A flash of lightning escaped his hands as he barreled toward his student and then to the shadows behind him, only a spot of darkness in the light of the setting sun.

  The hit landed, but only briefly as the student lifted his arms and turned the light into a thin sheet of blue that he threw to the shadowy corners of the courtyard, chasing it after it left his hands with a growing light emanating from him.

  But the shadow was quick; the light illuminated nothing, forcing the student to recalculate his steps and pivot just in time to be caught unawares by a fiery plume that thankfully got absorbed into the shield he had erected.

  The shadow continued to press on, taking the opportunity to cast a larger spell at his student, whose only option was to face it with his own.

  There was little chance the student was going to win this one—he would have to think of something quickly as his teacher launched a relentless pillar of flame at him, which he started to deflect with a water-augmented shielding spell, wincing at the scorching mist it generated.

  Trying to think clearly now, the student watched the teacher stand still and assume a non-threatening stance as he checked his timepiece.

  Irritated, the student finally settled on trying to meld his shield spell along with an Obtaining spell, directing his free hand at the target dummies lining the back of the courtyard. Though it was cheap to use the prop, there had been no restrictions placed on it and the move could possibly knock the teacher off his feet quick enough to interrupt the cast.

  As he felt his right arm starting to grow weary, he managed to successfully dislodge the mannequin from the wall. Then, trying his best to control the object carefully, he felt a short-lived sense of satisfaction when he felt some resistance from hitting his opponent.

  The source of the fire began to fizzle away; his shield remained up as he focused on watching his opponent’s attack dissipate, not realizing that by focusing on the flames and not at his teacher’s shadow, he was almost too late in stopping his own object going straight for him.

  The student hurtled to the side, steadying the target as he caught the sight of a shadow near him—and then behind him.

  The teacher’s hand only touched the nape of his student’s neck for a split second before the boy managed to redirect the dummy beside him. Hitting himself or his teacher—any would be better than losing.

  Continuing to lose balance, the student steadied himself with a wall, shaking his right hand from the stress of the shield before letting go of his object completely as he heard a slight grunt.

  This time, instead of taking the time to recover, the student started to move the ground underneath him, creating spikes of familiar sharp stones around him as a blinding blue orb emerged to float above his hardened cocoon.

  The student, without any other avenue to pursue, didn’t even stop to create any barrier or nullification shield before shooting a ghostly white weapon at the circle.

  Whiteout.

  A few blinks were all it took to see that the section of the courtyard where the orb and stones had been was bathed in glistering crystal shards, the shadow standing unaffected despite not having even attempted to block it. He had a new problem now, however—the crystals from his student’s ball of ice had managed to catch his shadowy cloak.

  And then, just as anyone would have done in the situation, before the crystals could be melted, the student shattered the stones surrounding him, sending them flying toward his teacher, who was now as clear as day.

  The teacher could not dodge it all, but still managed to walk away and take the time to bathe himself again in a misty, black shroud, a simple wave of the arm sending a blanket of darkness over the entire courtyard.

  No longer visible, the only things that could be seen were more crystals, fire, and then several more shields that must have been from the student.

  Even after a good minute, the darkness still did not let up. The fire ceased and there was only gloom and the faint sounds of blades clanging—until the darkness started to swirl, creating a vortex in the center of the courtyard that sent the dark purple mass into the air, leaving again two figures on the field.

  Something felt different.

  Both figures had circles of white enveloping them, one of them with their hand to the ground, and one of them with a limp arm.

  With the darkness completely lifted, the wind settling down to a strong breeze, the figures moved so fast that it was impossible to see who had been injured and who had been dispelling the miasma.

  Both the white orbs shattered when they came together, the slightly incapacitated figure summoning a stone wall to separate himself from the other, resorting to making a circle of light under him when it was broken with ease.

  The other figure launched himself toward the light wall, but found that he could not cross it, frantically circling it to figure out its flaw while the caster inside, bloody arm bathed in a green glow, began to regenerate.

  The disillusionment did not last long, however, as the figure outside realized that he had time. Time, the essential factor. He was being given mercy.

  Slowly, the figure enveloped himself in a myriad of rainbow hues. He put both his hands onto the barrier that the circle made around its guardian, and then his mouth, slowly but surely, began moving.

  It couldn’t have been more than two seconds when the white shattered like glass, the force of it so powerful that it easily melted the barrier around the figure on the outside, sending them flying back into the wall of the courtyard.

  All that was left in the center was a single static figure.

  For a good long minute, no one moved.

  The individual with the half-disfigured arm lay on the grass, while the figure who had been knocked back lay still by the wall.

  Another anxious minute went by as no one moved.

  Then, just as the last glimpses of light disappeared, and right before the spell-candles triggered, the individual by the wall twitched.

  He coughed up blood and tested his legs—they worked, but only barely.

  Conjuring a thin weapon, he shakily got up and stumbled like a newborn calf toward the figure in the center, using the weapon as a walking stick.

  The figure pressed on.

  Wordlessly, mercilessly, the figure positioned the saber by the nape of his opponent’s neck, and then made a clean, quick slice upwards.

  The blade vanished into thin air.

  He collapsed onto the ground.

  It was finally over.

  * * *

  Having struggled the entire time to sit still and not intervene, the first thing Ty did when the cut was made was sprint down the stairs from the watchtower overlooking the test courtyard to see if everyone was alright. She wasn’t entirely sure who was who after the darkness, but it had felt like Theo to protect himself before doing all else.

  “Stupid…bastard,” she heard someone mutter as she almost tripped down the stairs, correcting herself and slowing down at hearing the curses pouring out of the victor’s mouth.

  Steadily, watching the spell-candles bathe the courtyard in light, she walked toward the two cloaked figures who were as clear as day now.

  “You did a good job,” Ty nodded nervously by the edge, not meeting her classmate’s eyes and not very comfortable with trespassing onto the dueling space without permission from the professor first.

  Though he was quite incapacitated at the moment.

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  “He didn’t…” breathed Theo, laying down on the grass, “He didn’t tell me about th…the dark…blinding thing.”

  “You did a good job,” she repeated, nodding, her gaze shifting to the professor, whose eyes were shut as he lay still on the floor. It looked like he was sleeping, his face remarkably serene. His right arm, however…

  It suddenly occurred to Ty that that was what would have happened to her during the first day of group class had she not nullified it.

  “Should we bring him to the infirmary?” she finally asked after a few seconds of silence, afraid of Theo passing out as well and leaving her to deal with the whole mess.

  “Uhh,” groaned Theo indecisively. “I, uh…I don’t know. We…I never…”

  He trailed off but didn’t finish his thought, which was perfect because the professor finally managed to recover.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed suddenly and in an uncharacteristically surprised voice before returning to normal. “This is the courtyard,” he continued to speak to himself, inspecting his arm, his neck, and then finally his student on the ground beside him. “Well, then. That was something. Maybe I shouldn’t have held back so much.”

  Content with staying on the ground, Theo mumbled a few more curses under his breath that Nate seemed to be impervious to—so much for being respectful to a professor.

  “Can you get up?”

  “Yes,” muttered Theo through gritted teeth.

  “Great, I’ll see you in the new year,” Nate replied monotonously, somehow managing to stand up despite his injuries and limp toward Ty.

  “Nate,” spoke Ty when he stopped beside her.

  “Right on time, Tyche.”

  She froze for a moment to process the words, and then turned around just in time to see the professor leave the courtyard.

  “Theo?” she tested when he was out the door.

  “Mrrgh.”

  Sighing, she finally approached her classmate, pulling her basic pocket tome out of her coat pocket before kneeling on the grass beside him and leaning in to hear better. “Hmm?”

  “I…I said,” he whispered, “Thank you.”

  Ty straightened up and opened the book on her lap. “I don’t know what you’re thanking me for,” she replied testily, still not having forgiven herself for authorizing the Araise. On the way to the meeting, she had considered coming up with a way to reverse it, but the fight had been so intense she had completely forgotten about it until now.

  Surprisingly, Theo gathered his wits and swallowed his pride—which he knew he had very little at this point—as he watched Ty flip through her book while inspecting his wounds.

  “He…Moriya, promised to…to raise my mark.”

  Ty set her tome aside and took a long look around the courtyard. It was empty and likely would be for a good while longer, probably because the fight barely took up half an hour. They had time. “Your mark is important to you, isn’t it?” she murmured.

  “It’s…” he used an arm to cover his face, faintly trembling. “Not for…for me.”

  Shuffling in her seat to get a bit more comfortable, feeling a torrent of anima swirling within her, she wondered what to say. What to ask when it was plain that he hadn’t told her the entire truth about a very particular fact on that rainy day. He just could not admit it himself.

  And her heart—her heart could only think of sad things to say.

  “I…I don’t want…to waste…”

  Before folding her hands together in her lap, she unclipped her class pin from her hair, took her ring off, and placed it on the tome beside her.

  “Do you love him that much?”

  He let his tear-stained arm fall onto the grass. “Yes.”

  “Because he saved you?”

  Silence.

  His pained face spoke volumes as she lowered her head and placed it on her hands, which were gently laying on Theo.

  She closed her eyes and saw her anima become flowers. Soft, pink flowers that were enveloped in a golden aura, rustling in the ground among white leaves. The wind stirred, the flowers sang; she could not grasp them, but she could feel its mercy, its healing and forgiveness as the flowers continued to gently sway.

  She remembered herself in the courtyard. A courtyard that had once been dust and dirt, cracked ground with red skies, Theo in front of her. She remembered a sword in her hands, her hands that were dipped in the blood of a ruined world and of her mistakes, of regret, always telling herself that it will one day be different, one day everyone will be together, happy again.

  But then the memory changed.

  The red skies were a dusty pink, scattered wisps of white the only thing to disturb the calm. The ground felt soft beneath her, the grass and soil damp with the memory of rain. In her hands, something so soft she barely noticed it was there.

  A flower, just like the ones she had just seen.

  Without touching its petals, she knew how soft it was. She knew of its healing, of its kindness. Love me, its petals sang in the caressing breeze, but she wanted to share it with the figure a few steps away, who had his back turned; the person she had wronged so many times, the person who had the most reason to resent and despise her for all she had done, for all that she would do.

  She walked a few steps before he noticed her, and when he finally turned to see her, she noticed that he was bathed in the pink of the skies, but his body was a delicate grey to mute the world’s radiance.

  Be that as it may, he smiled.

  You’ve been gone a long time. Were you picking flowers?

  Yes, I was.

  And when he chuckled as she walked closer and held the flower out for him, she knew that he would take it. She knew that he would forgive her. No matter what happened, he would forgive her. Even when she could not forgive herself.

  He raised his hand and took it, bathing the world in white.

  Ty opened her eyes, lifting her hands off him and straightening her back.

  Skies a dusky purple, the grass its natural green, she found that her world had not changed.

  “What was that?” Theo’s voice was clear now.

  “Hm?”

  “Was that your dream?” He turned his head from the sky to her, his expression a mixture of fear and realization. “The courtyard. The flowers.”

  “Yes,” she nodded, pocketing back the pin, ring, and tome to her side.

  “I can’t put my finger on it,” Theo confessed quietly, “But I think I finally understand what you’re talking about.” He sat up with little difficulty, testing his hands and pulling his legs up to his chest. “I’ve seen those flowers before, but I don’t know where.” He paused to look at Ty. “What did you do?”

  She met his gaze, remembering the grey shadow that had permeated the pastel dream. “There’s nothing I know that can reverse an Araise, so I tried to use my anima.”

  “You can’t reverse something that’s already happened,” he responded after a long silence.

  “You don’t know that,” her heart told her to say.

  “Neither do you.”

  “…How do you feel?”

  “It…feels like I’ve known you for a very long time.”

  Her eyes grew wide. Never, not in a thousand years, did she expect him to say that. Theo, the rational one, the non-believer, the one who denied destiny and the Earth Mother, the one who had told her that he was going to defy all that stood in his way, even if it was life itself.

  What he said was something she had felt for a long time, and not just for him—it was for the school, for her teachers, for all her classmates. Everything felt like an old friend, it felt like home, it felt like she was supposed to be here; despite all the grief and indecision, regret and pain, being at the Academy was the one thing she now knew was undeniably, wholly, right. She may do the wrong thing sometimes, fall short of her goals, but there was nothing to do but continue on. Live, like she had been told. Continue to do her best, no matter the wrongs, the mistakes, the doubts. Fix what she could, protect the people she cared for. Forget a past she could not alter, venture forth and create a world full of love. A war-less, peaceful world.

  And perhaps, once in a blue moon, on a sunset day after a brutal battle, the sky and the stars would align, the winds and the earth would answer her cries to tell her that her world of ruin, full of sorrow and suffering, all of it could be salvaged. With the hope she carried, the hopes of all those before her, those with her, those after her.

  The world could be healed. Love could triumph.

  The answer, the only answer she really needed to keep going—it was in front of her.

  “You know…the…the first time I did an Araise,” Theo smiled weakly, propping his head up with his knees, uncertainty in his voice, “I was twelve, thirteen? It was one of the first things Em taught me after I learned how to read basic offensive script. Didn’t know what it was—didn’t really care, to be honest—he just told me to do it, so I did.” A chuckle escaped his lips. “It feels like breathing for the first time after being sick your whole life. It’s exhilarating, but it’s very difficult to find someone who is willing to authorize one…and then there are the consequences.

  “After it wore off that first time, I think I passed out…for a few days. But I kept trying. I didn’t want to let him down. Now, well…I usually cap out at six hours before passing out. And then the pain.” He exhaled shakily. “The pain. You were shocked when I said I had done it more than ten times.”

  “Sometimes it breaks after the first,” she answered quietly, unsure of if her heart was still stirring from her epiphany, or if it was sadness. “No one has ever heard it going past ten.”

  “I’ve probably done it,” he sighed, smile turning wistful, “At least fifty times. I’ve gone through three or four of those pages so far, Em binds them for me. For someone born so sickly, it’s ironic that my anima refuses to break. Maybe it has something to do with how my aura’s naturally flawed.” A wry laugh escaped his lips. “It’s been such a normal part of my life for so long that I don’t remember how it feels to recover from the post-Araise pain. It’s just there, an ache you learn to live with.”

  “Does it still hurt?” Ty prodded gently.

  “Hmm?” Theo asked while turning to her, still lost in his reverie. “Ah. No…” he started to say slowly, eyes aimlessly scanning the courtyard, “No…it’s…it’s gone now. The pain’s gone. And I guess…everything somehow…feels clearer. A bit brighter. Something. I don’t know. I can’t think, it’s been a long day. Thank you.” He got up from his spot. “Here, let me do this for you.”

  Following his lead and getting up, Ty watched Theo reach behind him and take out a larger-than-normal bluish tome. He flipped through it quickly, eyes scanning the pages before stopping and extending an open palm.

  He started casting.

  Watching as sky blue crystals slowly started to materialize in his hand, so bright that the individual details could hardly be made out, she noticed that they looked similar to the crystals she had seen during the battle—the tome must have been from Nate.

  As the crystalline object started to build, she could see the childish excitement in his face better and better in its radiance. And that was all she could watch: his smile, his faint blush, his soft and determined gaze.

  By the time the spell finally ended, she was so entranced that she had even forgotten about the gift entirely—until he extended the finished product to her, face beaming.

  “Here, Ty.”

  If there had been any doubt in her mind about whether Theo had really seen the dream, whether he had seen the exchanging of the flower, if any of this was real at all, or if it was all in her head—her epiphany, the stirring in her heart, the quintessential answer she had been searching for—what they held in their hands, what they exchanged at that very moment, cast it all away.

  There were barely any words that Ty could find to describe it, and yet there were all the words. It was breathtaking, it was gentle, it was all-encompassing; it felt like being a child again, it felt like innocence, like love, like rain on a sunny day; it felt like life, what Theo had created for her. It was hope. For the first time she could ever recall, she looked at what was in her hands and felt a true sense of hope.

  “For you, your flower.”