Mizuri

I have to thank him.

Mizuri gasped as she woke up in the Higashi Academy clinic.

“Wha---”

“Finally awake?”

Mizuri tried to crane her neck to see who just spoke, and finding she still couldn’t, attempted to sit. Surprisingly, her body didn’t hurt anymore. The only signs of her having been struck by lightning was her half-burnt uniform.

The clinic was huge, maybe twenty feet tall and the size of the clearing in the forest. A nurse sat by her bed, a clipboard and a pocket book on her lap. She’d probably been waiting for Mizuri to wake up.

“Uhmm... How did I get here?”

“The boy carried you.”

Naoki, Mizuri remembered was his name. She remembered how cool he’d looked during the duel and lay back down, covering her face with the blanket.

“He... carried...”

She looked down at her uniform. The whole part from her right shoulder to her right sleeve didn’t exist anymore. The back of her uniform was also nonexistent. Her skirt was also reduced to half its length, having been burnt by the heat generated by Naoki’s lightning.

Which meant---

She felt heat rush up her neck and her cheeks, despite her immunity.

“Did he...?”

The nurse laughed. “The boy? No. It would’ve been more interesting if he had, but he made sure to look away. Said it himself, the damn boy did.”

Mizuri let out a huge sigh of relief.

There were many other beds, but this one seemed to be the only one occupied. Except for a bed surrounded by curtains.

Mizuri pointed that way. “Who’s in there?”

“Worrying about others already, are we?” She stood and walked over to the curtained-off bed. Then she drew the curtains away, revealing the teacher who’d brought Naoki to Mizuri, covered almost from head to toe with some kind of tape.

Mizuri remembered that her first movement had thrown the teacher into a tree trunk, but she’d been fine when Naoki had propped her up beside the cherry blossom tree before they’d left for the duel.

“Did I do that?” Mizuri asked. The tape could only mean that the teacher had been burned, one way or another.

“In another world, yes. But not here. Here in Higashi Academy, especially for us teachers, we have to be responsible for ourselves. She probably saw you and the boy dueling and decided to go over and check.”

“And burned herself on my fire?”

“Yup.” The nurse placed a hand on the teacher’s leg and shook her head. “But of course, we appreciate students who are careful about their powers. You can decide for yourself whether or not that was your fault, but to her, it was her mistake for going close to you two. Just works that way.”

“Right.” Mizuri made a mental note to apologize to this teacher when she got well. But for now...

“Uhmm...” The nurse’s nameplate was on diagonally, and it was a little hard to read it from where Mizuri was. “Morishita-sensei.”

The nurse removed her hand from the teacher’s leg and walked over to Mizuri’s bed. “What is it?”

“Naoki-kun. How was he?” If Mizuri remembered correctly, she’d hurt him pretty bad. If his defense barrier was the normal type of defense barrier, he wouldn’t have gone out of the duel with anything less than a few broken bones.

And if he carried Mizuri all the way here--- she knew how far the clinic was from the place they’d had their duel on. The clinic was practically the distance of a small town away. The Higashi Academy was just that big. Surely he wasn’t fine, right?

“Ah, him? I fixed him up.” Morishita-sensei flexed her fingers, revealing a light green aura around them. “I can fix most things in a bit. Broken bones, Electrical shocks and burns, those kinds of things included. As long as the Angel’s defense barrier held most of the damage off. Poor Arisa-sensei over there had her defense barrier broken too easily. For people like her, we have a more specialized nurse. She isn’t around at the moment, though, so Arisa-sensei’s bound to stay like that for the rest of today and maybe a bit of tomorrow.”

Mizuri wiggled her own fingers and toes, and realized that she felt incredibly normal. So this was what an Angel of Healing can do. Or at least an Angel with a decent grasp of healing magic. But Morishita-sensei’s aura didn’t have a hint of magic in it, so Mizuri guessed that it Morishita-sensei’s case, it was the former.

Now Mizuri also knew the name of the teacher. Arisa-sensei. She’d apologize for not being careful about her surroundings later.

“Classes are over, by the way. You can go straight to the dorms when you feel well enough to attempt to stand.”

Classes were over? Which meant that... Mizuri looked at the clock on the wall. Whoa. 4:07 P.M. She’d been here for at least six hours.

Which also meant she hadn’t had lunch.

As if on cue, her stomach rumbled, and Morishita-sensei laughed. “Our very own legend is hungry.” She pushed Mizuri’s shoulder lightly. “On second thought, just go. Your stomach wants you to. And I’ve disposed of your bag for you. Your lunch spilled in your bag, and it was making a heck of a burnt mess, so here’s some money for some snacks and dinner.”

She took a thousand yen from her pocket and handed it to Mizuri. “Start living. Three years was way too long a vacation, even if you’d wanted it.”

Mizuri wanted to say that no, she hadn’t, in fact, wanted the three-year vacation, but something told her it would be better to act otherwise. She smiled, accepted the money, and tentatively stood.

To her surprise, she could stand perfectly well. She took a few steps around the clinic as Morishita-sensei looked on with interest.

“Ah,” Morishita-sensei said. “As my reward for healing you, I want you to tell me something.”

“Huh?” What does she want? “What?”

“You like the boy--- Naoki-kun, don’t you?”

Mizuri blushed and backed into the bed, violently sitting down on it. “Uh, no--- I, um...”

Morishita-sensei laughed one more time, the good-natured laugh Mizuri figured made the day of the Angels who’d been here in the past. She waved Mizuri away playfully. “That tells me enough. One thing you should know, though. He isn’t here anymore. At least for today. The school wasn’t prepared for him, so they weren’t able to clean up the boys’ dorm in time. He’s gone home for the day. If you want to see him, wait for tomorrow.”

“And there,” Morishita-sensei added, pointing to a nearby bed. “There’s a clean uniform there. Find a restroom to change in.”

Mizuri nodded, suddenly feeling very small, and headed out the door.

After changing, she followed the signs hanging from the ceiling of every set of intersecting hallways to the canteen.

She reached the canteen and was surprised to find it stuffed with people.

Wait, what? The Higashi Academy should only have five hundred Angels, at most. That number didn’t explain the huge crowd in the canteen. Did the Higashi Academy have a separate curriculum for non-Angels?

Everyone in the crowd also had uniforms different from Mizuri’s, and there were an equal number of boys mixed in among the girls.

How had she not noticed this when she’d been here? The Higashi Academy had seemed nearly empty three years ago. Why---

Mizuri spotted someone from a nearby table waving at her. She squinted to get a closer look.

Ahh, someone wearing the uniform of the Angels.

Mizuri walked over. This one table had three girls seated around it. All Angels.

“Hi.” Mizuri said.

The girl who’d waved her over smiled. “I’m Fumiko Taketa. This one here,” she said, pointing to the girl seated beside her, “is Airi Shirayuki.”

Shirayuki? Mizuri knew that name. The Shirayuki family used to be one of the most powerful family of Angels in New Japan. Though they’d somehow disappeared from the top in the past fifty years. Just a piece of information Mizuri was able to overhear from her “family’s” conversations.

“And that one there is Isaki Watai,” she said, referring to the girl seated in front of Shirayuki-san. “Nice to meet you, Legend.”

Legend? This was the second time someone had called Mizuri a “legend.” What Mizuri understood about legends is that they were supposedly famous people or stories of the past. She really didn’t want to be “of the past” just yet.

“Nice to meet you, I guess?” Mizuri thought of something to say. This was the first time someone had actually called out to her and started a casual conversation. That fact was already quite enough to overload her brain.

Introduction. I should start with my name.

“I’m Mizuri.” When they stared at her, as if expecting a last name, she continued. “I don’t like using my last name, but it’s Tanakishi. Feel free to call me Mizuri.”

“Right, Mizuri-chan.” Taketa-san said. She pointed to the seat opposite her. “We know each other now. Take a seat.”

Mizuri did.

“Now. We plan to ask you a lot of questions, so ask yours first.”

Mizuri thought about it. She pointed at the other students around. “Who are they?”

“They’re the normal students of Higashi Academy. Usually they’re in the other half of the dome, but I guess there’s only one canteen here.”

“Are you my classmates?”

“Nope. We’re in Class A. You’re in Class B. But I guess with our batch being only forty people and all, you might as well be. Who knows? You might end up as one of our permanent Duos sometime soon.”

Mizuri thought of more questions, but nothing useful popped into mind that she couldn’t learn by herself from their questions.

“I... don’t have any more to ask.”

“Then, we’ll have Airi-chan here ask you our first question.”

Shirayuki-san turned her gaze to Mizuri’s, and for a second, Mizuri got the feeling that she shouldn’t back down.

She’s strong.

Shirayuki-san tented her fingers, resting her elbows on the table top.

“Who defeated you?”

So they do know something about me. But judging by the way they asked the question, as if Mizuri should tell them, because she maybe wanted revenge, revealed that they knew another version of the story. Maybe a version where she’d won against Owari-sensei.

And she also had a bad feeling about answering this question.

“Uhmm...”

“Come on,” Taketa-san lightly punched her in the shoulder. “Don’t tell me you didn’t even ask for her name.”

Her? So they don’t know it had been Naoki. Then again, the weird feeling of danger around the question had no basis to it, so Mizuri answered honestly.

“He was a boy. Naoki Yanatake.”

She barely had time to react, but of course her body did. She went around the table, grabbing both Taketa-san and Watai-san by their wrists and dragging them away. Then she channeled as much energy as she could into one blow and slammed her fist on the table.

She was not one second too early. A huge block of ice grew from the ground and up the table. If Mizuri hadn’t smashed the table, the ice would’ve grown much bigger than it did. Though, even impeded, the block of ice was easily large enough to engulf the table and the four chairs around it.

Shirayuki-san was still in her seat, glaring at the wall like she wanted to kill it.

“Yanatake.”

Crap. Mizuri remembered too late. The Shirayukis had disappeared from the top families in New Japan because of oppression from another top family. That family had been the Yanatake family.

The normal students started screaming and scattering, and it wasn’t long before the four of them were the only people in the canteen. Even the people behind the booths had retreated back into their washing spaces.

“Airi-chan...” Taketa-san looked sad, like she hoped this hadn’t just happened.

Watai-san didn’t talk, only calmly reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a miniature bow that grew to normal size. She pointed it at Shirayuki-san and pulled the string. A glowing red arrow appeared, an arrow which seemed to suck in the air around it.

Taketa-san flipped a knife around in her palm. “Thanks, Mizuri-chan. I don’t know if I could’ve escaped that.”

Something told Mizuri this was a fairly normal occurrence for these three, but she didn’t let her guard down just yet.

Shirayuki-san turned her killer gaze to Mizuri, and Mizuri felt the temperature in the canteen drop several degrees.

Mizuri summoned fire to her left hand.

“Why aren’t you mad at him? What dirty things did he do to defeat you?”

Huh? Naoki had fought completely honestly. The duel had been perfectly fair. “He did nothing wrong.”

“I can’t believe you. He must’ve brainwashed you.”

Mizuri didn’t really know what Shirayuki-san was going on about, but one thing seemed obvious. Shirayuki-san was going to attack.

So when Shirayuki-san teleported to Mizuri’s side, she’d anticipated it to some extent.

She took a quick step back and met Shirayuki-san’s freezing cold left fist with her own burning hot left fist.

Another duel, this soon after that? But it was okay. Mizuri wasn’t about to lose this one.