I don't know how much time has passed since I wrote my last fanfiction. A lot, probably. Anyway, it's been quite a while since I wrote anything at all so I may have gotten a bit rusty, sorry for that. It doesn't help that my native language isn't English. No matter how many times I reread it, it's always way too "stiff" for my taste.
Before we start I would like to thank the lovely Alhechan for her proofreading. This oneshot would contain at least three full pages of punctuation errors if not for her. I'm not even joking.
Anyway, I always wanted to write something LWA related, so here we are. I hope you enjoy it!
Of potions and mushrooms
I don't know how much time has passed since I wrote my last fanfiction. A lot, probably. Anyway, it's been quite a while since I wrote anything at all so I may have gotten a bit rusty, sorry for that. It doesn't help that my native language isn't English. No matter how many times I reread it, it's always way too "stiff" for my taste.
Before we start I would like to thank the lovely Alhechan for her proofreading. This oneshot would contain at least three full pages of punctuation errors if not for her. I'm not even joking.
Anyway, I always wanted to write something LWA related, so here we are. I hope you enjoy it!
"T-This! It…. it has to be a curse! It has to be!" Akko all but shouted, while she walked in a small circle near her bed. The sunrays of a freshly started day entered through the windows as the brunette rubbed her temples mildly annoyed. "I mean, there's no other explanation. Don't you think so, Lotte?"
Her friend, sitting on the chair of her desk, looked back at Akko with eyes full of understanding.
"T-There has to be another explanation," Lotte said, trying to calm her friend with a peaceful tone.
"But it just can't be! I have trained for three whole weeks just that single spell and I have yet to make any progress. It must be a curse. It has to be!" yelled again the brunette.
"But, Akko, a curse is a really powerful magic. If you were really cursed you would know it."
As if patiently waiting for her cue, Sucy intervened, still reading her book while sitting on her bed across the room.
"Not really. Akko may not be aware."
"See?!" Akko said to Lotte.
"I mean, she hardly notices some of the spells I throw at her. If someone were to cast a curse I bet she wouldn't even notice."
"Hey!" Akko protested. "That's not true! Lotte, you tell her."
"Sucy!" Lotte reprimanded her friend through her gaze.
"You aren't saying I'm wrong," said the witch, almost mumbling. "Besides, if you want to get rid of that curse, you can always ask Professor Ursula. She ought to know how to lift one. A real one, at least."
"Yes, I guess I can," said a pondering Akko. "But then I wouldn't know who did it, right?"
"What do you mean?" asked Lotte.
"Is there a way to know who cursed me? I mean, I could get Professor Ursula to lift it, but what if I get cursed again? I prefer to deal with those pesky jealous troublemakers and then lift the curse."
"I… don't think there's anything like that, Akko," said Lotte.
"Are you sure?" asked the brunette. "Because I feel that it would be a pretty common thing to do in a magical world."
"I haven't heard anything of the sort, at least." Lotte almost looked sorry for not being able to help more.
"I have." Both friends turned at the same time to look at the third one. "I recall a mushroom-made potion that would do the trick." Sucy said, not even raising her gaze from the book.
"Really?" Akko asked, eyes full of hope.
"Yes, it's not that special."
"Can you make it? For me? Pretty please?" Akko bowed, clapping her hands above her head.
"No," she simply answered.
"Oh, come on Sucy! You owe me from last month. Could you do this for me? Please?" Akko pleaded yet again.
"Tsk. She remembered," Sucy mumbled.
"What is she talking about Sucy?" Lotte asked, slightly confused by that turn of events.
"You remember that yellow goo that expanded through the east wing of the academy, trapping everyone that crossed its path?" Akko said in a bitter tone.
"That was you!? I missed my book reviewing session with Barbara because of that," Lotte said.
"And I was trapped in that goo for hours. That thing didn't come off no matter what we did. It was a nightmare. At least I was with Professor Ursula, that's the only good thing about that day."
"It was not my fault! I only made a little joke about the quantity of venomous mushrooms to throw into the mixture! How could I have known they would actually take it seriously?" Sucy protested.
"Really sad story, really," Akko said with a scorned face. "But can you help me?"
Sucy sighed but, instead of making an annoyed face, she just looked at Akko with her usual deadpan.
"Yeah, why not. It's not that difficult to make."
Akko fist-pumped almost instantly, only to change her expression to the one of disbelief Lotte was making.
"You are not pulling a fast one on me, are you Sucy?" Akko slowly said, doubt showing in her gaze.
"Of course not. I never joke with mushrooms."
"Except last week, apparently," Lotte said.
"Except last week," Sucy repeated. "Anyway, you should go eat breakfast now. I'll have the potion ready before class."
"Okaaay…" Akko said, dragging every sound, still not sure of her friend's intentions.
"Let's go, Akko," said Lotte, getting up from her chair, and Akko followed suit instants later.
After closing the door and leaving Sucy to herself, Akko turned to Lotte and said, "She was being way to nice, wasn't she? This smells like a prank, right?"
Lotte tried to laugh the answer off, but the insistent gaze of Akko told her that she was waiting for her to speak. She thought for a second, before smiling along with the desired answer:
"You are going to drink it either way, aren't you?"
Her room smelled profusely of lavender. Akko noticed that as she entered it after breakfast.
"So, how is it going, Sucy? Are you done?" she asked.
Sucy turned around, with a flask filled with a blue liquid.
"Yes. Here it is," she said, showing her the flask.
"Great, great. So… how does it work?" Akko asked, almost innocently.
"It's really simple. Thirty minutes after drinking this potion you should start seeing people that hate you. If the curse nonsense is real, one of them has to be the culprit."
"Oh, I see. It makes sense." Akko remained quiet for a second. "Wait. What do you mean 'I should start seeing people'? Won't I be able to see them before? I won't go blind in those thirty minutes, will I!?"
Sucy chuckled.
"My dear Atsuko, I am delighted to see you so paranoid, but I assure you that nothing will happen to you. I just meant that people that hate you will be more noticeable. If I remember correctly, they will glow."
"Glow as in… really bright?"
"Yes, Akko, as in really bright," Sucy said in a tone similar to the one used when talking to a child. "Anyway, with this my debt is cleared."
"Oh, no," Akko all but shouted. "Not yet. First I check everything goes okay and then you are in the clear."
"Tsk." Sucy clicked her tongue.
"How long does it last, by the way?"
"Not that much. Roughly three hours, and unfortunately you shouldn't have any side-effects."
Akko sighed.
"Why do I feel I shouldn't do this?" the brunette mumbled to herself just before lifting the flask. Expecting a rather nasty taste, she swallowed the liquid as fast as she could. For some reason it tasted like mint, of all things.
She looked at Sucy, with expectation in her gaze. However, no matter how much time passed, nothing happened.
"What?" asked Sucy, confused by the lack of movement from her friend.
"Nothing is happening."
"Yeah, I know. I told you it takes some time to start noticing the effects like a minute ago."
"Oh. Right."
"Well, lovely chatting with you, but I have things to do," Sucy said, with her characteristic deadpan. "Oh, right. If you start seeing double of something of the sort, call me, ok? I want to watch."
It was late in the afternoon when Akko and Lotte were walking through the corridors of Luna Nova.
"That Sucy is going to pay!" Akko almost shouted. At her side Lotte was trying to calm her friend, laughing off at the situation.
"At least nothing bad happened, right? And it's Sucy who we're talking about."
"Yes, I know… but still, I thought something would happen. Anything. Not… this. I mean, yeah, Amanda and Constanze did glow a little, but only because one of her machines blew off and they got covered by fairy dust. And I know how difficult is to remove that thing once it's on your skin."
Lotte had to shut her lips tight to suppress a smile forming in her face, remembering the incident. She, however, chose not to comment on the matter.
"By the way, what did you do to Diana?" Lotte asked.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You know, this morning in Professor Finnelan's class, during the presentations of the research projects. Don't you remember that Diana actually stopped her exposition dead in its tracks and looked right at you like she had seen a ghost?"
"Oh, really? I didn't even notice. I was too busy trying to find the culprits I barely paid attention to the presentations," Akko said.
"You are lucky our presentation wasn't today. We would have failed for sure with you like this." Lotte sighed. "Anyway, I'm going this way. I have book reviewing tonight."
"Cool. I'm going to our room, to have a little chat with our mushroom lover friend about a potion that didn't work."
"Don't be too hard on her, ok? At least this time she was cooperative."
"We'll see… Have fun!" Akko smiled.
"Well, this is interesting. Are you saying that nothing happened at all?" Sucy said with a hint of curiosity in her voice.
"I think so…" answered Akko, somewhat taken aback by the sudden interest shown by her friend. "You… did the potion correctly, right?"
Sucy pondered for a minute.
"Yes."
"W-Why the pause?"
"It's… not that difficult to make. And I have at least an ounce of talent, unlike some people I know." Sucy looked at Akko. "Still, checking can't hurt so let's investigate, shall we Akko?"
"I… What? Inves—You mean, you and me?"
"Yes, of course," said Sucy as she made her way to her bed. She got on her knees and with some effort took out from below her bed a book as wide as a watermelon. She lightly blew to take the dust from the cover and proceeded to put it on the desk near her. On the cover it could be read: 'Mushroom Handbook for the Advanced & Gifted'.
"Wow!" Akko eloquently stated at the sight of the colossal book. "You had that under the bed?"
"I used to read it every night. Until I memorized it," Sucy said, deadpanning, as she unceremoniously opened the book.
"You memorized that thing!?" Akko said as she got closer to inspect it, with the recognizable sound of rusty pages being flipped as background music.
"Apparently not well enough..."
"B-But you could kill someone with that!" shouted Akko.
Sucy remained silent, though a subtle and almost imperceptible smile did appear on her face.
"Ah! Here it is," Sucy said, seconds later. Akko leaned to see better. " Quaesitor Fungus Potio"
"Qu-Quae… What?"
"Quaesitor Fungus Potio. A seeker potion. With mushrooms, of course. I just modified it a little to track curses, just as you wanted. Whatever went wrong must be explained here. Let's see…"
Akko peeked at the page Sucy was looking, although moments later she wished she didn't, as just looking at all that text in Latin made her head feel fuzzy.
"Hmm… Interesting. Have you eaten apple pie in the past twenty-four hours?"
"Uhh… Not that I recall."
"I see," Sucy said as she continued reading, with a finger scrolling down the page. "Have you ever transformed into a werewolf?"
"Uhh… Not that I recall."
"When you bathe, do you use soap or is all spell-based as the rest of the school?"
"I… use soap," Akko answered with a shadow of uneasiness in her face. "Can that really affect the potion?"
"The soap? Oh, no. It's just for a side project I'm currently working on." She smiled darkly, while turning the page.
"Sucy!"
"I haven't finished it yet so there is absolutely nothing to worry about Akko," she said as she turned to look at her classmate. "Anyway, I think I know why the potion didn't work. More or less."
"Really?"
"Well, it's not that 'it didn't work', it just malfunctioned," said the witch while staring at the text in Latin. "A curse seeker is a difficult thing to elaborate as a potion so it's usually faster to create a love potion and then reverse it, with a few tweaks here and there. So, I used a mushroom to recreate the effects of a Cupid Bee and… Wait. Why am I telling you this? Long story short: I thought I could use a Gloioxanthomyces Nitidus to replicate the effects of the Gloioxanthomyces Vitellinus specified in the receipt, but it turns out I can't because we are not in the middle of a downpour, so the effects of the potion were not reversed."
"'The effects of the potion were not reversed'? What does that even mean?" asked Akko, highly confused.
"The potion was supposed to make people who hate you glow, if done correctly. As it was, to people who love you… you will glow."
"But, like, glow as in… really bright?"
"Didn't we have this exact same conversation before? Yes. As in 'sparkly thingy'."
"Ahh… I see."
Some seconds passed, with Akko deep in thought.
"Wait. What!? Love!? As in… love!?"
"As eloquent as ever, Akko... Yes. As in love. Actually, no. As in 'really in love'. Because drinking a potion and seeing things by yourself is one thing, but drinking a potion and making somebody else see things… that's a whole new level. Madly in love I would say."
"Oh Sucy, how can you manage to always complicate things?" Akko said while rubbing her temples with both hands. "The Cupid Bee, the yellow goo incident and now this? At least nothing happened this time…"
"Are you sure?" Sucy said, a sly smirk showing on her face.
"What do you mean…?"
"No one has looked at you funny today?"
"No…? Why would anyone…? Oh, right. The potion. Well, too bad Sucy, today was completely uneventful. Absolutely no one has… looked… at me…" As if she just remembered something, Akko stared blankly at the floor, eyes widening by the moment.
"With this," Sucy dragged those last words enhancing the power of the ones to follow, her sly smirk now at full force, "my debt is fully repaid, don't you think?"