Sigma/Star

Chapter 2: Black Slipper Style

Porter stared from his seat in the middle of the class as Mr. Toriyama went through the attendance list. Of course he swelled with pride at not only hearing his name called but in being there to admit he was present. He had also made sure to fix his watch to the appropriate time so that he could try to continue this trend. He looked across to see Chase scowling at him and knew he would have to deal with him sooner or later. Porter let out an inaudible groan when he remembered the sparring practice scheduled for later today that he would have to endure. Nothing was worse than when he was supposed to fight Chase for training.

"Alright class, let's go over our history of Saint Ishiyama." Now it was the entire class's turn to groan. Once a week, every class in the academy had to have a student come up and explain the history of Saint Ishiyama, founder of Enianism, the religion for the entire Enian Federation (and for the United Eastern States, but they practiced a slightly different form). "Nami why don't you do it this time. I don't want to listen to another student stumble through it for an hour." Mr. Ishiyama rolled his eyes and collected up some papers to work on while Nami stood to recite the story of Saint Ishiyama:

"Matteo Ishiyama was born as a slave miner under the French Empire, where he spent most of his life. After twenty-five years he began to fight for the rights and freedoms of slave miners, and preached a system of self-sacrifice for your fellow man, demanding that each guard place himself in the way of a whip the next time they saw a slave about to be hit. He started to fight with guards by blocking their attempts to punish or torture other slaves but advocated a policy of sacrificial nonviolence. After two years of this he had garnered many followers who mimicked his actions, including Saint Maurius, and so the Empire expelled him from the mines and made him work on the streets. He again began to advocate his system of vigilance and sacrifice, creating the six duties of man, and his cult began again. He was then sent to war as a drafted soldier, becoming the first mining slave in history to be drafted for combat. He was court martialed after refusing to fire his weapon and attempting to leap in front of others to prevent bullets from hitting targets. Thus he was imprisoned for his actions for life."

Porter's eyes wandered around the room until they fell on the back of Riya's head and he lost himself looking at her and wondering. She shuddered though and seemed to look around a little, as though she could sense she was being watched. Meanwhile Nami droned on:

"After having heard one of Ishiyama's sermons before he was drafted, the Emperor's son visited Ishiyama in prison and developed a friendship with him before finally finding a way to secretly release Ishiyama. He helped Ishiyama to attempt to flee the Empire but was himself caught by his father and immediately sentenced to death for his treason. Upon hearing this, Ishiyama returned and switched places with the young man before the execution, thus making the ultimate sacrifice and dying in the place of another. The son fled the Empire, now a criminal and was never again seen. With Ishiyama's death, much of the lower class was set into an uproar and gave way to riots against the Empire. The king was hunted down and murdered and without a suitable heir the kingdom fell into civil war. During this there was a mass exodus of early followers of Ishiyama, including Saint Enia. Many of them scattered throughout the rest of the world as refugees and the ones under Saint Enia would go on to write the book of Saint Ishiyama's teachings and of his life, and would thus help found the religion that was named after him: Enianism. Thus Saint Ishiyama defeated an Empire and gave new hope to the people without ever incurring a violent act. The six duties are-"

"No that's fine Nami, thank you." Mr. Toriyama, clearly exhausted from continuously hearing the same story, stood up as he cut off Nami. The day continued quite normally from there, much of the class devoted that day to the study of the engines running Goliaths, their massive robotic frames needing some sort of energy to keep them going in battle. From there though, the class halted abruptly and took a new turn.

Mr. Toriyama excused everyone and sent them down the hall to a new class they had never visited before. Milling about outside, the students chattered about different rumours involving the potential of what was about to happen. "I heard that once a year one class gets sent to a torture chamber for advanced training." "What? No way!" "They say that some people have come to this class and never reappeared. Spooky." "Maybe this is one of those presentations for other jobs in the military" And so on it went until the door hissed and slid open.

"Enter, children." It was a male voice, deep and rich with age, coming from within the class. Hesitantly the students followed the orders and found a classic classroom nearly identical to the one they had just left. With great relief that they would not be killed or tortured or transported to a different dimension, the students took up their seats.

At the front, an elderly man held position as their teacher. His hair had long since gone white, including a beard that travelled down to his waist, and piles of wrinkles had compressed his eyes to little slits. "I shall be your teacher here for Spiritual Techniques class students. I am Mr. Shotuku, and I have been teaching here for nearly a century."

"How come I've never seen you before old man?" It was Chase at the back, rocking on his chair with a cocky grin and passing out high-fives to his circle of supporters. There was a black flash that shot through the air and struck Chase in the forehead, a flat black slipper that impacted the young man with more force than physically possible for a soft piece of footwear to attain. Chase teetered for a moment on his chair before falling back onto the ground in a daze. "Crazy old man," he mumbled.

Mr. Shotuku's left eyebrow was twitching in annoyance. "Show some respect to your elders, foolish boy. Now for the rest of you, we will begin our learning of Spiritual Techniques. This is a highly advanced class. Some of you will fail it. But you will still become soldiers, even with failure in this class. This is where we separate the most gifted of pilots from the average, the heroes of the future from the fodder. I have graduated many of your role models from this class. Many of them were not as delinquent as the one on the floor but there is always a chance for everyone. Now, we will begin our discussion on Chi!"

A/N: Who is the mysterious Mr. Shotuku and what kind of class does he teach involving Chi? And just how bad is the concussion Chase received?!

Hope you enjoy!