Morning was usually a busy time in Wellston High - the school's halls were filled with students hurrying around - whether that was rushing to their lockers to retrieve books, stressing because they forgot to complete their homework, or literally just vibing despite this.
This morning, however, Blyke wasn't paying attention to the everyday hustle and bustle, much too focused on analysing his fight less than ten hours ago (unlike the last update sike) to bother navigating the erratic obstacles that called themselves students.
'Last night in Newside...'
It was a tough fight alright, especially when the reinforcements came. Blyke could feel his injuries throbbing, particularly the bruises on his back. Luckily, they were all pretty easy to hide, apart from a small cut on his face, but it wasn't anything a little concealer couldn't fix. Despite his body aching all over, Blyke grinned and clenched his fist. That power shockwave thing? Wasn't that like, the coolest thing ever? He couldn't wait to show Remi and Isen, or maybe even use it on Joker – Blyke could already imagine the shock on Joker's face as he was blasted away (sure, he wore that stupid mask, but that's not the point).
The trip to the infirmary was quite short. Doc just gave him a glass of green liquid and told him to stop fighting with Isen after examining his injuries. Blyke had to admit it was weird how last night his injuries seemed more severe. Eh, maybe it was just fatigue making the pain worse. After thanking Doc, he strolled out of the infirmary and headed over to Maths. Apparently, even super cool insanely powerful vigilantes have to learn algebra. Yay.
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It was a well-known fact that Isen, Head of School Press (however reluctant) spent most of his lunchtimes at the Press Room. Seraphina certainly hoped that this was the case today, because she did not have the emotional strength to spend hours trying to find Isen to get information on John. Anyways, she was already in front of the Press Room, so she might as well check.
Isen, according to Arlo, could find information on basically anyone, which meant that he spent much of his time either interrogating people or hiding from high-tiers wanting to recruit him for various stalking missions (a certain Arlo, for example). Seraphina would bet her favourite HB pencil that he had some info on John that would help her understand her friend better. Why did John pretend to be a cripple? Why was he so hell-bent on destroying the hierarchy under the cover of a mask? Why was he so merciless towards his victims, even when it was clear they couldn't fight back anymore? Sera reckoned that learning about John's past could give her some insight to what was going on in his head, so that she had a better chance of helping him get through whatever he had going on. Maybe they could finally return back to the happy normality they used to share. She missed that.
Seraphina took a deep breath and opened the door.
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"Oh, hey Seraphina! What brings you here?"
Isen glanced up from the pile of news articles he was proofreading to greet Seraphina enthusiastically. A distraction from the pathetic grammar in the articles submitted would always be welcome – how did these morons even pass their English classes? And why, oh why, couldn't they stop the GODDAMN COMMA SPLICING-
"What brings you here? Do you need something?" Isen asked whilst shuffling the papers in his hands around, just so it looked like he was doing something more productive than whining over poor grammar. Seraphina didn't look fooled.
She put on a serious face and looked him in the eyes.
"Isen," she began. Shit, was he in trouble again?
"What do you know about John?"
Inwardly, Isen sighed in relief. So he wasn't in troubl- WAIT WHY'S SHE ASKING ABOUT JOHN? Seraphina seemed to notice the hesitation, and looked at him expectantly.
"Uh..." Isen stammered. 'Play dumb,' His mind supplied.
"Ha," he laughed nervously whilst holding the papers in front of his face, "John? Who's John?" 'Not that dumb!' Even Isen's own brain seemed disappointed with him.
Sera's glare got about a hundred degrees colder, and Isen was suddenly struck by how she could most definitely use any of the items in this room to, very efficiently, cause him pain. He glanced towards a stapler lying innocently on his table and imagined that in his eye. He gulped and tried to smile, though it made his mouth look like a constipated wiggly line.
Just as Isen was about to get a pencil and start writng his final will and testament (because there was no way he was getting out of this alive), Seraphina must have noticed his inner panick. Her glare softened a bit.
"You don't need to hide it anymore," Seraphina assured Isen. "I already know John is Joker. Arlo told me."
"Really?" 'Arlo is so f*cked.'
"I want, no, need to talk to him about this. But first, I want a clear picture of everything he's done until now. Everything."
Seeing how determined Seraphina was, Isen sighed in defeat. Arlo was gonna kill him. Well, if John didn't get to him first.
Luckily, Isen had a spare "cause of my headaches (John)" file hidden under the table, because the school printer glitched when he was making a copy for Arlo. He was going to burn it, but he hadn't got around to it because he was too busy fearing for his life every ten seconds. Sera accepted the file with surprisingly good grace considering Isen had scrawled beards and eyepatches on all the John photos and there were no less than five doodles of Arlo impaled on his own fork.
Once she had left, Isen breathed another sigh of relief, then locked the door and crawled under the table. Time to hide in the Press Room to avoid Arlo and John. Now, where were the rations he snuck in? They should be somewhere around here... Maybe under that cabinet?
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Sera stood outside the Press Room, staring at the files she was holding. She heard a crash and a small scream from within the room and spared a few seconds of silence in remembrance of whoever the cabinet had fallen on. She was snapped out of her thoughts when an overexcited blonde blur ran directly into her, scattering the papers she was holding onto the floor. Who the fuck had the nerve-
Seraphina lifted her head and glowered at the student in front of her, already on the floor trying to collect the papers – the highly classified papers filled with information on John nobody in the school should have in the first place – and, of course, it was Naruto, instead of some random low-tier she could just beat up or something. God dang her luck. And now he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, skim reading with worrying speed through the files, because of course he was-
"Sera? What's all this about? I mean I'm sorry for running into you and everything, but why do you have all this dirt on John in such a neat file? Aren't you two friends or something? And more importantly, why does John have a moustache in this picture? Although I will admit he looks rather cool with it," Naruto chatted, spewing words from his mouth with speed that was really grating on her nerves. Seraphina sighed. There was no point in trying to shrug this off. Anyways, Naruto was a good person, so maybe he could help her?
"Well, this 'dirt' is John's records from his old school. He's been acting stranger than normal lately so I thought gaining more information on his past will help me understand what's going on," Sera explained, snatching the papers from Naruto and standing up. "It's just so frustrating seeing him act like...like a maniac and I just want the old John back, y'know?"
"You sound like a great friend," Naruto smiled, grabbing some scattered papers from the ground and handing them to Sera. She returned the smile and started heading towards her dorm room.
"Wait, Sera!" she heard a voice call from behind her.
Seraphina paused in her step and looked back. Naruto was scrambling to get up and started jogging towards her.
"Can I help you try to understand John?" he asked, looking sincere. "I'm not that close to him, but I understand the pain of having a friend suddenly change in a bad way." Naruto's expression morphed into one almost sombre, as if reliving an unpleasant memory. "It hurts less when you have friends you can count on around, so I want to be that friend you can count on!" He gave Seraphina a bright grin.
Sera felt a sense of warmth she hadn't felt since the old John, and recently, Evie and her group of friends. The feeling that someone knew of the troubles you were going through and that she wasn't alone. It... was quite nice actually. She really missed that feeling. Unconsciously, Sera smiled.
Naruto, noticing the upturn of Sera's lips, said excitedly, "Does that mean I can help you? Kurama says that I should mind my own business, but he's a bit emotionally stunted."
Seraphina looked at him sceptically.
"Oh yeah, the giant nine-tailed fox that lives in your head?" She sometimes wondered if Naruto's mental state was any better than John's or if the blonde just did a better job at hiding it. Despite her concerns, Naruto would be useful when she would ultimately have to force John to a therapist. She also wanted to feel more of the warmth he gave her. It wasn't like with John, this was more like a friend that truly understood what she was going through, and sure as hell wasn't bailing out on her problems anytime soon.
Sighing, she nodded and started walking to her dorm again, this time, with an energetic blonde trailing behind her, feeling a lot happier than before.
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Luckily, Seraphina had a lot of experience with dealing with classified information and found an empty classroom in a less busy area of school with little difficulty. She then stuck up a sign saying 'meeting in progress' on the door and jammed it shut with a chair. Naruto found himself a seat in the corner of the classroom, produced a pen and paper out of nowhere and began doodling on it. Sera chose a chair and shuffled it over to the table Naruto was using, then started reading through the files on John, glancing over at the blonde boy's paper every so often.
After about fifteen minutes, when Sera was happy she'd extracted the most information possible from the files, she stretched her arms and looked over to Naruto, who was concentrating on drawing. Sera shuffled her chair over so she could see what he was doodling better.
Naruto's pencil flew across the paper with precision and grace. Although the drawing only looked like a few rough sketches of people, Sera could tell that the end product would be a sight to behold, which was surprising, when the person controlling the pencil was the farthest from elegance and accuracy.
"Wow, Naruto. I didn't take you for an artist," Sera remarked, watching as the beginnings of a face took form on the page. Beside her, Naruto laughed and rubbed the back of his head bashfully, eyes still trained on the picture he was drawing.
"I used to think drawing was kinda lame, to be honest, but it's actually quite therapeutic sometimes!" Naruto beamed. The pencil continued its mesmerising dance. Soon, Sera could make out four distinct figures. One person Sera recognised as Naruto. His face was quite unique after all, with the spiky hair and whisker marks. However, he was wearing a different jacket to the Wellston uniform one (which he admittedly didn't wear much anyway).
On drawing-Naruto's right was a girl Sera did not recognise. The girl had light shoulder length hair and a bright happy smile. She was wearing a dark sleeveless jacket and was also sporting a pair of very menacing fingerless gloves that hinted at some hidden strength. On her forehead was a diamond, which was a bit unusual, but Sera figured it was just a fashion statement of some sort.
To Naruto's left was a boy with dark hair which was spiked at the back (also holding a hilarious resemblance to a duck's butt). He was wearing a grey, high-necked t-shirt and dark pants, which were held up by a piece of rope. The boy was glaring up at a man with hair which looked like a hedgehog (literally what was with the level of hair spikiness in this picture) and a mask covering the majority of his face. The one eye that was visible was upturned in a show of mirth. He was behind the three teenagers and had his arms around the trio in a hug, which was probably why the black-haired boy looked so pissed in the first place.
Strangely, everyone in the picture, apart from the dark-haired boy, was wearing a headband with a metal plate in the middle. Engraved on the plate was a symbol similar to a leaf.
Naruto, noticing Sera's interest in his drawing, sat up and pointed at his figure on the paper.
"That one's me, see? And the girl over there, that's Sakura. She's very pretty but really strong! She can literally punch holes in rock and stuff, its honestly terrifying- Oh, and behind us, that's Kakashi! He's our teacher and he wears this mask all the time and we've never found out what's behind it, not even when he eats, which doesn't make any sense but eh, he can sort of enter another dimension so I guess physics just gave up on him. Aaaand there, on the other side of me, that's Sasuke. He's really annoying, like he straight up walked out on us this one time and didn't return until years later, but I never stopped trying to get him to come back, and eventually he did! So beat that Sasuke, you teme-"
They heard the crash of glass shattering behind them. Naruto saw a flash of steel in his peripheral vision. His instincts flared and he jumped out of his seat, landing in a fighting position, and holding a ballpoint pen in his hand menacingly. His eyes darted around the room, searching for whatever set off his instincts. A kunai was embedded in the table, glinting innocently. It didn't land anywhere near where his hand was, or near Sera, so Naruto presumed that the kunai wasn't thrown with the intent to harm. Naruto crept towards the table and studied the kunai with a frown. He reached out to touch the knife, but the moment his fingers brushed the handle it disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a little note. Naruto picked it up.
Sera leaned over his shoulder to read the note. On the paper was a short message, written in neat slanting handwriting:
'Dobe.'
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a/n
so
uhh
I have no excuse
honestly we just sort of lost enthusiasm and then there was less free time for us to work on writing and then well
I am sorry about that
but we're into GCSE years now so I don't think there will be an increase in free time but I mean UNORDINARY'S BACK :) which is good and we might as well be back too I think we've had enough of a break at this point
and ya know covid's taken a toll on us all, can't say anyone's mental state is particularly thriving or anything but... wait what am I doing this isn't a venting channel on discord now's not the time
I wont try to promise a rapid or regular updating schedule, definitely not as fast as we used to update at the start (then again the chapters are longer and like actually good quality now) but I can say that updates will happen, just dont exc
so I guess here we are, back from the depths of hell
stay safe, look after yourselves and get ready for actual updates!
-treezooks
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I just want to play Genshin.
OSMANTHUSWINETASTESTHESAMEASIREMEMBER
EHE I HAVE NO REGRETS (except getting Yoimiya)
-KevinDaGlorb (I promise I'm still sane)