“Opponent out of bounds. Winner of the final—Skela!”

The blast’s smoke drifted like ash-snow, and calm returned, yet the students’ faces clouded again in confusion.

Just as the broadcast said, no trace of Mira remained within the ring, a bare shore after a receding wave.

Most had no idea where she went, minds blank like fogged glass.

Some thought the explosion had blown her away, a leaf caught in a firestorm, since she stood within ten meters of that flaming serpent.

It was normal to freeze, like deer in winter light, during a Time Domain.

Even Skela, gifted enough to feel time slow like syrup, couldn’t turn her eyes fast enough to follow Mira.

Only Adelaide, seated at the student council, saw Mira’s movement, a swallow through rain.

She watched the golden hair before her like a torch, while the scarlet in her pupils faded like dusk.

Her heartbeat, hammering to dull ache, eased, like waves after a storm.

Then the earthen wall before the council seats cracked and collapsed, a cliff face shedding stone.

Samir and the others finally realized it was Mira who had stopped that strike, a hand against thunder.

They looked at Mira, words stuck like thorns, breath held like glass.

The blast was a combined fire-and-lightning spell, a storm braided with flame and thunder.

Its power and speed topped many destruction spells that need minutes of chant, a river outracing a bridge.

It struck without warning, like lightning on a clear sky, and none of them managed to react.

Without Mira, they wouldn’t be standing unscathed here, a house spared by chance wind.

They should’ve thanked her, but it all ended before thought could bloom, like a candle snuffed.

The danger passed too fast, leaving an unreal aftertaste, a mirage over hot sand.

So they stood there, mute and awkward, hands idle like tied sails.

Except Adelaide.

She rose from her wheelchair, a willow lifting in breeze, took two steps, and reached Mira.

She held Mira’s casting right arm, fingers closing like silk cords.

Warm palm met skin; panic flashed in Mira’s eyes, a startled bird.

She tried to pull back, like a fish seeking deep water, but Adelaide held firm.

“Let go—”

“—You’re hurt.”

Just as Adelaide said, she lifted Mira’s sleeve, revealing a red burn, a crescent of fire on pale skin.

Inside the Time Domain, Mira sped up like a hawk, but the world couldn’t answer her chant at that speed, a drum out of sync.

Even if she finished the chant, she couldn’t fast-cast like Adelaide with the Sacrifice Domain, a blade that cuts instantly.

So her earth defense only half formed, a wall still wet clay.

A great share of shockwave and heat traveled through the wall and into her, fire through stone.

Adelaide bit her lower lip, a rose petal pressed, and ignored everyone’s eyes like rain on glass.

She tore her own sleeve into band strips, fabric fluttering like dove wings.

Layer by layer, she wrapped them around Mira’s arm, gentle as snowfall.

“I know a great healer. If she treats you, no scars, no shadows.”

“…Let me go. This isn’t your business,” Mira said, voice cold as river steel.

“You saved Sister again, Mira.”

Adelaide leaned on the word again like a bell, eyes steady as moons.

She had been ready to use Blood Magic to evade, a dark tide held back.

Yet Mira blocked the strike for her, knowing it would force her out of bounds, a step off the cliff of victory.

In the original “script,” Mira also opened the Time Domain, a familiar winter, and shot down Skela’s badge at the last instant.

She did it before Adelaide’s badge broke, making a draw, a balanced scale.

Both opened inherent domains—one to grasp victory, one to let it go, two leaves in opposite winds.

Adelaide wasn’t dull; her certainty settled like ink on paper.

Those tears she saw in the underground cave, when she was princess-carried, were not a dream, not morning mist.

The Mira before her wasn’t the “script” villainess—arrogant and ruthless like a hawk with iron talons.

If so, why the resistance now, that frost of distance?

The question from the dream’s end rose again, a bubble from deep water.

What do you want… truly, Mira?

Adelaide couldn’t help staring into Mira’s green eyes, windows of lake-light, seeking currents beneath.

Before any hint surfaced, Skela’s voice rang from afar, a bell over field, and Mira shifted her gaze, a shutter closing.

Adelaide sighed inside, a leaf falling, and kept bandaging with gentle hands.

“—Lady Adelaide, are you okay!?” Skela’s voice rushed closer, winded like a runner.

She reached Adelaide and saw Mira beside her, and her eyes turned complicated, clouds crossing sun.

“What is it, commoner? Got something to say?” Mira’s hand slid from Adelaide’s hold like water.

Her gaze and tone regained their usual bite, a blade with frost.

Skela bristled at the spark, fur standing like a small cat.

“Of course! More than one thing!” She pointed at Mira, a spear of accusation.

“You swore beneath the Eyes of the Gods to go all out. Why use the Time Domain only at the end?!”

“Oh? So eager to get expelled?” Mira’s voice drifted like smoke.

“No. It’s about mutual respect!” Skela’s reply hit like a drumbeat.

“Say it when you have the strength, commoner. You said more than that—what else?”

Skela’s fists clenched, small stones in streams, but she breathed deep and closed her eyes, a swimmer bracing cold.

Then she bowed deeply to Mira, a reed bending to wind.

“I’m sorry!”

“Huh?”

“You don’t speak properly, you slight the gods above, and you love bullying people, thorns on a rose, but…”

She listed faults, yet her tone softened, spring light on snow.

“I know if you attacked me inside the Time Domain, I had no chance, no shield.”

You gave up victory to save Lady Adelaide—you hold a noble heart the gods acknowledge, a lantern in night.

So I apologize—for saying, before everyone, you don’t deserve to be Lady Adelaide’s sister.”

Mira fell silent, a still pond under passing cloud, at Skela’s clear sincerity.

After a pause, she let out a dry laugh, a brittle twig.

“I don’t know why you think I’d care about that, but…”

“Lift your head, commoner.”

Skela looked up and saw a bright thing arc through sunlight, a spark from a blade.

She fumbled and caught it, hands clumsy as birds.

“It’s yours now.”

She blinked at the pale stone in her hand, humming with faint magic like a sleeping shell.

Her mouth opened in surprise, a door swinging.

“I… I can’t take it. You only saved—”

“—Don’t shame me with that line, commoner. A wager’s a wager. You won, nothing more.”

Mira finished and vanished from the scene in the next instant, a shadow stepping into rain.

Adelaide narrowed her eyes toward Mira’s exit, a fox watching a trail.

To refuse healing, she opened the Time Domain again, a frost-door slammed.

It’s fine. She never lacks patience, a slow river.

Especially with her adorable little sister, a star she guards.

Sooner or later, she’ll find the answer, a pearl in deep water.