Memo 019: (R1)Behind the open gates.

Every hallway looked the same: tall wooden doors etched with sigils, long corridors lit by hovering lanterns. She didn’t even know what a “mahouist” looked like here. Scholar? Mystic? Prisoner?

shrill laugh snapped her attention down the hall.

Three demi-girl students slouched against the wall, whispering loudly enough for anyone to hear. A cat-eared girl, tail flicking with smugness. A beastling with wolfish fangs poking out of her grin. And a bird-human, her feathers quivering as she covered her mouth to stifle another cackle. “I swear, the look on her face will be priceless,” the cat-girl said, voice dripping with glee. “She’ll never sleep in that room again.”

“Good,” the beastling sneered, stretching her claws. “Better she learns her place quick. Can’t have nobodies walking around thinking they’re special.”

The bird-human leaned close, eyes gleaming. “We sure gave her room a surprise, didn’t we? The way she screamed…” She trailed off into a trill of laughter, wings twitching.

They were drunk on cruelty, savoring it like a fine drink. Yuranu froze halfway down the hall, her golden eyes narrowing. Her instincts screamed—predators, but not the kind she respected. These were scavengers, gnawing for sport.

She coiled in the shadow of a stairwell, glaring at a group of robed apprentices who hurried past. Her stomach knotted—she wasn’t good at places like this. Too many rules. Too many eyes. She belonged in the underdark, where prey was simple and the hunt was pure.

Still, Nagisa’s last words echoed in her head: 

Find the mahouist.

Yuranu flexed her claws, then took a deep breath. If she was going to find this mystic, she needed a lead. Maybe someone high-ranked. Maybe someone foolish enough to talk. Her tail lashed with irritation. Her claws clicked against the floor as she muttered to herself, “Nagisa… this  place is the worse.”

Yuranu crouched low by the stairwell, tail curling protectively behind her. She was scowling at the maze of halls when a small voice broke the silence.

“E–excuse me… are… are you okay?”

Yuranu’s eyes snapped upward. A bunny girl stood a few steps away, clutching a stack of books so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her uniform looked too big for her, sleeves swallowing her wrists. She had short-cropped hair that framed her pale, anxious face, and every word trembled on her lips as if it had to fight its way out.

Yuranu narrowed her eyes. The dim lamplight caught the slit of her pupils, making them gleam like knives. For a heartbeat the timid girl froze, rabbit caught in the serpent’s gaze. Tilting her head, letting the silence stretch, her mouth curving just enough to bare the hint of a fang.

“Do I look okay?” she hissed, voice low and sharp. The girl stumbled back a step, almost dropping her books. “I–I… I didn’t mean—” Her scent was thick with fear. And yet, despite the fear, she hadn’t run. Not yet.

Yuranu’s tail twitched, amused by the contradiction. This little thing… timid as prey, but stubborn enough to linger and even approach. She leaned forward, shadows cutting sharper across her face. “You shouldn’t approach strangers in the dark halls. Especially ones like me.” The girl swallowed hard, shaking her head. “N–No… you look lost. And…” she glanced around nervously, lowering her voice to a whisper, “outsiders don’t last long here without… help.”

“Do you… want to come back to my room?” the bunny girl asked, her voice careful, earnest. “I don’t know if it’s because of my species, but I always… I always want to help.

Yuranu blinked at her, tail swishing against the stone floor. The contrast was almost dizzying. Moments ago, laughter dripping with venom. Now, this strange softness.

Her thoughts slid sharp and instinctual: Are all students like this? Predators and prey. Teeth and trembling hands. One side mocking, the other eager to please. She narrowed her eyes, but there was no malice—only genuine confusion. “…You’d help me? Even though you don’t know me?” she hissed low, studying the young student as if she were some puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. The bunny girl nodded quickly, her floppy ears bobbing. “Yes. It’s… just what I do.”

Yuranu walked behind the bubbly student to her room, golden eyes narrowing.

The room was chaos.

Torn pages littered the floor, a sea of shredded parchment. A desk had been flipped onto its side, one leg snapped clean off. A chair lay in two halves, its cushion gutted, stuffing scattered like snow. Clothes were strung across the room—skirts pinned to the wall by knife-points, shirts torn down the middle, underthings hanging mockingly from the rafters.

She didn't say anything as she entered the doorway.

 “.....…”  

her voice with a nonchalant tone. “They… they did it again…”

Her ears drooped so low they brushed her shoulders.

Yuranu stared, her tongue flicking once against the stale air. Her tail slid over the wreckage like a serpent through grass, her mind taking it all in—the deliberate destruction, the cruelty in every detail. This wasn’t a simple prank. This was ritual. A feeding frenzy, masked as bullying.“…Your nest,” Yuranu hissed quietly, eyes sweeping the ruined room. “They tore it apart.” The bunny girl’s knees buckled, and she crouched down, gathering scraps of paper into trembling hands as though she could somehow piece them back together.

“It's a normal occurrence … I just wanted to be nice,” she said, voice quivering. “i know it's stressful, so im just happy I'm their stress reliever…” She said softly. Yuranu stood over her, still and silent, coiled in thought. She could see it clearly now. The predator girls laughing in the corridor, smug with victory. The prey girl, broken in her den.

Yuranu sifted through the shredded remains of clothing until she found something half-intact—blouse, frayed at the seams, and a skirt missing a hem. She tugged them on carelessly, adjusting the fabric across her shoulders, her golden eyes never leaving the student. The girl was still kneeling, cradling scraps of parchment like they were pieces of her heart.

Yuranu’s tongue flicked. The sound was sharp in the ruined silence.

She moved suddenly, pinning the bunny girl against the wall with one scaled arm, her claws grazing the stone just beside the girl’s face. The girl squeaked, ears flattening back, tears trembling in her wide eyes. “You sure look tasty,” Yuranu hissed, her breath warm against the girl’s trembling cheek. Her tail tightened around the girl’s waist, not crushing—just reminding her of the strength coiled there.

She began to tremble. “I-It hurts…” she whimpered. 

Yuranu tilted her head, studying her like a specimen. “Hurts?” She let the word drip like venom. “By now, you’d already be eaten. Want to know the feeling?” Her forked tongue slid across her lips, and the bunny girl’s sob broke into a shiver.

But Yuranu’s gaze sharpened, cutting through her fear.

“They do these things to you,” she hissed, voice low and merciless, “because you do nothing. You hide. You cower. You let yourself be torn apart again and again.” She leaned in closer, her fangs glinting in the dim light.

“It’s pathetic. Unsightly.”

The girl’s tears streaked down her face as she tried to shake her head, but Yuranu held her still, eyes blazing like a serpent locking onto prey.

Yuranu’s grip loosened almost before she realized it. The bunny girl’s sobs stuttered into hiccups; the small body trembled in the dim light, eyes swollen and raw. For a breath, something inside Yuranu — a memory like a metal taste — brightened and cut through the predator’s hunger.

I eat weaklings like her, she thought, watching the tears glisten on the ruined cheek. The urge rose like bile, simple and honest, the old, vicious hunger that had kept her alive through darker nights. It would have been so easy. One snapped neck, one clean mouthful, and the corridor would be quieter for it.

But the memory she could not shake was sharper than appetite: the tunnel where she had been caged, the cold iron biting her wrists, the helpless press of someone else’s will on her chest. She had been taken apart, reduced, humiliated — and someone had come for her then, when she could not rise for herself.

Yuranu watched, divided.

Yuranu said finally, voice rougher than she meant. “Fix what you can. Bury what you can’t. Or next time, you won’t be crying — you’ll be eaten.” It sounded like a threat. It sounded like advice. The girl stammered a shaky nod and began to gather what she could. Yuranu turned away before the gratitude or the fear could make her pause.

I was caged and helpless myself, she thought, the memory a cold brand. I don’t let that happen twice.

She stepped back, releasing the girl. Without another word, Yuranu turned away. “I have a mission. Find the mahouist.”

The door creaked as she left, her footsteps sharp against the Lyceum’s polished floor.

For a moment, nothing but silence. Then—

A flicker of white. A coat brushing past her shoulder. Across pale fabric. And above them, a wicked smile carved and sticthed. Webbed up to almost resemble a spiders weaved web.

That was all Yuranu saw before the figure slipped into the room.