//------------------------------//
// Page 4: Tragedy 
// Story: A Unicorn in the Clover Kingdom 
// by LordBrony2040 
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The bald man with the scar on his face known as Galleo was not a good man. He knew this himself. Good men played by the rules and were always outmaneuvered by those who were willing to do whatever it took to gain power. So, despite having little more than the ability to move others across long distances that would have regulated him to the position of a flunky, he had managed to gain the position of the Diamond Kingdom’s head of assassination by backroom deals, bribes, alliances to greater men, and outright abandoning the last head of the division when they had been sent to kill a powerful witch in a forest full of the harpies.

Still, he only kept his position by proving himself useful, and after losing track of Fanzell Kruger after months of trying to chase him down, he had to deliver something worthwhile, even if it was...less than what was expected.

At the very least, it would buy him time to find the man’s trail again. Even if it was too late to gain his assistance for training the new mages, the Diamond Kingdom couldn’t let traitors walk free.

“You were defeated by mere children?”

The man in front of Galleo turned to glare at the spatial mage, making the the bald man bow. “Yes sir. But these children were standouts! One wielded light magic and had already mastered creation magic to the point of crafting light spells with,” he said. “And the other, he had a four leaf clover on top of using wind magic!”

There had been a third boy, but he was nothing special compared to the other two. If they had only met him, Galleo might have had a bit of trouble talking his way out of his failure.

After a few seconds, the mage who stood above him snorted. “So, Fanzell is now instructing our future enemies, then?” he asked. “That...might be a weed worth snipping. Do you know of their location, or were they simply passing through the area a few months ago? I doubt such a pair hails from The Forsaken Realm. It is a place filled with nothing but trash.”

Galleo reached into his robes to pull out a record orb. As standard operating procedure, the person at the forefront of every mission always wore a recording broach. It allowed them to assess things after the battle was finished, and Mariella could hardly be trusted. “I do not know if they are still in the area, General. But we did find a third boy that might be able to answer such a question for us if asked...properly.”

“Hey Mariella, I’m Asta, from Hage Village.”





The sunlight coming through the windows brought Sunset out of her unconsciousness before everyone else in the room. With there being a teenage girl in the orphanage along with a pair of boys that were the same age, the men and women had long since been moved to separate quarters rather than everyone just sharing one big room at night to prevent temptation. Temptation from what, Sunset had no idea, but it meant that the boys she threw out of the old sleeping room had to pick up their bedding every morning. So she considered it a losing proposition.

After rising before everyone else in her sleeping quarters, Sunset headed out to take care of her morning duties. Which included cleaning the kitchen to make it ready for the morning meal, bringing up several potatoes from the basement, making sure any...rats hadn’t made it in from outside, gathering the dirty clothes from the previous day for a wash, and then making sure that the washroom had fresh water for everyone’s morning cleaning.

The first few months Sunset had taken part in such things had been hell on the former pony. Part of her understood the need for the work that she did, but it was fear of being kicked out of the orphanage for being a layabout that had kept her doing her duties, despite how they put her in a less than charitable mood. But lately, they were...comforting, a routine that she could fall into and just do rather than think about things.

Like how the brush she put in her mouth that was made from horse hair had been coated in a sodium carbonate compound that tasted absolutely horrid. After a little bit of scrubbing, she sat it into the wash basin and took a swig of water that had been created by her magic to rinse her mouth out. While looking at the archaic washroom facilities, Sunset remembered a very stupid question she had asked Celestia as a filly. “Why can’t everypony just be a unicorn? It would be so much better if we could all just use magic.”

And in a world of mages, Sunset had found herself missing things that those without magic had decided to invent.

Like air conditioning. Dear God, did she miss air conditioning.

And refrigeration.

Pies. Cakes...or, any type of pastry. The idea of eating meat still made Sunset feel she needed to take a bath just for thinking about it. Other than that though, there didn’t seem to be any options in the way of food besides the strange, bland version of potato that grew in the village and sucked all the moisture from her throat at the slightest touch. Of course, there were other fruits and vegetables available, but not when everything had to be grown locally and the orphanage needed to feed half a dozen-plus kids.

Basic medical care, since everything was done by magic and Lilly was the only healer in the village.

Sunset sighed and leaned over on the wash basin. She was doing it again, pining for what had been lost. That was a recipe for disaster. The way to survive was to keep going forward and focusing on what she still had on top of what had been gained.

The new magic she had learned might not have been as versatile as the kind she studied back in Equestria, but it had a real punch to it. Although, that might have also been on account of her personality. Magic responded to the desires of its wielder, so an attack spell cast by a unicorn who didn’t really want to hurt anypony wouldn’t cause much beyond a light bruise. Sunset’s desire when in combat was to put her opponent into a very short coma.

Plus, as embarrassing as it was to admit, she also had...creatures that cared about her beyond what she could do for them. Lilly was closer to a mother to Sunset than Celestia ever was. Although, considering the age difference it would have been more correct to say she was a big sister. While Yuno and Asta were something akin to brothers...she guessed. It was hard to tell without a reference since Sunset had never had anything like them before.

Except… 

“Wow, that’s so cool Sunset, can you teach me how to do that?”

Cadenza, or...Cadance, to her friends.

But, Sunset had never been friends with the little alicorn. She never even tried despite how much the pink pipsqueak had wanted her to open up. Would she have found the same kind of relationship she had with the others.

Probably not. For all her smiles, Cadenza had been nothing but a lying little cunt that kept the truth about her origins from Sunset.

No dwelling on the past, she thought before getting a comb to tame her hair like she had to do every morning. Which was another thing most ponies didn’t have to bother with most of the time thanks to very good products and mane stylists.

By the time Sunset was done grooming herself, everyone had gotten up and was moving about. With sister Lilly making some kind of pancake variant with the potatoes, while the boys were clearing their poor excuses for beds out of the room they had been using. Breakfast was served shortly afterwards. Lilly made some kind of potato variant of pancakes and was passing out two for each person, their size varying slightly to compensate for the age of the person they were feeding.

“So, the three of you will be leaving us in just a couple of weeks,” she said before taking her own seat. “Are you nervous about the trip?”

From per place between the boys, Sunset looked back and forth, preferring not to answer. Because, she actually was a bit worried. While they could simply make water for drinking and other needs, the most basic of logistic skills told her there was no way they could take enough food to feed them for the whole journey. Which meant they would need to forage for food on the way there. And since Sunset learned the human pallet couldn’t include things like daffodils the hard way, that meant eating...animals.

“We should be fine,” Yuno assured her in his usual calm manner.

From his place at the head of the table, Father Orsi got to his feet. “For the trip there, maybe, but what about the trip back?” he said as histeria started to take hold and tears began to fall down his cheeks. “Asta will have to brave the wilderness alone on his journey back. Oh, I shudder to think what will happen to him!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN JOURNEY BACK?” Asta yelled at the old man.

Sister Lilly held up a hand. “Inside voice, Asta,” she reminded him nicely.

Across the table from the three oldests kids, the next boy in line just snorted before crossing his arms. Then, Nash frowned at Asta. “You’re never going to get into the magic Knights. After all, how many times have you actually beaten Yuno or Sunset?”

The question got a frown from Sunset as she thought back to the past six months of events. Once the kids had three months of working through the basics under their belt, Yuno and Asta had decided to hold little combat matches to who had the bigger magical dick, which Sunset was drawn into because Secre told them that they really did need more practice using their magic in a combat situation. She also limited the kids to one match a month, as just coming home with bruises day after day until they could barely move didn’t help them at all.

So, because of all the contests, the rankings stood as…

Sunset: 10 Wins - 2 Losses

Yuno: 7 Wins - 5 Losses

Asta: 1 Win - 11 Losses

“Can’t believe he beat me,” Yuno grumbled as he turned his head in the opposite direction of Asta.

Says the kid who pulled a new spell out of his ass in the middle of a battle to avoid a bruised ego, Sunset thought to herself with her lips pressed together. It seemed pretty unfair to the unicorn who had to study magic to actually learn spells was stuck surrounded by people who just got magic by wanting it hard enough.

“And that was a fluke!” Nash went on.

Actually, it was because his sword had an effect we weren’t aware of at the time, Sunset said as her eye twitched. Yuno had gotten cut up pretty bad because of it too.

“You just run around, swinging your sword like an idiot with no magic!” Nash said. “But you think you can pass the Magic Knight’s exam? You’re going to fail!”

As Sunset sat, clenching her jaw to help her resist the urge to barbecue the little brat, Asta just gave a chuckle. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he said with a cocky grin. “Now that I’ve got a grimoire, I just know I’ll get into a magic knight squad. Then someday, I’ll become the Wizard King!”

Yuno looked back at Asta. “Not if I-”

“NO YOU WON’T!” Nash screamed at him as he stood up from the table. “You’re just as poor as the rest of us! People like us don’t get to have dreams. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in this crappy town, eating the same thing day in and day out, just waiting to die like the loser you are!”

Before Asta could say something stupid, Sunset’s patience gave out and she opened her mouth with a little growl. “Wow, projecting much?” she said with a frown on her face. “Stop talking about yourself so much, kid. Of course, you left out the part that happens next. Everyone you left behind at the orphanage is going to go, ‘wow I’m glad that Nash kid is gone, he was always such a pain to deal with’.”

The boy jumped to his feet, tears welling up in his eyes. “S-SHUT UP! You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know that with Asta gone, you’re going to lose the one person you can look down on to make yourself feel better. And when he does make it into the Magic Knights, you’re going to realize that even a kid without any magic is better than you,” Sunset told him before she crossed her arms and smirked. “And that’s what you’re really scared of, isn’t it? Being shown how pathetic you really are.”

Nash took a step back. “I...I HATE YOU!” he screamed before turning around to run away, knocking the door open as he did so.

“Because I can fight back, Nash?” Sunset called out when she was pretty sure he was in range to hear.

As the door slowly swung back to close itself, Asta looked over to the redhead sitting next to him. “You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know.”

“Asta!” Sister Lilly scolded him before looking over to Sunset. “And you shouldn’t say such things to a child, Sunset.”

In response, Sunset raised an eyebrow. “So I should just let him attack Asta because he’s younger than me?” she asked. “How does lacking a few years give you the right to try and kill another person’s dreams and act like a brat?” Hell, if I had someone like the me of today around when I was a filly, I might not have even ended up here.

Father Orsi cleared his throat and lowered his head. “He’s just angry about his lot in life and knows that he’ll never improve it. We can’t all be lucky like you and Yuno.”

A snort escaped from Sunset’s nose. “Luck has nothing to do with it,” she said, earning a small glare from the adults in the room for her backtalk. “Okay, fine it’s got a tiny bit to do with it when it comes to a person’s mana pool, but that’s about it. If Yuno didn’t want to be a Magic Knight, all his book would be good for is doing laundry.”

“I’m going to be the Wizard King,” Yuno reminded Sunset under his breath before blinking. “Wait, what?”

Sunset looked over to the boy. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured this out yet, especially considering the spell you pulled out of your...rear, three weeks ago when you were getting your butt kicked,” she said. When nothing but blank looks accompanied her statement, Sunset sighed and looked at Lilly. “How many spells do you have?”

The nun blinked at the question. “You’ve seen my grimoire, Sunset. You know I only know three spells.”

“Why?”

Still confused, Lilly answered the question. “Because those are all the spells God thinks I need.”

Oh...right, forgot who I was talking to for a minute there, Sunset told herself as she did her best to try and address the situation. She didn’t want to get into a theological debate with the nun. Aside from the fact it was a bad idea to start trying to poke holes in a person’s core beliefs, Sunset really didn’t have enough knowledge about the religion in question. The expert could easily pull out some obscure fact that she couldn’t repudiate.

But...just backing down from the argument wasn’t her style either.

Okay, you know what? Fine, if she ends up kicking me out of the orphanage...so be it, Sunset told herself. 

Although...she could try and let it fit into the woman’s belief system, if only to be polite. “Lilly...God might have decided to give you a base in the water element, but you’re the one who decided how far to take it and what use to put it to. Magic develops according to the drive and desires of the person wielding it. You don’t have any other spells because you’re the one who decided you didn’t need any more spells. The amount of mana you’re born with may be the decision of someone else, but you’re the one who decides what to do with it,” she told the woman. “Yuno’s abilities are developing the way they are because he wants to be a Magic Knight. If he wanted to be a farmer, the spells he would be getting would be better suited to planting crops.”

Although, want was probably the wrong word. Plenty of people wanted something, but just wanting it wouldn’t make a new spell appear in a person’s grimoire. They had to believe they would achieve their goal. From what Secre told her, there were other factors too, like how desperation mixed with determination could provide a sudden burst of inspiration in the form of a spell. But for the most part, it was all about someone’s drive to do something with their lives.

That was the real reason Secre told them to limit their sparring. Yuno’s development shot ahead by leaps and bounds whenever Sunset handed him his ass.

“So excuse me when I get angry over a little punk running around telling everyone that they can’t be anyone important simply because he doesn’t think they can,” Sunset told her as she stood up and took her plate. “Now, I got magic practice to do.”





Yuno felt Sunset leave more than saw or heard her, aside from the slamming door. As soon as she was gone, the bad mood hung around and Sister Lilly let out a sigh. “That girl, I just don’t understand her sometimes.”

After sharing an uncomfortable look with Asta, the gray boy finished his breakfast and headed out, leaving Yuno alone on one side of the table while everyone else sat on the other. Except for Father Orisi, of course. He was at the head.

“Well...she’s not wrong,” Yuno said to the nun after thinking about whether or not to talk to her.

Sister Lilly blinked at the boy as Yuno felt a dozen conflicting emotions in his gut go to war on whether or not to just step back and let things continue, or speak what had been running through his mind for years. “Yuno?”

Well...I already started, might as well finish, he told himself. “Look, I don’t know your reasoning or anything, but I’ve watched the two of you put Asta down his whole life. And I get that it comes from the fact that you’re worried about him and don’t want to see him hurt, so I have kept my peace. But Nash isn’t like that and you guys need to stop just letting him run wild.”

“Yuno,” Father Orisi said gently. “Nash has had a hard life. You remember when he lost his parents in-”

“That doesn’t mean he has a right to go around, spreading his misery to everyone else, Father,” Yuno said with a little frown before letting out a sigh. “Pretty soon, him and Rebecca are going to be the oldest kids here, and he’s going to be the role model for everyone that comes after, because the three of us are not coming back. You need to get him under control, or the happy home that this church is right now will die.”





Secre sat on a branch as she watched Asta run around the field he was in, dodging invisible attacks from foes that were just in his imagination while also using his sword as a shield to get used to blocking in such a manner. Despite how ridiculous he looked, the old bird felt good about how well the boy’s progress had gone over the past several months. She had thought that losing nearly every single battle to his friends would have killed his confidence, but he was using every loss as a learning experience instead of something to obsess over in the wrong kind of way.

And boy did he have some losses…

-Asta VS Sunset, Match 1-

“And go!” Yuno called out as the three of them stood outside the church, with the tall boy off to the side by the entrance while Sunset and Asta were a good ten meters away from it.

Asta let out a wordless battle cry as he charged...only to be hit in the back of the head by a small piece of firewood from the giant pile near the church. “Hey, what was-oomph!” he said before another one impacted his stomach, followed by another one to his cheek. Within a second, he was being pelted by over a dozen little blocks of wood that were hitting him from all directions.

Then the boy started going after the wood instead of Sunset, who hit the back of his knees to bring him crashing to the ground one time, slipped a piece of wood underneath his feet when he tried to put some weight into his swing with a half-step to trip him up again, and a dozen other things.

“One of the glaring problems with your sword is that it’s just so damn big that you can’t hope to block multiple small attacks with it,” Sunset told him. “Either use it as a shield as you charge forward or keep it behind you to cover your back from attacks from the rear.”

-Asta vs Sunset, Match 2-

Asta charged forward as Sunset simply stood there. halfway to her, the floor suddenly gave out beneath him and he fell into a large hole that had been created with nothing more than earth mana manipulation. After a few seconds, Sunset walked up to the hole and leaned over. “Okay, so I know it wasn’t really fair since I didn’t have my book out, but when you’re fighting an earth element user, you need to be careful where you step,” she called down to him. “ Because now I can just drop rocks on you until you’re buried. Um...need a hand getting out?”

-Asta VS Sunset, Match 3-

The three teens were set up by the river, alone in the forest, when Asta ran at Sunset. Who waved her arms to bring up a massive amount of water from the river before freezing it almost instantly. Asta, who was carrying a sword that weighed more than he did, quickly lost his balance and slid along the frozen patch, completely out of control before falling flat on his face. 

“I didn’t know you had figured out how to use ice magic,” Yuno mumbled.

Sunset looked back at the boy in confusion. “Huh? All I had to do was stop the molecules from mov-you guys have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” she asked.

Both the boy and the bird shook their heads in confusion.

Although...they usually went better than the times Asta went up against Yuno…

-Pretty much every Asta VS Yuno fight but one-

Asta jumped up and down angrily as Yuno floated in the air, well beyond his reach. “Get down here Yuno!”

“No,” the other boy said as he went through his grimoire.

“Well, if you don’t come down, how am I supposed to be able to hit you with my sword?” Asta demanded.

Yuno held out his hand, palm opened. “That’s the point,” he said before sending a barrage of weak wind blades towards the boy with the gray hair that had to cut them with his sword. As well as the next batch, then the several dozen more until he was knocked off balance by a strong gust and taken down when the following attack got through his defenses. 

-Present Day-

Of course, there was that one little accident they had that ended with Asta winning. But, Secre did her best not to think about it.

It was odd how she had become attached to the child. Even though the odds of getting into the Magic Knights were squarely against him, he still continued on as best he could. Considering the only measuring stick he had was a pair of abnormally strong magic users, Secre was surprised Asta’s perseverance hadn’t faltered.

Still, there were other concerns about him. Like the five leaf. Although Asta didn’t have magic, that didn’t make him immune to it. So it wasn’t that the demon in his book couldn’t possess him the way Sunset theorized, it was just...holding back. Why, Secre had yet to surmise.

Was there another requirement aside from simply coming into possession with the five leaf?

Secre just didn’t know. Even though her experience with devils was the greatest in all the Clover Kingdom, it had all been done in less than a day of activity. The devil had tried to break into their reality by claiming a host, but had been stopped before things could get out of hand. The cost of which had been high, but it had been a better option than a successful incursion.

Our happy ending involved the elves being exterminated, hundreds dead, my master frozen in stone and me nothing but a bird, Secre thought sarcastically.

Maybe the devil was simply using Asta to transport the grimoire somewhere, so it could take a different host.

Did who its host was even matter?

After taking a deep breath, Secret took to the sky to find another one of her kids. If she kept thinking about Asta, she would drive herself crazy. So, using skills learned after years of embarrassing failures, Secret banked to the right and flew over where Sunset was sitting by the river.

No enhancement was needed to feel the mana swirling around the girl, flowing through her and back out again into the world at her direction. It was almost eerie how quickly she had caught on when it came to the more advanced mana control techniques that usually took years of experience with magic just to begin learning. Although not quite a full master yet, since a couple more mana manipulation techniques were still unknown to her, she needed a supplement for the fact that her growth as a mage when it came to spells only came at the behest of others.

Because of her origins, she couldn’t link with a grimoire. Which meant that Sunset couldn’t learn spells on her own. Someone would have to share their grimoire with her. Something Secre didn’t think many mages would be keen on doing. If they ever even learned of her unique abilities that is.

Until then, all she had was a single light spell, a bunch of overly complicated wind spells that required her to use a focus and maintain a wind creation spell before she could cast them, a pair of water spells that were nothing more than a pacifist’s weapon along with a healing spell to take care of minor injuries, and some very basic fire magic she had gleaned from that crying priest. On top of her unicorn magic, that is. Most of which Secre found...somewhat ridiculous.

“A mustache? Seriously?” the bird remembered herself asking as she wore the new follicles while Sunset grinned at her

“So, I see you’ve just about gotten your control down pat,” the bird said before frowning. There was an odd difference though. Human mages just moved the mana around them instead of acting like a conduit for it. Did the change have something to do with her natural magical abilities being different? Secre worried doing so would put a strain on Sunset’s body.

Sunset looked up from the water. “Something wrong?”

The bird landed on a nearby rocky outcropping and shook her head. “Just making sure you babies don’t go blowing something up before we have to leave in two weeks,” she said. “If one of you breaks a leg, the pitiful healing magic you know won’t get you back on your feet in time for the exams.”

“What is up with that, anyway?” Sunset asked before laying back on the grass and kicking her bare feet in the water. “I’m way more powerful than Lilly, but when I copy her healing magic, it’s not much better than what she can do. And that’s only because I used about twice as much mana.”

“The spell was never meant to be more than basic healing,” the bird explained. “You can push the limits of a spell by adding more mana, but it can never go beyond its original purpose.”

Sunset pressed her lips together in an angry pout. “Well that’s stupid.”

After a second, Secre tried appealing to something she knew. “Well, you’ve never gone beyond ten miles with your teleportation spell.”

“Um, yeah. Because anything more than that means I have to recalculate the Ooomph to the negative ampersand and then divide by effort instead of perceived effort, while factoring in desire, multiplied by rationale,” Sunset told her as if she was explaining what any moron should have found obvious.

“...right,” Secre replied uneasily. She had learned shortly after meeting the girl not to talk about unicorn magic with her. It sounded like math, but it was based on nothing but emotions and feelings, with an opinion or two thrown in.

The disturbing part was, Secre knew that she wasn’t lying. Because she had heard a unicorn explain to her how magic worked before she met Sunset.

“So, you take the timey out of the timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly and just cram it into the gaaaaa, but don’t shove it! If you try to shove it into the gaaaaa, it’ll cause you to go to a parallel world instead of an alternate one,” Secre remembered Starswril explaining to King Clover on how he made his mirror. “And let me tell you, those things really make you question the nature of reality.”

They had both needed a good drink after that, or maybe before. It probably would have made more sense if they had been drunk beforehand.

“So, what’s Yuno doing?” Sunset asked. “Still trying to pull off two spells at once?”

Secre sighed and hung her head. “I really shouldn’t have told him about that. The boy really is just like Asta when it comes down to it. He just knows how to whisper. But, he should know to conserve his mana until after lunch, this time.”

As the conversation hit a lull, Sunset looked closed her eyes. “Well, back to work for me.”

Before the girl could start back up, Secre cleared her throat. “Well, since we’ve got another two weeks, plus the time it will take you to get there from Hage on foot, we should probably delve more into a defensive technique.”

Sunset groaned. “I’d rather get this down first.”

“Hmm...I suppose you’re right,” Secre agreed as she decided to just go ahead and bait the unicorn. The bird turned away and looked off to the horizon. “This technique is a bit more advanced. You’re probably not ready for it.”

The sun seemed to disappear as Secre found herself in Sunset’s shadow, the girl towering over her with a glare that had something behind it, more than simple pride. “Start teaching bird brain.”





Seeing the three mages get their grimoires ready, Nash fired off his quickest spell to make them think twice about attacking them before charging at them. The thing in his hand wasn’t a stick, but a flaming sword of super death that he used to cut down the mage in the middle before spinning around to slice the one on his right in two as his super awesome mage skills let him throw another fireball to take out the third mage, easily burning through the shield he had put up.

“HAHAHAHA!” an evil witch laughed from behind the mightiest Magic Knight ever as he turned around to see Sunset standing there behind him. “Foolish boy, do you think you can defeat me? I am so smart and pretty, even Yuno loves me more than you!”

Knowing it all to be a lie, Nash charged the ugly witch and shot a fireball at her, which made her scream and duck like the coward she was, curling up into a little ball before he raised his flaming sword of super death. Then brought it straight down on her stupid head! “Take that!” he yelled at the witch as he broke her head open with his blade while she cried out in pain before hitting her over and over again and again. “And that! And that! And that!”

…

There was a loud crack from the broken branch that Nash had been using for a sword in his mind as he struck the rock one final time, breaking the stick. 

Panting from the effort, Nash fell back onto his butt and onto the wet, white, rocky sand that was underneath the town’s only stone bridge. The slight bit of satisfaction he has gotten from the mental image of killing Sunset quickly fading as reality reasserted itself.

Sunset was still alive and well. All he had been doing was hitting a rock.

It wasn’t fair! 

Why was a bitch like her born with magic, when Nash wasn’t? He deserved it so much more than her! Plenty of bad things had happened to him, so why didn’t something good come along too? Father Orsi said the more suffering they endured in this life meant their reward would be even greater when they passed on, but Nash wanted something good to happen to him now!

“I’m Asta, from Hage Village.”

Nash blinked at hearing Asta’s voice. Something sounded weird about it.

“I’m sorry but...I can’t help you,” a woman’s voice said before Nash heard the sound of feet moving quickly across the bridge above him.

Curious, the boy came out from under the bridge and looked up as a thin man with a sharp nose, chin and eyes he had never seen in the village walked around with a satchel at his side. Opposite of the one holding his grimoire, of course. The guy looked a little old in his white clothes, but not as old as Father Orsi, and his hair was a lighter blue than the sky, a bit wavy, and held up with a dark headband that had five diamonds on it that had to be fake.

“Hey, why’re you looking for Asta?” he asked.

The stranger looked down at Nash with the same expression most people wore when they noticed an orphan was around, like they were seeing some kind of parasite and wondering how to get around it without attracting its attention. “Yes, do you know him?”

Nash thought about it for a second. Nobody went looking for orphans, but the guy standing up above him looked pretty well off. If he could get some money out of it... “What’s it worth to you?”

The man gave the orphan a little smile. “Ah, a child after my own heat,” he said as Nash made his way up onto level ground with the stranger. “What would you say to...ten-thousand yul?”

The sheer amount of money being offered made Nash fight to stay on his feet. With that kind of cash, he could actually get out of Hage Village and do something with his life. But...Nash wasn’t an idiot. He knew if that man was willing to offer so much for Asta’s location up front...then he had even more money. “Make it thirteen-thousand,” he said.

“Ah, what a smart little boy,” the man told him with a slender smile. “Very well, thirteen-thousand. Paid after you lead us to your little friend, of course.”

Nash turned towards the forest, but stopped when he realized what time it was by the position of the sun in the sky. If Asta wasn’t already heading back to the church, then he would be there in short order. “I know where he’ll be soon. Just follow me,” he said before blinking when the old man raised his hand and gestured to a couple of guys standing on the other side of the bridge.

“Lead on, my fine young man,” the stranger told him as the other two men made to follow the rich guy.





Walking down the main street of Hage Village, Ragus didn’t know whether to be disgusted or insulted. He, one of the greatest mages who had ever lived, a beautiful mix of power, genius and grace, was being forced to trudge through the most filthy of places for the good of his kingdom. But what made it even worse was the fact that nobody seemed to recognize him, despite his many accomplishments.

Years ago, Ragus had read a book detailing the living habits of people. It said that those of low birth and pitiful mana rarely went fifty miles beyond the place where they were born for their entire life. But, that was no excuse for such common creatures not to recognize his brilliance for what it was on sight and stand in awe of its beauty.

So, he and his personal assistants, Valus and Thane, followed the street rat over the road made of dirt, to a faded, but mostly intact church. Considering how bad things were in the Clover Kingdom’s Forsaken Realm, he was almost impressed that it wasn’t a shack with two sticks at the top made into a cross. But then, that was like saying someone was glad they stepped in mud instead of cow shit.

Still, Ragus made his way into the archaic belief systems little white building behind the boy and looked around. After a few seconds, the priest who was obviously in charge of the place came out of a room in the back. “Hello Nash,” he greeted the boy before looking up at the person she should have addressed first before making an obvious study of their clothes. While Thane and Valus had on simple traveling attire, Ragus doubted that anyone from this stupid village had seen anything like what he wore. “And you sirs, is there anything I can do for you gentlemen?”

“Yes,” Ragus said before pulling out a crystal ball that displayed the one clue they had to the whereabouts of their target.

“Hey Mariella, I’m Asta, from Hage Village,” the image of a boy with gray hair said from within the orb’s surface. 

As the priest became a little weary at the sight of what was probably the most advanced magic he had every seen in his entire life, a small urchin that was even more undeveloped than the trash Ragus had followed to this stupid hovel came running into the room from the opposite side than the priest appeared from.

“Is Asta back?” a little girl with short black hair asked before looking to Ragus and pointed up at him. “Hey Mr Man, your hair looks funny!”

Ragus’s whole body tensed at the insult before the child actually laughed at him! A stupid, filty little nothing of a child dared to insult him?

The priest’s eyes widened and he took a step back before looking down at the girl. “Aruru,” he said before crouching to talk to the girl. “How about you go and see if Sister Lilly has gotten started on lunch yet, okay? I bet Asta will be hungry when he gets back from his training.”

“So there are other people in the church besides yourself?” Ragus asked the priest.

After a few seconds, the older man nodded. “Yes, a nun who helps me take care of things and the children. Are you looking for-”

“Good,” Ragus said before he summoned forth his grimoire and held out a hand towards the girl. “Then we will have hostages to spare. Go round up everyone else in this little dump and bring them in here. Except for this one, of course. Lightning Creation Magic: Piercing Javelin!”





Secre kept her peace as she rode on her mobile perch that was Asta’s head while her three charges discussed their traveling arrangements. Thankfully, the tall one hadn’t completely exhausted himself like the other day and would still be able to go on into the night without problems. Sunset was fine, as usual. And aside from some sweat blotches on his clothes, Asta looked to be in well enough condition.

It was probably just her worrying over nothing, but with the Exam fast approaching, Secre grew more and more worried that something would happen to mess everything up before the children could even set off on their journey. Then, there were all the worries that came with thinking of what they would face on the trip. The Magic Knight Exam was actually what troubled her the least, even with a third of her little team to be completely magicless.

“Look, all I’m saying is, we’ve got two weeks. We do some odd jobs around town for a little yul, then use it to buy a tent,” Sunset told the boys as they slowly walked back towards the orphanage. “Hell, the church has more firewood than it’s going to use in a year. We can sell that!”

Asta looked over to the taller girl and raised an eyebrow. “Can’t you just earth magic up a hut or something every night?”

To which the redhead replied, “So we can sleep on dirt while also sleeping under it? Nevermind the bugs, rain and snakes.”

“Any tent we find in Hage won’t be of much use against a rainstorm and a tent wouldn’t keep out bugs or snakes,” Yuno pointed out.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What’re you talking about even the cheapest…” She stopped and groaned, putting a hand to her face. “Right, you guys haven’t invented nylon, plastic, or anything like that.”

With the girl making one of her complaints that the boys rarely understood, Yuno gave an annoyed groan. “You’re doing it again.”

“Sorry. But my point still stands, we need some kind of camping supplies,” she told him.

As Yuno was about to reply, the boy opened his mouth but suddenly stopped and looked up with a frown. “Do either of you feel that?”

On the other side of the group, Asta blinked. “Feel what?”

“You know you’ve got the best magic sensing range out of all of us,” Sunset deadpanned before looking in the same direction Yuno was. “Something happening at the church?”

Secre frowned and focused her senses. In the months after the Fanzell incident, she had practiced focusing her few useful talents along with the others after some three-hundred years of just getting by. While she would never match a wind user when it came to detecting mana, her abilities had improved a bit.

“There’s a lot of mana coming from the church. Three people. Two are a lot bigger than anyone around here, but the third guy has a lot more than them even. But...I don’t know, it feels different than what I’m used to picking up from people,” Yuno said.

Asta looked over the boy with black hair. “Man, this is so not fair. I should be able to sense people too, even without mana.”

While Yuno stood up a bit straighter, Secre did her best to extend her senses and try to tell what was going on. When she felt it, the bird gripped her claws.

“OW! Bird lady! That’s-that’s my head!” Asta cried out.

One thing that took mages a few months to realize after being trained in mana detection was that a person’s personality determined how their mana felt. Despite what others might think, many people at their core were a lot alike. They didn’t want to hurt anyone or do anything but live their lives as best they could. Which was why it took mana detectors so long to find someone with a different feel to their mana. People who were kind usually gave off a calming presence that had some effect on everyone around them to some extent. While the more heroic mages tended to inspire people better than others. But, there were also the monsters, people who were so twisted inside that on some primal level, any human being over the age of fifteen knew that they needed to get away from them.

Such a mage was standing in the church at that very moment.

“Wait here and don’t do anything stupid, I’m going to see what’s going on,” Secre told her kids before she flew off without letting them argue with her. Please do as you all are told for once.

Since it was Summer and rain hadn’t come in days, the windows of the church were all open and easily accessible for the bird. She landed in the tallest one, overlooking the room where sermons were held and...if Secre still had teeth, she would have been gritting them after seeing what was going on.

The second youngest child at the orphanage, Aruru, lay on the ground with a hole in her chest so big that most of her torso and stomach were missing from the smoking corpse. The fact that there was no blood and a dark black burn told her that she had been killed by lightning magic.

The other children were alive, but standing between the left pews and the pulpit with two men flanking them in clothes Secre expected to see on villagers from the Common Realm. Sister Lilly stood in the center of them all, trying to keep them calm despite the terror evident on her face.

Wait...one’s missing, Secre thought to herself before looking around to see Nash, sitting on one of the benches near Father Orsi on the other side of the room and trembling as he looked on in horror at the scene playing out before him. 

Why wasn’t he with the others?

Then, there was Father Orsi. The man stood away from the children, by himself in the center of the room, just in front of where he held his sermons while a third stranger stood next to the man. Despite the fact that he was shaking and tears were running down his face, he still found the courage to speak. “Why are you doing this?”

The stranger turned around and Secret’s breath caught upon seeing his forehead.

Mages of the Diamond Kingdom had ranks, much like the Magic Knights. When one obtained a high enough standing in their forces, they were given circles with three diamonds to show that they had the authority to command a squad of troops. The more diamonds they had, the higher their military rank. The man in the church had five.

And based on his level of mana...he stood only a little below a magic knight squad captain.

“Hmmm?” the man replied, as if he had forgotten Father Orsi had been there. “Well, I suppose if you must know...a few months ago, about mid-spring, one of our assassination squads encountered a pair of children in the forest east of here while looking for a deserter. Because of the interference of them and one other, the target escaped and gave them the runaround for a few months before the trail went cold and the man in charge had to report his lack of success back to me. Not wanting to die for his failure, he offered me up information about a light mage and a boy with a four leaf clover. And because I am a man who believes the best path to victory is the one with the least effort, I’m here to deal with those two mages before they should learn enough about their abilities to become a threat.”

Father Orsi tensed. “Yes but...we don’t have a boy with the four leaf here, he left some time ago.”

The diamond mage nodded. “Yes, I suspected he might have been just passing through. A four leaf coming from this dung heap is rather laughable. But, we do have a clue to his whereabouts,” the man said before reaching into his bag and pulling out a record orb that began playing a moment later.

“Hey Mariella, I’m Asta, from Hage Village.”

“The reports say the boy is nothing special. In fact, if not for his friends, I never would have even bothered coming here and dirtying my shoes with your filthy little flea ridden hovel,” the lighting mage went on. “And you can thank your boy over there for leading us to this place. For some reason, everyone else we asked in town didn’t seem to know who we were talking about at all. I think I’ll go back and kill them for lying to me. That is supposed to be against your stupid little peasent religion, isn’t it, Father?”

For a brief moment, Father Orisi glared at the stranger. “You come in here and kill one of the most innocent of people, then threaten to do even more murder while mocking our faith? How dare you! This is a house of God!”

“God?” the man asked in a mocking tone. “Ohohohoh, what a cute little sentiment. An imaginary friend for adults too stupid to know better. I’ve seen more things that you can imagine old man, and not once have I seen proof of your so-called deity. But!” The wizard held up a finger and slowly moved it back and forth. “I am a man of the sciences, willing to admit that he might be wrong. And never have I looked for your god in a Clover Kingdom church. So, perhaps he is here! Let us see if we can lure him out, shall we?”

The man’s finger crackled with lightning magic and he pointed it at Sister Lilly. “Are you there, God? It’s me, Ragus. If you’re hiding up in the attic somewhere, you had better come down before I blow this nice little girl’s arms off, then her legs, followed by a blow to her stomach. Then, you can watch her die as I cook her alive from the inside out,” Ragus announced as his mana built up for an attack. “And just to be sporting since you may be, I don’t know, cowering in fear, I’ll give you a whole two hundred seconds. So...one...”

Secre was gone before he reached the number two.

Counting the time in her head, she got to her kids before getting to five.

Told them what was happening by perhaps the count of twenty.

And had to wait a whole five seconds for them just to process it.

Asta was the first to react. “WHAAAAAT? He’s going to kill Sister Lilly?” the boy said before his grimoire rose up and he drew the anti-magic weapon it contained out. “We have to go save them!”

He got two steps before Yuno managed to grab him. “Hold up idiot, if you rush in there. They’re just going to kill her and we don’t have much time. Whatever we do, we have to make sure we can save everyone. Sunset can you pop them-” he said before looking over to the redhead. “Sunset?”

Sunset’s were widened in absolute horror, her body shaking. “T-They killed Aruru?” she mumbled with a trembling voice. “How could...why...she...she’s barely more than a baby.”

Oh dear, Secre thought as she saw one of her suspicions about the girl confirmed. During the battle five months ago, Sunset had struck two of the Diamond Kingdom’s knights with a light sword and only knocked them out, despite the weapon she had used being one of the most deadly spells there was. While magic responded to the will of its user, Sunset hadn’t willed her weapon not to kill those men. It was that the thought of killing them never even entered her mind.

Despite her attitude and behavior, the unicorn girl was an unnaturally gentle soul that didn’t just draw a line when it came to some of humanity’s darker thoughts, she put up an iron wall that was to never be breached. To be confronted by just the possibility of murder was simply abhorrent to her.

“We don’t have time for this right now!” Secre shouted at the three of them, not caring if a passerby might notice her. “You need to turn around and run away as fast as you can!”

Because, according to her mental count, they only had about a minute before things went south in the church. Without Lilly to keep the kids calm, they would try to scatter and Ragus would probably put a few more down. Eventually, he would kill them all of course, but… No, don’t think about that. Use the time to escape.

Of course, Asta had something to say about that. “WHAT? NO WAY! We’re going to go save Sister Lilly and everyone else!”

“No, you are not!” Secre yelled back at him. “This is not a bunch of worthless killers that are used to strangling babies and children! This is a hardened battlemage. Maybe even the equal to a knight captain! You turn and you run, or you die!”

Yuno looked back down at his grimoire, taking it out to stare at the clover on it. “You know, when I got this thing, I thought it was nothing but bad luck. But if I hadn’t gotten attacked by three different people on the same day, Asta never would have been there to receive his grimoire. If something like that can happen, we can find a way out of this without anyone in our family dying,” he said before looking down at the girl. “Sunset, can you teleport them out?”

“That won’t work!” Secre scolded them. “He may not be a wind mage, but by the time we got in visual range, he would know she was there! We’re almost at the edge of his detection range now! Whatever attack we used would have to be from here, be accurate enough not to cut down the children too, fast enough to hit he mages before they could react, manage to not destroy the church in the process and…”

The bird stopped talking as something occurred to her that might actually have a chance of working...if they were insanely lucky. Which, according to legends, the four leaf was. “Okay, all of you  listen carefully and do exactly as I tell you idiots,” she said while her internal count reached one-hundred-fifty. “Because I’ve got twenty seconds to spell it out for you if I’m to get back to the church in time to cause a distraction.”

Once they had slapped some sense into Sunset so she could listen, Secre laid out the plan and quickly took off back towards the church, flying as fast as she could.

She needed to get inside, then fly around the heads of the children and Sister Lilly long enough to make them cower in fear of getting their eyes pecked out by an angry bird before doing the same to Father Orisi. If she could get them all to duck, the coming attack that she hoped was aimed correctly would end up catching only the Diamond Kingdom mages.

Because if the caster was worried about hitting a kid, the spell wouldn’t be strong enough to hurt a child. But if the caster was willing to knock out a trained mage, it would gut the children if they were caught up in it.

Once Secre got inside the building, she saw that Ragus was still counting. “One-ninety-eight, one-ninety-nine,” he announced loudly.

Completely destroying the bird’s hastily thought-out plan as all the time she thought she had disappeared.

WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU COUNTING SO GOD DAMNED DAMN FAST? the bird mentally screamed at the mage. By her math, she should have had a good ten seconds left! It was common knowledge that you were supposed to say one HUNDRED AND between numbers to get a full second. Everyone knew that!

“TWO-HUNDRED!” Ragus announced with an almost gleeful expression before he looked around for a second. “Oh dear, it would seem that your god isn’t home. Because, you see, he doesn’t really exist. And now, you’ll learn that the hard way.”

Father Orisi held up his hands. “No, stop this please!” he begged as he tried to move closer to the man, only to freeze when Ragus turned his magic towards the priest.

“Don’t worry, you can be next,” he promised.

Then, as time seemed to slow down, Secre got an idea. A very stupid, crazy idea that only proved to her that three-hundred years of isolation had driven her bat shit crazy.

But still, crazy was better than nothing. So, she flew up onto the cross in the back of the room, sucked in a deep breath, and spoke in as loud a voice as her little lungs could manage. “STOP THIS VIOLENCE WITHIN MY HOUSE!”

All of the humans, evil and innocent, turned to look up at her in surprise. A full second ticked by before Father Orisi stepped forward with a dumbfounded look on his face. “G-God?”

Glad that she no longer had a face, because Secre dubbed that she could have pulled this off otherwise, the bird spoke again. “YES! I...AM...GOD!” the little bird with the tiny devil horns sprouting from her head shouted before throwing her wings out in front of her as if they were hands. “TRUE BELIEVERS, PROSTRATE YOURSELF BEFORE ME, AND BE SAVED!”

All of the orphans who had grown up in the church, Sister Lilly, Father Orisi, and even one of Ragus’s goons got on their knees before touching their heads to the floor. “Oh savior, heavenly fowl! Please deliver us from perdi-” was as far as Father Orisi got before everything went to hell.

There was a giant flash of solid light that started from the back of the room and swept through the entire building, slicing through anything that stood more than three feet tall.

“I’m outta here,” Secre told everyone before the building could start to collapse on top of them from having its support beams sliced just above their base.





Doing her best to fight off her shock, Sunset focused on the pain in her cheek, actually biting it to keep her in the moment as she stood up and gulped. A child had died, it...it was hard to wrap her mind around the fact that such a thing was actually real. She knew humans killed, yes...but it was one thing to hear it happening far away and quite another to know the victim. She had helped take care of the little monkey for nearly two years and…

“Thirty seconds,” Asta said.

FOCUS DAMNIT, Sunset shouted to herself as she felt the wind begin to whip up as Yuno cast a spell that created an oversized bird made of nothing but wind to jump on its back while Asta grabbed the claws when it lifted off.

They didn’t move any closer to the church though. That would only alert the mage inside and get even more people killed. The first volley to give them all the opening the boys needed to save everyone was her responsibility. 

Sunset cleared her mind and remembered her training.

“The technique I’m about to teach you is what marks the difference between a powerful mage from a royal bloodline, and a captain of the Magic Knights. With it, you will be able to increase both your offensive and defensive power exponentially, sharpen your mana detection abilities, and even predict your opponent’s next move,” Secre told the girl inside her head.

It had taken nearly four months of work to adapt it for her personal use thanks to the differences in the Clover Kingdom’s magic and her own, but after working longer on it than any spell Sunset had ever managed to learn, she had figured out how to do just that.

Sunset opened herself to the mana around her, letting it flow through her body as she guided it to become what she needed it to me. “Mana Zone, Enhanced Light Creation Magic: Demon-Slaying Sword of the Divine Holy Emperor,” the not-unicorn announced to anyone who was listening while doing her best not to think of who the hell came up with such overblown names.

More magic than she could ever produce herself flowed through the girl, making her feel like she was on fire as the spell took shape in front of her. The weapon was easily five times larger than the biggest weapon Sunset had made during practice, greatly dwarfing the last one she had used in actual combat. Once the attack was ready, Sunset focused her enhanced mana detection and frowned.

Despite the clarity the mana zone gave her, she still couldn’t tell much beyond the position of the children except for where they were standing. Elevation didn’t really factor into it. Then, the one that was off to the side for whatever reason suddenly moved to the left a good deal.

Sunset took it as a sign that something was going on and let the sword fly with all the strength she could muster. The attack flew forward at a pace nearly too fast to see and struck the church with a blade large enough to cut the entire building in two with a stabbing motion. Everything above the three foot in height mark was sliced in two.

A second later, Sunset let go of the mana around her and fell to her knees, panting from the effort of casting such a spell. I think I’ll...yeah...just going to stay here for a bit.

If such magic was going to keep putting such a strain on her body, maybe Asta could help her develop an exercise routine or something.

-Break-

As soon as Sunset fired her spell, Yuno was off on his Swift White Hawk spell with Asta in its clutches. The increase in altitude allowed him to see the church when he couldn’t before, so he caught sight of Sunset’s attack cutting into the bottom quarter of the building not a second later.

Once it had sliced its way through, Yuno turned his grimoire to one of his more versatile spells and pumped all the mana into it that he dared to. “Wind Magic: Towering Tornado!” he shouted before guiding the spell to include the entire church in its area of effect.

The green magic swirled around the building as it took hold of the wind, lifting the entire upper three quarters or more, where Sunset had cut the thing, into the air to reveal what was inside. By which time, Yuno’s hawk had taken them to the edge of his man made twister that was carrying the building away under his direction as it jumped into the air.

And just as Secre had predicted, there was one man still standing that had managed to weather Sunset’s attack. Although...he didn’t look much like a fancy asshole, as Secre had described him, just a person that might have been a well-to-do merchant.

That one, Yuno left to his little brother as he kept his concentration on the church being thrown into the air to make sure it didn’t land on anyone. The building might have been a loss, but as long as the kids were safe, that was all that mattered.

Behind him, Yuno could hear Asta just about screech at a wizard while the wind mage had finally gotten their former home away from the garden and everything else that had been around the church before finally getting ready to set his tornado down and get back to the others. 

However, about two seconds later, Yuno felt a flare of the sickening mana from before and realized that they had made a mistake.





With some help from Yuno’s really big bird, Asta managed to launch himself at the only guy he didn’t recognize. Said guy was crouched on his knees, but looking up and around in confusion along with the kids while a guy in similar clothes was out on the floor with a bad burn across his stomach.

Just like Secre had predicted, it looked like the boss had managed to survive Sunset’s attack without much damage, if any. Although...his clothes didn’t look very fancy. Maybe running around naked for five-hundred years had killed the bird’s opinion of clothes. Still, the anti-magic boy put his part of the plan into motion.

While still in midair, Asta drew his sword and swug it before it was even out of his grimoire, negating its weight until the last second, when the two-hundred-pound-or-more weapon crashed into the man’s collarbone with a audible crunch as Asta shouted, “THIS IS FOR TRYING TO HURT LILLY YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

With the mage down and his eyes rolled up in the back of his head, Asta turned to the nun that was around the children and grinned. Since they all looked okay, although the fact Nash was over near the pews on the opposite side of the room instead of with the others for some reason made him wonder why, Asta grinned. “Hey Sister Lilly, what do you think about marrying me now?”

The woman’s unbelieving stare from what had just transpired in the last five seconds or less, broke into a small smile before Lilly visibly strained in forcing it into a shape that could just barely be called a disapproving frown. “Oh Asta,” she said before running over to him and hugging the boy so hard Asta stumbled and turned until he was facing where the church’s entrance had been.

A second later, the nun broke the hug and took a step back. “I think for once, I won’t discipline you for trying to pull me away from-” Sister Lilly stopped talking as Asta heard something on what had been the pulpit shift. Her eyes widened and...

“LIGHTING CREATION MAGIC: SKY SPLITTING MAGIC BOW ARMAMENT!” 

Asta felt his feet fall out from under him as the woman’s expression became frantic while she pushed his shoulders hard enough to take him completely by surprise. “GET DOWN!”

Screams surrounded him as not even a second after he hit the floor, Asta saw a white hot lance of magical energy tear through Sister Lilly and leave a hole in her stomach large enough that Asta could have stuck his head in it. The smell of burnt meat filled his nose as she fell down, and looking at the hole, Asta couldn’t stop his dazed thoughts from considering something weird. Shouldn’t there be more blood?

Sister Lilly had a hole in her body big enough that it nearly cut her in two.

“Sis...Sister Lilly?” he asked.

There was no blood.

If there was no blood, then it couldn’t be real, right?

It was just an illusion, some sort of trick.

“Ast...As…” the woman said in what could barely even be called a whisper as her whole body shook.

It was only after Sister Lilly hit the floor that Asta looked over to ask the other kids that had been with her if what he was seeing was real.

The electrocuted corpses on the ground next to Asta that had been children just a moment ago didn’t have anything to say.

“MONSTER!” Father Orisi screamed, shaking Asta out of his daze and forcing him to look over at the old man standing in front of Nash, who was on his hands and knees, trembling while a puddle of tears was trying to form at his feet. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO CHILDREN?”

Asta followed the priest’s gaze to find another wizard standing in the ruins of the pulpit. From the way the wood had been destroyed, it looked like he had been knocked into it and some of the stage had fallen on him. Blood ran down half of the man’s face and one of his arms hung limp while several bits of wood stuck out of his left leg, staining his pants with blood.





He who strikes the fastest, wins. Throughout all of history in all four kingdoms, this basic idea was the key to numerous victories. Which was why light magic was considered to be so fearsome. There was no dodging the attack. You either had your defenses up in time, or somehow managed to read the attack before it was fired and parry it with another spell. 

However, it was not the be all and end all of combat.

The term ‘fast as lightning’ was another saying throughout the four kingdoms. For when a thunderstorm occurred, the bolt of energy went from a mile in the sky to the ground instantaneously. Mages who had worked with lightning for a long time and were truly in-tune with such magic would gain some of that ability, greatly boosting their reaction time to levels impossible for others to achieve.

The difference being, while light mages could move faster in a straight line, those attuned to the lightning element could take turns a dozen times better.

So, when there was a bright flash on the edge of the room, Ragus’s godlike instincts kicked in. Without even needing conscious thought, his mana compressed around the mage to defend him as his body went limp and he was able to move the slightest fraction of an inch before the attack connected. Rolling with the impact, he slid under the giant blade that managed to drag him along with the force of its blow until he hit the stupid priest’s little stage, plowing halfway through it.

Laying in the wreckage, the most beautiful and brilliant mage of the Diamond Kingdom, greatest of the Eight Shining Generals, felt the damage to his divine form and spent a moment, trembling with rage as he collected his thoughts inside his ringing head. What had occurred had obviously been a light spell, and the wind magic that followed must have belonged to the four leaf target.

Both of the two he was seeking were still in the village.

Those...INSOLENT...BABIES! Ragus thought before gathering his mana around him in a skintight defensive technique before rising from the ruins despite the pain, his grimoire flying up next to him. The view he saw of the boy that was in the recording getting hugged by the nun while the children started to approach inspired Ragus, his grimoire already turning to a multi-target attack spell that would kill everyone in that little group.

He would kill the two responsible for his injuries, but before he did, Ragus would make them suffer a small fraction of the pain he felt over his damaged beauty. They would get to see all of the people in what was left of the hovel he was standing in die!

“LIGHTING CREATION MAGIC: SKY SPLITTING MAGIC BOW ARMAMENT!” Ragus shouted in anger as he put more mana than was necessary into his attack to strike down everyone standing in the left half of the building. It was only through sheer luck that the nun managed to push the boy down in time before Ragus’s attack ended the life of the little holy vermin and her spawn.

The priest said...something. With his head still ringing, Ragus couldn’t hear and didn’t much care to. He raised a crackling hand towards the older man-“Lightning Magic: Thunderbolt!”-and barely turned it to where he was feeling a mass of mana coming at him in time to strike at a giant eagle made of wind before it could sink his claws into his damaged flesh.

The resulting attack tore the wind creation to shreds before a tall boy in black clothes, with a four leaf clover landed in front of the surviving child that was still holding onto his oversized sword. “Wind Creation Magic: Wind Blades Shower!”

A dozen daggers made of wind that had hilts which looked more like the birds of a feather flew towards Ragus, who counted with a spell of chained lightning that bounced from one attack to the next, completely shredding them before they could get too close.

The ringing in Ragus’s ears lessened as the taller boy looked to the shorter one while he gathered more of his mana. “Asta get up! GET UP OR WE’RE DEAD!”

Idiot children, one should never take their eyes off an opponent, Ragus thought to himself as he raised his good arm and pointed to the boys. “I’d tell you I’d be sending you to meet her boy, but we both know there’s no such thing as Heaven,” the mage taunted the shorter one and gathered his mana for an attack. “NOW DIE! Lightning Magic: Thunderbolt!”

The boy in question looked up at Ragus a second before the mage launched lighting magic from his hands and actually had the completely moronic idea to take cover behind the flat of his blade! Did the stupid hicks in this village not understand how electricity worked?

Ragus threw his head back and laughed at the idiocy of it all before the attack connected.





-The One Asta VS Yuno fight that wasn’t like all the others-

“This time, I’M GONNA WIN, YUNO!” Asta declared as his big brother stood across him in the forest clearing they used to spar in since the fights around town had started to draw a crowd.

Well, I can never say he isn’t optimistic, Yuno thought to himself as Sunset gave them the signal to begin.

Like always, Yuno was in the air long before Asta could get within melee range, and as per a previous arrangement, the shorter boy didn’t try climbing any more trees to get up higher. Which meant Yuno wouldn't need to chop them down. The church had enough firewood for another two years after Asta had tried pulling that stunt.

So instead, the boy with the big black sword took up his usual stance made for cutting through multiple shots of magic. When it came down to it, Asta’s strategy was something only he would think up: just keep destroying Yuno’s attacks until the taller boy was too low on mana to even fly, then attack him when he landed.

Since Yuno had enough mana to send low level attacks to Asta for nearly twenty-hours straight, he didn’t see that happening any time soon.

Still, the battle commenced and Yuno sent wave after wave of low level blades, which Asta property slashed apart. As previous battles had ended with Yuno making a small tornado under Asta and throwing him off balance, the shorter boy began running, carefully positioning his sword to slice apart any winds Yuno might try to build up around him while also fending off the cutting attacks.

Nearly ten minutes into the battle, Yuno made his play for taking Asta down, sending half a dozen air slices at him from multiple directions while building up a little minor tornado under one of his feet to try and make him lose his footing. With the attacks coming from all around him, Asta couldn’t run out of the way and had to deal with the tornado first, leaving him open for the slashing winds.

With no real time left, Asta spun in a circle, cutting one of Yuno’s attacks that was just barely in range of his sword before going after another.

Then, whether because spinning around made him dizzy as hell, or by some bit of luck, Asta’s grip slipped on his sword and it turned sideways, the flat of the blade being turned into the swing rather than the edge. The sword connected with another attack, but instead of dispelling it, the magic was pushed along with the sword as it collected another wind blade, then two more before Asta faced Yuno again and sent the mass of slashing winds back at him.

What? Yuno thought, surprised at the current predicament of his own attack coming back towards him, passing through his defensive mana like it wasn’t even there that he didn’t cancel his magic and was struck by an attack four times stronger than what the girls of their group had determined to be a non-damaging dose of magic. He felt his own blade cut into him.

His whole body wobbled and Yuno fell from the sky and onto the dirt as his consciousness began to slip away.

“YEAH, I WO-uh, Yuno?”

Soft hands touched his skin. Hands that couldn’t have lived a hard life like he had. “Oh God! I think it hit an artery!” Sunset’s voice cut through the coming darkness in a panic. “It’ll be okay, it’s going to be okay. I’ve got you and it’s going to be okay.”

-Four Seconds Ago-

I’m such an idiot, Yuno thought to himself as he landed in the remains of the church and watched his eagle get destroyed almost casually.

After lifting the church, Yuno had used all his concentration to make sure that nobody else was caught up in his wind that he didn’t bother checking to make sure that things were going to plan. Secre had said that the head mage had a chance of not getting caught up in Sunset’s attack, but he should have made sure that the man’s goons didn’t avoid her sword either.

Asta had gone after the wrong guy, but it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t sense magic like Yuno could.

But Yuno had been too caught up in making sure the building didn’t crumble, and for what? To make sure they kept a few meager possessions?

Now, because of his idiocy, his family was dead.

Yuno tried firing off a few attacks, but after half a day of training and putting more mana into a spell than he ever did before, he was nearly tapped out and his body was aching all over. Even with the damage the diamond mage had taken, Yuno knew he wasn’t going to be a match for the man.

He yelled to Asta, making the boy look up a moment before the mage began gathering power for a spell. Then, when the mage pointed his hand at Asta, the boy took cover behind his sword and braced himself.

Lighting flew from the mage’s hand after a short incantation to strike the black sword not even a moment before Asta braced himself and let out a raging cry. Then, the second-shortest living orphan in Hage Village pushed back on the lighting bolt and sent it hurling towards the caster.

“WHA-” the mage managed to say before several thousands, if not millions, probably billions, volts of electricity slammed into him, getting a loud scream in response before the smell of ozone filled the air and light blinded everyone present.

When Yuno could see again, the bunt corpse of the mage who killed his family was still standing where it had sent the magic to murder the closest thing he had ever known to a mother.

Asta panted, although if it was from the effort or some onset of hyperventilation, Yuno wasn’t sure.

Father Orisi simply stood there, his face looking more old and tired that Yuno could ever remember.

Nash was on his hands and knees, staring blankly ahead.

Nobody moved for several seconds. Yuno wasn’t even sure anyone was even breathing, aside from Asta.

Then, the sound of footsteps coming up the road drew his attention and he looked back to see his little sister running into the remains of the church. “Hey guys. Did it work? Is everyone oh...no,” she breathed.

With the battle finally registering as over, Yuno felt the strength slip from his legs before he hit his knees on the dirty old carpet that lined the space between the pews of the chapel. His eyes began to water despite how much he tried to make them not to.

He couldn’t cry.

He hadn’t cried since he was eight years old and Asta had to save him from a pair of men that wanted the worthless jewel on his necklace.

Ever since being saved by a boy with no magic while he had impressive talent even then and seeing Asta laying on what might have been his deathbed if not for Sister Lilly, Yuno had promised himself that he would never cry again. He would become strong enough so that nobody he loved would get hurt and protect everyone!

Only...he hadn’t been strong enough to protect anyone.

Soft hands touched Yuno, and he looked up to see Sunset standing over him, her own face wet with tears. “I’m sorry,” she told him before pulling him into a hug that buried his face in her chest. “I’m so sorry.”

No, it was my fault...not yours, he thought as the tears began to fall.

If he wasn’t strong enough to protect everyone, then he was weak enough to cry.





“-we therefore commit their bodies to the ground. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” Father Orisi said before speaking the final words in the traditional burial service. A minute later, the cheap caskets that had been made from material the boys gathered from the woods and nails Sunset had ripped from the remains of the church were lowered into the ground before a wave of earth magic buried them.

Most of the village had turned out for the funeral. As a healer, Lilly had spent time with nearly every person there was, fixing some kind of problem when a person got hurt. The rest of the children though, only three of the people other than Orsi himself were there for them.

It had been two days since everything had changed. The first day, Orsi had the children busy themselves with getting what they could from the remains of the church while he prepared things for Lilly’s wake. Despite Yuno’s best efforts and Sunset’s care, the place had collapsed the day after it was moved. Still, at least the children had been able to take the few possessions they owned. Sunset had found her other magic book and hadn’t let the thing out of her sight since, carrying it around as if it was another grimoire.

The crowd started to disperse, leaving him alone with seventy-five percent of the children still under his care. The corpses looked like they had more life in them than the eyes of the three in front of him.

“It was my fault. I took out the wrong guy.”

The other three people looked over to Asta, a bit of energy returning to them. Unfortunately, it was for a purpose that Orsi didn’t approve of as both Sunset and Yuno looked down at him.

“No, it’s my fault,” Yuno said with barely any life in his voice. “I should have checked to make sure the leader was out of commission. I could have ended this before he got up again.”

Sunset quickly followed the tall boy in a tired tone. “I’m the one that’s to blame. I should have made my spell to kill-”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Orsi yelled at the three of them before they could begin arguing over who was at the greatest fault. “You will not talk like that here, not in front of them!” He threw a hand out at the graves, only one of which was a real headstone that everyone in the village had chipped in to get, while the others made do with simple wooden crosses that had been stuck in the ground.

As the three children flinched at his voice, Orsi moved to each one in turn. “Asta, if not for you, then that man we sent to the magistrate would have taken the children hostage, attacked Yuno from behind, or worse! Yuno, only a fool takes everything onto himself. If not for you, the building would have collapsed on us all! And you,” he said, moving to Sunset. “How dare you say such a thing, here of all places. Magic is a beautiful thing. A gift from God to lighten the burdens of the world. It is NEVER a weapon that should be used to take the life of another! Your abilities exist to help others. The only one who is to blame lies dead at his own hand, struck down by the magic he himself unleashed! And I NEVER want to hear any of you say otherwise again, understood?”

“Yes Father,” the three teenagers replied in unison.

After a second of silence, Asta looked around. “Is Nash still…”

The question went unfinished and Orsi looked over to the house that had agreed to take the boy in for a few days. All the children were staying with people around the village. “He hasn’t spoken since. No,” Father Orsi told them while doing his best to keep his voice civil.

It hadn’t taken more than a glance to understand what that man Ragus had been doing at the church, looking for Asta. Nash had led them there. And after going through the mage’s things to find a collection of nearly melted yul, it hadn’t taken long to figure out why.

“But, after we get to Nairn, I’m sure he will cheer up, seeing all the new faces at Mother Theresa’s orphanage,” Orsi assured them. It was a false assurance, though. He didn’t know what was to be done about the boy.

Yuno nodded. “We’ll do our best to stop by as soon as we have some time,” he assured the older man.

Orsi nodded. “Of course, I understand that being a magic knight will mean a busy schedule, there’s no need for you to go out of your way,” he told them before looking down at Asta.

A day ago, he had argued with the wizard in charge of the grimoire tower that he had been foolish to encourage Asta to take the Magic Knight Exam. Now, the boy-without-magic’s foolish dream might have been the only thing keeping him going. “And you will be a Magic Knight, Asta,” Orsi told him. “Lilly died to save you. Make sure that it wasn’t for nothing.”

“Yeah.” After a few seconds, the boy’s mouth ticked upward just a bit. “I’ll be more than just a Magic Knight, Father.”

Knowing where this was going, Orsi took Sunset by the shoulder to guide her away from the boys so they could start building each other up again, like always.

“...maybe,” the taller boy’s voice replied.

“OH COME ON!” Asta yelled. “DO YOU THINK SISTER LILLY AND THE OTHERS WANT TO SEE US LIKE THIS? WHEN I BECOME THE WIZARD KING, I’M GONNA COME BACK HERE AND SHOW OFF MY CROWN!”

“The Wizard King doesn’t have a crown.”





It was almost dark as Sunset perched herself on a branch and up against a tree. Asta and Yuno had only recently gone to the homes that agreed to take them in for a week or less. But Sunset didn’t want that married couple that was as young as she was, physically at any rate, to see what she was doing. Which was looking at something she hadn’t pulled out in a long time. 

Her journal.

Since Lilly’s death, she had found herself wanting to talk to someone about it, anyone. But the boys needed someone to help keep them steady and Father Orsi just...didn’t get it.

The flutter of wings alerted Sunset to Secre’s presence and she looked up at the bird that Sunset noticed flew off whenever the priest was around the past few days. “Hey.”

“How are you holding up?” the bird asked.

“Well enough...I guess,” she relied before her mind thought back to that day. If only they had done something different…

Secre snorted. “Well, your ability to guess is terrible. You all suffered a loss, but you can’t let that deter you from-”

“Freeing your boyfriend?” Sunset asked evenly before she looked up at the bird. “That’s what you want us to do, right? Get him out of that statue he’s in? That’s why you’re here. What’re you going to do if we die? Go find someone else to be your errand boys? That’s what you immortal assholes do, right? Just move on to find another pawn when one of us crokes or runs away?”

After a few seconds of silence the bird raised an eyebrow. “Something tells me that this isn’t about me anymore.”

Sunset looked back to her journal. “Did I ever tell you what this is?” she asked as she ran her hand across the cover.

“The magical book that lets you talk to your adopted mother, right?” the bird asked.

Sunset pressed her lips together. She should have never told Yuno that stuff back at the tower. It had gotten out and now everyone in their little group kept calling Celestia Sunset’s mom. Which she wasn’t. Not then, or now.

“I locked it away for nearly two years. So why am I looking at it now?” she asked both herself and the bird.

When no answer came from within, Sunset looked up to Secre. “Well, it’s been my experience that when people face something like a close one dying, it puts their life into a whole new perspective. They reevaluate their lives in this new context. Sometimes the outlook sticks,” she said before shrugging. “And sometimes they go back to the old thought process within a few weeks when the shock wears off.”

Sunset opened the book to the last page with writing on it. “So you’re saying I should...what?”

“Wait for what? I’m not even sure what you’re asking about anymore,” Secre replied.

Neither am I, Sunset thought as she read over the last three lines.

It was so easy to lie on paper, but after today...

She looked down at the message that Celestia had left her nearly two years ago.






Sunset, are you there?

You can come back, all is forgiven.

Please, answer me if you are still alive.