Anna

Nikita walked into the meeting room with her bag under her arms, most everyone on the Student Council was already present and she knew the only reason that she was here was because the usual representative was sick. Nikita adjusted the blue cuffs that signified her proficiency with the color and adjusted the rank symbols on her collar as she took her seat at the round table. “Nikita Morov,” a voice spoke, “I'm honored to have the head of Student Affairs grace us with her presence.” Aleksander Volaiv, a student a month or two older than Nikita at most and layered under so much formal clothing that the only clear feature was his striking face and expertly trimmed brown hair. He was the head of the student council, known formally as the President since he presided over all meetings of students.

	“As you know,” She took out her papers while explaining, “my vice-captain has been sick for the past few days. It wouldn't do to have her attending meetings when she won't attend class.” Nikita had been giving herself a once over the whole time she had been talking to make sure every piece of formality she had to wear was where it was supposed to be. She brushed a strand of her blonde hair out of her face as a balding man with wild red hair in the dull uniform of the Arbitrators stood up to call the meeting.

	“Everyone settle down,” the older man said in a gravely voice, “We're starting this meeting of the one hundred and twentieth student council.”

	“Thank you, Ubul,” Aleksander said and beckoned for the man to be seated as he looked to the dozen other students sitting around the table, “Now, does anyone have a topic of discussion or should we move onto the voting for the monthly calendar.”

	“Excuse me,” A brown haired girl raised her hand, “My name is Phula and I'm here on behalf of the gardening club.”

	“Go on,” Aleksander prompted.

	“As you know, there have been attacks on students by some kind of mind mage and my club members are scared to leave their rooms.”
	A younger man, at least a year Nikita and Aleksander's junior and dressed in much the same way as Aleksander, turned to the president of the council. “May I?” He asked of his superior who nodded. “Phula, my name is Purono and I'm a law-mage with the enforcement division of the student council.”

	“Sir.” the brown hair girl said in acknowledgment.

	“Thank you, I assure you that the members of your club are in no danger. In fact, criminal activities have dropped to near zero in the past few months.”

	“But the students who were attacked,” the girl started before Purono held up his hand to stop her.

	“They were involved in illegal activities on school grounds, neither I or anyone in the enforcement division have any reason to believe the attacker would target innocent people.”

	“But they are still attacking students,” Nikita said bluntly, leaning in as she looked him in the eyes, “as a member of the enforcement division, you cannot by condoning such actions.”

	“As a member, I need to know how to prioritize, and looking for whoever is taking care of scumbags is not a priority.” Purono responded very curtly.

	“Ubul,” Nikita's gaze turned towards the Arbitrator and her former mentor, “What do you think? You're an Arbitrator, right?”

	“Woah,” he held up his withered hand as in defense,“I'm just here to call the meeting and make sure you don't stab each other.” Nikita just sat back in her chair. “You all are in charge of the goings on of the campus, you want the Arbitrators to get involved, take a vote and I'll pass it on.”

	“We don't need the Arbitrators,” Purono stood up from his seat, “there is nothing wrong, Phula, your club members are safe.” Nikita packed up the belongings she had bothered to put out and pushed out from the table to leave. “We still need to vote.” Purono told her, like he had a right to give her an order.

	She looked to the student council president and he nodded, they both knew that she took any matters concerning the Affairs committee privately. “Good day, Mr. President, Student Council, Ubul.” She let some derision slip in with the last name as she left the room.


	Outside of the room she saw her assistant waiting with a notebook, a short little brunette who was two years younger than Nikita. “Captain, I have some news.” She said and started walking when it was clear Nikita wasn't slowing down. “As of ten minutes ago, I am the acting vice-captain of Student Affairs and-”

	Nikita stopped her mid sentence “Bali's only been absent for two days, I appreciate enthusiasm but don't loot the house before it burns.”

	“Uh..” The young girl paused, trying to refocus after that expression. “No, I mean, as of ten minutes ago, Miss Bali officially resigned.” She started walking again and Nikita followed suite.

	“I know she sounded depressed, but that's not like her.” Nikita mumbled, “and if it was ten minutes ago, you should have gone to that blasted meeting instead. Are we sure she wasn't coerced to quit, I need to check in on that. So why didn't-”

	This time the young girl cut her off. “Ma'am, I, well I tried to find you but a goblin held me up. Apparently her club captain was attacked by the mind mage and broke down a rig he'd been working on all year.”

	“For what?” She asked, snapping her fingers for the girl to hurry up, “goblins breaking down half finished projects to start something new isn't unusual.”

	“Scrap, Miss Hidecrawler said he just broke it down and threw the scrap away one day.”

	Nikita massaged her temples, surely if she said something about it to the student enforcers, they would find some way to present any goblin as a sort of criminal. “So Bali, how do we know she wasn't coerced?”

	“Mr. Ubul was there to witness it, he said she was doing it of her own free will.”

	'Sometimes' Nikita thought to herself, 'sometimes I was innocent enough to believe that' She took in a breath and began speaking as if her thoughts were fleeting and would vanish if she didn't get them out. “I'll go check on Bali, see how she's feeling and then go ask Ubul some questions. I know he's an arbitrator, but he's hardly a role model for the ages. Hina,” she pointed to her assistant “prepare a formal complaint with the enforcement division  for when I get back. I find proof that Bali was attacked, they'll have to start investigating, unless of course skipping classes is a criminal act... Hina, look up the statutes on skipping classes while you're at it.”

	“Y-yes Ma'am”

	“Also!” Nikita was waving her finger to recall what she was going to say. “Get Miss Hidecrawler to the Student Affairs Office: good sources are hard to keep.”

	“Yes Ma'am” Hina was still following her as she walked as though they were on a stroll.

	“Hina?” She asked with slight annoyance.

	“Ma'am?”

	“Dismissed.” She held up her hand and the assistant immediately scampered away.


	Nikita arrived at the girls' dormitories as it was getting dark and showed her rank to the guard standing watch outside to be let in, from there it was one flight of stairs and a hard right before she reached the room of her ex-vice-captain. “Bali,” She asked to the door, “are you in? I just want to make sure you're alright.”

	“Go away,” a voice said, it sounded like Nikita's friend without the enthusiasm or joy that usually pervaded her speech.

	“Bali, what happened Bali, why did you quit?”

	“Does it even matter?” The girl asked from the other side of the door.

	“Yes, yes it does” Nikita said, feeling somewhat frustrated by this conversation. “Now open the door before I open it with force.” The door clicked and standing on the otherside was a black haired girl just a year Nikita's junior with unkempt hair and a tired look. “That was easier than I thought.” She commented and walked past Bali who didn't do anything to stop her.  “You need to do some cleaning, Bali,” she commented after turning on the lights and seeing clothes and food wrappers strewn across the floor.

	“I'm sorry,” she said numbly and began going to picked up the discarded items like a golem with a worn down power source. Nikita knocked the garbage out of her hands when she got close. “I'm sorry,” she moved to pick it up but was grabbed by the upper-classman

	Nikita had Bali by the wrists as she tried to look the girl in the eyes. “Not getting mad when I barged in or turned on the lights is believable,” she twisted her head to try and keep Bali's eyes in sight, “even when I started ordering you, being your senior and all. But you didn't even raise your voice when I knocked it out of your hands.” She ended up freeing one of Bali's arms to grab her face and hold it in place. “I'm sorry, Bali, but I have to do this, I have to figure this out.” Nikita's eyes began to glow as she channeled mana and dove into her friend's mind. Not a moment later did she shove herself out of Bali's mind and stumble over to a seat. “What happened to you.” She breathed heavily as she sat in the cluttered chair, she had pushed into minds before but never had she found one like Bali's, falling through a void the moment she entered with only ruins floating in mid air to mark the passage of space. She recovered, well, she needed to have recovered, and put both of her hands on Bali's shoulders. “Bali, get your toiletries and make your way to the Student Affairs Office, stay there until I get back.”

	“Alright,” she said in the same tone she said every word of their conversation.

	“We're going to make this right, I'm going to fix you, Bali.” She swore to the girl, though Nikita knew it was more for herself than Bali. She let go and exited the room, only calling “Lock the door behind you!” when she left, she needed to find Ubul and see what he knew


	Even at night the Arbitrators' campus office was open in case students had a problem that needed addressing, and that night Nikita had a problem with one of the Arbitrators. “Ubul,” she called as she entered the empty office, a little sign on the wooden desk in the lobby said he would be back shortly. “Ubul, I need to talk with you.” She called out again, walking around the lobby.

	“Nikita?” His gravelly voice called out. “I'm in the armory, come on down!” She followed the sound of his voice down the stairs past the door and into a dark room just lit enough to see Ubul tending to golems affectionately called 'Judges'. “Nikita, my friend, what can I do for you?

	“It smells like corpses down here, Ubul,” she said covering her mouth and nose, looking at the judges as if one of them was going to leap at her with a sword.

	“That's my hand and the dust mostly,” he said, “You wouldn't believe how much cologne I need for it to go outside.”

	“You got it in the Catoblepas Swamps, right?” She asked, still scanning for any threats that the shadows concealed. She couldn't put feelers out for magic, but just using magic to try and detect living creatures would be enough for her purposes.

	“Yeah, got into a fight with a Necromancer trying to dig up secrets. I like to to say he got my hand, and I got his head.” He laughed at his comment.

	She didn't pick up anyone hiding in the shadows with what magic she knew for that and looked towards Ubul. “Did you pick up any secrets while you were there?” He didn't respond so she figured it was all the permission she needed to keep pushing. “You know, like erasing minds?”

	“What exactly are you accusing me of?” He asked her with some indignation. “After everything I did for you? You've got quite a nerve.” He pointed his withered hand at her and she grabbed it, twisting the appendage back to his pain.

	“I know what you've done for me, Ubul, and we agreed to part ways; But one of my friends had her mind wiped, and you are the one that took her resignation form.” She twisted his hand back as she talked to him before releasing it. “I'm sorry, Ubul, but you must have known she wasn't in any state of mind to resign. You should have reported it.”

	“Listen,” he rubbed his hand, “I didn't tell anyone because I was cornered by one of the enforcement division law-mages. He told me if I told anyone, he'd turn me into a vegetable.”

	“I know you can use magic, Ulub, you're an arbitrator, you taught me how to use-” Nikita stopped herself, yeah he taught her but then she suppressed all that knowledge to advance in the school.

	“Not anymore, Nik, not anymore. I like to joke about my hand, but that necromancer took more than my hand, haven't been able cast properly since I got back.” He said, sitting down on the ground. “Why do you think I'm stuck here? I'm waiting on brats, present company included, until I get old enough to get my pension and move somewhere nicer.”

	“Do you know who it was?”

	“No, he had his hood down, probably had a knife just in case I had a spell ready.” He said from his sitting position. “But he said he was going to watch the correspondence if I tried anything funny so you might be able to lure him out like that.”

	“A trap using myself as the bait,” She extended a hand and helped Ulub get up, “that sounds insane. But I think this is enough to go to the Arbitrators directly if you'll tell them the same thing you told me.” She scratched the back of her head as Ulub dusted himself off. “Sorry about the torture thing that was happening there,” she added as a side note.

	“Listen, Nikita,” He put his hand on her shoulder as she began to turn away and she brushed it off, “I know you want to get revenge for your friend, but don't do anything reckless. I don't want you to go and use yourself as bait to get it, wouldn't want you to get hurt.”

	“Thank you, but I need to go,” She told him and left the room as she rubbed the shoulder where he touched her, a strange tingling coming across her skin.

	As Nikita walked up the stairs, a smile spread across Ulub's features and he called to her with a laugh “Don't do anything I wouldn't!”


	As she was walking back to the Student Affairs office, an idea festered in her mind: if she wrote an emergency letter to the arbitrators to be sent through the enforcement division as was procedure instead of delivering it herself like she planned, whoever was behind the attacks would see it and come to silence her so she could catch them and drag them to the proper authorities herself. She showed her rank to the late night guard at the student offices to get in and made her way to the Student Affairs office. “Hina!” She called as she entered through the front door, seeing the brunette sleeping on the couch. “Are Miss Hidecrawler and Bali still here?”
	“Hm?” The young girl rubbed her eyes and yawned as she was still waking up.

	“Hidecrawler and Bali, are they here?” Nikita snapped at her less than a day old vice-captain, she had been going nearly all day and it felt like it was wearing on her self restraint.

	“Yes, yes Ma'am,” Hina saluted, “I- I got that letter ready for you.”

	“That's good, but lets send it through the enforcement division.” She said to Hina, grabbing a pen and filling in the blanks before adding her own information in, “This is a formal request for Arbitrator Intervention as I believe a member of the enforcement division of the student council is responsible for the recent attacks.” She said aloud as she wrote on the paper. “Please come to the Offices of the Student Affairs Council two hours after noon, I will explain in person since the information is very sensitive.” She folded up the letter and put it in an envelope before marking it as a high priority letter.

	“Requesting permission to speak, Ma'am,” Hina said, trying to look straight ahead.

	“Go on, I know what you're going to say.” Nikita grabbed the letter and walked out the door.

	“This seems like a bad idea, I mean it is a bad idea. Why don't we just take it to the Arbitrators so they can root through the enforcement division and no one has to get hurt.”

	“I'm not going to get hurt, Hina,” Nikita tried to comfort her. “From what I heard, he relies on surprise, and guess what he won't have.”

	“But what if you do? What if he gets hurt? Then all you have is your word and his, what if you-”

	Nikita put her hand on Hina's shoulder “Listen,” she said, “I know it sounds like a terrible idea, but just this feeling I've got, like it's the only way I can do this so they won't be able to spin it.” It was easy for her to see that Hina wasn't sold on the plan. “If something does happen, you'll still be there to tell them what's going on. Just get yourself, Bali, and Hidecrawler out of the office before sunrise tomorrow and then I'll get you dinner. Ok?” Hina finally relented with a non committal sigh. “It will be fine.”


	When Nikita woke up in the morning, she was alone in the office with a note from Hina waiting at her bedside. She had taken Bali and Hidecrawler to the shopping district and would wait for her in one of the cafes until five. After processing the contents of the note, Nikita tore it up into small enough pieces before throwing half into a waste bin and dumping the rest into a water pitcher after getting a drink. Using the time she had, Nikita set about filling out paperwork she had on backlog from when she thought she'd have tomorrow to do it. She didn't know why she was thinking like she wouldn't have tomorrow to do these, especially after she spent that time trying to convince Hina. She went over the plan briefly in her mind, she sent the note so the person threatening Ulub would intercept it and would attack her in an attempt to shut her up; after she beat him she would turn him in and.

	“Wait.” Nikita pushed away from her desk “Ulub told me about the monitoring, and then told me not to do it, and then the tingling.” She shook her head, he told her he couldn't use magic... “he told me, he also said he used cologne but I don't remember smelling it yesterday, and I should have if it was as strong as he said.” She knew that he wasn't a trustworthy person, but why would he lie about the stench, unless he was hiding a body or bodies “Jorge take him,” she swore and pulled her coat on, she couldn't believe that he was able to trick her like that.

	Opening the front door of the office brought Nikita face to face with a law-mage wearing the customary blue and white garbs in a hood. “I'm going to ask you to come with me.” Nikita gritted her teeth, picking up on the voice.

	“Why?” She didn't pass beyond the threshold of the door and didn't make any move to escape.

	“Conspiracy,” the mage said, “just come peacefully and you won't be harmed.”

	“Is that what Ulub told Bali?” Nikita asked, and saw the mage's hand twitch. “Or were you the one, Purono.” She accused and had only enough time for the first spell that came to mind to counteract a bolt of blue energy. “Get out of my way, I need to talk to the old man.” Her eyes began to glow as she gathered mana to her. Purono pulled his hood down and she could see energy crackling in his hands. “This isn't a spar, stand down.” She commanded him as she brought into existence the platonic ideal of a crow.

	“No,” he said and buffeted her with mental energies, Nikita gritted her teeth, she didn't know quite what happened but knew she couldn't handle too much more if it was what she thought it was. With that information, Nikita sicced her crow on Purono and pushed past him, readying to create a wall between them so she could escape when he called out to her “Your friends are at a cafe in the shopping area. How long would it take me to find them?” Nikita stopped in her tracks and turned around just in time to counter another of his psychic assaults. She held onto the mana she was going to use to separate them and instead used it to create the wall behind Purono.

	“Nowhere left to run you son of bitch,” She said and sicced the crow once more on him but he used his power to return it to the aether and sent another spell to hit Nikita. She grunted and ran at him, intent on hitting the mage right in the face, but she stepped back to have enough time to turn the spell into harmless vapor.

	Unfortunately, Purono had her on the defense, she didn't know what spells he used so she was left blindly using her magic to counter his and trying to get the occasional strike. Maybe it was her running out of spells or energy or him succeeding, but more spells were getting through as her head began to pound. “Who's on the run now?” He asked her with a laugh. “I'll wipe your mind and then tell everyone you were the one attacking people. Afterall, who are they going to believe?” he kept hitting her with spells, eroding her memories until she could just remember her earlier training before she was focused on becoming the head of clubs or whatever she was now. Golden shackles burst from the ground to bind her as she was expending her last few spells, she could feel the training she went through with Ulub for those years, when he took her to the mountains to boost her abilities. He launched a volley of magic at her, most likely like all the other magic intent on stripping her identity.

	“NO!” She yelled and her rage manifested itself, cutting the magic in half. She would have said she was surprised by that but she hardly remembered what she was capable of anymore.

	“A red mage too,” Purono moved closer and his hands began to glow, “looks like I'm doing a service to the world, getting rid of another dissident.” Purono put his hands on her head and she could feel the burning as her memories slipped away, she remembered falling into the void when she touched Bali's mind, both rage and fear built up in her and burst forth as she refused to have that happen to her. As she could feel herself being pulled away from reality, she gathered all the mana she could to unleash one last spell, and watched as her flames consumed the law mage.



	On another world, a girl woke up, rubbing her head. "W-where am I?" She pushed herself out of the bed and stumbled out to see an old man approaching her to steer her back to the bed.

	"Easy now, found you crashed in the garden." He told her "What's your name girl?"

	She thought about it long and hard before giving him a shrug "I don't know..."

	"Do you know where you're from?"

	She tried to focus on where she was from, she got only blackness. "I, nowhere. I don't know where I'm from." The old man sat her down on the bed.

	"Listen, the wife and I talked while you were asleep, if you don't cause trouble and help out on the farm you can stay with us as long as you need to." He told her quite frankly. "I'm not as strong as I used to be and she can't bend over like before, so we need some help and putting you up might be cheaper than hiring labor."

	"If you would have me," she responded, she didn't know why she said it in such a way, was it something about formality with her?

	The three of them discussed the details over dinner that night and the woman set to work on the farm while her body recovered even though her memories didn't. She was eventually named Anna by the old couple because she looked like one to them, and she grew to enjoy her time on the farm. But one day a mage came to the farm to extort food from them, Anna rediscovered some of her magical talents as she stood in the couple's defense. They parted way amicably with Anna vowing to return once she remembered where she came from, and so the young woman set out to find her past.