AKA 06

A Kitsune’s Ascent 06:

It had been a week full of classes at the university, and Zack was pleased to note that it wasn’t all that different from high school in the end.

While she had some rather advanced art classes, plenty of which had her up and modelling for other students in barely anything for the sake of getting the anatomy right. It wasn’t as though she was the only one doing so, and it was an even split among the genders regardless, so she knew the teacher wasn’t being a creep.

Not to mention she had been able to tell when people were looking at her in that way, and her innate instinct was to puff herself up a little like she was proud of herself. It was weird that she had such an instinct, but she didn’t think too much about it.

Other than that, it was simply math, history, and the study of the yet-to-be-named new overarching sub-type of humanity. She was fairly certain that humanity was a loose definition at the moment, and that people would be categorized differently once studies progressed enough, but people were arguing back and forth for several days on end so far, debating what those categories should be called before they even knew what they were.

It was rough, and she was glad she wasn’t in the debate clubs. Those were so noisy these days that she could hear them from across the University at times.

Speaking of hearing things, her ears were very sensitive, as she had unfortunately found out recently. A car honking it’s horn from multiple blocks away was loud enough to sound like it was in her apartment itself, even with the window closed.

And well…

The Roommate they had assigned to her was Jaq, who was a terribly light sleeper. And he whined a lot in his room whenever the noises got too loud at night.

His whining was high pitched, and set off all her alarms every time he did that, or barked in her presence, and it made her very much aware of how little she knew of her own body that her first instinct was to run and hide in a hole somewhere. That she instinctively transformed into a tiny fox several times, jumping right out of her clothes to go hide in a dark corner.

He thought it was funny, but she was actually not okay with that. Really not okay with that.

But when she brought it up to him, he just laughed it off, because in Phillip, this was how they joked with people. At least according to him.

Unfortunately for her sanity, she had both known him long enough to know that he’d been in Emerica for the entirety of his highschool days, and also knew he was in frequent contact with his cousins back in Phillip, so she couldn’t actually tell if he was just messing with her or not.

Culture differences aside, many of the people in the school were starting up factions of a sort, and she was essentially quickly noting that there was an established hierarchy that closely mirrored what you’d expect from the animal kingdom for the most part. And that was genuinely worrying.

At the very least, the teachers were genuinely interesting, and the subjects rather engaging, even with all the issues cropping up so far. After all, there wasn’t likely to be much education going on if the teachers couldn’t hold the focus of all the newly changed people.

Though she did wonder why all her left socks had gone missing in the past week. Like, how did she even know that those were specifically the left socks? It was weird, but she couldn’t wear just a right sock on both feet without it feeling uncomfortable, so she started going entirely barefoot.

As a result, a lot of people started commenting on how perfect her feet looked according to them. And with how she had to modify her clothing for her tails…

Well, a lot of people were genuinely complimenting her legs and rear. Which was truly something she was feeling a bit awkward about, even if her body came with the near uncontrollable urge to perk up when praised for her looks.

Still… Things had changed a lot. There was still a tear in the sky, vegetables had begun growing strangely, even fighting back in some cases.

A few people were simply not dying, or long dead people were coming back… Even though some of those people may very well be better off not coming back in the modern age.

Some students had gotten shorter, some thinner and taller, more graceful. A couple here and there had stayed the same and yet still a bunch had gained hooves and horns, or bodies covered in fur with fangs and claws.

The people of Academy City had changed, and not all of them for the better. But where did that leave her?

Zack sighed. It was as though her body was forcing her to recognize herself as female. Something she wasn’t sure if she was entirely okay with yet, but that somehow made her feel more confident in her new body than it really should.

And well… She may have explored her new body a little when it got particularly cold in the room one night, and the brisk air made her feel a little frisky. So she could say she got the better end of that particular stick.

Her mind was wandering in circles, thinking of everything and nothing all at once, and she genuinely had no idea how to handle it. Especially because what she actually wanted to focus on was the affinity for Madness that she apparently had. Mostly because it would be somewhat funny to make a painting that caused people to feel distinctly like they were forgetting something every time they glanced at it, or one that made people pace back and forth like they were trying to remember what they had for lunch and…

Huh. Okay. She may have gone a bit too far when trying to learn it for a second there. Maybe.

“Why do I have an affinity that just makes me crazy on command?” Zack sighed. It was something she would shelve for later… preferably when she was alone.

“Man, I’m jealous,” a brooding, long haired student her age said from his own bench a little ways away. “All I got besides the lightning thing — and what is up with that, by the way — was cloth? Felt way underwhelming.” He flipped his hair as if to accentuate his comment which just meant it went to cover his other eye this time.

“…That sounds incredibly combat viable,” Zack looked at him much more seriously. “Start wearing a lot of cloth bandages and a super long and really strong cloth for a scarf, and you could be like, busted as fuck.”

The brooding broodster blinked. “Huh, didn’t think of it that way. I was just thinking it was like, grandma sewing… which I actually felt. Sweet Ramen it was weird to feel a compulsive urge to buy needle and thread. I don’t even know what to do with it. Like, this is an affinity stuff like a game, right? With spells? Well, while I feel something holding cloth, I’m not getting a lot more than that. Wish this stuff had a manual because no one in my dorm knows what the fuck half this shit actually means, like, in practical way, you know?”

“Wait! I might know a guy…” Zack realized. “Thanks Emo Dude, you reminded me I need to talk to the Blacksmith Teacher guy! Sokitaa Oujii… He was doing a workshop thing to help with all of this.”

Said emo dude groaned. “I fucking hate my parents.”

“Wait, that’s random…” Zack tilted her head. “Why?”

Mr. Emo looked her dead in the eye and she saw little life behind his eyes, but not in an undead way. It was more the suffering of someone who’d had to endure someone else’s unhinged shenanigans kind of way. “My parents. Literally. Named me. Emo. Dude.”

“…I’m so sorry?” she asked. “Do you need me to figure out how to remove their insanity? Because that’s clearly a sign of deeper issues.”

“Would be nice. I’d go with my middle name if I could, but it’s just as bad,” Emo Dude said.

“I’m scared to ask,” she said, standing up to leave. “If your first name is that bad, it’s probably somehow worse.”

 “Frank,” he said simply, hands on his knees as he looked down.

“…Huh,” Zack looked at him curiously, “that doesn’t sound so—”

“It’s short for Frankfurter,” he sighed through his teeth with a long ‘tsk…’.

“What in the holy broth is wrong with your parents?!” Zack gasped.

“I don’t even hate frankfurters, but like, seriously? Anyway, parents wanted me to be a prim and proper churchy boy, go to all the Noodly convents, etc. You can imagine why I said fuck that and dress like I do out of sheer spite,” he said. With that, he reached into his jacket, withdrew a flask, and downed about half of it in one go.

“Come on buddy,” Zack said, noting that she could smell how weak that alcohol was. “You need something stronger than that, let me buy you a stiff Fritalian drink to fill that with for going through the pain of telling me all that.”

He briefly thought it over before shrugging. “Screw it, if you’re buying,” he said and stood. “Where to, Boss Lady?”

“Zabini’s. Man owes me a few bottles of Fritalian Everclear after I bought his shop to keep it out of debt,” she chuckled.

Emo Dude blinked and his mouth moved silently in a, ‘What the fuck?’ she could plainly read. “How the hell, you know what, don’t tell me, I’m sure I’ll just get mad at Fate if you do. Everclear, here we go,” he said.

 Well, one thing that flashed through her mind was rather silly, but she couldn’t help but realize how this all looked… ‘New minion acquired.’

~~~~

AN:

HiddenMaster: To Emo Dude, I am genuinely, utterly, and so, so sincerely sorry for the backstory I made for you. I have been cruel to my characters before, but I do not think I’ve ever been this cruel.

Kitsu: You have. Cough Artoria Cough Cough. We need to go back to that one day lol. Now that we know how to work together.

HiddenMaster: Fair enough lol, and that is right. Which says something given Artoria was my SI in that other fic, but anyway. Here we are.

On the story, however, this chapter came out pretty well, and we even have a solid setup for the next chapter too, so things are rocking so far.

Kitsu: Indeed. And apparently Hidden had Bacon for the first time in a year today because I sent him cash for the bacon fund! Plz send him more money for his bacon fund so he can eat good food!

HiddenMaster: It was amazing. I can get it more often than not, but I generally don’t as chicken is cheaper. But still, genuinely amazing.

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