Kamurochō, Tokyo Settlement, Area Eleven, April, a.t.b. 2013
Kōzuki Kallen didn't think she'd ever truly get used to the wonder that was Kamurochō at night.
It was magical, in a way—how the entire district would come alive with light and sound and sheer revelry after sunset. It was truly nocturnal, and walking down even the meanest of its streets was akin to an odyssey of the senses, an orgy of stimulation for both mind and soul. There was a fresh wonder, it seemed, around every corner, past every crosswalk, under every venue of business and carousing—wheresoever she thought to look, she was sure to find something so intoxicatingly alive that it almost made her sick.
The Cabaret Grand was one such place. Its ostentation was new to her, its lavish splendour stirring more than a few uncomfortable memories she'd much rather have left behind, but beneath it lay one of the few places where she felt truly at home.
The club rested neatly at the centre of an underground fighting ring that had a breadth of locations that spanned the entirety of the Tokyo Settlement, each area of the massive metropolis covering the entirety of what was once the Greater Tokyo Area organised in ascending levels of prestige. From the inauspicious hole-in-the-wall fighting rings in Yokohama to the middle-ranked circuit in Shinjuku, she'd worked her ass off to climb her way up the ladder; and now that she stood at the door leading out of the locker room, with Kiryū-sensei's brusque yet well-meaning encouragements ringing in her ears even still, she knew without a doubt that she'd earned every step she'd taken up through Tokyo proper, that she'd earned the right to stand among the cream of the crop here amidst Kamurochō's high-stakes martial pageantry.
She checked herself yet again in one of the mirrors that littered the locker room's walls, and saw her own sapphire-blue eyes reflected back at her, her fair complexion framed by her lush crimson hair. Her feet were bare against the cool cement of the floor, her athletic form clad in skin-tight spandex shorts that went nearly to her knee and a custom sports bra that did an admirable job of holding her bust in place. She struck her fighting stance in the mirror to double-check her own form, leaned into some last-minute stretches to burn off some lingering jitters, jumped in place a bit to loosen up her core and her shoulders, and cracked her knuckles one last time before a deliberate rapping on the door told her that she was on.
Time to make you proud, Kiryū-sensei, she thought to herself to firm up her resolve, draping the silk haori he'd had made for her over her shoulders before pushing on the door and entering the hallway that would take her to the ring proper. Every step brought with it an increase to the clamour, the surefire sounds of an audience who'd come to watch the best of the best duke it out in an unsanctioned bare-knuckle brawl, and she did her best to soak it in, to let their anticipation invigorate her.
"And from the streets of Shinjuku comes a new challenger!" came the announcer's cry. "She cut her teeth in Yokohama, stunned the sons of Saitama, conquered her hometown and earned the title 'Ganryū' in the Greatest Under the Sun Invitational Tournament, and now has come to Kamurochō to prove her mettle! Give it up for the Princess of the Crimson Lotus!"
The audience rose in a raucous cheering wave, and the celebration of her brought a distinct warmth to her chest, settling there alongside her sense of accomplishment, that she had come so far and through so many trials.
"But how will she fare against our own matriarch, Kamurochō's own Lady of the Night, Higanbana?! Will this newcomer topple the undefeated, the unconquered, the Young Mistress of Cabaret Grand?! Or will her journey end here?! One way or another, it's time to find out!" the announcer continued, and she took the reminder of her opponent in stride. No one had been able to tell her much of anything about the current reigning champion of the Kamurochō Circuit, but she'd put in three or four times more work training for this fight than she'd committed to any fight before, so that she could well and truly be ready for anything that might be thrown her way. She had to trust that that would be enough. "The betting booth is now closed for the round—the last call has come and gone. May fortune be with you!"
At last, she reached the end of the hallway, throwing the curtains aside to behold the packed crowd that had come to witness this match. It wasn't the sort of turnout that a jousting match might garner in the Britannian Homeland, or any sort of legal sporting event, but as far as events like these went, the audience was far larger than what she was used to. She didn't let that get to her, though, picturing a rock in the pit of her stomach, at her centre of gravity, and letting the cacophony flow over it like water down a riverbed. She was the rock, after all, for it rested at the core of her, and if she held to it, never forgetting where it was, she could withstand even the harshest of assaults without flinching.
With deliberate strides brimming with purpose, she walked down the cleared aisle between the two halves of the crowd, and with a nimble motion leapt down into the pit of packed yet springy soil where her opponent and she would fight for her right to be here. Speaking of which…
At the other end of the pit, then, hopping down into the soil just as deftly, was the one Kallen could only assume to be her opponent. It was, as she'd expected from the title, a girl like her, yet taller, with more pronounced curves, and a leaner muscle profile, suggesting that she'd been trained to prioritise speed and agility over strength and power (though she also clearly had plenty of the latter two). Kallen, who'd learned the style her sensei called 'Jōryū,' which prioritised explosive power rooted in a strong, stable stance, like a rock, found herself intrigued at the prospect of trading blows with someone who moved like Higanbana did, like the potential for any move at all was in every step, making her immediately very difficult to read. The sight of it sparked some half-remembered memory of one of her sensei's rare anecdotes, but even as she watched the vaguely familiar style of movement in motion as Higanbana shrugged off her haori, she couldn't quite remember what it was. She shed her own haori all the same and settled immediately into a ready stance, equally prepared for attack and defence, in anticipation of the start command.
"IKE!"
No sooner had the word left the announcer's mouth, the gong ringing in the background, than did Higanbana surge forward, lunging forth from out of a dead stop.
Instinct and reflex took over. She caught the punch on her elbow, and threw a fist in riposte, turning the blow aside at the same time.
The hit missed its mark by a hair's breadth; Higanbana rolled with the redirection, out of the way of Kallen's counter. Too late, she noticed the champion's leg coming up in an arc, the blonde's body moving from hit to parry to roll to flip, and the heel crashed through Kallen's guard, sending her staggering as her vision swam and she felt blood from her nose.
She retaliated, grabbed the leg even as she staggered, and planted her foot firmly to swing the other girl around to build up momentum before making to throw her by that leg across the pit. But in a stunning show of agility, the girl caught the ground and turned the throw into a handspring, alighting upon her feet once more, nimble as could be.
The blow to her head had thrown Kallen's train of thought off, to say nothing of the vertigo that rose up as a result, but it'd also knocked a memory free. That style. That agility, with those leg movements and that unpredictable reactivity… But where did she learn Kyōken, of all things?!
She couldn't let her opponent dictate the tempo of this fight, she knew, so she shook her head clear of the murk and any extraneous thoughts, blocking off the rolling tide of the crowd all around them so as to narrow her perception of the world to just her opponent and herself. Packing her body into itself around the fulcrum of the rock in her core, she rushed at Higanbana, the girl's diamond-blue eyes dancing and flickering with playful mockery as Kallen threw punch after punch, one from the side, one from the top, checking the girl with her body to throw it back into a suplex. At the arc of her motion, too late to back out of the move, she felt arms snake around her waist to grab her; and while Higanbana contorted her form to land on her feet, she lifted Kallen the same way Kallen had just tried to lift her, reversing the suplex and throwing her back to the ground to land on her shoulders, hard.
That's going to hurt like a bitch in the morning… she grumbled internally, knowing as she did that it was incredibly poor form for either fighter to speak in the ring. Wrenching herself up off of the ground, she dusted herself off, and changed tactics, adopting a primarily defensive stance and stepping warily around the ring. Higanbana, with her slim lips curled in a cocksure smirk, seemed only too happy to follow suit, and they began to prowl around each other, taking the opportunity to break down what they'd learned about the other fighter. She's agile, and she's slippery. I can't get a read on her, which has landed me squarely in the middle of some pretty simple traps on her end. She's obviously very skilled, and that confidence… I'd bet she's faced off against her fair share of superior opponents and taken them all apart to get this far. And in the meanwhile, Kiryū-sensei won't even spar with me because of some old code of his from the nineties… This isn't going to be easy. It might not even be winnable.
But I'll be damned if I go down without a fight…
Her decision made, Kallen squared up her stance, closing the distance between them with measured strides instead of the headlong charge that had worked out so disastrously for her mere moments ago. She snapped out a quick flurry of punches, and Higanbana dodged, leaned, and wove around each, but the last one caught her square on the recovery, forcing her to bring both arms up to block it. The hit wasn't enough to break her stance, but she slid backwards all the same, her bare heels digging furrows in the soil; Kallen didn't drop her guard for an instant, however, and when in the next moment, Higanbana smoothly adjusted, pivoting upon one ankle to chamber a kick that she launched directly at Kallen's head, she was able to react quickly enough to grab the leg a second time.
Not that it really helped her.
She watched, her hands occupied and her body impotent, as Higanbana, in a display of startling body control, used Kallen's grasp on her ankle as an anchor; her captured leg plunged, her other leg wheeling up into a diagram-perfect jump kick.
The other heel crashed into Kallen's undefended face with calamitous force.
Everything went dark.
The next thought to pass through Kallen's mind, as she groggily and blearily came to, barely even counted as such; it was merely her brain noticing the sharp, biting scent of antiseptic. Next came the flimsy, barely comfortable mattress underneath her back, and the scratchy feeling of something like a smock that was draped around her reclined body. There was a soft shuffling in the background, and a squeaky beeping that some part of her recognised from her semi-common hospital visits as a heart monitor, both of which filled her ears; and finally, she opened her eyes, which took some degree of effort, to behold a ceiling she'd never seen before, white and smooth and featureless save for a few strips of lamp-light that were recessed into the edifice.
"And so Sleeping Beauty returns at last to the waking world…"
Before she realised what she was doing, Kallen bolted upright, only to feel a hot poker being driven into her brain in return. She closed her eyes against the suddenly much too bright lights, grimacing with a pained hiss, and buried her head in her hands to try and wait through the jarring agony.
"You'll want to take it a little easier than that, I'm afraid," the voice, that of a girl a few years older than her by her estimation, remarked glibly. It was chiding and teasing, and though the voice was low in its register—an alto, if Kallen's musical training held true—its tone was smooth and subtly sultry. "I was only able to pull that blow so much, after all, without risking breaking something myself; which means, of course, that you took a nasty hit to the head. The good news is that you aren't concussed—as far as we can tell, at least—but it's still going to hurt quite a bit for a good while yet."
"I take it you're…Higanbana, then?" Kallen managed to push out from between gritted teeth.
"That is my stage name, yes," the other girl replied, an edge of laughter in her words. "But it's not the one you're going to be using, at least not for a while yet."
"What do you mean? You beat me. I washed out," Kallen pointed out, blinking spots away from her field of view as she raised her head from her hands, taking the light in stages. "I failed to break into the Kamurochō scene, which means I'm probably going to get kicked right back down to the Saitama circuit… I don't think that's the sort of place the Lady of the Night likes to hang out."
"You're correct, it isn't. But you're wrong on a few other things—your washing-out, for example," said Higanbana, her voice calm and cool and even. "In the ordinary course, you'd have gotten well into the Kamurochō rankings before people even began to talk about seeing you square off against me. At some point, surely it must have struck you just how irregular it is that an up-and-comer gets a match against the reigning champion out of the blue."
"I did think it was weird, but I assumed that it was just sheer dumb luck," Kallen confessed, feeling at once acutely embarrassed for not having suspected further. "You're saying you had a hand in it?"
"Correct," said Higanbana, and now that Kallen was looking around, she could see her as a sort of indistinct silhouette, blonde hair and fair skin in a chair on the other side of what looked to be a room in a clinic of some sort. "I pulled some strings to move you up a bit in my schedule, as it happens. You might be able to imagine how fortunate I felt upon seeing a picture of you for the first time."
"…Okay, I'm just going to pretend for a moment that that wasn't among the top ten creepiest things I've ever heard, and just ask you directly," Kallen said, rubbing her eyes to get some clarity back into her vision. It was working, thankfully; detail came into view more acutely, bit by bit.
"That's an easy enough question to answer. I've been looking for you, Kōzuki Kallen—or rather, Kallen Stadtfeld," said Higanbana, and as sheer uncomprehending panic flooded her body, Kallen could at last make out the features of the girl who'd so humbled her—and with rising horror, she recognised her: the sizeable bust, the recognisably high-quality yet decently professional attire, the slim, curling lips and bright blue eyes, the lustrous golden hair and challenging brow… Somehow, she'd found herself face-to-face with none other than the sub-viceroy herself, Duchess Carmilla, granddaughter of the viceroy and scion of the House of Ashford. "You're a rather difficult woman to find. I was impressed at first, but at this point, I just want to put this whole sordid saga behind me."
"Wh… Why have you been looking for me?" Kallen asked, her fists knotting into the sheets of the medical bed in a white-knuckled grip.
That firm, challenging brow, slender yet strong, arched in a manner that made Kallen feel as though she was being very silly indeed. "My dear Viscountess Stadtfeld, your older brother, Naoto, is my secretary. He asked me to find you. Apparently he, your mother, and your father have been very worried about you, and want you brought home."
Her father? Her brother, she could believe. Her mother, even. But her father? "Huh, didn't know he cared so much. Got a hell of a way of showing it, only trying to track me down after I've gone…"
"I know you aren't aware of the finer points of Britannian peerage, Miss Stadtfeld, so I'll do you a favour and explain this to you once," Duchess Carmilla sighed. "Honestly. I understand that Stephen, your father, wished for you and your brother both to be shielded from the cruel reality of being of high birth, but he's effectively left the both of you practically defenceless!"
"What are you talking about…?"
"Did you know that your brother isn't the heir, Miss Stadfeld?" the sub-viceroy said instead. "He's the spare. It's why he was given a name in Japanese, while yours is passably Britannian. It was, in fact, the only way that either of you could enter into the line of succession for Stephen's title, so that you could be married off at the earliest possible convenience, that your 'impure blood' would not stain your family seat. The official line of Britannian supremacy and blood purism isn't so much a position as it is a spectrum, you see, and your family just so happens to be on the harsher, more conservative end of it. Lucky you."
"And why was it so important that we be in line, then?" Kallen challenged bitterly. "I don't need a cushy noble title. We would have been just fine as a family."
"It isn't that simple, I'm afraid," Duchess Carmilla refuted, leaning back in the chair she was sitting upon as she spoke. "The fact that your father annulled the marriage he had with your mother and remarried your, frankly, odious stepmother, is the only reason why any of you are still alive. If he'd faced his family's displeasure and stayed strong, he'd be disinherited, of course; but that disinheritance would nonetheless be an albatross around the House of Stadtfeld's neck in court, and they'd be reduced to obscurity. The only way that they could cleanse that stain, then, would have been to wipe you all away in a tragic 'accident'; and though it would be an open secret, what happened, no one would even pretend to care. What is the open slaughter of a few defiant Numbers and commoners to the nobility, after all, if not the butt of a joke?"
"You mean…they would have killed him, their own flesh and blood, so as not to look weak?"
"To put it bluntly, yes," the Ashford heiress shrugged. "Wouldn't have lost a moment's sleep over it, either. If a prize bitch gets herself pregnant with mongrels off a stray, it doesn't matter how fond you may be of the bitch. You drown the puppies. That's more or less the attitude at play.
"In summary, your father made the best of an impossible situation," she finished. "Count Stephen's distance is what keeps your heart beating, or in your chest at all, for that matter. He cares for you a great deal, as it happens; just about wore furrows into my carpet with his detestable fretting once Naoto told him I'd agreed to do him a favour and track you down. I'm owed for this, by the way. I don't know how I'll be collecting on that debt yet, but I'll think of something, I'm sure."
That was…a lot, Kallen thought distantly. She wasn't certain how she was meant to feel about all of this, except… "That bit about drowning puppies is awful, too. Your grace."
"Consider it a part of the point I was trying to make, then. Because among the peers of the realm, if one desires to breed hounds and doesn't take that kind of action, they're seen as irresponsible for it. An irresponsible breeder is a disreputable breeder, you see, and as reputation in such circles is everything, it would not be a burden any of them would be willing to bear," said the other girl, gesturing airily as she did so. She stood from her chair, then, and drew closer to Kallen's bed, stopping at the foot of it and pinning its occupant to the sheets with her eyes to the point where Kallen felt a sudden rush of empathy for butterflies on display. "And you can call me 'Carmilla,' if you like. I'd imagine all this title business can be a bit dizzying if you're not used to it. Not to mention, we are to be schoolmates upon your return. The formality will just get cumbersome after a while."
"Wait, schoolmates?" Kallen stressed, feeling a little overwhelmed by all this sudden upheaval.
"Well, of course," said the duchess—Carmilla. "You running away from home doesn't mean your mother and brother are going to let you forsake your education. Your father was willing to let you choose, loath as he is to infringe upon you overmuch, but your mother insisted. So, here we are."
"But…but I have training to do! Kiryū-sensei said…"
"Kiryū Kazuma is going to be a bit busy for the foreseeable future, I'm afraid," Carmilla interjected smoothly. "Majima has need of him. And, you know, them being old friends and all, they'll want to catch up, of course. Either way, he'll certainly have his hands full making himself useful. We can arrange for you to continue training—and indeed, I'm very much planning to do exactly that—but the days of him being able to look after you are, for all intents and purposes, over."
"Wait… Majima?" asked Kallen, certain that she'd misheard. "Majima Gorō? How in the world do you, the sub-viceroy, know the Mad Dog of Shimano?"
"Who do you think taught me to fight the way I do?" the duchess shrugged, as if it was in some way obvious that she'd come into contact with one of the most infamous members of the old Tōjō Clan. "I know someone who's something of an old friend of his, as it happens. But you'll likely learn all about that in due time—if you decide to cooperate and go home to see your family, that is."
"…Why did you even decide to help Naoto in the first place?" Kallen challenged, moving her ass to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, preparing to stand up. "And…and how the hell did I manage not to recognise you when we were in the pit? You've probably got the most recognizable face in the whole entire Tokyo Settlement!"
"Oh, you finally thought to ask that, did you?" she chortled, bemused, as she left the foot of the bed and began to walk towards the door, which opened as she approached as someone on the other side seemed to have heard the duchess's footfalls upon the linoleum tile floor—revealing, in the process, a corridor that would have looked decidedly out of place in a hospital, or even a clinic, beyond the threshold. "Well, since you asked the question in two parts, I suppose it wouldn't be entirely out of the question for me to pick and choose the order in which I respond, yes? To your second point, you'd be surprised what a minimal amount of make-up and a dash of performance art can do to disguise your appearance. Not to mention, being a very public persona around here, as you said, brings with it its own camouflage: namely, that no one would ever expect to find me here, in a place like this. I mean, honestly—speaking aloud that Higanbana, champion of Kamurochō's underground illegal fighting ring, is none other than Carmilla, Duchess of Ashfordshire, the sub-viceroy of Area Eleven? It all sounds like just another wild conspiracy theory when you lay it out like that, doesn't it?"
Kallen had to concede that she had a point. "You've got me there…"
"As for the first point you raised, well, I'll spare you the finer details for now. You're more or less ignorant to the manner in which highborn Britannian society functions, the norms it adheres to, the code of permissible behaviour, and so on—and be sure to treasure that ignorance, for having never possessed it, I can't really manage not to envy your innocence," Carmilla continued, drawing up short as she stood at the threshold and continued speaking to Kallen over her shoulder. "Suffice it to say that you have been blessed with two loving parents who are trying their hardest, for you and your brother both. You will discover that not everyone is so fortunate, particularly amongst our social strata. I simply wasn't willing to stand by and do nothing as you so gleefully pissed all of that away.
"Good day, Viscountess Stadtfeld," said the blonde in an abrupt tonal turn-around so swift that the younger aristocrat couldn't help but feel acutely whiplashed. "Rest assured, you and I will be seeing each other again very soon indeed."
With that, Carmilla Ashford stepped beyond the doorway, which closed behind her, leaving Kallen alone in what she'd now settled upon as a sporting infirmary of sorts. She took a deep breath, and with her cheeks puffed, blew a lock of crimson hair out of her face. "Guess I'm going home again. At least it'll be nice to see Naoto-nii again…though Kaa-san's going to give me the lecture of a lifetime… Oh well. It's not like it's gonna get any less ear-ringing if I drag my feet. Up we get!"
There was something decidedly nostalgic about walking to school during sakura season, the spring morning breeze blowing vibrant pink flower-petals around in thick blankets like snowfall. It brought with it recollections of a simpler, gentler time in Kallen's life, before the invasion and before the Tokyo Settlement was even a possibility, when she, her mother, her brother, and her father all lived in the same house happily. A time when her most pressing concerns revolved around getting Naoto and his friend Ōgi to let her hang out with them, and war was just a word she saw in history books.
The thought struck her that she was now closer to the age her brother was back then than she was to the small, loud child she'd once been. She wasn't certain how she was meant to feel about that.
Then again, she wasn't certain how she was supposed to feel about a lot of things, these days.
Ashford Academy's uniform consisted of a white button-down shirt with a tie, a dark bronze blazer with the school's seal embroidered on the breast, a colour-coded tartan skirt (black and gold in this case), thigh-high black stockings, and brown leather penny loafers; so all told, it wasn't really all that much different from what she would have been expected to wear if she'd gone to a Japanese high school, if the war hadn't happened. But that very sense of familiarity only made the dissonance Kallen felt upon setting foot on campus seem all the more profound for it, the squat grey edifice that would have characterised one such institution replaced instead with a sprawl of elegant buildings and facilities, the architecture sporting a distinctly 'aristocratic Britannian' sort of design sensibility in every aspect of the school's construction. Not even the cherry blossom trees planted all along the green could alleviate or soften how quintessentially Britannian the school seemed—for crying out loud, it even featured a clock tower! If not for how abruptly real it all was, she might have assumed she had stepped out of the real world and into Revolutionary Girl Utena.
She stopped for a moment on the green, facing the main school building and holding her bag closer to herself; taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly. This wasn't a choice she was being given, after all. Her mother had mandated that she attend school here, and Naoto had made it abundantly clear that he wouldn't cover for her if she decided to play truant. He'd even hinted that he'd snitch on her to Kaa-san, the bastard. So, all that taken into consideration, she did her best to suck it up, and then she walked straight into the registrar's office, like she deserved to be here.
She came up to the door and reached for the handle, firming up her resolve as she did so; yet, no sooner had her fingers made contact with the brass fixture than did the door swing open to reveal a girl she hadn't seen before even once in her life, but who grinned at her nonetheless, as though Kallen was some manner of long-lost childhood friend. The girl was taller than her, if only slightly, with strawberry blonde hair that hung long and unbound down to her waist, framing bright green eyes that seemed almost to glitter at her as though Kallen was the most interesting thing she'd seen all day. She was slender and lean like a swimmer, her muscle tone readily apparent even through the school uniform, and she got right into Kallen's face without a moment's hesitation—like she was overjoyed to be alive, and of course that meant that every person she met had to be, too. "Welcome to Ashford Academy! It's so great to meet you. I hope we can get along. My name is Shirley Fenette, and I'm…"
"Down girl," snapped a second unfamiliar voice, and the tone was so sharp that Kallen felt the urge to flinch as it cracked through the air like a whip. The newcomer yanked the other girl—Shirley—back into the building, eliciting a surprised yowl of protest from the pretty, bubbly strawberry blonde, and stepped in front of her, being sure to give Kallen plenty of space. "Sorry about Shirley here. She can be a little much sometimes. And by 'sometimes,' I more or less mean 'all the time.' Wilhelmina Einstein—though you can call me 'Nina'. Most people do."
Wilhelmina (wow, that was a mouthful—Nina it is, then) wasn't exactly diminutive, per se, but she was firmly below average for a Britannian, to the degree that Kallen was taller than her. Thick, jet-black hair was pulled back firmly into a ponytail, and round spectacles rimmed with wire sat directly in front of a pair of indigo eyes, so dark they were almost black. Those eyes looked Kallen up and down, her exacting gaze seeming to pick her apart like she was a bug under a lamp, and then Nina nodded to herself, as though she'd just confirmed something. "This would be Kallen, then? Heiress Stadtfeld?"
"Y-yeah, I guess I am," Kallen replied, taken aback by this entire chain of strange interactions.
"Mm. You'll do. Welcome to Ashford," Nina decided, stepping out of the doorway and welcoming Kallen in, or so the redhead was given to assume.
"You're not very good at being welcoming, you know," Shirley piped up, now deeper into the office by the sound of things. "I've seen better hospitality from the model skeleton in the biology room."
"And I've seen less smothering from my Burmese python," Nina shot back. "At least Walter lets his mice believe they can breathe at first!"
"I still can't believe your parents let you keep him," the Fenette girl complained. "A serpent is not a proper pet for a lady!"
"Yes, well, I'll let Lady Stadtfeld and our esteemed president worry about that," said Nina. "Neither you nor I carry a noble title, when last I thought to check."
"Um, hi, yeah, do I…need to be here, or should I come back later?" Kallen interjected, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't a bit miffed about how quickly the two girls had seemed to forget she existed in favour of bickering with one another. "I do need to get my schedule before class begins. I don't want to be late on my first day."
Nina, at least, had the decency to look abashed. Shirley, on the other hand—and here she came into view again—blinked owlishly, and then clicked her jaw shut before speaking again. "Oh! Right you are! In, come in, come in, quick as you like, and we'll get you sorted."
"Thank you," Kallen sighed, stepping into the registrar's office to finally let the door close, shutting out the world behind her. She looked around the office, with its large windows and fairly open floor plan, as the other two scrambled to get behind the desk, while she came face-to-face with a sharp-faced, severe woman, with light brown hair tied up in the harshest updo that Kallen had ever seen, and glacial blue eyes framed behind an angular pair of slender half-moon glasses. There was the barest flicker of disdain in her gaze as it flicked over Kallen, but whatever the obviously Britannian woman thought—as if the nameplate on the desk declaring her to be 'Alicia Lohmeyer' wasn't enough of an indication—she kept more or less to herself. "Um…hello. I'm here for my schedule?"
"Kallen Stadtfeld, yes, I've heard," said the woman, her voice flat and dry, her tone cutting. She let out a heavy sigh, and slid a thick manila folder across the surface of her heavy wooden desk. "While you were darkening the doorway, I took the liberty of pulling your files for you."
"So, you're the registrar, then?"
Lohmeyer's eyes narrowed, as she propped her elbows up upon the desk, threading her fingers, and leaning her face forward, such that the light made her lenses appear temporarily opaque. "I am…"
"Then…why are Nina and Shirley behind your desk?" Kallen asked.
"…The Student Council is tasked with aiding in the running of this academy. A few odd jobs, some minor administrative tasks, the occasional errand or two," Lohmeyer explained flatly. "Today, they're here to…assist me in finalising the details of your enrolment. Which is, I am happy to say, very much taken care of. Now, in this manila folder, you'll find your schedule, your school handbook, a map of the grounds, and a few packets of information. You'll be required to choose an extracurricular activity to participate in while you're here, so the application forms for clubs and teams and so forth are also included. Do you understand so far?"
"I do," Kallen replied, still not entirely sure what exactly this woman's problem was—and less than inclined to care enough to bother finding out.
"Very good. Then my job here is done," said Lohmeyer, as she picked up a fountain pen that lay on its side near her left hand, and turned her attention to the forms spread out all around her. "Have a pleasant day, Miss Stadtfeld, and welcome to Ashford Academy."
I certainly don't feel very welcomed… Kallen thought to herself, picking the manila envelope up off of the desk and leafing through it. By chance, she peeked up over the edge of the folder and caught Shirley, standing at the office's exit that presumably led deeper into campus, and waving for her to follow. Now that she was looking fully, she could see the door was being held open to the world beyond in all its springtime wonder, and Nina was already out of it, a little ways down the green and tapping her foot expectantly. Then again, Shirley Fenette here seems to be very much the opposite extreme, so maybe it balances itself out…
With that thought passing through her mind, she snapped the envelope closed and stuffed it into the briefcase-adjacent leather 'school bag' she carried, before taking the hint and following Shirley and Nina out of the registrar's office, leaving the frigid, uptight bitch behind her, free to glare disapprovingly to her heart's delight. As soon as the door closed behind them, Shirley clapped a hand onto Kallen's shoulder in a gesture the redhead charitably assumed to be consoling in intent. "Don't let Miss Lohmeyer's standoffish attitude get you down. She's like that with everyone."
"As much as I might hate to admit it, Shirley's got a point," Nina added as they drew up alongside where she awaited them. "Lohmeyer's rudeness towards you probably has a lot less to do with your mixed blood than it does with the fact that she's been pretty high up on the President's personal shit-list for a long time now, since before most of us got here."
"So she's just an unpleasant person in general, then?" Kallen asked.
"Oh, she's positively dreadful," Shirley chimed in.
"A right shrew," Nina agreed. "Then again, she was friends with the President's mother, so that more or less checks out."
"The president of the Student Council, you mean?"
"The very same," Nina replied. "Milly Ashford. She told us you know each other?"
"…We've met," Kallen managed to respond, assuming that for all the implausibility of it being seen as credible, the duchess probably wouldn't appreciate her spilling the details on the wheres and wherefores of their acquaintance. The idea of her being the Student Council president wasn't particularly surprising for Kallen, as she thought she might find it rather stranger were the heiress not to hold a position of power at the very same school which bore her family's name. "Though she didn't seem the type of person to respond to a nickname like that."
"Yeah, well, I thought much the same as you, at first," Nina confessed offhandedly. "But it turns out that, for better or for worse, the President's chock full of little surprises like that."
"Speaking of surprises, did you know that she's practically a princess?!" Shirley leaned in to add to the conversation, her tone seeming to have been an attempt at a conspiratorial whisper, but carried instead at the strawberry blonde's normal speaking volume.
"I'm sorry, what?" asked Kallen, entirely nonplussed by the seeming tangent this had taken.
"Milly's betrothed to the Fourth Princess of the Realm, Justine vi Britannia," Nina huffed, clearly exasperated at Shirley's gossiping. "And Fenette over here couldn't keep her mouth shut for the life of her on a good day."
"At least I can make conversation, you antisocial starveling," Shirley shot back without missing a beat.
"I can make conversation just fine, thank you very much," Nina rebuffed primly. "I just don't see much of a point in speaking when I have nothing meaningful to say—unlike some people, who like to talk and talk and talk, either out of some form of auditory narcissism,or a misguided attempt to fill a perfectly good silence."
"Hmph. All you have are excuses and deflections," said Shirley, just as primly. "And not even good ones, at that."
As this continued, Kallen couldn't help but feel like a particularly unnoticeable third wheel; when a new voice joined them, however, this one belonging to a boy of an age with them, his uniform taking clear and unambiguous inspiration from military attire, a black jacket and pair of trousers with golden piping and the school crest embossed upon the high collar, it snapped all three of them out of their deepening dynamic very abruptly indeed. "Are you two bickering again? C'mon, guys, the new girl's gonna feel left out!"
The boy in question was shorter than both Shirley and Kallen, sharing his stature with Nina; his hair was a rich shade of blue, his eyes a deep brown, and though his distinctly boyish features put his dismay on clear display, his broad mouth was still pulled up into something of a smile. He walked up to them with his hands folded behind his head, and when he drew up next to Kallen, his expression abruptly changed to one of almost canine curiosity, his head cocking and his lips pursing as his eyes widened. He drew closer to her, being mindful of both Nina on her left and Shirley on her right, and though he most assuredly stepped into her personal space, it was nowhere near the level of crowding in which the fair-skinned Fenette had been so eager to engage in, without so much as a moment's hesitation. "Hey, you look pretty strong! Wanna do a bit of arm-wrestling later? I've been training really hard!"
"Rivalz! You don't just challenge random people to arm-wrestling competitions like that! It's rude!" Shirley gasped, seeming almost scandalised by the proposition. "I know we've talked about this!"
"Your mistake was assuming he was listening in the first place," Nina snarked under her breath. "I doubt anyone could get through one of your long-winded lectures without up and dying of boredom…"
"Ah, sorry about that, Shirley! Force of habit," the boy, Rivalz, apologised. Then he turned back to Kallen, and thrust his hand out jauntily. "The name's Rivalz Cardemonde! My dad's the security chief over at Annwn!"
Nina groaned aloud, planting her face into her hands, but Kallen was struggling with the unfamiliar word on her tongue. "I'm sorry, ah-noo-vin?"
"Eh, close enough," Rivalz shrugged.
"The last syllable is pronounced quite a bit softer than that," Shirley corrected softly.
"Yes, let's talk more about the House of Ashford's top secret development bureau while out here in the open, why don't we?" Nina groused. "Because that can only end well…"
"Ah, right…" said Rivalz, looking duly chastised. "I just thought, since, you know…"
"Yes, I know what you thought, Rivalz," the bespectacled girl hissed, exasperated. "But for Hell's sake, let's not have this conversation out in the open where passers-by can eavesdrop as they please…"
"I am so lost right now…" Kallen confessed, half to herself.
"Right, well, Nina has a point," Shirley conceded, grabbing hold of Kallen's right arm. The girl was quite touchy-feely, Kallen was starting to notice. "Let's get you to the Student Council building, so that we can start your orientation in earnest, hmm?"
"But first period—!" Kallen protested. "I don't want to be late on my first day!"
"If you'd actually taken the time to check your schedule, you'd notice that your first few blocks are free periods specifically to make time for the orientation process," Nina interjected, sounding very much as though she considered it Kallen's fault for not having had the time to digest the insides of her file while she was being pulled to and fro and every which way. "There's no time to dally. Come on."
At Nina's urging, then, the three of them led Kallen across the campus, Shirley and Rivalz chatting her ear off as they gave an impromptu guided tour, until at last they came upon a building that looked very suspiciously like a Britannian manor (not that Kallen had seen all that many of those—it kinda just felt like one, really), with stairs and double-doors and everything. And out front, standing on the top step, was none other than the Student Council president herself, Milly Ashford—her arms crossed beneath her bust, one of her shoes tapping testily on the stone, and a single brow furrowed in restrained irritation. She looked every bit as formidable in her school uniform as she did in her occupational attire, her skirt red tartan instead of the black-and-gold of Kallen's, Nina's, and Shirley's, her hair voluminous and cascading down her back to produce an effect not unlike a lion's mane, fierce and pitiless and intimidating; and though she barely knew the older girl personally, Kallen could tell quite easily that she was pissed. "Kallen. How nice of you to join us at long last. I hope that these three dunderheads didn't hold you up too much?"
A deafening silence ensued, and Kallen looked around to find that the other three were taking great care to be looking practically anywhere that did not entail gazing directly at their irritated president. It left Kallen with the unenviable task of holding the scary blonde's attention, and in a moment of pettiness that was absolutely very much like her, she elected very pointedly not to throw any of the three of them under the bus as they had so shamelessly done her, instead merely giving a weak smile and a resigned shrug.
Milly huffed in frustration, the long gust of air blowing a few golden locks from her forehead, and she shook her head with just as much annoyed vigour. "Whatever. It's water under the bridge. I suppose it doesn't much matter why you were late, so long as you don't make a habit of it. You're here now, at least, so I shouldn't be too mad about it. Get your asses in here, all four of you. In case you lot have somehow managed to forget, we're working on a schedule here. Can't afford to be tarrying about like this, burning what limited daylight we have all willy-nilly."
"Whatever you say, boss-lady," Rivalz replied, giving a chastened salute before bounding his way up the stairs into the manor-looking building. Nina hurried up after him with marginally greater difficulty, scurrying silently past Milly and into the clubhouse. Shirley dropped into a curtsey, while Kallen shrugged and made her way up towards the doors, thus leaving the strawberry blonde to hurry after her, while Milly took it upon herself to bring up the rear.
The door opened into a short corridor, which took them into a great hall the size of a ballroom, with a long table set up in the middle of it. The table held enough chairs for the five of them, with two extras at the foot of the table, and the trio rushed their way towards their seats, while Milly beelined for the seat at the head with measured, unhurried, yet deceptively swift strides. Rivalz indicated the chair directly next to his without uttering a word, and Kallen took the cue, getting herself seated, only to find that the chairs were shockingly comfortable for what looked like dining furniture.
"Alright, without any further ado, let's call this meeting-slash-induction to order," Milly called out, her voice carrying easily over the entire long table for all that she hadn't seemed to raise it past her normal speaking volume. "First, introductions. Kallen, to your left-hand side, you'll see Rivalz Cardemonde. He's here because his father is the chief of security at the Ashford Foundation's research and development facility, Codename 'Annwn.' Directly across from him is Shirley Fenette, whose father is the chief scientist of the Fabrication Engineering Research Division. Essentially, he figures out how to manufacture the many various components our other projects may at any time require. And directly across from you is—"
"Wilhelmina Einstein, as I've said," Nina interrupted. "Chief Research Analyst. My job is to crunch numbers, in a manner of speaking: I take all the raw data generated by our project leads' experiments, tune our simulation programs based on what I find in that same raw data, and then compile it all to then consolidate it into a usable, legible form."
"She's a calculation wizard, a master of her craft," Milly added. "Shirley's every bit as brilliant as her father, and though he might not look like it, Rivalz is incredibly physically capable, which has had him filling in as our preliminary test pilot whenever he's not filing paperwork."
"I do a lot of paperwork," Rivalz chimed in.
"Quite," agreed the duchess, the ghost of a smile playing upon her expertly-glossed lips. "And once our project leads, Doctors Lloyd Asplund and Cécile Croomy, finally manage to crack the code on the Core Luminous—you'll find out what that is soon enough, don't worry, I've already arranged for you to be given a tour of our facilities after classes end today—you will be our test pilot for our more advanced machines."
"Machines? You mean…Knightmare Frames?" Kallen asked, taken aback. Of all the things she'd thought herself prepared to deal with today, this was swiftly shaping up not to be one of them.
"Yes, Kallen, I refer to Knightmare Frames," confirmed the Ashford heiress. "Experimental ones, at this stage, but I've been assured that they won't be for very much longer. What I tell you now, I do not do lightly: you, Miss Stadtfeld, have been granted the opportunity to be directly involved in the development process of the world's very first seventh-generation Knightmare Frame."
Kallen's first glimpse of Annwn was something straight out of a spy movie.
Located in the subterrane beneath Ashford Academy—several stories lower down than the Tokyo Settlement's earthquake-proofing and sewer system, even—she, along with the rest of the Student Council, descended at first upon what looked to be a freight elevator, broad enough to bear an eighteen-wheeler aloft with room to spare for a few bystanders. As they plunged deeper down on the strong, smooth winches, the redhead caught sight of it in the form of what looked like a massive hangar bay, swarming with people clad in white coats. And it wasn't just Britannians she caught sight of: a fair few of them, whom she could only assume were scientists and other experts, bore features that marked them as former Japanese citizens.
The hangar bay was a stark, almost aggressive white, sterile and almost blindingly bright under the lights and lamps installed into the vaulted ceiling. Gunmetal-grey frames held vaguely humanoid figures in their confines, with yet more teams of workers milling around in grey or khaki fatigues themselves, oil rags and various tools both analogue and electrical marking them as mechanics in her mind, or perhaps merely engineers who subscribed to a more 'hands-on' school of thought. As Kallen's attention snapped onto one such person, a former Japanese woman by the looks of her, and tracked her path, her gaze was drawn to the far end of the long hangar, where a particularly huge frame of metal scaffolding held in place a true titan of a Knightmare, tall and bulky at around half again the standard height of most of the Knightmares she'd laid her eyes upon, painted in black and gold and displaying more than a few motifs that seemed to be of some particularly exotic origin—ancient Egyptian, perhaps? It reminded her well enough of the sarcophagi of the pharaohs she'd seen in pictures in some of Naoto's old pre-war textbooks.
"That is the IFX-V3D1 Gawain," Milly explained from Kallen's side, having caught onto where her mind and attention went. "It's, at the moment, our most complete prototype."
"I'd say it's less of a prototype and more of a test bed, really," Shirley added, and Kallen tore her gaze away to lock upon the other girl, who was staring down the way with her hand on her chin in a pose of contemplation. "It's more than twice as heavy as any other Knightmare Frame currently in production, far too bulky and unwieldy to ever actually see combat."
"Then why did you build it in the first place?" Kallen asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. It didn't make much sense to her—what was the point, really, in spending time and resources to design and to construct a war machine that couldn't even fight?
"I take it you don't really understand the concept of a test bed, then," Nina mused quasi-mockingly.
"The Gawain was born out of several different designs for different systems, which we then took all of and then meshed them together into a single proof-of-concept," Shirley explained patiently. "My father thought that would be more efficient than building a single burner Knightmare for every different idea. The Gawain, then, exists so that we have an actual physical version of all those different ideas, for the purpose of generating empirical data so that we can fine-tune each design until it's workable."
"Piloting it's a team effort," Rivalz added, his cheery disposition replaced with a serious, thoughtful expression. "The cockpit's a two-seater, one to operate the Knightmare itself, one to operate all its systems. That's where we come in: Shirley takes the top seat, I take the bottom, and Nina tells us what we need to do and when for the sake of the experiment. It's a way for us to contribute to the project, since whatever Lloyd and Doctor Croomy are working on is all way above our pay grades."
"You're telling me," Nina snorted, a touch bitterly. "I can barely make heads or tails out of the data they keep handing me, and that's my job… Honestly, the fact that Her Highness was able to parse the initial findings well enough to see promise in the project boggles my mind."
"Well, I did say that my fiancée is exceptional," Milly said wryly, and her tone made it feel almost as though she was gloating. "And at last, we arrive…"
True to her word, no sooner had the sentence left her mouth than did the lift reach the ground level, the safety railings retracting to allow the five of them access to the white floor of the initial hangar bay. As Kallen looked around, she could see a number of different alcoves that, now that she was on the same level as them, she could clearly see were corridors and hallways leading off into different parts of the subterrane, where presumably other facilities could be found. Off to the side and awaiting them, then, Kallen saw there was a Britannian woman in a white coat of her own, which was draped over a terra cotta skirt-suit, awaiting their arrival. She was a very pretty woman, her features softer than Milly's, but still in full possession of the angular face shape that characterised attractive Britannians of the fairer sex; her indigo hair was cut into a cute, fashionable bob, and the way her blue eyes seemed to smile gave her an aura of polite friendliness. "Welcome back to Annwn, your grace."
"Doctor Croomy. Always a pleasure," Milly replied cordially. "How's Lloyd holding up?"
"Tearing his own hair out in frustration," sighed Doctor Croomy.
"So, more or less unchanged from last time," summarised the duchess.
"I keep telling him that as far as this field is concerned, we've made meteoric strides already, and it really isn't realistic for him to expect such a swift turnaround," the older woman complained. "But…well, you know how he is by now, your grace. It's like it goes in one ear and out the other. I've about reached my wit's end…"
"I understand completely. My Justine gets the same way sometimes," said Milly, and she gave the doctor a smile so pained it was practically a grimace as she nodded in sympathy. "Well, if it helps any, I've come bearing gifts."
The scientist looked past Milly at the four of them, and the expression that swiftly overtook her face as she looked at them like they were collectively the last lifeboat on the Titanic was more than slightly alarming. "Oh, Nina, you're here. Fantastic. Go grab your coat and get to Laboratory Sixteen, you're needed there. Shirley, you can get suited up and head to the Gawain—Lloyd found enough time between chugging espresso and raiding the break room fridge for pudding cups to push some major updates for the Druid System, and we're going to need you in the top seat. Rivalz, you know the drill. And…pardon me, but I don't believe we've met…?"
"Ah, that would be my cue," Milly interjected before Kallen even got a chance to open her mouth, a devious smile on her face, her diamond eyes glittering with playful malice. Her manicured hands clasped onto the shoulders of Kallen's blazer, and she leaned her face over one of them, their heads side-by-side as she spoke. "Cécile, allow me to introduce your newest test pilot, Kallen Stadtfeld—Naoto's little sister."
"N-Naoto?!" the scientist repeated, her demeanour perking up as a flush bloomed across her cheeks. "Oh! Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise! It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Kallen! I've heard so much about you—we'll be working together quite closely moving forward, so if you need anything, please, don't hesitate to ask me!"
Kallen, slightly overwhelmed by how the woman's behaviour seemed to shift on a dime, swept her eyes across her surroundings as surreptitiously as possible, only to find that Rivalz, Shirley, and Nina had already split off to make their way towards their respective posts, leaving her here, to be squished against Milly's chest and practically smothered by the older woman's suddenly energetic and gracious demeanour. Filthy traitors, every last one of them… "Th-that's nice to hear, Doctor Croomy. I'll be sure to keep that in mind for the future…"
"Oh, there's no need to be so formal," the woman fawned. "You can just call me 'Cécile!'"
Kallen, increasingly panicked, found herself tensing up, and at last, Milly took pity on her, and let herself into the conversation-turned-interrogation, smooth as butter. "Not that this hasn't been nice and all, but I need to give Kallen a tour of the grounds, and I'm sorry to say that you, Doctor Croomy, really do need to get back to minding Lloyd—lest he somehow manage to blow this entire facility sky-high, and us along with it, in a fit of pique."
Doctor Croomy's expression swapped from glittering to grimacing with such sudden swiftness that Kallen felt acutely whiplashed, along with a keen awareness that that sensation was becoming increasingly commonplace in her life. "You're right. Apologies, your grace, I seem to have forgotten myself."
With a quick bow, the woman scurried off as though she had jackals snapping at her ankles, but was trying very hard not to appear as though that were the case, her knee-height black boots with their low-rise heels carrying her swiftly into the middle distance.
"You'll have to forgive me for that bit of fun at your expense," Milly said conversationally, as if she had forgotten that those low words were being spoken directly into the stiffened redhead's ears. "I have to take my amusements where I can get them, I'm afraid."
"What…what was that about…?" Kallen managed to ask, still processing what had just occurred.
"Oh, that? She was trying to be extra accommodating towards you so that you'd put in a good word about her with Naoto. I'm sorry to say you'll just have to get used to it," the duchess confessed with a wry twist of her voice. "Cécile Croomy is far from the only woman who regularly entertains fantasies of warming your older brother's bed, after all. In the time he's spent working as my secretary, he's gathered quite the reputation as a consummate lady-killer, as it happens. It would be by no means a stretch to call him practically the office heart-throb—or at least, he is among those who are attracted to men, at any rate."
Suddenly, Kallen found she was quite certain that the horrifying mental image of her older brother being regarded as some sort of masculine sex symbol would be forever burned into her mind's eye, reaping fresh trauma and psychological scarring for all the rest of her days. "That's actually disgusting…"
"I'd be inclined to agree, but I'm also something of a special case," Milly mused, finally beginning to pull away from where she'd been standing with her bust flush against Kallen's back, and patting Kallen on the shoulders as she retreated. "Now, I believe I promised you a tour of your new workplace. Shall we get on that, then?"
"Yes, let's," Kallen replied, taking a long, steadying breath before locking her eyes forward. Then a thought popped into her head, and as she pivoted on her heel to face the older girl, she figured that this was probably as good a time as any to pose her question. "Actually, who is this Lloyd guy, exactly? I've heard him mentioned a few times already…"
"Lloyd, Earl of Asplund, and Doctor Croomy are Annwn's project leads," Milly explained, using a fluid flourishing gesture of her hand to beckon them onward. Kallen took the hint and fell in line behind the duchess, listening attentively as she spoke and guided them to their next port of call. "Cécile is the woman you just had the pleasure of meeting. Lloyd, on the other hand, is a rather more…eccentric individual."
"I don't know if I want to imagine someone more eccentric than that," Kallen remarked.
"Oh, Doctor Croomy's only like that when her blood's up, and your brother is, as I've said, a bit of a panty-soaker," the Ashford heiress tossed back off-handedly.
Kallen gagged on a bit of bile at the back of her throat. "Could you not?!"
"Fine, fine," Milly said with a dismissive hand-wave. "But yes, Cécile's generally not…like that. In fact, she's the one who more often than not keeps Lloyd on task. Doctor Asplund, on the other hand, is the sort of person the adage 'genius and madness are two sides of the same coin' was meant to describe. He's a bit of a diva, truth be told—irreverent, dismissive, and often a bit rude—and I've only actually known of one person who can weather his abrasive temperament without complication."
"And…who is that?" Kallen probed further.
Milly looked over her shoulder at Kallen with a raised brow and a wry smirk; when she spoke next, she was practically purring. "My, you are an impertinent one, aren't you?"
Heat surged into Kallen's cheeks, and she quickly averted her gaze, taking a fresh interest in the sort of flooring a place like this might consider appropriate. "S-sorry, forget I asked."
"Are you sure?" Milly asked, her voice light with playful laughter. "I wouldn't mind telling you."
"I'm certain," Kallen asserted, her cheeks growing even warmer as her regret over taking what she now understood to have been bait intensified rapidly.
Milly leaned her head back and let out peals of laughter—they were as musical as wind-chimes, ringing out as clear as a bell, if a bell could sound sultry and dangerous. She shook her head in amusement as she continued leading the thoroughly and very much flustered Kallen into the depths of the subterranean research complex. "Such a pity…"
Later that night, after all the Ashford Academy Student Council members managed to wrap up their work for the day and took the lift back up to the surface to get home or to their dorm rooms, Milly took her own private elevator down to Laboratory Zero, the highest-security facility in all of Annwn, where all the most sensitive data was kept in latticework crystal, and all the most critical experiments were conducted. It wasn't all that rare for Milly to come down and check in on the two who worked there most often, even at this late of an hour, but not typically on the same day that she'd had an earlier visit to the subterrane; but it was, to her mind, a necessary diversion from the norm, having received as she had a brief video message from Suzaku not ten minutes ago. Every time she closed her eyes, Milly could picture it and hear it in her mind, echoes resounding unpleasantly through her psyche.
"Yo~! Sorry 'bout this, Milly, but Justine an' that Lloyd guy've been chattin' it up for a while now," went her recollection of the Honorary Britannian's (she'd taken care of that on an idle day) brash tones. It was a cold comfort that her fiancée's best friend had the decency to look distinctly uncomfortable at having to be the bearer of this sort of bad news. "They're seemin' pretty excited about somethin', so I dunno if she told you she's gonna be late or what, but better to be safe than sorry, eh?"
Intellectually, she knew this was an incredibly minor matter, that one missed call wouldn't really be the end of the world; the rest of her, however, made sure to stuff her intellectual self into an oubliette, with a mental alarm to retrieve her from the pit when the greater portion felt that the lesson had been learned. In all the time they'd spent as a couple, Milly had made sure to prepare herself to be reasonable about necessary delays and more severe unforeseen phenomena—but at no point had she ever expected that she'd be blown off.
The elevator was hydraulic in its mechanisms, and it shot her down the many levels to the lab like a bullet from a gun, a translucent tube with water-treated hardwood flooring that let her watch as the pressure of the water propelled her down underground, and then shot her back up again on the return trip; so the journey wasn't a long one at all. She'd thrown on a royal blue silk chiffon nightgown that she kept for when it got too cold at night for her to sleep nude, and then a heavier silk twill tea-coat over that, her golden hair loose and brushed-out already, and her feet shod in her most dignified pair of slippers, to come down here, desiring as always to look presentable, but also not caring to hide that she'd just had her evening plans upended by this new bout of tomfoolery. Hanging onto her irritation around her Justine these days remained as difficult a proposition as ever it had, but right now, she felt like she could more than manage it.
The lift reached its destination with a low 'ding' sound, and the doors slid open with a sleek hiss of depressurisation to allow her to step out of it and into the laboratory proper. She found herself in an aisle, straight and narrow, lined on either side of it by large cases within which rested controlled environments to keep the growth of the crystal steady—odd things tended to happen to the data encoded within the lattice if it began to grow too quickly, after all—and the cool air flowed through her golden hair as she strode with a purpose down the way, towards the sound of voices a bit further out. A biometrically locked door stood at the end of the chamber, requiring a retinal scan and a pulse reading so that none of the potential infiltrators that might be sent their way could reliably falsify the credentials necessary to gain entry, and she placed her hand on the lever meant to take her blood pressure and pulse, while leaning over to put a single eye on the same level as the scanner. One beep sounded, then two, and then the lock disengaged with a barely-audible click. She was in.
The automatic doors opened as she passed with a pressurised 'swoosh,' and the first thing that met her gaze in the moderately low light was a large tube, a thick cylinder of a vat, filled with clear fluid; and in the middle of it was a suspended cube of dormant sakuradite, with black metal prongs seeming to cradle it from all angles at a distance. It was larger, she knew, than the version that would go into a Knightmare that was designed to use it, but that was only for ease of adjustment and experimentation.
The next thing she saw was Doctor Cécile Croomy, bent over a computer terminal to the side of the room, her brow furrowed with determination and focus that was obvious even in the garish light that came from the screen she beheld. Her eyes flicked over line after line of data, scanning charts and graphs and the projections of various simulations that Nina had personally built and fine-tuned for specifically this project, the lynchpin of everything Annwn was trying to do—the purpose she and Lloyd had come here to fulfil. It was true that they'd already made back the value of the initial investment several times over, just from the scraps that Lloyd had freely discarded from the various side projects he concocted to deal with any sort of setback with the development of the Core Luminous, but if they couldn't get this initial project done, there would be a hard cap on how useful any of the side projects could ever truly be—and that was before one even thought to mention how thoroughly that failure would cripple morale.
"All conditions are nominal," Cécile declared, looking up from the display to call it out to her old friend. "We're ready to begin the final activation cycle."
Speaking of the mad genius…
Lloyd's own terminal was much closer to the prototype Core Luminous itself, as any trial protocol required simultaneous authorisation from both computers; and unlike his esteemed colleague's practically fastidiously clean work-space, his was a mess of disposable coffee cups, electrolyte supplements, nutrient bar wrappers, empty water bottles, and pudding cups, and the man himself was hunched and bent, his eyes bulging and manic, dark circles deepening beneath them to make it look as though the madman hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks—which, knowing Lloyd as she had come to, she had to admit was entirely possible, and perhaps even likely. Of particular note was a tablet he'd propped up beside him, and even at this distance, she could never mistake the face of the love of her life displayed on its screen.
"This is it, Lloyd," her Justine said severely. "The culmination of everything we've worked towards this past year…"
"If your highness's solution works…" Lloyd began, his voice rough and groggy.
"It will," interrupted her Justine, her expression one of grave and absolute certainty. "I ask that you have faith in me, as I once did in you. This will work…"
Lloyd straightened, his change in position heralding a cascade of rather concerning cracks and pops from his various joints, and he ran a hand through his messy lavender hair, the fine, wavy locks rendered a rat's nest by dozens upon dozens of such gestures performed in relatively quick succession. As Milly drew closer, she caught a glimpse of the hardening determination and firming resolve in his bright blue eyes, bloodshot and dried-out though they might have been. "…Cécile, begin the activation sequence."
"…Yes, sir," Doctor Croomy replied with every bit as much gravity. Once again, she looked up from her terminal, and caught sight of Milly standing there at last; her eyes went wide very abruptly, her hand flying to her chest, but Milly put her finger before her lips in a firm 'shush' motion, and the indigo-haired scientist shut her gaping jaw to nod her assent, moving seamlessly back into the procedure of starting up the test with an admirable degree of professionalism. "Inducers are primed for excitation, stabilisers ready. Ignition begins in three… Two… One."
Both scientists toggled the proper switch at their respective terminals in unison.
The prongs—the inducers, if she had to guess—began to glow, first dully, and then bright, a bolt of hot pink lightning leaping from one prong into the dormant cube, followed by another, and then another, in quick succession. Machinery hummed to life, and the fluid bubbled, as a tremor ran through the still cube.
"Fluid density at thirteen percent, stabilisers at four percent capacity," Cécile called over to Lloyd.
A spark of exhilaration jumped to life in Lloyd's eyes. "Increase intensity to sixteen percent."
Croomy nodded, and carefully adjusted some of the controls at her own station.
The fluid in the vat bubbled more heavily, as thicker cords of pink electricity shot from the prongs to the core, which seemed to shiver at the current running through it.
"Twenty percent," Lloyd snapped, without even waiting to hear the read-out, as he practically tore his coolant-soiled lab coat off of himself and leaned forward over the terminal in his turtleneck shirt.
"Increasing," Cécile replied. "Fluid density is at twenty-two percent, stabilisers at eight…"
The Core's trembling seemed to herald a dull glow from the centre of the cube, as yet more bubbles frothed forth from the bottom of the vat.
"We're so close…!" the mad genius practically whined.
"Steady now, Lloyd," her Justine cautioned. "It's the moment of truth. Stay the course."
Lloyd nodded vigorously at the encouragement. "You're right… Thirty-five percent…"
"Fluid density at twenty-eight percent, stabilisers jumped to eighteen…" Cécile warned, her voice increasingly agitated. Yet the results spoke for themselves, as the glow of the cube intensified, the bolts of electricity twisting in the coolant like plasma from a Tesla coil.
"It's do or die, Lloyd…"
Lloyd nodded again, his lips pulling back into a broad, toothy grin at what he was seeing. "Increase excitation to forty-two percent and hold!"
Without comment, perhaps feeling the rising of tension and portent thrumming through her body as keenly as Milly now was, Doctor Croomy nodded, and followed the order to the letter.
The bubbles were rushing up violently now, the prongs creating arcing bolts of pink electricity that seemed dangerously thick as they corded through the coolant, the harsh sound of them like a pitched-down recording of a horrified scream, and for a moment, Milly was worried this was going to be a failure.
But sure enough, that stubborn cube of sakuradite, so troublesome for such a relatively small thing, began not just to shiver or tremble or vibrate, but to turn.
The first rotation was slow, almost lethargic.
The next was a little faster.
The one after that was twice as fast as the one before.
Rotation after rotation came and went, the light of the cube increasing in intensity as it accelerated; and within a few heartbeats, it was spinning fast enough that its original shape became a blur.
"…Y…Yggdrasil Resonance…has been achieved…" Cécile said reverently, as though in disbelief that this was even possible, that they could do it, that this would be the one.
A blood-curdling shriek wrenched its way out of Lloyd's throat, his legs buckling from underneath him as he sank down to his knees, tears flowing freely from his eyes as they beheld the sheer wonder of his creation. "It's alive! It's alive! In the name of God…! Now I know what it feels like to be God! HA HA!"
"Bravo, Lloyd," said Milly, figuring there was no better time for her interjection. She clapped, and it was a genuine gesture, a celebration of what he'd achieved here. "And you, too, Doctor Croomy."
"M-Milly?! What time is it…? Suzaku, you let me do this for that long?!" came her Justine's voice once again, all confidence gone from it as she seemed to panic more and more the longer Milly maintained her silence. She let Cécile rush past her to collect Lloyd from the ground first, so that she could see that he was taken care of for the sake of his health, and for how much of a strain he must have put it under with this self-imposed crunch; but shortly thereafter, she wordlessly stepped into view of the tablet, finally looking into her love's eyes—face-to-face, after a fashion—as the girl's nerves visibly began winding themselves up tighter and tighter in expectation of Milly's ire, her rejection, some sort of deep primal fear that Marianne had inflicted upon her daughter's soul, that it seemed only Milly could bring out of her in full force. It was as heady as it was heartbreaking, the magnitude and the nature of the power she held over her love, her Justine, her most precious possession; she figured that plucking that fear a bit with her silence would be more than enough to demonstrate her displeasure.
"I'm not angry with you, my love," Milly began, leaning down where Lloyd had once stood so that she was at eye-level with her fiancée. "I am upset, because I had to hear from Suzaku that you were held up here, however."
"…I'm sorry…" her Justine replied, her voice small, and more meek than it had ever been in recent memory. There was a sharp blade of guilt that plunged itself into Milly's gut and promptly twisted at the anguish in the love of her life's amethyst eyes, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to keep a grip on her anger around her Justine; and if that got in the way of them discussing their problems, of discussing whenever one of them did something that annoyed the other, then that wouldn't be fair to either of them.
This being the best she could make of a difficult situation didn't make her feel any better about it, though.
"In the future, if something like this happens again, please just let me know," Milly implored her, doing her best to soothe the emotional blow her silence had struck. "I worry about you, my love, and I need to know that you're alright. Okay?"
"…Okay," her Justine agreed with a deep exhale of breath.
"Good girl. I love you more than you'll ever know," Milly said, hoping beyond hope that her reason for living could sense the sincerity of her declaration.
They were a work in progress, the two of them; and Milly knew it was perhaps the most worthwhile endeavour she could ever have chosen to embark upon.