Back To Back (ch3)

EARLY RELEASE FOR HIGH-PLEDGING PATRONS! THANK YOU!

Another one I wrote a while ago! Non-shipping, and just a general idea that's probably been done to death and back, but I wanted to write my take on it anyway!

Disclaimer: I to now own Little Witch Academia.

------------

														Chapter 3.

Diana isn't really sure why she'd agreed to do this.

Perhaps it was because Instructor Nelson had rolled her eyes and smacked her forehead one too many times when watching Akko trying to mount a broom.

Perhaps it was because Professor Finneran had asked her to "please do her best to help that Atsuko Kagari."

Or perhaps it was because Akko herself constantly put on a dejected pout with tears clinging to the corners of her eyes every time she failed to lift off on her broom.

Perhaps it was a combination of all of these things, and a few more.

But either way, here she is, outside the school late one afternoon once classes have ended, standing in the middle of the grass with Akko at her side, red-ribboned broom in-hand.

Arms crossed, Diana waits for the brunette to work off her jitters and nerves. Akko paces around the area nervously, swishing and twirling her broom, nibbling on the nails of her free hand. Diana doesn't even open her eyes as she waits for her to calm herself.

"If you go into it being this nervous, you will never accomplish anything."

Akko makes a long whining noise.

"Uuuuu I know, I know! But I can't help it! All my experiences with brooms so far have ended in disaster! Do you know how many times I've fallen off?"

"I can only estimate," Diana confesses. "But you cannot begin practicing by thinking of past failures. Such thoughts will influence your current performance."

"Uuuu..."

Diana opens one eye and heaves a sigh.

"Give it here. If you are that concerned about it, then I will lift us off."

Yes, they are going to have to ride the same broom together. Diana had debated bringing her own broom, but she had known right away that would be a risk. If she wasn't right there with Akko on the same broom to be able to take control, Akko could very easily get hurt again. And if she keeps associating broom-riding practice with pain and failures, she will never become confident enough to master it.

Akko bows her hand and hands over her broom. Diana positions herself near the back and angles her chin to indicate Akko should take the front spot.

"E-Eh?" Akko blurts. "B-But shouldn't you take the front, Diana?"

"The front position is meant for the main flyer. It is your broom, and you who will be practicing on it. My presence is merely for precautions."

Akko gulps loudly, but steps forward and turns her back to Diana, taking up the front flier position. She grips the broom's handle with excessive force, until her knuckles turn white. Diana does the same for the several inches of the handle that she can hold onto from behind her.

"Whenever you are ready."

Akko squeaks.

"T-Tia Freyre!"

She gives a sudden kick off the ground, but when the broom doesn't take off as intended, all that results from it is a rather unpleasant sensation of the sudden jerking motion. Diana sighs.

"Aside from your nervousness, there is your second problem. You are not galloping a horse. Too much force will make for a sloppy lift-off, if any at all. May I?"

Akko slumps and turns back to glance at her. She nods.

Diana takes control of their lift-off with a clear, confident voice.

"Tia Freyre!"

She kicks off much more lightly, and Akko had almost been expecting to remain on the ground again. But when the support starts disappearing beneath her boots, she quickly recoils her legs and crosses her ankles.

"Uwaaah! W-We're flying, we're really flying!"

"Of course we are."

"I-It's just... this broom hasn't ever actually done this before!"

The ascent is slow and controlled, and allows both witches to get their bearings. But from there, Diana relinquishes control.

"Taking off is about as much as I can accomplish from this position," she explains. "The speed and direction control are your responsibility."

She lets go of the broom handle and instead inches closer to Akko's back, then wraps her arms around her stomach. The unexpected contact causes Akko to freeze instantly, as though Diana's touch has turned her into a statue.

"I...I..."

"You may want to try something," Diana advises her. "Before we climb too high and the air pressure makes it impossible to breathe."

"R-Right! Um, um-!"

Akko tries to loosen her grip on the handle a bit, only holding to it as tightly as Diana is holding to her, just the bare minimum so she won't fall off. She can already feel the broom's direction shifting now that the person who had lifted it off has turned its control over to someone else.

Diana had managed to get them up a good twenty feet or so, but now without her to guide the broom, they begin to fall. Akko shrieks. Diana tightens her hold on the girl, and quickly offers advice.

"Think of the speed and direction you'd like to travel!"

"R-Right! Um! Uuuumm!" Akko squeezes her eyes shut and tries to imagine what speed she'd like to move at, and which direction she'd like to move in. Forward, forward! S-Slowly...

And it... works. Sort of.

The plummet towards the ground quickly becomes a jolting shot forward. The motion is so swift and unexpected that Diana's face ends up slamming into the back of Akko's head, and she bites her lip in the process.

"Ah-!" Tasting blood, she lets go of Akko with one hand to touch her mouth. Panicked, Akko looks back over her shoulder.

"S-Sorry! Are you okay?"

Diana sucks in a breath before cracking one eye open.

"Akko, up! Go up!"

"Hah? Duwaaaaah!" They're fast-approaching one of the forested areas on campus now. Akko screams into the wind. "Wh-What do I do?!"

"Pull up!"

And with only seconds and inches to spare, Akko pulls the broom's handle up toward her chest, and they manage to clear the trees.

But she pulls with a little too much force.

Instead of going over the forest, they merely flip over completely.

Diana doesn't even realize right away that they are entirely upside-down until she feels the rush of nausea in her stomach, while gravity pulls at her skull instead of her feet.

Akko cries out again.

"Waaaah! Wh-what's happening?!"

"P-Push back down-"

Akko heaves her weight up against the broom stick above her, but it doesn't work. They begin falling again in seconds. Akko tries something else and yanks the broom sideways.

Diana can do nothing more than cling to her. As they are now, she can't even draw her wand or cast magic, should she need to. At the very least, she needs to be upright and have proper aim for that.

Akko yanks the broom handle again until it's beneath them, and she finds herself on top once more.

By now, Diana is all but crushing her ribs. With a wheeze, Akko begins moving them forward instead of downward, albeit in more choppy, jerking motions.

"D-Diana..." she rasps. "C-Could you... l-let go just a little...?"

With the horrifying mid-air loops at an end, and her stomach back in its proper place, Diana peeks an eye open to see they are moving forward once again. Her heart's pounding harder than she can ever recall, and she's pressed far closer to Akko than she'd ever care to admit. But she does loosen her grip a bit.

"M-My apologies..."

"It's okay, heheh."

Akko keeps her eyes in front now, and she smiles to herself just a little bit.

They are still traveling at a rather alarming speed, however, with the wind whipping through their hair and almost deafening them. Akko takes in a deep breath.

Slow... slower...

Normally, whenever she'd ridden a broom alone in the past, she'd just panic and all would become chaos.

But now, it's different. Now she's responsible for someone else's safety. She doesn't want Diana to get hurt anymore than she already is.

I gotta keep her safe...

Of course, Diana's thoughts going into this were exactly the same.

Gradually, the broom's speed begins to decrease. Akko just keeps willing it to go slower, slower, slower...

Diana opens both eyes now and gasps softly.

They're up in the clouds, painted pink with sunset, the buildings and greenery of Luna Nova far beneath them now. Akko slows them more and more by the second, until both of them can remember how to breathe normally.

"Woooow..."

Diana can't see her face, but she can tell Akko's smiling. She can even picture that trademark twinkle in her eyes.

Diana shows her sense of wonder more quietly, by readjusting her hold on her classmate and leaning forward enough to rest her cheek against her shoulder.

"Well done, Akko."

"T-Thanks."

Akko's blush matches the color of the sunset.

She admires the streaks of golden sunlight dappling through the cottony pink clouds, and enjoys Diana's closeness. She lets out a sigh and closes her eyes...

And then the wind starts pushing up at her again.

"...Eh?"

She'd forgotten to fly the broom.

In seconds, their calming moment is shattered once again by a terrifying fall.

"Nooooo! Go up, up, up!"

Akko tries to pull at the handle again, but she jerks back so quickly, she ends up knocking heads with Diana once again.

Diana cries out while Akko screams.

And Diana loses her hold on Akko while Akko loses her hold on the broom.

"Gyaaaaaaaaa!"

Akko howls as the world rushes up at them both now, entirely intent on snapping their necks.

Diana's not able to catch her this time.

Well, perhaps not in the same way she'd done so in the past.

But Diana has been expecting this sort of thing all along, and she's more than prepared. In seconds, she draws her wand and takes aim at the ground.

"Slonhon Deance!"

And suddenly, rather than the planet rushing up at them, Akko finds herself looking at the large, soft petals of a massive purple flower.

Diana lands first, safely in the cushioning petals, bouncing on her back a few times. But she only cracks one eye open and gets in half a breath before she both feels, hears, and sees the impact of Akko's landing next to her.

"-Waaaaaaaaaaaah-oof!"

Akko lands mere inches shy of Diana, but her weight causes the flower to tremble, and both girls go rolling off and hit the ground. Seconds later, the flower disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving only the two disheveled witches lying in the grass beside one another.

Moaning, Akko rolls over and pushes herself up, clutching her head.

"Ow, ow, ow... Ah! Diana!" She scrambles to her classmate's side, hovering beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder just as she's sitting up. Diana's wincing, holding a hand to her mouth, and Akko helps her straighten up. "Are you oka- uwaaaah! D-Diana! Y-You're bleeding!"

"I... am aware..."

Blood is seeping out from between Diana's fingers, dribbling down onto her uniform and skirt. Flustered, Akko begins to panic again.

"L-Lemme take you to the nurse! C-Can you stand? M-Maybe I should bring her-"

"There is no need for that," Diana mutters. "It is merely my nose... and lip." She keeps one hand over her mouth and fishes a handkerchief out of her pocket with the other. Akko helps her clean herself off, dabbing the fabric over every red smear, then instructing her to pinch her nose with it.

"B-But don't swallow any blood, you'll make yourself sick!"

"Yes, yes..."

After a moment, the worst of the bleeding has stopped. Diana uses her clean hand to reach out and touch Akko's ruffled hair.

"What about you? Are you injured from that fall?"

"N-No. I'm used to that kinda thing, so my body's almost immune to it now!"

She says this almost proudly, as though thousands of past failures and injuries are accomplishments in their own regard.

And perhaps, to Akko, they really are.

But she still feels guilty for getting Diana hurt like this. With a whimper, Akko slumps forward and pulls her into a hug.

"I'm sor-rryyy, Diana. I tried my best, but you still got hurt... Maybe I really am just a dunce..."

Diana does her best to angle her face away from Akko just so she won't drip blood onto her clothes. But after a sniffle and a sigh, she rests her chin on her shoulder.

"Akko... this was merely an accident. I am fine." Diana returns the hug with one arm around the small of her back. "Besides, do you not realize how much you've improved with your broom-riding today? Your lift-off may still be a bit rusty, but you managed to control the direction and speed better than I've seen you do so before. Of course, it still needs a lot of work. But it's a start, Akko. A very good one."

Akko sniffles so loudly it makes Diana grimace.

"R-Really?"

"Yes. You will need to keep practicing, but perhaps I can assist you again as I did today. That way, I can offer immediate assistance if necessary."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely. Besides, I rather enjoyed- ah..." She stops, her cheeks turning pink. "Ah-hem, what I meant to say is that I-"

"Eeeehh?" But it's too late. Akko already knows what Diana was going to say. She pulls back and stares at her in shock. "Y-You had fun, Diana? Did you just say you had fun?!"

"I-I did not-"

"Oh my gosh! I don't think I've ever heard you admit that you've ever had fun with anything!"

"Akko, listen to what I am-"

"Well, anyways, I'm glad you had fun, Diana! I'll try to be more careful next time!" Akko stands and dusts off her skirt, then picks up her fallen broom before offering her free hand to Diana. "C'mon, I'll take you to the bathroom so you can clean up a bit."

Diana looks away, using her handkerchief to cover as much of her face as possible. But she accepts Akko's hand with her free one, and allows her to help her up.

Akko begins leading her back inside, keeping close to her.

"Are you sure you're okay, Diana? Your face is really red."

"I am fine!"

"Are you? Hee, want me to kiss it better?"

"You will do nothing of the sort!"

The sounds of their bickering, mixed with chuckles, takes its rightful place filling the halls of Luna Nova, as it will continue to do for years to come.

----------

A/N: I've done Diana tutoring/helping Akko before but I haven't done a broom-riding lesson yet! Any excuse to have them hugging each other haha. But I do wonder if we'll ever get to see Akko learn how to ride her own broom by herself (or see her on one with Diana ever again...)

Also, Diana definitely is the type to carry around a handkerchief. I know it.