It's been a long, long time since I last updated anything here on Fanfiction Dot Net, no thanks to dumb government censorship...
Much of the chapters from this one onwards are first posted on AO3. As such, their Afterwords are written in correspondence to my state of mind and what was going on in real life at the time they were first posted.
Finneran's Office; Luna Nova
Getting a face-to-face with Professor Finneran in her office is the worst nightmare of every student in Luna Nova, and there are never any exceptions due to how strict and unforgiving she can be. Not helping anyone's case is the fact that Professor Finneran also happened to be Luna Nova's Deputy Headmistress, which meant that the only person in the entire academy who can outright veto her (usually harsh for the students) decisions is Headmistress Holbrooke, who just so happens to going to be off-campus for the whole day...
"Why is it, when something happens, it's always you three?!"
Professor Finneran sat, with her arms folded, behind her desk, as she interrogated the Green Coven, who were just busted for committing an offence while in Blytonbury.
Akko, who stood alongside Lotte and Sucy a small distance behind the Green Coven, dared not to make any sound due to just how angry Finneran is about what the Green Coven girls did.
"What did I do again?" Amanda, who either couldn't read the atmosphere or didn't care, asked a rhetoric question sarcastically with her arms behind her head.
For a brief moment, Constanze glared at the redhead, and let out a grunt, which given the current situation could be interpreted as "Not helping!"
"You know what I'm talking about, Miss O'Neil!" Finneran said. "And to think it would the the police, of all people, catching you and your Coven doing that!"
"Hey!" Amanda retorted. "It ain't my fault that the goddamn officer parked his cruiser right in the middle of our racetrack!"
That earned Amanda an elbow jab from Constanze, who followed it with an angry grunt.
"So what?! I just broke a side mirror, while you managed to shear an entire door off of it with your...hoverbike!" Amanda argued with Constanze, somehow able to interpret the short German's grunts as full sentences.
Constanze answered with yet another angry grunt.
"You wanted to outfly me?" Amanda snorted. "Come on, everyone in Luna Nova knows that nothing can outfly my one-of-a-kind Shooti-"
"Enough!" Finneran interrupted. "Amanda O'Neil, Constanze Albrechtsberger! For participating in unauthorized broom racing and causing property damage, the two of you will be serving your detentions by washing the faerie workers' bath tonight and tomorrow night!"
Amanda tilted her head quizzically at the sentence she just received. "That's it? Just two nights?"
"Unless you want it extended for a week." Finneran added.
Amanda gulped, intimidated by the deputy headmistress's warning. "Uh, yes, ma'am..."
Finneran then turned toward Jasminka, who stood next to her Coven mates, looking all indifferent as she casually munched on her bag of chips.
"Jasminka Antonenko! Even though you did not participate in O'Neil and Albrechtsberger's offence, you will be serving detention with them as well!" Finneran told the chubby Russian girl.
"Aw..." Jasminka said, deflated as she stopped eating and lowered her bag of chips.
Wow, that's harsh... Akko thought.
With that, the Green Coven stepped aside.
"Miss Kagari. Miss Manbavaran. Miss Creme..." Finneran called out to the Red Coven, as it is their turn to be interrogated.
Akko gulped hard, as she and her Coven mates stepped forward. Lotte, on the other hand, is saddened by the fact that the deputy headmistress just called her "Miss Creme" instead of "Miss Jansson". Meanwhile, Sucy still looked as indifferent as ever.
"Does the three of you know what I called you over for?" Finneran began with her interrogation.
Akko really don't have an answer for that, and neither does her Coven mates. "To be sincerely honest, professor, I have no idea."
Finneran turned her stare at Akko into a glare. "According to one of the troll janitors, a huge burst of magic energy erupted from your dormitory moments before you three left for the town." She informed. "Care to explain what that was?"
Akko blinked. There was definitely no burst of magic energy when she was still in the dorm this morning. Did something happen there after she and her friends left?
"I'm afraid I can't, professor..." Akko nervously explained.
Finneran maintained her glare at Akko, who despite being unable to read the atmosphere, can tell that the deputy headmistress is not satisfied with the answer.
"I swear, professor!" Akko, even more nervously than before, plead.
Sucy just responded with a shrug, while Lotte didn't even respond as she is still thinking about the Annabel Creme situation.
Finneran still isn't satisfied with the answer. "Atsuko Kagari, Sucy Manbavaran..." She emphasized, then paused as she laid her eyes on Lotte. "...Annabel Creme. For your lack of responsibilities about something so powerful and potentially dangerous, you three will be serving detention alongside the Green Coven."
Akko stammered. She knew deep down that it was unfair for Finneran to give her and her friends detention for something they don't even know happened. "What?!" She protested. "Detention for that?! That is so-"
"I suggest you shut your mouth, muggle-born, or you will be serving detentions for a month." Finneran warned.
Akko stopped without uttering another word.
Meanwhile, Amanda who watched the whole session with the Red Coven, raised an eyebrow at just why Finneran gave the Red Coven detention, and what the deputy headmistress just called Akko...
...
Faerie worker's bathroom
"これはとても不公平です!" Akko loudly complained in her native tongue as she kicked a water bucket over, spilling the dirty water all over the (admittedly already dirty) floor.
"Akko..." Lotte tried to calm her Japanese friend down, while Wispy sat on top of her head, providing illumination in the room.
"This is so unfair!" Akko complained again. "Detention for something we didn't even know about?! What is with that old hag!"
"Yes, unfair in that we weren't even told what happened..." Sucy commented, as she lazily pushed a mop back and forth across the dirty floor.
Akko then punched the wall of a troll bathtub in order to vent her frustration. Having forgotten the super strength she has as a witch, her fist ended up punching a hole clean through the bathtub, which is widened when she then clumsily pulled her hand out.
"Hey, would you mind?" Amanda, who is cleaning the inside of the troll bathtub along with Constanze and Jasminka, looked out through the hole and called out to Akko. "Thing's already pretty bad for us! Don't make it worse!"
"I'm sorry! It's just-" Akko fumed.
"It's alright. I can relate to you." Amanda said before casting a spell to fix the hole. Then she climbed up the bathtub and sat at the top of it. "Not me personally, but I know some girls who had received unfair punishments from Professor Bitch Face before." She continued. "Like how in the previous semester, she gave the whole Purple Coven detention because Blair pulled an all-nighter surfing a dating website, even though Avery and Mary are already asleep..."
"That is unfair." Sucy pointed out.
"And then you probably noticed how Jasminka got detention with us even though she didn't broom-race..." Amanda added. "The point is, Finneran's a major pain in the ass, and everyone hates her because of that."
That got Akko to calm down with a sigh. "Does the magical world hate me?" She lamented.
"The magical world doesn't hate you." Amanda reassured. "It's Finneran who does..." She suddenly went sour as she continued.
Sucy seemed to raise her nonexistent eyebrows upon hearing that.
"Professor Finneran hates me?" Akko is confused by the statement.
"I saw that Bitch Face as many things. Cranky old hag, cringe boomer, control freak, one who follows the rule books to a T... basically anything that makes an unlikable person unlikable..." Amanda, still sour about what she has in mind, explained. "But I never saw her as a goddamn bigot until now..."
Akko still don't understand what she just heard. "I don't follo-"
"She is implying that Professor Finneran gave us detention not specifically because of whatever that happened in our dorm," Sucy suddenly spoke up. Her usual indifferent expression gone, replaced by that of tranquil anger. "but because you're a muggle-born, Akko..."
Akko widened her eyes in reaction to what the pale Filipino just told her. "Because I'm muggle-born... just because my parents are Muggles?!"
"These kind of people do exist..." Sucy stated. "I'm speaking from experience..."
"Finneran called you a muggle-born, Akko, when she threatened to worsen your detention for talking back at her." Amanda pointed out. "If that isn't her being a bigot, then I don't know what is."
"What was it that you were saying about Professor Finneran?" A familiar English-accented voice suddenly spoke from the direction of the entrance of the baths.
Everyone turned toward the entrance to see who it was.
"What do you want, Cabbage?" Amanda greeted. "You still trying to mask your Scottish heritage by pretending to be English?"
Diana, with a pixie-powered lamp in her right hand, stepped inside. "My heritage has nothing to do with the topic I'm bringing with me, O'Neil." Diana responded. "I was asked by Deputy Headmistress Finneran to... supervise you all in your detention..."
"Why did she ask you, of all people, to supervise us?" Amanda said. "Because you're her ideal Little Miss Perfect?"
Diana flipped her hair before responding, "I did ask her that question myself. She said it was because I am the most reliable student this academy has ever seen." She then turned her head to the side and softly muttered to herself, "However, Professor Nelson claimed it was because the academy don't have enough staff for the job..."
The ace student's soft muttering still ended up being loud enough for everyone to hear (or perhaps it's her voice echoing thorough the bathroom). However, nobody paid any attention to it beyond Amanda raising her eyebrows.
"In any case," Diana continued. "I believe it is my duty to assist the faculty of this academy when I am asked..."
"Did she say anything about a 'muggle-born' when asking you?" Akko suddenly interrupted.
Diana raised her eyebrows when she heard that. "I beg your pardon?"
"Apparently, O'Neil believes that the deputy headmistress is biased against muggle-borns such as Akko..." Sucy clarified.
"That Bitch Face gave Red Coven detention not because they got into any trouble, but simply because Akko's a muggle-born." Amanda followed up.
Diana took a few seconds to process what she just heard. She then dismissed all of it with a shush. "That is preposterous. Someone in a professional position will never act like that."
"You've been in Luna Nova for like how long? One week?" Amanda pointed out.
"Whatever point you are trying to raise won't change my mind, O'Neil." Diana said. "Now, as I am required as supervisor to make sure you all are serving your detentions-"
"You're gonna report to Finneran if we're lazing off. Yeah, we get it, Cabbage." Amanda finished Diana's sentence with a mocking tone. "Come on, ladies, let's get back to work." She then told the other girls before jumping back into the troll bathtub.
With that, Akko and her friends went back to work. Or rather, Akko tried to, as the thought of Finneran being biased against her muggle heritage prevented her from being able to focus. Her mop remained in her hands, completely motionless as she stood where she is.
"Do you require assistance, Kagari?" Diana asked strictly as she noticed Akko's lack of motion.
That jolted Akko out of her deep thought. "する必要はありません。 I mean, no need to..." Akko answered with an uncharacteristic scowl as she started mopping the floor of the bathroom.
The Red and Green Covens, under Diana's supervision, served their detention and did their work in relative silence (aside from the sound of Constanze deploying whatever gizmo she has to clean the inside of the troll bathtub).
"It was her..." Sucy broke the silence a few minutes into the work.
"Huh?" Both Akko and Lotte wondered out loud what Sucy meant.
"It was the cabbage head who went to our dorm in the morning, just moments after we left it, and before meeting her at the campus entrance..." Sucy clarified.
Diana raised her eyebrows at Sucy's accusation, but said nothing.
"How can you tell?" Lotte asked.
"You two probably can't smell it, but Cavendish right now reeks of the smell of the special fertilizer I feed to my mandragoras..." Sucy explained to her Coven mates. "I didn't put said fertilizer anywhere but in our dorm, so that leaves only one possibility, and maybe even explain what exactly was the burst of magical energy Finneran mentioned..."
At that moment, Diana, who seems to have heard the pale Filipino, put her right hand to her nose, which caused her to reel in disgust and mumble that she should take a bath as soon as she gets back to her dorm.
"Well, Cavendish can smell it..." Sucy commented on the ace student's reaction. "Anyway, I now have a hunch on what exactly happened..."
Hearing that, Akko and Lotte both moved toward Sucy, and leaned in as she started telling them...
"Cavendish went to our dorm moments after we left in the morning, presumably to have another shot at taking the Shiny Rod for herself..."
...
Red Coven's dorm
Earlier that morning...
Diana waited for all three members of the Red Coven leave their dorm before making her move.
With nobody to see her doing it, the ace student used telekinesis magic to open the door and then close it behind her after entering the dorm so as to not leave her fingerprints on the doorknob. With that done, she turned to face the inside of the dorm and the prize she came for.
The Claiomh Solais, known by its current owner as the Shiny Rod, currently laying flat on the desk.
"Have you come after me again, Descendant of Beatrix?" The Shiny Rod said.
Diana made no response, as she slowly made her way toward the rod, stopping before the desk where it laid. The ace student hesitated for a moment before extending a hand forward to grab the rod.
As with before, the attempt is met with Diana receiving a shock from the rod rejecting her. The pain from the shock caused her to retract her hand.
"You are still not worthy of wielding me, Descendant of Beatrix." The Shiny Rod told her.
Diana's face formed a scowl. "Why? What about Kagari made her worthy of wielding you?!" She asked. "Because she wasn't actively looking for you?"
"Because she has the determination necessary in obtaining the Seven Stars of Jennifer the Great." The Shiny Rod answered bluntly.
Diana cast a resilience spell on herself and reached her hand out to grab the rod again. This time, she held on as the resilience spell allowed her to resist the shock from being rejected.
The Shiny Rod countered that by increasing the intensity of the rejection shock, just enough to overwhelm the resilience spell and cause Diana to let go.
"My goal is to restore the name and honor of my family, and I strive to be the best of the best in order to achieve it!" Diana, having momentarily slipped out of her faked English accent and back into her natural Scottish, declared with even more anguish than before. "Is that not determination?! Was that not enough determination?!"
"I said determination, and so did Jennifer the Great." The rod then told her. "What you, Descendant of Beatrix, is showing is not determination. It is in fact, obsession."
Diana gritted her teeth. Refusing to accept what she was told, she cast the resilience spell on herself again, this time overclocking it to the point of instability, and then made a third attempt at grabbing the Shiny Rod.
The ace student powered through the more intense rejection shock thanks to the overclocked resilience spell, although she appears to still be struggling as she lifted the rod off the desk.
Seeing the lengths that Diana is willing to cross, the Shiny Rod had no choice but to fight fire with fire by overclocking the rejection shock as well.
What happens next is a prime example of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, as the clashing of the overclocked resilience spell and the overclocked rejection shock caused a huge explosion of magic energy that blew Diana off her feet, sending her flying into a rack of Sucy's potted mandragoras, spilling the contents of every pot all over her. The mandragoras weren't screaming upon being released due to having been knocked out by the magic explosion.
"Diana Reinhardt-Cavendish..." The Shiny Rod said with utmost worry. "Your obsession... terrifies me..."
Diana stood up, her left hand hanging limp as a result of taking the full brunt of the overclocked rejection shock and the magic explosion. She stared at the Shiny Rod with absolute fury.
"You will never be worthy unless you mend your family issues..."
In response to what the Shiny Rod told her, Diana let out a growl before turning to leave the Red Coven's dorm, but not without using magic to clean up the mess that she inadvertently caused.
...
Faerie workers' bathroom
Right now...
"And that is what I believe to have happened this morning..." Sucy said as she finished her theory.
Akko then took a glance at Diana, giving the ace student an accusatory stare.
"Diana, did you really...?" Akko questioned.
"I will neither confirm nor deny it." Diana answered bluntly. "Now, Kagari, I suggest that you along with Manbavaran and Creme-" Diana paused and seemed to gasp for a bit, but quickly recovered and went back on track. "I suggest that the three of you get back to your work, as I am required to report all your progress to the deputy headmistress..."
Realizing that Diana basically just threatened to tell Finneran that they aren't serving their detention, the Red Coven quickly went back to work, swiping their mops across the floor so rapidly that they could've peeled the floor tiles off.
The fact that Diana tried to do something so irrational would keep Akko thinking about it for the rest of the night (that along with how to save Lotte from the Curse of Annabel Creme)...
Huh, Diana became so obsessed with the Shiny Rod that she did something as irrational as breaking into the Red Coven's dorm, tries to take the rod by force (and overclocking a spell to do so), and then not taking responsibility when the resulting explosion of magic energy was brought to Finneran's attention. Does it have something to do with her "family issues"?
Speaking of Finneran, it turns out that she actually is biased against Akko being a muggle-born! That's a step up from how she is in canon!
Summing up everything so far, it looks like we've got ourselves not one, not two, but three subplots right now: the Annabel Creme situation, Finneran being biased against Akko's muggle heritage, and Diana's being unworthy of the Shiny Rod. Hmm, this is getting more complicated by the time, especially since I have another subplot coming right up in the next chapter...
You probably noticed that I wrote Diana's full name as "Diana Reinhardt-Cavendish". In case you don't know, that's a reference to Omaomae's Mending Hearts series, where Diana's father's surname is Reinhardt. I've only read Heart of Iron and Heart of Steel as of this writing, but it is a good read, and you should give it a try!
"Just remember: a believing heart is your magic..."
Afterwords end here.