"Why hello there!" said the Yokai Hunter rubbing his head sheepishly. "I appologize for the lateness, you see, I had a little trouble with the teleportation spell, and I might have accidentally teleported to Antartica a couple of times...tricky things teleportation runes are."
The man spoke all of this in fluent Japanes, something Laura could understand quite easily. However, she was usually used to speaking English
"Ojosama has made it into the Academy." said Yuki with a rare smile. "Yuki thinks this calls for a celebratory meal."
"W-wow.." Laura murmured. Then she pumped her fist, her usual enthusiastic attitude reignited. "YES!! That's right folks!! I made it in!! Just wait till Sora hears!!"
"Yuki's right!" said Neko cheerfully, his ears and tail twitching. "We've gotta have something special for lunch today! I vote on fish!! Any kind of fish! Preferably salmon!"
"Actually, I'm afraid it's going to have to be a celebratory breakfast.." said the Yokai Hunter looking sheepish again. "You see, the Academy in Japan runs on quite a tight schedule..and that means Laura will need to pack her bags before 11:30 which is when I'm supposed to bring you back..."
"Wh-what!?" said Laura. "D-do I even get a chance to say goodbye?"
"Heavens you don't have to!" said the man. "They are your familiars right?" The man nodded at Neko and Yuki. "That means they can come too, provided they register at the front gate. After all, learning to fight alongside familiars is a required class in the Accademy."
"Yuki is pleased she will not have to leave Ojosama." said Yuki. "But Yuki wonders what will become of the Riswaldo family residence while Yuki is not around to clean..."
"That shall be taken care of." said the man. "Since this home is your summer residence for when the break starts, the Accademy will provide assistants to watch over your home while you are gone..I suggest you hurry, but only pack essentials, the Academy will provide much for you when you get there."
"Er..okay." said Laura.
"Hmm.." said the man. "This is quite momentous you know, you're actually the 3rd of all the Seven Bridges to join the Japan Branch of the Yokai Hunter's Academy. The 4th strongest and 2nd strongest are both there."
"Yeah yeah, forget them." said Neko. "Laura's could pretty much blow them all away! Isn't that right Laura!? Laura?"
Laura had taken out a dufflebag and was busy throwing stacks of manga into it. "Gotta take all the Fairy Tail ones..gotta take all the Fairy Tail ones...gotta take all the Fairy Tail ones."
"Ojosama." said Yuki. "He said only pack the essentials."
"These are essential!" said Laura. "Never seperate a collector from her babies!! Oh...oh no where is it!?"
"Does Ojosama mean this?" Yuki held out what appeared to be a cutsie small stuffed doll version of a girl in a middle school uniform with chestnut colored hair.
Laura's cheeks went pink with embarrasment as Neko rolled on the floor laughing and the Yokai Hunter eyed it curiously.
"Y-yeah.." said Laura taking her Misaka doll and stuffing it in her duffle bag. "Thanks Yuki.."
"Yuki knows Ojosama gets scared at night whenever he doesn't have her Misaka." said Yuki.
Laura's cheeks went even more red as Neko started laughing even harder. "Y-Yuki please."
Yuki turned towards the Yokai Hunter. "Does the Academy provide extra night lights? Because-mmmmff"
Laura had suddenly come up from behind and covered Yuki's mouth with a hand. "Okay! Sorry about that..hehehehe....Yuki I think he already knows the what the basics are....hehehehehe..."
"Are you sure you don't need to bring an extra widdle teddy bear?" said Neko as he sniggered uncontrollably.
Laura took Neko up in a headlock. "Can it cat! Or no more yarn balls for 3 weeks!"
"AWWWWWWW!!!" said Neko. "NO FAIR!!"
"Well I take it you all understand the circumstances." said the Yokai Hunter with a bow. "And oh dear...my apologies, I seem to have forgotten my manners and not introduced myself. I am Sato Hayate...Sato being my family name of course, and Hayate being my given name."
Hayate smiled politely. "I am also known as the top recruiter for my region, so I'm usually sent to pick up our most interesting students!"
"Oh! Does that mean I made the top score!?" asked Laura excitedly.
"No, actually, out of the 5 that made it, you were dead last." said Hayate cheerfully.
"...wait...WHAAAT!!?" Laura's jaw dropped open. That means that snob Lilly beat my score!! RRRRAAAARRGGGGGHHHH!!!!
"And when you count that 10 points were added thanks to your brother writing a letter of recommendation." said Hayate. "Had it not been for the letter, you would have had the worst score out of everyone who tested!"
"Y-you're kidding me!" said Laura sinking to her knees as her face went pale. I studied for hours....I had Yuki test me every day of the week...I spent more on textbooks every month then I did on food..."
"Well according to the analyzers of the tests, they believe that while you are a dilligent young girl, they think that your study methods might not be the best kind." said Hayate. "No worries, you've already been assigned a tutor whom I am sure will be more then capable of bringing you up to the standard...on another note, the reason I've been sent to collect you, is because of your yokai heritage. The third strongest of the Seven Bridges, the Chained Maiden, well that's a pretty big addition to the school especially given we already have the 2nd and 4th strongest, the Flaming King and the Dragon Dancer."
"Yuki remembers the Flaming King." said Yuki. "He is said to be born part Kitsune." (Kitsune are fox yokai that gain a tail for every 100 years, usually gaining a maximum of 9, it is said they have manipulation over fox fire.)
"Yes, every one of the Seven Bridges were born of a known species of yokai." said Hayate. "All except the Chained Maiden. You Laura, were born of a species of yokai that remains undiscovered, your father was quite unique...that actually boosted the Academy's interest in you, despite the reports of your reckless behavior."
"So..I got in because of my family." said Laura. "And a whole lot of dumb luck."
"That's right!!" said Hayate a sparkle appearing on his pearly white smiling teeth.
".....fine, I'll take it.." said Laura as a flame began to appear in her eyes. "That'll just give me more time to prove those dorks wrong!!! YEAH!! I'm like Natsu Dragneel from Fairy Tail when he's about to say.."
"I'm all fired up!!" interupted Neko.
"Aw come on! I wanted to say that!!" said Laura knocking Neko on the head.
"My, she really loves her manga and anime.." said Hayate.
"Ojosama is what you would call a hard core collector." said Yuki.
_______________________
It took only 1 hour to get packed all in all. Considering that usually the most fashionable item Laura ever wore was her beret, She wasn't all too picky about packing clothes..especially since Hayate said uniforms would be provided upon arival.
Neko merely packed a bag full of canned fish and balls of yarn. It was Yuki who took the longest to pack, taking along everything from extra toothbrushes for Neko and Laura, to all her cookbooks and cleaning guides.
"Yuki does not know whether the dorm will be a mess." Yuki had said. "Yuki does not want Ojosama to be subject to such a mess.."
And so when all of them had packed, Hayate instructed them to place all their luggage in a pile at his feet.
When that had been done, Hayate put a strange set of sticky notes on each bag with the Japanese character for wind, said a few muttered chants, and the bags dissapeared in a puff of smoke.
"Hopefully these bags won't go to Antartica." said Hayate. "Now, if the spell worked right, these should already be in your assigned dorms in the Shinjuku district."
"So what now?" asked Neko.
"Well." said Hayate. "I transport us of course...just give me a second, human and yokai transportation is slightly more tricky. If I get it wrong, then we got arrive without arms...and our arms would arrive in Antartica without us!"
"Uhh..that's a comforting thought." said Laura as a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead.
"Antartica doesn't seem so bad to Yuki." said Yuki, displaying her yokai species's love of cold and ice.
"Alright..." said Hayate grabbing hold of Laura and Neko's hands as Yuki did the same. "Are you ready?"
"If you're sure that we'll arrive with our arms and not at the bottom of the world, then yes, we're ready." said Laura.
"Here we go!" said Hayate. "Let The Bird Take Flight Into Mist That Leads Us...Teleport!!"
Laura's vision became extremely blurred as she began to feel the sensation of being thrown down a long dark wind tunnel. Then..
There was a puff of smoke. Laura waved the smoke out of her vision to reveal that she was standing in what appeared to be a magnificent clean city. Shining high tech looking skyscrapers stood all around the horizon, people were everywhere, bustling though the powerful looking metropolis that looked full of malls, shops, and electronics stores.
But it was the building in front of her that looked the most impressive. The massive building was an architectural masterpiece, looking at least 2 miles wide. It had the appearence of 30 trapezoids all stacked on top of each other, each trapezoid higher up being smaller then the one it stood upon. One way glass windows encircled the building like diamonds. Then if that wasn't enough, bigger still was the ginormous courtyard encompassing the building, a courtyard of massive proportions that had everything from excercise areas to what appeared to be a training spot for casting spells and working with familiars.
"Am I dreaming?" Laura said aloud.
"WHOAAAAH!" said Neko. "It's HUGE!! Okay, before we go in, I wanna get one thing straight. I know you're probably going to have some sort of class where familiars have to fight alongside you, but count me out, cause we all know that us Bakonekos aren't really good at fighting."
"Oh really?" said Laura raising an eyebrow. "Then what's she doing?"
Laura pointed a thumb at a what appeared to be a silver haired 16 year old girl. She wore blue buttoned shirt with a yellow tie, a black skirt and high black socks..the typical girl's uniform for the Japan division of Yokai Hunters Academy. She had white cat's ears and a big white bushy tail with light brown tip, typical features of a Bakoneko. (Note that she is 16 in Yokai years, not human years. It's more likely she's actually around 45 years old in human years.)
The silver haired Bakoneko had small sharp claws extended from the nails on her right hand while her left hand held what appeared to be a small kunai knife. She dashed at wooden board that was propped up, using amazing cat-like agility and reflexes. Slicing her claws around the board and her knife, in mere seconds, the board had been sliced into 14 even sized squares.
"Well...she's probably got issues!" said Neko turning slightly pink. "Anyways, I'm still a kid in yokai years, so I probably shouldn't..."
"Scaredy cat." said Yuki.
"That's one of our top students." said Hayate. "Tobiichi Azami" (Take note that all Japanese names said are written in the traditional order, last names being first and first names being last.)
Azami retracted her claws, put her knife in a sheath at her side, looked at the group and walked over while popping her neck, as if this was just an ordinary routine she'd gotten used to.
"Hey Sato-san.." said Azami looking over Laura. "I take it that's the girl I'm supposed to tutor? I've been waiting a while, you were late again weren't you?"
"Only by 30 minutes." said Hayate. "You see, the teleportation malfunctioned again and brought me Antartica once more..."
Azami sighed. "Right then..I guess I'll begin the tour..."
Azami took a look at Laura, and suddenly her attitude changed at the speed of light, her face becoming happy and cheerful, her orange cat-like eyes took on a cute sparkle. "Hello! I'm Tobiichi Azami! I'm going to be your tutor and roommate this semester, but you can just call me Azami!"
"Can I call you Azi?" Neko asked.
"Neko! Don't be rude!" Laura said glaring.
"Oh, it's alright!" said Azami. "You probably haven't met that many other Bakoneko, I hear we're rather scarce in the Taiwan area."
"You've got that right." Neko muttered. "It's darn lonely back there sometimes."
"Well, I'll leave you to it then." said Hayate. "If you excuse me, but I have some students from Kyoto that I need to pick up...later!"
A bit of chanting later, Hayate dissapeared in a puff of smoke.
"Sato-san is always so forgetful.." murmured Azami. "I hope he doesn't end up getting chased by lions in Africa again."
"That's actually happened before?" Laura asked.
Azami rolled her eyes."You won't believe how many times. He's accidentally warped to the Artic 12 times, all of those times he almost got eaten by polar bears. He's accidentally ended up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean 10 times, and even nearly got himself to fall into an active volcano in Hawaii. They say he's the best recruiter, but sometimes I wonder what's going through the heads of the International School Board."
"Yeah..." said Laura. "It sounds like a miracle none of the students he transports haven't ended up on a deserted island yet."
"Oh it's no miracle." said Azami. "That happened 3 times already. Well we should probably get to the tour."
Azami spread her hands cheerfully, her tail and ears twitching like all Bakonekos did when they were excited. "This! Is the training field. It's over 5 miles in diameter. We do all sorts of activities here. Spell casting, summoning, learning to make contracts with familiars..though I think you already know how to do that."
"Actually." said Laura. "Yuki and Neko became my familiars through inheritance, they were my mom's."
Azami nodded. "Oh..I see, well I'm kind of an expert in familiars, so if you need to know anything, just let me know."
"Do you have a familiar?" Yuki asked.
"Oh no." said Azami shaking her head. "Actually, I used to be a familiar to a student at the school here, but a little something happened, and our contract got broken, so I went into training to become an actual Yokai Hunter instead."
"Your contract was broken..." Yuki murmured her tone sounding slightly suspicious. "Interesting."
And so the tour continued. Azami led the group into the building showing all the different classrooms and facilities.
It was amazing. Entering each room was like entering a different building altogether. One second you were in torch filled stone dungeon with multiple skulls hanging all over the place, and another second you were in an aquarium where you could see plenty of different water based yokai all swiming allong and waving at you. The computer lab looked like a mix between Star Wars and Tron, everything having a mega techy disco light look to it.
"This...is...awesome." Yuki said the moment they entered a place called the Training Room.
The Training room was basically a large gym-like arena with weapons and spell books lining the walls near a shower area. Currently, there was one boy in the training arena, he had the typical male uniform, a black shirt, tie and white pants. His red hair was windswept and spikey. He held up his hand to what looked like a training dummy, and a tremendous geyser of fire blasted out, letting flames sweep around the stadium the moment it hit the wall under the chairs at the other end. When the flames cleared, the dummy was nothing but a pile of ashes.
"That's the Flaming King!" said Neko. "WHOAH!!"
Yuki backed off nervously, the floor where she stood developed a thin sheet of ice. "Yuki does not like fire."
"Yep, that's Yamamoto Kazuto." said Azami. "Kazuto is the 2nd strongest of the Seven Bridges and he's the 2nd top student right under Sora Riswaldo, whom I believe is your brother. Eh...where did she go!?"
Azami had turned to look at Laura only to find that she was speeding down into the stadium, using chains that were coming out of her palms to swing herself down.
"Wh-what's she doing!?" stammered Azami.
"Oh, she's probably going to ask the Flaming King for a brawl." said Neko.
"Demand is more like it." said Yuki. "Ojosama loves a challenge."
Meanwhile, Laura had just landed 20 meters away from Kazuto in the arena. "Hey! You! Are you the Flaming King?!"
Kazuto turned to look at Laura. "Eh? Who wants to know?! If it's another lowdown rookie whose demanding a fight, you can forget it, you'll get burned so bad they won't be able to take your photo for the student I.D."
Kazuto looked Laura up and down and a slow grin crossed his face. "Well well well...you're cuter then my usual brawling partners."
"I'm also a lot more tempermental about guys treating me like I'm some sort of boy toy..." said Laura who was also grinning. "So keep your eyes up not down, or you'll regret it."
"Alright then." said Kazuto. "Always glad to fight the rookies if they're girls...so come on, show me your best spell, or summon up your best familiar, I'm ready."
"Oh...I'm not one for spells." said Laura as she thrust her hands out. "Mega Chain Impact!!"
This time, instead of her usual chains with blunted spear ends, several massive chains with links the size of dinner plates shot out of her hands, their ends had large spiked morning stars.
Looking rather surprised, Kazuto blasted some fire from his feet, propelling him upwards as the giant chain morning stars extended at bullet speed and collided with the wall behind him in an explosion of dust and rubble.
In a flash, Laura detatched the chains from her hands and slammed her hands to the ground. The walls, roof, and floor all around her shot out chains with blunted spear ends at tremendous speed. A 360 degree attack with no letup.
Kazuto landed on the ground and immediately swirled his arms around him, causing a giant sphere of fire to erupt outwards from his body and deflect the blunted spear points. The moment the chains were deflected however, the chains kept on extending from the walls, cieling and floor, changing direction the moment they came near the flaming sphere and twisting around and about the fire sphere until there was a sphere of chains twisting and turning around the fire. Then the chains tightened themselves, allowing the sphere to shrink at amazing speed, squeezing through the fire and suddenly restraining Kazuto in an embrace of iron links, the ends all still attatched to different areas of the stadium, no longer extending, but now retracting slightly ensure the bond remained tight.
Kazuto grinned. "No way...you're the Chained Maiden, also known as the Iron Wrought Princess of Taipei. I never thought you'd come to this school, I heard you were too reckless for authority figures."
"Yeah? Well I'm in now!" said Laura. "Watch out Japan, cause I'm gonna make a bigger splash then even the Flaming King!"
"Well you still have a ways to go in that regard." said Kazuto as his body began to glow with orange heat. "Because within the Seven Bridges...you're still ranked 3rd...and I'm ranked 2nd!!"
"KABLAMM!!" There was tremendous explosion of fire. The links of all the chains shattered in a burst of molten heat as Laura was thrown across the room and straight through the wall of the girl's showers..
Laura crawled out of the rubble rubbing her head. "Ow...."
Kazuto walked up to Laura, now free of the shattered chains. "Not bad kid..let's do this again sometime."
"Man.." said Laura cheerfully. "You bet.."
From where they were watching in the stands, Yuki sighed. "Again, Ojosama blindly seeks a fight when she sees someone strong."
Next to Yuki, Azami was staring, her eyes wide, and her mouth open. "A-Amazing...That was two of the Seven Bridges...wow.."
"Nobody knows what it is about human blood that enhances Yokai powers." said Neko. "But it sure is a sight to see huh?"
_________________
After some fervent apologies to the caretakers of the room who said it was no problem and that damage like this happened all the time, Azami continued with the tour.
As Azami began to lead the group back to the entrance of the building, Yuki turned to whisper to Laura. "Ojosama, remember how Azami said that her contract as a familiar with her previous master was broken?"
"Yeah.." said Laura. "It's kinda strange when you think about it...doesn't there have to be a mutual agreement between both the Yokai and the Master before that can happen?"
The issue of familiars was a very touchy one in world wide law. Ever since ancient times, yokai and humans had formed contracts with each other where yokai would willingly serve their human masters and fight alongside them. The bond was a magical contract that not only bonded the human and yokai together, but also used the human's spiritual aura to enhance the yokai, making them more powerful then they would normally be if they were alone. Nowadays, methods had changed to where yokai could have other yokai as familiars as well.
But being a familiar seriously infringed on the issue of rights. If not careful, the contract could become more of a slavery then a partnership. That's why laws had been passed where if certain conditions were met, then a contract could be forcibly broken rather then waiting for both parties to agree.
"After looking closely." whispered Yuki. "Yuki has noticed some faded scars and bruises on Azami. Yuki thinks that Azami might have been abused by her master...and brutally."
There was a shocked silence.
Laura shook her head. "We've only just met her...let's just keep silent about it for now..."
"Yuki did not intend to bring it out in public." said Yuki as her eyes flashed. "Yuki only wishes to know who would do this to a yokai.."
"Whoever it was." Laura muttered. "I'd like to chain em upside down to the belly of a Namazu." (Namazu are giant catfish yokai that dwell under the mud and cause earthquakes. The pokemon Whiscash was based off this yokai.)