September 10, 2025

The beeping of the alarm clock dragged Niji away from oblivion. Three hours prior to a training session, as usual. Still in her bed, the Elementalist opened the Magebook app on her smart—recently she’d become quite interested in news within the wizard community.

The first notification was that someone had tagged her in a photo. After clicking on the thumbnail she saw a low quality snapshot of the Viol they’d encountered the day before, taken from maybe 5th or 6th floor of a house on the street where the fight took place. The enemy had already been defeated and was about to dissipate. For a second Niji thought that her name was tagged to the monster itself, and her heart skipped a beat. However, the small square was placed above one of the tiny figures in the corner of the photo. A dozen people had liked the post, including a user with the name Ineed Healing, and Niji had a pretty solid clue about who it might be. The description of the photo stated: “Got that one from my brother. Portland State district. Discuss.”

The comments were the following:

Faeri Omnius: Looks like fun.

Mio Hirano(ex-Academy): too many viols out there these days

Ariadna von Stauffer: whats with the quality. 3d panorama, anyone?

_BadDPS_: fake

MisterChaos: @_BadDPS_, 100% fake, i’ve seen it in “my maid is a monster”

Mio Hirano (ex-Academy): is there HQ of those-who-must-not-be-named nearby?

Ariadna von Stauffer: I guess I see Niji Murasaki in the corner……….?

Katharina<3: @Ariadna von Stauffer, yep, I'll tag ^___^

Sam Norfolk: @MisterChaos, this is NOT fake. Such a degree of distortion is quite rare, but it is still possible for viols to have drastic changes in their appearance.

MisterChaos: @Sam Norfolk, fake like your violet mom

Sam Norfolk: @Mio Hirano (ex-Academy), I’ve heard that their base is at Sunset dstr, but who knows

Mio Hirano (ex-Academy): @MisterChaos, reported

Sam Norfolk: @MisterChaos, you degenerate might not be aware that I come from a family of Violet Hunters. So if you doubt my expertise, RTFM.

Faeri Omnius: @Sam Norfolk, sure thing, but nobody in your family was hired to Special Ops since your granddad;)

Well, typical. Nothing too compromising, but Niji felt moody—that stupid tag ruined her day completely. The girl couldn’t help but think about the Violet, and the realization of what exactly her fate would look like was devastating. She was doomed to become that ugly, crazy, disgusting creature—unless she was eliminated prior to that. This revelation was far more dreadful than Freyja’s killing spree.

She wanted to escape from these painful thoughts, to bury herself under the bed covers and never get out of there again. Her battle with a paralyzing fear was stealing too much of her inner power, and no physical pain she’d endured yesterday could compare with the extent of the exhaustion her nervous system was struggling with.

No, she had to fight. She’d do everything to survive. She must.

Upon drinking her coffee, Niji finally convinced herself to go training.