Slowly, very slowly, Dias turned around, snow caked whitely on his long blue hair, and eyed the silent and red-nosed gang of miscreants. It wasn't hard to figure out who'd thrown the snowball, not with everybody glancing guiltily at Bowman like that.

"I'm sorry!" Ashton wailed, clutching at his scarf. "I wouldn't have ducked if I knew... !" Bowman reached out and grabbed Ashton's shoulder, and Ashton meeped and fell silent.

"My bad! Sorry about that," Bowman called cheerfully, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. "Complete accident! Honest! No harm d--"

Dias bared his teeth and he charged like a bull at Bowman, who only had time to yelp "Shit!" before he turned and bolted, his boots throwing sprays of snow out behind him. Ashton went sprawling into a snowbank with a startled scream as Dias slammed by.

Bowman didn't make it far, although his improved traction gave him a few seconds' grace, long enough to loop around the corner of the university before Dias threw himself at Bowman's knees and brought him down at the top of the hill. Tangled together they bumped and rolled down the steep slope, throwing snow everywhere as the world spun at absurd speeds around them; when they finally came to a dizzy and nauseated stop at the foot of the hill Dias was on top of the pile more through luck than through design, although he moved quickly enough to take advantage of it, throwing himself astraddle Bowman's waist and pinning his arms to his sides.

Bowman blinked fuzzily up at the whitened apparition looming above him, its face and clothes and mane of tangled blue hair all caked thickly with snow, and swallowed. "... I'm sorry?" he offered again, tentatively.

Dias' hand flashed out and scooped up a massive handful of snow. Snarling, he scrubbed it over Bowman's face as hard as he could, turning the apology into a lot of extremely muffled yelping and cursing. Bowman bucked under him, trying to throw him off, and then Bowman's thumb stabbed deep into the nerve high up on the inside of Dias' thigh and Dias grunted and threw himself backwards off Bowman.

Bowman sat up and rubbed the snow off his face, which was now bleeding in several places, which gave Dias pause. "Shit!" Bowman spat, slapping caked snow off his sleeves. "I said I was sorry! What more do you want, blood?"

"Yeah." Dias didn't so much as grin. "Now we're even."

"Even my ass," Bowman growled, eyeing Dias narrowly.

Dimly, from up atop the hill, they heard Leon shout, "Hey! Using Ururun isn't fair, big brother!"