As she walks through the B-grade dormitory, Emily takes a g her status.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Status]

  [Name:] Emily Coldstone

  [Race:] Human

  [Age:] 16

  [Magic Circle:] First Circle

  [Maa Cortex:] First Stage

  [Attributes:] Strength 7 (8), Dexterity 16 > 17 (18), Agility 12 > 13 (14), Vitality 8, Intelligence 24 > 27

  [Health:] 108/115

  [Stamina:] 126/180

  [Mana:] 386/405

  [Maa:] 401/405

  _____

  At least that fight provided some useful data to process. I feel the effey stat increase more clearly after my agility increase. I reacted faster to attacks than I did st week, and I think my flexibility is slightly better. My hand signs are getting easier too. That’s definitely an effect of dexterity. And I was successful in overcharging my light spell! The sudden burst of light was very effective, I’ll have to remember it iure.

  A frown forms on her face as she focuses on the resources at the bottom of the floating window.

  What’s with my health though? I have several cuts, bruises, and a dislocated shoulder but it’s only dropped by 7. I guess none of them are life-threatening. Maybe it only decreases with more severe injuries.

  With a small sigh, Emily clears her head of distras and raises her hand to kno the door she has reached. She hesitates for a moment, gng down at her sorry state before knog three times.

  It’ll be fine, just say, ‘Hey you pop my shoulder ba for me?’ and she totally won’t overreact…

  Hearing a shuffling oher side of the door, she starts shifting from side to side, regretting ing to Juliana already. The door fades from existeo reveal a smiling Juliana.

  “Emi! What are-?“ She stops as she notices the dried blood on Emily’s cheek and slowly looks down.

  Seeing Emily’s torn clothes, stained red in several pces, and the unnatural way her left arm is sitting lower than her right, Juliana quickly grows ed.

  “What happeo you? Did you start a fight?”

  “Hey, why do you assume I started it?” Emily asks with a small chuckle, wing as it disturbs her wounds.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No, but I did end it. They’ll think twiext time.”

  Emily sees disappoi in Juliana’s eyes.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” she rushes to expin. “Jeremy and Kyle brought two of their goons to try and force me to reveal the soury Cws. When I wouldn’t tell them, they attacked me. With ons.”

  Juliana’s expression shifts to e, then as she surveys Emily’s injuries. She quickly ushers her into her room. Emily walks over to Juliana’s desk chair and sits down.

  “ you pop my shoulder ba? Then I deal with the rest.”

  “I don’t think so. Do you even have any medical supplies in your room?” Juliana asks while walking into her bathroom.

  “No,” Emily fesses.

  "So, what’s the pn?” Juliana calls back.

  “I’ll take a shower, then go to bed once everything stops bleeding.”

  “Bad pn,” Juliana scoffs, returning to the room with a sizeable wooden box.

  Seeing Emily sitting on the chair, she frowns.

  “Why are you sat there? Move to the bed, it’ll be more fortable.”

  “I don’t want to make your bed dirty.”

  Juliana rolls her eyes aures towards the bathroom with her head as she pces the box down on the bed.

  “It’ll take twenty mio the sheets, stop being dramatid get over here.”

  Emily relents and stands up, wing in the process, before walking over to sit on the bed.

  “Why do you have medical supplies anyway? I wouldn’t think you got hurt that much.”

  “Well… you’re always ing back from hand-to-hand bat csses with cuts and bruises, so I thought it would be a good idea in case you got hurt badly,” Juliana admits with a blush, looking away and refusing to make eye tact.

  “Aww, that’s so sweet,” Emily coos.

  “Yes, I’m very sweet,” Juliana says, stig out her tongue. “Now, let’s see what we’re w with.”

  Juliana kneels in front of Emily and starts undoing her shirt. Emily blushes and looks away as she does.

  Why am I so embarrassed? I wasn’t like this when Anna helped me.

  The thought makes Emily’s heart ache, so she quickly tries to clear her mind and focus on following Juliana’s instrus instead. She gets Emily to slide her right arm out of the shirt, befently peeling the fabric away from the gashes on her left. Dropping the bloody shirt to the floor, she grimaces at Emily’s state.

  Her left arm hangs limply at her side from her mangled shoulder. Two deep gashes run outwards from her colrboill seeping blood. Her ribs are bruised a deep purple on both sides, with a small slice running along the tre of the rger bruise on her left. Her right bicep also sports a small bruise, but Juliana quickly dismisses it as not needing any treatment.

  “Right, how do I do this?” she asks while looking to Emily for help.

  “Why do you assume I’d know how?” Emily responds with a teasing grin.

  “This isn’t the time to be joking!” Juliana pins with a pouting gre. “You’re the one who asked for help, so I just assumed you knew what to do already.”

  “Haha, sorry. Jokes help distract from the pain,” she says apologetically. “But yeah, I’ve dohis before. One sec.”

  Emily shifts to lie on the bed with her left arm oside. Thinking back to the day she took a bad tumble off a scrap pile, she remembers Anna’s as clearly.

  “First, take my wrist and slowly move my arm out to a y-degree angle from my body. You remove the Cw if it’s in the way.”

  She lies waiting, trying not to think about her sister, as Juliana slowly uhe leather straps and pulls the on off her arm befently moving it into position. Juliana’s look of gentle care and overps with Emily’s memories of Anna and she closes her eyes, fighting back tears as they begin to form.

  “What ?” she hears Juliana ask.

  “Pull it slowly away from me until you hear a pop or me screaming,” Emily responds with a hollow chuckle; the attempted humour failing to stop the images still f behind her eyelids. “You may have to brace yourself against my ribs though.”

  She feels Juliana’s knee gently press into her side, barely notig the pain it causes, and a slow pressure starts building in her arm. As the pressure builds, so do the memories of Anna. When a small pop sounds and a jolt of pain fres in her shoulder, she’s uo choke back the sob that leaves her mouth unbidden or the tears that flow freely down her face.

  “Oh Goddess, sorry, did I do something wrong? Does it hurt?” Juliana asks in a frantiic.

  Opening her eyes, Emily looks over to her and tries to expin.

  “N- no. It’s not you,” she chokes out between sobs.

  Looking unvinced, but relieved as Emily mao sit herself up, Juliana carefully lowers Emily’s arm to rest in her p before moving to sit down on her right. She gently pulls Emily into a hug, pg one arm around her waist, careful to avoid any injuries, and using the other to pull Emily’s head to rest against her chest.

  Emily rexes into her embrad tinues g for a few minutes. After her tears stop, she remains still for a few more minutes, enjoying the feeling of Juliana’s fingers running through her hair. Relutly, she lifts her head and looks at Juliana.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s fine,” Juliana responds softly, surprising Emily as she reaches up aly brushes the tears from her cheeks. “Does it hurt?

  “Yes, but it’s not that. I handle pain.”

  “What then?”

  Emily bites her lip in indecision.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “No, I do want to tell you,” Emily says with a sigh, finally making her choice. “However, maybe we should stop my bleeding first.”

  Juliana gives a small smile, standing up and pulling her medical kit back over. As she starts pulling out bandages and cloth to the wounds, Emily begins to speak.

  “I guess I should start at the beginning. A few months ago, in Eimdon, one of the Mandrago family’s airships went down outside the city in the scrap heaps. I was nearby ao dig through the wreckage, where I found an uncut mass of lightning mana crystals.” She pauses and winces slightly as Juliana ties a bandage around her ribs.

  Keeping her expnation as close to the truth as possible while avoidiioning The Clock or the system, Emily tinues while Juliana s and dresses the gashes on her shoulder. She pauses her expnation briefly when Juliana takes a cloth and wipes the blood from her face.

  “Perfect,” Juliana says with a small grin as she finishes, causing Emily to blush and look away.

  Juliana closes her medical box before sitting dowo Emily and ing an arm around her waist again. Emily leans her head on her shoulder as she tinues.

  “My awakeni out a pulse of mana. It was like a bea to the Mandragos. When they arrived at the shop, they took back the mana crystals, then slit Dad’s throat for stealing their property.”

  Julias out a small gasp and tightens her grip slightly. Tears of sadness and rage fall from Emily’s eyes as she keeps talking through slightly gritted teeth.

  “They then realised I was a self-awakened mage, and told me that they’d let my sister, Anna, live with only a scar if I became their vassal. What choice did I have? I went with them. Ohey got me into their mansion, they tried to use mental magic to brainwash me.”

  Juliana pulls away slightly and turns Emily’s head to face her.

  “They brainwashed you?” she asks with a mixture of and anger written on her face.

  “Ha! No. They certainly tried though,” Emily chuckles lightly while reag up and taking Juliana’s hand from her fad into her own as her grin turns malicious. “I was able to resist their spell without them realising. And I swear that once I’m strong enough, everyone who had a part in my father's death and keeping me apart from my sister will pay the pri blood.”

  Juliana shivers and recoils slightly at her words, causing Emily to paniternally.

  Shit, was that too much? I don’t want to scare her.

  Her s disappear as Juliana responds with a sigh.

  “I see why you are so i on making ons then.”

  “Yeah, I o use everything I to make sure I get in and kill those responsible without killing myself.”

  Juliana nods in uanding before ging the subject.

  “Where’s your sister now?”

  “I don’t know. Home, I hope. They’ve got no reason to bother her. She’s not a mage. You reminded me of her earlier actually. She used to get cross with me too, before she patched me up.”

  “Ah, so I remind you of your sister?” Juliana says with disappoi as her face falls, and she starts to release her grip on Emily’s waist.

  Emily ughs, then winces before pushing the pain to the back of her mind. She releases Juliana’s hand and reaches up to caress her face, smiling at the obvious hope returning taze as she does.

  I hope I’m reading this right.

  Emily steels her nerves and slowly leans forward.

  “Only in the fact that you care for me,” she says softly, her heart accelerating as her ry to force it out of her chest. “I certainly don’t see you as a sister.”

  To her immediate relief, Juliana smiles and leans in to meet her, their lips joining together in a soft kiss. Juliana’s grip on Emily’s waist tightens, pulling their bodies clether before their lips part.

  “How do you see me then?” Juliana asks with anticipation, a light blush on her cheeks.

  “As a girlfriend?” Emily responds with slight apprehension.

  A bright smile blooms on Juliana’s face.

  “Good.”

  Emily joins her in smiling, as they lean in for another kiss.