An apology. Duke couldn't keep a surprised bark of laughter from tumbling out, Seia looking up at him incredulously.
She wanted a fucking apology. From him.
"You seem tense. Droll, but expected," Beatrice stepped towards the man with graceful strides, Arona letting go of Duke's shirt to pull Seia back and put herself in front of the seer. "I am aware of your...affection...towards these children, and while we may not agree on the finer details, we need not be enemies."
"And what, exactly," Duke made a conscious effort to unclench his jaw, "would bein' buddy-buddy with you bring me."
"Power, of course."
Beatrice snapped her fan shut.
"The power to take this sad little city and play with it like a toy. You are upset with me, Sensei. You are upset because you have the notion that I did this to the Arius district...but I must disagree. They did it to themselves."
The woman let loose an imperial giggle, and Duke did everything he could to control his breathing.
"Did you know, Sensei, that the students of Arius were locked in a vicious civil war before I had even come along? Hate, contempt, rage, disgust...these emotions already existed within them. All I did was fan the flame, give them what they wanted. They were not poor, innocent lambs that the wicked witch had perverted. No...they were already broken."
Beatrice shook her head, and Duke flexed his fingers.
"Or...perhaps they were merely true to themselves. Deep inside the human heart lies a primal violence and selfishness. The only thing that separates them from beasts is a thin veneer of civility...as you and those precious little nobodies from Gehenna have already experienced."
Arona took one look at Duke-sensei's face and backed off further, nudging Seia back all the while.
"Knowing this...it is impossible to deny the beauty of my methods.
CRCK
SNAP
Beatrice's perfectly molded face split apart, revealing a beastly set of sharpened teeth that smugly sneered at the man before her.
"I am no barbarian. I am no philistine. I take what is already within them, that yawning pit of despair and anger in their hearts...and I create. I craft for my students a purpose beyond whatever pointless feelings they have bouncing around in those heads. The pain...the guilt, their crimes bring? The knowledge that they will come crawling back to me because I am all that they know? It is priceless."
She giggled again, shaking her head. "I am their world. What I say reality is for them simply is. I could say that up is down and a cat is a dog, and they would thank me for defining their pitiful lives. A microcosm of my 'paradise': a world where us adults may shape, crush, and devour these souls as we see fit. A Hell for them...and a Heaven for us."
...
"Join us, Sensei. Join me. You need no trust from them. You need no love from them. In a world made for adults like us, you need only your conviction and the power to see it through."
You'll do my students right.
"Aren't you curious? Even a man of your strength..." she purred, finally closing in and putting a gentle hand to his chest. She pressed against him in a one-sided embrace, that hand easily tracing the lines of his collarbone. "...Can only be refined. And all we'd need to do is sacrifice a few lowly students to pave the way to paradise. Our Eden."
Adulthood, responsibility, obligation...the choices we make that extend beyond those ideals.
"The truths of this world and its secrets...I will lay it all bare for you to partake. To say that we owe them anything is a laughable illusion. For the very crime of their existence, these children must pay with their service and their lives."
All that and more we pass onto the next generation, to mold them into something better than what we ever could be.
"Accept me. Take my hand and become something greater."
"Sensei, whatever you're doing...!" Arona worriedly mumbled.
"They are weaknesses, Sensei. Weaknesses that we can expunge with a snap of our fingers. Choose, and choose well," Beatrice purred. "I know you'll use your head."
"D-Duke-sensei...he wouldn't...?" Seia nervously whispered. To reassure her, Arona simply gripped the seer's hand and shook her head.
Taking a deep breath, Duke Nukem gently raised his left hand to grasp Beatrice's. The woman's grin split apart in wicked, victorious glee as Seia cried out in despair. Arona merely grit her teeth and waited, trusting Duke.
He exhaled, leaned his head back-
"That's enough out of you."
And smashed his forehead into Beatrice's skull, sending the woman reeling back with a pained screech that echoed throughout the barren Arius district. Her hand still in his, Duke crushed it within his own grip, yanked her back up, and stepped in to deliver a vicious right hook that collided with her left cheek, letting go of her hand to let her flip and tumble through a pile of rubble and through the wall of a dilapidated house.
Arona and Seia's jaw dropped as they truly beheld Duke Nukem in his prime: pissed and ready to let loose.
"Damn," he growled, teeth bared in his own wild grin as he took a look at the fangs he managed to dislodge. "That felt fuckin' good. But I ain't gonna be satisfied..."
Reaching into his pocket, he took out his SUPERNOVA, checked it over with a glance, and slung it over his shoulder as he stomped towards the ruined building.
"Until whatever remains of this alien bastard can be packed into a hoagie!"
"Grrgh!"
Reisa struggled against her bonds with the willpower of a true hero. Unfortunately, willpower did not actually translate into greater strength, and her captor merely jostled her as the group continued walking.
"Gnnnnghrghl!"
She had to break free! She must break free! What sort of heinous things would happen to her should Cath Palug take Uzawa Reisa, Trinity's Heroic Star, back to her fetid lair?! Perhaps she would use her delinquent brainwashing powers and lead her astray from the path of justice! Yeah, the she-devil would bring Reisa in close...! She'd stroke her hair...whisper temptation into her ear...s-slowly take her coat and, uh, haha, was it hot in here...?
"...?"
"Did she stop struggling already?"
"Hey, I think the blood is rushing to her head or something. She's blushing like crazy!"
"Maybe she's realized that you're lugging her like a sack of potatoes," Kayoko flatly offered. "You know, a girl in a skirt."
"Hey, the crowd dispersed the moment the gunfight died down," Kazusa hissed, her own cheeks pink as she realized the implications. "There's no one around this late anyway. I'm not that much of a psycho!"
Mutsuki smirked and sent her a side eye. "Oh, so it was another Miss Palug that shoulder-checked our little hero into a wall, huh~?"
The former delinquent grit her teeth and sent Mutsuki the evil eye. "Please. Do not call me that."
"But it's true!" Reisa shouted from her position over Kazusa's shoulder. "They say a leopard cannot change its spots, and you are but a leopard among sheep!"
"Yeah well, leopard schmepard! Who cares what you think, anyway?! You've been stalking our friend!" Yoshimi spat, and Kazusa's eyes widened as she watched the rest of the After-School Sweets Club passionately nod.
"I-I'm her archnemesis! I've known her ever since middle school, where she let the beast within rage wild and free. What you see before you is merely an obfuscation from a master-class thug!"
"Or," Kayoko droned as she pushed the club room's door open, "she actually is just a normal girl now. She could've just left that life behind. We all changed somehow from middle school...except you, I guess."
"...Huh?" Reisa blinked uncomprehendingly as she was plopped onto the ground in the middle of the beanbag circle. With the students of both clubs sitting down to surround her in less than a minute, the little hero was quickly coming to terms with the fact that she wouldn't be making it out of here so easily. "No, that's- I'm two-hundred percent certain that Kyouyama Kazusa is still a violent ne'er-do-well! Why else would she run from justice?"
"Because I did give up on being a thug, idiot. I was supposed to be a new Kazusa when I stepped into Trinity if not for you!"
"W-What?" Reisa sputtered, staring at her rival with wide, uncomprehending eyes
"Tell me what part you don't understand," Kazusa lowly growled. "I'll gladly elaborate."
"I...well, I just don't..."
"You just don't get it, right? Yeah, I know," the ex-delinquent bitterly chuckled, trembling.
"No, I don't. But I know you. I know you wouldn't just...just up and throw it all away! You're Cath Palug-"
"NO I AM NOT!" Kazusa shouted, hopping to her feet as everyone else startled back. "Stop! Calling me! CATH PALUG! You don't know shit about me! Why can't you just leave me alone already?!"
She pointed a finger at Reisa's stunned face, a snarl on her lips as she prepared to bare her heart to this tumor on her life. "How do you think it feels to know that some- some specter of your past is always hanging over you, ready to fuck up your second chance at a normal life whenever she wants? Huh?!" Kazusa pounded her chest with a palm. "How do you think that makes me feel?! I've been trying to keep it cool, but I just can't take this anymore! How...just how much longer are you gonna screw with me until you're satisfied? Is this enough? Is them knowing who I was enough for you...?"
"B-But, you..." the hero found her resolve escaping her at Kazusa's defeated tone. "You're a delinquent, you...don't you like it? Isn't this your gang?"
"They're not my gang! Don't you talk about them like that!" Kazusa thundered as she stomped over to Reisa, who shied away from the furious girl as much as her bonds would allow. "They're...they didn't know! They're just normal girls! They make me want to be normal, you...don't you get it?!"
"Kazusa..." Natsu began, shutting her mouth when the girl whipped around to look at her with moist, terrified eyes.
"You...you have no idea how scared I was. I was so scared that if you guys found out, y-you'd dump me. We wouldn't be able to go to pop-up cafes no more, I-I wouldn't be able to sit around a-and laugh with any of you anymore...I didn't know what to do. Hell, I wanted to call Schale to see what that Sensei guy could do about it! I...I couldn't bear it if all of you were terrified of me..."
"Oh, Kazusa..." Airi gently got up and dragged the girl's hands up, holding the clenched fists with warm hands of her own. "We would never abandon you."
"What you did in the past could honestly matter less to me," Natsu jumped in, placing a soft hand on the girl's shoulder. "You are Kazusa, and you exist in the here and now. You are my friend and I value you."
"Yeah. You were some big delinquent back then, whatever!" Yoshimi rolled her eyes, patting Kazusa's other arm. "We could be delinquents tomorrow if we felt like it. Look, I-I'm not gonna get all sappy or anything, but...if you were unsure if we'd stick by you because of this, don't worry about it. We're cool."
Kazusa clenched her eyes tightly, a few tears leaking out as she choked down her sobs.
"Come here, come here..." Airi gently cooed, bringing the slightly shorter girl into her embrace and running a hand through her hair. "It's okay, let it out. We'll still be here after all is said and done, okay?"
"...Ah, y'know what, fine! I'll join in for a little hug. Get over here, Natsu!"
"Our love shall be like a sandwich cookie," Natsu sagely nodded. "Alone, we are but mere ingredients, unrefined and lacking direction. But within the protective embrace of the cookies, the filling can find its true purpose. The romanticism of the situation threatens to overwhelm me."
"...There's three of us," Airi reminded her with an uncertain smile as Yoshimi gave the philosophical girl a flat look, getting on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around Kazusa's shoulder and Airi's back.
"...Yuh."
And so the After-School Sweets Club came together for their member with a storied past, their new friends in Problem Solvers 68 watching them contentedly. Undoubtedly, the once-simple Trinity club would come out of the incident with stronger bonds than before, a heavy weight having been lifted from Kazusa's shoulders.
Leaving one Uzawa Reisa to watch the scene with a devastated expression on her face.
For as long as she could remember, she stood for justice. She stood for the downtrodden, the meek, the bullied. She fought bullies and delinquents wherever they appeared, because it was the right thing to do.
Uzawa Reisa was a hero. Even if she had to walk the path alone, even when no one wanted to talk to the weird justice kid, and even if there was nobody to tell her how their day was or hug her when she was feeling down, Reisa had to be a hero. And she was a good one, a great one.
Then came one Kyouyama Kazusa, who viciously thrashed her when she had tried to dispense justice and left her unconscious in the street. Cath Palug, they called her, able to cow even her fellow delinquents into submission without a care in the world and defeat everyone who stood in her way.
She remembered waking up hours later, heart thrumming in her chest and a sparkle in her eyes even as her body ached and her cuts bled. Her scruffy, two-toned hair. Those lifeless red eyes of hers. That open coat revealing her scars, the weathered machinegun, Reisa had committed everything to memory because she had found it!
True evil!
Every hero lived for this day! The mouthwatering knowledge that they had an archnemesis! She could almost imagine the epic fight that made the world tremble as they exchanged blows. Kyouyama Kazusa was the one, she had to be the one!
And so she made the letters. As many letters as she could, challenges to Cath Palug for this specific time and this specific place. Sure, she still fought as many thugs as she could find, but she had a purpose now. Reisa needed Cath Palug to pay attention to her, because she'd be the architect of her doom!
They fought, and Reisa lost. And then she kept challenging Cath Palug and kept losing. But it was okay, because a hero always had their archnemesis! She trained every day for as long as she could, because there was always tomorrow. They'd fight tomorrow, and then the tomorrow after that, and then the one after that too. Because there was always the promise of a tomorrow where Reisa the hero won and Cath Palug the villain lost.
And then they graduated. They went to Trinity. And suddenly Cath Palug disappeared...only to resurface as Kyouyama Kazusa, just Kyouyama Kazusa.
She didn't get it.
She didn't understand.
Why wasn't she Cath Palug anymore?
(No, she had to be. She was hiding it. She was fooling everyone! She was using the cover of night to hide her malicious dealings! She had to be.)
Reisa tried to challenge her again and it didn't work. She tried chasing her, provoking her into a fight, throwing things at her. And Kazusa just...ran away. Yelled at her to leave her alone already, because she was being the nuisance. Again, and again, and again.
...
Weren't they archnemeses? Why didn't Kazusa want to see her anymore?
Reisa was a hero of justice! She couldn't just give up the pursuit, that...it wasn't fair! Why was Kazusa allowed to run away...why was Reisa the one who was left run after her?
She drafted up another challenge letter, the flashiest one so far. She had gotten word that Kazusa was hanging out with her 'club' (another gaggle of delinquents, for shame Cath Palug!) late into the afternoon, and she had apparently taken some strange new girl hostage. That couldn't stand! Reisa bounded down the hall, shouting as her heart thrummed in her chest as things were finally normal again-
And got ambushed. Ambushed, tied up, and left to watch as her actions made the normal girl known as Kyouyama Kazusa cry into the arms of her friends.
Her friends.
To her, Reisa was little more than a stain of her past that she wanted out. She was a metaphorical executioner, holding an axe above Kazusa's happy relationship with her new, completely normal friends.
(What about her 'normal'?)
Kazusa didn't need Reisa anymore. No, rather, maybe she didn't need Reisa at all. Uzawa Reisa was just a villain standing in the way of Kazusa's happy beginning, and the thought left her throat dry and her body unresponsive.
It took someone bringing her to her feet to jostle her out of her thoughts.
"A-Ah, um, where are you...?"
"You gotta go," the short white-haired girl muttered as she pushed Reisa to the door, her face no longer settled in that smirk she was wearing during their fight. No, if anything, there was a storm raging behind her eyes. "Whatever welcome you had, you've overstayed it."
"But, I...! Cat-" Reisa shut her mouth with a click and tried again. "Please, um, please let me talk with Kazusa...!"
"I think," the coat lady began, and she looked down upon her with an icy expression that made Reisa shudder and avert her gaze. "You've said quite enough already. We will free you from your binds and you will leave, lest you want to see Problem Solvers really get to work."
"N-No, I...I mean, I'm sorry! Ah, no, I mean I just wanted to tell Kazusa that I'm sorry!" Reisa babbled, nervously squirming and trying to look past her. "It's- I made a mistake, I'm sorry, I-I'll change my patrol route so I don't need to be near her anymore-"
"Kid."
"-I'm...s-she doesn't have to forgive me! I know I hurt her!" It hurt, why did it hurt to say that? She was Cath Palug. She was Kyouyama Kazusa.
Who was she apologizing to? Whose forgiveness did she seek?
"But I- I'm sure that if I just talked to her one more time I...w-we...!"
"Kid," the scowling girl put her hands roughly on Reisa's shoulders, spinning her around to look her in the eyes as the short girl flicked open a pocket knife that made Reisa shake uncontrollably...only to cut the thin rope she was tied up with. "There is no 'one more time' anymore. You've done enough, just move on and leave her alone."
"Leave her alone...? Leave her alone and go where?!" Reisa exploded, yanking her arms away from the short girl roughly as she stumbled away from the weird group of girls. "I...! I don't...there's nobody..."
Reisa clammed up, words clogging her throat and breathing heavy and uneven. Nobody in the Vigilante Crew was her friend, and they rarely met up aside from patrols that Reisa would awkwardly shy away from anyway. Suzumi was more like her senior, and even she was smart enough to realize that the older girl saw her as kind of annoying. Not even the girls that she would save even wanted to talk to her, thanking in her a hushed whisper before scurrying off to their own friends.
Uzawa Reisa was a hero, and Kyouyama Kazusa was her villain. She was the only thing Reisa had and now she was gone and Kazusa hated her and she'd never see her again-
"That's none of our business. Why should we care?"
The coat lady merely looked at her disinterestedly as she delivered her concise answer, and suddenly everything just kind of...stopped.
(Had Reisa been in a better headspace, she'd have seen that the scowling girl and even the short one looked at their boss a bit oddly for that one. But it didn't matter, because-)
Yeah.
That.
Reisa couldn't help but giggle a little.
Why should they care?
(Why didn't anyone care?)
Reisa brought her hands up to her eyes and flexed, feeling a bit off-balance. Everything was in order and the pain from their earlier fight had receded, but something had settled into her stomach that somehow made her feel way too hot and it was too hard to breathe in here-
She needed to leave. She just needed to go.
(Go where?)
"Um. Right. O-Okay. Sorry, um, I'll just...go then!" Reisa smiled and it felt gross. "I've got...patrols to get to. So, um, I-I won't...bye!"
None of them responded, simply staring at her in a way that made her sweat stick uncomfortably on her skin and her vision shake. And so Uzawa Reisa turned and stumbled down the hall, grin twitching as she staggered into the main lobby and all but shoved her entire body into the door.
Once outside in the fresh air, the sun dipping into the horizon and painting the sky a lovely orange and purple, Uzawa Reisa the hero lurched forth towards a bush and vomited, body shuddering.
As Duke stomped his way over to the ruined building Beatrice had crashed into, he forced himself to calm down a bit and assess the situation.
It'd wishful thinking to assume she had been killed by his surprise attack. Beatrice might've been a complete bitch that he'd love to fold like an omelet, but she was strong enough to waltz into his head right under Seia's nose, who had been assumedly doing this kinda shit for a while already. There was no telling what she could do once she got out of the rubble.
As bright red light oozed out of the pile of rubble before exploding outward, sending debris flying everywhere, he figured that was a good enough move if any. Dodging a few larger bricks in the nick of time, Duke found one pissed Beatrice snarling at him with twitching red eyes, glaring at him as her lower jaw hung loosely off her face and blood poured out onto the tile in spurts.
Huh, Duke grimaced as he watched her face reconstruct itself, her jaw snapping into place as muscle and skin grew to connect it back. Freaky magic trick.
"You...!" she hissed venomously, and Duke couldn't help but smirk at her. "You think you can disrespect me...? Lay your hands upon me as if you were some lowborn cur?! I shall flay you alive like the DOG that you are, Duke-sensei!"
"If I'm the dog, how come you're the only bitch I hear barkin'?"
Screeching like a banshee, balls of energy that were black as night formed in her hands as Beatrice flowed towards Duke like a snake. Unfortunately, it seemed that she had spent a bit too long reveling in what was essentially super child abuse to realize that terror factor didn't really matter much to a man like Duke Nukem, who took one look at the target barreling straight towards him with a smile on his face and a shotgun in hand.
"Wow, guess I've still got the Nukem charm! Ladies're just throwin' themselves at me!" he laughed, letting the first claw sail past his face before interrupting her followup attack with a timely shotgun blast. The newly-crippled Beatrice screeched in pain as her hand had been blown apart, stumbling back to give Duke a generous amount of time to pump the shotgun and flip it around.
"Open up, sunshine."
BRAK!
Beatrice fell hard onto her back as the synthetic stock of the SUPERNOVA rearranged her teeth once again. Slithering away, she reformed herself from the shadows with a ghastly shriek as her eyes lit up.
"Ah, no boss battle'd be complete without-"
Duke clutched his shotgun Haruka-style and rolled, dodging a barrage of laser beams that would have surely torn right through flesh and bone like paper.
"-some fuckin' lasers. Damn, if you're some kinda brainy master planner why couldn't ya cook up some more interesting attack patterns, bozo?"
"GREEEEEAGH! YOU WILL NOT LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE MY ASCENSCION COME TO FRUITION!"
Eyes twitching wildly in every direction, Beatrice let loose a storm of beams, forcing Duke to duck, dodge, and roll as the formerly elegant member of Gematria went berserk.
"Goddamnit!" he grunted, quickly ducking his head as a laser screamed past and firing off another shot at his opponent's torso. Can only hope that Arona and Seia got to cover during this shitshow!
As if they were reading his mind (Duke smirked), he heard a faint 'Duke-sensei!' from Arona. Something that Beatrice, even during her apocalyptic rage, noticed as well.
The two looked at each other as combat hit a lull.
"Don't even think about it, ya cabbage-head chump," Duke growled, swapping out the SUPERNOVA for his M4A1. "You touch a hair on their pretty little heads and I go biblical on your ass. Try 'Parting the Red Ribcage' on for size!"
"Oh Duke-sensei, didn't I tell you?" Beatrice crooned, voice dripping with a rotting sweetness as she daintily raised a hand. "Those precious students you love so much are a burden. Allow me to relieve you."
Duke snarled, snapped his weapon up and shot her in the head just as Beatrice clenched her fist, a column of red-and-black energy bursting from the ground with a howl that devoured everything within its radius.
"No!" Duke Nukem roared, throwing his rifle to the ground to barrel towards Beatrice with a burst of speed and nail her with a mighty boot. Doubling over with a wheezing cackle, the ruler of Arius Satellite School could do nothing as Duke rained blow after blow onto her, hooks transitioning into another boot to the gut followed by a haymaker that sent her head through solid brick. Seeing his opponent incapacitated at least temporarily, Duke whirled around to see a blue, hexagonal force-field power down.
Sweat pouring down her face, Arona nodded to Duke as she urged a shaken Seia to keep moving. Now reassured that the pair had some method of defense and were out of sight, Duke turned around to see Beatrice just about to pull herself out of the wall.
"Hope you've still got some fight in ya," Duke sneered, "because you just gone an' pissed me off again."
"Grraah...hgggh..." Beatrice gargled, some of the wings on her face falling off as a consequence of her ass-beating. Wobbling, she righted herself and brought her head up. "You-"
Duke's fist collided with her face with a satisfying crunch, sending her crashing through the wall yet again with the upper half of her body now collapsed over it. He patiently waited for her to even attempt to get up again before grabbing her by the leg-
"No, no, wait-"
-and swinging her like a screaming hammer onto the street, her head rebounding off the concrete with a loud crunch to denote her fanged teeth being pushed through her gums and into her skull. Finally, it seemed as if Beatrice was done getting rolled like a pig in mud as her manifestation faded away into smoldering ashes.
"Don't think you've won here, Duke-sensei...!" her ethereal voice hissed out, bouncing around the walls of his mind as the Arius district began to fall apart at the seams. "These delusions of power in this sickening head of yours are an utter eyesore! I shall return with incomprehensible power and crush both you and the pitiful little wretches you watch over! Your bravado shall crumble under Gematria's might!"
Duke guffawed as he shook his head.
"You think I give a shit? Tell ya what, sweetheart. Send your best and I'll send 'em back in a casket. You can get a piece 'a Duke whenever you want," he casually ran a hand through his hair as Arona and Seia hesitantly moved towards him, "I'll always be ready to throw down and come out winnin'."
"...Always, are you?"
Beatrice cackled, her voice fading away.
"Then I suggest you begin to sleep with one eye open, Duke-sensei. My 'best' deserves a bit of exercise before they destroy you, body and mind...!"
Duke smiled this time, an actual full smile that Arona didn't understand. Analyzing each word carefully, it didn't take her long to gasp.
"Go ahead, asshole. Go riiiight ahead."
As he felt the last traces of Beatrice's influence fade away, Duke turned to his two charges.
"...Clever. You've baited Beatrice into handing Arius Squad over to you on a silver platter. However, for all your prodigious power, bear in mind that they are much more dangerous than an outdated tank."
"Honestly, I wasn't too sure if it'd work," Duke shrugged, taking deep breaths as the adrenaline wore off. "Guess all the brain damage and baby-bitch rage were enough to make her sloppy."
"That was amazing!" Arona squealed, hopping as her halo turned a vibrant green. "B-But how do we know she's gonna be sending Arius Squad at all...?"
"I don't," Duke admitted. "Hell, she could just drown us in students like Pigtails back at Schale's medbay. But if she doesn't wanna blow her cover like a dumbass, I doubt that'd happen. Arius Squad is her best bet 'a taking me with as few students as possible...is what she thinks, anyway."
"...Pigtails. Really?" Arona squinted at him and puffed her cheeks, Seia putting a sleeve to her mouth to hide her grin.
"I-I'd call her by name if I knew it!" Duke defensively shot back to his unamused secretary. "What else am I gonna call her, Nadey? Gas Mask?"
As they chuckled, Seia cleared her throat.
"As much as I'd like to stay, I can feel myself slipping away to the waking world once again. It's honestly quite the miracle I was able to hang on long enough to witness the fight in its entirety...and what a glorious display of martial skill it was, Sensei."
Humbly shaking his head, Duke stepped up to put a hand on her head. "It ain't over yet, kid. Let's save all the cheerin' for after I save Mika and the Squad, huh?"
Letting out an amused huff, Seia slightly nuzzled into his hand as he rubbed behind her ears. "You're just full of surprises, Sensei. I like that..."
And with that, she slowly faded away into wisps of golden light as the two waved her off. Now just Arona and Duke himself left in his head, the super-AI snapped her fingers and let the familiar scenery of the ruined classroom she lived in surround them once more.
Duke fell on his ass with a heavy sigh, feeling the water thread through his fingers but not exactly getting wet. "I should be worried about so many people bein' able to redecorate my noggin this easy."
Arona tiredly chuckled as she rested her cheek against the cool desk. "I'd say three isn't too big a number, but I'd have to agree: three in a row is too damn many."
"Hey," Duke warned, no real heat in his voice.
"What? You say it all the time!"
"Do as I say, not as I do," he returned it with a shit-eating grin that his secretary could feel.
Arona cracked her eyes open to roll them. "Fine, Dad."
"There it is with that Dad thing again, do I really give off that vibe?"
"Yeah, kinda," Arona shrugged. "I mean, you're always there for your students, you encourage them to work hard so you have an excuse to pamper them like a madman-"
"Ahem."
"-seriously, it's a real good thing we bring in the money because you use it fast enough to make a calculator cry."
"The hell does that even mean?"
"Oh, where was I...you basically adopted an entire school club and they know it, lectured one of the two great powers of Gehenna and told them to get along better, and the current situation is shaping up for you to adopt another from Kivotos' most dangerous district," she finished with an air of smugness. "...Did I miss anything?"
"Yeah. You missed the part where you update that drawing of yours so I can hang it on the communal fridge."
"...I can put you in a clown outfit. This is my world."
"And I can just not give you dessert for a week," Duke shrugged. "It's my credit card."
"I'll get you someday!" Arona shook her fist at him in mock-anger as Duke laughed, and the two enjoyed a pleasant rest before he'd be required to fight once again.
A/N: Holy shit I did it. The backlog is done.
Now to finish the new chapter already. Fuckin' end of term assignments, man. Curse my never-ending desire to be a good and honest student.