"Ooof!"
The air whooshed out of Dexter's lungs in a painful, ragged burst.
He didn't just fall; he practically flew, tumbling several meters, scattering his files like confetti as he slammed hard into the desk by the wall.
He coughed, a desperate, rasping sound that felt sickeningly real.
'Fucking hell. She actually tried going for the kill switch. Ribs might be cracked,' he thought, fighting the genuine sting that brought tears to his eyes. 'That little Queen's kinetic control is fantastic.'
He crumpled, making sure his landing looked entirely uncoordinated and genuinely injured.
In the ensuing chaos, Serana's eyes narrowed instantly.
'Wait a damn minute,' Serana thought, clutching her own aching throat. 'That bastard... he choked me off the floor with one hand last night, zero effort. The same guy couldn't be tossed across the room like a cheap rag doll. He's acting. Again. But why the hell is he playing the injured simp?' The memory of losing her S+ Rage still terrified her, fueling a powerful, gut-level suspicion that his weakness was the biggest lie of all.
Reika was already sitting up, grin wide and feral. "Damn! She's good! Hit him right in the weak spot—the fucking dignity! Bwahaha!"
Belladonna, however, was gasping and clutching her chest dramatically. "Oh, my! Professor, are you okay? Should I give you mouth-to-mouth? Or would you rather want to have a squeeze on something soft for support?"
Dexter pushed himself up, leaning heavily on one arm, fighting for breath. He managed to force his features into a look of wounded, utterly bewildered hurt.
'Gotta sell the simp act. Gotta make her believe she controls the dynamic,' he coached himself, even as a thousand scenarios involving slow, precise dissections ran through his head.
'Seriously, if she's so concerned about me looking beneath her skirt, why wear the damn thing? Ugh. High-maintenance testsubjects.'
He slowly got to his feet, dusting off his perfectly tailored suit with meticulous, almost obsessive care, despite the obvious fact that he was still unsteady.
He forced a wounded, crooked smile. "Well, that was... aggressive. I guess I took the 'Ice Queen' title a little too literally."
He ignored the throbbing pain, ignored the lingering suspicion in Serana's gaze, and slowly walked back towards the desk, towards Yuki.
He stopped directly in front of her.
Yuki's face was unreadable, but her posture was slightly more tense. She expected him to explode, to lash out, to finally drop the mask and reveal the threat.
Dexter, instead, put on the brightest, most forgiving smile he could muster.
"You misunderstood, Your Grace," he said, his voice light and utterly unbothered by the recent assault. "I simply wished to kiss your hand. A humble request for truce."
He extended his hand, palm up, towards her. "Will you allow me that small gesture of... submission?"
Yuki's pale eyes narrowed. She studied his face, looking for the tell, the lie. His absolute, immediate return to the simpering persona, after such a powerful kick, confused her deeply. It broke her perfect, logical equation.
She hesitated, her gaze flickering to his outstretched hand.
'Almost there. One touch. One tiny taste of that delicious arrogance.'
She was just about to comply—to condescendingly allow the tribute—when a hand shot out and clamped down hard on her wrist.
It was Serana.
'Ugh! For fuck's sake! I endured that kick for nothing?! Seriously?!' Dexter barely kept the annoyance off his face.
Serana's green eyes were blazing with a raw, protective hostility that was entirely new.
"Don't," Serana hissed, her voice low and tight. "Don't let him touch you, Yuki. I don't know what he is, but I feel something's off. He plays weak. He plays harmless. He's a lie."
"Oh, for the love of—" Dexter sighed internally, dropping his hand, the opportunity for that sweet pride extraction stolen again.
'Seriously, girl? You're actively fighting my primary subject access. Stop being such a good watchdog!'
Yuki's eyes narrowed, glowing a furious blue-white. The hand Serana had clamped onto her wrist instantly met with absolute cold. A silver sheen of ice began crawling up Serana's forearm, fast. This wasn't a warning; this was retaliation.
"Get your filthy hands off me," Yuki snarled. "And don't you dare tell me what to do, S+." She spat out Serana's high rank like an insult.
Serana flinched from the bone-deep cold, but her Rage—that S+ fire—held her grip firm, slowing the ice's progression. "I'm not letting him use you! You're the one who called him a clown, now you're going to shake his hand? Stop being an idiot!"
"I don't need your 'looking out'! You aren't my boss! You aren't the leader of this classroom!" Yuki snapped back, her eyes glowing fiercely.
A faint, low humming sound—the sound of intense, pressurized cold—started filling the room. "And just because you might be ranked an S+ doesn't mean I would cower like the other idiots in the academy! We'd all die anyway, so why pretend you're better?"
'Okay, she's escalating. Good. Very volatile. But this needs to be contained,' Dexter thought, rubbing his temples, enjoying the spike in pressure. 'But... can't have the room dismantled, Warden alert is bad for business.'
Before Serana could fire back, a sudden, soft, massive weight slammed into Dexter from behind.
"Professor!" Belladonna squealed, suddenly clinging to him, pressing her ridiculously large, soft chest directly against the back of his head and neck. "Oh, you poor dear! You need comfort after that brutal assault! I'm so readily available for physical therapy!"
Dexter froze again as she pulled him away from the ensuing clash.
'Ugh. Lust-field incoming. Seriously, now? Get off me.' He had to keep his internal focus locked down.
He had to be careful. If he used his ability to consume her abundant negative emotion (which was usually a desperate, needy form of Lust), he risked feeling a violent, momentary physical reaction—a surge of pure, unfiltered desire. Not good in front of a bunch of cursed ladies.
'Focus. No Extraction. Just... endure the contact. Don't risk a forced boner in class, Dexter. Seriously. Bad for the helpless Professor act.'
He kept his face carefully neutral, resisting the urge to push her off. He maintained the "weak man" image, letting her cling.
Lyneth, staring from the corner. Her hazel eyes flashed for a mere fraction of a second, the light returning so fast Dexter almost missed it.
'Did she just—?' Dexter thought, but before he could process it, he heard her low muttering.
"It's strange," Lyneth murmured, frustrated. "I can't seem to get into his energy core. The way I do with the other staff. It's like... he's a static charge. Nothing to mimic."
She rubbed her thumb over her fingertips, a tiny gesture of frustration.
Dexter's smile didn't move an inch. 'She's close. Too close to the truth, actually.'
He knew what Lyneth was trying to do. She was the mimic, the copycat, the perfect reflection. She could analyze a power source—a curse or a gift—and temporarily replicate its function. She was currently probing, searching for the core signature that powered what she felt as some secret ability or his strange calmness.
Dexter internally scoffed, the thought dark. 'My ability isn't some pathetic, quantifiable curse or some flashy, measurable gift in the conventional sense. It's a Transmutation technique, refined and inherited in my family for generations. A secret only a few of us ever truly grasped.'
He remembered the process. It wasn't about being born with it; it was about taking it. He'd ensured that secret stayed buried—deeply buried—by killing every last one of those 'shittyweaknesses' family who'd wanted to share his power, making sure they kept the secret with them until the very end. The memory brought a cold, precise satisfaction.
'It's untraceable by standard curse or gift detection. Good analysis, Lyneth, you're smart. But ultimately useless,' he thought, letting his blue eyes twinkle with mock pity. 'You can't mimic what you can't sense. The energy's already refined and hidden in my core. Go ahead, try to copy a static charge.' He almost chuckled, hiding the sadistic amusement behind the charming, helpless professor act.
Dexter turned his head slightly, ignoring the suffocating warmth of Belladonna's chest. "Sorry, Lyneth? Did you say something about me not having an energy core? Is that how weak you see your handsome professor?"
Lyneth quickly looked away, pointing vaguely toward the raging duo. "No! I just... I agree with Serana. It does seem like you're hiding something strange. As though you're a non-gifted. Now, look! They're going to fight it out soon!"
Dexter followed her pointed finger, the ladies suddenly becoming the primary focus again.
꒷꒦꒷︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶꒷꒦꒷
Yuki was standing, her chair pushed back. Three needle-sharp ice spears floated around Serana's head, crackling with A+ Grade Pride energy.
"I am simply looking out for you, iceshit!" Serana shouted, ignoring the ice spears. "Avoid contact with the Professor. It's best for you... uh... everyone!"
Belladonna, still rubbing Dexter's head with her chest, asked him sweetly, "Is that true, Professor? Are you some kind of toxic man? Because I feel like I'm already going to die from holding you!"
Dexter shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about, Belladonna. Are you feeling anything... strange?"
Belladonna giggled, pressing her cleavage down harder against his neck. "Oh, I feel very strange! I feel like stripping you bare and devouring your coc—"
CRACK-BOOM!
Belladonna was interrupted by an immediate, shocking explosion.
Yuki had reached her limit.
"I won't listen to you!" Yuki screamed, the ice spears shooting forward and impacting the desk right behind Serana's head, smashing the obsidian surface into an icicle. "You aren't the leader here, damnit! You don't stop me from doing WHATEVER I WANT!"
The sheer force of the explosion had finally dislodged Belladonna.
Dexter crawled away and to his feet, frowning deeply.
'Okay, that's enough drama for one day,' Dexter sighed, 'This is going to draw the so-called notorious warden if this goes on. And I haven't even gotten what I wanted here yet.'
Yuki was raising her hand, preparing a massive Ice Wall. Serana, in turn, was ready to meet it with a fist wrapped in pure, molten Rage.
Dexter moved.
'Time to stop this little show before I have to fill out insurance papers for this ugly shitty castle.'