Fairy-Robert dove into the deep void to replenish his essence. Down here, the flood of Void wisps was uncontested and he quickly topped up. He checked his poisoning index, found it at mid to low levels, purged the dross with his spell anyway, and went back to the "surface".

Back in human form, he reappeared in the wrecked lawn. The erupting swords left furrows that seemed to be dug the wrong way.

Then he continued with his stroll, enjoying the sunlight and watching the future via satellite-fueled prescience. He walked between two buildings without windows on either side. It was the perfect place for...

This time, he sensed danger from all sides. When he reacted to his prescience, it triggered the ambush way earlier. Reality broke as the illusion hiding the attackers dropped, the outro effects looking like shattered pieces of a mirror. Robert froze for a moment as he saw what was coming toward him.

Ninjas. Dozens, maybe a hundred ninjas.

Robert cast haste on himself, powered by his two stars. He dodged the first volley of poisoned shuriken, then cast accelerate thought also at two stars. The world seemed to be moving in slow motion. He pulsed sense life, reading the power level of his opponents. He found four two-stars and a dozen one-star Archs but the remainder of the ninjas were either skilled or powerful enough to hide their power signature, the pressure from their stars or they were mortals.

Sending a hundred Archhumans after a target was either overkill or stupidity. Or it was stupidity either way. Awakening a hundred Archhumans cost at least, using the crappiest Prime Vestiges in existence, a hundred grand per person. Ten million dollars. But training a bunch of kids to become brainwashed minions cost only the time and food to keep them alive. Much cheaper.

Robert jumped in the air, clearing ten feet and conjuring a small wall of force under his right foot. He vaulted off of this floating platform and went another ten feet up in the air. Faster than the ninjas could react, he reached a hundred feet above the horde of black-clad killers.

Then he homed on the Archhumans' signatures. Locking eyes with his attackers, he fired a void lance at each of them, widening the beam to four feet in diameter to make sure he would get them. Silently, they flashed down, traveling faster than the speed of sound, nigh impossible to dodge unless you could predict the future and be faster than Robert's aim. Each evaporated whoever was unlucky enough to be in the cylinder, digging deep into the Earth.

Serendipity ticked up by a few percentile points as he hit the underground utility lines. If tempering techniques could laugh, this would be the one.

The two-stars managed to avoid the beam by using some sort of spell that replaced their bodies with wooden dummies wearing the same robes for some reason. Robert tried to track them but they had vanished, most likely using their advanced illusions to evade.

It was of no consequence. Robert dropped down and landed like a bullet in the middle of the throng of ninjas. He gathered raw Mental essence and let loose as a psychic wail that spread in a wave around him, emulating the psionic blast one opponent used against them in the tournament.

The mortal ninjas dropped down, their brains short-circuiting from the powerful attack. The ones closer to Robert outright died as their minds overloaded and fried.

He kept his buffs and wits going full throttle. These ninjas were dangerous because they were fast enough to react to his reaction to their future intentions, making his prescience worth for only a few minutes and the fact he forced his opponents to change plans.

The barrage of poisoned shuriken was much harder to avoid in the future he perceived back then because the mortal ninjas had had time to coordinate their attack. When he forced them to appear early, some confusion spread throughout the ranks.

But the two-stars were gone. They didn't appear in any of his paranormal senses. Robert went around the Archhumans he managed to kill and looted them. They didn't have anything on them, not a storage ring, potion or even cash or identification. It was a waste of time.

From the few mortals still alive, he copied their motor skills into VHS tapes in his intellect fortress. Robert sensed people approaching and stood tall. It was the campus security, finally catching up to the events of the morning.

*

*

They escorted him to Marcus Palmer's office. The Academy official that was impersonated by that cultist back then. Robert gave them his testimony and presented the corpses and items he had collected as evidence. After he scanned everything for valuables, of course. Some untraceable prepaid cash cards, for example, remained with him.

"Mr. Blaze, what a pleasure to see you again," Marcus said, without any vim behind his words.

"Mr. Palmer. So good to see the real you again," Robert replied, reflecting the energy he received.

"Shall we cut the platitudes and go straight to business?" Marcus suggested.

"Sure. What's up?"

"Can you explain to me the hundred dead bodies and the holes between the conservatory and classroom building T?"

"The holes were made while I was defending myself against assassins."

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"And the dead bodies?" Marcus asked in an accusatory tone.

"I have no idea. I didn't kill a hundred people today," Robert replied nonchalantly.

"Were you attacked by a hundred people?"

"Yes. A hundred people, dressed like those Japanese ninjas you see in movies."

"And you didn't kill them?"

"I killed only a few. Not enough to reach a hundred."

"Student Robert Blaze," Marcus started. Robert thought it was always bad when dad had to use your full name. "Why didn't you retreat?"

"According to the student regulations, the duty to retreat only applies when retreat can be achieved without compromising one's safety. I did not retreat because I felt it wouldn't be safe."

Marcus glared as if ready to call Robert on his bullshit.

"Please, tell me about the attacks you suffered today."

"I am more than pleased to tell you about the attacks I suffered this morning."

Silence. Marcus grunted.

"Tell me about the attacks you suffered this morning."

"Assassination attempts. Since all of the attacks had the potential to kill me."

"Very well. Tell me about the assassination attempts."

"Sure. The first one was a woman knocking on my apartment's door. The moment I answered the door, she stabbed at me."

"And what did you do?"

"I avoided getting stabbed. Then I let the assassin die after confirming she wasn't a student."

"What? Did you kill her?"

"No, I did not kill her. I let her die. I did not use any attacks or spells to end her life."

"What do you think was the cause of death?"

"I did not perform an autopsy on the body."

Marcus gave up and changed subjects, "How did you confirm she wasn't a student?"

"I checked her face against the Academy's yearbook and didn't find a match."

"What did you do with the body?"

"I kept it until I turned it over to your team."

"Did you find anything on the body?"

"I turned the body over to your team. Did they report anything missing?"

"Did you take anything from the body?"

"Aside from the life?"

Another groan. "Yes, aside from the life."

"I took no personal possessions from the body." Because they weren't personal possessions after the person no longer existed.

"Let's move onto the next attacker."

"Assassin," Robert politely corrected.

"The next assassin," Marcus agreed.

"Yes. It was a man that used a beam of light to assassinate me."

"A beam of light. Why didn't he succeed?"

"I dodged."

"You dodged a beam of light? How?"

"By not being in its path when it fired."

"Oh. I forgot you have the Time affinity."

"I did not. That's how I survived."

"Witnesses said you were walking with your creatures."

"With my pets and friends and tame monsters, yes."

"Creatures."

"Aren't we all creatures, Mr. Palmer?" Robert asked with the innocence of a four-year-old reincarnated Archmage.

"Indeed. So, you were with your creatures. The attacker—"

"Assassin."

"—Attacker fired the beam of light. What did you do?"

"After the assassin fired the beam of light, I went behind him and popped his head."

"You... popped... his head."

"Indeed. Popped is the correct verb."

"How did you pop his head?"

"I punched it using a spell. And it went pop. As in it was obliterated and what was left of it went flying in all directions but back toward me."

"What spell did you use?"

"That would be telling. Under student guidelines, chapter two, article one, paragraph—"

"You are not required to disclose the particularities of your abilities to anyone who's not a sworn teacher."

"You are not my sworn teacher," Robert said. "Please seek either tenured Professor Actus, or senior tenured Professor Andronicus."

"Andronicus?"

"Andronicus," Robert replied with a smile.

"Never mind. You popped his head. What next?"

"I left the body where it was and went on with my day."

"Where did you leave the body?"

"Where I popped his head."

"And where is it?"

"In the campus' east lawn."

"My team didn't find the body nor noticed any signs of a popped head. I supposed it was quite gory."

"It was quite gory, can confirm."

"Do you remember where the body is? Can you walk me there?"

"No, not really." To the second question.

"You forgot?"

"I forget many things. It's part of the human nature. Our minds can only store so much information—"

"Yes, I know that. Never mind. Next question. The third attacker... ass—"

"Assassin."

"Yes. Assassin. The third assassin. What did he do?"

"She. it was a woman."

"What did she do?"

"She conjured these huge blades out of the ground."

"And what did you do?"

"I avoided the huge blades that came out of the ground."

"Witnesses said your pets disappeared."

"They did not disappear."

"It contradicts what the witnesses saw."

"They might've seen something disappear, but it didn't make their impressions correct."

"Where did your pets go?"

"Pittersville."

"Pittersville?"

"Pittersville."

"How did they go to Pittersville?"

"I took them there through the shortest path between where they were and Pittersville."

"Are you capable of long-range teleportation?" Marcus asked, astonished.

"Not really, no. Though to the untrained eye, it might seem like it."

"But if you took your pets to Pittersville, then you were safe. You didn't need to return."

"I had to return because my friend was still in the field."

"You didn't have a duty to rescue your friend," Marcus said, victorious, as if he'd caught Robert in a lie.

Robert stood and leaked Void essence. Loud pops rang around him as the air was disintegrated and left vacuum bubbles behind him. The flow of Ether was also disrupted as the Void essence killed the wisps around Robert, pulling more Ether from the surroundings. The Ethertech in the office blinked and made weird noises.

"I would disintegrate half of this campus with whoever happened to be inside said half before I let someone under my care come to harm. You seem to have a keen interest in catching me breaking this or that rule."

"Let me ask you this, Marcus Palmer," Robert continued, glaring down at the head of campus security. "Are you involved in any way with one of the students who died in the most recent tournament?"

"I'm... not... affected by it." Marcus said, measuring his words.

"I'll take that as a yes. As someone with a motive to send assassins after me, I demand you recuse yourself and anyone from a faction who lost someone in the tournament, especially to a student of Professor Actus from this investigation."

Robert spent an inordinate amount of essence to send a silent message to Noah. The extra expense was necessary to increase the spell's range but left a silver halo around Robert's head that lingered for a few seconds. He then spent more than fifteen minutes in a staring game with Marcus until Noah barged into the room.

"What is going on here?" Noah demanded. "Why are you interrogating a student without either a guardian or a teacher present?"

"Student Blaze is thirty-two years old!" Marcus rebutted.

"Nuh-uh!" Robert tutted. "The Academy regulations do not speak about age. Professor, Marcus Palmer is related to one of the deceased students in the tournament and I have reason to believe he is related to at least one of the four assassination attempts on me that happened this morning."

"Marcus. I hope you are ready to explain to the board how four assassins—"

"One hundred and five," Robert corrected.

"What?" Noah gasped.

"The fourth attempt had more than a hundred ninjas," Robert explained.