From A To Z

"There are 400 freshmen out here for this event. The purpose is to determine where you all stand amongst yourselves and build connections with your fellow students. The order of events will be stretching, the 100m dash, the shooting range, the obstacle course, arm wrestling, then the combat arenas. Go stand along the stretching area."

The team did as they were told. The area was just outside of the track. Once they took their positions next to each other, a blonde haired woman came to stand on the podium in front of them, next to her on both sides were lines of spread out instructors. As soon as the woman took center stage, Adrian could hear a light sigh to his left. Standing next to him was none other than the blonde haired Delwyn. Putting two and two together, Adrian didn't feel the need to ask what was wrong with him.

"Hello new freshman! I'm very excited to meet you all, some of you may or may not be familiar with me, though I'm very certain one of you is, hi Delwyn, do your best!"

As she points to the horde of students, Delwyn covers his face in shame.

"For this event, I will be performing stretches and it's your duty to mimic my pose and hold it for however long you can. I will hold each position for 30 seconds and then switch, so pay attention. If any of you have improper form or fail to hold the position in the timeframe, you must get up and go sit outside of the area. With that we will begin."

The teacher, who Adrian has correctly identified as Ms. Saahh, began stretching. Everyone managed to stay in for the simple ones, but people began to be eliminated once they got more difficult. The difficulty continued to increase as the number of people began to decrease, up until only one person remained.

So I'm pretty sure the order to get eliminated for this one was Johnathan, me, Emily, Delwyn, and, well, it's not really accurate to say Ida since she just became the only person still going.

"Ok, I think we're all done! The instructors to my left and right have been keeping their eyes on all of you and marked down the order in which you were eliminated. If you'll all please move onto the track to begin the 100m dash."

The students move onto the track and the teachers pull 10 at a time to race, clock their times, and pull a new group."

"Emily, Ida, Jonathan, Me, and Delwyn, who based on my observations was the fastest. He didn't win the flexibility competition but still, he made it pretty far and even won this one. 

The freshman moved onto the shooting range and the obstacle course, the order of which for both in terms of elimination for Ryuji's team was the same, Johnathan, Emily, Adrian, Delwyn, and Ida. Ida won both of them. The class then moved onto arm wrestling.

"Hello class, you can call me Mr. Reliquiae. In front of you are 20 stations. We will be pulling 40 of you at a time. From there we will separate the winners and move on to the next group."

40 people are pulled and face their opponent, once it comes time for the second group, Adrian is selected. And wins his match. Ida and Emily were eliminated in their rounds, the other three remained. There were then a total of 200 students and the process continued. Once again, Adrian was pulled to participate, shortly after, his opponent was also placed in his spot. Sitting across from Adrian was the brown haired boy from the locker room. 

"Hey Adrian, glad we get to go against each other. You look pretty strong."

"Thanks, you do too."

"I didn't introduce myself, I'm Ramus, Ramus Hendrickson."

"Oh I see, you're related to Jonathan."

"Yea, you could say that."

Trying to ignore the awkwardness of his out of nowhere comments and conversation, Adrian responds to him kindly. They grabbed each other's hand and began their duel. 

"I know this isn't the best time for conversation, but just curious, how are your family doing?" 

"Huh? What are you talking about, my dad is right there, he's all there is, why are you even asking me this?"

"I'm talking about your real family, oh yea, a zombie killed them 18 years ago, then Okabe killed it, I remember now, my bad. It wasn't just any zombie either-."

For a split second, Adrian lost all feeling in his arm and his mind went blank, losing him the battle. Once he regained his strength and state of mind, he punched Ramus in the face with all his might, sending him flying. He was immediately apprehended by instructors. Akihito got right in his face and confronted him.

"Adrian what are you thinking! Why would you assault him!"

"He-."

Adrian initially wanted to tell him exactly what happened, but ultimately chose not to, leaving out a few details and coming up with a vague excuse.

"He said something I didn't like." 

"What are you talking about, are you crazy, you don't just hit people because of what they say, you should know better. Come on, you're coming with me."

After the initial shock went down, Reliquiae began trying to start the competition back up. Adrian and Akihito on the other hand went into Akihito's office in the boys locker room.

"Sit down. Adrian, why would you hit that boy in the face, what could he have possibly said to irritate you that much."

"He." Adrian paused for a moment. "He brought up my family. I was honestly just shocked he knew about it, and he kept talking about it and made me mad, so I hit him out of anger."

Silence and the feeling of a new understanding filled the room.

"Oh, I see. I get why you didn't want to talk about it out there. To tell you the truth Adrian, I'm proud of what you did, you were being mocked with something so horrible and relataliated. That's how it should be, in my opinion there are limits to these things where doing something like that in the moment is completely valid. I don't want you to be upset over this. But just know that just because I think what you did was right, that doesn't make it so. You're probably gonna have to face repercussions."

"Yea, I know."

"Still you're right, I'm surprised too. The students aren't supposed to know about that, only the staff. Your last name was changed after all, there's nothing they have access to that connects you to the incident. Then again, if he's good with computers he can probably see things only the staff is permitted to. Man this isn't good. Adrian, I'm sorry he said those things to you and I'm even more sorry I yelled at you. I'll see to it you're both treated fairly. Do you want to go to your room?"

"Thanks but it's fine. I'd like to watch the rest of the sporting day. I understand I probably can't participate anymore, especially because the last game involves fighting."

"Yea you'd be right about that. Ok, you can go sit in the bleachers and I'll handle this ordeal."

"Thanks."

Adrian stands to go leave and begins walking.

"Adrian."

Adrian stops, turning around to listen to Akihito.

" I love you."

"I love you too dad." Adrian said smiling.

Adrian goes outside to see the sporting day to its conclusion. He makes it in time to watch the combat practice, of which someone he doesn't know won. The freshman are then addressed by Ms. Saahh, congratulated on their efforts, and dismissed for the day. Adrian gets up and goes to leave the area until he's stopped by two familiar voices behind him.

"Adrian!"

"Adrian!"

He turns around to see Emily and Delwyn running to catch up to him. Emily leads to questioning.

"Adrian, are you ok? Why'd you do that? What happened?"

"Yeah, are you feeling alright?"

Are they asking me if I'm ok? After I punched a guy in the face? Man that's ironic. Still though, it's nice to see they care like that.

"Yea guys don't worry about me, I'm fine. He just said something that didn't stick with me so I just lashed out on instinct?"

"What did he say?" The two asked simultaneously.

"Just something about my family, no need to be concerned about it though, that guy's just ignorant. I won't let him get to me anymore."

"Alright, if you say so."

"I'll walk with you to your room, after all we're neighbors."

"Wait, you two are right next to each other, that's so cool. It'd be nice if I was next to my teammate."

Seeing the two talk so casually, Adrian chimed in.

"Honestly she doesn't seem like the type to socialize that much. She's pretty reserved."

"Hm, yea I guess you're right, still it'd be nice for us to become closer as a team. After all, it won't be too long before we're going on missions together."

"Oh yea that's right, my mom sends me pictures of her on missions all the time, she was really upset when she found out we were in different teams."

"Yea, Akihito was pretty disappointed too."

The group continued talking for a bit, then the two boys parted ways from Emily and headed to their dorm rooms.

"See you Adrian."

"Later Delwyn."

The pair bid each other goodbye and entered their own rooms. Adrian took off his uniform, put on pajamas, and began playing games to get his mind off things, eventually going to sleep.

"There are 400 freshmen out here for this event. The purpose is to determine where you all stand amongst yourselves and build connections with your fellow students. The order of events will be stretching, the 100m dash, the shooting range, the obstacle course, arm wrestling, then the combat arenas. Go stand along the stretching area."

The team did as they were told. The area was just outside of the track. Once they took their positions next to each other, a blonde haired, blue eyed woman came to stand on the podium in front of them. The tips of her hair were black, oddly enough. Next to her on both sides were lines of spread out instructors. As soon as the woman took center stage, Adrian could hear a light sigh to his left. Standing next to him was none other than the blonde haired Delwyn. Putting two and two together, Adrian didn't feel the need to ask what was wrong with him.

"Hello new freshman! I'm very excited to meet you all, some of you may or may not be familiar with me, though I'm very certain one of you is, hi Delwyn, do your best!"

As she points to the horde of students, Delwyn covers his face in shame.

"For this event, I will be performing stretches and it's your duty to mimic my pose and hold it for however long you can. I will hold each position for 30 seconds and then switch, so pay attention. If any of you have improper form or fail to hold the position in the timeframe, you must get up and go sit outside of the area. With that we will begin."

The teacher, who Adrian has correctly identified as Ms. Saahh, began stretching. Everyone managed to stay in for the simple ones, but people began to be eliminated once they got more difficult. The difficulty continued to increase as the number of people began to decrease, up until only one person remained.

So I'm pretty sure the order to get eliminated for this one was Johnathan, me, Emily, Delwyn, and, well, it's not really accurate to say Ida since she just became the only person still going.

"Ok, I think we're all done! The instructors to my left and right have been keeping their eyes on all of you and marked down the order in which you were eliminated. If you'll all please move onto the track to begin the 100m dash."

The students move onto the track and the teachers pull 10 at a time to race, clock their times, and pull a new group."

"Emily, Ida, Jonathan, Me, and Delwyn, who based on my observations was the fastest. He didn't win the flexibility competition but still, he made it pretty far and even won this one. 

The freshman moved onto the shooting range and the obstacle course, the order of which for both in terms of elimination for Ryuji's team was the same, Johnathan, Emily, Adrian, Delwyn, and Ida. Ida won both of them. The class then moved onto arm wrestling.

The instructor announcing the event to them this time had brown hair, hazel eyes, and what was most obvious, a burn scar over his left eye.

"Hello class, you can call me Mr. Reliquiae. In front of you are 20 stations. We will be pulling 40 of you at a time. From there we will separate the winners and move on to the next group."

40 people are pulled and face their opponent, once it comes time for the second group, Adrian is selected. And wins his match. Ida and Emily were eliminated in their rounds, the other three remained. There were then a total of 200 students and the process continued. Once again, Adrian was pulled to participate, shortly after, his opponent was also placed in his spot. Sitting across from Adrian was the brown haired boy from the locker room, smiling as he approached Adrian.

Something about this guy is really off putting. No