CHAPTER 121: REALLY, BITCH?

The first hour of the class passed with learning more about the Wind-puffing Rabbits and it was time to pair up as the rest of the period apparently required more active participation from the students.

Lea put her hand into one of her pouches and retrieved eight familiar discs that she tossed into the air. They fell at precise locations and exact distances from each other, releasing Magical energy as one to create a netted Dome.

"Don’t want these little dears getting away," she said and then began to pull out Cage after Cage of Wind-puffing Rabbits, enough for the whole class if they divided into pairs.

Speaking of which, she chose the pairs herself. Sort of.

There were instances—like when Delia pulled Eloise away from Caius’s side to signal she would be her partner—that Lea Gilligan allowed pairings she didn’t choose to stand.

Other times, she looked at how close some students stood together and picked them. This may have been the case for Kaya and Aylin whom she paired up.

The two ladies remained within a foot or two of each other ever since they had cooed over a rabbit together, sparing each other very intense glances and even actually having a staring contest at one point. A staring contest they both ended when they, quite uncannily, looked away from each other at the same time.

Really, it could have been how close they stood together that Lea had grouped them. Or it could have also been the tension they continued to give off and she just wanted to see them blow up. Caius didn’t put that past the wild-eyed Professor whom he knew would likely welcome the chaos that would ensue and even let it play out a bit before she stepped in to break it up.

Funny thing was though, neither Kaya nor Aylin protested to being paired up. If anything, they smirked like they had just been waiting to get each other alone.

Caius let out a sigh and then received his partner; Doran Langston.

Doran gave Caius a few uncertain smiles and raised a hand for a timid wave.

"Hey," he said, "I’ll try not to be a bother."

Caius returned the smile as best he could and then looked at Lea but she was already looking away and pairing up others.

Each pair was given a rabbit and a small pouch of feed to use to pacify the Beast as best they could.

Caius opened the cage and reached in to grab the rabbit by the sides, pulling it out of the cage. The creature’s green eyes were suddenly very intense and, on instinct, Caius knew what was coming. He directed the Rabbit’s head upward just in time for the puff of wind to blow upward instead of directly into his face.

Not everyone had been as wise.

"Ahhhh!!!"

Multiple voices cried out as they were knocked away. A good few even slammed against the netted Dome, groaning at the pain of the impact.

Caius recognized one of the voices and looked back to see Kaya sliding away, cutting a groove across the grassy ground as she tried to ground herself. At the same time, Aylin Khione laughed a wicked cackle.

She had a rabbit in her hands and had its head turned toward Kaya in what was clearly a weaponization of the Beast’s wind puffing.

"Gods, you should have seen your face!" She laughed so hard, droplets of tears formed at the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, that is it!" Kaya said and stood to her feet.

Already, green motes of Nature Magic appeared and she had a seal formed. She thrust her hand forward and, just as a spell circle was about to come into being, Aylin thrust the rabbit forward.

"Really? You’ll hurt this cute little thing to get to me?" Aylin asked.

"I’ll just strike you around it," Kaya said, continuing her spell cast.

"And how will you do that?" Aylin asked and pulled the rabbit back to snuggle her cheek against its fluffy white coat.

Kaya paused and looked like she was making a few quick calculations. She wanted her attack to be as painful as possible and it would surely jostle the rabbit enough to cause it to fall to the ground.

’It doesn’t matter,’ she thought to herself, ’It’s a Three-star beast. It can take it.’

But even as she said that in her head and worked out how she could still manage an attack without harming the beast, her eyes remained on the rabbit’s cute face. Staring into its green eyes until she just couldn’t do it.

’Fuck! Fuck my gentle heart!’

"Aylin, drop the rabbit and face me," she said.

"And why would I do that?" Aylin asked with an innocent-sounding voice.

"Because if you’ve been able to act like an ass for a whole week, you should at least have the backbone to back up your shitty behavior," Kaya said through gritted teeth.

"Oh spare me, Elf..." Aylin started with a particular distaste in her voice as she said ’Elf’.

"Half-Elf," Kaya corrected.

"Like that makes a difference," Aylin scoffed and snuggled her cheek even more against the rabbit’s fluffy coat. It was almost amazing how she could look so cute as she did that and yet sound so spiteful as she said,

"I, unlike you, am cultured. This, as unorthodox as it looks, is still a classroom. We are in the presence of a Professor. Learning about these cute babies right here.

Time and place, Elf. You should learn the concept."

"Oh, you’re such a coward," Kaya said, "The Professor doesn’t care."

She might have been right. After all, Lea Gilligan was smiling at them encouragingly.

Kaya waited but Aylin never put the rabbit down and held it close to her body like it was armor. That ended up being unwise because she had forgotten what the Wind-puffing Rabbit was known for which is a bit silly since it’s quite literally in the name.

*Puff!*

The sound was muffled by how close the creature’s mouth was to Aylin but the way it sent her flying was not at all subtle.

"Ah!" She cried out suddenly as her hold on the Rabbit loosened and she went sliding away.

Quickly, the ground beneath her iced up and, where Ice should have been slippery, it seemed to instead give Aylin stability as she stopped moving barely a second after the ice appeared.

Kaya laughed.

The Wind-Puffing Rabbit began hopping away but she used the spell she had been planning to attack the smug Ice Mage with to wrap the Magical Beast with one vine. Holding it in place.

Kaya controlled the vine to bring the Rabbit closer but before it was within one foot away from her, something icy swung out aiming for her face. Kaya smacked it aside with another one of the Vines she had conjured.

The Rabbit got close enough for her to grab and cradle in her arms then as she glared at Aylin whose lips were pressed into a hard line with a resentful look in her icy blue eyes.

"A cheap shot. Really, bitch?" Kaya asked, "You sicken me!"

"How about this then?" Aylin asked and she was already encasing Kaya’s feet in a block of ice that she pulled to knock the half-elf off her feet.

Off balance, Kaya relinquished hold of the Rabbit in her arms. It hit the ground but Aylin grabbed it with a sphere of ice before it could even think to get away, bringing it back into her arms.

"There we go," she said, nestling it against her heavy bosom, "Right where you should be."

Kaya avoided hitting the ground by controlling her vines to bunch up beneath her. The vines also got her upright so she could control a few of them to wrap about Aylin’s arms, pulling them away from the rabbit so it could be free to fall to the ground again.

Just as she had done before, she wrapped the Rabbit with a vine and pulled it close. Before it got close and before Aylin could even react, the Wind-puffing Rabbit puffed its cute cheeks and blew a focused wind attack at Kaya’s chest.

It caught her by surprise and she didn’t even get her vines to come to her rescue as she hit the ground hard.

"Ha!" Aylin laughed only to see the Rabbit—now free of the vine that had been pulling it toward Kaya—turn its face toward her and blow.

She reacted quickly and erected a wall of ice.

Alas, the wind attack from the Rabbit was so forceful, that it broke through the wall, shattering it and striking her in the stomach so she hit the ground just as hard as Kaya had.