During the first break of the school day, Inkaro was in one of Solicrave Academy's many libraries, having chosen the one he was in for its catalogue's focus on the technical know-how of magic. Despite it being one of the two break periods, the holding place for high-academic literature and material turned out to be oddly unoccupied. His current collection of study material was on demon-type magical tools, mainly focused and leaning towards those pertaining to the fundamentals of how instruments are constructed.

  "H-hey. Inkaro," Anazenpha whispered in an extra-low voice, darting the tip of her forked tongue around in a self-consciously empowered act to check that no one was within whispering earshot, well, anyone she didn't mind hearing anyway. Hearing the small voice head on, Inkaro raised the book above his field of vision and was greeted by Anazenpha standing behind his pile of books and other reading material. Doing so in unquestionable anxiousness, Anazenpha paced on the spot and orbited her index fingers around the other at a blurring pace, resembling someone winding up a string, as she continued speaking. "I think... think... Iiii...um."

  Earnestly in attempt but not in application, Anazenpha tried to get the trapped words out from the depths of her soul, but not even a decibel of sound escaped her mouth after her initial ones, despite having practised what she wanted to say at least seven times before approaching Inkaro.

  The guy nodded along to the plenchona girl's words and her non-words. He even repeated the 'I think' slowly as Ana rocked her head in every direction, only he replaced the 'I' with 'you.'

  Seeing that things had somehow reached an impasse, entirely by her making along due to Inkaro's inaction to probe any information out of her, Ana realised that the current break period would be a thing of the past by the time she got the words out, if her current pace of talking was anything to go by. So, jumping to the plan Lizu suggested to her if she found her words snatched from her, Ana jumped to her last plan, seeing that not saying anything would be tantamount to... something she didn't know the word for in any of the humalian languages.

  Anazenpha pulled her hands through the metalic chains of her Inscription of Injected Providence and placed it in front of her, leant it up against and left the book stacks wobbling from the weight, as she equipped the tome's crystal stylus. Clasp on her stylus secured, Anazenpha fired away, swiping and streaking the artistic weapon across the tome's screen with reckless abandon, for the content of her creation, not the resilience of the tool that she knew could handle anything from her weak arms.

  Turning bright red as Ana turned her tome's front to face the table, the spiralling mana shot out from the crystaline screen, taking shape above the tome, and forming into a collection of shapes that displayed a clear meaning: cartoony renditions of herself and Yuuvia, with a filled-in heart between the two of them.

  With the message already up in the air and in the open, Anazenpha found her voice, shaky as it had become.

  "I... think... have crush on Yuuvia!" Anazenpha proclaimed, speaking in such a hushed voice that it was almost impossible for Inkaro to tell that the girl had intended to yell.

  Not even batting an eye, simply because such a facet of life had no bearing on his mind, Inkaro nodded his head even more seriously, from the simple fact he now understood the situation: "I see, so Lizu surmised a few days ago."

  "Eh, she knew before me?" Anazenpha mumbled in shock, said shock slowly crumbling away into speculation as she figured something. "...well, she in relationship reddy, so she knows what she talking about."

  "I believe so, she did mention some things are closer than they appear when referring to you and Yuuvia. So, what brought you to me?"

  Hearing the guy's explanation and his disjointedly added-on question for her, Anazenpha slumped her shoulders, practically letting out all the air in her body at seeing Inkaro be so utterly unfazed by any of the things she had told him. "Hear some advice."

  Inkaro nodded his head, followed by a deep hum, whilst he put the book he was holding down on the table. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of Ana's request, mainly from it basically being one for love advice, but he certainly knew this was well outside of his range of expertise, that was for sure. He honestly thought anything he'd say would do more harm than good, if the comments he had overheard about his attempts to understand romantic attachment over the years were anything to go by.

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  "I believe Lizu would be better to ask for advice in that field," Inkaro stated calmly, adding to his suggestion by saying Lizu is the one who does the heavy lifting for that part of their own relationship. Anazenpha slumped her head and tail weakly, followed by her long tongue slowly rolling out of her mouth and splatting against the screen of her tome: defeated. Ana simply couldn't believe it.

  "I already did, but she said I should get a non-emotional angle on it before I get her opinion." The girl lightly swayed her head, unable to believe that she'd experienced something her cousin had off-handedly mentioned from time to time, that being two people saying to ask the other person for something they needed; only in Ana's case, it was from her friends and not her parents. Then something popped into the girl's head, completely out of the aether. Now that Anazenpha thought about it, she didn't really know her parents. In fact, she started to wonder if she'd ever met them to begin with. Try as she might, Anazenpha drew blanks, not even a crumb of a memory about them, nothing other than what her cousin told her about them, which wasn't a lot, all things considered.

  "Ah, I see." Inkaro's swift words snapped Anazenpha back to reality, leaving her slightly disoriented. Speaking astutely, from trying to mimic the way Lizu talks when investigating people, Inkaro began his effort to help Ana: "What makes you believe you have this form of attachment to Yuuvia?"

  "Well, since I got these glasses, the influence of my stigma hasn't been as potent as before... but...," Anazenpha murmured before lowering her head to hide the drool on her face as she subtly wiped it away with her sleeve.

  "So it flares up when you're near or think about Yuuvia?"

  "No, I don't want to eat her..." Anazenpha stated defensively, not sounding all that convinced, herself, but not entirely sure why that idea occured toher in the first place. Slowly, the girl crumpled, both mentally and physically, as she sat on the table and wrapped her oversized-sleeve-covered arms around her chest-touching legs.

  "I never said that," Inkaro stated puzzledly, wondering what he could have done for Ana to have interpreted his words the way she had. Anazenpha flinched, agreeing that the idea was rather silly, or so she'd hope at the bare minimum. To reclaim some of her mental strength, she pushed the bridge of her sunglasses up to her nose, making sure they were fully on her face, before she even considered talking again.

  Inkaro recognised the action from a multitude of anime and manga he'd read, surprised someone other than Lizu or his ghostly teacher would do it unprompted.

  "Well... Hope I'm wrong, but why you say zat any way?" Anazenpha asked weekly, looking up at Inkaro with her eyes, opened by exactly one percent of the way. Peaking through the small sliver of view she allowed herself, Ana weakly swished her little tail behind herself.

  "I repeatedly notified father anytime you're heartrate increased beyond the expected level: seventy percent of the time it was from seeing new food, and the rest was from interacting with Yuuvia," G.Galore stated bluntly, speaking unreservedly from the comfort of the trench coat's hood that Inkaro wore. Ana's tail swishing stopped.

  "Oh... is that a lot?" Anazenpha whispered, shutting her eyes tightly and itching her cheek through her long sleeve. Inkaro could only shrug in response, not wanting to use Lizu as his reference to Ana's question, given that he knew Lizu wasn't the best frame of reference to answer Ana's question. "I... hmmm... I think I understand." Ana rose to her feet, lugging her tome with her while re-slotting her arms through its chains like they were shoulder straps for a backpack. "Yeah. I believe I get what you're trying to say."

  Finding her resolve, Anazenpha hopped off the table, hurrying across the library and ducking around the bookshelf where Lizu had been spying on the duo from, having been there the entire time they'd been talking aparently. There was some hushed murmuring from Ana, then by Lizu, followed by Ana letting out a startled 'eep' and going silent.

  Soon, Inkaro watched Anazenpha slowly return to him from behind the Lizu-hiding bookshelf.

  "I wasn't ready for what she was going to say," Anazenpha said as she stumbled her way over to and sat in the chair next to Inkaro, letting her short legs dangle off the chair, and long sleeves drape across the old-fashioned carpet floor. After swinging her body to jolt the chair forward, Anazenpha swung her head into the table with a hard knock. The plenchona girl meekly groaned in mental pain as she willed herself to raise her head once more. Pulling the first thing she could grab towards herself, she opened the book directly in front of her, before faceplanting her face into its marginally softer surface. "I liked your explanation better; it was a lot more straightforward."

  "Did she say your stigma makes any feeling that could be considered 'desire' to be highly elevated?" Anazenpha lightly sighed, relieved she'd at least reached the same conclusion that Inkaro had, meaning her feelings were at least genuine and not entirely her stigma's doing. She was also too emotionally exhausted to care about being nervous about the revelation, even wondering if this was how Inkaro felt towards Lizu.