Kagekoka High

“This has to have been a mistake.” Kaden told himself, reading the letter over for the eleventh time. 

He paced back and forth on the pier, with one hand in his hair and the other fruitlessly trying to hold the paper still, so he could read it for a twelfth time.

“Yes, it must be.” He repeated, knowing full well that after reading it thirteen times, there would be no denying it. 

Kaden, the son of two of the best heroes, had just signed up to join the most notorious of villain schools.

His father had told him about it, but he’d always thought that the stories were more like urban legends.

“The school is shrouded in mystery,” he had said, “because nobody has ever found it. It shows up out of nowhere to pick up hundreds of hero school rejects and dropouts, then disappears forever. It houses some of the most famous of villains out there, and is led by the most evil of evil. Sharkhead.”

After that, his father always got derailed, going on about how he and his wife had defeated Sharkhead and put him in Vectaiya, the villain prison. He’d always say that he would tell the rest next time, but he never did. A school that has never been found by any hero, ever, but somehow housed all the most evil of villains. It seemed a bit farfetched to Kaden, until now.

“Maybe I should just throw it back.” He thought. “Act like it was a mistake. Like this never happened.”

He nodded and walked to the edge of the pier to drop it back into the water. Kaden held the letter out, and right as he was about to throw the letter back in, a voice sounded from the lake.

“Pity. You would’ve fit well in the school.”

Kaden stumbled back in surprise and looked around to see if anyone was there.

“Down here.” The voice said irritably.

Out of nowhere, a hand popped out of the water. Kaden fell back in his shock. Seeing this, the hand made a motion, as if it were facepalming an invisible head. Kaden crawled closer, to take a better look at it. It was hard to make out if the arm was attached to a body, but the voice was definitely coming from the hand. It had black nail polish and looked white and slender. On its ring and index finger, it wore identical rings that looked rather glassy.

“Are you a villain?” Kaden asked cautiously, poking the hand with a stick.

The hand angrily whacked it away.

“It’s complicated,” it says, “though we believe that you, my friend, would make an excellent one.”

The hand moved like it was a mouth, opening and closing as it talked. Kaden stood up and looked down at it, frustratedly. That was the last thing he wanted to hear now.

“You’re wrong.” He told the hand firmly. “I’ll become a hero. One that my parents can be proud of.”

The hand chuckled, “Oh, will you?” and dunked underwater. It came back up, holding a rock.

“As evident by these?” It asked smugly.

Kaden stared at it, confused. The hand stared back.

“Oh, wait.” It said after a few seconds, before diving back into the water. This time, coming up with the now soaked rejection letters.

“As evident by these?!” It asked once again, now seeming even more proud of itself.

For a moment, Kaden just stared at the hand and the papers, with a lump in his throat. Being rejected by every hero school would indeed make it hard to become a hero.

“Maybe I should become a villain.” a small voice in his head suddenly said.
It took Kaden aback for a moment.

Then, he imagined the look on Ari Hakusei’s face if he was trained to be a master villain and beat him.

“You call that an attack?” The imaginary Kaden said to the imaginary Ari, after blasting him away. 

The Imaginary Kaden started laughing evilly, and the real Kaden couldn’t help but smile a bit. Standing behind him, however, were his imaginary parents, both looking at him with disappointment and disgust.

Kaden shook his head to snap back to reality. Was that really what he wanted?

“I’ll figure something out.” He said resolutely, while turning his back on the hand.

“Oh, maybe you will,” the hand called after him, “but time is running out, is it not? And even if you do, will anything be different, or will you still be an outcast?”

Kaden stopped dead in his tracks. The small voice in his head from before, getting progressively louder. 

“It’s right, there’s no time left. There’s nothing to figure out, that was my last chance, I said it myself. I’ll be rejected forever.” The voice echoes through Kaden’s head.

“Did you not want to show the world?” The hand asked.

Slowly, Kaden turned around. He looked at the hand, barely peeking over the dock.

“This is crazy.” He thought to himself. “I shouldn’t even be considering this.”

He felt backed against the wall. He couldn’t bear to disappoint his parents, and tried to justify his irrational thought. He told himself it could help train his powers and he’d be stronger afterwards, that he could tell his parents where the school was, and they’d be so proud of him, they could even take the villains down together.

In truth, the hand was right. In reality, Kaden just wanted a place where he wouldn’t be an outcast. The letter said it was a place for rejects, right? And Kaden never felt anything, but that.

“Well, not that it makes a difference to me anyway.” The hand said lastly, retreating back into the water.

“Wait!” Kaden called after it. “I do… I want to show the world.”

He stood in front of the hand, which reached out to him.

“Then, take me.” It said intently.

Kaden took a deep breath, reached down and grabbed the hand. Awkwardly, he stared at the hand, waiting for something to happen. Right as he opened his mouth to ask the hand if something was supposed to happen, it violently jerked Kaden down below the water. Kaden had to close his eyes with how fast they were going. He felt the water aggressively rush past his face and the pressure on his body building up.

“Breathe. I need to breathe.” Kaden thought desperately.

He gasped for air, not realising that his feet were already back on solid ground. Carefully, he opened his eyes again and was greeted by the sight of a sinister-looking, moustached, bald man, standing in a hallway. The hand was nowhere to be found.

“Greetings, Kaden Ryoman.” The man said. “And welcome to Kagekoka high.”

Kaden found the man’s accent difficult to place, but was sure that it was from a far away country. Either way, the voice was distinctly different from the hand, and Kaden wondered where it could have possibly gone. He turned around and only saw two big black doors, which he presumed to be the entrance to the school. The man peered at him with his one red eye. The other eye was replaced with what looked like half of a metallic set of goggles, except instead of sitting on his face, it was part of his face.

Realising that Kaden wasn’t going to say anything, the moustached man scraped his throat and continued.

“Here at Kagekoka High, we do things a bit differently.” he stated. “Being chosen does not necessarily mean you are in, so to speak.” 

He signalled Kaden to follow him, and strutted further into the building.

“Next week, there will be an entrance exam held at the Duskfall Fields.” 

Hearing this put a knot in Kaden’s stomach. Yet another way for him to be able to fail and get rejected.

As he was talking, the man led Kaden through a series of hallways and corridors. He was told where to go and what to do if he were to pass the entrance exam, which, besides the few classes that sounded more ominous and villainous, seemed like how a normal high school would work. The layout of the school was odd. No room was where you’d expect it to be, and Kaden could hear mechanical sounds coming from inside most of them. He tried asking what the sounds were, but was promptly ignored. Regardless, trying to remember where everything was, distracted Kaden from half the things the man was saying.

Finally, the bald man brought Kaden to the cafeteria, a big open space with some tables scattered about. There were some chairs, but most of the seating was made up of random objects, like tires and big chunks of concrete. Despite that, the place seemed relatively well-kept.

“Though this place was originally built by villains, it is really a place for–” the man started, but turned around to stop and grin at Kaden. 

It didn’t look like a friendly grin, it was more akin to a predator that had cornered its prey. Kaden held his breath as the man peered at him.

“It is really a place for those who don’t conform to the norm.” He continued. “For those that feel like they don’t belong anywhere else.”

Kaden looked around the place, where a few other kids seemed to be getting the same tour as he had. Most of them didn’t look evil, or sinister, or even strong for that matter. They looked scared and alone. He wondered if they were in a similar position as him. Looking down at his hand, he clenched his fist, then looked back at the moustached, bald man.

“I will try.” He said, attempting to sound confident, though he wasn’t sure he completely succeeded in that.

The man looked back at him and something behind his goggle-eye started moving. It gave Kaden the feeling that the man could see straight through him.

“Very well,” he finally said, “I trust you can find the exit? I have business to attend to.”

Kaden nodded hesitantly, trying to think back on the path they took. The moustached man strutted away, with his hands behind his back. It seemed almost like he was walking with a limp, but Kaden thought he might’ve just imagined that.

Kaden turned around to try and find his way outside, but out of the blue, something small bumped into him, making him almost fall backwards. He looked down and saw a small black-haired boy on the ground. Kaden helped him up. The boy looked scared and sweaty, and his hair looked disorderly, like that of a wild beast.

“Are you okay?” Kaden asked, a little flustered.

Without a word, he hid behind Kaden as a tall man in a black coat ran out of the hallway.

“Come back here, you little–” The man yelled. 

Kaden could feel the boy tremble behind him. This man also had a moustache, similar to the man that gave Kaden the tour, but significantly less big. When the man caught up to them, he instantly pulled out what looked like a weird small gun and pointed it at the small boy behind Kaden. Instinctively, Kaden held out his hands to protect the boy. He didn’t think he could do much to fight, but at least he could deflect whatever the man was going to shoot at them with his Negative Bubble.

“W-What do you think you’re doing?” Kaden asked nervously.

The man made a small grunting noise, as if trying to sound intimidating.

“This little brat bit my hand, so I’m going to–” The man explained, but was interrupted by a beeping noise from his wrist.

Kaden recognised the device that made the sound. His parents had something similar. It was a watch that alerted them whenever they were needed. Be it for a villain that is on the loose, or a meeting with their hero council. It would start beeping whenever they were called.

The man gave Kaden and the boy a nasty look, then grumpily stomped off, muttering to himself. Kaden turned around to look at the boy. He bent down to be at eye-level, then asked,

“Are you alright?”

The boy nodded nervously, before slowly backing away and running off. Kaden watched as the boy left, then went the other way, in search of the exit. On his way, he started wondering if he had made the right choice by coming here. Then again, he also felt like he had little choice left in the first place.

He took a few wrong turns before reaching the exit and accidentally walked into an armoury, stacked with swords, spears, and axes of all kinds. Luckily nobody was around, or Kaden feared that he would not have been able to back away so easily.

Eventually, Kaden reached the big black doors, leading outside. He slowly opened them, but jumped back in surprise when he saw what was behind.

A wall of water, seemingly held back by some sort of force, blocked the exit. What surprised Kaden the most, however, was the fish that jumped out into his arms and was now flopping around. He carefully put it back into the water-wall, upon which it sped off.

“Ready to go?” a voice from behind the water-wall sounded. 

The hand that brought him here popped out from behind it.

“Y-yes.” Kaden mumbled, trying to take a look behind the hand to see where it had come from.

“What now?” The hand asked irritably. “It’s rude to stare, you know?”

“R-right, sorry!” Kaden said quickly, pulling his gaze away from the water.

“Well? I don’t have all day, kid. Take me.” The hand said annoyed, while gesturing to Kaden, who only just now realised it had been reaching out to him, to grab it.

Remembering what it felt like going down, Kaden braced himself and closed his eyes. He grabbed the hand, which once again aggressively pulled him into the water. Kaden felt the water surge down his body, before he suddenly was back on the pier.

The hand gestured like it was bowing, then dove back underwater. Kaden looked back over the water. At this point, it was already nighttime and the moonlight was glistening on the water surface. Other than that, it felt like he never left there in the first place. Kaden wasn’t even sure he had left there. He was secretly hoping that he’d just made it all up. That, in a moment, he would open his eyes, and his parents would wake him up to the news that he had been accepted into Postella Academy.

That moment never came, however.