Leaving the city Lunis behind, the trio went north with enough food and water for a week, stored in Yuki's pocket dimension, which was also were Iky would stay for now. He seemed to enjoy it there for soem reason, even though from the inside it was nothing but empty space. Though things lost their taste after being stored there for more than a day, they were willing to sacrifice taste for portability. The first day of their journey ended in a quiet field near a river where they would set up their camp. Yuki insisted they step back, so they could watch her new abilities unfold in awe. Said abilities included summoning… A small house?
"Muhaha, that's right, the days of sleeping in tents on the ground are over! Praise me~!"
"Wow that's… Incredible, Yuki."
"Isn't it? What do you think, Master? Am I not awesome? Perfect even~?"
Yamato opened the door to look inside, seeing a kitchen, table, chairs and more doors. It was not a large house, but still more spacious than their dorm rooms at the school. Which was, as he admitted, quite impressive.
"It's great. How did you do that?"
"As great as I~ It is only natural that you would fall for me even more thanks to this! How I did it? It's all thanks to my dearest sister! But to understand that, you know how most of my abilities, mana and everything are sealed, yes?"
"Yes, of course, your current greatness is only a small percentage of your true potential… And?"
"Sarcasm… Anyhow, you can picture lots of big chains, and whenever one chain breaks, I get a little stronger. So there are lots and lots of little Yuki's constantly working to break those chains, even as we speak. However, that costs a lot of energy, so it only progresses slowly… Which is where my sister swoops in! During our fight, I was able to link to her mana pool. Or rather, the pool of heaven which she accessed. Since that pool is infinite, I had lots of energy to feed the little Yuki's, speeding up the process by a lot! Then she cut me off again… But in that small time frame of infinite mana I was still productive!Then of course the question was which chains I should focus. I decided to focus on creation magic! So I can now create pretty much everything with enough mana~"
"That's… Pretty overpowered. So you created that house using your newly regained creation magic."
"I am meant to be your strongest~"
"Anyway… I only see one bedroom and two beds."
"I know… There should have been a wall! But it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it… I guess I need to train more… It should still be fine though, right?"
"I guess… If Lucy is alright with it. Otherwise I don't mind sleeping in the living room."
Said bedroom had two beds parallel to each other against the walls, with a single window and nothing else inside. Very minimalistic but it would be more than enough and definitely more comfortable than any improvised tent. Lucy was quite impressed by Yuki's house as well, but had noticed the small bedroom space too. She naturally assumed Yamato and Yuki would sleep in the same bed and have a separate room, which seemed to have been the original plan too but now it was like this. She would feel guilty if Yamato slept somewhere else because of her, but the idea to sleep in the same room as them also flustered her. In the end, she decided to suppress her feelings and aggree to sleep in the same room as them. After they ate, the food still having taste, they went to bed. Yuki and Yamato seemed to fall asleep quickly, even though the bed was clearly small for two people. Whether it was intentional by Yuki or not set aside, Lucy could not help but look over every now and then, since she had trouble falling asleep as easily as they did. She could hear some sort of noise outside too, which gave her a unsettling feeling. As she took another glance at the two, she saw how peaceful they looked. A strong sense of responsibility came over her, as she felt the need to preserve them. Since she felt indebted to Yamato for many reasons, but mainly for saving her life and giving her a purpose, she thought it was only natural that she wanted him to keep being happy like he seemed now. In that moment she swore to herself that she would support them, though she did that already in a sense, this promise was for her own pride. Suddenly, something slammed against the main door. First it was just a single strike, but it soon turned into a barrage of attacks. However neither Yuki or Yamato woke up from it, so Lucy got out of the bed to go check it out. Just as she wanted to leave the bedroom to go to the main door, something pulled on her shirt. As she looked back, Yuki had spared one arm away from cuddling up to Yamato to stop Lucy. It looked like she did not want to wake up Yamato, which was why she only moved as little as possible, since they were so intertwined. She pointed to Lucy's blanket and signaled her to hand it over. Not quite understanding what for, Lucy complied. As Yuki received the blanket, she carefully pulled away from Yamato and replaced herself with the blanket, so he would not notice her absence. Yuki then spoke to Lucy while stretching and straightening her pajama.
"Phew… Now, what's wrong, Lucy? You seem troubled."
Lucy whispered back despite wondering why Yuki did not whisper, even though she was just a moment so careful about disturbing Yamato.
"Uhm... Oh right... Something's attacking our door? How did you not hear??"
"Hm? Oh, you're right! My bad, I had an anti sound barrier around us. You don't need tk whisper by the way. You could scream and he wouldn't hear a thing as long as you don't enter the barrier. Anyways, let's check it out!"
"Are you sure it's safe to leave him like this…?"
Suddenly something hit the window, which cracked but repaired itself before the next attack.
"Hm… You're right. No fooling around, let's investigate quickly."
Though her walk expressed anything but seriousness, as it was sleepy and slow, it was directed at the door so Lucy just stayed behind her and followed.
"Should we open it or what?"
"Why wouldn't we?"
"Cause something's out there!"
"Duh, that's why we are opening it…"
With that Yuki just opened the door at which… Nothing was there? Even though it was really dark, usually they would be able to see something that had dashed into the door mere moments ago.
"Huh… Must've been the wind."
Yuki turned back around while yawning and rubbing her eyes, though Lucy stopped her and pulled her back.
"No way that was the wind! Don't leave me here…!"
"What, don't tell me you're scared in the dark or something."
"This has nothing to do with the dark?! There's some monster out there!"
"Right whatever… Fine, if it helps you sleep at night…"
She opened her pocket dimension and reached inside. Out came… Iky! Holding him by the tail, she threw him outside.
"Iky, sit."
He sat down and just tilted his head, looking at Lucy curiously, as it was the first time he saw her.
"Uh uh, eyes on me."
Yuki snapped her fingers at him, at which his attention shifted to her at an instant. She then pointed outside, at which he turned his head at an 180 degree angle, staring into the dark forest before looking back at Yuki.
"Eat! Or something or whatever…"
He darted off into the dark, instantly vanishing from their sights.
"W-what was that?"
"Uh… A pet or something. Let's go back to sleep. I wanna go back into my dream…"
"You send small lizard pet to fight whatever almost broke into our house?! Are you sure it didn't just run off into freedom…"
"It's a salamander~ And just trust me when I say it's taken care off. If you want I can give you a sound barrier too."
"No thank you, I wanna hear when we get attacked again!"
"Suit yourself… I'm going back now. You should too. Otherwise I'm gonna throw your blanket on the ground."
"Huh? Why??"
"Cuz I can't throw it far when I'm back in bed without making much movement, I'm too tired to explain it more elaborately… Just… Are you coming or not?"
"…Fine! But I'm not taking your barrier!"
"Yeah, sure whatever…"
Back in the bedroom, Yuki climbed back into the position she was in before, carefully removing Lucy's blanket throwing it behind her, where Lucy caught it before it hit the ground. As she too went back to bed, listening carefully for any signs of another attack, she was surprised to hear absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. She had not trusted Iky in the slightest, it was only a small animal to her after all. However after this commotion she was so stressed out that she could not worry about anything anymore, and so she finally fell asleep. As Yuki cuddled back into Yamato, she felt him hugging her back too.
"Was there a problem?"
"Aww, I tried so hard to not wake you up…"
"Believe it or not, I can tell the difference between you and a blanket…"
"Aww, that's so sweet!"
"…Is it?"
"I'd say telling while asleep is quite impressive, yes. Y'know… The barrier around us works both ways… She can't hear a single thing happening in here. So you can do whatever you want without her noticing~…"
"No thank you..."
"Please~?"
"I'm not doing anything right now."
"Aww, no fun… But fine. Anyway, who knew you'd be so fond of feeling my warmth up close that you even wake up when I leave for only a couple of minutes~?"
"…You caught me. I'm utterly obsessed with you. Never leave me alone again. Anyway, you didn't say why you left."
Though those words were spoken with obvious sarcasm, Yuki still blushed brightly at them as she hid her face away, even though it was much too dark to even see the color of her face in the first place.
"D-don't… Don't just say stuff like that… And it was nothing… A minor problem taken care of now…"
"Really? You get embarrassed by that after suggesting… -Whatever. If you say so… I trust you."
"I-it's different! Don't tease me… I wanna sleep now… Good night and I love you…"
"Alright. Good night, Yuki… Love you too…"