Shion really didn’t like math class. The problem wasn’t even with the class itself though. Until the year before, Shion had been homeschooled by her clan, and from what she saw of the students here, her clan must have been amazing teachers because what other students found difficult, Shion had no difficulty with. No, her problem was with math teachers assigning group work.

Last year, Shion had been put in a group with a bunch of football players. It would’ve been nice if they had just ignored her and let her do all the work on her own, but of course they had to bother her. The whole year, she had been given no choice but to endure their taunts and jokes that had always seemed to be at her expense. When she had started developing her strength, Shion had come very close to punching one of them through a wall on countless occasions, but she had managed to hold herself to a few well-timed verbal snipes instead. Punching someone through a wall would probably raise some questions after all.

This year, Shion had nearly cried when the teacher had told them to find groups. Of course, the girl that Kyren had called Alexus had insisted that she join their group. So now, Shion got to spend the rest of the year working with two hunters and Kyren—Shion still wasn’t sure about him yet.

Kyren’s story seemed so convoluted that all Shion was really confident about was that he was not a werewolf. If she could have, Shion would have kept a safe distance from all three of them.

The small upside of working with them was that she could actually work with them. Unlike the football players she had been stuck with the year before, these three at least knew how to do the math they had been assigned. The girl named Alex actually managed to finish problems faster than Shion could.

“So…Shion,” Alex tapped her desk nervously and glanced around, “we forgot to mention this earlier, but can you avoid talking about who our parents are? The Guild hasn’t exactly been super popular around here recently.”

Shion frowned in confusion. They wanted to hide that their parents were the Hawkthorne and Drakesmith, the Guild hunters who just last year had been found defending more than a thousand refugees from hundreds of bloodthirsty werewolves. That didn’t make any sense. “Your parents are heroes. The news wouldn’t stop talking about them for weeks after the tragedy.”

Rafe looked around nervously and stroked his right arm. “I’m glad to hear that you think our parents are heroes…”

Shion certainly didn’t say that she thought they were heroes.

“…but a lot of people don’t feel that way.” Rafe stroked his arm again. “The day of the Columbus tragedy, we were chased out of our last school by an angry mob. They hurt us pretty badly. I broke my arm, and Alex and Kyren both had to get stiches. The staff wouldn’t even let us go back to school there either. Said that they couldn’t guarantee our safety.”

Kyren jumped in. “The point is, there are still a lot of people who blame the Guild for the tragedy. We just want to avoid any conflict with those people.”

Shion nodded slowly. “Alright. That works for me. Now should we get back to our work?”

As it turned out, they had already finished the last of their problems. That was fortunate because for some reason, Shion was having trouble seeing. Her vision seemed to be weirdly enlarged as if she were looking at the entire world through a zoom lens. Oh no.

Shion realized what was happening. She was going through a change, just like when she had suddenly started getting stronger. Even as she stood still, her vision focused even more to the point where all she could see was a tiny ant that was crawling across the teacher’s desk.

Shion had to get out of here. Going through changes like this would be bad enough if she wasn’t sitting beside two Guild hunters—and Kyren for that matter—but she was in serious trouble right now. If her eyes started glowing red on top of her being unable to see, she was in serious trouble.

Shion closed her eyes. She couldn’t risk that they would start acting up now when she couldn’t see anything. Shion raised her hand to ask to go to the bathroom. She grabbed her stomach to really sell the act. Fortunately, it worked, and the teacher told her to go.

Shion stumbled over two desks on her way out of the room, but she eventually made it. Unfortunately, finding the bathroom proved to be impossible. This was only her second day at the school, and she had missed half of her first day thanks to Kyren. After feeling along the wall for a while, Shion managed to find what felt like a closet door and opened it, collapsing inside.

As soon as she shut the door, she opened her eyes, and all she saw was white, or maybe it was white brick in extreme detail. Shion really couldn’t tell. Not knowing what to do, Shion sat on the floor of the small room, firmly holding the door handle so nobody could get in.

Fifteen minutes later, nothing had changed and Shion was freaking out. What if she could never see anything again? Shion doubted that there were glasses that could fix this kind of eyesight.

When the bell rang, Shion firmed her grasp on the handle. She couldn’t afford for some teacher to step into the closet and see her sitting on the floor, eyes burning red in their sockets. They would run screaming. Probably to call the Guild.

If the Guild showed up, her clan would run, and they wouldn’t leave a trail for her to follow. Any supernatural that wasn’t on friendly terms with humanity was treated with great suspicion. Shion’s family weren’t like her either. Sure, they were white phoenixes, but that didn’t help them in any way. Shion was an exception in her family. She was the first in five generations of their clan to show signs of being an awakened white phoenix. The others were all dormant. Their eyes didn’t glow, they didn’t have superstrength, and they definitely didn’t have eyesight that worked better than a magnifying glass. Although at the moment, Shion wasn’t sure that the last one was helpful at all.

It would have been all well and great for Shion to go fight werewolves with the Guild, but her family would be asked to do the same, and they simply couldn’t. So, if Shion was found, they would run, and Shion would never see them again. Shion tried not to think of that as she wrestled with herself, trying to calm herself so she could figure out how to dial down on her whole vision thing.

That was the moment that someone started trying to get into the closet. Shion held onto the door handle for dear life, but the pull only got stronger—too strong for an ordinary person. Had someone already seen her and called the Guild? Shion held on with all of her considerable strength and tried desperately to control her vision, but nothing worked.

“Shion, can you open the door? I just want to help.”

To Shion’s relief, she recognized the voice. It was Kyren. She quickly let go of the door handle and closed her eyes tight.

Kyren slipped through the door and closed it behind him. “What’s wrong? I have trouble smelling the emotions of people I don’t know that well, but you reek of fear.”

Shion made a decision. She wasn’t getting anywhere by herself. She opened her eyes. “I can’t see properly. My eyesight got really strong all of the sudden, and I can’t control it.”

Kyren put a hand gently on her shoulder. “Relax. I think I can help; I went through the same thing with my sense of smell. Try to focus on one point as much as you can.”

Shion shook her head. “Shouldn’t I be trying to not focus on one point, that’s kind of the problem.”

“No, the problem is that you’re holding back your full ability. You’re too scared to open up your senses all the way, your human side thinks it can’t handle the full sensory input. You have to embrace your supernatural side instead.”

Shion tried doing what he said. She focused on one point, a speck of dirt on some kind of cloth. Her vision became even more focused. She could see all the little details of that one speck of dirt in great clarity. Then, just as she thought that nothing had happened other than her vision becoming more focused, something deep inside snapped into place. Shion could suddenly see again. She could still see the details of the speck of dirt, but she could also see that she had been staring at the head of a mop which had thousands of small specks of dirt on it. Shion spoke in relief. “That worked!”

Kyren nodded. “Now you just need to figure out how to handle the extra detail. I kind of just started doing it by exposing myself to extremely strong scents over and over, but I’m not sure how to do the same for eyesight. Maybe you could ask your family?”

Shion decided to give Kyren just a little bit more trust. She still wasn’t sure if his entire story was true, but he had helped her out of a tight situation, and that had to mean something. “My family can’t really help me with stuff like this.”

Kyren looked confused as she told him about how she was the only awakened phoenix in her entire clan. After five generations, the knowledge of what an awakened white phoenix went through wasn’t even known by the elders in her clan.

Kyren took the story well, nodding slowly to himself when she finished. Then he stood up. “We should head to class separately. If we go together, Alex will start thinking we’re dating or something.”

Shion laughed good-naturedly. “That’s what you’re concerned that the apprentice Guild hunter will think?”

“You don’t know Alex like I do. If she even gets a hint of me or Rafe liking someone, she’ll call us all into a strategy meeting. She thinks it’s her responsibility to…” Kyren made exaggerated air quotes using his fingers, “…find the love of our lives.”

Shion laughed wholeheartedly. Perhaps she had been unfair with her assessment of Rafe and Alex. Sure, they might be apprentice hunters, but they were also high schoolers.