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

PoV: A lot -w- (Sanya, Aisha, a Coalescence soldier (Abdelaziz), Mai)

Sanya tore another hole in reality and teleported closer to Zulfaqar's army, on a small hill overlooking the moving legions. Her spot still couldn't see past the first few rows.

She could get an even better view of it if she could see them from the sky. It would help her with targeting them all with her spell.

She had one very impulsive thought at the idea of getting into the sky.

What if she gave herself wings?

Unfortunately that would probably tear her clothes at her back, and she had just gotten those.

. . . She also didn't even need wings. She was the Voidwitch, Firmament Sovereign—Spatial mage and Celestial Summoner.

Okay, that part was actually irrelevant.

She now had the powers of an eldritch entity, though. Hundreds of new spells were hers, that a mortal could hardly comprehend. The eldritch stormed into worlds and sucked them dry of resources. Nothing could withstand their onslaught.

Reality was hers to control. What was a little lack of ground beneath her feet to keep her out of the sky? The laws of gravity would submit to her.

So, she simply put herself in the air and stayed there.

Now, she could clearly see the ranks of twenty thousand soldiers.

A small inconvenience, that meant the twenty thousand could now see Sanya.

Either impulsively or given the order, a few magic projectiles flew her way. They all missed. There were fireballs, gusts of air like blades, and some other things thrown in there too.

Sanya resummoned her extra unattached appendages. Casting something seven times was much stronger than only once.

“[Extinction Event],” Sanya cast, holding the spell before it was released. Her six extra arms also cast the spell, manually writing it at the same time. Even at inhuman speeds, the spell structures took three minutes to put together.

This was one of the strongest Celestial Summoning spells.

Sanya needed to use her stores of life force in order to cast eldritch spells, especially spells she would speak to cast. She had used all her stores doing all the teleporting and gravity-hating she had done prior.

Good thing this Celestial Summon would give her an adequate amount. She would be able to use that life force against any breaching eldritch entities.

How would she gather life force in a prolonged engagement though? Would she have to drain forests, fields, or even cities? Is that partly what the librarian meant when she said Sanya would turn into a villain, ignoring the Mai-dies part?

All the while, spells continued to get thrown her way as the army marched onto Hope. The few spells that did hit her at this range harmlessly bounced off her, not even destroying her clothes.

The spells locked into place. Sanya released them onto Zulfaqar's marching army.

☆ ☆ ☆

Aisha uttered a string of a thousand curses, watching Sanya walk away.

Five minutes? What was that thing about giving her five minutes? Was she crazy?

She had summoned six terrifying arms and then plunged two thousand individuals through some sort of teleportation spell that wasn't [Globetrot Anchor]. That spell definitely had not even been a Spatial spell. Nor was it Celestial Summoning.

What was Sanya now?

Should Aisha be worried? Was the safety of Calderae-Hope in danger from one of its greatest assets? (Aisha did not want to think about one of her maybe-kind-of-adoptive-daughters as an “asset”, but Sanya also . . . was.)

She was concerned that she had lost her reins on her, that Sanya would become some terrifying monster.

What the librarian had said . . . What Zulfaqar had said . . .

What if they had been right?

What if Aisha should have Killed Sanya?

What if Sanya hurt them all?

Sanya became a small figure far in the air, not falling back down. How was she doing that? Could Sanya stop being surprising?

Her body had turned ghostly, in a way like something beyond this reality trying to fit in and failing. She had fixed her wardrobe, finally. The new spells and everything . . . Aisha worries that all those changes had turned Sanya into something other than she was before.

Which was silly. She was obviously still Sanya.

Maybe Aisha wanted an excuse to metaphorically put Sanya to rest so she could actually do it.

Argh . . . she wasn't actually planning the death of one of her basically-adopted-daughters, was she? . . .

Aisha sighed. She turned towards the army to give them their orders, although they had already been through this.

Sanya would have her five minutes, she would have ten or fifteen before the Zulfaqar’a army marched over here.

Then—

—two different things happened.

One, the sky began to crack.

Two, an explosion rocked the world, with such a loud boom that it sent Aisha’s ears ringing. Wind rushed towards the waiting army, brushing up Aisha’s hair in a whirlwind and pushing back some of the lighter-weight soldiers.

Dirt and dust kicked up as fire and rubble rained down from the sky two kilometers away.

What on Heliux's forsaken hellscape?

A primal fear coursed through Aisha’s veins and urged her to run.

The soldiers shuffled in their ranks, sweat beading at their foreheads.

Aisha stared towards the explosion as it cleared.

I don't even know anymore . . .

☆ ☆ ☆

Abdelaziz Of-Zayaan, soldier in Honored Zulfaqar's great army, rode on his camel at a casual trot with the rest of the army, who mostly walked on foot. His lance gleamed in the morning sunlight. He and the army marched eastward in an attempt to save the world from total destruction. Soon, his detachment of cavalry would break off to charge the enemy lines, to offer a crushing blow to the Calderae-Hope troops. Every soldier in Honored Zulfaqar's mighty legions would have a part to play, their own piece to contribute to saving the world.

An evil witch—the Voidwitch—would soon summon a bunch of entities from another world that would destroy the world that Abdelaziz's countrymen called home. There was another one with her, an Esmat Of-None, with potential to do the same.

If the army could kill the Voidwitch and her companion in villainy, then the entities would not come.

Calderae-Hope would protect the Voidwitch, because they too wanted this to happen for their own twisted goals. To try and control these otherworldly beings for their benefit, or just to destroy the world, Abdelaziz did not know.

Then, a strange, gray woman appeared in the sky. She was just floating there, as if the laws of gravity were a joke. Abdelaziz thought it was an illusion for a second. She would almost have been pretty with her clothes and hair, if not for the arrangement of bony but ephemeral limbs surrounding her. Each one looked starved by a thousand years, a single second away from crumbling to dust or vanishing out of sight.

She might as well have been, because some mages shot magical attacks at her, and she shrugged them off as if they were nothing. She did not look their way or react to them at all.

She was there, like a statue without a pose, while mana gathered around her and the six ghostly limbs.

Abdelaziz almost laughed. She had been floating up there for three minutes. Would this lady not cast her spells? . . .

This must have been some joke to scare the army. Yes! It was an illusion, of course!

Abdelaziz did not know of any illusionist in Honored Zulfaqar's army, but maybe not knowing was part of the advantage. In any case, maybe the Voidwitch and Of-Jinan had an illusionist or two in their company?

Aha! The floating lady finally cast her spell. So she was real, after all—?

Then, suddenly there was nothingness.

One moment, he was on his camel, trotting forward, army around him.

Then there was no sky. No camel beneath him. The smell of sweat and steel disappeared. The suns stopped shining down on Abdelaziz to deliver their heat and make him shift in his armor.

And there were no thoughts in Abdelaziz's head, for he had no head any longer, nor anything else.

☆ ☆ ☆

Mai teleported to the horizon and finally found herself in front of Hope, after multiple minutes of chaining [Organic Displacement] across the land with her group of twenty-three.

Once it was in sight, she quickly spotted the waiting two-thousand that Sanya had brought over. It seemed she had arrived before the other two thousand. They would be last. Hopefully they would be able to bolster the other two thousand before they got crushed—not that they would! Sanya would win!

She also saw the crack in the sky above them. Um? . . . That was concerning. What could it mean? The sky had cracked like that during the Abyss portal summoning and lightly around other portals.

She cast one last [Organic Displacement] and placed her and her group next to Aisha.

Mai did not see Esmat or their group yet. They had gotten a bit of a head start, maybe they had gotten more hills and trees in their way? . . .

“Made it!” Mai cheered.

Aisha turned to her and gave her a nod. “I know you just got here, but are you ready to bring them back home?”

Mai's brain completely paused. Had she heard that correctly? Was there something wrong with her ears? “What?”

Aisha directed her gaze westward. “The fight’s over.”

Mai peered that way and saw . . . nothing! A whole lot of nothing. Maybe that was the point. The ground looked a bit . . . scorched? Mai could not tell from this distance.

She squinted. Was that . . . Sanya in the sky, there? She had a green aura around her, coming in lines and waves from the wasted field.

“Did they leave? Orrrr? . . .” Mai trailed off, head tilted, glancing up towards Aisha. It was obvious with that field that some kind of battle had taken place.

“Sanya took care of it all.”

“That's so vague!” Mai's expression dropped. “You mean, ‘splat?’ Or . . . ‘kaboom?’ Like—dead, gone—all?”

Aisha nodded. She looked more worried than relieved. Her hands were shaking.

“That's great, then! Sanya saved our army from the fight.”

“She vaporized twenty-thousand in three minutes . . . and I thought I was strong. What kind of monster is Sanya?”

“Not a monster!” If anything, Sanya was an angel—like, by Heliux's design. All she needed to do was turn the extra appendages she had into tentacles and gain some . . . other squid parts? Mai did not know what kinds of things made a squid. Things and stuff. But she did all the protecting and everything else that angels did.

“. . . You're not unsettled at all.”

“Nope! Why would I be? It's Sanya. I trust her. And she beats herself up all the time and blames herself. No one like that can be bad, when she turns it all towards herself instead of out. She's sooo gonna be upset with herself later.”

And Mai would hate that, but she would be there for Sanya. Mai wanted Sanya, and maybe Sanya could lean on Mai for some things. Including not beating herself up, and instead talking through it or cuddling or something actually nice and healthy.

If Mai was a doctor she would prescribe lots of cuddles. Cuddles with plush toys worked but with other humans would be the gold standard to strive for. No—cuddles with Sanya would be the gold standard, but only Mai would get those.

There should be, like, cuddle services for those who struggled to find someone to cuddle with—

Oh! They should stop using coins for currency and instead use hugs and cuddles. Actually maybe they shouldn't . . . commoditize those? That would make them feel less special, maybe?

Aisha just nodded and walked away. She called out to her generals that they would return to Calderae. She ordered all but one of the Spatial mages and their groups of twenty-three to head back. Those groups promptly disappeared. The one would stay back for when Esmat and their group would arrive, to notify them that the matter had concluded and to return to Calderae. Oh and the other half of the army. She told them to come and notify her at the guild hall once everyone was back.

“Eep!” Mai cried, jumping out of her skin.

Sanya appeared right in front of her, so suddenly. “Hey,” Sanya grinned.

“Hi!” Lord Heliux Lord Heliux Lord Heliux she's so pretty I love her. That grin and the casual way she greeted me but then under all that the hint she's been dying to be near me and talk to me and—I love her.

“Sanya!” Aisha turned around and called—barked? Yeah, she was barking. “Can you get everyone back to Calderae?”

“Yes. Now?”

“Now.”

Sanya frowned at the sky. It looked like she was analyzing the crack up there, thinking hard. She did that a lot—thinking hard. She was smart and precious and—

Maybe Mai should be concerned about the crack in the sky too. They seemed to be a visualization of a weakened . . . whatever. The thing keeping the eldritch entities from being able to just saunter into the world.

Sanya summoned her eldritch appendages again. To Mai's surprise, Sanya cast seven [Globetrot Anchors] to Calderae at once, dividing the two thousand to make it much more manageable.

Then, Sanya pulled everyone over to Calderae, Mai included. She wanted one of Sanya's extra appendages in her. Or maybe all six. Not that Mai would ask Sanya for that anymore, she had promised. It was little more than an intrusive thought.

She had a lot of those, and Sanya made them run extra rampant.