134th Spell: Landscaping

Groaning in irritation, Hikari checked the recipe under the light of a lantern on the nearby wall. "'To remove this kampo's effect, simply douse yourself in cold water. It will shock the immune system and lead to a regurgitating action until all of the kampo is gone from the body. Only then will the user return to their original form.'"

"What does that mean?" Rui wondered.

"It's basically a nice way of saying you'll vomit the kampo out when exposed to cold water," Hikari said. "That way, you can change back without forcing yourself to throw up."

Haru felt sick even thinking about vomiting. "Are you sure that's the only way to undo the Polymorph Kampo's effect?"

Hikari checked the recipe again. "Looks like it."

This bothered Haru, but tried to put on a brave face. "If it'll get us closer to knowing what attacked Bambō last night, then we should try this kampo."

"But why should we?" Rui said, pointing to her kimono sleeves. "We'll be breaking a lot of school rules, and we just got half our white stripes taken away by Dōmeki-sama. And none of us even liked Bambō."

"Whether we liked Bambō or not isn't the point!" Hikari argued. "Sure, I'm still mad about being punished and having these embarrassing white marks on my kimono. Though what I'm more worried about is who this creature from the Well of Mysteries is going to attack next."

"You mean, the 'enemies of Seiryu's Heir'?" Rui guessed.

"Exactly," affirmed Hikari. "I mean, we don't know if Bambō was attacked by the creature accidentally or deliberately. But Bambō clearly thought others will be in danger, otherwise why would he have written that message?"

Haru couldn't find a counterargument, and neither did Rui as they sulked off to the Byakko Wing now more nervous than before.

For the rest of the week, classes returned to normal. Although Gimu Rikyan's Kampo Class was the least informative as he mostly used the lessons to demonstrate the effectiveness of his products, which usually didn't work the way he claimed they would. Then combined with the vague recipes he gave, he ended up grading everyone on a curve so no one would fail the class. But soon it became apparent that he was more lenient towards the girls more than the boys, which naturally made the boys upset.

And when it came to his skills as a Healer, Rikyan was able to cure simple injuries well enough. But significant ones were difficult for him to do, and so Ryosei Maki and Fujiko Fuwa had to pick up his slack in between classes which made them busier than they already were. The same was true with Ako the Shitanaga uba caretaker as she had to pull double shifts to cover Bambō's part of patrolling the school in his absence as he was still recovering from being electrocuted.

Then during the weekend, Rui's mother Meru showed up to retrieve the enchanted Kō-tei ship, which had remained propped on its gangways in the eastern lawn near Mahoutokoro's outer walls. She was accompanied by a pair of Kōsen wizards, who used the Cloud-Summoning Charm to pick the ship up and then the three of them left the school without Meru even wanting to speak to her children. Once they left, Haru was tasked with helping Rakurai Higa fix the lawn and trees that had been damaged when the Kō-tei crash-landed.

"What I'm going to teach you is the Regrowth Spell," Higa said to Haru. "It'll fill the dry spots in the lawn with new-grown grass. But you can use this spell to regrow any kind of plant if it dies or is deteriorating."

"Okay," Haru acknowledged, holding up his plum tree wand. "What's the incantation for it?"

"Sozài," replied Higa.

Haru repeated the incantation while waving his wand at the dry spots on the lawn. To his amazement, new grass sprouted in the dry spots almost covering them up completely.

"Can I use this spell on the broken trees?" Haru asked Higa.

"No," Higa shook his head. "For those, you'll need the Landscaping Spell. It's used to design landscapes based on the caster's personal taste."

"Does that include trees?"

"Yes."

To demonstrate, Higa unsheathed his black-hilted Kurami Sword and swung it towards a nearby tree that had half its branches missing.

"Keibi!" Higa announced.

Like time was rewinding itself, the branches that had fallen to the ground attached themselves back to the tree making it whole again.

"Now this spell may look easy, but you have to picture exactly how you want to alter the landscape," Higa said. "For instance, I could have decided to merely trim more branches off to make the tree look more uniform rather than just putting the broken branches back onto the tree."

"I see." Haru glanced at two trees that had completely fallen over with only the stumps remaining. "So what should I do about those trees?"

"Just put them back up," Higa advised. "I'll keep working on the lawn."

So while Higa did that, Haru pointed his wand at the two fallen trees. "Keibi!"

Trying to picture the trees standing upright in his head, Haru watched as the two trees straightened themselves up and reattached themselves to the stumps. However, the stumps weren't fully attached to the tree trunks causing the trees to fall over again.

"You need to picture every part of those trees being connected," said Higa when he noticed the trees had fallen over again.

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Haru said irritably.

Higa was taken aback by Haru's sudden outburst. "Is something wrong?"

Reluctantly, Haru told Higa about the voice he heard before the loud booming sound and the fact that he was distantly related to Sorai Seiryu, making him think he might be this Heir of Seiryu.

"Did the voice sound familiar?" Higa asked. "Like Warumo's?"

"No, it didn't sound like Warumo at all," replied Haru. "It sounded…deeper, more vibrating. Like whale songs heard underwater."

"Odd," remarked Higa. "Did it sound close or far away?"

"Very close at first, then towards the end it grew less loud like the voice was moving away from the library," Haru remembered.

"Which direction?"

Recalling to the best of his ability, Haru pointed southward.

"And you were in the library when you heard this voice, right?" When Haru nodded, Higa pondered on this. "So south of the library would be…the courtyard."

"Then I must have heard the creature that attacked Bambō!" Haru realized. "But why did only I hear it and no one else?"

"I'm not sure," Higa responded. "But I'll let Dōmeki-sama know about this in case she might be able to answer that question."

To be continued…