Igraine woke up a few minutes before sunrise, not that she had a window to tell. She made her way to the door that led to the strange people’s room and opened it gingerly. What she found was the two figures cuddling in bed, softly breathing. Their blanket wasn’t over them properly, maybe they moved around during the night, or maybe they didn’t even bother with it in the first place, but it didn’t matter. Igraine did as her instincts told her and tucked the two of them in. She did notice that the two bodies were radiating heat, not unlike a fireplace. She figured they wouldn’t really need to worry about overheating, and she was correct. Not only did they not mind the blanket, Alice and Yuuki smiled slightly while still sleeping and the temperature increased even further.

Igraine watched them with a motherly smile as the Sun soon came up. Cassandra woke up and came out of the room as well, rubbing her eyes. She also noticed the two figures still soundly sleeping, so she quietly walked next to Igraine.

“Aren’t classes starting soon?” She whispered, and the older woman shrugged.

“They look adorable, so I’m sure it will be fine.”

Cassandra doubted that had anything to do with being late, but soon enough Alice woke up with a large yawn. She sat up in bed and looked around.

“Issimoninaedy?” She asked groggily.

“Yes, it’s morning already. That was your question, right?” Cassandra said, uncertainly. She got a thumbs-up as a reply.

Alice turned to Yuuki and caressed her shoulder. After continuing to sleep after that, Alice caressed her face. After that not only failed, but seemed to have made Yuuki even more comfortable, she shook her shoulder a bit. And then shook her shoulder a lot. About a minute has gone by and Yuuki wasn’t any closer to waking up. Alice got out of the bed and circled around, behind the fox-kin. She then proceeded to hug her waist and lift her out of bed like that.

“Hmm?” Yuuki finally made a noise as her previously limp body started moving.

Alice put her back down on the bed, so she wouldn’t fall over, but Yuuki simply lied down once more. Igraine and Cassandra watched from the sidelines with amused smiles.

“It’s Friday.” The kitsune said groggily while clutching the blanket that Alice tried to take away.

“Yes, and the winter break is over!” Alice answered with slight annoyance.

“I don’t have classes on Fri- oh.” The carefree and tired Yuuki was instantly replaced with the usual one. Her face showed no emotion, her hair was nice and neat, her clothes unwrinkled and no longer pajamas. She stood up and headed to the exit. “Get to know each other. I’ll be back before sundown. Stay in the room.” With that, she walked through the door.

Alice sighed before turning to her ‘cellmates’ with a smile. “So, who’s up for poker?”

--

Yuuki was not paying attention during classes. Not that she needed to, she could just read the teacher’s or anyone else’s mind for the question and she would know the answer. She did have orders that she couldn’t read people’s minds unless necessary… Orders that didn’t matter for her anymore. She was her own person, she didn’t have to follow orders. After all, who was going to stop her? That was not that simple however. She had her orders, so she had purpose. If she didn’t care about the orders, what was there she cared about? Alice was definitely on that list in first place, tied with ‘never again being enslaved’. She wasn’t ready to face all her emotions right away, but she was ‘learning’ them once more. The newest emotion she had added to her arsenal was disgust. Before, she would’ve called what they did to her effective, efficient and all of that. Now, she felt disgust. They tricked her into becoming a weapon, and tricked her into thinking she had no choice. She did not know what she wanted to do with said ‘choice’, but she wanted to have it.

She was brought out of her thoughts by the bell. She packed and left for her next class. It was a practical lecture in evocation. She decided it would be best not to continue her train of thought until it was over, considering what would happen if she weren’t focused while casting a destructive spell.

'Why, what would happen? People would die, people I don’t care about. What does it matter to me?'

She tried to argue against her own thoughts, but couldn’t. She knew other people thought murder was a bad thing, but that was’t her own opinion. She simply didn’t care, really. Why would their lives matter to her? There were people she cared about, and there was everyone else. Then came the question once more: who and what did she care about? Alice, more than anyone and freedom more than anything. She also cared about her family, they showed her unconditional love, and while she didn’t exactly feel ‘love’ toward them, she didn’t want them to die or be hurt. She wasn’t entirely sure what love was exactly. She had felt it from other people, but she hadn’t noticed any trace of her own love. Maybe she loved Alice? She was unsure. She cared very much about Alice, but what she felt was just a mixture of happiness and caring, different from what she felt as ‘love’ from Alice. She also cared enough about Arthur and Cassandra that she didn’t want them to die, but that was about it.

As she was thinking about those things, it was her turn to try out the new spell they’ve learnt: fireball. Yuuki put her thoughts on hold once more, as she’s been doing far too often for her liking, and got in position. The target was an enchanted steel pillar in the middle of a field, used for target practice. It was more than tough enough to survive unscathed even the powerful magics the teachers used to demonstrate. It was not nearly tough enough to survive a Yuuki that was even the slightest bit annoyed.

-- PoV change

The teacher was aware of Elizabeth’s strange personality. She was always top of her class, and was extraordinarily powerful and skilled. She seemed distracted, acted even stranger than usual, but took her position and extended a single hand toward the pillar. As the teacher was about to correct her with something like ‘you need to use both hands to increase the amount of magic in the spell’, she had felt a massive burst of wind going toward the pillar. She turned her head, and the area around it was engulfed in a black fire that kept spreading. The fire not only erased the pillar, it was rapidly growing and destroying everything around it. The ground, the air, the ambient mana. The teacher was relatively well-versed in space magic, or at least good enough to tell something was horribly wrong: the black fire was distorting and ripping apart even space itself.

The whole event only lasted a couple seconds before the black flames disappeared without a trace, only a crater in the ground. The teacher and all the other students stared at Elizabeth, who was still looking at where the flames had been moments ago.

--PoV change back

Yuuki used magic she hadn't used since her demon killing days. It was terribly effective. The ‘fireball’ itself traveled at many hundred times the speed of sound and the blast was almost as fast. The ‘fire’ acted much more like a black hole than fire. It emitted no heat and no light. It ate almost anything in its path, physical or immaterial. The only things it couldn’t damage were souls. Because demons had no souls, just ‘cores’, artificial souls, they were destroyed without trace by these flames. And in case the demon could protect their core, they would surely take a lot of damage to their incorporeal body. Normally, they could regenerate it quite fast using mana, but not when space and magic are twisted and damaged around the wound. This was perhaps her favorite spell... and the fact that she had a favorite spells surprised her. It seemed there was still a lot she needed to learn about herself.

Yuuki felt the fear coming from the people around her… and found that she did not like it. Being feared was uncomfortable. She also had highly enhanced senses and the... restroom smells were also less than pleasant.

“Well, I’m off to strong-arm the principle into giving me my diploma already, it feels about time.” She broke the silence and tried to ease the tension in the air a bit. Another bonus was that now she didn’t need to explain why she was leaving in the middle of the class, not that they were likely to ask. So, she left and walked straight to the old man’s office.