Yuu wakes up in a dark, empty hall. They feel their heart jump into their throat and they scramble out of the coffin, their foot catching on the side and sending them tumbling to the floor, their forehead screaming in pain at the contact.
"Oh you poor thing..." They're approached by a man in a bird mask, a beast with glowing blue eyes behind him, snarling and pulling at the thick chain it has as a leash. The man snaps and the animal is muzzled, left to growl at the student who feels fearful tears well in their eyes as the man tilts their head up with a clawed finger. "You must be so scared..."
"W-what do you want with me?" They whimper, voice hoarse as a tear streams down their face and they flinch at the stab of pain that's sent as the man presses the claw deeper into their jaw. He grabs the sides of their face and makes them look up at him.
"You've simply been sent here on accident, poor fledgeling," The man smiles, clapping his hands. "However, you're not the first student to come here, and you will be treated with kindness."
"What...?" Yuu asks, gulping.
"You see, we had a magicless student from your world as well not too long ago, a young boy by the name of Yuuken Enma," Yuu jolts, hearing how similar the boy's name was to theirs. They wait for the man to continue.
"Can he help me?" They ask after a moment of silence.
"Ah, well..." The man turns to the beast and reaches out a hand, stroking the animal's cheek as it thrashes and tries to bite at the man. It's electric blue eyes glow in anger as the blue flames in it's ears seem to roar with each pull against the chain. "This was his familiar."
"Was?!"
"Unfortunately, he was not a strong beast tamer as I had hoped he was," The man pouts, turning to the animal and coddling it, even as it let out whines and whimpers that echoed through the empty chamber. Each vocalization was laced with grief, Yuu's heart aching as they force themselves to look the animal in the eyes. It stares at them as if begging, pleading them to let it go, to get it as far away from the bird man as possible. For a split second, beneath the roars and rumbles, the sharp and dangerous appearance of the beast, Yuu saw the beast as a scared kitten, lost without it's owner.
"He abandoned it?"
"Oh no, sweet child," The bird laughs. "He seemed to have lost all control. One night they were living happily ever after, the next, poor Grim here awoke to find our sweet Yuuken torn to shreds by his own claws," They let out a gasp of horror, hands beginning to shake as horrified sobs leave their body and they scramble away from the beast.
The animal lets out another sorrowful roar, thrashing against his confines, the echoes of the iron chains bouncing off the tall walls of the chamber before the man snaps his fingers once more, the animal collapsing on the ground, completely motionless.
"Please..." Yuu mumbles between gasping breaths and sobs, looking up at the man with wide eyes. "Take me home."
"I'm afraid it's not possible. You see, when Yuuken came here from your world, he set the magical balance of this world off. Our world is a very delicate environment," The man begins to step closer to the student, who crawls back until their spine hits a stone pillar, making them wince. "And that existence got thrown off. In short, a universal anomaly cannot be fixed by a magician, or ten, or twenty of a thousand, even a billion magicians cannot fix this balance. It is only a matter of waiting for the universe to send you back on it's own."
"No," They sob, hands clasping over their mouth as sobs wrack their body. "No, no..."
"No need to cry, child," The man crouches, petting their head. "I will take good care of you. Yuuken had a dorm, and he worked for the short two weeks he was here, and he was quite happy- even made two friends. I can introduce you three, I'm sure those boys will be more than happy to show you the way around the school. In return, I simply ask for you to be a messenger, an errand runner, if you will." Yuu stares up at the man in horror, jaw quivering. "Are we in agreement?" They wordlessly nod, being lifted off their feet and thrown towards the door, being taken into the arms of two teenage boys, who walk with them silently.
They soon begin to chat, and they learn that the boys are named Ace and Deuce, and were good friends of Yuuken before the "accident", they called it. They were also friends of Grim, their demeanors turning mournful at the mention. The boys stay with them for the first month, helping them with Crowley's paperwork and cleaning the bloodstained floorboards and walls of the dorm in between going to classes. However, whenever Yuu asked, the boys would refuse to take them to any dorms besides "Ramshackle"- the mansion they were currently staying in.
Even when asked about their own dorm, Heartslabyul. As the month went on, they saw how exhaustion seemed to take over the boys' features. Deuce had gotten more aggressive, but had stopped talking completely after the second week, only blankly following them around, as if he were some sort of puppet, eyes permanently glazed over. Ace had gotten more jumpy, the dark circles under his eyes growing by the day and his speech quick and accusatory, hands constantly shaking as he never looks in one direction anymore, always looking around him, as if expecting someone to be watching him at all times.
"What's wrong?" Yuu asks the boys. Deuce, as usual, stays silent. The glimmer in his once beautiful teal eyes lost as he stares at the floorboards, fists clenched at his sides. Ace just shakes his head, grabbing their shoulders and shaking them between sobs and whimpers of "Please don't ask, please, please..."
They decided to drop the conversation after that.
One chilly day in October, Yuu was waiting outside of Ramshackle for the boys to escort them to Crowley's office, as neither of them wanted to leave the new student's side for very long and sneaking them around the back corridors of the school, leaving them an unknown to the rest of the students and staff.
They wait for an hour, two hours, three hours. They sigh and begin to walk towards the mirror chamber, prepared to grab the boys themselves and walk them to class, unless they were already in class, something very out of character for the boys who had been glued to their side since the day they set foot in this new world.
They stare at the dorm that matched their friends' dorm uniforms, gulping as they take their first step through the surface that ripples and bends around their leg.
