As the door closed behind us, Hailey and I were faced with a mystifying scene…
Julius was slouching over in a chair with his hands pressed firmly against his forehead, while Mei was vigorously scrubbing at a dark stain on her shorts located in a compromising place.
I quickly glanced around the room, spotting Rias sitting cross-legged in the left corner and Akari who was positioned the same way in the right corner.
"Uhmmm, what in the Aether is this?"
Mei's head shot up and I recoiled under her fierce glare.
"Timeout."
"Time… out?"
"Yes."
"What does that even mean?"
"…"
I felt the temperature of the room rise from the silent anger radiating from the ranger.
Julius slowly lifted his head up from his hands and looked at me with a brand new, never seen before, classic Julius expression; utter defeat.
"Apparently it's some sort of ritual, for unruly children. To reflect on their actions."
I glanced at Hailey, but she was equally stunned and wearing a look of complete confusion.
"Did something happen to warrant this, 'timeout'?"
Julius slowly rose from his seat, grabbed my shoulders, turned me around to the door, and led me out into the hall. We walked to Rias' room and he pushed the door open, revealing another strange sight.
Blackened patches of scorched fabric spotted the carpet.
"What the—was it… Akari?"
He pointed at the carpet with one hand, and the other cradled his head as he sighed, "No. Listen… I don't think fire spells are your sister's forte."
"Rias did this!?"
"Yep."
"Does the inn staff know?"
"Yep."
"…"
I pulled the door closed. After silently staring at the grain in the wood for a moment, we walked back to my room. Hailey gave me a quizzical look and I mouthed at her that I'd show her later.
"Alright then," I clapped my hands together, "Thank you for watching the girls you two. We'll take over from here. Why don't both of you go take a nice warm dip in the hot springs. The Matriarchs should be here in the evening, but you've got some time to unwind before then."
"Sounds like a great idea. I think I'll do just that."
Julius moved to leave but stopped and looked at Mei, who wore a dangerous look on her face. Her hands hovered over the dark spot she'd been scrubbing at. A worrying thought dawned on me and I frantically looked back at the stain, and noticed that it was not, in fact, a stain—but a scorch mark.
I placed a hand on her shoulder, causing the ranger to flinch. "Are you… okay down there?I can heal you if—"
Her eyes went wide and she shouted, "N-No! I'm fine!" then stormed out of the door, practically pushing Julius out of her way.
"Is she alright?"
"Yeah, I think so," Julius peeked his head out into the hall, "I don't really know if she got burned. I tried to ask and got shut down even quicker than you just did."
"We should have a few restoration potions stashed away in our bag, I can dig one out for her."
"I brought a few with my gear too. She's already had one, so I think she'll be okay. May take some time to kick in though."
"Alright. Well, go take a break, we've got it from here."
Julius flashed a grin, gave me a quick salute, and then left the room.
I walked over to Akari's corner and leaned against the wall. She looked up at me, tears threatening to burst from her eyes. I slid down onto my rear and reached out for her, pulling her close to my side.
"You had a pretty lively day, huh kiddo."
"I dinnit… hic! mean ta… hic! cause trubble…" she stammered between heart-wrenching sobs.
I gently placed my hand down on her head in an attempt to comfort her, "You didn't cause any trouble. Everything is fine now."
Akari buried her face in my chest and I gently stroked her hair.
I glanced up to catch Rias peeking at us and I waved her over. She scuttled across the room and sat on my other side. Her face was hard to read, lost somewhere deep in thought.
"So, fire magick isn't really your thing, huh?"
I got a sharp huff of air in response.
"I mean, what were you trying to do that caused such a mess?"
Rias let out a less intense huff and leaned her head against my shoulder, "I had this idea to attempt a sort of aptitude test for Akari. 'Cause she's able to copy and, in most cases, improve any spellcasting she watches."
"Uh huh. So tell me, how does testing a bunch of spells result in a wildfire that scorches Mei's shorts?"
"I got careless… Instead of sticking with a single school, I just cast magick kinda randomly. I should have done all the fire spells first, because they're the hardest to control for me. I got too excited and by the time I started to notice the effects of magicka exhaustion, my SCORCH spell backfired when I got a full dose of magicka feedback."
A few minutes later a knock came at the door. I opened it to a red-faced Mei, dressed in nothing but a large towel, muttering something unintelligible under her breath.
"What's up, Mei?"
"I need you… to, uh…" her voice trailed off too softly for me to hear the rest.
I leaned over, moving my head so that my ear was closer to her mouth, "One more time, I couldn't hear you."
A sigh of defeat escaped her lips, "I need you to cast a healing spell on me. On my inner thigh. The spring water is too hot. It hurts."
"It's a touch range spell… is that okay?"
"…Yes."
I called out to Hailey that I'd be right back and followed Mei to her room to administer the holy magick. After a quick incantation, a squirmy-legged Mei took her leave back to the springs.