Twisted Wonderland | Mickey's Print

30. Leona Kingscholar

...When Yuu opened his eyes, he found himself in a vast gray space that seemed to have no end. He thought for a second he was dreaming but was still wearing his usual school uniform and remembered the battle against Leona. He looked around as he felt a strange sensation of not being alone. "Hello?" He asked out loud before spotting his sister. "Yukiko!"

She was dressed just like the last time he saw her in the infirmary, with the set of clothes that came with the school's ceremonial robe: black pants, a shirt of the same color with golden trim, the black choker around her neck, and dark socks. Even her shirt kept the big, burnt space on the right shoulder that showed her blue print there.

"Yuu!" Yukiko exclaimed when she saw him and rushed to hug him.

The boy returned her hug, internally wishing for the day they stop seeing each other only that way to arrive soon...

The scuffs and dirt on his uniform did not go unnoticed by Yukiko's gaze and she grabbed both of his hands. "Hey, what happened to you? You're a mess! Did someone hurt you? Who!?" She insisted to know.

"Don't worry, I'm fine, really," he assured her with a calm smile and shook her hands. "Nothing could go better now."

Yukiko didn't seem completely convinced, but she decided to take his word for it and looked around. "What place is this? Another dream?" She asked. Yuu was going to say no, but she remembered something and released him. "No, wait. I think I've been in a place like this before."

Before Yuu could ask her what she was talking about, a black and white figure of Leona appeared in front of them. "Leona!" Yuu exclaimed upon seeing him.

"Who?" Yukiko asked, confused. It was the first time in her life that she saw him after all.

"Uh... Let's say it's someone I just interacted with..." Yuu said, knowing that it wasn't the right time to tell her he had just been attacked by him.

Just like it happened with Riddle at that time, Leona didn't seem to notice the twins' presence and fixed a sorrowful look on the floor. He did not move his lips to speak either, so his voice and thoughts were heard in the form of a distant echo: "Since I was born, I always felt like there's an immovable stone over my head..." His voice whispered in a sad, bleak tone that Yuu would never have imagined hearing from him, the fierce dorm leader he feared.

Leona's image disappeared to make way for what seemed to be the corridor of a large and ostentatious building, surely a palace. The place was completely open, without a wall separating it from the outside, a long row of columns supporting the ceiling and the floor. In view was a vast savannah landscape, full of simple vegetation made up of grass, bushes, and rocks, all illuminated by the ruddy light of sunset. The most remarkable thing was a huge rock with a gorge that rang a bell to Yuu. Yukiko quickly pointed at it in amazement. "Wait! Isn't that the giant rock where the lions were?" She quickly said.

"What?" Yuu asked.

"Didn't you see it before? In that... dream, where a baboon was showing a baby lion to a bunch of animals."

As soon as he processed that, Yuu winced slightly. "You're right! But how do we know it's the same? The one from that time was just a dream, right?" He remembered.

"Good point... I guess this one just looks a lot like that one," Yukiko commented before looking around. "Hey, someone's coming!"

In another nearby corridor that connected to the interior of the palace, a small figure walked towards them that Yuu did not take long to recognize. "Speaking of baby lions." He commented.

That little boy about nine years of age was certainly a young Leona. His thick mane was short and only reached to the middle of his neck, but his emerald green eyes had still a fierce shape, with the difference that he still hadn't received his scar on the left one. He was dressed in an elaborate set of dark colors with ethnic details.