The Sight Beyond The Haze

Chapter 38: Dodgeball to the Detention

Cocytus took off without me to patrol the premises of the academy with Eris on his tow to predict if there would be any disturbances around.

I suspected that Leigh was the one who told them to lay off my back. Although I was displeased that he still treated me like a fragile glasswork even though he was making me patrol every night and I could now hold my hold, I was also grateful that he was the one who gave me a break.

For the first time in a while, I felt good sleeping along with the warmth of the golden light butterflies that surrounded my whole room.

When I was getting ready for classes, I happened to got a glimpse at my reflection on the mirror. I do not look at myself any longer, feeling that my face belonged to someone else instead of me which was, of course, ridiculous.

Deep black eyes looked back at me, and I realized that the softness I always associated with that countenance was scrapped off and replaced with some edges. It seemed like I grew old without noticing it and I have only been in this place for a few months but a lot has happened already.

I put on extra clothes and sleeves just in case that the sky would bleed snow again. Pulling my hoodie up my head, I headed out. Usually, I break my fast at the drawing room where we typically have our tea and snacks. When I entered, Cocytus was already there, eating his toast as though he was some kind of posh Parisian, sitting cross-legged on an elegantly carved chair that was certainly gifted from Leigh's furnishing company.

Unlike me, Cocytus was indeed posh and stylish. Or at least he was styled better than me. He was wearing a red scraf that accentuated the darkness of the uniform of the academy with gloves as though he was from an Italian Mafia.

I scoffed at that thought and sat across from him. Beside him was Eris who was munching on scrambled eggs, some more toast, and bacon. The last one who arrived was Leigh with heavy bags under his eyes.

I frowned at his bloodshot red eyes.

"You look tired," I remarked off-handedly. "Are the Deities suppose to not feel any exhaustion?" I asked him.

"Economy is a different matter," Leigh mumbled and slumped on the chaur next to me. "I have not even taken any classes since everything was all hell-bound to make me suffer."

"Who cares?" Cocytus scoffed, holding up his own toast to point to his foster father. "You're an immortal Deity who have hundreds of diplomas. Science doesn't even work on you. Can't I skip classes for once, Leigh?"

Leigh gave him a firm stern glare.

"The same is not true for you, Yto," Leigh only said and placed more food on Cocytus' plate. "Now eat—" he pointed at Cocytus' plate "—before we both reverted back to the days where I have to scare you to make you eat."

"Too much information so early in the morning," Eris said and laugh timidly while sipping her tea. "Had a rough night?"

Leigh only ignore Eris with her statement.

I suspiciously watched him. That sentence kind of sounded like a complain, and I never heard him complain before. Shrugging it off, I surveyed the feast before my eyes and decided that I wanted something heavy. I opted with a couple or three of the waffles and made another platter of sunny-side up eggs.

Like what we usually do, we all parted ways from each other after we were done eating. Eris was left on the drawing room, waving at us three who went out. I supposed she would like to look into future more and gauge what was in store for us all. Leigh though, despite not attending any of the classes any longer, was the busiest among us. Aside from his company which I assumed take up most of his time despite having a lot of employees to take care of it, he also needed to strengthen the hold of Academia Amitiel until the arrival of Deo.

The morning was pleasantly cold. The once greenery scene that anyone can behold on the academy was now covered in the white frosty snow. The snow was enough to make me blow smoke-like air from my mouth, but the whether was not as wet as I thought it would be.

Over the night, the snow has build up but it did not intervened with any of the students' daily routines. In fact, I rather thought that the snow was such a nice and wonderful change of scenery. That was when I realized why would Leigh wanted me to stay out of the patrol and instead sent Eris.

I shook my head, huddling closer to my layers of jackets and hoodies.

I wiped at my own nose with a clean handkerchief, feeling as though snot and rheum would just shoot right out of the two holes of my nose. I walked quickly to the entrance of the building same as the other students who do not want to get cold and wet from the snow that was falling from above.

My morning was relatively simple, but it was when I was told what would our afternoon classes would be that I was a little skeptical on going.

We were all told to get changed from our p.e uniforms and meet the instructor to the nearest gymnasium from our building. When we all entered, it was then that the instructor chose people who would represent the whole class.

I looked at the opposing team's representatives, and they were all there as though they were all taunting me. Haziel Imbert. Zachriel Legrand. Hermes, Caspian, and Layla. There was some other student that I presumed as one of their classmates.

"Any volunteers?" the instructor asked the whole class. All of them remained quiet, intimidated by the physique of the opposing team. I got to admit that they have indeed some muscle on them and not just the stereotypical skinny kids.

I raised my right hand.

Since I already raised my hand the instructor nodded along and pointed at me then he proceeded on choosing other students who would join me. Our team made up of six people, same as Haziel's team. At the opposite side of the court was them huddling to each other, maybe coming up with a strategy how to bring my team down.

"So I guess you all know dodgeball, no?" the instructor asked us. "Just pass the ball around, try not to get hit but you gotta learn that you also need to hit others, 'ya?" We all nodded at his litany. Of course, every one of us know dodgeball. Even the kindergartners know how to play it. "After this round, we need to change up the teams so no pressure if you ain't doing well." Again, we all nodded at him like puppies. "Alrighty then, get out there and kick some ass!"

That might not be too appropriate for us to hear, but my classmates still clapped bravely and faced death. In my case, I smiled at the opposing people against me with a coldness tha could rival the weather.

The ball went first to the other side, it was Layla who threw it at one of my teammates who dodged it easily. One more member of the team I was in, picked the ball up and threw it at the other side of the court.

It was when the whole battle between me and the Dalcanorian children begun.

The first who struck us was Haziel Imbert. Though her body's frame was petite and quite small that people would automatically assumed that she did not have any strength on her less than scrawny arms.

I knew better though.

And the ball struck the person in my left side, narrowly missing me by a heartbeat. I stared at Haziel, picked up the ball, and threw it at her. The ball was passed to Zachriel who struck my teammate on the farthest side of the court. We were all running, but since Zachriel has not the strength I have, I went up immediately to my teammate's defense and caught the ball thrown at him.

My eyes surveyed the scene and threw as hard as I could towards the opposing team's people. It was not my intention to knock anyone off, but it was still satisfying to be mean some times. Besides, this was just a game and I could do what ever it was so that I win, except for cheating of course.

Layla, upon meeting the impact of the ball on her back, stumbled down and even brought Caspian down with her. Like a bowling, they went on the ground with a loud crash. Since Layla was out of the game already, I might as well try to eliminate that one fool who dared stand against me and Caspian because he annoyed me by just standing and looking like an i***t.

The ball came back to my hand and, without missing a beat, I threw at that other person on their team. Unfotunately though, Haziel caught the ball with both hands and threw it right back at me which I also caught easily.

But the thing was... they were now using magic. Even Hermes who was lounging at the very back of his team has magical energy pouring out of his hands. Warriors could generate magic but they do not have the advantage of using it to its maximum level, very unlike the Mages, and most of them were Warriors too.

Well, was that fair?

Of course it was not, so I let my bare hands catch the ball that was touched with their magical powers. The speed of the ball increased. Earlier, it seemed as though it was already hard to catch it and now that its speed also increased, it became even less possible to just catch it with hands that were not also touched with magical energy.

Both Hermes, Haziel, and even Caspian were all Warrior type, thus, they can utilize their strength like mine. Although Zachriel was part of the one in a million rare Weaver, he could also use his magic on other things such as protecting himself; small, petty tricks.

With all my might, I threw the ball right at their other teammate. They were too slow to react and one has been lost already when they started to move. The next one on my list to scratch off was, of course, Caspian Cashel who was cowering behind the petite body frame of Haziel.

It was a little tricky when it comes to him since he was always behind someone else. With one or twice more tries, I finally opted him out of the game.

Though it was cold, my forehead was sweating profusely. Even Haziel, Hermes, and Zachriel have a thin sheen of sweat on their faces that was exactly like mine. Until now, I did not utilize my magical energy like them. Instead of using it now while they were still energized and adrenaline driven, I plan to use my force when they were all finally wasted and exhausted.

Running towards them, I threw the ball that has gone heated from being back and forth between the four of us. Even my teammates were all too frightened to even insert themselves between the four of us, cowering away to the very back of the court. I saw one or two just shrugged off and just went back to the bleachers to sit down, watching the one against four battle.

To be fair on their part, I was trained by two Deities and I have more natural abilities and skills than them three. It was only an even match among us and it was actually sort of entertaining to watch them give their all on this petty game.

It makes me want to crush them all even more.

In an unexpected twist, Hermes tripped down to let Zachriel run in front of him, getting hit instead of the other boy. Now there were only Zachriel, Haziel, and me on the game. The ball was then picked up by Haziel and the poor plaything landed on the wall behind me, some feet away from my original position.

They did not even cared about rules any longer, just eliminating the stated opponents. And that stayed opponent was basically just me.

While walking towards the ball, I reached for my handkerchief and rolled it into a strip until I could use it to tie my hair up. I gathered every loose hair that was hindering me from seeing clearly.

I bent my knees to get the ball and even though I was still some distance away from them, as soon as I got the ball on my palm, I hurled it towards Haziel's direction. Frozen and still, she only stared at the oncoming thing and it slammed right to her own face.

The sounds of the slap of the ball on her face was quite satisfying which left me guilty because I did not really wanted to hit her on the face with the ball.

Because the ball was passed around at such a high speed and with the force that could knock any sane person out, there was a subtle sound at the corner and, as if by magic, they procured a basket of balls for us to play with.

Someone threw a ball at me and I threw the said ball at Zachriel without any inhibitions. He easily caught it and hurled right back to me which I dodged as easily as he caught it. I ran and another ball came to me, maybe someone from my class was trying to help by providing continuous stock of ball.

With all the strength of my right arm, I hurled off towards Zachriel. Of course, before it made contact to his body, he sidestepped and also hurled a ball towards my direction.

At a distance, I heard a loud crashing noise but that did not stop from hindering Zachriel to win the match between us. My mind was off everything else and just as soon as I was thrown a ball over, I threw it with all my strength towards the opponent.

Zachriel caught that ball I threw at him with both hands. He moved his arm backwards to gain momentum then he let it fly towards me. Instead of catching it as he did earlier, I only managed to stepped away from it so it would not hit my body.

I heard it crash to the wall a few meters next to me, all the way through the court of the gymnasium, bypassing the people playing volleyball and basketball. I heard everything became silent, only the cold wind of December could be heard.

I sighed, thinking everyone was being so melodramatic by just watching and being interrupted, not essentially I dare say, by this very simple game.

I started to walk towards where the ball was, feeling the eyes of everyone else that was inside the gymn. It flew off quite a good distance away from our side of the gymn. On my peripheral vision, I could see the huffing and sweaty players.

I was not even half exhausted dealing with the three of the formidable members of Eirini.

I bent down my knees and picked up the ball, my hand was already humming with power. I think when I flung it towards Zachriel's direction, he knew that whay I was about to do without actually seeing me.

Finally expending my full magical energy on that one shot, it flew so fast towards Zachriel's direction that even I had a difficulty of tracking it upon releasing. Zachriel, who has been using his own magical energy since the start of the game, has no strength left to even lift an arm to protect himself from the missile-like object hurtling to him.

All the way to where I was, across the whole gymnasium, I heard a very distinct loud boom that startled everyone, even myself. Zachriel was in the pose of having thrown another ball towards the direction of the ball that I threw. The ball he threw quickly popped when it was touched by the ball I threw. There were also the sounds of glasses shattering and when I looked around, I realized that there were pieces of glass shards, some were even pulverized to the point of just being dust, everywhere I turned my gaze at. The wide windows of the gymnasium were cracked, ball-sized holes were imprinted in those, and I realized that even the part of the gymnasium where we were was actually quite darkened with the bulbs being popped with our little game.

However terrible the state of the place might be in, my focus turned to Zachriel who was the main target of my attack.

With widening eyes, Zachriel could only look at the oncoming ball towards his direction. Not doing anything, it hit him right on his handsome face.

I heard a very distinct and clear c***k when the impact was made.

My eyes widened at that, not expecting it to be so severe but then I knew that I already poured all of my energy to that last ball. Of course, that was going to hurt but I felt bad at the same time. After all, I was stronger than him in physical strength... even if anyone take away my magical powers or the force that we were all using, I would still overpower him.

I quickly ran towards Zachriel who was now lying on the floor of the gymnasium that was full of traces of footsteps due to us running around. My mouth parted slightly when I saw a little puddle of blood on his face.

Did I just killed a person?

Gulping down, I heard the shout of both Zachriel and my instructors. When I looked at them, I saw most of them were cowering behind the bleachers. The flushed faces of both of the instructors were quite the comical scene. It was still comical until they said three words.

"GRIYEGO, LEGRAND, DETENTION!"

Again, I was tempted to say either of Leigh and Cocytus names, but I did not for the fear of just aggravating them all to the point of vomiting blood. For disclaimer, I have never had any prior experience or even acquaintance to the so-called detention. It was just maybe I was too quiet and I have never had anything that would certainly provoke me. Except for that one professor that bled because of me.

That was just once though! Once!

"Where is detention?" I asked them and the instructors faces, as I have anticipated, were flushed more that I thought their heads would just pop out their neck.

"Seraphin," Haziel called out to me. She was waving her arm to signal me to come with them. "Seraphin, we'll guide you to the detention later, but let us get out of here first."

Haziel went ahead and bowed to her classmates, my own classmates, and, finally, to our instructors who were all cowering away from us behind the bleachers. Awkwardly, I also bowed to them and followed the Eirini members. I did not know why I bowed, just that Haziel did and maybe I should do.

All three of the members of Eirini were dragging Zachriel's unconscious body away from the gymnasium. Hermes took hold of Zachriel's head while Caspian took both of Zachriel's feet. Haziel, however, was directing them on where to walk or how to kove Zachriel's body.

It was quite a good thing when I saw Zachriel Legrand's chest, heaving deep breaths and his eyes fluttering, seemingly just sleeping.