"Speaking"
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WARNING: CONTAINS SWEARING, BATTLE, SEXUAL INSTANCES, HEAVY POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS AND 10000% NORTHERN IRISHNESS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. ALSO, PURPOSEFULLY LEAVING RIN OUT OF THE STORY AS I CAN'T THINK OF HOW TO FIT HER IN FOR NOW.

It's hot, I'm alone. Feck, it's humid and dreary here. Such were the thoughts of the new Cadet Representative Cairbre Lynch, the latest cadet representative to arrive at the IS Academy. Standing at a respectable 165cm, with his somewhat toned body, pale skin adorned with eyes of a vivid sapphire blue and head adorned with slightly scruffy, shoulder-length brunette hair, he stepped forth from the car that had brought the fella from the airport. The how and why he, of all people, was the Cadet Representative for Ireland was as bizarre and unorthodox as it came, it being by sheer and utter accident.

(FLASHBACK)

It was June 17, earlier that year. Infinite Stratos units had been known of for 6 years at this point, with women naturally being the only one able to pilot them. As part of a television segment on a breakfast show, Tabane Shinonono was supposed to be in Dublin explaining the units in a park. As part of a special prize, done by the network, two boys and two girls came to witness the unit and to touch it, purely for bragging rights and partly as a fun stunt by Tabane to get Chifuyu Orimura to lighten up a bit. Cairbre, who had entered the contest from his hometown of Derry, over the border in Northern Ireland had been chosen as one of the boys. After Tabane showed up (albeit via video only as nobody quite knew where she was), she directed Cairbre to touch the unit. To his surprise, and that of everyone including the crew, it began to power up. As the faces of everyone went shocked, save for Cairbre's sheer horror and Tabane's giddy excitement, the live signal cut back to a shocked studio.

(PRESENT)

After collecting his bags, Cairbre was led to his room in the dorms, first via the uniform store. The uniforms he was given were threefold. First, his standard class uniform. Second, a second one so the first can be washed on the regular. Third, the clothing for piloting his IS. He'd asked for it to be in the tricolor, which he wasn't given. His personal colours were instead a light grey with a hideous Cub yellow trim that were given to him as a skin-tight crop top and short shorts. After collecting those and looking at his stowed personal unit, Gráinne, which had stowed as a choker on his neck due to a roughly Tabane-sized and Tabane-shaped reason. Like the namesake of his unit, Cairbre was fierce.

The dorms themselves were the typical IS Academy affair, all female dorms. Well, that was technically no longer true, but technically was simultaneously. There was no point in building male ANYTHING on the academy grounds as aside from Tabane's little stunt with Cairbre there wasn't a need for it. He'd been given a key to room 1025 and had figured out his way there by following the signs. Originally, they'd given him a different two rooms that were unoccupied but had moved him because of a couple of diplomatic faux pas by Academy administrators who never bothered to look up the numbers in question to find how they might be seen as inappropriate for a sprightly and temperamental Irish Catholic from Derry.

Upon arrival to the room but before entering, he heard the ending of a shower on the other side of the door. Quick logic in his mind dictated that this was a lady, and that he should announce himself first before even attempting to enter. With a firm and controlled couple of knocks, he called out in his fairly thick Derry accent.

"Excuse me miss…" he began, "I've been told by the staff that I'm with you, I'll wait here until you're looking decent. I do not want to get skited all over the corridor, much less the room or the arena so I will wait here."

After a few brief minutes of frenzied drying, the door swung open to reveal a face he had seen previously, albeit on the jet over from Derry to wherever the academy was in Japan via the screens of a hyperactive Tabane who wouldn't shut up about her. This person was blushing and had a pissed off sort of gaze as he walked in with his luggage and nonchalantly sat down on the unoccupied bed. This person? Houki Shinonono.

Looking over at her, Cairbre read her in his mind from what he'd known of her from Tabane's unrepentant yapping. Houki Shinonono, likes kendo. Pilot level: C. Major issues with trust. Doesn't like Tabane, for some reason. After he'd done that, he introduced himself as he sat there on the bed.

"IS Cadet Representative Cairbre Lynch, Ireland. I'm from Derry, date of birth 15th of the 6th, making me a Gemini and… what date of birth did I say now, 15th of the 6th? Aye, that's correct. You must be Houki Shinonono, sorry for interrupting. It's just your wee sister Tabane wouldn't listen when I told her to wind her neck in on the flight over." stated Cairbre, acting calm and collected like he totally hadn't ripped part of his introduction from Nadine's passport incident from Popstars.

Houki, to her credit hadn't taken the fact that he knew who she was and who her sister was particularly well, as she grabbed a wooden sword and swung it down upon him from above. Catching it with both hands, she began to speak, incensed by his prior knowledge.

"You… you little pervert!" shouted Houki as she struggled to deliver through on the strike. "You probably asked to be put in here because you like me from what my sister said!"

"Ach, no. Blind choice and diplomatic incidents." He replied, calmly.

This response caused Houki to stop trying to hit him on the head and put the practice sword away as she was at least in the state of mind to do so.

"As I was saying, thon sister of yours is a pain and a hallion. I win one contest on the telly, spend a few hundred euro I got from selling my car and swapping the currency to get myself to Dublin and she does this and puts the unit on my neck. If I liked your sister more than a simple respect, I'd have a pair of fake tits. But I don't so I don't." he stated, soliciting a slight chuckle out of Houki as he started to put away his personal items. All of his were tame and largely non-descript, save for his laptop which had a sticker on it that Houki would learn of in time.

Houki, on the other hand was watching out for anything suspicious that Cairbre would produce. Which he hadn't as of yet and that was the case when the bag was empty. He wasn't some innocent buck-eyed fella, either. Cairbre knew what he liked and wanted but also had been raised by his mammy to keep his desires and all that private and only for when necessary.

"Houki, got anything to eat?" he asked, upon storing away his bag.

Houki nodded and pulled out a bag of potato crisps, that he found amusing as she seemed like the type that wouldn't have them. Houki seemed proper to him, so the thought of her having some crisps was alien to him but to each their own, he guessed. After catching them from Houki throwing them towards him, he opened them and tasted them. They tasted… fine. Salty, spicy and of not much else. Of course, he could say they tasted of fuck all else but that was not the point.

"Cairbre," asked Houki. "Is there anything you want to tell me about your unit?"

"Sure. It's a fourth-generation, named Gráinne. Short range weapon is a baton, long range is a predictive laser arrow. Toe-to-toe I'd say I'm up fairly close to the best." He replied. "It's the choker on my neck. I know you don't have a unit of your own but Tabane won't shock me if she gives you one."

Houki nodded, understandingly.

(TIMESKIP)

It was the first lesson of the first day for Cairbre, his first in the environment of schooling in Japan. He'd been rushing through learning Japanese for a few months now and was perfectly able to hold a conversation but had a very odd accent. On the walk to class with Houki, who he'd been paired with for scheduling, he had caught the attention of all the girls in the school. Cairbre was by no means androgynous, nor was he hyper-masculine and alpha-like either. His hair length and mannerisms were his concern and nothing else.

As they arrived at his homeroom, he waited outside until he was to be introduced. He knew roughly who it was that was teaching him, as Chifuyu Orimura had been involved with the TV thing and was behind the scenes when Tabane's little stunt had taken place. The signal was made for him to enter. It's showtime, Cairbre. Don't make a balls of it.

As he walked into the room, everything went still and silent as all eyes went on him. He wasn't ever used to this level of attention to his face before, especially with a room full of strong women who wanted nothing more than to bed him. But now came the introduction, and time to see if the lessons on sounding less Derry had paid off.

"Morning all, I'm Cairbre Lynch. As some of you might have heard, I'm the Cadet Representative for Ireland. I'm from Derry, up in Northern Ireland. Don't ask, you'll already know." He stated. This, well… it caused a certain blonde cadet representative to stand up in a huff.

"Northern Ireland? I am the Cadet Representative for the United Kingdom, Cecelia Alcott and I…" stated an irritated Cecelia as she glared daggers at Cairbre.

"I know who you are, Cecelia. Good Friday Agreement, remember?" said Cairbre, interruptingly as he walked to his seat, which was in front of Cecelia.

This shut her up for a while. Officially, they couldn't get into a physical altercation as that would cause a diplomatic rift, but as far as verbal sparring went, they were able to do so.

"Are you a provo sympathiser?" asked Cecelia, mockingly. Cairbre turned to look at her with a pissed-off glare as she'd deliberately accused him of being a terror sympathiser.

"No, and if you EVER call me that again, I will see to it that you get beaten in the arena with mass-production units." grumbled Cairbre, who then turned back to the front to see a somewhat annoyed Chifuyu.

The lessons progressed, with the tension in the room somewhat notable, until it was time to do some analysis of the arena battle that Houki did for strategic reasons. In this one, Houki had battled Cecelia and lost, but that wasn't what he was paying attention to at all. He was reading the replay, looking at both pilots and seeing where they went wrong. Once the class had finished, the opinions of the other girls were read out. Then it was Cairbre's turn to state what he saw.

"Cecelia won it, but at the same time she lost it. From seeing it, one would assume that as Houki is using a standard Rafale Revive, she'd lose to Blue Tears. But what you're forgetting is that Blue Tears has weapons AI and that is its own flaw. Those weapons are useful when you're predictable, which in a way was Houki's saving grace and dragged it out. Houki's piloting is awful comparative to Cecelia, but that in of itself meant that the AI in Blue Tears kept missing. Cecelia's weak points are close-range attacks from the side or below, as her drones tend to not fire towards the rest of the unit. Houki should have seen this but didn't and Cecelia should be aware of where her flaws are. Those rockets on her hips can't turn on a coin. Nobody came out of this fight better, so if there were to be a two-person team, pair them." stated Cairbre. Chifuyu, who had been listening to his unexpectedly detailed analysis, nodded along as he had never actually said anything inaccurate.

But what he couldn't see was the shocked expression on Cecelia's face. From one fight, he'd both insulted her and picked apart her tactics completely. She, a member of English nobility had just had her entire piloting career picked apart by a working-class Irish Nationalist. If he wasn't so attractive and also a Cadet Representative, I'd kill him.

Houki was simultaneously happy and irritated. Sure, he'd said her piloting wasn't as good as Cecelia's which she disagreed with but was happy that in a somewhat degrading way, he'd praised her. There was something about Cairbre that she liked, but she just couldn't put her finger on. Was it his humble nature, the fact he understood that she was sensitive despite her kendo and that she didn't need to expect to trust him or like him from the get go? Or was it his slight effeminate mannerisms, wherein he did some girly things because he liked it and was fine with it. Whatever it was, she was blushing and happy.

There you have it, chapter 1. Next chapter, enter Charl and Laura. Plus, Cairbre gets a crush~! See you then!