves as well, only it reached just above her wrists, her skirt was the same maroon color and it reached to slightly below the knees, the socks went up her calves half way and she had traditional mary-janes with only a slight heel.
“Umm, Kasumii?” Kuichi started.
“Yeah, what is it Kuichi.” she replied.
“Do you, umm, do you really like that Zokeii guy?” Kuichi asked, not trying to offend her sister.
“I don’t know,” She replied, hiding her blush, “He seems really nice and he’s pretty cute, but I don’t know all that much about him.”
The two changed in silence and headed out of the room, only to be greeted by Jenny, who had apparently been waiting for them so that they could walk to class. She too had her new uniform on, a dress that was a few centimeters longer than her fingers, it had short sleeves with the same pleated look and it was all navy blue, it also had a sash in the same maroon color, her socks went well past her knees and her shoes matched Kuichi’s.
“OMG! Isn’t my uniform so adorable?” She exclaimed, “Your guys’ uniforms are really cute too, I didn’t know that that there would be different uniform styles, I didn’t get to see what Jadwiga was wearing, by the time I got into my room, she was already gone and the package the clothes came in weren’t on her bed, so she must have already changed.”
“Or she burned it.” Kasumii said with a chuckle.
The three girls burst out laughing as they walked down the hall. As they reached the top of the stairs, Kasumii looked back to see if Zokeii was going to come out and join them, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Do you know if Zokeii left for class already?” Kasumii asked Jenny.
“Oh yeah, he walked past while I was waiting for you guys to come out of your room.” Jenny replied.
“Oh ok.” Kasumii said, seemingly a bit disappointed.
“Oh, but he said that he would see us in class and that if possible he would save a seat for you.” Jenny quickly added in.
“Did he really say that?” Kasumii said blushing.
“You bet he did, you lucky girl.” Jenny replied with a giggle.
The girls continued out of the building to realize that they had no idea where Room 355 Area B was located, so they looked around for someone to ask. They saw a girl sitting on a bench a short distance away and walked over to her to ask for directions. As they approached her, they realized that she was wearing the same outfit as the other staff, only in a brilliant yellow, almost gold. She was a beautiful woman with tan skin and long flowing black hair that reached her waist, she was reading a book in another language as they walked up.
“Excuse miss,” Kasumii said, “Can you tell us where Room 355 in Area B is located, we’re new here and we don’t really know our way around.”
“Sure of course,” She said in a light voice as she put her book down, revealing her magnificent yellow eyes, “It’s the first door on your right after you go to the second floor in that building right over there.”
“Thank you very much.” the girls replied as they headed in that direction.
After entering the building they had little difficulty in locating the stairs and, after climbing them, locating their classroom. They walked in to find most of the other new students were there already there and most of the seats were filled. Kasumii desperately looked around the room looking for Zokeii, she finally found him, in the middle row and next to him was an empty seat. She looked at Jenny and Kuichi and they already knew what she saw, so they nudged her to go. She walked over and sat next to him while her sister and friend found two seats next to each other near the back of the class.
“Hey.” Zokeii said as Kasumii approached the empty seat and him, “I saved a seat for you.”
“Thanks.” She said as she sat down trying to keep herself from blushing. “I…”
“Good morning students.” Lady Aethelflaed shouted as she flew through the door, “Welcome to your first class on Armas!”
She stood in front of her desk as the students turned their focus away from each other to their teacher, including Kasumii and Zokeii, who both clearly wanted to talk to each other. Duchess turned toward her desk and picked up something wrapped in paper. She unwrapped it and as the paper fell to the floor, she held up what was inside, a sword. The classroom gasped as the students in the first row ducked in terror, thinking their new teacher was going on a rampage.
“Don’t worry students,” she confided with them, “This is what we are going to be learning about today, these are Armas.”
“We all get to use swords?” Bradley asked as the other students talked amongst each other excitedly, “That is so cool.”
“Well you won’t all get swords, but yes you will each get your own Arma.” She answered, “Now I must explain to you what they are for and how they work, without this vital information, you will all be doomed, I mean, you will surely fail.”
The students were too excited about this news and were to busy talking amongst each other, that they didn’t here this last part. As they increased in volume, Duchess increased in anger.
“Alright that’s enough!” She screamed, “Now pay attention.”
The students quickly quieted and turned toward their furious teacher.
“Now that’s better.” She said quieting down, “As I was saying before, There are many things you must learn about these Arma before you can freely use them. Today I will give you the basic information and then you will be introduced to your new Arma.”
“First,” She then started, “You must know what an Arma is. An Arma is a magical weapon, it has special abilities and they will be assigned according to you special ability, These Arma are ancient fighting devices, many are over a thousand years old and over that time their power has increased by each owner that uses it. These Arma are very invaluable and irreplaceable and in the occurrence of any damages or losses to the Arma, the wrath of the heavens will fall upon you.”
The students gasped.
“Not really, but you will be heavily punished.” She said jokingly, “The next thing you need to know is that these Arma are very powerful and not all students are able to handle there power right away, it takes many lessons and months to be able to wield one of these Arma and even then you can not call yourself a master of them, we have only one record of a student loss from being destroyed by their Arma, a boy from around fifty years, he believed that he could overpower his Arma’s strength, but he couldn’t and he paid with his life.”
The students all gasped again.
“Don’t worry, as long as you follow our rules and complete all of you training lessons, then you will completely be able to control your Arma.” She again reassured them. “The last thing you need to know before you are introduced to your, is how Armas work. The reason why they are so dangerous is because they feed off of your life force, most normal people are only able to use them for a short amount of time before becoming completely exhausted, you however, have a longer time frame in which you can use them without feeling the effects of the drain, but be aware that although you will not fell it as much, it is still occurring and overusing it can and most likely will lead to death. When an Arma has chosen its wielder, it will attach itself to that person’s soul. You will feel it as soon you pick it up, if it has chosen you, if the weapon that has been assigned to you does not automatically attach to your soul, than it means you are not ready and must train more, many of you will not have the feeling of soul attachment until much later on, but some people, who have been chosen by Destiny, will automatically bond with their weapon, this however is very rare, in fact only two student in this entire school at the present time have had this happen too them.”
She started towards the door and beckoned for the students to follow. The students all stood up and followed their teacher out of the classroom and out of the building.
Outside of the building, they followed a path to the back of the school. There they found an enormous field for playing some kind of game or for taking part in some kind of training. As they approached the center of the field, several figures emerged from the fog, Wilonius, the dark skinned woman that was at the registration meeting, and someone else, another student. He had a familiar face, someone who they had met earlier that day at breakfast when they accidentally sat in the wrong section, it was the boy that had insulted them. As Kasumii and Jenny realized who this third person was, they scowled at him and then turned their attention to Wilonius who had just begun to speak.
“It’s nice to see all again today,” He said, “I’m afraid I haven’t introduced you to one of you new teachers. This is Malaika Jua, she is going to be your Ability Management teacher, you will be attending her class tomorrow, but for now we need to assign you your Arma.”
“Thank you for the wonderful introduction, Wilonius,” Malaika said sarcastically, “Anyways children, to assign you Arma, we will first need to see a demonstration of your abilities to see what level you are at and to properly choose the correct Arma for you. This will also be a wonderful time for you children to get to know each other by finding out what each other’s ability really is.”
“Alright children now line up.” Wilonius commanded.
“We will be going one at a time and for the safety of the other students, we will ask each and every one of you to perform your ability at least one hundred meters away from the group,” Duchess stated, “and if you wouldn’t mind, we would like to begin immediately, so may the first student please come forward?”
The first volunteer stepped up, Bradley.
“I Bradley Worm the third, shall show you my incredible prowess. Behold!” Bradley exclaimed.
He then started mumbling random things about mathematics, cosmology, archaeology and pretty much anything else that nobody there cared about.
“Alright Bradley,” Wilonius said, “That’s enough! Your weapon is the Taiaha named Gwybodaeth.”
“Oh a Taiaha, a traditional weapon of the Maori peoples of New Zealand,” stated Bradley, “and the name Gwybodaeth is Welsh, which means Knowledge or Information.”
“That’s fine now come over here and try picking it up,” Wilonius said impatiently.
The young boy walked over to the place where the four superiors stood and on the table next to them, a long spear-like device awaited him. He stood there for a few seconds, admiring its beautiful craftsmanship and deciding whether or not he should pick it up. He reached down and as his hand tried for the handle, a wave of pure energy shot from it and hit his hand, startling him and forcing to avoid contact with the weapon.
“What happened?” Bradley asked confused.
“This is also quite common as well,” Duchess stated, “Sometimes the wielder’s own power isn’t at par with that of the weapon. If your level is lower than the Arma, than it will reject you, if you are level with it, than you can pick it up and use it as a regular weapon, but if you surpass it in power, that is when it will bond with you and you can use its special abilities to amplify the Arma and your power.”
“Next please,” Wilonius said impatiently.
The students conversed amongst each other for whom to go next, as they all excited to obtain an Arma, but frightened at the thought that they might not be to weak to actually wield it. So Kasumii decided that it was her turn. She went to the designated spot to show her abilities. She stretched her arms out with her palms facing upwards and closed her eyes. All of a sudden, something started to happen, the mist started to disappear and it was being drawn in by her hands and collecting until there was no fog over the area of the entire field creating to huge globes of water in her hands. She then spun around once and pushed her hands straight up into the air forcing the globes into the sky and causing it to drizzle over the field, getting everyone wet. Nobody seemed to care as they all clapped as Kasumii bowed.
“That was marvelous!” Wilonius cried out, “All though I would have preferred not getting wet, but still it was beautiful.”
“I am so sorry about that, I guess I went a little overboard on that.” She apologized.
“No need for apologies, deer.” Duchess said, “Anyway, your Arma will be the trident, known by the name of Kanpeki Konpeki.”
She walked over to the table and on the table sat a magnificent blue colored trident with incredible inlays of silver and gold. She slowly reached down for it, in fear of it do what it had done to Bradley, and as her fingers grasped it and she started to pick it up, a rush of energy overflowed through her body as a blinding majestic light shown from a blue crystal near the top of the weapon.
“Incredible!” Wilonius proclaimed as he and his colleagues uncovered their eyes as the light dimmed to a glow, “It appears as though the weapon has already bonded with you, this is an amazing feat and you manage to accomplish it, congratulations.”
The students clapped as she turned and faced them to walk back and join the group, bowing again as she reached them.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s enough off that already.” Jadwiga said with disgust, “It’s my turn to go.”
She walked over and stood a few meters away from the table and pointed at Wilonius. She concentrated on him for a few moments until something unexpected happened, Wilonius quickly jumped up on top of the table and started to break dance uncontrollably.
“What’s going on?” Wilonius screamed as he spun around on his head on the table.
“Quiet!” Jadwiga shouted, immediately immobilizing her victim’s ability to speak.
“That’s enough Jadwiga!” Duchess cried.
“Let him down now!” Malaika shouted.
“Fine, he was beginning to bore me anyways.” She said turning her focus away, causing Wilonius to fall off of the table and fall to the ground in a drunken like stupor.
The students all gasped as he lye their, possibly unconscious. They waited several moments before he slowly but finally stood up, dazed.
“Oh my head, I’m so dizzy. What just happened?” Wilonius said, a bit mixed up.
“That was a very, um, ‘good’ attempt to showing us your ability,” Duchess said a bit scared that the same would happen to her, ‘Your Arma will be the one called Doch’ Ved’my.”
She stepped up to the table, and on it was a broom made of metal. She picked it up nothing happened.
“Is this it?” She asked, “A broom, It didn’t do anything.”
“That means that you are at a level similar to that of the Doch’ Ved’my, This Arma is however a stronger level than others and therefore very surprising that you were able to pick it up.”
“That’s cool, I guess.” She said placing it back down on the table and heading back to join the others.
“I’ll go next.” Zokeii volunteered.
He stood at the designated area and started chanting in some unknown language. As his chanting increase, a loud roaring sound commenced. Where they stood, the ocean was somewhat visible off of the uninhabited side of the island. Giant waves began to form as he changed the tides with his lunar powers.
“Very impressive Zokeii.” Wilonius said, “I believe the perfect weapon for you will be the Yongheng Yewan, the Yueyachan or Monk’s Spade. So please come over and try your luck at picking it up.”
He walked over to the table where his new weapon laid waiting. He reached down for it and as his hand took hold of it, something very familiar happened, the same blinding light that had happened when Kasumii had picked up Kanpeki Konpeki, his soul was bonding with it as well.
“Amazing, this is the first time two students from the same year were able to immediately bond with their Arma.” said an astounded Wilonius.
“Really, that’s cool, right?” he said.
“Yes it is, this is very cool.” Wilonius said in excitement. “May the next person please come up then?”
Over the next hour almost all of the other students had gone, most of them were able to at least pick up their Arma some of the younger students however were not able too, due to a lack of experience and power. All of the students went, that is for the exception of two, Jake and Kuichi. Jake obviously because he wasn’t present at the moment, and Kuichi because she was afraid that if she showed her power to anybody, it might happen again, she didn’t want to lose her friends because by scaring them all away with it.
“Alright Kuichi,” Duchess said, “You are the last one please step forward.”
She hesitated but she finally started to walk towards the spot. She stood their for a while without doing anything but making a terrified face, she took a deep breath inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. She apologized to everyone and stood in a fighting stance. She gave off a loud scream as a flash of light and a pulse of energy flowing from her burst out like a bubble, causing a shock wave that hit the innocent bystander. As the students uncovered their faces and regained their balance, they saw what had happened, Kuichi was standing there her arms were transformed into large guns, there were blades and guns protruding from every area of her body, she looked like a giant death machine. As soon as the girl realized that her fellow students were staring at her, she pulled her weapons back into her body and in a flash she was back to normal. By the shocked face on everyone’s face, she was certain that she had petrified them with fear, which is until everyone started to cheer at the top of their lungs. She did a quick curtsy and ran to the table with her awaiting Arma, only when she reached it, the table was empty. She looked at her teachers puzzled.
“Dear, that was amazing. We don’t believe you actually need an Arma.” Malaika stated, “With your power and ability, you could easily defeat any foe you come across, thank you for that beautiful display Kuichi, dear.”
“Your welcome.” Kuichi said blushing as she went to the others that were still cheering.
“If that’s all of the students, then you can all have the rest of the day to yourself, spend it exploring the school and the campus.” Wilonius said, “Lunch is at twelve, in about an hour and dinner is at seven. We will be requesting you to show up at four to meet where you were registered later today to hear the school rules and policies. Until then, don’t you do anything that you wouldn’t do at your old schools, or you will…”
He was suddenly interrupted as darkness started to fall over the field. The entire sky turned black and no one could see past the ends of their noses it was as if someone turned the skies lights off. As the students began to panic, not knowing what was happened, the darkness started to disappear. The darkness was being sucked into a single area as if it was being sucked into a black hole, it condensed until was a solid ball of pure black and darkness. This ball started to transform into a humanoid shape and as details started to appear on the mass, they could see that it was Jake.
“Well what did you think?” he asked with a big grin on his face, “That was one of my abilities. Now I’ll take my Arma if you don’t mind.”
He walked over to the table where the terrified teachers stood staring at him as he approached. He reached down and picked up a sword with a curved blade, it looked as though darkness itself was imbued within it.
“Ah well if it isn’t the Kris ‘Pure Darkness’, what a lovely choice for me.” he said.
He picked it up, and as it had happened to Kasumii and Zokeii, a light shone from it, but it wasn’t white light, it was a black light that darkened the area, almost blinding. The Kris was bonding with his soul. He took the sword with him as he walked away from the group.
“Wait, your not aloud to take the Arma with you at this time!” Wilonius shouted as Jake walked on.
“Sir, that wasn’t one of our Armas.” Duchess whispered to Wilonius.
“Indeed.” Wilonius whispered back, “We have to be very careful, the third soul bond in one day. It appears as though the prophecy is real after all.”
“It can’t be.” Malaika quietly said.
“We must inform Master Onderwijzer right away,” Wilonius replied, “Don not tell anybody else this information, understood?”
“Understood.” The two said together.
“Students,” He said, gaining the student’s attention, “as I was saying, we will be meeting again at four.”
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