I will strive beyond this cursed bloodline!

The city!

Elizabeth was in a line waiting her turn. To her left was Rossie, her pink-haired friend. Both girls were listening to a pre-recording announcement about how they were expected to behave once they arrived at their destination, about how their basic needs would be covered by the school so they didn’t need to carry any luggage (Besides their personal instruments to do their job as powered individuals.

A few warnings about what to expect on the other side of the teleporter and some extra warnings to make sure they didn’t do anything stupid like reveal where said teleporter was.

Elizabeth wasn’t paying any attention to that, and only was happy to leave the school!

She had been stuck here almost like a month? It felt like a month…

It was probably a month…? After preparing her new spells and registering her team as a magical girl with Rossie, she had spent almost a week finishing paperwork about what her spell capabilities were as a magical girl… Then only filled out one (Single) about what her powers were. Since she filled it as a [Villain] archetype, it was obvious why they didn’t expect her to fill much in it. She only needed to report if she was about to make a crime that would result in possible loss of life, and that was only if she was going as an independent Villain.

But since she was intending to work as a subordinate (If possible, a Minion) of another villain, she only needed to report for who she was working!

And if she somehow made it as a [Minion] then it was all free game!

So after getting the proof of what she could do as a magic girl, they got in the lanes and so she was happy!

Why was she happy you ask? Because Akira and Rena were going in another lane that was going in the opposite direction. That meant that she didn’t need to deal with them!

So she was almost jumping while walking towards the portal.

“You are quite happy for going to the city Eli-Eli?” Asked her pink-haired friend, smiling Rossie had finally got her heart-shaped pupils under control, so she hadn’t needed to use the illusion barrier spells to hide her eyes from.

“Yes!” Answered the blonde girl without thinking too much. “Well no,” added the blonde girl. “I mean…I wanted to go to the city, but I’m not happy for that only…” She wasn’t quite sure about what to say.

She was somewhat leery about bringing to her attention the presence of Akira. Even if Rossie hadn’t shown much interest in Akira, she didn’t want to share her with him.

Mostly because she didn’t want her roommate to turn into a possible spy for someone that was so hyper-fixated on his own values like one of the protagonists of Mother’s Tales. And she had been told about those that were [Fate’s Toy].

Either way, her pink-haired friend didn’t mind her antics too much “It will be our turn soon enough Eli-Eli.” And so Rossie just smiled and ushered forward.

“If either of you has any type of prosthesis or is sensitive to high concentrations of mana say so.” Said the man at the front of the line. One of the members of the student council, Magnus.

“Nothing to report.” Said the pink-haired girl while walking towards the circle on the floor. “See you on the other side Eli-Eli.” And in a flash of light, she was gone.

The magic circle started fading away slowly, but the student council member pushed a button on a remote and soon enough the lines started glowing once again, a silver liquid being injected once again into the magical circle.

“The student council president told us to give you extra help if needed.” Said the black-haired magus. “If you need help with artifacts or channeling wands ask for me. We all will be available in most cities if you go to the district hall.” After saying his piece he shoved a card into her hand with contact info and ushered her into the circle.

 

And without waiting for her answer the Magus said “Have fun in the city.” And in that tone, she got teleported.

 

Rude.

 

“Eli-Eli here!” Came the voice of her friend on the outside of the crowd, she took a minute to center herself, feeling with that phantom sense she got recently. She could feel the shadows all around and their allure. It helped ground her and also soothed her mind, relieving any phantom stress she had from the teleportation.

 

She didn’t get enough time (Or an excuse) to use her [Identify] on that member of the student council…But if they were on the city hall perhaps she could…She wanted to see if he also had a title related to her…Or if it was only the student council president.

 

“Coming~” Either way, the blonde girl answered her friend and started walking towards her. She was somewhat troubled by that student council president, but in the end, had decided to not go with her. She didn’t want to pass any hidden test that would get her skipping grades.

 

So she would shelve that for now and put the card in her [Inventory]. She had gotten into the habit of storing things inside it since she hadn’t used it that often. Like a change of clothes!

 

In the end, she had decided to upgrade the skill to allow using it to change into a civilian set of clothes for ease of use…And a pair of pajamas, for emergency nap duties. Could she use her skill to store food? Yes. She could have used that.

 

Could she have used her skill to age things? Also yes, she could have used it to age things and perhaps sell wine or something.

 

Did she use the upgrade option to store clothes so she could change fast in an emergency or put on a fresh set of pajamas as needed? YES. And she had no regrets about it.

 

“Ready?” Asked Elizabeth to her always loyal pink-haired friend. They were standing just by the door, a mass of other travelers going in and out of a door that they had been pointed to go.

 

“Always.” Answered back Rossie, while interlacing her arm with the blonde girl smiling back at her.

 

And like that, both girls walked towards the door to a new world…A new city…A new place where they would enjoy adventures. See new sights under their own power. With grandiose plans about how to use their magic for justice, love, and friendship, to save those that needed saving…

 

“Please bring your ID to the reception area, if you are travelers coming from another continent, we will need also a passport.” And they got immediately grounded since the tedium of customs officials were ready for them.

 

Both girls walked towards one of the free desks with an officer waiting for them, it had a few chairs ready so Elizabeth deemed it good enough and guided her friend towards that one.

 

“…Here…” Said Elizabeth while fishing for her student ID from her [Inventory] another great thing, she could pretend to search for it in one of her inside pockets while she, in reality, was using her skill.

 

“Here ❤️” Quickly added Rossie while placing her own ID with Elizabeth’s on the desk.

 

The officer didn’t mind the antics of the pink-haired girl, like a professional soulless employee of a government body he just scanned the IDs, raised one eyebrow in that special way they have, and “Reason of travel?” asked the girls in the most insipid way possible.

 

“School-related work.” Answered Elizabeth before the pink-haired girl had any chance to say something.

 

“Same ❤️,” Said the pink-haired girl, now getting her chair closer to the blonde girl and snuggling on her.

 

At this point, Elizabeth was somewhat desensitized to the pink-girl antics so she ignored it, for his part, the customs officer just raised one eyebrow and wrote something on his notepad. “Prepare for use of invasive skill. Any active hostile skill or spell will be deemed as a crime”.

 

And after waiting half a second for the girls to either allow the use or deactivate any defensive skill he intoned “[Meticulous Appraisal]” and Elizabeth felt the skill wash over her.

 

She also felt as if the shadows near herself and behind the custom official wanted to sharpen themselves into knives. So with a flex of her will she placated those shadows, that was interesting, it was the first time she had seen the shadow react to something.

 

“Hmm…You, blonde, do you have any plans to create trouble in the city?” Asked the custom official, his eyes shining in a red & blue tone like a police light bar. “You are currently under a [Truth discerning] Skill.”

 

She felt the arm of the pink-haired girl tensing and didn’t dare to look down, for she could hazard a guess that the face of her friend was turning quite ugly with rage.

 

“Under the statutes of powered and magical schools laws. I’m under no obligation to answer that question, but if I were a magical girl…I would say that my plans are to help the police enforcement force as best as I can.” Answered the blonde girl, she could almost see the figure of Nyx peeking in the shadows behind the customs officer.

 

He just looked down to his left arm where she now could see a bracelet with the same light effect as his eyes. Was he using an artifact?

 

“Tch…” And as soon as his eyes turned normal the bracelet stopped giving light. “You both are free to go.”

 

“Our ID’s?” Said the blonde girl while standing and extending her hand toward the inspector.

 

“Here.” Answered the man while throwing both ID’s toward the girl, she nimble caught both and pocketed hers inside her jacket (While obviously sending them toward her inventory).

 

“Thank you for your service ~★” Said Elizabeth while ignoring the custom officer while turning her head towards the pink-haired girl. “Let’s go, Rossie”

 

For her part, Rossie once again was starting to leak mana into her eyes (Again) so she just hugged her close to her while walking towards one of the bathrooms. “If you excuse us” And said so without looking back at the customs officer.

 

“Stupid freaks getting away….Could swear the artifact gave a ping for possible [Villain] intent…This stupid Saintsworth thing is malfunctioning again?” Who was just mumbling to himself, so the skill wasn’t his?

 

She wanted to look into that “[Identify]” So she cast her skill towards that custom officer, perhaps she infused more [Idea] than was needed?

 

She did since the man blanched for a second while looking all around himself, but she didn’t regret it. The man seemed to be one of those that was angry at the world for not being on the side with powers but still wanted to interact with them.

Or so it said, she was tempted to [Identify] the man to see what his deal was, but since her friend was leaking more and more mana she needed to deal with that first.

“It’s okay Rossie, focus on my voice.” Said the blonde girl in the most soothing voice she could make, for some reason her friend was losing control of her mana quite fast, at least there wasn’t a long lane waiting for them at the bathrooms.

But they were making a slow progress since she was hugging the pink-haired girl’s face to her bosom she couldn’t see in what direction they were walking, and her steps weren’t steady either since she couldn’t see the way they were going.

Also, her breathing was getting rough…So the blonde girl was worried about her friend’s health…Was her mana rampaging?

It was unpleasant the way that the customs officer had looked at both of them when he found they came from a powered & magical academy…Had the pink-haired girl never experienced that kind of allineation?

“Almost there Rossie…” She could only hope that wouldn’t kill all her bright spirit.

And so, with great effort they managed to get into the bathroom, it was quite nice but sadly there were other people around, and she didn’t have enough mana to waste in unknowns. Since she wasn’t sure how many of these were powered or magical users. She elected the easy way out.

“Sorry, my friend isn’t feeling well.” And walked past them all into a stall “Here, sit down and breath Rossie.” Said the blonde girl while sitting with her friend in the toilet.

The pink-haired girl was blushing quite hard and was breathing in ragged breaths, her eyes were almost glazed over and her eyes were pulsating with the pink heart motif almost in sync with her breathing. She was…salivating? Was she sick?

Now Elizabeth was getting quite worried at the sight of her friend, and she must have noticed since she said “Amm❤️…….Okay❤️.” Her glazed eyes scoured the blonde girl from down to top in a very slow and methodical way…Almost as if she was trying to remember everything about the blonde girl.

Elizabeth could swear she felt a shiver run down her spine as if she was in front of a predator “Need….ughhhmmm ❤️….A second ❤️….Wait❤️……Outside❤️❤️❤️” Finished the pink-haired girl between ragged breaths.

Against her best instincts that were screaming for her to run to the mountains, the blonde girl just said “Call me if you need anything.” And after looking with worry at her friend she went to the outside of the booth.

It seemed that everyone else had left the area…That was perfect for her, perhaps they also felt that aura Rossie had projected?

What was even that?

Was her best friend sick with some weird mana-attributed disease?

She doubted it since her status hadn’t said anything about it…Granted she hadn’t used [Idea] on her friend to see the girl’s status again. But she was a healer…She ought to be able to cure herself.

“Everything okay there?” Said the blonde girl while calling to her friend.

“yEEssS❤️” Was the answer she got, her friend’s voice came gasping, like she was out of breath.

In the end, the blonde girl couldn’t stomach this, she felt useless while her friend was fighting against…Whatever she had. “I will wait outside Rossie…If you need anything whisper at your shadow, and one of Nyx’s brothers will pass the message.”

She ended up waiting almost twenty minutes before the pink-haired girl exited the bathroom.

No one came to this bathroom, since she was glaring at anyone that even tried to walk this way. She didn’t want them disturbing Rossie while she was going her magic to heal herself…Or whatever the other girl was doing to restore her mana rampaging around.

Some workers tried to get in, but they felt the wave of mana Rossie was releasing from time to time and decided they didn’t want to deal with that.

They did ask for their IDs and sent a message to the school about it. But Elizabeth didn’t feel like dealing with it, so she used one of the burner mails her mother liked to use to send an order so they would leave them alone.

“Eli-Eli ❤️~” Said the voice of her friend who came hugging her from the back. The blonde girl still was worried about her friend’s health, but a quick look at her and she looked quite normal again.

If anything her face looked…More healthy? Fresher?

Did that girl bathe herself inside? Perhaps she had some spells for self-hygiene? At least Elizabeth was sure she was fine once again.

How? Well, she was touchy and was moving her hands all over the blonde girl trying to make her angry at her by teasing her.

“You sure are okay?” Asked the blonde girl, ignoring how her friend was fondling her chest in quite a public setting.

The pink-haired girl only blushed and took a step back “Yes, sorry for worrying you…My mana has that bad habit of going rampant when my mental state fluctuates too much…I do have some ways to….Calm it, but it takes some time….Nowadays more than before…But I’m okay! I promise ❤️” And since the pink-haired girl didn’t elaborate further, the blonde girl only looked at her friend trying to discern if it was true or not.

“If I think you are getting worse we will seek help from someone…And If you need my help with something just ask. I will do my best to help you.” Said the blonde girl while she started walking towards the exit (Now marked as such in the distance).

The blonde girl didn’t look back at her friend, she was too busy thinking about how to convince the pink-haired girl so she could use her [Identify] while calculating how much mana she could shove into the thing to get a better effect.

She was also thinking about how to explain the feeling that could give the girl…Since that custom had shown an adverse reaction it might hurt the pink-haired girl.

So she didn’t notice.

She didn’t notice the almost predatory smile on the pink-haired girl's face, nor the dangerous pink-colored glint in the eyes of her friend.

“Oh, Eli-Eli…you are the best ❤️~” She also didn’t hear her best friend’s tone of ecstasy at the idea of a promise that she didn’t understand she was making.

So while one girl was worried for the health of her friend…The other was imagining quite some wild things and the best moment to spring her trap…

Of course, the pink-haired girl schooled her face and in the end controlled her urges, after all…It wouldn’t do at all if she scared her friend…No sir.

“Wait for me Eli-Eli ❤️~” She would bide her time, and only strike if she could secure the win. Her friend had taught her that much.