Why Is It Always...?

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter of Spiral Flames In Lugnica! Whew, been a minute since I got one of these out but I guess that's what happens when you somehow wind up with several projects at the same time. And speaking of projects, I'm leaning towards making my next chapter of Armory of the Forgotten Hero the last one before a hiatus. Yes, I know there's a little more of the manga to do but as you've all seen I'm about caught up to it and it would probably do good to let the canon story get ahead somewhat and I need to cut down on my projects a little. Worry not, I fully intend to resume the story at a later date. Next note, my beta reader, Steeler Steelix, was not able to find time to beta read this particular chapter so if it seems a little different, that's why. Even so I think you'll all still enjoy it, just like you might enjoy my book, Plains Riders, on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited! Now then I've said quite enough and with no review questions to answer, let's get to the story!

Morning: Mansion of Lord Roswaal L. Mathers

Students in training to be heroes were taught a number of things when it came to dealing with unfamiliar situations. Keeping a cool head, analyzing conditions, and gathering information from wherever one could find it. This was a necessary thing as heroes were expected to remain calm during an emergency or at the very least appear outwardly calm. After all, how calm would the people be if the one who was supposed to be rescuing them was visibly scared themselves?

In this particular moment, Nejire Hado forgot about one of those. "DAAAAAAAABBBIIIIII!" She yelled while running down the hall in a blue nightgown with her hands in the air. The irony wasn't entirely lost on her that she was yelling for help from a 'villain' but that was a secondary concern at the moment. The main concern right now was figuring out what had happened.

Expectedly, and disappointingly, neither Ram nor Rem had any recollection of the last five days. They'd even confirmed that Nejire and Dabi hadn't met Roswaal yet which solidified what had happened: some way somehow one of them had died or been killed last night. Now time was reset, albeit at a different point, but still reset and they needed to found out why. And as far as Hado was concerned, the sooner they found out, the better, which was why she was racing down the hall to Dabi's room.

He most likely wasn't a morning person, not that enough sleep seemed to help his mood anyway, but he'd probably be wide awake once he heard what was going on. Interestingly, it would turn out she wouldn't need to worry about waking him up, because something else beat her to it. Or rather, someone. "DAAAAAAARE! Not again!" Dabi yelled as he was flung out the door on the left side of the hall and through an open window.

Clearly Beatrice didn't remember them either. "Dabi," Nejire called down after poking her head out the window, "are you okay?"

"I just got blasted out a window into the same shit covered bush, WHAT DO YOU THINK?!" He yelled from down below.

"Don't worry, we'll get Puck to wash you off and-," the U.A. student started to say.

"No, not doing that again, either," he called back up, "I am going to use a damn bathroom like I should've done the first time and then we're talking about whatever the fuck is going on!" He stomped off after that, trying to look unbothered by his current state by walking with his hands in his pockets. But it was obvious that he was fuming about the situation.

"It would appear we will have slightly more work today," Ram observed as she came up next to Nejire and looked out the window, "but I suppose we can't have a crispy criminal also be a smelly criminal too." All Hado could do at the moment was give an embarrassed laugh while rubbing the back of her head.

A Short While Later: Outside the Mansion

"So let's compare what we know," Nejire began, "I went to sleep, possibly died, and then time reset."

"And you're sure you didn't feel anything weird or odd right before that?" Dabi asked.

"I mean I felt super tired but we'd been doing magic and studying all day," the hero in training replied, "and I made sure to eat some of those boco fruit Emilia had to make sure I didn't die of mana loss."

"Still had to have been you," the pyro insisted, "because I know I didn't die unless my attacker pulled some sort of magic sneak attack."

"Attacker?" Hado repeated with a tilt of her head, "you were attacked?"

"Yeah," Dabi confirmed, "I heard something weird, like the sound of dragging chains out in the hallway so I went to investigate. The next thing I know a chained flail nearly takes off my head. Obviously I fought back but my attacker was pretty agile, small, and capable of using water or ice magic."

"I'm guessing you didn't get a very good look at them," the big three member said with a sigh, "or felt any kind of weird before this happened."

"I was just about to light up the whole hallway," the flame wielder replied, "then I felt myself slipping into the void, like what always happens when one of us dies. So my guess is someone either came and killed you in your sleep or you got poisoned somehow. Whatever happened would've been at the same time as I was getting attacked."

"So it looks like I am the one who died," Nejire said with a pout, "do you think that Elsa woman was the one responsible?"

"She would've had more than enough time to get here," Dabi agreed, "and it's possible she has an accomplice now. The one I fought moved differently than she did, slower, and wielded magic."

"So Elsa probably killed me in my sleep," the U.A. student guessed, "we should probably tell Emilia about this. It's likely she's a target too."

"We might not need to worry about that," the burnt villain informed, "she's got that cat looking out for her."

"Still, she deserves to know that someone's trying to kill her," Nejire urged, "the more eyes we have looking out for Elsa the better."

"You think she's the type of girl who's good at keeping secrets," Dabi asked, "even if she doesn't blurt it out she'll probably start looking around for the assassin on her own. If that happens our killers will be tipped off and run and we'll lose our chance to catch them."

"So you think…we should use her as bait," the blue-haired girl realized, "we know the date and time the assassins are going to attack so you want to wait until then and catch them in the act."

"Hey how 'bout that," the villain said with a slight smirk, "maybe you're not a complete airhead after all."

"What I am is annoyed," Nejire shot back with clenched fists, "it's bad enough that we're hiding some of the things we know from Emilia and now you want to hide the fact that someone might be trying to kill her?"

"Remember we don't know for sure Emilia is the target or if it really is that assassin," Dabi pointed out, "we need to confirm the killer's identity."

"And if the 'bait' happens to get killed because of our plan," the wave motion user asked with narrowed eyes.

"You're supposed to be a hero, right?" the pyro pointed out with a smirk, "you can worry about protecting her. You're trained for that, aren't you?"

"I am," Nejire confirmed, "and you're a villain, you look out for your own self-interest, like staying alive. So maybe drop the act where you pretend you don't care, because we both know that we won't be going anywhere if one of us dies again."

"It's not an act, I don't care if you or her dies," Dabi said with a frown, "I just don't want to be stuck like it's fucking Groundhog Day again."

"Same difference I guess," the U.A. student responded with a shrug, "so let's figure out our first step."

A Few Days Later: Nighttime

It turned out there wasn't a whole lot they'd be doing differently. Aside from keeping an eye out for anything that seemed suspicious. A task that was admittedly a bit more difficult than expected when they remembered their host was an eccentric magic man who could likely make all manner of odd things occur. Nejire grudgingly agreed not to tell Emilia on the condition that she spend more time with her in order to see if she could spot their assailant. While they could've waited until the exact day and time to put their guards up, the possibility did exist that their quarry had scouted out the mansion beforehand.

Though if it was Elsa and she had done so, neither Nejire nor Dabi spotted any sign of her over the week. This meant that when the fifth day of their time at the mansion came they had to pretend not to be extra apprehensive. Something that was easier for Dabi than Nejire when the duo realized they'd have to share food in order to make sure the blue-haired heroine wouldn't get poisoned again. "This is…..a little unusual," Emilia observed as she sat across from them.

"Oh, well you see," Nejire began to explain, or rather lie, "Dabi and I are trying to let bygones be bygones right now. Yes we're on opposite sides in our world but there's not a lot of reason for us to fight here." She stole a bite off of the flame wielder's plate then.

"Just take the rest of it," he ordered with a sigh, "I'm not all that hungry tonight anyway."

"Are you not feeling well," the half elf asked, "I could heal you or have Beatrice look at you."

"I ain't sick, just got a lot on my mind," Dabi replied dismissively, "you just worry about your royal selection stuff and whatever magic you're going to teach us tomorrow."

"That is going to be a little difficult," Emilia revealed, "you two have done so well in just a few days. If I didn't know better I'd have thought you'd done it already."

"What? Us? No," Nejire interjected quickly while waving her hand, "it's just that using magic here turned out to be a lot like using our quirks. So I guess you could say it's like playing a game you know but with different rules than usual."

"Oh, like tag but you don't know who's it," the white-haired girl tried a comparison.

"Uh, yeah, that's a good comparison," the hero in training replied, "we're still drawing out something from within us but we're using different steps."

"Come to think of it," Emilia said with a finger to her chin while looking up at the ceiling, "is there anyone in your world with pointy ears or silver hair?"

"We've got people of all shapes and sizes!" Nejire answered happily, "one of my very best friends, Amajiki, has pointy ears. I'm also friends with a girl who's got some froglike traits and I worked with a guy who's half man and half sea lion!"

"Sea…lion?" the royal candidate repeated with obvious confusion, "what are those?"

"Oh, they're like fish but also kind of like dogs, which I know is confusing, especially when they're called sea 'lions'," Hado answered, "which now that I think about it I have no idea why they're called sea lions and not sea dogs or something else along those lines."

"It sounds like a strange animal," Emilia noted, "but then again I've never heard of a sea, either."

"You haven't?" the U.A. student said in surprise, "you don't have a sea here, or an ocean?"

"I haven't been sponsored by Lord Roswaal for all that terribly long," the half elf replied while pushing her hair behind her ear, "and my studies keep me pretty busy so it's possible I missed it somewhere. But the way I understand it, this world is surrounded on all sides by the great waterfall."

"That's reaaaaallly weird," Nejire replied, "where Dabi and I come from is surrounded by the ocean on all sides and we have all kinds of ways to get to it so I've been to the ocean several times."

"Could you tell me about it," Emilia asked sheepishly, "the ocean I mean. Is it like the lakes and rivers around here?"

"It is and at the same time it isn't," Hado replied, "why don't I start by telling you the basics." Much of the rest of the evening would play out like this, with Nejire and Emilia swapping and comparing the geography of their two worlds with the occasional comment by Dabi. Even if it was to kill time Nejire at least had some fun during the wait. What would come next would be much less pleasant.

That Night: Roswaal's Mansion

The plan was simple. Nejire would pretend to be asleep for a few minutes before slipping out of her window and flying over to one of the hallway windows near Emilia's room. Naturally she took a quick peek into the white-haired girl's room to make sure no one had already snuck in there before doing so. 'Glad I left this one opened on the way to my room,' she thought gratefully as she opened the window and slid it shut as silently as she could. The most difficult part was hiding the glow of her quirk coming from her feet.

'There is a downside to having a flashy quirk,' the wave motion user mused as she silently crept through the hallway to Emilia's door. 'Alright, in position.' Now came the difficult part, waiting. Loath as she was to admit it Dabi definitely had her beat in this category. Even at her most serious it had always been hard for an energetic person like her to hold still for long periods of time.

But one thing she had going for her is she knew roughly when the attack on both her and Dabi would occur and that helped steady her nerves a bit. 'Now where are you,' the hero in training thought as her eyes scanned the area. Then something unexpected happened: she suddenly felt violently ill, bending over to throw up bile on the floor as she was seized by a violent coughing fit. 'What, but how,' she questioned while feeling her strength leaving her body, 'we checked for poison, I know we did!'

It didn't seem plausible but some way somehow here she was on her hands and knees feeling like death as a frantic Emilia came out to see what was wrong. Her flame wielding companion wasn't having a much better time as he confronted the one who'd come to take his life. "A whole lot of shit's starting to make sense now," Dabi said as his attacker readied a flail, their body and face slightly shrouded in shadow. But Dabi's lit flames were more than luminating enough for him to see who it was. "So, mind telling me what this is all about?"

The answer he received made his eyes widen in surprise before the feeling of death crept over him again. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in his bed once more, five days ago.

The Third Loop: Roswaal's Garden

"No," Nejire said almost immediately, "I don't believe it. You're sure there wasn't anyone else?"

"I know who I saw," the pyro defended, "in total I've had ten days to memorize the features of everyone here. It was her, one hundred percent."

"But that doesn't make sense," Hado shot back, "why would she want us dead? We haven't done anything wrong other than freeloading and partial property destruction. Most of which was your fault."

"She didn't do it because of that," Dabi informed, "I tried asking her what the deal was and she said: 'you serve the witch'. Somehow she knows we were sent her by Pandora but I don't think she's aware we're just a couple of guinea pigs."

"And this is why we should've told them the whole story," Nejire said in annoyance, "right now they must think we're keeping secrets from them because we intend to hurt them. If we just tell them why Pandora sent us here I'm certain they'd understand!"

"Or they'll try to kill us on the spot the moment they learn we have any sort of connection to that witch," the flame wielder countered, "it's too risky to tell them all."

"And if we don't explain ourselves at least one of them is going to try and kill us anyway," the blue-haired girl pointed out, "did you happen to hear how she found out about our connection to the witch?"

"I was about too," Dabi replied, "but then you died again. I thought we made absolutely sure you didn't ingest any poisons this time around."

"We did, my grumbling tummy told me about it the whole time," the big three member said, "the only way I can think of is they got me with magic somehow."

"Magic that activated the same time as the attack," Dabi mused aloud, "she must've hit you with something when the two of you were alone. It would explain why I wasn't affected either time."

"But there were more than a couple times she could've put some sort of spell on me," Nejire said as she put a finger to her chin while contemplating the matter. A spark of inspiration came to her then as she snapped her fingers. "I think I know when!"

"Really, well let's have it already-." The villain began to say before being interrupted by a distant voice.

"Nejire! Dabi!" Emilia called from a distance while waving at them, "Roswaal's returned to the mansion! Come and meet him!"

"Whoops, guess it's that time again," Nejire quipped as she floated up with her quirk, "let's go meet the great mage for a third time!"

"Goodie," Dabi grumbled as he stalked off after the two girls. 'Oh well, at least it gives me more time to study fire magic,' he thought as a slight smirk appeared on his face, 'I can feel it, too. I'm close to achieving the first step.' The rest of the day would go by in relatively the same fashion as it had before. Obviously there were a few differences with Nejire and Dabi proving even more proficient in reading, writing, and magic this time around and their future knowledge also allowed for the avoidance of a couple of embarrassing incidents.

One thing they did differently was go to Beatrice with a few new questions about magic. Or at least Nejire did. Dabi, despite his best efforts or rather the lack thereof, kept getting blasted out of her library for being a prick. "And why is it you feel the need to intrude in my library today," the miniature magic user asked without looking up from the book she was reading, "if it's quick I may feel like answering it, I suppose."

"I mean it's kind of a broad question," the wave motion user admitted, "but it's just one today, instead of a dozen like usual."

"I doubt that very highly, I suppose," Beatrice replied while turning a page, "but fine, what is it you want to know?"

"Bad magic," Nejire answered, "specifically magic that can be placed on people."

"You're referring to a curse, I suppose," the blond-haired girl said before closing her book, "why would you want to know about something like that?"

"Oh, well you know we kinda nearly got killed by an evil assassin lady and everything," the U.A. student explained, or rather half-lied, "and she's still out there with freaky regenerating powers and who knows what else. So I was thinking it might be a good idea to know about stuff like that."

"Hmph, I look forward to the day you can read about all of that yourself," Beatrice commented as she set her current book down, got up and went to one of the many bookshelves in her library. She quickly returned with another large book which she set out on the table she used for her tea tray. "Curses aren't the most complicated forms of magic out there, I suppose, but they are incredibly tricky to deal with if you catch them too late." She opened up the book to a map of the world and pointed to a country to the North.

"The most common and well-known users of curses are shamans and spell casters from the frigid country of Gusteko, I suppose," she continued, "obviously there are different curses that cause varying degrees of pain, anguish, or death but they all have one thing in common: once they're activated there's nothing you can really do about them."

"WHAAAAATT?!" Nejire exclaimed, louder than she meant too.

"It is scary, I suppose," Beatrice said without seeming to realize just how terrified she'd made the hero-in-training, "the good news is that if you catch it before it's activated then removing them is a simple matter."

"And, uh, what would a common way to place a curse be," the big three member asked once she regained her composure.

"Physical contact is mandatory when placing a curse on someone," the twin-tailed girl replied, "a simple touch or in the case of many mabeasts, a bite will do, I suppose. Once placed, the caster can either put a time limit on the curse for activation or activate it themselves. What's most often done is for one to be placed and then activated later on from a distance."

"That certainly makes sense," Nejire agreed with a nod, "so if a shaman doesn't touch you then you won't be cursed?"

"That is what Betty just said," she replied, "are you hard of hearing, I suppose?"

"No, in fact I'm great right now," Nejire laughed as she grabbed both of Beatrice's hands and shook them enthusiastically, "thank you so much!"

"Thank Betty by not tearing her arms off, I suppose!" The blond girl exclaimed while nearly being lifted off the floor by the U.A. girl. She'd quickly sent her out of the library then but the big three member wasn't put off by it in the least. Instead what sobered her up was what would have to come next.

A Few Days Later: On the Road to the Village

"Carrots, onions, tomatoes, and, uh, some meat," Nejire read aloud while looking at the shopping list the maids had put together.

"Pork, to be precise," Rem informed as she accepted the list back from Hado, "though you were close. It is good to see that my sister's lessons are not going to waste for the two of you."

"She's not a bad teacher and I've learned how to study foreign languages back in my world," the hero in training answered, "it's motivating Dabi that's the difficult part."

"From what I hear," the blue-haired maid replied simply, "you were not lying when you said he was a delinquent back in your world."

"He was a bit worse than a 'delinquent' back in our world," Nejire informed sadly, "what you're seeing right now is actually the most sane and rational that I've ever seen him. If we didn't have a shared goal he'd be trying to kill me right now."

"Circumstances are an interesting thing," Rem commented, "necessity sometimes dictates working with one's sworn enemies to accomplish a goal. Other circumstances may dictate that one serves those they despise. I wonder, though, how long will your shared goal keep the two of you cooperating?" Nejire stopped walking then while the blue haired maid continued to walk for a few feet before stopping.

She turned to ask the U.A. student what was wrong but was beaten to it as Nejire spoke first. "'Serving the ones you despise'," she repeated, "is that really what you think of us?"

"My apologies," Rem replied with a bow, "that example was not meant-."

"But it was, wasn't it," Nejire asked as she lowered her head, casting a shadow over her eyes, "that's exactly how you feel about us."

"You are mistaken Ms. Hado," the maid assured, "I bear no ill will towards-."

"Don't bullshit us," the voice of Dabi said as he stepped out from behind a large cluster of bushes further up the road, "you've had murder on your mind ever since we set foot in the mansion, haven't you?"

"Mr. Dabi," Rem noted, "would you and Ms. Hado kindly explain what this is all about?"

"Guess I have to spell it out for ya," the pyro said with a roll of his eyes, "you're planning on doing us both in tonight and don't try to deny it. You were even planning to put a curse on Hado before you got back to the mansion." The blue-haired maid didn't reply for several moments after that before sighing.

"You are only half right," she finally said, "I do not know how to place curses upon someone." She whipped her right arm out then as a chain with a morning star on it came hurtling towards Nejire. It might've gotten her if she hadn't had her guard up, but even so it almost clipped her side as she dodged to her right. Rem moved her arm in an arc then, bringing the chained weapon back around in a vertical path that forced Dabi to jump back, the weapon cracking the ground where he'd just been. "But I was planning to kill at least one of you tonight, and now, you've given me the perfect excuse to execute you both."

To fill in the blank on the title, why is it always the maid/butler? That's right, Rem has it out for our protagonists and somehow knows about their connection to the witch, or at least 'a' witch. But is that all there is to her reasoning or is there more? We'll find out next time, so in the meantime feel free to leave a comment or review about what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters. And don't forget to check out my book, Plains Riders, on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited! Finally, be sure to stop in next time as Rem demonstrates that she's more than just a cute little maid. 'Til then.