Luke stood frozen, his mouth wide open. The smile in Akira's face widened, though she never showed her teeth. No one else seemed to have felt the cold wave.

"Yes, Mister Kells?" Mrs. Roberts asked, annoyed at the incoming tirade of inappropriate words she expected to hear once again.

Luke quickly judged the pros and cons of not getting sent to the principal's office. He decided that it was better to take a harder beating from Jackson than chance not getting to know more about mana. Who was Akira, how did she know he would recognize the mana wave, and why was she here?

"Nevermind, Mrs. Roberts," he said and sat down. The teacher was surprised, but just nodded and gestured for Akira to go sit. The girl nodded and moved forth.

Luke watched her come with a frown. Now that he thought better about it, a physically strong bully was bad enough, but what about a magic bully? What could she do to him? His memories contained all kinds of skills and spells, and some of them could deal a lot pain with very little mana. What if she knew them and was willing to use them on him?

He felt a twist in his stomach as she kept smiling and looking at him until she was beside him. She sat, her eyes still fixed on his. Then she made a fake surprise face and said, "Oh, I don't have the books for today's class. Would you mind if I shared yours?"

Luke gulped and said nothing. She smiled with her lips again and pulled her desk beside his. When she sat back down, she was so close he could feel the smell of flowers coming from her.

'Sakura flowers,' he identified the smell, the same as her given name.

"Let's begin," Mrs. Roberts said and started the class.

Akira was a model student. She kept quiet and nodded at the teacher's words at the right time. When she had a question, she asked it in a way that didn't look like she was just trying to make her look smart for the teacher. In fact, a few times, Luke learned more from hearing the answer to her questions than from the original explanation. She even only asked him politely to take a little longer to turn the page when he was done reading and she wasn't.

And it felt like hell.

She acted like nothing had happened, like she hadn't smiled evilly at him, like she hadn't sent a mana wave through him. Moreover, it had been so long since Luke had sat so close to someone in class, that it felt weird and uncomfortable.

He was self-conscious the entire class, hoping that it would end quickly.

It didn't, and after the first class was over, came the second, the third, the fourth and fifth. Akira never talked to Luke, and he felt utterly incapable of talking to her first. He didn't know where to begin, and he knew from his experience with Jackson that saying anything to a bully first might put him in a bad spot.

No one approached to talk to her either. She was breaking the rules by talking to him and people would avoid both until Jackson was done with them.

It was only when the bell for lunch rung that she finally said, "Could you show me the school?" she asked sweetly, and Luke had to admit he was surprised at her acting. If he hadn't heard the edge on her voice before, he would believe she was an okay girl.

He shook his head. "Maybe tomorrow. Today, we need to talk to him." He nodded at the door.

It hadn't even been a minute since the bell rung, and Jackson and his goons were already there. "New girl, get out," he ordered, looking straight at Luke. He would also talk to Akira later, but Luke was the greater offender because he had let her sit beside him.

Akira answered not Jackson, but Luke. "But I want to see the school today, not tomorrow!" She pouted cutely at the end of her speech.

"Hey! New girl!" Jackson raised his voice. Two of his jocks approached, and all students rushed out of the class. Though people didn't know the extent of his bullying, they knew he didn't like to be ignored or disobeyed. "I'm talking to you!"

Akira sighed and slowly stood up. She turned and looked at Jackson. "You are weak," she said as if she was talking about the weather. "Your oppressiveness is unrefined. You wouldn't last a single day in Japanese school, no matter who your parents are. I don't care what you do on the streets, but Lincoln High is now mine, and school rules are to be respected in its grounds. Leave the kid alone and no one will get hurt."

Luke suppressed a sigh himself. He had been right. She was just another bully who wanted to lord over him. It had happened in the past, but Jackson had made the guy change schools within the day.

Jackson's surprise was quickly replaced with icy calmness. He liked violence, but he wasn't an idiot. He knew which lines to cross, and an open altercation in a classroom that wasn't even his wouldn't go well for him. Though he couldn't be expelled or even be put in detention due to his protection, some teachers could still make things annoying for him if they saw something with their own eyes.

So he just smiled like a kid who had found a new toy. "Very well, new girl. We'll talk later. Kells, see you after school." He left without another word.

Luke didn't suppress a sigh this time. He had just won himself a harder beating. "You won't win, you know?" he told Akira. "Other people have tried and failed. His family is too powerful."

Akira's hand quickly approached his face and he turned it sideways. Getting punched repeatedly led him to learn to avoid getting his nose broken. However, what he felt a moment later wasn't a proper hit but rather a flick of her fingers at his forehead.

"Are you a human or an animal?" she asked.

Luke said nothing. People like him didn't get to decide what they were. They just did what they needed to survive.

Though to be honest, being an animal sounded better to him; humans sucked.

Seeing his silence, she sighed. "You have no self-respect, do you?" She stood up. "We can work on your attitude later. For now, if you only respond to aggressiveness..." She stood up. "Come," she ordered in a way that left him no space for arguments.

Luke felt ashamed that he obeyed at once. Yet, he knew better than to disobey a bully. She shook her head and led the way out of the classroom. "Show me the school."

He did as told. Eyes and whispers followed their passage; the news of what had happened in the classroom had already spread. Luke ignored them as usual and showed Akira around. He felt hungry and school food was the best part of his day, but it wasn't like he could just ask for a break.

The library was near their classroom, so he showed it first. Next was the gymnasium, the staff room, the principal's room, the different bathrooms, and the huge garden where most people stayed in their free time.

"...and this is the parking lot," he said. He had run out of places to show but didn't want to say it. His stomach chose that moment to rumble. "Sorry," he said automatically.

"Go on," she said, ignoring his apology.

Luke thought for a moment and led her to the rooftop. There were less than ten people there. For all the school's money, the principal refused to let students without special needs use the elevator, and Luke had found rich people hated stairs with a passion.

The rooftop of the main building was the only one open to the students, and its view of the surrounding suburbs wasn't bad. The city center with its huge skyscrapers could be seen at the distance on one side, and opposite to it were uninhabited hills and forests. Part of the school ground even had the start of the forest itself.

The blue sky had only a few clouds, and the breeze felt great on the skin. Before Jackson had started following Luke there every time he came, it had been his favorite place in the school. It gave him a sense of freedom and possibilities that he could find nowhere else in his life.

Luke lost himself for a moment looking at the horizon. It had been over an year since he last came here.

He had missed this place.

"Even you can show emotion sometimes," Akira said, waking him up from his thoughts right before the first lunch bell rung. They had five minutes to get back to class, which was just enough if they started walking now.

"Sorry," he said automatically.

"I heard you take baths during lunch, and you also want to eat." It wasn't a surprise she knew about it, as the whole school did. "Today you did neither because you lack a spine to tell me what you want to do. Tomorrow will be the same unless you change. And unless you ask, I'll also say nothing about that coldness you felt when I clapped." She turned her back to him. "I'll go home protected by bodyguards everyday until I hear you fought back against your bullies after school. It wasn't easy for them to turn you into cattle, and it won't be easy for you to become human again. You'll have to fight for it yourself." She walked back into the school.

The words she left behind seemed to touch something deep inside Luke.

To become human again...

Was that even possible before he left high school, and thus Jackson, behind?

 

---

 

The rest of the school day went by without another incident. Akira acted like nothing had happened and kept using Luke's books.

At last, the school day ended. Akira said, "You really should've taken a bath, you stink," and left. Luke sighed and put his things back in the locker before leaving the school by foot. He went straight to the back of a nearby convenience store, a wet and smelly blind alley.

Only two of Jackson's goons were there. They ignored Luke, who just went to a corner and stood there with a lowered head. Luke guessed their leader was waiting for Akira at school. If what she had said about leaving with bodyguards was true, he would arrive even more frustrated at failing to bring her here.

Time passed slowly.

Luke had given up on owning a smartphone after his second had been broken in a beating, so he had absolutely nothing to do. And after what Akira had said, he couldn't even focus on on the wonders of magic.

She had been right in everything. He had no self-respect, and just speaking loudly to him was enough to make him obey. In the beginning of his beatings, he had felt wronged and angry, and had even reported Jackson to the teachers, only for the beatings to get worse. After months of being too ashamed to tell his grandpa the reason he wanted to move away from there and being deined, he had just... accepted it.

He accepted that this was his life and nothing would change.

"It won't be easy for you to become human again," she had said. "You'll have to fight for it yourself."

Fight for it...

Could he do it?

His instinct was to answer no, he couldn't. That's not how things worked. He didn't want Jackson to take his anger on his grandfather; the man was so old that it wasn't hard for him to choke on some forcibly fed water, and no one would look at it twice.

And that kind of answered it for him, didn't it? It always came back to it.

His grandpa was everything he had, and the man lived in their shitty house because he wanted Luke to have a future. The least Luke could do in return was to take it silently and protect the old man back. Self-respect was all nice and good, but it wouldn't save the only person he cared about in the whole world.

Today, he would keep being cattle.

Jackson arrived with Garcia right then, rotating something on his finger and whistling happily. When he saw Luke, he smiled and walked until they were a couple yards apart. He stopped rotating the object, and Luke saw what it was.

His grandpa's necklace with a pendant that contained his daughter's—Luke mother's—photo. The thing he prized the most in his life. He would rather die before selling it or giving it out.

Jackson opened the locket that had the photo and took it out. Then he threw it on the ground and stepped on it. Finally, he threw the necklace at the nearby sewer.

"The old man tried to resist, but it was like taking candy from a child," Jackson said.

Luke's world froze for a moment.

And then he roared in fury as he threw himself at his bully.