“Aediva!”

The first thing he did the moment he woke up was jump off Hanzel’s broom even before they were any near to the ground. As soon as he landed on the ground, he grabbed Aediva by the collar of her hoodie - his emerald green eyes filled with wild rage for a reason that Aediva could only see as some foolish decision-making.

“Those people are going to die!” Arthur shouted in her face but her expression and the look in her eyes hardly changed. A chill rushed down the young man’s spine when looking at Aediva’s cold eyes - for a moment, he swore the lights were gone from those molten silver irises.

“So?” that one word of blatant ignorance was enough to trigger Arthur to raise his arm and before his fist could even reached Aediva’s face, he found his fist grabbed and his body easily flung into the air as he was thrown to the back by the girl with clear lack of selflessness. Arthur grunted from the pain in his back from the impact with the ground. By the time Hanzel touched the ground, he looked at the three junior students - quickly noting Fay’s absence in the group.

“Where’s Fay?” Hanzel asked, answered with Aediva’s rather uncaring “Battery Room” like it was not a grave matter to tell. Hanzel’s eyes went wide and he looked back at the Efren Dorm that they had just left.

“Why… Why didn’t you stop her?!” Hanzel asked.

“It’s her decision to go and rescue those in the Battery Room. My job here is done. I’m leaving and let adults handle other things” Aediva said as she turned her back from the direction of the castle. An action that sent Hanzel flying back towards the castle in haste. Aediva herself was about to walk away until Arthur stopped her with stubborn struggle. His face obscured by his disheveled hair as he grabbed her legs. This time Aediva honestly doesn't understand why he’s so adamant on saving those people.

“Give it up Arthur. You’re in no position to even save anyone in the first place” Aediva said, merely watching him gather himself while using her as his pillar of support - a subtle wince on her face when Arthur gripped hard at her shoulder.

“... I already said I’m not here to play hero” Aediva murmured, noticing the young man’s trembling hand on her shoulder. She turned away, forcing Arthur’s grips off her.

“Even if you save those people… No, how many could you even save in the state that you are? Only fools went around blindly trying to save everyone while placing their own lives at risk” Aediva said.

“There’s a reason why no adults noticed what happened here! The magic prevented them from seeing the truth even if it’s in front of them! It’s still active up til now and by the time the Golem activates--” Arthur’s word came to a sudden halt when they were all stumbling about from the earthquake that came out of nowhere.

“Tch!” Aediva clicked her tongue in annoyance.

“We have to warn these people about this!” Arthur said, straightening himself up before going straight for Eden who is still on his broom - just observing in silence. At that same time, Zayen and Cath arrived at their place.

“Zielle! Oi, human! What’s going on here?” Zayen asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he hovered above ground on his broom. Meanwhile for Cath, seeing the two boys, he jumped off Zayen’s shoulder to the top of Aediva’s head - cheering for both Eden and Arthur’s safety.

“Oi! You both are still alive!” Cath said. But Arthur and Eden didn’t say anything back to Cath. Or rather, they didn’t even have the time to, when they heard a huge sound of explosion coming from the dormitories itself. The sound of people shouting reached even to the hill that they are lingering at.

A shadow that too quickly looming over their heads - for once, catching the girl off guard. She desperately reached out her arm towards the two boys that they had just brought out of that forsaken place. For a moment, a brief flash of vision almost blinded her. Two unchanging figures, those pairs of green and red eyes…

“Why do you desire to save those children?”

“Arthur! Eden!!!” she screamed their names.

A deafening loud sound boomed at their ears, the grounds cracked like a hollow egg as debris of the hill that they stood on flew around them. A fast shadow of a long and large blue tendrils overhead, flailing with abandon before slamming at her body while she was thrown off from the ground due to initial impact that shattered the ground.

“Aediva!”

The last thing Aediva heard before she felt the intense pain at the back of her head was Zielle’s scream and the vision of the blue translucent tentacles abominations coiling around the two boys and even Cath as they screamed in horror.

No one truly noticed anything. It was such a fine clear day and the parade of Orbelesia Grace was at its height when the explosion happened. Smokes and dust billow from the direction of the castle-dormitory. Debris flew all around, destroying the whole event venue and finally, the magic that had been keeping the illusion the whole month, broke.

No longer were the cheerful students at the parade and instead, a lot of them were replaced with wooden mannequins controlled by magic stones. The beautiful fresh flowers wilting. The landscape of luxurious events that could reflect the Avant Garde where the Divines reside turning almost horrifically fast into a wasteland. The pride of Efren Dorm, the Gem Gardens were replaced with mazes of dead hedges and scattered brown petals on the ground carpeted with grass that has long been dead.

Complete chaos broke out in the dormitories ground as an inhuman roar cracked the sky - the sound shock wave was enough to send a lot of those unfortunate enough to still be around near vicinity of the castle to be blown away along with the smaller debris that would’ve surely crushed many to their certain death if not for the various barriers popping here and there to protect those within its radius.

“What the hell?!”

“Is that slime ?!”

From the air with her brother, what Zielle thought would emerge is a Golem was instead an imposing tower of slime instead. Multiple tendrils protrude from its horizontal body flailing around grabbing anyone who were unable to either protect themselves or not in anyone’s protection. From the bird's eye view, the hill that they were just on were completely destroyed by the tentacles that had assaulted them - dragging Eden, Arthur and even Cath towards it and while the twins managed to escape, Aediva was not so lucky. Zielle shakily grabbed Zayen’s jacket for support - feeling her whole body losing its strength from recalling what had happened.

It happened way too fast and abrupt. She tried to grab her yet the hail of debris was quicker and it blocked her movements to get to Aediva. There was genuine hostility and bloodlust that she felt despite the slimy tendrils’ erratic movements. She could still clearly hear the cracking noise coming from Aediva when she was swatted away by one of the tentacles as the ground broke underneath them. Aediva was not moving at all when the pieces of ground were pulled back by the gravity. The last sight that Zielle saw, was Aediva being buried underneath the rubble.

“Zielle” Zayen called his sister, his eyes trained at the towering slime that is wreaking havoc and terrorizing people down on the ground while some of the student and adult mages protected the mass from being crushed by flying debris.

“This is beyond what mere students can handle,” Zayen said, gritting his teeth. Zielle doesn’t answer and looks at it with vision that clears and blurs once a while. It was only a few moments after that creature emerged from the bowels of Efren Dorm at its left part of the building and it was amazing how a lot of those with sufficient power leaped into action to protect strangers.

“There’s too many people who wanted to be heroes…” was what Aediva said once before they went to Efren Dorm for their recon adventure. She would’ve been frowning at this sight especially when seeing a lot gotten hurt in the beginning of the monster’s assault.

“Hah!” suddenly Zielle gasped loudly.

“WE ACTUALLY LEFT MS. RACHEL INSIDE THAT PLACE!” she shrieked in realization.

“WHAT?!” Zayen replied with equal loudness in his voice - although it’s pretty normal for him.

“Agh!!! If only--” Zielle’s words came to a halt when a loud roar interrupted her again. Zielle grasped Zayen’s jacket and the initial fright slowly dissipated away. Like Aediva, Zielle guessed her mood was just equally fickle as her friend.

“What do we do now, Zayen…?” Zielle asked but no answer came from Zayen. Honestly, he himself has no idea what to do but retreat.

Maybe it was for the best if she had not done anything. No, she knows she’s nothing more than an overconfident girl in the first place. Someone who can’t even use magic to do anything like protect herself with barriers or fight back like everyone else.

Just a worthless little girl.

What a hypocrite. Don’t be a hero, she said to herself and yet, more than anything else, she desires the power to save everyone. Despite that, her body froze in fear. Her heart screamed at her to never return back even though she doesn’t truly know what it meant by that.

She merely wishes to be in the warmest place.

Yet still her mind scoffed at her for her wishful thinking. Somewhere inside her, she probably knew.

That all she has been doing for the past few months has been running away.

She knows not from what or why. She only knows she has been doing just that.

What should she do now?

What can she do?

Why does she want to fight?

What is it that she’s fighting and what for?

So many questions yet nothing in her brain answers anything.

In that endless field, she stood - knowing that this is merely a projection of her mind. Nothing but green grass underneath the soles of feet and faint unpleasantly cold wind that blows against her body. She feels the desperation screaming in every inch of her body while the echoes of her questions ring so clearly in her ears to the point of deafening her.

It is painful. Her whole body felt like crumbling.

“Why are you fearful, child?” hearing that truly familiar voice, Aediva turned around and what greets her in that supposedly empty field of her mind’s domain is golden eyes of a colossal beast with pure black scales reflecting everything like obsidian mirrors. It’s mere presence was menacing like dark clouds refusing to disappear. Its talons were huge enough to squash people like ants.

Golden eyes. But it’s not the golden eyes she had once seen.

“You’re... the Black Mirror?” Aediva asked and the dragon scoffed, amused.

“Tell me. Why are you dawdling about for? Weren’t you supposed to be doing something?” not answering Aediva’s question to confirm the identity of the dragon’s apparition in her own domain of consciousness, the dragon enquired. Aediva merely stared.

“... Why are you even here?” she asked.

“Because watching you do nothing bores me” the dark dragon immediately answers, throwing Aediva off with its answer. For a moment, it was rather light-hearted yet the cumbersome feeling of fatigue fell back to her shoulders as her face sullen.

“... What can someone like me do anyway?” she said and a low thrum from the dragon’s throat made her look at the dragon.

“Had I not told you that you had the choice to stay powerless?” the dragon asked.

Aediva grimaced, looking at her hand and especially the right one that felt so heavy like she was carrying an invisible weight.

“You have made your choice. There’s no reason for you to dally any longer… I have told you, there’s no battle where sacrifices were not made” the dragon spoke and the moment those silver eyes looked up, the dragon’s visage disappeared like the mist and the ground beneath her crumbles.