Three Weeks After The Watcher Incident

Weeks have passed since that day. Since Blanc went berserk and almost cleared out all of the monsters and animals that lives in the forest near campus. It took them two weeks since we got out of the campus for them to finally found us, lying down in the bed of the forest. All battered up, clothing torn up, skin soaked in blood. One might say that we just encountered a humongous beast. But in reality, the beast was Blanc herself. I had to defend myself against her. I had to put her down in some way. But in the end, she bested me. As she was about to consume me, she probably ran out of gas and fainted next to me. That kind of saved me.

Here we are in the present day and The Watcher System had already been demolished by the campus. It means that Blanc won’t have to watch me any longer. I’m already up and running and able to go to class as usual. Blanc on the other hand just started her first class since the incident today.

“Hey…” I greeted Blanc as she was about to make her way to the front door of our dorm.

Blanc looks at me and went away without saying a word at all. She ignored me and went to her class without even stopping by at one of the food stall she usually visits each morning…I thought things would remain the same but apparently things changed. Everyone was changing. White and Zenith seems to start getting closer by the day thanks to their little new friend, Recordia. Sam Maximus was starting to show some crack of her true self that was hidden. While the entire Magic Advancement class is starting to get riled up over something serious.

What about me? I haven’t change at all. I’m still stuck in the past. I couldn’t stop thinking about the loss of my beloved little sister. I still wasn’t able to move on from that. It is ironic how that I have these ghostly abilities thinking that I might have already moved on from the living world. But apparently, I am haunted by my own past even with said abilities.

“Shiro!” A classmate of mine called me as I was daydreaming.

I snapped out of my thoughts and replied to them, “What?”

“Were you daydreaming or something? We got an importing thing to do right now.” It was a rough male voice.

I lifted my head up and see who it was and it was none other than Aspye Razor. He is one of White’s roommates.

“What’s the important thing, Aspye?”

“It’s about the tournament we have to decide who will be the Cardinal of this class. Are you entering it?”

“What about you?” I asked him back, “You seem strong enough to be a Cardinal.”

Aspye declined, “No way. There’s no way I’m able to win this tournament. I’m not confident enough with my own ability. Plus, I don’t even know everyone’s ability. Not knowing their ability is actually a huge disadvantage.”

“Doesn’t that goes the same way to them?”

“That’s just it. We don’t know which of us that might have already got the scoop on us. So in conclusion, I’m not entering it.”

Then I decided and said, “Well then, I’m not entering as well. It’s not like being a Cardinal is important to me.”

“Well said, buddy. From the looks of it, there will be 13 people entering this tournament. It will be a simple one-on-one fighting bracket as they make their way to the final to become the crowning Cardinal.”

“Don’t tell me…” I stopped him from explaining further, “It’s those 13 people, right?”

Aspye nervously laughed and said, “Yup. None other than those 13 people. Those guys have the same goal and that is to become the Cardinal of this class. They also made this tournament interesting by adding in one more reward.”

“One more reward?”

Aspye then told me about this reward, “One of our classmates has worked together with a pretty interesting guy outside to create this reward a possibility. The crowning Cardinal will be granted a single wish. But, there are limitations of course. It can’t be something that is out of the realm of possibilities. But thanks to our outside client, we might be able to do one unrestricted wish.”

“Unrestricted wish? Isn’t that…illegal in some way?”

“What are you talking about, Shiro?”

“It just sounded like one of the taboos of magic and that is wish granting magic. Didn’t we learned that a couple of weeks ago?”

“I’m not sure about that…” Aspye thinks for a second and said, “But the tournament is definitely going to happen and they are not stopping now.”

“When will it begin?”

“Anytime really.” Aspye explained further, “The rules are simple, since there are 13 participants, we can’t make do with the usual bracket rule. So we decided that it will be based on the challenger’s choice. In other words, a fight can happen anytime, anywhere. It’s like a battle royal.”

“Battle royal…I see…This won’t harm other students, right?”

Aspye shakes his head, “That’s pretty much obvious, don’t you think?”

“Well then…at least we don’t have to watch every single fight.” I lied down on my chair as I said that. “With the addition to the reward, this ‘battle royal’ is definitely going to be something interesting. Let’s see who will end up surviving this…”

“Dude. They are not killing each other…”

“But I thought you said it was a battle royal, Aspye.”

Aspye sighed, “Are you seriously thinking that we would kill each other just for a single wish?”

I looked at him and said this to him, “I’ve known humans for quite a while. They are selfish beings. Even I was like that…This might get dirty before we even realize it.”

Yes, even I was selfish. Selfish enough to the point that it brought to the loss of my very own sister. I deeply regretted that. If only I was able to forget all of that. If only I just continued to become a corpse. But there was one reason why I decided to come back to the living world. It was a promise that I made to my sister.

-

“Live…” I said that as I looked at a locket that was hanging on my neck.

It was the only one thing that remains of my past. A locket that we got together during our hardest times. I will live for as long as I’m able. I promised her that.

I sighed and said to the locket, “You are such a troublesome sister…even after you are gone…you still make me troubled…”

Then out of the blue, I heard a loud female scream from across the classroom building. As far I’m concerned only the Magic Advancement students was in the building at this hour. We just finished with our night meeting and in just a few minutes later this happened. I immediately made my way to the scream only to find out a number of people were clamoring about at the location.

“What’s happening?” I asked one of the onlookers.

“Don’t know. But I heard someone got killed.”

“What?”

I immediately stormed the location and pushed the people aside to see what exactly was happening and to my surprise, I saw blood. The guy’s head was bleeding.

“Wait…” I noticed something. “He is still breathing, everyone! Somebody, get a healer!”

I carefully examined his body and saw that he had bruises on one of his wrist. Looks like he got into some sort of a fight. He probably got himself into an altercation that happened few seconds ago. The guy then finally woke up from his unconsciousness and said,

“What happened…? Why is everyone here?”

As I continued to look on him, I realized that it was one of the 13 competitive classmates of mine, Hunter Frost.

“Hunter? Are you alright?”

“Shiro? What happened? Why am I bleeding?”

“It seems you got into a fight or something. Do you remember anything?”

“A fight…oh yeah! I know! It was…”

As soon as he was about to say the word, another scream can be heard. It was at the other end of the building this time. I left the current location to the others and quickly made my way to the scream. This time there wasn’t as many people as the previous location. Only Jenna Lionheart was here. She was probably the one who screamed just now.

“What is it, Jenna?” I asked her.

She pointed inside one of the classroom as she kneels down in fear. I gulped and slowly made my way to the door. But it was locked. I kicked the door but it was too dark inside…I turned on the light by flipping a switch next to me and then I finally saw it. Just like the previous incident, another person was attacked. This time it was a girl, she’s also one of the 13 competitive people.

“Tara Riya…” I said that as I noticed that she was still breathing. Thankfully she’s still alive, at least.

What is going on? Why are people getting attacked? But when I think about it for real, I think this might be related to the ‘battle royal’ that my class just started. It could just be that. Two different attacks from two different locations. One with all the people just finished with the meeting and one inside a locked room. I might just be pointing fingers right now but I got a feeling that the one responsible for this are one of the 13 participants of the ‘battle royal’. It could possibly be them. Only one way to find that out and that is for me to investigate that!

TO BE CONTINUED