The next morning, Dana’s body felt like he had a full-body bruise. Pain radiated out of his shoulder in waves. He could have sworn he dislocated the joint against the door last night but he could move it… with some effort now. He rose from his bed, still wearing the pants he had thrown on as they left the night before. Splashing some water on his face he went to the door to check on the girls next door. As he opened the door he got a bit of a jolt when he saw D’arcy standing there, eyes ablaze.

“D’arcy? What’s happened? Is Nubra doing better?”

“Professor!” The ghost girl’s face broke into a relieved smile. “I was concentrating as hard as I could trying to knock so I wouldn’t intrude on you again. Nubra woke up a couple hours ago… spent almost a full hour throwing up and then stumbled her way back home. I tried to stop her but she insisted she needed to get home before her parents called the town guards to find her.”

“Come in then…” Dana opened the door to let her into his apartment. Taking a seat at the small table his package was waiting on. “Did she look okay though?”

“She looked better than last night, but far from okay. I think she will make it home alright. Her mom is an herbalist so with any luck she can do something to help get her over whatever those guys put in her drink.”

“You’re a good friend D’arcy, watching over her like you did.”

“I would feel better about it if I could do anything. I’ve been a ghost for literally centuries and I can’t affect anything in the real world unless I’m fuming mad.” She stood by the table, her shoulders slumped slightly but even so the way she held herself spoke to a deep strength within.

“Centuries, D’arcy? You seem so level-headed I can’t imagine you have all that much unfinished business that would tie you to this plane.”

“It’s… it’s not my business keeping me here.” If a ghost could blush, she would have in that moment. “It’s my dad’s. He was a knight… by our best guess around 890 AD… records weren’t the best back then but that looks about right. His charge was killed while under his protection. He was disgraced… called a traitor. His order claimed he let the man die in exchange for gold. He was executed for his crimes when I was three.”

“As soon as I was old enough I pretended to be a boy and pledged my service to a local lord. I was knighted as a result of my deeds and began looking into the truth of what happened to my dad.” Her eyes grew downcast. “I never believed what they told me… there was no way my dad would betray his lord, for any amount of money. I was getting close, I just know it… then I was dead. A ghost… wandering the castle. They found my body a week later, a note confessing my true gender and identity.”

“Now Dad and I are both ghosts and I am pretty certain that any chance we had of discovering the truth is long since passed so barring a miracle…” She gestured to herself again, her spectral body shining and transparent all at once. “This is me. I don’t know if improving myself through this school can get me the chance to move on but it has to be worth a try.”

“Sounds like you got the short end of the stick a couple of times D’arcy. Spent most of your life dedicated to solving your father’s case and then even your afterlife. You didn’t even seem to get much chance to really live.”

“That’s not true!” She smiled, but Dana could tell there was more than a little forcing herself to. “Think of all that I have seen over the years! Even as a Knight, there is no way I could have ever dreamed of planes, computers, and so much more. Sure… I could have lived more when I was alive but I have friends now and I’m learning new things every day. It’s not so bad as all that.” It seemed like she didn’t want to talk about the subject more, instead pointing towards the package on the table. “What did you get?”

“Some clothes for now.” Dana opened the package. Taking out some of the outfits he had ordered. Many of them were outfits he could use at school but there were some casual clothes as well. Pulling out a pair of jeans to fold them up D’arcy giggled.

“I bet you look real good in those…OH!” D’arcy’s eyes went wide enough that her eyeballs seemed ready to fall out. “I didn’t… I shouldn’t…” She turned away, hugging her arms around herself as she stared at the ground.

“Don’t worry too much about it D’arcy… I get worse from Jett and Daeva every day.” He grabbed the paper that came with the package expecting a receipt only to have a small gold ring fall out onto the table. “What the?”

Dana opened the paper to find it wasn’t a receipt but a note. It simply stated on it ‘In case something happens ~E~’.

“It looks like a defense ring of some kind,” D’arcy said, bending over to her a close look at the ring on the table. “Do you think E might have been the President?”

“If so… then Meira might be right and what happened to her was no accident. She might have even seen it coming.”

* * *

D’Arcy left him alone after not much longer and Dana wandered down to the gate to the school. It was locked, as he expected, with Ruska’s new nobody in, nobody out policies fully in effect. There was even magic involved that had kept the ghost girl out when everything had happened the previous night. The gate was massive, towering over even many of the buildings in the town. There was a locked gatehouse just to the left of the gate that looked like it hadn’t seen any usage in quite some time. Idly he wondered if there was a way inside and moved closer to the gate, since he got his surprise package we wanted to look into more things that just weren’t adding up in his head.

Once stepping up to the immense gate he felt his hand growing warm. He looked down to see the ring he had just received glowing with a bright flame. A crack appeared in the gate just in front of him. Bit by bit the crack widened into a doorway that allowed him to pass through onto the campus proper.

“Welcome back President Revi.” Said a disembodied voice from the gate. He looked down at the ring, raising an eyebrow.

“Seems like I owe Eterna plenty of thanks when she comes back to us.” He started off walking deeper into the campus. Some of the students staying on campus could be seen having picnics by the lake as he approached the main library where the dragon had attacked. Girls from childhood all the way to full adults just spending time with each other. Arriving at the site of the attack, there was a series of makeshift canvas structures hastily erected over the remains as people tried to protect the books from the elements until they could be rehoused. He saw a familiar face crouched near the rubble and headed over in that direction.

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“Akuji… what brings our intrepid journalist out on a holiday weekend?”

The devil girl turned to see him from where she knelt with a look of excitement.

“Mr Wilde! I was under the impression you were spending the weekend in the city. I smell a story there somewhere in your appearance here.”

“No story, Akuji, just paperwork I need to take care of for class.” He couldn’t tell her about the ring, at least not until he knew more about why Eterna sent it to him. “Are you here following up on a lead about the dragon incident?”

“Oh yes… I don’t know if you’ve met my friend here Nesia Ephax, she’s another reporter with me on the paper.”

Dana went to offer his hand in greeting to the girl and froze… the young lamia sitting before him was achingly familiar. Dressed in an off-the-shoulder red bodice with a matching crown in her blue hair she was the spitting image of her mother. Curious eyes, a friendly smile, and a tail made of green and blue scales he couldn’t help but stare a moment.

“N… Nice to meet you Nesia.” He took her hand and shook it gently.

“Mr Wilde, I’ve heard so much about you.”

All of a sudden all the blood left Dana’s face. What did she mean by that… a flood of panic flew through his body. Anise wouldn’t have told her daughter about what had happened, would she? “You have?”

“Of course… Akuji is a big fan. She’s always going on about her hunky human teacher.” She let her eyes roll down him and back up again. “I must say you do live up to the hype.”

“Nesia studies temporal magics here and she has a way we can take a better look at what happened to day of the attack,” Akuji said, maneuvering an object the size of a tablet near where the wall had been ruined. “Let’s take a look what we can see.”

She rotated her finger counter-clockwise on the screen and a glowing representation of the rubble appeared superimposed over the rubble she knelt by. As she turned her finger the green glowing rubble returned to its place, building back up to a wall once again. The picture advanced once more… slowly this time as the wall exploded outward, shooting rock and paper in all directions.

“Wait… can you do that again?” Dana asked… watching the scene over again. “Why does it look like the library exploded from the inside out? Can you see the dragon anywhere?”

“It’s not as good with living things as objects but we should be able to find something.” She turned the screen to her left where the dragon had been spotted, scanning around the area but finding nothing.

“Try later,” Nesia suggested. “We know it was here, maybe it just wasn’t near the wall somehow?”

The image advanced again, finally after a minute or two the fuzzy impression of the dragon’s claws hit the ground nearby… leaving glowing impressions on the ground as it leaped to the wall… swiping its claw through the damaged area and scattering the debris even more.

“I thought the dragon was what wrecked the library?” Akuji said, watching the destruction the dragon caused continue.

“No… No, it makes sense.” Dana thought back to the day when everything happened. “We all heard the explosion while we were still in the class and ran outside… then the dragon flew overhead coming in this direction. Whatever caused the explosion seems like it drew the dragon here. However, it does look like its interest was aimed at the same area. Did the library have a basement?”

“Yeah…” Akuji spoke once more. “There is an archive floor below but I would have to check the building plans to see if they extend out to this area.”

“There has to be a reason the dragon was interested here… if it was a book she would have just changed into a humanoid form… easier to work with but she kept clawing around… maybe she was trying to uncover something?”

“We will need some help to find out… someone strong… a minotaur or even a giant to move the rubble… we could get D’Arcy or one of the other ghosts to scout ahead but we need to move this stuff to really get a look.” Akuji stood up, “I’m not giving up yet… we’ll get to the bottom of this yet Mr Wilde.”

“Alright… both of you keep me up to date on any developments… it looks like there is a lot more going on here than it seems at first.”

“Sure… but you want advance notice on the story I want an exclusive. One-on-one, you and me, full access…” Akuji grinned impishly as she held out her hand for Dana to shake. He sighed softly letting a smirk cross his face as he took her hand.

“Fine… deal.”

* * *

Heading back to the gate, Dana passed by the administration building, no one would be in there again until after the holiday weekend. The locking up of the campus was already causing certain problems so the increased security might not be worth it. It seemed Ruska wanted to isolate the school like it might have been before the town sprung up and forced the integration of outsiders into the island.

A loud thud could be heard from inside the building followed by a loud keening wail. He rushed through the doors and inside as the screams and noises only got louder. He came to a stop at the end of the hall, facing Eterna’s office he realized the noises were coming from inside. The entire building was swelteringly hot causing him to almost immediately sweat straight through his clothes. He couldn’t breathe, it felt like someone had sucked the oxygen out of the building.

As he watched the door to the office began to blacken… fumes pumping out of the wood. His eyes watered as he struggled to even inhale, feeling the burning hot air scorch his lungs as he fell to his knees. The door continued changing to a dark charcoal as he watched, pieces flaking off and falling to the ground as it became more brittle. With a final loud crash the door splintered, falling about the hall in pieces to reveal inside a very angry-looking… and also a very naked girl.

“Who locked this door!” She screamed, hair flowing around her like a halo of flame. She shone so brightly it hurt just to look at her… then almost as quickly as her rage seemed to manifest her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell forward to the ground. The air returned in a great whoosh as it filled the hallway once again. Dana inhaled the fresh air filling his lungs again, making the burning in his lungs feel all the worse but at least he would survive. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed up Meira to tell her what happened. She arrived at a full sprint ten minutes later.

“Where is she?” Dana pointed at the naked girl. He had taken the chance to bring her out of the scorched office and rest her unconscious form on one of the benches lining the hall. Even putting his jacket over her in an attempt to protect her modesty but not before he had gotten more than a good look at the former President… her new body was as close to perfect as anyone could imagine.

Meira went to her immediately, checking her over with a practiced ease as Dana imagined she had done more than a time or two before. “It looks like she just exerted herself too much right after being reborn. What was Ruska thinking sealing the door even from the inside? She had to know this was an inevitability.”

“We can ask her Tuesday once school reopens. Until then, what do we do about Eterna?” He nodded at the covered girl’s body.

“First, get used to not calling her that… new life, new identity. I’ll get her set up in one of the guest cabins for now.” Meira lifted the girl into her arms and not for the first time Dana was impressed at the strength the elf had in her body. She all too often played up the funny blonde girl she looked like that it was easy to forget the warrior she was under all that. “There are funds to take care of her, even enrolling her in the school to get her back into the swing of things.”

“You mean I might be getting a new student?”

“Unlikely, Wilde.. You are still in charge of many of the school’s scholarship students… any class she is put in with be with the Elite students over in the fancy dorms… if she doesn’t just keep the cabin I put her in all to herself.” Meira carried the newly born phoenix towards the entrance of the building, leaving Dana thinking. This wasn’t the first time the difference in the students’ finances had been mentioned. Was there that large a difference between how students were treated? He chalked it up to yet another thing to look into during his time at the University.