[ ▷ I Will Meet You in Person Tomorrow. ]
[ ▷ I Will Meet You in Person Tomorrow. ]
It was late, when everyone else was already asleep.
Becky and Louis ran into each other at the training grounds. Short greetings passed between them.
"I figured, but you got summoned too, Becky."
"Mm-hmm."
At Louis's words, Becky nodded. At the same time, she hastily tacked on a few questions.
"Hey, Louis. You didn't happen to run into any seniors on the way here, did you?"
"No. Not at this hour."
"I-I-I, on the way here I kind of overheard some seniors talking. By accident, but..."
Becky's legs wobbled as she spoke. It was like she was reliving a nightmare she never wanted to recall.
"The second-year seniors... were unbelievably furious. Because the Subjugation Festival reps were all chosen from the first-years... I ran all the way here covering my face."
Louis smiled a little at the girl's words.
"That bad? Well, the lineup was certainly unexpected."
"Unexpected? 'Unexpected' got left in the dust ages ago!"
With a "Hwaaah," Becky clutched her head with both hands.
"Why on earth... why on earth am I a representative? H-hey, Louis. Do you know? Why was I chosen?"
"I wonder. I still don't know why I was chosen either."
Both of them had just confirmed that they had become representatives for the Magic Department, and neither had any idea why they had been picked.
The standard setup would be a team of four second-years. No, that was the standard setup. They couldn't fathom how this result had come about.
"I don't know... I really don't know..."
Becky shook her head from side to side. The tension was written all over the girl's face.
Becky had already experienced a great deal with Plan. She already knew that he pulled off things that defied all imagination as if it were nothing.
But this was different.
No matter how outlandish and incredible the feat, this was the first time it had come crashing down directly onto Becky herself.
"Everyone's here, I see."
Just then, Plan appeared.
Impeccably neat attire, the same as always. He made his entrance with eyes as cool as the dawn air.
"P-Plan! You're the one who picked the Subjugation Festival reps, right? I hear you only chose first-years...!"
Becky immediately latched onto Plan. All the questions that had been filling her head came flooding out in a rush.
"Why didn't you pick any second-years? Why is one slot marked N/A? No, wait. Setting all the rest aside for a moment... Why did you pick me? Huh?"
But Plan's gaze never reached Becky. He called out to Louis instead.
"Louis."
"Hm?"
"Right now. Fight Becky with magic."
"...?"
Becky and Louis both tilted their heads at the same time.
They hadn't even resolved their questions about being chosen as representatives yet. Being told out of the blue to fight with magic was more than a little bewildering.
"I already know what you're thinking."
Plan went on in an impassive tone.
"Are we really going to the Subjugation Festival? Why were we chosen as representatives... I'll hand you all those answers at once. Fight."
He looked back and forth between Becky and Louis once more.
"Now."
Louis's gaze turned toward Becky. The recipient of the look awkwardly averted her eyes.
"Are you out of your mind?!"
Becky muttered, her jaw quivering. Though it wasn't just her jaw quivering.
"Louis and I are on totally different levels... Fight with magic? D-does that make any sense? Are you telling me to go die?"
"The same level. Remember that you are both representatives."
Not a single flicker of hesitation showed in Plan's red eyes. Becky was still fidgeting, while Louis calmly asked back.
"If we have a magic duel... we'll understand the reason why we were chosen as Subjugation Festival representatives?"
"Yes. I guarantee it."
"Hmm."
Louis nodded and slowly began warming up. Becky's face went pale as she watched.
"Louis, hey, Louis? You aren't really... right? Huh?"
"Let's just try it. Plan always has his reasons, doesn't he? And he proves them right in person."
"..."
Her face pale beyond pale, now drained white. Becky began walking quickly toward the training ground entrance.
"I... I understand. I totally get it~ I don't think we really need a magic duel after all! Yep!"
Shiiing—
At that instant, a blade of light grazed the skin beneath Becky's ear.
"H-hyeok!"
Becky panicked and flailed. Meanwhile, Louis calmly began shaping his next formula.
"No hard feelings, Becky. Just... let's try believing in Plan."
"No hard feelings, and this is what it looks like? Hey...!"
She was foaming at the mouth and on the verge of fainting, but the look in Louis's eyes was sincere.
She had no choice.
'What did I do that was so wrong?!'
Forcing strength into her wobbling legs, the girl urgently manifested ice elements. Survival took priority, after all.
Paang—!
A compressed, high-power beam of light.
Louis fired three or four of them in rapid succession.
Crack—!
The sound of shattering ice filled the training grounds. It was force that Becky's ice barrier couldn't withstand.
'How am I supposed to beat Louis...!'
But as if the straight-line beams were only an appetizer, the rays began to bend and refract chaotically.
Refraction.
Despite being a fellow first-year, Louis was wielding light element with masterful skill.
The light beams painting the training ground beautifully were dazzling even to Becky, who had to focus entirely on defense. There was no way she could beat something like that.
No, she couldn't even defend against it.
The moment she thought that.
'Huh?'
A sudden flurry of thoughts sparked like fireworks.
She didn't know why these things occurred to her. Except, without even realizing it, she was putting them into practice.
'Wait. First, first...'
Becky wove a circuit. A precise amount of mana began to flow along the meticulously crafted path.
Kwaaaaang—!
The ice barrier and the light beam clashed once again, and a fierce explosion erupted.
But this time was different.
The ice barrier withstood the attack. Even if it couldn't fully withstand it, the formation itself was precise.
"Oh..."
Louis cocked his head once.
The defense had become solid.
It was as if he were suddenly fighting a different person. Attacks he had put some genuine effort into — Becky evaded and blocked Louis's attacks as though it were nothing.
"What's this, Becky. Have you been hiding your skill? That stings."
"I don't know either! I really...!"
By a margin the width of a single knuckle.
By exactly that much, every attack missed. And when it seemed about to land, a barrier blocked it without fail.
"Am I the one falling short?"
Louis doubled the mana he poured into his beam. The ray of light, swollen with excessive force, writhed like some grotesque creature.
Paaang—!
A trajectory with zero deviation. A flash drawing a straight line like an engraving surged toward Becky. More than five ice barriers were shattered in an instant.
But. In that moment, Louis saw it.
An artfully crafted ice awl, hidden from view behind the barriers.
Shiiing—!
The sharply honed ice awl grazed the skin beneath Louis's ear.
"Enough. That's it."
And in that instant, Plan ended the bout.
"..."
A peculiar silence settled. Without either of them initiating it, Becky and Louis faced each other blankly.
Plan asked them both:
"So. How do you feel."
"Hmm..."
Louis rubbed his chin for a moment, then sent his gaze toward Becky and asked.
"First, I have a question for Becky. What in the world was that just now?"
"That just now... that just now was... I mean..."
Becky couldn't get the words out and scratched her head. Eventually, she outright yanked on her hair.
"I don't know. I don't know! What's happened to me...?"
Both of their heads naturally turned toward Plan. Only he would know the answer to this situation.
"Becky."
"Y-yeah?"
"What have you been doing lately."
"Me?"
Becky raised her eyes upward and began methodically retracing her own steps.
"Sleeping, eating, attending lectures, doing assignments..."
"I mean the things I had you do."
"Oh, sorry."
Becky hastily corrected herself.
"I summarized papers. An insane amount of them. An un-un-unbelievable amount."
Even the word "unbelievable" didn't do it justice. She'd recently developed faint dark circles, after all.
The papers covered an incredibly wide range, too. Methods of handling mana, interactions between elements, techniques for gauging efficiency...
But the moment her thoughts reached that point, Becky let out a sound involuntarily.
"Oh...?"
When she looked at Plan with an expression of dawning realization, he gave a quiet nod.
"Plan, you. You had this in mind from the very start...?"
"I don't have a hobby of assigning meaningless tasks."
"No, whoa, good heavens, this is insane, it's absurd."
Becky's mouth fell open wide. Louis, watching from next to her, smiled curiously and murmured a bonus remark.
"You simply assisted in summarizing Plan's papers... and your skill increased?"
He murmured as if he'd realized something.
Louis, too, understood well that Plan's magic skill was extraordinary. Still, it was a fact that he found somewhat hard to accept even as he said it himself.
This much growth, just from helping summarize papers.
If this was true...
"Plan, those papers. Do you mind if I take a look at them too from now on?"
The two young men's gazes met in the empty air. In Plan's red eyes, Louis saw his own reflection, brimming with drive.
Without a word, Plan slowly nodded.
The more assistants, the better.
◈
The pre-dawn hours passed swiftly, and morning finally broke.
Today was the day she had promised to duel Plan. Trixie would prove the majesty of the 'blue flame' once and for all, and become the disciple of the Teaching Auction master.
And one more thing.
Her goal was to put her name on the final Subjugation Festival roster. If she won the duel, Plan wouldn't be able to pretend he hadn't noticed her.
She had spent the entire night in the training grounds. Her mind had been so restless that she'd deliberately sought out not the academy's, but the training grounds inside the Fritz mansion.
It was time to start getting ready to head out.
One by one, maidservants approached from the distance, and behind them, an unexpected man revealed himself.
"My daughter."
Eyes the color of deep indigo, mirroring Trixie's own. The current effective head of the Fritz family, a prestigious house of flame element — and Trixie's father.
Isaac von Fritz.
"Word reached me."
"..."
She couldn't readily respond to that. She didn't yet know how much her father had heard.
"The Magic Department is beginning preparations for the Subjugation Festival in earnest... and our daughter's name was absent from the list of representatives, I hear."
So he knew everything. Trixie gave a quiet nod.
"It's for the best, really."
"For the best?"
"The Magic Department's ambition is admirable, but there is no need for you to enter."
As Isaac spoke, a thought of his wife drifted through his mind.
It was now more than twenty years past. That time, during what was called the Magic Department's golden age, when the mage team seized second place in the Subjugation Festival.
It had been a moment that any mage would have cheered for, but the road ahead for the actual lead, Bella von Fritz, was bleak.
After the Subjugation Festival, she was no longer able to handle magic.
When she married Isaac, when she gave birth to Trixie, all the way to the moment she passed away after a long, wasting illness...
She kept entirely silent about what had happened and never smiled again.
Isaac spoke quietly.
"My daughter, you remember the family precept, don't you."
"To set something ablaze... you must first ignite yourself."
"Yes. That's exactly it."
Her father's face became quite grave.
"I do not believe that the Subjugation Festival, of all things, should be the stage that ignites my daughter. If you continue as you are, won't greater opportunities come later?"
The Subjugation Festival, of all things, should not be the stage.
No.
To Trixie, those words could only be interpreted one way: If she entered the Subjugation Festival, that place would become her final stage.
Isaac was worried. That Trixie would become like her mother.
"I have to enter. You know that."
"...Heh heh, you can't beat blood, it seems. You're exactly like your mother."
Although he let out an awkward laugh, Isaac's face was rigid. Trixie began to walk past her father.
The maids quickly fell in behind the girl. Isaac's voice sank low.
"My daughter."
Trixie halted. But she did not turn back.
"You are now the only one who bears the blue flame."
She slowly turned her head.
Her father's indigo eyes, mirrors of her own. Reflected in them, she saw herself — a wavering blue flame.
"That you are Fritz, and Fritz is you. Always keep that at heart."
Trixie gave a quiet nod.
"..."
She remained with her eyes cast down, lost in thought, for a long moment. Then, finally, she took a step.
One step, then another. With each step, strength filled her stride. Perhaps it was because duty was pressing down on her shoulders.
"Fritz."
The girl murmured her family's name in a low voice.
Because she is Fritz, and Fritz is her.
...In the end, she had no choice but to enter the Subjugation Festival.
It was precisely then that word came from the Teaching Auction.
[ ▷ I'll meet you in person tomorrow. ]