A Cold Soldier

The whole class stared in shock at what had just happened. I too was shocked, like a deer caught in headlights.

Any sleepiness I was feeling was gone, replaced by bewilderment and confusion as I stared into the cold eyes of Laura Bodewig. 'Why had she slapped me?'

"Bodewig! Sit down," a voice called out.

The class turned to see Chifuyu-nee standing in front of the classroom door. Bodewig stared at Chifuyu-nee for a bit before giving a small bow.

"As you wish instructor,"

'Instructor?' I thought. The pieces in my tired brain clicked and I realized that she must have had some relation to Chifuyu-nee.

I also recalled the fact that Chifuyu-nee went to Germany for a while as in her words she had to "repay a favor to the German military".

Considering Bodewig's attitude and accent, Chifuyu-nee repayment probably involved her.

Bodewig then walked towards the back of the class where she sat down at an empty desk.

"Orimura, sight back down. Yamada-sensei, start homeroom," Chifuyu-nee ordered.

"Ri-right," stuttered Yamada-sensei as started the homeroom.

Still in shock, I slowly got up and sat back down at my desk. Half of the class was staring at me while the other half was staring at Bodewig, giving Yamada-sensei no attention.

I couldn't pay attention to Yamada-sensei either as the stinging sensation on my cheek kept pulling my mind back to what had happened. She said she didn't approve of me being her brother, I assume referring to Chifuyu-nee, but why?

We had never met before so what could have made her believe that? My mind was really bothered by the question and without even realizing I spent the whole lesson pondering on it.

Lunch had finally arrived and I was still no closer to figuring out why Bodewig had slapped me. I was waiting at the back of the line when Rin walked into the line.

"Hey Ichika! I heard the new transfer student slapped you!" she exclaimed with a hint of disbelief.

"Yeah," I responded, my mind being pulled back towards the incident.

"Really! Why? Do you know her?" Rin asked.

"I don't know. I never met her before," I said, confused about her reasoning.

"That's crazy,"

"Yeah it was very rude!"

I looked behind to see Cecilia and Houki who had also joined the line.

"Yeah! Who does she think she is!" Houki remarked with a scowl.

Speaking of Bodewig, I noticed her sitting alone at the cafeteria, quickly eating her lunch. The girls at the table next to her were peeping at her while whispering. Suddenly, Bodewig sent them a cold stare and the girls quickly looked away and focused on their food.

Bodewig then turned towards me. We locked eyes for a moment, her staring at me with a cold frown while I stared back, unnerved at her aggression.

"So Ichika,"

My attention was pulled back by Charles's voice.

"Who do you plan on pairing up in the upcoming interclass tournament?"

"Interclass tournament?" I asked, confused.

"Oh yeah, Yamada-sensei mentioned it during class," Houki commented.

"Sorry, I zoned out a bit during the class," I said, which the others seemed to understand.

"There will be a tournament held between all first year students," Charles explained.

"Scouts will also be spectating to recruit potential National Representative Candidates. It also will be a duo tournament so each person either needs to register with a partner or will be randomly assigned one,"

I thought for a moment. Who would be best to partner up?

"Would you mind partnering up, Charles?" I asked, surprising him a little.

"Uh, sure that would be great," he said.

"You're going to partner up with someone who you just met a day ago?" asked Houki, looking a little disappointed.

"Yeah, I mean, he is the only other guy in the school," I said, which Houki seemed to accept as an answer. Although I noticed that Charles's smile was gone and he seemed to be lost in thought.

"Are you ok Charles?" I asked, startling him.

"Huh, yeah, yeah I'm ok," he replied a little embarrassed.

After that, the rest of the day went as usual. I still had a little trouble with focusing in class but my mind did seem to clear more after lunch. Soon enough, classes had finished. I was about to leave when Charles stopped me.

"Hey. Since we are partnering up for the interclass tournament, would you like to do some training," he asked.

I thought for a moment. That would mean having to cancel my training with Houki for the day but if we were going to be partners me and Charles needed to train together.

"Ok then, it should help improve our chemistry," I replied, warranting a smile from Charles.

"Ok see you later then," he replied.

I had to tell Houki that I would be training with Charles instead of her until the upcoming interclass tournament. She was a little annoyed with the situation but relented upon promising to train with her after the tournament.

After that conversation, I found myself in the battle arena in my Byakushki. I was just warming up by flying through the arena when I noticed an orange unit flying into the air.

I stopped my flight to get a better look at it.

The IS was coloured orange and almost black blue with traces of white on the calves. It had 4 wings, two one each side and each wing was orange with traces of dark blue. In the center of the IS stood Charles, in his orange coloured IS uniform.

"So is this your personal IS unit?" I asked.

"Yes," responded Charles. "It is the Raphael Revive Custom II! A modified version of the Raphael Revive,"

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "What can it do?"

"Well it is a second generation unit," explained Charles. "While it specs may not be on par with more modern unit it has many weapon slots,"

As Charles spoke, two figures of light, one in each hand materialized before turning into guns.

In his left hand a thick dark green shotgun, about 1.5m in length materialized. The weapon looked as if it could bash someone's skull. In his right hand, a long, dark blue rifle formed. It looked similar to the rifle Yamada-sensei used yesterday but even longer as its barrel looked to be almost 2m in length.

"Wow! How many weapon slots do you have access to?" I asked in wonder.

"It depends on the complexity of the individual weapons," responded Charles. "But generally, I can fit around 6 different weapons,"

"6!" I said in disbelief. "Man, that's convenient. My Byakushki can only fit 1," I said in disappointment warranting a chuckle from Charles.

"Would you like a battle?" asked Charles.

"You're on! I'm curious to see what your weapons can do," I responded.

"Very well then," and with that we flew apart and prepared for a battle.

I materialized Yukihara-2 in my right hand and charged towards Charles. Charles responded by flying away while shooting at me with his rifle. I swerved around, dodging every bullet while continuing my charge.

Upon getting close, I tried flying around him, looking for an opening while Charles continued shooting. Eventually, I got behind him and prepared to activate Reiraku Byakuya but before I could Charles suddenly turned around and pointed his shotgun at me.

I put my arms in front just in time to block the giant shotgun shell that was fired at me but a chunk of shield energy still dropped from my system.

My trouble didn't end there as Charles' rifle turned into light which then morphed into a submachine gun which he pointed right at me.

I immediately turned to fly away but caught a spray of bullets which chipped away at my shield energy.

I flew around Charles in order to avoid his shots. He took the free time to dematerialize his machine gun into a rifle and then continue shooting towards me.

I once again dodged every bullet and continued flying around him, hoping to find an opening to attack him, however, it was very difficult. If I got too close he would just shoot me with his shotgun so I had to try and find a way to position myself for a Reiraku Blitz.

That was difficult however, as his constant shooting meant I had to focus on planning as well as dodging and I really had to focus on dodging as Charles was a very competent shooter and his bullets were starting to connect, further decreasing my crucial shield energy.

Eventually, my opportunity seemed to come as Charles had to reload his rifle. I immediately activated my Ignition Booster and swerved around Charles, positioning myself behind him. I then U-turned quickly as I activated Reiraku Byakuya and in an instance, I was behind Charles, charging for a Reiraku Blitz.

As I was charging, Charles was turning around but he was too slow, there was no way he could turn around in time to shoot me before my strike. Right as I was closing in I noticed a flash of light between me and Charles and before I could react an orange shield materialized in front of me.

I was going too fast to stop and I crashed right into it. As I crashed, Yukihara-2 connected with the shield and easily sliced through it but all that did was create a clear shot for Charles who with a cold smile aimed his shotgun and fired a single shot.

The shotgun shell blasted my unit back which was already low on shield energy due to my use of Reiraku Byakuya and Charles' previous shots. Byakushki fell onto the ground with a crash and right then I knew the battle was over.

I dematerialised Byakushki as I painfully got up from the ground. Charles flew down and landed right in front of me before his IS turned into light and then nothing.

"It looks like I win!" Charles said cheerfully.

"Yeah, sure does," I said with a groan. "You sure are a mean pilot,"

Charles chuckled at my comment.

"Thanks," he replied.

"You fight like you've been fighting for years! How are you already so good?" I asked.

"Well-"

SWOSH

Before Charles could finish his sentence our conversation was interrupted by the sound of an IS flying above us.

We looked up to see a black IS that was descending down until it stopped right in front of us.

The IS had slim build save for its legs which had rather thick plating. It had one pair of wings, each containing two connected airfoils.

The IS was almost completely black with only red lines that looked like veins, small tints of gold on the wings and dark green plating on its legs that differed.

Surrounding the IS were two cylinder canon looking devices that reminded me of Rin's shockwave canons. They were mainly black with red rings around their opening which contained these strange golden shapes that resembled crystals.

The IS wrapped itself around a short girl with silver hair and an eye patch, Laura Bodewig who was staring at me.

I frowned as I stared back.

"Can I help you?" I asked, not breaking my stare.

"I was hoping to crush you in an IS battle," she spat.

"I'm sorry, it's going to have to wait," I replied. "I just finished one,"

"Yes, I saw how you failure of a battle," she replied. Great, another cocky girl that looks down upon me. Can't this academy be more original!

"Someone as weak as you does not deserve to be her brother," she said, anger shaking in her voice.

"Well whether you like it or not I am her brother," I retorted. "So you'll just have to accept it!"

"I will never accept a parasite like you who cost the instructor her second win at the Mondo Grosso!" my eyes widened at her last statement and I was shocked, like a deer caught in headlights.

Suddenly, a long black gun forged out of light in her right hand which she pointed at me. My shock did not let me react as a cloud of high velocity projectiles shot towards me.

Before they could reach me, their path was interrupted by Charles jumping in front of me. In a split second, his arm glowed and was replaced by a scaled down version of his IS' arm which easily blocked the projectiles.

This finally snapped me out of my shock as I stared at Charles then back at Laura.

"What were you thinking firing at someone who was out of their IS!" Charles exclaimed angrily at Laura who stared at her with no emotions.

"I was not shooting to kill," she remarked. "Not yet,"

She then launched off the ground and flew away from us, into the air.

"Are you ok?" asked Charles.

"Yeah," I replied. "Thanks for saving me,"

"No problem," Charles said smiling but this time his smile seemed to be more out of compassion rather than cheerfulness.

"What did she mean by "costing the instructor her second win at the Mondo Grosso"?" Charles asked curiously. "I assume she was referring to Orimura-Sensei,"

"I don't know," I replied quickly but Charles didn't seem convinced.

"How did you do that thing where your arm turned into an IS," I asked, hoping to move away from that subject.

"Oh, that? That's called partial deployment," Charles explained. "By concentrating you can partially deploy parts of your IS,"

"Wow really!" I exclaimed in wonder. "How can I do that?"

"Well first you need to think of what part you want to deploy. Then imagine that part deployed in whichever way you want," Charles explained as we walked out of the arena but I was only half listening.

Once we reached our room it was already dark. Charles was taking a shower while I sat on my bed, staring at the ceiling while reflecting on the events of the day, more specifically, Bodewig's comment.

However, I wasn't angry at her but at myself because I knew all too well what she meant by that. It was something I tried hard to forget but every time it's brought up I feel my will start to fade. Maybe she was right, maybe I am a disgrace to Chifuyu-nee.

I shook my head in defiance at the thought. I should stop thinking about that. I looked for anything in the room to distract myself from that thought when I spotted a bottle of shampoo on a desk.

We had run out of shampoo so I had bought a new bottle earlier this morning but I was in a bit of a rush and forgot to put it in the bathroom and it looks like Charles also forgot which was inconvenient as he was showering.

I walked towards the desk and grabbed the bottle deciding that I would just quickly give him it. I walked towards the bathroom door and opened it quickly and walked into the bathroom.

"Sorry Charles, I forgot to put the shampoo in the bathroom earlier so I-" I began talking without even paying attention when I was interrupted by a high pitched squeal.

I looked up and my eyes filled with shock. Standing in the bathroom was Charles naked but the shocking part was that his arms were wrapped around two large lumps on his chest. They were breasts.

We both stared at each other for a minute, shock stunning us. The bathroom was silent save for the running water. Eventually I decided to break the silence.

"I'll... just leave it here," I said quickly as I left the shampoo bottle on the sink and quickly exited the room, closing the door behind me.

Author's Note: Greetings yall, hope you enjoyed this chapter. In this chapter we got a proper introduction to Laura Bodewig as well as a battle between 'Charles' and Ichika. I didn't really change anything about Laura's character as I think it started off well and had a lot of potential for expanding. Also I think her initial relation to Ichika is good for his own character arc.

In terms of the battle between Ichika and 'Charles', I know it was pretty short but it wasn't meant to be too long. It was more demonstrate 'Charles's' skill and Ichika's main shortcomings. May not have been as thrilling as some of the other battles but I hope you still enjoyed it.

Of course, how can I forget about the reveal at the end of 'Charles's' true identity. This is probably going to be the only ecchi scene in the story as it actually served a purpose other than just fan service. I will still keep Charlotte's backstory the same as I think it's decent and I also think I can use it for the story's narrative.

Anyways, thank you for reading this chapter and I hope you will continue reading.