The night fresh, and it was the last one to be had before the turning of the month. It would incite a new wave of festivities into the school life of Lizu and Inkaro as the Halnuemi Enkindle Festival was upon the less-than-disinterested duo, who found their current activity vastly more important than something as silly as threating over a cross-school festival. Over the last two weeks leading up to the festival, Inkaro, lead mostly by Lizu's direction, worked on recreating that age-altering curse in the form of a grimoire spell. So with many, upon many, amounts of trial and error across those days, the duo's combined minds managed to complete the deceptively complex spell the night before the looming festival. Naturally, having been forced to wait so long since getting to see Smol Inkaro again, Lizu insisted on getting the test trials over with asap.

  Sadly for the dragolyte, her impatience would whip back and slap her in the face. Which said consequence came in the form of a noble beegirl accidentally flying in the trajectory of the spell, forcing Lizu to jump in the way to intercept the spell and leading to her becoming the recipient of the spell instead of the intended target: a potted flower.

  Now she was the one with Smol in front of her name.

  Which wouldn't have been much of an issue, had the unforeseen outcome of Lizu's mind joining in the regression not been a thing. Although it wasn't like she'd lost her memories, Inkaro had checked with a quick quiz; it was more like her personality had been put through an emotional filter. That was the best way to explain it.

  Heh, imagining them using this spell against me in the future battle against Kotou Natsuone is rather amusing.

  As fate would have it, Lizu's transformation was luckily the only unforeseen occurrence to occur, allowing Inkaro the peace of mind and, if anything, a significantly easier time baking multiple batches of all kinds of treats for the festival stands his class was assigned to handle. The newfound ease for his task came from a rather silly reason; Lizu was currently way too slow and obnoxiously clumsy to ever hope of sneaking anything past him, let alone the food she was after.

  Such a state of things, not getting to eat snacks made by Inkaro, left the young Lizu pouting. Luckily, for everything and one around her, the even more oversized shirt of Inkaro she'd considered kept the girl from going into a full-blown meltdown. However, what it didn't do was keep her from pestering Inkaro for anything he was making. After all, it was still Lizu behind that chubby-cheeked and cherubic face. So with her usual means of persuasion reduced to less than a chopping board, the little girl had to employ a tactic from a time when her age had yet to break past three: persistent pestering.

  So with nothing but pleasing her sweet tooth on her mind, the little-transformed girl began stomping her even tinier feet against the kitchen floor; she also got her unchanged scaly tail, somehow looking larger via some visual illusion, to join in on the little dragolyte's efforts to get Inkaro's attention, by slapping it against the floor as well.

  But when the guy didn't so much as acknowledge her efforts, Lizu instantly relented. And with a heavy sigh, Lizu flopped to the floor, causing her tail to wobble like freshly set jelly behind her.

  But she wasn't out of it for long before she was back in action with a muffled cheer of a war cry. Not so much as raising her face from the floor, Lizu crawled her way over to Inkaro, resembling a worm with her choice of movement.

  "Come on, just one won't hurt," Lizu teasingly stated as she skulked about the kitchen area of her and Inkaro's shared home, stalking and slithering around a particular set of confentionaries: strawberry glazed muffins. Try as she might, no matter the angle of approach she employed, the dragolyte simply couldn't surpass the monumental monolith of an obstacle that stood between her and her delectably fluffy prey: Inkaro, with a comically, but not unreasonably sized wooden spoon. Soon enough, Lizu had to pull out her second-place trump card, if she hoped of making any headway. So, she channelled every fibre of cuteness within her body and soul before blasting Inkaro with the full brunt of her most pitiful puppy dog eyes, almost bordering on breaking into genuine tears for extra points in persuasion. "Pleeeeeeease?"

  Her whimpers reached him, but did not sway the grimoire crafter in the slightest, not even by the tiniest margin. Lizu paused mid-plea, leading into a deep, pouty frown becoming the primary emotion being evoked on the muffin-wanting girl. All her pouting was brought to an unceremonious end by one simple action, by in the way of that wooden spoon in Inkaro's possession being lightly slapped against her forehead, perfectly aimed dead centre between Lizu's horns.

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  "Aro...that no answer, and no spooning me in the face," the little dragolyte grumbled weakly as she rubbed the faint oval-shaped red mark on her forehead.

  Whether it was out of some deep-rooted crack in his resolve, or simply him wishing to avoid the potential fallout a sugar-denied kid Lizu would rain upon her surroundings. The thought of a sudden sunroof had Inkaro deeply groaning in dismay. So with that thought on his mind, Inkaro was compelled to give in to the little-turned girl's demand, much to the girl's suddenly grinning smile.

  However, that smile on her little ol' face was swiftly turned into a confused wobble of a line as Inkaro finally answered Lizu's pleas with something the fledgling-turned dragolyte hadn't anticipated: an ultimatum.

  "If you can decide on something to wear to school tomorrow before the next batch of muffins are done, you can have three of your-"

  Lizu was zipping off before Inkaro could hope to fully finish his offer, flapping her half-sized wings faster than a hummingbird and carrying her up to the second floor that was the duo's bedroom. A series of loud bangs and dings followed the girl's subpar-sounding crash landing. Lightly in relief, from getting to drop his guard for a short moment, Inkaro jabbed his wooden spoon into a bowl of half-mixed strawberry glaze ingredients before resuming to mix the glaze into fruition.

  "How can she she take up less space but make more of a presence?" Inkaro mentally asked introspectively, as he recalled how Little Lizu was constantly tossing and turning in her blissful slumber, and only relenting once she'd latched onto Inkaro's head before coiling around him like the common house cat. Now that he was on the subject of the dragolyte and sleeping, Inkaro did recall how Lizu would insist on the two of them sleeping in sleeping bags whenever she invited herself over for a sleepover as a kid. It left him pondering. However, no amount of his amused ponderings would get in his way of baking, but Little Lizu's bombastic dive bomb of a return as she landed on his shoulders, and crossed her legs over the guy's chest did.

  With her chonky tail vigorously wagging and slapping the floor every so often behind her, Lizu happily and, if anything, boldly 'hmph'ed as she planted her small hands on her hips before verbally proclaiming her return: "Ho-oh, behold, I've returned!"

  Not wishing to risk taking his eyes off any of the baked goods, for their own safety, Inkaro peered at the legs locked around him to see Lizu had put on her fluffy pale beige onesie, covered in silver moons of various phases, with holes in it for her tail and wings. It had him deeply sighing, but it sounded neither annoyed nor amused as his conflicting opinions perfectly cancelled the other opinion out.

  Rolling his eyes, both as a response to Lizu and to do a quick scan of the kitchen counter, Inkaro raised the strawberry glaze-covered spoon to Lizu's face before it was instinctively chomped down on by the starry-eyed girl, mentally spacing out by the flavours hitting all the right neurons of her brain for maximum pleasure.

  Her puffed-up cheeks had her looking like a chipmunk, of the chonky variety.

  "I see you took to using your sleepwears size changing capabilities every chance you can, aside from sleeping," Inkaro remarked softly as he pulled the wooden spoon out of Lizu's snack black hole of a mouth, sporting not even a speck of glaze it once donned no longer.

  "Yep. This way, if I suddenly go all big girl again outta nowhere, it won't be a big deal, you know?" Little Lizu proclaimed, following it up by her snarkily, but not meanly, chastising Inkaro for thinking so little of her, just because she was a little kid now. Doing so for extra cheekiness, Lizu wagged her little finger at Inkaro, perfectly evoking the visage of a certain blue critter who's the antonym of slow as she did. "Besides, I totally have to embrace all the cute while I can, duh."

  Inkaro lightly rocked his head, forcing Lizu to tighten her grip to avoid tumbling off, "So what do you intend to do about your place in the tournament? If I could hardly use, as you called it, Sky-Style magic, I doubt you'll be able to use memoria, let alone your normal spells."

  "A-"

  That sharp letter that escaped Lizu was all too telling for the guy whose shoulders she sat upon, which left Inkaro rubbing his eyes exhaustedly: "You haven't thought about it at all, have you?"

  "Ehh, what... can I say...?" Lizu mumbled sheepishly, only to slam her face downward and bury her face into the unkempt mess that was Inkaro's hair as she deeply inhaled. She was burning with shame, glowing brighter than a strawberry with such a potent embarrassment she'd turned into a portable heater with crackling horns. As Lizu dramatically lived and breathed the aroma of his hair, desperate to rein in her unruly embarrassment, Inkaro was utterly lost by where the conversation had turned to, almost considering on acting like he hadn't heard anything Lizu had uttered post his question to her, but still felt compelled to at least respond.

  "Okay?"