Kat was surprised when Shizuka sunk into the water without so much as a splash. Even straining her eyes, Kat could hardly see a ripple in the water. "That can't be normal" said Kat
Minor nodded, "Yeah, that means she's a water mage"
"Wait, so you can just throw people into a body of water and if they don't splash they're a water mage" Kat said incredulously
Minor shook her head "Of course not. That water is supercharged with mana. If mana was a more physical thing, you could say that pool is almost half mana. That mixing with a water mage is what makes it stay calm"
Kat nodded, but started to frown as the seconds past and Shizuka didn't resurface. Kat's worries were quickly assuaged when Master Resho grabbed a huge log from underneath the final step and threw it into the water. He followed this up be breathing out another smoke hand and reaching into the water to put Shizuka up on it.
"What sort of a water mage are you" barked Master Resho
Shizuka just pouted.
"Now don't look at me like that. You've proven yourself to be a water mage, you should be celebrating. Sure it's rare to have ice alone than ice and water, but being a duel element mage is something to be celebrated" said Master Resho
Shizuka stuck her tongue out at the old man.
"I see, well, I guess I'm just going to have to test you for fire affinity then" said Master Resho with a smile. Manipulating the smoke hand to grab her by the midsection.
Master Resho walked downstairs with Shizuka in tow. As they descended to the final level Kat was surprised to find it looked more like an oven than anything else. There was a big glass door with steel edges. The inside contained a bunch of runes etched into what looked to be steel, but seemed to suck in the light instead. Shizuka started to pale as Master Resho opened the door.
"Now, don't worry this is perfectly safe" said Master Resho throwing Shizuka in and shutting the door.
Kat looked worried over to Minor "Is this safe?"
Minor nodded "Oh yeah, it's actually much safer than it looks"
Kat was willing to believe her until Master Resho activated the runes and giant gouts of fire leapt to life covering the whole area. Shizuka was covered in flames and Kat sucked in a panicked breath of air, sure that something was about to go horribly wrong.
That was when the flames all seemed to pause. Frozen in time before pushing themselves away for Shizuka. They looked as if they wanted nothing more than to escape her presence. Master Resho started frowning.
Master Resho quickly summoned three sigils blowing into them to summon three small smoke hands. Throwing the oven door open he had them scratch out the runes on the floor ending the test prematurely.
"You must never speak of this" said Master Resho
"It… it wasn't me" said Shizuka
Master Resho frowned "Child, I may be old but I'm not senile quite yet but I know what I saw. Not quite the standard rection but clearly fire affinity" said Master Resho with slight shaking in his voice.
Shizuka shook her head violently to each side "No… no I can tell, this isn't the same. I think someone is interfering in the tests"
"That someone being you Minor?" asked Kat
"Eh…" said Minor
Master Resho carefully put Shizuka down on the ground. "Look, I… I understand this is scary. Heck, I wish I didn't even know. Hopefully you can become a magician with only two elements. You cannot. And I mean, cannot let anyone know you have a third element"
"Things for the first few years were a little fuzzy. I was mostly just putting myself back together. Pretty sure it was me though, I just sort of pushed it away. I didn't want to let fire of all things hurt my sister" said Minor
Shizuka turned her gaze slowly to Master Resho "What about momma"
Minor let out a small squee "Ooh, I forgot about this, whenever she gets nervous, she reverts. It's so rare because even when she was four, like in this memory, she already had 'mother' down pat"
Master Resho stopped and thought for a moment, as if realising it wasn't the usual teenagers he was teaching or even the young eight-year-old noble brats, but an innocent four-year-old trying to learn magic years ahead of the others. "Hmmm"
Master Resho looked away from Shizuka and let out a long puff of smoke that even started to fill the room. Smoke covered the ceiling, and sunk until it was just barely touching the hair on Master Resho's head, covering most of his horns.
"I don't know child" said Master Resho finally
"What… what do you mean" asked Shizuka
Master Resho sighed "I suppose I deserve that. What I mean child, is that I'm not sure anyone should have this knowledge. If it would be less suspicious, I'd try and find someone to destroy this memory with prejudice.
"It is simply that valuable. You cannot allow this sort of news to leak. The issue with removing it, is that lets people know you HAD something to hide in the first place, and in this instance. It isn't as though you can just remove an affinity from someone without taking the rest of their magic"
Master Resho let out another long puff "So that means even if we removed it, you'd find out again, and people would be on the hunt for the secret. So it is better we never so much as hint at it.
"But" Master Resho raised a hand "Your situation is hard. Not only are you a young child, much too young to bear this burden, you are also a princess. I do not fear your mother, I trust her to take care of her child…
"But truth spells are commonly used on royalty, and sometimes they like to throw curveballs at each other such as asking for rumours of seemingly legendary but almost possible things like say… someone with 3 elemental affinities"
Shizuka paled, or Kat assumed that is what happened. The light inside of the ice sculpture Shizuka seemed to dim, mostly around the face, and it was the only thing Kat could think of besides nightmares.
"But… but" said Shizuka
"Master Resho carefully rested his hand on her shoulder "Perhaps, your grandmother can help you? She may know what to say. That allows someone to know your secret without risking yourself or your mother. I won't push you into anything, just… understand you can't say anything"
Shizuka nodded and the scene started to dim.
"Well… that was… something" said Kat "Did anyone figure out it was you"
"Well…" said Minor "Grandma certainly knows now it was me. And at the time… eh maybe? I'd guess she would have thought it was due to the spell that merged us, but based on how she reacted when we showed up, I'm going to go out on a limb and say she didn't know I was still around"
Kat frowned at the memory "A shame. And did anyone figure it out?"
This got Minor to mirror Kat's frown "Well… I would love to say no, nobody could have, because we didn't end up telling anyone… but… with everything going on with the Beast King I cannot be certain"
"Wait, why does that matter? Does he want her for his kingdom or something?" asked Kat
Minor looked at Kat like she was an idiot "Really?"
"What? What am I missing here?" asked Kat genuinely confused.
Minor groaned "You really don't know?"
"I swear with my demon magic that makes it so I can't lie ever. I have no idea why you seem to think I'm an idiot" said Kat
Minor sighed and bit her lip "Fine… magic affinity is inherited"
"Right? That only makes sense with most of your family being ice magicians" said Kat
Minor slammed a palm into her face. "They would want her to pass it down onto the Beast King's lineage"
"Ooh" said Kat, realisation hitting her. "That's pretty bad"
"Yes it is. Doubly so because it would never work. They wouldn't have an extra soul to pick up the affinity. Besides, Shizuka doesn't even have fire affinity" said Minor
Kat caught the strange wording. *Interesting phrasing Minor. I may be a little naïve but fear my intellect is better than that.* "You said in the past that Shizuka is in many ways both of you
"Does that mean that neither of you have fire affinity" asked Kat
Minor winced "Oh… um… well… ah… I mean… I guess… Ok, so you can't spread this around… but I have true foxfire affinity. I think"
*Minor you sweet dear. I have no idea what that means… and I'm not sure I should ask either. Seems it would be better to just not know* "I suppose that's rare then?" asked Kat
"Yes, very" said Minor.
*Well, this just gets better and better.*