In the musty, business office-like student council room, the interlopers plus some of the student council executives sat at the main conference table near the front door. At the head of one side was Stephen, followed by Mayumi, Caius and Cecilia. Out of them, Mayumi was calm and collected, showing no hint of worry or anxiety. The other three were slightly nervous, as they weren’t the ones who saw the future directly, but having been prepped by Mayumi beforehand, they were also in a position of comfort.
Only twenty minutes ago, Stephen was on the verge of blacking out from the injuries he sustained, but the cleanse tag had reversed much of the injuries in short order. While his face and head was still swollen, sore and in pain all over, physically all was well enough, and his faculties were in good order.
Seated opposite them were Class C’s Donovan and Liam. The former was just as confident as the future seer on the other side, and unlike Stephen, his injuries were well recovered by now. Liam, however, was rather depressed. It was not because of anything to do with the student council, as they were the ones filing a complaint. Rather, he was anticipating some kind of reprimand later from Donovan for his poor handling of the situation, i.e. sleeping on the job.
At the end of the table sat Mirabelle Jupiter, the up-until-now-absent student council president who made her surprise triumphant return today, plunging straight into mediating a dispute. Ariel sat next to Mirabelle, notebook in hand and ready to take minutes as Bianca stood behind her, bearing witness to the proceedings.
Outside the student council room in the hallway were some of the Elites, only able to peek through the narrow, elongated window of the front door, to which Scarlett was standing guard with them. While either party was allowed to bring a few people with them inside to witness the dispute mediation, neither chose to do so.
“Let’s hear your complaint then, shall we?”
Mirabelle started off in the direction of Donovan, smiling lightly at him.
“All right, let’s see. Well, there is the issue of obstruction of PSC duties by the three hooligans over there. How about we start off with that?”
As mundane as it sounded, this was in fact a serious rule that brought severe consequences when broken. Donovan laid back into his chair and put his hands behind his head, seemingly content.
“Then, could you explain in detail the obstruction that had occurred and you claimed to warrant remedial measures?”
“Simple. Early morning today, we, the PSC, were conducting a mission in which operating Teller sonographs was critical to its objective. During the operation, Ms Hanamiya, Ms Nightingale, Mr Koziko, and Mr Evans, students with no affiliations with the science faculty, somehow entered a locked chemistry lab, Chem 1, and proceeded to manhandle my colleague, Mr Mitchell, in order to remove him from the premises, which they’ve successfully done.
“At the same time, they removed the printed readings from the output of the Teller sonograph and dumped it in a pool of sulphuric acid, presumably to erase evidence of any wrongdoing on their part—”
“Hey, watch what you’re saying there, punk—”
Stephen tried to interrupt, but Donovan cut him off and sped ahead of him.
“I’m only giving a plausible explanation as to why they must do so—”
“Silence. Mr Liguro, please do not disrupt the speaker. Mr Avgothia, please refrain from making judgments on why something happened. We are currently interested in the sequence of events only. We’ll have a discussion on opinions afterwards.”
As Stephen glared silently at his opponent across the table, Donovan shrugged, duly composed.
“Sure. So, the Teller sonograph’s printouts were completely lost as a result. While all of that was going on, Mr Liguro came into the next door lab, Chem 2, where I was, and after removing the readouts from my Teller sonograph and dissolving them in acid too, started a brawl with me. The rest was as you witnessed, Madam President.”
“That’s the sequence of events as Mr Avgothia and Mr Mitchell sees it, correct?”
“Yes.” “That’s correct.”
They both answered together.
“Do you have any problems with the version of events presented by Mr Avgothia?”
“Putting aside whatever that was being done by the PSC, yes, we agree with the version of events presented by him.”
Though still stern in his expression, Stephen agreed readily, which was somewhat of a surprise to Donovan. Normally, one would try to skew the presentation of the facts of the sequence of events, even manipulate or obfuscate them, but it seemed as though they were giving up on doing anything like that.
Usually, one did that in order to gain an advantage in the next round of the dispute settlement, which was to lay out where the wrongdoings were. If a set of facts were accepted by both parties, then they couldn’t quote-unquote take it back if they later realized one of those facts was going to contradict their later arguments. Naturally, Donovan grew suspicious of Stephen’s intentions.
“Then, Mr Avgothia, can you explain the grievance in which these sets of events have caused, to which you seek remediation for?”
“It’s quite simple. The act of forcefully removing Mr Mitchell from his station, and then proceeding to destroy evidence, is nothing more than blatant obstruction of justice. You all do realize that deliberately ruining a Teller sonograph’s readouts is essentially equivalent to tampering with recorded evidence, such as closed-circuit television video, right?”
“There’s no doubt that that’s problematic.”
Stephen stated ambiguously. He did not specifically agree with it this time, obviously, as Donovan was giving his opinion.
“Given the nature of Ms Hanamiya and Mr Koziko’s abilities, specifically their precognition, there’s always the possibility of them cheating, and the Teller sonograph is the only deterrence against such behaviour. Therefore, there’s more than plausible motivation for these two specific individuals to aim to destroy readouts from such a machine.”
No matter how you looked at it, that deduction was sound and commonsensical, and it was in fact exactly why they were doing this in the first place.
“In addition, the crime they’re trying to cover up is to cheat on an exam. While this school is quite eccentric in its operations, academic integrity is something it doesn’t deviate from. In fact, such transgressions were always met with extreme penalties. If you, Madam President, do not hand out a punishment of sufficient severity, then I must escalate this incident to the faculty for redress.”
And so, the prosecutor’s claims came to a close. Mirabelle nodded in understanding, switching over to address the defendants.
“Mr Liguro, those are the charges against Ms Hanamiya’s party. I find nothing wrong with the presentation or soundness of its claims. Do you have anything to say for these charges levied against Ms Hanamiya’s party?”
Mayumi’s party, which included Caius, Cecilia and the absent Eon, continued to remain silent, having already decided that their strategy was to allow only Stephen, who wound up as an accomplice to Mayumi’s party in this incident, to speak on their behalf. It was, of course, awfully suspicious to leave the microphone to Stephen, the least informed of the circumstances.
“They wish to plead not guilty to all charges.”
After dropping something unreasonable yet unsurprising, Donovan sneered.
“Not guilty with the evidence in front of you?”
“They didn’t cheat, after all. There’s no evidence of that.”
Not anymore, that was.
“The charge is the obstruction of justice, in relation to attempted cheating on an exam and covering up such attempts. Whether the attempt at cheating was successful or not, is irrelevant.”
So Donovan wasn’t going to be that naïve. Stephen knew it, but he tried anyway. He would have to go for the jugular, as Mayumi instructed.
“Mr Avgothia is correct. As it stands, I must hand you a guilty verdict and the corresponding punishments thereof.”
Mirabelle said again calmly, apparently completely satisfied with the current situation. Stephen’s expression was as harsh as ever, unyielding and unwavering. He opened his mouth in response.
“Then let me present my version of the events that led up to the incident this morning.”
“’Led up to the incident’, you say?”
“Yes, Madam President. For certain, Mr Avgothia, in his capacity as the Marshal of the PSC, has ordered an investigation into the potential cheating that could come from the precognitive abilities of Mr Koziko and Ms Hanamiya. In light of that, Teller sonographs were procured in secrecy from the science faculty.
“Mr Avgothia seemed to be extremely wary of my cousin, Ms Nightingale, of cheating on an exam because of a tip he received from Regia Miriam All-Girls Private Academy. In fact, he received a whole case of Ms Hanamiya’s—and other’s—past exam papers from his contact in Regia Miriam, in order to build his case for the operation, and to put a working plan into place.”
Donovan narrowed his eyes, suspicion rife in his grimace. Spilling trade secrets was extremely damaging to not only the reputation but the operational efficiency of the PSC. Analogously, if a spy’s operation was busted by the enemy, then all of its methods and secrets would not only be laid bare, but rendered useless because the adversary could now come up with countermeasures for the future.
“With it, he showed me that Ms Hanamiya had the ability to surreptitiously cheat on exams for other students, and since she and Ms Nightingale were friends, it was plausible that her abilities might be used for Ms Nightingale’s sake, given her recent grades. Then, during this exam period, he put me and Mr Mitchell on stakeout duty in the vicinity of the Class 3-C classroom with a Teller sonograph in order to capture Ms Hanamiya’s use of her future sight.
“However, I must insist that, while the presence of Mr Koziko and Ms Hanamiya may appear to support the basic scenario that Mr Avgothia had put forth, in that they simply wanted to cheat on an exam, this narrative is missing one crucial piece.
“It was obvious—to you as well, Madam President—that there were two sonographs in operation at the time. Ms Hanamiya and her friends at the time had only invaded Chem 1 to disable one sonograph’s operation. It turned out that they were only to remain in Chem 1 or outside in the hallways until they met up with you, Madam President. Then, what do we make of the second sonograph, operated by Mr Avgothia? If they really have used their future sight, then they must have a plan to dispose of both sonographs in operation—and in operation so close to each other.”
Stephen stood up from his seat, trying to emphasize the point he wanted to drive home.
“Well, there was a plan for that. At the same time they invaded Chem 1, I personally raided Chem 2 for the second sonograph, resulting in the altercation between me and Mr Avgothia. The reason for this was that I was the real mastermind behind this incident.”
Suddenly, Donovan slammed the table with the palm of his hand and pointed a furious finger at Stephen, while Mayumi and the others behind her blinked at the snappy interruption. The claim was absurd on any day of the week.
“Don’t play silly games with me, Stephen.”
However, it was Mirabelle who cut him off. Donovan shot a glare at Mirabelle, but she already peeled her attention away from him.
“Mr Avgothia, the defendant is speaking. Mr Liguro, please continue.”
Stephen, in a reversal, became the calmer one, unperturbed by the intimidation.
“I’ve orchestrated a scenario where I made it seem like they were cheating. However, they were merely acting upon my instructions in order to secure a free stage for me to fight Mr Avgothia. The burning of the readouts was just something akin to smoke and mirrors; something to match the story that Mr Avgothia was looking for.
“What I was really after was the physical removal of Mr Mitchell from Chem 1, whom I knew was a staunch ally of Mr Avgothia and would do everything in his power to prevent it from happening. The extra manpower provided by Mr Evans and Ms Nightingale was key.
“In essence, Ms Hanamiya and her friends were mere accessories to my plans, made possible because of Mr Avgothia’s fixation with finding evidence of this presupposed cheating on a friend’s exam. Additionally, to obtain their co-operation on this matter, I was about to compensate them on extravagant monetary terms. I can say it definitely swayed their decision to aid me. I was the sole perpetrator of this whole incident, and I’d want Madam President to treat it as such.”
Mirabelle nodded, still very much calm and smiling lightly, never breaking with her character. Donovan, on the other hand, was visibly incensed.
“Impossible. Even if you say this was all your doing, it doesn’t mean they also didn’t intend to cheat, and then took on your offer to act according to your so-called plan.”
“While that’s true, it makes your initial claim that Ms Hanamiya and her friends were obstructing justice much weaker, does it not? It’s true that they physically carried out these acts of sabotage, but I was the one who gave those orders. I put it to you that I was the one obstructing justice, and from within the PSC as well.”
“But it wouldn’t matter who gave the order. The mere act of sabotage of an instrument specifically used to prevent wrongdoing on their part is sufficient cause for doubt.”
“Including my apparent betrayal of PSC duties, it’s an essential part of the charade to get you to fight me seriously. Without properly disrupting the operation in front of you, there wouldn’t be a reason for you to accept my challenge.”
“How would you know that for sure?”
“Well, you were the one who wanted to conduct this surveillance operation. Reasonably speaking, if I sabotage it in your face, I’d presume you’d be quite angry with that. The fact that you did accept my challenge, was reason enough, right? For the record, they didn’t know about the second sonograph you were operating. Of course, I can’t exactly ironclad prove that, but I believe my involvement would make it likely to be seen as truth. After all, only with my leadership in this conspiracy that this specific series of events could have transpired, right? And I admit to it.”
Donovan fumed in silence. There were definitely holes in Stephen’s version of events, but unfortunately for him, it was still a sound scenario as a whole. If he continued challenging them, it would just come down to hypotheticals after hypotheticals, ending with a judgment call by Mirabelle to determine whose claim was closer to the truth. Additionally, there was little to gain now that one of the parties had essentially taken responsibility for the whole incident—Stephen.
In the broader Yue cultural sphere, society operated on a very rigid finger-pointing principle. When something terrible happened, the blame—or the credit—had to be laid down on somebody; and once someone claimed it, it was theirs to keep. Of course, for credit, they needed to claim it convincingly, but for blame, anyone could claim it without question. Once accepted, it was extremely difficult to overturn, and for certain, no one was going to investigate further on someone who pleaded guilty on a charge.
This was why prosecutions in Yue were often swift and had a very high success rate. The setup, the claims, and their settlements were already determined in advance of the actual trial. If the truth was obvious underneath the wraps, or if one side succumbed to social pressures, then it was a foregone conclusion how the trial would play out, and no one would want to change it after they came to a consensus.
So, even if he escalated this to the faculty now, they would uphold the same principle. They would heed Stephen’s admission of guilt and be done with it. Realizing that he didn’t have any more cards to play and was defeated, Donovan clicked his tongue once and smoothly cleared away the fury in his expression, as expected of a member of the drama department. He turned to Mirabelle with a slight air of indignation.
“Madam President, is this what you expected this all to amount to?”
“Why, this version of events is not all that out of the ordinary, is it?”
This time, Donovan nodded as if he confirmed something. He turned rather uninterested in the whole affair now and calmly leaned back into his chair again.
“It seems I’ve made a mistake to have stood my ground and fought. All right, then let’s hurry this up. What’s your verdict, Madam President?”
Donovan realized he had lost the moment he chose to fight Stephen, giving them the excuse they needed to spin their own story and admit guilt on their own terms.
Unnerved by the sudden change in the pace of the dispute mediation, and it also obviously coming to an end, Liam muttered under his breath to Donovan with fright.
“W-wait a second, is this—”
“Shut up.”
He shut down his lackey with a single utterance. Mirabelle continued, slightly amused by Liam’s trepidation.
“Then, with Stephen claiming responsibility for this incident, the initial charges against Ms Hanamiya and her party are hereby dropped. The student council will assume the prosecutor’s role, and levy the following charges against Mr Liguro: attempted assault to cause bodily harm against another student, and conspiracy to carry out such an offence as the primary perpetrator. Contemporaneously, the student council will include Ms Hanamiya and her party as accomplices to the aforementioned charges for their role in this incident. What do you plead to these charges?”
““Guilty.””
Stephen and Mayumi said together, with Mayumi speaking up for the very first time in this room. Caius and Cecilia wore strained expressions, somewhat still unsettled by the act of admission of their guilt, despite it turning out the way Mayumi and Eon had planned it to.
“Mr Avgothia, while you were entitled to the right to self-defence, it didn’t permit you to beat Mr Liguro to a pulp. If we didn’t have cleanse tags, he would likely be hospitalized in critical condition with quite permanent injuries on his face. I can hardly say that this can just be left at that, can it?”
Mirabelle gave Donovan a tiny sneer, but he didn’t take the bait. He exercised his right to remain silent, merely shrugging off her provocation. She turned back to Stephen and his cohorts.
“As for your punishments, normally, you’d be handed heavy suspensions, and both parties to the altercation would actually be handed over to the municipal police. Depending on what they had to say, expulsion could’ve been up for consideration; for example, because of a restraining order or a poor mental stability assessment. However, considering who you all are, I have quite a simple solution to the issue.”
Mirabelle combed her hands together, smiling brightly yet ominously.
“In light of how this incident has come about, I don’t believe heavy-handed punishments will be conducive to rehabilitation of all parties involved. To that end, I believe the best course of action is to reduce the chances of such a situation to recur in the future. Therefore, Mr Liguro and Ms Hanamiya’s party will be transferred into Class 3-B without delay. Think of it as doing your time. The responsibility of their rehabilitation will be assumed by Class 3-B in whole. In turn, Mr Avgothia personally will not be punished in any way. Instead, we’d ask him to honourably discharge Mr Liguro from service in the PSC. So, how about that?”
Stephen, Caius and Cecilia looked shocked, turning instinctively to Mayumi instead for an explanation, but she remained serene and soundless. She had only been able to prepare them with the plan to navigate this dispute meditation, and only mentioned in passing that their punishments would be greatly reduced. And for sure, this was not a severe punishment at all, but moving classes was still a serious matter, and for Caius who remained in Class F all these years, it was a stunning revelation to be forced to move classes.
Normally, you would be able to move up classes—and possibly be demoted from them—based on your academic ability, at the end of every year. A jury of instructors and administrators would assess your request and the state of the classes, and make a decision based on that. Conversely, those at the bottom of their respective classes were always in danger of demotion at the end of the school year, which struck fear into low-scoring students.
The higher the class you ended up in, the greater the prestige and reputation it granted you, and it extended beyond school into the Eternian underworld. As the Eternian school for its elites, the underworld understood just how difficult it was to compete in Korolev Senior, and it was just as difficult to maintain their class statuses. Graduating with a seat in the privileged classes was a mark of great achievement and it paved a much smoother path down the road.
Of course, if you weren’t pursuing anything inside Eternia’s spheres of influence, you didn’t need to care about placement, but for ninety-nine percent of the kids here, they fell into one of two categories: the first were the children with direct ties to the Eternian mob, such as Gilbert, Mona, or the Jupiter sisters. Needless to say, they took the prestige of their positions seriously.
The second were the regular citizens native to this Eternian city, like Caius or Eon. Unless they had ambitions to leave the city, this prestige would still be greatly beneficial even without direct ties to the mob. Livia was, after all, a de facto independent city-state ruled by Eternia. For a teenager, there was no greater distinction than graduating in a top class of the most prestigious secondary education institution in the region.
Because of that, for Caius, Cecilia, Mayumi and Eon to be essentially promoted into Class B was problematic in that respect, but it was a traditional right that the student council legally wielded in appropriate situations. This violent incident was one such situation, though of course the way it was wielded by Mirabelle was more than questionable.
That was why Ariel and Bianca gave Mirabelle incredulous looks, unable to understand what she was trying to do. They thought Mirabelle’s reappearance today was already suspicious enough, but they couldn’t imagine she would resolve the incident in this incomprehensible way.
Unfortunately for Ariel, she was usually too detached from the events around her, so even with her genius aptitude, she simply didn’t have enough information on her own sister’s situation to piece together the politics behind the whole scenario that was unravelling before her. Given that and the seriousness of where Mirabelle’s machinations had led them to by this point in time, Ariel felt she had no choice but to involve herself more from now on.
Bianca, on the other hand, was as normal a person as possible in the context of her family. There was a limit to her abilities, and she knew she had never been able to keep up with either of her talented sisters beyond their little group of friends. Anything that involved Eternia was beyond her capabilities, and while she could engage with them on occasion, she could never actually participate in their power struggles.
On the other side of the conference table, Liam was visibly relieved that both him and his boss escaped punishment. In fact, having Stephen’s departure from the PSC being sanctioned by the student council was a godsend from Liam’s perspective. He didn’t actually do anything overtly punishable by the student council, but being confirmed that he was safe was still a relief.
Donovan was the least enthused of them, but he was also equally indifferent. By the time he admitted defeat, he already knew he was playing into the palm of Mirabelle’s hands, so if at the end he wasn’t losing anything of substance from this botched engagement, he had no further complaints. In essence, he was committed to cutting his losses.
“I’ll take the silence as a confirmation that we’ll move ahead with this course of action, and with it, closing the case on it permanently. Further appeals and private, unofficial retribution won’t be permitted, or any recourse to the faculty. We’re resolving this dispute as students, by students, and rest assured there will be immediate consequences if that’s broken. Are we clear on that?”
After all, as this case was settled by the students alone, it was not allowed to be presented to the faculty. However, in theory, the faculty would have no idea what had happened, so one could go to the faculty behind the student council’s back to seek recourse. There were a few isolated incidents in the past where it did happen, all part of the game of power struggles. However, it was highly unlikely that news of this particular incident would not reach the faculty, given the use of dangerous chemicals and Teller sonographs, so the threat was less of a deterrent and more of a reminder of a surefire way to get yourself into deeper trouble.
“If you understand that, then Mr Liguro and Mr Avgothia can stay behind to sign some documents to formally ratify their parties’ commitments. Otherwise, you’re all dismissed.”
Mirabelle said brightly, charming to the very end. Though they looked at each other and hesitated for a moment, Mayumi’s party got up and excused themselves from the student council room without another word, followed by a lone Liam who seemed way too eager to leave.
“Bia, you can leave the rest of the paperwork to me. Thank you for filling in my position until now.”
Bianca paused for a second too, but Mirabelle’s content expression was undecipherable. She made a face that told her she was upset, and promptly left the room after the others without a sound as well.
The door shut loudly behind Bianca, and instantly the room’s tension increased tenfold. The intense atmosphere of the mediation that had just finished moments ago had been dwarfed by this immense change in pressure from two specific individuals in the room: Mirabelle, who no longer wore her diplomatic smile, and Stephen, face still just as harsh but instead of directing it at Donovan, he was aiming it at Mirabelle.
“Now, can we get the real negotiations started, Don, Stephen?”
Upon Mirabelle’s invitation, Ariel duly closed her student council notebook, got up from her seat and shelved it in a filing cabinet at her—the secretary’s—cubicle. She returned quickly to take a seat, not at Mirabelle’s side, but Stephen’s.
“What, is Ariel gonna be involved in this too?”
Donovan, who had taken the role of a bystander now, asked as he shot the student council secretary a sharp glance.
“I’m the one who asked to be involved, so just deal with it.”
“You mean there was no choice for you to not be involved, ain’t that right?”
“If you already knew, then let’s stop wasting time and finish this tedious meeting.”
Ariel was normally not an impatient person, but she did do things at her own pace and adhered strictly to that. And so, she was indignant of things she didn’t find interest in.
“Mirabelle. What do you actually want?”
Stephen glared, almost angry at Mirabelle, ostensibly for wresting him out of Class A and into Class B. While it was a serious matter, it was not what he was actually furious about.
“Come now, Stephen. Is this the kind of attitude I get for helping you out?”
“I admit that your offer is quite good. It has no demerits. However, it’s not a negotiation if the offer in question was something none of us even had a chance to refuse.”
He immediately laid out his dissatisfaction bare. Donovan snickered.
“Is this the first time you’re dealing with this woman? Please tell me it’s not.”
“No, but it doesn’t make it less infuriating.”
So, what Stephen was complaining about was, in the end, a rather trivial matter. Donovan, who was sort of a bystander in this situation, might be smirking, but even he knew how infuriating it was to have a decision forced upon him.
“How about we reconfirm the series of events leading up to today, shall we? A debrief, of sorts. I’ll do the honours, so I’ll be able to fill you in on any info you happen to be missing. After that, I’ll hear complaints from all three of you, and of course, I’ll ask some questions too.”
“But I don’t have any real complaints.”
“Says the slippery slime ball who keeps on complaining to the faculty behind my back. While we’re at despising each other, I am surprised at how the two of you have such a contentious relationship. From the outside, it seemed like the Gilbert faction and the drama department were on quite friendly terms up until this transfer of power.”
Donovan raised his open hands at Mirabelle’s accusations, chuckling lightly and unable to give any rebuttal. Stephen nodded sternly, confirming her charges in certainty.
Mirabelle got up from her seat and started pacing the small open area around the conference table, wearing a rather sullen but determined expression.
“Before the start of this year and after I was elected student council president, we, the original faction leaders, were asked by the faculty to take control of the school. Not in the way that it was done traditionally, but instead to hand control of the school to the faculty. The pan-blue faculty, to be precise.”
It was weird to hear that the underlying implication was that the faculty wasn’t in control of the school, but Korolev Senior was a special place. It was much more influenced by students compared to other schools, and the students jealously guarded the privileges that they otherwise wouldn’t have at other schools.
“To that end, I’ve been working on different avenues to make that a reality. One of which was to oust Gilbert, and naturally, Don would take his place as Marshal.
“Originally, I was going to let the Act of Neutrality brew dissent and see if I can get a misstep out of Gilbert, but he didn’t need to do anything rash himself. Anyone under him would have worked.”
Stephen clicked his tongue, scowling.
“You were bringing Mayumi back here so you could use her and myself as a part of that plan. I’d definitely do something heavy-handed if I was still in charge and saw what she had done.”
“Correct. Mayumi was supposed to be the catalyst to break the PSC’s invulnerability to accountability, but Alice almost became the first sacrifice instead. I underestimated the influence that Kato would have on her. I only exposed her to him so that he could protect her in the future, but alas, that did kind of blow up in my face.
“Because Alice suddenly wanted to join the nomenklatura, she became a convenient target for the faculty to aim at, as Gilbert’s Achilles heel. Since Alice was not budging, Gilbert preempted my plan and sent her away to lay low in Class F in the process.”
Otherwise, what would have happened was that in exchange for not threatening Alice’s expulsion, and thus destroying her bid to join the nomenklatura, Gilbert would be pressured to step down from his position as marshal.
“But he didn’t know about what I was doing with Mayumi at the time. It was unfortunate that she was sent into the same class that Mayumi was to join, temporarily bringing Alice back into the faculty’s crosshairs, but I think that should be resolved by now.”
While Gilbert was removed in record time, he had technically resigned of his own accord. Most of his men, including Stephen, were still in the PSC at the time, so there was a possibility of Gilbert ruling through proxy, and hence danger to the faculty was not yet completely gone. Then, when Mayumi joined Class F and took centrepiece to the political agitation that followed, Alice took it on herself to help Mayumi.
“Alice’s family, the Westgroves, were rather pan-yellow-leaning. Their connection to Ms Romana is a dead giveaway, though the Lafayettes somehow still maintained a neutral rep even with their connections to Master Suvorov.”
Joseph Suvorov was another Heart like Sisi. He was the mysterious old man who arrived at the Westgrove residence that banquet night for a brief moment, revealing his shadow to Sisi, Kato and Alice, and convincing Sisi that what happened that night, he was willing to bear witness to.
“I guess that with their marriage abandoned, they can continue maintaining their claim to neutrality, but I don’t think the pan-blue camp—the faculty—is going to continue to believe that farce. In any case, that’s a side tangent.
“The faculty soon realized that Alice, as a pan-yellow camper seeking to join the nomenklatura, was taking the bid seriously. So, though no longer the blackmail chip against Gilbert, they found another motivation to expel her from Korolev Senior.
“But they can’t touch her if she doesn’t do any more stupid things than she had already. That’s why, with Mayumi’s falling out with the Elites in Class F and the transfer of a number of them to Class B, Mayumi won’t be in a state to continue to carry out the revolt. Without a full-blown revolt, the faculty can’t hand down a full-blown punishment. The faculty won’t have any excuse to get rid of Alice alongside Mayumi.”
Even if Mayumi didn’t choose to try to help Cecilia cheat on her exam and precipitate this incident, the moment that Kato decided to reject Mayumi in the most certain of terms, Mayumi’s time as the burning star of the revolution was over. She literally burned herself out, so to speak, quite like a flash in a pan. No one, not even Mayumi realized it at the time, but Mirabelle saw it right from the beginning.
“Are you sure it’ll end at that? The past week sure didn’t seem like the revolt’ll end.”
“Once the Act of Neutrality passes, without a unifying central figure, all the protests would just fade away in due time. Sure, it’ll permanently polarize the political climate in the school, but this bill was specifically designed to deter, prevent, and punish any revolt, much less a full-blown one. Once reality sinks in for the rabble, they’d have no choice but to abide by the new law, if they want to stay in this school. I originally asked Mona to table it in order to give it some face-value legitimacy and not a blatant grab for power by the faculty.”
It wasn’t as if Mona could refuse an earnest request from the teachers. As her ally—as tenuous as their alliance was—Mirabelle reassured her that following the faculty’s lead for now will buy her time. At the very least, it would mean that the faculty wouldn’t go after Mona right away, as they had done with Gilbert. That was how Gilbert knew that his position was numbered from the very beginning, and felt compelled to do whatever he could to help Alice while he was still Marshal.
“The unrest in the past month or so is already enough to sway enough votes to pass with a majority. Plus, with Stephen taken out of the PSC, one major student organization has returned fully under their control. It was overall quite a successful endeavour, if I do say so myself.”
“The bill will pass? Even with our class opposing it?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem now that I’ve returned.”
Ariel sighed anxiously, not realizing she had been holding her breath. As an ally of the Elites, she was owed a proper explanation from Mirabelle, and her eyes bore holes into Mirabelle’s face to express her indignation at Mirabelle’s backroom machinations. Of course, she wasn’t about to explain all of this to the Elites, but it became necessary to participate in these shady political games if she wanted to protect her friends from her own sister, as insane as that sounded.
“That’s about it for Alice. Now, Stephen, for your and Mayumi’s case.”
In the Activity Council room.
The AC’s headquarters were on the far side of the third floor, away from the student council’s and the PSC’s. Unlike the other two dreary offices, the AC’s was one of bright and energetic decor. On the walls were multi-coloured adornments of varying designs, sprinkled with a plentiful number of spectacular photographs of Korolev Senior’s most iconic and glorious historical moments. The cubicles and desks, too, were lined with knick-knacks, toys and all sorts of other trinkets that overflowed the room with a sense of a bubbly, youthful, innocence-filled paradise. If someone said this room belonged to a child of very rich parents, it could really pass off as such at first glance.
The occupants, however, were every bit as tense as those in the student council room. Two boys sat opposite each other at one of the fluffed up desks, and each had a girl standing by behind them.
“Will you be mentioning any of this to Alice?”
“I don’t intend to at this point in time, but circumstances may change in the future. I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to know or do more than what’s necessary. She still has the nomenklatura to join, after all.”
Gilbert asked carefully, but Kato’s reply was just as measured as he was. He was expecting a little bit of impatience from Kato.
“I told her what you told us last time, and that’s the extent of her knowledge. She should be treading carefully on her own, even if the immediate danger to her has passed.”
Kato nodded to Bianca who stood behind him, who had just brought news of the verdict and punishment that Mirabelle had given out. With that knowledge, Gilbert and his fellow Class A classmate, ally and friend, Mona, were able to put the final pieces of the puzzle together.
“But I’m impressed. You were able to dig up this much about Mira’s plans since our last meeting.”
“Well, I owe Mirabelle a fairly big favour. As a part of repaying that debt, I have to at least be told this much to work with in order for me to repay that debt.”
“Then, let’s hear the rest of that story.”
Earlier, after Scarlett had called the Elites over to the student council room, they only waited there for a few moments before Gilbert arrived to invite Kato and Bianca to discuss the matter at hand in private. That was when they decided that Bianca would participate in the dispute mediation as a student council executive, and then join them later with the results.
And not a moment too soon after Gilbert went on his way to the AC room first, the offending parties had arrived with Mirabelle at the helm. They made only process-related, businesslike exchanges before the relevant parties were quickly ushered into the student council room to settle the dispute, with no room for small talk. Kato waited outside for Bianca to come back out, and after she did, they promptly made their way here together.
“When Mirabelle asked Mayumi to come back to Korolev, Mayumi wanted something impossible in exchange: the rehabilitation of her mother, Satsuki Hanamiya. You know that much from Alice, right?”
Kato nodded. He was past being surprised, accepting that Gilbert, for all he disagreed with, was indeed a capable person.
“The problem was that to rehabilitate her, she needed to overturn an old testimony made by my late uncle, Keith de Lafayette. He was supposed to be the next head of the house, but you know what happened. He died, and I became his successor according to his will.
“Mind you, my uncle’s power and influence was second to none in my family. When he willed me to succeed him, there was no way for me or my family to ignore it. Even failure was not an option.”
Now Kato understood a little why Gilbert had such a strong sense of duty and responsibility, a trait completely opposite to Alice.
“The testimony that my uncle made at the time had been made to decisively favour Stephen’s father, Vincent, over Mayumi’s mother, Satsuki, in their dispute. As a result, Satsuki was exiled from Eternia and, considering she hid Mayumi’s future sight from the authorities for so long, was stripped of her nomenklatura status.
“However, with the testimony overturned, the debacle had turned around and completely ruined Vincent’s reputation within his family. Sure, to the outside world, it wasn’t a big deal since what happened had happened far in the past, but no one underneath him with any sense of moral duty would still follow orders from a piece of scum like him. That includes Stephen, and in the ensuing power struggle, Stephen came out on top.”
“How was he able to do that?”
Gilbert shook his head, his face slightly touched with exasperation.
“Vincent is a shameless philanderer who takes the first opportunity he sees without any self-respect, and so, that’s what Stephen gave him. He played the role of the loyal son and negotiated on the wider family’s demands, protecting his father from retribution. In exchange, both sides would accept that Vincent stepped down as head of the family in favour of Stephen.”
“So he turned it all around and got the bag for himself. Well, wasn’t this kind of inconvenient for you? Your uncle was your family head, and his word got overturned.”
“Not within my family, at least. That had no effect on the Lafayettes whatsoever. However, it’s true that he was quite a celebrity, and perhaps even a martyr now. So, it caused quite the uproar outside, and it shook almost everyone in my faction at school here. In fact, it was falling apart, which was why I needed to act sooner rather than later. Imagine, my arranged marriage was broken, and the repercussions from Mirabelle’s meddling in my uncle’s testimony, both struck me at the same time. You’d be quite apprehensive with those coincidences converging, don’t you think?”
“…my condolences and apologies.”
The more Kato saw these events from Gilbert’s perspective, the more he was able to forgive the bad blood between them. He had to admit, he was a bit naïve to think that Gilbert was just an old-school, stubborn, stuck-up villain.
“Anyway, Stephen had just been able to finish off his family’s feud a couple of days ago. All’s well that ends well, I must say.”
“Does Mira owe you one now? She caused quite a stir for you and Stephen.”
“Not quite. On the surface, it does look like she’s made a mess for us, but in reality, it provided Stephen an opportunity of a lifetime. He definitely has the chops for the job, but there was no telling when he could make it as head of the Liguro family. Mirabelle had freely handed him the chance to do so.”
“But what about you? Your faction at school is completely shot. You’re attached to Mona’s faction now, aren’t you? I heard there’s a third faction forming in Class A now.”
“Stephen is a loyal friend of mine. His success is my success, so Mirabelle doesn’t owe me anything. Besides, Class A was a fractured class to start with. It was a convenient time to purge my faction of the untrustworthy and the opportunists. Losing the position of PSC is a blow, yes, but it’s not a position I particularly need in order to do what I want here in this school. In fact, it’s probably very unlikely anyone can find a way to destroy me now, including the faculty.”
“I see. Well, if you say so. Then, how about this: let’s say I take all of what you said at face value. Then, what’s up with your alliance with Mira? Does it have anything to do with the debt you said you owed her?”
“Are you prepared to know, Kato? I didn’t reveal all my cards last time, but now that the gag order is lifted, I want to tell you this, as I think you’re the only person I can rely on to protect Alice—more than Mirabelle ever could. Her position isn’t one to count on, after all.”
Kato was starting to get concerned about the way Gilbert was being dodgy with his answer. Given what he knew of Gilbert’s personality, he had a bad feeling about what he had to say.
“Then, one more question before your big reveal or whatever. Your devotion to Alice is more than just simple infatuation. Can you explain that first?”
“It’s not that complicated. In exchange for getting her to join Korolev Senior, I promised her that I’d use everything in my power to take care of her at this school until her graduation. I know it sounds presumptuous of me to say that, being someone who tried to remove her from Korolev Senior and essentially went back on his word, but she knew what was coming for her after messing around that much, and even ended up deciding to join the nomenklatura, for heaven’s sake. Before, she wanted nothing to do with our family businesses, and that was the assumption I based my actions upon. However, obviously, I was mistaken.”
“…again, my apologies.”
“It’s fine. I accept your apology, now that I’ve had some time to reflect on it. Who I want an apology from is Alice, not you.”
He didn’t make any faces, only matter-of-factly stating his intentions.
“But I don’t like owing debts to anyone. That’s why, even when I broke it once before, I’m trying to make up for it. That’s my horse in the race, so to speak.”
“You’re a bigger man than I thought. Even if I don’t agree with your course of actions, I kind of get where you’re coming from now. I must admit, with the marriage called off and your uncle’s reputation called into question, kicking Alice out of Korolev Senior was probably the only solution available at the time to keep just a lid on things.”
“Indeed. I say I preempted the siege on your class, and technically I did, but at that point I had no choice but to acquiesce to the rebel splinters in my faction, or else I lose the PSC anyway without doing anything on my terms.”
“So, now without your position and authority, you’re handing this responsibility to me, one of your enemies that forced you, albeit unwittingly, into a corner? I’m flattered.”
Kato didn’t mean it sarcastically and Gilbert knew it, but Mona was annoyed all the same, giving him a defiant glare.
“Well, now that I know more about the relationships in your circle of friends, I think my heart’s been vindicated, of sorts. However close the two of you get, it’ll be very unlikely, if ever, it’ll reach the kind of relationship you have with, for example, Mayumi or Bianca.”
Immediately, Kato was reminded of what happened at the equinox festival. It was hard for him to believe it was already nearly two weeks ago.
“Specifically, what you have for Alice won’t ever be what you have or had for those two, right?”
Bianca was instantly paralyzed, with cheeks fully flushed red. She couldn’t interrupt their conversation though, no matter how uneasy and flustered she felt whenever her feelings were laid bare to the boy she was in love with. She had always regretted saying things she didn’t mean, so she made a point to stay silent in such circumstances.
Kato, on the other hand, was not perturbed by Gilbert, continuing to stare intently at him. Instead of getting startled and turning around to check Bianca’s reaction, his face merely twitched unpleasantly, as if he just noticed something of disgust beyond fathoming. Indeed, he was actually thinking mostly of Mayumi at that question, as this conversation was half about her.
“It’s true today. I can’t say anything about the future.”
Bianca reacted with mixed feelings and internally gasped at the possibility Kato left deliberately open. Seeing it written clearly on her face, Mona smirked silently.
“That’s true. I cannot deny that, as much as I have my own reservations about it. Well then, if your question was adequately answered, why don’t I fill in the last piece of the puzzle?”
“Go ahead.”
Gilbert took a deep breath. The girls behind the two also tensed up at the tip of his words—not because they were anxious to know what he was about to say, but were apprehensive about how Kato would react to it. They already knew what Gilbert was about to tell him.
“I was once a student of Master Suvorov, the former Number Eight, Eight of Hearts. I’d like to think I have more than enough talent to become not just a Hearts candidate, but a Heart myself. I haven’t completed my training—I stopped in the middle of junior high, when my uncle passed away and I was slated to become the next head of the family.
“Of course, Eternia wouldn’t normally just allow that to happen. Someone had to fill in for my Hearts candidacy, and you know how difficult it is to find a replacement for such a position. Luckily, at the time there was one other student of Master Suvorov who stepped up and handed me a free pass to leave the selection process. As of yesterday, her candidacy is officially confirmed with her spirit label handed to her.
“That person, to which I owe a huge debt because of this, is none other than our student council president, Mirabelle Jupiter.”
The room turned ice-cold and silent as the penny dropped, each person here frozen for their own reasons. Mona seemed to have eaten something awful but couldn’t make a squeak about it, while Gilbert was unusually tranquil. Bianca was rooted in place due to both fear of Kato’s reaction and shock at the manner in which this news was broken to him.
Kato, for all the turmoil now spinning through his head, should be applauded for remaining stock-still instead of blowing his top off. His eyes were closed shut, facing downwards at the desk with a struggling expression. He had his left arm on the tabletop, and his hand curled into a fist so taut that his knuckles turned white.
He almost couldn’t believe the truth, but so many things made sense if it was true. And it wasn’t difficult to confirm it on the Eternian side, now that her candidacy was official. However, there was an even easier way to confirm this.
“…Bia, is this true?”
He managed to mutter with a trembling voice. Bianca couldn’t speak a single word in reply to his simple yet terribly oppressive question. She wouldn’t be able to lie here like she had to all those times before. So, her sustained silence was all the confirmation he needed.