Mima's House
"Ako, are you sure this is a good idea?"
Asked one of Ako's friends as the brown-haired little witch picked up a flask and a test tube, both of which are filled with potions of different colors.
"Relax. How hard could this be?" Ako said as she raised the test tube over the flask. "Miss Marisa does this all the time."
"But Miss Marisa-" Fey protested.
"Knows what she's doing-" Rey resumed the protest.
"And she knows what can and cannot be mixed!" The Twins then finished their protest in unison.
Ako scoffed in response. "You girls, just shut up and watch me create a spectacle..." The brown-haired witch rebuked as she prepared to slowly pour the content of the test tube into the flask.
The other Little Witches aren't taking any chances, and took cover behind a turned-over table.
"Here goes nothing..." Ako told herself as she tilted the test tube gently over the mouth of the flask.
One drop of potion came out of the test tube, and entered the flask, falling into and mixing with the latter's content.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. The Little Witches poked out of their cover to take a look.
Ako briefly turned around to tell her friends, "Ha! Maybe not a spectacle, but nothing bad happened!"
Then the flask suddenly began to glow brightly.
The Little Witches retreated back into their cover again.
Ako turned back just in time to notice the bright glow. "Aw, shee-"
BOOM!
The Little Witches waited for a few seconds before poking out of their cover again to see what happened.
Ako was covered in soot, and her hair is totally messed up, save for the bangs covering her right eye. The flask has been destroyed by the explosion and only its bottleneck remained in the brown-haired little witch's hand. She blinked a few times as she tried to process what had just happened.
"Aray..." Suza uttered in her native tongue.
"At least it wasn't me this time..." Markle remarked.
Ako, still covered in soot, coughed a bit before turning to face her friends.
"Am I missing an eyebrow?"
The Little Witches couldn't help but snicker at that.
x-x-x
Private Winters presents
Little Witches' Misadventures
A Young Maiden's Chronicles side story
x-x-x
"So, any plans for today?"
Ako asked her friends as they finished cleaning up the mess caused by the potion explosion.
"Well...Miss Mima went to talk things out with the Makaiese, and Miss Marisa is hanging out at Miss Reimu's place..." Markle said as she placed her broomstick on the broom rack. "So...we've got nothing..."
"Nothing...?" Ako touched her chin as she started thinking. "How about...we go shopping in the village?" She then suggested.
"Too mundane..." Markle rejected the idea, then went to think of her own. "How about...we go blow up some fairies?"
That got the explosion-loving witch two smacks on the back of her head, courtesy of the Twins. "No more explosions today." They said in unison.
"How about-" Suza begins to suggest as her eyes lit up figuratively. "we go drug Miss Reimu and Miss Marisa with Love Potions, get them to confess their love for one another!"
"Why do you keep putting them together, anyway?" Ako raised a question.
"Because-" Suza's eyes seem to shine brightly as she began her explanation. "they've always seemed to be so close to each other all the time. And rumor has it that they actually kissed when they went to Makai that time!"
The other Little Witches just stood there, as the crickets encased in a cage in the hideout chirped in the background.
Ako shrugged. "Eh, whatever suits yo-"
"We are so-" Fey suddenly jumped in.
"Going to-" So did Rey, continuing her sister's sentence.
"Do it~!" The Twins then finished in unison, both of their eyes lit up with excitement.
"Count me in!" Markle chimed in too.
Ako shrugged again in reaction. "Oh well. Not that I disagree with Suza's so-called ReiMari pairing..." The brown-haired little witch said as she joined in as well.
...
Hakurei Shrine
Landing on the shrine's roof as they arrived, the Little Witch Mob stayed out of sight as they watched Reimu and Marisa just chatting with each other over some tea and rice biscuits. Apparently, Reimu is still grumpy about having her purple hair turned brown...
Without needing to be asked, Fey and Rey each took out a vial of Love Potions (that they always had with them for pranks) from inside their witch hats.
"Now what?" Ako whispered to the others.
"We find a way-" Fey whispered back.
"To put Love Potions in their tea-" Rey resumed for her sister.
"Without being seen." The Twins finished in unison.
"But how?" Markle raised a question.
"Watch and learn~" Fey and Rey announced together as they uncorked the vials.
The Twins then slowly inched their way to the edge of the roof. Using levitation magic, they then lowered the vials into position while keeping out of Reimu and Marisa's sights.
With careful precision and manipulation via levitation magic, the Twins tilted the vials, allowing a drop of Love Potion to escape from both vials and fall...
And miss their target completely as the droplets hit the veranda.
This failure prompted Ako, Markle and Suza to roll their eyes at the Twins.
The Twins shrugged as they made another attempt. They readjusted the position of the vials and let out another two drop of Love Potion...
Which missed again as the droplets hit the veranda again. They're closer to their targets this time, but still not close enough.
Ako shook her head, and Suza put both her hands to her face.
Sighing, the Twins made their third attempt. Having readjusted the positions of the vials again, they carefully allowed two more drops of Love Potion to fall out.
This time, they hit their mark, as the droplets landed in Reimu's and Marisa's teacups, mixing with the tea they were drinking. The shrine maiden trainee and the witch were none the wiser.
Their attempt successful, the Twins smiled as they reacquired and re-corked the vials.
"Now, to watch them drink the Love Potions without realizing it~" Suza said gleefully. "I wonder which one of them will be the submissive partner~?"
"Who cares? What matters now is that they're going to embrace each other." Ako said.
The Little Witch Mob watched as Reimu and Marisa grabbed their teacups, and are about to take a sip each. The suspense is getting strong as they mentally wished for the two to just hurry up and get romantic already.
The suspense reached its climax as Reimu and Marisa brought their teacups to their lips...
Only for that suspense to be anti-climatically ruined when a certain fluffy-headed girl's white cat darted past the shrine maiden trainee and the witch, with his master unknowingly knocking over and thus spilling the Love Potion-induced tea while chasing her cat.
Of course, Reimu and Marisa are both angry that their quiet tea time got interrupted. But unbeknownst to the both of them, some other people that are present are even angrier because of the circumstances.
The Little Witch Mob collectively tore bits of their hair out in frustration due to the fact that they've just lost the opportunity to watch the best spectacle they've been working hard for.
Don't worry, little ones. You'll have more opportunities to invoke ReiMari in the future.
So you might be asking what this is. Well, this, my readers, is a spin-off slice-of-life mini-series of Young Maiden's Chronicles starring Ako, Fey, Rey, Markle, and Suza, aka the Little Witches that are seen tagging along with Marisa in Spirit Dream. This is the "something else" I said at the end of Spirit Dream that I'll be doing before I start work on adapting the Windows Era 1 games and Curiosity of Lotus Asia (though honestly, I've already finished the prologue of the CoLA adaption as of this writing). Once I finish this mini-series, I'll start working on Young Maiden's Chronicles 2: Seasonal Fantasy and Young Maiden's Chronicles: Exotic Inventory for real.
This being a slice of life mini-series, expect hilarity to ensue at every possible moment.
"And that, as they say, is that..."
Afterwords end here...