The Astral soul system-Chapter 211: New day

The sun rose early in the sky over the academy as students woke up as quickly as possible, but some definitely not quick enough.

Aurora looked at her class that was filled with students other than a specific four that hadn’t come in. She wanted to be unfazed and unsuprised but she briefly remembered what happened yesterday.

Had he left?

It probably wouldn’t be hard to find him if he had...or would it? And he really didn’t have anything tying him here.

"Maybe i should’ve -"

The door slammed open and in walked four students one after the other,each holding their head down as they entered the class

First Maximilian, then Xavier,then surprisingly Neo before Zen himself walked in...or Zaine?

Taking a closer look Aurora noticed his eye was currently red. The two quickly exchanged glances before looking away. Maximilian noticed and sighed but didn’t give any other reaction.

Looking up, Xavier immediately caught Diane sitting next to Zaria and waved at her, smiling. She scoffed but had a smile on her face as well as she rolled her eyes.

Zaine’s eyes also wandered, locking on Jade who paused for a second before waving at him,her usual smile across her lips. He looked at Zaria and understanding his intention, she shrugged

Looking around, the class was about half full since the severely injured students couldn’t come to class yet, meaning there was a lot of space. Lucky

The four got a scolding from Gemma but in the end she couldn’t do anything but let them go in.

Zaine quickly found a seat almost immediately put his head on the table and entered his soul realm.

"Someone else takeover. I’ve got nothing to learn from this stupid class"

Zyro sighed and went up, sitting on the throne and taking his place

As soon as Zyro opened his eyes, get immediately felt water splash against the back of his head, drenching his in water.

Maybe it was best Zaine wasn’t around now. He looked back and saw some students blatant staring at him, and with his read skill he could see the one in the middle had a water ability. He took a cursory glance and focused back on the class. Wet and cold clothes weren’t a big issue.

Aurora looked at him intently for a few seconds and chose not to say anything, not yet.

The class continued as usual and for the remaining scheduled hours of the class,more and more students started playing these silly little pranks on Zyro, emboldened by his lack of response.

As the class ended, Zyro cleaned up a bit, trying to dry his hair with his hoodie. He barely looked phased by all the annoyances,in fact he was glowing.

Theia sighed.

"And of course, this is when a quest decides not to pop out"

With Zen,it was an issue of motivation, but right now she had literally no idea what he was thinking.

As students shuffled out of the class, some bumped into him clearly intentionally but he still didn’t move or say anything, just smiling at them as they passed.

Eventually it was just him, his roommates, Sable and Zaria with her roommates.

Maximilian sighed.

"I actually feel kinda bad for these guys, though their probably gonna deserve it when he finally snaps. Almost like they’ve completely forgotten what happened with Gary"

"Okay, what the fuck is going on right now?"

Neo asked, looking confused.

Maximilian sighed and brought out the newsletter from yesterday and compared to then it had dozens and dozens of more threads under it. There were even memes moving around, not to mention Ava herself had modified her report, making it even more exaggerated.

Zyro chuckled. She’d sent him another text this morning and he obviously didn’t reply.

"Doesn’t this bother you?"

Zyro thought back to how they’d been raised in the arcade and honestly right now he couldn’t exactly get angry, and that would be even if he was physically capable of it in the first place.

’At least someone hasn’t tried cutting me up yet’

"It’s not a big deal. Water doesn’t really bother me,or any of the other stuff honestly"

Neo rolled his eyes.

"Fine, but you deal with it before I get pissed off and people start missing"

He just smiled and looked at Jade.

"Hey, how are ya? You gave us quite a scare there"

"I’m...good"

She answered in her low shy voice, still fidgeting in place like normal. He looked at her eyes and they were the same as last night. Not quite human. It looked like if someone had actively tried replicating a human appearance onto a lifelike mask and made a few slight mistakes. The more you looked at it, the more wrong it looked.

Luckily she still hadn’t been called out on it.

He then looked at Diane.

"What?"

"..."

"I’m fine. Geez. I mean I’m not dead, what else do you need to know"

She snorted before answering

"And the others told me a player saved our asses...so... anyway,i guess you’re okay in my book...crazy"

Zaria chimed in

"She woke up early this morning. Doc said she’s healed enough to go to class but no rigorous activity for a while. Meaning no fighting, transforming,or anything like that"

"Same with Neo and Xavier. Appearantly they shouldn’t use their abilities for the rest of the week if possible, and limit combat to the absolute minimum."

Diane almost burst out laughing.

"Yeah,good luck with that"

She said looking specifically at Xavier

Noticing a faint smell, Zyro looked at the door.

"Sable’s here"

Almost immediately, Sable walked in,her eyes locked in on Jade and for about two seconds she froze before rapidly walking forward and hugging her

"You’re okay!"

Zaria chuckled

"That was my first response too"

Neo rolled his eyes. When he woke up this morning he got a blank stare, a hit to the face and an annoyed groan all while they rushed into the bathroom.

Jade hugged back hesitantly, still overwhelmed from the reactions she’d gotten since she woke up. Was she really that close to dying?

Zaria shifted closer to Zyro, whispering in his ear

"She doesn’t remember what happened last night. She thinks this is the first time she’s waking up"

"She did seem pretty out of it"

"Do you think it’s gonna happen again?"

"..."

"Zyro. I’m worried about her, seriously. You know what you’re doing, right?"

"I’m working it out"

Zaria sighed

"At least she’s alive"

Sable finally let her go and looked at her face, suddenly pausing for a second,her nose twitching.

’She smells different now’

Her eyes turned to Zyro

’No. Not like him... but... not like them either ’

"Are you okay?"

Jade nodded.

"Yeah, luckily i got healed before anything bad could happen"

Everyone who’d seen what happened went silent. That wasn’t true, her heart had been stabbed and frozen. She was fully dead for about two minutes,no one had gotten to her in time to save her. Whatever had happened to bring her back was not healing . It was something else, but the one person who knew what happened didn’t even understand it himself.

Sable didn’t correct her,no one did. She could still remember the feeling of Jade’s cold lifeless body in her arms, and as the memory flashed,her hands squeezed around Jade’s shoulder unconsciously tighter.

"I’m glad"

Neo snickered.

"The way these guys describe it, I half suspect you actually saw the pearly gates"

Hearing that Jade suddenly turned to face him

"I didn’t see any gates... but...I do remember seeing something. It was like"

Seeing Jade blanking out again, Sable quickly shook her to snap her out of it.

"Forget about it. It’s normal for people to hallucinate when their bleeding out. Whatever it was probably wasn’t important"

"Y... yeah "

Maximilian groaned and discreetly elbowed Neo in the gut. Of course this moron would bring it up.

Zaria and Zyro exchanged glances

’She remembers seeing something?’

They both thought in complete sync

’Theia?’

Theia shrugged.

"Maybe it’s like the dream you had in the shadow realm. Or she could have gotten a glimpse into that light that brought her back, or maybe she was dream walking. I can’t really tell unless you know what she saw"

"Alright, enough of the sappy shit. Are we gonna do something or what?"

Zaria nodded

"Diane’s right. Combat based classes have been suspended for the rest of the week so students can get extra rest so we’re free for the rest of the day. Any ideas?"

They all exchanged glances

************

In the end, they couldn’t really decide on one thing so they’d just gone on a spree through town doing whatever looked fun

Zeb looked up at the setting sun and the others who were walking in front of him.

"What’s the point of all this?"

"Oh, come on, not this talk again?"

Sable said, slowing down to his speed

The two walked behind the others quietly for a second before Zen asked.

"What do you think?"

"I think she’s off... but it’s still her"

She said, looking at Jade

"That was the first time blood didn’t seem... appetizing since I became this. For a second I remembered what it was like to fear blood"

"..."

She gently punched him in the side

"Of course I don’t have to worry with you, you can handle yourself"

Zen looked down at the choker.

"About that..."

Could he still?

As they were about to enter the school again, Zen called Jade. She quickly answered and went to him

"Yeah,Z?"

"I have a request"

The moment he said his request everyone immediately went quiet

"W-what?"

Jade stuttered

"Dude,i don’t think this is a good idea"

Neo raised a brow but didn’t say anything.

"You want me to hit you?"

Zen nodded.

"Just once"

"No...i-"

"It won’t be a fight, just a single hit"

He wanted to test something

Jade sighed.

"Fine"

"As hard as you can"

Jade gulped, feeling nervous

"Right..."

Everyone gave them some space and Jade took a few steps back, taking a simple stance while Zen didn’t move at all.

"Ready?"

Zen nodded.

Jade took a deep breath and raised her arm, charging towards him before swinging as hard as she could.

The hit landed with a dull thud as her fist whipped through the air, slamming into his chest.

Gritting his teeth, Zen suddenly took a few steps back, his hand coming up to rest on his heart.

...

...

...

... 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

...

"A-are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

Jade asked despite knowing for a fact she could never really hurt someone as strong as Zen.

He didn’t reply and just took a breath. He was about to step forward when he suddenly clenched his chest and to everyone’s horror including Jade herself, he almost keeled as he suddenly spat blood, painting the ground red