"Have you seen any other strange cadets?"
"No, but there could be more."
I had to leave room to use her in the future, too.
"Very well then. Lady Evanka will certainly appreciate this
information. I'll keep an eye on them for now; keep an eye out for any more of them."
"Certainly. It'd be best to take them down as soon as possible."
"Yes. However, any rash moves would scare those possibly still in hiding. They've been stable so far. Don't worry, I won't be waiting long."
I gave a small bow once again.
"Thank you."
Alice merely replied with a light nod. The leisurely air about her was replaced by an almost choking seriousness.
"You may leave."
I wasted no time obeying, yet I could almost swear the stares of those creepy dolls followed me on my way out.
Well, that was easy.
I squinted my brows at the thought.
'A little too easy!
The sound of a step in the hallway broke through my train of thought. Tracing it back to its origin, I found a familiar brooding figure
stepping into the corridor.
Dark hair, hand perpetually resting on a sheathed sword, dressed in a dark kimono.
It was Instructor Kaito.
The man didn't react visibly to my presence, merely leveling an uninterested gaze at me as he approached.
'He's not gonna do anything, right?"
The man could be a little trigger-happy, at least according to how I wrote him. Especially if he sensed danger.
I wasn't even remotely dangerous, but still chose to err on the side of caution. I gave him a slight bow deferentially.
"Good morning, Instructor."
The man didn't change his pace or even stop to acknowledge the greeting, merely walking by me and entering Alice's office without knocking.
'Tsk... Asshole!'
I stopped myself there, choosing to walk away as fast as possible. The man couldn't read minds, but he could certainly sense intent.
Kaito stepped into Alice's office, immediately feeling the gazes of her dolls land on him. His brows creased in annoyance.
"Tell your dolls to cut it out."
Alice rubbed her forehead in frustration.
"Depends. Can you learn to knock before entering a room?"
"It wouldn't have mattered anyway."
The man pulled out a chair and took a seat, staring straight at Alice. Eventually, she sighed, snapping her fingers, and he felt the gazes lift off him.
She went straight to business afterwards.
"What do you want, Kaito?"
He glanced at the door before looking back at her.
"I had no idea you took interest in weaklings."
Alice didn't seem the slightest bit offended at that.
"Are you talking about Victor? He was here on official business."
"Is that his name? I have noticed him a few times in my class."
"What are your thoughts on him?"
The man scratched his chin a bit before speaking.
"Weak. He is paired against the Sato girl, a pairing that if I remember correctly was arranged by you. He's got a terrible constitution, and keeps picking weapons like spears against a nimble opponent like Maki, so he isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed."
"You could remember all that, but couldn't even remember his name?"
The man just shrugged.
Alice sighed before continuing.
"It is strange, though. I figured you'd find him interesting; after all, he
is an orphan."
Kaito's brow perked a bit before settling.
"Nothing special about being an orphan."
"I thought so too, yet surprisingly he managed to score 2nd place in the simulation. More so, he has been rated as SS grade potential." Now that was enough to catch Kaito's attention. He glanced back at the door, eyes lowering as though pondering something.
Alice stopped him right there.
"Don't go cooking up any schemes now, Kaito. The boy has already
been marked by Lady Evanka."
The man's demeanor turned serious, even a little reverent.
"Is... is he necessary to her plans?"
"I know about as much as you do about the Lady's machinations.
Think of him as an investment for now."
Kaito nodded slowly, his eyes still scheming.
"Kaito."
The man glanced up at her, and perhaps for the first time in a long
while, there was a look of anticipation on his face.
"Don't worry. He won't die."
In the end, Alice accepted that as the best she was going to get out of
Kaito. The man was needlessly willful.
"What was your purpose in coming here again?"
His face was already back to its normal, impassive state.
"Right. Is the list of new staff finalized?"
Alice rubbed her forehead in frustration for perhaps the umpteenth
time today.
"Mostly. There's been a push among the nobles, mostly the Aurelius
ilk, to get one of their own Paragons assigned here."
Kaito didn't even take the last part of her sentence seriously.
"That's an impossibility."
"Of course it is. Solaris and Oni would never allow it, not without
assigning their own Paragons. Doesn't change the fact that that's what's happening. They're just stalling for time."
"Why?"
"Take a guess. Power, authority, to show that we are weak without the
Lady. It could be anything really; I'm not in the heads of those
parasites."
Kaito carefully stood up before replying.
"As long as the Lady's plans remain unaffected."
"As long as the Lady's plans remain unaffected, we will do what we
can."
"Very well, Headmistress."
The man gave her a light nod before walking out of the room.
The room fell silent once again, only broken by the occasional
crackling of flames from the fireplace.
Alice watched the orange flame dance to some unseen tune, her eyes growing ever distant and solemn.
I moved slowly through the crowd of students trickling into the
combat hall, using Shin to support myself.
Yes, I'd once again trained brutally this morning.
Rowan walked beside us, observing me curiously.
"Is it just me? Or are you always like this every morning?" Shin perked up a bit at the question, moving to answer it for me.
Luckily, I wasn't so dizzy I couldn't shut him up before he spouted bullshit. A punch to the shoulder was enough for that.
"I train in the morning."
The boy looked at me skeptically, contemplating his next choice of
words.
"I don't know how exactly to tell you this, but this..."
He scanned my corpse-like figure.
"...doesn't seem to be the result of just training"
I rolled my eyes.
"Gee... go figure. Why don't you take a guess?"
The boy rubbed his chin for a bit before his eyes widened a bit in
realization.
"Oh..."
He wasn't stupid. The boy was likely just confirming his suspicion.
It couldn't be too hard to guess my current state was due to a burden, especially since he'd personally dragged me to a hospital.
As for Shin, the wolfman's misunderstanding was entirely intentional. He was only looking to mess with me.
Regardless, with the door just in front of us, I let go of Shin, testing
my weight on my own two feet.
'Not too bad.'
I was getting used to operating under these conditions. Two weeks of
training tended to do that to you... not that it made me feel particularly better.
The moment I stepped in, I felt a gaze on me. Tracing it led to Kaito,
standing in his usual spot.
'He's probably just staring at the crowd, right?'
No shot he could be looking at little, uninteresting old me. The man
shifted his gaze back to those already surrounding him, and we wasted no time in hurrying to join them.
The closer we got, the more I noticed the murmurs coming from the
crowd around him.
'Do they have death wishes?"
The man didn't seem to mind them though. It was probably nothing.
Shin looked interested in the conversation, so I asked, whispering even though I knew Kaito could hear me.
"What are they talking about?" The wolfman looked at me with some surprise.
"Do you live under a rock? How didn't you hear anything over the
weekend?"
"I was uh... busy."
Well... busy hiding from Vladimir and Varic's goons. Not that I was
afraid of them or anything, it'd just be super frustrating moving around campus with those fools trying to sabotage me. Especially so since Song didn't hang around them during weekends.
Plus, I had to focus all my attention on training so I could at least catch up with the class average.
Shin shook his head in stupefaction before deciding to just tell me.