It didn't take long for Diana to realize that her small problems about Atsuko had exploded into a problem bigger than Aunt Daryl's wig, and that was saying a lot. She was daft most of the time, sure, but even she wasn't dense enough to not see that she had screwed up.

Big-time.

Diana screwed up big-time.

She could just feel Atsuko's resent for her from the dorm and the fact that she's in eighty percent of her classes, which meant she had to be in the same room as her for about six hours per weekday, did not help.

And that wasn't the end of it. Sucy and Lotte were also set to ignore her too, and though she didn't talk to them much, it was already clear they didn't want to talk to her either. Especially not after witnessing that she had shot their team leader with a Murowa spell.

And the worse thing is all of the other witches acted like Diana did something noble when in fact she did something so awful she might have as well been exiled from the Cavendish family. They didn't know that she and the red team almost had a fight under the Jennifer tree. At dinner yesterday, a student talked about how amazing Diana was for saving the tree when in fact it was Atsuko who figured out that it wasn't dying and was the one who casted the correct spell to let those cocoons hatch, much to her amazement.

Professors and students kept on bothering her with compliments that day; they said Diana was so talented with magic and that she 'showed' Atsuko Kagari what a real witch was. But what did she show off? Being a huge jerk wasn't one so she didn't have other ideas why.

Today was Friday so it meant that they were going to have their first class practicing magic. It's going to be happening on the third period, so forty of them would be on the field with brooms and witch hats on by ten twenty to noon. The thought brought a smile to Diana's face but realizing Atsuko was also in that class, it was wiped off completely.

Speaking of Atsuko, it was clear that she was taking their rivalry thing seriously. Before Broom Flying class was Astronomy and Potions class, which both held quizzes, and Atsuko seemed to be relentless to perfect both. That left Diana in the dust with her C's. After Astronomy ended, the red team quickly slipped out of the room and Diana had no chance of getting a word of apology to Atsuko.

After the Pappilodiya event, Diana recalled she was forgiven of her 'schemes' but no doubt Atsuko was still angry with her. What indicated it was because, well, she was scarce the whole night after it. Like, she avoided everybody aside from her teammates and whenever Diana was even ten feet around her, she would turn away almost instantly and acted like she didn't want to be with her.

'Of course she wouldn't,' Diana thought as she picked up her broom from the floor. 'You accidently shot her with a careless Murowa spell. You should be ashamed of yourself.'

She tapped the broom's brush repeatedly to get off any more dust and made her way to the corridor where Barbara and Hannah were waiting. They were now in their outside uniforms, purple robes over their uniforms with witch hats planted on their heads, wands hanging on their blue sashes.

"Ready?" Barbara asked and Diana nodded. They went down towards the field and made their way around the group of witches their age.

When they arrived at the field, Diana scanned the crowd quickly and her eyes landed on the familiar shade of brown that was topped with Luna Nova's hat. When she turned around, Diana couldn't believe how shiny those red orbs were, positively glittering with excitement while she held her broom close to her chest.

'To think she's the same girl who resents me,' Diana thought as she stared at Atsuko who kept on bouncing on her feet with Sucy placing her hands on Atsuko's shoulders to stop her from moving too much. Lotte looked about as interested in Broom Flying class as she was interested in History class.

Her chest started to throb after the front of her mind replayed Atsuko's angry face. 'Can we be even friends at this point?' Diana frowned. But, well, her chances may have gone slimmer than before but a chance is still a chance. She can still redeem herself to Atsuko. Or so she hoped.

She looked down on her own broom, wanting to think of something else other than mulling over her wrongdoings. It wasn't the same thing as the one she had back in the Cavendish Manor, but it seemed okay. She just hoped she could fly as well as the next witch.

"Alright, class!" All chattering stopped and Diana looked over to the source of the sound, not expecting Professor Nelson, who Diana knew as a meek and peculiar flying teacher, to sound so loud. Oh wait, she's just using a megaphone spell. "Attendance has been made so everyone, please form lines of ten!"

They did so and Diana was in front of the line with nine other students behind her. Two lines to her left, there stood Atsuko in the front, her teammates behind her along with seven other witches. Diana glanced at her, guilt building up in her chest again before her eyes travelled to the next line. She immediately recognized that red hair and startling green eyes.

'So Amanda's here, too, huh?' The heiress thought and she smiled a bit, almost forgetting about the brunette again. 'Well, at least I can have someone to race with.'

When the red team came back to their dorm after the Pappilodiya event, Akko had learned from Sucy (as Lotte was too embarrassed to tell her herself) that a string of fights had occurred after the brunette had left the courtyard.

Of course, not physical fights (Akko wouldn't let Lotte hear the end of it), but it was close to one. When Diana left to go after her, Lotte had taken it as a cue to stand up against Hannah and Barbara and, well, Sucy didn't want to repeat their dialogues for the tantamount of swear words. What happened was the red team had apparently been ganged up against the popular witches, talking about how witches would team up with a magicless, smartass of a girl with no heritage and whatnot.

"I was this close to slapping Barbara, Akko!" Lotte told her as she pinched her fingers together, the tips of the index and thumb almost touching. "This close!"

Antagonized, shunned, bullied; a lot of things happened before they left the courtyard and they were reunited again at the green house where Sucy insisted on staying for the vast vegetation of mushrooms around. Only the senior witches were present and they hadn't known what happened yet so the other two agreed. It was sort of peaceful, the garden, where only a handful of students their batch went.

Then the Pappilodiya event happened.

Things had just gone so fast, Akko thought it was a dream. In a summary, the Shiny Rod worked, proving that it wasn't fake, the cocoons successfully hatched, and the Jennifer Tree was revived. Oh, and Diana accidently set off a Murowa spell in her direction but Akko supposes that she just hadn't known about those butterflies.

Akko sighed and tapped her lower back, right below her waist where the spell hit her, the burn still quite stinging her skin. Right now she was in the garden near the greenhouse again with Sucy somewhere collecting mushrooms, Lotte's chessboard in front of her with the pieces scattered.

She and the blonde played for a moment before Akko had told her that she should really do her report homework as it was due an hour ago, which made Lotte leave the greenhouse in a screaming fit.

The brunette stared at the pieces, her black knight almost into Lotte's territory, and her plan of checkmating her King now gone. Akko wasn't particularly interested in chess, but she did know the rules well enough. She was more or less a Shogi girl but since she didn't bring any of the sorts, she just chose chess since that was the only available board game that they could take here in the greenhouse. She went ahead and cleaned off the board and began to rearrange the pieces again, this time the white pieces on her side.

Sucy was nowhere to be seen so she had no one to play with. 'I knew I should have brought a book but this chess set was already so heavy…' Akko thought, despairing over the air of boredom but she moved her pawn anyway.

She stared at the piece, not expecting the other side to move, but she heard a simple sound of wood clanging against the board and she looked up.

It was a student from her batch. Akko almost flinched at the color of her eyes. They were bright green, shiny, framed by long and sharp eyelashes. "Sorry but I saw that you needed someone to play with," she said with an awkward but hearty laugh. She was tall, with tanned skin and red hair with an even redder underside. She sat with on the chair opposite of Akko. "May I?"

Akko raised a brow but she nodded. "It's alright." Another student had approached her. Akko became wary instantly, not sure if whether or not was this girl going to harass her like Parker or England or end up like Cavendish.

She moved her knight and flashed her green eyes at her. "Your turn." Akko moved her bishop and locked eyes with the girl, unsure. She looked amused and moved a pawn. They went on for a few more moments before all of the sudden, with Akko growing more and more tantalizing of the stiffness around, the girl said, "You know you don't have to be so tense. This is just chess, after all."

Akko leered at her. "If so, I can safely assume that you don't have any plans of harassing me, then?" she spat, not even minding her rudeness, already so agitated with the awkward tension around them.

"Yes, you can." Akko looked up from the board and found a guilty expression on her face. "Look, I don't mean anything wrong. I just want a fair game of chess without any chips or bolts around the table."

The concept was the same as Cavendish's yesterday but the 'chips' and 'bolts' was quite unexpected. Akko furrowed her brows. "Unfortunately, the one who said that last is now a person I resent so you're all too hopeful that I'll fall for such thing again."

"Ah, but we're in Luna Nova's garden so pulling a thing like Diana did would be quite demanding. For one, people already think you're magicless and they've been aching for a reason bully you so I think your fiasco yesterday and this morning in Flying class would be enough to satisfy their egos." Akko glared, knowing well she almost failed that class.

"And there are only two kinds of witches who go here," the girl continued. "Witches who love to ace Professor Lukic's class and witches running away from the courtyard."

Akko scoffed. "I didn't run away."

"And I didn't plan on getting on your bad-side," She smiled remorsefully. "I saw what happened yesterday… And, uh, on behalf of the green team, I'm sorry for not helping you when you guys needed it. "

Akko dropped her face and stared at the girl incredulously. "You were there?"

"Almost half of our batch did." She explained and her eyes softened. "My team didn't want any trouble so we stayed low but we knew how awful the other teams treated your teammates. The purple and blue team, they've gone especially out of line."

The brunette studied the girl. She looked honestly… guilty. Why would she? They hadn't even exchanged names and yet this girl is talking about how she should have stood up against the others yesterday. Hadn't it been that she looked genuinely upset, Akko wouldn't have hesitated to say that she's lying. Because those eyes couldn't just show that glint on their own, could they?

Finally, after a heartbeat of silence, Akko said, "Alright." She moved her dormant Rook in the middle of the board.

The girl raised a brow but the shine in her eyes betrayed her passiveness ever so lightly. "You believe me?" She moved her Knight and took out the Rook.

Akko took the Knight with her Queen, mindless of the risk. "Yes."

"Well…" Akko didn't flinch when her Queen was taken out. "That's great! Oh, my name's Amanda, by the way," She extended an arm and opened her palm.

Akko stared at it, and she suddenly felt scathing. It was like a broken record with different lyrics, dissolved hatred building up in her stomach at this too-familiar situation. Akko felt like flipping over the table. Then somewhere, a small stubborn part of her mind had finally loomed over her map of doubt and gave vengeance for her logic. 'Get a grip!' she thought 'This isn't Diana.' She stared at those green eyes and urged herself to snap out of her stupid trauma of hers. It was stupid to doubt.

Akko took Amanda's rough hand, firmly though hesitantly.

"Atsuko Kagari. You may call me Atsuko." One shake and they retracted their arms and went back to the game.

Turns out, as Atsuko mused, Amanda was rather good at chess. She already took out one of her knights and Bishops with four pawns. Akko had Amanda's Knight, Bishop and three of her pawns but Amanda's Rook and other Knight stood protectively around her King. Amanda's Bishop was face to face with Akko's pawn, with her Rook nearing the King but if she made any advances, the Queen would scoop it up and Akko would have no more backups in case her Pawns betrays her King.

Akko began to contemplate on whether or not to perform a castling in the next two moves when Amanda spoke again.

"If I may ask, do you know Constanze?"

The brunette looks up and found Amanda staring at her expectantly. She nods. "Yes. She's in my Magictronics class. Why?" She moves back her Rook.

Amanda's eyes lit up and she smiled. "Oh! Well, I just wanted to say that she kind of talks about you in our dorm," She moved her Bishop. "Saying that there was this Asian girl who she wants to be friends with."

Akko paused, her hand nearing to touch her King but she shook her head. "And…?" She did a castling.

Amanda moved her Bishop still. "She wants to meet you, and to be frank, I think you guys will get along well."

The brunette stared at her Bishop then at Amanda. She looked at her expectantly, with that excited glint in her eyes and Akko felt herself flush. Somebody wanting to be friends with her? Never once in her life had she been approached in this sort of means, unless it was connected to some sort benefit they could get out in the end, like projects and requirements and whatnot.

She felt herself swallowing before she moved her Bishop across the board, in the line of Amanda's King. "Checkmate."

Amanda countered by moving her Rook in front of the Bishop's range. "You know, the rich teams aren't the only ones who can make affiliations with others, Atsuko."

Akko looked up and found a grin on Amanda's face. She moved her Rook. "Are you saying you want to team up the Green and Red teams?"

"It's your choice!" The redhead chirped and moved her pawn. "Luna Nova allows it. Generally, witches don't really form packs like wolves but with all the projects that involves many dangers coming along, it's better to team up with five witches instead of being on your own."

Atsuko contemplated the offer. She moved back her Bishop. "Luna Nova does have some peculiar projects."

"Exactly why there are teams instead of individual witches. The dorms weren't the only reason why you're with Manbavaran and Yansson." Amanda smile grew wider and moved her Knight. "I assume you already know this but the Nine implemented rules for witches who studied here in Luna Nova to walk around in teams rather than have them alone to decrease chances of danger, even if the school is fortified by defense spells and barriers."

"Yes, that's true," Atsuko nodded. "But why choose the red team? There are other teams so why approach us? After all, if Luna Nova allows affiliations then it wouldn't be so strange for one team to have more than one associated team on their shoulders." She countered and moved her pawn.

"Why?" Then Akko saw it. Amanda's Rook. "It's mostly for Constanze's sake but I would also prefer to have one of the stronger teams to be in our favor than the otherwise. Checkmate."

Akko looked over the board and found her King had nowhere to go. She can't move on top because of the pawns and she can't move left for the Queen would take it. Right had Amanda's knight. Her other pieces are too scattered off to come back and guard it. Sacrificing her Rook would be futile. And Amanda's pawn was so near her end of the board that were it have one more move, it would become another piece directly in front of her King so indeed, Akko lost the game.

Akko gaped a bit before closing her mouth. She smiled dryly. "Tactful, O'Neill. Tactful."

Amanda only smiled. "Kind of like Weasley, eh?"

"Weasley?"

"Oh, just a joke I'm used to hear. Red hair. The chess thing." Amanda motioned both respectively.

Akko giggled. "Only left now are freckles."

Amanda grinned. "So, what do you say? You might need someone tactuful here in Luna Nova." She took out her hand again and this time, Akko didn't feel so suspicious anymore. She took it and gave a firm shake.

Today was a Saturday, Diana's first free day here in Luna Nova and Barbara's first plan of spending it was to go to Blatonbury and drop their letters in mailboxes.

Of course, not that Diana had anything against it. She made a letter to Andrew too, but she was just thinking of ditching the mail and send it… three or two weeks later. But both Hannah and Barbara insisted so much on sending their letters to their family that Diana just shrugged and agreed to come along with them.

So with reluctance, Diana wore her cloak over her uniform and took out her letter from her drawer. Guess she's gonna expect something from Andrew later on. As the blue team exited their chambers, they began to descend onto the courtyard where other witches dazed about but as Diana looked over the courtyard, she saw that familiar shade of brown glinting against the sunlight.

Atsuko was standing behind a column, a book in her palm, Lotte and Sucy nowhere with her. Weird. In the past week, they've been everywhere together and now she was suddenly all alone? In the courtyard?

But as Diana continued to wait for Atsuko to do anything, something zoomed past her. She gasped and focused on the flying thing before she recognized it as the robot one of Amanda's teammates had. What was it… A Wanbot? No, a Stanbot.

The bot flied overhead of the courtyard with other witches barely gave it a glance before going back to their business. As the bot lowered from the sky, it began to glide to Atsuko. Diana stared curiously as the brunette looked up from her book.

And before anything else, from the corner of her eye, Diana saw Green team's very own Constanze Albretchsberger running into the courtyard and ramming into Atsuko happily. Atsuko yelped in surprise as Constanze, shorter than her by a head, wrapped her arms around her waist.

Diana gaped. They knew each other? Well, Diana did hear from Hannah that Constanze was excelling in Magitronics class so it wouldn't be too weird for them to become friends. But Diana had never seen anyone get close to Atsuko as that before. It was almost bizarre.

Atsuko patted Constanze in the back and the shorter girl retracted, jumping up and down before the Stanbot dropped in her hands. The small robot began to beep and Atsuko said something Diana can't hear.

The heiress blinked at them for a moment before out came the rest of the green team. Amanda and Jasminka walked side by side and tailing them were Sucy and Lotte. Both teams gathered to where Atsuko and Constanze were and they began to chatter.

Diana stared at them for a few moments, wondering why on earth they were all here in the courtyard before Barbara's, "Diana!" snapped her out of her thoughts. Her mind was running, furrowing her brows at the weird sight before she decided to follow her other teammates.

A strange afterthought at the back of her mumbled something that the blue team could've been in that little meeting too, had Diana chosen her words better.

THIS TOOK TOO LONG BUT I FINALLY DID IT! It's not beta-read but I hope I could in the near future if I stop being shit.

:'^D

Thank you everyone who supported this fanfic!