“Oi, Kagura, get up.”

  Hayate’s finger poked itself into the sleepy girl’s blankets.

  In the bathroom behind us, the running water turned off.

  “...five minutes…” A muffled grumble emerged from the sheets, before the figure underneath wriggled even deeper into her bed.

  Hayate just poked and prodded her even more.

  “Oi, Kags, seriously. What were you doing last night?”

  “...shove off… don’t call me that.”

  I giggled as I changed into Nindo’s uniform; a fairly standard private school uniform with a dress shirt, a blazer, and plaid skirt.

  Hayate caught a peek of me changing out of the corner of his eye and bristled.

  “Ah, jeez, Estelle, you need to stop changing while I’m around, go to the bathroom and do it, please?”

  I raised an eyebrow cluelessly.

  “Why? We’re all friends and roommates here, aren’t we? It’s not like I’m not wearing underwear or anything.”

  A dainty hand emerged from the bundle of blankets and brought it down, revealing a sleepy Kagura.

  She glared tiredly at the lone boy on the team.

  “...You’re never this embarrassed when it comes to me or Setsuna. You only act like this with Estelle.”

  Hayate just blushed.

  “Yeah, because you’re my cousin. It’s gross to think of you that way. And Setsuna… well, she’s kind of a monster,” he looked to the side and winced, trailing off into a mumble, “...and kind of a moron, too, to be honest.”

  He shook his head in embarrassment, flushing further.

  “A-anyways, it’s hard to see you two like that! But Estelle, y’know, she’s…”

  “What?” Kagura drawled, glaring even harder as she woke up, “A goddess? An idol? What are we, chopped liver?”

  Hayate sputtered.

  The door to the bathroom was kicked open.

  Setsuna came out, running a small towel through her messy, damp hair, already fully dressed in her uniform.

  “And see this ‘monster’ and ‘moron’ in the sparring ring, Wadatsumi. Let me test thy own sharpness and wit in battle, if thou art so willing to speak behind thy peer’s backs.”

  Hayate just deadpanned at the swordswoman.

  “I wasn’t the one who had to go to remedial classes last summer.”

  Setsuna’s mouth snapped shut in a moment of rare embarrassment, her stoic visage momentarily lapsing as a small flicker of red stained her cheeks.

  “Quiet,” she glared at Hayate as she passed him to her bed, grabbing her iconic rusted blade that stood by her bedside, “close thy mouth and know thy place, fool.”

  “Not dead last on every test that doesn’t have to do with fighting?”

  “‘Tis all a frivolous distraction!” Setsuna scowled, doing the closest approximation to whining her arrogant, old-fashioned demeanour was capable of, “the wretched classrooms are naught but a test of my will. A war of the mind to whittle my sharpness and dull my blade before the battle starts. All the paper and ink, the tests and knowledge, irrelevant. All that matters is thy steel, thy martial art.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you didn’t do embarrassingly bad with the Bestiary quizzes we would have actually cleaned up that Forge Golem a bit faster and secured first place on last year’s rankings,” Kagura rubbed her eyes as she rolled them, lazily reaching across her messy bed to find wherever she had left her uniform.

  “The rankings are irrelevant, anyways!” Setsuna’s flush deepened as she turned to Kagura, “Speed is not the only measure of worth! It is an incomplete judgement of mine art! Did our lengthy clash with that furnace creature not lead to an incredible breakthrough in my Kitaken!?”

  “That’s not what you say every time you look at the head-to-head record on the arena leaderboard,” Hayate mumbled.

  “Silence, fool!” Setsuna kicked him in the shin, eliciting a yelp from him as he cradled his leg.

  “Need help, Hayate?” I raised my eyebrow in amusement as Setsuna stomped off, walking out the door and slamming the door shut behind her.

  “Ugh… nah, I-... I think I’m good,” Hayate winced as he wobbled back and forth.

  “Well, I’ll wait for you two outside then, okay?”

  “Yeah, all good,” Hayate groaned, giving me a shaky thumbs up as I passed.

  A couple minutes later, after Hayate’s leg stopped aching and Kagura cleaned herself up and got changed, we made our way out of the dormitory and walked around the massive, spiralling mountain upon which Nindo resided.

  It was lively as usual.

  Our classmates ran amok, jumping across the rooftops and branches as they got in some light sparring for the morning.

  Arrows flew across the air at dizzying speeds, only to be met with decisive parries.

  A large roar of flame went off in the distance.

  Above us, a bolt of lightning danced through the sky, homing in on a fleeing swordsman.

  Steel flickered in a flash of blinding silver, deflecting the magic off to the side.

  And sending it straight towards us.

  Setsuna narrowed her eyes and moved, stepping in front of us before cleaving the bolt in two, dispersing it into the ground.

  None of us reacted at all to the events, finding it all to be commonplace by now.

  Despite Nindo’s reputation as a legendary training ground of the next generation of heroes and the most prestigious of schools and colleges, in the end, it was still just a place filled with hot-blooded teenagers. If anything, it might have been a bit worse than other places in that regard, since these were the most hot-blooded and ambitious teenagers on the planet.

  Strong personalities, clashing ideals, reckless ambition, the whole deal. It was a rather chaotic place at times.

  However, that did not stop the trail of wandering thirteen-year-olds walking on the other side of the road from looking upon the dazzling displays of prowess in wonder.

  Oh, right, today was the first day for the new students, wasn’t it?

  I smiled at their awestruck faces, which gaped and stared at the skills of their seniors as they danced across the rooftops in superhuman displays of martial arts and magic.

  Sharp shadows flickered above.

  Crossbow bolts homed in on their target, only to be deftly avoided, plummeting straight to the footpath below.

  I frowned and lifted my hand, raising my staff along with it.

  A wall of vines burst from the dirt, rising above the crowd of children as the tendrils of nature caught and absorbed the stray projectiles.

  I frowned and glared up at my classmates.

  “You two! Careful! The freshmen are arriving today! Keep your attacks contained!”

  They paused in the middle of their battle, bristling as they heeded my words.

  “Y-yeah, sorry, Estelle! We’ll keep that in mind!”

  “Won’t happen again, sorry about the trouble!”

  I sighed, shaking my head as I dismissed this spell, looking at the group of paralysed freshmen.

  I smiled politely, ushering them down the footpath.

  “Sorry about the trouble, freshmen, they’re not usually this bad. Everyone’s just excited to be back on campus grounds.”

  “O-oh, no, i-it’s fine, miss…” One of the boys blushed and stammered, averting his gaze as he spoke to me.

  I waved them off as they scuttled away further up to the auditorium.

  I wondered if this year’s initiation would be done in the Twilight Forest like ours was, or if there was something else planned.

  Hayate just sighed nostalgically with a bright smile as he watched the kids disappear from sight.

  “It’s already time for the freshmen to arrive, huh? Time sure flies, doesn’t it? It was only two years ago when that was us. Now look at us, third years already, nothing on our minds but tests and essays.”

  “Maybe not Setsuna’s mind,” I grinned wryly.

  The girl in question just clicked her tongue in annoyance, trudging ahead of us.

  We shared a small laugh at her expense.

  “Wow,” Hayate leaned forward, bringing his hand up perpendicular to his brow as he stared at the tiny, fleeing forms of the first years, “were we really that tiny two years ago too?”

  “Yes, we were,” Kagura rolled her eyes, “it’s called basic biology.”

  “Alright, come on everyone,” I nodded my head towards the mountain, “let’s get to class.”

  My gaze lingered on the first-years for a little longer, despite my words.

  Two years had passed since I arrived at Nindo’s halls.

  And in just two more years, Luna would arrive at this same mountain.

  I couldn’t wait to see her outside of the weekend again.

  The bell rang.

  Kagura and I sighed, gathering up our books and pens and shuffling them away into our bags as Magical Theory wrapped up for the day.

  “Alright, and that wraps up our review of what to expect from this semester’s syllabus and your assignments,” the teacher tapped her wand on the chalkboard behind her, littered with diagrams and notes, “again, please remember to bring your textbooks for runic syntax every day for this semester, we’ll be referring to it a lot. And last warning, if you have any allergies, please clear it with the medical office, we’ll be working with a lot of materials this year.”

  Kagura grumbled underneath her breath as everyone packed up.

  “Oh, finally, we’re getting around to ritual work now. Looks like I’ll be able to relax a bit this year, focus on shoring up my weaknesses elsewhere,” she rolled her eyes as she hitched her bag over her shoulder.

  I nodded wearily alongside her.

  I still wasn’t the best when it came to theory, or even practice for that matter, not when it came to purely ‘magic’.

  Things like resonance and wavelengths and particles and symmetries, all the stuff about the experimental process and ‘akashic records’, it still flew over my head, even after three years of Mother’s tutoring and two years at Nindo.

  In terms of sheer complexity and power, my spells were rather quaint and simple in comparison to those of my peers, who were starting to be able to conjure complex constructs of elements, shaping fire to attack their foes in the form of brilliant feathered birds, or pulling apart individual molecules of water to form icy needles in an inescapable dome around their prey.

  I had neither the intelligence needed to untangle the principles of the world’s Elements and the precision needed to spontaneously direct the flow of my mana, nor did I have the raw mana supply to overpower my peers like the other half of my classmates did, summoning colossal tidal waves or splitting the earth.

  All things considered, I was a rather poor witch when it came down to it.

  At the very least, I would be able to scrape my way out of the bottom half of this year’s rankings, given that the bulk of this year’s syllabus was based around non-spontaneous spellcasting.

  If there was one thing I was good at when it came to magic, it was definitely runework and rituals.

  You didn’t simply live as Belle Symphonia’s daughter and learn nothing from that impossible madwoman.

  I had come to learn that she was undisputedly the leading mind in the world of magic when it came to those fields. It was a talent so unnatural and prevalent that it could not help but birth a… divisive… reputation among her peers, especially when combined with her… well, esoteric interests, to say the least.

  A couple of our peers scoffed and glared towards me as they passed by on their way to their lunch, muttering underneath their breath.

  “Oh, joy. It’s finally time to do ritual casting with Symphonia. Can’t wait to be swallowed into another dimension.”

  “Don’t get too close to her. You’ll catch the madness her family has from touching the Void.”

  “How did such a sorry, untalented mind get into Nindo, anyways?”

  “I can’t believe that a lowly healer dares to call themselves a ‘witch’.”

  Kagura grit her teeth and glared at the passing teens.

  “You…” she snarled, bundling her hands into fists.

  My hand snapped around her wrist.

  “It’s fine,” I shook my head, smiling softly.

  “What are you talking about!?” the shrine maiden dropped her voice down to a harsh whisper, hissing at me, “Are you listening to half the things they’re saying!? Are you just going to let them talk to you like that!?”

  I just chuckled, lazily picking up my staff and bag and walking off to the cafeteria.

  “Thanks for getting angry, but you don’t need to worry about me. It’s not worth starting a fight over.”

  “Of course it’s worth starting a fight over!” Kagura stomped her foot on the ground as she marched up to catch up to me, “where’s your pride!? Don’t their insults against you and your mother hurt!?”

  I chuckled.

  “Maybe if they wanted to insinuate something about my sister,” I shook my head as I exited the lecture hall and stepped out into the corridors, packed with students on either side, “but those kinds of words don’t hurt Mother or I. We don’t care about becoming witches for the sake of others. We don’t care about entering the Citadel. The word means something different to us.”

  Out of the three of us, Luna was the only one who had any attachment to what the word ‘witch’ meant and what it meant to be accepted as one.

  Mother had long since stopped caring about the opinions of others in her single-minded pursuit of her impossible dreams, and as for me…

  Well, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a ‘witch’.

  Far from it, I did not want to resign myself to being called a ‘healer’.

  It’s just that the word meant something different to me, different enough to the point where we might as well have been referring to two separate concepts.

  To me, becoming a ‘witch’ just meant becoming someone who would be capable of doing the impossible, able to overturn the natural order of the cruel world, of birthing ridiculous miracles and denying inevitable tragedies.

  It meant becoming someone like Mother, who could hold her head high no matter what, continuously yearning for those impossible stars.

  It meant being able to unite big brothers with their little sisters, letting a mother see her daughter’s face.

  If I could save just one person’s life, defying the odds and cruelty of the world, give them the hope to live and dream of the future, like Mother had done for Luna and I, that would be enough for me.

  A few of my non-witch classmates waved at me and smiled in greeting as I walked by.

  “Hey, Estelle, I didn’t get to thank you for your help last year! Thanks for the healing during the finals!”

  “Symphonia! Here’s the notes you lent me yesterday! Thanks, couldn’t get through Biology and Monster Studies without you!”

  “Nice to see you again, Estelle. Really wish I could have had you on my team instead of our priest, would be nice to get some healing without having to get my ear yapped off about Sol or whatever.”

  I chuckled, returning their kind gestures and thanks as Kagura and I made our way further down the halls.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “It’s not all bad, see?” I smiled at my teammate, “It’s not like everyone in the year hates me. Just the witches and priests. It could be a lot worse.”

  Kagura just rolled her eyes.

  “I would have lost my temper a long time ago if I were you. If it were the Tsukiyos being insulted, I would have immediately tried to bind them and pierce them.”

  I gave her a wry look.

  “Of course you would, Kagura. What don’t you lose your temper at?”

  She bristled at my teasing, huffing and looking away.

  I continued to be met with a mixture of courtesies and scorn as the loud clamoring of the cafeteria grew closer.

  Somehow, I had unwittingly become a divisive and controversial figure among my peers. I was disliked by the elite, the religious and magically-inclined for my poor grades and sacrilegious use of arcane arts, while everyone else was thankful for my generosity in class; sharing notes and advice whenever I could and trying to help everyone out when I wasn’t busy.

  Before long, we spotted the ever-iconic tower of food on one of the mess tables and joined the physical half of our team after picking up our own lunches.

  Setsuna briefly slowed down in her endless shovelling, clearing her throat in a rare show of politeness to greet us as we sat down.

  “Estelle, greetings. I hope thy day has fared well. ‘Tis an honour to be attending class alongside thee once more.”

  Kagura’s lips pulled into a frown.

  “What, and nothing for me?”

  The swordswoman just ignored her and went back to shovelling food down her gullet.

  “Ugh,” Kagura grimaced at the sight, “I do not miss having to sit next to you every lunch and watching you gorge yourself on slop.”

  Hayate looked at my plate and chuckled.

  As usual, there was an almost visible wave of heat emanating from it that almost stung the eyes and nose to even be in the presence of, imbuing the food within with a bright red colour.

  It was a simple bundle of vegetables and offal stir-fried in a dry pot to spicy and numbing perfection, complete with lotus roots, threads of bean curd, enoki mushrooms and pork intestine, some of my favourite ingredients.

  “Back to the usual, eh, Estelle?”

  Strangely, he gave a bit of an intense stare at my plate, leading me to blink at him inquisitively while I ate small mouthfuls at a time with my chopsticks.

  “Something wrong, Hayate?”

  The red-haired boy inhaled deeply and nodded resolutely.

  “I-I’ve been thinking about it a lot, recently,” he started slowly, gripping his own chopsticks tightly, “I-I’m probably going to be expecting a lot more contact with the culture from the Eastern Continent over the next few years, s-so… I-I should probably increase my spice tolerance a bit more.”

  An embarrassed blush crept onto his cheeks.

  I frowned.

  Was it that embarrassing being so weak to spice?

  I wouldn’t think less of him or anything because of it; I certainly didn’t think less of Luna for it.

  “D-do you mind if I try a bit of your plate!?”

  I smiled.

  It was nice that he was showing interest and bravery though.

  Kagura rolled her eyes boredly as she picked away at her own lunch.

  “Wow, being real subtle over there, cousin.”

  Her words, whatever she meant by ‘being subtle’, just made Hayate’s mysterious blush deepen.

  Setsuna, again, paused in a rare moment of social interaction during lunch, casting a harsh, appraising look over the boy’s figure.

  She scoffed, before quickly returning to her ‘meal’.

  “Thy hope is wasted. Thou should give up, and spare thee of thy own heartbreak.”

  I frowned, furrowing my brow in confusion.

  “Why are you two being so dismissive of him? I know he’s bad with chillies, but I personally think it’s rather admirable of him to try and shore up his weaknesses and enjoy other culture’s cuisine.”

  “Urgk,” Hayate flinched for some reason.

  Kagura just rolled her eyes and gave her cousin a pointed look that seemed to say ‘I told you so’, before tuning us out to resume eating her lunch.

  I shot her a small glare at her apparent rudeness before addressing Hayate with a smile.

  “Sure thing, Hayate, I’m flattered you’re asking for my help,” I gathered my chopsticks and bundled a small pile of the stir-fry onto it.

  “T-thanks, Estelle,” he scratched the back of his head shyly.

  I held the chopsticks out in front of him, my other hand hovering beneath it.

  “Here you go,” I smiled brightly at him, holding the food out to his face.

  Kagura briefly paused to give me a strange stare before going back to her food.

  Hayate blinked owlishly at the offered meal sitting on the chopsticks.

  “Come on, open up, aaahhh,” I nodded for him to open his mouth.

  His blush just worsened.

  “E-erm, Estelle, t-that’s fine, y-you don’t need to feed me, I-I can eat it myself.”

  I blinked.

  “O-oh, right!” I yelped, quickly bringing my chopsticks back.

  It was my turn to blush.

  “S-sorry, Hayate, i-it’s just that I’m used to feeding my sister that way when she wants to try my food,” I chuckled, “she’s similarly bad, and you sort of just reminded me of her for a second.”

  Kagura snorted at some invisible implication in my words, leading Hayate to flinch again before he grew even more red.

  “N-no problem, Estelle, I-I’m flattered that you let your guard down around me like that,” Hayate chuckled nervously.

  I gently put the pair of chopsticks down onto his bowl of rice, dropping the bundle of food down, before returning to eat for myself.

  Hayate just squirmed as he stared at the menacingly red pile of vegetables and offal for a couple dozen seconds, trying to steel his nerves.

  Kagura snorted again.

  “How do you plan on ever succeeding if you can’t even be brave enough to eat a bunch of vegetables, you pansy?”

  “S-shut up!” Hayate grew beet red again.

  “Somehow, for once, I’m actually in agreement with Setsuna, you’re hopeless.”

  “Kagura,” I pouted, glaring at her lightly.

  I, for one, was flattered that he was expanding his horizons and wanted to eat the food I liked. It was a nice gesture of him as a friend and teammate who I would be stuck with for five more years.

  She just gave me a mysterious, all-knowing smile as if I were an ignorant, pitiable child, and went back to her meal.

  “Alright,” Hayate inhaled deeply, picking up the offered food with his own chopsticks.

  He closed his eyes and braved himself.

  “Here goes!”

  He shoved it into his mouth and closed his lips.

  He almost immediately went red and started writhing around, tears welling up as he held back coughs.

  “Kagura, help!”

  “I wasn’t the one who gave you this idea, dolt. What happened to being brave and strong?”

  “Estelle!”

  I chuckled.

  “Sorry, Hayate, you know there’s not much I can do with my magic.”

  Lunch continued to be a lively affair, as Hayate swallowed down the mess of numbing spice, and against his better judgement, begged for more, much to Kagura’s chagrin.

  It seemed like the more things changed, the more things stayed the same.

  “Alright, Hayate, Shizue, bring your teams up! It’s your turn now! You have five minutes to strategize, and that’s all you have before I call it.”

  After lunch, we gathered as a team and changed out of our uniforms into clothes we were more comfortable fighting in, before heading off to one of the many training grounds for afternoon classes.

  “Alright!” Hayate jumped up, having recovered from his terrifying battle against my lunch, his lips still a little red, picking up his massive, ornate spear before gesturing us towards one end of the arena, “Everyone, c’mon.”

  It was a yearly tradition at Nindo; at the beginning and end of the school year, every team in the cohort would gather together and face off against each other in a massive tournament, to see how far everyone had come since the end of the previous year, or how far everyone’s studies over the course of the semesters had taken them.

  In our first year, despite having the immovable titan of swordsmanship that was Setsuna on our team, we had performed rather averagely, being held back by our lack of coordination against other intelligent opponents, only being used to working together against monsters in dungeons and caves and such.

  However, by the end of the second year, after Setsuna and Kagura finally started to get along and begrudgingly admit to being friends, we had performed much better, shooting all the way up to second place, where we had unfortunately fallen apart due to our backline – Kagura and I – being picked apart with precision.

  Either way, our performance at the end of last year was impressive – impressive enough to turn heads and gather eyes.

  We were cut out for a tough competition this year. There would surely be a lot of eyes looking our way and a lot of the teams would be preparing specifically to face us, especially given that Setsuna and I were rather infamous in the year-group.

  Setsuna, of course, for her unfathomable talent with that dull sword of hers, and me, for… well, my less-than-stellar reputation among the other witches.

  “Alright, team,” Hayate brought us close together, nearly huddling us, “here’s how we’re gonna play this one out; Shizue and her team don’t have that much burst power or ability to flank or pick one of us out. If we don’t get singled out, and just fight this one out in a classic front-to-back, we’ll be good.”

  His serious gaze flicked towards me.

  “Estelle, you’re our win condition. As long as we protect you and keep you active, there’s absolutely no way they can win this fight. No one on their team has enough raw power to knock us out before you can top us off. It doesn’t matter how disorganized or chaotic the rest of our formation gets, as long as you’re in this, we’ll eventually grind them out and win.”

  I sighed, gripping my staff close to my chest.

  It was a lot of pressure to put on me.

  “Kagura, I’m gonna need you to fight out the nerves and be a team player in this one. Shizue’s smart, she knows she doesn’t stand a chance against Setsuna in a straight-up fight, she’ll be trying to force the rest of her team through to jump Estelle, it’s the only shot they have at winning. Protect her at all costs, even if it means making your own condition a secondary concern. They shouldn’t be able to knock you out instantly, so if you can just scrape by, Estelle will restore you and we can turn this into a battle of attrition, sound good?”

  Kagura nodded shakily.

  “Alright, Setsuna, our job is simple. They’re gonna want to try and bypass us. We just stop them from getting through. If one of them tries to slip by, drop whoever you’re currently fighting and focus ‘em down. It doesn’t matter if we end up having to take them two-on-one, we just need to make sure they can’t get around us.”

  Setsuna frowned.

  “To turn one’s back to their opponent is dishonourable, but I suppose if it is for the sake of covering Estelle, then such an act is stomachable. Very well. My blade shall protect Estelle with all that it has.”

  We spent the next five minutes running through what we knew our classmates to be capable of, discussing countermeasures and strategies for each one of them, and before long, the time for discussion had run out, and the teacher beckoned us to the arena.

  “Alright, teams, on your marks…”

  We stood tensely across from each other, on opposite ends of a massive elevated circle of dirt.

  Hayate confidently planted his spear down in front of him, the massive banner with his family’s crest attached to it fluttering menacingly in the colosseum’s wind.

  “Commence!”

  “Alright, here we go!”

  Setsuna and Hayate leapt forwards into battle, brandishing their weapons and heading straight to centre stage.

  I trailed behind them from a distance, primarily just so I wasn’t backing myself into a corner against the ring’s edge.

  Kagura slammed her hand down onto the ground, a massive eight-sided trigram of mystic engravings emanating from her palm, quickly expanding to cover the ring.

  Across from us, our opponents called out a spell, two tails of lightning spiralling up into the sky before rocketing back down.

  “Back off!”

  Hayate jumped up to the sky, batting away the attack as Setsuna passed under him.

  A fireball followed quickly behind, knocking him down from the air.

  “Shit,” Hayate cursed as he fell, his nails dragging along the dirt as he skidded to a halt.

  A flood of golden tendrils of light wrapped around him, quickly peeling away the scars and burns.

  He did not even turn to look at me before engaging with the enemy once more, leaping straight into the midst of their frontline and calling out for their attention, swinging his spear wildly around him to cause chaos.

  Hayate grunted and groaned as he took the brunt of two people’s worth of attacks from once, fending off the wizard’s spells while batting away their monk’s fists.

  I did my best to heal him from as far away as I could, barely outpacing the damage they were inflicting onto him.

  The other two team members ignored him, gunning straight for me, only to be intercepted by Setsuna.

  “O Blessed Hinanhoro, spirits of the moon! Heed my call, lock these tides and freeze the land! Shiokusari!”

  ‘Chain of the Tides’.

  The trigram quickly expanded outwards, encompassing the entire fighting space before lighting up.

  The swordswoman in a furry red coat currently facing Setsuna widened her eyes as she found her body locked down and paralysed by a mystical force, opening her up just enough to be brutally knocked away by a heavy swing from Setsuna.

  The attacks on Hayate suddenly stopped, making him blink.

  Realising what had just happened, he quickly grabbed onto the monk’s collar and threw him back, sending his hefty body flying across the stage, colliding with the frail body of their wizard and knocking the both of them to the ground.

  Their final teammate, a shadowy, cloaked rogue, found herself isolated on the flank, almost having slipped by Setsuna and Hayate before being caught by Kagura’s spell.

  After healing Hayate back to prime condition, I quickly turned my focus to the rogue and called forth a massive tentacle of vines which grabbed onto the lone combatant and tossed her away, back towards the rest of her team.

  There was no time to rest, though.

  Their entire team jumped forwards at once, covering their approach with an onslaught of lightning arrows from their wizard.

  Setsuna narrowed her eyes and clicked her tongue as she scanned the approaching magical volley, three enemies trailing behind it.

  “Harken!” She shouted out, catching our attention, “Third Eastern Formation!”

  “Got it!” Hayate called back, brandishing his spear and jumping in front of the volley, bearing the brunt of the endless barrage of magical lightning.

  Setsuna exhaled deeply, calming herself before drawing her sword behind herself, tensing and coiling into a deeply wound up sword stance.

  Electricity danced on either side of her, scraping, burning and cutting her skin as they flew by, threatening to break her concentration at any moment.

  White-hot electricity clashed against the embrace of sunlight, the two forces of magic struggling to overpower each other – one trying to restore her, the other trying to break her.

  Hayate’s airborne defense left the swordswoman open on the front, leading all three of their melee forces to slip underneath the vanguard and sneak up on Setsuna.

  “Tormented spirits! Wretched ghosts! Bear thy grudge, stake thine vengeance! Great Hell Needles of Binding, scatter upon thee!”

  Or they would have, had Kagura not completed her spell in time.

  The earth beneath shook and trembled, before bursting apart as great pillars of energy burst from the dirt, ascending into the sky and disrupting their approach, forming a hazardous landscape.

  That was all the time Setsuna needed.

  The swordswoman’s eyes snapped open.

  Heeding an invisible signal, Hayate jumped out of the way, letting the last volley of lightning zap towards Setsuna.

  “Azumaken, Sankata: Tatsumaki!”

  ‘Blade of the East, Third Form: Coiling Dragon’.

  Her body unwound, spinning around and dragging her blade along the fabric of the wind, pulling and twisting the world around her.

  Her blade danced, and the wind roared.

  A massive tornado spiralled into existence, howling and screaming as it tore apart the ring, sweeping away the last remnants of lightning and absorbing it into its great storm.

  “Scatter!”

  The opposing team dived to the side, barely managing to save themselves from the vicious twister.

  “Setsuna!” Hayate snapped, calling for her to take advantage of their scattered ranks, wincing as he cradled his wounds, “Collapsing time!”

  I got to work immediately, lifting my staff above myself as another flood of healing sunlight caressed Hayate.

  As my magic acted, Hayate’s condition started to visibly improve. His numb limps became a slow walk. Staggered steps turned into a slow jog. Twitching fingers wrapped tightly around his spear’s shaft, becoming steady and fearsome.

  Setsuna heeded Hayate’s command, and leapt straight past their scattered frontline, intent on ending the fight before it dragged on any longer.

  The enemy team watched in terror as the swordswoman flung herself straight past them, going straight for their fragile wizard.

  “Fuck, everyone-”

  “Eyes over here!”

  Before they could gather their wits, Hayate descended upon them, slamming into the ground in front of them and sweeping them all away with his massive spear.

  Their leader, the red swordswoman, scowled, snapping her head towards me.

  “We’re abandoning Wynn, it’s too late now! Everyone, on Symphonia!”

  “I said! Eyes over here!” Hayate’s hand grasped the collar of her coat roughly.

  He roared at the top of his lungs before pulling on the clothing, picking up the poor girl along with it and tossing her as far back as he could.

  He quickly spun around as the monk and rogue scrambled to their feet, swinging his spear in a massive arc that caught both of them, interrupting their sprints and smashing them back.

  “O Heavenly Moon! Thy gentle moonlight! Thy shining grace! Embrace thee and thy lowly forms, let these ignorant souls know of thy beauty! Mangetsu no Shiba!”

  ‘Full Moon’s Bind’.

  Celestial light descended upon them, a divine light pressing down on their shoulders, locking them in place and forcing them onto their knees from the overwhelming pressure.

  The last two combatants groaned and struggled against the magic, but found themselves unable to rise from their kneels, not managing to even muster the strength to lift their elbows.

  A shadow overlooked them.

  With pained grunts, they forced their necks up, looking at the figure towering over them.

  Setsuna brandished her blade.

  With an easy one-two swing, she ruthlessly batted aside the last two enemies, leaving only the four of us standing.

  “Victors, Team Wadatsumi!” the teacher announced, calling the end of the spar.

  Setsuna holstered her blade by her hip, walking back towards me.

  “I thank thee as always, Estelle.”

  I chuckled, waving her off.

  She was the one who ended up taking all four of them out by herself.

  The rest of us really just stood around and watched.

  “No, it’s nothing much. Just business as usual. You handled all the tough par-”

  “Woo! Yeah!”

  I grunted as Hayate cheerily slammed into us, slinging his arms around our shoulders in celebration.

  “Great job, team! Excellent first round, you guys!”

  I just smiled wryly, gently taking his arm off me.

  “I’m feeling confident this year!” Hayate brimmed with enthusiasm, looking at the bright sky above, “this is our year, team! First place, c’mon, we can do it!”

  “Oi, don’t get too confident, Hayate,” Kagura rolled her eyes as she always did as she strolled up to us from behind, “that was just the first round. Things always start smoothly, that’s how these things go. Wait until we reach the quarterfinals at least before you start popping off.”

  I just let out a tired sigh.

  I was just happy everything went smoothly. Even if it wasn’t technically an unsalvageable situation, it was never a good time when the other team managed to actually break through Setsuna and Hayate and find their way to me.

  Despite Setsuna’s best efforts to whip me into shape, dragging me along for her daybreak training and late night runs, I still wasn’t the best athlete, and likely never would be.

  I wasn’t built for panicked dodging and manic fighting. The only thing my body was good at was going on long endurance hikes up treacherous mountains.

  Still, even if it wasn’t very effective, I was touched that she took it upon herself to train me even just a little bit.

  “Unhand me, Wadatsumi,” Setsuna huffed, breaking free from Hayate’s arm, “I had forgotten how uncomfortable thy grip was.”

  “Aw, come on, don’t be like that, Setsuna, you know you missed me over spring break!”

  The stoic swordswoman scowled.

  “No I did not.”

  “Hey, good stuff on that Tatsumaki there!” Hayate grinned, forcefully pushing past her denial, “that was so much quicker and larger then when you tried to pull it off against that wyvern last year!”

  Setsuna just arrogantly swiped her hand across her hand, flourishing her messy cobalt locks.

  “‘Tis but a matter of course. It is mine heavenly mandate to one day surpass all the swordsmen and swordswomen of the Realm. Such rapid improvement is only to be expected of a martial genius of my caliber,” she huffed, confidently tilting her head to the side in a dismissive nod.

  I giggled. Setsuna was always rather easy to please with compliments.

  “But,” she frowned, looking back at Hayate and I, “if you wish to thank anyone for their efforts in that battle, then thank Estelle. Her rejuvenation spells were key in maintaining my concentration, lest it be broken by the foe’s spell.”

  I grimaced and shook my head wildly.

  “No no no. I didn’t do anything, I’m not the person throwing tornadoes around.”

  “Oh, and you’re just gonna ignore me shielding most of the frontal arrows from reaching you?” Hayate nudged her with his elbow, ragging on her, “Come on! It’s a team effort! We all did our piece and worked together! That’s why we won! That’s how we’re gonna get first place this time around! Come on, team, aim high, dream big! We’re gonna make it this time, this is our year!”

  Kagura just pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “You said this at the end of last year. And the beginning of last year too. And also the end of our first year. Really, what’s different this time around?”

  Setsuna just arrogantly crossed her arms.

  “Of course. ‘Tis but nature’s course for me to claim my victor’s throne.”

  I just laughed.

  Yup.

  It seemed like there was going to be a bright year ahead of us.

  SKILL UPDATED

  [?]

  Basic

  Estelle brandishes her staff, summoning sunlight to heal her allies. Upon being healed, allies are granted the [?] buff.

  [?] lasts for 2 seconds and grants allies the following effects:

  Regenerates a portion of their Maximum Health over the duration of the buff.

  LOCKED

  NEW EFFECT UNLOCKED

  [?] lasts for 2 seconds and grants allies the following effects:

  Regenerates a portion of their Maximum Health over the duration of the buff.

  Gain 10% of missing Life before being hit by an Enemy.

  LOCKED