The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 244

Chapter 244: 244 | What It Feels Like To Drown [GT BONUS]

He tapped his cane once against the reinforced floor, and the sound rang through the amphitheater like a judge’s gavel.

"That definition tells you what an Aspect is in the same way that telling you water is hydrogen and oxygen tells you what it feels like to drown. The IHL classification system tells you what box to put an Aspect in. The combat manuals tell you what an Aspect does when you point it at something that needs breaking. None of that tells you what an Aspect actually is, which is the only question that matters in this room."

He straightened and moved away from the whiteboard, his cane marking each step with a soft click against the plating.

"An Aspect is a relationship."

He let the word hang.

"Between you and something that lives inside your body that you did not choose, did not ask for, and cannot return. It will define how the world sees you. It will determine what you are legally permitted to do and where you are permitted to do it. It will shape every meaningful relationship you form for the rest of your life, because every person you meet will filter their understanding of you through what your Aspect tells them about your capabilities and your threat level." He paused. "Your parents had a relationship with their Aspects before you were born. Their parents before them. The inheritance of power across generations is not genetic transfer in the way your biology courses will describe it. It is a conversation between bloodlines, and sometimes that conversation produces something neither parent intended."

His gold eyes found me.

Not a glance. Not a sweep. A landing. Direct and sustained and knowing in a way that made the back of my neck go cold.

"Late manifestation is not a failure of the body to produce what was always present," Dravid said, still looking at me. "It is a silence that lasted longer than expected before the conversation finally found something to say."

He held my gaze for three full seconds. Then his attention moved on, passing over Rina, whose tail had gone rigid against her chair, and settling on Suki, who sat with her notebook open and her pen motionless.

"Tanaka."

Suki looked up. Her dark blue eyes met Dravid’s gold ones without flinching.

"Your Aspect is Resonate. Voice-based command frequencies. Legendary classification." Dravid’s voice carried no inflection of praise or judgment. Just data. "What does your Aspect want?"

The room went very quiet.

Suki’s pen moved across her notebook. She tore the page free, held it up so Dravid could read it.

He read it. Something shifted in his expression that might have been approval or might have been recognition or might have been both wearing the same face.

"That," Dravid said to the class, "is the only honest answer anyone has given me today."

He turned back to the whiteboard and wrote beneath his original question:

WHAT DOES YOUR ASPECT WANT FROM YOU?

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