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Rudolf was agitated, to say the least. The disaster of a Crest class he'd been dragged to every day was bad enough, and at least he didn't have to wake up early for that. His Highness would lapse in his vigilance eventually, and there would be nothing to stop Rudolf from simply walking out of the classroom next time Professor Tomai broke into a tone-deaf tangent about invisible Hresvelg children like it was a neat case study with no consequence and not a living nightmare for that Saints-forsaken individual. For [i]him[/i].

He lingered outside the doorway to the classroom, first out of confusion - a couple of faces from his old unit led him to believe he'd simply wandered to the wrong place in his freshly-awakened stupor - then out of cowardice. If he was recognized even once, that insufferable cacophony of congratulations for his 'promotion' to the Rose Unit would follow, or perhaps jealous mutterings about how unfair it was that [i]he[/i] of all people was put in the Archbishop's pet class. He could explain that the Rose Unit was looking more like a trial group for Professor Tomai's Crest research and less like a prestigious military academy unit every day, but then he'd be hounded for what made [i]his[/i] Crest special. It wasn't; it sucked and he didn't want to talk about it. And all of that was before the grueling task the professors doubtlessly had planned for them today. Inter-class competition, surely, where the most spiteful of his former classmates could beat the crap out of him for his 'betrayal', and the nicer ones could do it just because that was their assigned objective. And then Rudolf would get a pity commendation because the rest of his class was superhuman and nobody bothered to look at him long enough to evaluate him. If they ended up marching the classes down to Gronder Field for a mock battle, he might just walk home and never come back.

Come to think of it, he didn't know why he hadn't marched back to his room already. What was the worst they could do? Kick him out of Garreg Mach? Have him return home disgraced and ashamed? He already didn't want to be here. But for some reason, his legs wouldn't move. He was such a coward.

The crimson-eyed boy trudged in to the classroom at last, barely suppressing a sigh as a cursory examination of the chalkboard revealed they were definitely not bound for Gronder. So much for his escape plan. Maybe he could just hide until it was all over, not that he knew what [i]it[/i] was yet. Announcing his presence to the professors seemed like a bad idea, Clarissa was friendly enough to entertain his questions but she was engaged with a crowd and the less eyes that landed on Rudolf today, the better. That just left... Leena, or whatever her name was. The girl was as icy as her magic without being as disdainful as Her Future Imperial Highness, so Rudolf figured that would be his best bet at avoiding needless talk while still sating his curiosity.

[color=b300b3]"What are we doing?"[/color] Rudolf asked quietly, hoping a pointed question would get him a pointed answer and not tedious pleasantries about how weird it was that she hadn't seem him approach.

[hr][@Obscene Symphony]
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