The front doors of the school opened into a high interior that made the building seem even larger from within. The hall curved around a broad circular opening in the floor, ringed by polished golden railings that looked down into the lower levels. Tall white columns climbed from one story to the next, banded with small gold rings, and long arched windows filled the walls with soft light filtered through purple panes. Blue banners hung from the upper arches, each marked with the school crest, and along both sides of the hall stood rows of red lockers with little gold handles. A slanted banner near one wall read "GO BANSHEES," its edges curled as though it had been hung in a hurry and left there through several school years.
Willow pushed her wheelbarrow carefully over the glossy floor, keeping both hands tight around the handles so the pot would not rattle too much. Luz remained hidden inside beneath the lid and the layer of abomination goop, though every now and then the pot gave the faintest little tremble, as if her excitement had nowhere else to go. Sora walked beside Willow with his hands relaxed at his sides, taking in the balconies, the doors, the locker rows, and the students passing between classes. Compared to the forest and the shore, the school had an order to it, a lived-in rhythm of footsteps, voices, bells, and glances exchanged across the railings.
The shift came almost as soon as they entered.
[Play Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Captain Hook's Pirate Ship]
It was not loud at first. A girl by the lockers stopped turning the dial on her combination lock and looked over her shoulder. Two girls walking together slowed near one of the columns, their books held against their chests as their conversation faded. A student leaning near the railing glanced at Willow first, then past her, and his interest might have gone elsewhere if several girls farther down the hall had not begun whispering behind their hands. Their eyes kept returning to Sora.
Willow noticed the change without understanding it at once. She had spent enough time in these halls to know what it felt like when people looked at her. Usually their attention passed over her with a familiar sort of dismissal, or settled on her just long enough to find something to laugh about. This was different. The air around them tightened with curiosity rather than open mockery, and the whispers moved ahead of them like ripples across water.
"Is he new?"
"I've never seen him before."
"He's cute."
"No, he's really cute."
Sora did not catch the words clearly. He saw faces turning, heard the lowered rush of voices, and looked around with mild uncertainty as they crossed beneath the hanging banners. He was used to being noticed in strange worlds, but this attention had no immediate danger in it, no Heartless, no raised weapons, no one moving to block the path. It was just students watching him as though he had stepped out of nowhere into the middle of their day.
Inside the pot, Luz shifted so slightly that the wheelbarrow creaked. Willow tightened her grip and whispered without moving her lips much, "Stay hidden, Luz."
A tiny muffled sound answered her, quickly swallowed by the pot.
They passed a row of red lockers where three girls had gathered shoulder to shoulder. One of them looked Sora up and down with startled interest, another leaned close to whisper, and the third glanced toward Willow with visible confusion.
"Why is that cute guy walking with Half-a-Witch Willow?"
Willow heard that one.
"Tch. Who does she think she is?"
Her shoulders drew in before she could stop them. The wheelbarrow kept moving, but her pace lost its steadiness, one wheel bumping softly over a seam in the floor. She stared ahead at the archway across the hall, trying to make her face blank enough that no one would see the words land. It was ridiculous, she told herself. She had heard worse. She had heard that name enough times for it to become part of the school's noise, no different from locker doors closing or shoes tapping along the floor. But this time there were humans beside her, one hidden in a pot and one walking openly at her side, and somehow that made the old insult feel newly sharp.
[End Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Captain Hook's Pirate Ship]
Sora looked from the whispering students back to Willow. He had not made out every word, but he saw the change in her posture and the way her hands tightened around the wheelbarrow handles. Her head dipped slightly, not enough for most people to notice, but enough for him.
"Willow," he said, keeping his voice low as they moved past the lockers, "are you okay?"
The question caught her so suddenly that she nearly stopped walking. She looked at him with surprise first, then confusion, as if concern were something she had not expected to hear in her own school hallway. The wheelbarrow rocked, and she steadied it quickly before the pot could thump against the wood.
"Oh," Willow said. "I'm fine."
Sora studied her face for a moment, not pressing, but not looking away as though the answer had settled everything. Students continued to whisper around them, and across the circular opening another small group had paused near the railing, watching him with bright, interested eyes.
They passed beneath another blue banner and moved toward the arched doorway at the far side of the balcony. Around them, the school carried on with its lockers, footsteps, whispers, and bright-eyed staring, but Willow's pace steadied again. She still felt the attention, and she still heard enough of it to know her name had not escaped the hall unchanged, but Sora remained beside her, and Luz remained hidden in the pot, and for the first time since the bells had started calling her toward class, Willow did not feel entirely alone walking there.
The locker area sat along one of the broad upper halls, close to the curving balcony that overlooked the lower floors. Red lockers lined the wall in a long, orderly row, each one fitted with strange eye-shaped markings and little tooth-like handles that looked more alive than metal had any right to be. The polished floor reflected the columns, the students passing behind them, and the rounded side of Willow's large pot where it rested in the wheelbarrow. Nearby, tall windows let in pale school light, and the murmur of passing students softened and rose as locker doors clicked, books thumped, and footsteps moved from one class to another.
Willow brought the wheelbarrow to a careful stop and stepped toward her locker. She raised one hand and gently tickled the little row of teeth beneath the locker's eye. The locker shivered, the eye blinking awake before its mouth opened wide with a wet, obedient creak. A long pink tongue rolled out, carrying a small stack of books and supplies as neatly as a shelf sliding forward. Willow took the books with practiced care, trying not to glance too often at the pot where Luz was still hidden.
"Hmm?"
[Play Laughter and Merriment - Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix OST Extended]
A young boy had walked up beside her, holding a magazine with both hands as though it contained dangerous knowledge. He was a dark-skinned witch boy with large bright eyes, pointed ears, and short dark hair shaped in soft, upward points, with shaved lines cut neatly along one side. His Hexside uniform matched the school's dark cloak and tunic, fastened with a gold button at the collar, though the light blue sleeves and leggings beneath made him look a little brighter than the gloomy lockers around him. He carried himself with the open excitement of someone always ready to share a discovery before checking whether anyone had asked for it.
"Willow, you would not believe humans."
Willow stiffened just slightly, then forced her face into a casual blankness. "Humans? Psh. I haven't seen any. What?"
The boy lifted the magazine as evidence, his eyes wide behind the intensity of his own research. "Did you know that humans nail barbed wire to their kids' teeth? But why? Maybe to make them magnetic."
Inside the pot, Luz could not help herself. "Actually, it's for storing treats," she whispered.
Sora, standing close enough to hear, looked puzzled by the whole idea. Barbed wire in people's teeth did not sound comfortable, no matter what explanation anyone gave it. The boy paused, his attention shifting toward Willow and then toward the pot with sudden confusion, as if the answer had come from the school furniture.
Willow moved quickly before curiosity could become a problem. "Okay, Augustus. I'm gonna tell you something. But you have to be cool."
Augustus straightened at once, trying to arrange his face into seriousness and failing under the weight of his own excitement. "I can be shpool." He stumbled over the word and corrected himself. "I mean, cool."
Willow glanced around the hall. Students continued past the lockers, a few looking at Sora again before moving on, and the locker's tongue still hung out patiently with the last of her things. Satisfied that no one was paying close enough attention, she turned back to the pot.
"Okay. Abomination, rise."
Luz rose from the pot in a lumpy purple coating, lifting her arms with theatrical pride as abomination goop clung to her hair, shoulders, and face.
"Ta‐da! I'm an abomination."
Willow frowned with immediate concern, placing her wrists on her hips. "Luz, that's not how abominations act."
Augustus's magazine slipped from his hands and slapped flat against the floor. His eyes widened until they seemed to take over his face, and he reached up to touch his own ears as though making sure they were still pointed and real.
"No. No, it, it couldn't be."
Willow looked at him with the smallest spark of nervous satisfaction. "Yup, a real live human."
Then she turned toward Luz, explaining while Augustus continued staring. "He's the president of the Human Appreciation Society. Most witches wouldn't be able to recognize a human right away. But Augustus is an expert."
Augustus leaned closer, studying Luz with breathless scholarly urgency. "Where are your gills?"
Sora looked just as confused by that question as he had been by the barbed wire. Whatever Augustus had been reading about humans, it seemed to have wandered very far from the truth.
Augustus turned to Sora, noticing him properly now that the shock of Luz had loosened its grip. "Oh, hi. Are you new here?"
"He's going to be," Willow said. "I'm giving him a tour of the school."
"Oh, cool. My name's Augustus; nice to meet ya."
Sora smiled and offered his hand. "I'm Sora. Nice to meet you too."
The two shook hands beside the open locker, Augustus's grip eager and quick, Sora's more steady as he watched the boy's excitement bounce from one thought to the next.
Luz, still half-risen from the pot and dripping abomination goop back into it, brightened at the name. "I knew an Augustus back in the human world. We called him Gus."
Augustus froze as if Luz had just handed him a royal title. "Gus? Nickname? Human nickname? Gus? Call me it. Wow. Gus. This is the best day of my life."
A school bell rang through the hall and screamed, sending its shrill cry through the columns and locker rows. Students started moving more quickly around them, books tucked under arms and locker mouths snapping shut along the wall.
"I've gotta get to spelling class," Gus said, still glowing with the discovery of his new name. "See you guys at lunch!"
Willow waited until he hurried away, then turned back toward Luz and the waiting pot. The locker tongue slid back into place behind her, its mouth closing with a satisfied little snap.
"All right. Into the darkness, you go."
Luz sank back down into the pot, pulling the goo and shadows around herself with dramatic reluctance.
"Hisses."
Sora chuckled at the sight.
[End Laughter and Merriment - Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix OST Extended]
[Play Innocent Times - Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep OST Extended]
The classroom marked Abomination 101 smelled faintly of damp clay, old stone, and whatever unpleasant substance abominations were made from when they had been sitting too long in covered pots. Desks were arranged in rows across the room, with students gathered beside their containers and half-formed creations while the lesson limped toward its end. Purple sludge marked the floor in streaks where failed abominations had collapsed, and a few nervous piles of goo still quivered beside their owners as if hoping not to be noticed.
At the front of the room, a female student with ram horns stood stiffly beside her abomination, which had eight feet sticking out of it in various places. The limbs twitched weakly, toes curling and uncurling from spots where toes had no business being. Near her, the abomination teacher surveyed the mess with the weary disgust of someone who had seen too many disasters and intended to make that everyone's problem.
He was a very small, dwarf-like witch with a bald head, pointed ears, sharp little fangs, and round orange glasses that made his eyes look magnified and severe. Green hair hung in thin patches along the sides of his head, with a small pointed beard beneath his chin. His purple jacket and dark formal clothes gave him a stern, old-fashioned look, though he did not stand on his own while judging the class. A large pink abomination carried him from behind, its soft, bulky body looming over him like a living chair. Its little horn-like bumps, drooping face, and worried orange eyes made it look far more anxious than the teacher it held, and its thick arms wrapped around his middle to keep him lifted while he folded his own small arms in judgment.
"Hmm," the abomination teacher said, looking over the student's creation. "Too many toenails in unexpected places. Fail. Pathetic! The biggest abominations are all of you! If the next abomination is a failure, everyone gets extra homework for a month!"
All the other students grumbled in their complaints, the sound spreading through the room as heads sank over desks and shoulders slumped beside pots.
The teacher cleared his throat, still carried in place by his pink abomination. "And the next one to come up is..."
Amity lifted her hand before he could finish, stepping forward with the confidence of someone who expected the room to make space for her. "Excuse me, sir, but I am ready to present my abomination. Rise!"
Her abomination groaned from its pot, ready to obey.
The teacher chuckled. "I've always saved the best for last, Amity. You'll have to wait your turn. How about... Willow."
A male student muttered from his seat, "Not Half‐a‐Witch."
A female student sighed. "Great. Homework for a month."
Willow drew her hood over her face in embarrassment, shrinking beneath the stares that turned toward her. The badge on Amity's chest seemed to shine from across the room, and the wheelbarrow handles felt too solid beneath Willow's hands. From inside the pot, Luz peeked up just enough for Willow to see her eyes.
"Don't listen to them, Willow. We can do this."
Sora, sitting next to Willow, gave her a steady thumbs-up. "She's right. You've got this."
Willow looked between them, and the tightness in her face eased. She smiled, nodded at them both, and pushed her wheelbarrow toward the front of the room. The pot rattled softly with each turn of the wheel, and Willow stopped it in the open space where all the students could see. She took a breath, lifted her hand, and tried to make her voice hold.
"Uh... Abomination, rise."
Luz sprang from the pot in her purple disguise and struck a pose. Ta‐da!"
The room gasped. Students leaned forward in their seats, eyes wide at the strangely solid, strangely expressive abomination standing before them. Amity stared harder than anyone, her arms lowering slightly as suspicion cut through her surprise.
Willow gathered herself quickly before the silence could turn against her. "Abomination, bow."
Luz bent forward with another effortful noise. "Blah!"
The teacher's round glasses caught the light as he peered at her from the arms of his pink carrier. "Very impressive. But does it speak?"
Luz paused. For one dangerous second, the whole plan seemed to balance on the edge of the question. Then she stumbled toward Willow and held her hands together in a childlike manner, "Uh, I may be your abomination, but you're my a‐mom‐ination," letting the abomination goop sag around her face as she looked up.
A soft wave of feeling passed through the class.
"Aw!" the students said. "That's cute."
The teacher laughed, his pink abomination wobbling slightly with the motion. "'A‐mom‐ination!' Splendid wordplay. A plus!"
The room broke into cheers. Willow and Luz smiled at each other, pride and relief crossing between them so brightly that for a moment the deception hardly seemed to matter. They turned and saw Sora giving them another thumbs-up, his smile calm and encouraging as he nodded. Amity, however, stood with her arms crossed, her mouth drawn tight as the class celebrated Willow's success.
The living school bell screamed, then coughed, and the students began gathering their books and pots as the class session ended. Willow moved out with her wheelbarrow, Luz hidden again inside the pot, while Sora walked beside her through the doorway. The victory still felt fragile, but it was real enough to make Willow's steps lighter than they had been before class.
[End Innocent Times - Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep OST Extended]
They had barely made it into the hall when the abomination teacher's voice stopped them.
"Wonderful work today, Willow. It looks like we have a new top student."
Amity had been walking out behind them, and she froze at the words, dropping her books. The teacher turned toward her, still held by the pink abomination, and plucked the gold badge from her uniform.
Amity gasped, then growled. "But—"
The teacher ignored the protest and approached Willow, his carrier's heavy feet making soft, damp sounds against the floor. He held out the badge.
"Uh— Thank you, sir," Willow said.
The teacher nodded and moved away, his pink abomination carrying him back down the hall with its anxious face peering over his shoulder.
Willow looked down at the badge, stunned by the weight of it in her hand. Before she could fully understand what had happened, Amity appeared in front of her.
"Hey."
[Play Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Thirteenth Discretion]
Willow gasped.
Amity's eyes narrowed as she looked from Willow to the wheelbarrow. "Last time I saw you, your abomination was mush. What did you do?"
Willow swallowed and tried to stand as naturally as possible. "I, uh, took your pep talk to heart, Amity."
"I bet you did."
Amity began walking backward down the hall, her stare fixed on Willow with cold certainty.
"I've got my eyes on you, Half‐a‐Witch. That badge is mine."
She bumped nonchalantly into another student without turning around, then continued down the hallway as if the collision had been the other student's fault. Willow stayed where she was, one hand still on the wheelbarrow, the new badge in her possession feeling much less simple than it had a moment ago.
"Uh‐oh," she said. "I think Amity is onto us."
[End Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Thirteenth Discretion]
[Play The Afternoon Streets - Kingdom Hearts 3 OST Extended]
The cafeteria spread out beneath high stone walls and tall arched windows that poured pale pink light across the polished floor. Long blue tables stretched in rows through the room, their glossy surfaces marked here and there by trays, cups, and strange school lunches that looked only partly edible. At the far wall, a large sign proclaimed the school as the home of the Banshees, with a painted ghostly figure lunging across the banner as if it might tear itself free from the wall. Smaller banners for the different tracks hung above it, and beneath them stood trash bins with little mouths, waiting open beside the columns. Students ate in scattered groups, some laughing over trays, some trading food, some bent over books between bites, while the ordinary cafeteria noise rose into the rafters.
Willow had chosen a table where they could sit with a little space around them. Her wheelbarrow was parked close enough that Luz's pot could rest beside the bench without drawing too much attention, though the lid shifted every so often when Luz moved beneath it. Gus sat nearby with his food in front of him, still glancing toward the pot with the barely contained thrill of someone eating lunch beside a living secret. Sora sat across from Willow, keeping his voice low as he reached into what he had brought with him.
"Hey, Luz. I brought some leftover Sweetbread Poêle from yesterday. Here."
He handed some over to Luz, careful to keep the motion small beneath the edge of the table. The lid lifted just enough for her to reach out from inside the pot.
"Yes! That stuff was so good. Thank you."
Luz took it eagerly, chomped it in one bite, and began chewing with obvious delight before sinking back down into the pot. The lid settled again, though not quite as neatly as before.
Gus stared at the exchange, his eyes bright with curiosity. "Wow, never seen food like that before."
Sora leaned back slightly, pleased but casual. "Made it myself."
"Cool."
Willow had gone still. Her eyes moved from the pot to the nearby tables, then toward the wider cafeteria, where students continued eating and talking under the Banshees sign. "Mmm... I don't think you should have done that, Sora."
Sora turned toward her. "Huh? What do you mean?"
Willow softly grumbled out of nervousness. "If Amity saw that..."
[End The Afternoon Streets - Kingdom Hearts 3 OST Extended]
A sudden thump shook the table.
Amity had landed on it before any of them could do more than flinch. Trays jumped, cups rattled, and Gus jerked backward with his hands up. Around them, conversation broke apart as nearby students turned to stare. Amity stood over them with her face sharpened by triumph and anger, her eyes fixed on the pot as if she had finally caught the whole world lying to her.
"I saw that!"
She leaned toward Willow, close enough that Willow's shoulders drew in despite herself.
"Abominations don't eat!"
Then Amity turned on Luz's pot, looming over it while the cafeteria watched. Her boots pressed against the tabletop, and her shadow fell across the lid.
"I know you're in there! You can't hide from me! What are you? Who are you?"
She grabbed Luz by the collar and hauled her up out of the pot, shaking her frantically. Purple goop clung to Luz's disguise as her head bobbed with each rough motion, and the table trembled beneath Amity's feet.
"I want answers!"
A hard voice cut through the commotion.
"Amity Blight," the Abomination Teacher called out.
[Play Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Disquieting]
Amity froze, paling at the sight of her teacher. "Huh?"
"I suspected a twinge of jealousy, but this, this is just sad."
Amity's grip tightened for a second as panic and frustration rushed over her face. "But I— No! Look at it."
Luz, still held by the collar, groaned in character.
The teacher's expression did not change. "Report to Principal Bump's office."
"But—"
"Now!"
Amity grumbled, let go of Luz, and jumped down from the table. She ran away in frustration, her footsteps sharp against the cafeteria floor while students whispered after her. The abomination teacher turned and left as well, carried away by his pink abomination with the same stern dignity he had brought in.
Luz rose carefully back from her pot, rubbing at her collar while Willow and Sora looked at her, then at each other, and then toward the direction Amity had gone. The danger had passed for the moment, but only barely. Willow's relief was thin; Gus looked more shaken than thrilled now, and
Sora's concern hardened into something much sterner as he watched the doorway Amity had disappeared through. What is her deal?
[End Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Disquieting]
Eventually, the four entered an empty classroom that gave them the first real quiet they had found since entering the school. Desks stood in neat rows under high windows, their surfaces scratched by years of nervous students, spilled ink, and magical accidents. Shelves along the walls held jars, old lesson materials, and covered containers that occasionally shifted when no one touched them. The room smelled of chalk dust, old wood, and faint abomination sludge, but after the cafeteria and the staring halls, even that felt private.
Luz climbed out of the pot with a long breath of relief, purple goop sliding from her sleeves and dripping back over the rim. Her hair stuck in damp places, and her disguise sagged around her face where the heat inside the pot had made everything cling.
"Whoo! I'm a sweaty little abomination. But now we don't have to worry about Amity. High five!"
She lifted her hand eagerly.
Willow and Gus stared at it for a moment, then looked at each other in confusion as Gus shrugged. The gesture hung between them with no meaning in the room until Sora stepped beside Luz and raised his own hand. Luz met it with a sharp slap, the sound bright in the still classroom.
"Slap my hand," Luz explained. "It's a human thing."
"Yup," Sora said, smiling. "And it's fun."
Gus approached with the caution of someone handling a rare human artifact. He lifted his hand, hesitated just before contact, then slapped Luz's palm. The little sound seemed to pass straight through him. His eyes widened, his shoulders rose, and delight overtook his face at once.
"Oh. Oh, my. Oh, man, what a rush!"
Sora then turned to Willow with a concerned expression. "Hey, Willow?"
Willow turned to him with a smile. "Yeah?"
"I've been meaning to ask. I've really noticed Amity's odd hostility towards you ever since this morning. What exactly is her deal with you?"
Willow averted his eyes with a sad frown.
But before she could say anything, the door opened.
The mood changed so quickly that Luz's raised hand dropped partway. Amity stood in the doorway, leaning against it with a smug look that said she had not come alone and knew it mattered. She stepped aside enough to allow a taller figure to pass through.
[Play Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Disquieting]
The man who entered carried the authority of the building with him. His skin was a light beige, his posture upright beneath formal academic robes, and his teal eyes glowed against bright yellow sclera with a sharp, unsettling focus. A red demon clung over his head and half his face like a living crown or mask, its shape making him look as though something monstrous had begun to consume him and then paused there permanently. His robe fell in a long black gown with a gold yoke, a black cape over his shoulders, gold trim at the sleeves and hem, and a blue stole draped down the front. He did not need to raise his voice to make the room feel smaller.
"Good afternoon, students."
Willow went rigid. "Principal Bump."
Luz immediately pulled herself back into her abomination character, lowering her posture and letting her limbs hang with the awkward stiffness she thought an abomination needed. The purple goop helped, but only barely. Principal Bump walked toward her, slow and deliberate, his eyes studying every part of her disguise as he drew close enough to inspect her.
Sora moved subtly as Bump advanced. He stepped back and slipped behind Willow and Gus, quiet enough that neither Amity nor the principal paid him any notice. From there he watched Bump over Willow's shoulder, his expression settling into caution. The man's presence pressed differently from the ordinary magic in the halls and classrooms. Sora could feel strength in it, controlled and old enough to make him keep still while he measured the space between them, the door, and Luz standing in the principal's shadow.
[End Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories OST - Disquieting]