The elevator door let out a ding as it reached the intended floor.
The doors slid open and Nox was immediately surprised at the view before them.
Instead of the medbay, he was now at the top floor of the administration building which shouldn’t be possible, right?
Slowly, he turned to Astra and asked, "are we still in the medical building?"
It was a stupid question, since it was plain as day that they weren’t...but his surprise was understandable, since this was the first time he had experienced a mechanism like this.
Even though the buildings were connected, the elevator had somehow moved from one to the other.
Astra looked at him for a few seconds before chuckling and shaking her head, "the blind bat’s lazy, so she made every elevator at the academy lead directly to her office floor."
"I see," he nodded in reply before they stepped out the elevator and headed towards the headmistress’s office door.
The moment they reached it, Nox immediately had a familiar feeling wash over him and his body instinctively went on high alert.
He was tense for a few seconds, until he realized what that feeling was. It was a sense of dread that he got form only one person and that person posed no threat towards him.
Well, more like the person seemed to be far too interested in him to try and harm him.
Though, he had now developed some doubts towards even her, after all, she could also be some type of Chimera or whatever Lorenne was.
Astra was surprised at the kid’s reaction. She had sensed no danger, but watched the kid immediately go into high alert, which was strange.
Without even realizing it, his solar tech was already in his hand and she hadn’t even seen him summon it.
This made her wonder even more about what had happened in the rift for him to be like this.
Though, high alert was also a good thing for him, but she had a feeling that it wasn’t the right thing to say at this moment.
"Enter," before they could knock, a voice called from within.
They pushed the door open and came to face with the same meadows they had seen when Nox first arrived here.
At this point, he already knew that the headmistress was fond of theatrics, but this scene was oddly calming.
For some reason, he felt at peace here, almost like the start of that dream.
The headmistress was sitting in the same spot she had been previously, calmly sipping tea, and opposite her was a familiar figure.
Ayla.
As usual, there was no expression on her face, even when she snacked on the treats in the tray before her.
Nox and Astra approached the pavilion before taking a seat around the table.
The headmistress turned her blindfolded eyes towards Nox and smiled before saying, "welcome back."
Nox looked at her for a few seconds before asking, "did you know ’that’ was going to happen?"
The mood seemed to drop and for a short while, Astra was sure the blind bat would just send the kid in that void.
But Arielle just set down her tea cup, sighed and said, "not at first."
Nox knew he was being insane, demanding answers from someone that could turn him to dust without even blinking, but he couldn’t help himself.
He had to know if he was just a pawn in the headmistress’s game with whoever, the man who had appeared in his nightmare, was.
"Then when?" he asked, his fists clenching a bit.
Arielle leaned back in her chair, fingers folding neatly atop one another. Despite the blindfold, it felt like she was looking straight through him.
"My solar tech....is a bit strange," she started, "as long as I’m not actively looking, I can’t control when or how visions appear to me."
She paused turned back to the table and picked up her cup, "as for the rift incident, the vision was revealed to me only when that fate had been set in motion."
Nox nodded, looked down and sighed....again, he was being stupid.
If the headmistress had intended for whatever happened within that rift, to happen, then she wouldn’t have tried helping him through that dream.
"Don’t beat yourself up, little light," Arielle said as she took a sip of her tea, "as I stated before, you’ve embarked on a journey that’s filled with hardships, and until you figure out what you are, it’ll only get harder and harder."
Nox looked at her, he had a feeling she knew what he was , maybe she even knew who that being of light was, but he was also sure that she had no intention of telling him.
So he switched the topic.
"Did you know about Lorenne?" He asked again.
"Yes," the headmistress nodded, "but again, only after you were in the rift."
"Who’s Lorenne?" Astra cut in, confused as to what the two were talking about.
She knew they were referring to the rift Nox just came out of, but she didn’t have enough context to understand.
"My teammate who turned out to be an Eclipsed," Nox simply explained and for a moment, Astra froze.
Her brain seemed to take a moment to understand what he just said, since she had never heard of such before.
The voices in her head repeated Nox’s words until she was completely sure that she heard him correctly.
But at that point, Nox was back to talking with the headmistress who explained how Lorenne and probably a few others had escaped her ’sight’.
"They have what seemed to be a barrier around them at all times," Arielle said, "which blocks out my solar tech’s abilities and sometimes even mislead it."
"Then that means there might be more Chimeras in the academy, without your knowledge?" Nox asked.
Arielle hesitated for a few seconds before nodding, "unfortunately."
She couldn’t just go around grabbing each individual fate string of each student to find out if they really were human, the cost was too much.
Astra, on the other hand, still hadn’t moved on from the human turned Eclipsed just yet as she asked, "what the hell happened in that rift?"