I had done it.
Withdrawing my claw out of Hugo's body, it didn't take long until he fell on his knees, dropping his axe on the ground next to him.
Holding his stomach as the blood kept pouring out of him, I felt my mind withdrawing from the world of the living, blocking out any and all sounds and sights around me. So although I was still aware of the cluster of students that looked at me with shock in their eyes, I didn't care.
Taking a stand I felt the sheer ecstasy of looking down at my prey, as well as the exhilaration of seeing that fresh, pure blood streaming out of his body. A feeling that forced my body to tremble, that made all the muscles in my body tense up in excitement.
'-You mustn't do it.
This was the privilege of the victor, the privilege of getting to consume everything and anything that the loser had to offer. For most people, they would think of wealth, women, or other material things. But for me, there was only one prize that I had my eyes set on.
So with that, I raised my arm...
'-Control yourself, Aarick!'
… and managed to snap out of it thanks to the voice of the one that I knew as my savior. Her words instantly made my head clear up, making me realize just what I was about to do.
"Get yourself together you fool!"
And then I was all of a sudden looking at the clear blue sky, neatly complemented by big, fluffy clouds.
[Levi's Pov]
Seeing him standing there, seeing a single one of his claws being painted red with blood, I felt my heart grow colder for every second that passed. Despite Ms. Zito having already announced him as the winner, he was still just standing there, looking down at his opponent with his red eyes covered by white hair.
Not just me, everyone was unsure just what exactly we were watching right now. From the claws that had shown up out of nowhere to why Aarick appeared to have completely blocked out everything from the world around him.
So even though I didn't understand quite what was happening, I knew that if I didn't stop it, something horrible would happen. Yet, I couldn't even open my mouth, much less move my body.
And then, Aarick raised his arm. As the bracer on Hugo's arm had already activated and saved his organs from bursting once, there was now nothing that could save him from what Aarick was about to do...
"Get yourself together you fool!"
… or so it should have been, if not for the fact that Ms. Zito was having none of it.
With her face extremely pissed, she instantly closed the distance between the two boys, taking a hold of Aarick's arm. Afterward, she had just kind of... thrown him away? So now we were all watching the spectacle of seeing a white-haired youth flying through the air, him looking just as confused as we.
All of us except for one person seemed to find all of this extremely entertaining.
"Hahaha! She actually just threw him! Look at him go!"
Turning my head towards the yellow-haired Astor, I wasn't quite sure what to feel about him getting closer to Aarick, but at the same time, I was very thankful that there was at least one person that didn't care about his reputation.
****
[Aarick's Pov]
'Why am I here?'
'-Yeah, why are you here?'
"Man, you got way too into it today, didn't you Aarick? But seeing Hugo's stupid face after he realized that he lost was so great!"
Currently sitting in the cafeteria of the academy for the very first time, having pretty much been dragged here by Astor, I wasn't sure how exactly this situation came to be.
Because not only was Astor sitting in front of me, but around the table, multiple students from my class had gathered for lunch.
Celina, Peter, Lydia, Stella, and Sophie were all sitting around the table casually eating their lunch as if they didn't find anything wrong with this very weird situation. Why was it weird? Because I was part of it!
"Come to think of it, that ability you used was super strange! What kind of ability is it? You know, those claws! What element did you get blessed by?"
Now, all of the eyes were suddenly raised and turned toward me, everyone seemingly very curious to hear my answer. Luckily, I had already practiced what I was going to say if someone asked me this question.
"I wasn't blessed by any of the elemental gods. And the claws are just that, claws."
Picking up on the bait I was laying out, Celina suddenly decided to participate in the conversation as well.
"So, you're an irregular?"
"That's what I'm told."
With everyone around the table taking a second to think about it, it didn't take long until they all looked like they accepted the explanation. Though there was a brown-haired woman who seemingly yearned for more as Lydia opened her mouth.
"Then, what kind of powers were you blessed with? From what I've heard, irregulars could have all kinds of abilities, with someone even being able to create illusions! So, what's your power?"
'What's she so excited about?'
I couldn't quite understand why she seemed so very intent on getting to know about my abilities, but I also remembered what Dona had told me.
"It's a secret."
"Whaaat?!"
Yes, Dona had told me that as irregular often had lower potential than that of traditional blessings, most of them kept their powers a secret so they could make the most effective use of them in case something happened.
Now, I didn't care too much really if they knew about my powers, as I had already shown them a bit of them during my little floating session in the classroom on the first day at the academy. But knowing that she knew best, I just followed Dona's advice, much to Lydia's vexation.
Because now she was suddenly standing up, leaning her body forward while keeping herself steady with her hands on the table.
"Can't you just tell us a bit about it? Like what can you do, or how does it work? We know you can fly or something, but..."
"Lydia, you're being rude."
Hearing Celina calling her out on what she was doing, it didn't take long for her to go back to her seat as her ears got noticeably red. Despite this, our lunch continued, or rather their lunch as I couldn't actually eat anything, in a very normal kind of way.
'Who could have known that the secret to getting friends was trying to kill someone! Not!'
There was no way I could just relax and accept whatever kind of situation this was. I still remembered how they had looked at me when I had brought Hugo down and... when I had lost a bit of control over the situation.
Thankfully Lucifer had been there with me, as she so often was, waking me up before I did something I would regret. Also, although I had already regained my sense by the point Dona launched me into the air, I was still happy that she also stepped in to save both me and Hugo.
Despite everything working out well, how was I supposed to interpret this then? Astor was one thing because I had already decided that he was a bit of an exception to every kind of rule I could think of, but the rest of them?
Even now I could still feel that Celina absolutely didn't want to be around me after our little interaction, which to some extent was fair as it had been quite the unfair deal, but Stella was also noticeably hesitant to interact with me.
I didn't believe Sophie to be someone to take an initiative like this, so the ones left that could have thought of something like this was only Peter, who had been eating his food in silence since we got here, the way too curious Lydia or the way too excited Astor.
It had to be said that all three of these were people that I didn't think would have some sort of underlying motive for getting close to me, but there was also nothing for them to gain from interacting with me.
Even if I had won against Hugo, it was hard to even call it a win from the start. Because after I had gotten caught off guard, I had just been extremely lucky that he was an idiot that would leave himself open like that.
So, in the end, my head could only reach one conclusion, and no matter how weird this was to think, it was still the only reasonable explanation.
'They just want to try their best and get along with me... Or at least those three might want that.'
It was such a foreign thought for me to have that I almost couldn't believe it. Because so far, in the entirety of my life, there had been only two people who had ever interacted with me out of their own undirtied volition.
One of them had been Levi and the other was someone I hadn't seen for a long, long time, much longer than the duration of my coma.
'-Hey! Aren't I also someone who interacted with you without wanting anything?'
'Huh? What about the thing you wanted me to do in the future?'
'-Ah, right...'