by Yuu Miyazaki
“But wait…”
“Let me stop you right there. No one asked me to do this. I’m doing it out of my own free will and for myself. I’m only doing the thing I want to do at this moment,” Julis declared with her forthright gaze.
Ayato believed it wholeheartedly. This was all her idea, hers alone. That’s the sort of person she is.
But that wasn’t the question on his mind. “No, I mean… Aren’t there plenty of other ways?”
“Ways for what?”
“You know…to do something about the money. Aren’t you the princess, after all?”
Julis shrugged her shoulders and scoffed. “As if the country has any money for me to spend. The allowances for the royal family are drawn from a budget voted on by the parliament. Lieseltania is nothing but a puppet of the IEFs. You think they’d allow a social welfare project without outlook for a penny of profit? That’s why my mother’s foundation was shut down in the first place. And my country’s people never raised a word of protest.”
The integrated enterprise foundations put economic activity above all else, and they did not hesitate to alter the very ethical fabric of society to suit their goals. Over time, they would massage public opinion and gradually change culture in their favor. Ayato was now standing in the concrete embodiment of that effort—the city of Asterisk.
“There is money to spend on me, but none that I can spend. So, the only thing I can do is to earn it. Luckily for me, I have the talents of a Strega. And the title of a princess must have worked in my favor when I applied. What an ideal marketing package I make.” She made a low, bitter laugh. “This worthless, despicable city. They have students fight each other and the world goes mad over it. Greed swirls in this place, swallowing up everything and fattening itself. It’s hideous and it only keeps getting bigger. But that’s exactly why this city lies closest to every possible desire. This is where I will make my wish come true. That’s my reason to fight.”
Julis spread out Ayato’s shirt with a snap. It was…well, it was repaired enough to be functional, even if the result was not particularly attractive.
“There!” she announced. “Now take this and go home.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“We owe each other nothing now.”
“Yes, I know.”
Not a good place to overstay my welcome, Ayato thought—and then noticed a neatly folded handkerchief on the corner of the table. That little handkerchief had been the catalyst for their meeting. But now he was getting an inkling of its significance.
Julis noticed what he was looking at and smiled, gently picking it up. “The girls from the orphanage gave this to me for my birthday. Everyone helped embroider it. The stitches that look the worst are by my best friend.”
That person must be really important to her, he thought.
“It’s my greatest treasure,” she said with a shy smile, then set the handkerchief back down.
The sight stirred a warmth in Ayato’s chest—and at the same time a dull pain.
Someone important. Something to protect.
…The thing that I have to do.
“Well, see you tomorrow.” He pulled his shirt on, waved good-bye, and leaped down from the window.
The whisper of a thought darted through his mind. So that’s a reason to fight…
CHAPTER 7
UNCHAINED
“What’s up, Amagiri? You’re spacing out.”
Eishirou’s voice startled him, even though they were walking side by side.
“Oh, um, nothing. It’s nothing.” Ayato waved the question away and hurriedly forced a smile.
“Huh… Well, if you say so. But you’ve been acting kinda funny since yesterday.”
“I’m fine. I just didn’t get enough sleep… Um, anyway, we better hurry, or we’ll be late.”
“Don’t sweat it. We’ll slide into homeroom just in time.” So Eishirou said, but the halls were already almost deserted. In fact, the two arrived at their classroom a few seconds before homeroom began.
“I can’t believe you went back to sleep after I woke you up, Yabuki… We barely made it.”
“Aw, let it go. We’re on time, aren’t we?”
“It’s the principle of the— Oh, hey. Morning, Julis.”
As Ayato took his seat, Julis at her neighboring desk was intently scanning a letter. She made no reply.
“Julis?”
“Uh— Oh, hi.” Julis put away the letter in a rush and averted her eyes from his.
“Yo! Butts in seats now! I’m takin’ attendance!” Kyouko stormed into the room looking downright bloodthirsty, and Ayato had no chance to pursue his curiosity about Julis’s behavior.
She also seemed distracted in class, her mind obviously elsewhere.
Ayato approached her after school, when he thought they could finally talk. “Julis, is something wrong?”
She got up from her seat without even looking at him. “Sorry. I have plans today.”
“Huh? H-hey, Julis?” Ayato could only look on as Julis swiftly left the classroom, deaf to him.
“I wonder what’s wrong…?”
“Uh-oh. Looks like she’s back to her old self,” Eishirou supplied.
“Her old self?”
Eishirou shrugged. “Her Highness was always like that before you came along. She had this ‘leave me alone’ vibe. And just when I thought she was beginning to thaw! What a shame.”
Ayato was worried about Julis, but he had to report to Claudia about yesterday’s incident. Anyway, if something else was bothering Julis, maybe Claudia would know…
“Oh, good day. What can I do for you?”
Ayato entered the student council room, and Claudia greeted him with her usual smile.
“We had some trouble again yesterday.”
“Yes, I did hear about that. They used Le Wolfe students.”
“News reaches you fast.” That wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, though. “So, I might have an idea of who’s behind the attacks.”
Even Claudia couldn’t hide her surprise at this. “Really?”
“Yes, I’m mostly certain.”
As he murmured his reasoning to her, Claudia sat deep in thought.
“I see… All right. I’ll investigate on my end, too. I hope this will put an end to the matter…” But Claudia seemed somewhat dissatisfied.
“Is something bothering you?”
“Does Julis know about this, too?”
“We didn’t talk about it, but I think she could have figured it out on her own.”
“And where is she now?”
“She went home in a hurry saying she had plans… Oh no—!” Now Ayato understood.
Of course. With Julis being the way she is, if she realized who was behind the attacks, there’s no way she would leave the rest to someone else.
“This could be just a little bad,” said Claudia.
“But would she really confront them face-to-face? Without hard evidence, they’ll just deny everything…”
“No, at this point, they probably wouldn’t drag it out any longer. They would move to silence her with everything they have. They may even contact her first and—”
“That letter this morning!” Ayato blurted.
“Letter?”
“This morning in homeroom—Julis was looking at a letter. I thought it was strange because she tried to hide it.”
Claudia paled. “In any case, then we should find her immediately.”
“But where do we look?”
For all that it was an artificial island, Asterisk was not small. They had little chance of finding Julis by searching aimlessly.
“First, I’ll check to see if she returned to her dorm after class,” said Claudia. “If our enemy suggested a meeting, they would choose somewhere deserted. That helps narrow our search.”
She displayed a map of Asterisk in an air-window.
“Oh, hold on…” Someone was calling Ayato on his mobile. He opened the air-window in a hurry, thin
king that it could be Julis.
“…Ayato, help me.”
The girl who appeared in the window was Saya, her brows drawn with worry.
“Saya? What’s the matter?”
“I’m lost.”
Ayato pressed his hand against his forehead in disbelief at her answer.
“Again, Saya? …I can’t help, though, sorry. We’re busy with Julis right now—”
“Riessfeld? I thought I just saw her…”
Ayato and Claudia exchanged glances.
“Really?”
In her tiny video-chat image, Saya nodded.
“Saya! Tell me exactly where you saw her! No, wait—where are you, anyway?”
“…If I knew, I wouldn’t be lost.”
When she’s right, she’s right, Ayato thought.
“Pardon me,” Claudia interrupted. “Miss Sasamiya, can you let us see your surroundings?”
“Like this?” Saya seemed a bit confused by the sudden third-party request, but she readily obliged.
“You’re outside the redevelopment area. I think I can narrow down your whereabouts.”
Ayato was impressed that it took Claudia only one look to know where she was.
“Thanks, Saya! You’re a huge help!”
“…I still need help.”
“Oh, right. Umm…” For a moment, he considered asking Saya to join the rescue operation, but then thought it might be too dangerous to involve her if their enemy was about to let loose this time. And even if he told Saya where to go, she probably wouldn’t be able to get there on her own.
“I’ll send someone to pick up Miss Sasamiya,” said Claudia. “Ayato, you’ll find Julis.”
“Thanks, Claudia.”
“Oh, no trouble at all,” she replied brightly and then highlighted the possible locations on the map one after another. Her work went remarkably quickly, but Ayato still found his patience tried, a symptom of the situation’s urgency.
“I wonder why Julis didn’t say anything, though,” he complained. He knew she wanted to take care of it herself, and yet… “Maybe she still doesn’t trust me.”
“I think it’s the opposite,” said Claudia, giving him a wry smile without taking her eyes off the map.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you before, remember? She’s doing all she can to protect what she has. And you can probably count yourself as someone important to her.”
“Julis? Protect…me?”
In that moment, something burst open inside him. A new vista spread out before his eyes.
“Oh…” He remembered his sister’s words from that night. She’d told him that she would protect him. And he told her that he would protect her. He’d failed to keep that promise, but… “It really is that simple.”
Now he understood. I know what it is that I have to do.
“All done!” Claudia sent the map to his mobile.
“Okay. I’m off!” he said, already thinking of how he’d check each place, starting with the closest.
“Oh, just one moment. Before you go—” Claudia called him back as he was about to fly out of the room like a shot. “It’s ready. You’re free to take it with you.”
Julis went to an abandoned building in the redevelopment area.
Twilight gloom reigned over the partially demolished edifice. Fragmentary walls and floors created an illusion of open space, but the piles of debris made for numerous blind spots.
Undaunted, she walked farther into the building. Her face was grim as she stepped steadily onward through the uncanny shadows projected by the lowering sun.
As soon as she had set foot into the back of the plot, debris fell from an upper story whose floor no longer existed—falling right toward where she stood. It was more than enough material to crush a girl.
“Burst into bloom…,” she murmured, without even looking up. “Red Crown.”
A five-sided flower materialized to shield her, like an umbrella made of flame, and repelled every piece of the falling debris.
“You must know by now that it’ll take more than that to beat me? Show yourself already, Silas Norman.”
The moon floated dimly beyond the gaping holes in the structure. Steel reinforcement bars crashed into the floor and a lone boy emerged from the clouds of dust.
“My apologies. That didn’t even make for a good pregame show.” The thin boy, Silas, bowed theatrically. “I’m impressed. How did you know that I was behind those attacks?”
“A slip of the tongue yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” Silas cocked his head. “Hmm. How did I slip up?”
Julis answered him with forced composure. “Yesterday, in the commercial area, when Ayato got Lester riled up. When you tried to restrain him, you said that he would never ambush someone in the middle of a duel.”
“…So what?”
“How do you know that the attackers ambushed me in the middle of a duel? The first attack during my duel with Ayato didn’t make the news.”
“But the second attack did. I saw it myself.”
“Yes, that one did. But all the outlets reported only that I repelled the attackers. No one mentioned Sasamiya, or even the fact that another student was at the scene. What a farce, when she was the one who fought you off.”
Silas stared inscrutably back at her.
“Do you understand yet? To talk about a duel, when it wasn’t even publicized that someone else was there, you would have to have been there or have heard about it from someone who was. Either possibility points to you being the attacker or an accomplice.”
“My, my…how careless of me. So he provoked Lester on purpose.”
“Probably. I wouldn’t put that sort of subterfuge past him,” Julis said, beaming with a hint of pride.
“Hmm. Then I was right to redirect my attention to him. He’s too great of an obstacle if I want to get to you.”
“Why, you—!”
Silas laughed. “I know, I know! That’s the entire reason you came all the way out here—to stop me from doing just that.”
Watching him spread his arms with a cocky smirk, Julis ground her teeth.
That morning, she had found a letter in her desk reading: “I will now target those close to you. If you don’t want that to happen, come to the address below.”
“Then let’s get this over with.”
“Please, no need to be so hasty! I’d love nothing more than to talk this out like adults. That’s why I asked you here in the first place.”
“A bald-faced lie if I ever heard one. You expect me to believe you?”
“Oh, but I’m serious. To be perfectly frank, I’d rather avoid facing you in a real battle if I can.” Even as Silas admitted this, he was no less self-assured.
Julis had done her homework before coming here. Silas was unranked, and he had no records from official matches. As far as fighting went, he was a complete unknown.
Besides, there were at least three attackers. Even if Silas was one of them, that meant he had two accomplices.
“Very well. I’ll hear you out.” It would be better to wait and see how Silas wanted to play this, Julis decided.
“Wonderful. The truth is, I’m here for the money—just like you. I thought we could understand one another.” Silas nodded, smiling broadly. “You might have already guessed, but what I want is for you to withdraw from the Phoenix. And if you could also state for the record that I had nothing to do with these attacks, that would be a nice plus.”
“And what’s in it for me?”
“Your and Ayato Amagiri’s well-being. Is that insufficient?”
“It’s ridiculous,” Julis said flatly. “I can have that if I crush you here. And even if I were to keep my mouth shut, the student council is already onto you, I’m sure.”
“I’m not worried about them. There isn’t a shred of evidence that I was involved.”
“You seem awfully sure of that.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
They glared
squarely at each other.
Then a furious voice rumbled through the broken building. “Just what the hell is going on here, Silas!?”
“—Lester?” Julis started at the sight of Lester MacPhail stomping onto the scene. She had fallen into her fighting stance before she understood that his anger was directed at Silas.
“Hello, Lester. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You said Julis agreed to duel me, so I rushed over here, but this… Is this true? You’re the one who attacked Julis?” He had clearly heard everything.
“Yes, that’s right. You have a problem with that?”
“Don’t be an idiot! Why the hell would you do that!?”
“Why? I can only tell you that I was asked to.”
“Asked to…?” The look on Lester’s face was a mishmash of surprise, anger, and confusion.
If that was an act, it would take some considerable thespian talent. Julis knew perfectly well that Lester had no such ability.
She let out a sigh and said, “He was working with another school to attack the favorites for the Phoenix. So, you didn’t know?”
Lester was speechless, his face frozen in shock. Silas, on the other hand, must have played a convincing part as the obedient sidekick.
Silas gave Lester a mocking look and shrugged his shoulders. “Unlike the two of you, I’d rather avoid foolishness like fighting face-to-face over and over again. If there’s a safer and more efficient way to make my money, it’s only natural to take it.”
“That’s why you sold out your fellow students?” said Julis.
“Fellow students? You must be joking.” Silas laughed, shaking his head. “Every single person gathered here is an enemy to every other, you see. We might make temporary alliances for team competitions or tag matches, but aside from that, we’re all out to get ahead at the expense of anyone else. I’d think that you two of all people would understand that, with your high rankings. You fight with everything you have, paying for your status with sweat and blood, gaining your place only to be hounded by those who would take it out from under you. I’m not interested in such a troublesome life. If I can make just as much money without standing out, that’s obviously the wise choice—wouldn’t you agree?”
