"Strange."
He muttered under his breath and frowned, thinking he had imagined it.
Mikazuki Rukuu heard him and glanced back. "What's wrong, Aoba?"
Kawaki Aoba shook his head. "Nothing. I must've brushed against something while we were walking."
Mikazuki Rukuu asked no more and turned to keep walking.
But Kawaki Aoba couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. That wriggling sensation had been too real to be his imagination.
He felt his pocket again. This time, the paper talismans seemed to be heating up. They grew hotter and hotter, until they were almost painful to touch.
"What's going on?"
Kawaki Aoba stopped and hurriedly pulled the paper talismans from his pocket.
The talismans were slowly burning. Their flames were an eerie black, giving off no heat as they steadily consumed the paper.
"Aoba, what's wrong?"
Asuma had noticed something was amiss. He stopped and turned back.
Kawaki Aoba held up the burning talismans, his face pale. "Teacher, these talismans... They caught fire on their own."
Asuma, Mikazuki Rukuu, and Mizuno Sakino immediately gathered around him. They all looked startled at the sight of the black flames.
Asuma frowned and studied the flames closely. "This isn't ordinary fire. There's no Chakra fluctuation and no heat. It's more like... some kind of energy."
Mikazuki Rukuu leaned in for a look. "Could it have something to do with those sacrificial rituals you were performing in the room?"
Kawaki Aoba shook his head, confusion filling his eyes. "I don't know. This has never happened before."
Just then, the black flames suddenly went out, leaving the talismans as a pile of ash.
The ash fell to the ground, then slowly gathered into a strange symbol. It resembled the sacrificial runes Kawaki Aoba had drawn, but it was slightly different. A tiny black dot sat