"So what does the note say?" Enzo asked as he saw my expression get a bit more serious,
"It's about my mom… apparently I have permission to go look for her."
Enzo looked at me confused, "Isn't she like, dead or something?" he asked,
"No, she just left when I was a baby. Headmaster Waelus said he 'felt her presence' or something like that the day of the attack."
"Oh… so how are you supposed to find her, let alone get off this world?" Enzo asked.
I held up the book to his face, it read: Portals of Light and Other Forms of Magical Transportation
Enzo just nodded his head, "So are you gonna do it?"
I put my hand on the back of my neck and rubbed it, honestly I didn't know what I should do. "Most likely." I said in an unsure voice,
Enzo just looked at me quizzically before speaking, "Are you gonna tell Mercie?"
"Why would I?" I asked him,
he looked at me with an 'are you dumb?' kinda face, "Why wouldn't you?"
"I guess you're right…" I replied slowly, "I'm not leaving right away though so it's not a big deal."
"You better not be leaving yet." Enzo said, "There are still things we need to do before you set off."
I looked at him with my face scrunched up in confusion, "What do you mean 'things we have to do'?"
Enzo walked over to me and put his hands on my shoulders, he looked ready to tell me what we needed to do.
The hall between the dorms and the cafeteria was pretty big, not that long of a walk but when you're hungry it was quite a venture. At this time of day no one was really going to the cafeteria, but, seeing as I hadn't had real food in five days I was pretty hungry to say the least. As I walked down the hall and looked at the tall pillars on my right side, essentially spacing out, I kept to the side of the wall where doors opened. Looking back at this decision it wasn't very smart, but that's in hindsight and all. As I moved forward in a daze I was suddenly broken out of it by a door slamming into my face, I cried in pain and held my nose like it would stop the pain, it didn't. The girl that hit me with the door moved out from behind it and looked at me angrily and closed the door, it just so happened to be Kiera.
"Why are you looking at me like that, you're the one that just slammed my face with the door!?" I said with both confusion and irritation in my voice.
"I'm not angry with you Odanari. It's a whole different matter altogether." Kiera stated in an angry voice.
She liked to call me by my last name for some reason, I never really put the pieces together on that one. "Then what's your deal then?" I asked as I pulled my hand away from my nose, the pain finally subsiding.
"That's none of your business." she stated firmly, her composure back to normal, "Your nose is bleeding by the way."
I put my hand up to my nose and pulled it away only to see blood on it, "Fuck!" I said a bit loud as I started to run to the nearest bathroom. Kiera grabbed my arm before I got far, "What! Can't you see I'm bleeding!?" she let go of my arm and brought a handkerchief out from behind her, handing it to me as my expression changed, "Oh…" I said dumly feeling like a dick head, "Thanks." I put the cloth to my nose and it stopped the bleeding from going everywhere,
"I won't want that back after your bloods been on it so just keep it." Kiera said as she turned to start walking away, quickly I grabbed her wrist with my free hand and she turned to stare at me in confusion.
"Are you hungry?" Kiera looked at me surprised not really knowing what to say, "I'll buy."
She pulled her wrist away from my grasp and looked at me weirdly for a second, "Sure…?" she replied in a long exaggerated way.
As we walked to the cafeteria together it was less like together and more like, I'm Kiera and I'm gonna walk a few feet behind you because I don't like you. I slowed down a bit in order to walk closer to Kiera as this situation kinda felt weird, not to my surprise she slowed down a bit to keep her distance, "What is wrong with this girl, what did I do!?" I thought about the answer on our way to the cafeteria. It was basically a big room with a hundred or so empty tables, the only ones that were filled were by small cliques having conversations. "Pick a table and I'll get our food." I told Kiera, "What do you want?"
The girl just looked at me and said, "Nothing."
I was confused by her answer but instead of drilling her for her reason I just left it at that.
After I got our food I approached the table Kiera had picked only to see her wiping her eyes for a second, I presumed she was crying. "I got two burgers in case you wanted one."
Kiera jerked up and blinked hard a few times, "I said I wasn't hungry." she replied in a melancholy tone, first time I've ever heard something like that come out of her,
"I know, but I assumed you wouldn't have taken up the offer if you weren't". The brunette looked at me and shrugged her shoulders slightly as she reached for the burger and began to take a small bite. We sat in silence just eating for a while, the only sounds made were the few other groups leaving and whispering. Eventually Kiera put her burger down and sat there with her elbows on the table and her hands on her head, fingers going through her hair.
"What's got you acting so… different…?" I asked with food in my mouth,
"You should chew before you talk." she said before grabbing the water I got her and taking a drink.
I swallowed and repeated the same question as before,
"Why do you care..? It's not like we're friends or anything." Kiera replied,
"Well… I heard you were upset at me being in a coma and I thought to myself 'wow, that is so out of character…' so I thought I'd turn over a new leaf aswell". The girl looked at me embarrassed with a slight blush on her face before shaking it off,
"Fine. If you must know, I just got rejected from taking the mark of mastery exam early."
I looked her way quizzically, "Why would you wanna do that?" I inquired,
"Because I wanna get out of this place." I was surprised to hear that from her,
"I thought you liked it here?"
"And why would you think that?" she said with a bit of irritation, "We have never had a real conversation until now, barely now if I add."
I guess she was right, I had no real reason to say that, "I don't know why."
Kiera just shook her head at me with real anger for once, "So why do you wanna leave so bad then?" I asked.
The girl looked around the room before answering, "To find my father."
That answer struck a chord with me, maybe we had some things in common after all… I nodded to her answer and we finished our food silently. "Will you come to my room with me?" I asked Kiera,
she looked stunned, "Why are you asking me to do that?"
"Trust me nothing is gonna happen" I replied with a chuckle and a smirk on my face.
Kiera finally agreed and we made our way out the cafeteria and down the hall to the dorms. The walk there was a little more comfortable this time, there was still dead silence, but we walked side by side at least. Once we got to my dorm I opened it up with my key and walked inside, Kiera stayed outside hesitant to come in,
"It's fine." I said dramatically, this caused her to sigh and enter the room.
I walked behind her and shut the door as she gave me a weird look, and then went to dig around in my closet finding the note and the book given to me by Master Waelus. "Read this." I told Kiera as she accepted the note. As she scanned the note her expression changed to a more… frustrated one? "What's wrong?" I asked confused,
"He'll give you permission to leave and not me!?" she fired back as she threw the note to the side and placed her hands on her hips.
"He is giving me permission to leave not to take the exam early." she looked at me annoyed, probably because of my smart ass answer, "anyways, I don't think you are seeing the big picture here..." she looked at me with the same level of annoyance, "I can take you with me… or atleast get you off this world." I took the book from my right hand and showed it to her with my left,
"Portals of light and other forms of…" she trailed off as she looked me in the eyes.
We sat in complete silence for a while, her eyes not meeting mine, I guess she was trying to process what the book meant. Finally she looked up at me, after a few seconds of staring at me she hugged me, I sat there stunned for a bit not sure of what was happening before I finally wrapped my arms around her,
"Thank you… thank you so much…" she let out,
"Um… sure...?" I replied.
I stood there confused for awhile as we embraced each other. Finally we stopped hugging and Kiera looked at me with a smile, "I don't think you know what this means Koga, I can find my father, I-I can.." her sentence was cut short as she started to tear up a bit, even though she seemed awfully excited.
"Why don't you sit down?" I told her with a chuckle, "I've never seen someone so happy cry." I finished with a laugh, she looked at me with a smile through her tears as she sat down.
"I guess I'm pretty weird huh?" Kiera said more to herself than me. I never really thought about how different someone could be from how you see them on the outside… Kiera and I sat talking in my room for an hour or so, both finding out about the other more and more, though, the subject of our parents was never brought up, which I guess was a good thing. As conversation died I could see Kiera struggling to keep her eyes open,
"Tired?" I asked,
"Very." She replied with a yawn as she fell back onto my bed.
"Well you can stay here for the night, if you want. I won't be here cause I have plans with some friends." Kiera looked at me with a slightly uncomfortable look, "I'm just offering since your room is at the other side of the complex…" I trailed off,
"How do you know where my room is?" she asked quickly as she jerked up.
I stood there for a second before going to my closet and getting my jacket, "I just know things okay?"
Kiera looked at me with an eyebrow raised before lying back on my bed, "Then i'll take you up on your offer as long as you aren't lying to me about where you'll be."
"I won't be here trust me." I said with a long sigh,
Kiera chuckled as she turned onto her side, "Bye then." she said with a yawn.
"What am I doing!?" I said loudly as I smashed my head into Koga's pillow. I rolled over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling, We just became friends and I'm staying at his place by myself, this is weird right? I shifted positions in his bed and sat on the edge for a while thinking about the situation before getting up. I walked over to his closet and pulled the book on portals out from it, "Might as well learn something while I'm here." I said aloud to myself while wiping the grogginess from my face. I opened the book while wiping my face to be greeted by pictures of what seemed to be Koga when he was younger, confused, I kept looking. I saw pictures of him and Enzo, along with a purple haired girl. I racked my brain trying to think of who that could be… The name Mercie popped into my head. She was a girl in Koga and I's class when we were younger, she was very promising to the teachers, even more so than Koga and I but, she fell off a few years later for reasons I don't know. As I flipped through the book with endless pictures of Koga and his friends I got to the back to see a picture of a woman I hadn't seen in any others, "That must be Koga's mom". I stared at the ripped picture for a long time, I felt as if I knew her from somewhere, finally I snapped out of the trance the picture put me in and closed the book. I looked at the blank front of the book and rubbed it before putting it back in the closet. I reached in again this time actually looking at the cover,
Portals of Light and Other Forms of Magical Transportation. Yup, this is the one.
I started to flip through the pages of the book, until I got to the section of forming a portal with a Keyblade. Portals of Light were apparently one of the trickiest things to learn in the way of magic, I'm sure I could do it but, I don't want it to take too long. I need to get out of this place and find my father, I can't be sitting here learning how to open some stupid portal for days on end. "A portal of light is a magical gateway that connects two places, most commonly worlds, via a bridge in spacetime." Okay that sounds really complicated, "So how do you summon one?" I asked out loud as I flipped through the pages of long detailed explanations.
After about half an hour of memorizing the procedure's detailed instructions, I put the book away and looked for some paper. I thought I'd leave a note, just to be nice.
Hey, thanks for letting me crash here, for some reason I couldn't sleep once you left. It was probably your talking that was putting me to sleep. Anyways , I'm thankful for your help with getting me out of here. We can talk later about leaving.
I set the note down on his bed on my way out the door.