Chapter 14: Chapter 13: A Rough Few Hours

“I didn’t even know this building existed,” Ruem says into your ear as the two of you approach a large circular building on the west end of campus. The walls of the structure tower over you both, bathing you in shadow and striking a trickle of fear in your heart. Whatever this building is, it’s old, clearly older than anything else around it. But it also seems abandoned. If you had to guess, that last observation is the reason the Headmistress told you to meet her here.

Stepping into the massive open doorway that serves as an entrance, you get only a few paces in before a loud voice envelops you from every angle, making you grit your teeth.

“Biat, you’re here! Excellent.” Did she think you might skip out? The thought had crossed your mind, admittedly, but when it comes down to it, you agreed to this. You decided it was worth it. So of course you’re here! Not privy to your inner dialogue, the Headmistress continues, “You’ll find me in the center of the field. Chop, chop!”

“Chop, chop?? Ugh, I hate this woman,” Ruem mutters.

Nodding your head, you press inward, down a hall and past rows of bleachers. The building’s purpose rapidly becomes clear as you go — it’s an enormous stadium. And it’s surrounding a massive field, in the center of which a figure stands. In this context, the Headmistress for once appears small, dwarfed by her massive and ancient surroundings. But if she’s small, you’re miniscule, and despite the empty stands, you can’t help but feel observed as you walk out to center field. Sure, the Headmistress is watching, but it’s more than that. If you believed in ghosts, you’d dare say this place is haunted. Wait…

“Ruem, are ghosts real in this world?” you whisper.

She stares at you blankly for a moment. “Didn’t you literally die? And now you’re possessing my body?”

“Oh.”

As you near the Headmistress, she opens her arms wide and shouts, her voice no longer magically projected. “Welcome to Onpertet Stadium! It’s a place few students visit anymore, at least officially.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard it’s a popular hookup spot.”

Ignoring the last bit, you say, “Is this an official visit?”

Headmistress Onpertet’s eyes gleam. “Ah, you have me there! This is, indeed, decidedly off the record.” Glancing at her nails, she nonchalantly adds, “Though I will have to tell The Board something about you, at the next Summit.”

Board? Summit?? “Wait, what!? What’ll you say?? When?”

“Oh, don’t worry too much. It’s not for a few weeks still!” she says, waving a hand. “They wanted to move it up to discuss the attack, but I managed to convince them to keep the regular date.” A grin creeps up her face, and her eyes flash back to you. “I’ll probably be able to keep them at bay, but… if I were able to assure them that the school has ample protection from possible future attacks… say, a protector, trained by me?”

You frown, cocking an eyebrow. “I already agreed to learn from you. What’re you getting at?”

She laughs and makes a sweeping shrug. “Oh, just making sure you stay motivated. Because I expect you’re about to have a bad time, and I’d hate for you to not come back for more.”

“What—”

Ruem frantically whispers, “Biat, she—!”

An invisible force as strong as an iron fist wallops you in the stomach, sending you careening several meters backwards. Your back slams into the ground, your chest heaving, Ruem no longer visible. Pushing yourself to a sitting position, you gasp as vines sprout out of the ground and wrap around your limbs. The arms you’d been using as support get yanked forward, forcing you to your back once more with a heavy thud. Vines wrap around and constrict your entire body, then begin to creep over your head. Is this how you die? Did the Headmistress intend to kill you all along, out here where no one is watching?

The movement of the vines halts, and a moment later the Headmistress looms over you. “Wouldn’t you love to have been able to avoid that?”

Of course you—! Strong feelings of rage and horror battle within you, prompting tears to well in your eyes. But you refuse to let them fall. You refuse to give her the pleasure. “Y—yes,” you respond, despite the vines muffling your voice.

With a flick of the Headmistress’ wrist, the vines retreat and you’re free again, able to shakily rise to your feet.

She claps a hand to your shoulder, leaning in to say, “Then firstly, you’ll need to be more observant.” Taking a few steps away, she grins wide. “And secondly, it’s time to learn a new spell!” Some measure of excitement must show on your face, since Headmistress Onpertet is quick to quash it. “We’re not starting you on offensive magic, though, oh no! It’s much more important that you learn basic buffs first. In particular: speed. If they can’t hit you, they can’t hurt you, right?”

Resisting a sigh, you nod along, too mentally exhausted from what felt like a near-death experience to argue.

Ruem appears on your shoulder again. “Girl, are you alright?? That was fucked up!! And then she’s not even gonna teach you to fight, just to run? What bullshit!”

Shrugging, you keep your focus on the Headmistress, no longer trusting that she won’t toss an attack at you at random. “Fine. How do I do it?”

Over the next few minutes, she teaches you the spell with relative ease. The hand movements aren’t terribly complex, so soon enough you’ve got them down. It would have been faster if Ruem hadn’t been whining about how uncool the spell is the whole time, but still, you manage.

“And now, to put it to the test!” the Headmistress says.

“How—”

“Biat, look!!”

You feel a spell hit your arm. A second later, you realize with horror that your arm is on fire, and being on fire hurts a hell of a lot. Screaming, you flail your torched limb as your mind tries to remember how to handle this situation. Oh, right!! Collapsing to the ground, you do the ol’ stop, drop and roll that was ingrained in you as a child. Fortunately, this piece of classic wisdom seems to do the trick, and the flames soon cease. Strangely, so does the pain. Shouldn’t it burn…? Looking at your arm, you realize that it’s perfectly fine, no charred flesh in sight.

“It was an illusion,” says the Headmistress, hovering over you again.

Glaring daggers at her, you push up to your feet. “Really, no warning?”

“Real life won’t give you those, girl! Also… I kind of did give you a warning,” she says with a little shrug. 

Appearing on your shoulder again, Ruem says, “She did kinda give you a warning.”

You pretend to dust your shoulder off, knocking your annoying friend away. “Fine, whatever, I’m ready now.”

Casting the spell, you feel your reaction time skyrocket, which is good, because Headmistress Onpertet is already halfway through an intricate hand movement. You manage to dodge the thread of whatever that spell was, but moments later another comes your way. It hits, you flip through the air like a ragdoll, and when you hit the ground you immediately have to move to avoid those damn vines. The Headmistress’ pace is relentless, and for the next two hours she rarely relents. It is a terrible two hours.

~~~

Beaten and bruised, you limp back to your dorm. Ruem still perches on your shoulder, but her snippy commentary is absent; she just leans comfortingly against your neck. Entering the dorm lobby, you find one person standing within, and because your luck died with your world, it’s the person who would be most troublesome to encounter in your current state: Kittpey.

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“Ruem??” she says with a gasp, hurrying over to you. “What in the world happened?”

“I… uh…” your mind isn’t equipped to handle this right now. Neither truth nor lies feel like something you can manage.

“Ruem? Really? I thought you’d explained your stuff to her already!” You offer no response, prompting a sigh from your spherical companion. “You could touch her and I could explain,” she says. “Oh, actually, she’s about to do it for you, so—”

Wrenching your arm back just in time, you avoid Kittpey’s grasp, but earn confusion and hurt on her face in its stead. Before she can speak, you say, “S—sorry, I just— I need to rest. I can’t talk—”

“To me?” Kittpey says, arms crossed and face hardening. “But I’ll bet you could talk to Umeso.”

Where in the world did that come from? You don’t want to talk to them right now either, truth be told, though part of that is just because, “They already kn—” Too late, you realize you spoke aloud and cut yourself off.

Kittpey’s eye twitches. “Oh, of course they already know! Why hadn’t I guessed? You two are such good friends, afterall, unlike the two of us!”

Heart clenching, you reach out to grab Kittpey’s arm, barely remembering to brush Ruem off your shoulder first. “Sorry, look, it was because you were busy—”

“So it was my fault!” she says, wrenching her arm from your grasp. Turning away, she takes a step toward the front door.

Dammit, you’re ruining things again! Why do you do this!? You like to think of yourself as an honest person, but since you got here it’s been nothing but lies. With Radestro and Kittpey, at least. What’s different about this world? Why can’t you be like before? Before, in your past life… Well, you actually lied a lot there, too, didn’t you? Often, even. And it resulted in you living alone, with no friends and barely any family. You lied to them, but more than that, you lied to yourself. The one thing you most wanted, you denied. Even now, you’ve only barely accepted it. And that denial pushed everyone away, made you a worse person, and now, you’re so close to being rid of it. So why do you keep doing this? What are you scared of? This path you’re on with Kittpey leads to a destination you’ve reached before. A destination you hate. So why can’t you push past this fear? She’s almost out the door, and are you really going to let it happen, just because you’re too scared to be honest?

“Kittpey!” you shout, hand outstretched. She stops. “I—I was training! With…” You glance around; the two of you are still alone. “With the Headmistress.”

She turns her head your way, but otherwise still seems poised to leave. “Training what? And why?”

How long will the room remain empty? Someone will surely come through here eventually. “Um, could we… talk about it in my room?”

Her eyes narrow, but after a tense moment she says, “Fine,” and leads the way.

As you both cover the short distance between the lobby and your room, Ruem reappears on your shoulder. “If you brush me off again I swear I’ll figure out how to bite you, and I’ll make it hurt.” Given talking to her would be difficult with Kittpey around, you give her an apologetic grimace. “Also, you better be about to tell her everything, or else—”

“Radesto,” you say, disguising the word in a cough as Kittpey opens the door to your room.

“What about—” Ruem’s eyes widen. “Shit, you’re right, she’ll definitely try to stop the heist. She’s not a pushover like Umeso.” That’s not how you’d prefer to word it, but sure. “Okay, fine, don’t be honest enough to tell her that.”

The moment you close the door behind you, Kittpey rounds on you, close enough that it forces you to press your back up against the door. “You’ve got two minutes to tell me what’s going on, Ruem, or else I walk. And I don’t know if I’ll come back.”

Stomach in knots, you try to force a smile. “I—I mean, it might take a little longer than that, actually—”

A hand slams against the door, right next to your head — you nearly jump out of your skin. Half a second later, you realize that the hand must have pushed Ruem through the door, since she’s no longer on your shoulder. “Don’t fuck with me, Ruem, not now. I’m worried about you, but you refuse to tell me things! Things that you apparently tell Umeso, who you met, what, a month or two ago? We’ve known each other since we were kids!!”

“S—sorry!! I wasn’t trying to—”

“I don’t need your damn excuses! Just talk to me, Ruem, without the bullshit!”

Trembling, you summon every ounce of courage you possess, then blurt out words before you can think through what a bad idea they are.

“I’M NOT RUEM!!”

Kittpey takes a step back, as though physically struck. For a moment that stretches on for days, there is silence, during which your mind repeatedly informs you exactly how terrible an idea those words were. Your heart pounds in your chest, and your fight or flight instinct tries desperately to make a decision. When Kittpey finally starts to open her mouth, the instinct decides and you swivel around, trying to pull the door open and escape. Behind you, Kittpey shoots a hand out to slam it shut again, grabs your shoulder, and roughly turns you back to face her. And this time her arm presses against your neck, her eyes scanning every inch of your face as though that will help her identify the imposter you just claimed to be.

“What the FUCK does that mean!?”

Shaking from head to toe, you try to speak, but at first no sound comes out. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you try again. “I—I’m n—not her. Inside. N—not since—”

“The day you started acting strange.” Her arm loosens up, but doesn’t move away. Her eyes flit around, her mind undoubtedly racing. “Did something happen that morning? …Or the night before, maybe? You said you were with Radestro…”

Though it’s difficult, given the position of her arm, you nod. “I—I was— well she was practicing a spell. Astral projection.”

“How did she…?” Her eyes snap back to yours, her arm pressing firmly against your neck once more. “Where is she!? What did you do to her!?”

“Surprise!” Ruem shouts from your shoulder. Kittpey screams, scrambling backwards, which gives you a chance to breathe normally again.

“Where did it— what—!?” she says, clutching her chest.

“It’s her!!” you say, a little too loudly. You take a step forward. “The real Ruem. A—and she’s still here, it’s just that you can only see her if you’re touching me.”

Staring at you like you’re an alien, which is more or less true, Kittpey nonetheless moves closer, reaching a hand out toward your arm. Grasping it, she stares in shock at your shoulder, where Ruem sits.

“Hey, girl, long time no see! Guess we’ve got a lot to tell ya, huh?”