[@Krayzikk] [@Crimmy] [@Enkryption] 

[color=fff79a][i]So there's these two friends - one's a wiseguy, like me, and the other is Greek. They're having an argument at dinner one night. Magi have similar arguments all the time, but the Italian and the Greek guys aren't magi, so they don't have to worry about "our" kinds of squabbles. The argument goes something like this: 

"[x]," says the Greek, naming something noble that the Greeks introduced to humanity.

"[y]," retorts our Italian hero, cheerfully countering with a way that we improved it.

"We built the Parthenon," insists the Greek, pulling up a picture on his phone to prove it. The Italian shrugs and retorts with: "We built the Coliseum." 

"We gave you the Olympics!" insists the Greek, drawing the five rings in the air with his fingers like he's casting a rune. The Italian laughs. "We gave you Easter."

"We made mythology popular with our gods." The Greek guy is getting pissed now. "We invented mathematics." Those are both true, but the Italian looks smug when he says: "We have Latin. And we have your gods, too, only they named the planets after ours."

The Greek is [i]really[/i] pissed now.

"We invented [i]sex!"[/i] he exclaims angrily, and the Italian laughs and gets a big dumb grin on his face.

"Forse, stunad," says the wiseguy, "and we introduced it to women."[/i][/color]

[hr]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2HN2y0yV8][i]Il bambino cretino in, Yet another brush with death, or, 'Just when I thought I was out...'[/i][/url]

There was a pearl of wisdom in that joke, even for any non-Italians I had confronted in my life. Whenever I told it, most people miss the true point - there is honor and glory to be had in going to the mattresses for what you believe, blazing new trails, even dying bravely. No one died more courageously than an Italian man - but that would only come to pass when he went against his true nature and chose to die at all.

That was still a possibility in my book. I might not even mind, normally. But if I had to go one day, and there was no way around it, it wouldn't be as Dorian Fiordilatte, [i]3D Animation teacher.[/i] I had more to offer to this world than giving everyone passing grades for irrelevant work or giving a few weird shut-ins the know-how to end up as virtual porn directors. And I certainly couldn't die while there were a couple of kids who still needed to clear out.

I didn't come all this way just to let kids die. That was, in fact, the opposite of the whole idea. 

With a speed that warmed my heart and a triumphant display of pig-evading acumen, Ryou had gauged the situation without any input from her "betters" (read: teachers, one of whom, aka yours truly, had prepared for a day like this and was searching his bag, while the other gazed longingly at another student's chest before turning to see what I was up to) and decided to take the quick path out of the school. I watched her dip out the window, the shards of broken glass cutting her uniform in various shredding patterns. It looked like someone had taken scissors to her top. Ryou would have liked that. [i]Scissors.[/i]

More importantly, she had created a mostly-cleared avenue of escape now, just in time for me to produce the bottle of whiskey I'd been hiding in my bag, as well as a single glass. I opened it up and poured just enough to steel Mirimoto's nerves. It probably would have been better not to give it to him, especially with petrified students roaming around susceptible to noise. But the window had already been busted out, and if he was going to die - which, let's not fuck about here, chances were high would come to pass - it would be better to die with some courage and fire in his blood.

[color=fff79a]"[i]Per cent'anni[/i], Doc,"[/color] I instructed him, sliding the glass over as I took a quick draft myself from the neck of the bottle. [color=fff79a]"You'll thank me when you don't feel the impact. You first, Lia. Be smarter than her. Try and clear any spare glass off the pane or sides of the frame before you jump. Then us, Morimoto-san. Don't break your ankles. You're going to want to run."[/color]