They say things go back to normal after an incident like this.
Yeah… right.
By the time we returned to campus, the news had already broken. Not the real news, of course. Just the safe, school-approved version—"rogue variant interference," "toppler trainee exercise," and my personal favorite: students handled themselves admirably under duress.
In other words, a beautifully crafted pile of bureaucratic manure.
Still, the aftermath was… interesting.
You'd think going toe-to-toe with a rogue kinetic psycho and watching your supervisor spiral into a villain monologue would earn you some downtime. But no. Instead, we were hounded—by instructors, students, the local press division, some shady Arcana reps in black robes who didn't even blink when I made a joke about their dress code.
Everyone wanted answers.
What happened out there?
How did no one die?
Was it true the supervisor lost her mind?
Is it true Huey was actually useful?
(That last one came from Jonas, obviously.)
Riva was officially listed as "under investigation." Hailee called it "temporary containment." Hermione just looked at me and said, "She was a victim too… but that doesn't mean she's innocent."
And I guess that's true for a lot of people.
Alessia, the media girl, somehow got wind of the full story—maybe through her own digging, maybe from Willy blabbering in his sleep. She cornered me at Virelia Grind two days later, recorder in one hand, two iced cappuccinos in the other.
She didn't even try to ask questions first. Just dropped one of the drinks on the table and said, "Alright detective, what else aren't you telling me?"
We've been hanging out since.
Oh, and yes, she was surprised about the Lorenzo case. Let's just say her jaw hit the table when I showed her the Arcana-level file.
I told her I don't do leaks.
She said I'm insufferable.
Willy agrees.
But I've learned something from all this, besides the fact that I make a great bait for conspiracies.
Sometimes, being right doesn't feel like winning.
Sometimes, it's just… necessary.
And when you're crestless, when the world tells you you're a statistical defect in a system of powered elites…
"Necessary" becomes the only thing you have.
But I don't need validation.
I have my file.
I have my leads.
And I have people watching me now, more than ever.
So let them watch.
As someone smarter than me once said:
"The most dangerous thing you can do is think."
And I've been doing a lot of that lately.
Next case starts when the bruises I got from Hailee heal.
Huey Cross, signing out.