Fearless

Chapter 9

Sometime in the early morning, Kiara woke up with a throbbing pain at the base of her tail and lower back. She sat up quietly walked out of the room, making sure there was no one in the halls before unwounding her tail from around her waist. She was sharing a room with Sheimi, which meant her tail was going to be kept wrapped around her waist unless she was sure she was alone.

It wasn't long until Kiara heard a door open, and she quickly lifted her hoodie slightly and wrapped her tail back around her waist.

"Kiara, what are you doing up?" Someone asked, and Kiara looked to see Yukio not too far away from her.

"I normally wake up early. You know what they say, 'Early bird gets the worm'." She said simply. "Hey, Yukio, I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"Earlier, with the ghoul, it said something to Rin. something about a young prince. Any idea why it would say that?" She looked over to Yukio, who had no change in his expression.

"I have no clue why the ghoul would say something like that." He said, nervously adjusting his glasses. "You might of been hearing things because of a fear response."

She knew he was lying. Ever since she was a child she could easily detect the lies of the other kids— it helped her a lot when they tried to lure her places to play cruel pranks on her. She could never explain it though, it was as if something went off inside her head when someone told a lie. Looking at Yukio, she shrugged and turned around, shoving her hands in her hoodie pocket. "I don't hear things out of fear, teach. But go ahead, you can keep your secrets. Though I have to warn you— the bigger the secret, the harder it is to keep it quiet." With that, she walked off, she was already up and probably wouldn't get back to sleep now, so she might as well get some studying done.

***

Later that day, Kiara was sitting in a classroom, listening as Bon read over a passage that Izumo had just struggled a bit with.

"That was perfect Mr. Suguro!" The teacher exclaimed once he was finished.

"Amazing!" Rin exclaimed.

"That was great!" Sheimi said.

"Good job Mr. Mohawk." Kiara said with her head on the desk.

"Easy now, don't fall for me!" Bon said with a grin.

Kiara scoffed, "I'll try not to."

"Hey, so you really are smart." Rin said, causing Kiara to start snickering.

"What do you mean 'really'?" Bon asked with an annoyed expression on his face.

"It's not that Bon's smart, he's just very good at memorizing things." Konekomaru explained.

"In other words, I'm smart, right?"

"Uh, yes!"

"But anyone can just memorize something!" Izumi said from across the room.

"What, did you say?" Bon asked.

"Says the girl who wasn't able to memorize the passage." Kiara teased, earning a glare from Izumo.

"I-it's not that I can't memorize it! I just choose not to!" Izumo said defensively, "Arias are completely defenseless while they're reciting, so they have to be protected by their party. They're nothing but a burden!"

Kiara narrowed her eyes, Izumo had the nerve to practically call people she cared about burdens. "A burden, huh? Like how you were when the ghoul attacked last night?" She said, making Izumo grit her teeth and start walking up to Kiara in anger.