The double doors to the Mirror Chamber were closed now, but as Kat and the Headmaster approached, she could hear the buzz of a crowd on the other side.
A few voices stuck out above the cacophony.
She was still too far away to hear what they were saying, but the first was loud in an authoritative, commanding way. The next sounded like a lazy drawl, but with a certain weight to it that made it stand out above the rest, despite not being particularly loud. The next honestly reminded her of an old-fashioned radio or game show announcer.
Crowley reached the doors before she did, but didn't open them right away, standing and waiting for her.
As she hurried up, she managed to catch the tail end of a sentence from the other side.
"...Headmaster went off to?" A new voice-- elegant and self-assured-- was asking. "He vanished halfway through the ceremony."
"Maybe he got a stomachache and had to step out?" Someone suggested.
It was at this point that Crowley swung the double doors open with a dramatic crash.
"I most certainly did NOT," he announced, shoving the trussed-up Grim into her hands and striding in.
The hubbub died down somewhat, which usually happens when someone enters a room like that. Kat, even though she didn't really want to, definitely wasn't gonna let the only person she even kind of knew here out of her sight.
Giving Grim an awkward, apologetic look-- why was she even doing that? This little thing had tried to KILL her earlier!-- she scurried in, pulling the hood up to avoid the hundreds of eyes that were now fixed on her.
The room was arranged differently than last time-- rows of chairs sat in front of the mirror, like a school assembly, and there were robed people EVERYWHERE.
Some were sitting down, some milling around and some forming groups or lines in preparation to go off somewhere.
The lights were orange now, not the sickly green of before, and she realized that what she'd thought were gates were actually huge windows. With the brighter, warmer light than the sickly green murkiness from before, she could see that the room-- the Mirror Chamber?- was actually kind of shaped like a...
Like the middle section of a Pokeball.
A dumb analogy, but that was the only thing coming to mind. There was a circular section in the middle, where the mirror and all the coffins were, and long, almost hallway-like sections stretching off to either side.
At the front of the 'assembly' area, closest to the mirror, was a group of five people and a...
Was that a floating iPad?
Giving it a sideways glance, she caught up with Crowley, who was addressing the quintet with his hands on his hips.
"Good heavens... If you all MUST know, I was searching for the first-year who went off by himself-- Ah! And here he is!"
Turning, he smiled at Kat, who shifted uncomfortably in the five gazes that suddenly fixed on her. God, even the iPad felt like it was sizing her up all of a sudden.
She licked her lips nervously.
"I-- I'm actually a girl?"
She wasn't sure why she phrased it like a question.
The group blinked, giving each other surprised looks.
Even Grim stopped trying to squirm out of her hands momentarily, eyes widening with a surprised "Grrrmph?!"
"You ARE?" One of them-- she couldn't see much under the hood, but they were maybe an inch shorter than her, with light brown skin and short pale hair-- asked incredulously.
"...Yeah?" She said, again sounding like she was asking a question when she wasn't.
Feeling like she should say something else, she added, "I'm... Sorry?"
"My, my-- this IS unusual," Crowley mused, finger to his chin thoughtfully. "For a hundred years, every student summoned to the campus has only ever identified as male-- or more closely with male than with anything else."
Before she could stop herself, Kat asked, "So it's like... A he-they school?"
Pressing her lips together, she flushed with embarrassment-- why the fuck did she say that?! God DAMN her mental and emotional exhaustion making her say stupid shit like that out loud!
Another person burst out laughing.
Looking at them, she saw that they- or he?- was holding the back of one slim, graceful hand to their and/or his mouth, like a fucking 90s anime shoujo villainess.
Again, the hood made it hard, but they looked to have ash blond hair, about shoulder-length, with a purple ombre at the ends.
Her tendency towards faceblindness wasn't helping, either, but if she had to describe them, the one word that jumped to mind was 'pretty'.
"I like this one!" He and/or they declared, still laughing. "Yes, I suppose a 'he-they school' IS a fitting description, isn't it?"
Kat realized she was staring-- looking away, she blushed. This person was-- REALLY fucking pretty...
She made eye contact-- for lack of a better word-- with the iPad, bobbing up and down in midair like the book in the library. "Uwah-- talk about a rare spawn," a voice muttered from it.
She looked away again, catching the gazes of the next person-- wearing glasses like her, with silvery, side-swept hair-- and the next-- really short, couldn't be more than five foot two, with rose-red hair and a delicate, childlike face, looking at her disapprovingly.
The last person wasn't even facing her. They were standing off to the side, arms crossed behind their head and looking like they stopped paying attention a good ten minutes ago. They had brown skin- darker than the first person's- and long, dark brown hair hanging over their shoulders from under the hood.
Looking down at her feet to avoid meeting anyone else's eye, she didn't realize she was holding Grim like a stuffed animal until he growled and jerked, tail lashing angrily.
"Sorry," she muttered, loosening her grip on him.
"Night Raven College has been an all-boys' school since its founding," the redhead said, crossing their- his?- arms. "...But if the Dark Mirror saw fit to summon a young lady to the campus, then I suppose there's no reason to object.. This may be an impertinent question, but is your gender identity one you realized yourself, or...?"
It took a second for her brain to absorb what he was asking.
She looked over, not making direct eye contact, but close enough to fake it. Even without looking right at them, she could still see that his eyes were large and startlingly gray.
"Are you... Asking if I'm cis? I-- I am, yeah..."
"Hey, no problem!" The brown-skinned, pale-haired boy beamed, hands on his hips. "A good, like, half of my dorm is transmasc! If you need anything, you can ask me, even if you don't end up in Scarabia!"
The silver-haired person chuckled lightly, pushing up his glasses. "I think there IS a difference, Kalim-san, but as always, your generosity is admirable..."
Kat blinked.
If she was understanding correctly-- she was really, REALLY mentally exhausted, so she was a few steps behind at the moment, but this was like one of those fancy private schools, or the Catholic all-girls' school her mom went to when she was a teenager? An all-boys' or... or all-boys'/demiboys/genderfluid-as-long-as-one-of-the-fluids-is-boyish-enough school?
How did this-- this summoning thing work? Was it like a computer program? Did it scan somebody and if they had a certain level of 'boy'-ness in their... Their soul? Heart? Mind?- they got in? But here SHE was-- a cis girl, or technically woman, since she was nineteen, apparently the first girl-- woman- whatever-- to show up here in, like, a hundred years?
Crowley gave a loud cough.
"AHEM! Gentlemen-- and lady. We can discuss the logistics later. You are the only student who has yet to be assigned to a dorm, so go on-- approach the Dark Mirror. Here-- allow me to look after your raccoon."
Before she could say anything, he snatched Grim back out of her hands, putting a hand on her shoulder and steering her towards the mirror.
"Grrrr!" Grim complained, thrashing around.
Giving Crowley a nervous look, Kat swallowed. Her heart suddenly started beating a mile a minute, and her stomach was fluttering...
She was really, really, REALLY trying not to get her hopes up.
She'd never had anything you could call 'special powers' or whatever, besides being good with cats. She was still pretty sure she'd seen at least one fairy, but that was only one time.
She was just-- just a normal girl.
And not even in the shoujo protagonist way. She didn't have a cute personality, or boundless optimism... She was kinda gloomy and depressed, and just wanted to be left alone and chill most of the time.
But maybe-- just maybe...
She hadn't had a 'dream' in years, because what she really wanted to do, to BE, was something she knew she could never have. She knew that, but she still wanted it so badly it hurt...
Was this finally it?
The treacherous feeling of hope wouldn't go away, no matter how hard she tried to squash it.
A bundle of nerves now, she stepped gingerly in front of the floating mirror.
It remained dark for a few seconds, then shimmered into life with reflections of green fire. A large, angular white face emerged from the flames. It had an ornate black pattern around its eyes, like a porcelain Venetian mask, and reminded her of an early-2000s video game graphic.
A sudden, intense feeling of deja vu swept over her in time with the rush of adrenaline-fueled anxiety, making her skin prickle.
Where the hell had she seen this thing before...?
It opened its eyes, black and empty like it really was a porcelain mask, looking at her with a severe expression.
"State thy name," it commanded.
She licked her lips. "I-I'm Kat," she said in a voice that was a lot croakier than she would have liked.
The face in the mirror stared at her, and her goosebumps intensified, rushing over her body in waves. She couldn't tell if it was actually some kind of magical barcode scanner or something, or just her nerves...
People were looking at her now. Not just Crowley and the group at the front, but everybody in the room, laser focused on her back as she waited for god-knows-what to happen.
"Kat," the mirror repeated, its voice echoing oddly, like it was somewhere very far away. "The nature of thy soul is..."
It paused for a moment.
Then another moment.
Its eyes narrowed, squinting at her in a way that made her feel like a weird bug somebody was trying to get a closer look at.
"...Unknown."
"I beg your pardon?!" Crowley blustered.
The mirror didn't even look at him, just kept staring at her with those empty, emotionless eyes."This child possesses no magical power," it said flatly.
She felt her stomach and heart drop, shattering into a million pieces on the floor.
"Soundless. Colorless. Shapeless. Utterly vacant."
With each word, the remains of her heart got stomped into smaller and smaller pieces, ground into the floor like dust.
"Therefore," the mirror finished, "I am unable to assign a dormitory."
She looked blankly back at the white face, all the energy draining out of her body at once.
She shouldn't be surprised, not really-- nothing THIS good could ever happen to her. The best she could ever hope for was bad things to NOT happen to her, which had been going pretty well for a while-- up until today, at least.
GOOD things, though? No-- especially not the thing she'd been hopelessly dreaming and longing for her whole life.
You don't get to be special, kid.
You don't get to be ANYTHING.
The crowd started whispering, rising into a mutter, then a buzz-- but it seemed to be kind of far away at the moment, like she was hearing it through the door again.
Behind her, she heard Crowley approach, as evidenced by the angry Grim noises that drew closer to her.
"Are you suggesting that the black carriage went out to receive a person who cannot even use magic?!" The Headmaster demanded. "Surely not-- that's simply preposterous! Not once, in its century of existence, has the student selection process fallen prey to such a-- such a-- malfunction!"
Forcing herself to move-- you look stupid just standing here, do something-- Kat turned to look at him as he stood, Grim dangling loosely from one claw-gloved hand.
"How in the world could this have happened...?" He said, mostly to himself, cupping his chin with his other hand as the lights in his eyes narrowed again.
This, apparently, was all the opportunity Grim needed. With a particularly powerful jerk, he was out of Crowley's hand, rolling across the floor. Wriggling out of the black ropes, he stood on four paws, shaking his head with a huge gasp.
"In that case," he panted, rising back up onto his hind legs, "ME! You should enroll ME instead!"
"Ack!" Crowley spluttered, as Kat drew back from the newly freed creature, who at least didn't seem to be actively trying to kill her at the moment. "You just hold it right there, you troublemaking little tanuki!"
There it was again-- tanuki. She could've sworn he'd said 'raccoon' earlier, and not just that... Had Grim referred to himself as 'sama?' And hadn't the glasses guy said 'san' a second ago, too?
Before she could process that, Grim was talking again-- more like shouting, really.
"Unlike that human over there, I can actually USE magic! So I'm WAY more qualified to be a student here than HE--"
Shaking his head, he corrected himself.
"--Than SHE is! And if you're STILL not convinced--"
He took a deep breath, chest puffing out.
"Then check THIS out! My magic's super strong, just sit back an' watch!"
"Drat," she heard someone curse-- the red-haired, gray-eyed boy was running up, pulling something key-shaped from a chain around his waist.
"Everyone, GET DOWN!" He ordered loudly.
"MmmmMMRAGH...!!"
With a roar of effort, Grim blew hard-- a stream of blue fire, even bigger than the ones he'd aimed at Kat earlier, poured from his mouth as he turned in a circle. Coffins and chairs caught fire, and she realized she should probably duck-- just as yet another jet of azure flames came shooting right at her.
Falling into a crouch, she put her hands over her head, certain that she was a moment too late and about to go up in flames.
When she didn't, she looked up cautiously.
The red-haired boy was standing in front of her, holding something out in front of him like he was warding off a vampire with a crucifix. The jet of fire split in front of it, streaming around them like water off the back of a spoon and creating a fiery tunnel.
Kat stared stupidly.
W-Wow...
Anybody who'd ever watched a superhero movie or cartoon had probably seen this exact scene a million times, but actually living it was completely different.
The object he was holding looked like-- a pen? One of those fancy fountain pens, with a large, red oval jewel on the cap.
At this point, Grim apparently needed to take a breath.
The stream of fire stopped, but there was still plenty of it, jumping from coffin to coffin and even starting to spread to some of the wall hangings.
The red-haired boy turned, giving her an even more disapproving look than the one he'd given her earlier. "Are you alright, Miss?" He asked, though not in a very concerned way, more like it was something that he had to do, but wasn't thrilled about it.
She stared for maybe half a second longer, then nodded.
"Y... Yeah," she managed. "Thanks."
He nodded curtly.
"AAAAAAH!!" Someone shrieked. Apparently the brown-skinned boy who'd seemed the friendliest hadn't been as lucky as she'd been. The back of his robe-- or more accurately, the butt-- was on fire.
"H-Hey-- HELP! MY BUTT'S ON FIRE!"
She watched him run around for a second. He didn't seem to be in serious pain, more shock and distress-- were these robes fire-resistant or something, like in video games or Dungeons and Dragons?
But regardless... Had this kid not gotten the 'stop, drop and roll' education she'd been drilled with in kindergarten and elementary school?
The room was in a panic now-- Grim wasn't doing the drawn-out streams of fire anymore, but he was still blowing out short bursts, jumping around like a hyped-up, sugar-addled kid at a birthday party.
The brown-skinned boy wasn't the only one who'd caught fire-- students were rolling around on the floor to smother the flames, while others were taking a page out of his book, running around like headless chickens.
All in all, it was a scene of pure, utter chaos. People were yelling, flames were crackling-- her head was starting to throb from the noise and the heat.
Over the din, she heard Crowley's voice, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Will someone PLEASE CATCH THAT BLASTED CREATURE BEFORE IT SETS THE WHOLE SCHOOL ABLAZE?!"
The red-haired boy offered a hand to help her up, a friendly gesture in concept, but the thunderous look on his face made her hesitate.
"No, I-- I'm fine... Thanks." Getting back up to her feet, she tried giving him an awkward smile, which he didn't reciprocate.
He was-- really short... How old was he? He looked about ten, but that didn't mean anything. Her brother looked about ten right up until he was fourteen, then looked about twelve until he was suddenly a whole foot taller than her at sixteen.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tall, dark-skinned person with the long hair and the really pretty person having some sort of argument.
Stepping forward, the silvery-haired boy pushed up his glasses. "Please, leave this to me, Headmaster Crowley," he said, an unpleasant smile on his face. "If everyone here is loath to raise a hand against such a small, adorable creature, then I will gladly shoulder the burden myself!"
A muffled mutter from the iPad, which was still floating in the air, having managed to avoid the blasts of fire, that she didn't hear.
"H--Hey-- could someone maybe help me with this fire on my butt over here?!" The brown-skinned boy spluttered.
Another robed figure-- she couldn't see clearly from this distance, but it was brown-skinned, long-haired, but shorter than the one who was arguing with the pretty guy-- hurried over. They practically threw him to the ground onto his back, stomping on the flames that tried to escape from under his body.
Crowley pinched the bridge of his mask. "I'm sorry-- were my instructions UNCLEAR?!" He demanded loudly, addressing the chaotic room in general.
With a theatrical yawn, the taller, long-haired figure, leaning against one of the nearby coffins that weren't on fire, crossed their arms. "If it's just one little raccoon we're talkin' here, then shouldn't YOU be able to handle it, Sensei?" They-- he?-- asked sarcastically.
"How many times do I gotta tell you people I'm NOT A RACCOON OR A TANUKI?!" Grim spluttered angrily. "I'm the man destined to become a Master Sorcerer-- GRIM!"
The boy with the glasses moved closer, pulling his own key-shaped object from the chain at his waist. "What an energetic little creature," he remarked, making his way over to stand next to the red-haired boy. "Riddle-san, if you would be so kind..."
The red-haired boy gave another sharp nod. "I will abide no rule-breaking, furry miscreant," he announced, raising his voice and addressing Grim. "As such-- I shall see to your sentencing myself."
And just like that, he was off, striding confidently at Grim and turning another fiery breath off its course with a swing of his jeweled pen.
Chuckling, the boy with the glasses followed him, pulling his own pen out of what she now saw was a key-shaped... Holster? Sheath? At his waist.
Seeing that his fire wasn't effective against them appeared to break Grim's nerve a little. Dropping back onto all fours, he turned tail and bolted down the long wing off to the side.
The pair gave chase, and Kat watched them shrink into the distance-- man, how long WAS this room?- before turning back to look at the aftermath of the chaos.
The pretty person was striding around, waving their own pen and making chunks of blue fire vanish with small bursts of sparkles.
Crowley was standing in the middle of a group of students-- not just students, actually, there were three other adults there too, now that she looked-- apparently giving orders.
The brown-skinned boy was being pulled to his feet by the person who had helped him. His hood fell back, showing a head of white hair with a strip of purple-and-gold fabric wrapped around it like a headband. He grinned, saying something she couldn't make out from this distance, then laughing. At least he was okay...
She was really, really, REALLY trying not to think about the room full of glares aimed her way.
She really couldn't use magic...
Well, if she couldn't, then there was no point in her sticking around any longer, right? Hopefully that meant she could just leave...
Would they teleport her back to wherever she was before getting yoinked by the carriage? Or would she wake up in her bed, like the end of The Wizard Of Oz? If this was a wainscot society-type deal, would they make her forget somehow?
Standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, she held her elbow, waiting for someone to come over and tell her what to do next.
Author's Notes:
Can we get an F in the chat for my mahou shoujo/magic powers dream
The person who put out Kalim's fire is Jamil btw, in case it wasn't obvious