No more than five seconds later, Joanne glanced at the ground as a glowing red trail only visible to her appeared at her feet. She sighed and cast another spell, and a floating mirror appeared, allowing her to see what the hell was happening. She would have to invent one of those balls in human myths that allowed those make-belief witches to see random stuff, including the future. But she'd have to invent a spell that would allow her to see the future first, so that would have to wait.
She watched as Akashi pushed someone, hard, and that someone retaliated with a punch that almost broke Akashi's nose. The two of them were snarling curses at each other. She sighed again and erected an invisible wall between the two, causing them to ram into it as they lunged at each other.
Akashi screeched, clawing at the wall.
"Hit him back." Joanne muttered, but the wall made no move. Joanne was tempted to make the wall screech back at him.
Akashi's three other friends emerged from the shadows. "What the hell was that?" Reiyou questioned.
Joanne rested her chin in her palm as she watched on. Words started being carved on the ground. "That's entertaining." Joanne whispered as she took a break from work.
"I am the guardian of this mountain, and have now been awakened. Any violence between pack members will immediately be stopped, so you can stop fucking tainting this mountain with bloodshed."
"The heck?" Mizuto sneered. "There's no such thing."
The wall pounced on him, pinning him to the ground.
"Eh?" Hayamu started to question his sanity. "Are you guys seeing this?"
"What the fuck?" The other three were pretty certain it wasn't a spirit or whatever, but what the heck was happening?
"Good job." Joanne told the wall.
"Tch! What the hell is this bullshit?!" Mizuto spat. The wall bumped him a little.
Kumori's 'pack-wellness radar' was going crazy. "Oh god," she mumbled.
The wall just stood there waiting for their next move.
Akashi frowned at the spot he thought the wall was. "Wha-?"
The wall casually moved to the side so that it was no longer in his line of sight.
The four guys' agitation levels just went sky-high. Kumori dragged herself out of the bed and went on a trip to the training area. Liam followed her, after attempting to get her to stay, leaving Cole to stare sadly at Hikari's writhing body.
Hikari cracked open an eye. "Stop checking me out, damn it."
"Ninety percent of your body is covered by the blanket. What am I supposed to check out?"
Hikari flung her pillow at him. Cole looked at it dolefully when it didn't even reach him. Hikari snorted, stole Kumori's pillow from the bed beside hers, and threw it at his head.
"Well, at least you're not as dead as I feared." Cole smirked and lay back down.
"Dead my ass."
Meanwhile, "I'll stop bugging you if you keep the peace." the wall wrote on the ground.
"Fuck off."
"Bye." the wall bid as it hopped off to find people to scare into submission.
Joanne said quietly, sprinkling something in her potion that turned it gold. "Hmmm… interesting."
"...What happened?" Kumori questioned, asking no one in particular. "Why are the guys standing there like they've seen a ghost or something?"
"It's an invisible wall. Well, kinda." Jo explained, somehow waltzing into her mind, which was a little creepy considering she was a witch. "Your packmates were fighting each other."
"Jo, no that's not how you deal with these problems," Kumori screeched, internally this time, not even questioning the fact that she was there in her mind in the first place.
"It's effective. They stopped fighting." Joanne pointed out.
"Not really."
Akashi and the guy were back to beating the living daylights out of each other. The catch was that the wall was actually in between them, just stretched thin, so they weren't doing any harm to anything.
"It is, really." Joanne insisted.
The wall decided that it was punched enough and wrapped itself around the two fighting werewolves, effectively stopping the fight.
The unnamed guy was like "What the fuck?"
Akashi glowered at the words. "Fuck off."
"Shake hands." The wall insisted, writing on the ground again.
"Hell no," the two of them said together.
"Then you're staying here until you do."
The two idiots just folded their arms and glared at each other.
"Let them go," Kumori growled, annoyance evident in her voice. "This isn't how things are solved."
"Seems to be working, though." Liam said. "And this is probably as permanent as anything you could do."
"Then how…?" Wall asked, confused. It was trying its best.
"By leaving it to me. This is my turf." Pain was making Kumori more irritable. "Back off."
"Why am I wrong, anyway?" Wall wrote.
"Because that's not how things work here." Kumori cracked her knuckles. "All right, square up you lil' shits-"
The wall screeched internally and hopped away, carrying the two troublemakers with it. It squeezed them tighter. "Make up or die." It wrote as it hopped.
"Bitch no, give them back!" Kumori glared at Jo.
"I'll just do another spell instead." Joanne said, pouring some of her potion in a small tube.
"No!" Kumori hissed in annoyance. "Stop this. Now."
"Wall, do you want to come back?" Joanne asked.
The wall shook violently, causing its luggage to shriek. They had at least stopped fighting. It was doing the right thing. Right?
"Please?" That was Kumori at her wits end. Liam laid a hand down on her shoulder lightly, hoping that he didn't set anything or anyone off.
The wall stopped. It squeezed the guys tighter still. "Are you still gonna fight?" It asked the guys.
The guys just glared at each other.
"Dammit, just leave them alone and go away," she snarled.
The wall would have cried from rejection if it could. Instead, it made up for the lack of tears by materialising into a shiny silver wall and curling up into a ball, forgetting that it was still holding people.
That resulted in a series of shrieks from both the guys, along with the other three who were watching.
"OH MY GOD! DAMMIT! WHAT THE FUCK!" Kumori was swearing. Not a good sign.
"You made him sad." Joanne notified her. The wall slowly uncurled and let the guys go.
"I'll squeeze you to death if I catch you fighting again."
"NO. DON'T EVER COME BACK." How could such a witch even be allowed to be here, strutting around like she owned the place?
And this was why Kumori couldn't be contacted.
Joanne sent a pack warrior to guide Kumori back to the hospital room, before making her lie down to take a nap.
Which brings us back to the present. Joanne placed the phone back down after her second call with Alina, Linda, Korū, Cayne and Shōhei.
Kumori was leaving after interrupting Jo's call, and Kaito was giving her an annoyed look from behind.
"I'm gonna sleep. See you guys in thirty." Joanne said, laying her head down on a table.