Warning Bells

He walked next to Kelly as she handed him his discarded books, "What on earth was that, Uri?"

"Returning a favor."

"Huh?" Kelly looked at him and was visibly thinking about what he meant, "What do you mean?"

"You save me, I save you, that works in my eyes," He shrugged as he smiled as he looked at her.

"No, not that, despite it being very sweet, but you weren't you."

"Now what do you mean?" Uri asked as they continued to walk together after dinner. Kelly shrugged.

"I don't know, you were really mad and nearly abnormally powerful, all that rage coming out must've been almost like an out of body experience, no?"

"No clue, Kelly," The first year shrugged, "Want to do something or nah?"

"We are doing something," Kelly's hand found his hand and took a hold of it, "I like walking and talking with you, Uri."

"Likewise, Kelly," Her soft smile made him smile as he felt like he could accept nearly any fate to keep that smile on her face and to protect her. The thought of what he had done lingered in his mind as the realization that he was much more fragile than he had considered. Uri was the host of powerful magic that, if he didn't control himself, could cause death and destruction around him.

Unlike his practice of the Dominator's magic, the relationship he had with Kelly was much more visible and something that everyone, if they hadn't noticed it before, began to pay attention to. It wasn't something most expected to see Kelly Solven, the headmaster's daughter, being able to have a boyfriend or even actually having a softer side to her. The idea came from her parents, her father being the headmaster and her mother being the head of the fire school, Benjamin and Damia Solven who were both notorious for not being very emotional. Uri was an unknown first year student who was little more than an aggressive young man who had beaten up another student to protect Kelly while she was a popular girl with many friends and many fans who came to watch her practice and cheered her on during her exams. Their pairing was strange and brought to itself more attention than it probably should have.

Everywhere they went and had not attempted to avoid being noticed or planned to be alone, there was always one or two small groups watching them and even following them as if they were some sort of attraction to observe, "Why do they always follow us everywhere?" Uri whispered to Kelly as they walked together, "Don't they have anything better to do?"

"You know, there isn't much that goes on in Mage Haven academy other than the occasional couple forming and the Mage Games or exam results," She laughed, "They will probably stop in a few days and move onto something else, don't worry about that."

"Are you sure?" She nodded and smiled. The young life mage shrugged and tried to ignore the observing students as they walked together, "What do you want to do today?"

"I don't know, something that doesn't involve you beating someone up that is for sure," Uri sighed, "Sorry, sorry, I know I told you I would stop bringing it up but you know how terrifying that was to watch you do that?"

"Yes, you have told me this more than ten times already."

"Sorry."

"It's fine," Uri smiled and shrugged, "I was mad, happens to everyone," He noticed her preparing a snarky comment from the expression on her face and cut her off, "Getting mad, getting mad happens to everyone."

"Yeah, that," They walked together towards the lonely bench, "We always come back here, don't we?"

"Well, you don't really enjoy the forest paths like I do so this is my concession, a short walk and a nice view."

"The forest is pretty."

"Oh yeah, that too," She looked at him and began to blush, "Too much?"

"N-No, it was nice, thank you," She nervously smiled, "But it is really pretty."

"Oh, yeah, I can't deny that," Kelly nodded and didn't add onto the conversation. Uri was content with just sitting next to her until they would need to go have dinner and then he would probably resume training with his disembodied mentor that evening.

A few days later, it was with heavy eyes that Uri walked into his classroom to attend Ms. Rosewood's class. He moved to the back of the room and sat down, the training of his power had gone far past the usual time and rereading the book didn't help his mind rest. The images of destruction that were described by the words in the book painted horrific pictures in his mind as the young mage imagined himself performing those atrocities after having lost control of his power. Ms. Rosewood was talking about the decisive battle that led the Mage Haven defenders to push back the first Oik hoard and chase them down in the plane of Heartara. Uri knew about the stories already, reading them in the library to get ahead of his work, "In the sixth year of the war, the Oik attackers had fallen out with the Hulju attackers which split the war on two fronts, one on Heartara and the other on Celestion, there was little to no fighting on our plane," A student raised their hand, "Yes?"

"Why did the Hulju and the Oik split up if their union had worked before?"

"Well, this was a purely ideological dispute," Ms. Rosewood turned to the board and quickly began writing the ideological trees of the two mage hunting groups, "One hated all of magic as a disease, the other thought of it as weakness and that killing all mages wasn't always necessary," The teacher explained, "The former headmaster, Jeremy Solven, explained that the Hulju and Oik would also take the chances to attack each other when the mages were able to hold them off, retreats causing the two to butcher each other," Uri's mind kept flashing images of horror that the young man's imagination had given to the descriptions of horror that were found in the Dominator's book. One day he would need to use that magic for more than a rage fit or practice on a tree and that was nearly too terrifying to think of.

Suddenly, bells began resounding across the campus, "The bells," The head of the life branch looked horrified, she called to a pair of automaton before turning back to her students, "Follow your guide to the dorms, leave your belongings here, do not panic but do follow them with a bit of haste," She hurried out of the building, leaving the students with the automaton pair. The books Kelly had been reading and that he had read over her shoulder had given him the clues of what was going on and what the bells ringing meant. It was an attack on the academy. The automaton hurried the students out of the room as Uri broke off from the group and headed to the main square of the academy and hid out of sight. If this was really an attack, the teachers would leave the center of the academy unprotected if they went to protect from the exterior attackers. The old war tunnels of the academy were still around and if these attackers knew where they were, it would be a real massacre. Uri noticed a group of warpainted men arriving out of a small storage building that was used to store automaton parts. They were in fact Oik, Uri's young memories continued to come in use as he could identify two of the members of that force.