Chapter 17: Finally Out or Is He?
As they move away from the eerie black-and-white landscape, Kuroyami suddenly feels a sharp pain lancing through his chest, as if invisible talons were closing around his heart.
He doubles over, gasping, one hand clutching at his necklace.
Deep, glowing cracks spider across its surface, pulsing with an unearthly light that seems to beat in rhythm with his racing heart.
The cracks deepen, widening like hungry mouths.
For a brief moment, his vision fractures—kaleidoscopic flashes of fragmented memories assault him.
Voices speaking in a language both hauntingly familiar and utterly foreign, their whispers crawling beneath his skin.
Aimi notices this and subtly tenses. Though her face remains a careful mask, her body language betrays her.
She doesn't say anything, but Kuroyami catches a flicker of recognition in her eyes—not surprise, but confirmation.
'Something is off about this woman. She knows something but what I wonder.'
But before he can question her, the cracks on his necklace slowly seal themselves, the ominous light fading like dying embers.
The pain vanishes as suddenly as it came, leaving behind only a hollow unease that settles into his bones.
As they walk deeper into the forest, shadows seem to twist unnaturally around them. Kuroyami's senses sharpen with primal fear.
He hears footsteps—soft, calculated, and following them at a distance.
Too rhythmic to be an animal, too deliberate to be the wind.
He glances back, heart hammering against his ribs, but there's nothing but trees whose branches seem to reach for them like gnarled fingers.
Then, a whisper brushes against his ear, the words cold as winter frost, though no one stands beside him.
"You've already forgotten about me... Did it change anything?"
He whirls around so fast his vision blurs, adrenaline flooding his system—but still nothing.
The forest watches, silent and indifferent. Aimi and Claudine continue walking, showing no reaction.
Did he imagine it? Or is something lurking just beyond the veil of perception, something that only he can sense?
Kuroyami can't shake the feeling that Aimi knows more than she's letting on.
Her movements are too precise, her calmness too perfect in this place of wrongness.
She guides them to a part of the forest which looked different from rest of the forest, like a painting of a forest rather than the real thing.
The trees stand at perfect intervals, their leaves barely rustling despite the breeze he can feel on his skin.
"We should be able to get out from here. The magic is less intense," Aimi explained.
Her expression unreadable behind the mask that now seemed less like protection and more like concealment.
Both Kuroyami and Aimi had a multitude of questions circling like hungry wolves, but escaping this unknown place remained their first priority.
The air itself felt heavy with unspoken truths.
"That's great," Claudine said excitedly, though her eyes remained watchful, scanning their surroundings with practiced vigilance.
Kuroyami exhaled slowly, trying to calm his racing thoughts. 'Whoooo, finally we are leaving this scary place.' Yet even as relief washed over him, something nagged at the edges of his mind
A warning, perhaps, or a memory struggling to surface.
Aimi moved her hand through the air with practiced precision, drawing a small magic circle that glowed with increasing intensity.
As her fingers traced invisible patterns, the very fabric of reality seemed to bend around her will. Kuroyami and Claudine watched, transfixed by the display.
'Good, looks like I got here in time,' Aimi thought, her mind calculating possibilities even as her hands worked the spell.
'I think Theo should be done with the task I gave him.... Now we can move to the next part.'
After the magic circle was complete, a door materialized before them—a vertical rift of intense, almost blinding white energy that hummed with power.
It stood impossibly in the air, edges crackling with arcane potential.
'Wow, amazing, what did she do? I wonder if I'll be able to cast magic like that,' Kuroyami thought, awe momentarily overshadowing his suspicion.
His fingers unconsciously moved, mimicking Aimi's gestures.
Claudine looked calm, almost bored, but her eyes never left Aimi's hands, studying, memorizing.
"It's ready. Just go through this door, and you'll be back at school and safe again," Aimi instructed,
Her voice carrying an undercurrent of urgency that hadn't been there before.
"O—oh, that's great. Thank you very much," Kuroyami said, performing a small bow even as his mind raced.
His necklace felt unnaturally heavy against his chest.
'But what about the test? I hope this won't get me in trouble with that little demon teacher of ours,' he worried.
He was imagining those cold, knowing eyes that seemed to belong to someone far older than the childlike form they inhabited.
Claudine stepped toward the door first, walking with practiced elegance that seemed out of place in their dire circumstances.
Before stepping through, she turned, her gaze lingering on Aimi with quiet assessment.
"We appreciate your assistance and are thankful you took time out of your busy schedule to help us," she said in a calculated but respectful tone that carried subtle layers of meaning.
Kuroyami followed, his steps hesitant, each one heavier than the last.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he approached the doorway.
Something whispered warnings in the back of his mind, but the alternative—staying in this twisted place—seemed worse.
He passed through the bright door, the energy washing over him like static electricity.
For a moment, everything was white, painfully bright, and then—
He found himself in a room filled with harsh, clinical light, unlike the normally warm-lit student council room.
When he turned his head to the left, a figure was watching him—silhouetted, features indistinct yet somehow familiar.
Their eyes seemed to bore into him, through him.
Then, with a violent jolt, he woke again, moving his upper body up as if breaking free from a nightmare's grip, sweat beading on his forehead.
"Finally awake, huh, Kuro?" Claudine said, her dark eyes watching him with an intensity that hadn't been there before.
Something in her gaze seemed different, as if she were seeing him for the first time. "Come, let's go."
'Oh, Claudine... it's good to see her,' he thought, relief washing over him. 'I wonder how long I was out, and what was that about earlier? I thought Aimi said I'd be back at school if I passed through the door...' The inconsistency nagged at him, a loose thread in the fabric of reality.
He rose from his seat, trying to ignore how his hands trembled.
With deliberate movements, he straightened his uniform, smoothing out invisible wrinkles, before taking the work documents from the table and following Claudine toward the door.
'Today has been really scary, and I still have this heavy feeling in my chest,' he worried as they walked.
Each step feeling slightly wrong, as if the floor were tilting subtly beneath his feet.
The two other council members present sat in eerie silence, watching Kuroyami and Claudine as if they were strangers
Or perhaps as if they themselves weren't fully there, their eyes slightly unfocused, movements too mechanical.
"So what about the test?" Kuroyami asked nervously, the question tumbling out before he could stop it.
"Oh, the test," the question caught Claudine by surprise, a momentary crack in her composure before she carefully rearranged her features.
"Don't worry about it. Obviously, we passed."
The way she said "passed" sent a chill down his spine.
"That's a relief. I can't imagine getting on the bad side of our teacher." The words felt hollow in his mouth.
'I guess Yuusuke must have already gone home. He would have loved to hear the story about the weird test, but I wonder what was the test, anyway? What exactly did we pass?'
The questions multiplied in his mind like shadows at dusk as they walked through halls that seemed both familiar and subtly wrong.
They entered their classroom, which stood empty and waiting, most students having already gone home.
The afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows at an angle that seemed too precise, too calculated.
Claudine retrieved her belongings while Kuroyami packed his things, movements mechanical.
She turned toward him, lips parting as if about to speak words of grave importance—
Before she could voice his name, their teacher's voice sliced through the air.
"How did it go?" she asked, her childlike appearance belied by the ominous aura flowing around her and the forced sinister smile that stretched her features into something unnatural.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees at once.
Kuroyami's necklace grew cold against his skin.