Chapter Two: Connections

"Hey, Shri." I said after dinner. The girl looked up at me as she shut her last book. "I'm going to go take a bath now."

"You're telling me this... why?" the girl asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It would be extremely awkward if anybody walked in on me, of course." I replied. There was no way to argue with that. All things considered, it wasn't like I would actually object to it, but it was probably better to stay on the cautious side of everything. I had only just gotten here, after all.

"All right." Shri said, standing up. "I'll go with you, then."

"What!?" Aril and I asked at the same time. Shri shrugged.

"I need to wash up anyways. And don't look at me like that, Aril, I'll be wearing a towel! And... so will he." she said. "Come on, Rai! No slacking!" she physically hauled me out of the kitchen and through the small door that lead down to the bathroom area. As we entered the surprisingly large chamer, I came to a sudden stop. It was no surprise, really, that they had gone overboard here as well when building the dorm.

Across the entrance from me was a large bank of showers, the only things separating them a few walls and a curtain in front of the entrances. Plenty of bins to put clothes in and towels for whatever purpose were located to my right, against the wall. From what I could see to my left, there was a giant pool. Shri smacked me on the head.

"Get clean in the shower." she instructed. "The pool and the hot tub are for relaxation only. Grab a towel and meet me over there when you're done." Rubbing my head, I did as she instructed. Fifteen minutes later, I stepped out of one of the showers with a towel around my waist, and idly moved over to the enourmous pool. Out of sight of the entrance, but there just the same, was a very comfortable-looking hot tub. Shri was already in it, garbed the same way I was. "This feels really nice..." she said as I came over. After a minute, I slipped into the hot tub opposite her. It was aptly named; the water was incredibly hot.

"So." I said. "What's the real reason you came down here with me?" Shri smiled guiltily.

"Figured it out, huh? Well, there's no chance of Aril coming down here until we leave; she's very modest. In staying clothed around others, anyway." the girl replied. "What do you think of how strong I am?"

"Mystic Bloodline." I replied immediately. "Maybe something from the Kashi. Seems like a useful one." Shri just chuckled. "What?"

"I guess people would think that." she replied, shaking her head. "Aril doesn't like any of us talking about this, but since you live, I think you should know. Whatever the reason, what we can do isn't natural." Without saying or explaining anything more, she got out of the tub and walked off. I stayed where I was.

Wasn't... natural? Was she saying that her strength wasn't a bloodline? That was impossible. Magic spells could amplify your strength, yes, but no living person could make a spell last forever. Nobody had the strength. She had to have her physical ability as a natural ability somehow... it didn't make sense that it could be anything other than that. Plus, she had said 'we'. Was everybody in the dorm super-strong or some such thing?

...What did that say about me?

I shook my head vigorously. Thinking was good, but I was reading too much into it. If you had the ability, you knew about it. Magic did not erupt at a certain age; it was always there, period. Same with the mystic bloodlines; with all of them, from the most common to the one-in-ten-generations power, you just knew it was there. I had nothing. Like ninety-nine percent of the population, there wasn't a speck of spell in me. Sighing to myself, I got out of the hot tub and wandered over to my clothes. Stepping inside the shower stall I'd used before, I got dressed, and with a bit of a stretch I stepped out again. Yawning, I tossed my towel into the indicated bin and headed up the stairs. It was still early, but I felt like getting to sleep.

Flopping onto my bed a minute later, the lights already off, I wormed under the covers, shut my eyes, and tried to prepare for the day ahead.

000

The next morning, I woke up and got dressed in some clean clothes from the closet, still waking up as I did so. Moving downstairs, I figured that it would be better to eat early and get to class before too much time passed. I still needed to get indoctrinated into the classes, after all. Moving into the kitchen, I found a new person standing at the counter, humming slightly as made pancakes.

"Good morning." the girl said, turning to smile at me for a moment. She was dressed fairly plainly, no frills or lace or other decorations, and had blue hair pulled back into twin ponytails. Whatever that style's called. "Hungry?"

"Very." I said, nodding as I sat down at the table. The girl slid a plate with a stack of three pancakes in front of me and turned back to the stove. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." she answered. "I'm Mia, official cook of Ryu Dorm."

"And my best friend." Shri said as she walked in, already looking wide awake. Mia nodded. "Rai, whatever you do, appreciate her cooking. It's good." I nodded as I cut off a chunk of pancake and put it in my mouth. I blinked. It was pretty good, and made from scratch, not a mix like most people would go for.

"So, how did Aril react?" Mia asked as she set some food down in front of Shri as well. The white-haired girl smiled widely.

"She was absolutely desperate to make a good impression." the fighter replied, devouring her meal. "She was in full Businesswoman Mode, even the reading glasses." Mia laughed. "You'll understand a little later, Rai, once you get to know her." A thick sheaf of papers smacked into Shri's head. "Ow!"

"Grow up." Aril said as she walked past. Mia smiled and handed the head of the dorm a plate, food already on it. "Thanks." the girl said, sitting down at the table next to me and starting her first meal of the day. I finished my own meal and stood up, bringing my plate towards the sink. Mia snatched it from my hands.

"That's my job." she explained. "Besides, you need to get ready for class, don't you?" I nodded. "Shoo." I got my bag from my room, empty as it was, and took the outside ramp down before heading towards the main building. I looked up at the sky, as empty of clouds as my bag was of books. I felt a little... lonely. The members of my dorm, those I had met so far, were nice enough... but it was like there was somebody important to me missing.

Which did not make any sense whatsoever, considering that I'd never had anybody particularly close to me except my parents, and I was more than old enough to live on my own without missing them. Grumbling, I joined the tide of students moving inside and made my way to my first class.

"All right, class..." the teacher said dryly once class had officially started. "As some of you are aware, we have a new student here." I looked around the class. Shri, Aril, and Mia were in a group near the back, along with one girl I didn't recognize. "This is Rai Aquarius, and I expect that you will all treat him normally."

"Yo." I said, unable to think up anything else.

"Now go sit with your Dorm already so we can get started. You've wasted enough of my time as it is." the teacher said, sounding surprisingly like Aril. Grabbing my stuff, I made my way over and sat in the group of desks Shri and the others were at, taking a spot between the white-haired girl and Aril. Slightly amused, I turned to Shri.

"Cheerful, isn't it?" she asked. I nodded. The teacher began the lesson, and I sat up to pay attention.

The rest of the day passed. Science, gym, math, all the fun things that made school so worthwhile to attend. Lunch was fairly boring, because I ate by myself, but I did start going back to Ryu Dorm with the group of girls I had sat down with during my first class. The one I hadn't met before, who gave off the impression of being a little sickly, turned to me as we walked.

"I'm Crystal. How good are you at games?" she said bluntly. There were chuckles from most of the other girls. I thought for a moment. Games, games... she probably meant video games... I blinked.

"I don't think I've ever played one." I replied. Crystal scowled. "Sorry. I'm not sure why, though. If I try it, maybe I'll be good." This seemed to be the right thing to say, because she perked up considerably.

"You'd better be." the girl said, as if that were going to decide everything. I pulled off my shoes as I re-entered my new home and slid them onto a storage mat, then wandered down the main hall. A flash of red caught my eye. Pausing, I looked into the kitchen and found a surprisingly cute girl with long, dark-red hair napping at the table. "What's wr-- oh, you found her."

"Her?" I inquired. Aril walked past me, then turned around and looked into my eyes.

"Our most troublesome member." she explained. I looked at the red-haired girl again. She didn't look like a troublemaker to me... "That's Artemis."

"The one with the fan club?"

"Exactly." Aril agreed. "See, Artemis has this chronic fear of strangers. If anybody she doesn't know well talks to her, she'll just sit there shaking. It's such a pain to deal with. So she's almost never in class. And, of course, everybody else thinks she's really attractive because of her nervous personality. Men." she spat the word as if it were the most disgusting thing she had ever spoken. I debated being offended. "Since you live here now, we're going to have to get her used to your presence, and that's just going to be more of a problem. Let her sleep; I don't want to have to deal with this right now." Aril headed upstairs, and the other girls dispersed to whatever it was they did. I took one more look at the cute, sleeping girl, then blinked. It had finally clicked to me.

THIS was the famous Artemis, the one with the big ego and all the problems? Huh. Well, either I was wrong in my assessment of her, or I was right and very unlucky. Well, it wasn't that big of a deal, I supposed. After a few moments I followed Shri into the dorm's gym.

"What, you want to spar?" the girl inquired as I walked in. I nodded. "Good. Just don't cry when you lose."

"I was off-guard yesterday." I answered as I put my things against the wall and strode onto a mid-sized fighting mat. Shri stepped onto the opposite side. Of course, I wasn't nearly as confident as I was claiming to be. Shri seemed to train a lot, whereas I merely felt like I could fight despite the fact that I had never had any training. After a few moments, Shri lunged at me with a kick. Moving mostly on instinct, I stepped backward in the easiest, simplest way to avoid a kick, then grabbed her extended leg and pulled her towards me. Before I could complete my improvised move, however, the girl kicked off with her other leg, lifted herself above me, and sent me into the mat hard with an axe-like kick with her heel to the back of my head. "Ow..." I said, grinning as I rubbed where she had stuck me. Shri landed behind me, and after a few seconds, I got up again and faced her. "Well, it wouldn't be any fun if I gave up after getting hit once."

"Amateur." Shri answered, looking amused. I took the initiative this time, lunging forward with a feint from my left fist that I changed to a kick from my right leg. Once more displaying her prodigious strength, Shri grabbed my leg just like I had grabbed hers, then to my extreme annoyance did what I had been intending to do to her before and struck my chest with her palm as I was pulled in, slamming me hard into the mat once more. "Come on, is that all you've got?"

I didn't tell her, but the answer was yes. My body moved well enough, but I was coming up with this as I went. It might have worked in a street fight, but against anybody who had actually trained, it wasn't going to be of much use. Still, it was kind of fun to be active like this. I let the girl come at me again, and instead of waiting for her attack, charged her. As I reached the girl, she wrapped her arms around me, then lifted me up, bent backwards, and slammed my head into the mat in what I believed was called a suplex. I wasn't sure what type, since I wasn't a wrestling fan. The girl let go of me, and my body slid to the side as she straightened. I lay on the mat for a moment, then looked up at her.

"You're so easy to counter." Shri said, looking amused. "Here, I'll teach you how to do that one." I got to my feet. "Come on, get over here!" I walked over. "Put your arms around me." I wrapped my arms around her, trying to place my hands where I remembered hers being on my back. "A little higher."

"Should you be letting a novice try a move like that without protection?" I inquired, aware on some level that I was hugging Shri.

"You can't hurt me." she replied dismissively. "Not permanently, anyways." there was a squeak from outside. Shri and I both turned to look and found the red-haired girl Artemis there, looking shocked. "Oh, hi, Arti. This is Rai, our new dormmate." Eyes wide, the girl dashed out of sight. I heard her footsteps going up the stairs. "She's such a weirdo. Now, lift me up, and slam my head into the mat." I tightened my grip and tried to mimic her body position from earlier, lifting her backwards and arching my back. I hit my own head on the mat instead of hers, and immediately let go of the girl, switching my back-arch to a sitting position. Shri laughed as she sat down next to me. "About what I expected. Even with me as a teacher, you can't expect to pull off anything complicated on the first try. Throws and moves like that are good for when people charge you. If anybody bigger and stronger than you is charging, dig your shoulder into them and flip them over your shoulder. Up; I'll show you." Wincing, I got to my feet as the girl stood in the center of the mat and beckoned towards me. I charged, and as I approached her, Shri met my chest with her shoulder, then hooked her arms under my shoulders, and using my momentum flipped me over her shoulder and slammed my back into the mat once more. "Like that!"

"You're a cruel mistress." I groaned. Shri only laughed.

"Shri, if you're going to make out with Rai..." Aril began as she walked in. "...What are you doing?"

"I'm using Rai as a sparring partner." Shri replied. "None of you ever want to do it..." Aril just sighed and put a hand to her forehead.

"I should have known... Artemis thought you were getting a little too close. She's hiding in her room right now."

"I could probably get her out." I offered.

"NO!" both of the girls snapped. Shri finally let me up, and I brushed some mostly imaginary dust off of my clothes. This was a really troublesome situation, wasn't it?

"You're just going to scare her more," Aril continued, "Just... when you formally meet tonight, do us all a favor and pretend she's not there. If she doesn't feel like she's being noticed, she doesn't get as scared." she headed back out of the room to do whatever it was she spent her time on, and I pushed myself to my feet.

"Is it really that bad?" I inquired calmly.

"Yeah." Shri sighed out. "It is. Now come on!" she charged at me. Preoccupied as I was with the memory of Artemis, I barely took any notice as I followed the girl's instructions to the letter and performed the same shoulder-flip on her that she had demonstrated on me. Blinking from her spot on the mat, the girl began laughing. "Right, right! That's exactly how to do it!" she said, clearly pleased. So she wasn't one of those Martial Artists who thought they were never going to get hit. "Pretty good for having it demonstrated just once." She flipped up to her feet, and our little sparring match continued. To my surprise, it continued until shortly before dinner, when Aril came in again to insist that we cleaned off and stopped smelling before we ate. Dinner would be on the second floor since it was a welcoming party, and everybody else was hungry. With a shrug, Shri and I quickly cleaned up, then wandered upstairs to the low table around which everyone else was sitting. There was nobody I didn't recognize.

The food looked delicious. An eclectic mix of salads, meat, and fish, I took a little of everything as I sat down. A quick glance around revealed that this was the general trend, though Artemis had taken an oddly large portion of fish.

"Well, you've all met Rai." Aril said as an introduction. She seemed to be caring even less than she had before, judging from her dismissive tone. "I have no idea why the school decided to send him here, but they did." she sipped from her drink. "Be nice. And Shri, don't kill him." The snow-haired girl had the grace to look offended. I snuck a glance at Artemis, who was quietly eating with as little movement as possible, only using her fork to stab the food and bring it to her mouth. True to what Aril had said, she just kind of faded into the background. I returned my gaze to the table before the nervous girl noticed it, and almost idly began eating my own meal. "Any questions for him?"

"I've got one." Mia said, smiling. We all looked at her. "Rai, what sort of talents do you have?" I considered the question. Talents? Something I could do really well?

"Um... I don't remember any." I answered blankly. There was nothing in my memory about anything I could do well. "Maybe I'll discover I'm a natural basket-weaver or something while I'm here." this brought a few laughs out, though Artemis just seemed to regress further into her shy personality.

"How about your family?" Mia asked, passing Shri a skewer of meat. I had to think about that one, too, though I wasn't really sure why.

"Well, my father travels around a lot making major deals for his company, so I don't have very many memories of any one place." I answered. "He decided it was time for me to have a stable education, though, so here I am." Crystal stared at me. "Um... yes?"

"There's not a single interesting thing about you, is there?" she inquired. "No special powers, no government conspiracy, no secret super-spy infiltration, no-" It was right about then Aril smacked the sickly girl.

"You're playing too many video games. Nobody like that exists in real life." our dorm's apparently undisputed ruler said. Her tone made it clear she would not accept any arguments.

"Oh, I don't know." I said, smiling. "Maybe I'm a superpowered government agent here to expose a huge, dark secret about the school." I reached over for the salad bowl, and was looking at Crystal's grin when I felt something clamp down hard on one of my fingers. Looking over, I found that Artemis was biting it. "Hey!" I said, trying to pull my hand back. The strange girl was faster, though, and grabbed my wrist to keep me from pulling back. A trickle of blood - my blood - ran out the side of her mouth.

"Artemis, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" Aril shrieked as she, Mia, and Shri all lunged at the girl. The laws of physics still worked, and they easily forced her to the floor, pulling me across the table as they did so, but the girl refused to let go of my hand. "Let go of him!" our dorm leader continued, tugging hard on Artemis' wrists. The girl shook her head violently from side to side and refused to give any ground at all. "Shri!"

The snowy-headed martial artist nodded and pulled back a hand.

"Hold on!" I said. Shri, about to do who-knew-what to Artemis, paused. "It doesn't really hurt that bad. I'll get free by myself." The other girls warily pulled back as I moved closer to the strange, strange girl called Artemis. "Hey." I said, using the same tone I would for a frightened animal. "It's okay, there's nothing to be frightened about." the girl stared at me, her emerald eyes giving no real indication of what she was thinking. "Let's make a deal. You see, having somebody biting me kind of hurts. I promise that if you stop, I won't be angry with you. Okay?" After a few moments, the girl gave a small nod, and I felt her teeth pull back. She kept my finger in her mouth, though, and I felt her tongue run over the wound. "That's better." I said, smiling. I put my free arm around her in a half-hug. The girl flinched, but relaxed as she tightened her grip on my wrist. "Would you like to go somewhere else?" she nodded again. Giving a 'let me handle this' look to the other girls of the dorm, I brought Artemis down to the kitchen. "There we go. Nobody's here except us." I said.

The girl looked up towards me, then pulled her head back and freed my finger. There were bleeding marks on both the top and bottom from her teeth. The girl looked at the wounds for a second, then gently licked them. I couldn't help but think 'This is one weird girl' a bit nervously. Her grip on my wrist tightened again.

"You want me to stay here?" I inquired softly. The girl nodded again. "Don't worry, I have no intention of going anywhere." There was an awkward silence. "Um... how about another deal?" Her change in expression was slight, but indicated interest. "I'll make sure none of the others are mad at you, either, if you'll tell me what you're thinking." Artemis looked to the side for a long moment, then back up at me.

"You're broken." she said. This did not make even the slightest bit of sense to me. She put her lips over my finger again, and I sighed. It was apparent that I was not going to get any more information out of this girl. Try as I might, though, I could not bring myself to be angry with her.

"I should probably get going." I said. The girl tugged hard on my hand and looked at me with an incredibly sad expression. I couldn't resist that, not on a girl this cute. "But, um... you can come, if you want." at that, the girl stood up with me, letting my finger out of her mouth again. She did not relinquish my wrist, though, and clung to it tightly with both hands as we went back into the hall.

Much later that night, I lay in bed, staring at the small bandage Shri had wrapped around my finger when I got back upstairs. True to my word, I had defended the strange girl called Artemis, and I'd made it very clear that I was not mad at her, and they didn't have to be, either. It had take a lot of coaxing and promising not to vanish during the night, but eventually Artemis had let go of me and scampered off to her room.

"I really am unlucky." I said, rolling onto my back. "I wonder what tomorrow's going to be like?"

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