Part 9
Aruna
"So?" her father asked in a stern voice. "How did it go?"
"Good," Aruna responded. "There were no casualties and minor damage to the town."
"And…"
Aruna could feel a lump forming in the back of her throat. "We were graded at B plus," she admitted after a brief pause.
A frown formed on her father's face. "Getting a B isn't getting an A, daughter."
Aruna eyes fell below the screen her father's face was displayed on. "I know father; I'll make sure to work harder." Even though they had only been back a day, the rest of Aruna's team had taken to disappearing as soon as class was over, leaving Aruna the peace and quiet she needed to be able to call her father and tell him how they're assignment in Crete had gone. While the other seven had been happy to hear their evaluation, Aruna had felt her heart sink when she knew that her father wouldn't be pleased with it.
His name was Aditya, but Aruna knew she could never call him that. She knew she could never call him 'dad' either. The word 'dad' is something a rebellious child uses to dismiss their father's authority, he had said long ago. He had high cheekbones covered in brown skin and thin, angled eyes that coloured themselves a dark green; all traits Aruna had inherited from him. He continued to talk until Aruna sighed and broke his concentration. "Are you listening to me?" he asked.
Aruna straightened up and looked into the scroll's camera. "Yes father; sorry." Aditya's mouth puckered in disappointment, but he continued on, Aruna silently waiting for him to end.
She was currently seated at her team's room's only desk that she had to move out of Ras's bizarre configuration to make sure that her father couldn't see the mess that was her team's room. While listening to her father lecture her on the importance of good grades, Aruna shifted slightly to try and pull down the embarrassingly short skirt that belonged to the school's uniform. Aditya had made it clear before she had left home that she was to wear the uniform at all times, but Aruna had begun to disobey him for the first time in her life by changing out of the skirt and jacket after classes, only wearing it when she had to call home. Even though he had no way of knowing, Aruna was still scared that her father might learn that she wasn't doing what he wanted her to do.
After ten minutes of sitting in her uncomfortable wooden chair, Aruna's father finally ended his call with a cautionary message about keeping her grades up. Once she was positive there was no way of him hearing her, Aruna let out a loud sigh and put her head on the desktop. Why is he always so strict? Aruna's mother had explained it to her before: Aditya had grown up the same way Aruna did, with his life planned out for him. She says it's just ingrained in him. Aruna raised her head and tapped on the scroll, shifting through various news articles without really paying attention to what she was looking at. A cold breeze blew a chill into her legs, and Aruna stepped up from her seat and crossed the room towards the dresser that had been designated for her and Lylla's clothing.
Aruna unzipped the plaid skirt and stepped out of it, picking up the piece of cloth and folding it neatly before placing it on top of the dresser. She was halfway through unbuttoning the uniform's collard white shirt when a voice spoke behind her. "Hey can you hurry up? Sage wants you in the gym." Aruna turned around to see Ras crouched in the dorm's open window. Aruna's face burned red as she started screaming, falling behind one of the beds between her and Ras while covering up herself. Ras stayed silent for a moment, then began screaming as well.
Aruna looked over the top of her cover at him. "What are you doing?" she screamed at him.
"I DON'T KNOW YOU STARTED SCREAMING SO I STARTED SCREAMING AND I THINK I'M RUNNING OUT OF BREATH…" he inhaled aggressively. "OKAY I THINK I'M GOOD WHY ARE WE DOING THIS –oh you stopped." He looked at her with his mix-matched eyes. "So… what's up?"
Aruna was seething with anger. "Get out!" she shouted at him. Ras shrugged and spun around in the windowsill, facing out of the room. Aruna scowled, but assumed that she was getting the best she could out of him. "What do you want?" she asked, fishing out a pair of neatly pressed pants from her drawer and sliding into them. She pulled out one of her dark gold shirts and pulled it over her head, then grabbed hold of her meticulously cleaned leather chest piece.
"Sage just got back from the leader meeting: they told him we didn't work well as a team in Crete, and he's a little annoyed about it." Ras rolled his knuckles across the wood frame of the window, making an impromptu drumbeat he began humming along with. "So we're all meeting and doing team practicing," he concluded after a few moments. "Hey, can I come in now?"
Aruna adjusted her armour. "Sure, I gue–" She didn't even get a chance to end her sentence before Ras catapulted himself backwards through the window. He landed on his shoulders and kicked up onto his feet, then immediately turned around and pushed the desk Aruna had been sitting at back into the position he preferred. Aruna sighed. "Really?"
Ras bent down, putting his eyes level with the edge of the desk before pulling it back slightly. "Of course," he responded. "You messed it up; I have to fix it." Aruna glared at him. When Ras noticed, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He edged himself over to his own bed, which had his school-administered scroll laying on the unmade sheets. He picked up the device, then held it forward at arm's length and began swiping his finger across it while bouncing his eyes back and forth between Aruna and the screen. "Oh, you're mad at me," he said after a brief pause. "What'd I do?"
"You came into the room when I was changing! You can't just do something like that!" She stormed over to him and grabbed his scroll. When she looked at it, Aruna saw that Ras had open a picture of a mad looking girl, with the word 'angry' written underneath it in large, bold letters. "What is this?" she asked.
Ras snatched his scroll back. "It's a reference sheet Sage made up for me. Being here is the most I've ever been around people, so Sage put this together so I can try and learn what's going on in people's heads." Ras gave a big, dumb smile. "Pretty cool, right?" Aruna stared at him in disbelief, which he eventually compared to another picture on the device. "Hey, it helps," he retorted.
Aruna sighed; I can't really blame him for trying, can I? "So we're going down to a gym?" she asked.
Ras bent down to look underneath his bed, balancing himself on his hands and head while putting his feet into the air as he did so. "Maybe not just yet: when I left, Sage was yelling a lot." He pulled a small grey box out from beneath the bed. "He also looked like this," Ras said, cycling through the faces on his scroll until he came across the one he was looking for: furious. He undid the latches on the box and opened it. The box was full of various cartons of cigarettes, pipes, lighters, and suspicious bags of green plant matter. "I'm going to relax a little before heading back," he said while taking out a tightly rolled piece of paper.
Aruna's eyes widened. "Is that…" Ras turned to her and put a finger to his lips. Aruna's eyes darted toward the door of their room, almost expecting one of the teachers, the headmaster, or even police officers to barge in and get the two of them in trouble. "What are you doing with that? It's illegal!" she said in a hushed voice. Oh my god, what'll happen to me if I'm caught in a room with that? Her head swam with fears of what her father would say if he found out she had been in league with drug users. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Calm down, it's not like he can see you right now, she told herself.
Ras laughed the same laugh he always did. "Lots of things are illegal; doesn't stop anyone else." He brushed away some of the brown-gold hair that hung strait down the side of his head. "But could you be cool and not say anything? I don't want to go back home without Sage." He hopped onto the windowsill again and lit his cigarette. "Don't worry, little plant," he said softly to himself. "Your death will not have been in vain." He turned his attention from the cigarette to Aruna. "I'll make sure to blow the smoke outside, that's what me and Lylla do anyways." His usual innocent grin quickly faded. "Wait. I'm not supposed to say that."
Thinking quickly, Aruna grabbed a shirt and held it over her mouth and nose as she stormed up to him. "You mean Lylla… uses that stuff too?"
Ras stared at her blankly for a few seconds. "No?" he responded. Aruna ripped the cigarette out of his hand and threw it out the window. "Aww, that cost me ten Lien," he said sadly.
Aruna dashed over to Ras's box and closed the lid carefully, making sure not to touch anything inside it. "I can't believe you actually have this stuff! What are you going to do if someone catches you?" She cautiously slid the box underneath of Ras's bed, afraid of what else he might've been keeping under it.
Ras was staring wistfully out the window, toward where Aruna had thrown the cigarette. "That's future Ras's problem; present Ras is wondering whether or not that joint's gonna cause the lawn to catch fire." He sighed and looked disappointed. "I don't think it will. Oh well." He raised his eyes back up to Aruna. "So you're going to make us go?" Aruna nodded. "Okay, but Sage is gonna be yelling a lot when we get there."
Aruna was about to mention that he didn't need to explain things she was aware of, but Ras turned into the room and suddenly pushed himself backwards out of the window. Aruna had a momentary wave of panic pass over her as she rushed to the window. What is he doing? He could kill himself with a move like that! When she looked out into the campus grounds, she saw Ras laying in the grass, his hands behind his head, and a stupid grin on his face.
"Well? You coming?" he asked.
Aruna scowled at him, an expression she knew he still couldn't recognize without his cheat sheet of faces. She gathered up the rest of her armour: the studded leather leg guards that hung from her waist and the large oval of boiled leather that strapped onto her right arm. Aruna attatched her brown-and-red armor hastily, then slid her feet into her knee-high boots and left dorm. I'm the only one here who takes anything seriously, she thought to herself as she ran down the dorm building's staircase. She pushed open the door to the outside and walked around the building's perimeter until she came across Ras, still lying flat on his back in the grass.
Ras saw her approaching and rolled onto his feet in a rather extravagant and acrobatic manner. Aruna heard faint giggling behind her, and turned to see a triad of female students returning to the dorm building. One of them, a short girl with cyan hair, was glancing sheepishly toward Ras when her friends gave her a nudge. The girl quickly turned around and pushed one of them, her cheeks flushing red.
"What you looking at?" Ras suddenly asked. Aruna spun around and yelped, not realising that Ras had walked up behind her. The group of girls giggled again as Aruna regained her composer. "What's so funny?" he asked.
Aruna sighed. "It's nothing; let's go." She brushed down the sides of her armour and began walking across the campus grounds toward the main building complex. She was passed by other students, some in packs, some walking alone. Aruna couldn't get used to the idea that all of these young people were going to be the ones to protect Vale and her people. They're all still such children, she thought to herself as they walked past her, some dressed in the school's uniforms, some dressed in their exotic combat gear.
"Oh my god, you walk so slow!" Ras complained behind her. He hopped around infront of her and began marching backwards. "Come on, pick up your feet a little! First the right foot, than the left…"
Aruna narrowed her eyes. "Please don't lecture me on how to walk, I can do it just fine myself."
"But I can walk on my hands faster than this!" Ras whined. He proved it as well, arching his back and placing his palms on the school's stone pathway, then kicking his feet into the air and moving toward the central spires at a pace slightly faster than Aruna. It bothered her that he was right, and Aruna increased her pace to keep up with him.
"Will you walk normally?" she asked after Ras had gone almost a hundred yards on his hands. "People already think you're strange enough."
Ras sprung himself back onto his feet. "So? It's better to be remembered as weird than to be forgotten as normal," he responded.
Aruna found herself unable to think of a response to him, and instead muttered to herself about how annoying he was and continued walking. As the two approached the gym, Aruna could hear the high-pitched whine that accompanied Lylla's glyphs. She pushed open the door to see Sage flying through the room at high speeds, slashing at a large wooden mannequin in the centre of the room. Lylla was standing a few dozen meters away from the pole, weaving her hands through the air to create the multitude of platforms Sage was rebounding off as he attacked. Sage spun around and delivered a strong, two bladed swing into the top of the mannequin that cut off the top foot of the three-meter-tall pillar, which fell into the pile of wood chips that surrounded its base. Lylla flicked her wrist, forming a glyph that Sage missed by a few feet. Aruna felt herself cringe as Sage hit the ground and rolled for a distance, coming just short of hitting the gym wall.
"For fuck's sake!" he shouted after he climbed back onto his feet, relatively unharmed. "That's the fifth time you've missed that! What's wrong with you?"
"Oh, I'm sorry! Would you like to try?" she shouted back at him. "You're making me learn a whole new system that I can't rely on spatial awareness for! It's a hard style to get used to!"
Sage groaned. "Well than get used to it faster! I don't have all day to be fucking around in here, waiting for you to finally do something right!" he retorted, walking closer to Lylla.
"Will you just give me some time?" Lylla screamed at Sage, who stopped just a few feet away from her. "I'll be able to do it with a little practice!"
Sage laughed in her face. "If all you need is a little practice, how come you still suck at it? We've been at this for ages!" He motioned toward the pillar in the room. Aruna looked over the wooded beam and saw countless numbers of cuts and scratches in it. The white tiled floor surrounding the pillar was covered in a sparse layer of wood chips from all the beating the mannequin had taken.
Lylla glared at him in anger. "You should be glad you're cute when you're angry," she told him coldly, then stormed past Aruna and Ras. "Is it still under your bed?" she asked Ras without breaking stride. He nodded, and Lylla pushed through the doors of the building.
Sage let out a frustrated scream and slashed at the ground with one of his swords, cutting a grove into the polished tiles. "Is it my fault that she's so slow?" he asked himself, apparently not even realising that Aruna and Ras where in the building. "I'm just doing trying to make sure she won't get herself hurt by being up front in a fight." Aruna couldn't help but be intrigued by his rant. Is Sage actually worrying about someone else's safety? That's a first. Sage kicked at the ground. "Stupid ungrateful bitch," he said to himself. Aruna frowned. Oh. Never mind.
"So what's with you?" she asked.
Sage turned to her and stared her down with his thin yellow eyes. "Our damned report; they said I performed well, but that we didn't work well as a team. Can you believe that?"
Aruna was about to mention that she, Ras, and Lylla tried to work as a team while he had just run off on his own, but decided that making him even angrier wouldn't help. "Well isn't that why we're here?" she asked instead. "So we can work on moving as a unit?"
Sage sighed and made his way over to the wall on Aruna's right, sliding down it to take a seat on the floor. "Kind of hard to do, with Lylla running off to cry or whatever; nice to see she can take orders."
Aruna held her tongue and let Sage's narcissism slide. "Well the three of us can still work on something, right?" she asked. "Lylla's not integral to everything we can do, is she?"
Sage shrugged. "Her glyphs offer a lot of mobility that we can't get any other way." He sighed in frustration. "Do you have any ideas? Or are you just going to expect me to do everything for you."
Aruna rolled her eyes. "You're not going to listen to anything I say, so how about we just skip this argument and you tell us what you want us to do."
Sage grinned. "Good; we're running formations." He jumped onto his feet and began giving Aruna and Ras the rundown on his plans.
For all the aggravation and anger he put her through, Aruna still had to respect Sage's capabilities as a leader. They drilled a triangular formation for the next fifteen minutes, Aruna taking the centre position as, what Sage constantly referred to, the 'tank' of the trio. It was a much easier strategy to understand than most of Sage's: Aruna was to lash out at their enemies, drawing their attention to her, while Sage and Ras skirted the edges and attacked from the sides. It didn't take long, however, for Sage to tire of the routine strategy.
"Hey!" he shouted at Aruna. "Get your shield up over your head!"
Aruna slashed out with her trident, slicing off a portion of her wood foe. "What? Why?"
She could hear the sounds of his footsteps getting closer. "I'm the leader! Listen to me!" Aruna rolled her eyes, but none the less complied. She herd Sage leap of the ground, then felt him land on the top of her shield. A loud discharge went off, and Aruna's shield rebounded against her shoulder painfully. Aruna lowered her shield and rubbed her arm as Sage fell from the air, landing solidly on his feet. "Okay, that was pretty cool," he said to himself.
"Tell me what you're doing next time!" Aruna yelled at him, rolling her arm in its socket and cringed at the dull ache in it. "You could've broken my arm."
Sage rolled his eyes and scoffed at her. "Please, if I wanted to break your arm, I could." His revolvers' chambers cracked open, and two empty dust vials ejected themselves forcefully from the frames. "And that would probably get me in some shit, so I think I'll avoid it." He pulled two black vials out of his brown bomber jacket and fitted them into his guns' chambers, then forced them closed. "Now, do you think I could ricochet bullets off of that thing?" he asked, leveling his guns at Aruna. "That'd make for some pretty cool trick shots."
Aruna folded up her shield and attached it to her side. "I'm not letting you shoot at me!"
Sage groaned. "Oh come on, you're going to let the team down by being stubborn?"
Aruna crossed her arms in front of her. "You know you're not the centre of attention, right? The rest of us are more than capable to; we're not here just to assist you."
"Uh… guys?" Ras asked.
Sage ignored his step-brother. "Well why not? I'm easily the best fighter: our grading proves that. Why shouldn't I be the centre? It'll only make things easier."
Aruna's fist tightened around the grip of her sword. "Because the whole point of having teams is to make us work together! We're supposed to help each other, and that won't be happening if you just leave us in the dirt like you did in Crete!" Ras called out to them again, but neither she nor Sage were going to listen to him at the moment.
She could see Sage's jaw clench. "I don't need your help," he said firmly. "I need you to do what I tell you, when I tell you. If that's so hard for you, leave. I don't want a team that can't take the orders I give them."
"Come on guys! Listen to me!" Ras whined.
Aruna didn't bother to even look in his direction. "You are the most narcissistic, cynical, and disrespectful ass I've ever met!" she shouted at him.
Sage snorted in derision. "What, you think I don't know that? I'm well aware I'm a shitty person, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm a much better fighter than you." He spun his swords around in his hands and slid them into the holsters that hung at his thighs. "Once you realise you suck too, maybe I'll finally listen to you; until then, just do what I tell you."
Aruna tensed to strike out at Sage, but Ras interrupted them again. "FOR FUCK'S SAKE! GUYS!" Both she and Sage turned toward his voice, and Aruna saw him hanging upside-down, the long, grey knife that he strapped to his left leg dug hilt-deep into the wooden mannequin the three of them had been fighting. "Can one of you please help me? I'm stuck."
To Aruna's surprise, Sage started laughing. "You're a fucking moron," he said. Ras grinned and shrugged as Sage put both hands on his leg and pulled hard until Ras's weapon wrenched free from the pillar. "How did you even manage to do that?" Sage asked him as Ras climbed back on his feet. Ras shrugged, prompting Sage to laugh again. He looked over his shoulder at Aruna. "I'm not lying: admit you're a piece of shit, just like the rest of us. I know I am, Ras does too."
Aruna rolled her eyes. But I'm not like the rest of you, she thought. I'm not a thief or a druggie. I don't ignore our teachers or skip out on classes just because I feel like it. I'm not– It hadn't occurred to Aruna that she had been standing in the centre of the gym by herself, stewing over her thoughts. She spun around and saw Sage and Ras leaving the building. "Hey!" she shouted after them. "Where are you guys going?"
"Back to the room," Sage said to her. "We've done enough today; arguing with you gets boring after a while: you're just so… stale." Before Aruna could say anything back, the two pushed through the gym's door and disappeared into the campus. Aruna looked around the room, seeing the destroyed pillar and wooden shavings strewn about the room. I don't just walk away from messes I've made, she thought as she hurried toward the doors to follow Sage and Ras back to their dorm. If we get in trouble for this, I'm blaming Sage.
Their walk back was relatively normal: Aruna felt it was best to not talk to Sage, instead looking out over Beacon's campus gardens. The flowering plants that had been present at the beginning of their school year had disappeared by now, thanks to the cold winds that had been blowing in more frequently as the weeks and months had passed. There weren't nearly as many students walking around as there had been when Aruna and Ras had walked to the gym; everyone seemed to have disappeared inside. As they continued, Aruna found out why when she felt a drop of water land on her arm.
"Uh, guys?" she said, looking up at the grey sky above her. "We should probably pick up our pace; it's going to start raining soon." They hurried themselves, making it into their dorm building mere moments before the rain began to fall with full force. Aruna looked back out the window in the door behind her, watching drops of rain appear and slide down the glass. "Well we were lucky," she said.
Sage had already began climbing the stairs, but Ras was still beside her. "I wonder if anyone else is still out there," he said to himself. Ras walked up to the door and stood on his toes to get a better look out of the building, then flipped the lock on the door.
Aruna scowled at him. "What do you think you're doing?"
Ras grinned. "Locking the door," he replied. Aruna sighed, unlocked the door, and dragged Ras up the stairs.
She caught up with Sage once they reached the floor their dorm was located on, and she held Ras out infront of her. "Keep your eye on this, please," she requested. Aruna took the lead, reaching their dorm room and waving her Beacon scroll across the door's handle and hearing it click open.
When the door of their room opened, Aruna was greeted with a four smell. What is this? she thought to herself before noticing Lylla lying face-up on her bed with her arms spread wide. "Hey guys!" she said, sitting up quickly in her bed. "How did… whoa did you feel that?" she asked.
Aruna looked over her shoulder at Sage and Ras, who seemed equally confused. "Feel what?" Aruna asked.
Lylla fell onto her back, then bolted upright again, then began laughing. "That is so weird," she said to no one in particular, then repeated the action again, giggling to herself. Aruna was still confused until Ras made his way past her and closed up the wooden box she had seen him with before. He hopped over Lylla, who was still sitting up and laying down, and slid the box underneath of his bed. Oh right, Aruna recalled, she's high.
"So I see you're feeling better," Sage said to her.
Lylla stopped and stared at him. "Are you here to apologize?" she asked as seriously as she could manage, but Aruna could hear her holding back giddiness.
Sage sighed impatiently. "Sure, whatever," he responded. "Now are you just going to be annoying? Or should I keep out of here until you're sober?"
Lylla smirked. "Do whatever you want, babe," she responded. Sage sighed impatiently, and Lylla continued to lay down and sit up over and over again, continuously giggling.
It wasn't hard to see that Sage was getting annoyed. "Will you stop doing that?" he asked her, then reached forward and put his hands on her shoulders, trying to keep her still. Lylla struggled against him and forced herself onto her back again, with Sage leaning over her and pinning her arms to the bed.
Lylla giggled. "Ha! I knew I could get you on top of me before the year was done!" She grinned stupidly, then sat up without warning and pressed her lips against Sage's. It took him a brief moment to realise what Lylla had just done, and he leapt back from her. "Got you!" she said, laughing to herself. "Now let's get started." She stood up, stumbling over her own feet briefly before gaining her balance, then grabbed hold of her tank-top's hem and began lifting it. Sage grabbed both of her hands and pulled them off of her shirt.
"Knock it off!" he shouted at her. Lylla complied, but not without mentioning that she would get her chance later. Sage looked to Ras. "Is she always this horny when she smokes?" he asked.
Ras shrugged. "Not usually; but then again, you're not around for it most of the time."
Aruna grabbed Lylla by the shoulders and helped her take a seat on the side of her bed. "See?" she said. "This is why I don't want you to get rid of that stuff! All it's good for is impairing someone's judgement and making them do things they regret!" She looked down at Lylla, who was struggling to get out of her grip. "Are you okay? Do you want some… Ras! How do you stop this?" she asked, realising nothing she'd ever studied told her how to sober someone up.
Ras shrugged. "Usually with a few pizzas and waiting an hour or so, why?" Aruna glared at him, which he ended up cross-referencing before he responded. "What? That's what I do."
Aruna sighed. "You're no help." She turned back to Lylla and looked her in the eyes. "Can I get you anything? Is there something you want?"
Lylla looked at her through glazed eyes for several seconds. "I kind just want to go to sleep now," she said, falling onto her back. She raised her head and looked as seductively as she could in her inebriated state at Sage. "You coming? This bed's big enough for two if we squeeze together."
Sage's expression didn't change. "Go to sleep, Lylla," he ordered. She attempted a poor excuse for an argument, then succumbed to the soft bed beneath her and fell asleep in an impressively short time. "Thank god we're done with that," Sage said in a hushed voice. "I really hope she doesn't remember any of that when she wakes up." He weaved through the room and hopped onto his bed. "Just keep quiet for an hour or two; that should do it." He lounged back in his bed, grabbing a book off of the side table that sat at a forty degree angle to his bedframe.
Not ten seconds after everybody had settled down, their door burst open. "OH MY GOD GUYS! DID YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED DOWNTOWN?" Cielo shouted in deafening excitement. Lylla sat up and screamed half-heartedly and Sage cursed loudly. "What's going on in here?" Cielo asked.
Lylla looked around the room, then fell back onto her pillow, mumbling something about . "Lylla's a little buzzed right now," Sage explained. "We had her down for a nap, but you kind of fucked that up for us; good job."
Cielo made it apparent that she didn't care. "Cool, cool. Look at this!" She shoved her scroll in Sage's face. Sage grabbed the device out of her hand and held it at a proper distance from his face. "Come on! Read-it-read-it-read-it-read-it!"
Aruna watched as Sage's eyes darted back and forth across the screen, until they suddenly widened. "Holy shit…" he said. "That guy got fucked up." Ras grabbed the scroll from Sage and read through it, then cringed.
"I know right?" Cielo took the scroll back from Ras and began flipping through it. "What do you think it was? I think he was pushed; probably by some tough gang guys that were threatening to break his knees or something. Rein said she thinks its White Fang, but I'm pretty sure that's just because she loves seeing them in the news for some reason."
"What are you two talking about?" Aruna asked. Cielo tossed her scroll across the room, Aruna catching it and reading the headline. "Man falls from hotel's thirtieth floor, suspected murder…" As she read more of the article, she began to feel nauseous. The man in question had been a board member of the Schnee Dust Company: when the police investigated the room he had been fallen from, they found a woman with a slit throat and a floor covered in blood and human waste. "Oh my god…" Aruna breathed.
"I know right?" Cielo agreed. "And whoever did that's still out there." She shivered. "Ugh! Makes me glad I'm living up here!" Aruna lobbed the scroll back to her, and Cielo slid the sides closed. "What do you think we should do about it?" she asked.
Sage's eyes raised. "We? What makes you think we're going to do anything about it?" he asked.
Cielo folded her arms across her chest. "Well we're Huntsmen and stuff, right? So let's get down to brass tacks and figure out how to take this creep down!"
Cielo's enthusiasm was wasted in the room. "Hate to break it to you, but there's no point. Let the cops handle it, it is their job," Sage told her, then went back to reading his book.
Cielo pouted, then turned to Aruna. "Sorry, but I have to agree with Sage on this," Aruna said before Cielo could get out a word. "Just leave it to the authorities: they're the professionals."
Cielo looked defeated as she turned to the door of the room. "Oh alright," she said. "But if this guy comes sneaking into your room and cuts your eyeballs out, you have to do my homework for a month."
"Sure thing," Sage said, barely paying attention to the other team leader.
Ras was sitting cross-legged on his bed, glancing back and forth with a worried look on his face. "What if we do get our eyes cut out?" he questioned them. "I don't want to do even more homework."
Aruna chuckled. "Don't worry: we're not getting any part of us cut out," she told him. "Just forget Cielo ever said that." She relaxed on her bed, angling her head to look out of the window Lylla must have closed before the rain started. It's disturbing to even think there can be people like that in the world, she mused. But I shouldn't worry myself by thinking about it: it has nothing to do with us. She sighed, watching the drops of water pool together and slide down the pane of glass before crashing into the bottom of the window.
