Yoshihiro Tanaka lay in bed, staring up at his dorm room's blank ceiling. The night was deep. He'd drifted off occasionally but each time he awoke sweating, his heart pounding, waiting for that bucket of cold water and the bark of the Old Man's voice.
Lying there in the silent darkness, he couldn't stop thinking about his fuckup on the roof last week. He rolled over and peered out the window, as if looking outside could erase the memory from his mind. They probably thought he was a joke.
Tanaka got up and threw his jacket on and left his dorm room. He went outside into the cool night air. It was past curfew and the campus was deserted. He'd be a prime target for the killer, but he didn't care, in fact, he searched the foliage and the long shadows cast by buildings eagerly hoping to see some shape lurking there. It would almost be a relief if the killer tried to jump him.
He strode hunched in anticipation of a blow from the Old Man. He had to remind himself that the Old Man wouldn't know anything he did here, that he wasn't all-seeing, that he could fuck up.
The looks in Jacob's and Camilla's eyes. The betrayal. The disappointment. Tanaka shuddered. It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all what they thought of him. He'd been the one to learn the spell. He'd been the one to cast Necromancy and get them even this far. He was a better mage than both of them.
He'd been so sure he could get the divination to work. The moment he'd realized he'd fucked up had been the most shocking moment of his life. His first thought had been that the Old Man was going to kill him. He didn't fuck up. Yoshihiro Tanaka never fucked magic up.
As if he'd been unexpectedly slapped in the face he realized he'd been arrogant. He'd never even considered that a possibility until that moment. The Old Man wouldn't punish him for fucking up, he'd punish him for his arrogance.
But arrogance was an alien thing. Something for people who were more bark than bite, for people who thought they had more ability than they actually had. Tanaka couldn't be arrogant, because he'd never lacked in ability. He'd always had more strength than was required. He'd always found everything so easy, so smoothly facile. For him it was just confidence.
And yet he'd stumbled over the tiniest of stones. He'd let his power go to his head. He'd become more bark than bite. And it wasn't for a lack of magical ability, no, it was something as stupid as assuming he could just solve every problem with his own power.
He could see the Old Man shaking his head and the inevitable "I warned you, Yoshihiro."
Tanaka came to an abrupt stop along some random path on the campus and blinked up at the night sky. The Old Man had always warned him that his power would go to his head if he was not disciplined.
He was right...
Tanaka captured a fleeting glimpse of a concept not only completely foreign to him, but running widdershins against his entire life view: that the Old Man wasn't simply satan incarnate.
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"No," Tanaka whispered to himself.
And yet, he had been right.
Tanaka kept walking, shaking his head. Maybe, just maybe there was something to his teachings, his training—after all, Tanaka owed most of his ability to the Old Man's insane training—but he was still a walking, living piece of shit.
The Old Man would tell him to repent by apologizing to Jacob and Camilla. Own up to his mistake.
Tanaka ground his teeth at the thought of D'Angelo's smug face. Maybe just to Jacob, then. After all, he was the one who'd cast Ritual Magic for nothing. Maybe not. It wasn't like they were his friends or anything. They'd ganged up on him once he'd messed up. Friends didn't do stuff like that, right?
But he did like investigating the murders with them. If he was being perfectly honest with himself, that was the only thing he really liked about being at Tisdale.
He'd have to sleep on it. If he could ever fall asleep.
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"Well, I've gotta go finish up that Cons assignment," Blake said.
"Library?" Jacob asked around a mouthful of fries.
Blake shook his head. "Gonna go finish it at Fireball with Grace."
Two months ago Jacob might have offered to join, but now he knew better. "Aight, I'll catch you later."
"Cya."
Jacob turned his attention back to his early afternoon lunch. He shovelled fries into his mouth and tried to decide whether he wanted to work on that Cons assignment Blake had mentioned or start into the Intro readings.
MW Club was tomorrow, and he was forcing himself to go since he'd missed both sessions last week training for Archie. The tournament committee had come out with a bulletin that indirectly banned the use of Production siphoning. It was a clever thing. They hadn't banned use of the spell itself, but instead interaction with the ward-wall surrounding the arena.
Oh well.
He found it a little frustrating that they only had a week between the Round of 16 and the Quarterfinal, after having three weeks before that to prepare. He didn't have time to iron out anything new, so he'd just been hammering away at his Cons and Prod spells, trying to get as strong as he could.
He was going to have a tough time matching Victor's augmentations. He'd trained with Camilla on Monday, but—to his surprise—she'd blown him off yesterday, telling him she needed to focus on improving her own magic. That had stung, but rung true.
"Yo, Jacob."
Tanaka's voice shocked Jacob out of his reverie. He looked up and saw the transfer student, in his usual quasi-emo gear, standing on the other side of the table. He hadn't spoken to Tanaka since that fiasco on the roof last week.
"Yo," Jacob said.
Tanaka stood there in silence. He looked tense, uncomfortable.
"I thought I should apologize for messing up the divination last week. That was bad."
Jacob blinked. This was the last thing he'd expected from the usually standoffish transfer student.
"It's cool, man," Jacob said. He flexed his left hand, where a pink weal had grown over the gash he'd made. "Everyone fucks up sometimes."
Tanaka bristled. "Maybe you do, but normally I don't."
"Whatever," Jacob said. "Next time just talk to us. We need to be communicating."
Tanaka folded his arms. "I think I-"
The cafeteria doors burst open and Claire, the upper year who'd given Jacob a tour of the campus, stumbled through.
"The vampire struck again!" She cried. "President Russell is going to address the school outside the Vanderbilt Building in half an hour."
The cafeteria exploded into cries and dogged conversation. Several people broke for the doors. Others sagged back in their chairs.
Jacob and Tanaka turned to look at each other at the exact same time. Inside both of their heads a clock had started ticking down to zero. Whatever Tanaka had been about to say, whatever argument they'd been about to launch into, was promptly forgotten in light of the sudden time-crunch.
"Let's go."