Ash walked into the cafeteria, and saw Landon stopped talking. She picked the conversation up again a second later.

Ash took a tray and sat across from Seth.

"You look better," Seth said.

"Daro cleared me yesterday."

"Good." Seth ate. "The debrief report went up. The Guild liaison sent a follow-up to Cavel. They want clarification on the fourth entity’s classification."

"Cavel didn’t have one?" 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"No. The phrase that flagged it was ’bipedal with intellect.’" Seth looked at him. "The liaison wants to know what that means for their filing system."

"Tell them to add a category."

"They would rather work with something already on the list." Seth leaned back a fraction. "You know how Cavel handled the rank field?"

"Evelyn told him to put D."

"D." Seth repeated the letter. "So on paper there’s now a D-rank student who handled a Class Three Gate incursion alone. Which means somewhere in a Guild database, there’s now a file on you."

"There was always going to be a file."

"Sure." Seth lifted his cup. "I just want you to know someone’s reading it."

He said it with the same warmth he said most things with, easy and direct.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Depends. The guild recruiters could be a nuisance if you don’t know how to handle them. A desperate guild will see a D-rank cleared a Gate with three hollows and an indescribable entity and think they found a diamond in the mud."

"How do you deal with them?"

"Each person has their own way of dealing with them. The easiest option is joining one, the hardest option is finding a new way to insult them if they get on your nerve."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"In case one shows up looking for you. I’m sure you’ve seen them around on the first of every month."

"And you?"

Seth shook his head. "Anyways, there’s an applied theory study session tonight, in the East rooms. You coming?"

"Probably not."

"You should. You know midterms are coming."

"I know when midterms are."

Seth looked at him, then back at his food. "Alright."

They finished their trays of slop. When Ash stood, he saw Landon tighten her jaw at the sight of him. He walked past her and into the corridor.

He took the long route back, past the combat annex and through the administrative corridor. The building’s ambient Shade-sense read louder than usual. It didn’t feel loud in volume but denser, like there was more signals closer to the surface. He moved through it and let it pass.

Mid-step, the hunger caught something his conscious attention hadn’t reached yet.

It felt like a clogged drain, a low and steady Shade that had been losing ground for so long it stopped resisting entirely. Ash stopped at the junction and walked like he was tracking where a smell came from. Nine students stood between him and the theory wing’s entrance, the source of the Shade.

Ash slowly walked, making sure to check for any other abnormal Shades. Towards the entrance of the room, the person the Shade belonged to was undeniable. He was a second-year student, having a textbook open in one hand, and sipping coffee with the other.

He left the wing to go find Phoebe.

She was in the south corridor, coming out of a seminar room, and he almost didn’t recognize her.

Phoebe had her auburn hair down, with slight waves and increased volume to it. She wasn’t wearing the typical military style uniform most girls preferred. Instead she wore a white short-sleeve polo with the academy crest and a pink sweater tied around her waist.

Since he had known Phoebe, she always wore knee-high socks. Today, she had full leggings underneath a mid-thigh checkered skirt.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I mean no. I mean." Ash went quiet to compose himself. "You look nice."

"Alright I’m leaving." she turned to walk away.

"Wait. There’s another Shade that’s about to crack." Ash said, nearly pulling her back but restrained himself at the last second.

"Another?" She spun to face him. "Where?"

"I saw him in the theory wing junction. He’s a second-year from the look of it. His Shade has been draining for a while. No pressure, no seal, just low. He doesn’t know it’s there."

"How do you know he doesn’t know?"

"He’s standing in the corridor holding a textbook and not reading it. Just sipping a coffee and looking at the same page for twenty minutes."

"Have you thought that maybe he’s a poser and not trying to do anything beyond that?"

"Look, If you knew something was wrong with you, would you move to deal with it?"

Phoebe was quiet for a moment. "What does his Shade feel like from the outside?"

"Like a cold draft. Something’s been slowly taken out of the room and the room’s equalized around the absence."

"And from the inside? For him?"

"He probably just thinks he’s the kind of person who doesn’t want much."

She absorbed that for three steps. "Yuck. That sounds bleak."

Ash nodded.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I’ll find you then."

"I have office hours at eight," she said. "Some of us actually go to class and don’t spend half their life in this academy in a medic ward. I’m not skipping office hours for you. This happens before and you’ll give me enough time to get back in time."

"Seven-fifty."

She stopped walking and turned to face him. "And what happens after? Last time you were standing next to Sora for what looked like two seconds from where I was standing. Then you came back with dried blood on your face, your arm hanging wrong and breathing in a way I did not like the sound of."

"This one’s different. There won’t be a fight."

"You said that one wasn’t going to be a fight either."

Ash held her gaze, struggling to find the right words to respond with.

"I’ll help you," Phoebe said. "But I don’t want to see you looking like a walking corpse every time you wrestle a Shade to sleep."