“That was a tight squeeze, Evie.”

“I’m surprised that we managed to fit three people in the back of the car, since just two of us in the back are usually bad enough.”

“I’m sorry I had to bring everyone along.”

Yui said apologetically to her soon-to-be new dorm mates.

“It’s a small and old car, so it can’t be helped.”

Kato shrugged as he got out of the front seat.

They all stepped outside to meet the front doors of the orphanage that Yui belonged to, in the heart of the ghetto. Though the buildings in the so-called gentrified city were already densely built enough, the ghetto was even worse. In the part of the city they live in, the storefronts were at least ten feet wide, and that was way below the average. Here, Kato guessed that every storefront was probably only eight or less, utilizing every bit of open space they could.

The buildings were tall enough and the streets were narrow enough to block out the sun from the ground during most of the day, though today the sky was overcast so everything was greyer than usual. This particular sector of the ghetto, the Causeway, was one of the better ones. While the general state of the buildings and cleanliness of the streets were still not very good, at least the smells were normal enough. It also helped that, for whatever reason, the triads did not have their main bases here. Most of the gangs’ traditional territories were in the Nine Dragon Fortress area.

“They got rid of the smell of garbage! Mostly!”

Teto stretched her arms and took a deep breath in as she was the last to get out of the back of the car. Once upon a time, the three siblings were also orphans who lived in the ghetto, albeit at a different, smaller orphanage. Like most of the inner city, the Causeway was busy and waves of people flowed about on the street.

“Yui, you’re free to go to your room to grab your belongings. I will take care of everything else. Once you’re done, we can meet up right here.”

“Really? I don’t need to do anything?”

“Nope. Most of the arrangement is already done. We’re only here for my signature and your luggage.”

Having parked and locked the company car on the side of the road, Karl waved to the children as he went inside the building. The storefront was inconspicuous with little to no indication of the nature of its occupancy, and like the others, it was not very wide. From the outside, it looked like this tenancy occupied both the ground and second floor. Above the front was a faded plastic banner that probably used to read “Causeway Lost Children Centre”.

“What I wanna know is why you two wanted to come along.”

Kato asked his two sisters trailing behind him.

“To follow Kato around.”

“To follow big brother around!”

Two answers followed, one in a monotone voice and the other in a cheery voice.

“Eheh. Never mind I asked.”

Kato scratched the back of his head as he smiled awkwardly, feeling a little embarrassed to have it said out loud with Yui present, who laughed softly at the siblings in front of her.

At that moment, Yui realized that the three kids in front of her would become her brother and sisters, essentially right now. A tingly sensation welled up inside of her, one of a pleasant nature. It was a feeling of anticipation for a future that was bright and promising. It was something she hasn’t felt in a very long time, and she couldn’t help but smile widely at them.

“… is there something wrong with us?”

Kato noticed the smile and asked cautiously. Though Kato had no qualms about Teto, it was mostly Evie that was embarrassing to him.

“No, nothing’s wrong.”

Yui held on to her smile, seemingly unable to get rid of it. But then the heel turn came from where Kato least expected.

“Evie, let’s get going to the game shop!”

“Ah, the true purpose of our journey. Let us leave before someone else starts complaining again.”

“I can’t believe you would follow us on official business, just to go to the game shop. So much for following me around.”

Teto pulled Evie by the hand and started walking down the street while Evie ignored Kato’s complaint. In moments, they merged into the sea of people which flowed endlessly through the streets.

“We’ll be back in twenty!”

Teto called out to her brother, tiptoeing up and waving her hand above other people’s heads.

“Okay!”

Like any brother with a serious case of little sister complex, he waved back furiously in her direction, feeling exasperated that he didn’t know if she could see or hear him.

“Aaaaaand, they’re gone. I should’ve guessed.”

Kato put his face into his hands, obviously sad to see his sisters go.

“At least you have one sister still here by your side.”

Almost as though reading his mind, Yui said as she walked up beside him, still smiling brightly. Touched, Kato slowly removed his hands from his face and let himself be captivated by that smile. Perhaps it was because of the uniqueness of the people he grew up around, he unmistakably felt a familiar emotion behind her words. One that felt similar to Mirabelle’s aura.

“Let’s get going as well.”

Her heart skipping a beat, Yui pulled Kato along by the hand towards the steel doors next to the storefront, which opened to a narrow set of damp cement stairs that led to the upper floors above the storefront.

It turned out that the post-foster ward was actually a few floors up above ground level, past a couple of other floors that held the open dormitories for the younger children. It was probably the case that this particular set of stairs were owned by the orphanage since the doors were open to each floor they passed. At the top of those stairs was where the post-foster ward was.

Through the door, they entered a crooked and decrepit concrete hallway, complete with garbage, dust and cracks. Some of the cracks were damp, indicating the existence of recently free-flowing water. Steel-grilled doors of varying conditions lined the sides, and the low ceiling had small incandescent light bulbs hung at regular intervals, but it was still day time so they were turned off. Instead, meagre amounts of natural light shone through the window in the stairwell behind them and at the other end of the hallway.

“Wow, the condition of this place is not too bad.”

Kato quipped as he saw the desolate state of the floor. Secretly, what he was saying held a bit of truth as he and his sisters also drifted through orphanages as young children. Yui smiled a bit at his quip.

“It’s been like this since I’ve known it.”

At the end of the corridor was the door to Yui’s small room. She reached for the keys to the rusted steel grill, but Kato noticed something odd with the door. His brain already leaping to conclusions, Kato pushed Yui aside and reached for the handle to shove it open, and true to his suspicions, it did.

“The lock got busted up.”

Kato muttered under his breath. He proceeded to shove open the sliding door behind the steel grill to reveal the room before them.

“Oh dear…”

“I’m pretty sure your room is usually not like this, right?”

Yui was visibly spooked by the state of her room. It was a cramped studio flat with an old bed, a closet, a dirt-covered window, and a small wooden desk, but apart from those structures, her belongings were a mess. Her drawers were pulled out of the desk, strewn across the floor along with its contents. Clothes, bed sheets and notebooks were laid haphazardly over the room, and the small washroom tucked away next to the entrance was also in disarray. It was as if a localized tornado swept through this room and exited through the open window.

“Do you have any valuables here at all?”

“Not really. It’s mainly my clothes, but otherwise nothing much else. I carry most of my valuables on me.”

Yui flashed her wallet out as she waded into the messy room. Wasting no time, she pulled out a battered duffle bag from the closet and began folding the clothes that were out all over the floor. Whoever barged in and wrecked her room seemed to have done a very thorough job. But this was not the time for them to investigate. It was time to gather whatever was left after the break-in and leave this godforsaken place.

“That flex of the money.”

Kato shrugged and followed Yui into her room and also began picking up the clothes, piling them up beside Yui. There were lots of clothes here for a poor orphan, but it was expected given the nature of her work.

Although he did not hold any ulterior intent; in fact it was in his daily routines with Teto, but it was still a bit too much for Yui as he scooped up her undergarments.

“This is quite something.”

Kato squinted hard as he examined a frilly and see-through garter he picked up from atop the bed.

“—ah?!”

Squeaking at what he picked up, Yui blushed and averted her eyes from Kato as he dropped it next to her.

“I guess your job calls for it, but seeing it for real is still something else. It’s definitely right in my strike zone.”

“Stop talking about it already!”

Yui retorted as Kato chortled heartily at her response, clearly teasing her from her first reaction. She still refused to look up at him as she was still red-faced. Instead, she eyed the piece of undergarment that he dropped next to her intently, thinking deeply about what he had said.

“If you really like it…”

 “What?”

Looking up to find the source of the echoing voice, she realized that Kato had already disappeared into the washroom to clean it up. The burning feeling on her cheeks turned off as she returned to reality. Sighing in relief while pouting a bit, she returned to folding the clothes he gathered for her.

“Nothing. I was just wondering, what does this mean, my room being searched through and all.”

She turned to the big elephant in the room. It certainly was worrying that her room got turned inside out.

“It’s been more than eight hours since those bastards were last seen. On top of that, they were merely People’s diploma students, so their school day ended after lunch. There would have been plenty of time for them to rummage through your room and leave no evidence of their intents.”

“Hah…”

Kato sounded really cool just now, but since it gave off an Eon-like aura, it didn’t inspire any awe in her. Nevertheless, his explanations still made sense.

“If you can’t remember what key items you had in your room that might give them any impetus to do something else, then it’ll just be a waiting game until we either encounter the next hurdle or you suddenly remember something.”

Kato came out of the narrow washroom with towels and toiletries in his arms, and placed them next to Yui.

“Here, take whatever.”

“Thanks.”

Scratching his head, he continued to try to make sense of the situation.

“But without more intel, it’s hard to piece together the story. They came back from school to trash your place. Then what? What’s their objective?”

Kato thought out loud as he sat down cross-legged in the tiny crevice between the bed and the desk, while Yui, sitting atop her bed, continued to fold her clothes expertly and dropping them into her duffle.

“Revenge? They’re really petty, I know that much. They probably don’t know that I’m leaving with you though.”

“What else is that Ethan guy associated with? Do you know anything else about him and his connections to this place?”

“No, not much. He’s the son of the director of this orphanage. As far as I know, he’s connected pretty close to the business here.”

“Business? What kind of business are we talking about? I assume it isn’t just the charity farce.”

“Of course it isn’t just a charity. All of the orphanages in the inner city, not just the ghetto, are transfer points for human trafficking. Besides the real native orphans here, many children from abroad come through here in transit. They stay in a complex basement setup below this building. Whether they’re connected to the organization or not, I’m not sure, but I would guess they are not, because I would have been exposed already if that was the case.”

Yui told Kato of the grim reality of life in the ghetto. Though Kato and his entourage were not exactly unrelated to the criminal elements of the city, he still felt a bit sickened by it.

“So that’s how it worked. They could be middlemen working with the organization, they could be not. The pieces are still too disparate for me to get an idea. What about your workplace? What kind of associations do they have?”

Yui pursed her lips while she watched Kato’s figure, sitting on the floor motionlessly with his eyes closed. Kato noticed her hesitation immediately and opened his eyes to stare right back at her. Turning pink again, her indigo eyes avoided his gaze for a second time, but then she realized that her initial discomfort was dispelled. For a split second, she really wanted to step forward and wrap herself around Kato. Though her heart never failed to skip a beat in his presence, at the same time she felt completely at ease, and she found herself to very much cherish these moments in time.

“Most likely run by the organization. I’m not sure exactly how they’re connected, but it’s also one of the few places that are de facto legal, so that’s the biggest piece of evidence for that connection.”

What she meant by that was that the city authorities mostly turned a blind eye to their activities because Eternia were actually the authorities. But as Eternia was a big organization, it was not exactly as simple as a mob running the city. Probably, factions of Eternia within this city forged a delicate balance between the light and dark sides of the law.

“So in some way, you’re connected to the organization. Are you on good terms with your employer?”

“Definitely. As much as how immoral our line of work is, people aren’t always evil. They helped me out a lot, especially keeping my identity a secret. Whether that’s out of goodwill, I don’t care, but we have a mutually respectable relationship.”

“So you’re well-liked by your employer and presumably your clients.”

“It seemed so to me.”

“But you really have no idea what exactly goes on for the smuggling of children that happens here?”

“Nope. The real orphans here are just like any outsider. We almost never see the children they smuggle through here.”

“Hmm. This puzzle is still a bit hard. Do you think they know where you work, now that they’ve went through your room?”

Yui took a moment to try and recall anything that would give away her nighttime job. She scanned her tiny room for any visual cues that could trigger any memory of incriminating things she left in her room.

The moment she glanced over one of the empty drawers, she remembered, and her face hardened.

“Ah. There was an old business card in one of those drawers. It has the address and everything, and perhaps unfortunately, the information on that card is probably still accurate.”

Yui said sombrely. Kato closed his eyes again, continuing unperturbed.

“You can never guess that these things could happen, so don’t sweat it. Then the question comes down to that trafficking operation’s affiliation with the organization. Which mob are they a part of?”

“Which mob?”

“If this orphanage is directly associated with the organization, then like you said, your job would have been found out a long time ago. So they must either be only business associates or part of a different mob. Either way, it’s likely they’re outsiders.”

Kato surmised. Apparently, it wasn’t only Eon who could play detective.

“What happens if they’re outsiders?”

“I still don’t know, dammit. I wish Eon was here to read the future.”

Kato seemingly gave up as he laid his back against the desk leg behind him. It turned out that the detective role from Kato only went so far.

“Read the future?”

Yui asked as she put the last piece of clothing away and into her bag.

“Ah, I should let Eon explain that. It’s his—”

Then a distant, sharp glass-breaking noise startled the content atmosphere around the two children. Kato jumped to his feet and ran to the door to look out into the creepy hallway.

“Must’ve been downstairs somewhere. Hope it’s not Karl, but we should get going anyway. They might be after you too. Done?”

Looking back into the room as he stepped out into the musty corridor, he suggested their next course of action.

“Done and dusted.”

“No need for a teary goodbye?”

Yui giggled at the pretention in his voice. She slung the duffle bag over herself, bounced up from her seat and caught up to Kato, who was waiting right outside the door. Natural white light filtered through the window at their end of the hallway, illuminating the wide grin on Kato’s face. She took one last glance at the tiny room behind her before she answered.

“More like good riddance.”

“You’ll make good rapport with Eon at this rate.”

“Always have.”

“Oh god, what have I done.”

They both shared a laugh before they took off for the stairs at the other end of the corridor.

---

Glass shattered as a hatchet was thrown out the front window of the orphanage. Lying on the ground was a tall goon in black, who apparently had his weapon forcibly disarmed by the gentleman with greying hair tied in a small ponytail. Behind the fallen goon were two other men in black, alarmed by the abilities of this old moustached man in front of them.

“I’d rather we bury the hatchet here, everyone. I already have literally, but let’s also do it figuratively.”

Karl wiped his forehead gracefully with a handkerchief, with a smoothness befitting of the upper class. From behind him, the young but tall receptionist boy reared back and fell off of his seat, but caught himself on the desk before he took the fall to the floor.

“What… what kind of people are you?”

Ethan Henderson stuttered as he pulled himself up and peeked above the counter.

“Oh, so you’re the one who set me up, then? Care to explain yourself?”

Karl asked calmly. His voice held no anger whatsoever.

“No way, this can’t be happening…”

Ethan muttered to himself, ignoring the old man in front of him. The despair on his face was telling of his defeat already.

“Not only was I suspended from school, my position there is all but gone. Now, even the Seven Tools cannot win for me.”

He continued to mumble to himself while the men before him watched on.

“Seven Tools? That’s the mob, eh.”

The Seven Tools was one of the crime syndicates that operated in the Causeway. They were a neutral criminal organization in relation to Eternia, so Kato’s guess that they were just middlemen was very close to the mark.

“Karl! What’s happened?”

Kato stormed into the lobby from the front door while Yui followed closely behind him.

“Some goons got in the way, but they weren’t as strong as they thought they were.”

“Speak for yourself. You’re sweating all over.”

“And it seems you have not broken a sweat. Well done.”

Kato immediately went back to normal mode after he saw that Karl was in no harm. Yui, too, let out a sigh of relief.

“I took down two goons in the stairs already. Need help?”

“You’re always welcome to help.”

Of course, two burly men lay unconscious in the staircase that led to the dorms. For Kato, these pawns were not even a match.

However, Ethan was not amused at Kato’s arrival. The defeat on his face quickly warped into contempt, but he could do no more than stare at his enemy. Rather, his body shook in fear as he had already lost to Kato’s overwhelming physical power. He was trembling at the sight of Kato, yet his eyes were full to the brim with hate.

“If you’re done, Karl, we can just leave now.”

Kato said nonchalantly and shrugged. The two other suit-clad men stood by quietly, clearly waiting for orders from Ethan, but none were forthcoming. Passing by those goons without looking back, Karl nodded at Kato and made his way to the door.

Sparing a glance over at Ethan, Kato instinctively backed off, grabbed Yui and pushed her behind him, shielding her from Ethan’s sight. Like Kato suspected, an attempt was made at Yui’s life, but Ethan did not expect Kato to again protect Yui. Not in this setting, miles away from school.

Kato knew that he likely would become this guy’s enemy, and possibly be subject to some kind of attempt at revenge again in the future. But Yui was a classmate he would not allow to suffer this kind of injustice. And if Ethan does return with a vengeance, Kato might have to terminate him permanently. At least, that was how he thought it might play out.

“If you have any other smart ideas, the organization will not be as forgiving to your life as it is now.”

Kato, like his sisters, had a peculiar set of common sense. It was not so much ingrained by their Eternian upbringing as much as their experiences as lost children before their time in Eternia. Though they understood the fragility of life and cherished its fragments of happiness, at the same time they held little back when time comes to take life away, even if it was painful to do so.

Ethan slackened his arms upon hearing the threat from Kato. It was hard to know if the threat fuelled him further or cowed him. His face once again distorted, this time into a mixture of fear and frustration, but still wordless. He slumped back onto his chair, his eyes still staring at the three guests, who were turning around to leave the shop for the first and last time.

Resting his mind after a tumultuous day, Kato sipped from a cup of green tea in a loose t-shirt as he peered out of the caged balcony-window of their flat. It overlooked a narrow street below, where his sisters sat on stools on opposing sides of a small wooden folding table, while Sisi sat in a lawn chair on the garage’s near side, watching on. As he was only one floor up, it was not hard to make out what they were doing: playing a trading card game. Their duel was illuminated by the lights in the storage garage that Karl owned on the ground level right below them.

Clad in light t-shirts and shorts too, his sisters showed a lot of skin, to Kato’s delight. Their figures were still a grand sight to behold, no matter how many times he had seen them. Even in their sloppy outfit, Evie and Teto nonetheless stole the eyes of all the boys in the neighbourhood, including their brother.

But of course, none of the onlookers dared to approach them; at least the ones in the know. Every now and then, a new challenger who didn’t know who the sisters were would approach them, only to return rejected and doubled over from a kick to their crotch. Learning from experience, they would join their predecessors in their silent vigil that was enjoying the eye candy the sisters provided.

“Area Zero, effect, target.”

“No response.”

“Chain, effect.”

“Chain, Called, targeting Raye in the grave.”

It was well after dinner and the sun had disappeared a while ago. The neighbourhood street they had set up their game on had old but reliable lampposts, and small vehicles and mopeds were parked along it. Across their supposedly pedestrian street was the rear of retailers and restaurants, which faced the major street on their other side. When on their way to school, they would walk between those shops to the main street and then west along it until they met Eon, who lived in a newer apartment that was built right on the main street.

Kato, too, played this game with his sisters. In fact, he wanted to join them too, but he thought he would pass on tonight’s session.

Earlier, the five of them together first toured around the main street and their shops, and then the maze of concrete village hamlets and back alleys behind their apartment. After that, Evie and Teto opened shop with Sisi watching and they’ve been playing there ever since.

Meanwhile, Kato and Yui had returned home to show her around and have her settle in. While they were touring around, they debated whether to fit four children in one place or not, and she was eventually given the empty bedroom in the siblings’ side. To Yui’s surprise, their side of the apartment was probably as messy as the scene in hers in the ward just hours ago. Thankfully, the vacant room normally avoided the storm that was Teto. Either way, Kato cleaned up the living room as much as he could, and at last it looked clean for the first time in years.

“Kato, can you get my clothes?”

Yui called out from the shower. The shower room was tiny, and if you were to bring dry clothes inside, it would only get wet. The moment the children grew tall enough to leave the showerhead in its holster, they didn’t bring their clothes inside anymore and left it outside on a stool. Because they were always together, someone could always help out if need be.

Kato moved away from the match going on below him and towards that shower stool right outside its door.

“Here you go—”

As he opened a crack in the door to hand over Teto’s old pyjamas, he found that his arm was being held onto by a hand that reached out from inside, stopping him mid-sentence. Her hand was still wet from the water, soaking the point of contact.

“Are they still downstairs?”

“Yeah, they’re still at it.”

Kato blinked, but otherwise stood still in his spot, unmoving. Something in her voice told him that he should let her speak, so he did.

“Sorry, I just thought that, somehow, this is probably one of the few moments I would get alone with you.”

“Your intuition is very close to the mark, for sure.”

“Well, we were in the same class for, like, ten years? You’d think we’d notice that Evie and Teto were attached to you at the hip.”

“And they’ll continue to be, hopefully, for all time.”

They laughed soundly. Life certainly could be strange and surprising.

“You were the one who wanted to have me adopted, right? That’s what Evie had said.”

“Yes. It’s because Eon predicted the need to get you out of the ghetto. There were only two options. One was somehow have you move into the school residence. Impossible unless we pay for it, which naturally led to the second option: to make you a part of our family.”

“It’s another one of his ideas, eh. How smart is Eon, really?”

“Too smart for his own good.”

“So you’re actually the tame one. How unexpected.”

“I have my moments of madness. There’s gotta be a balance somewhere.”

“That’s true, for Eon too. Surprisingly, he’s far more reliable than you.”

Yui stifled a giggle while Kato gave a small sigh. It seems like Yui would be joining Eon’s side of the comedy act.

“My defects aside, you should thank him for planning this much out. No joke.”

“Then I’ll have to thank him tomorrow.”

Both remained where they stood, and the door continued to separate them. A moment of silence floated between the two, as Kato waited patiently for Yui to continue.

“… why did you save me? Normally, people don’t go this far to help a classmate.”

Yui asked, filled with hope and anticipation.

“Really? Then I’m just not a normal person, then.”

“…”

She waited quietly for a real answer from Kato. He noticed the silent response from Yui too, so he took a moment to brace himself and carefully replied.

“It’s because I thought of you to be one of us, an Elite. We’re kindred spirits.”

Kato took another breath, refocused his thoughts and continued.

“I’ve always thought of you as a special friend to our circle of troublemakers, and I’ve always been a person of loyalty, so I can go to any lengths for those I care about.

“You’re no different. A friend in need is all that takes for me to give it my all. Is that a satisfactory answer?”

Kato waited calmly for Yui, who hadn’t budged at all yet. They remained in the longest stretch of silence yet, and perhaps even in the history of the von Habsburg residence.

On the other side of the door, Yui’s heart froze. She knew that she shouldn’t expect to hear the answer she so desperately wanted, but she never thought it would hit her so hard. She could feel that her tears would start flowing like they always did, but she could not back down from this unwinnable fight anymore. Because she realized how precious happiness could be, she did not want to leave it behind with feelings left unspoken.

Slowly, she opened the door with her free hand, revealing her towel-wrapped figure to the boy in the navy-blue shirt. Her red hair was still wet and heavy, partly covering up her distraught face. Her other hand continued to hold onto Kato, still not letting it go.

Looking up at Kato’s face, she could see a serene expression painted there. She could not read anything from it except for the mute kindness that he put on there. From that alone, she could only think that she could not receive the kind of happiness she sought for.

“No, it wasn’t. Can you give a better answer?”

“No, that’s the best I can give.”

“Is there really nothing I can do?”

She made a bittersweet smile at Kato from under the cover of her hair. Kato’s expression did not change. Instead, he watched Yui expectantly, waiting for her to spit out her heart in front of him. His silence was his answer; he could not answer.

Yui wanted to desperately hold onto her hopes, no matter how slim they were. She was surprised that she still had this kind of passion within her after being tossed and thrown around so cruelly in her miserable life. Perhaps because of this, she had the motivation to reach out for the happiness in front of her, even if it was impossible to reach it.

“Kato, I love you.”

“I know.”

The smile on her face disappeared, replaced by a frown that was distorted with anguish. She let her tears flow from her eyes, blending with the water droplets on her face. She couldn’t feel the cold that was closing in on her exposed skin as her mind froze in time. In that moment, her world ended, but she herself still had not, so she had no choice but to live on.

“Then, from this point on, I’ll be your older sister.”

Yui took a moment to compose herself before she forced a smile through her tears, stepped forward and held Kato’s face in her hands, staring into his distant eyes. Mere inches separated their bodies, and yet Yui felt as though Kato continued to hold her at arm’s length.

Kato’s hand reached for hers, weaving his fingers between hers and holding them gently. By now, they could feel the cold as the moisture had the time to take away the warmth from her fingers.

“Welcome to the family, big sister.”

No longer able to face him, she buried her face in his chest and sobbed quietly into it, letting herself accept that this was as good an ending as she could get.

---

“Is Sisi going to walk with us to school every day now?”

The children were on their way to school, and only after three days their party members increased by two people.

“Non. Sisi is only here today because she wants to know how the children are in the morning. Looking after them is mine responsibility, after all.”

“Are you their grandma or something?”

“Yes. In a sense, Sisi is. In fact, Sisi is also your guardian too, so you’d better behave in front of Sisi.”

“Wait, when did this happen?”

“Heh. That’s what you get for being friends with mine dependants. Mine responsibility extends to you as well.”

“What the fuck, the long tentacles of the organization extends to the lowly civilian.”

“Strange choice of words, but Eternia is the de facto government in this city, so using the original expression with ‘arm’ and ‘law’ still works.”

Eon and Sisi walked ahead of them to discuss various topical subjects, as expected of an old person and an inquisitive young man with interesting ideas. Usually, Kato was supposed to be flanked by his two sisters, but today was slightly different. To be specific, every day from now on would be slightly different.

“Thank you very much, Eon. I wouldn’t be here without your help.”

Yui addressed and bowed to the grandmaster of plans in front of her.

 “No need, Yui. Just a day’s work in my books.”

Turning to Yui behind him and waving, Eon accepted her gratitude, surprisingly with little fuss. Walking alongside Yui was Kato, her foster younger brother. Behind those two were his remaining sisters, Evie and Teto, still hung over the hours of play-testing they did yesterday night.

“Kato, are you all right? You didn’t get enough sleep yesterday?”

“No, I didn’t. Well, I’m also not a morning person.”

Despite what happened the night before, Yui seemed bright and sharp this morning. It turned out that she could rise and shine a lot better than Kato, who tended to be groggy and zombie-like in the mornings.

“…at least make yourself presentable. Your collar is folded backwards.”

Sighing, Yui chided Kato for his sloppiness. As she reached over to fix the collar of his dress shirt, Kato suddenly broke out of his morning stupor at the sweet scent of Yui. Feeling the heat on his face, Kato tensed up slightly as she flipped the collar back into place.

His nervousness did not go unnoticed. Yui was, after all, the older sister. The corners of her mouth folded up ever so slightly.

“There. All done. Feel more awake now?”

“Feel more—?”

Kato stopped himself. How did she know that? He looked at her in surprise, but she already removed herself from him.

Yui’s smile was as bright as her heart now. As if mirroring her mood, the sun appeared between the clouds, lighting up her delicate figure and her fiery red hair.

“It’s time to wake up from the dream.”

And move on.

---

END

The Class War finished so quick that class still have not started yet. In under five minutes, victory was claimed by the bottommost of the privileged classes.

The murmurs and chatter within the school buzzed loudly as the students discussed the results of this lightning war. Certainly, 3-F was coming into the year as a dark horse as Kato and Evie were strong individual fighters, and the quick victory just now against a higher ranked class might bring them from dark horse to potential challenger status.

Inside of the Assembly Hall was where peace was negotiated. The Assembly Hall was a huge auditorium at one end of the school, maintained by the music department. Just like a commercial theatre, many rows of velvet chairs faced a large and complex stage, filled with enough setups for a professional dramatic play. The seating setup could also be removed by machine to make space for special occasions. To juxtapose the spaciousness, on the opposite end of the school was another room just as cavernous, the main gymnasium.

The Assembly Hall was also where the Assembly met once to twice a week, hence the namesake. When the Assembly convened, this legislative branch of student government proposed, debated and voted on school policies. In theory and in practice, the Assembly was the second-highest authority in the school, while the student council merely implemented the policies that the Assembly has passed. As intended, the Assembly was the rightful sovereign of student life in Korolev Senior. While the student council could in theory operate without input from the Assembly, they were obliged to follow the will of the Assembly if it were to make itself heard.

Peace would be negotiated between the students of Class E and F in the presence of their homeroom teachers and the student council. Although classes were put on hold while a war was occurring, once the war ended and the barrier was lifted, everyone else returned immediately to their regularly scheduled classes. However, despite classes starting very soon, more than just the student council executives and Classes E and F were there. The class representatives from all the privileged classes were present alongside many other members of their respective classes, filling out a good number of seats at the front. Even students from the lower year classes showed up to watch the proceedings. It seemed like this war was of quite an interest to the general populous.

On the stage were two long rows of wooden tables that resembled elongated study booths, and they faced each other with the winning and losing parties sitting on either side. As there was not enough space for every student to be right at the table, folding chairs were placed in rows behind it, almost like a run-down parliament with two opposing political parties.

The student council executives sat at their own small booths at the end of those tables, denoting a position of arbitration between the two parties. Off the stage and in the front row seats of the audience area sat the students and even teachers from the other privileged classes, the entire stage lowered to the level of the audience so that everyone was at eye level. The setup mimicked a real peace conference between two belligerent nations.

“Let’s get started then.”

Mirabelle sat at the helm of the student council executives as student council president. Despite the somewhat limited powers of her position, the student council had the right to preside over the peace of a Class War. Peace agreements were as legally binding as policies passed by the Assembly: in this sense, the student council had a considerable measure of influence in dictating school policy.

Sitting beside her were her three sisters, assembling the Jupiter sisters in one place. Unlike the Elites, who were only really famous among their classmates, the Jupiter sisters were well known throughout the school. Though to be fair, it was Mirabelle and Scarlett that had most of the publicity while Ariel and Bianca had lower profiles.

“Today, the war between Class 3-E and Class 3-F concluded with a 3-F victory. The victory condition was met when 3-E’s class representative Andy Turok’s cleanse tag was saturated completely. As with all wars, the class representatives’ cleanse tags have been restored to no saturation.”

Bianca began with the situation report.

“At seven hundred and fifty seven hours, Class 3-F declared war on Class 3-E using a casus belli first produced by Supervisor Elizabeth Romana, then claimed by Student Kato Danubius, and subsequently confirmed to be true and valid by Lady Eterna. The nature of the casus belli was one of moral justice, pursing a victory in the name of goodwill. If anyone wishes to review the casus belli, the following evidence will be made available in the main library’s Class War archives after peace is concluded.”

Ariel continued with the reason for war. She also took out two objects from her schoolbag: the videocassette tape from Teto’s camcorder escapade and the cassette tape that was Caius’ recording of their radio communications.

“At eight hundred and two hours, the war ended with 3-E’s defeat and the war goal was satisfactorily met. The four students involved in the misbehaviour that led to the casus belli were defeated soundly, and there were minimal casualties on both sides. Therefore, there is reason to believe that Class 3-F’s justification and actions were aligned.”

Scarlett reviewed the results and subsequent consequences of the war.

“Class 3-F is determined to be clearly in the right. As such, 3-F will be given generous liberty in its conditions for peace. I’d like to remind everyone that proposed peace resolutions have only two rounds of debate, with a short recess in between, before being reviewed as its final form by the student council executives, who will then ratify the peace as lawful and sovereign of Korolev Senior.”

Mirabelle finished off the student council’s ceremonial opening. On one side, right at the front and at the tables were the Elites of Class 3-F. On the other side, Andy and several other students sat at the front of the opposing table, his complexion still poor from the pain he experienced.

At the same end of the tables as the student council were the homeroom teachers of each class. Sisi sat next to Kato, the class representative for 3-F. The opposite homeroom teacher, Mr Khosa, sat next to Andy, his expression a bit distant as he was not in position when the war began and thus was powerless during this entire adventure.

Though Kato was the class representative, it was Eon who rose up from his seat gracefully to address the room.

“I am Eon Koziko, student council member and Assembly member for the Class F constituency. I will represent Class 3-F.”

The short-haired girl sitting on the other side of Andy also stood up, mirroring Eon.

“I am Candice Horie, Assembly member for the Class E constituency. I will represent Class 3-E.”

Like most of the people on that bench, Candice too was visibly glum as a part of the defeated party.

“I am Callisto Jupiter, student council president, Class B representative, and Assembly member for the class representative’s constituency. I will be the arbitrator for this peace negotiation.”

Mirabelle used her real given name instead of her middle name. As a side note, their father gave them the unorthodox given names, while their mother gave them their feminine middle names.

“We can start with the winning party’s demands.”

“Thank you, Madame President. As you and the student council executives have already confirmed, our war goal was fulfilled in its entirety, both in practice and in spirit. Therefore, I propose the following terms to also be just and reasonable with the results of the war.”

Eon remained sober as he turned away from Mirabelle to face the enemy class in front of him. The people around him tensed up in anticipation for the first round of demands.

“First, the points. Currently, Class E has twenty points while my class has ten. This is, of course, the initial allotment of score at the start of the year. I will first demand that ten points be transferred to Class F.”

The point system of the Class Wars was the heart and soul of the game. At the beginning of the year, each of the privileged classes begin with a number of points, starting with sixty for Class A, and then ten less for each class lower, down to Class F’s ten points. The unprivileged classes were also part of the Class Wars, but they begin with no points. The point system was a zero-sum game, and the objective was to steal as many points as possible from the other classes. Given the natural strengths of the classes, Class A was expected to ultimately win every year.

But there were other demands that could be made instead of just taking points. In a typical peace, demands with a mixture of the two would be made. In this case, lesser points could be demanded if you were to demand other things. The valuations of the demands were debated between the parties, and then appraised and determined by the arbitrators, i.e. the student council executives and the Supervisors.

Several in the audience and the two benches nodded. A clear-cut victory with a war justification as righteous as this one could have stripped Class E of all its points. Clearly, Class F was intending to make additional demands, and they expected so. The two teachers also nodded in agreement, satisfied with the first demand.

“Second. I would like to establish a restricted zone for students of Class E. The 3-F classroom, the section of corridor immediately outside of it spanning the physics room to the stairs next to it, the aforementioned set of stairs, and the entire section of lockers in the atrium next to the social studies rooms. These areas of the school will be off limits to 3-E students.”

The crowd and the two benches began rumbling with surprise and interest. This second demand was most likely the true demand that Class F wanted from the peace terms and would not be willing to back down from. Banning students from going to certain parts of the school was certainly a huge demand to ask for.

Without giving anyone a chance to discuss it, Eon marched forward with his justification.

“Yui Tereshkova was the victim of extortion, blackmail and sexual harassment. Normally, these are criminal offences that would be settled by the judicial institutions of this country, rather than in an international diplomacy role-playing exercise like this one. I bring it to the arbitrators that this is a serious issue in and of itself, even outside of the Class Wars.

“The restriction zone is a guarantee that protects my classmates from theirs. And if anyone thinks this is belligerent, that is exactly my intention. We do not trust Class E to not allow the same scenario to be repeated again.”

The murmurs in the Assembly Hall turned into open conversations as Eon did not hide any of his animosity towards Class E. Many students stood up as well, discussing among themselves the ramifications of this peace term.

“You realize that it does not only protect your class. The no-man’s-land you are proposing will reduce our ability to wage war against other classes. Is it not enough to just have the offenders subject to the restricted zones?”

Candice responded tersely to Eon’s demand. She was not wrong. The restricted movement of people can severely hamper their future wars. In fact, the most obvious strategy for the opponent of Class E would be to have their class representative camp inside 3-F’s classroom, or the stairway near the physics room, or the section of lockers where the Elites and Yui’s lockers were.

“Trust is a hard thing to gain. In lieu of that, I do not believe you have a position to negotiate on this matter.”

Eon threw the hardball at the opposing class, who although did not appreciate it, neither did they have anything to say about it. It was hard enough for them to negotiate since the war was justified on something that happened in the black market. It made it even harder that the racketeers were caught pretty much red-handed. It was basically beyond reasonable doubt that their party was guilty, before the courts even began the proceedings.

While the audience continued to buzz with discussion, Candice and Andy both turned to their teacher for help. Mr Khosa shook his head, essentially acknowledging the seriousness of the justification that Eon argued. Both turned to each other, dejected. Andy rubbed his forehead in fatigue, while Candice spoke again, still standing up from her seat.

“Then will you be willing to accept a request from our side, unrelated to your demands thus far?”

“We can hear you out first. Then we can decide if we can accept it.”

“It’s simple. We’d like the offenders to be dropped out of the Class Wars for Class E.”

Candice said simply and plainly. Ethan Henderson and his three minions were not present at the peace conference; they were in the faculty staff room, probably in serious trouble.

Eon looked to Sisi and Kato to his left, who nodded at him in agreement.

“Your request actually brings me to my third point, which I think you will find it align well with your request. Third. Investigation into the incident involving Yui Tereshkova will not be made, and we will drop the matter entirely. If you wish to remove those four from your class list for the Class Wars, then we can accommodate that.”

“Thank you very much.”

Candice bowed respectfully.

“Those are our demands, Madame President. If the opposite party is satisfied with them, then we can skip the recess and go straight to the conclusion of peace.”

“Class E, do you have any objections?”

The Class E bench looked a bit lost as they turned to each other in confusion. Certainly, they were a bit surprised that Class F was willing to bend to their request. If it was a different class than Class F, there definitely would not be this kind of mercy.

Speculation ran amok in the audience too. Perhaps this was a sign of respect for the higher class, or Class F was wary for their future wars against the even higher classes, as a subjugation war was a valid casus belli. If a lower class had more points than a higher class, any of the classes higher than those two could declare a “restoration of order” war to restore the old order. This was another mechanism that made Class A’s victory in the Class Wars all the more likely.

Andy and Candice looked again to their teacher, Mr Khosa, both looking expectant. Mr Khosa looked weary and worn out, no doubt frustrated with how much the bad eggs in his class had crippled their chances in the Class Wars. Mr Khosa was a long-time teacher at Korolev Senior and participated in the Class Wars for many years. Scratching his hair, he stood up from his seat.

“Koziko, pass me your demands.”

Upon being asked of by a Supervisor, Eon took the sheet of paper in front of him, walked around the table to the other side and handed it over to Mr Khosa. It was not uncommon to have the Supervisor perform some of these duties for their class. From the way Andy and Candice seemingly depended on Mr Khosa for guidance, it was likely that Class E’s game plan was being led by the teacher. Though to be fair, it was only the third day of classes, so it might just be that they were caught unprepared. Either way, these speculations would spread throughout the third year classes as the audience watched every move on the stage, trying to glean any advantage they could for their class.

Mr Khosa scanned the paper as the people around him waited with bated breath. He took out his pen from his breast pocket and corrected some things on that paper against the table in front of him. Then, he passed the paper back to Eon.

“I’ve specified the restricted zone more clearly, and added our request in detailed form. I think you should find it satisfactory. If you do, then my class has no objections.”

Eon returned to his class, laying it out on the table for his classmates to see. The Supervisor’s word was, as it should be, true. There were essentially no changes to their demands other than the inclusion of Class E’s request. Sisi, too, gave her blessings to these peace terms.

“Madame President, I declare that these demands are acceptable to both parties, and that peace be concluded between our classes with these terms.”

Eon handed off the paper to Ariel, who sat next to Mirabelle and Bianca. By tradition, it was the secretary who took care of paperwork. The three executives carefully read the peace terms presented to them, ignoring all the eyes that were on them.

After a long and silent minute, both Mirabelle and Bianca peeled off from the paper as they finished reading it. Mirabelle smiled wordlessly at Ariel, who was still reading intently, clearly deep in thought. It was ultimately her responsibility to review the terms of peace.

“One more condition will be added to this peace.”

Standing up on an elevated platform to make up for her height, she faced the two classes in front of her. It has been three minutes since she was handed the paper by Eon.

“After reviewing the terms of peace, I have determined that, according to the precedent set by the casus belli used, the current set of terms is too lenient on Class E. As a result, I will propose a standard amendment to the peace. One of Class E’s seats in the Assembly will be transferred to Class F.”

Another round of gasps sounded throughout the auditorium, but not as serious as the previous round. It was indeed a standard amendment, a precedent set by the many peace treaties that came before them. But it was also the one way that the student council could exert their influence in the Assembly; by gerrymandering the different constituencies that made up the Assembly.

Fortunately, 3-E and 3-F had barely any representation in the Assembly as a class constituency. At the start of the new school year, they were assigned three and one seats respectively. Classes A, B, C and D were assigned forty, twenty, ten and five seats respectively. These made up the class constituencies of the Assembly.

Following that, the Assembly also contained functional constituencies, for example the representatives of each third year class, school club presidents, and the student council executive leadership. Seats in the class and functional constituencies could all overlap in various ways, and depending on the prerequisites for the functional constituency seats, both people and number of seats could change throughout the year.

The transfer of one seat was nothing to be afraid of, but Class A should already be wary of the intentions of the student council, which was controlled by Mirabelle of Class B, an anomaly in the history of this school. Class A was supposed to be the dominant force in the school and normally controlled the student council as well. However, Mirabelle won the presidential elections at the end of the last school year and usurped Class A’s rightful place as kings of the school.

“Wait a minute, that’s surely still too much for a peace term this early in the school year? Even before the first Assembly meeting has even convened?”

Andy protested against the term, but Ariel ignored his complaint, wearing her usual cool expression. Instead, she asked for the Supervisors.

“If Ms Romana and Mr Khosa agree with this amendment, then there should be no problems.”

“I have no objections.”

“The proposed amendment sounds fair enough.”

Both agreed to the terms, to Andy’s disappointment. Being a veteran of the wars, Mr Khosa also knew that the change was reasonable according to precedent, so as a Supervisor he would not deny that fact to give his class an advantage. Andy sat back in his chair, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. Candice looked worriedly at him as she patted him on the shoulder in defeat.

Mirabelle motioned for the room to quiet down to announce the conclusion of the peace.

“Then this peace is confirmed between the two parties, with Class E on one part and Class F on the other, on this twentieth day of August, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven, at eight hundred and thirty hours. Peace terms will be effective immediately, and any provisions will be effective as determined. The original terms will be made available in the main library’s Class War archives, while authentic copies will be transmitted at a later date to the parties involved. And finally, I declare that peace be concluded, with the hope that it shall remain lasting and enduring.”

---

“Sounded like everything went as planned?”

Teto asked cheerfully as they settled in at their corner of the 3-F classroom during lunch. Today, Teto decided to eat with the Elites. Yui and Mirabelle were gathered together here too, to debrief themselves on their victorious war.

“Everything went as I planned.”

Eon announced proudly to answer Teto.

“For real, everything literally went as he planned. What the fuck.”

Franco rubbed the front of his forehead, seemingly sweating profusely.

“From the plan to capture a casus belli, to the war and the peace, pretty much went all according to plan.”

Kato nodded in agreement as he slapped Eon on the back.

“I think we made good use of our resources. For sure, my pop’s equipment was useful for this particular operation.”

Caius mused lightly with a very satisfied expression on his face.

“Heheh, masterminding the greatest plans of all plans is second nature to me.”

As the men took turns congratulating themselves, the other girls in the group took out their lunches and prepared to eat. Of course, most everyone here bought lunches from the cafeteria. Only Yui and Mirabelle brought their own lunches today.

“Yui, how are you feeling? What do you think of what happened?”

Evie asked Yui about the current situation; the situation that the Elites pushed onto her.

“I’m not quite sure. From what Mirabelle said, Ethan and his men aren’t getting much punishment from the faculty staff, right? It was in the peace terms. So I’m not sure if it’s even safe for me to go back to the ward today.”

Yui could only smile sheepishly at Evie. It was true that Ethan’s gang did not meet any real punishment due to the peace terms. If Yui were to go back to the ward, it would be the same as walking right back into the lion’s den.

“Have you left anything important there in particular?”

“No, not really. Just my clothes, some personal trinkets and your normal everyday stuff.”

“Then that’s all right. We don’t have to rush it then.”

“Rush what?”

“Yui, we’re going to your orphanage after school today.”

“What?”

Yui gaped in surprise along with Mirabelle next to her, who spoke up and asked too.

“Why’re you going?”

“To adopt Yui, of course. Karl will bring us there and take care of that for us.”

“Adopt me? That means… I’ll be living with you?”

“Wait a minute. That means Yui will be living with Kato and Teto too!”

“Eh?! I’ll be living with Kato?”

Yui covered her mouth with her hands as she uttered those words with a hint of delighted surprise.

“Ugh. So that’s the final piece of the plan. I can’t believe I didn’t realize the solution was in plain sight.”

Mirabelle shook her head, disappointed with herself. That was the one part of the plan she did not know about. The aftermath.

“Karl is our guardian, and he’s a super nice dude. There should be no problems with you moving in with us. Also, Sisi is also living with us too, just so you know. She already knows about this.”

“Ms Romana is living with you?”

“Yeah. She’s our new guardian, actually. Along with Karl. You’re familiar with Eternia, right?”

“Yes, the organization. You’re all part of the organization, then?”

“Yup. Not too surprising, I’d reckon, but still. I wanna make sure you understand these things. I don’t think that our actions or what we’re giving you here is a bad thing. It’s got to be a big change, but I still have some doubt because we’re basically forcing it onto you. I have to first apologize for everyone here who took such drastic actions without letting you know beforehand or getting your consent.”

Unexpectedly mature, Evie bowed her head in Yui’s direction with her hands in prayer, but Yui immediately reached out to stop her.

“Wait, Evie! You don’t have to apologize. I’m grateful for what you all have done for someone like me. In fact, I should be the one thanking you for giving me a chance to leave the ghetto.”

Yui smiled brightly at Evie, who was still a bit unconvinced.

“Are you sure? We are basically telling you to live with us or suffer the consequences. You’re not worried at all about the future?”

“It’s not like I would be any better off living in the ghetto if all of this never transpired. On the other hand, I’d be lying if I wasn’t worried. But if I haven’t known you and everyone else for this many years, I wouldn’t have the confidence now to say that I’m glad that things turned out the way it did. So don’t be too hard on yourself, Evie.”

“… if you say so, Yui.”

Yui held onto Evie’s hands delicately, trying to conveying her appreciation to Evie.

“Thanks, Evie. I never thought you would be this emotional. It definitely wasn’t my image of you.”

“Maybe. It’s probably only this specific thing though. Many years ago, I was in a similar position as you are right now.”

Evie said distantly. Her voice was calm and collected as usual, but a touch of sadness coloured it with grey.

“Perhaps it was because I was a small child back then, but we didn’t get along at first. It took quite a while before I was willing to trust Kato and his little family. Maybe it’s too far-fetched of a comparison, but I was a bit worried about how you’d feel about moving into a new home without having any choice. To see you accepting us as we are is a relief.”

Evie smiled slightly, returning Yui’s hold onto her hands with her own strength.

“Okay, let’s put the bad and sad away and eat lunch like normal high school students. In the end, that’s what the Elites fought for, so chin up! A happy end like this is as good as you can get.”

Mirabelle encouraged the other two merrily as she helped them open up their lunch boxes. Letting go of each other as Mirabelle brought their thoughts back into the classroom, they listened to the boys next to them rave about the war and delved into their lunch.

“Attention, school. A casus belli has been claimed by Class F against Class E. As the ultimate arbiter of the Class Wars, I, Eterna, will determine that the casus belli claimed is true and justified. I now declare the commencement of war between Class F and Class E. Let the games begin!”

The principal’s announcement thundered throughout the entire school. The barrier around the school began glowing in a multitude of colours, signalling the strengthening of the barrier to handle the Class Wars; this is to make sure that she can reverse the physical damage to the school at the end of the war. To allow the heart of the school to be used as a battleground, the hole in the barrier at the atrium was also closed up for the duration of the war.

Through the alchemical barrier she set up, Eterna alchemically partially replenishes any participant’s cleanse tags that were saturated, but as this was the first war, none of the students’ cleanse tags needed replenishing. Non-participants’ cleanse tags were then reinforced with her magic so that their cleanse tags did not saturate for the course of the war. Regardless, the cleanse tags that everyone wore glowed a bit as the refresh came along. Those who were missing or forgot to wear their cleanse tags were granted divine protection by Eterna’s magic, the same injury immunity that a cleanse tag granted.

Upon the end of Eterna’s announcement, the classes immediately entered a state of war. The barrier’s presence was strengthened immensely, as it slightly discoloured everyone’s peripheral vision, so everyone knew that the war has begun.

“So let’s do this a second time, to cement our revenge.”

Evie said again emotionlessly to the men lying on the ground. Making it quick, she struck their vitals once again, causing another round of squirming on the floor and immediately saturating their cleanse tags black. To saturate a cleanse tag completely black required a lot of hurt, so it was impressive that Evie dispatched them so quickly: a preview to the damages Evie would soon bring forth. Since the entirety of the school was under the aegis of the barrier and they possessed cleanse tags, they did not get injured, but they sure felt the pain.

“I’m surprised that this school still has this uncivilized tradition in place.”

Caius said, slightly disapprovingly. It was true that compared to half a century ago, the nature of secondary education was very different. To have a barbaric tradition such as the Class Wars in this new era of civilization was indeed uncivilized.

“It still is technically a martial school, though only about twenty students are actually taking the martial arts classes as full-time students and can give Kato and Evie a bit of a hard time. But unless there are other secret deity-wannabes out there, Kato and Evie are the strongest fighters of our year.”

“Wannabes? Wanna correct yourself?”

Franco surmised. It was then followed by a harsh pull on the ear by Evie and some wailing from Franco, who, perhaps joyfully, refused to correct himself.

“In any case, with Evie and Kato here, Class E is only a pushover. The last thing to do is to locate the Class E representative and knock him out.”

Eon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Though it was still before school officially started, since the class representatives of both classes were present in the school, the war was able to start. This year, Class F representative was Kato.

Winning the Class War was simple enough to understand, but like any kind of capture-the-flag scenario, finding the opposition target could be difficult. But contingencies like these were already all thought out by their grand strategist, Eon.

“Teto, have you located the target yet?”

“Yes. Mira’s intelligence was usable. Andy Turok is located in the 3-E classroom. I will continue updating you guys his position.”

Teto answered Eon’s request. This was Teto’s second mission, and why she handed off her schoolbag to Eon. As a non-participant in the war and that class had not begun yet, she could, in theory, freely infiltrate the recesses of the school and find her target.

“Then let’s head out. Evie and Sisi, you guys are up.”

“Umu, let us move straight to the Class E classroom and get this war over with.”

“Okay, hop on, Sisi.”

Evie gave Sisi a piggyback ride as they bolted straight for the spiral staircase back in the centre of the atrium. Leaving the rest of them behind in the dust, they bore witness once again to Evie’s incredible physical abilities. That was not to say that Kato or Teto could not match Evie. Indeed, this year’s Class F representative would be the most difficult to take down in the history of all the Class Fs.

“Let’s get going too. We’ll need to catch up to them anyway.”

As they moved out according to Caius’ command, Kato gave Yui a nudge. Though he was no longer carrying her, Yui’s hands were locked with his, as Teto normally would have.

“We’re gonna leave them and your worries behind.”

Kato motioned to the Henderson party on the floor in pain.

“And we’re never ever gonna look back. Right?”

Yui finally gave Kato a genuine smile today, beaming at Kato with her soft indigo eyes.

“Yup.”

Kato nodded at Yui, who in turn held onto Kato even tighter. Without skipping a beat, they trudged onward following the rest of the Elites, leaving Yui’s demons behind.

---

“Oh!”

Franco cried out in surprise. The open space around the spiral staircase was clearly partitioned into two groups of people: one of Class F and another of Class E students. Between the two groups was a teacher and two students, one from each class. Surrounding this assortment of people were students from other classes, watching the spectacle up close.

“A Duel is already underway. That’s unexpected, but still all right.”

Eon fixed his glasses as he muttered under his breath. A Duel referred to a competition between two students moderated by a Supervisor. A Supervisor was any person who refereed the Class Wars, which included all the teachers and of course, Eterna. A Supervisor had many different overarching powers, and one of such was arbitrating Duels.

A Duel could be initiated by any student who issued a challenge against an opponent, generally by declaring something like “I challenge you, insert name here, to a Duel!” or something of the sort, in the presence of a Supervisor. Once declared, and the Supervisor could clearly understand the two students involved, the Supervisor could commence the Duel.

Depending on the Supervisor involved, the rules and nature of the Duel could vary. In this era, a Duel was usually academic in nature, and most likely devolved to a series of trivia questions on the subject of the Supervisor’s competence. For example, the current Duel was arbitrated by Mr Reed, a biology and chemistry teacher, so all of his trivia questions were from those subjects.

However, it was important to remember that a Duel could be of any rule or nature the Supervisor chooses, as long as the competition itself was fair. Since the homeroom teachers of the participating classes were also Supervisors, using your homeroom teacher to give your team a strategic advantage was a common and legitimate strategy. For example, the homeroom teacher most likely understood the academic strengths and weaknesses of the students, and would ask their questions accordingly; in isolation, the question could legitimately be fair. As each class have their own homeroom teachers, this strategy was historically fair game.

“What is the amount of thermodynamic free energy in the standard conversion of adenosine triphosphate plus water to adenosine diphosphate plus phosphate per mole?”

After Mr Reed finished asking his question he touched his own cleanse tag, which was glowing blue. Then the cleanse tags of the participants turned from glowing yellow to blue. It signalled the end of the preparatory period, i.e. the questioning period, and the start of the challenge period, i.e. answering period. Once a participant’s tag turned blue, they were allowed to answer.

“Thirty point five kilojoules.”

The student from Class E immediately answered without any hesitation. Mr Reed touched his cleanse tag again. Immediately, that student’s cleanse tag then turned glowing green while the Class F student’s cleanse tag turned red. It meant that the Class E student won the challenge this round, and the Class F student lost. When the glows of both students and the teacher subsided, the Class F student’s cleanse tag’s black colour deepened.

“Oh, what’s this?! The centre of the atrium is the site of a challenger zone! Mr Reed arbitrating a Duel between Kirill Bilashov from Class F and Samuel Everton from Class E! With the most recent loss by Bilashov, the score is now one to three, still in favour of Everton! Ah, that question: Gibbs free energy in the ATP to ADP conversion was a standard memorization of key numbers. Easy to regurgitate for the memorized! Bilashov has done goofed there!”

Eterna’s voice echoed throughout the school as she commentated the Class War with attitude. It was actually a common thing for Eterna to commentate Class Wars like a sports match. When she was absent, a few students from student council would volunteer for the commentary job and cast the Class War through the P.A. system instead of Eterna’s spell-enhanced voice projection.

“Kirill! Let me do this!”

Eon pushed many of his classmates out of the way and made it to the challenger zone. After a loss, the defeated challenger was entitled to substitution with another challenger from their party.

“Oh my god, thanks, Eon. I already lost three questions in a row.”

Kirill Bilashov whined to Eon in his nasal voice as he held up his cleanse tag to Eon. It was already spotted with patches of black like a milk carton.

“So the ante is about ten percent per question. That’s not too bad.”

There were no numbers to precisely show the saturation rate of the cleanse tags, so they had to keep count among themselves.

“Yeah, ten percent.”

“All right, then. Just leave it to me.”

With his usual bravado, he traded places with Kirill and stepped up to the teacher and other student.

“Mr Reed. I will replace Kirill.”

“Sure, no problem. Hold up your cleanse tag. Good. Are you ready for the next question?”

“Yes. Ready.”

“And Samuel is ready as well?”

“Ready.”

The opposing class’ student nodded at the teacher as well. Mr Reed was neither class’ teacher; he was merely here on duty for the morning. Mr Reed adjusted his glasses as he declared the next questioning period, doing so by touching his cleanse tag. Eon and Samuel’s cleanse tags glowed amber.

“Next question. What is the powerhouse of the human red blood cell?”

Once Mr Reed touched his cleanse tag to make theirs glow blue, Samuel spoke up again immediately.

“The mitochondria.”

Mr Reed did not respond verbally nor did he touch his cleanse tag again to end the challenge period. Instead, he looked over to Eon for his answer. Clearly, the other student had the wrong answer.

“Glucose in the blood, using it to perform glycolysis to create adenosine triphosphate.”

Mr Reed then touched his cleanse tag. Eon’s cleanse tag glowed green, while Samuel’s glowed red. Waving vigorously at the crowd of Class F students behind him, Eon celebrated his first victory in a Duel with pretentious flair and rallying cry.

“Class F. F is forever!”

Their class gathering laughed out loudly at that while the remaining Elites were in various stages of face-palming.

“Ooooh! The entry of the new challenger, Eon Koziko, seemed to turn the tide for Class F! Of course, red blood cells do not have their own powerhouses! As a side note, their lifespans are fairly short and macrophages recycle the old red blood cells.”

Eterna closed off the round by dropping another line of commentary.

“The other student didn’t get a second chance?”

Yui asked inquisitively. Though she has been here for her three years of senior high, she was still a bit unsure of how the Class Wars worked as it was never a priority for her.

“That’s an unspoken rule of this trivia question format. One answer from each side in succession. Once someone gets the answer right, then the round ends with a clear victory. If neither gets it right after three rounds, then both get the red glows.”

“And how does the teacher’s cleanse tag know which is right and which is not?”

“The Supervisor’s cleanse tags are special. They can alchemically manipulate cleanse tags around it, sort of like a prepared spell. That’s why Eon had to hold up his cleanse tag at the start. In any case, Lady Eterna will fix anything that goes wrong with the saturation; she’s watching us from everywhere.”

Kato explained the usual format of the Duels to Yui. Essentially, the special cleanse tags that the teachers wore gave them the ability to be Duel arbitrators.

“I’m surprised that there aren’t any brawls happening around the challenger zone. Last year, there were plenty of fistfights, no?”

Franco wondered. While observers can’t interrupt a Duel, they could certainly go have a good old physical fight.

“From our intelligence, Class E doesn’t have any trained physically superior guys, fortunately for us. I mean, you can go out there and wipe the floor if you want, but if you ain’t trained like Kato and Evie, you’re just a slightly stronger version of the rest of us. The peaceful tend to be peaceful.”

“But Kato is right here! They ain’t aiming for him, what the hell?”

“Kato is still disguised in his very poor disguise. Maybe the people around here don’t recognize him.”

“Then this is just a sideshow. A Duel that doesn’t bring you closer to victory. It just does damage to each other.”

“How observant, my slave. Clearly, you’re a lot smarter than we’d like to think you are.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Franco comically snapped at Kato’s random shot at him, jabbing his finger on Kato’s forehead.

“Hey, it’s still good to do damage. They might have other parties scouring the school for Kato.”

Caius shrugged. Without a doubt, everyone should be gunning for Kato as it was their win condition, but luckily for them the baseball cap and sunglasses were still working. Unbeknownst to the students around them, Kato was intentionally hiding his presence by brutally suppressing his killing intent, thereby reducing any aura he gave off in people’s peripherals. By snuffing out his presence in people’s subconscious, he was hiding in plain sight.

“Caius, do you think they have the smarts to even do that?”

“From what I understand, most likely not. Class E is probably the weakest of the privileged classes this year, so we could get away with this kind of haphazard declaration of war.”

“Huh, so we’re lucky that our situation landed us with a war with Class E.”

“We’re even luckier that Eon has the foresight to come up with this entire plan. As much as I hate to admit it, Eon foresaw every contingency that happened up to this point and formulated a strategy against it accordingly.”

“If only he wasn’t so eccentric, he could easily belong in Class A.”

“Probably because he doesn’t want to put you out of your misery yet.”

“What the hell! Besides, it doesn’t matter because you need to get out too if we want to put me out of my misery!”

“Heh-hey, would you look at that! Franco actually threw one back at me. It’s like watching your kid grow up. Get the cameras, Kato, Yui! Ready? Cheese!”

Yui, alongside Kato and Caius, laughed at the agitated Franco. It was a moment of pure hilarity that made it the more amusing because of the uncharacteristic expression of excitement from Caius.

Then, a familiar high-pitched voice rang throughout the school again.

“Ding dong! The war has been decided!”

---

On the third floor, with Sisi perched on Evie’s back, they stormed inside the 3-E classroom together, causing the sliding door to slam into its crevice permanently, unable to be pulled back out. The classroom was sparsely filled with students, and the homeroom teacher was not present. The morning light filtered through the rainbow-coloured barrier and the open windows effortlessly, brightening the room with unnatural light.

The students, however, were in disarray. No doubt, the declaration of war caught them off guard and they were in a state of panic. The cause of the war was not even known to them, as Henderson operated on his own and did not affiliate himself with the rest of Class E. With their homeroom teacher’s whereabouts unknown, it was even more disadvantageous if the opposing class mobilized their own homeroom teacher. The doors to their classroom flew open only mere minutes after the commencement of hostilities.

“Andy Turok, I challenge you to a Duel!”

Evie scanned the classroom for her target, which she located immediately. From the files that Mirabelle provided them late at night yesterday, she was able to memorize the opponent’s face and recognize him.

Sisi then dismounted from her horse (?) and touched the cleanse tag on her wrist, making it glow blue. Evie held her cleanse tag up to Sisi for her to turn it glowing yellow. Then Sisi walked up to Andy, who had no choice but to hold up his cleanse tag to Sisi. Refusing a Duel meant losing the Duel, and the usual penalty for a forfeit was a twenty-five percent saturation rate. In fact, there was almost never a situation to refuse a Duel, as another challenge could be issued immediately afterwards and they would be back to square one. In most cases, the better option would be to enter the Duel, lose, and swap out for a cannon fodder with only ten percent damage.

The tall and scrawny Andy Turok held up his cleanse tag to Sisi, who turned it yellow like she did with Evie’s. The two were in the preparatory phase of the Duel now. Sisi just needed to explain the terms of the Duel and begin asking the trivia questions if it was the usual format. However, Evie was not particularly good at academics, so it was obvious that their wombo-combo here would not involve abiding by the current Duel meta.

“The challenge is a physical contest. The winner is determined with a single, convincing strike that the opponent did not defend. The loser forfeits ten percent saturation. That is all.”

Sisi declared what essentially was a sudden death brawl between the two students. Without even finishing his complaint, Andy was left in the dust as Sisi tapped her cleanse tag to turn their cleanse tags blue.

“Wait—”

Andy choked on his words as Evie quickly closed the distance between the two of them. Still, her expression remained as rigid as it did when she was in the atrium.

“Sorry. But this is nothing personal, kid.”

Evie muttered as she swung her arm squarely onto Andy’s torso. The force pushed him back and flying towards the wall behind him, fortunately missing the windows. He clipped onto a couple of desks along the way, sending those desks several feet away from where they stood too. When the dust settled, his body peeled back from the wall that he struck, falling with his face flat on the floor.

The other students stood in place, unmoving. Though Class E was probably the weakest of the privileged classes this year, they did not expect a total rout so easily dealt to them by a class below them. Ever since the introduction of Duels, the physical playstyle of the older generation was slowly phased out of the metagame of the Class Wars. It was simply too easy to defeat muscle if they had no brain, and once their cleanse tags were completely saturated, it was easy pickings for the next class.

Andy Turok was still conscious, and although all of the damage was absorbed by the cleanse tag, but his movements were impaired nonetheless. While the cleanse tag protected the person, their senses still experienced the full effect. So he was shook with massive pain and almost suffered a mental shutdown from a concussive blow to the head, even though it did not actually do any damage. In other words, the person wearing the cleanse tag has all his senses as normal, and any real damage to their person doesn’t actually occur. In fact, an infamous joke within the school since time immemorial was that a Class War was the perfect time to “practice” suicide by jumping off the building and experiencing the pain that it comes with, but make sure the war doesn’t end right when you make the jump.

The cleanse tag on his right arm coloured itself completely black, clearly saturated to win the war. Evie had made a slam dunk at full force at his body. By saturating his cleanse tag completely through the absorption of physical damage, the ten percent saturation from the Duel loss was not even needed to finish him off.

This was Class F’s secret weapon and the source of Sisi’s confidence in their victory. Evie’s super-soldier abilities and Sisi’s Supervisor status could literally brute-force victories like this one very easily. Evie wiped her hands as though she was finished cleaning up after a job, which she was.

“I’ll be taking this victory for Class 3-F.”

She declared stoically to the other people in the classroom. As she did, the purplish fringe in her vision cleared up, signalling the retreat of the barrier’s presence and the end of the war. The aurora colours that shimmered outside at the edge of the school’s barrier subsided, returning to the normally invisible barrier.

“Ding dong! The war has been decided! And in unorthodox fashion too! Using a Supervisor to sanction one-versus-one physical brawls and then using their physical superiority to their advantage! Superb! Though only seconds short of the fastest victory, it was the second-fastest victory in the history of the Class Wars! Congratulations to Class 3-F!”

Korolev Senior Secondary. Approximately 0740 hours.

“Kato, I wanna sleep~”

Teto grabbed Kato from behind as she laid her head on his back and closed her eyes.

“No, Teto. Stay awake. There, there.”

Kato brought his sister to his side, tucked her underneath his arm and patted her head. He himself was not a morning person, so it was only natural that his sister was not one either. Usually, though, Teto handles mornings better than Kato.

They were leaning on their lockers, idling there, while people were slowly trickling into the atrium and filling in the open space with chatter. Kato had already equipped himself with the radio set and had his earphones in. Teto too had a radio set, but she also held onto her bag with a portable camcorder in it.

“It’s been more than thirty minutes since we idled here, but let’s stay strong. We might take action today.”

Kato reassured his tired little sister and kissed her forehead. Teto let out a cute sound as he did so, and turned around to wrap her arms around him. To any unsuspecting onlookers, they looked like a couple who didn’t care about showing public displays of affection. Even to suspecting onlookers who knew who they were, it was just as aggravating and embarrassing to see, no matter how many times this happens.

“That was a very wholesome view from up here.”

Eon commented over the radio as he leaned over the second floor railings with a pair of binoculars. As the mastermind of the operation, he was idling on the upper level, overlooking the atrium below.

“C’mon guys, just ignore those two. I’m on sentry duty so it’s really boring here, but I don’t want to hear any of that.”

“Yeah, just ignore them and talk about something else.”

Franco and Caius’s voices also came over the radio. Franco was sitting on the wide steps outside of the main entrance of the school, schoolbag and notebook in hand. The main entrance to the building was very wide, almost as wide as a vehicle road, and multiple glass doors lined it that led right into the atrium. Sitting down on a far side of the steps, Franco watched on as people flowed into the school. Caius, like Eon, was a non-combatant, so his role was lying in wait in the faculty staff room with Sisi next to him.

“Well, we can’t expect something incriminating to happen every day. Today’s vigilance can very well end up as a dud, and we try again tomorrow.”

Evie said with her usual calm voice over the comms. Evie was situated on the ground floor along with her siblings too, but was squatting behind the steps of the spiral staircase instead. From the spiral staircase’s vantage point, the main entrances on one side, the classrooms on the opposing side, and the four corridors on both ends of the atrium were within her vision.

“Only a half hour to go, boys and girls. Let’s go!”

A sweet voice rang through the open channel. It was no doubt Mirabelle’s, and it was her first time speaking into the channel today, surprising the people listening. Mirabelle didn’t join them in the morning, so they assumed that she was not observing them today.

“Mira, you’re watching us, then? Where are you?”

“Student council room. Not watching in detail, just observing.”

“Attention all. Yui is entering the school grounds.”

Franco interrupted the idle chit-chat between Evie and Mira. There was a chance that the plan might take off.

Yui walked up the steps and through the already busy main entrance. Her expression seemed content as she waded past the crowds, oblivious to the elaborate setup around her.

“The VIP is in the building. The targets are also already in the building. Prepare for stage two.”

Eon said as he watched Yui enter the school from his aerial viewpoint. It took a bit of time, but Yui made it to her locker and began changing her shoes. Her locker was several rows down from where the Elites’ lockers were, right around the corner from the scene of the crime from yesterday.

“Eon, can you see the targets?”

“Two of them, including the boss, are still loitering by the art room trash can, but the other two has begun making their way to Yui’s locker. Even with no boss, Kato and Teto, you’re up.”

“Got it.” “Okay.”

The two siblings said in unison. They left their lockers to covertly make their way closer to Yui’s position, skipping a few rows of lockers over.

“Hold the phone. The boss is making his way to the black market. Take caution.”

The black market. On the opposite end of the atrium from the Elites’ lockers, the lockers were not placed in neat columns. Instead, it was a maze-like setup that created several dead-ends and hard-to-reach corners. Not only that, but that end of the atrium was actually tucked beneath the second floor while the rest of the atrium was open to the glass rooftop several floors up. This shadowy part of the atrium, together with its maze of lockers and its tendency to draw in the bad kids, was colloquially named the “black market”.

“Well, that was unexpected.”

Evie commented as she peeked from behind the spiral stairs at their targets. A tall and handsome man with facial hair passed by with a shorter, chubbier man who was obviously the tall man’s subordinate. Ethan Henderson made his way towards the black market with a sinister sneer on his face as his underling trotted behind him.

“Geh. That fake lying scummy salesman face makes me want to barf. How can people like these exist?”

“Evie, I don’t think we have the right or the time to question if certain people are allowed to exist. Not to mention dangerous.”

“I’m pretty sure I can make him disappear for good. I can do that, right?”

“Are you sure you’re not a death machine disguised as a human?!”

Franco exclaimed in futility as Evie ignored his point.

“The two minions have made contact with Yui. It looks like we are at stage three. Ready your weapons.”

The two underlings stood on either side of Yui, surrounding her. With the smirks on their faces along with Yui’s despondent expression, one can only surmise that whatever they were talking about was not good for Yui.

“This doesn’t look good.”

Kato breathed as he and Teto observed from behind a pillar. The conversation only lasted tens of seconds before the minions began to make their way out and towards the black market. Looking forlorn and dejected, she clutched onto her schoolbag tightly as she followed them obediently.

“It’s my turn now. Just watch me, Kato.”

Teto flashed a big smile at her dear brother as she, in an instant, whipped out Evie’s pair of sunglasses, a scarf and a hooded sweater from her schoolbag.

“Displays of inhuman reflexes are forbidden.”

“Rrrrrrrh~”

Kato pinched her cheek as she quickly put on her disguise.

“Let’s get going.”

The two of them made their way across the atrium, approaching the black market that Yui had already entered. As they passed by the spiral staircase in the centre of the atrium, they spotted both Evie and Eon.

“As planned, I’ll stay right here. Teto, Kato: Yui followed the targets onto the S-path of the black market.”

“That’s right. I can confirm that she went on the S-path. But from here on out, none of us will have a good view of what’s going on, so we’re counting on you guys.”

So the secret agent Teto slipped inside the confines of the black market. As she infiltrated the dark crevices of the feared realm, Kato, without a better disguise, waited just outside the maze of lockers, lying in wait for his chance to enter. From the size of the black market, it probably housed around six classes worth of students.

The moment Teto entered the shadow of the second floor, she felt the air around her turn heavy and humid. The students that hung around here were much more dubious in character. From the conversation pieces she could pick up, they were dark and dangerous-sounding, almost as if stepping into the mafia’s world. In some respects, it wasn’t too far from the truth; gangs did exist in this school, and delinquency, traditionally, was tolerated to a great extent.

The students that existed here were from the lower level classes, especially those from below Class F. The hierarchy of classes in this school was defined by their alphabetical rankings: Class A housed the most talented and promising group of students, and with each passing letter, the quality of the students was lower. The assignment of your class was crucial to your social standing within the school. To up-rate your status, you could advance up the ladder by passing your previous year’s examinations with enough points to be “promoted” to the next class; a system defined, in theory, by merit. Historically, entering Class A had a 90-point average requirement, while Class B was 85 points. Ultimately, the final go-ahead was made by the teachers involved.

Class F was the break-off point for any prestige that the class ranks gave. At the very least, Class F enjoyed exactly one seat in the Assembly as well as the Council of Six, the legislative and judicial branches of student government respectively. In addition, Class F’s academics were traditionally considered the “average” of the school. From A to F, they were the privileged six class ranks of the school. For any aspiring first- and second-year students, their first priority would be securing their place in one of these class ranks by their third year, with Class 3-A on top of the student hierarchy.

Beyond Class F, those classes do not have a voice in the school’s everyday operations, and many of their students were marginalized as the unprivileged of the school. On top of their poor academic records, students from these classes tend to fall into the greyer areas of society, possibly even crime. The historical average number of unprivileged classes was around four, from G to J.

That was not to say that criminals could not be smart. Definitely, there would be some individuals from the privileged classes that had questionable attitudes regarding their morals and respect for the law. It would seem that this Ethan character and his followers were such examples.

With her camcorder in her schoolbag slung over her shoulder, Teto walked along the same path into the black market as Yui and the other two did. This particular path, walled up by rows of lockers, formed a large orthogonal S-shaped path like the number five on a digital readout. The ceiling was low, as the second floor was just above it, and dimly lit fluorescent lights lined it. Some of the lockers were left opened, their contents disorganized and messy. Behind her, she could see the well-lit part of the atrium, and of course at the mouth of the path was Kato in wait. In front of her was the first corner, and once she turns around that corner, the light from the atrium would be lost.

Because it was still well into summer, Teto’s wrapped up get-up should have drawn in curious eyes, but it didn’t in this part of the school. Though the school had a uniform policy, the delinquents of this particular sector of the school took it a bit far. For example, she could see some of the burlier guys had their sleeves cut off, some had their ties ripped in a variety of patterns, and some wore their trousers hanging way lower than they should, a practice called “low-riding”; anything to make themselves look cool. The girls were not much better: super-short skirts, excessive makeup, and unfeminine posture.

On top of the evil-spirited mood that these people gave off, the air smelled interesting and unnatural. It undoubtedly had a tinge of cigarette smell in it, but Teto could smell other, more vile and potent substances in the air too. There was a constant drone of white noise on top of the buzz of conversations from the fairly densely packed black market, forcing Teto to continually weave in and out of people’s ways if she did not want to make any fuss.

Upon the second turn she made on this S-shaped path, she saw Yui and the other four men quite a distance further along the path in front of her, out of her earshot. Besides them, the corridor was pretty much clear of other people, so this must be the terminal destination for her infiltration mission. The four vultures surrounded Yui, who remained frozen in place while under verbal assault. Perfect positioning: the locker behind her faced down this path, with the entire scene of the crime in full view. Making a one-eighty turn to face that locker behind her, she reached for her schoolbag.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing here?”

Suddenly, a short, unruly boy with dyed-green hair from behind Teto reached out and grabbed her by the arm as she reached inside of her schoolbag. He squinted at her under the dim lighting as he tried to recognize the Elite in front of him.

“Henderson has business here right now, so people are not allowed in the den. You’re gonna have to get the fuck out. And what’s with this get-up?”

Hearing the midget’s demands, Teto scowled from underneath her scarf. She hoped that she didn’t have to be confronted by the denizens of darkness, but while she still needed to fulfill her mission, she had to find a way to deal with it quick.

“Fuck off. This is my locker. Do you have a problem? And we’re right at the end of the den anyway, so don’t be such a prick.”

Teto gave him the same attitude the short kid gave her. The den that they referred to was the middle stretch of the S-shaped path; the third, middle segment in the number five on a digital readout. It was referred to as such because it was hidden from view of either ends of the path, requiring somebody to walk past two full rows of lockers before being able to peer into the den. The two of them were situated at a corner that turned into the den.

Teto took out a master key from her schoolbag that Mirabelle lent out to her. Of course, the master key looked like any old key, but it opened all the lockers in this school. She shoved the key into the lock and opened it with ease.

Startled by Teto’s terse response as well as the opening of the locker, which confirmed all her assertions, the green-haired boy dropped the arm that he was holding onto. He faltered a bit, but he still tried to go back on the offensive.

“So what? I told you, Henderson has business here, and you’re gonna have to get out. Who the hell are you anyway? Take off your shitter sunglasses and scarf.”

Teto quickly stuffed her schoolbag deep into the conveniently empty locker. Inside the bag was Caius’ military VHS camcorder, turned on to record since the start of the operation. In classic fashion, the lenses pointed out of the partially unzipped schoolbag, essentially a hidden camera snooping on a delicious target. Since the locker faced down the stretch of corridor that was the den, the military machine had full view of Yui and her oppressors.

“The cam is set.”

After muttering it under her breath, hoping that her microphone would pick it up, she turned to the little dweeb in her way and spat (words) in his face.

“And I told you, I don’t care. Henderson can do what he wants, and I can use my locker like I’m supposed to. Capiche? And do you want to get sick? I go through the trouble of wearing a scarf and this is what I get? Being nice sucks, eh?”

Teto turned on him as she forcefully poked at his chest, pushing him backward and out of the den’s sight. By this time, the green kid was definitely taken aback by Teto’s aggressiveness and suddenly, instead of being the bouncer for this end of the den, he ended up getting bounced. Unfortunately for the bouncer, Teto was a trained nearly-superhuman soldier that would be impossible for him to overcome if it became a physical contest.

As Teto was busy with the puny bouncer and the camcorder in place, Kato prepared to enter the S-path as well. Unlike Teto, Kato did not need as many pieces for a disguise, sporting only his baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses that also belonged to Evie. In fact, his disguise was not much of a disguise, but he need not to stay undercover for too long anyway. If he encountered any opposition before he could make it to the den, he intended to scare them away by giving off a strong killing intent, an aura he and his siblings learned to breathe and live by, day in and day out, in order to become deities.

“Teto’s mission is almost complete. It seems like she’s having a field day with the bouncer too. Kato, it’s time for you to go inside.”

Eon said warily as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face. Kato nodded at Evie, who was still standing by the spiral stairs, and bravely turned onto the dark path. Without blinking an eye, he walked past the ominous creatures that lived inside the black market, and headed straight for the den.

---

“…!”

The sound of a slap across the face was followed by a shrill cry.

“I know you have money, Tereshkova. I don’t care where you get it from, but it’s nice to have a reliable source of income, don’t you think? Reliable for me that is.”

Ethan sneered at Yui. His three other lackeys hollered at Ethan’s remark; a typical response from the betas of the animal pack to prop up the alpha’s standing and ego. They surrounded her like a pack of hyenas, watching her every move, making sure she remained in place and obedient.

“And what d’ya know, I’ve found something very interesting yesterday, by pure chance. Your name’s on a list of afternoon classes. Now, why’s that?”

Again, he sneered at his cornered victim, who found the perfect blackmail to squeeze more cash out of her. He continued to play with his food.

“A ward orphan who goes to this school has no choice but to be part of the People’s assistance program. But the program prevents you from taking the afternoon classes. So what’s going on?”

“Oh I know, boss! This girl is not on the assistance program! That’s why her name’s on that attendance slip!”

The short minion jeered wildly in Yui’s direction.

“But if she’s not on the program, then she has to be paying the full tuition, somehow.”

The tall minion surmised calmly.

“And if she’s able to pay for her own tuition, that means she’s got lots of money to spare!”

The chubby minion exclaimed in conclusion.

“Isn’t that it?”

Ethan shrugged condescendingly at Yui. She continued to keep her head down, speechless. Only yesterday that she revealed her secret to the Elites, and today her life was about to be turned upside down. Just briefly, she wondered if the Elites, and Kato, sold her out, but she banished the thought immediately. They were friends, and at the very least on good terms with each other, so she could not believe it was them.

Oh, how quick I start doubting the people I thought I trusted, just from a mere coincidence.

It was a very convincing coincidence. Like the dark days of living in the main orphanage building as a child, a sense of despair crept on her consciousness like an infectious disease. Potential foster parents passed by without sparing a single glance at her. The bitterness of betrayal when another orphan she placed her little bit of trust in outed her to the custodians. The punishments for the wrongdoings she never did and was framed for. That kind of pain and misery resurfaced in her mind and locked her whole body in place, unable to make any reply.

Ethan waited another two seconds before he grabbed Yui by the chin and forcefully lifted her head up to face him. He realized that Yui’s face was a face of anguish, and he grinned. He relished in belittling those below him.

“So, you know what to do, right?”

Bringing his face close to hers, he spoke softly into her ear. It sent a shiver down Yui’s spine, shaking her to her very core. However, the fear she felt did not break her out of her stupor either. She remained motionless as Ethan continued.

“If my dad’s business finds out that you’re secretly taking afternoon classes, then it’s only fair that we have to null and void the ward arrangement. You wouldn’t want that to happen, right?”

Homelessness in the ghetto was suicide. No one in their right minds would risk it. In fact, the situation was even worse because homelessness in Livia now only existed within the ghetto; most of the city was gentrified enough to push the homeless out and into the ghetto. Tears formed at the corner of her eyes as the prospect of homelessness loomed over her.

“I’m a generous person, so it won’t be too often that I ask this from you. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be in cash.”

Ethan smiled, probably maniacally, as his carnivorous gaze lapped up Yui’s delicate body. With his free hand, he gave Yui’s left breast an aggressive grope that matched the lust in his eyes.

“Ahh~”

Yui let slip through her lips a sensual moan. Set off by that erotic cry, just like the patrons of Shamshuipo, the complexions of the four men around her changed into something more primal and animalistic. Their hands made contact with Yui, crudely feeling up her breasts, her waist, her butt, and her thighs. Their putrid breaths got heavier as they molested her and the passion raced through their minds and bodies. Though Yui’s body moved together with their lustful movements, her mind was a million miles away.

Will I… survive?

Futility and hopelessness continued to overwhelm her thoughts. Tears flowed from her eyes as she remained numb to the four men forcefully putting themselves onto her. Yui felt a hand reach under her skirt and played with the panties under it. She knew this feeling all too well. The fingers stroked lecherously at the fabric that wrapped her pussy, already moist from the sexual stimulation.

Again, this sensation…

Another hand slipped into her now-unbuttoned shirt and under her bra, rabidly fondling the bare breast that it held. There was no longer any more distance between her and the four men. On her butt, she could feel a certain familiar hot, solid thing poking at it from under her skirt and voraciously stroking along it back and forth. The intense carnal desires emanating from them were overwhelming, and she was suffocated by the heavy air around her.

I can’t…

As Ethan slowly leaned in for a mouth-to-mouth kiss, Yui squeezed her eyes shut and prayed silently.

“Please, Kato. Save me.”

---

Kato reached his arm inside the crowd of men and forcefully pulled Yui out, putting her off balance and causing her to stumble onto the floor behind him. Though abruptly tossed onto the ground by Kato, she was catching her breath from not the fall, but from being freed from the prison she was in. Kato was still wearing his ridiculous disguise, but at least it worked as Yui did not recognize Kato until he spoke.

“Hey, boss. My friend here is needed elsewhere, and it’s an emergency. Do you think you can lend her to me for the time being?”

Kato asked nicely of Ethan and put on a big smile. Perhaps under the dim lighting of the den, where there were no lights lined on the ceiling and only the ambient light filtering from above the lockers illuminated the area, the grin seemed as sinister as Ethan’s own.

“Who the fuck’re you and what the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”

Reflecting Kato’s smile, he advanced towards Kato, grabbed him by the lapel and almost hoisted him off the ground. Despite the cheery expression, the tone of his voice made it clear that he did not appreciate the intrusion. In fact, Ethan was unmistakably bleeding his killing intent.

“Hey now, don’t be so rude. I only needed to borrow Yui here.”

Kato patted the hand that dug into his dress shirt, which was stretching out the cotton fibres that made it. Ethan did not let go.

“You guys were doing some weird shit here though. Are you a half-wit? I don’t think the teaching staff will be too kind about what happened here.”

“What are you even talking about? I was just having a conversation with the kind lady other there.”

Ethan continued to grin at Kato. There was no change in the malevolent ambience around them. Ethan’s lackeys stayed back, spooked by both their boss and the new challenger.

“A conversation that leaves the girl crying, her shirt open and bra exposed? All right then. That’s kinky. Then I take it that you’re done with her then? I really need her to do something for me, so wanna let me go? Or are you just a whiney kid who cries when their toys get taken away?”

Kato challenged him again. Though their smiles were still on their faces, any traces of amiability, if there were any, were long gone. Ethan’s veins were popping off his skin, that was for sure.

“Again, what are you even talking about? Nothing’s going on around here. If you have a problem, say it straight to my face.”

Ethan dodged the first point for the second time.

“The problem is obvious, isn’t it? You’re an eyesore. Sexual harassment is something a scum of the earth would do. If I could, I would turn you over to the police and have society deal with you, but alas, dealing with your existence is such a pain in the ass.”

Kato shrugged, still playing the banter game with Ethan.

“If you think I’m such an eyesore, then just leave. There’s no place for you here.”

Ethan said through gritted teeth, avoiding speaking on anything about Yui. The standoff was stiff, and he had no desire to let this random person do as he pleased, who just waltzed past the bouncers and came in here.

“Then let go of me.”

“…”

Ethan paused as he thought for a moment. He, surprisingly, let go of Kato and snapped his fingers to motion for his minions.

“All right, then. You can leave, but not intact.”

The other three men crowded around Kato, already forgetting that Yui was still there on the floor, her clothes a mess. They grabbed Kato by the arms and prepared to drag him out to the other end of the den but unexpectedly, Kato did not budge. Using his superior strength, he stood his ground and did not let those guys drag him out.

“What the hell…”

Ethan noticed that Kato was able to resist being manhandled by three men, and his fake corporate smile finally faltered. The surprise turned into fear as the scene in front of him unfolded. As hard as his lackeys tried, Kato remained locked in place. They tried grabbing other body parts too, but they struggled to no avail. It was pitiful as it was comical that no matter how hard they tried, nothing happened to Kato.

“This fucking bastard!”

Frustrated that things were not going his way, Ethan snarled at Kato. With his blood rushing to his head in this moment of panic, he aimed a kick with his right leg at Kato’s stomach to vent his anger. However, before his kick was able to connect, Kato broke free from the three minions in an instant and countered. Just as Ethan’s leg was about to connect with his stomach, Kato sidestepped the swing of the leg and responded with a duck and a sweep of his leg at Ethan’s left ankle. Losing his balance and missing his kick, Ethan was knocked over and landed flat on his back.

“Who… who are you?!”

Ethan stuttered. It was the first time he experienced this kind of powerlessness. Usually, he had the muscle as well as the influence to ward off potential challengers against his selfish desires, but Kato was a challenger that was immune to both. Still on the ground, he reared backwards from Kato in a panic, trying to get away from this abomination of a human being.

“I’m Kato Danubius; about to be your worst nightmare.”

In contrast to Ethan, Kato’s grin remained on his face throughout the entire encounter. The minions that were pushed back by Kato already scurried their way behind their boss.

Ethan’s face was twitching in terror as he internally fought his instincts to flee. His pride did not want him to run away, but his minions already backed off of Kato, and he himself already witnessed first-hand Kato’s physical superiority.

“You’ll… you’ll regret messing with me!”

Ethan could only utter this weak accusation as he continued to rear backwards and climb back onto his feet. The killing intent that Kato did not give off until now, was so overwhelming that his legs shook vigorously in fear and almost fell back down. Ethan finally capitulated, and turned tail and tumbled towards the opposite end of the den, away from the direction that Kato and Teto came from. Similarly, his minions cowered in fear and followed behind him, leaving Kato and Yui to their own devices.

“How did you…”

Yui said, dumbfounded. She was still in the same state as she was when she was thrown out of the ring: her shirt untied and exposing her chest; her skirt pulled up to an awkward position; her hair dishevelled from the rough handling she was subject to. Tears still welled up from her eyes, blurring her vision. A swirl of emotions raged in her heart, a mix of happiness, relief, incredulity and regret.

“Let’s get you out of here, Yui. Your days of suffering are over. Everything’ll be all right now.”

Kato kneeled down and spoke softly to Yui. He expertly tucked in her bra and buttoned up Yui’s uniform, to which Yui made no response to, other than the reddening of her cheeks. Kato wiped the tears away from her face the same way he did yesterday and ruffled her hair in reassurance.

“I told you. I will come and take you away. And I’ll still do. Now, hold your hands around my neck.”

Kato smiled at her and picked her entire person up off the ground and into his arms. Like carrying a new bride, Kato turned around and jogged back in the direction he came from. Yui, who still remained silent, could only bury her face in Kato to hide her own smile and scarlet face. With Kato now here, she felt her worries and fears slip away from her body, and in this moment of physical contact, she also felt warmth that was not from the touch, but from the happiness that Kato was able to give her.

“Let’s go, Kato! I’ve got my stuff.”

Teto was waiting for the two of them at the end of the den, very visibly forcing her will on the bouncer that was on her case. She had already zipped up her schoolbag, camcorder tucked away, and slung over her shoulder.

“Let me go! What the fuck!”

The bouncer continued to complain as Teto held him up against the lockers by the neck with one arm. This was how Kato was able to dodge the bouncer initially to enter the den.

“Right, Teto!”

Kato ran past the two of them and along the path back outside to the atrium. Teto immediately let go of the poor bouncer to follow behind Kato. With Yui clutching tightly onto Kato’s person and Teto holding onto her schoolbag, the three of them re-emerged in the light of the atrium, where Eon was waiting to meet them.

“Here ya go!”

Teto chucked her bag wildly at Eon, who just barely caught its arms in his grasp, leaping off the ground to do so.

“Hey! You can’t expect me to catch that!”

“I made sure that it was just enough for you to catch it~”

Teto winked and saluted at Eon, who comically pretended to be heart-struck.

“All right, let’s regroup for a bit here. Evie’s in position, then?”

“In position.”

Evie replied to Kato’s question over the radio.

“Then let’s get everyone to where Evie is. The end of the operation is near.”

---

Evie stood at the other end of the S-shaped path that snaked through the black market, after receiving info from Teto that the crooks took flight in that direction. She was disappointed that her role in this operation was being the mop-up guy, but she understood she could not replace Kato in his role, and she did not have the impromptu creativeness like Teto to go undercover inside the black market. Her way of thinking was too linear and predictable for that kind of a nuanced role.

This particular entrance was right at the end of the atrium: to her front was the S-shaped path; to her left was a wide path that traced the boundaries of the black market, leading to the open part of the atrium that was the spiral staircase; to her right was the hallway to the classrooms.

Evie saw the perpetrators approaching her from the path in front of her. Like a routed band of soldiers, they limbered their way towards the exit where Evie was waiting in plain sight.

As the first two minions tried to run past her, Evie swiftly knocked them down to the floor without breaking a sweat. Dumbstruck, the chubby minion and Ethan behind them were visibly spooked.

“What’s going on?!”

Exasperated, he did not expect the situation to go out of control like it did. A simple, textbook case of extortion turned into a fiasco that jeopardized his standing within the black market, was what he thought. But unbeknownst to him, it was about to get a lot worse.

“Nothing. I just need you to stay honest for a short while.”

Evie said emotionlessly. The other two were still grovelling on the floor in agony. No doubt Evie had struck their vitals. Her form was impressive as it was intimidating. She rubbed her hands together before delivering the final blow.

“Our classmate is not one you can bully around. I’ll come back and knock you out, every single time.”

Evie quickly dispatched the boss and his right-hand man, giving them both a good strike at the solar plexus, bringing them down to the ground like the other two. Though some onlookers gathered to watch the spectacle, there weren’t many due to the fact that it was the black market. Most normal students steer clear of whatever happens in there.

She idled there for a short while, but the cavalry arrived soon enough. From behind Evie, her troops arrived in quick succession. The first to the scene was Franco, followed by Kato’s platoon minus Teto, and then their trump card, Caius and Sisi.

“This looks like the end of the road for Ethan Henderson.”

Eon quipped from behind his army.

“Evianna, what did you do to them? This is the atrium! They’re just normal people!”

Sisi said in disbelief as she saw the four men still crawling on the ground. There was no protection from injury in the atrium during peacetime.

“It was probably necessary.”

“Agh, as long as you remembered not to do any lasting damage, okay?”

Sisi sighed, but patted Evie’s back all the same, who nodded at Sisi in obedience.

“Oi, you guys on the ground! Listen up!”

Sisi shouted loudly at the struggling bullies. Though they were still in pain, they complied nonetheless. Looking up at the source of the voice, they saw it belonged to this short blonde girl who they recognized as the new teacher of Class 3-F, meaning that the teacher from their victim’s class has intervened at long last.

“This shall be an official statement on behalf of Class 3-F.”

Sisi cleared her voice as she approached aggressively towards the men on the floor, who instinctively flinched back a bit despite the small stature of the little girl in front of her.

“From the evidence gathered, there is good reason to believe that the four of you intended to make physical harm to students from mine class.”

Sisi took out a videocassette tape from the camcorder that Teto had been holding onto before.

“In addition to video evidence, a partial recording was obtained as well, detailing the exchange between you and mine student.”

Out of Caius’ radio set was a cassette tape. His radio set was the central hub for the other sets, and he recorded the entire conversation that occurred between Kato and Ethan. To be fair, it wasn’t as incriminating as the video that Teto captured, but it was an adequate supplement nonetheless.

“Though the evidence is not enough to effect immediate expulsion without appeal, it is more than enough for a settlement on the battlefield. In other words, this is a valid casus belli for a Class War.”

Ethan was stone-faced while his minions were quivering in fear. A Class War started solely due to their misjudgement was as fatal to Ethan’s reputation in the underground as it was to his entire class. It would label him as a failure of an up and coming mafia boss.

“With a valid casus belli, Class F will declare war on Class E.”

Kato emerged from behind Sisi and pointed his finger at Ethan. The die was cast.

“You guys… why are you here?”

It was after school and the Elites were at the old playground. Point Alpha was an expansive and easily accessible area, so many other people frequent this spot as well. Today, quite a few other children were present in the playground, so the Elites were huddled together at a corner, away from the little kids.

But it was not just the Elites that were present. The Jupiter sisters stood there too, opposing them. It was a remarkable crowd of extraordinary third-year students.

“The Elites are planning out their great adventures, so naturally the Jupiter sisters are there to bear witness to the spectacle. It’s merely a law of nature.”

The soft, refined and beautiful voice belonged to Callisto Mirabelle Jupiter, the oldest of the Jupiters, Class B representative and student council president. Her silky black hair was tied at the shoulders in two majestic pigtails that flowed smoothly over her generous bosom; it was not the great size like Evie’s, but it still was as bounteous as Teto’s. Mirabelle’s front bangs were very prominent as it almost covered her eyes. As the eldest sister, she was the de facto leader of their playground band. Not only was she a cheerful and easygoing young lady, she was also perfect in every aspect, being at the top of her class as well as being physically superior. For an unknown reason to Kato, around the time Evie started wearing pantyhose, Mirabelle followed suit as well.

“Mira, we can just leave them be. The people involved aren’t from Class B, so there’s no need for us to get involved too.”

A cynical and cool reply from the student council treasurer came from behind Mirabelle. Though she was the third sister, Ganymede Bianca Jupiter was Mirabelle’s right hand woman. She also had impressive but dishevelled bangs in the front and sides, but she tied her messy black hair back in a loose low bun. Unlike the others, her skirt was frilled and she wore white thigh-highs. Appearance-wise, she mirrored Mirabelle, curves and all, but unfortunately, she was not physically superior. Historically, it was Bianca and her fiery passion that triggered many of the wars between the Elites and the Jupiters.

“Bia, it’s fine to just watch them. It’s fun to.”

The owner of this tame, velvety and composed voice was the fourth sister and student council secretary, Europa Ariel Jupiter. Unlike her sisters, she was much shorter and smaller than them, and tended to be reserved and of few words. Her smooth, straight hair was platinum silver like Evie’s, and her hime cut flowed brilliantly all the way down to her small waist. At the very least, her specs from top to bottom were not as regrettable as Sisi’s. Surprisingly, contrary to her aloofness, Ariel was exceptionally good at games and also very competitive, to the Elites’ horror; activated by competition, many of the Jupiters’ victories were carried by Ariel.

“Yeah, Bia. We can leave them be, but we can also watch them from a distance. Like Ariel said, it sounds like it’s gonna be fun!”

The last of the Jupiter sisters, the second sister and student council executive manager, spoke up in excitement with her lively voice. Io Scarlett Jupiter stood almost as tall as Evie, and matched her physical strength as well. Actually, most of her physical appearance roughly mirrored Evie too, curves and chest included. Though she was blessed with immeasurable strength, she was nowhere near as clever as her sisters; in fact she was known for being a big airhead, and it didn’t help her rep that she was a fashionable gal too. Her brown pixie cut stood in contrast with her sisters’ longer hairstyles.

Though the Jupiter sisters were born as quadruplets, it was easy to recognize that only Mirabelle and Bianca were twins. They all shared the same gold-coloured irises that came from their father’s side of the family.

“This is serious business, everyone. Someone’s livelihood is on the line here, so we’re not doing this for fun.”

Kato rubbed his eyes in weariness. Unfortunately, the Jupiter sisters were on to the stolen key the moment they entered the student council room. On the flip side, the Jupiter sisters were not really enemies of the Elites; they were definitely a group of friends they can rely on. Including Sisi, Yui’s situation was known to all those present here in this gathering. As a side note, Yui takes the bus back to the ghetto and was, of course, not present.

“Even so, I didn’t expect Kato to be the one who started this. I thought it would have been another one of Eon’s dumb ideas.”

“Me too. I thought I’d be the one to drag us into the battle, but I let Kato do it this time.”

Bianca started off bickering with Eon, with whom she had a long-time rivalry with.

“I’m glad to hear that you haven’t changed at all, Eon. Luckily, in today’s student council meeting, it was all announcements. There wasn’t a chance for you to make a fool of yourself.”

“If you’re worried that I didn’t get a chance to, then rest assured. You won’t be disappointed tomorrow after school.”

“As long as you stay in your chair, really, no one has any problems with it. Just don’t lean back and fall off of it like last time.”

“That was one time, and it was in middle school.”

“And yet you still haven’t learned to chill.”

“If it means I lose my swagger, I refuse to chill.”

“Eon! You must chill!”

“Nyeh-verrrr!”

Often times, it was because of these two that the Elites and the Jupiter sisters remained rivals. However, their rapport was quite in sync, likely even as close as between Eon and Caius. Bianca getting sucked into Eon’s rhythm just now was as commonplace as their arguments.

“What I’m interested in is that Kato was bold enough to promise that girl that he’ll take care of her. That’s a dangerous promise to make to a girl~”

“I… got caught up in the moment.”

Mirabelle winked at Kato, who could only scratch at his head and laugh nervously. Mirabelle had always taken a liking to Kato. In fact, Kato could guess it was probably more than just a liking, but Mirabelle’s lips consistently remained tight about it over the recent years.

“I’m surprised that Evie didn’t make a fuss about it.”

“On the contrary, Mirabelle, I’m surprised that you’re not making a fuss yet.”

Evie said rigidly as her eyes narrowed, wary of Mirabelle as always.

“Oh? What do you mean by that? I’m not the one who gives Kato the cold stare every time he makes a pass at another girl.”

Mirabelle smirked as she folded her arms.

“If I don’t, it’ll only encourage him further. Babying him like you do only makes it harder for yourself.”

“Ah, I’m glad you’re looking out for me too. But your method only keeps him away from you, doesn’t it?”

“It means that I’ve already progressed way farther than you have, so you should be looking out for yourself. How many years has it been already, and nothing has changed?”

“I could say the same to you. What else have you been doing this whole time? A rival who can’t challenge me is not a rival.”

“I never thought of you as a rival to begin with. In fact, you’re not even a threat, much less a rival. Go back into your stables, little pony.”

Evie flicked one of her pigtails. Needless to say, Mirabelle was up for game too.

“Likewise, an obedient sow should stay fenced up where she belongs so she doesn’t get in my way.”

Suddenly, in a moment of revenge, Mirabelle grabbed onto Evie’s left breast as she said that and gave it a good squeeze. Evie stared on unperturbed.

“It doesn’t matter if that’s what’s desired. Ponies can just flip off with their stupid tails.”

Evie flicked the other pigtail. Perhaps not surprisingly, Mirabelle maintained her composure just as well as Evie’s poker face.

“We don’t know that though, and all this only confirms your lack of progress. Dead-end for you, perhaps?”

“If you want to measure it this way, then you’re dead-ending just as bad.”

“At least I’m not the sister. I won’t be dead-ending on that route.”

“News flash, but Teto is not a dead-end. Not to him.”

“I’m not a part of this.”

Teto cheerily cut the exchange between the two beautiful girls. Evie and Mirabelle had been advancing towards each other with each passing remark. By the time Teto interjected, their faces were only inches apart and the onlookers could feel the electricity in the air around them.

But Teto’s existence reminded the two of them that they were both trailing far behind Teto in the metaphorical race, and they clutched each other’s hands in gloom. Cynically, Teto’s response could have been a pun referring to exactly this.

“I don’t need you to remind me about that, Evie.”

“It bothers you as much as it bothers me. If you can just ignore it, it can make living more bearable, Mira.”

Though they were eternal rivals, they did share some common ground. They both grimaced at Kato, clearly putting all the blame on him. Kato held up his hands in defeat. A scene like this happens on occasion, and he could only watch on. More amazingly, they always seem to be able to come to an understanding after the fact, which confused Kato to no end.

“Okay, boys and girls, if the obligatory flirting session is finished, we can go back to the master plan, eh?”

Eon clapped his hands together to get hold of the attention of the group. As Evie and Mirabelle returned to ground zero, they blushed in embarrassment. The rest of the group wore different expressions, ranging from indifference to incredulity to smugness.

Caius was sitting on the rubber mulch, clutching onto a huge piece of luggage perched on a tiny trolley that he brought with him from his home. Eon returned the favour for Caius in morning recess; Caius went home early to pick it up and bring it to the playground while Eon sat in student council. Caius opened the luggage to reveal to the group a set of electronic devices, fit snugly in their hollow plastic moulds. The devices were hand-sized metallic boxes with several buttons and ports, as well as an attachment that seemed to allow it to be hooked on other objects.

“These are the sets of radios that pops used to use in the reserves back in the day. Today, these kinds of devices are smaller, more durable and last longer in the field, but for a budget platoon these would have to do. I’ve already configured all of them to communicate through a single, open channel.”

Caius began to explain the set of what were really walkie-talkies. He took one out from its mould, and then pulled out a pair of earphones that were hidden underneath, which was also fit snugly in the mould. He plugged its connector into the radio box, wore the earphones, and snapped the attachment on the radio box to his belt. He adjusted the microphone that was on the wire of his earphones. There was a pin on there too, and he clipped it to his tie.

“And this is how we will communicate.”

“Really? The plan is this complicated?”

Ariel questioned Caius lazily as she mindlessly started twiddling with his earphones and the radio box. Evie and Teto joined her in admiring the piece of technology. Together, Teto and Ariel were at the same height while Evie stood tall and proud above them.

“So this is how we’re gonna do it. I guess there are no better options.”

“No. I’ve tried to come up with something that didn’t involve anything physical, but frankly, without knowing the tendencies of the ghetto dwellers well enough, any outcome would probably remain unstable. From what I understand, that Ethan fellow is a nasty piece of work. The physical alternative has the greatest chance to succeed in the long term.”

Eon explained to Kato as he picked up three sets of radio boxes and their earphones, and passed one set each to Kato and Franco, who put them on like Caius demonstrated. Eon then put on his set and jogged to the opposite side of the playground and out of vision.

Mirabelle also speedily picked up a set from the open luggage and put it on as well. She was just in time to catch what was being said in Eon’s testing.

“Testing, testing. Those who are tired of Kato forever being the target of affection by all the girls, say ‘go die in a fire, Kato’. Those who are named Kato, say ‘okay, I’ll go die in a fire now’.”

“Go die in a fire, Kato.”

“Go die in a fire, Kato.”

“Go die in a fire, Kato.”

“…”

Kato didn’t speak yet. Instead, he looked nervously in the direction of Mirabelle, who noticed it and turned and smiled innocently at him. Kato was sure that not only Mirabelle caught all of that and responded accordingly, but Eon knew full well that Mirabelle was on the comms too.

“Okay, I’ll go die in a fire now. And the radio is working perfectly, so let’s wrap this up and get out.”

Kato spoke into his mike in exasperation. At the very least, Evie didn’t get to hear what Eon had said.

“Wilco. So Kato admitted that he is a lucky bastard. Over and out.”

Eon’s parting jab brought snickers to the other radio users besides Kato, who was feeling his face heating up. Not only was Eon burning him figuratively, but he was burning himself up literally too.

“He’s not wrong, you know.”

Suddenly, Mirabelle put herself in front of Kato, her bright and beautiful face filling up his field of vision. Staying outside Evie’s line of sight, she gave him a radiant smile, one of pure bliss and happiness.

“Mira…”

“Yes?”

She continued to smile at him, somewhat enigmatically. Kato didn’t respond either, preferring to continue watching her beautiful, timeless smile. In moments like these, Kato felt as if he was looking on from afar, just as a god watching the world move forward, from outside of the glass case that encapsulated it. It was her smile that made him forget his sense of self, and compelled him to indulge in this moment of aesthetic perfection and disbelief.

Moments later, when Eon returned to the group, the two of them snapped out of their trance and joined the rest of the group without a word. An abrupt end to the incomplete dream.

Most of the other girls were digging through Caius’ luggage for more funky gadgets. Things like flare guns, ammo spares, gun cleaning tools, spray cans, a camouflage camcorder set, and even a portable encrypted typewriter were pulled out, all laid out on the playground floor.

“It doesn’t look like we’ll be going home without digging through all the treasure in that case.”

“I just hope that nothing breaks. It’s not really my stuff——woah.”

Eon and Caius exchanged a bit of conversation until they heard a large crackling from the earphones in their ears.

“By the way guys, how do I turn off this thing?”

Franco came up to them with his radio set still hooked to his belt and the radio itself still broadcasting. The crackling was most probably from Franco messing with the mouthpiece.

“You are just comprised of fail, aren’t you?”

Eon shook his head, and showed Franco how to disarm the radio set. Then, out of nowhere, Franco made a triggering offhand comment.

“You know, I found some weird-looking pills in a bottle, prob from the pharmacy, in Yui’s schoolbag when I was grabbing it as we went for the rooftop, but I didn’t make the connection until she mentioned the Shamshuipo part.”

The guys turned around, stone-faced. Eon made a really frustrated face, and sighed in irritation.

“Once again, you are just comprised of fail, ain’tcha. If Yui wasn’t as agreeable as she was, we would have been running in circles trying to figure out what was happening to her, so that detail could have saved us time if you had told us sooner. We could confront her directly if she refused to tell us the truth.”

Franco blinked at Eon, who sighed again after explaining. Caius and Kato sighed as well.

“His stupidity knows no bounds.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“How was I supposed to know if it was important?”

“You idiot! As a student holding onto something as suspicious as drugs, it would have triggered a big red warning sign for anyone who discovers something like that.”

“You’re the only one who doesn’t respond to a signal like that.”

“…”

“At least we can confirm the nature of Yui’s line of work.”

Franco fell silent, and with Eon’s final comment, they dropped the subject. Franco hung his head in shame as the rest of them left him behind and joined in the gold digging.

---

More than half an hour passed before the inquisitiveness of the girls has abated and they decided to vacate the grounds for the day. From the playground looking on over the ridge from which they came, they could see the sun setting over the city and the surrounding rocky mountains. The road and buildings behind them were bathed in full orange from the sun’s rays, while the playground had gotten busier and crowded as more children finished dinner and went out to the park to play.

“So we’re meeting up here early tomorrow then? Get here by seven?”

Caius asked as they were, once again, about to part ways. The three younger Jupiter sisters were already making their way home, in the same direction that Caius and Franco would go, towards the rich neighbourhood.

“Seven. Everyone remember to bring your radio sets.”

“Got it.” “’Kay.” “Alright.” “Understood.” “Of course.”

Upon hearing more than two female voices, everyone turned to look at Mirabelle, the one Jupiter sister left remaining.

“Are you joining us on this charade too?”

Evie challenged her immediately, narrowing her eyes again.

“As student council president, I have to follow up on dangerous plans like these.”

Mirabelle shrugged at Evie again.

“Besides, I want to know more about Yui, her own future and her future relationship with the people here.”

Then she revealed her true intentions nonchalantly; not that she intended to hide them anyway. Although they haven’t brought it up with Mirabelle, the question was what the fate of Yui would be if the plan succeeded. Most likely, Yui would not be able to live in that orphanage anymore, so what would happen to her then?

Also, just as obviously, Mirabelle made it pretty clear that she was interested in Yui and her intentions towards certain members of this group of kids. There was no doubt about who those certain members were.

“In any case, I will make sure I get the green light from our side. Sisi is already on board, so I only need old man Karl to confirm it for us.”

Kato quickly dodged the topic and moved on to another, fearing Evie’s wrath if they continued any further.

“If everyone is okay with the plan, then let’s call it a day here and prep for tomorrow.”

With Teto closing out the conversation, the three siblings and Eon waved their goodbyes at the rich boys and girl. Mirabelle sprinted to catch up to her sisters, leaving behind both squads of Elites, who leisurely made their ways home.

“Hold on a sec. Sisi is living with you guys?”

“What the eff? That’s some weird-ass shit right there.”

Caius and Franco reacted to the news with disbelief.

“I said that too; both those things actually, when I first heard of it from them earlier.”

Hanging around in the great, high-ceiling locker area before heading off to their classroom for their morning classes, the five Elites debriefed each other on yesterday’s events. As usual, Eon met up with the three siblings first on the way to school, and was the first to hear of the spicy news.

Though Sisi initially was resting inside the spare room of the siblings’ flat, she eventually decided to convert one of the guest bedrooms in Karl’s flat into her own room. Her intuition serving her well, Sisi realized that in order to live with the whirlwinds, it was best to give them a wide berth. As she was partially replacing Karl as their guardian, this aspect of the arrangement also panned out nicely.

“It’s good news and bad news. Good news is that it is possible to make her one of us.”

“One of us, one of us!”

Kato beat his chest twice in quick succession with the thumb side of his fist. His men replied in song as they nodded in earnest.

“Bad news is that our operations will probably come under scrutiny. Therefore, we must act with care when carrying out our duties, soldiers.”

Suddenly, Kato became the sergeant of their little platoon. He took his baseball cap out of his schoolbag and Evie’s sunglasses from her schoolbag, and wore them.

“As such, our main base of operations, the old playground, is even more important. Whenever we need to gather, we’ll gather there. Codenamed Point Alpha. Corporal, please take note.”

“Hey-yo. Point Alpha, registered as a rallying point.”

Caius saluted him merrily. The other two snickered.

“Private Koziko. You live the closest to us and therefore the closest to Sisi too. While we’re under surveillance, you’re not. If anything happens, you’re our first line of communication.”

“Hey-yo. I’ll make sure everyone else knows how Sisi bosses you around.”

Eon saluted him haughtily. The other two snickered.

“And Private Atkinson. I… don’t think I got anything for you, actually. Maybe the occasional Alpha Charlie, I dunno.”

The three other guys outside of Franco snickered.

“Wait, what the eff, guys! Don’t snake me like that, Kato! I already get enough ass-chewing from you guys.”

Franco cried out a bit, clearly dying a bit inside.

“Your warrant officer is not amused that she’s been left out of the conversation.”

Evie clasped her hand on Kato’s shoulder, who immediately got the chills from the stare that was drilling holes in the back of his head. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face before he turned to Evie and repeatedly bowed in repentance.

As they finished changing into their indoor shoes, the crew started to move out towards the main set of spiral staircase that stood majestically in the spacious centre of the locker area. The locker area was colloquially called the “atrium” due to this expansive space in the centre. It was in this open area that the aforementioned corporal punishments were carried out. These main stairs led to the upper floors of the building; the second floor housed the second-years and the third floor housed the third-years. Looking up, one could see the balconies of those floors. On the ground floor beyond the atrium housed the first-years. The crew’s lockers were at a corner of the area and at the very tail end of their row of lockers, so they were far away from the staircase.

“Huh. What’s up with that there?”

Right before they set off, Kato noticed something intriguing several locker columns over. Behind one of the few pillars that stood from the ground floor to the ceiling several floors up, a few boys from another third-year class were huddling around a crouching girl, apparently sneering at their victim. Because they formed a tight circle around that girl, as well as being plainly too far away, Kato couldn’t see who that girl was.

“Dunno. Doesn’t seem to concern us though.”

Franco shrugged at the circle of vultures, which was very clearly a disturbing scene. But Franco was right nonetheless. Relations between the different classes were rocky at best, and it was best to leave each other to their own devices.

“Still looks really bad, though at least they’re bullying the poor girl in a corner where it’s hard for others to see them. That’ll look shameful as ass.”

Just as Eon finished his sentence, one of the bullies aimed a kick that produced a fall and a muffled squeal from the girl. Then they heard the sound of coins dropping on the floor. Almost immediately, the circle of boys hastily picked up the fallen coins from the floor, broke away from their encirclement, and ran off as quick as possible.

“Ah. Like always, what makes the world go round is the sound of gold.”

Caius remarked at the sound of things as he, along with most of the crew, already turned around from the spectacle and left for the stairs. But Kato, who was still intrigued, took a final glance at the scene of the crime before turning around too.

Though he only caught a glimpse of the ponytailed girl who had her back turned to him and took off quickly too, Kato still caught sight of both her old and new bruises and cuts along her legs, especially the fresh and rosy one blooming above her right ankle. Despite being far away, Kato thought the girl looked like someone he knew, but there weren’t anybody from the other classes that he knew of that would match this girl’s description, so he remained puzzled at that familiarity as he followed his brethren to class.

---

“A casus belli is a reason which can justify a war between two classes. A valid casus belli is a casus belli that a Supervisor of the Class Wars is willing to accept. All teachers and staff are Supervisors, so therefore, if a teacher thinks a casus belli is reasonable enough to warrant a settlement of the conflict on the battlefield, he or she can bring it forward to the headmistress, and she shall announce the opening of hostilities.”

Sisi explained to the class further about the Class Wars.  For the next week or so, it seems like homeroom would consist of Sisi drilling the class on its rules.

“As war can break out at a moment’s notice, remember to bring to school and wear your cleanse tags. Although you all already know, as you have had them many times in your previous years’ Class Wars, the faculty staff cannot stress enough how important it is to keep it on you at all times. Not only does it protect you even if the cleanse tag is fully saturated in black, only those with cleanse tags can participate in the Wars.

“Even more importantly, your cleanse tag is only fully replenished once a month, at the start of the month. At the end of a War, your cleanse tag shall only be replenished a small percentage. So it is possible for multiple classes to snipe a certain class within a single month to take advantage of their battle fatigue.

“Therefore, a single War is not a be-all and end-all. A single War is merely a battle. The real war is the entire competition throughout the year. Don’t be discouraged if the enemy is ahead at the moment. The only thing that matters is where the score shall settle come next July.”

“Teach, what if we don’t want to participate?”

A hand went up in the air.

“Standard diploma students are always entitled to conscientious objection. At the start of the war, if you wish, you are allowed to retire from the war without punishment. To do so, simply remove your cleanse tag to signal your retirement, and Lady Eterna’s divine protection shall protect you for the rest of the war. Sisi recommends putting the cleanse tag back on once you’ve retired, since you may forget about putting it back on after the war concludes. The cleanse tag prevents injury outside of wartime.”

“Miss, are you allowed to rip away other people’s cleanse tags?”

Another hand went up.

“If you do, you both shall retire from the war immediately and receive divine protection. A period of arbitration by a Supervisor shall follow, and usually, the offender shall get punished while the other gets to re-enter the war. That is the precedent set.”

Then, right as the bell rang, the classroom door opened. At the door was Yui, her hair a bit messy and her expression a bit gloomy.

“Sorry, Ms Romana. I am late to class.”

“That is fine. The bell just rang, and class has not begun yet, so Sisi shall not take your late attendance. Take your seat.”

Yui bowed in appreciation and trotted off with her head down, and she seated herself in her usual spot in front of Caius and the Elites.

It was in this moment that Kato realized, in a flash, that the girl who had her money stolen this morning was Yui. Though Yui did not wear that ponytail she had downstairs to class, it was obvious now, with the real specimen right in front of him, that this was undoubtedly the girl hunched back, crouching on the floor, being kicked around by those scumbags. The new injury above her right ankle was definitely the same one he saw mere minutes ago.

Kato stiffened as he took out his notebook and quietly ripped pieces of paper out of it. Taking out a pencil, he quickly wrote a short note on one of the scraps, rolled it up and handed it to Evie to his right.

Yui was the girl being beaten this morning.

Evie furrowed her eyebrows upon reading the contents. Then, she also took out a pencil to write on the scrap of paper she received.

If that’s true, it might be become a complicated situation. Kato, are you sure?

She wrote on it, scrunched it up and threw it to her northwest, at Franco’s head while Sisi was facing the chalkboard. Franco flinched a bit at the unannounced hit, turned around smoothly and caught the rumpled scrap nicely in his right hand. He took out his mechanical pencil as he opened and wrote in it.

We don’t know which class those goons are from though. Either way, I feel a cross-class conflict incoming.

Franco folded the scrap expertly in a neat square and passed it under the table to Caius on his left, who received it without moving his line of sight away from the front of the class. Caius flipped out a blue rollerball pen and wrote on the back of the piece of paper.

Think she’s been struggling for some time already? She has many injuries.

Caius folded the paper in the same manner Franco had, and passed it behind him. Eon picked it up and wrote in it as well with a ballpoint pen.

She seems to have enough money to be the target of robbery. What do you think, Kato?

 And finally, Eon scrunched the note again and returned it to its owner for him to read. This was the Elites’ note-passing path while class was in session.

The four others had markedly different handwriting. Caius had the most beautiful and clear handwriting; Kato’s was decent enough but clearly not a practiced writer; Franco’s was clear but wrote his characters with heavy strokes; Evie’s strokes were light, slanted and elegant; Eon’s was cursive to a nearly illegible fault. After reading its contents, he took a fresh strip of paper to write on, and began passing them to Evie again.

I’m certain it is Yui. We’ll investigate her to start. Then we’ll deal with the other classes. Who’s up for morning recess?

In.

In.

Out. Going to student council. I’ll fill in for Eon.

In. Skipping student council.

And the note returned to Kato, who mused over their responses for a brief moment before quickly writing another message.

I will clear the way forward and wait on the rooftop. Evie will drag her there. Eon and Franco, clear the path behind us. Caius, I’ll leave the Jupiters to your discretion.

The Jupiters. It was the shorthand for the Jupiter sisters, just as Elites was shorthand for the Elite Four. Very concise and clear instructions were written on the third and final message, and when the slip returned to Kato, it came with “Understood” from all four of them. And so the plan was set in motion.

---

“Glad you can make it here, Yui.”

If Kato had a swivel chair, he would be sitting in it with a cat on his lap and swinging it around to face Yui. Unfortunately, he did not, so with his baseball cap and Evie’s sunglasses, he only could only stand in front of her, hands on hips, while Evie had a lion’s grip on Yui’s wrist, clearly not going to let her go.

“I brought the goods.”

“Good, good. Soon, we’ll complete the grand transmutation circle and summon the great mythical beast Nessie. No, of course not. We’re here for Yui.”

Kato dropped the antics as soon as Evie started to open her mouth to respond. No doubt she has some pleasant remarks for Kato. Behind Kato now stood Franco, who trailed behind the two girls as they came up and holding onto Yui’s schoolbag.

The plan went quite smoothly. The moment that the bell rang for morning recess, Evie and Kato stood up immediately, the former headed straight to Yui while the latter ran for the door. Too surprised to react, Evie only said “we need your help, come with me” to her before taking an iron hold of Yui’s arm, pulled her off her chair and out of the classroom.

While the rest of the class was a bit startled by it, it wasn’t too uncommon to see Evie using physical force. As Evie hustled Yui out and up towards the rooftop, Franco tidied up and grabbed her belongings before following Evie and Yui out the door. Eon, expecting a reaction from Sisi, already headed to the front of the class to explain to her their intentions. Perhaps surprisingly, Sisi tentatively bought his story at face value, and let Eon and the others go.

Kato, on the other hand, ran full speed down the hallways to make it to the student council room, where they stored the keys for various doors in the school, including the key for the rooftop door. Due to his speed, he arrived at an empty student council room. He proceeded to snatch the key to the rooftop door, which he has stolen before on multiple occasions. With the key, he wasted no time to bolt for the rooftop.

Caius, of course, was no stranger to this setup. He would cover Kato’s back in the student council room if he was caught in the act, or if he wasn’t, Caius can do damage control if anyone actually notices; what he chooses to do, was in his discretion.

“The deed is done. We are in the clear.”

Eon appeared at the top of the stairs to the rooftop, surreptitiously notifying the crew of his mission being accomplished along with an “OK” hand gesture. Kato nodded appreciatively at Eon’s words. It was wise to not startle Yui with Sisi’s knowledge of the proceedings.

“Now, let’s get down to business.”

Kato rubbed his hands together as Evie let go of Yui to come over and stand by Kato. Eon also made his way over to the crew, and everyone there faced Yui. The sky was overcast and the light winds were uncharacteristically chilly for a late summer morning. The rooftop was bounded by an old chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, and the ground was tiled with plain white ceramics, a few of them broken. The rooftop was probably used at some point in the school’s long history, but has long since fell into disrepair.

Ditching the baseball cap and sunglasses, Kato advanced towards Yui, who instinctively took a step back; but it was not in the manner of a cornered animal. Because of how long they had known each other, Yui knew the Elites and their personalities well enough, and vice versa. The gesture was not an expression of fear, but of her wariness and did not want to answer their questions. But of course, Kato was not taking a ‘no’ for an answer.

“We’ll make this quick and go straight into the issue. This morning, we happened to witness an armed robbery, but with no arms and just kicks to the ankles.”

Kato glanced over at Yui’s now swollen ankle as he said so. Yui’s expression, which was already forlorn to start with, gradually turned more miserable and lost. Avoiding eye contact with the faces in front of her, she could only look down at her feet in grief.

“It happened on the far side of the atrium, behind one of the pillars at the end of a column of lockers. It involved some students who aren’t in our class. We have good reason to believe the victim was you. So is it?”

Several moments passed, but Yui still did not respond. She closed her eyes and stand in place motionlessly as she struggled internally with the question presented to her.

Of course it was Yui who was the victim of that robbery. It wasn’t the first occurrence either. It happened on and off throughout the course of senior high, but the physical violence only began at the end of the last school year. Before that, she would give up a bit of money to those bullies and would try to avoid them as much as possible. However, they have grown bold enough to physically abuse their victims to get them to give up more money.

Yui did not know whether she could explain to the Elites about her predicament. But as she opened her eyes and looked up at the four of them, she found her vision blurred and watery.

“Huh, what…”

Yui sniffled as she put her hands to her face. Only when she touched her tears, she realized that she was crying.

“Hey, wait! Don’t cry! Oh god, we didn’t come here to make you cry. We’re here to help you with whatever it is, alright? We can go beat them up in your place.”

“I’m a bit disappointed, Kato. Is your special ability making girls cry?”

“Don’t listen to her, Yui. She’s just jealous that you’re more of a girl than she is. It’s perfectly acceptable to cry. I just hope it wasn’t because of me.”

“A woman’s tears is sacred, Kato. She’s crying here because this is damned important to her. Right, Yui?”

Kato and Evie exchanged conversation as they both walked up to Yui. Kato gently wiped away her tears while Evie wrapped herself around behind Yui, tenderly brushing Yui’s back with her hand as Yui continued to sob ever so lightly.

“Crying like that, my guess is certainly right, right? Then the next step is simple. We’re gonna go look for those kids in the other classes, find them, and beat the shit out of them. Isn’t that right?”

“Sure, boss. You’re doing the beating anyway.”

“Just don’t get any blood anywhere, please.”

Franco and Eon replied to Kato in their usual attitude.

“Yui, you don’t need to be afraid of them with us here. I promise that we’ll take care of you and the consequences that follow.”

Kato said soothingly as Yui continued to remain silent. Yui still did not know whether she was able to trust them. Even so, a sense of helplessness crept upon her as she was stricken by the Elites’ generosity in extending their help to her.

“We just need to find an opportunity to beat them until their mothers can’t recognize them. And naturally, I have just the way.”

Perhaps because Evie said something really dangerous juxtaposed with her calm and cool voice, Yui finally woke from her stupor and broke her silence.

“W-wait! You can’t just do that!”

“Why not?”

Evie asked innocently. Though she feigns a lack of common sense often times, apparently she was still missing some of it as she still comes to physical answers to problems.

Either way, Yui choked as she struggled to find the words to explain herself. After calming down a bit, and knowing Evie as she did, she realized it was almost certain that the Evie and the Elites would cause an uproar, with Yui herself at the centre of attention as the root cause. She shuddered at that thought, and with courage, she turned around to face Evie.

On her face was exactly the expression Yui imagined it would be: a look of childlike curiosity. Yui then turned back to Kato, whose expression was warm and soft. She closed her eyes in helplessness once more. She would have to tell them about her situation, or else the Elites might run loose with it.

“I’ll talk about it, just please, don’t go beating them up on your own. It will ruin my life for good.”

Yui sighed in resignation. She buckled as her knees and hands hit the floor. If it was anybody else who saw that scene, they would not have pursued her as the Elites did, and life would have moved on unabated. But now, her future seemed fraught with danger as the whirlwinds of Class F entered the fray with her.

Satisfied that Yui was willing to talk, the two siblings smiled, and kneeled down to Yui’s level.

“Then let’s hear about it. We can stay here for as long as we need. We can skip classes too, so there’s no need to rush.”

Kato reassured Yui as he nodded to Eon, who understood his question and nodded in response. Luckily, Eon was indeed smart enough to ask for mercy from Sisi in case of needing to skip classes. Seeing that the two siblings in front of her were now listening attentively, Yui took a deep breath. Slightly in awe at the impressive assembly of friends in front of her, she began.

“Then I’ll start from the beginning. As you already know, I live in the main orphanage of the ghetto all my life. By middle school, I was too old to go to a foster home, so I was put in the post-foster ward of the orphanage. Going to that ward usually meant that the kid has no future. It was homelessness if you haven’t found a job or a place to stay after you turn eighteen, so I knew I had to do something before I graduated from senior high.

“There aren’t many ward children, but anyone who gets there, knowing what awaits them in six years’ time, inevitably become desperate; desperate to leave the ward without living on the streets, and I’m no different. We have to make something happen, somehow.”

Yui paused here for a moment as she prepared herself. The four other human beings present also tensed up.

“To make ends meet, when senior high started, I’ve started working in the north Shamshuipo area of the ghetto. Jobs only poor girls are willing to take on.”

Yui paused here again as her audience’s faces hardened. As people who lived in this city for years, it wasn’t hard to figure out what she was implying. The north area of Shamshuipo was one of the largest red light districts in the city. There was no doubt about the nature of work that Yui would be doing there.

“You guys… don’t seem too shaken by that… maybe?”

Yui asked hesitantly as there was still no response from them.

“… I don’t have to judge what kind of work you have to do. After all, you have your hardships to overcome, and only so many options are available to you. My resolve hasn’t changed. I’ve already promised you that I’ll take care of you, so nothing you say’ll change that.”

Kato said finally. For sure, he was surprised that Yui was working in the red light district, a notorious part of the ghetto. From what he knew of her as a long-time fellow classmate, she was a quiet and polite girl who wore a soft and content expression often times, though her mannerisms were obviously not of someone who was well-off. She definitely did not seem like a girl who would be part of the city’s sex industry.

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

Yui smiled at them for once. Having been living in near-poverty throughout her life, she tended to be cynical and less trusting of other people, despite the friendliness she expresses outwards. Instinctively, she tried to suppress that feeling of hope, but at this moment, from the bottom of her heart, she really wanted to believe in Kato’s words.

“With the money, I could pay for the advanced classes in the afternoon to make work towards a Standard diploma. With the Standard diploma, hopefully I could balance post-secondary with work and be able to support myself. I’m not sure if I have to continue with my job in Shamshuipo by then. It’ll be up to luck whether I can find a stable part-time job while studying.

“But first, until I graduate from here, I have to put up with the stupidity from those idiots from Class E. The reason why I have to just endure it is because one of them is the son of the director of the orphanage.”

Yui shook her head in frustration as she explained the crux of the problem. The siblings understood instantly why Yui did not want them to turn her world upside down. As long as Yui lived under that roof, she could not rebel against the master of the house.

“The orphanage doesn’t know that I’m taking advanced classes, nor do they know that I work in Shamshuipo. All they know is that I work a part-time job somewhere in the ghetto and making some money. It was enough for that bastard and his minions to start taking away my money. One saving grace is that as long as I give up money regularly, they don’t seem to care where I get it from.”

“Who’s the son of the director?”

“Ethan Henderson. Class E. He’s the tallest guy in the group from this morning.”

Yui answered Kato’s question, to which he immediately recognized the description. Ethan was the bloke with a fairly large frame and an unshaved and handsome face. On first impression, it was hard to imagine he would be a bastard, but it turned out that there was more than what meets the eye.

“Do you know if he’s a racist scum from the fatherland? I would imagine that knowing you’re half Yue and half Avian, he would have no remorse stealing from a half like you.”

Evie presented a good point to the group around her. Evie herself is half Yue and half Avian as well, and despite how beautiful and impressive she was, she still occasionally encounters the racial discrimination that other, less gifted halfs suffer from.

“Definitely. It’s not hard to pick up on these details after having these kinds of interactions with that bastard for so long.”

Yui confirmed Evie’s suspicions as her speech veered into vernacular territory. Both Kato and Evie were pleasantly surprised that Yui had some defiance in her.

“Whoever that Ethan guy is, his mental is probably twisted as fuck. Yui is already a beautiful enough girl to shut most people up, so for him to have the balls to rob her is just fucked up.”

Kato said as Yui blinked in surprise and her heart skipped a beat. Though she heard words of praise for her looks more times than she could remember, this was the first time that it took her aback and made her heart race. Perhaps it’s because she held the people here as those that she cared about, or because those who complimented her in the past were merely unimportant passersby to her in the long list of clients in the alleyways of Shamshuipo, she was more sensitive to it and reacted so.

“So the orphanage never found out that you were taking afternoon classes or that you were taking up work in Shamshuipo? At the very least, the custodian of your ward should be receiving your report cards, right? Also, if you’re with the orphanage, aren’t you on the People’s assistance program? That’s the only way they can let you go to a school as expensive as this one.”

Eon finally spoke. Pushing up his glasses with his finger, he asked another pertinent set of questions.

“No, they aren’t that invested in finding out what the ward orphans are up to, as long as they’re there when they need them, which is almost never.”

“At middle school age, they no longer need to take full legal custody of ward orphans, but usually still provide shelter until they reach adulthood, because normally, renting out property to minors is illegal. It’s sort of like a homeless shelter kind of situation. There’s probably some kind of contractual arrangement for it.”

Caius added onto Yui’s explanation, to which she nodded in agreement.

“That’s right. And then, I pay a press artisan to forge my report cards for me. I have to be timely and intercept the mail that arrives at the orphanage, but so far, nothing’s been blown over yet.”

“Wow. You’ve been living on the edge.”

“Always have.”

Yui shrugged at Eon’s quip.

“As for the People’s assistance program, I don’t have it set up because I take advanced classes. Similarly for my report cards, I need to forge all the required documents. Luckily, both things that I need to forge only needs to happen three times a year in total, so it isn’t too much of a hassle to do.”

The People’s assistance program. It was a loan scheme set up by the school to allow poorer students to get a loan and stay in school to complete the People’s diploma. As a rule to prevent abusing the system, students within the program were not allowed to take advanced classes.

“So the orphanage thinks you’re still on the People’s assistance program despite being not on it. Then that Ethan chap never found out that you were taking afternoon classes? I’d assume that he would make that connection at some point.”

It was Caius’ turn to interrogate her.

“It’s pure luck. He doesn’t take any advanced classes, so he probably has no idea about the scheme. The orphanage seems to still believe I’m on the People’s diploma, so I’m not complaining about it. Of course I take precautions, like appearing to leave the school after lunch…”

Yui said sheepishly as the rest of them flipped their shit out in comical fashion.

“Yui had such a great setup around managing her life, up until I heard this.”

Evie put her hand to her forehead as shook her head helplessly.

“That flimsy straw can break the camel’s back, but its back survived up to this point because of pure luck. That’s insane.”

Eon sat down on the ground, clearly deflated.

“At least she only has one year left to go.”

Caius joined Eon, crouching on the floor, amused at the incredulity of Yui’s situation.

Yui could only smile weakly at the Elites, feeling a bit sad that she couldn’t give a better answer than that. While the rest of his crew was taking a break from the tension, Yui turned to Kato again to address him.

“So that’s all I have. Do you think I’m wrong to believe that I can continue on like this?”

Yui asked softly. A question filled with insecurity and hope.

Kato gave a moment’s thought before he replied.

“Yui, that’s the whole story, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll definitely take you with me, away from the bullshit you have to go through. You can leave it to me.”

Kato said confidently to Yui as the Elites around them nodded. Yui felt the same glimmer of hope that Kato gave her earlier. She tried to shy away from it, but it was hard to do so as Kato’s figure filled her field of vision. Yui felt guilty that she allowed herself to believe in them, but at this point there was no turning back. She felt that somewhere at the very start, Kato had already stolen her heart away, and she could only follow behind him and his crew.

“Am I not enough? I certainly think I am.”

Though Yui knew full well that Kato was talking about his abilities as an Elite, but for a short moment, she let herself believe that it was something more equivocal and fanciful.

“Then, as you’ve promised, I’ll have you take responsibility for me.”

Yui buried her face in Kato’s chest, wrapping her arms around him. Her blazing red hair danced lightly in the cool summer wind, mirroring her swirl of emotions in this moment of tenderness.

As Sisi had explained, the third-year classes participate in a physical competition, the Class Wars, to determine the strongest class of the year. The Class Wars were a martial tradition of Korolev Senior, as historically this school was the alma mater of many legendary deities that fought across the continent for various causes, chiefly the secret society of Eternia, who was the sole patron of this school for the entirety of its existence.

The other martial institution that produced enough deities to challenge Korolev Senior was the Central Imperial Academy of Military Arts, the prestigious officer school for the empire. Central Mil produced many deities that went into service for the empire’s army. In a sense, Central Mil was the rival of Korolev Senior, as historically many of the deities who graduated from these two schools often fought on opposing sides during times of conflict.

Almost the entirety of the school grounds was enveloped by a magical barrier, which functioned as a defensive shield against trespassers as well as alerting the school of an intrusion. Moreover, the barrier serves another purpose in the Class Wars. During a war in the Class Wars, cleanse tags would prevent injury to the wearer while within this barrier, permitting an all-out physical brawl without fear of injury.

The headmistress of the school, the mysterious three-hundred-something-year-old Lady Eterna, maintained the barrier around the school as well as restoring any physical damage done to the school building during a war. She was also responsible for the protection of people who did not wear cleanse tags during a war. Eterna was an extremely gifted alchemist, and together with her two sisters, founded Eternia as an underground secret society. She based herself in this school precisely to produce talented fighters to fight for Eternia.

However, in this day and age, the rapid progress of society and technology required a shift in focus to the rational subjects of the day, such as mathematics and science. In the past, Korolev Senior was a very martial school that taught a variety of specific fighting techniques, but as time passed the curricula evolved into something more like those in commoner schools. Today, martial arts were non-credit afternoon classes that did not contribute to the Standard diploma credit requirements, so they were classes that ultimately got skipped over by many students aiming for post-secondary education.

“No one brought lunch, right? Aight, we’re gonna go to the caff to get some food. Sit tight here, brothers.”

With that, Franco got up from his seat along with Evie and they both ran out the door for the cafeteria. Unlike a typical school cafeteria, this school cafeteria was famous for its traditional Oriental-style food from the Yue homeland, and would always attract long lines of students every day. There have been many Class Wars fought over the privileges in this cafeteria.

“And there goes the finest man I’ve ever met.”

“You mean the fattest man you’ve ever met.”

“Eon says it every time Franco goes to fight that long-ass line to get food for us. You don’t need to correct him every time too, Caius.”

Kato rolled his eyes at the in-jokes exchanged between the remaining two boys. Franco used to be a chubby boy when they first met, but after meeting his goddess Evie, he finally got the motivation to get rid of the extra fat.

Eon and Caius, however, were not perturbed at Kato’s complaint.

“Heh, and now that Franco’s gone, his role goes back to the original straight man, Kato.”

“Heh, it’s time for some callback humour.”

Eon and Caius grinned at each other. They were not going to be pulling any punches at all. Kato knew the routine already though, and usually the easiest way to get out of it was to segue the topic at hand to something else. Later, when the Elites look back on their year, they would come to laugh at how the future came to be from this little twist of fate.

“Hey, Yui, are you all right? You’re bruised everywhere.”

Kato called out to a classmate sitting in front of the Elites. Yui Tereshkova. She had been in the same class as them since primary school, so she was no stranger to the Elites. She had shoulder-length red hair with ends curling inwards and her eyes were light indigo, an eye colour of the Avian people.

“Eh? Um, yeah, I’m all right. It happens when you live in the ghetto.”

Yui smiled weakly at the three of them. The ghetto. Yui lived at an orphanage that was based in the city ghetto in the heart of the city, an area where people lived in near-poverty. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of a rapidly developing city was the widening gap between the rich and the poor, segregating areas of the city by economic class. Although across the city there were several areas that could be considered ghettos, only the one in the city centre was called a “ghetto”.

Even though she came from the ghetto, if one examined closely, her face was very impressive, perhaps enough to be second in their class behind Evie. As her emotions animated her face, the allure of her various expressions was truly something to behold. But alas, her natural beauty never surfaced within the boundaries of this school, nor did she ever try to do so.

“I’ve lived in the ghetto as a kid, but did things get even worse over the years?”

“And there’re no plans for gentrification either.”

“The ghetto is a lost cause, my friends. There’s no other place that the people of the ghetto can go, so it’ll be here to stay.”

“It’ll be fine. Yui’s taking afternoon classes, right? D’ya have any plans after graduation?”

Kato, Eon and Caius quickly roped Yui into their conversation, and though it wasn’t often she get to talks to them, it was often enough to know their individual tendencies, so in a sense she was already used to their mindless banter. She turned around in her chair and faced the boys in their conversation.

“We brought back the best of the best, my little piggies. A fitting feast for the return of us, the legends, to this great institution.”

Evie appeared in the doorway, triumphant with a lunch box in her hand. Franco followed her inside, clutching onto everyone else’s lunch boxes with his life.

“Ah, the fight to the front of the line was a long one, but we got’em in the end.”

Franco struggled with his five lunch boxes as he stumbled inside.

“Oh, Yui’s joining us for lunch too? Sorry about that, we didn’t get enough boxes.”

Evie asked as she saw Yui talking to the boys. As Yui replied, she took out a cloth-wrapped box from her bag.

“It’s all right. I’ve brought my own lunch.”

Yui again smiled timidly as she spoke.

“We’re not your little piggies! We are the greatest beings to have ever lived!”

“So same thing as being my little piggies. No difference.”

Evie brushed off Eon’s objection easily and sat back down at her desk. Then, another familiar figure appeared at the door.

“Hey everybody! I’m gonna be eating lunch with my friends from now on, so can I have my lunch box now~?”

Teto appeared at the door waving her arms at the crew with very unfortunate news for Kato, who instantly started bawling his heart out.

“Enjoy yourself! Remember to come back once in a while to entertain us.”

Franco, who was still standing up, tossed one of the boxes over to Teto and gave her a wink and a thumbs-up. Teto winked back at the crew and immediately skipped away, headed back downstairs to her classroom.

“It’s all right, Kato. Your little sister won’t be coming here anymore, probably because she wants to avoid your sister complex. But at least we still got Yui here.”

Eon pretended to console Kato, of course. There was not a moment that Eon wouldn’t take to take a shot at Kato.

“Hey, I’m not Teto’s replacement!”

Yui pouted at Eon’s last remark there. She managed to settle in among the Elites and speak more confidently.

“And no one’ll ever be. I only have one little sister, now and forever.”

Kato laid his face onto his desk, not wanting to see a world without his dear little sister.

“Eheheh, Kato’s taking it a bit too hard this time around.”

Caius poked at Kato’s cheek, the man still unresponsive to the world.

“The moment he sees Teto again, all will be forgotten. We can just start eating lunch without him. And if he still doesn’t eat his lunch, I can eat his for him.”

Evie shrugged at the antics for once. She took the boxes away from Franco and passed it to the boys who stayed behind in the classroom. Kato immediately sat back up as Evie threw his box in his direction, allowing the box to land gracefully on top of the desk instead of on top of his head.

“Evie!”

Kato stared at his stepsister wide-eyed, who also matched his critical gaze. The staring contest continued for about three seconds before Kato broke off contact from Evie’s eyes, which were slowly turning into the dead, hollow eyes that pierced right through his poor soul.

“Th-thanks.”

Kato choked on his words as he came off of Evie’s intense gaze. The rest of the crew laughed at their incredulity as Evie recovered and smirked at Kato, claiming victory once again. Kato bowed to Evie in defeat and opened his lunch box along with everyone else.

---

After the end of the afternoon classes, the Elites met up in the locker area to change from their indoor to outdoor shoes and close out their first day of third year. The lockers were where students would pass through first when they arrive, and then pass through again as they leave. Traditionally, the locker area was where corporal punishment was carried out. As such, a hole in the barrier was intentionally created here in the locker area to allow corporal punishment, even when people wore the cleanse tags.

Grabbing their personal belongings, the Elites were satisfied with their first day of school and began to walk home, five o’clock on the dot.

The road home was a bit long, and unfortunately the paths home between Franco and Caius versus the other four would diverge. As they did from last year and the year before, they all agreed to make the split-off at the old playground they and the Jupiter sisters used to frequent, which although it made the way home a little longer for everyone, the extra distance was reasonably short enough to take it. If they needed to, they could all meet up here in the morning on the way to school. They passed by many apartments, shops, a factory, and up a very long hillside path before reaching the playground at the top.

The playground grounds were not made of sand, but of rubber mulch, as the city is essentially devoid of open grass or soil; a city of pavement. Behind the main playground were a jungle gym, then a fair amount of space, and then a large chain-link fence with a locking door that shielded it all from a narrow road, lined on the opposite side with many short apartment buildings with small shops on the street level. Turning around from that road to face the direction of the hillside road they came from, there was a very clear and majestic view of the city below, as well as the hills and mountains that surrounded it.

“See you guys tomorrow.”

“Eon, we have student council duties starting tomorrow, so we won’t be heading home immediately, guys. It’ll probably last an hour after school if you guys want to wait around.”

Franco and Caius called out and waved to the siblings and Eon as they parted ways at their old playground.

“Got it, shorty.”

Eon responded with a simple quip as they all waved back at Franco and Caius, bidding them farewell as the cloudless sky began to turn slightly orange. They went in opposite directions along that road beyond the playground; the siblings’ party towards more apartment buildings in one direction, Franco and Caius toward the more suburban-like area with large houses in the other. As a side note, the Jupiter sisters’ home was also in the direction of the suburbs.

Passing by many apartments and a few more lights, the four had come back to their familiar road. Eon’s building was the first, so he broke off from the party first.

“I’ll see everyone in the mornin’ then.”

The brother-sister duo saluted the bespectacled man, while Evie flicked her hair as if she was in a commercial for a hair product. Eon replied with a similar salute, opened the steel doors to enter the apartment and disappeared up the stairs. The siblings walked on for only a few buildings before they also reached home.

As noted before, they lived in a doubled-up flat; two flats combined together by removing a part of the wall that separated them, connecting the two living rooms together. The second flat’s front door was then sealed so that only the door into the first flat remained open to the apartment’s stairs. In the first flat there was a living room complete with colour TV and couches, an Oriental-style kitchen, an indoor balcony with the washing machine and laundry tools, Karl’s home office and bedroom, and two guest bedrooms. To the children, the first flat was Karl’s territory, and referred to the rooms in the first flat as “Karl’s kitchen” or “Karl’s washroom”, etc.

So the three of them entered the first flat, called out to Karl to notify him of their return, threw their schoolbags on the couch, sped past the living room, and into the second flat. There was another kitchen but much less equipped compared to Karl’s as it only ever cooked instant noodles and had a microwave oven. The living room and bedrooms were carpeted in comparison to Karl’s tiled floors. Their living room had couches and a large old radio atop an expensive stereo sound system that played records and cassette tapes, as well as a messy array of clothes and other personal effects among the three of them strewn across the floor and furniture. The siblings’ flat had separate rooms for the large bathtub and the tiny shower, whereas Karl’s side only had the shower.

There were only two bedrooms in their flat, but the bedrooms were big, and they only used the larger of them; the three of them all shared one room ever since they were children, and it had not changed to this day. The carpeted room had one huge bed that Teto and Evie slept in, while Kato had a futon set up on the carpeted floor next to it. The wallpapers were blue on one side and pink on the other, reflecting Kato and Teto’s favourite colours. Each of them had a small office desk to put away their possessions if they ever wanted to. Like the living room, their belongings were laid out in the open for the world to see, especially Teto’s clothes.

The slightly smaller bedroom, though it also had a large four-poster bed, was not occupied and was left as-is for a long time. It did not have as much furniture as the siblings’ room, save the small counter for the bed light. When the day comes to clean house, they would clean it up, but for whatever reason they never used the room for something else.

They kept that bedroom closed to prevent spreading the mess that is the siblings’ flat. However, that bedroom’s door that was usually shut, was mysteriously open today, which caught the siblings by surprise. Slowly and quietly, as though they were sneaking upon an unsuspecting victim, they peeked through the doorway from behind the wall, standing right outside of the bedroom door.

Upon the old four-poster bed laid a small girl with blond hair, her person somewhat obscured by the mosquito net that hugged around the bed. Though she seemed to be still wearing a dress shirt, a sign that she had went to sleep without changing, she seemed to be sleeping peacefully nonetheless.

“Wait a minute…”

Kato murmured to Evie as he pointed to the roller luggage that was tucked away in the far corner of the room next to the bed. They had both seen it before. It was within their view for the entire morning in fact.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

Suddenly, hands belonging to their guardian, Karl, clasped on Kato’s and Evie’s shoulders. They were a bit too focused on the girl in front of them to notice Karl coming into their flat.

“I forgot to mention it to you guys, but we have new orders from the top. I’m sure you’ve already seen her at school, but she’ll be staying with us for the coming year, until the two of you graduate.”

“Nyaa~”

A cute sound came from the direction of the bed. The girl slowly got herself up and out of bed, parting the netting around it away. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand before she stepped onto the carpet and faced the people standing in the doorway. Those people in question stood in silence as they watched on and waited for her to address them.

“Kato, Evie, Teto. Sisi shall be in your care for this year.”

She smiled radiantly as she said it simply and honestly. Sisi did not wear any of the pompous attitude she gave to her students at school, and not only that, her dialect changed slightly as well. Though she still spoke in the same archaic style, the intonations were less perfect than before.

Her dress shirt was unbuttoned completely, to the horror of Kato at first, but immediately realized that besides her lack of development in the women’s department, she also had a lengthy scar down the middle of her chest. On top of the scar, squarely between her breasts, was a tattoo in the form of a stylized unicursal hexagram, which designated her status and allegiance: a Guardian of Hearts for Eternia.

---

Since long ago, Livia was famous for being a base for the secret society of Eternia, which has in recent years became a public secret. Eternia was an underground organization that essentially operated as a shadow government over the continent of Candor, in direct opposition to the imperial government in Auxiria proper. Livia was able to maintain its autonomous status due to Eternia’s influence here. Similarly, the neighbouring city of Lien, the origin of and a major centre of research for Western alchemy, was able to do the same.

 It was estimated that Eternia controlled at least a third of the Auxirian economy and maintained its own underground paramilitary forces. Eternia was headed by a mysterious group, the “Three Eternal Leaders”, who wielded exceptional alchemical and magical abilities, both in their genius as well as their bodies being powerful alchemical catalysts themselves: Eterna and her two sisters. Eternia espoused of an egalitarian utopia on earth, held together through authoritarian rule by the Eternal Leaders and supported by alchemical and scientific progress.

The siblings’ final destination would be to join the prestigious group of deities that stood above all others inside Eternia, the “Guardians of Hearts”, whose members are referred to as “Hearts”. As orphans, Kato, Teto and Evianna were taken in by Karl von Habsburg, an Eternian agent, due to their physical superiority. They were then set to train with Master Chang over many years of their youth to become Hearts candidates. Ever since they became part of the von Habsburg household, they have aimed to become such, both to repay Eternia for their lives to which they owe, and to use such a position as a means to their own ends, whatever they might be. From the very beginning, they did not believe in Eternia’s ideological theory.

So once they graduate from high school, they would be formally inducted into Eternia as deities who would fight for Eternia’s interests across the empire. Eventually, they would join the ranks of the Hearts to fight against Eternia’s strongest enemies. Nearly all of the Hearts, past and present, graduated from Korolev Senior, and as headmistress of the school, Eterna essentially handpicked the Hearts herself.

Moving the coffee table and various pieces of clothing aside, the three children were on their knees on the carpet floor in their living room, folding their legs underneath their thighs and resting on their heels in seiza style. Kato occupied the centre, flanked by his two sisters. Facing them was Sisi, who sat on the couch in front of them with an Oriental teacup in her delicate fingers. Meanwhile, Karl stood to the side in wait, giving off the impression as though he was the butler to Sisi instead of the homeowner. It made it the more realistic as he usually wore a vest with his dress shirt and black pants, giving off the appearance of an attendant.

Sisi got up from her seat to move to the coffee table at the side, pour more tea into her cup, and sat back down with it in both hands. Her eyes and facial expression relaxed as she began to speak, almost as though she was a grandmother speaking gently to her grandchildren.

“Sisi shall introduce herself once again, this time in full. Mine name is Elizabeth Miklos Romana, one of the deities of the Guardians of Hearts. Mine title is the ‘Two of Hearts’, as in the second in command of the Hearts. In the past, Sisi contemporaneously served in the multinational unit of deities, the Winged Emissaries, who fought in the Candoran War many years ago on Eternia’s behalf.

“It is mine understanding that the three of you shall join Eternia in official capacity as well as the ranks of the Hearts in the near future. To facilitate your entry into our ranks, Lady Eterna has decided that Sisi shall return to this institution to observe your abilities for the year.

“Though Sisi says she shall be assessing your abilities, Master Chang and Karl are already very well-versed in your physical capabilities as well as personalities, so that is not part of mine assessment. There is only one criterion for your assessment; Sisi’s judgment. If you are able to impress Sisi, then she has no doubt that you shall be able to join the Guardians of Hearts.”

As Sisi had been sipping away at her tea, she paused here to get up once again to move to the coffee table. This time, Karl had offered to refill her teacup, to which she accepted graciously. She sat down once again in the same fashion.

“While Sisi may be your overseer, unless Sisi needs to assume the role of the Two of Hearts, Sisi is merely your teacher and guardian. In other words, you can treat Sisi as you would a normal teacher or guardian. That is all.”

Sisi smiled innocently again. She did not mention when she would need to assume that role, but regardless the children nodded at her respectfully. Though she was clearly finished, the air in the room remained light and pure, almost as if they were at a temple praying at a goddess’ altar. It was most definitely Sisi’s doing, as her demeanour up to this point had been one comparable to her actual age. As Sisi remained a grandmother, the siblings remained obedient.

“While Elizabeth is staying here, I’ll be staying away from home more often to wrap up the work needed to get you guys out of here safely when the time comes.”

Karl spoke in his deep voice as he scratched at his thick moustache. His long black hair, tied in a small ponytail, had grey streaks in them for as long as the children had known him. It was only at this moment, as he declared that he would be away from home for some time, that the siblings realized the grey had spread tenfold. It has been almost twelve years since.

The children also knew what kind of ‘work’ Karl was talking about. The work referred to the efforts to erase the children’s existence within this community. Once they become deities, it was imperative that enemies of Eternia could not find any evidence of their pasts. In other words, iconoclasm: destroying physical records and memories of their existence. The only evidence expected to remain of them in Livia would be in the memories of the people they were close to, and the class victory photograph, should they win the Class Wars.

“Thank you, Karl. Sisi shall leave those matters to you, as mine own guardian had done for Sisi so many years ago.”

“How often will you be gone?”

Evie was the first to speak among the children, maintaining the politeness and formal atmosphere that lingered.

“I hope not too often. There will definitely be some nights or weekends where I’ll be gone, but if meals are what you’re worried about, I’ll make sure arrangements are made ahead of time.”

Karl smiled as he gave a vague answer to Evie, as he did not and would not know the scope of his work and where it would take him, but he patted the side of her head all the same as Evie closed her eyes. While Evie was slightly upset, the other two looked a bit distant as well. Karl was obviously loved by the three of them.

“If that’s the case, then Sisi’s arrangements too have already been decided with it together some time ago, I take it?”

Kato asked his question carefully. His implicit question was to confirm if Sisi would take over his role as their primary chaperone.

“Yes, this entire arrangement has been decided a while back, though I’ve only been informed of this recently. It’s not like I’ll be a delinquent and disappear for days on end. From what I expect, I’ll be working out of Aunt Maddie’s place.”

Karl confirmed Kato’s suspicions. Though the sudden change of life circumstances were not unfamiliar to the children, who had went through their own troubling and uncertain times before coming to the von Habsburg residence, it was not something that anyone got used to.

“Aunt Maddie? That is Madeleine di Parma, Sisi presumes? Sisi did not know that she owned property here in Livia.”

“It’s more like a safe house that Madeleine and we use on occasion. She does own it, but she doesn’t live here of course. She has much better things to do as a cabinet.”

Madeleine di Parma, known to the children as Aunt Maddie, was Karl’s direct superior for his assignment as the paternal guardian of the siblings. Almost like a typical eccentric relative, Madeleine occasionally visited their residence to play with the children and shower them with gifts. The visits were quite involving, usually amounting to staying over at the safe house for a week or two. To the children, it was an exciting time to temporarily stay in a different home, do different things and eat different foods, so they always looked forward to Madeleine’s visits.

Madeleine was a member of the Eternian cabinet, the uppermost echelon of Eternia that ruled over all of it. In essence, the cabinet was the Eternian equivalent of the Auxirian aristocracy. As a member of this elite class, it was not surprising that she owned this property on top of probably many more. While Madeleine lived on the top of the Eternian hierarchy, Karl was part of the nomenklatura, the bureaucratic middle class in which Eternia governed its organization and territories through. The nomenklatura, while not purely equivalents of civil servants, they resembled more of the Auxirian landed gentry: the bourgeois middle class and lower nobility.

“If you’re going to be using the house, is Aunt Maddie not coming to visit us this year then?”

Teto asked out of curiosity. Out of the three, Teto liked Aunt Maddie the most.

“She won’t be affected by my use of the house. Aunt Maddie is going to be visiting us during the usual time of the year, so don’t worry about that.”

Karl said gently as he ruffled her hair lightly. When indoors, Teto would take off her hair ties so her curly hair flowed freely around her.

“So all in all, we’ll be doing the same things as planned, then?”

Kato asked his two elders in the room. “We” referred to him and his sisters, while “the same things” meant going to school as planned, staying away from the Eternian life for the year. Because of their exemplary performance, which was immortalized through their formal graduation rites at the Chang temple just a day ago, the three of them insisted that they stay in Livia for one more year to complete their secondary education without disturbance from Eternia’s side.

“Exactly as planned. Up until the moment you graduate, there’ll be not a single expectation for any one of you.”

Karl nodded in assurance. While Karl and Sisi handled their own respective assignments within Eternia, the siblings were going to live this year as normal people.

“Wait, I thought Sisi was going to be assessing us for our Hearts candidateship.”

“Ah, that’s right. Is there something more about the assessment?”

Kato questioned again, which Evie also wanted to know the answer to as well. Evie was easily the strongest of the three of them, and was expected to become the future leader of the Hearts.

“It is Lady Eterna who decides the membership of the Hearts. So while Sisi shall be assessing you based on mine personal preferences, in the end Sisi can only recommend to Lady Eterna for your initiation. So Sisi’s assessment is merely a formality Sisi must perform.

“Sisi was one of the Hearts who agreed with your request to stay in school for the year. Sisi believes in having a fulfilling life if you are to join the Hearts. Sisi does not believe in a Heart without a heart. Thus, that is mine criterion for your assessment. If you can show Sisi that you can live your life, then Sisi shall most delightedly recommend you to the Hearts.”

Sisi laid down her teacup on the coffee table for the third time, went up to the three of them and pulled them all together in a warm hug.

“Even though it actually is an expectation, it is an expectation that you shall, without a doubt, be able to meet. Is Sisi not correct?”

The large balcony-windows, secured with the usual iron cages to prevent unwanted entry, were open, letting in the summer air which blended splendidly together with Sisi’s warmth as she closed her eyes and asked of the children in her embrace. The children could only nod in response.

Candoran Calendar, Year 1887.

“Kato! Wake up, Kato!”

“It’s time to go to school, Kato.”

Kato stirred as he slowly got up from his futon. The calls of two very familiar voices from outside his room beckoned him.

Kato was a light sleeper, but he was not a morning person either. It took him several moments, but he was finally awake enough to recall yesterday’s events. Kato and the owners of those two voices had completed their lifelong martial arts training with Master Chang and performed their personal graduation rites last night.

It meant that Kato and his two sisters are finally freed from training and can go to school full-time.

“Kato, breakfast is already ready.”

An older male voice echoed through the apartment. Upon hearing this voice, Kato quickly readied himself. This was his last year of senior high school, and would be the first and last time he would be able to attend it full-time. With a quick smile he left his room, filled with anticipation for his long awaited golden year.

---

Kato Danubius lived in the border town of Livia, which was enclosed in a valley in the great Mid-Ranges mountains that spanned the continent of Candor. The valley had once separated the two former kingdoms of Auxiria and Ava, until the union of the two crowns in the early modern era. Today, Auxiria’s empire spanned the entire continent of Candor, having conquered and united the continent under a single dynasty.

The town itself should not be called a town, however. It has grown large enough to be called a city, and the progress of science and alchemy together can be seen through the tall apartment buildings that now flooded the city’s skyline, a scene that would have not been possible a mere thirty years ago. The town was founded by Yue refugees who travelled here after Auxiria had conquered their homeland long ago, and even today the locally spoken language is Old Yue. Many Yue migrant enclaves like Livia exist all over the empire.

This particular valley in the Mid-Ranges, the Tyrolian Pass, was blessed with fair soil as well as warm weather all year round, perfect for human settlement. The valley’s winds were gentle, its rain came often, and it snowed only for a couple of weeks a year. Most of the city rests on the valley floor, though it has since expanded into the hills surrounding it. The city was multinational in nature, as many migrants from other lands settled in Livia due to its high tolerance for foreigners, and many learn the local vernacular language of Old Yue as well as its language of education and administration, New Yue. The national language of Auxiria was Standard Candoran, but due to Livia’s autonomous status, the local languages were preserved alongside the use of Standard Candoran.

Kato lived in a relatively spacious flat with his younger sister Teto Danubia, his stepsister Evianna Misaya, and their guardian Karl von Habsburg. In fact, it was two flats merged into one, effectively doubling the living space of his small family. They lived immediately above the shops, on the second floor. The building was on the edge of the valley floor, in close proximity to the hills and mountains.

For most of their lives, the three of them spent the majority of their time with the martial arts expert, Master Chang, who oversaw their training to become talented fighters. The temple grounds were some thirty minutes away up in the hills behind them by foot. There with Master Chang, they trained in various aspects of combat to become “deities”, a highly skilled individual fighter.

This is due to their disposition as being “physically superior”, a term used to refer to those who have predisposed superior, perhaps superhuman, physical ability. More specifically, they were people who had significantly higher upper limits to their physical abilities compared to your average human limits. People who could be considered physically superior were rare, and so those who could become deities were even rarer. It took years of training to climb above your natural limits, so even if you were physically superior, most only end up having above average abilities because most could not handle nor even encounter such training.

“Kato, which afternoon classes did you decide to take this semester?”

Teto, his cute younger sister, asked as she glued her whole body onto his left arm. Her cheerful voice rang through the warm late summer air like chimes, and her short hair tied in twin drills bounced softly as she walked in step with her dearest brother. She was the spitting image of Kato, and if she had cut her hair and grew several inches taller, no one would be able to tell the difference between the two. Still in the summer uniform, it accentuated all of her curves which have matured greatly in a recent growth spurt. Teto was one year behind Kato, in the second-year class.

“I’m interested in it as well. You haven’t made your choices until the very last day.”

Walking together with the two of them on their way to school was Evianna, their stepsister, who was in the same year as Kato. Her outer appearance was quite impressive. She had pure silver-coloured hair in a bob cut, with her bangs held to the sides by hairclips. She stood almost as tall as Kato, who was at an average male height; Evianna was always the tallest girl in her year. In addition to having the perfect supermodel face and body, her chest size was the biggest of her year as well, to the envy of her peers.

“I picked the sciences, Evie. Just chose the things I’m good at.”

Evie. Evianna’s pet name, called by those close to her.

“But why did you wait until the last day to mail in the request forms?”

Kato shrugged and gently pushed Evie with the back of his right hand, as though he was waving her away.

“Eon and I were talking about which classes to take. We didn’t come to a conclusion until the last day.”

“So you’re going to be taking the same classes as Eon? Will you even pay attention in class?”

Kato sighed, realizing that Evie was already starting the day off by picking him apart. Just as he thought he’d avoid some of Evie’s antics this early in the morning, a fourth voice called out to them.

“Nonsense. Even if I were to horse around in class with Kato, I would still be at the top of the class.”

“I have no doubt you’ll be on top of the class academically and physically and in whatever manner else there is too. But unfortunately Kato can only manage one or the other.”

Evie responded to Eon Koziko, who had just appeared around the corner, also on the way to school. Eon was a childhood friend of the trio and lived only a street and a few apartment buildings over, so it was only natural that they walk the same way to school.

Kato let out another sigh as Evie struck at him again. He thought that he might as well join the fray too.

“Evie, it doesn’t matter because I’ll be skipping most of them. If I don’t skip my classes, how else would I be able to watch over Teto while she attended her classes?”

Eon turned his head away immediately, almost as though refuting Kato’s existence and his little sister complex entirely. He placed his hand on Kato’s shoulder with pretentious exaggeration.

“There are some things that should be kept out of the light of day, for the good of humanity. But rest assured, young one, one day your stalker skills will be just as good as mine.”

Eon readjusted his glasses and replied in such a serious voice that if you didn’t know him well enough, it was hard to tell if he was joking or not. Kato let out a groan of disapproval in any case, while Evie and Eon both grinned widely. With their morning banter routine over, they proceeded onwards to school.

---

Kato had auburn-coloured hair, short, unkempt, and slightly curly. Teto’s hair mirrored her brother’s, except with more curls. Wearing a simple dress shirt, it was his preference to never wear the tie. As a typical young lad, this was his idea of looking cool given the limited wardrobe options for school. In contrast, Eon unexpectedly always wore his uniform properly despite his personality.

The girls, on the other hand, were allowed much more freedom in their choice of attire. Teto’s shirt was sleeveless in comparison with Evie’s sailor uniform with long sleeves and length, extending over her miniskirt. Interestingly, Evie has not always wore pantyhose, but ever since she was put on exemption from Master Chang’s training last year, she began pursuing fashion as a hobby to occupy the extra time, and has since wore them outside of training. Teto, however, has a habit of wearing as little as possible, to the point where she sits in her undergarments at home. It was all it could take to get her to put on her socks.

“I’ll see everyone at lunch!”

Following Teto’s exclamation and parting with his dear sister, they have arrived at the 3-F classroom of Korolev Senior Secondary School, and despite being in a different classroom from last year, they have come upon a familiar scene. It seemed that most, if not all, the students from last year’s 2-F class has remained in Class F. Not everyone was here yet, but there was some time before homeroom started. The arrangement of the desks was as per normal; individual seats in rows and columns.

Second from the back of the classroom sat two very familiar faces. Caius Evans and Franco Atkinson both sat there with their usual demeanour; Caius with his blonde curly hair and a soft expression, while Franco had a red bowl cut with an excited and slightly goofy air around him. However, their builds were polar opposites; while the feminine Caius was short and had a cute baby face, the masculine Franco stood tall and was very handsome, making them both a target of affection for the ladies in the class. Like the contrast between Kato and Eon, Franco wore no tie while Caius did.

“Welcome back, guys.”

“Ayyy, the crew’s assembled now.”

Caius and Franco greeted the trio.

“‘sup, brothers.”

“Yo.”

“Good to see that the Elite Four is here and accounted for.”

Kato, Evie and Eon responded as the men gave each other high-fives. The trio moved into their usual seats behind Caius and Franco, and all five youngsters gave a satisfied expression. The unholy alliance has been assembled once again this year; and perhaps for the very last year as well.

Caius was the last member of the original group of childhood friends; Kato, Evie, Eon and Caius were a tightly knit group ever since the siblings moved into Livia at the start of primary school. As kings and queen of the playground, Eon nicknamed their group the “Elite Four” to face off against their archrivals, the Jupiter sisters. The Jupiter sisters were another group of four children who challenged the Elite Four at school and in play, and thus grew up together with the Elites.

Today, all four Jupiter sisters are executives on the student council. Interestingly, though the moniker “Elites” included Teto in the label as well, they specifically use “Elite Four” to refer to the four older children when contrasting with the Jupiter sisters, especially in a four-on-four competition.

Before they entered junior high, Franco, after emigrating with his parents to Livia from the Kingdom of Rine, joined this group of hooligans in their adventures. Though they immigrated here recently, the distance was in fact not very far and they, perhaps not coincidentally, came from a city with a majority Old Yue speakers.

As the newest member of the group, he was on the receiving end of the many pranks that Kato and Eon devised. Similarly, his advances on Evie were met with constant rejection as he was smitten by Evie’s beauty. When together with the crew, Franco would assume the straight man role that Kato had previously occupied. Though thoroughly tossed around by the others, they nonetheless proved to each other, on many occasions, that Franco was a kindred spirit and joined the ranks of the Elites.

 “So Teto’s on afternoon classes this year too?”

“Everyone’s on it. There’s no more training left for us to do.”

Caius inquired the newly arrived siblings for their confirmation, which Kato gave. For every year up until this year, the two peas in the pod did not attend afternoon classes, which were elective classes. Evie, as well, did not take any afternoon classes until last year. This was due to their continued training to become deities.

If a student does not attend enough afternoon classes over their senior high career, they will miss the requirements for a Standard diploma and instead be granted the People’s diploma, which would be what the siblings would graduate with. The difference between the two was that only the Standard diploma would allow advancement into post-secondary education, and for the siblings, this was not needed. But to bring their golden year to a memorable close, they have decided to take afternoon classes along with the rest of the Elites.

“Kato decided to take extra sciences, Eon again with the advanced math, and I settled on home economics and extra phys. ed. like last year. We’ll see what we’ll take next semester.”

The morning classes were on a regular schedule of compulsory classes running throughout the year following their homeroom classes, with the final exams for them at the very end of the school year. The afternoon classes were divided into two semesters, running on a course selection schedule.

“Hey, I’m taking home economics again too! That makes two of us once more!”

Franco held his fist out to Evie for a fist-bump, which she completed with matching grace. Though Franco may be infatuated over Evie’s looks, they actually complemented each other’s mannerisms and got along quite well.

“I’m guessing that no one wants to take classical literature with me this year either. Kids these days, they just don’t understand the beauty of great cultural works.”

Caius shrugged lightly in disappointment. Out of the Elites, Caius probably had the least interests in common with the rest of the group.

“No one’s gonna just take doubled-up classes, dude. That’s too brutal. Three straight hours of literature, every day? For real?”

“Math is where today’s at. We’re in the age of science now, grandpa. No one has the attention span to appreciate great cultural works.”

Both Kato and Eon shrugged off Caius’ complaint and smirked at each other. Typical.

The bell rang for homeroom, signalling the end of the idle banter between them. However, something was seemingly wrong with the scene in the class.

“Mr Constantinus is supposed to be our homeroom teach, right?” 

Franco asked out loud. Looking around the classroom, it seemed like most of the other students were also confused about the absence of the homeroom teacher. Caius replied to Franco’s question.

“I’ve heard Mr Constantinus went on leave back to Hellenia for this year. If that’s true, it’ll mean that we’re gonna get a new teach.”

“Really, Caius? That’s interesting. Wonder who it’ll be.”

“Caius, how d’you even know about this? Student council?”

“Eon, you’re on the student council too, you dumbass. Not only that, you’re an Assembly member too. After the Jupiter sisters were elected into office last year, you were really gung-ho about joining the council to undermine their rule.”

“And now that I’m a student council and an Assembly member, literally a member of the hierarchy, I may have forgotten about the plight of the lower plebs. I’ve become a hopeless scum of the earth now.”

“Don’t lose hope, Eon. That’s why I’m here. To lose hope for you. Every little misstep you take, I’ll be there to remember your failures forever.”

As he finished that sentence, Caius smirked at Eon, who in turn proceeded to gratefully clasp Caius’ hands in dramatic fashion as the other girls sitting near their area started giggling. It did help the reputation of the Elites that Caius was a very cute boy; otherwise they would really be written off as a ragtag band of hooligans, albeit law-abiding ones.

Kato slapped at Franco’s head for his attention.

“And Caius’ shots are still, amazingly, on-point as always. Franco, it seems like you’re destined to eat our dust forever.”

“I think I gave up trying to catch up to you guys a long time ago.”

As Franco responded in desolation, the classroom door suddenly opened up, immediately silencing the entire class.

A very young-looking girl walked in with a small wheeled luggage as the whole class stared at her in silence. The little girl was obviously the new teacher for their class, but the class was obviously put off by her extremely short stature, no taller than a middle-schooler. She wore a white dress shirt and pencil skirt, resembling an office worker. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was partially tied in the back in a small pigtail, finished with a large Oriental style hairpin, possibly custom-made in the homeland of Yue.

She started writing her name on the chalkboard, which to the students’ surprise was a name in High Candoran, the national language of the Kingdom of Candor. While the continent was named after this kingdom, to distinguish between the two, “Candor” by itself refers to the entirety of the continent, while “Royal Candor” refers to the kingdom. Today, the kingdom is a constituent of the empire after it was conquered earlier in the century.

“Good mornin’, everyone. Elizabeth Romana is mine name. For this year, you shall be mine students, and as a graduate of this school myself, Romana expects every one of you to put in your best efforts to make your final year of high school as enjoyable and memorable as possible. Romana shall be in your most gracious care.”

Elizabeth bowed to the class after a very formal introduction, and the class was immediately surprised at her accurate pronunciation of Old Yue. She used the prestige dialect of Kwangchow of the Yue homeland, the same dialect in use in Livia and many other similar exclaves. Though many people graduated from Korolev Senior, it was a multiethnic school that took in foreign students, so it wasn’t guaranteed that everyone had perfect Old Yue.

“Romana knows she must explain this, but if anyone is surprised at mine appearance, Romana unfortunately has a condition of stunted growth, which means that she shall forever be a short girl. Romana does not remember, but Romana is probably approaching her seventieth day of birth by now.”

And then the class rose up in bewilderment. Conversation sprung up spontaneously amongst the students, including the Elites.

“We got ourselves a loli grandma as our teach!”

Eon shouted out with gusto as he raised his fists in the air in a victory stance, and Kato proceeded to stand up and high five Eon.

“Silence!”

She was not amused at the class’ response, especially from Eon and Kato. The class, unexpectedly, gone back to complete silence once again.

“You two at the back! Come to the front this instant!”

And so they did. Eon and Kato stood at the front of the class facing Elizabeth, both grinning at their new teacher with amusement. Seeing how they were not scared by her anger and how the class behind them were all watching with a curious attitude of anticipation, she immediately realized that these two were the troublemakers of this class, and probably along with the three other children sitting with them as well. She sighed in helplessness and she shook her head in disapproval.

“Your names?”

“Eon Atelier Koziko.”

“Kato Amero Danubius.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at the second name.

“Although Romana could guess what kind of students you are, Romana still needs to remind you that that was not proper etiquette in the classroom, especially in the presence of a teacher. No standing up without permission and no shouting out vulgarities, understood?”

Then Kato decided to pick Elizabeth up off the ground and hugged her tightly.

“Got it, teach. Anything for a cute little girl.”

“She’s actually so cute, we should think of a cute name for her too.”

And not a second too soon after Eon’s suggestion, Kato immediately nicknamed her.

“Sisi will be our teach’s name from now on. Sisi, we heard your concerns and will be good children from now on.”

Kato said those corny things to her with no shred of shame. Sisi, who turned scarlet with embarrassment, did not regain her composure in time and habitually started to stutter under her breath instead.

“Y-you are, no, th-this is, v-very awkward indeed. Sisi–”

Then she realized that she used the pet name as her first-person pronoun and she snapped out of her trance.

“Do you know what you are doing?! Let go of Romana this instant!”

Sisi complained loudly as Kato lets go of Sisi from his bear hug. Setting her firmly on the ground, they saw that her head had barely reached his chest. She was a short girl indeed.

“I’m glad you like the name.”

Kato smiled brightly at Sisi, letting her know that he had heard her murmur that name by accident.

“Ahhhh! Romana doesn’t know anymore! As long as you two remain behaved while class is in session, then it is fine.”

Sisi shook her head furiously and dismissed the two of them, clearly still red-faced at the physical contact between her and Kato. Despite her actual age, her heart and mind was racing as if she was at the age of her appearance. She pinched her own cheeks and turned once again to the class, which had watched the situation unfold in awe. The two boys had already returned to their seats and sat in obedience. Taking a deep breath, she continued to address the class.

“You all are entering the third year of school in Korolev Senior, and many things shall change from your previous years here. Romana has won the Class Wars of her year, thus Romana expects the same result from this class as well.”

Sisi cleared her throat as she addressed the class once again, but the class was no longer just in silence. They were in silence and also very sombre. The class was not very enthusiastic about the Class Wars.

“The Class Wars, as you should already know, is a year-long competition between the third-year classes. Many of you most likely have seen it in action already in the last two years. You shall be competing for a limited number of points distributed across the classes throughout the entire year, with the victorious class all graduating with the Standard diploma waiving the academic requirements. Not only that, your final scores shall be granted a fixed boost of points.

“With the appropriate casus belli, a war can be declared on another class. A physical battle between the two classes shall commence, and victory shall be granted when one side’s class representative’s cleanse tag is fully saturated to the opposing class.”

Sisi grabbed out of her baggage a roll of what looked like bandages, tearable into long strips at fixed intervals.

“All of you shall be given cleanse tags. Without a cleanse tag, you cannot participate. These cleanse tags shall protect you from physical injury at all times while within the barriers of the school grounds. However, the more damage you take, the further the cleanse tag shall be saturated.”

She took a strip of the bandage, tied it around her wrist, and proceeded to kick the wall and stub her toe. Showing the bandage again to the class, the bandage that was originally white, began to slightly colour black.

“A completely saturated cleanse tag turns completely to black, signalling the retirement of your participation in this battle. Our headmistress, Lady Eterna, maintains the barrier around the school during a war, so you can do as much physical damage to the school as you want; she can reverse all the damage you make. Those who happen to be in the barrier without a cleanse tag during a war shall receive divine protection from Lady Eterna through the barrier, but of course, no cleanse tag means no participation in this war. If you’re too late to put on one, then it’s too late.

“In this new age of widespread use of alchemy, while we do not allow any use of alchemy itself, we have added the academic Duel element to the Class Wars. In Romana’s time, a war was merely a massive physical brawl between the two classes. Today, teachers or any other Supervisor can adjudicate a Duel between two fighters, which can be a competition of any kind, including academic competitions. The loser of the Duel shall get their cleanse tags artificially saturated.

“Once a war concludes, the peace terms shall be negotiated between the fighting parties and a peace treaty shall be put into force. The peace shall be as binding as any policies passed by the Assembly.

“We can go over more details later, but Romana wants to remind you again that Romana’s class had won the Class Wars and Romana’s class photograph is hung on the Wall of Victory in the West Hall. Now that Romana has become an educator, albeit a temporary one, the title shall not be lost as long as Romana lives.”

Revelling in her moment of glory, Sisi puffed out her small chest with pride while the class remained stoic.

“Sisi, we’re Class F because we suck. How are we going to be able to win?”

Franco voiced his and the rest of the class’ concern out loud, and immediately a slap on the back of his head by Kato followed.

“Worry not. By our first war, we shall already have the advantage. Romana can make sure of it.”

With these words of reassurance from a cute little girl, Eon’s tendencies once again got the better of him and stood up. Kato, unsurprisingly, followed suit.

“Everyone, we have the goddess of victory on our side! This year is it, boys and girls. We’ll beat the shit out of the other classes and win the Class Wars!”

“And there’s no need to worry, because the Elite Four is here to stay. With us here, victory is nothing less than assured.”

And so the class started to be riled up with this morale-boosting speech. Though the class may see the Elites as a bit eccentric, they didn’t have anything to lose anyway, and with the Elites here, it would be at least very entertaining to watch their spectacle.

“Have no fear, everyone. I’m still here; ready to brute-force all our victories.”

Evie chimed in as well, not letting only the two of them have time in the sun. Everyone else in the class also knew that both Kato and Evie were physically superior, and not only was Evie a beauty, Evie already had a reputation to solve problems by physical force, so her reassurance garnered many cheers from the boys.

“You girls can help out too, can’t you?”

“If we can get your support, then there’s nothing that can stop us.”

Caius and Franco both appealed to the female crowd as well. It did help them that they were cute and handsome respectively, so the screams from the girls in the crowd weren’t too surprising.

With the class up in arms only after a mere half a minute, Sisi was impressed by the band of delinquents that sat at the back of the classroom. Though she has already heard of the reputation of this group of children from the other faculty staff, she got to witness their flair first-hand on the first day of classes.

“All right, enough of this already! Romana have just told you to stop misbehaving, Koziko!”

Sisi let the class cheer for about ten seconds before she declared silence again, to which the class was unusually obedient to. After the noise subsided, she smiled to the class and bowed once more.

“This is your most important year of your life. But it is up to you to make it the greatest. Romana has faith in each of you to make it so, and she looks forward to being your teacher for this year!”