Chapter 4

The next morning, Raine woke up early to see Hanna slouched over her desk, just barely asleep. Raine took off Hanna's safety goggles and laughed to herself a bit. Hanna woke up abruptly and instinctively reached for her knives, standing up, and snapped around to Raine. Raine got so startled she jump back a bit. "Oh, it was just you? Thank god, I thought it was some intruder." Hanna said, calming herself down. "Good morning," Raine said, laughing a bit. "Oh- Good morning. I'll go change so you can change in the room. Be out in the hallway quickly." Hanna said, walking out. "Alright, see you later," Raine said, starting to get changed. After changing, she noticed that she and Hanna were the first ones in the hallway. Raine went over to Hanna with the book she borrowed to give it back. "Oh, that? You can keep it." Hanna said. "Really? Thank you! Also… I'm sorry for telling you what I did last night and distracting you. How did the potion go?" Raine said.

"You don't need to be sorry. Most of us are pretty much used to you and you haven't yet exhibited any worrying behavior toward us, so I guess I should adapt. If you want to be on good terms with anyone, it would have to be Joana. She's uptight and especially hates demons, so you'll probably only be able to talk to her when you're helping her with paperwork or something like that. For the potion, I'm going to try it on our next mission. I have a good feeling about this one." Hanna said, opening the room door and stepping outside. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you. Also, about the potion, instead of testing it out in a real mission, what about having a sparring session with me and trying it then?" Raine said, smiling and stepping out of the room. "Well, that would be fun. Alright, let's go!" Hanna said, starting to walk down the hallway. "Wait, I meant after we meet up with the rest of the party!" Raine said, jogging towards Hanna. "C'mon guys, you've gotta snap out of it! How tired are you?" Tina said, hugging Raine. She was using Raine as a headrest this time.

"Oh, hi Tina!" Hanna said, turning around and smiling. "Geez, what's gotten into you, hanging around Hanna all day? She'll end up kidnapping you!" Tina said, patting Raine on the head. "I'm pretty sure you're way more likely to do that, Tina," Lucy said, strolling over to Tina. "Now I have two headrests!" Tina said, hugging Lucy. "You never learn do you, Tina?" Hanna said, a grin spreading across her face. "Aren't you such a cutie- OW!!!" Tina yelled, getting punched in the arm rather hard by Lucy. "NEVER UNDERESTIMATE AN ARCHER!!!" Lucy roared at Tina, who was currently gingerly rubbing her arm. "Hey, c'mon now. We know you're a good archer, only tiny people can fit in the best hiding places." Hanna said, using Lucy as an armrest. Lucy whirled around and threw a barrage of punches at Hanna, but Hanna's quite nimble so she dodged them all. "You little shit!" Lucy said, chasing Hanna. "H-Hey, could everyone calm down?" Raine said, trying to de-escalate the situation. "YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING! YOU'RE AS SHORT AS ME!!!" Lucy said, now chasing both Hanna and Raine around.

"You're pretty impressive, y'know. Being able to keep up with an assassin class and an archer." Hanna said, nonchalantly. "How did she get that strong?! Isn't she supposed to be an archer?!" Raine said, worried. "Yeah, I thought you'd ask that. "See, here's the thing. She was originally an assassin class like me but then we needed an archer so we picked her cause she was the only one who could hit the target." Hanna said matter-of-factly. They then heard a slam and stopped mid-chase. All three of them turned to the room the noise came from and saw Joana come out of her room, glaring at the group and trying to fix her bedhead. Everyone except Raine knew what was about to come out of Joana's mouth. Joana grinned and said with an agitated voice "Let's go train." Everyone groaned and started walking down the hallway. "Why is everyone looking so down, weren't we going to go train anyway?" Raine whispered. "Yes, but Joana's version of training is much, much different than most people. It's basically life or death when you're fighting her..." Lucy said, sighing.

The party arrived at the training grounds and lined up as Joana went in front of them and instructed them to spar to almost death with each other. "Okay, everybody will be split up into separate groups for the first set! Here are the groups, Tina and Lucy, me and Hanna, and lastly, Carlos and Raine! Get to work!" Joana said, gesturing for everyone to group up and get ready to fight. "You better get ready, Raine, Carlos is tough," Hanna said to Raine. "I bet Joana is tougher, though," Raine said. "Yeah… Today really isn't my day…" Hanna said as she trudged over to Joana. Raine walked over to Carlos. "Hey there! Just so you know, there's a stage where each fight takes place. Once you're there it's game on, but before that, we're still buddies!" Carlos said, patting Raine on the shoulder. "Yeah, I guess we are!" Raine said, smiling at Carlos. She saw Tina and Lucy go onto the stage. She then heard Joana start speaking. She stated in her best commentator impression, "For the first round, it's Tina and Lucy! You can use any means necessary to win! Let the battle commence!!!"