A/N: Phew. This chapter was a doozy, not gonna lie. Outside of the heatwave and me just generally not being well, it took me a little longer than I was hoping to get this update done. So, apologies to anyone who was expecting a Ghost of a Kind update. I haven't started writing for that fic yet, but since the word count for those chapters is much less than Shadows of a Spare and The Owlcast, it shouldn't hopefully take me too long to get it done.

Thank you to everyone who has been favouriting, following, reviewing and reading this fanfic. Your continued support is greatly appreciated. Not much to expect from this chapter in terms of action, really. It's mostly just more Red Team and Delila 'bonding'. But next chapter will go into the drama that comes with the consequences of a certain Cavendish's actions... so, there's that. XD As usual, extra author's notes are at the bottom of the chapter if you wish to stick around for that, and reminder that those of you with an AO3 account can find and read this work over there as well should you need to find it. In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy the next update for this fic. Enjoy!

Chapter 10: Getting to Know You

A short time passed for the four witches seated on the riverbank. Conversation began to wane. The awkward silences in between were frequent. Occasionally the rustling foliage and the trickling water filled in the blanks. Otherwise, very few words were exchanged amongst their strange little group.

Admittedly, Delila saw this coming. The second-oldest Cavendish heir acknowledged unabashedly that she was introverted by nature, only engaging in polite conversations with strangers if it was absolutely necessary in maintaining a certain image for her family's sake. And from her short interactions with the Red Team so far, the young Cavendish quickly picked up that Akko was the most outgoing and extroverted of the trio, primarily being the one to take the lead with the conversation. Occasionally, Lotte timidly chimed in with a comment or two, but Delila could tell based on how soft-spoken she was that the Finnish witch wasn't a natural conversationalist. And when it came down to Sucy, she barely uttered a word unless Akko or Lotte spoke directly to her (or Akko said something that the lavender-haired witch had to poke fun at her for). The social interaction between the four of them started out fairly strong, yet now, much like the declining condition of the Jennifer Memorial Tree, it was slowly dying, weakly supported by menial small talk or playful bickering in the case of Akko and Sucy.

Speaking of the memorial tree, Delila had noticed during her time sat with the Red Team that the Blue Team had yet to emerge from the botanical garden, which admittedly didn't sit well with the younger Cavendish. The more she stole glimpses of the botanical garden's entrance during the periods of awkward silence, the more palpable the aching in her gut became, niggling away at her insides like her body had become the host to a colony of maggots. Delila was quick to chalk it down to the idea of leaving Diana alone with Hannah and Barbara. And while Delila highly doubted her teammates would do anything to her sister considering how they revered her, it did not stop her from stealing yet another glance at the botanical garden for the umpteenth time today.

Fortunately for Delila, Akko was about to come to the rescue with a much-needed distraction.

"Delila?" The younger Cavendish flinched at the palm the Japanese girl waved in front of her face, snapping her out of her reverie. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Hm?" Delila turned to Akko and forced a couple of blinks, taking a couple of seconds to pull herself together and then clear her throat after Akko retracted. "My apologies. What did you say?"

"Is what Diana said about Shiny Chariot true? That witches at Luna Nova don't like her magic because she was a worldwide witch performer?"

Ah. That question.

Delila sighed quietly and closed her eyes upon facing Akko properly, adjusting her position to sit cross-legged. "That is correct."

"… Huh." Akko, who was still seated with her legs crossed, frowned in confusion, propping an elbow on her knee to cup one of her cheeks in her palm. "How come?"

One of Delila's eyes cracked open with the slight and quizzical lift of one of her brows, the further questioning taking her off guard a bit. "Did Diana not enlighten you on the reason why?"

"Not really." The brunette girl scowled to the point her forehead wrinkled like an old newspaper, appearing to be recalling the little 'debate' they'd had in the cafeteria, from Delila's perspective. "She just kept going on about how no one respects Chariot's performances and that I shouldn't look up to her as a role model."

So why did Diana imply to her that she had covered that information with Akko back in the courtyard, Delila wondered. How was Akko supposed to understand Diana's side to the debate if she didn't know why witches found Shiny Chariot's magical acts 'disrespectful'? Then again, her sister had apparently butted into the discussion uninvited to give her opinion. Her behaviour surrounding the whole issue was befuddling Delila.

"I see." Delila looked between Lotte and Sucy. "And I assume neither of you were given the chance to elaborate on the matter?"

Lotte and Sucy both shook their heads in response, the latter of the pair choosing to answer first in a monotonous tone. "I don't know about Shiny Chariot all that much. She didn't do any shows where I live, as far as I know."

"Same here. I think I heard some things here and there growing up, but it wasn't much."

Delila sighed a little. "The negative opinions, presumably?"

Lotte smiled sadly and nodded. "Shiny Chariot does have a bad reputation amongst witches."

Attention turned to Akko when she sat up straight and threw her arms above her head exasperatedly. "But why? Shiny Chariot was just trying to make people happy! What's wrong with that?!"

Delila answered bluntly. "Nothing." Akko looked her way with a bewildered blink as she rested her chin on her knuckles. "It's not the intent behind the performances that upset the magical community. It was the misconception they gave about magic to the general public that many witches found disrespectful."

"Misconception?" Akko knitted her brows together and pursed her lips a little. "What do you mean?"

"Before coming to Luna Nova, were you aware of how magic is traditionally practiced?"

Delila could already guess the answer without hearing it from Akko herself. The little she'd seen and heard from the brunette so far pretty much confirmed she wasn't. Though, she saw no harm in double checking from the source.

Akko shook her head. "Everything I knew about magic came from Shiny Chariot's shows. And the mail orders I found." The Japanese student chuckled nervously and rubbed a hand against the back of her neck. "But looking back, I'm starting to think those were scams…"

I concur, Delila thought, allowing her eyes to droop a little out of concern at the nervous smile Akko gave her. She couldn't judge Akko for falling for scams like those when her knowledge on the magical world was naturally lacking, yet it didn't stop her wondering just how much money Akko probably lost to those scams…

"Well, in the magical community, magic is a vital tool to a witch's way of life. For millennia, our ancestors have been reliant on magic for a variety of cost-effective and convenient uses, like plumbing, electricity, heating, even for the most basic and menial tasks such as—"

"What?!" Akko interrupted with a high-pitched shriek, causing Delila's body to stiffen and one of her eyes to close upon being startled. "You really use magic for things like that?!"

"… Yes." Delila frowned in disapproval and twisted a finger round inside one of her ears, waiting until the ringing stopped to remove it. "However, at the time of Shiny Chariot's performances, her act was promoted as, in my sister's words, 'cheap parlour tricks', giving ordinary people the false impression that was all magic was. Alongside the decline of magic, it fed into the opinions from the Industrial Revolution that magic is obsolete, more so when Shiny Chariot began to fall out of favour with her audience. The majority of witches saw this as an insult to the good and hard work our ancestors did over the centuries, which is why they have looked down on her to this day."

"Wait, wait!" Akko held her palms up and waved them about a bit. "Go back a second! What was that part about a 'decline of magic'?"

Oh. That's right. Akko didn't know about the Sorcerer's Stone, Delila realised, mentally facepalming at her failure to pick up on that sooner. Fortunately for the younger Cavendish, Lotte was more than happy to rid Akko of her confusion.

"Witches could once use magic wherever and whenever they liked. But over the course of history, magic has been gradually dying out."

"It has?!" Akko loudly exclaimed, her jaw hanging open for a few seconds in gobsmacked silence. "Why's that?"

Lotte gave the brunette an open-armed shrug. "Nobody knows. Nowadays, the decline has gotten so bad that witches can't use magic unless they're near a Sorcerer's Stone."

Akko squinted a little in confusion at the unfamiliar term. "Sorcerer's Stone?"

"It's a large stone that absorbs and stores magical energy from the leylines." Lotte gestured a hand to the wand tied in her sash. "Luna Nova has its own Sorcerer's Stone constantly charging the batteries in our wands. As long as we're on school grounds, or on grounds where a Sorcerer's Stone is located nearby, we can use magic without it running out." Lotte pointed in the direction of the school building. "You've probably seen it at the top of the New Moon Tower."

"You mean that giant, glowing rock?"

"That's the one!"

"Oh…" A short pause followed from Akko, her brows furrowing deeply and her eyes flitting down to the ground when she chose to speak up again in a quiet voice. "No wonder Diana was so mad." She pouted and cupped her cheeks in her palms, raising her voice a little. "Still, she could have just said that without insulting me or Shiny Chariot!" Akko turned to Delila. "Why is your sister unnecessarily mean?!"

Delila released a heavy sigh and slowly shook her head, a lie instinctively sprouting to the tip of her tongue. "I am afraid I do not have the answer to that question, Miss Kagari." She solemnly closed her eyes. "Though knowing that my sister is very proud of our heritage and is very protective of magical traditions—as the majority of witches are—I fear that may have something to do with it."

"But a lot of the witches I've spoken to since coming here have been mean to me too! Hannah and Barbara laughed at me for not knowing how to fly a broom and for not knowing what a 'leyline terminal' was!" Akko pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight, resting her chin atop them. "If I hadn't bumped into Lotte, I never would have made it to Luna Nova at all."

Delila's eyes opened once more with a perplexed blink. "Did Luna Nova not send for Miss Jansson to collect you from the leyline terminal?"

"No," Akko replied sullenly, her gaze briefly locking with the bespectacled ones of her Finnish teammate. "I ran into Lotte by chance. Same with Sucy." The brunette directed a narrow-eyed glare at her other teammate, her next words spoken with forced emphasis. "But she wasn't as nice as Lotte was."

Sucy fired back with a joking retort. "Shouldn't have made a bad first impression then." That earnt herself a raspberry from Akko shortly after.

So, the school had just expected Akko to find her own way through the leyline, despite not knowing how to fly a broom? Delila felt the heat rushing to her face as her blue eyes glared at the Shiny Rod still resting on the grass by Akko's other side, her hands loosely curling into fists.

"Tch. How negligent," Delila remarked tautly, snorting condescendingly and pointing her nose to the sky. "I expected more from a school who were willing to be more inclusive with their students."

Then again, after everything she'd witnessed on her first day so far, Delila was less than impressed with the attitudes of some of the staff and students when it came down to teaching and learning about magic. Perhaps this should have been expected, she bitterly concluded.

When no one spoke up after her comments, Delila lowered her head and looked around at her temporary company, a brow quizzically raised. Sucy returned Delila's current expression, Lotte kept blinking at her bewilderedly, and Akko was now resting the side of her head on her knees, watching her with a suspicious squint. Delila's eyes awkwardly flitted back and forth between the trio's faces, beads of sweat gathering at her temples. Had she said something out of line? Going off Sucy's and Lotte's expressions alone, Delila gauged they were surprised for some reason. But Akko? The younger Cavendish wasn't sure what to make of her reaction…

… until the Japanese student suddenly lifted her head and shuffled closer until she was kneeling directly in Delila's personal space, forcing the British witch to lean back with a startled blink.

"Are you sure you and Diana are related?" Akko probed.

Delila's surprise instantly melted away into anger, an offended scowl and gape now gracing her face. "I beg your pardon?" she instinctively snapped.

"I-I didn't mean it as a bad thing!" Akko stammered as she physically jolted in place upon realising her mistake, red eyes widening while she frantically waved her palms about in front of her. "I-It's just that you don't seem as judgy as she is, you know?"

Delila lifted a brow in confusion. "Judgy?"

"Yeah! Like, er,"—Akko twirled one of her hands around a couple of times as she tried to think of the right thing to say, only to suddenly halt it and snap her fingers together—"like when we were arguing about Shiny Chariot! You told off Hannah and Barbara when they made fun of me!"

"Because they were being rude," Delila replied matter-of-factly, crossing her arms in front of her chest and creasing her brows. "It was uncalled for."

"You also didn't make fun of me for not knowing stuff!"

"And why would I? It is common knowledge that you are not from a witch family. There are topics you would need explanations for."

"And it's the same for Shiny Chariot too!" Akko pointed her index finger at the taller blonde. "You haven't bullied me for liking her! And you don't seem to have a problem talking about her!"

Delila huffed exasperatedly, one of her eyebrows twitching. "What is your point, Miss Kagari?"

"That you're nicer than your sister! So, let me ask you something." Frowning determinedly, Akko reached behind her and grabbed the Shiny Rod from the grass, facing Delila once more with the staff clutched tightly in her hands. "What's your opinion of Shiny Chariot?"

"One of indifference," Delila answered bluntly, holding her right palm out flat and to the side. "On the one hand, I understand and agree that her performances caused the magical community harm." She did the same thing with her left palm. "However, on the other hand, I do acknowledge that for a short period of time, her performances helped to keep the belief in magic alive amongst the non-magical community."

"So, you don't like her like I do, but you also don't dislike her like Diana and other witches do?"

"Precisely."

"In that case,"—Akko held the staff a little closer to Delila—"do you think this is the real Shiny Rod?"

Oh? Akko was seeking her opinion on the matter now. Considering the examples Akko previously listed from their first interaction, Delila supposed it was inevitable that she was going to be dragged into her sister's debate. After all, compared to Akko and Diana, Delila's opinion made her impartial, so, of course Akko would expect the younger Cavendish to give an unbiased answer regardless. That didn't stop a frustrated sigh from slipping past Delila's lips, however.

"With all due respect, Miss Kagari, I don't have enough information at present to give an honest answer."

"But you saw what happened in the auditorium!" Akko protested, shoving the staff close to Delila's face and making the younger Cavendish recoil her head with a displeased frown. "If this isn't the real Shiny Rod, then how come it used the same spell Shiny Chariot did?!"

"That is not what I meant," Delila coolly retorted, prompting Akko's expression to relax with a puzzled blink as the British witch slowly pushed the Shiny Rod away from herself with her palm. "I do believe you: the evidence I've heard and witnessed thus far proves you used that magic staff to cast the spell, even despite not being able to recall the spell's incantation." Akko's eyes sparkled as she elicited an excited gasp, only for the brunette to swiftly close her mouth when Delila raised an index finger close to her lips and then quickly retracted. "However, if we were to go with the assumption that this is the Shiny Rod used by Shiny Chariot during her performances, it raises more questions than answers."

"What do you mean?"

"As my sister mentioned earlier, my family hold an array of knowledge on magical artifacts and weapons." Delila cupped her chin while her eyes scrutinised every curve and pointed edge on the staff's design. "I'm not fully familiar with what Shiny Chariot's staff looked like. But throughout all of my reading, I have never encountered anything about a magic staff that looks like this. Furthermore, the circumstances surrounding Shiny Chariot's disappearance from the limelight are unknown. Meaning if this is, indeed, the Shiny Rod…" Delila briefly trailed off and furrowed her brows in pondering as she locked eyes with Akko again. "…then I'm not sure what to think."

"You don't know what the Shiny Rod looks like?" Delila shook her head, prompting Akko to match Delila's current frown and fall into thought for a moment. "Would it help you make up your mind if you did?"

Delila lifted an amused brow at Akko's suggestion, though it didn't stop her from entertaining it. "Well, there is still the matter of clarifying how someone such as yourself happened upon this magic staff in the first place. But I suppose having a visual reference could help—"

The younger Cavendish was swiftly startled into silence when Akko chirpily perked up and snapped her fingers, an unnaturally wide and bright grin appearing on her face.

"Then I've got just the thing!" The Japanese student plopped the Shiny Rod down on the grass again and then proceeded to fiddle with the knot of her sash, appearing to be meddling with a rectangular item with an arched top that Delila saw was tied up beside Akko's wand. "When I was a kid, I bought a lot of Shiny Chariot's merchandise, including her trading card collection." Akko pulled the now revealed deck of cards free from her sash and shuffled through them one by one, placing each card down face up on the grass in front of her in rows of four. "I remember there's one in here that has a picture of Chariot holding the Shiny Rod. It happens to be my favourite! Just give me a second to find it!"

Temporarily leaving Akko to her search, Delila observed the cards the brunette girl carefully placed on the grassy ground, sharp eyes soaking in the detailed designs across each row as they began to pile up.

Each card was rectangular in shape and possessed an arched head, all looking similar from behind with the same printed silhouette of a witch with a large witch's hat whom Delila assumed was Shiny Chariot. However, on their fronts, each card had different, vibrant images with textboxes underneath them, all of which was contained in varying colourful frames on the card's outer corners. The text was printed in Japanese lettering, so Delila had no clue what was written on the cards. But based on the pictures, it didn't take much for the younger Cavendish to figure out that it was all related to various magical locations and creatures. For example, one card Delila saw showed a unicorn with a purple mane and tail, while another card showed an accumulation of giant, red mushrooms. Delila also noted that each card had a certain number of symbols (either a sun or crescent moon shape) in the bottom left corner and actual numbers varying in value in the bottom right corner, indicating they were also for playing with as well as trading.

By the time she heard Akko make her cheery exclamation of 'Aha! Gotcha!' upon finding the desired card, Delila counted ten cards in total, with the middle row of four missing two cards. One of those missing cards was handed over to the British witch by Akko, though Delila saw no sign of a second one in Akko's possession.

"Here you go!" Akko proudly said, prompting Delila to gingerly accept the card into her hand and bring it close to her face.

Decorated with a dark green frame, the picture on the card showed a widely smiling Shiny Chariot (a young witch with red eyes and matching coloured short hair parted in the middle), dressed in her signature white, long-sleeved tailcoat, a thigh-high blue skirt secured by a brown and golden ringed buckled belt, light blue thigh-high socks, and white boots with red heels and tips. She also wore a large, white witch's hat atop her head (decorated with a blue hatband and a red and blue diamond shape depicting a four-pointed star in its middle) and a long, flowing red cape over her shoulders.

"See?" Akko continued when Delila didn't say anything and pointed to the magic staff Shiny Chariot was wielding, which resembled the one currently lying on the grass next to the two girls. "There's no denying that isn't the Shiny Rod now, right?"

Delila couldn't bring herself to answer Akko's question. Their present conversation was tossed from her head the second the blonde witch laid eyes on the Japanese girl's card collection, leaving her staring dumbfoundedly at the card in her grasp. A strange warmth was fluttering within the confines of her chest as rapidly as a pair of butterfly wings, reminding her of the last time she'd set eyes on one of Shiny Chariot's trading cards. Hadn't that card also depicted Shiny Chariot holding the Shiny Rod? Except unlike in this image, Delila recalled the Shiny Rod hadn't been as clear in the picture outside of its distinctive outline—

"Delila?" Akko's concerned and confused voice snapped the British witch back to reality with a startled blink, greeted to the sight of the brunette raising a brow and cautiously waving a palm up and down in front of her face. "You still there?"

"Oh!" Delila exclaimed as she suddenly straightened up, ignoring the faint prickling rising to her cheeks at realising she'd spaced out in the middle of a conversation. "M-My apologies! I-I was just taken aback by how many cards you have."

It was a flimsy lie, but it's not like the Red Team could know the real reason, could they?

Luckily, the Japanese girl seemed to buy it. Akko chuckled sheepishly and closed her eyes, rubbing the back of her head with a hand. "Yeah. I wasn't kidding when I said I was a fan of hers!"

Clearly, Delila sarcastically retorted in her head, just about managing to suppress it from leaving her tongue. Diana hadn't been kidding yesterday in the auditorium; she really needed to watch her tongue.

Lowering the card she was holding to the grass to join its 'brethren', the British witch's blue eyes curiously roamed between the printed illustrations laying in front of where Akko was sitting. "Is this all of the cards?"

"All of 'em that I managed to collect, yeah!" Akko confirmed, placing her hand in the remaining gap of the middle row and splaying her fingers with a pout. "There was this one premium card I missed out on. I really wanted it! But they were hard to come by 'cause Shiny Chariot was so popular back then."

"Still, I must admit I find these trading cards a little peculiar." Delila bent forward a little and cocked her head to the side, fingers stroking her chin. "I'm sure these pictures are of real magical locations and creatures."

Delila saw Sucy shuffle closer to the cards along with Lotte. "She's right," Sucy said as she picked up the card with the picture of the giant mushrooms. "This mushroom looks like the one rumoured to rekindle romance."

Lotte was the next one to pick up a card and bring it close to her face, adjusting her glasses with a surprised blink as Delila leaned over to peek at the image. The picture on the card showed a humanoid-bodied creature with gigantic butterfly wings, four arms, two legs and two antennas atop its head surrounded by tree-sized roots, along with a small green caterpillar-looking creature at its feet. The butterfly creature's body was shrouded in a bright green light, making their physical features barely recognisable. However, its wings were adorned with stretched and distorted spots, as well as the top half being coloured gold while the bottom half was coloured red. Both the caterpillar and the butterfly were adorned with a six-pointed star, the former of whom had a golden star in the middle of its forehead and the latter of whom had a silver star in the middle of its chest.

"And I know this one!" Lotte declared. "Pappiliodya—"

Akko interrupted her. "A butterfly that can fly long distances." Both Lotte and Delila turned to Akko with simultaneously raised brows, while Sucy sideways glanced her teammate with a surprised blink. "It hatches once every century and is said to give hope to anyone who gazes upon it."

There was a short pause, the three witches currently accompanying Akko staring speechlessly at the Japanese girl as though she'd grown a second head. It was Lotte who eventually broke the silence.

"Akko, you memorised what was on the card?"

"Of course I did." Akko remained unfazed by the surprised reactions from her friends and acquaintance as she tapped a finger to her chin and momentarily looked up at the sky. "I'm not sure of some of the pronunciations when it comes to the names, but I've memorised them all."

And she retained that knowledge, Delila realised, unable to break her gaze away from the brunette all the while as that strange and comforting warmth sprung to her chest again. Thinking back to the single Shiny Chariot card she'd seen in the past, it was no different than the ones laid out on the grass right now, possessing a single image and wad of Japanese text she couldn't read. Yet hearing Akko talking now, it was dawning upon the younger Cavendish that the cards weren't just for collecting and playing. They acted as a fun way of teaching the children of the non-magical populace about magic, knowledge Akko recalled with ease, just as she had done earlier with Shiny Chariot's show.

Hannah and Barbara had grossly underestimated Akko right from the start; this girl was more knowledgeable about magic and witches than she appeared, despite lacking in some areas.

"Wait!" Delila was propelled out of her pondering when she saw Akko frown and look back to her and Lotte. "They're called 'Pappiliodya'?"

Lotte nodded in confirmation. "That's right."

"… Huh." Akko's frown deepened as she scratched at the side of her forehead with a hand. "I thought that long English name in orange was what they were called."

"What long English name in orange?"

"This one." Akko crawled over to where Delila was kneeling and pointed over her shoulder at the text on the card, showing the younger Cavendish and Finnish witch a single line of orange text printed in cursive English close to the top. "Right here. I never understood what it said."

Delila and Lotte squinted a little at the cursive lettering, the latter slowly attempting to recite what she saw aloud for the benefit of the others. "Uh… Papil… Papillio… Fillio… Um…"

"Papillio Fillio Nymphodya," Delila finished for Lotte, eliciting an excited gasp from Akko.

"Oh!" Delila flinched at feeling the brunette clamp both of her hands down on her shoulders. "Is that how you pronounce it?"

Delila gritted her teeth and sucked in a sharp breath before responding in an even tone. "Yes, I believe so." Only to peer at the shorter brunette and gesture a hand to the ones upon her. "And do you mind?"

Akko's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets when she understood what Delila was getting at, almost throwing herself backwards as she rapidly retracted her hands and settled on her knees again.

"Oops!" Akko smiled nervously at the bead of sweat that rolled down the side of her face from her left temple. "Got a little carried away!"

"… I can see that," Delila snarked under her breath, releasing a relieved sigh and rolling her shoulders back and forth to loosen them up again. What was with Akko and her lack of boundaries?

Delila's attention switched to Lotte at hearing the Finnish witch hum in thought, her head tilting to the side curiously as she scrutinised the card. "I think that might be a spell related to the Pappiliodya. It certainly sounds like one, going off Delila's pronunciation."

Sucy's nose crinkled in disbelief. "That's weird." The lavender-haired witch returned her chosen card to its designated spot and suspiciously eyed the rest. "There's nothing like that on the rest of them."

The younger Cavendish skimmed over the other cards still on the grass, her brows furrowing at noting Sucy's observation was correct. How odd.

Akko cocked her head to the side at her lavender-haired teammate. "Does it matter if there is?"

"Not really. Just thought it was weird." Sucy shrugged and held out her arms on either side of her. "Then again, you've been making weird stuff happen ever since I met you, so who am I to judge?"

Akko pouted and slammed her palms down into the grass, leaving behind a deep indent of her handprints. "Hey! That's not true!"

Sucy's visible eye became more noticeably drooped as she gestured a hand at the Shiny Rod on the ground, her next words spoken with underlying hint of weary annoyance. "Do I have to bring up the 'pickled plum' incident again?"

"That wasn't weird, Sucy!"

"It was to me."

Akko scrunched her mouth and nose up and made muffled grumbling noises in reply, amusing Sucy enough that she cackled lowly. Delila, however, was left arching a brow in confusion, prompting the blonde witch to literally look to Lotte for an explanation.

Lotte smiled and laughed nervously at clocking on to the blonde's befuddlement, prompting her to provide some helpful context. "Akko's pickled plums caused terrible turbulence when we entered the leyline and it knocked us off my broom." Her smile widened a little out of embarrassment, a faint pink flushing her cheeks. "Then we crashed into Sucy and fell into the Arcturus Forest."

"The Arcturus Forest?" Delila repeated, her brows knitting together as her mind tried to recall any information she already knew. "The holy forest protected by magic trees?"

"Uh-huh."

Delila eyed the Red Team suspiciously, squinting a little. "But isn't that place rumoured to be difficult to enter, let alone exit?"

Sucy nodded stiffly and gestured her hands towards Akko. "And now you know why Akko's pickled plums almost killed us."

And, of course, Akko was swift to shout her objections. "They did not!"

Sucy ignored her and lazily waved her off with a hand.

"Right…" Delila murmured out of acknowledgement and held a loose fist close to her lips, directing her next query at Akko as her gaze wandered to the Shiny Rod. "Was it there that you encountered the magic staff, by chance?"

"Yup!" Akko confirmed, picking up the Shiny Rod and holding it between her hands so she could admire it with a giddy grin. "It appeared out of the ground wrapped in vines when we were in trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Uh…" Akko hesitated and awkwardly side-eyed Sucy.

At first, Sucy lifted a brow out of confusion at the shorter girl's reaction. But when Akko not-so-discreetly flitted her eyes back and forth between her and Delila, as though she were asking her teammate for permission to answer the latter, the lavender-haired witch's usual expression returned. Sucy gave Akko an affirmative grunt, prompting the brunette to smile and nod gratefully before returning her attention to Delila (who had been following the strange little interaction with suspiciously narrowed eyes).

"Well, we ran into this giant rooster with a snake for a tail that tried to burn us and turn us to stone with its breath.—"

A giant rooster with a snake for a tail that had fire and petrification breath… Why did that description sound so familiar to Delila?

"—We tried flying away from it on Sucy's broom, but we got knocked off and started falling. And then I heard someone shout for me to use the spell for Shiny Arc."

"Which is how you escaped and reached the auditorium," Delila finished, prompting Akko to respond with a pleased hum and stiff nod. "Do you know who the shouter was?"

"No. I never got to see them. But…" Akko briefly trailed off and widened her grin, a child-like sparkle entering her eyes. "…part of me thinks it might have been Chariot. Looking back, the voice did kinda sound like her."

Sucy scoffed and rolled her visible eye. "You think Shiny Chariot magically called out to you because you just happened to find a magic staff that looks like hers?"

Akko shot the lavender-haired witch a disapproving scowl. "Well, who else could it be?! She's the only one who used the spell!"

"That you know of."

Akko ignored Sucy's teasing as she brought the Shiny Rod closer to her person, slowly twisting it round and round between her fingers. "Well, even if it wasn't her, it doesn't change the fact that the Shiny Rod appeared to us for a reason!" Akko frowned determinedly and brought the Shiny Rod close to her front, her next words spoken firmly and unwavering. "I don't know what that reason is, but there is one! I can feel it deep in my gut!"

"Are you sure that's not just your stomach growling?" Sucy jokingly quipped, prompting Akko to puff her cheeks out and scowl.

"Stop it, Sucy! I'm being serious!"

"So am I."

Akko scrunched her lips up and grumbled inaudibly, her body tensing like a volcano on the verge of exploding. Luckily, Lotte got the conversation back on track after returning Akko's card to its spot on the grass, turning attention to Delila with the curious tilt of her head.

"What do you think, Delila?"

But Delila didn't answer immediately, resting her chin on her knuckles with her blue eyes looking over the Shiny Rod from top to base multiple times.

The younger Cavendish couldn't deny that Akko's 'tale of origin' was quite fanciful, even in a world where magic made anything possible. Akko's possession of the Shiny Rod alone was already a bit of a headache to wrap her head around, but the story of how she obtained it left the younger Cavendish questioning everything she knew about the formerly popular magical entertainer Shiny Chariot and magic staffs in general. After all, while magic staffs weren't as commonly equipped by witches as wands were, Delila recalled reading that they were fashioned with their wielders in mind, more often than not made specifically for the witch who would come to use them. Not to mention she was certain the Shiny Rod had been advertised as a simple stage prop back in the day and not a real magic staff, leading her and many others to assume Chariot herself was the master behind the magic. So, if Akko did, in fact, find this magic staff, thought to have belonged to Shiny Chariot, in the middle of a forbidden and sacred forest, and she, a first-generation witch with no magical experience, used that same staff to cast an advanced spell Shiny Chariot once used… what did this mean?

Was Shiny Chariot not the original owner of the Shiny Rod? Was the magic staff sentient? Had something nefarious happened to Shiny Chariot when she disappeared ten years ago? And what about Akko and her friends? How had they managed to infiltrate a forest that was supposed to be off limits? Why had this magic staff come to Akko to begin with? Why was she able to use it? Those were just some of the questions currently buzzing around Delila's head like an angry cupid bee, questions she had zero answers to at present.

Unfortunately for the younger Cavendish, before she could even begin to formulate a response to Lotte's enquiry, the familiar and shrill laughter of Hannah and Barbara sounded in the direction of the botanical garden, sending an uncomfortable gurgle through her stomach.

Looks like her sister and their teammates were finally finished with their little trip to the memorial tree, she grimly acknowledged. Time surely flies when you're in tolerant company.

However, when Delila and the other members of the Red Team turned to look in the direction of the botanical garden, naturally expecting to see all three members of the Blue Team approaching them, the group of four were left simultaneously blinking in bewilderment at the sight of just Hannah and Barbara. The two girls wore beaming smiles as they darted their way over to the bridge nearby, locked so deep in conversation that they were seemingly oblivious to the group's presence, as evidenced by Hannah.

"Diana's so amazing!" Delila heard the auburn-haired witch chirpily praise when her teammates got close enough. "Using a secret revitalisation spell passed down through her family to save the memorial tree!"

Wait, what?

"I can't wait to see the looks on the professors' faces when we tell them!" Barbara giddily replied, leaving Delila frozen to her spot on the ground as she watched her teammates cross over the bridge. "They'll be thrilled at the good news!"

The Red Team collectively frowned at Hannah's and Barbara's retreating backs, their confusion over what they'd overheard as palpable as day when they broke their gazes away and exchanged their puzzled looks.

"What was that all about?" Akko questioned.

Lotte's frown deepened, a hand fiddling with her glasses. "It sounds like Diana cured the memorial tree using revitalisation magic."

"Ugh." Akko groaned and slouched a little, pursing her lips out of annoyance. "Of course she did. 'Cause she and her family know everything there is to know about magic." But then the brunette's brows shot up upon realising what she'd said, causing her to twist her body towards Delila and start waving her palms about in a panic. "N-No offence to you, Deli— Huh?"

Akko interrupted herself at noticing Delila's currently rigid stance, her blue eyes slightly wide and fixated on the botanical garden. Unbeknownst to the Red Team, the imaginary cogs in Delila's head were grinding together, reflecting over Hannah's and Barbara's words while recalling Professor Ursula's own about the state of the memorial tree a short while prior.

"Louperial Ral…" Delila muttered without thinking, causing Akko and her teammates to blink out of bewilderment.

"What was that?"

"Louperial Ral," the younger Cavendish repeated a little louder and slower, the shock of her body finally thawing enough for her to turn her head and meet the eyes of her confused acquaintances. "It's a spell that restores dying fauna using magic stones. That's the spell Diana likely used."

Akko arched a brow and squinted a bit when Delila stood up and faced the botanical garden building, her confusion still very much apparent. "… Is that bad?" she cautiously pressed.

"Professor Callistis suspected something was draining the Jennifer Memorial Tree of its nutrients," Delila elaborated lowly, pausing to thickly swallow at the beads of sweat sprouting to her temples. "Meaning if Diana supplied the memorial tree with additional nutrients…"

Sucy confirmed the rest of Delila's suspicions in a monotonous tone. "Then she's also fed whatever was stealing them in the first place."

The prolonged and paranoid aching in Delila's gut once shoved into the background of her thoughts sprung to the forefront, the glaring absence of her sister and her current whereabouts making the younger Cavendish's body tremble with dread—

Wait. That wasn't her body shaking.

Delila's blue eyes almost bulged from their sockets at sighting the quaking landscape in front of her, producing splintering cracks in the earth that sliced through the field from either side of the botanical garden from the river. And then, without warning, the mini-earthquake halted, the cracks split apart, and long, dark-green tree roots shot through the opening, breaking out of the ground like the bony fingers of the undead escaping their earthy prison.

Lotte gasped. Akko screamed. Sucy was silent and slightly wide-eyed. And Delila? She was sprinting as fast as her legs would allow in the direction of the botanical garden, her teeth gritted, her hands loosely clenched, her pulse pounding away in her ears and chest like her heart was trying to make a jailbreak.

What in the name of their founding ancestor had Diana just done?

A/N:

So, yeah... there was quite a bit going on here in terms of the dialogue that occurs between Delila and the Red Team. As previously said, the conversation about Shiny Chariot needed to happen to establish context surrounding her, but it was also a way for Akko to get to see the differences between Delila and Diana, and for Delila to essentially establish her indifference towards Shiny Chariot as a whole. The card scene was inevitable, because of its ties to Akko's character and also for the scene that was going to follow with the memorial tree. But I included the context surrounding how Akko obtained the Shiny Rod here too because it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Delila to find out vaguely what happened now instead of trying to shove it in later. I mean, sure, in canon, no one else outside of the Red Team are aware of the true extent of the situation (hence why Sucy's antics were never mentioned. It did not seem in character for her to reveal to someone like Delila why she was after the cockatrice. At least, not at this stage. And it didn't seem relevant for Delila to know anyways), but considering how involved Delila is going to be with Akko and the Shiny Rod later on, it only felt right that she did know. Not to mention it made sense that it would come up while Akko was seeking help from Delila about the magic staff anyways. Delila is more willing to listen to the facts and dig deeper into the situation than Diana is, after all, so why wouldn't Akko take a shot of getting info from one of the few witches who have been nice to her since she arrived to Luna Nova?

In terms of the spell on the Shiny Chariot card... I felt that was necessary to mention. I looked back over the frames for the cards during Episode 2, and yes, the Pappiliodya card is the only card with a spell name written on it in English. I didn't think it was something that the group would just ignore, considering how they figure out it's a spell name to begin with in the original scene in the botanical garden was way too quick, in my opinion. I felt there should have been some foreshadowing here for that moment. I also thought it made sense that Akko got confused about the spell as a result. I mean... the spell name includes the creature name, and it was a long name in English. Considering she knows very little about magic at this point, it's natural it would befuddle her. XD

I think that's everything that needs to be addressed. If you have any more questions, though, feel free to drop them in the reviews.