Aqua's POV
I watched Aki push the classroom door open, where all of us were supposed to meet in about half an hour. I took an unsure step towards the trash can in the back of the classroom to get rid of my cup of coffee, or rather Sani’s cup of coffee, to see Professor Duck randomly chilling in the leftmost corner of the room. At first I thought that he was just vibing but on further inspection I noticed that he was staring at the ceiling with his eyes wide open without blinking nor moving. I waited for like a solid 15 seconds to see if I was just being paranoid and it turned out that I was in fact not since Sani walked up to me with a disturbed expression, seemingly questioning the state of the dead-looking individual in front of us. Honestly, it would be quite the understatement to say that we were creeped out.
,,Uh…hello.’’ – I mumbled hesitantly to try and break the silence that was quite simply killing me.
,, … ‘’ – No response followed. Now, isn’t that awesome. Just what I needed! More stress-inducing problems.
My worried gaze briefly met Sani’s lilac eyes filled with curiosity. Due to the fact that I had absolutely no desire to stay in the same room as this freaky lunatic who was sitting lifelessly in front of us as well as occasionally doing some weird hand motions, I ultimately decided that if I don’t act quickly, Sani’s probably about to drag me into something unpleasant. At that point I literally lifted Sani up in the air and straight up just ran to Aki who was casually observing the situation from the other side of the room while carrying my shockingly curious friend. Since she’d seen how this sequence of events had turned out I figured she wouldn’t need an explanation for my sudden ,,disengagement’’ so I just quickly looked at her cold teal eyes with a facial expression which I hope clearly represented my feelings which could be easily summarized by three words: what the fuck. So yeah I basically threw Sani out of the classroom and then proceeded to walk to the door myself. Sometimes I’m extremely glad that the one thing I surpass Sani in is physical strength. Upon reaching it, I heard Aki’s soothing voice tell me that it really wasn’t a big deal and that she was going to take care of it. I turned back to see her smile reassuringly which didn’t magically make me feel better for leaving her to deal with the borderline insane professor all alone, but despite that I ended up gritting my teeth and closing the door with my trembling hand.
Aki’s POV
Hearing the two students laugh behind the classroom door was a clear sign that they were slowly starting to restore their sanity which helped me let out a deep breath of relief. Self-reservation and fear sure are something… but to be fair, I would probably be frightened too if I were in their shoes. I guess I actually would have been back then if Mark hadn’t warned me about Duck’s attempt to swindle us before he’d even thought of swindling us in the first place.
,,Wait, what does Duck have to do with the book?’’ – I couldn’t comprehend what Mark meant to explain to me at the time.
,,Sis, I’m telling you this book is just the tea. I could hear its empty pages, its whispers. It shared Duck’s dirty secrets with me and they were quite embarrassing. Apparently, he’s going to lie to us by saying he lost his Soulbound Weapon to the Dream SMP when on the contrary he’s going to win the battle and almost immediately discover all the details to his tricky powers. But luckily – he said with a wide smirk – this book is where it’s at, sis. Queen shit, I’m telling you. Not only did it let me expose his lying ass, it also spilled all the details about his future powers. So listen closely – he leaned in after taking a brief look around – so first things first … his weapon is essentially a person.’’ – he noted quietly.
,,What??’’ – I had to stop myself from gasping. I’d done an unhealthy amount of research and spent countless nights on reviewing all past Soulbound Hunts but I’d never seen nor heard of such a thing before.
,,It’s a person and a vessel at the same time. – he continued – This ,,person’’ will go by the name of Noah - a 16 year old boy with multiple tricks up his sleeve, though he himself won’t realize that he’s a pawn. He’s going to live his own life without realizing that his element and eyes would be linked to someone else – Duck. The summary of what the book shared with me would be this: the moment Duck obtains his Soulbound Weapon, Noah will be born, at the age of 16. He’ll believe that his parents died in an accident, a car crash where he himself lost his memories. That would be his reason for having no recollection of his past, when he just doesn’t have one. Moving on, as a ,,person’’ in this world he would need to have an element, which is where Duck comes in. He’s going to basically absorb Duck’s element – Darkness. When one of them is using it, the other one won’t be able to. And as for the eyes part, Duck won’t be able to directly control Noah like a puppet, he’s simply going to be able to see through his eyes, something like a camera. Noah is essentially going to serve as his source of information, a spy, an observer, a camera … unaware of his position as one.’’ – he sighed in order to add more drama to the whole situation.
,,Now, that’s most certainly something I would have never expected waking up this morning… Jeez, you really outdid yourself Mark.’’ – I praised him, not sure if I should have been proud or concerned at the time.
,,There’s a catch to all of it though. The moment Noah realizes what he is, he’s going to shatter. Literally, into small pieces.’’ – Mark finished his narrative of his unexpected gossip session with the Eye of Perception.
,,Which is probably why future Duck would decide to hide Noah’s identity from everyone, even from us, to avoid any chance of that happening.’’ – if it wasn’t for Mark, we probably wouldn’t have been able to piece anything together and I would have blindly believed Duck’s story of losing the fight instead.
I figured I should stop thinking about the past and focus on the current problem instead. This moron really decided to see how Noah’s doing in the exact same classroom, where we’re supposed to have some sort of meet-up with the kids as well as explain a few more things to them, after less than 30 minutes. If he were a bit more considerate, it wouldn’t have been up to me to distract Sani and Aqua and give them an elaborate explanation of why one of their dear professors is casually just laying dead in the middle of nowhere when they saw him alive and well the day before.
,,I guess the least I can do is try and wake him up somehow before they regain their courage and boldly slam the door open to see no change in his state.’’ – I thought to myself as I walked up to him with a glass of water at my disposal which I was not afraid to use.
After repeatedly splashing water in his face which had absolutely no effect on him by the way, he snapped out of it around 2 minutes later, on his own.
,,Wake up, sunshine. You literally could not have picked a worse spot for this. Do you realize that some students just feel the need to be on-time so they just go to class early? Sani and Aqua walked in on you being a creep and they’re most likely going to stick with this image of you as a weirdo from now on. You should probably keep that in mind for future references. – I briefly explained the situation. – I spent the last 5 minutes in unsuccessful attempts to wake you up by the way. We should come up with a more effective way to bring you back to life than just splashing water in your face since it doesn’t seem to be working properly despite the fact that it was your genius suggestion.’’ – I noted, without trying to hide my irritated expression at all.
,,It worked though, didn’t it? If you hadn’t taken so long then both the plan and execution would have been fit for the genius suggestion.’’ – Duck said with a wide smirk on his face that made me seriously consider knocking him out with a single punch right then and there.
,,I should have just drowned you.’’ – I mumbled as I made my way to the door to see if the girl had lost her hold of the boy who I assume would have zapped her to death if I hadn’t interrupted their friendly conversation earlier. Sani and Aqua, huh… Something about these two brings back memories. I felt an icy cold tear dripping down my left cheek as I reached for the door handle.
