Chapter Thirteen

"Good morning, class!" Fubuki announced, his voice filled with boundless energy as he theatrically waved the last of the not-quite-late arriving students to their seats. He had donned the increasingly familiar black jacket of the Fourth Dorm, though the lapels seemed more angular than the regular student version. The jacket was long and swept out in the back as though under the constant pressure of a high powered wind fan. And starch. He had paired it with black trousers with a stripe of the same color running down the outside of each leg. Shou did not think that the modifications helped him look any more like a teacher than if he had just worn a senior's uniform to class. "My name is Tenjoin Fubuki," he paused to write his signature on the white board behind him, the English characters and flourishing '10' looking out of place in front of a class room. "And I will be your new chemistry teacher this year."

Shou still thought that this was a very bad idea. A very, very bad, no good, terrible idea. Letting the only person to have lived through the debacle that was the disappearance of the previous Fourth Dorm have the same teaching position as the man responsible for said disappearance was like a classic recipe for disaster. Then they had gone and paired it with being the Dorm Head for the newly rebuilt and reinstated Fourth Dorm! Obviously, everyone assigned to that dorm was going to die horribly.

"If you'll orient yourselves to my left, your right, you will see my two lovely assistants, who will be helping me with demonstrations and disciplinary matters this semester," Fubuki continued, though his tone lost some of its cheer when he gestured to the two armed Morality Committee members seated at a small table that had been set up as close to the right side wall at the back of the teaching stage as possible. It looked like they had crammed it there in the hope of being out of the way, and failed miserably. Even before Fubuki had called everyone's attention to them, the students were all painfully aware of their presence.

One of the young men waved sheepishly to the class when it became apparent that Fubuki would not be continuing his lecture without some kind of participation. The other simply crossed his arms over his chest, not willing to play along.

"Now, then," Fubuki returned to his lesson plan. "Please take a copy of the syllabus that is being passed around. This semester is going to be a little different than the chemistry classes you've taken in the past. Duel Academy requires three years of hard sciences be completed in order for any student to graduate; you have all been placed into my consolidated chemistry class because it has been brought to the school's attention that the two previous years of chemistry you took were. . ." he paused again, looking around to the seated students with pursed lips. Maybe he was looking for the right word that wouldn't insult the previous professors. "Lacking, and the curriculum was not approved. So, this quarter, we will be reviewing freshman chemistry."

Shou took the three page syllabus glumly. The only things from freshman chemistry he could remember were Daitokuji's alchemy lessons. Somehow, he did not think any of that information would make it into the new, improved and approved curriculum. He glanced down to the row of seats below him where Juudai and Johan were sitting. Technically, the row below his was the beginning of the Ra Yellow assigned seats, but that rarely stopped any Obelisk students who wanted to sit closer to the front of the lecture hall. Juudai was flopped forward over the desk, probably sleeping by this point. Johan seemed to be matching the hero's level of academic enthusiasm, one elbow propped up on the desk as he rested his chin on his hand.

"Next quarter will be junior level chemistry, and then we'll pick up with new material starting after midterms," Fubuki was saying. "We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let's get started."

Shou groaned, and placed his forehead on the cool surface of his desk.

"All right, time to review!" Fubuki was saying as he clasped his hands together in front of him, beaming around the quiet room at his glassy eyed students. Juudai blinked groggily, not quite sure what had come between this last exclamation and the young teacher's introduction some – he consulted the wall clock on the back wall by twisting around conspicuously in his seat – forty-six minutes ago. He must have taken a nap. It would not have been the first time he had slept through chemistry. It probably would not be the last time, either. "Yuki, can you please explain the difference between exothermic and endothermic reactions?"

Juudai froze, his back still turned to the front of the classroom where Fubuki stood on the teaching stage. It was weird to hear his last name being used; no one called him 'Yuki,' not even in his other classes. Then again, all his other teachers and professors knew better than to call on him. He never knew any of the answers.

"Uh. . ." he slowly turned back around, his hands grasping blindly at whatever was in front of him on the desk. His fingers curled around a pencil and he found himself drumming it nervously almost immediately. He glanced down to the paper that his other hand had landed on: it was blank, of course. It would have been too lucky – even for a guy who made his own luck – to have taken notes in his sleep.

They were all still looking at him, waiting for him to answer. Juudai rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Shou was trying to whisper to him from the row behind him. He had no idea what the Obelisk Blue student was saying. Johan was just as lost as he was and could only offer him a helpless look. Juudai shrugged and took a blind stab:

"Exothermic reactions are on the outside?"

Like the exo-skeleton on Elemental Hero Shadow Mist. Yeah, that makes sense!

Fubuki's perfect smile seemed to falter for a moment, a brief flash of disappointment crossing his features before it vanished. "Not quite. Please pay attention during this review: everything we will be going over this quarter is part of the knowledge base that you should have after taking a year of chemistry. Now, I am aware that Daitokuji-sensei had a rather. . ." he paused for a moment to find the appropriate word. "Idiosyncratic teaching paradigm, but!" Fubuki gestured with another theatric flourish here. "It's never too late to learn! Also, there will be quizzes every Thursday, starting this week."

The class groaned with apprehension, which only seemed to fuel Fubuki's teaching zest. Wait. Did teachers have zest? Or was that only oranges? Did oranges get their zest from their peels, or was an orange just inherently zesty? Juudai flopped his arms back over the desk so that his hands hung over the far edge. Beside him, Johan was in a similar position, chin resting on his copy of the class syllabus. Chemistry was hard.

He didn't seem to be the only one who thought so. The rest of the class was all in varying stages of sleep and bafflement. Fubuki sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, and checked the time.

"All right, class, I obviously misunderstood how much chemistry we've missed. Let's go back to the basics, starting with the breakdown of molecules. . ."

Manjoume had decided, after only a few short minutes, that he did not like this Johan Andersen that Juudai had excitedly introduced. Apparently, from what he could see and what Shou had whispered to him in the lunch line, the foreigner and Juudai had planned to be an insufferable, inseparable pair all day. Planned, he believed, because no one could be that annoying without a concentrated effort. Their class schedules matched almost perfectly, though Manjoume could not fathom how that was even possible. Johan Andersen did not seem like a total moron, and Juudai was. How was a junior Obelisk student taking all freshman courses? He should have at least been taking junior level courses, if not in advanced placement to the senior level classes.

The Fourth Dorm student glared at the newcomer, elbows on the table and hands clasped together loosely in front of his face as he rested his mouth and nose against his fingers. He watched the other boys poke at their dubious lunches, speculating on the true nature of the strange side vegetables they had gotten with today's main course.

Something did not add up, and it was not just the girl's Obelisk vest, or the feminine lavender shirt with frills underneath. It was not just the 'best at North Academy before transferring here' backstory that Manjoume regarded as being total and utter bullshit for no other reason than that he had been the best at North Academy and knew that the title was not so easily given out. There was something about Johan that Manjoume inherently did not trust. Something about the shape of his oddly green eyes, something about the planes of his face and the way that he smiled at people. Something about the whole situation that was Johan was just plain wrong.

Johan looked up then, still chuckling over something Juudai had said or suggested. He met Manjoume's glare and his own eyes narrowed slightly.

"Hey, Juudai," Johan began, tearing his gaze away from Manjoume's. His expression immediately softened, his smile back. He always seemed to look at Juudai softly. It was obnoxious. "Do you believe in destiny?"

"Like fate?" it was asked cautiously, a little coldly like the tone Juudai had used in the elevator over the summer. Manjoume shot the Obelisk student a startled look. This was an odd conversation topic for lunch on the first day of school. But Johan just smiled wider and shook his head.

"No."

"What's the difference?"

"Fate is something you're bound to do, like no matter what you do that's where you'll end up. Destiny is something that you're supposed to do, an end state that you can arrive at any way you like or not at all."

"Oh," Juudai seemed to relax, and fidgeted absently with his shirt collar. "Then, uh, yeah. I guess I do believe in destiny. Like, I was destined to save the Neospacians and destroy the Light."

"Yeah?" Johan chuckled. "I could tell you were meant for great things."

"Hear that, Manjoume?" Juudai beamed at his friend across the table, ignoring the muttered and inevitable '-san da.' "Johan here knows a hero when he sees one!"

"Really? Well, I know a kiss ass when I hear one."

Juudai laughed so hard Manjoume thought he would choke, and Johan turned six shades of red and dropped his head in embarrassment. Manjoume smirked at the foreigner. Point to the home team.

"Come on, play nice, Thunder-san!" Juudai scolded playfully, putting an arm around Johan's shoulders. Manjoume tensed. They did this a lot. It seemed like they were always touching; it was excessive even for someone as physically affectionate as Juudai. "Johan's still new."

"I promise not to bruise your pretty friend," Manjoume sneered, not bothering to hide his distaste. "Just remind him that some of us are allergic to bullshit."

They returned their attention to their food as Shou and Kenzan joined them at the table. Shou was fretting over something or other yet again. Kenzan looked incredibly tired of having to listen to it.

"We're so dead."

"Shou-saurus, no one is going to die."

"So you say! But I watched that guard pistol whip Satoshi outside my Japanese Lit class," Shou said this in a conspiratorial whisper to the table, earning eye rolls from Juudai and Kenzan.

"First off, you can't 'pistol whip' someone with a rifle. That's just called, 'hitting someone with a rifle,'" Kenzan pointed out as he took a bite of his sandwich. His next statement was muffled as he spoke with his mouth full. "An' secondly, I seriously doubt that any of them are loaded. I mean, yeah, they have magazines locked, but I don't think they're carrying real rounds. They're probably those rubber non-lethal rounds; that's what cops carry for crowd control, if anything."

". . . They're real," Manjoume said, his appetite suddenly gone. He did not look up from his plate. "They are really carrying loaded weapons, with real bullets, and they will really shoot you if they think that. . . that they need to."

The table went quiet, the rest of the cafeteria buzzing with its usual high school fervor. Kenzan put his sandwich back down on his tray. Shou looked faint, and Johan had turned in his seat to look at the Morality Committee guards by the doors. Juudai was the only one still eating, but knit his brows with worry and suspicion.

"How do you know?" he asked. Manjoume swallowed hard.

"Because I watched them shoot a man yesterday," he paused, letting the seriousness of what he was saying sink in. "They shot him in the back of the head. They're not joking, Juudai. They're not here as some kind of scare tactic. They mean business, and we should all keep our heads down and try to stay out of trouble this year, especially right now. The first ones they catch they'll be making examples of to deter other students."

"Stay out of trouble?" Juudai repeated with a surprised blink, and then stood and leaned across the table to put his hand on Manjoume's forehead as if checking for fever. "Are you okay? Do you feel sick? Are you really a pod person? Where's the real Manjoume?"

"–San da," Manjoume retorted out of habit and swatted at the hand. Juudai withdrew it and sat back down with a laugh. "Oh, shut up, stupid. I'm serious."

"I know," Juudai shrugged it off, though. "But, I mean, come on! What's the worst that could happen?"

They all turned dubious looks to the resident hero.

"The cultists could kill us this year," Manjoume pointed out.

"We could get shot and expelled," Kenzan chimed in, going back to his sandwich.

"Think 'big picture' here, guys. They could sacrifice us to shadowy monsters in an evil ritual," Shou amended with a grimace. "Leading to a bunch of giant demon-gods being reborn and plunging the whole world into death and despair and awfulness. You know, like what happened freshman year."

"Wow," Johan said, also returning to his lunch. "At North Academy, all we had to worry about was hazing and frostbite."

"We have hazing, too, it's just not our biggest concern," Shou assured him. Johan raised a brow, an amused little smile playing on his lips.

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that."

They all returned to their lunches, sharing small talk about their morning classes and discussing plans to meet later to study at the library or in one of the dormitory common rooms. Juudai made a face when Kenzan suggested they invite Rei. It was not until they were starting to get up to toss their trays after they were done with lunch that things started to get strange again.

Juudai stopped suddenly, arm extended mid-'Gotcha' and a laugh dying on his lips. For a moment, he was impossibly still. Manjoume was about to ask what was wrong when Johan twisted in his seat to look at the boys seated at the table behind them. All Manjoume could see was their blue underclassmen jackets, heads bent down like they were looking at something on the table. Their lunches, perhaps, or the end of a Duel.

"Juudai?"

But Juudai was not listening to them anymore. He did not seem to be listening to anything anymore; he seemed cold, and distant. His face relaxed into that serious grown-up expression, making him look older somehow. When he turned sharply towards the other table and stood, Manjoume thought he saw that unsettling flash of gold across the other boy's eyes. Juudai reached out for one of the boys, his hand clamping down on the back of his neck. The boy yelped at the rough contact, his companions looking up in alarm.

"That's not something you should play with," Juudai told him, his voice flat, emotionless. And then, before anyone could stop him, Juudai slammed the boy forward. The Obelisk underclassman's head hit the table with a resounding bam that seemed to force the whole cafeteria into stunned silence. Manjoume went up and over their own table to reach Juudai, glancing down as he grabbed one of Juudai's arms. Johan had taken a hold of Juudai on the other side, and between the two of them they managed to wrestle him away from the other student.

There were Tarot cards on the table. The boy must have been doing a reading for his friends.

"Juudai, stop!"

"They're coming!" Kenzan shouted the warning, gesturing towards the front of the cafeteria where the Morality Committee members had been standing guard. "We'll keep them busy, run!"

"We?" Shou squeaked.

Manjoume nodded and, with Johan's help, half-dragged, half-carried Juudai towards the back of the cafeteria where the entrance to the kitchens were. The Ra Yellow student was shaking his head and rubbing at his chest as if in pain. They burst into the kitchen amid angry shouting from the attendants there, the older ladies attempting to shoo them out. One waved a wooden spoon at them threateningly.

"This way," Johan urged him, and Manjoume allowed him to lead them out a side door into another hallway. "We'd better split up, or they'll find us for sure."

Manjoume nodded, fearing that if they thought that he had been involved it would make things even worse for Juudai. "Take him."

Johan tightened his grip on Juudai's arm, and dragged him down the hall towards the gymnasium. Manjoume took off down the opposite direction; the art rooms were down here, and a staircase leading to the second floor library. He could hide out there between the stacks for at least a little while.

It was unclear to Fubuki whether or not anyone had actually bothered to investigate the old Fourth Dorm after the disappearance of all its occupants eight years ago. Principal Sameshima had claimed that they had, of course, but there was no record of it. It had been 'in-house' and very 'hush-hush.' No one could point out who the investigators had been, or when they had decided that none of the students would be returning. When, exactly, had the American transfer program been born? Who else had to sign off on that lie, and who convinced the American university to work with Duel Academy? His thoughts wandered briefly back to the late Chairman of the Board, but he quickly banished them with a shake of his head.

Now wasn't really the time.

Fubuki glanced over his shoulder, checking the hallway leading back up to the first floor of his new, old dorm. His fingers were curled around the door handle leading to the basement of the Fourth Dorm. After a moment of waiting to make sure that he had not been followed, he opened it and headed inside. It had taken him nearly an hour to finally ditch the Morality Committee guards who had been assigned to him, which had initially shocked him. At first, Fubuki had thought that he was losing his touch, but after discarding that theory he came to the conclusion that his disgruntled wardens must have been specially trained and were probably the best the Committee had to offer. He hoped that they were, or he was going to have a hell of a time getting anything done this year.

The basement looked surprisingly similar to the way it had looked when he was a student. Boxes were stacked neatly in corners, and there were some leftover building materials under a plastic tarp against one wall. Replacement furniture was scattered throughout the room, some with plastic covers to protect them and some left out in the dry air. The door opened up on a wooden landing and a raised walkway that circled the room. Fubuki stepped to the edge of it, and laid his arms over the railing. There was another set of short stairs that led down to the basement floor, which was bare concrete. In the builders' rush to meet their deadline before the start of school, they must have forgotten to finish it.

His eyes wandered to the back wall out of habit, scanning the white surface for. . . for what? A clue? A defect? Some sign that the way to the passages beneath the dorm was still there? When he was student, there had been a flat expanse of movable plaster that had hidden the dark passageway down to the alchemic ceremony rooms and sacrificial altars. He wondered if it was still there, behind the wall and winding down deep into the island's depths. The construction crews must have found it while working, so he doubted they were still usable. If the secret rooms were intact, he could probably get there using the secondary entrance, hidden in the nearby jungle.

But did he even want to? A lot had happened in the years between then and now. Fubuki was tired, and his scars ached and burned most nights. He missed the zeal and passion of the fire and the Seven Stars, the assassins who had become his family when he stepped deep into the dark, but he also missed his parents, who he didn't think he would ever see again. He missed his sister, and felt guilty that he had already missed so much of her growing up. He missed the friends who had been lost during his supplication and training for the priesthood.

There was a lot to regret, and a lot to apologize for, but what he regretted most was that he didn't feel sorry at all.

A sound from the basement floor below brought Fubuki back to the present, and he tore his gaze away from the back wall to investigate it. He was half-expecting to see Pharaoh, since Daitokuji's pet had been missing all day. But instead of a fat orange cat, a tall and muscular woman stepped out of the shadows beneath the landing. Fubuki blinked, recognizing her scars and long red hair immediately. The recognition was mutual.

"Darkness?" the woman asked incredulously, her voice too high and feminine, it seemed, to have come from someone her size. She smiled up at him, crossing her arms over her ample chest. It was strange to see her in normal clothes. Before, he had always seen her in her gladiatorial attire, or sometimes – very rarely and only for ceremony – in her ritual garb. He had never seen her without the gauntlet before, though. "I thought for sure you'd died by now."

"It's good to see you, too, Tanya," Fubuki replied wryly.

"It is good to see you, of course," Tanya laughed. He accepted the apology, as it was, with a nod and a smile. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same."

"I'm here for Misawachi."

"Here?" he asked again, gesturing to their surroundings.

"Oh. I was looking for the ceremony room," she said it as if it were obvious. Why else would she be sneaking around a dormitory basement? Tanya paused as her eyes swept over the young man. "You felt it, didn't you? Last night? Was that you?"

Fubuki raised a brow quizzically. "What do you mean?"

She pouted. "You've changed, Darkness. Before, you would have known about it before even I did." He said nothing, so she continued. "There's been a ritual. Someone is making sacrifices."

"I didn't know anything about it," Fubuki said, surprised. She was right; in the past, when they had worked together, he would have been very attuned to that much dark power collecting in a place. Ritual sacrifice was not to be undertaken lightly.

"They were small sacrifices, nothing too noticeable. I thought it was your successor, but if you're here-"

"Me? Oh, no," Fubuki waved it off, explaining. "I conveniently 'don't remember anything' about being in the Seven Stars. And I was only involved with the tragedy of the Fourth Dorm 'against my will.'"

"Really? An unwilling priest?" Tanya laughed again. "That's not how I remember it!"

"Well, don't go ruining my cover now, Tanya!" he teased her, running a hand through his hair. She giggled girlishly. "It's important that they continue to think that 'Darkness' and I were not one. But back to the point: I'm not trying to open the Gate again or offering blood tributes. The keys are scattered and I'm stuck on the island under constant guard. I wouldn't get very far, even if I tried."

"I don't think it was the same rituals we did before. Those were all human, and it didn't feel like that. But, Darkness, if you're not on the way to the ceremony room, what are you doing down here?" Tanya asked again. Fubuki looked back at the closed door behind him, listening for the sound of his guards coming to retrieve him. There was nothing. They were probably losing their minds right around now trying to find him. Good.

"Thinking," he answered simply, gaze going back to the far wall. Tanya nodded, following his line of vision with her own. A small smile crept onto her lips and she moved forward to inspect the wall more closely. She placed her hand on it, something in the air surrounding her skin shimmering like pulsing heat. He knew that wasn't what it was, though. Tanya's people were blessed by dark gods and lived in shadows; she was tapping into the power left behind in the dorm from all those years ago.

The temperature in the room dropped suddenly, their exhalations a white mist in the spaces between them and the wall. Shadows sprang up around them, dark and twisting and alive. Dark purple lines faded into view on her hands and arms, writhing up under her clothes to leave their mark on her throat and along her jawline. The wall blackened as if scorched by fire and then disappeared, leaving an inky hole in its place that Fubuki could not see into. Tanya stepped through it, having to turn sideways to get her shoulders past the narrow entry.

Fubuki could feel the magic and his gods calling him from the darkness, his memories rushing over him in waves. He remembered carving into the floor of the ceremony room, ensuring the deep troughs of each sigil and circle slanted so that they could channel blood towards the center. The smell of dust and incense drifted to him across time. He recalled how light would pour from the mouths of each of the eight snake deity statues that surrounded the room when a sacrifice was offered, and how the golden, stylized eye would appear beneath his feet. Fubuki remembered nights spent gasping and laughing and breathless in the ecstasy of sacrifice as shadows would rise up out of the circles, cold as death where they flitted over his skin. His scars ached and burned with that old fire.

He did not hesitate to follow her back into the darkness.