A connection broke.

In the southern reaches of Swadia amongst tree covered hills sat the recently moved Arcane University. Ahri felt something break and was jolted awake startling the nearby mages. She had just been moved to her room and sat on her familiar bed.

She looked around still only half awake, alchemy table and equipment lined one wall, knives and training equipment lined the other.

One of the three mages in the room spoke up, “you’ve finally come to young miss--”

Ahri interrupted, “why am I here”

“because this is where you belong” the old mage said comfortingly.

Ahri countered, “I belong to Lu--”, then she realized, she couldn’t feel the connection to Lucifer anymore, she desperately her mind internally trying to find the connection, but she couldn’t even find a remnant of it.

The mage tried to stop Ahri from standing up so suddenly, but was easily pushed aside, he grumbled, “where are you going in such a hurry young lady”

“the dungeon is under attack where do you think I’m going” she spat back.

“I’m sorry but Merlin ordered me to stop you from leaving the University” he said apologetically then waved a hand causing a gust of wind to slam the door shut.

Ahri glared at him and grabbed the handle, however, the door wouldn’t budge, before he could speak she had tried to cast a spell, but her mana wouldn’t listen to her. She felt where the interference was coming from and saw an unfamiliar ring on her finger.

The mage said, “that is Merlin's creation, it's cursed to not come off and disrupts the wears mana control”

Without hesitation or even flinching she put her finger in her mouth and bit down. Blood filled her mouth as it took several bites to sever the member, she winced slightly, but not half as much as the three watching.

The old mage was stunned and couldn’t react in time, he bellowed at one of the younger mages, “go get a healer… and some restraints”

While he was distracted Ahri silently approached him. One of the mages called out, but it was too late, one of Ahri’s tails had hardened and pierced the old mage’s chest. He died with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

A moment of silence went by, the mages began casting something and Ahri had to make a decision. One side of the room had her alchemy gear and the other had her assassin equipment, she could only make it to one.

Ahri started casting and dashed towards the tools. Two daggers were just leaving her hands when the first spell shot towards her, a ring on her finger flared to life and a wave of force crackled against her hastily constructed barrier.

One of the mages was able to dodge the flying dagger aimed at him, but the other wasn’t so lucky. He clutched at his throat as blood flowed past his trembling fingers.

The other mage could only afford a glance for his ally before his attention was snatched by another flying object. He cast another shaky barrier, this time on an angle to deflect the next dagger.

While her opponent was distracted Ahri finished casting her own spell and vanished. He reacted quickly and sent out a hastily constructed wave of force, it wasn’t powerful enough to do any damage, but it made his opponent visible for a moment.

She was running across the roof with mana keeping her glued to the ceiling. Her last dagger flew and he had to decide between defense and offense, he wouldn’t have time for both.

The decision was swift, those daggers spoke volumes of his chances against her in close combat. So he shifted his body taking the dagger to the shoulder and continued casting.

Ahri came down in a flurry of mana enhanced tails which heavily slammed against a barrier, this one was firm and didn’t budge in the slightest.

He once again began casting and Ahri recognized the spell. It was a sleep spell and something she couldn’t resist or counter from such a veteran mage. Apparently, he still wanted her alive and the fact he thought he could, was both infuriating and frustrating to Ahri.

She growled in protest at the barrier and the mages smug expression and dashed to the alchemy table. Once there she shoved mixtures together and thankfully it didn’t just explode in her face. The spell was nearing completion and she didn’t have time to waste.

With a savage grin, she turned to face the mage and threw her hastily made concoction towards the barrier, it could stop her dagger and tails, but it wouldn’t stop whatever she had just made from going in.

He was about to finish the spell and his expression wavered when he saw what she had done. He vaguely saw the skin on her hand melting from the brief contact with the concoction and he didn’t want to find out what it would do to him.

The barrier came down, it would only stop him from running anyway. And he went straight for the door, however, he was a mage and Ahri focused on training her body. She got to the door before he did, but not before slamming him against the wall with her tails.

Noxious fumes began filling the room as she stepped out the door and closed it. She took a moment to take a breath and searched the knife pouch she picked up, she fished out a broken lockpick and cursed.

It took her twice as long to lock the door with the broken pick, even with the extremely simple locks in the university, but once she locked the door she broke off the rest of the pick inside the lock and left.

Ahri swiftly walked the complicated halls until she came up the teleportation array. The mage guarding it looked at her wounded hand and her strangely. She ignored him and walked past.

Half a minute later the mage picked up and shoved against the wall by something. Ahri became visible and growled, “why is the teleportation array deactivated”

The mage could feel his bones creaking under her bizarrely strong grip and the look in her eyes made him speak quickly, “they shut it down so you couldn’t escape, they knew that you were adept at sneaking around and couldn’t hope to hold you if you played nice”

“Useless” she grumbled as she covered his mouth and twisted his head the wrong way. She threw the corpse into the useless teleportation room and snuck onto one of the highest points of the university.

The beastmaster on duty didn’t notice anything until the sound of heavy wing beats woke him from his half sleep, he looked outside to see one of his griffins disappearing into the horizon.