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mikewales456: It really do be like that. Sometimes you just need a break from the nitty gritty.
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Chapter 9: Academy
Elizabeth wasn't able to sleep the previous night. She was now twelve years old and today was the day for her to go to the Knight's Academy in Capital City. She bounced out of bed and grabbed Excalibur, along with the sheath that Shiro gave her. She ran to the door and swung it open to see her father with his hand up as if to knock on the door.
"You're energetic today," Evan said with a smile.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Elizabeth was shaking with excitement. "I'm going to the Academy today!"
"Yeah, we're going to miss you," Evan shook his head. "Now come on. Your ride's already here."
"Anderson?!" Elizabeth almost jumped when she saw her mentor sitting on the couch, sipping on a cup of coffee and talking to his mother. The man would spend a month at her place and a month at home to take care of his children and the cycle had repeated to that day. Anderson supposedly left the previous day, but there he was, right here in her house.
"Who else is going to take you to the Academy?" Anderson said with a small smirk. "I was preparing the carriage last night."
"You…" Elizabeth took a deep breath and smiled. "Thank you."
"Oh, I'm going to miss you so much!" Lisa jumped up from the couch and hugged her daughter.
"Mom! I can't breathe!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
"My little Lizzy is all grown up!" Lisa cried, completely ignoring her daughter's plea.
"Mom!" Elizabeth activated her Strengthening Art and pushed her off.
"Oh," Lisa said with a blank stare. "Sorry about that."
"Honey, you need to stop doing that," Evan massaged his forehead. "She'll be back."
"Yep!" Elizabeth gave her mother a thumbs up. "I'll definitely be coming back for the holidays!"
"You better," Lisa pouted.
"Alright, let's go," Anderson said. With one more hug from each of her parents, Elizabeth was off. She looked at the carriage and smiled. This was it. This was her first step to becoming a knight.
"Lizzy!" The young woman whirled around to see Shiro running towards her.
"Shiro!" Elizabeth hugged her childhood friend on instinct. The second she realized what she did, she flushed red and pushed him away. "W-what do you want?!"
"I just wanted to give you something before you left," Shiro said and handed her a necklace with a small dagger. "If you're in danger, prick your finger with it."
"T-thank you," Elizabeth took the necklace and put it on. "I'll be sure to treasure it."
"I'll see you around," Shiro said with a smile.
"See you around," Elizabeth replied before stepping into the carriage. Anderson got into the driver's seat and they were off.
"You seem happy," Elizabeth blinked and saw Artoria sitting across from her.
"Yeah," Elizabeth put a hand on the necklace Shiro gave her. "I really am happy."
Elizabeth looked in wonder as she entered the large building. This had been her dream ever since she heard about the Academy. She was still processing the fact that she was going to be a student here.
As she walked down the halls and followed the other students, she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Why do you have that sheath?" She was spun around by the hand to see a woman with dark green hair and wild green eyes. She was wearing white and red and had a brown bag over her shoulder.
"H-hey!" Elizabeth jumped back. "Hands off! My friend made this for me!"
"Your friend… what?" The woman took a step back.
"He made this for me, now piss off!" Elizabeth turned to walk away, but the woman grabbed her arm.
"I'm sorry, let me introduce myself," The woman bowed to Elizabeth, her hand still grasped firmly around the young girl's wrist. "My name is Saint Alcia Warren and I was tasked with delivering the holy sheath Avalon to the wielder of Excalibur."
"So you're telling me that the sheath my friend gave me looks exactly like the holy sheath that Queen Artoria used for Excalibur?" Elizabeth asked. As absurd as it sounded, she was looking at two identical sheaths.
"This one is the real Avalon," Artoria placed a hand on the sheath Alcia had placed on the table and the hand started to glow. "If I'm around this long enough, I might even get a temporary body. Maybe three or four years if Vivianne is feeling generous."
Really?! Elizabeth almost shouted. Artoria turned to Elizabeth with a smile.
"I believe you. Thank you for bringing this to me," Elizabeth took the real Avalon and sheathed the Legendary Sword inside it. She instantly felt reinvigorated, as if she could do anything.
"Anyways, I wanted you to know that I'll be your personal tutor for the next four years," Alcia said with a smirk.
"What?" Elizabeth said with a blank stare.
"The church specifically chose me because I traveled with the man who previously wielded Excalibur twenty-four years ago," The woman said with a smile. "I'll be sure to whip you into shape."
Elizabeth's jaw dropped. This year was going to be an interesting one.
As soon as the receptionist saw Alcia walking with a young girl, the two were ushered straight to the dorm. Apparently, the wielder of Excalibur didn't need to take the test. When Elizabeth insisted, she was informed that it wasn't because she was getting special treatment, but it would be discouraging for the other students to get ruthlessly beaten down during the exams.
"The Knight's Academy has been around for over a century and every wielder of Excalibur has gone here since its founding," Alcia explained as she led Elizabeth down the dorm hall. "They found a trend with the Heroes having much more combat prowess than any other examinee so they just started accepting them right off the bat."
"I still wanted to prove myself though," Elizabeth muttered.
"You'll have plenty of time to do that throughout the year, hun," Alcia said as she stopped and turned to room 33. She then turned to Elizabeth and handed her a key. "This will be your room here. I'll be tutoring you in loo of swordsmanship classes so I'll see you on Monday."
"Thank you," Elizabeth bowed to the woman. Alcia just waved and walked off. Elizabeth unlocked the door and walked in.
"Gah!" Elizabeth jumped when she heard another girl's voice. Standing in front of her was a girl with short, blue hair and emerald eyes looking at her with wide eyes. "S-sorry about that. Are you my roommate?"
"I guess so," Elizabeth closed the door behind her and extended her hand. "I'm Elizabeth."
"Stella," The girl smiled and shook her hand. "I guess we'll be stuck with each other for the next four years, huh?"
"Looks that way," Elizabeth smiled back.
"Oh, can I see your sword?" Stella asked. "I've been studying different sword types, but not many knights come to my town so I was hoping to see more here."
"O-oh… sure," Elizabeth mentally braced herself for what was going to happen next and unsheathed her sword.
"OhmygoshisthatExcalibur?!" Stella started to jump up and down. "Can I hold it! Pleasepleaseplease?"
"Uh… last time someone tried to do that…" Elizabeth was unconscious when it happened, but apparently Shiro started hallucinating and sobbing uncontrollably when he tried to pick the sword up. He forced himself to bring it inside before locking himself in his room for the rest of the day. "It wasn't pretty."
"Oh…" Stella visibly deflated before a small smile grew on her face. "Well I'm excited to see it in action."
"Thank you," Elizabeth nodded.
"Now, we need to talk about how we're going to split the room," Stella looked at the untouched dorm room. Elizabeth followed her gaze and nodded. WIth that, the two went to work.
"Agh!" Elizabeth was sent flying across the field.
"Come on! Is that the best you could do!?" Alcia shouted, wielding a sword that's roughly as tall as her. Elizabeth could only wonder how she could carry it when she was eight years old.
"Damn it!" Elizabeth forced herself to stand, her wounds fading away at a rapid pace. "I can still fight!"
Alcia just sighed. "You did a good job, kid. Let's get you cleaned up."
"W-what do you mean?!" Elizabeth held Excalibur up. "I can keep going!"
"No you can't," Artoria muttered.
"You're relying on that sheath to keep you going," Alcia threw the blade over her shoulder and walked up to Elizabeth. "I have to admit though. You're taking the beating a lot better than I expected."
"Yeah… Anderson and Shiro were big on endurance," Elizabeth sheathed Excalibur and rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.
"Giliad, huh? There are definitely worse teachers out there," Alcia scratched her head with her free hand. "Who's Shiro though? Is he another teacher?"
"N-no!" Elizabeth held her hands up and stepped back. "He's my friend! He's a year younger than me, though, so he isn't here. H-he's really strong though!"
"How strong?" Alcia rubbed her chin.
"Well, he beat his dad Kenji in a fight… and according to Auntie Akane, he was using Sword Arts too." Elizabeth rubbed her chin.
"Kenji? As in the Earth-Shatterer?" Alcia's eyes widened. "Even if he was going easy, that's a wild feat for a kid."
"Y-yeah," Elizabeth looked away. "He's really cool."
"Well, it's just about time for lunch," Alcia's smile turned into a smirk. "You have plenty of time to tell me about your first day and this Shiro boy."
Elizabeth's face turned beet red. She was starting to hate Alcia more and more.
Several weeks have passed and Elizabeth was living her best life. She was taking multiple Sword Art classes along with her academics and her abilities have already increased by leaps and bounds.
"Ugh, how do you do it all?" Stella flopped on her bed with her eyes closed. "You're taking three more classes than I am and you're not even tired!"
"I've had…" Elizabeth remembered Shiro's endurance training. The only thing worse than a ticked off Anderson was a ticked off Shiro. "An unfortunate amount of practice."
"Oh," Stella looked at Elizabeth with a frown. Before either of them could say anything more, there was a knock on the door. "Oh! That's for me!"
Stella opened the door and a meek girl with a lavender ponytail and lilac-colored eyes was waiting at the door. She had a smaller sword on her hip. Elizabeth remembered seeing a drawing of it in Evan's room labeled Spatha.
"Jasmine! Come in, come in," Stella ushered the girl in. "Elizabeth, this is Jasmine. I'm helping her with her Sword Theory homework. Jasmine, this is my roommate, Elizabeth."
"E-Elizabeth?" Jasmine looked at Elizabeth with wide eyes. "Y-you mean the top of our class? The wielder of Excalibur?"
"Yes that's me," Elizabeth flushed and looked away. She still wasn't used to all the attention she was getting.
"I-it's an honor to meet you," Jasmine bowed at Elizabeth.
"Ah… you don't need to be so formal with me," Elizabeth replied. "I'm a student, just like you. My sword and grades don't change that."
"Thank you…" Jasmine dipped her head.
"Now, what is it that you need help on?" Stella led the girl to her desk.
"Ah… I need help on my paper about western-style swords," Jasmine said, taking out a few papers from her bag. "I have to write about three types of swords, but I only have two."
"Can I see?" Elizabeth asked. She lived with a sword nut and had another as a best friend. She had picked up quite a bit from them.
"S-sure," Jasmine showed the papers to Elizabeth. It was a fairly detailed report on the longsword and the broadsword. "I-I'm just missing one type of sword. Do you know any I could use?"
"Hmm… Auntie Akane uses a falchion. Maybe you can find some books on it in the library?" Elizabeth put a finger on her chin. When she realized the shock on her peers' face, she tilted her head. "What?"
"You know the Bloody Mist?" Stella said with wide eyes. "And you called her Auntie?"
"Bloody Mist?" Elizabeth was only more confused. "What are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about?! "Bloody Mist" Akane is the strongest female knight in her generation!" Stella slammed her hands on the table. "And you called her Auntie!"
"She's so nice though…" Elizabeth said. She then remembered Shiro saying that he would rather fight his dad than his mom and she saw Kenji spar with Anderson. She repressed a shudder as she imagined how strong the unassuming woman was.
"W-well, I'll go to the library then…" Jasmine said, interrupting Stella's rambling.
"Oh, I'll go with you!" Stella chirped.
"Mind if I come too?" Elizabeth asked. "I don't have anything planned for the next few hours."
"If you want," Jasmine muttered. Elizabeth smiled.
I hope you're proud of me, Shiro, Elizabeth thought. She was finally making friends.
Several months had passed and it was only about two months before the school year ended. Although there were others in her friend group, Jasmine and Stella had remained her best friends.
"Ah… what a day," Elizabeth said as she sat up in bed. They were preparing for finals and half her classes had written finals and the other half had combative finals. It was quite the grueling task. Something Elizabeth realized was that Stella hadn't returned to the room yet, despite quiet hours starting in just fifteen minutes.
That's when she heard a knock on the door.
Huh, did Stella lose her room key or something? Elizabeth walked over idly and opened the door. When she did, she was tackled by a cloaked figure. Elizabeth immediately activated a Strengthening Art and threw the man off, launching him out the door and crashing into the wall.
"If you're in danger, prick your finger with it," Shiro's voice rang in Elizabeth's hand. Elizabeth pricked her finger with the dagger on her necklace before charging at the man, Excalibur drawn. The man got up in time to unsheath a large claymore and clash swords with Elizabeth. Despite Elizabeth being four times her normal strength, the man was keeping up with her.
"Who are you?! What do you want?!" Elizabeth demanded as the two continued to clash swords.
"I am sorry, my child, but it must be done to revive the Goddess," The man said. At that moment, she felt something cover her nose and mouth.
"I really hope that necklace works…" Elizabeth thought as her world went dark. "I'm sorry… Shiro…"
And scene! Did you really think the wielder of Excalibur was going to have a normal first year? Elizabeth's first year is going to be a two-parter before we get into the real good stuff. Anyways, please do consider leaving a review! I would love to read and reply to your thoughts. As this is an original world, I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Also please join my Discord! I would love to talk to you all and answer all your questions! I talk a lot about my thought process while writing, so if you're interested in that, do consider joining. The url is discord . gg (forego the spaces) followed by a slash and CpVs7R8KXz. Unfortunately you'll have to type the rest of the url in manually because I'm not allowed to post links. Thank you for reading and I'll catch you on the flipside.