Rulebook Of Chaos || Elemental Academy ✓

🕗 8:00 🕗 [•K•]

Kritika Tamang was chilling in her homeroom.

Her socked feet were propped up on the desk, and eyes were immersed in the gory, bloodfest of a historical novel that was Lilies for Laila. She lifted her deep brown irises and saw the clock's minute hand stop at eleven.

She had five minutes before being herded into the school auditorium. Her knees still smarted from her fainting the day before during her prefect rounds. She had almost dragged out a classmate for her sparkly nail-job when her brain (according to her bestie) had decided to crash like a Cygneknight game server. The curled tips of her fishtail braid scratched the skin on her jaw, and she flipped it over her shoulder, trying to ignore the throb in her kneecaps. For someone as senile as the principal, he sure loved making long speeches on discipline.

Kritika's surroundings were classmate free, with three orphaned satchels watching over her from the front desk. The Art homeroom smelled of neem inflorescence, marker ink, and chalk dust. Oscillating branches of the neem trees planted outside the building shaded them from the tropical sun. Little, green berries hung from them on long, thin stalks, like jade beads on a necklace.

The satchels watched in helpless silence when one of them fell from the desk. Kritika could've saved the poor satchel. Unfortunately, that would have involved her wriggling out of her desk. So she didn't bother herself with it, and simply returned to her book. Laila, the Sultana of Sameerkhand, had just ignited a serial killer in public with a wave of her hand.

The urgent rapping on the door-frame made her look up once again. Her best friend, Esther Guinto, stood panting at the door. She tucked a strand of her baby pink hair behind her ear and licked her chaffed lips.

"What bringeth thee here upon this unholy hour, fair maiden?" asked Kritika from her seat.

Esther rolled her eyes and said, "Sorry to have interrupted your reading, madam, but we have an emergency meeting. Lamai looked pissed."

Kritika got up from her seat, dropped the novel into her satchel."I hath grievous tragedies awaiting my audience. Well, tarry not maiden, escort me towards the kingly lair."

Esther caught her by the right arm, and dragged her in the opposite direction."Are you going to talk like that all day? I should've smuggled my earphones into school."

"Wasn't it you who had reft a lass of her MP3 player? It would be best to cast aside Ari Larson and ReBeat, maiden, bigger problems are at hand," said Kritika, as she switched sides to interlock arms with Esther.

Sure enough, the first-year corridor lay long and treacherous between the sixth-year classes and the staircase leading to the principal's office. One of the top-ten bullying locations in the Academy, it separated the six sections from one another in a three-by-three arrangement.

The younger students were particularly restless that day for some reason.

While Esther wrestled through the throng of eleven-year-old imps, Kritika kept the paper planes at bay. Twice had she returned the paper-balls to the assailant's face. Both of them stopped as they reached the other end of the corridor, and turned around.

"Huh?" asked Kritika.

The boy, dribbling a ball of what was presumably saliva between his hands, repeated with a smug grin."I said, you weebs suck."

He then pitched the ball forward.

Kritika saw Esther's left hand rise from her skirt pockets and mimic a back-handed slap. The boy's spit-ball retraced its trajectory and dissolved into a huge splotch on his white shirt. The impact of the smack caught him off balance and he fell hard on his rear.