The field was massive. The well-maintained fields of grass stretched for what seemed like miles. The crowds of students were split off into their respective groups. Donny, Dae-Ho and Jean conversed while making their way towards their group slowly.

“Can’t believe you ended up with a fucking Katana!” Dae-Ho shouted.

“It’s literally the most generic thing you could have ended up with,” Donny added.

“Hey, I didn’t really get to choose. They just kinda gave it to me,”

“I’m telling you, once you see everyone elses, your Katana ain’t gonna look like much,”

Jean shrugged off the comment without much care.

“As long as it can kill beasts, doesn’t matter what it is,”

“Haha, you got us there,” Donny said.

Donny and Dae-Ho had their own weapons strapped on them. Donny had a mace hanging from his waist belt. Dae-Ho on the other hand, had the weapon covered in a black wrapping. The blanket accentuated the width and length of the blade.

The three eventually arrived at their location. The students were huddled within their own friend groups, seemingly waiting for the instructor to show up.

“Well, we are a bit early,” Donny said while shrugging his shoulders.

“Might as well warm-up and get ready,” Dae-Ho said as he slid his weapon off of his shoulder.

He slowly undid the bindings tied around black cover to uncover a partially sheathed claymore. The top half of the dark brown sheath was hollowed out, while the bottom half maintained a fully covered top half. The blade itself emitted a glare as the sun rays hit its well-polished surface.

“Don’t you think the swords a bit big for you, Dae-Ho?” asked Jean.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Dae-Ho exclaimed.

“That’s what the potentials are for. Our weapons are infused with our blood. So the power of our potential runs through our weapons. It’s kind of like it’s a living thing and you’re helping each other out. Balancing each other’s capabilities,” Donny explained.

Their conversation was interrupted by a comment coming from behind them.

“Glad you’re actually payin attention in class, Barnett!”

A short and toned, lady was walking towards them with a duffle bag full of wooden swords and different pieces of protective gear. Her straight long hair was tucked inside her green tracksuit. Most likely to keep it out of the way. Her facial features were rough, but not without its own charm. However, she had what seemed like a permanent scowl plastered across her face.

“Hurry your asses up and start doing your stretches!” she commanded with an intimidating voice.

A few of the students quietly groaned as they began performing a series of different stretches. Jean and the other two, intimidated, didn’t protest and joined in with the other students. As Jean was performing his stretches, he felt his collar get jerked backwards. Losing his balance, he fell back to find his shirt collar being gripped by the instructor. She dragged Jean away from the rest of the group, who didn’t seem to notice his absence.

“So, you’re the new kid,”

An almost evil smile appeared on her face. She tightened her grip on Jean’s collar and got close to his ear. Jean froze as her silent, breathy words entered his ear.

“You’re lucky this school is paying me not to kill your ass. If it were up to me, I would have ripped you apart before you even stepped past the entrance,”

The color in Jean’s face drained. It didn’t matter what kind of power Jean may have possessed, the murderous aura emanating from her paralyzed Jean. She loosened her grip and pushed Jean away. The aura around her dissipated and her she returned to her normal, less intimidating, self. Jean ran back to the group, turning his head to catch another glimpse of the instructor. She stood still, with crossed arm, and the same scowl.

“Tough luck. Dealing with Serizawa is a bitch. She hardly ever lets up. Only reason everyone deals with her is because we have to,” Donny said with an angry tone.

“Just don’t piss her off and you’ll be fine,” Dae-Ho said.

Even though she wasn’t surrounded by a terrible aura, Jean could still feel her detest in his body. Upon finishing the stretches, Serizawa signaled to huddle up.

“Alright, you’re going to start with drills three through five. Then find a sparring partner and try not to kill each other,”

“Yes ma’am!” the students shouted in unison.

The huddle dispersed and began swinging their weapons in rhythmic patterns. Each swing choreographed seamlessly with one another. Donny walked Jean through the practice drills. Jean pulled out his sword, revealing the dark onyx blade.

“Woah… Now that ain’t the kind of katana I was expecting,” Dae-Ho said.

Despite the darkness of the blade, the light sheened off the blade, almost making it seem translucent.

“Yeah, you’re not kidding. A black katana?” Donny asked.

“I didn’t really get a good chance to look at it earlier, but it’s pretty cool,” Jean said.

A part of Jean was in awe of the fact that he was holding such a sword in his hand. It was a surreal sensasion. Jean followed the drills as Donny had demonstrated. Beginning slowly, he caught on quick. Increasing the swift movements in speed with each successful completion. Within thirty minutes, Jean was performing the drills with ease.

“Jeez, you catch on quick!” Dae-Ho exclaimed.

“You sure you’ve never done this kind of thing before?” Donny asked.

Jean looked down at the sword gripped in his hands.

“Never,”

“Well, I mean you have the potential to be a hunter, so I’m honestly not too surprised,” Donny said.

“Maybe that’s what it is,” Jean agreed.

“Now that you’ve gotten the drills down, do you wanna try sparring?” asked Dae-Ho enthusiastically.

"I can't," replied Jean.

"Why?" asked Donny.

"Special circumstances,"

Dae-Ho groaned with disappointment.

"Dude, how're you supposed to even learn to kill beasts if you can't even practice actual fighting?"

"He's right you know? Clearly, there's something you're not allowed to tell us, and if you don't wanna say anything, it's fine. All I'm going to say is that right now you don't even know how to use the sword that you're holding. Whatever 'circumstance' is holding you back from learning to kill beasts isn't worth listening to."

Jean hesitated upon hearing Donny's brief lecture. Jean was aware of why he wasn't allowed to spar. But, another part of him realized that the only other person he could spar with right now was Serizawa and he wasn't about to ask her. He loosened his grip on the handle for a moment and immediately gripped it once more. Against his better judgment, Jean decided, that there was no point in holding back any longer. This was his life and there wasn’t much he could do right now to change it. And most of all, he didn't want to give way for another incident to occur.

“Let’s do it,” Jean said with confidence.

Donny refereed the sparring session. Taking an empty plot of the field, out of view from the other students and professors, Dae-Ho and Jean distanced themselves and turned to face each other. They checked to make sure their protective gear, consisting of a few hard-shell pieces that strapped onto different parts of the body, was tightened and properly equipped.

“Jean, just try to use those drill patterns,” Donny said.

“Hey! No assists! That’s b.s.” Dae-Ho complained.

“Thanks for the tip, Donny!” Jean said.

The two fledgling hunters readied themselves. Dae-Ho’s experience showed in the stability of his form. Jean on the other hand, with no real combat experience, held a stance that somewhat seemed to be logical. Hovering his hand over the handle, Jean held his breath waiting for the signal.

“Start!”

Suddenly hearing Donny’s voice, caused both Jean and Dae-Ho to jump into action drawing their swords from their sheaths. Dae-Ho reached his right arm behind his back and took hold of the hefty sword and pulled it out with ease. Jean, pulled the sword out, letting is arm move with the flow of the sheaths shape. The blade resonated with a stinging whir as it left its casing.

The two instantly, dashed towards each other, impacting with loud clash of blades. Jean pushed himself away before, Dae-Ho managed to twist his cross guards around Jeans wrist. Stepping back a few paces, Jean regained his composure. He took that moment to try and remember one or two of the drills and implement them. As Dae-Ho took slow calculated steps towards Jean, he lunged himself forward, swinging his blade to the side. Dae-Ho, seeing the attack coming, stopped his movement and stepped out of the way.

Ending up next to Jean as he was mid-swing left an easy opening for Dae-Ho. He turned the weapon around and took a jab at Jean’s sides with the pommel of the claymore. Even with the padding, Jean felt the impact knock the air out of him as he collapsed to the ground.

Dae-Ho dropped his sword to check on Jean as Donny rushed over to see as well.

“You okay? Didn’t expect you to jump at me!” Dae-Ho said while laughing.

“You got your ass beat,” Donny said with a grin on his face.

Finally managing to get some air back into his lungs, he sat himself up.

“Don’t get up to soon!” Donny insisted.

Jean shook his head.

“It’s fine, I’m okay,”

Jean was indeed fine. The pain was only momentary as the beast blood coursing in his veins were healing him rapidly. The other two helped Jean up. Donny and Dae-Ho took a short break before getting around to their sparring. Jean put his sword back into its sheath and practiced the drills until the class ended. The last remaining class of the day was first-aid 101. This was luckily, another class that Jean shared with Donny and Dae-Ho.

The three of them walked into a wide lecture hall lined with rows of chairs. More and more students began trickling in behind the three of them. The sudden rush pushed them to find their seats. Soon after, the room was filled with the conversations of students ready to end the last class of the day.

A group of students surrounding the three of them leaned in towards Jean.

“First time seeing you around. You the transfer student?” asked the boy sitting directly behind Jean.

Jean turned around to face a blonde-haired boy. His voice and his face screamed, pompous asshole. There was a certain condescending look to his face. His head seemed to always be slightly tilted above whoever he was talking to. Most likely to mimic the feeling of looking down on someone.

“Yeah, I am,” Jean replied.

“Nice! I’m Larris by the way. Anyway, what’s up with that? How’d you manage to transfer here so late?” Larris asked.

“Special circumstances,” Jean answered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I’m just saying I had some circumstances that made me transfer late,”

“Okay, so then what are those circumstances,”

“I can’t say,”

“Stop bullshitting me and just say it,”

Donny, who was shaking his leg in annoyance, fed up with the pestering, turned around to face Larris as well.

“Back off Larris. Just because your dad is the head of investigations, don’t mean you have to interrogate every single person like you’re your dad,”

Larris’ eyebrows furrowed as he glared at Donny.

“Are you jealous that I actually have a dad to look up to?”

As Dae-Ho was about to get up from his seat and say something, Jean stood up first. He began curling his fingers into a fist. Clenching them tighter with each passing second. Jean could feel his adrenaline building. The thought of having enough power to knock this blonde punks head clean off filled his mind.

Then there it was again. The out of body feeling, the slowing of time… and the same guttural voice.

“Do it, Jean. You know you want to,”

It would kill him, right?

“Oh yes. You can end this little shits life right now,”

Jean fists tightened even harder.

“Do it… What’re you waiting for! DO IT!”

Jean let out a sigh and the world around him faded back to normal. Jean thought to himself that a situation like this was the reason for why the stringent rules were placed on him. The voice went away, and Jean could only glare at Larris. Unlike in the stare down he had with Donny, Larris looked straight into Jean’s eyes and felt a sense of terror.

Leaning back in his chair, he turned his head away.

“Alright, I guess I went a bit far,”

Upon hearing this, Jean sat back down in his seat. The clock struck one o’clock and the doors to the lecture hall promptly opened. An all too familiar sight strolled in. The long dark brown hair and the slender figure couldn’t be mistaken for. Doctor Evelynn Brown approached the podium and placed her materials down.

There were whisperings amongst the boys in the very back.

“She’s the new first-aid teacher? We got lucky”

“Yeah, she’s actually hella hot,”

Evelynn, as if she was still preparing her materials, reached into her bag. The boys behind Jean were still whispering about Evelynn. As Jean turned his attention back to the front of the room, he felt a sharp brush of air fly right past him. Only a moment later, he heard a slight dink of an impact resonate from behind him.

Evelynn was wiping her fingers down with a handkerchief.

“That teacher straight up just threw a block of chalk at that dudes head,” Dae-Ho said out loud.

“Shut up and quiet down,” she said firmly.

There was a collective gulp of nervousness in the class.

Glad to see she’s as blunt as ever…

The rest of the class went without a hitch. Evelynn spent most of the class showing off grotesque injuries, discussing crucial healing herbs and other introductory level content. Jean couldn’t help but admit that despite her demeanor, she was one hell of a teacher. The clock struck two signaling the end of the last class of the day.

The trio spent the rest of their day eating, lounging around, and spending time in the student recreation center. Jean finally found himself feeling a sense of relief. All the worries and denial he felt since the incident were forgotten, even if it might have only been for that moment. It was as if his life would come back together again.