A beam of crimson light, thick as a telephone pole, erupted from my hand. It screamed across the roof, tearing up the gravel, and slammed into the center of the Dropout Demon.
The sound was absolute silence, followed by a thunderclap that shook the entire school building.
The demon didn't shriek. It disintegrated.
The red light consumed it, burning away the sludge, the ink, the failure. It blasted through the creature and kept going, dissipating into the clouds above like a reverse lightning strike.
The recoil threw me backward. I hit the ground hard, rolling until I stopped near the edge of the roof.
Silence returned.
The wind howled softly. The ventilation units hummed.
I lay on my back, staring up at the darkening sky. The stars were coming out. They looked blurry.
"Ren!"
Footsteps crunched on the gravel. Elara’s face appeared above mine. She was pale, her hair a mess, tears streaking the dust on her cheeks.
"Ren, stay with me! You... you just shot a laser beam out of your hand!"
"Market correction," I mumbled, my tongue feeling thick. "Very volatile."
She grabbed my shoulders, shaking me gently. "You idiot! You absolute, colossal idiot! You could have died!"
"Yeah," I smiled weakly. "But I didn't."
I looked above her head.
The glitching timer was gone. The red numbers had vanished completely.
In their place was a simple, steady blue bar.
[Destiny Diverged]
The countdown was over. I had broken the loop.
"You're crying," I observed.
"I am not," she sniffed, wiping her eyes furiously with her sleeve. "It's the dust. And the trauma. And... thank you."
She slipped her arm under my neck, lifting my head into her lap. It was surprisingly comfortable. She smelled like vanilla and ozone.
"You owe me a tutor session," she whispered, her voice trembling. "If you think getting beaten up by a sludge monster excuses you from the math final, you are mistaken."
"You're a tyrant," I whispered back.
My vision was fading to black. The exhaustion was a heavy, warm blanket pulling me under. I had lost my billions. I was going to be broke again. I was probably going to fail math.
But the girl was alive.
"Ren? Ren!"
"I hate high school," I sighed.
And then, I let the darkness take me.
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Closing Note：I’m stuck on a plot point! Help me decide the Heroine's next move on our Discord: unplot_joshua.
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