I leapt out of the bed and summoned swords all around me. The room was still dark, and it didn't seem like there were any intruders. Now that I was awake and focused, I noticed that the screams around me were further away. I could also hear the heavy pounding of rain and distant rumblings.

"What's going on?!" Marina shot up from where she had slept beside me.

"I don't know." I quickly changed out of my pajamas while my floating swords maintained the perimeter.

Marina copied me and changed to.

I went to the window and threw it open. Thunder and lightning roared all around. "I'm going to fly up and take a look."

"I'll come with you!" Marina grabbed my hand.

I summoned a barrier to repel the rain around us, and we leapt out of the window and into the air. We rose up above the inn's roof and looked around.

"There!" Marina pointed to the north.

The mountain moved - no, the ground and trees on it were sliding down. It was a landslide. The northern part of the town was destroyed by the onslaught, and muddy torrents continued to flood down the streets. Everywhere there were people running away from the disaster. Some people were trapped on roofs of surrounded houses or were swallowed up by the earth.

I descended back to the room.

"Ojou-sama!" Lescia yelled as soon as she saw me through the window. Apparently she had come to find us while we were out.

"There's a landslide." I went straight into business and talked rapidly. "Lescia, stand by mama and keep her safe. Get a few guards to protect you, and tell the rest to go out and save everyone they can."

"What are you going to-"

"I'm going out to help people too."

Lescia's eyes went wide. "It's too dangerous Tiana-sama!"

I gave her a soft smile. "What's the point in being a mage if I can't save my countrymen? In my very own fief, too."

Marina squeezed my hand. "I'm going too."

"I had a feeling you would." I leapt out of the window with Marina and flew up again. I told Lescia to send our guards, but there were only a few of them. I wish I had more people.

Oh. Right.

I flew over to the guardhouse that we had stopped by earlier.

"Why are we coming this way?" asked Marina.

"Need more manpower." I said as we descended. The guards were gone, presumably to help out in the chaos, but there were still some people here. I used my light magic like a flashlight and looked at the people behind the bars. "Yo, Rohan."

The bandit leader looked up from where he sat. "Ah, jou-chan."

"You're a bunch of strong men, right?"

"Ya could say that." Rohan and his men stood up and stretched. "What do you want?"

"There's a landslide. We need as many people to help out as we can. I'll let you out if you promise to do that."

Rohan crossed his arms. "How do you know we won't use the chaos to escape instead?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. But sometimes I want to believe in people, you know? So, we got a deal?"

He shrugged and spread his arms out. "Deal."

I shot a Razor Wind at the bars and sliced them apart. "Hope to see you at the frontlines, Rohan."

I flew into the air without waiting around to see what they would do.

"I don't think that was a good idea," said Marina.

"Probably not. But I have a feeling that I could trust him." It was an intuition backed by my previous life's experiences. I think I was good at reading people.

"You really are weird, Tia."

"Hehehe~"

Near the edge of where the worst of the destruction ended was a town hall. People were swarming towards and away from it, so it seemed to be where the center of operations was.

I landed in front and ran in. On the ground were rows and rows of injured people in various conditions, and not nearly enough people to treat all of them. The ongoing storm kept the temperature down and many were shivering. Some blankets were brought in from nearby but it wasn't enough. The stench of blood filled the air.

A man tried to turn us away. "If you're not injured, follow the others to a safer ground. This is no place for little girls."

I pushed him out of the way. I held my hands in front of my chest as if I were cradling a soccer ball from the top and bottom. I chanted and channeled my magic, and particles of light appeared between my palms. I weaved my magic together and threw my arms apart. "Healing Mist!"

My magic spread across the hall and healed everyone. Since it was over a wide area the effect per person was minimal, but I wanted to make sure everyone was stabilized before I started treating them one by one.

"Marina, it's cold, so-" I turned around, but Marina was shocked and covered her mouth with her hands. I shook her shoulders. "Marina!"

"Ah!" Marina shook her head and slapped her own cheeks. "Yes?"

"It's cold in here, light a fire to keep them warm."

Marina looked around the hall then spread out her arms. Fire balls shot out of her palms, streaked through the hall above our heads and parked themselves at set intervals. A look of relief came across some patient's faces as their body temperature rose up.

"Do you think you can keep it going?" I asked.

"They should last for a while, since it's just to warm people up instead of burning monsters," said Marina.

I looked around and found a man who seemed to be coordinating the relief efforts. "I need lots of pots and pans. Things that can hold water."

He looked shock to see a tiny pink haired girl ordering him, but since I had demonstrated my magic earlier he quickly followed my orders.

I looked for the patients that were worst off and started healing them. When the pans started coming in, I gathered the volunteers who were taking care of the wounded and Marina.

"I don't have enough magic to just heal everyone, so I still need you all to take care of people who aren't immediately dying. If you clean their wounds with dirty rags like that you'll only infect them." I summoned water with my magic into the pans. "Marina, boil one of the pots with your magic. Use the boiling water to wash cloth and bandages. When washing wounds or drinking, use water that came from my magic. I'll come back to refill it when I can."

Everyone nodded.

"Are any other patients' conditions really bad or getting worse right now?"

"Everyone seems to be stable," said the lead volunteer. She was an actual doctor, so I decided to trust her judgement.

"I'm going to search for others," I said. "Oh Marina, come with me for a bit." I walked to the entrance of the hall with her. "Visibility is low. Do you think we can weave a flare together that will stay in the sky in this weather?"

Marina pinched her chin as she thought. "Maybe your water and wind magic could make my fireball waterproof and stay in the air? But it probably won't last long. Could your light magic be used to enhance the light given out? Then I can make the fireball burn up slowly but last longer..."

"Let's try."

We held hands and touched our foreheads together. I closed my eyes and tried to synchronize my magic with Marina's. I was usually bad at having my magic interact with other's, but Marina was a special case for some reason.

"Do you think we got it?" I opened my eyes.

"Maybe."

We each raised a palm into the air and fired off our magic. A flare rose up and hovered above the town hall. We fired off several more, and the area was lit up to help aid in search and rescue.

I breathe a sigh of relief. "I'll be going now. You stay and help treat people, okay?"

"Be careful, Tia," said Marina. "Be sure to come back and take breaks. You're using more magic than I am."

"I got it." I leapt into the air again.

When I reached a good height I made a rectangle with my fingers in front of my face, like what photographers and artists did to approximate a frame. My light magic bent the incoming light in a way that mimicked telescopes. I found a hand that rose out of a mountain of dirt and flew towards it.

I grabbed the hand and it squeezed me, so whoever was down there was alive. But I didn't have the strength to dig them out by myself. "Help!" I yelled towards the rescuers. "There's someone buried here!"

A group of men ran over the rubble towards me and helped push away rocks and fallen trees. Eventually we cleared enough to pull the boy out of the ground. He looked like he was barely clinging on to life, so I healed him with my light magic and passed him on to a man.

"Bring him to the town hall," I said.

The man nodded and ran off carrying the boy.

"You should leave this to us," said one of the other guys.

I panted. "I'm a mage. I can fly and reach people you can't. Did you see anyone hard to reach?"

One of the men pointed to a house surrounded by rapid water. "There's someone on the roof over there."

I nodded and immediately flew over. When I landed, I found a mother holding her daughter in her arms.

"Please save her!" she begged. "Even if you can't take me, at least take her!"

I rolled my lips in. It was hard enough for me to fly with one person when it's not Marina. But I couldn't just abandon her. "I'll take both of you. Hold her tightly." I held the mother beneath her arms and summoned my wind magic. I felt strained as my magic fought against gravity. It was as if the air was knocked out of my lungs by the time I managed to take off with them. I took a deep breath and flew across the raging waters. The group of men from earlier had come to wait for me and I made an ungraceful landing right into them. They helped support the mother and daughter towards the town hall.

I tried to stand up but my legs gave out beneath me and I collapsed against a man. "Sorry," I said.

The man scooped me up in his arms. "You need to rest."

"But there's still a lot of people-"

"If you pass out somewhere out there you won't be able to save more people!" The man yelled at me.

"But..." I took deep breaths. I couldn't think straight in this kind of situation. But it was true that I felt barely alive.

The man smiled at me as he carried me to the town hall. "Don't worry, we'll rescue people too. A bunch of us men can't lose face against a little girl, can we? Seeing you work so hard just fired us up even more."

"Okay..." I let him set me down inside the town hall.

Marina came running up to me. "Tiana!"

"I'm okay," I gasped. "Just almost ran out of magic."

A man was carried into the town hall unconscious, with a big puncture wound in his chest. The sight jogged a memory of my past life.

"Pneumothorax," I muttered. "If it's not healed he'll die in a few hours." I wasn't a med student by any means, but it was something that happened personally to me in my previous world. And I was pretty sure that this world had no means to treat it besides light magic.

"Tia-"

I rose up and staggered over to where they set the man down.

"Is there any way to save him?" asked a crying woman.

A volunteer nurse shook her head. "At this point..."

"I can," I said. I fell on my knees beside him and pressed my hand against his wound. I barely had any magic left, but I pulled up what little remained from the deepest parts of my body and pushed it out of my hand. Everyone around gasped as a bright light glowed from where my hand touched his chest. I kept pouring magic into it until the wound closed up.

The last thing I felt as I fell sideways were my eyes rolling up in their sockets.