Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 240: Coddled

As they coordinated themselves, the spell commenced.

Cecilia’s voice, though weakened, remained steady. "The sand created the portal from the widest point it reached from the initial blast. That means every grain out there is carrying dimensional magic. If we’re not careful, the gathering process could—"

"Could chop off anything in their path," Arkai finished, his face going pale as the implication hit.

"Everyone! Listen up!" Roarke yelled, his voice carried across the floating crowd, amplified by magic.

"When the sand starts moving back, it’s going to gather from the edges inward! That means it’s going to travel under your feet! Raise your legs. Don’t kick, don’t thrash, just lift them up! We don’t know if the dimensional edges will close on contact, and none of us want to find out by losing a limb!"

A ripple of movement passed through the floating bodies as people began to understand. Legs lifted, tucked, curled, whatever position they could manage while still holding onto the objects they had been tasked to secure.

Katarina positioned herself at the center of the hall, floating near the container that would receive the sand. Mimoxa hovered beside her, one hand extended, the glove with its single grain of sand still on her fingers.

"Put your glove inside the container," Katarina instructed, her voice focused despite the madness surrounding them. "The grain needs to remember where home is. The spell works best when the target object is already in its desired final position."

Mimoxa nodded, swallowing hard, and carefully inserted her gloved hand into the open container. Some grains of sand, stuck there since yesterday’s check, rested against the bottom.

Katarina closed her eyes. Her hands lifted, palms outward, and she began to chant. It was an incantation designed to reach into the memory of mana itself. Around her, the air shimmered. A gentle hum spread outward, touching everything, listening.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then, a single grain of sand, floating near the far wall of the hall, began to move.

It was slow at first. A tiny speck drifting through the air as if carried by an unfelt current. But as it moved, others joined it. Two grains. Ten. A hundred.

The movement spread like ripples in reverse, grains from every corner of the hall beginning to flow inward, gathering into streams, into rivers, into a current of shimmering light.

"Feet up!" Roarke bellowed again. "Here it comes!"

The streams of sand flowed under the floating crowd, passing beneath raised legs and tucked feet with inches to spare. Each grain carried the memory of dimensional magic.

The streams converged at the center, and the portal shrunk and shrunk, the clouds below them wavered, distorted, thinned.

The sand spiraled around Katarina and Mimoxa like a whirlpool of light. The container sat at the heart of it all, and one by one, grain by grain, the sand began to enter.

Mimoxa watched with wide eyes as the sand filled the container, slowly at first, then faster, the stream becoming a river, a flood, a cascade of shimmering grains pouring into their designated home.

"Hang on!" Roarke directed. "Almost there! Don’t let go of anything yet—"

The last grains of sand streamed into the container.

And solid floor, a floor they could trust, returned beneath their feet.

Cecilia finally let go.

Her power released its hold on the crowd, on the objects, on everything she had been desperately holding together. The strain that had kept her upright, kept her conscious, kept her going, it vanished all at once.

People gasped. Sobbing broke out in pockets across the hall. Some stumbled to the floor, still clutching the instruments and artifacts they had been tasked to save. Others simply collapsed where they stood, overwhelmed by relief.

Arkai caught her.

His arms wrapped around her before he could think, before he could do anything but react. Her body fell against his, almost slack, and something in his chest clenched at the feel of her weight.

"Ceci—Miss Araceli." His voice was rough, unsteady. "Are you alright?"

"I’m... nauseous..." The whisper was barely audible, her breathing ragged and shallow.

Professors rushed toward them, Lazuardi at the front. The headmaster’s face was a mask of controlled panic as he barked orders to those around him.

"Secure the sand." The command was sharp, directed at another professor even as his hands found Cecilia’s shoulders. He grasped her jaw gently, tilting her face toward the light, assessing.

"For God’s sake." His voice cracked slightly. "I was away from the hall for five minutes. Five minutes, and another disaster happens."

Cecilia smiled up at him, weak and wobbly. "Hehe."

Lazuardi’s expression didn’t soften, but something in his eyes did. He immediately began casting a healing spell, white light flowing from his palms into her ravaged body.

"What do I tell that boy if something happens to you?" The words were gruff, but beneath them was fear. Real, genuine fear. "You two have been through too much to go through more bullshit like this."

Cecilia’s smile didn’t waver. "I know, Professor. Please don’t... scold me..."

Lazuardi’s jaw tightened. "He’d rather be with you than save the world. So you need to hang the hell on."

"I... outdid myself a little there..." Cecilia whispered. Then she coughed with a wet, horrible sound and vomited a clot of phlegm and blood.

Arkai froze.

She was still partly in his embrace. He could feel her body shudder with each cough, could see the blood staining her lips, her chin, his uniform where she had rested against him.

That boy.

Oathran. It had to be Oathran. They had been through a lot together. Lazuardi had as much as confirmed it.

He’d rather be with her than save the world.

Ah.

Arkai’s heart hardened.

He had never had a chance, after all.

Gently, so gently, he released her. His arms unwound from around her body, and he laid her down on the floor, positioning her so Lazuardi could work more freely.

"Please." His voice was steady now, controlled. "Please take care of her, Professor."

Then he stood.

He turned.

And his eyes found their targets.

"Ruby Vaiva! Nikolas Delanivis!"

His voice thundered through the hall like a physical force. Everyone froze. The crying, the relieved, the still-shaken. All heads turned. All eyes followed.

Ruby and Nikolas stood near the stage, still pale from the near-death experience, still trembling from the chaos. But at Arkai’s roar, they went rigid.

The hall hushed.

Not a breath. Just the weight of a thousand stares, all fixed on the two figures at the center of attention.

Arkai’s voice, when it came again, was cold enough to freeze the air. "Did you put out the fire with magically conjured water, instead of the fire control scrolls Cecilia had specifically ordered for you all to use in case of fire?"

And in that moment, everyone understood.

The point of mistake. The fatal error. The reason they had almost died.

"Do you know why safety protocols exist at all?" Arkai’s voice rose, sharp with barely contained fury. "Do you not see your friend running around the hall all day? Making sure everything was perfectly safe? Managing booth placements? Predicting possible mishaps? Countering them with plans?!"

Silence.

In truth, confrontations like this, harsh evaluations of individual actions, were meant to happen behind closed doors. Sometimes, mistakes like this would even be swept under the rug, dismissed with a shrug as long as "nothing bad happened."

But Arkai was mad.

And he couldn’t hold back.

He didn’t care that everyone was watching. Didn’t care that he might seem like he was shifting blame. Didn’t care about politics or appearances or the thousand small calculations that usually governed his words.

Everyone had almost died.

Around the hall, expressions shifted. The fear and relief of moments ago began to curdle into something else.

Anger.

Stares turned toward Ruby. Cold. Accusatory. Blame.

"I..." A committee member’s voice emerged from the crowd, small and guilty. "I was about to use the scroll when the fire happened. But she was faster. I couldn’t get the chance to—"

Another said hesitantly. "The water... We had cleaned it... Maybe there was still some left..."

"Cecilia wasn’t here when it happened." And another committee member said, her voice trembling. "I should have told her there was water on the stage. She specifically told us not to get any water on the stage today..."

"And why would you depend on Miss Araceli for everything?!" Arkai’s roar cut through their excuses. "If you fucking see water, then fucking do something! Does she need to have eyes behind her back or something?!"

He was shaking now, his fists clenched, his whole body vibrating with rage he couldn’t stop.

"Incompetent bastards."

He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe how much they had been coddled by Cecilia’s insight, her direction, her endless, thankless work. They had grown so dependent that they had forgotten how to think for themselves.

Suddenly... a sound.

Sobbing.

Ruby burst into tears, her face crumpling, her hands flying to cover her mouth.

"I’m sorry...!" The words were muffled, broken. "I-I didn’t know...! I was... was just trying to help!"

Arkai snapped.

"That’s the problem!" His voice thundered, raw and furious. "You don’t know and you didn’t learn! It’s common knowledge that it’s safer to put out fires in crowded events like this WITH THE FIRE CONTROL SCROLLS! Water creates complications—water nearly killed us!"

His gaze snapped to Nikolas, who flinched in fear.

"And you, Delanivis! You brought her, someone who wasn’t even a committee member, to help out, for what?! If you knew she hadn’t followed the committee briefing that CECILIA DESIGNED, couldn’t you at least make her read the written safety notes SHE fucking MADE before she left on the first day?!"

The words poured out of him, unstoppable, relentless. Every fear, every frustration, every ounce of helpless rage at watching Cecilia collapse—it all channeled into this.

"President." Roarke’s hand closed around his arm, gentle but firm. "Please. Calm down."

He could feel it, the tension in Arkai’s body, the barely contained violence. If he didn’t intervene, Arkai might actually physically rip into Ruby and Nikolas. Right here. In front of everyone.

"Please." Roarke’s voice was low, meant only for Arkai. "She’s still down. Focus on her."

The words landed.

Arkai’s chest heaved. His fists clenched and unclenched. His jaw worked, grinding, fighting for control.

He turned and saw Cecilia laying there, surrounded by more professors now. His eyes faltered.