The Tainted Pen

Lotus continued reading in the library when she received news from Chili. The little red bird jay hopped in from the window sill and landed on her shoulder with the note on his leg. She smiled and took it, "Good work, Chili."

The bird chirped before snuggling on her lap as Lotus sheltered him with her book from sight.

"Lotus..." She read mentally from the small paper, "Let us know right away if someone picks on you. We'll send someone over to you right away, dear."

Lotus chuckled when she heard this, "I know..."

"Let me know right away if you need help. Everyone can't wait to see you at the fairy gala! We can talk so much more into details by then. Make sure to dress up too!"

Lotus sighed in exasperation and shook her head as she groaned, "Mom..."

"Looks like you got a letter from your family?"

Lotus looked up with a smile, "Ah, Ren. Good morning."

It was Ren who had arrived into the library and found her reading the letter about the size of her palm.

"Oh?" She noticed a movement behind him as she looked over and found that it was Elijah! She raised a brow, "Um, he's a friend of yours I'm guessing?"

"We're in the same class." Ren responded with a small smile, "He's not really into talking so please excuse him."

"It's no problem and yes." Lotus nodded as she invited him for a seat, "My mother sent me a message from home."

They sat across from her with a nod of gratitude as Ren chuckled, "It must've been something good since you were smiling while reading it."

Lotus gave a wry laugh, "It sort of was. She has a large party going on in a few months and, since I can't return home this winter break, she's been looking forward to the big party so we can celebrate."

"You must be excited then." Ren added.

Lotus sighed in exasperation, "Sort of. She's reminding me to dress up."

"So a suit." Ren said.

"Nah..." Lotus sighed, "It's probably something worse... She's always liked to dress me up since I was little because I was rather small and cute for a human. It was so embarrassing going to work in those clothes..."

Ren chuckled for a while before Elijah raised a brow curiously, "Human? Isn't she a human too, since..."

Ren glanced over to Elijah in surprise as Lotus shook her head, "No. I was picked up by her when I was very young. Though she isn't too keen on traveling, she often insists that I travel around on my own with a family friend."

Lotus laughed, "Of course, because he's never traveled around either, we both got into a lot of trouble while having a lot of fun. It seems that she wants me to find my place in human society since I was a human myself, but..."

She wore a wry smile and said in exasperation, "She and our friends kicked up a huge fuss when they heard that I received an acceptance letter to this school. Looks like she wasn't willing to let me leave so soon, but I managed to convince her. So contradictory to when she tried to push me out the door when I was still in my pre-teens."

Ren laughed, "She sees you as her real son, after all."

Lotus nodded in defeat, "I won't argue with that, either. She's really the greatest parent I've met. Though I'm pretty sure, even after I move out, I'll have to come back home for every parties. I'm pretty sure, she just wants to see me dance with all of our friends, though."

"You dance?" Ren looked to her in surprise.

Lotus chuckled, "I can't dance the way other people does at lively parties with booming music, but I've danced traditional dances for a very long time. Since I first showed my mother it, she's always asked me to dance at her parties with them."

"I see." Ren said rather impressed but couldn't seem to get rid of a nagging feeling in his chest, "It'd be interesting if I can try waltz... My parents have always been dancing to waltz for as long as I can remember, but they would refuse to teach me because I needed to focus on my studies."

Lotus raised a brow, "I did see you amongst the top ten the other day..."

Ren wore a small smile, "Yes, but I still need to work harder."

Lotus frowned, "Be careful not to wear yourself out, Ren. There's been a lot of students working hard this year and there rarely ever was a case of two overblots in this academy apparently. Even if you achieved much, it won't mean anything if you lose yourself..."

She sighed, "First it was the last two dorm leaders and now there might even be a third..."

"Don't jinx yourself." Ren responded with a frown.

Lotus shook her head, "I've been keeping my eye on one of the dorm leaders, so I'm just very worried about this... His magical pen has quite a bit of stains..."

"That's not good." Elijah looked up rather alarmed by this, "Who is it this time?"

Lotus shook her head again, "I can not disclose the private information of other people, you know. I can see I've seen it, but I can't tell who that person is to other people."

"Have you spoken with him?" Ren raised a brow.

Lotus shook her head, "He's been too absorbed in other business that I don't think he'd heed my words... So, I told his close friends instead, but I can't tell for sure if they'll take my words seriously."

"Oh no..." Ren grimaced.

Lotus frowned, "Well, I'm going to go check on my prefect. He still has to figure out a way to free the other anemone people or he'd be stuck outside this time."

"I still can't believe he agreed to this..." Elijah grumbled, "Just what was he suppose to do in exchange?"

Lotus shook her head, "I can't say."

"We understand." Ren responded with a nod, "Be careful, Lotus."

"You two, Ren." She waved as she picked up the bird into her palm, "See ya."

.....

That afternoon, Lotus entered the Octavinelle dorm as she noticed the glass barrier around the place. She pondered in thought of what sort of force could be lurking here to protect the dorm before deciding to test out her new ability in action. She had just broken into Mid level Nascent Soul to which had helped her unlock a lot of good abilities. Aside from the one that kills, she should be able to see the energy wave length around her.

She secretly used it and could see the little specks of mana around her shining in different colors of the elements. But, what was more important was that she could see the aura of other people around her. It was a normal day as per usual and everyone was bustling around. Not even her good friend had the time to spend around her today.

Every aura around her was rather small and hardly much in comparison to her own which seemed to glow a dark crimson color. She pondered if this had anything to do with her past life where her petals had turned a shade of crimson like blood. Maybe it had to do with that time?

Lotus then saw it. An aura large than the others behind the building. There was even something flying about in the upper portion of the barrier. It was then that Lotus finally understood the situation. Though, she had yet to familiarize herself with her new abilities, she was able to understand that this had been how this guy in the brown robe has been able to stay hidden in here all this time...

Lotus wanted to take care of the person, but the image of Azul's gem continued to come back up from the back of her mind. She thought carefully to herself before deciding to enter Mostro Lounge.

.....

However, the moment she entered, she noticed the bustling of the lounge with a raised brow. This...

Lotus watched around curiously as she noted, "It's a lot more bustling than usual..."

She then noticed her friend rushing to the back towards the office. Lotus raised a brow when glanced around the room again and noticed it. The majority of the students were from Savanaclaw dorm! She frowned as she could pretty much guess what was going on and took the seat closest to the office door. It was then that she noticed two figures moving towards here that she took a sip of the tea given to her and whispered, "Be careful..."

"Huh?"

"He's magic pen is quite dark..." Lotus whispered with a worried look on her face.

"Leona...!" A whisper cut in, "Come on..."

The Lion grumbled before hurrying after the hyena.

It was only shortly after that Lotus heard the door open that she noticed Azul coming out to the lounge with a look of surprise, "What the...? How is it already this crowded just after opening?"

Savanaclaw students were calling out from left to right demanding drinks and meat much to Azul's bewilderment. He steadied himself and walked forward trying to squeeze through the student staffs, "Make some room in here. Coming through!"

However, just as he was reaching closer to the center, he accidentally bumped into someone, "Apologies."

"Don't worry about it." The familiar voice responded with a smirk, "Shishishi..."

"Over here!" A Savanaclaw resident shouted, "My glass is empty over here!"

"Yes, just a moment!", shouted a freshman Octavinelle student as he hurried over to refill the glass nervously.

"Dorm leader," A second year quickly addressed to Azul, "We've had an extraordinary amount of orders and we've completely run out of food for today!"

"Drinks are also close to running dry!" The other second year panicked.

"Already?!" Azul shook his head in defeat, "Alright, I'll go get money out of the vault so I'd like you to go to the student store to buy some... Hm..."

Searching for his vault's key, Azul froze in the middle of his sentence as he suddenly gasped upon realization and looked into his pockets in bewilderment, "I-It's gone! The key to the vault is gone! How... Don't tell me!"

Lotus was thinking of going to call out Azul before withholding that idea. She didn't want to become his enemy right now, either...