(23)

Ran took another step back at the extra space taken up by Mr. Sato's combat form.

His whole body was girded in metal, his main body looking like some sort of humanoid, legless rook that hovered in the air. His shoulders stretched out from the main body into the arms of a set of scales, while his actual limbs were long, metal chains that ended in heavy platters that dragged on the ground with how he was hunched over.

Despite the inhuman appearance, she could still hear him panting from the great surge of dark power. That soon stopped and he straightened himself upwards, nearly scraping the already high ceiling. As he locked eyes on her, she could already tell the being before her was no longer her teacher.

It let out a deep growl, or perhaps it was the sound of it inhaling. "Destroy ..." It threw its head back with a booming shout as flames ignited like raging infernos in its platters. "DESTROY ... WITCHES!!!"

One of those platters came down and crashed into the flooring, sending the bamboo flying in every direction like a bomb had gone off even as she jumped back away from the point of impact. Her jump and the blast of force sent her clear to the back of the room, her sandals skidding an arm's length before she finally stopped.

But that steel was back in her eyes, and she held her arm diagonally down across from her as blue energy flickered at her fingertips. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sato ..." She didn't know how, but, "... I'll save you! TRANSFORM!"

The dark blue card she threw above her head broke apart and flowed down over her pirouetting form like water before solidifying over her as she moved into it. Each segment flashed like hardened steel before softening again into the flowing fabrics of her pop-ish outfit. "Unyielding aegis of devotion!"

She came to a stop in a one-step pose that had most of her weight on one foot while the other one tipped back, only touching the floor with the toes, and her arms raised in a vertical cross as if she were going to absorb a blow ... albeit badly.

"Shield Witch!"

She always wondered why their finishing poses seemed more like cover shoot versions of actual combat ready poses than anything functional, but brushed it off as just pretty magical girl things doing pretty magical girl things. It gave her the power to protect her friends, and that was all that mattered. It could have put her in a bikini and she still would have taken it.

It was fortunate that she did not need to physically block a blow with the stance. Sato immediately resumed the attack as soon as the arcane fields faded, and his flail-like limb came around again.

This time, it ricocheted off of a gunmetal blue energy field in the form of a forward semisphere as Shield Witch raised her hand out against it, then, with a single leap, she crossed over the tables and landed perfectly on the other side of the room, distance between her and her former teacher restored.

She liked being a Witch. Shield Witch wasn't like Ran. She didn't need to be nervous, worrying about what people would think. She didn't need to feel insecure about being small and weak. Small, she may have still been, but the power coursing through her body was anything but weak. She was stronger than Natsumi, faster than Nariko, and more powerful than Reina. Not their Witch forms, of course, but she dwarfed the pinnacle of normal humanity.

With a furious roar, Sato moved toward her as he spun his body around, raining blows from those heavy plates down toward her form, but with both hands out, the barrier held until his momentum overtook his limbs and tangled around his own body, forcing him to totter backwards until he could control himself again.

The best part of being Shield Witch, though, was the sense of invincibility. Nothing was stronger than her barriers when her focus was on them. Nothing could get through them. Nothing could hurt her or her friends.

Sato resumed his assault, slamming each plate against her defenses one after another. The assault was slower this time as he seemed to focus on each individual strike rather than trying to bury her underneath them, but this wasn't going to work, either. She even alternated the hand she put forward with each attack, each one producing an off-center barrier to one side or the other that deflected the blow away from her.

"Ah, Shield Witch. The tenacious tank of the triple A team. Truly immovable."

It was Eirwen, starting in on his crooning. It was always so embarrassing. As if they couldn't tell he wouldn't be nearly as interested in them if they were just normal girls. It was shallow and didn't mean anything. Someone that looked like Eirwen would never give someone that looked like Ran Wakumi a second glance.

Not that she was interested in a demon prince taking an interest in her, of course. It was the two-faced principle of the matter. All he was interested in was their power and the fact they got fancy attire when they transformed. All he saw was a real-life cartoon, and that was all he cared to see.

"That's fine, of course, when you have a team to do the rest of the fighting for you. Team work makes the dream work," the prince recited with a cheerful pep to his veneer of praise. "I wonder, though," he ventured with fake curiosity as he tapped his sleek chin with one finger, "do you even actually have any offensive moves on your own?"

Her focus slipped a little at that, and the next blow from Sato's scales sent cracks racing across her barrier.

"Any lightning bolts, maybe? Shadow conjuration? A shiny weapon or two? Maybe you could use your barriers as some sort of laser lens? Ooh, fireballs! Those're classic! Got any of those?"

The defensive screen shattered, but she was still fast enough to jump clear. In frustration, she wheeled on Eirwen as soon as she landed. "Will you please shut up, Wren!"

Of course, he just grinned at that. "Ah, I'll take that as a no. That's a problem, you know. Mr. Sato, here, is quite the tank, himself. I don't think you'll be able to save him if all you're able to do is block. Sooner or later, you're going to have to hit him with something."

Shield Witch hissed as another barrier shattered, again buying her the time to dodge. The demon prince's barbs were too distracting for her to focus on her magic, no doubt the whole point. It wouldn't be so effective, though, if she didn't know he was right.

She knew she had a lack of noteworthy offensive magic. Heck, she was the only one Sword Witch didn't seem to have any interest in getting buddy-buddy with because she didn't have anything worth stealing. If she wanted to learn barrier magic, she could literally get it from anyone. It wasn't even a unique spell like most Witch techniques.

That had always been fine by Ran, though. She wanted to protect people, not blow them up. Like Eirwen said, that was fine when someone else was there to blow things up for her. She was able to specialize and protect them, and they were able to focus on doing what they did best. Any serious MMO player understood how important that sort of teamwork was.

But here, times like these, it was a lot harder to be morally superior about doing harm. When she had to stand on her own against a real threat, she felt weak. The one thing being Shield Witch normally helped her avoid feeling. It was why, despite her swearing to save Mr. Sato, she didn't actually know how she'd do it.

She did have offensive magic, despite the prince's crooning to the contrary, but more than any other Witch, her powers derived their strength directly from the force of her will. Her magical attacks were slow and did little direct damage, doing more to shove an opponent around. She couldn't imagine them doing anything meaningful to an opponent as big, heavy and well-armored as her demonically berserk teacher, which meant they couldn't do anything meaningful to him.

It was the trade-off for how potentially unmovable she could be. No matter how powerful she should be, her performance was forever capped by her own self-worth in any given endeavor. Another piece of Ran Wakumi that held back the power of Shield Witch, and another reason to be frustrated with herself.

Again, as she continued to avoid the protodemon's attacks and work out a plan of her own, she thought of the entity within Nariko. She thought of Sword Witch. She envied that unshakable confidence. Sword Witch believed she could do anything she set her mind to, and so she could.

There was no hesitation to the other girl, either. Never any question of if. When something had to be done, she would find a way to do it, even if it meant breaking all the laws of reason.

Even without any powers, without transformations, without memories, the entity had destroyed half a dozen dretches and saved Dakunaito from an underhanded sneak attack by another greater demon. There was no way Ran could have done the same.

When evangelium and hordestadt weren't enough to save her best friend, Sword Witch altered her own mind to cast a spell unique to another Witch, a feat impossible for the greatest of demon sorcerers. It would have been impossible for Shield Witch, too.

Captured by an all-encompassing illusion that lied to their every sense, Sword Witch was able to look past the gruesome deaths of her best friend and her older sister, to stand up with all of the weight of the darkness pulling her down, and assault the enemy to blame from nothing but memory of the room they were actually in.

She didn't need to guess she couldn't have done the same. She was there. Even now, she didn't want to remember how she bawled as she held the hallucination of Natsumi's bisected body in her arms. How she had been unable to raise one of her vaunted barriers to save her from the demon's scythe even as the redhead begged for her protection. When Sword Witch fried the room with that lightning storm and snapped them all out of it, Ran had been heartbeats away from begging the darkness to take her.

Maybe Ran Wakumi wasn't fit to be a Witch. Her mind, that part of her that was supposed to be her greatest strength, perpetually undercut her. If she weren't so horrified of violence, perhaps she would have better offensive spells. If she weren't always second-guessing what she was capable of, maybe she, too, could bend common sense to her will.

Instead, all her supergenius mind ever seemed to come up with were reasons why she couldn't. It didn't even matter that Sword Witch had proved it was possible. All she knew was that she couldn't do it. Because she wasn't some amazing magical ghost able to make a mockery of all reason. She was just Ran Wakumi, bound eternally by reason even in a world of magic and witches and demons and maternal fifth dimensional horrors. And magical ghosts able to make a mockery of reason.

Inflicting pain on others hurt oneself, she firmly believed this with every fiber of her being. She admired those who could shoulder that pain for the good of others, and every other Witch seemed such a person. Every Witch but her. Ran Wakumi was too afraid of getting hurt. So afraid, in fact, that all of her magic centered around preventing it.

Her barriers were breaking faster, costing her more energy to compensate. She couldn't continue down this rabbit hole. The nature of her powers meant she could talk herself into powerlessness if she allowed it. She had to focus!

Think, Ran! Use that giant head of yours for something productive and think!

What did she have at her disposal besides barriers?

Her gaze fell on Nariko, still kneeling with head bowed and eyes shut despite the fighting.

... Shield Witch had a transformation, she realized. She was stronger than Natsumi, faster than Nariko, more powerful than Reina. That was what she had. That, and a very firm understanding of physics.

Her barrier deflected another blow and didn't shatter this time, though she didn't stay under it for it to matter. Instead, the blow was hardly deflected before she charged right for Mr. Sato. The next blow missed her completely as the protodemon floundered for too long at this change in tactics.

She was before him in an instant, airborne from a jump as her body twisted ...

And she slammed her foot into the side of his body with a dull clang that had enough force behind it to shift his massive, heavy body.

Eirwen didn't look at all impressed as she jumped away from a retaliatory strike and prepared to make her advancement again. "You ... went with ... kicking him ..." His mouth opened to say something more, but nothing came out of it when she kicked the teacher again, so he shut it and tried once more.

"... Lady Shield Witch, that is a tactic I would expect from the equally lovely but far less creative Lady Flame Witch. Surely, this wasn't the best you could come up with?"

The blow landed again, to the same spot, though she had to take different routes up to it as the protodemon tried to cut her off.

"You don't have to destroy a mountain in a single strike, you know," she answered. Clang. "Poke it enough times and you'll reduce it to dust all the same." Clang.

"Mountains don't heal over time!"

"I heal, too, Wren."

He almost cringed at the clang as the blow landed again. "He's harder than you are! The only thing you're going to pound to dust is--"

His words stopped on his tongue as the blow came again, and this time, he caught sight of a flash of gunmetal blue around her leg just before impact.

Clang.

Eirwen's eyes widened and he began to chuckle. "Oh, you clever little sprite. Forgive me, I forgot who I was talking to. Perhaps old Sato isn't harder after all." Clang. "Now, you just need to keep that up for, oh, a couple weeks?"

Clang.

"Oh, I could bring drinks and snacks! We could all have a little picnic while you take a breather every other day or so!"

Clang.

He must have thought she was ignoring him, as his face grew irritated again. "You can't possibly think you're going to go all that time and he's never going to catch you and gain the upper hand."

Clang.

But she answered him all the same. "I've beaten every Dark Souls game without getting hit the entire playthrough, Wren. Mr. Sato is no Kalameet."

Clang.

It wasn't clear if Eirwen got the reference, but he did start to look a little worried, so she decided to make it a little worse.

"Besides, with the students already put out of the seal, it's not going to be two weeks before the others get in here." Clang. "I doubt I'll have to keep this up for ten minutes."

He was frowning deeply now, and he muttered something under his breath that sounded petulant. "Fine!" He threw an arm over Nariko's shoulder. "I'll just take Lady Thunder Witch with me, since you're busy. Maybe introduce her to Mom, what do you think?"

Clang.

"I think she will wake up and fry you as soon as you take her out of this seal," the gunmetal girl replied.

He hunched his shoulders with a growl of frustration at that. Finally, he turned away from her in a huff, making a subtle flick with his fingers as he did so.

The ground under her foot went slick with a sheet of ice so thin it was transparent just as she was putting it down. It promptly flew out from under her with fifty times as much force as a normal person's slip would have had, sending her spinning literally in mid-air.

The next instant, Sato's flaming tray came around and smashed her out of the air, the chain extending to keep the blow going until it slammed her straight through the classroom wall. This one was still modern, but completely empty since they were still within the seal.

The chain began to retract with a sound reminiscent of a crank until it pulled Shield Witch back into the room, bound and struggling against the protodemon's flexible black steel appendage.

"Oops," Wren taunted as Sato lifted her effortlessly off the ground and the crank kept going, causing the chain to begin to tighten around her. "Guess dodging in real life's a little more complicated than quick-timing a button! How about that!"

He started to laugh, but then let out a yelp as he jumped away from Nariko, who had begun to spark, yellow currents of electricity pulsing sporadically across her form.

Eirwen took one long, leery look at her and began to step toward the door, even if such a mundane exit wasn't strictly necessary for him. "Uh, actually, speaking of my lovely mother, I think I recall needing to pick something up at the store for her! I'll be taking my leave. Hurry up and finish her, Teach, or you're going to be dealing with two of them!"

And he literally vanished through the classroom's sliding door.

The electricity continued to build over Nariko's stationary form like a generator priming its first charge, but not faster than the chains around Ran were tightening.

By force of will and a free set of fingers, she pushed a barrier against the protodemon's face, trying to pry him off of herself. The cranking slowed as his metal head was pushed back, but didn't stop, clicking in one more slow link at a time, pressing into her shoulders, folding her arms in, squeezing her ribs inward.

By Babbage's Engine, she thought as she grimaced against the steadily increasing pain. If she's going to wake up, she'd better hurry up and do it quick!

Both the lightning and the pressure kept ratcheting up for what seemed like mere moments and an eternity, and the whole time, she pressed against the mechanically unrelenting protodemon with all of the will she could muster. Just to buy a little more time.

"Guh...!" she grunted, her breath already reduced to short gasps. "Wake up ... Nariko ..." The tighter it got, the more her gaze drifted to the still kneeling girl, now wrapped in coruscating currents of charge. The longer it took, the more she questioned if she would be able to hold out long enough.

"I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I made you ... go against ... yourself ... made you ... do what I wanted ..."

Her head was starting to pound, and her hand started to drift away from Sato and toward Nariko as tunnel vision started to close in.

"Please ... wake up ... Riko ... wake up ... Sword ... Witch ..."

Reflexively, her body inhaled sharply, desperate for oxygen, and the chain that had been slowing more and more as it got tighter picked that moment to ratchet over. Something in her chest snapped, and the sudden stabbing pain made her scream with all of the air she'd just taken in.

She vaguely registered an explosion of light and the sensation of her falling. It was incredibly brief, and by the time she felt the heavy impact underneath her of the protodemon being the one to jump away for a change, it was because she was already laying on the ground.

Ran forced her eyes open to stare ahead at the white kimono standing in front of her and the golden sword in the hand of its wearer. "Riko ..." she gasped.

"Sorry I'm late," was all she said. "I'll take it from here."

* * *

The brunette watched as the humanoid scales began to retract the chain she'd cut to free Ran. The end reconnected with the heavy plate as it passed with a snap like a magnet. The thing was built like a tank, all intersecting steel plates.

She already felt adrenaline pumping through her as she started planning how she'd fight it.

Shield Witch was on the ground behind her, still gasping for breath. "That's ... Mr. Sato, ... Riko ..."

But she just looked back at the girl with a grin. "I know. I couldn't do a thing, but I was conscious the whole time. And you were really cool, Ran. Great work. Don't worry, I'll keep your promise."

The gunmetal girl blushed at the praise, but the brunette turned her attention back to the protodemon that was growling as it regathered itself. The growl transformed into a battle cry as it flailed its arms and threw its head back.

"DESTROY! WITCHES!!!"

She tightened the grip on her sword. "Come and try it, Teach."

Sato's reach was far longer than the brunette's as Sword Witch charged, but she swatted the plates away with her blade until she reached melee range and their exchange began in earnest.

It didn't take long, unfortunately, for her to realize the problem. With complete control over his limbs, at the range she had to be within to use her sword, he effectively had omnidirectional attack capabilities. He wasn't so good that he could catch her from a blind spot, but her most effective means of defense was to knock the attacks away.

That meant she was making many attacks with the demonic weapon, but few of them were actually against the protodemon. Down that path led only magical burnout, and she had already seen what that was like in the middle of a fight.

She needed a more efficient means of damaging him, but the room was too cluttered to maneuver and fire the pistol at the same time, and it wasn't any less exhausting than the sword. That left her only spell, or a direct discharge of her magic energy into him. The latter was anything but efficient, and would require her to remain too still, a death sentence with those chains that had already nearly taken Ran.

As soon as she had an opening, she jumped back to try to gain enough room to cast. "Shining Lance!"

The beam splashed across Sato's face and he staggered away, disoriented from the bright light. She took the opening to close and strike him again, but a sword, even one of this much power, was a poor weapon against his armor, glancing off with few marks to show for it.

If she allowed this to turn into an endurance battle, she would surely lose.

That realization burned in her. Had she really spent all day kneeling on a mat like a demon's bride for this?!

It felt like indigestion rising up in her, and she clenched her fist tighter around the hilt of her sword even as she jumped away from his first real attack after the Lance.

Worse, Ran would die with her. She'd take it from here, she'd boasted. Hell of a job she was doing of that.

She knocked one of the heavy plates away again with more fury than necessary in her growing frustration. For a protodemon, Mr. Sato wasn't even that great of a fighter! His form was sloppy and nearly mindless. She didn't want to lose to a foe like that! She couldn't!

The other plate went soaring by, missing her as she turned, but her eyes caught sight of the flames burning within it. In the wind blowing them back in flight, they seemed to reach for her.

She felt like she could grasp them if she only reached back ...

Sword Witch couldn't say what she snatched, only that, on reflex, she turned and hurled it into Sato's face when he wound up for another attack while she was distracted, and fire exploded between them.

Behind her, Shield Witch's eyes went wide as saucers. She found her voice as the shockwave through the room settled down.

"Riko ... that was Natsumi's ..."

The brunette's own face was stretched into a grin of childish glee. She felt that fire in her chest, knew she could call on it again. Another spell! She could throw fireballs!

She tempered her enthusiasm, though, and focused on the fight and how best to proceed. Could this spell change her approach? Should it?

Yes, she decided. If anything, it was exactly what she needed. The heat could weaken his armor plating and the concussive impacts could rattle anything that might be inside. In fact ...

Her grin returned as she glanced back to Ran. "I know I said I'd take it from here, but I just had a crazy idea. Are you up to making a bubble shield with an interior that can handle a lot of fire?"

Shield Witch's eyes narrowed in thought for a moment, but widened the next in realization. "You want an oven."

And the brunette's grin widened further.

Ran stared at the nigh-mad expression for a long moment, but narrowed her eyes as the light once more reflected off of them like steel and she nodded.

The brunette repelled another pair of swings from those big, heavy plates, then kicked forward again. She made for the middle of the room, aiming to herd the large, dumb brute away from the wall. Her sword was held in just her right hand as the left began the arduous process of charging fire magic without losing focus on the battle, itself.

Gone was the concern of endurance, the fear of burn-out. This plan would work, and that meant the entire battle was downhill from here.

In a moment of ingenuity, she jumped back and, with all of her force, directed a wild swing from Sato past her instead of away, only adding to its momentum and shooting it spinning around his metal body like it was a game of tetherball. It wrapped in tight, binding the other one with it, and he even teetered as if his legs, too, were caught up despite not having any.

"NOW, SHIELD WITCH!"

Ran hadn't yet dared climb to her feet, not least of all because it might draw Sato's attention back to her prematurely, but the fact her body was still one big pain certainly was high on the list. But she pushed both hands forward with an intense look of focus. If this was going to be Flame Witch's fire fueled by Thunder Witch's striking power, this barrier needed to be one of the strongest she'd ever forged. And it would be.

A sphere of force completely enclosed the protodemon before it realized it was trapped, only just big enough to fully encircle it with a forearm's length to spare in any direction.

The fireball in the brunette's hand had taken more and more effort to contain. It begged to be released, begged to explode, and it was a battle of will to restrain it even as she poured more and more magic into it. It was large enough that it now required her to hold her entire arm out behind her to give it the space to swirl and burn like a miniature sun even as its corona flickered and danced with lightning instead of solar flares.

A hole in the barrier opened right in front of her, and she pulled that massive fireball around toward it as if there were a great weight at the end of that arm. Her sword vanished back into a bracelet as she grabbed her wrist to stabilize it.

"Eat Spirit Bomb, Sato!" she shouted and blasted the energy into the inside of the shield.

* * *

The classroom had its desks all pushed to the walls to make room for the disoriented and recovering students. Most were even asleep to keep them from panicking or asking too many questions before Sarasa could get to them.

And why wouldn't they? They were all dressed like they'd just stepped out of the fourteenth century. Half of them didn't understand what was happening and some even thought they were waking up from a vivid nightmare.

Honestly, the fifth dimensional catwoman was at something of a loss of what to do with them all. For all the time the girls had been in conflict with the demons, the latter group had shown a strong aversion to involving noncombatants. It was generally assumed they didn't want the distraction, or wanted to keep their little war a secret.

But this was now officially not a one-off incident. The issue with Miss Cho had been the first time, and it was excusable even. The actions of a crazed protodemon lost in her own motivations tripping into an occupied area. After talking with Miss Tamashini, it was entirely likely that even that was supposed to be just her and her secretary in an empty gymnasium. It was an accident. The chain of events was disrupted by Sword Witch's existence. It was all corrected when a seal finally did go up.

They had their pick of excuses to choose from. Once is an accident, after all. Even twice could be a coincidence. But the demon from the camp-out hadn't used a seal, either, happy to let in two civilians like it didn't even matter. Three, if she counted the property's cute little spirit.

Now they were on their third time, all back to back, and three times, as they said, was a pattern. Worse, this time, there had been a seal, and nearly two and a half dozen students had been deliberately pulled into it.

Miss Sada couldn't help but worry if this was the start of some new trend of behavior in the demons. Had something changed, made them more desperate? If so, it couldn't have been anything her girls had done that she could think of. It had been over a year since the team's numbers had changed, and even the issue with Miss Kelly had arguably only weakened them.

Was this some sort of final push to capitalize on that? No, that didn't feel like the right answer, either. These attacks weren't targeted at their weak points, not really. Miss Cho, bless her poor little heart, was never going to be a threat to even a lone Witch. Heavens, Miss Tamashini foresaw her fleeing from Sacred Witch alone!

The spectral demon could be interpreted as an attempt to exploit Miss Homura's fears, but its attack pattern was too general. And ultimately, she was fairly sure it wasn't even a greater demon. Were it not for its relatively specialized ability, it wouldn't have been able to face the girls at all.

And now it seemed Mr. Sato had become cursed. But he, too, was not focused on the witches in particular. He coveted his students, themselves. There was the taking of Miss Kelly for some sort of cultural project that had now clearly been cover, but there was no indication he'd harmed her over it. Not before the seal went up, anyway.

Her further musings were disrupted by the door getting thrown open behind her, the sounds of the busy hallways during the break between classes pouring through it. For all the noise in the halls, however, the two that shoved their way in drowned it all out.

"Miss Sada," the redhead demanded, "is it true a demon has Ran?!"

"And Riko," the blonde with her tacked on.

Sarasa turned toward them both. Natsumi looked furious, ready to break something over someone, or vice versa if necessary. Haru looked scared and her face was etched with worry. Even the bonbons in her tails seemed wilted.

"Miss Homura, Miss Chiaki," she greeted them when the door blocked the sound out again - it wasn't an issue, she'd already put a perception filter over the room, and the girls had already been inside it when they started shouting. That didn't mean she wanted to have to shout over it. "Yes, they are within the seal right now."

Fire was already at Natsumi's fingertips. "What are we standing around for?! Let us in!"

But she held up a hand. "That won't be necessary, girls. Please, calm down. Besides, I need your help moving your fellow students around and monitoring their states."

"What do you mean, it's not necessary?!" Contrary to the redhead's demanding, enraged tone, Haru was pleading with big, sad puppy eyes. "It's got Ran and Riko! What if they're hurt?!"

"What if they're overwhelmed?!" Homura came back in with.

Sarasa knew that each of the girls described the sensation differently, but to her, it was very clear as a part of the room hiccuped diagonally from a parallel purple timeflow next door back to their shared white. She had long since assumed that the discrepancy was simply because the girls lacked the vernacular to describe the experience.

Even the way she had to phrase it in their language was snipping a lot of the details in favor of broad generalities. For instance, it was less next door and more an adjacent overlaid shadow tucked in a mobius pock-- ... No, no, next door would suffice. By the Council, it was a chore to describe even simple higher dimension concepts in lower dimension languages ...

Either way, she didn't so much as look back toward the arrival, instead smiling warmly at the worried girls in front of her. "Ah, here they are now."

Halfway through her statement, Miss Wakumi and Miss Kelly appeared in the middle of the room. The former was clad in the same linen wrap, green robe and sandals as the other students, while the latter wore a white silk kimono under a red-orange robe. Mr. Sato, the algebra teacher, was slung between them, supported by both of their shoulders, hanging limply in a singed black montsuki and looking twenty years younger than he should have.

"Riko!" Haru's squeal was nearly ear-piercing as she darted past Sada.

"Haru!" the brunette greeted her with an apologetic smile, then before the blonde could completely close the distance, she added, "Please, no tackling! The teacher's heavy!"

Even as Haru was obediently stopping short, Natsumi was shouldering her way over and took Sato's arm off of Ran to pull over her own shoulders, immediately taking nearly all the strain off of Sword Witch. "Ran, are you okay?"

"Y-yes, thank you," the gunmetal girl blushed. "Riko was able to help me through it."

"Help!" The scoff that came from Miss Kelly nearly made Sarasa worry one of the fight-sparking tirades Thunder Witch would commonly launch into was about to start, all about how she did so much more than just help. She was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.

Instead, the brunette continued to support her portion of her teacher's weight, lessened as it may have been, and grinned back over at Ran. "You should've seen her, Red! If Wren hadn't cheated, she'd have never needed me at all! The protodemon couldn't hardly touch her, and she just kept kicking him upside the head like he was one of those boxing clowns!"

That made Miss Homura raise a bewildered eyebrow as she glanced over to the aforementioned witch as if for clarification. "... Boxing clowns ...?"

Before Ran could consider answering, if she even could, Sarasa stepped forward to get their attention. "Did you say Prince Eirwen was there?"

"Yeah," Miss Kelly confirmed with a nod. "He's the one that cursed Mr. Sato and made him attack her. He didn't do much more after that, though. Talked a bunch of trash at Ran, and when that didn't work, made her slip on an ice slick, then bolted. He's long gone now."

The brunette shifted the teacher with a shrug of one shoulder for emphasis. "Afraid we really had to run Mr. Sato through the ringer, though. Tough old bird." She turned her attention to Miss Chiaki. "He's gonna need healing and purification. You up to it?"

The blonde put on her million-watt smile with a V hand sign. "You can count on me!"