Cairbre's second day of classes came and went. The day in question had been perfectly peaceful, no major incidents apart from a light bit of sparring verbally with Cecelia over how the English couldn't cook. Now, he'd done it. He'd challenged Cecelia to a duel in home-ec classes on the next day and was currently at the campus supermarket, with Houki, getting items to prepare.

"Cairbre, a cooking battle? You have a personal unit, you could fight her in the arena…" stated Houki, who he'd roped into pushing the trolley. This was a rather small trolley, as for some reason it could only hold the same as a big basket.

"Because…" he began, "… Alcott knows my strategy and needs to dismount my high horse. This is a way for her to lose some of that upper class pride. Now, scallions… where are the feckin' scallions?"

"Cairbre, swearing." Houki pouted. "There's a male pilot transferring in tomorrow. Dunois or something, from what I've heard."

Cairbre, by that time had put the scallions in the trolley and looked at Houki with a deadpan expression. "Impossible. Tabane told me that Mr. Dunois had one daughter before his other mistress, the one that didn't have a wain with him went and skited his balls all over a hotel room in Berlin on a work trip."

Houki started blushing furiously at this stage, feeling the schadenfreude of a man having certain parts removed by a lover. "H-how did you?"

"Tabane rants on my phone all the time. I keep my phone on silent so it doesn't go off… Jesus, she won't shut thon gob of hers up." He replied, as he went to the other vegetables and pulled out some onions, before placing them in the basket. "As far as I know, there's no other male pilots otherwise she'd tell me."

"But why pretend to be a man?" she asked in response to Cairbre's statements.

"Wild guess: it's me. Dunois Industrie tried to hire me but I said no. Probably after info on my unit. So I've arranged to buck their plans. Tomorrow, before my thing with Cecelia, I'll confront who they sent. But privately. Anyway, that's tomorrow. Houki, can you please go get me some floyer, milk and butter. And some dried herbs and thon kinds of things?"

She was confused. "Floyer?"

"The floyer. White wheat floyer. Not corn floyer or potato starch, just plain floyer. R. Floyer, feck. Not that hard!" he said, as that was one word that was hard to understand with a Derry accent, either in English or in Japanese.

Houki then scampered off, as he saw a person with short blonde hair shopping with a basket. As he reached for the cheapest tray of fish for this contest, this individual, who had overheard the chat just then stepped forward and sported a deep scarlet-red blush.

"My cover is no more then, I have to tell Papa." Said the individual.

"…"

"..."

"Oh feck. Look, all big misunderstanding, if you truly are the wain of that Dunois fella, I'm sorry." Cairbre said.

The person nodded. "Charles Dunois, Cadet Representative of France. Well, Charles is the cover name. I cannot tell Papa or anyone else that you know."

Cairbre looked at Charles, with a bit of a thought process going on in his mind.

"Your real name?"

"Charlotte, Charlotte Dunois." said Charles, quietly.

"Charl, how about that? Now, there's no way in hell you can pretend this because secrets don't hide forever. What or who do you want to be?" replied Cairdre. Charl blushed heavily and gasped slightly at this.

The idea of her target asking who she wanted to be was stunning, in fact. Once Houki returned and Cairbre explained that Charl here was the other male pilot, trying to lull Houki into thinking the two had barely talked, he grabbed the rest of the groceries and a few snacks before the three went back up to room 1025 to chill out.

No sooner had the trio entered Houki and Cairbre's room had Charl broken into tears. Feeling sorry, Cairbre hugged her and let her cry in his arms. "Charl… what did your father do to you?"

In tears, Charl started telling her story, that of being neglected by her father who didn't even acknowledge her until her mother died and was then abused until useful then bullied and forced into faking being a man. But the whole time, Cairbre hadn't realized he'd buttdialed Tabane, who listened to the story and felt really sorry for her. Charl, be it Charles or Charlotte… didn't deserve this, So she spoke up, with that particularly shrill kind of voice in a way.

"Ne, ne, Cair-tan… I can make her daddy pay~" spoke Tabane. Cairbre was a hugely embarrassed mess whilst Houki was livid that her older sister was so casual with HIM of all people. Charl was too upset to care.

Shit. Feck. Arse. I called Tabane?! Feck, no… wait, Tabane can do THAT can't she?! Cairbre pondered. "Tabane, you heard all that? Here's a mad thought. I don't care how you do it but get Mr. Dunois into trouble. Hard. Fake a supergrass and leak everything. But keep Charl here the innocent one, she's as much a victim as I am for the spying and stuff. Give him a theoretical kick up the arse and go at it, 10 by 10."

Once he'd dealt with Tabane (which took an hour once she realized Houki was there and Charl learned who Houki was), he placed his phone on his bedside table and then looked at Charl.

"You do realize that whilst you're not the second male pilot, there's a way for you to be Charles if you want to. Just present as both and alternate whenever you want to be either. If you want to be Charles, I'll see you as a man. If you want to be Charlotte, I'll see you as a woman. Both exist and are as valid as each other, but legally and in terms of piloting the IS, you're Charlotte." stated Cairbre. "It's called bigender. You can be both and change as you see fit."

This word, bigender… it hit Charl like a brick in the face. Growing up, Charlotte had always known that there was something not quite right. Especially after her father said for her to live as a man and become Charles, something within her felt that Charles was just as real and as valid as Charlotte. But this wasn't a matter of a wrong body, either. Charlotte existed just as equal to Charles. Sure, legally only Charlotte was there, but Charles was just as present and prominent.

"I… I think that is what I am… for now, call me Charles and treat me as a man." said Charles.

"Great, now. We have snacks and I've a wee film or two. What do yous both want to see, a Troubles drama or a comedy?" Cairbre asked.

"Troubles?" asked Houki as Charles nodded, aware of what it was.

"Madame Houki, he is from Northern Ireland, this is his past." replied Charles.

"Careful now, both of yous. Me mammy and me da's past that time was, aye. I'm from after the Good Friday Agreement, and the Troubles film is set before 1998." Cairbre said, letting a bit more of his accent out as he pulled out his laptop and the snacks.

"Oh. The comedy then." both replied in unison.

Cairbre then pulled out the snacks and pressed play.

(TIMESKIP)

The third day, first period. In home economics, a war was about to take place over egos and of pride only. In one corner, representing the United Kingdom was Cecelia Alcott, with Charlotte Dunois of France 'assisting'. In the other, Ireland's favourite buck-eejit son Cairbre Lynch, who whilst perfectly entitled to use the assistance of Houki, had told her to stay out of it. In true, albeit eccentric Cairbre style, he had gotten dressed in his IS piloting outfit of that somewhat ugly crop top and those short shorts, accompanied by an apron. This was for two reasons. First and foremost was that cooking got his main uniform dirty, but the second? Well, he was the only man (except for Charl when in that mode) in the school and showing off his body would do him no harm socially.

After the signal was given for them to begin, Cairbre first stuck two large potatoes in the microwave for 15 minutes before putting the fish and scallions into the milk and onto a slow boil. He was making a fish pie, something he knew Cecelia would recognize. Speaking of, once he got to the spot where he could look over, he did. What he saw was chaos. Somehow, in the three minutes that had elapsed at the point he looked up, a pancake was burnt and stuck to the ceiling, Cecelia was adding Tabasco for some reason and Charlotte was dry heaving from whatever she'd been asked to smell or taste by Cecelia.

Once both Cadet Representatives had finished, did the judge come in. The judge was the president of the student council, Tatenashi Sarashiki. Blindfolded, she was fed Cairbre's first. She liked it, as he'd added a slight spice to it but not overwhelmingly so. Then came Cecelia's attempt at strawberry crepes. This… did not work. One bite was enough to result in her throwing her folding fan directly at Cecelia's face, before announcing Cairbre winner.

But before he could gloat, came an announcement over the PA.

"Cadet Representatives Lynch, Alcott, Dunois, please head to the Arena, we have a situation." was said, prompting the following to be said by Cairbre, Cecelia and Charlotte respectively, before they all ran at full speed towards the arena.

"Feck."

"Oh dear."

"Non."

Once all three had arrived at the arena, there was an issue. The IS Schwarzer Regen, piloted by the German Cadet Representative, Laura Bodewig had run amok. Whatever had happened, it was big. See, as part of the agreement to send Laura to the academy, Laura had insisted on a training match with her idol, Chifuyu Orimura. This was all going well, until it fell into a logic trap that Chifuyu sprung on Laura. What Chifuyu had developed, in secret with Tabane was a clone weapon. This was part of her own unit but acted as a separate unit. However, as they were in arena, and neither of them was aware of the Odin's Eye hyper-sensor built into Laura's body, it pushed her into an erratic space where her suit morphed into a large black mech due to an illicit Valkyrie Trace system. Cairbre knew vaguely what was going on, as Laura was firing wildly and her mind was overloaded with information and in almost a sort of bloodlust. So he went into action.

"Cecelia, Charlotte, I need you two to swing into action and push and pull me as fast as possible. On my call, I'll fire Siansa and at that point, throw me at the mass. I have one shot."

All three had activated their personal units, before Cairbre closed his eyes and activated Siansa, his bow and arrow. As soon as he activated, Cecelia and Charlotte began to push him around the arena in circles as he'd asked. He was trying to put as much energy as possible into this one shot, so the two others providing his propulsion was no big deal at all to him.

Just breathe, Cairbre, you've got this.

Breathe in.

Out.

Open your eyes, aim for the black thing.

Breathe in.

Out.

Pull the string.

Ready.

Once he'd steadied himself, he called out the following to Cecelia and Charlotte, who were hurtling him at high speed around the edge of the arena.

"Cecelia, Charlotte… Five, four, three, Siansa, an tine!"

Once he'd shouted that, both blondes flung him towards the mass as he fired Siansa at Laura. This was a strike meant to knock out any unit, thought of on the fly. Damage to a unit in a battle was determined via power multiplied by velocity. So the faster he went, the more damage. And as the arrow impacted whatever it was surrounding Laura's unit, he wrapped his arms around her as the kinetic energy flung them both into the wall at speed, knocking both Cairbre and Laura out.

(LAURA'S SUBSPACE)

"Who are you? Why did you interfere with my battle?" asked Laura, in her subspace and sans eyepatch, her cute German accent cut with the sternness she had due to her military life.

"Cairbre Lynch. And whatever the feck that was, you'd gone mad and we had to intervene otherwise you'd have skited Ms. Orimura all over the arena." He replied, laying on what appeared to be grass.

"Laura Bodewig. Why did you enter a fight that you had no place in?" queried a slightly softening Laura.

"Because I want to not see anyone die or get hurt. Myself, my family, my people, we've gone through enough. And if it takes a lifetime of fighting so that no person, be it you or I or anyone else has to deal with pain over petty shite like beliefs or who you are or choose to be, then so be it. I did what I did because I don't want to see either of you hurt." He said, defiantly.

To Laura, this was a revelation. Here was a man, the only male IS pilot, fighting with and for a cause. There was something with his willingness to up and say it, his daring nature of saying that he did it for everyone… this lit a fire inside of the hardened Second Lieutenant. She, the commander of the Schwarzer Hase, an elite soldier who only knew military life… she was, to put it bluntly, lovestruck.

And then it all went black.

I got into a groove here, so this is why a speedy chapter 2. Laura and Cairbre is the ship, so we have a brutally honest military girl with a brutally honest smartarse.