The robe was cut in a peculiar mage style, lined with a violet undershirt; it framed her cute face like dawn cupping a peach blossom.

Her smile flashed like spring lightning—males would drop like felled trees.

Even Mizuki blinked out for a few beats, a sparrow stunned mid-flight.

But that wasn’t the thing to worry about.

Sham Einafel was Year One, Class B—a returnee.

Cute looks, manners like warm tea; half of Rakuyoku High School knew her by name.

Rumor said she had a thing with Yunshi Bianqi from Class A—the cicadas of gossip never shut up.

Miyuki Kiseki had spent enough time with her to read true colors.

Sham’s friendliness was polite frost; mischief only thawed for friends, a fox grin under moonlight.

The scandal was smoke.

Yunshi Bianqi never showed a ripple of interest, a lake without wind; what romance?

At most, those two were close friends.

The rumors came from Sham’s playful heart drumming too loud.

But the girl before her was indeed Sham, bright as noon and beyond doubt.

“You… what exactly are you?”

The question crawled out of Miyuki’s throat, tangled like vines; her mind had crashed, words jammed like snow in a keyhole.

“Sorry, Kiseki. I dragged you into our world without asking.”

Her voice carried soft rain; the prankster’s mask had fallen.

“Really, I’m sorry. Leave the rest to me. I’ll protect you.”

She turned back to face the woman, eyes hardening like tempered steel.

“Are you a Witch?”

The woman’s stare was a drawn bow; her dagger clenched like winter roots.

“No, not quite, big sis.”

The answer was a flash of emerald force—whoosh.

The woman kicked off in a swallow’s leap, and Sham fell clean into her sightline.

“So, you’re a proxy—Magic Institution.”

Her face twisted like overheated iron; killing intent poured out like midnight tide.

In an instant, the air filled with neatly ranked throwing knives, soldiers under a silent banner.

At her single command, they streaked toward Sham like a flock of razors.

“Go!”

Sham reacted fast.

Her staff pricked with starlight, and a shield blossomed like crystal lotus, stopping the storm of blades.

“What kind of technique is this…”

Cold sweat beaded like dew; she didn’t know the enemy’s craft.

“Looks like you Magic Institution folks aren’t all that. You can’t even read my Mystic Power control.”

“You mean you used Mystic Power to drive those weapons?”

“More or less. Unlike you lot, we don’t just lean on stored Mystic Power to spam attributes.”

In a heartbeat the shield cracked like thin ice.

Sham flinched sideways, a swallow cutting wind.

Knives buried the spot she’d vacated, thud-thud.

Then their hilts flared like magnesium.

A shell-burst of smoke boomed through the classroom.

“Sham!”

Miyuki’s scream flew out, a cracked bell.

“I don’t die that easy!”

Sham stepped from the smoke, intact; her robe bore torn scars like claw marks from the blast’s aftershock.

Her staff flared and loosed a swarm of arrows, all light and sting.

“Meteor Arrows!”

The woman watched the storm come and smiled, calm as frost.

She sprang, diving into the arrow cloud like a hawk into hail.

Sham froze; who dives into a directed Mystic Power attack?

It was a battlefield gambit, a one-woman charge against a superior host.

Sham understood a breath later.

The woman wasn’t courting death—she shattered arrows with her fists, each blow turning points to flour.

Arrowheads broke into dust like ground rice; Sham stared, stunned.

“No… impossible!”

Before she could reset, the woman punched through the barrage and closed, a lightning line.

A slender fist sank into Sham’s abdomen; the impact hurled her back like a kite in a gale.

Her spine slammed the wall.

Air fled her chest.

“Kh—”

A metallic sweetness rose in her throat.

Blood sprayed, bright as poppies on snow.

“Remember this. With tight Mystic Power control, close combat hits like a hammer.

You lean too hard on elemental attributes, so you get punished.”

Bracing one hand on the wall, she looked down on Sham, lips wet with blood, pleased like a cat over a caught sparrow.

Sham didn’t plan to die on her knees.

Her staff spat an attack, a stray shell of light.

The woman didn’t care.

Mystic Power gathered at her knuckles; one punch scattered it like mist.

Sham rolled with the opening, slipping away.

She drove the butt of her staff into the floor.

Fog blossomed in a ring, a lake boiling into cloud.

“Blink, Storm!”

The haze spun into a raging tornado, a gray dragon chewing the room.

The woman swayed, nearly blown off axis, then found her footing like a reed in river wind.

She faced it head-on.

Her darts flew for the eye of the gale, only to ping off with ringing notes.

She expected that.

She kicked the floor, springboarded up, and pulled a small knife.

She smeared it with Mystic Power and slashed the air.

The twister split like a torn curtain.

Assaulted hard, the funnel wobbled and lost its path; winds scrambled like panicked birds.

In that gap, she stomped the air and dropped.

She seized Sham’s staff and ripped it away, tossing it aside in a clatter.

Then her fist hammered Sham’s belly again.

Pain hadn’t even found a voice when another punch cracked across Sham’s face.

Before she could react, more blows fell, a drumbeat of bone.

Heavy strikes piled on.

Vision blurred like rain on glass; dizziness roared, a hive in her skull.

Her fists were slim for an adult, yet power hummed in them like coiled steel.

Her body screamed.

Ache flooded every limb.

Sham fell to her knees, clutching her stomach, coughing hoarse.

Fresh blood spattered the floor like scarlet petals.

“Sham…”

Miyuki Kiseki had watched it all.

Fear iced her spine; anger smoldered like ember under ash.

Sham had gone all out, every trick spent, yet fists cut through it.

For a mage who relied on attributes and lacked close combat, fists were both hardest and most lethal.

“What’s wrong? Out of moves already?”

The woman’s voice teased, sweet and venom; the sight of the kneeling girl fed her joy like wine.

“…”

Seeing Sham still bowed, her smile deepened, a crescent in night.

“I know your repertoire. I watched your casting.

With enough Mystic Power, you convert it into techniques.

But my control outruns yours, so you can’t stop me.

Right?”

Her smirk was a knife’s edge.

Sham didn’t anger; she smiled instead, eyes glinting with a star you couldn’t name.

The classroom began to tremble.

Chairs, already scattered, jittered like teeth.

Gas frothed out of the walls, foam-white like a fired extinguisher, wrapping the room.

“Who told you I can’t cast without a focus?”

Sham lifted her head.

The usual playful smile returned, sun after storm.

In a blink, the classroom drowned in heavy fog, a sea-cloud rolling in.

From the ceiling, a rain of spikes fell, spears of water driving for the woman.

“Don’t tell me… you laid the trap from the start.”

A warped look crossed her face.

She moved, deflecting the downward barrage.

Unlike before, the strikes had no strict vectors; they came like monsoon hail, and she started to strain.

“I know close combat’s bad for me.

You think I’ll just sit there and let you pound me?”

Sham wiped the blood from her lips with the back of her hand, a fox’s grin returning.

The fog steamed like boiling water; barbed water bolts and sharp ice shards gathered in flocks, all aiming at one point.

Even with stellar form, and fists that could crack nonphysical attacks by Mystic Power, she was still one body.

You can’t erase fire from all directions.

With nearly no blind spots, dodging was already winning.

“We who walk the dark would be a joke if we only used talent.

Weapons aren’t just one kind.”

Sham reached into her clothes and pulled a military-green sphere.

She bit the ring and hurled it.

“Damn!”

The woman cursed and threw herself back, a plank falling flat.

A heartbeat later, the floor boomed with a violent blast.

Black smoke poured like a storm.

The sudden thunder shocked Mizuki; she clapped her ears, trying to shut out the sound’s knives.

“Dammit!”

The ceiling tore open with a ragged mouth.

Heavy boards crashed down like felled trees, and the weird breath outside seeped in.

After the grenade went off, the indoor attacks didn’t vanish—they turned into vapor.

Fog tangled everywhere; sight couldn’t fix a true line.

“Damn it!”

“Kiseki!”

Sham grabbed Mizuki’s arm, and without looking back, ran for the doorway like a deer breaking brush.

Stay and you die.

If you don’t want death, you run.

Sham didn’t overthink.

Getting Mizuki out came first.

She might fight that close-combat woman if she went all in, maybe even win.

But saving a bystander’s life mattered more than trading blows.

Sham hauled Mizuki by the hand and sprinted, breath burning like hot iron.

Every foot gained behind them felt like another thread of safety.

Whatever waited ahead beat waiting to be cornered.

“I—Sham… slow down…”

“No.

If she catches up, we’re done.

If you like your life, run!”

Sham, rarely stern, snapped at Mizuki.

Mizuki shut her mouth at once.

Live first.