Akira tilted his head. There was something... he walked around the circle twice, and then stopped about a quarter of the way around from where Hikaru was still tracing out the last of his runes.
"You've drawn it wrong," he pointed out quietly.
"Oh for – " Hikaru sat back on his heels. He never managed to sit seiza for long, and as usual was kneeling on the wooden floor. By the time he stood up, his knees would be covered in chalk dust (Hikaru and the concept of 'tidy' not being particularly close acquaintances), and Akira would have to dust them off, no matter how tempted he would be to leave them like that and let Hikaru deal with the funny looks.
Akira was the one dealing with a funny look now, though – Hikaru was outright glaring at him. "How would you know if I've drawn it wrong? You don't even take this class!"
"No, because I did it last year," he said; the professor had been a bit excitable, but the course itself had been fascinating – an overview of the history of ritual magic in other cultures. Speaking of which, "I don't remember there being a practical component – "
"How'd you take it last year? It's a third year course! And besides – " Hikaru had shuffled round on his knees until he could peer at the segment in front of Akira, "it looks perfectly fine to me."
Akira pointed, "Well it's not – you wrote this one backwards! Here, look," he pulled the chalk from Hikaru's fingers ("Hey!") and crouched down, rubbing away chalk-dust and correcting it with two neat lines. "See?"
"Are you sure?" Hikaru screwed up his nose, and Akira did his best not to laugh – it was hard to take him seriously when he looked like a disgruntled rabbit. Hikaru beckoned to the textbook and it slid across the floor, still open to the right page. He looked at it; Akira could see over his shoulder that the current design was the right one – not that he'd needed the confirmation. "Hmph. Lucky guess," Hikaru said, and then scuffled back away from the circle before standing up.
"Is it complete?" The ring of runes was closed, but sometimes these circles had more than one layer.
"Yeah, it's not like I'm trying to summon a demon or anything. Not that I would!" Hikaru defended quickly, waving his hands to ward off Akira's look. "Because that would be bad and, um, dangerous. And I can't afford the materials. So! Wanna help cast this?"
"It's a ritual," Akira pointed out, "So technically, you'd perform it. But what are you trying to animate?" because that's what the circle was for, he was certain of it; runes of life and movement, arranged for the most efficient channelling of energy. The centre of the circle, though, was empty.
"Oh!" Hikaru turned to the pushed-aside desk, and picked up a slightly lopsided paper crane. "Almost forgot this," he said, bending over the chalk carefully so as not to smudge it as he put the bird in the middle. "Anything else, Your Highness?" he asked, then flashed a mischievous grin at Akira.
"That should be sufficient," Akira replied stuffily in return. "This one's elemental, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Hikaru pulled a face, "but I hate using the English words, it doesn't feel right."
"Can you pronounce them?" It needed to be asked. Hikaru might be a bit slapdash about his magic, but he was powerful, which could be a dangerous combination. The first time Akira had noticed him, the then-boy had just set fire to their tutor's hair in an Introductory Elements lab. Akira had doused the poor woman in water, and told Hikaru off for being careless, which somehow devolved into a screaming match. The whole room had stopped working to watch; Akira had never been so mortified in his life. He'd gotten used to the arguing, eventually, and there was only so much mortification a person could take before the indignity just stopped registering.
He'd also learnt to make very certain Hikaru knew what he was doing before standing anywhere near the blast zone.
"Yes I can pronounce them," Hikaru said, a little bit sharply. "Do you want to help, or what?"
Akira wavered, but this really did seem quite harmless. "Ward it round with salt to be safe, and I'll take water and air for you."
"Done," Hikaru said immediately. "I was going to do a plain I call on casting – the things are on the desk?" He trailed off questioningly.
"This is your project, I'm just the battery," Akira said. There were indeed supplies on the table – a bowl of water, a small bag of dirt, the end of a candle and a nub of incense. "Where do you want me standing?"
Hikaru thought for a moment. "I was gonna just walk all around the circle myself, but I guess – " he took Akira by the shoulders, and led him around to the opposite side of the circle from where he had been standing. "You should start here. I'll summon earth, then swap places whilst you summon air, and you can swap when I do fire."
"Hikaru." Akira caught his eye, "Nothing catches fire, and nothing will get drenched. Deal?"
"Yeah, yeah," Hikaru said, lighting the incense with a flame smaller than his finger-nail before holding it out to Akira, "It's not like I want to burn down my room either, you know."
"Still." He took the incense and held the slow burn in stasis whilst Hikaru put the candle to his left, and the water opposite, trailing a thin line of salt behind him. "Are we ready?"
"I am if you are," Hikaru said, and his face went smooth with concentration. Akira released the stasis.
"I call on Earth," Hikaru said, in a voice deeper than usual, and crumbled a lump of dirt onto the floor. Akira could feel the tug of magic taking an interest, and for a second, the room smelt of pine. Then it was done, and it was his turn.
Hikaru was passing behind him, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was the stick of incense in front of him. "I call on Air." Akira jarred loose a clump of ash; it fell onto the chalk symbols even as he reached out into the air around him and pulled, with that other-sense that had bought him entrance to this university in the first place. Air wasn't his element, wasn't eager to obey, but it heard his call and he felt the power flow into the circle.
"I call on Fire," Hikaru was saying as Akira moved around the circle. He went wide, just to be careful. The pulse of power was much stronger this time; not only were there three elements present now, but fire was Hikaru's strongest connection, and it could be felt.
Akira picked up the plastic bowl and dipped his fingers into the water – it was cold. "I call on Water," he said as the droplets hit the floor. It didn't take more than a brief tug to get the element's attention, and then the ring was active, power from all four elements tracing along the lines of chalk. They cycled around, almost too fast to sense, before discharging in a burst into the centre of the circle.
"Well? Did it work?" Hikaru asked, blinking in psychosomatic reaction.
"Your runes didn't give the paper power, they just let it take a little power from the surroundings," Akira said. Hikaru looked blank, so Akira continued, "You should probably break the salt line if you want anything to happen."
Hikaru scuffed a foot through the salt, looking a bit embarrassed. The little paper beak twisted left, then right, and the paper wings burst into motion, flapping frantically until the crane was airborne.
"It worked!" Hikaru was grinning. "Cool."
"Very," Akira said dryly. "However, you are now the proud owner of an animated piece of origami who, it seems, is quite happy to eat the sticking charms off your notes." There was a small cascade of paper from the far wall, drifting like feathers to the floor. "I really should go do my own work, now."
"Oi, not so fast," Hikaru protested, trying to catch one sheet before it drifted into the still-lit candle. "Your magic's all over this thing, it's your responsibility too!"
Akira sighed. "Pass me a pencil, please?" he asked, trying coaxing the animate down with a condensed bubble of water from the air. The creature caught, he wrote a rune of sealing on either side of its beak. If ever a paper crane could look mournful, then that paper crane was the one. "Just rub these off if you actually want it to eat something."
"Thanks," Hikaru said, hands full of notepaper. "I'll see you tomorrow in Theory of Spellcraft?"
"Of course." Akira pulled open the door (with a little difficulty), then turned. "If you bring the bird and set it loose to eat the girls' cosmetic charms, I'll let Matsuo-sensei know about that photograph."
"That's a bit harsh, isn't it?" Hikaru complained.
"As you said, my magic's half of the animate's animation. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not spend the rest of the week dodging a vengeful Nase."