It had taken her in a flurry, but Akiko found herself locked in the nurse's with one of the third-year guys. Neither her nor the sporty and burly student even knew why it happened or even how, but it all started when they both coincidentally went to get painkillers from the school's nurse. He had left the room to get some supplies, but upon closing the door, the two found they couldn't open it again. The nurse had come back earlier and attempted to strongarm the door open, and upon failing to do so, they had urged him own to just tear it down. The nurse elaborated on his financial situation and didn't want to have to pay to replace the door. Akiko shouted for him to go get help and after a hit of backtalk, there was no longer anyone beyond the door.

There was also a window in the room, but it had long been cemented shut for some reason and was practically impossible to open without inflicting some sort of damage to the frame. Neither felt like getting in some kind of trouble when they were already in a different kind of trouble so they mutually decided to leave it alone until it became a last resort. Even in the mess they found themselves in though, it didn't stop the third-year from finding an old stash of painkillers and the like in the back of a rarely used cabinet. After thorough inspection of both packaging and condition, he deduced them to be completely safe to use whenever he would require them, and slipped the box into his coat pocket.

Akiko felt a tremble go through her body as the screwdriver in her hand chipped off and the bobby pin broke. She wasn't even sure why and if there even should be multiple screwdrivers in the nurse's office but she didn't bother questioning it when she finally managed to unlock the door. With reckless abandon, she ripped the door backwards while still kneeling down. Upon opening it, found her face directly level with the crotch of the school nurse, who merely looked down at her with confusion, keys in hand. She rose from the ground rather awkwardly, but found herself pushed aside as the male student pushed past her in a hurry. She was tempted to yell after him but decided it'd be best not to in front of the school nurse if she were to obtain what she had even came for in the first place.

After picking up the boxes of supplies he had put down by the door, the nurse squeezed past her, his large frame barely fitting through the door normally, and went over to one of the wooden cabinets. He quickly placed some of the contents of the boxes where they were supposed to be and stopped when he got to the painkillers. The man handed some to Akiko with a wry and knowing smile. "Don't overdo it, honey." he simply said. She took her prize and took several steps away from him, before eventually leaving without another word, shutting the door behind her with a click.

Katsuro suppressed a laugh as he hid behind the corner of the hall, eyeing the thing yet deceptively strong wire that glistened in the lights of the school. It was an oldie and pretty weak for a joke, but he had ran out of ideas and wasn't up to going further on that particular day, so the basic thing he set up would have to do.

The boy held one end of the wire, ready to pull it tout at a moment's notice. The other end was ties to the handle of a bucket full of water. As soon as he heard footsteps coming down the hall, he'd pull it just enough to make it above foot level, causing the person to trip on it, subsequently knocking the pail over and spilling the water everywhere. The risk and possible consequences of his plan were obvious and uninviting, but he had decided to just go for it all the way once he had lugged a heavy bucket of water into the school without getting noticed by anybody. Hopefully he himself wouldn't get wet at all from the splash, and hopefully he'd be able to mop it up before anybody noticed, though he doubted both would happen.

At the sound of walking, Katsuro gently pulled his end of the wire towards him, raising the line tightly. "This is it," He thought to himself as be both physically and mentally prepared himself for what was about to happen. The line pulled tightly suddenly, nearly ripping it out of his hands, but he caught it quickly and tugged it back in his direction, effectively toppling both the bucket and the student that was caught in his trap. Water spilled out and splashed about, throwing just a bit on to Katsuro as most of it pooled on and around the victim. After quietly celebrating his perfect plan, he ran around the puddles of water to stand directly in front the person he caught, though his happiness quickly faded as he finally realized who it was.

Leiko Hamada, Drama Club president, was not the target, though it was still pretty funny to see such a prissy and perfect goal toppled onto the ground, soaked in cold water. He would've had a good laugh about it had it not been a person that had such power of him like the president of the only club he was in. Leiko slowly rose from her low position until she was standing straight and looked at the boy with an indignant glare, clearly not impressed with what just happened. She wiped strands of wet hair that stuck to her face away before taking a step out of the water. The sheer rage the girl felt was clear on her face and it wasn't hard for Katsuro to understand what level of bad news bears he was currently in after doing that to Leiko fucking Hamada.

It seemed the right decision to flee the scene ASAP, but Katsuro soon came to regret it next Drama meeting.

None of the other members knew why but a group of students were playing strip archery. Rokoru, Sato, that Akira guy, and Saya were mid-way through the game, pelting various shots down the range at different targets at different distances and positions, all of them at various degrees of clothed.

Sato and Akira wore the usual uniform with a few changes here and there. Sato, while good, still missed some shots and had ended up removing his socks, shoes, jacket, and the pocket watch he wore looped around his pocket. Akira had only actually removed a pair of sunglasses he had when he messed up the shot where he had to get just outside the bullseye due to being too perfect. Saya, being the complete worst shot, had failed a majority of the shots, but was saved from falling from grace due to her fashionista tendencies. First it was her first pair of socks, then her second, then her first hair clip, then that second clip, then her wristband, then her winter overcoat, and then she took off her shoes.

Rokoru, being the rather lazy fellow he was, got a disadvantage: he only had four articles on. Shoes (which he for some reason didn't wear socks with), pants, shirt, and uniform coat. Getting to the fifth (in his case) and final article, the undergarments, was considered when you lost if you were to miss another shot after getting down to them. As he was partially sick, his skills were lack luster when he needed them most, and he quickly found himself stripping. Shoes were the first to go before the coat. Then came an important decision: lose the pants or go shirtless? Having had a recent series of shirt-based wardrobe malfunctions, the boy went with throwing off his trousers and being the first to show serious skin. The pair of boxers he wore covered his hips and everything private around it perfectly, but everything below, such as his thick thighs, were easier than easy to see as he poised up for his next shot.

Everything went according to plan for him, and after him was Saya. She fumbled the shot as usual and quickly threw off the scarf she materialized from beneath the layers of clothes she had on. Sato went next after they decided on the next challenge and managed the shot perfectly fine, as did Akira immediately after Sato. It was back to Rokoru in no time flat. As he lined up his body and aimed his bow down the range, the cold air that swept through the volume of the old building sent a shiver down his spine, and the resulting shake messed up his focus and ruined his shot. The arrow lodged itself just right of the marked area and everyone around them oooh'd in unison as Rokoru looked down at the hairs on his legs judgingly.

Saya turned around on-heel 180 degrees, hands covering her mouth, at the mere sight of Rokoru lifting his shirt off his body. She had been dying nearly the whole game due to Rokoru and had regretting even agreeing to play, but the full splendor of Rokoru's chest and biceps being revealed to her like that just took the cake and then smashed it into the grounds. Everything beyond his arms weren't even that great but maybe it was the attitude and air he had about it that ruined her so much. Maybe it was the strong booty game he had going on too.

Akira snickered at the embarrassment of the situation, glad he managed to capitalize once again on Rokoru's over-confidence. A variety of different emotions and sounds came from everyone in the room, except Sato, who averted his eyes out of respect for his superior. The boy's entire upper body dripped with small amounts of sweat that came from the exertion of drawing his bow's string to its full potential. The same thing went on again; Saya pulls off magic tricks to make more accessories to take off, Sato barely gets it, Akira aces it, and it's back to Rokoru again.

His focus became even worse from both being colder and knowing that a bunch of people are staring at all of him except the most private parts. It was expected by everyone that he'd miss the next shot and there were only disappointed awwwwh's. Though, the fact that he technically lost for he had no more garmets to take off didn't stop him, for Rokoru's pride was simply too great after having gotten creamed by Akira multiple times in the past weeks. In the heat of the moment Rokoru's hand shot down to the waistband of his boxers and started to rip them off, but Sato himself bravely leaped at him and attempted to keep Rokoru's privates private. Eventually the older boy breathed a sigh of defeat and pulled his boxers back up completely before grabbing his clothes and shoes and changing into them as he sulked to the door and out.

Dreh Nicht, the world we live in, has never met the blade of war. It is ours, the Royal Guards, and everyone else’s duty to protect it.

I’ve always had that up on my wall. The first day I joined the guard, we listened to an officer’s introductory speech. I wrote down a bit of it on a scrap of paper, and that same paper has been on my wall for about a month now. It really makes the room look less like a living accommodation and more like a personal room. None of us are really sure whether that’s a good thing or not. Still, there’s never been a good reason to take it down.

A young girl with thick bleach-blonde hair that went down just enough to cover he ears but was cut so that it never went past her neck yet the natural volume gave it horizontal size— I stopped myself in my own weird observations about hair there— loomed over me. I still don’t know how she always managed to sneak into my room and over to me without me noticing her. She always said “You’re just never paying much attention” but I just think she’d unnaturally sneaky. Like a fox. I knew why she came, though; Kreisen was supposed to train us and two others today. None us wanted to do it but if we couldn’t handle whatever he had in store for us, there was no way we could ever be capable of actually joining the Royal Guard.

Her impish features backed off as I rolled across my bed and onto the floor, taking the pillows and sheets with me. Despite my vision being obscure by layers of cloth, I knew she smiled since she always did a stupid little shuffle thing whenever she was entertained by something. Before I could get up, a pile of clothes and metal was thrown at me; it suddenly occurred to me that it was the uniform. Normally it wouldn’t be so bad, since we all kinda mutually agreed they were kinda cool, but the thing about these ones was that they all had the word “Newbie” written down the back and front in bold black letters. The uniform was practically identical to those of the regular soldiers so the purpose of the words was likely so that nobody would mistake them for fully-trained guards. We also decided that it was demeaning.

I picked the garments off the ground and replaced my clothes with the appropriate parts of the uniform, changing my pants underneath a blanket to avoid any possible awkwardness, and stood up next to her. She had already put on the uniform as anybody would expect. I stood a bit shorter than her, as always, though I don’t anybody around the castle could tell due to the fact that they were all at least a foot taller than both of us, but she didn’t let me evaluate for long, as we were already rushing down the hallway towards the court yard, hopefully not late.

The court yard was surrounded by the beautiful high walls of the castle, glass windows all around, with flowers decorating the windowsills. There was an exit to the south, though a gate with a few soldiers stationed at it protected it. The sun was just beginning to peak over the walls and with it a warm crimson glow flew over everything. It also highlighted the figures of Captain Kreisen and the two other new recruits. He stood authoritatively with his hands on his hips. It was visible that he was trying to stand as tall as he could. His back was arched in an unnatural and probably uncomfortable way. The shear dedication to intimidating us pretty much did the opposite for me; it made him more approachable to see that he had to actually try to appear in control.

Recht, walking forward right beside me, exhaled a long breath, leaving a trail of smoke-like air behind us in the early cold. We stopped a short distance away from Kreisen and all four of us automatically shifted our positions to form a perfectly straight line, with me on the end. The two others—another guy and another girl—stood the same way as the Captain, and we followed suit, though I didn’t bother trying to emulate the weird arched back thing. I suppressed a smirk.

The older man took a step closer to us—close enough that I could see his calm breathing in the quiet morning’s frigid temperatures.. His face dripped of sweat and a little bit of it had ended up frozen on the bristly short beard that lined his jaw line. It had been below zero at night, so I assumed that he had been out doing physical training in the middle of the night. Hopefully we wouldn’t have to do that, but considering the fact that the first time we did physical training we ran around the castle until one of us literally collapsed, nothing would really surprise me. I wonder what happened to that guy some times. He never did come back after he collapsed…

Kriesen cleared his throat before thumping his chest to get our utmost attention. “Listen closely, since I don’t repeat myself. We’ll be doing some basic weapon training here. You four will split into four and Then move onto something more important shortly after, got it?” His ‘speeches’ were hardly speeches. He didn’t even talk much at all, actually, which is a bit weird for him to be an instructor with that kind of trait. “But first, I’ll need one of you to help with a demonstration.”

Before I could react Recht had already propped up my arm into the sky. I turned my neck to look at her, and I only saw three smug faces. Despite my resistance, Kriesen grabbed me by the shoulder and ripped me away from my comfortable position in the line, pulling me over to where the clearing got wider. He let go of me, letting me stumble forward from the momentum, nearly falling over before I could catch myself. The man ripped out one of two spears stuck into the dirt and thrusted it into my possession. This was all happening way to fast. One moment I was internally laughing over the fact that someone would go running in the dead of the night and the next I had a real weapon in my hands.

“For this demonstration, Ehren will come at me with the spear and I will attempt to disarm him.” Kreisen took a defensive stance, keeping the majority of his armor in front of any of the unprotected parts of the uniform. Apparently that stance was one of the ways you could tell if someone in the military was of high-class blood or not, since most respectable positions had uniforms with unprotected vital spots. I had questioned this fact early on in my already short career, and apparently it had something to do with ancient beliefs or something, and our traditional government was the cause for that. Kriesen waved his hands inwards to signal that he was ready for me to approach in the offensive.

I held the spear in a way that I could attack almost instantly without preparation and shuffled towards him a bit. Actually trying to hit someone with a weapon was still an incredibly foreign idea to me, but I suppose that was the purpose of this exercise. The blades of the weapons given to us are incredibly dull and the armor is top-notch yet that fear of hurting your colleagues is nearly impossible to get over. I propel the spear forward, aiming for what I assume to be the most vulnerable spot of his body, but the attack whiffs as he easily evades. He grabs a hold of the shaft and yanks it towards him, taking me with it and kicks me in the gut, sending me straight to the ground, writhing in pain from the sturdy blow. I’m not sure about the validity of that move but it was likely to show that you should take advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses instead of relying on set actions. While I’d love to mentally applaud the strategy (despite how easy it would be to figure out) to defeat me, the shame of losing makes me a bit too salty to be humble.

Recht comes over to me and helps me up to my feet, knowing I was far from used to pain. Kriesen walks back over to the remaining two recruits and says some words I don’t catch before clapping. They walk past him as he steps to the sidelines to watch, the girl carrying the spear, and begin to emulate the demonstration. Recht leaves my side to go fetch the other spear from the ground. She throws it over to me (I barely catch it) and takes a stance similar to the one the captain took. Her attempt at copying it looked a bit silly, since she had little idea why we were supposed to do it.

I try to shake my thoughts out of my head once again and take a similar position to hers, holding the spear out in front of me. Recht wasn’t nearly as strong as Kriesen, but she was just as aggressive and she was completely capable of doing the same thing he had done. I thrust out the spear again, but I predict the dodge she makes and curve it in the direction she goes. The blade clangs off the metal off her armor, making a small dent just above the end of the shoulder plate. The strike and subsequent ricochet knocks me off balance, so I steady myself and pull the spear close to me.

“Does that mean I win the first round?” I ask in an innocent tone. Recht looks at me with a mischievous smirk—she wasn’t one to accept losing. I toss the spear to her (which she catches which much more finesse than me) and we take the same stance as last time. My reflexes aren’t as sharp as hers, nor is my strength, so it would be best to outwit her as best as I can. Based on what happened before, she’s prone to copying others’ strategies to the tee, so if what I did actually worked I can assume she will do the same.

She thrusts the weapon at me, and I dodge to my left. The shot curves to follow me, though I had assumed that was what was going happen and bounce to the right as soon as I could, effectively dodging the attack. I rush forward and the best she can do to retaliate after her recovery is hit me in the arm with the wood of the shaft, which doesn’t deter me at all. Once we’re in close proximity, I strike at her hand, and she lets the spear fall without much resistance.

“That’s 2 for 2,” I taunt.