Zakeri and Abriel were, in fact, too late for the rest of Miss Kali’s class- and Zakeri knew she was going to make him pay for it until he graduated. Not that she could do much worse than partner him with Abriel. Especially since every time Abriel looked at him after hearing his story, the demon’s eyes were full of emotions: pity, confusion, sorrow, all overwhelmed by the hatred most demons harbored for humans. As if there hadn’t been enough hatred in the demon before.
Yet, despite that increase in hatred toward Zakeri, it didn’t fill his aura as much. The black had filtered away a little while Zakeri was telling his story. That part when Zakeri talked about his mother- that was when some of it had seeped out. It let Zakeri see some of what Abriel’s aura must have been like, originally; the pretty clear red of a passionate, competitive person, flecked with dancing specks of confident orange and calm blue. It was a puzzling mix of colors that intrigued Zakeri.
“There you are!” Cormac’s bright, happy voice snapped Zakeri out of his thoughts.
The silverette turned to meet spring green eyes, a small smile coming to his face. “Here I am,” he said, eyes flicking down to take in Cormac’s fingers wound through Ashe’s- though Cormac quickly snatched his hand back, the smaller demon looking down to hide his hurt.
“Where’ve you been for the last three days?” Cormac asked, eyebrows scrunched together to show his worry.
Zakeri’s eyes moved across the room, settling on Abriel. When Cormac followed the silverette’s gaze, he glared at the dark-haired demon who’d claimed Zakeri’s attention. “Uh… I just decided to take a break. It’s a lot of work, taking down Daeva’s top demons,” Zakeri said lightly, mockingly.
Ashe scowled, turning away from both of them and taking a seat on the usual side of the room, next to a girl who immediately dragged him into the conversation she was having with her friends. Zakeri didn’t feel bad about it- it was partially that little demon’s fault that his shoulder still burned and his head spun slightly with every movement he made. And because Zakeri didn’t say anything about it, neither did Cormac.
“Let’s sit down. Class is about to start,” Cormac said, gesturing to the seats they’d claimed as theirs. Nobody had taken Zakeri’s seat while he was gone, because his reputation was more fearsome than even Abriel’s; only Ashe had dared, and only because he was too infatuated to care.
“Actually,” Zakeri said, taking a step away from the redhead, “I’m going to sit by Abriel today.”
Cormac’s eyes widened- and so did Abriel’s, because he hadn’t known about it either. Ashe hid a satisfied smirk as Zakeri climbed the low risers to the back of the class, sitting in one of the many empty seats that ringed Abriel and leaving Cormac to sit alone, frowning with sad eyes.
“What are you doing?” Abriel hissed as Zakeri took out his notebook, opening it to the page opposite the one from his first- and only- day of class at Daeva.
Zakeri looked at Abriel with an innocent smile. “What? I’m just sitting here. Our familiars don’t seem to mind,” he said.
Abriel turned his head to look for Mace, surprised; his familiar never got along with anyone but him. But there the two cats were, white and black, rubbing the sides of their faces together before lying down, tails flicking against each other, their eyes always on their masters. “That’s not possible,” Abriel breathed, his fingers tightening around his pen.
“Kissa just has a way about her,” Zakeri said smugly.
The pen cracked in Abriel’s hand, staining his fingers with red ink. Zakeri’s hand flew to cover his mouth, muffling his laughter. Abriel gave him a deadly glare; then a smirk twisted his lips, and he reached over to wipe his hand off on Zakeri’s jeans. Zakeri shoved his chair away, making an irritated noise as he saw the red ink stain swiped across the dark blue fabric. “You’re a jerk, Abby,” he sniffed.
“Don’t call me that!” Abriel snapped back immediately-but Zakeri saw the play of soft pink sparkles that danced on his aura, revealing a pleasure at hearing that name that even Abriel might not have known existed.
Smirking, Zakeri leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. He could feel Cormac’s eyes on his, and the eyes of most of the other top seven, but none of them mattered except for those pale blue ones that were so angry at the moment.
“Alright class,” Miss Megumu clapped her hands together as she walked out of her office. Zakeri almost choked on the breath he’d drawn in when he saw how she was dressed; it was like she wore a nightgown, nearly sheer, over her short skirt. A teacher, no matter what she was, shouldn’t have been dressed like that; it distracted most of the male students the second she walked in.
“I’m sure you’re all excited to know the topic of today’s foundations class, which I’ve kept secret,” she said it teasingly, tapping the side of fake glasses that looked appallingly like Miss Kali’s, “Well, you finally get to find out!”
Miss Megumu turned around, standing on the toes of her bare feet to give the board a heading: ‘talented humans’. Abriel stiffened in his seat, his eyes sliding sideways to Zakeri. The silverette retained his calm, cool attitude, smiling at Abriel, tapping his pencil against his notebook.
Abriel narrowed his eyes, leaning forward to scrawl- at the top of Zakeri’s page. Zakeri watched the condensed, spidery writing spell out a message: Will you tell me if what she says is right about you?
Zakeri considered it for a moment, then nodded his head. Abriel pressed his lips together to hide the pleased smile, because Cormac was still staring at them, and he didn’t want anybody else to know. It would be dangerous for Zakeri if anybody else found out what he was. The thought made Abriel frown again; when had he started to worry about the irritating silverette’s safety?
Miss Megumu turned back around, relieving Abriel from those worrisome thoughts as she began. “Most humans are easy to trick, deceive into giving up their souls. But there are some, extremely rare humans, who are as powerful as the most talented alpha demons in hell.”
Gasps filled the classroom, and Zakeri directed his smirk at the table; he knew exactly how powerful he was, and it amused him that the demons seemed afraid of him, a little old human with a golden aura.
“Now, the talents of these humans vary as much as the talents of alpha demons,” Miss Megumu said, “And we’re not sure we know all of them. But today, I’ll be telling you what we do know.
“The most basic power of a talented human is the ability to see auras. Now, most demons have the ability to see auras if they concentrate, but talented humans don’t have the ability to turn off this power; they see the aura of every person they meet, and are known for making snap decisions based on these auras.
“Linked to this power is the ability to manipulate auras; if they wish, they can change the very basis of our being. They can turn a passionate and compassionate being into someone wracked with fears and doubts- or vice versa.”
Abriel reached his hand sideways without looking, scrawling ‘manipulating auras’ on the sheet. He didn’t look to see how Zakeri responded, just kept listening to the teacher.
“While most of the power lies in their minds, most of these talented humans also have advanced reflexes, increased strength and speed, and tend to more more attractive than your average human.”
Abriel glanced sideways again, and couldn’t help but agree. Those dark eyes paired with that silver hair, and that cocky smile that had made his heart flutter- if every human had those good looks, Abriel was never going to survive any trips to the human plane with his sanity intact. Zakeri smiled as if he knew where Abriel’s thoughts had gone, and winked at the demon, bringing a pale flush to his face.
“Now, the rest of a talented human’s power are much more varied, and most aren’t powerful enough to tap into these powers. The lowest of them is telepathy, the ability to tap into and sometimes influence thoughts; empathy goes hand in hand with this, but is a harder ability to use, manipulating emotions and increasing their chances of successfully changing an aura.”
Abriel added those two abilities to the list, giving each its own line.
“The most powerful ability we know of in talented humans is telekinetics- the ability to move people and objects with only the force of their will. This makes them extremely dangerous adversaries, but finding a talented human who can do this is very rare, and most are eliminated on sight.”
Telekinetics was added to the list.
“There may be other abilities, other powers these talented humans have, but they haven’t been documented, because most of these humans do not live long enough to display them. Hell’s demons follow a simple rule; if a human shows any signs of being more than average, they should be dealt with immediately, because their continued existence threatens our own. If you wish to stay alive, we recommend you follow this rule as well.”
At the end of list, Abriel added three question marks- in case there was anything else. Then he dropped his pencil, ignoring the rest of the teacher’s lesson, his eyes focused on the wall as he thought. Zakeri wasn’t just human, he was talented, and he was royally screwed if the truth about him ever came out.
His certainty only grew when class ended and Zakeri walked out with Kissa, leaving his notebook behind, with ‘yes’ written next to every single line.
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