Not even an hour after Katia left, Kaki knocked on the Principal’s door.
“Come in.” Mirai said.
“I’m here.” Kaki said as he opened the door.
“Sit. We have things to discuss.” The Principal said, making sure to stay as neutral as he could so as to not affect what was going to be said by his student. Kaki silently sat alone on the other couch that was in the Principal’s office.
“How are you feeling?” Mirai asked.
“Like shit. Not physically. I am completely healed but I feel like shit.”
“Why do you feel like that?”
“Because I am dumb. I made a lot of bad decisions during our trip and now that the consequences are going to reach me and I am dreading it.”
“Why don’t you tell us what you did during your assignment? Might help.” The Principal said.
“Can’t say I did much. Once we got there, me, Mathias, Luminus and Moon all went to deal with the bandits. It was easier than I was expecting.”
“So you finally have the blood of another in your hands…” The Principal said, somewhat sad.
“Like I said. It was easier than I expected. I feel nothing about having killed those bandits. We rescued some civilians, I almost went on a downward spiral once I let one of them die but Cassandra helped me put things in perspective.”
“I hope you thanked her.” Mirai said.
“I did. One thing I can say is that we were running high on being powerful. Something that I hate to admit I liked a lot. We constantly went out of our way, going against orders, to kill bandits and that caused more than a few problems.”
“But in the end, everything with the bandits went fine, right?” Mirai asked.
“Yeah. Narissa kept our buts in line.”
“And after all that?” The Principal asked.
“We went to get Mia in the dungeon and found the guys from The Steps. It was mostly Mia and Klaws who dealt with the big guy, we just helped put her in a position where he couldn’t dodge. After that it was mostly both of them again who dealt with the maze. Katia and Narissa just helped in getting the layout of the thing. Following that we fought a true swordmaster and won…” Kaki said, giving a sad laugh after.
“Tell us more about that fight.” Mirai said.
“He said only people with weapons could participate so it was only the four of us, the knights, who could fight him. Mia was ready to intervene but she kept out of the fight. We traded blows with the elf for a few moments and once we got that he wasn’t really taking things seriously, we went for the kill. What Mia said was true. Just going for it is usually safer. If he did that, he would have won as he could pummel us in a moment if he so wished…” Kaki said but suddenly went silent.
“Are you alright?” Mirai asked after waiting for a few seconds to see if Kaki would continue.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s just… From that point forward I don’t feel like I actively did anything. We managed to defeat the guy and Mia had to save our asses but we defeated him alone. It felt nice. I hate to admit but it felt nice too when she was knocked out. The girls looked at me like I was a man. Do you know what I mean?” Kaki said and asked the principal.
“Yeah, I know what you are talking about.” He answered.
“Moon suggested that we just give Mia to the people attacking us and I couldn’t deny his logic. I also kind of wanted Mia to vanish…”
“Why that?” Mirai asked.
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“Jealousy, envy and pride in probable equal amounts. Me, Mathias and Luminus talked, and I mean really talked, and that was the conclusion we reached. Mathias was the strongest student here until last year, right? I was tied in second along with Luminus. Didn’t think that those positions mattered so much to us until we lost it.” Kaki said seriously but with a sad tone.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I should have noticed it.” Mirai said, somewhat sad for not having understood what was going on.
“Don’t be. I don’t think anything would have come out of it outside the extreme circumstances we found ourselves in the last few days. If our trip went as it should have I don’t think we would have done anything as bad as we did. We probably would have just continued to try to find a way to beat Mia alongside her.”
“I don’t know how much this will help but if you can bring her into a melee, you have a 99% chance of winning, no matter how weak you objectively are.” The Principal said, somewhat joking.
“She can probably still just explode everything around her even then. But that is not the point. I don’t think the us from now can beat the Mia that just got accepted here, much less her now, after she is healed. It hurts, more than physically, that a girl younger than my sister is so strong. Not to say women can’t be strong but Mia being stronger than me makes me angry at her and at me!” Kaki said as his feelings began to show themselves in how he was moving.
After a moment, Kaki noticed that he was beginning to get worked up and calmed himself down.
“...After we decided to not give Mia up, we waited, rested and after a while, got thrown into this weird chess game where we were inside some illusion of the game. For the most part, everything was alright, except that queen. You could feel that something was wrong. It was like seeing an evil version of my mother that actually wanted to hurt me. I, at least, can’t fight something like that.”
“I know how you feel…” Mirai said absentmindedly.
“At some point we were all moved to the castle where Mia was. How to win the game changed and we either had to defeat the enemy queen or let Mia die to her. There, I just froze. I couldn’t make a decision. Everything I was feeling just overwhelmed me and I couldn’t do anything, so someone made that decision for me. Luckily Mia woke up and won the game for us but our choice was made and nothing could change it anymore…” Kaki said. He looked extremely distressed
“You don’t need to continue if you don’t wish to.” Mirai said.
“No! I need to tell this…After the game, I couldn’t decide if I was glad or angry that Mia woke up. On one hand there were no expectations on me anymore, but on the other hand, there were no more expectations on me anymore. I couldn’t even look at her without feeling something negative inside me. Then that monster appeared, tortured Mia, then used us to hurt Mia even more…I don’t think I will ever forget Mia in that state. How someone can survive in that state and try to do anything is beyond me.” Kaki said as he began to calm down and sound more serious.
“Then he just beat us up. I don’t think I ever felt fear like that. Not even going to the desert with my father and seeing what they fight over there made me feel as much fear as that man made me feel. Then Mia got up, covered in some strange flames, and began to fight as an equal against someone who was just toying with us… And then he killed Onyx…You weren’t there so I can’t really describe it, but Mia loved that wolf like nobody could imagine, we felt how she felt as she lost him. If that was all I think I wouldn’t be here today, telling all this, but the problem is what happened after…I didn’t believe in gods, now I do. Because if I don’t, I don’t think I can live with the fact that someone, much less Mia, can embody something like death to the point I think I am dying just trying to remember the last few moments of that fight…”
“Kaki, are you really ok?” Mirai asked as Kaki began to sweat a little.
“Yeah, yeah… I am fine. Klaws saved us there. Mia would have absolutely killed us and I can’t really say anything about it. After that we returned to her, Shishen kept her alive, we looked for Onyx’s mana stone and found it…We also had another discussion about just leaving Mia to die that I couldn’t really say anything about. I was too afraid of everything and my mind was just empty, trying to protect me from my bad thoughts.”
“What do you plan to do about all of this? I can infer that you and your friends have something in mind.” The Principal asked.
“We are going to confess what we did to our father and be punished accordingly.”
“Shouldn’t you do something similar with Mia first?” Mirai asked.
“...If we did that, she would just forgive us or make us do something trivial as a punishment. I…We need someone to really make us feel the weight of our choices and neither Mia or the academy can do it.”
“You are not wrong about it. We can’t punish you for doing what you think would keep you alive in a situation like the one you found yourselves in and Mia would probably just ask for you to buy candy or something for her. As an educator and as a man, I hope that what comes from all of this helps you reach your full potential.”
“Thank you, Principal.” Kaki said. He was soon dismissed without a word.
“Why the sad face?” Mirai asked the principal.
“Did you ever fight in a war?” He asked.
“Luckily, not.”
“Who left this room was not our student, but a soldier who just lost something in war. Miss Katia probably was able to mask her feelings more so I didn’t notice it with her but I feel that we truly lost all our students with that trip, one way or another…”
“Let’s hope something positive comes out of this at least…”