“Don’t taunt me like that! That... That’s nothing!”

  “I was hoping you’d say that!” With obvious glee, Maya pulled out a paper shopping bag. “Why don’t you go get changed into this?”

  “Okay, fine... Hey, wait! Where did you even get this?! I thought I had it—” It was only then that Djibril realized her fatal mistake so many years before.

  “I guess it was a mistake to leave everything to me when you left.”

  “That’s no fair, Maya!”

  “Oh, it’s perfectly fair. Now hurry along and get changed, Gibby.”

  “Maya... I’m going to kill you. Someday. As soon as I figure out how.”

  “Tee-hee.” This was a side of Ms. Yamada that her students had never seen before, and they watched eagerly to see exactly what she’d baited Djibril into.

  It was an IS Academy uniform.

  “Ugh... I can’t believe I’m wearing this in my twenties...” She was obviously embarrassed by the high, high hemline of the skirt, to Maya’s cruel pleasure.

  “Everyone, meet your new classmate, Djibril. Be sure to make her feel right at home.”

  “Wait! If I’m stuck here, wasn’t it supposed to be as a teacher?!”

  “Really? I’m pretty sure I heard you turn that offer down. And if you don’t want to be a teacher, well, there’s only one option left.” Maya stuck out her tongue, taking obvious pleasure at her victory.

  “This is so humiliating...”

  “Uh, I mean, it does look good on you?” Ichika said. His warm words were met with cold steel.

  “You little—”

  “N-No, wait! I meant that as a compliment! So why...”

  Djibril’s mind raced, imagining her future, as she chased after him.

  “Ugh, whatever! I don’t care anymore! Just kill me now!” She passed her sword to Ichika.

  It was only Princess Iris—no, now, just Iris, a fellow student, who calmed her down.

  “It hurts to see you like this, Djibril. I’ve made my peace with my own future as Alice. The least you could do is follow my example.”

  “But, Princess!”

  “Call me Alice!”

  “Understood... Princess Alice...”

  It took another half hour to drive it into her head that the ‘princess’ part was no longer necessary.

  ◇

  “Djibril.”

  “Yes, Alice?”

  In a room in the IS Academy first year dorms, Iris spoke from one of a pair of beds lined up side by side. “My brothers, my sisters... They must really care for me.”

  She understood, now, why she had been given her own IS. And she regretted her own embrace of her position as the spoiled youngest sibling. Her father and mother had died soon after her birth, and her six siblings had battled for authority. She’d always wished that she could have staked her own claim. But she’d always thought that the gift of an IS had been specifically to remove her from the picture.

  “Maybe they were trying to spare me the burden of the crown...” Iris trailed off.

  It may have been a noble path, but certainly not a royal one. But, it had bought her freedom. A path to survival, no matter what twists and turns palace intrigue led down. That’s what Seventh Princess meant to her.

  “Alice, I think you’d make a wonderful queen.”

  An open heart, willing to take on the burdens of the people, was the true mark of fitness to rule. And it wasn’t only her siblings who had hoped that someday she’d develop it. Djibril, always by her side, had felt the same. When she’d observed young IS trainees, Djibril had always been sure to grant them an audience with the Princess. And she’d always been impressed by Iris’s youthful earnestness and royal magnanimity.

  “Anyway, Djibril.”

  “What is it?”

  “Do... Do you know how to make guys like you?”

  “What?!”

  When Iris had said ‘guys’, she had obviously meant Ichika.

  “...I think you should give up on Orimura Ichika,” Djibril bluntly replied.

  “What?! Who even mentioned Ichika?! Who? When? Where?!” If it hadn’t been obvious even beforehand, her idea of bringing him back to Luxembourg would have made it clear. “Anyway! Djibril! I know someone like you has to have a lot of experience with men! Don’t you?”

  “I, uhh, yeah, of course I do! I’m an Imperial Knight! Obviously I have a boyfriend for each day of the week!”

  That was a dangerous lie to tell, and the danger was in it being believed—which it was.

  “Oh really? That sounds like a lot of fun!”

  Djibril tried her hardest to not sigh out loud as she sunk deeper into her mattress. To be completely truthful, she’d never even held hands with a male, nevermind going any further.

  “So you know exactly how to get a guy to fall for me?”

  “Y-Yes...”

  A new chapter in their strange master-and-servant yet teacher-and-pupil relationship was beginning.

  Chapter III: Crimson Smoke, Snow, Moon, Flowers

  “Umm...”

  Tatenashi, Kanzashi, and Maya stared, frowning, at the White Tail: Byakushiki’s third form, returned from Operation Swordbreaker on Christmas Day.

  “Huh, something wrong with it?” Ichika had been assigned to coffee duty, and as he returned nonchalantly tried to get a feel for the situation.

  “You see how different it looks? That’s nothing compared to how much the internals have changed.”

  “It’s basically a black box... I’m not even sure how we’re supposed to do basic maintenance on it.”

  “The weapons loadout’s been changed a lot, too. Yukihira Nigata is still there, but the particle cannon’s been removed, the shield is gone, and then there’s, well, that.” Maya raised an eyebrow at the extremely obvious energy wing now mounted on Byakushiki’s back, “From what we’ve been able to determine, it’s the same kind of field as Reiraku Byakuya. And it incorporates the O.V.E.R.S. too, so it’s likely to be far less of an energy load.”

  “I’m curious about the new one-off ability, too...” Kanzashi thought out loud.

  “That’s right! Exactly! The ability to reformat any IS? That’s dangerous! Too dangerous!”

  As if that wasn’t enough, its joints were equipped with variable-sweep armor as well. Describing the White Tail meant basically writing an encyclopedic list of high-end features which had been seen on other IS, all wrapped up in one sleek package rather than the clunky armor pieces which were standard.

  “So it really needs a more impressive name than White Tail.”

  In response, Ichika hopped in, the armor folding around him almost skin-tight.

  “Well, I did get this new status readout.” He gestured, opening up a projection window starting with the text ‘Byakushiki 3rd Form OURI.’ “That sure looks like its name to me.”

  He then continued with preflight checks. Byakushiki’s responsiveness was far beyond its original levels, and it seemed almost like an extension of his own body; movements didn’t just feel swifter than before, they felt more natural, more right.

  “Does it have any other new weapons, Ichika?” Tatenashi was, for once, legitimately curious about something.

  “I’m not really sure about new weapons, but there is this new ‘Code White’ subsystem listed— Wait, huh?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Ichika looked at the projection in confusion as it refused to scroll down.

  “That’s weird, it’s not there now. Huh, was I just imagining it?” Sighing, he closed down Byakushiki, which dematerialized as always into a gauntlet on his right hand.

  “Either way. We’re definitely going to have to take a closer look at Byakushiki. Charl’s IS, too.”

  Rein Carnation. The world’s first dual-core IS. Who could know what capabilities that meant? And as much of an upgrade as it was from the Revive, that just meant a lot more fine-tuning for now. Two cores, though. Was its maximum output double the Revive’s? The Revive’s, squared? And would that be usable in combat, or just make it harder to control?

  “Charl’s practicing in the third arena, isn’t she?” Ichika asked.

  “Yeah. It should be fine, Laura and Ms. Orimura are helping her out.” Tatenashi paused in contemplation for a moment, then spoke. “I know! You should do a mock battle with her!”

  “Are you sure?!”

  “It’d be a great opportunity to learn just what your new IS can do.”

  “Yeah... It’s important to get some combat flight hours in.”

  “If we’re going with that, I’ll talk to Ms. Orimura about it. Ichika, you should head up to the arena.”

  It seemed all present other than Ichika were in agreement, and he wasn’t going to argue. As he left, though, he suddenly yelped as a hand wrapped around a buttcheek and squeezed. “Gwuh?!”

  “Hey there, hot stuff. How’s it hangin’?” It was, of course, Kagaribi Hikaruno, In her usual outfit of a school swimsuit-type IS suit, white lab coat, and pushed-up swim goggles. At least they’d taken away her fishing rod.

  “Wh-what are you doing here?!”

  “I had a few errands to take care of anyway, so I figured, why not get my hands on some beefcake?”

  “What do you mean, beefcake?!”

  “Ahahahah, don’t get so mad. Anyway, see you later!” Hikaruno disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.

  “What’s with her...”

  Brushing the seat of his pants off, Ichika stepped into the third arena’s IS maintenance pit.

  ◇

  “♪ J’aime l’oignon frit à l’huile, j’aime l’oignon, j’aime l’oignon. Un seul oignon frit à l’huile, un seul oignon nous change en Lion ♪”

  Charlotte half-hummed the famous French marching song Chanson de l’Oignon to herself as she worked on her IS.

  “Um... Charl?”

  “Eeek!” It wasn’t a song she would have chosen if she had expected company. Especially not when that company was Ichika. “Were... Were you listening?”

  “Yeah, I came in around the part about onions.”

  “That was the whole thing!”

  Charlotte’s face turned redder and redder. Ichika tried to calm her down with a headpat as he turned his eyes to the Rein Carnation. “Well, that’s pretty different.”

  “So is Byakushiki now.”

  “Honestly, I think yours changed even more, Charl. I mean, the internals are Revive’s, but it looks more like Cosmos from the outside.”

  “I guess. I think I should be able to split it, but then I’d have to control them both, and I’m not sure I’d be able to keep up.” Her smile made it clear that she also wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be able to keep up.

  “Really?! Two IS, one pilot?”

  “Yeah. I’d probably have to have Cosmos mostly on autopilot, though.”

  “Wow, that’s really impressive.”

  Charlotte leapt up into the cockpit. “Let me show you!”

  “Sure.”

  A shimmer of light enveloped the Rein Carnation, and afterward, Charlotte stood in her old Revive, controlling the Cosmos like a puppet on strings.

  “I’m still working on it, but I think it’ll be a really effective tactic.”

  “Agreed. I mean, it’s doubling your firepower. Actually, though, y’know. I was thinking of doing a mock battle so we can see exactly what our new IS are capable of. Do you have time right now?”

  Charlotte’s eyes gleamed as she called back Cosmos. “Yeah! That sounds great!”

  She hopped down from her cockpit and took Ichika’s hand. Her enthusiasm for the idea was beginning to make him a little embarrassed. “Oh, uh. Is that a new IS suit?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty much the same as the last one, just a different size.”

  “A different size?”

  “Yeah, the old one was getting a little too tight up here...” Ichika’s eyes followed to exactly where ‘here’ meant. “Jeez! Ichika, you pervert!”

  Charlotte folded her arms over her chest, only succeeding in accentuating its pulchritudinosity.

  “No, wait, I was just, uhh... Sorry.” To the girls’ relief, Ichika had at least learned to apologize when he did something like that. Though the loss of his previous naïve honesty presented its own problem. “Anyway! About that mock battle!”

  “Yeah!”

  And so, two newly-reborn IS were about to clash.

  ◇

  “Your shotgun’s just as effective as ever!” Ichika regretted the loss of his shield as he extended his new energy wing into a barrier. The wing, much like the Revive’s old Garden Curtain package, was useful both offensively and defensively.

  “I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with that wing. Maybe like this?” Charlotte ducked back, casting aside her shotgun—which was out of ammo anyway—and readying her Vertu II hybrid rifle.

  “Gwuh?!” Ichika was already committed to closing in, and wasn’t expecting a direct attack.

  “Got you, Ichika!” Energy swirled around the bullets as they launched toward Ichika at close range.

  “Not so fast!” Tossing Yukihira Nigata into his left hand, he grabbed the rifle’s barrel and pointed it away.

  “Wha?! Are you crazy?!”

  Crazy or no, the maneuver was effective, and her shots flew harmlessly by as he extended his energy wing to wrap around her.

  “This is my new trick!” A flurry of feathers launched out at Charlotte, just like the Silverio Gospel’s energy shots. “You’re not the only one with a new power-up!”

  Rather than attempting to escape, she gathered her own multi-wing thrusters, forming an energy shield.

  “Let’s see who gives up first, Charl!”

  “It’s gonna be you, Ichika!”

  A close-range hail of fire rained down and the sound of slashes filled the air. The moment seemed to last an eternity before both IS, drained of energy, sank to the ground.

  ◇

  “Ichika!”

  “Yeah?”

  As Ichika relaxed in the locker room, still in his IS suit, Charlotte entered with two drinks. She was still in her IS suit too—probably hadn’t showered.

  “You were amazing! That really caught me off guard.” His new initiative under fire had surprised— and intrigued—Charlotte. “You know, Ichika? We should do this more often. I think we can learn a lot from each other.”

  “Sure! Let’s try not to make Laura too jealous, though.”

  “Ahahah. Good luck with that. Anyway, though. Promise me?” Charlotte sat down next to Ichika as she handed him a drink. “Oh, and I wanted to thank you. I’m really grateful for everything you did for me in France.”

  “Mm? Nah, don’t worry about it. I think any guy would’ve done the same.” Ichika casually shrugged it off as he took a sip. The cool, refreshing flow in his throat felt great after a workout like that. “Mmm. I needed that.”

  As Charlotte looked over at him, she gulped nervously. “Um, hey, Ichika.”

  “Hm?”

  “Well, um... Do you really think I’m any good at being a girl?”

  “Huh? Yeah, of course you are.”

  “Well, yeah, but... Ugh, I don’t even know how to say it.” She leaned in toward him, raw emotion welling up her eyes. “I guess... I guess I mean, at being the kind of girl you like...” Her hand came to rest on top of Ichika’s. “I mean... I’m a girl. I have needs, too.”

  “I, I get it...”

  Those wide eyes swallowed up the entire world around Ichika, before closing as she brought her face up to his. He froze up, not sure how to react—until he was ‘saved’ by a combat knife flying between them.

  “Yikes!”

  “I made sure to miss. This time.” Laura stood, her hands on her hips, dark clouds of rage swirling around her as she slid another knife from its sheath. Whatever mercy had bought him that respite was completely gone.

  “Charlotte!”

  “Y-Yes?!”

  Laura turned toward her friend.

  “Explain yourself.” Her eyes were feral. There was no trace of humanity left.

  “I, I just, I mean, you know? One thing leads to another? Well, one thing led to another!”

  “Oh, don’t give me that!” Laura shot back. “The only ‘leading’ going on was you leading my bride straight back to your bedroom! Or do you have some other excuse too?”

  “Listen! He doesn’t just belong to you!” Charlotte found her footing and went on the attack as sparks flew between her and Laura.

  As Ichika tried to sneak off, his escape route was blocked by gunfire.

  “And where are you going?”

  “Resistance is futile!”

  Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, Ichika had only made it worse for himself by drawing the attention of them both.

  “Wait, don’t I get to have an opinion about this?!”

  ◇

  “Grrr.”

  “Hmph.”

  Charlotte and Laura stared each other down across a table, the intensity of their stares more than making up for their lack of words.

  “So, everything good? I can leave now?” Ichika tentatively asked. A quick piercing glare from each was enough to shut him up.

  “You know, Laura, you’re just too selfish,” Charlotte said.

  “Me? You’re talking down to me? After your whole act where you dressed up in drag to sleep wi—sleep in Ichika’s room?”

  The silence was over. A war of words—with mutually-assured destruction—had begun. The battlefield was the IS Academy dining hall. Whispers spread like wildfire around the other tables.

  “Full mobilization in the battle for Orimura, huh.”

  “The cold war’s gone hot.”

  “I’m surprised that the two who always seemed to get along are the first to really get into it.”

  “Orimura the friendship destroyer.”

  Ichika couldn’t stand it anymore, and stood up.

  “Hey, wait, Ichika!”

  “Where do you think you’re going?!”

  He sighed before firing back, “Just chill for a second, okay?”

  Charlotte and Laura were both taken aback by his sudden forcefulness, but as he strode off toward the kitchen to talk with the lunch lady, they began to argue again.

 

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