Useless Thing!

"By the time the sun sets on the third day..." Leona thought to himself.

"Sneak into the Atlantica Memorial Museum and take a certain picture..." Ruggie looked to them with a look of pity.

Leona groaned as he thought the future of the two stuck in his room.

"You have... my condolences..." Ruggie responded hesitantly.

"You shouldn't say stuff like that when the game has just begun, y'know!" Grim pointed out with a scowl.

Lotus stuffed her blueberry muffin into his mouth shutting him up as Lotus sighed, "This is really an unfortunate situation to be in..."

Ruggie nodded, "To begin with, isn't the Atlantica Memorial Museum underwater? How exactly do you plan to get there?"

Hm..." Lotus thought for a bit, "I don't think I've been to there either. A city underwater..."

Grim ate the muffin she gave him as before he spoke up, "Azul gave us a potion that'll let us breathe underwater."

"We don't know how well it'll work, though." Jack pointed out with doubt.

"It'll work just fine if it's from Azul." Ruggied confirmed, "I don't think his pride would let him make a subpar potion."

"...Hm... Hmph..." Leona hummed to himself in thought before responding with a smirk, "Then shouldn't you hurry up and get a move on? Time is money, they say."

"Ffna! Oh yeah. We should get to the Atlantica Memorial Museum as soon as possible!" Grim cried out in shock upon realization of the time.

"You're right." Jack nodded in agreement, "We've only got three days. There's no time to drag our feet."

"We'll meet up with Ace and Deuce on the way." Grim added with a conceited smirk as he wolfed down the last of his muffin before hopping off the table and waved to Lotus, "We're off!"

Lotus watched the three leave the cafeteria as she called out, "Make sure to be back before class starts..."

With her voice cracking near the end, she stuck another herb into her mouth.

Ruggied feigned a sigh the moment they were out of sight and smirked, "Ah, there they go. Leona, you're so mean."

"... Hah, I don't know what you mean." Leona sneered before noticing Lotus coughing for a bit.

"You're not going to take some medicine for that?" Ruggie questioned curiously.

Lotus sighed, "It doesn't work as effectively as the herb itself."

"Heh..." Leona smirked, "You're a perfect image of a herbivore..."

Lotus laughed, "Then, doesn't that make me a cannibal."

Ruggie looked to her in bewilderment as Leona looked to her in confusion. Finally, Ruggie managed his words with a small smirk, "Haha... That was a good one... Ha..."

Lotus yawned, "They'll solve this in three days, if they're lucky."

Ruggie laughed, "If they can figure out the weakpoint in Azul, they can probably do it. But there's a reason why he doesn't have anything to worry over."

Lotus raised a brow, "His magic?"

"Obviously." Ruggie sighed in exasperation, "What else could it be?"

Lotus raised a brow, "Really?"

She looked to Leona curiously but was surprised to find him look to him in confusion as well. After a couple more seconds of observation, Lotus frowned before she shrugged with a smile, "Well, you'll figure it out..."

Just as she was about to leave, she frowned upon thought again and added, "When you do... Watch your next move carefully, Leona-senpai, Ruggie-senpai..."

Hearing this and seeing her eyes having bore a hole into them earlier, Leona was not pleased and very irritated, but, before he could do anything, Lotus had already made her exit after thanking them for taking in the two as Ruggie was at a lose for words.

"I-Is he serious?" Ruggie stammered in shock, "He actually know what it is?!"

Leona glanced around curiously before he scowled, "Those two aren't around too... Tch!"

"Say, Leona, what do you think Azul's weakness is?" Ruggie looked to him in confusion.

Leona huffed in irritation, "Hmph... At least, we know that octo-punk does have a weakness, after all."

Suddenly, an idea came across him as he nodded quietly to himself, "This year's fresh-babies... are rather peculiar this time..."

.....

When Lotus opened her eyes again, she found herself in a tree as she noticed that she was back in her red dress and out of her disguise again.

"What are you doing this time?"

Lotus looked down curiously before noticing the red figure of the Heartslabyul dormleader. She saw this with a look of curiosity as she pushed herself off of the branch.

"Good evening!" Lotus responded with a wide smile.

Riddle nodded in greeting as well, "Good evening."

"Hi!" Cater called out as he popped out from a nearby rock following after Trey.

Trey looked around to find them back at where they had been left off at before continuing, "Is there really no method to control this?"

Lotus hummed, "I've talked with Little Jun, but he doesn't know yet."

"Yet?" Riddle raised a brow.

Lotus nodded in exasperation, "Sometimes, knowledge regarding to their abilities can be inherent and require certain conditions to unlock it. For Little Jun, he needs to get stronger and a little older before he can decipher a way for me to control this."

Cater sighed in disappointment, "Then, there's no way around this for a while..."

Trye nodded, "It's a good thing that this didn't happen right before our finals."

"Well, what about your mission." Riddle questioned curiously to Lotus as he grew more worried about the situation at a bigger picture, "Has those intruders left the school yet?"

Lotus wore a smirk, "No, they called for back up."

"Wait, what?!" Cater looked to her in bewilderment.

Riddle scowled as he looked to her with judgemental eyes, "There are over a three hundred students in this school and you're saying that you've let the enemy sneak more people inside?"

Unaffected, Lotus shrugged, "Nah... But, I am planning to finish them and seal their array, but..."

"But, what?" Riddle frowned again.

"I can't guarantee they won't just make another one." She responded bluntly, "If I don't strike them at the source, they would continue to come back to hunt. The good news right now is that they're too wary to take big actions. Even if it does create chaos, it would make the staffs more vigilant around the mirrors and that's not what they want."

"They want to enter the dorms?!" Trey's eyes widen in horror, "This is really bad..."

Lotus smirked, "Do you think they have permission to easily enter and leave the dorms as they please?"

The three gave them a look of confusion to which Lotus smirked and called out one of the butterflies from her ring, "Take a look..."

The looked to the butterflies in confusion as Lotus watched the clear wings Crystal's butterfly shone before an image was displayed before them like a television.

That night as the number of student soon diminished, a familiar red figure secretly came out of the snake mirror and gazed at a mirror with a scowl before calling out a red cheetah onto the scene.

"Go! Get in there and rip everything to shreds." The man spoke in a harsh tone, "I don't care who it is or what it is. Kill it."

"W-W-Woah!" Cater panicked and nearly fell back wanting to figure out a way to wake himself up.

However, before he could attempt anything, the cheetah rushed into the mirror. A few seconds passed before something was flung back out and crashed into the man as they both plummeted back against a wall. The man looked down to find that it was the cheetah he had sent into create a path for him. However, the body had contorted and the life in it had been snuffed out without a sign of struggle.

"Useless thing!" He scowled and burned the body away with his flames.

"This is..." Riddle's eyes widen in alarm, "Our dorm mirror!"

"Seriously?!" Cater looked at the wings in bewilderment, "He tried to break into our dorm?!"

"Hold on..." Trey frowned and narrowed his eyes, "Something took out that animal he sent out."

The man looked to have had enough and flew into the mirror at lightning speed much to their bewilderment. Before either one could say a word, the man was tossed back out again and rather disgracefully onto his face. He cursed again and stomped onto the steps before kicking the frame of the mirror as hard as he could, but the attack was repelled back at him and he was hit square in the guts which send him flying back again!

It was only after multiple attempts before he gave in and slowly crawled back into the snake mirror.

Lotus was disappointed that it ended so quickly. So, this was the "good" show that Zhang Li talked about? It ended too quickly, though...

"That looks like... the Scarabia dorm..." Riddle frowned as he noticed the mirror the guy had successfully snuck back into.

Lotus nodded with a yawn, "Everyone will be fine. Once they are in the mirror, the array's I placed will suck the mana right out of them and they would be walking against an enormous amount of gravity on their shoulders. If they want to strike the students, they'll have to get past my arrays first."

Trey looked to her curiously, "What was it that killed the animal back there?"

Lotus smirked, "What do you think it was?"

Trey grew curious again before the idea hit him and his eyes widen before he composed himself and asked, "How do we know that they won't break the promise they made to you, then?"

Lotus sighed as she plucked out a lotus pod from the nearby pond and peeled out a seed, "It won't happen because the compromise to breaking it would be their lives."

"Eh?!" Cater shuddered involuntarily.

Lotus sighed, "You saw what they could do. If something attacks the students in the dorm, these forces won't hesitate to kill the intruder if necessary. The only way to protect themselves is if they aren't threatening the students or either one of you guys give them the permission. These guardians could feel the aura around you, so they can pick up whether the people entering are students, staffs or intruders. They won't blindly do things that could risk the school's people their wellbeing. If they intentionally attack you, they'll be sealed back. If they kill a student, they'll die along with them by lightning strikes. These vows they make aren't for the faint of heart, so they take their jobs very seriously."

"I see..." Riddle nodded with a sigh of relief before turning to her, "Then, what about the other dorms?"

"I've already made contact with the guardian in Savanaclaw, but not the other dorms, so I can only use the arrays to protect everyone right now. Besides..." Lotus plopped a seed into her mouth and ate it before explaining, "Right now, these guys are stuck in a place away from the staff members too, so the teachers are also safe. If they want to do something, they'll have to bring in stronger people or get stronger themselves. However, with how things are at this moment, they can only get stronger themselves and that's only when... Oh!"

They looked down to the butterfly again as they saw a few figures walk out from the mirrors. Upon seeing the man in red, the younger girl sneered, "What's wrong, Kong Fang? Did you get kicked out again?"