Chapter 98- Malza Linddell
Elise's breathing stopped for a moment as she slowly looked up with a horrified look in her eyes. She didn't care what kind of expression she had now as what she thought about now was only if she really stabbed Rin and if she could save him or not.
"Ouch! You stab hard, Elise." his voice reached her ears and made her freeze for a moment.
Fortunately, The sword was stabbed into Rin's hand and didn't reach his body which meant that the injury wasn't lethal. Elise then quickly pulled out the sword while making sure to be as gentle as possible.
"I-I… I" She tried to speak, to apologize for the grave mistake she did but all she could utter were incoherent words she didn't understand herself.
"It's ok. Calm down. I'm fine." Rin quickly tapped her shoulder with a gentle gaze. Except for the pain coming from the hole created in the palm of his hand, he was totally fine. After that, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from Elise's face and his hand too before popping up a healing potion.
"Rin… I'm, I didn't…"
"I said it's fine. I get that you lost your temper for a second there. Nothing bad happened and that's all that matters."
Looking deep into his eyes, Elise saw nothing but genuine relief and concern for her. He didn't seem to be angry nor did he blame her for her stupid move. She would've been fine if he was angry or disappointed.
All her life, whenever she made a mistake, all she would face was immense pain and suffering that molded her mind into trying to be as perfect and as flawless in executing anything as humanly possible. That's why Elise was a freak of a perfectionist. She always does things with all of her effort no matter how insignificant they were.
But, instead of being blamed, Rin merely laughed it off as a small mistake and moved on as if something never happened. She knew how much this could've ruined everything and yet Rin didn't say anything. Why? Why is he not angry? Why is he still being considerate?
As she was raging with her own thoughts like that, Rin turned around and looked at Phillipe. He was standing there, frozen in shock. Rin snapped his fingers in front of the boy's face a few times but he was still frozen."
"Sigh…" Rin shook his head.
*Slap*
"Wake the fuck up." He said as he slapped him hard on the face, making him fall down.
Snapping out of his dazedness, he looked at Rin with a complicated gaze. His hand was still on his swollen cheek.
"See? I save your pitiful ass there. She could've killed you and you would've only watched frozen as she did that. I do not want to fight you or get entangled with you. I also didn't manipulate her. It's just something inside your head."
'This better wakes him up from his denial or I don't know what to do anymore.' Rin rubbed the back of his head as he pondered over his choices.
Phillipe then stood up and silently walked away without uttering a single word. He seemed to be shocked to the core because of what happened.
Watching as his silhouette vanished, Rin turned around to Elise.
She was still looking down quietly with her hands shaking a little bit.
"Hey… Are you ok?" He asked.
"I'm…"
*Clap* *Clap*
Before she could say anything, both of them heard a clapping sound coming from the entrance to the alley. Turning around, they both saw the student council president strolling toward them calmly.
"Truly an interesting show right there."
'What does this guy do there?'
Rin felt wary as readied himself to pull out his daggers just in case. Malza was way stronger than him but he ignored that for now until he actually does something funny.
"Don't be wary of me, Rin. I didn't come here for a fight. I just was passing by and coincidentally saw this interaction and I must say, it was worth the while." He said with a friendly smile.
'How did he know my name?' Rin squinted his eyes suspiciously.
"Oh. Sadly, I don't have a soft side for stalkers."
"How cruel of you, hahaha!" Malza laughed as if the jab in Rin's reply was nothing to him.
"No, really. I saw what happened in the ceremony hall and I was just interested in what was going on between you and that boy."
'Did he see me using Shadow Manipulation? Fuck!' Rin clicked his tongue as he realized the possibility of his trump car being exposed this quickly and by no one else other than Malza. If Malza was known for one thing, then that's his cunningness and extremely clever plans. He was the smartest person in the whole of Divine Sapphire for all Rin knew.
He was a manipulator, the good ones, at least but still a manipulator that enjoyed playing with his enemies as he wanted before ending them.
"He was just harassing us and then it ended up in a conflict."
"I can see that. But, for him to actually go that far and accuse you of hypnotizing the beautiful lady behind you. If I have to bet on something, it must be jealousy."
"Bingo. What kind of price do you want for getting the correct answer?" Rin replied sarcastically.
"Oh my! Let me see. How about we have a small chat, Rin?"
"A chat?"
"Nothing much. Just two people talking over a cup of coffee. It won't take long. How about it?"
"And why would a very busy person such as the student council president want to chat with a lowly student like me?"
"Hahaha! Come on, brother. We both know that you hide more than the eyes could see. You are very mysterious, Rin. I have a keen eye for interesting people and you are one of them."
'He ain't going to give up. Not that I expected him to do so. Fuck, for me to catch the attention of Malza, it's truly the worst luck possible.'
"Fine, we can have a small chat over a cup of coffee as you wanted. But, not now." Rin said as he glanced behind him for a second then shifted his gaze back to Malza.
"Oh, great! I wasn't expecting the time to be now anyways. Here…" Malza then threw him a card. The card somehow flew like an arrow toward Rin.
The latter grabbed it easily and looked at it.
"It's access permission for the student council area. We can schedule our meeting for another week at this exact time."
"Understood."
"Anyway, I won't take much more of your time. You seem to be quite 'busy' right now. I hope we can become great friends in the near future, Rin Silvereye." He said with a meaningful gaze as he cast a gaze on Elise before walking away and vanishing somewhere.
"Sigh, this is really not funny," Rin murmured to himself. He had no idea what that mysterious bastard wanted from him at all and he wasn't even sure if he was aware of his secret or not. That man hides his emotions so perfectly that Rin couldn't discern a single thought that ran through his head.
But, he quickly shook those thoughts away and focused on Elise. Her abnormal attitude told Rin that what happened wasn't simple anger but something far deeper than that. Something had triggered her greatly that he didn't know of.
"I'm sorry… I'm genuinely sorry… I didn't mean to…" She suddenly started apologizing with a low tone as if she was speaking to herself and not to Rin.
"Shhh."
Rin lifted her face with the tip of his fingers.
"Look me in the eyes." He said.
"Do I look like I'm angry or annoyed? Well, I am annoyed indeed but not because of what you did but because of how you are blaming yourself so hard like this."
"But, I almost…"
"There is no 'almost' in this world. There is only what happened and what didn't happen."
"That doesn't mean that I just did something foolish and impulsive just because of…"
"Mere trauma?" He asked with an understanding look.
That made Elise's eyes widen a little bit before she looked down again.
"Don't loathe your own trauma, Elise. That's frankly even more stupid than what you just did. Hmm, let's see… We should leave this alley first and then we can talk properly. You need to calm down first."
'Just imagining what could switch a calm and collected person like Elise so easily is really scary. She must be suffering a lot inside.' Rin didn't want to feel pity for Elise as that would be unfair to her, he was just sad to see a dear friend of his suffering from deep scars and couldn't help them properly to face those traumas.
'I need to help her no matter what. She needs someone to help her out of that pit.'
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