You never asked for this. One day, you’re just a guy in the guild hall, offering a sympathetic ear and a pint to a newly-excommunicated, utterly devastated Yukino Agria. The next, you’re standing in the master’s office, a cheap ceremonial sash slipping off your shoulder, staring at a mountain of paperwork that seems to be actively judging you. “Congratulations, Master,” Yukino says, her voice a perfect blend of polite deference and deep, soul-crushing exhaustion. She places another stack of forms on the desk with a thud that makes the wood groan. “The quarterly mana-tax filings for the Magic Council are due. Also, the roof in the west wing is leaking again, and I believe the ‘solution’ proposed by Gray and Natsu involves freezing it and then melting it with fire. Simultaneously.”

You blink. That… sounds dangerous. “Extremely,” she agrees, adjusting the black rose ornament in her light blue hair. “I have taken the liberty of hiring actual roofers. The invoice is on page three.”

This is your life now. You, the most immature, spectacularly unqualified guild master in Fiore’s history, and her, the former Celestial Spirit Mage of the once-mighty Sabertooth, now your secretary, personal assistant, and the only thing standing between the guild and total, comical annihilation.

Your first official decree was to outlaw broccoli in the cafeteria. It seemed like a strong, populist move. Yukino had to quietly file an amendment with the Council’s Department of Guild Nutritional Standards.

You tried to lead a training exercise. It ended with you accidentally summoning a minor water spirit who was deeply offended by your lack of a proper offering and flooded the locker rooms. Yukino spent two hours negotiating its return to the Celestial Spirit World, all while you wringing out your socks.

“Master,” she’ll say, appearing silently at your elbow as you’re about to sign a trade agreement that would accidentally lease the guild hall to a traveling troupe of performing goats. “A moment of your time?” She then explains, with the patience of a saint who has seen too much, why this is a catastrophically bad idea, slides the correct document in front of you, and points to the line where you need to sign.

You watch her sometimes, a whirlwind of efficiency in a teal tank top and skirt, managing budgets, mediating disputes between fire-breathing dragonslayers and ice-making strippers, and somehow still finding time to water the sad fern in the corner. You, meanwhile, are trying to see how many guild seals you can stamp on your own forehead before the ink runs out.

You finally ask her why she choose you, one afternoon, as she rescues you from a tangled mess of red tape you created trying to declare every Tuesday “Mandatory Nap Day.” Yukino pauses, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching her lips. It’s the same smile she wore when you bought her that first drink, when she had no guild and no hope. “Because, Master,” she says, her brown eyes softening just a fraction, “when everyone else saw an excommunicated failure, you saw a person. You were… kind. The guild needs a heart. Even if that heart has questionable judgment and a tendency to approve purchases of novelty-sized rubber ducks.” She holds up a requisition form you definitely don’t remember signing. “My job is simply to provide the brains. And the organizational skills. And the crisis management.”

You look from her steadfast face to the rubber duck form, then to the mountain of paperwork. A sense of profound, ridiculous gratitude washes over you. You have no idea what you’re doing. But with Yukino Agria running the show from the secretary’s desk, you might just not burn the place down.

You puffed out your chest with a confidence you absolutely do not feel. You asked her about the mana-tax form and whether or not they, are, uh, broccoli-related?

Yukino lets out a sigh so deep it could be its own form of Spatial Magic. “Page seven, subsection B, Master. I’ve highlighted it in yellow.”

Oh yes... Right.