A few days had passed since Mr. Alfonsi's sudden disappearance from the academy.
Most of the students at the academy were confused because he left without giving anyone a clue about where he was going.
But even with his disappearance, life at Trinity Academy continued like normal as if nothing had happened; the academy found a substitute to teach his classes and within a few days, the replacement was promoted to take over full-time.
Classes resumed as usual. Discussions of Mr. Alfonsi quickly returned to rumors about newer and smaller scandals such as who was dating whom and what was going on in the city.
Everything was back to normal and nothing exploded despite the incident.
At least, that's what it looks like on the outside.
It may seem like Mason had been kidnapped for nothing and nothing was getting resolved by the scene after he informed the academy about Mr. Alfonsi's goals when he infiltrated the academy but that was because the teachers were actively trying to hide what they were doing.
It was better to work in the shadows and keep the students in the dark instead of revealing everything, causing panic, and exposing their actions to the plotters.
Bell was walking down one of the main hallways when he felt it.
The familiar knot in his chest was getting tighter.
The thread.
It was stirring before Diana even came into frame. It was like a string that was being pulled tightly from both ends, even though both parties wished that the thread didn't exist.
With every step forward, it grew heavier and clearer. Once he reached a certain proximity, emotions belonging to Diana bled through.
Resolve, hatred, and control.
That's what she was feeling at the moment.
The rage, fear, and sadness from before were gone. She still feared Bell's existence whenever they were too far from each other as his existence transformed into something almost nightmare-like but when they were close enough that she could sense him, she no longer feared a man whose emotions she could feel.
She still would cry sometimes, feeling sad about what happened to her but those emotions were now actively being suppressed to the back of her mind.
There were bigger things she needed to deal with first before she could have the luxury to wallow in his pain and sorrows.
That was when Diana appeared.
She was walking towards him from the opposite end of the hall, her posture straight unlike before when she walked with a depressing slouch. Her expression was calm. Too calm.
Her blue jellyfish hair was tied back neatly and her uniform was pristine.
It was as if all the chaos that existed inside of her, she had carved some order into it.
There wasn't even a flicker of thirst in her eyes at the moment. You couldn't even tell whatsoever that she was part-vampire.
Walking with two friends, the students subconsciously moved out of their path.
The closer the distance between them was, the tighter the thread was and the more they could feel and sense the other person.
Bell was feeling all that was going on inside her heart.
The screaming rage and despair from before no longer existed; it had morphed and evolved into something colder, something sharper.
Purpose.
She had found a purpose in her life that she had been prepared to toss away previously so that she could find solace in eternal rest.
Diana felt him too.
His face was unreadable but she could tell every little subtle thing that made up this man called Bell.
Their eyes met for less than a second.
That was all it took.
No words were exchanged. None were needed.
I will kill you someday.
Her eyes flickered red then returned to blue almost immediately.
The thought wasn't hostile as if she was about to lunge at him. It wasn't this desperation goal that she was rushing to reach. It was a promise and a purpose she was living her life towards at the moment.
After Bell turned into a vampire just like her, not only did the playing fields even out but he was even stronger than her with his battle instincts and his ability to grow faster than anyone else.
She needed to work harder than ever to catch up to him and surpass him.
Only then could she end her demon named Bell Agnus.
Bell didn't reject her feelings. He couldn't and didn't want to.
His presence answered back to her, I know. But not yet.
She felt that too but didn't care about what he meant by "yet". She wasn't moving to his timeline. She was moving to hers and when she was ready, she was going to do it regardless of how he felt about it.
They passed each other.
For a brief moment, when their shoulders aligned, the thread pulsed violently — emotions crashing together all at once. Diana's drive to grow stronger. To never be weak again. To never be cornered, powerless, begging.
Bell's burden. His knowledge that his life was no longer his to end. That he had a role to play before he could ever allow himself to die by her hands.
Bell could also smell his blood on her fangs. They had come to an agreement to let Diana drink his blood every morning so that she wouldn't lose control of herself and expose the two of them as being vampires.
Diana could smell the delicious scent leaking out of his body. His rapid regeneration had already healed any old wounds or fresh cuts on his body. The scene she was smelling came from the veins that were underneath his skin.
She gulped as she recalled the taste she had indulged in a few hours ago.
Then it snapped back into a quiet hum as they passed each other.
They continued walking.
Backs facing each other.
Neither turned around and the connection granted by the thread got fainter and fainter the further apart the two became.
* * *
The training hall echoed with the sound of wooden weapons colliding.
Grace exhaled sharply as she stepped in, her sword flashing toward Maya's shoulder. Maya twisted away just in time, her boots sliding across the platform as she barely avoided the strike.
"Come on. Show me your best performance," Grace said, already pressing forward. "You said you're going to make it up for ditching me last time. If this is all you have to show, then I'll be disappointed."
Maya didn't respond to her taunting words.
They had been sparring for several minutes now.
Grace was trying her hardest to keep her face neutral but it was extremely difficult for her to pretend that she didn't know that Maya was one of the masked figures in that basement.
Revealing it would be revealing that she had been following Bell and Maya like a stalker.
'I'm not a stalker,' she had to convince herself.
But contrary to her expectations, Maya knew. She knew that Grace knew but was simply pretending not to know that she knew because it was a conversation she didn't feel like having.
Their weapons clashed again.
Grace feinted left, then stepped in hard, grabbing Maya's wrist and knocking one of her daggers aside.
In one smooth motion, she moved to finish the session.
Her sword was going to stop last second just before it hit Maya's neck.
Victory, just like usually. Victory used to come less frequently in her spars with Maya, but ever since she began hanging out with Bell, Grace rarely lost.
Feeling a little sad that she wasn't as much fun sparring with Maya like she used to, suddenly—
The world around her fractured.
Grace froze, her sword still on its way down but stopped as well.
The training hall around her dissolved and her breath was caught in her throat as she found herself in complete darkness.
"Where am I?"
Then, a familiar figure appeared, standing just a few steps away from her.
"F… Father?" she whispered.
He stood there in his usual posture, hands behind his back. Then another appeared. And another. And another.
Dozens of them.
All around her. All stared towards the center of the circle where she was.
None of them had an angry look on their face, an expression that she was used to seeing all the time.
What was on their faces was even worse than that. She would've preferred getting yelled at, getting scolded, than to see this face that she'd seen a few times in her life before.
Their expressions were cold. Disappointed. Heavy with judgment.
Grace's chest tightened painfully.
"Father…?" Her voice trembled. "Did I do something wrong?"
She took a step back. But she couldn't take another because it would bring her even closer to the fathers who was behind her.
"Father? What did I do to disappoint you? I… I'm sorry. I'm sorry Father!"
The disappointment in their gaze deepened.
"Father please! Talk to me Father! What did I do?! What did I do?!"
Her breathing began to spiral. It was like the oxygen level around her had decreased a mere fraction of what it was before.
"Haaa… haaa haaaa haaaa," it started slowly at first but in an instant, her breathing had sped up, each one coming faster than the last.
Her chest was rising and falling short in these uneven bursts. You could see the motion vividly occurring on her chest.
The air around her felt thick like it was refusing to enter her lungs.
No matter how hard she tried to calm down, it wasn't enough.
Her vision narrowed.
The fathers in front of her suddenly looked younger like the father she remembered from when she was younger.
She could feel herself become shorter, smaller, and younger.
She had returned to when she was eight years old.
The first time that he expressed this look of utter disappointment in her.
"No. Father, Father… Daddy, please. Please! Please look at me! I'm sorry!"
Grace, standing in the center, was now a child.
She ran to one of the fathers in front of and tried to touch him but he vanished into smoke. She tried to touch another, they also disappeared.
"Come back! Come back Father! I'll do better next time!"
Her ears suddenly rang, a high-pitched noise that drowned out everything around her, even the screaming that came out of her mouth as she went to each father one by one in a rush, trying to grab hold of them,
The floor beneath her feet felt unstable, like it might give out at any moment.
Her heart was slamming violently against her ribs.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
It was beating fast — too fast. Way too fast.
Grace's fingers trembled as she clenched them into fists. The last father had vanished and she was left alone in the darkness by herself.
"Come back to my Father! I won't disappoint you next time!" she screamed as she fell to her knees. Cold crept up her spine while sweat gathered at her temples.
She began muttering to herself.
Her voice was barely audible now. "I… I can't…"
The space around her felt smaller, the walls closing in. Her father had disappeared and yet, the lingering gaze of disappointment never disappeared; it pressed down on her from every direction.
Her legs weakened, her knees buckled even further, and she started curling into a ball.
She could hear each beat coming from her heart. It was so fast and so loud that even with the ringing noise in her ears, she was being drowned in the song her heart was playing.
It was a very sad song.
She tried to calm her mind but to no avail. She tried to breathe, but each breath felt like she was swallowing needles.
Her mind was refusing to listen, racing in circles, replaying the day that she had utterly disappointed her father's expectations. The day that the word "precious" was never placed in front of daughter again.
Every moment of her life, all of it was working towards becoming good enough for the expectations everyone had on her, especially her father's.
She didn't want him to be disappointed in her any longer.
She just wanted to be loved, for him to say that he was proud of her.
And every time she thought she had earned back his approval, it didn't take long for her to lose it again.
Her chest suddenly seized as if someone had pulled all of the air out of it.
Dizziness washed over her, and black spots danced at the edges of her vision.
Was she about to die?
Her vision blurred and just before everything faded away, the illusion suddenly shattered.
Grace gasped as fresh air suddenly entered her lungs; reality snapped back into place.
A wooden dagger was resting against her neck.
Grace swallowed hard, her heart still pounding, but most of the sensations that had crippled her had vanished. Her eyes were wide as she stared up at Maya.
"What… what was that?" she asked, her voice unsteady.
Maya stepped back and lowered the weapon, her expression serious. "My new ability."
Grace blinked, still trying to steady her breathing.
It was the ability that Maya had taken on two missions just to be able to afford.
[Cap of Invisibility - Illusion of Terror]: Hade's Cap doesn't just allow him to turn invisible. It can also be used to pull your target into an illusion that materializes the target's deepest fear. The illusion persists only while the target's will falters, breaking instantly once they regain clarity or if you disengage. Does not directly cause physical harm.
"What kind of ability is that? It…" Grace wasn't even able to finish her sentence.
"I'm sorry for whatever you saw in there. I know it creates an illusion of what you feared the most. I can't see what you saw, but based on how much you're shaking and sweaty, I bet it was bad."
Grace's fingers curled into fists. She wasn't angry at Maya. She was trying to calm herself, telling herself that what she had just seen was an illusion and not reality.
"Why did you use an ability out of nowhere?" she asked quietly.
Maya responded, "You were getting on my nerves."
"...What?"
"Yeah. You're making it sound like I wasn't trying but I'm telling you right now, I actually was trying there during our spar. You're just more talented than me at direct combat, okay?"
"...But we used to be equal in the past."
"That's when I used to study you intensely. I'm too busy now to do that but that doesn't mean I wasn't trying every time I lose."
Grace looked down, her jaw clenched, but her eyes had this sparkle in them as if they were smiling.
"...That's unfair," she muttered.
Maya didn't disagree.
She just said, "I was never one to follow the rules that well. I'm not exactly like you. It's a miracle I managed to endure this long without using my abilities during our spars."