Some things are black
Some things are white
You shouldn't look through coloured lenses
You're a good guy
He's the bad guy
Your boring world is in black and white.
"Ah, Amir-san!" Yuu called, an angry expression bore on her face as Mira removed one bud of her earphones from her ear, standing near the entrance of the cafeteria. She was lucky that her earphones were tucked from her shirt that could keep hanging, otherwise, it would have fallen to the ground with a light clack. "Hear this! Remember how we said that Ace guy was meant to clean 100 windows with us?"
"Uh, yeah."
Grim punched the air with his small paws. "To think he'd go so low to even ditch his punishment—!"
So many shades of grey
Oh, how can you still not know?
Good easily fades away
Think twice before you like me.
"If I were this 'Ace', I'd run away too— no joke," Mira muttered as she scanned the first room that they had cleaned without the other first-year. "I mean, knowing that the first day of your high school youth has already been ruined by a raccoon who tries to be a fire-breathing dragon because they can't handle being angry sucks. Considering how he hasn't had enough knowledge when handle magic since this is his first day, too, would cause blotting of his magical pen."
"Magical pen?"
"This," Mira whipped out her magical pen with the emerald jewel embedded into it. Yuu's eyes shone from the beauty of it, as Mira aimed her pen at a random window. With a wave, sparkles flew towards the window and surprised Yuu as the stains along with the leftover water droplet mark disappeared, leaving the window looking as good as new. "As I said, learning how to control magic makes this punishment pretty easy to handle— but 100 of these using magic will cause overblot without the catalyst of stress. Someone will teach you about it soon, anyway."
"Let's go, henchmen! We're gonna catch Ace and make him do all the window washing!" Grim, on the other hand, angrily snapped as he flew out of the cafeteria with the aim to murder. Mira sweatdropped as her legs automatically took her to follow Grim. As much as she wanted a dear break of her own, she did promise them to tag along and help out— as long as she didn't have to do most of the job. Somehow, the drama that she had asked for much earlier didn't seem to fit her category.
A little huff escaped from her lips. "Do I seriously have to find that first-year as well? I only promised to clean the windows since I don't mind the labour, but any more than this and I need some sort of compensation."
Great, first day and I'm already sounding like that soft-eared boy.
"Compensation? How about...uhhh," Yuu rummaged through her blazer pocket before her eyes widened, seemingly finding something in there that seemed worth. "How about this coffee drop?"
"Coffee drop?" Mira chirped before Yuu placed the candy on the latter's pale hands. Her expression changed as she studied the familiar candy wrapping. "Wait, didn't you just get this from my cupboard in the kitchen? That's not very cash money of you, Yuu. Ugh, it does energise me somehow...so I'm only tagging along, right?"
"Yes! The more people we have to find that guy, the better it is!" Yuu answered as they turned their heads from room to room to find where Grim went. During their time, Mira had asked what 'Ace' had looked like and the only answer she received was a dirty-orange shade of hair, deep red eyes and a red heart print on his left eye.
Because
I'm a villain
What makes you think otherwise?
You don't know what a wicked little devil I am
You're a villain
What makes you think otherwise?
The villain you failed to notice breathes within you
"Red heart, red heart. If he has a suit as a symbol then this highly indicates that he is perhaps a member of Heartslabyul," she muttered to herself as a reminder just in case she had forgotten— a habit that whatever she had learnt would go from one ear and out the other. Although she was still listening to the music that blasted in her ears, she decided to lower the volume and search. Ever since childhood in her original body, she had hated the game of hide-and-seek, so now that magic was a thing— especially having her useful unique magic that even she thought was quite overpowering, had helped.
She clicked her tongue before calling out to Yuu. "Hey, how eager are you to find this guy?"
"Yes."
"N-No, not that meme!"
"Well, as long as we can't find him then we might get kicked out of the ramshackle for all we know!"
She exhaled heavily before staring at the distance. "Guess I'll use my unique magic."
"U-Unique magic? Is that meant to be some sort of skill?"
"Yeah, everyone is meant to have their own type of magical skill called Unique Magic — and they name it as well," Mira explained as she closed her eyes, then smirking with confidence as she placed a finger on her forehead. "Velvet Heartbeat!"
In an instant, Yuu swore she saw the floor emit waves, the walls slightly shaking as her mouth gaped open, sweat trickling down her face as anxiety took a toll on her. "A-Amir-san, what was that!?"
"My unique magic, of course! I am able to detect a person who I need to find or interrogate— also gaining all the information I need from them...but I prefer not to say the deeper information for their safety," Mira answered before pointing to her left. "That Ace guy who's currently a first-year of class 1-A and 25th on the roll, born on the 23rd of September with the height of 172 cm — he's in the Hall of Mirrors and damn, he looks sketchy as Hell. Seems like the cheeky type, huh?"
"Grim, let's go!" Yuu exclaimed as Grim zoomed through the hallway. Mira wondered if they even knew where the Hall of Mirrors was, considering that they had barely been able to venture through the campus.
Well, youths will be youths. I'll just leave them be until they drag that guy back over here to finish off their job. Great, now I'm really craving for some coffee.
Mira took a seat from one of the many benches in the cafeteria, the size of the room seemingly much larger than when the lots of students rushed in to get the limited lunches. She recalled people battling with magic just to get their desired food, the cussing and the bullying of those who were weaker than their opponent. It seemed that the children in the academy weren't as different as the kids that she spent her old life with.
She tried so hard not to remember, yet why was she feeling this nostalgic?
"It's been years...since when are you going to let go of yourself?" She whispered, yet the soft voice that she had emitted sounded a lot like her old voice rather than Mira's. "She's given you a chance to be reborn, so you should at least live life to her standards. She's going to be disappointed seeing her body like this."
I'm killing someone, maybe
You're killing someone, maybe
I'm killing you, maybe
You're killing me, maybe
The glass panes embedded on the walls shone scarce rays that brought dust into the cafeteria. The undulating pleats of the rays somehow comforted her despite being the only person, yet she sensed some sort of life source approaching closer to her. Whisking her head to the entrance in caution, her eyes locked with emerald green — the same shade as her magic pen. Her eyes didn't fail to trace to his figure as she blatantly stared.
We all pretend to be the heroes on the good side
But what if we're the villains on the other?
"Malleus."
🌻
"Hey, are we there yet!?"
"Do you think you see Ace?" Yuu rolled her eyes as she continued her way to the Hall of Mirrors. She almost passed a room, stopping her tracks and sliding the ends of her shoes before jerking her head back to see through the door. There he was, Ace Trappola, seemingly heading to his dorm. She gritted her teeth yet before she could do anything, Grim had pounced through the entrance of the room and broke into an angry fit.
"HEEEY YOU!"
"G-Grim, not so loud—!"
"Geh! I've been found!" The latter panicked as he looked back at the mirror of Heartslabyul distances away from him, almost ready to enter through as Grim dashed up to him and pulled his arm. "I'm not going to wait around for you to catch me, I'm outta here!"
H-Huh? There's someone else here! What should I do? Should I call them out to help?
Now that I think about it, they have a suit symbol on their face, too. Amir-san said that those with similar features like these indicate that they're from the same dorm, so I guess they're both..?
"H-Hey, you! Can you help us and stop that guy?" Yuu quickly asked. The male with a spade mark on his right eye felt stunned, conflicted on what he was pulled into. She felt sorry for him, yet without his help would just let Ace run away. "Please use some sort of magic to stop him from running away!"
"Magic to capture someone?" He asked, baffled and confused. Grim further emphasised that he should just randomly summon something heavy to trap him, which made him more panicked than before. "A-Alright. Come out— something heavy!"
A cauldron.
A cauldron out of all the heavy things in the world.
A-At least it's heavy and we trapped our target..?
Yuu rushed over to the culprit, who was lying on the ground trapped under the cauldron. For a moment, she felt a small sense of accomplishment, yet the kudos were definitely for the stranger with the spade on his right eye. She wondered why he summoned a cauldron out of all things but it managed to hold him down.
"G-Guueh! What the— a pot!?"
Grim snickered and pointed to him in a teasingly manner. "Check it out! Ace is as flat as a pancake under that cauldron— so lame!"
"G-Grim! That's mean!" Yuu interfered, grabbing Grim from approaching Ace to assert his dominance. She reminded herself what Mira had told her earlier on during lunch. "Amir-san did say to not 'uno reverse' someone just because they offended you, did she not?"
(she did not)
"Hey, he called us lame! What's this 'uno reverse' thing anyway?"
Yuu's attention was shifted to the other student, still alarmed by his own summoning of a cauldron. "Thanks for your help, this guy was gonna skip out on detention."
"Detention?"
"Man, this hurts..." Ace mumbled as he wriggled under, trying to escape. "You guys should be fine since those 100 windows should be clean in a flash."
"Huh!?" Yuu twirled her head towards the perpetrator, clearly offended by the fact that someone who said the task should be easy was the escapee. "I just about M̶cFucking had it, man, if it was that easy then you wouldn't be running away in the first place! Not to mention, these are the orders from the headmaster- we can easily snitch you if you decide to y̶e̶e̶t run out of here."
"Washing 100 windows as punishment!?" The man jumped in fear. "What in the world did you also do?"
Ace pouted as he dusted his uniform after being plummeted to the ground. "I got into it a bit with the furball over there before we charred the Queen of Hearts' statue."
Yuu could not describe how twisted and offended her saviour looked when he heard from Ace. "You damaged one of the Great Seven statues!? That's definitely something people would get angry with. You get into a prestigious school before doing something like that on the first day..."
Hngh? Something feels out of place...but I can't seem to know what it is.
"I'm Deuce. Deuce Spade. Would it hurt to memorise your classmates' faces at least? Uhh—"
"You haven't memorised them either!"
Yuu furrowed her eyebrows as she stared at the two bickering at each other. She felt like something was oddly quiet, so she looked from left to right before coming to a realisation.
"Ah! That furball is gone!" Ace shouted before looking around, seeing Grim at the entrance poking his tongue out at them in mockery. Yuu felt her muscles tense and an irk mark popped on her forehead, a burning hot aura surrounding her as she felt so done with the things she had to deal with from Grim.
Although she didn't have magic, it seemed that having the two people by her side was good enough to catch the raccoon of mischief.
🌻
"Malleus."
"It's been a while, Amir Delacroix," he said monotonously as he entered the cafeteria. "It seems you have no plans on moving to Diasomnia?"
Mira scrunched up her face before placing her arms behind her head in a tired manner. Quickly looking to the right to think about the topic for a single moment, she sighed. "Nope. I'm fine with chilling in the ramshackle. I'm sure your dorm doesn't welcome me anyway, right? The only similarity that we have is this magic pen."
She waved her magic pen and managed to balance the tip for a second, then snatching it with the same hand and placing it in her shirt pocket. Mira faced Malleus once again to see his stern yet confused face. She wondered why he never managed to change his expressions, and when he did, she could notice it the most. Silence comforted them as she rested her arm on the table of the bench.
"They just don't know your strength," he answered, taking a seat beside her. His back length unconsciously overwhelmed her as she sat slumped over the table. "Everything about you is fit for Diasomnia, after all. From your unique magic to your determination in studying— I don't see what the problem is with my dorm. Oh, perhaps it's my managing?"
Mira found herself giving him a lopsided smile that somehow gave Malleus an expectant look. She exhaled and pursed her lips. "It's just— I don't vibe with the environment very well over there."
"Vibe?"
"Sorry, some jargon."
She felt something spark from her mind, then turned her head around to the entrance of the cafeteria. "Some people are going to be coming back to clean 100 windows, you sure you want them to find you?"
Mira caught a quick glance of his frown before her hand slapped his back. She called this 'her way of comforting people' when they were feeling down, yet she did not know why he felt this way. Maybe he was just sad because he didn't have enough time to influence her to join Diasomnia, but she supposed that it wasn't enough to just take her there.
"100 windows?"
"Well, they did some nasty stuff this morning," she said as she stood up from her seat. Malleus, too, stood up before folding his arms. The sun had long set, which made her purse her lips in question to where they were. How long had she been sitting there for? "But now that I think about it, where are they? Don't tell me they ditched me like how your dormmates and dorm leaders forget you."
"..."
"I'm not guilty about what I just said."
"Unfortunately."
Before she was able to say anything else, her heart thumped hard involuntarily as she shook, her head turning aimlessly left to right which slightly caught Malleus off-guard. "I can feel two souls coming back, so it might be the people I'm waiting for. This is a good time for you to disappear, y'know?"
"Alright," he answered as he closed his eyes, then pixie dust sprinkled in front of her once she blinked. It has been a while since she had seen him disappear, so she was still sometimes surprised when sparkles of dust flashed in front of her face like confetti. She somehow wondered for a single moment whether she would actually fit in with the members of Diasomnia, their weird personalities and fame in their recent games of Magical Shift.
Like she thought, she wouldn't vibe very well.
"A-Amir-san! You couldn't guess what had happened just then!" Yuu's voice caught her attention as she heard the huffs and puffs coming from both the girl and Grim. They seemed to have exhausted yet gleeful faces.
Mira cocked her head to the side and lifted an eyebrow as her eyes sharpened in cruelty and irritation. "So? What made you guys think you could keep me hanging?"
"I'm sorry about that— but! We're finally students!"
"Huh? Students? You mean, you met the Principal and worked things out?"
Yuu waved her arms about in various emotions as she explained. "Well, we did get into some...a lot of trouble when we went to find Ace-san, but there was this nice guy from the same dorm named Deuce Spade. He helped us catch him before GRIM tried to escape, making us go all out to chase him back. We then kinda broke the chandelier that costed 1 billion madol—"
"PWAH!"
Mira punched her chest to stop herself from choking, coughs and surprises stopping her from breathing. "S-Sorry, it's not Corona, but 1 billion!? What the heck did you guys do!?"
"That's what made the headmaster mad! He told us that we needed this crystal used in order to fix it, so we did before finding this freaky monster," Yuu elaborated. "So we all fought it together and returned with the crystal in hand."
Huh?
Fought it together?
As much as I know, students here usually don't fight 'together'.
"And?"
"And when we told him about our big adventure, he suddenly started crying and accepting us!" Grim finished off, a sound of accomplishment rolling off his tongue. Mira nodded in understanding before her legs made way to the exit. Although she managed to patch things together with Yuu's explanation, she still felt a bit bothered by the fact that perhaps she could have sorted things out about her class arrangement with the headmaster as well if she had joined the others instead of being emo in the cafeteria.
She placed her hands on her hips before turning around to glance at the two students-to-be. "Guess we can have a little party?"
As the three left to the ramshackle of a dorm, Yuu could only think about whether someone had kept Mira company during their little adventure with the Heartslabyul first-years.
***
"I cannot do that."
"Huh!? Why!?" Mira slammed her hands on the headmaster's table as an irk mark popped on her face, her eyes distorting in anger. "Unless you're abusing your sense of power in regards to authority, I don't understand what this could affect to the school. You did agree to this when I first made it into the academy, didn't you?"
She saw the headmaster's mask look up to her, the bright yellow eyes shining from within. He sighed, then slid her student profile to the other side. "You do remember the agreements to this contract, right? The problem was because you were considered a 'sociopath', but it seems that you handled Yuu-kun and Grim-kun very well. To me, this is a big accomplishment that you should feel proud of yourself of. I know this is hard, but perhaps you can spread your field of friendships with new classmates."
"C-Classmates!?"
She could feel her eyes burst from their sockets as she withdrew her hands from the desk, an offended look written all on her face as if she were a book. Mira couldn't seem to believe that the worst of her struggles would start from her second year of high school, which meant all her plans after graduation when being alone would have to be scrapped and replaced with the vanquished options of her survival stratagem.
"Yes, yes, for I am gracious!" He chirped in glee before pointing to a small section of her student profile. "To sum things up, I have chosen you to go into class 2-E. Do take care."
"...Let me move my bang so I can read that again."
'Do take care' my ass— you just ruined my future high school career!
"Oh, that also reminds me, I have brought a very reliable person to help you with adjusting your learning environment," he said as she blinked heavily. A reliable person? For her entire life, she had never met anyone more reliable than herself- just how much was she able to even trust about the headmaster? For all she knew, perhaps he had brought in the most annoying piece of mushroom.
"You can come in now!"
Holy mother of—
"Your helpful classmate will be..."
Please say sike right now—!
"Jade Leech!"
Right in front of her was probably the last person she would have asked for assistance; the person whom she knew would be her death flag— the one who would have the chances of uncovering all her secrets and sins for the past decades. All she saw was the pair of gold and olive orbs that shone with cleverness, ones that would one day cause the suffering of her life. The wide grin that spread on his lips caused her hands to shake as he drew a hand to his chest.
"It has been a while, Amir Delacroix-san. Now, shall we head over to 2-E?"