Marry X Princess

XIII: A Confidant

It was yet another day, and another final bell had tolled. The end of the week was fast approaching, and my brain felt like jam spread across a rotten piece of toast.

A pattern had formed over the course of the week, and it had yet to be broken. A text from either Evangeline or Cynthia seemed to decide my fate for each day, and Mizuki had been uncharacteristically absent from my life. First it was because of my detention, but in the days that followed that incident, she had been ignoring me for reasons I didn't understand.

The internal time limit I had decided upon for confronting her had elapsed as of the previous night, yet the situation continued into the next day. The school day had come and gone, and, once again, Mizuki had walked to school on her own and avoided me in class. I had given her space and time to come to me on her own, but since that hadn't happened, it was more than time to address her about her worrying behavior. But before I could do that, I had to meet with Eva once again for more training.

The crazy, camouflage-clad girl had promised I would see progress in the next session. I had my doubts about that, but time was running out and I was without the luxury of refusing to show up. Cynthia had delivered the awful news that an announcement of my first opponent was fast approaching on the horizon, which meant it was time to speed it up. I needed to at least surpass a kid's level of spell casting if I was going to stand a ghost of a chance in the gauntlet.

With a heavy sigh, I stepped out onto the sports field behind St. Cirelia. For the first time in the whole week, the person who had summoned me was already in the place they asked me to meet them.

There, bathed in the citrus glow of the early evening was Evangeline Dioli. Outfitted in her green camo attire as usual, she stood in the middle of the field, executing an impressive martial art routine. Her skilled dance was comprised of a flurry of punches and spinning kicks. One of her fists was encased in an earthen glove, while the other burned in a hot flame not unlike the ones she swiped at me with during our "fight" back in detention. Her boots left ice trails behind with every kick, pulling together a stunning demonstration of her mastery of the elements.

Even for someone as bad at spell casting as I was, I knew the spectacle before me was incredible. It was difficult for even the most proficient at magic to wield multiple spells at once, let alone spells of different elemental natures. And yet, there she was, making it look easy. Somehow, a girl who seemed so ridiculous at times was performing a masterful display of martial arts prowess, all the while perfectly envisioning the names and magic circles of three different spells. She really wasn't kidding about being a prodigy.

At the conclusion of her display, Eva expelled a breath and noticed me standing across the field, dumbfounded. A smile grew upon her lips immediately.

"Hey, there you are!" she called.

"I hope you're not about to accuse me of being late, because you have no place to speak," I replied.

"Ah, I don't care about that today. Just get over here!"

I closed the distance between us and said, "that was something else. I've never seen anything like it."

"Why, thank you~" she said through a bashful giggle. "By the time I'm done with you, that will be you."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

"Okay, well maybe not exactly that, but something close."

"Right. Anyway, I'm ready to train."

"Perfect! Then let's go to where we will do our training for the day!" She grabbed my hand and began guiding me away from the field.

"What are you doing? Aren't we training here?"