Akko's classmates headed up the staircase, ready for their next lesson. The young witch was beaming with excitement once she learned what the subject for today was since she felt that it was just right to help her on her quest to restore the popularity of magic in the world.

Not to mention she had a major boost of confidence over the last month after narrowly avoiding getting expelled thanks to a successful, but rather hectic, Witch Parade that showed all the witnesses what a wonder magic could be. Still, Akko knew she was just a hair away from having her pretty little face expelled if she screwed up too much, but word on the street was that anything she and her friends did to solve the problem tended to have some long-term gains.

Akko felt Amanda grab her by the shoulder, the same haughty smile on her face.

"Excited aren't ya?" teased Amanda.

"Of course I am! I always wanted to learn how to write my name and draw a bunch of stuff in the sky with magic. That's the first step if you wanna an impress an audience in your magic shows." beamed Akko.

"It would have come in real handy during the parade though," added Lotte, walking behind them.

Lotte popped up and threw her hat into the ring. "Yeah, I could've told everyone in town the juiciest and darkest secrets I know without anyone stopping me, and maybe even people from the next town over could see it and have it burned into their brain."

"If only you used your powers for good." sighed Akko.

"You should remind yourself that more often too," muttered Diana, who was walking in front of the other students. While she did come off as stern, Akko knew that deep down she really did want the best for everyone.

Ursula, the professor leading the group, clasped her hands and looked back at her students with excitement.

"So, who is ready for putting on their first magical light show?" asked Ursula, with audible excitement in her voice. She was normally the magical astronomy teacher, but her regular class would be not taking place this day for a special lesson instead.

"Yay!" was all Akko could cheer, given the nature of the magic and its connection to her idol Shiny Chariot, a performer who would put on the most spectacular of all shows. If Akko wished to show a world dominated by technology and hero quirks that magic was still a wonder, being able to entertain everyone with it would be a crucial step.

"Last time I checked, aren't light shows supposed to happen at night?" spoke up Sucy.

Ursula adjusted her glasses and looked forward again. "That is right, but being able to conjure up an easily visible light show in daytime makes performing it at night all the easier. Once you get that part over, all that really limits you with this kind of magic is your imagination."

Akko shot up her fists in the air. "This is gonna be so exciting. I'm gonna be just like Shiny Chariot. I'll write my name in the sky, then make holograms of flying whales or even more holograms of me."

"The world has enough of you." teased Sucy.

"Well I'd like to see you perform," encouraged Lotte. "After we put up the Parade of the Witch Hunt, I think it wouldn't hurt to put on another performance."

"Yay!" exclaimed Akko, in a slightly more hyper tone the more she visualized her goal. "But maybe fewer giants and trolls coming to life then next time."

Ursula called out to her students once more. "We are here everyone!"

The witches got up to the raised platform, sunlight beaming on their faces.

"Here we are!" cheered Ursula. "While my realm of expertise mostly deals with the night, I'm gonna show you all something really amazing that all witches...and wizards I guess, should know!"

Akko could barely contain her excitement, practically skipping in place. The rest of the class didn't have the same appreciation for performers like Shiny Chariot, viewing them as those who exploited and desecrated the art of magic for cheap attention. Akko, on the other hand, believed that with so many people exploiting their works for heroism or performances, Witches and Wizards had to make their existence to the world loud and proud instead of remaining secluded and dull.

"So, does anyone know what light manipulation can be used for?" asked Ursula.

Diana raised her hand and was called on. "You can use it to alert others of your position in dire situations."

"Correct," nodded Ursula. "Jasminka, you have your hand up."

"You can use it to draw pictures of your favorite snacks," answered Jasminka.

"True I suppose." laughed Ursula.

Akko raised her hand up, only for Hannah and Barbara, hands raised to quickly sidestep in front of her, blocking Akko from Ursula's view.

"Yes, Barbara." picked Ursula.

"I heard you can use it to write your name in the sky," said Barbara, knowing exactly that was what Akko was going to say given her earlier outbursts.

"And even make cool holograms which I heard goes great with magical performances," smirked Hannah.

Akko pouted at having her thunder stolen.

Ursula clasped her hands. "Okay then! First, we're going to focus on making your light projections visible in daylight so that you'll be used to doing them at night when you'd need them more. After some practice, you should be able to at least come up with something just like you see in a magic show or coming straight from a pre-enchanted firework."

Ursula got out her wand. "Okay, now the first thing you need to do is say the words Lux and then Ire Ultra. Make sure you leave a space and have your wand pointed upwards."

With a flick of her wand up, Ursula said the magic words and a visible red light emitted from it.

The class gasped with interest. It was a pretty bright day out, so being able to see something like that was impressive.

Ursula smiled at her accomplishment and revealed in her compliments before continuing her lecture. "Now I should tell you all that while it seems to be rather simple, it takes a lot of strength to manipulate light and make it visible, especially in daytime which is why we're doing it now. And let's just say it'll take a week before you can even write down your name, and a year to make simple moving holograms."

Just when the class seemed discouraged, Ursula grinned widely. "But the best part is that most of this spell is limited only by your sheer imagination and will. If you keep practicing, you'll be able to cast great illusions SILENTLY! Like a real performer. Maybe you'll start getting calls for magic shows!"

The class noted that Ursula looked strangely excited and her expression looked like she was remembering something fondly, or was envisioning getting rich off her students' fame.

Akko smiled brightly with a little happy skip, imagining herself in Shiny Chariot's role. There she would be in some great city like Las Vegas, Rio De Janeiro or even back home in Tokyo creating magical sea creatures or birds out of colorful lights for entertaining the masses.

Ursula cleared throat. "Okay, so let's start practicing now. Since you're all ahead on Astronomy, we should be able to do this a few more times in the coming weeks."

The students got out their wands, but Ursula was quickly reminded of something important and stopped them in their tracks.

"Oh yes!" she yelled. "While it's not likely, can you please not think of anything that might get us in trouble with the government and my bosses since there's a good chance your spells are going to be visible from a good distance. So nothing disturbing or offensive!"

"You heard her Sucy." snarked Akko, but Sucy paid her no mind and was surely planning her revenge for that quip, which made Akko regret that remark.

For the next 15 minutes, the students began chanting the incantation, with not much appearing from their wands. Ursula assured everyone they were saying the spell right, and needed to concentrate on harnessing the power of light and their imagination to make a beam appear.

Finally, Diana, of course, was able to get a faint blue light emitting from her wand. A very thin light, but if you placed your hand over the wand you could clearly see the blue dot as if the wand turned into a laser pointer.

Sure enough, at the half hour mark everyone was able to produce thin visible light beams, which Ursula noted would be useful in signalling a witches position in a time of distress. Constanze meanwhile had seemingly produced a large fire blue beam from her wand, only to be reprimanded by Ursula for having used a laser amplifier device she had constructed.

Amanda and Diana however, had finally been able to produce tiny shapes from their wands which floated up in the air for five seconds before disappearing. It didn't take long before their practice turned into a competition.

Akko meanwhile, struggled to produce even a faint beam.

"Come on you stupid thing!" pouted Akko at her wand. "Lux Ire Ultra! Lux Ire Ultra!"

"You're supposed to pause between Lux and Ire Ultra!" instructed Ursula. "They're supposed to be two separate sentences."

Akko took a deep breath. She had been doing exactly that for the first few minutes, but it was to no avail. As everyone else was producing more results, she had gotten increasingly impatient with the lack of progress.

She gave it another shot. "Lux. Ire Ultra!"

And nothing.

"What the heck is going on?" frowned Akko, staring at her wand, which she noticed had been pulsing a shade of bright blue, even though nothing was emitting from it.

Akko gave the wand a good shake in desperation, but it did nothing of course.

Diana raised an eyebrow. "Hey, that pulsing on your wand looks out of ordinary."

Ursula's attention returned to Akko. She adjusted her glasses and took a closer look at her wand, crouching down as she stared, before biting her lip.

Ursula stood back up and relayed the situation. "It seems your wand has a case of magical back up at the moment."

"Magical backup?" asked Akko.

"Basically it's an ultra-rare situation where your spells aren't discharging from your wand, but are instead charging it up with more and more energy for each spell that doesn't go through," explained Ursula.

Akko's pupils shrunk. "So my wand is now a ticking time bomb."

Ursula shrugged. "Not really, since it takes about half an hour for the effects to wear off, BUT that means whatever spell you cast from that wand is going to be extra powerful when it starts working again, so we need to make sure that it's really harmless. You get that?"

Akko sighed. "I do."

Akko's disappointment quickly turned to anger, swinging around the wand and causing distress to Ursula. "Stupid thing though! I'm about to finally cast one of the spells I really wanted to and it turns on me! Magical backup? Not letting me cast anything! Can you believe it!"

Ursula took a step back. "Um, Akko can you please hand me that wand?"

Akko groaned and held her wand forward to Ursula. "Take it. Can't cast Lux Ire Ultra, so how about this wand just Ire Inferna!"

A sudden violent BANG emitted from the wand, not unlike a firework going off. Unlike a firework that shot up a rocket into the sky, however, an electric green beam shot up pretty far into the atmosphere like a reverse lightning bolt.

Everyone's attention turned towards the beam Akko just emitted with great interest since anything she did remotely resembling a screw up would be at least a day's worth of adventure.

"Hey, you finally got the spell to go through!" encouraged Lotte.

"That's not the spell you're thinking of dear." gulped Ursula.

"Wh-what did I do?" asked Akko.

Before Ursula could answer, the green beam suddenly burst into a similarly colored pulse that shock waved far into the sky. Only after traveling a considerable distance did the wave dissolve.

"Thank God there are no air force or signal bases nearby." croaked Ursula.

"Reminds me of an EMP attack from one of Constanze's games," noted Amanda, looking at Constanze who was playing said aforementioned game.

"Well the power clearly didn't go out," added Diana as she stared Constanze's game too.

"It's a bit worse than that," muttered Ursula. "Let's just say anyone using a radio or some sort of GPS is not only going to have their data corrupt, but they're also gonna start getting some signals from beyond."

"Beyond where?" asked Lotte.

As if the universe or some being wanted to answer Lotte's question directly, a second, but much smaller pulse appeared in the sky and one that instead resembled a green hole in the sky.

"I'm guessing beyond means another dimension," answered Akko.

Ursula silently nodded.

A moment later, the gigantic green hole began getting brighter and brighter, a crackling noise clearly coming from it and sparks flying around its edges. It was like a computer going haywire or a nuclear reactor on the verge of explosion.

And then suddenly, a big flash blinded those who gazed at the green disk, which was obviously everyone on the raised platform. The witches began rubbing their eyes desperate for vision. Some opened them, but could only see blurs.

"EVERYONE STAY STILL NOW!" commanded Ursula. "We can not risk any injuries!"

The class was groaning and calling out to each other. Akko meanwhile was too lost in thought over what she had done to even raise her voice.

"Akko, I swear if you've blinded us for life!" hissed Barbara.

"You're gonna pay if I ever lay eyes on you again," growled Hannah.

"Don't worry, I know exactly what's happened, so we should be able to see in a few more minutes." called out Ursula.

"I think I'm getting better!" spoke up Amanda.

"Yeah, these carrots are helping!" remarked Jasminka, who was now making crunching noises. Everyone was too confused and disoriented to wonder or care where she got those from or how she was eating, but it was clear nothing got between Jasminka and food.

Finally, they were all able to retain their vision and shifted their attention to Ursula.

"Raise your hands if you can see," ordered Ursula.

The entire class did so.

"Good." nodded Ursula. "Now, I don't want to alarm you, but there may be a problem, or problems heading our way as we speak."

"What problems?" asked Lotte, tired of Ursula being so cryptic.

"And why are they...heading to us?" added Sucy.

And that's when everyone heard that unholy growl. Quite unholy especially as it got louder. And then it was clear it was more than one entity making a growling noise.

The students slowly turned their heads up to the sky, where the green disk had been. Now, there was no green abomination in the sky, but it had instead been replaced by multiple red ones. Winged, monstrous, and aggressive looking red abominations.

All of them were flying in their direction, not as fast as it could have been, but quite fast. A few minutes and they would touch down and wreak havoc.

Akko's eyes widened. "Are...are..are those what I think they are?"

"Unless you somehow thought of something besides demons, then yes," replied Amanda.

"As in the ones straight from hell where all damned souls go to?" checked Akko.

"That's the one!" cheered Jasminka, who was either in deep denial, too trusting of the teachers to handle this, or lost in her carrot snack.

"How did this happen?" frowned Akko, too confused to be scared at the moment.

Ursula sheepishly chuckled. "Well, coupled with your anger, the fact that you said 'go to hell' in latin with a wand that was charging for something powerful thanks to magical backup, it may have been just enough to open a portal to the realm of the damned."

"Oh come on, I didn't even believe hell was actually a place until 30 seconds ago!" protested Akko.

"I'm impressed," snarked Sucy. "Like actually impressed. You went from trying to write your name in the sky to unleashing the hordes of Inferno."

"Akko, most of our class performs spells at an above average level while you are the only living argument that witches sin against God's creation." bluntly remarked Diana.

"Shouldn't we worry about all those demons coming at us?" pointed out Amanda, readying her wand for some action.

Ursula gulped. "Listen, while nobody has accidentally summoned demons until this day, there is a way for us to banish them back."

"Some sort of exorcism or banishment spell?" asked Diana.

"Oh that's within the Church's realm who we should really work on contacting in case plan B doesn't go well." quickly replied Ursula.

"Plan B?" frowned Akko.

"Basically destroy them through brute force which many of you bluntly don't have the heart or skills for at the moment." nervously laughed Ursula.

A demon roared, the closes one was clearly less than a minute away. It caused quite a few witches to shiver, while Ursula stood firm.

At the moment they had all been blinded by the portal, the demons had evidently made a lot of progress on their way down, and were just moments away from landing.

"Everyone, form a barrier spell right now!" commanded Ursula.

Without hesitation, every witch on the terrace whipped up their wand and formed a transparent shield around them, even combining their barriers when they could. Akko was thankfully able to produce one herself without ill effects.

"Don't worry at all!" assured Ursula. "Our barriers are best at blocking blunt force. The demons will be wasting their time trying to break through. Even if they can break through!"

Finally, the first demon landed on the platform and roared loudly. Thankfully no spit got passed any barrier. A good number of them began touching down as well. There wasn't much room for all of them to stand on the platform, and that wasn't even counting the fact that the entire structure could collapse with their combined weight, so many of them instead ominously started flying around in a circular pattern. They were like wolves approaching their prey.

All that stood between the witches and their demon aggressors was a small space. A small space that was getting further closed by a tailing demon.

"Aren't we going to get help?" asked Amanda.

"I think we should hold them off here while we can. We need to stop them from taking the rest of the Academy," suggested Ursula.

"You can call for help, we'll be fine on our own." insisted Diana.

"Are you crazy!" yelled Akko at the suggestion the students fend for themselves.

"I didn't see a single witch outside today. The rest of the academy might not know that we're in danger up here," explained Diana.

Ursula paused for a moment to consider it. "Diana are you sure, you can handle this? I can maybe send a student too.."

"You said none of us have what it takes to kill one of these, so we have to get someone who can!" replied Amanda.

"We really could use an extra teacher around here," added Sucy.

Ursula grunted. "I mean, I myself could probably…."

Ursula's head suddenly rocked down, contemplating what she could do. There really was no reason for her not to use a powerful spell at the moment, but she kept muttering something to herself about how she couldn't fight alone.

"I swear on my admission here that we'll be fine!" insisted Diana.

"I am so fired." sighed Ursula.

Ursula bit her lip and nodded at the plan. "Two minutes! That's all I ask for. If I don't come back with help, run back down! The demons won't fit through the door!"

And with that, Ursula hesitated for a good moment to finally drop her barrier and sprint down. Those who saw her leave noted that she was strangely moving fast for someone like her.

As for the rest of the witches, the immediate threat was now at hand. They had no adults with them that could properly kill the witches, but their abilities to cast protection barriers were really above what someone their age would normally do.

Still, there was immense hesitation as a demon approached them, having sensed the gravity of the situation once their teacher, the most powerful witch among them, left.

"I don't think our barriers can hold all of them," gulped Lotte.

"I really wish witches were Satan's brides like those lies tell right now." whimpered Barbara.

"You heard the professor, unless you can summon a beefy slayer that can send these demons to their doom, this is our best bet for now," commanded Diana, standing firm.

"Ha! With any luck that savior will just fall out of the sky," muttered Sucy, trying her hardest to keep the barrier up.

SLAM!

"Ow! What the heck!" exclaimed Akko, whose eyes widened at the sight of what just hit her.

"Suitcases?" frowned Lotte, glancing at the bags that were settling on the ground.

"And with a cute parachute to guide them down too," added Jasminka.

"No wonder those demons are mad eh?" muttered Amanda. "You spoiled their little hell vacation."

"Oh shut up." pouted Akko, crossing her arms while contemplating her contribution to the malevolent situation at hand.

The large demon proceeded slowly towards the crowd, its mouth barring sharp fangs and flames readying to blast the witches into tiny pieces of charcoal.

"Calm down!" yelled Diana. "You heard the professor, keep the shield spell up until they seal those beasts away."

"There's gotta be something we can do to help and not just sit here." called out Akko.

"Oh please, you'll just turn our barrier into another portal to hell." retorted Sucy.

The large demon raised an eyebrow as it neared the barrier, displaying an intelligence not seen before. It contemplated the strength of the witches' magic, and so it decided that the most logical way to take down the barrier was to raise both of its fists and slam it down on the shield.

In an instant, the barrier vanished and multiple witches recoiled back from the strike.

Diana stood tall however and reactivated her shield, which the demon nonchalantly struck down again. And gain. And gain. It seemed that Ursula had underestimated the strength of either the demons or the witches' barriers, but Diana looked like she was mildly inconvenienced at best.

"Diana you're awesome but we can't keep this up all day!" squealed Hannah, who alongside Barbara were clutching Diana for dear life.

"Nonsense," replied Diana, creating barrier after barrier, evidently amused at the insistence of the demon to keep going. "At this rate, I'm confident that…"

"I'M GONNA MESS YOU HORNY BASTARDS UP!" yelled a voice that was very masculine and clearly Japanese to Akko, but unknown to most others.

As everyone pondered what they just heard, the sound of an explosion rocked the sky. The demon quickly had half of its face blasted off as a flame engulfed it, sending it falling back.

The now lifeless body of the demon slammed into the ground and soon dissolved. It had turned into a pile of red ash that vanished into the thin air, presumably to whatever circle of hell it came from where it would rejuvenate by feeding on the souls of the damned.

Akko's eyes widened. She tried to remember all the spells that could have done something like that to a demon, but those spells were not in Japanese, and she was sure those vulgar words didn't constitute any incantations.

And as she glanced up, they appeared.

Author's note: Yes Ursula darting for help while the students hold off demons is a major what the hell moment. Bear in mind though her rather insistent class has shown to be adept in tough times like with the dragon or the whole enchanted parade, and using ultra powerful magic strong enough to kill a demon would out her secret.