Chapter 4- Two Weeks of Preparation (Act II)
"Alright Akko!" Professor Ursula shouted as she clicked the button on top of her stopwatch. "That should be enough levitation magic practice today!" The professor looked at her pupil, who was surrounded with puzzle pieces. Today's lesson was to rearrange ten one-hundred piece puzzles. Before having Akko attempt the reconstruction, she instead broke apart every puzzle, and threw all of the pieces into one pile. Akko's job was to rearrange the pieces of every puzzle into separate piles. She had done so six times, each time getting faster.
"What was my time professor?" Akko asked as she wiped sweat beads from her head.
"32:40!" Ursula responded. "That's great!"
"Thanks." Akko held her hands out in front of her, and clenched both in order to pump herself up. "I might actually be getting better!" She whispered to herself. The excited girl however, didn't realize that Ursula was directly behind her, and had heard everything she said.
"What do you mean 'might?'" Akko jumped and spun around quickly when she realized that her favorite professor had heard something she intended to keep to herself.
"W-well...um.." The girl tried to form a coherent sentence out of her private thoughts, but was stopped almost immediately.
"Th-that's alright, Akko! I didn't mean to listen in!" Ursula was almost as bumbling with delivering her sentence as her pupil. But unlike Akko, she was actually able to finish her thoughts. "Um.. I do have something I'd like to ask you, though."
"Huh? What is it Professor?" Akko was curious as to what Ursula could want. She immediately jumped to the conclusion of a lecture asking her not to overwork herself.
"Why do you want to participate in the magic tournament?" Akko flinched when this question was asked. Not wanting to make it seem like she was the same person she was when she arrived on day one, she picked her next words carefully.
"I..want to be a splendid witch."
"But, you can become a splendid witch without participating in the tournament." Ursula could see that her pupil was trying to avoid eye contact, so she decided to be a bit more direct. "Akko, look at me." Ursula said with a serious edge. Akko looked back up at Ursula. "Why do you want to participate in the magic tournament?" She looked right into Ursula's eyes. Silence filled the air for a few seconds.
"Because…" Akko hesitated to finalize her answer in her head. She then looked down to the ground. "Because...I want to show everyone that I can be a great witch without using the Shiny Rod." While the answer didn't necessarily shock Ursula, she could see how much this thought pestered Akko. Ursula put a hand on Akko's shoulder.
"Akko, thank you for wanting to show everyone how far you've come. You're clearly working hard. I'm lucky to have a pupil as determined as you." Akko could feel her eyes starting to tear up again. "Please, never think that your identity is tied to fixing the mistakes from my past." Ursula looked towards the sky. "Our business with the Shiny Rod has ended. It wouldn't want us still troubling ourselves with it. I'm grateful to you for so many things. Thanks to you, I don't have to live without my own identity. Though, strangely I've grown more accustomed to 'Ursula.' That's something I'll work out on my own. Anyway, I just wanted to say, your determination has no doubt greatly affected many people, and the time has come for you to decide if that's a good or bad thing." Ursula turned her head back towards her pupil. "So, please, when you participate in this tournament, don't do it because you feel like you have to, do it because you want to." Ursula's words were sending Akko all kinds of messages, and Akko didn't know how to respond.
"Thank you, Professor." Akko said as she rubbed the tears out of her eyes.
"Classes are going to start soon, so I think we should skip connecting all of the puzzles with reconstruction magic for today. You should get to class."
"Right!" Akko started to run towards the school building, but a thought crossed her mind that made her stop dead in her tracks. She quickly turned around. "Professor Ursula?" She yelled. Ursula turned back toward Akko, wand in hand. She was starting to use reconstruction magic to collect the puzzle pieces that were scattered all over the yard.
"Yes, what is it?"
"What do you think of the magic tournament?"
"Me?" Ursula hesitated before letting out a sigh and giving a straight answer. "I'm not the biggest fan of the decision. In fact, I was the only one of Luna Nova's staff to object to it."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. So, please, remember to have fun with it! But please don't forget about what I said just now! You can become a splendid witch even without the tournament!" As soon as Ursula's words hit her, Akko started grinning ear to ear.
"Ok, professor!" Akko turned around again, and walked away with a bit more confidence.
. . .
Later that day, everyone, now including Diana, were engaged in a conversation during lunch about their progress on what each of them would present for "Who You Are." The entire student body had been hard at work for the past week, and everyone was getting more and more eager for the day of the magic tournament a week from now.
"I've been preparing something completely different from my usual magic, but it's something that I think would define me as a person!" Lotte shared enthusiastically. Diana ate a bit of lettuce from her salad. She leaned forwards, maintaining her nice posture, smiling in the process.
"That sounds wonderful, Lotte!" Diana said.
"Hey, Diana." Amanda said, while leaning back in her chair. "Where did you go for a week?"
"Oh, well, um.." Diana stammered to respond immediately. She didn't want to trouble more of her friends with worrying about her family arguing over her participation in the tournament than necessary.
"It's personal, right?" Constanze's Stanbot chimed in and cocked its head to the right in the middle of Diana's bumbling explanation.
"That's fine Diana." Jasminka said. "You don't have to share what you've been doing if you're not comfortable with it." The hungry girl obviously could relate with not wanting to reveal information that felt too personal. She offered Diana a potato chip. Diana took Jasminka's gift, even though she didn't have any intention on eating it due to potato chips being too salty for her liking. "How about your 'Who You Are' presentation? Have you had time to prepare anything?"
"Yes, I've had time to whip something up. Though, it was in a rush." Akko looked over, seemingly dazzled by Diana's ability to come up with a presentation she felt confident in, with such a short amount of time to work with. She started eating furiously.
"I'm definitely going to be at her level one day!" Akko thought while trying to devour double chocolate and white chip macadamia cookies.
"Akko? Are you ok?" Diana asked.
"Huh?" Akko put the half eaten cookies down on her tray, and looked over at Diana. "Oh, sorry, I guess I'm trying to pump myself up!" She let out a fake laugh again before she was abruptly stopped.
"Being pumped up is fine, just make sure you get yourself enough sleep." Akko could feel the sweat beads running down her head.
"Right…"
"Diana, I have a quick question, if that's alright?" Lotte asked. Diana turned her head to face Lotte.
"What is it, Lotte? Shoot."
"Lotte was wondering where Hannah and Barbara have gone off to so she can get her Nightfall volume back." Sucy interrupted with a small grin on her face.
"Th-that's not true, Sucy! I'm legitimately curious about where they've been outside of class recently!" Lotte was flustered, as she didn't want to come off as someone who's as selfish as to put her own personal items over the whereabouts of her new friends. After a few seconds, Lotte continued, a little quieter than before, but still flustered, nonetheless. "It's just that, you share a room with the two of them, and I've only ever spotted the two in our classes. But they vanish after that and I can never find them." Lotte grew even quieter. "Also, yes, Barbara has my Nightfall volume I lent her, and I'd like to see if I can have it back." The flustered girl was basically whispering at this point. "There's a new volume coming out soon, and I'd like to review the events leading up to recently before the Space Arc ends."
"There's no need to be embarrassed, Lotte!" Amanda said as she started laughing. "Barbara's just as nerdy about this series as you are! I'm sure she'll understand!"
"You want me to get the Nightfall volume for you?" Akko asked while pointing her fork at Lotte.
"That would be nice of you. Thanks Akko. I guess I'd feel too greedy if I asked her myself."
"You're not greedy Lotte!" Diana added. Akko was about to walk away from the table, but she stopped herself just before doing so.
"Oh, guys? I have something to ask of all of you." Akko put her hands together, feeling a little embarrassed for not having asked her question earlier. "Could you guys...um...give me some tips for finalizing my 'Who You Are' presentation? She was looking at the ground yet again, not knowing how her friends were going to react.
"Finally." Stanbot chirped.
"I know, right? I thought she'd never ask." Amanda added.
"You'd think that Akko would solve world hunger before asking her friends for help preparing for this tournament." Sucy said. Akko looked back up quickly, with one eyebrow furrowed, and one stuck up.
"Huh?" Akko wondered. "I thought you'd all give me a much harder time!"
"Akko, don't be stupid." Diana remarked. "We're your friends, so of course we're willing to help you out. You're stressed out, but so is everyone else!" Diana leaned back in her chair and sipped a bit of water from the glass she had sitting next to her salad. "We're always here for you. Never forget that." Akko chuckled a bit at what a fool she had been ever since the magic tournament had been announced.
"Right. I'm so stupid. Sorry everyone." Akko said while trying to maintain eye contact with all of her friends. She then dropped her empty tray off at the tray return, and disappeared around the corner.
"She's looking a bit better than she did earlier this week." Amanda said.
"Yeah, just a bit though." Jasminka agreed. Diana turned her head towards Jasminka, intrigued by her comment.
"What do you mean 'better than earlier this week?'" Diana asked. Sucy leaned forwards with a small roll of bread in her hands, her eating of the wheat interrupted by her sudden urge to answer Diana's question.
"She was running on only five hours of sleep about four or five days ago." Sucy interjected. Diana's eyes widened.
"Is that right?" Diana asked.
"Yes." Stanbot answered.
"She seemed to be dealing with preparations in her own way until today." Lotte said. Diana turned towards Lotte.
"Why didn't you girls help her? She's clearly wasting away!" Diana questioned harshly. Amanda leaned further back in her chair, and slammed her feet on the table in order to get Diana's attention.
"Why didn't we help her?" Amanda said with a bit of rudeness in her voice. "This tournament may be one that's main reason for existing is publicity in this new age of magic, but to some of us, that's really important." She leaned her head back, and looked towards the ceiling. "For some of us, our very identities are on the line. Put yourself in Akko's shoes for just a second. She's been told time and time again that she would never make it at this school. Even some of us sitting here have thought it." Amanda put her hand up by her side, pointing towards the ceiling. "But then, she went and ushered in a new era of magic, and unlike us, she also just lost her most valuable source of casting magic, the Shiny Rod." Amanda put both hands behind her head. "It sounds like a pretty stressful situation, really. She probably feels that her entire identity in the eyes of this new era is at stake. So, as dumb as it sounds, we didn't want to be pushy."
"You didn't want, to be 'pushy?'" Diana asked, desperately trying to make sense of Amanda's words.
"You're gonna make me come out and say it?" Amanda said a bit louder than before. "We're scared, alright? We're just like her! We didn't know how to approach Akko about her troubles, because we wouldn't know how to console her!" Everyone except Diana were suddenly dressed in a thick coat of guilt, the troubled expressions on their faces being key indicators to their current mental states. "Maybe it's because we helped you and Akko take care of Professor Croix's missile, maybe it isn't. My point is, acting high and mighty, like we were waiting for Akko to ask us for help was all we felt comfortable with. Don't get me wrong, we were all waiting for her to ask us for help, but this tournament has us all walking on eggshells in our own ways."
"Sounds pretty incomprehensible to me." Diana said. Amanda sat up in her chair properly, and leaned forwards in Diana's direction, armed with a scowl on her face.
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" Amanda asked.
"All I'm saying, is that friends are supposed to help friends. Your actions confuse me."
"What did you want me to do, princess? Skip alongside her and sprinkle rose petals in her path?!"
"No need for the exaggerations. Your lack of support for someone you care about baffles me." Lotte leaned back and put her hands up in front of her body, as if she was bracing for some sort of impact. Sucy put her hand over her face, trying to hide a smile that formed from that strange part of her that liked watching people fight, though she was equally as shocked as everyone else. Constanze raised her eyebrows and grabbed her stanbot from the table, ready to protect it in case things got hairy. Jasminka stopped eating and leaned back from the table. Amanda was about to yell, but she looked around, and noticed other tables were looking their way. Then she looked back at Diana, who was glaring them down, while maintaining her nice posture. Amanda quickly realized that this situation made her look like she was bullying Diana for no reason. Yelling would only make her look worse, not to mention make the conversation more awkward than it already was. She looked down at the table as sweat beads rolled off the end of her chin, and pretended to cough in order to make it seem like she was suddenly composed. She then stood up from the table.
"Look, all I'm saying is, you shouldn't put yourself above others because you aren't struggling as much as them." Amanda took her tray and walked away.
"But I'm not-" Diana barely managed to get out any semblance of a response before Amanda stormed off. She watched Amanda disappear around the corner, then scoffed. She then remembered that she was supposed to be sitting at lunch having a pleasant conversation, but had failed on accomplishing that. As she scanned all of her friend's faces, Diana felt a hot wash of embarrassment pour over her. "I'm so sorry everyone. I have no explanation for my words other than the fact that I've been very stressed out lately. Please forgive what I said." She lowered her head slightly as a quick sign of forgiveness in case other students were still watching the scene. "I'm going to go to the library so I can review for my Magical Numerology quiz." She waited for a response from the table, but nothing came. The conversation had become too awkward for any of them to continue in Diana's presence, and she became aware of that. Diana looked down at the table again. "Please tell Amanda that I'm sorry." Guilt was clearly eating away at her from how her voice softened at a breakneck pace. "Excuse me." Diana speed walked away from the table, and placed her tray with the others at the tray return. Before anyone knew it, she was gone.
"I guess Diana was right." Lotte said. "We should have asked if Akko needed help as soon as possible." Lotte lowered her head slightly.
"But Amanda was right, too. None of us knew what to say to her. We didn't want to make it seem like we didn't believe she could do it without help." Jasminka added, along with a slight chuckle. "All we could say was 'Get more sleep! Get more sleep!'"
"Akko needed sleep." Stanbot said. "It was the most helpful advice we could give." Silence overtook the table as the everyone couldn't think of what to say. But it was suddenly broken by Sucy, who said what was on all of their minds.
"This magic tournament couldn't be over with sooner."
"No kidding." Lotte agreed.
. . .
Akko knocked on the door to Diana's room. It felt strange to her. The last time she was there that immediately popped into her head, was the time she pretended to be Diana after a mirror made her look like her a while back.
"Interesting." Akko muttered to herself. "Something so hectic at the time is now small potatoes compared to what's happening now." She was so caught up in her thoughts, Akko hadn't realized the door had opened. She looked up quickly once she realized she was staring at a pair of feet.
"What was that, Akko?" Barbara asked, trying to figure out what the girl was saying.
"Oh! My bad! I didn't mean to say that out loud! It was nothing!" She lightly knocked herself on the head before letting out a fake laugh to make her slip of the tongue look intentional.
"You don't need the theatrics, Akko, we know how you feel." Hannah said.
"Huh?" Akko asked. These were words she never would have thought Hannah would say only a little while ago. But at the same time, she noticed the mess of books and notes that blanketed the room. Hannah was seated in the middle of the mess of information, and the clearing of paper beside her seemed to be where Barbara was sitting before Akko answered the door.
"We've heard about how you're pouring your heart out trying to prepare for the magic tournament." Hannah said as she pointed her pen at the confused girl. "You reserved that old library private study room for two weeks, right?"
"Y-yeah, I did. Why do you ask?"
"That's dedication we can appreciate!" Hannah said. Akko blushed at Hannah and Barbara's words of praise. At the same time, she didn't know what to say to them.
"Akko, we've had something we've wanted to tell you for several days now." Hannah said.
"We've just been too busy to tell you." Barbera added. Akko hesitated before asking what it was the two had been meaning to ask her.
"What is it?" Akko asked. They faced Akko at the same time, as if they had rehearsed what they were going to say.
"Thank you for this new age of magic!" Hannah and Barbara said simultaneously. Akko was baffled by the response from the two that bullied her until recently.
"You're...thanking me? For the new age of magic?" Akko asked.
"You've opened up an opportunity for witches to redefine themselves in society!" Hannah said.
"That action alone has helped a lot of us in this school!" Barbara added. Akko was about to accept their praise, but then remembered Lotte's letter she accidentally left on her desk detailing the competition that would soon arrive near her parent's magic shop.
"I appreciate the thanks, but, some people might be inconvenienced by magic not being rare anymore, too. So, I don't know if I can accept your kind words." Hannah and Barbara looked at each other, and laughed the same hearty laugh they shared when they used to pick on Akko for being flightless.
"You might have done something great, but that doesn't change the fact that you're still an idiot!" Hannah said through her chuckles. Akko was more confused than before.
"Akko, if someone's inconvenienced by magic being revived, that's not your fault!" Barbara said. Suddenly, sounds of footsteps could be heard from behind Akko, who realized moments later that she was still standing in the doorway.
"They're saying you shouldn't carry around other people's misdeeds, because you didn't set out to cause misfortune." Akko turned one hundred eighty degrees before she realized that the mystery voice belonged to Avery, another one of her peers. She was carrying another stack of books to add to their ever growing collection of study materials.
"Huh?" Avery's name didn't come back to Akko immediately. She ended up stammering for an instant before she was stopped.
"That's alright. Clearly, you don't remember my name." The purple haired girl inched past Akko and set the stack of books she was carrying down on the floor in front of Hannah. She then turned around to face Akko in order to talk to her directly. "My name's Avery."
"Avery? Oh! That's right!" Akko was a little embarrassed that she didn't remember Avery's name immediately. Most likely because she was chronicled in her memory as 'the girl that made fun of her the day she arrived at Luna Nova.'
"The three of us have been studying in Diana's room since you snagged the last private study room in the library. But, seeing as you're not from a witch family, you probably needed it more."
"Now that Diana's back, we're going to have to organize this quickly inbetween today's classes. Do you need anything from us in particular?" Barbara asked.
"Oh! That's right! I came to get the Nightfall volume you borrowed from Lotte!"
"Nightfall? Oh, I finished that volume about a day ago. I've just been too busy to return it. Barbara rummaged through several folders on the floor and discovered Lotte's book resting underneath.
"Here it is!" Akko took the book from Barbara's hands and thanked her. She turned around and began heading back to the lunchroom.
"Akko!" Avery called. Akko poked her head through the open doorway when she realized her name was shouted in her direction, but then stood in the doorway proper so she didn't seem like she was being disrespectful. There, Avery, Hannah, and Barbara seemed to be glaring at her, bodies facing in her direction. "I just wanted to say, don't count us out of the magic tournament just because you and your friends stopped that missile! We're going to try our very hardest to prove we're better than you!" As soon as she heard that, Akko felt a bubbly excitement she hadn't felt in a while. It was an emotion that was caused from a challenge being issued her way. It was something she realized she couldn't wait to face. Something she wanted to do because she wanted to do it. After a lot of self-doubt and self-blame, the feeling was refreshing. A grin spread across Akko's face.
"Counting you out? Wasn't planning on it!" The girl then scurried down the hall in order to give Lotte her book back as soon as possible. Not even realizing she left the door open.
. . .
That evening, Akko arrived back at her private study room in the library. Only this time, she was really running on fumes. In her right hand, she carried three pages worth of tips from her friends. In her left arm, she carried her pillow. Akko shut the door quickly, and slammed her notes down on the table. She laid on the ground with her pillow underneath her head.
"I just need a twenty to thirty minute power nap." Akko thought. "I can't take it anymore. I don't care if my sleep schedule is messed up for the rest of my life!" The floor was carpeted, but she lacked a blanket. It wasn't particularly cold in the room, so she didn't mind too much. Akko tried to fall asleep, but was having some trouble. Though her eyes were shut, and her head was in a comfortable place, she couldn't stop her mind from running a mile a minute. Earlier that day, she had given Lotte back ner Nightfall volume at the end of lunch. But Amanda and Diana were mysteriously absent from the table.
"The two of them got huffy over who was more stressed out over your well being." Sucy told Akko when she returned from Diana's room.
"Is that...what happened?" Akko asked.
"Diana asked us about your condition earlier this week, and we told her." Sucy continued. "Then Amanda explained why you were probably stressed out, and Diana got in a tizzy about helping out your friends when they're troubled."
"Oh."
"It's not like they both didn't have good points, in fact, they pretty much agreed with each other. But tensions were high, the two were hellbent on disagreeing with each other, and there was nothing we could say." Sucy got up from the table, tray in hand. "Anyway Akko, if you want me to help you out, then I'll have time after next class wraps up." Sucy walked away from the table, leaving Akko to ponder the situation with Lotte, Jasminka, and Constanze.
"They fought over who was more worried about me?" Akko asked.
"I still don't know what to make of it." Lotte said. "Amanda implied she was struggling more than Diana, even though we don't know Diana's current situation, or why she had to leave the school for a week." The exasperated girl sighed. "I just wish this tournament was done and over with already." Lotte's words echoed in Akko's ears as she tossed and turned trying to fall asleep. But then she remembered what Hannah and Barbara had told her about not having to worry about things caused by her reviving magic.
"Yeah right, 'I don't have to worry about other's inconveniences.'" Akko thought as a pit grew in her stomach. "My friends are fighting because of me. But I guess this outcome was unavoidable. What was I supposed to do? Let the missile land?" It took fifteen of Akko's planned twenty minutes of rest to fall asleep.
Hours later, Akko woke up. It was probably ten at night when she sat up and stretched. Akko got to her feet and cracked her back. She knew it was late, and her attempt at a power nap had done nothing but jip herself out of a day of studying and preparation for the tournament, as well as a good night's sleep. The tired girl scratched her head in frustration.
"Things have to change, or else I'm going to fall asleep on the day of the tournament." She took her pillow, and was about to exit the room, but the reflection in the door's mirror caught her eye. She turned around to find words scribbled on her blackboard. There was a message that read, "Don't give up, Akko! You can do it!"
"Who wrote that there?" Akko asked herself. "I locked the door-" For whatever reason, her head moved upwards, where she spotted the same ceiling tile that was cocked the wrong way from earlier that week. But this time, it was cocked at a completely different angle than before. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this!" Akko thought as she slid a chair right underneath the ceiling tile. Her hands were ready to knock the tile upwards, to see if anything was resting on the other side. However, right as she was about to do so, the tile moved by itself, revealing a girl hanging upside down.
"Hiya!" The mystery girl greeted Akko with one pand perched by her side in a cute fashion, and a smile revealing her sharp teeth. Akko shrieked and flew back from surprise. She hit the ground hard, landing square on her back. The startled girl could do nothing but tremble as this uninvited guest jumped down from inside the ceiling. "Pleased to finally meet you, Miss Kagari!" The girl crawled out of the ceiling, and turned herself around, angling her fall right on the chair Akko was previously standing on.
"Who- who are you?" Akko said with terror evident in her voice.
"I'm sorry it took so long for us to meet, but, my name is Elizabeth!" Now that this girl was in a more visible position, Akko could get a better look at her. The girl had pointy hair, and from the looks of things, was about the same height as her. Her grin revealed sharp teeth, and her posture resembled Diana's. Despite her fragile appearance, she was quite active, something that became evident when she jumped from the chair and landed right in front of Akko, looking over her from where she was planted on the floor.
"What do you want with me?" Akko asked while her face went pale as day. Elizabeth smiled once again, and reached out her hand as if they were business partners.
"I just want to help you prepare for the tournament! I'm your number one fan after all!"
NOTE: Continued in Chapter 5: Consideration and Cause