I wasn’t surprised to find my name on the list.
What did surprise me however—deeply, soul-shatteringly—was the name below it.
Supplementary Healing Course: Advanced Soul DiagnosticsInstructor: Professor Dellaetrix
No no no no no... You got to be kidding me right?
There had to be a mistake. Some poor clerk mixed up the sheets. Or this was some cruel prank. Or I’d died in my sleep and this was hell.
Nope. There it was. In ink. Real.
Professor Dellaetrix Sephirot L’Etrange.
The man who once told me my rune sequence "looked like a sick toddler’s crayon tantrum." The same one who made Azalea cry over a misplaced diphthong. The walking deadpan disaster of the faculty lounge. Now my instructor.
For real. Legit. No cap.
I considered skipping. Faking illness.
Hiding in a cabinet for a year. But alas—I had pride. Stupid, stupid pride.
I mean, don’t you know how prideful a healer should be?
To receive a lesson and gain knowledge from it would be quite gold for me.
I arrived right on time. Not early enough to look studious, not late enough to slink in unnoticed. Just on time to be visible.
It wasn’t a normal classroom. More like an old repurposed ritual chamber. Diagnostic slabs. Chalk lines. Quiet. Dusty. Suspiciously humid.
And then there he was. Standing beside a soul-resonance slab like a crow with tenure. Cloak rumpled. Eyes faintly red-rimmed. Probably hadn’t slept. Probably didn’t plan to.
Dellaetrix looked up as I stepped in. Our eyes met.
"...No, don’t." he said instantly.
I blinked. "No what?"
"No drama. No emotional outbursts. No weird eye contact."
I hesitated.
Then, because I’m me, and because I can’t help myself, I dropped to my knees right there in front of everyone.
"I deeply apologize, Professor," I said solemnly, lowering my head. "For the time I wasted. For calling your robes ’sentient laundry.’ For suggesting your teaching style is a form of spiritual hazing. And... for doubting your expertise."
The silence was brutal.
He twitched. One visible twitch. His hand jerked like he was debating whether to cast a spell or just disappear.
Meanwhile, the other students were looking at me behind the front door, thinking I was bullied by this teacher or something like that. Either way, it was a hilarious scene.
"Get up!" he hissed, voice cracking halfway through.
"You can’t just—what are you doing—this is so embarassing—just—get up!!"
"But I haven’t—"
"This isn’t some kind drama! We’re not doing Mage of the Opera! Get up. Now!"
He sounded like he was short-circuiting.
I heard a few snorts from the other students, quickly muffled. Some even actually laughed their ass off. It was beautiful, the way I would shame him that way.
"Alright, enough. Silence!"
The other students went quiet, as he decided to... roughly bring me off his feet.
He practically dragged me to his feet and shoved me toward a diagnostic circle like the whole thing never happened. I think his ears were pink. Reddened.
And yes, his ears, pffft.
Right after that happened, he refused to meet my eyes for a solid five minutes.
Lesson began.
On the slab lay a boy—eleven?
Maybe twelve? Breathing slow, skin pallid. Not critical. Not fine, either.
Dellaetrix pointed to me without looking.
"You. Veylith. Repulsion sweep spell. Do it now."
"Yes, Professor," I said sweetly, which visibly pained him.
I stepped forward and cast.
A gentle, probing repulsion spell pulsed out from my fingers, designed to detect soul anomalies—misalignments, impurities, memory warps. It bounced back crooked.
Something wasn’t syncing.
Another sweep. Slower. More precise.
"...There’s another frequency," I said quietly.
"Like an echo. It’s not foreign, but it’s not fully his, either."
Dellaetrix turned slightly, just enough for one eyebrow to raise.
"And... conclusion?"
I exhaled. "It’s a twin soul scenario. One soul overshadowed the other in utero. The secondary presence is... fading. Probably absorbed."
He didn’t praise me. He didn’t nod.
He just scribbled something on his clipboard and muttered,
"...Accurate. Very well expected from the Veylith clan."
But when he turned away, I swear I caught him smiling for half a second.
It seemed like he was amused by my talents, something like that.
The rest of the class proceeded. Diagnostic cases, individual exercises.
Dellaetrix occasionally fumbled with chalk or pretended he didn’t hear questions that would make him compliment someone. A student sneezed once and he nearly cancelled the class on the spot.
He really was that clumsy, or absent-minded. Just like me, for real for real.
When it ended, he paused at the doorway before we left.
"...Class dismissed. And Veylith—next time you kneel like that, I will assign you to the mirage illusion chamber for a detention immediately."
"Yes, Professor."
I saluted, thanking him.
He visibly died inside.
And just like that, my extracurricular hell had begun.
And unfortunately?
I was looking forward to the next one.
The classroom had emptied out with an awkward shuffle. I was about to leave too—until his voice clipped the silence like a falling ruler.
"Miss Veylith."
I stopped. Blinked once.
"Yes, Professor ’Definitely-Not-The-One-I-Knelt-To’?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose like he’d aged a decade.
"Office. Now."
"...Didn’t know you cared about me."
"Miss Veylith. Right now."
"Right. I’m going."
* * *
His office was exactly what I expected and somehow worse: a semi-organized disaster of arcane clutter, half-brewed teas, and books that could probably curse me if I judged them. Which I did.
He gestured to a rickety chair that looked like it might file a worker’s complaint.
"Sit. Try not to break anything expensive."
"Define ’expensive,’" I said, lowering myself.
He poured two cups of tea. Deadpan.
"I’ll assume yours is the one you didn’t spit in."
"Unconfirmed."
I smirked.
He sipped his own. "Your scan in class exceeded baseline by twenty-three percent."
"Flattered. Slightly alarmed."
He raised a brow. "Because I noticed?"
"Because you said something."
"Ah."
We lapsed into something comfortably dry. The air was not warm.
It was smart. Crisp. Borderline sarcastic.
"You want a real answer?" I asked.
"No," he replied. "Which is why I’m asking."
Fair.
He tapped a crystal against the desk, causing a flicker of blue to dance across it—residual scan energy. Soul-tracing residue. My spell. My first real success.
"You resonate on a strange frequency," he said.
"Direct. Borderline unstable. But clear."
"Compliments make you uncomfortable?"
"Uh, no. Not at all."
He ignored that. "You process patterns faster than you emotionally contextualize them. So your readings spike before your brain catches up."
"Which makes my healing either deeply precise... or an ethical violation waiting to happen."
He stopped sipping, then pointing out his finger at all.
"Now you’re getting it. You are a monster at healing now, Kairi."
I leaned back, watching him over the rim of my cup.
"Are you always this funny, Professor?"
"Only with students who survived the first week."
"And here I thought you hated me."
"I don’t have the energy for that," he deadpanned.
"You remind me of a lizard that refuses to die in the sun. I took care of it in the end."
"That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all month."
He walked to the shelf, fiddled with an old tome, then turned back.
"You’re good. But you don’t trust your instincts yet. The ones that aren’t sharpened by performance or theory. That’s what I’m offering to train."
I frowned. "Soul-tracing without filters?"
"Touch. Presence. Proximity. No tools. Just your senses. And... your heart."
"Borderline intrusive," I said again.
"Welcome to medical magic, where healing anything is possible, Miss Veylith."
He tilted his head slightly. "You can say no, Miss Veylith. I’ll still let you top the class, just with more paperwork and condescension. Also private lessons."
I considered his offer carefully, before opening my mouth to speak.
"Fine. But I want to be annoying about it."
"That’s your default. I can be gentle, but only if you earn it."
"...How touché."
He stood still for a beat, then pointed a long finger at me.
"Also, never kneel again."
"Not even if you die and I’m trying to revive you?"
"I will haunt you in your sleep."
We held eye contact.
Two souls. Slightly broken. Fairly sharp. Severely caffeinated.
"I still hate your tie," I said.
"It was a gift," he lied.
"I can tell."
He opened the door for me, muttering,
"Out before I remember to assign real homework."
"My pleasure, Professor Dellaetrix."
"...Regrettable one. I suppose this is the end. We shall talk again soon."
And just like that, I stepped back into the corridor with the strangest thing of all:
A faint smile I didn’t bother hiding.