Hot seat

The Victorian man grinned as Yurika's body began to slump. "Roots need their water, and blood's nothing but water. I guess that makes me a glorified vampire, ah, but I don't drink blood, nor do I hate the sunlight. I love it in fact. Ah, sweet warm sunlight... Warm... AH!?"

The Victorian man recoiled his hand in shock as flames began to spread on his arm.

"Ey, get that away from me!" the short man cried as the Victorian man tried to extinguish the flames.

Yurika, clinging onto consciousness with all her willpower, didn't give the Victorian man an inch, firing glass shards right into his face before charging away as fast as she could back to the school. "If these guys are teachers, I'll deal with the lecture in the morning, but if they aren't, good on me, I ain't gonna get kidnapped," she thought.

However, the two weren't going to let her go so easily. Forming a sharp wooden blade with his other arm, the Victorian man sliced off his burning arm and yanked the glass out of his face. The short man meanwhile, began rolling like a tumbleweed at high speed after Yurika.

"These two... I could destroy them, but at the cost of spreading my hand across the table. They might even have an idea thanks to my self-defense mechanism, but I might be able to brush that off with a little misdirection. The problem is how the hell I beat these thugs without my ace?" she thought as the short man caught up to her. "Fuck it, no one gives a shit about property damage."

All glass windows and walls shattered instantly, hurling towards the rolling short man. The shear quantity of it was too much, and in an instant, his momentum was halted and he was bleeding all over. "Wad duh fahk!? Bizwol!"

"VIZWOL! And I've got my own problems to deal with, Bloke," the Victorian man scowled as he attempted to grown a new arm made of wood.

Though Yurika could have finished off Bloke easily, in the off-chance he was school employee trying to enforce the curfew rule, she figured it'd be bad if she killed him with that being the case. More importantly, Vizwol's attack had drained her big, prompting her to prioritize escape.

"She headin' fo da skool! We gotta cat er!" Bloke cried.

"Do something about all the glass in your mouth first! My goodness, I must do all the work. Rhondo la weave!"

Straining himself, Vizwol slammed his palm on the ground, bringing forth a mighty rumble. Tree roots began bursting forth from the asphalt.

Yurika turned and grimaced as she realized she wasn't going to escape. "Fuck... I'll have to risk it," she thought as she leapt back and propelled herself back towards Vizwol.

The U-turn surprised Vizwol and succeeded in foiling his attack, but as Yurika got within a few feet of him...

"Surprise!"

A wall of roots sprung forth from the ground and clamped down on Yurika, imprisoning all but her head in woody vines.

"Now time to drain you just enough to pacify, but not kill you. You might be bald, but you're still a woman with a nice body. There's plenty that would pay for the body without the head too you know."

"Are you..."

"Yes, we're teachers sent to take you back to the school for curfew violations."

"Jab er face with som gras!" Bloke fumed as he plopped over, still looking like a glass pin cushion.

"You guys are teachers? My fucking ass. You two clearly want to sell me," Yurika mumbled.

"O'll keel yu fo da gras!"

"BLOKE! Ahem, yes. We just have a, how you say, vulgar vocabulary, but we mean no harm. Now, sleep. Sleep, and you will wake up back at TIUMP, yes, TIUMP," Vizwol menacingly smiled.

"Yeah, I ain't stupid. My memory's still functioning," Yurika thought as she began to pour all her energy into one last-ditch attack. "I remember shorty said I'd wish you both were teachers. Even then, still had doubts. Fucking blood drain... Well, hopefully this doesn't expose my ace," she thought as the ground below slowly began to turn red.

"Huh? Bizwol, du grouwn," Bloke stuttered.

"The "glown"? What do you-"

But no mercy came as a huge pillar of fire burst from the ground, catching both Vizwol and Bloke within.

"FIRE!? NO! I CAN'T HANDLE FIRRRRRE!" Vizwol cried as he was incinerated almost instantly.

Bloke didn't fare much better, only lasting a second or two longer than Vizwol did. As for Yurika, she fell into the fiery hole, the flames slowly subsiding until she plopped into an underground sewage river. Up top, crowds gathered around the sinkhole as the flames vanished, staring down into the exposed sewage area.

"N- No one's there... What the hell was that attack!?"

Meanwhile down below, the current swept Yurika's barely conscious body through winding tunnels. "G- Getaway... Think the sewage system's contained within the barrier... But no... clue..."

And with that, Yurika lost consciousness.

...

Yabei yawned and slowly entered the main room of the girl's quarter. Much to her dismay, Doku was there waiting for her.

"Why do they designate separate sex commons if no one adheres to them?" Yabei grumbled.

"I came... I came... because she didn't come..."

"Um, what?"

"Bald."

"Nope, nuh uh, don't even imagine me bald!"

"The bald... did not return..."

"That's what we call good. If bald patches are vanishing-"

"Not hair! The bald girl..."

"Which one? There's two of them."

"I refer to Calli by name, not the bald girl."

"Oh, glasses... Again, that's a good thing. She's a wild nutcase, so if she never comes back, good for me."

"The coven fight..."

"You can handle it."

"Not a first year."

"It's coven-wide-"

"No, first year on first year, the teacher said."

"You weren't listening-"

"No, it's because I said it just now," a voice growled.

Yabei stiffly turned to face a scowling Shuna. "Y- You're back."

"Seems like you're the only first year here. Tch, and I thought I'd even things out by restricting the battle to only 1st-years. Too late to change it now. Yabei, it's 3 on 1, don't fail or I kick your ass."

All color vanished from Yabei's face. "Yabai, yabai, yabai, yabai, YABAI!" she thought before fainting on the spot.

"Sensei... Her mind is lost," Doku sighed.

"Fuck... Use her as a sacrifice anyway. I've heard her magic is supposedly dangerous. Probably a powerful condition-activated curse type. I say we test her out against onyx just to stick it to Hime, worst she self-destructs-"

"Self-destruct, last night, near the pachinko..."

"Ah, that. Well, the eyewitnesses said no survivors, so no use rummaging through the whole sewers, and even then... HE lives there... No one would ever want to intrude on that monster's turf."