Reading her thoughts based on her pensive smile, Noel sighed and simply spoke again.

Noel: “I can’t understand what the use of beating yourself up over this matter is. I’m not telling you to forgive yourself… although you should. What I’m trying to say is that you should reorganize your mindset and change your ways. If you don’t want to be upset anymore, then try to make yourself be happy instead. If you don’t appreciate yourself and consider your existence worthless; then, well…

*scratches face*

Why not try to do things that make you build confidence and teach you how to better appreciate yourself? In short, if you feel like blaming yourself over their deaths, then couldn’t you spend such time being happy over saving them too?

Although, I don’t really know anything about this, since I wasn’t told what you guys did by the nurses, but regardless…

Can’t you also try taking confidence in helping save more lives, going forward? I mean… why else did you apply to be a Non - Combatant student here?”

Aria: “…”

Rise: “Heheh, look at what you’ve done. You talked so flipping much that you left her speechless! Ahaha~ I bet she doesn’t even remember half of what you said!”

Noel: “Hmph! There’s no way tha-”

Aria: “I – I do! He… he said to be more confident in myself! Sorta…!”

Noel: “…”

{I’m done. Maybe comforting people just isn’t one of my skills. I probably need a lot more practice in this regard.}

Noel: “*Cough Cough*

Basically, what I’m getting at is that crying does nothing useful. All that self pity, blame and whining you’ve done are keeping you from moving on. They essentially keep you frozen in time while the rest of the world is forced to move forward. Nothing useful or remotely helpful can come from beating yourself up over a past event – especially one that you somehow mysteriously fixed without even realizing how or why. If you aren’t happy with yourself, then change yourself.”

{I trust that Mr. Abrams was telling us the truth just now. If he isn’t lying, then she basically ‘revived’ them all from the dead. But if that’s the case, then why doesn’t she seem to remember? Instead of doubting the teacher himself, I think it’s wiser to doubt her based on the possibility that she herself, doesn’t even know about her own powers.

…

If she really has any, and this all isn’t just one massive coincidence, which, Mr. Abrams mistakenly misunderstood.}

Rise: “Pffft. Yeah, you sound real convincing what with your embarrassing loss to that b-ow!”

Noel: “You talk too much.”

Rise: “Why, you little-!”

Aria: “...Crying is ...useless? ...That’s true. It really is… useless. Hehe. Nothing I do is useful.”

Mr. Abrams: “(This girl… she seems to have succumbed to despair. If HE was around the school right now, this girl would no doubt end up as his primary target – she’s an absolute feast of negativity, hopelessness and despair. Let’s just fix that for a bit.) Now, now, Aria. Let’s just cure this unnecessary depression of yours, hmm?”

*Shhingg!*

With a bright white light pouring out of his fingertips, and into her cranium, Aria finally saw life return back into her eyes. The pessimistic and very cynical attitude of hers seemed to disappear, and as it did so – a thick, black cloud of energy struggled away from her head. The book beside her bed trembled a bit at the ‘moment her cleansing was successfully completed – causing a loud rattle against the hard surface to attract everyone’s attention. Right away, her body seemed to regain some of its original light and luster upon her positivity being restored back into her pupils. It was as if a strange and heavy aura had temporarily replaced her own. And thanks to her wonderfully attentive homeroom teacher – she finally managed to free herself from its grasp.

Mr. Abrams: “Hmm, strange. Her reaction seems different from all the others. Could that Alf have… done something to her? It looks like I’ll be needing to pay some people a visit shortly.”

Winney: “Aria girl, how are you feeling after your teacher’s special magic, huh? Feeling any lighter in your emotional processing? Less depressing thoughts, perhaps?”

But at this time, Aria was barely registering any of her questions. In fact, she only picked up a handful of words before her ears filtered out the rest of Winney’s interrogation as muffled garbles. And anyways, with a newfound, clearer foresight – Aria actually backtracked her conversations based on her memories and was currently remembering key points that stuck out to her, and rang true to her fragile heart.

Aria: “If I’m not… happy… change myself…

Crying… does nothing… it… solves nothing then?

…Hmm…? Ah. How am I feeling? Thanks, I feel… sort of like a 10 pound rock on my shoulders suddenly became 3 pounds.”

Rise: “3 pounds… Bah! Hey girly! Is that book yours or not? Did it electro - shock you?”

His words caused the other 3 visitors to freeze in their places.

That … that’s right! the book! And her screaming, are there any correlations! In fact, this was their reason for rushing out – because Noel was about to get lectured by Mr. Abrams about bringing a random dangerous artifact to a patients room without clarifying first whether it truly belongs to that person or not!

Mr. Abrams cleared his throat and walked over to it. Instead of touching the artifact, he only stared at it intensely for a few moments. This snapped Aria out of the last remaining vestiges of her thought – inducing trance, and back to focusing on her book.

Aria: “AHHH! That’s … that’s right, my book! Waaah, waaahahaah, this is so good, so very good! It’s sooo great that someone returned it to me! Back then, when it left my side, I was so disturbed and wanted to go after it right away, but so much stuff was all constantly happening back to back that I never had a chance to go find it!!

I know it wasn’t her fault and that she didn’t mean to… but after she acted the way she did, and then the assembly, followed by the auditorium and her getting hurt… I kind of forgot to go search for it… I feel sooo happy that it returned to me…! Waaahh, my book!

Mysterious Book at her mention of forgetting: “…”

Finally, seeing Aria calm down her excited nerves, Mr. Abrams opened his mouth to speak.

Mr. Abrams: “Aria. This book… does it really belong to you…? Furthermore, Noel retrieved it from a forest… how did it-”

Aria: “*GASP* *Turns to face a stunned Noel* YOU DID?! And… and it didn’t hurt you?? But- But it hurts ANYBODY that tries to touch it and isn’t me! How did you- I, I mean WHAT did you do after finding it?”

Mr. Abrams: “…I wasn’t done speaking…”

Noel: “Me? What did I do after finding it? Well, I just ignored the pain and carried it here… I guess? It didn’t hurt, be-because the book seemed already drained! Yeah, th-that’s right, like other people go hurt from it first and took most of its attacks for me. So I really just had to suffer from some burnt clothing and a rather annoying tingling sensation… Hahah…”

Mr. Abrams: “Aria. Answer my questions first, before responding to him. For one, how did this book get to that forest, if it’s yours? Two, It IS yours, right? It’s correct for me to think this way? Third and finally, do you have any idea what happened to everybody around you, right before you collapsed to the ground unconscious?”

Aria thought for a moment, trying as hard as she could to collect her thoughts together and sort out three answers for each of her homeroom teacher Mr. Abrams’s corresponding questions.

Aria: “Back when classmate Leos first s- screamed out ‘murderer!’ around then, Ophelia tried picking it up for me because I happened to drop it to the floor. Before I could warn her against doing such a thing though, the book already doled out a ‘punishment’ against her. That led to her hands getting hurt, and following her electrocuti—no, her – her shock, she… she threw my book! My precious book!!

About your second question, yes that book is mine. It’s all…

.

.

...All I have left to remember my mother by.”

With those softly spoken words already said, she slowly turns to face Noel directly, surprising the boy that was entering the room after feeling awkward for not stepping inside earlier. This firm display of full attention caused Noel to feel stunned for a silent few seconds.

And then she spoke.

Aria: “Noel… Noel! Heehee, thank you very much for bringing my book back to me! Does your body hurt? You said that… you toughed through the pain… I… I don’t know how badly it must have bothered you or how you did something like that… butchery

*Sniff*

Thank you… thank you very much for bringing my mother’s memories back to me~ *Sniff – Sniff*

…This was the first time that was driven to blushing… without it stemming from his personal sense of embarrassment. The warmth budding deep inside of him is not small.

Yet, even his personal happiness will be very short – lived.

Why? Well…

As Aria’s ‘Fate’ begins to slowly awaken, Noel’s own, uncertain ‘Fate’ begins preparation against its very first obstacle.

One that could threaten his future in Herotopia considerably…

---