Chapter 121 Digging Up Burnt Pasts
With a slow nod of her head, she adjusted her position.
She felt a dip on the bed, behind her. Her breathing seized for a moment.
"Don't even think about it. I'm sleepy as it already is." He commented with a shake of his head.
"How could you tell?" She replied in a whisper.
Nix looked at her back and shoulders which had little currents spreading all around her whole body. Faint, but present.
"Your body tells what your lips are too shy to speak."
Immediately after he said that the current seized as she pulled the cover over her head. "You have no proof!"
Nix had a smile on his lips at her words. Patting her head, "don't betray me."
Lumina's eyes widened at his words. Turning around, she saw his eyes closed as little snoring sounds escaped his slightly parted lips.
Her eyes were fixated on his lips for a while. Closing his lips, she stared in awe at how peaceful he looked. "Let me share your burden." She said in a whisper, placing her hands on his cheek.
Slowly, her eyelids began to weigh on her ability to stay awake until her vision began to cloud in darkness.
At that exact moment she drifted to sleep, Nix's eyes opened, revealing he had merely been pretending to sleep all along.
'Are you sure that you can bear it?' He wondered as he searched her face.
Once again, he closed his eyes.
Riiiiiing!
Nix jumped out of the bed, falling to the ground at the ear-shattering sound of a magic alarm clock.
"What the hell?!" He frowned, using his gift to burn the clock in rage.
Lumina yawned, stretching out her arms. "It's morning, already?" She wondered before looking out the window.
True to the time, the sun's rays seeped in through the window and onto Nix's face.
Raising his hand to shield his eyes, he used telekinetic manipulation to close the blindfolds.
"This day hates me in every... possible... way!" He said amidst kicking on the table by his side.
"My alarm clock!" She shrieked in horror at the blue liquid puddle created by his heating it till it melted onto the bedside table.
"We could always get another from Mr. Zhao, I'm sure the academy has lots of money at their disposal." He said with a grin and shrugged.
Lumina did a facepalm at their lack of sleep. "What are we going to do?" She said in a panic, jumping off the bed and searching for her bathrobe.
"You do whatever you think is right, and I stay here for an hour or two and catch up on the sleep I so deserve."
Getting up, he fell onto the bed, letting out a sigh of relief at the feeling of calmness.
A voice muffled by the left of his cheek on the bed, he said with a wave of his hand in dismissal. "Go without me."
Lumina paused in her steps, wondering if he hadn't noticed. "You're serious?"
Nix raised his head in suspicion, there was something about the sound of her voice that made him have second thoughts about what he had just said.
"What about it?" He questioned curiously.
"You can't play supreme overlord because you have one of the four special gifts. Hello? I also have one, so get your ass out of the bed and prepare like I am for class!"
Just as he had guessed, she would use every opportunity to remind him of how ordinary he was without his gift.
"They wouldn't even notice I'm there. Besides, I'm still on a..."
"Sick leave?" Lumina completed his words. "I wonder. Are you, really?" She pressed on to what she aimed for in the discussion.
Yet again, her words only made him have doubts about what he had just said. "Let me guess, it's a no."
"I guess you didn't count your days well since you've been doing some few outdoor tours lately." Lumina leaned forward, her hands in akimbo as she used her eyes to glance over him in a rapid move.
"Damn it!" Nix punched on the bed in disappointment.
"I'm going to be late!" She hissed, leaving him to attend to his affairs as she dashed to the bathroom in a rush.
"Where does that leave me?!" He called out after her before the bathroom door slammed.
–––––––––––
In the burnt down home of the Lae's,
The sound of footsteps could be heard on the charred remains of what was left.
Kicking on some broken remains of a ceramic plate, Zephyr picked up a piece and stared at it.
"This was some serious case of covering up one's tracks." He observed, looking around him for some clue.
Taking in a breath of the polluted air, his eyes widened to something he had failed to notice earlier. "Is that syth?"
Wiping his finger on the floor, he brought up a bit of the black remains close to his nose for proper identification.
There were only a few people who could tell the difference between a burnt substance caused by a fire user with the smell referred to as 'syth' and those naturally burnt.
With this, no one could easily blame any fire user born in their lifetime.
Graced with the skill of sensing the difference, he had to double-check his proposed theory with the black substance on his finger.
With a sniff, he immediately wiped his hand on his black pants. His eyes stared at the floor in horror at what he had come to realize.
"A fire user!" He said to himself in a whisper, "the survivor was a fire user."
He looked around him again, eagerly trying to piece the information he had gotten from the organization together.
'There has been a reported case of a fire user who had gotten into the academy under strange means.' He rubbed his chin.
'Also reported to be an or–' he paused in his thoughts as his eyes widened to the realization that finally dawned on him.