"I'll do my best, ma'am," you reply with a wry smile. "I can't make any promises about trouble not finding me on its own, but I won't go looking for it."

Though she sighs and shakes her head at your answer, Akasha does return your smile. "I understand exactly what you mean. Good luck, then - and to you as well, ladies," she adds, glancing at Briar and Cordelia. "I have the feeling you'll need it."

Then she's off.

"I wonder who she's going to pulverize?" Briar muses.

"I thought about asking that myself," you admit, "but she seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, so..."

"It's most likely the Tournament Masters," Kahlua tells you. "They have an agreement with our family to exchange information about incidents like that runaway summoning you mentioned, and somebody decided to violate it - or at the very least, to delay it rather longer than they should have." Her expression is quite serious, as are her half-sisters'. "None of our parents appreciate that sort of thing."

You consider that, and think about how someone known as the Dark Lady of the Orient is likely to react to being lied to by people she had a formal arrangement with. What comes to mind wouldn't slip past a PG-13 rating, and you kind of feel bad about loosing that kind of pain and suffering on people you've never met. That feeling lasts until you consider the trouble that you, Lu-sensei, and Cordelia have been running into since the tournament kicked off - rigged matchups in the prelims, browbeating harangues disguised as meetings, suspicious gaps in the security coverage, the not-so-quiet undercurrent of anti-foreigner bias - after which, you don't feel nearly so bad.

"Why are you smiling?" Kokoa asks suspiciously.

...wait, you're smiling now?