The smell of flame and burning flesh assaulted her nostrils.
The eerie echo of blades and the shattering of bones rang through her ears.
No matter how much she tried to forget, the mind of Nabi Itami was reminded of that day. From the ethereal taste of blood that remained in her mouth—even the sight of the students reminded her of the black and red armor of those guards.
The catter of the chains and the empty faces she saw. Nabi grit her teeth at the thought of it all, an infuriating thought for her.
An echo of a voice navigated through the seas of chaos within her mind. She lowered her gaze to the frozen powder beneath her feet. With a single step a crunch filled her ears.
A sharp noise.
Her mind remained clouded, like the snow that seemed to swirl around her.
Like static.
Her body stayed in stasis as a single word fought through her thoughts like a demon in battle.
Snow.
"I hate this damn snow."
An unbearable hatred, like a nagging voice that she could never forget. The beating wings of a harpy. Thoughts clawed into her head.
Empty thoughts.
What leads to hate? Even emotions that strong have something that they originate from.
Pain?
Sadness?
Nabi shook the thoughts out of her head; thoughts she believed to have no meaning and closed her eyes to the world around her.
The Cursed Cold World of White.
Her eyes opened to an empty sea, the sky reflected the sea like glass—or the other way around—the specifics seemed to not matter to her. The blue that enveloped carried a calm that she couldn't describe, one not possible to reach in a world like she lived in.
A snowball in hell.
She let out an exhale as she watched steam rush from her mouth like waves in the open water. Ripples formed beneath her feet as if a stone fell into the ocean of her worries, an ocean close to spilling out of her.
Blood.
Spilling.
Splattering.
Killing.
Death.
Wrath.
I don't want those thoughts.
Her eyes snapped open to a peculiar sight. A boy with pale skin and hair as white as the snow he casually stood over. Nabi blinked, wondering if this world was fake or a nightmare once again.
"Geez, you look like I shattered something precious to you, girl."
The boy peered through the lenses of his glasses, his pupils appearing as bright as the highlights laced in his hair. A color blazing like the color the sun makes cutting through the evening sky, neither bright orange or an abrasive yellow, but instead a bright and unwavering shade of pink.
"Nabi, I believed nobility had some form of manners to at least ask one's name," Nabi said, her eyes angled at him as if peering through a hollow shell.
"I'd say it's more bold to think that I was a noble, than not."
"Then what are you?"
The boy allowed a devilish smirk creep onto his face. Nabi watched it closely, appearing almost animalistic; hungry.
A smirk belonging to a fox.
The boy gave her a boy, letting the shine of his bright pink eyes link with Nabi's. His voice shifted, sounding smoother and calculating as he took note of Nabi's bright white pupils enveloped by the scarlet.
Like an island of cold surrounded by blood.
"Naisho Tebiki, at your service."
"Superbian-born?"
"Who knows, names like mine apparently were a nice trend."
Nabi's gaze clawed onto the sight of something that lingered behind Naisho. As he rose, the boy nudged what remained behind him.
"You aren't going to introduce me?"
The voice of a young girl shivered from behind Naisho, accompanied by a chuckle from the boy. She slowly stepped from behind Naisho, hand carefully hidden behind her.
Black and Green.
Nabi carefully analyzed the girl. The green streaks and her clothes were unlike the rest of the students, closer to a dress than a uniform, similar almost to something else.
A witch.
"If I recall, nothing in our contract states that I had to do such a thing."
Naisho's voice interrupted her train of thought as she watched the girl's frosty blue eyes shift from Naisho to her.
The look of disappointment on her face drifted away like the snow. Nabi looked at her, glaring past the black hat she wore.
"I'm Juno Qhil, but you can call me Jun, if you wish to," she said sweetly.
Gold.
As if a joke by the bitter winds surrounding them, Juno's hat fell to the snow, revealing hair that shined golden blonde.
An innocent look.
The sight caught Nabi's eye. A boy and girl, one from Superbia and the other seemingly from Invid.
Juno brushed the snow that tried to overtake the black and green on the hat that mirrored her clothing.
"What did you even want from me, Bubblegum?"
Tension.
A strangling web linked the three of them as Nabi spoke, deadly cautious of the girl's demeanor. Bright smiles like the one Juno carried seemed to hold even darker shadows.
"No need to stress yourself out just to give a bad nickname to me. All I wanted to do was check if the newbie and her tiny boyfriend were getting used to somewhere like this."
Nabi grit her teeth. The boy prod at her like a tiger challenging a dragon, yet she wondered why a tiger wore such a mask.
The mask of a fox.
"So I'm assuming you both are second-years?"
"Juno is a second-year. I, on the other hand, am a third year student."
Nabi peered at Naisho, her eyes scanning the boy carefully. She muttered something before speaking up.
"Then you're one of the Exousia?"
"As if."
Naisho gave a shrug at her words. His presence seemed carefree. Careless. Naisho appeared beyond concepts like the hierarchy of Curse Academy.
"It's a free world, if you have enough power of course. Do that and you can do as you please. I thought that the blood princess would understand that."
That name.
The name rang in her mind as an image flickered in her mind. A man surrounded by static.
Wrath.
The one who deserves it all.
My.
Wrath.
Her mind trembled.
Pain.
The same stabbing sensation covered every inch of her body as if it barely belonged to her.
Invocation.
Naisho gave the same devilish smirk that felt so familiar to her as he watched her closely. His eyes flickered to the sight of Nabi. She kicked away from him and Juno.
A devil.
Him.
Wrath.
The image flashed through her mind,
The snow beneath her feet began to melt as her mind continued to crawl back to the forefront of her being.
Bright red steam erupted from her legs, searing the fabric of her leggings to reveal a twin set of seals engraved within her skin.
The Wrath Curse Series.
Juno captured the sight, pressure unlike that of most students that she witnessed at Curse Academy.
Beyond an Exousia or a Noble.
A Devil.
"H..hold on, let's just save it for the trial, right Naisho?"
A loaded gun waiting to be fired.
Reiju rippled through the air, yet Naisho—Naisho merely chuckled, measuring what he may be up against.
He took out a hand from his pocket and continued to mutter to himself, giving him a chance to test something he rarely had a chance to use.
"Sorry, Jun, I let my experiment get a bit out of hand, haven't I?"
Naisho kept the same calm and frozen tone with the girl as he watched her blue eyes slowly shift to green defensively.
The ground.
The same ground that was blanketed by snow.
The snow that shattered her calm—found itself cracked and burned like a window into her mind. Nabi blazed through the air towards Naisho.
"Disappear like the mist…Memoriae."
The world that surrounded Nabi crumbled into white.