Fie wiped the sweat off her brow after she finished filling in the hole she had just created, causing her companion for the moment to giggle in amusement, "Do you want to take a break?"

She shook her head, causing long silver hair to go this way and that, "Nah. We're almost done. I guess I just kinda forgot what season it was now."

This was their third month at Thors. Given the school started in the middle of spring...

Yep. It was summer now. And there she was planting seeds into the ground, on a particularly scalding day to boot.

"...Let's not do this again." Fie complained at last once the job was finished.

"You complain, but that smile on your face is telling me a completely different story." Sandy retorted with no hesitation.

Against that comment Fie could only shrug, knowing it was an argument she couldn't win. Despite the weather and the simple fact that gardening was work, she couldn't deny there was something about the activity that felt comfortable to her. Maybe it was because she remembered the seeds Zephyr had left her that she had never gotten a chance to use, or maybe she just had a green thumb. Either way, she found herself enjoying the activity.

...Not that she would admit that to Sandy or anyone else.

"Want to go get some drinks? My treat for helping me out."

The former jaeger would have gladly paid for her own drink, but given the earnest smile on her clubmate's face could do little but nod her agreement. After cleaning up the garden the two friends made their way to the cafeteria where they got the drinks. A nice cold juice was the perfect reward for an afternoon in the sun.

She was almost finished when the door opened and in entered their other club member, Tita. The girl must have been looking for them as she began to rapidly approach as soon as she spotted the duo.

Fie couldn't help but notice something very off in her friend's appearance, "...You look like crap." Between the weary appearance and grease stains on her jacket it was a pretty obvious statement.

"Ahaha..." The flustered engineer laughed sheepishly at her assessment, "I guess you can say that."

"Professor Schmidt keeping you busy?" A concerned Sandy asked.

Tita gave a tired nod, "Yeah. It's taken me the last couple days to finish repairing the Drakkhen II. Just when I thought I was finished the professor told me that I needed to start preparing for a handful of new soldats that'll be arriving later this week. Probably won't be able to make it to the next few club meetings."

"New soldats?" Fie asked curiously while making a mental note to bonk Juna on the head. Sure her suicide tactics got them the victory against the aion, but it made a bunch of unnecessary work for Tita. Next time the girl needed to win with style and class.

"Mmm." The Liberlian confirmed with a tired nod. Before either of them could comment further on her exhausted state Tita perked up, "Oh, right! I almost forgot! I think you'll like it a lot, Fie. One of the new soldats is a Kestrel Beta."

The silver-haired girl blinked. Soldat specs weren't her forte, but the name was familiar to the girl, "That's the fast one, right?"

"Yeah! It's a little smaller than your standard Drakkhen II, but it more than makes up for it with its mobility and agility. I've heard that it can achieve a top speed of twelve hundred selge per hour while having natural flight capabilities comparable to a Divine Knight! And it's equipped with a state of the art neural network to give it a thirty percent boost in responsiveness compared to the standard models! It's-"

"Breathe, Tita. Breathe." Sandy chided with a gentle smile and a giggle.

Unfortunately for Tita, Fie lacked the gentleness of their friend, "...You are such a dork."

"I am not!" The flustered engineer retorted, "But come on, aren't you even a little bit excited? The Kestrel seems like the perfect machine for you."

Her lazy shrug was enough to mask her true feelings. Of course she was excited! The Drakkhen always felt so slow and sluggish to one with the moniker of Sylphid. She was a speed junky, pure and simple.

Seeing the dubious looks on her two friends Fie decided to give a slightly more intricate answer, "I mean I guess so? It'll be nice to beat Kurt and Juna in soldat exercises. Ash and Musse too, I guess." Even after the day it still felt weird having new classmates.

"And you call me a dork..." Tita mock grumbled, "How come you always need to turn everything into a competition?"

"Still..." Sandy interjected, "It feels weird knowing that Musse is in your class now. I mean it makes sense and all since Class VII was so small, but even so..."

"Trust me, it's even weirder for me. You guys know her better than I do, is she always... like that?" Her question was kinda lame because there was no humanly way to describe Musse Egret.

Luckily for her her two clubmates seemed to understand it well enough, "Yup." Sandy smiled happily as she shot down Fie's hopes.

"You think you guys have it bad? Try being her roommate. I swear she's always finding something to tease me about. Just this morning she wouldn't stop questioning me about Ag-" Tita paused before stopping with a furious blush.

Sadly for her... "Agate, right?" The blonde-haired girl let out a miserable moan which served as all the confirmation Fie needed, "Sorry, but you were practically digging your own grave on that one."

"I actually asked Prince Olivert about that before we left Crossbell. He told me that-" Whatever Sandy wanted to say was put on pause as Tita was quick to smother her mouth with her hands.

Unfortunately for the girl who was now closely resembling a tomato... "You can tell me at the next club meeting since Tita won't be there."

"Got it!"

Was it wrong for the two of them to tease their friend like this? Probably.

But it was fun. And that made it all worthwhile.

Their final class of the day was a unique one as it didn't take place in any classroom. In fact it didn't take place on the campus at all. Instead they – along with Class VIII and IX – were all instructed to meet at the west exit of Leeves on the road that would take them away from the capital.

The reason for the special class?

"Welcome to driver's education." A smiling Rean greeted the crowd after everyone was assembled. Next to him were the orbal bikes they had used in Crossbell, "Principal Aurelia and I both agreed it would be a good idea to instruct all of you on how to drive the orbal bikes."

Thank the Goddess. It was humiliating being stuck in the sidecar constantly. Never again if it could be helped.

...And just as importantly she was pretty sure that Altina was one unfavorable seating arrangement from sending a Brionac her way.

"Pffft. Lame. Some of us already know how to ride a bike." Fie rolled her eyes. That was Ash at his finest right there.

And yet Rean didn't seem bothered by the rude reply, "That may be so, but until us staff can verify it for ourselves you won't be taking the bikes anywhere. Although I suppose if you are so against the idea you can take it up with Principal Aurelia yourself...?"

"Actually, this is cool. Gives me a chance to show you clowns up." Ash's attempts at backpedaling were completely unsuccessful as many of the students snicker at his defeat. Of course Fie wasn't so juvenile as to laugh at the misfortune of her classmate.

...She just thought of a really funny joke at that same moment that caused her to chuckle. What a coincidence.

"As you can see we only have three bikes, so I'll be riding out with two of you at a time. We'll only be going a few arge down the highway before turning around and coming back. It's a fairly straight road and there shouldn't be much traffic at this hour, but I want you all to be careful regardless." The teacher allowed his eyes to roam over the assembled group, "Since you're so confident, Ash, why don't you join me on the first ride."

"Heh. Why not?" The blonde gave an easy shrug before approaching one of the bikes.

Rean nodded approvingly, "Good. Any volunteers for the second bike?"

"Me!" A couple of the Class VIII girls raised their hands, but Fie was surprised to hear a very familiar voice volunteering herself loudly.

It was her own voice.

Sure she knew she was looking forward to riding a bike, but it was so out of character for her to volunteer that she couldn't help but color slightly, especially as she noticed quite a few people were giving her equally shocked looks. The only way the situation could get any more humiliating for the cool jaeger was if-

"Very good, Fie! I think this is the first time you've ever volunteered for something." Rean proclaimed with a proud smile on his face.

...Were it anyone else she would have assumed they were trying to intentionally mess with her, but the guy was so oblivious that she was forced to accept the jerk wasn't doing this on purpose. Still didn't make it any less fun for her.

Oh well. What was done was done. Might as well put all the embarrassment behind her and enjoy the moment while it lasts.

The lithe student fell a surge of excitement as she approached her bike. This time she wasn't riding shotgun to someone, nor was she riding in a currently non-existent sidecar. This time she was gonna be the one behind the wheel.

But before she or Ash could hop on and let it rip they had to listen to Rean give instructions. It was long, obnoxious, and mostly self-explanatory, but she listened with half an ear regardless, "...And when you want to slow down, release the throttle, and apply the brakes to both wheels. Apply the brakes strongly to the front wheel and lightly to the back wheel. If you don't do this correctly you might lose control of the bike-"

"Yeah, yeah. This shit's too easy. Can we just go already?" One nice thing about having Ash in the class was the guy had even less of a filter than she did. He said what she wanted to, but he was the one to earn the dirty looks for his efforts while she got to continue looking like an eager little student.

"Alright, alright. Hop on your bikes, start your engines, and let's get ready to ride!" Now those were instructions that she was more than ready to comply with!

Doing as told she allowed herself to bask in the feeling of the orbal engine purring beneath her. Sure it was no Panzer Soldat, but power was power and this bike certainly held a lot of it. With growing impatience she waited for Rean to give the command to begin-

"See you slowpokes later!"

"W-Wait! Ash! Get back here!"

...Or she could only blink in disbelief as Ash shifted his bike into gear and drove away at full throttle, leaving both her and Rean in his dust.

It was only a second later that his parting words reached her brain.

Slowpoke.

He called her a slowpoke.

She who had spent years on the battlefield earning the name Sylphid.

And he called her slow?

Hell. No.

"Fie! Don't!"

She ignored her teacher's pleas as she cranked the bike to full throttle and took off after the annoying punk. If Ash thought he could get away with calling Fie Claussell slow than he had another thing coming to him! Destroying him in a race was the least she could do after that insult.

Surprisingly Ash wasn't all that far ahead of her. It seemed the jerk actually had his own form of chivalry as he had slowed down his bike long enough to see if anyone was taking his bait. The grin he shot her before accelerating to remain ahead of her only served to confirm that theory.

That was fine with her. She estimated him to have a fifty arge lead or so. Not a problem.

Fie lowered her body slightly to reduce wind resistance, which was something of a shame as it meant she couldn't enjoy the sensation of speeding down the road at full throttle as much as she wanted. Sure at full sprint she probably wasn't much slower than this, but riding a bike meant she could sit back and enjoy the moment without the need to worry about her body.

As the two sped down the road she found herself gaining on Ash, but it was far slower than she expected. For all of his flaws the guy was a natural at riding a bike. He kept his bike at full throttle, took turns dangerously, and once even managed to drift around one of the few bits of oncoming traffic they passed. That last thing was something she vowed to master – preferably once she wasn't stuck in a high stakes race.

But just as she began to fear she might not catch up to him before they reached the next town an opportunity arose. Just as the two bikes reached a sharp turn they were met with an oncoming truck that was taking up most of the road. Naturally both students applied their brakes so they could swerve around it.

That half an ear she gave to Rean's instructions? It was all the difference.

Hard on the front and light on the rear. That was how Rean said they should brake. And that was what she did.

Ash meanwhile seemed to have missed that lesson as he braked hard on both ends. Apparently doing the thing Rean said not to do caused the bike to accelerate a lot quicker than Ash had anticipated. She heard her newest classmate let out an audible curse as he hastily began to accelerate, but it was too late.

With a cheeky wave she glided both past him and the truck responsible for their slowdown. Once clear of the two vehicles she happily sped up, knowing that barring some sort of accident or horrible mistake on her end her victory was assured.

No such accident or horrible mistake occurred.

There was never any official decision on how the race was to end or anything like that, but Fie noticed a small town in the distance and decided that would make for a good finish line. And with her competition far enough away she was able to relax a little and take in the ride at a slightly more reasonable pace.

If she wasn't already sold on orbal bikes from their time in Crossbell, she definitely was now.

As the victorious biker approached the town – which she noted was called Grenville based on a nearby sign – she slowed her bike to a stop. Turning her head back she noticed a second bike on approach. Huh. Ash was closer than she realized.

No. Wait.

...That wasn't Ash at all.

In her haste to prove the punk wrong she had completely forgotten that this was supposed to be a class and that Rean was her teacher. And now said teacher was rapidly closing the distance with her. And he looked downright furious.

"Ehehe..." She laughed nervously once the teacher stopped right in front of her, "H-Hey, Instructor Rean?"

Rean rolled his eyes as he heard a pitiful groan from the seat in front of him, but that wasn't enough to deter him from the paperwork he needed to get done.

His lack of reaction didn't seem to please the only other occupant of the room as he heard a thud that could only be a head slamming onto the desk, "This sucks! Why am I here!?"

With a sigh the suffering teacher finally decided to put down the paper, "Hmm. I don't know? Could it be because you decided to disrupt class by going on a dangerous race down the highway? Pretty sure you two broke a few laws in the process, too."

"Oh come on!" Fie complained, "Ash called me slow! Slow! That would be like... Someone talking dirty about your Eight Leaves school. Wouldn't you want to prove them wrong?!"

"That's irrelevant." He totally would, but he wasn't going to tell Fie that. Given the unimpressed look she was shooting him he had a feeling she knew it too, "A-And plus, even if I did I would have gone about it in a better way. You broke the rules, so that's why you're here."

Detention. It took three months, but he finally had reason to assign it to one of his students. A bittersweet moment for any teacher.

"Alright, fine. But how come I'm here and not Ash? He was the one that started it!"

The question was entirely expected, but Rean still sighed regardless, "I didn't give Ash detention because his punishment was a lot worse." Fie clearly wasn't mollified by his answer so reluctantly he decided to elaborate, "...Principal Aurelia has been looking for a new sparring partner lately. I may have volunteered Ash for the role. Giving him detention on top of that just felt... unnecessarily cruel?"

"Oof..." Her reaction almost caused him to laugh, "Yeah, that would definitely be too much. Sucks to be him."

Even though he didn't need to he decided to toss her a bone, "Honestly, were it not for the fact the two of you messed up class with your actions I would have been pretty pleased with your performances. Both of you seem to be naturals with the bike. That might end up coming in handy during our next field exercises."

With that Rean returned to his paperwork. Ideally Fie would take this forced detention to study, as while her grades had been improving at a steady clip they were still the lowest in the class – and given what he knew of Ash and Musse was confident they would continue to remain so for some time. Or she could simply take a nap. He didn't really have a problem with that either.

"H-Hey, Rean...?"

Or she could choose to interrupt him again. He should have been annoyed by that, but there was something different about her question that caused him pause. It was the tone she used.

Why did Fie sound so uncharacteristically meek?

That question was enough for the teacher to give his student his undivided attention, prompting her to continue, "It's about what happened on Stargazer Tower..."

"A lot of things happened on top of Stargazer Tower." He responded dryly, despite understanding that she was merely drawing out her words for the sake of being careful.

His comment caused the silver-haired girl to narrow her eyes as annoyance managed to bring back a little of her usual bluntness, "I want to know about that masked weirdo."

"Oh..." Truth be told Rean hadn't given nearly as much thought to that encounter as he probably should have. As much as it bothered him, his current position meant neither he nor Towa were in much of a position to investigate that encounter at all. Alisa, Emma, and Machias were in far better positions to do that and so he was willing to leave it to them for now.

Either Fie missed his internal turmoil or chose to forge ahead regardless, "He's a friend of yours, right? I heard from the others that was the member of Class VII that died during the civil war."

Rean felt an uncharacteristic surge of irritation at her question. He didn't want to think about the possibility that that was Crow, so why was Fie bringing it up? "I don't think that's any of your business." He replied tersely, hoping the student would drop the subject.

"Not my business? Your dead friend is now very not dead, and has a Divine Knight to boot. Sounds kinda familiar to me."

The teacher's irritation died a quick death as soon as he processed her statement. "Oh..."

In all honesty Rean was kind of embarrassed with himself. In hindsight it was pretty obvious. He had been so hyper-focused on what appeared to be Crow that he hadn't bothered to make the connection that his student had.

Fie wasn't pestering him about Crow because she cared about him. She simply wanted to understand more in hopes of a clue relating to the return of her father.

"Y-Yeah, alright." He got out at last, "Crow Armbrust. Former member of Class VII. A good friend of Towa and myself. Also my enemy during the war, as he was the pilot of the Azure Knight."

"Oh..." Fie murmured thoughtfully, "I think I heard stories about the Azure Awakener during the Civil War, but they stopped just when stories about you began. Did you...?"

She didn't finish her question, but he got it all the same, "N-No! We fought, but in the end he sacrificed himself to save Prince Cedric and stop an ancient evil."

"And he was dead, right? You confirmed it yourself?"

Her words could probably have been construed as rude had the conversation been anything different, "I was there when they put his body into the ground at the funeral."

"Hmm..." Was all his student could get out.

"That being said..." He continued, "Assuming that was Crow there are two major differences that I noticed between him and the Jaeger King. One." Perhaps it was his inner teacher speaking but he felt compelled to raise a finger, "The mask. While Crow did wear a mask while he was a terrorist..." He definitely deserved the raised eyebrow for that comment, "...it's not really his style. Especially a half-mask that doesn't really do much to conceal his identity."

He raised a second finger, "And secondly, Azure Siegfried acted nothing like the Crow I know. While I can't say I've ever met Rutger Claussell I get the feeling his personality was very much like it used to be...?"

"...Yup." Fie got out at last, "Showing up out of nowhere and acting like nothing had happened even though he was dead for two years? Pretty much signature Boss right there." The look on her face made it hard to tell if she was praising his personality or annoyed about it. Given everything that had happened Rean had a feeling it was a mixture of both.

"Still, the pistols Azure Siegfried used were definitely the same as what Crow did. Plus that Divine Knight looked awfully similar to Ordine, save for the odd transparency..."

Fie let out a sigh, "So we've got two dead guys being very alive and running around with Divine Knights. Neither are working with Ouroboros, but neither are on our side either." She blinked before shaking her head, "...This is too weird."

Rean couldn't help but let out a laugh, "Can't argue with that. Seems like we're caught in the middle of something crazy, doesn't it?"

Huh. Despite how serious all the machinations going on behind the scenes were likely to be, treating it like a simple mystery to laugh about made the swordsman feel a little better about the whole situation. If nothing else this conversation was a good way to lighten up recent events, even if it was also ensuring he would be thinking about it late into the evening.

"I didn't think being a student would be more hazardous than being a jaeger, but here we are." Fie groused with a tiny smile on her face, causing Rean to sweatdrop a little. As much as he hated to admit it, she wasn't entirely off the mark.

Was it his fault that the new Class VII kept ending up in terrible situations? That was a sobering thought...

"Back to the original topic..." Whether his student noticed his internal conflict or not he was unsure, but the distraction was appreciated, "Tell me more about Crow."

That question caused him to blink in confusion, "You want to know more? Why?"

"'Cause the first time I asked you snapped at me." She answered succinctly.

"...I did?"

"Yup. You did. And I've known you long enough to know that you don't normally snap at anyone. Like... Shirley could walk through that door right now and you'd try to start up a friendly conversation with her. So for you to snap at me of all people..."

Was that really how she saw him? And why did she use such a weird analogy?

Still, the more he thought about it... "I-I suppose you have a point."

"Yeah. I'm right and we both know it." Fie deadpanned, "Bottling things up like that can't be healthy. You should probably talk about it, even if it's with someone else."

"I thought I was supposed to be the teacher?" He joked even as he considered her surprisingly thoughtful words.

"Where do you think I learned that from?" She retorted with an annoyed look on her face, "This one pain in the ass guy I know kept pestering me about things when I didn't want to talk. Drove me insane, but as much as I hate to admit it he was pretty much right on the mira. It definitely helped."

Rean let out an awkward laugh, "Alright, alright. You've made your point. How about this – I'll tell you some fun stories about Crow Armbrust, but in return I want to hear some stories about Rutger Claussell."

"Huh?" This time it was Fie who was surprised by the turn in the conversation, but that surprise didn't last long. "Kay. You've got yourself a deal. You go first, though."

"Fair enough." Rean thought back to his earliest encounter with the joker turned terrorist turned rival, "Crow wasn't originally in Class VII, you see. He was in the year above us. The first time I met him was when I was doing some work after class and he decided to prank me with a stupid trick involving a bag and a fifty mira coin he stole from me-"

As a teacher he should have been upset that Fie had managed to derail this detention so thoroughly. Neither she nor he accomplished anything of importance during the remainder of the period that should have been reserved for just that.

And yet as a human being he was grateful. Talking about his deceased – formerly deceased? - friend to the girl was surprisingly invigorating, as she proved to be an apt listener, even laughing at some of the things the older boy had done. He couldn't help but think the two of them would have gotten along swimmingly.

And in return he learned more about the man behind the moniker Jaeger King. Both the moments that made him infamous among the criminal world and some lighter moments that only someone close to the man could have experienced. Despite being a deadly jaeger and quite possibly a future adversary Rean couldn't help but gain a respect for the man who took care of the people under his command.

All in all he considered it an afternoon very well spent.