Chapter 81: Zodiacs

"Sagittarius."

Michelle froze upon hearing that word. "How…"

"Those guys from before are talking about it now."

"I'll beat them first." Michelle gritted her teeth as she turned back, but Kai immediately stopped her.

"Care to explain it to me?"

"Ehm…" She looked left and right before sighing. "Let's go to the room first since it's not good to talk about here."

Kai nodded.

They finally entered the room Michelle requested, room 420. She already told Tasha and Ayaka about this room, so they should come later.

"So, what is this thing about Sagittarius? Did they continue that project?" Kai asked.

"Yes. They continued the Zodiac Project. After the first subject managed to succeed, it was found that children were the best ones to be the test subjects." She sighed. "The Zodiac Project… a project that wants to fuse humanity and magical beasts... Just like you, Leo."

Kai's expression darkened. "Is the professor…"

"No. She stopped doing that after she succeeded. Even when she was shunned by the higher-ups, she didn't take up her gears again. However, it also raised the dissatisfaction of the higher-ups.

"They immediately stripped her rank and took her research. After that, they manage to make another four, and two of them are in this school." She explained.

"Who are they?"

"Both of them are the same age as you and me. A first-year, Isabelle Fisher, and another first-year, Evan Young. Isabelle Fisher is the Sagittarius, while Evan Young is the Pisces," she said.

"Sagittarius and Pisces…" Kai closed his eyes.

"You fused with a Lion and Leo was your name. You got the instinct as well as the strength of a lion. That's why you could get S++ on your physical rank.

"As for Sagittarius, she fused with an eagle. Her eyes might be as sharp as your eyes and you won't be able to hide from her. Her element is wind and that complements her sharpshooting ability. Anyway, she is the number one gunner in this academy. She can use all types of guns, including the sniper rifle.

"As for the last guy, he fused with a fish that complemented his water ability… If I'm not mistaken, even his water magic can be used to heal wounds," she explained.

"I see…" Kai pondered for a moment. "What about the other two?"

"Taurus and Gemini. Taurus is on the east side of this base while Gemini is from the EU base, so we won't meet them anytime soon. Hopefully, we won't meet. As for their power, Taurus is granted strength and natural recovery ability while Gemini can do mimicry, though it's more like disguise," she explained.

"Hmm… since they're far from us, it's quite unlikely for us to meet. For now, I want to learn about the two in the academy first," Kai said.

"I'll start with Isabelle Fisher. As the number one shooter in this school, she's the leader of a group called Eagle Group. She's a bit of an airhead, but her ability is the real deal. She also loves to compete with others. She didn't have any interest in challenging me, but it was because I didn't have my own group.

"Now that I've created a group, she will most likely come to our doorstep and challenge us. We can certainly reject her, but she'll annoy us to death… I want to kill that woman so badly, but her identity and her family background make it impossible for me to do that.

"Even with you and Tasha here, we still can't kill her because she's favored by the government. After all, she's the second subject, just after you." Michelle sighed. "All we can do is beat her normally in school, but no killing. Ah, future days will be filled with annoyance."

"..." Kai didn't say anything as he was pondering what they should do. But it was like Michelle said. "All right. If she's coming to us, we can just surrender or something, but it might lead her to say something against us, so our best option is to beat her group… but is battle allowed in this academy?"

"Yes. There are group battles in this academy. In any case, the battle will be held in a simulation room, so killing them brutally is possible. We need to instill deep fear so she won't annoy us… fufu, this is a good plan indeed." She smirked.

"Let's wait and see for the time being. As for the group battle, I'll gather some information about it later," Kai said. "What about the other one?"

"Ah, if it is about Pisces… I don't think we need to be wary of him."

"Oh?" This piqued his interest.

"Well, he's kind of dark and creepy, so he doesn't fit so much in school. In other words, he's a loner. That's right, maybe we can invite him to join us. If we can do that, we'll definitely be the strongest team." She blinked her eyes as she just thought it was a good idea.

"Hmm, but I don't know him in the first place… Maybe we can observe him first."

"You're right. If I'm not mistaken, he's in Ayaka's class. We can ask her to take a look at him later," she said.

"Now that you mention it, where are the others?" Kai suddenly realized something as she looked at Michelle. "You… sigh."

"Ahaha… How about I give you a tour of this room first?" she quickly asked, trying to change the topic. She suddenly stood up from the sofa and walked to the big desk in the room.

Now that she mentioned it, Kai began to notice how big the room was. It was around half the size of their class. There was a big desk in front of them to discuss their missions with a computer on the side. He could see two other doors in the room.

"This is where we'll gather and discuss our plan. Our meeting room, so to speak. If we want to take a mission, we can check the computer over there. It's linked with the school's network. When the president issues a mission, we can see it there and pick the mission." She explained before moving toward the two doors.

The first door contained two small beds inside without any decoration while the other one was a bathroom with a shower. "You can use the first room to rest for a while or maybe for the injured to rest. You can also sleep over in that room if you need to finish your work. Or maybe if you're interested, we can-!"

Kai immediately stopped her. "All right, so a bedroom and a bathroom."

"...Yes."

Kai nodded. "Anyway, let me think about the other Zodiacs first."

"I'll make you some tea," she said.

"Mhm… thank you." He then closed his eyes, contemplating what he should do if he met the other two. And there was even a possibility of meeting Taurus and Gemini or any possible members.

He recalled when the professor operated on him and fused his body with a Lion. It was a few years ago when United Asia was attacked by numerous magical beasts coming from Taiwan.

The group of beasts managed to escape the defense and one of them attacked him and Michelle when she was visiting him. Back then, Michelle didn't have any feelings whatsoever toward him as it was only the arrangement of her family.

However, Kai protected her with all his might and was supposed to die after that. It was at that time the professor operated on him and fused his blood with Lion blood. And because of that, he managed to escape death. It was probably at that time that Michelle really fell for him.

That memory was certainly not a good one. He experienced a high level of pain when the Lion blood was assimilating with his blood and he needed to stay awake despite being in a half-dead state. Luckily, he survived. That was why his expression immediately darkened when he heard that someone also became one of the Zodiac.

And thankfully, the professor didn't pick it up again after she succeeded in creating Kai.

Bang!

Out of nowhere, a large slamming sound could be heard.

The door was slammed open as Tasha suddenly came into the room. "Haha… To think you lied to me and told me to come two hours later. Luckily, I managed to find this out and arrived here earlier. If not, this place would have already become your love nest."

But she suddenly realized that the atmosphere was a bit gloomy here. She looked at them, confused. "What happened?"

Kai sighed as he let Michelle explain. Tasha's expression also became serious when she heard this. She never expected that there would be two other people like Kai.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"Nothing. There's nothing we can do." Michelle shook her head. "If she's going to challenge us, we'll beat her until she doesn't dare to challenge us again."

The others also agreed with it.

…

Meanwhile, in front of the door, Ayaka was about to open the door, albeit a bit hesitant. She was still wondering whether she should open this door and come as suggested or not. She had been pondering all of this for two days.

She shook her head as she told herself. "I've decided to dedicate my life to him since he's helped my family. I… I also like him."

She steeled her heart for the last time before opening the door, but when she opened the door, she froze as she saw Kai, who slowly opened his eyes, Tasha, who seemed to be pondering on something, and Michelle, who was pouring tea for Kai.

Michelle turned her head and said, "Hey, you're finally here. Welcome to my group, Lion Group."