"The winner is... Cassia!"
The crowd of students burst into an uproar, after all, a blind girl who had an aspect that had nothing to do with combat had won, but that was only a minuscule factor in the chaos that happened. Rather, it was the fact that Changing Star lost. On the stage were the final four standing, that being Cassie, Sunny, Nephis, and Caster. Sadly, there was no prize for anything past first place, but it's not like the prize for first place would be that good, right? There was no way—
"The prize for winning this tournament is unlimited access to any of the academy's facilities at any time!"
Damnation.
While from an outside perspective that would sound like a good prize but nothing that special, the thing about the academy is it had its prestige for a reason. The facilities that came with that would be the training ground, cafeteria, among many other basic things. But the thing that came with it is the room with the chambers that would allow them to challenge their first nightmare. By them saying this, it's practically saying that she can choose to challenge her first nightmare early. It was something he desperately needed to do as well... he shot a glare at Cassie, but she was oblivious to it. She had a normal smile on her face, but he couldn't help but feel as if she was making fun of him. She should just wait until this ceremony is over—the first thing he's going to do is invite her to have tea and replace her tea with his pi—
"You are now dismissed!"
"Would you two like to share my prize? After all, we won it together."
She was an angel, his best and only friend after all! He should really treat her to something, after all, that's what friends do, isn't it?
"I thought you'd never ask! Ah, don't bother asking Nephis though, you know how legacies are, and especially her, she's such a..."
"Such a what?"
He was happy, he only knew these two for a week, but it's the closest he's been to people for a long time... if he excluded that one year, though. Then there was one other person, but that's beside the point. He was happy, happy to be alive. Even if Nephis's hand was squeezing onto his shoulder so hard it was probably going to fracture soon.
---
Everyone was staring at them in the cafeteria, he supposed it made sense, after all, they were an odd group. Changing Star, which was self-explanatory, an outskirt rat, and a blind girl. Though that wasn't the oddest thing about it, rather the oddest thing were the bystanders seeing Nephis's childish acts. Flicking food at him after he called her conceited? Did that not just prove his point! No self-awareness at all. Though he didn't care for others' opinions at all, rather he welcomed bad rumors. He could already imagine others regarding him as her "sidekick," and while he didn't mind taking a role in the shadows so to say, simply anybody but her!
"Damnation! Don't waste food, you wench!"
From his peripheral vision, he could see a disgusted look on her face as he licked the mashed potatoes off his hand. Doesn't she know how scarce food is in the outskirts! Or even worse, the dream realm! Well, he supposed she wouldn't, but still.
"So Sunny, you called us to sit down. It's obvious you wanted something, so what?"
"Oh yeah, it's pretty simple. Let's leave for the dream realm in a month."
Due to eavesdroppers, the cafeteria was quiet so his words rang around the room. He could hear utensils drop.
"Are you crazy—"
"Ok then, let's start preparing."
Surprisingly to him, the one who agreed was Cassie rather than Nephis, a smile spreading across her face.
"Let's leave June 13th."