Brissia and Madame Ouden's deadly duel left the campus deserted. Several building particles seemed to fall, as if they had just been hit by a giant. Blue and red sirens wailed outside the building, accompanying patrolmen who surrounded the giant pit with handguns.
At the bottom of a staircase facing the window, Brissia and her despised teaching assistant sat breathless. Even though they believed that the faint light had saved them, they were actually imprisoned. Plus, their situation reminded Brissia of pieces of her dream before Harris woke up.
"Really, what's the issue you have with that professor?"
His irritated question snapped her out of her reverie.
"A lot."
The teaching assistant chuckled in displeasure, observing the silence that enveloped them. Suddenly, bad premonition struck him. Silence in hiding seemed to have been their safest way, ignoring the real threat.
"Wait! Where do you wanna go?!" Brissia whispered as she got up and held the teaching assistant's arm. "She's dangerous!"
"So are you!"
The teaching assistant brushed off Brissia's hand without caring about her feelings. However, just as she insisted on asking for the remedial task, she too was not afraid to make her point.
"Do you think you can avoid both?"
Brissia's words turned the teaching assistant's irritated gaze into a fierce one. He walked down the corridor, but then a muffled sound from behind stopped him.
"Why don't we go through this together?!"
Brissia controlled her ragged breaths, blinking her teary eyes. Fragments of her dream circled around her head again when the teaching assistant only glanced briefly at her to give her a cold, sharp look.
"You're the one who dragged me into this, even though I know you didn't mean to."
She widened her eyes. Right before she could stop him, the man appeared to cover his ears tightly and continued walking toward the end of the corridor.
"I beg you, don't turn!" she shrieked.
Bam!
The teaching assistant's body crashed into the wall at the intersection of the corridors, causing her heart to drop to the floor.
"No…"
Her heart was torn apart by his collapse. When she noticed the teaching assistant was motionless, her soul seemed to leave her.
However, just as she was going to approach him, a long-dressed woman's shadow showed up at the beginning of the corridor.
"Ugh," Brissia groaned, holding her head and steadying herself as Madame Ouden headed toward her.
"How is it Brissia? Do you really think I was going to give you a free ride to and from Archtier?"
Brissia was becoming more determined to flee as the woman approached her. She couldn't save anyone there. Being by herself and able to ask for assistance from the other side was her only chance for salvation.
"You have to give back what you've borrowed, Brissia Niverte!" Madame Ouden exclaimed while aiming her purplish light at Brissia.
"I have never borrowed anything from you!"
Madame Ouden widened her eyes when Brissia turned the knob on the lecturer room door.
"No! Hold—!"
Her exclamation was interrupted by Brissia who entered the room without waiting for her to finish. She growled, sending the purplish light scattering everywhere in her palm.
"This is said to be the work of a witch, huh?"
A patrolman glanced through the glass door when his colleague said so.
"I'm not surprised. The damage... huh? Get down!"
The patrolmen scrambled to get away from a glass door as a purplish light shot through, sending shards of glass flying everywhere.
Crash!
Thud!
Someone unexpected had to cut off Gabriel, Lucia, and Neya's conversation in the editorial office typing room.
"Brissia?!"
Ignoring their shock, the girl quickly got up and ran out of the room. Neya and Lucia followed her close to the main door, calling her repeatedly.
"Your shoulder is injured, Brissia!"
Gabriel caught up with the two, stopping to stare at the editorial office door that had just closed. Before long, the individuals who had been watching Brissia in shock began to refocus.
"It was Brissia, wasn't it? What could have hurt her?"
Neya's question and worried expression left him in a short silence. Then he said, "Perhaps she ran into a bit of trouble trying to get here."
After catching her breath, Brissia continued walking northward until the orange sky turned a deep blue color. She slowed down as she noticed the silence in the headquarters front yard.
When she glimpsed gold-bearing agents in front of the main entrance, she fled into hiding. But when she was about to pass another SURVIVE building's wall, a voice turned her head.
"Pst! Brissie!"
Standing in the dim light, Harris and Debora waved their arms in signal. Though a horrifying flashback flashed before her eyes as she saw Harris's face, she quickly approached them.
"Where have you been? You really act like you're on the wanted list!" Debora whispered, half annoyed and half worried.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Brissia asked while holding her knees and panting.
"Marius Pagan was eager to capture you, either alive or not. He even excluded Drey of his duties!" she continued. However, the wound on Brissia's shoulder distracted her focus.
"Exclusion? Since when?"
Debora turned to look worriedly at Brissia. "Wait, you're—"
"Since you're disappeared with that vile butterfly. Come, we shall not waste any time in this damned glasshouse," Harris cut in, walking ahead of them into the woods, causing Debora to purse her lips and nod resignedly.
Meanwhile, in an hallway of the SURVIVE building, a blonde haired girl walked quietly into the silence of the night. Even though there were several agents with golden crow emblems standing side by side, it was as if she was the only one breathing.
Until then, she stopped as she saw the figure she was looking for standing back to her. The head of the intelligence agency was among the three individuals who were obligingly staring at the gray-eyed man.
"Choose, Drey. You or your cousin."
Her eyes widened as she watched him, condemned for his callous obedience to harsh laws. It appeared as though he was receiving special attention on his worst day, with the cold air striking him through to his bones, as his shoulders shone in the moonlight.
"I…"
His deep, gravelly voice, which had seemed so aloof and haughty for so long, made her blink.
"…Chose neither."
Marius Pagan's gaze drifted to the blonde girl as an agent next to him whispered to him.
"Oh, is the reason you hate your cousin that she is hiding your repulsive little secret?" Marius asked, smirking.
Drey glanced quickly behind him, only to find a furious looking Fayrl. Between anger and disbelief, he stared closely at the blonde haired girl there.
"Your past choices have also consistently been abhorrent."
"What?"
Marius glared at Fayrl, who calmly replied to his words. "You do realize that the agent who was affected by Noir Dust has a higher potential, don't you?"
She fearlessly stepped closer to them.
"That's why you want to get rid of every agent affected by the poison so that what happened ten years ago doesn't happen again."
"Enough, Fayrl!"
Drey pushed Fayrl away from them.
"Every word you say, you better think about how much weight it has," Drey hissed. "Don't make yourself any more useless after you wasted the opportunity he offered you last time."
"So what have you done with the opportunity you've gained?" Fayrl asked in a cold, low tone. "You didn't even set foot on the battlefield."
"I protect everyone!"
"No!"
Fayrl controlled her ragged breath. "Not everyone. Not even yourself," she said in a lower voice.
Without saying a word, Drey stared at Fayrl, who appeared to be concealing her despair behind a fierce expression on her face. Then a chuckle turned their heads.
"There was once a phenomenal agent who was controversial for having sparked the district feud," said Marius, "but it's a shame that he's probably hiding somewhere now."
"He's dead!"
Drey's correction stole Marius's glance. "How dare you try to fool me when the truth is right in front of your nose? I know what he looks like."
Fayrl stared at the two with confusion and wariness as Drey seemed more cornered the closer Marius got to him.
"And I'd love for someone to catch him as determined as I am to catch our little agent who summoned a witch to the front yard," he said, glancing at the blonde girl frozen behind Drey.
"I don't want!"
Drey's gray eyes widened when he heard a clinking sound. He turned his head, watching how the golden crow emblem rolled across the floor as an agent wearing the same emblem was strangled on the wall by Fayrl's bluish light.
"No, Fayrl! Let them go!"
Hansen ran down the hallway toward her, but the girl didn't glance. Seeing that, Marius thrust both hands forward, causing Drey and Hansen to hold their necks and widen their eyes.
"Ohok!"
Fayrl turned in surprise to Hansen and Drey. She aimed her left palm at Marius, but a light blue shield protected it without a single touch. Alas, she ended up being knocked to her knees by other agents wearing golden crow emblems.
"Now the choice is yours."
Her blue pupils quivered as she watched the neon blue light evaporate from Drey's body and Hansen's.
"Fayrl… please," Hansen pleaded in a low voice.
Fayrl clicked her tongue and withdrew her hand quickly. A number of agents who were detaining her turned to dragging him away.
"Get Drey out of here," Marius ordered as he turned around, "now."
The two agents beside Marius grabbed Drey, keeping Fayrl from moving. Drey turned at her listlessly, but an agent immediately straightened his head and they were all gone after an intersection.
"Are you okay?"
Fayrl sighed when Hansen looked at her worriedly.
"Do I look like I'm okay?" Fayrl asked, annoyed. "Besides, I should be the one asking that."
Hansen stared unblinkingly at the girl for a moment. He then moved closer to her, causing Fayrl to look at him in surprise. However, when his hand had just reached her jaw, he suddenly withdrew it and looked away quickly.
"What was that?" Fayrl asked, blinking. "Did you try to—"
"I did," Hansen murmured while looking down. "And it was shameful of me to think I could protect you by exposing my vulnerability in this situation."
Fayrl didn't blink, even when Hansen had taken several steps back from her.
"D-don't try to protect me. Protect Brissia and Harris."
"Why? Aren't they strong enough that they don't hesitate to cause problems?"
The two of them walked side by side through the dimly lit hallway.
"They probably won't be able to handle this one, especially since I'm in it."
Hansen looked at those blue eyes that no longer showed ice on their surface. On the contrary, the night air seemed to make her shiver.
The girl turned her head as a heavy cloak landed on her shoulders.
"Whatever your choice, I will not give you up to him."
Those words silenced Fayrl along her way down corridor with him. The moonlight that cast their shadow drowned her in thoughts, deeply. But it wasn't everlasting since a hand suddenly pat her in the shoulder firmly, as if to give her strength in the middle of the gust of the wind.
She sighed with a flat gaze.
"Please bear with it for a while, Brissia, Harris."