Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina – 10 – Meeting in the Middle

Journey of Elaina takes a break from Elaina’s journey to tell the story of her teacher Fran and Saya’s teacher, Sheila. Both were apprentices of Niké, who no doubt decided each of them could benefit from each others’ unique qualities.

Fran is your typical quiet, dignified, by-the-book “teacher’s pet”, while Sheila is the mage equivalent of a delinquent, complete with blond hair and twisted scowl. She’s always smoking a cigarette, and her gaudy broom is souped-up like a Yankee bike, complete with fancy lights and a two-strok burble.

Hanazawa Kana and Hikasa Yoko demonstrate how adept they are at voicing younger versions of Fran and Sheila, and it’s a lot of fun watching them bounce off each other like oil and vinegar while Niké serenely smiles between them. I particularly like how Fran starts imitating Sheila’s combative “Huh?!” with a “Huh” of her own!

The trio arrives in Qunorts, Town of Freedom, for an Association job, and like Elaina, Niké is primarily concerned with what the job pays (like mother like daughter!). The job is to take care of the non-magical Curio Company, which has been tricking and embarrassing the town’s mages with “mysterious tools.”

Niké, who has tolerated her students’ bickering to this point, now calls upon them to work together to take Curio down. If either or both of them fail, she’ll expel them from her instruction. Naturally, Fran and Sheila try to use the job as an opportunity to sabotage one another so they’ll be rid of each other.

Because they start out working at cross purposes, the Curio Company problem only grows, and their leader calls Fran out in a cafe that turns out to be full of her loyal subordinates. Fran is captured, and finds that Sheila has also been captured. If they’re going to escape expulsion (and, incidentally, beheading) they know they’ll have to work together.

Either the mages of Qunorts must not have been much to write home about, or Fran and Sheila are particularly gifted mages, because they’re able to deal with Curio all at once without much difficulty, and with much style and flair. Turns out both of them let themselves get captured to spare them the effort of tracking their targets down one by one.

Once Curio is dealt with, the two have a rest and each explain why they wanted Niké to teach them. Sheila was a street urchin unaware of witches who one day stole from Niké, and saw an opportunity to right the wrong path of her life. Sheila sought to become the first witch in her country, thus securing a steady job and source of income.

Both realize that because self-interest was their motivator, they have a lot more in common than they thought. Shortly thereafter, Niké makes them official Witches and names them Stardust and Night, with the implication that they complement one another perfectly.

After a rough start to their relationship when they were constantly clashing, Fran and Sheila became friends, which they remain to this day such that they still go on annual vacations together. Only because the box Sheila instructed Saya to take to Qunorts was the same box the Curio Company had, Sheila decides to put their vacay on hold, and Fran follows.

At roughly the same time, Elaina, who is either completely over her crisis of confidence or doing a good job suppressing her trauma from the time traveling ordeal, is headed to Qunorts as well. That means next week could feature Elaina, Saya, Fran and Sheila in the same place at the same time. That’s something I can get on board with!

For more on Wandering Witch episode 10, read Crow’s review here.