Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 28: Encouraged To Pursue A Dream! The Princess Burns Parmanie! Sara and Risa's Caring Bond That Can't Be Broken & The Cherished Sunglasses!
Risa's POV
After talking to my teammates about the great experiences that I had with Master Sara, my happy smile slowly started to change into being a frown that displayed the feeling of sadness. I felt that there weren't many good times left for me to discuss with my team, especially since Master Sara and I had to deal with the fact that one of our most amazing days together merely happened before the day where my life completely changed in a horrible way. The thought of talking about that great day before discussing the events where Parmanie Town was destroyed really made me narrow my cherry red eyes, as I remembered how that fantastic day of happiness came before I saw pink flames of horror.
I began to widen my eyes in a fearful manner from remembering the screams on that fateful day, the sight of pink flames being in my memory while they burned several houses in Parmanie down to the ground, and my body started trembling from hearing the wicked laughter of the royals who set the town ablaze. Their fires had caused several people to get killed, before they used Psychic Magic to eliminate the individuals who attempted to flee, and only the people who willingly followed the orders of the royals or defeated one of them would be able to survive.
My eyes began to be filled with more fear and discomfort from how I even remembered that some kids ended up dying at the hands of the royals, as well as some parents who couldn't fulfill the demands of the royal villains, and seeing some children be brutally defeated by blasts of Psychic Magic caused tears to start welling up in my eyes. I really didn't want to cry right now, but seeing those kids be harmed when I was only nine years old had really made me immensely be protective back in Yamabuki Town when that priestess was about to kill a boy.
Speaking of being protective, I could never forget how Master Sara ran out of Parmanie Town with me by her side while we both seemed very eager to get away from that place. The original town of Parmanie had been destroyed, before the royals would rebuild most of it in their own image to display how powerful and rich they were, but Master Sara thought that it would be a fantastic idea for us to run into the forest as a way of going up that mountain path to Yamabuki Town. We never made it up to the top of the mountain path, however, and the image of Master Sara placing her sunglasses on my forehead as she died under the sky's pouring rain made tears begin to fall from my eyes to touch the hands of my friends.
"Risa, what are you remembering?" Lucy asked me with a concerned look on her face, as she quickly glanced up from the tears that landed on her hand.
I replied to her with a saddened facial expression, as I thought about Master Sara's smile before she died, "When Parmanie burned to the ground, Master Sara tried her best to protect me from the royals. One of the eventual queens killed her, and I... I couldn't do anything to save her!"
Rogue told me in a calm tone, as his face showed hardly any emotion, "You don't have to start talking about that part of your trauma now, Risa. Instead, you should probably inform us of how things were fine before they became horrible."
Rogue's suggestion caused me to wipe away some of the tears with my right hand, and my left hand was still firmly placed on the table while I felt glad that he didn't want me to immediately discuss something that made me feel so much sadness. That prompted me to think about the last prominent event where I was very happy with Master Sara, and I exhaled a soft breath of air while trying to calm my mind down. I began to recall thoughts in my mind about pink fireworks, which were some beautiful fireworks that were usually shot up into the air for great celebrations.
Those particular pink fireworks brightened up the night sky above Parmanie Town, and they were meant to celebrate the birthday of an important person. That individual hopefully had a great birthday, as it would unfortunately be their last one before the evil royals took over, and their birthday simply required the residents of Parmanie to be outside for the festivities. The celebration had been fun for everyone, including me, and it had been great to also see Master Sara feeling immense enjoyment. We had fun on that night, especially when we got to see fireworks burst over the castle.
Being in front of the castle with Master Sara had made me think about what it would be like for me to be a princess, and she even supported that dream when I wasn't being serious about it. The thought of me being a princess was something that I merely perceived to be an unachievable dream, since I wasn't exactly a rich or royal child when I lived in Parmanie Town, and I always believed that only a privileged person with powerful magic could be a princess. However, any attempt to refuse Master Sara's support were refuted by her telling me to believe in myself. That was similar to what Master Sting told me on the morning of the day where I had my very first battle against mages, too.
"Start telling us about the day before everything went to hell for you, Risa." Master told me with a stern look on his face, as he slightly narrowed his blue eyes at me for being silent.
That prompted me to sigh softly and respond with a small frown on my face, as I couldn't keep my friends from knowing everything that happened, "All right, Master. I'll tell you about the night with the fireworks and the celebration. In fact, talking about this night makes me feel a bit embarrassed by my childhood self."
"Did you ask the cashier at the fashion store if they'd stay open past midnight for you to pick out some clothes?" Master asked me with a snarky look appearing on his face, as he started to jokingly look at me.
I responded with a slightly irritated look on my face, "No, Master. You'd just think I had very stupid ambitions back then."
After all, how could Master or any of my other friends even believe in me as much as Master Sara did about my dream? I hadn't exactly proven myself to be a great leader on missions, since today's tense fight against Miru and Shizue really showed me that I still needed to have a team of people to help me fight against powerful enemies, and I still had many things to learn. Being more of a rookie in Sabertooth than Lucy meant that I still needed more knowledge and experience, so I felt like my teammates would rudely tease me for once wanting to be the princess or queen of Parmanie.
However, my mind started to think back to the fact that Master Sara didn't laugh at me when I told her that I had the desire to be a princess. She was so encouraging with her kind words, even to the point where I wanted to cry from how she gave me so much confidence, and her motivational speech even showed me how Master Sara was always awesome. Even on that fateful day after the celebration, Master Sara didn't stop fighting like a truly awesome person until she died. Master Sara was so amazing, especially with her reaction to the celebration.
It had been Master Sara's very first time even hearing about the event, which really made me feel stunned, but I started to exhale a calm sigh from thinking about how she would share Master Sting's feelings about how that particular night needed to be discussed with my friends. The night of the celebration had seemed to be a typical event for me, since I had experienced it before, but seeing Master Sara be so delighted by it really caused me to feel very happy. Since she viewed the celebration as something to talk about while it had been happening, I softly smiled at how I'd let my friends listen to me start to speak about it.
-Risa's flashback to ten years ago, at the night of the festival- (Narrator POV)
Sara smiled happily from hearing some fireworks explode in the air while tonight was when a joyous celebration would occur, and the residents of Parmanie Town would always partake in the festivities that pertained to how the princess of Parmanie wanted to have a fancy festival as her birthday present every single year. Sara actually had a pink gift box in her right hand while she wanted to give the princess a smaller present, and she walked down one of the town's streets with Risa by her side for them to go towards the castle.
Risa calmly smiled while seeing the pink fireworks start to burst around the castle, her cherry red eyes starting to be filled with happiness from how some fireworks even exploded to create the shapes of pink hearts that made pink glitter of Psychic Magic gently descend to the ground, and getting to share this experience with Sara made Risa feel happy that this particular night transpired every single year. Risa wanted to enjoy all of the festivities with her new mother, especially the festivities of eating some of the more delicious delicacies of Parmanie that the princess ordered to be sold at low prices to the townspeople, and Risa also felt joy from noticing the fashion sales that occurred in some clothing stores tonight.
Risa currently wore a fuchsia blouse with two light pink orbs at the bottom of it, and the fuchsia blouse matched the rose pink skirt that complimented Risa's hot pink knee-high boots. She liked following Sara's idea of looking quite stylish for the festival, especially since Sara wore a magenta pink tube top that exposed her stomach, and Sara also wore some light pink flat shoes that went well with her long plaid skirt that was in a cerise shade of pink. There were some light pink crescent moons on all sides of her skirt, and Sara's outfit was definitely fashionable.
In fact, her outfit was probably as fashionable as the gift that she purchased from Parmanie Fashions for the princess. Sara only bought it for her as a way of pleasing the royals, since they didn't like anyone who was even suspected to be using magenta magic, and making the rude members of Parmanie Town's royalty be a slight bit happy could probably make them show Sara some leniency for adopting Risa. Sara glanced down at Risa while they approached the castle, giving her a motherly and caring smile, and she got to see Risa gasp in a happy manner after seeing many fireworks in different shades of pink burst above the castle to create the impression of fireworks being within a larger firework.
"Sara, look! Those fireworks look so beautiful! The princess is so lucky that this is all for her to enjoy, Sara, and I wish I could rule over a place someday!" Risa told Sara with an excited facial expression, ignoring how there were no magenta fireworks while some ambition was faintly in her eyes.
That prompted Sara to nicely reply to Risa, as she playfully touched on a sweet thought, "Well, at least I got the royals a gift on my first time seeing this. Although, Risa, the best celebration will truly be the one where you officially become Parmanie's new princess."
Risa asked Sara in an extremely stunned manner, shocked at her words, "Sara, you didn't even attend Parmanie Town's festival as a tourist? Wait... is the first thing you said seriously true to where you followed it up with something totally crazy?"
Sara began to frown with a look of curiosity on her face from wondering what was so weird about thinking that Risa would someday become a princess, and the two females stood across from the castle with other people as small fireworks began to burst over the castle's brown drawbridge. As some people placed their wrapped gifts on the drawbridge for a servant to come out of the castle and start picking up, Sara let go of Risa's hand for a moment to show her something. She pulled out a small fuchsia box from the left pocket of her skirt, and Sara handed it to Risa for her to be able to give the princess a little present that could be an immensely fashionable gift.
Risa gently took the pink square lid the box for a moment to see that Sara's second present was a fuchsia necklace, the necklace beads seeming like they were made in a different town, and Risa wondered if Parmanie Fashions imported items for the birthday celebration pertaining to the princess. Risa's stunned expression started to become a look of doubt from not having the immense amount of confidence to believe that she'd ever actually be a princess, and the society of Parmanie Town had separated poorer people from achieving dreams that the royals personally made to exist in reality for themselves.
The hierarchy of Parmanie Town seemed to be absolutely unchangeable, as a person who was poor could never become a person who had a royal title, and Risa simply had a saddened look on her face. She frowned with doubt and small tears in her eyes while placing her present on the drawbridge, prompting Sara to go put her gift on top of someone's larger present, and Risa proceeded to run away from the drawbridge to go into a part of the nearby forest. Sara ran after her with a concerned facial expression, seeing Risa apply Psychic Magic to her feet for her to quickly reach a somewhat distant tree, and seeing Risa start to cry behind that tree made Sara wonder why she was now feeling upset during this festival.
"Risa, what's wrong?" Sara asked her with a worried facial expression, as she quickly caught up to her.
Risa explained to Sara with the doubtful look on her face replacing her earlier happiness, her hands pressing against both sides of the tree, "Master Sara, I can only dream of being a princess. That's not something I can actually do, since I'm not one of the privileged people! Even if I learn Psychic Magic and train so hard to be as strong as them, becoming a princess may be pointless against people who have natural talent! They probably have other types of magic, too, and wanting to be powerful with only Psychic Magic puts me below royal people! Master Sara, I can only be fashionable because it's stupid to think I'll be a princess! In fact, it's pointless because privileged girls make me seem like such a loser!"
"You're right, Risa. All your effort with Psychic Magic is pointless and stupid, if you refuse to believe in yourself." Sara replied to Risa in a stern tone, narrowing her eyes while her words made Risa gasp and widen her eyes in shock.
Sara continued on while beginning to softly and nicely smile at Risa, "We're very alike, kid. You see, I used to be a loser who only wielded Psychic Magic when I was your age."
That prompted Risa to turn around to ask in a shocked manner, as she wiped away her tears, "What?! Master Sara, you were a loser?!"
"Yes, Risa. However, I became as strong as that woman named Ur and got even stronger than any S-Class wizards who I had to defeat. Risa, I became strong through training hard. It sounds like you want to be a strong mage and a fashionable princess with your Psychic Magic, even if you're not as privileged as other girls. Risa, I think that's a wonderful goal and one worth sticking to." Sara explained to Risa with a calm smile on her face, before smiling proudly to where tears of happiness welled up in Risa's eyes.
Sara added with an encouraging smile on her face, as she looked at Risa with happiness in her eyes, "Don't let anything take you off the path you're creating for yourself, Risa. Go all the way to the end of it! Be everything that you can be! Do everything that you desire to do, and make me proud! Show me how you cool you are, Risa!"
The older woman's motivational words caused Risa to reply in an emotional manner, as she hugged her and cried tears of happiness, "Sara... I mean, Master Sara! Yes, I'll do that! Master Sara... thank you!"
Sara hugged back while smiling, gently rubbing Risa's back to comfort her, and she was glad to be a good mother who could also be a great motivator. Sara felt happy that she could persuade Risa to follow her dreams, not wanting her to ever surrender her dreams to the feelings of doubt, and she wanted Risa to live a life with many accomplishments that would make her experience happiness several times. As Risa ended the hug to wipe away her tears again, she began to have a small smile on her face. Sara told her some great things that she really needed to hear, and Risa wouldn't let anything prevent her dreams or desires from coming true.
Being in the forest made Risa widen her eyes from realizing that she was making Sara miss out on desiring to have a fun time during the town's festivities, so Risa ran back to the pink street as fast as she could. Sara followed Risa all the way back to the part of the street that was in front of the castle's drawbridge, and they got to see a woman with long light pink hair picking up the last five gifts to bring them into the castle. Her hair had two ahoges on top, which were simply two locks of hair, and two bangs framed her face. The servant also wore a hot pink blazer with a light pink plaid shirt underneath it, and some rose pink goggles were positioned on her forehead while they went well with her rose pink leather boots.
As Risa smiled nicely at the woman's fashion choices and proceeded to walk back down the street to get some food, Sara had curiosity in her eyes at the sudden sight of a guy with messy light pink hair who came out of the castle with a brown piece of paper that resembled a wanted poster. She closed her eyes to silently activate a basic spell of Psychic Magic that was known as Mind Entry Psi, and a light pink aura of Psychic Magic engulfed her left hand. When the man who wore a pink tuxedo turned to the left side while reading the poster, Sara quickly aimed her left hand towards him for the aura to go straight towards its target. It quickly hit him without causing any pain, the fast-moving spell not being noticed by how the beautiful fireworks distracted people such as Cordelia, and Sara blinked her fuchsia eyes four times in rapid succession to make herself look at the paper through the eyes of that man.
Upon seeing what he was looking at, Sara widened her eyes in pure shock as she softly gasped in a worried manner. That person was viewing a wanted poster that featured Sara winking and smiling, the poster having a bounty of 400,000 jewels as a reward for whoever found Sara Hoshiakari dead or alive, and that poster seemed to be making Sara be perceived as a dark mage. That was most likely due to how Astral Extrasensory, the guild that two mages founded in Sara's hometown, was ordered by the Magic Council to disband while Sara had heard a few rumors of some former mages being captured. Sara wasn't going to get caught tonight, and she definitely couldn't tell Risa that she was originally in an illegal guild. Sara didn't want the royals questioning Risa, though, so she tried to look as calm as possible while applying Psychic Magic to her feet. Not only would she catch up to Risa for them to have fun together during this festival, but Sara's eyes showed some determination from not wanting Risa to ever be in danger.
The next evening, at Sara's house...
As Sara placed a fuchsia plate of spicy sushi rolls on the table for Risa to start eating her dinner, she started thinking about ways for the young girl to prepare herself for a situation where they would be separated. Sara hated the idea of Risa being alone again, especially after how her life became so much better after Sara decided to take care of her, and Sara began to have a disappointed look in her eyes from how Risa was someone who really filled a void in her life that had occurred after her biological daughter's death. If Sara were to lose another daughter, then she'd probably feel more despair than she could even imagine.
Sara maintained her saddened facial expression while sitting down in the chair that was beside Risa, proceeding to slowly eat the spicy sushi rolls and fried squids that were on her own fuchsia plate, and she hoped that running away with Risa would be possible. They could probably flee from Parmanie to the nearby town of Yamabuki, since Sara could take down any of the people who were rumored to be religious fanatics that attacked people for not obeying them or refusing to share their beliefs, and Sara felt like she could also use her money to get Risa and herself to a faraway town in Fiore.
That great plan made Sara exhale a small sigh of relief, before she continued to eat her food, and Sara also thought about how she could quickly pack away all of her books pertaining to the magenta shade of Psychic Magic that was so feared by the royals of Parmanie. She decided to finish her food at a fast pace to take care of that matter right now, but a sudden knock at the front door made Sara gasp in a surprised manner. She wasn't expecting Cordelia to stop by for a visit right now, and the day for paying rent money to the royals was tomorrow. Whoever was at the door would get asked some questions to satisfy Sara's feelings of worry and curiosity, so she headed to the front door while motioning with her right hand for Risa to go away. Risa applied a small bit of Psychic Magic to her feet, running away at a fast pace, and she started to look concerned while Sara's footsteps softly went towards the front door.
After quickly reaching the front door and hastily turning around to make sure that Risa wasn't behind her, Sara opened the front door to see that the woman who was getting gifts off the drawbridge was now at her doorstep with the man who wore the pink tuxedo. There was an unfamiliar woman standing behind them, and Sara lightly brushed aside the empty shopping bag from the day of Risa's ninth birthday while she simply saw that the woman's long hair was in the shade of hot pink. The woman began to frown at Sara in a somewhat displeased manner, as the sight of her magenta pink hair was perceived negatively, and Sara's curious facial expression made her groan in a frustrated manner to where her male friend decided to calmly explain the situation.
"It looks like the rumors are true, Sara Hoshiakari. You're one of the more prominent mages formerly belonging to the Astral Extrasensory guild that was disbanded by the Magic Council, and you've been hiding out in the town of Parmanie for nearly two years now. You dark mages were thinking that you could illegally take jobs to help people and even defeat enemies that officially had to be taken down by wizards from other guilds, and you've personally committed several of those crimes with the magenta variation of your Psychic Magic." The man with messy hair explained with a stern frown on his face, before the woman wearing the goggles stepped in front of him.
She told Sara with a calm facial expression while pulling out a brown piece of paper from the left pocket of her skirt, "Sara, don't even try to say that the magenta magic isn't yours. The Magic Council's file on you says you're the only wizard in Fiore who uses it to get all your money. Speaking of money, we're here to collect your rent money now as the new evening ordinance in Parmanie Town officially takes effect. We've increased it to 200,000 jewels, so pay up or that's another crime to consider before we possibly choose to not handle this peacefully."
Sara refuted her words in a stern manner, her eyes widening in disbelief, "Wait, only the princess is allowed to make ordinances be official in Parmanie! Last night must've been really busy for her in the castle, since she didn't even come outside! Also, I've only heard that the princess can give out orders to arrest someone in Parmanie Town! She's not even here!"
"Well, aren't you really uninformed? The new princess... is me. Yes, the new princess who rules over Parmanie after killing the former princess on the night of her birthday celebration. I even got to have a nice challenge against one of the weaker psychics to make it official. You may call me Princess Kyoko Kamizuru." The woman with long hair in a hot pink color asked in rude tone, before boasting about herself in a somewhat arrogant manner.
"By the order of the Magic Council and the new princess, I have the right to search this house for any illegal research on the magenta magic and other evidence of your crimes. I'm Koji Hogosuru, Princess Kyoko's first elite officer who also serves as Parmanie Town's representative on the Magic Council, and I'm also the primary bounty hunter who leads the main group of psychic mages. My partner, Nazuna Momopichi, is the second elite officer and she works with other psychic mages in her bounty hunting." Koji stated in a stern manner, as he pushed past Sara to let himself and Nazuna into the home.
Upon heading into the house, Koji and Nazuna noticed that it seemed as quiet as expected for a mage who was hiding by themselves in a good attempt to avoid being targeted by bounty hunters. That only made Koji start to smirk in a somewhat impressed manner, and he went into the living room to look for anything that seemed very suspicious. As Koji frowned and narrowed his cerise pink eyes at the hot pink couch that was in front of hot pink coffee table, Nazuna's footsteps quietly went across the wooden floor that was in a strawberry shade of pink. She went through the doorway that led to the dining area, her light pink eyes taking notice of the fact that two plates of food were on the dining table, and looking at one of the chairs allowed Nazuna to see that a pink cushion was on one of the chairs. She gently touched the cushion with her right hand, feeling it to still be warm, and Nazuna slowly narrowed her eyes at how someone else obviously seemed to recently be in this room.
That prompted Nazuna to shift her attention to the magenta pink curtains that concealed a doorway, and walking towards the curtains to push them aside only made her discover an empty bathroom with no one inside. As Nazuna took some steps back and turned her head to face a hallway where some bedrooms were located, the sight of a door slightly being opened caught her attention. Nazuna wondered if Sara made that door be open as a way to lead her enemies into being hit with surprise attacks, and she decided to walk straight towards the door. However, Nazuna frowned in an anxious manner while refusing to even touch the doorknob with her pinky finger.
Even tapping the door could result in her getting attacked, so Nazuna calmed herself down and closed her eyes. She built up some magical power to where a pink aura lightly surrounded her body, and Nazuna exhaled a loud breath. She narrowed her eyes from faintly sensing a small amount of Psychic Magic, far too weak for it to be another mage from the Astral Extrasensory guild, and Nazuna stretched out her right hand to lightly push the door open with her psychic energy. The door began to slowly open with the sound a loud creak, allowing Nazuna to see that the room had light pink walls with bubblegum pink carpeting, and the small pink dresser near the closet containing clothes mainly for a child allowed Nazuna to have a good idea on who was in this room. She carefully stared towards the closet for a moment, seeing the pink hair of someone sitting down to face the closet's wall as they were trying to hide in the darkness behind the closet's doorway.
"Even if you're just a kid, you'd be very wise to come out of the shadows right now." Nazuna sternly told Risa, folding her arms as she heard the young girl gasp in shock.
They both heard Koji loudly ask from the living room, as he heard his partner's words, "There's a child in the house, Nazuna? Since the princess only asked for Sara to be arrested and hauled off to the Magic Council, do you mind killing the kid?"
Sara exclaimed with a pleading look on her face, as she hastily ran towards Risa's room to see the young girl emerge from the closet with a terrified facial expression aimed towards Nazuna, "Wait! Please leave Risa alone! She's just an innocent girl who's only nine years old! I'll tell you everything about my involvement with the magenta-colored Psychic magic, but just please don't hurt my daughter! All she has is some weak spells of the pink and standard Psychic Magic, so I'm begging you to please don't lay a hand on Risa!"
Sara added in a somewhat calmer manner while smiling softly, wanting to truly protect her daughter, "In fact, my last bag of 200,000 jewels is payment for her to survive. I only have 198,000 left for me, but I could care less about selfishly saving myself. We're not blood-related, but we've been a family ever since that day we crossed paths."
Risa could only have a saddened look on her face while Nazuna seemed somewhat surprised at Sara's words, and Risa felt like her life was about to become horrible again. Sara gave up her last bag of money as a way for Risa to be safe, even thought that particular sacrifice meant that Sara would probably get sent to prison or suffer a worse fate for previously being in an infamous dark guild, and Sara's kind actions made Risa hardly care if Sara was ever a criminal. If Sara had been taking down bandits and other horrible people with her magenta shade of Psychic Magic, then Risa found nothing wrong with that.
However, the sight of Sara going into her own bedroom to quickly get a large brown bag of jewels as a way to save someone else was something that Risa viewed as unfair. She clenched her fists in frustration from how she didn't ask Sara to save her, and she definitely didn't want Sara to leave Parmanie Town. Not only would Risa be all alone again as an orphaned child, but she would be losing the kindest person who shared many fun times with her. The festival that occurred yesterday was just one of many instances where Risa enjoyed being around Sara, and Risa's birthday that occurred several months earlier had also been fun. Seeing Sara come out of her room with a bag of jewels to give Nazuna wasn't something that made Risa happy, and she watched Sara also go back into her room to get a small pink treasure chest. Nazuna moved aside for Sara to simply place the treasure chest into Risa's hands, and Risa watched Sara walk away with Nazuna following her.
Risa ran after them to see Sara leading Nazuna to the living room, the young girl's eyes widening in shock from how these new circumstances made Sara lightly touch the three visible floorboards in front of the bookcase to let it quietly slide to the left side. Koji was just as surprised as Nazuna to see the bookcase reveal the staircase that led down to the basement, and they followed Sara down there to see what she had been hiding. Upon hearing Koji loudly gasp at what was presumably all the books pertaining to the magenta color of the Psychic Magic, some tears fell from Risa's eyes while she couldn't let the partners of the new princess take Sara away. Risa started running down to the basement, only to see Kyoko suddenly run into the house with a displeased glare on her face from seeing that another person lived here while her cohorts took too long to arrest Sara.
10 minutes later...
After Nazuna and Koji tightly put their hands on Sara's wrists to restrain her while Kyoko followed them with a pleased smirk on her face, Risa ran out of the house to just see Sara being escorted away like she was a dangerous criminal. Risa felt like she needed to protect Sara from any people who would harm her, and the pink-haired child felt her hands shake to where they nearly made the pink treasure chest fall to the hard ground. Risa proceeded to go back into the house for a moment to retrieve the light pink shopping bag that had been on the ground, gently putting the treasure chest inside of it, and she shut the door after getting the bag.
As Risa held the bag in her left hand and ran towards the people who were probably taking Sara away to a far-off prison, her cherry red eyes noticed how some of the houses in Parmanie Town were now set ablaze with pink flames burning down the buildings. She could hear people screaming while grey clouds of smoke began to ascend into the air, some children even pleading for their parents to not die, and Risa also had to hear some kids beg their parents to get them out of the burning homes. Risa's eyes widened with a mix of horror and shock from seeing some parts of Parmanie Town be filled with houses that were on fire, her face having an expression of disbelief at the horror that was now occurring, and she wondered if people were literally paying the prices for not having enough rent money to make their entire families be safe from harm.
Risa started to think about how staying in Sara's house without Sara to take care of her would just make her be a defenseless child, and there was the possibility that Risa could have to see Sara's house be burnt down next month from not having enough money to live there. Some tears began to fall from her eyes while she began to loudly cry, her voice and quick footsteps getting the attention of Sara and the three mages who made her be arrested, and Risa fired a pink sphere of Psychic Magic at the ground in front of them. It created a miniature pink blast, causing Koji and Nazuna to be surprised enough to release their grips on Sara's wrists. That prompted Sara to gently stumble forward, and she watched Risa quickly run to be in front of her with tears streaming down her saddened face.
Risa really didn't want to be separated from the woman who made her immense amounts of happiness for several months, especially since Sara was the first person who cared about Risa enough to adopt her after she had to deal with losing her biological parents, and Risa tightly hugged Sara. She didn't want her to leave Parmanie Town or end up getting hurt by people who seemed to be the ones who expressed their utmost distaste for the magenta shade of Psychic Magic, and Risa started to have a look of realization on her face as she recalled how Sara seemed stunned when she found Risa reading the spells from one of her books in the basement.
"Sara, I heard the entire conversation! They shouldn't even be taking you away from me for how you're able to read and use the magenta-colored psychic spells, and it's not fair!" Risa exclaimed to Sara with an upset facial expression while continuing to hug her.
That prompted Sara to reply nicely as she smiled at Risa with tears appearing in her eyes, rubbing her daughter's head with her right hand, "Risa, I wish that I could've been a better mother to you. I could've gotten you more fashionable clothes, and I could've even joined a legal guild to possibly be able to take you with me on jobs far away from this town to where you'd learn more things about being a mage while we'd be together."
"You've been an amazing mother to me, Sara! You taught me everything about fashion, being snarky, teaching me how to have the courage to follow my dreams, and it doesn't matter if I'm not in a guild right now! In fact, I spent months improving my Psychic Magic during our training and every day brought me knowledge from reading about the magenta spells of Psychic Magic! Master Sara, I wanted to show you that I could be cool by using one after finally be able to perfectly to read the language for several magenta-colored spells!" Risa retorted with a fierce look on her face, before that last sentence caused her to be quite sad at not mastering the language sooner.
Koji asked aloud with an extremely shocked facial expression, as he was as startled as Sara and Nazuna, "What?! Is she serious?! Sara's little brat spent months on knowing how to perfectly read and activate powerful spells of that magic?!"
As Risa kept her eyes focused on Sara and nodded with an honest facial expression to prove that she wasn't lying, Kyoko walked towards them while creating a hot pink aura of Psychic Magic around her hands. She menacingly glared at Risa, quite displeased that there were now two individuals in this town who used that particular type of Psychic Magic, and the fact that it had been stronger than the Psychic Magic of the royals was probably why Kyoko let out a vicious growl of anger. That prompted Sara to hastily apply Psychic Magic to her feet, and the pink aura engulfed her feet as she grabbed Risa. Sara briefly turned around to see Kyoko hastily running after her, along with Nazuna not being too far behind after motioning with one hand for Koji to refrain from chasing Sara out of Parmanie's somewhat poorer area.
Sara quickly ran through that part of Parmanie Town with Risa in her arms, going quite fast to even make Cordelia feel the powerful winds from running past her at high speeds, and the magenta-haired woman had a stern expression on her face from seeing that several parts of Parmanie Town were set on fire. Not only were people trapped in buildings or too scared to try using Psychic Magic to levitate over the pink flames, but people were aggressively running and pushing past each other to get to the town's train station.
Risa watched Sara run much faster while she got to notice how some of the townspeople even died from being trampled on by others, and the fact that they couldn't easily get to that train simply meant that another way out of Parmanie was through the pink forest. Sara wasted no time with running through that entrance to Parmanie Town, as she felt like it would be possible to hide in the forest with Risa, but the loud sounds of pink blasts occurring behind them meant that Kyoko was intending to find them. Sara soon stopped at the sight of Kyoko using a sudden blast to propel herself forward to where she landed right in front of her, and seeing Kyoko stand up after landing on both of her feet made Sara groan in frustration. Kyoko simply maintained her glare, before smiling in a sadistic manner and giggling evilly.
"If you're really that stupid to think you can just run out of Parmanie after committing several serious crimes, then it looks like I'll have to kill both of you. In fact, that little brat should die first to effectively keep knowledge of that magic out of other people's hands." Kyoko told Sara and Risa with sadism in her voice, as she gently licked her sharp nails that were surrounded by a hot pink aura.
Sara fiercely asked, as she firmly put Risa down on the ground to be beside her, "If you think that I'll let you even touch Risa, then did you not anticipate that I'll be the one who kills you in this fight?"
She added with a stern facial expression, as a magenta aura engulfed her body, "Let's see how you fare against Magenta Bomb, Kyoko!"
Sara created a magenta pink sphere of energy in the palm of her right hand, watching it rapidly start to spin in a counterclockwise manner, and she threw her projectile at Kyoko. The antagonist tried to counter that attack with a spell known as Psychic Distortion, which was an attack that made a hot pink ring form in her left hand, and Kyoko aimed the spell at Sara's attack. The ring started to have five rings emerge from it, each one being larger than the previous one, and Sara's attack momentarily got twisted in different directions! It quickly regained its original shape, however, and the rings became a hot pink aura after it went through them. The aura surprisingly got absorbed by Sara's attack, and the Magenta Bomb struck Kyoko to create a large blast that matched its color.
As Kyoko screamed in pain from the blast and how it had enough pressure to push her down against the grass, Sara quickly ran away from the situation with Risa by her side. They had to get out of the forest as fast as possible, but the sound of Sara's spell ending its effect of heavily pushing Kyoko against the ground caused her to immediately turn around. She watched the magenta clouds of smoke clear up to reveal that Kyoko was very bruised, some of her wounds having blood lightly drip from them, but she could shockingly still stand up. Kyoko smirked in a somewhat rude manner at the power of that spell, perceiving it to not be immensely strong, and she stretched out her right hand to unleash a spell called Psychic Wrath. This spell simply caused Kyoko to fire several hot pink beams towards her enemy at high speeds, and she hoped they would all kill Sara.
Sara simply closed her eyes for a moment while making the magenta aura surround her hands, and she rapidly spun around while the aura began to propel itself at several of the pink trees and flowers. It extracted some of their power, the pink aura quickly going into Sara's body, and that gave her enough strength to unleash the spell called Magenta Psi Vortex. Sara placed her hands together, before shooting out a spiraling vortex of Psychic Magic from her hands, and she watched her attack absorb all of the beams while it grew in size. The enormous spell struck Kyoko directly, creating a somewhat larger magenta blast than the previous spell did, and Kyoko screamed from the pain. As Sara watched the blast occur, she began to softly pant.
"Using two consecutive spells of the magenta shade of Psychic Magic might drain some of my magical power, but I can't... conserve it in this situation." Sara stated aloud, as she watched the clouds of smoke come towards her.
That prompted Risa to tell Sara in a concerned tone while running towards her, looking worried as she fired a thin healing beam of pink energy from her right hand for it to gently hit the older woman, "Sara, you're not fighting alone and I'll make sure you don't run out of magical power."
Sara turned around to counter Risa's words while looking stern, "Even though you can heal me, Risa, it's better for you to run towards the mountain path while Kyoko is distracted! As much as you may not like hearing this, she might be too difficult for you to handle at your skill level with Psychic Magic."
She ended up being correct about that assumption, as Kyoko ran out of the smoke with a hot pink aura in her right hand, and Sara watched Kyoko gently place that hand against the front of her qipao-like dress that was appropriately in a hot pink color. As Sara and Risa watched the aura surround Kyoko's body to show that she was healing herself, they also noticed that her dress revealed both of her shoulders while it seemed to not cover the upper part of her back. Also, the dress had bubblegum pink lining while the lining matched the disconnected arm warmers that were in a hot pink color. Kyoko's spandex shorts were in a light pink color, and her low-heeled boots were in a cerise shade of pink. Even if Sara didn't view Kyoko as a fashionable person, that didn't stop her from perceiving Kyoko to be a dangerous opponent.
Kyoko healed herself to where she only had some remaining noticeable injuries that were still bleeding, groaning in frustration at how she couldn't fully heal her wounds, and the discovery of how the magenta blast caused some of her hot pink hair appear to be charred was something that made Kyoko angrily glare at Sara. Kyoko activated a spell called Piercing Cosmic Psi, and it caused Kyoko to create a hot pink sphere that was within two larger hot pink spheres. She threw the attack at Sara, before quickly moving her right hand in a circular motion to make that attack be reshaped into a drill-shaped projectile that rapidly spun in the clockwise direction, but a faint smile on Sara's face made Kyoko start to look curious.
Sara built up the magenta-colored magic in her right hand to where she unleashed a spell called Magenta Stellar Shield, and it appropriately created a magenta pink shield in midair. The shield was heart-shaped with a light pink border, and a light pink heart was in the center of the shield while four orbs in the regular shade of pink formed a square around the center of the shield. When the shield was struck by Kyoko's spell, Sara thrusted her hand forward to make the shield push against it. As Sara heard the drill make a slight crack in her shield, she sent more of her magical power into it. Sara winced in pain from how she could feel the drill's impact on the shield through the pain that she was now feeling in her right hand, even seeing some blood drip from her fingertips, but flipping her hand upside-down caused the shield to reflect Kyoko's attack back at her in a magenta color. Sara wasn't done with her attacks, though.
"Let's hope that this next spell can cause a good amount of explosive damage, too! Magenta Moon's Psywave!" Sara shouted with a fierce look on her face, as the magenta pink aura in her right hand caused her to shoot out a crescent-shaped wave of Psychic Magic at the magenta drill for both attacks to combine their strength.
Kyoko merely responded with a displeased look on her face, as Sara and Risa saw her take something out of the left pocket of her dress, "Powerful spells of Psychic Magic can't kill me, especially if they're wielded by a piece of garbage that doesn't have this little item in their possession."
Risa asked her with a shocked facial expression, faintly seeing Kyoko slip a certain ring on to her left hand's ring finger, "What is that?!"
Sara stated while starting to widen her eyes in disbelief, stunned that Kyoko's little accessory actually existed, "Risa, that's... one of those powerful rings!"
The ring was on Kyoko's finger right before Sara's attacks struck her to create a massive blast of Psychic Magic in a magenta color, the antagonist letting out an agonizing and pained scream from the immense power of the blasts, and Sara watched the blasts destroy several of the forest's pink plants. A tree was even sent flying towards Risa, who unleashed the Esper Ball spell from her right hand in a panicked manner, and her pink sphere struck the tree to create a small pink blast. The tree itself was levitated slightly higher in midair, only to quickly hit the ground with a loud crash, and Risa groaned in frustration from silently wishing that she could've levitated the tree for a longer duration of time to throw it at Kyoko.
Risa and Sara watched the billowing clouds of smoke clear up to reveal that Kyoko was heavily bruised from that attack, as well as having many bloody wounds while her dress was somewhat torn, but the ring on her finger suddenly shined with a cerise pink glow. In only a few seconds, all Kyoko's wounds and bruises began to disappear with white clouds of steam sizzling from them. It looked almost as if Sara never even hit her with any attacks, and Kyoko simply cracked her knuckles as she could immense power in her left hand start to flow throughout her body. As she became surrounded in a cerise pink aura, Kyoko evilly smirked at Sara from how this battle would become more dangerous.
She made the cerise pink aura start to become somewhat more solid to where Risa began to be horrified at how it heavily dripped from her hands, and that psychic energy burnt through the ground to melt it like lava. In fact, this spell was known as Psychic Cerise Volcano. Sara quickly grabbed Risa and jumped up high to avoid Kyoko shooting out a large stream of the cerise pink energy from her hand, but Sara wouldn't just avoid the lava. She unleashed another spell that was known as Magenta's Psychic Soul Burst, which interestingly involved firing a large spiraling beam of energy straight up into the sky while a magenta orb was in the middle of it, and it quickly came down in the form of smaller beams that had magenta orbs within them. Some of them even struck the clouds, causing them to be in a magenta color, and the beams also began to rain down from them. When Sara's projectiles struck the ground, she noticed that they created numerous magenta explosions that even broke apart the lava to where it now created smaller puddles that burned the ground. However, Kyoko was strangely no longer on the ground to be struck by those attacks.
"Where did she go?" Sara asked aloud with a shocked facial expression, as she tried looking down at the entire forest.
Kyoko responded in a rude tone, after giggling in a delighted manner, "It's quite unfortunate you couldn't foresee that I'd be right behind you, Sara Hoshiakari!"
Sara exclaimed with a stunned look on her face, unable to counterattack right now, "Oh, no!"
Kyoko slammed Sara down to the ground with a kick to her back, but Sara wouldn't hit the ground before Kyoko struck her with the Piercing Cosmic Psi spell that had cerise pink energy dripping from it. The three-layered attack of hot pink spheres struck Sara at a fast pace while Kyoko liked how the ring's effect made the attack become twice its original size, and Sara dropped Risa down to the ground right before she was caught in a hot pink explosion! Sara screamed in agony, as the powerful attack felt like it was burning her skin, and she roughly fell to the ground. Sara rolled across some grass to where her right hand ended up touching a bubbling puddle of Kyoko's magic, and that second scream of pain made Risa get up from the grass.
She ran towards Sara with a concerned facial expression, not liking how she was now bleeding, and Risa fired the thin pink beam at her mother. As the beam struck Sara's body to somewhat heal her injuries, seeing her injured hand made Risa think back to a certain day of training. She carefully jumped over some puddles of lava, even swerving past them, and Risa knelt down by Sara's side to hit her right hand with her healing spell. Risa took it one step further, though, and she aimed her beam down into Kyoko's bubbling puddle to make that magic now have healing properties.
Sara felt her wounds continue to be healed while she quickly repelled Risa away with Psychic Magic from her left hand to softly make Risa land on some grass that wasn't nearby, and she got up to activate another spell of her magic. This spell was known as Psychic Magenta Geyser, and Sara slammed both of her hands against the ground while the magenta aura still engulfed them. In a few seconds, Sara saw several magenta pink vortexes rise up from some of the puddles while that cerise-colored Psychic Magic strengthened her attacks. Sara aimed them all at Kyoko, who simply used the Psychic Wrath spell again, and seeing Kyoko shoot out a much larger hot pink beam for it to split into several beams that were only slightly smaller made Sara groan in frustration. She watched the beams collide with her projectiles, the magenta and hot pink explosions being quite powerful to where they destroyed more of the forest, but the sound of Risa letting out a fearful scream from some of the remaining beams quickly coming towards her caused Sara to hurriedly move in an attempt to shield Risa. Sara was struck by six of the hot pink beams, which caused six powerful blasts to transpire around her, and she became heavily bruised by the attack to where her wounds on her body were more bloody than before. Those explosions even made burns be on Sara's body while the magenta aura began to disappear and her wounded arms were stretched out like a mother who immensely cared for her daughter.
"Risa... Please listen carefully, and do exactly as I... tell you. Run to the... mountain path, and don't turn back. I might... be able to buy you some time... to escape." Sara told the young girl in a pained manner, as her sunglasses descended from being on her forehead to fall down on to the grass.
That prompted Risa to ask Sara with an extremely worried facial expression, tears forming in her eyes while she standing up, "Sara, why are you going so far to protect me?! What will happen to you?!"
Sara explained to Risa with some tears welling up in her eyes, as she knelt down to place her right hand on Risa's head, "I'm trying so hard to protect you, Risa, because... you're.. my daughter. You're... all that I have left in my life. You know, you saved... me from the grief of losing my daughter. It's... my turn to save you, kid. Now, go."
Sara's words only made Risa loudly cry, her body shaking from the possibility that Sara might die, and Risa simply picked up Sara's sunglasses to put them back on her forehead. After quickly giving Sara a tight hug, Risa applied Psychic Magic to her feet and ran towards the mountain trail. Sara shot out an Esper Ball from her right hand for it to Kyoko, knowing its damage would be meaningless, but she started to smile at its basic side effect. Kyoko got hit by the pink sphere, which created a pink blast in midair, and the strength of Sara's attack allowed her to make Kyoko levitate much higher into the air. After making Kyoko ascend quite high above the forest, Sara released the psychic energy around the antagonist to make her crash down into the ground.
Kyoko harshly hit the ground to where she created a small crater in the earth, before slowly getting up to run towards Sara, but she soon saw the magenta-haired woman run towards her with some Psychic Magic surrounding her feet. Before Kyoko could even react, Sara quickly hit her in the face with seven powerful punches from how she had been enraged that Kyoko even thought of letting her beams strike Risa. Sara definitely wanted to kill Kyoko for trying to harm her daughter, However, glancing at Risa for a moment to see that she was now running up the mountain trail made Sara feel like she needed to make sure that Kyoko couldn't get to her. Sara started running towards Risa at high speeds while making the magenta aura surround her body again, only for Kyoko to turn around and notice that the young girl was focused on running up the trail. That prompted Kyoko to evilly smirk in a wicked manner, as she ran just as fast Sara to reach her target, and Kyoko created a cerise pink sphere of psychic energy in her right hand. She jumped up into the air, before coming down towards Risa with a malicious grin on her face, and Kyoko watched Risa close her eyes as tears fell from them.
Risa quickly opened her eyes from how she didn't feel any pain, but getting to see what had just happened was something that made Risa's eyes widen with pure horror and shock. She was looking at Sara, who stood in front of her to protect her from Kyoko's spell, and Risa watched the attack create a powerful explosion against Sara's stomach. That made Sara groan in pain to where she coughed up some blood, as more of it began to slightly drip from her stomach wound, and Risa was left stunned to where she couldn't feel her legs move to heal her mother's fatal injury. Risa felt her body shake with fear and pain from how it seemed like Sara would die now, but Risa was surprised to see Sara turn around with a nice smile on her face.
"Risa, I'm... so sorry. I have... to protect you, even at.. the cost.. of my own life." Sara told Risa in a caring tone, as she struggled to not show that she was in immense pain.
That made Risa reply with tears streaming down her saddened face, as she saw Kyoko get her hand out of Sara's stomach wound, "Master Sara... I mean, Mommy... I don't want... to see you die like this! Please don't let Kyoko kill you and take you away from me!"
Sara turned to face Kyoko while responding to Risa, smiling confidently as some strands of her magenta hair began to cover the sight of the tears that fell from her fuchsia eyes, "Even if my body... fails me and I physically die here..., my spirit will still live on. The will... and strength of... a great psychic mage such as me... cannot burn out so easily. My large explosions and powerful spells... weren't enough, but a smaller magenta pink flame is starting to brightly burn... with its own other pink shades of Psychic Magic. In time, it... will come back... with even more strength... than my spells. The... magenta magic that's... so hated by the jealous royals... cannot be killed by ending my life."
Kyoko asked Sara with a sadistic smile on her face, before laughing at her words, "What nonsense are you spouting, Sara Hoshiakari? Don't you see that killing a criminal as prominent as you shall serve as a fine an example to others in Parmanie about what the consequences are for using that magic? If the magenta magic is so superior to other variations of Psychic Magic, then what piece of trash will come to Parmanie and kill me? Are you referring to your weak little brat who's useless to where she couldn't even save herself?"
The antagonist's rude question about Risa only made Sara clench her fists tightly in anger to where the last of her magenta magic engulfed her body, and Sara narrowed her fuchsia eyes. She sent magical power into them for her eyes to become light pink, and Sara also focused the energy into her hands. A pink orb was quickly created in her right hand, before she pressed down on it with the magenta aura engulfing her left hand, and Sara aimed her hands at Kyoko to fire her final beam at close-range. The beam alternated between the shades of normal pink and magenta pink, surprising Kyoko to where she couldn't leap back in time, and it struck her directly! The massive magenta blast that immediately occurred was leaving behind magenta flames, which burned on the mountain trail before the attack was instantly followed by a massive pink blast that left behind flames in the plain shade of pink, and Sara's final attack was appropriately named Psychic Magenta Hexing Flames.
As Sara felt herself start to get burned by the effect of being so close to the blasts, she used most of her remaining magical power to put her right hand into the pink blast and gently get that ring off of Kyoko's left hand. She used her magical power to throw it far behind her, faintly hearing it land somewhere in Parmanie Town, and Sara smiled as the power of her spell sent her sliding back a few feet to be near Risa. As Risa heard Kyoko scream in intense pain from the blasts and the flames, she watched Sara fall on to her back. Risa's body shook with fear and sadness, as she watched Sara continue to be bleeding, and she widened her eyes in horror at the sight of all the pink smoke clearing up to reveal Kyoko looking quite angry at how she was badly bruised from the flames. Blood dripped from Kyoko's arms and legs, her body feeling badly wounded, but she still had enough strength to stomp on Sara's legs to nearly crush them.
Sara screamed in pain, before coughing up blood, and she couldn't even stop Kyoko from harshly punching her in the chest multiple times. As Sara felt that she would die soon, she watched Risa fire a thin pink beam of energy from her right hand in an attempt to heal her. Risa's healing abilities weren't strong enough, however, and Sara watched her daughter find the strength to grab Kyoko's raised foot. Risa tried pulling her away from Sara's body, only to feel Kyoko aggressively punch her in the face, and Risa was sent rolling down the mountain trail. She got up to run back and kneel down beside Sara, though, and Risa could only cry tears of pain as her kind mentor was dying. Risa let more tears fall from her crying eyes while she saw that Sara's skin was somewhat charred from the flames leaving behind burns, which seemed like they were as painful as her bloody wounds and damaged legs, but the fact that Risa only cried without being able to heal Sara made Kyoko frown at her with immense disapproval. Kyoko even suppressed the urge to laugh at how Risa couldn't fight back to avenge a criminal like Sara, since Risa was proving to be a mere child who couldn't even use a single magenta spell to make herself seem like a slightly interesting opponent for the princess to fight against or easily crush with her immense power.
"What a weak child. Crying over your trashy mentor and being so scared to not even retaliate me just shows that you're not even worth killing, and Sara can go straight to hell. In fact, other people like her and you can also die." Kyoko told Risa with a look of disgust on her face from hearing Risa start to cry, disliking the child's expression that showed immense sorrow while she began walking off of the mountain trail.
Nazuna came out from behind a nearby tree to exclaim in a shocked tone at Kyoko aiming her right hand towards Parmanie Town, looking stunned as she didn't expect the new princess to add on to what now seemed like finished business, "Princess Kyoko, you've already completed our mission!"
Kyoko looked over at her and replied with the frown maintained on her face, "Nazuna, the ruler of a town must be thorough with making sure that no one else is even able to whisper about that magenta magic if Sara told them about it. There's nothing wrong with making some more of those idiotic fools deal with my powerful level of Psychic Magic."
She could only watch Kyoko shoot out the Psychic Wrath spell from her left hand, using all of her magical power to fire a large pink beam that hastily split into eight smaller beams, and Nazuna simply ran towards the attacks to see them strike seven houses where residents had paid their money to avoid having those places be burnt down. One of the beams even ended up striking part of the town where a group of kids ran for their lives, and hearing them loudly scream in pain from the explosion that occurred only made Nazuna drop her jaw in pure shock.
She had no words to say for critiquing Kyoko's actions right now, only hearing the roaring thunder of rainclouds overhead loudly make noise, and Nazuna watched Kyoko cease with using her magical power to make the puddles of her cerise goop completely vanish from the forest. Afterwards, Kyoko ran back to Parmanie Town while starting to giggle in a sadistic manner at how she enjoyed her first official day as Parmanie's princess. Nazuna noticed the pink sparkles of an item in Parmanie Town, prompting her to take some steps towards it, but the loud sounds of Risa crying caught her attention. Nazuna turned back to look at the pink-haired girl, seeing her cry many tears of pain as she was looking down at Sara, and the sight of Risa dealing with something so traumatic made Nazuna have a facial expression that showed a mix of guilt and sadness. Nazuna ran towards the pink item that glimmered on a street in Parmanie Town, however, and she couldn't be caught trying to heal Sara or comfort Risa.
Risa continued to cry loudly while noticing that her healing spells were barely having any effect, which meant that she couldn't save Sara's life, and Risa even slammed her right fist down on the ground in frustration. As her fist felt some pain, Risa soon felt Sara's hand weakly touch her hand. Sara was weakly breathing while she looked up at Risa, and she tried to wipe away her tears. Sara didn't want her daughter's face to always have tears flowing down from her eyes, since she wanted Risa to always be beautiful, and gently touching Risa's forehead to just send the last bits of her magenta magic into her body gave Sara a nice idea while she remembered that Risa had a little request.
"Risa, these... sunglasses are... yours now. I'm glad... you listened to me... when I told you to run away. You did... great, kid. Please... don't cry." Sara explained to Risa with tears falling from her eyes, as she weakly used her left hand to grab the sunglasses on her forehead and place them on Risa's forehead.
That prompted Risa to respond with a look of sadness still on her face, as she held Master Sara's burnt hand to try and heal it, "Master Sara, I have to cry! I didn't even earn the sunglasses properly from how I had to prove that I totally desired to wear them like a fashionable mage! Plus, you're the best new mother I could've asked for! You encouraged me so much, helped me be fashionable, and there are still many things that we have to do together! Please don't die, Mommy! Stay with me to see me become a princess, become a mage, or even get married to have a family of my own! I... I don't want to be all alone again, Sara!"
Sara weakly replied while rubbing Risa's forehead, before gently touching her face and seeing a brief vision through the last bits of the magenta magic from her hand still entering Risa's body, "You... won't be alone, Risa. Not forever, anyway. I.. I can foresee... that you'll eventually find... friends who truly care about you... like I do. Risa, it's sad that... I won't get to... see you thrive as a strong psychic mage. Protect the... magenta magic. I know... you can, and those idiot royals... can't burn my books."
Risa exclaimed to Sara, as she touched her forehead with a pink aura of magic being created in her right hand and watched Sara try to keep her eyes open, "Even if you're right, don't leave me! Master Sara, I can't be fashionable for the rest of my life or learn more about the magenta magic without your help!"
Sara told Risa in a snarky manner, before winking with her right eye and smiling happily while she spoke her final words in a caring tone to give Risa a nice memory, "You're saying... that you can't be fashionable, Risa, but... those sunglasses... look very... beautiful... on you. You're... pretty stylish, Risa. Always... remember that... for me, kid. Remember to... show everyone... how cool... you are, too. Goodbye... now, Risa. You've been an... awesome daughter. I... love... you."
As Sara's eyes began to close, she kept them open long enough to see Risa nod in an obedient manner at how she wouldn't forget those orders. Sara even weakly sat up to just kiss Risa's forehead to wish her good luck, unable to share one last hug with her, and seeing Risa start to softly smile one last time made Sara feel glad that she wouldn't die with seeing Risa be in pain. Sara's eyes soon closed while her body fell back down on to the mountain trail's hard ground, and Risa got to hear Sara's arm loudly hit the ground while drops of rain began to fall from the rainclouds that were now in the grey sky.
The rain fell to where it streamed down Risa's face, as well as hitting Sara's body with its downpour, and Risa took notice of how Sara's beautiful magenta hair was still in a long ponytail while the bangs that framed her face were styled into two circular loops that were near her ears. She wore a light green halter top that had ruffles on it while the straps were still tied together, and Sara also wore a violet plaid skirt that matched her dark blue wedges. Sara also wore some magenta leggings under her skirt, and Risa gently placed Sara's own hands over her heart while thinking about how she had a great love for fashion.
Risa wanted to start telling Sara's dead body about how she'd wear some great clothes tomorrow, but Risa's smile that became a frown of immense sadness really displayed how even fashion wouldn't make Risa feel happiness after this situation. The rain continued to pour down on the Parmanie Forest while Risa was at a loss for words over Sara's death, only noticing how her left hand still held the bag that contained Sara's treasure chest. Risa could only start crying again from how she'd have to go back to Sara's house without her kind mentor, and the sudden sight of Cordelia coming out of the town to discover that she was in the forest only made Risa refuse to hold back any of her tears. She only glanced up at Cordelia for a moment, seeing her look quite hurt at the sight of Sara being dead, and Risa's cries only made Cordelia hug her tightly. Cordelia would be kind enough to take Risa back to Parmanie Town, but she looked quite angry at how Sara's house was purposely one of the houses that got struck. Since Risa had no home to return to while the citizens and some psychics were still fighting each other, Cordelia could only give Risa some money from the left pocket of her pink sundress while she'd quietly give her some basic instructions. Although, Cordelia would wait as long as she needed to for Risa to go back with her to Parmanie Town while Cordelia eyes showed some seriousness at how she'd give Sara a proper burial somewhere.
One hour later, in Parmanie Town...
After Risa only heard Cordelia loudly tell her during the downpour to run back home, Risa ran all the way back to Sara's house while thinking that Cordelia would create a grave for Sara to be in. Risa continued to cry with many tears falling from her eyes while pinch marks were on her face, feeling even more saddened from how Parmanie Town was mostly covered in pink flames under the orange evening sky, and quickly arriving back at Sara's house only made Risa look horrified before she loudly screamed in a saddened manner. Sara's house had been struck by an attack that presumably exploded, which was why her house began to fall apart while pink flames engulfed it.
Risa could no longer live there, as she saw all of the furniture and the rooms be burnt down, and she assumed that the royals were doing this to make Sara's tragedy be a horrible example of punishment for people who wielded the magenta spells of Psychic Magic. Risa immediately remembered how Sara told her to protect the magenta magic, but the shock of how the royal individuals burnt down her house in what looked like a horrible act of cruelty only made Risa shed more tears of pain. Risa didn't even want to look at the burning house anymore, being unable to even go in there and get all the books from the basement, so she loudly cried while running further up this street.
Risa applied Psychic Magic to her feet, making a pink aura surround them, but her fast speed was soon halted by the sudden sight of a certain pink-haired woman sitting on a light pink rock. Risa felt quite alarmed to see Nazuna, who wore a hot pink long-sleeved sweater dress with four light pink circles that were in a square formation at the bottom of it, and Nazuna also slightly raised her dress with one hand for Risa to see a small bit of her hot pink and bubblegum pink striped skirt. Nazuna also wore some hot pink high-heeled boots with gold buttons on them, as well as a black choker around her neck that which went well with her fingerless gloves in the color of hot pink. Nazuna's gloves had plain pink gems on them that were circular, and she had her hands under her chin while giving Risa a stern look.
It appeared as if Nazuna had been waiting for her, since no normal person would just carelessly sit here during Parmanie Town being set ablaze, and the subordinate of Kyoko frowned more at Risa while gently pushing up her rose pink goggles for them to stay on her forehead. She started to look down at the pink street with a frown that displayed some guilt, before looking back up from the ground to narrow her light pink eyes at Risa, and it appeared that Nazuna was dealing with feelings of anger and guilt over the excessiveness of tonight's events while silently questioning her loyalty to Kyoko.
"When someone wants to be thorough with their goals of getting rid of the enemy, it can make even their sadistic tendencies change into acts of insanity. I've decided to let you escape from something as hellish as this, since you cared so much for Sara Hoshiakari." Nazuna sternly explained to Risa, as they locked eyes with each other.
Risa exclaimed to the older woman while trying to have an expression of denial on her face, as she continued to cry, "Don't say Sara's name! I need to go look somewhere else for her in Parmanie Town, since her death wasn't real! She's not dead, and this has to all just be a dream! I've cried so much, and I've pinched my cheeks so hard to where they were almost bleeding! I have to wake up from this dream, Miss Nazuna! This must... all be a bad dream!"
After briefly turning around to hear Sara's burning house loudly start to collapse, Risa faced Nazuna to ask with a distraught facial expression, "This isn't... a dream, is it? Sara really... died to protect me, didn't she? Sara went so far to save me and give me a chance to have a happy future, but she knew her past would catch up with her? If Sara was going to die, why didn't she just tell me?!"
Nazuna explained to her with a disappointed frown on her face from answering the questions with total honesty, seeing that Risa was still just a child, "That's... correct. Your mother, Sara, is dead. She was aware that her life could come to an end on this evening, but she probably made you happy in all the previous days of her life because of how those words of parting with you couldn't be spoken. You're feeling immense pain, but Sara must've felt even worse about the fact that she'd have to leave you all alone. I imagine how you must be tremendously worried about your life, so at least let me do this for you."
Risa watched Nazuna create a light pink sphere in her right hand, before simply throwing it in midair, and the light pink sphere surprisingly created a huge puff of pink smoke that lasted for only a few seconds. Nazuna created that same sphere again to throw it at the area behind Risa, making the light smoke be on both sides of this part of the street, and Risa could sense a strong amount of power from Nazuna's psychic energy. She curiously went through the smoke to discover the end of the street bordering a dirt path that led to another town with a train station, but going back to Nazuna made Risa suddenly be looking at a longer street with more houses burning and buildings falling apart to become rubble.
Nazuna watched Risa go through the smoke again to see that she was staring at a dirt path bordered by dark green grass on both sides, the emerald green building for a town's train station being at the end of the path, and Risa widened her eyes with curiosity at the changing scenery from repeatedly going back to Nazuna. She could now see that the pink-haired woman appeared to have used a spell of Psychic Magic to simply create an illusion, since Risa turned around to see that Sara's house kept burning alongside some unharmed houses that were now set ablaze while people who suddenly appeared on the ground were bleeding and pleading for healers to aid them with their magic. Nazuna would show enough mercy to let Risa escape, but she did need to give her some advice.
Nazuna sternly informed Risa with a frown on strictness on her face, "The illusion will last for about an hour to make others think that this street is more damaged than expected, but you should get out of here right now. No one will think to follow you, and don't look back at this place that caused you pain. Unless losing Sara is so painful that you want to die here, get on the next town's train soon. Anyone wearing fashionable clothes from Parmanie can freely ride that train to go elsewhere in Fiore, Risa, so I suggest you go far away and try to live as quietly as possible."
That prompted Risa to reply with some sadness still in her voice, as she looked at Nazuna, "All right. Miss Nazuna, I should really thank you for-"
Nazuna interrupted her by charging up a light pink aura in her hands and sternly saying with a harsh glare on her face, "I also suggest you remember that I'm not your ally. If you cause any trouble or harm anyone in Fiore, I'll be the first person who shows up to capture you. Consider yourself lucky that I convinced Kyoko how you're a lowly matter that I can handle for her, since she doesn't show mercy, and that weakling Koji perceives you as a matter that would just waste his time if there's not a major reward for him in the task of capturing you."
Risa watched Nazuna get off of the rock to start walking away from her, which prompted the young girl to run through the illusion spell, and Risa ran as fast as she could to get away from Parmanie Town. There was truly nothing left for her in that place, as the sound of a blast occurring made her even think that Cordelia was going to die, and Risa was now all alone. The only thing that she thought she had by her side was the light pink shopping bag containing Sara's treasure chest, but the sunglasses that gently fell from her forehead reminded her that there was something else in her possession.
She pushed Sara's sunglasses back up on to her forehead, crying as she already missed Sara's presence immensely, and Risa felt like she needed to protect that beautiful accessory. As the rain began to start pouring over the dirt path and presumably also over Parmanie Town, Risa loudly cried for Sara. She shouted her mentor's name while applying Psychic Magic to her feet, running quite fast to the train station, and Risa really wished that this had all been a dream. Not having Sara around anymore was probably the worst experience of her life, especially since they couldn't even be sharing the experience of taking the train out of town together.
Risa quickly ran into the train station, her young presence surprising a female guard who wore a green hat with a green coat and green pants, and Risa simply glanced down at the fuchsia pink blouse that she wore with a design of four light pink suns going across the blouse in a straight line. Also, Risa wore a bubblegum pink and rosewood pink plaid skirt that complimented her cherry red knee-high boots with light pink horizontal stripes at the tops of them. After kindly being told by the nice guard that she was looking so stylish like a resident of Parmanie Town, the guard pulled out her Communications Lacrima Crystal for the train driver to come to the station.
After waiting for at least thirty minutes, the train came to pick up Risa. She watched the doors quickly open, prompting her to get on the train, and Risa took notice of the light green carpeting that matched the dark brown walls. She quickly sat down in one of the brown seats that was near a window, watching the sunset start to completely be replaced by the harsh downpour of rain that came down from the sky, and looking at herself in the window's reflection to see her own thoughts about the last time she saw Sara smile with a wink of coolness only made Risa start to seem somewhat numbed by Sara's death. After the train's doors closed for it to leave the station, Risa didn't even say a single word as she thought about how life would be painful again.
-Later on in Risa's life, during different years...-
Risa was unfortunately right about how life would become difficult for her again, especially since it became even more difficult to live in any town after an immediate newspaper article in that year of X782 featured an article that talked about Risa Ryusei being Sara Hoshiakari's disciple who needed to be hunted down by anyone who wanted a reward of 40,000,000 jewels from the town of Parmanie. Kyoko had presumably been the one to work with the Magic Council on making that article be published in newspapers throughout Fiore, and that was probably done out of revenge or frustration for Risa escaping from Parmanie Town. In fact, the article even talked about how Koji told Kyoko that Risa somehow created a powerful illusion from presumably using her powerful magenta magic to not be followed.
Princess Kyoko's article of Risa being wanted dead or alive, along with a wanted poster featuring Risa smiling above the reward amount in many newspapers, caused many individuals throughout X782 to either express hatred towards her for using a supposedly evil type of magic. Risa couldn't even work at a sushi restaurant or a bakery in one town because of how the shopkeepers despised her, believing that she was the cause of Parmanie Town burning down to the ground with her horrible magic, and the manager of the bakery even threw a stack of 10,000 jewels at her to make her go away. Even though Risa kept that money and other cash that people harshly threw at her, she could never stay in a town for very long periods of time.
In X783, Risa became ten years old and had to deal with carefully spending money on food or clothes while also carefully saving all of her money for some nights at inns or at people's houses. However, she was sadly unable to trust anyone. Risa had gone to a cold town during the holiday season to seek refuge in that harsh place, thinking that no one would find her there, but trying to stay at a seemingly kind woman's house only made some psychics come knocking on that woman's door five days later. Risa had escaped by going through the window while the woman begged the psychics to give her the 40 million jewels, and she even had to avoid other people trying to attack her with Water Magic or Ice Magic while she fled from that town.
Risa ended up running into the cold woods that bordered some scorching hot plains, seeing fire burn across the grass that was in different shades of red, and the people who chased after her openly expressed their thoughts that she must've been insane to run towards a nearby mountain where burning lava violently flowed through its cracks. Risa ran straight for that fiery mountain at high speeds, only the bravest people choosing to chase her into a fiery mountain with Water Magic or Ice Magic, but Risa was the only one to make it over the mountain alive.
She ended up going quite far from the mountain to reach the town of Kirliahoshi, which was a place where Risa quickly purchased some hair dye to temporarily make her plain pink hair be in a magenta color, and the acts of dyeing her hair while also being welcomed by a business owner to shop for new clothes at that town's fashion store made Risa feel pretty happy. In fact, she was even happy enough to let some of the town's citizens take pictures of her with their cameras after they mistook her for a fashionable model who seemed to be shopping in this town. That was the first town where Risa felt somewhat safe, since no one interestingly targeted her while the newspaper articles about her were still being published, but the fact that Risa was still being hunted down made her feel like she needed to flee to another town where she'd be safe and be around kind people. During the year X784 of her arduous journey as a fugitive at the age of eleven, Risa ran through a town and ended up running into a certain man who wore a white shirt with an orange hoodie that matched his orange jester hat.
"Oh, no! I'm totally sorry for knocking you down, Mister!" Risa told the man with a worried look on her face, as she proceeded to help him stand up.
The man who had the black insignia of a certain guild for fairies on his shirt replied with a nice smile, before asking curiously, "It's fine, my child. Although, thank you for being kind. Are you a mage of Fairy Tail?"
Risa asked in a kind and snarky manner, "Is that a guild where literally running into one of the members is a requirement to get in?"
The short man responded nicely while laughing, before seeing something glimmer from looking into Risa's eyes, "Not at all! Even though brawls unfortunately happen in my guild, you can join! I sadly have to go soon, but I'm glad you helped me stand up. You're a good child. I can see that in your eyes, and you also seem to have someone important to you on your mind. Whoever they are, that person must be watching over you."
As the white-haired man began to run towards a large wooden ship that was in this port town known as Hargeon, Risa thought about how she must have been surviving up until now because of Sara's spirit watching over her. She started to recall Sara's words about how a small magenta flame was still burning, and it would burn even stronger later on. Sara's death may have occurred two years ago, but Risa herself felt like she was still just Sara's little disciple who wasn't strong enough to defend herself against the psychics in Parmanie yet. Risa had to get stronger, and she looked over at the boat that the old man boarded with some other people who appeared to be mages.
It would be weird to join a bunch of mages who weren't even her allies, especially if they had been reading any of the newspapers that talked about how Risa needed to be captured. As Risa looked very hesitant to join the Fairy Tail mages on what wouldn't probably just be a boat ride for them, her eyes soon took notice of a certain man with messy pink hair now wearing a light pink tuxedo with plain pink dress pants and hot pink dress shoes while he carried a bubblegum pink box of chocolates. That man was Koji, and seeing him calmly walk down this street in Hargeon prompted Risa to apply Psychic Magic to her feet. She ran quite fast to get in line with the Fairy Tail mages who were boarding the ship, not noticing that Koji widened his eyes from sensing a familiar burst of psychic power, and the sight of a somewhat older Risa Ryusei standing in line definitely caught his attention.
Koji decided to just look closely at her, not wanting to use an attack that would strike the other mages for them to be angry enough to attack him, and Risa gulped nervously while thinking about how she wasn't strong enough to battle any psychic mages yet. Risa watched Koji take some steps towards her for a much closer look, seeing him notice the magenta pink T-shirt with a striped skirt in the colors of violet and orchid that matched her light pink high-heeled shoes, and she looked quite anxious from thinking that none of these mages would blindly get involved with her problems. As Koji began to smirk in a confident manner from being certain that he found Risa for him to collect the reward, he soon felt someone tap his left shoulder for him to quickly receive an aggressive punch to the face from a brown-haired woman.
"Hey, jerk! You didn't apologize to my friend for grabbing her by hair at that restaurant in Magnolia Town, and you only did that because she was reading this newspaper article!" The woman stated sternly to him while, causing Koji to turn around and get the newspaper article shoved towards his face while Risa hurriedly pushed past other people to board the ship.
Koji responded in a defensive manner, groaning in frustration as he saw this woman's blonde-haired friend standing a few feet away from her and looking at him in an offended manner with a grey ring of golden keys in her hands, "Look, I was just thinking she was so shocked to read it because she was good at disguising herself to not obviously be that criminal's little daughter from my town! I'm searching for Sara's disciple, but you can't attack me and get in my way!"
She refuted his argument by sternly and loudly telling him with her violet eyes narrowed, getting everyone's attention to where Risa sneaked off the ship, "I've never heard of anyone named Sara, and I don't care who she or her daughter are right now. You hurt my friend before I slapped you, and you're getting in the way of us leaving for the S-Class trials. Although, you better be prepared for Fairy Tail's wizards to waste no time with kicking your ass if you're looking for a fight!"
As a certain pink-haired mage surprised Koji by getting out of the line of people from hearing that he supposedly wanted to fight someone from Fairy Tail, Risa watched that mage tackle Koji down to the ground. Red-orange flames engulfed his fists while he seemed angry from hearing how Koji hurt one of his friends, and Risa quickly decided to run away. She and the tough woman's blonde-haired friend ran right past each other, only mere inches away from colliding, and Risa decided that she needed to run back to the town of Kirliahoshi for her to blend in with the townspeople while training with her Psychic Magic to become much stronger. As Risa ran quite fast with Psychic Magic heavily surrounding her feet, small tears formed in her eyes at how she hoped to properly thank those people someday. In fact, Risa hoped to someday return the favor.
Unfortunately, Risa found out in the very next issue of the newspaper that the Fairy Tail mages who left Hargeon Town on a boat to Tenrou Island were now missing. They were presumed dead, due to a dragon named Acnologia supposedly destroying the island, and recalling how Sara also died tragically also made Risa cease with reading the newspaper at the cafe while finding it to be weird that the newspaper had less major headlines such as how it mentioned Kyoko's newest major article of Risa finally be executed to join Sara in being dead. Risa pulled out the pink treasure chest from her striped skirt, realizing that she kept it for so long without ever opening it, and she opened the treasure chest to see that Sara stored away at least 198,000 jewels in it. The owners of a magenta pink tower where psychic wizards trained hard in different parts of the tower for solitude, as well as living in the tower, had informed Risa that she could stay there to improve her skills with her magic while paying them two-thousand jewels every month. Risa later gave them 168,000 jewels to pay for seven years of solitude to where she could privately train with her spells to make her Psychic Magic be much stronger.
After training with her Psychic Magic for seven years while the owners fulfilled her demands for certain foods and clothes, Risa left Kirliahoshi's tower of psychic mages at eighteen years old in the year X791. Risa even got the hair dye removed for her hair to be in its natural pink color again, but she was now out of money. She couldn't gain more money from being in a guild, as she thought that mages from guilds were still trying to hunt her down, and that unfortunately made Risa turn to a life of working at the nearby town's bar for money. However, Risa ended up working there as a sultry dancer who had to do several sexual poses for male customers while she danced in sexy bunny girl outfits that made her wear brown fishnet leggings with a pink corset that showed some cleavage. Risa did her best to seem quite appealing and beautiful to the customers, since she always had to be quite fashionable, and lifting up her legs to show her beautiful pink high-heeled shoes to customers always made people throw stacks of money at Risa. She managed to save up 200,000 jewels from that job in four months, and Risa eventually resigned from it after saving up 200,000 more jewels over a period of four more months while she no longer felt the passion for being a dancer.
Since Risa's purpose in life wasn't to be a dancer, she ended up going back to Kirliahoshi Town near the very end of April in the current year known as X792 to just see if anything new had happened to that place. Risa ended up seeing a newspaper sitting on the magenta pink counter for the cashier in the fashion store's magenta pink building while it talked about how Sabertooth lost the Grand Magic Games to Fairy Tail's guild in the previous year. Risa continued to read the newspaper with a curious look on her face while folding her old clothes into the magenta shopping bag, now wearing the magenta pink halter top with bubblegum pink ruffles at the bottom that seemed just as fashionable as the light pink jeans that matched her fuchsia high-heel wedges, but the sudden sounds of a fight occurring outside made Risa quickly pay for money and grab her bag to leave the store. Risa ended up watching the shadow dragon slayer from one article of the newspaper fight alongside a certain light dragon slayer and a certain woman with light blue hair who helped him beat up some bandits who invaded the town to steal treasures from the tower. Upon seeing the shadow dragon slayer defeat the leader of the bandits with his Shadow Dragon's Roar attack, Risa was immensely impressed.
"Wow, that was awesome! You're far from being the second-best guild in Fiore, if it didn't take that much effort for you to beat them down!" Risa exclaimed to them with a happy smile on her face, as she ran up to the three mages.
The blond-haired male told Risa with a confident facial expression, wanting to boast about his strength, "Hey, pink-haired chick! Just because the Grand Magic Games ended and gave out some rankings, you shouldn't judge Sabertooth as being the second-best guild! In fact, I'm the guild master and my name's Sting Eucliffe! My friend is Rogue Cheney, and we can even prove that we're stronger than whatever guild you're currently in!"
"I'm an extremely powerful and prominent mage who will be glad to contact my four-thousand friends to fight you, since you think I'm actually a wizard in a guild!" Risa responded to Sting with a snarky look on her face, speaking with sarcasm in her voice before giggling softly at her joke.
Yukino told Risa while smiling nicely, before politely asking with a curious facial expression, "That snarky remark was a bit funny. What's your name, and which guild are you actually in?"
Risa told Yukino with a kind smile on her face, as she felt glad that the trio seemed like nice mages, "My name is Risa Ryusei, and I'm not even in a guild. Unless my guild insignia is invisible, I'm free to join anyone's guild. In fact, being in a guild and having a home near the town would be nice for a mage who uses Psychic Magic."
"That's awesome, Risa Ryusei! You should join the Sabertooth guild, and you'll have tons of fun handling jobs! Since you use magic, let's see it! Show me how cool you are, Risa!" Sting replied to her for Yukino with a happy smile on his face, as he gave her two thumbs-up and confidently winked with his right eye.
Sting's words ended up startling Risa to where she gasped in shock with her eyes widened in a stunned manner while she fired a pink sphere of energy from her right hand, and it ended up hitting the area around one of the unconscious bandits to create an average-sized pink blast of Psychic Magic. That bandit was lifted up in the air while Sting noticed that the criminal didn't move a finger, and he wondered if Risa would do well in an actual battle. As Sting and Rogue started walking to the tower to get their money from its owners, Risa ran after Sting while realizing how his words reminded her of Sara. In fact, they made her think about the happier memories from when Sara was alive.
-Flashback ends.-
Back in the current time, in the Sabertooth guild... (Risa's POV)
Even though sharing the entirety of my trauma with Master Sting and my other friends allowed me to remember how my new master's words helped me recall many happy experiences with Master Sara, I now felt tears stream down my face from how I couldn't forget the fact that she died to protect my life. The way that she died was also very horrible, as I didn't even get to make Master Sara smile in her last moments by nicely saying farewell or thanking her for everything that she did to help me. Master Sara wouldn't be even here if I wanted to thank her now, and I cried loudly as my tears fell on to the table.
I watched one of my tears land on Lucy's hand, which caused her to get up from the table, and she came around to my side of the table to simply wipe my tears away. I slowly stood up to look at her with the feeling of immense sadness in my eyes, which caused Lucy to suddenly give me a tight hug, and I soon saw Rogue get up from the table to tightly hug me. As Rogue gave me a tighter and comforting hug, Sting got up from his chair to gently hug me while Yukino was the last person to give me a comforting hug.
I felt a bit better from how my friends gave me comforting hugs, since they didn't want me to bottle up my trauma any longer, and the fact that they put their hands on top of my hand to make themselves envision my struggles while feeling everything that I felt in all those situations really made me realize that I didn't need to worry about my problems like I was all alone. The depression from having no one to truly care about me like a parent had made me feel so hurt for so many years of my life, and my friends wanted to make me be free from the depression and loneliness of not having Sara around anymore. None of them even whispered that I should move past Sara's death, though, and I watched Lucy cease with hugging me.
As much as I hated the fact a kind person such as Sara died to where I spent years blaming myself for her death, I took notice of how tears were forming in Lucy's eyes as she clenched her fists. I didn't want Lucy to feel like she had to blame herself or feel guilty for what occurred on the day where I was in Hargeon Town, as I doubted that we could've been friends at that time with people like Koji wanting to hunt me down to get Kyoko's reward money from successfully dragging me back to Parmanie Town, and it wasn't Lucy's fault that I chose to run away from that situation instead of seeing if she was going to be as protective of me as Master Sara was.
"Risa... I'm going to avenge you, and I'll avenge Sara for you by killing Kyoko. That woman who calls herself a princess was disgusting enough to stomp on Sara's dying body and punch your mother after killing her to simply give herself some sadistic pleasure, Risa. She burned down Sara's house to be so vile while you nearly died in Parmanie when it was burning, Risa. Kyoko even made bounty hunters come after you, just like today, and I'm going to take her down to make sure she never hurts you ever again!" Lucy explained to me with a serious and fierce look on her face, tears falling from her eyes as her fists seemed to tighten even more with anger and determination.
Sting added sternly with a fierce look on his face, clenching his teeth and narrowing his blue eyes, "Risa, we're going to take that bitch down for you. I could care less if Kyoko's strong. She deserves to die for everything that she did to hurt you, and I agree with Lucy on how we'll be avenging Sara."
Yukino told me in a calm tone while some sternness was in her hazel eyes, "Risa-sama, don't forget that we also have to get the fourth ring to help Lucy-sama get closer to being back in her own body. Even if you still fear Kyoko and her power, we can't afford to lose against her."
Rogue added with a determined facial expression while clenching his fists, assuring me that everything would be okay, "Don't worry about us confronting Kyoko later, Risa! We'll not only get that ring from Kyoko and her other psychic mages, but we'll also make you fulfill that dream of becoming a princess who everyone will respect! Sara's spirit will get to see your dream become part of reality, Risa and her death won't be in vain because she wasn't wrong about her prophecy!"
Upon hearing how my friends were so determined to help me, I could only respond with tears streaming down my surprised face while my throat nearly tightened from crying, "Everyone... Th-Thank you... I.. I'm not sure how to repay you for being so awesome to me, especially after we nearly died today."
Sting began to confidently smile while giving me a thumbs-up with his right hand, showing me that he was glad to support me while today's fight against Miru and Shizue didn't make him dislike me for how he could've died. Lucy also gave me a thumbs-up with her right hand to let me see that she was happy to believe that Sara could be avenged while I would possibly become Parmanie's next princess, and she began to smile in a caring manner at how we were good friends. I felt glad to have Sting and Lucy as a couple of good friends, especially since they always believed in their own strength without ever being scared.
As I looked at Lucy's smiling face to see her look more determined about going bac to Parmanie Town, I started to be quite curious about how she was always so strong. Even after Kotomi stole her body, Lucy still fought hard for the legendary rings while she hardly showed any fear at facing powerful enemies. Being an experienced wizard probably didn't make her have such a determined and confident attitude, so what made Lucy still feel so strong-willed about defeating Kyoko or other mages in Parmanie Town? Even when she and Sting fought Miru and Shizue by themselves, Lucy didn't even yell for my help.
She wasn't being a stubborn friend who relied on her own strength, and Lucy's ability to not feel like giving up against strong opponents was amazing. Even when Lucy needed to get her very first ring in Cramoisi Town, she refused to give up in that fiery fight. Lucy always put so much effort into her strategies, as well as having the will to win, and continuing to look at my green-haired friend smile at me while the powerful mages of Parmanie Town seemed to not matter to her made me start to widen my eyes with realization from how her determination didn't just apply to lifelong dreams.
"Risa, we'll get that fourth ring and change Parmanie Town for the better by fighting with enough determination to where you'll be the new queen! Not one bit of our effort will be pointless, Risa!" Lucy told me with a courageous smile on her face, as she closed her eyes and giggled nicely.
That prompted me to calmly recall Master Sara's words to my friends while hearing her voice in my mind, "All your effort with Psychic Magic is pointless and stupid, if you refuse to believe in yourself."
I calmly added with tears still falling from my eyes, imagining Master Sara as how she looked on the night of Parmanie's festival while she replaced Lucy in my imagination for a moment, "You're right to have said something like that. You were always right about that, and it's time for me to believe in myself much more often to where I can be strong like you."
Upon blinking my eyes, the image of Master Sara vanished to let me see Lucy standing there with a confused facial expression at my words. I merely smiled at her while feeling glad that Lucy and my other friends told me some extremely encouraging words, and I started to gently rub my eyes to wipe my tears away. As I wiped away my tears, my right hand accidentally touched my sunglasses to where they fell from my forehead. I looked stunned at how they'd hit the table soon, but Rogue quickly moved to catch them with one hand.
He turned around to look at me with a kind facial expression, before gently placing the sunglasses back on my forehead and pushing them back to where they wouldn't easily fall. That made me start to think about the moment where Rogue caught me to keep me from falling into Kogane Town's water fountain, since he was now refusing to let something precious to me end up falling to possibly have a harsh impact against the table, and I viewed this as my friends silently telling me that they wouldn't let me fall back down into the depression and loneliness of my trauma that made me feel so much pain from everything pertaining to it.
Now that I felt so happy from realizing that my friends would always be around to support me, I began to walk away from the table. Since I was done explaining everything to everybody, I really wanted to go home and sleep to replenish all of my magical power. As I walked towards the front doors of the Sabertooth guild, I glanced down at my hands for a moment while only being able to build up a small pink aura in them. My strength may have been depleted for the rest of the day, but I'd definitely find a great way to help my friends when they went back to Parmanie Town. Lucy and the others were so determined to protect me, but I walked out of the Sabertooth guild while I started to smile with a look of determination on my face from how my desire to protect them was just as strong.
How was Chapter 28? Feel free to tell me your thoughts on it. I'm finally back to continue writing this Lucy x Sting story, and I'm excited to get back to it. Being away from this story for a few months allowed me to think of some new ideas for the rest of the story, including this lengthy chapter. First off, let me explain why this chapter is so long. It's the end of the flashbacks involving Risa and Sara, so I wanted to put as much content into this chapter as possible to really display their emotional bond while also showing Sara's death and introducing other characters who have different levels of importance. Yes, Kyoko is the main antagonist of this arc.
Also, it may seem a bit confusing as to why Risa ran back to Parmanie Town one hour after Sara's death without saying anything about where Sara was buried or where Cordelia went to. I will simply tell you that's not in Risa's flashback because of the fact that she escaped with help from Nazuna before something important happened to keep Parmanie Town from completely burning down into ashes. Also, Nazuna's actions make her be a rather neutral character. Whether you like her or hate her, that's up to you. Another thing I must talk about is that the town name of "Kirliahoshi" refers to Kirlian photography, which is a special way of taking pictures that reveal auras of psychic energy around others. (People in that town took pictures of Risa, who is a psychic and fashionable wizard.) The "hoshi" part of the town's name refers to stars, which are astral. (Psychics and stars sound like they pertain to the Astral Extrasensory guild, don't they?) Also, I'm going to address a question that someone left for me in a message. How can Risa's flashbacks feature things such as Sara being happy that Risa called her "Mommy" in a previous chapter, you ask? When Risa touched Sara's forehead during the moments of Sara's death, Risa's Psychic Magic unknowingly allowed her to access Sara's memories. Of course, this ability wasn't used until the flashbacks that Risa had after she unlocked that powerful surge of the magenta-colored Psychic Magic in that fight against Miru and Shizue. Therefore, the plot comes together. Speaking of plots, this is the seventh part of the Fuchsia Psychic Arc! The next chapter will feature one flashback from an unexpected person, as well as some character development with interesting moments, and some StiCy moments in what is still an arc involving the ring that can help Lucy get her body back! I'll update soon. :)
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