Jotou brought her to a quiet corner before she turned to the brunette who still averted her gaze, "What’s going on detective?"
"Nothing."
"Sure, I believe you."
She looked up, "I think that paranoia of yours is growing."
"ko," the blonde simply crossed her arms and glared while the music filled the background...
...
"You think I haven’t noticed you avoiding ? Clearly sothing has you in a mood. We have battle plans to make and discuss, spells to learn, a trip to the Ordinate to make and that’s just the top of the list.
So whatever this is, let’s hear it now. It’s top priority as far as I’m concerned."
Fuko eyed the floor, "Hmph, I was sure your top priority’d be Hotaru."
Jotou’s brows relaxed, "Is that what this is about?"
"I don’t know, you two’ve been comfortable shagging each other so much I can sll you on her and vice versa so, call a little distracted if you will," the brunette glared.
"Putting a pin on why you’ve beco a bloodhound, why’s that sothing distracting you?" the blonde cocked her head, tapping one foot lightly. "I don’t suppose you forgot what I told you?"
Fuko’s face faltered to a pout, "...I thought, never mind. I know what you said, I rember. Doesn’t an it hurts any less when it’s right in front of my eyes."
’This girl, I swear... Sigh. It’s not like I’ve not been here before. Jealousy’s a fickle thing, especially in this departnt. It’s gonna take so ti, weeks, months even before she gets over .
We don’t have that kinda ti and I need my detective at a hundred percent... What do I even say?’ "I don’t know what to say ko," Jotou audibly exhaled. "And I don’t know when you’ll get over .
The one thing I do know, is that I want my detective to be by my side. You’re really important to and for the sake of the mission, sure, I do need you to pull it together.
But you’re also important to as a friend and that cos first. So when you’re in a mood like this, I don’t like it either. I’m out of advice and I don’t know how to help."
"You’re lying, I can see a plan on your face," Fuko glared. "That brain of yours always has a plan, even amidst the worst danger possible."
Jotou’s eyes narrowed. ’She knows too well...’ "...I have one single way of knowing what could help and that’s to kiss you right the hell now and get you out of it."
Fuko imdiately flinched and took a full breath into her lungs, causing a squeak from her voice while her eyes bubbled; her face went red.
The blonde’s eyes narrowed even more, "But that’s not happening, hence I didn’t say it; happy to have your hopes up again only for it to crash later?"
Fuko furrowed her brows and scowled with a wrinkled nose.
"Didn’t think so. Never mind the fact to all the problems doing that’ll make in the near future."
"Y-you shouldn’t be so paranoid about the future you know, you can’t control what happens, you can only make the choice in the present and see what it’ll lead to-"
"Shut," Jotou clasped the brunette’s mouth. "I’m with Hotaru, that’s that. In fact, maybe you should go talk to her about this."
"Ttk tvv hngh!?" Fuko wrestled Jotou’s hand away, "Talk to her?" Her brows unforrowed every second... Jotou knows, Asobi knows... There was one last person to talk to after all.
Her fingers curled into her palm before she glanced over to the section they left... Fuko blushed softly, "You think she’ll understand...?"
"She’s the most mature person out of all of us. She better, or else I’ll have a word. Anyway, it’s not like she doesn’t know you have a crush on ."
"Alright- Wait, WHAT!?"
"Library detective..." As if anyone cared after the yelling episode previously.
"Oh, sorry; what!?" Fuko exclaid through gritted teeth in a whisper, "You told her!?"
"No genius, she figured it out, because you’ve been SO inconspicuous about it." ’You didn’t figure it out till she told you. SHUT UP!’
"So, all three of you know then..." the brunette slumped to the floor.
"Wait, Asobi figured it out?" a grin curled up.
"Don’t laugh, don’t you dare laugh," Fuko pointed from the ground, "She didn’t even know what I ant when I said I liked you."
A small chortle escaped.
She blinked herself onto her feet, "You little!"
"Who’re you calling little detective?"
"I will shave your head clean..." she threatened...
Jotou lowered down slowly till she placed her hands on her own knees and t Fuko’s eyeline, "I’m not scared of you detective," she said in an accent and a spark in her eyes.
"I’ve got your books."
"Ah-" Jotou stood on the tips of her toes.
"Gah!" Fuko recoiled as bits of shadow lingered at her feet.
The two breathed, jolted by the sudden appearance of Niah. Her tails swished once then twice, glancing to each of them, "Here," she handed each of them a book.
"Mobility spells and a rudintary book of offensive spells. Neither have elental specifics, but should help. I’ll check the records for anything we’d have in more detail."
_
"I can make anything I imagine... Maltineer’s Collapsing Net," Asobi pushed her nose further into the page.
"Found a spell?" Hotaru queried, going through a book of the history of the palace.
"A lot," Fuko uttered.
"Not you."
"It’s taking a while, each spell has a history to it, how it was discovered, people who used it, longwinded explanations," Jotou flipped a page—the book filled with multifaceted phraseologies that demanded a reread to ascertain the denotation.
"Not you either..." Hotaru smirked. "Asobi?"
"Yes-yes?" she looked up.
"Spell?"
"A, s, o, b, i."
"What spell did you read dimwit..."
"Oh! That. It’s like what Jotou said, but more in detail," Asobi tilted her head, then the book, "The manifestation affinity is just up to to make whatever I can imagine! The spells here are just what other people’ve made up.
But I found this one," she turned the book over, "Maltineer’s Collapsing Net! It makes a HUGE net and you throw it! After it lands, it collapses inwards and capture everything!"
"It has a very large range and it’s very powerful... It’s used for fishing and the like, catching a troop of soldiers sounds good, but it’s above master level Sobi, maybe sothing simpler?" Hotaru gave a quick read.
"She should just try it," Fuko shrugged.
"We’re not even sure if this is her affinity, just sothing interdiate will do—to test it at least," Hotaru took the book and flipped forward the pages.
"What do you have detective?"
"A spell Kor once told . Warp, it’s an expert level. I thought it was so better version of blink, but it basically switches whatever I’m holding to anything else I can see."
"So if there’s an apple on a table and an orange in your hand, you can swap the places to have the apple?"
"Pretty much... I don’t know how useful it is," Fuko read more into it.
"Here, this should be simple and this one uses your elent too," Hotaru slid over.
"Light box; a small box?"
"Well, it’s not bound by the elent, but the person who made the spell also used light. Realistically, the spell’s just ’box’," Hotaru folded her arms on the table to watch.
"Alright!" Asobi took a couple of minutes to read through, but already had her wand flourished. She looked back to the table, "Light Box-! Nguh!"
Asobi squeaked like a mouse and froze for a second as no spell appeared. She put her forehead onto the table, feeling a buzzing sensation down her spine, "Uh-uh," she shook her head on the wood.
"It’s not your affinity?" Jotou furrowed her brows.
"Hmph, call Niah over and say it to her. Apparently it was the ’most likely’. Are you okay?"
"Mhm... Just feeling like a bee; an Asobee-hehe. Hehehe."
"She’s fine," Fuko’s eyes turned, this ti noticing the observer in the corner of her eye.
"Odd indeed," Niah surveyed as she walked into the section, causing the rest to turn all of a sudden.
"What’s your diagnosis? Maybe she’s casting it wrongly?" the redhead prodded Niah with a side-eye.
"Hm, hm, possibly. No two affinities are alike, that is why they can’t be generalized," she leaned down to read Asobi’s book, "This is as much as anyone can abridge and even then it’s not without flaw.
Hm... Tell again of your mory on the battlefield?" Niah looked to Jotou. "In detail, every step."
"I was uh... a bit distracted at the ti." ’Crying and bleeding into the sand to be exact...’ "Lem think."
"Maybe it’s just the wrong affinity," Hotaru glistened her fangs.
Niah leered to the wolf-girl; her ears twisted left and right, "Unlikely," she unperturbedly looked back to Jotou, "Ms Howllett?"
"Just call Jotou. Alright, Asobi said she’d put on a grand spectacular for ... To put on a show to make the rogue battalion think they were losing.
But it was just illusions," Jotou shook her head, holding the bridge of her nose. ’She said just for ... To make happy... Sobi...’ "She announced sothing I think. I was too occupied, but by the ti I saw everything...
The illusions were fading, Asobi made a big light sword and slashed through people."
"So it could be offensive?" Hotaru asked again.
"Could. But then the next loop, Asobi could make a little butterfly with her wand and use it to slash through anything using the light energy."
Niah pondered, "Very unlikely it’s not manifestation then. Perhaps so sort of drawback? Every affinity has restrictions as well, Ms Kinoshita could be on the right track; she might be casting it wrongly.
Offensive spells tend to disappear and by this story... To injure lots of people, able to move the spell around, the creations having the property of the elent and bring imagination to reality..."
"Asobi’s blinding light also hurts rember?" Fuko held a hand to her chin, "It’s an illusion that’s supposed to mimic being blinded to light... It shouldn’t do that. The only way that could be possible-"
"Is that Ms Asobi added her own magic into the spell and created sothing else; naly, sothing using her elent’s energy which is light."
"Elves are also potent casters so her heightening her spells is not out of the realm of possibility," Fuko continued.
"Asobi’s always been creating ’spells’, it makes sense. Asobi, do you know the drawback to your affinity?" Jotou asked.
Asobi shrugged and humd.
"I can’t cast at range, Fuko has to be able to see when she casts, Hotaru?"
"Still not sure."
Fuko connected the dots while Niah connected the magical dots. "Jotou, Asobi’s spells have faltered when she’s sad, right?" Fuko glanced.
"When she’s sad or in shock, yeah."
"Put on a show... circus... acting... Every single one of her spells, the rhys, the presentation... What if Asobi’s drawback is that every spell of hers has to be a trick of so sort? She has to put on a show of it otherwise it won’t work," Fuko theorized.
Jotou’s eyes narrowed, "Sobi, you rember what you said to before we defeated the battalion that night?"
"Shooting you out of a cannon?"
"No! Your goals. You said you’re always making yourself happy with your tricks, so anybody can enjoy them. If what Fuko said IS your drawback, you found a loophole in your affinity."
"That all adds up with my theory," Niah followed. "Perhaps your manifestation affinity only works on your illusions, like that autobiography.
He enchanted his illusions to be tangible. You can manifest them and maybe that’s also your drawback. You can only use your manifestation affinity on your illusions. Which also explains why your manifestations could be moved-"
"Cause she was moving the illusions and could trigger the manifestation affinity to make it have light energy," Fuko finished.
"Hey, don’t steal my speculation," Niah’s ears and tail spiked.
"You did it to mine," Fuko stuck her tongue out in contempt.
She sighed, "A few spells and everybody becos an expert," Hotaru’s ears folded as she pouted. Ah... rember the tis when she would be the one explaining all the magic nonsense? "Hmph."
"Woah... I can make all my illusions real?" her jade-green irises glimred to the wand in her hands.
"And dangerous..."
"And dangerous!" her eyes sparkled more, "Death-defyingly spectacular! I’m gonna try," Asobi closed her eyes and an illusion of a white butterfly fluttered at the tip of her wand.
Everyone observed, looking for any sign. Her tongue slowly poked out of her lips and the grip on her wand tightened. She furrowed her brows, more and more.
The butterfly humd in and out of light, becoming translucent then suddenly brighter then going dimr...
As it fluttered in and out of existence for the seconds that was nearing a minute, "Hmmmm......" Asobi’s long drawn-out tiny sound of focus turned into more of a hum and her lips curled into a smile.
"Bzz..." The butterfly resonated with light. Asobi opened one eye to notice it. Her legs and arms tensed in excitent as she brought it to the book. "Tss..."
"HEY!" Niah yanked the book away.
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