Arlo Sarsons - Wrath of Amaterasu

10) Jayce is weirdly good at water polo

I've been called to the headmaster's office plenty of times. You lit your notebook on fire with a Bunsen burner? Headmaster's office. Locked a kid in the music room because he smelled funny? You're coming with me! And my personal favorite: why did you ever think you could get away with editing the face of your dorm teacher onto a gif of Kim Jong Un? Yeah, that one got me in a special kind of trouble.

So, yeah, getting screamed at by adults in cheap suits? Been there, done that. What I wasn't prepared for, though, was being stared at by a man in a fluorescent, flower-printed shirt like he'd just stepped out of a tourist catalog.

Akame had a reputation. Not for discipline, but for being... laid back, to say the least. He didn't really get involved with telling people off. No, he was usually too busy playing poker with the children of Daikokuten, the god of fortune—and, wouldn't you know it, betting. Yet tonight, here he was, sitting across from me, leaning back in his old, creaky chair, fingers tapping rhythmically against its worn armrests.

"So," he started, his voice casual. "New kid, right? What's your name again?"

"Arlo, sir," I replied, deciding to go with respectful. Sure, Akame was known to be chill, but the last thing I needed was to piss off someone else around here.

"Right, Arlo. So, just to get this straight, you're saying you were spoken to... by a Bakotsu?"

"A... what now?" I blinked.

"A Bakotsu," he repeated, his tone still annoyingly calm. "They're demonic, flaming skeletal horses. Spirits of regular horses that died in fires. And one of them just delivered you a fortune." His voice trailed off like that was somehow normal.

I leaned forward, completely lost. "A fortune? What does that even mean?"

Akame scratched the back of his head, looking reluctant to explain. "A fortune, a prophecy if you will. They're pretty rare these days, but back in the old days, they were given to the great Japanese Shison of the past. They offer a glimpse into future events. It's been years since we've had one delivered, and usually, they come directly from the gods."

"Wait... like the gods come down here? In person?"

Akame chuckled softly. "No, no, of course not. They send me an email."

I stared at him, my brain short-circuiting. I couldn't tell if he was joking—my sarcasm detector wasn't exactly reliable in this place. "You get... emails from the gods? Actual emails?"

"Why yes, of course. It's the fastest method of communication. A letter would take days, and fortunes are usually urgent. Thank Takamagahara for Western civilization." He said it like it was the most normal thing in the world.

My head was spinning. I couldn't get a read on this guy at all. Not that I was ever good at that, but everything he said sounded like a bunch of gibberish.

"So... this fortune," I began, hesitating, "is it a good thing or a bad thing?"

Akame's expression told me all I needed to know. Well, great. Bloody great.

"Look, Arlo, what did the Bakotsu say exactly? What was the message?"

"I... I don't remember all of it. I was kind of in panic mode. But I remember the last line clearly."

"Go on," he urged, his voice a little more serious now.

"'Find them you might, find them you must, or what you cherish most will turn into dust.'"

Akame stared at me, his eyes narrowing as if trying to read my mind. The silence was stretching uncomfortably long, and my ADHD brain was already itching for me to get up and move.