Laying on my bed, I let out a sigh as I stared straight at the ceiling. My blanket was half covering my body,
The shades to my room were half open, letting a glimpse of the afternoon sunshine in.
Bronya's words sounded in my mind once more as I pondered her words.
Alone huh?
Have I felt alone all this time?
I know that it's human nature to not want to be alone, but I honestly found myself pretty content even when I was going along with life by myself.
Perhaps not having much free time due to playing around with my adaptations often was part of the reason I never felt that?
Who knows?
Would I trade that time back then with now though?
I didn't even need to think about it to know that the answer was a resounding 'No'.
But now a question couldn't help but pop into my brain.
Was I truly alone back in the orphanage back then?
I racked my mind, trying to recall if there were any faces that stood out to me, that I somewhat tolerated despite them being annoying kids.
Several mages flowed through my mental vision but I had to say that they were all a blurry mess.
That's strange.
I had adaptations for good memory so I thought that it would be easy to remember a few faces. I suppose that I forgot about those people before I even obtained that adaptation though.
Gaining abilities, even if they were not supernatural, was rough back when I was a kid.
A knock on the door to my room suddenly interrupted my focus, causing me to glance over.
"Gojo! Are you free now?!"
I sat up straight from my lying down position, made my way to my door and swung it open with a swift motion.
Then, I was met with the bouncy Kiana who seemed like she had eaten too much sugar for the day.
"What is it?" I asked softly.
The grin on her face instantly shifted into puzzlement.
"You seem down again? Are you in your emo phase now or something?"
"What?" I leaned on the doorframe. "I can be gentle sometimes too, y'know? I'm a gentleman"
"Pfft"
She covered her mouth and looked away.
"Gentleman… yeah…"
After a clear of her throat, she returned back into her normal position whilst she took out her phone. "Could you say that again? I want to record it!"
I sighed. "You can record me drawing a turtle on your head when you sleep at night."
"What? No way!" A look of unease flickered on her face before the confidence, however misplaced it may be, quickly returned. "There's no way you can do that! I'm always alert!" She pointed at me with an arm on her waist.
"I have the keys to every room in the house."
"... Does that mean we can go doodle on Bronya's face too?"
I nodded with a sagely smile.
"Of course."
The girl seemed to go into a world of her own, thinking of the innumerable amount of pranks that she would be able to do with the keys I had.
Unfortunately for her, I was obligated to bring her out of fantasyland for a moment.
"So what do you want anyways?" I exited my room and closed it behind me.
"Oh yeah!" She looked at me accusingly. "What were you doing this morning? Mei told me that you and Bratnya were missing!"
"We went and watched the new Arahato movie."
"The one that came out a few days ago!" Her jaw was open. "I wanted to watch that with you!"
"We can still go watch it tonight if you want." I pushed her along. "Let's go downstairs. I wanna get a snack. This Gojo needs some mochi!"
She shot a glare. "We're not done here!"
At this moment, my phone suddenly rang, causing the both of us to stop in our tracks.
I took it out from my pocket, only to see the call coming from an unknown number. Answering it with a click, I immediately gave a greeting.
"Hi! Would you be interested in purchasing a plan for insurance? You never know if-"
"It's me."
"Hello, Me. I'm Gojo. Nice to meet you."
"That joke is so lame…" Kiana commented drily at the side.
"I know right." The woman on the phone, very likely Himeko from the voice, gave her agreement. "Anyways, do the four of you mind meeting again soon? I have someone here who wants to see you guys."
"Have our demands been met?"
"Surprisingly, HQ was quite open regarding this. They were okay with you guys not taking missions." She said brightly.
What? Seriously?
I thought that I would need to do some more arguing to get some good deals somewhere in the middle.
That was usually how things worked after all.
Make crazy demands and then the opposition will be more open to the things actually wanted.
Not going to lie, it was a bit suspicious.
"Why does he or she want to meet with us then?" I asked while gesturing to Kiana to go downstairs again. "And who is it anyways?"
"It's a 'she'." Himeko pointed out. "And you remember when I told you about training you guys right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it's the Principal that wants to talk to you."
"Don't tell me she's going to try to pitch her school to us…" I deadpanned.
"That's exactly what she's planning to do!" She laughed. "She wants to see all of you face to face to show you how strong you could become!"
"Uh huh…"
"So? What do you think?"
"I suppose a meeting wouldn't hurt…"
Seeing this Principal face to face would help me see the type of person she was. If she wasn't like Himeko and was a conniving schemer, I'd need to take precautions ASAP.
Maybe a few purples and Shamash would work pretty well as the nuclear deterrent?
I'm sure nobody wants a hundred megaton nuke dropping all over the world right?
On the other hand though, what if she was actually someone who could be an ally?
Then it would be in our best interests to work with them right? They could act as a check and balance to all the shenanigans that Cocolia was pulling.
I didn't want to involve Schicksal at first. But since they were already here, might as well.
"I'm down." I answered after a moment of thinking. "I need to ask the others for their opinions first though."
"Great. I'll just set an appointment for now then? You can inform me if there are any changes to the plan."
"Sure."
I was about to hang up, but then Himeko suddenly said something again.
"By the way, do you want her name?"
Oh yeah. That was pretty important no?
It would be pretty awkward if I went into the meeting not knowing what to call her while she knew everything about us.
"I would appreciate it."
"You're quite polite today." Himeko remarked.
"That's what she said."
"I take back my words." A sigh came across the phone. "But as for her"
"She's the principal of St. Freya Academy."
"The person in charge of the Far East Branch of Schicksal."
"Theresa Apocalypse."
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