Akane bowed politely toward her fellow Otome as King Kazuya nervously sat on his new throne. Akane had decided this was the right thing to do, and she couldn't be happier serving Kazuya. She spoke in a quiet, cheerful tone.
"Is there anything else you need from us, Lady Mahya?"
Mahya gave a satisfied smile at this response. It was about time this girl wised up, the older Column thought to herself.
"The former Queen Mashiro and that lapdog of hers will probably retaliate somehow when they learn of King Kazuya's crowning. Be prepared to fight her Meister without mercy."
Akane nodded in agreement and spoke in the same soft voice.
"Yes, that would definitely be a threat to my lord's power. I'll be ready."
"Splendid."
Mahya was pleased by Akane's clear resolve and returned to group of Columns standing behind her. As they left the throne room, Natsuki turned to speak to Akane a final time.
"I'm going to let the nobles know the exchange of power is complete, and your court should be entering in a few minutes. Remember what Mahya said, and I'll let you know if your skills are needed in the meantime."
Akane quietly nodded again as she loyally stood beside her king's throne. In the brief moments the ruler had alone with his bodyguard, he began speaking with doubt in his voice.
"Akane, are you really serious about all of this...?"
She turned toward her beloved king and replied with a gentle assurance in her voice. She had made her decision the moment the contract was complete.
"Kazu, don't doubt yourself. The people depend on you, and I'll always be right here."
The last few words of Akane's response caused the king to sigh in relief. He began mentally preparing himself for his first address to the arriving Windbloom court.
It was only a few days later when the former Queen of Windbloom made her anticipated counterattack. Mashiro Blan de Windbloom and her Meister, Arika Yumemiya, had quietly stayed out of the country when they discovered Garderobe's forces were blocking their re-entry after the military school's initial declaration of war. The pair had decided it was better to rally a coalition of foreign powers together and crush the Columns in a large counterattack than it was to hastily break back into the country and potentially only escalate the situation by themselves. However, the latest travesty the Columns had committed by putting a false king on the throne and further impeding Windbloom's recovery forced the exiled queen to abandon her diplomatic efforts and return to her homeland immediately.
King Kazuya was seated on his throne with his beloved Meister standing happily by his side as he watched a concert the court musicians were performing in the throne room. The court was taken by a sudden silence when the decorative castle doors were abruptly pushed open and the silhouettes of the former queen and her own Otome stood in front of the sunlight now pouring through the doorway. Arika was clad in her blue Meister uniform, and the silver-haired queen was wearing her casual street disguise of loose-fitting blue pants, a long open jacket, and a somewhat risque short white tube top. After peering up toward his loyal bodyguard to ease the sudden wave of anxiety in his mind, Kazuya asked the court to clear the room. Most of the subjects stepped out of the room for their own safety, with a few stragglers only moving towards the walls and staying to watch out of curiosity or historical interest. The court had been well-warned a battle would take place when the former queen arrived.
With the path cleared, Mashiro and Arika slowly walked down the carpet leading to the throne. When they stopped, Arika protectively positioned herself in front of her queen and spoke with forceful worry in her voice.
"Akane, Kazu, what are you doing?! This has to be a joke, right?"
Akane closed her eyes and courteously replied.
"I'm afraid not, Meister Arika. When Queen Mashiro abandoned her country at the start of the war, the Columns decided that a new leader was necessary. His majesty was chosen to take up the flag since he was no longer needed in Chaldea."
Mashiro silently grit her teeth at this interpretation of events. Arika continued pleading.
"So the Columns forced him to do this? That has to be it!"
Akane simply smiled and shook her head.
"Not at all, my lady. King Kazuya is very grateful to be allowed to rule the greatest kingdom in the world."
A growing desperation began to enter Arika's pleas. She was beginning to doubt she could talk the king and his Otome down peacefully.
"So HE'S to blame?! Akane, Otome shouldn't be forced to just blindly follow their leaders! They should be allowed to chase their own happiness! You of all people should understand that!"
Arika's words brought Akane to recalling her final days as the top Trias before her graduation from Garderobe Academy. Arika was a first year student at the time, and she had been the one who convinced Akane to renounce her role as a Meister and pursue her own dreams of living as a couple with Kazuya, before she had been chased down and forced to complete a contract. Ironically, Arika's words only had the effect of further affirming Akane's newfound resolve. Akane responded as politely and collected as ever.
"I'm afraid there's a flaw in your logic in this case, Meister Arika. Kazu's strength and well-being IS the happiness I've decided to seek."
Arika was taken aback by Akane's level of commitment. In previous conflicts, Arika had grown accustomed to arguing with stubborn Meisters who lacked the gentle determination Akane exhibited; girls who quickly stumbled over their words when forced to consider their position as unwavering servants. Akane hadn't even brushed aside Arika's objections in anger or haste. She had thought the matter through thoroughly and retained a delicate sincerity in her responses. As Arika considered these facts, she began to understand the stern speech Headmistress Graceburt gave her class in the Otome Catacombs many years ago. Arika and Akane still respected each other as friends, but the War of the Five Columns had put them on opposite sides and had taken away their privilege of settling their argument peacefully. For Mashiro's sake, Arika had already decided she couldn't walk away from the confrontation. The Meister stared at Akane for a few more seconds before turning to her queen, speaking with a feeling of regret in her voice.
"Mashiro, please contract me."
The queen nodded solemnly as Arika kneeled in front of her. She leaned forward to kiss the GEM on Arika's ear, and the Otome's Meister uniform quickly disappeared to reveal her glowing naked form. The glow soon concentrated to specific parts of Arika's body and Materialized as her Meister Robe. To ensure a quick victory, the unique multiple Robe feature of Arika's GEM had already been calibrated to its highest known setting: A blue, caped bodysuit that made Arika's normally braided hair to fall freely to her shoulders. As this happened, Kazuya activated Akane's GEM with a soft kiss and she proceeded to undergo the same process as Arika. Akane quietly stepped down from Kazuya's elevated throne in her white Meister Robe, stopping when she was on even ground with the Otome challenging her. Arika summoned her Robe's weapon, the double-ended Sword of Akatsuki, and Akane summoned her Robe's tonfa in response. The battle had begun.
Arika was the first to launch forward, her feet hovering slightly off the ground, as she let out a battle cry. Akane returned with the same, and the girls' weapons clashed off of each other when they met in the center of the throne room. The two Otome staggered in opposite directions after the blow, and Akane was the first to recover. Her Robe provided her the advantage in reflexes and agility, but Arika was far from helpless with her superior strength and defense.
Akane swung the bladed edge of one tonfa toward her stunned opponent, but Arika was able to recover in time by extending her free arm and stopping the weapon in its place by grabbing it by its dull side. She continued to hold Akane's arm firmly in place with a single hand. Akane quickly overcame her resulting surprise of the maneuver by swinging the opposite tonfa at Arika's now outstretched arm, and her weapon bluntly hit its target with forte.
Arika cried out in agony and temporarily dropped her blade to tend to the spiraling pain in her arm. The blow would have certainly shattered the bone if Arika hadn't been Materialized, but it wasn't enough to completely disable her arm in this case. Akane took the advantage by making an vertical slash toward her cowering opponent, but Arika was quickly able to duck and roll out of the way, taking her blade back into her grasp along the way. However, while Arika was still grounded, Akane raised both of her weapons over her head in unison and aimed another crushing blow toward her prone enemy. Arika reacted just in time to block the more aggressive girl's attack with the Sword of Akatsuki's central hilt. Akane had Arika pinned to the ground in a weightlifting position, and Arika could feel the still lingering pain in her left arm slowly swell as she struggled to push Akane back.
The Sword of Akatsuki was shaking and buckling as Arika's injured arm slowly gave way under pressure. Akane's tonfa were firmly locked together in an "X" shape as her face contorted from the intense effort she was applying. The Sword of Akatsuki began to dip, and the fighter with the advantage was gradually guiding the weapon back toward its own user. Arika's expression quickly turned to fear as one of the blade's ends was only inches from slowly piercing her chest. She continued to resist, but her eyes began to well with tears as she could feel certain defeat approaching. In her most desperate moment, she softly begged for aid from the only source her increasingly meek mind could think of.
"Mother... help me..."
As if almost on cue, Arika's GEM began to whir and beep with a new burst of energy. Her body was overwhelmed in a golden light that threw Akane back into the air and temporarily blinded her. When the light faded, Arika was now clad a different Robe than before. The new design sported a different distribution of blue and white through its glossy, formfitting material, and the Robe now exposed the skin of Arika's abdomen and cleavage much like Akane's. All of the spectators gasped in shock, and the King of Windbloom was forced to briefly look away in embarrassment as the sight brought a slight tingle to his loins. This was the Robe's hidden Artemis form, a feature that was unknown even to Arika herself.
A renewed calmness was on Arika's face as she rose to her feet. She showed no surprise at her change in attire, as it seemed some unseen force had quietly brought her to understand her newfound power. The pain in her arm had faded completely, and she wielded a new, sleeker form of the Sword of Akatsuki in one of her gloved hands. As Akane struggled to overcome her sense of bafflement at these events, Arika had already begun her attack. The revived Otome began dashing around Akane from random angles, delivering a blow that staggered her in the air each time Arika swept past. Akane was equally overwhelmed by the fact that Arika's new Robe left a trail of vibrant afterimages every time she moved, and this quickly made it difficult for the defending Otome to focus on a single target. Akane was eventually able to recover and shift out of the field of attack, however, and she began to improvise a counterstrategy against her rival's new abilities.
Akane concentrated her eyes and silently commanded the nanomachines in her body to activate their night vision ability at the lowest setting. Her brown eyes began to glow in a gentle yellowish hue, and this, combined with the ornamental ears sprouting from her hairband, gave Akane an increased feline look. A Coral or newly-promoted Pearl would probably find this exercise silly, as night vision technology obviously only made it more difficult to see in daylight. While it was true Akane was generally impairing her own eyesight and causing everything in the room to appear to her with a slightly blurring amount of brightness, this peculiar tactic gave her a very generous advantage that other Meisters would have envied. Since the Pure Heart Malachite GEM generated this ability by constantly tracking and interpreting light differences reflected only by solid objects, the Otome using it could now only see one target in the room. Akane had completely nullified the mental effects of Arika's afterimages.
The next time Arika swooped in for another passing attack on her enemy, Akane caught her off guard and slammed the blunt side of a tonfa into her chest. This sent Arika recoiling back some distance through the air, and Akane took the advantage. She swung both tonfa in an uppercutting motion, activating her Robe's ultimate ability and creating a concentrated blast of glowing air that would surely pin Arika back to the floor. However, Arika stayed perfectly in place when she was struck, and the blast simply wrapped around her curved form and condensed as if it was being absorbed. The concentrated energy quickly moved through the metal insets of her Robe and funneled into the GEM on her ear. The spectators watched in awe as Arika briefly paused and listened to her GEM quietly beep in her ear, then quickly outstretched her weaponless hand and returned an augmented copy of the very same blast from her open palm. Akane's eyes widened in shock and confusion before she was thrown clear to opposite end of the throne room.
When she recovered from the unexpected attack, Akane saw Arika was launching toward her from the far end of the chamber with her sword firmly gripped in both hands. Akane immediately activated the flight devices on her ankles and wrists to their fullest capacity before propelling herself forward in direct retaliation. The battle was going to end in a classical jousting charge, and, with her twin tonfa weapons, she had two possible methods to deliver her finishing attack. Akane made her choice before the two Otome impacted in a blinding flash that filled Castle Windbloom's throne room.
Attack with the left: Go to Chapter 28
Attack with the right: Go to Chapter 29