14 Chapter 14

The first thing Curtis felt was a little warmth run down her lips.

A single line of crimson was drawing itself down her nose and onto the border of the cracks in her armor.

Once it reached her lips, her tongue came out to lap it up.

It was the second time she was hurt by him, even if both were flukes and she was even ready for him this time. Everything else aside, his combat skill was definitely the real deal.

That last shot had hit her where she was the most vulnerable, the face.

Since covering her eyes, nose and mouth in Magic Skin would essentially blind and asphyxiate her, the area around there was actually the most unsupported and easy to break.

He found her Magic's weakness by pure luck, but the fact that he could hit her there in the first place was a miscalculation on her part.

Who would've thought this kid would be able to imitate 'Dragon Breath' which was a High Mage skill.

Luckily it was only an imitation of an imitation of the real thing.

Even for High Mages, their 'Dragon Breath' only had up to 2% of the power of a real dragon's.

Depending on the type, the normal respiration of a real dragon would be able to scorch or freeze its surroundings.

When they shot those out, just being in close proximity could kill a person.

In comparison High Mages were basically just casting normal magic but with their mouths.

And Tasha's little ball only had some concussive force to it.

Still, Tasha actually reached her with that little thing, got "Thursday" and worst of all, he did it by luck.

Something about all that seriously irked her to the core.

The part of her that held some pride as an Archmage who would not bully her juniors was pretty small to begin with.

But after that one, it was completely gone.

Tasha was still in the midst of putting a distance between himself and Curtis while she was recovering from that blow.

But in the next second...

She was already upon him...

...

Akagi cursed her lack of movement in her daily job as she tried to run up 9 flights of stairs.

She regretted trying not to get involved in their little games a little sooner.

She could've done this floor by floor, but NO... she just had to wait for something to go wrong! She screamed in her own head.

She thought it wouldn't go too far and it would end nice and quickly.

Admittedly, she had gotten quite worried when it went on for longer than a few minutes, feeling that something had gone wrong.

But when she heard a sudden *BOOM* from upstairs, she was sure that something had definitely gone wrong.

...

Tasha was pretty confused about what Curtis did at the start to catch him off guard.

Not anymore.

Because as he floated above Curtis's head, his collar in her grasp dragging him where she wanted to put him... he saw the ground had split behind her.

Apparently the reason he was so confused about what she did was because he was anticipating her legs to move to project her next step.

But she'd never taken a step.

No, she slid forward with both her legs firmly planted on the ground.

Using her magic to displace the ground right under her feet and having it shift while covering her tracks by closing the earth that split in her wake.

This time however, she didn't think about covering the ground back up, opting for the highest speed she could slide forward to catch up to him while leaving a devastating path in her wake.

As she tried to throw him down, he slid away and tried to propel himself upwards to escape her.

But all he did was fly up towards two clasped fist which hammered him back down.

"Friday!" She shouted with an excited grin.

He quickly tried to pick himself up from the blow, but he immediately felt her foot stepping on his back.

He looked up in dismay to see a smiling Curtis who suddenly said, "And that's Saturday and Sunday!"

Confused, he watched her tap her other feet on the ground as two pillars of concrete rose up to give his stomach a "love tap".

The instant that happened the door to the stair way slammed open.

"What the f#<k are you doing!?" Akagi screamed at the sight of Curtis standing upon the body of a discombobulated child.

Curtis who was reveling in what she just did, cringed after hearing the tone in that voice. Finally realizing that she's gone too far.

"Well... I was uh, just testing out the level of his skills?" Curtis tried to come up with in the moment.

Akagi closed in on her and stared at her. "Really...?" She dragged her words out.

"Ye.. uh..." another line of excuses was about to come out of Curtis's mouth, but being stared at so intensely by Akagi, she caved. "...Well, a little bit of it was."

...

After being put inside a healing spell like the one in Arthur's office for a few minutes, the pain had subsided enough to allow Tasha to move properly once more.

Those last two hits felt like Curtis was trying to make him sh*t his organs out.

As he left his room the source of his pain as well as her friend were nowhere to be found, leaving a small note on the door which said, "Out for awhile, there's some food Akagi left in the fridge."

...

The smell of new pages lingered in the air. Mingling with the stench of old yellowed books, filling this historical building set right in the middle of Gryphon Academy.

As one of the best schools in the state, most of its structures had been built following the trends of modern day architecture. But this one dated far further back before, when the establishment was made for less peaceful things.

Somehow, at some point in the past, somebody decided that this place was going to be a library. So due to it's nature as well as the nature of most humans to avoid libraries, it was never really a point of attack or any major events.

Hence it was the only building still sporting great big rock bricks for the pillars and walls, like that of an olden day castle. It gave it a sense of history none of the new buildings had.

It also gave everyone in it drafts from who knows where, unstoppable leaks in the rain season, and the inability get proper Wi-Fi reception.

In these very hallowed halls, a great debate was brewing.

"No"

"Yes"

"No"

"Yes"

"No"

"Yes"

"..No"

"Yes" Curtis immediately replied once more. "I grew up with 20 siblings and cousins, I can do this all day."

"I hope your other 20 siblings and cousins grew up to actually understand the english language..." A red haired man answered her, all the while his eyes were trained on the book in his hands, sitting on a needlessly long desk whose surface was buried under pile after pile of books. "Because you don't seem to get the meaning of the word 'No'"

"Of course I do! It's means uh..."

Few understood how much everyone took for granted the simplicity of the words 'Yes' and 'No' as much as Curtis did right now...

She knew what they meant, she just didn't "know" what they meant...

"A negative response?" She said.

"Oh, consider my view of you corrected", man spoke sarcastically, "...and here I assumed that you thought 'No' was an invitation to negotiate on my ruling."

"It is if your ruling is horse crap." Curtis spat.

A thick vein stretched its thick tentacles across the sides of his head.

The books fluttered open on his desk, flipping around so fast that the pages threatened to tear off.

"Oho! Up for a fight four-eyes?" Curtis cracked her knuckles.

*Thunk* The tension in the room disappeared as a surprised Curtis had a heavy book dropped on her head.

"That's enough of that." Akagi said as she took the lead.

"Warren, the both of you have submitted very fine points here..." She attempted to pacify him of the two of them.

Thinking that he would end up in the ground courtesy of her best friends if they continued down this path of discussion.

"Do you really think so?" He questioned snidely, "have grounds based on the academy rules for my decision..."

As the Administrator and Academic director of the Griffon Academy, he was in control of a lot of the academy's finer points including enrollment.

"She on the other hand, is simply trying to annoy me into submission." he pointed accusingly at Curtis, almost as if a Chile tattling to the teacher.

"Maybe you were confused when I suggested that she was 'negotiating'? My mistake for being to liberal with the word..." Warren snickered.

Akagi switched her stance much too quickly. Now getting so close to begging Curtis to have a go at him, if only there wasn't any consequence in doing so.

Warren was a High Mage like Akagi, despite only being half a step different with Curtis, there was almost no chance for Warren to beat her.

So if they fought, he was definitely getting a beating. Which she was pretty sure quite a few people would pay to see.

But he wouldn't go down easy either.

Like Curtis's fight with Tasha, a fight between magus was not solely based upon their rank.

Well... if Curtis was serious there's no way that Tasha could even touch her.

But this was comparing a kid who wasn't even an Acolyte yet, to a High Mage.

Warren definitely stood a better chance of lasting longer and having much more effective counters to the Earth Fiend.

And this time, the collateral wouldn't just be the cracked concrete on a roof.

The whole academy might get dragged into the fight.

"I think you've aggravated them enough, don't you think so Mr. Warren?" A plain and emotionless voice echoed from across the hall.

The clinking of metal followed the heavy thump of the large door that lead to this room.

A dainty little head sporting glowing pink hair stuck itself out from between two massive shoulder guards which was part of an even more massive knight armor..

"I don't know what you mean Principal, I'm just abiding by our school's guidelines." His eyes stayed its course on the next lines of his book, refusing to even spare a glance on the newcomer.

"Warren, remember when we talked about being polite to people? Where I suggested looking at them when you're talking?" She split apart the mountain of books on the desk so that she was in his direct line of sight if he ever decided to look up.

"I do, and I remember rejecting your suggestion on the grounds that being polite is a favorably looked upon characteristic in a social setting, not an obligation." He recounted as if it was the most normal thing to say.

"You know, you might want to reconsider that suggestion considering it comes from the person who now regrets allocating the extra school budget into buying you these new books..." She was still smiling, and her tone was cheerful, but both Akagi and Curtis felt threatened by the vibe she was giving off.

Only Warren didn't seem to care about what was going on.

"You can't do that, it's an abuse of authority." His head shot up faster than anything he'd done in this life, and it looked as if they told him his relative had just died.

Then again, with the way he was, the girls didn't doubt that his relatives dying might actually elicit an opposite and more positive expression from him.

"I'll make a petition and have you Ms. Valerie Tristan ousted from your cushy position high up there, where you believe you can look down on the rest of us." He said in distress.

"No it's not, I have the right to split our extra budget into any area so long as it is an activity approved by the school."

"We'll see what the others think about that when I bring up the petition." He replied.

"Yes and when no one signs your petition, as usual, I'll move that budget into... hmm let's see, maybe the punk band club and move it to that spacious room down the hall, which you never let me give to any club because you think having some 'rowdy teenagers' in a closed room which is not even in your field of vision, will disturb your reading." She rebutted.

"Keep going, you're just giving me ammo to fuel my petition, I'm sure others have felt the weight of hierarchy here as I have." All the girls were exasperated by him at this point.

"Let's see... is anyone as big a pain in the hierarchy's ass as you are...?" She pretended to think. "Nope!"

"Is he always like this?" Akagi asked, wondering how he'd survived being the way he while working with Curtis.

"Yes." Valery answered straight forwardly. "He doesn't listen to things that don't interest him, and the things that interest him is usually written on a page instead of coming from someone's mouth."

"Watch." She attempted to tempt him, speaking in as sultry a tone as she could muster while shifting her body suggestively. "If you act a little polite, I'll let you touch everything under this armor..."

Of course, it might've been more effective if he saw her body shifting around instead of the clunky armor around it.

"Sexual Harassment, another one for the ammo pouch." Warren commented, already back into his book.

"See?"

Akagi simply nodded after shrugging at that point.

"Anyway, Curtis has sent me the same application she sent Warren and I've looked through it." She said.

Both Curtis and Akagi looked at her expectantly.

"Unfortunately I agree with Warren on this, we cannot accept this child into the academy."

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