With the archway leading into the largest combat coliseum of Solicrave Academy a little way off from them now, Inkaro and co waded their way through the somewhat bustling crowd of academy students and their family members that were engaging in all fashions of festival activities or stands offering many tasty treats. Strangely enough, there was a short line-shape gap in the crowd behind the group, making their path rather obvious.

  Be it the classics: the goldfish scooping one that's scoopers are so weak the paper nets would break if breathed on too hard. Shooting toy arrows at moving targets or at toys in hopes of knocking them over, and winning them as a prize, despite the toys usually being on the heavier side, making them practically luck-based. Oh, and food/snack stands were graciously plentiful, in Lizu and Ana's shared opinions. Along with all those classic stands, there were those of the less classic variety, like bungee jumping-style apple bobbing and other outlandish modifications to the classics.

  Inkaro found a stand with a timed and randomised spell-making challenge particularly eye-catching. His first thought was trying it out with Lizu after the tournament, before shifting his attention as he heard the voice of a certain reincarnator vying for his attention.

  "Aye-yo, Inkaro, over here~" Myendi called out from the Victorian maid-themed stand.

  The design of said stand very much existed based on the whims of Myendi, much to the unenthusiastic Nova, as she and a spiritually energised Myendi both wore maid uniforms ripped straight out from the Victorian era. Myendi's voice effortlessly cut through all other sounds of the festival white noise, such a feat done via her speaking into one of her wind-type Minagary of Broken Refraction tapestries like it was some glassy microphone. The teen continued to wave Inkaro and the others over as she meandered her way around the side of the stand to the front before proudly swaying her arm up to the stand's stylised sign. "This is our stand."

  [Minagary of Broken Refractions: Wind Type] A hand-sized, fifteen-centimetre-tall, six-centimetre-wide, and one-centimetre-thick, almost fully opaque, light grey reinforced glass. Its borders are covered by a sleek, muted band of silver metal case that appears to be moulded to resemble swirling wind.

  "You don't say," Xythio stated bluntly as he placed a box full of plates/trays in Nova's overqualified hands.

  "Smart a...apricot," Myendi grumbled as she side-eyed, feeling immense displeasure at being reminded that Xythio had been exempt from being considered for manning any of the stands because of the stupid(her own opinion) tournament. So any hopes of her seeing Xythio in a butler uniform wouldn't be fulfilled on this day. Boo-hoo. "Inkaro, could you put the..."

  Myendi found her words trailing off as she watched a five-man squadron of Morilores carrying multiple boxes of the confectionery Inkaro had made the day prior. But before Myendi could fully comprehend the bizarre sight of seeing identical human-looking individuals delivering her stand's produce, an audible tsunami of fangirly coos and awes overpowered the prior ambience as a certain prince found his way to Myendi and Nova's stand. Upon setting his focus on the Krutakan princess, Myhail found a self-satisfying feeling well up in him at seeing his fellow humalian of royalty finally doing something non-combat related, as he cheerfully remarked, "Going the extra mile, I see. Truly commendable of you."

  Novarala clicked her tongue, averting her gaze from the prince, before resting her arm on the stand counter and tapping her cyothine(a pale brown metal with a faint rouge-ish sheen) fingernails against the stand. The royal anokrubine humalian was hardly amused.

  Seeing as the group's momentum had slowed to less than a crawl, Inoni figured making some small talk was a better use of her time, compared to how Paruneha was using the same time to sleep some more on Inkaro's shoulders with their head firmly planted on her brother's head. So seeing Paruneha wasn't up for talking, and mostly being mad at the stigmai for taking the spot that rightfully belonged to her or Lizu, Inoni swivelled her head towards the blank-faced Enetha. "Can I ask you something?"

  Enetha silently nodded, as she, Inoni and a sleeping Nuenala were being carried on Lizu's tail.

  "So your overseas friend's academy is the other school that qualified for the festival tournament, right-right?" Inoni asked, whilst finding herself situated on Enetha's seiza-style lap, courtesy of Enetha's cloth-like appendages guiding her to lie down, and on the receiving end of many a headpats.

  Continuing to pamper the kid, but switching up her approach for swirling the young girl's hair instead, Enetha lightly hummed in contemplation, resembling an ink printer on its last leg with how she sounded: "Indeed, Mulinai was certain of the two academies that would have the highest rankings and be chosen for the tournament a month before the official announcement."

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  "Wowie, she sounds... smart? Knowledgable? Insightful... wait... which one was the right word?" Inoni murmured to herself, matching Enetha's level of contemplation, but hyper-focused on a single word instead of a whole answer.

  "Sounds like foresight to me," Myendi grumbled to herself while mentally envisioning herself doing air quotes around foresight and replacing the word with cheating.

  "You're just jealous you wouldn't be able to predict so much as when it will rain, even when you can see the rain clouds," Xythio quipped snarkily, but in an underhanded tone, so only a faintly blushing Myendi would hear him.

  Piggy-backing on and being earnestly carried by Yuuvia, a barely coherent Anazenpha nestled her chin against the other girl's shoulders, letting her cheeks splay out like melting ice cream and letting her left one travel until pressing her face against the side of Yuuvia's head. Although content to have the plenchona demon's weight wreck her muscles for the next few days once they gave out from carrying her all day, Yuuvia couldn't shake the feeling Anazenpha wasn't all that thrilled about something, based purely off the timid tempo that Ana's forked tongue had been flicking at ever since arriving at the academy.

  So, following a heavy breath of the sweetness and tang in the air, Yuuvia queried Ana on her state of mind: "Is something bothering you? Are you hungry? I can buy you something if you want, Ana."

  Anazenpha shook her head once, then nodded, followed by another nod. Having felt Ana do all those head movements with a weak disposition, Yuuvia almost wanted to do nothing more than gush over Ana's low energy antics, purely because the demon girl had brushed her chin against Yuuvia's neck in such a way that it sent a ticklish shiver down the noble astetic-obsessed girl's spine.

  "I got this uneasy feeling... I think that is the way to say it."

  "Maybe it's just your nerves getting the better of you because I am one of the selected five for our academy's team for the tournament. It is only natural for those who are a cou- amours..." Yuuvia facepalmed abruptly, slapping herself hard enough to leave an imprint potent enough to hide her blushing cheeks.

  Mainly from having her eyes closed, Ana didn't so much as stop the swishing of her small snake tail at the sudden slapping sound and faint jostle of the one carrying her. Ana's main reasoning for her inaction was due to the lack of any shouting from Yuuvia at being slapped. Given it was Yuuvia who had slapped herself, probably, the tired demon girl naturally assumed some small insect had to have landed on her carrier's face, or some small object Yuuvia misidentified as an insect, to warrant such an abrupt. But with that all having happened, Anazenpha still made sure to verbally acknowledge Yuuvia's explanation.

  "Oh... I see."

  "I concur, it's not like her stigma is resonating with its origin because she's close to them or anything," Myu uttered calmly, whispering right into Yuuvia's ear as the stigmai appeared from a cluster of muted cyan clouds. Yuuvia jumped on the spot at being blindsided by becoming the target of a conversation invader, narrowly avoiding falling flat on her face and being crushed under Ana, or worse.

  "Why on this gods green Earth would you say something so obnoxiously ominous!?" Yuuvia blurted out in a tactful whisper as she stared defensive daggers at the cloud dragon.

  Not bothering to hide her true intentions whatsoever, and coming clean at the first attempt, Myu smugly shrugged, and equally smugly swished her tail about as she floated leisurely above the crowd: "Lizu bribed me with food Inkaro made to say anything to get under your skin."

  "Well, think of something else that doesn't involve upsetting Ana!" Yuuvia raised her free fist at Myu, who didn't so much as flinch or care about the non-verbal threat, given she was far outside the physical reach of Yuuvia. Myu did find Yuuvia's demeanour towards her rather funny, at least enough to snicker to herself, because she knew Yuuvia would do a one-eighty if the humalian noble knew who her father was. So, knowing that exposing her true identity at a later date after Yuuvia had thoroughly gotten used to acting toward her in a certain way would be a sight to behold, Myu refrained from saying anything too self-incriminating, especially when she noticed a truly ear-to-ear grin warranting sight approached.

  "Like pointing out the leader of the Ultracous Magikrouso is standing right behind you?"

  Yuuvia audibly scoffed at the notion, finding the very notion too funny to keep a straight face, unlike Myu, whose face remained amused and unchanged. Yuuvia wasn't sure what Myu found so funny, but it became glaringly obvious when she heard a voice she'd only heard on the W.I.S.N or TV hit her ears. The crowdgoers' inability to keep their collective cool as they noticed the guy didn't help Yuuvia's nerves that much either, basically confirming her crazed mind's speculations.

  "I see, so this is the young man who-"

  "Father! I told you to quit embarrassing me?! Don't think you're safe to tease me just because you're exhausted!" Louailanye whined sheepishly, in the middle of actively pounding her small fists against the back of Kaluso's head. Yuuvia felt her blood turn cold out of unabashed shock, legs going wobbly shortly afterwards, before losing all strength in her legs. Luckily, she fell in such a way that Anazenpha landed on her feet first, stopping Yuuvia midfall before awkwardly picking her up in a princess carry to make sure she didn't get hurt.

  With all the overstimulation at once, but mainly being carried in such a way, Yuuvia conked out.