Chapter 102 Winter Departure

Duodecem the 15th of 4382 AS

On a somewhat warmer winter morning, for the first time in a while, Azi was spending time outside of his house and was sparring with Nosuri.

As two arrows came at him, Azi jumped to the side in a panic. Being somewhat quick on his feet, Azi narrowly dodged but was unable to retaliate against his opponent as he did not have his gauntlets equipped nor was he reinforcing his body with magic energy.

In fact, Azi was purposefully not using his magic since the scrutinizing gaze that Shizu gave at the side told him to not even dare try it.

The reason for this started with Azi, who after constant protest, was able to convince Shizu to let him out of the house under the condition that he would be supervised by Shizu at all times and that he did not use any magic.

Shizu added the no magic condition as she had started to suspect that his magic energy was somewhat unusual and out of control. Recently, she deduced that a possible cause for his sudden bursts of anger and strength were correlated to the overuse of magic.

She had consulted Touma if anything seemed off with Azi's magic channels and overall progress with his development in thaumaturgy which Touma informed her of how abnormal Azi really was.

Touma stated that his ability to absorb magic energy directly into his body and his large capacity of magic energy were the two major breaches from the norm.

For reference, Touma also explained how Azi's magic energy and channels seemingly expanded by quite an amount after the festival incident which was not strange as these aspects could grow but in Azi's case it was unusual as it occurred over the course of a few days.

In fact, it took years to get results similar to Azi's. For scale Azi's magic energy reserves were estimated by Touma to have at most doubled. This caught Touma's interest as he offered to give Azi a more thorough "examination" but this proposal was quickly shot down by Shizu who gave Touma a sharp glare.

She didn't like how Touma was starting to see Azi as some kind of oddity, but she nonetheless took his advice to stay on the safe side and banned Azi from using magic for a while. Touma explained that his body should acclimate to his new condition in a few days but that any use of magic could possibly cause issues with his health.

Bringing her attention back to Azi's spar, she witnessed Azi start to charge at Nosuri while he weaved side to side to throw off her aim.

"Bwahahaha. Your moves won't save you here AZI! TAKE THIS and THIS!" As she boasted, Nosuri shot two arrows in quick succession. In her excitement, Nosuri believed that her attacks would win her the match as one arrows was headed for his leg and the other was to where she had predicted Azi's head would dodge to.

These arrows were blunted and traveled slower than her usual arrows. Her attack would only bruise her opponent so she did not have to worry about inflicting any fatal injuries. As Azi witnessed the two arrows coming at him, he also saw the proud grin Nosuri had on her face which irked him a bit.

But thinking ahead of time, Azi had picked up a fist full of snow in his left hand. With it, he packed a snowball which he subsequently launched at the second arrow. Ever since he was trained by Shizu, he had been experiencing intense training under her tutelage.

One such kind of training included dodging Shizu's onslaught over the course of an hour, which he still struggled to do since Shizu would not pull her punches and would go at him at full speed. While Nosuri's arrows were fast, they were not as surprising or as fast as Shizu's close range flurry of attacks when she dual wielded her custom weapon.

Additionally, since he had upgraded Shizu's weapon, she had become a much more formidable fighter but to Azi she was like an instructor from hell.

With the impact of his thrown snowball, it successfully threw the second arrow off target and allowed Azi to successfully dodged it after dodging the first arrow.

Nosuri gawked at Azi's pin point accuracy and stuttered out in surprise. "What the?!" But soon she took a face full of snow as Azi had packed and thrown another snowball as he ran to close the distance between them.

This snowball had a few small twigs and stones in it which caused Nosuri to wince a bit at the small scratches it made on her face.

It was not long until Azi tackled Nosuri to the ground and drew up his fist to give a light tap on Nosuri's cheek but was stopped when the referee at the side called the match.

"WINNER AZI!" Shouted Ougi.

Taking a deep breath, Azi lowered his fist and attempted to stand. When he pushed down with his other hand, he felt a soft sensation he didn't recognize. Looking down, he saw that his left hand was cupping Nosuri's right boob.

Acting upon his inquisitive nature, Azi squeezed to get a feel of what he was touching. He soon found out that his instinctively curious action was a mistake.

Nosuri, who was on the ground, felt Azi's hand on her breast and before she could scream out in embarrassment, she witnessed Azi disappear from her sight in the next moment.

The space that was occupied by Azi's head was now replaced with Shizu's fist that had steam rising from its knuckles. The fist then turned into an outstretched hand that was offered to Nosuri, who accepted Shizu's hand with her own and was helped up to her feet.

"Sorry about that. I'll be sure to punish the pervert when I get the chance." Said Shizu, her cheeks somewhat red.

"It's well, umm yeah. It's kinda ok since it was an ….accident." Said Nosuri, her tone a bit sheepish.

Turning her head in the direction where Azi's was sent flying, Nosuri saw her twin brother helping Azi out of the pile of snow he had "safely" landed into…. Not onto….. Into.

"Will he be ok?" Asked a concerned Nosuri.

"Yeah, he will be fine. In fact, I think that did little to him. When I first met Azi, I punched him in the face at full force by accident and he somehow survived. In any case, I'll go check to be sure. You should probably get ready to leave since your carriage to Yamato will be leaving soon."

While Nosuri wanted to ask about the details of her first encounter with Azi, she knew she would not have the time to hear the full story. It was already noon and the carriage that would take her to Yamato was leaving soon.

This carriage was graciously given by Shizu as a thank you for their services. Not wanting to disrespect the kind gesture, Nosuri said a brief farewell before calling over her brother.

Hearing his twin sister, Ougi looked over to see Nosuri waving to him. They were over ten meters away as Azi was flung quite a distance which intrigued Ougi on how any man could survive such a powerful punch.

Turning to Azi, Ougi inquired with his typical expression of amusement with his eyes squinted. "So? How did your hand feel?"

Taking a minute to think and to stop his eyes from rolling around in his head, he rubbed the side of his head and said with a slightly pained voice. "Soft."

With a raised brow of interest, Ougi then probed. "Softer than Shizu's?"

Recovered, Azi smiled and said in a whisper. "That's confidential."

Seeing the grin on Ougi's face, Azi felt like he gave the right answer as Ougi's squinted eyes opened a bit. For the first time, Azi saw Ougi's opened eyes for a brief moment.

"I see I have piqued your interest. Perhaps we shall talk about this again when you have something to offer in our next discussion." Added Azi.

"Indeed, farewell for now. I do hope we cross paths again." With his farewells in order, Ougi made his way to his sister's side. As Ougi was walking away, Azi looked to his right hand and felt a sense of incongruity.

He felt something sharp cut into his right hand when he got punched into that pile of snow and he knew that he was bleeding from a cut he had suffered from a sharp rock that likely brushed hard against his palm. But when he checked his right hand after recovering from Shizu's abrupt punch, he saw no wound.

Looking down at the ground next to his right foot, he saw a few drops of blood in the snow. A foreboding feeling began to rise in Azi's mind but it was brushed away by Shizu's voice as she approached.

Azi straightened up a bit, but before he stepped towards the somewhat scowling Shizu, he stealthy pushed some snow around to cover the noticeable drops of blood before receiving one of Shizu's scoldings about how it's improper to touch another woman's breast.

With a glare, Shizu started to bear down on Azi who felt as if her eyes were trying to punch him in the face a second time.

"SO?! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF MR! PERVERT!"

Wincing at Shizu's somewhat painfully loud voice, Azi eked out an apology.

"I'm ….sorry…."

"SAY AGAIN. I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Again Azi eked out another apology but it was not loud enough for Shizu to hear. Sighing, she bent down a bit to bring her ear close to Azi's face in acquiescence of his apology.

"One more time."

A moment passed and with it, Shizu missed the glint that shined in Azi's eyes. With a quick hop, Azi pushed a somewhat unbalanced Shizu to the snowy ground and began to hug her.

Caught off guard, Shizu was unprepared for what Azi would do next as he soon began whispering into her ear. While Azi's actions were done outside, which could be considered in public, this was on the outskirts of the village where there was no one in sight for several hundreds of meters.

So Azi unhesitantly took the chance to apologize in a somewhat affectionate way after he saw that Ougi and Nosuri were far enough away.

"Your's were better." Whispered Azi, which got a slight blush out of Shizu who summarily chopped Azi on his forehead.

"Idiot, you should have watched where your hands were going." Said Shizu, her voice also lowering into a whisper as she next spoke. "...And you have me… so..."

"So I should only touch your's?" Asked a grinning Azi.

Shizu then pouted which gave Azi all he needed to know. He chuckled a bit as he then brushed off her light chop before rolling over to lay beside Shizu in the snow.

Azi looked up into the bright blue sky dotted with clouds. The sun was still high in the noon sky, but luckily a cloud blocked the subsequent rays that would have blinded them both.

With his left hand, he grasped and interlocked his fingers with Shizu's. They could feel each other's heartbeats through each other's hands as they both thought it was a result of their reasonantes but this was likely just the excuse they told themselves.

A pink mood began to rise between the two and while instinctively they wanted to cuddle, they knew that doing so would put them at risk of being publicly shamed for their somewhat overly passionate actions.

So the two just enjoyed the time they spent there as it would be a while until they came back to Shisayama. Today was not only the day that they would say farewell to Ougi and Nosuri, but it was also the day that they would depart for Kujyuri.

They were already all packed and were waiting for the rest of the traveling caravan to make preparations. Passing the time, Shizu explained that this trip was for Ozen's children to meet with their father as they had business to discuss. She then added that Touma would be going to become an Ordained Knight as he had played a key role in repelling the recent disaster with his magic.

Touma had also recently completed his duty of training the first group of prospective thaumaturges. These two noteworthy events caught Ozen's attention so he ordered them to bring Touma as well.

She then added that another goal of this trip was for Azi to be officially announced as Shizu apprentice and for him to make his appeal to Ozen about funding for his patent on blood steel.

"So will I be sleeping in my own room for once?" Asked Azi.

"Yes, but that's for you to decide as my bed could always use another warm pillow." Purposefully squeezing Azi's hand, Shizu turned her head to meet Azi's eyes. Azi also squeezed his hand a bit tighter as they gazed into each other's eyes as they admired each other's visage. Both had grins on their faces as they tried to read the other's next move to hopefully tease the other.

*Crunch crunch crunch*

The pink and playful atmosphere that had started to build between them suddenly dissipated as the sound of crunching snow gave the approaching man away. Turning their heads up, they saw that the approaching man was Kajima and he had a somewhat annoyed and tired look on his face.

"I see the two of you are still as passionate as ever." Said Kajima. "In any case, both of you get up. The caravan is ready to set out. I'll be waiting for you two love birds in the carriage at the front."

Kajima then turned to leave while not minding the outcry of Shizu's embarrassment and Azi's subsequent wails of being tackled and then bearhugged to near death. Shizu blamed Azi for the somewhat embarrassing situation and punished him like she always did.

Whispering under his breath, Kajima spoke to no one in particular. "This is going to be a very interesting trip."