by Tj Dixon
It is interesting to see how far everyone has come along. It feels like I left the academy a lifetime ago, but in truth it really wasn’t that long ago. The elves helped everyone train, but now they are helping Jenny protect the Hoshi lands, because she is facing increasingly powerful monsters. I had hoped to see how they were settling into their new lives. From what Rin told me they are very happy to be free of their former masters. They may not be entirely free, but they are much freer now than they were.
Jenny is also very happy to have elven help. She has to hide the fact that they are elves, but Rin’s mother came up with a nice little solution. The elves each have a necklace with a fairly powerful illusion cast on it. They also wear woolly hats that cover their pointed ears in case anyone sees through the illusion. They can’t cover all their silver tinted skin and or their eyes, which are not only a bit different to typical Contractians, but do have a sort of not human feel. Hopefully though nobody would realise they were an elf without seeing their ears.
I approach Lilian, who is training with Yusa at the moment. Yusa was always really bad at earth magic, but like everyone she seems to have improved a lot. She still isn’t great, but she seems fairly competent now. It can’t hurt to have a 1B student like Lilian who specialises in earth magic.
It is interesting to see Yusa who has bright red eyes standing next to Lilian who has a hint of red in the centre her blue eyes. Lilian’s short white hair also contrasts nicely with Yusa’s long black hair. Although they are in different years both are about the same height, because Yusa is a bit older than most of the students in our year. They look good standing together like this.
“Lilian, after the training we need to talk. It shouldn’t take long, but come to my room when you finish the lesson.” I tell her.
“Ok.” She says a little surprised.
“Good work by the way Yusa. Your teacher must be impressed.”
“I got promoted to 3F. The teacher even said she thinks I’ll make 3E at the next test.” Yusa says with a smile.
“Did Helski get promoted too?” I ask.
“Yes.” Yusa says unenthusiastically. It seems they still don’t get on too well.
“Well good luck Yusa and keep on working hard. You too Lilian.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that.” Lilian laughs.
“Neither do I.” Yusa grins.
“Fine, I’ll mind my own business.” I laugh with a smile.
I go back to watching the whole club, but it turns out I can’t just watch. It would just be so much more interesting to get involved than just stand around watching. What I’ve seen has been very impressive, but when it is time to swap I decide to choose a partner. Yu Kii is still with Professor Schwarz. I had expected Yu Kii to be back by now.
“Cherry, we’re going to work together.” I tell Cherry before she can choose another partner.
“Ok, but go easy on me.” Cherry replies with a nervous smile.
“Don’t worry. I just want to see how much you’ve improved. Besides, you’ve probably overtaken me by now if you’ve made as much progress as you did on earth magic.”
“I haven’t. There’s no way I could overtake you.”
“Well, let’s see how much you have improved. We’ll fly a little way from here so we don’t bother anyone.”
“Ok.” Cherry nods and we both jump into the air and fly off into the forest for a few minutes.
“Here should do. Now I’m going to dodge and you just need to hit me with lightning. I’ll have a shield up so no need to hold back.” I say landing beside a small stream. The trees around us are dead as if a disease has torn the life from this part of the forest.
“I wasn’t planning to hold back, so you’d better have a shield up. If I hit you though, do I get a reward?” Cherry asks with a smile.
“Reward?” I ask blankly. I think about it a moment before asking. “What sort of reward?”
“How about spending a day with me after you win the tournament? Doing something fun of my choice.” Cherry asks. I don’t think she’s actually going to hit me, despite my words earlier, and I suppose there’s no harm in it. If she does hit me we both lose a day of training or bounty hunting, but one day isn’t a big problem.
“Fine, but you have to hit me three times.” I tell her and she grins. I’m almost hit by her surprise attack, but I jump back up into the air just in time. She toned down the attack to avoid hurting me, because I didn’t have my shield up. If she had attacked full force I would have not only been hit, but probably killed as well. It was a good choice to hold back with that attack even though I said not to.
“This is so much more fun than dodging Rin’s ice attacks.” Cherry calls out as she jumps up into the air towards me. So she’s been training with Rin. She’s right though, it is fun dancing through the forest sky dodging her attacks. It is probably even more fun launching those attacks as she dances through the sky with me. The trees take a bit of damage but I chose this area of the forest because the trees are already dead.
We continue our little match as the stars and moons come out in the now otherwise pitch black of night. I truly lose track of time and Cherry does too, because we only realise it is time to end our match when Rin calls to us.
“Peter, Cherry, everyone else has finished. What are you two doing?” Rin calls to us.
“Sorry, we got carried away with training. We’ll finish now. I’ll port back to you in a moment.” I answer and dodge Cherry’s attack. “Cherry, the match is over.”
“I want a rematch!” Cherry complains with a smile.
“You can try again tomorrow.” I tell her.
“I’ll definitely get you tomorrow.” She grins.
“We’ll see.” I say, but I really enjoyed our match so I am looking forward to tomorrow’s rematch.
“See you tomorrow.” Cherry says and ports away before I can answer. I port back to the training ground and find Rin waiting there on her own.
“Sorry Rin.”
“It doesn’t matter. Did you have fun?”
“Yes, it was fun actually.” I admit.
“So did Cherry manage to beat you at whatever you were doing?” Rin asks sounding hopeful.
“No. I won.”
“We’ll have to have a match at some point. I was training with Cherry a lot whilst you were gone, so I’m confident I can hit you with my magic now. I got Cherry plenty of times.” Rin says a little too enthusiastically.
“Ok.” I shiver, partly from the cold.
“Anyway, I need to go to my room now and get some sleep. This will be my first night on my own since before I started sharing with Yu Kii. Goodnight Peter.”
“Goodnight Rin.” I say and she ports away.
Alone I am about to port away too, but then I look up at the stars. They feel restless or perhaps even scared. They don’t seem to notice me though. Not even Hades is looking my way. What is most odd though, is that they are looking up as if there is something higher in the sky that has caught their attention. I don’t recall seeing them all looking up at the same time before. Even seeing one or two of them looking up is rare. I wonder what has caught their attention, but I can’t see or sense anything.
I port back to my room and find Hermes sitting on her bed in her pyjamas and Asuna in the same nightdress as last night is standing talking to Hermes. Asuna is using the same light stone as last night, which is the only light in the room. They both turn to face me as I port in.
“Hi Peter.” Hermes says with a tired smile.
“Hi Hermes. Hi Asuna.”
“How was your training?” Asuna asks.
“It was fun. You’ve both improved lots. To be honest, the whole club has. I heard that Yusa and Helski have both been promoted again too.”
“They’re not the only ones.” Asuna tells me. “Neko worked really hard to catch up to Aventurine’s class. She got promoted to 3E in the last test so they’re back in the same class again. Niji got promoted to 3D. Gillian, Hannah, Harian and As
h all got promoted to 2C so they’re back in the same class as Felicity and Galico again. Sherry was really annoyed when she just missed out on promotion to 3A though.”
“We may have two girls called Ash in the club soon.” I say only now realising it.
“It’s a popular name among families attuned to the fire element.”
“There’s nobody in the Divine Flames called Ash, is there?”
“No. Nobles tend to avoid common names.” Asuna tells me.
“So are Asuna and Hinata unusual names?” I ask.
“Yes. We were named after our ancestors, but in modern Contractia they are very unusual names.” Asuna nods.
“Well, I don’t know about either of you, but I’m tired. Goodnight and sleep well, both of you.”
“Goodnight Peter.” They both say and Asuna heads to her bed as Hermes slips under her covers. I clean my clothes and myself, and then get into my own bed.
“Do you want the light on or off?” Asuna asks tapping the stone on her necklace.
“I’m fine with it off, but what about both of you?” I ask.
“Off.” Hermes replies instantly. A moment later the light quickly fades.
I didn’t really realise how tired I was until I got into bed. I knew I was tired but not quite how tired. I worked harder in Nirvali, but everything seemed so new. The theory lesson was stressful too. So it doesn’t take long to get to sleep.
I wake on the floor. I don’t know how I managed it, but I somehow slid off the bed without waking. The floor is no worse really than in Nirvali but I had hoped never to sleep on a stone floor again. Or at least not so soon. I stand and shake my head in frustration and disbelief. How could I have not woken after falling from my bed down onto this stone floor?
The room is dark but the ‘window’ is visible and the moon shines through clearly. I don’t think we left the window visible, but Asuna or Hermes must have wanted to see outside and made it visible during the night.
Hermes is still fast asleep but I seem to have unintentionally woken Asuna. She sits up in bed and rubs her eyes. Her blue nightdress really is pretty and emphasises her body a lot. I turn away a bit, embarrassed and not wanting to get caught staring again.
“Good morning Peter.” Asuna says sounding sleepy still.
“Good morning Asuna. I’m just going to port to class.”
“Isn’t it a bit early?” Asuna asks sounding more awake now. I check the dimensional timekeeper and realise she is right. It is morning, but it is still a few hours until class.
“You’re right. I’m going back to bed then.”
“Why were you up? Did you need a drink?” Asuna asks.
“I fell out of bed.” I admit. Asuna almost supresses her laughter, but whilst she manages to muffle it with her hand she can’t quite suppress or hide it completely. “I’m glad it’s so funny.”
“I’m sorry, but after everything you managed to do, it just seems so strange to hear you say that you feel out of bed.” Asuna says and I just sigh. She has a point but for some reason it kind of hurts to hear her laughing at me. I don’t see why it would hurt, but that doesn’t stop it hurting.
“Goodnight again.” I say, not trying to hide my annoyance and get back into bed facing away from Asuna.
“Good night again.” Asuna says but I don’t pay any attention to her words. I try to get back to sleep, but it is much harder this time.
After a while I worry about the way I acted towards Asuna. I was rude. I should apologise. In the morning. She might be asleep now. No, from her aura she isn’t, but it can wait. In fact, why do I even need to apologise to her? She was rude first. But she didn’t mean to be. But she was. I spend forever with my thoughts going around in crazy circles until it really is time to get up and I feel much worse than I did when I woke on the floor.
“Good morning Peter.” Asuna says sounding normal and wide awake.
“Good morning Peter.” Hermes says sleepily.
“Good morning.” I say to them both, whilst barely suppressing a yawn. I turn to face them. Asuna is already dressed but Hermes is still in bed and looks as tired as I feel.
“I’m going to port to class, but don’t take too long or you’ll both be late.” Asuna tells us, whilst looking at Hermes.
“We’ll be there soon.” I tell Asuna and this time I can’t suppress a yawn. Asuna ports away as soon as I finish saying it.
“Did something happen?” Hermes asks, now looking and sounding a bit more awake.
“Not really. I just fell out of bed and Asuna thought it was funny.” I say with a shrug.
“I don’t blame her!” Hermes laughs, and unlike Asuna she doesn’t even try to hide her laughter. Eventually her laughter dies down. “Sorry, Peter, but you’re normally so perfect, that I can’t imagine it. No wonder Asuna found it funny.”
“Anyway, I may have been a bit rude to her.” I sigh.
“And now you’re worrying about it?”
“Yes.” I admit with another sigh.
“So what did you say?” Hermes asks.
“I just told her that I’m glad it’s so funny. Then I said goodnight again.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yes.”
“So why are you worried?”
“…”
“I doubt Asuna was offended.” Hermes tells me.
“But she acted like she was avoiding me just now. She only looked at you when she told us to hurry up.”
“That’s because I’m always slow in the morning. Talking about which, we’d better hurry up or we’re going to be late!” Hermes tells me and jumps out of bed. Then she looks at me awkwardly. “Why don’t you go on ahead?”
“No, I want to go with you.” I tell her, not wanting to see Asuna without Hermes there.
“Then please look away.” Hermes asks me apologetically. I turn bright red and look away. After a minute or so Hermes calls out to me. “You can look again.”
“Ok.” I say and turn to face her. She is of course in uniform. I slept in mine so I just jump out of bed and freshen up with water magic. “Ready?”
“Yes.” Hermes nods. I take her hand and port just outside the classroom door.
“Holding hands…” Sor says tiredly from behind me. I blush and let go of Hermes hand without really understanding why. Turning, I see Emi is standing to Sor’s right. Sor glares at me. “What an ugly sight so early in the morning. So, any particular reason your pet is hiding?”
“My pet?”
“Lucy.” Sor says pointing just above my left shoulder. I turn in shock but there is nothing there. Even my wind sense can’t detect anything.
“Lucy?” I ask confused.
“Nope, it’s just me.” Sakura tells me.
“Oh, of course.” I say rubbing my head. “It’s too early in the morning.”
“So who is that?” Sor asks suspiciously.
“Sakura.” I tell Sor.
“Who is Sakura?” Sor asks.