Even though somebody might be detained for up to thirty minutes, they were not allowed to be treated unfairly while arrested, so it wasn’t long before somebody opened up the interrogation room’s door to check up on the detainee. Usually when the PSC intended to hold someone for the full thirty minutes, they would visit at the fifteen-minute mark and then finally the thirty-minute mark.

One of the PSC members eventually did so, peeking cautiously into the interrogation room from behind the door. Obviously, due to the political nature of her arrest, the PSC didn’t need to conduct any prosecutorial work, nor did they want to divulge that intent to the public, so they tried not to interact with their political prisoners as much as possible. Glancing over, he gasped, seeing that Alice was doubled over with her head lying on the tabletop and seemingly short on breath.

“What’s the matter?”

The PSC member, who wasn’t from third year or from Class A, rushed over to Alice’s side, a bit flustered about what he should do. After all, to the PSC grunts Alice was once or was still their top boss’s bride. Either way, it was a difficult situation to assess.

“Allergy. My puffer’s in my bag.”

Alice turned her face, evidently twisted in pain, in the boy’s direction. He involuntarily took a step back, spooked by the apparent severity of the situation, but then he immediately regained his senses and ran back to the door.

“Anthony, bring her bag! Looks like it’s an asthma attack! Find her puffer!”

He rushed back and crouched down to her level to observe her state and brush her back lightly to comfort her. Most of the PSC knew the basics of emergency first aid and at least could help before a teacher arrived.

“Where else does it hurt? In the chest? Nod if yes.”

Alice nodded slowly, preoccupied by the distress caused by the difficulty in breathing and the chest pain. Through the door came the other PSC member with Alice’s backpack, placing it on the table and frantically rummaging it for the puffer. Seeing his colleague arrive, the first PSC member left Alice’s side to open the locker to the side.

“Find it and give it to her. I’ll bring out a mat for her to lie on—”

The PSC member opened the locker to find the spooky existence known as Kato aiming a kick at his groin, which connected by the shin before the dude realized what happened. By the next second he was already writhing on the floor in pain, and fortunately no real damage was done because he had his cleanse tag on.

“Hah!”

Kato emerged from the metal container, jumping over the struggling PSC member and landing firmly on the ground next to the other frightened PSC member, petrified by the abrupt change in events. He was merely searching Alice’s backpack during a medical emergency, and suddenly his comrade was temporarily incapacitated by a freak that had been hiding in the locker, so it was not unjustified that little Anthony felt at a loss at how to respond in the moment. Though they had prior training, they were neither battle-hardened nor physically superior, so it couldn’t be helped.

Unfortunately, the pause basically sealed his fate, because Kato was not going to wait for him to ready his posture. Using the same tactic, Kato’s knee was thrust into the PSC grunt’s groin, sending him writhing on the ground like his companion.

From the moment the first groin was struck by Kato, Alice had already given up on the act and bolted for the open door, past Kato and the two PSC members who were now on the ground. Of course, Alice was never afflicted with asthma and there certainly was no puffer in her bag, the entire charade a brainchild of Evie’s imagination.

“Kato, take care of them!”

“Yeah!”

Kato nailed the two officers hard, as all they were able to do was grunt in pain for a good eight seconds before they were able to recover enough to reassess their surroundings. Within that time frame, Kato had already nicked Alice’s bag from the desk, slung it over his shoulders, and closed the door on the interrogation room. The room was locked from the outside, as it should be so that it could actually lock in prisoners. He fumbled with both the doorknob’s old-school key lock and the sliding metal bolt lock and sealed the interrogation room shut.

He didn’t expect the doorknob to hold up as they would probably have the keys, but the metal bolt would definitely be a problem without tearing down the door. For good measure he took a chair from nearby, angled it against the door and pushed the backrest underneath the doorknob, making it even harder for the two inside from opening the door. And just in time, he heard muffled voices and banging and shaking on the door from inside the interrogation room as he began to move away. Mission accomplished.

“I found it! We’re done here! Let’s go!”

Alice waved her left arm at Kato, who saw her cleanse tag once more strapped around her wrist and gave her an approving nod. It seemed like it wasn’t too hard to find where they stored the confiscated cleanse tags.

“Yeah! Let’s go!”

Just like that, the two fled the PSC office for the staircase they came up through, flying down the steps to the ground floor. Instead of heading back into the hallway towards the atrium, they took the opposite direction and went straight out the doors facing the inner courtyard, ending up on its grass with both of them panting from the sudden physical exercise and exasperated at how Evie’s plan went.

“Your physical’s not bad, eh?”

“I’m not just a music student; I do everything in the performing arts. Of course my physical fitness is good.”

“Haha. That makes sense.”

Letting out a chuckle that didn’t seem like he was convinced, Alice stuck out her tongue in protest.

“I was also the best player on the volleyball team when I was in middle school. Get the fuck outta here.”

She replied in Old Yue instead of New Yue, which was very much sanitized compared to the very explicit vulgarities that were available in Old Yue, its complexities so deep that Alice was only really able to grasp the ones on the surface. Despite her retort, Kato’s arrogance remained.

“Look at you, the extracurriculars student. Then let’s bring some of that energy back. We’re headed for the other side of the cafeteria, for the Class F windows.”

“The windows?”

Kato began running again, west and around the protrusion of the cafeteria as Alice kept pace closely behind him. He tossed her bag back to her as they moved along and she caught it smoothly.

“We’re climbing up a ladder. How else are we gonna get in? The front doors are under siege right now.”

“Ladder? What ladder?”

“Some of my classmates are gonna evacuate the classroom from a stepladder. We’re gonna go back up it.”

“Wait a minute. We’re locking ourselves into the siege? How does that help?”

“It’ll be a symbolic thing, right? Both to him and everyone else.”

“I guess it is…”

They stopped before the corner that turned into the open yard below the 3-F classroom, both peeking from behind it to observe the situation. They saw, in horror, the clouds of smoke continuously escaping from the windows as if the classroom was on fire. Of course, they understood that it was mostly harmless smoke and tear gas and not actually a real fire emergency, but the scene was not immediately indicative of that understanding.

“Alice. I think you know what my class is fighting for, right? Ever since the Act of Neutrality was tabled, people were on edge. We even managed to pull people from across classes together, not least because of the different views on the situation in Lien.”

“Mm. I understand.”

“But at the same time, however that turns out, our first priority is to solve your problem first, so we’re gonna do just that.”

“Wait a sec, what do you mean by that?”

“I’m gonna use my class as a sacrifice to bring you to Gilbert.”

“…”

“That way, you can confront him in a situation he can’t just hand-wave away, so you can say everything straight to his face without the rest of the family watching from behind you, and have him give you a real response for once.”

Alice made a difficult face, halfway between apologetic and sombre. That was a part of the note she received from Evie, and the reason why Kato was sent to the PSC office to break her out of prison.

“You didn’t have to do this, y’know. You could have settled the political fight with a full-blown Class War. Will your classmates forgive you if that kind of struggle was used for my own personal reasons?”

She pointed to the raging smoke in the distance, not to mention the shouts and noise from the 3-F classroom on the third floor.

“Of course not, but that’s my burden to shoulder. I will manage it somehow.”

“No, it isn’t! All of you didn’t have to make this all so complicated! And it’s still my fault if your class loses in this battle, no matter how you look at it. I can’t take that responsibility! No, that’s not it. They don’t need to take responsibility for my own problems. Those are mine to start with!”

“Those problems aren’t only yours anymore, Alice. That’s what friends are for, aren’t they? Friends who would stand beside you through thick and thin.”

“But… this is still too big! You’ve turned this into something like an international incident, Kato!”

“If it isn’t this big, we’ll never find an endgame, Alice. Not just for you, but for the anti-neutrality protests as well.”

“…”

Alice stopped. She knew what he meant, understanding the political turmoil that had been brewing ever since last Tuesday. The Elites themselves didn’t contribute much to the resistance effort, where most of the work had been done by their classmates and students from many other classes, but as the de facto leaders of Class F, they were invariably pushed to the forefront of the resistance. She sighed helplessly as Kato reassured her.

“Class F is only the first of many classes to challenge the establishment. The trigger would have been pulled sooner or later. Then the only road forward is to win, and I want to carry you with us over that finish line.”

Kato patted her on the shoulders as she nodded slowly, finally accepting reality as it is. The worry in her expression faded and was replaced by her usual determination, to which Kato grinned. It was time to get down to business.

“Here, wear this.”

Seeing the dense smoke they were going to enter into, Kato gave her a face mask for her to wear and he too also wore one as well. From the window, the stepladder that Kato mentioned earlier was indeed extended out to the ground below with a cluster of students already grouped a short distance from its base. Mr Khosa was among the students, seemingly mediating some kind of dispute between the two camps of Class F and PSC members.

“Alice, climb on top of me.”

“W-what?”

She flustered at the non sequitur command, but he didn’t let her have a chance to stumble over herself and her ever-inventive imagination. He moved quickly to put himself underneath her and pick her up on a piggyback, and as she realized what he was going to do, she quickly returned to normal and braced herself.

“I’m gonna rush there, and you’ll jump off and run up the ladder. I’ll be right behind you. Got it?”

“Mm!”

Kato sprinted toward the ladder and covered the distance with only one breath. The speed and force he put into the dash was almost superhuman, undoubtedly wilting the grass underneath his feet. He dug in and braked to a halt just after the ladder to jettison Alice back onto the ground, and both of them jumped for the rungs while bathed in a skin-burning veil of smoke and tear gas.

It was in part due to the confrontation between the PSC and the recently disembarked Class F party that the lightning-fast Kato moving in went unnoticed until it was too late. The PSC only noticed something wrong as Alice jumped up the first few rungs.

“Wait! Stop this instant!”

One of the PSC members shouted out, but of course to no avail. The two were already a few steps up and off the ground. Scanning the crowd behind him as he climbed up, Kato spotted the person he was looking for. He grinned and nodded quickly at Yui, who was among the Class F evacuees. She returned with a warm smile and waved elegantly to him, giving him a burst of confidence that manifested in an odd way.

“Suck my dick!”

He snapped back at the two PSC officers below him, to which they got agitated at, but they were immediately shut down by Mr Khosa. Yui giggled at the farce, and continued waving at her extraordinary classmate-now-also-stepbrother like the affectionate elder stepsister she became. Her minor role in the plan was now over.

“Kato, was that necessary?”

“It wasn’t, but something just compelled me to do it, Alice.”

“Remind me to pinch you later.”

“Why in the world would I ever remind you to do that?”

They clambered into the classroom one after another, entering a shifting fog of white. Kato turned around to retrieve the stepladder, which was a special one that was retractable from the top rather than the bottom, apparently designed for evacuations from high places. For whatever reason, the school custodians had this kind of equipment, ostensibly for work on the school’s rooftop that was readily accessible to the general public.

“You almost got them to chase after us, if it wasn’t for Mr Khosa.”

“You’re right. We’re lucky he’s there, but I would have overpowered them anyways.”

“You never learn, do you?”

Alice sighed, giving up on Kato’s stubbornness. She turned to meet with a 3-F classroom in chaos, filled with smoke and sand that obscured vision and attacked exposed skin. It only took a few moments for Sisi to run up to the two new arrivals and handed them helmets and goggles for them to wear as she had a worried yet stern look, not unlike the face of a parent taking care of her children.

“Suit up, both of you! Kato! Take this already and put it on! We can’t have you coughing up a storm and incapacitating yourself.”

“Thank you, Ms Romana.”

“Got it, Sisi.”

His guardian and homeroom teacher gave him a double thumbs-up in approval, and strangely, only at this juncture did Kato finally feel a sense of no turning back. Maybe he was foolish to expect the Elites to live out their time here in Korolev Senior peacefully when they were quite literally the model troublemakers of their class, perhaps of their year. He took in a breath of the tear gas, taking the inflammation that it came with and feeling ready to join his comrades in their struggle.

Then his concentration was shattered by an agonizing pinch on his arm, flinching at the surprise pain inflicted by the person he rescued.

“Actually, though, what was that for?”

“Don’t even think you can get away with peeking at my underwear.”

“That was an unfortunate part of the operation! Besides, there’s nothing worthy there anyway.”

“What was unfortunate? And nothing worthy?”

A figurative vein popped, perhaps actually visible at her temples. Alice’s cold, bloodless face was reminiscent of Evie’s, and worse yet she twisted at Kato’s belly’s side without letting go, prompting Kato to jump away in a panic when he realized that was the case.

“Okay, okay! I was just joking! Please don’t do that again!”

“I’m gonna hold you to it.”

She let him off coolly, dusting off her palms like a job well done, but Kato was already on to the next set of business to settle. The clouds of smoke and tear gas were a constant reminder of that, for one.

“Kato!”

“Eon! What’s the situation?”

Actually, the visibility was low enough that he treaded forward with caution. Just as Kato reached where Eon and Evie were, the mound of desks shook violently, but luckily there was no breach yet.

“One, two, three!”

They could hear the drilling on the other side, and saw that the PSC officers used their grime-covered riot shields to ram into the barricade in an effort to break through. The students who were manning the barricade still managed to hold it in place, but the charges from the PSC weren’t going to stop any time soon.

“Let me do this!”

Evie ran to the front to help with her superhuman strength, just in time as the third charge came. Along with their classmates, they dug in their heels and put their backs and shoulders against the desks, holding it in place as the riot shields collided with the barricade.

“One, two, three!”

The desks shook for the fourth time, but with just Evie it held together. Her classmates too continued to hold up umbrellas to shield from the tear gas rounds flying through the air, and to pick them up to throw it back over or throw it out the window.

“One, two, three!”

At the other door, somehow Chantal and Franco held out against the first collision with their barricade, mostly due to Franco’s great strength. From Kato’s vantage point, he could barely make out their silhouettes due to the abundance of the irritant gases in the atmosphere despite the number of canisters being chucked out. Many more still remained as it was a dangerous job and the runners needed to constantly rest and recover before looking for the next gas canister.

“Kato! I’m here!”

Coughing under her face mask at the invasive tear gas, Alice made her way to the front where the Elites were. Eon and Caius both stopped running around to throw away the canisters and formed up around Kato as well.

“We could continue to hold out like this for a while, but the battle fatigue caused by the tear gas will wear us down soon. At some point, Evie will have to charge out into the police and break up their formations before they break up ours.”

“I don’t think they have any more tricks left. It’s been tear gas for a while and now it’s down to the charge. This should be the time.”

Kato’s two most faithful servants reported to him immediately.

“You’re right. It’s just about time. Good work, everyone. Your efforts are not in vain. Caius, he’s behind this barricade?”

“He was, but not sure where he is now. Shouldn’t matter if you show up anyway. They haven’t moved back to their base to get more supplies, so this is probably it.”

Kato nodded curtly and motioned to the girl standing beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

 “Alice, climb on top of me again.”

“What—”

Without sparing even a moment, he crouched down again to carry Alice on his back in the same manner he did only minutes ago. The barricade shook one more time, but that would be the last time the PSC would get a charge off of it.

“Hold onto me tight! I’m gonna let go of my hands! Here we go!”

“Wahhh!”

Kato said over his shoulder at the same time he lunged forward towards the barricade along with his passenger, prompting Alice to squeal for just a moment as she realized to tightly bind her arms around his neck and her legs around his torso before she slipped off of him. He mentally braced himself. Though the barricade was only a bit taller than him, it was still too dangerous to vault over.

He jumped off the ground and used Evie’s shoulder as a stepping-stone to launch himself onto the top of the barricade, his arms and feet finding their grip on the jumbled mess of desk legs and surfaces. He didn’t fear the barricade from collapsing as Evie was holding everything together, but it was still a dangerous move nonetheless.

The sudden appearance of a head poking out from above the barricade momentarily surprised the PSC officers. The ones still holding onto their firearms lowered them as they were generally not allowed to aim it at people, leaving them at a loss as to what they should do. The only time they were allowed to do so was if they equipped it with beanbag rounds, and they were still fully unloading tear gas canisters at the moment.

Kato quickly took apart the top of the barricade, throwing the offending desk behind him for Eon and Caius to catch. He jumped off the barricade and over the riot shields, Alice and all in tow, further surprising the PSC officers below him. He didn’t choose a clear space to land, rather, his kneecaps collided with the helmet of one of the PSC grunts as he descended, pummelling the unfortunate victim into the ground with him.

“Oi!” “You fuck!”

“Hold up!”

The officers around them immediately cursed at the new arrivals, but once they saw the blonde hair and pink headband of the passenger, Stephen stopped them from closing their distance on them and instead they all hastily backed off. Now firmly on the ground, Alice dismounted from her express train as she checked her surroundings.

The hallway was still a mess of gases, food, paint and scrap paper. Surrounded on both sides were cautious PSC members, unsure of what to do. They were all Alice’s classmates, and even in the short time that she was in their class, she was able to recognize most if not all of them even through the full gear hiding their body and faces.

Kato picked up the confused PSC officer below him by the lapels and with his superior strength, tossed the boy into his comrades, who caught him neatly in their clutches. The two delinquents stood tall together among the sea of police in riot gear, unwavering and determined.

“Alice. Kato.”

From between the ranks of the police line far down the hall, next to Franco and Chantal’s barricade, emerged a familiar tall black-haired man, unarmed but nevertheless possessed a commanding presence. Maintaining quite a distance, Gilbert unmasked himself to declare that he meant no physical harm to them as a PSC officer, to which the two of them relaxed a bit and followed his lead. Their helmets, goggles and face masks came off though they hadn’t worn them for very long yet.

Gilbert signalled his men with a wave, and to that everyone except Stephen backed off and proceeded to cordon off the hallway on both ends, isolating the group of four in the middle. The attempts to breach the barricade at the other door ceased as well. The PSC members and the Class F students watched the standoff from afar and from behind the barricades in a strange, eerie silence.

“Do you have business with me?”

“I have some for you.”

Although Gilbert initially addressed Kato, it was Alice who spoke up in response.

“I thought we’ve already closed the case on what was between us.”

He denied her assertion immediately.

“If that’s true, then why would you need to have the PSC arrest me?”

She shot back just as fast, and to that he gave it a moment’s thought before he nodded and seemingly conceded.

“Go on.”

Alice took a deep breath, and called out to Gilbert across the hallway.

“Can you call off the siege?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Why not?”

“We’re enforcing the laws of this land. That’s more than enough reason.”

Alice then took several strides forward until she was right in front of Gilbert, stopping only when she was mere inches from his face. Both Stephen and Kato started moving in response, but again they stopped at Gilbert’s hand signal. Stephen snarled and retreated all the way back into the police line that was set up next to the barricade at the other door. Kato too followed suit, retreating to the police line behind him next to Evie’s barricade, leaving Alice and Gilbert with a thirty feet radius of open space between them and the police lines; the 3-F classroom was around sixty feet in length.

She looked back into the calm, emotionless black eyes of her former fiancé, and saw what she always saw there. A closed book of a foreign language that Alice could not open nor read, but this was what she was here for. To open this book, at least once.

She threw her arms around Gilbert to embrace him, cheeks touching so that they were right at each other’s ears. Alice needed to tiptoe to reach it, but it wasn’t straining or uncomfortable as she put her weight onto his body. He didn’t return the embrace, or even move an inch for that matter.

“I have to do this, before you leave me behind for good. Or the other way around for you, I suppose.

“I couldn’t say anything more last night because the families were there, but I want to make clear to you my thoughts about what was between us that I couldn’t say at the time, and then I hope you can answer one question of mine. Is that all right?”

“Tch.”

Gilbert took his helmet off of his head and threw it onto the ground. She could sense the frustration in the toss and harsh landing, but he didn’t reject her. The residual hissing of smoke and tear gas continued from the canisters that were thrown back outside into the hallway, covering up their figures as well as their whispers. What seemed like a long pause was only a mere few seconds as he finally nodded. Alice closed her eyes and slowly began.

“I’m thankful for you. Truly. Out of all the suitors I have had the misfortune of meeting, you’re the only one who wanted to marry the person and not the family. I know you love me. Without you saying those words, that was obvious to me from the start.

“But why did it have to turn out the way it did? You probably know subconsciously, but haven’t realized it consciously yet. It isn’t because of Kato, as much as it is easy to blame him. Think about our relationship for the past two years. At what point were we more than just distant friends? Coworkers? Why is it that we can’t be more than that?

“It’s not that I’m in the right. It took me a while to figure out what I want or expect out of a relationship. And one thing I realized that I can’t negotiate with is that my significant other would not just understand my pains and miseries, but stand together with me in it. Is that not what a marriage is for? In other words, my feelings are more important than my family.

“But you have a different set of values. It’s the opposite, in fact. Most everyone in our social world shares your sentiments and not mine. The world isn’t perfect, so all I can do is reach out and meet you somewhere in the middle. That’s my expectation. That’s why at home I act the good girl, and at school I’m the bad girl. I hoped that you would come to understand both parts of me, one that has to bear the responsibilities of a Westgrove, and the other of my personal desires. The former, you knew exactly what it was about, but the latter still seemed to be a distant dream.

“I can’t, for the life of me, read your intentions. Your emotions, whether it was at home or at school, seemed to be the same, unreadable to the point of apathy. I can’t tell when you are real or you are fake. Maybe that nice guy is already the real you, but nothing you do makes me feel confident that that is the case. Instead, the small pleasantries slowly suffocated me. It felt as if there was a permanent distance between us, a gap I can’t cross no matter how much of myself I share with you.”

Gilbert twitched a bit. Kato had said the same thing before.

“I know you meant well. You went along with my selfishness the whole time, and when you’ve made your first selfish decision in a long time, the result is this. It doesn’t look fair to you at all. But if you understand what I was saying this whole time, if I didn’t postpone our engagement, it won’t be fair for me either. I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for the family anymore. Not my current self. Even if I have to face the consequences of evading my duties to my family, my personal happiness is still more important.

“That’s why, within our vicious cycle of contradicting worldviews, I still want to know your thoughts before we go our separate ways for good. What was our relationship to you?”

Alice couldn’t see Gilbert’s face, but she felt the emotional strain in his body. He didn’t interrupt her throughout her soliloquy, letting her thoroughly finish with her thoughts. And although Gilbert was clearly upset, true to his calm disposition his voice barely carried that emotion.

“I cherished our relationship. I do love you. But perhaps I’ve been too narrow-minded. Despite all the work I put in to make you happy, none of that was returned in the slightest. Only after yesterday did I realize that you were looking for none of the things I did for you. Kato was right when he said that the way I loved you was not what you wanted at all. I thought at some point, that you would realize your duties to your family and your responsibilities as such, but it seems like I was wrong to expect that to happen, just as you were wrong to expect that there could be a compromise between your freedom and your responsibilities.

“But just as you have your responsibilities, I have my own and I take pride in assuming these duties. Despite being casted out as a useless son of the Lafayettes whose only future is inside the mob, I climbed out of that hellhole alone to bring myself up to the heights I’m at right now. I’m not doing it because I’m forced to do it, but because this is what I believe the whole existence of Gilbert Paul de Lafayette had been and should continue to be.

“To exemplify my will, I’ll blame this whole affair on Kato, even if the situation is more complicated than just him. Obviously, I’m not going to blame myself for being selfish, and this siege here is justice being served from my point of view. To me, he’s merely a homewrecker who deserves the retribution.

“But I can’t deny your worldview either. You’ve already made a choice, so let’s not dwell on it any longer. I don’t need to hear any more self-serving excuses to justify what was unfairly done to me. Let’s just leave the past where it belongs: in the past.”

Alice didn’t snap back the way she normally did when Gilbert said something that she didn’t agree with. Instead, tears trailed down her cheeks as Gilbert gave her his own version of the “breaking up speech”. Naïvely, she thought it could have been possible to separate on amicable terms, as their whole relationship had always been, but she was too optimistic. The rift between them only widened, and there was nothing she could do about it. They were truly too different from each other to come to a compromise.

“Yes, let’s. If this is how our paths diverge, then I must accept that reality as well.”

She didn’t say anything more. The couple of minutes of time to themselves were over. Alice separated herself from him, taking a few steps backward before she addressed him again.

“You wanting me to transfer to Regia Miriam, was also something you thought would correct the unfairness done against you?”

“Exactly. I believe any other man would be just as furious if this betrayal happened to them.”

“Fair.”

It couldn’t be helped. After all, Alice’s choice was definitely unfair to Gilbert from his point of view, especially when it was Alice who chose him in the first place. A broken promise was still a broken promise, no matter how much she justified it.

“Then, I’ll ask one more time. Why was I arrested the moment I returned to school?”

Gilbert didn’t reply immediately. Instead he made a rare smile, surprising Alice as his words up until now was on the edge of patronizing and spiteful, even if the emotion didn’t surface in his voice. It wasn’t the usual calm and unreadable one that he often carried, but one that was genuine in its expression. It was not a happy smile; rather, it conveyed a tacit satisfaction or realization of some sort.

“To have this conversation with you, though not in this particular manner.”

Alice returned the thin smile. She knew, in that moment, that she would never be able to speak to Gilbert in such a manner ever again. She took several steps further back, accepting that they would separate for good.

“Is that all to it?”

The smile disappeared from his face, returning to the usual calm posture that was his defining characteristic. It would never reappear in front of Alice again.

“Of course not. But if you’re asking that, then you also know exactly why there was a need to take you into custody.”

“I do. So are you going to call off the siege?”

She kept backing up until she bumped into Kato, just outside the barricade and before the police line. The boy next to her held her hand firmly, in part to affirm his intentions and in part to comfort her. Across the aisle, Stephen reappeared beside his boss, his outer appearance as sketchy as ever.

“No, we’re not lifting the siege.”

“Then you know what’s going to happen.”

“Yes.”

She first turned towards the barricade to see that it was already partially dismantled. Sisi was standing in the new opening, staring straight back into her eyes, and Alice nodded. She finally turned to her friend who was holding onto her hand, and smiled helplessly. He grinned back fearlessly, and reassured her.

“Let’s go.”

She admired his confidence. It was something she could never bring out on her own. Perhaps that was why she wanted to chase after him. With her free hand she poked at Kato’s chest, somewhat humorously.

“Class A possesses a restoration of order casus belli against Class F. With a valid casus belli, Class A shall declare war on Class F.”

As Alice finished the declaration of war, the students around them began to rile up in both excitement and panic. They were in the middle of a siege, paused by the arrival of an unknown quantity, and now escalated from a police action to a Class War.

Normally, a declaration of war would be made by the class representative, but there were actually no rules on who could declare war on whom, as long as the people involved were part of two opposing classes, the attacking party had a valid casus belli, and they wore cleanse tags. This was why Alice needed to be arrested; to prevent her from starting a war on her own. Hell, even in the absence of all the students of a class from school, a declaration of war could be made to that class’s teacher, though the resulting war would be very meaningless. To declare war, one class would need a casus belli to do so, and those were often rare to produce and almost always involved teachers or students with representative authority. However, the restoration of order casus belli was one of the few special ones that were always valid. It was automatically given to all classes above the offending class who broke the “normal” order.

At the start of the year, Class A was given sixty points, Class B was given fifty points, and so on, down to Class F with ten points. Classes below F did not start with any points. The “normal” ranking order was this order, denoting that the classes were in their rightful places. Since Class F has won over Class E and stolen ten points from them, Class F was now “out of order” and could be put back into place by any class with more points than them. That was the restoration of order casus belli.

Even after the end of a restoration of order war, if Class F still had fewer points than Class A and was still “out of order”, the casus belli would still remain and would become valid again after their truce expired, making it very dangerous for lower classes to challenge those above them. It was conventional wisdom that only classes A to C were in contention for winning the Class Wars.

Sisi clambered over the barricade to put herself out in the middle of the corridor, reuniting with Alice and Kato quickly. She was the only teacher in the middle of the fighting, and therefore the only Supervisor for the Class War in the vicinity.

“Alice! Kato!”

But she was only able to call out their names before an earsplitting school-wide announcement blared from thin air. The school’s principal, Eterna, was an alchemist of the highest order and this kind of auditory physics was merely child’s play. Under her passive watch over the school from a higher plane, she managed the Class Wars for the two-hundred-something years of this school’s existence.

“Attention, school. A casus belli has been claimed by Class A against Class F. 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 A and Class F. Let’s get crackin’!”

Without a moment to spare, the police line behind them started to shuffle forward, evidently going after Kato. However, Sisi slipped herself between the rushing Class A students and Kato and Alice, stopping them in their tracks. As a teacher and therefore a Supervisor of the Class Wars, she was normally not allowed to intervene in this physical brawl, but as Sisi had demonstrated before, she was willing to push the rules to its limits.

“Ms Romana!”

One of the PSC members exclaimed, but they didn’t charge through her, still respecting her position as a Supervisor. Meanwhile, the school’s barrier was activated as it turned into rainbow-coloured auroras outside and everyone’s peripherals turned all purple, the primary indicator that a Class War commenced. While the barrier was active, everyone was protected from most injuries, with or without cleanse tags.

“Gilbert! Shall we have a Duel?”

Kato ripped off his mask that he had lowered to under his chin as he pointed his index finger at his opponent, who similarly glared back with the same hostility.

“Of course. On what conditions?”

Duels were a special feature of the Class Wars, where participants from the opposing parties would fight on the terms set out by the Supervisor who approved of the Duel. In the modern day, most Class Wars were actually settled on these Duels instead of a physical battle royale, and those Duels consisted of academic challenges in a trivia quiz format. It was very rare for Class Wars to devolve into violence like it had been decades ago, as the school moved forward together with the progress of civilization.

“How about a winner-takes-all, one-vee-one? It shouldn’t leave you unsatisfied, win or lose, right?”

The winner-takes-all condition was not uncommon. Score-wise, it was equivalent to all of that class’ students’ cleanse tags being fully saturated. Sometimes, classes did agree to hinge the war’s outcome on a single Duel, though the format of the Duel might be varied and may even take hours to finish. As for the one-on-one, Kato was alluding to a physical battle. Since a Class War was won by fully saturating the cleanse tag of the opposing class representative, only class representatives were allowed to propose such a condition to the Supervisor.

A cleanse tag could either be saturated by physical injury, or artificially saturated by the Supervisor after a Duel. Although preventing injury was the common approach of understanding cleanse tags and the school’s barrier, it was actually a misnomer. More precisely, it healed injuries at a rapid pace and immediately as they occurred. If someone was cut, immediately the skin would be repaired and even push the blade back out from the healed opening. However, the rapid regeneration process tapered off as it approached fully healed, akin to the growth of a logarithmic function. This was why small cuts and bruises remained on the person.

As for the reason why it was called “saturated”, it came from the patches of dark that appeared on the cleanse tag as one took damage, until it turned completely black. Luckily, a fully saturated cleanse tag functioned just as normally as an unsaturated one; it was merely a convenient measure of physical injury taken by the wearer. This system was an age-old method for fighters of all kinds to spar with each other without causing serious injury. This particular barrier was a special one, as it also protected non-cleanse tag wearers while it was active. The class representative whose cleanse tag was the first to fully saturate became the losing party.

Unsurprising to Kato, who had the chance to go through the intelligence this morning in the Records Office to confirm Alice’s tip off from yesterday, Gilbert grinned faintly at his suggestion. If Gilbert was as old-school and traditional as he presented himself to be, then there was no chance that he would turn down this kind of Duel. After all, it was a fair-and-square battle, brimming with the sense of chivalrous pride that he stood for.

“I have no objections to these conditions. Let’s make the winning criteria the same as street rules.”

“I’m down for it.”

He held up his left arm, cleanse tag and PSC scarf together, in the air. Kato mirrored him, but obviously without the PSC credential.

“What street rules?”

Alice tugged on the Eternian youth’s right hand that she was holding, rather forcefully, sensing the danger in those words.

“It’s a euphemism for a fight to incapacitation. Because street rules basically means no rules, people beat each other up until one passes out or outright dies. In our context, that’s worth about two fully saturated cleanse tags.”

Alice’s expression hardened at the cold explanation, but she didn’t speak. Beating someone up until they were halfway to passing out was no small task. Though she didn’t want them to, she kind of expected and accepted that they would go this far.

Sisi was also holding up her cleanse tag, which glowed blue while the two men’s glowed yellow. It meant that the two were now locked in a Duel and Sisi was the Duel’s arbitrator. Technically, the Supervisor could impose whatever conditions on the Duel they wanted regardless of the participants, but it was an unspoken constitutional principle that they would respect the conditions that the two class representatives agreed on.

“The challenge is a physical contest. The winner is determined by street rules. That is all.”

Sisi declared succinctly to the two fighters and the crowd around them, which roared in anticipation for a glorious battle. The Class A students were quite confident in the abilities of their boss, despite the open secret that Kato and Evie were trained Eternian fighters.

“Alice. It’s my turn to show you that your choice is correct.”

Kato let go of Alice’s hand, sparing a glance at his newfound friend for the last time before the fight commenced. He saw an awkward combination of emotions on her face, including worry, anxiousness, and most importantly, determination.

“Then show me.”

Her reply was as crude as she ever was, eliciting a snarky smirk from him, but he turned away just in time to not let her see it. He took a few steps away from Alice and faced Gilbert straight from the front, who took apart his body armour that he wore for the siege to reveal the usual school uniform underneath.

Behind the barricade that Sisi emerged from, Chantal arrived from the other barricade like the other students of Class F to watch the Duel. Because they made the Duel a winner-takes-all, there was no point for the other students of Class A and Class F to fight each other. Moreover, the siege was essentially temporarily lifted as well, as once the Class War finished with the Duel the two classes would be forced to negotiate a peace settlement and that happened in the Assembly Hall, requiring most of both classes to attend. If the PSC still insisted to continue the arrests, it would be attempted inside the Assembly Hall immediately after peace was concluded.

“Wait a minute. Gilbert should know that Kato’s a deity. Why would he agree to fight him?”

Chantal asked the Elites next to her.

“It’s because Gilbert’s a challenger. He came to our school during middle school, remember? He was actually trained as a bodyguard up until he moved in here.”

Caius answered first. All of today’s Class F came up from the main feeder school, Korolev Junior Secondary School.

“Yeah. He originally wasn’t supposed to take over his family’s company, and he was physically superior, so they thought they could make him into a reliable asset to the family. But then his older brother died in an accident back then, so with his smarts it made him the next in line. Of course, his granddad is still in control right now, but it’ll eventually be his to run.”

Eon explained further for his classmate, to which she was very surprised.

“How did you guys know that?”

Caius and Eon looked at each other, and slowly grinned with a twinge of smugness.

“Trade secret.”

Chantal shook her head in disapproval, knowing fully that Caius and Eon had been up to no good, and with that in mind she didn’t press them further. Of course, the Elites learned all of that from the Records Office this morning, but they obviously weren’t about to admit to wrongdoing. Alice had told Kato that Gilbert was physically superior and most likely a challenger, so his file was scrutinized for traces of his martial pedigree, and to the Elites’ disappointment they could not find much beyond confirmation that he was indeed a challenger.

That was why Kato had faith that this contest would go through. He didn’t know exactly how well-trained Gilbert was, and he wouldn’t know until he actually fought him. Despite this unknown, somehow Kato was still confident that he would win. Kato and Gilbert kept their eyes on each other’s cleanse tags, waiting for the signal.

“I won’t be holding back.”

“Neither would I.”

After a very short exchange of words, the glows on their cleanse tags on both their arms instantly turned from yellow to blue, a glow which would persist for a good ten seconds or so before it receded to a dim light so that it was not distracting. The preparatory phase was over; the challenge phase began, and so did their fight.

Even before their feet left the ground they could instantly feel the extreme intensity of each other’s killing intent. They closed the distance between each other in a flash, carrying with them the intent of inflicting maximum pain. Their fists bore the weights of their opposing ideals, principles that they could not compromise over, and there was no way to settle the fight other than through a physical battle.

“Hah!”

“Keh!”

Kato landed the first punch, putting Gilbert’s stomach into a world of hurt, but to Kato’s surprise Gilbert didn’t budge. Instead, the tall man absorbed the pain and went on the offensive, managing to throw Kato into the adjacent wall. Surprised, Kato flinched on impact, and that cost him dearly. He received several more punches and kicks to his body before he was able to dodge the final one and regain his footing.

“Arrgh!”

Although the barrier prevented almost all injuries, guaranteeing protection from fatal injuries, oftentimes superficial bruises and cuts remained, and Kato was going to have lots of those after this fight. The wall he was slammed into was made of brick, and certainly a human body was not enough to pulverize brick, so his body was pulverized instead.

Mentally fighting the blinding pain, he managed to clear a bit of distance away, but Gilbert attempted to immediately close it to continue his rapid attacks. Seeing that, and true to his skill and experience, Kato fought the pain to clear his mind and made a split-second decision to go all-in on the offensive, and both sides connected their hook and kick, sending each other staggering back and into the ground in intense pain.

“Ayyy~!”

“Wayyyy~!”

Cheers roared from the police lines that still blocked off the corridor on both ends.

“Kick his ass, Kato!”

“C’mon, get up already!”

Similar cheers came from inside Class F, though with more words than Class A’s primitive noises.

Neither fighter inside the ring, though, took notice of the cheers. They immediately recovered onto their feet and continued their attacks. By now Kato had warmed up and got a grasp on the angles that Gilbert took and was able to parry some of them, but Gilbert was the same too. They were in a sort of a stalemate of close-range exchanges for a good, long thirty seconds, both shuffling back and forth with the flows of attack and defence, cycling through a pattern of absorbing hits while weaving in the next hook or punch. After the first encounter where Kato was pummelled, they now seemed to be evenly matched.

Alice watched in silence and astonishment, leaning on the wall to keep herself on her feet. In place of Kato’s hand, Sisi’s was there holding hers instead, watching over the fight together with her. Although Gilbert’s style seemed to be more on the attack than defence, somehow he was being pushed backwards by Kato.

“Agh!”

“Hn!”

In a moment of miscalculation, Gilbert lowered his guard and allowed himself to be kicked hard backwards, crashing into the police line at the other end away from Kato. It bought a moment of reprieve for Kato who entered that deadlock from a disadvantage, controlling the pain by gritting his teeth.

“—!”

During that exchange, he realized that Gilbert’s style of attack was very offensive-oriented, and was surprised at his proficiency in empty-handed combat. All of his hooks, punches, knees and kicks were well-formed and those that connected caused lots of damage. In fact, it was very similar to the way the masked girl in the jumpsuit fought him yesterday, if not the same.

“Ssssss!”

A mechanical hissing sound reached Kato’s ears as he saw several smoke grenades thrown at him from Gilbert’s side’s police line. By law, non-participants of the Duel were not allowed to interfere themselves, but certainly Gilbert could use his surroundings to his advantage, especially when this Duel was fought on street rules. He nicked the smoke grenades that were flying in Kato’s direction from the pockets of his fellow PSC colleagues.

Almost instantly the whole corridor was once again filled with smoke, reducing visibility to almost nothing, inducing the crowd of people to back off from the rush of the fog. Though it was not too much of a problem, it was still a disadvantage for Kato if Gilbert was from that jumpsuit girl’s school of empty-handed martial arts.

He backpedalled immediately, evading the approaching gas cloud and crossing the length of the corridor back to Alice and Sisi’s end, knowing that an attack would quickly emerge from the white smoke. In no time he reached his classroom door’s barricade and yanked a chair out from it by its backrest, swinging it forward just in time to intercept and parry the police baton that swung out from the smoke. The chair’s metal frame under the seat connected, creating a piercing ping of metal on metal.

Fighting at mid-range, it was much easier to read the opponent’s moves as there were only one or two things that could reach his body, but naturally, it meant that the opponent enjoyed this advantage too. However, Kato’s forte was not dependent on that. It was that he was much more practiced with something in hand and the creativity it afforded. He inclined the chair to one side and pushed forward, using the chair legs to guide and glide the baton away to expose Gilbert’s side. Following through the momentum with the rest of his body, Kato landed a roundhouse kick that again threw Gilbert off his feet and crashed him a good twenty feet or so backward, all the while using his sixth sense to the limits as he could not see anything beyond a foot in front of himself.

“Yah!”

“Uuugh!”

Gilbert falling to the floor face-up, Kato launched himself at him, landing on his stomach and pushing the backrest of the chair against his throat under the chin. With no end in sight for the smoke, Kato leaned forward until he was only inches from Gilbert’s face, which although it was showing fatigue, it was still as passive and emotionless as it ever was.

Despite the physical abuse, the cleanse tag on Kato’s arm was probably only forty percent saturated. Dark patches dotted his cleanse tag, as if someone put those patches next to a flame and burned the false fabric. From his estimations, Gilbert should be about the same. They both breathed heavily from the pain and exhaustion, but there was still a long way away from knocking someone unconscious.

“Hey. Do you actually intend for this Duel to beat each other up until someone passes out?”

Kato asked him seriously. With the chair locked at his throat and his centre secured by Kato underneath his weight, Gilbert didn’t make any rash moves. He used this time to catch the little breath he was allowed as he struggled to make a strenuous reply.

“That’s what I signed up for.”

Kato’s eyes narrowed, upset at his obstinacy.

“Can you surrender here?”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Hng!”

He shoved the wooden backrest into Gilbert’s throat for a good two seconds, evidently impatient.

“You already lost! No, your loss was decided by Alice. It was always decided by her. You even knew it from the start! If you have understood her, it wouldn’t have come to this point. So why this childish tantrum?”

“Kuh!”

Gilbert coughed violently as Kato pushed on his throat once more, closing the airways and depriving him of the air he needed to recover.

“You two are allowed to do as you wish, but I cannot? Don’t make me laugh.”

Gilbert croaked. Every time Kato used the backrest of the chair to strangle him, the dark patches on his cleanse tag grew larger, eating up the white of his cleanse tag under the dim blue glow.

“I’d agree if this was beneficial to you, but all this is only making Alice cry. Even if you’re not the one she chose, she still thinks of you as a friend. She should have shown you this. Is your love for her so conditional, so superficial that the moment she leaves you, you can trample on what remains between the two of you?”

For once, a shadow of doubt materialized in Gilbert’s eyes. It was as if he saw an inkling of why Alice charged through the middle of the siege, just to have a conversation with him.

“AAAAAGGGGHHH—!”

Gilbert realized that, somewhere along the way, he had relinquished his grip on his police baton. He wasn’t conscious of it until this moment because of the lock Kato had on him and the multiple stresses at the throat. Kato had used his free left hand to pick up the baton and stab it into Gilbert’s open right palm, wringing out a painful gasp from him. Not only that, Kato pushed the chair on his throat again, shutting off the gasp instantly.

“Do you not know the cry of someone in despair? Can you not empathize with her feelings? Love is not something so easily convinced of just through worldly actions.”

Those worldly actions referred to Gilbert’s attempt to separate Alice from Kato. Kato wasn’t mad. He was disappointed, frustrated, and most of all, felt pity for the man in his grasp. From the combination of smoke and a twinge of tear gas, tears formed at the corners of his eyes.

“You should know this. I believe that you genuinely love Alice. But that’s only half of the relationship. Love is not earned. It can only be given away without conditions.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you stole her away, and why I have the right to exact revenge—AAAGGGGGGGHHH!”

Kaot stabbed him in the hand with the baton again. There was little Gilbert could do from this position; his legs would not be able to reach Kato, his body was squashed to the floor by Kato’s weight, his arms would not have enough power in them as his centre was pinned down, and his throat was under direct strangulation. Kato spat out.

“There’s nothing good that comes out of this! It’s not exactly a secret that I’m a deity! Your chances of winning are slim, so why?”

Gilbert’s breath was still laborious. His eyes flickered between open and shut as he struggled to fight the fatigue and the lack of air.

“You should know. What Alice had done will not sit well with either family. Despite what Alice promised her brother and uncle, they will make every effort to force Alice out of the Westgrove business, because my family will take action against the Westgroves as retaliation.”

Kato froze. The revelation wasn’t too out of left field, but he sensed something dreadful coming.

“Like what?”

“Smear campaigns, extortion, sabotage, every crime in the mafia handbook will be used to punish the Westgroves. It won’t be a war, but it’ll just be threatening enough to force Albert and Mr Justin to play their hand.”

Gilbert shook his head sluggishly as Kato grimaced. What were the uses of family, if all they cared about was the money?

“Don’t get me wrong; I want to bash in that head of yours into the pavement. But this fight, if I can demonstrate that I lost to a rival too strong for me to defeat on so-called street rules, then my family would be less inclined to put that kind of pressure on the Westgroves.”

Kato gasped, reeling back from Gilbert’s face. He didn’t let go of the chair in his hand and the lock he had on his throat, though he relieved the strangling. Gilbert immediately took a huge breath but he didn’t move, allowing himself to remain restrained.

“Explain yourself.”

Kato kind of knew, as he had seen his file earlier this morning, but he wanted to confirm.

“The Lafayette Group, like a lot of other businesses, is part of the mafia. I was going to become the top boss of the mob that did the physical fighting, until a few years ago. That was when I joined your class, so that I can get an education worthy of a new heir to the company. I will be the boss of both the business and the mobsters. If someone of my standing loses to Alice’s new chosen one in a street fight, it’ll put a damper on my family’s desire for retaliation against the Westgroves. They’d think twice to push on the issue if they were in an unfavourable position.”

“What about your own reputation?”

“For better or for worse, there’s nobody that could replace me right now. I wish I could say that my younger sister could, but alas, she’s not enough. So even if my reputation tanks, it won’t amount to anything substantial.”

“…”

Suddenly, Gilbert grabbed hold of the chair’s backrest that was being pushed against him and threw it aside, wresting it away from Kato’s grasp. Like Kato, he absolutely was tired but definitely not out of commission yet. However, Gilbert still did not move from his position, and instead he grabbed Kato by his lapels, pulling him close to his face again.

“That’s why, Kato, you must defeat me here, convincingly and without doubt in the eyes of my allies and your enemies, because this is your responsibility for taking Alice away from me and her family. This is all your doing, and you have a duty to serve the consequences of your actions.”

“Is this why you accepted this Duel? Because you knew you would lose?”

“No, my main objective was to beat the shit out of you, but also yes, I expected to lose.”

Despite being in such an adverse position, Kato admired Gilbert’s will and modus operandi. His sense of duty and responsibility had not wavered once, even in the face of a devastating loss. Kato straightened up and said seriously.

“I will do my utmost to bring Alice wherever she wants to go. That’s all I can say.”

Kato gritted his teeth. Though he was prepared for a fight to the death, he still was upset at the shackles all of them were under. He briefly wondered, once he became an Eternian assassin, if he would constantly think about these shackles, just as Gilbert was doing here. Would he be able to carry out a mission if the objective was directly against his own principles and values? He did not know. He reared back the police baton in his hand.

“Then let’s get this over with. It was my loss. My mistake was to not keep you empty-handed.”

Gilbert closed his eyes, surrendering himself to Kato. For sure, if Gilbert’s school of combat was similar to the jumpsuit girl that Kato had fought the day prior, then allowing Kato to use mid-range weapons would not be favourable.

The white smoke around them continued to billow, and they could hear the voices of their classmates shouting over and over again in the distance. The resignation in Gilbert’s pensive expression was something Kato learned to hate, and even at this juncture they were prisoners of their own fates, actors that were compelled to fulfill their god-given role in society.

“Yes, that was your first mistake. Your second was to succumb yourself to your shackles. But that’s a subjective take. I have no doubt you take pride in decorating your laurels with those shackles.”

“Both you and Alice will one day reach a wall that you can’t scale. When that time comes, I wish the two of you will find a way to find comfort in these shackles.”

Gilbert’s will had not faltered and instead fired back. Kato raised the baton high in the tear gas-laced air.

“If she can’t get out of her cage, she just has to be strong enough to fly while carrying the cage and all.”

“And one day, she’ll be just as tired and miserable as if she didn’t take that ridiculous form of flight. Flying from inside and carrying the whole cage with her is not easy.”

Kato frowned. He didn’t know what to say. Their ideals were opposites. He aimed at Gilbert, ready to make the final strike.

“I’ll see you later.”

With all his might, he skewered the baton squarely in the chest. Gilbert gagged horribly from the pain, and Kato even thought he heard bones shattering underneath the pressure, but that was his imagination. The barrier would not allow any fatal injuries to occur.

“Kuh!”

The dark spots on Gilbert’s cleanse tag grew to occupy all of the surface area, turning it completely black. His eyes were closed shut and his face writhed in pain. If they weren’t in the barrier, his ribcage would definitely have shattered.

Kato picked himself back on his feet and staggered back from Gilbert as he dropped the baton, feeling just a bit surreal at finally reaching the end. With the cleanse tag of a class representative completely saturated, the Class War was finished, and not a moment too soon the high-pitched voice of their headmistress thundered across the school.

“Ding dong! With a fully saturated cleanse tag, Class 3-A’s representative has been eliminated from the war, and with it the war itself was also lost. This is the second war in a row that Class 3-F has won! Once again, congratulations!”

Before anyone outside could make a move, Eon and Caius both jumped from behind the barricade and into the smoke-filled hallway, followed by several of their classmates. The latter carried behind him a bunch of metre sticks taped together as a makeshift flagpole, and clipped to it was a huge variant flag of the Yue homeland. Instead of a white five-petalled blossom, the flower was half-wilted, the stars in its petals were missing, and was painted on a black background. The missing stars were supposed to represent the star in the star-and-chevron pattern in the Auxirian national flag. The black blossom flag was a symbol of resistance in Lien.

“Glory to Korolev! Glory to Livia! Glory to Lien! Long live the revolution!”

Eon cried into the megaphone in his hand, in the midst of the silent crowd outside the classroom. Caius waved the flag furiously in the white smoke, somewhat visible as the flag was black. Their classmates began neutralizing the smoke grenades in the hallway that were still spewing out smoke. The silence only lasted a moment before the rest of the school rose in an uproar.

“—————!”

Students who were watching from a distance or from inside neighbouring classrooms poured into the filthy sector of the corridor, euphoric with cheers and chants. Conversely, the PSC carried with them their equipment, ducked out of the way and quickly retreated, slipping through the crowd. This was the first time in living memory that Class A had lost a Class War, and on the back of a political crackdown. The rebels of Class F also came out to greet the jubilant students from the other classes. In a normally class-segregated school, at this moment yesterday’s enemies were today’s allies.

“Stephen.”

Kato breathed as he saw the man pick up Gilbert from the ground and slung his slump arm over his shoulder. Stephen spared him a vicious parting glance, but nevertheless nodded, recognizing that his party had lost this fight. Gilbert was still breathing and conscious, but was undoubtedly fatigued and in serious pain as well. Stephen carried him away, following the rest of the PSC out of the vicinity.

Though the white smoke was thinning thanks to his classmates’ efforts, it was still difficult to make out things in the distance. Lot of people rushed past Kato to the Class F doors to celebrate with the Class F resistance, leaving behind an auspicious atmosphere in its wake. He thought to himself, today was quite eventful. From Alice’s worries to the fallout of an intractable political issue that traced all the way back to the Yue homeland, he wondered how many things went right and how many things could have went wrong. But for now, he appreciated the glory of victory, knowing that it was only for this moment in time that he had won.