Leyline Terminal

Large round glasses...

Akko found herself looking at a pair of eyes behind a pair large round glasses. Said pair of eyes belonged to a freckled girl with reddish-blonde hair, and is also wearing the school uniform of Luna Nova.

"O-oletko kunnossa?" Asked the girl in a foreign language. She seems more surprised than worried about Akko dropping down in front of her.

"Excuse me?" Akko asked back, not understanding the girl's foreign language. The Japanese girl then realized that she was speaking in Japanese. "I mean, excuse me?" She repeated in English.

"Um...I was asking if you're alright..." The glasses girl said in a slightly accented English, while she extended a hand toward Akko.

"Uh, yeah, I am." Akko answered back as she grabbed the glasses girl's hand, who helped her up. "Good thing witches are tough. Right?"

The glasses girl seemed to nod in agreement.

"So, you're going to Luna Nova too, right?" Akko changed the subject, taking notice of the glasses girl's uniform.

"Yes, of course." The glasses girl replied. "But you have to get to the matriculation ceremony in time, or else you will be expelled..." She then added, and shuddered at her own words.

Akko also shuddered upon hearing those words. She knows that European boarding schools are very strict, but she didn't expect Luna Nova to be this strict. She then frowned about the fact that...

"What's wrong?" The glasses girl asked Akko, before noticing why she frowned. "You...don't have your own broom?"

"I thought they were going to teach about broom-flying in class. I never thought I'd need to know that to even reach Luna Nova..." Akko said, looking defeated. "I tried to get around that by climbing the building and...that's how you found me just now..." She sighed.

The glasses girl looked at this girl from some far-eastern country who wanted to go to Luna Nova but never learned to fly a broom. She can't help but pity this girl...

"Tia Freyle" The glasses girl chanted as she straddled on her broom. With that, she began to levitate off the ground. "You can...ride with me if you want to..."

As if saved from a disaster, Akko jumped and hugged the glasses girl with utmost gratefulness. "ありがとう！ I mean, thank you so much!"

"Please...let...go..." The glasses girl struggled to speak amidst the crushing hug. "Can't...breathe..."

Akko quickly released the glasses girl from her hug. "Oh, sorry!" Without further adieu, she then ran out of the Leyline Terminal to grab her luggage ("Almost forgot about it!" Akko told herself) and ran back in. "I'm sorry again if it gets too heavy for you." She apologized in advance as she secured her luggage to the glasses girl's flying broom. "By the way, my name is Ka...Atsuko Kagari, but you can call me Akko. What is yours?"

The glasses girl blinked. She's never had to introduce herself to someone she only just met for less than five minutes. "Um... Liselotte Jansson. But you can call me Lotte."

"Lotte, huh? That's pretty nice." Akko commented, though her Japanese accent made the L sound like an R. "Alright, then. Let's get going!"

...

The entry into the Leyline portal went off without a hitch.

Akko initially thought that two riders and a luggage might be too heavy for a flying broom, but Lotte is able to fly with no issues despite the additional load. And now the two girls are flying through the swirling green energy of a Leyline on their way to Luna Nova.

"So this is what the inside of a Leyline looked like..." Akko watched in amazement.

"Please be careful. If you fall off right now, you could end up somewhere you can never escape from." Lotte warned as she focused on steering her broom.

"Oh, right! Just like riding a motorbike!" Akko said as she held on to Lotte. She is reminded of the time back in Osaka when she hitched a ride on a neighbor's motorbike, and fell off at one point because she didn't hold on to the neighbor tightly enough. Good thing she wasn't injured back then, but she never rode another motorbike ever since. "By the way," She then changed the topic. "is this your first-year at Luna Nova?"

"Second, actually..." Lotte answered. "Why do you want to study at Luna Nova? You look like you came from a non-magical family..."

Akko immediately beamed at that question. "That's because I want to be like Chariot Du Nord!" She gleefully answered.

"Shario...Dyunor...?" Lotte repeated what Akko just said. It took her a while to realize that was a name that got mangled by Akko's Japanese accent. "Oh, you mean Shiny Chariot, the witch performer from France, right?"

"Of course!" Akko confirmed excitedly. "I watched one of Chariot's show when I was seven, and I was mesmerized by it! Since then, I've decided that I want to become a witch!"

"Well, that's...nice..." Lotte said with a shrug. She wanted to point out how Akko shouldn't be blindly worshiping her idol like that, but the glasses girl refrained because that would make her a hypocrite, as she practically worshiped her favorite novel series just as blindly.

All of a sudden, a turbulence struck the broom-flying girls, causing them to almost lose balance.

"What's going on?!" Akko, panicking, asked as she held on tightly. "Was it something I just said?! Is it because I have some pickled plums with me?!""

"It's not you!" Lotte, also panicking about the situation, replied to Akko. "Leyline tunnels experience turbulence from time to time! It's a random natural occurrence!"

Akko quickly noticed that the knot securing her luggage to Lotte's broom is about to come loose due to the violent jerking caused by the turbulence. Not willing to lose her luggage and all of its contents, Akko reached out and grabbed the handlebar with her right hand, while keeping her left hand tightly on the broom.

The turbulence saw no sign of weakening. In fact, it appears to be getting more intense with each passing second.

"Hang on tight!" Lotte told Akko as the turbulence got really bad.

Despite the turbulence threatening to throw her off, Akko refused to let go of her luggage or Lotte's broom.

"I didn't come all the way here just to give up!" Akko mentally told herself.

The turbulence has grown so intense it was like riding through a hurricane. Akko can even hear the screams of other witches flying through the Leyline as they too struggled to brace through the turbulence.

"I will get to Luna Nova, whatever it takes!" Akko, determined to achieve her goal, held on tightly as she shut her eyes and prepared for the worst.

The turbulence continued for god knows how long, and Akko held on for that long, never intending to let go...

...Until everything went completely silent. No turbulence, no panicking Lotte, no screaming witches...

There is just nothing.

Wondering if the turbulence is gone, Akko slowly opened her eyes, and found herself floating all alone in the middle of a black void. There was no sign of Lotte, or even her broom, anywhere.

"What is this...?"

All of a sudden, an orb of bright light flashed into existence before Akko. It hovered motionlessly in front of her for a few seconds before splitting into seven smaller star-like orbs that arranged themselves into a formation.

Akko recognized that formation instantly. "It's...the Big Dipper...Shiny Chariot's symbol. But what could it mean?"

Out of curiosity, the Japanese girl extended her right hand forward to touch the formation of stars. As her hand got close, the stars shone brilliantly, causing her to retract her hand and instinctively shield her eyes.

The brilliant shine is gone in a near instance. In its place is now a white staff with seven blue gems arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper.

Akko recognized the staff just as quickly as she did the Big Dipper earlier. "That's Chariot's staff, the Shiny Rod!" Without thinking much, she reached out and grabbed it, drawing it closer to her. "What is it doing here?" She wondered as she examined the staff.

"Akko, are you still there? AKKO!"

Lotte's frantic voice drew Akko's attention away from the Shiny Rod. And the next thing she knew, she's back in the Leyline tunnel, sitting right behind Lotte on her flying broom.

"What's going on?" Akko asked, confused about what had just happened.

"The turbulence went away in an instant, which is a good thing..." Lotte explained. "But I thought you passed out, so I tried to wake you up."

Lotte is right, the turbulence is completely gone, and the flight through the Leyline became smooth again. The other witches nearby have also stopped screaming, as they all sped up in an effort to get to their destination as quickly as possible.

Akko blinked in confusion. "Did I?" She asked

"For just a few seconds, maybe...?" Lotte answered.

Not willing to stay inside the Leyline for too long, Lotte commanded her broom to fly faster, just in case another turbulence is going to happen.

Akko spent the next minute wondering if that thing with the Shiny Rod moments ago is all just a hallucination...

...Until she looked down at her lowered hands and noticed that she is really holding the Shiny Rod in her right hand.

"Huh?" Akko blinked in confusion even more.

Before Akko can wonder about it any further, she and Lotte had reached the end of the Leyline tunnel, depositing the two of them back in the real world.

This is it...

She's finally here. The school that Chariot Du Nord studied at...

Luna Nova Witchcraft Academy.

Well, thank you, Lotte, for giving Akko a free ride to Luna Nova.

You definitely noticed several differences this chapter has from the anime. For one: the turbulence in the Leyline. In the anime, the turbulence is caused by the salt in Akko's jar of pickled plums. But here the turbulence is just a natural occurrence that occurs randomly, and has nothing to do with Akko. It also served as how Akko proved herself worthy of the Shiny Rod in this fic's continuity.

Lotte's full name being Liselotte Jansson isn't entirely my idea. Some people out there believed that "Lotte" might just be a shortening for names such as Charlotte, Annelotte, or well, Liselotte. I initially didn't subscribe to this theory, but "Liselotte" sounded so nice that I decided to appropriate it for this fic.

You're probably also wondering: "Where is Sucy?" The answer is: she will be introduced in the next chapter. Why? Because I got tired of seeing LWA fics, both rewrites and AUs, where Sucy is the first person Akko meets upon arriving at the UK (or whatever other country the AU might've placed Luna Nova in). In any case, this fic is meant to be a fan remake, so of course there are going to be noticeable differences.

"And remember: a believing heart is your magic..."

Afterwords end here.