From Now On, Fight Each Other
“You got the gist, right? From now on, you’re fighting each other.”
“Blanc, are you really okay with registering for the exact same classes as me?”
“Yes. I have no desire to be parted from your side, my lady.”
“I… is that so…?”
My lady had tried to dissuade me, insisting I choose the classes I myself wanted to take. But with no maidcraft courses on offer, there was not a single class I had to attend. As a maid first and an academy student second, I was obligated to remain at her back, watching over her and attending to her needs. So I simply decided to take the same classes she did.
At first I had toyed with the idea of signing up for something no one in their right mind would touch—like the “Survival Studies” listed at the very bottom of the pamphlet—and coasting through on easy credits. But I wasn’t attending this place to graduate with top marks, so there was no reason to sweat over my GPA. Escorting and serving my lady mattered far more than gaming the credit system.
“Mmm… still, I should hear Blanc’s thoughts too. Let’s just draw up our schedules together in my room tonight.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
That night, after a long conversation, my lady and I settled on eight classes we would take together.
Late that night—
“Hmm…”
Pel stared at a sheet crowded with course names, turning the problem over and over. Students had to register for a minimum of four classes and a maximum of ten. Four would leave her short on credits; anyone who wasn’t either woefully undereducated or completely obsessed with academics would never fill all ten. Roughly seven, she decided, felt just right.
“Ah…”
She took a short break and looked at the happy family photograph sitting on her desk—a picture her father had taken with a camera he’d happened to obtain while it was still in development in Lyceum.
“Heh…”
A wry smile touched her lips as she regarded the four warm faces. Then she picked up her pen and began filling a blank form, line by line.
What Pel needed most from the academy was knowledge—knowledge she would one day use to grow a merchantry of her own. She was the eldest daughter of the Lucoda Merchantry, and her parents hoped she would inherit it someday. Pel, however, wanted to found a house of her own rather than succeed Lucoda’s. That desire for new experience was exactly why she had enrolled at Aegis.
It wasn’t that she disliked the Lucoda Merchantry. She simply believed the true heir should be her younger sibling, three years her junior. Pel was not the couple’s biological child. After losing her parents in an accident and drifting through the streets, she had been found by the Lucodas and taken in as their stepdaughter. They had cherished and loved her as if she were their own blood, and once they recognized her talent for trade, they had even trained her as a successor.
But Pel believed all of it was grace she had no right to enjoy—happiness the Lucoda family had bestowed on someone who had never been meant to receive it. That was why she wanted to leave the merchantry. Perhaps, she feared, inheriting it would only steal the opportunity from her beloved younger sibling. She could not afford to waste a single moment of her academy years. She had to leave Lucoda as soon as possible and repay their kindness.
“All right. That settles it.”
After staring at the paper through long stretches of deliberation, she finally finished the registration form as the day wound down.
“Mmm… Blanc… I’ve never even met her before, though…”
At the same hour, Chelrn lay in bed thinking about the silver-haired girl in her class. That silver hair kept drawing her eye, and there was something oddly familiar about her presence. Chelrn was certain they had never met, yet Blanc felt far too well-known.
“Hnn…”
Their first encounter had been close to a disaster, and yet they had become friendly in no time—partly thanks to Chelrn’s natural warmth, and partly because of an intimacy she couldn’t quite explain. No matter how hard she thought, though, she could not recall ever meeting Blanc. Chelrn had only just left the holy city-state of Bargan for the first time; how could she possibly have run into a girl from the Empire?
Had Blanc ever visited Bargan? It was a fairly plausible theory. She would have to ask her later.
“Still, no matter how I look at it, there’s nothing to fix. It’s perfect.”
For now, Blanc could wait—course registration came first. Chelrn checked her list of classes one more time and nodded. A schedule designed to wring every last drop of academy life dry. She was convinced it was the most perfect timetable in all of Aegis: Monday through Friday, solid blocks of classes with no gaps whatsoever. She had signed up for a full ten, so hungry for new experiences that some days didn’t even leave room for lunch.
Any senior who saw it would have shouted, “Are you insane!?” and tried to stop her. Unfortunately, Chelrn did not yet have any close upperclassmen to offer such advice.
The next morning she submitted the form to Willy with a bright, beaming smile.
“Hmm…? Macadia?”
“Yes!”
“Are you… sure this is right? You double-checked?”
“Yes!”
“Uh… maybe you should rethink this a little…?”
“I’ve already checked it several times.”
“Right… well. This is an experience too, I suppose…”
In the end, faced with those clear, earnest eyes, Willy accepted the registration form she held out. Years later, looking back after the term was over, Chelrn would remember this as a youthful mistake of pure overenthusiasm—but the Chelrn of now had no idea.
Agram had begged the heavens to spare him from any imperial princess or royal heir. The heavens had answered by making him homeroom teacher to one anyway. Today, as always, he fretted at the letter of resignation he kept tucked against his chest. He would never actually submit it—but simply carrying it brought him a measure of peace.
“Now then, regarding the field practicum…”
Having somehow steadied himself, Agram named the reason for yet another faculty meeting. An uncomfortable silence settled over the staff room.
Field practicum. In theory, each class traveled to a designated region to learn its culture. In practice, Aegis’s version looked nothing like other academies’. Classes were sent out to complete commissions from local authorities and hit benchmarks set by the school—and those commissions routinely included real combat: monster hunts, bandit suppressions, and the like. Fatalities were rare, but not unheard of. For ordinary students, the difficulty was considerable.
Still, it was an ancient Aegis tradition, grounded in the belief that only by passing through such trials could students tear down national borders and become the future pillars of continental peace. Under normal circumstances the academy saw no problem with it.
This year was different. With the fragile peace among the three nations already under strain, the idea of shoving students into live combat made every teacher’s head spin. Some had even rushed to the headmaster and proposed canceling the practicum for the year.
“Hah? Are you lot complete idiots? If you’re going to wear the title of Aegis instructor, try using the thing sitting on your neck. If we’re canceling field practicum because it’s ‘dangerous,’ why not scrap exams and interclass matches while you’re at it? Don’t talk nonsense.”
The headmaster’s words had shut them all down.
“W-well then, let’s start by deciding the practicum sites for Eagle Class and Owl Class…”
Agram glanced sideways at Willy, gauging his mood. Dull, unfocused fish eyes, as if nothing in the world could interest him.
“Fine. Whatever.”
That listless answer nearly made Agram’s temper flare, but he clenched his jaw and forced himself calm. Arguing with that lazy Sage never ended well for anyone but Willy.
Honey…
For some reason, he found himself missing his wife more than usual today.
Monday. Ten o’clock sharp.
The vast forest within the grounds of Aegis Academy—the site of Owl Class’s practical lesson for the day.
“All right, nobody forgot that we have practice matches today, did they?”
The students nodded. Tension mixed with a strange undercurrent of anticipation. Willy did not particularly care for the gleam of expectation in their eyes. Even a practice match meant pointing weapons and magic at one another and dividing winners from losers. Looking forward to that was an emotion he found hard to understand. Still, he didn’t bother pointing it out. There was no grand reason. He simply couldn’t be bothered. He hated anything troublesome more than anything else in the world—which was exactly why one of his better-known epithets was the Lazy Sage.
“Haa… first, everyone put these bracelets on.”
He had Lia pass around a basket and distributed a bracelet to each student.
“They’re modified Association artifacts. A barrier deploys automatically if you’re about to take a critical injury. They’re still a long way from field-ready, but if anything truly dangerous happens I’ll step in, so don’t be too scared…”
He wanted to add, and don’t go all-out either, because that would be annoying—but he couldn’t. Telling students to half-fight and hold back in a mock battle was the same as not holding a mock battle at all. Even Willy wouldn’t undermine the foundation of his own class.
“You’re classmates, and Aegis is an academy that demands real combat readiness. It’s important to get a look at the skills and styles of the people you’ll be fighting back-to-back with someday, so don’t just focus on your own match—watch the others carefully too. Any questions?”
Before he had even finished, Jerry shot both hands into the air, her face full of complaint. Willy, who would have preferred to brush past questions the way he had at the entrance ceremony, made a face like he’d bitten into something foul and gestured for her to speak.
“How will the matches be run?”
“Originally I planned to split you into teams of five for a free-for-all, but we’re doing one-on-one instead.”
“Why?”
“You’re still awkward with each other and you don’t know how anyone fights. Suddenly form teams and start swinging? That’s a recipe for infighting. You and Oblia should know that better than anyone.”
“That’s…”
Jerry’s sharp retort died in her throat. She and Desang were the main reason Owl Class’s atmosphere kept tanking; if the two of them ended up on the same team, they would start fighting each other long before they ever faced the opposition. She knew it perfectly well, so she shut her mouth.
In truth, Willy had changed the rules because a five-on-five free-for-all meant far too many things to keep track of, and that was a pain. He could hardly say so to the children, though. So he had cooked up a plausible excuse—one that also conveniently sealed Jerry’s lips.
“Haa…”
Lia, who could read Willy’s thoughts perfectly, shot him a look of pure exasperation and sighed. He avoided her eyes and pressed on.
“The practice matches will proceed as follows. First: Jerry Husson versus Talon Arca. Second: Desang von Oblia versus Kelon von Gross. Third: Pel Lucoda versus Ruz Hari. Fourth: Chelrn Macadia versus Lia Marx. And last: Noir von Leonhart versus Blanc. Remember your order and your opponent.”
“My lady—”
“Blanc.”
The moment the matchups were announced, I ran straight to her. This was absurd. A maid, raising a blade against her own master? We had to protest this arrangement at once.
She looked startled by the sudden turn of events—then she smiled.
“Perfect timing, actually.”
“Pardon…?”
“I’ve been curious. Whether the me of now can reach you. How wide the gap between us still is.”
“That is…”
I met her eyes. Eyes I had looked into dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. Deep and beautiful as a sea stirred by waves. And in the abyssal depths of those eyes, a volcano named fighting spirit was burning.
