While the girls were taking a break from training, a lion-like bird called griphon closed in on them. To keep Maya safe, Sophia got away from her and blocked the monster's path, hoping to deal with it quickly.

"Err, hello there…" She addressed the bird that was flapping its enormous wings in the air above her. Thinking about how powerful the monster was, Sophia hoped it was able to talk, just like Fen.

Unfortunately, the griphon didn't seem to be able to do so. Without any warning whatsoever, the bird launched countless air-blades at the girl in an instant.

"O-Oh!" She didn't have time to react adequately, and some of the blades managed to hit her, cutting her skin in the process. "T-That hurts! What's wrong with you?!" Trying to give it a piece of its own medicine, Sophia launched some blades as well, but the monster managed to dodge them all. Immediately after, fire suddenly rained down on the girl. This time, she barely managed to protect herself by creating a wall of water above her in time. "Also, why didn't anyone tell me that monsters can use magic?! Ah, monster or not, why would it be any different to Fen?" Hurt or not, she still wasn't taking it seriously.

"What a rude fellow- Oi, w-wait!" While she was complaining, another attack was coming at her already. Multiple spears made out of ice were about to reach Sophia. She hastily dodged the first volley before erecting an earthen dome above her to be protected from the rest.

"T-That's dangerous!" She complained again. "…Hmm? W-What is it now?!" Sophia felt a rumbling coming from the ground below her and instinctively dodged to the side. Not even a second later, the place she was before had been covered in rock spikes that had shot out the ground.

"Okay, I'm getting angry now! Let's see… OI!" While she was thinking of a counter, the girl had almost gotten hit by another volley of ice spears.

"Grr!" It was Sophia who let out this angry growl. She looked around and finally had an idea once she noticed that the griphon had gotten close to the overgrown forest. "Ha! I got you now!" Using her nature magic, countless vines shot out of the woods. They wrapped themselves around the monster, which fortunately wasn't able to dodge them all. Not being able to fly anymore, the bird hit the ground like a stone.

"Sweet revenge~." With a sinister smile, Sophia slowly walked towards it. While she was closing in the distance, she had already begun increasing the oxygen concentration around the bird. "It's over now." Having gotten close enough to get a satisfying look at the monster's future dying face, Sophia activated her fire magic. The area was lit up in her ultra-hot blue fire, giving the griphon a quick death. Or so she had hoped, at least. "A-Ah!" As a final act of resistance, the burning beast launched a last attack of air blades.

"O-Ouch!" Not having expected that, and being in point-blank range, she had no way to dodge and got hit by many blades. It cut even more of her skin and shredding most of her clothes as a result.

"Haa…" Letting out a slightly pained sigh, once Sophia confirmed that the bird had died, she let herself fall on the ground while bleeding all over her body from the cutting wounds.

"Sophiaaa!" Once she saw that the fight was over, Maya immediately hurried to her place. "Are you ok- AHH!" Getting closer, she noticed all the blood and freaked out. "S-Sophia! Hang in there! I'll get help immediately!" Panicking, Maya looked around and was about to run to the city. Before that, a hand grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"Calm down, Maya… I'm fine…"

"You're not fine at all!" She screamed while she looked at her bloody body and cut-up clothes, or what was left of it. The missing fabric made things even worse because Sophia showed a lot more of her bloody skin because of that.

"Those cuts are really shallow… I think they stopped bleeding already. It just looks messy…"

"R-Really?" The cat-girl asked her with tears in her eyes while her tail was all bushy and sticking straight up, making it clear that she was distressed.

"Yeah…" Sophia took a piece of her ripped clothes and wiped it over her arm. "See?" After the blood and dirt were gone, only some thin cuts with next to no fresh blood remained.

"T-Thank goodness!" She seemed honestly relieved. Her tail, too, calmed down and flopped onto the ground.

"Still hurts, though…" Sophia wasn't perfectly fine, after all.

"You're way too reckless!" Once she made sure the girl wasn't in danger, Maya finally got angry at her.

"Ahaha, you might be right about that…"

"I know I'm not one to talk because I wanted to fight you the moment I saw you, but…" At least she was aware of it.

"Sorry, I guess my sense of danger is, uh, quite low… I hadn't expected it would attack me instantly! That was such a surprise."

"It's a monster! A freaking griphon, even! What did you think would happen? It suddenly starts talking to you, or what?!"

"N-No, of course not…" Sophia awkwardly averted her eyes.

"Don't ever do that again!"

"I'll try to…" She couldn't promise it. "I'll train my reaction time so that I won't get surprised anymore… Taking my enemies lightly, I don't think I can do something about that."

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"Curse of the strong, huh?"

"S-Sure…" The actual problem was that Sophia's just way too carefree. "Still, that griphon sure was a cheeky one. I wonder what its problem was… Did I really kill its child in that accident or what?"

"C-Cheeky, she says…" Maya couldn't believe her.

"But why wait until now? Ah, was it scared of Fen or what? Too bad~."

"Fen?" She didn't know how the wolf fit in her explanation.

"Ahh," Sophia wasn't sure how to explain. "Our combined powers probably scared it away until now or something. Anyway, enough of all that…" She changed the topic. "How did your training go, Maya? I was kinda busy, so I didn't follow."

"Anyway, this girl…" Any remaining tension was gone. "You were busy sleeping, weren't you?!"

"Ahaha, no comment. So, how did it go?"

"She says no comment even though I caught her in the act… Whatever, no, I can't say it went well at all."

"Really? What's the problem?"

"I'm having trouble getting the right image in my head."

"Eh, but your fire tornado works just fine, doesn't it? Easier magic should be, well, easier, right?"

"You would assume so, but I'm not even sure how I managed to do that. It just kinda came to me, I guess?"

"Oh, I'm good at that, too." Sophia was an even bigger airhead than Maya at times. "Hmm, still, your normal tornado should definitely work. Controlling wind's really easy. Going to water from there shouldn't be difficult, either. Maya, close your eyes for a bit."

"Okay…?" She wasn't sure what was going on but did so regardless.

"Well then, a tornado, huh? Let's see, Maya, can you feel the breeze around you?"

"Breeze? There wasn't any wind, was there?"

"Try harder." Sophia remembered how Fen taught her air magic and tried to copy the same approach for the white-haired girl. To help her, she, too, created her own breeze.

"Ah, I can feel something now." Maya's eyes were still closed, but it almost seemed like she was looking around with her cat ears because they moved in all kinds of directions.

"C-Cute…"

"What did you say?"

"N-Nothing!" She was briefly distracted by it but managed to snap back. "Describe how the wind looks to you."

"Hmm…" She concentrated on her surroundings, and unlike Sophia before, she kept her eyes closed, understanding the task. "It's kind of like a… river? Like a… current floating in the sky?"

"I see. Yeah, I thought the same when I tried it." Sophia gave a couple of nods before continuing. "Now, try to take control of that current."

"Eh…? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Yeah, I had my problems with that, as well. Concentrate on the breeze and forcefully alter its path with your magic power."

"Hrmm…" Maya increased her concentration.

"Try to let the river flow around a corner or something along those lines."

"O-Okay!" It took a while, but it eventually started to seem like the cat-girl was getting the hang of it. "I-I think it's working?"

"Yeah, it has definitely changed."

"Really?!" Maya sounded excited. "What now?!"

"Let me think…" Sophia tilted her head. "Like a river, huh…? Do you mind if I try a little experiment?"

"Sure?"

"Don't open your eyes, okay?"

"I won't- eh?" Immediately after her promise, the breeze disappeared. "What are you doing?"

"Give me a second…" Sophia was busy with her own magic before continuing. "Okay, can you feel that current again?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes! Wait, it's even stronger now… It feels like an actual river now. What did you do, Sophia?"

"Just altered its properties a tiny bit. You should be able to control it better now, no?"

"Let me try… Indeed, it's become much easier to manipulate!"

"That's good then… Okay, now imagine the swirl motion of a tornado and move it like that."

"Swirl, swirl… swirly~." She wasn't sure what exactly Maya was imagining, but she knew that the cat-girl was having fun because even her tail was moving in a circular motion.

"Yeah, it was the right decision…" She muttered something while she was watching Maya's cute tail. "She's fun to be around, and she genuinely cares about people she barely knows. N-Not to mention adorable."

"Did you say some- ah, I feel like it's working!" The cat-girl was about to ask what was going on when she got a reaction from her magic.

"Yes, it's working pretty well. Congratulations."

"Yay! Now I'm one step closer to following you, Sophia." Her voice sounded genuinely happy.

"About that, you might want to open your eyes."

"Eh? Oh, can I?" Maya finally opened them again and immediately froze up. "E-Eh…? What?!" She was expecting to see something resembling a tornado, but that wasn't exactly the case.

"Like I said, congratulations." When Sophia announced her little experiment earlier, she actually replaced her air magic with water. Instead of a breeze, there was a literal stream or river of water flowing through the air. While the phenomenon still resembled a tornado in a way, it actually was a whirlpool of water that Maya was controlling.

"N-No way!" The cat-girl's body began to shiver again. "Y-You're kidding, right…?"

"Nope."

"I-, I'm really using water magic…?"

"It was easy, wasn't it?" Sophia, still lying on the grass in tattered clothes and full of blood, flashed her a cheeky grin, not matching her appearance at all.

"Too easy!" Maya had to complain. "Have you any idea how stupid I feel right now for trying so hard my entire life?!"

"Sorry…?" She felt like she had to apologize for something.

"Don't apologize!"

"What do you want from me then, girl?!" Sophia had no idea what else she was supposed to do.

"I don't know!" She was a bit emotionally unstable right now. "Ehehe~." Once she looked at her new water magic again, a big smile appeared on her face, though. "Thank you very much, Sophia! I have no idea how I could ever repay you!"

"It's fine, it's fine."

"Hmm…?" Maya then realized something else. Something so big she lost her concentration, and the mass of water splashed on the ground. Luckily it was far enough away to not accidentally drench the girls with more than a couple of drops. "S-Sophia?"

"I'm Sophia, yes."

"You've taught me water magic!"

"That's what I did, yes."

"Does that mean-," The cat-girl's eyes grew wide. "Does that mean I can come and travel together with you… and Fen?"

"Yes." This was the reason she had swapped to water magic in the middle when teaching her.

"Seriously?! YAY!" Feeling happy, Maya couldn't hold herself back and jumped at Sophia on the grass, tightly hugging her. "T-Thank you!" Just as much as her face was beaming, her tail, too, was happily swishing from one side to another.

"S-Sure…" The hugged girl felt thankful as well, but for an entirely different reason. Still, as her embarrassment was rising at an alarming rate, mostly thanks to the feeling of various and, more importantly, soft bits, she had problems staying calm in this situation. The lack of having any resistance build-up against these sorts of interactions backfired on her once again. "Uh… I said I'm fine earlier, b-but… I'm still a bit sore, so, uhm…" It was mostly a lie, but she had no better excuse to get her off at the moment.

"Ah! I'm so sorry!" Maya instantly jumped off here while apologizing.

"D-Don't worry about- Ah!" Sophia started to calm down again, but a different problem came to light when she looked at Maya.

"Hmm?" The cat-girl wasn't sure what was wrong but then looked down at herself. "Oh…" When she hugged the other girl, she had forgotten that Sophia was still covered in blood from her fight with the griphon earlier. As a result, her primarily white outfit had gotten a lot more red accents than before.

Thanks to that, both girls ended up being covered in blood, making for a very interesting-looking picture.