"How are they?"
With the mysterious enemy gone, the lavender haired woman was able to safely transport Kaito, Selene, and Eliza and get them medical attention. She had used teleportation magic to bring them to the medical facility at Prism Academy as other methods would have taken too long and could have proven much more dangerous. The woman was standing beside the bed where Kaito was resting, with her arms crossed, looking at the unconscious boy with concerned eyes. Sitting beside her was a woman wearing a white lab coat over a pink, transparent nightgown. She had golden eyes and light green hair that reached her waist. There were bags under her eyes as she was roused from her sleep despite it being her first break in 4 days, though her gaze was focused and attentive while she was healing the three students.
"Out of the three of them, miss Rosepalace had the least severe injuries. While her tendons were slashed, all she really had were some scrapes and bruises. It would seem that she fainted during the ordeal out of fear, not to mention she shows signs of fatigue. I was able to completely heal her physically so she should be fine by morning."
With a hint of relief in her voice, the lavender haired woman exclaimed.
"As expected of one of the best healers in the world."
The woman with golden eyes didn't look up.
"You don't need to be the best healer in the world to treat the injuries she had. Simple high grade medical magic would suffice."
The lavender haired woman chuckled.
"Only you would call high grade medical magic simple. It's one of the hardest types of magic to master even at an elementary level, let alone high grade. What about the other 2?"
The woman in the lab coat raised her head and glanced at the bed Selene was resting in before she continued her explanation.
"Miss Hexeli suffered a few haemorrhages, and had a few internal injuries. Ruptured organs, fractures, not to mention mana exhaustion which in her condition induces a state of total nervous system shut down. I also found a variety of poison in her body. Healing all that was a lot of trouble. Though she's out of danger I have no idea when she'll wake up. The real problem is with him."
The green haired woman turned her attention back to Kaito.
"How so?"
The green haired woman answered the lavender haired woman's question while layers upon layers of complex magic circles appeared below her hands as she was healing Kaito.
"Mister Kobayashi sustained similar injuries to Miss Hexeli, however on a much more severe degree. Like her, mister Kobayashi exhausted his mana and has several internal injuries. All but one of his ribs are broken, lacerations line his body, several other of his bones are shattered, collapsed lung, traces of deadly poisons in his system...honestly it's a miracle he was even breathing in that state. Though that's the only similarity his condition has with miss Hexeli."
The green haired woman leaned back and slouched in her chair, letting out a heavy sigh. She seemed tired with sweat running down her nape.
"There is something in his system that is rejecting all forms of healing, preventing me from curing him completely. I managed to stabilise his condition for now and fix some of his internal injuries, but who knows what exactly will happen to him."
The lavender haired woman furrowed her brows and the concern on her face grew even more visible, though she made sure to calm down before she spoke once more.
"You can't fix him? You're one of the best users of healing magic in the world. If you can't fix him, who can?"
The golden eyed woman turned her head to look straight at the lavender haired woman.
"I managed to save his life but that's the best I could do. Luna, what happened out there?"
Luna relaxed her crossed arms and spoke with a voice that seemed unsettled.
"...I don't know. When I showed up it was pretty much over. There were traces of battle all over the place. Lucky for us, the enemy put up a barrier that contained everything so the damage didn't spread, though that did prevent anyone outside from noticing something was wrong in the first place. When they left, they took down the barrier so I put up another one. It's got some hypnotic properties to it as well to keep the girls from going back to the dorm."
"That's good. What about the enemies, any idea who they were or their motives?"
"They came to retrieve someone. Two of them showed up, a guy in a badger mask and a girl in a sable mask. Seems like they have code names based on the mask they wore. We can leave that report for later. Right now I'm more concerned about him."
Luna turned her attention to Kaito.
"Mister Kobayashi?"
"Yeah. If even you can't heal him, then I have no clue what to do, and I have no idea how they'll react when they find out. All I know is they won't be happy. He's pretty well connected you see."
"You also seem quite angry, you know."
Luna closed her eyes and let out a small sigh before a wry smile formed on her face.
"Do I? Guess I couldn't hide it after all."
"I've known you since we were 3 years old Luna, you can't fool me."
"Fair enough. He's sort of my family, so of course I'd be upset if someone put him in this state, but I'm calm as a breeze compared to the fury they'll have when they find out what happened to him."
"Well for now I've done all I can, and so have you. For now we should let those that need to know what happened, and fix up the battleground as soon as possible."
"It's already done. I already captured an exact model of the battleground in case we can find further evidence and called in a team to handle the repairs. They should be done by tomorrow."
The green haired woman stretched her arms in the air before letting out a yawn.
"You should get some rest Luna, though I doubt you'll be able to sleep right now. I know I won't."
"Thanks for your help Aria. You can leave first, I want to stay here a bit longer."
"Stay as long as you need."
***
The sun was shining and the weather was just right, not too hot and not too cold. The birds were singing and a gentle breeze filled the air, truly a perfect morning. Qianlong was enjoying himself as he walked to class, getting his fill of looking at the beautiful female students on campus. He made no effort to hide his gaze and the women all knew it. While he had good looks, his personality left a lot to be desired. He was handsome and he knew it. He tried to take advantage of his charm and invite several of the female students out for some fun. Sadly for this skirt chaser, his fun time would never come. In fact, the only thing he succeeded in doing was angering some of the male students as he was flirting with their girlfriends.
Today Qianlong was in especially high spirits. After all, Kaito hadn't returned to the male dorms last night. Though classes had barely started, he had spent every single day trying to invite Kaito out and set him up with a date, getting turned down every time. However, last night was different. They had gone to a cafe after school with 2 of their other classmates, Claus and Selene. While they were joking around about rumours and life, Kaito ended up being forced carrying Selene to her room. Qianlong had a sneaking suspicion that she had a crush on Kaito, and that Kaito was just too dense to get the hint. Though it seems he finally figured it out seeing as he didn't come home. Qianlong felt nothing but pride and joy.
"Hehehe can't wait to hold this over him. Ah the spring of youth. Kaito my brother, you'll have to spill all the juicy details."
While Qianlong was busy laughing to himself and making creepy poses in the middle of the path, a bewildered Claus stood there watching, unsure of how to react, just like everyone else. He knew he'd have to step in if he didn't want to be late, but watching the scene in front of him, he knew he would regret it.
"Would you knock it off? People are watching."
Qianlong paused his laughing and turned around.
"Oh Claus, nice to see ya!"
"What are you doing so early in the morning?"
"Hm? I'm celebrating our bro Kaito of course!"
"What?"
Qianlong wrapped an arm around Claus and pointed at him matter of factly, with a big grin on his face.
"Think about it. Young boy and girl, all alone ,no one to bother them, all night long. Anything could happen. Kaito might be dense but I'm pretty sure he finally got the hint."
Claus brushed Qianlong's arm off his shoulders.
"Now that you mention it, I don't see him anywhere. Or Selene. That is highly unusual."
"Right?"
"Well that's none of our business. Now move along or we'll be late for class."
Qianlong paused before he started snickering, with one hand covering his mouth and the other pointing at Claus.
"This is why you'll never get a girl."
Claus was unbothered.
"As I recall the one who can never get one is you, despite all your attempts."
Qianlong gripped his chest dramatically.
"Gah! My poor soul. Woe is me and my..."
Claus cut him off.
"Come on lover boy. Your poor soul doesn't stop you from moving your feet."
Qianlong started sulking.
"You're no fun."
***
Everyone in the lecture hall seemed bored. It was the first class of the day and nothing interesting ever happened with the class anyways. Things might have been different if the beautiful woman they saw on the first day was their teacher. After all her beauty would captivate everyone and ensure the students paid attention in class. Instead they had their hopes ripped away from them by the lanky, middle aged man that was their real teacher. The way he taught was extremely dull. He would just read from the textbook and pick on students. While he may look the part and try to act like an upright gentleman, it was only a facade. The man only acted like a butler in front of those that seemed to have more authority. When he was in charge, his tone shifted to one full of condescendence. Add all these facts together and it's no wonder no one wants to pay attention in class.
"Good morning class. While I'm sure you all enjoy being educated from one such as myself, today will be a bit different. Today, we will be having a joint session with classes 1-1 and 1-5. To be more precise, it is a joint exercise which will take up all the class time we have for the day. Truly a pity indeed. Further instructions will be provided when we have met up with the other two classes. Come along now."
With this announcement, everyone in class 1-7 was internally celebrating. The students followed Gordon Snufalufagus out of the room, through a walled off area with several large gates, to a wide open field the size of 5 stadiums. There they met up with students from the other 2 classes as well as their teachers. The teacher for class 1-5 was a slender woman with green hair, knee high boots, and a purple suit paired with a white skirt. As for the one leading class 1-1, he needed no introduction. White suit, black coat, blonde hair, blue eyes, well built. It was the one in charge of their nightmare of an entrance exam, Lionel Pendragon.
The first of the three to speak up was the woman with green hair. She addressed the student body with a warm smile and kind voice.
"Good morning everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ingrid Valentine. You may call me whatever you like. As you can see, today will be a joint class, but you can think of it more as playing a game. You'll be breaking up into groups of 5. There's 410 of you in total so that will be 82 teams. Oh my! Good thing we have all this space to play in. Once you get into your groups we'll continue with the instructions okay? Don't take too long now."
When Ingrid had finished speaking, the students rushed to form groups. Some grabbed the people nearest to them, others went looking for their friends in other classes, and a large portion went after some of the more popular students, pushing and shoving others away and screaming over each other.
Qianlong gave Claus a slap on the back, causing him to trip and hop a few times trying to regain balance.
"Wow, it sure is a frenzy. We're going to need to dive into that mess to eh? Glad to have you on board though! Now we just need 3 more. Well with Kaito and Selene we really only need one more."
Claus corrected Qianlong.
"You say that but I haven't seen either of them all day. I don't think they showed up to class today. Furthermore this is a joint exercise with other classes. It's obvious the point is to get work with people we don't interact with as often. Though I admit working with those we know the abilities of would be much more reassuring.Hm?"
Claus gained a curious expression on his face. Qianlong felt a tug on his sleeve and turned around.
"U..um..ca...can we join you guys?"
Meekly staring at the ground while gently tugging at Qianlong's sleeve was Sylvie, and behind her was an Alice that seemed really grumpy with her arms crossed. Qianlong was ecstatic.
"Sylvie! Of course you can join us! We'd welcome beauties like you with open arms!"
Alice seemed like she was bottling up her anger while Claus just facepalmed. Qianlong seemed not have noticed and just continued talking to Sylvie.
"So what class did you end up in?"
"Um... Alice and I...um... 1-5. We...um...we're in Miss Valentine's class."
Qianlong put both his hands on Sylvie's shoulders.
"Is that so? You should join us for lunch sometime. We haven't seen you since the entrance exams."
Sylvie grew flustered and panicked. Noticing this, Claus intervened.
"Qianlong, you're making the poor girl uncomfortable. Why don't you get your hands off her."
Seeing an expression as if she was about to cry, Qianlong let go.
"O...oh...my bad. So what made you guys want to work with us anyways? I was sure you'd be swamped with people trying to get you to join them given how popular and strong you guys are."
Sylvie sheepishly responded.
"K..Kaito...um...I...umm."
Alice joined in the conversation with an annoyed and condescending tone.
"We're doing you a favour by teaming up with you. Now where's your other friend? That one you were with during the entrance exams."
Qianlong was stunned by her loud voice so Claus answered in his stead.
"If you're referring to Kaito, I'm afraid he didn't show up to class today. Actually another one of our friends didn't show up either, hence we were in a predicament due to lacking numbers for our group."
Alice clicked her tongue.
"Tsk. So he's not here huh? Then this is pointless. Sylvie, let's go. If that guy were here it would be tolerable but I'd rather not leave you alone with this disgusting piece of garbage."
Claus raised his hand slightly.
"I'm here too, you know."
Alice glared at Claus.
"What was that?"
The two boys went quiet. Sylvie spoke to Alice.
"Um...I...I think it's okay. I want to get to know Kaito's friends too, though I wish he were here."
Alice let out a sigh and gave in.
"Fine. If that's what you really want then we'll work with these 2 idiots."
The two boys let out a sigh of relief. Qianlong smiled and celebrated. Sylvie gave a gentle smile while Claus and Alice let out a tired sigh. Claus addressed the group.
"Now that that's settled, we need one more person. Any ideas?"