“Ah… I needed a break…” Kazuya’s words drew nods from each of his classmates, as each of them dug into a pastry of their own.

They were currently lounging around, due to it being a weekend.

Considering they all lived nearby, they had started to hang out on the weekends and days off, except for the holidays, those were ‘me-time’ moments for everyone.

“Yeah… Jonathan is getting harsher with the training, and he’s dumping a whole lot of information on Elements at once… I guess it’s just more signs that the inter-class tournament is coming up.” Jade noted, pointing at something on Vince’s notebook, letting him know to make the correction.

Homework, the bane of all students.

“I’m a bit thankful for the information though, I mean, the more I know the stronger I get.” Kazuya’s words were true for all Sages to an extent, but Kazuya in particular needed a really large amount of information to function as an equal to other Sages.

“It hurts my brain.” Tony, Leah and Vince all agreed, and even Edward looked a bit sheepish…

Smart as they may be, they worked really hard to reach S-class when it came to grades.

“Interesting.” Liza added in her fifty cents, taking a moment to get a bite of her lemon meringue cake.

Given her smile, it was obvious she enjoyed that kind of cake, much like Kazuya… Kazuya liked cakes like those, such as milk tart.

“…look mommy…” “Don’t look sweetie…” no one in the group, despite their stronger senses, reacted to the words of a mother and her daughter as they walked out of the pastry shop.

“…Sorry about that.” One of the people acting as a waiter apologized, only for Kazuya to raise his hands in a calming manner.

“It’s alright, everyone is entitled to their opinion.” Kazuya said, getting a smile and nod from the man.

“I suppose so, but if your opinion hurts others… anyway, I’ll go get some tea and coffee for you all, free of charge.” The man offered as the S-Class all gave their orders.

“…I almost wish Jonathan never gave us that lesson on publicity.” Jade said quietly, the scared looks from the mother hurting her in particular.

“It was something that we’d have to learn eventually Jade… you okay?” Vince asked, quick to help as he placed a palm on her shoulder in reassurance.

“I’m fine… it’s just… can I mention my home life for a bit?” Jade asked, and everyone at the table blinked in surprise…

Through some unspoken agreement, no one in their group revealed too much of their home-life… there wasn’t a reason for them not to, but they just kept that part of their lives private… it’s why they always met up at this bakery/café instead of one of their houses.

“Sure, we’re friends, it’s not like we’d reject learning more about our friend.” Edward offered, getting a small blush and nod from Jade…

Vince’s hand was slowly removed from Jade’s shoulder as Vince smiled, glad that she was feeling a bit better, enough to blush even.

“Right… well, from what little I’ve gathered, you’ve all come from a lineage of Sage families right?” Jade started off her explanation with a question, pausing to let the waiter drop their drinks.

“Yeah, Kazuya’s parents are kind of popular as a Sage couple, my parents are nobility.” Edward knew that some considered him a prince and while they weren’t too far off, the Empire didn’t quite work like that.

“I’m an orphan but my parents were both Sages before they died, I live off their inheritance.” Leah offered with a momentary pulse of sadness before calming herself…

She hadn’t mentioned when they died, but it clearly still hurt her, and no one felt the need to ask for more, knowing that reminding her would hurt her.

“I was put into the foster care system, but when I became a Sage I was placed into a different system… well, that, and people were pretty sure I’d end up a Sage.” Tony wouldn’t explain more than that, but there was apparently some proof beforehand.

“Headmaster took care of me.” Liza added, sipping from her tea.

“And my parents are hunters back in the USSR, and given that Mystic Beasts are a big thing in that area, yeah, my family is comprised mostly of Sages.” Vince said, scratching behind his ear for a moment…

Kazuya wondered if he should let Vince know that was a tell for lying. Just to figure out what he was lying about, but hey, it wasn’t Kazuya’s secret to tell.

“Well… I’m from a civilian family, every other member of my family is a normal human while I’m a Sage.” Jade explained, causing Edward to pause from his cappuccino flavoured cake.

“Wait… if your family is a civilian one, you wouldn’t happen to be the heiress to the Gardenia corporation, that collection of businesses owned by the Gardenia family?” Edward asked, getting wide eyes from everyone else as they looked to Jade.

“Oh, I recognize that, they’re up there with Microsoft and Apple, the Gardenia group’s main call to money and fame was that they funded the research and creation of Sage-brand devices like our phones.” Vince said, pulling out his own phone and poking the tiny ‘G’ in the corner of the back.

“Yeah… the same Gardenia family. My family was ecstatic when they learnt that I was a Sage, and I was so happy to be making them proud…” Jade looked away for a moment, staring wistfully at the outside world.

“Unfortunately the illusion was shattered a few months later when I heard my uncle and father talking. The awe had worn off and my uncle was telling my father he was scared… of me.” Jade admitted with a frown, getting worried looks from her classmates.

“My uncle used to care about me a lot, he travelled to lots of places and always got me souvenirs… then I got my Elements and suddenly I could bench-press more than he weighed and could create bladed weapons out of seemingly nothing.” Jade said with a frown.

“Worse, my father agreed… he agreed that I was scary, and that the only reason he was actually happy that I was a Sage was because it would make good publicity for the Gardenia family to have a Sage.” Jade frowned, getting a nod from Vince of all people.

“I can understand that, they’re always making Sage-brand items but they don’t even have a Sage in the family, now they have one and are planning to use you to ‘authenticate’ their items, much like how a blacksmith family would have a soldier child actually use their equipment in battle.” Vince’s example was a bit old-school but it came across correctly.

Before Jade’s reveal as a Sage, the Gardenia family didn’t have any credibility in what a Sage would use because none of them were Sages. Sure, they were the number one company to get Sage-brand items, but there would always be that tiny thought of they can’t understand because they aren’t Sages.

Now with Jade around, they could understand, and use that ‘understanding’ to get even more buyers.

“Yeah… once I finish high school I’m going off to be a glorified mascot for the family.” Jade said with clenched fists, once more drawing a comforting hand from Vince.

Liza was smiling at the gesture, wondering if Vince noticed that he was acting like her with Kazuya at times.

Knowing Vince, he probably recognized what he was doing and just continued without care.

Though Jade kept giving those blushes to Edward… Liza wished Vince luck.

“Hey, if you need help, you just have to ask us… we’ll help you out. If you want to do the mascot thing, we’d help there. If you don’t want to, well, I’d like to see the Gardenia family stop us from getting you out.” Kazuya smirked, his smirk mirrored by his classmates, getting a smile from Jade who nodded in thanks.

They continued their meal in relative silence, only occasionally stopped by a question or the sharing of some observation.

They were all taking the time to think, because Jade’s case wasn’t entirely new…

Civilians, or ‘normal humans’ were different from Sages.

Both groups knew this, and made no effort to truly hide it unless in the presence of the other, and even then it was a token resistance.

There were groups that hated Sages, and groups that hated normal humans, and everything in-between. And the only reason those groups did not fight was because of the fear of an attack from the Fae.

For human haters there were the Supremacists, a terrorist group of Sages that were all considered rogue, the majority of bounty hunting requests were to hunt down Supremacists.

For Sage haters there was a group called the Null Sons, who believed that Sages, Fae and Mystic Beasts were all blights on the planet and had to be erased…

Unfortunately for the Null Sons, they were comprised of only normal humans, and even a one Star Sage, Mystic Beast or Fae could kill groups of normal humans, so the Null Sons were restricted to protests…

Kazuya had the ‘oh so nice’ experience of seeing a Null Sons protest, and found himself disgusted with the mass of xenophobia.

Again, the Null Sons weren’t much of an issue beyond their protests though.

Both groups hated each other obviously and many Supremacists were found out due to them eventually getting fed up with a Null Sons gathering and then attacking them.

Not only were these two groups in existence, but there was also varying levels of benefits for both groups in different countries.

For example, in the Empire a Sage was immediately elevated above normal humans. Humans were not discriminated against (it was a crime) nor were they hated, but between a human and a Sage, a Sage had higher priority to the Empire.

It was easily apparent when in the history of the Empire, not once was there an Emperor or Empress that wasn’t a Sage, and all the nobility in the Empire were Sages.

Germany, the country they were currently in, considered Sages and humans to be the ‘same’ and therefore ‘liable to the same laws’.

Most countries followed Germany’s example, with one or two exceptions to the idea such as Sages being allowed to carry a weapon as long as it was covered.

The peak of irony was the King of Light actually.

“Considered by many to be the Strongest Sage if not for the King of Darkness rivalling him, almost two hundred years old and one of the people who created the missions system for Sages… and he’s part of a religion comprised mostly of normal humans who refuse to advance him in rank due to being a Sage, thus, since joining the Church of One God, up until today, the King of Light is simply another priest to them.”

Jonathan’s words echoed in Kazuya’s head as he sipped his coffee…

Kazuya was also considering the other half of the lesson on publicity… namely, that Elements themselves already had publicity.

“Let’s look at the Metal Element, due to the Headmaster being the face associated with the Element, and him being a defensive specialist, Metal is considered a defensive element, despite Metal actually having a high offensive ability.”

The Elements themselves already had views associated with them, it was obvious when one looked at how Darkness was considered ‘scary’ or Water as ‘boring’.

It was in that same lesson that every Element was expanded upon by Jonathan.

Starting with Fire, Fire was considered the Element of passion and raw power, untamed, simply having a Fire Element made people think you were emotional and quick to anger.

Earth was amongst the most ‘boring’ of Elements, but after the Fae War Earth began to be considered the Element of the patient and strong.

Water was associated with healing and support, having Water as your Element made everyone think of you as a non-combatant, in spite of the fact that the Water King was the third or fourth strongest King.

Wind was considered the greatest of the ‘Base’ Elements, and also the most feared, as Wind seemed to be the single best Element for assassinations, as if one could control it to the point of making it nearly unnoticeable you could assassinate people over a kilometre away with the twitch of a finger.

Wood was another ‘boring’ Element, and once more it had hidden depth to it, Wood was capable of support, defence and attack, especially crowd control and poisoning, Wood became scarier and scarier the stronger the Sage was.

Ice was the Element of ‘laziness’ due to the King of Ice… he was actually famous for being lazy and only moving occasionally… even in a fight at that.

Lightning was the Element of destruction, sudden explosions of unstoppable power, too fast to be seen, too powerful to be stopped, Lightning was a feared element after the Blitzkrieg of Bonn, but today it was much more accepted.

Darkness was the Element of subterfuge, Darkness had many applications, from ailments, using Darkness as portals and storage space, and controlling gravity…

Darkness was frankly terrifying.

Light was terrifying in its own way, though most considered Light to be ‘holy’ in how it can heal, protect, and at the same time destroy like the might of the divine, the absolute fastest Element.

Metal was mentioned before, but it was considered a defensive Element.

Elements themselves had views on them, and normal humans had similar views on the Elements themselves, like how they were terrified of Wind Sages.

As long as he lived in the world with everyone else, Kazuya would have to deal with these views and opinions, be they wrong or right.

It was this thought that had Kazuya looking to his friends at the table, Liza meeting his eyes as she tilted her head in silent question.

“Prejudice exists everywhere, huh?” Kazuya asked, and Liza blinked slowly at him, no one else noticing the conversation yet as they were all doing their own things.

“It will always exist so long as we as living, thinking beings possess free will.” Liza responded, and Kazuya could only nod at the surprisingly deep statement.

Prejudice, faith, opinions, these things that could only exist because of free will, things which human beings as a whole would always argue about… Kazuya felt the world would be empty without them.

“Uh, excuse me?” there was a moment where everyone at the table was startled at the sudden voice, looking over to the speaker seeing a teen around their age, black hair and brown eyes peering from behind a pair of glasses.

“Hello there, anything we can help you with?” Edward asked, pausing for a moment as the teen was staring at Liza and Kazuya.

“Sorry, I was going to buy some pastries but I couldn’t help but overhear that last exchange, it was quite philosophical… oh, where are my manners, I’m Nero.” The boy said with a sigh and nervous chuckle as he extended a hand to Kazuya.

“Nice to meet you Nero, I’m Kazuya, this is Liza, that’s Edward, Leah, Tony, Vince, and Jade.” Kazuya said, introducing everyone with his free hand after the handshake.

“Nice to meet you all, though I’m a bit bad with names… Ahem, oh yes, the reason I interrupted was because I’m actually studying philosophy.” Nero said with a smile, taking a seat after Kazuya offered.

“Oh, that’s interesting, how does that work by the way… I’ve always been a bit confused on how having that as a subject would be.” Edward asked, getting a smile from Nero.

“Oh we review sayings by famous philosophers, and occasionally just famous people. It’s fun seeing who thought similarly and why, despite living in different areas and times.”

Nero said, reaching over his shoulder to his bag and removing a small notebook, on the cover the words ‘small sayings’ written in a scribbled handwriting.

“If it’s alright with you two, I’d like to record that exchange? I’ll keep it anonymous if you want me to.” Nero at least asked, getting a nod from Kazuya and a long stare from Liza before she nodded.

“Also… um, I’m guessing you’re all Sages?” Nero asked as he noted the conversation down, closing the book and placing it back into his bag, looking across the table at his conversation partners.

Getting a nod from everyone Nero scratched the back of his head.

“I see, I think I can guess how that conversation happened then… on behalf of civilians I’d like to thank you Sages for what you do though. Without you guys I’m pretty sure we’d have been wiped out a long time ago.” Nero admitted with a shy look, getting his words waved off by Vince.

“Thanks man, we appreciate the thought, though we haven’t even gone on a mission yet… well, once we do, I’m sure we’ll earn the thanks.” Vince smirked, and at this point his classmates weren’t too surprised at his ability to motivate and look on the good side.

“Oh, sorry, I don’t really know much about how Sage’s work… though I am doing a project on Sage’s admittedly.” Nero added, getting raised brows in response.

“You see, some famous philosophers were Sages, such as Da Vinci and Socrates, and so my project is to visit the Sage schools and learn about the type of life they lived.” Nero explained.

“Ah, so were you at Elem yet?” Leah asked with a bite of her chocolate cake…

She got a bit better with her shyness around chocolate apparently. She said something about feeling too sweet to feel shy.

“Oh I was, I even got a chance to interview Donovan Oren! It was such an honour to meet one of the ten strongest Sages in existence.” Nero said, super excited for his meeting.

“Huh… sometimes I forget that, I mean, he’s our principal, we see him often… though his first name gets a laugh every time.” Tony said, looking over at Kazuya, Vince and Liza who were giggling over it, repeating the name in funny voices.

“I guess that makes sense, sometimes what makes things special is the rarity of the occurrence. Like if your birthday was every day it would eventually lose meaning, but because it’s only once a year it has more meaning.” Nero said to himself, pulling his book out to either review a saying or add something…

Given that he pulled out a pen, they could only assume he was writing his own ‘saying’ down.

“Oh, Elem High was my first stop by the way. I’m heading over to the Valour Academy in the Empire next, and then from there I’m crossing back over to the Temple in India. I’m apparently supposed to wait there for someone to take me to the Wandering Village though.” Nero complained towards the end…

Understandable, the fourth major Sage High school/academy was a literal moving village, basically a caravan travelling between countries, though predominantly through the USSR through to Pakistan.

And everyone wondered why most of the Sages to leave the Wandering Village were ninja-buffs…

“Good luck with that man, hey, if you’re going to come past to head to the Temple from Valour, why don’t you stop by again?” Kazuya asked, noting that everyone was done, and were it not for the conversation everyone would leave…

Reading the mood, Nero stood along with them, everyone pushing their chairs in.

“Sure, though I’d like your numbers… I’d rather not get into Berlin only to find out you all went on a mission or something.” Nero offered as they all nodded or laughed in agreement, sharing their numbers.

“You’re really lucky though, your school actually sent you on a trip like this?” Edward asked Nero as they paid and stepped out of the shop, though only after waiting for Nero to pick up some donuts.

“Yeah, full expenses paid and everything, though that’s cause I’m top of my class…” Nero scratched the back of his head nervously, getting a pat on his back from Vince.

“That’s cool man, being the top of the class is difficult…” Vince complained, making Nero look between them all in confusion.

“With a Sage school, we rank each other based on combat skill first, and theoretical knowledge second. The ‘top student’ is actually the strongest.” Kazuya explained to the curious teen.

“Wow… no offence, that sounds kind of violent for my tastes… I’m a pacifist.” Nero held his hands out to placate his newly found friends.

“None taken, it’s just the way it is for us Sages, we’re all fighters since that’s our profession. But like Vince said, it’s difficult to become the top of the class, and maintain that position.” Kazuya said, sending a pointed look to Liza who looked away with a carefully neutral face.

“So are you all in the same class?” Nero asked, his new friends walking with him to the train station given how free they were.

“Yeah, we’re all in the top class for first years… I’m rank two in the class, Liza here is the strongest though.” Kazuya said, patting Liza on the head…

And then moving his hand away carefully when he thought he heard purring noises from the petite girl.

“…Okay, I knew that with Sages looks don’t really account for much when it comes to strength but really?” Nero asked, looking to Liza who turned from glaring at Kazuya’s hand to staring at the glasses wearing boy.

“I can defeat everyone.” Liza looked oddly proud, especially looking back to Kazuya who was rolling his eyes at her antics.

“…So are those two dating, or am I just seeing things?” Nero turned to Vince, seeing as he was the more outgoing one.

“We’re not really sure… Liza was pretty straightforward, she just up and ‘claimed’ Kazuya when they met. As for Kazuya, he can’t force her to stay away so he just accepts her presence.” Vince tried to explain, but as expected it just sounded strange.

“What about the rest of you, in the class rankings I mean, not relationships?” Nero asked curiously.

“Well, I’m third, and Vince is fourth. Jade is fifth, Leah is sixth, and Tony is seventh.” Edward said, pointing at the mentioned people, just in case Nero managed to forget their names.

“Wow… by the way, Edward, I feel like I should recognize you from somewhere…” Nero said, looking at the seven with awe in his eyes at knowing their ‘power rankings’.

“Oh, Edward’s a prince from the Empire, Edward Valzard.” Tony offered, getting Nero to widen his eyes, then turn to Edward.

“…Uh, am I going to get in trouble for not calling you ‘your highness’ or something?” Nero asked as they approached the train station’s entrance, the twitch at the corner of his mouth letting them know he was joking.

“Of course not, all that will happen is that you’ll get publically flogged, no biggie.” Edward joked back, his face as stern as Nero’s, with the same twitch on the lip as they both began to laugh.

Watching Nero interact with his classmates, Kazuya smiled; glad to have his faith in humanity renewed after a moment of bad things…

“He’s odd.” Kazuya sent a glance to Liza in question to her reaction as she stared at Nero miming eating ramen along with Vince, both laughing as Nero turned to Jade to talk.

“He… is a good speaker. And he’s really good at conveying his emotions.” Noting her speech pattern, Kazuya realized Liza was being serious about this, looking back to see that Nero managed to placate the two shy members of the class into talking with him.

“Well, it is rare to find someone who can connect so well to others, I suppose you’re right there…” Kazuya admitted, not noticing the look Liza gave him before she shook her head.

That wasn’t what she was getting at, but at this point it didn’t mean much.

She was curious, but that didn’t mean she’d ruin the talks based on her hunches.

“Oh, there’s my train leaving, I got to go! It was nice meeting all of you, I hope to see you all again in a month or two!” Nero waved as he ran away, hefting his bag with him, getting a suitcase from the counter woman, clearly having left his luggage at the station.

“Well, he was an interesting one…” Edward said as the S-Class students waved goodbye, waiting for the train to pull away before they turned, walking away…

“Let’s go everyone, we’ve still got to discuss our plans for the inter-class tournament.” Kazuya reminded, and everyone nodded, walking along, once more ignoring Liza on Kazuya’s back snoring like a koala.

While walking the six talked, not really aiming to walk to any set destination, eventually ending up at a park where some children were playing.

Feeling playful, the six began to play with the children using their elements, making sure to not do anything too dangerous, such as Jade making a miniature aurora, or Vince making a bouncy plant…

Seeing the smile on Jade’s face, everyone agreed that today was a good day for the most part.

Unbeknownst to the other six, Liza was not sleeping, instead she was thinking about Nero.

When she had told Kazuya about how well he could control his emotions, she was hinting at how useful such a skill would be to lying…

But he was seemingly genuine, and there was no aura of power from Nero, and Liza was quite good at sensing the power of Sages around her, Nero was a normal human.

Well, if he really was as genuine as he appeared, he would be an interesting friend to have, especially if they ever played poker together like Edward wanted to.

Finishing her thoughts, Liza tried to truly go to sleep…

Now if only the children would stop poking her back with sticks…