Belle had gone quiet in the particular way she went quiet when she was reorganizing information. Her amber-brown eyes were sharp and her chip bag was completely forgotten.
"What’s her ability?" she asked.
"Sensory Hijack," I said. "She can control what you taste, see, hear, feel, sll. Full five-sense access through physical contact. Can affect multiple people at once. Lasts about ten minutes per target."
"B-rank," Belle said, almost to herself. "So she’s been fighting at B-rank sensory manipulation and still climbed to twenty-three. Without a combat offense ability."
"She said she wins before fights start," I said. "Make them question their senses and you never have to hit anyone."
Belle was nodding now, slow and thoughtful. "I actually respect that. That’s basically what I do. Except her version works."
"Your version works fine."
"My version finds loot. Her version makes people think their sword weighs four hundred pounds." Belle picked up another chip. "Different applications."
Naomi had been listening to all of this with her grain bowl spoon held perfectly still. "Did you like her?" she asked.
The question was casual. Her voice was even. She was looking at her food while she asked it.
I looked at her.
She felt it and looked up.
"I thought she was dangerous," I said. "Smart, fast, reads people like spreadsheets. She’s going to keep climbing the rankings. If she gets her Sensory Hijack to a higher rank she could legitimately threaten top ten."
"She’s also in Obsidian," Belle said, her tone matter-of-fact but her eyes watchful.
"Second year. Different squad," I replied, watching Naomi’s expression. She nodded and went back to her grain bowl, but her shoulders had relaxed just slightly. The tension I’d felt radiating from her had eased, though she still held that spoon a little too carefully.
Belle caught it too. I could tell by the way her focus sharpened, the way she studied Naomi for half a second before going back to her chips. She filed it away sowhere in that calculating brain of hers.
"But sa house events. Sa gate rotations eventually. Sa leaderboard." Belle was doing the math out loud, chewing her chip thoughtfully. "If she’s interested in you specifically, that’s either a really good thing or a really complicated thing for our group."
"Can’t it be both."
"With girls like Aurora Fitzgerald it’s always both."
Jordan made a sound that might have been agreent.
"How do you know what kind of girl Aurora Fitzgerald is," I said.
Belle tilted her head. "I know what kind of girl I am. We’re similar types." She said it without embarrassnt, which I found oddly refreshing.
"You have better taste in sandwiches," I said.
Belle pointed her chip at . "Correct. And don’t forget Jay Jay that."
Naomi laughed, and the sound of it was good in the middle of all the noise and dining hall chaos around us. Genuine. The kind that happens before the person can stop it.
My phone buzzed.
I checked it under the table.
AURORA: heard you’re on the midnight foxes squad
AURORA: cute na
AURORA: also heard misato aya is your coach. you have my condolences 🕯️
I put my phone face down.
I looked for Misato and found her two tables over with Blair, both of them in perfect Obsidian uniform, Misato’s li green hair distinctive enough to spot from across the room. Blair had her usual straight-backed posture and expression like she was watching sothing mildly beneath her. Misato was talking, her hands moving. Blair was listening.
Whatever the assignnt separation was supposed to accomplish with those two, lunch clearly hadn’t gotten the mo.
"Misato’s with Blair," I said.
Naomi glanced over. "They’ve been friends since before the academy."
"More than friends," Belle said. "Misato basically exists to orbit Blair. Have you noticed she checks where Blair is in any room before she does anything else?"
"She’s different when Blair’s not around," I said.
Belle ate a chip and said nothing, which ant she agreed but wasn’t ready to say it out loud in case it beca an alliance declaration rather than an observation.
Naomi finished her grain bowl and pushed the empty container aside, wrapping both hands around her water. "What do you think of her?" she asked. Not possessively. Genuinely curious.
"Misato?"
"Aurora."
I thought about it.
The orange hair and the sharp green eyes and the candy and the way she’d read like a publicly available docunt. The raspy voice and the deliberate way she moved, like every motion was a choice. The complete absence of performance, none of the careful maintenance that Belle did or the walls that Blair built or the armor that Hikaru wore.
Aurora was exactly what she appeared to be and knew exactly how dangerous that made her.
"I think she’s going to be interesting," I said.
Naomi absorbed this. One small nod.
"She is twenty-three," she said.
"I’m aware."
"And Silver tier."
I looked at Naomi across the table, at the careful evenness she was maintaining, the grip on her water glass.
"I know what I’m doing," I said, low enough that Jordan and Belle would technically need to work for it.
Naomi t my eyes. Whatever she found there was apparently sufficient, because her grip on the water glass loosened and she picked up her iced tea instead.
Belle had been watching this entire exchange with the expression of soone watching a stock she’d invested in either hold or drop.
It held.
She ate the last chip from the bag, folded it neatly, and sat back in her chair with the contained satisfaction of soone who had eaten an ideal lunch and gathered useful intelligence simultaneously.
"You’re going to have a complicated sester," she said.
"Already do."
"I an more complicated." She smiled, and it was the real one, the one that happened before she could make it performative. "Should be entertaining to watch."
"Glad my suffering amuses you."
"Your suffering is deeply amusing." She gestured at my tray. "Also finish your sandwich. You copied my superior taste. The least you can do is appreciate it properly."
I picked up the sandwich and took a large deliberate bite.
Belle looked vindicated.
Naomi looked quietly happy.
Jordan was asleep again.
User Comments
0 comments from readers