Arc 2 chapter 1 : Yuri-chan meets people !

One cannot always run forever.

That was one of the first things that she learned when she started running.

Not that she expected that to come back and bite her now of all times, not when she was into the periphery of so many plots already.

Gravity went back and she fell, her back against a cold, hard stone floor. The shock dazed her a bit, and she lied back. She probably had head trauma, she mused, before losing consciousness.

She woke up and everything was white. It was visibly an infirmary. She put her hand to her head and outside of the bandages, didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. The problem was her hand. It lacked calluses and was considerably smaller. She looked around and saw her brother in the nearest bed, looking distinctly fourteen years old. Breathing deeply co calm her trepidation, she got out of bed and started walking around. The afternoon light was showering in the room through large, open windows and most of the beds were separated by drapes, concealing them from their neighbor's view. Her brother, Nagito, Agito, Odin , Cronos and two of his haremettes were here. Since there were about twenty beds in the room, that meant they were probably the only ones brought here. Whatever this 'here' was, though, remained to be seen.

The floor was naked stone, as were the walls. The windows were mullioned and had crisscrossed, multicolored glass panels. They were too thick to see through. Added to that the total lack of electronics, the candles and the rough make of the cloth in this place, they had somehow landed in an alternate version of the middle ages, in Europe, where they spoke modern English, if the writings on the wall were to be believed. Just great.

Her brother and her weren't the only ones to have lost some years, everyone here looked three years younger. Save for Nagito, who looked exactly the same. Though, considering that he already looked younger than he was, it would be difficult to see the difference. Perhaps a health problem that kept him from growing ? She didn't try to ask since it was obviously a sensitive subject. She herself didn't look her age until her inhuman growth spurt when she hit seventeen. Right now, her sixteen years old self looked like your regular loli.

"Oh my, oh my, you have already woken up ?"

Yuri blinked a bit. This was English. She did learn it of course, but it was still surprising. She turned around and saw a middle aged woman, with brown hair and grey eyes, in a dark green dress with a white apron over it.

"Ah, yes. Ermm... Sorry, our country speaks different language."

The woman was equally surprised and muttered things too fast for Yuri to understand, before smiling at her and guiding her to her bed. She signaled her to wait a bit and came back with a tray containing some honeyed milk, bread , apples and almond dragées. That meant she, or whoever she worked for, was clearly from a higher caste, since honey and almonds were pretty hard to come by. She looked like a caring woman, and clearly was the one in charge of them for now.

Now though, what to do ? This was clearly a summoning circle, which means that they were specifically called for to do something. In this case, it's probably another hero versus demon king situation ? Following that reasoning, and not knowing what was the status of females in this society, Yuri judged it would be better to be immediately written off the hero material category.

"Hum, Milk as an entrée, light food, and dragées to end off the meal. Are we ill, lady ?"

The matron smiled at Yuri, quite amused and intrigued at her statement.

" That remains to be seen. We didn't see anything wrong about you, save for your damaged heads. Why do you ask, sweetling?"

The now young girl played with her cover for a bit before answering.

"Well, my father is a ... I don't know how to say it " or more accurately, to transpose it to their time" I think it would be close to a merchant lord ? "

She stopped when she saw a slight widening of the nurse's eyes before continuing.

"And my mother used to work as a doctor, so when father wasn't teaching me about his trade, mother did the same with hers."

That wasn't quite true. While her father was the head of a big company and her mother was a doctor, both of them didn't have enough time for her, so she had to teach herself. Especially medicine since she was accident prone. After the Revelation, she decided to study every survival trick, no matter the situation, be it from zombie invasion, to robotic genocide to being stranded in the past. As such, medieval dietetics had no secrets for her. That, and she was a cooking nut, and as such would have discovered it anyways.

So, now she's painted herself as a child from the upper class, they would be more careful around her, but also less inclined to do whatever they wanted.

" And what did you learn from them, before you came here ?"

'Geez, woman, at least try to be discreet when trying to fish for information. Ah , well, whatever!'

She put her finger to her lip and scrunched her nose in concentration.

"Umu, there was reading, speaking several languages and writing them, ...Accounting, I think?" at her nod, she continued " Etiquette, well, courtly behavior in our country, I'm not sure about yours, a bit of medicine and botanic. That would be all, I think ?"

That should be enough to confirm her suspicions about her being a bystander and not at all what they were looking for, while still showing skills that would be rare and useful in the outer world. She's have to speak to the others before the end... Before she forgot however...

Stolen story; please report.

"Ah, before I forgot, could we go elsewhere ? Hospitals make me nervous and my brother's here. Nobody told him, but we were separated because..." she bit her lip, simulating nervousness." He's not a bad person, but he doesn't like me the right way, I don't want to be left alone with him after the last incident if it can be helped..."

"Oh my... Oh course dear, encouraging that sort of behavior would be... Wait here a minute, I will get you some clothes and my assistant will look over them!"

The last thing she currently needed would be her brother making a scene after all. Several servants arrived and she had to argue to finally get to clothe herself alone. It was pretty enough, a dark blue velvet gown with a laced bodice letting see another fabric from a lighter blue. Another noble's childhood dress, no doubt, bur comfortable enough. The large sleeves and hems had silver embroideries. She couldn't keep the servants from twisting and lacing and doing whatever to her hair though. It was a necessary sacrifice to seem at least adaptable to their customs. The fact everyone fawned over how cute she was was an added bonus. Now all she got was envious stares and lustful gazes.

She envied Nagito so much for his condition...

"What a pretty thing you are."

"He he, thank you very much... So, where are we going ?"

Only half her enthusiasm had to be faked. The woman smiled teasingly and held out her hand for Yuri to take, which she did, and they started walking along the corridor. It was the same grey stones, and the same tinted windows. Finally they got out and she had to get herself used to the light of the sun. The first thing that assailed her was the smell.

'Uuuu, the first thing that they cut off HAD to be sanitation?'

She actually coughed a little.

"I'm sorry, we lived in a mountain area and the air was fresher than this..."

"Aaah, I can see why it would be a problem. I come from Septentris myself, there is much less people."

And there was Yuri's opening for information fishing.

"Septentris?"

"You wouldn't know, since you're not from here, but this country is divided in four provinces, so to speak. Septentris, in the North, Meridionis, the south, Oriens, the East, and Occidens, the West. In the middle is Mana, this country's capital, and where we currently are."

"Mana? Like the name for magic energy ?

The woman suddenly stopped walking, her muscles tensing.

"Where... Did you hear that ?"

" There were some books about this, but only theories. If there was a force that moves su-per-natural events, what would it be and how would it do it... It was really complicated, and I didn't understand much."

Said childishly the girl, looking around. Higher level of the castle. Four towers, high ramparts, a small castle city and a river on the west. Escape would be hard, but not impossible if needed.

"But I've never met anyone who could do magic, so I only had books, and even them didn't agree you see ; Why , you heard about this ? How do you guys do it ?"

Her smile turned pretty sad.

"No dear, we don't have magic here, there are only a few that may use it safely under correct guidance without their minds becoming corrupt by the Fallen One."

That... Was very worrying. In other words, anyone who had magic powers either joined official organizations or were hunted as rebels ? Or worse, there was indeed an entity who was actively preying on magic users ? And she said magic was rare in the capital, so they would be pretty sought out indeed. Yuri didn't know if she had some or not, but it was safer to assume that yes, she did.

"So, since we were summoned, that means we have magic, right ? Why else would you make us come ?"

The woman sighed.

"You are very intelligent for one so young. Yes, each and every one of you does, in fact,have some ability with the craft."

"And you're not a regular nurse."

"And I'm not a regular nurse. My name is Kirylle, I am one of the ones who summoned you. Perhaps it is better to say that I summoned you specifically. But it somehow went wrong."

Yuri tilted her head.

"Why?"

"My seven colleagues and I were trying to summon heroes with divine blessings and experience in demon fighting but were currently at peace, not children young enough to start learning their crafts. My own requirements were one smart and who had some knowledge of nature and the natural way. Since you seem to be fitting all save one of my requirements, the shock was less intense and you woke up earlier than the rest."

Yuri thought that society was pretty cool if they waited for kids to hit fifteen or so before putting them under apprenticeship. And there was her requirements. The woman put the bar pretty low compared to the others who probably wanted superheroes or something, well, as she said, that's why she woke up earlier...

Then the rest of what she was saying hit home, and she beamed to hide her rage.

"I don't really know about that, but my name's Yuri, but in your country's language, I am called Lily, nice to meet you Miss Kirylle."

Now, she had a reason to rid herself of Agito very violently. Perhaps Nagito would help too...

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Nya ha ha finished ! Believe it or not, but the hardest part here was describing the clothes x'D

I had remarks about description, so here it is, take it and choke on it !

That's the other writing style I was speaking about long ago, and personally I don't really care either way, each has their advantages and inconvenient, so yeah, it's up to you to choose!

Feedback would be appreciated : my 3rd  person descriptive style, or my 1st person more humoristic style ?

Now how to close that doddam poll x_x