Somewhere deep in the halls of Sleepy Hollow sat the coldest room in the world.

A room where only those with particular “attributes” could enter.

These accolades could not be gained. Nor could they be learned. You were either born with it or could not enter the below-freezing room. Those were the rules of high society. Those would remain the rules of high society.

“Homecoming is almost here! A reminder for some of you… Shower.” A hoity-toity young man prodded. His bleach-blonde hair and brown skin complimented the bright purple suit he wore. This was Pompelli, the so-called Prince of Sleepy Hollow.

“Was tha-that a target at me?” Stumbling over her words was a girl decked out in full hazmat gear. A deep gas mask muffled her timid voice. Celica Monroe, the best chemist in the world, was also a hypochondriac.

“I mean… You do wear that stinky ol’ suit all the time! I bet if you took it off, you’d melt the paint right from my face!” Teased what looked to be a twisted court jester. His purple hair dangled from his cap’n’bells like rope from a tower. Kurtis Seymour Galavan, the nightmarish harlequin of Sleepy Hollow.

“I-If I took off this suit, y-y-you’d all be exposed to my illness! …Y-You’d rot from the inside out. Y-You should be a lot nicer to me…A-Ahhh!” Celica’s ravings were cut short as a pair of arms wrapped around her.

“Relax now, my sweet Celica. They’re simply trying to get a reaction.” The slender arms belonged to Veronica Pettigrew, dressed in her candy-making finest. Her confectionery was known even outside the walls of Sleepy Hollow.

“Ahem. If we could all settle down… I believe this meeting was called upon for a reason, no? I’d hate if you all made me have to act on my role of disciplinary captain.” Spoke Morrigan, the self-proclaimed Reaper of Sleepy Hollow. It was considered self-proclaimed because her massive kill count was unverifiable to those who faced her.

“Thank you, Morrigan.” Said the sitting speaker of the elusive group, Clarke Benkart. Not much was known about his abilities or status other than his parents, who were constant financial partners of the school. “As Pompelli mentioned, it is once again homecoming season. The time of year when casuals will parade around like sheep in wolf’s clothing to try and match our status.” The tone of his voice was calm yet full of disgust. His aqua eyes were enlarged by a pair of stylish black folk glasses as his hands folded underneath his chin.

“We’ll do as we always do. Scare the competition away with threats. Anyone dumb enough to continue their charade will be dealt with by… More extreme measures.”

“Then whyyyy… DON’T WE START WITH THAT?!” Yelled the ever-bloodthirsty Visalia Armitage, her excitement accidentally waking the man on her lap.

“Dearest Visalia…” Said the blood-red head on her lap.

“Yes, dearest?” She asked, looking down at him with concern.

“Did I hear something about ‘extreme measures’ from the boss?” With a crooked grin, the body on her legs sprung to life like a corpse. His pupils were all but dead, the only sparkle inside them coming from the sight of his wife and the sound of a means of quenching his blood lust.

“Wonderful for you to finally join us, Daemon. I take it by your reaction that you’ll be one of the council’s enforcers?” Clarke asked rhetorically, his once folded hands now gripping a tea cup poured by Morrigan.

“Enforcer? Absolutely not.” Daemon rose from Visalia entirely, stepping onto the table with fanfare exclusively delivered by his wife. “I am Daemon Armitage! An enforcer is something of a bouncer or a bodyguard—someone who smacks an opponent around. What you’re asking for with an enforcer is a lowly duelist. But me? Ohoho, I’m an executioner. The kind that your so-called ‘reaper’ lies about.” The room fell silent other than a scoff from the aforementioned assassin.

“You’re a wannabe, Armitage. You and your wife are savages who disgrace your status and life itself with your insatiable appetite for blood. You taint the art of killing with your lack of appreciation for life.” Morrigan called out, most of her attention directed towards filling Pompelli’s tea cup.

Daemon couldn’t help but cover his eyes and let out a deep laugh from within. The insane fit and venom-filled laughter caused the timid council members to exchange uneasy eyes. As his poisonous cloud of cackling finally began to die, Daemon was now face to face with Morrigan. “That’s what always amuses me about you. You claim to be this artist who perfected the craft of killing, yet you get onto my lovely wife and I’s case for enjoying bloodshed! You aren’t an artist. You’re a savage, just like us. That rose-scented perfume can only hide the scent of blood for so long, Reaper.”

“Break it up! If you’re desperate to compete, perhaps you can all play enforc— sorry, the executioner was it?” Clarke’s purposeful slip-up correction got a satisfied nod from the red-haired challenger.

“And why would we care to do that? Not all of the members of this once distinguished group are perverted killers.” Spoke Sage Yang, the Snow White Duke, for the first time this meeting. His beautiful black hair was well-kempt in a ponytail.

“Because a king or queen should be able to protect this school from invaders, right?” Every pair of eyes in the room focused on Clarke as he stood up. “This school is built off an idea. The idea of progress. Do you want to be something? You want to try and surpass your place on the hierarchy? Shed your own blood, and paint out your legacy with those who stand against you.” With his back turned to the council, he looked at his reflection in the black tempered glass.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“So if you want a chance at being the kings and queens of this school, you’re going to follow that idea. You will kill for the throne.”

Time slowed to a crawl. The teacher’s words became a garbled array of alphabet soup that came and went from Roy’s ears.

“How the hell does anyone put up with this?”

His sense of ennui peaked as his focus shifted from the instructor to the clock. Each hand of the clock dragged across the landscape of time itself in a three-way race.

“Has anyone ever seen the hour hand move?”

“Why is the secondhand red?”

“Who made the first clock?”

The samurai let out a sigh. His unresolved questions serve as little more than a distraction. His head turned over to the window. A small sigh escaped his lips as couples carried on in the courtyard.

“Damn. Everyone has a girlfriend but me! Even that try hard with the guns. Although… I’m not trying to get a girlfriend, am I?”

As his gaze relocated to his desk, he sighed, exhausted.

“All I want to do is become the greatest duelist this school has ever seen! …So that I can get revenge on that asshole who took my dad out.”

As his hands clenched into fists, the bell rang. Everyone, Roy included, rose to their feet.

“Grub time! Finally!” Without wasting a second, the samurai grabbed his little school supplies and hurried to the cafeteria.

…

“Hey, what gives!” The brief moment of joy was replaced immediately by annoyance as a buff lunch lady confiscated his tray. “I waited in line for like… Five minutes for that! Let me eat, asshole!”

“No can do. You’ve got no money.”

“Huuuuh?! I need cash to eat here?! I thought this was a school!”

“Yeah, i.e., not ya personal kitchen, kid. Either cough up the dough or get out of my lunch line.”

Roy gritted his teeth. His left leg began to shake relentlessly up and down while the lady wouldn’t even look at him. Her hand went up as she motioned to the next person in line.

“I could cut her down here and now! Take that food and be outta here! Screw this stupid place. They want me to starve? I’ll st–”

“Ah, put it all on my tab, won’t ya?”

Roy’s head shot over to his left, where a familiar face met him. Yellow and blue mixed seamlessly in her hair as she smiled at the samurai. “Haha, you sure? Take in a new brat?”

“Hm? Nah, it’s still just Ace and me. He wasn’t feeling too good, so he resting up in the club room.” While those two spoke, Roy quickly snagged his tray back. His face lit up as he took a quick bite from his burrito.

“Hey. You eating with anyone? If not, we can hang out for a little bit. I still haven’t really apologized for letting Ace fill you with bullets.” In response, the samurai shrugged. Stuffing more of the burrito in his mouth as he stepped aside, Liz smiled and led him towards the back of the food court.

“So, getting into school, okay?”

“Nah. This place sucks!”

“Hah. You aren’t wrong there.” As the two sat down, the punk pulled out a lunchbox with a foreign design on it. When she opened it, Roy’s eyes widened at the meal inside.

“Holy crap, that looks awesome! Did you make that yourself?”

“Haha! No way! I can do many things, but cooking isn’t one of them. Do you want some?”

“Hell yeah!”

As she scooted the box between them to share, she couldn’t help but chuckle as the samurai went to town on the Rootbeer marinated ham. “This is awesome! My compliments to whoever made this!”

“I’ll let Ace know. I’m sure he’d be… Amused.”

Almost instantly, Roy’s nose scrunched up as he let the ham fall onto his plate. His tongue hung low as he shook his head. “This is awful! Tell whoever made this never to pick up food again!”

The switch-up caused Liz’s eyes to widen before she launched back into her seat, full-on laughing. “Dude! Are you bipolar or something?! You said you liked it a second ago! Ahaha!”

“Yeah, and then I found out that guy made it! How do I know it isn’t poisoned or something!” His brow furrowed as he picked up his water bottle. Roy waterfalled some before swishing it around in his mouth and spitting it out.

“POISON? Like… Straight up assassinate you? Ho-LY dude!” As Liz’s laughing fit continued, the samurai unamusedly took a bite of his burrito.

“Hey! I don’t trust that guy. He shot me! Three or four times!”

“Fair! Fair… B-But honestly, you also tried to stab him! Hahaha! Dude, that reaction is still so visceral! You just spit it out! Puhahahaha!”

“Ugh…” He rolled his eyes and shook his head before shrugging. “Why do you even hang with that jerk? He’s a massive try-hard!”

“Ace? Oh, he’s not so bad when you get to know him…” Her fit seemingly calmed down. She sunk back into her chair and smiled at Roy. “You two are pretty similar in some ways.”

“Barf!”

“I’m serious! If you two actually gave it a shot, you’d probably warm up to each other eventually.”

“Doubt!”

“Maybe even become friends?”

“Pass!”

“Pfft. You’re a real kid, you know that?” Liz said, another friendly laugh escaping her throat.

“Whatever that means! We hardly know each other, lady. Whatever you think about me is wholly an assumption. The only thing I have in common with your little boyfriend is that we’re both killers. Shoot it, slice it, beat the living hell outta it, none of that matters. I’ve seen that look in his eye, and while he’s a total jackass, he’s also a cold-blooded killer.”

“Which is why I’m here.” Liz interrupted. She quickly wiped the corner of her lips with a napkin, her eyes narrowing down the samurai’s in an intense staredown. “I don’t care what the situation is. If Ace challenges you to another duel, you decline it.”

“No shit? Hah! Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he isn’t a killer at all if he sent his floozy over here to beg like a dog for table scraps.”

“I’m not here on his behalf. I came here on my own accord. Like you said, you’re both killers. Neither would back down in a fight to the death. Hell, you both nearly died after that first duel you had! Just… Please don’t fight him, okay?” Despite how demanding she was, the tone of her voice was shaky. Roy could hear the lump that’d formed in her throat; it was a request that was fully coming from the heart.

“Listen, I dunno what you see in that pompous asshole, but if it means so much to you, I won’t touch a hair on his finely gelled hair. You’d better keep him on his best behavior, though, because one wrong move and… I’ll cut his ass down before he even gets a chance to pull one of his fancy guns out of the holster.” At this point, Roy was practically nose-to-nose with Liz. A chilling smirk lit up his cheeks, starkly contrasting the stern glare the punk gave him in return.

“Deal.” She finally broke the face-off, letting out a deep sigh as her head shook in an attempt to regain her composure. When her eyes returned to the samurai, his back was turned to her.

“Glad we could agree. Oh yeah, thanks for the grub. Let’s do it again sometime.” With a final shift of his head, Roy was off. Leaving an uneasy alliance and a half-eaten burrito left on the table.