Notes from the Author

This is my first time writing fanfiction. I'm used to creating my own characters, so encompassing personalities that are already developed is quite the challenge.

I'm also new to this fandom, so please let me know if any lore is inaccurate.

With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

Discord

Akko was in trouble. That much was obvious.

The Wyvern rumbled towards her, jaw agape to reveal two rows of deadly fangs. Saliva struck the ground in sharpened icicles, frozen by the foul, icy breath of the creature ready to swallow her alive. Or, not alive. Akko didn't know, and she certainly didn't want to find out. She had to do something, and fast.

Taking a deep breath, she rose from where she'd been crouching behind the thick bush that was serving as her cover and pointed her wand straight at the oncoming beast.

"Ventus cuniculum!" she shouted, screaming out the first attack spell that came to her mind. Her teeth gnashed together as she felt the magic pulse through her arm and from the tip of the wand. A blast of swirling wind was sent straight into the Wyvern's open mouth. The beast stumbled, its gaping maw snapping shut in surprise, rearing back on its legs and spreading huge, formidable wings before collapsing backwards. Its scales pulsed in color, changing from a cool blue into a shimmering gray.

Akko felt herself grinning. The Wyvern wasn't dead, but Akko was sure that she had pacified the creature. She tucked her wand away and crossed her arms boldly across her chest. She could feel blood slowly leaking from cuts as a result from sprinting through the forest, but that didn't bother her. "That'll show you!" she said with conviction, a confident lilt etching its way into her voice.

But the Wyvern was far from taken care of. Its once threatening gaze turned to pure malevolence as it blinked up at the small witch. The beast rose with renewed vigor, scales glimmering almost as though it had… grown armor? Wings stretched outward once again, the motion sending forth harsh, cold wind that chilled Akko to the core.

The Wyvern opened its mouth once again, nostrils flaring as an ear-piercing roar filled the air. Icy breath bellowed from a widening mouth, freezing a line of trees and bushes close to Akko that shattered into nothing more than piles of ice. She lifted her hands to deflect ice that had flown in her direction.

Before Akko could even reach for her wand, the Wyvern was lumbering in her direction. She didn't have any time. She stumbled backwards, crossing her arms in front of her face in a last resort for defense, waiting for those frozen teeth to sink into her body and-

"Murowa!"

The ground suddenly stopped quaking beneath Akko's feet. No deadly fangs sank into her flesh. She could no longer feel the frozen breath of the looming creature. She waited for a moment before peeking out from behind her arms to see that it was true, she hadn't been eaten. The Wyvern was gone. Instead, a pile of smoldering ashes were settling into the ground mere inches from her.

"Diana?" Akko glanced around until she found the familiar blonde witch hovering nearby on her broomstick. "Diana!" She couldn't hide the glee in her voice. "You did it! You killed the dragon!"

Diana was tucking her wand away as she slowly lowered her broomstick and climbed gracefully off, examining the results of the once-Wyvern and huffing angrily. "Akko, you can't possibly be serious, can you? What were you thinking? You put yourself in so much danger."

Akko began brushing the dirt off her sleeves. She shrugged. "I had it," she said. "Well, I thought so. I tried to-"

"I know precisely what you did," Diana said, piercing blue eyes locking on Akko. "You did the exact thing that we discussed you were not to do. Besides," she crossed her arms across her chest, blowing a strand of hair from her eyes and inhaling deeply, "you are well aware that we were not supposed to kill the creature."

The earth was once again quivering under their feet, but both of the witches ignored it. Akko felt her cheeks reddening as she glared back at Diana, fists clenching at the sides of her dirty school uniform.

"You immediately broke away from the plan, you took off without me, you didn't even try to engage in any kind of actual defensive skill-" Akko could barely hear Diana over the rushing wind that had filled her ears. Still, she unfortunately knew exactly what Diana was saying. "Plus, you used a wind spell," Diana continued as the Arcturus Forest slowly melted around them, "which, if you'd even bothered to study, you would very well know that first, that was not a dragon, but in fact an Ice Wyvern, and, second, that wind acts as a defensive buff to them."

"I did study! I must have just… missed that part," Akko screamed back. She hadn't studied at all, in fact. Her face was burning red hot. Her stomach lurched as the entire world seemed to shift around them. "Besides, your plan was horrible. It was headed straight for me, what was I supposed to do?"

Diana closed her eyes and lifted a few fingers to her temple, as though speaking to Akko had given her a headache. "I swear, Akko, you are absolutely incorrigible," she said, just as the world had stopped shifting, the wind had died down, and Akko had yelled, "Not everyone's perfect like you, Diana!"

They were surrounded by absolute silence.

Both witches looked up from each other. Rows of students stared at them, gawking. Well, except for Sucy, who had a hand covering her mouth and was clearly overjoyed by the dispute on display.

"Well, then." Professor Badcock broke the silence, lowering her glasses on her nose to glower at Diana and Akko from her lecture stand, which had been positioned on the side of the room to watch the practical exercises. "Miss Kagari, Miss Cavendish, you may take your seats. Please come see me after class."

Diana, without so much as a glance at Akko, nodded curtly to Professor Badcock with a polite, "Yes, Professor," before walking back to take her seat among the other members of the Blue Team.

Akko glared after Diana, nostrils flaring. She said nothing, but instead stomped her way over to her own seat to plop down between Sucy and Lotte in a huff.

"Nice one," Sucy mumbled, nudging Akko with an elbow. Lotte, on the other hand, simply goggled at Akko from behind thick lenses before quickly turning back to her notes as though they were far more interesting than the bickering everyone had just witnessed.

Akko could feel Diana's eyes on the back of her head. She slumped down in her chair, crossing her arms over her body and staring straight ahead as the next pair of students entered the simulation. Who did Diana think that she was? Well, besides the most successful student in school? Akko had a great plan going. If Diana had listened in the first place, there wouldn't have been a single issue. The Wyvern would have been repelled, as the criteria explicitly stated as the ideal result of their use of defensive magic, and not killed. And, yet, Diana called her incorrigible, as if she wasn't herself. All Diana did was fly in and perform a single offensive skill. Well, and kind of save her, but that wasn't the point. The class was called Defensive Magic for a reason, and Akko was of the opinion that she had been very much on the defense throughout the trial.

Professor Badcock seemed to think otherwise. "Girls, I'm not so sure what happened between the two of you in there, but that was the most discord I've seen amongst two students in quite a long time. Where do I begin? First, you killed the Wyvern. A mere projection, to be sure, but if this had been a real scenario, you would have found yourself on trial at the Ministry of Magic. You know very well that you are not, under any circumstances, to eliminate a magical creature who is simply indulging in its natural behavior. That is only called for in the extreme case that your life is threatened and," Badcock shot a pointed glare at Akko, "going out of your way to create a life threatening situation is not an excuse."

"Professor-" Diana started.

Professor Badcock held a hand up, instantly silencing Diana. Akko stood a clear foot away from the taller witch, glaring straight ahead.

"You're lucky that was an ungraded practical," Professor Badcock continued, "Because, otherwise, I fear that the mark you would have received would reflect rather poorly. Especially for one such as yourself, Miss Cavendish."

Diana's cheeks had turned a deep shade of red, which gave Akko some kind of contentment. Akko had never been one for good grades, so a less than stellar mark wouldn't have come as a surprise to her. For Diana, though, she knew just hearing the possibility had to be devastating to her ego.

"The two of you have quite a bit of work to do." Professor Badcock was sorting papers on the lecture stand. On the paper holding Diana and Akko's simulation, Akko could clearly see a wall of red writing. "I am going to need to see quite a drastic improvement for your final practical exam. Remember, Defensive Magic is nothing without harmony. The two of you need to be in sync, which, based on your courageous defeat of the Noir Missile, the entire magical and civilian world knows you are capable of. And I don't know what the issue is," Professor Badcock narrowed her eyes from behind her glasses, "but I suggest you two work it out."

As their teacher shoveled her paperwork into her bag and hurried from the lecture hall, Akko felt Diana's eyes on her once again. She glanced up at the other witch.

Diana inhaled sharply, lips parting as though she had something to say, but nothing came out. Instead, she exhaled a deep sigh and turned, wavy blonde hair swishing at her shoulders, and left the room after Professor Badcock.

Badcock was right. They could work as a team, that much was obvious. Akko and Diana. But schoolwork was different. Whereas the objective had been mutually understood in the case of the Noir Missile and the Grand Triskellion, school was a vastly different environment. In that sense, they were as different as night and day, with the ever studious Diana excelling beyond her years and Akko blindly stumbling her way through her courses.

Grumbling to herself, Akko threw her bag of books over her shoulder and stomped off.

"Who does she think she is?"

Akko paced the floor of the room she shared with Lotte and Sucy, wringing her hands together as she glowered at nothing in particular. "She thinks she's so much better than everyone else."

"Well, she's certainly better than you," Sucy passively added. Luckily, Akko didn't hear her as she was too busy grumbling about Diana under her breath.

Lotte sighed. She'd been listening to Akko go on about Diana for the better part of an hour. Setting down the most recent volume of Night Fall, which she'd hardly gotten to read anyway (but that was kind of okay, because she'd already read it twice), she turned her gaze to her irate roommate. "She had a point, Akko. You ran off without her and then used a wind spell on an Ice Wyvern."

Sucy sniggered, glancing up from her desk where she sat smashing mushrooms with her mortar and pestle. "Too bad Diana was there, I wanted to see how that one played out," she said.

"Sucy!" Lotte shot a glare in her direction, turning her attention back to Akko. "You two just didn't work together." She shrugged. "Aside from you not doing the assigned reading," she said, before adding, "Which you should probably be doing right now instead of this."

"Whatever," Akko said, tossing her hand in the air as if deflecting the comment and the idea of studying as a general notion. "I'm too worked up. Did you see the way she was acting? She's impossible to work with!" she groaned.

"Not true." Lotte shook her head. "The two of you stopped the Noir Missile together. That took way more effort than a practice simulation. Besides, Diana picked you as her partner for a practical worth half of our final grade. She clearly thinks you work well enough together. She's placed a lot of faith in you, Akko," Lotte reminds her.

Akko huffed, throwing herself dramatically onto her bed and turning her head to stare at her Shiny Chariot poster. Lotte was right, Diana had chosen Akko, and the two of them had synchronized in the face of extreme danger and destruction. But they were so different when it came to their studies. Diana was leagues beyond Akko in both intellect and skill. Diana could've chosen Hannah, or Barbara, or anyone else. Even Amanda would have been a better option! But, now Akko was expected to match the skill level of the most talented witch at Luna Nova, maybe even the most talented witch to ever grace Luna Nova. How?

Akko sighed heavily, burying her face in her hands. As much as she hated to admit it, Lotte was right. Diana had done nothing wrong. If anything, she had simply misplaced her expectations in a witch as unruly and untalented as Akko.

"If I was Diana, I would just use Akko as bait," Sucy said, leaning down to deeply inhale the scent of whatever it was she'd been making. She grinned, flashing a devious smile at her roommates. "That's employing Akko's greatest skill."

"Sucy!" Lotte shrieked once more.

Sucy shrugged and returned her attention back to her alchemy, but Akko lowered her hands and hummed, eyebrows scrunching together in thought. Sucy had meant it as a dig, but—

"That's it!"

Akko shot up and dashed for the door.

"Akko!" Lotte cried from her bunk. "Where are you going?"

"I've got to talk to Diana!" she called out over her shoulder.

"But, Akko, wait, it's—"

The door slammed shut behind Akko, whose sprinting footsteps could be heard slowly disappearing down the hallway.

"—past curfew."

As Diana rounded the corner from the library, where she had been making sure that no students had fallen asleep over their studies and missed the call for curfew, the blonde witch was deep in thought.

She had selected Akko as her partner for the Defensive Magic assignment for several reasons. First, no one, even Diana Cavendish, could deny their magical compatibility. That much had been proven, even, as Professor Badcock stated, broadcast for the entire world to see. As much as she wasn't keen on finding her magic so synchronized with a witch so… un-synchronized, Akko did have the exact personality type to balance her out. Whereas Diana coordinated her actions to a degree of extreme thoughtfulness, Akko was impulsive and brash. A girl from a non-magical background who, through sheer will and the power of belief, was able to conquer tasks that should have been far outside of her abilities. It was she who received Woodward's blessing, she who unlocked the Seven Words of Arcturus to wield the Claiomh Solais and break the seal of the Grand Triskellion. All, of which, even the likes of Diana, heiress to the House of Cavendish, descendant of the Nine Olde Witch Beatrix, had not been able to accomplish. And not for lack of trying.

Second, Diana had experienced a level of harmony with Akko unlike anything she had felt before. Even thinking about it was enough to make the usually composed witch pause with a sharp intake of breath as she remembered the way their magic swirled within and throughout their bodies as they raised the bow of Claiomh Solais in the face of the Noir Missile. Her skin tingled at the very thought of their hands folding together, the charged feeling of magical energy pulsing through their bodies as if they were one. And, for a few moments, before the entire world, they were. She would be lying if she said she didn't want to experience that again.

The third reason was purely selfish. Over the past year, Diana had noticed along with everybody else that Akko was, well, lacking. Despite the Japanese witch's best efforts and incredible feats, she was still far behind the rest of the class when it came to harnessing control over her magical skill. She had plenty of potential, Diana herself had felt that, but she was absolutely clueless when it came to the matter of applying intellect to her own abilities.

And, so, Diana had taken it upon herself to make one Atsuko Kagari her own special project. Considering they both had the same unfortunate mishap at a young age and Diana was able to overcome it, she thought that maybe she would be able to connect with Akko in a way that would make sense for the younger witch.

"That's absurd, Diana!" Hannah had proclaimed to Diana, who had announced her intentions when Hannah and Barbara had inquired as to why she had chosen Akko, of all people, to be her partner.

Barbara shook her head in disbelief. "Diana, you can't be serious. She's a complete idiot!"

"She's going to bring your grades down," Hannah added.

"You're going to be doing all the work," Barbara said.

"It's like babysitting."

"She can't even fly a broom."

"Remember when she flushed Professor Pisces?"

"Ha, yeah, and-"

Diana cleared her throat. "Enough." She raised her hand to silence the two girls. Turning away from her two roommates, she began organizing her books on her desk. "I chose Akko for a reason, and I intend to honor that. I have full faith in her abilities to excel in this particular assignment."

Hannah and Barbara snickered.

"That would call for Akko to have—" A pointed glare from Diana resulted in Barbara's voice trailing off. "—ability."

But now, after the events of that afternoon, Diana couldn't help but admit that she, once again, as per usual when it came to Akko, had her doubts.

So, as she patrolled the dimly lit halls of Luna Nova, she was contemplating her next step to get Akko where she needed to be for the quickly upcoming assignment. She was so ingrained in her own thoughts, in fact, that she didn't even hear the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps until it was too late. As she began to round the corner to one of the more remote hallways of Luna Nova, somebody slammed right into her. The force of the impact sent her flying backwards, only to have the full weight of the perpetrator land right on top of her.

The familiar tingle sweeping through her nervous system gave Diana a sharp intake of breath. She didn't have to see the brunette hair, the disheveled uniform, or the wide grin to know exactly who it was.

"Akko?"

"Oh, Diana!" Akko raised her head to find her face mere inches from Diana's. "I was looking for you!"

The weight of the other witch was pressing heavily on Diana's chest, causing her lungs to put in extra effort to catch a breath. "Akko, if you would please—" she huffed, feeling a blush creeping into her cheeks at the realization of their close proximity, "—remove yourself? I cannot breathe."

"Oh, sorry." Akko launched backwards, quickly standing and rubbing the back of her neck with a sheepish grin. The moonlight from the large windows cast a glow across the side of her face. "My bad." She shoved her hand out to help Diana up.

Diana eyed the outstretched hand, considering with a hitched breath before ultimately pushing herself up, unwilling for the feeling that seemed to cause a loss of composure to return. Dusting off her uniform, she cleared her throat and brought her gaze to Akko. "Akko, may I ask what you're doing? You know very well that it is past curfew."

"Oh, it is?" Akko asked, bringing her hand to her chin in thought, looking completely unperturbed by the punishable offense Diana had just pointed out. "Well, like I said, I was looking for you, actually. I, uh, wanted to talk to you."

Diana breathed a deep sigh, one hand drifting to her side to ensure that her wand was unharmed in the collision. "And this could not wait for a more… suitable… hour?" She quirked a brow.

"Well." Akko's eyebrows scrunched together as though she was deep in thought. "Eh heh, I guess it could have."

If her eyes could have rolled back into her skull, that's where they would have been. Diana crossed her arms over her chest, blue eyes meeting red as she stared at Akko. "Well, I suppose since you have already broken one of Luna Nova's policies, you may as well continue with your intentions so that your future punishment is not for a fruitless endeavor."

"Great!" Akko exclaimed, her lips spreading wider as her face lit up, before rapidly falling in confusion. "Wait, you're not going to tell on me, are you? Aw, c'mon, Diana! I'm here for you."

"Nevertheless, you have broken a rule that I am entrusted to uphold." Diana pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "Although, I suppose that remains to be seen," she added with a defeated sigh.

The corner of Akko's mouth quirked back up in a knowing smile. "Well, I wanted to talk to you about earlier today," she said. "I'm really sorry I didn't study and didn't know what to do with that dragon."

"Ice Wyvern," Diana corrected. "And your apology is misplaced. Your inaction will only cause harm to yourself."

"Yeah, but your grade is on the line, too." Akko acknowledged, looking down as she twisted a shoe on the stone floor. "Sucy gave me an idea that I think might work."

"Sucy?" Diana raised an eyebrow. "You are going to place your trust in a girl who sneaks experimental potions into your morning juice?"

"Well, yeah," Akko said with a shrug, bringing her eyes back up to meet Diana's. "Why not?"

Diana shook her head in disbelief. "I am perfectly happy to hear what you have to tell me, but now is not the time, Akko. Let's plan to meet at a more reasonable hour. Say, perhaps, when you aren't breaking the rules?"

"Okay," Akko said, chuckling and scratching the back of her neck. "I guess that makes sense. Are you going to tell on me? I really don't want to do the laundry again."

"Tell on who?" Diana asked, raising the corner of her mouth in what she hoped was the tiniest bit reassuring. "I can't tell on someone I have not seen."

"But you saw—" Akko's face scrunched in confusion before her eyes slowly widened. "Ohhh. Right. Okay, thanks, Diana!"

Diana sighed deeply, shaking her hand and watching as Akko disappeared the way that she had come. If nothing else, that girl was going to be the downfall of Diana's unrivaled patience.