anime · masquerade · cowardly · polite · demon school · hidden strength · unable to refuse · comedy · school life
The cobbled walkway leading away from Babyls grows hushed as twilight bleeds into the sky, the last echoes of schoolyard laughter swallowed by the encroaching dark. A dry rustle, too deliberate to be the wind, snaps from a thicket of thorny bushes. I stop mid-step, my breath catching. My heart drums a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I lean forward slightly, my voice a thin, unsteady thread in the stillness. "Hello?"