New life for Maria Bonaparte.

Day 4 part 2

History and math class passed by in a blur, and soon she was in the library working with Sato.

"Are we ever going to run out of missing books?" she muttered.

She heard a soft chuckle from Sato. "No, we never do,"

"Why do you spend so much time here then, do you even get paid?"

"No, I don't. But I find satisfaction in my work, shouldn't that be enough?"

She scuffed "No, of course it isn't. People will just take advantage of you, and you'll get nothing from it in the end,"

"I am getting something out of this, experience and extra credit,"

"Well, at least one of those is useful. I don't see how going through a list will be good experience," she said as her own list started to unravel.

He refuted with a shrug. "You never know, maybe it will be someday,"

She rolled her eyes at him, but she went back to her work. Better to just suffer through it and wait for it to end.

It finally did, and after another boring and silent lunch with Alexander, she moved on to Dark Matter class.

"Dark Matter is a magic that can affect both the inside and outside of the body, but not in equal ways, can anyone explain why?"

Mason raised his hand for once, and Mr. Hemlock reluctantly called upon him.

"Since Dark Matter is fueled by pride, not being able to imminently see the affects of your magic will diminish that,"

"That's true, but how would a random student know that?"

The class all turned to Mason, who's smug expression never left his face.

"I'm just well read and pracacted, sir. Would you rather me be like Maria, and not be able to do anything at all?"

She hunched over her desk at his words and started whispering "Just let this be over with," over and over again.

"Then why don't you use your talents for good use then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You should come to tutoring and help out those less fortunate with their magic,"

Maria stopped repeating herself.

"This is where I die, isn't it," she thought as her stomach twirled in panic.

"What would I get out of it?"

"A chance to show off more, which seems to be your favorite thing to do,"

Some students chuckled at that, but Mason wasn't convinced.

"It is my favorite activity, but I can do that anytime, I'll need something more,"

"Extra credit should be enough, yes?"

Mason looked like he was considering it for a moment before loudly proclaiming "Yes,"

The lesson continued after that, but she failed to pay attention to any of it, too worried about her future, or her lack of one.

"What's with you today?" Alexander asked her during dinner.

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't say a single word during dinner or during community service. Are you sick or something?"

"I'm just-I'm just nervous about my tutoring session, that's all." she said before going back to eating her dinner.

"That's it? It's just a tutoring session, why are you so nervous?"

She simply shrugged her shoulders, and he sighed with annoyance, but didn't ask her anything else.

On the walk to Mr. Hemlock's class, the world started to feel more broken. Everything felt hotter, her breathing became shorter, and her stomach felt like a tsunami.

*KNOCK KNOCK!* Maria took a step back from Alexander as he banged on the door. It opened a moment later, and Mr. Hemlock ushered them in.

Mason was already inside, looking as smug as always. He glanced at Alexander before setting his eyes on her.

The sickness in her stomach worsened as he glared at her. She started to shake as she was ushered to a chair in the middle of the floor.

"We're going to try to unlock your magic. Once that can happen, we can start properly teaching you the lessons the rest of the class did,"

"How will you unlock my magic?"

"There are multiple different ways." Mr. Hemlock said as he opened a book and sat down at his desk.

"You should've already had your magic awakening ceremony at age 12, so we'll have to use alternative methods,"

After flipping through the book, he stopped at a certain page.

"Ah ha, this should work. To reawaken your magic, you'll need to strongly feel the emotion that fuels the magic,"

"Oh, so she just needs to be really prideful? That should be easy for her," Mason said.

"But I'm not!" she thought in her mind. "I'm not going to be prideful enough for that! A prideful person probably wouldn't be sick to their stomach in fear of dying right now!"

"Is there-is there any other way?" she croaked out.

All their eyes were on her, as they continued to stare she felt them drill into her head.

"Why do you need one? Have you finally figured out that you're not as good as you thought?" Mason taunted.

"No-I. . .I just don't think it will work. Is there a quicker way to get my magic working?"

"Well, the quickest way for someone to awake their magic is for the magic to be used against them, but that's more risky,"

"I'm willing to take the risk," she said, looking up at Mr. Hemlock with a pleading look in her eyes.

His eyes matched hers and he sighed.

"We can use that method, since it's the fastest, and the faster you catch up with the class the better,"

She smiled for the first time that day.

"Mason, go use a little bit of magic on Maria. Don't use too much,"

The smile went off her face, and before she could reject Mason was behind.

He placed a hand on her shoulder, and every bad feeling she had that day was magnified. She couldn't move, she couldn't breath, she could barely think.

"You're finally getting your due," he whispered into her ear as the world started getting blurry.

"I wish I could wipe that smile off his face," was the last thing she thought before the world turned black.