The principal’s speech went on, relatively unremarkably. Hongo academy’s principal was a fine person but no student wished to lend ear to a usually flavourless speech with little variation. A few points of interest were noted, including a few new additions to the faculty. And finally, it was the student council president’s turn to make a speech.

The student council president strode confidently up to the podium, long black hair shining in the sun. The students sat attentively, waiting for the person they voted almost unanimously into the seat of student council president. The president made a short pause, and then began her speech.

“To all of you seated here today, I extend a warm welcome on behalf of the Hongo Academy student council.” She began, with a confident smile.
“For all of our third year students, I wish you best of luck for your final year here, at Hongo academy. For all of our second year students, I hope you have another fulfilling year at this wonderful school. And for our first year students, I hope you’ll find the school to be as wonderful and engaging as I found it in my first year, but you can come to me if you need any help.” She added with a knowing wink. “But overall, I want to create the best experience for all of our students this year, but I can’t do it alone. As you know, I’m blessed with capable friends and co-workers whom I can rely on, but I need help from all of you. With all of your efforts, I am certain that we can make great and precious memories of our days in Hongo academy. Please help me make this year a wonderful year.” The president finished.

The students and the faculty applauded the president as she walked off the stage and joined with the rest of the student council. It was a nice day, the sun shining and the wind whispering, perfect for the beginning of school. And yet, the calm belies the underlying chaos unfolding, not privy to mortal eyes. Events would soon unfold that would shatter the peaceful façade of reality and reveal the secrets lying underneath which, for years had been content to rest, unperturbed by the world around them. But things would stir, the results of actions laced with malevolence, the world as a target of a grand scheme.

And as the curtain rises on the dark dance of the doom of mankind, the young heroes emerge from within the murky times to fight the darkness as warriors, identities hidden from sight. These heroes have kept peace for many years, but must fight for the future of mankind. They fill their roles as students in Hongo academy, to study and prepare for their later years. And as warriors, they must do what must be done, lest the world be swallowed by darkness.

Kasumi had listened attentively for, perhaps, the first minute or two of the speech. Then, concluding that it was no different to the previous two years' speeches, she'd made her uniform a bit more comfortable--getting dirty looks for how dishevelled this ended up being--and decided to use the opening ceremony as a good excuse to have a nap... whilst slumping over on whatever unfortunate girl happened to have picked that day to sit beside her.

It wasn't as if the ceremony was terribly important, though, compared to checking which class she'd ended up in this time.

Ikaku knew he had to be at that assembly...but he had heard what the principal had to say with each each year, always the same boring speech. Ikaku shook his head and grinned, laying out on the grass of the Hongo's academy fields. He spread out his arms and looked up into the sky and frowned. The clouds had changed suddenly, where once there was white, there was now a sinister black growing cloud. The red headed youth pushed off the ground and flipped to his feet, looking around and putting a hand the black shape in his jacket pocket. The cool material gave his mind a small sense of calm. He knew something was coming...

The red headed teen walked back towards the school buildings, his open jacket fluttering slowly as the wind picked up gently. Running his fingers through his hair, he walked back into the assembly hall. Sneaking into a chair beside a girl that looked about as disheveled as he did as she was passing out on another poor girl. He laughed and gave Kasumi a quick jab to the side "wake up Kas...Prefects are looking at ya" he grinned.

Sakura brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. Of course, she had gotten up late and hadn't had a chance to brush it. Just what she needed, to look like an absolute mess on the first day of school.

She fingered her ring absentmindedly. That was another thing she had to worry about: someone discovering her identity as The Crimson Flame. Suffice it to say, fitting in with the popular girls was not her top priority, not that it would have been anyway.

One year, only one more year and Hibiki would finally get rid of school, such news delighted him on an unmesurable level. That year however, hadn't started so brilliantly, the teenager slept during the entire princial's speech, it was like that every year since his first year, no one cakked him out anymore, they knew it wouldn't work, he'd just nod his head and fall asleep again.

Once the principal was done someone poked Hibiki and he woke up.-"Oh is it done? Finally!"-He said in joy as his fixed his glasses on his face, the male stood up and started walking while looking around and studying the students, checking things like: if they seem nice, if they seem like good targets for his pranks, if the females looked good or not and the most important, if someone looked suspicious, it might seem like they were in times of peace, but strange things had been going on and it was his duty as Legion to protect people.

Haruko had been doing her best to listen, honestly. Even if things probably hadn't changed from last year (she wasn't certain, she had zoned out last year too and so could hardly remember a thing about that first ceremony beyond the fact she attended it), it was important to make the effort. If nothing else, no one could accuse her of being 'disrespectful' or 'lazy' - she just tried and couldn't do it. Regardless, her attempts ended up failing once the student beside her slumped over onto her shoulder. Haruko glanced her over, confirming she was just asleep instead of sick or worse. That was good. She didn't recognize the student though - probably from another year, Haruko had trouble interacting with those above or below her at times due to the schedules.

Then another student - this one seemed male - came by and poked the girl leaning on her. Haruko squirmed a bit at his remark.

"Hope they aren't staring at me too," she whispered, glancing around for these prefects. Really, she had good reason not to be paying attention.
--
New year, new school, new people. Diarmi acknowledged the importance of it all, and proceeded to then stop caring as best demonstrated by his fiddling with his turtleneck collar. He absorbed the speech on the surface, but discarded its words quickly. None of them seemed particularly wise or important to, well, anything. Not school or life or anything. It was almost amazing how much time was devoted to such nothingness, that by the time the principal stepped down for the student council president, Diarmi had wholly forgotten all but the most general idea of the man's speech. Maybe it was some sort of power - he couldn't help but smile at the thought, the man being a superpowered human. The power to drone on indefinitely!

Not that it was impossible, as the eye hidden by the turtleneck reminded him. But it would be funny. The president's speech, at least kept it short and managed to sum up the principal's intent in that much time. Of course he applauded her. He then rose from his seat, glancing at the girl beside him who had been playing with her ring the entire ceremony. Like the principal's speech, he had tuned it out after a while. However, she was still doing it. Maybe she was just bored? Or maybe she was nervous. She didn't look older than him. Maybe she was a fellow first-year, anxious by the prospect of a new year. He gave it some consideration, trying to decide what to do, before simply waving at her. She was free to ignore it.

The short-haired girl blearily drifted back into consciousness... and became acutely aware that her hand had formed a vice-like grip over whatever had happened to prod her awake. Seeing that this was essentially a crushing grip on Ikaku's wrist, Kasumi promptly let go and sprung to her feet, fatigue--and the girl she'd been using as an impromptu pillow--totally forgotten. "Let them stare; they all know that this is good behaviour, for me."

Leisurely, she started towards the class listings, looking back over her shoulder, "Reckon we'll get the same class this year?"

Cale listened to the Principal's ramblings. Something about faculty, how to go to teachers for help, no bullying policy, and the rest of the standard speech. He barely payed attention to it, however he payed slightly more attention to the black haired beauty. She didn't say much, and what she said was pretty generic. However he listened, mostly because it was nice to look at her. Damn, Look at her go! Well, Go talk anyway. Although Cale knew it was probably better to stop thinking with his lower half, he couldn't help but focus more on the girl instead of the speech. Oh well, he knew it didn't really matter. She wasn't giving out the passwords to classrooms or the secret hand-shake to get into the cafeteria. Nope, just the standard student speech.

The rest of the speech was still boring as ever. However it didn't last much longer then Cale had expected. Soon enough everyone was standing and applauding at her for reading her script, and then the students began to rise and head to wherever they needed to be. It certainly was beautiful day, when he was outdoors he felt the breeze brush his face and he enjoyed it, however that didn't stay on his mind for too long. He was back in school, so he needed to get into the school mentality. Well, unless something happened anyway. If something unfortunate was to happen during the school day, he could always find a way out and let the Executioner take to his calling. But until then, he needed to find out what classes he had.

Morrigan Faye, shock of shocks, actually showed up that day. She regretted it immediately. Her head felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton, her legs and back ached, and the rakish green scarf she had draped around her neck was about as out of place on the uniform as wearing a sombrero or carrying a boombox on her shoulders. The scarf wasn't some ill-advised fashion statement, just the only thing she could think of to cover the gash along her collarbone, remnants of a near miss.

Morrigan was exhausted, and she was pretty sure she had slept through part of the commencement. Her nightlife as The Crusader really ate into her sleep schedule, and the wounds didn't help matters. So much for swim team. she thought to herself, her lip twitching into a lopsided grin. The scars and half-healed wounds dotting her body would make undressing before anyone an awkward affair at best. Visions of explaining that they weren't from cutting or abuse, the melodrama, ugh. The sheer thought made her cringe. Much like this ceremony did.

She hated being without her sword, but people gave you weird looks if you toted around a large duffel bag everywhere you went, a sentiment that also went with golf bags, violin cases, and longswords.

Abruptly she noticed one of the other students resting her head on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to snarl a "Get off me," and jam an elbow into the other girl's side, but a moment later the girl was awake and chirping away at some boy. She rubbed her shoulder, grinding her molars together, and rose to her feet. She thought about just bailing, she'd made her appearance, had an alibi if asked. She could go find a dark corner and catch up on her sleep, but instead headed up to go get her schedule for the year. She didn't care per se, but she needed to start prepping her excuses for not showing up.

Unlike some of the other students, Yukiko's focus was entirely on the speech. Yes, yes, perhaps she lacked patience with studying, but there were some important things to keep an eye out for. Did this speech come from the heart? It was worth remembering if that was the case! Unfortunately for Yukiko, she had trouble telling if it did or not, and towards the end her severe lack of patience was beginning to get the better of her. Part of her wanted to devote all of her attention to this, part of her was getting tremendously bored, and... as was often the case these days, part of her was thinking about how awesome it was that she was now the armored superheroine Buster Girl. It was a bit hard not to think about something like that, really.

Her mind was drifting, now, off into the world of Buster Girl. What kind of hotblooded things should she says next time!? She'd only transformed once already, but she had to think of plenty of cool, hotblooded catchphrases and all kinds awesome stuff like that! Her belt already gave its own catchphrase, sort of, that whole 'Last One' thing reminded her of Kamen Rider Fourze only not a bad thing like it was in that. In this case it announced her finisher and was also one of the coolest things she had ever heard. Of course, now Yukiko's attention had completely drifted away from all of this. She was instead fantasizing about being this amazing hero and was completely and utterly distracted.

Class listings (the ones that matter)
Class 1-A: Yukiko, Diarmi, Sakura
Class 2-C: Takeru, Morrigan, Haruko, Fin, Hibiki
Class 3-E: Cale, Mizushima, Ikaku

Ikaku, by now used to Kasumi's odd interactions, winced slightly under the grip of her fingers but took in stride. He gave a short laugh at her response to his jab and nodded "that's more than true" he grinned a little, reminded of the last time the two of them had been caught sleeping during...mathematics was it? Ikaku shook his head slightly to rid himself of his revery as the black shape in his jacket pocket grew warm against him, the heat a soft but persistent heat against his chest. Not a good sign.

Ikaku looked up as people began to move and followed after Kasumi as the class listings were shown. He gave his now trademark lopsided grin at Kasumi "guess we are stuck together again" he said as the heat in his jacket pocket flared up stronger than before. Something was getting closer...was Aurobos...no no...Aurobos was still locked up in Sien's Rogue Gallery. Ikaku shook his head...unhappy that the Sien Organization was using him as a big publicity stunt. Ikaku gave a short wave to Kasumi "hey...I think I'm gunna skip this class...catch up soon" he laughed and turned on his heel, running out of the hall and into the fields...fields swarming with Aurobos Fluxes, little white and black humanoids Aurobos had created for wreaking chaos.

No one was around, much to his luck, as Ikaku pulled the black glass shape from his pocket and placed it on his waist. Belts shot around his hips and clasped together, each holding small spherical objects on them. Ikaku ran his hand across the plate, forcing it to become active.

"Iru Catalyst....Online"

Ikaku threw his hands out wide, white and black liquid pouring from the Catalyst.

"Iru Stage One....Active"

The liquid solidified, becoming the black and white Visage Armor of Iru's base state.

"IRU COMPLETE...Monochrome Active "

Ikaku grinned under the black glass of his helmet "Lets kick this up a notch" he said calmly as he fell into a practiced fighting pose. A Flux ran at him...only to meet a swiftly turning heel kick to the jaw. The Flux fell to the ground as more poured from a stain on the ground.

A boy in a turtleneck looked at Sakura and waved at her. She waved back, a little too shy to talk to him. Then she heard a commotion out in the field and rushed over to it, a decision she soon regretted.

There was a warrior in armor, fighting little black and white monsters. They didn't look dangerous on their own, but there were a lot of them. Crap. Looks like I'm going to have to show off a lot sooner than I thought.

Sakura raised her right hand to the sky and cried out, "Dragonfire, ignite my heart!" There was a flash of flame, and when it subsided, Sakura was still there, only now clad in a red and white costume. She pushed off the ground, flew about ten feet up in the air, and slammed down on one of the creatures, turning it to an inky mess. "Need a hand?" she asked the armored figure.

Iku ran off, and Kasumi took that as her cue to leave school and skip the constant 'okay, let's introduce ourselves and sort out a seating pattern' in favour of getting something to eat. She hadn't really had time to eat breakfast, and being a high-powered cyborg meant that her appetite was considerably more than was normal. Having left the main hall, the sounds of fighting became obvious and the girl went to see what the big deal was.

Two transformed heroes of some description, and a field of black and white... things. This was not the time for this sort of rubbish, and school grounds weren't the place. So, instead of doing the 'smart' thing and transforming, the delinquent moved straight into range of the conflict... and slammed one knee into one of the creatures' faces. Nowhere near as effective as it would be as Volt Lancer, but that wouldn't serve her intended purpose.

"Get the hell out of here and come back after school, you hear me?" the girl in the long skirt said, grabbing the temporarily-stunned creature and tossing it back at its foes, before turning to the two heroes: "If they don't, lead them away from here. It's too early in the day for this."

Then, dismissing the threat entirely, Kasumi stalked off to get something to eat. Really, a fight that wasn't after school was too dangerous to be kept here. And anything before she had breakfast was simply too early in the day.