Yuu can do it!

Ew school

It appeared that they needn't worry about Ace's collar or Grim's... general lack of ability when it came to magic, because they weren't going to use it anytime soon. Yay them!

Their homeroom class was Alchemy.

A terrible homeroom to have, it seemed. Because their professor was absolutely terrifying for a reason Kuroki couldn't quite explain.

It was probably the man's outfit. He was sharply dressed in a way that spoke of careful calculation and even more careful routines. His hair had a perfect split dye of black and white without a hint of the roots in sight. His fur coat looked brand new, but he wore it with a sense of elegance and ease that told Kuroki it was a common accessory – and yet the fur was perfectly maintained throughout however many washes it had gone through, without a single sign of matt. And don't get him started on the fact that white and black are colors that are easy to see flaws in, and yet the man had somehow refrained from getting a single speck of dust on his outfit. People who dressed up for everyday events had levels of self-control that screamed that they were, frankly, insane.

See Dire Crowley.

Or Enma.

Terrifying.

And his name was cruel, for Pete's sake! Kuroki thought his fear was actually very normal and justified.

"Now, I think it is fair to assume that the students in a school as prestigious as this would have thoroughly studied the syllabus I gave you yesterday..." Professor Crewel started.

Kuroki had started rubbing Grim's fur aggressively in a desperate attempt to soothe himself. Enma looked like he was going to have a breakdown right there and now. Ito was frantically flipping through their copy of the textbook-thick syllabus in hopes that something might stick.

At least they had an excuse, though. They had started a day late and hadn't been given their syllabi until five minutes prior when they had sprinted into class just seconds before the assumed 'grace period for new students to find their way to class' had ended. Everyone else had had the syllabus for an entire day. Their classmates shouldn't have been sweating nearly as much as they were.

The man leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. His long, elegant pointer hung limp in his hand. He observed their panic for a moment, letting them all stew in their anxieties, and then he gave a strange kind of half-smile.

"But, as we have four new students, I feel that the pop quiz I was going to administer would be rather unfair."

Every eye in the room shot to the group huddled in the front (everyone had taken the other seats, for obvious reasons).

Enma and Ito did their best to take this in stride, of course. Enma gave a sheepish grin and rubbed the back of his neck. Ito gave a tiny wave, the lack of pop quizzes making the smile they wore particularly bright.

Kuroki wished he could do the same. He curled closer to Grim's unnatural warmth, wishing his jacket would swallow him whole. He had, however foolishly, hoped that they could join their classes without much fanfare. There were already too many eyes on them. They were magicless students, living in a haunted dorm that no one had stepped in in years, and publicly affiliated with Ace, Deuce, and Grim – who he rather liked, but that didn't mean he didn't desperately want them to tone down their shenanigans. Meeting Cater had proven that word of them had been spread through the school. He had still hoped, though, that he could get in and out of this school without incident. He had even chosen to wear his jacket over the white gem on his arm that identified him as a Ramshackle student, hoping that no one would notice the different color he was wearing.