Getting ready for the day was made simple by the fact that I had slept in my uniform. I checked my ribs again for damage and found that there wasn’t so much as a bruise from yesterday’s confrontation. While there were completely functioning showers in the restrooms, I remembered seeing a miniature version of the blue arch from the training grounds there as well. I elected to walk through that and be done with it instead.  

I didn’t blame the class for their reaction when I walked into Miss Wintry’s orientation class for the second time. They all stared at me in disbelief when I walked in the door but no one made eye contact with me when I looked around the room. That was except for the girl with the blue hair.  

She looked at me and waved as enthusiastically as ever. I felt my cheeks flush from embarrassment. I turned away from her gaze and walked back to the seat I had sat in before. Hopefully, that one doesn’t become too problematic.  

I had expected the intimidation and planned on using it to keep distant from my other classmates. I had work to do and I didn’t plan on getting them involved in what was shaping up to be a massive power play possibly centered on my outward defiance.  

The blue-haired girl immediately got up and walked in my direction. Yup, she is going to be trouble. I began to get my notebook out of my desk and frowned at my lack of a pen when she spoke.  

‘Hey! I just wanted to let you know that what you did yesterday was amazing. Most of us have been in this school for months and can barely hold a weapon and you took down a third-year like it was nothing!’  

I stared at her dumbfoundedly and willfully blinked a few times. Maybe if I came across condescending, she would be turned off to the prospects of a new friend. It didn’t work. All the awkward silence did was allow for some interjecting from another student.  

‘No, what she did was wildly stupid. With the fairies' bond, we are practically immortal and with the monsters roaming around this world, she’s got no chance in surviving.’  

The girl who spoke sat diagonal from me and had long dark green hair. She had it up in a ponytail and I’d swear she had a personal light breeze that was constantly playing with it. It looked extremely annoying.  

‘I don’t plan on staying here long enough to have to worry about those things.’  

‘So it’s true? The Headmistress forced you to cross over to this world? And you’re hell-bent on getting back?’  

I thought maybe it might be a good time to get some information. I wondered just how much of the same situation to me these girls were in. I decided to prod a bit.  

‘Ya. Weren’t you guys forced here too? How much of your homes do you remember?’  

Green was the first to speak up. Her slender form and sharp nose mixed with her serious expression physically oozed annoyance.  

‘All of it, except for my name and a few details. The Headmistress blocks our original name as a safety precaution when we arrived. We are free to come to her for further removal if something is bothering us. You would know this if you didn’t try to kill her on day one.’  

‘Except she already took all of it. She didn’t leave a single memory of my past self. I don’t even remember what I looked like. And I definitely didn’t ask for it.’  

‘What the hell?’  

At this point, everyone passively listening turned to look in disbelief. That confirmed it. I was some strange outlier to this formula. Everyone else was here at least somewhat willingly. They all had their memories in place. I was the one left in the dark. Suddenly, Blue started crying and wrapped me in her arms.  

‘You poor thing!’  

‘Uh…Um, that enough, Blue.’  

I pushed her away and she gave me a little pout. Then, as if her tears vaporized, her demeanor changed back to happy and bubbly.  

‘Blue? Oh, because of my hair? I get it! Well, my name is Marina Nixie and this grumpy little cuss is Willow Wisp. We are in a party together. We are actually looking for a fifth member for our group if you’re interested. We are stronger than we look.’  

‘I’ll have to decline. I’m more of a solo type and I doubt they will let me do any serious fighting anyway because of the whole fairy thing.’  

‘Aww, come on.’  

‘Give it a rest, Marina. She said no and we don’t need a loose cannon like that on our team anyway.’  

Blue looked like she was going to protest but was interrupted by Miss Wintry clearing her throat at the front of the classroom. All the students returned to their seats and the class began. She started by calling me to the front again.  

‘We all had quite the show yesterday. Many of you saw things that you will never see again. Hopefully, you all took notes and learned a lot. Again, I would like to welcome our new student. As the naming ceremony went…off direction yesterday, will you give us a name to refer to you by, at least for the time being?’  

‘I’d love to give you my name. But since I don’t have it and I don’t plan to be here long, you can call me whatever. I’m terrible at naming things anyway.’  

‘How about Samantha Rye?’  

The suggestion had come from none other than Blue herself. She looked like she had had some sort of epiphany. The name sounded particularly plain, which I liked, but I couldn’t discount the glimmer that was in her eyes. Miss Wintry didn’t seem convinced either.  

‘And how did you think of such a name Marina?’  

‘Well… I just figured, you know. Since she doesn’t have a fairy to go off of and her hair is a dusty brown. I just figured it looked like rye berries. And I use to know this girl named Samantha, and she kind of reminds me of her a bit…That’s all.’  

Blues eyes looked at the floor and she fidgeted with her hands as she explained her reasoning. Miss Wintry watched with a disinterested look on her face and then turned to see my reaction.  

The name was alright. Samantha was a plain name in the backdrop of many of the fancy names I had heard so far. I’d prefer to drop it to a more androgynous ‘Sam’ but that was a technicality. And in fairness, I had already assigned her the nickname ‘Blue’ based on her hair color so basing my name off of it made sense.  

‘Sure. Why not?’  

‘Yay! Welcome to our class, Sammy!’  

‘Wonderful. Then if you would head back to your desk, Miss Rye, we will continue our class for the day. Here. You will need this.’  

The teacher held out my pen from yesterday. The blood had been washed off but it still had a scuff on it from when I threw it. I walked back to my desk and opened my notebook. As Miss Wintry began I decided to write my name just to get the ink flowing out of the pen.  

Samantha Rye. Sam Rye. Wait. Something seemed odd about the name at second glance. What had she called me? Sammy Rye? Sam-ee-rye…samurai. She had just got the katana-wielding new student to accept the name samurai.  

I looked up in surprise and saw her turned backward in her seat beaming from ear to ear. Not only did she come up with the name on the spot but she expected me to get it quick enough for me to see her looking back at me in triumph! This pixie was sharper than she put off.  

‘Marina. Please face the front of the room and pay attention.’  

‘Sowwy!’  

The rest of the class was informative. Apparently, much of the known world had been taken over by monsters they call the Revenant. They come in many shapes and sizes and some can even use magic. They absorb the life force of people they kill, which makes the Fairybond their mortal enemies. You can’t eat what comes back to life.  

The school is set up to create soldiers to fight against the Revenant. It seems that only women can become Fairybond so they are grabbing young girls while they are impressionable and teaching them how to use their magic and fight. Seems like a messed-up way to fight a war, if you ask me.  

The next class seemed like it could be interesting, so I stuck around. The students stayed in the same classroom as the teachers rotated. My next teacher’s name was Miss Aurach and she looked like quite the monster. She must have stood at six feet tall and had the muscle structure of a bodybuilder. Her Magenta Mohawk matched well with her almond skin tone.  

She spent the first part of the period going over basic weapon handling and tactics. I found myself a bit bored as my understanding of these things seemed to be at a much more advanced level. That got me curious as to how my tactical combat knowledge stayed sound when none of my actual memories remained. I needed to inspect the veil more closely.  

I was pleasantly surprised when the second half of the period we went into the gym to practice different weapon forms. People grouped up by weapon types and were instructed on different ways to handle our weapons. As I expected, I remembered multiple offensive and defensive forms to the point of mastery. Miss Aurach took notice quickly.  

‘Samantha! For a new student, your form is impeccable. Have you used a blade before?’  

‘Yes, Ma’am.’  

‘How about a friendly duel to show everyone how good form matters then?’  

‘As you wish.’  

I saw a glint in her eye as she held out her hand and summoned a Lucerne hammer out of thin air. It was the standard six and a half feet long but its head was entirely too large. The class circled around us to observe. I wasn’t happy about fighting against a weapon with such a good range. Hopefully, the weight of the head would give me a speed advantage.  

Seemingly in sync, we rushed at each other at the same time. She opened with an overhead smash which I diverted with my sword, but I could feel the blade bend a little under her weapons massive force. A direct hit would snap my blade in two.  

I lead with a kick which she blocked with her massive forearm. She used her remaining hand to drag the hammer across the floor to sweep my planted foot. I hoped over the bar and delivered a tornado kick which she narrowly avoided. She attempted to step back but I closed the gap. I had to remain in close combat or she would gain the advantage.  

We continued to trade blows like this for a while. One thing I was grateful for, my current body, was the combination of my small size and high agility made dodging easier. Though I was quite surprised at how fast the teacher could move despite the large size of the weapon.  

I had originally intended to play the long game. I would wait for her to tire herself out swinging such a huge weapon, but her stamina seemed to have no limits. As seconds passed, we both began to stop pulling our blows and fight more seriously.  

‘Fantastic! But why aren’t you reinforcing your movements with magic?’  

‘Because that would be impossible. ’  

I slashed forward with an attack across her chest as a student yelled out across the gym.  

‘She doesn’t have a fairy yet!’  

Miss Aurach stopped in her tracks with a look of horror on her face. I had to put considerable effort into pulling the slash and I made a light five-inch long incision on her abdomen.  

‘Are you crazy?! I’m here trying to kill you and you’re not even rooted yet!’  

I sheathed my weapon and relaxed my posture. Breathing heavily, I shrugged.  

‘I thought we were just sparring. There was no real danger.’  

The class spent the next few minutes filling in Miss Aurach on my current situation as I walked away on my own to do some stretching. I was becoming more familiar with this body's form and movements. I spotted Blue walking over to me holding a towel and a water bottle. She had a large heater shield on her back that was almost as big as she was.  

‘Here, Sammy. You look like you could use this.’  

‘Sam.’  

‘Huh?’  

‘Just call me Sam. And thanks.’  

She looked at me inquisitively as I took the towel and water bottle. I chugged half the thing and then toweled off the accumulated sweat.  

‘Anyway, I hope you know that Miss Aurach was pulling her punches. She is much stronger than that normally.’  

‘Uh-huh.’  

‘But so were you, right?’  

‘So is the nature of sparring. It’s not like you’re trying to kill each other. It’s just a practical way to test out your progress in a live setting.’  

‘Except not here. Sparring is always to the death. We take for granted our immortality and fight with our life on the line. If that fight continued without Miss Aurach knowing, you would have died.’  

Blue’s sudden serious tone caught me off guard. Her usual bubbly and ditsy face had turned serious and mature. This girl was an enigma. It all melted away in an instant and a smile returned to her face.  

‘Anyway, be careful next time! See ya!’  

She turned and skipped away which was an awkward sight with the giant shield on her back. I had a slight pang of conscience thinking of how I had treated her earlier.  

‘Hey, Blue!’  

She stopped and turned around. She struck a cute pose and smiled.  

‘Ya?’  

‘Thanks.’  

She put on the cheesiest smile she could and struck a dramatic dance pose like some sort of Saturday morning cartoon character. I promptly threw the towel at her face. She laughed and ran away.  

Miss Aurach seemed a little flustered for the rest of the class but we continued for the rest of the time with practicing forms and technique. She informed the class that no one was to have a sparring match with me and that I was banned from them from now on.  

Afterward, we returned to our classroom to await the next teacher. The next thing on my list was a class called ‘Fairy Psychology’. I guess it couldn’t hurt to learn more about hove fairies worked. I couldn’t help but be unnerved by the grin Blue was giving me as the teacher walked in the room.  

‘Welcome class to Fairy Psychology, where we come to find ways to better bond with our inner fairies! And what is it that fairies like most?!’  

In tandem, the class shouted.  

‘BEING CUTE!!!’  

The teacher opened two large suitcases to reveal a plethora of makeup, clothes, and accessories.  

‘Oh…oh no.’