Chapter 72. Whatever You’re Seeing, It Already Happened
Clara, however, wasn’t looking at Ellie. Her eyes were fixed on the jagged, bleeding wound in space where the creatures had emerged.
Her usual analytical detachment was fraying at the edges, visible in the way her jaw remained locked tight. "Did you see that, Instructor Wade...?"
"Those weren’t standard Tier One specimens," she said, her voice carrying a rare note of genuine unease. "The chitinous density, the coordinated attack patterns... the energy readings from that rift are completely off the charts for this depth."
"This shouldn’t exist here... don’t tell me this is another incident that was the same as you back then, facing a tier-five monster."
William turned his head to glance at the rift. The low hum was fading, but the sense of wrongness remained, clinging to the walls like a foul odor.
"I know," he said grimly, his hand tightening on the hilt of Aetherion. "But we aren’t here to solve the mystery of the dungeon’s ecology."
"We’re here to survive it."
He turned back to the group, his expression hardening into something steely cold. "Pack what you can."
"We’re moving out... Now..." And then William noticed Catherine.
Catherine still stood exactly where she’d frozen, sword only half drawn, both hands wrapped white-knuckled around the hilt, staring at the space where the rift had torn open with an expression that had nothing to do with the danger that had just been neutralized.
Her breathing came in short, uneven gasps, and her eyes, distant and glassy, tracked something that clearly existed only in her own memory, some other collapsing space from eight years earlier laid directly over the one in front of her.
"Vice Headmaster?" Kaela’s voice carried genuine alarm now, all her earlier bravado evaporating instantly at the sight of the vice headmaster standing frozen and hollow-eyed in the middle of the corridor. "Oi! Vice Headmaster! Are you hurt?"
Catherine didn’t answer. And she didn’t seem to hear the question at all.
"Instructor Wade... you might have to check on her." Lia said, her voice tight with concern, glancing between Catherine’s blank, distant stare and William’s face for some kind of explanation.
"Yeah... I got it." William crossed the distance to Catherine slowly and deliberately, sheathing Aetherion as he moved, keeping his own posture calm and unhurried despite the urgency screaming underneath his skin.
He’d seen this before, more times than he cared to count in his old life: soldiers frozen mid-battlefield by a memory that had nothing to do with the fight currently happening around them, and he knew, with absolute certainty, that the worst possible thing he could do right now was startle her or crowd her without warning.
"Catherine," he said, his voice low and steady. "It’s over for now."
"Everyone’s safe.... You’re still at the academy dungeon, tier one; it’s the middle of the afternoon, and everyone here is fine."
Her breathing hitched, some small fraction of awareness flickering back into her eyes at the sound of his voice, though the glassy distance didn’t fully clear.
"William?" Her voice came out thin, uncertain, nothing like her usual composed register.
"Right here." He kept his distance measured, close enough to be present and far enough not to feel like a threat. "You’re safe and everyone’s safe."
"Whatever you’re seeing right now, it already happened, and it’s not happening again."
Catherine’s grip on her sword finally loosened, the blade slipping from her shaking hands and clattering against the stone floor, and she pressed both palms against her own face, a broken, shuddering breath escaping through her fingers.
The rest of the group had gone silent, watching with a mixture of concern and confusion that William understood he was going to need to manage carefully, but his priority, entirely and completely, stayed fixed on the woman in front of him.
"I think we’re done for today," he said, loud enough for the others to hear without turning fully away from Catherine. "Everyone’s uninjured, the immediate threat’s handled, and I’d rather we regroup properly on the surface than push our luck further."
"What about the rift?" Olivia asked, glancing warily back toward the still faintly visible tear in the corridor wall.
"I’ll report it to Albert the moment we’re back... It seems like every dungeon needs proper investigation, not us poking at it further while everyone’s rattled." William kept his tone firm and decisive, the voice of someone used to ending arguments before they started.
"Kaela, Lia, get everyone moving back toward the entrance."
"Clara, keep an eye on Ellie."
"Olivia, lead them out."
"What about you, Instructor Wade?" Kaela asked, glancing between him and Catherine with obvious, unspoken concern.
"I’ve got her," William said simply. "Go."
Kaela hesitated a moment longer, her usual bravado nowhere in evidence, gaze flicking once more toward Catherine’s shaking shoulders before she nodded, some of the fight visibly draining out of her posture.
"Is she going to be okay?"
"She will be... Just not in the next five minutes." William kept his voice even, reassuring, aware of every set of eyes still lingering on the scene. "Now go on, leave."
"I’ll bring her up shortly."
"Okay." Kaela’s voice had lost all its usual sharp edges, replaced by something younger, more uncertain. "Take care of her."
"I will."
That seemed to be enough. Kaela turned, finally, gathering the others with a quiet efficiency that surprised William given her usual chaotic energy, and the group began making their way back down the corridor toward the entrance.
Lia glanced back once with an expression that carried more worry than she probably intended to show.
For once, nobody argued.
The walk back to the surface took considerably longer than the walk in had, Catherine moving stiffly beside William with her arms wrapped tight around herself, saying nothing at all until they’d emerged fully into the fading afternoon light and the rest of the group had continued on ahead toward the academy.
Kaela glanced back over her shoulder more than once with obvious, restless worry before Lia finally steered her forward with a firm hand on her arm.
...
Back at the dormitories, once the rest of the group had settled somewhat from the day’s events, Kaela proved characteristically incapable of letting the subject of William’s fight drop, cornering Lia in the common room with an energy that suggested she’d been holding the entire retelling in since the moment they’d left the dungeon.
"He went from double wield straight into that arcane cannon mid-stride," she said, for what was easily the fourth time that evening, pacing in front of the fireplace with wide, animated gestures. "He didn’t even break rhythm."
"And the shot, Lia, the shot went straight through its throat before it could finish charging whatever it was about to do!"
"I’ve never seen anything move that fast in real combat."
"I was there, Kaela. I saw it too."
"I know you saw it; I’m just saying, it was incredible."
"You’ve said that six times now."
"Because it was incredible six separate times."
Lia rubbed at her temple with the particular weariness of someone who had already exhausted every polite way of ending this conversation and was rapidly approaching the less polite options.
"Kaela, it’s late... Ellie’s still shaken, Clara’s writing up notes she clearly needs quiet to finish, and I would genuinely like to sleep at some point tonight instead of hearing a ninth recounting of a fight we both already watched happen."
"Fine, fine, one more thing, and then I’ll stop, I promise." Kaela paused dramatically, apparently unable to help herself. "Do you think he’d teach me the Arcane transition someday?"
"Like, properly, not just watching him do it?"
"Ask him tomorrow... Go to bed, Kaela."
"I’m just saying, that would be really useful in a real fight, is all I’m—"
"Bed."
"You’re no fun."
"I am plenty of fun... it’s just that I am simply also tired." Lia physically turned Kaela by the shoulders and pointed her toward the dormitory hallway, using the patient, weary insistence of an older sibling managing an overtired younger one.
Kaela, grumbling the entire way, finally allowed herself to be steered off toward her room, still muttering excitedly about mana cannon transitions under her breath as she walked.
Lia watched her go, then glanced once, briefly, toward the window facing the direction of Catherine’s house, something quieter and more thoughtful crossing her own expression before she, too, finally retired for the night.
...
William and Catherine walked the rest of the way in silence, and it wasn’t until they’d reached the quiet privacy of her own street, the academy’s noise fading comfortably behind them, that Catherine finally spoke.
"I froze..." she said, her voice flat and hollow. "Ellie could have died because I froze..."
"She didn’t die... She’s fine."
"It’s because you got there in time, not because you got there in time, and it’s not because... I did anything to stop it." Catherine’s hands curled into fists at her sides, knuckles white. "I was closer than you were, William..."
"I should have been the one to reach her first, and instead... I stood there like a statue while a student nearly got hurt right in front of me."
"Catherine."
"Don’t," her voice cracked. "Don’t tell me it’s fine..."
"And don’t tell me I couldn’t have helped it..."
"I’ve heard every version of that reassurance already, from myself, for eight years, and none of it changes the fact that when it actually mattered again... I still couldn’t move."