Chapter 13: Ogre Play

「...This is a little troublesome.」

Touching her cheek, Violet-san tilted her head and looked toward the spring. Down in the deep water, Rin’s figure was clearly visible.

But even if it’s hide-and-seek, the rule is you don’t lose unless you’re touched. She had to find a way to get close to Rin underwater.

Just as the forest is Violet-san’s territory, the water is Rin’s domain. It’s not that Violet can’t swim, but diving into the spring to catch a mermaid is sheer folly.

After wavering a while, Violet-san left the spot. Rin stayed lurking on the bottom, but she’s an active girl. Before long she got impatient and popped her face above the surface. She looked all around, made sure Violet-san wasn’t there, and—

「Watch out, Rin!」

As Rin neared the bank, Yuuki’s warning came; Rin flipped back into the water in a flash. Violet-san, who had cloaked herself in leaves and blended with the trees, grabbed at empty air. Brambles shot from her fingertips and caught Rin’s tail, but—

「Yah!」

With a shout, Rin released something underwater, and the bramble rope snapped with ease.

「Sensei, what about that just now?」
「Hm. I’ll call that safe. You have to touch with your own body.」

“The brambles are practically part of my body, though,” Violet-san muttered—rare for her to gripe. She must have been frustrated by that one too. She looked around, but Yuuki had already erased her presence completely.
Rin let out bubbly blorps as if to sneer at Violet-san.

「Sensei, this is Rin-chan’s home, isn’t it?」

Violet-san spoke in her usual unhurried, gentle tone.

「It is, but...」
「Would it be all right if it became uninhabitable for a while?」

Ah—she took that a lot harder than I expected.

「That would be a problem... If you don’t want it wrecked, you’d better come out.」

My words reached Rin as well. She finally showed a flicker of panic.

「Then please do your best to stop me.」

With that, Violet-san raised her arms, and brambles rustled forth, wrapping her hands like gauntlets. They swelled massively, forming a gigantic bramble hand—as if she’d put on a giant’s glove.

She plunged that hand straight into the spring. Rin nimbly dodged the fingers, but Violet’s target wasn’t her—the huge boulder lying on the bottom was.

「I am strong.」

Hooking her fingers under the rock’s edge, Violet-san chanted a line of a spell. That’s the Sword Clan’s—!

The bramble gauntlet swelled even larger and heaved the rock up. She hauled it to the surface, turned to the side, and hurled it—toward the spring’s inlet, the little stream where water flows in.

This spring connects to two streams: one bringing water in, one letting it out. By damming only the inlet, she meant to dry it up.

Just as Violet reached for a second rock, Rin blasted out a gush of bubbles. Looking closely, none of the bubbles she’d been releasing had popped; they drifted underwater, and when pushed up by the new ones they burst onto the surface and spilled out around Violet, enclosing her.

「What is this...?」

Not that the bubbles had any offensive power. They were just bubbles—hard to pop, that’s all. Which meant... a diversion!

Coming to the same conclusion I did, Violet snapped up her free left arm and generated a bramble sword there. At that exact moment, Yuuki dropped from the tree overhead and her blade met Violet’s.

「Wah, she noticed!」

No—what Yuuki held wasn’t her usual stone-edged sword. She must have judged it bad form to use a bladed weapon in tag. It was just a wooden stick of handy length. But the fact it clashed with Violet’s sword and held meant she had reinforced it with magic.

Yuuki hurriedly took distance from Violet’s reaching hand. Unlike their previous match, this was tag. Even if she felled Violet, it wouldn’t count as Yuuki’s win, while Violet would win with so much as a fingertip’s touch.

Even for Yuuki, winning head-on under these conditions would be hard.

—But that’s only if it’s one-on-one.

「Hit her!」

Rin popped up from the water and shouted from behind Violet. Nicely done. Yuuki had fled to a position exactly opposite Rin with Violet between them. What Rin launched with magic were bubbles—no, a mass of water. So that’s what had sliced the bramble vine earlier.

Violet hastily raised the bramble gauntlet as a shield and took the hit, but the water shot had enough force to gouge and blast away the brambles. And Rin kept firing in rapid succession. Maybe because Rin is slapdash by nature, her aim was sloppy even with a spell, but dodging that many shots over and over looked rough.

「You’re slow!」

On top of that, Yuuki’s magic flew in. Violet pitched forward, about to lose her balance—

「I am fast!」

—and instantly neutralized it with her own magic.
Even Violet still couldn’t move normally while under enhancement magic. So she used it by loading the bramble gauntlet with weight, or to counter Yuuki’s spells. Excellent.

But Yuuki wasn’t one to miss that instant’s opening. Almost simultaneously she swung a low strike to sweep Violet’s legs. With her balance off, Violet couldn’t evade that blow—

—which Violet avoided by an unnatural leap into the air.

「No way!?」

Violet couldn’t possibly have jumped from that posture—at best she could have rolled. Yuuki’s eyes went wide; she’d counted on that. Violet had shot a bramble vine from her arm to hook a branch and vaulted up like a wire stunt.

She then shot another bramble to a different tree, moving through the air from one to the next. That was how she’d so quickly caught up to the other fleeing students and made ambushes possible.

Yuuki stared up helplessly at Violet darting at high speed overhead. Rin chased with more water shots, but she couldn’t keep up with Violet flitting from tree to tree. All the while, Violet extended more brambles toward Yuuki—aiming to snag her.

Of course, Yuuki wasn’t about to take that so easily. She batted them away and lopped them with her stick. The impact made Violet waver and lose balance, and she fell to the ground.

—But that was a trap.

Drawn in, Rin lowered her target line for the water shots. And in that line of fire—stood Yuuki.

「Wah!」

A totally unexpected friendly fire. Completely off guard, Yuuki took the water shot full in the back and went down on the spot. Violet’s brambles curled around her body.

「No way...!」

Shoving in her stick, Yuuki strained to sever the brambles. But faster than that, they hoisted her up and flung her.

「Eh—w-wah—waaah!」

The arc of Yuuki’s flight was headed right for Rin, who had her face above the surface. Rin flung her arms wide and caught Yuuki. Unable to completely kill the impact, the two of them splashed down into the water with a big plop.

Yuuki hastily pried Rin’s arms off to push her away, but it was already too late. Enormous bramble hands enclosed them both and squeezed tight.

If it had been Rin alone, it wouldn’t have gone so easily. She swims freely underwater and fires water shots from range; catching her is a tall order. But by throwing Yuuki and making Rin catch her, Violet created an opening. A victory born of Violet’s split-second judgment.

「See? I told you it wouldn’t even take till noon.」

Pointing at the sun just about to reach the zenith, Nina said with a hint of pride.

「Right. Then how about we all go have lunch—」
「Sensei, one more time! Just one more round!」

Cutting me off, Sig shouted that in frustration.

「We can do it after we eat...」
「Um, Sensei, I’d like to try once more as well. I can skip lunch.」

Then Luka chimed in too.

「Me too! I wanna do it again!」
「Uu—so frustrating, Onii-chan! I’m doing it again too!」

Rin and Yuuki added their voices in agreement.

「I don’t particularly mind... What shall we do?」

Having them go without eating is... well. Luka can store up meals, so she’d be fine, but the others are creatures whose original biology is to eat every day.

「Then we’ll eat here and do another round afterward.」
「No!」

At Nina’s words, Sig shouted. Nina narrowed her eyes slightly. Ah—her tell when she’s a bit annoyed.

「All right then. We’ll do it again. However—」

In a chill, sinking voice, Nina declared:

「I’m it.」

After that, including Violet-san, every last one of them was caught within five minutes.