5 minutes earlier...
Julius Sparrow was falling hopelessly like a meteor soaring through the sky.
His legs had completely abandoned him, dissipating into fog underneath him, when the doors flew open with a bang.
Julius pulled his body over as he fell, abruptly twisting over as he barely caught himself on the bench outside the grey octagon table.
Immediately, he stilled, fossilising where he sat on the bench as he used the commotion to reach the bench without alerting anyone's attention.
Julius sat turned away from the rest of the table, where Thurid and the others sat, from how he had purposefully spun to land safely on the bench.
His gaze reached across the sea that was the cafeteria, the tables like boats carrying students.
Julius sat still, his legs slowly recovering where they weakly slumped off the bench and onto the floor.
It was then, coincidentally, that a silver-haired boy stood exactly where Julius's gaze landed.
Immediately, Julius recalled the incident earlier in the morning, anger bubbling like heat from a fresh forge, the embers rekindling in Julius as he remembered the comment the boy made.
His eyes focused like a predator's, swallowing Adrian's frame as he drank in his appearance.
He noticed a pair of Tiffany blue eyes staring back; the gaze was tense, charged with static.
Adrian was unfazed as he stood, staring with a gaze that clashed against Julius's.
Then just as quickly, the boy turned away, sweeping along, moving through the room.
Julius's gaze stayed hovering over the boy, like a phantom lingering, as he watched the silver-haired boy head off toward the lunch line.
Julius, unlike any of the students, knew about Adrian's transfer.
Not from the rumours that spread before Julius transferred, but from finding out in his own ways...
It was the reason why he was unfazed when Adrian stepped into Mrs Hatch's class
Julius's attention was initially captured when he discovered the son of Zeus would be attending the same academy as himself and dug a little deeper.
It was naturally something he found out when he decided to research more about the academy, after Sol had enacted her plan on him and his uncle to get Julius to enrol.
He quickly found out about Adrian's past, his magic and how it worked.
Heck, he probably knew more than Mr Ignis, who naturally investigated Adrian himself when deciding to take the risk of letting him enrol.
Though Julius hadn't imagined that the boy would cause him to lose his composure.
Of course, Julius had also dug into most of the students' lives, too.
For example, he had known Thurid was Thor's daughter since he had investigated her lightly.
Julius planned to use her strength if needed.
He knew the white-haired boy, Gyasi, was the son of Khonsu.
Gyasi's magic was also very peculiar, involving some sort of gravity manipulation from what Julius read in files he definitely shouldn't have had access to.
More interesting was his fighting style. Gyasi used a skating board with a thin metal deck that was sharp at the edges.
He used his own sort of martial arts that Julius was rather curious to see.
Though the most boring of all was the quietest girl at the table, Nagiri, whom Julius was only able to find small things out about.
Nagiri was an orphan for a while before her orphanage burned down. Her parents had died in a fire, and Julius had difficulties tracing her hazy bloodline back.
Although Julius did all this investigation purely for his plans, he certainly didn't calculate what was going to happen next.
Behind Julius, to the side of him, Nagiri sat with wide, concerned eyes like pink jewels in the process of crystallisation.
She sat up straight for once, too overwhelmed with worry to be self-conscious.
Her face, now that it was visible, was actually quite small and rather beautiful.
The students on Julius's table somehow hadn't noticed Julius's spin, distracted by the doors opening suddenly, except for Nagiri, who had been solely paying attention to Julius.
Nagiri was perceptive and knowledgeable; she knew Julius had suffered some damage from Thurid's "gentle" swat.
She quietly examined him, checking his frame in an attempt to see if she could notice any irregularities in his spinal posture.
She wanted to speak up, maybe ask if he was alright, but every time she looked up, she just couldn't get the words out.
Then her pink eyes caught Julius's side profile, noticing the small nicks at his jawline, she couldn't help but think back to Fenrir's blatantly made-up story from this morning.
She sat in a trance, watching how a mysterious aura cast upon Julius's gaze.
Words, kind and considerate, caught in her throat when Julius's eyes slowly turned.
Nagiri followed his line of sight, finally seeing who entered the cafeteria.
She remembered the early morning in an instant, the exchange of words, the surprising show of Julius's uncharacteristic lack of restraint, and the ghastly sight of blood and gore.
"Hey, isn't that the kid that broke your hand, Julius?" Gyasi questioned casually, his tone carrying a trace of curiosity.
Julius froze at the question, his posture turning rigid as he processed a multitude of lightning thoughts.
The question should've been "Isn't that the kid you punched?" but because of the show of Adrian's overpowering resistance, Julius looked to be much weaker.
Thankfully, Julius's mortal strength hadn't been exposed.
Although it was because of this that a misconception formed in the minds of the spectators, students were thinking that Julius's "supernatural strength" was no match for Adrian's, to an overwhelming degree.
Still, Julius was agitated, as being perceived as helpless would only serve to lower his reputation.
He should've been grateful that his secret hadn't been exposed, yet the fiery tinge in his heart would only sway his cunning mind.
"Yeah, yeah, so what? Julius could kick his ass if he wanted; that guy got off lucky." Thurid blurted, detecting Julius's awkward silence, she casually made Julius out to be stronger than he was.
The tension in Julius's shoulders hadn't eased; if anything, it grew firmer as his body slowly recovered.
His eyes projected across the vast cafeteria, piercing through the scuttle of students, stalking the lunch line as he noticed a purple-haired boy call Adrian to the front of the queue.
The truth was...
Julius Sparrow was angry.
Even people as calculating as Julius could have their shortcomings.
Julius closed his eyes, promoting his awareness to seek his anger and restrain it.
This was a distraction; he had no time for this.
Soon, he found the thought, the sensation like magma heating in his gut, buried in the rawest parts of himself.
Yet every time he tried to pull himself away from the feeling, to ground himself, a new thought emerged.
An image.
A young woman with flowing black hair.
A feeling.
Warm arms tangling around him.
An explosion.
Unimaginable pressure soaring through the winds, creating rifts between him and existence.
Then he remembered the words said to him.
A disrespect, a disgrace, a disgust.
The thought provoked him, stirring hot coals, burning astonishment of how ignorant a person could be to say such words.
Julius's whole vendetta against Zeus in the first place, the reason he besmirched Adrian and showed great disrespect toward him, was forgotten.
The hypocrisy, of course, fell away from him during this time of anger like a great tide steering a boat of course.
"C'mon Thurid, be for real, you probably couldn't beat him, even you couldn't snap a person's hand as he did." Gyasi continued, using his misconception as a base for his own judgment.
Thurid opened her mouth to speak, then suddenly recalled the moment after Julius broke his hand.
In the moment, Thurid had stood up, preventing Julius from throwing another punch, whilst actively ready to defend Julius from Adrian.
After Julius left, the two stood in a deadlock, watching each other and assessing whether the other would attack or withdraw.
Though Thurid had seen it.
Two Tiffany blue eyes, as calm as the sky.
The eyes tensed ever so slightly, always ready for a storm in the sky.
The way he stared was as if he were silently saying, "I've seen stronger."
"Ah-" In the present, Thurid couldn't quite get the words out.
Her face dulled for just a moment, the joyful light usually there now dimming slightly.
Across the cafeteria, a greyish-haired student began to get up from their table.
Thurid thought for a moment, suddenly becoming unsure, whilst the grey-haired boy drew closer toward their table.
Thurid lowered her head an inch.
She thought and thought.
She blinked.
Her smile suddenly returned, fastened tighter than ever.
She opened her mouth to speak.
"Julius?" A small voice interrupted from outside the table.
Julius sat still, his eyes closed, like a bomb waiting to go off.
His stability had recovered, and feeling in his limbs returned, visibly evident from how his body tensed.
His head turned like a mechanical configuration, eyelids splitting like two curtains parting to shed light on a vampire.
In front of Julius stood a thin boy, his eyes were weighed by shadows, and his hair was dull with a greyish-brown colour.
"Wang Yi? Are you okay?" Gyasi asked casually, turning over his shoulder as he blinked cluelessly.
Wang Yi didn't answer him.
He seemed to shrink in on himself, or maybe the cream jacket grew bigger around him; it was hard to tell.
He seemed to uncomfortably fidget with the sleeve of his jacket.
"A-Ad...A-Ad...." His nervous stutter made Nagiri seem like an extrovert.
The stutter, at this crucial moment, only seemed to irritate Julius further.
"Wang Yi..." Thurid called out suddenly, her voice soft as it was friendly.
"What's wrong? You can tell us." She assured him.
Wang Yi looked at the girl at the table; her face held a warm smile that came as naturally as light from the sun.
He looked at Julius.
"...Adrian called your mother a-"
Julius sprang up before the boy could murmur another nervous word.
He was pacing down the cafeteria in quick, efficient strides.
His face was expressionless, yet his eyes carried the ruthlessness of a tiger.
He passed a table and snatched an empty metal tray in front of a student.
He approached Adrian from behind, his face as smooth as paper, even as his eyes narrowed like an archer taking aim.
He raised both arms behind him, holding the tray by the sides with both hands.
"I'm curious, it's not every day you see the son of-"
BANG!
end of chapter 18