Seeing the old man taking out crates-worth of cargo and setting them on the dock, I asked him if I could be of any help out of habit. 

“Oh, don’t bother,” he waves me off, quickly climbing back in his boat. “There is a girl who manages it for the school. She’s a member of some student council or something like that.”

Looking at the crates, it would take a small truck to carry all of it in one go. “Just one?” 

As if to present me with an answer, an Oni—easily over ten feet tall—comes striding through the gates (probably why they made them so large in the first place). Her deep red skin glows under the harsh light of the setting sun, and her thick, silver hair flows behind her like a mane of a lion. Two horns peaking above her scalp curve backward: sharp and polished. I look back just to see the boat already pulling into the open waters. 

The Oni is getting closer—her every step making the ground tremble. Once her features come into focus, I notice that she’s not only tall, but built like a bulldozer. Stretched around her muscular body is the charcoal-black uniform of the academy. It looks deceptively normal, as if trying to convince the onlookers that she’s just an ordinary school girl.

“Centaur, right?” Straight to the business, it seems. “Thought you’d have hooves or something.”

My eyes flick from her golden irises to the yellow armband wrapped around her right shoulder. “No hooves,” I say dryly. “Just…feet.” Looking down at her wooden sandals, I confirm that she also has feet. Does this count as having something in common? Probably not.

“Ah. You’re the kid from the news—the hybrid.” She snorts, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Like her nails, Oni's teeth are sharp, glinting in the dim sun. “Funny. I’ve never seen a picture of you.”

As I open my mouth to speak, the titaness looms over me, bending over to pick up the crates under her armpits. There is a minimal struggle, but that’s mainly due to the clunky nature of the crates. “You were saying?” She finally stands up, cracking her neck with enough force to bend reinforced steel while looking me in the eyes.

“My family tried to keep me anonymous. I guess they wanted me to have a normal life.” Based on the fact that I am currently walking side by side with an Oni to a school filled with monster girls, you could consider it a failure. Still, I appreciate the gesture. 

The Oni shakes with laughter, making my body go still as if hearing the roar of a large carnivore. “Ever heard of the Streisand effect? Half-human…you’ll be a spectacle whether you like it or not. Maybe you should make the most of it?” I look up as we approach the gates, seeing the giantess stack the crates by the entrance like a kid stacking wooden blocks. “But don’t worry. Nobody is going to mess with you—not here.”

“Because of the academy rules?” Now that I think about it, it is only logical that the school would set up some rules prohibiting mocking anybody because of their physical-

“No.” That simple word made me go still as if the woman was somehow bothered by my internal rambling. “Because I’ll make sure they don’t.” I see her muscular back becoming more pronounced as the Oni flexes her biceps, stretching the yellow fabric of the armband. “Student council’s job, after all.”

“So you are on the student council?” I was too awed by the display to realize that she had literally just said that. Based on how popular strongman competitions are, this is something people would pay to see.

The Oni shakes her head. “Not like I had much of a choice. They like to stick the grunt work on the bigger ones.” Bigger ones…plural? “Name’s Emiko, by the way.” Squatting down, the Oni once again grins at me before ruffling my hair with two fingers. “Keep your head up,” she says while pressing it down. “Monsters can smell blood better than humans.” 

Emiko leaves me with that ominous warning at the academy’s lobby like a dog. “Emiko?” I raise a hand to her, already seeing her disappear into the cyclopean mess that is the school. Looking up, there are circular floors stacked atop each other leading up to a dome, with a huge pillar at the center: a modern Dante’s Inferno. 

“Magdalena will take it over from here.”