Akko tried her best to catch up with all the brooms gliding about but she just couldn't match up. When Professor Nelson had told them to go to their stations, she had about four yards ahead of the other anchor witches but they caught up with almost no effort.

A few moments in, Sucy told her she was going to the other platform now and Lotte said the same thing minutes later. She was the only witch who ran to the lines.

Once she was halfway to the tower, she was sweating, her breath was shallow, and she could feel her back soak in sweat. She wasn't a durable runner that was for sure. She was quick, but after a kilometer sprint without taking a break she might as well collapse. She leapt over hurdles, not run marathons!

However, she continued to run anyway, determined to reach the tower by at least not being dead last.

"Oooh, is the genius Atsuko Kagari tired?" The brunette almost trips by the rhetorical question but she quickly regained her balance as the mocking faces of Barbara and Hannah appeared beside her, their chins up, lips curved into smirks, and looking absolutely smug and punchable.

But of course they'd try to mock her here. Weren't they supposed to go to their positions now?

Akko used her sleeve to wipe the sweat that formed on her forehead and ran faster away from them, but they easily glided nearer to her and she scowls.

"Hey, Kagari, do you need a towel?" Hannah asked in a jeering tone.

No, Akko does not, especially from them. But she keeps her tongue and ignores them.

"Looks like it, Han!" Barbara agrees with her and she pulls out her wand. With a crackle of light, a white clothe lands on her hand and she gives Akko a taunting grin. "Here you go, Ack-chu-koo!"

Akko fumed, her face growing tight as they mispronounced her name in such a slurring way before her face got attacked by the clothe that Barbara had thrown at her direction. She yelped, blind on where she was stepping on and she trips, her face landing forward to the ground first and she lets go of her broom. The last thing she heard from them was their laughter.

Akko clenches her teeth, picks herself up from the ground and throws the white clothe far away from her. The herd of anchor witches was farther away now and Hannah and Barbara were gone.

Damn them! Just… damn them! Akko wants to cuss but knew it was uncouth for her to do. So instead, she kicks a rock from the path and pats the dust and grass away from her uniform, fuming and scowling.

When Akko was picking up her broom that had rolled away from her, she hears Amanda's voice from behind her. "Akko!" The brunette turns back and saw Amanda landing a few feet away and she approaches her. "You alright? Saw you trip back there."

Akko just scoffs and pats her sleeves where a little dirt remained. "Yes, I'm fine," she readjusts her cuffs. "It was just Cavendish's cohorts."

"Yeah, well, let them run their mouths. It's now as if they can do much to you in this race." Amanda says and they both stared off into the first witch that had flown towards the tall Moon Tower and landed on one of the balconies. Even from afar, it was no mistaking that long blonde hair.

Akko's ugly scowl became uglier. Amanda noticed this and she grabs her wrist. "C'mon, I'll just fly us there. It'll be quicker."

The brunette was silent for a moment before she agrees with her. Despite the Shooting Star being only made for one witch, Akko had just fitted as she saddled behind Amanda. Indeed, the flight from the ground to there was quick. Faster than what she expected from Amanda's broom to be honest. But perhaps that's just the redhead's talent.

Sucy glanced at the other twelve witches who were on the platform with their brooms between their legs. They looked rather ready to cut throats, their eyes filled with a sense of determination and fire, gazes straight to the open field and never flitting once to consider the height they were on.

Every participant had their eyes on the notoriety that the race gave away. And they'd stampede anyone who butted in.

But Sucy wasn't scared. Oh no, not one bit. And besides, it's not like she's actually entering here for notoriety. If anything, she wouldn't have hesitated to lose this race hadn't it been for the fact that Professor Lukic was the one giving out the prizes. And Sucy would snag anyone but her team's back in order to get that prize from that old professor's scrawny hands.

She turns back to Professor Nelson who had her finger on the gun's trigger as she stared down the racers with a strict gaze.

For a teacher who looked thin and short underneath her scarves and aviator cap and acted pretty bashful most of the time, the face she held this moment told them that they should not, by all means, should not cross her.

"Witches, prepare your brooms!" She tells them in a tone of a drill sergeant.

Thirteen witches saddled on their brooms obediently. Sucy glanced around and assuring no one was glancing at her, she murmured a spell underneath her breath and glanced from below. Little roots and branches of the dead logs used to make the cheap platform erupted directly beneath the brushes of the brooms and quietly wrapped themselves around it.

"On your marks!"

Sucy fixes her gaze back to the track, smirking a bit. Worked flawlessly.

"Get set!"

Other witches hunched their shoulders and shouted, "Tia Freyre!"

"GO!"

The gun shots and Sucy was already gone from the platform. Other racers weren't that quick for a takeoff.

"Hey, what!?"

"Fu—Ah, crap! The hell happened!?"

"Dude, did someone use a spell!?"

"Gah! It's rooted to the ground!"

"Shit, who was it!? I'm gonna crush 'em to a pulp!"

She doesn't hear anymore from them and Sucy quietly pats the spot where she slipped the vial and felt its figure reassure her. No, nobody found out she did it. It was too easy. She'd done this a million times and they still can't figure out what or who hit them. She cackles quietly to herself before she hears a thumping of an engine.

A familiar sort of thumping and Sucy barely recognized it before Constanze overtook her. Sucy's puce hair whipped around her face as the small turbine on the broom's hilt produced gusts of winds. She grabs her hat to keep it planted on her head before she looks at the German again with her mouth open.

Constanze looked over her shoulder and threw Sucy a knowing smile, holding something like wrench before she stuffed it into the bag that she had on her side. With a kick to the pedal, Constanze was already dozens of yards away from her and Sucy bares her fangs in annoyance.

"Should've remembered Cons modified her broom yesterday," Sucy scolded herself and she looks back to see if anyone was on her tail again. After confirming that they were all helpless and clueless as flocks of sheep, she turns back to her front and her eyes shone in a menacing way.

Whatever. Lotte was probably done with the trap for Jasminka. Maybe that'll slow the green team down.

That Russian girl may be solid iron but in face of food, she'll be easily turned. Sucy grinned.

She focuses on staying aloft, and she looks down to see that she was still pretty much fifty feet up. It didn't faze her but it was time consuming and slow. She was tempted to use one of her potions again but she's afraid of the cameras huddling around the air. One mistake and red team is done.

She looks back up and her eye that was nearly covered by her unkempt bangs and focused solely on reaching that little bell tower that came closer each second.

"Aaand Constanze Amalie von Braunchbank-Albrechtsberger from green team is on the lead!" Wangari said breathlessly. "It's a name that couldn't be said quickly enough before the owner is already on the lead with her mechanical broom. Professor Croix, any comments on your best student's inventions?"

Croix, who was surveying with Wangari on the hot-air balloon that floated above the tracks, looks up from her tablet and hums a bit. "Well, it is a fine engine but it's still a prototype. I'm not sure if its core can take that much strain being in such a height. But, I will say this, it's quite a fast broom modified by magitronics. And that enough says a lot about it."

Wangari regards the answer with respect. She took magictronics in last year and was one of the better students who greatly admired the subject. It definitely widened her sources for the paper and it made a better improvement upon the journalism team than expected.

She comments on the creepy witch who was on the second, and announces the third was yet to be determined.

Lotte's eyes widen in surprise at the jet that was Cosntaze, whose figure was closing pretty fast to the bell tower where the second anchor flyers were waiting.

She bites her inner cheek and glances at the path Sucy laid out on where to put all the hanging donuts and she crosses her fingers behind her. Let's hope Jasminka takes the bait…

The Russian girl gingerly laid out her broom with the spell muttered out and she saddled on it with her arm extended out to grab the ring. With a rush of wind, it was already on her arm and Constanze was gone.

Holy shit, that was fast. The other witches gaped at the speed the small German had raced towards here. Barely a minute in and green team was already on the second course. Jasminka was off and gliding into the forest at a fast but leisured pace and she disappears into the woods.

"Perkele," Lotte curses under her breath. She tapped on her boots impatiently on the old brick floor and she sees Sucy closing in a few moments later.

The other witches started to whisper among themselves, asking what took their teammates so long and what happened to them. It was unusual for a slow witch like Sucy, whom they knew wasn't the flying type, to be second. They expected either Hannah England or Blair Callahan to be coming second. But red team?

"Bullshit," Lotte hears Barbara mutter and she smirks to herself.

"Sucy!" Lotte shouted and waved her arms around. "Over here! C'mon, Jasna probably got like, a minute ahead of us!"

Sucy widens her eyes by the way her mouth moved, she looked like she was cussing. Akko would not like that. She reaches out the ring and says, "Lotte!"

"Yep!" As Sucy passes by above her, she jumps up, snatches the bronze ring form her hand and yells at her broom, "Tia Freyre!"

She quickly jumped on it as her broom floated a few feet off the ground and she zoomed away. As she was taking off, Lotte shot a smug look at Barbara, whose face turned into an angry shade of red upon seeing it. The whisperings turned into cries of disbelief.

"And the second is Lotte Yansson from Red team! Your average-looking every-day, nerdy girl with thick glasses is now gaining in and is starting to close the gap!" Wangari says from above.

'Man, screw her,' Lotte thinks as she scowls at her comment about her and disappears into the forest.

The Hawaiian reporter glances on her phone and announces, "And on the lead of the second course is Jasminka Antonenko from Green team, the food fighter hailing from Russia! Look at that dignified side-saddle!"

Sucy ignores the balloon above and stares at where Lotte had flown off. Then she looks over her shoulder, still floating mid-air. That root-conniving potion wasn't going to last long by now. At least one witch had probably pulled one of them off.

Indeed, the root-conniving spell hadn't worked as glamorously as one would have thought. Hannah, after cursing out the spell and pulling off one more pull to snag her broom away from the roots, quickly mounted her broom and shouted, "Tia Freyre!"

"Oh!" Croix mutters as she saw this and taps a few buttons before an image of the first station was shown again.

Wangari notices this and saw the redhead from blue team taking off, who was quickly followed by the rest of the witches. "Now this is an exciting revelation, fearies and witches! The first leg flyers that were held up before are now on the track again and are up with high speeds!" She looks back down at the second leg flyers who were sighing in relief. "Leg flyers, be ready!"

Lotte looks around the thick woods for any signs of Russian girl but as she dodged her third branch, she can unfortunately affirm that Jasna had indefinitely gained more distance from them than what Lotte had initially assumed.

"Shoot," The Fin mutters underneath her breath and tries to look for the path where she remembers stringing the donuts that Sucy had told her to hang on branches.

She strayed off the track for a bit and tries to rack her brain on where she first strung a donut. She remembers it being hung a dozen yards off where the bell was and—

There! A string!

A sense of shrewdness grew in Lotte's chest and she quietly chuckles to herself. Nope, Jasminka wasn't ahead of them, oh no. Probably gone off to follow that donut trial and there's no stopping her. Knowing Sucy, she probably put something on that stuff to make them deadly irresistible for Jasna to turn away.

She quickly flew into the track again, all the while dodging the thick trees and overgrown roots, careful not to crash into them.

"And now green team and red team are on the second course of the track! Packed through the forest and the Moon Tower is barely half a mile away! Professor Croix, you said you were one of the participants of the Broom Relay race nearly ten years ago, yes?"

Croix didn't like where this was going. "Y—Yes, what about it?"

"Were you an anchor or leg flyer?"

"Why, I was an anchor."

"What did your old teammates say about the second course?"

She thinks for a bit for a proper reply. "I could remember them saying it was a very complicated path. If you lose your focus in there, you're bound to get hit by a tree."

Lotte hears a twig snap and she looks over her shoulder, thinking it was the monster from yesterday's search for the Shooting Star. "Who-!?"

She felt her face getting slapped by the bark of a pine tree and she falls off from her broom, groaning.

One of the robotic cameras finally caught up to her and showed the whole thing. They snapped another twig again, unbeknownst to them.

"Like… that," Croix mutters as Wangari peered in to see her tablet.

The students around the track guffawed. Professor Nelson who flew a few yards away from the hot-air balloon sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as she tucked her little phone back into her robes.

Miss Yansson could stand back up, there's no worrying about that.

One minute.

Two.

Three.

Five minutes had passed and Diana was getting impatient. She leaned on the railings of the open balcony and looks over the forest underneath them and she sees no sign of Barbara bursting out to deliver the bronze ring to her.

She knew the second track would take long but come on. It was just, what, two acres of wood. It's not easy to come out there but Diana had expected Barbara to nail the track considering she'd gone worse. But she buries the doubt in her mind. No, Barbara can and will ardently nail this track. She may have an enormous ego but what bloated it were her achievements and she narrowly deserves it.

So Barbara will appear. Diana just has to be patient.

She looks over the other twelve anchor witches and she cranes her neck a bit to see inside the room that led to the balcony. Most witches were waiting on outside and leaned on the railing like her, enjoying the view and wind, while about two or three went in for the shade. Nobody dared to go down or up the stairs. A lone roomba camera floated above them, its lenses squeezing in any sort of picture they could get.

Inside, Akko and Amanda were standing by the wall, knowing that it would take some more time before one of their teammates would flash by and give them their bronze rings. Amanda ogled at the Shooting Star, feelings its wood against her palm. She was still admiring the beauty of it.

Akko was worried that if her stare gone longer, she would start kissing the thing and she did not want to see such a sight.

Quietly, she pulled out her phone from her robes and logged into the Luna Nova page to see how the race was going. A live footage of some dense part of the forest ran, the camera probably flying by. A few seconds later, the cameras finally got her. Akko sees Lotte on the screen, on her broom with dirt on her robes, and as she narrowly dodged another tree trunk she gave the camera a small grin and showed it the bronze ring that hung from her left wrist.

Akko's face lit up as she sees her teammate and as Wangari and Professor Croix made commentaries on her agility and the track and whatnot, the image shifted to fly behind Lotte and Akko sees that her teammate was nearly at the end of the forest. Soon enough, they were out and the image of the New Moon Tower was seen; all high and mighty, and its appearance told Akko that it was going to be seconds before it would be her turn to take the ring.

She gasped, the sound making Amanda look up, and she quickly tucked her phone back. She dug into her pockets again and pulled out the potion that Sucy had made for her. As Akko was about to touch the cork to pull it out, she paused, and the weight of the potion suddenly came to her.

'What am I doing?' she thinks, staring at the magenta potion with a worried gaze. Should… should she really do… this? Cheating? Akko felt her chest weigh with guilt. Her parents taught her better. The professors here taught her better. She shouldn't do this… should she? All for Professor Chariot's attention?

Somebody grabs her wrist and Akko's instinct makes her gaze snap to her side quickly. She saw Amanda just nodding at the potion, like she understood. Slowly, Akko pulls away with a suspicious gaze and Amanda says, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

The brunette furrowed her brows, still locking gazes with the redhead before she pulled out the cork. As she did, a puff of carbon came out and hissed into her face and a strong smell of horrible herbal and cleaning solution came out. Akko gagged and held the potion away from her face.

Great, she smells like the potion now.

The Shooting Star which Amanda propped beside her wiggled on its spot but both witches left it unnoticed.

Amanda chuckles on the side and Atsuko glances at her before pulling her wits and poured the potion down to the brush. The broom became drenched of magenta color as the rest of the liquid was poured out and emptied the vial.

The duo watched her broom lightly glow a bit, shuddering before it stood still and Akko nods. The potion was in effect. No turning back now. She puts the remaining glass back into her robes.

"AKKO!" The call of her name alerted the brunette and she looks outside to see the other anchors staring the left railings with wide eyes.

Atsuko smiles a bit and turns to Amanda who smirked at her. "I'll see you at the finish line," she told her.

Amanda only rolled her eyes. "Don't try to hold your breath."

She shot a small smile at Amanda and Akko quickly dashed out with her broom and she peers over the railings.

Lotte, on her broom with her robes decked with twigs, leaves and dirt and her glasses smudged with dust, showed Atsuko the bronze ring. She looked nothing sort of graceful but the triumphant grin and proud eyes she showed beyond her glasses screamed louder than anything.

Atsuko cups her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Lotte! Throw it up!"

Lotte's eyes widen in realization and she tosses the ring up to her. Atsuko ran to the edge of the balcony and jumped over it, placing the broom between her legs and she curls her arms around it. She extends an arm and deftly caught the ring. "Tia… Freyre!" she yells and pulled the broom so its brush could face the ground.

Her heart drummed in her ribcage as and she feels the broom shudder underneath her, feeling the wind sail around her face and she gripped the wood so hard her knuckles turned white. She glances down a bit and saw the brick pavement beneath her becoming closer.

The terror of falling from a building that she had the day before came back and made her grip upon her broom tighter. She shut her eyes and the feeling of dread returned, already doubting this plan despite Sucy showing her how she should control the broom hours before. Atsuko braced for the impact.

Then the broom landed deftly on the ground, surprising the brunette with the careful landing and she glanced down at the brush, its sticks bending but not breaking. The sight made her widen her eyes and her face slowly broke into a grin. Atsuko laughed a bit.

Wh—What was she afraid of again? She shouldn't have doubted Sucy, of course she shouldn't! She would never let Akko fall down to her death without a good reason and—

The broom bounced back up like a rocket and Akko nearly screamed.

Back above the balcony, Diana was startled, looking over the balcony to see what happened and wondering what the fuck was the brunette thinking. Was she okay? Holy shit, she literally jumped off the balcony, is she-

"Is she dead?" Diana hears Sola asks the thoughts that roamed in the heiress's head. As if to answer her question, Atsuko was up on their level again, her arms and legs tangled around her broom in a strong grip, eyes wide with fear and her other hand grabbing her hat tightly so it wouldn't fly off.

Diana and Akko's eyes meet for a split second, surprising the heiress but the brunette was gone just as quickly as she appeared.

"Guess not," Sola muttered as about four witches peered around her to see Atsuko doing… whatever she was doing back on the ground.

Her broom was jumping around in a similar manner of a frog, the brush bending back before leaping up at their height. Atsuko didn't scream though her pale look said she looked just about to.

After a few more jumps to make sure Atsuko's stomach wasn't going to betray her, she takes a deep breath and she looks down again. One more jump and she tilted the hilt of her broom to the direction of the track.

The track was filled with dirt walls and bulging hills that gone for a few dozen yards and the next one was the strangely dense forest with uneven trees. Akko stares at it carefully and she gulps.

This was going to be one heck of broom ride.

Croix stares at the image of Miss Kagari on the screen slowly bouncing away with her broom and onto the third track. It was unprecedented for the red team to be on the lead and judging by how angry the anchor flyers looked, the end of this race wasn't going to be pretty.

"That just happened!" wailed Avery from her spot on the balcony. "What the fu—"

"Language, Avery!" Rina told her sternly.

Amelia cried, "Hey, what's the big deal!? What's taking our leg flyers so long!?"

Witches complained and complained and Wangari says, "Looks like the anchor witches are getting pretty uptight now. Red team's very own Atsuko Kagari, the book-smart genius hailing from Japan, is now on the lead and there is no one there to gain on her tail!"

"Maybe," Croix smiles and she presses a button. Another live image from another floating roomba in the forest appears. "But, let's not have the red team get their hopes up yet."

"Oh!" Wangari peers into her phone. "There's a comeback! Green team's Jasminka Antonenko is turning up fast and is now swerving up onto the tower."

As if on cue, another figure on a broom emerged from the forest and Jasminka quickly leveled herself up on the balcony, and unexpectedly she did not looking like she was stumped on some place. She looked rather clean and there was minimal dirt on her shoes.

Amanda quickly dashed outside to the balcony and she looked over the railings to see her teammate rapidly approaching her. Yes! She grins big and waves an arm around to signal the Russian to hasten her pace.

Jasminka quickly flew up at her height and she gives her the ring. "What took you?" Amanda asks as she takes it and jokingly said, "Were there donuts on the track or what?"

Jasminka opened her mouth to say something but after a thought, she opted not to. Instead, she just gave her an uneasy smile and shrugged.

Amanda didn't mind nor did she care about her friend's little reply. Right now, the race was all what she had in mind.

Quickly mounting on the Shooting Star, she yelled, "Tia Freyre!"

However, the moment Amanda even floated two feet off the ground, the broom suddenly froze. Amanda looks down at the Shooting Star, confused. A few more moments passed and she waits for the broom to answer her. The others were staring expectantly. "Um," she nudges it lightly. "Tia freyre?"

The next few seconds became a blur. Amanda disappeared, leaving a loud cloud of dust behind the spot where she was previously floating and the other witches cried in surprise and had to grab their hats so it wouldn't fall off.

The Shooting Star barreled upwards with such unexpected speed that Amanda screamed. "AAAHHH!"

It shot upwards towards the tallest point of the tower and Amanda saw the faintest glow of the Philosopher's Stone before it spun in circles around the sharp tip of the tower. She screams louder, her grip upon the broom rigid as it can be, feeling dizzy after a few more seconds of rapid spinning and Amanda, for the first in a very, very long time, felt nauseous from a broom ride.

Then the broom abruptly dropped down, its arrow-like point nose-diving back to the balcony. Shooting Star was not listening to her and turning it to another direction was impossible; it was stern and unbending on her hold and moving it would be like trying to bend an iron wrench.

It was heading straight back to the balcony where all of the witches were staring up at her with wide, frightened eyes. Judging by the speed it was going, it was not going to change direction very soon.

Then Amanda realized; she was going to die.

A very small and rational voice in her head that had miraculously survived the dizziness and nausea quickly screamed for the redhead to let go.

She does and closed her eyes. The instant her hands released the wood of the broom she felt something pull on the back of her robes, saving her from an impending doom of falling into the hard ground.

Amanda blinks her eyes open a few moments after confirming that she wasn't going to die. Slowly, she looks up to see half a dozen of Professor Croix's roombas floating around her, two of which seizing the back of her uniform and one came down and made her sit on it. Her hat was blown away but that was the least of her concerns.

What the hell just happened?

She takes shallow breaths before looking down, her heart racing against her ribcage.

The Shooting Star was still going down at a dangerous speed.

Diana blinks as the Shooting Star barreled down on them and she whisks out her wand, ready to yell out a spell to disintegrate the broom into ashes but as the Shooting Star was almost ten feet away, just in her spell's reach, it changed directions and was now travelling overhead of them, leaving a squall of gust in its wake, eliciting another scream from the witches around her.

The heiress throws an arm over her eyes and as the winds subsided, she looks back at where the Shooting Star was heading to.

The third track.

Diana suddenly remembers Atsuko and she pales.

"What by Merlin's name was that!?" Wangari's voice screamed from above them and she looks up to see the wide-eyed reporter staring at them along with Professor Croix, who was fiddling with another tablet with clear panic in her eyes.

Croix's roombas safely delivered Amanda back to the balcony. As they lowered her, Diana noticed the American looking pretty pale. Jasminka quickly went over to her and slung her left arm over her shoulder after she almost stumbled forward.

Professor Nelson, who saw the entire fiasco, worriedly goes down to their spot and dismounts from her broom. "Miss O'Neill!" Amanda looks up at her. "What happened up there? Was your broom cursed or some kind?!"

Amanda shakes herself out of her stupor. "Uh, I don't know," she says and looks at the bronze ring that hung from her wrist. "When I yelled out the flying spell, it just kind of paused for a moment before going… that. I don't know what caused it."

Professor Nelson was knitting her brows in confusion. Diana turned and stared with some other witches at where the Shooting Star was flying off. It was awfully fast. Could… Could that actually be—?

"Hey, what happened here?"

"SHIT!" Diana jumps and turns to Barbara who apparently arrived, and like Lotte, her robes were gashed and dirty though not as prominent. "Christ, Barb, do we need to get you a bell!?"

Barbara gave her a small grin but her face quickly hardened. "Sorry, but seriously, what happened? Did Amanda's broom backlash on her or something?"

"I don't know," Diana takes the bronze ring from her. "But I'm going to follow the thing after I complete the race." She mounts her broom, yells, "Tia Freyre!" and Diana speeds off, her eyes upon the Shooting Star that turned into a dot in the distance.

Amanda noticed this and her bearings came back. The race. The race! She ignored Professor Nelson who grilled her on what happened and her eyes caught Jasminka's broom behind her. "Jasminka," she whispers. The Russian looks up and Amanda asks, "Can I borrow your broom? I need to get Shooting Star back."

Professor Nelson apparently heard it and she widens her eyes. "What!? No, Miss O'neill, you will not—"

Too late. Amanda already snatched Jasminka's broom from her hands the moment she even presented it to her and she mounted it quickly. In a similar fashion of Atsuko's take-off, she jumped off the balcony, ignored the surprised gasps from the other students, and shouted the spell, "Tia Freyre!"

This time her take-off went on without a hitch.

As the broom steadily jumped across the next block of dirt that stood over eight feet tall, Atsuko was beginning to smile. It became easy to control the broom now, though she was still uncomfortable at the sheer idea that if she lets go, she'll fall and break her head; which was why her grip on her broom was a vise.

However, after a few minutes of continuous jumping, it just became like trying to ride a bike that was bouncing on its back wheel and all she had to do was to turn the iron hilt and the broom will go whichever direction she wants. It was kind of fun, she realized after making the gap between her and the tower more than sufficient.

Then she remembers this was begotten by cheating through one of her roommate's potions and she felt immensely guilty. But it was done now. If anything, she should just win the race, if it makes her feel any better.

Atsuko focuses on her broom. The rhythm of the leaps had its own sort of bounds, but after a while Atsuko was used to it. If anything, she felt like a frog; jumping around the next hill which she pictured as a lily pad for her.

She remembers back in her kindergarten that they used to sing some sort of frog song. At first, she was humming it until she remembered the words, letting herself feel a bit of relief. "Kero, Kero, Kwa—"

Atsuko suddenly hears a whistle. As the broom made another leap over a hill, she looks back and—

The Shooting Star bounded into her direction. She gasps and she focuses back to the track, willing the broom to go faster but it still made its rhythm of jumping over the hills leisurely. "Oh dear," she mutters and dreaded for Amanda's face to appear beside her with a smirk that told her that, yeah, she shouldn't have held her breath.

However, instead of just keeping up with a normal pace, she felt the Shooting Star pass her close. Dangerously close. Akko gasps again at the proximity and speed as the Shooting Star passed her. When she takes a look at the Shooting Star again, she saw that no one was sitting on it.

"Huh?" Atsuko mutters. Confounded at the lack of witches on the flying broom, she stares at it as her broom bounded to another hill while the Shooting Star shot off further into the forest before in abrupt and swift motion it turns and starts going to face… her direction. "Huh!?"

The broom bolted straight into her and Atsuko widened her eyes when it faced her on its sideways and all one meter of its red wood presented itself. Without stopping, the red broom collided with hers the moment her broom was on for a mid-jump. "AHH!"

Atsuko fell back and the wind got knocked out of her lungs when she lands on a hill harshly. Her back ached but she forced herself to stand up anyway, taking a deep breath as she did but when she looked up, she gasped.

Her broom leapt once more in a leisured pace to the next clump of dirt, but the Shooting Star shot itself to it. Like it was a fly, Shooting Star swatted Atsuko's broom down with its massive brush and the smaller broom landed on the dirt with a cloud of dust. However, it soon surprised the brunette when the second the broom crashed, it jumped again, bent and chipped in some areas.

However, her relief of seeing the broom at least a bit capable of its flight soon diminished when the Shooting Star started to glow.

The arrow-like point shrouded itself with an orangey-hue sort of aura, small and flickering but the sight of it made Atsuko speechless. Like the aura was a booster, it slugged itself forward with a faint pulse, even faster than before and Shooting Star collided once more with Atsuko's broom. By the gravity and speed, the brooms crashed into an elevated wall of dirt, so hard that they basically crashed through it and the wall crumpled. An explosion of dust arose where the two brooms supposedly landed.

Atsuko threw an arm over eyes when the wind whipped around her, grunting as bits of clod from the crumpling dirt was pelted against her. When the dusts subsided, Atsuko peeks one eye open and saw that the dusts had still yet to settle down. She slowly stands up and carefully stepped down the hill.

Dust whirled and Atsuko sees the shadow of the Shooting Star emerging from the ground before speeding upwards again. Its take-off cleared away the dust and Atsuko saw her broom.

It was broken down to the letter. Its wood was shattered to splinters, the metal hilt was crushed to the ground, and the sticks of the brush were torn and reduced to toothpicks. The only thing left was the red sash, dirtied and torn.

Atsuko gaped at the sight as her mind processed what happened before it sunk into her.

The Shooting Star had just destroyed her broom.

Atsuko's gaze snapped up instantly and she finds the Shooting Star speeding about on the skies above her. She gasps a bit and starts to back away.

'Don't tell me…' she thinks, stepping away as the red broom slows and starts dipping down. Only then did Atsuko really realize how wrong it was for it to be flying without a witch. Suddenly, the broom stared down to her with neck-breaking haste.

Atsuko ditched her broken broom and started to run towards the direction of the forest. 'Oh Jennifer, oh Jennifer, oh Jennifer—' she thinks as panic rose in her chest. That broom is the real deal. That broom is the real deal!

That broom is actually Shooting Star!

Atsuko jumps over a small, three foot edge of dirt and almost trips from landing from it. As the brunette continues to bolt into safety, she rethinks on the previous days and how stupid she was, a scolding thought which was beginning to become frequent in her head. She smacks her forehead repeatedly.

Why oh why was she so stupid!? Of course something had to be wrong with the Shooting Star since yesterday! It wandered off on its own. Rather, it was stolen. Perhaps that thing that brought it behind the labs corrupted it? Who knows but the broom can certainly kill, after all it had just blown her broom to smithereens!

The best possible way to counter that murderous broom was to get out of its sights as quickly as possible, even if that's a slim chance considering how fast it is, and fighting back certainly wouldn't help. It could fly and it was probably as solid as a horse.

She looks back—

Shooting Star was hot on her and was gaining awfully fast.

"Bloody hell!?" screamed Atsuko before she felt the point of the broom poke her from behind and she nearly trips again. However, the broom snagged the back of her uniform and in a swift yank, it lifted her off the ground and threw her into the air.

"AHH!" the brunette screams and she felt her phone flitting out of her pocket. She gasps and took a swipe at it before the Shooting Star collided into her arms. Her phone disappeared into the ground and the air was knocked out of her lungs again. A weird cracking sound like some glass had shattered, muffled by her robes. Her instinct was to latch onto its wood quickly for dear life.

The red broom shot upwards like bullet once more, taking off at such a speed that Atsuko yet again felt her stomach churn and start betraying her as she pulls herself closer to the broom in order to not fall off. She noticed the broom's heat, though not enough to burn her grip on it. The wind whipped around her face and her hat was gone so she closes her eyes as the broom flied further away from the earth.

Then the broom abruptly shifted into a horizontal position and Atsuko squeaks and nearly let go of it before she fastened her legs around near the brush. Shooting Star sped off into the forest and when Atsuko, as she gathered courage, tries to open an eye, her sights were met by the ground being far, far away. She widens her eyes and instantly, a sense of vertigo washed over her and she nearly faints.

However, the fear of falling off was greater, so with great difficulty to clutch over herself, she shifts on her position, buried her face in her hunched arms and holds for dear life onto the broom that became even faster each second, abruptly changing directions as it was gliding into the air and briskly dodging ruins, often even spinning in what may be an attempt to shake the brunette off and make her let go.

She doesn't, however, and instead she tightened her grip on the legendary broom. And if this thing doesn't stop first, she'll probably never let go.

Shooting Star, as if it had heard her thought, replied to her by spinning like a torque. Atsuko yelps and desperately clung into the broom as spun faster and entered the forest. The thick shadows and woven boughs above indicated that, and when Atsuko felt her left being gashed by a sharp branch, she holds the arrow-like point hard.

Atsuko hissed as the gash on her left thigh burned and craning her neck a bit, she peeks at it and saw blood oozing out through the wound. She gasped and yelps again as another branch snagged her right arm on her robes and tore right through it, piercing her skin painfully.

One trunk bumps into her side harshly. A shrub, ivy possibly, that Shooting Star passed attacks her skirt and scratches her skin like claws. When it wobbled a bit, Akko got hit on her left side by a thick tree and she felt the glass shards of the broken vial press into her skin.

The broom was barely just missing the woods and it was either that it forgot someone was sitting on it or it was hurting her purposely.

'The latter, obviously,' Atsuko thinks as she barely ducks past a thick branch that could easily lend her nose bleeding if she had smacked her face against it. Her wounds burned and stung. She starts glaring at the broom.

Slowly and very carefully, she starts lift her head up from her arms, both of which now carrying fresh nicks and dirt. It was closer now, the edge of the forest, no doubt thanks to the outstanding speed of the legendary broom. Atsuko flinches a bit when Shooting Star barely dodged a massive trunk by a strand of a hair and she realized it was beginning to get slower. But the thought was dismissed when she catches a sight above her.

A branch, low enough to be at arm's reach and thick enough that it wouldn't break under her weight, and an obvious call for Atsuko to take it and risk the danger in hopes to finally be free of this ride. She was thinking of taking it before the broom had abruptly twisted directions again.

It made a u-turn when it reached a big tree with a thick trunk and began to glide across the forest again. "What!?" yelped Atsuko before Shooting Star dipped down low to the ground, barely half a feet and the leaves whisked around her as the speed of the Shooting Star winded them away from the ground, leaving a disturbed trail behind them.

Shooting Star was zigzagging across the forest in weird twists and neck-breaking turns. It went on for what may be kilometers, and Atsuko believed she was way out of the track now. The forest around Luna Nova extended all the way outside the school so she wasn't at all sure where on earth she was.

However, when she sees the massive front castle, with all its grand columns and statues with high steps, Atsuko realized she was near the main Leyline entrance of the school, and it confirmed to her that yes, she was very much outside of the track.

The brunette whimpered before the Shooting Star suddenly boosted again, gaining in speed and the main building became a blur of marble white, blue, and turquoise. She yelps at the sudden movement, her death-grip upon the broom returning. Twigs, leaves, and blades of grass attacked her face. Closing her eyes, Atsuko tucked her face into her arms again to hide it from the onslaught in front of her.

A mix of dead leaves, overgrown roots, and grass assaulted her front, and Shooting Star just dodged the bigger stones by the skin of its teeth. She grits her teeth when she felt her wounds stinging her and felt a small pebble getting pelted against her face. She can't let go, she can't let go, she can't let go—

The trail they left smelled like freshly cut grass, very pungent and it was vile her nostrils. Was the Shooting Star that fast? Now that she thought about it, it was beginning to go very fa—

"AHHHH!" Atsuko screamed as her thoughts spoke too awfully soon when the Shooting Star bolted in a very wobbly way that made her stomach threaten to spit out her breakfast. A blur of blue petals caught her sight and the scent of them felt like a slap to the face. It was awful, like the disgusting scent of grass combined with something like cleaning solutions.

…

'Wait—'

A smoke of pollen whiffed around Atsuko's face and she coughs as she accidently inhaled it by a handful. She sneezed, gagged, and spat the horrible stuff out of her mouth. But, as if it was rejuvenated, the Shooting Star instantly shot back up into the air, eliciting a scream from the brunette as it exited through the top of the trees, doubling her nausea which she was so close to letting out.

Branches caught up with her clothes, nearly tearing them to further shreds and her wounds screamed admonishingly in pain. Atsuko grits her teeth and in an attempt to calm herself, she took massive breaths and thought, 'Just hold it in, Akko, just hold it in—'

From the corner of her eye, the sight of the laboratory building came and just behind that, the massive compound of their dorms, and sandwiched between them, the massive circles of the courtyards. As the Shooting Star went higher, Atsuko could almost see the entirety of Luna Nova's castle and on the very far north, the small sightings of the old North Building. Old and faraway buildings were also stationed on the very far south.

When she saw the New Moon tower coming awfully close, she suddenly remembers something;

The relay race.

Atsuko felt something sting on her face and just now did she realize the horrible gash on her right cheek. Albeit small, she felt the blood leak from it and Atsuko could taste its metallic tang. Awful.

The vertigo came back and Akko felt her senses shutting down harshly and heavily, like she was holding it by a nylon string when just seconds ago she had all of her bearings. She felt her face sink of blood, her tongue tasting vile, and it didn't help when the Shooting Star started to spin like a torque again before it glided into the air smoothly.

Suddenly, it stopped on its track, pausing almost deliberately and Akko yelps as she was lurched forward by the sudden halt. She lost her grip and falls.

First, all she saw was the figure of the Shooting Star getting tinier among the blue skies and clouds, pausing before it sped off to who knows where again, leaving a wavy trial of something behind it.

Akko tries to reach for it but her arms felt heavy and the wind whistled over her ears. She braced for the impact of the ground.

She closes her eyes for a moment but a call of her name makes her open them again. She thought that those wide, frightened blue eyes that stared after her were an after-thought.

Amanda had snagged the coil of rope from a nearby pile of tools that the fearies used in constructing the new platforms for the race. When she finally lost Professor Nelson through the forest, a hard feat considering how excellent that professor seemed to be with a broom, she sees the Shooting Star emerging from the forest, even faster that before.

The American's face lit up and she takes one end of the rope on her shoulder and starts to tie a lasso, a skill she harnessed and done countless times back in her home town. However, when she was halfway through the knot, she glances back up, only then acknowledging the purple ball of robes hanging on the broom. Her heart jumped in her throat when she recognized that brown hair.

'Oh my God, that's Akko—' Amanda thinks frantically and she finishes tying the rope into a reasonably sized lasso. She tries to fly overhead of the girl and gauged how far her lasso could reach the witch.

It was near impossible to catch up with the Shooting Star, she realized after following it for a few yards. The thing could easily cover miles all the while doing a show with a witch on it. After she studies Shooting Star's pace for a moment, a small glance at the humongous and nearby spruce caught her attention and Amanda decided to switch ideas.

The redhead made a swift turn-around and hid behind the thick, topmost parts of the spruce and waited for the Shooting Star to pass by her. The rope, from what Amanda could deduce, was probably eight meters long; not much, but if Amanda uses it right, she damn well has a chance to catch that broom.

She still has no idea what provoked that broom but if she wants answers, she has to catch it. And besides, lassoing it wouldn't be much different in taming a wild horse back in Texas.

'Yeah,' Amanda thinks, her grip on the stiff lasso in her hands tightening, peering to her side a bit and she sees the Shooting Star finally travelling to her direction, a wild chance that Amanda had to thank the gods for. 'There's not much difference after all.'

The waiting wasn't awfully long. In fact, it was awfully short; one moment, the Shooting Star was twenty yards away and now, barely a meter, and Amanda can see Atsuko better; she had a mean cut on her face that bled and her robes were so torn that Amanda saw more of her skin than clothe, most of which looking pretty red. Akko's knuckles were white, her eyes were closed, and her hair was a bird's nest.

Amanda pales at the sight. 'Oh my God, she needs help—' the redhead thinks, threw the lasso overhead of her and zeroed it onto the Shooting Star's arrow-like edge.

Her aim was impeccable. The moment the lasso looped around before the red hilt, Amanda pulls the rope back and the lasso tightened around it easily. She grins; it worked! It actually worked!

But her moment of triumph was cut short when she was nearly lurched forward as the Shooting Star continued off, surprising Amanda with how much force it had that she was worried that the rope might break. She takes her end with both ends, twisted on the broom, and with all of her might, pulls Shooting Star back.

The red broom was reeled backward for a bit, surprised at it such a task and it paused. However, Amanda hadn't realized that the abrupt force would make Akko fall over.

So when she hears her yelp, Amanda looks up and saw Akko falling sideways of the Shooting Star, her arms out extended but it was already out of her reach. The redhead widened her eyes and the rope was lost from her grip. Her hands found their way back to Jasminka's broom and she speeds down to catch the brunette, a sense of panicked dread filling in her.

"ATSUKO!"

Amanda had thought she shouted it but when she sees that blonde hair blur past her, the redhead slows down on her broom.

Diana flew by like a jet and in an instant had Akko's wrist in her hand. The bronze batons on their wrists accidently clinked together and Amanda saw how the heiress's broom was surprised of the sudden weight on it before its owner, though gritting and clearly struggling with her grip on the brunette, gently guided the broom downwards the forest floor.

Amanda relaxes and looks up. The Shooting Star had disappeared into the forest again. She has that distinct feeling it will come back although the front of her mind told her to assist the girls first.

The redhead turns back to where the duo had landed. When Atsuko was back on the ground, her legs buckled and Diana quickly dismounted from her broom to catch her. Amanda follows and left her broom afloat as Diana hurriedly carried Akko to a nearby tree.

Amanda came over as Diana whisks out her wand and she quickly summoned a white towel. Akko smelled terrible.

"Is she…" The redhead was about to start before Akko suddenly jumps, turns around, and pukes into the roots. Diana, surprisingly composed, gently ran a hand across the brunette's back while the other held her hair back as Akko vomited violently. Amanda had to step back.

"Atsuko," Diana suddenly says after Akko finished, a string of saliva and blood dripping on her chin and she takes her by the shoulders. "Turn around."

Akko, surprisingly, slowly obeys and turns around. She had a dazed look on her eyes, like she was trying to see who she was looking at. Amanda can now see the inch-long cut on her cheek, and her robes were little more than rags with more wounds underneath them. Her thighs held smaller cuts though they still looked painful to have. Amanda's immediate thought was, 'What the hell did Shooting Star pull her into?'

Diana's hands quickly went over to a red stain on the left side and she puts her hand in Akko's pocket before pulling out a glass shard.

"Wha—!" Amanda was about to ask before she briefly remembers the vial from before at New Tower. She quiets down as Diana studies it before tossing it away.

"She's injured bad," Diana says as she took the white clothe and tapped the wand with it. It became lightly damped and she gently tapped it against Akko's cheek, who squeaked and smacked her hand away. The heiress pauses for a bit, frowning but presses the damp cloth forward anyway. "Atsuko, can you please answer m— us? What happened up there?"

Amanda leaned forward when Akko paused but she just sighed, now relaxing against the damp cloth. "I… I think… it carried me off… somewhere at the entrance gates first…?" she puts her right hand against her forehead and groaned. "Ugh, my head…"

"Lemme fix that," Diana says and slowly wipes away her bangs. Akko's skin was deathly pale underneath the blood and dirt that was wiped away from her face. Diana gently taps the wand against Akko's forehead and murmured, "Rappéirocapurao."

The green light shone in the tip and very slowly dragged it down her face. Amanda saw the color returning to Akko's face. The cut on her face turned pink but very fragile. When the wand finished on the nose, Diana gently pulled back and the green light was gone.

"That's the best I can do right now," Diana says. "It's dangerous to do more in this state though it isn't serious enough that I really have to. But this'll do."

Akko slowly blinks into life and her red eyes look up at them. She lifts a hand up and touches the cheek with the cut and felt around it. "… Er…" Akko muttered and looks down after feeling the scar. She whispers something.

"What was that?" Amanda asks.

"Uh… Thank you, Miss Cavendish…" Akko murmured and slowly stood up with a bit of Diana's help. Amanda noticed the way she winced and she saw the bruises and cuts on her legs were yet to be treated.

Diana looked surprise. "Oh, uh, it's nothing. No problem," she tries to smile at her but Akko refused to meet her eyes and she lets go of her arm. The heiress frowns at this and she readjusts her hat. "Though considering that you're covered in injuries and on a verge of a fever, you should withdraw."

At this, Akko looks up at her with an incredulous look. "What?"

Diana takes her broom that was came floated to her. "The rescue squad will take you in and deliver you to the ward. With your state, you can't enter the race."

The brunette's mouth a complete 'o'. "Okay, now who are you to say that!?" Akko shouts, suddenly angry. "An injury or two isn't an adequate enough reason to make me back out of the race, much less of it coming from you!"

Diana scowls at this. "'Injury'!? Akko, you just vomited!" She retorts and motions to her mess at the tree in which Akko's face reddened. "There are glass shards in your robes! You have cuts everywhere! You've only flown for what, five minutes, and you come back as this!"

Akko was about to snap something smart back at the heiress but Diana just shook her head, mounted on her broom, and says with finality, "Back out, Atsuko."

And she was gone.

Amanda saw Akko's face turned into an ugly red, her brows knitted together and hands clenched tightly into fists. As much as the redhead wants to side with the brunette, she knows Diana was right about her state. So she gently places her hand on the other witch's shoulder. "She's… kind of right, you know," Amanda tells her slowly. "You can't enter until your wounds are treated."

Akko looks at her like she couldn't believe her, eyes wide in shock before she threw her hands up. "Amanda, are you kidding me?! Have you not noticed the bigger thing here? That thing," Akko points at somewhere far. "Your broom is the actual and legit Shooting Star! And you think that detail is smaller than me entering this stupid race?"

"Akko—"

"I flew on that broom, Amanda! It was dangerous, but I actually flied across the air!"

"And look at the state you are in!" Amanda yells at her and Akko steps back at the sudden anger present in her face. To be honest, it was just for show to make her step off but looking at it now, Amanda realizes the bigger picture but she maintained her façade anyway. "Look, we can search for Shooting Star later but we have to finish one thing first. That first thing for me is the race," Amanda mounts on Jasminka's broom. "And the first thing for you is that you need to go to the clinic."

Amanda yelled, "Tia Freyre!" and flew off, leaving Atsuko in her lonesome.

She wasn't too worried; Akko was a smart girl. She knows her way to find the clinic or maybe one of the roombas will probably find her and take her back. She knows Akko wasn't stupid enough to go look for Shooting Star.

Akko was going to look for the Shooting Star.

The brunette turns from the sight of the two witches flying away and she fumes as she ventured into the forest. Screw Amanda and especially screw Diana. They just totally overlooked the bigger thing here!

Shooting Star in Luna Nova! Shooting Star! The legendary broom that was deemed to be missing since five years ago and right now it's racing in the school! She hadn't expected either of them, especially Amanda, to be so nonchalant about it! What gives!?

Atsuko stops in her tracks and looks down at the area between her knees and the skirt. Dirtied and red, with the wounds weeping fresh blood. It hurts but right now, Shooting Star was much more important. She takes a hanging cloth of her left robe and slowly rips it away. Wrapping it around her palm, she reaches into her pocket and takes out the broken vial carefully and wrapped them safely before she dumps them behind a shrub underneath a spruce.

Her phone was gone but that was the least of her concerns. Akko sniffs a bit and realized the pungent smell of the potion from before and the blur of petals minutes ago was on her and she gags. She remembers the way the Shooting Star seemed to react to it.

Sucy said the potion was made with a blue flower called achlea… blue flower… blue flower…

There!

It was short and rooted near an oak's shady base. Atsuko plucks it out and cringes immediately as its pollen burst from its yellow stigma. Right… Right, stay away from the pollen. Knowing what made her feel like an idiot before Diana healed her, she holds it away at arm's length and covers her nose and mouth.

It stunk awfully. However, this was the kind of flower that Shooting Star reacts strongly to. So she buries her disgust and waved the flower around, albeit reluctantly and was careful on not facing the plant.

Shooting Star had approached the spot behind the laboratories where it found a batch of it. Knowing its color was too dim to be spotted underneath the shaded areas, it was safe to assume that its disgusting smell was what Shooting Star attracted it. But what was in it that attracted the red broom in the first place?

Atsuko hadn't thought of an answer before she hears a rustling and the Shooting Star shot past her, barely a meter away. It worked! Atsuko grins as the Shooting Star somersaulted into the air before turning to her direction.

She had then realized the gravity of the situation and she lets go of the flower when the red broom zoomed past her again. She saw a string of rope hanging near the arrow-like point of the broom and she takes the other end.

She was lurched forward as she grasps the rope and skidded her feet on the dirt, the force of the broom dragging her forward. However, the Shooting Star seemed to be generous to her as it only flew on a leisured pace, which was a complete surprise considering its literally neck-breaking speed from seconds before.

Realizing this, Atsuko quickly picks up her pace. Deeming she was near enough a moment later, she jumps and surprisingly, accomplished on sitting on the red broom. The heat was back against her hands and the rope she held was connected to the loop around the hilt. 'I did it!' she thinks, grinning a bit but Shooting Star seemed to be done with its current speed and cranked it up.

Atsuko yelped as it boosted away with the same speed from before, and the nausea came back again. The vile taste of vomit in her tongue only encouraged it but she quickly told herself to get a grip. Straightening the rope in her palm, she placed one hand on the hilt of the red broom and quickly tied her hands around it, albeit with difficulty.

When she was looping the final knot to station her hands, she bit into the rope and pulled back to lock her grip on the Shooting Star secure. There! No more falling for her.

"Alright, so-called legendary Shooting Star," Atsuko whispered to the broom with a manic grin. "Show me what you've really got!"

"I wonder if Akko's okay," Sucy muttered to Lotte, who shrugged back.

Once the leg flyers were finished in their tracks, the roombas quickly told them to fly back to the Luna Nova's oval. From Sucy's count, there were less than thirty leg flyers here with them and not yet a single anchor. And surprisingly, there was still one witch back up at the first platform who hadn't yet taken out their broom from her spell. It seemed they've already given up and backed out.

Sucy smirked a bit at how successful her potion was before the bird with a microphone for a beak, the journalists' familiar apparently, spoke from its green perch with Wangari's voice. "Now we're counting four, five, six anchor witches are on the final track! And on the top of them all is the 'Trustworthy and Talented Beauty' Diana Cavendish! Will she pull away in the end!?"

"Ugh," Lotte rolls her eyes. "Does that bitch really have to go that far on Diana?"

Sucy shrugs. "Considering Diana has twice as much fans as Amanda, it's no surprise to hear it coming from a journalist, especially from someone as biased as Wangari. But, Akko though…"

Lotte began to frown. "Do you think she gave up halfway? I mean, she's competitive, sure, but don't you think her cheating is a bit of a stretch?"

Sucy bit her lip, pondering on the blonde's statement. "She'll be fine… I hope."

"Pfft—"

The sound of snickering came from behind the duo of the red team looked behind them. Diana's goons were looking pretty smug, just like how they've always been. Sucy wouldn't have hesitated to throw an acne-producing potion right at their faces now hadn't it been for Professor Badcock standing guard around them.

"'She'll be fine, she's competitive'," lisped Hannah in a bad impression of Lotte before scoffing. "Please, red team, your faith in your so-called leader is wasting your nerves. Just stop thinking about it and just expect see her dead-last. That's what going to happen, anyway."

Oh, this bitch… "Awfully bold of you to say that when you were late on your own track," Sucy spat.

Hannah scowled and Barbara says, "Hey, at least our baton was given to a leader who could actually fly."

"You wanna go there again, Parker?" Lotte asked as she cracked her knuckles.

Barbara rolled her eyes and was about to retort something back before the journalist bird says, "Wait a minute—Someone's gaining on Avery fast—It's—It's—"

The witches around leaned forward to hear what made Wangari tongue-tied then gasped as she said, "ATSUKO!?"

""What!?"" Hannah and Barbara yelped together, aghast on the sudden pronouncement before the dark-haired fanatic took out her phone.

Lotte did the same and Sucy leaned in to see if the footage on the site had stated anything about that.

When the blonde finally got the live image on her screen, Sucy saw first was an aerial shot of Avery from violet team in the forest. Her short hair was flying around her face, gaze focused before she looks up, as if she heard a disturbance, and turned around. She yelps as sees something coming in and a blur of red flies past her so fast that Avery was nearly knocked out of her broom.

That arrow-like point, that beautiful cluster of feathers, and that mop of brunette hair with ragged robes—Indeed, Atsuko Kagari was on the race and flying on a broom and not just any broom, but the legendary Shooting Star.

"AKKO!" Lotte and Sucy's face lit up as they see their team leader gaining in Sola, who looked shell-shocked at seeing Atsuko before the brunette ultimately took over her, making her even more confused.

"Witches and fearies, another unexpected comeback from the first witch to leave the New Moon tower; Atsuko Kagari is on the track once more with a revenge on her tail! She's overtook the junior-choir star Avery Hail and Onion-head Sola Ale within seconds on her broom, which is—" Wangari gasps. "My word! Could it be!? Shooting Star!"

Witches gasped and had their eyes glued to the screen as a lucky roomba had caught a shot of Atsuko flying about, and when they could see her better, she was indeed sitting on a broom that looked admonishingly alike the Shooting Star, her hands tied to its arrow-like point with a rope, teeth clenched with her brown hair flying about behind her.

She quickly overtook Rina Selva, who blinked upon seeing her, and just yards ahead, she overtook Amelia Clearberg. Then she was out of the dense forest and on the final yard of ruins and hills, where the Shooting Star easily passed Chloe Rianno.

The witches behind Atsuko were left confounded at the sudden sweep as they could only stare at her with confused expressions, the trial of gust making the five witches grab their hats so they wouldn't fall off.

However, another witch started to gain to the Shooting Star, surprising everyone once more. Her redhair was unmistakable against the sunlight and those green eyes stood out.

"Another racer is in again! Bringing up third is Luna Nova's Futch Sweetheart, Amanda O'Neill!"

The sudden revelation of the race had suddenly made the viewers on edge, with their eyes glued to the screen, to the witches on the lead, to the Shooting Star, all of them staring towards the end, wondering who'll become victor.

"Akko!" Atsuko glanced down to see Amanda gaining awfully fast to her, her green eyes staring up at her with shock. "What are you doing?!"

Atsuko looked back up at front and stared at Diana's back. She grits her teeth and says, "What does it look like!? I'm trying to win the race!"

"With my broom!?" Amanda exclaims in disbelief.

"I told you before; this is the actual Shooting Star! This broom belongs neither to you nor me nor at the Last Wednesday shop!" the brunette retorts before she flinched again as the Shooting Star once more gained speed. "After this, we need to get this to Headmaster Holbrooke!"

Amanda looked after the broom that seemed to lengthen the gap before she shakes her head. This was getting ridiculous. With a bit of concentration, she forced the broom to close the gap between it and the Shooting Star.

When they were on equal speeds again and Atsuko noticed her from the corner of her eye, Amanda says, "Give it up, Akko! Please! If that thing really is Shooting Star, then you'll get killed! How do you get off!?" She reaches out to get to touch the broom but Atsuko, with a bit of force, shifted to the left and the red broom tilted to side, away from the redhead.

Amanda scowls and tries to follow her before an alarming whistle stops her cold. The Shooting Star sped off and left her gaping before Amanda looks up and saw a red card at her face.

Behind the card, Professor Nelson appeared, red in the face with a strict scowl. She said, "Miss O'Neill, sidelining an order from a teacher, and then proceeded to try to outmaneuver her, while dismantling another anchor witch from her broom,"

'Shit,' Amanda thought, noting she had just cursed. 'She caught me with the rope?'

Professor Nelson continued, "All of these violations against the rules results in disqualification!"

Amanda gasps and almost slips away from her broom. "What!? But—But that's not fair! A-Akko—I mean, Miss Kagari—"

"I'll deal with her later!" Professor Nelson told her sharply. "Right now, get off your broom!"

"Oh! Looks like the up-bringer Amanda is disqualified from the race!" Wangari said. Even from afar, Diana could hear the screams of disbelief from the students. "A red card delivered straight in the face for attempt in taking down Atsuko from Shooting Star!"

"She technically violated the rule for running away first, the attempt only tipped it," Professor Croix says, her face stone-cold as she stares at the screen where an image of a saddened O'Neill dismounted from her broom. "And while impressive for taming the Shooting Star, Miss Kagari also seems to be deserving of the red card as well."

From an image in the upper-right corner of her screen, she saw some students cussing about Atsuko. Wangari asks, "Oh? Why do you think that, Professor Croix?"

Croix started to sweat. Ohhhh dear, she just made Atsuko's situation worse, hadn't she? It was a good thing she hadn't made a live chat, otherwise it would've exploded. "Well, I believe that, uh, the Shooting Star was firstly entered by Miss O'Neill. So in a way, Miss Kagari had taken Miss O'Neill's broom, although accidental or deliberately, it's unknown."

'No,' Diana thinks from her spot on the race, as she now exited the final track of the dense forest. 'Atsuko didn't steal it. Shooting Star destroyed Atsuko's broom and she just got caught by it.'

The heiress curses herself for not saving the Atsuko earlier when she saw the Shooting Star yank her away into the sky. She saw the entire thing and while she found the Shooting Star impressive when she first saw it barrel down on them back at the New Moon tower, the thought disappeared when she saw the thing take (though she thinks kidnap would be the right word) Atsuko away.

She glances back and found Atsuko gaining awfully fast. She didn't look any worse from last time but Diana was still worried if she would fall again.

Cranking up her broom's speed, Diana makes the gap between her and the Shooting Star longer for about five yards. It would be impossible to go any slower without it overtaking it so she has to stay with this speed, however magic-consuming it is. She needs to finish the race before she takes care of the thing.

The picnickers around the track squealed in delight as the heiress was finally back on Luna Nova's oval track as she passed by the fountain, the finish line just in the other side.

Wangari noticed this. "The disqualification of Green team's own ace has put a monkey wrench in everybody's expectation! However, one thing's for certain; Diana Cavendish is still on the top! Will Atsuko surpass her!?"

From the corner of her eye, Diana saw a glimpse of that brunette hair just behind her and she focuses on the track. Shooting Star is awfully fast. However, if Diana could just get over that limit…

The heiress focuses back on the track, the finish line now just a hundred yards away, a stretch she could easily blur to if she could just. What's holding her back? Holy shit, what's holding her back? Diana grits her teeth and concentrates on her broom, trying to will herself to go faster than this, knowing this could be the easiest win she could get from a race, but somehow, something's holding her back.

What was it?

Suddenly, Atsuko was by her side now, teeth clenched, face adorably serious, her hair frizzed but still glinting against the sun, and Diana notices how her eyes were wide and shiny, framed by dark and long eyelashes, and the color of the Shooting Star bringing out her eye's color.

"—Are neck to neck! Who will surpass who!?" Diana could barely hear Wangari from above as the students screamed.

Diana then noticed the brunette was flying about three feet above, upside down, and was approximately a foot ahead of Diana. 'Oh shit,' the heiress thought before the Shooting Star surprisingly gained speed again.

Fifty yards.

The blonde began to question this slowness of hers. She could easily surpass her, she could so easily surpass Shooting Star and its speed. Oh, she raced much faster than this when she was back at the Cavendish estate just to throw eggs at her cousins' windows to their rooms. What's holding her back?

Finally, Akko was in front of her. The scream of the crowd was deafening. Her heart drummed as the cluster of feathers blocked her view. Diana just then realized how short Atsuko's skirt was, and it was even shorter now that it was torn away about an inch from it. Her mouth turned to sandpaper.

Slowly, very slowly, Diana lets Akko go on for another foot.

Thirty yards.

Wangari says something about Chloe finally arriving. Atsuko was flying higher and was upside-down again.

Twenty-five yards.

As Diana tries to ask herself what was going on and mentally berating herself on her slowness, she accidently glances up.

Twenty yards.

Pink.

Atsuko wore pink.

Diana felt her blood skyrocket up to her face as she processed on what she just saw.

A fire started up in her stomach made her widen her eyes and she felt her grip tighten against the mahogany wood of her broom. She needs to get rid of this view, fast. Like a switch was turned on in her mind, she suddenly felt a surge of something came to her brain and all of the sudden the Shooting Star was behind her.

The student's screams deafened her eardrums. Confetti burst all around her. She hears a chant of her name but all Diana could think of was how that pink was now etched into her mind, now and maybe forever.

Akko gasped as Diana blur past her, at the speed she didn't know the heiress could reach.

Diana raced towards the finish line and the students screamed.

Akko sat up, gaping, before she suddenly feels the heat of the Shooting Star increasing. She flinched as she felt the heat becoming unbearable, and her legs were burning against the wood between them.

The brunette looks down, shocked on why the Shooting Star suddenly became hot before a flicker of orange hue started onto its arrow-like point again. She widened her eyes and thinks, 'Oh no,' as she realized what was going to happen. She starts pulling away but her hands were locked tight by the ropes.

Panic yet again filled her chest and her heart raced in fear. She starts pulling harder and tried to take the knot that secured her hands away but suddenly, the Shooting Star rushed off, not as fast but some kind of force accented it. The heat became unbearable and she yelps.

Students screamed as the Shooting Star barreled past them. It didn't hit anyone but was very close to. Soon, the Shooting Star was off the track and was now heading to the forest once more.

Akko paled and pulled away from the ropes harsher. No, no, no, no, no…

She clenched her teeth as her fingers and knuckles burned, then she saw how the rope started to smother in smoke. Then the spot went up in flame.

Atsuko gasped as tried to pull and shake the knot, panic now fogging her mind as the flame started to hurt her. She whimpers and yelps as the flame flicked against her skin. She needs to get out of here, she needs to get off this broom. She sits up and places her right foot at the arrow-like point and starts to pull. She felt her wrist slowly pull out.

The Shooting Star was inside the forest once again. Akko cries out in pain as the red broom smacked against a tree and heard a sickening crack on her left side. A burning sensation was replaced from the impact.

She whimpers and starts pulling faster. The action only doubled the pain before finally, her right hand was released. Rope marks were stretched across her wrist and the back of her palm, red and stung from the flame of the rope. She clenched her teeth and starts pulling the other hand away.

A smudge of blue caught her eye and she looks up to see three, four, six, twelve, dozens and dozens of the blue flowers hurtling around her. Atsuko holds her breath and pulls harder, her entire body screaming in pain. The flame touched her left hand's fingers and she yelps, inhaling the scent of the flowers around her and she gags.

Suddenly, her mind nearly shut off, her bearings suddenly hazy, like a massive blanket just pulled over her and all she could see was blotches obscuring her vision. A tiny voice, though dull and dreary, screamed through the mist that spread across her mind to hold her breath and pull.

With a bit of force, she looks down and found her left hand nearly out, just the fingers that were left. The flame spread farther around, leaving the rope charred and hot.

'Pull,' Atsuko told herself and forced her limbs to move. Her left side was painful to stir and just keeping her eyes open was a chore. But she holds her breath and with one more pull, her hand was out and Atsuko's senses, for the last time, surged and exclaimed for her to get the hell off the broom.

She does and when she lets go, her eyes were met with an amazing sight.

The Shooting Star was out on an open field again, the blue sky and fluffy clouds blinding behind it. As she fell, her arms extended out looking charred, but all she could see was how the Shooting Star burned the rest of the rope on it into ashes, and the red wood shone against the sunlight, shiny and untapped by human hands.

The feathery brush ruffled before it elongated out to two, three, four feet, the feathers golden and smooth before two ends extended to the side. The two ends extended further and became longer than the broom itself, and Akko could see more golden feathers growing out underneath them, like they were a pair of wings.

Like it really was a bird, the wings flapped once, a powerful force that made Atsuko feel overwhelmed before the Shooting Star flew away.

It was like dream, where Akko was falling and the last thing she saw was the magic of the past.

Then she felt her left side yet again get hit another hard and rough surface and she yelps, shutting her eyes tight at the impact. Akko's forearm was burning and when she touched it with the other hand, felt a certain bump in somewhere it shouldn't be.

She gasped again and slowly blinks awake before tasting something metallic. Her last relevant thought was that the cut on her cheek was open again. The horrid scent of the flowers was gone and she looks at her left arm.

It was turning purple and a bump was there. Red dripped down her robes and she felt her face paling.

What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?

Somewhere, someone was shouting something Akko's name but her breathing became shallow. Her bearings were lost and she doesn't know what she sees anymore. Blotches filled vision again then darkness.

The race was finished nearly six hours ago. Curfew was on and fearies are working overtime to put off the entire platforms.

A lone roomba was walking across the ruins and hills that were made for the race. Tomorrow, one of the professors will dismantle the entire track and have it sealed off once more so it was better to hunt tonight before otherwise.

The roomba travelled for a few moments, searching for a certain item within the track before spotting it.

It beeped a small sound and trotted towards the broken smartphone before picking it up. It was banged up pretty bad. After all, a forty-foot fall wasn't something a fragile device like this from the human world can withstand.

But she knew her way around them. Fixing and modifying something like this would be a piece of cake, in fact, she could even alter its endurance with falls using magictronics. After all, Croix wasn't a pronounced inventor for nothing.

B's notes:

Heyyy slow update but then again this is an entire 13k work so fucc my procrastinating ass

Anyway, yall know whats up, and I know, I made this arc a bit darker than necessary but it's totally there for a reason

This shit's been three chapters long and I think im going to compile chap7 and 8 together along with this and 10, once its complete in order for it be incessant rather than being cut off and the reasons for all the confusing shit are revealed. Trust me, I hate this arc's pace more than anyone, its slower than pkmn dppt ffs

And don't start with all the grammar, its wrong and I know but im too lazy to edit them, unless I find them ugly enough