He came out the bottom into a basket of wet towels.
The Academy laundry was a long, low room full of clean steam and the slow thump of pressing machines, uniforms hanging in endless rows like an army waiting for orders. An old woman in an apron stood at the nearest ironing board. She looked at Raizen in her basket, and Raizen looked back at her with a towel somehow on his head.
"Took you some balls to go down that" she said.
"...Huh?"
Her eyes moved to his hair. "Mm-hm."
She set down her iron, pulled a gray uniform jacket off the nearest rack without checking the size, and threw it at his face.
"Return it washed," she said. "And folded, by next year"
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because two years ago, someone came down that chute for your exact same reason," she said, picking her iron back up, "and every year a bunch of idiots skip class looking for them. If you don't mind, please go upstairs now…"
