"Well… that happened."

I scratched the back of my head, still a little dazed, my gaze drifting blankly into nothing. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually—I was lagging. My system hadn't quite finished buffering.

Aurhea Aurel, the Student Council President, had just casually waltzed into my life like a hurricane dipped in silk, and then vanished again—leaving me to process the wreckage alone. The image of her white coat fluttering behind her, cadets parting respectfully as she passed, lingered in my vision like a stubborn afterimage.

It felt burned into my retina.

Probably because it had literally just happened.

Twenty minutes ago, give or take.

And yet, the buzz from the open-air cafeteria still hadn't died down. The energy lingered in the air—alive, electric, contagious. Not that I knew firsthand. I had dipped as soon as Aurhea had been 'dragged' off by Caitlin, her unofficial handler-slash-chaperone-slash-absolutely-exasperated-best-friend.

She took the spotlight with her when she left. But the stage remained.

And I was still standing on it.

Which meant… once the golden sun goddess disappeared, all the flashing lights, the stares, the silent whispers and raised eyebrows—turned to me.

Because apparently, I was the guy who had just been on a date with the infamously unattainable Aurhea Aurel.

Now, I found myself seated on a clean stone bench beneath the open sky—deliberately far from the chaos of the cafeteria.

Beside me sat Ceres, a small tub of yogurt in her hands and a blank expression on her face. She didn't say much. Just quietly peeled back the lid and dipped her spoon like it was a ritual.

Behind us, a grand water fountain hummed in rhythm with the evening breeze, its gentle sprays catching slivers of fading light.

The sky above had shifted to a soft lilac, brushed with streaks of orange from the sinking sun. Most of the clouds had drifted away, leaving the horizon open and vast. The sun itself hovered low, inching steadily downward as if tired from the weight of the day.

The wind had turned cooler, brushing my face with the first hints of evening. The afternoon was behind us now. The day more than halfway spent.

But my thoughts? Still spinning in yesterday's pace.

Ceres scooped another spoonful of yogurt into her mouth, her gaze drifting somewhere off beside me.

"She's finally gone," she said flatly.

I turned to her, slow and casual.

"Yeah…"

But seriously—why was Ceres still here?

Running into her earlier had been a complete coincidence. And while my encounter with Aurhea hadn't gone anything like I imagined, Ceres had stuck through it all, mostly because I dragged her along.

But now Aurhea was gone.

I wasn't arrested.

No interrogation. No cuffs.

Everything was... relatively fine.

So what was she still doing here?

Sitting next to me like we had unfinished business.

Eating yogurt like it was the only thing anchoring her to this plane of existence.

I glanced at her again.

Involuntarily, my lips parted.

"You knew the Student Council President from before?" I asked, watching her mid-scoop. "You two seemed… close."

She froze—just for a heartbeat—before lifting the spoon the rest of the way to her mouth.

She ate the yogurt with the grace of a distracted elementary schooler.

Detached. Indifferent.

And somehow, still effortlessly, aloofly beautiful.

But the pause only lasted a fraction of a second.

Ceres resumed her yogurt mission without missing a beat, spoon to mouth, like nothing had happened.

She tasted it thoughtfully before speaking, her expression unchanged—blank, distant.

"We met just before the Practical Field Experience Exam," she said. "She told me she'd had her eyes on me. Something about wanting me to be her successor. Carry her mantle or whatever. I don't know."

She scooped again.

Unbothered. Unmoved.

"Sounded annoying. It was. I wasn't interested. But she's been pestering me ever since."

Another bite.

"How annoying."

I stared at Ceres, blinking blankly.

I had no idea what she'd just said. Not a clue.

Honestly, I hadn't even expected her to reply. She was so unreadable, I figured she'd just go full silent-mode until one of us got bored and left.

Successor? Mantle?

What the hell was she talking about?

My thoughts stalled.

Then my eyes flickered.

Crap.

I just realized something...

I was having an actual conversation.

With Ceres Walker. The cold, enigmatic, emotionally-unavailable Ceres Walker.

Sure, her words were clipped, efficient, almost robotic—delivered with the emotional depth of a marble statue. And yeah, I barely kept up with anything she was saying...

But still.

This counted as a conversation, right? Our first proper one on one since the duel.

The same Ceres who nearly punched a hole through my gut at the start of the semester.

The same Ceres who had glared at me coldly ever since, like I'd personally offended her existence.

She'd always been an enigma—unreadable, unreachable. A mystery with no pattern and no cracks.

Back then, when the System first assigned me that quest to challenge her, I thought it was just another twisted joke—its way of watching me suffer for its own entertainment. But now…

Now I knew better.

With everything happening—with Meta, with the System's real intentions—maybe that challenge hadn't been random at all.

Maybe putting me against Ceres Walker had been intentional. Calculated.

But why?

What did she have to do with any of this?

What part did she play in Meta's plans—short-term or long-term?

What was the point of Ceres?

…Who was Ceres Walker?

I must've been staring too long—too hard—because suddenly, she was staring right back.

"What?" she asked, tone flat as ever.

There was a smudge of white—milky sludge—clinging to the corner of her lips.

My eyes shifted instinctively to the small tub of yogurt in her hand.

Ceres caught my look and immediately hugged the container tighter to her chest like I was about to lunge for it.

Her red eyes narrowed, sharpening with guarded suspicion.

"I'm not sharing," she said, voice even flatter than before.

"Huh?" I blinked. Ceres' glare surprising unyielding at me.

What...?