NAOKI

Arisa-sensei pulled Naoki all the way through the way they’d used to get to the classroom from the auditorium, then through another fifteen turns and eight movable wall panels to reach the outside. Then she pulled him through the path he’d seen from earlier.

He panicked for a bit, remembering the two girls, but they weren’t there anymore. Good for them.

The path made no sense to Naoki, no more than it had when he’d looked at it from upstairs. It went around too many trees, as opposed to simply cutting a path straight through them. Sometimes the path even crossed itself. That Naoki couldn’t tolerate. His thought were always a model of efficiency, so a path like this got to his nerves.

“Why--”

Arisa-sensei knew what he was thinking. “Because this was how the path was made. We won’t get there unless we follow the path.”

There, huh? So there was a cherry blossom tree within the Higashi Academy’s vast forest of green.

“Where exactly is there? Can’t we get to it by jumping?”

Arisa-sensei looked at Naoki like he’d just suggested something incredibly stupid. “We can’t jump there. The clearing is magically protected from detection, except from you.”

He didn’t understand. “But I can see--”

“The clearing isn’t in one place. It moves, and if it detects anyone trying to reach it from anywhere but the path, it won’t be there.”

Naoki didn’t really get it. Couldn’t they just inspect the spell concealing the clearing and dismantle it? Why bow to the whims of another Angel? It was almost like they were admitting they had to play by that Angel’s rules.

Which reminded Naoki that he had no idea what they were going toward.

“Where are we going, exactly?”

Arisa-sensei’s eyes took on a shine that indicated that she couldn’t wait to get there, wherever they were going.

“We’re going to her.”

That didn’t give Naoki much information up front, but it did tell him a few things.

First, that this person was probably an Angel.

Second, that she was probably a student.

And third, that she could make a teacher like Arisa-sensei so excited she was practically a child.

But those weren’t enough. ‘Probably’ was never enough.

“This... girl,” Naoki started, after ten seconds of silence. “Who’s she?”

Arisa-sensei turned to him with a little smile on her face, and it surprised him that Arisa-sensei still had it in her to joke around. “Someone more interesting than my lesson, I’ll bet.”

Again, that was really no answer. Naoki decided to just drop it.

Apparently, that was the right move, because Arisa-sensei spoke after only a few seconds.

“She’s a legend. Three years ago, she defeated our last male teacher. He was a third-tier Master, and his magic was more powerful than most of ours. She beat him in fifteen seconds, probably a duel record.”

Ahh. That told Naoki everything he needed to know. They were headed toward the “legend” of Higashi Academy, probably the second-most famous entity within the school, next to Shizuka Minamoto, the “ace.”

Which meant they were headed toward the missing girl from class B.

“After the duel, the teacher showed up in the faculty office, muttering to himself. He said something about her being ‘too strong.’ Within three days, he resigned. That really made us teachers wonder just how powerful she was. We thought, when Minamoto-chan finally reached the fifth set of levels, that she’d be able to see her, but even Shizuka hadn’t been able to.”

He nodded.

“We expect her Level to be around the fourth set of levels, with how fast she beat Owari-sensei. Be careful when we get to her. It’s been three years, after all.”

Three years? A girl's been here in the forest for three years? Naoki couldn’t imagine what that must have been like. Though it seemed the girl had put the three years upon herself, but that only made things a lot more complicated.

Naoki hated complicated things.

Naoki didn’t understand why anyone would challenge a teacher in the first place. That seemed like such a... useless thing to do that Naoki would probably never even consider it.

But he did understand power when he felt it. Time felt shorter, almost as different as it had felt when the Shades and Shizuka had been present.

He could even hear it. The buzzing behind his ear that he’d thought was the remnant of Shizuka’s magic was growing louder as they got “closer” along the path.

He considered putting his headphones on, but that was unnecessary rudeness toward Arisa-sensei.

Arisa-sensei still hadn’t loosened her grip on his wrist, and it was beginning to get painful. He’d just opened his mouth to maybe ask her to, but at that moment, they burst through an especially thick section of the forest into a clearing.

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They were here.

Arisa-sensei released Naoki’s wrist, and he instantly rubbed it, willing the blood to flow back into his hand.

“We’re here,” Arisa-sensei said.

The clearing was in the shape of a circle, with a thick ring of trees surrounding it everywhere except the path they’d come through.

At the center was a lone cherry blossom tree in full bloom, much bigger than the average. Beside the cherry blossom tree was a fallen trunk, probably collateral damage from the duel from three years ago, if it had been held here.

Naoki looked up. On one of the higher branches of the cherry blossom tree was a girl reading a book.

What he saw surprised him. Not the fact that she was up there—he’d seen her from the classroom window—but her hair.

Her hair was the same color as his right eye. The exact same shade. It was held in a high ponytail, and from this far down, Naoki could see its unnatural straightness.

“Mizuri,” Arisa-sensei said, as she approached the tree.

The girl looked up, and for Naoki, the time all but stopped. She didn’t look at all like she’d been in the forest for three years. In fact, she looked like she was dressed for a photoshoot in the clearing.

She had the face for it.

And those eyes. Naoki had thought that his white eyes had been unique, but he wasn’t prepared for this set of eyes. They were silver, but they were so reflective they could well have been a combination of pink and green.

She was easily the most beautiful person Naoki had ever seen, far surpassing even Sakuya. And he’d thought Sakuya was probably the limit.

But she wasn’t on the branch anymore.

Moments later, a powerful high-pressure wall of wind hit both Naoki and Arisa-sensei. Naoki simply held his hand out, and the wind parted around him.

Arisa-sensei wasn’t as fortunate. She flew backward and slammed into one of the trees around the rim of the clearing. Her head dropped to her chest. Obviously that had knocked her out.

Naoki had wondered just how much more powerful this Mizuri was by analyzing the amount of time she’d taken to defeat the teacher, but he’d reached no conclusion. And this one right here just showed him that the duel time really didn’t matter. Mizuri had essentially just defeated Arisa-sensei in a second.

He felt Mizuri’s presence zip past, ten, eleven, times. He felt the changes in the wind and the little moments of calm as she alighted on branches that shouldn’t have held her weight.

The book she’d been reading floated down to a rest on the fallen tree trunk, completely unaffected by her movements. Or affected perfectly so it would seem so. Naoki nodded in appreciation at Mizuri’s skill.

He could trace her movements, but he knew that at the speed she was going, there was a sharp delay between when she moved and when he noticed.

He also found, to his annoyance, that the buzzing severely impaired his ability to focus.

So when the wind shifted one last time, toward him, he almost didn’t react in time.

He stumbled back, getting the tuning fork stuck in his pocket as he tried to pull it out. He saw the fist hurtling toward his stomach.

He struck the tuning fork, and was instantly thankful for the instantaneous effect.

The wind stilled. The leaves froze. There was no sound—not even the buzzing.

Mizuri was suspended midair, her face contorted in anger.

“What is this?” her angry expression dissolved into one of concentration. She gave that up after five seconds with no results. She glared at Naoki. “Let me down!”

The tuning fork was the first and only weapon Naoki had made for himself. He’d infused it with magic potent enough to freeze the air in place for a radius of at least a kilometer. Somehow he knew it would be able to stop Mizuri, but he hadn’t really had a backup plan for if the tuning fork failed. He’d made it when he’d only been twelve, after all, and he’d never gotten a chance to use it.

But somehow he’d known that it would work.

“Let me down! How dare you--”

Naoki struck the tuning fork again, and the wind sprang back into motion. Mizuri, interrupted, fell to the ground with a groan.

Everything started moving again. The leaves once again rustled. Startled birds flew away from the trees nearby. And, of course, there was sound once again. The frozen air hadn’t allowed any sound to persist, so Naoki had gotten a temporary respite from the buzzing, but that was back now.

He put his headphones on, silently apologizing to Mizuri.

They said nothing for minutes, only stared at each other.

Interesting, Naoki thought. It had been so long since he’d met someone who didn’t appear to be moving in slow motion. More than ten years, if he bothered to count. Of course, he assumed she’d still appear slow if he’d been going at her seriously, but even this was a win.

Somehow, staring back into Mizuri’s glare froze Naoki to the spot. He panicked, wondering if maybe she’d managed to immobilize him, but he could move his fingers just fine. He found he could even take a step, which he did.

What he couldn’t do was tear his gaze away from her eyes.

Mizuri planted a hand on her hip. “What was that?”

Naoki once again tried to look away. No luck. “Tuning fork.”

She didn’t look satisfied. “Tuning fork? Do you know who I am?”

Naoki knew. And suddenly remembering who she was got him surprised. He was able to immobilize the “legend” of Higashi Academy with a spell he’d made when he was twelve?

She sighed, looking up.

Naoki finally released the breath he’d been unconsciously holding. He could finally look away again.

“Never mind. But I want you to know that much of my magic was sealed. If I was at my best, you’d be dead now.”

Naoki didn’t doubt that. He’d sensed the power behind the punch, and just that had been enough to make him panic. But if she were not at full strength...

He smiled. Finally, he thought to himself. He had the feeling things were about to get good.

Mizuri reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a miniature chain, which grew to a full-size kusarigama. She shook out the knots and whipped it forward, letting it pierce the ground between Naoki’s feet. A second later, an orange-and-purple fire flashed along the chain and engulfed the sickle-like blade.

“I challenge you to a Duel. Do you accept?”

That surprised Naoki, but what surprised him even more was the fact that just behind her eagerness, he detected something just borderline begging. Seeing that made her challenge sound like a plea for freedom.

Naoki raised his left eyebrow.

He pulled his katana from his pocket and slashed to the side, slicing down a tree with the blade of wind.

He wondered how much of a fight the “legend” would bring.

“I accept.”

He followed her when she led him to a huge expanse of concrete a few hundred meters further into the forest.