Opening a Magic Academy at the End of the World [Yuri, Transgender, Book 1 Complete]

People saw a very tall and muscular mage in the sun-washed orange of temporal robes and gave her a generously wide berth. This was mostly accompanied with hurried glances, quickly looking away and picking up their pace. Or trying their best to hide the fact they had looked at her. Some stopped walking and gawked. Was it because of the robes and her stature?

Or it was also maybe partly because they knew who she was—a maybe-murderer? If word got out she had thwarted an assassination attempt against her, maybe she was known as a powerful mage who would stop anyone who got in her way or attempted to stop her?

The fact that there was enough room to give her such a wide berth was concerning. There were seriously less people on the streets. Less wagons as well. Were there fewer market stalls, in addition? What was going on? Was less being purchased and brought over to Glorestra? Were merchant caravans skipping them over, now? Was everyone hidden in their houses because of a loose murderer?

Anyway, she wasn't exactly going to yell down the streets that they had it all wrong and she wasn't a murderer, and that she in fact just got back from a day-long trip—barring all the time bubble shenanigans, of course.

She had rested for most of the prior day, so thankfully she did not feel much like resting.

No, she wanted bloodshed. She was alive with a twitching urge to take the Prince by the neck and—

Ah, so, she guessed she was going to be the murderer everyone was avoiding. Just . . . killing different people?

Right. She was going to kill people.

What could she say? They deserved it? They, well, huh, they did.

Well, hopefully she would kill a person, one—the Prince. Unless his attack dog got in the way.

Where were the guards? They seldom walked the streets. Those ones did not seem to have orders to detain Aisha.

“Are . . .” Aisha began. “Are you really going to follow me all the way to the palace? You don't have to . . .”

“Hmm. Right. I want to support your cause. I'll help in any way I can.”

Aisha wasn't one to decline help, but . . . Fazl had lost his leg. He was walking around on crutches. How much support could he offer Aisha? Would he be a liability?

“What did you mean when you said you investigated the Prince? Aisha asked.

“I mean I think we would all be a lot better off with him being dead.”

“Can you not be vague? What made you think that?”

“Well. He kind-of got rid of everyone else in the royal family, securing his seat. The king is a vegetable. The Second Prince is dead. The queen has been dead for years. The Prince has been making Glorestrian funds disappear. The top legislator was mysteriously murdered. Temporal mages being murdered. You almost being assassinated. You bring framed . . . Ah, and the case of the government making a bunch of orphans and homeless go missing.” Fazl went on and on. Yeah, Glorestra was a mess. How could they be certain this was all due to the Prince?

“Can you connect most of that to him, though?”

“. . .”

Aisha sighed. Of course he didn't know. Of course he didn't have evidence.

“Not all of it. But I saw the Prince enter the palace through a back entrance with some kids. I don't think the kids ever came back out. Another orphanage had been cleared out earlier. The palace shouldn't have room for a hundred kids—even that is pushing it.”

“What if we're mistaken? What if he is being framed? What if the whole orphan thing is something else? . . .” Aisha entertained the idea.

“I don't know, but you want to kill him.”

“I do.”

The Prince was slime, if for nothing else other than killing the Second Prince. Huh, what if the Second Prince had been bad or corrupt? What if he had been worse? Why hadn't Aisha thought about that before? Probably because it was stupid.

The whole conversation, Aisha's mana-sense had been tingling with aeolian residue from behind her.

“What are you doing back there, anyway?”

“What ever do you mean?” Fazl asked innocently, he tried to whistle a tune. Emphasis on “tried.”

“I can sense your mana.”

“Oh. Just trying to figure out this spell.”

Aisha rolled her eyes. “What spell?”

“Nothing,” Fazl tried hiding pathetically.

“There's no way it's ‘nothing.’ What are you trying to make?”

“Wings. But then I realized aeolian mages probably can't do that. So now I'm trying to modify [Updraft] into something like a [Flight] spell maybe.”

“You're trying to fly?”

“Yup. Missing this leg won't slow me down if I have anything to say about it.”

That was . . . kind of interesting, actually.

Aisha and Fazl passed by the legislature. Aisha stopped to gaze up at it. The impressive retinue of lousy guards stood vigilant over it, as usual.

It reminded Aisha of Rafiq. Could she take Fazl's word that Rafiq had been killed? Actually, would knowing if Rafiq was still alive make any difference? Aisha going to kill the Prince was not some sudden plot to avenge Rafiq's death. No. This was years of hatred and disdain for the Prince, slowly growing over the years. She finally snapped this year, done with the Prince and everything he stood for. Royalty. Power in one person. He thought he could do what he wanted. Kill people. Embezzle funds.

Not minding the fact at least some portion of those funds went to the magic academy . . . What even was the endgame for that? Did it matter?

Huh. Would the academy lose their funding if Aisha killed the Prince. Would someone look further into that hole in the budget and explore?

Wasn't Rafiq doing that, actually? That emergency meeting that had made him leave his office, when that new mage had come to take the missives . . . Had that mage gone to dispose of Rafiq?

Argh.

“Hey,” Aisha said. “Do you think I'll be able to see Ragiq's corpse? What happened to Zawar, too?”

“Ragiq's corpse would have been moved long by now. As for Zawar . . . I don't actually know.”

“Detour! Let's go to the morgue.”

Fazl swallowed.

☆ ☆ ☆

When they got there, Fazl was panting for breath.

It turned out, walking across an entire city in crutches took a great deal of effort. Especially when following someone moving with large, determined strides.

Aisha pushed the door to the morgue open and rushed inside.

The first room was a reception and waiting room, of sorts.

To the immediate left, an old man sat in a chair behind a stone desk. The right side of the room had a couple chairs. That was all. It was small and minimalistic. The morgue did not need to be anything more.

A hallway directly opposite of the door led further into the building.

“May I help you?” The receptionist or mortician asked. Maybe has both.

“I'd like to pay my respects to Legislator Rafiq, if that is okay.”

The receptionist scratched his head. “The funeral is in two days.”

“I want to see him now.”

“Are you a mortician? . . . Are you . . . Do you have papers?”

“Only my mage writ.”

The receptionist sighed. “Ah, that's not enough . . . Whatever. Fine. I don't care. Let's go.”

Not very professional. Aisha appreciated him being a pushover nonetheless. Hmm. How many people did he get wanting to see the dead for non-business reasons?

Aisha followed the receptionist through the hall. She glanced back once. Fazl hobbled up to a chair and took a seat.

“Not coming?” She asked.

Fazl shook his head. “No . . . You go on . . . Ahead.”

“Alright.”

Aisha and the receptionist stepped into a large room. A large table sat, centered, perhaps for throwing bodies on to study them. Rectangles of stone had been cut out of the walls to male cubbies. Ones that each held a casket-esque stone structure, with a handle protruding out to grasp it and pull it from the wall. Doubtless, inside those rested bodies that would never wake up.

“Are you ready?” The receptionist asked.

Aisha . . . was not.

Oh, Heliux, I'm going to see Rafiq’s body.

She was going to see Rafiq . . . dead. Lifeless. Gone. This was all real. She was here, in the morgue.

Oh no.

She paled. She wanted to throw up. She hadn't even seen Rafiq yet.

What about Zawar? What was he doing now? Agh, this was not the time to think about this

Aisha nodded.

“Very well,” the receptionist saw her nod.

He stepped up to one of the caskets in the wall and pulled it forward. It rolled smoothly, as if it had little wheels on rails.

Somehow, the old man's muscles were ripped enough to pick up an entire stone casket of a dead man and place it onto the table.

The receptionist popped the lid and—

There rested . . . him.

Rafiq.

Inky-black beard impeccable no longer. Expression peaceful, although who knew how he appeared in his final moments. Eyes open, revealing his gentle and yet calculating brown eyes. His death kept none of that. He was all too pale.

Aisha put a hand to her mouth. She looked away for a long moment.

She tried to forget about Rafiq's lacerated neck. Someone had stabbed something sharp through it and totally mangled it.

Okay. That was it.

She was going to throw up somewhere.

She glanced around, looking for a garbage bin or maybe a doorway to a washroom or—

She twirled around and faced away from the table and threw up. It came up and burned through her throat and made her mouth all . . . blegh.

Then it was out, on the floor. All there wasn't much of “it.” She hadn't eaten in . . .

Erm.

The lingering bile still stung. She felt a bit better though.

Maybe she should eat dinner? Not that . . . not that she wanted to. She had no appetite. Not just because of seeing Rafiq, but before that too.

She had anxiety. A restlessness. An anticipation.

“Sorry about that,” Aisha turned to watch the silent receptionist.

“I-it’s um alright. Only a minor violation of the health code—u-um I will clean it up!”

The receptionist ran down the hall and pushed open a door in it. He came back with a wet rag.

“Thank you,” Aisha sniffed. “I’m going to—I’ve got to go.”

She practically stormed out of the room and back into the front room.

Her blood boiled. Her face was red and scrunched. Yet, next to that anger, crying threatened her.

Fazl pushed himself up from his seat, grasping his crutches. “Is everything alright?”

Aisha shook her head, fighting back tears. “We're going.”

“Going where? Dinner, I hope?” Fazl gave a light life, entirely inappropriate next to someone who just saw the corpse of a . . . of a . . . What even was Rafiq to Aisha? Someone important, that was for sure. Why couldn't she name it? Friend? Parental figure? Who?

Aisha glared at Fazl, she stopped, hand on the doorknob. “The palace.”

Fazl swallowed. “Corpses on the menu. Got it.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Aisha and Fazl moved through the afternoon streets. With each step, they came closer to Aisha's destination—the palace.

However, her body seemed to have other plans.

With each step, her body also protested. Just in one day, she had rode on a wagon to a mysterious magical academy. There, she had taken a tour, and then spent hours devouring a book that strained her mind.

She had received an urgent notice from the couriers to—

“Fazl? . . .” Aisha stopped walking.

“Yes?” Fazl caught up to her, panting.

“When did Rafiq die?”

“When? It must have been early in the morning. Maybe six? How come?”

Six . . . It took about four hours to get to the academy by caravan. Could camel scouts get there in two? Aisha had promised she would catch up, but that had been a broken promise. So they would arrive at . . . at eight?

Aisha's caravan had arrived at four. Although the academy students had already been up for some time because of the temporal mages. They had set up a time bubble and made time a bit faster in it . . .

Hmm.

She supposed that time made sense. It was kind of hard to tell. Had Rafiq really sent those couriers? Perhaps. Agh, thinking about all this made her head hurt. She wouldn't learn anything this way.

Whatever. It didn't matter if he had sent them or not.

“What is it? I can see the wheels in your eyes spinning.”

“Argh. Just thought of something, but it's nothing. The time seems to add up. It's a bit difficult with temporal mage shenanigans though.”

Fazl raised an eyebrow, asking her to elaborate.

She did not.

Aisha began walking again, but she felt her legs get weaker. They wobbled and ached, begging her to sit down.

Soon she found herself gasping for breath, leaning against a pergola pillar.

A world-crushing ache split through Aisha's skull. Her mouth was parched. When had she last drank water? . . .

“Aisha?”

Out of curiosity, Aisha tried to summon a time bubble.

She felt herself draining away. She tried to redirect the backlash elsewhere, but the control slipped from her grasp.

The bubble faltered, and then popped.

Aisha cursed.

She had to make a decision she did not like.

She wanted to go forwards and kill the Prince now. Yet, she could not even keep up a bubble. Her exhaustion and mana use from the day left her drained. She would not be able to plow through the Prince's retinue and then him this way.

What had the librarian said about him, too? He was a necrotic mage? Aisha knew nothing about that. Did it matter?

Aisha closed her eyes and put a hand up against her forehead, rubbing it. “We . . . We should do this tomorrow. Let's head to my place.”

“How about we not do that? There will be people looking for you, doubtless. Let's crash at mine.”

“S—sure . . . Your place. I hope for both our sakes it’s nearby.”

Relief flooded across Fazl's face.

Something inside Aisha told her she wouldn't get much sleep or even food. Yet, she needed all the rest and sustenance she could get.

☆ ☆ ☆

Sanya blinked as Mai picked up one of the “staves.” Apparently Mai decided it was time to start learning magic.

“Is that really a staff? It just looks like a metal rod right now,” Sanya noticed.

Mai shrugged. “This is what all staves are—they are just fancier. Metal rods are honest-to-Heliux magical staves!”

“Why did the world decide metal rods would be the conduit for magic?”

“Wooden staves work too. It is just that wood is far too rare to be used for staves,” Zahira pitched in with her concerning amount of worldly knowledge.

Sanya almost rolled her eyes. She mouthed “nerd.”

“Can you pass me my staff?” She said instead.

“You're not tied to your bed,” Mai scoffed.

Sanya glared at Mai. Sanya stood from her bed and went to retrieve her staff. She reached out her hand and hesitated.

“I . . . I can't,” Sanya said.

“What do you mean?”

Sanya looked away from the staff.

“Why not?” Mai tilted her head.

Sanya remembered hitting that girl with her staff.

Sanya could not pretend she had not heard the sick cracking of bones.

Sanya blanched.

“Can I . . . Can I apologize to that girl? Do you think she would see me?”

Mai blinked. “Sanya? . . .”

Zahira paled.

“Oh dear,” Sanya heard Dima say.

Sanya swallowed. “What?”

“D-do you not know?” Mai asked. “Or are you pretending? Are you hoping the outcome is different than what you think?”

“Why . . . Why am I still here, then?” Sanya collapsed back onto her bed.

Sanya's stomach twisted. The reality hit her. Sanya turned around and stuffed her face into the sheets. The tears flowed out easily.

The choking sobs were second nature.

“I killed her!” Sanya screamed into the bed. “Heliux, end me!”

“Sanya . . .” Mai said.

Sanya heard Mai put down the metal rod and jump up to take a seat on Sanya's bed. She swiped the chess pieces away.

She reached a hand out towards Sanya. She felt it on her back—Mai's good hand.

Don't think I've forgotten about that either!

Heliux! I'm such a monster. I deserve to die! I tried to help everyone and do it myself. Why am I still here?

Mai rubbed Sanya’s back. “It’s okay . . .”

“It’s not! I killed her and I meant it! Why are you still here? For me? I'm a murderer!”

Mai paused her patting. “Because . . . Because you have so much pain. Because you feel terrible about it. You're not a bad person.

“Yes. You did something absolutely terrible. You should be punished for it. Right now, though, you're on the verge of ending it all. You committed that murder out of stress and pain . . . and mental illness? You can be righted. I want to see you better. You . . . You were my friend. You deserve it . . .”

Were. And she didn't say anything about once being girlfriends.

. . . That was what Sanya was focusing on?

Sanya was . . . Sanya was so tired. What were Mai and Zahira doing here so late anyway? Had they even had dinner yet? Had they eaten at all today?

Sanya cried until she felt exhausted enough to fall asleep.