Fenrir had just shouted across the hall, eyes wide as he processed the unimaginable scene before him.
To any onlooker, the reasonable assumption was the same.
The sight of a silver-haired boy slowly climbing to his feet enforced the same belief among the crowd.
Adrian Zephyr had been defeated.
Julius stood calmly, holding himself still as his calm expression reflected Adrian's seething anger across from him.
The silver-haired boy rose from his feet, his jaw clenching as he huffed a breath through his nose, as hot as steam.
Adrian held his gaze down, seemingly unable to meet anyone's gaze because of embarrassment.
Though Julius narrowed his eyes, following Adrian's gaze, he found a collection of dismantled gears and metal by Adrian's foot.
Adrian slowly pulled his gaze up, like a drawbridge slowly rising.
His Tiffany blue eyes began to darken with static the moment they met with Julius's gaze.
Julius could sense the layer of ozone beginning to exude from his body, sparks about to rip through the air, carefully taking one step back as his hands opened slowly by his sides.
In an instant, Adrian disappeared after lunging forward, grand blue volts following Adrian as he snatched Julius by the throat in the blink of an eye.
Julius's eyes wobbled with surprise as he felt a sudden detachment from The ground, his feet ripped away from the ground as Adrian lifted him by his neck.
Julius's eyes tensed immediately with recognition, pupils speeding into two black specks, his hands flying up to grasp at Adrian's hand in an attempt to lessen the leverage on his neck by holding himself up.
His jaw clamped together, feeling suffocation from superhuman pressure.
The blue bolts enveloping Adrian stung Julius as he slowly turned numb from the lightning and abrupt lack of blood circulation.
Adrian's lighting pulsed out, sporadically climbing his perimeter, thrumming through the air.
His hand coiled around Julius's throat, his godly strength compared to Julius's helplessness, was like a ticking bomb that could explode at any time.
Thurid's indifference fizzled away in an instant, replaced with widened eyes like clearing skies.
She immediately set off, charging down the rows of lockers, through the crowd, toward the silver-haired boy.
The force encircling Julius's throat was already enough to make his blood block, threatening to gather with enough pressure to explode his face like a balloon.
Julius had mere seconds before losing any sense of consciousness at all.
His calm expression tensed with the urgency of the situation.
Only for his eyes, deep and rich like the worlds secrets, fixing onto Adrian with the gathered calm of a predator.
The voltage hugging Adrian, accompanying the hand at Julius's throat, was stinging Julius until he felt his body slowly losing feeling.
Soon his face would go blue, and his arms would slump from Adrian's wrist, unless he did something.
Julius's brows tensed at the unbearable discomfort, enduring it even as He felt the lightning tinge his neck numb, the voltage spreading down his body subtly.
Adrian could unknowingly break Julius's neck at any moment, his anger blinding him to Julius's painstaking weakness.
His grip was not of killing intent, mistakenly believing he was using just enough pressure to restrain his opponent, his anger blinding him from realising the difference in strength.
Thurid neared, each step carrying the weight of the heavens, linoleum tearing apart as she marched ahead with an iron-clad resolve.
Julius's hand, slowly losing feeling, neared his blazer, grazing the star-shaped token inside his pocket.
His eyes never once dropping from Adrian, like two meteors soaring toward their destination.
Thurid reached out as Julius's hand found the token.
Adrian's fingers were unknowingly just about to tighten and crush Julius's windpipe until suddenly-
A rectangle the size of a calculator flew past; it was a dark black, with golden patterns splayed on both sides like grids, with purple trim framing the card.
"Rhei." A tired voice chanted from down the hall.
Immediately, the card burst, dispersing a purple fog that covered Adrian and Julius.
The fog was alluring like lavender, but bitter like poison.
Adrian's grip loosened before it had the chance to tighten.
Julius recognised the card to be a talisman, a type of magical artefact speckling for storing magical effects.
Knowing not to breathe, Julius's oxygen-deprived body still made his diaphragm cave in.
His lungs instantly expanded as he drew in a sharp gasp, before slumping unconscious to the floor along with Adrian.
A sigh of exasperation pulled Thurid's gaze down the hall, to the right of her, where a small figure stood dressed in a suit, with something swishing behind him, like a coat sleeve swaying in the wind.
"Jakub!" Thurid cried out with shock, her mouth agape as her wide eyes lit up with amazement.
The tension in Thurid's figure suddenly softened as she sighed in relief.
The figure breathed coolly with a sigh, his demeanour like a royal servant or a waiter at an established restaurant.
"Thank goodness I made it in time…Doesn't Mr Wickerson know this is why we have supervisors on duty…Where is that owl?"
He was short, around half the length of Thurid, with features like a baboon.
A white tail trailed in the air behind him, as thick as a twig, as long as a cane.
He had white hair covering his head, puffing out, which gave his head a square outline.
In the centre of the hair was a salmon pink face, with thick lips, a wide nose, and canines like spikes peeking through his lips, like an orc.
His eyes were like evaporated light cider, a golden hue like mist swimming through his eyes
He wore a black suit that looked as though it could fit a child, a black tie radiating subtle energy that dangled loosely around his neat collar.
His eyes raked over the two collapsed boys on the ground, approaching them with casual steps.
"I haven't seen fights like these since Mr Elowen was Headmaster…"
He breathed a sigh like a worn tree root, his words spoken with the perfection of time.
He tilted his chin up to Thurid.
"Right, carry these two to the infirmary. Let Miss Hestia take a look over them." He commanded quietly, as easily as breathing air, his voice carrying faint softness like tired clouds.
"Huh? Why me?" Thurid groaned with angst, her arm already reaching behind her to volunteer Gyasi.
"-Well, someone needs to notify the Headmaster." Jakub interrupted smoothly in a tone like butter, spread easily by a polished knife.
He passed Thurid without another word, standing beside an unconscious boy with dark hair.
His eyes flicked down at red marks, cursing fair skin at the boys neck area.
He didn't comment; his expression didn't change either, though internally he wondered to himself with interest as his eyes trailed over to a silver-haired boy.
He knew this one, the son of Zeus, who didn't know this one?
Though didn't this boy have rank six magic?
He glanced a bit away from Adrian, at a small crater in the linoleum floor, at the caved-in floor from where an impact crushed something, or someone, into the ground.
His eyes took the metal pieces scattered across the ground, his nose twitching at the faint scent of ozone in the air.
There was a fresh bruise beginning to settle over Adrian's skin, on his right, visible where the same sleeve of his blazer was torn open.
The edges of the tear were blackened, as if something had burnt the fabric open.
Now there was a slight brown blooming over his skin; it gathered on his skin like a patch, not transforming his skin but blemishing and marking it.
"Right, everyone off to class!" He commanded loudly, but not harshly, toward the crowd whilst passing them to approach the crater.
The crowd dispersed immediately, like a car suddenly impossibly disassembling because of some unseen force.
Nagiri stood unsurely, one of the first to depart, but not before her burning pink eyes narrowed over her shoulder once, at the dark-haired boy on the ground.
Gyasi sighed with exasperation, "Yeah, yeah, we're already going…"
Soahc stood unamused, tutting dramatically. "It was boring anyway…" She pretended with a sigh, slightly frustrated that the drama had come to an end.
Then, turning away and walking down the hall toward the cafeteria doors, where a boy with long-purple hair stepped out.
He watched as the students retreated down the hall, watching Soahc step into view.
Her matte-black lips were pressed into a thin line, her eyes like two black wells.
"Ah, you didn't miss much, Tryx." She sighed before passing him and continuing down the hall.
"I guess Alecto wasn't too bothered either…" She murmured as she looked through the doors.
She saw Wang Yi, a boy with thin greyish-brown hair and a figure like a nervous bundle of sticks.
He was approaching Tryx from behind, trying to catch up with him.
Though behind him, unmoving in the darkest corner of the cafeteria, sat a man with a broad frame.
His expression was just as unmoving as he was.
Soahc rolled her eyes before passing the door and disappearing around the corner.
Classes would be over soon, she was almost sure that the two trouble makers would lose all their time to school nurses and stern lectures.
Which meant there would be no more fun sticking around.
Tryx glanced at her through one eye before she passed, his lips holding a faint smirk, his other eye hidden by his hair, partly falling down one side of his face.
He looked back down at the emptying hallway, watching as a girl built like a tree trunk, crouched down and threw two unconscious students onto her shoulders.
His grin grew wider.
"Thurid." Jakub began, his back to the girl as he faced the crater near the emptying crowd of students.
"Tell Miss Hestia to see the headmaster after, to let him know when the boys are ready for his…audience." He ordered smoothly, passing the message down without so much as a glance in her direction.
Thurid sighed before rolling her eyes, continuing down the hall past Jakub to find the infirmary.
When the hallway was finally clear, Jakub reached toward his collar, loosening his tie with one smooth tug.
The knot fell apart instantly, the fabric unwinding around Jakub's neck, gathering in a loop around his clenched fist.
Jakub had a thought, an intention passing from his mind down to his hand before imbuing it into the fabric.
A subtle aura wavered around the black tie, the fabric suddenly straightening out and gathering impossible stability.
Like a plant stem growing rapidly, soon the bigger end of the tie was now straight as a ruler, pointing outward, the tip like an arrow shape.
The fabric, now more similar to steel, kept its black colour, its edges as sharp as eyesight.
The rest of the fabric hardened where it curled around Jakub's hand, the fabric now holding the shape of something similar to a deformed cutlass.
Jakub approached the crater, pointing the tip of the black blade down toward the caved-in ground.
Jakub had another thought, letting attention flow toward the blade, dwelling in the steel.
A faint aura flowed from the blade, like a gentle breeze, toward the ground.
Soon, the ground began to seal; the lines in the ground exposing the concrete beneath were now forming together as if the ground was returning magically to its original form.
When the linoleum was full, like paint finished pouring on a flat surface, Jakub poured new intentions into his hand.
The steel began to weaken, like ice melting, and the structure lost its strength before flopping uselessly like bunny ears.
Jakub took the fabric, before winding it around his neck and stepping down the opposite hall to find the Headmaster's office.
End of chapter 22