Are  we...going to die...here?

I thought to myself as he kept on nearing and nearing. Aya got extremely frightened and embraced me, her arms around my chest and closed her eyes. By that time, I slowly gained my strength back, but was not in the shape to fight, because there was no way I could run. The amount of strength right now could barely make me walk.

I slowly moved my hand and held my katana horizontally, trying to defend against whatever attack he might be using while still being embraced by Aya. As he almost reached us, he flew up in the air, shouting-

“Lightning punc-”

He stopped mid-way, with his eyes indicating some sort of realization and flung over us towards our back. He already had a cyan magic circle formed along with sparks of electricity built up on his hand, so upon landing, he punched the ground causing the road to get shattered a little and forming cracks, with electric sparks that went flying in every direction, colouring everything with cyan for a split-second.

Both me and Aya were frozen with immense fright. But the question still remained. Why did that guy jump over us? Why did he refrain from attacking?

Getting up from the ground and looking behind, he laid his gaze upon us two. From the look of his facial expression, it seemed like that of shock or surprise rather than anger or hostility.

“Are you two… How were you able to enter this space??”

We still couldn’t move nor could we answer what he was asking us. But wait, what does he mean by ‘this space’? Were we in some sort of a barrier or something?? Suddenly, another person swiftly landed right in front of us. It was the same lady whom I suppose is ‘Valentina’ or something, and immediately began asking us in a threatening voice-

“What are you doing? What are your evil intentions tailing us like that? Are you from that Legion of Wild Chaos group??”

Wait, what did she mean by ‘Legion of Wild Chaos’? Probably something about their world. But still, the tone of her voice was enough to send chills down my spine. Not only me, but even Aya began shaking with terror. I only noticed it when I peeked at her, with her eyes transfixed with horror. So, she was not able to utter even a single word. I guess I have to speak up, then. Or else no one else was there. I took up a few seconds, breathing heavily yet silently, gathering some confidence and apologized to them, telling the truth-

“W-we're really sorry, we weren't tailing you. We're just mere high school students going to our school when this sudden change of atmosphere was felt. We just got caught in it!”

That was not the best I could do, but this fear that I was experiencing for the first time in my life, this fear of imminent danger to our lives made me stutter. It was only now I got to take a good look at her, that she had a voluptuous figure! I slowly began to redden as those balloon-like thingys wobbled when she peered at us quite abruptly, but snapped back almost immediately as soon as I saw her frightening yet beautiful face. 

That guy’s expression seemed to have calmed down though. I hope that he might’ve realized this is all a misunderstanding.

“Hey Valentina, from their faces, it does look like they didn't mean to tail us. I guess this is just a misunderstanding. Besides, it also looks like they are just kids because look at their uniforms! It’s written ‘Kaisei High’, the school we passed by!”

“No, Julian. They might be those scoundrels from the Wild Chaos group dressed up as students from this Kaisei school. We are not sure if they are not, right?”

Irritated expression was building up on that man whom I suppose is ‘Julian’.

“Just look at their faces for once. How can you not be sure that they are innocent little children?”

Julian spoke in favour of our defense. But one thing, we are NOT little children though. Whatever, at least he was on our side now, I mean, we now had sort of like an alibi to help us prove our innocence.
Wait...I guess we can try showing them our IDs! That might help in proving that we are innocent students of Kaisei High!

“W-we can show you our ID cards! That’ll prove us innocent, isn’t it?”

Valentina, that lady, didn’t show any movement nor any reactions, but seemed to have been satisfied with that statement of mine, and Julian nodded in agreement. Me and Aya briskly took out our IDs and presented it in front of their faces. They surely took their time to briefly scan our cards with their eyes, and she kind of lashed out at us, saying something unexpected-

“....Nonsense. This is a fake one you just made using magic!”

We made a fake one using our magic, huh. Seriously? I don’t know if she is dumb or if she is doing it on purpose. I mean, if we had magic, we wouldn’t be cornered like this by them, but would have already made our move and counter-attacked. I can see that even Aya had a troubled face, lol.

*THUMP* 

It seemed like me and Aya weren’t the only one to be kind of irritated, as Julian, that guy, hit her head with his hand in a non-lethal way, his face showing signs of irritation more than how much he was before.

“Stop it! Gosh, you're stubborn as ever you know? Just because you're proven wrong on the point that they are those Wild Chaos morons doesn't mean you can start giddy accusations to endorse your point.”

“Gah! Okay fine! I'm sorry!”

So it was her stubbornness to not accept us to be innocent. Wow. People like this are there in other worlds also, huh. Well, I don’t know anything about that ‘other’ world though, Briezwhateverthehellitsnamewas.

“But Julian, what do you think about these two?”

“Looks like one of those same cases…”

“Uh-huh. I’m getting the same feeling”

Wait, what were they talking about? What do they mean by ‘one of those same cases’?? What was that ‘case’ anyways??? Questions started flooding my mind, but couldn’t ask any of them yet, because what they said after that jolted me-

“Welp, looks like we have no other choice, but to take them with us.”

“Hmm. We don’t have any spells like memory washing or something, and can’t let them go like this or we’ll be in hella trouble...”

Wait wait wait, WHAT?!? Are we seriously going to another world?? What about our families? Well, I don’t have any family, but what about Aya?? She had a loving mother, so she wouldn’t want to leave her and go to another world. I peeked at her, and her face seemed to have developed mild to extreme depression. Damnit, she’s becoming all gloomy again. Aren’t there any other ways though? 

“W-wait…But what about our families and friends??”

I tried asking them, and they replied heartlessly, something that wouldn’t sting me, but would sting Aya, a lot.

“They would simply forget about you. It’s like, you never existed in the first place.” 

Huh...It doesn’t look like they are evil, but judging from the way they replied, they didn’t lose anyone closely related to them. That’s why they were freely able to say that we would be forgotten by our families as if the pain was nothing. It would hurt Aya a lot. But-

“I am...okay with that…”

The soft voice of Aya replied. But was she really okay with that though? I mean, she would be forgotten by her mom, the only person who doesn’t treat her like an object and shows love and care...

“Wait, Aya. You will be forgotten by your mom! Are you sure??”

She certainly had to be a little disturbed. I mean, why would she want to be forgotten by her family? It would be one of the most painful things. But her face had a natural smile, while replying-

“It’ll be okay, Hisashi. Since...I have you.”

Oh c’mon now, she got me there. Got me good. I wasn’t able to control my blushing face, and it turned super red, in fact, so much that I had to cover my nose and mouth with my palm and look away. And now, it also created another  misunderstanding, as Both of them, Julian and Valentina, showed mischievous smiles at us.

“Ooooh, so you two are a lovey-dovey couple? Hehe.”

Julian’s mischievous face was quite hilarious to see though, but more than that, Aya’s soft scream was too cute-

“W-w-we are not!”

It can’t be that only she would be declaring that we aren’t in a relationship, I had to also, or else they wouldn't believe us.

“Yea! W-we aren’t a couple or anything!”

“Hoho, don’t worry. It’s okay, I can understand that you are embarrassed about it~.”

We really weren’t a couple though, but now even Valentina began teasing us as if we are one. They didn’t seem to believe us anyway.
Yare yare, I guess making them believe is a waste of time. No matter how much we try, they just keep getting on it through different angles. And so, I tried to ignore it.

“So then, let’s go to Brieztopia.”

Hearing the same word getting mentioned again from Valentina, I really was curious now. What was this Briezwhateverthehellitsnamewas world? 

“I’m sure both of you don’t know about it. Brieztopia is our world. We come here using portals that connect Brieztopia to the Earth. We can create these portals by ourselves also, but that requires knowledge as well as being able to use dark-grade magic. I suppose these words are new to you.” 

Yea, true. These words were COMPLETELY new to us. Julian kept on explaining while me and Aya watched him nodding between intervals of time.

“Worry not! You will get to know everything in detail once you come to our world.”

After going to their world? Was this some sort of an advertisement? It’s as if they are giving us a part of information, and we need to pay to get the rest of it. Pay in this context is us going to that world. Fumu, Julian would’ve been a great advertiser. Lol.

“B-but what about...this area...that is all turned into ruins?”

Aya asked a good point, indeed. How can I forget to ask such a thing, I mean will the area remain shattered or will it revert back to normal? If this remains shattered, then won’t the other people notice it??

“Ah, fufu. Don’t worry about it. It will all become normal again once we return to Brieztopia.”

“Oh...Okay.”

Fumu, I see. Are they playing sort of like a game? Like the battleground clears up once the players leave the area. Lol, anyways, it was cool for me, going to this Briezwhateverthehellitsnamewas world. Let me refer to it as ‘another world’ for now, or else this word’s way more complicated lol. 

Now, about Aya. She did say it was all cool with her too, but from the inside, was she really satisfied?

“Wait, we should start by introducing ourselves. Hehe, almost forgot. Myself, Julian Von Ryenne, and she is Valentina Mentotsa. We are magic instructors teaching magic in Fedmorth academy. Pleased to meet you.”

“Same here, pleased to meet you!” 

What’s up with their names though? And moreover, ‘Fedmorth’ academy? Lol, it was equally funny as their own names, but unique at the same time. They also mentioned that they were ‘magic instructors’ teaching in this Stroudwarts academy, meaning that they were teachers! No wonder they were this powerful, I mean, cracking up roads and stuff, travelling with lightning speed.
Nonetheless, we also had to introduce ourselves too. I doubt Aya could speak, so I can do the introduction for her.

“Y-yes sens-, sir and ma’am! I am Hisashi Kurogane, and she is Aya Tsukuyomi. We are students of Kaisei High school. Nice to meet you too.” 

Haah, I almost forgot that they won’t know the meaning of ‘sensei’, which means ‘teacher’. 

Anyways, I greeted, faintly stuttering. I guess I was still not adapted to this environment which was to be expected. The sudden experience of so-called ‘magic’ had completely shaken me up, not gonna lie.
About her name, I did the introduction. But she should also be saying at least ‘nice to meet you’, or it might make them feel slightly offended, making the relationship bad. So I compelled her to do so.

“N-nice to m-m-meet you.”

Well, she finally spoke, but stuttered extremely, far more intensely than me. I guess Julian kind of understood that we were still a little frightened, watching us stutter like that, and so, assured-

“Hehe don't worry, we ain't bad guys so we won't hurt you. At first we thought you were tailing us, leading to our cautious nature.”

Even murderous intent...

It’s true though, that they were trying to literally kill us a few minutes ago. That fire attack by Valentina creating a hole on the ground, and Julian’s electric fist cracking and shattering the road, how were we supposed to survive those if they had hit us??

“But, Kurogane…”

Muttered Julian and he kind of made a look on his face as if he remembered something, that is, as if he had heard the name ‘Kurogane’ somewhere. But it was my first time ever meeting these guys, above all, first time ever experiencing magic in my whole life. So where could’ve they? I guess it’ll remain a mystery for now.
Julian glanced at Valentina, and she gave a shrug. I didn’t know what was happening here. Probably related to my surname.

“Anyways, Julian, please create the portal.”

Now, I had far too many questions to ask, all flooding in my mind. I could ask not even a single one. If I were to ask all of them, it would literally take hours.
Aya had a perplexed expression upon hearing Valentina, probably got confused what Valentina meant by ‘portal’.

Julian joined his hands and closed his eyes as if he was praying, and spoke out some similar, peculiar words like before, unable to recognise the meaning behind them-

“Fructus. Horulae. Copulare. Portal!”

Being able to hear it understandably, it clearly sounded as if he was chanting a mantra or something, but with...single words and not sentences? It was pretty unique though. But anyways, something interesting began to happen.

His whole body was emanating a dark colored light which had a slight tint of...magenta probably? Mixed with it, along with the magenta magic circle with all weird symbols that formed just in front of him, big enough to match the height level of his.

A portal appeared in front of us, out of thin air! It was a region filled with black clouds revolving slowly in counter-clockwise direction and formed a spiral-like shape, from which came out...same magenta-black sparks of electricity. It was not that intense like that of Julian when he used ‘heavenly lightning’ thingy if I remember correctly, having just tiny ones that flew out of it.

“I-is it safe to go inside it??”

The soft voice of Aya asked in a worrying tone, slightly trembling with fear. Her question was valid though. Because the looks of this portal could shiver our entire body, from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet.

“Of course, why not? C'mon, let's go.”

Valentina answered positively, but Aya was still frightened to go inside it. I can try calming her down then, by slowly slipping my hand over hers and holding her.

“Let’s go, Aya.”

Her eyes opened up a little, giving a broad smile to me with a sigh, a sigh of relief and happiness and grabbed back my hand.

And of course. Julian. This man’s mischievous smile came up again. What could I do now besides blushing a little? I mean I can’t lash out at him or something, since it would be rude and insolent. But I was a little surprised that Valentina didn’t have that sort of smile. Instead, did something else-

“Blaze.”

She said with a half-hearted tone, and a magic circle formed just above her palm which was facing upwards, causing a small amount of jet flame to emerge and hover above it. She had this small flame propel towards Julian’s hair, and it started burning. It was not lethal, as it was not burning rapidly. Meaning she might’ve just meant to inflict pain without any damage to him.

“Aaaaa!” 

Julian cried out with a sore throat, jumping all over the place while trying to smother the fire which kept on burning on his hair using bare hands. Dude, you could use many types of magic, right? So why not use water or something else to extinguish the fire? 

“Stop bothering them! Jeez you never stop teasing people, huh.”

Fumu, I see. So Julian is the type of guy who loves teasing people, huh. I can already see a flash-forward of how this is gonna torment us. I mean, not in a bad way, but as a form of embarrassment.

“Okay okay! I'm sorry! Now please help me in killing the flame!! It hurts!!!”

He was really trying hard to douse the fire, but those were all unsuccessful attempts. A sigh of irritation escaped Valentina’s mouth, lifting and aiming one of her arms at the blazing Julian, forming navy-blue tinted magic circles glowing with a slightly lighter shade, most probably arctic-blue, and spoke out in a half-hearted tone-

“Splash.”

Drops of water appeared beyond the magic circle. It swiftly grew larger and blasted out which bombarded towards Julian, drenching him. Hence, the fire was extinguished and he was saved.

I was surprised about one thing though. There was no impact force when her roaring water collided with the flaming body of Julian. Normally, the force of water should’ve sent Julian flying away, but it didn’t. How??

Judging from my intuition, there are two possibilities. One, Julian is tremendously strong, negating the impact force. Or two, relating to the way she said the spell or whatever it is called. Meaning, the tone at which the name is said has a direct affect on the strength of the magic attack. She chanted using a half-hearted tone, resulting in a non-fatal attack. It’s just a guess though, so these ain’t no solid points of mine.

“*Sigh* So anyways, let’s continue then. Stay right behind us, okay?”

Me and Aya nodded and Valentina and along with Julian, they went inside the portal, disappearing into nothingness as soon as they stepped in. I guess it really was safe. So both of us, while holding hands, went inside the portal together.