After the long, delightful summer vacation, our school reopened. I got out of my house and began my journey to school after a month or so, with of course, my katana. Even after so long, the intense heat of the sun still didn’t seem to fade away. But man, it was a great vacation though.
Aya’s house came into sight just when she got out through the front gate.

“Aya!”

I advanced towards her pretty quickly while calling out her name, then greeted-

“Good morning, Aya!”

“Oh hey! Good morning Hisashi!”

“Just like before, our timings are perfect haha.”

True, it was perfect lol. Before the summer vacation also, we almost always met at the right time right here. What a coincidence. I let out a soft laugh, and she also burst into laughter, in a sort of cute manner, making me blush faintly. But well, we shouldn’t be wasting time here, because we had school to go to.

“So, let's head to school, shall we?”

I asked her and she replied positively-

“Yea! Let's go.”

-and we both began walking towards school.

“The summer break was fun! wasn't it? Our visit to the aquarium was also pleasant, and the foods in that restaurant were so tasty!”

Aya started a conversation. It was about the time during our vacation when we went to the city center and had tons of fun together, visiting the aquarium, going to an amusement park, and having lunch in a restaurant. 

Wait, before any misunderstandings arise, I wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t anything like a date, okay? Even though it seemed like it. It was just Aya’s mom forcing us to have some fun. She not only told us to go, but even accompanied us everywhere by car. But to be honest, I liked it. It was my first time visiting such places, restaurants, aquariums and even amusement parks. After all, I used to live on a mountain.
But anyways, that was a very pleasant day.

“Yea, that was a very good and enjoyable day!”

I got a faint tingling feeling of playing around with her a little, but it made me blush slightly. So, with my face gleaming red, I added-

“S-so it was basically a d-date…”

I still stuttered a little. Lol, these types of skills of mine weren’t that good, because if I was pro at it, I wouldn’t have flushed my face, or would’ve stuttered. But still, it seemed like it was a success as after she heard me, her face got reddened so much as if she got colored with fresh and bright red paint. Her reddening didn’t continue for long though, as soon, her blush faded a little and a smile naturally appeared on her face, adding-

“But I enjoyed it though…”

But this time, her words made me blush intensely. I didn’t know if she was coming back at me after somehow realizing that I was playing with her, or if she truly meant it. Judging from her face having a cute, natural looking smile, she truly might’ve meant it. Fumu. I couldn’t help but build up a gentle smile on my face too. 

It was not too long while walking down the deserted road situated beside a small forest land that suddenly something felt odd. The atmosphere got peculiarly quietened all of a sudden. It was as if every single person vanished from this world. The sounds that were coming from other people's houses, the constant humming of bees and the crackling of cicadas from the forest, everything was hushed instantly. As if only the two of us remained.

“Umm...Hisashi, something...something doesn't feel right...Everything's soundless all of a sudden...I'm...starting to feel anxious....”

Stuttering with fright, she grabbed my arm and snuggled up to me. As I said, I had already noticed it but thought it was just my mind playing tricks because I had this kind of experience once when I was a kid, so, was trying to ignore it. But since Aya also felt the same thing, I was pretty sure it was actually happening.

*KA-BOOM* 

A loud noise echoed, which rather felt like a sudden explosion. I jolted with the sudden sound, and so did she. It was so loud that it caught both of us by surprise. What was that sound though? I was looking in every direction searching for the site of the ear splitting blast, but found nothing. Not even a smoke to indicate that it might be a cylinder blast or something. Instead, something more bizarre happened. 

A lightning bolt coloured in cyan struck at the end of the road in front of us, vibrating the ground not due to the thunder, as no thunder was produced, but due to the intensity of the impact. The flash was so bright that everything was white for a brief moment. Slowly but steadily the light faded and a person appeared out of the electrically sparking area, specifically a man.

*BZZT* 

Waves of sparks that came out from his body lit up the surrounding area with a bright tint of cyan color, revealing that the spot where the lightning had hit made a hole, and the surrounding areas were cracked. 

That guy had bottle-green hair which was long and straight and had blue eyes. He was tall, easily taller than me, just like a giraffe. Lol not literally a giraffe though. But still, he had a slender muscular body with fair skin. So a bodybuilding giraffe! Lol nevermind me.

It was not only him, as another person, a young lady, appeared while floating in the air blazing with bright red fire. The air below her feet had roaring flames bursting out and spinning like a tornado.

She was of average height and had a beautiful face, white and fair skin with gorgeous emerald eyes. She had very long crimson hair tied into a ponytail using black ribbons. Her face was so beautiful that I unknowingly began to blush faintly.

She landed on the road facing that electrically charged guy, and her flaming tornado vanished into nothingness. Me and Aya, who were stunned at the sudden experience of something supernatural, quickly hid behind the wall on the intersection of the road, popping our heads out to watch the scene.

Swiftly she lifted her arm and placed it aiming towards that guy, shouting out something which I could barely understand-

“Fire wave!”

Some sort of weird floating red-tinted light formed around her hand in circular shape, whose brightness was not that much, with all sorts of weird symbols and patterns imprinted and glowed with the same colour. I believe those are ‘magic circles’ according to fantasy novels. Suddenly, an enormous amount of raging flame burst out of her hand which charged towards that guy with all might in a wave-like manner.

What were we watching right now? Was it some sort of highly advanced movie shooting? Or if this was what I was thinking, then these things only happen in anime and fantasy novels. Magic. I just can’t believe this scene. I mean, seriously. Who on earth could blast fire out of their mere hands? And how can a person survive a lightning strike? 

I took a glimpse of Aya who stood beside me peeking at the scene with a tremendously shocked expression built up.

The guy dodged the beam of blazing flame and lifted his hand up towards the sky, again yelling something we barely managed to hear.

“Thunderbolt!”

The same magic circle formed along with cyan colored sparks that flew from his hands.

*ZAP*

With a flash, a humongous lightning bolt flew towards the sky and then came rushing down towards that flaming lady. She was quick to form those magic circles again and create a wall of...flames? Can fire be used as a shield? Fumu, absurd.
But anyways, it seems like she failed to block it. It was common sense I guess, that fire can’t be used for blocking. Because fire is just a visible effect of combustion, superheated matter forming ionized gas which in turn, forms plasma. I guess the lady thought about trying to take advantage of the heat to block, but electricity generates heat.
Electricity is the flow of electrons. As it flows, it collides with other atoms, forming resistance and thus, generating heat.
Now, about the other side, air is an insulator. So how can electricity travel through air? I guess this phenomenon is the same as lightning. The lightning bolt or whatever it was called that the man threw, had enough energy in it to pass through air. 

As the bolt infiltrated through the wall of flame and headed for the lady, she sprang from that place to dodge the fierce sparks caused by it which reflected in all directions after hitting the spot. There was one petrifying thing to notice though. That guy and the lady were relatively far away from our position. But as that lightning bolt collided with the ground, it was so intense that a gust of wind flew in every direction. It even reached us!

“C-c-controlling electricity?!”

Aya, who was just beside me, exclaimed in frisson of excitement.

“Not bad, not bad! Your power surely has increased!”

We heard a distant, feminine voice which I suppose was that lady.

“Yours is not too bad either. In fact, I can sense greater power than before.”

This time, that man replied to her compliment, and added-

“But try to dodge this! DON’T block! Just dodge!”

Even if they were a little far away, their faces were still clear, with that lady building up a perplexed face upon hearing that man, and asked-

“If you want me to dodge, then why are you casting it?”

“I just want to test it out. Hehehehe”

“Ah, okay fufufu. Then I can already see which spell you’re going to use.”

That guy, this time he lifted both of his arms up straight pointing towards the sky, and spoke out some words which were unrecognizable by me-

“Fulgur. Electricae. Horanos. Fulgur nigrum...”

I was completely fazed. What on earth did he just say?? But anyways, the scene was more interesting than those words.
Two magenta-coloured magic circles formed on both of his palms, and a large area surrounding the both of them grew darker and darker. What was happening? I was bewildered as to what was happening, but then perceived  dark clouds that were forming over their heads, with...black lightning?? Each lightning bolt was black in colour, with a faintly glowing borderline of the same colour as the magic circle.. So, magenta-black lightning bolts?

“...Heavenly lightning!!”

Along with the words he just yelled, the cloud above them which was sparking with lightning went violent, sparking many times in the sky. Then with a zap, many bolts descended from the sky. Not ten, twenty, but a few hundreds of thousands of bolts descended with, of course, lightning speed. But, the lady was not just standing there gazing at the clouds with an open mouth. She took a steady stance, about to sprint with full power and shouted-

“Aerate!!”

- and two bright white-tinted magic circles formed surrounding each of her heels. With a flash, she sprinted with so much force that no one could see her as the bolts reached the ground. 

Since birth, my motion perception has been unusually high, higher than anyone else’s. So I could perceive her, not properly as the only thing I could see was a white flash travelling in all directions at lightning speed. But things would be different for Aya and any other person. They won’t be able to see her at all!

Lightning was falling all over the area and upon colliding with the ground, large magenta-black coloured sparks flew all over the place with sharp and loud sounds of cracks and booms of lightning, covering as much as hundreds of meters or more in radius. Even though the bolts were magenta-black, everything was lit up in only magenta colour, for a long duration of time. I guess the faint mix of this colour in the black lightning bolts caused the surroundings to get painted with it.

The force of the bolts were so great that the ground cracked up and debris of the road and the walls nearby flew all over the place. Some even flew towards us, making us hide behind the walls. I brought Aya into a tight embrace and wrapped my arm around her, trying to protect her from any debris that might strike. 

We were still holding each other while the zapping sounds kept on emanating along with everything else painted with a bright tint of magenta colour.
After a few moments or so, the zapping sounds vanished and the surroundings came to its original colour. I think the lightning stopped? Probably. I slowly let go of Aya and peeked to see what happened, and was utterly shocked.

That area was completely messed up. It was like a barren land left with malnourished soil that prevented growth of plants, but with debris of roads, walls, sign boards, powerlines scattered all over the place. He just turned a well-built place into a barren wasteland! More than my fear, I was actually pretty excited to see this. Was it because of being a teenager that I am feeling excited after experiencing magic? As far as I know, no one believes in magic. So, other people would definitely think that I was bluffing if I shared my experience.

But whatever, I could see only the man over there with his arms still aimed towards the sky and faint fumes coming out of his palms. His magenta-tinted magic circle dispersed and vanished in thin air with a ‘whirring’ sound, and then eased himself and stood in a normal stance. Soon, the lady appeared in sight, just near him.

“Are you done?”

“Yup, hehe.”

“Let's stop here, then. We gotta go to Brieztopia soon or our principal’s gonna pour a rain of scolding on the two of us.”

She spoke and the guy agreed by nodding. But wait, what did she say? Briez-what? They sounded like they were from a different world. Oh my god. My head’s gonna burst out. Just what the hell was happening? 

“What is...Brieztopia??”

Aya murmured on her own as her face indicated complete confusion. Oh, so it was Brieztopia. I think Aya has a good sense of hearing, because the lady muttered in a very low voice which I couldn’t understand very well, but Aya, who’s standing right beside me, heard the whole word.

Me and Aya kept on watching over them from behind the wall. Wait, oh heck. We’re done for. That guy noticed us peeking! His face, which had a broad smile suddenly gave out a serious look.

“Valentina, we've got company!”

That guy, he yelled out and that lady whom I suppose is ‘Valentina’ or something as mentioned by him, after scanning the environment and catching both of us in her sight, sprang up in the air, a magic circle surrounding her hand.

“Hell flame blast!!”

She aimed her palm towards us and through it, massive amounts of flame roared out and blasted towards us. The flame was so big that it was the size of an elephant, no, bigger than that. As it kept on nearing, I could already feel the heat from it. If we get caught, we are sure to be dead. We are sure to be breathing no more.

Without giving any other thoughts, I grabbed Aya, more like hugging her and sprang away from that place, rolled down and crashed hard against the light post on the roadside. Thankfully it was me who crashed on the pole, and Aya’s impact was on my chest, saving her from any injuries that might’ve occurred if she had been the one who crashed on the pole. The place where that lady attacked now had a big hole about the same size as that flame she used.

True, we would’ve become fried meat if we had stayed there any longer…

But wait, she was nowhere to be seen! Where could she have gone? Was she thinking of a surprise attack? That might be the case, and so I had to be cautious.
I slowly broke open from the embrace with Aya, and stood up scanning my surroundings. Aya was so horrified that she was not able to process anything in her brain. Her eyes told so. And so she was in utter silence.

I was scanning the place from where we sprang, but couldn’t see anyone. Did they leave? Or did they lose sight of us? They probably might’ve lost sight of us- or so I thought.

“Flame dragon’s breath!!”

Her voice was now coming from the exact opposite direction from where we came. I abruptly looked behind me, and saw her a few hundred meters away from us, her arms aimed at us forming a magic circle relatively larger than the ones seen before, and a massive flame blasted out which took the shape of a...dragon’s head!?

It was just like a dragon from myths, blazing with red, fierce flames and roaring towards us with all might. Are we going to die? Is this the moment we ascend to heavens? Having such a short life, no. We are not ready to die yet. I promised Aya to protect her till the end of the world, and I will.

I quickly dropped my bag with a thud, took out my katana and stood in the stance for JeonBu Kamihame sword style, performing one of its secret arts.

“JeonBu Kamihame secret arts 18th stance! <Tempest blow>”

As the name suggested, I swung my katana multiple times in a split-second, breaking down the air around me and with a final, long and swift swing, I forced all this air towards that flaming dragon thingy blasting at us.

I performed the secret arts technique to slow down that fire dragon attack, giving us enough time to evade, but things turned out not how I had expected. Not in a negative way though.

My <Tempest blow> attack creates violent winds. It collided with the flames, clashed for a few seconds and blew it off. It caused my <Tempest blow> to perish also, but at least I was able to cancel out the effect. But how did I?? I was so sure that my attack would not work, not even sure if it would be of any help in slowing the flames down. But whatever I might’ve thought, the result was all that mattered. And I was successful in blowing off her flames.

“Lightning wave!”

While I was distracted with slight amazement, I’ve been caught off guard. Towards my back, I heard zapping sounds getting louder and louder every second. And when I looked back, I saw hundreds of bolts of electricity travelling towards us at lightning speed. Damnit! Those cyan bolts were not entirely aimed at me, but Aya too! She won’t be able to withstand those million volts of electricity!
Without me knowing, I automatically moved my body, keeping the katana in my hand and got right in front of her, guarding her from those fiercely sparking electric bolts.

It electrocuted me with high voltage and I fell on the ground temporarily. My senses were all okay but was not able to move my body. They had affected my muscles.

“H-Hisashi..!!”

She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up, resting me on her chest.

“A-Aya…”

Suddenly I couldn’t say anything. No, nothing happened with me, but the thing was something else. Aya’s chest. It pressed against my shoulder, those balloon-like…you know...thingys getting squished, it made me blush intensely. Wait, there’s no frickin’ time for that.

“Hisashi…! Hold on!”

“A-Aya...I’m...okay…!”

That man came running towards us at a very fast pace, probably with the help of electricity he increased his running speed because as he ran towards us, sparks of cyan-coloured electricity were flying out from his legs, with magic circles of the same colour surrounding his heels.

Are  we...going to die...here?