Between me and the frightened yet strangely determined girl, stood Lucky, snarling at me and protecting her.

“So, even you’re siding with them huh?… Whatever.” I said while pushing a stick into the fire. I retracted the aura so the cat finally stopped making noise and just sat there, silently listening to the crackling fire.

I put my head between my knees, it shouldn’t be anything new by now… People hating me and all that, for some reason however, there was a strange inconvenience that consumed my attention, similar to a drop of water that keeps making a bloop sound at set intervals, stirring waves of discomfort that kept radiating from my chest and throughout my body in the process.

The ground underneath me kept switching between the orange of the flames and the darkness of my shadow. My body kept alternating the cold from the wind and the warmth of our small little fire.

The sounds around me were all jumbled up, a soothing mixture of crackling fire and pouring rain with the unfortunate expectation of the occasional thunder and the howling wind against the already creaking woods of the dorm.

“Is it really that much fun?” I asked under my breath.

To my surprise, Sophia heard me and responded “W-what is?”

“Is it really that much fun going around and talking about how much of a despicable human being I am?” Ahh, what am I even saying…? I don’t want to hear her opinion, I don’t want to talk to her.

“Lifes, I think you’re misunderstanding something…”

I hugged my knees tightly and said “What’s there to misunderstand!? I’m Inoshi, Number 4, scum of the earth, the nightmare of the Upper district, a murderer, isn’t that right? Everyone keeps saying that so that must be the case! Am I wrong? Is that not what you think?” I’m not sure what came over me but as I spoke the drop of water in my chest grew into an entire waterfall, it was such a strong waterfall that the water started leaking through my eyes.

The dam was breached and I couldn’t think of a way to close it other than letting the water drain.

“W-wait a second, you just didn’t let me explain, I tried to tell you that I don’t think of you in this way at all. Ever since we first met on the day you arrived at this school, you have given me a different impression…”

“That might have been true before but now you know the truth about my past, now you just want to tell me all about how terrible of a person I am.” I started lightly punching the floor as I kept talking.

“All of you rich, annoying, spoiled people who never had to struggle for anything in your life. All of you who had someone else make the tough decisions for you so you don’t have to face the consequences.” The punches were becoming stronger and I didn’t bother covering my hand with Sy.

“This fucking Thompson guy for one, what gives him the authority to decide what harm is fine and what isn’t?! I really should’ve just attacked him instead of taking this bullshit ‘punishment’.

Or this bald retard, Roger. Who is he to even talk to me?! I never did anything to him but all he cares about is his twisted, fake sense of justice, probably so that he could brag about it to whoever cares to listen.”

I lifted my hand up and looked at the cracked floor before using the Slayer’s Sy technique to boost one more punch.

“I FUCKING HATE ALL OF YOU!” The sound of thunder shook the rundown dorm we were inside of and the shattered marble floor underneath my fist caved into a small crater painted with blood.

The silent girl to my left and the cat that now stood his ground to protect her again, both looked at me as I grabbed my shaking, bruised fist. Some parts of the bone were showing from the deep cuts that were made as a result of not protecting my hand with Sy.

I wanted to savor that pain, I felt like I should. This pain is a reminder for… Something.

Dawn always called me stupid and Snoopsi used to say I shouldn’t rely on my intuition so much. What else am I supposed to do?

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“Answer me… What am I supposed to do?” I whisper to the flame in front of me as Snoopsi’s face briefly flashed through it.

“If you ask me, from my perspective you seem to be quite dishonest with yourself…” I looked at her and Lucky snarled at me loudly.

She lifted her head to meet my gaze with an expression I couldn’t comprehend. “There’s this saying where I come from, ‘the crops and the rain don’t care about my hunger or what happened yesterday.’.” She said.

I bit my lower lip and looked back at the daunting, hot flame.“I don’t know what that means. I don’t care to know either. Probably just another way to tell me that you really don’t care about my self pity. Heard that one before.” I said.

“W-what? No! It means that if your crops won’t grow because there’s no rain, there’s nothing you can do about it, so just find another solution. In my opinion it also means that you shouldn’t care about what other people think.

I don’t know you very well but, from what I heard so far, I think you need to accept that your past can’t be changed, you need to figure out how you go about things in the future.

Also my opinion but stop trying to convince people to hate you, it really starts to get on my nerves.”

“*Tch*...”

“Is… If that’s your idea of an ironic joke, it’s not funny.” I said

“H-huh…?” She retorted

“Didn’t you just tell me not to care about what other people think, and then proceeded to say what you think?”

“Pfft… How unique, I’ve never met anyone who thinks like that hihi.”

“Whatever, just stop talking to me and leave as soon as the rain stops.”

“I’m going to at least heal your fist, it looks painful…”

I closed my eyes and hugged my knees, the pain in my shaking hand kept grounding me in the situation. A sudden warm, fluffy sensation against rubbing my lower back made me jump a bit and my traitor of a black cat let out a loud noise in response.

“Don’t touch or get close to me, that’s the last warning.”

“Pahh, as if you can even threaten me, I know that you can’t harm any of the students. Whatever man, I’m over being courteous to you, I’ll just do whatever I want.” She responded.

This fucking girl is really getting on my nerves. I felt slightly cool, slander fingers grabbing my hand.

Reacting on instinct, I reached for the girl’s throat with my other hand but just as I was about to grab her, the same old painful pang hit my chest and I got dizzy.

My vision turned somewhat blurry but her eyes reflected our small flame and glowed brightly. My hand started to burn, or at least that’s what I thought it looked like beyond the blur.

The more the pain in my hand subsided and the skin stitched itself back together, the more her face grew red and her breath became heavier until eventually she fell on her back and my hand was completely healed.

In between heavy pants, the girl started talking again “there’s this legend amongst the Hadohians, it speaks of a bird, they call it the Sand Bird as it ‘rises from the ashes’.

That’s my Seal, ‘Like the PHOENIX, she shall appear after her death.’.”

“What? Why are you telling me this?” This phrase sounded familiar.

“I told you, I will just do whatever I want and ignore your wishes now. And by the way, I’m a faker and my Seal is not even at level 5 ‘ה’, so it takes a lot of stamina to use the healing flames.”

“Faker you say… How ironic.” Now I understand why it sounds familiar. That was my original Seal that Kiyoko forced me to sell in order to give me a Seal more suitable for an assassin.

“Ironic, how so?”

“W-what? No, I’m not talking to you. Why are you even telling me about your Seal?” I asked. The pain in my chest and my hand were both entirely gone at this point.

Phoenix girl sat back up and caught her breath before she started talking again.

“I already said that I’m just going to say whatever I want… Agh, whatever, I’ll just keep talking then.

Anyway, as I was saying before, I followed after Thompson and his goons as they carried you here and I listened in on your guys’ conversation when he... tortured you.” She made a sound as she shuffled in place.

“After Thompson left, I stayed outside of the dorm to watch you, I mean, earlier today in the school hallway you escaped him using your Seal and some strange powers, why didn’t you just run away now? I was curious to see what you’ll do.” I saw her playing with a rogue strand of white hair as she intently watched the flames.

“That’s when I heard you talking to yourself, it made me think I might have been wrong about you..” Her eyebrows curled upwards and her lips downwards as her voice trailed off and she hugged her knees.

“Wrong…?” I mumbled under my breath.