With 4 more weeks left, I headed straight into my reps. I decided that sustaining wind barriers were much more time efficient, and allowed me to quickly reduce the amount of times I had to do it. It was fine for the first day, I was able to reduce it down by 4 hours before I exhausted all my Aether.
As days passed faster than I realised, I had only reduced the time by 1 day. 3 weeks left, Layla remained where she was the entire time, was she secretly a zombie or something? It was only till I had went another week without much progress, only being able to reduce wind barrier casts by 1 day again.
I wasn't going to finish in time, especially with the remaining time and how slow I was going. I had to find a faster way, currently, I had merely casted the way I was taught. And that consumed too much Aether, especially as it was a barrier that surrounded me with violent winds. Was there a way to reduce such a costly spell?
That was right.. There was a way! Instead of making it violent, I only had to create a spell that reacted to attacks that went into a certain space between me and counteract it with said violent wind!
"Hey kid! Wait- What is she doing here?" A familiar serious voice, I turned myself around and-
"Hanise! What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be taking a break right now?" Wiping off the sweat from my forehead, I walked up to him.
"Hm? What do you mean, I thought you were sick last week, so I didn't bother to come find you. And what are you doing with that Old Zombie today? It's our lesson today, not hers."
"What do you mean by that? Did you forget, you signed that piece of paper weeks back." He gave a puzzled look, as if confounded that I had said something unusual. Old Zombie? Was I really right in that she was a Zombie? I always knew something was off..
"I never signed any paper? Did Miss Zombie do one of her tricks again kid?" Never signed any paper? Tricks? "Look kid, do you even know who your teacher was back in the day? That was a silly question, anyway, back in the day, she was the infamous troublemaker of Kūkyo Academy." Troublemaker? She had the appearance of someone who had never once in their life done something for the sake of 'fun', besides those occasional devious grins.
"You sure? To be frank, she's the exact opposite of you Hanise.." I crossed my arms, my face indifferent to his childish schemes. Hanise himself was a troublemaker, so it was hard to believe someone who such pranks.
"She isn't your typical 'prankster', back then and even now, she's like the devil-incarnate! She'd always copy others signatures, cheat in anything, whether it was alchemy, combat or theoretical tests! She wasn't your average joe, she was an S-class villain!"
I glanced back at Layla, pointing at her. Hanise crossed his arms, nodding with intense affirmation. Layla on the other hand did her routinely grin, her eyes narrowed, glaring intently.
"I can hear you, Mur~ren. Or have you dropped that identity?" She was scary, unreasonably scary. Hanise got closer to my ear, whispering instead.
"Every student, admittedly even I begged her to help us on tests. And she'd always give us that same nefarious yet wise cackle.. And even after telling us to beg, she'd leave without so much of a response! It was worse because back then no one could call her unattractive because she was the prettiest amongst her fellow classmates!!"
He covered his mouth with his hands, "The only person she'd even listen and talk to was Mur-" Before he could finish, something brushed past my ear, and Hanise was already metres away from me.
"Struck a nerve did I, Miss 'I love Mur-'" I could only hear the sounds coming after, but it was definitely some type of wind spell. It was too fast, but Hanise was able to dodge the multiple barrage of attacks that came his way.
"There's no need for more talking is there, Hanise?" Hanise covered his mouth, and before I could realise, Hanise moved a inch to the side, sound booming past me once more.
"I'll talk to you later kid, this isn't over you witch!"
My eyes slowly turned to meet Layla's piercing narrowed eyes. Not one word was said, but instinctually I nodded obediently as if she had ordered me not to say anything about what just happened.
I resumed back to my training as usual, I had lost my train of thought, I was curious. Curious about Layla's past now too. Layla's sigh caught me off guard, but it was expected. I was just too invested, and interested at her past. There were to many things left unsaid, and too many things that led me to dead ends.
"I assume something is bothering you, Miss Ophelia?"
"Well, yes. It's about.."
"If it's about what happened during my youth, there's no use trying to pry it out of me." She still had a deathly gaze, and it gave me a cold shudder, making me want to look everywhere but her direction.
"I understand that you're still in your youth, and you want to know everything. Unfortunately, my past will not be included in your everything." I knew that I wasn't able to learn, and look into everything. But, it still lingered and resonated deep into my soul.
I wanted to know, and a part of me wanted to go to Hanise at that very moment to ask. But, I needed to respect her, she was my teacher. And I had to learn boundaries. Dusk fell and before I slumped onto my bed, the door knocked.
"Hey kid, we need to have a chat." It was Hanise? Oh right, he did say we'd talk later didn't he.. I walked over, and as I reached for the handle, I felt an eerie sensation..