Ace was still angry whereas Deuce was sulking a bit and Grim was just upset about having the collar back on him. However, Alice couldn't stop thinking about those sudden painful pulsations she had felt earlier.

It was absolutely strange. Why would she start feeling those sudden pulsations in her heart? Was she suffering some kind of illness? She just couldn't explain it. And the way Riddle looked when he glared at her. It sent shivers down her spine. It was almost as if he looked possessed by some dark force.

Just by thinking about it, Alice felt a sense of dread and panic. Ace was just mad with rage as he started to rant. "Ahhh, I'm so angry!! Screw that tiny, red tyrant! Does he think he's the Queen of Hearts or something?!" he yelled in anger.

"To think I've already gotten kicked out for disobeying the Dorm Leader... What happened to me wanting to be a good student...?" Deuce said in a glum tone. This really wasn't sitting well with his new start of life. Grim tugged at his collar as he stretched his neck to try and get some air into his lungs.

"Ugh, this collar is so heavy. It hurts, too, y'know?" he whined. This was all her fault. Alice knew that it was. She promised to protect her beloved friends, and this was the result of her failure. Alice then reached out and offered the boys a comforting hand. "I'm terribly sorry, boys." she apologized.

"What are you apologizing for?" Ace asked, raising an eyebrow. "You didn't do this to us." Alice looked at him with sad eyes. "But I did. I called Riddle a rude, irritable tyrant and I got you all collared." she answered sadly. "I'm truly sorry."

Seeing Alice's sad face like that made Ace's heart ache. He then shook his head and gently grabbed her shoulders, making her look up at him. "Nah, you were right, Alice-chan. What you said was the truth." Ace said firmly. "That needed to be heard. That little teapot tyrant's gotta stop being such an obsessive rule fanatic."

"I mean, seriously! He's going way overboard with those dumb, pointless rules!" Kira fumed. "We give him a harmless tart, and that's how he reacts? That temper tantrum is like something only a five-year-old would do, you know!"

"I also feel bad for Trey-senpai and Cater-senpai... They're forced to follow Riddle-san's orders, even though they're clearly older than him..." Aria added. "And all those other students, too. We have to find a way to help them, or else, everyone's going to end up losing their heads!" Alice said.

"What can we even do about it?" Ace asked. "No matter what we do, we end up breaking some kind of idiotic rule!" Ace was right. There just had to be something they could do to make Riddle forgive them and release them from the collars. But what? And how were they going to do that?

"Ya'll look very stylish with your meowtching collars~." a voice suddenly said beside them. The group immediately stopped in their tracks and looked up in confusion. They all looked around, wondering who just spoke to them.

Only when they looked straight ahead did they find the source of the voice. Their eyes widened with shock and horror when they saw...a floating cat-eared boy's head?! "HOLY CRAP!!!" the boys yelled out. "KYYAAAA!!" the girls all shrieked in terror as Alice held onto Grim in an iron grip.

"FFGYAAA!!! A FLOATING HEAD!!" Grim screamed in fright. The cat boy's floating head grinned in sheer amusement at their frightened reactions before he looked down to see that that his body was still invisible. He then let out a laugh as his entire body started to appear out of thin air.

"Oopsies~! I fur-got to bring out my body." he said as he fully materialized before them. The boy had short, choppy purple and light lavender-striped hair with his bangs cut in a curve, as well as three bobby pins pinned to the bang on the left side of his face.

He sported a pair of purple cat ears with a piercing of a speech bubble containing the word "up" on his right ear as well as three arrow piercings in his left ear and had golden-yellow feline eyes.

He wore a baggy white shirt over a striped purple t-shirt, and blue pants with various patches on them, as well as a purple belt that had the sentence "Can you stand on your head?" printed on it. He had purple painted nails and wore a ring shaped like a Cheshire Cat's smile on his right hand.

Though it was with some relief that he wasn't some floating head, the others were still taken aback but this new stranger's sudden—and terrifying—appearance. "W-Whoa. So you do actually got a body. Who are you?" Deuce nervously asked him.

The teenage cat boy smiled wider as he made a little bow and introduced himself to the others. "I'm Alchemi Alchemivich Pinka. I'm a mysterious little thing, both like a person and like a cat, capable of using magic." he replied. "Tch! That's a bit of an understatement." Kira mumbled.

"Alche—Come again?" Ace asked, trying his hardest to pronounce the cat boy's name, but ended up giving up on the pronunciation all together. The cat boy wasn't in the least bit bothered by this as he just let out an amused laugh.

"Ufufu, everyone calls me Che'nya~. At the very least... I'm on a different level than those guys in there~." Che'nya said as he pointed over to the direction of the Tea Garden with a wide toothy grin. Kira rolled her eyes. "Oh, great! Another weirdo..." she muttered.

Che'nya tilted his head at her. "Really? Around here, this is normal." he said. Alice looked at his cat ears and tail inquiringly and thought about the boy she and her friends saw yesterday in the cafeteria. The one with the most adorable puppy ears.

"Oh...what...what was that dorm's name again?" she wondered. "U-Um, excuse me? I'm sorry, sir, but... which dorm are you from?" Alice asked curiously. Che'nya raised a brow at her, finally registering that there were four girls before him.

He walked up towards Alice and leaned in way too close to her. "My, my, my~. Now this is a surprise. I didn't know there were some pretty female students here. Why not have a guess~?" Che'nya asked with his wide smile as he tilted his head at her.

Alice blushed with embarrassment and took a step back. "Well, u-um..." she stuttered. Ace and Deuce quickly stepped in between them, making Che'nya take a step back. Che'nya's smile widened before he chuckled at the two boys' expressions. Oh my, looks like someone's being very protective.

Grim looked up at his cat-like ears and remembered how Leona's ears looked back at the Botanical Garden. "Well, you've got ears on your head, so you've gotta be from Sa...Salmonya Dorm!" he said with a proud smirk. "It's 'Savanaclaw', dummy." Kira muttered quietly, but loud enough for Grim to hear. "Hey!" he snapped at her.

Che'nya held up both of his forefingers on each hand and crossed them together to make an X. "Bzzzt! Incorrect~! Salmon swim in the sea, remember? I'm a little kitty cat, not a juicy salmon." he said. Kira giggled.

"And anyway, there are other dorms that have students with ears growing out of their heads." Deuce said to Grim. Alice blinked in recognition as she recalled Lilia and the other two. She remembered Lilia having pointed ears and fangs, but the other two didn't. Guess everyone's unique within each dorm.

Ace narrowed his eyes at the purple-haired cat boy and took Alice's hand. "That little tyrant's plunged my mood down to rock bottom. Outta my way." he said as he prepared to leave the Maze when Che'nya spoke up.

"Riddle, a tyrant... Fufufu. Well, mew're not incorrect~. He's been a serious tom since he was little... Fufufu~." he chuckled. The others stopped and turned to look at him in surprise. Wait, what? The way he said that...did that mean he personally knew Riddle?

Deuce then stepped up to him. "Do you know something?" he asked. Che'nya made a "hmm" sound as he walked aimlessly around the garden and acted like he was thinking with his arms folded behind his head.

All the while, his smile never left his face. He then turned his eyes towards the group. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't~." he said as he shrugged nonchalantly. "All right! C'mon, buster! Are you gonna tell us or not?!" Kira asked, getting a bit impatient. "Which is it?" Grim said, already getting annoyed with him.

"What's this~? Do you wanna know all about Riddle~?" Che'nya asked, feigning surprise. "You bet I do! Just what kinda life do you have to turn into that?" Ace said. Che'nya chuckled as he again pointed towards the direction of the Tea Garden.

"You should ask your glasses fur-end all about it~." he purred. "Glasses... Do you mean Clover-senpai?" Deuce asked. "He's known Riddle since he was just a little kitten. If mew wanna know about Riddle, he's the one to talk to~." Che'nya said.

Alice let out a small gasp. Aha! She knew there was something going on between them, but she never expected that they were childhood friends, considering how they behaved around each other. She just thought they've met sometime during their first and second years here. That came out as a big surprise to everyone.

"They were childhood friends? It didn't seem that way at all..." Deuce mused in amazement. "If mew think so, then it must be so~. So there's nothing for mew to talk to me about meow, is there? See mew." Che'nya said with a wide grin as his body began to vanish into thin air, followed by his head until only his smile was left.

"Ah, oi!" Deuce called out, trying to stop him, but Che'nya had already disappeared, and the only thing they heard was his disembodied voice humming an odd tune. "Fufufu~" he giggled before he vanished completely.

"He had a weird cat-titude. ...Ah! I'm talking like him!" Grim exclaimed in shock. "Good. Now you're both weirdos." Kira snarked. "We can't really spend all of our school life with these collars on." Deuce said with a slightly disheartened tone as he tugged at the collar around his neck.

"Let's go see Clover-senpai has to say. And..." Ace groaned in frustration. "I will not apologize to get this off, so don't even say it!" he shouted. "Oh, dear...You're all surprisingly stubborn..." Alice said with a sigh. She took one last glance at the direction of the Tea Garden before she and her friends turned and left Heartslabyul.

They weren't sure what to make of the... sudden advice they were given. But they knew that they should get some answers from Trey. And so, the seven friends headed off towards the library.