Rise Highschool AU: 8 (Patreon)

Rise Highschool AU

…

Commissioned by Ihaxlikenoob

Wordcount: 2500

…

Miyakuro was waiting in front of my house as I started my journey to school. The sun has yet to rise, crickets chirped, and I could see my breath. While I was wrapped up in a scarf, had a coat on, and even gloves, he stood before me as though the cold didn’t bother him at all. Maybe, just maybe, it was because his heart was already a cold, solid piece of ice.

It’s as creepy as it sounds. 

“Go trip and break your neck, Hyoudou.” Miyakuro nodded and began walking after his greeting. My other, male friend was typically always busy. He had many businesses to manage due to his family being “incompetent shmucks who got themselves killed.” Now, I’m not the sort of person to talk ill of the dead, but gathering your entire family in a single, budget flight overseas sounded like a bad idea on paper… but Miyakuro had that piece of paper along with all the deeds and titles he inherited. I think his chosen moniker for his family is pretty accurate. “So, in the midst of the school’s greatest societal crisis, you managed to get yourself a girlfriend. Congratulations on joining the rest of us at losing life.”

Girlfriend.

Ah.

Right.

Ulrich and I are together-together now.

That shit did that on purpose—

AAAAH. What the heck do I do with myself now? Am I supposed to be walking with Ulrich everyday to school? Was I supposed to wake up early and eat breakfast with her? Did I make a thousand mistakes by not calling her last night, after we said goodnight, and spent the entire night sleepless and afraid!? Where are the orders? Why am I surrounded on all sides by questions that I don’t know how to even start addressing? Is there a way to get the higher ups on the line? Can I get some direct message from God to help me out here? Please, if anyone out there is listening, please help me not fuck up my first relationship with a very cute and nice girl!

I stopped screaming internally and externally about halfway to school.

That’s when Miyakuro put away his phone to stop recording to start talking to me again.

Maybe, he had advice—

“No. Fuck you. You’re going to sink and swim like the rest of us idiots.” My hopes were dashed against stones into fine powder. That fine powder was then ground down by industrial grinders. Then, the resulting fiber was tossed into a volcano. I am alone in an uncaring, dark, and lonely world. My only way to escape it is a path many others have tread… but dare not share the lessons they have learned on their journey. What a bunch of dicks. “Nothing in life is free, Hyoudou. It’s best you learn that now, before you disappoint not only your parents, but yourself too.”

Ah, that cut too deep! That wasn’t even friendly ribbing anymore. That right there was grade-A, weaponized assholery! 

I demand an apology for making me fear for my future this instant!

“Ah, right. I’m sorry that you’re poor. My bad.” It wasn’t much of an apology on the surface, but Miyakuro did give the smallest of nods in acknowledgement of my plight. I wasn’t rich or talented like the rest of the school. Everything I did had to be by my own merits. I didn’t have any disadvantages, but to say that I had advantages would be utterly false in the high-spec game of life that I was currently playing! “I’ll just stick to telling you that you’re inexperienced in being a man in a relationship.”

Okay, then.

One question.

Can I go back to just having no prospects?

“No. You’ve dug this grave yourself, Hyoudou.” This is why I don’t hang out with you. Even though I have your back and you have mine, Miyakuro, spending time with you makes me want to die. I know you feel the same way about me. Honestly, it’s a miracle that we’re friends and get along. If things were different, if either of us weren’t who we are, I’m sure that we’d rip each other apart the moment we walk into one another. Yeah, without a doubt, if you and I were both girls we’d probably murder each other in the night over Li—fashion. We’d have different fashion sense. Completely different. “And, you’re going to regret every second of it.”

Whew. 

I managed to slip THAT thought past Miyakuro.

Didn’t know how I did it, but I did and now I’ll be doing my best to never think again.

Or, well, at least on the way to school. 

…

Miyakuro got around to explaining his interference plan after my will to live broke for the fifth time. It was pretty nice of him. Usually, he makes me question existing at least seven times, before he even considering treating me like a human being. Typically, he thought of me as some sort of depraved, rapacious monster who’s barely curtailed by society in pursuing his carnal desires. It probably has something to do with my dreams and aspirations of having a ha-

“I’m going to cut you off before I decide to ruin your entire day with a lot of unpleasant things. And, it’s mostly because I don’t want to be late for class, and not because I care about your feelings.” Message received, I replicated a certain Pillar Man’s journey into space and chose to stop thinking. I devoted all of my being into hearing the words of Miyakuro Kita instead. I’d prefer eternally drifting through space, but I couldn’t exactly manage that. “Like I said, you and your group of idiots are going to have to do some legwork, but most of the operation’s going to be on me… so that when you fail, I’ll still get a tolerable outcome, instead of a burning ruin of a school.”

There is no Hyoudou. Not anymore. He is gone.

Only the being that listens to Miyakuro remains. 

“It’s amazing how much more I like you when you’re brain dead. You should really think about making that permanent.’ Guh. Pain from insult is too much. All defenses overwhelmed. Empathy… insufficient! I… I can’t hold myself back any longer. Fuck you, Miyakuro. Go die in your mansion filled with girls who like you! Dammit, I hurt myself to hurt him and he didn’t even take that much damage! “So, do you know what you’re doing today while I go off and hold back the apocalypse?”

I was going to make life easier for Miyakuro while he held off the apocalypse.

“Exactly. That’s all you’re going to do, because you nearly stressed yourself to death trying to come up with a plan that made everyone happy. Me?” Here Miyakuro goes. Making himself look like he’s proud of himself and an asshole. It’s like he doesn’t want to be acknowledged for doing the right thing, even though someone doing that would make him angry. Wow. How original. I’m so impressed that my classmate is so mature and capable in his ability to justify costs with results. So, mature. “I’m going to almost die making the situation bearable, until Li can show up and explain himself. Whether he dies afterward doesn’t matter, as long as our social circle remains standing and isn’t a pile of dead dreams that’ll fertilize lives filled with misery.”

I had a suggestion to contrast those words.

How about we DON’T think that a perfect outcome is impossible and TRY to reach for it?! Seriously, why didn’t he even consider the fact that everyone just needed time? I wanted Miyakuro’s help because I thought he’d make my life easier, but here he was throwing shit all over my plan and trying to shove down my throat what he thought was best. I mean, sure, he was doing it for Li, had tons more resources than me, and was more talented… but we were both just high school students in the end! There wasn’t some infinite chasm between that two of us that I’ll only ever breach through a miracle. 

No matter how much her pretended to be an asshole, so that I would be willing to let him do what he wanted and commit social suicide on a regular schedule… I would never allow it. Li is my best friend, but there’s a line that can’t be crossed, even if you’re helping other people. Hurting others, or letting them hurt themselves, to ensure that the worst doesn’t happen? Yeah, no. That doesn’t fly with me. I wasn’t going to let Miyakuro do what he wanted, even if he’d somehow change the fabric of reality to bend to his every whim. He’d already lost all his family, and he didn’t think that he was a person worthy of being loved, and those two things were bad enough already. 

At this point, his life’s already in the negatives and making the lives of others worse by association, but there was no way I was going to let him stay in that state, even though he obviously liked being there. 

The two of us were following my plan, the one that at least has a chance of making everyone happy, and the least chance of anyone getting hurt.

Today, Miyakuro and I were going to turn the whole school upside down and inside out.

Yeah.

This was somehow the good plan.

…

The school at 3AM in the morning was not very well defended. Between me and Miyakuro, we were able to setup our operation as soon as we managed to overcome a few locks. I didn’t ask how Miyakuro had the ability to pick locks and he didn’t ask why I knew every hiding spot in the school. 

The first part of the operation is to naturally buy time by spending time. We stocked up on little inconveniences everywhere by unplugging everything and turning off fuses. Then, we went ahead and removed chalk from classrooms, neatly stacked desks and chairs in the back, and properly put everything we could in their proper, inconvenient locations. 

In short, our plan was to escape trouble with our initial gambit by just resetting the school. Miyakuro’s money gathered a few cleaning services to mope everything up and clean everything, but the fact remained that at least an hour of the morning was going to be eaten up by the newly-cleaned and reset school.

It’s controlled chaos that wouldn’t harm the two of us while distracting our targets. Sure, our opponents were high-spec individuals with money, talent, and fame, but the fact remained that they were role-models and individuals who were looked to during emergencies. Our operation will disrupt the entire student body, therefore it’ll disrupt the people looking for Song. If our school was normal, our antics would natural last the entire day. However, with the likes of Valerie Creighton involved in our shenanigans, the hour-long window we would initially have was already stretching our optimism. 

Damn, Creighton.

Why most you ruin everything by existing?

Can’t you at least try to be fun?

Enough of that.

Even with the cleaning crews and Miyakuro’s money, it’s only natural that the two of us weren’t enough to handle the job. Even if the totally-not-Yakuza, suspiciously led by a shrine maiden, were good helpers… they had a lot on their plate cleaning up the school already. It wasn’t as though the school was decrepit and dirty. In fact, it was the exact opposite. The school was large, the classrooms were well-maintained, and everything inside it was practical.

So, to complete their mission, they had to go beyond the norm of cleaning. Instead of just vacuuming, they had to wax floors to a shine. Chalkboards and erasers were outright replaced. The incinerator was cleaned and then polished to a shine. Like I said, they were renovating and refurbishing whatever they could get their hands on, something that they obviously hated, but Miyakuro had more than money over them, so even if their pride was high enough to overcome their need for money, he still had them in his wicked clutches. 

I felt bad for them and didn’t want the Miko to rip off Miyakuro’s head, so I waited until our reinforcements arrived.

Miyakuro’s only acquaintance he bothered calling arrived before my friends did.

Soma Sitri arrived and get to work with us, but his presence brought along his fiancé and all her “girlfriends.” He took a single look at our situation, evaluated our processes, refined them, and then secured a wing of the school to fix up. Silent, sure, and capable, as well as the only rival of Creighton to being student body president, his help was very appreciated. Miyakuro made a point to tell me this as much as possible, and as much as I liked Sitri and worshipped the ground he stood on, the day we could be friends would never come. Whenever I looked at him, Miyakuro’s words would just come from the back of my mind and harass me.

It was like Miyakuro didn’t want me to interact with him for some reason.

The rest of Miyakuro’s help were actually his employees and were led by Angela. I’d initially thought that they’d all come in maid-outfits, but they all appeared in casual clothes. Though I certainly lamented never seeing the sight of maids storming my school, their help was appreciated. Miyakuro ran a tight ship, so the veterans of the workforce were capable of helping in the cleaning portion of our task, while the less experienced just did the same as Miyakuro and I. 

The refurbishment of the school progressed rapidly due many hands making the work lighter. 

Making it so that when my friend came, we could actually implement some things to guarantee that we’d get our hour.

Kuroka and Ulrich did most of the heavy lifting. They were pranksters through and through. My Kouhai and Senpai were definitely far more capable than I was in regards to the art of irritating others for short periods of time. Sure, I knew how to get in trouble and get a laugh, but the two of them were ghosts who wrought chaos and slipped through the clutches of the law. No one knew how they could manage the things that they did, since they practically never left any evidence, and with more bodies and an empty school at their disposal?

Well, practically speaking, they became unfettered and stopped holding back… while combining their powers and abilities. Kuroka’s lewd mind and pranks, combined with the precision and out-of-nowhere-style of Eli was terrifying to consider. What will they do our opponents? Why did we need so much soapy water? Why did Eli object to entering the women’s locker room and glared at me when I asked what they had planned for that place?

I didn’t know what those two had planned, just doing as they asked me without question, but I remained afraid of their plans as any sane, normal person would.

Still, however, our targets were dangerous, powerful, and terrifying. Valerie Creighton, Shizi, the Kendo Club, and even Shirone’s sister. 

No matter what they came up with would only slow them down.