It was such a mayhem.

Everyone around me was running energetically—if it wasn't for their excited expressions, one would have thought that we were running to evacuate or something...

The noises made by the footsteps and people's excited shrieks drowned the next announcement made—as expected, the announcement instructed us to be calm and to go to the stadium—no, colosseum—or whatever they call it.

I don't have any leeway to care about what that building is called—my mind is full of worry over Alt-nii.

When I arrived at the colosseum, I was short on breath already. I deliberately didn't enter the audience area and darted right away to the colosseum's fighting grounds. After all, Alt-nii should be there.

There seemed to be a magical barrier around the white line marking the edge of the fighting grounds that lied bare in front of me.

And when my gaze traveled to the two figures inside that fighting ground's barrier...
There was a familiar back facing me. It was Alt-nii's.

At the opposite side of him—there was a lone girl. She looked approximately like a 11-12 year-old girl.

However, her slightly pointed ears—her long tail, her dragon wings, and her dragon horns clearly screamed the fact that she was a dragon.

Her peculiarity was added even further by a dazzling red gemstone embedded in the middle of her forehead and the faint red marks on her cheeks that seemed like scars.

Her long hair's color was a dazzling bright marigold. Her hair was entirely let loose—but there was a long and big-braided portion of her hair on each of her side that was facing front. Her electric eyes shone as she faced Alt-nii with her excited expression, her lips curving upwards with one of her fangs sticking out and her tongue touching her upper lips.

Yes, she seemed to be enjoying the situation.

I noticed a dangling crystal pendant on her chest—I wonder if that's a dragon's fashion? It was dangling like... a target? It didn't seem like your usual necklace.

When I examined the rest of our surroundings, there seemed to be several other people around Alt-nii's age and someone who looked like a teacher—sitting at a good place in the audience area. The teacher was standing as she grabbed something like a megaphone.

Then, there were people who just rushed into the audience area, filling every available seat.

Anyway, I thought that they were in the middle of a heated battle, but the two of them stood there without doing anything.

Seeing that it should be safe—like, they were withholding their fight for some reason, so I called out to Alt-nii.

"Alt-nii!"

My big brother reflexively turned over to see me.

"Lyra?! Why are you here?"

--wha? My big brother was wearing the same kind of crystal pendant, also loosely dangling around his chest!

Then, it's not the dragon girl's fashion code?

"I should be the one asking you! Wait, Nii-nii, you're not battling right now and it's safe to talk to me, right?"

But before Alt-nii could answer, another voice responded me.

"Oh, who do we have here? Is she your younger sister?"

The rumored girl—no, the dragon girl spoke, and judging from the tone of her voice, I could tell that she was happy.

"Uhh yeah, she is. Well, actually—"

Again, the dragon girl cut into our conversation.

"Background story. I met your brother when I wandered off after going to the toilet. He was going on a briefca—briefing or something like that with his classmates and teacher over there, I happened to sense his peculiarity and asked him to spar. Thus, the current situation."
"And you accepted it, Alt-nii?!"

Instead of replying to the dragon girl that was practically a stranger to me, I decided to focus on questioning Alt-nii, even when the one who explained things was not my brother.

"W-well, she seemed to be very eager, so..."

I was so surprised at my beloved brother's decision on the spur of the moment.

"Worry not, Lyra! She explained that the dragons were on a pact that—"
"Ah, enough of it. Heeey, that teacher over there, how long do we need to wait? I'm itching to fight him!"

The teacher—Alt-nii's teacher from the looks of it—she grabbed her megaphone and answered.

"Just a bit more, wait for the principal to get here to explain things briefly to those who're gathered here. It's important."

"Is it about me? The principal's going to explain about me, right?"

"Yes, but then this sort of thing happened, so we had to quickly readjust the place of meeting."

"Nah, looks like it'd take a bit longer for everyone to gather. Hey, you—let's start again!"

"I have a name, it's Altaire! You can stop calling me with you."

"Okay, Tair, let's start!"

"..."

Tair? What a way to call Alt-nii.

Alas, the two people in front of me completely ignored the teacher's frantic words and assumed battling poses—ah, Alt-nii, it's confirmed that you're not a model student...

"Lyra! There you are, let's go to the audience area, it's not so safe here!"

Iris' voice could be heard from my behind as she abruptly grabbed my hand and pulled it.

"Geez, that's why you aren't in the audience area! We went up there only to see you standing near the fighting ground's entrance!" Luca added.

"I guess Luca's right, we should have put a tracking device on you...," Kiri also chimed in.

...Tracking device, what?!

Did you two make that kind of a joke because I got lost just this morning with Iris?

Anyway, Iris seemed so small and cute, yet she unexpectedly had the strength powerful enough to drag me along—so I decided to follow them for the time being.

Looking at the fighting ground from the audience area would give me a better view, after all.

Though we didn't manage to get the best viewing area, at least I could see clearly what was happening to my big brother who was fighting a dragon.

But before they could initiate any single attack, suddenly the principal's loud voice could be heard.