Miscalculation.

After Life Orientation concluded, Jennifer had made it out of the office in time to stop by the girls' lavatory. She examined her surroundings to ensure that nobody was within earshot before closing her eyes and concentrating profoundly until a bright ochre effulgence filled the room.

“Jen, status report,” a disembodied voice demanded from the bright light.

“So far I've befriended the subject, but there seems to be a mass infestation of undercover Daeii. The amount of sinister Kaimei present in this school tells me so.” she spat with both disgust and disappointment.

A sigh sounded as the voice spoke once more, “By the tone of your voice I'm guessing a lot of them are of Serpentine race?”

“Precisely, I can't beleive this hasn't been noticed before. Its really getting to me,” her fists clenched tightly.

“Do as you must Jen, just don't blow your cover before you succeed, and return the subject unharmed.” with that, the bright light flickered dimmed until it was gone.

Jennifer burst through the door and dashed toward the direction her class was headed when she last saw them. Luckily, they were still lined up and the educator had just arrived by the looks of it. She hastily got into line and did all she could not to meet the eyes that now examined her intently. Eventually the educator allowed everybody to enter before beginning her lesson.

It had been a long an awfully boring thirty minutes of math class when Dwayne became restless. The monotonous voice of Ms Daly was like a lullaby whose tone was not pleasant but had dropped a majority of the heads in just fifteen minutes. His hand slipped into a small open compartment in his mauve backpack and retrieved a dictionary which he began skimming through.

“. . .which is why the inverse rule is so oftenly mistaken for rule three of exponential equations.” Ms Daly's index finger adjusted the glasses that had now fallen onto the bridge of her nose then gazed indifferently at the dozing pupils.

She then saw the intriguing head of strawberry blonde hair and the corners of her mouth tugged to form a hideous expression that was her equivalent of a smile. She noisily scribbled an equation on the board that was easily two grades ahead of the class before her.

“Alright class, pay attention as the newcomer — her finger slid down the register on her desk and stopped at the foreign name — Jennifer, solves the following equation on the board. Sweetie would you be so kind as to come up front? ”

Jennifer's hands balled into fists on her lap beneath the desk she sat at. They balled along with parts of her skirt and creased the polyester fabric. She took a deep breath through her nose and nodded in response.

“Y-yes ma'am,” she rose from her desk with cold feet and reluctantly made her way up front.

A majority of the class was still asleep but a few heads rose in interest. Dwayne's finger tip finally stopped in horror as the origin of an antagonistic being matched that of a name he had heard. He shook his head and simply shrugged the information aside as if it were dust on his shoulder.

Ms Daly passed Jennifer the marker, something none of the 8C students had gotten the privilege of holding, and was satisfied by the envy on some of the pupils' faces. “Solve for the variable if seven added to the square root of four subtracted from variable-x equates to ten.”

“Uh...okay,”

At first glance, the perplexity of the sum disoriented her momentarily. She closed her eyes as her hand shakily brought the tip of the marker onto the white board and leisurely traced over the written sum. Oh, I see what this is.

Everybody that was not asleep in the room examined her with mixed expressions of curiosity. Jennifer's eyes opened as her grip on the marker tightened with unyielding determination.

“Step one, isolate the surd,” she articulated strongly as she transposed the seven over to the right hand side of the equation thus reciprocating it.

“Ten minus seven is equal to three.” Her hand neatly wrote as she spoke aloud, “Step two, square both sides of the equation to void the square root ”

“Oh?” Ms Daly's index finger adjusted her glasses once more as her posture straightened with renewed interest. Dwayne cocked a single brow as he tried to recall such a method of calculation but decided it was not worth the trouble.

“Step three, treat it as an equation. Thus four subtracted from variable-x is equivalent to nine, transpose the four to the right hand side and reciprocate the sign,” her expression was of utmost concentration.

“Four added to nine is thirteen therefore variable-x is equivalent to thirteen.” with a final stroke she underlined the answer and placed the cap onto the marker then said on the tail end of a sigh, “Done.”

“Well well well,” Ms Daly's hands clapped mockingly slow as if taunting Jennifer. “I knew it, you are an Agno. There is no way a normal child of your age and grade could solve that equation without having been taught the method unless they were intellectually advanced. . .and you don't look like that type.”

Jennifer dropped the marker in shock. Quickly she tried to deceive the woman before her, “I don't know what you're talking abo—”

“—Not only that, but were you even trying to conceal your Kaimatic signature? Your repulsive scent is so abound. Thus, as an enemy of my species, you shall die by my hand!”

The ambience of the classroom suddenly felt gloomy and somewhat sinister as three diagonal glowing dots burnt themselves onto Ms Daly's chest, causing her eyes to turn red with vertical slits for pupils, her skin to become moist and scaly and a lengthy tail to sprout from her rear end. The entire class dropped their heads with sickening thuds to the desks as their minds became overwhelmed by what they saw. All except for Dwayne who was aghast and could not move due to mental shock.

Dammit! I should have known it was a trap. Jennifer thought as her cover was blown to bits, “Alright then, I'll just have to cremate your living body. Seari—”

The Serpentine Daeo hissed and bore her poisonous fangs then spat a stream of boiling hot acid toward Jennifer's face. In response Jennifer arched backward to allow the stream to pass her by prior to contacting the floor with both palms and boosted her body upwards with her legs close together in an attempt to kick the beast's chin. The Daeo caught one of her legs in an iron grip then exerted massive amounts of force into crushing the ankle.

“GAAAAARGH!!” Jennifer's heartwrenching scream was subsequent to the sound of bones being ground. Excruciating pain doubled her vision and emaciated her slightly. The beast swung her into the white board with so much force that it left an indent of Jennifer's physique into its surface before encompassing her neck in the taut grip of her tail and squeezing mercilessly.

“Die you frail little bitch, DIE!” hysterical laughter filled the room as she tightened the grip. Jennifer spat blood into the beast's eyes,b briefly blinding her and loosening the grip on her neck just enough for raspy speech to exit.

“N-never— she coughed — instead. . .I will reduce both you and your vulgar — she coughed again — language to ash!” Jennifer's hair illuminated the room with blinding yellow light as each strand rose and became animate with worm like movements. Her eyes opened widely and shone in a similar fashion. “Searing Pier!”

The floor beneath the Daeo rumbled in response by cracking rapidly until a similar light shone from each crack. Abruptly the ground gave way and ousted a searing hot column of cylindrical, blinding flames upward, devouring both entities within it grasps. The flames burst through the ceiling and intensely heated the classroom. Dwayne retreated below his desk in the hopes of minimising his exposure to the heat as the column continued to shoot up at high speed with its temperature increasing proportionally.

“KSSSSSSAAA!!” the beast bellowed as the blaze incinerated her flesh along with every other part of her within mere seconds. The flames ceased then dispersed into amorphous specs of benign fire and a plume of smoke ascended through the hole in the ceiling and out into the open.

“Rest in variable-p, you old hag.” Jennifer was soon unveiled by a clearing haze and appeared to have suffered no damage at all with the exception of her singed clothing. She cussed at the searing pain that shot up her leg when attempting to stand unsupported which forced her into kneeling.

“Tch, just how long are you planning to stay behind that desk?”

Startled, Dwayne reluctantly rose from behind his timber haven while beathing heavily out of fear. His hands balled tightly and kept at his sides as he cautiously approached Jennifer.

“Oh?” Jennifer sounded as she sensed the anger and fear that emanated from Dwayne's aura. “Don't tell me you're afra—”

“Devil,” he spat the word with both disgust and anger that it reverberated loudly in the room. Each step he took in progression was slow and heavy as if he were wading through mud.

“Huh, what do you mean?” she asked casually whilst sitting with her broken ankle in hand and facing him.

“It makes sense now,” Dwayne halted progression merely feet away from Jennifer and glared straight into her eyes. “You're the Devil! Diabellein means Devil in Latin. . .so, have you come to kill me and everybody else in the school too?” hysterical laughter escaped through his mouth as he tightened his fists.

Jennifer examined her ankle whilst she listened indifferently to Dwayne's speculations. With her free hand she retrieved a minute, scarlet capsule which she pressed onto her hooked index finger with her thumb. She was ready to launch it.

“I would have liked to administer this with your consent but in your current state of mind, reasoning with you would be futile. . .so,” she flicked the capsule with her thumb, causing it to soar with incomprehensible accuracy toward Dwayne's open mouth. “Bottoms up!”

“Wai — the capsule entered his mouth and struck the gag reflex thus causing him to instinctively swallow it — hng” Dwayne felt it slide down his throat and instantaneously began to hyperventilate. A sharp pain pierced his heart and brought him to his knees, blood trickled from his mouth and his vision doubled.

“Tch—!” a second white-hot pain burnt from between his eyebrows to the base of his skull. It burnt as if acid were disintegrating his brain, prompting him to clutch at the sides of his head madly and begin pulling at his hair. The intense sensation flipped his eyes in a manner that left behind only the white sclera of his eyes and soon he saw nothing but darkness. His consciousness left him and caused his body to fall to the floor with a sickening thud.