Just as you finished your meal and put out the fire, you heard some rustling coming from the nearby bushes. You simply rolled your eyes and sighed.

"It's not gonna work, Ariadne. I sensed you coming a half a mile ago" You said.

"Only half?" Your big sister chuckled as she stood up to her full height, which was at least 2 inches taller than yourself.

"It's a slow day and there's no reason to keep my guard up that much. Besides, if anything or anyone dangerous were approaching, he would've let me know" You replied, glancing at Shingetsu, who was laying on his belly purring happily. He had been completely unfazed because he'd also known it was her long before she revealed herself.

"Fair enough" Ariadne shrugged "But that doesn't spare you... from this!" She said as she suddenly leapt towards you, fast enough to actually catch you off guard and before you knew it, she was giving you quite the bear hug and pushing your head into her large chest. Despite your great strength, it was no match for hers, you had no way of breaking free. Shingetsu opened one eye and gave Ariadne a mildly inquisitive look.

"Just giving my lil' brother a big hug" She giggled and the large black cat seemed content with that explanation, closing his eye.

"So, that's how you pay me back..." You muttered, heavily muffled by the large meaty globes that were engulfing your face while she hugged you more and more tightly.

"Anyway, we need to test those" She said, glancing at the metal rings around your wrists, which were made of a black metal just like your sword, engraved with runes seemingly written in gold that emitted a faint glow in said color. The way they were arranged suggested that they were forming words and perhaps even a sentence, but neither you nor Ariadne know anything about the language they represented, all you knew was their function.

"The limiters are fine" You said, giving a subtle annoyed look.

"We test them every year. Besides, you're still growing up and that also means you're getting stronger. If you appear too strong you know what's going to happen" Ariadne huffed, crossing her arms "People can understand and somewhat justify you guys being close to the power of lower ranking Imperial Elites, but we're pushing it"

"Alright, alright, let's get this over with" You said as you took the metal rings around your wrists and ankles off, storing them in a pocket inside your hooded cloak, which was also somewhat of a cape.

"Take the cloak off too, it weighs you down" Ariadne instructed. You extended your hand, forming what looked like a stake made out of golden light. You threw it into a nearby tree, to which it stuck, creating an improvised coat rack upon which you threw your cloak. This was necessary because you didn't want it to throw it to the ground and get it dirty and because the coat was too heavy, if put on a tree's branch it would cause it to snap for sure, even the thickest, strongest looking branches.

Ariadne then clasped her hands together and closed her eyes. From the ground next to her, a large slab of solid rock emerged, with a single, large rune engraved in its center, glowing quite brightly with golden light, it was encircled by numerous smaller runes that emitted a lesser glow of their own. The rock slab itself was roughly one and a half times as tall and wide as the door in an average house and roughly half a foot thick.

"Since when are you an Earth Mage?" You chuckled.

"Har har hardy har har" Ariadne couldn't have been more sarcastic if she tried, narrowing her eyes at you "Well, thanks to these runes even a non Earth Mage like myself can summon this thing. You should be thankful, it was pretty hard for Pete to make this. Pure, solid dolerite. It doesn't get any better than this" She said, patting the rock slab. What appeared to be a sort of ethereal window, made of a darker orange light with various golden symbols within appeared before Ariadne herself.

"What happened to the granite ones?" You raised an eyebrow as you stretched your limbs, feeling incredibly light without the metal rings nor the cape.

"The runes can't measure your strength accurately if you break the material they're engraved in, and last year you pretty much pulverized the last one" Ariadne sighed "To be fair, I can't use granite anymore either. This is the toughest thing we can get and if it gets damaged, Pete will just have to repair it"

"Surprised he didn't ask any questions" You said as you cracked your knuckles "But then again, I can see why he'd do whatever you say"

Ariadne briefly glanced down at her chest, knowing what you meant "I dunno, I think he enjoys my rear more" She giggled and gave a playful spin, showing that indeed her butt was quite huge, larger than her chest even.

"Until you decide to try blasting devastating poisonous Wind magic" You said, enjoying a heartier chuckle and making her pout and blush slightly.

"That's not even intentional...! Most of the time. You know what meat does to me, and I need to eat a lot of meat" She said, flexing her somewhat beefy biceps, though her chiseled abdomen was also visible since her clothes barely covered more than the large, jiggling mass of her chest.

"I still don't understand how you have those abs and those arms yet you're plumper than the spoiled daughters of nobles" You said, throwing another little jab at her.

"I guess mom had blessed blood?" Ariadne shrugged "Anyway, let's get this over with. Punch this thing with all your might"

"All my might?" You replied "Shouldn't I take this off then?" You said, showing her the dogtag-like gold pendant you wore.

"Too dangerous to do so close to the city. We need to test that somewhere more remote. But this should be good enough for now" She said.

You took a deep breath and looked at the large stone slab, it was a few feet away from you. Then, you clenched your left hand into a fist and steadied your feet. In less than the blink of an eye, you took impulse and leapt towards it, causing a medium shockwave behind yourself as you delivered your hardest possible punch upon the stone slab, making a greater shockwave upon impact and causing it to crack although Ariadne remained unfazed, she intently looked at the ethereal window before her, various gauges immediately reached all the way to the top of their measuring scales, turning from greed to red upon hitting their stated limits. The cracks on the stone slab weren't too deep, but they spread over most of its surface on the front side. You jumped back to where you stood before and waited for Ariadne to finish reading what the runes displayed.

"Yep. About 30% stronger than last year, no wonder the granite slabs shattered" She said "Now, let's try it with the limiters on"

You nodded and reached into your cloak's inner pocket, pulling out the 4 metal rings and put them back on, 2 on your ankles and 2 on your wrists. Like the last time, you did a quick dash and punched the slab with your left hand. This time, it slightly cracked and the punch itself released a faint shockwave that faded quickly.

"So?" You asked while Ariadne read the runes once more.

"We need to readjust the limiters. Your second punch hit with 10% of your full strength. We need to keep it lower, 5% max" She said and you took off the 4 limiters, handing them over to Ariadne who began to fiddle with them, you didn't know yet how she did it, but she knew how to adjust those things and she's done it every year for the last 8 years. Several minutes later, she was done and handed them back, asking you to put them on and try to punch the stone slab a third time. As she expected, your strength was down to 5% of your max.

"I'm a little surprised I got it right on the first try" She chuckled "Well, that takes care of that at least until after your next birthday"

"But how long are we going to have to do this?" You asked.

"Grandma said that until you turned 25, that's when you should've finished growing up. By then you should be able to suppress your power on your own" She explained, and then, just as she did a quick hand gesture to make the stone slab bury itself back underground, she leapt at you and caught you with a mighty one-armed hug while using her other hand to ruffle your hair.

"But no matter how old you get you'll still be my lil' brother" She giggled and kissed you on the cheek.

"By the way, now that I think about it... we were never told about our mom, were we?" You then asked, recalling her previous response to your teasing.

"Nope. Nothing at all" Ariadne replied "I wonder what she looked like"

"Well, the older ladies in Varland always tell that when you want to find out what a girl will look like in the future, to always get a look at her mother... So, maybe she did really look like you" You replied "Must've been a great warrior among the Light mages if she had those same muscles as you do" Ariadne blushed a little at the compliment but she smiled, trying to picture her mother as an older version of herself.

"Somehow, I feel like mom would've struggled harder with weight than I do" She giggled, patting her chest and butt "Probably had a good appetite too"

"Let's just hope she didn't have the same devastating winds you get from eating too much" You added and the two of you shared a hearty laugh.

Somewhere else... Many miles away, deep within a dense forest unknown to most, in a lone house, a certain lady suddenly sneezed for no discernible reason, wondering if she needed to start cleaning her house all over again...

"So, where are the guys?" You then asked as you dispelled the stake of light and got your cloak back.

"They went for a swim at the Stralende Lake. Wanna join them?" Ariadne said, still holding your head close to her chest. Shingetsu perked up from his apparent nap upon hearing the place's name.

"Nah. Knowing them, they're going to start with their stupid shenanigans and trying to pick up random girls they find, or worse, trying to play Mr. Matchmaker with me" You said.

"Looks like your cat wants to go for a swim though" Ariadne noted.

"Well, in that case, I guess I could go, swimming is nice after all. But I'm not in the mood for their idiotic pickup business" You said, as you two began to walk towards Shingetsu.

"Aye aye sir!" Ariadne playfully did a military salute while giving a funny, cutesy look sticking her tongue out. You laughed but rolled your eyes.