Yeri felt her stomach sink as she entered the room where her assessment was to take place. The room was completely white, from the floors to the wall. It was fairly large, larger than what she had expected. In the centre of the room was what looked to her like a strange sculpture. As far as she knew, statues were not supposed glow. The statue-like sculpture was of some girl— assumed it was a witch, given where it was. The girl was pretty; she looked about Yeri’s age. Needless to say, besides the fact that the statue had a golden glow about it, she really had no idea what it could possibly have to do with her assessment. Though it was only a few minutes into the exam, Yeri thought she was already losing it. She could’ve sworn that as she circled the statue it blinked. She shook her head. Surely that was a hallucination. Actually she wasn’t sure if she would rather it have been a hallucination, or she was just really, really stressed. Somehow, had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. The fact that the statue had started melting definitely didn’t ease that feeling. In the place of the melted statue were now two items floating mid-air: one being some sort of pink-ish elixir, and the other a dagger the length of Yeri’s forearm. Yeri went with the dagger since she was fairly skilled in the practice.

As soon as Yeri wrapped her hand the hilt of the dagger, the elixir disappeared, and a silver door appeared on the wall to her left. Taking that as her cue, she entered the strange silver door. Once again, she was in a completely white room, though this time, it was significantly less well-lit. Gripping the dagger, she slowly made her way further into the room. She was thankful of her caution after a girl much taller and slimmer than her dropped from the ceiling. Was Yeri actually expected to fight someone? She was not in the optimal wardrobe, nor was a dagger her prefered weapon. The girl watching her from a few feet away was far more prepared for such a task. Her clothing was not long and restricting, and Yeri was sure she would use magic. Yeri took a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back, getting into proper starting stance, holding the dagger so tightly that her knuckles were white and she could feel the details of the hilt pressing into her palm. This was what she was good at; combat. She wasn’t going to let someone beat her underhandedly like that. She knew what she was doing, and this girl in front of her had no idea what she was in for.

One of the most important things that Yeri had been taught was not to make the first move unless absolutely necessary. As far as Yeri was concerned, she’d wait all day for this girl to attack her. Unfortunately, the fact that the hilt of the dagger seemed to be heating up rapidly did not help her patience. Finally, the girl seemed to be tired of waiting and lunged at Yeri. By this time, Yeri was very sure that the dagger she had chosen was not a normal dagger. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but Yeri noticed that she was ever so slightly faster, dodged ever slightly more easily, and was ever so slightly more agile. As she had expected, this girl intended to fight her with magic. Yeri couldn’t have cared less, if she was honest. She was accustomed to fighting bare-handed against magic. Her new-found help also made her even more confident. The girl who attacked first began with standard projectile summoning. That was an easy thing to dodge, but Yeri wanted to test out her theory concerning the dagger. She raised the dagger and aimed to cut through the magic flying toward her. Once again, as Yeri expected, it cut right through the projectile, and she watched it dissipate, doing her no harm. The other girl frowned. No one had done that before, but she was determined to win. Unfortunately, this girl had no idea what she was up against, and neither did Yeri.

The girl tried a handful of spells that had no effect, as Yeri continuously deflected using the dagger. However, the thing that we t unnoticed by Yeri as the fight continued, was not to be missed by her opponent. It seemed the longer Yeri held the blade, the more a flickering appearance began to take over half of her form. The left half of her body seemed to be flickering between Yeri’s body and someone else’s. Had Yeri’s opponent not known any better, she would’ve sworn it was a goddess. A strange translucent purple flame radiated from that side of Yeri’s body as well. Yeri didn’t notice though, as she was busy dodging and making her way towards the girl she was fighting. She was in full combat mode; her surroundings no longer existed. Yeri just needed to get a little closer. A bit closer, and victory was hers. A little closer, and this nuisance’s carotid arteries would be severed.

Before Yeri even knew what had come over her, she slit her opponent’s throat completely. She would’ve felt guilty watching the girl’s head roll on the floor, but then a silver key spouted from her neck. Thus she was certain that she had done what was expected. She did, however, wonder what good her hand-to-hand combat skills would do her at a magic school.

Once again, a new door appeared along the blood-stained white walls. Yanking the key from the girl’s neck, Yeri approached it, feeling a bit more confident than she had before. Dagger in hand, Yeri entered the next stage. This next room was much different. It started out completely blank as before, but slowly changed into a complete virtual reality. It began to change to some sort of vast park surrounded by very tall buildings of various shapes. In front of her, a screen flickered into existence. On it, was a man’s picture. He had beady little eyes and an evil smile, Yeri didn’t like him just by the way he looked. Underneath the picture was one word: Target. Yeri sighed. A dagger was most certainly not the optimal weapon for this. Assassination was always easier using a sniper rifle. Yeri wished she had one, it would make her job so much easier and quicker. She was about to begin her hunt when the dagger in her hand began to heat up and move. She watched carefully as the metal melted and moved, changing its shape into just what she needed. Yeri was very weirded out, and slightly worried, but she wasn’t going to complain. After all, when life gives you lemons, squeeze them in your enemies’ eyes.

Closing her eyes, Yeri relaxed. Once she had done so, she suddenly pictured the man that was her target and exactly where she was in this space. At this point, she wasn’t even questioning all the strange things that were happening, she just took the help gratefully. Her target was in one of the buildings near her, and he was walking to one of the windows she was facing. She didn’t bother worrying about the fact that she somehow knew that it was the eight window from the left on the seventh floor. Any second now, he would be in her line of sight. She began sprinting as fast as she could, at least in the clothing she was wearing, towards the building. Seconds before he was in sight, she leaped up, looked down the sight, and lined up her shot. She was not even a centimeter off, and the bullet flew straight through the glass with a shatter, piercing the target’s head right between his eyes.

Quite honestly, Yeri physically shouldn’t have been able to make that shot. Slowly she was becoming quite suspicious of the item she was holding. Yeri didn’t have much time to think about it though, as the virtual reality faded back into the plain white room it was before. This time a golden door appeared in the centre of the wall directly across from her. As she walked towards the door, she felt the item in her hand begin to change again. Lifting her hand, it floated in the air before her. The item morphed into a ring and it floated right onto Yeri’s finger. While it was a simple golden band before it was on her finger, once it was in place the metal began to swirl around her finger and hand until it was a sort of intricate gauntlet branching from the ring. Yeri’s first thought was to remove the item from her hand, but then she immediately realized it was very valuable to her. No way was she giving it up, it gave her a slight chance.

Upon passing through the door, Yeri sighed in relief. It seemed as though she had finished as she was back in a sort of waiting room. Alice was sitting in a chair near the door reading some sort of book.

“Ah, you have finished,” Alice phrased it as if it weren’t self evident. Yeri nodded.

“Great! I will now show you to your room. Luckily we had an empty larger room, so you will be boarding with your two friends.” With that, Alice stood and walked back into the great room, and led Yeri up the stairs. Their room was on the thirteenth floor, and somewhere in between the centre of the castle and the outside. When they were standing outside her room, Yeri thanked the headmistress and headed inside. Their room, much to Yeri’s surprise, was two floors. On the bottom was a sitting room type arrangement coloured in various shades of white and gold. The second floor only spanned across half of the bottom part of the room, but it was still quite large. There was a small spiral staircase leading to the upper part, and where it ended there was intricate golden railings. The top floor had four fairly sized beds, four small-ish bathrooms, and four desks. Wendy and Irene had already chosen their desired spaces, and were sitting on Wendy’s bed laughing and chatting.

“Oh, Yeri! How’d it go?” Irene jumped off the bed and hurried over to her friend.

Yeri paused to think of how she should phrase her experience. “It was interesting.”

“Interesting? Mine was boring, just simple magical tests, and by the sounds of it, Irene’s was the same,” Wendy said, raising her eyebrow.

“Really? Mine was anything but boring.” Yeri said, pulling up her sleeve to reveal the golden gauntlet.

“Oh my god, Yeri are you hurt? What happened?” Irene’s eyes bulged at the sight.

“No, I’m fine, don’t worry Irene. I really have no idea what it is or what it does though. At first it was a dagger, but then it changed into a sniper rifle, and then this thing.” Yeri said, gesturing to the gauntlet. “And what’s more, I can’t take it off, it’s fused to my skin or something.”

“Can you. . . can you use magic now?” Wendy hesitated.

“I don’t think so? I don’t know, I haven’t really tried.” Yeri shrugged.

“Well, what’re you waiting for?!” Irene urged, more excited at the idea of Yeri finally having magical capacity than Yeri herself was. Yeri made her way to sit down on Wendy’s bed and Irene followed. She sat in the centre of the bed and removed her necklace. She wore a protective pendant with a purple gem in it to keep her safe since she couldn’t protect herself from magic. Supposedly, the gem would boost her magical ability if it existed. Yeri handed her necklace to Irene to remove the stone, since she wouldn’t be able to do it herself. After a few seconds, Irene had removed the crystal and she handed it to Yeri. Everything was fine until she touched the purple gem with the hand that had the strange gauntlet on it.

Yeri screamed as white hot pain spread over her arms and chest. It wasn’t so bad for her though, seeing as she out almost immediately. Wendy and Irene just sat frozen, watching the scene unfold in front of them. As soon as the two items had made contact, a purple light burst around their friend, and turned into raging purple flames. The gem shattered and the pieces flew apart, fusing themselves into the skin of Yeri’s arms and chest. For a moment, nothing happened, and Yeri slumped over. Unfortunately before Irene could ask if Yeri was okay, she was started in shock. Yeri sat up straight and opened her eyes, but they were filled with purple light. The fire around her burned stronger and brighter, but didn’t affect anything flammable around them. Yeri’s body began to float in the air above the bed, and Wendy and Irene slowly backed away, slightly concerned for their safety. An incredibly intricate pentagram burst to life around Yeri’s body. The purple energy it was made out of flickered and crackled.

Yeri began to chant, “audite verba haec,

audi clamorem meum,

contra spiritum,

si vocare te venerunt ad me I,

partitus tanta cruce,”

With each word, more and more energy surrounded her. The energy ranged in shades from purple to black. And as she finished chanting, she spread her arms, opening a void. Right out of the void walked a demon. While the void closed and the energy dissipated, dropping Yeri to the floor with a dull thud, all that Wendy and Irene could think was Yeri managed to summon a demon on our first day at a school for witches.