What bad luck…

“Mr. William, why is the new student doing that?”

“She is very clingy.”

Aoi, not only shared my math class, but EVERY SINGLE OTHER CLASS TOO!!! Apparently Mrs. Jones didn’t want her to be lonely.

“Yes… but that looks a little… more than clingy.”

“Trust me, I know. That’s why I told Mrs. Jones that matching our schedules wasn’t a good idea.”

“Oh… Um, Ms. you need to come down here and introduce yourself.”

Aoi looked at the teacher.

“Oh, I forgot about that.”

She flipped bouncing from divider to divider, until she landed in front of the teacher with a triple side flip.

“Aoi, go less acrobat next time you introduce yourself.”

“Oh, right. Forgot that people can’t normally do that.”

The teacher nodded.

“O…kay? Introduce yourself.”

“I’m Aoi, I’m William’s friend, hi.”

“… Anything else?”

“I’m a ninja.”

She started doing dramatic poses. Then she smiled.

“That’s it.”

She zoomed back up to me, catching a few people off guard, and regrappled me. She was hugging my face.

“Aoi, I need to see.”

“Oh, sorry.”

She shimmied to the back and looked at the teacher with an eager grin. The teacher looked at her with a raised brow.

“Alright, let’s begin…”

_

“Alright, today, we are picking lab partners. They will be your partners for the rest of the year… It seems that some people already have their partners.”

The students turned at me and Aoi.

“How is she even doing that?”

She decided to see how strong her core was, so Aoi had her legs wrapped around my neck, and held herself in a upside plank. She had her arms crossed.

She’d been like that for almost an hour now.

“I think she’s asleep.”

One of my classmates looked at her.

“Asleep?”

I nodded.

“Yep, usually, she can only do it for thirty minutes before getting bored.”

“… How are you standing so normally?”

“Two reasons. First, she’s light as heck. Second, I’ve known her for ten years. I’ve gotten strong enough to do it, because she’s done this since forever.”

“Oh…”

“Are you two dating or something?”

“Bleh, no. We’re simply friends. We’ve known each other long enough that it’d be like dating my sister.”

“Oh… she’s really touchy for a friend though.”

“She does that with anyone she’s comfortable with.”

“Oh…”

The teacher coughed so we all looked back at him.

“Alright, William, could you please wake Aoi up? We are about to do a dissection.”

“OH DISSECTION?!”

Aoi popped up and hugged my head.

I sighed.

“Of course, you woke up to that.”

“Wait, where are we?”

“The next class, you fell asleep.”

“Oh, oops.”

She giggled, rocking around.

The teacher sighed.

“Alright, pick your lab partners, and Aoi, if you could please get off of William.”

“Okay.”

She was then next to me, catching a few kids off guard.

“Sh-she’s fast.”

“Yes, yes she is.”

“Alright, we are currently dissecting pigs.”

A girl sighed sadly.

“Do we have to cut into them?”

“OH, William, this is so exciting, Saiyung never lets me do this.”

“For good reason. I’ll hold the knife; you hold the body steady and take notes.”

“Awe, come on, I won’t freak out this time.”

Aoi had a minor condition, when she sliced something, she sliced faster and faster, looking quite crazy. Especially since the shinobi had to hunt for their food. Aoi always had to have a partner cut the catch so she wouldn’t make the meat and hide unusable.

“No, I’ll do it.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“No fun…”

“Your definition of fun would land you in a psych ward. I’m doing the cutting.”

“Hmph. I’ll spread nasty rumors about you.”

“Everyone can hear you, so if you did, it could be easily dismissed as there are several witnesses to you using it as a threat.”

Aoi sighed.

Taury had just been flying around the school the whole day. She was irritated that Aoi took her spot on my head, so she decided to take out her anger by pretending to be an irritating fly to everyone.

We were handed the scalpels and Aoi made a snatch for it, but I grabbed it before she could.

“No fair, you were closer.”

“That’s no excuse, you were too slow.”

“Hmph.”

“Pick up the paper and pencil.”

“Fine…”

The teacher nodded,

“Alright, be sure to follow the instructions. Begin.”

Since Aoi was my partner, I knew I could go faster, so me and Aoi began to dissect it, we quickened our speaking and began to dissect it quickly.

“That was it?”

“Yep, we got all of the info we needed.”

“Hm, would’ve been more fun if I was the one doing it.”

“That’s the problem, it’s not fun, it’s science.”

“Bah.”

The teacher somewhat gaped at us.

“It’s been two minutes, there’s no way you’re done.”

“It wasn’t like it was hard, we located what we needed too and wrote what we needed too.”

“Yes, it’s not hard, but you still need to do such delicate cuts.”

“We were able to.”

He checked our work and smiled.

“So, you did.”

_

I sighed at lunch. The only time Aoi was off, and Taury was now holding on like she hadn’t seen me in seven years.

It didn’t help that they had some sort of feud, they fought for my attention… despite having entirely different relationships with me.

Of course, I was pretty sure that Aoi was doubling the cafeteria’s revenue alone.

She ate more than Ir*ma from that one anime. The demons in that show also ate humans, but at least they were somewhat friendly.

“Why can’t demons be more like fictional demons?”

Brent looked at me.

“Where’d that come from?”

“I was just thinking, in fiction, demons can be reasonable, or even kind, but these guys only have the slightest sympathies to each other. I mean, Delcel didn’t give a crap when Cilth died, he simply began acting like he was the only one that mattered. It’s almost like they can’t care.”

Taury sighed.

“There are numerous theories about that, almost as many theories about their origin.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most people think that demons came from specific realms, but Mordred being a demon kind of throws a wrench into that theory. I, personally, think that they have multiple origins, but there has to be a similar factor.”

“Impassiveness?”

“No, because then Morgan would be a demon.”

“Fair.”

We sighed.

“I wonder if we’ll ever figure it out?”

I looked over.

“Maybe by the time she’s full.”

The rest looked over to find Aoi asking the chefs for another serving.

“No, we aren’t giving you another, you already had 24.”

“But I’ll pay.”

“I don’t care, I have no clue how you aren’t sick already, if you eat more, you may just burst.”

“Pleeeeease?”

“No.”

“Awe…”

She walked back to the table looking sad.

“Williammm they aren’t giving me food.”

“You already ate enough to make anyone fat, calm down.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

“I’m saying that by all laws of physics, you should be, but instead I’m half convinced that you have a black hole in your stomach as you ate more than twice your body weight in mega-sized meals, yet there isn’t the slightest pudge.”

She smiled, posing like a model.

“It all goes to my best parts.”

Then I smiled.

“Then there truly is a black hole in your stomach.”

“HEY!”

I snickered.

Amy sighed deeply.

“Anyways… what are you going to do about the weird tree thing?”

“I’m gonna do as Gramps suggested and go alone.”

“What if it’s dangerous?”

“Gramps wouldn’t lead me into danger.”

“Fair, well, what class do you have next.”

“History.”

“Nice.”

Brent looked at me.

“By the way, is Maven anyone important, like, I know she’s a fey now, but she seemed to have the demons cautious.”

I smiled.

“She’s a member of the council, actually.”

Brent’s jaw dropped.

“We were camping with a council member. I didn’t ask her anything vaguely important… Man…”

“Eh, I learned a bit, like the bit about fey and regular animals looking the same to the nonmagical.”

Amy pondered.

“I wonder if Emma is a fey.”

“Emma?”

“My cat, I always take off the amulet after school, because my parents wouldn’t like it, but I wonder if she’s actually a fey. She’s very friendly.”

“Maybe.”

I sighed.

“Well, it’s time to head off to class.”

We waved and Aoi walked with me as she glared at Taury.

_

“So, students, today, we learn about King Arthur.”

“I thought this was history, not literature.”

“Oh, child, King Arthur has plenty of historic value, from traditions to actual events, dramatized as they may be.”

Ms. Pan was teaching again. Knowing she had connections to Maven was interesting.

“All right, so, what do you know about King Arthur.”

A girl raised her hand.

“He pulled a sword from a stone and married Guinevere who betrayed him and ran off with Lancelot.”

That caused Taurael to do a spit take before laughing.

“Guin and Arthur?! Really? Please, her and Lance were married when Arthur met them. HAHAHAHA!!!”

I sighed.

“Guin and Arthur… HAHAHAHAHAHAAaaa… Oh dear. That’s funny.”

I smiled.

“Alright, that is a common thing in the lore, but what else is known.”

“He dated the Lady of the Lake.”

“Less common but still there.”

“BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

Taury couldn’t stop laughing. It was loud, and she was on my head, rolling with laughter.

I could tell Ms. Pan was trying her best to ignore the cackling pixie.

“He was killed by his son.”

She stopped laughing, as though she remembered that day vividly.

“Yes, that is it in almost any version. Anyone else?”

“He had a kid with Morgan Lefaye.”

“Yes, that is another thing in almost every version.”

“He was raised by blacksmiths.”

Taury sighed.

“He was raised by merchants, not blacksmiths.”

“That’s in a few versions.”

“He was trained by the most powerful magic user, Merlin.”

“BWAHAHAHAHAHAH MERLIN?! He’s the most powerful?! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Yes, that is in most versions as well.”

I raised my hand.

“He had fire magic.”

Someone snickered.

“Idiot, the sword had fire, not him.”

“Actually, both is in various versions.”

I smirked at the snickerer.

“Now, we know the basics, so we need to look at the historic things. What happened to inspire the legends.”

One kid raised her hand.

“Arthur’s journeys being dramatized and fantasized?”

A few people laughed at that.

“Arthur wasn’t real, everyone knows that.”

I intervened.

“It’s actually more likely that there was a historic Arthur, according to many experts, so it’s not entirely hard to believe that there was an original basis for the stories in some historic figure.”

The ridiculers blushed at being called out.

One guy persisted.

“What, and let me guess, the Lady of the Lake is a random smith’s wife?”

“You never know with those old stories.”

The Lady of the Lake, who was currently sitting on my head started fussing.

“A smith’s wife, please. I was the dang smith.”

I whispered.

“I know that, but they don’t.”

Aoi smiled.

“I think that a lot of it actually happened. Magic is real and cool, you know.”

That prompted a lot of laughter. I sighed, rubbing my eyes.

“What, did I say something funny?”

“You actually believe in magic?!”

“Yeah, William is a magician himself.”

I sighed again as more people laughed, not at me of course.

“Wait, magic being real could explain one thing.”

A girl spoke causing people’s entertained eyes to turn.

“What?”

“Well, you remember when William came in looking like a murder victim… somehow looking in even worse condition then those at the lake… and the next day it was like nothing ever happened.”

Some people began considering that, but Aoi focused on something far different.

“William… was hurt?”

“Yeah, it was really bad looking, he was missing for two days before that too.”

Aoi glanced at me in a pure question and promise.

“Don’t worry, the one who did that ended off much worse than I did.”

She smiled.

“Well, that works for me.”

Then someone raised a brow.

“You looked half dead, and you’re telling me the other guy was worse off. Did you kill the guy or something?”

I simply smiled.

“We’re getting off track, we were discussing King Arthur, yes?”

Upon the realization that I legitimately killed someone, the ones at the lake realized why I wasn’t nearly as traumatized as them.

“Nah, we aren’t coming off of that that easily. You actually killed someone.”

“That… was no person… it was a fiend. If it wasn’t it, it would have been me… it didn’t fight for a reason but fun…”

I shook with remembering the cold glowing eyes of the shadow that bit off Taury’s arm.

“But that thing hurt someone else that I care for… It deserved far worse than I gave it…”

My vision clouded with remembering my fury. My aura shaking.

“Trust me… the thing that did that, could have easily done far worse than what happened at the lake…”

Ms. Pan began shivering. A few students shook at my statements.

“Two miracles happened. That I recovered, and that I even survived.”

One of the students that was on the trip shivered.

“Worse than the lake?”

I nodded.

“Yes, now, could we please go back to talking about Arthur.”

“S-sure.”

“Thank you.”

I regained my chipper mood as I shoved away the dark memories.

“Alright, so where were we?”

Even Aoi and Taury had a look minor fear at my sudden shift, because finally, for the first time, I let a fragment of my true face show.