In the darkness, the liquid ink lunged at her as Peony easily avoided and landed softly onto the other side. As she landed, the ripple of light that came from under her foot burst into a golden flame!
Seeing the gold flame brought a sense of fear to them as she flew around with her shawl flowing behind her and setting fire with every flick of her shawl behind her. At this point, the blot didn't dare to reach out for her again as she tossed the ends of the shawl into the air and a fiery flower of flames bloomed before them setting them all ablaze!
As she did so, she turned in her shawl behind her once more as she sighed, "Have you had enough now?"
At this point, the blot didn't hesitate to let her through as she took her first steps forward. How could they dare to even touch her?!
Just the sight of the flames gave them a bad feeling and it also wouldn't stop burning until she waved a hand! Did they even had a choice?!
If she had heard this, she would've scoffed in dismay as she had yet to even go hard on them and they were already submitting defeat! However, she could already see the defeat amongst their movements and sneered, "If you try something else... Well, let's just see if you dare to try something else. If I catch you causing more trouble, let's see how you will face my fire again."
Hearing this, they shuddered in fear as she simply turned her head and walked away without a care of what goes on behind her.
.....
When she woke up, she found herself in some place rather warm as she opened her eyes hesitantly only to feel something touch her leg. Her eyes snapped open in bewilderment as she saw that it was a long tan fur tail with a black fluffy like tassel at the end. Surprised, Lotus looked around and found herself going through the hall on the warm back of someone with long dark hair tied into a ponytail and two fluffy looking ears.
Leona?!
The lion grumbled, "What, you're finally awake?"
"Yup." She nodded and hopped off of his back.
"Ah, hey!" Leona growled as he watched her hop off to the ground.
"Thanks for carrying me just now! But, what brought you here? I heard that something happened here, so we had to evacuate the visitors for the time being." Lotus raised a brow in bewilderment.
Hearing this, Leona narrowed his eyes in suspicion, "Evacuate?"
Lotus nodded, "Yup. Something happened just now, so we had to evacuate the people for the time being."
"And that mess earlier?" Leona pointed back into the hall with a scowl.
"Ah, that was Vil." Lotus responded bluntly, "He tried to attack the intruder with poisoned apple juice but Kalim accidentally knocked it out of his hands."
"That was Vil?" Leona raised a brow as he recalled that crater.
Lotus sighed, "Yup. He got angry at me for fiddling around with his poison..."
Hearing this, Leona sighed and shook his head, "Is that how it is..."
Lotus laughed hesitantly, "Well, pretty much. Though to be fair, it was Kalim's fault for bumping into it..."
"Right..." Leona glared at her in dismay.
Lotus raised a brow and pouted, "What? Do I really look that unbelievable?"
"Yes."
Lotus shot him a glare as a shiver ran down Leona's spine to his confusion.
"Well, I'll go check on the others. The others are probably stuck outside." Lotus said curiously, "I've heard that the dorm leader invited another dorm leader to the stadium. I believe he's from Diasomnia?"
"You mean the Lizard?" Leona glared the moment he heard that.
"Lizard?" Lotus looked to him in surprise, "I didn't realize that the two of you got along so well."
"What did you say?" Leona growled in anger when he heard this.
"Well-"
"Gr... Forget it!" Leona turned around and left back the way they came from.
Watching him leave, Lotus shook her head and sighed in disappointment, "Is this what they call Tsundere? I've never seen it before in real life... Then again... Wouldn't that fit Azul better? Well, either way, I never knew that Leona would actually be the shy type. Haha..."
As she walked further away, Ying Hui and Xiao Li burst out of her ring and ran into her arms.
"Master!!!"
"Ying Hui? Xiao Li?" Lotus looked to the two in surprise, "What's the matter? Look at the two of you covered in snot!"
"We're sorry..." Ying Hui cried out tearfully, "We nearly cause master to die!"
"All right, all right." Lotus patted the two on the head, "Go clean yourselves up. I need to go help Big Brother Yuu and the others. If we're not careful, the headmaster might get ina little trouble if the headmaster from Royal Sword Academy discovers this. It'd be pretty disappointing if he can't prevent an overblot, after all. Now, go clean yourselves. I'll need some help later. From now on, just be more careful with the dosage of pills."
"O-Okay. Master, your body..." Xiao Li hesitated.
Lotus nodded her head with a small smile, "The fire attribute saved me, right? Don't worry about it. I know what's going on. It's one of my soul contracts that saved me."
Xiao Li was surprised to hear that she had another soul contract, but he knew that she didn't want to spend time explaining about it and nodded his head in silence, "Come on, Ying Hui."
The two quickly disappeared into her ring as she hurried to the entrance of the halls.
Upon arriving at the purple stadium, she was surprised to find that the area had fallen into ruin as she saw the group back up from the overblot Vil. Lotus raised a brow wondering what going on as she hurried over to Yuu.
"Yuu! What's going on?" She questioned in bewilderment.
"Ah, Lotus! You're back." Yuu breathed a small sigh of relief before explaining, "I-I don't know, but Deuce and gathering a lot of magic..."
"I'm not good at thinking things through. If something isn't drilled into me over and over again, then it'll never sink in." Deuce muttered with a determined look, "But… After trying what ever it is dozens of times, or hundreds of times, I'll figure it out!"
"What's going on… The magic surround Deuce is welling up?!" Rook cried out in shock
"What?! Is he actually…" Ace's eyes widen in disbelief as it finally dawned on him.
"What did…you say…" Vil struggled to hear what he was saying as a strong migraine come over him, "Where are you pulling…this magic…from?!"
As he struggled to run, Lotus scowled, "You dare run?"
Hearing her voice, Vil froze with a shocked expression that quickly changed to horror when his eyes rested on her, "Y-You-!"
"This isn't coming from myself… This is the power that you drilled into me, Vil! And this is the power that I have only as I am now! Let's settle this! Grit your teeth! BET THE LIMIT!!!!"
Suddenly, a strong blast shot out at the bewildered Vil knocking him off the stage. Lotus and the others hurried over upon finding the blot quickly vanishing from his body returning him to his former appearance as he lay on the ground knocked out.
"Vil!" Rook helped sit him up, "Vil… Oh, beautiful Vil. Please open your eyes…"
"…Ugh…" Vil grumbled wearily before sitting up by himself, "Why am I…?"
"Vil!" Rook sighed in relief upon hearing this, "What a relief. Your eyes have gotten their usual sparkle back."
"I'm so freaking glad…" Kalim sniffled before sobbing, "Viiiiil! You had us worried sick…"
"What are you crying for, Kalim?" Jamil muttered in confusion.
"Oh, good…" Deuce collapsed on the ground in relief, "I had no idea what I'd do if I'd missed."
Vil looked around in confusion before he recalled part of a certain dream before he had awoken and, upon seeing the surroundings, he could tell that it was true. He grumbled in disappointment, "…I certainly put on the absolute worst display I possibly could. I threw a tantrum and took my anger out on others. Disgusting. That behavior is the furthest thing from beauty in the whole world."
"That's right." Epel sneered victoriously, "Didn't you say something along the lines of only three year olds being allowed to throw a tantrum?"
"That's what you decide to say now? Really?" Yuu sighed in exasperation, "That was scary earlier."
Lotus laughed, "I thought it was pretty fun."
The two spirits in her ring nearly wanted to vomit blood as they remembered the anxiety that followed from the entire battle."
Lotus, on the other hand, received a knuckle on the head by Yuu as she muttered with a pout, "Ow..."
Vil sighed, "Epel is right. I don't have the right to be your leader anymore."
"Don't lose heart, Roi du Poison." Rook encouraged him with a bright smile, "As you can see, not a single one of us is cowering on the ground."
"Huh?" Vil looked to them in disbelief.
"Rook's right, Vil. You haven't hurt anyone yet." Kalim responded with a bright smile, "You haven't done anything that can't be undone. Neige LeBlanche and the seven Dwarves are probably happily singing and dancing away right now."
"After the grueling training you put us through, do you really think these injuries are enough to take us outta the race?" Ace muttered with a scowl on his face.
"We really got put through the wringer, but we can write this incident off as a little squabble between teammates that got too heated." Jamil nodded his head in agreement.
"You all…" Vil stated in bewilderment, "Are you suggesting we pretend that this whole thing never happened?"
"Not exactly." Jamil responded before he smired, "We're saying that we should save our explanation to the teachers for after VDC has wrapped up."
"Hmph. You're quite the bad boy, Jamil." Vil sneered as he struggled to get up only to wince in pain, "Ugh!"
"Vil!" Rook grabbed him just before he could fall back down.