Headmistress

'How was my acting?' I asked.

'It was flawless,' responded my bracelet artifact, Liona. It had a tomboyish voice like a girl who was raised to be a knight their whole life.

'Thank you.'

I say that I was acting, which I was, but it was also sincere on my part.

As soon as I stepped in front of her, I saw the vast emotions that were in her eyes that shook with fear and anger.

Bell, whatever that remained in him after I took over, his feelings of guilt and sorrow washed over me.

My heart began to feel this pressure as if someone was squeezing it tightly every time it made a beat.

At first, I could feel that I was starting to choke up, my words caught in my throat but after seeing the fear in her body continue to grow the longer I stood there in silence, the more convinced I was that I needed to apologize for Bell's actions.

What I had practiced earlier in the mirror, I did in real life, only this time, real emotions had begun to infuse into my words.

I told her that I was apologetic and regardless of how harshly Diana responded, I continued to apologize and slowly, I began to see color return to her eyes and her body.

I don't know what those colors were or what they meant, but I understood that to some extent, I was able to get my sincerity through to her.

Not that it mattered or that she accepted them but one step at a time, that's what I reminded myself.

After reaching the door of the headmistress' office, I looked back to see that Diana was gone from her spot, off into the distance, running through the crowd of people like a wide receiver in American football dodging every tackle coming in their direction.

I let out a soft, "Sorry."

Looking up at the ceiling, assuming that the shitty god was present at the moment, I gave a swift middle finger to the air before knocking on the door.

As a powerful wizard, I knew that she knew of my presence way before I even reached the door and I could enter the room without surprising her but it was just a courteous thing to do.

"May I enter? it's Bell Agnus," I said.

"Come on in," she responded.

Opening the door, I stepped forward and was greeted by a messy office that matched just how busy the headmistress was.

Stacks upon stacks of papers were all around her floating all around the room and after stamping one of them, another paper would levitate in front of her so that she could read its content.

"Sit," she said as a chair in the corner of the room moved and stopped once it was facing her.

When you're in front of such a powerful human being, any signs of nervousness could easily be recognized.

That's why I understood why she was setting up this play.

Why else would she just have a chair tucked away in the middle of the room when she had visitors all the time so the chair should've naturally been in front of her desk?

Because she wanted to see my reaction to it. Instead of just telling me to sit on a steady chair, telling me to sit on a chair that she just moved with her mind was tenser and would incite more emotions out of me.

But, because I wasn't the real Bell Agnus, because his actions weren't my actions, although I felt sympathy and pity towards the poor Diana, I wasn't intimated whatsoever by the headmistress who surely called me to her office with the purpose of interrogating me.

"Thank you," I said, taking the offered seat.

In silence, I watched as she continued to work, not worried or nervous that she wasn't speaking a single word but was instead focusing on her papers.

If it was any other student, I reckoned not only would they be confused why she called them to the office just to ignore them but they'd also be intimated and scared about the implications of her actions, rather the lack of actions.

Patiently, I sat there, admiring the pace at which she was getting through the army of papers in her room.

I wasn't sure because the shitty god never wrote it in his novel specifically but I reckoned that she normally doesn't work with all these papers floating in the air at all times but was just doing it to demonstrate her strength to the person whose emotions she wanted to shake up.

That was just a theory of mine though with no way to confirm it.

With plenty of time passing by, I was beginning to take notes of the headmistress' features, comparing them to the descriptions of her in the novel.

Her eyes were almost as deep as my father's, which was often an indication of someone's wisdom and their stories to tell.

She looked like she was in her early 30s even though her true age was over a hundred.

It was strange to say about a woman who was alive when my great-grandfather was a child but she was an absolute beauty with dark blue hair that flowed like a waterfall.

Not particularly a character that appeared often in the story, I was also referencing the memories that Bell had of her, particularly her missing left pinky.

It was a rumor amongst the students that she had chopped it off to show her sincerity to a certain organization that was about to kill her for breaking one of their rules.

No student knew the name of the organization so that rumor quickly died off.

However, as a reader, going through the memories of all the arcs, I knew that the rumor had a possibility of being true as the Mai-Yad had a history of being very strict about their rules and a few villains in the novels were able to keep their lives when they broke a rule by chopping off a pinky.

But to show sincerity, you weren't allowed to heal the finger through means of potions and magic, allowing it to become a scar that could no longer be healed in the future.

Which also means that you're only allowed to make two mistakes.

Three strikes, and you're out!

"Thank you for waiting," she said as she finally laid her pen to rest and looked in my direction.

The room began to drop in temperature and a few seconds later, it felt like we were dropped in the middle of the poles.

I was curious if it was a physical change or if she was influencing the room with her presence alone that she was able to trick my psyche into thinking that it was cold.

"Now... do you know why I asked you to stop by here?" she asked me.

Beginning to get into my role, I replied in a voice that had just a pinch of sadness.

Because any insincerity would easily be caught by the headmistress, the way I worked around it was by taking emotions I had towards other things and thinking about them as I spoke.

"I think I have a clue," I responded.

"Let me ask you this first. I'm going to pretend that all those tabloids and all the witnesses, everything they said never existed. I want to hear from you. Did you... or did you not sexually assault Diana?" she asked me.

Her words made it sound like she was being a good headmistress who wanted to be unbiased and listen to my perspective without prejudice, but the tone in which she spoke sounded like an interrogation.

She must've expected me to lie because when I gave her my answer, she looked surprised.

"I did," I said.

It took her a few seconds to snap back to reality.

"Why?" she asked. "Why did you do that to your fellow student?"

She stood up from her chair and grabbed this saber that was hanging on her wall. She began to sway it around like a child playing with their toy.

It sounds innocent but once you consider the situation the two of us were in, it felt more like a threat.

"As a human, we have very few things inside our control. Our families, our talent, our social status... all those are chosen for us. But, we can control how much effort we put into our work as well as how we conduct ourselves. Say, Bell, do you know what we call people that are driven by their carnal instincts?" she asked me.

"What?"

"We call them beasts," she answered, turning to me as she said that as if to suggest that I was one.

"Now, we live in a world where many unexplainable things occur. Is this one of them? Can you or can you not explain your actions?" she asked me.

The room got even colder and I had to concentrate just to keep my teeth from clattering.

With a little bit of hesitation, as if what I had to say was a deep secret, I finally gave her an answer, "I can."

"You can? Please, go ahead. I'd love to hear you justify your actions."

I shook my head. "No. Nothing I say or do can justify the harm that I've done to her. I understand that. The pain has been dealt and it's a pain that she'll have to bear her whole life."

"...At least you understand that."

"What I'll explain to you is simply the cause of my actions."

Taking a deep breath, acting as if I wasn't sure whether or not I could tell her the truth, I stood up.

Without saying a word, I began to take off my uniform starting with the jacket.

It was clear that the headmistress was confused by my actions but continued to watch what I was doing with intrigue.

"It started when I learned about this village that was under the threat of being wiped out," I said, not exactly lying when I said that.

I began unbuttoning my shirt.

"As an Agnus, as foolish as I was, I thought that I'd be able to deal with the situation on my own," I continued.

"What was the situation?" she asked me, watching as I took off the shirt.

I stood in front of her shirtless, my bare torso exposed to the world.

It felt even colder now that I had zero layers of protection from the chills and I wanted to tuck myself into a warm cozy bed but that'd ruin any chance of me redeeming this shitty character so I held myself back.

I didn't answer her question. Instead, I told her, "Please, don't tell anyone about this."

She didn't give me her promise as if to say that depending on what I was going to show her, that'd determine her answer.

Again, with a little bit of fake hesitation, I finally turned around, revealing my back to her.

I couldn't see her face, I couldn't hear anything from her.

In silence, I allowed her to think whatever she had to think about the demon curse mark on my back without my interference.

I didn't need to explain anything because this alone would do the job.

After a literal minute passing, she told me, "Turn around."