Haru burst through the double doors into the lecture hall. "I'm not late!" she announced, as everyone, including the professor, stopped to turn and look at her. Her cheeks flushed with embarrasment as she tried to mutter an apology to the class.
"Right..." the professor said. He was the same one that had given the orientation tour. Haru tried to recall his name. "Well, take a seat then. I was just going over the syllabus."
Haru pulled her hat over her head, going to find a seat and ignoring the stares and whispers. There was one near the back that she chose. J'atoh, still wearing the nurse cosplay, walked in after her, completely unpeturbed.
"Excuse me, young lady! Is that any outfit to wear to a classroom?!" The professor sputtered as he saw J'atoh's outfit.
"Yes. Yes it is," they replied as they joined a seat next to Haru. The professor gave up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right, where was I before I was interrupted? Ah, of course."
The professor continued with his speech; the class, apparently, was history. They went over the lesson plan, when the essays and exams would be due, what the required reading materials are, rubric and grade scaling, and Haru wondered if Haurchefant or Harbinger was closer to the professor's name. An hour slipped away like the peel of a banana, and before she knew it Haru was busy trying to get J'atoh to wake up. Perry joined them, still in their signature teal and orange outfit. Suddenly, Haru heard someone screaming their name. She turned around just in time to see a gremlin in red and black fly into her.
"HAAARUUUU! I missed you!" Kasane Teto said.
"Augh! Get off of me!"
"I tried to find you during the initiation, but I never did and I ended up getting paired up with this scary blue thing! Haru, save me!"
Teto cried into Haru's clothes while she eyed Perry for help. Instead of helping though, they held a hand to their face and tried desperately to look like they weren't laughing.
"Et tu, Perry?" Haru said silently as she submitted to Teto's abuse.
Then, someone called out Teto's name, and she suddenly froze above Haru with a "geh." When Haru peered around Teto, she saw a girl with black armsleeves and miniskirt with teal-blue trimming and a grey dress shirt with a blue tie. Her hair, the same color of teal, coalesced into two enormous twin tails that reach down to the ground.
"Teto! Leave these people alone! We're going to be late to the next class." The new person reached down and yanked on Teto's collar as she wailed.
"No! I don't wanna go! Class is boring and lame, I just want to harass cute girls all day!" Teto cried as the other person dragged her away.
Haru chose to ignore Teto's comment. "Thanks for that," she said earnestly to the person dragging Teto away.
"Nice to meet you!" she said, holding out a hand. "I'm Hatsune Miku! Me and Teto are in the same team." Teto sniffled in reply as Miku held her up.
Haru replied to the greeting in kind. They exchanged contact information, and Miku walked away, dragging and chastising a sobbing Teto.
J'atoh finally woke up; half groggy, they started complaining about something. Haru pulled them away as well, mimicking Miku and Teto as Perry followed behind; she ignored whatever J'atoh was complaining about.
Their next class was combat studies, this time taught by Sky. He sat on the desk at the end of the lecture hall, eyes closed and arms crossed as he waited for everyone to file in and sit down. There were muted whispers floating amongst the crowd as everyone took their seats; everyone here had gone through initiation, and so everyone knew exactly who this was. At least, that's what Haru guessed was the case. This was probably the most interesting class of their semester.
The bell rang, and Sky opened his eyes.
"Welcome to Combatives class," he said, a strange sadistic venom dripping from his voice. "First lesson: you have no semblances."
Haru stared at him in confusion; she looked around and found everyone else doing the same.
He held up a hand to explain. "Thus far, you've more than likely already seen combat of some kind. I would wager a guess all of you used your semblance in some way or to some degree to give you an edge. That's all good, and might have been fine with any other professor. Not with me. Your semblance is a crutch. Rely on it too much, and when it fails, you die."
Someone in the crowd scoffed and pointed out how semblances are part of them, that they'll always have it available.
"You won't," Sky replied. "There are semblances that can cancel out other semblances. Even without one, there are ways to mitigate a semblance's effectiveness. What good does a super power do you if you can't use it effectively? So from this day on out, you're going to learn how to fight without a semblance."
Someone else declared that was bullshit. On some level, Haru thought the same. Mandating that someone fight without their semblance was just dumb all around.
Sky grinned, and pointed out the student. "Don't believe me? Come down here and fight me. If you win, I'll take back everything I just said."
More muted whispers. The student shrugged, and walked down to the stage, drawing their weapons; a pair of swords. They closed their eyes and small balls of flame lit up around them; they seemed to have a mind of their own, dancing through the air around the student. Haru could tell they had some control over the fire, but that the balls were also somewhat autonomous. They charged, towards Sky; he hadn't moved an inch, only holding his keyblade at the ready. As the student got closer, the balls of fire shot out towards Sky, some going for his face and others going for the ground around them. Some to blind, some to restrict movement; suddenly she wondered who this student was. He seemed fairly normal and average; nothing special. Sky however, just grinned. He leapt up and over the balls of flame, converting his keyblade into its tommy gun form and firing a hail of bullets at the student. He blocked them with his short swords. The fire balls from earlier swung around and tried homing in on Sky, but he danced through them and slashed twice at the student, both strikes faster than the student could handle. He was disarmed, but Haru saw what Sky didn't; the orbs swinging back around and shooting towards him from his blindspot. Haru was fully certain the attack would land; the fight wasn't over yet, and once struck the student would have time to recover their weapons and go for a counter offensive. At least, that's what Haru's semblance predicted. Reality was completely different. Sky lunged forward at the unarmed student faster than he could back away, grabbed his arms, and swapped positions with him in the moments before the fire struck. Instead of Sky being hit, the fire struck the student. He screamed in pain; Sky kicked him to the floor before holding his own swords towards his throat. The students aura flickered badly. Haru hadn't even seen Sky recover the student's blades.
"Semi-autonomous fire balls. Almost like magic. Neat semblance, but your focus was divided between controlling the fire and keeping track of me. Not only that, you overextended and tried to get me in the back while my attention was on you." Sky dropped the student's weapons on top of him and recovered his own keyblade, holdind it behind his head and across his shoulders. "Any questions?"
Haru raised her hand this time. "How do we know you weren't using your semblance there?" From her perspective, it was a valid question. He shouldn't have been able to dodge those fire blasts at the end, much less swap himself with the student and get him hit.
Sky grinned cockily. "I don't have one."
A beat of silence. Then the hall erupted; some protesting the impossible, some praising his skill, some shouting in utter shock at the revelation. Haru, on the other hand, nodded. It made sense. She knew he wasn't lying about it.
"Quiet!" Sky yelled after a few moments. The chatter died down immediately as the student he fought returned to his seat. "You're all going back to fundamentals; you'll be learning combat from scratch, not using your semblance at all for the next few months. You'll learn techniques and tactics from me, spar against each other, and hone your battle skills, sans semblance. For those with passive semblances, this will be the opportunity to practice keeping it down. For those with active, you'll practice breaking that instinct to use it. Over time, you'll earn the right to use your semblance again. Your semblance is a tool, like any other; don't let it become a crutch."
The rest of the class, Sky focused on teaching footwork and body coordination, hammering in the importance of balance and recovery. By the end of it, Haru's head was swirling with new information she was struggling to move to long-term memory. With eyes closed and hands on her temples, she moved on to the next class, Grimm studies.
There was no one there. Well, there were the students, but the professor was nowhere to be seen. Class time started and the students quieted down. The professor still never showed. Some muted chatter sparked, which eventually evolved into full scale conversations, and the hall was abuzz with people just hanging out and chit-chatting. The professor still never showed, and Haru wondered if they were ever going to show.
They didn't. The class started and ended without anyone showing up to teach it. The students filed out of the room, Haru included, wondering what that was all about. J'atoh and Perry were in their own world, following behind Haru, chatting about something or another, except "chatting" was more J'atoh saying whatever came to their mind and Perry being silent and stoic as usual.
"Hey, look, it's team Faunus!"
The shout broke Haru out of her innermost thoughts. The hallway was sparsely populated, a number of students coursing through to their next class, Haru and her team included. The jeer came from a student at the head of another group, probably a team, hanging out in the hallway as team HYJR passed. The most striking thing about him was his hair; he had a thick crew cut with lepoard print dye and a mischevious grin splattered on his frankly stupid looking face. a girl with a brown bob cut and too much makeup, and a blonde girl that looked familiar for some reason.
"More like team reject! Hey, at least the school is putting them all in the same team." A teammate of his, a short spindly guy with a pink spiked mohawk, said. He flicked a middle finger Haru's direction.
"Ugh, we still have to sit in the same classrooms with those things," the third teammate of his said, a girl with a brown bobcut, lots of accessories, and too much makeup.
The fourth member of their team, a blonde girl who looked kind of familiar, said nothing.
Haru pulled her hat down over her eyes, ignoring the other team and their frankly rude comments about HYJR's features. Ignoring them was the best bet. No point causing a scene here; she wondered how Yusha would handle it, and suddenly the vacancy in their team was a pit in her stomach again.
"Hey, fuck you too, chumps!" J'atoh said. "Racist fucking pricks, get a life!"
"Oooh, look at the kitty hiss! Careful, bad behavior like that and you won't get any fish," pink mohawk douchebag jeered.
"What are those weird horns supposed to be? Freaky," brown bobcut said, checking her makeup in a handmirror.
"Just ignore them," Haru told her team, fully intent on just walking past the other team with no incident. For their part, Perry was doing great; head held up high and ignoring the other team. J'atoh on the other hand, glared at the other team as they walked past. The other team fell silent, just watching Haru and co.
Then, just as they were about to pass, the other team leader, the one with the leapordp print hair, spoke up.
"Heard your teammate's in the hospital. Bet she deserved it, freak of nature that she is. Surprised the rest of you-"
Haru didn't let him finish. She wheeled on him and punched him square in the jaw, catching him by complete surprise. He stumbled back, but Haru didn't let up. She barely registered someone shouting, saw them out of the corner of her eye pummeling the scrawny kid with the pink mohawk, but all of it was background noise. She hit the guy again and again, until he finally managed to dodge a punch and throw his own back. Haru barely dodged it. She threw a sweeping kick at leapord print, sending him tumbling to the floor. Then she mounted him, grabbed the collar of his shirt with one hand, and with the other, readied a punch.
The punch never fell. She felt a hand grab her own, and when she looked over her shoulder, Perry was there, shaking their head.
"Let go," Haru said coldly.
Perry shook their head calmly.
The moment ran on too long. Finally, the tension ran out of Haru's arm as she let go of leapord print. All around them, a big crowd had gathered, some of whom were whispering the word "savage." Haru avoided meeting any of their eyes. Two faculty members were holding pink mohawk and J'atoh apart. One approached her and grabbed her roughly by the arm, standing her up, and all of Team HYJR and the other team were escorted away.