Animal Forms Don't Make Sense :< (Lacey & I)

Aurora, by this point, had been at the school for roughly four years, now. As a witch, she still looked a bit younger than she actually was, and had more than a human did in the way of a lifespan. Because of this, she had chosen to stay at the Academy, continuing to learn. Eventually, she might join the still-secret school below, especially given that her partner was now a Hunter's Axe, as they'd learned. However, she had little intention of doing so, at the present time. Instead, she was busier looking around the school, as she didn't have any classes until later and she knew that there were almost always transfers or NOT students that needed help with one thing or another. It was in this mess that she managed to notice something peculiar. Several students were looking towards the stairs with confusion, a few of them narrowing their eyes, seeming hyper-focused on something coming up them. Aurora assumed it was Soul Perception usage, a fact that was confirmed when, lo and behold, an ostrich appeared at the top of the stairs. He quickly transformed into a young teenage boy, and she assumed that his Soul Protect snapped back into place, given that most of the others were now ignoring him. Still, an ostrich! The hyperactive witch hadn't seen one since she'd left home!

In a display that was very much Aurora and very much unlike the general professionalism she'd been able to maintain, up to that point, the girl abandoned her previous thought processes to run over, greeting what she assumed to be a new student with extreme enthusiasm. "Hello!" She exclaimed eagerly, pale purple eyes wide, though she managed to keep her own Soul Protect in place to keep her pupils from expanding like her animal form's; it was a habit she'd been unable to break in these years, letting her pupils dilate to the point that her irises disappeared, and people often found it unsettling. "Are you new?!"

Asuka Maki sighed boredly as he made his way towards the DWMA. Today was his first day and was supposed to check out the school. However, when he made is way towards the school, he saw the gigantic staircase that he was for some reason expected to go up. "There's no way in hell I'm walking up all of these..." He mutters. "Soul protect release." The sorcerer released his soul protect and turned into his animal form: An ostrich. Yes, an ostrich. Now, using his powerful legs, and quick speed, Asuka raced up the stairs, ignoring the looks he was getting from other students currently walking up the stairs, and the ones that were already at the top of the stairs. When he reached the top, he transformed back into his human, replacing his soul protect, not even out of breath.

The boy raised an eyebrow as a girl, who appeared to be a couple years old than him, eagerly came up to him."Hello there." Asuka replied boredly, brushing his bangs back, revealing his giant pupils that he still can't control to bring them to regular size. He nodded. "I am. What's it to you?" The sorcerer asked coldly.

After a muttered response, her own Soul Protect dropped, her pupils widening instantly. No sooner had they finished doing so that she shifted from human to animal, hovering in the air for a moment as a Sugar Glider before reverting back. "I'm a Sugar Glider witch! Been at the Academy since I was..." There was a brief pause as she tried to recollect how close to her birthday she was when she moved to the City. Shrugging, she finally just settled for, "...about thirteen." The girl was beaming, seeming proud of the achievement. Stretching a hand out, she offered her greetings as she introduced herself properly, "Aurora Boyd, Witch Meister."

Asuka hesitantly took her hand, shaking it rather gently. "Asuka Maki. Ostrich sorcerer." They had just begun their conversation and already the sorcerer was getting annoyed by her peppy attitude. "Look, I'm just here to get a feel of the place. Look around, make sure I don't get lost when I actually start classes here." Asuka replied, clearly annoyed, letting out an exasperated sigh.

"That's what I'm here for!" She said, cheery and beaming at him, oblivious as ever to how strong her personality was and how not everyone particularly cared for that. "Well, not looking for myself, but I stick around to help people with just that!"  Grinning, she gestured towards the school, moving far enough away that he had a decent sized personal bubble, now, "Do you start classes today? Or are you trying to get a feel for everything, today?"

The sorcerer huffed, blowing the hair out of his face and crossed his arms. "Then guide me. I'm just here to look around, to try and get a feel for things. " When Aurora moved away from him, actually giving him room to breathe, he relaxed a bit and uncrossed hims arms, letting them hang at his sides.

"Okay~" She said cheerfully, gesturing before making her way towards the building, intending with the come here motion she had made with her hand for him to follow. Though she'd managed to keep from outright skipping, there was still enough pep in her step to imply that she was very much inclined towards doing so. Regardless, her focus was more on the present and the task at hand and one of the first things she showed him was the missions board, gesturing to it and explaining that it's where students, usually those with partners, went to find missions to undertake. Typically, the ones that appeared on the board were for a single kishin soul hunt, but sometimes cluster missions appeared, as well as the occasional maleficient witch or sorcerer, for those close enough to Death Scythe levels or others who were willing to hunt and turn the souls in for the bounty. She seemed to graze over the portions that mentioned witches and sorcerers, visibly uncomfortable for one reason or another --- perhaps simply because she was a witch, herself. Soon, she was guiding him to another area, though she waited to answer any questions that he may have.

Asuka followed the witch when she motioned for him to follow, staying far enough from the girl that he was able to relax a bit more. When they got to the missions board, he was starting to get interested. "Hmm... What about the weapons and meisters that don't have partners? Are there certain missions for them? Or can't they do missions? Also, what about sorcerers and witches that don't have partners? With our powers we could do missions as well." He asked.

"Meisters of any kind, magical or otherwise, can take on missions solo. So can unpartnered weapons. It's just..." She shrugged, her mouth going crooked as she looked up and tried to think of the proper way to phrase it. "People don't... suggest it. There's ratings for the different missions, but a lot of students... what's the...." Her brows scrunched up as she stopped in her tracks, trying to remember the phrasing she was looking for; she was still bad at some idioms, even if they were common regardless of the English dialect. Growing up in a bubble tended to do that to people. "Eat more than they can fit in their mouth...? Uhm...."

Asuka nodded in understanding. "Okay then..." That was the only question he had and was ready to move on. However, when the witch couldn't remember how the American phrase went, he couldn't help but smirk and cross his arms."You mean bite off more than they can chew?" He asked impertinently.

Her face flushed, her gaze averting from him at the correction, formed as though it were a question. She knew full and well that he understood her meaning, and thus that he was, in fact, in the right on the matter. However, she didn't much care to address the statement, and certainly not to do so in a direct manner. "...Moving on!" Still blushing but speaking no further on the matter, she focused her intent on leading him towards the beginner level course rooms, gesturing towards the room numbers in general, since some classes shared rooms with others.

Asuka just rolled his eyes and continued following her. The school was a maze, but the sorcerer was confident that he wouldn't get lost. As they traveled the school, Asuka began to question things. "What classes will I be taking anyways?" The boy asked out of pure curiosity.

"That depends. You can pick some of them." She gestured towards one of the bigger, auditorium-style classrooms. "But honestly, you'll likely start out in NOT classes until you have a partner or can prove that you're capable of taking on a mission. You move to EAT once you've finished your first mission successfully." She thought for a moment, trying to remember what her freshman line-up looked like, or the equivalent of it. She'd actually been around his age when she'd first enrolled. "There's the basic maths, social studies, sciences, and English classes, but being at the DWMA also means that you take things like Soul Studies. We have witch and sorcerer teachers here that teach courses on magic and our people's history..."

He nodded in understanding. "Okay then... NOT class, get partner and successfully finish a mission and move on to EAT class. What's the difference between those two?" Not really reading anything about the DWMA before coming, he was a bit of a noob when it came to knowing the different classifications.

"Normally Overcome Target Class," Aurora answered, clarifying the acronym while guiding him towards one of the gymnasiums, the big one that lead out to the track field. "NOT courses are for students that are just starting out or aren't strong enough to be combatant. Usually, it's used to help low-level meisters and weapons control, rather than train, their abilities. Most of the students at the school are NOTs." The witch pushed open the gym door, allowing him to walk inside ahead of her. The students within were mostly doing some mix of martial arts, while others were running an indoor obstacle course. "Especially Advantaged Talent Class students have physical criteria that they have to meet. 'A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body.' Those students are the ones that fight Kishin Eggs, train for combat and bounties, and work towards Death Scythes." Carefully, she dodged accidentally slipping up and mentioning that her and her own partner technically hunted monsters, but since they largely kept quiet to most students and were old enough to be graduates, it didn't seem to bother anyone much.

"Ah, okay then." Asuka walked through the door Aurora had opened, his jaw dropping as soon as he walked in. "Whoa...." He couldn't help but stare at the students, watching them do things that Asuka only dreamed of doing. "Are these all EAT students?" He asked without looking at the witch.

Aurora nodded; the earliest and latest classes of the school were filled mainly with those in the EAT classes. "These ones are, yes." She said the words as she moved further out of his range of sight, allowing him to watch the others at his will before she guided him first to the locker/shower areas. On the way outside, she gestured to the doorway that led to the workout room, which was jampacked with all sorts of exercise equipment.

After taking some time to gaze at the amazing EAT students, Asuka moved on, following Aurora throughout the rest of the school. He briefly looked into the workout room before continuing on his way. "So uh... How many witches and sorcerers are here?" The sorcerer asked earnestly.

She paused as she thought, trying to come up with a tally of the number in her head. Honestly, she hadn't really that much of a clue; it made her feel dumb. "Some... fifteen some-odd years ago, there was only one. I've met a handful during my time here, but I can't give you an exact number. We're common enough that people don't often care one way or another that we're around. Plus, we have some of our own classes~!" Perhaps she was a bit too excited about that last fact...

The sorcerer raised an eyebrow curiously. "Hmm, interesting. And yes, you've mentioned that already." Asuka was already starting to get bored again and was almost half tempted to turn back into his animal and run away. Not like Aurora would be able to catch him, but the only reason he didn't was because he didn't want to end up getting lost tomorrow when he came for actual classes. So unfortunately, I have to stay. He sighed to himself.

Guiding him out to the training grounds, oblivious to his boredom, she gestured to the track itself but didn't linger; it was like any school track, and thus unextraordinary. Besides, classes hadn't moved out to it, yet, so there was no one to gawk at. Bringing him to the target range, she showed him one of the entry-level EAT classes, which were outside training, now. Most students were meister-weapon pairs, though there were a few outliers, meisters or weapons working on their own. Some worked from ranged, trying out their projectile weaponry while others seemed only to be doing physical training. At least three students were already on the sidelines, panting and guzzling down water like they were... well, in a desert. The ones that were operating by themselves, however, were keeping their distance from many of the other students, and even the instructor. One of them, a green-haired boy with a sour seeming attitude, was attempting to fire arrows made from his element but didn't appear to have enough wavelength power from it. On his left, a blue-haired girl was kicking at a standing pole at random intervals, seeming to be timing her kicks in some manner, though she occasionally seemed to disappear and reappear from existence. Behind her, a blonde that didn't seem particularly masculine or feminine was attempting to form a ball of energy in their hand.

Aurora made a wide gesture to them all, not batting an eye at the apparently ghostly girl that was randomly going invisible. Aside from a few glances from the other students, no one seemed to be paying it any mind, really. "Here's one of our EAT classes. You'll mostly find weapons here; meister EAT students often spend this class period wandering around looking for a partner."

Asuka looked around at the students. To his surprise, he was actually in awe of them, however, did not let it show. He wasn't normally this amazed by humans, but of course, the academy is an amazing place, with amazing students, with amazing capabilities. He looked at each of them admiringly. They were all so talented. Sure, he's a sorcerer and has magical abilities, but still. Just by watching them he could tell they have much more stamina than himself. After looking around at all the students, a certain blue-haired girl caught his attention. He watched as she suddenly disappeared and then reappeared somewhere else. Convinced it was magic, Asuka turned to Aurora. "Hey, that girl over there, with the blue hair. Is she a witch?" The sorcerer asked curiously. He was quite interested in her abilities and couldn't imagine them being anything other than magic.

Aurora looked back at the trainees, as though she actually needed reminding of who he was referring to. With a bit of a laugh, she shook her head, gesturing towards the girl. She happened to catch her on a bit of a break, making it where her blue eyes made contact with Aurora's purple ones. Taking the gesture as a sign to come over, she grabbed a towel to sling over her shoulder, snatching a water bottle.

"That's just Lily. She's not a witch, no, but she's eaten a monster soul. The mutation it gave her makes her able to turn invisible, but she hasn't mastered it yet." The girl beamed when Lily got closer, reaching to hug her despite the sweat.

Lily laughed a bit, waving, friendly but still somewhat reserved, a bit of a shyness to her, in stark contrast to the witchy companion. "Hello, Lilian Foster, pleased to make your acquaintance." She said, the obvious tinge of a refined British accent painting her words as she gave a slight sort of bow and offered a hand out to the sorcerer.

"Oh? So that's what happens when a weapon eats a monster soul?" He asked. When Aurora called the girl, Lilly, over, he moved his eyes over to her, watching her walk towards them. Asuka, forgoing the polite bow, reached his hand out to shake hers. "Asuka Maki, it's good to meet you too." He couldn't say that he wasn't a bit upset that she wasn't a witch, but oh well, nothing he could do about. Once again, the sorcerer took his hand to run through his hair, revealing his wide pupils to the young weapon.

"The mutations? Yeah, they do wonky things to weapons. It's pretty painful, tbh." She smiled a bit shakily at that since the reminder had made Lily wince.

"Are you new here?" The weapon asked, though she could easily infer the answer by the fact that he was being shown around. Still, it seemed only polite to ask rather than to assume. Besides, it kept a conversation going.