The Imperial Princess, the Ghost, and the Wardrobe
In a move without precedent, Polaris Academy has officially invited Evangeline Failondia — Second Princess of the Failon Kingdom, Second Seat of the Seven Swords of the Kingdom, hero of the Demon War, the Princess Knight — to enroll as a special student.
Voices have been raised in concern that so extraordinary a decision violates the principle of complete neutrality that has upheld Polaris Academy for the past thirty years. The Academy rebutted them as follows:
Against this claim, some have countered that while it was admirable for a princess of the Failon Kingdom to fight in defense of her own people, that was hardly the same as fighting to protect humanity as a whole. The Academy, however, swept the objection aside with an unusually aggressive judgment, branding it "an extremist and dangerous ideology that threatens the continent's lasting peace and the peace treaty among the Four Powers," and has held to an uncharacteristically hard line.
Such objections have been raised chiefly in the Empire and the Republic. In response, Urd Dillan, eleventh president of the Republic, issued an official statement to the effect that "this is merely the claim of a handful of extremists; the Delmaria Republic remains deeply grateful for the devotion of Princess Evangeline and of the many heroes beside her." The Empire, by contrast, has so far kept its silence, and all eyes are now on whether it will produce an official position to match the Republic's.
There were, of course, many heroes of the Demon War besides Evangeline. Yet of them all, the only one aged twenty or under — that is, of an age eligible to enter Polaris Academy — is Evangeline herself. For that reason, some experts have suggested that the Academy may in effect be inviting her as a stand-in for every war hero who fought in the Demon War...
"Lady Evangeline... to Polaris?"
The young man muttered it with his nose buried in the paper, devouring the print as if he meant to dive headlong into the photograph on the front page.
From the sofa opposite, the woman had been watching him in silence. She let her eyes fall gently shut and asked, low:
"What's the matter, Oscar?"
"S-Sister."
He stammered. It wasn't that her tone or her presence had startled him, or frightened him. If one had to name it, the tremor was closer to joy.
"It seems Lady Evangeline is coming to Polaris."
"Oh my."
The special admission of Evangeline Failondia, Second Princess of the Kingdom, to Polaris. As the one who stood first in line for the imperial throne, Yuliana had gotten hold of the news long ago — but her dear little brother's spirits looked brighter than they had in ages, and so she decided to play along.
"That's wonderful, Oscar. You'll be entering Polaris this year too, won't you?"
"It's a little early to say that. I haven't even taken the exam."
"What a silly thing to say. If you don't pass, who else would?"
Yuliana waved a hand and shook her head.
Conscious of the eyes upon him, and determined to keep his dignity, Oscar held his face carefully still and nodded without a word. The corners of his mouth, however — forever trying to climb with no sense of how high the sky sat — had long since slipped his control.
Watching him quietly, Yuliana von Valentine allowed herself a faint smile.
Oscar was a truly pure child. To think he could love a woman that deeply — a woman he could count on one hand the times he had met, across the six years since they first encountered each other at eleven.
Fools liked to run their mouths, calling it a side of him unbecoming the dignity of the great imperial house. But she was the one who would take the throne regardless. What did any of that matter?
But, Oscar.
Yuliana whispered it in the quiet of her heart.
You love her that much. Will she ever love you in return?
Through the contacts she had already planted in the Failon Kingdom, she had a fair grasp of the girl. Engaged to Oscar or not, talk of him simply never surfaced. It was strange — unnaturally so.
To put it plainly, Evangeline had no interest in Oscar whatsoever. Not a speck. Not when she dined with the rest of the royal family, not when a word slipped out of her in passing, not even when she was alone.
Complete indifference.
It was a worse sign than open dislike. Didn't it mean she didn't even consider him to be in the same class as herself?
What does she think my little brother is?
Something cracked, and a vein stood out between Yuliana's brows. Merely picturing that bitch's face was enough to send a blaze of fury surging up from the pit of her stomach. Little by little, her expression began to twist into something like a malevolent spirit's.
If only my brother didn't love you, I would have — long ago...
"Sister?"
"It's nothing, dear."
At the sound of her brother's voice, Yuliana folded the expression away in an instant.
When he was small, I used to think I wanted to live my whole life without ever marrying him off.
That had been nothing but the childish whim of an immature girl who didn't yet understand how the world worked — unlike now. All she wanted anymore was to confirm it with her own two eyes: that he would meet a decent wife, someone who came up to her own measure... no, even half her measure, and live happily.
If only for that.
...Evangeline Failondia.
Just how worthy are you, really, to stand as my brother's match?
I will see it for myself. With these two eyes...!
"Hehehe... ohohohoho!"
"......Sister??"
Watching his sister put on the face of a woman hatching some dark scheme, all to the tune of that sinister little laugh, Oscar von Valentine thought:
What on earth is she trying to pull this time?
"...Hah."
I shut the novel where it lay, half-read and without a bookmark. Thump. Then I set my chin on the desk and let out a sigh.
Six years had passed since I was reincarnated as Evangeline Failondia.
By now it was no exaggeration to say I had wholly become the person called Evangeline — and yet Evangeline Failondia, after four years of war, was already someone a hundred million light-years removed from both. From the soul that had possessed her body six years ago, and from the original Evangeline who had existed before that possession.
If I had to compare it to something, it was along the lines of a Persona fusion. All-new, all-different Evangeline, if you like.
But that didn't mean I had forgotten my love for my family, either. Karl Failond was not a brilliant king, but he was a fine one, and though he had two wives and six children, he was a good father who treated every one of them fairly. Both wives raised all six children as their own, and Evangeline in turn held both women as one and the same mother. For a royal house, with all the peculiar strains that entailed, it was as close to a model of domestic harmony as one could hope for, and so even after the memories of her past life returned, Evangeline had never particularly thought to push that affection away.
The same was true of the fusion Evangeline, six years on from remembering that past life.
"Haaaaaaaaah."
The sigh dragged on and on. If anyone could look a father in the face — that face, those words — and tell him I don't want to without flinching, that person would have to be the most unfilial bastard alive.
"...Polaris Academy."
The original game had never depicted the place at all. Still, as Evangeline, a native of this world, I had at least heard what kind of place it was.
The Failon Kingdom. The Valentine Empire. The Delmaria Republic. The Solion Holy Kingdom. It was the symbol of the peace accord struck among the four greatest powers of the central continent, and the finest institution of learning on that continent, raised inside a zone of absolute neutrality that no nation anywhere dared violate.
Father had said he wanted me to attend school there, the way others my age did. To make friends. To live an ordinary, happy life, the same as anyone else.
...Could I really adapt to the Academy?
"You're going to school?"
"What."
A voice that didn't belong rang out. I jerked my head around, and a corpse was standing there.
"...Jack?"
"School, is it. Sounds like fun."
"Like hell it does."
I forced the words out, feigning a calm I didn't have. Pathetic, how my voice shook anyway.
"You're dead. Two years ago. At the Siege of Palantie."
Kikiki. Instead of an answer, the corpse broke into laughter.
"...Who the fuck are you. Where'd you get in."
The curse tore out of me in the end. As if the muscles of its jaw had been badly ruined, the corpse couldn't properly shut its mouth. Something slick and viscous spilled from between the slack lips and dropped.
"So now you're going to enjoy your life?"
"I asked you what you are."
"After you so calmly drove thousands — tens of thousands of people — to their deaths."
Its jaw rattled loose on the hinge. The mouth plainly would not close, and yet the voice rang out with impossible clarity. Or did it? It didn't seem to be a sound coming from anywhere at all. It seemed to be sounding inside my head. Pain started up behind my eyes. The voice wasn't even loud, and still my skull boomed and boomed, as if I were standing in the middle of an opera house.
"Shameless."
"Fuck!"
I drove my prosthetic left arm forward on pure reflex. KRAAAAAANG! The blast of air bursting from the end of my fist alone shattered the inner wall, and the wardrobe that had filled the whole of one wall crumpled in on itself and toppled.
"...Hah. Hah."
There was no one there. As if the whole of it had been a lie from the very beginning.
"Princess!!"
The door burst open.
"What on earth— eek!"
One look at the half-destroyed wall and the smashed wardrobes, and the maid's voice pitched into a thin scream.
"What... what in the world is..."
"...The wardrobe."
To the maid, who couldn't get the rest of the words out, I said it in a voice gone dull and distant.
"I didn't like the design."
"...I beg your pardon?"
The maid answered, looking utterly lost.
Of course she was dumbfounded. The princess who didn't fill so much as a single compartment of the ten-odd wardrobes lined up in a row — Her Highness of the single outfit — had surely swallowed the wrong dose again and started talking rubbish. That was what she had to be thinking.
Foolish. It was the only excuse that came to mind.