Kazuya Hiiro stood before his bedroom mirror with a soft sigh on his lips, tugging at the noose (tie) around his neck to straighten it before he turned and trudged out of aforementioned bedroom.

“I’m off to school!” Hiiro shouted, not bothering to check if anyone heard him, as he knew his parents were likely capable of hearing a twig snap in a forest…

Or something exaggerated like that, not that Hiiro wanted to check if it was true or not.

Leaving his house, Hiiro breathed out a puffy cloud of mist into the cold January air, and then wrapped his red scarf around his shoulders loosely…

It was originally black or blue, but one of his classmates seemed to have commandeered one of his and replaced it with this one.

Rather than argue, Hiiro just accepted it and walked to the train station, checking his phone for the time…

He was early, as usual, waiting in front of the train station as normal humans walked by, glancing at him in confusion from time to time.

Understandable really, Hiiro wasn’t a normal human like them… and he dressed like it, wearing the Elem High uniform, it was clear that he was likely a Sage, a superhuman capable of controlling the Elements that made up the world around them.

Sage’s had other identifiers, such as his hair which looked black, but he was sure that some would note that when the sun hit it that would change…

Hiiro wasn’t actually sure with his hair colour, sometimes it appeared a dark blue, maybe purple, but his mother claimed to have seen it green once, it was odd, even among Sages.

Then there was Hiiro’s other habit that made him easily identifiable as a Sage.

Unlike most Sages, who used a Spell, magic, to store weapons inside a container they could then access, Hiiro always had one weapon on his person at all times.

Last year, in his first year of high school, Hiiro had carried around a katana everywhere he went, covered in cloth because carrying a weapon around terrifies people, but he was always armed.

In the same sense, last year, Hiiro had completed his training with a katana and moved on to his next weapon, which he had on his hand, a bow.

To be exact, a compound bow made using high metals created by a Metal Sage so as to hand the greater strength of Sages, even the ‘string’ was made of metal fibres.

So here he stood, with a bow in hand, odd hair, and the uniform of Elem High, showing clearly that he was a Sage, a soldier for the sake of humanity, humanity that in general feared Sages…

Hiiro heard the rustling of paper and watched someone seated nearby start reading, the headline on the front of the paper shown in his face.

Another Sage found dead in the Empire! The title really jumped out and Hiiro frowned seeing it…

He had already known about the deaths, they’d been increasing in the Empire lately…

“Hey there man, long time no see!” Hiiro turned from his looking at the paper to smile and clasp the hand of his fellow classmate, Edward Valzard, prince of the Empire…

Said prince seemed slightly more muscled than before the holidays somehow, and his multi-coloured and extremely noticeable hair added on to his physique ousted him as a Sage instantly to anyone nearby…

But he wasn’t focusing on the occasional glances from nearby humans or some Elem High students who recognized the two of them…

Instead, Edward looked to the newspaper that had Hiiro’s attention, a frown instantly snapping onto his face replacing the once cheery smile.

Hiiro patted his friend on the shoulder, trying to distract him from the bad news.

Edward, as a prince of the Empire, knew about the killings… and understandably wanted to stop them… unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be happening any time soon given he was stuck in Elem, and not a licensed Sage either.

“Hey man, keep it out of your mind. You know your brother is likely working on it himself right?” Edward’s frown turned into a smile once more at the mention of his famous Sage brother, Gregory Valzard aka the Dragon.

General of the Army for the Empire, Gregory was Edward’s idol, he was certain that Gregory would help in the murder cases within the Empire.

“Yeah, he’ll sort it out… it’s just… the news itself is weird.” Edward admitted and Hiiro… Kazuya, understood what his friend was saying.

His parents weren’t around, and so he was free to use his surname again.

“Yeah… slit throats and always on a night of a Null Sons gathering? It has to be them…” Kazuya started, only to feel a tap on his shoulder, getting him to turn his head.

In front of him was one of the most confusing people he had the (mis)fortune to know, Liza von Krown, adopted daughter to the King of Metal, the strongest Metal user and Headmaster of Elem High.

She also seemed to like Kazuya, but he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.

“Can’t be them.” Liza didn’t even bother greeting, instead inserting herself into the conversation as if she was there the entire time…

A possibility given that her Element as a Sage was Time, she was lazy and yet never late.

“You have a point, even if the Null Sons are involved, it can’t actually be them alone killing Sages…” Edward added, going along with Liza’s flow of not introducing herself.

Understandable, she experienced Time differently from everyone else, so she just got to the point where she never really said goodbye or hello beyond gestures to let people know what she was doing.

Kazuya thought about his two friends and agreed that things were a bit strange…

The Null Sons were terrorists, humans who believed that Sages, Fae, and Mystic Beasts were the causes of all problems in the world and that all three groups should be wiped out.

So understandably they only comprised of humans, humans who were at minimum ten times weaker than the weakest of Sages, Fae or Mystic Beasts…

A child Sage could kill any grown adult human easily, so the idea of three Star Sages being hunted down and killed around Null Sons gatherings was odd…

“The only thing that makes sense is if the Null Sons had a Sage working for them, but that doesn’t make sense, no Sage would work for them…” Kazuya added on in thought…

“Isn’t it a bit early in the morning for you three to be this deep in thought? Live a little!” The cheery voice of Vince Makarov rang out as Kazuya and Edward nodded at their friend in greeting.

Liza instead found Kazuya’s back interesting as she climbed onto him, and sticking her head out from over his shoulder…

It was actually done so much that Kazuya barely noticed it anymore.

With Vince was Tony Valdez, another of their group of seven and one of the two ‘shy ones’ of the class, as he just nodded after a moment while slouched, stuttering out a greeting…

No one bothered calling him out on his stuttering, it annoyed him and it would just be plain mean in general.

“What’s up Vince, any interesting stuff happen over the New Year?” Kazuya asked as he and Vince bumped fists before Vince moved over to Edward.

“Yeah, my pistols got an upgrade at home, and I got a few new tricks to my arsenal… I’m stepping up my game to keep my spot on the leader board you know?” Vince’s smirk was a bit predatory as each of the five Sages glanced at each other with a bit of a similar smirk, even if Tony’s seemed slightly nervous.

Sages were competitive in general, and competition within your group was considered even more important.

“Oh? Well I suppose you’ll be needing all the help you can get when I come for your position Vince.” A ‘cold’ voice showed that the last two members of their class had arrived, Jade Gardenia was the girl who just spoke, with Leah Marx waving from behind Jade with a smile on her face.

Covered in a scarf, winter coat, and wearing mittens, Leah looked like an adorable teddy bear or something and it just had Kazuya glancing away after a second of registering what he was seeing.

“How cruel Jade, as expected of you.” Vince greeted with a thumbs up and laugh, leaving Jade to glare at him through her glasses.

Jade’s glasses which she didn’t really need any more, having gotten her eyes fixed during the holidays, but they were what she was used to. Some Sages even used glasses for disguises if necessary, she figured she could do the same.

“Well, we’re all here, guess we should go?” Edward offered, and the other S-Class members nodded, walking along to the train headed to Elem High…

It would be a few minutes later that the group of seven found themselves walking (or in Liza’s case, being carried) into the main building of Elem High, walking past the huge pile of one hundred or so first years who were looking around with wide eyes, some even had smirks or challenging glares being thrown around.

“That’s adorable.” Kazuya joked loudly enough for a small group of said first years to hear, the united force of their glares not enough to intimidate the second year.

“Mean.” Kazuya’s spine twitched when Liza bit his ear for that comment.

Not in the ‘sexy nibble’ way either, her teeth grinded a bit before she stopped.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop! Just thinking about how we must have looked last year.” Kazuya frowned before his face settled back into his usual passive stare.

Kazuya looked almost like a blank canvas at times with how his expression was when not thinking of anything.

The first years who saw Kazuya unfortunately mistook this face for ‘traumatized’ and wondered at how scary lessons had to be for him to look like that.

Ignoring the fear the first years now felt because of his resting face, Kazuya and the other members of his class moved towards the second floor of the school, their class now in a different spot.

“By the way, I counted six odd ones from that group of students… juniors?” Edward asked aloud for his classmates, getting a few nods.

“Yeah, one less than us, but one more than the third years from last year… speaking of them, anyone have any news on them, they did kind of take off without saying anything…” Vince added, and everyone agreed.

The third years weren’t all exactly friends, but they knew each other and occasionally spoke to the then first years.

“Ah, Yusuf gave me a few lessons before he left, during the holidays, and I got some info.” Leah added, then poking her fingers together when she noted six stares being sent her way.

“Um, let’s see… oh, for the International Juniors, all of them went obviously, and while all five made it to the quarter-finals, only Yusuf and Bobby made it to the finals, where Yusuf beat Bobby.” Hearing the results of the most watched Sage competition in the world, the battle-hungry members of the class gained feral grins.

Said members would be Edward, Kazuya, Vince and Liza, the remaining three were a bit more sensible and just gave soft smiles or nods in acknowledgement.

Yusuf Grant, son of their teacher Jonathan, was the second-strongest member of the graduating class, but it seemed that in the final battle between himself and his best friend Bobby, Yusuf came out the victor.

Well, Yusuf was also technically the lowest ranked member of that class, but only because he had one Element compared to the others two.

It was a hold out from the creation of the S-Class itself, which the Headmaster was beginning to admit was probably a mistake.

“After the International Juniors, the five split into two groups, Bobby and Vera went to Africa to get started on bounty hunting… though Yusuf implied that Bobby wanted to do that and Vera just wanted to stick around.” The way Leah was blushing showed that there was probably more going on there than implied, even as Vince ribbed a similarly blushing Tony.

“The rest, Yusuf, Su-Li and Kim all left with Yusuf, ‘looking for adventure’ as he put it…” Leah added, and the group sighed, wondering at the mind of their smartest senior…

Yusuf was very much a meticulous person, it was rare that he planned something that didn’t go the way he wanted it, but, much like his father, Yusuf was also capable of just saying ‘screw it’ and doing as he pleased.

And walking into the classroom, leaving that conversation behind, they saw their teacher, proof that the Grant family, if they chose to, would not give a damn about anything.

Jonathan Grant, five Star Wind and Darkness Sage, and user of five of the Six Arts which Sages used to fight, Jonathan was extremely accomplished even though he was ‘only’ five Stars.

As for his appearance, ignoring his messy black hair and lazy green eyes?

Rabbit slippers and a rabbit themed pyjamas, complete with a hood with rabbit ears sticking out of it as the man yawned with one hand, the other hand holding a cup of coffee.

Their teacher dressed strangely, even if his wife chose his clothes he could always… refuse?

Remembering who his wife was, the class kept quiet about their collective suggestion… one didn’t argue with a King, even a ‘peaceful’ one like Rabia Grant nee Baqri.

Peaceful, yeah right.

“Well, looks like you’re all back. Sit down, shut up, let me monologue.” Jonathan demanded, and the students found themselves in their seats instinctively so as to avoid pain.

“First, let me say, congratulations, you managed to avoid being expelled for a year, and you are now second year students here at Elem high, good for you. But you all do realize things just get more difficult from here, right?” Jonathan reminded, getting nods from the seven students, understanding.

The S-Class, whether it was the first, second or third years, were expected to be undefeatable within the same rank unless by a fellow member of said S-Class.

The moment an S-Class student couldn’t win against a student from outside of the S-Class, that S-Class student would be expelled and their position given to their victor.

Might makes right, with two Elements and more Essence than normal for their rank, if they lost after being groomed by Elem High’s best services, then clearly those resources were wasted on that Sage and better used for the person who won.

And the minimum required strength to progress safely in their second years was three Stars, something they already possessed…

But so too did most of their competitors. To truly dominate their peers, the S-Class needed to reach four Stars before the year was through.

A difficult proposition for some Sages, but Sages grew explosively when they were younger, their growth rates slowing down heavily upon reaching five Stars, or the age of eighteen, whichever came first.

The second-years believed they could do it, smirking in response to the unspoken challenge in Jonathan’s statement.

“This year, there are a few things I’ll need to talk to you all about, but I can sum up your combat training with the word ‘specialization’.” Jonathan added, getting weird looks from the students.

They already had their roles after all…

“I can see you misunderstanding. After completing your first mission last year, even if there were some unexpected problems, but you all are now free to take low ranked missions.” Jonathan reminded, and they got the idea, mission specializations.

The only one of the group whose specialization wasn’t in question was really Vince, as Vince came from a family of Mystic Beast hunters back in the USSR, he would specialize in missions regarding Mystic Beasts… everyone else had to figure things out.

“And beyond that, your roles are already fulfilled, you know your strengths and your weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses can’t really be erased, so let’s ignore that for now… instead, we’ll have you increase your strengths even more.” Jonathan added, pointing to Edward, who stood immediately.

“Prince brat, you’re a close range fighter, you’re never going to be a long-range specialist and that will always be your weakness… so what?” Jonathan asked, and Edward thought for a moment before answering.

“I need to get better at controlling Elements and using my environment.” Edward said only to get a scowl from Jonathan who waved his off hand.

“No, no, that’s not increasing your strength, that’s covering your weakness. I asked you to specialize, increase your strengths, not cover your weaknesses.” Jonathan sighed, knowing he’d have to spell it out for these students of his.

“What you all need to do is get even better at what you’re already good at.” There was a pause as Jonathan pointed at Edward once more.

“You, need to learn to concentrate and expand your power. You rarely use Elements in conjunction with your martial arts, learn how to do so, and that will add a facet to your close range power. In addition, further minimize unnecessary movements and emphasize precise blows only when they are guaranteed to give you victory.” It was a surprisingly comprehensive talk from Jonathan getting nods from Edward as he sat, smiling at the idea of getting stronger.

“Hero brat, your parents have their own way of teaching you, I won’t interfere with that, but unlike the rest of this group, your strength is your diversity, learning numerous arts. Other than what your parents have you learning, I want you to stop learning other techniques and focus on enhancing what you already know. Take extra time to practice with the spear and katana as well.” Kazuya scowled at the beginning but was agreeing by the end of the statement; Jonathan was having them work on their foundation after all.

“Shy brat, you have actually started to do this before your classmates, and doing what you’ve already been doing will take you further. The only complaint I would have is that your ability with reinforcement and compression of your Element is frankly abnormally good for your level, and yet your control is not indicative of this. Further your control, and your natural ability with compression will increase.” Tony blushed a bit at the approval he was getting from everyone in the room, sitting his head on his desk to ignore everyone after that.

“Shy brat girl, I know you don’t like fighting that much, and that support and defence are your specialties, so I’m going to stop asking you to learn how to run around and all that for a while. Instead… learn to do all three. Support, defend, and attack, but do so without moving.” That confused Leah, who had been told for quite a while that if she stood still, she’d die… but she would need to get better at everything eventually anyway.

“Glasses brat, you’ve been fighting similarly to the hero brat this entire time, even if you haven’t noticed it. Stop, it’s not you. That is just your idea of ‘strength I can attain’. It isn’t what you can actually attain, just what you think is your limit. What you need to do, is become a shield.” Jade was a bit reluctant to do what Jonathan was asking of her, as she was a Metal/Light Sage… her Elements worked great for defence and offence respectively… but now Jonathan was telling her to stop trying to diversify and instead focus on defence?

“Food brat, your marksman abilities are exceptional and you probably won’t lose out in accuracy to any one of your peers… but you are limiting your abilities because you don’t know more.” Jonathan pointed at Vince, who widened his eyes in confusion.

“You attack with Light, and disrupt with Wood. That’s about it. That’s not the limits of those Elements though, and yet you only use them for those purposes? Have you considered being able to ‘shoot’ healing or supportive Light, being able to ‘shoot’ offensive or defensive Wood abilities?” Vince’s pained expression revealed that he hadn’t considered that, with understandable reason as his weapons were guns, they harmed others, but now he was being reminded that what they did could be affected by his will, it was his Elements after all.

“Honestly, you all have a lot of potential and are definitely going to be powerful, but that’s only if you use said potential… and you have used yours the least, so I’m understandably a bit annoyed with you.” Jonathan finished off his talk with Vince before turning his gaze to the strongest member of the class.

“Small brat, you are different from the others. You will grow differently because of how strange your Element is, so the only advice I can give you is to work on the basics including reinforcement, your Armament and gaining a Clad. Continue increasing your physical strength, because until you become strong enough to affect others it will be your only weapon.” Liza nodded in agreement, she was the only purely physical fighter of the group, and despite being the smallest of the class, she was physically the strongest, due to being further along three Stars than her classmates.

“The reason we’re ignoring your weaknesses instead of solving them, is because now that you can take on missions, it’s especially important for you all to get used to teamwork. And in a team, your weaknesses can be covered by others.” Jonathan added, getting the students to look at each other and realize what he was saying.

Leah wouldn’t move around much anymore, giving her more time and focus to use Spells and support, and if Jade became good defensively, she could prevent Leah from getting attacked while Leah worked.

With Leah as the only supporter of the group, it wasn’t really feasible, if she was knocked out no one else could do support, but Vince was being encouraged to learn how to heal and support with Light, and use Wood to attack as well.

Edward and Liza were to increase their close range ability, being the forefront of the team was their job. If they were attacked from a range, that wasn’t their problem to solve, it was Vince’s, and to a lesser extent now that he was learning to use a bow, Kazuya’s.

Then for Tony, as stated, he was getting brilliant at compressing power, combine that with brilliant control and he would actually be able to use powerful spells, and his attacks would gain a sort of explosive quality to them, allowing Tony to use area of effect attacks.

Compression could be used in different ways after all, many used compression to generate a greater amount of force in a smaller area, but alternatively it could be used to suddenly increase the area of an attack like an explosion.

And obviously, the most versatile of the group was Kazuya. He was currently in training to gain long range capabilities, but combine that with his mastery of a katana and a spear, he would have the ability to fight at just about any range, and with his Element allowing him to use every other Element equally, he’d be able to do whatever was necessary for the team.

“Good, I see you all understand. That being said, I have a quota for you all. As S-Class members, you have to be above the other classes at all times, so knowing this, the seven of you have to collectively complete more missions than any other class. So if Class-A does one hundred missions, you better do one hundred and one missions.” Jonathan warned, his arm turning black as ink in warning as the students nodded as quickly as possible.

“What about school-work, projects, that kind of stuff?” Kazuya asked, knowing that missions would put a serious dampener on that.

School-work in general seemed kind of useless for most Sages, but there were Sages who used that information elsewhere, for example, if a Sage learnt how to act out Shakespeare due to reading his plays, and the Sage had to go undercover as an actor, their knowledge would supplement their mission.

Just an example.

“We teachers are a bit more lenient with students regarding school-work starting from the second year… you all still have to be in the top ten per cent of the school, but we will give you requirements in the beginning of term. Meet them by the end of the term, and we’ll be fine.” Jonathan said, a breeze going through the room and carrying files on his desk towards the desks of the students.

Each file contained an outline of what they needed to know for each subject, which projects would be given out, and so on and so forth, these files were to let the students work with more leeway.

“Huh… okay, but sir, why does it say ‘mission training’ as school-work?” Jade asked with a raised hand, getting a sigh from Jonathan.

“Oh… that… I hated that when I was training… basically it’s training for mission things, just about anything you might need to know to complete a mission will be taught there, from tracking, skinning, mapping, capturing skills, traversing in all environments, acting, singing, handling of materials, everything is taught there.” There was a momentary pause.

“…S-s-singing?” Tony was understandably worried the moment something like that came out, and Jonathan nodded with a sigh.

“Yes, singing. Travelling musicians are actually not given much scrutiny by the public, and disguising yourselves as musicians lets you move more freely than if you were to announce yourselves as Sages… it’s an especially useful skill if you were to need to look for Rogue Sages who hide in cities. Even the Tyrant went to a few of those classes. He has quite the skill with a saxophone.” The image of the extremely muscular, bear-like, dark skinned Bobby Dore, playing a saxophone on a stage, sent a blue-screen into the mind of each member of the second year S-Class.

“So yes, you will all learn at least one instrument, or show ability in one to get out of learning, and go to singing lessons whether you can sing or not. It will happen, if not this year, then next year, but you can’t get out of it. And yes, every Sage can sing. A pointless talent in my opinion.” Jonathan complained, clearly mad that he also had to learn how to sing at some point.

Rather… why?

Unbeknownst to these people complaining, the King of Darkness nodding approval at an opera she was watching in the Empire.

“Still appreciating music… I’m certain that other than fighting and money, that’s the only thing you like.” A man sat down casually next to the King of Darkness as the opera was halted for an intermission.

The man, in contrast to the sinister beauty of the King of Darkness, was rugged and tanned, his visible arms nearly covered in tattoos as his T-shirt strained against his powerful form, his hair wild and reaching to his shoulders with a sheen on them which could be recognized as hair that was not dried after a swim.

“Shut up and go play in a puddle.” Clara Salem responded without even thinking about it, and in response Kai Lanakila, King of Water, laughed, leaning back in his seat and spreading out his limbs, further annoying the King of Darkness.

“I don’t need to worry about that, it rains quite a bit in the Empire after all. So, why are we gathering? Normally we’re free to do as we please and just keep in contact right, so why is this face to face meeting necessary?” the King of Water asked his fellow King with a pointed look, drawing careful neutral expression from the King of Darkness.

And yet despite her face showing no emotion, the loud growling in the room let the King of Water know how she was really feeling.

“There are strange things going on. Four Essence users born in the same year along with a girl who can control time and a boy with three Elements. The Apostle recently returned, Dungeons are appearing even when they should be inactive, and the King of Earth apparently found a way to solve the block on the two Element Sages.” Kai Lanakila heard all of this before, but having it all spoken at once…

“You feel we Kings need to gather to talk about this? No, you wouldn’t have us talk about this in person… it’s something that requires our presence.” Clara Salem scoffed and nodded, the growling disappearing even as Kai discreetly rubbed the back of his neck.

That beast was terrifying, even if he could defeat it, Kai really didn’t want to have to try and fight Cu.

“We can’t handle this alone. We are ten Kings working together, but we aren’t the strongest people in the world. So we’re discussing outside help.” Kai Lanakila widened his eyes before narrowing them, and without his notice the pressure of the room increased slightly, even though it was his fault.

“The Fae? Or the Hermits? I doubt you’d suggest the Elementals… and do we really need to look for outside help against this threat you think is coming?” Kai Lanakila was actually a really cautious Sage, even for his power, but even he thought this was a bit excessive…

Especially coming from the extremely powerful and arrogant King of Darkness and that she was even admitting that their group of ten wasn’t as amazing as the Sages thought.

“The Fae. The Hermits would never step out of their seclusion without reason. I only joined for money, remember?” Kai Lanakila gave a short barking laugh at that, recalling the moment the King of Light suggested giving the King of Darkness a stranglehold on money in the form of allowing her to run the bank Sages use.

Without that, the Hermit Clara Salem would never have become the ‘King’ Clara Salem.

“Your peers are all odd people… even the assistance of one of them would tip the scales of any conflict to our side, and their mere existence caused the Fae to have to take detours during the war… but we got off track. This is to discuss the cease-fire with the Fae? Are we finally moving towards peace?” Kai Lanakila asked, hope in his eyes knowing that the violent King of Darkness was suggesting they needed help.

“It seems we might… the gangster’s son said that the Elves had a liking to the time girl. We can use her as a bargaining piece to get cooperation.” Kai laughed at Clara’s descriptor for the King of Lightning.

No one of the current generation of Sages would associate ‘gangster’ with the ‘Head Monk’ Goku Adohira.

“Be that as it may… we operate at a different scale compared to other beings. The meeting will happen at the end of the year?” Kai asked, getting a nod from Clara as everyone began to walk back inside, the intermission complete.

No one noticed the Kings seated in their midst.