Mia looked up, and what appeared on her face was the usual and casual smile she always had on.
"I don't know what you're talking about." She answered.
"B-but..." Ciara protested.
"Besides..." Mia interrupted her. "Since you, as my friend, love and accept me for who I am, I don't care about the opinions of others. Since I have you..." Mia continued, smiling brightly.
"Oh, yeah... I guess you're right." Ciara said.
Was it just her imagination? She felt weird vibes from Mia just now. And her smile... Ciara thought those smiles seemed plastic. They weren't real expressions of Mia's true mood.
But she didn't want to press the issue. Nothing good would come out of it.
'I should respect Mia's space. She must have a good reason for not telling me what's going on. When we've grown closer... I'm sure she'll tell me.' Ciara thought to herself.
However—
'No!'
What kind of friend would she be if she just let Mia suffer the pain of ostracization alone?
She had to find out the cause and resolve it quickly. It could be bad rumors, a mistake, or even malicious intentions that had caused Mia's current position in the class as a pariah.
'I must find out!' She decided.
*
*
*
Classes ended, and the two friends said goodbye to each other.
After they parted ways, Ciara decided to follow Mia—all for the greater good, of course.
She used the [Stealth] Enhancement on herself, causing her to blend with her environment and camouflage herself almost perfectly.
'Ah, this feels weird.' Ciara's guilty thoughts trailed as she kept following her friend.
Mia didn't go to her room after she parted with Ciara. She only pretended to.
She left their dorms and went on a walk. Ciara was curious as to what business Mia would do after class. Wouldn't she be better off resting?
'Let's find out.'
Mia went to a nearby park, and Ciara followed. That was when she saw a bunch of her classmates gathered in the vast field.
'It's nearly 8:00 in the night. What are they doing out here?' Ciara found herself thinking with widened eyes.
Even though classes usually ended in the evening around 4:00, due to the supplementary classes Ciara took, she wound up late.
Mia had decided to attend the class with Ciara too, so they could walk home together. That was how they ended up getting back to their dorms late.
"That damn bitch! I hate her!" The hotheaded girl Ciara had encountered in the morning shouted in anger.
The other students seemed to agree with her, nodding and responding to her bold statement.
"Shhh, not so loud Serah. W-what if someone hears you?" The other boy Ciara also talked to in the morning said cautiously.
He looked around him just to ensure they weren't caught.
Mia, who was watching everything, was quite a distance from them. She probably had a camouflage on, because none of the students noticed her.
Well, she was also out of sight, so they didn't even sense her and spoke carefreely.
"Oh, shut up Samuel. Why do you have to be a coward all the time? The bitch isn't even here right now!" Serah barked in even greater anger.
"But I have to hand it to you both... sitting in front of 'her'? You guys got guts." A student said in awe.
"I know right? I was literally shaking in my boots." Another said.
"And then you even raised your voice on 'The Exception.' Seems you have a death wish, Serah." One of the students said in a mock threat.
"Oh, please. We gotta stand up for ourselves sometimes. Besides if she's friends with 'her' then she's also a bitch in my book!" Serah's hateful voice had a deep passion.
While her tone was rude, her eyes contained a pain that she could only express with vulgar words..
Ciara's eyes grew weary and she felt uncomfortable hearing what they were saying.
'That Serah girl sure has a dirty mouth ,spouting those words like they're nothing.' Ciara thought to herself uncomfortably.
'Seems they have a bad image of me as well... Sigh, I wonder why.'
"I don't think she's so bad, though." Samuel's voice jerked Ciara from her self-thought.
"What?" One of the students responded with more surprise than indignation.
"Yeah, I think you're right. To be honest I feel like she's a victim here as well." Another one murmured.
"I mean... Mia was the one who approached her during the Orientation, I saw it myself. I don't think she was in any position to escape from her." One other person said.
"Whatever! As long as she's with Mia, she's an enemy in my book! It's only a matter of time before we have two 'Mias' running around in our class." Serah made her stubborn stance.
"Well, that's true... but, maybe we can convince her..." Samuel croaked. "If we can tell her who Mia really is, that she's a... a..."
One second, the boy was talking, and then the next, he suddenly froze in fear.
"A-ah....?" His eyes bulged, and darkened fear saturated them.
"Oh, my..."
All the students could feel their insides tighten as a newcomer visited their little gathering. Samuel's face was filled with horror—same as many.
Before them was Mia, whom they were just talking about.
There was no way to escape this time.
"Please, by all means, continue," Mia, the poor object of gossip, gave a smile.
Ciara shuddered, wondering when Mia was able to traverse her short distance in such time—before even she could notice.
'I didn't even realize... scary.' She gulped.
"What...? How do you know this place?" Serah, who seemed like the leader—and obviously the one with the most backbone among the crew—asked with a cautious gaze.
"How funny. I have always known about your secret meeting, and this idiotic fan club you all made for the sake of discussing me." Mia said with a smile.
"What did you—?"
"I'm still talking, I would appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me." Mia cut her short, still wearing her adorable smile.
Though something about it seemed twisted at this point.
Her eye gleamed with malevolence and ill intent, while her smile widened in a sadistic fashion.
Serah instantly gulped and kept silent.
"Even though I knew, I tolerated your little charade since it's just the natural habit of weak and pathetic fools like yourselves." Mia continued, appreciating the silence.
'M-Mia...?' Ciara was beyond shocked to hear the things she was listening in to.
Seeing Mia behave entirely different from what she had seen her be made the innocent girl shiver a little.
Just who was Mia?
'No! I can't think like that!' Ciara was still Mia's friend, and so she came up with excuses for her in her head.
'They talked bad about her first... she's just returning the favor.' Ciara reasoned within herself.
"But, my patience has reached its limit. Your grace has run out. Two of you did the unthinkable today... You messed with Ciara..." Mia said, clearly displeased. Her voice was becoming more and more threatening and dark.
'See? I knew it! She's just sticking out for me. I better show up and tell her not to bother. She might do something that—'
Ciara began undoing the [Stealth] Spell, deciding to approach them in order to resolve the conflict.
"We might even all be friends at the end of the day..."
"...You messed with my TOY!" Mia smiled in a sadistic and monstrous manner.
"E-eh...?"
Ciara got a good look at her friend's face—albeit from a short distance.
It was a crazed and sadistic expression, mixed with euphoria and an arousal.
She felt sick!
Mia was unrecognizable from the friend she knew. And did she just call her, Ciara... A TOY?
"I absolutely HATE it when fools like you mess with my FUN. You nearly ruined the GAME... You shouldn't have!" Mia continued her monologue, becoming more twisted than before.
"And for that... You all need to be PUNISHED!" She smiled crazily.
"Damn this crazy bitch. We're outta here." Serah said and tried walking away along with the other students who had previously been paralyzed with fear.
They took to their heels, picking up pace and eventually running, mostly in fear. Then suddenly...
... They stopped.
"Where do you all think you're going? The FUN is just getting started." Mia whispered, approaching the students who appeared to be stuck in their movements.
They all took the posture of being in haste and fleeing, but their bodies didn't move. Their faces could move a bit, however, and the expressions they displayed were pure terror.
Even Serah appeared to be in deep fear at this point.
"You're all my puppets, with or without strings!"
"P-Please let us go!" The students desperately pleaded.
One look on their faces, and one couldn't even see a shadow of the anger that previously dwelled there. Pure terror took over.
"We'll do anything." Others said.
"We didn't do anything to her, I swear." Another said.
Ciara couldn't make out the words anymore. All she could hear at this point was pleadings. Lots and lots of pleadings.
She could now understand why the students shunned her. This wasn't normal... Mia wasn't who she appeared to be.
"W-who... who are you... Mia?" Ciara murmured to herself, nearly in tears.
Mia smiled evilly at the students before her. She licked her lips and smacked them. Her eyes narrowed, her smile widened and the same sadistically aroused smile appeared on her face.
"Well then, let alone us begin...." She said to the immobilized and terrified students.
"...This FUN game."