Chapter Text
“Hey, TEACHER!”
To accompany that loud voice, the door to the classroom slammed violently against the wall and almost fell off from its hinges.
“Kara-chun~? What did I say about opening doors and how you're the one that's going to have to fix it and your teacher isn't going to help?” Matsuno Osomatsu called out to his overly excited student without even looking up from the gambling section of his newspaper.
“More importantly, Teacher, I’ve learned a new spell!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Osomatsu answered half-heartedly. He flipped the page to read the next gambling section, but that was when his student’s words finally registered in his head. “Eh? Karamatsu? Did you say new spell!?” The man panicked, slamming his newspaper down on his desk as he looked up to see his student.
It was already too late. His student looked all too confident and proud of himself as he shot his hand in the air, muttering an incantation to start up his ‘new’ spell. “Bathing in the light of love! Bewitched by the eyes of the Blue Sky…! Heh… It’s time for you to fall in love with my Magic blessed by Gods, My HONEY…!”
“Stop, you complete idiot!!” Osomatsu shouted futilely.
“KARAMATSU of LOVE!”
It took less than a second for the entire classroom to submerge in running waters that were so strong the poor door fell from its hinges in the end. In fact, it sailed down the hallway when the water burst open all the windows and caused much flooding and screaming from students (especially the ones that couldn’t swim).
This was Akatsuka Academy of Magic located in a certain city of some certain land.
Osomatsu protected himself by creating a barrier, trapping himself inside a see-through bubble that rode the waves. The teacher sighed and rested his chin against his hand when he caught the sight of his stupid student. The cause of this chaos was being vigorously thrown left and right due to a whirlpool created inside the waters.
Sadly, this wasn’t a particularly uncommon occurrence in this academy.
✧✧✧✧✧✧
“Heh… I messed up a little bit,” Osomatsu’s student admitted as he put on sunglasses with shaking fingers. He sounded quite strong, but Osomatsu knew that this student of his was in tears behind those painful shades.
“Just a little bit, Kara-chun~?” Osomatsu asked tiredly, sitting backwards on one of the classroom’s chairs and using the back of the chair as an armrest.
Karamatsu shrunk down, taking off his sunglasses. “I-I’m sorry…”
“Trying to learn new spells is not a bad thing, okay? But don’t forget that ninety-nine times out of a hundred you make a mess, so don’t try any spells indoors anymore, alright?” Osomatsu repeated this same lecture for the nth time this month, yet his student just didn’t seem to quite get it.
“I was excited to learn of a Spell of Love and I wanted to try it out on Teacher to make you lovey-dovey over me…”
“Ah… yeah… nope, not happening. Kara-chan, go look in a mirror first, okay?”
“Hm? I look at my Perfect Face in a mirror every hour. I’ve been researching what angles show my Sinfulness the best, but is there something about it?” Karamatsu asked, looking up with an expression that read he didn’t understand a single thing.
Osomatsu nursed his aching ribs. “It’s not your face but…” He trailed off since his ribs began to hurt even more when he looked properly at his student.
Matsuno Karamatsu — one of his students in this academy and dubbed one of the ‘problematic’ students. There was nothing wrong with Karamatsu’s attitude though. While his actions and words can be extremely painful, he was rather harmless and hardworking. The problem was that Karamatsu was born with enough magical energy to place him in the top five of everyone on the continent, with no ability to control it. Karamatsu’s spells will almost always fails and cause water or floods of different levels that caused headaches for all the staff.
If it wasn’t for Karamatsu’s innate talent for body strengthening magic, he might have been utterly useless.
“Hmm~?” Karamatsu tilted his head, looking puzzled.
‘It’s not your face but your…’ Osomatsu repeated in his head but couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.
The teacher wanted to curse whoever taught Karamatsu the magic of transforming into a ‘magical girl’, which was one of the pinnacles of body strengthening magic. It was thanks to this transformation his student always had luxurious light blue hair that reached down to his hips with matching eye colour, and dressed in an outfit that screamed ‘magical girl’, with its frills and matching colour theme.
But no matter how that magical girl outfit showed off Karamatsu’s white stomach or bare legs after those spandex shorts and skirt, this so-called ‘magical girl’ was a guy. His shoulders were broad; he didn’t have the hips, boobs, or curves. The moment Karamatsu opens his mouth, his deep voice will always give his gender away if someone was blind enough to mistake the ‘magical girl’ for a guy. All in all, this student was hard to look at in the eye for Osomatsu.
The act of becoming a ‘magical girl’ fell into the category of body strengthening magic, so Karamatsu could transform perfectly with one try. However, the act of detransforming wasn’t — thus, Karamatsu is stuck in this ‘magical girl’ state 24/7. Normally, magical girls will detransform once they are out of mana, but Karamatsu had too much of it that continuously maintaining his transformation wasn’t a problem. Depleting his mana reservoirs until he naturally detransforms wasn’t an option since that might end up causing a natural disaster that no one wants to go through.
Thus, Professor Osomatsu was forced to deal this sight of his student crossdressing each and every school day. Even now he is forced to watch how this said crossdressing student got on all-fours, light blue hair spilling down his back, wiping the floor with a cloth to clean up the excess water.
And on top of that, for whatever reason, this crazy student has been confessing love to him since the day they have met. According to the insane crossdresser: “It is DESTINY that our paths have crossed, don’t you think so too? My Honey!”
Needless to say, Osomatsu just let the love confession enter one ear and exit out of the other.
“But why did my spell go wrong? I was confident that it would work,” Karamatsu mumbled, scrunching his eyebrows with misplaced confidence.
“If you add weird modifications in the incantations, then it’ll fail for sure,” Osomatsu lectured his stupid student. “In the first place, love spells don’t exist. If there was, your teacher will have lots of girls with big boobs hanging off his arms. Well, not that your teacher needs love spells since he’s an awesome Charisma Legend, so he’s popular~”
“Hm~? Teacher, have you been daydreaming?” Karamatsu questioned, blinking his too-blue eyes, looking up from the ground. His light blue hair shifted from this movement and fell down from his shoulders down on to the dirty floor. “You’re not all that popular at all. The only reason why many students talk to you is because our ages aren’t that far apart and you’re the only professor that isn’t busy since you don’t work,” the magical girl spoke quite plainly.
Osomatsu felt like multiple arrows metaphorically stabbed his heart. “Even though you say you love me every day, you can be pretty cold, you know?!” The teacher cried indignantly.
“It is true that I love you, my Honey, but that doesn’t mean I am blinded with love, you see~?” The magical girl beamed, boasting with pride, and hid none of his ‘affection’ towards his teacher. He even winked with shitty shoujo eyes and puckered up his lips in a kiss. “Seeing Teacher starve every other month three days before payday because you lost all your money in gambling is one of my enjoyments!”
“Okay, and this shitty crossdresser here is getting more detention. ...But with Professor Iyami!”
“Wait, wait! Calm down, Teacher! Let’s talk more heart-to-heart!!” Karamatsu panicked since Professor Iyami is known for horrible, boring detentions.
“And what the heck do you mean you’re not blinded with love!? I saw your drawing the other day and there’s no way in hell that’s me!”
The said drawing was supposedly a portrait of Osomatsu, except the teacher had big shitty glittering eyes, dozens of flowers in the background, a rose between his teeth, and enough blue sparkles glued on it that it temporarily blinded anyone who saw it. The art teacher almost thought it was some sort of cursed portrait, though, thankfully, it wasn’t.
“Y-You saw my masterpiece, Teacher!?” The magical girl blushed, pink tinting his cheeks, as he shyly pressed his fingers together. “I was quite proud of myself that I could convey your handsomeness...” Had Karamatsu been a girl then this ‘blushing young virgin’ act may have been cute. But since Karamatsu was a guy no matter how you looked at him, so Osomatsu felt like banging his head against the wall instead.
“Just let me quit my job already,” the teacher moaned. If he didn’t work in this academy, he wouldn’t get this crossdresser pushed on to him just because he was the newest.
“Teacher? Is something wrong!? Don’t feel bad about how your handsomeness is no match for my coolness!” Karamatsu shouted in his attempt of consoling his teacher.
Osomatsu felt one of his ribs crack completely and put visiting the infirmary (again) later on his schedule. The teacher got up from the chair before clapping his hands together. “Okay, detention over! Let’s do your supplementary lessons and go home already!!”
“Hm~? I don’t really get it but leave it to me, Honey!” The crossdresser pumped his fist into the air to match Osomatsu’s (desperate) enthusiasm with a grin.
Osomatsu held back another sigh before he absentmindedly waved his wand to clean up the classroom spotless and Karamatsu too.
✧✧✧✧✧✧
There were many fields in the academy for students to practice their magic without worrying about property damage and embarrassing mishaps. The training ground that the teacher-student duo went to was one of the practice areas fortified with a strong barrier. Even if things blew up, no one outside will get hurt (theoretically).
Naturally, the safety of the people inside is not guaranteed at all.
Osomatsu sat on top of his glass ball that floated in the air to avoid all the running water below as he fished his stupid student out with a fishing rod. “Kara-chun~? Are you alive?”
Karamatsu coughed, choking on water, before he spat out a fish and it dropped down on to the waters below. He dangled in the air by a fishing hook, completely soaked, but this kind of failure happened all the time that he wasn’t all too affected. Instead the magical girl placed his fingers against his chin in deep thought. “Hmm… Why did my spell fail this time? My incantation was Perfect down to the very tone… Perhaps Teacher’s instructions are faulty…?”
“Hey, don’t pin the blame on me,” Osomatsu chided. “Come on, give it one more try. You need to learn to control your magic in something other than strengthening your body.” The teacher waved his wand; it didn’t take long before most of the water on the ground evaporated due to fire magic. He also dried off Karamatsu since it’ll be pitiful if his student caught a cold or something.
He placed Karamatsu back down on the ground before taking some distance away into the air. Waving his wand to draw runes in the air, he created a large ball of fire in the air a few metres away from Karamatsu. “There you go. Try aiming water at that target.”
“Leave it to me, Teacher!” The magical girl shouted before holding his hands in front of him. Like his teacher taught him, Karamatsu tried to gather up all the remaining water from the ground into a ball and shoot it at the target…
Well, he did somehow managed to collect water… except it flew back and splashed into his face instead. Still, it was better than creating another flood, so Karamatsu was improving.
“Heh… it seems the naughty Water Ball was attracted to my Guilt Face instead…” Karamatsu wiped the water off his face and spread his arms dramatically like all nature was in love with him.
Osomatsu stared at this extremely narcissistic crossdresser before drying off his student by creating a wave of hot air with his wand. As ridiculous his student is and fun to watch, they have been at this for quite some time that the sun was already setting. Unfortunately, Karamatsu didn’t even succeed once today. “Wanna call it a day? Your teacher is already tired~” He called out.
“Non, non, once more, Teacher! I feel like I will get it this time,” Karamatsu announced. He smiled without a hint of fatigue or dejection from his continued failure. His light blue hair drifted in the wind as he turned back to look at the target with wide eyes. “If I managed to succeed in casting a spell today, reward me, Teacher!”
“Huh? Hey, don’t get so cocky, Kara-chan,” Osomatsu laughed. “Well, if you do succeed then maybe your teacher will think about it.” Nothing was wrong with encouraging his student, after all.
“Just you watch, Teacher,” the student declared all too boldly before holding his hands out in front of him again. He collected the water from below and from the surroundings once more before him.
Osomatsu lifted an eyebrow. The water ball didn’t burst into all directions, splash into Karamatsu’s face, or suddenly increase in density to crash down on to the ground. Those happened to be the patterns today.
“Here I go, Water Shot!” The magical girl shouted as the water ball actually did shoot forward towards the immobile fire target. “…Eh?”
Both the student and teacher’s eyes widened when the water ball suddenly curved and drew zigzags in the sky with no real pattern. Their eyes followed it more, and it didn’t take long before the water ball flying in the sky took a dive down to the target immediately below.
Did it succeed…? The two questioned in their mind but when the water ball touched the immobile target, the ball of fire suddenly shone with a strong light. For Karamatsu, it nearly blinded his eyes, so he covered them. For Osomatsu, he was more alarmed with the fact that the density of the mana in the air suddenly increased by tenfold.
“Karamatsu, what did you do!?” The teacher shouted.
“Eh!? I-I don’t really know!?” Karamatsu was at loss. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that the immobile ball of fire increased in size, and it was slowly growing. It was actually much bigger than both him and his teacher combined. If he had to put it into words, it was like a developing bomb.
The magical girl could even feel how the air suddenly got heavier, despite how his teacher how said that he was about as dense as a rock at sensing mana.
Osomatsu aimed his wand towards the growing bomb and tried to dissipate the mana in the air as it was growing by absorbing that. Unfortunately, the act of using magic just transferred more mana around the bomb, so it grew bigger again. The teacher calmly assessed the situation and determined that even if it exploded, the barriers around the field will withstand. The training ground will be destroyed but no one outside will be hurt or anything.
“Karamatsu, we’re leaving,” he called out to his student. His number one priority is his student’s safety after all. He maneuvered his glass ball down and reached out for his student’s arm, but…
Karamatsu took a step forward. The magical girl cracked his knuckles, and Osomatsu didn’t even need to see Karamatsu’s face to know that the younger male was smiling fearlessly. “If I can’t protect myself against this level of spell, I can’t proudly say I am your student, am I right, Teacher?”
“Ah, Kara-chan? Karamatsu~? Is your mind going into weird directions again? C’mon, be a good boy and let’s go home,” Osomatsu tried to convince his student, masking his worry with a light tone.
“And it is not manly at all to run away from a small danger such as this.”
“Kara-chan~ Wearing a magical girl’s outfit already disqualifies you from all manliness, don’tcha think? And if you truly think this is a small danger, then your teacher will take you to see an eye doctor.”
By the second, the bomb was growing larger and larger. It wouldn’t be long before it collapses and erupts. Not that he couldn’t protect the two of them from the blast, Osomatsu argued in his mind. But it’ll be a waste of energy. It’ll be much easier to capture Karamatsu and then drag the idiot out of the area into safety.
“Here I go! Karamatsu Water, gather before me!” The idiotic student shouted with modified incantations that were bound to fail again.
Particles of water gathered in front of the magical girl into a semblance of a water ball, but before it could truly form anything, Karamatsu punched it all his might. “Water Shot!” The water embedded with mana cut through the air before contacting the bomb and turning into steam immediately.
“I need to use more power, it seems!”
“Umm… Kara-chun? None of the professors will acknowledge that as magic since all you did was gather some water, which a three-year-old could do, and then physically punch it!” Osomatsu couldn’t help but shout even though this kind of shouting was his certain green-wearing little brother’s job.
“You can stay there and watch me, Teacher!” Karamatsu didn’t pay heed to his teacher’s words before gathering the mana in his body and letting it out.
And just like how it would normally create a flood, it did just that as water manifested out of nowhere to create a stream. Karamatsu rushed forward, continuing to release mana from his body, not caring that he was feeding the bomb at the same time.
Water flew in the air, denying gravity, and gathered near Karamatsu who punched them again and again into the oversized bomb. But even Karamatsu knew it wasn’t enough, so he decided to go all out.
“Heh… It’s time for my POSEIDON MODE!” The magical girl posed as he spread his hand against his face as he threw his other hand into the air, bending his legs down.
The sight of this crossdresser in this ridiculous pose damaged Osomatsu’s ribs even in this situation that he shouted, “OW! Ow!!! And what the heck do you mean by Poseidon Mode?!”
“I am the Only Loneliness Warrior of Water beloved by the Seven Divine Seas and blessed by Sinful God of Sea!”
“If the God of Sea shows up and curses you for using his name, your teacher isn’t going to save you, okay!?”
“Collect around me — Karamatsu the Great ★ Water Jet!”
The magical girl covered himself in raging waters he created before kicking off the ground with all his mana-enhanced might to shoot directly into the bomb. He became a human cannon in a way that Osomatsu decided to stop thinking since it really wasn’t like him to think to begin with.
The bomb exploded in the end but thanks to Karamatsu’s efforts(?) the magnitude of it wasn’t as strong as it could be. Still, many trees were blown away as the ground broke with winds strong enough to blow any normal human away. Osomatsu shielded himself from all the aftermaths of the explosion and shock and prayed that his pay wouldn’t get deducted for all this damage.
The only reason why he felt calm despite everything is that he could feel the presence and mana of his stupid student as strong and blinding as the day they had met.
Between the skies dyed in red as the sun set, the lingering flares of the mana-made explosion, destroyed nature, and gusting winds, his stupid student looked so tiny amidst it all. Yet that magical girl stood so proud in the centre of it all and turned to look up with that fearless smile. Even as he was dyed in shades of red, his blue hair danced in the air as vividly bright as it always has been, refusing to lose its shine.
“Teacher, I did it!” Karamatsu shouted happily as he waved his hand into air.
Osomatsu couldn’t help but laugh. That was not magic at all. It was just Karamatsu using his one and only magic of facing things head on physically. While he might have not come out unscathed, he did not change.
“Don’t change at all, Karamatsu,” Osomatsu said to his student as he floated lightly down on to the ground.
“Hm~?” Karamatsu questioned with a smile still on his face with the setting sun behind him.
“Oh, and you’re on fire by the way.”
“What?!” Karamatsu shouted, his eyes turning wide like saucers. He quickly looked down to notice indeed that his skirt was on fire, as well as his hair. He also suffered clothing damage in several places but he was occupied with trying to put out the fires. “No, you guilty flames! Ah, my perfect hair is going to be ruined!!” He patted his hands all over his body and somehow stopped the fire from growing more.
Osomatsu laughed again as he walked towards this troublesome student of his. “You did a good job, Karamatsu.”
“Of course! If I can’t handle this much then there’s no way I can protect you in the future, My Honey!” The magical girl beamed with happiness and pride.
“Hahaha! Protect me? Keep dreaming, Kara-chun~” Osomatsu waved a hand in the air, dismissing his student’s declaration. “And, well, since you did good this time, your teacher will reward you.”
“R-Reward!” It was all too easy for Karamatsu’s eyes to light up. Osomatsu could tell right away that Karamatsu was hoping for meat since this student of his was an open book sometimes.
But what the teacher did instead was gather his mana into the palm of his hand and forced it to take shape. His speciality was fire magic — in fact, that was mostly all he could do since learning anything else was a pain, even if he was a genius.
Yet this time, he didn’t create fire but a single delicate red rose that would probably be prettier if you bought an expensive one from a flower shop. It was a little bit clumsy, but Osomatsu thought it reflected them. After all, he went out of his way to learn this silly little trick secretly just cause he wanted to impress his student one day.
Karamatsu blinked in confusion; his mind not quite caught up with what’s happening yet. Osomatsu made his student hold the rose in his hands. “And a good student like you also deserves a flower gold star~” The teacher joked lightly before dropping a kiss on top of Karamatsu’s forehead.
It took about fifteen seconds before Karamatsu realized what his teacher did and his face flushed bright red, enough to match the skies above them.
“Next is when you graduate, okay?” Osomatsu laughed at this reaction of his too-stupid-student who makes a full circle to be just ‘endearing’.
But he was an adult, so it was only natural if he was a little bit unfair, don’t you think? However, the sight of this stupid, too-hardworking student of his insistently remaining blue despite how the world was his colour, he felt like playing a small prank.
“But you’re forbidden from doing something like this next time, okay? Let your teacher protect you. ...I will be the one that protects you no matter what, Karamatsu.”
Karamatsu clutched his hands around the rose with a completely red face as his whole body trembled… And then Osomatsu paled, but it was already too late for him to run.
On that date, Karamatsu learned a ‘new’ spell to add to his flood spell. It made all the staff at the academy nurse a headache in a new manner.
The training grounds that Osomatsu and Karamatsu used got sealed off and would take three months before it fully repaired as the barriers got damaged. During those three months, Karamatsu alternated between flooding the classroom and exploding it to bits.
When people asked Professor Osomatsu how Karamatsu learned this new ‘explosion’ spell despite all their efforts, he started to cough suspiciously and look the other way while giving vague answers in a high-pitched tone. As for Karamatsu, bringing up the subject caused the magical girl to explode, so the answer remained a mystery that would never be solved.