[Hm...] Rin thought as she and Sara arrived at the academy. They stood just outside the building. Her white hair had turned back to its natural black as the illusion spell wore off on the way here, and that man remained unconscious on her shoulders. [What should we do?]

"Where are we taking him?" Sara quietly asked from Rin's right.

"Well, uh, that's what I'm trying to figure out right now," Rin replied. "The teachers probably went home already, so... I'm not sure where we can drop this guy off at."

Her initial idea had been to take him to Cara or Maria for... interrogation, but she doubted either of them was still here.

[He's probably going to wake up any second now. It would be bad if he just started screaming his lungs out as soon as he did. Come on... there has to be...]

Then, an idea popped up in her mind.

She was almost ashamed she hadn't thought about it earlier.

"I know where to take him!"

"Hm? Where-"

"Sara," Rin turned toward her partner. "Thanks for helping me out tonight. You're really good at fighting and I'm glad you were there with me. I'll buy you something to eat one of these days, just as a 'thank you', okay?"

As soon as she finished, she ran straight into the building, leaving behind a dazed and confused Sara.

She couldn't tell Sara what she wanted to do anyway, since Sara did not yet know of Xhez's existence.

Xhez. Rin's idea revolved around her.

[She can see memories! We don't need to "interrogate" this guy, we can just have Xhez figure out what he knows directly!]

Having decided on that, Rin went up to her room and burst through the door, ignoring the stares from stray students roaming the academy's halls.

She harshly threw the guy onto her bed and then placed the book she'd found on top of her drawers. Then, she walked over to Xhez's bag, poking at it.

"Xhez," she whispered as she opened it up. "Are you up?"

"Hm? Yes," the sprite replied from inside. "You're back!"

"Uh, yeah," Rin replied with a smile. "Could you come out for a second? I need your help with something."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

A moment later, the sprite was standing in the middle of Rin's room, looking down at the man on her bed, perplexed at the sight.

"Rin, who is...?"

"This guy's one of them," Rin stated.

As soon as she heard that, Xhez went silent. Her eyes widened as she stared down at the man who was beginning to regain consciousness.

"... One of the people who had threatened your life before you met me?" Xhez asked softly.

"Yeah," Rin replied.

A slightly dark expression then overtook Xhez's face. Rin was shocked to see that kind of look coming from her.

"Why did you bring him here?" Xhez asked, balling her hands up into fists. "Is there any reason he should not be dead?"

"He will be in just a bit," Rin promised.

The man then looked around, his eyes snapping back and forth between Xhez and Rin. His confusion was tangible.

"H-Hey," the guy said, "w-what are you-"

Rin ripped off a piece of her dress and tied it around the guy's mouth, effectively gagging him.

[Meh, I have to buy a new dress anyway. I've been using this one way too much.]

"If you so much as move an inch, I'll kill you," she told him. "As I was saying," Rin turned toward Xhez, leaning closer and whispering in her ear so that the man did not hear her words. "I need you to look through his memories. Find out everything that he knows about the Scorned. Can you do that?"

"Ah," Xhez brightened up. "I can do that. Could you hold him down for me?"

"Sure."

The man's eyes darted back and forth between them, visibly confused as Rin went and pinned his arms to the bed, holding them over his head. Xhez walked up, a frown on her face aimed at the man as she sat in front of him.

Taking a deep breath, the sprite pressed her forehead against his, as Rin held him in place, preventing him from thrashing around.

As soon as she did, her body and his began glowing, and Rin understood that Xhez's strange power had begun to take effect.

She remained like that for a little over a minute. Rin watched, making sure that the man could not move. Once the glowing began to dim, Rin eased up a little.

"Okay, what did you-"

Before she could finish asking the question, Xhez placed her hands on the man's throat.

"Uh, w-what...?" Rin was about to ask something but Xhez started squeezing the man's neck tightly before she could finish.

Rin froze. She didn't feel any pity for the guy, but Xhez's sudden aggression caught her off-guard. She squeezed down on his throat as hard as she could while Rin continued holding him in place.

The man violently tried to shake the sprite off, but Xhez didn't budge, mostly because Rin was there, helping.

Eventually, he stopped moving. Rin watched as Xhez took quick, shallow breaths, keeping her hands on him until she was absolutely certain that the man was dead.

The raw disgust on her face shook Rin to her core.

[What did she see in his memories?]

"It was the Scorned you wanted to know about, right?" Xhez asked quietly.

"Uh, yeah."

"Alright..." Xhez nodded. "Could you find me some paper? It is better if I write down what I saw, right?"

"Y-Yeah, I'll get you some."

And so, Xhez promptly scribbled down all of her findings onto one of Rin's notebooks. All the while, the brunette looked back at the man's dead body, still laying on her bed.

"Uhm... Xhez," Rin said.

"Yes?" The sprite asked, without taking her eyes off the page she was writing on.

"What did you see?"

"... I am writing everything related to the Scorned here. Give me a moment."

"N-No, I... I mean what did you see that made you so angry?" Rin asked.

Xhez briefly took her eyes up at the paper and looked up at Rin, before bringing them back down.

"I..." Xhez swallowed. "I saw something that frustrated me. That is all."

Xhez did not elaborate on that.