EQUINOX || The Catalysts Series, #3

XXXIX

Mercifully, the next few days are much quieter. There were no other sessions like the scare during Combat Training the other day—not that they are going to have another class until two days later—but the other classes seem almost normal, if not for the guards supervising their movements and closely monitoring their classes.

Still, a kind of dread hang in the air, especially for the year two students who had to endure that particular Combat Training session.

Word has spread since then, even to the upperclassmen, and students are vary of their own activities. They mostly keep low, and the professors are no different, in much tighter spirits for every other class—except, surprisingly, Ms Iparis, who has been openly encouraging discussions on what transpired, including the year two's unfortunate 'punishment'. Lena begins to worry about how this may affect their studies—not about being behind on boring mathematics rather concerning each student's possibly deteriorating mindset upon every dark topic—but her worries are extended more so on their teacher, who had been called out by the authorities twice now because of her unfiltered information sharing. Still, their cool bespectacled General Studies teacher doesn't pay them any mind.

But the reason for these quiet days is soon revealed to be not because of the quietly submissive students but largely due to the diminishing number of authority guards on Arcane Academy.

No one notices anything at first, but it's becoming apparent that the bureau guards' shifts are constantly rotating—but more accurately, each surveillance post or routine has fewer guards now.

Lena isn't hopeful that it's because things have stabilized enough for the authorities to dispatch a reduced number of guards to the academy; she is almost certain something else is going on, requiring the manpower. Media is currently highly censored due to the sensitivity of all recent events, so the students are all but blinded to what's going on beyond what they need to know. Since Lena doesn't live in Sector Delphinus herself, she cannot tell if the currently dormant rift has developed for the better or worse. All she can see is that great loom of dark red over the sector, much like a descended eclipse.

It appears that she isn't alone in her observation, because on the third day, Caelus is hauled into the classroom by a set of guards at arms distance, interrupting their Professor Kieron's Demon Knowledge class.

He'd obviously been trying to skip classes now that patrol is weaker, but is caught anyway and returned to the classroom. The guards disappear with the doorway once they deem they have delivered their stray case, and Caelus has no choice but to pass Professor Kieron apologetically. Despite his best efforts, he has already drawn attention from the room. The fussy but soft professor reads the situation enough to clap everyone's attention back to him as Caelus makes his way to the back gratefully, and Lena can't help but admire Professor Kieron a little more.

Caelus settles down behind Lena, rather flustered under his impassive mask. It's written in the way he is sat ungraciously and the way he fumbles to fire up his personalized desk. Seated at the corner of the classroom, Lena finds herself at a vantage point to catch her friend's subtle reactions: Neesha is shaking her head in second-hand embarrassment for her friend or perhaps from disapproval; on the other hand, Roen looks highly entertained, barely hiding his snicker and thereby attracting some girls' attention to him.

Lena suppresses her own need to laugh. A lightness takes over her, and it's these minute events that makes her hope. There is still possibility for a sense of normalcy after all.

When their lesson ends, concluding the end of the day, Roen comes striding over—leaving behind some disappointed lads and ladies, and Lena just can't get over how popular he really is but ultimately chooses to hang out with the aloof Caelus—unable to hold in his long accumulated laughter. "You"—he clutches his tummy, straining to say the next words—"got... caught."