"A good afternoon to you as well, miss Shikoba. Thank you for attending."

If Saqui could have truly expressed her happiness at such a simple greeting, it would have been in a manner akin to a dog wagging it's tail. Seeing as she lacked the necessary appendage, her smile grew a fraction or so wider instead, as she bashfully moved herself out of the way. It was a silly reaction really, it made sense that the headmaster would know who she was but a part of her hadn't expected him to. The momentary buzz of excitement soon burned away as more students piled into the clearing.

She wasn't sure if she should be surprised or nervous by how many students there were. She recognised a few faces, one of which was Brunhilde. But overall she couldn't place many of the faces around her, it hadn't occurred to her to socialise around her studies over the past week...instead she'd spent all of her free time, off exploring and sketching...or training come to think of it.

With so many people gathering nearby, Saqui hopped up onto her feet conscious of the fact she wasn't wearing shoes unlike her fellow students. Pulling her bag onto her shoulder and keeping her sketchbook in her hand she cast one last look down at the letter in front of her before she turned the page. With her pencil at the ready, she glanced around her to see if anyone was going to do anything interesting.

Luckily for her, something interesting did happen. Watching the elementals form before her, was so enchanting that for a long moment Saqui could only move her eyes as she took it all in. It wasn't until the earth teacher stomped the ground that she was able to shake herself out of her stupor, just in time to witness the forming of the large platforms. Before the elements could move she hastily flicked her pencil across the paper of her notebook, edging out each of the elements forms as they wandered off to their individual platforms.

'Just an hour?' She thought, taking in what Kano said despite concentrating on her sketch. It was a good opportunity to look up at him and refresh her mind before finishing off the rough sketch of the headmaster among the glittering storm of energy...well it would eventually glitter.

She couldn't help but consider lifting her hands and excusing herself from the test, especially when there was a rich selection of battles to watch instead. Especially the one involving the dark elementalist and the fearsome colossus, made up of the two elements that many thought were polar opposites, yet here they were working together. Much like Saqui had grown up believing they did.

Closing her notebook with a soft thud she slid it into her bag and made her way through the gathering of students between her and the platforms. Her eyes flitting between Brunhilde, Luke and Zephyr as they took on their chosen elementals. She reached into her bag to draw out her flute, reaching behind her and tucking it through one of the belt loops of her trousers. By the time she had made it to the front of the group of students she had Kohana in her hand as well, moving over to the two teachers she placed her bag on the ground before taking a deep breath.

Looking up to see two more students hopping up into an arena, Saqui realised how behind she must have been. She watched the girl wielding fire for a brief moment before she flicked her glance over to another who was facing off against one of the water elementals.

"Well here goes nothing" She murmured, padding her feet against the ground one last time before she lifted off of it and glided up to the platform belonging to one of the water elementals.



Once she was up there, she kept herself from touching the ground and hovered a foot above it. Watching the elemental carefully Saqui reflexively contorted the air around her to form a protective bubble, visible because of the currents that continuously swirled around her. She tested Kohana's weight in her hand and flexed her wrist in preparation for what was to come.

She'd deliberately decided against facing the air elemental and opted for the challenge of besting another. Though she couldn't tell if facing off against the water elemental had been a smart choice. Water was a formidable force, it could be calm and patient or quite the opposite. Just by looking at the elemental Saqui couldn't decide which one it was...she wanted to wait, allow it to make the first move. But the past week played on her mind. She had been told to be more offensive with her ability and now seemed like the best time to show the teachers what she was capable of. What she'd been holding back.

Lets see if the last week of torture was worth it... The Lakota thought, eyeing up the elemental once more as she sifted through the pantheons of her people, deciding which one to ask for aid.

Yum was a no brainer, the whirlwind.

It should be said that whether the spirits actually answered or not was irrelevant, as long as she believed they would, the magic happened.

With a heavy sigh, Saqui looked over at the water elemental.

"Forgive me"

With that said she rolled her shoulders and twisted her wrist a second time, swinging Kohana in a circle as she did. Before the swing had completed the Lakota leant forward and dashed through the air, rushing towards the water elemental and swinging Kohana up towards him. The uppercut move was accompanied by a swirl of air pressure as a torrent of air built up around the edge of pipe tomahawks blunted blade. And as she twisted Kohana back around for another uppercut move, her free hand shot up to hover close to her torso. Each swing of the tomahawk sent a sharp edged curved blade of air towards the water elemental's fluid body, each one intending to cleave parts of it off. Saqui herself remained just out of reach, enveloped in her protective bubble, sending the blades of air in close and personal rather than her blunt weapon.

---

The short ensuing silence from the elemental had her pondering. Was it being careful, or just not doing anything with the wall? She even picked up on the slight movement that it made away from the wall. It was definitely being careful, but it didn't make sense. Why would it bother being careful even though the barrier was low potency to begin with?

Needless to say, she got startled for that sole instant the barrier gave up and just straight up detonated. It didn't plow through, it didn't consume it, but instead it simply detonated it safely. The behavior was peculiar enough to begin with, but this had her mind boggled. It didn't feel befitting for an elemental of that stature to just bust the barrier but not do anything afterward. Even the rest of the other elementals had some sort of aggressive or underlying instinctual behavior. But the one she got either had none of it, or just didn't act upon it. This thought was reinforced more as she got a look at it again before the shower of rain drops ended, and all she saw was something among the likes of a kid looking up into the clouds as the tiniest raindrop made its way down on its face.

Even though being drenched was the least of her problems, it was a slightly nagging fact. "Oh dear, I think this is the second time this has happened to me. Not to mention, in just a mere week..." She utters a slight sigh while eyeing the elemental in front of her, whom seemed to be doing the same exact thing. "So is this what you call a standstill? A short chuckle found itself out of her mouth, while she decided to sit down with her legs crossed again.
Standing down, she held her left hand up again like she did before as she was sitting on the rocky ground before the whole lesson started. The moisture and water was being absorbed off her clothing and body slowly but surely. It probably took somewhere around a minute or less to clear the entirety of her body from all the water that had splashed on her.

Her eyes were now facing the elemental that was simply standing there, waiting on her to make a move. But generally thinking of the situation, she thought that perhaps this might be a good time to try a different approach. The elemental seemed to be displaying peculiar behavior as is anyways, so what harm could this do? "I simply hope that you'll understand what I'll be trying to convey to you."

The sphere she had in her right hand before had now switched places to her left hand and now covered her entire hand in water. And before long, a stream coming off the water-covered hand would find itself travel towards the elemental in mediocre speeds. Nothing to warrant defense nor attack, the speed wasn't fast enough to be recognized as an attack at all. Instead, it made its way to the hand perpendicular to hers on the elemental. Attaching itself lightly as it poured on the hand, she closed her eyes and focused on a few familiar and warm memories of her youth with her grandfather. The least she tried to convey to it were similar emotions she felt back then, and also imagery of what she had done before her trip to the Academy. Lessons beside him and a sincere drive to simply learn what it was to control the water element in it's entirety.

"I wonder if you can also feel what I feel?" Her thoughts spoken out loud. "Do we need to fight it out, or can we end it peacefully here?" This method was not something she was used to, so her focus was at her utmost just to maintain the link along with the thought stream. So perhaps even a hint of her tenacity might be conveyed to the hulking water elemental. Though she wasn't sure whether or not the whole link was properly connected, she merely hoped to dear god it was.
@Zelosse

---

---

Brunhilde didn't bother dodging and merely raised an eyebrow. Perhaps the elemental had an even worse memory than her own, or perhaps it completely lacked any semblance of rational thought whatsoever - a stream of fire was a nice display of power, but it abruptly ended at the edge of the vacuum bubble. Miniscule droplets of boiling liquid smoke continued forward through the vacuum, though, despite the flame itself being choked to death by the absolute absence of fuel, and spattered in a fine mist against the outer cover of the notepad. Part of the spray landed directly on Brunhilde's fingers, and she recoiled as though she had touched a hot frying pan.

The vacuum bubble nearly collapsed due to the sudden shock, but Brunhilde's fear of being burned to death significantly outweighed the extremely minor burn.

Using the principles of energy management that she had been taught, she gathered the heated air surrounding the stream of fire and redirected it with a force well in excess of what she could easily have conjured alone. Twin streams of shimmering winds snaked and spiraled around the elemental's stream of fire back towards its source, snowballing from tiny wisps into raging cyclones as they gathered the excess energy bleeding into the atmosphere. The movements of the air shifted slightly toward the end of the line as Brunhilde commanded the streams to not strike with deadly force, but rather run through the elemental and dissipate the heat and flame.

Without waiting for her retaliatory strike to hit the elemental, she charged toward it, leeching off of the heat of its flames to expand her own vacuum bubble. The longer it tried to burn like this, the easier it would be to smother it entirely when she got closer.

Like snuffing out a candle.

@Zelosse

Maddie witnessed the fire elemental's demise, its humanoid form shattering into what seemed to be hundreds of pieces. However, the end of its existence came too soon, and it was too easy of a job to realistically expect that to be the Headmaster's plan. No matter how bad Maddie wanted to believe that she had passed the test, in the back of her mind she expected there to be more. Her smile then faded when she saw the flame fragments coming back to life, scattered on the ground where they laid motionless moments before shooting up about 10 feet into the air.

In a moment of desperation, Maddie made an attempt to stop the attack, or at least slow it down. But she was outnumbered by an exaggerated amount, and the reality hit her when she was struck multiple times in the back, arms, legs, torso, and in the back of her head. Switching to the defensive at that point, Maddie kept one arm up to shield her face while she used the other one to wave away the surrounding flames with one swift motion. This was a rather hard task as she hadn't yet mastered how to control an external source of fire belonging to someone else, much less when the source is an elemental themselves, but she managed to come through.

Even though the burn marks were scattered throughout her body, Maddie didn't let the pain stop her. She took a few deep breaths and rounded up as much of her energy as possible before creating a fiery whirlwind that would swallow up the small flames and trap them inside with no chance of escape.

This wasn't gonna help her. Yoshino firmly bit her lip as she gazed at the headmaster. Her entire day was gonna go to waste like this but it was just so hard to ask such a strong person if she could just go on without punishment. Yoshino stood there for a moment holding a debate in her head with herself. Yes, no, yes, no, alright this was getting tiring. Defeated she stood there, why did she have to be the one going through something as hard as this. Why didn't she have a twin or something that could take all the damage for her.

Shino gave a heavy puff and walked towards Kano with her body half dragging over the floor in regret of going towards him. Her head lowered a little, her eyes glaring at him as she came in closer untill finally she lightly tucked his cloak from the back. She was super shy to even talk with this many people around. Her arms were pressed against her body with her hands bundled in front of her lap. She looked down at her own feet as she waited for the headmaster to look at her.



She gave a short stutter with her head still down but nothing useful came out off the girl right now. Her head redend but she didn't falter, she tried concentrating again and took a short breath to tried again.



Kano turned his gaze from the students just beginning to take their places to look at young Yoshino. Evidently the idea of helping him with papers beat out, as she put it, 'soggy hands'. Kano extended his arm and calmly clasped hands with his new secretary. Unlike with Luke the shake was warm instead of the usual chill of the grave some students often compared it to.



Shino didn't even take a second to look up, letting him do the rest of the job so she could get away without embarrassing herself to the headmaster more. She could see him laughing already if she did something bad and even gather the crowd to laugh at her. This was bad.

Yoshino felt a warm hand touch hers. Her hand was being pulled. OH NO WHAT IF IT WAS A MOLESTER INSTEAD OF KANO. She quickly looked up and noticed it was still Kano all along. Emotionless with her mouth agape she stared at him before bending her head downwards again. She lightly shook her hand although she didn't think it was needed. His hands felt a lot firmer than hers. Still, they were warm and big, she didn't mind this. Her hand dropped to its place from just now again as Kano asked something else. To participate in a battle against elementals? What good would cause that?



Shino turned 90 degrees and headed back towards the school building again. She was a little sad that she still got the same amount of work now from Kano but she didn't even try to seduce him. She could rest in peace now. The fact that she had to answer Kano had been on her mind for the entire week so that was off it now. New on her mind however was that she had to work for him now. Where did her peaceful school life go.

Shino had to do something fun instead of thinking about it for the entire day. She stopped for a moment and looked up at the platforms with elementals that Kano had mentioned just now. Her face was unfazed by it, she gave more a boorish kind of look at it. Like she had seen it a thousand times already. Shino turned her head back towards her path again and began walking like nothing happened.

Something had gotten her attention. There was a path leading into a forest like really close. This test was already being held close to the border of the school grounds so of course there would be something else after the school. She hadn't been this way yet so it was a little suspicious but it felt like it was pulling the girl towards it. She changed paths and started heading into the grove. It was something new and fun to explore. Seeing that building the entire day was getting tiring too although it had many rooms that had each something special. Shino had gotten pretty far already into the grove, it made her wonder a little where the path was headed exactly.

Gus was slow to intervene as Shino walked away from the Headmaster and the test. Like himself, this girl had clearly shown a disinterest in fighting the elementals as a means of practice. Though he could certainly understand the appeal of familiarizing ones self with the threat they would all be facing tonight, it was not a requirement to subdue a corrupted elemental in the CET. You merely needed to prove you could defend yourself and apply your studies in a practical manner when confronted with a threat. Be it a living person or a manifestation.
Gus caught something in the corner of his eye falling from the girl's skirt and couldn't help but walk over to see what it is. By the time he got to it, Shino was already a fair distance away. Putting it in his pocket, the big man started after her.
Normally he wouldn't try something this crazy, being really terrible at talking to girls and all, but he had to try anyway.

Walking slowly, Gus trailed behind Shino as she made her way off the school grounds. Lessons were over for the day so students were allowed to wander, and from the look of it she was going to see the grove. Memories of fighting Vlad just a week ago came to mind, urging him to increase his pace. O

Augustus caught up to Yoshino at the very edge of the grove, raising his hand



Shino wanted to walk away but something bothered again making her stop to a halt again to see what for bother it was now. She turned towards the person that had called after her. Shino being the only one that really left from the battle garden made it a little outstanding so it wasn't to predict any other way that someone would storm onto her the minute she got some distance.

She had to look up... A great shadow was blocking her light. The shadow was created by a mountain of a boy. It made her feel a little small but her expression stayed as monotone and unfazed as ever. She looked up at the boy his face as he spoke with a careless expression stuck on her face. From the greatness of his size it sounded a bit like she was wussing out on the battles. Still Yoshino didn't care, she wanted to enjoy peace and silence. She shook her head in denial.





Gus rubbed his chin in thought before giving a helpless shrug. It wasn't his place to speculate on why someone as powerful as the headmasters even bothered with things like this. If they wanted to, Gus doubted there was much anyone could do to stop even a single one of the headmasters. Not to mention the old Hermit Vlad was training with. Come to think of it, Gus glanced up and realized the two of them were walking the same path that Vlad had come on the first day of school. That thought carried with it another scary realization. He had essentially just stalked a girl into the forest and was now completely alone with her.
Fighting the urge to stop himself from running was growing more difficult with every step.



Poor guy was rambling now. Lost in his embarrassment coupled with his own social awkwardness. The last time he had talked to someone was nearly a week ago during lunch with the wind girl Brunhilde and that other strange girl called feather.



Calling it a game didn't fit the boy all that much. He thought it was more than just a game. Still, it looked like a game to Shino. It was just a fight of your own free will. If you wanted to do it or not, it was your own choice. Shino gave a shrug at the boy and looked away from him momentarily. Why did that boy even care to go after her if it was your own choice in the first place. It was not like she needed to do it. It bothered her a little someone would go that far to simply follow her. Truly desperate person that must be, she gave a blank look for a minute with this thought and looked the other way.

The boy sounded polite though. He went as far as trying to make new friends. Shino didn't really get any in the past week. She didn't even have a roommate and rarely tried starting a conversation herself. Maybe this was an opportunity for her to get one. Or body guard so to say. She gazed at the mountain next to her with a somewhat agape look on her face. Yep she was right.

The poor boy called himself an idiot for following her cause he thought he was a little bit wrong in doing so. Shino had a slight inspiration for him, to go to that extend for someone. Gus then got something quite rare out of his pockets. It was the picture that was given to her by headmaster Kano. It wasn't all that intresting to her anymore. She just thought it was cool that it was frozen in ice that wouldn't melt even after several minutes in the oven in her room, but now it was something that she still had to give back to him. She poked out both her hands and slowly took the picture from his hand. She stared at it for a moment and placed it in her jacket. While she did that the person she was talking to decided to head off again. She gave him a small wave from the back and did the same to venture fort.

While she turned her shoe got stuck on a root. She immediately fell face forward as she tried walking again. Luckily there was a bit of grass under her otherwise she might have scraped herself onto something. With an off she landed on the grass, her foot was still entangled by the root that she couldn't get off herself. Like a lifeless doll she laid there, her chin on the grass and her arms stretched forwards just like the first day. Her expression still looked as unfazed as ever. She stayed quiet and just waited, for what? Nobody knew. Her bottoms matched the nature perfectly, it was like camo, lime green was it today and she didn't bother to hide it. Or so to say, she hadn't noticed.

Gus tried to grab Shino as the girl suddenly pitched forward out of the blue, or out of the green he thought as her skirt hiked up to reveal what some might refer to 'the bounty of nature', and caused the big man to stumble himself. Thankfully he didn't fall and look like a bigger fool than he already felt he did.
Rather than staring at her panties, Gus covered his eyes with one meaty hand to stop himself from looking. Face beet red, embarrassed for the both of them.

In a panic he kneeled down and clasped her leg, again still not looking, and followed the appendage down. Initial contact was soft. Springy to the touch. Just the sensation of touching her leg was almost enough to give him a nosebleed.
Having found the offending root effectively keeping her down, Gus wrapped his other hand around it and pulled, barely making any headway with the stubborn plant.
Placing his opposite hand on the ground he grunted and yanked with all his strength. The root dislodged from the hard ground, releasing Shino.
Still not looking what he was doing, eyes closed so he doesn't get another eye full of her underwear, he reached out his hand.



Despite the sincerity of his request, he knew within a second of moving his hand he should have looked at what was going on.
The soft springy feeling of the female form, two soft round mounds of supple flesh below a lime green and silky garment, greeted his hand as he essentially gave the young girls bottom a slap.

With a stifled scream of embarrassment he stood up and stepped backwards, retracting the offending hand and keeping his eyes tightly closed, stumbling on his own to feet like a clumsy elephant.



She felt something touching her leg other than the root that was clinging to it. She turned her head to look at the thing touching her leg. It was moving too, maybe it was another racoon trying to steal her stuff. She didn't bother to look completely around but luckily she was able to see from the corner of her eye. It was gus again, he was getting her loose from the root that she was stuck in.

She didn't mind. It would be less of a problem for her at least. For some weird reason he had his hand in front of his face and through his hand she could see his all to red face.

Shino felt her leg being freed, she looked back one more time to make sure she was loose and used her arms to lift her upper body. When she was on her knees and hands she felt something. Something hard hitting her butt. It hurted a little so she immediately sat on her knees and turned her upper body towards the feeling with a somewhat shocking expression in her eyes. When she saw Gus that was retracting his hand from her butt she knew enough. Him still being close enough gave her enough time to act. Her left fist immediately flung at his face with full force. It probably felt like some boulder hitting his face. Yoshino turned herself away again and slowly stood up herself brushing the dust of her clothes with the usual monotone expression like nothing happened. Looking down upon the fallen blood elementalist.

Gus was a solid guy. Heavy built and strong as an elephant, with a body mass to match it. But Yoshinos punch was beyond normal as it crunched into his forehead. Having taken a lot of punishment before, including a nasty fireball from another student, Gus knew he could take a punch better than most and stay standing.

Not this time.

Like a sack of bricks he toppled down on his back with a thud and a groan, his forehead showing an angry red bump. Sprawled out on the ground it was all he could do to groan.



Yoshino walked over right next to his face, her eyes giving the boy a sharp glance with a cold tone mixed into her big round eyes. He had done something unforgivable to the body of her so he had to pay. It took her a little by surprise that he still was conscious after a hit from her fist. The aspects of a cow he had. It didn't seem like he was in a state to move though so maybe she could do something with that.

Yoshino got over towards his side and placed her leg on his side forcefully. She then proceeded to roll him over with her foot and kneeled by his side. She looked over towards his head for one more time before raising her hand up into the air. With all her power she struck down her hand onto his right butt cheek and slowly stood upright again lightly rubbing her hand from the pain.



Yoshino walked around the almost dead body to get to where his face is and sat down about a meter in front of him with her legs bend and hugged by both her arms. Her face was resting onto her knees with her eyes looking as dead as ever starring at the boy without a word.

---

Luke's eyes focused on the rocky and sturdy behemoth, duly noting the deposits of earth it carried which should be simple for water to wash away. He closed his eyes momentarily to reach a certain amount of concentration, only to feel the platform shake, after his eyes flashed open, three rocky shards were hurdling towards him at tremendous speeds from Luke's dead angle. The element now charged at a different angle, effectively trying to use a 'pincer' strategy against him.

"So this is what it feels like to between a rock and a hard place..." Luke muttered outloud, his eyes darting to and fro from the projectile and the creature's newly formed tail. "It's still imperfect... but let's try it." Water began to be conjured onto his feet, and right before the two travelling objects could land, he slid out of the way in a rough and unrefined manner. While he did managed to barely maneuver out of the way of the majority of spiked, one still grazed his side. As soon as it did so, blood came festering out of the wound. He winced, using his new 'technique' to skate to the other side of the arena,

"Gah- More difficult to balance and effectively use the speed in real combat... I also really liked this shirt damn." he whispered glancing at his left side, then promptly waving his hand on the open wound to try and stop the blood flow by making an enclosed water barrier. Now Luke had to focus on channeling his powers, and making sure that said water barrier would not break down due to lack of focus. With a sigh of focus that removed every tentative thought, his eyes locked on his foe once again.

One proper and clean hit from the behemoth would probably immobilize him, and that would be the lose condition. He steeled his mind to accepting defeat and placing his hands up if it were to happen. Other than that, Luke would try to slowly chip away at it, aiming for the weaker parts of its body, like it's earthy deposits or its thin appendages. He also noted that he had a new, scorpion like appendage which gave him notable range. Thinking about it, the pincer attack it did, was it forming strategies against Luke?

With another beat, water began forming around his feet again, and he approached the behemoth at somewhat notable speeds. After arriving he encircles the beast, throwing out small burst of water spears onto the creature aiming for it's supposed weak spots. The earth and grime would sizzle off of him. After two rounds the creatures tried to blindside him with his newly formed tail, only for Luke to barely dodge it again, the stony tail skidding over his eyes. He continued the onslaught, and after a few more the creature looked just a little bit thinner, but it was getting faster, and with the reach of his tail, it could get a bit... annoying.

For a hulking creature, his speed and range is surprisingly fast.

Luke also encased the earth he dampened off the creature into mini bubbles of water, this was because it would simply reattach itself if he did not do so, which would bring him back to square one. He had no idea if it would work, but he'll be damned if he didn't try.

@FaithsRose

Its body consisting of mere liquid rather than a solid body, the sharp edges of the tomahawk were easily dealt with as they cleaved through its body with impunity to draw great tears and rifts in its already more gelatinous form. The blades of air pressure were more effective and drew out the results Saqui would need to claim victory from its foe.
Each swing of the Kohana did nothing lasting. Artificial damage more than any lasting threat. Thus the water being chose not to bother retaliating against it and focused more on the energy being put into the air based attacks that could, and would, continue to disrupt its flow. The only solution was to focus on a more solid approach to this adversary. As the blade of the Kohana struck its form the trap was sprung. In the time it took the blink, to the elemental had shifted from a completely liquid state to a frozen jagged statue or once swirling water. In its icy chest was locked her Kohana, sticking out like a broken rib and covered in frost.

Select parts of the best shattered as it turned its inner core back to water and formed up something similar to its original form but now sporting an impressive suit of ice armor while its watery state was safe underneath. Rather than wait for any more pain it rumbled forward on its newly formed legs and feet, arms extended with sharp talons eager to expel the whelp from its platform.

------------------

@KuramaaaZ

Sei shook his head at the boys headstrong approach and disrespect. Granted, he was wise to choose an opponent that fire was effective against to make his fight easier. In a real situation against a corrupt that was the desired outcome. Use their weakness to your advantage and seize victory. But surely he would know that Kano rarely played fair in these matches. The wood elemental that had been summoned was not taken from the groves, but rather the pieces of trees scattered in the soil for generations. Fossilized wood was akin to stone. It would not burn so easily.

The wood elemental was not foolish enough to try its luck though. Rather than let the fire strike it and risk the nuisance of a stray spark ignite its inner layer, it simply avoided the flame. Dropping to all fours and skittering across the floor it avoided the stream of fire as it moved to compensate for it dodging but was simply not fast enough. Vines burst through the stone of the arena from behind Vlad and grasped the arm producing the jet of flame, pulling hard and disrupting his aim long enough for the Wood being to strike.
But not on its opponent.
The bark covered appendages of its hand struck hard into the stone platform and tore up great chunks of stone in its fists, with Vlad momentarily distracted by the grasping vines it was free to do as it pleased. Each fistful was swallowed whole into the gaping maw of the bark and ground into dust in its chest. More and more vines began to sprout rapidly from the wound in the platform all swarming like snakes at the boy who had challenged them. Though they would wilt in the flames, they would not stop until the source was destroyed. Cracks began to spread across the large combat arena as the wood elemental scuttled to safety at the opposite end. Hoping that the fauna would be enough to beat its foe or subdue its overwhelming advantage.

--------------

@Ennui

The water elemental shied away from the looming flow from Emilia, though not afraid of it, the being simply did not wish to come in contact with it. It did not trust the elementalist yet and would allow nothing from her to touch it lest it be controlled. Its 'thoughts' might not be clear to Emilia but the language of its actions began to come clearer. The water that had fallen with the shattering of her wall were already flowing back towards her, and the elemental continued to hover at the back of the platform close to he edge. Only the silent will of Kano prevented it from 'outing' itself and returning to mere energy once more.

Minutes would pass as it stared silenty at her. The swirling of its body was gradually turning to the calm stillness of the pond the students had all practiced in. Even its long arms had retracted into the nigh shapeless form it had taken. The only features to be seen were what would only be described as its eyes, two deep pits of dark water.
It wanted to be dismissed. To avoid fighting and hurting someone.

-------------------------

@Azereiah

Heat radiated from the creature as its form grew brighter and brighter. Even the ground below it had gone from a scorched black to an angry red as the flaming construct continued to threw fire at its opponent, heedless of the pitiful attempts she made to destroy it. When the twin streams of air cut through its center it did not pop, instead the winds went right through to the other side as gaps opened in the unstable chaos of its flaming being. What could only be described as a laugh erupted from its lips as it crouched down lower to the ground. Not crouched, she would find, but something akin to sinking. The stone below it had been exposed to such impossible heat that it had turned to liquid!
The essence of the fire elemental shifted into the blob of magma and taken on a change in anatomy. A hand of molten stone and flame rose from the pool to slam into the area just in front of Brunhilde, halting her charge and forcing a minor retreat. Another hand rose from the lava until a whole body emerged. Radiating heat and protected by molten rock, the fire elemental had become a lava elemental. A deadly mixture of earth and stone. It had traded the unstableness of pure fire for the destructive power of molten lava.
With a flick of its wrist, one such glob of molten stone was thrown at Brunhilde.

Kano had turned his attention completely from the other students to Brunhilde. A lava elemental was dangerous. Especially for a mere first year. To have such an advanced opponent stare her down, she would need to be quicker than ever and strike with more force. In order to beat this opponent she would need to find its Core. A crystallized 'heart' that flowed freely in the Lava elemental that anchored it. Break the heart and she would win. If not, it would only be a matter of time before the lava elemental superheated the entire platform into a molten puddle. Without a platform she would fail one of the requirements.
Should her life be threatened by the molten rock he would intervene, rather than let her suffer injury.

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@Xandrya

The fiery whirlwind was effective as it gathered the scattered little flames up in its wake. Forcing them off her in greater numbers they fused back together until the call to reform was too much and had every single speck of the dancing flames back to their main host. Enraged by the clever strategy of forcing it to return to a larger target, the elemental raised one burning arm up into the sky and slammed it down hard at its opponent. If it could not swarm her it would overpower her with brute force.

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Augustus Colonel

Gus cringed as he held his forehead in both hands. Trying to numb the pain with his powers was impossible as his mind was still reeling from the shock of such a heavy hit. He barely noticed the girl walk around and all but kick him onto his side until it had already happened. Confused and a bit dizzy, he only vaguely understood what was happening. She was upset, no doubt, he deserved to be punched in the head for doing that to a girl. Though the feel of her still lingered pleasantly on his mind.
The second strike was not only unexpected but extremely painful.

Yoshinos punch was heavier than anything he had ever experienced, and in a tender area to boot. It took all his willpower not to scream out in pain as loud as possible. Biting his lip he floundered on the ground and rolled back and forth, rotating between holding his head and now his butt. No doubts about it, that last one was going to bruise up nicely..

"That wasn't called for!" He grimaced, anger now blocking out the mind numbing pain in his forehead.

Standing took too much effort so he had to settle for laying on the ground and feeling like a beached whale. It was humiliating and embarassing beyond belief to be struck down over an accident after he had tried to help, and then to be assaulted when he had done nothing to warrant such abuse. Someone like Vlad, if he could take a punch like that and still stand, would have exploded by now, but all Gus felt was a deep anger. Not at Yoshino but at himself. He hated being stuck in these scenarios. This girl probably thought he'd grabbed her butt because he was some fat perverted leech. Bad enough he had followed her, now this. 0 for 2 on the good guy appearance.

"I don't deserve this." He hisses through gritted teeth, rubbing the spot where she had punched him. "I was trying to be nice. I wanted to return your property and didn't want to look or touch you so I covered my eyes. It was an accident I apologized for, and you lash out without even asking for an explanation!"

By this point the big man had felt enough. Linked to his emotions, his powers turned his skin an angry hue of red as it brought him into his combat state. Gus focused his anger into a single fist and slammed it into the ground with a boom that shook the ground, and likely fractured the bones in his hand, but ignored everything as he pushed himself off the ground. Unlike the cold impassiveness of Shino, he was very much emotional. Right now it was outrage.

He was impressed beyond words with her strength. For him, to be taken down at all was something to be surprised about, but to come from such a seemingly frail young girl was amazing. But he couldn't focus on that. The poor guy could barely stop himself from screaming at her about the injustice he had just been forced to accept. Nobody would fault her for hitting a lecherous scumbag, but he had not done it on purpose. Did she know that? Did she care? Gus blew a tremendous sigh and unclenched his hands, the angry red hue of his skin returned to its normal tone as he simply sat down. Ignoring the pain entirely. Already his hand was starting to ache.

Zephyr kept his gaze locked on his assailant while a darkened set of knuckles ran past his face. Air fled to give the fist a wide enough berth during its course, lest it be consumed by the shadows. The attack was crude and easily evaded, yet there was a notable measurement of acuity to it that piqued the youth’s attention. It was evident that despite his opponent’s recent conception it’s mental evolution was on a fast-track. After deftly side-stepping the colossus after it had wounded the earth, he locked gazes with the elemental and followed suit, widening the gap between them as well. The boy firmly grasped Azrael, an affirmation that the scythe was still ready to embrace its foe even more. With his posture lower to the ground, Zephyr was ready to burst over the field to the shadowy enemy.

The thought never crossed his mind that the colossus’ arsenal was strictly comprised of various ways to throw its fists. That would be naive, and naivety could easily be rearranged into death.

He felt it instantaneously. The sensation crawled its way up his spine and simultaneously took command of his axis and atlas to pivot his head down to the source. An array of tendrils encompassed his vision, all of which were racing their way at him, as if they were vying to see which would pierce its target first. A level-headed approach analyzed the approaching entities. One thing he noticed right off the bat was their speed. Sure, they were transgressing the air like it was nothing, but their movements were rather… lethargic. They were decoys in a sense. Or more likely dummies to harvest data from. The cannon fodder generated by the colossus served the sole purpose of being cut down, and from their remains the creator would piece together a new, calculated ploy.

But it’s not like Zephyr didn’t have a few aces in the hole himself.

He first started in a calm walk, then a jog, and gradually increased his movement until it culminated into a full on sprint dead set for the incoming tendrils. The darkness user brandished Azrael’s slick shape in preparation as he finally met the first envoy of the maelstrom. In one fluent motion the inner part of the blade was drawn upwards and sliced through the object like butter. The severed portion of the tendril flew past Zephyr’s cool complexion on its remaining momentum until it dissipated into an opaque mist shortly after, as did the main body. The boy pressed onwards and churned his way through the seemingly endless assault. Every beat from his music translated into a lobbed off tendril. With the upbeat tune blasting into his ears, Zephyr could discern the movement of shadows among the many other factors more easily. They lacked any capacity for unity and soon enough the student broke free of the storm. Once again he was greeted by unoccupied air, still yet to be met by the emissions of conflict. With a honed combat stance, Zephyr burst his way towards his foe for another clash.

David and his endeavor against the Philistine Goliath. That’s what he related this brawl with. Though the champion of Gath dwelled in direct comparison to the colossus. While he was undeniably powerful, he was not omnipotent. He was human to the core. He could be felled by natural means of combat, may it have been by a blade or a well placed smoothstone. David was the youngest of eight, and with no hopes for him in combat lacked anything remotely close to prowess. Zephyr was much like David, a sentiment he took to heart. But if he was presented with the question, he would rather taken on Goliath any day.

Even though his small stature sentenced him to an appearance far from imposing, when applied in actual combat it was priceless. As a punch flew straight at him, Zephyr brought the the side of Azrael’s blade under the arm. He grazed it ever so slightly, which alone was able to send it sailing completely off course. It wasn’t the boy who was guiding the weapon. The weapon moved of its own accord and decided to take the boy along on its graceful waltz. They were one, two entities of unadulterated darkness that operating in perfect harmony.

”Capture.” The shadow that had rested on the ground behind him suddenly shot up jetted its way towards the arm. The mass of darkness coalesced and took hold of the colossus’ appendage, simultaneously solidifying into a secure mold. Before his opponent could tear its arm free, Zephyr leaped onto the extremity and flipped over its shoulder. Without a moment to lose he pressed the bottom of Azrael’s snath to the elemental’s toiling back.

”Gungnir.”

The sleek blade that the weapon donned suddenly receded into the adumbral post. Only a brief moment of silence delineated between what the colossus had adapted to and what would follow. At the speed of a lightning bolt appearing from a sea of darkness, a spearhead abruptly ruptured from the dark hide. The colossus’ armor splintered as Zephyr pushed the polearm further through its body as it took form, finally stopping at just a quarter over seven feet. The elemental gave no vivid sign that it was experiencing pain. Its arms and composure had slacked completely, letting all of its weight rest on the spear.

Zephyr already deduced that it was a feint. All of a sudden the colossus’ head wheeled around an exact one hundred and eighty degrees, emitting a sound that could be likened to the sloshing of water. Its vibrant circular eyes met a glassy gaze.

”Hi.” The boy greeted as he stomped down any climax that may have built up.

Although they were both equally inexpressive, the elemental’s stare burned with a far more intense essence. In this respect, Zephyr couldn’t even dream of sizing up to his opponent. The colossus reformatted its arms and legs so that they were now properly facing the student. The boy tugged the spear from his foe just in time to guard himself against the pair of fists striking down on him. Zephyr’s shoes dug into the earth as the two tested each other’s mettle. Technically he was the first to sink his teeth into his contestant. Even though it was equal to a miniscule scratch, the spear had still wounded the heart of light. But at a cost. The dots of light gradually grew brighter as the elemental's gaping chest mended itself. The student took this as a bad omen and shifted back once his back was low enough. The hulk's fists continued into the grass, each creating a spread of cracks in the platform.

The boy lengthened the gap between them just to be safe. Capitalizing on this sparse span of respite, Zephyr adjusted his handling and stance to complement the new weapon. He honestly wanted to call timeout and lose himself in the panorama provided by the platform’s elevated height, but he was fairly certain the colossus would allow him that leisure. With Gungnir at the ready by his side, the boy braced himself for whatever was soon to follow. Rays of light stemming from the sun fell upon the ground around him, but didn’t dare to travel anywhere close to the weapon or the boy.

@Zelosse

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The twin streams of air that had cut clean through the fire elemental before its change continued onwards - and one immediately plowed into the ground, sending an enormous cloud of dust and shredded grass into the air as though the ground had been struck by a cannonball.

The sudden presence of lava in the middle of the platform halted Brunhilde's charge with a sharp jolt, and her focus wavered. The vacuum bubble collapsed and air rushed back into contact with her body for the first time in several minutes. Refreshing - at least, at first. But the air was hot - very, very hot. Its hand of molten stone crashed into the platform before her, sending shards of broken and burning stones all about. The creature was smarter than she had given it credit for, and it seemed to genuinely believe it had gotten the upper hand. Perhaps it had - for the moment, at least, she thought. Brunhilde's pen flew across the notepad as she scribbled an image of its new form in a split second, only to be interrupted by a ball of magma flying at her face. This was the second time she had had magma thrown in her general direction in the past week, although she couldn't remember the first. This time, however, she was slightly distracted. The magma ball would be impossible to dodge normally.

There was no time to think, and the only thing that would save her from severe injury would also be extremely painful in itself. Brunhilde was thrown backwards hard with a loud crunch, and the magma glob sailed past her face, singeing the ends of several strands of her hair. The second stream of air had swung back around and struck her in the left side, violently flinging her out of harms way. She hit the ground hard and lay there in a crumpled heap for a second to catch her breath.

Between the heat and the cracked ribs, the fight was going poorly for her. When another glob of magma arced over the platform towards her, the surge of heated air warned her of its approach, and she blasted herself back onto her feet in time to watch it splatter where her head had been. There was no easy defense against magma, unlike the fire she had so easily eaten before, and any and all distractions would be potentially deadly. The notepad and pen went sailing off the platform towards Kano and neatly landed at his feet before they were burnt to cinders - and, without the oppressive feel of the pen in her hand and in the midst of combat, she felt not only liberated, but properly alive for the first time in ages.

A few more blobs of molten stone continued flying across the stone platform, and this time, Brunhilde responded by hammering away at the elemental with spikes of extreme air pressure, each of which was so dense as to appear almost as though it were a shard of ice flying through the air. Each successful impact would blast pieces of stone and globs of lava into the air and off of the platform, only to expose more rapidly cooling lava behind it. She intended to drill through the creature and hammer it into submission - and with its own violent heat and energy, no less. At least, if she could hit it. She was too focused on staying alive to watch whether her own strikes landed.

The earth elemental tried its best to defend against the onslaught of water, until it felt itself getting faster. After a brief moment it shook itself violently, launching dirt and mud in all directions and making it nearly impossible for Luke to continue his attack. What remained after the fact was an elemental in the shape of a large monkey, thin but with long limbs and an even longer tail. The stones of its body seemed to fit together better, even having well formed joints thanks the water that chipped away at the dirt between the stones. After a moment of looking at its new smaller form, the elemental decided to test the feel of it as it leapt into the air and over Luke. The beast landed on the far side of the stone arena with a loud crack of stone hitting stone.

It eyed Luke from across the arena with what seemed like a smile. Sure in this smaller form the creature couldn't take as many hard hits as before and stay standing, but it will also be alot harder to land a hit now. The earth monkey stood up on its tail and crossed it's arms and legs, kind of like a taunt. It was ready to out speed this youngster with its new agility.

The earth elemental quickly dropped onto all fours with its tail high in the air. It dug its hands into the earth for a solid grip before charging at its opponent, prepared to either slam into the ground with its large stone arms, or bat him off the stage with its stone tail.

@Inertia

The hit on his butt didn't seem to hurt hard enough, she suspected him to burst out in pain but her only merely rubbed the spot he was hit on. Did she not hit him hard enough? He kept complaining that it wasn't his fault that he hit her butt. Yoshino digged her mouth behind her knees and quietly watched the boy as he continue giving the girl allegations. From behind her knees her mouth opened, her voice was suppressed by her knees in front of her mouth making it sound more like mumbling.



Furthermore she stayed quiet. She didn't want to taunt this boy even more. Perhaps she was a little to hard on him, especially after he just helped her get free from the root. Looking back at it Yoshino might have looked a little like the bully there. She was always told to defend herself but not use it on others when it wasn't needed. Did she do wrong? She couldn't tell. Her eyes peered at the boy, a deep intense glare was pointed his way.

The boy suddenly turned red but Yoshino didn't do anything letting him burn his anger for a moment. He punched his fist into the ground, that was a little bit stupid she must say. From the ground she could feel that the strength he used was more than any human bone could handle. Did he just become stronger? Maybe bloodlust did something with his powers, it made her a little interested in the boy but she didn't show it. She looked like a mannequin sitting on the ground.

The boy sat down again in front again with a puff. Oh? So he does have self control. Very handy with such a power. She suspected him to lash out at her to return the favor she did to him. That wouldn't have ended well she could say. The area turned silent once more now the boy was silent too.

---

It seemed that his speed was certainly a tad overwhelming as the creature really couldn't keep up with Luke, which was a sigh of relief. Well, that was until all the loose earth and dirt were viciously shook away and went out in all directions. Luke handily made a barrier of water infront of him, stopping the mud from touching him. However mud was now etched in every corner of the arena making it a tad more difficult to traverse as the texture of mud and wet dirt was indeed different from dry, mundane dirt.

The now, monkey-esque elemental leaped over him and eclipsed the night sky. It's body was indeed smaller than earlier, but the size was still nothing to scoff at. With a loud thud it landed on the opposite side of the arena. Luke's reshaping seemed to make it's expression clearer, it stood on it's stony tail and crossed it's limbs whilst carrying a smug, thankful grin. It seemed eager to outpace Luke with it's new form, which may be entirely plausible seeing as he had scant experience with his new technique, but he welcomed a challenge.

One could now hear it gripping the stony earth beneath it, readying a deadly charge. Luke steadied his stance, and charged headlong into it because if he didn't, Luke would have been in a disadvantageous position. He spun around three times in quick succession, creating three streaks of thin, crescent shaped water waves, The waves targeted it's stony tail, one of it's arms and one of it's legs. He figured that by first taking out the most dangerous part of the beast, he would hinder it's fighting power, which should help. Next, Luke conjured up a water spear to charge into the beast,

Alright, here goes nothing.

The water elemental slowly shifted from side to side at the back of the field. From just looking at it you could tell it was kind of ducked down and hiding its own eyes behind its own water. It regularly looked from behind its own water to keep track of Emilia even though the water was totally see through. It was shy of the girl, it was something new to it that he hadn't seen before.

The thing was sitting down onto some rock, it curiously stared at her to see what she was doing, but it didn't look like she was gonna do anything with the rock at all. She took a ball of water from behind her back. The elemental looked curious about it. It was something of its own sort. Perhaps he could get it to merge with him so he could get bigger. The elemental was ready to approach her to get the ball but out of nowhere the thing exploded. Shocked the thing was standing there. D-did she just, explode water! The elemental backed off further into the corner while lowering itself. This thing was scary.

The elemental lowered itself even more untill it was about 10 centimeters high and spread over the ground. It was slowly going towards Emilia. Bit by bit it moved and once it was close enough the water Emilia just scattered over the ground began to move on its own. It was being pulled towards the water elemental! While this happened a small ball of water floated above the spread out water elemental. The water elementals eyes peered at Emilia from its form as he shot the ball of water at her face. It curiously looked at the thing to see its reaction.



This girl was a quick thinker, she was able to dodge at least a fair amount of stones that were flung at her. Mostly by hurting herself since there was close to no way of dodging those burning rocks otherwise. The lava elemental went on trying to hit Brunhilde with hot molten rocks. The small squirmy girl kept dodging its stones which was really annoying. When she was pinned down to the ground she just dodged like it was nothing. He felt that he was being pierced by something quite cold, but when he looked at the holes he could see nothing. The coldness froze small bits of its lava.

The holes slowly healed again by the surrounding lava merging together again. The cold rocks inside him quickly began heating up again turning back to lava once more so he didn't take any loss from his attacks. The lava elemental became a little annoyed and opened its mouth to roar up at the sky in rage. It lifted its arm up into the sky and flung it down at Brunhilde her location. When the arm had landed he slowly lifted it up to see if he finally got her.

Madison was exhausted. The lack of having an advantage in the fight didn't mean that she was weak, but rather, that she had focused too much on exerting as much power as possible in a short amount of time. The smart thing to do would have been to conserve her strength in order to make it last, but she had foolishly denied herself that possibility. The elemental took advantage of her mistake when it swung down its arm, executing a vertical hit that was nearly flawless.

For the poor girl, the unpredictable retaliation of her opponent left her with little time to react. She attempted to defend herself, but had hesitated just long enough for the elemental to make contact. The impact nearly crushed Madison, but it was her shoulder that had taken the bulk of the hit. She lay on the ground stunned, the pain taking a second to register before she let out a painful cry. But she knew she couldn't play the victim card for too long. Madison regained control of herself in order to wave the white flag. A shameful move, but she had no choice.

"I'm done, I need out!"

She couldn't exactly wave her arms to get the Headmaster's attention, but Madison was well aware of the fact that he was watching her and the rest of the students as well.

---

---

The creature's arm rose up into the air, representing a golden opportunity for Brunhilde to attempt to amputate it. A plane of air formed in preparation for another strike against the elemental, but Brunhilde missed her chance, and the arm came crashing down across the platform, aimed directly for her. It seemed almost as though it had grown larger in the past short time, and a quick glance told her that it was slowly sinking into the platform. A pit had formed around it as it claimed more and more stone.

For the elemental, hitting her had been much like trying to hit an agitated sparrow with a rock. It wasn't working. This time was no different, and the arm came down several feet to the left of where she had moved. It was unclear whether it had done it intentionally or not, but this time, there was enough force that broken stone shrapnel flew in all directions. Smaller pieces slid across Brunhilde, dragging a series of small cuts across her face, followed by a much larger fragment striking her injured side, and she crashed to the ground.

It was everything she could do to not cry out in pain, and she lay there motionless for many seconds. What had merely been a crack had grown into a full-on fracture, and moving at all wouldn't be beneficial in the slightest, regardless of what came from the elemental next. She had been running out of stamina the entire time, and couldn't sustain a full-body hover anymore. Throwing as much as she had been at the creature was far too draining, even with the strength stolen from the hot and excited air.

From her position on the ground, her thoughts reached out to the spinning disc of air that was still hovering nearby, and permitted it to grow further and gather more force, until she felt it was on the verge of slipping out of control. Like a cornered animal, she didn't realize that there were options other than continuing to fight, and with a thought of command she hurled the disc of violently spinning air directly at the elemental's torso.

Without seeing whether the first had stuck, she attempted to form another similar disc. It dissapointingly collapsed with a sharp pop after only a few moments.

---

---

The boy kept getting closer to Emi when she was all curled up trying to get away from the boy. Every step he took she made a small yep knowing he was going to devour her if he came close enough. He was trying to talk to her but Emi stayed silent. The aura around him grew closer. She had nowhere to run at this point without him catching her first.

Her grip tightens around her own body as he was way to close to her. She gulped down as he spoke.



Now this was a case Zephyr wasn't prepared for. Well he was in a sense. The countermeasure he fancied was taking his leave and relocating. Rinse and repeat was the way he lived and breathed. But for once, his feet couldn't move from their current spots. Rather, they didn't want to. The boy gathered his thoughts while he maintained his distance and opened his mouth once more. "In the wise words of First Viscount Francis Bacon, 'In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present'. The darkness only witholds its ground in hopes of being graced with the light's presence. Besides, you're far more powerful than me. Nor do I really have any control over the light." He must've sounded a bit contradicting, given the fact that he was talking to a girl huddled next to a wall, but he spoke with the utmost honesty.

Emi looked up at him with a tad bit sad puppy eyes. He wasn't getting any closer any more but kept his distance isntead. It was clear he didn't mean any harm to her and to be honest he looked a little afraid of himself now. Still he remained strong and tried talking Emi out of this mess with some words from the past. He was stating he wasn't any stronger then Emi but she doubted it. To her it only appeared she could do small things with her powers and even those were mostly for the looks and beauties. Still it made some sense that light would be stronger then darkness since light would always overlap darkness. It was not like his aura was as strong as that off the headmaster so it should be fine perhaps. She gave a light nod at the boy and looked at the ground in front of her trying to collect her thoughts about it all. After a few minutes she stood up calmly still not giving him any looks. She was quiet and still trembeling lightly as she tried to breath calmly to make her completely zen again. Emi carefully looked back up at the boy acting a bit shy.



She walked back over to the table she had been sitting at for the past few hours and gave a light tired sigh hopefully unnoticable by Zephyr. Her shoulders that had been tense for the past few minutes dropped down again as she sat back at the table again and started working on Brunhilde's book again with occasionally peeking up at Zephyr to see what he was doing.

Just a couple short minutes later, three knocks came at the door. Brunhilde stood outside the door, just barely tall enough for the top of her head to be visible through the peephole, tapping her foot and nervously doodling in a corner of the notebook. The backup pages were folded outwards between the pages so she could remember who Emi was. She wasn't sure whether or not she was looking forward to their second meeting. It would probably be a bit awkward, she thought to herself. It didn't cross her mind that Emi would have a roommate.

Zephyr strode his way from his new bedroom in an identical outfit, the only difference being that this one wasn't soaking wet. He just finished tightening his tie when a door bell notified the two denizens that they had company. "I got it." He curtly told his roommate, as imposing anything more on her less-than composed state would be a crime. Incessant pops of heated air reverberated as steam rose from a kettle he had scrounged from his luggage. The boy crossed over from one side of the room in a lethargic fashion and turned the knob in the same manner. At first Zephyr was perplexed, due to the fact that a ghost had decided to pull a prank on them. But after he adjusted his slant, only auburn comprised his vision.

The next characteristic he noted of who he acutely deduced to be a female student was her eyes. Tinted with an icy cerulean. Chilling, almost. If it hadn't been for the fact that he just barely one-upped the girl with his completely void physiognomy, perhaps she would have won in the nondescrepit contest. The boy remained motionless for a moment before he expanded the gap from a sliver, "Welcome." His voice failed to eminate the slightest sense of welcoming, but at least he motioned for the girl to come in. "Your friend?" He asked Emi without even a side glance as he turned around and set a course for the finally boiled water.

Zephyr had no more input on what Emi said and just rolled with it. Maybe for the better that was, it would get extremely awkward otherwise. Emi did the same and said no word to him the silence engulfed the room together with the soft light hearted music in the background. The book must have been about 80 percent done. The pages were taped again so the the only thing that still had to be done was digitalise the pages and print them out again. Emi stretched her body out as the doorbell rang. She wanted to open it but was to late.theboy had done it already. Emi pekked lightly around him but could immediatly tell by the small frame that it was Brunhilde. Emi immediatly stiffened with a shocked expression on her face. She stared in front of her without word. Unable to think clearly. She didn't even notice Zephyr asking her anything.

The boy who answered the door was unexpected, and Brunhilde stiffened somewhat. He didn't seem particularly friendly, but he did seem to know Emi. "Thank you," she answered, and she slid into the dormitory. A quick glance around the room told her that somebody had only recently started unpacking, that a kettle of water was almost ready to make tea, and that Emi had clearly not been expecting her to visit. Several seconds passed in unpleasant silence, juxtaposed against and clashing with the light music playing from Emi's desk. Judging by Emi's lack of any reaction whatsoever to Zephyr's query, she was having an acute stress reaction.

The kettle softly popped in the kitchenette to the side, as if keeping track of each moment and waiting amusedly for the worst possible moment to boil. Brunhilde, who had been fidgeting uneasily, decided to try to preempt the kettle. "...are you okay?", she asked towards Emi, deciding to put off the search for the diary until the mood of the room improved. Concern was written across all of her face save for her eyes, which remained unfocused and dazed as always.

Zephyr felt a ping of guilt at the guest's words. His gaze still remained fixed on the kettle and french press it was destined to fill, but the conversation between the two girls withheld a majority of his attention. In all honesty, Emi was keeping her composure quite well for somebody who had just stumbled upon the existence of a darkness user, and to drive the knife deeper and twist, found out that the very universally abhorred inidividual would be her roommate for the next year, or potentially years even. At least she had kept herself preoccupied with mending the book, up to the point that the resounding bell of the door rang. With his ears still glued to the currently empty exchange of words, the boy popped open a container of hazelnut coffee and began depositing the grind with a scoop. Why do people believe coffee tastes like dirt?

Because it's ground.

Like a broken doll she sat there. Her hand still poked out at the work she was doing but it was stuck like plastic. Her whole body had frozen at the sound of the girl she had been fighting with yesterday. It was like she came back to haunt her. Instead of scolding at Emi or the likes she instead came up to the girl and gave her an unknowing caring response. It was to be expected from a girl with memory loss.

Emi's face twitched a little before tears formed in her eyes. Her expression broke as she put both hands on her face. She curled up still sitting at the table and bumped the chair back with her butt to make room to stand. She charged at the girl and gripped both hands around the girl her waists. She immediatly lifted the tad smaller girl into the air while her face was burried in her side. With a slight muffle she spoke.



Surprise and bewilderment took Brunhilde. Most people were courteous enough to not tackle others, and she hadn't been expecting Emi to. At the last moment before impact, she tossed the temporary notebook into the air and kept it aloft on a cushion of wind. The collision jolted her such that she didn't realize she was being hugged until several seconds later. She forced herself back down to the ground and returned the hug when she regained her footing.

Emi's words confused her, and she quickly summoned the notebook back to her. It hung in midair over Emi's shoulder, and the pages flipped according to Brunhilde's will, back to the most recent entries, in which she had described the Hall Monitor's reports. "...What was unforgivable?", she asked. Thoughts visibly ticked through her mind for a second and she added, "...Actually, on second thought, don't tell me. If it's that bad, I don't need to know."

Emi let Brunhilde slide down to the ground again since she wasn't all that light. After a good thight hug from Emi Brunhilde was back on the ground once more and was still hugging the slight taller girl. The girl was definitly confused but she could not blame her. Emi wiped the tears away from her face and gave a little chuckle at hearing the small girl again. It was just like back then when they met. Emi was smiling now with her eyes still engulfed in redness.



Emi let go of the girl and walked back to the table where the beaten up book was at. She carefully picked it up. It missed a few pages but those were all on the table sticking together for dear life. She hadn't read it yet so she didn't know which pages it missed at the moment. She handed the book back at Brunhilde and waited for a moment to catch up on reading.

Wait, wait, wait a moment, rewind. Pause. Now forward a tad bit. He didn't have Emi pegged as an emotional person based upon her reaction earlier. But the girl was undoubtedly expressive, the complete antipode of her roommate. He nearly spilled boiling water on his hand as the scene unfolded. After the visual notifier that was Emi's tears, Zephyr reached for a nearby napkin when his eyes caught something just as noteworthy. "Air Elementalist." Or at least some subset of that all-encompassing element. His gaze rested on the notebook frozen midair, then shifted his line of sight back onto the more pressing development. After a tight embrace to fill in the space where words fell short, the one who had initiated the action then backpedaled, picked up the book she was meticulously mending while accounting for every subtle detail, and offered the article to what Zephyr resumed to be its original owner.

"Emi." The boy finally added his existence back to the equation as he extended a napkin out to the girl, perfectly folded over its crease.
Amnesia?" He blurted out as he fixated his eyes on the redhead. Only now did he realize how abrupt the query was and proceeded to elaborate to prevent any misconstrusion. "Erm, um, I mean, people do keep diaries and document significant experiences. But I went off on a limb and guessed there was a dearer tie..." The dull voice stumbled, tripped, and slipped on itself in an inelegant display of verbal finesse. The performance was concluded with his words gradually trailing off into nihility. "Sorry." He managed to recover from the ungraceful crash, yet he still faced the two girls unwavering.

In response to Emi's comment, Brunhilde spoke up with an impish half-smile. "I do try to write everything down. But accidents happen, y'know?"

The book appeared to be mostly intact now, if badly beaten. Emi had apparently been working very, very hard to patch the damage for the whole day, and Brunhilde found herself very, very impressed - and happy to have someone willing to put that much effort into something for her. She placed the damaged book back on the table and gave Emi another hug very quickly. "Thanks. A lot."

When Emi's roommate, Zephyr, spoke up, Brunhilde amusedly took note of the sudden awkward backpedaling. From what the notebook said of the past few minutes, he seemed to never break away from his monotonous voice, despite having tripped over his own words. The pen continually moved across the page, documenting every single word uttered, helping to maintain some level of coherent conversation.

Brunhilde turned to Zephyr. "I'm not sure what you're apologizing for - and yes, I'm an air elementalist. My name is Brunhilde. May I ask what your own name and element are?"

Zephyr glanced down at the hand moving independently of the rest of the girl's body. Her movements were precise, as if each letter was invaluable. Should she forget to jot something down it would be forever forgotten to the void. She dexterously displayed her fine penmanship for the whole world to see. He didn't pity Brunhilde. If anything, he felt immeasureable admiration. She had immaculately compensated for a shortcoming, accepted it as a facet of her very existence, and has strode through life reinforced with the achievement.

After the redhead's words were processed in Zephyr's mind, he met that cerulean gaze yet again. Rather than answering her immediately the boy turned around and nonchalantly walked back to the room's kitchen. "I've got something for you to write down," He began as he picked up the press' lid by the plunge and eased it onto the main body, ""Five scoops of hazelnut grind- six if you really need that extra kick. Then add enough water so that it's just a centimeter below the brim. Don't beat yourself up if you don't get it right the first few tries. Let it sit for approximately eight to ten minutes, depending on how strong you want it to taste, and then plunge." -Zephyr Heidrich, darkness elementalist."

The boy had indirectly, or perhaps purposefully introduced himself and tipped off his name with his defining element. So, that made one person who accepted the revelation with enough amiability to rival that of a labrador puppy, and one person who cowered in fear until they were coaxed out of the state by words hand-picked with a meticulous ethic. So how would the tie-breaker react? "Just something I thought might come in handy, since you're Emi's friend and all, I imagine you'll be dropping by on more than just a few occassions."

Every word of the introduction was written down - instructions on how to utilize the french press. It was an unusual method of giving one's name, but Brunhilde had gathered that he was a rather unusual person already. After copying the information over to a new dossier page as well as the current date, she noticed what he had said. 'Darkness elementalist.' She frowned at those words, and looked up to the ceiling in thought. She spoke to herself quietly, not really caring whether the others heard. "I thought that darkness was simply the absence of light. I expected that to be related to light manipulation, like how air users can manipulate vacuum..."

"Though that may be the logical assumption, that isn't the case. The two elements are segragated, yet at the same time intertwined. They are in constant strife, but also in an armstice. But they are, undoubtedly, two separate entities." He wondered if his voice was able to permeate her muse, "One of the most delineating proproties of the darkness is how little there is known about it. It's hard to put into words, even for me, but we ultimately preside over different fields." With that explanation out there, Zephyr quickly checked the clock for an update on time. He had no afternoon classes to attend, save for a quick mathematics course.

After all the tears and such Zephyr broke the silence by calling out to Emi. Emi jumped a little as she looked up at Zephyr giving an immediate nod at him. It took her a moment to realise she wasn't on good terms with the boy yet. Her expression immediately faltered into a more shyer one. He continued by guessing what that situation was right now. Ding ding ding Seikai desu (correct). Emi gave a shy nod at the boy with a somewhat agape expression and turned back towards the petite girl like he was nothing to her. In the meantime Brunhilde had placed the thick book on the table again and gave Emi a warm hug which made her blush and grin a little. It was nice knowing such a cute small girl even though she was in middle school already.



She happily brushed the back of her head with her face reddening a little. She was polite too. Zephyr took the girl from Emi and lead her to the kitchen area of the main room where he was brewing tea. He gave her some instructions she could write down to make the tea herself and so she did. With both of them distracted Emi quietly stared at the boy more to see if he had any weird quirks or the likes. She had to know more about him, perhaps his weak spots or things he was afraid off.

Brunhilde wrote Zephyr's description of light and dark in her temporary notebook, along with a note to ask her substitute teacher more questions about all of the other elements. When she was finished, she turned back and approached the table with her diary upon it again. She quickly examined it, noting how most of the pages that had been damaged were now almost completely legible, save for a few minor details. The more recent ones were more damaged than the further back pages, and a heap of torn pages was lying to the side. Momentary shock crossed her face when she read of her own banishment from her hometown, but she quickly reconciled that information with her current location and situation.

Emi had done a remarkable job on the repair work, but judging by her element and the pile of tools, she had spent almost the entire day on it. Brunhilde looked up at the other girl. "You've put a lot of work into this. You should take a break for a day or two - I'll swing by and help with the rest later this week, if that's okay with you. I'd do it now, but I've got some work to do."

The notebook made mention of a homework assignment involving the separation of unfelt gases. It looked like it would take a long time, and she figured she should start on it soon.



Emi gazed at the electric alarm clock in her room and noticed it was already quite late. How late did she even start with it. She might have been repairing the thing for several hours now. She had gotten so up into her work that she had completely forgotten about the time. She didn't mind though, she wanted to do everything to get this girl to be her friend again, doesn't matter what it would take.

`

A shrug. The only possible immediate answer, considering Brunhilde's unique qualities. "Don't really know. Seems to have gone smoothly enough, though."

The notebook made no mention of having had any difficulties with anything - or, more accurately, it made no mention of anybody asking any questions about her life in the past seven years, which was really the only problematic area. At least, other than Saqui's questions and subsequently having to chase down the Hall Monitor - but that information apparently hadn't been recorded in the first place.

She looked to Emi again, being struck with the idea that the girl was trying to compensate for something, and scanned over the path their conversation had taken. It didn't cross her mind that Emi thought that she wasn't Brunhilde's friend anymore, because to her, the notion would have seemed utterly preposterous. Mistakes happened, after all.





Brunhilde answered with a shrug. The book was in good hands, and she knew what had happened, so there was no point panicking. All in all, the handling of the disaster had been rather impressive, save for her having to have had to track down one of the hall monitors. She flipped over through the repaired pages in the diary, examining the repair work for a few moments, then flipped back to the spot that still needed the most work and returned to the door.

"Thanks again for helping out. I've gotta get running, so... See you tomorrow or the day after, I guess?"

With that, she slipped out of the dormitory with a short wave. Over the course of the next week, she returned a few more times, including after the diary's repair job had been totally completed. But the assignments started piling up, and she had to turn her focus toward the upcoming combat exams, and strongly recommended that the others do the same. Despite the crushing wave of homework and the disaster on day one, though, it had been in all a good week for her.

---

Slightly bored out of her mind, she stares out to the bright sky for some consolation. Though obviously such a meager thing wouldn't bring Emilia completely out of her state of mind. And while the elemental did slowly approach her, she more or less neglected the notion and sighed on her own. "I guess it's hard to comprehend the mind of a somewhat mindless elemental..." A blank stare was all she offered to the now almost motionless puddle of water. "Though I guess it goes both ways, doesn't it?" Even when she merely dispersed her own water bubble, the elemental seemingly backed off in fear or something along the lines. While it was somewhat reasonable, it didn't make sense as much since it was her own water from a small vial.

Neither were the next actions the elemental was about to take. The now-scattered water around her from the dispersed water bubble earlier had begun to move back towards the pool in front of her. Paying only a slight amount of attention, Emilia sluggishly moved her head to see all of the drops move in sync. "And why would you bother to take the scattered water into you now?" And quite frankly, she got the answer to her question quite possibly right in front of her. The sudden water bubble that had formed above the puddle was flung straight at her face, and having neglected any sort of notion for retaliation or anything of the sort, she lets the bubble hit and splash on her.

Her expression didn't change much, but her eyes got a bit more life into them. "So first I stop bothering you after you didn't want anything to do with me, then I suppose you test me by throwing water on my face? Well ain't that cute." Honestly speaking, she felt a bit relieved inside as she had first thought the elemental was just forced to stay in this world possibly due to Kanos influence. But the showing of interest at least gave some hope for the poor thing, in her mind at least. While she wasn't sure what the pond of water would do regarding any of her own actions, she didn't feel like analyzing every single little thing. She took one of her hands while posing her back straight and made the palm of her hand face downwards, and not even a second later the water that just had splashed on her would slowly converge in small streams into the same orb of water from before. But unlike before, she didn't try to hit the elemental or anything, but rather just let it hover in the air.

"Care to do it again? Or are you afraid just because I'm influencing it?" Yet another challenge-esque provocation. One could never be too sure if these things did react to human speech or had any sort of ability to recognize it. Probably not, but it eases her own mind just thinking they could. And with another turnabout of her hand, she now let it rest on her lap, while the orb was still on the top of her palm which was now facing upwards. "Take it, if it's even somewhat important to you." One thing she had not mentioned however was that if the elemental would actually take the water off her hand, it would experience the thoughts and some memories she tried to convey to it before. A subtle idea, but one that would only happen if the elemental decided to do so.