“There’s nobody here,” I say after slowly opening the door and glancing around the classroom.

“No wonder I couldn’t hear anyone talking inside.”

Could they be out doing some sort of extracurricular lesson?

After deciding with so much difficulty to come and apologize to Duke-Sama, it seems I ended up coming here on a fool’s errand.

“Hey, do you hear that? Sounds like someone’s crying,” Gilles says looking at me, his brow furrowed.

…..Would you please stop that? I may believe in reincarnation, but I’ve never been irrational enough to believe in things like ghosts and spirits. Though, I am actually hearing the sounds of sobbing coming from somewhere right now. Perhaps I was too hasty to disregard such things up until now?

“Ah. There was someone.”

“Eh?”

Gilles points a finger into the classroom, indicating something in the very back of the room. I turn to look as well.

Chestnut colored hair….. Just where have I seen that before? Who was it again? She’s hanging her head. I can’t see her face…. And it’s not exactly a situation where I can tell her to look up, now is it? How bothersome.

“Who…?” the girl says, slowly raising her tear-stained face.

Oh, so that’s who it is. But what is she doing, crying all by herself in a place like this?

If memory serves, she should be one of Liz-san’s devotees. I think her name was Emma? She was the one that tried to ensnare me in that voice recording trap. Since she’s here, I guess that means she must be older than me.

“Ah. You? But why? Here?”

Her bewilderment isn’t exactly unjustified. After all, on top of no one else being here, this isn’t even my classroom.

‘I see you’re not bothering to hide your freckles today,’ is the villainous line I’d like to say, but I’ll be nice and hold back. Just this once.

Even I feel a little compassion seeing how flustered she is right now. With jerky, harsh movements, she’s violently scrabbling at the tears on her face with her sleeve even as she’s darting to get out of the classroom.

“Stop. You were here first. We’ll leave.”

Emma stops dead in her tracks and shoots me a suspicious look.

“Everything’s your fault….. You’re probably just trying to leave so you can hurry and tell everyone how I’ve been crying alone in the classroom,” Emma grits out, her voice gradually becoming more hysteric. Is she just taking her frustrations out on me? Or is she really mad at me specifically?

“That day, you made a complete fool of me! You insulted my appearance! You humiliated me right in front of Liz-Sama!”

So it seems she’s mad at me specifically. But I don’t really see why. I’m sure Liz-san wouldn’t have abandoned her over something like that. She’s got the mindset of the Holy Mother. Liz-san will love her unconditionally regardless of what a conniving, charmless b*tch she is. So what gives? ….Could someone else have done something to her? Not that it has anything to do with me.

“You can stay here. We’ll leave,” I say to her again.

“Oh, will you? Why? Do you pity me? I must seem so pathetic to you, crying all alone in here. So you want to graciously leave so I can cry in peace? You think I’ll cry tears of joy over a kindness payed by the likes of you? Quit dreaming!”

Wow, she clearly loathes me to the core. This isn’t the first time I’ve realized, but I must have become a truly splendid villainess for her to bear such a grudge against me even after all this time.

Slowly, I make my way towards the girl. Although a frightened expression crosses her face the moment I start to approach, I notice that she doesn’t step back. She holds her ground quite nicely even while she’s glaring furiously at me, like a mouse being backed into a corner by a cat.

“W-what?” she manages to stutter.

As I get closer, I can see just how red and swollen her eyes have become. She must have cried quite a bit…..

What could have possibly happened for one of Liz-san’s hardcore fans to have ended up crying to this extent?

“I didn’t see anything. There was no one here when I came in,” I say evenly, holding her gaze with mine.

“Eh?”

“At least when crying, you shouldn’t have to hold yourself back.”

Emma’s red-rimmed eyes go wide in surprise, for a split second losing all traces of their fierceness and hatred for me.

“I’ll put up a barrier around this classroom for you. No one should be able to hear anything from outside, and they won’t be able to come in either. Once you leave, the barrier will naturally dissipate, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

After saying my piece, I turn around, intending to leave.

T/N: For those of you who don’t remember Emma, her scheme starts in chapter 128, she makes her debut in chapter 129, and she gets wonderfully roasted for her looks in chapters 130 and 131. I know this because I am also guilty of not remembering her in the slightest. I had to search through the old chapters for quite a while to find her >.< (All because I wasn’t sure if I had described her hair as chestnut-colored LOL. There hadn’t even been a description of her hair color though ^^’) But those chapters, particularly 130/131, were pretty fun! Alicia got some spicy jabs in. I quite enjoyed re-reading them haha.

For those that don’t wish to re-read, allow me to summarize for you. Emma had a shy girl called Marika go ask Alicia to “come with her.” Marika, in utter awe and fear of Alicia, can’t get out an intelligible syllable, which Alicia spares no time in viciously pointing out. Marika runs away, apologizing as she flees for dear life, and when Alicia goes to the cafeteria next (apparently the only place people go to make a big to-do), Marika is using her magic to replay Alicia’s pointed remarks from their earlier conversation at the behest of Emma in an attempt to ruin Alicia’s otherwise sterling image within the academy. Mel thwarts their schemes with some magic mimicry of her own (we do remember Mel, right? XD) at the behest of Duke. (I know you didn’t forget our aptly named Prince Duke.) Alicia goes on to insult Emma’s looks and use her disgraceful behavior and otherwise disgraceful appearance to prove, or maybe not prove, a point to our lovely neighborhood flower-head.

Thank you. This has been a fairly faithful summary of chapters 128-131. *Curtsies* See you again next time!