Tragedy of the Demon Lord

Section One - Those Who Aren't Heroes (2)

Part Two - Welcome to the World of Fiction

​ It was the same as before. The awkwardly long wait for the teacher to come back, the weird feeling of not wanting to leave, and the natural fall into disorder without the authority figure around. Of course, with the previous incident so fresh in their minds, the class was much faster in deciding that 'too much time' had passed.

"This is stupid! They're going to get mad at us for running off again. It was bad enough that she didn't know which room was hers once, but she's probably freaking out right about now somewhere else!" Carly complained loudly. The class had come to the conclusion yesterday after apologizing that Mrs. Nighting had gone into the wrong room without noticing. Rin had thought that such a stupid explanation was, of course, very stupid. What kind of person makes a mistake like that and not realize it? But too many students hated Mrs. Nighting for them to look at it objectively. By blaming Mrs. Nighting's stupidity they could have a reason to resent her other than her being strict about homework.

"Oh yeah, I heard about that. Well, I heard that you guys all ditched when Mrs. Nighting went out for a call. There were even rumours that you guys were the ones that called her down." Connor threw a sly look towards Maria. "Isn't the real question why, today of all days, we ran out of handouts?"

"Well as you can clearly see, it isn't a fault on our end!" Alicia slammed her hands on her desk. "We haven't gone anywhere!" She walked over to Connor and looked him straight in the eyes, daring him to implicate Maria again. He was slightly taken aback, as Alicia wasn't exactly a close friend of Maria.

"..." Connor cast his eyes down. Cowardly and spineless, yet oddly sly. That's how Rin would judge his character if Kana ever asked. There was an awkward silence as everyone had no idea what to say.

"Well all we need to do is go get her right?" An annoyed voice called from the back of the classroom.

Much to the surprise of everyone, it was Levi. He looked a mix of boredom and agitation.

Eyes glanced towards the door. Everyone knew that was the solution, but nobody wanted to be the one to open it. There was an awful feeling of dread surrounding it. There was murmuring as people whispered things like 'I don't want to...' or 'you do it!'.

This universal indecision and insecurity seemed to piss off Alicia. Rin supposed straightforward people like her needed straightforward action. Rin quietly bet to herself how long it would take before Alicia would volunteer herself, and started counting in her head.

"Fine! I'll do it! It's just a door! A really freaky door, but just a door!" As predicted, Alicia finally spoke up. Rin sighed. It had taken 7 seconds longer than she thought it would've.

Alicia sauntered over to the door with confidence, but paused in front of it. Just from behind, Rin could see her obvious unease. It was very out of character. She was probably among the least affected people in the class, but the door could still unnerve her. Rin mentally noted the irrelevant observation.

Alicia's sides swelled up, and collapsed back down - probably a deep breath to calm herself. Reaching for the handle, it was obvious that she hadn't calmed down in the least.

Just as her fingers touched the doorknob, she jerked back in surprise. Rin was just as surprised as everyone else. If being uncertain was out of character, backing down like that would be like Alicia had been replaced by a doppelgänger.

"You okay?!" Connor leaped to his feet, only to stagger and fall back into his chair, grimacing in pain.

"Yeah...I was just surprised is all." She forced a smile that faded as quickly as it came. "It's really cold." She muttered to herself.