Another series of knocks rang, that creeping muttering quickly following it. Even when she knew it came from far away, it sounded like it was coming from right next to her ears.

Sucy Manbavaran’s grip on the potion in her hand was tight as it could be, just like the grip on her skirt. She stared, unblinking, at the door to their room as Akko slowly raised her hand to the knob. None of them knew who, or what, was on the other-side. Either it was some kind of monster, or…Diana.

More heat rose in her stomach, but it was slowly snuffed out by the…the wariness, that seeped into her bones, and made everything colder than it should be. Because whatever opened that door, Sucy doubted it would lead to anything pleasant.

Akko’s shaky hand was inches away from the door knob. She visibly swallowed, and turned back to her and Lotte. Sucy figured she was just looking for some reassurance that, should a monster be on the other side, they were ready to save her from getting eaten. Sucy nodded, and Lotte quickly did too.

The knocks came again, right on time, and that muttering grew, rattling like a demented chant off the walls of their room. Next to her, Sucy could feel Lotte tense up, muttering to herself something in, she assumed, Finnish. From the corner of her eye, she could just make out her leaning forward, grip tightening on her wand. She could practically feel Lotte’s heartbeat spiking up, pounding in her ears. Sucy would’ve tried comforting her if her hands weren’t occupied. Or if she could look away from the door.

Akko placed her hand on the door knob. She looked back at them one last time.

The knocking came again.

But this time, it was interrupted after the first knock as Akko whipped the door open. In the door frame, Sucy could just make out the shadowy shape of a tall, human-like figure standing there. Akko’s wand came up in an instant, the tip of it already glowing green, her mouth opening widely to shout her spell. “Mu—”

But then Akko froze mid-word. Sucy frantically wondered why for all but a second, before the she realized the glow of the wand let her see the face of the figure in the doorway, and she went a little still.

It wasn’t a monster. Or worse, Ms. Perfect. It was—

“Akko?” came the familiar, kind, if somewhat surprised voice of Akko’s favorite teacher, “Ursula Calistis.” She blinked once, looking down at the wand pointed at her with both her eyebrows raised. “Good…evening?”

Akko stared for a moment, stance still aggressive and wand still at Ursula’s face, and then she smiled, big and relieved. “Professor Ursula!” she said, lowering her wand and opening her arms wide. “It’s you!”

Yeah. It was her. Great.

Sucy’s mouth pulled down before she even realized it. Akko suddenly rushed forward, and pulled Ursula into a big hug.

“Y-yes, it’s me,” Ursula said, letting out a startled laugh as she quickly hugged Akko back. She looked at her with a somewhat bewildered, if pleasantly surprised, expression. “It’s, nice to see you too, Akko. But, um, why were you about to cast a murrowa on me?” She didn’t sound offended, or concerned, just genuinely confused.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Professor!” Akko looked up from her hug, eyes big and regretful. “You just came right when Will-O’-Chan said they heard some really scary laughing and we all got scared—”

“Not all of us,” Sucy denied, and next to her Lotte was sighing in relief at the fact it was their teacher at the door, and not some monster, and all but slumped into their bed.

“—and we thought there might be some kind of monster out here and so I was prepared to go all ‘Savior-of-Magic’ mode on it, but then I saw it was you, and I am so, so glad it was!” Akko tightened her hug on Ursula, and the corner of her eyes started to gain tears so big, they were downright comical. “I was seriously scared, professor!”

“O-oh, I’m so sorry!” Instantly, Ursula’s face was overwhelmed with guilt, eyes wide and frantic, rubbing Akko’s back in those big, soothing circles she loved. “I didn’t meant to scare you, Akko!” She looked up at Sucy and Lotte. “Or any of you! I’m so, so sorry!”

“Then why were you knocking on our door in the middle of the night and muttering like a wannabe serial killer?” Sucy asked, eye flat.

Ursula winced harshly at that, looking even more guilty. “I, well, didn’t want to be rude and just open your door—especially if you were asleep—so I decided to knock first. When you didn’t open the door, I thought you were asleep, but, then I heard you muttering something, so I assumed you were awake but didn’t hear me, so I tried to get your attention again with another knock and tried calling out for you, but not loud enough to wake up the other students nearby. But you didn’t answer that, and I started wondering if I really did hear you, and if this couldn’t wait until the morning, and I started talking with Alcor who kept telling me to keep trying, but I was nervous and kept muttering about if I was disturbing you and I was and again I’m so—

“Professor, remember to breathe,” Akko said, looking a bit worried.

Ursula paused, panting a little. Then, she took in a big breath, and let it out. “Thank you, Akko.” She coughed, then, in a sheepish voice, added, “M-my point was, I wasn’t sure if you were awake, so I thought I’d try being polite and knock to see if you were. But…it seems like my nerves made that plan backfire.”

Ursula let out an awkward, forced sounding laugh.

No one else laughed.

Ursula slumped, head hanging low. “I’m sorry.”

“I-it’s okay, Professor!” Akko said, and suddenly she was the one rubbing soothing circles on Ursula’s back. “It was a mistake. We understand, right girls?”

Akko whipped around to Sucy and Lotte, face a little panicky, and Lotte was the one to respond.

“Y-yeah, of course we do!” she said, trying not to sound awkward and instead something more comforting. “We’re all just glad it’s you, Professor.”

“It definitely could’ve been someone worse,” Sucy said, and that was the best she could offer, given everything.

“See! It’s not a big deal! We’re just really glad you weren’t a big, scary monster Professor!” Akko said, letting out a pleasant, relived laugh. “Like Finnelan.”

Sucy snorted.

Lotte let out a tiny giggle.

Ursula very obviously tried not to laugh too as she sternly frowned at Akko, but her mouth wobbled. “A-Akko, you”—a snort escaped her mid-sentence—“you shouldn’t”—more breath left, this time closer to a barely restrained laugh—“s-say things like that about a teacher.” Ursula wasn’t even trying to stop herself from smiling by the end. “It’s not nice,” she said.

“Sorry.” That smile on Akko’s face told them all how not sorry she was, but not even Ursula called her out on it. “But don’t feel bad, Professor. You were just here to…to…”

Akko trailed off, blinking a few times. Sucy could practically see the visible question mark hanging above her head as her face scrunched up.

“Actually, why are you here?” Akko asked.

Ursula blinked. Then, she slowly frowned. “Right. About that,” she said, carefully breaking out of the hug. Ursula’s voice lost some of the gentleness it had throughout her talk without Akko.

Akko noticed, and frowned a little in worry. “Professor Ursula? Is something wrong?”

Ursula didn’t respond right away. When she did speak, her, voice was neutral, just like her expression had become.

“Akko, do you know anything about the students who snuck into Arcturus?”

Akko visibly stiffened, eyes widening a little, and she let out a tiny “ack” sound. Lotte jerked up on the bed, looking away and fiddling with her glasses, a bit of sweat trailing down her face.

Sucy impassively stared at her friends and their absolutely horrible poker faces. It looked like they forgot that, as much as Ursula liked them, she was still a teacher. And could give out detentions just as easily as any other.

“Er…A-Arcturus?” Akko said, with a very noticeable pause.

“Yes,” Ursula replied.

“As in, Arcturus Forest?” she asked, as if there was another huge forest named Arcturus nearby.

“Yes.” Ursula nodded. “A group of students snuck in there.” She frowned a little, and in a somewhat lower voice, said, “And I have a strong suspicion who.”

Akko gave Ursula a smile; the straining, “trying-not-to-let-her-nerves show” kind she got when she knew she was at risk of getting in trouble. “Er, how do you know someone snuck in there?” she asked.

“Because of Alcor.”

“Alcor?” Akko blinked.

“Yes. He’s something of a warning system for people trespassing into Arcturus.”

“Really? How does that work?”

“Well, I’m not sure if you know this, but Alcor“—Ursula gestured to her shoulder, for some reason—”was actually born in Arcturus.”

“I didn’t know that.” Akko frowned, seemingly wracking her brain for something important. “It’s not on any of his trading cards; even the really rare limited additions ones.” Or Sucy could be completely wrong.

“Ah, it wouldn’t be. Scrytella crows, that’s Alcor’s species of magical crow, is an endangered species. But regardless, outside of certain staff, not many are aware Arcturus was home to Alcror’s family, and I wanted keep it that way. I didn’t want to risk poachers trying to hunt them.” Ursula suddenly smiled fondly. “I was rather shocked to find him in Arcturus when I did. He was one of strongest members of his flock, one that even took in newborn magical birds of various species who’d lost their family or flocks; he even was something of a mentor to some of the newborn and weaker birds, teaching them how to best fly, how to use their magic, and much more. And he didn’t just teach birds a thing or two either. Even if he didn’t exactly like the nosy student that couldn’t help visiting whenever she could.”

Ursula seemed to be throughly lost in her memories now, the stern look long gone as she smiled fondly. Akko, and even Lotte, were listening to her every word with rapt attention.

Sucy just kinda wondered how they gone from Akko being interrogated to Ursula dumping bird lore on them.

“But one day, he got injured in a rather bad fight with a elder treant, and then I saved him, and helped him heal up while I taught his flock and protected them in his stead as best I could. And during that time, we bonded, found out we actually had quite a lot in common when it came to wanting to make others smile, took down that same treant, and after all that, he ended up wanting to become my familiar.”

“Whoa.” Akko was smiling too, stars starting to shine. “That sounds so cool, Professor! Do you and Alcor go to see the flock in Arcturus? Can I come see?!”

“Oh, they moved to a different forest in New Orleans, but they sometimes come back to visit, or Alcor and I visit them.” She laughed softly. “And if you wanted too, I don’t see why we couldn’t! Alcor’s even the uncle to the cutest little chicks I have ever seen, and I’m sure they’d love to—”

Ursula abruptly stopped talking, seeming to remember she was supposed to be interrogating her student. She quickly cleared her throat.

“We’re getting off topic,” she said, and her frown was back. “The point I was trying to make, was that because of Alcor’s species, he’s fairly attuned to sensing magic and magical disturbances in an area or person. And that especially applies to his home.” Ursula’s eyes narrowed. “To the point that, say, if someone were to ride the leyline and enter Arcturus, he’d be able to sense their magic ‘intertwining’ with the ambient magic of the forest.”

Hmm. That wasn’t good.

Lotte seemed to come to the same realization as Sucy as she started to shift in her seat nervously.

Akko wasn’t much better, a bead of cold sweat trailing down her face.. “A-ah,” she said, forcing herself to laugh. “You, uh, don’t say! I guess that was how you knew me and Sucy and Lotte accidentally fell into Arcturus on the first day, huh?”

“Yes. It was.” Ursula kept staring at Akko with unblinking eyes. “In fact, if Alcor spends enough time with someone, he can get a good sense of their magical signature.”

“Their what?”

“Because every witch’s soul is different, so is the way magic flows through them, thereby giving there magic qualities and elements unique to them, and only them.”

Akko seemed to get the meaning behind Ursula words quickly, and she started to pale. A second later, so did Lotte.

Sucy just sighed. She could tell what was coming.

“In fact,” Ursula continued. “Of the three students who entered Arcturus, Alcor assured me that one of them had a magical signature that felt a lot like your own.”

Ursula very pointedly said nothing after that, but Sucy could see how heavily the silence, and the blaring implication within it, weighed on Akko. She was very obviously trying to look innocent, but with how her mouth wobbled, how she struggled to make eye contact with Ursula, she seemed to be doing her best to look as guilty as possible.

“Of course, Alcor’s sense isn’t perfect, especially if it’s done from a distance, so he can be mistaken.” Ursula pushed her glasses up, and whether intentional or not, the way the moonlight coming into their room reflected off the frames hid her eyes behind a foreboding white glare. “So, Akko…did you three sneak into Arcturus?”

Akko gave Ursula the shakiest smile Sucy had seen yet. “I—” She swallowed thickly. “Well, er...”

Ursula kept staring.

Akko kept smiling that incredibly forced smile. “You see, we, er, I mean, I was, we, er—”

Ursula’s frown deepened.

Akko’s smile started to twitch even more. “I…I…”

Ursula crossed her arms.

Akko’s smile was practically having a seizure on her face.

“Akko,” Ursula said, firm, but not unkindly. The glare on her glasses was gone, and her red eyes stared right at Akko. “Please don’t lie to me.”

And just like that, Akko gave up.

The pathetic smile on Akko’s face died, and her shoulder slumped like all the energy had left her. Then, she let out a big, defeated sigh.

“Yes,” Akko said, voice quieter than a mouse, and full of guilt. “We snuck in.”

Sucy let out a groan. She saw this coming, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

“I thought as much,” Ursula said, not sounding surprised at all. She lowered her head, and the sigh that left her was just a little sad. “Despite hoping otherwise.”

When she looked up, her eyes were set in a scolding glare. “Akko, what were you thinking?” she said, and her voice wasn’t in her usual, slightly-reproachful-if-still-fond tone whenever Akko did something dumb. She sounded more stern than she ever heard her when she was scolding Akko. “Of all the reckless things you three have done, willingly sneaking into Arcturus was something even I thought you would never do!”

Akko winced, Ursula’s more harsh tone something even she didn’t seem to expect, or know how to handle. “Bu-but Professor, we handled it! Nothing went wrong!”

“That’s not the point, Akko!” Ursula barely raised her voice, but Akko’s wide-eyed look as she stepped back made it seem like she shouted right next to her ear. She then turned her stern look to Lotte and Sucy, and Lotte hunched in herself as Ilo whimpered on her shoulder. “You three have all been there twice before, so you all know how dangerous it can be, but you still chose to put yourself at risk?”

She waited for someone to answer. Probably Akko, but Sucy took that as her cue.

“Eh,” she said, making the same kind of wishy-washy gesture Akko was so fond of with her hand. “Honestly, it wasn’t any more dangerous than some of the trouble we cause in class.”

“Sucy, this isn’t something to joke about! You three could’ve been hurt badly!”

“Doubt it’d be any worse than when Akko tries to cast a new spell in Magical Culinary, and it literally explodes in our faces.”

“Hey, it’s been like three months since one’s happened!” Akko defended, turning around to face her with an angry scowl.

“Technically it’s been shorter,” Lotte hesitantly pointed out.

“Girls,” Ursula said, but was rightfully ignored.

“Oh come on!” Akko whined. “That totally wasn’t my fault! Amanda messed me up when she snuck behind me with that stupid pelican!”

“Seagull,” Sucy said.

“Pelican! Right, Lotte?”

“I…don’t remember.” Lotte said, and her brows furrowed together in thought.

“Didn’t Constanze send you a picture of it when it was attacking Finnelan?” Sucy asked.

“Oh right, she did. I can look it up on my crystal ball—” Lotte stiffened, and slowly glanced at Ursula, who still had on her stern glare. If anything, it looked like it was getting sterner. Lotte swallowed thickly. “Um, but, girls? Maybe we should talk about this later—”

“Nah, I’d rather hear Akko try to justify how she blew up Amanda,” Sucy replied.

“Don’t say it like that!” Akko stomped towards her, cheeks puffed up with angry air. “It wasn’t even that big of an explosion anyway!”

“Maybe by your high standards, but Amanda’s eyebrows would’ve said otherwise. You know, if they weren’t completely singed off.”

“They weren’t completely singed!” Akko kept glaring at Sucy. Then she looked away, rubbing her arm in that shifty, guilty kinda way she always did. “They were just, mostly singed off. Besides, they grew back.”

“Girls,” Lotte whispered harshly, and from the corner of Sucy’s eye, she could make out Lotte frantically gesturing with her head to an increasingly less patient professor.

“Akko, Sucy,” Ursula began, a bit of annoyance leaking into her tone. But Akko was to busy defending herself to notice Ursula speaking, and just kept talking.

“And it still wasn’t my fault that Amanda surprised me just when I was about to cast that spell!” she said, and behind her, Ursula opened her mouth to speak, but Akko immediately followed up with, “It’s her fault the pie got that explody!”

“It wouldn’t have exploded in the first place if you didn’t throw it in her face.” Sucy grinned wickedly. And that grin widened when she saw Ursula’s start to lose some of her sternness and become a bit discouraged, shoulders slumping as Akko ignored her and focused just on Sucy. Nice to see Ursula still had some confidence issues even after getting a new hairdo.

“I panicked!” Akko was almost shouting at this point. “And I wasn’t aiming for her, I was aiming for the window!”

“Wow, you have great aim, Guinea Pig.”

“Sucy, quit making fun of me!” Akko was scowling at her, in a way she probably thought was threatening, but just made her look adorable. In the most mocking, belittling way, of course. It wasn’t like she actually thought— “That pelican bumped into me! It threw me off!”

“Seagull,” she corrected automatically. Lotte was gesturing even more frantically then before, and with a glance she saw Ursula’s head bowed, eyes covered in the shadows of her hat and her shoulders shaking a little with emotion Sucy couldn’t make out, but she didn’t care, and quickly looked back to Akko as she stepped closer.

“Same thing!” Akko threw her hands up. “It’s not my fault the big dummy flew into me to get a bite of Constanze’s pretzel just when it started to gain sentience and—”

“GIRLS!”

All of them startled. Akko all but jumped into the air, Lotte let out a yelp, almost dropping Ilo as she flailed around to catch them, and even Sucy jolted in her bed a little. She had never heard Ursula shout at them before. Not with what sounded like legitimate anger.

All three of them looked at Ursula, who was gave them a glare that was more intimidating than any other look she’d seen from her before. And most of that glare was focused on Sucy, and Akko.

Akko, who was quickly wilting under Ursula’s stare like she did some inexcusable crime.

Sucy frowned.

When Ursula took in Akko’s visibly miserable expression, her eyes widened a little, going still with conflicting emotions Sucy couldn’t tell. Then, she sucked in a long breath. When she let it out, her glare had become a disappointed frown.

That made Akko wilt even more.

Sucy’s eye started to narrow

“Girls, Arcturus is arguably the most dangerous magical place in all of Britain,” Ursula said, voice carrying throughout the room without needing to be loud. “And that especially applies now that Yggdrasil’s been revived, and brought magic back stronger than ever. The teachers here are still documenting numerous changes to the ecosystem of Arcutrus, and while half of them are benign, the other half are ones that, while a great sign of magic’s recovery, has made the forest even more deadly. And we still haven’t full realized all the changes made to the forest, and why we’ve made it abundantly clear that students should avoid the old and new leylines that can take you right to it.”

Ursula eyes sharpened as she looked at them all. This didn’t feel like her just being mildly disapproving because they broke the rules or Akko did something dumb. It was more like Ursula was genuinely upset.

And Akko realized that as well, and looked more guilty and hurt than Sucy had seen in a while.

Something like acid started to churn in her stomach.

Ursula took in a breath, and admittedly, her expression might’ve become a bit softer; more confused and worried than anything else.

But Sucy didn’t really care. Not when her guinea pig had become a kicked puppy.

“Akko, I know you’re smarter than this, so please, tell me why you would sneak into Arcturus in the dead of night when you could’ve—”

“Hey.”

Ursula stopped talking. She fully turned to face Sucy. Akko and Lotte did the same.

“Remind me again,” Sucy said, a hint of a scowl on her face. “Who saved who the second time we went into Arcturus?”

Ursula’s lips thinned; the only visible response to Sucy’s slightly acerbic words. “All of you did,” she admitted easily.

“Yeah. We saved you. From probably the worst monster the magical world’s seen in centuries.” She pointed to Lotte, then herself, and then Akko. All without ever breaking eye contact with Ursula. “We handled it. And then, we went on to save the country from a giant nuke. And if we can do that, we can handle anything else in that forest. Like we just did tonight.” Her apathetic voice became a bit more pointed by the end.

Ursula frowned. “Sucy, I’m not denying you three are skilled, or that you haven’t saved me or accomplished amazing things you should be proud of. But there’s a difference between confidence in yourself and needlessly risking your lives by going into such a dangerous place—”

“Oh please,” Sucy interrupted, dismissively rolled her hand. “The teachers would probably get into more trouble there than we would.”

From the corner of her eye she could make out Lotte staring at her with somewhat wide eyes. Sucy was rarely this caustic with a teacher, least of all Ursula, someone she barely talked to, so for Lotte, it was a surprise.

Akko, on the other hand, just stared at her with a worried frown. “Er, Sucy—”

Sucy talked over Akko before she could start. “For the ‘most dangerous place in Britain,’ Arcturus has never lived up to the hype. We’ve gotten into more danger in this school than Arcturus. Do I need to mention the Ghost Witch?” She lifted a pointed eyebrow. “Or Croix?”

Lotte and Akko stiffened, both of them nervously glancing at Ursula.

Ursula’s frown was now a painful grimace. She was silent for a second, and then sighed. “Sucy, I won’t lie and say Luna Nova hasn’t been more dangerous to you three than it ever should have been.“ Sucy did not miss how Ursula’s eyes glanced at Akko for a moment, or the guilt that rose int them. “Or how certain...teachers“—well, that was a nice way of saying “megalomaniac witch who almost nuked a country off the face of the earth”—”put you in direct harm. But that still doesn’t negate how sneaking into Arcturus could’ve ended in disaster.”

Sucy dismissively waved her hand. “We were fine. Like always. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in more danger standing next to Akko when she tries out a new spell—”

“What happened to your hand?” Ursula asked.

Sucy went a little still. She suddenly realized the hand she was waving was the same one covered in bandages.

“Did you get hurt!?” Ursula’s eyes were wide, immediately stepping towards her. Ursula crouched down by her bed, and reached out to Sucy’s hand with her own, seemingly without thought.

Sucy quickly it away before her fingers even got close to grazing her skin, frowning. “It’s nothing.”

“This doesn’t look like ‘nothing’, Sucy.” Ursula’s frown matched the firm look in her red eyes.

“It is,” Sucy insisted. She wasn’t about to let her use something so minor as a point to prove her argument. “I got my hand cut on some tree bark. That’s all that hurt me after going into one of the deadliest forests in the world.”

She sent a challenging glare to Ursula, who just kept looking at her hand as her frown shifted.

“Are you in any pain?” she asked.

“No,” Sucy replied.

“Did you check to see if the tree was cursed?”

“Yes,” Sucy said, a bit clipped.

“Did you make sure it wasn’t poisonous?”

This time, she gave Ursula her flattest, most deadpan stare. “Ursula. I’m an alchemist. I have every poison known to man and witch in this room, and I’ve sampled every one of them. I’m probably the most venomous thing on the continent. The tree is what you should be worried about getting poisoned.”

Ursula kept frowning.

“S-she’s not serious about the poison thing!” Lotte quickly said, smiling nervously. “A-and the venom thing! Ehehehe.” Her eyes went shifty, and then, in a low voice, added, “Probably.”

Akko, for once, wasn’t talking. She was just looking at Sucy with an increasingly nervous frown as Sucy kept glaring at Ursula, who was still silent. Akko slowly stepped towards them.

“Professor Ursula,” Akko said, voice quieter than it had been the whole time. “I know we broke the rules, and we’re sorry, but this was—”

“Akko, I don’t care that you three broke the rules,” Ursula interrupted, standing up and backing away from Sucy. She stared at Akko with a worried frown, then glanced at the Akko’s hand that, the one the imp had bit and still had that fading bruise on it. “I care that you were hurt.”

Akko looked like she’d been sucker punched by a big, guilt-ridden fist. She looked down, frown so heavy it almost collapsed the rest of her face.

Sucy opened her mouth, but then she felt a hand on her shoulder, one that quickly let it go. She turned, and saw Lotte empathetically shaking her head, looking between Akko and Ursula. Sucy frowned, but, for Lotte, kept quiet.

Ursula sighed, standing up and backing away from Sucy. “Akko, I just...help me understand why you would do this.” Ursula’s eyes became gentle, full of the same care Sucy had only seen her look at Akko with before, again and again. “You’ve matured so much since you first came here, but then you decide to do something like sneaking into Arcturus? Yes, it worked out this time, but it could’ve ended horribly. And what really makes this so upsetting to me, is the fact you could’ve just asked me to take you all, and I would’ve.”

…Wait.

That was an option?

“That was an option?” Lotte asked, sounding just as surprised as Sucy felt.

Ursula blinked. She looked away from Akko to stare at Lotte, both eyebrows raised as she said, “I, yes, that was an option. Akko’s mentioned wanting to explore Arcturus before when we practice magic. I’ve told her if she ever wanted to explore it, she just had to ask me, and I’ll supervise her and anyone she wanted to bring.”

Sucy frowned. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Did…Akko not tell you that?”

Sucy looked to Lotte, who’s expression was carefully neutral. Sucy looked back to Ursula. “No.”

As one, they all turned to stare at Akko, who was suddenly very still, mouth hanging open. Sucy sighed.

Ursula did too, frown becoming something more resigned. “Akko…don’t tell me…”

“Wait,” Akko said, eyes quickly widening.

“You forgot,” Sucy stated, eye flat.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Akko’s eyes were even wider now, frantically waving her hands. But whatever she was about to say next, Lotte cut her off with an ice-cold voice.

“Akko,” Lotte said, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. Akko paled at the look. “Are you saying we didn’t have to burrow underground as gofers past the teachers to get to the leyline, accidentally dig into a colony of underground spiders, or go in the middle of the very dark night at all to get to Arcturus?”

“W-wait, wait, wait, wait!” Akko held her palms up placatingly, like she was trying to shield herself from their judging gazes. “I—okay, yeah, I, kinda-sorta-forgot-to-tell-you-that-we, er, didn’t have to sneak in—”

“Of course,” Sucy muttered.

“—but I didn’t forget that was an option! I just didn’t ask Professor Ursula because…” Akko trailed off, lowering her gaze to the floor. “Because then it’d be too late.”

Sucy blinked. So did Lotte, and Ursula did too. “Too late?” Ursula asked. “Too late for what?”

Akko didn’t reply. She just kept her head down, rubbing her arm, mouth still set in that guilty frown. Then, after a moment, she said, “Professor, we’re leaving in two days.”

Sucy stiffened without thought.

“Leaving? What do—”Ursula’s eyes lit up with realization. “Ah! You mean the trip for Ireland with Croix and—”

Akko’s head suddenly whipped up, making a bunch of chopping motions with her hand at her throat, not so subtly glancing at Sucy, and Ursula froze mid-word.

”—A-and I’m not really sure why our trip would make you want sneak into Arcturus.” To her credit, Ursula quickly continued, and didn’t even so much as glance at Sucy. Lotte, on the other hand, did, looking very nervous. Sucy pretended she didn’t notice. “Or why you wouldn’t just ask me to take you all.”

“Because you said you’d have to get permission from Headmistress Holbrooke, and that would’ve taken at least a week because of how busy things have been since magic came back.” Akko pushed her fingers together, shyly looking away. “And by then we’d have to leave before we got the chance to go.”

“You could’ve still gone with them after our trip,” Ursula said, mouth in a empathetic frown. “Why did you feel like you had to go now?”

Akko looked back to Ursula, and then her red eyes lingered on Sucy. “Because…because this meant a lot to Sucy, and, and me and Lotte wanted to make her happy.”

Sucy’s eye went a little wide.

“Sucy?” Ursula looked back at her, but Sucy’s red eye was locked onto Akko, and only Akko. Akko, who just said she wanted to make her happy.

Her chest was doing that lurching thing again. For some reason.

“Yeah,” Akko said with a nod. “She came to me and Lotte today about finding a bunch of ingredients for a potion she’s been wanting to make for a really long time now. And I didn’t want her to wait any longer, especially when”—Akko’s shoulders sagged a little, frown deepening—“when it’s been a while since we’ve all gone on an adventure like this.”

Sucy frowned. She doubted she was the only one to notice how Akko very obviously avoided mentioning who was responsible for that.

“So that’s why I didn’t want to wait until after the trip to go.” Akko said. She frowned, looking Ursula right in the eye. “I know it was dangerous, I know we could’ve gotten hurt, but I didn’t want to disappoint Sucy. Not after—everything.”

Ursula’s stare was unreadable.

Akko slammed a fist into her chest. “This was important to Sucy. And if it’s important to her, it’s important to me!”

Akko said that with absolutely no hesitation, red eyes alight with pure determination. Like nothing Ursula could say could convince her otherwise. That could get her to stop caring about Sucy.

…Ugh. How could she act so sappy without blinking. Sucy was getting second hand embarrassment just from sheer proximity. So much so her chest started to heat up. And that same warmth started to rise up.

Sucy kept gazing at Akko’s almost protective stare—a protective stare meant for her—before she had to look away. Her face felt weird. Almost like she was—

There was some kind of giggle that came from right next to her. Sucy whipped around, but all she saw was Lotte staring at Akko with a small, slowly widening smile, Ilo swaying on her shoulders like they just moved quickly. Sucy frowned, but looked away. Maybe she was just hearing things. Wouldn’t surprise her, with everything that had happened today.

“And Lotte!” Akko added, like she just remembered her other friend. “Both of us wanted to make our Sucy happy! And if that meant going into a super dangerous magical forest to hunt for potion ingredients, than we’d do it again and again!”

Akko pumped her fist into the air, but the determination in her face never wavered. Ursula stared at her.

Then, she smiled, and let out a fond little sigh. “I suppose there are worse reasons to sneak into Arcturus.”

Akko blinked. “Wait, you’re not mad?” Almost shyly, she muttered, “Or…disappointed?”

“No, I’m not,” Ursula said, and Akko smiled in relief. “I was worried you did this because you were overconfident, and didn’t seem to realize the consequences of your actions. But, doing this to help your friends and make them smile…” She shook her head fondly. “That’s not something I can really be that upset about. Not when it’s just so you.”

Akko’s smiled widened. “So we’re not in trouble?”

Ursula’s hand suddenly fell onto Akko’s shoulder. Akko looked up.

“Oh no young lady, you’re still very much in trouble,” Ursula said, eyes closed shut and still smiling.

Akko froze. “E-eh?” Her eyes went wide. “Eh!? Why!?”

“Because all three of you still acted recklessly and put yourselves in danger.” Ursula opened her eyes, mouth in a reproachful frown. “I was honestly terrified when Alcor told me you three might’ve snuck into Arcturus in the middle of the night. And it’s only because he said you all made it back that I didn’t rush into Arcturus myself prepared to fight anything and everything inside it.”

Akko looked like Ursula’s words stabbed her right in the heart. Her head lowered with so much guilt, it was like the air around it had turned to pure lead. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to make you so worried. Or almost put you in danger.”

“I know you are,” Ursula said, expression and tone softening in an instant. “And I know you never meant to.” She turned back to their bed, where Lotte was also hunching in on herself in guilt, and Sucy blankly stared back at her. “I am aware you three have been through a…rough patch with your friendship”—Sucy didn’t miss how Lotte flinched, shooting a glance from her to Akko, or missed how Akko’s frown became a little deeper—“but the fact you three are getting up to stunts like this again is a good sign that things are getting better. Still though, this was far more dangerous than usual for you all, and as your teacher, I can’t allow something like this to go unpunished.”

She absolutely could. It wasn’t like she let other people get away with a lot worse than anything they ever did.

“What…what’s our punishment?” Akko asked, lifting her eyes from the floor. And the fact she didn’t even try and convince Ursula otherwise told her that she must’ve still been feeling pretty guilty.

Sucy frowned again, and Ursula looked at Akko. “For starters,” Ursula began slowly. “All three of you will be having detention with me for about two weeks. We’ll be reviewing your defensive magic spells, and also the guintana subtype of wind spells. Specifically, the ones that can weaken your enemies, and can help you avoid their attacks to make it easier to run away. We’ll also be studying a plethora of texts about the dangers of Arcturus, including the astrological phenomenon that can have a wide range of affects on it and its inhabitants.”

Ugh. Great. Spending more time with Ursula. That was just—

Wait.

“Wait, Professor!” Akko lifted her head up, eyes wide with panic. “Break starts in two days, and then we’re going to Ireland. If you give us detention, me and you can’t go!”

Yeah. Akko wouldn’t be able to leave. She’d have to stay at Luna Nova with her and Lotte. She wouldn’t leave her to go wandering around Ireland with Ursula or Ms. Perfect. Akko would have to stay with her.

Ursula looked at Akko with unreadable look in her eyes. Sucy’s own eye started to widen slightly, the implications to Ursula’s words clear, and she started to fantasize about her original plans for break now that she had her guinea pig back and—

“Ah, you’re right,” Ursula said, in a clearly faux-surprised voice. She tapped a finger to her chin. “And even when we return, I’ll be busy grading papers that have to be done before the break ends. So…” She gave Akko a tiny smirk. “I suppose I’ll have to wait until after your break is over to give you all your detentions.”

Oh. Never mind.

Sucy had to fight the tiny scowl that her mouth threatened to form. Shock crossed Akko’s face, but it suddenly gave way to a beaming smile. “Wait, really?!”

“You didn’t think I’d be cruel enough to give you detention over break, did you?” Ursula asked coyly.

“But, is that okay?” Akko asked. “I mean, when Professor Finnelan finds out—”

“Who said she has to find out?” Ursula asked. “Or any other teacher, for that matter?”

Akko stared. Then, her smiled turned mischievous, and she giggled. “Professor, when did you got so sneaky?”

“Oh, around the same time I started tutoring this wonderful girl who’d go on to save all of magic,” she answered, and Akko’s giggling suddenly became a little bashful. Ursula’s expression grew serious. “To be clear, you shouldn’t take this as permission to get into any more trouble before we leave on our trip. But…while I’m not exactly happy you snuck into a dangerous place like Arcturus, I understand why you did.” She smiled softly. “So, as long as you’re willing to accept your punishments after break, I don’t see a reason why anyone else has to learn what happened tonight.”

Akko instantly launched herself at Ursula, and wrapped her arms around her in a big, tight hug. “Sensei, you’re the best!”

Ah. Akko was busting out her Japanese. She must’ve really been happy. Good for her.

Ursula laughed, hugging Akko back. She sheepishly muttered something about “not being that great” but Akko instantly denied that and somehow hugged her even harder. Lotte just smiled at the “wholesome”—as she would put—interaction between Akko and her favorite teacher.

Sucy just frowned. It surprised just how…annoyed, she felt. The chances that Ursula would actually prevent Akko from going on a trip they not only planned together, but one where the whole point was to help her fly again, were slim to none. She shouldn’t have expected anything different.

But she still did.

Idiot.

Sucy let out a little grunt. Lotte turned to her, a questioning frown on her face, but Sucy waved her off with her bandaged hand.

“By the way,” Ursula said, just as she and Akko ended their hug. “You mentioned before you went to Arcturus for potion ingredients, right?”

“Yeah.” Akko nodded. “For Sucy’s potion.”

“What potion is that, exactly?”

Akko opened her mouth, raising a finger. She quickly closed it, and blinked. Several times.

The muscles on Sucy’s face locked up.

“Huh. Actually…”Akko turned, and looked at Sucy with a raised eyebrow. “You never said what kind of potion you were brewing, Sucy.”

Sucy stared back at Akko with a perfectly emotionless eye. “It’s a growth potion that uses forest imp spit, forsakenwing blood, and the skin and fur and feet of a bunch of rare magical creatures. It’ll let my mushrooms grow quickly. And taller. And also make poisonous spores.”

She made her lip turn up in a wicked little smirk, cackling slightly.

Akko shivered and look as wonderfully disturbed as always, and she saw Lotte scooting away from her slightly.

But Ursula frowned. “I’ve…never heard of a growth potion that uses forsakenwing blood.”

Ugh. Of course she’d notice something like that.

“It’s my own special blend,” Sucy said, still keeping her smirk up. “I figured out how to use forsakenwing blood as an amplifier for a regular growth potion if you mix in the right ingredients, and the end result is a potion that dramatically enhances the growth in fungi.”

The words came easily. Her voice didn’t waver, and she didn’t so much as twitch as she stared at Ursula. Ursula’s red eyes stared back, not so much as blinking. But then, Ursula did something Sucy hadn’t expected.

Smile kindly at her.

“Well, that sounds like a fascinating potion, Sucy,” Ursula said.

Sucy blinked. She couldn’t recall a single time Ursula said anything nice about her potions—outside the obviously nervous and forced, “very creative” or “how wonderfully…unique” comments she usually gave them during the rare times Sucy used them in Astrology class. And this time, she sounded different. More like she was genuinely invested in what Sucy was doing.

Sucy’s eye narrowed. What was Ursula up too?

“Thanks,” Sucy said, a little flatter than normal.

“Just be careful with your experiments, alright?” She asked, still wearing that gentle smile. Aimed at her. It was weird seeing her look at anyone other than Akko like that. “And you two will be there to help her out, correct?”

She looked to Akko and Lotte, and something about her expression…shifted, a little. Her smile was still there, but there was a faint hint of worry that pulled at the edges. She didn’t know what, but it felt like Ursula was asking a different question than what her words were asking.

And Lotte and Akko seemed to get that question, because something in their eyes lit up, and as one, they nodded.

“Of course we will,” Lotte said, a bit more firmly than Sucy expected.

“Don’t worry professor!” Akko piped up, quickly walking to stand right next to Sucy. “Me and Lotte will make sure Sucy doesn’t make anything too scary with her potions!”

Ursula’s smile lost the worry, and she gave Akko and Lotte a nod. “That’s always good to hear, girls.”

Sucy was missing something. What, did Ursula think she might use her “growth” potion to make some kind of abomination, and wanted to make sure Lotte and Akko reigned her in from doing something so “unethical?”

Or was she just worried that Sucy would end up hurting her favorite student, and wanted to make sure nothing would happen?

She suddenly saw cold, judging blue eyes aimed right at her, followed by the phantom sensation of iron-like fingers on her wrist.

She shoved that thought away. But she couldn’t stop her bandaged hand from clenching a little on the bed sheets; or stop that itchy sensation that rose in it.

“I suppose I should be off now,” Ursula said. She gave them all one last kind look. “I’m glad all of you are safe. But please, don’t get into any more trouble.”

“No promises!” Akko said, grinning slightly.

Ursula’s expression went flat, and the warning was clear in her unamused stare.

Akko’s grin faltered, and she nervously chuckled. “K-kidding!” She waved her hand in front of her face, like she was banishing the very idea of them getting into more trouble. “We won’t break any more rules, Professor! Not unless it’s super duper important!”

Ursula dropped the almost-glare on her face, and smiled. “Well, I don’t really disagree with that last part, so that’s good enough for me.” She started to turn around. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Alcor and I still have some papers to grade, and luggage to get ready, so—”

“Ah, wait, Professor!"

Ursula stopped, and turned back. “Yes?”

“I have some really quick question!”

“Oh.” Ursula blinked. “What are they?”

“Remember how I said Will-O’-Chan head something laughing?”

Sucy froze a little. She didn’t know why.

“I do.” Ursula frowned. “Actually, could you go into more detail about what exactly happened?”

“Sure,” Akko said with a nod. She then pointed at Lotte and Ilo. “Will-O’-Chan was acting kinda weird before, like staring off into the distance and not responding to Lotte, and Lotte had to shout at them to get ‘em to snap out of it. Then they said the heard something uh…evil?” She asked Lotte.

“Wicked,” Lotte corrected, glancing at Ilo. “That’s the best word to describe what Ilo heard.”

She saw that witch, trapped in the bark of the tree. She pushed that thought away as quickly as it came.

“So, did you hear anything like that?” Akko asked, turning back to Ursula.

Ursula paused, expression scrunching up. “Well…I didn’t hear any laughter coming from your room, but I did see some spirits in the hallways acting a little strange.”

“Strange?” Lotte asked.

“Yes. The spirits staff workers I encountered on the way here had stopped for seemingly no reason, and seemed to be looking for something. Although, I also saw a few wandering spirits that didn’t belong to the staff or any students familiars phasing through the walls.”

Wandering spirits were something a lot more common now that magic was back. Most of them were benign, just wanting to stretch their metaphysical muscles now that they had more energy than ever to do so, and even the worst ones were more just “mischievous” than anything outright malicious. Still, the staff had announced that the students should either notify a teacher about any spirits they saw, try to banish the spirits off campus themselves, or, if the students had the skills and were allowed to do so, make them their familiars.

“And, while I wouldn’t describe any of the ones I saw as ‘wicked,’ those other spirits were laughing a little,” Ursula continued, a finger lightly tapping her chin. “Or, I think that was the sound they made. So it’s possible one was a bit more ‘wicked’ than at first glance and I missed it. And perhaps that spirit wandered into your room, laughed, and left before any of you realized it?”

Akko looked to Lotte, and Sucy did too. Lotte frowned, and whispered a few words to Ilo, their button-like eyes scrunching up in thought. They made a few squeaking sounds, and Lotte looked back at them all.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Ilo said it might be some wandering spirit, but they aren’t sure,” Lotte said. Her frown grew a bit worried. “Whatever they heard, it really didn’t sound like anything they heard before, from witches or spirits. But…maybe it was a new type of spirit we haven’t met before?” Lotte sounded unsure even as she suggested it.

For her part, Ursula took in her words, and slowly nodded. “I see. Well, since we’re not sure what exactly it was, I’ll advise you to be careful. And I can set up some protective glyphs to fend off any spirits from intruding into your dorms if you’d like?”

“Ah, I can handle that,” Lotte said.

“Alright, if you’re sure. I’ll also be sure to put in a word for the other teachers to be on the look out for any possible malevolent spirits.” She looked at the there of them, somewhat sternly. “If you find out anything else, don’t hesitate to tell me, okay?”

“We won’t,” Akko said, nodding quickly.

“Good. Don’t forget, I’m here to help you girls, no matter what.” More like she was here to help one specific girl. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask, Akko?”

“Oh, yeah, one more thing!” Akko’s squinted, and her eyes started to look over Ursula. “Before, you said Alcor was how you knew we snuck into Arcturus, right?”

“Yes, he was the one that told me.”

“And you said you and him were talking when you were outside our door knocking, right?”

“We did, yes.”

“So, you brought Alcor with you, is what you’re saying, right?”

“Yes?” Ursula looked confused. “He’s right—” She gestured to her shoulder again, turning.

And Ursula saw nothing there. Because neither Sucy or Akko or Lotte had seen a pudgy bird sitting on her shoulder since she entered the room. Definitely not when she gestured at her shoulder earlier when talking about Alcor and her own past. Lotte and Sucy had even shared a look that all but said, “she know’s there’s nothing there, right?”

Ursula stared at the empty air, mouth a little open.

“My last question is, can Alcor turn invisible?” Akko asked, completely sincerely. “Because if he can, that’s so cool!”

“Wha—Alcor?!” Ursula frantically turned her head in every direction. Akko, meanwhile, muttered an, “Aw, guess he can’t” as her shoulder fell a little in disappointment. “Alcor, where are you!?” Ursula all but shouted.

“Um, Professor,” Lotte said, somewhat hesitantly. “I don’t think he’s here. Sucy and I didn’t see him come in with you when you walked in. Akko, did you…”

Akko shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“Oh no!” Ursula was looking more and more panicked by the second, eyes wide. “Where did he go!?”

“Professor, don’t worry!” Akko said, putting a comforting hand on Ursula’s shoulder. She had to stand on her tiptoes to manage that. “Alcor’s an awesome bird! I’m sure he’s fine!”

“I—Alcor’s a great familiar, but he’s getting older! And he’s never wandered off on his like this without telling me beforehand!” Ursula bit her lip. “Oh, I hope he’s okay.”

Akko’s lips pressed together in a firm line, making the determination in her eyes all the more obvious. Even without saying anything, Sucy knew what she was about to say, and a glance at Lotte as she started to move out of her bed told her too.

Welp. Looks like they were going bird hunting.

Akko opened her mouth, the words she’d say already clear in Sucy’s mind. But then, she glanced down at the floor, and her eyes went wide.

“Wait, look!” Akko said, suddenly dropping to the ground. Sucy blinked, looking down at Akko as she grabbed something from the floor and held it up. In Akko’s hand was a long, somewhat frayed white feather that was blue at the ends. “This is Alcor’s feather!”

Ursula whipped around, eyes widening when they landed on the feather. “Y-yes, that’s his!”

“And there’s more here!” Akko nudged her head to the floor, and Sucy saw a few feathers there, most of them pretty small. “And they lead inside our room! He’s gotta be around here somewhere!”

Akko scampered across the floor like an overly eager lizard, shouting, “Alcor! Are you here!?” as she looked under her bed. She repeated her words as she lifted her mattress, and Ursula moved behind her as she frantically whispered at Akko to not be so loud to not disturb the other students.

Sucy rolled her eye, and took a glance around there room. There was enough moonlight entering their room to let Sucy see that Alcor wasn’t anywhere at the entrance. Lotte was talking to Ilo about if they had seen Alcor, but Ilo shook their head. Both of them then glanced under their bed, with Ilo strengthening their flames so they could see better.

But when Ilo strengthened their flames, it also revealed a few more feathers on the ground. And they not only lead right to their bed, but Sucy even saw a feather that was right on top of their mattress by Lotte’s side. Sucy glanced around, but she didn’t see any old, pudgy birds.

That is, until she heard a very soft flapping sound, and turned back.

Sucy stared. “Lotte,” she said.

Lotte stopped her own searching, and blinked at Sucy. “Yes?”

“Don’t move.”

“Wait, why?”

“He’s on your head.”

“What’s on my—”

Lotte didn’t finish as a soft “caw” interrupted her, and she froze. Slowly, she looked up.

Alcor was perched right on her head, so delicately it was like his tiny little crow feet weren’t even touched her hair. Lotte let out a startled little “eep!” when she saw the bird, but kept herself from reacting more violently to not disturb Alcor.

And Alcor was gazing right at Sucy. His head was tilted, avian face scrunched up like a person’s trying to solve a difficult problem. Or like he was about to poop. Either or was possible, and she didn’t want to cause the latter by startling him.

Sucy turned to Akko and Ursula, the former looking inside Ursula’s hat and the other checking underneath a pile of Akko’s jackets. Sucy got their attention by saying, “Hey. We found your bird.”

Akko and Ursula looked up, and Ursula noticed Alcor first as she smiled. “Alcor! There you are.”

“Yeah, there he is.” Sucy rolled her eye. “Now come get him before he poops on Lotte’s—”

There was another caw sound, and Sucy turned.

Alcor was leaning even closer to her. Sucy could make out his eyes squinting to the point they were almost closed. Like he was having trouble seeing Sucy. Just how bad was this bird’s eyesight?

Alcor hopped a little further on Lotte’s head, making Lotte lean froward to make sure he didn’t fall off. His beak was almost touching her cheek.

Sucy frowned. “Back off,” she said. She flicked the oversized, flying rat right between the eyes.

And then, Alcor screeched.

Sucy didn’t even have time to blink before Alcor suddenly flew off Lotte’s head and slammed into her face with a high-pitched squawk. Sucy fell back onto her bed with a barely muffled gasp, and the bird started pecking at her eye.

“Wha—ALCOR!?”

“Sucy!”

“A-ah, hold on!”

Immediately there was a rushing sound of feet and the mattress creaking, but it was dwarfed by just how loud Alcor was screeching as he kept pecking her. In her face, her head, her eye. She tried to swat him away, but her hard smacks didn’t even make him flinch as he just kept pecking.

“Alcor, stop! Stop!”

“Bad Alcor! Stop hurting my friend!”

“Ah, u-uh, um—oh! Ilo—”

Between the pecks, she could vaguely make out Ursula and Akko trying to physically pull Alcor off her, but he fought them back, flapping with all his might and screeching so loud in her face, and never stopping his pecking, and he just kept going back to her eye and it hurt—

There was a squeak of air, and then flames.

Alcor let out another screech and backed away, and Sucy did the same, protecting her face as best she could, clenching her eye shut. But she realized she didn’t feel any agonizing heat. When she carefully opened her eye, she saw green flames dancing on her skin and clothes, but they didn’t burn. It took her a moment, through her panting breaths and the throbbing pain in her face, to recognize them. She looked up.

Bright green flames were rocketing right in the space Sucy and Alcor had been in from the tip of Ilo’s head, which had expanded a little and now looked like a dozen different fireworks were going off at once inside them. Held in Lotte’s palm, their face still screwed up with effort, Ilo kept the flames pumping for a few more seconds, until Lotte spoke.

“Ilo, that’s enough!” she said, and then the flames came to an end, Ilo’s head returned to its normal, wispy form. Lotte then put them on her shoulder and quickly crawled across the bed, eyes wide with concern.

“Sucy, are you okay?” Lotte asked, quickly getting to her side, but not actually touching her.

Sucy didn’t respond right away, hissing in pain as her hand massaged one of the many bruises she felt forming on her face. But when she heard the “caw” of the bird responsible for this, she turned around with a vengeful eye and scowl.

Alcor was held in both Ursula and Akko’s hands, bits of green flame still harmlessly licking at its head. Akko was looking at Sucy with even more concern than Lotte, but Ursula’s eyes were firmly glaring at Alcor as he shook his head, shaking off the last remnants of the flames.

“Alcor, why on earth did you just attack Sucy like that!?” Ursula practically shouted. Alcor jolted up, and looked up at Ursula. She looked genuinely mad as she glared. “You do not respond to a flick by bruising someone!”

Alcor looked from Ursula back to Sucy, who glared at it with pure venom. She reached for her pocket for a potion, but something grabbed her hand. She whipped around, and it was only because it was Lotte, only because she let go just as soon as Sucy glared at her and looked at her with big, pleading eyes that begged Sucy not to try and melt that dumb bird on the spot, that Sucy didn’t try to turn that flying rat into a puddle.

“Yeah!” Akko said, stomping her foot at Alcor, and looking more mad than Sucy had seen from her in a while. “Sucy was kinda mean, but you didn’t have to try and peck her eye out!”

Alcor shrunk in on himself a little. He looked back at Sucy, for some reason looking confused to see her there, and then back to the two glaring women in front of him. He started to caw, waving his wings around to emphasize some point.

Ursula frowned. “What do you mean she ‘startled you?’?’” she asked, eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen you be ambushed by giant cats without flinching? What about Sucy could possibly startle you?”

Alcor opened his beak, but then froze. He looked…confused, almost. It’s face scrunched up, like it was having trouble remembering what exactly made peck her in the face as hard as he did. Slowly, it let out a few hesitant caws.

With steadily rising anger, Akko glared Alcor. Right, she had been making a lot of progress on learning other animal languages, and her Bird was just as good as her Fish. “What do you mean she looked ‘wrong?!’”

“What is wrong with you?”

Those words came without warning, rocking through her from head to toe. Cold eyes were glaring right through her.

Sucy had gone completely still at some point. It took her a moment to kill those words.

In, and out.

When she let out a long, quiet breath, and the tightness in her chest faded, she realized that Alcor was still cawing, and Akko and Ursula were still frowning at the dumb bird.

“Alcor, I’m not really understanding what you’re trying to say,” Ursula said, and Akko nodded in agreement. Ursula then glanced to Sucy, and when she looked back at Alcor, her frown got even deeper. With deliberate slowness, she placed Alcor back on her shoulder, the glare never leaving her face. “Will talk about this more later, but right now, let me just say, no matter how ‘startled’ you are, you do not, ever, get to hurt a student.” She shook her head, disappointed. “And that’s something I never thought I’d have to say to you.”

Alcor looked like Ursula slapped him. He looked back at Sucy, and then he let out a soft “caw” as he hung his head. And, since he wasn’t looking, now would be the perfect time to throw her potion at him and melt his feathers off—

“Sucy are you okay?”

Sucy just barely resisted jolting up, and slowly turned. Somehow, Akko had moved away from Ursula and was standing to her right, eyes shining with worry.

“I’m fine,” Sucy said. Unfortunately, there was a sudden, throbbing pain in her face, and her lips twitched to a small grimace. She just barely held back from hissing.

“No you’re not!” Akko said, the worry getting worse. It made Sucy’s frown deepen, just as Akko went for her wand. “Lotte, what’s the best healing spell for face stuff?”

“Akko, you’re not even good at healing magic. And you don’t have to—”

“Wait, Akko, you should make sure you can see Sucy’s face clearly so you can heal her better,” Lotte said, brining up Ilo to light up her face better.

“Lotte, don’t encourage—”

A green glow suddenly illuminated her face. But it didn’t come from Ilo, or Akko’s wand.

It came from Ursula, who was standing barely a foot away from her.

Sucy went still.

“Sucy, you shouldn’t put off healing these bruises,” Ursula said, and leaned even closer.

Her hands clenched her skirt.

“Goodness, they look bad. Akko, I think I should be the one to heal them.”

Ursula’s hand reached for her face. She could just feel the tips of her fingers begining to brush against one of the unblemished spots on her face.

Near the left side, specifically.

“Ah, wait, Professor—”

Whatever Akko was going to say, Sucy didn’t know or care. The only thing she knew was that it felt like needles were sewing the muscles under her face tight-tight-tight, that a scalding heat rose like waves and spread throughout every inch of her skin, and it mixed with the throbbing hurt from her bruises and made the pain a burn that just wouldn’t stop getting worse and worse and worse because she wouldn’t let go—

She smacked Ursula’s hand away as hard as she could. Ursula stumbled back, and she knew it was less from the force, and more from the shock, her red eyes wide.

Sucy’s own eye was narrowed in a tight, venomous glare.

“Don’t. Touch. Me,” she said, and her voice was almost a growl.

She could feel the moment Akko and Lotte looked at her. The way the air had suddenly gone ice cold the moment those words left her mouth.

But even that cold didn’t completely help with the burn on her face.

“I—I’m sorry, Sucy!” Ursula said, hands moving like she didn’t know what to do with them. “I—that was a mistake on my part, and I—”

“Does it look like I care?” Sucy bit out, just barely keeping herself from scowling. She tried to keep calm, to ignore that burn, but she could still feel that awful tightness on her face, the phantom sensation of fingers touching her face, and it was bringing back moments from then.

“Sucy, she was just trying to check up on your bruises,” Lotte said, a little desperately; or maybe even scared. Sucy didn’t turn around to face her.

She just kept glaring at Ursula, and the teacher was visibly wilting under her gaze.

Good.

“Sucy, c’mon,” Akko said, and the gentle, pleading tone her voice had taken on was enough to make Sucy slowly turn around. Akko was glancing from her to Ursula in worry. “She didn’t mean anything bad about it, she just wanted to help you.”

“And I didn’t ask for her help, or want it,” she said, her voice only a pitch behind threatening.

Akko didn’t so much as blink, gazing into her eye with a gentle, almost tender look. “Sucy, it was a mistake. Please don’t be mad.”

Any other time, seeing a look like that on Akko’s would’ve made her pause; maybe even calm down. But not now. Not when her face was hurting, not when her skin felt so tight, and not when she could still feel that heat coming from it. All because Ursula touched her. Because she reminded her of then, and she was still here, still way to close, and Sucy’s chest was getting tighter and tighter it was starting to get painful.

“Sucy, really, I’m so sorry,” Ursula said, and she looked as guilty as she sounded. Her shoulders fell like some heavy weight was crushing her, face visibly crumpling. “That was completely my fault, and I swear, I didn’t mean to upset—”

“Would you leave already!”

Sucy wasn’t quite shouting, but the venom lodged in her every syllable was more than threatening enough to make up for that. She could feel the shock being directed at her from Akko and Lotte without turning around. But she could barely focus on that when something toxic in ways not even she could love rose in her throat, and made it harder to get air through her shrinking lungs.

And it was all because of her.

Sucy glared at Ursula with barely controlled anger, bandaged hand clenched into an itchy fist. “Just take your stupid bird“—she pointed at the door—”and get. Out.”

No one said anything after that. Sucy let out tiny, hissing breaths through her nose. She focused on the guilt-filled look on Ursula’s face. Seeing her hurt helped soothe some of her anger, and made it easier to send the rest of her troublesome emotions and thoughts to the metaphorical guillotine. It took a few seconds, but she was starting to breathe normally again, the heat slowly fading, and her face settled into a cold, emotionless glare.

“Professor,” Akko said, breaking the silence. “She didn’t—”

Ursula raised a hand, and Akko stopped. “Akko, it’s fine,” she said. She looked to Sucy, and her frown got heavier. “Sucy has a right to be upset.” She wasn’t upset, she just wanted her gone already. “I’ve overstepped some boundaries, and it would be best if I left.” She bowed her head. “Sucy, again, I’m so sorry. Both for Alcor’s actions, and my own.”

Ursula gave Alcor—who she’d forgotten was still on her shoulder until just now, and who looked like he was glaring at her slightly—a little push on the head. Alcor got the hint and bowed his own head.

Sucy’s face didn’t so much as twitch. “It’s hard to think you are, when you’re still here.”

“Sucy!” Akko hissed at her.

But Ursula just nodded. “Right. I’ll…I’ll be off then.” She spared a glance at Akko and Lotte; at least, Sucy assumed she did. Her unblinking red eye never stopped glaring at her. “I apologize for making things…tense.” Ursula’s mouth formed a small, somewhat nervous smile.

There was a little pause behind her, like Akko and Lotte didn’t know how to respond.

“I hope you girls all have a good night,” Ursula said, her smile widening. The look on her face was different too, but Sucy couldn’t read it.

It felt like Akko and Lotte could though. Not a second later, Lotte’s hesitant voice spoke up.

“I…good night, professor,” she said. Sucy could hear her fiddling with her glasses.

Akko took a bit more time to respond. And when she did, for a moment, it felt like she was staring at her. And in a way that made her chest feel heavy, and not at all in a good way like before.

But then that feeling of being stared at was gone, and Akko said, “Good night, professor. And…sorry. About, everything.”

Sucy twitched at that; just a little bit, in her shoulders.

“It’s okay, Akko. There’s no need to apologize again for sneaking out.” Ursula kept smiling, and then fully turned, and walked to their door. “Or anything else. I understand”

Sucy kept glaring. She didn’t stop even when Ursula got to their door and carefully opened it. Phantom sensation of fingers touching her left side still pricked her skin. It took everything she had to push down the heat that threatened to rise there, to think of mushrooms and their wonders and just focus on them.

But, as Ursula left their room, closing the door behind her, she gave Sucy one last glance through the shrinking gap. The smile was gone from her face, and the expression she had on was unreadable as she met Sucy’s glare.

And then the door closed with a quiet click.

It took a few seconds, but that tightness slowly faded, and the phantom fingers and burning eventually faded to nothing. Sucy kept thinking of mushrooms, unclenched her hand, and eventually, her mind was quiet again, with no unwanted thoughts or feelings running about inside her.

Save for that prickly feeling that came from having two pairs of eyes gazing at her back. Very slowly, Sucy turned.

Lotte was meekly staring at her, fiddling with her hands as shrunk a little when she caught Sucy’s eye.

And Akko was frowning at her.

Sucy’s chest started to tighten again.

Akko opened her mouth, but then paused for a second. Sucy remained still. Akko stared at her face, and then she closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and let it out. When she looked at her again, her frown was more sympathetic this time.

“Sucy, you know Ursula didn’t mean to upset you,” she said, voice as soft as her face. “She just wanted to help.”

“Funny, I didn’t feel very ‘helped’ when her dumb bird attacked me,” Sucy said, the words leaving her almost automatically. And maybe more harshly than they should’ve been. At least to Akko.

“That wasn’t her fault,” Akko insisted, not so much as blinking at Sucy’s clipped tone. “Don’t take that out on Professor Ursula. She doesn’t deserve it.”

Sucy rolled her eye. “Sure she doesn’t,” she droned out.

Akko’s eyes narrowed. “Sucy,” she said, and Sucy recognized that reproachful voice. It was one Akko had gained recently because of similar talks they had before about her favorite teacher. One that was the first warning about a conversation that could get a lot worse.

But despite that, Sucy’s mouth moved before she could help it.

“I’m just saying,” she said, looking Akko dead in the eye, frowning before she even realized it. “She’s not exactly a ‘perfect’ teacher.”

Akko’s frown went a little sharp. “Sucy, seriously—”

“You can’t blame me for getting kinda annoyed at her, and not just about her bird,” she said, speaking in a more agitated voice now she barely even bothered to control. Or could control.

She could see Lotte staring at her with obvious confusion about what she was talking about. But Akko got it, and something flickered behind her eyes, but it was gone as Akko sucked in a breath.

“Sucy,” she said, in a slow, measured tone. The kind that sounded so wrong coming from Akko. “We’ve had this talk before, and—”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’re having it again,” Sucy said, because despite Akko’s voice and face making it obvious Sucy should stop poking this issue, should stop insulting someone Akko cared about so much and just shut up, she didn’t. Words she knew she shouldn’t say kept leaving her in a low, angry hiss. “Because I’m getting kind of sick and tired of Professor Chariot always making things worse—”

Akko suddenly leaned forward, face inches away. But all Sucy could focus on was the anger in her eyes.

Sucy leaned back, eye widening.

“Don’t call her that!” Akko said, and her red eyes were now in a very sharp glare. “You know she’s not comfortable being called Chariot again!” Her voice was getting louder with each word.

Sucy hated this. She hated that Akko was almost shouting at her. Hated that she glaring at her so fiercely. Like back then, after Blytonbury.

But with her face still throbbing with pain, with memories starting to rise in her head she tried to force down while anger at everything and nothing ran hot in her chest, she still kept saying exactly what she shouldn’t have.

“It’s not my fault she’s being weird about her own name,” Sucy bit out, mouth suddenly in a scowl. “She dyes her hair back to red, doesn’t even try hiding who she ‘was’ anymore, but for some reason, she isn’t okay with being called her real name? You can’t be stupid enough to miss how hypocritical that is, right?”

“Sucy, you were there when I called her ‘Professor Chariot’ that one time,” Akko said, matching Sucy’s scowl with her own. “You saw just how uncomfortable she was! And when I got her to tell us what was wrong, she said she didn’t like being called ‘Chariot’, and that she’d prefer if we kept calling her ‘Ursula.’” Akko crossed har arms firmly. “And if that’s what she wants, that’s what we’ll do!”

“Doesn’t Croix call her Chariot all the time, but she’s never said anything to her?” At least, Sucy vaguely recalled her calling Ursula that back in Arcturus with the Noir Rod.

“You don’t know what she has or hasn’t told Croix.”

“And you do?”

“Yeah. I do, Sucy. Way more.”

Akko’s eyes were hard, no trace of her usual warmth anywhere. It was starting to look more and more like that look, when she came into their room after that fight with Diana. And then it had lead to her…to her…

Sucy glared, trying to look more angry than, than anything else she felt. Even when she knew she shouldn’t, when acting on her emotions was only making things worse for her, but she just couldn’t kill them before they came out in spiteful little comments, and it was so hard to focus on mushrooms when everything felt so cramped and that glare on Akko’s face just seemed to get colder and colder just like when she told Sucy—

Akko’s mouth opened to keep speaking, and Sucy gripped her skirt, her heart thundering painfully in her ears.

But then, a crystal ball was suddenly thrust between her and Akko, startling them both. A green sheen suddenly swept across its face, and than in an instant, there was an image of Finnelan angrily swatting at a bird. It was so unexpected that it all but silenced the noise in her head, and replaced it with confusion that made her face scrunch up.

And that was when Lotte suddenly stepped between them, holding the crystal ball with a smile so forced it looked painful.

“S-So!” she said. “Turns out it, it was a pelican!” She laughed as awkwardly as a human being could. “I-isn’t that something? Right, girls? Right?”

Lotte’s eyes darted from Sucy to Akko. It was only now that Sucy saw just how hard her fingers were clenching on her crystal ball. How her shoulders trembled, and how genuinely uncomfortable she looked right now. Scared, even.

Because Sucy was arguing with Akko again. With all the signs that things were about to escalate if nothing was done. So, here she was, trying to distract them with a very obvious topic change.

Sucy looked up from Lotte to glance at Akko, and saw the regretful frown on her face as she stared at Lotte’s horrible smile. It was obvious Akko had realized that Lotte felt so worried about them arguing she put herself in-between the two of them. Akko slowly looked up at Sucy, not saying anything as she gazed into her eye.

But then, she tried to smile. It was a forced thing, but it did look a lot more natural than Lotte’s.

“Heh. Guess…I was right, Sucy,” she said, after an awkward pause. Akko glanced from Sucy to Lotte, the message in her eyes clear: “Lotte’s upset; let’s stop.”

Sucy took one last glance at Lotte. And unbidden, staring at that fear and worry in that smile brought up another image. One of Lotte, staring at Sucy with unmasked worry as she whipped out insults. Not at Lotte, but at a certain blond-haired witch who fired back with her own cold words and jabs.

She had seen that look on Lotte more often than she should have. All because she kept arguing with the people she liked. Because she didn’t know when to just drop something before she ended making herself look even worse.

“Sucy?”

Akko was staring at her, eyebrows furrowed in what she assumed was confusion. But she didn’t bother looking all that long.

Sucy just walked around Lotte, then Akko, and headed to her desk. “Yeah,” she said, making her voice as monotone as she could. “You were right.” Everything would’ve been so much better if she had just admitted that from the beginning, hadn’t bothered arguing, and shut up. As usual.

She could feel Lotte’s eyes on her back as she walked away. And Akko’s frown.

Sucy ignored that heavy weight in her chest and sat down on the long desk. Her face started throbbing again, and she frowned as she rubbed her bruised cheek.

“Um, Sucy,” Akko said, and Sucy glanced back enough to see Akko pointing at her own face. “Don’t you want us to fix your bruises—”

“I can take care of that myself,” she said, a little clipped. “Don’t bother.” She dismissively waved her hand, and turned around in her chair She reached for her pouch, hanging just off her bedpost, grabbed it, and laid it on the table. She started to rummage through it, looking for a couple toad’s feet. Problem with bags that were bigger on the inside with magic was that it was a pain to find just one thing out of near bottomless storage.

And as she reached into the mini pocket worlds in her bag, Sucy could still feel Akko and Lotte staring at her. The only sounds in their room came from the rustling of her pouch, the air feeling more stilted than it had been all night. And it was easy to know who was to blame for that.

Sucy frowned, and kept looking in her pouch.

“A-Akko,” Lotte said, breaking the silence that surrounded them. Sucy didn’t turn around, but it was easy to imagine her nervous expression from her voice alone.

“Yeah?” Akko asked.

“I…think I should go put those glyphs up now,” Lotte said. “And I should probably do them outside, just to have more space to draw them out.”

“Oh. Do you need help?”

“No, I’m fine. But it’s…okay if do that now, right? A-and leave you to…you know.”

Sucy could all but hear Lotte’s almost scared fidgeting. It was easy to see what Lotte was asking: if Lotte left, would she and Akko start fighting again?

What did it say that Sucy could agree there was a real chance of that happening?

Sucy slowly pulled out the toads feet, and then reached for a few vials, focusing on her ingredients and nothing else. It was quiet again, and she knew Akko was staring at her.

“Yeah,” Akko said, voice barely above a whisper. “You can go, Lotte. I got this.”

Got what? Was Akko also expecting Sucy to fight her again?

Sucy finished grabbing the last vial she needed, and her hands went to her mortar and pestle. It felt far heavier than usual as she placed them in front of her.

“Okay.” She felt like Lotte was nodding. “I’ll be back in a bit. And right outside.” Again, it felt like Lotte was glancing at her for a moment, but the feeling quickly went away. “C’mon, Ilo.”

Soft footsteps tapped on the floor, petering out and replaced by the click of their door opening. Then there were more footsteps, another click as the door was closed shut, and she felt Lotte’s presence leaving the room.

And now it was just her and Akko. Alone in their room.

The last time that had happened had been after Blytonbury.

Sucy’s chest went tight again. She listed off mushrooms from least toxic to most, even as the air that went to her lungs felt stilted. Her hands moved to toads feet and placed them in the pestle, keenly aware of Akko’s eyes on her back. Just staring at her.

What was she thinking?

Sucy frowned as she mashed the toads feet with her pestle, using more effort than usual to do so. The scraping of her pestle against the mortar were the only sounds in their far too quiet room. Then, she heard Akko moving, footsteps gently echoing. And from the sound, she was moving towards Sucy.

Sucy kept her eye on the mortar and pestle as she kept smashing at the toads feet. She didn’t look up when she heard the chair near her scrapping against the floor. Or look up when more scrapping sounds reached her ears, sounding closer now.

But then, Akko spoke up, her voice coming from so close, and Sucy froze

“So…Whatcha doin’?”

Akko didn’t sound angry, or even judgey. Just curious. Slowly, Sucy looked up from her pestle.

Warm, bright red eyes stared at her. Akko was sitting down on a chair a respectable distance away from Sucy, head tilted in a way that made those uneven bangs hanging in front of the left side of her head sway a little. Akko didn’t look like she was thinking one bit about their argument, and just…wanted to talk to her.

Sucy didn’t know what to make of that, but, with her mouth regaining feeling, she did find herself answering

“I’m just whipping up a quick potion,” Sucy said. She pointed at her face. “For the bruises.”

Akko looked at the pestle, then to the vials. “You gonna use your cauldron?”

“No, there’s no need. I got everything I need here.”

“Oh, okay.”

That was it. Sucy’s eye lingered on Akko’s face, wondering why she stopped talking. Was she waiting for Sucy to say something first? She had an idea about what Akko could want to hear, what she should say, but that…wasn’t happening.

So Sucy looked back to her pestle and kept smashing away at the toads feet, even when they were at the right paste-like substance to use for her potion. She didn’t say a single word, or even blink. Next to her, she was pretty sure Akko shifted in her seat.

“Is there a reason you’re not just casting a healing spell on yourself?” Akko asked.

Because she wasn’t exactly in a “calm and serene state of being” to do one, and she didn’t want to take a risk with any side effects. So, that left potions.

“Don’t feel like it,” was all Sucy ended up saying. She hadn’t even looked up to answer Akko.

“Oh.”

She half-expected Akko to offer to heal her again, but Akko didn’t. Sucy didn’t know what to make of that. She went back to her pestle, before deciding she really shouldn’t mash the toads feet any more than she had, and reached for the vials. All while keenly aware about just how stilted the air between her and Akko was becoming.

Sucy forced her lips to stay in a neutral line, and not an outright grimace. She had no one to blame but herself for this mess. She knew better than to fight with Akko’s favorite teacher. If Akko didn’t like to hear her complain about Ursula—even if some of Sucy’s complaints were ones Akko should really care about more—than shouting at Ursula like she had and then saying she deserved it definitely wasn't’ a good idea.

But this day had been so long, and her tolerance for things that she normally could’ve ignored was at an all time low. She didn’t have the patience or want to not snap at something that annoyed her right now. Even though she knew she should’ve tried more to not feel like that.

Akko already had enough reasons to avoid spending time with her. She didn’t need to add more by fighting with, or about, the woman Akko practically viewed like a mother.

So it was obvious what she should do now. Painfully obvious.

But she didn’t look up from pouring the various liquids from her vials into a nearby, bulbous glass beaker. She just swished them around a little with a spoon, and as they whirled, she moved back to the pestle with the smooshed toads feet, and then put it into her concoction. The liquid in the beaker suddenly turned a deep purple color, and Sucy gave it three spins counter clockwise, plucked a few locks of her hair out and put them in, and watched as the liquid started to stir itself without any more help. And the moment it did, she heard Akko let out a curious “hmm” sound.

“So, that’s the potion that’ll heal you up?” Akko asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sucy said, and despite her efforts, her voice came out with a sharp bite to it. “What else would I be brewing?”

Akko laughed; it sounded horribly awkward. “Y-yeah. I, uh, should’ve realized that.”

“Yeah. You should have, idiot.”

Sucy didn’t say that with any of her usual playful sarcasm. Just a venomous edge.

Akko was silent. Sucy didn’t know what face she was making. She couldn’t lift her head up from the desk to look at Akko. She bit her tongue slightly.

Stop it. You don’t have any reason to act like this to her.

Sucy tried to breathe in and out, tried to think of mushrooms, but those stupid feelings in simmering in her gut made it so hard not to snap at Akko, even when it was her own stupid head that was responsible for feeling like this in the first place.

Sucy focused on her potion with an unwavering stare. Once it started to bubble, she stirred it clockwise, and then kept doing so until it turned a light green. She waited for the potion to stop swirling, lifted the beaker up with one hand, and downed the liquid in a few, quiet gulps. It tasted like chicken. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, there was a sizzling sound. She could just make out a few of bruises on her face start to dry out, like leaves that were crumbling under heat. Sucy didn’t even blink as the sizzling grew louder, cracking sounds soon following, like strips off bark peeling off a decaying tree. An unseen force then launched all bruises off her face, and they landed on the desk as dried out, almost paper-like scabs.

And then they burst into pale-green flames.

Sucy stared at the tiny fires that consumed what was left of her bruises. They didn’t burn the desk at all, as the potion was made to just “burn her body free of injuries.” Thankfully, she didn’t actually feel any heat.

“Uh…” Sucy turned, and saw Akko looking at the burnt ashes of her bruises, and then to her face. “Did that…hurt?” she asked

A little bit.

“Does it look like it hurt?” Sucy’s tone was flat and curt.

Akko grinned sheepishly. “Er…a little bit?”

Before she could stop herself, she scowled a little at Akko. “Then stop asking dumb questions already.”

Akko visibly wilted in her chair. “Sorry,” she muttered.

Something twisted painfully inside her, emotion almost leaking onto her indifferent expression. She pushed them down, hard. She knew Akko didn’t deserve her attitude but…but when she tried to get the words she knew she should say out, she couldn’t. They were stuck in her mouth, and crumbled right underneath the weight of her tongue.

So, she didn’t say anything, and looked away. Despite knowing what she should do, Sucy just stewed in thoughts that were heavy like lead, and made her sink deeper into her seat. Which wouldn’t be happening in the first place if the things in her head would stop looping the same stupid thoughts over and over again like films on repeat, or if Akko would just, just listen for once about Ms. Perfect or Chariot and would just stop choosing everyone but—

“I really hate this.”

Sucy’s head shot up. With stiff, mechanical movements, she turned around.

Akko’s head was hanging low, eyes covered in shadows by her bangs.

“I…what?” Sucy could barely get her mouth working.

“I hate when things are like this,” she continued. “You’re upset a lot more, I’m more sad, and we haven’t been spending as much time together as we used too, or even talking to each other, and it's all because of the… messy problems between us. And sometimes, there’s this feeling that, if I say the wrong thing, I’m gonna make them even worse.” Akko sighed. “I hate feeling like we’re just one bad argument away from…what happened at Blytonbury. And everything after that.”

The cold eyes that flashed in her head were quickly replaced with a furious red.

Akko’s own eyes were still impossible to see. Sucy couldn’t move as she went on. “And that stinks. Friendships shouldn’t come with this big, gloomy feeling that everything’s gonna go wrong at any second.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Diana’s voice was louder than ever. Sucy could barely get air into her shrinking lungs.

Was this…was Akko gonna…was she about to do what Diana said, what she all but promised would happen…all because Sucy was…

Her hands were shaking as she clenched her skirt in a death grip.

Akko slowly started to lift her head. “So…Sucy…”

Sucy’s chest was full of ice so sharp it stabbed her, right through her heart.

No. Not again. She, she couldn’t handle it if Akko, if Akko—if she was abandoned again—

“I just wanna say, it’s gonna be okay.”

That wasn’t what she expected Akko to say. At all.

Sucy stared, completely lost. “What?”

Akko took a deep breath. “I know you’re mad at Diana. I know that you have some problems with Ursula and touching you and making you uncomfortable didn’t help them. I know that tonight has kinda been awful with everything that’s happened, and we’re not really any closer to fixing any of that stuff. I’m not ignoring that. But it’ll get better. I know it will.”

Akko lifted her head up fully, and Sucy could see her eyes again. And the familiar, determined glow that made the red in them shine all the more.

Sucy couldn’t look away.

“Because I’m not giving up until I find a way to fix everything!” Her eyes were practically burning from how bright they were. “Right now, everything kinda, well, sucks. There’s no denying that. But we’ve been through so much stuff together, there’s no way we can’t get through this gloomy phase we’re stuck in, and fix all our friendships as soon as I figure out how! I know it might look impossible to you, but I believe, with all my heart, you’ll be happy and smiling again in no time! A real, big smile where you don’t have to worry about things going wrong, or saying the wrong thing, and can have fun with not just Diana, not just Ursula, but everyone!”

Akko pumped her fist above her head. She meant every word. As if they was every any doubt from her tone and voice. Or from the light shining in her eyes, like stars in the sky. It was the same light she always saw entering Akko’s eyes whenever Akko was about to make the impossible possible. Her endless belief, sparkling so bright nothing could put it out.

It was that same light that made her eyes so warm, and what had captivated her to Akko.

In the sense that she thought a girl with nice eyes like that would make an adorable—in the mocking way—guinea pig to experiment on. Endless optimism vs endless sadism; it seemed like a fun idea, and it was. That was all.

Sucy kept staring at Akko. The tightness in her chest was gone, replaced with warmth that melted every bit of the ice inside her. Her head was quiet.

“And…”Akko suddenly lost some of her determination, eyes dimming. “I’m sorry I don’t have the perfect solution yet.” She looked down, gloomy. That was wrong. “I’m trying, but I—”

“Akko.”

Akko looked up, still gloomy. And now, the only thought in Sucy’s head was that she had to get rid of that look on Akko’s face.

“I keep telling you, this isn’t your fault,” She said, trying to make her voice less raspy, and into something…soft, she guessed. “Don’t make it sound like me and Diana fighting is something you caused, because it wasn’t. I don’t like Diana, but that doesn’t mean…”

She trailed off. Hazy ideas of what to say next appeared, but she couldn’t find the words.

“Doesn’t mean…what?” Akko asked. Her eyes were a bit less gloomy, intently staring at her.

Sucy took in a tiny breath, and let it out. She took a moment to think of what to say, and Akko patiently waited. Eventually, she found something.

“I know we’ve been…arguing a lot.” That was putting it lightly. “And I…kinda wished you would stop trying to convince me and Cavendish to be friends and let things be“—less risk that way of her deciding on the obvious thing to do—”but if you did that…you wouldn’t be Akko. A…a stupidly kind moron who…who made this school fun, just by being around her.”

More staring. Akko leaned a little closer, her expression unreadable, even to her. What was she thinking?

Sucy took another breath, trying to keep her mouth in a neutral, emotionless frown. “The point is, you being so stubborn about trying to make everyone happy is something I learned on the first day I met you. I might get a bit mad, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Or that I…” She made a big, circle kinda gesture, like trying to point at everything around Akko. “That I hate you for just, being you.”

Akko was gazing right into her eye, and Sucy found herself staring right back. They were so red, different from the shade of her own; more brighter. More…

Sucy looked away. “None of this is your fault,” she said, voice quiet. “So stop looking so sad.”

Please.

She didn’t say anything after that. Didn’t even look at Akko to see her reaction. Was…she said the right things this time, right? She had too.

“I’m gonna fix this.”

Sucy blinked at those words. When she looked at Akko, her eyes had regained their warmth, alongside her determination that made them all the brighter.

“You and Diana, all the problems with everyone else. One way or another, I’ll fix fit.” She put a hand over her heart. “I promise.”

She meant every word. Akko really would do everything in her power to try and fix her problems with her friendships.

But how long would it be before Akko tried “fixing” them by just taking the easiest, obvious solution and just…and just throw her…

Sucy thought of mushrooms, and killed those thoughts. She looked at Akko again, and her tongue moved before she could help it.

“You make it sound like everyone else has just as many problems with me as Diana does,” she said.

Akko blinked. “Wait, no, I didn’t—” Akko frantically waved her arms around. “I—I didn’t mean to make it sound like everyone was as mad at you like Diana is! Just, you know…” She rubbed the back of her head, glancing away. “That I know things have been kinda awkward and tense with some of the others“— That was definitely one way of putting it—” and I wanna help you all be get over that and be happy together again. Like with the green team. Or…Hannah and Barbara.” She paused for a moment. “And Ursula“

“They’re…not that bad,” she muttered, and that was true. Compared to Diana, her problems with everyone else were practically non existent . “Especially with Ursula.”

Akko raised a brow. “Sucy, you think Ursula…could’ve done better with all that stuff with Croix when she was a teacher here.”

They both knew that was not what she said, or everything she said about Ursula, especially about what she chose to say and not say to Akko, but Sucy didn’t call her out on that.

“And I can still say I like Ursula a thousand times more than I do Diana,” Sucy said, voice flat.

Akko winced, and Sucy frowned. She should’ve said something else.

“And, anyway, if you’re really set on fixing all of this—”

“I am.”

“—then you should probably just focus on Diana.” That way she wouldn’t constantly see how much trouble she was causing everyone else. “She’s the one you’re gonna have the most trouble with.” She rolled her eye as dismissively as she could. “She won’t even look at me without glaring.”

Akko frowned. “Yeah. Diana’s…not gonna be easy.” She sighed, and Sucy took immense satisfaction in how tired Akko sounded just from talking about Cavendish. “And I really thought she wouldn’t be this bad after she said she’d…” Akko trailed off, and let out a groan, rubbing the side of her head. “Guess it doesn’t matter.”

Sucy disagreed. Strongly.

She was staring at Akko with a carefully indifferent expression, her eye unblinking. What was she about to say? It sounded like, like she’d been talking to Diana about her. But as far as she knew, Akko hadn’t really talked to Diana much, if at all, since the day Diana and her had their fight. So when did she talk to her? What did they talk about?

Should…she ask? Did she even want to know?

Before she could sort out the mess of thoughts in head and come to a decision, Akko let out an explosive sigh. “Ugh. It feels like we keep talking in circles about the same stuff without getting anywhere.” She saw Sucy looking at her, and then for some reason, quickly added, “Not that I think that’s your fault! This is complicated stuff, so, you know, sometimes we have to talk about the same problems again and again. And even if it doesn’t feel like we’re making progress, the fact we’re talking about them, and so calmly, is a good sign that we can eventually get over them.”

It felt like Akko was quoting someone with that last sentence.

“Just….”Akko’s shoulders slumped a little. “I feel kinda bad tonight wasn’t the fun adventure you probably wanted, Sucy.”

No. It wasn’t. But Akko didn’t deserve to feel bad about that.

“Tonight wasn’t that bad,” she murmured. She gestured at her pouch on the desk. “I got plenty of ingredients to make my potion. And, sure, I wasn’t exactly happy to hear I’d lose my one and only guinea pig for two weeks“—Akko flinched, and Sucy raced to finish—”but it was still a fun night. Breaking the rules, wandering into dangerous places, and just seeing you trip and fall on your face was…nice. It’s been a while since we’ve done anything like this.”

“Yeah,” Akko agreed, still looking guilty.

Sucy tried to think of what to say next, to make her feel better. Why was she so bad at this? “Look, Akko,” she said, hoping she sounded at least somewhat soothing, and not that monotone. “Tonight could’ve been better, but it wasn’t a disaster. Honestly, the worst part was when you saw me freak—”

Sucy stopped talking, like her tongue suddenly dissolved in acid.

“Sucy?”

She said nothing.

“Were you…talking about what happened after you thought I called you—”

That word echoed in her head. Her blood became so cold.

“Sucy?” Akko sounded concern. Sucy didn’t look to see her face. “What’s wrong?”

Sucy did her best to think of mushrooms and nothing else. To not think of what happened then. She was just barely managing, even as her heart started to beat faster.

“Nothing,” she got out, through a mouth that felt like it was filled with cement. She kept taking in tiny, quiet breaths, killing any thoughts but the ones about mushrooms and getting her dumb heart to slow down. And she was succeeding; she just had to keep focusing on her breaths.

In and out. In, and out. In—

An image of a little girl, surrounded by flames, hit her with no warning. For just a moment, she felt a burn.

“Sucy, I told you: you can talk to me about—”

“Akko, I don’t want to talk about it!”

Akko looked at her with wide eyes, leaning back in her chair. It took Sucy a moment to realize shew as scowling fiercely. That she was glaring with anger so hot she could feel it burning in her eye. All of it, aimed at Akko.

Something colder than ice stabbed into her, and the scowl plummeted off her face.

“A-Akko.” Sucy had to pause. She knew what she should say. But the words got stuck, and wouldn’t come up no matter how much she wanted them too. “ I…I meant…that wasn’t…”

Her voice trailed off like it fell off a cliff. She was messing up so badly. Why was she acting like this? Why couldn’t she just kill off her stupid emotions and thoughts? She had been willing to at least consider talking about then before with Akko in Arcturus, so why was she lashing out at Akko so much and just giving her more and more reasons to push her away just because she suddenly felt so, so sick at just the idea of talking about when she—

“Okay.”

That one word broke her out of the memories her head tried to trap her in.

Akko looked at her with a soft, tender look on her face.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” she said.

Sucy stared. “I…really?”

Akko nodded firmly. “I’m not gonna force you to talk, Sucy.”

She didn’t know what to say. She just kept staring.

“Oh,” was what eventually left her mouth. Slowly, she nodded, the lingering heat on her face fading as her shoulders fell a little. “Okay.”

She didn’t say anything after that. But Akko did.

“But, and I know I keep saying this a lot…” Akko scooted her chair closer, until her legs were almost touching Sucy’s own. She looked up at Sucy, then to her hands, and then she lifted her own. The question was clear.

Sucy stared. Then, she rolled her eye with with as much exasperation as she could, and extended her own hand, the one without the bandage, to Akko. Akko gently took it with both her hands, her fingers carefully wrapping around her hand.

Her hand was just as warm as always. Maybe even warmer.

“Whenever you want to talk to me, I’ll always be willing to listen. And…if I do or say something dumb or, make you uncomfortable, you can tell me.” Her smile slowly fell, and a frown took it’s place. “I…I don’t wanna hurt you again.”

Akko looked to the ground. Or, was about to, before Sucy suddenly put her other hand on top of Akko’s. Akko’s eyes went a little wide.

Sucy wasn’t sure what expression she had on right now, but she hoped it was something…sincere.

“Akko, I…I appreciate that you’re trying to help. With everything.” Sucy squeezed again, focusing on Akko’s warm hands, fingers brushing against her skin. “I…just…” It took her a moment to continue, gaze lowering to the ground. “There are some things that…I don’t like talking about. Or…thinking about, I guess.” Her voice was lower than a whisper now. She let out a shaky breath.

Akko suddenly squeezed her hand. When Sucy looked up, there was nothing but sympathy and compassion in her eyes.

Sucy focused on that, on Akko’s eyes and warmth, and kept going. “But…the fact that you’re willing to go so far for me. It…that…”

Her tongue was so heavy. Her heart was starting to beat faster, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant like it was before. She paused, trying to think of what to say next, to convey what she felt but not everything she felt when her head was such a mess. But she kept pushing herself to come up with something, anything. And she did.

“It’s nice that you care,” Sucy said.

About me.

Akko gazed right into her eye, and Sucy struggled to hold it. Saying all that felt…weird. Not exactly painful, but not exactly all that fun either. It just left her feeling kind of exposed, but not in that horrible way when she thought Akko called her disgusting. More like there was a kind of…growth inside her, and she just let it out a bit. And Akko seeing that felt…okay. It was okay.

Akko squeezed her hand again, and when she spoke, her voice was as soft as her eyes were warm.

“Of course I care, Sucy.” Her lips tugged into a smile, one she’d only ever seen from Akko because of how impossibly kind it was, and the warmth Sucy felt doubled. “I’ll always care about you. Always.”

Something pulsed under Sucy’s face. Heat that she barely kept down, that made her feel lighter, even as her heartbeat got a little faster, and her chest kept doing that lurching pull that made her want to, to do something that she couldn’t put to words but could maybe put to actions, maybe let Akko see and show her just how much she, she—

There was a click, and the door to their room opened.

Sucy’s let go of Akko’s hand, and the one Akko held slipped from her grasp with the grace of a snake. Akko blinked, but before just as she opened her mouth, a voice spoke.

“Is everything okay?” Lotte’s asked, walking into their room and looking a little worried. Did she see?

Sucy looked to Akko, who just smiled reassuringly at Lotte, and said, “Hey Lotte! Did you finish the glyphs outside?”

She didn’t seem concerned at all. Because of course she wouldn’t, she had just been holding her hand. There was no greater meaning than that. Akko was the most “touchy-feely” person she’d ever met; she’d hold hands with anyone; comfort anyone, in the exact same way she had with Sucy.

Sucy frowned, minutely, and after a few seconds of Lotte staring at Akko, she continued.

“Y-yeah. They’re finished, and should be good enough to keep any spirits out, or warn me and Ilo if one tries to enter.”

Akko let out a relieved little breath. “Phew. Least we don’t have to worry about any creepy laughing ghost now.”

“Spirits,” Lotte corrected.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. But still, that’s great, right Sucy?”

Right. The weird, “wicked” thing Ilo heard. Something that had been enough to make even her a bit—

That tree from Arcturus appeared without warning in front of her.

She crushed that dumb image. She wasn’t worried about some spirit, or some dumb tree. She must’ve been more tired than she thought to think about stuff that didn’t matter.

“Sucy?” Akko asked.

Sucy realized she never answer Akko, at some point lightly scratching at her bandage hand. “Yeah,” she said, slowly looking to Lotte. “Good job, Lotte.”

Lotte smiled bashfully. “It really wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“I couldn’t do it that fast, and this moron definitely couldn’t have done it at all.” Sucy said, lazily pointing a thumb at Akko. “And she’s the one that saved magic.”

At her sarcastic words, Akko just smiled widely at her for a moment. Sucy raised her eyebrow, but Akko just turned around to Lotte. “Yeah, you’re really good at glyphs and stuff, Lotte!”

“It’s just something I studied a lot when I was a kid,” Lotte said, scratching her cheek and shyly looking away. “It’s nothing special.”

“I’m pretty sure you have to be pretty special to be the ‘Greatest Spirit Caller of her Generation,’” Akko said, quoting what those spirits in Arcturus said to Lotte with a big smirk.

Lotte blushed bright red. “O-Oh, stop,” she said, giggling with a slowly widening smile. “They were just being polite.”

“Lotte, one day, I’m gonna get you to admit how awesome you are without second guessing yourself,” Akko said, dead-serious. Ilo nodded on Lotte’s shoulder, and Lotte’s smile grew even more bashful. Then, Akko smiled as well, pumping her fist in the air. “And now that we don’t have any more creepy spirit stuff to worry about or have any more serious talks, we can go back to eating scones!”

“Um, Akko,” Lotte said, a bit hesitantly.

“Yeah?” Akko blinked.

“It’s almost midnight, and we have a seven AM class tomorrow.”

Akko froze, mouth hanging open a little. “Ah. Yeah. Forgot about that.” Her arm fell, and she pouted. “I guess that means no scone party.”

Lotte laughed. She moved to Akko’s bed, where at the foot of it, the basket of scones had ended up; somehow, no one had knocked it over during any of that mess with the “ghost” or Ursula or looking for Alcor. Lotte carefully picked up the basket, and at the same time, took out her wand, and waved it across as she muttered a spell Sucy couldn’t hear. The scones and containers of jam glowed a pale-green, the same color as Ilo’s body, and she placed them on a nearby chair.

“That’ll keep them fresh until morning so long as no one touches them,” she said. Lotte looked at Akko, who was still sulking. “We can eat them in the morning as a snack.”

“I guess that’s okay,” She muttered.

Sucy raised a brow. “Didn’t you eat like ten of those before Ursula came?”

“It was only eight!” Akko insisted.

“And you still want to eat more?”

“Yes.”

Sucy’s gaze went flat.

“What?! They’re really good!”

She sighed. “Don’t blame me when you can’t fit in your uniform.”

“What are you trying to say,” Akko asked, voice very low, eyes sharp with a blaring warning in them.

“That you’re getting fat,” Sucy said without any hesitation.

“WHAT!?” Akko screeched. “Have you seen these“—she flexed her toned arms—”or these“—she lifted her leg up and gestured at her calf muscles—”or these!?”

She lifted her shirt and vest up, enough to expose just her stomach. Which, while not spouting a six pack or anything, had more defined muscles than someone would probably expect from Akko’s seemingly skinny body.

Sucy had to look away, face starting to feel weird; she swallowed thickly.

“I’ve been able to keep up with the fastest broom in the world on foot while pushing a cannon! And that was before Professor Ursula helped me not just with magic, but in getting into even better shape during our lessons, Sucy!” There was a slapping sound, like Akko just hit her own, toned stomach for emphasis. “So don’t you dare mock all the hard work I’ve putt his body through!”

“Fine. I won’t.” Sucy had a hand over her face. “Just pull your shirt down, woman.”

Akko let out a little “hmph!”, and Sucy heard the sound of her shirt and vest falling. Slowly, she pulled her hand off her warm face, and seeing Akko’s stomach covered, she let out a tiny breath. Akko glared at her. “I’m not fat,” she said, firmly crossing her arms.

Lotte giggled, and Sucy rolled her eye. Akko kept glaring, but then, let out a big yawn, ruining any chance of looking serious.

“You know, maybe we should go to bed,” she said. “It’s been a long night, and I’m feeling kinda tired.” She looked around, and her fingers went to the buttons on her vest. “Where are my pajamas?”

“For the last time, regular t-shirts and shorts are not pajamas,” Sucy droned.

“They are too!” Akko finished the last button, slipped her arms free of her vest, and tossed it to her bed, leaving her in just her white dress shirt and skirt. She looked surprisingly decent in that shirt. Maybe it was the way she could actually see how the shirt fit her upper body, how the collar hugged her neck. “Lotte, back me up here!”

Akko’s fingers undid the on buttons her collar and ones near her neck, exposing parts of her clavicle, and quickly headed down her shirt.

Sucy turned around, and quickly went to her bed, grabbing her pajamas from the hanger she put a nearby shelf. Facing the wall to her bed, she began to take off her own clothes with stiff, slow fingers.

“I mean…can you really call those ‘pajamas’ when you walk around in the public with them too?” Lotte asked. Sucy heard the sound of a skirt falling down and softly landing on the floor.

“They still count!” Akko shouted, and Sucy heard more clothes hitting the floor, and could imagine—nothing. There was no reason to imagine anything. At all. No reason.

“Do they?”

“Yes!” Akko huffed, but Sucy didn’t turn around to see the no doubt funny, overly annoyed expression she was making. She just looked straight, having finished taking off her clothes and slipping her long nightshirt over her head, and thought about mushrooms. “You wear them to sleep, so they’re pajamas! Just ones you can also wear in the day time too!”

“I’m not sure if that’s how it works.”

“It totally is.”

“Then, if you wore your day clothes to sleep, by your logic, wouldn’t they also count as pajamas?”

“Yep!”

“Even socks?”

“Lotte, no one wears socks to sleep. That’d just be weird.”

"I wear socks to sleep." She could hear the frown in Lotte's voice.

Sucy could imagine Akko blinking dumbly. "Oh, right."

"Yeah. Big wool ones whenever it gets really cold. And they're very comfy, I'll have you know."

"Huh." There was a pause. "I guess you're pretty weird than, Lotte!"

Another, longer pause stretched out.

"Akko, it's only because I want to keep my feet warm in the future that I'm not smacking you with my socks," Lotte said, seemingly dead-serious.

“That's not a denial, Lotte!" Akko all but sang with a giggle, and a moment later, Lotte giggled too, just as loudly.

Sucy brushed off imaginary wrinkles on her pajamas, her eye looking over her bed even when there was nothing there to find anywhere there; Lotte and Akko kept talking, but Sucy didn’t focus on their words, preoccupied with her thoughts and the odd throbbing on her face. Should she turn around now? It felt like Akko and Lotte were done, but if they weren’t, well, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Of course not. It had never felt like before, so if she turned around and Akko wasn’t done, no one would care. Especially not her. Not one bit.

“Sucy, if you looking for your sleep-hat-thingy, I got it right here.”

Sucy stiffened at Akko’s voice. She let out a long breath through her nose, making sure she only thought of mushrooms. Then, knowing she had to or else Akko and Lotte would get suspicious, she turned around.

Akko was in her plain white t-shirt and orange shorts, holding her nightcap with an easy-going smile on her face. The tension in Sucy’s shoulders bled out at the sight.

“Catch!” Akko said, tossing her nightcap in a light, underhand throw. It sailed through the air, and without blinking, Sucy caught it with one hand. She gave Akko a nod, and put it on her head while Akko turned around, moving the various clothes off her bed and piling them on the floor.

And as she did so, Sucy let out a tiny breath, thinking of mushrooms and nothing about Akko.

The night air wasn’t as cold as it felt a moment ago. Because she finished pulling her hat on.

“C’mon on, Ilo,” Lotte said, and Sucy just now realized Lotte was in her loose blue shirt and pants she used exclusively as pajamas. She crouched down at a nearby stool to pick up Ilo, having probably put them there so she could change. Once Ilo was back on her shoulder, Lotte walked to the ladder that led to her bed, and started to climb up it.

Akko finished cleaning her bed of all her clothes, and then fell into the mattress with a big, content sigh. “Oh, bed, you feel extra comfy tonight.” She rolled around in her bed, kicking up the covers slightly. Then, she frowned. “Too bad I won’t get to enjoy you that much. Why does Lukíc have to have her class so early? She’s never done it before.”

“Probably wants to get teaching out of the way as soon as possible,” Sucy said, finally able to speak again, having moved the covers off her own bed, and now organized her pillows the way she liked them. “I was in her office a few days ago, and I’m pretty sure I heard her telling the other teachers she has an early flight to Hawaii tomorrow. Or something like that.”

“You were in her office?” Akko looked at her, both eyebrows raised. “Why?”

“I was just asking her some questions about where to find books about certain potions I was interested in.” Well, one specifically, but she couldn’t exactly directly ask a teacher about an Essence potion. “Doesn’t matter.”

Akko furrowed both her eyebrows at her, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she just looked at the roof over her bed, and sighed. “Well, it stinks we have to get up early, but at least it’s the last day before our vacation starts.”

Yep. The last day before they were officially on break. And barely a day after that the next one, Akko would be leaving for Ireland. With Ursula, and Diana.

Sucy scowled a little as she finished fluffing her pillows.

“Lotte, could you turn off the lights—oh, wait.” Akko blinked. “They’ve been off this whole time.”

“Yeah, I kinda forgot too,” Lotte said. She was on her bed now, under the covers, and took off her glasses. Sucy slid under her own covers and took in Lotte’s face. Her eyes always looked a lot sharper without her glasses on, and Sucy noticed the blue in them a lot more without them on. She really should wear contacts or something.

“You know, I never noticed how much moonlight gets into this room,” Akko said, looking up at their window, and Sucy could just see the moon shining down on them, even as clouds started to obscure its body. “It’s kinda cool! Like a big nightlight.”

“It is pretty,” Lotte said. Ilo started to make some squeaking sounds at her, and she looked down at them with a smile. “Yes, your flames do make a prettier nightlight. Why do you think I keep you so close to me when I sleep?”

Ilo nodded proudly. Lotte giggled, and looked down at Sucy, then at the bottom bunk beneath her. “Good night, girls,” she said, giving them both a smile.

“G’night, Lotte!” Akko said, peaking her head out from her bunk and smiling twice as hard. She looked at Sucy. “G’night Sucy!”

“Good night,” Sucy said, voice monotone.

“Ah, wait!”

Sucy was just about to pull the covers over her when Akko said that. She looked at her, eyebrow raised. “What?”

Akko got up from her bed, and walked over to Sucy. When she was by her bed, she spread her arms wide, almost as wide as her smile. The intent was clear.

Sucy stared. Then, with as much annoyance as she could muster, she sighed, but did sit up, and spread her arms.

Akko leaned down, and hugged her.

Sucy felt Akko’s strong arms envelop her. The bangs that hung over Akko’s shoulder brushed against her nose, and Sucy got a whiff of earth, sweat, and that plum-scented shampoo Akko liked.

She didn’t move an inch.

“You’re my friend,” Akko whispered, right into her ear. The hug tightened. “And you’ll always be important to me.”

She could all but hear Akko’s heartbeat through her pajamas

Sucy didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. After a few, long seconds, she slowly only raised her arms and, hesitantly, wrapped them behind Akko. Just enough for her hand to lightly touch her back. It was the best she could manage; she wasn’t a hugger, especially not when her own heart was beating so stupidly fast. They stayed like that for a moment.

“Thank you.”

Those words left her before she could help it, and were spoken in a tone she’d never heard from her own voice.

Sucy stiffened almost violently. Akko didn’t react at first, but then, she slowly started to look up.

Before she even realized it, Sucy looked away, quickly letting go of Akko.

“I’m going to bed,” Sucy mumbled, bringing the covers over her, and then laying her head down onto her pillow. It was weirdly warm, for some reason.

She could feel Akko standing over her bed, staring at her for what felt like hours.

“Y-yeah. Okay,” Akko said, her voice so quiet Sucy almost missed it. There was a long, awkward pause. “Good night, Sucy.”

She heard Akko’s footsteps echoing on the floor, the sound of covers being thrown and hastily pulled back up, and Sucy could imagine Akko gently closing her eyes shut.

It was quiet. Save for the thoughts inside Sucy’s head.

She should’ve kept quiet. Actually saying “Thank you”—again—was just unnatural. Akko thought so too, going by that pause. Not to mention how weird she sounded when she said it.

Sucy rolled onto her side, eye clenched shut. She let out breath, listed off all the mushrooms she had collected today, from most to least interesting. Every thought slowly left her, and she tried to just go to sleep.

But then Akko’s words echoed throughout her.

“And you’ll always be important to me.”

For a moment, they filled her with that same warmth she’d felt so many times throughout the night. But the next thought she had only filled her with something cold.

Will I?

It came without warning, from some corner of her mind she tried to suppress. Sucy let out a breath, but she suddenly could only focus on how much she had been arguing with Akko, how things had just gotten worse ever since that day she fought with Diana and Akko shouted all those things at her.

Everything was so much worse now. All because of Diana. Because Ms. Perfect didn’t have an ounce of humor in her, was such an arrogant little hypocrite, because she was just such a miserable human being she made everything awful just from her presence alone, but for some reason everyone liked her, especially Akko, and now she might lose her all because of that ugly, friend stealing bitc—

A loud snore drowned out her thoughts. Sucy opened her eye, unclenching her teeth as she turned on her pillow.

Akko was fast asleep, covers rising and falling as she snored. On the top bunk, Lotte was snoring too, but far more softly. Sucy could just make out the waning, flickering green light of Ilo, a sign that they were sleeping too.

How long had she’d been stuck in her head?

Sucy stared at Akko’s sleeping form. Akko rolled onto her side, and Sucy could see the dopey, happy smile on her face as she slept.

Sucy sighed, and closed her eye.

It wouldn’t happen again. Not with Akko. Akko would find some way to make all of her friends happy, and not just make the easy, smart choice that everyone, especially Diana, was probably expecting her to make. Sucy had to believe that Akko cared about her as much as she said. Believe in the best friend she’d ever had.

Because she didn’t know if she could handle being abandoned like a disgusting piece of trash again.

As the moon outside was covered by clouds, casting her room in darkness, Sucy once again killed off the thoughts and feelings she wished would stay dead, and slowly, she her mind fell into the peaceful quiet of sleep.

-0-

In the Forest of Arcturus, a pale purple bat flew. Even though one of its eyes were scarred and useless, it soared the air with the grace of a shadow dancing through the night. And upon spying a scurrying mouse, it descended with all the sharpness and speed of a guillotine, snapping its fangs over the mouse, and then, landing on a broken branch on the ground.

The bat enjoyed its meal, sucking all the blood from the mouse, before swallowing it whole in one greedy gulp. It then let out a screech that, for its species, was the sound of contentment.

And that was when twisted, whip-like thorns made of pitch black bark erupted form the branch, ensnaring the bat in a monstrous grip as it screeched. There was a popping sound, purple blood stained the ashy grass, and the screeches ceased.

For a moment, all was quiet, save for the steady drip of purple blood that leaked down the thorns of the branch.

But then, there was a crack sound, like bark shifting. The branch on the ground started to twitch, and then, it slithered across the ground, pulled by an unseen force. It made its way past the screaming faces of the others trees in the groove, ones that were far more cracked and broken now; past the corpses of other animals, such as another bat who’s wings had been ripped off and pinned to the ground, the face of the corpse a rictus of agony. And then, it reached an old, decaying tree. One that had burns on it.

When the branch reached the base of the tree, it stopped moving. There was pure silence.

But then, something inside the tree pulsed, the bark throbbing like a heart. A creaking echoed, but not the creaking of dying moans, but of old bones finally able to move again. The branch on the ground twitched again.

And then, it slowly levitated from the ground, and reattached itself to a broken part of the trees limbs. Wood met wood, bark twisting together to mend a wound, and then, the branch fully reattached itself to the tree.

And the moment it did, some of the burns on the tree started to fade away. Its bark lost just a touch of its decaying pallor.

And then, a malevolent aura of purple light, unnatural even by the standards of the magical forest it was in, surrounded it. There was another pulse from within the tree, one that shook it to its roots, and then, even though none but the tree were in that grove, one sound echoed in the cold, dark night.

A laugh. Not of a man, not of a witch, not even of a beast.

But a haunting laugh that rose like the dead from the grave, and marked the beginning of a nightmare.