1.22 – F*** Spending Money on Clothes.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Hello there! You missed us, right? I knooow you did.” A black-haired man said to the screen, his face so close to the camera that the video was blurry. His yellow eyes were still easily discernible, though.

“Now, you might be wondering. Whaaaaat?! Red Lily, THE Red Lily, uploaded a video on YouTube? After slaughtering all of those innocents? All of those poor, poor students?! Well, let us tell you, yes, we did. We originally wanted to do a live stream, but boss man said that we shouldn’t. Apparently our location could be discovered, and he didn’t wanna risk it, and blah blah blah blah blah. I’m not gonna bore you with all this bullshit; just watch the video.”

The man went completely off topic, increasing the speed of his speech as if he was boring himself.

“The point of this video is simple: we want to show you something and then make a short declaration. Simple, right? That’s what I call democracy. Wait… is it democracy? You know what? I don’t even care. Just watch.”

The man stepped away from the camera, and now what the video had shown was a black room. It was eerily dark, but Nathan could still see the corners of the walls. No furniture, no lights, just black. Except the man in front of the camera, there were three other people. Two of them, Nathan recognized immediately.

The two he recognized and the loudmouth that spoke were standing, but the last man was not standing, but kneeling on the ground instead, slumped over, though not unconscious. On the left was a man, quite tall and muscular, completely clad in black. He had a visor on his head and a helmet that completely covered his hair. His identity, was a C-Class Supervillain called Reap.

On the right was a woman, one that Nathan recognized as Colonel Gold. She had an axe placed on her back and blonde hair that wrapped all around her. She was one of the stronger supers back in Red Lilies Legions, but not one of the top ones.

But the most surprising person in the video now was a man kneeling on the ground in the middle of them. Barrage, one of the top ten superheroes of Japan. His white and gold costume was smirched with dirt and blood. His blonde beard showed blood as well and seemed to be burned off at places. His hair was disheveled, and one of his hands was missing, a bandaged stump remaining in its place.

The one with the golden eyes stepped into the frame once again. “Welcome to our declaration. The floor is yours, captain!”

One person Nathan didn’t see before stepped forward and placed one of his hands on his chest. It was hard to say anything about him except the fact that he was lean and fairly tall. His costume hid the rest.

“People of Japan, we are here with a simple declaration: you trust these superhumans too much. You let these companies that own them rule your lives, yet never ask how superheroes even come to be, how these powers that have such a grip over your lives happen.

We do not know the whole truth ourselves, but we will search and we will destroy this structure that they have built. Today, a new era begins. If you are a superhero, know that we know about you. That we watch you. That we will find you. We are done hiding. It’s time for this era to change.” He stopped for a minute, looking at Barrage. His expression was hidden by the helmet still, but Nathan could feel that the man underneath the mask hesitated.

But then he nodded. “Proceed.”

Colonel Gold lifted her axe into the air and swung Barrages’ head, which fell to the ground with a thud. The world went quiet. The video ended then, and Nathan’s hand hurt from how strongly Alicia squeezed it.

The war was supposed to begin in three years. Apparently, they were starting off things a little bit sooner. The question remained.

Why?

Dear students,

There will be numerous changes in your curriculum because of the events that you surely have all heard of. Worry not; we have increased security all around our school perimeter with several professional heroes watching over the school at any given time. However, with the changes that are occurring in Japan, we are forced to prepare you more rigidly than we would have to otherwise.

Your new schedules will be delivered today or tomorrow and, for the most part, will replace some of the theoretical classes and replace them with more practical classes.

Kind regards, Ako Academy

Nathan stared at the email once again. He expected changes, but not so quickly. But with school being over for today, he found that more practice was really what he needed. Sitting on a wooden chair didn’t suit him much, especially not if that was for a longer period of time, and he quite liked the chance to learn a bit more on the practical side of things. He would get full use out of them once he could create more synergies, buy more abilities and create more builds with his three slots.

The third ability he had chosen was quite useful, and thankfully it worked just as he wanted it to.

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Astral Inventory

F-class ability

Astral inventory is a very useful ability for logistic teams all around the world. Not that there are many people with this ability, but there are a few. The thing is, the ability, unlike many others, is very limited in how much the person with it can grow their Z-cell. In all of the heroes, this cell is what makes it possible for them to progress in how strong their ability is, usually by rigorous training and near-death situations. Those don’t occur often when you are told to haul ass for several weeks on end. This means that, usually, the people with this ability simply throw however much weight this ability allows them to carry and go from point A to point B.

This particular ability level allows the user to store 20 kg in their Astral Inventory, which can be opened at will. I’ll leave googling how many pounds that is to you. The items stored within will not spoil, rot, or change in any way whatsoever. Living organisms cannot be put inside.