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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 9 months

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Yuu can do it!

Part 28

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Masterlist

Kuroki woke to Enma mumbling in his sleep. He did that a lot. Today, Kuroki caught the words ‘stop her…!’ which… meant it was probably a nightmare.

He glanced at the time. It was about ten minutes before Enma usually went running…

Yeah, no need to debate then. He reached over Ito and smacked Enma in the arm.

The boy shrieked and fell out of bed, hitting the ground in a series of loud thuds, and (worst of all) dragging the blankets with him.

Ito and Grim slept on. Must be nice to be a deep sleeper.

Kuroki leaned over Ito to peer at Enma, who was glaring at the ceiling for the second time that week. He really had something against it, apparently.

“You good?”

Enma sighed and looked over. “You know – and I’m just spitballing here – but you could just poke me or, I don’t know, say my name and see if that wakes me up?”

“I mean, yeah, but that’s less fun.”

Enma groaned and sat up. After a few moments of deliberation, he cracked a half smile. “Thanks for waking me up.”

He shrugged. “It was an excuse to hit you.”

“Of course it was,” Enma teased, reaching up and ruffling Kuroki’s hair.

Which was just evil, like bedhead wasn’t embarrassing enough. But also…

“It was!”

“Mhmm.”

“I’m not lying!”

“Of course not.”

“Don’t look at me all knowingly when you know nothing!”

Classes that day were… interesting. News had spread fast throughout the dorms, mostly because Ace couldn’t keep his mouth shut about how he was ‘totally going to end the tyrant's reign of terror’ to save his life, and now everyone in Heartslabyul and Ramshackle couldn’t seem to sit still.

Even Enma had struggled to listen to the teachers that day, which should illustrate just how infectious the school’s excitement was.

Apparently, no one had challenged the Heartlabyul Dorm Head since Riddle won during his first week of school.

Yeah, no, no one cared to look away from the clocks on the wall the entire day.

(Outside of Kuroki, who had taken it upon himself to handle bets. Someone had to.)

Kuroki has been abandoned by his friends.

Enma had wanted to change into ‘something more fitting for the occasion’, whatever that meant, and Ito had tagged along to help him, and Grim was ‘coaching’ Ace and Deuce in how to throw a punch like a meter away and there was really nothing stopping him from joining either group…

But all of that was irrelevant. Kuroki has been abandoned. He is very sad.

Until Enma and Ito came back, and suddenly all traces of depression were forcibly ejected from his body, because:

“Enma what the fuck are you wearing?!” Kuroki choked out, trying not to laugh.

The other three spun around, like sharks smelling blood in the water (or, rather, like teens sensing a chance to make fun of someone), and Kuroki no longer felt bad about laughing because everyone else was, too. Even Ito was coughing into their hand to muffle laughter.

Enma was wearing… well, Kuroki wasn’t really sure, to be honest. A long, somewhat kimono-like outfit but with thicker fabric and a helmet of sorts, though the front looked like a sideways jail cell.

They couldn’t really see Enma’s face through the bars, but Kuroki was pretty sure the boy was blushing when he said, “It’s cultural! Where I’m from, swordsmen wear this when facing each other in battle!”

Ace snorted. “Okay, then why don’t Ito and Kuroki know it?”

“I lived in a different area than Kuroki and Enma,” Ito explained. And then they turned their face away to sneeze into their arm.

(Enma dug around in his bag for his handkerchief, and they sent a tiny smile his way as they lifted it to their nose delicately.)

In the meantime, though, Ace and Deuce looked at Kuroki. Who could only shrug. “Do I look like a sports guy to you?”

Ace and Deuce accepted that answer very quickly. Almost insultingly so.

Kuroki narrowed his eyes at them.

Deuce hesitated for just a moment before turning to smile at Enma. “If it would be okay with you, may I wear your helmet?”

For just a second, Enma lifted a hand to his heart, as if touched. And then he seemed to realize that he was doing it, because he tried to play off the movement as him just hesitating to take off the helmet. He wasn’t able to hide the blush or tiny smile on his face though, so he just looked away from them as Deuce slipped the helmet over his own head.

Luckily for Enma, he would be given the free reign to blush without too much teasing, because Crowley chose that exact moment to divebomb into the clearing.

He smiled at all of the unfortunate first years that he had just spooked. “Everyone ready? How about you two get to your positions?”

Crowley did not receive an answer.

But, apparently, there hadn’t been much of a choice to begin with, because he grabbed Deuce and Ace by the arms and dragged their still-stunned bodies toward the center.

The Yuus and Grim didn’t hesitate to follow after, though Grim was much faster, immediately running over to the spray-painted line in the grass that marked how close spectators could be. The Yuus took their time, but not entirely by choice. Ito… was hacking up a lung into Enma’s handkerchief. Enma looped an arm around them, taking most of their weight to help them get there. Enma and Kuroki spared each other looks of concern.

They weren’t the only ones who weren’t having the best time, though. Cater and Trey stood by Riddle, talking to each other in hushed tones, their foreheads wrinkled with worry.

Cater, hesitantly, lifted a hand. “Riddle, what about today’s afternoon tea?”

“You know that the rules stipulate that I take my tea every day at 16:00 sharp.”

“Yeah… but it’s past 15:30… maybe we should call this whole thing off…?”

“I won’t be late,” Riddle scoffed.

“He thinks he’s already won!” Ace said, his knuckles white where he gripped his pen.

Deuce scowled. “He’s barely even looking at us.”

“Rosehearts-kun, their collars, please?” Crowley cut in before the two could forgo their wands in favor of an all-out brawl.

Riddle waved his pen lazily, and Ace and Deuce’s collars disappeared instantly. They both sagged in relief.

“Finally,” groaned Ace, shaking out his hands like one would a limb that had been numb for a while.

Deuce sighed, smiling faintly, tipping his head back as far as it could go now that he had the ability to do so freely again. “Much better.”

“Enjoy your moment of freedom,” Riddle taunted.

“Okay, I may have done something to try and give Ace and Deuce an advantage, and I kind of fucked up, but you guys have to promise you won’t get mad,” Ito whispered hurriedly.

“What did you do?” Kuroki said, a sinking feeling settling into his gut.

“Promise,” Ito said, almost begging.

Crowley held up a seemingly normal mirror. “Once this mirror shatters upon the ground, the duel begins!”

Kuroki and Enma glanced at each other, before nodding, however warily.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Grim said, and it was hard to tell whether he was talking about what was going on with Ito or the duel.

“Greatgreatgreat,” Ito mumbled, mostly to themself, slowly removing their hand from their shirt.

A hedgehog tumbled out, rolling down the slight ramp they’d made with their leg, into the grass.

Aw, cute, Kuroki thought absently.

And then he looked up at Ito, everything hitting him at once.

Ito was allergic to hedgehogs. They’d been holding one against their bare skin since they’d gotten back from helping Enma with his clothes, at the very least.

And he understood what Ito’s plan was, he did, it was a good one, Riddle would definitely freak out over the presumed rule being broken when he saw the hedgehog was out and it might just throw him off enough for Ace and Deuce to get a shot in…

However. The duel was suddenly the last thing on his mind.

“I meant to let out the flamingos, but I couldn’t find —.”

“WHAT?!”

Every head in the clearing turned their way.

Crowley jolted in surprise at the sudden outburst. The mirror slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground, but no one paid it any mind.

Enma started dragging Ito away from the tiny ball of cuteness and murder. “GET AWAY FROM IT! YOU'RE ALLERGIC!”

“A hedgehog?!” Riddle yelped the moment his eyes landed on the pink little guy, his eyes wide.

Trey frowned a little, but there was real panic hidden in his eyes. Still, he tried to stay calm, keeping his voice as even as possible as he said: “You’re allergic?”

Cater didn’t bother with a facade, hissing curses under his breath. He knelt to scoop up the little guy to help get it away, scanning the grass all the while for any more ‘escapees’.

“Oh dear!” Crowley said, his hands covering his mouth, terrified.

It was then that Ace finally realized that the Headmaster’s hands were empty and therefore the mirror had shattered, and that technically the duel had started, and quickly nudged Deuce.

The pair shot a cauldron Riddle’s way.

Riddle nearly got blown over, but he noticed the frankly gigantic thing heading his way at the last possible moment and sent it off-course with a gust of wind of his own. Within a second, he had waved his wand, and Ace and Deuce were collared once again.

“FUCK,” said Ace, almost falling over with the force of the spell.

“To use your own friend’s allergic reaction…” Riddle hissed. “Just how terribly did your parents raise you?”

Deuce paused where he had been heading over to check on Ito, and then whipped around.

He slammed his fist into Riddle’s jaw, sending the small boy backward a couple of steps. Riddle looked at him with wide eyes.

“Do not talk shit about my mom,” Deuce hissed.

Riddle, however stunned, still managed to look smug. “If you don’t want me to say such things then, perhaps, you shouldn’t prove me right.”

“SHUT YOUR SPOILED LITTLE MOUTH!” Ace yelled.

The redhead jerked in surprise, hand frozen where it cradled the bruise blooming on his jaw. “Wh… what?”

“I can’t take this anymore! Forget Riddle, forget the duel, forget all this shit! I’m done!”

“You two…!” Riddle said, his head jerking from Deuce to Ace and back again.

“Kids are not extensions of their parents! If Deuce and I are shitty, then that’s on us! And if you are shitty then that’s on you!”

“What are you even…?”

“Yeah, you had the helicopter mom of helicopter moms, okay? But you are not her! Can’t you think for yourself?! You call yourself the ‘red sovereign’? You’re a baby that’s good at magic!”

Riddle scowled, the tip of his pen glowing a deep red. He pointed it at Ace and Deuce. “Shut up shutupshutUP! My mother was right, and that means I am right, too!”

“Riddle…” Trey said quietly.

He looked around for help, catching Kuroki’s eyes for just a moment to send a pleading look, but Kuroki neither disagreed with Ace and Deuce enough to stop them nor was he currently interested in leaving Ito’s side.

Cater had magically swapped Ito’s clothes for the suit he’d made again, trying to minimize the amount of hedgehog residue still touching them, but it wasn’t enough. A duplicate ran off, looking for a box of hand wipes in hopes that they could at least prevent things from getting worse.

Enma didn’t even look over at Trey. “Can you lift your arms above your head? It should open up your chest and let you breathe better,” he said.

Ito shook their head rapidly, practically smothering their own mouth with the handkerchief. “Not – not my chest. It’s –.” They wheezed, their free hand clutching their throat. “I can’t… what’s the word?” Tears formed in the corners of their eyes. “Mierda. Mierdamierdamierda.”

“That’s okay, Ito-chan,” Cater said, trying for a smile. “Just concentrate on trying to breathe, okay?”

Trey swallowed thickly, realizing he was very much not going to get any help. “How about we all just calm down?”

“Yes,” said Crowley, pinprick eyes concentrated on Riddle’s wand, his lips tight with worry. “The duel is over, and the challengers are disqualified on account of their physical violence. If you fire off that wand, you will be written up for breaking school rules!”

Riddle hesitated on the last sentence.

And then an egg slammed itself into the side of Riddle’s head, spilling yolk down his cheek.

The boy whipped around, his face reddening in anger once again. “Who threw that?!”

There was a moment of hesitation.

Egg Guy stepped up. “I did.”

“No, it was me,” Lackey said, pressing a hand to his chest.

And then everyone was stepping forward, claiming that it was them that had thrown the egg.

“Are you going to punish all of us?” Lackey said, smirking.

Riddle looked at everyone with wide eyes, and in that moment it became obvious that it was sinking in how much people in his dorm hated him.

But then he laughed, a high, almost maniacal sound. “You think you’re fed up? I’m the one that’s fed up with all of you! No matter how strict I am, no matter how many heads I remove, you all insist on breaking the rules! Clearly, none of you value your heads, so I will be taking them from you!”

Everyone’s eyes widened as they realized that Riddle actually could and would punish all of them. People started rushing backward, trying to get away, and yet…

“OFF! WITH! YOUR! HEAD!”

Collar after collar snapped over their necks. A few people raised their wands, trying to at least have a fighting chance, but Riddle was so much stronger.

“Ha! See! None of you can stand up to me! My adherence to rules was correct!”

“Rosehearts-kun! Cease this improper behavior at once!”

“Riddle!” Trey pleaded. “Stop, please!”

Ace, however, laughed. “What did you say to Deuce? ‘If you don’t want me to say such things then, perhaps, you shouldn’t prove me right’? I call you a baby, and now you’re throwing a temper tantrum!”

“YOU TAKE THAT BACK!” Riddle screeched. A tree nearby lifted from the ground, roots and all, and the leaves rustled as they were forced into a finely tuned point. “RETRACT THAT STATEMENT OR I WILL SKEWER YOU WHERE YOU STAND!”

Kuroki shot to his feet. Okay, they’d definitely let this get out of hand. In their defense, their usual common sense and local person with empathy’s lips were currently turning a horrible shade of blue.

Their heads swung back and forth, not sure whether they should stay and help Ito further or go and try to talk Riddle down, too. God, there were two of them, but neither of them wanted to move from their current spots helping Ito. Why couldn’t they just be in two places at once?!

Ace, for a moment, seemed to regret everything, eyeing the tree. But then he shot Riddle a smile. “Do it. Prove me right,” he dared.

Riddle’s nostrils flared. He pointed at Ace, and the tree shot his way.

Cater cried out as the tree slammed into him, branches slicing through him like butter.

Kuroki’s head whipped around to where Cater had just been, and was surprised to find him still there, holding his chest and breathing deeply.

The duplicate, piece by piece, shot back to Cater, leaving the bloodied tree to fall to the ground limply.

Ace stared at the blood pooled at his feet. The box of wipes laying there, red staining the pale blue packaging and smiling bears on the cover. He looked at Riddle. “You… you actually tried to kill me!”

Riddle, however, turned his attention onto the real Cater. The boy was propped up against a nearby tree, breathing hard, a hand on his chest where his alternate self had been run through.

“You, too, Cater?” Riddle said. “And here I thought you, at least, understood… but no matter! I will have to take your head, too!”

But, when Riddle lifted his wand to do just that, nothing but playing cards came out.

And the collars around the necks of the Heartlabyul students dissolved into confetti.

“WHAT?!” Riddle screeched. He lifted his pen again, trying repeatedly to collar them all again, but to no avail.

It clicked.

He whipped around, looking at Trey with glassy eyes. His voice was strangely quiet when he asked, “That’s your magic, isn’t it?”

Trey swallowed thickly. And then he nodded. “My magic can overwrite characteristics for a short time. So, I turned ‘your magic’ into ‘my magic’.”

“No… even you?” Riddle asked, his voice breaking on the last word. “Even you, who knows how much I sacrificed for this?”

“Riddle, please,” Trey begged. “Just listen to us.”

“But you…” Riddle lifted a hand to his head, as if he were feeling faint. “You were raised by such lenient parents. But your magic, it’s stronger than mine. That… that means… she didn’t have to… was it all for nothing?”

Riddle finally broke down crying.

But his tears were tainted a horrible, inky black as they spilled down his face.

#local author stalls writing a fight scene once again #yuu can do it!#twisted wonderland #twst #twst fanfic #twisted wonderland fanfic #yuu twst #twist yuu #twst yuu #twst grim #grim twst #enma yuuken #kuroki yuuya #ace trappola #riddle rosehearts #deuce spade #trey clover #cater diamond #heartslabyul

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 1 year

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Yuu can do it!

Part 21

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Masterlist

As Enma watched Lilia jumpscare Kuroki by appearing out of nowhere just to set his hands on his shoulders, he only thought two things:

1) AAAAAAAAA.

2) He was going to learn magic if it was the last thing he did.

They were very conflicting thought processes, but what could he say? He was a complex fellow.

A complex fellow that was holding his chest like an elderly grandma who had just seen a trans person for the first time, perhaps, but a complex fellow nonetheless.

Speaking of…

Ito recovered from their moment of terror enough to mumble the words: “May I have your pronouns?”

“Sure,” Lilia said, smiling. “I wasn’t really using those, anyways.”

“What do you –?” Ito (now they/them/he/him) started, only to nearly fall out of their/his chair. “WHAT THE FUCK?! I’VE BEEN GENDERED?!”

“Well, you did ask,” Lilia (now / ) pointed out.

“No! I just – I don’t want them!”

Lilia shrugged. “Okay.”

Ito (they/he/him) gave Lilia ( /them) a horrified look.

“Hey, wait a minute, them is mine!”

“But didn’t you say that you wanted me to have it?”

This proceeded to go on for several minutes.

Eventually, Ito managed to fix their pronouns. With the help of Cater, who seemed very much used to these kinds of shenanigans happening when he was around Lilia. Maybe they would have fixed it faster, but Kalim had tried to help and had gotten his own gender stolen. Which he didn’t seem to particularly mind, but it did make giving Lilia masculine pronouns again hard, because his pronouns started to recognize as he^2/him^2 and that was just confusing. Could you imagine trying to say that in casual conversation? Enma could. Because he had had to stumble his way through it. It was torture.

But the torture was over, hopefully, and Lilia settled into the seat by Kuroki. Who looked like he had accidentally bitten into a lemon.

Enma leaned across a still-stunned Kuroki, resting his arms atop the boy’s head, to talk to Lilia. “You can teleport?”

Grim made a squeaking noise. “I was hoping I just missed him walking over…”

“Evidently,” Lilia said, grinning in a way that showed off tiny fangs.

“You’re more shocked by the teleporting than the pronoun thing?” Ace asked, still a little pale.

Enma shrugged. “I’m fine with my pronouns, don’t really need any more or less. However…” He trailed off, his face gaining a strange kind of smile. “Teleportation…” he said dreamily.

“It’s a fae thing,” Cater explained, shrugging.

Enma pouted. His plans for getting places easily were now foiled. Ignore the fact that he couldn’t do magic and wouldn’t have been able to anyways.

“You could always become a changeling,” Lilia offered.

Enma brightened up again.

“Absolutely not,” Ito said.

He groaned. “Well, I guess if mom says no, I can’t.”

“Kalim-senpai, can I have your tray for a sec?”

Kalim scooped everything off his tray and started to give it to Ito, very obviously unaware of the attempted murder he was about to assist in, but Jamil reached between them and took the tray before Ito could get their hands on the weapon. And then he took the opportunity to start cleaning up after the pair of them, muttering something about needing to leave to make Kalim study for a test they had next period.

Kalim yelped and immediately started looking through his bag, presumably for a notebook or textbook to study from.

“Well, aren’t you all just bursting at the seams with youth?” Lilia commented, watching the pair of Scarabia students rush away to go do some very last-minute cramming while Ito and Enma (who were both weaponless and sad) settled for making rude faces and gestures at each other over the table.

Ito and Enma paused in their contest to see who could screw up their face more to give Lilia a strange look. The first years all traded bewildered expressions. Who talks like that?

Cater and Trey, however, looked unfazed… so, apparently, Lilia did. Maybe he was a Shakespeare stan or something.

“Regardless, the reason I came here was to help your friend with the glasses tell you that I am not at the age one would call a child.”

Enma tipped his head to the side. He certainly didn’t act young, and Enma would certainly say that he acted old enough to be a third-year, but the wording of that was strangely careful. The way the fae worded everything was strangely careful, for that matter. Why did he feel like that was important? Why did he feel like he had heard something like that somewhere before?

“But I would also like to inform you that you needn’t talk about and observe us from afar,” Lilia continued. “Are we not all students of the same school? We at Diasomnia welcome you with open arms.”

Glances were spared for the other Diasomnia students, who should definitely not be included in the ‘we’ that Lilia had opted to use. They glared at their table with so much fervor that Enma felt the need to lean away, dragging Kuroki with him. Their glare did not let up in the slightest, but Kuroki seemed to relax a little now that there was about half a meter of space between them, so… a win? Maybe?

Deuce cringed. “Maybe you open us with open arms…”

“Until then,” Lilia said, showing no real sign that he’d heard him other than a wicked little grin. “I apologize for dropping in on your meal. Goodbye.”

And then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, Lilia was gone.

Ace’s eyes flitted over to the Diasomnia table as if to confirm that the fae had gone back, before leaning in to whisper conspiratorially: “Their table is 20 meters away, easy, how the hell did he know that we were talking about him?”

“I don’t think whispering is going to make much of a difference at this point,” Ito sighed.

“Yeah…” Trey said. “A lot of the people from Diasomnia are… interesting.”

“That’s polite for ‘fucked up’,” Grim translated for the table. He looked pale, which should have been impossible for a monster covered in fur, but here they were.

“No, it’s polite for ‘interesting’,” Trey said delicately.

“All of the people in that dorm are good with magic. A bunch of them are fae, too, though, so that makes sense,” Cater said in the kind of tone that suggested that it was common knowledge in this world that fae were better with magic. The Yuus all nodded along accordingly.

Cater nodded back, as if he too was caught up in their false sageness. “Their dorm leader, Malleus Draconia, is, like, the Diasomnia students’ Diasmonia student.”

Enma snapped his fingers. “Malleus Draconia. I heard people talking about him at the ceremony. He’s one of the top mages in the world, right?”

Trey nodded. “Top five, at the very least.”

“And he’s still in school?” Enma asked.

Kuroki groaned and elbowed him in the side. “We’re not going to go pester one of the top mages in the world for information.”

Enma huffed. He is being oppressed by his roommates.

Cater gave an awkward little laugh. “Yeah, no, don’t do that. He’s his own special brand of crazy.”

Ace snorted. “Not that we can talk about crazy dorm heads, though. I mean, the Heartslabyul one collared me for eating a damn tart.”

Ito began making cutting motions across their neck in a clear ‘shut up’ that made even Enma press his lips together to make sure that he was following the instructions.

Ace, however, was too busy shit-talking to notice anyone else: “His narrowmindedness is crazy.”

Everyone started frantically trying to shush him, whether that be by pressing fingers to their lips or shaking their heads or waving their hands to try and get him to actually look at them look at them look at them!

Enma followed everyone’s frantic gaze to find Riddle Rosehearts himself and he, too, started frantically elbowing Ace in the side. Unfortunately, him ‘sucking up’ to a position of authority wasn’t enough of a change in character for it to really phase the boy.

“Really, he blew right past ‘strict’ and straight into being a tyrant –.”

Kuroki finally snapped: “Ace, oh my god, shut up!”

Finally, Ace’s mouth clicked closed, and he noticed that everyone looked like they were very much preparing themselves to see a murder. Ito had bowed their head in a way that made it seem like they might be praying for the boy.

“No, no, let him continue,” Riddle said, his eyes narrowed.

Ace went very, very still.

He turned around slowly, as if he thought that if he did it slow enough Riddle might get bored and leave, until his eyes met those of his dorm leader.

He smiled in a way that was likely supposed to be placating and charming… but really just looked like a grimace. “Dormhead… hi…”

Cater gave what he clearly hoped was a winning smile. “Riddle-kun, you’re looking – uh – super crazy cute today!”

“Cater, if you run your mouth any more I’m going to take it off along with your head.”

“Shutting up,” Cater said, drawing a line across his lips to make it look like he was physically zipping them up.

“Geh,” said Grim, instantly shooting into Kuroki’s arms for protection. A terrible idea, really, Kuroki was probably the least likely to be able to do anything. But whatever. “It’s the guy that put that weird collar on me during the –!”

Kuroki used the proximity to slap his hands over the monster’s mouth.

“And you’re the students who caused all that fuss yesterday,” Riddle said, his eyes flicking away from Ace momentarily to send Grim a severe look. Kuroki was, unfortunately, caught in the crossfire, and the boy looked like he very much wanted to disappear. “I would suggest you keep a collar on your familiar. Though, perhaps, one less ‘weird’. And, perhaps, a muzzle might do him some good.”

Kuroki gave a jerky nod.

“The headmaster is far too kind.”

(Ito made a choking noise. Thankfully, they quickly covered it up by actually choking on their slice of pizza.)

“If you forgive rule breakers, the whole system will collapse. All he has to do to make sure people fall in line is lop off all their heads, but he continues to refuse to…”

Ace’s eyes widened. “He sure looks innocent, but the words that come out of his mouth never are.”

Deuce poured soup into his friend’s lap to make him shut up.

Unfortunately, Riddle did not deem this punishment enough, because he gave him a cold look. The coldness might’ve helped, though, because Ace’s pants were steaming.

Probably not. Ace was still frantically switching between frantically wiping himself off with a napkin and even more frantically looking up at Riddle.

“The headmaster might have forgiven you, but make no mistake, the next time you choose to break the rules, I most certainly will not.”

It was quiet for a moment.

“Say… Dorm leader…” Ace began, and Enma could already tell that this was going to go wrong. He elbowed him in the side, but it did nothing to deter the redhead. “Could you, maybe, remove this collar?”

Kuroki slapped his palm against his face. Ito started praying harder.

Riddle surprised them all by saying: “That was what I had been coming over here to do.”

Enma blinked. That really didn’t seem like much of a ‘tyrant’ thing to do. It had hardly been a few hours.

“But judging from the way you were talking just a moment ago, I don’t believe you’ve learned anything at all.”

Again, Enma thought that was pretty fair. Maybe the collar was a bit much, but…

“You needn’t worry about your classes, as a first-year, you’ll primarily be learning the fundamentals rather than actually using magic – especially at this point in the semester.”

Had he really taken that into account? Enma tipped his head to the side.

“Besides, if you can’t use your magic, there’s no risk of causing another scene, either. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

Enma was heavily reconsidering his opinion of the dorm head. From the looks of it, Ito and Kuroki might have been, too. Ito was even looking at Grim consideringly, as if they were actually thinking of trying to get the familiar a collar of his own.

But then Riddle ruined it: “Now, don’t just sit around chatting away. The 271st Law of the Queen of Hearts states that ‘One must leave their seat within 15 minutes of finishing their lunch’. If you break the rules… well, I believe I’ve made myself clear.”

They all nodded.

Except for Ace.

“Another weird as hell rule to add to the list…” he groaned.

Okay, Ace deserves his punishment, Enma decided. He had never met someone with fewer self-preservation instincts. And that was saying something, seeing as the only thing stopping him from becoming a ghost to see what it was like was the fact that he could simply ask the ghosts he already knew personally to describe it for him.

Riddle narrowed his eyes. “The correct answer is ‘Yes, Dorm Leader!’”

“Yes, Dorm Leader!” Everyone chorused.

Yes, even the Yuus and Grim. Unlike Ace, they all knew how to stay alive without relying purely on another person’s mercy.

Riddle smiled. “Very good.”

Trey finally decided to say something: “Listen, Riddle, I’ll look after them for you, okay?”

Riddle nodded. “You’re meant to be the vice dorm leader, so I expect you to get your act together.” He straightened further. Enma wasn’t even sure how he managed to do that, he already had perfect posture. “Now, according to the Laws of the Queen of Hearts, Number 339, ‘Tea after a meal should always be lemon tea with two sugars’. I must go buy sugar cubes from the school store, so I’ll be on my way.”

He shook his head as if the sugar pot not being topped off was a huge offense and then turned to leave. Enma noticed the way the boy’s eyes caught on the table of Octavinelle students (who were all muttering amongst themselves conspiratorially, their empty plates pushed aside so they could quite literally compare notes), on a Savanaclaw student who was drinking a carton of milk… he gritted his teeth as he headed towards the door, as if it physically pained him to not call them out for doing something so terrible as enjoying their lunch period.

The moment Riddle was out of earshot, they all breathed a sigh of relief.

Including a couple of the Heartslabyul students at nearby tables. He heard someone mumble something about not being able to eat hamburgers on Tuesdays, their voice somewhat muffled by the hamburger they hadn’t fully finished chewing.

Cater pretended to unzip his mouth. “That was a close one.”

Except for Ace, who turned on his friends. “Why didn’t you help? You said I was right earlier!”

Ito raised an eyebrow. “We literally said that you shouldn’t have eaten that tart. Where did you get that from?”

He huffed.

“That Riddle guy is so obnoxious,” Grim said the moment he was released.

Deuce frowned. “That’s rude, Grim!”

“He’s terrifying, more like,” Kuroki said, shaking his head.

Enma frowned and nudged Kuroki’s shoulder. Normally, he might have cuffed the boy over the head for being impolite, but he couldn’t bring himself to fully disagree so that was all he could really do.

Trey grimaced. “Riddle can be a little harsh, but that’s just him trying to make the dorm better. He’s got good intentions.”

Grim snorted. “People with good intentions don’t just randomly collar people!”

Enma sighed. “Grim. You literally set the entire ceremony on fire.”

“But it sucks,” Grim lamented.

“Yeah, his UM is pretty awful,” Cater agreed. “It seals another person’s magic for a fixed amount of time. Losing your magic as a mage really does hurt as much as the whole ‘Off with your head’ name implies. It’s like…”

“Losing a part of yourself,” Ace said dully.

Enma tried to picture it from their point of view. He was pretty sure he would be mad, too, if he managed to have magic only for it to be cut off from him, and if it hurt…

“Nono… it’s more like…” Cater snapped his fingers. “Losing your left arm. You don’t need it, really, but everything is made so much less convenient without it.”

Trey gave a small nod. “It’s not fun. But, if you just follow his rules, he’s not scary at all.”

Ace groaned. “But the rules are so dumb. Like do I really have to go out and buy a tart or else Cater will kick me out before I even get to plead my case with the dorm head?”

“Yep, per rule 53,” Cater said, winking. The amusement faded soon after, though. “I should let you know, though, that Riddle really looks forward to having the first slice of a tart, so he probably won’t forgive you unless it’s whole.”

Ace groaned. “I thought you said you wanted to just be our ‘kind, friendly senior’. Can’t you just, I don’t know, look the other way?”

“I said ‘outside of the dorm’, too,” Cater pointed out.

Deuce frowned. “So… a whole tart. Isn’t that going to be expensive?”

Ace grimaced. “Yeah, I’m not exactly made out of money…” His eyes caught on Ito and he immediately tried to pout his way into their wallet.

“Ace, we had to con our way into getting food for all of us.”

Ace cursed as he realized that, yeah, no, he wasn’t going to get anything from the Yuus. Not because they didn’t want to help (though, perhaps, this was also the case depending on which Yuu you were talking about), but because they physically couldn’t.

“If we can get access to the school kitchens, maybe we could make a tart? I’d suggest our kitchen, but…” Kuroki said, wincing.

Cater nodded. “That’s how we get them in Heartslabyul, anyways. All of the tarts made for our Unbirthday parties are made by Trey, here, actually.”

Ace’s eyes widened. “You made that? Holy shit. If you’d told me they were bought, I’d have believed you.”

Enma gave a tiny smile. “Senpai, could they, maybe, use some of your stuff to make a tart? Or, at least, could they get a recipe?”

Trey hummed thoughtfully. “I’d be willing to help.”

“That’s even better than I thought,” Enma said, his smile widening.

Kuroki, however, was more skeptical. “But?”

“But,” agreed Trey. His lips pulled upwards at the corner in a kind of cheeky smirk. “It won’t be cheap.”

“Trey… -senpai, no disrespect, but we just said we’re poor,” Ito said with a cringe.

Trey snickered. “I’m not going to squeeze money out of the new kids, don’t worry.” He leaned forward to rest his head in his hand, thinking for a moment. “I think the tart Riddle wants to eat next… should be a chestnut tart.” He nodded once to himself. “If we’re going to make that, we’re gonna need a lot of chestnuts. I’m going to need you all to gather them from the chestnut trees by the botanical garden.”

Ace cringed. “How many do you need?”

“Ah… two, maybe three hundred?”

Deuce yelped. “That many?”

“And then I’ll need you to roast, peel, and puree them… I can do everything after that.”

“Ace, we aren’t helping you,” Grim decided.

“I wasn’t expecting any help from you,” Ace spat. Then he seemed to think better of it when faced with a glare from Kuroki. He looked up at the boy pleadingly.

“Can I go home?” Deuce asked.

“Ditto,” said Kuroki.

(Mostly out of pettiness. Enma was pretty sure that he would do it if Ace asked later.)

“Traitors!” Hissed Ace.

(Nevermind. Kuroki was definitely going to opt out now.)

Ace turned to Ito pleadingly.

Ito shrugged. “I’ve got work. I might be able to get off in time to help with the food prep, but I don’t think I’ll be able to help with the picking.”

Ace visibly deflated before turning to his final friend. He didn’t bother to screw up his face in a pitiful way, he knew that wouldn’t work, but he did lift his hands in an overexaggerated pleading gesture.

Enma shrugged. “I’ll help before and after my shift if you let me ask you questions about your magic later.”

Ace seemed to be considering the pros and cons of that. It was, apparently, a very difficult decision.

“Or you could always do it alone,” Enma said. He could always just read about it in a book, if he wanted, so he was pretty indifferent. It’d probably be more informative coming from a book, anyways…

Ace cursed. “Fine.”

Cater laughed at Ace’s misfortune but, surprisingly, was the one to come to his aid: “Come on now, nothing tastes more delicious than food that you make with your friends! You get to make some fun memories!”

Kuroki grimaced as his familiar’s eyes glimmered with greed.

“Don’t tell the dorm leader,” Trey said, leaning in conspiratorially. “But Mont Blanc tastes the best when it’s just baked. But only people that bake the tart get to try it.”

It looked like Kuroki and Grim’s fates were sealed. Grim slammed his front paws down on the table. “I’ll do it!”

Deuce snickered before screwing his face up thoughtfully. “Are there eggs in tarts?”

Trey gave him an odd look. “Yeah…?”

He nodded once to himself. “Then I’ll probably like it. I’ll help.”

“Oh, so you’ll help for the food but not for your friend.”

“Yeah, exactly,” said Deuce.

Kuroki groaned and rested his head in his hands. “What is it with this place and giving us manual labor?”

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