August 28, 1887. Clear skies, 21°C.

Like usual, the Habsburg house and Eon arrived first at the gates of the Bozz, before the Jupiter sisters or Caius and Franco. Though it was said the Habsburg house, unfortunately, Karl was not coming and instead, Sisi was taking his place. There was some regret with Karl not being able to go with them as this was their last year together and this was a rare opportunity, but alas, it was unavoidable.

Holding onto Kato’s left hand was his dearest little sister, Teto. She decided to go with a big loose t-shirt over a chequered frilly skirt with sandals today, and true to her phobia of clothing she continued to refuse to wear socks. Her twin drills were rolled up around her hair rollers to maintain the strength of the curls.

Sitting on the bench were his two older stepsisters, both beautiful in their own right. The supermodel Evie chose to go super casual with an open shoulder sweater and pleated skirt, somewhat muting her naturally powerful sex appeal. On the other hand, his newest stepsister Yui went with a very mature look, complete with a light short-sleeved jacket over a dress shirt and a tight skirt. Standing up next to them was their guardian Sisi in a frilly tank top exposing her tiny but bare shoulders and arms.

Crouching next to the road some ways away from the bus stop where they got off not too long ago was Eon in his trademark cardigan. Kato himself was in his tight long-sleeved shirt and skinny jeans. There weren’t many options for men, to be honest.

“Get over here.”

Eon called out to Kato as a bus came in. He motioned for Teto to let go of his hand, and she ran into Evie’s open arms.

“What’s up?”

“I believe the dudes are here.”

They crouched together and watched from afar as the people got off the bus one by one. Sure enough, a short blonde-haired boy in a hoodie followed behind a tall man with a red-haired bowl cut in a polo shirt.

Next to the amused Kato, Eon waved frantically at the new arrivals but remained silent as to not disturb the girls on the bench. As scripted, Caius and Franco knew exactly where to look and immediately found the two of them. It wasn’t the first time they had this drill here at the Bozz.

“We’re here.”

They all huddled together on the side of the road, perhaps comically, all crouching if not already sitting down on the curb.

“Need a light?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Sure.”

They didn’t actually smoke. There were lots of kids who did, but because Kato had a very physically demanding job waiting for him, he’d rather not take up such an unhealthy habit. Instead, they did lollipops and Caius handed one out to the each of them.

“Caius, you saw them already?”

“Yes, they were there. They’re as glamorous as always. They should be coming off the next bus.”

“Excellent.”

Caius and Franco took the express bus to get here, but the stop that the Jupiter sisters would have waited at wasn’t an express stop, so they would pass by the Jupiter sisters waiting there and conveniently snoop on them.

“Glamorous as in expected?”

“Yes. Beautiful but we’ve seen them before.”

“Franco was very lucky that he joined our circle. He can join us gawking at our childhood friends.”

Kato snickered at Eon. That did sound kind of ridiculous, he thought, but hey, they were all men here.

“There’s more eye candy over there too, if you want.”

“I mean, they’re all really good too. I guess the fresh new figure is Yui, who’s not too bad herself.”

“No, she’s really good. Evie’s form is just unfair, but in isolation, Yui should be top of our class if Evie was excluded.”

“Yeah what the eff, Kato, how do you live with Evie when she’s the living definition of sex?”

“By spending every minute of your life with her so that every part of her becomes normalized. I’ll dig up Pavlov’s dog from the grave for you.”

“Are you sure you’re immune?”

“No, not all the time. Evie’s really unfair.”

“Agreed.”

They said in unison as they exchanged chuckles. Of course, they were always on the lookout for the girls in both ways, to appreciate their form and to make sure they were out of earshot of their conversation.

“How’s yesterday, Franco? Everything went as planned?”

“Yeah, it was a peaceful day. Mum didn’t freak out.”

“Bless you and your brother.”

Kato patted Franco on the back.

“Bless him.”

They all replied together again. Due to some extraordinary circumstances, his deceased brother was the reason why Franco was here with them today.

“I saw Alice yesterday at the white temple, actually. She was there to visit someone who passed away. Did she go to school?”

“Yeah, she was at school. She must have gone afterwards? That’s interesting. Didn’t she say she came to this city only last year? And she already needs to visit the white temple?”

“Hmm, a mystery we can’t solve.”

“Hey, what do you think Alice would wear for casual?”

The conversation inevitably returned to gossiping.

“She seems like a Bia, so maybe something a bit mature.”

“We don’t know that yet. She could be a cutie. I think that would suit her better.”

“No, I’m pretty sure Alice is the type who would go unexpectedly risqué. She doesn’t like bland or boring stereotypes.”

“Huh, Franco making a decent point for once. Do we have a Franco with a brain or a drain?”

“Eon!”

“Looks like we can make a bet on this.”

Kato grinned as he saw the apprehension on Franco’s face and the amused scepticism from the other two.

“I bet on a drain.”

“Me too.”

The Eon-Caius duo confidently predicted against Franco.

“We don’t even know what we’re betting on yet.”

“How about a dare? Absolute orders.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’ll side with Franco this time, boys. I, too, will believe in Alice’s diverse taste in aesthetics.”

Though Kato wasn’t too confident in making that call, it was just all in good fun. If he really had to choose one or the other, he would definitely think that it was more likely that Alice would dress glamorously to express herself. Simply being different would be something Alice would seem interested in.

“Look, the next bus is here.”

They watched the bus come to a halt at the stop, and to their delight, already the first group of people who got off the bus included the Jupiter sisters.

Bianca led the way with a long heavy skirt where its waistline started from just below her ample assets, which her blouse shaped nicely around. Although it was old-school, she could still give a run for Evie’s money, even if she would lose. Eon commented.

“Bia’s expected outfit. Mature, plain, yet somehow sexy.”

Then the petite girl of the Jupiters followed, wearing a denim overalls dress over a white T. Between her listless expression and her small form, it masked a competitiveness and endurance that no one would expect, so the boys often gave her the respect fitting of an elegant little lady like Sisi. In other words, they felt sorry for her lack of assets. Caius remarked.

“Ariel’s still like a middle-schooler. A cute one.”

A figure as tall and impressive as Evie’s kept pace beside the tiny one. She was the trendiest of the sisters, today wearing super short denim shorts with her v-cut t-shirt exposing her cleavage and midriff, and finishing with a sleeveless hoodie over it. Franco noted.

“Scarlett’s secretly the MVP of this group. She has Evie’s body but fashionable. Do ya think she gets lots of love letters?”

Then a trail of other people followed them out of the bus. Although Kato shouldn’t be too expectant, it was saddening all the same. Knowing her personality, he couldn’t help but think that she was pulling at his heartstrings on purpose.

And finally, the last of the sisters, Mirabelle, got off of the bus and onto the pavement with the rest of them. She wore a simple pink blouse with short frilly sleeves and a low cut which revealed a baby blue tank top underneath. Like Bianca, they wrapped tightly around her torso and accentuated her curves. Her khaki miniskirt contrasted nicely with her pantyhose, and she topped it off with a pair of tan-coloured boots.

Kato breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t realize he was holding onto, and he too observed.

“Perfect. Simple, but elegant. It sits nicely right between cute and mature.”

Because his eyes were trained onto Mirabelle’s exquisite form, Kato didn’t notice the pleasant surprise following behind Mirabelle until Eon and Franco pointed it out.

“We lost already, what the hell.”

“Aw yeah, I was right. Light loose t-shirt over dark tank top, exposed midriff, denim mini-shorts. A lot more like Scarlett than Bia.”

Alice followed Mirabelle off the bus with her usual wavy hair and red headband. If Kato didn’t know her any better, she really did look like a delinquent from the lower classes, and not a part of a powerful semi-aristocratic family. The rigid and uncompromising expression on her face made it the more convincing, but he was more impressed than anything else.

“We’ll think of a dare for the two of you later on.”

Franco said as he got up and out from their huddle and motioned towards the congregate of the girls. The rest followed him, and it was time to get the day started.

“Yo.”

“‘sup.”

A flurry of salutations exchanged between the two parties, the girls and the boys. Fortunately, ten of the thirteen people here actually knew each other since primary school so there were more embarrassing than awkward moments, mostly due to Eon.

“All right, now that everyone’s here, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Get the fuc’ in there—”

Pompous as Eon was, this time not only did Bianca pull on his ear, but Sisi too pulled hard on his other ear, comically reducing him to tears together. Sometimes, Kato suspected he had some masochistic tendencies.

As the group headed through the massive front gates, Kato looked for and kept his stride alongside the new star of their group.

“Travelling with the Jupiter sisters?”

“I thought it would be more fun if I did. And it was.”

 Now that he was up close to Alice, her exposed skin became the more alluring to his optical senses. It really was a stark contrast from her usual self at school.

“You’re a lot flashier than I thought. It looks awesome on you.”

“Th-thanks.”

Surprisingly, a stammer was followed by an aversion of eye contact and fidgeting hands. She was not used to being praised, and her reaction was met with a hand-muffled ‘pfft’ from Kato.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Without even letting him respond, she elbowed him in the ribcage. Needless to say, it only tickled, and a laugh followed from his muscle memory.

“You’re still Alice, eh, even after such a drastic change.”

“Is it such a drastic change? You just haven’t seen me out of school uniform.”

“The personality is finally matching the appearance, so maybe you’re right. You’re returning to normal and not false advertising anymore.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You should be thankful that I’m willing to come here.”

“You’re right. Thank heavens I’m blessed with such a wonderful girl.”

Kato clasped his hands together in prayer, and because of the pretension, she turned away from him entirely in embarrassment. Too late. Teasing her was too much fun for him.

He silently stepped over to her other side, lowering his head to match her eye level to see a beautiful face flushed red. A tiny gasp escaped her when she saw Kato in her field of vision and snapped back upright in surprise.

“W-w-w-what is it?”

Another cute stutter. More ridiculous words were forming in his mouth, but an unholy interruption stopped him right there.

“—nothing. Right, Kato?”

Mirabelle suddenly appeared in front of the two with an innocent smile on her face, but Kato had seen this before; many times before, when the girl was Evie instead of Alice.

“Absolutely nothing.”

Reeling himself back and metaphorically recovering onto his two feet, Mirabelle’s eyes narrowed as she continued to scrutinize Kato. He had no doubt that she had been watching them.

Or actually, she was just watching him, and he could guess why. They hadn’t seen each other for a while, and the first girl he went up to was Alice and not her.

But that was not fair to start with, he thought. She was the one who said she would be back the next day.

I wasn’t in the wrong, Mira! You had to be the one to make it up to me!

“Mira!”

Next to Kato, Alice thrust herself into Mirabelle, clutching onto her tightly. She seemed relieved to have been removed from his clutches, and even Mirabelle was patting her on the back tenderly. Then, for a split second, Alice turned her face back towards Kato over Mirabelle’s shoulder and stuck her tongue out in defiance. Kato swallowed a rebuke while trying not to grin at the absurdity.

“‘Nothing’ is right, Kato.”

Mirabelle’s smile never faltered. Although this time it had some of Evie’s aura in it, what was quintessential about her form remained as pure as Kato remembered. She carried Alice away with an air of arrogance around her, leaving him behind.

Though Alice was easy to fluster, her personality demanded her to fight back. Kato admired that prideful part of her and it let her assimilate into the Elites easily. As he stood in place and watched Alice walk arm in arm alongside Mirabelle, he was again surprised that she didn’t have many friends in Class A, when she seemed to have no problem befriending the Elites.

As they walked away from him and towards the front of their group, Bianca noticed and shook her head smugly in Kato’s direction. She stopped as to let him catch up to her.

“Alice decided to abandon you already.”

“That was entirely Mira’s fault. Alice would have stood her ground if there wasn’t such an easy way out.”

“So what you’re saying is that Mira’s playing you like a fiddle, still.”

“You’re fookin’ right. I should have known that from the start.”

“This isn’t the first day you’ve met Mira. Are you sure you’re not just dumb, or are you subconsciously a masochist?”

“I might be part of the first category, but not the second. I’ve had enough of Evie for one lifetime.”

They trailed behind the group considerably, which was loud and noisy as always. They could see that Alice and Mirabelle were at the vanguard with Evie, leading them deep into the Bozz.

“Kato, what do you think?”

“Of what?”

“Of how I look today.”

Bianca asked him directly with little hesitation. Her expression was a bit sheepish, not knowing what to expect.

“You’re as beautiful as always, Bia. Don’t worry about it.”

His praise here was different from how he praised Alice earlier. It was carefree and had none of the gung-ho attitude in it. Perhaps because he had known her for so long, there was no uncertainty in his voice. She breathed what Kato thought was a sigh of relief.

“I’m not worried about that; I’m Mira’s twin. I just wanted to hear it from you.”

He smiled wryly, impressed. Within the confines of his consciousness, a fanciful world emerged from his imagination, one where he and Bianca existed in a different, perhaps simpler, circumstance. She, too, made a content smile, affirming the honesty in her words.

---

“Franco’s still doing all right. We made it through everything in one piece.”

“He’s shaking, but the good news is that it’s all over now.”

Out of everyone, only Franco suffered from a near-fatal case of fear of heights, and all they did all morning was go on the extreme rides. From the Behemoth to the Minebuster, the roller coasters were a bit too much for Franco’s tiny heart.

“Let’s get out and get some food.”

Eon led the way out of the park to the adjacent roads where the local restaurants were. Although their group was always big, this year was and would be at its biggest iteration, for all time.

They sat down at a long table inside of a fairly busy Yue café, a bit of a ways away from the Bozz as most of the places near the park were fast food parlours. Here, they could stuff their faces with familiar Yue foods.

“Black bean sauce and beef with rice noodles. Cold lemon tea, no sugar.”

“Baked cheese and seafood casserole with fried rice. Cold milk tea.”

“Tomatoes and egg with rice. Hot honey lemon.”

“Chicken steak and black pepper sauce with rice. Hot coffee with tea.”

The children fired off their orders one by one with dishes native to the Yue café, which were really an adaptation of Yue food incorporating elements of Auxirian cuisines. The food was unquestionably from Yue, but had a bit of Auxirian flair and flavour in it.

Alice, Mirabelle and Evie decided to sit together at one end of the row and away from Kato, aggravating him as they had been avoiding him since this morning. It was even more surprising because Evie never listened to Mirabelle and was always doting over Kato, so it must have been Alice she listened to.

In lieu of their presence, Bianca joined him at the opposite end of the row, also away from the Three Heroines. She sat opposite to Kato, with the good-natured Ariel sat next to her and Teto next to Kato.

“Bia, it’s been the whole morning and they’re still ignoring me.”

“Serves you right, though I’m surprised they let us sit together like this. At the very least, Mira and Evie should have been all over you by now.”

She sneered. It was true, though. Kato couldn’t help but shake his head.

“Two can play at that game. It’s time I hang with Teto and the boys instead.”

“You’ve been doing that.”

“And it’s been fun.”

He hugged Teto tightly, to which she giggled but continued talking to the grandma and the Jupiters’ little sister, one column over. Apparently, they were talking about the current metagame of the trading card game they all played, and Sisi seemed intent to join in playing that game too.

Bianca sighed. She twirled the straw in her drink idly.

“I haven’t got the chance to get your opinion on it yet, but what do you think of Gilbert and Alice?”

“Why suddenly these two?”

“Gilbert is our enemy in school, remember? It’s not inconceivable that he’s after Class F, especially with such an easy casus belli to use.”

“There’s no point in worrying about that. If war comes, it comes. We’d fight, and someone will win.”

“Then what happens to Alice?”

“She said she’s not invested in the Class Wars, so I assume she’ll just be there for the ride. It’s not like she’s an asset for the war.”

“That’s why I’m asking. Do you think Alice is trustworthy enough? To not influence the Class Wars? She’s the fiancée of our enemy.”

Kato raised an eyebrow.

“I believe so. Her face is not hard to read. Now that can backfire, I’ll admit, but even if Gilbert’s able to weasel something out of her, that’s not a reason why I won’t be friends with her. The Class Wars aren’t that important to me.”

“Then what about Gilbert?”

“He’s an enemy, right?”

“There aren’t permanent enemies. Only permanent interests.”

“So you’re saying we can use him?”

“Maybe. Through Alice, perhaps.”

She grinned. From her tone, he could hear a bit of Ariel in it. Historically, Bianca and Ariel were the masterminds on the Jupiters’ side, while it was Kato and Eon on the Elites’ side. And it was probably not a coincidence that both Bianca and Ariel thought of the same idea here.

“Unlikely. You’re giving her too much credit. You already know that they aren’t on very good terms.”

“It doesn’t matter. Alice may not think of Gilbert as someone she could make a close relationship with, but she still has to make a compromise at some level because he’s her fiancé. Similarly, Gilbert will do the same, if not more for her.”

“More? How so?”

“Do you think in this day and age, someone can get away with being so callous about their life partner?”

“Yes, but only if you’re the girl. Because in this day and age, the patriarch has lost its position in the social hierarchy.”

“Spare me the socioeconomic issues of the modern day. Just think of it from a normal person’s perspective.”

“Yeah, I know. I was just being a smart-ass. You’re suspecting that Gilbert’s being lenient on Alice’s attitude not just out of his personality?”

Bianca nodded as she took a sip out of the cold lemon tea before continuing.

“Yes. I believe that Gilbert wants to make their relationship work out, even progressing enough to something resembling a couple.”

“Wait, how do you know so much to even deduce this?”

“I’m in your physics class, dude. I see everything going on there.”

“Wait, how the fuck is everyone in my class and how do I not notice this.”

Bianca laughed heartily. The disbelief on his face must have been comical.

“I’m just kidding. We all share home econ fifth period. Alice and Gilbert are in that class with me, Evie and Franco. Alice always sticks to us and away from Gilbert, but Gilbert of course tries to appease Alice constantly.”

“Ah, I see. So I’m not going crazy.”

“You’re supposed to say, ‘damn it, I don’t have any classes with Bia.’”

“What a shame.”

Kato took a sip from her drink using her straw. She watched without a change in her expression, but that itself gave it away. She was definitely thinking about something.

“You deserve to be ignored by Alice and Mira.”

So that was what she was thinking. Internally, Kato concurred. He accepted her charge of wrongdoing.

“Okay. In conclusion, Alice’s position is as clear as day, but Gilbert’s position is more open-ended than one might suspect. It’s still a question mark if that’s advantageous for us or not.”

“Yes. And it’s important that Class B has the support of a usable Class F, where most of our firepower will come from.”

“By usable firepower you mean pure physical ability to fight in a Class War and make a dent in all the other classes.”

“Indeed.”

“How would we win a war against Class A? We don’t have intel on them.”

“You probably don’t have much intel on any of the other classes, but Ariel’s got the docs on them ready already. You can come by the student council room tomorrow morning to have a look at it. Or tell Eon to come.”

“You mean our new hideout. Aight. We’ll see. And I’ll be on the watch for Gilbert.”

At this time, the waitresses arrived at their table with their food. Most everyone else got their main dishes, but Kato’s and Bianca’s were the only ones left without their main dish. This particular café was one of the fancier ones so there were appetizers to go with the meal, and so the two of them only had the appetizers to start with.

“Enough about work. How’s life?”

“Life? Same as ever. Eat and sleep. How ‘bout you?”

“Enjoying life.”

Without thinking too much, Kato used his fork to stab into the small loaf of white bread in Bianca’s tray, and held it up to her.

Oops. She was right. I probably deserved it.

She too, seemingly without thinking too much, gobbled it up from the outstretched fork in one go. As if reading his mind, she shook her head disapprovingly, confirming the truth in her earlier accusation. Then, she also forked his bread and held it up to him.

“Now, eat this.”

Though it couldn’t be heard in her voice, you could see she was just a tad bit embarrassed by the act. Cute. Instead of eating it whole, he took a bite out of it.

“You can have the rest.”

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I just want you to eat that.”

There was a grin on his face. If it came down to this, he didn’t care about her accusation anymore. She was going to eat it and he wanted to see her reaction.

Again, without hesitation, she ate the other half like it was nothing. She put down her fork and tidied up their fronts before chiding him.

“Did you think I’d give you the reaction you wanted?”

“No, but it was worth a try. It was still within my expectations.”

Maybe it would have worked a few years ago, but apparently not anymore.

“If it doesn’t work with me, it’ll definitely not work with Mira.”

“Did it completely whiff? Absolutely nothing?”

Kato’s eyes narrowed. He refused to believe it didn’t at least make her heart skip one beat.

“Absolutely nothing.”

She said with a poker face reminiscent of Mirabelle. He could take it at face value, but still, it seemed too unlikely to be true.

“Then let’s try something else.”

Then he reached over and used his napkin to wipe the corners of her mouth. Like the good girl she was, she let him do it without a fuss.

“Am I a little kid now? I’m not Teto.”

Bianca smirked. Her determined resistance too reminded him of Mirabelle, and like she said, these clichés wouldn’t work with Mirabelle.

“Kato! Me too!”

Reacting to her name, Teto, who was already halfway through her lunch, pointed at her lips. Of course a big brother should take care of his little sister. He wiped hers as well.

“Me too.”

A soft voice echoed Teto’s words from across the table, on the seat next to Bianca. Kato nodded at her request. He leaned over the table to wipe Ariel’s too.

They giggled, satisfied that they were babied by an older brother, and went back to talking about that card game. Kato was very satisfied too, being able to baby two little sisters.

“Your little sister complex is acting up again. Will you ever be cured of it?”

“No, and I don’t need to be cured of it.”

Kato said affirmatively. No shame in loving his little sister and her little sister.

And then their food arrived just in time. They were just a bit slower than the others.

“Do you think the gang will stay together like this? After the end of this year?”

She asked under her breath, just out of earshot of those sitting next to them.

“For sure. Why wouldn’t you guys stay together? You’re a part of the gang as much as we are.”

“Dude, you’re the pivot centre in our gang. Anyways, I’m talking more about our futures. We’re third-years now, and we’re going off to college or university next year if we could.”

“Ah, life. Just think about it when the time comes.”

“Think about it when the time comes?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not like we all will always be together. We may have to separate soon, but until then, we’re all together, right? Enjoy your life right now, and when the time comes, say what you need to say.”

“What I need to say?”

“So you don’t have any regrets when we do say goodbye.”

Bianca nodded slowly. She used to be a very melancholic kid and some of it resurfaced just now, but she kept it under control.

“How mature. If only you were that mature a couple of years ago.”

Another smirk. He could see the accusation clearly in her face, and he had no retort. It was totally justified.

“I’m sorry.”

She began eating her lunch, her smile still bright and unyielding. Kato’s head suddenly felt heavy, allowing it to droop. Despite the time passed since then, he still felt guilty seeing it, as he knew he didn’t deserve it.

“Have you thought about your career?”

He asked her hesitantly.

“I’ll be a musician, what else? I’ve been playing since I was a kid.”

“Sticking to your guns, eh?”

“And you? Your future hasn’t changed?”

“No, it hasn’t. This is the way things are meant to be.”

“Then when that time comes, I’ll wish you good health. That’s what I’ll need to say, right?”

“And in return, I’ll wish you good luck.”

Kato avoided the question, one that he felt like he shouldn’t answer. He knew she wanted him to say what she wanted to hear; to give her hope, which he could not.

Bianca held out her fork with food on it once again. He looked up to see her still smiling. It reminded him of how she put herself into a special place in his heart. How things had changed so much since they were children.

“For now, we’re still here in Livia.”

She said sweetly, hiding behind her vague words. With her other hand, she held up a small trinket that she made him buy for her at a souvenir shop earlier, out of sight of the others. It was all she could get him to do. Seeing the metallic star-shaped keychain he bought her, he nodded and smiled back.

He let her feed him and their conversation continued, leaving their baggage behind them for the time being.

“That ending was quick.”

The Elites and the Jupiter sisters were at their usual playground, now some time after lunch and halfway home. One additional character was present in the form of Sisi, walking with the children home as she was dismissed too.

“What ending?”

Sisi looked quite out of place among the gang of high school students due to her small stature. People might mistake her for being somebody’s younger sister, despite being a seventy-year-old elder.

“Alice suddenly left the student council room with Gilbert, so we closed shop early. It was weird.”

“Yeah, hopefully she doesn’t run into too much trouble.”

“On the contrary, I’m hoping she doesn’t cause so much trouble that she can’t come with us tomorrow. You know how she runs her mouth off like Eon.”

“Nah, she’s not as bad as Eon. She knows her cards well enough.”

“I don’t think you should use me as a standard for bad. Mine is way too low.”

“You’re right. Your standards are low enough that normal insults have no effect.”

They idled there for quite a while, looking at a map of the Bozz and comparing wishlists of rides they wanted to go on. Naturally, there was a lot of argument between Eon and Bianca, but they would all end on an agreement soon enough. Franco was still missing from their group, and unfortunately he would not have much say on their itinerary because of that.

“We should start off with the tallest, most exciting rides in the morning.”

“You’re ready to throw up so early?”

“Better than throwing up after lunch.”

“That’s true. We can do all the less physically demanding things after lunch.”

“Haunted house, please.”

“Of course. I want to hear you squeal.”

“I’m fairly certain it’ll be the other way around.”

“Please, both of you went mental last time.”

Interestingly, the two of them agreed on as many things as they disagreed.

“Kato, do you have a minute?”

“Yes, Sisi?”

Sisi pulled Kato a bit ways away from the group huddle, and had him sit next to him on the steps of one of the picnic shelters. They watched the others fight on every little detail amusingly, complete with Evie’s awkward and heavy-handed interventions.

“Do you have any interest in a mission tomorrow?”

“Mission?”

“A simple mission for a Heart. Think of it as an apprenticeship opportunity.”

“What kind of a mission is it?”

“Bodyguard duty. Starting tomorrow night at the Lafayette residence. Can you guess who we shall be protecting?”

“No. Not enough hints yet.”

“Think of it this way. Sisi asked you first, instead of Evie or Teto. In fact, Sisi shall only ask of you, and maybe Evie, for this particular mission. Now, how are you two related to the Lafayettes?”

“Ah… If I were to guess, the person we’re guarding is Alice.”

“Correct. Are you in?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s what Sisi likes to hear.”

Kato said without hesitation, and Sisi smiled approvingly like a proud grandmother.

“But what’s the impetus?”

“No idea. It is an order from the top. Sisi thought it would be important for you to come along. Alice is now a part of your gang, is that right?”

“She should have been last year, but you know Evie. She just leaves things where they are.”

“Sisi understands. And you’re quite close to her after only a week.”

“Now, I’ve heard this multiple times and I have to explain it every time, she’s friendlier than she appears, and you just have to push her in the right direction.”

“Well, the girl has to like the boy first before she lets you do that.”

“I don’t decide that. Make effort into getting her to like hanging out with you. That’s life, sister.”

Giggling, she motioned towards the cluster of children.

“Sisi has heard from both Master Chang and Karl. They are your reason for spending a final year in Livia, is that so?”

“Hah, yeah. How much of it do you know?”

“Just on the surface. You only had this idea after you found out you’d be erased from Livia’s memory. It’s understandable.”

Kato and his sisters Teto and Evie were raised to become Hearts. Once they leave their city of origin, in order to protect their interests and the Hearts’ in their duties, Eternia would seek out all the people related to the trio and wipe them from their memories. Part of that responsibility fell on their caretaker Karl, and that was why Karl was now absent from home all the time.

“No, you’re right on the mark. That’s exactly why I want to spend time with them.”

A sinister grin appeared on Sisi’s face as she leaned in towards Kato, who naturally became wary of this senior citizen.

“Which of those girls did you make this choice for, to take this year for yourself?”

Kato began sweating profusely as his head churned out his possible courses of action, but it was too late. This nosy old lady already had an iron grip on his arm.

“It’s… complicated.”

“Hmmmmmm. Let’s hear about it.”

Feeling the heat on his cheeks, he squinted warily at the grinning cat at his helm. He could feel Sisi was subliminally suppressing her presence so that people around her didn’t notice her in their peripherals. This was a basic alchemical technique that all deities and challengers mastered and obviously needed to become an assassin.

Kato too followed suit subconsciously, shielding his presence from his friends so that they were less likely to interrupt their conversation.

“Do I have to explain it?”

He tried one more time to escape her hold, but even he thought the chances weren’t very likely.

“If you don’t want to, then Sisi shall start guessing.”

“Really?”

“Man, you’re no fun.”

Sisi crossed her arms and pouted at the disagreeable Kato. For a moment, he really thought he was talking to a meddlesome middle-schooler, but her unnatural beauty reminded him of her real age that she so far had not been acting as. Still, he remained silent and was unwilling to say anything to her.

“…”

“…”

Another round of arguments flared up in the distance, this time Caius and Ariel entering the fray as well. Since it was still pretty much midday, not many other children were around and the main street beyond the fence was fairly busy and crowded.

“It’s one of Mirabelle or Bianca, isn’t it?”

Kato’s eyes widened nervously, to which Sisi grinned once again.

“Dude, you already knew!”

“And Sisi just confirmed it.”

He put his palm to his face, exasperated at the tiny girl’s determination.

“There was no need to confirm with me. Karl must have told you everything he knew.”

“Sisi did get a lot of it from him, but not all the details were there. That’s why Sisi is asking you right now, and you’re not telling Sisi.”

“And it’ll stay that way.”

“Should Sisi go ask them directly?”

“No! You shouldn’t!”

“Bianca’s right there. Sisi can start with her.”

“Most definitely not.”

“Then you can tell Sisi about it, or Sisi can have them tell Sisi about it.”

“…”

Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, there was no hope in sight. He definitely didn’t want to bring it up with the two girls she mentioned; not yet anyway. There should be a better time to do so.

“Do you want to break the status quo that bad?”

“So there is drama between you and those two.”

“…”

Kato made a pained expression. Unbelievable.

“Okay, fine. I’ll only give you an abstract. That’s it.”

“Ooo, not bad.”

He climbed behind her, began untying Sisi’s hair and retying it in different ways. It was a way to help him gather his thoughts.

Sisi didn’t complain. In fact, she looked pleased that someone was doing her hair. After all, Kato did Teto’s hair all the time as a child.

“Even though we were tight since we were kids, starting in primary school, Mira slowly disappeared from our group. Apparently, she went to another school on top of ours, so by middle school she barely hung out with us anymore.

“By the end of middle school, Bia became especially close to me. It was unexpected, but Mira’s absence was definitely part of why things came to be. Then I learned about the erasure. Can you guess what happened afterwards that led to today?”

Sisi nodded solemnly as he continued to gently brush through her blonde hair. He wouldn’t go through the details.

“Unexpectedly, it was Eon who brought us back from the brink. That’s why, in the end, it isn’t just about one or two people, even if Bia was initially why I sought for this year of freedom.”

He unconsciously ended up tying one big braid behind her, though it wasn’t very long because her hair only reached a bit past her shoulders. When he realized what he was doing, he also immediately knew why he chose to braid her hair. He replaced her ornamental hairpin through the braid to finish it off.

“Once Mira returned to us for high school, things went back to the way they were before. Mostly.”

“That’s right. Mostly.”

Looking up from behind Sisi’s head, he saw a familiar black-haired girl standing in front of them under the bright sunlight. Kato froze in place, complete with gaping mouth and open eyes. At the same time, he realized that Sisi, at some point, was no longer suppressing her presence. On the contrary, she was probably actively signalling Bianca to come over.

“Sisi shall be right back. Don’t you dare follow after Sisi, Kato.”

Sisi said merrily as she sprung up from the steps and ran away in the direction of the other children, leaving Kato and his incredulity behind.

“No, Sisi. I wasn’t going to follow after you anyway.”

He mumbled feebly as his new guardian took control of the children and their discussion. It now looked like as if Sisi was making all the final calls.

“You’d better not be.”

Bianca crouched down to Kato’s eye level and smiled vaguely. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes remained trained on her face, watching her carefully. Though she was blushing under his gaze, that was all he could discern. To be fair, a part of it was also avoiding looking up her miniskirt.

“You’re still playing with other girls’ hair, aren’t you? I was one of your patrons of your hobby.”

“It’s all for the sake of Teto.”

Sisi’s now-braided hair did not miss Bianca’s eyes. Kato was the one who braided her hair so many times during that summer two years ago.

She slowly untied the large bun behind her head to let her long hair down around her, and then grabbed it with her two hands to make it into two makeshift pigtails.

“Do I look like Mira?”

She beamed, but it was touched with a tint of sorrow.

“No. I can already tell the two of you apart.”

Once upon a time, it was not easy to tell the two apart if they were trying to imitate each other. It was one of the many frustrations the Elites struggled with in their childhood rivalry for mastery of the playground. However, in the present, he could always recognize the two apart.

“Really? I guess this will never work anymore.”

She sat down in the same place where Sisi was sitting previously and pointed to her hair.

“Here, tie it up.”

Kato, still sitting there on the wide step, hesitated for a moment before he reached out to touch her hair. He waited for a few more moments for Bianca to say something about how to tie her hair, but none came. It was his choice, so to speak.

So he began tying up her hair in silence. Not being able to see her face was a bit worrying, and he handled her hair with excessive care, as if he was trying not to wake Bianca up from her dreams.

“Thank you. You’ve kept your promise.”

Bianca uttered those delicate words along with all her hopes.

“No, I haven’t. The year has to end in a blast for it to be kept.”

She laughed lightly. He just had to pick out small details so he could be a contrarian.

“It’s as good as kept to me. You’re really spending the year with the rest of us without doing anything for Eternia.”

“Technically, no. I just accepted a job from Sisi, but the job is also related to us, so that’s fine.”

“The point is, y’all shouldn’t be tied down all the time by Eternia and be able to live a relatively normal life with us.”

He began to spin her hair into her usual bun.

“Bia, will you… how much does it mean to you? The die is cast, since that time, right?”

“I think it’s been set in stone a long time ago, way before that time. As much as I hate to admit it, it was a lost cause from the very start.”

“You mean the erasure?”

The mind wipe, of course, included the people who they’ve known their whole lives. And Bianca was no exception.

“Not just the erasure. There are other obstacles in my way too. One person in particular, I’ve never ever been able to overcome.”

Bianca whispered softly. There was only one person she could be talking about.

“How did you live under her shadow for so long?”

“Dunno. It did help that she was gone most of the time, remember?”

“She’s still like this right now. Mira’s been absent since Tuesday.”

Kato shook his head disapprovingly.

“I love my sister, but at the same time I can’t bring myself to accept her superiority.”

“It’s okay. You have your own parts that are better than her.”

“Such as?”

“Being an honest person when I need you to be, but more than strong-willed enough to not hesitate to act. She’s nothing like that.”

A smile flashed across her face, and then just as quickly, disappeared.

“That’s so unfair. It’s actually all your fault.”

“You’re right. It’s all my fault.”

They fell silent under the shade of the gazebo, now growing slightly longer than it had been at midday.

“… then what will you do from here, Bia?”

Kato finished up retying her bun and let go of her hair. Noticing that his fingers were no longer combing through her hair, Bianca reached behind her head to touch her new bun, as if to make sure it was really there.

“No braid?”

“No. No braid.”

Bianca sighed. She turned around to face him, finally meeting eye to eye.

“Then here’s my answer. It doesn’t mean a lot to me. In a year’s time, I’ll forget that you even existed, much less our shared experiences.”

She frowned, but she maintained eye contact with Kato. He could see both the determination and the tears in her golden eyes.

“Everything has been futile from the very start, but I don’t care anymore. At the very least, I want you to never forget about me. That’s a promise I’ll have you keep, even if I forget about you.”

Kato averted her gaze. A swirl of guilt, helplessness, and frustration overwhelmed him.

“How can I ever forget about you?”

“Then why didn’t you braid my hair?”

Kato paused for a moment. He clenched his fist as he struggled to find the right words.

“Because this, is what’s here in the present.”

“…”

“…”

“Then I want you to remember the Bianca from the past. Forever.”

Her face was now mere inches away from his. The scene felt nostalgic, coming from the same place, but a different time.

“When you leave Livia and travel across Candor, when you wake up and head out to perform your duties, when you go to sleep after a day of risking your life for Eternia, promise me that I will remain vividly in your memories, until the very end.”

Bianca leaned in and kissed Kato on the lips. In that moment of contact, she wanted to let go of an important part of her that she held onto for so long. But she realized, no matter what kind of closure she was going to get, as long as her memories remained, she would continue wishing for the impossible. And so the pain in her heart, too, remained.

---

Some time earlier, before the Elites have left school, there was a tense standoff on the main boulevard of Korolev Senior. On one side of the road closer to the school was Gilbert’s party, while on the other were members of the Mona faction.

If this wasn’t happening in front of the school and they were a few years older, having guns out wouldn’t have seemed misplaced. No one except their ringleaders dared to move or speak.

It was the Mona faction who was waiting first for Gilbert’s men to appear. Standing behind Gilbert was Alice, who felt just a bit bemused by the seriousness of the situation.

“Mona. What do you need from me?”

Gilbert was the first to speak up, in his usual no-nonsense style.

“Gilbert. I see that you’re still taking good care of Alice. I know it’s late coming from me, but many congratulations on your engagement.”

Inexplicably, the tone did not carry any of the goodwill that the words might suggest. In fact, it was clear that there was bitterness in her voice.

“You have my thanks. We both appreciate your best wishes.”

Regardless, Gilbert replied graciously and held onto Alice’s hand as he said that, to which Alice did not make any response. Mona’s gaze turned even more hostile, mostly at the indifferent Alice.

“Now, I’m sure you’re doing your best to shoot down both policies that were introduced to the Assembly earlier this week, but that’s not what I’m here for. I want to know your position on Class F.”

Mona, along with her gang, walked across the street to Gilbert’s side to confront them. She crossed her arms and demanded.

“What exactly do you want to know about my position on Class F?”

“You are our class representative, so I have to seek your opinion on them, if they are due for punitive action.”

“I see. I understand.”

Gilbert closed his eyes and mused. Beside him, Alice undoubtedly became more attentive at the conversation with the subject being Class F.

“You, of all people, should understand that this year isn’t like other years. With the deities from Class F, we’re the ones who need to compete with them, not the other way around.”

“I know. But I don’t believe that they require punitive action yet. Every other class above them except Class E has the restoration of order casus belli on them. So far, they only fought against Class E, and won with a righteous casus belli on top. I don’t see the rush for war yet.”

Hearing Gilbert praise her friends’ class was surprising and weird, but at the same time it was expected from Gilbert that he would give everyone a fair assessment. As much as she couldn’t accept his way of life, Alice appreciated their friendship nonetheless.

“What’s important is the status of Class A and its hold onto power in this school, not if our enemies waged righteous wars. You do realize that Class F is invariably allied to Class B, who are the ones in power right now? And therefore, they also control the peace processes after a Class War?”

“I’ve got to see it first-hand today, so I understand your concerns. But Class B is already powerful by itself. Unlike our class, theirs is not fragmented into two factions. A war with Class F would be playing straight into their hands with Class B’s leaders controlling the peace process.”

“Then is it not time we work together and bring them down? If we do, we’d have the support of Class C and D in the Assembly, and the necessary manpower to win a war against one or the other of Class B or F. If they enter into an official alliance before we can take punitive action, we will lose our opportunity to keep them down.”

“The premise you put forth is exactly what prevents Class A from maintaining its supremacy. Do you actually believe our factions can work together?”

Mona’s face turned sour, offended by Gilbert’s plain accusation against her.

“That’s why I’m suggesting it here! A shift in paradigm is not so alien to you, is it? If this is going to be the year of anomalies, then we should use unorthodox methods too. Besides, this was totally possible, even likely, only until the end of last year.”

Her voice trailed off at the end there, turning quieter as her expression softened, but it was only momentary. Her business-like appearance returned in a flash.

“Your points are valid, but I don’t believe that Class A’s supremacy can only be secured through war. Diplomacy is just as effective, even if it is more frustrating than war.”

“Diplomacy? What kind of a world are you looking at? We’re high schoolers, not politicians with corrupt benefits. We only play on the path of least resistance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Are we not the same as politicians? That’s why we’re the leaders of the PSC and the AC respectively.”

“And you intend to play games with Class F? They have nothing but their brute force behind them, and they’re being used as pawns by Class B to do their dirty work.”

“It doesn’t matter. The only thing we need to do is to stop Class B from taking over the Assembly, and as long as Class F remains a politically indifferent entity, there’s no real threat coming from them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Class F’s power consists only of the deities, and therefore concentrated in the hands of a few. To monitor and manipulate the wills of a few is not hard to do.

“In fact, both you and I already know these deities well enough to understand how they think. We didn’t climb through Class F in middle school for nothing.

“And that’s why I don’t think Class F is worth fighting over, especially with the divisions within our own class.”

He explained soberly as Mona became visibly more frustrated. It wasn’t because of his reasons, but of the reminder that they once fought together to climb up the hierarchy.

“Having so much faith in people to act the way they should is idealistic if not stupid. If you insist on doing so, it only serves to prove you’re too naive to be our class representative.”

“Is this a challenge to my authority?”

Gilbert took the naked challenge head-on like he always did. Mona was unperturbed, but gave up in the end anyway.

“No. I wouldn’t need to. And I’ve made my stance clear on Class A’s situation. I hope you’ll come to an enlightened decision, class rep.”

A car pulled up beside the two groups. It was Gilbert’s ride, and not a moment too soon either.

“We’ll be taking our leave. I’ll consider your position.”

Gilbert nodded as he led Alice into his car while the rest of this entourage watched on.

“I have faith in you. I know you won’t let Class A down.”

Mona sneered. Not even blinking, he merely waved and got into the car with Alice as well. The car took off, leaving the school behind.

As expected of a luxury car, it felt more like the interior of a limousine than a regular car. There was even a mini-fridge for serving drinks and snacks.

Normally, they would drive Alice home to the Westgroves’ residence in Livia, which was a comparatively small compound for their social status. It only had two floors with a small lobby area, but obviously it was still bigger than most homes. It was more like an upsized country home than a mansion.

However, there was a detour for today. Alice was visiting a shrine for a special occasion for her.

“Is it true? Class A will be going to war with Class F soon?”

“I thought you had no interest in the Class Wars?”

Answering a question with a question was not Gilbert’s usual style, so it surprised her a bit.

“I’m not in it for myself, but my friends are definitely part of it. It concerns me in that sense.”

“The Class F guys, huh. Well, it depends on the political situation. I know I have firmly rejected war with Class F at the moment, but it may change with time. One thing’s for sure, war with them will be inevitable. This is a zero-sum game after all. For every winner, there’s a loser, and my role is to bring Class A to victory.”

“And why did you have to take on this role? Isn’t there better things you want to do?”

“It’s a noble responsibility that’s fallen onto me, so I take it wholly and with pride. And isn’t Class F the same?”

“No. They aren’t in it to fulfill a stupid role in society. They’re doing it for fun, for their own sake, and so is Mira. They don’t believe in your sense of noblesse oblige.”

“I see. And your stance too is the same as theirs. Then there’s not much to talk about. Like I said, with the current state of affairs, war is inevitable, whether I was in power or not. You saw the determination in Mona to wage war.”

“There’s no way for you to stop this?”

“If there was, Mona’s faction would not even exist to begin with. A war isn’t the be all end all.”

“Yes, but I’d still rather not see my friends having to hurt each other. Not in this way.”

“Ah. I understand your concern, but it’ll be fine. The cleanse tags are made for this reason. In any case, if you were to choose, you’ll firmly stand on the Class F side.”

“You’re not wrong, but you’re not giving yourself enough credit. At the end of the day, you’re my fiancé, right?”

The edge was cutting, to say the least.

“You only need to do that in front of our families. Just be prepared to accept the consequences when you do take their side.”

“Consequences?”

“Your sympathy for Class F has not gone unnoticed. Contrary to your belief, your profile is quite visible and of interest to a lot of groups.”

“Mainly because I’m connected to you, to be honest.”

Gilbert shrugged.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re being watched. I will acquiesce to your treason, but it doesn’t mean others from our class will do the same.”

“Then make them, mister class rep. That’s your job.”

“If only I could.”

The road led into the less densely packed outer fringes of the city where grass and trees were a slightly more common sight. The place was still lively with people, but not as much as it was in the inner city. It was one of the more suburban areas, similar to where Caius, Franco and the Jupiter sisters lived in.

Finally, they turned into the Oriental temple that was boxed inside the main boulevards of this outer district. In addition to the Yue shrines and places of worship, within its grounds was also large common cemetery for the deceased.

“I’ll wait in the parking lot. Take your time.”

Gilbert opened the door to let Alice out. She left her schoolbag with Gilbert in the car and marched onto the open square of the temple while the car drove off of the pickup-dropoff zone for the parking lot nearby.

This was the second time she visited this temple. The air was slightly different from the temples in the Rine; it was probably closer in spirit to the Yue homeland. There weren’t many grand steps she had to climb as this area was quite flat. The entire temple grounds were level.

Passing through the main gate, flanked by grey statues of animals and wooden arcs painted in red, she entered a smaller square with many paths that led to different areas and wooden buildings. Each of those buildings housed a statue of a mythical deity from Yue folklore, complete with tables of fruits, shrine tablets and incense. Some smaller deities did not have their own private rooms, but instead were outside in the small square under rain shelters.

Although she obtained some incense and a small bouquet of flowers from one of the temple’s server, she wasn’t there to kneel on the prayer cushions and pay her respects to the gods. Instead, she followed a path on the side that led to another open area: the cemetery.

Standing there at the entrance, she met an unlikely person standing some ways further along the main path. The red-haired boy waved to her the moment they recognized each other.

“Yo, Alice.”

Franco walked up to her with his parents in tow. Alice, too, greeted him well-naturedly.

“Franco. You’re here to visit someone as well?”

“Yup. I came to visit my older brother who left us a long time ago when I was a kid. So our fam comes here every year on his anniversary.”

“I see. I also witnessed the death of a good friend when I was a child, and only in recent years I learned that his grave was here in Livia, so I too come and visit on his anniversary.”

“Oh, then my brother and your friend shares the same day. I don’t know if that’s lucky or not.”

“Hah. I’d say it’s pure luck. Life goes on.”

“For sure, for sure. Did you just get here?”

“Yes, I did. Are you about to leave?”

“Just about to. We also have an altar at home, and my mum wants to prepare for the prayers there too.”

“You missed school to come here?”

Franco nodded.

“To be honest, it doesn’t take too long to do everything, but my mum insists on staying at home together as a family on this day, so I don’t get to go to school.”

“That’s fair. Well, it’s my turn to get my business done, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She smiled earnestly. They waved.

“See you!”

She walked down the main stone path to nearly the very end of it. This particular cemetery was the only Candoran-style cemetery in the city with its tombstones. Because of space concerns, most others serviced in shrines with traditional Yue spirit tablets for the dead.

Walking off the main path and onto a row, she stopped in front of a small gravestone. Surprisingly, she saw fresh flowers and incense laid at the helm, and subconsciously looked around to see, but it was obviously futile. The incense was already all burned, so whoever visited had already left.

She kneeled down in front of it, placed her one incense stick into the incense pot, untied the shard of Plexiglas around her neck, and said her prayers with it in her hands. Etched on the gravestone were only two things: a Rinian name, Percival Lippmann Rockefeller, and a year, 1876.

“Percy, I’ve returned again this year. How are you doing? It seemed only not so long ago that you’ve left, but I’m already about to graduate from high school.

“Though, I don’t feel like I’ve changed much since we last saw each other. It’ll make it easier for you to recognize it’s me, right?

“Also, I’m engaged now. Weird, huh? We were supposed to be engaged, but look at the state of affairs now. Life moved on without you, sadly.

“It’s not like I had a choice in the matter, though. Don’t worry about that. If I had any say in this, I’d never marry.

“But it’s all right. I’ll manage it somehow. I’ve met a few good people recently, and I hope we can remain friends, so that the dreariness of the family business isn’t so hard to deal with.

“There’s this one boy who keeps making fun of me for his own amusement. Not only that, but he’s surrounded by many other girls too. Remind you of anyone? It’s as if I can see you in him. And whenever I think of you, it brings me back to those old days and takes me out of today’s reality.

“Heh. You don’t have to be jealous about what’s happening here on Earth today. All these things are merely a curse for the living. Whether or not I can move on from your departure, a part of you will always be there in my heart.”

She re-tied the pendant around her neck and stood. The incense continued to burn as its ashes fell into the pot that housed it.

“Goodbye. I’ll try my best to come with better news next year.”

Because they were in student council now, they were leaving school later than they usually would, so Sisi could walk home with them.

However, instead of Mirabelle’s usual presence, her spot today was temporarily replaced with Alice. Though her role was different, she nonetheless made quick friends with the rest of the Jupiter sisters. Interestingly, Alice was already well-acquainted with Bianca, to the surprise of the Elites.

“Eh, I didn’t know Mira was like that at home.”

“Yes, she’s kind of like Teto in that sense, but she’s just more of a diva in general than anything else.”

“I can see that. Mira likes to have things done her way.”

“As the lesser twin, I see it all the time.”

Their group passed through the playground that they held so dear, and at the same time climbing onto the structures as they walked by.

“The slides.”

“The monkey bars.”

“The jungle gym.”

“The swings.”

Four boys stood atop their respective playground equipment, complete with exaggerating hero poses.

“Y’all wished this was a photoshoot. Too bad you guys aren’t male models.”

The other girls giggled at Bianca’s accusation. The boys were impenitent.

Past the fence beyond the playground, the two groups waved each other goodbye. Last year, the number of people on the suburbs’ path outnumbered the city’s, but now the pilgrims on the city’s path increased almost twofold, including Alice.

The diminished gang waved Eon farewell when they arrived at his apartment, not too far from where the Eternian children lived. They continued along the main road, slipped between a narrow alleyway between two shops and onto a smaller road behind them, where their apartment building was. They were home.

Arriving at the door to their doubled-up flat, they bustled through the opening hurriedly and tumbled into their side of the flat. Evie and Teto landed on the couch and flipped on their radio set, letting the radio station’s music sound through their apartment.

“Wow. This scene is terrible.”

Alice commented on the state of their side’s living room. It was quite messy, as usual.

“It’s not my fault.”

Both Yui and Kato raised their hands, distancing themselves from the chaos. Kato was one of the minor perpetrators, though.

“I’ll get to cleaning up, okay?”

Yui smiled elegantly as she pointed to the mess in front of her. The two nodded and Yui left them to take care of the two other sisters and the clusters of clothes and belongings scattered across the room.

“If this mess happened in my home, I would be so angry. You wouldn’t want to see it.”

“You’re a stickler for tidiness?”

“You bet. Still, this place is nicer than I expected.”

Kato took her schoolbag and hung it with his own on the new coat rack that Yui insisted on buying as to try and fix the stormy situation in their flat.

“What do you mean by that? Did you expect us to live in an actual dump?”

“No. But then again, feeding three kids from the wild takes a lot of effort. Yui doesn’t count since she’s been here for only a week.”

“Of course. It’s a shame you couldn’t meet Karl. He singlehandedly raised three problem children from the start of grade school ‘til last week.”

“He must be a really patient and talented person then, to have raised the three of you.”

“Truly, a one of a kind.”

On the carpeted floor was a large enough coffee table for Teto to slip her legs under and sit on the carpet at it as if it was a real desk. Evie following suit, they took out their homework for the day and began working on it furiously.

“And those two are surprisingly enthusiastic about doing work.”

“Teto I understand, but Evie is a surprise, yes.”

“What about your homework?”

“Mine is whatever. What about yours?”

They locked eyes, but Alice did not back down this time.

“My work is easy to finish.”

“Good at school, eh?”

They looked to the two sisters who were already scratching their heads in frustration, mere moments into starting their assignments.

“On the other hand, they need to get started because they’re not the studious type.”

Kato shrugged while Alice giggled at the struggling duo. Teto continued to pull at her hair, and Evie turned to the two better students, giving them a tired expression that told them she was already utterly defeated.

“Give them a break. Not everyone’s born with talent for studying.”

Yui consoled the deific sisters as she paused to give direction on their homework. In only a span of a week, she became a splendid elder sister to every one of them.

As Old Yue music played in the background from the big metallic box that was the radio, Alice turned to the window behind her. It was large and spanned the length of the living room of the flat, overlooking the pedestrian road, shops and the main road they came from earlier. Lying atop the plastic screen covering the bottom of the protruding metallic cage that secured the wide window was their altar.

“What kind of an altar is this? And these spirit labels?”

“Ah, these are our spirit names. Our master gave these labels to us after we completed our training under him.”

“All of you are deities? Not just Evie?”

Alice’s eyes widened, incredulous.

“Forgot to mention it earlier. And Evie forgot to mention it for a whole year. The three of us are deities. Yui is not.”

Kato pointed to the three to make his point clear.

“Ah, that’s why there are only three names here. Which one’s yours?”

“That one.”

He pointed to the one named ‘sunrise’ and Alice giggled at the name, to which he was a bit upset.

“What’s so funny about it?”

“It just sounds so corny, and also to describe you with it.”

“All literary names are like this. The other two didn’t get any better names.”

Kato was defiant, but it was true that they were weird names. Even they themselves made that observation yesterday, but still, less ammunition for Alice the better.

“So I’m guessing ‘sunset’ is Teto to complement yours, and ‘sparks’ is Evie. I’d say those are better names than yours. Yours just sound so arrogant, like the high and mighty person you are.”

“High and mighty, that sounds like me, all right.”

“What is it that you all are now? Hearts candidates?”

“Yeah. We’re next in a long line to becoming Hearts.”

“Eternia’s greatest deities. Sounds like a hard job.”

She looked beyond the altar and over the shops and the main street. They were only one floor up, so the main street itself was somewhat obscured by the shops. Below, the pedestrian street continued to flow with occasional passersby and small motorized vehicles.

“I like this place a lot. It’s a lot noisier than my home.”

“Where’s your home?”

“In the new town Tseungkwano. The newly developed city area that once only had rich people’s houses.”

“And they still have the rich people’s houses there.”

“Well, of course. Just a typical mansion.”

“A typical mansion.”

He scoffed.

“If I had a choice, I’d prefer to live here than over there. Ugh, I hate that place. Why does it exist? Why is this suffering?”

She furrowed her brows and made a pained face, perhaps with a slight twinge of melodrama, as she was reminded of the disappointment she had for her residence. Kato was bemused at her melancholia, but nonetheless pulled her back out of her distress.

“Why choose here over there?”

“Although that area’s gotten better compared to a few years ago, I still feel like everything is way too far apart from each other there. It makes it feel inconvenient and empty of people.”

“Ah, you prefer the busy lifestyle than the suburban one.”

Alice took her schoolwork out from her bag that hung from the standing coat rack. She made her way over the carpet and sat at the now-crowded coffee table. The two who were struggling continued to do so.

“Of course. Who wouldn’t want to live in a warm home like this one?”

Kato too took the same physics assignment out of his, but instead of squeezing himself at the table, he placed his belongings on the wide windowsill and leaned against it, enjoying the warm and mild winds as he easily penciled in the answers.

And so the fairly peaceful scene remained for a long while. With excruciating pain and effort, Yui and Alice were able to teach Teto and Evie how to do their assignments in time. Because Kato knew how hopeless those two were, he declined to join them in the first place.

As the sun approached ever closer to the city’s skyline, the sunlight stretched further into the orange spectrum. On the other side of the flat, the sounds of a kitchen hood rumbled on for a long time. Only until the smell of food reached the siblings’ flat did the fan turn off and was followed by the sound of cluttering furniture.

“Dinnertime!”

Sisi called out to the children on the other side, who immediately dropped whatever they were holding and hurried into Karl’s flat.

“Impressive. Ms Romana, this is all your work?”

“Except for the roasted pork Sisi bought from downstairs, everything is mine creation.”

They all sat around the cramped folding table and began eating immediately. The impressed Alice, however, remained wide-eyed and hesitant to start. On the table were the roasted pork, white-cut chicken, stir-fried seafood with rice noodles, steamed egg with dried shrimp, and pea sprouts. In the kitchen was a pot of pork bone soup combined with various herbs.

Sitting next to her was Kato, who used the common chopsticks to fill her bowl up with the rice noodles. Since Sisi decided to go with frying rice noodles today, there was not a need to cook too much rice.

“Eat up. You’re here exactly for this, right?”

Kato laid down the bowl in front of her, and then picking up some other foods to put into her bowl as well until it was filled with a variety of meats and vegetables.

On the other side of Alice was Evie, who took a morsel of shrimp and held it up to Alice’s mouth with her chopsticks.

“Eat up already.”

Alice saw the calm smile on Evie’s face, and she acquiesced. She ate the food that Evie boldly held up to her, and she was markedly moved. Her eyes turned watery at the force of her emotions. It was as delicious as she remembered it, the Yue food that she would eat on occasion outside of her childhood household in Breisgau.

“Are you crying already? Isn’t it too fast?”

“The first bite is always the most emotional, Evie.”

Yui chided Evie as they watched on expectantly at Alice’s reaction. It wasn’t hard to tell that Alice really liked the food.

“Thank you, everyone. It’s only this good because I’m able to enjoy Ms Romana’s food with all of you here. Let’s eat.”

Alice smiled at everyone. They returned it graciously, and continued eating again.

---

“I never thought Evie would come up with something like this. I’m glad that we’re friends.”

“Evie’s got some really good ideas when you least expect her. That’s my precious older sister.”

After finishing dinner, Kato brought Alice to the local bus stop for her to make her way home. Though Sisi had tried to insist calling a taxi, Alice unsurprisingly wanted to make her way home travelling through the city by herself.

“I told you, right? Even though I lived in Breisgau for most of my life, and now in Livia, there wasn’t actually a lot of opportunity to eat locally. First world problems.”

Breisgau was a large city in the Kingdom of Rine near the Auxiria-Ava-Rine border, coincidentally also a major exclave of Old Yue speakers and the hometown of Franco’s family.

“But when you did, you liked it a lot, even making Yue cuisine your ‘mother tongue’, so to speak.”

“Somehow, it was always my mother tongue.”

The busy main street began lighting up with its night time displays and signage. Many passersby took an extra moment to get a better glance at the elegant and attractive blonde girl, and rightfully so. Alice was that deserving of her popularity at school.

“Even though I’m born Rinian, I’ll always be more like a person from Yue than Rine. That’s not changing, no matter how much traditional Rinian food they serve me at home.”

“Fair. I’m born Auxirian and can still speak Standard Candoran, but I have no emotional ties to Auxiria. Yue, in its old form, is my sole identity. It’s the case for everyone who grows up here.”

“I can tell.”

She chuckled lightly. At a nearby store, a radio was turned on and music played loudly from it, though the streets were already noisy enough to dampen the music.

“I’m surprised that Ms Romana would be this good at Yue cuisine. She’s supposed to be from Royal Candor, right?”

“Well, part of why Sisi’s Old Yue is so good is because she was born to be a Heart, so naturally, Old Yue would be her first if not second language. She is also a graduate of Korolev Senior.”

“Makes sense. That means she spent her youth here in this city, lived as a student and fought the Class Wars, once upon a time.”

“No doubt she learned to be so prideful of the Class Wars from winning it too.”

“She was in the winning class of her year? Then is she in her year’s photo in the West Hall?”

“Yeah, we all looked for her photo the next day she told us about it. She looks exactly the same as she did back then.”

“Her youthfulness is truly mysterious.”

“Mysterious indeed. One day, I’ll find out why.”

The bus that she needed to take had stopped in front of them.

“Thanks again for the food. You have no idea how uncommon this is for me.”

She said, a tiny bit tearfully. Kato nodded sympathetically.

“Then let’s hope we can all hang out some more and enjoy. We’ll turn it into commonplace.”

---

The week rolled by in an instant and already it was Saturday, the last school day of the week. Morning classes continued as normal, but there were no afternoon classes on Saturday, so class was dismissed by lunchtime. However, the school remained open until the regular end of school day for extracurricular activities.

“Give me that.”

“Okay, fine.”

Kato passed a carton of the tea drink he got from the vending machine outside the student council room that he wanted for himself, but Alice decided that he shouldn’t drink packaged tea drinks and instead, should drink the herbal tea she brewed at home and brought to school.

In fact, Alice also brought homemade lunch for Kato, knowing that the Elites normally got takeout from the cafeteria. Surprisingly, Alice knew Yue cuisine well enough that it was no different from a native cook’s food.

“Thanks for the food, Alice. I most definitely recommend.”

“Hmph. Of course my food is good. I’ve never had anyone who thought it was bad.”

Alice turned pink and tried to hide her delight with a prideful assertion.

“If there were, those guys don’t know what Yue food is.”

“Right? Yue cuisine’s flavours are light, so foreigners usually complain about a lack of taste. But that’s what makes it great.”

“The use of scallions, garlic and ginger is why it’s so good. It normalizes the flavours so that it remains light to your taste buds, even if the flavour itself was originally heavy.”

After her experience with Sisi’s handwork, this was the result. The day before, Kato too cooked a meal for Alice, and they spent a good chunk of time too praising and criticizing the results of his efforts.

“I think your cooking is better than mine, even with the power of love for my sisters on my side.”

“The culinary arts are about diversifying your experiences. If you cooked food for your sisters all this time, then of course it would be tailored to their tastes.”

“Then I’m a master of cooking for sisters.”

“Calm down there, son. You said you only got time to cook once or twice a week, so you’re most definitely not that practiced.”

The two sat at one end of the conference table of the student council room, whilst the rest of the Elites and the Jupiter sisters, over the course of lunch period, gathered at the other end of the table.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Caius whispered to the other guy and girls around him, together watching the two cuisine enthusiasts ramble on.

“I know and I don’t know. But in other news, this is what a romantic comedy should be like.”

Bianca flicked at Eon’s forehead upon hearing that, to which Eon yelped reflexively at the pain.

“Although I have some choice words for you, it wouldn’t stop you anyway.”

“That flick was kind of like a choice word!”

“And it’s not stopping you.”

“You’re indeed correct.”

Evie continued with her bento box as their vanguards began bickering again. She ignored the noise from her childhood friends, and instead, she watched on Kato and Alice’s conversations silently. Unfortunately, it wasn’t entirely silent as an ominous aura emanated from her, which contributed to the spooked nature of the rest of the gang.

There were two people missing, one Teto and one Franco. Teto, belonging in second year, had her own group of friends to hang out with at school, to the dismay of her brother. On the other hand, Franco stayed home as he had to go visit a temple with his parents.

“Evie’s going to get mad soon, is she? She does this with Mira all the time.”

“I can see it going either way. Alice is not Mira, after all.”

“Though Evie’s been stone-faced the entire time, she’s usually like this, so let’s give it more time.”

Scarlett asked Ariel and Yui of the student council room’s current situation.

“Okay, to be fair, we all kinda moved away from them, so this is the result.”

“That is to say, we’re part of the problem too.”

Eon and Bianca rejoined in their mumbles when they finished throwing punch lines back and forth.

“Evie, come here.”

Suddenly, Kato called out to his sister, which caused everyone else in the room to freeze. Evie gracefully moved over to the seat next to him, her eyes only on Kato.

“Wanna bite? Say ‘ah’.”

Kato smiled brightly as he held a spoonful of Alice’s fried rice out to her. Alice, like the rest of the room, was perplexed at the kindness that Kato showed to Evie, in contrast to his usual attitude towards her.

Without hesitation, Evie closed her mouth on Kato’s spoon, having a taste of Alice’s culinary abilities.

“Mm. It’s great.”

Evie’s cheeks tickled pink as she revealed a softened expression and let Kato wipe the corners of her mouth with a napkin. The wariness she had up until now was gone completely.

“Evie! Take a bite of this, too!”

Alice’s eyes lit up at Evie’s docile response. She pushed her lunchbox in front of Evie and began feeding it to her too. Evie didn’t resist and let the unusually joyful Alice take care of her.

Meanwhile, the other children watching on let out a collective sigh of relief as the ticking time bomb known as Evie had not detonated.

“I guess living with Evie for your whole life teaches you some things that could tame her.”

Eon remarked. Evie just wanted some attention from Kato, and Kato knew that very well. Since everyone was not holding onto their breaths anymore, they finally felt safe enough to continue with their own lunches as well.

With peace restored temporarily to the student council room, the timing was ripe for a foreign invasion, and indeed, the action never stopped for the Elites.

A knock on the door came after a long lull in the tension, and once the door was busted open by the intruders, the tension returned in a flash.

Of course, the Elites were not overly perturbed by the disturbance as among them were two deities. And they were most definitely not perturbed by the two burly third-years that flanked the two very familiar faces.

“Greetings, student council. Pardon my intrusion, but I’ve invited myself in because the door was unlocked.”

The deep voice echoed through the spacious and silent student council room. Next to Gilbert was his usual lackey in his usual sloppy yet menacing form, Stephen.

Alice turned away from the scene at the door, instead continuing to feed Evie like she would a pet. Bianca rushed out from her seat to make a stand before the four unruly men with their shiny shield-shaped badges attached to their breast-pockets. They were badges that members of the Public Safety Committee wore.

Kato and Eon followed behind Bianca quickly to meet the challengers to their new after school hangout place. And also to support Bianca, of course.

“What do you want?”

Kato started before Bianca could get a word in, asserting his dominance not only on the PSC members, but also Bianca. That particular part didn’t fall on deaf ears, and Bianca elbowed him hard in the ribcage.

“Sorry about this brute. He can be rude sometimes. Now, Marshal, what do you want?”

Eon stifled a giggle upon hearing her make the same barbaric demand. The scene was as usual for them as it could get.

“Madam Chancellor, and Madam Secretary as well. It looks like I have a few businesses I can take care of together here, but let’s go with one thing at a time.”

The marshal was the official leader of the PSC. In its internal deliberations last year, Gilbert was way more qualified to take its leadership than any of his competitors, and thus gained a student organization that was more or less under his complete control.

“Without going into too much detail, I would like to propose new legislation in next week’s convention of the Assembly. Here’s the draft.”

He motioned for Stephen to hand over the folder he was holding onto. Bianca took it from him and handed it to Eon without looking at it.

“Is there anything else?”

Bianca made it obvious that he was not welcome here. Gilbert, like always, was unmovable. Instead, his right hand man got agitated for him.

“Is this attitude necessary from the student council? Don’t forget you’re a role model for students in this school.”

“And so are you. Whoop-dee-doo.”

“You…!”

Bianca’s shrug was met with a snarl from the lackey, but nothing else came of it.

“Let’s leave it at that. Onto the next order of business. I intend to bring forth a motion for hoisting of the Ewiger Landfriede. If whichever Madam Speaker next week would add this motion to the agenda, that would be great.”

Hoisting was basically putting a delay on the policy. Policies could be defeated if it continues to get hoisted until the end of the year, when there wouldn’t be enough time to debate on it anymore and it dies off.

“This is the formal order for the hoisting motion. I will inform you now that you will find the submission of it acceptable on the convention day.”

This time, Stephen took out his clipboard with two copies of the order on it, ready for them to be signed by Members during the convention, which would garner enough support to justify putting forth this motion.

“Can I take this as an extortion attempt to force us to first-read your draft?”

“No. They’re two separate functions. But if you want to take it that way, then you’re more than welcome to.”

Obviously he wouldn’t say ‘yes’ to that question, but it nonetheless was an obvious threat to first-read Gilbert’s legislation, or else they would attack the Ewiger Landfriede immediately.

“Whatever then. Thanks for your warning. It’s Saturday afternoon, dear Lord. Done?”

“My business with you, Madam Chancellor, yes. There is one more thing to take care of.”

While everybody else stood in place, Gilbert moved in Alice’s direction, who was trying her best to ignore the approaching man.

“Alice, have you decided on attending tomorrow night?”

She paused for a short moment as he asked her that question. Eventually, she let out an exaggerated and impatient sigh. Standing up from her seat, she looked up into the face of her fiancé and grimaced.

“Yes. I’ll be attending, but only when supper starts. I won’t be there for the pre-party and reception.”

“Thank you. I’ll be awaiting your attendance with anticipation.”

She rolled her eyes at the formality. Without another word, she sat back down and ignored Gilbert.

“Who’s this? A fan of yours?”

Evie asked her neighbour innocently as everyone else froze on the spot, for a variety of reasons. The Elites and the Jupiter sisters were holding their breaths again, eagerly waiting for Evie or Alice to say something, while the marshal’s lackeys balked in disbelief.

Alice, too, turned red at Evie’s question, but didn’t make a scene of it. Even with Alice’s mild awkwardness, she saw that Evie had no ulterior intent behind it and was genuinely just unaware.

“No, Evie. He’s my fiancé. We’re getting married after we graduate from high school. I’m sorry I haven’t told you this before, but it was a real deal since the end of last year.”

Decided that the cat was out of the bag, she obediently explained it to Evie, almost pleading with her to understand. Of course, confusion flickered across Evie’s face at her explanation.

“Alice…”

And then something clicked in her head, possibly in an unexpected and unnecessary way. She stopped and embraced Alice, who was surprised at the sudden physical contact.

“I feel sorry for you.”

Then the other student council members burst out laughing. Evie most likely didn’t have any deep meaning to that remark, but her honesty was ridiculous nonetheless. Stephen and his goons, however, were livid, and were only stopped by a signal from Gilbert.

“I’ve told you, Stephen. Whatever it is, there’s no changing the fact that she is engaged to me.”

Alice’s face turned sour for a moment, but was instantly cured by Evie’s touch.

“But this is disresp—”

“I don’t need it. Not here. These people are not my enemies, Stephen. And it’s time for us to leave.”

He looked expectantly at Alice, who took a moment before sighing apologetically and had Evie let go of her, to which Evie looked a bit sad about. She began packing her things and her half-finished lunch into her schoolbag.

“Alice, what are you doing?”

Kato was the first to speak up at the sudden change of events.

“It’s time for me to go. Gil’s here to pick me up too, actually, probably because I haven’t showed up at the front of the school by now. Sorry, I should have told you guys first.”

“But why?”

“I’m responsible for taking her home on Saturday’s half-day, so here I am.”

Gilbert answered for her as they all headed for the door, the rest of the room still frozen in place. Alice consoled Evie as she got up and followed behind Gilbert.

“Evie, guys, I’ll see you all tomorrow. It’ll be fun!”

Alice’s smile was genuine. She looked forward to tomorrow as much as the rest of them did, so all they could do was return the smile.

“You bet!”

“See ya!”

“Bye-bye!”

A flurry of goodbyes went by in a flash. As they passed through the door, Alice turned around once more, with the smile still there.

“Kato, I’m glad that you were the one who invited me.”

Feeling surprised and somewhat puzzled, he didn’t have a witty response for her. That phrasing felt different from usual.

“No problem. I’m here all day.”

Then it was followed by a solid thud of the closing door on the student council room, and all the Class A students had vacated.

The Assembly consisted of a portion of students from the third-year privileged classes, the Classes 3-A to 3-F, plus a special selection of students known as the functional constituencies. The class constituencies were heavily favoured towards Class A, while the functional constituencies consisted of the class representative of each third-year class, school club leaders and the student council leadership. Together, they were Members of the Assembly, or simply Members.

So the Assembly was essentially a committee of third-year students dominated by Class 3-A which enacted policies that governed student life for all of the students in Korolev Senior. Policies such as lunch catering, school facilities, club budgets and cultural events would be tabled and debated in a convention of the Assembly. Once a policy was agreed upon, the student council would, together with other student organizations like the Activity Council, carry out these policies.

There was no doubt that the system was not democratic. Class 3-A received exactly one over one half of the class constituency seats. Furthermore, the functional constituencies were easily manipulated by 3-A to put their allies into those positions. Because of the meritocratic system of class promotion, where students had chances at the end of a school year to be promoted into a class above their current one for next year, Class 3-A was supposed to be the most wise of the classes and therefore should have a major role in managing student life.

A legislative body above the Assembly, the Senate, consisted of teachers of the third-year homeroom classes and policies required their consent as well. But the Senate was traditionally a rubber-stamp legislature that merely signed off the bills that came from the Assembly. In only extreme cases, when the Assembly was in a state of tyranny, did the Senate interfere. Finally, the policy would be given Assent by the headmistress, which put into force the new policy.

The Assembly convened usually once a week on Tuesdays in the Assembly Hall, which was maintained by the music faculty since it was actually a fully equipped theatre. The velvet seats that filled the audience space in a curvature facing the stage were both removable and convertible into wide benches and tables, just as expected in a parliament building. There were even upper levels from which observers watched on the Assembly proceedings. The floor too, insanely, was adjustable along its inclines, so that making the audience space flat was a possibility.

When the Assembly convened, alternating rows of seats were converted into long tables to convert it into a parliament space. The stage shrunk in area and revealed extra seats underneath. Student volunteers from the Student Liaison Office, or the SLO, a joint student organization between the student council and the AC, organized and prepared the facilities for a session of the Assembly every week.

Unlike in other schools where the student council unilaterally decided on policy, the Assembly was where this power laid in Korolev Senior, by the principle of ‘student life made by students’. As a result, in theory the Assembly was the supreme body that made decisions, but in practice the student council leadership usually held disproportionate power in the Assembly, because it was almost guaranteed that a student of Class A was elected student council president.

In fact, it was usually one of two second-year leaders of the two big student organizations: the Activity Council, versus the Public Safety Committee. Both were almost always Class 2-A students at the time of election and they had the energy and influence to maintain an election campaign.

Of course, the election was at the end of their second year, and the winner of the election became president for the duration of their third year. Generally, the incoming president would bring their cronies into the student council while leaving their student organization to their other allies, effectively making themselves de facto leader of their faction of origin while heading the student council.

However, for Kato’s year, both Class A candidates lost the election race last spring to a Class B contender: Mirabelle. For the first time in living memory, the levers of power were disrupted and put into the hands of an upstart.

But the system was not meant for non-Class A students to take the reins. This year was an anomaly in the usual power structure. The system by design discouraged non-Class A leadership; as a Class B student, it was extremely hard to pass policies simply because the Class A constituency was assigned forty seats, while the rest of the Class constituencies, from B to F, were assigned twenty, ten, five, three, and one respectively, totalling only thirty-nine.

To defeat Class A’s votes would be an uphill battle that Mirabelle would need to fight. On top of gaining the support of every class below her, she would also need to swing enough votes from the functional constituencies. This year, the three functional constituencies were allocated as such: Class Representatives at nine seats representing ten classes; Club Presidents at fourteen seats representing fourteen major school clubs from last year and continuing operations into this year; and Student Council Executives at four seats representing its leadership.

Because Mirabelle was simultaneously the Class B representative as well as a student council executive, she would hold two seats simultaneously. Class B’s seat in the Class Representatives constituency would be declared invalid once the Assembly convened and her seat would remain with the Student Council Executives constituency.

The seating arrangement, traditionally, was only by class constituencies. The functional constituencies of class reps and club presidents were distributed amongst their respective classes, while the student council executives sat at special seats on the minified stage, lowered to near ground level for the convention. Class A’s constituency sat right at the front rows, and the subsequent classes sat in sequence in the rows behind them.

“Kato, you made it in time.”

Eon was wiping his glasses with his shirt while having his eyes closed. As he put them back on, he opened his naked eyes just before it was put back into place, and Kato saw a glimpse of his irises. It was a multitude of colours, almost like a rainbow, but with the glasses covering them, they turned to a dull brown. It wasn’t because his glasses were special, it was because of a special phenomenon that his irises were multicoloured to the naked eye, but drained of colour once viewed through a lens.

“Never a dull moment for Kato.”

Sitting next to Eon was Caius, leaning back into the chair and having his feet on the counter. For some reason, this kid was laid back, calm and collected in any situation. Even when Franco was on his airhead streak Caius’ apparent attitude wouldn’t change, though his jabs at Franco would go up a level.

Kato took his seat next to Eon, carelessly flipping his schoolbag on top of the counter in front of their elevated seats. Their row was the last row of the Assembly, and it only consisted of students from their class and Class E, who also had three members including their class rep.

Class F, in a Class War last week, stole one seat in the Assembly from Class E as a part of their victory, thus granting the Class F constituency two seats plus their class rep. They sat away from the three of them, making the animosity between the two classes apparent, though that wasn’t uncommon. Most classes were hostile to each other due to the nature of the Class Wars.

Mere moments later, the three student council executives entered and prepared to take their seat at the table on the lowered stage, directly facing outwards to the rest of the Assembly. As they took their seats, the auditorium quieted down considerably, eager to get the first convention of the Assembly started.

Not surprisingly to Kato, Bianca was the one who took the centre seat, which was the seat of the Speaker of the Assembly. As the Speaker, she controlled most of the proceedings and agenda of the session. Normally, the student council president would be the Speaker, but as Mirabelle was absent, the responsibility fell on Bianca.

On either side of Bianca were her two other sisters, Ariel and Scarlett. Ariel was much smaller than Bianca and had silver hair in a long and flowing hime cut. On the other side, Scarlett was evidently taller and had the curves of a supermodel, but sported a brown pixie cut instead.

“I, the Speaker of the Assembly, pronounce that the Assembly here is well-formed and qualified. The Assembly for Year 1887-1888 at Korolev Senior Secondary School is now in session, first convened on August the twenty-third. Please stand for a moment of silence.”

Bianca spoke into the microphone in front of her. Seeing that enough people showed up for the meeting, the Assembly could be officially convened. The students stood up.

“Please remain standing for the playing of the national and Eternian anthems.”

Two tunes played through the PA system in this big hall. The first represented the Auxirian nation as their home, and the second represented their loyalty to their cause. Their respective flags were hung behind the student council executives, above the stage. Although Eternia was a secret society from the Yue homeland that Auxiria had conquered, it was all of Auxiria that Eternia sought to lead and build a brighter future for.

“You may be seated.”

Lots of shuffling and murmurs ensued, yet most people were still giving their attention to the front of the class. After the anthems, the Speaker would declare that the popular statements period would begin, and Members who wanted to address the Assembly for any reason could do so, if they have requested to do so to the Speaker before the convention.

Each Member doing so had one minute to make their statements, and this whole period only lasted for at most ten minutes. To make it fair, if there were many Members who wished to make statements, the Speaker generally took one student from each constituency to make statements before repeating a constituency.

“Today, there were no requests for statements by the popular Members of this Assembly, so there will be no popular statements. Questioning is also moot, due to that fact.”

Bianca continued to address the Assembly, announcing that she would be skipping both the statements and questioning periods. The question period followed the statements period. At that time, popular Members, i.e. Members who weren’t part of the Student Council Executives constituency, were allowed to present questions, in a one-question-one-answer fashion, to the Student Council Executives constituency on any of the student council’s matters within its jurisdiction, for a maximum of fifteen minutes. Follow-up questions were mediated by the Speaker. Once there was a change of topics, a designated Member, known as the Leader of the Opposition, would ask the first question in that new topic.

“I will begin with the routine proceedings in earnest. The agenda is as follows. There will be a statement from myself as a part of the student council’s reports. There will be one student council policy and one popular policy to be slated for first reading. That is it. To start off, I will make an important student council statement.”

The first part of routine proceedings was when the student council could present statements, reports, or otherwise to the Assembly, in contrast to the popular statements and questioning periods. After that, routine proceedings included the first reading of policies by both the student council and other Members, which was the introductory phase of a new piece of legislation that quote-unquote introduced the matter to the Assembly and Members had an intention to solve the underlying issues that the policy aimed to fix. Other routine jobs such as presenting reports by Members or tabling motions would also be considered and held by the Speaker in this period of the convention.

“As you can all see, I am not the student council president. I am Ganymede Bianca Jupiter, Class 3-B, chancellor of the Department of the Treasury. Due to the student council president Callisto Mirabelle Jupiter’s leave of absence, I will be the Speaker of the Assembly for this convention. In addition, Class B’s seat in the Class Representatives constituency will be declared invalid due to simultaneous seating.”

She made her points short and concise, dispelling the abnormal silence of the masses. The Assembly rumbled at the fact that their popularly elected and glamorous president missed her first convention, and no doubt the student newspaper would present tons of coverage on this topic.

“That concludes the statements by the student council. We’ll move on to first reading.”

Bianca moved quickly through the routine proceedings’ agenda, not even giving the Assembly a chance to be the peanut gallery it usually was. Normally, someone would have shouted out something rude or obscene to display their disobedience by now.

“The student council would like to table the policy of perpetual peace, officially the Ewiger Landfriede. To put it simply, the proposed policy will enforce peace between the classes for eternity.”

The Assembly erupted in wild cries and shouts. Without a doubt, it took the attention of everyone in the hall.

“Are you proposing an end to the Class Wars?”

One Class A Member exclaimed over the buzz of the room. So the lawlessness began. Knowing the nature of how the Assembly was run, Bianca did not even spare a glance before ignoring the shout and continuing.

“The draft policy will now be distributed to the Assembly.”

A few runners spread out from the sidelines and into the different rows of the Assembly, handing out documents to each Member. One scrawny boy arrived at the Class F constituency that the boys recognized.

“Kirill! You’re a helper for the Assembly. When did this happen?”

Caius asked as he was handed a copy of the Ewiger Landfriede. It was the draft that Kato and Mirabelle worked hard yesterday to get it printed in time for the Assembly session today.

“Yeah. Last time you went and did something that wasn’t goofing off was never.”

Eon couldn’t resist tacking on something spicy for their long-time classmate.

“Things change, my dudes. This year’s the year.”

Kirill grinned along with the other two. Kato chuckled and felt at ease with the light-hearted gentlemen next to him.

“You’re SLO now, right? In the student council’s side of things, I would guess.”

“Yup. I’m in the student council’s SLO.”

The Student Liaison Office was a joint organization between the student council and the AC, but there was still a clear delineation between the students who belonged to one or the other parent student body.

“Ah, that’s right. We don’t see you because the SLO has its own meetings, separate from the student council.”

“You guys are on student council? Well, actually, I guess it isn’t surprising.”

Kirill waved them goodbye as he moved down to the next row of students, continuing to hand out the papers. Eon turned to his buddies with incredulity.

“Are we that conspicuous with our friendly relations with the Jupiter sisters?”

“If Kirill can see it, then I guess the cat’s out of the bag. Not that either side kept it a secret. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we’ve known each other for more than ten years.”

Caius shrugged at Eon with a reasonable explanation. Then he turned to Kato.

“But there’s truth in that statement for only Kato here, since he actually has friendly relations with all of them.”

Sensing that more jabs were to come from the smirking duo, he held his hands up as if for his early surrender. But even though he knew he would not out-banter the two of them, he took a pot shot anyway.

“Maybe I’m just a more likeable guy than you two.”

Unexpectedly, the duo turned serious as they began talking amongst themselves, but within Kato’s earshot to infuriate him.

“He’s right. I need to be a likeable guy, too.”

“Eon, please. I’m fairly neutral and I don’t get preferential treatment.”

“That’s because you’re passive-aggressive. And I’m active-aggressive. We’re both troublemakers to the Jupiters.”

“And Franco doesn’t get a pass for being a dummy?”

“It’s because we made Franco do some stupid things that they won’t respect.”

“And Kato gets a pass for being pranked into doing the same stupid things?”

“Obviously, Kato is doing something to make up for that.”

The duo narrowed their eyes as they stared down Kato, to which he shook his head helplessly at their grandstanding.

But there was no more time for the Elites’ sideshow. Once the papers were finished distributing, Bianca continued on without pause.

“When shall the policy be read a second time?”

“At the next sitting of the Assembly.”

Her formality for closing first reading was met with the traditional reply in unison by the Assembly. Because the policy was suggested by the student council, there was no need for ten per cent of the Assembly to second the policy for second reading, in contrast to popular policies.

“The next sitting of the Assembly means next week, right?”

“Yes. This is how it always worked.”

Eon answered Kato’s question. The Assembly certainly wasn’t going straight into second reading and debate on this issue today. Those who want to oppose it would have a week to gather material for counter-arguments.

“Now that the selected student council policies have been read, we will move to the first reading of popular policies. There is exactly one first reading to be had. I will now call upon Ms Mona Mackenzie, the drafter of the bill, to perform the first reading. You have five minutes.”

A short girl from the front row with auburn hair stood up and bowed to the student council executives before she turned around to face the rest of the Assembly.

“I, Mona Mackenzie, would like to table a new policy on the banning of public displays of anti-national material, officially the Act of Neutrality.”

Rumbling amongst the Assembly sounded throughout the hall, as no doubt another controversial policy was to be pushed through the Assembly. The one tabled by Bianca was, of course, much more impactful to the school’s day-to-day minutiae, but this one could have overarching and lasting effects on students in and out of school. It was an ideologically-charged policy, pitting one political camp against another.

“From the recent events of our neighbouring city of Lien, there is a worry that the political unrest there would spread to our own city. Of course, it isn’t unfathomable that the same things here could happen, despite the relative independence we have in comparison to Lien.

“Therefore, to mitigate the radicalization of this school and potential damage to its reputation, public anti-national activity should be prohibited on school grounds. In addition, the school agrees to take a publicly neutral stance on the topics of the political unrest in Lien, including but not limited to the separatist manifesto of the protesters and the alleged misconduct of the police forces in Lien.”

Unlike a student council policy, the first reading of a popular policy must include a general description of the scope and any justification for proposing such a policy. Especially when a policy was as partisan as this one, it was necessary to claim your justification for it, because a popular policy needed to be seconded by at least ten per cent of the Assembly to pass the motion for first reading and make it to second reading.

“I yield back to the Speaker.”

“The draft policy will now be distributed to the Assembly.”

Bianca announced when she saw the nod from Mona. Like last time, the helpers began handing out drafts of the policy that was tabled just now.

“This sounds dangerous, eh?”

“We’ve got two big policies to debate on already to start off the year. Not that we’ll be able to make a difference.”

Eon commented to Caius. It was true what Caius said, though. Their three votes, two from Class F and one from Kato as a class representative, was most likely not enough to change the outcome.

“So, are there any seconders to the policy?”

After the papers were given out, Bianca put the motion for seconding immediately, without giving much time for the rest of the Assembly to read the draft in detail. Usually, the drafter from Class A had enough clout in the Assembly to pass the seconding motion easily.

And expectedly, about fifteen students from Class A’s constituency raised their hand, more than ten per cent of the one-hundred-and-six strong Assembly. Murmurs continued to hum, but the pace was not to be broken.

Ariel, the student council secretary, was also responsible for recording the minutes of the Assembly. She bounced loftily off of her seat to move up to the Assembly, counting the raised hands in the open.

“There are fifteen who seconded the Act of Neutrality. Are there any complaints?”

To ask for complaints was a formality that the secretary needed to perform. If there were any serious complaints other than a harmless miscount, it would mean that the secretary could be removed for being in contempt of the Assembly.

“When shall the policy be read a second time?”

With that statement, Bianca acknowledged that Ariel’s count was not in contempt and readied it for second reading next week.

“At the next sitting of the Assembly.”

The hall replied again. Both policies were now ready for the next stage of the legislative process.

“Now, the routine proceedings of today are concluded. Because there are no policies for second reading yet, there will be no student council orders or popular orders for today. We will instead start closing remarks immediately.”

Bianca continued unabated. On a typical day for the Assembly, student council orders and popular orders took the bulk of the time because this was where the second reading and debates occurred. Depending on how important the policy was, it could take the remaining time of the convention and push out the closing remarks section. In addition, if the Assembly did not think it was ready for completing second reading, the draft policy would be assigned to a committee for review and amendment of the details of the policy text. The committee would come back and re-introduce it at a later sitting, starting the cycle of debates and amendments again, until a motion of concurrence was passed and allowed to move to third reading.

For closing remarks, the Speaker would be provided with a list of Members who wanted to make any statements at the end of the convention, and would, at her leisure, call upon those Members to make their statements.

Bianca was provided a list by one of the helpers. While the Assembly was in kind of a lull, such as when the drafts were being handed out, Members had the chance to notify helpers that they would have statements to make for the closing remarks.

“There will be two Members who will make statements. I will now call upon Mr Gilbert de Lafayette to make his statement. You have two minutes.”

Gilbert got up from his seat and turned to the Assembly, his face as emotionless as ever.

“Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, the Ewiger Landfriede. It is clearly a reach to strip power away from Class A and give it to the Senate. Because Class B has won the presidency for this year, it is their best opportunity to reduce the influence of Class A on school affairs. Since it is impossible to remove this power from Class A to other classes in the Assembly, in the legislative, their only choice is to soft-return it to the Senate, by weakening the power of the executive through removing its ability to manipulate peace in the Class Wars.”

He made a good point, to which many nods and cheers came from the Class A constituency. The student council executives arbitrated the peace negotiations after a Class War, and peace treaties had vast sweeping powers to make changes to the school’s ecosystem. Since it was only Class A who consistently won the presidency, it was Class A who controlled the peace system for generations.

“Now, the Act of Neutrality. It is a blatant attack on the freedom of speech within this school, to which no student should support. Without a place for free discussion and dialogue, only bias, ignorance and indifference would foster among students. Note that the Act only bans anti-national material, but pro-national material remains unchecked. This is exactly what we do not want from a society based on free thought and expression.”

Now onto the partisan bill, his speech was met with claps from students from different classes. The Class A students who sat within his vicinity stood and clapped furiously, while the Class A students who sat around Mona remained seated and silent. They watched on with neither complaint nor excitement for their comrades in Class A.

“I yield back to the Speaker.”

Satisfied with his discrediting of both tabled policies, Gilbert waved and took his seat after the applause died down. Bianca nodded, understanding that he had finished.

“I will now call upon the next Member, Ms Mona Mackenzie, to make her statement. You have two minutes.”

“Thank you, Madam Speaker.”

Mona rose elegantly from her seat, already drawing applause from the Class A students around her, but was met with indifference from those near Gilbert. Evidently, Class A was split along two factions, each led by their respective faction leaders.

“I, for one, welcome the Ewiger Landfriede, for the Class Wars have, in recent years, become a relic of the past. There were not enough challengers in recent years amongst our classes to justify maintenance of this martial tradition. Perhaps in the time of Ms Romana, when there were at least six challengers and a deity per privileged class, that this tradition was acceptable. But times have changed and so will the system. I yield back to the Speaker.”

She sat down after another round of applause from across the Assembly, without addressing the criticisms of Gilbert. Since they requested to make statements, they were not allowed to ‘respond’ to each other’s statements because that would be considered a debate.

“From the sounds of the claps, both Mona and Gilbert have a similar size for their support base, don’t you think?”

“Mm-hm. It’ll be on the Jupiters to either cut out their own faction or play for both of them carefully.”

Eon and Caius continued to whisper to each other while Kato listened on contently.

“No comment on Mira’s absence, though? At the very least I expected them to make a fuss.”

“That’s interesting, actually. I don’t think it’s because Bia looks enough like Mira. Most likely for them, they don’t care who’s in charge if the president is not from Class A.”

“Makes sense. Their plans wouldn’t be different. They’re probably thinking it’s a good sign that the most charismatic of the Class B faction is absent.”

Unfortunately, not all of Class B was on the side of the Jupiter sisters. Most were, but at least a few of the Class B constituency had vested interests in either of Class A’s factions.

“Then let us conclude the closing remarks section.”

Bianca took the initiative again to push through the Assembly’s agenda and close off the day.

“I declare that the motion to adjourn is deemed carried, and the first convention of the Assembly is finished.”

The Assembly stood up together to the sound of a bell, which officially dismissed the Members from the session. And so, in only a little over thirty minutes, the Assembly’s job was completed.

---

“Can’t we just leave this to the Gilbert faction? He seemed like he was totally against the Act of Neutrality.”

“I agree. I’d prefer to focus on the Ewiger Landfriede for now and leave the partisan bill for them to fight it out.”

The three Jupiter sisters and the three Elites sat around a large conference table in the office-like student council room. Indeed, it looked like a typical office space with its cubicles and stacks of documents and spreadsheets.

“Then we’re not even going to have a contingency plan if the Gilbert faction doesn’t end up doing anything?”

Bianca mused, somewhat disheartened by the seemingly uphill battle in the Assembly.

“First of all, Mira’s Ewiger Landfriede is ambitious enough by itself. It’ll take all we could to bring it to the forefront of public awareness and convince them to be on our side.”

“Second, the Mona faction’s support of the Ewiger Landfriede right now is at most tentative. So we have much to lose if we lose focus on our own policy.”

Eon and Caius continued to advise Bianca, as they were doing yesterday. The other three, who weren’t as fired up by school politics as the former three, sat on the other end of the table working on their own things. Scarlett was eternally struggling with her schoolwork, Ariel was tidying up the Assembly session’s minutes she recorded, and Kato was idling on his physics worksheet.

 “I know. Neither of the Class A factions could be trusted. But by that logic, then shouldn’t we have something on the Act of Neutrality? Especially if it isn’t guaranteed that Gilbert will try to block it.”

“We know, but we have to pick our battles. We just don’t have enough influence, is what we’re saying, to do both things. We don’t have as much resources as either of the Activity Council or the Public Safety Committee.”

Caius’ reference to the AC and PSC was related to the Class A factions. The two factions were split along a clear boundary; the chairwoman of the Activity Council led one faction, while the marshal of the Public Safety Committee led the other. Go figure.

“So we should prioritize on what we can actually do. And I’ve got to say, without Mira’s magic, our student council thing here is not going to go far.”

“Are you suggesting that I don’t have what it takes to be at the helm of the student council leadership?”

Bianca’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t particularly upset. She was just used to challenging Eon on every little thing.

“As an advisor to the student council executives, I have an obligation to be precise and truthful in my guidance.”

Eon was similarly unrelenting. He had never missed a confrontation with Bianca, and would continue to maintain this tradition.

“So, what are the parts of Mira which I don’t have that makes her more suitable?”

“The part where you have to have an endearing and cheerful aura that immediately puts everyone at ease and sways the general populous to her side, instead of a condescending prick that looks down on people beneath—”

She reached over to pull on his cheek hard before she let him finish his sentence. She was mad, but not that mad.

“What’s this about me, huh? The only condescending prick in here is the person right in front of me.”

“You must be looking into a mirror, then.”

“I must respectfully disagree. Clearly, it’s a bespectacled young brat whom I know and love for many years.”

“Why, thank you. I know I’m a very lovable person. My amiability runs through my blood.”

“And apparently your mouth runs off like a sewage pipe too.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong. Sometimes it comes out as it is.”

“Okay, enough, you two. Let’s get back on track.”

Caius clapped his hands together to bring the bickering children back to the matter at hand, and perhaps surprisingly to outsiders, they did so without commotion.

Spinning the pencil idly in his hand as he listened to the three of them debate, Kato finally noticed that Ariel was sitting next to him now and awaiting his attention.

Ariel was a quiet person of few words, but for some reason always found her way into influencing if not leading every adventure that their childhood group of friends went on, and to that, she was well-respected by the boys of the Elites. Together with Bianca, they challenged the Elites at every opportunity possible.

“What is it, Ariel?”

“Hold me.”

With her outstretched arms toward him, Kato gave her a bemused look. Although this happened countless times before, it still threw him off a little every time she did it. Ariel’s expression seemed blank like Gilbert’s, but she was by no means a boring person. She was just a person who was slow to show her emotions and found comfort with a low energy demeanour.

He got off his seat, picked her up off of hers and let her clutch onto him, perching her head on his shoulder. He patted her head lightly, impressed at the silkiness of her waist-long silver hair. Though she was as tall as his little sister, her frame was a lot smaller and more fragile than Teto’s well-built body.

She squished her face into his shoulder as she wrapped her arms and legs around Kato, hanging onto him like a child would a parent. Interestingly, besides the fact that she even does this, she would only do this with her three older sisters, Kato and Eon; the people with little sisters in their families. Luckily, Kato, Scarlett and Mirabelle were all physically superior, so they could always entertain Ariel like this.

“Are you sleepy? Do you want to sleep?”

“Yeah. But they won’t shut up. So I will just rest.”

“Aye aye, little missy.”

Seeing Scarlett pulling at her own hair while attempting miserably to finish her homework, it was easy to see why Ariel came to him to satisfy her peculiarities. Scarlett usually took care of Ariel.

Of course, Ariel didn’t do this to strangers. In fact, she was even more cool and listless than she normally would be. If she was showing her idiosyncrasies in front of someone, it meant that she had a lot of trust in that person.

“Go outside.”

“Where outside?”

He motioned to the three rowdy wanna-be politicians that he was going to look after Ariel, picked up a familiar key from the key rack and made his way out of the student council room.

“You already picked.”

“I certainly have.”

Climbing up the stairs, he opened the locked doors to the rooftop. He carried her across the tiled open area to the roof’s edge and sat them on a ridge that was a leg’s span away from the fenced edge.

From their vantage point, they saw a hilly city that rolled across the landscape. The mountains surrounded its fringes, while behind them were more hilly cityscapes that led up in the direction of their homes. The sun was already low in the sky, but it shined just as fiercely as it did midday.

They sat together in peace for a long while. Occasionally, light gusts of wind tickled their faces and Ariel, still perched onto Kato’s body with her eyes shut, would rub her cheeks with the back of her hand in response, almost like a cat. In a sense, Kato was indeed taking care of a pet.

The school sounded for the end of fifth period, which meant the official end of classes. Students were now flooding the atrium once again, putting away their things and preparing to go home or do club activities. No doubt, the rest of the Elites were headed to the student council room to gather the gang to go home.

Unexpectedly, she turned around to face the city and sat in his lap, but only seconds later, she began sinking farther and farther down and ended up sitting on the ground between the ridge and the fence, kind of like a lazy white-collar worker slipping out of their office chair. In the process, the back of her skirt flipped up and she was sitting directly on her butt.

“Up you go. Let’s not get you dirty.”

Kato grabbed her by the stomach like he would a kitten, and to that she rolled herself out of his clutches and sat up properly next to him. He gave a sigh of relief.

“Are you done?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled radiantly, with traces of Mirabelle in it.

“Then let’s get down to business. What do you have for me, Madam Secretary?”

“Business first? Then let’s start with Alice.”

Kato’s eyes widened as he became wary about what she would say next. He kind of expected this, but still felt surprised as much as he was impressed with Ariel.

“You got very close to her in a span of a day. I’m impressed. You even played footsie with her.”

“How do you even know this?”

“I’m in your class.”

“Wait, you are?”

“I started going to that class today.”

“…”

He gave her a helpless look, signalling the end of his objection.

“She looks like she will join us, thanks to you again. Only last week, you’ve added Yui.”

“But we’ve known Yui for years. Alice’s situation is different. I’m not sure if she will, but she seems to be good friends with Mira and Evie.”

“And they were her only friends. She is a complete loner in Class A.”

“Is that so?”

“Definitely.”

Kato raised an eyebrow, but he had a lot of faith in Ariel’s abilities. She was born for the job of student council secretary because not only did she have photographic memory, but could also process the information from it instantly. As a result, she could recount everything she saw in great detail together with the right context.

On top of that, now that she actually was the student council secretary, she headed the Department of the Administration and its child organization, the Records Office. It was responsible for the records of the school’s past, including Assembly minutes, accounting receipts, and much more. With her abilities, she could probably memorize the details of the past few years of this school with only a week of reading.

“She’s pivotal to the next point, which is Gilbert and his faction.”

Ariel continued in her lazy voice, and even ending her sentence with a yawn.

“Their family relations are cordial, but they themselves don’t seem to be on good terms. Of course, Alice is not happy. She is engaged to Gilbert.”

He doubled over upon hearing the punch line. Of course, somehow, she would know.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I checked with father over the summer when I suspected so.”

“Wait, how did you get to it?”

Kato was slightly confused by the timeline of events.

“The Records Office’s historical repository is open to the incoming student government at the end of last school year. I read through all the records related to students in our year, and Alice and Gilbert were two names that were interesting to me, since Mira was spending a lot of time with Alice.”

“Did I make it into the records?”

“I already knew everything in there though.”

“Bless up.”

The Records Office recorded many, many things. Depending on the relative power of the Records Office that school year, they could ostensibly record every little interaction inside a club meeting, a classroom, or even in the open atrium. There were official records that clubs and other student organizations must submit, such as attendance and minutes, but other, more sinister records were also made by gathering intelligence from informants.

“Is the Records Office going full Stasi this year too?”

“You bet. It’s a tradition.”

Kato snickered amusedly as this little girl said something so dangerous.

“I’ll just leave this responsibility to the Records Office.”

“As it should. Anyway, you understand now? Alice and Gilbert will be married once they graduate from here.”

“No wonder she was on edge. Do you know why their marriage is a thing?”

“Yes. Do you know their families’ businesses?”

“The Lafayette Group we know is a big arms designer and supplier. They were part of both sides of the unrest in Lien recently. Mostly the protestors’ side.”

“Correct. And what about Alice?”

“Alice Westgrove… Westgrove Logistics?”

“Bingo. Another arms designer and supplier. Specifically, they also do the supply chain business themselves too.”

“So it’s a political marriage.”

“Of sorts. From what I understand from father, there is a power struggle among the elders of the Westgrove side, and the Lafayette marriage is supposed to abate that struggle temporarily.”

“Jesus. That sounds nuts.”

He understood more clearly now, knowing Alice’s temperament, why she made a fuss like she did.

“The details about why the marriage would form a truce, though, I don’t know. That’s your job to find out.”

“Why is it suddenly my job?”

“Because she seems to like you a lot. Use it to your advantage. Use her to influence the Gilbert faction to follow her lead, and therefore your lead, and therefore our lead.”

Kato stood up and picked her up by the armpits, holding her up high in the sky.

“I’m not a miracle worker, miss cat.”

“Then it’s time you start being one, nyaa~”

“Then help me be one. I can’t do this all day.”

“You’ve seduced too many women in your time. You don’t need any help.”

“That’s not me! I’m merely the object of affection! In any case, that’s not a real argument anyway.”

He let the long cat back down on the ground. Again with her antics, she curled up and rested her head on his lap, and demanded him to hold onto her and stroke her head, which he did with infinite disbelief.

“Yeah. I was just being facetious. It was low-hanging fruit that Eon would pick.”

He also tickled her underneath her chin, to which she, for some reason, appreciated.

“But still, are you for real about using Alice?”

“No. It wouldn’t be mentally good for her. On top of that, it’s an impossible task, even for my standards. But still, don’t get any heroic ideas from this. This isn’t as black and white as Yui’s scenario.”

Ariel gave him a stern warning. It was no joke. After all, entire sectors of this country’s economy were at stake.

“It is just unfortunate that she has no choice in her future. But if somebody could help her out, that somebody can only be you.”

“I thought you just told me to not do it.”

“I never said you’ll fix everything. She only needs to be told that she’s important to the friends she holds so dear. That inside of her misery, there’s someone out there completely unrelated to her family’s world who would see her as the friend she is, and not a pawn in a political game. If you can do that, then it’ll definitely help her.”

“That was awfully profound. Are you sure you’re not a hundred years old?”

“I’m just cut from the same cloth as Mira.”

“Hah. You’re right.”

Like Mirabelle, Ariel too read people like a book. However, unlike Mirabelle, Ariel somehow remained ambivalent, even unconcerned, in the interpersonal clashes between the Elites and the Jupiter sisters, so he sometimes came to the sagely feline for reality checks. If the lawgiver in The Social Contract existed, Ariel would be it.

“Business over?”

“One more thing.”

Ariel cleared her throat.

“Mona Mackenzie is dangerous. She is the daughter of a property tycoon in Lien. She will, for sure, try her best to gain influence in this school, and probably for the second-years under her too.”

Kato nodded. If a Class A faction leader had enough influence, they could even groom a puppet successor for next year, ruling the school from his or her first-year college dormitory. The faction leaders from last year didn’t have enough influence, as evident in Mirabelle’s victory, but it was possible that Mona had ambitions for when she departs.

“And they want this influence because they want to build a clique, gang, and network of students for their future in college and post-college, right?”

“Yeah. Having a full contact list of people who owe you favours is definitely a plus. Often times, these people are in high positions in society, so clout, recognition, and ability to influence people are important for them to sustain such positions.”

“I see. A real estate tycoon would want to have a gang to crush competition by force.”

 “That’s not uncommon, unfortunately. And where else to build a loyal gang than the people you struggled in school together with?”

“You’re right. We are a gang. We’re the most lethal gang, with three deities to boot.”

Ariel paused. She stood on her two feet and faced Kato, who remained sitting on the ridge.

“Business is over. Now it’s life counselling.”

“We haven’t had these in a while. But is there even anything left to discuss?”

“You have nothing for me?”

“Nope. Everything seems all right from here.”

She leaned back into the fence behind her, finally showing some emotion on her face. It was one of mute sadness and disappointment.

“Then, I have something.”

“I’m listening, Madam Secretary.”

It wasn’t just Kato who confided with Ariel. She also reciprocated her own troubles to him on occasion.

“It’s not anything new. I just want a status check.”

Status check. It was their shorthand for the last stretch of drama between the two groups of childhood friends at the end of middle school. It was now more than two years ago, but to this day, some things lingered and were left unsaid.

“No. Nothing changed on the Elites’ end. It got a bit more complicated with the addition of Yui, but you already know what happened.”

“It doesn’t mean she won’t stop trying. You underestimate that girl.”

“Perhaps you’re right. How about the Jupiters’ side?”

“Nothing concrete here that I could discern. Or rather, nothing yet. This is your last year here, no?”

“Not just mine. Evie and Teto too. After this year, we’re leaving this city for good, or for ill.”

“Then do I need to explain it to you? Or have you learned enough by now?”

“I can expect something to happen from your side, then?”

“Exactly.”

“You won’t tell me what it is?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not me who needs to find a happy ending.”

He sighed.

“You’re right, Madam Secretary. I guess it has to be them.”

“And you’re not going to do anything about it?”

“You know me. I’ll take them on as they come. Fits my style, right?”

“But these are my sisters we’re talking about. At least give them something to work with.”

He snickered, but not in the manner to sabotage their efforts by refusing her request. Actually, the grin on his face read ‘as if they needed it’. Ariel suddenly smiled brightly. Something roused her good mood.

“What if I told you, all of us Jupiter sisters were the same?”

“Please, no. Don’t even think it.”

Kato twirled on his bottom, swung his legs onto the other side of the ridge and bounced onto his feet.

“We’re quadruplets. It isn’t impossible.”

“Tell me when y’all actually look like quadruplets first.”

“If we go by that logic, then the situation makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Ariel climbed onto Kato’s back, who settled in snugly as she let him carry her away and back towards the student council room downstairs.

“That was exactly what I was going for.”

Locking the doors with his stolen key, they descended the stairs in peace as the halls were already almost cleared of students and most of them had headed for home or after school activities.

“Even though I didn’t end up like them, I’ll still miss you and the gang. It was fun. If I could, I would have wished you weren’t a deity.”

Kato smiled wistfully. He was always touched by Ariel’s frankness with him, and this time was no different.

“You can still wish it. A cat can make all the wishes it wants.”

“I’m not a cat. I’m a little sister who wants a big brother with an incurable little sister complex to spoil me.”

Ariel dismounted from her ride and gave her chauffeur a wide smile, one of plain innocence. Her silver hair shined just a bit brighter than usual, as if to reflect the pure sincerity in her feelings.

“Aye aye. I’ll be your big brother, until the day I depart.”

The Elites usually sent a couple of their own to the cafeteria downstairs to buy their lunches. Unlike most other school cafeterias, this one made good food from the Yue homeland so it was very popular among the students.

The bell rang at one-thirty for the end of lunch, so the school began moving quickly again for the impeding fourth period bell. Students flowed out of classrooms and filled the halls with bodies and noise. The atrium with its lockers was always the most jam-packed area as the school transitioned between the morning and afternoon classes.

“I’ll see you guys after school.”

Kato waved the Elites goodbye as they left the 3-F classroom for their afternoon classes. Because afternoon classes were based on course selection, students did not move around with their homeroom classes. They only needed to go to the classroom they were assigned to in their schedules, and took the class with other students that chose that course. The purpose was to familiarize students with systems in post-secondary institutions.

He stayed behind because there was a tiny thing he wanted to investigate in his classroom before it got filled up by students for the afternoon course taking place in his homeroom. While he was moving in and out of the classroom during lunch, he noticed a very peculiar sensation near the door that he couldn’t put his finger on, so he decided to give it a search now.

Kato understood that the sensation was related to something alchemical. As a deity and a Hearts candidate, if weaponized alchemy was not his specialty, then at least having a thorough understanding of alchemy was a must. Without becoming an expert in alchemy, it was not possible for him or his sisters to fight those who do specialize in alchemy.

Alchemy in Korolev Senior was not uncommon; in fact, it had two large lab rooms dedicated to this subject, and a huge, usually invisible barrier enveloped the school’s territory to protect it from unwanted entry by enemies of Eternia.

As a secondary function, it was also used as a mechanism to create a sandbox area for the purposes of the Class Wars, so that the physical brawl between the classes result in no real injuries. When a Class War occurs, the barrier activates and turns rainbow-coloured. The school headmistress Eterna, as a master of alchemy, maintained the functions of the barrier.

Within the barrier, regardless of it being activated or in passive mode, those who wore cleanse tags, which were bandage-like strips that students wore on their wrists all day at school, were protected from physical injury. Only the wearers of the cleanse tags in the offending classes could participate in the war. While the barrier was activated, those inside the barrier without cleanse tags too were protected by Eterna’s magic that permeated through the barrier, including those who have taken off their cleanse tags, involuntarily or not.

This particular case, however, had nothing to do with the Class Wars or the cleanse tag that was wrapped tightly around his left wrist, which was why he thought it was peculiar. Kato inhaled deeply as he stood next to the door, using his extrasensory perception to read the flow of magic in the small area around him.

It wasn’t hard to locate the source as it was stationary and was different from the kind of magic that Eterna used.

Kato reached his arm around and behind the trash bin next to him and grabbed the small object that was emanating the pale, muted aura of magic that he sensed. When he took it out and had a look at it, he realized what it was. He leapt to his feet and put it away inside his schoolbag, and then left the classroom in haste.

“I dunno if that was lucky or unlucky.”

Kato murmured under his breath. The type of alchemy that that peculiar alchemical sensation was associated with was already surprising enough, but the owner of the object was equally perplexing. If it were Teto or Evie who found this, they wouldn’t be well versed enough in alchemy as Kato to recognize this much out of the magical scent.

“Hey, Kato!”

Only moments after he left his classroom, he was stopped by a beautiful voice, soft in nature but sharp in use. Though it sounded ninety-nine per cent like Mirabelle, it wasn’t her. By now, Kato had been around her enough to tell the difference.

“Bia? What is it?”

It was Bianca, Mirabelle’s identical twin within the Jupiter quadruplets. Their other two sisters, Ariel and Scarlett, were not identical and had very different physiques, but were still more than attractive enough to be popular in their school, which was a decisive factor in winning Mirabelle’s student council presidency.

“Hmm, where are the other idiots? You’re the only one left?”

Bianca’s messy black hair bounced in the air with her haughty attitude as she walked closer towards him. The bangs that hung in front of and around her face were impressive, while the rest of her hair were tied in a loose low bun. Her face was almost exactly the same as Mirabelle’s, the difference only discernible by those close to the two.

“Yeah, I’m the only idiot left of the Elites. Are you looking for Eon?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I–I don’t want or need to see that retard in full retard mode.”

Bianca immediately turned red and stumbled a bit in her speech when Eon was mentioned, to which Kato snickered amusedly. To say the least, the two of them had a very long-standing belligerent relationship. To an outsider it was hard to know if they were actually friends, but if they could put up with each other’s argumentative tendencies for all these years, there must be something special between them.

The language she used was very different from her twin sister, who was much more prim and proper. It might have been the result of the years of rivalry with Eon.

“Believe me, sometimes I can’t stand his full retard mode either. But that’s okay. That’s what makes him Eon.”

“And being an Eon gets me on my nerves. It hasn’t changed since we were children. Can’t he just chill the fuck down when he should?”

Bianca was not one to remain flustered for long and already hurled complaints at Eon’s best friend.

“Heh. The day he mellows out is probably the day he dies.”

“So never. I expect that. Anyway, these are what I need to give you.”

Bianca handed him five large slips of hard paper that turned out to be tickets.

“This is the payment for covering for Mira this morning, I’ve been told. Even if ye complain, I ain’t got nuthin’ else for ya.”

The garbling of syllables of Old Yue at the end there was something that he would never hear from Mirabelle herself, but sounded very unique and fascinating all the same from someone who had Mirabelle’s voice.

“Nah. No complaints. Sisi’s too?”

“Ye. Ms Romana’s going with us too. It’ll be a family-friendly day at the Bozz.”

The Bozz was a major theme park in Livia. On top of the regular attractions, it also hosted the biggest water park and aquarium, making it a favourite destination for both family and friends. This weekend Sunday, the Elites and the Jupiter sisters were going to the Bozz before all the priorities of school set in. There wasn’t a choice on the day, really, since school was six days a week.

“Speaking of this, where’s Mira? She said all of you were gone together, so I’m assuming that she also came back with you.”

“No, she’s not back yet. Unfortunately, something came up and she got more things to do, so she’s not going to come to school this week. I’ll be taking over as the Speaker of the Assembly today.”

This year, the student council president was simultaneously the Speaker of the Assembly. Since Bianca was the student council treasurer and therefore Mirabelle’s second in command, her absence meant that her duties fell on her twin sister.

“A convention of the Assembly, eh? It means I’ll miss fifth period and it’ll continue from three-ten to five-forty, holy moly.”

“And I had to pick up from where the two of you left off yesterday, but it’s all right now. I’ve got it down good.”

“Sounds good. But if Mira’s not going to be here for the rest of the week, will she show up for the Bozz?”

“Of course. That’s the one thing she won’t miss. If you haven’t figured it out yet, she can miss classes all year and still score highest in our class.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve figured out that part a long time ago. That’s why I’m not worried about her absence.”

Bianca mused for a short moment. She was suddenly upset with something.

“Hmm, that reaction is within expectations but still kinda… strange.”

Kato pocketed the tickets that were meant for him and his family.

“How so?”

“You’re not interested in what Mira’s been doing?”

“I am, but she wouldn’t tell me, so I left it at that. I would think that you’re not going to tell me either.”

“No, I’m not.”

She smiled brightly at that reply, suddenly the difficult expression cleared from her face.

“But why the long face initially?”

It was now Kato’s turn to question her on why she questioned him.

“I was just a bit disappointed in your reaction. Not that I don’t understand your situation though. Being destined to become a Heart is a difficult and unenviable position.”

Bianca gave an honest answer and shook her head coolly as she started to turn around to make her way to her class.

“At least for you, Bia, you have it a lot better, I’d imagine.”

He, too, slung his schoolbag over his shoulder to make his way in the opposite direction, towards the physics room that was only next door to his own homeroom.

Bianca felt a familiar constricting feeling in her chest and wanted to say something else, but she stopped herself there.

“Perhaps. To each their own problems.”

He didn’t miss the faint sadness in her voice, and he knew exactly what it was about. Between the two of them was a history that, if possible, could be carried with them to their graves.

Though many things were different from her twin sister, the way Bianca made her parting smile was one of the few things that remained the same. It was the same vague yet innocent expression of happiness that seemed to mask her true emotions underneath.

---

“Yo. Is anyone sitting here?”

“No. Nobody sits with me.”

“Then I’ll sit here with you.”

Fourth period had not begun yet, but Alice was already looking listless. They sat at the back of a big classroom with probably more than forty-five students, yet when Kato approached Alice, her counter had no one else sitting at its tall stools. For whatever reason, people gave her a wide berth.

She was definitely distracted about something, and Kato had a feeling he knew what it was and it looked like it was something troublesome.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

Alice remained unresponsive to the outside world. The frown on her face reflected her dreary mood so clearly with no effort at hiding it. However, it was less of frustration that Kato expected, and more of sorrow and regret that she wore.

“Okay. I’ll sulk together with you.”

The bell rang for fourth period, but their teacher had not showed up yet, so the students around them continued their chatter without pause. The combination of the siren-like noise and the bizarre quip snapped Alice out of her stupor and brought her back to the physics classroom.

“What do you mean, sulk together with me?”

“You look like someone who wants to destroy the world at this very moment.”

Kato said plainly to her. She relented as her hard expression softened quite a bit.

“Did I have a really scary face?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Ugh. I hate how my face is so easy to read.”

“It’s still there, buddy. It’s okay to let it loose.”

“Sorry about that. I’m pretty upset right now.”

“Heh, I could tell. Do you want to tell me why?”

“How about you go first this time? Why are you sulking with me too?”

Alice was a fast learner. She was starting to deflect the inquisitive questions from Kato back to him.

“Nothing much. I’m just a bit disappointed that going to the Bozz is still five days away.”

Kato, on the other hand, gave a reply that gave away the least as possible, unlike Alice’s tendency to be honest pretty quickly.

“The Bozz? The theme park?”

“Yes. This Sunday.”

“With your friends?”

“Most definitely.”

“Sounds nice. It’s probably the best time of the year to go too, since everyone is back in school now.”

“That’s exactly why we go at the start of school.”

Alice nodded quietly as the teacher, Mr Kiriaku, finally appeared, which led to the immediate quietening of the class. Kato made a dissatisfied ‘tch’ noise and pulled out his notebooks from his bag, a bit annoyed that Alice had the last say before class started, to which her mood lit up ever so slightly.

She, too, opened her notebooks to write as Mr Kiriaku immediately began his lecture in earnest. The natural sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology were taught as separate classes and each had their own lab rooms such as this one. Alchemy was also a science but instead of being categorized as a natural science, it was a metaphysical science, as a nod to the agency of sentience as one of its fundamental axioms.

Shifting on her stool as she spared momentary glances at him, she was surprised at Kato’s diligence at listening to the lecture since her image of him wasn’t exactly one of a good student. Indeed, he did pay thorough attention to the lecture, but only because he was interested in the subject.

However, the differences in the state of their work spaces were stark. Alice’s was very neat and tidy, while Kato’s had a lot left to be desired. Kato was still the tidiest of the three deific children, but some of their insolence affected Kato too.

Some time into the lecture, she took a pause in the note-taking to dig out her own cassette tape player from her schoolbag. Usually, there were about fifteen minutes left of the hour-and-a-half period where there was time for a bit of self-study, which usually devolved into a question-answer session for the lecturer. As Alice wouldn’t be asking any questions and diverting attention to herself, she would take the time to start on her assignments in peace.

Not too long after she took it out, she felt Kato tap her foot with his. Incredulous, she turned to him suspiciously only to be stopped by a note being passed to her on top of her notes.

Who do you listen to?

Letting out a small sigh, she wrote her reply on the back of the note. Her handwriting was beautiful and refined, and it was also in Old Yue. She also tapped him on the foot and placed the note next to his arm.

I listen to EC.

EC was the stage name for a famous male singer from Livia. He was very popular in recent years as he essentially replaced the previous generation of male pop stars.

Nice. I’m a big fanboy of his too.

The game of footsie continued as a new note was passed to Alice, who realized this by now and was embarrassed by the fact that they were playing such a stupid game, but for some reason she didn’t have the usual urge to blurt out something to stop it.

Which albums do you like to listen to?

Another note landed on top of her notebook. A simple question, but she took her time to write the answer. Her mind already disconnected from the physics lecture, the pen hovered over the back of the note for a while before she wrote a reply.

U87 and H3M are my favourite. What about yours?

Kato beamed at her as he read it, to which she avoided eye contact stiffly, still uncomfortable as a prideful princess who couldn’t take compliments.

Hah. Both are modern albums with grown-up themes, but still filled with youthful hope. I like. It suits you.

He folded the first note before writing on the second, and then handing them both over to her together.

My favourite is My Age of Bliss. Have you listened to it before?

No. Isn’t it an old album?

Yes, this album is quite a bit older, but it’s still good.

Kato rummaged through his schoolbag to pull out a cassette tape. He handed it over to her and wrote again on another slip of paper.

You can hand it back to me later.

He gave her a quick wink before he turned his attention back to the front of the class while Alice turned a bit pink at the audacity in his parting glance. She was already behind on the lecture, so she might as well listen to part of the album as she tried to catch up from reading the textbook instead. She replaced the U87 tape in her player, rewound Kato’s tape to the start, and began listening to it.

---

When the day’s lecture was over, there were the usual fifteen minutes left in the period for self-study, and Alice was satisfied that she was able to catch up to the lecture with just the textbook. The class began to move up and about as the free time set in, but she ignored the bustling around her and kept the earphones in.

It seemed like Kato was doing the same, now having his earphones in his ears too. The tranquil atmosphere around them persisted and Alice felt mysteriously at ease. She caught herself staring at Kato’s peaceful figure before she pinched her pink cheeks quickly and promptly dove into the assignment in front of her.

But she couldn’t concentrate. Her mind was still lingering on Kato as his favourite songs played along. Instead of getting a head-start with the homework, she instead wanted to reach out to talk to him.

Why?

She questioned herself when she realized what she was thinking about. There was no particular reason that came up in her mind, and just commenting on the album could wait until the bell, so why the urge? Alice ruminated for a while as the worksheet in front of her remained blank.

Before she was able to start writing, an inconvenient disturbance appeared before her. She looked up to confirm its presence, and sighed.

“Alice. How are you doing?”

An innocent greeting came from the tall and handsome third-year in front of them. His voice was deep and soothing, which complemented his calm and serene demeanour. His shirt and tie were thoroughly ironed with no extraneous folds, and it wrapped his toned build quite nicely.

Behind him was another familiar young man, one with a much less tidy outfit and an imposing and dangerous aura. Though he was not nearly as tall or toned as his boss, it was easy to see that the shorter man was a nasty piece of work.

“I’m doing fine, thanks. What do you need, Gilbert?”

Alice’s words were coloured with several shades of her customary abrasiveness. It wasn’t hard to see that the handsome Gilbert wasn’t welcomed here. Although she was normally rough with her tone, this time it sounded like the roots of her displeasure was much deeper, way more than what she gave strangers.

Gilbert could sense the hostility too, but his expression didn’t change. He idly twirled with his wavy black hair instead, knowing that Alice would give him a hard time, but he would have to get this conversation over with anyway.

“Alice. Father is hosting dinner this weekend, and your brother Albert is already invited. So it would be great if you would attend as well.”

“I already know.”

“Then has Albert invited you already? My apologies if he already did.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter whether you or by brother does it. What’s the point of me having to go? I don’t have anything to contribute to either businesses.”

“You already know why. It’s an expression of trust.”

“Trust? I trust any of you as much as I trust that little green men live on Mars. I’m fully aware that I’m a political pawn in your games, but I won’t play it unless it is absolutely necessary. So tell me. Is this occasion so important that everything falls apart if I don’t show up?”

Despite being so scathing towards Gilbert, he did not blink. Nothing flickered across his face during the entire tirade. Instead, he gave a very cool and realistic reply.

“No, but it’ll be more beneficial to you if you did. If you don’t show up, people around us are going to talk. And it probably won’t be favourable for you.”

Exasperated, Alice gave a grimace as she lost her motivation to continue complaining. She always hated Gilbert’s responses. They were always fair, neutral, and impossible to refute. Alice knew that his suggestions were almost always right, but that was not what she wanted to hear in her moments of frustration.

“Fine. I’ll think about it.”

She gave a curt and rigid answer. Obviously, to her, this conversation was over.

“So you haven’t given an RSVP yet. Then please, at least, give me a yes or no by the morning of.”

“I will.”

Gilbert bowed politely to the troublesome princess, satisfied that his official business here was done. He gave a thin smile to the blonde-haired girl who already began ignoring him and writing on the worksheet in front of her.

“May I ask who is this gentleman sitting next to you? Or rather, why is this gentleman sitting here?”

Kato, of course, was sitting next to Alice the entire time listening to the conversation. He kept quiet and seemed to have minded his own business, but as soon as the two imposing men arrived he paused his walkman and pretended to continue listening to music.

Alice looked to Kato expectantly, but he continued to put on a charade since he was not yet being directly addressed. After a few more moments of silence, her face slowly turned red as she realized that he was not going to respond and that she was making the atmosphere around them awkward. The struggle on her face was more apparent with each passing second, as it was just as awkward to start speaking after not initially responding.

Seeing her on the comical verge of tears, though Kato knew why she was fuming, he stifled a laugh in plain sight anyway, which provoked Alice’s wrath. Her childlike frustration suddenly turned emotionless and she pinched him hard on his arm, to which he reacted with a sudden twinge and retreated away from her.

“Ow. That tickles.”

Kato made a delayed and lazy grunt, clearly trying to not sound like it hurt, which it didn’t. Still, he ignored the black-haired boys in front of him, only giving his attention to the girl beside him.

“God, you’re such an ass.”

Alice flamed at him in his face, angry that he was still not helping her whatsoever in her conversation with Gilbert.

“No, I don’t know him.”

She finally gave an answer to Gilbert, which was obviously a throwaway answer that Gilbert would never accept. So he made his next point very clearly.

“I beg to differ; not only from the reaction just now, but also from playing footsie in class and passing notes to each other. So, why’s the class representative of 3-F sitting next to a student of Class A?”

“Give me a break. You’re not only here about the politics at home, but at school too? Please. Don’t talk to me.”

Stung from the embarrassment that someone else found out they were flirting in class, her latest poisonous comment was more muted than her previous ones. Even worse, Kato continued to ignore Gilbert’s presence.

“It’s a matter of duty. After all, Class A has a casus belli on Class F that can be used any time.”

Alice scowled at yet another one of Gilbert’s matter-of-factly replies.

“Like I told you many times before, I don’t have any investment in the Class Wars you guys have. If you have a problem with him and his class, then take it out on them. Don’t involve me.”

Gilbert’s expression finally loosened a bit and sighed helplessly.

“I’m just worried that you will get caught in the middle of such a conflict.”

Alice’s eyes softened. Talking to Gilbert was like talking to a brick wall. In a different, so-called normal world, Gilbert and Alice would have never spoken more than a few sentences to each other their whole lives. So she never blamed him for anything despite her fits of anger. To her, Gilbert, as the person he was, was just at the wrong place and the wrong time.

“You don’t need to worry about me, Gil. I do everything for myself.”

“Then I’ll put my faith into your words. That you’ll do everything for yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“But what was that footsie about?”

Alice perched up from her seat again. She deflected it the first time, but she didn’t expect the second reminder. Then again, Gilbert was a serious kind of person, so perhaps it should have been expected. She felt the uncomfortable heat on her back and the sweat on her face as she replied carefully.

“Nothing. Kato was just being a bothersome person.”

“Wow. Is that how you treat your friends?”

Kato reacted to her with a grin. Alice was now convinced that Kato only replied to things she was saying and ignored Gilbert just to mess around with her. The footsie thing clearly involved him but he never helped out, so it was obvious he wanted to watch her squirm.

“That’s the last thing I want to hear from you, because I want to tell you the same thing.”

Her face turned dark for the second time in a matter of minutes. The dead fish eyes reminiscent of Evie drilled her dissatisfaction into Kato’s, but it didn’t seem to have the same effect on him as Evie’s. Nevertheless, she twisted a piece of his flesh hard once again on the arm, and the same twitch and stupid response came.

“Ow. That tickled.”

Gilbert remained silent at the two flirting in front of him. He was saddened by the scene but the emotion barely showed on his face. His lackey behind him, however, made a difficult face and was clearly upset. He opened his mouth, about to protest, but Gilbert waved at him to stop him.

“Stephen. It’s not my prerogative.”

“But, Gilbert. He’s obviously making a mockery of your and Miss Alice’s—”

“Enough. Even so, it doesn’t change anything that’s already decided.”

Gilbert didn’t want to interrupt, but he had to cool down his hot-headed sidekick. He spared a glance at Alice, who was evidently dismayed by the implication in his words.

“You’re right. It doesn’t change anything. But it doesn’t change me either.”

Alice said indifferently, more to herself than anyone else. Gilbert nodded soberly as he began addressing the Class F student directly.

“As for Mr Danubius, I must congratulate you on your successful Class War last week. No doubt, your war was just and your methods clean and effective.”

After all of this, Kato finally turned to Gilbert to make eye contact. The black eyes he saw were muted and colourless; it was not the same kind of deadness that was present in Evie’s and Alice’s moments of jealously or anger. Instead, it seemed like it belonged to a man who fought too many battles and saw too many comrades die, and had lost faith in the world around him.

“Thank you, Mr Lafayette. Or Mr Class A Representative. Which do you prefer?”

“Gilbert is fine.”

“Then Kato is fine for me, too.”

Kato could see why Alice gets frustrated talking to this guy. He was way too strict and rigid for a delicate personality as Alice’s. The word ‘plain’ matched this guy to a tee. Kato had had interactions with Gilbert on-and-off in the past as he was a famous enough person in his year, and he could see that this particular trait of Gilbert’s had not changed.

But it wasn’t as if Gilbert was stupid. He was certainly a smart person. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been the class representative for Class A. He was just severely lacking in the charisma department.

“I’ll be taking my leave here. Thank you for bearing with me.”

And just like that, Gilbert and Stephen left the two of them for the door, most likely going toward the Assembly Hall, which was a large auditorium that belonged to the music faculty but also used for convening the Assembly.

The abrupt exit by the two Class A students left an awed audience of two at their table, who both were briefly speechless at their conversation just now, for different reasons.

“Well, that was tense.”

Kato spoke first. He put his walkman away into his bag in preparation for departure for the Assembly Hall too. After all, he was the representative for Class F, albeit one for a low-ranking class.

“What’s your relation to Gilbert? That conversation between the two of you didn’t sound very friendly.”

He asked her seriously, the tone now much different from earlier. The grin was gone and his face much more sober. Kato avoided eye contact, instead spinning the pencil in his hand idly.

Alice noticed the change and her answer got stuck in her throat. She was about to say something poisonous to him, but Kato killed the mood for that kind of response. She debated internally with herself how much she could tell him.

“…you heard us, right? Our families are related in one way or another, and it’s something I don’t like.”

Alice worded her eventual answer carefully, all the while thinking to herself about her relationship with Gilbert and their families. It brought a melancholic expression to her face as her mind wandered away from the classroom.

“Hah. Family problems, huh? I’ll bite.”

Kato said more to himself than Alice, who for the first time heard him in genuine frustration. The surprise pulled her out of her stupor and turned to see his face. He was upset, all right, but it felt like it wasn’t exactly about her.

“What’s wrong?”

Alice asked hesitantly, but unfortunately the bell rang for the end of fourth period, cutting off their conversation.

Kato realized that time was short, so he quickly searched his schoolbag and pulled out a small pendant, one made of a shard of Plexiglas. It was definitely not well-made or pretty. In fact, it looked like someone broke apart something into pieces and turned one of its fragments into memorabilia.

“I believe this is yours.”

He held it in front of her, to which her eyes widened in shock. From that reaction, it undoubtedly belonged to her. Kato laid the small and light pendant into her open hands.

“Yes, that’s mine. Where did it fall off?”

Her voice was soft and trembled with relief, in contrast to her usual edge. She clutched onto it gingerly yet firmly, showing the importance of the pendant to her.

“In our classroom. From the looks of it, I was right to pick it up, but I only found it because this thing was an alchemical anomaly. Will you tell me what that’s about?”

Alice hesitated at Kato’s question, and looked up to see anxiety and seriousness on his face. Although she had only met him today, it felt like he was no stranger to her. And that was why she was able to speak as freely to him as she did to Mirabelle and Evie.

“I don’t really know what the specific alchemy stuff is about, but this fragment was part of an old alchemical experiment from long ago that involved a very good friend of mine. So it’s a relic of my past, so to speak.”

She said gently as he nodded sombrely. Though only knowing her for less than a day, he understood that Alice was an honest enough girl for him to believe in at face value. He accepted her tentative explanation, and moved on from it for now. There was probably a better place and time for it later.

“Then as your benefactor, I’ll have you do something for me in return.”

His usual mood returning, Kato grinned again to her bemusement. He dug into his schoolbag again to fetch out something else and handed it to her.

“You’re coming with me to the Bozz. I know you have something else planned that day from the looks of things, but if you don’t go, you’re gonna owe me something else for finding that for you.”

“—!”

Alice paused as she turned scarlet again, colouring her porcelain cheeks beautifully with a deep hue of pink. She held onto the slip of paper, dumbstruck by the sudden invitation. Her mind entered yet another imaginative session as she remained momentarily wordless to her benefactor.

“Remember that Evie and Mirabelle are coming too, so you don’t need to only endure my presence.”

Then Kato brought her back to ground zero. She turned disappointed upon hearing that, as if something clicked in her head and now she fully understood the situation.

Like a snarky kid, he snickered at Alice’s clumsiness and misunderstanding, to which Alice immediately realized that what she was imagining, was a bit too obvious from her face. It wasn’t hard now, putting one and one together.

“Wait, I—”

“Ah, it’s all right. It’s a common misunderstanding.”

“No! I didn’t misunderstand anything!”

“It’s okay. You just forgot about that part about other people coming along.”

“I don’t care! You’ve got it wrong!”

Alice stumbled as she tried to explain herself to no avail. Kato was already laughing out loud as he made his way to the door, and left her to quickly grab her belongings and frantically chase after him. Surprisingly to Alice, some time between Gilbert’s arrival and now, Kato had already silently packed up his belongings.

“Nope, I know exactly what I’m doing!”

He stood at the entrance, waiting for the slow girl to catch up.

“You’re. Such. A. Jerk.”

A bit upset, she gave him a light shove with her shoulder and went ahead of him. She had classes for fifth period, but the class representative of Class F needed to attend the first convention of the Assembly instead. Also, they didn’t have the same fifth period classes either, so they were splitting up either way.

Thinking about separating and moving on to her next class, she finally remembered, and she was shocked at how she had forgotten about it until now. Perhaps the loss of her pendant shook her frame of mind, but more than that, Kato certainly distracted from her usual pace.

“Is Mira back in school? I couldn’t find her at lunch.”

“Ah, Mira. Apparently, she’s gone off to do something else for the rest of this week. That’s what her sister said.”

Suddenly, his attitude softened up once again. Because of the abrupt change, Alice picked up on the tenderness in his voice, and became even more interested in what was between Kato and Mirabelle.

“I see. That’s too bad.”

Though she was curious about their relationship, Alice was nevertheless sad that she couldn’t see another good friend of hers.

“Chin up. If you decide to come to the Bozz, you’ll see her there. Ten o’clock sharp.”

He actually pushed her chin up, to which she brushed away with the back of her hand, annoyed. Kato chuckled at her displeasure.

“I’ll think about it.”

“The correct answer is yes, by the way.”

Alice gave him a ‘tch’ to make her indignation clear to him, but did not say any further.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

Kato laughed and waved farewell. The corollary was that she allowed him to continue sitting next to her in this class.

As they began parting ways, Alice stopped and called out to him again.

“Kato!”

“Yeah?”

“… thank you. For finding my pendant.”

Alice bowed at Kato, who was already several paces’ distance away from her. An earnest smile formed on Alice’s face, and he was reminded that between her short temper and pessimism, a kind girl existed there.

“You’re very welcome.”

Arriving at school close to six-thirty meant that Kato had to wake up before six, which was an amazing feat for a non-morning person such as him. Like a zombie, he climbed up the wide steps to reach the grand doors of the main entrance of the school.

The first area of contact was the atrium, which was a wide expanse that went up several floors to the glass ceiling windows and housed the great columns of lockers for the students of this institution. From the entrance he would enter a very wide clearing, fit for an assembly of many classes at once, and in the centre was a spiral staircase that reached the floors above. The atrium was where many students gathered during off-class hours, and also where corporal punishment was carried out.

Putting away his outdoor shoes in his locker, he headed towards the west side of the school where the music faculty’s classrooms were. Today, he was in charge of supervising the third music room, which was one of two keyboard and vocal rooms.

Normally, a student from the Activity Council affiliated with the music faculty would be on supervisor duty here. The Activity Council, or the AC, was the student organization that was responsible for coordinating most extracurricular activities in the school, including faculty-specific ones. Unlike the student council, it was not part of student government, but works closely with it to uphold the vibrancy of student life.

It was not the first time he was in the music faculty’s classrooms since Kato did have interest in music, but because of his rigorous lifestyle as a Hearts candidate, he never participated in an academic capacity. So at the very least, he wasn’t unfamiliar with the classroom and its setups.

At the corner next to the door was a small desk at which he would sit, and make sure the students coming into the music room register their names. It was to track student participation for the teachers’ convenience, and to create records for the Records Office of the student council’s administration. A student-run extracurricular system was more efficient as it didn’t require the presence of teachers for routine supervision such as music practice.

Kato sat down in the supervisor’s seat and flipped through the previous two days of attendance sheets, from Monday and Saturday, which both showed only one name: Alice Westgrove. Whoever this person was, she must be a good friend of Mirabelle, as the student council president wouldn’t be on lowly supervision duty for one student.

On the chalkboard, he saw his name written on there in the corner reserved for the daily student caretaker of the classroom. Although the Yue languages used a completely different script from the other languages of the Candoran continent, after centuries of Auxirian dominance, most everyone who didn’t speak a Candoran language nevertheless adopted personal names from it.

As Kato was Auxirian, it was normal for him to have a Candoran name, but his Yue comrades would have both a Yue and Candoran name, of which the Candoran personal name was more commonly used.

Usually, it was Standard Candoran, the national language of Auxiria proper, instead of the other Candoran languages, High Candoran and Rinian, that was used for names. For Avian, though they had their own script, it was loosely related to the Candoran script, so it was easy to convert names between scripts.

He recognized the handwriting without a shadow of a doubt. It was Mirabelle’s. Kato sighed, and laid his head on top of the clipboard on the desk to catch some sleep. After seeing that, he gave up any willpower left in him and consequently, lost the fight to stay awake.

“Excuse me.”

Kato immediately woke to the voice. He needed to sleep in the mornings, but he was also a light sleeper to start with, drilled into him by his training.

Grabbing and fumbling with the clipboard, he looked up to see a tall third-year student with wavy blonde hair. Unlike most other girls in the school, she chose to wear a simple white polo shirt and a plain blue skirt, in contrast to the usual sailor uniform with pleated skirt. She wore a red hair band that complemented with her other colours quite well and a grey pendant around her neck that looked like a shard of Plexiglas.

“I’d like to register with the AC’s attendance.”

Alice said coolly to Kato, making her intent clear with her voice. Obviously, she wasn’t impressed with Kato’s sleeping, so her tone was rather irritable. Her piercing blue eyes reminded Kato of Evie’s, to which he usually submitted to, but it was only because Evie was his sister.

On a separate note, Alice was speaking in New Yue, in comparison to the much more common Old Yue. In Korolev Senior, the afternoon classes were taught in New Yue, but the morning classes were taught and the students spoke in Old Yue.

Morning classes were mandatory and students followed their homeroom classes around, while afternoon classes were supplementary and based on course selection scheduling. Needless to say, afternoon classes were the advanced classes with higher tuition, and were a requirement to graduate with a Standard diploma which afforded them with higher chances at post-secondary entry. Otherwise, those who only attended the morning classes graduated with the People’s diploma.

Kato stood up from his seat to address her.

“That’s fine. Your name and class?”

“Alice Westgrove. Class A.”

“You will be using this room for the rest of the morning?”

“I’ll be the only one using this room.”

Alice said again, with a bit of impatience creeping into her voice. Kato suspected that she wouldn’t be this cold if it were Mirabelle instead of him here.

“I see. Well, have fun. If you need anything, just wake me up.”

Alice almost doubled over upon hearing that, but quickly recovered. She was quite annoyed by the laid-back attitude that Kato had, but held her tongue for now. At least he was doing his job, albeit in a lacklustre manner.

But Alice hesitated before moving on further into the music room. Showing an uncomfortable expression, she struggled a bit before she asked.

“Where’s Mirabelle? Is she here today?”

“Oh, are you interested?”

Alice frowned at the non-response while a grin was slowly surfacing on Kato’s face. She had a feeling she was not going to get along with this boy.

“Yes, she’s supposed to be the supervisor for this room today. Is she sick?”

“Well, before I can answer that, I have a question for you. How come you’re speaking in New Yue?”

Kato asked in Old Yue, finally switching back to the vernacular. New Yue was a more prestigious, formal language than Old Yue, and in the past it actually delineated the upper and lower socioeconomic classes. Today, both languages were equally prevalent and commoners spoke New Yue as well, but much of the historical stigma remained.

Despite the upper class elegance that Alice emanated, she did not display any of the hubris that another privileged student of Class A would. Instead, she shuffled uncomfortably in place as she thought hard about how to answer that.

“I… I’m just better at speaking in New Yue. I don’t have a problem with speaking or understanding Old Yue.”

She stammered as she explained herself, still in New Yue. As if sensing the historical stigma, the air of hostility around her momentarily receded and was replaced with an awkward timidity.

Kato stifled the first laugh and then laughed out the next one, to which Alice showed a bit of confusion. Seeing that Alice understood Old Yue, Kato continued to speak it from here on out.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect that kind of a face or an answer from a Class A student. That is perfectly fine.”

Alice felt her face heat up as she realized he was playing with her. There were no class conflicts here. The muted fiery aura around her returned in an instant.

“Wha—”

“But—I could answer you about Mirabelle, if you were to ask the question in Old Yue.”

Before Alice could make a complaint, Kato’s next remark caught her tongue. She made another difficult face as it flushed with red. Her pride was really strong, and Kato could see the struggle in her thoughts clearly on her face; Alice’s emotions were as clear as day. She didn’t want to speak in Old Yue, but she also wanted to know where Mirabelle was.

“I’ll ask, but don’t laugh.”

A few moments later, she warned as she resolved herself to do the deed, to which Kato watched on with anticipation.

“No problem.”

After a few more moments, Alice asked softly in Old Yue, still red-faced.

“S-so, what happen’d to Mirabelle this mo’ning? How come she’s not ‘ere?”

Kato immediately realized why she preferred to speak in New Yue. Alice’s Old Yue has such a funny-sounding accent that he almost could not keep his promise. Unfortunately, Old Yue was a tonal language and New Yue was not, and with that accent it was apparent that Alice learned New Yue before Old Yue.

“She forgot she had to go with her sisters and their father somewhere this morning. She said she’ll be back by lunch.”

“Ah, I see. That’s fine then.”

Feeling slightly relieved at the news of Mirabelle, she gave a deep sigh to release the tension that she didn’t even know she held onto up to this point. She regained her composure and New Yue quickly.

“See, there’s nothing wrong with your Old Yue.”

Kato couldn’t help but smirk, and clearly enjoyed the hilarity of the garbled words that came out of her mouth.

“Please don’t mind my poor grasp on Old Yue. In fact, I insist.”

Alice cleared her throat stiffly, still very much minding her obviously dreadful pronunciation of Old Yue. Her particular accent was known as the reverse accent, because of that New to Old Yue learning transition.

“No, I won’t mind it. In fact, yours is charming enough that I’d insist you keep speaking in Old Yue.”

Matching Alice’s phrasing and with that cheeky grin still on Kato, the cat caught Alice’s tongue again as another series of flustered expressions flashed across her face.

“Just kidding—”

As Kato took a moment to pause here, she froze, taken aback by the sudden denial. He could see, amusingly to him, the relief take form on the delicate features of her face.

“—you don’t need to wake me up. I’ll stay awake, since you’ve already woke me up.”

Realizing that he wasn’t talking about his insistence, the red in her cheeks returned at once. She could see clearly that he was having fun playing with her emotions. While it frustrated her it also felt surprisingly warm, as if she was always a close friend of his.

“—then I’ll take your word; if I ever need your help.”

Pride not permitting, she had to throw something back at him and in New Yue. Alice gave a pout before leaving Kato behind for her usual seat at the first keyboard, and although she showed her emotions like an open book, she turned around in time so that the small smile that surfaced on her face was out of Kato’s sight.

So from Kato’s side, he couldn’t discern for sure that he left a favourable first impression, but he was pretty sure he did. Not only that, Alice was much easier to make fun of because of her peculiar awkwardness.

He took out the walkman and the earphones from his schoolbag and put them into his ears, then let a tiny thing slip from his mouth.

“Then let’s hope that today’ll be a peaceful one. I don’t want to give Mira a reason to complain to me about a job that she was supposed to do, and she couldn’t because she messed up.”

Alice stiffened as she sat down on the laminated wooden stool. It took a second before she remembered that ‘Mira’ was Mirabelle, and that that was Mirabelle’s pet name. The thought of it tightened her heart slightly, and she knew exactly why.

Alice only moved to her family’s residence in Livia at the end of first-year, so she was a relatively new person and student to the city and school. Because of her rigid personality, it was hard for her to make friends at her new home. On top of that, she only spoke New Yue fluently at the start, and had to learn Old Yue from the ground up.

One of the few who helped her, or perhaps saved her, was Mirabelle, who was a lively and cheerful enough girl to melt through Alice’s abrasive surface. Although they had different homerooms, they shared afternoon classes during all of second-year, so it was more than enough for Mirabelle to teach Alice their vernacular language.

Even though Alice too called her ‘Mira’, and that it was absolutely certain Mirabelle had other people she was close to and cared about, for Alice to hear that for real still struck her numb all the same.

Downcast, she took out her sheet music from her schoolbag and placed it on the music rack. She plugged the headset into the keyboard and wore it to block out outside noise. With her hands ready over the keys, she began playing with a heavy heart, trying to escape from the perennial loneliness from long ago that once again enveloped her thoughts and feelings.

---

“If I recall, you’re the rep for Class F, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them walked up the stairwell next to the music room to the third floor, where their respective homeroom classrooms were located. They left the music room before eight, as eight ten sharp began the first period class.

“I never expected you to be Evie’s stepbrother.”

“I never expected you to be friends of both Evie and Mira.”

“They helped me a lot, so I think of them quite highly. I want to see Evie before I go to class.”

“You said that you have home econ with her in fifth period, right? You’ll see her then anyway.”

“You don’t need a reason to see a good friend. You just want to be together.”

“That’s true. I can agree with that.”

The idle chit-chat between the two of them continued, one in New Yue, the other in Old Yue. Now, Kato thought, without a doubt, that he made an acceptable first impression on Alice. It probably did help that he was related to her two friends in some capacity.

“Do you have any interest in professional music, or is this simply a favour for Mira?”

“You mean about supervision duty? Yeah, music is one of many interests, but sadly one I was never able to get into.”

“Who got you into music? Mira?”

“Hah. Mira’s given up on her violin very early on. It was somebody else who kept me in music.”

“I see, I see. I didn’t know Mira played the violin, actually.”

“Apparently, she’s still a genius at the violin. What do you play? You were just at the keyboard the whole time.”

“I play piano mostly, but I can also play most woodwinds. Piano isn’t my favourite, actually. It’s trumpet where I feel most at ease.”

“Then how come no trumpet practice today?”

“It isn’t like I hate piano. Besides, I only play trumpet in a band.”

For some reason, there was a clogged corridor filled with students between their staircase and the 3-F classroom, so they took a detour through the biology classroom and into a paralleling hallway that turned back towards the 3-F classroom.

“Are you taking any afternoon classes?”

“Yeah. I think I have the same physics class as you do. Mr Kiriaku?”

“Oh my god, we do have the same physics class period four.”

The two of them arrived at Kato’s homeroom. It was such a beautifully peaceful and serene scene that it brought tears to his eyes. Small desks were organized neatly in their rows, facing the two chalkboards at the front of the class. Morning sunlight filtered indirectly through the large windows, opposite the sliding door from where they entered through.

It was a quiet Tuesday morning for Class 3-F. As it was not yet first period, many students were still not in the classroom. However, Kato’s group of friends were already here, the three long-time Class F boys sitting together at the back of the classroom.

“Looks like Evie’s not here yet.”

“That’s too bad. I guess you’ll see her in the afternoon then.”

Then the three men at the back noticed the entry of Kato and his new friend.

“Hey, Kato! Who’s that?”

“What have you been up to now?”

Eon and Caius began talking as they all got up from their seats to greet the two of them at the door. Kato thanked them silently for getting up and out so that he didn’t need to escort Alice all the way to the back of the class.

“Ah, this is Alice, from Class A. She’s a friend of Evie and Mira. Alice, this is our circle. Eon, Caius, and—”

“—Franco. Pleased to meet you guys, and Franco once again.”

“Ahaha. Welcome to our class, Alice.”

Franco, the third man of their group, replied sheepishly to Alice’s greeting.

“You know her?”

“She was in home econ last year with me, Evie and Mirabelle. The three of them stuck together most of the time.”

Franco answered Caius’ question, to which Alice nodded in agreement.

“Class A, huh. So, what brings Alice here to the lowly Class F?”

Eon asked in a pretentious voice as he pushed his glasses up in dramatic fashion. Kato silently cursed at Eon for being such a diva at all times, but surprisingly, Alice took Eon’s eccentricity well.

“I just wanted to see Evie before going to class, but it seems like she isn’t here yet.”

Alice told them straightforwardly.

“Yeah, Kato and his household usually are the last ones in. Shouldn’t Evie and Yui be with Kato?”

“Uh, I had to come to school early for supervision duty for the third music room, so they aren’t with me.”

Kato answered as he scratched the back of his head, almost apologetically.

“You don’t have to feel scared, Kato. You used supervision duty as an excuse to evade her. I understand.”

Eon put a hand on his shoulder, apparently empathizing with Kato’s need to ditch his overbearing stepsister. Eon had an overbearing sister as well. It was not a secret to any of them that Evie loved Kato in a smothering way. Not least that they had seen and experienced it at every opportunity since their childhood.

Kato’s eyes narrowed as he continued to speak. He had a suspicion that this empathy won’t last long.

“I didn’t have supervision duty for no reason. I was only filling in for Mira.”

And as he suspected, Eon let go of his shoulder, shrugged, and snickered.

“Does Evie know about that part?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know why you’re throwing yourself into the fire, but we’ll watch you get burned like always.”

Caius and Franco both grinned along with Eon, whose antics were on-point as always. Among them, the most maverick of the bunch had to be Eon.

“Wait, I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

Alice asked the four of them, which told them that she had no idea what kind of a relationship existed between Kato, Evie and Mirabelle. They looked at each other dumbfoundedly for a few moments before Eon answered for them.

“I think you’ll understand once you see the three of them together.”

Caius and Franco nodded together with conviction while Kato awkwardly avoided eye contact with the people around him.

“What does that mean? Hey! What’s this about Evie and Mira with you?”

Even more confused, she took hold of Kato’s arm and shook him furiously, but he still didn’t turn to face her. Making a difficult face, Alice saw that the other three were still amused at Kato’s behaviour, so clearly there was something between him and her two only friends.

Determined to find out, she quickly pivoted around Kato expertly with the finesse of a gymnast. Startled by Alice’s sudden movements, Kato took a moment before he could recover and spared a scathing glance at his so-called friends.

In that instant before he recovered, Alice saw a flustered and hesitant expression, bordering on embarrassment. That vulnerable face sent her imagination into overdrive, instantly processing through all the possibilities she could think of, but she was interrupted by an unholy disturbance.

“Woah—”

“Ah—!”

Kato caught Alice in her fall by her lower torso, leaning over her like tango partners. Stunned by the sudden loss of balance, she was only able to stare at his face, only inches from hers.

“Are you hurt?”

“N-no.”

She could feel a soft tingling sensation in her cheeks, fully aware that it was turning red. She didn’t let herself be in such an embarrassing posture for long, so she quickly took control of herself and got back up on her feet.

“Evie!”

The person who collided with Alice as they barged through the doorway was none other than Evianna, who still had both hands over her nose with her eyes closed in pain. It seemed like she crashed her nose into Alice pretty hard.

“Alice? How come you’re here?”

Evie opened one eye to see a familiar blonde-haired girl in front of her, who was all smiles now that Evie was here. Evie too smiled at her as they locked fingers like best girl friends do.

“I’m here to see you, of course. I met Kato in the music room because he was the supervisor for this morning, so I got him to bring me to the 3-F classroom.”

“At least he’s useful for something. Did he do anything to you? Like sexual harassment?”

“Ugh, what kind of a question is that?”

Kato put his head in his hands upon hearing that from Evie, while the men behind him continued giggling like little girls.

“Nope. I can handle him by myself.”

Alice smiled brightly at Evie. Maybe it was because of Evie’s influence that she seemed to be accustomed to these eccentrics.

“Since these guys are here, I’m assuming you’ve met the Elites, then?”

“So this is your gang you’ve been telling me about for so long.”

Evie nodded to herself confidently as she confirmed it. The Elite Four, a.k.a. the Elites were a self-proclaimed group of four delinquents from Class F since the days of primary school that grew in number over the years. They were specifically known for going off on strange adventures that earned the ire of their teachers and spent a lot of time in the staff room for their misbehaviour.

“Hey, I’m in the Elites too now.”

Yui waved warmly from behind Evie, who was met with cheers from the three other boys. She was a very recent addition to the crew and a popular one at that.

“You’re Yui, is that right? Evie has told me about you before. I’m Alice.”

“Yeah, I’m Yui. Nice to meet you!”

Yui joined the handholding session between the girls as well, but only moments after that, the bell had rung for pre-first period at eight-oh-five, which signalled the end of Alice’s time here at the 3-F classroom.

“I’ll see you later, Alice.”

Evie said coolly as Alice separated herself from the two stepsisters.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll have to make my way to my classroom now. It was nice to meet everyone!”

She quickly skipped away and down the hall through the crowds, waving back at the Elites who gathered at their classroom door.

---

“It was short, but what did you guys think of Alice?”

It was the short break between first and second period, and Evie asked the boys and girl sitting to the left of her. As a side note, Eon, Kato and Evie sat in the backmost row on the window side, followed by Caius in front of Eon and Franco in front of Kato, and then Yui in front of Caius.

“She’s a pretty girl. And a pretty nice girl.”

Eon started off with his usual quips. If it was anyone else, there would be eyes rolling, but because it was Eon, no one even blinked. Though his frame and hairstyle was similar to Kato, the difference was that he was a lot more neat and tidy, which was not indicative of his personality at all.

“Yeah, I can agree with Eon here. Are you going to have her join us, Evie?”

Caius said lazily as he leaned back in his wooden chair, combing through his short curly blonde hair with his fingers. He was the shortest of the boys.

“Wait, you guys sound like you already know her. And Franco actually did. Explaaaaaain yourselves nooooow.”

Kato whined as he placed his head on his desk, apparently still tired from the early morning sleepiness.

“Well, the three of them became famous last year because they shared the same afternoon classes the whole year.”

“What? How does that make them famous?”

“They were called the Three Heroines because they were that impressively attractive. There’s probably a fan club dedicated to them by now.”

“That’s a stupid name if I ever heard one.”

Evie snorted as Eon explained to Kato.

“Evie, how are you so calm about this. This is like, so stupid, and you’re in the centre of it.”

“I already know about this story though.”

“Then why did you respond as if you didn’t?!”

Kato slightly freaked out at Evie, who just dismissed him with a wave of her hand. Yui picked up from where Eon left off.

“Calm down, Kato. Only you and Teto don’t know about this because you guys never took afternoon classes before, since you two had to do training, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true. We have no idea what kinds of things happen at school after lunch.”

Kato said glumly. It was unfortunate for him and his sisters to not be able to enjoy life with their old friends as normal children would. Since they came to this city, the deific children of the von Habsburg residence spent the majority of their time training with Master Chang at the hillside temple. They only went to school in the mornings to see their friends. Now that they have completed their training, they were allowed to go to school full-time.

“But how come Evie’s taken afternoon classes last year?”

“She technically finished training a year ahead of me and Teto because she was too good. So she left us to go to school with you guys.”

He answered Yui’s question, still just a bit sad from being excluded from the fun.

“But is that really all it takes to be famous? We’ve got another candidate that fits the description right here.”

Kato pointed at Yui, who turned scarlet and sheepish in response. Yui usually let her bright red shoulder-length hair down around her, but sometimes when she was in school she tied it back in a ponytail.

“Together with the fact that they stuck together for a whole year made them stand out. Imagine the three of them in the same class sitting together for a whole year. Just take that in. You’re just too used to having good-looking girls around you all the time.”

Eon didn’t hold back taking a shot at the harem king. Kato did live with four other girls, and despite one being their grandmotherly homeroom teacher, they were all, for some inexplicable reason, exceptionally beautiful.

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear that from the other harem king.”

Kato fired back at his oldest childhood friend, who coincidently also had a big family of sisters. Eon had one older sister and two younger sisters, three, three and six years apart respectively.

“Chill out, guys. You’re both lucky bastards, so please share some with me. In any case, only Franco’s been in the same class as the Three Heroines anyway, so he can tell us stories.”

Caius, still leaning in his chair, smirked at both hooligans that started chortling heartily at each other and brought the conversation back on track.

“What. I dunno, there’re no special stories. They just became famous, that’s all.”

Franco shook his head and his red bowl cut from popular culture of two decades ago. Like usual, he wore a clueless expression, and to be frank, he really was a clueless person.

“And I just met you today, Mr Franco Atkinson. God, you’re so stupid. It’s okay; we don’t need to ask him. We’ve got Evie, the primary exhibit.”

Eon sighed with his usual impatience whilst Franco made an even more confused face. His friends around him also had apologetic looks on their faces, knowing Franco was an idiot through and through. It didn’t help his image that he was a tall and strong guy, fitting of the stereotype.

“Did you know about the nickname from before, Evie?”

“Of course. Mira knows about it all and she tells me and Alice about it.”

“Then did you notice that there was something different about the class and the students around you?”

“Well, I could feel that most of the boys in the class were stealing glances at us, but I didn’t know why until Mira told me about the Heroines thing.”

“I bet Evie only knew about it because she’s a deity, and not because she can read the mood.”

Eon said seriously as he interrupted Caius’ interrogation. Evie shrugged.

“I am who I am. But not as low as Franco, obviously.”

“Hey!”

No one missed a chance to wreck Franco.

“Unfortunate. It had to be the two who couldn’t read the atmosphere that were in that class. Well, Franco, any piece of trivia to add?”

“Hmm, I seem to remember that they were really close to each other physically too. They hugged and held hands together and that sort of thing all the time.”

“And how did you know that, Mr Nothing Happened?”

“I sat next to them in home econ ‘cos I’m Evie’s partner for that class.”

Eon took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, inhaled, and sighed.

“How does Franco even exist?”

He grunted clearly and audibly, to which Caius and Kato roared with laughter. The idiocy was a bit too much for the more self-aware boys to handle.

“Wait, what do you mean? I don’t get it!”

Franco replied in exasperation as he started to panic, the confusion starting to overwhelm his poor grasp on common sense.

“I feel bad that they’re berating you like this all the time, but I understand why they’re impatient with you.”

Yui too sided with the other boys in their struggle with Franco’s blockheadedness. Her smile was one of pity.

“Not you too, Yui!”

Franco cried again in despair. He also knew that he was kind of a dumbass, so all he could do was take the loss to the face every time.

And the conversation between these children circled peacefully like this every recess, giving life to the otherwise bland and dull ordinary days.

Livia, Central, Auxiria. Candoran Calendar, 1887.

“Please, Kato. I need your help!”

Mirabelle folded her hands in prayer as she gave him a hopeful expression with wide puppy eyes.

Kato, on the other hand, sighed in exasperation. Truth to be told, he didn’t want to sound like a whiner in front of her, but he really didn’t want to handle it if he didn’t need to, so he complained anyway.

“You know that I suck at getting up in the morning, right, Mira? You can’t expect me to get up that early and go to school to sit in one place for over an hour by myself.”

“I knew I had to take the morning off to go to a ceremony with my sisters and our father, but I forgot that someone else has to take over for me supervising the third music room next morning.”

“You can’t find anyone else?”

“Not when it’s less than twelve hours from now.”

“So you come to me, for me to take on your troubles.”

“Of course~”

“You’re lucky I’m student council now, otherwise I wouldn’t be qualified to be a room supervisor and have an excuse to not wake up early.”

“Thank you sooooo much! I owe you one!”

Mirabelle’s face turned cheerful as she clasped his hands with hers. Her two silky black pigtails, each which flowed from behind her shoulders and tied at her front, bounced with her change in spirit as her golden eyes, which were nearly hidden behind her bangs, lit up.

“You do owe me one.”

Kato sighed again with one hand pulling at his short and messy auburn hair and feeling thoroughly defeated. He didn’t have a real reason to reject her, so he agreed to go along with her request. Now that he was a class representative and an Assembly member this year, it was his duty to follow directions from the student council president.

“This weekend, we’re all going to the Bozz, so I’ll pay my debts then.”

As they walked up the paved hillside path, Mirabelle skipped ahead of him and winked at Kato, who couldn’t help but be impressed by her flair and figure. After school finished at the end of the afternoon with the orange sun low in the sky but still at full brightness, she stood even more beautiful than her usual form, which was already impressive enough.

Without thinking, Kato quickly paced ahead to catch up to Mirabelle and pinched her nose lightly. As he did so, she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a cute squeak.

“Free tickets for me and the fam.”

“Like always.”

Mirabelle smiled radiantly as they reached the end of the path at the top of the hillside. There, they saw a familiar scene: the old urban playground they and their group of friends grew up in. Beside the main set of slides were the much coveted jungle gym and swings that their group took over whenever they came here, but today it was only the two ringleaders alone at this rubber mulch battleground.

Looking behind at the direction they came from, they could see the sun setting upon the city of Livia below. The city sat in a uniquely warm and rainy valley that brought it fair weather, giving it warm summers and cool winters. So even though it was almost the end of summer as they had only begun school a week ago, there was no sign of the weather turning cold yet.

“Let’s sit on the top for a bit.”

Mirabelle pulled Kato along by the hand towards the dome-shaped jungle gym, which was quite large compared to others and was the tallest playground structure here. It was probably at least ten feet high at the apex, and some soft spongy flooring was underneath it.

“Only for a bit. I’m hungry and I wanna go home.”

They climbed onto the metal scaffolding that was meant for the children they once were. As usual, they took their seats on the top. From here, they could see that looking out over the hillside at the sky and city was just as majestic as it was when they were small children.

“Settled in?”

“Ya.”

Kato put their schoolbags aside and sat contently there, shoulder to shoulder, admiring the view of the city granted to them. The playground today was quite vacant, as only a few other kindergarten children were playing on the slides. There were maybe a dozen trees planted sparsely throughout the area, usually next to the few concrete gazebos that the elderly used to take refuge from the sun. Next to one of them was an analog clock perched atop a tall pole, currently almost at seven.

Mirabelle was wearing the light sailor uniform for autumn, though the white and baby blue colour patterns were drowned out by the orange sunlight. A dull orange tie flowed down her front, while her legs were wrapped in her black pantyhose despite the warm weather. Her golden eyes held a mysterious yet mischievous colour that pulled you in and was hard to avert your eyes from. Out of all his friends, the hardest person for him to read was probably her.

To him, she could only be described as otherworldly in every way, yet they sat here together as if that was never the case. This wasn’t the first time, or the fiftieth time, that they spent their time alone together atop the jungle gym, but Kato felt the same aura of mystery and sense of longing emanating from Mirabelle, every single time.

“It’s only Monday and you’ve already done goofed. It’s not like you, Mira.”

Kato started after a whole minute of silence.

“I’m still getting used to this student council president job. Please forgive my shortcomings.”

Mirabelle answered with a steady voice splashed with some formalities. As expected of a daughter of nobility.

“You first forgot to submit and print papers for the convening Assembly tomorrow, so we had to stay behind an extra half-hour so all our sisters and friends left for home before us, despite them helping you out in student council already. And then forgetting you have duty the next morning… you can’t be getting old that fast.”

“Wait, what’s this ‘bout my age too?”

“Nothin’. You can rejoice that I’ll always be four months older than you.”

“Am I that pitiful that you have to use that to make me feel better?”

“Well, you did trip up twice already and it’s been only three days into school.”

“Nnnnnnnngh! Stop it already! I’m trying my best, all right?”

Mirabelle pouted at him as she perched her head onto his shoulder, revealing that she was clearly still in a playful mood.

Though she has done this many times before, it nevertheless soothed his heart and made him felt at ease, as though this was only natural. Kato truly enjoyed living in moments like these, to admire the perfection that sat next to him and how it made him admire her so.

“And now I have to wake up early tomorrow. Thanks for nothing, Madame President.”

“…”

Mirabelle pouted again, cheeks puffed out, but this time silently, as if she was fuming. Knowing he was pushing her buttons, Kato hid a smile behind his hand before facing her and patted her head with his other.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

Kato mumbled, almost inaudibly to her under his breath. She pulled back from him, turned away and gave him a defiant “hmph”. He then laughed out loud.

“Kato, you’re always like this!”

Peeved, Mirabelle complained to Kato and forcefully leaned into him with her shoulder to show her dissatisfaction. She knew he was only messing with her to see her reaction, and she secretly happily gave it in full.

“But I’m only like this to you, Mira.”

“…”

Her face was flushed with pink as she stopped pushing into him and let her shoulder rest on him. Inside her chest she felt a familiar warmth settle there, a kind of warmth that she only felt with Kato by her side. Somewhat out of her usual character, she remained wordless and let the silence carry between them.

Perhaps it was true. Even if it wasn’t, she wanted to believe it was so. Certainly, he did not expect her to fall silent after that, and only after she did, he realized that it was more equivocal and surprising than he had thought. Mirabelle had let her guard down in that moment, and for once he was able to glean into her true feelings.

Wisps of clouds floated across the sky at a quick pace as the shadows grew longer behind them. For whatever reason, today was a poor day for the playground because the few children who were there soon vacated the slides and went back home with their parents or grandparents.

“Mira, where are you going tomorrow?”

Kato was the first to speak again after another lull had passed by.

“Where I’m going? To a place to perform a ritual of some sort.”

Mirabelle gave a vague answer whilst making it sound like a natural thing to do. Of course, Kato raised his eyebrows at that kind of response.

“A ritual of some sort? Are you secretly an occultist? Alchemy is a recognized branch of science in today’s society, so there’s no need to hide that sort of thing.”

“Oh heavens, you’re such a riot. I’m about as alchemically compatible as hot glue and oil, so there are no secret magicks for me. There’s no way for me to even pretend to be an Avian.”

The Avians were the people of the Kingdom of Ava. They, along with the old homeland of Yue, were the places that modern alchemy originated from. In the vernacular, alchemy and Ava were synonymous with each other due to their historicity.

“Who’s the riot now? Even without being alchemically compatible, you can pretend to be an Avian anyway.”

To pretend to be an Avian did not only mean to pretend to be an alchemist. It was also a popular idiom meaning to easily deceive someone about you. The idea was that even a miniscule display of alchemy could “prove” yourself to be an Avian, deceiving the unsuspecting about your true intentions. In short, that person had a good poker face.

He did not miss the pun she used together with the idiom.

“I’m glad you understand that I’m right either way, but am I that hard to read?”

“Yes, very. Unless being cheerful all the time is in fact all there is to it. If it is, then this is where I claim that it’s because of me.”

Upon hearing that, her heart felt a tiny bit lighter.

“Maybe it is. Who knows?”

“Well, it’s apparent that you know and you’re not sharin’ it, so my accusation still stands.”

“Well then, good to know that all is going according to plan.”

Mirabelle smirked at Kato, who let out a small sigh. There was nothing more he could get out of her on that.

“That’s so strange though. Bianca’s alchemically compatible and you’re not, but you’re physically superior while she’s not. Are you two really identical twins?”

“Eh. My fam’s messed up in a lot of ways.”

“That’s true. Everyone’s fams are messed up in some way.”

“Yours is the most messed up right now. You have a younger sister who looks exactly like you, two very attractive older stepsisters, a grandma with the appearance of a ten-year-old who is also your homeroom teacher, and a caretaker who’s clearly a high-ranking member of the organization.”

“I sense some… edge in your voice.”

“Must’ve been your imagination.”

“My imagination must be really good then.”

Kato said carefully as he grinned slowly at the end. His family was a big part of his life and he was quite proud of them. It also wasn’t hard to guess why her voice was dripping with passive aggression.

“Let’s get back on track. What’s the ritual about?”

“We’re still going on about that? It’s gonna just be some boring thing I have to be present for.”

“Some boring thing that it takes time away from all four of you? Sounds special enough to me.”

“Nah, it’s nothing special. Father will be there with us too.”

Mirabelle shrugged with an unconcerned expression, clearly unimpressed with having the need to go to whatever she was going to. She closed the topic up by playing the father card, which Kato understood it as something that was intimately related to her family.

Mirabelle then turned all cheery again as she turned to him and smiled.

“Let’s go. It’s gonna be pretty late by the time we get home.”

She reached over him to grab her schoolbag, to which Kato lent a hand.

“Mm, let’s call it a day. You and your sisters are only off in the morning, then?”

“Yup, we’ll be back in school by lunchtime, so you’ll only miss me for a few hours~”

“Who said I’ll miss you for a few hours?”

And just as quickly, her face turned red and angry as she began hitting Kato on the arm repeatedly with her tiny fists. She was getting mad for real this time around.

“Yeah, no one said that, you stupid stupid!”

Snagging his schoolbag, Kato jumped off of the rails to break away from her feeble blows and roared with laughter as she tried to use vernacular language. Something about a princess trying and stumbling over using slang made it all the more amusing to Kato.

Landing on his feet neatly on the rubber mulch, he saw that Mirabelle too followed and landed next to him, so he started to run and make his way out and behind the jungle gym, away from the hillside.

Behind the playground and a bit ways further out was a chain-link fence that shielded the area from a wide and busy main street. Walking on that street towards the left went to more built-up areas dominated by the city’s usual tall apartment buildings, while the other direction went to the quieter suburbs. Here, Kato and Mirabelle would part ways in opposite directions, Kato towards the city and Mirabelle towards the suburban districts.

“Please! Have mercy! I take that back! Truly!”

Kato laughed as Mirabelle ran after him. It wasn’t long until they reached the fence and had to stop and open a similarly chain-linked gate to exit the playground for the main street.

“Sure, I believe you and your words completely. And I also understand that there’ll be no one here who’ll miss me.”

Mirabelle’s tone remained very upset while her face remained beet-red at his antics. It didn’t help that Kato’s grin was on his face this whole time.

“But there is! Really! It’s just that, for that someone, it’s not just the few hours; it’s actually the fifteen or so hours separating the next time he sees her again.”

Then Kato stopped and waited. Watching her face transform so smoothly from anger to incredulity to embarrassment to happiness, was magical. If his brain could record imagery with photographic memory, he would replay this moment for all time.

“Ah… I’ll give it to you this time.”

Mirabelle sighed helplessly. She clutched onto her schoolbag closely at her chest as if trying to hide her heartbeat, which was deafeningly loud to her at that moment. She did her best to put on her usual vaguely content expression, but unfortunately the smile was too wide for that.

“Then I’ll see you after midday tomorrow.”

Wanting to sound and feel really cool, he topped it off with a wink and a hand gesture of a gunshot shooting for her heart. The moment he returned to his more goofy self, Mirabelle giggled at his cringe-worthy attempt.

“Actually, I lied. Tomorrow, I’m going to find out if I can pursue the future I wanted, so it’s going to be an important day for me.”

“Wait, wha—”

Mirabelle quickly skipped away from him, leaving him and his surprised gaping mouth behind. With the sweet smile still on her face, she waved and bid him farewell.

“See you tomorrow. Bye-bye!”

---

The neighbourhood where Kato lived was a cramped city district. In front of the apartment he lived in was a small road meant for pedestrians and small vehicles, while on the other side of this road were the backs of shops that faced the main street: the same main street that led to the playground many blocks over. So, on the way to and from school, he would pass through the narrow alleys in between the shops and onto the main street. There were little natural greenery in this area, and instead trees were planted in concrete-protected pits along the side of the main street at regular intervals. Behind his apartment were village buildings and small plots of farms, before it yielded to the more grassy hills.

Living on the second floor of the fairly old apartment building, the metal gate to the main staircase of his section of the building was behind the building; the front was occupied by garages and small shop spaces, owned by the few residents who could afford to buy ground-level spaces that were as expensive as homes themselves. Wires of all shapes and colours lined the outsides of the building, each tethering to another building or a utility pole, and so on.

His home, the von Habsburg residence, was made of not one, but two suites merged together. They bought the neighbouring flat, and then proceeded to tear down a part of the wall between the two living rooms to connect the two together. They then sealed the main entrance of the other flat so that there was only one entrance to the two apartments, now fused together.

The first apartment belonged to Kato’s long-time guardian, Karl von Habsburg. A man in his late fifties now probably, he picked up Kato and his two sisters from a small orphanage many years ago and raised them as his own children.

But of course, it wasn’t without strings attached. Karl was an agent for Eternia, the secret organization that controlled a vast underground economy across the continent of Candor, in direct opposition to the imperial government in the Auxirian capital. It was a mysterious organization headed by the three Eternal Leaders, all of which were more than three hundred years old and likely have extended their longevity by their sheer talent at alchemy. In a sense, Eternia was the biggest mob, but existed in harmony rather than in begrudging tolerance with normal society.

Fortunately, the city of Livia was one of the first and most important bases of operations for Eternia. Because the mob controlled the city, it was able to maintain its autonomous status from the imperial government and preserve its culture and way of life. Despite being a city of multiple nationalities, everyone spoke the vernacular language of Old Yue, in contrast to the official language of the rest of Auxiria, Standard Candoran.

“I’m home!”

Kato called out to his family as he opened the front doors to their apartment and entered.

“Yo.”

“You’re home!”

Two female voices simultaneously exclaimed in response, while another two remained silent, and instead waved with their arms as a salutation.

The two who called out were his first elder stepsister and younger sister, Evianna Misaya and Teto Danubia. Evianna was a half-Yue and half-Avian orphan who Karl also adopted along with Kato and Teto, and was in the same third-year class as Kato.

Evianna was a tall girl with a glamorous face and a body of a supermodel. There was no doubt she was a target for the boys at school, and she even had the bounteous chest size to boot. She kept her hair platinum hair short in a bob cut, and her bangs held to the side symmetrically by hairpins. Her blue eyes were generally devoid of emotion, as was the rest of her demeanour, but always delivers the ‘yo’ on time.

Teto, on the other hand, was a year younger and was Kato’s biological sister. They looked very much alike; they shared the same brown eyes, facial features and auburn hair, which were somewhat curly and disagreeable with hairstyling. Teto tied her hair in twin drills, and she was shorter than Kato by several inches.

“We started eating already.”

“I already got rice for you here.”

“Thanks.”

They sat around a folding table with a variety of dishes on it. It was probably the most old-school Yue style food as you could get. Steamed fish on soy sauce, plain-cut chicken, pan-fried pork slices with beans, and steamed vegetables. A huge pot of rice lied on the floor, containing enough carbs for five people.

“There’s soup in the kitchen, if you can get some afterwards. Sisi can make the same soups from the Yue homeland’s dried seafood and herbs too.”

Sisi puffed out her tiny chest proudly.

“Understood, Sisi.”

Kato acknowledged as he sat down in the empty seat between Sisi and Teto, and then picked up some chicken with his chopsticks and put it into Sisi’s bowl.

“Not bad, Student Kato Danubius. Respecting your elders at the dinner table is very important.”

“Thank you, Ms Romana.”

Sisi, whose real name is Elizabeth Romana, was the new caretaker in their home in place of Karl, who was now on a new assignment from the organization and would not be able to take care of the children full-time anymore.

She was also his new homeroom teacher at his high school, Korolev Senior Secondary School. In part because he and his two sisters were special existences to the organization, Sisi, who was a very high-ranking member in Eternia, came to this household to watch over them. In fact, Kato and his sisters were destined to become an existence like Sisi.

“But really, Sisi, how can you eat so much even though you’ve hit your seventies? It’s like you’ve never come out of puberty.”

“How rude! Sisi shall eat as much as she needs to. It’s a good thing that Sisi is eating well, since it means that Sisi is not losing her youth.”

“Sisi, your hair is going to get in your food.”

“Oh, mine apologies.”

With that, she threw her long, bright blonde hair behind her, which was already partly tied at the back with a large ornamental pin. Sitting on an elevated seat, she was a midget who looked no older than a grade-schooler, perhaps a middle-schooler, but exuded a serene aura of authority not unlike a grandparent. She also spoke like one, but in an even more archaic manner than most grandparents of today; probably in a manner that her own grandparents spoke.

“By the way, Kato, we got our spirit labels today from Master Chang. Karl then left it in our living room.”

“Ah, we finally have our spirit labels. We can make our tributes to the Hearts in our home now.”

“It’s still kinda weird to be paying tribute to living deities as well as dead ones, but hey, tradition.”

“Yes, and one of such deities is Sisi herself, and that’s why you all shall be paying tribute on a daily basis.”

The deities they were talking about were not supernatural beings. They were referring to very gifted individual fighters: super-soldiers. A person could be considered a deity if they could fight and hold their own against another deity. Most deities gained their statuses through naturally having potential physical ability way superior to the average human, and thus being able to train themselves up to perform near-superhuman feats. This was called physical superiority.

“Sisi, do you know how many deities come out of our school every year? Is there a rate?”

“Most definitely. When Sisi was a student of Korolev, the rate of candidates for deity status was around one every three years. Like the three of you, they usually come in groups so it’s a skewed average. In recent years, Sisi believes the rate has dwindled to an average of one every four years.”

“Is there not enough physically superior people anymore?”

Though physical superiority was somewhat rare, it wasn’t uncommon for a class to have a few students with this disposition; especially Korolev Senior, which was a school known for its alumni becoming deities.

However, to truly utilise this trait, one must train for many years of their childhood to become anything close to the abilities of a deity. This was exactly the purpose of Karl having taken in Kato, Teto, and Evianna: to train them to become deities at the Chang temple, in the hills on the outskirts of the city.

“No, the number of physically superior students remained constant. It’s just that there are less of those people devoting their entire lives to become deities. It’s a dying trade.”

“And we’re one of the last ones in line, probably.”

“Then what about the number of Hearts candidates? I would guess that not all deities graduating from Korolev would aspire to become a Heart.”

The specific group of deities the siblings would give incense to were the Hearts, or the Guardians of Hearts. They were a prestigious group of deities that fought for the organization, Eternia, and admission to this order meant that you were one of the most powerful deities on the continent. In fact, Sisi occupied one of twelve positions in the Hearts and her title was “Number Two, Two of Hearts”.

“Good question, Evie. Sisi would say that most do aspire to become a Heart, but since the Hearts only have twelve positions, they could remain a Hearts candidate for a long time. This is a privilege for life, after all.”

Although she was called Evie here, as a teacher Sisi would use her full name at school.

“Then do you know how many deities are in our year? This is the big turnout year I’m assuming, since we have the three of us here.”

Kato motioned to the two sisters, Teto and Evie, sitting to the right of him. They also watched Sisi with anticipation.

“If the faculty is not mistaken and including Teto’s year in the count, there are at least six deities, eighteen challengers, and thirty other physically superior students.”

Challengers were physically superior persons who had done enough training to have significantly greater physical ability than the average human, but had not yet reached the level of or been acknowledged as a deity. However, deity status was well within their reach, and hence why they were known as challengers. These people were significantly more common than deities, and the modern-day rate was exactly as Sisi just described: around nine per year, for a total of eighteen over both years.

The other thirty were physically superior, but received little or no training to take advantage of their gift. They still possessed above average physical ability due to this natural disposition.

“Wow, including Teto’s year, six deities and eighteen challengers. Three of the deities’re here right now. Where’s the other three?”

“Sisi knows who they are, but since one of them is aspiring to becoming a Hearts candidate and the process is not yet complete, Sisi cannot and shall not disclose this information.”

The three of them stood up in agitation and bewilderment. They did not expect that kind of answer.

“There’s a fourth Hearts candidate?”

“Hearts candidate to-be. Grandma said that person’s not yet a Hearts candidate.”

“Wait, so we’re already Hearts candidates? Then why did Sisi come here to assess us?”

“She’s here not to assess us to become candidates, she’s here to assess us for actually entering the Hearts. She can write a recommendation for us to the Hearts if she thinks we’re good enough. Without a recommendation, you’ll be stuck as a Hearts candidate forever.”

“Oh, that’s right. That’s why we got our spirit labels today, to signify that we’re Hearts candidates.”

“So that person is looking to earn those spirit labels right now. Not bad. Who can this mysterious person be?”

“Sit down, children! The dinner table is not the place for being up and about.”

So they sat back down in their seats obediently.

“Aw, you really can’t tell us who it is? No hint at all?”

“Yes. Sisi shall not tell anything until that person has become a Hearts candidate, or fails to do so. If it bodes well for that person, Sisi shall tell you all in a couple of weeks or so.”

“Then we’ll just have to sit tight and wait, Teto.”

Evie shrugged. She tended to be the most unimpressed of the bunch towards everything.

“Aye, I guess we’ll find out later on, but who could it be? Do we actually know anyone else who’s a deity?”

“Two of my classmates are deities, actually. Valon and Sen. But they still have a year to go before they’re due to finishing their training, so it shouldn’t be either of them.”

Teto said as she fought Kato for a piece of chicken with their chopsticks. Metaphorical sparks flew across the dinner table.

“Then that means the last deity is our Hearts candidate. I don’t really know who in my year that’s an obvious answer. It can’t be Mira or Scarlett, they’re nobility.”

“And I doubt Franco has got any kind of training done, much less deific levels of strong.”

Scarlett was one of Mirabelle’s quadruplet sisters, while Franco was a close friend and classmate of theirs. These were the people close to them who were physically superior.

“Aye, let’s give this a rest. We’ll know when the time comes, anyway.”

Kato threw in the towel as he reached into the rice pot for his second serving.

“Kato, your walkman’s here along with the new tapes you ordered. Karl left it in our living room too.”

This gentle voice belonged to the fifth person at the table, who had remained quiet up until now. She was a classmate of Kato and Evie, Yui Tereshkova; also a half-Yue and half-Avian orphan, she joined their household not too long ago: a week ago in fact. Because she was a victim of bullying and blackmail at school, Kato and his class not only stood up for her, but he also pulled her out of the ghetto, the red-light district and the miserable life she led there.

“Oh shit, that’s lit. Perfect for tomorrow since I have supervision duty.”

“Supervision duty? I get that we’re in student council now because there’s no point in waiting for Eon and Caius to finish student council every time, but I’m pretty sure we don’t need to do supervision duty. That’s the Activity Council’s job.”

Evie raised her eyebrows at the news. Eon and Caius were two old friends and classmates of these children.

“We’re not responsible for it, but we help out with things here and there. Mira was supposed to do it tomorrow, but apparently she needs to go elsewhere in the morning, so I’m filling in for her.”

Evie’s eyes narrowed despite Kato giving her an honest answer.

“What did you and Mira do while you were alone together?”

“Nothing. We finished setting up for the Assembly meeting tomorrow and then she asked me to do that when we were walking home. Nothing else.”

He said ‘nothing’ twice. It was important to make it clear to Evie.

“That better be what happened.”

“That was all you were interested about?”

Kato almost face-palmed as Evie’s gaze threw daggers at him. No doubt there was a certain familiar emotion behind her dead fish eyes, which was the usual whenever Mirabelle entered the conversation.

Meanwhile, Yui smiled helplessly as she watched Evie and Kato go back and forth; partly because of how spontaneous these children were, and partly because she was also interested in Kato’s rendezvous with another girl.

“Are you sure that’s what only happened? This shouldn’t be end of story.”

In a rare instance, Teto grinned mischievously as she betrayed her dear brother. Not only was she a carbon copy of Kato, she seemed to be connected to him on a higher plane, understanding each other without speaking. There was a reason for that, but not a story for right now.

“Teto!”

Kato gaped in disbelief. Evie also knew this fact very well, so she held no quarter.

“So what exactly happened? I could already guess if you passed through the playground, which you should have.”

If her eyes could turn even colder than it already was, this was it. Evie stood up, reached over the dinner table and put her face right in front of Kato.

“Evie!”

Kato put his two hands up and clasped the sides of her head to stop it from inching closer to him. As usual, feeling overwhelmed by Evie’s jealousy, he gave her cranium a little shake.

“We idled at the playground for a while to watch the sun set, that’s all.”

Both Evie’s and Yui’s expressions froze in that moment, and the room turned silent for the first time since Kato returned. Then Evie sat back down quietly while Yui continued eating dinner, both acting as if nothing had happened and let the silence persist.

“Hello? Evie? You just asked about it, no response?”

Evie continued to ignore him, not even a speck of acknowledgement of his existence on her face.

“Yui? You’re still here, right? Right?”

Yui, like an older sister, took pity on her younger brother, made eye contact and then sighed in disappointment. She remained silent and continued her meal, to Kato’s increasing despair.

To his left was Sisi, who was also quiet and had assumed a non-intervention stance. To his right was Teto, that devilish smirk still on her face. Kato’s face was livid. This little punk who he loved more than anything in the world was getting a bit uppity recently with her antics.

He reached out and pulled on her cheek, expressing his anger towards his dear sister.

“I command thee to halt thy insolence!”

“Nuthin’ll shdop me. Am free~”

Kato let out a groan as he let go of her stretchy cheeks. He loved his little sister to pieces, but sometimes he felt that he doted on this sister a bit too much. Now that she had been freed from training as all three of them had their spirit labels, and also now going to school full-time with her group of friends from her year, she was growing out of her big brother’s protective shadow and had a will of her own. Or at least that was what was going through Kato’s thoughts right now.

“Have you heard the news in Lien yet? It was in today’s paper.”

Yui tried to bring the conversation away from the awkward topic of Kato’s situation with other women, which he welcomed gratefully.

“Is it the protests again? What happened this time?”

Lien was a nearby city in the adjacent valley south of theirs, across the border into the Kingdom of Ava. It was similar to Livia in that it was also a majority Old Yue-speaking city, while the rest of the Kingdom of Ava spoke Avian. Unlike Livia, however, the Auxirian government was still the legal administrative authority there despite the strong connections with Livia. The conflicts of interest between authority and people were therefore common, and it manifested itself in violence in recent times.

As an aside, the former Auxirian Empire, now the Confederation of Auxiria, was a massive empire that spanned the continent of Candor. Its emperor also held the titles of kings of its constituent kingdoms that it conquered: King of Ava, Rine, Candor, and Yue. The continent itself was named after the Kingdom of Candor, so to distinguish the two, the kingdom was commonly referred to as Royal Candor instead.

“The protesters stormed the legislature building and defaced the Auxirian symbols and emblems in there. They left the Avian and Yue symbols alone though, and then they occupied it until end of work day and vacated.”

“Whoa, what happened to the police?”

“They were there in full riot gear in a staring stand-off, but neither side pulled the trigger. My guess is that they’re hoping not to use violence and the protesters will leave eventually, which did happen.”

Yui passed the newspaper that was on the floor to Kato to show him the imagery. It certainly was an imposing scene with a bunch of young umbrella-wielding protesters climbing atop a stepladder to reach the huge Auxirian coat of arms hung on the wall and spray-painting it black. The arms of Ava and Yue below it were left untouched.

“Sisi admires their efforts, but Sisi fears that they may be in vain. It shall draw a line between moderates and radicals of the Yue independence movement.”

Sisi got up from her seat to get the soup from the kitchen.

“How are we involved? We as in Eternia.”

“Sisi isn’t sure. For certain, we take part in every anti-Auxirian movement, but Sisi doesn’t think our stance is to use uncontrollable riots to force out concessions. It is the first step to a movement turning radical.”

“Does this mean we’ll see the same situation replay in the Yue homeland as it did in Royal Candor during the Assimilation era?”

Yui asked the child-like grandma as Sisi sat back in her seat with two bowls of soup in her hands, one for her and one for Yui, who was also done with her dinner.

“Sisi hopes we do not, because that conflict was barely lost by the Candoran side and it exhausted the entire continent. Sisi knows because she was in the centre of that conflict. But people’s wills are strong. Sometimes, it takes bloodshed beyond belief to restore peace.”

Sisi sipped on the hot soup carefully. The Assimilation was an insurgency conflict in Royal Candor after the Auxirian Empire had conquered it and unified the continent some fifty years ago. Ending in a stalemate, the eventual settlement was seen as a loss for both sides. Royal Candor became functionally independent from the imperial government in all but name and raising armed forces, as it remained lawfully within the empire. Now, similar signs of the same sparks of war were being seen across the major Yue enclaves across Candor, and it was only a matter of time before it reached the homeland.

“Hey, look. One of the groups suspected to be funding the radical protesters is part of the Lafayette Group. Isn’t that Gilbert’s family?”

Evie pointed out as she and Teto both were skimming across the newspaper that Kato was holding onto.

“Yeah, that’s Gilbert’s family company, all right. I like how the newspapers give no fucks to smearing a family’s reputation.”

“Well, the Lafayette name appears in every one of these protests. Not sure what Gilbert’s family did but the press certainly hates them.”

Teto said cheerily for some reason.

“Why are you so happy about that?”

“Because one of my friends is a Lafayette too. She doesn’t like the infamy that name gives her.”

“So he has a younger sister too, what the fuck?”

“This world is a small one.”

Kato got up from his seat and fetched his portion of soup. Teto followed her dear brother into the kitchen.

“Gilbert, eh? I suspect he’s got an eye on us now. As Class A’s representative, he won’t let our transgression go.”

Evie mused as she too followed Kato into the kitchen.

“Yeah. Our Class F defeated Class E in a Class War last week and we took points from them, so any class above us with more points than us, not just Class A, can declare a restoration of order war on our class.”

The conversation shifted to the Class Wars. It was a martial tradition within Korolev Senior, where each of the third-year classes participated in a physical battle royale and the end goal was to obtain the most score out of a limited number of points available by the end of the school year. True to its martial nature, each class was considered a team, and one class could declare war on another with a valid casus belli, or reason for war, to initiate a physical brawl between the two parties.

Of course, in this day and age, a lot of rules and traditions were now laid out such that these fist-fighting brawls were of honourable nature, and even non-physical combatants could contribute in the Duel system, where it usually featured a trivia-question contest on the academic subjects of the day.

“They’ll undoubtedly try to find a way to counter our ultimate strategy: gaming the Duel system by having Sisi make the contest be a physical brawl instead of trivia questions.”

“It only works because you and I are the greatest deities. If we fight against another deity or challenger, it’ll be a hard fight.”

Kato waved at Evie’s point. The Class Wars were indeed volatile and in theory, anything could happen. But in reality, the homeroom classes were assigned according to merit, so Class A was almost always in control of the game and student government. Only this year, on a rare occasion, Class B’s class representative Callisto Mirabelle Jupiter was elected student council president. For Kato and Evie, who were in Class F, they only had average classmates who weren’t supposed to be able to contest with the classes above them.

This meritocratic assignment meant a stratification of the social setting in Korolev Senior. In fact, Class F was the last of the privileged classes. Classes lower than Class F did not have representation in the Assembly, the legislative body of student government which debated and approved student-related school policies. It was every student’s priority to achieve high marks to get a chance to advance into the higher classes at the end of each school year.

“We’ve got a chance to defeat the status quo this year with you two, and Teto too when time comes for conscription, so Sisi is very excited for this year’s Class Wars.”

Sisi proclaimed like a proud parent. It made sense since she was their homeroom teacher, and also during her student years in Korolev Senior, her class also won the Class Wars, many years ago.

“Let’s clean up quickly so you all can retire to your side.”

Sisi rubbed her hands together as she started picking up the silverware off the table and the children stood up and bowed at their elder. Dinner was done.

---

The other apartment was unlike the first one. The first one was Karl’s, and it had a fully equipped Oriental-style kitchen, an office, two guest rooms, a small washroom and a laundry room. Its floor was tiled, and in general the rooms were kept very clean. When Sisi moved into this household, she took over from Karl’s responsibilities of maintaining this apartment, and converted one of the guest rooms into her own.

Now, the flat that belonged to the children was in perpetual disarray. Upon entering it through the opening between the two living rooms, one encountered a carpeted flat with your common furniture: couches, coffee tables, the stereo system, the big radio set, etc. The difference with the first flat was the sheer number of personal effects, especially clothes, laid all over the floor and furniture. It was a nightmare when time comes every couple of weeks to vacuum the place, and the whirlwind known as Teto would redecorate the scene once again with her clothes.

Either way, there were only two bedrooms on this side, one for the three deities and one for Yui, who only recently moved in. Yui’s room was clean and proper, while the deities’ resembled the living room’s situation.

“Thanks.”

After Evie finished taping her spirit label to the wooden board, she passed it to Kato who put it on the small altar that rested on the bottom of the metal cage that secured the large room-wide window in the living room, which faced the direction of the main street. The bottom of the metal cage was lined with a hard plastic screen so that nothing resting on it could fall out.

“Your spirit name is so dope.”

“Yours is too.”

“Everyone’s is. They’re supposed to be dope.”

They chided one another as they stared down at their spirit labels and lighting the incense in their hands with a lighter. Behind their black-and-white spirit labels was a traditional Yue altar setup complete with banners of literary gibberish, a small statue of a mythical deity, candlesticks, and a bowl of fruits. In front of the labels was the incense pot, where they would place their sticks of incense.

The spirit labels were in the handwriting of Master Chang, their martial arts master, with characters of written Old Yue. Kato’s and Teto’s read ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ respectively, while Evie’s read ‘sparks’, in literary Old Yue. Master Chang selected these spirit names for them after they were initiated as his disciples, and when they graduated from disciple to journeyman, they received their spirit labels as proof of completion.

“My name makes a bit of sense since it can be a real name, but Evie’s just some thing.”

“It also reads ‘fireworks’ backwards in New Yue, so that’s something. Not sure what that actually means, though.”

“Your name’s to complement Kato’s, probably? It sorta makes sense.”

“Aye, we’re not going to figure out what goes through Master Chang’s mind, and we never did.”

“Well, whoever your master is, knew the three of you really well.”

Yui gave a small laugh from behind them. She was not involved in the trio’s Eternian tutelage at all, but it didn’t mean she knew nothing about them as people. Yui had been in Kato and Evie’s class since grade school.

“Yui knows too much.”

“It’s time to silence her.”

“Kyaaa~ I’ve been had.”

Kato and Teto joked with the red-haired girl behind them.

“I still don’t get it.”

Evie looked comically frustrated as she struggled to think of a reason for her spirit name, her face in her free hand.

“It’s all right. A spirit name doesn’t change the fact that your name’s still Evie. You’re still the same Evie I know anyway.”

Kato put out his incense in front of him to prepare for bowing as he said so, which brought a content expression to Evie’s face. The three of them bowed three times, incenses in hand, before they stopped and placed their incense into the pot.

They then clasped their hands in prayer and bowed one last time. They all said in unison the prayer for this particular tradition. It was the prayer that the Hearts made to their predecessors.

“We shall have faith in thy pride, so thou may grant us strength in our fight.”

“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!”