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I couldn’t control my emotions and I got caught sneaking out by someone who knew me and I was a shit fighter.
Who did he think I was?
“Good, King,” Chamberly said, her voice muffled by her hand.
I blinked, turning my attention to her. I had completely forgotten she was there in the first place.
“You have passion,” she said. “And you’re willing to fight for something, even if you’re terrible at it. You have the makings of a good leader. You just need to believe it.” She glanced at my hand, frowning. “Go to the infirmary and have that checked out. I don’t want your father on my ass.”
I nodded once. I glanced over at Embyrlyn, who gave me a sympathetic smile and a small wave.
“Brown,” Chamberly said to Embyrlyn. “Finish your training with me.”
I glanced down at my swollen hand, sighing as I moved across the training grounds.
I didn’t have a choice but to accept my duty. I only hoped I was worthy of it.
Kakashi
Kazu could barely keep his casual demeanor as he all but stomped up the stairs to Grey’s office. The girl hadn’t answered. She was more confused than she should be, having just agreed to one of the most dangerous missions Bloodmoon Academy had been assigned, and that bothered him in more ways than he wanted to acknowledge. How could Grey do that? How could he dangle the thought of Dade in front of her and then replace it with a Scarlet Scroll? Was Dade more important than Embyrlyn?
He clenched his teeth together, refusing to answer. He didn’t want to think about that, even as tendrils of guilt managed to slip past the steel shield he had cultivated around any emotions he might or might not feel.
Dade was a mistake. Picking Dade to train outside of his team, giving him tools he used against them, all because of the revenge the kid wanted to attain, was wrong. He messed up, and Kazu didn’t think there was any way to make it better. To right his wrongs.
He would live with those choices — he deserved to. But now Embyrlyn was dealing with consequences that had nothing to do with her, as was Felix to a lesser degree.
Kazu burst through the door without knocking. He tucked it closed behind him, careful not to slam it. The last thing he wanted was Grey assuming Kazu was showing emotions over this, even though he clearly was.
“Ah, Kazu.” Grey set down his pen and leaned back in his chair to greet Kazu with a warm smile. “Good of you to show. I wanted to inform you –”
“Embyrlyn agreed?” he asked, cutting off Master Grey. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Kazu was supposed to be cool and rational. He was supposed to plead with Grey’s intellect, not attack him based on the merit of feeling things, things he wasn’t even clear on what he felt or even why. He had never cared about Embyrlyn before.
That’s not true.
At least not to this extent.
Also not true.
Embyrlyn was everything he refused to be – emotional, compassionate, caring. It drove him mad trying to understand her, but that didn’t take away from the allure she had, the freedom her feelings gave her.
“You sound surprised by this,” Master Grey said, lacing his fingers together and resting them on the surface of his desk. Like they were speaking of the weather and not about an innocent girl sacrificing everything for information, for a chance that they might find someone who didn’t even want to be here, who had betrayed everyone at the academy for revenge he couldn’t even guarantee.
“You knew my evaluation –”
“And I vehemently, if respectfully, disagreed with it,” Grey said patiently. Kazu almost wished Grey would be irritated by his confrontation, snap at him, maybe even raise his voice or punish him. The understanding tone, the sympathetic eyes, made everything all the more worse. “I brought her to my office. I told her what was expected –”
“Really?” That was the second time Kazu deigned to interrupt a superior, and he didn’t care. He took a step forward, curling fingers into tight fists, as though that would be enough to control the words coming out of his mouth. “So, you told her there was a good chance she would have to fuck a Light Bringer? That she would have to become some kind of whore to even get near the nest? You discussed this with her?”
“I implied she would have to –”
“Forgive me, Master Grey, but your implications went over her head,” Kazu said.Three times. “I told her what to expect, and the look of pure horror on her face told me that she wasn’t properly warned before agreeing to this mission in the first place. Which means she agreed under false pretenses. Which means that voids the agreement right there.”
For a long moment, Grey didn’t speak. However, any warmth or friendliness due to this conversation evaporated from his face.
“Are you implying I took advantage of one of my students and manipulated them so they would agree to something vastly more dangerous than any mission they had ever been on before?” Grey asked, each word clipped and careful.
Kazu knew this was a warning, a warning to calm down and to watch what he said from this point on. But he couldn’t help it.
