Chapter 7: Insertion [1]
The welcoming ceremony ended.
By noon, Astral Academy had already returned to normal.
CRASH!
The vase hit the wall and exploded into pieces across the dormitory floor.
Sierra stood in the middle of the room with her hands in fists at her sides.
The gentle smile was gone. What sat on her face instead was something she never let anyone see.
"Damn that old coot." She pressed both hands into her hair and pulled, a sound coming out of her that had nothing soft in it.
"What if the academy students don’t believe me now? If only he hadn’t said anything." She grabbed the second vase from the shelf and raised it.
Knock. Knock.
"Sierra? We heard something break."
"Are you okay in there?"
Her arm stopped mid-swing. She stood completely still.
Her eyes moved across the floor. The shattered vase. The rage still sitting in her chest. She had about five seconds before they knocked again.
She set the second vase down and crouched.
She then picked up a sharp shard from the floor. Turned it over in her fingers, checking the edge.
’Pain is fine. Permanent scars aren’t.’
She drew it across her cheek once. Carefully, not deep, just enough. Then across her forearm, same pressure.
She watched the thin lines of red appear and waited to confirm the depth before dropping the shard.
She looked at both injuries. Closed her eyes. Let them redden. Pulled up the feeling she needed and opened the door.
The students rushed in.
"Sierra!"
"Oh my god, what happened—"
"You’re bleeding—"
Several hands guided her toward the couch, worried voices overlapping.
She let them. She lowered her head and let her shoulders carry a faint tremor.
"I’m alright," she said softly. "I was just... a little stressed."
The room erupted around her.
"It has to be because of Alden."
"He should have been expelled already. Even the first years are calling him a creep."
"And the Headmaster—" One girl crossed her arms. "Defending that person. I can’t believe it."
"He may be Sierra’s grandfather, but obviously he doesn’t actually care about her. If he did, Alden would already be gone."
Murmurs of agreement moved through the room.
Sierra kept her head down.
One of her closest friends reached out and held her hand. "Don’t think about him anymore. We won’t let anyone like that get near you."
"You have the entire academy on your side," another added. "And the brilliant Nicholas himself will protect you. You don’t have to be afraid."
Sierra let her shoulders fall.
"...Thank you." She let one tear fall, then another. "I don’t know what I’d do without all of you."
Several of them wrapped arms around her at once.
"Don’t cry. Friends protect each other."
"Exactly. You’re not alone."
Sierra pressed her face into the nearest shoulder and held that position while they comforted her, while their hands rubbed her back and their voices reassured her from every direction.
’Every single one of them,’ she thought behind the tears. ’Believing every word.’
The smile stayed inside.
One of them noticed the ring.
"...Sierra. Why are you still wearing that?"
The room went quiet. Several eyes dropped to her hand.
She wore the silver ring that Alden gave her.
In Astral Academy, exchanging rings between students meant something specific. It was a common tradition for anyone dating at the academy.
In fact, almost every couple wore them. It was not a formal engagement, but a personal promise between lovers who date in the academy. While it was not an official marriage, it was the closest thing to one.
"Take it off." Another girl frowned. "Why are you still wearing his?"
"That ring is supposed to mean you’re dating." someone else said firmly.
Sierra looked at the ring.
She turned it slowly, once, like she was considering it. Like it cost her something.
"...Alright." She slipped it off.
Clink!
It hit the floor.
One of the girls stomped on it without hesitating and kicked it toward the window. It bounced once off the sill and disappeared outside.
"Better," the girl said, smiling.
"Come on. No classes today. Let’s go out! We’ll help you forget everything."
They were already pulling her toward the door before she could answer. She let them. She let the smile come out.
"Okay," she said. "Thank you. All of you."
She walked between them as they headed down the corridor, their voices filling the space around her.
Somewhere in the middle of it, the warmth in her expression dissolved.
’Pathetic,’ she thought, looking at the girls laughing on either side of her. ’Every single one of them.’
Her grandfather thought he’d damaged her plan. That speech, all that careful logic about evidence and justice, he thought it had weakened her position.
’You only made everyone pity me more, old man.’ Her eyes moved forward. ’Every person who watched you defend Alden is now looking at me and thinking the same thing: that even my own grandfather chose to protect the person who hurt me.’
’You handed me a better story than the one I started with.’
She thought about Nicholas. How much time he’d spent near her since the incident. How his face had looked in that infirmary room. The way he moved to stand in front of her the moment Alden appeared.
She thought about Roselle standing beside him.
’Just a little longer,’ she thought. The cold smile settled on her lips where the warm one had been.
’And I’ll take him from her completely.’
_____
The campus had returned to something resembling normal.
For Alden, that didn’t mean much.
"...It’s him."
"Let’s go a different way."
He heard it everywhere he walked. two students who had been moving in his direction suddenly changing course without making eye contact.
Some refused to look at him at all.
He kept his hands in his pockets and kept walking.
’Proving innocence is harder than proving guilt,’ he thought, watching two students cross to the other side of the corridor. ’Darius cleared me enough to keep me from getting expelled. He didn’t clear me enough to make people forget what they heard first.’
He turned down the corridor toward the infirmary without any particular destination in mind, half-watching the status panel that had been hovering at the edge of his vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Wolf Blueprint: 43%
Next Concept unlocks at 50%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He closed it.
The voices reached him before he reached the door.
"Come on, Daniel." Nicholas’s voice, lower than his usual register. "You’ve slept long enough. You have to get up now."
Alden slowed.
Through the open doorway he could see the infirmary bed. Several students clustered around. Student Council members, two others he recognized from the crowd earlier. Nicholas had both hands wrapped around the hand of the boy lying there.
Daniel.
The name landed in Alden’s memory before his eyes fully confirmed the face.
He’d met him once. Daniel had been in the doorway when Alden was trying to get out of the building after the Sierra incident. He’d tried to block the exit. Alden had gotten past him, and in the moment he hadn’t thought about it as anything other than an obstacle.
He looked at him now.
Daniel’s eyes were open. They moved slowly, tracking nothing, landing on the ceiling and staying there with the absence of someone who had left without going anywhere. His chest rose and fell. His hands didn’t move.
"He hasn’t said a word since last night," Roselle said, from the far side of the bed. "Just stares."
"The academy physician examined him," one of the other students said. "Nothing physically wrong."
Nicholas kept his grip on Daniel’s hand. "Then why won’t he wake up?"
Alden stood outside the doorway.
He looked at his own hand.
Something had happened when Daniel had tried to stop him from leaving.
He stepped through the doorway.
Nobody noticed him immediately. They were all watching Daniel.
He moved to the side of the bed that wasn’t crowded and stood there looking at the empty eyes tracking nothing across the ceiling.
He reached out and touched Daniel’s arm.
Fwoosh!
Thin strands of black smoke, looking like fire, came out of his hand and wrapped around Daniel’s arm.
The room processed it about two seconds later.
Every head turned.
"...ALDEN?!"
"YOU!" A hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him backward, hard. He twisted instinctively, activated Predator’s Instinct, and used the slowed half-second to right himself mid-stumble, landing on his feet instead of his back.
[Predator’s Instinct Cooldown: 5 mins]
[Predator’s Instinct Used — Wolf Blueprint: +2%]
The student who’d grabbed him was already in front of him, face twisted. "What do you think you are doing here after everything you’ve done? You still dare to show your face?!"