Supernova

Chapter Ninety Seven - Does God's Grace Reach the Back Pew?

I awoke to a knock at my dorm room door.

That fact, in my current state of mind and circumstance, was fucking horrifying. It was a weekend, and Elias and I didn't have plans until later in the afternoon. I checked my phone once, to make sure I hadn't slept in and Elias had sent me some barrage of loving texts telling me he was heading over, and he'd see me soon, and why wasn't I replying, he supposed he'd come get me. But no. There was not a single text sitting in my phone. That made the knock worse somehow.

I flew out of bed and across the room. Hope lived in me that this was just another one of my classmates hoping to give me an earful about how I'd changed and I was such a bitch and blah blah blah after Midoriya's stunt, and I could quickly shoot them down and send them on their way, but it didn't feel like that.

Curse my good instincts.

On the other side of the door was Aizawa, which was worrying enough, given it being not a class day and it being earlier than I'd ever imagined him awake. But behind him, sending a ripple of nausea through me, were Jojo and Amy.

"Stronghold," Aizawa greeted me. It seemed tired and monotone, but there was a grimness to it that I wasn't sure I was imagining.

"Sir," I greeted him back before raising my chin and diverting my gaze from him. "To what do I owe this disturbance? I was getting my beauty rest, I'll have you know."

"Your father has rescinded his consent to having you live on campus," Aizawa told me. "Effective immediately."

That explained the grimness. There was a ripple of something that rolled through the middle of me. I was almost sure of it. What choice did I have? I was nothing but a child tethered in impenetrable shackles. In our world, I may very well be Elias', but in this world, I was still a minor, property of my father's, to do with as he wished.

"We're here to pack and collect your belongings, Queen Stronghold," Amy informed me. She seemed slightly less apologetic for her own existence than she normally did when she spoke to me. That was salt in the wound indeed. "If you wish, you may head to the car and wait there."

"I wish to get dressed," I hissed back at her. "Or have you forgotten you work for me and have pulled me out of bed at this ungodly hour?"

"We'll get started with the furniture then," Amy said, sliding her way past me inside the room anyways.

Of course. She likely would have been given specific instructions not to allow me any time alone in the room, so I wouldn't be able to dispose of or hide anything. Which was fine, as there was nothing to dispose of or hide, but it irritated me nonetheless. Jojo too, slid past me, shooting me a small smile which was nothing but a sincere, silent apology.

I looked to Aizawa, who was just standing in the hallway, looking tired from behind his scarves. But as I've mentioned before, eyes don't lie, and there was something deeply helpless and apologetic flaring in them.

"I'll see you Monday," he told me with a nod.

"Right," I said, nodding back.

It was all I could do.

As I watched Amy and Jojo pack up my things, all I could see was any hope of getting out of this going up in flames.

Fucking Midoriya. If I ever got the chance to run recalibration with him again, I was going to dismantle him slowly to the point he was barely alive and watch him writhe in agony until he was a breath away from death before I rescued him. What I'd once thought his best trait, his monstrous approach to heroics that involved doing what it took regardless of what that might be, was going to end up being my demise.