KuragarixGrape: Magical Academy That's Not a Harem Ecchi!

[Grape_Drink]

The world is a beautiful place. People all over it blissfully remain ignorant of the powerful forces at work behind the scenes, and the brewing civil war that might break out at any moment between various mage factions... Yes, magic is very much real in our world, and is a powerful force not to be underestimated. Magicians typically become fully aware of their powers in their early to mid teens, and don't always come from magical families. You are one of those special magical children who attends a very special school, and graduation is only a year or two away before you get thrown into the midst of this civil uprising between factions that our heritage makes you privvy to... Will you spend your school days like any other kid enjoying friends and lovers, or perhaps become involved in the political brewings of men and women of ages young and old? Only time will tell.


Magical Academy That's Totally Not a Harem Ecchi For Once! (Name Pending)



...



"Therefore, when these two particles collide, it should form a magical entropy field. You can predict the degree of this field by combining the forces of..."

Magical theory... Possibly the most boring of classes. Why would anyone try to calculate magic? It's not like anyone is going to do that in the middle of a fight. Practice and getting a feel for what's at play has always worked better for you, hasn't it? Still, as the last period of the day it would be hard to get past security even if you wanted to skip. At least at schools back in the real world you never had to worry about security golems patrolling the halls for folks who weren't supposed to be there. The last five minutes of class pass by ever-so-slowly as Mr. Friedel yaps on about some rare natural occurrence called an entropy field. It sounds like it would create some serious issues, but he even said that the chance of them naturally occurring near folks were practically zero.

You are Candy Amerath, a young magician at "Ted Rush's school for excellence and the promotion of sustainable magic," though it's taken on a number of other names ranging from "Magic Boot Camp" to "We don't want you to fuck up and kill someone academy." Honestly it's pretty far from a boot camp, but with the rising tensions between various magician factions, Director Rush has been starting more and more initiatives to prepare students in case they get mixed into the fighting somehow. Your parents were rather glad that you had gone to the academy. Tensions had been growing stronger back home, and at least the neutrality clauses here would keep you safe in case of the very real possibility of a civil war... It's hard to imagine school only started back up a month ago.

The bell finally rings as you begin to pack your belongings. With school officially over you can roam the halls and grounds, or perhaps if the mood strikes you go to one of the clubs? After all, there's a number of them on campus ranging just about every subject. As you go to stand up, a familiar face approaches you...

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Ylonda, your dorm-mate

Ah, Ylonda. She's your room mate here on campus, and from what you've observed, honestly you've had a bit of trouble cracking this particular shell. During the school day she rarely talks and shys away from folks, constantly wearing that winter getup and covering half her face with a plaid scarf despite it being late summer/early autumn. Even in the dorms she doesn't say much, but when you wake up she always seems to be applying a fresh bandage here or there as if she were mauled by an angry cat or got into a fight. Honestly the word friend may or may not be appropriate, but she's at least had your back when there was no one to talk to, or when you needed to ask a favor of some sort. Actually, it's surprising to see her here out of nowhere. Usually around this time she's heading to the art club or off to the library to study. Her voice is almost a whisper and you have to lean in just to hear her as she pulls her scarf down to mumble something.

"... I um... Want your help with something... Later... I can't show you here."

She twiddles her thumbs, quickly partially covering her face with that plaid scarf once more as the lightest traces of a blush are veiled by it. Ylonda rushes off and out the classroom door causing a small commotion. Well, that is certainly different. Now that you think about it, that's probably the most words she's formed in a single sitting since... Well since you showed up and introduced yourself when school started back up.

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[Kuragari]

Ugh...she had hated this class when she had to take it in the previous years, and she hated it now. As far as she had ever seen, the only people who needed magical theory were eggheads who did nothing but keep their heads in the books. Action and real life experience with magic were much more her style.

As the bell rings, she heard the other students start gossiping with one another, most about other classes or the comings and goings on school, but a few are talking about the problems between the magi groups. Frankly, she tried not to think much about it, she really didn't want to end up spending a portion of her life fighting a war for some stupid big-wigs who didn't give a rats ass for her or the other small folks. Thankfully, a distraction to such thoughts made itself available.

"Hey Ylonda, what's up?"

"... I um... Want your help with something... Later... I can't show you here."

Candy's eyebrow quirked up at the strange reaction of her friend. What was up with that? Her curiosity was peaked, and though she'd been planning to look around at the clubs, she had a desire to see what was bothering Ylonda.

[Grape_Drink]

As you exit the hallway, you can't help but notice the small commotion as one of the upper classmen is terrorizing Ylonda. Jared or something you think? Not exactly the most upstanding of fellows, but there's worse people around. Supposedly he broke someone's leg for insulting them during an MMA tournament, though it was deemed an accident.

"Seriously though, watch where you're going. You shouldn't be sprinting through the halls... What if that was a first year you ran into? Hey, are you even listening?"

Ylonda's eyes go wide like a deer looking into headlights as Jared places an arm on her shoulder, giving her a gentle shake. You watch almost in slow motion as she brings her leg up, teleporting behind him and sweeping out as Jared falls on his ass from the blow to the back of his legs. By the time anyone nearby has even registered what just happened, Ylonda is already running down the hallway once more.

"Oof! What the heck just happened...?"


. . .


You eventually manage to catch back up with her as she sneaks into a back alleyway near the dorms. Entering cautiously, you find her slipping into a small grate leading into your dorm's basement... Huh. That area is restricted to staff, isn't it? A small giggle catches your attention from within.

"Oh, aren't you a cute one... Alright, I got you some canned tuna from the local store. What do you think? Is it good?"

Hm, sounds like she's keeping a pet down there. A stray cat maybe? After all, it wouldn't be too surprising considering the no pets policy. Descending through the grate, you lose your balance and stumble into the room, knocking over a thin curtain hung over the "secret" entrance and causing the curtain rod to clatter to the ground with a metallic ring. Shit!

Pulling the curtain off of you, you can see Ylonda holding out a spoon to a small girl sitting in a bathtub with short blue hair and large beady eyes, and big... pointy... teeth...

That's no girl. That's a freaking mermaid! Why is there a mermaid here!? You remember reading about them in one of your first year courses. Apparently they're highly carnivorous and pretty much a pest to mages along the coasts. Hell, even to regular humans. Just a few years back one was spotted on purposefully shoving jellyfish into a nuclear reactor's pipes up in Sweden. Sure they look cute and innocent when they're young, but when they grow up these things are downright cruel and dangerous.

"I... Ah..."

Ylonda pulls her hand away as the mermaid goes to bite it, still staring at you with her mouth slightly agape.

[Kuragari]

Candy stared at the mermaid, rather surprised by its presence. "Umm...Ylonda..." She began, slowly disentangling herself from the curtains she had tripped into, "You do realize that's a mermaid, right?" Candy then smacked herself, and muttered "Nice one Captain obvious." She shook her head and walked over, looking the mermaid over and keeping a safe distance from it.

"I take it this is what you want my help with?"

[Grape_Drink]

Ylonda just sort of stares at you, looking to a clock on the wall and frowning before opening her mouth as if to say something before stopping herself. Eventually she turns back to the mermaid and continues to spoon feed it the can of Tuna while almost mumbling.

"I... Kind of sort of... Well I found here in the school stream. Her flipper was... hurt... and she couldn't swim around and I just thought..."

"Mama!"

"And then she... Started doing that while her flipper was mending. Ohhh..."

She shakes her head as she sighs, her shoulders drooping.

"I found work to feed her, but they told me not to come unless I brought someone along with me this week..."

You look over the small mermaid. Her lower fishy half is bright green and almost shimmers in the light. You think you remember reading somewhere that they can actually manipulate their bodies to crawl along on land, but have to return to the water every so many hours to keep from becoming dehydrated. Overall the little rascal is kind of cute when she isn't smiling and showing those teeth, but this is definitely against school policy.

[Kuragari]

Candy sighed, shaking her head. "Well, I doubt you'd be the first student here to break this rule, and I doubt you'll be the last..." She looks at the Mermaid, her curiosity about the creature making her step a bit closer, though still far enough that it tries to bite or claw, she could dodge it. Hopefully.

"What job are we talking about exactly? I need to know that before I can even consider helping you, aside from not telling any of the teachers."

[Grape_Drink]

Ylonda bites her lower lip as she looks from side to side while feeding the mermaid.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Closer inspection reveals that her eyes are covered by a second film that you assume helps her see perfectly underwater. Her hands seem to have a very mild webbing that likely would inhibit anything more dexterous than holding a pencil, and end in tiny claws. At this age the little rascal is hardly a threat to anyone, but even with her small stature that only takes up about 1/2 of the bath tub, you can tell she'll be a natural predator when she gets old enough. Her ribs stick out slightly, and her chest is exposed to the world. Then again, seashells don't magically glue onto mermaids and most refuse to wear clothes, so that's to be expected. Perhaps out of curiosity or perhaps out of some other feeling, you note that the mermaid's skin seems to be less like an instant transformation, and more like patchy scales that eventually give way to more and more skin, with most stopping at either the hips or lower chest. Your newfound fishy friend seems to human-like anatomy, though then again you were never told otherwise in schools outside of jokes.

"Here, y-you can feed her too if you want? ... She won't bite if you're feeding her. I promise!"

She holds the can out to you as she reaches into a nearby filing cabinet procuring a crumpled up flier.

"Samuel's aunt and uncle have been holding these more often lately. They usually draw in a good crowd, and it's all supervised so you don't have to worry about..."

She trails off as she opens up the flier, revealing an invitation to a private... Of course. It all makes sense now! This is a joke of some sort. It has to be. Ylonda a magic ring fighter?

Magic ring fighting has been around for longer than anyone can remember. Set up by creatives, the close-quarters rings can be built by even a novice given enough focus, and can be placed anywhere from an arena to a back alley. The goal of magic ring fighting is to either knock out your opponent or knock them out of the ring. Getting knocked out of the ring though tends to cause a number of ill effects based on how the creative set it up as, after all, it is technically fighting inside of a magical trap. A number of murder cases have involved them, leading the authorities to ban magic ring fighting all together.

Looking over the flier for an illegal tag-team fighting tournament, you can't help but notice the hefty sum for first prize. That's... A refreshing amount of cash to say the least, even split between two people.

[Kuragari]

Candy took the can, and did start to try and feed it, making sure to remain careful, not wanting a mermaid bite or to lose her fingers. When Ylonda showed her the flyer however...

"Are you kidding me? Magic Ring Fighting? That's more illegal than keeping this girl here!? Please Ylonda, tell me that your not serious about this."