Katarina slept like a baby resting back on the tree.

Her friends had been looking for her for an hour since she left.

Alan had said she was going somewhere important but that somehow didn't give them a clue of it being her field.

Katarina was sleeping in her gardening clothes, leaning against a tree with her arms crossed and head hung slightly low.

"How careless can she be sometimes.." Keith hummed sighing, chuckling to himself, "It'd be bad if Mother catches wind that she's doing something like this."

Everyone else quietly laughed with him, which would indeed cause a problem for Katarina to probably get nagged for the entirety of the day by Millidiana.

"Then it's a good thing we're in the academy." Gerald chided in, quietly laughing along with them.

"Hey, did Lady Katarina cut herself..?"

Everyone perked up turning to Sophia who had crouched down in front of Katarina, she was looking directly at her somewhat dirty face.

Katarina must've been too busy for her to notice a reddening thin scar across her face.

"Really? Where?" Alan knelt beside her to also see it just like everyone else.

"Right here.." Sophia pointed it out for them.

There was indeed a thin scar running across her face.

"Let me heal it," Maria suggested, reaching over with one hand, light glowing on her palm.

Katarina was still fast asleep but the darkness that's been growing ever so big by the day had been itching in the back of her head and had become a tad more sensitive, and the moment the light had gotten mere inches close, it snapped her awake to grab the perpetrator by the wrist.

"" She frowned, hissing at them with a tightening grip.

Maria winced, it obviously hurt.

"" Katarina looked up to only flinch, seeing to her realization that it was Maria, she let go of her in an instant, "Maria..!?"

Maria held her wrist with her other hand, it ached as she healed it with her own magic, the red swelling stopped but the mark didn't fade as much.

"What are you--..?" Katarina blinked, rubbing her eyes awake, she looked around her, her friends were with her.

"Are you alright, sister?" Keith was shocked by what had just happened as Gerald and Nicole tended to Maria to see if she was fine.

Katarina scratched the back of her head in confusion before going over to Maria to apologize for what she just did, she almost broke her wrist if she hadn't snapped out of it.

She felt guilty for it.

Though it confused her friends a little as to why she reacted like that to Maria and right now, they were in the council office with her who suggested a meeting regarding their only love interest, Katarina.

"What is there to discuss, Maria?" Mary asked, she was also curious as to why Katarina reacted so violently towards Maria, she knew Katarina to be quite a gentle giant towards her and everyone else.

"Dark magic," Maria stated with a serious tone.