Chapter 26

Dragon-san Becomes a Little Girl Part 5

The schoolyard spreading in front of the academic buildings was opened for students to use after their classes have ended, so even now quite a lot of people was walking around, but in the same fashion the three people that came running in here got a lot of attention.

The girl ran in front of Seram, and when she entered the schoolyard she began to look around with glittering eyes.

「Sooo cooool!!!」

She let out a shout of admiration that was so loud that probably the whole academy managed to hear her.

At the same time, Chrome raised his voice as well.

「Where is Bernie?」

While he was doing that, glaring at all of the children that were currently gathered here, his younger brother’s eyes seemed to be shouting ‘Please, stop! Don’t do this!’ However, he had no real choice but to watch and see how this situation develops.

Hearing Chrome’s question, the Bernie in question came forward from the group of boys who were playing in the yard.

He glared at out group, just like a gangster would.

「I am Bernie. What’s that to you?」

Chrome’s eyes gleamed wildly…… He looked about ready to start a fight.

「You seemed to have made fun of my brother! I want you to apologize to him, now!」

「Heh.」

To Seram’s surprise, Bernie himself was silent, contrary to his usual demeanor where he would talk a lot and with not much sense.

But the boys who were watching from behind began to speak with anger in their voices.

「What’s this, Seram? You went crying to your big brother?」

「You don’t have enough guts to swallow up the truth? That’s pure cowardice!」

When Seram was trying to find appropriate words to answer that,

ROAR! The ground shook as if was about to crumble and split open.

When the initial shock passed, everyone noticed that the roar was caused by the girl who stomped her feet really hard to the ground.

「Well then, let us have a little competition.」

Amongst the silence that followed, only the voice of the girl could be heard, echoing through the yard.

「If you win, we will admit that you are right and apologize on our knees to you, but if we win, you have to apologize to Seram.」

They were initially taken aback by her words, but then one of the boys snapped out of it and said.

「Seram can use magic! We won’t stand a chance like that……! You are forbidden from using magic! Only if you accept this handicap we may agree, but either way we are not going to lose!」

「So, are we doing this, or are we not?」

The girl in the pretty orange dress laughed naturally as she glanced over the boys.

「It goes without saying, be we won’t lose to the likes of you.」

However, it was entirely unrealistic for this girl to think that she could win, since she was younger and smaller than them. Where was this confidence of hers coming from?

While the boys were looking at this seemingly fearless girl, Bernie finally spoke after being silent all this time.

「…… Alright, so how are we gonna do it?」

「Let’s see.」

The girl looked around and smiled upon noticing a leather ball which one of the boys was holding in his hands.

All of the boys looked in amazement at her glamorously happy face.

「Let’s do something like this. Can you lend me that ball?」

「Oh, yeah, here you go.」

He handed the ball over to the girl.

「Seram, do you have a pen?」

「Please wait a moment.」

Seram began to rummage through his bag in search of pens and ink, and then he passed them to the girl. She began to write something on the ball’s surface.

The boys tried to peek at what the girl was doing.

「Hey, what are you doing?」

「Wait just a moment, and it’s done!」

Said the girl to Bernie, who looked genuinely surprised. Chrome and Seram, on the other hand, knew from their parents, Nectar and ‘Onee-san’ who was capable of using spells and recognize that it is indeed some sort of spells.

They didn’t understand the words she was writing and the content of the spell, so surely this little girl couldn’t possibly know?

「Right, Seram, can you pour some of your magical power into this ball. A little bit is going to be more than enough.」

「Oh, yes.」

For Seram it was also a mystery, and he couldn’t really keep up, but when he received the ball from the girl he did exactly as he was told, pouring his magical power into the ball just like he did hundreds of times already with magical tools they were using for practice.

The curved letters written on the ball’s surface began to fade, as the ball itself got bigger and rounder.

Seram gave the ball back to the girl who then dropped it to the ground. The boys got really surprised when it bounced off the ground back into the air.

「Wait a second, the ball bounces!」

There was no wind present, so there was no denying the fact, the boys watched the ball in silence, while the girl nodded in satisfaction, and proceeded to explain the rules of the competition to Bernie and his lackies.

「You’ll have to kick the ball and put it in the opposing team’s goal. The first one to score five goals will be a winner, but if we won’t be able to do that for a set period of time there will be penalty shots. Also, you can’t touch the ball with any other part of your body except for your feet.」

「…… Oh, sounds interesting enough. Good. I was getting bored with doing the same things over and over again, so I will play along with your idea.」

The little girl laughed at that remark, while the other boys nod silently to their leader’s words.

While Seram was busy being shocked, the game was about to begin.

The lines were drawn to set the playing field, with large wooden boxes serving as their goals, with six boys including Barney on one side of the field and Chrome, Seram and the girl on the other.

The first ones to get the ball would be decided via a coin toss, and the moment it was decided that it will be Bernie’s team they looked about ready to start kicking the ball.

Seram, who was walking around nervously, walked up to the girl and started talking to her while she was doing some light stretches.

「Since we are doing something like this, with six of them and three of us we are really at an disadvantage here. But even if we asked someone else to join us, that would not really make any difference. As long as I am with my brother I am fine with this.」

Then the girl pointed at the Barney’s group with a nasty grin.

「We are going to make them pay!」

「Well, you see…… I want us to win, yeah..」

The girl slammed her fist into the palm of her hand while smiling brightly, as if to show him how determined she was about this whole thing. It made Seram relieved.

「Alright, since this is a fair game, I am definitely going to win, even though adults are not really allowed.」

「An adult……?」

Even though the girl said she was an adult, there was no way for that to actually be true. Seram noticed that the girl was looking at him seriously and for some reason he could not stop looking into her eyes.

He realized that the girl had unusual, golden eyes.

「You can always refrain from participating, Seram, my boy, but even without your magic you’re still able to do something. You can be cool just like your parents.」

While Seram was swallowed in a vortex of his own thoughts, he couldn’t stop thinking that there was some deeper meaning to those words. Suddenly, the atmosphere got serious.

「Let’s get started!」

Bernie’s voice brought Seram back to reality, and he also realized that the girl was gone.

From there everything happened way too fast.

The girl started running in the exact same moment when the game started, while Bernie also took off with the ball, running through the field.

In a hurry, the other boys threw themselves at the ball, trying to protect it from being intercepted.

Even though she was moving in a below knee-long skirt, the girl run to the boys’ group, took the ball from them and kicked it straight into the wooden box that was serving them as their goal.

THWACK! The only thing that could be heard was the sound of the ball striking the inside of the wooden box.

It was quiet. Nobody moved. The brothers stood side by side, dumbstruck at what happened right before their eyes.

「Did you see it, Seram?」

「…… Yeah, amazing.」

「She wasn’t even using any kind of physical strengthening. To be able to do something like that without using magic, you would need to have an exceptional stamina and leg strength. No human would be able to pull that off.」

Seram, who saw the entire thing from start to finish, looked at his elder brother who was right beside him, and saw that his switch was without a doubt flipped.

Seram was also feeling a strange kind of heat in his chest. It was not that bad of a feeling at all.

It was such a vibrant movement.

The young girl picked up the ball from the wooden box land held it in her arms, looked back at the boys and laughed devilishly.

「We are still ready for more, so how about it?」

Bernie realized that beating this girl would not be an easy task, but even if all of them were to focus on the girl, there were still Chrome and Seram to take into account.

Additionally, thanks to their father’s two friends, Chrome and Seram were pretty good at adapting to ‘new concepts’ rather easily.

Chrome and Seram passed the ball between each other several times, getting it closer and closer to the goal, before they would eventually pass it on to the girl and go into defensive themselves. Like that, they managed to score goal after goal.

The boys were seriously trying their best to score a goal on their own, but every time Seram would read their movements accurately, intercept their attempts and pass the ball to the girl.

After that shocking first goal, the girl leaned more to a support role for the brothers, passing them the ball and avoiding the boys who desperately tried to pursue them, while Chrome was going forward to receive the ball and attack. Using this strategy they quickly overwhelmed their opponents.

Then at the very end, it was Seram who scored fifth goal and ended the match.

However, Seram was surprisingly confused and bored with the fact that they managed to win so easily.

He wanted to play for a little bit longer.

The boys were all standing in place, having a hard time to believe in what actually happened. Only Bernie opened his mouth, relieving the heavy atmosphere, although he still sounded a little bit disappointed.

「It’s our loss. I take back what I said to Seram.」

「It’s better that way. Fighting like that is no fun at all, so be good friends and who knows? Maybe we even get to play again like that in the future.」

Everyone’s attention was brought to the girl, who interrupted Bernie’s words and proposed something like that.

「You, what did you just?」

「You guys are a pretty interesting bunch! If you ever want to do something like that again, be sure to invite me, as well!」

「Relog!」

To Seram’s surprise, his friend came running over from the school building. Also, from all around them, there were voices of other boys and girls who wanted them to let them in on the fun they were having just about now. “Looks like fun!”, “I want to play too!” their voices come up one after another.

Children came swarming to the group, wanting to join either team. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if not for the fact that the vast majority of those kids wanted to join Seram’s team.

So the little girl who saw that the number of Seram ‘s teams exceeded, spoke out something outrageous.

「Well, it’s clearly not fair like that. Seram, you and your girl friend can go and join the other team, so both teams can have girls.」

「Haah!?」

「Nice one, way to go, Seram!」

「What are you all talking about!? Relog, why should we join the other side……」

「Oh, sounds interesting to me. Brotherly fighting, that is. Don’t go easy on me, Seram!」

「Not you, too, Brother! You can’t just decide something like that on your own! You have to ask others for their opinions first!」

Being flattered from left to right, Seram couldn’t escape from the girls’ clutches, and turned towards Bernie who had probably heard this whole exchange, but for some reason seemed strangely unmoved by it.

The tension they had before the game seem to have disappeared now. Bernie stared at Seram and opened his mouth.

「Good, but this time we won’t lose. Seram, Relog, come over here! Strategy meeting!」

「Bernie!」

What? What was happening right now? Seram’s confusion seemed to have reached a whole new level, as he was looking at his older brother, then at Relog, but no one came to his help, since both of them were seemingly busy with more pressing matters they had to attend to.

Seram looked at the girl, but she just shrugged her shoulders not knowing what to tell him, instead watching the whole situation. So Seram had no other choice but to go over to the boys who were his enemies just a few minutes ago.

Relog casually talked with children from other classes without any problem, and Chrome went to the other boys to explain the rules to them.

But Seram isn’t like that.

There was also that expression on Bernie’s face, although it was already settling down.

Seram wondered if Bernie actually regretted his behavior?

Or maybe, after tasting defeat, there was a slight possibility that the two of them might even become friends?

Or perhaps … Seram wasn’t taking his words seriously up to this point, so if there was ever a time to get angry, that time was right about now.

「Um, Ber……」

「Look, it was my bad.」

Seram was trying to say something, but Bernie interrupted him. Bernie’s word confuses Seram.

As Seram looked up at him, he could see a certain kind of regret for the things he have said reflected in Bernie’s eyes.

Seram was clearly surprised to hear something like this from him, and Bernie continued in a low voice after biting on his lip.

「It was me who said too much. I guess I was just feeling inferior. I, to you ––––」

Even if they don’t talk too much to one another, right now you could understand lots of things just by looking at Bernie alone.

Like how he detested picking on the weak.

Like how he wanted to be honest with his words.

And how he wanted to be able to admit that he was wrong.

It’s clear that Bernie was being serious about wanting to apologize to Seram.

As Seram understood that, he decided to confront Bernie about it.

「It’s alright, Bernie. That’s enough.」

「But, a promise is a promise……」

Bernie looked confused about his own feelings, not knowing what to say to Seram, so Seram offered him his extended hand to help him out a little bit.

「Bernie, we can win. Both my brother and the little girl are tough, but I get a feeling that if we corporate together, we will be able to beat them. So let’s continue to give it our best.」

「Seram……」

Seeing Seram extend his hand to him, Bernie had to blink a few times to comprehend what was going on. He then grabbed it and shook it strongly, as a sign of reconciliation.

「Yeah, let us do just that.」

「Yup.」

「Bernie, Seram!! Let’s practice a little!」

「Right, just wait a moment!」

Answering to Relog’s shout, both Barney and Seram went towards her, walking shoulder to shoulder.

In the meantime, that strange feeling of uneasiness that he felt earlier went away without a trace.

***

Seeing how the situation with Seram resolved, the little girl let out a sigh of relief, but her expression changed drastically as soon as the wind spirits began to gather around her, invisible for normal humans.

「How did it go? … Uhm… Uhm… Just like I thought. Thank you very much. –– Everyone, the situation isn’t good, but please continue to do your best.」

After talking with the spirits for a while, the girl saw the spirits off and turned towards Chrome, she has a rather complicated expression on her face.

「… Just as I thought, this is it, nothing we can do about it. And here I was, wanting to escort you children home safely …」

「Oh, let’s have one more match!」

「Uhm, ok I am coming!」

Chrome was surprised to see such a drastic change in the girl’s expression, so different from when she was with them just a second ago. However, as the girl ran off like the wind leaving everyone behind, he thought that it might have been that he simply imagined things.