10 Involvement

In the carpeted hallways walks Ryo, changed on his casual clothes with his hands in his pocket and swept hair which added to his rather imposing and ferocious appearance. He walks forward, thinking about every possibility in the upcoming game, at least to him this was a game that walks and dances around while following a certain tune controlled by a person.

As he does, his frown was replaced by a grave look as he hears wrangling at the corner of the hallway end. He feels a rising feeling of cautiousness as the voices continued. He stopped frozen in his tracks, wanting to avoid and not get involved in the quarrel of others.

He grabbed his phone and decided to rummage through just to pass the time. When to his surprise and relief, the voices stop. He looked up and put his phone back in his pocket.

A boy with a fuming face walks out of the corner with his fist closed tight. He has a swept-up pompadour hair with a huge body size that could rival a wrestler, It's quite hard to believe that he's only in high school.

A sigh of relief escaped Ryo's lips as he continued making his way. Upon arrival to the corner and seeing no one in sight, this strikes him as odd.

Many possible conflicting questions come to mind. However, he takes no notice of this. He shrugged off this encounter and placed it at the back of his mind.

Shortly after that, he arrived down the lowest floor and left the building. Upon exiting, he was met by energy not quite similar to what he had felt before, the energy of strong amplitude somewhere within the vicinity of this place, just lingering in the air.

Although not all can sense such energies. One with certain talent can sense a feeling of dread energy coming from what's called an exousia stone, which is used to embed a strong magical power on a weapon, typically used by those who practice high-level magic.

But based on the rules of the school, the presence of that stone isn't allowed anywhere within the grounds that the school controls, and Ryo knows this.

He gradually walked towards the edge of the wall, It was coming from the corner. He vigilantly peeked through and saw figures. One of a girl and two of a boy, one of the boys was holding a glowing stone; an exousia stone to be precise, on his right hand and looking at it with a greedy and unpleasant gaze.

Ryo knew something was not right here, to say the least. Although he doesn't want to get involved in some sort of inconvenience, he casually yet carefully pulled out his phone and took a picture of it since this is something that can't be overlooked.

He successfully took a picture so he retracted his phone back and took a look at a picture. A confused yet surprised look emerged on his face as he stared at his phone blankly. The photo was all black. It seems like it was covered by something.

Realizing something, his eyes widen and he turned to the side. Soon enough as he turned around, the girl from the corner was right in front of him, holding a knife in a fighting position. The girl was wearing an all-black tracksuit, a cap, and a mask so her facial features weren't all that clear. Then, She swiftly threw a slash at him.

"Crap!" Ryo exclaimed as he jumped back. Unluckily, A huge size of the knife's blade caught him in the arm, inflicting him a long and deep wound. He gave a frown of pain as he jumped back.

"How didn't I sense that?"

He thought,

He is stuck and quite unsure whether to flee or engage in battle. Surely, they won't let him go off that easily, considering that he got a photo of them doing something unpleasant within the school's property.

The girl furiously glared at Ryo as she reassumed her stance, planning to attack once more.

"Delete the photo." She said rather calmly in contradiction to her murderous expression. "I'm not scared to wield this blade and hurt someone." She added, now her voice mixed with nervousness. Ryo knew that the girl was all talk, nevertheless, He sneered at the girl.

"Then come on and do it," He provoked, attempting to further conflict the girl's mental condition. She held the blade tighter than response, albeit she was trembling and shaking all over. Screamed as she carelessly dashed over. It was so slow...so slow that even a baby could stop it.

He moved to the side and without any hesitations, once she passed through him, He bent his knees and raised it, kicking the girl in her stomach. She fell on the ground, curled like a ball, holding her stomach. He then went on to look back to the corner. None. The boys are not there anymore.

"Cowards. Now, what the hell do I do with her?" Looking at her, crossing his arms and with a mixed feeling of bewilderment and annoyance, he asked the girl.

"What was that about?" He said in the terrific way possible, attempting to gather some information using fear.

"I-It's none of your business!" She exclaimed whilst picking up her knife and pointing it once again at Ryo. Taken by her emotions, she carelessly lunges forward and threw the knife towards him. It shoots into a straight momentum, directly headed for his shoulders.

He was about to move to the side but he noticed, the girl was also coming closer, perhaps using the knife only as a diversion and distraction to get the phone he is holding in his hands. Nevertheless, he threw his phone in mid-air and as he does, he summoned his flames to somehow push her away, and it did.

The girl moved back upon the manifestation of his flames. He threw that water, which slowly transformed into a snake, towards her as he caught the flying knife in between his middle and index finger on the blade. The girl scrambled to summon her amplitude and fortunately for her, she successfully extinguished the weak flames with her water amplitude.

After all that, he caught his phone from mid-air and put it back in his pocket.

"What now?" He uttered as he spun the knife around his fingers. "Why do you look anxious? am I that scary?"

"Y-You...scary? A-Are you joking?!" She said in a wobbly voice in contradiction to her statement.

"Well, to be honest, I planned not to get caught up in any mess today so I'll let you go. Here. Take your knife." Ryo threw the knife near her foot.

"May we see each other again, and... I wish you good luck with your cheating. " With his parting words, he waved off his hands and left leaving the girl in confusion. But nonetheless, as many would, the girl picked up the knife and sheathed it in her bag, before jumping out of sight.

Little did she knew that she made a crucial mistake...very crucial it might cause her to be expelled...