Flashback: The Office

Two days ago, while Owen was busy contemplating the cosmic unfairness of his existence and wondering where his otherworldly visitor had disappeared to, Lilith was somewhere far worse—a place he would never willingly set foot in:

The Headmaster's Office.

If you expected the headmaster's office to look like a place of education, you'd be sorely mistaken. Instead, it gave off mafia-boss-meets-final-boss-energy vibes—dark leather furniture that creaked ominously with each movement, dim lighting that seemed designed to hide sins rather than illuminate wisdom, and faint traces of expensive cigar smoke lingering in the air. Except smoking wasn't allowed on campus, so where was that smell coming from? Perhaps rules were merely suggestions when you had your own golden mini-statue.

Then there were the trophies. So many trophies. Best Chess Player. Most Likely to Inspire Students. Even one for "Best Morning Routine." Because apparently, waking up early deserves recognition these days. Each one was polished to a shine that suggested they were handled more often than actual educational materials.

And then there was the pièce de résistance—a golden mini-statue of the headmaster himself. Shirtless. Muscle-bound. Striking an overly dramatic pose as though he were about to leap into battle against injustice—or maybe just bad grades. The kind of statue that made you wonder if compensating for something was an Olympic sport.

Lilith studied the statue, then glanced at the real headmaster sitting behind the desk. The contrast was... striking.

The statue? Ripped like a comic book hero after a radioactive gym accident. The real guy? Not even close. Just skin, bones, and an unfortunate amount of forehead fat that had colonized territory well beyond its original borders.

She considered—for a brief moment—that perhaps the headmaster once had such a physique. Maybe he was hiding muscles under his clothes? But when she glanced at his bony fingers that looked like they might snap while gripping a pencil too tightly and a face that sagged like melting ice cream on a summer day, she dismissed the thought entirely.

Lilith concluded that either the headmaster was in a permanent bulking phase... or reality had failed to keep up with his self-image.

She sat across from the headmaster, who finally looked up from his paperwork with the enthusiasm of someone discovering mold in their lunch. He gave her a puzzled look.

"You want to transfer? As a third-year?" His voice had the nasally quality of someone who had spent too many years telling teenagers to stop running in the halls.

"Yes," Lilith replied, her voice carrying that same crystalline clarity that had unnerved Owen.

"Where are you transferring from?"

"The Kingdom of Alaric."

The headmaster blinked. Once. Twice. Like a computer struggling to process an unexpected command. "...What kingdom?"

Lilith tilted her head, mock-offended, as if he'd just admitted to never having heard of oxygen.

"Wow, you don't know my kingdom? That's kind of insulting."

The headmaster panicked, his eyes darting around as though searching for a geography textbook that might magically appear and save him from this embarrassment. "Right, right, sorry—geography isn't my strong suit!"

Then reality caught up with him like a bus he hadn't seen coming. "...Wait, did you say kingdom?!"

Before he could question further, the headmaster, Mr. Lorenzo Takamine, suddenly remembered something crucial—himself. It was as if his ego had tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, "Hey, you're forgetting the most important person in the room."

He cleared his throat with the dramatic flair of an opera singer preparing for their grand finale. Sat up straighter, his spine cracking in protest. And delivered his over-the-top, self-important introduction.

"Ah, but first—I forgot to introduce myself."

"I am THE Headmaster of THE School!" He paused, waiting for imaginary trumpets to sound or perhaps for birds to suddenly fly in and form his name in the sky.

"...Also known as... HIM."

Lilith waited for something to happen—maybe dramatic music, maybe a lightning strike, maybe the desk would split open to reveal a fog machine. Nothing happened. The universe remained stubbornly unimpressed.

"...Right." She managed to keep her face neutral, though internally she was adding this to her collection of Earth absurdities.

Got him. This guy is no threat. Not unless being bored to death counted as a legitimate danger.

Mr. Lorenzo asked for transcripts, documents, and proof—the usual bureaucratic defense system against anyone trying to attend their institution.

Lilith handed him a document written in flawless Japanese, the characters flowing across the page with elegant precision.

The problem?

Lilith could read Japanese—but she couldn't write it. And this document wasn't typed or printed; it was handwritten. But not in her handwriting. The strokes were too confident, too native, as though the paper itself had decided what it wanted to say.

Someone must have given it to her. As the headmaster flipped through it with the confused expression of a dog trying to understand calculus, Lilith's thoughts briefly drifted:

Rei Voltaire. That man always had a way of making impossible things appear out of thin air. If I hadn't known better, I'd say he was born in this world. But even he could never truly belong here...

The headmaster flipped through the document, his frown deepening with each page as though he were reading increasingly explicit content rather than academic records.

Subjects like "Anthropology of Leadership," "Diplomatic Manipulation," and "Social Therapy" littered the pages. Her scores? Perfect. Not a single blemish on her academic record, as pristine as freshly fallen snow—and about as believable in this context.

"...What kind of school even teaches these?!" he muttered, forgetting momentarily that questioning the legitimacy of her documents meant questioning her story. And questioning her story meant acknowledging that something very strange was happening.

The headmaster Takamine frowned, his bushy eyebrows colliding like angry caterpillars. "I can't assess this. These subjects, these scores... it's all highly irregular."

Lilith decided she was done playing games. With a calm smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, she murmured, "A Few Well-Placed Words..."

The words carried weight beyond their meaning, bending reality to her will. Soon enough, the spell activated, slipping into the headmaster's mind like a thief through an open window.

The effect was immediate and horrifying—at least for him. He immediately started vocalizing his inner thoughts. Out loud. All of them. The good, the bad, and the desperately embarrassing.

"Ugh, I really should go to the gym—wait, I hate the gym. I should get waffles later—do I have enough syrup? Also, do I sound intimidating right now? I've been practicing my intimidating voice but my wife says it makes me sound constipated."

"Why did I buy that golden statue again? Oh, right, to inspire students—nah, who am I kidding, I just like looking buff. Makes me feel better about my real body, which hasn't seen exercise since that one time I ran after the ice cream truck in 1997."

Realization dawned on his face like a slow-motion train wreck. "Wait, did I just say all that out loud?"

"Oh God, wait, did I just say all that out loud? Oh God, she's still looking at me—oh God, she's looking—oh God, she looks amused—Oh God, Oh God, she's mocking me inside—oh God, I'm being played like a fiddle right now—oh God, oh God, STOP THINKING, STOP THINKING, STOP THINKING!"

Lilith watched impassively, maintaining the carefully crafted expression of polite interest that royalty perfects by age six. Internally, though, she was thoroughly entertained. This guy is better than those "reality TV shows" Owen keeps mentioning.

Midway through his breakdown, like a drowning man grabbing at anything that might float, the headmaster suddenly blurted out:

"Wait... do you even know Latin?! That's a requirement for enrollment!"

Lilith raised an eyebrow with the precision of someone who had practiced the gesture in mirrors across multiple dimensions.

"Latin? Of course. It is the official language of my kingdom."

The headmaster paused, blinking rapidly as though his brain were rebooting.

"Your... kingdom?"

Lilith nodded solemnly, with all the gravity of someone announcing the end of the world—which, from her perspective, wasn't far from the truth.

"Yes. Alaric was once a land of scholars. We spoke nothing but Latin until the fall." She let a hint of genuine sadness color her voice, the first real emotion she'd displayed since entering the office.

The headmaster was too overwhelmed to question it, his brain clearly having reached its capacity for processing strange information.

"Well... at least she meets one requirement," he mumbled as if that single point of normalcy was a life raft in an ocean of weirdness.

As the spell's effects began to fade, leaving him with the mental equivalent of a hangover, the headmaster was visibly shaken. But instead of fighting back, he rushed to approve her enrollment as though signing her papers might make her disappear faster.

"Fine! Welcome to the school! You can start immediately! Here's your schedule, your student ID, something about mandatory gym classes that you can probably ignore like everyone else does, and please, for the love of everything, never speak of this meeting to anyone!"

Lilith thanked him politely, taking the papers with a graceful nod that somehow managed to be both regal and slightly threatening.

She left him in a state of existential crisis, staring blankly at his desk. As she closed the door behind her, she could hear him mumbling cryptic phrases like, "The universe is laughing at me, isn't it?" and "Why did I ever leave that accounting job?"

Through the crack in the door, she watched as he accidentally signed five unrelated documents without reading them, then glanced at his golden statue and muttered, "Why did I make you so muscular? We both know I get winded climbing a single flight of stairs."

Outside, in the empty hallway that smelled of floor cleaner and teenage desperation, Lilith examined her new student ID. Another step in her plan, complete. The next day, she would begin attending classes alongside Owen.

She smiled, running her finger along the edge of the ID card.

“Let’s see how long it takes you to realize I’m not here just for history lessons, Owen.”