At Aigis Academy, classes had kicked off in full force and all the students were in their class listening to what their teachers had to teach them for the day.
In class 2-B Arsha could be found sitting on his seat on the farthest end of the last row twirling a pen in his hand.
The teacher in front of the class had just finished her lesson at that moment and without further ado, she made her way out of the class.
The class was very quiet when she was still there teaching, but now that she was gone, the students began to talk again but they did their best to keep their voices low.
They were supposed to have one more period before lunch break but apparently, the teacher handling that subject wasn't present today so this was a free period for them.
While most of the students turned their seats to gossip among themselves, Arsha turned to the window with his pen freely spinning on his fingers.
Claudia turned back to look at him at that moment before turning away with her gaze now on her hand as she seemed to be holding something.
Jessica clearly noticed that but just before she could say anything to her roommate, Claudia was on her feet and was already making her way to Arsha.
She stopped as soon as she got to him and just stood there for a while without saying anything and although Arsha could tell that it was her without looking, he chose to exercise his right to remain silent.
"Hey." She called before tapping him on the shoulder.
'What does she want now?' He sighed inwardly before turning to her to see her holding out the black bandana he gave to her yesterday.
"Here, I was supposed to return it when we met earlier today but I forgot it." She said with an awkward smile on her face.
He didn't respond to that and just stared at the bandana for a while before turning away from her.
"I don't want it back." He uttered.
"Huh? But it's yours."
"Yeah, but you can keep it."
"Are you sure?"
"If I wasn't sure, I would have grabbed it from you the moment you showed it to me." He retorted.
"Hmm." She sighed before folding the bandana in her hand. "Fine if you want me to hold on to it, I'll hold on to it."
He expected her to leave after saying that but she didn't move an inch and the next thing he knew, she was sitting on the surface of his desk.
"Claudia." Jessica gasped.
She wasn't the only one, almost everyone in the class who had been watching them had similar reactions, especially the girls.
Claudia didn't pay any attention to that or maybe she was just oblivious to the situation.
'I'm not letting you ignore me that easily.' She said subconsciously as she turned her gaze to him.
"Hey, so the weekend starts tomorrow."
"Yeah, what about it?" He responded sounding as disinterested as ever.
"Well, I was wondering." She remarked as she pushed herself closer to the wall to relax her back on it. "I was wondering if you were going to be busy." She completed with her gaze on the ceiling.
"That depends on what busy equates to but I don't think I'm going to be doing anything special tomorrow." He disclosed.
'He's responding like a normal person.'
Her face lit up with a smile at that moment as she turned to him.
"So, do you want to….."
"Sorry to interrupt your cozy moment Claudia, but I'd like you to return to your seat now."
That was their homeroom teacher, Mrs. Nesta and she was standing at the entrance now.
Nesta was a middle-aged woman with brown hair and a slightly chubby body, she always had a pair of old-fashioned glasses on and always got irritated by the slightest triggers.
For some reason she had it out for Claudia which was strange given the fact that she was quite close to all the teachers but her.
The feeling between teacher and student was mutual because as soon as Claudia saw her, she rolled her eyes and hissed.
"What's her problem now?" She grumbled as she made her way back to her seat.
"Alright, I just wanted to inform all of you that the mandatory second-year beast hunt exercise will start next week, this exercise will require you to form groups of three so keep that in mind, later."
That was what she wanted to tell the class and now that she had done it, she disappeared.
"Groups of three, huh," Claudia muttered before turning to Arsha who was busy looking at the sky through the window.
Meanwhile, Jessica was looking at her with a worried expression on her face.
"What did he do to you?" She muttered.
____________ ____________
A couple of minutes passed and lunch break was finally here, the cafeteria was always filled up during this time of the day and today wasn't any exception.
Among the students was Ariel who was sharing a table with Noelle just as always and while Noelle was eating the food before her, she was sipping the contents of a medium-sized juice box with a frown on her face.
Noelle was trying to enjoy her food but that look on her face was unsettling for her.
"Fine, what is it?" She sighed.
"It's just absurd." She said as soon as she pulled the straw out of her mouth.
She had been waiting for her to ask that question and now it was time to go on a rant.
"What's absurd?"
"Everything about this." She snapped. "I mean from the autopsy it was obvious that the demon from that day was just a third-tier demon but there were numerous master Tier and Lord tier beasts in the arena, he couldn't have caught all those by himself." She articulated.
"So you're saying a stronger force was involved."
"Yeah." She responded with a nod.
A first-year student who was walking by at that moment tripped on something and was about to fall but just before she could fall, she found herself gently pushed back to her feet with her food tray still in her hand.
She turned to her left at that moment to see Ariel sitting there but she was too engrossed in her discussion with Noelle to look at her.
"Thanks, Miss Ariel." She said before quickly hurrying to her seat.
"So, you're saying it's one of the Demon Lords?" Noelle inquired.
"Most likely the one that attacked our school but she claimed to not know anything about it. It's obvious that they're trying to pull something. I mean that stunt alone killed a lot of people but instead of looking into it, they punish me and cover it up as nothing because they're afraid of another war breaking out, absurd." She scoffed before slamming her hand on the table. "A war is better if they're using backhanded methods to get rid of us."