Okay, so I realized that the previous chapter is rather lackluster and disappointing after re-reading it for a bit...

To make up for that, I'll try my best to make this chapter as interesting as I can.

Yes, this chapter is probably the second time I broke my "no more Forewords" rule that I gave myself back when I was still writing Young Maiden's Chronicles: Spirit Dream.

Also, this chapter features a moment of Hannah and Barbara being absolutely abusive. As such, reader's discretion is advised.

Forewords end here.

Luna Nova Corridors

"Where are we going, Akko?" Lotte asked. "You know we can't leave the campus because of the detention..."

"We're going to see Professor Ashura." Akko, with the Shiny Rod strapped to her sash, answered, mispronouncing Ursula's name once again. "Maybe she can help answer some of the questions we had."

"The questions being?" Sucy wondered as she shuffled alongside her Coven mates.

"Diana's obsession with Shiny Rod, the Curse of Annabel Creme, the banquet with this Appleton Academy... the likes." Akko said.

"Can she actually answer any of them?" Lotte brought up a point.

Akko stopped in the middle of her tracks as she pondered the point that the Finnish girl brought up.

"Can she?" The Shiny Rod repeated Lotte's words for emphasis.

Akko turned the Rod upside down and slammed its tip on the floor. "Please don't say anything until we reach Professor Ashura..." She told it.

The Shiny Rod groaned.

"Maybe?" The Japanese girl then shrugged in response to Lotte's question. "Anyway, Professor Ashura is the only person I could possibly expect an answer fro-"

Akko froze when she saw Hannah and Barbara walking (backwards, for some reason) into view from an intersection, while also doing their usual "rich girl's laugh".

"It's those two!" Akko told her Coven mates. "Quick, hide!"

The Red Coven quickly retreated into a janitor closet nearby, not wanting to be seen by the Blue Coven bullies. Some of the other students in the corridor seems to have the same idea, as they quickly found themselves places to hide from the bullies.

"Please give it back! I beg you!" A third voice wailed from where Hannah and Barbara are walking out from.

The Red Coven slightly poked their heads out of the janitor closet (though Lotte quickly retreated back in due to her PTSD being triggered by Hannah and Barbara's presence), seeing Yang Shao-Yi of the Teal Coven confronting the Blue Coven bullies in a very worried manner.

"You call this piece of trash a gemstone~?" Hannah mocked Shao-Yi, deliberately keeping what looked like a jade gemstone out of the Chinese student's reach. "I always believed you Chinese people have low standards for beauty~!" She added before tossing the gemstone over to Barbara.

"You should learn more about what real gemstones are like from the British~!" Barbara continued with the mocking, as she also kept the gemstone out of Shao-Yi's reach. "Oh wait! You won't! Because you Chinese people are arrogant!"

"Stop it! Please!" Shao-Yi begged to no avail.

Hannah and Barbara continued to tease Shao-Yi by keeping the gemstone out of her reach, tossing it to one another from time to time. As this occurred, the other students who haven't hidden themselves from the Blue Coven bullies just stood by and watched, either not knowing how to help the Chinese student or are afraid of taking action against Hannah and Barbara (some are in fact showing PTSD similar to Lotte).

"Hey, Barbs," Hannah said to her friend with a glint in her eyes. "why don't we save Yang some trouble, and help her get rid of this piece of trash?" She then tossed the gemstone to Barbara, who caught it in her hands.

"I agree, Han~" Barbara said mischievously. "After all, there are plenty of similar 'gemstones' that can be found in Blytonbury~"

Shao-Yi's eyes widened in terror, for she knew what is about to happen. "No, please! I spent weeks searching for it!"

Barbara ignored the Chinese student's plea, as she then crushed the gemstone into tiny pieces with one hand, all while giggling gleefully about it.

"NO!" Shao-Yi cried out as she helplessly watched her gemstone getting crushed into bits.

Watching Hannah and Barbara downright abusing a fellow student like that caused Akko to boil in absolute fury. Even more so than when she met them for the first time at the day of the Matriculation Ceremony. Even Sucy has broken her indifferent demeanor and is boiling in fury at the sight of the Blue Coven bullies doing what they just did.

Barbara allowed the crushed gemstone fragments to fall off her hand onto the floor. "Oh, don't worry, Yang~" She then gloated about it.

"I'm sure you should be able to find a similar one soon enough~" Hannah gloated as well.

Then to rub salt in the would, the Blue Coven duo proceeded to step on the pile of gemstone fragments and grind the soles of their shoes against it, all while laughing about it. Once they're satisfied with their actions, they made their departure from the scene by walking down the same corridor that the Red Coven came from, with the other students instinctively getting out of their way.

The Red Coven quickly retreated back into the janitor closet as Hannah and Barbara approached their position, and only emerging after the Blue Coven duo have left the corridor.

It was a sad sight to watch. Shao-Yi knelt down before the pile of gemstone fragments, defeated and looking utterly depressed. She soon started crying about the terrible thing that she just experienced. The other students nearby pitied the Chinese student, and wished they could help her.

"Those two...!" Akko, boiling even further with fury, said. "I'm going to make them pay!" She declared.

Sucy took a vial of questionable substances out of her robes. "Let's see them keep up their usual antics after they have a literal taste of karma..." She announced.

"I would love to see them get struck by lightning..." The Shiny Rod, though not boiling with fury, agreed.

"Wait, you three!" Lotte interrupted her Coven mates and the Shiny Rod. "I know Hannah and Barbara deserved such punishment after what they did, but it shouldn't have to involve violence!"

"Weren't you also one of their victims, Annabel?" Akko brought up a point. She is too angry about Hannah and Barbara to care about the Curse of Annabel Creme.

"So much that you suffer PTSD when they so much as appears..." Sucy brought up another point. Mentally, she cringed at the fact that she just agreed with Akko, but she told herself that it isn't the point right now.

"But still..." Lotte protested, but didn't finish her sentence as she shifted her attention onto Shao-Yi, who is still crying.

Even though this isn't the first time the Finnish girl got bullied or witnessed a fellow student getting bullied, Lotte felt saddened by what Shao-Yi just went through.

Sighing, Lotte then slowly approached Shao-Yi, stopping a short distance before the Chinese student.

Shao-Yi looked up as she noticed Lotte drawing near. "What do you want, Annabel?" She asked, still crying about her predicament.

Lotte took a deep breath to calm herself, ignoring the Curse of Annabel Creme for now. She didn't want to say the wrong thing by accident and end up offending Shao-Yi in some way. "I... um... I'm sorry for what just happened to you..."

Shao-Yi wiped her tears with the sleeve of her uniform before responding, "It... wasn't your fault..."

"I know..." Lotte responded as she pulled out her wand. She then waved her wand at the pile of gemstone fragments. "Sosomme Tidiare" She chanted.

Immediately after the Finnish girl casted that spell, the gemstone fragments began to magically reassemble themselves, turning back into the gemstone that it was prior to being crushed by Barbara.

Everyone in the corridor, including Akko and Sucy, became awestruck by the sight of Lotte's spell restoring the gemstone back to perfect condition. Shao-Yi, on the other hand, picked up the gemstone and ran her fingers over it to check that it is really restored. After confirming that it is indeed real, she shed tears of joy.

"Thank you, Annabel! Thank you so much!" Shao-Yi thanked Lotte with utmost joy.

"You don't have to..." Lotte said meekly. "I'm just doing the right thing."

With that, Lotte quickly departed from the scene, dragging Akko with her toward the direction of the New Moon Tower.

"Some day, those two Blue meanies are going to have to pay for their behavior!" Akko is heard muttering before she disappeared down the corridor along with Lotte.

"Yang Shao-Yi, is it?" Sucy, still holding the vial of questionable substance, approached the Chinese student. "Word of advice: put your precious belongings where nobody will be able to see them." She advised. "I speak from experience..."

...

New Moon Tower

After that close encounter with Hannah and Barbara, and then fixing what they did to Shao-Yi, Akko and Lotte arrived at Ursula's office at the New Moon Tower without a hitch. Sucy joined them about a minute later.

"I just can't believe those two..." Akko recalled what she saw Hannah and Barbara did moments ago. "The fact that they haven't been expelled, or even given detention yet is just unbelievable..."

"Luna Nova seems pretty... biased..." Sucy voiced her opinion. "After all, we only learned just yesterday that Professor Finneran is..."

"Being biased. The one thing about human civilization that never goes away..." The Shiny Rod commented.

Akko recalled how, right after Broom Flying Class the other day, the Purple Team seems to be overcome with fear when Diana confronted them for badmouthing her. And then there's the gossip she heard from the other students before Fortune Telling Class in another day about how getting rejected by the Shiny Rod will teach Diana a lesson for being a bully (even though the truth isn't really about bullying). At first, Akko didn't understand why her fellow students in both of those instances reacted so.

Looking back, she now understood that it was all because of Hannah and Barbara...

"It's fine, everyone..." Lotte said. "I don't even care about the 'why' anymore..."

"Well, I still care about the 'why'!" Akko declared. "And that's the reason I decided to come talk to Professor Ashura in the first place!" Saying that, Akko then approached the door to Ursula's office, and in her impetuousness, forgot to knock first as she twisted the doorknob and opened the door - Ursula had apparently forgotten to lock the door this time. "Professor Ashura, I have many things to a-"

The Japanese girl paused mid-sentence upon realizing that she had barged in while Ursula is in the middle of a video call with someone - using an actual laptop instead of a crystal ball.

Ursula yelped in surprise as she quickly turned around to face Akko. "Mon dieu! You surprised me, Akko!" The blue-haired professor exclaimed before turning back to her laptop. "Je reviens tout de suite!" She said to whoever she just had a video call with, before hastily closing the lid of her laptop.

"I'm so sorry!" Akko quickly bowed apologetically.

Ursula took a deep breath to calm herself down before asking, "What brings you here today? You even brought Miss Manbavaran and Miss Creme alo-" The blue-haired professor paused in confusion. "Hang on, why am I calling Miss Creme...?!"

Akko immediately face-palmed. "Not you too, Professor Ashura?!"

Ursula, apparently aware that she shouldn't be calling Lotte "Miss Creme" and is confused by why she just did, coughed into her hands before continuing. "Is that why you came to me for?"

"Actually, that is just one of many things I need to talk to you about..." Akko told Ursula. "It's going to be a very long story, so we're going to need a few cups of tea while we're at them..."

Here it is, a chapter that is a major improvement from the disappointing trash that is the previous chapter (in my opinion, at least). Red Coven chatting with Ursula was originally going to be the second half of this chapter, but I have delayed this chapter for too long (in my opinion) and so had to leave it for the next chapter instead.

If you've pitied Hannah and Barbara after Akko successfully deflected their French insult a few chapters earlier, I guess this chapter would make you want to retract that pity, and keelhaul them into a black hole without spacesuits. Yes, those two are just that bad in this story's universe. That said, am I a bit mean to Shao-Yi by having her get bullied by Hannah and Barbara here?

So it seems that like Akko, Ursula is fully aware that she shouldn't be calling Lotte "Miss Creme". I wonder why...?

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

Afterwords end here.