It really should have been obvious that a prestigious magical academy like Medru Dalach would have extremely high academic standards, and extremely rigorous exams. And yet, somehow, Mirin hadn’t anticipated that equating to six hours of testing at a time. Oh, sure, it was really more like two blocks of three hours, with one in between to rest, but for her it ended up being a straight seven hours without a break.

As it turned out, having her exams start in the afternoon didn’t seem to make the lines for the bathrooms any shorter than if they had been in the morning. Mostly, it was upperclassmen who were scheduled for two tests in a day using that much-needed break halfway through their second; apparently they would always reserve the hour between tests for lunch alone, and so would regularly be quite full by the time their third and final break came around.

Somehow, a one-hour break ended up feeling a lot shorter than it sounded like. Bathrooms weren’t exactly abundant to begin with, and exam days made it apparent that Mirin had greatly underestimated just how many students actually attended Medru Dalach. Altogether, that meant that she had needed to skip that break, instead using it to get a bit of a snack and keep her energy up for the last three hours. She hadn’t needed to go that badly anyways, and since she had plenty of experience with holding her bladder, there was no way it would be a problem.

And it hadn’t been a problem. Mostly. Mirin had made it through the second half of her exams without much issue, though she had left the classroom in rough shape. It was everything from that point onward that was causing problems for her.

Unsurprisingly, the bathrooms were always cleaned in the evenings, and since this was only her first year at the academy, Mirin was entirely unable to predict what would be cleaned when. And, of course, that meant that when she brought her full bladder to the nearest bathroom she knew of, she had found it closed for maintenance.

But that was fine. She could just go find somewhere else. Sure, it had been seven hours since she last had the chance to take a break – and nine since the last time she actually took that chance – but she’d held it that long before, mostly without issue, so this time wouldn’t be any different.

Assuming, of course, that she could actually find a bathroom to use, anyways. That couldn’t be that difficult.

So, keeping her legs close together under her robe, Mirin wandered the halls in search of somewhere appropriate to relieve herself. She did have a lot of ground to cover, but she’d certainly find something before too long. Hopefully.

If nothing else, it was good at least that there was hardly anyone else around – the few people she passed by seemed to be on their way out, no doubt retiring to the dorms for the evening, so if she needed to be a little more obvious with her need, she had the freedom to do so. That wasn’t quite necessary just yet, but it would certainly help take her mind off the constant pressure in her abdomen.

She could deal with it for now, though; there had to be another bathroom around here somewhere…

Sure enough, after a little over ten minutes of searching, she did indeed find a usable restroom… and a sizeable queue to get in, much longer than expected given the fact that any classes had been over for quite some time by now.

But it was still a bathroom, so Mirin approached the woman at the back of the line, and discreetly rubbed her thighs together as she spoke up.

“What’s going on here?”

The woman ahead of her, clearly a few years older, looked over her shoulder and gave an annoyed huff. “There’s one toilet open in there,” she said. “I can’t imagine why, and… Well, I don’t think I want to.”

“Right… Is there nowhere else, then?”

“Not in this building, apparently. I dunno if it’d just be faster to go find somewhere else, but with everything getting locked up for cleaning right about now, I really doubt it.” With a shrug, she added, “Apparently a few people have already left the line to go try, though.”

Mirin nodded slowly. “Uh-huh. How long have you been here?”

“I dunno, a few minutes? I think the line’s been going for like an hour though.”

“Right…” Mirin shuffled uncomfortably, hoping that her robe would hide her movements. “I’ll just go try somewhere else, then,” she said as she turned to leave.

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

Well… that was disappointing. But at least Mirin now had an idea of where to go. Some other building. She could handle that. The campus as a whole was the size of a city in itself, sure, but she wouldn’t have to search every little bit of it. Considering her situation, it was probably best that she not search at all, and just head directly to where she knew she would be able to relieve herself – her own dormitory, of course.

In theory, that shouldn’t have been too difficult, but in practice it was made all the more uncomfortable by the cold breeze once Mirin stepped outside. With her robes not completely covering her legs, and nothing but underwear underneath, the chill only increased her urgency and prompted her to move faster.

So, trying her best to maintain good posture, she shuffled through the Academy streets towards her destination, paying no mind to the others wandering around or admiring the scattered statues of old Councillors – and even ignoring the debate occurring at the base of one depicting Cel, for as much as Mirin would have liked to participate in such a discussion were she not focused on much more pressing concerns.

And at the slightest thought of such concerns, a surge of pressure suddenly overcame her, forcing her to stop in her tracks and bend slightly forward with her legs crossed; she groaned quietly as she tried to keep her hands at her sides so as to not draw too much attention to herself.

When she thought she had pulled herself together well enough to keep going, she straightened up and started walking again, only for her first step to cause a quick squirt of urine to seep into her underwear. But she kept moving, shoving a hand between her legs and inadvertently letting out a quiet squeak from the shock of sudden warmth in such chilly conditions.

There was still a lot of distance between her current location and the dorms, and with her panties already wet she was starting to doubt if she’d be able to actually cover that distance. Mirin quickly looked around at her surroundings, and took note of a nearby building marked as containing classrooms – and, logically, bathrooms as well.

She changed course and headed there instead, just in case she really wouldn’t be able to make the journey all the way back to her own dorm room, and hoped that the janitors hadn’t yet reached that particular building.

The first bit of good news, at least, was that the doors to the building were unlocked, which must have meant something was still going on inside. The second was that Mirin only had to spend a few minutes wandering around to try to find the bathrooms nearest to the entrance.

That was the full extent of the good news, though. She had been hoping otherwise, but as she expected the bathroom was locked – after multiple attempts of opening the door, she was certain of that.

Mirin leaned back against the door with both hands planted between her legs, groaning and squirming while she considered the alternatives. She had been holding on for quite a while, with plenty to drink over those few hours, and by now her bladder was simply tired of waiting. Repeatedly finding inaccessible bathrooms certainly wasn’t helping matters.

But perhaps…? It wasn’t the best idea, but it would be better than wetting herself…

With a probably-terrible plan in mind, Mirin pulled herself together and hurried outside, while doing her best to hide what she was trying to do. As nonchalantly as she could, she made her way over to another building, one she had identified as a bathhouse during her scan of the area. There wouldn’t be any toilets there, but…

Fortunately, the place was quiet when Mirin entered, with only a few attendants wandering around as far as she could see while she squirmed and entered her name into the logbook by the door. Then she tried to remain calm as she walked past a few workers who gave her polite nods of acknowledgement; the unavoidable sounds of water all around her made her want to do so much more to help her bladder than just keeping herself tense, and her resistance was rewarded with a little trail snaking down one leg.

She reminded herself that it wouldn’t be too much longer, and indeed only a minute later she stepped past a curtain into a room with a pool large enough for several people, but currently unoccupied.

Ensuring the curtain was closed, Mirin kicked her shoes off and hobbled over to the nearest bench as she pulled her robes over her head, setting them down as soon as she could and immediately getting to work on uncovering her breasts. She was constantly shifting her weight from side to side, almost marching in place without picking her feet up off the ground. Another little leak dripped down her leg when she set down her chest coverings, and she forced herself to stand still as she bent over to pull her underwear down and step out of them – that action itself prompting another spurt, caught by her panties but with a few drops falling from them to the floor afterwards.

But as soon as those were off and simply dropped carelessly on the ground, Mirin quickly lowered herself into the bathing pool and released as soon as her hips were underwater.

She let out an inconspicuous sigh as she continued to sink into the hot water, eventually sitting on the bottom of the pool and leaning back against the edge with everything below her shoulders submerged. Her brief look at the water showed a faintly-discolored cloud giving away what she was doing, but she closed her eyes and tipped her head back when she figured that it would only be obvious for someone looking specifically for it. Not like she could have stopped by now anyways.

Of course, she probably shouldn’t have started in the first place, but she had made her decision – which she had only reached because she had heard that this was a popular solution when no others existed. If anyone did see her and notice what she was doing, odds were good that they had done it themselves at some point too. Nobody would ever admit to it, of course, but with some odd technology or magic keeping the water filtered and clean, nobody ever did any real harm either.

So Mirin enjoyed herself, sighing again as her bladder drained into the water around her, relieving her of a burden accumulated over many hours and a fair few drinks; and at the same time, the magically-heated bathwater helped relieve whatever other tension she had been carrying around all that time as well. All the stress and pressure disappeared, replaced by satisfaction, comfort, and the thought that she might have to memorize the locations of all the campus bathhouses for future reference.