"You three actually did it?!" the teacher yelled. His voice burst through the classroom as the three students in it took the full force of it. Well, two of them really heard it, but Silence acted like she did too.
His face dropped to his hand as he continued, with Silence secretly taking her barriers off to hear it, "Just wow... To be honest, I put you three in the same group for a joke and it might be a more worthwhile challenge for Silence. Hell, this lesson wasn't supposed to be beaten by anyone... But, jeez. you guys actually managed to pull it off with one try left. Though, Dozer's 'incident' did make the security hectic and probably helped."
"So... what now?" Snake asked as he slightly puffed his chest out.
"There's nothing left... You definitely have the rest of the day off and I'll have to think of something to do for the next session since I've apparently underestimated you. I'll get back to you on that, see ya," he softly waved as the other three left the classroom and did as they pleased.
-
Snake and Headache were chatting whilst walking away. In the corridor leading to the main exit, they eventually tried to add Silence into it.
Headache, although cautious, was the first to break the ice, "So, um... Silence?"
No response, or any action acknowledging his words came from the nearby girl, who was now a good twenty meters away despite her smaller stature.
"Seems like she isn't paying attention Lee, sorry, Headache... Oh." Snake, initially pausing to monopolize on the comedic timing. Though, he soon made a sour face that he then shook off quickly and hid his face in embarrassment.
"Mistaking me and her? Ha, you should see your face right now Will," he replied with a considerable amount of laughter behind his voice.
A moment of awkward silence killed the conversation and Lee stopped moving to mimic Will. The same atmosphere got thick between the two, with Silence making it out of the building, even the school by the time they regained movement.
After a while, Will revived the conversation with a simple question, "So, what are you going to do now? I have nothing to do and, unlike her, it looks like you enjoy other's company. Not that I blame her, but did she have to be so cold?"
"You're talking about someone nicknamed 'Silence'. Personally, I'm more surprised she talked to us whilst we were working. Anyway, I planned to get a bite to eat before going to the library to do some homework. It might be boring, but we have maths and alchemy tomorrow, wanna join me?"
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"Why not? FYI, I'm seriously bad at maths, so could you help?" Will replied.
"Sure... though, I'm not that good myself," Lee replied.
-
Silence ignored the one or two dirty looks from teachers at the school, and the imagined judgmental looks of the few puppets left walking around the dorms as she casually went back to her room early. She spent a couple hours with her eyes deadlocked on a random book she found on a bookshelf, flipping pages almost every minute to keep up with her impressive reading speed. But as she reached the pages of the book in hand, she heard a knock at her door.
Surprised, not only at the fact someone was bothering to knock, but also at the fact she forgot the barriers... again. She sluggishly opened the door and The Headmaster stood outside accompanied by a battered puppet dressed in a familiar black suit.
"Sorry for your time, but according to the cameras you did this to my puppet?" he explained and as if on queue, the puppet collapsed, temporarily revealing a hole dug straight through it in doing so.
In a slight daze Silence started to think back, 'That was me? I can't even knock over that pole, how the hell did I tear a hole in a fucking military puppet!? So wait, when was this again? Ah, that's the guy from when I lost control, right? Most likely, I guess. That other guy...'
She continued to go off on a tangent until The Headmaster's cough brought her back to reality.
Shrugging, she simply replied, "Um, sorry, I'm having problems placing that. Was that when we were in the room with the envelopes?"
"Yes, this was just before you grabbed them. Anyway, how the hell did you do that!?" his face, which wasn't that calm before, now intensified with apparent anger as his voice bellowed through the empty corridors.
Silence couldn't help but buckle, which made her stammer her response, "I-i... I sort of panicked whilst trying to do something clever. But they came faster than I expected so I sort of released it without really planning it out. I mean, I knew from the vibrations that it was stronger than I thought, but didn't know that I did that much damage to it."
Noticing that he went too far, The Headmaster violently shook his hands as he apologized in a more calm tone, "Sorry. I didn't mean to be that intense, or to be that brash in language choice. It's just, this isn't really a joke. That's military-grade equipment you just wrecked in one shot, most of the higher-ranked third-year magic swordsmen can't even scratch those with an hour of chanting. So for you, with an audio ability, to do that chant-less..."
He paused for a moment before shaking his head and looking at his watch. After he wiped away some of the sweat that built up on his forehead, he turned away saying a final speech, "Well anyway, now that's cleared up I have to make another puppet after I'm done with school work, so I'll be leaving now. I expect to hear good things from Ms. Lucking."
When his inevitably left, Silence just stood in the still open doorway, a flood of thoughts rushing through her mind. Thankfully, Becky managed to come back and lead her back into her room before students came back from their classes. However, an hour or two definitely passed before then.