A serpent amongst heroes and dragons
That classroom. The classroom that seemed so full of life back at the start of the school year now is so empty. It isn’t for lack of people, her classmates, no. A different type of loneliness and cold crawls in the classroom. Ever since that event in September, her life changed.
No, this is also a lie she tells herself. A lie so sour that makes her lips curl and hurt by the bad taste of it. Nothing changed at all, but she stopped ignoring the woes of her friends. The thoughts of a normal school, even if its purpose is to train heroes, were everything in her head.
Have “normal” classmates, and a normal school life, and prepare themselves for the life of a hero while they are young and don’t have to cope with the grips and hazards of adult life, and worse, a hero’s life.
When, and where, did everything go wrong? Her rival, even if it is a one-sided thing, was in a coma. The wildfires near Chihiro’s home. Villains activity skyrocketing and somehow her friends, her classmates, were in the middle of it all?
How was she so blind? Was it because of how life was lenient this year? Made her think that things would go as she wished they would, without life completely messing it up? Something so obvious… things were clear as a crystal, yet why didn’t she see through it?!
She should’ve done better! She should’ve noticed how things were shaping up! Yet, she didn’t. She played at the arcades as if this school life was a leisurely walk. Carefree and happy at making friends again, but it can’t be simple, can it?
A sigh leaves her mouth like a whisper. She looks down at the table, her school stuff there. Pencils, pens, her notebook. Nothing out of the ordinary, an ordinarily boring set of materials. In any other situation, she would raise her head to talk to her friends or look around the class.
It wasn’t uncommon for them to make something funny when Rosethorn wasn’t looking, it was fun, and sometimes she would join it when it was Inigo-kun who was organizing the tomfoolery, but nowadays she doesn’t feel like it.
Honestly, she doesn’t feel like anything. She came to school because of her obligation to her family, friends, and those who helped her along the way. To not tarnish the Atsushi name. Make her father and sisters proud, and be like her cousin (older brother…) Yuusei.
Yes, she doesn’t want to be here anymore. A hero has to protect the innocents, their loved ones, and the weak. She couldn’t do it. Her friends suffering, right before her eyes, what she did? Nothing. Maybe it was their lives hitting hard, all she needed to do was be a good friend to them.
How näive. So näive that tastes worse than her venom-laced saliva, so näive that makes her heart clench in pain. A tingling pain itches over her chest, it claws from her insides but never comes out.
Her fists clench over her name. People talk— ‘Since when they were people and not my classmates? The ones I should guard over and be friends with?’ Orochi never was the most sociable of her peers.
Her hydra heads made socialization worse, yet she made friends with good, wonderful people. Chris, Yui, Kaylee, Chihiro, Hoge, Inigo, Sally… if she was their friend, how couldn’t she see what was happening? The subtle changes with Chris and Inigo? Now that her vision is clearer and free of bias, there are hints about what is going on with them.
She doesn’t know the finer details, but Chris was stopped at the Hospital multiple times, Inigo acts shady from time to time… and something is going on with Chris and Sally. What? She doesn’t know.
Maybe if she was a better friend she would. Clenching her fists as tight as she could, sludgy darkness writing through her chest, rising to her face. Her mouth salivating, but not of desire or hunger. Sadness squirms underneath her features as she puts her best bravado at keeping the image of nothing being wrong.
A tremor threatened to appear on her shoulders. This is what was needed for her to wake to reality? A friend is being placed in a coma, her own rundown with almost (certain) death? If she hadn’t threaded so close to death, would she still be blind to her classmates' suffering?
People talk to her, Yui, Hoge, and Chihiro… today Inigo, Sally, and Chris were not there. Did they go out in the middle of the class? Or had they appeared today? She doesn’t know. Her eyes are hazy, her mind clouded by a deep fog.
She had tried to live these days as if nothing had happened. “If you believe things are right, they will come back on track, won’t they?” A lie tell a thousand times, can become true, right?
No, it can’t. She told this lie once, twice, ten times, twenty-five, a hundred, three hundred, ten thousand times. In her dreams, when she woke up, to her friends and family. It doesn’t seem to help at all.
The darkness within doesn’t change in the slightest. It ends up worse the more she tells this lie to herself. Honestly, she is done pretending. She wants to break down and let this pain out of her chest.
She has no one to say this. She can’t burden her friends with this pain, she can’t… they all have their problems, worse than hers. Hell, she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth? Then why her eyes are almost watery? Why does her heart race because of this sadness? Shouldn’t she be happy at winning the quirk lottery? Born in a wealthy family?
Why this sadness doesn’t lighten in the face of her many blessings? ‘I just want to break down already…’
She can’t, not in class, not in front of anyone. She has a name to uphold, and her family won’t understand it, will they? Her older sister will act as if the world is in the wrong and she is right. Her father won’t understand. Can her mother help at all with this?
If your family can’t help, and you can’t bother your friends, what do you do? ‘I want to know.’ Her heart is at a loss for what to do. Keep pretending? Try to help her friends? How can she help them, when she can’t help herself?
She always had help, or the presence of someone when things were bad. In the moment of do or die, the leap of faith, she failed and crashed hard on the ground. Feral almost killed her, so easily despite her struggles to survive.
‘I’m such a mess…’ Orochi knows she shouldn’t, but she places her arms on her table and rests her head over them anyway. Too deaf to hear anyone… someone is talking to her, anyway? Orochi closes her eyes, maybe if she sleeps, she can find an answer to her questions.
Her right and left hydrea heads fall to the ground, whereas her middle one rests on her back. For some reason, it growls and tries its best attempts at comforting her. Asif they are all feeling this sadness…
Can they feel sadness? The normally hyperactive and sassy ones are… on the ground, limb, not even hissing at anything that comes close by… it looks like they gave up too. The only head left who hasn’t given up, rubs itself against her back.
Its growls are pitiful like they are filled with despair and worry, a fear of losing something, but what? Is she seeing or hearing things? ‘You guys never acted this way before…’ They would always act as she wished them to or act on their own, without her input or control. Unless she took direct control of them, they would never do something like that willingly.
Her limbs feel weak, as this melancholy continues bleeding in her heart…
Before her consciousness fades, Orochi has to think about her reason for coming to this school. To want and yearn for the position of hero. She was born strong (or so she thought), and more fortunate than others. Wasn’t the duty of the strong to protect the others? Keep them out of harm? Shield the weak?
Then what is she doing here? She can’t shield herself, much less anyone. How can someone like her save the innocents, if she can’t save herself? ‘I’m such a scam. Those who said I entered here by nepotism, that I wasn’t fit to be a hero… were right. They were right. I shouldn’t have been here at all.’
Now is too late to give up, lest she breaks the hearts of her friends for giving up, and leave them at the wolves’ mercy. She can’t give up now, not by option, but by the lack of it. One should bear the cross they build for themselves. If only she had realized this weakness of hers earlier…
(...)
She doesn’t remember how the day went by after her nap. When she realized what was happening around her, the school day already finished, and everything vanished in a daze. Yui went to her home to take care of Ako.
She doesn’t remember anyone coming to her, or inviting her to hang out or go to the arcade. It fits the bill, honestly. She ignored her friends’ problems for far too long, so it is fair for her to be ignored in return.
She walks out of Shiketsu. However, she doesn’t feel like doing a trip to the arcade or rushing back home. She doesn’t feel like it. Aimless she walks, an uncomfortable dryness in her mouth, the unbearable sour taste worse than before.
Her heart clenching itself in so much pain that it feels like it will explode. Even if it explodes, she is sure she won’t die because of it. Her body will always bounce back from any wound, but her mind is not as sturdy as it seems.
Orochi can’t help but hold the arm Feral severed in her rampage. The pain of her chainsaws is long gone, but the feeling of losing her arm in that fight is fresh, for not the wound, but what it represents.
Unforgettable, the Nostalgic Greenery
Her weakness, the lack of power, the cowardice, she couldn’t take that thing head-on, she ran away for her life, and when forced to fight, she flared so badly that it wasn’t even funny. Her training, her entire life, seemed naughty at that moment.
Was she truly an Atsushi? Was she a dragon? She lacked the overwhelming power her father had, able to crush steel walls with his bare hands and years upon years of martial prowess. He was stronger than her when he had her age…
Her mother, like a kami out of a book, with smiting lighting bolts and supercharging her surroundings. Her older sister bore hot and destructive flames like the dragons of Western books.
Kyoko will be as strong, if not stronger, than her father. Even with little training, her strength already surpasses her at the tender age of thirteen. ‘Yuusei is a literal dragon…’ Or can be one if he wishes too.
What is a Hydra? A serpent? At worst, it is an oversized snake, and only the most generous versions and tellings regard it as a dragon. A snake, slithering on the ground. A snake is not a dragon, no matter how many times it sheds its skin.
A snake born in a family of dragons, an irony so deep that draws stray tears from her left eye, this pain knotting her stomach, the urge to puke up but unable to, makes her gag. Her family is one of dragons, so why was she born as a snake?
Snakes are poisonous, untrustworthy, betrayers. How can such a tainted and lowly thing born in a family of royal and dignified creatures? ‘Why was I born, even?’ Akane is already better than her. Kyoko has more than innate potential to surpass her.
The thirst in her mouth becomes worse, like broken grass dragging itself across her throat, shredding it. Orochi blinks, seeing the scenery around her change. The rays of sunshine turn orange.
For how long did she walk? The haze in her eyes vanishes recognition back in the purple orbs. Pupils turned into slits, shaking. Is she finally losing it? Is her mind cracking? Or is this just drama?
Overthinking things and wallowing in self-pity? ‘I’m so pathetic…’ Orochi sighs, almost exasperated and broken. With glances at her surroundings, she is in a park. A deserted one, her only company is a vending machine. Orochi takes her wallet out, with more than enough yearning to afford a couple of drinks.
“Okay, I need to calm down, and get myself together.” Orochi takes a deep breath, smiling. A smiling so fake, so hollow that it may have been a poorly made crop of an image slapped on another using a cheap image editor.
She doesn’t believe any of those words. Calm down, get herself together. She is tired of lying, lying to herself. To keep airs up and fake smiles like this one. She strolls with faux confidence. The tomboyish and rough posture she used to have is now a lie to keep others calm and not make them worry about herself.
Placing the money on the vending machine, she presses the button of an energy can. Gods knows she needs that extra rush of energy to deal with everything happening in her life. Picking up the energy can, she pops it and goes to a bench.
With another deep breath, she tries her hardest to not think about anything, and just down the can’s contents in one gulp. However, she can’t bring herself to drink it. Blankly staring at it.
Her throat is dry like a desert, but Orochi can’t bring herself to drink it as if an invisible hand is holding hers down. The hand holding the energy can shake and tremble in an attempt to bring it up, but her body refuses to drink it, content to hold and stare at it.
Her whole body shakes and trembles as Atsushi’s middle child tries to force herself to drink the contents of the can, but her efforts are in vain. She can’t force herself to drink it, even in thirsty.
Her throat clenches, a nasty sensation pumping up on her chest. Not the urge to puke, nor anything like that, as if her heart moved up for a few moments, only to come down to its original place.
Orochi bites her lips in frustration, her bottled sadness breaking the glass that held it. Tears fall from her reptilian eyes, and her hand forcefully drops the energy can on the ground. Placing her hands on the side of her head, tears start to fall out of her control, silently sobbing as the sun goes down.
A poisonous and venomous snake that can’t hold anyone she loves too close to herself, in fear of poisoning them and causing their unfortunate demise or hurt. A snake with dreams of living with dragons, yet unable to compete with the blessings and talents her own family has.
Someone who wishes to protect others, yet cannot protect herself. So many contractions, and so much pain coming up. Like a dam breaking, her face becomes coated in tears in seconds, the poisonous watery orbs hitting the ground, one after another.
Her tears are genuine but just as hurtful as the tears of a crocodile.
“What am I doing with my life?”
Her words come out clenched and broken, filled with sobs and tears that none one will see.