“So, uh.” Houki and friends were enjoying a victory feast in the dining hall, beneath a banner simply reading ‘Victory!’ Meanwhile, Iris and Djibril looked on with chagrined frowns. “Rin, your dad—”
After the match, Ling had met with her father. Ichika had wanted to come along, but she refused. The reunion had gone well, though, judging by the smile on her face.
“Yeah, that was a thing that happened. Mom showed up too.”
“Huh?”
Ling, back to her normal blasé self, answered through a mouthful of fries, “That part was kind of a mess. Ugh, I don’t understand why doing that was supposed to be for my sake anyway. He’s crazy.”
Yueyin must have had a hard time standing up to two women in a family squabble. Ichika couldn’t help but imagine him trying to keep up with the dual-pronged attack.
“Yeah, maybe he is. But maybe he’s just crazy for his little girl.” It seemed that they’d reconciled, and were going to remarry. Ichika didn’t have the nerve to ask what, exactly, had happened to his cancer. “Well, anyway. All’s well that ends well.”
“What do you mean, ‘ends well’?! Even I don’t understand what he was trying to do there!” Ichika tried to calm her down, but it wasn’t until he moved on to headpats that her complaints stopped. “Ahh...”
“......?”
“Oh, nothing!” At least it seemed like she was happy with that. The tension left her as she blushed.
...And just as quickly, rose in Iris.
“How long are you going to keep doing that?! A-Anyway! I certainly have no intention of returning to my country alone!
“Wha? ...Huh?”
As Ichika gawked in confusion, Iris waved an application form under his nose.
“Look at this!” It was true. ‘APPROVED’ was stamped right across it. “I’m going to be your classmate, Ichika!”
“Ahaha...”
It looked like his peaceful school life was... Well, ‘over’ would imply it had existed in the first place. But at least as a classmate he wouldn’t have to treat her like literal royalty. (And she wouldn’t have to act the part, either.) It wouldn’t have surprised him if her older siblings had been all for the idea.
“Good to see your family can get behind whatever you choose for yourself, Alice.” He patted her head just like he had Ling’s.
“Mm...” As he did, her anger faded away just as he planned.
“Anyway! You know what we do with losers, right?” Ms. Yamada appeared, grinning from ear to ear.
“Maya! You can do anything you want to me, but please, spare the princess!”
Maya’s glasses gleamed as Djibril cried out. “Anything I want, huh? You all heard her say that, right?”
“Ugh...”
“Ufufu. Like, maybe...” Maya whispered in Djibril’s ear, a devilish smile on her face. As she listened, Djibril flushed a crimson red. “Oh, my. I’d thought an Imperial Knight wouldn’t be so... squeamish.”
“Don’t taunt me like that! That... That’s nothing!”
“I was hoping you’d say that!” With obvious glee, Maya pulled out a paper shopping bag. “Why don’t you go get changed into this?”
“Okay, fine... Hey, wait! Where did you even get this?! I thought I had it—” It was only then that Djibril realized her fatal mistake so many years before.
“I guess it was a mistake to leave everything to me when you left.”
“That’s no fair, Maya!”
“Oh, it’s perfectly fair. Now hurry along and get changed, Gibby.”
“Maya... I’m going to kill you. Someday. As soon as I figure out how.”
“Tee-hee.” This was a side of Ms. Yamada that her students had never seen before, and they watched eagerly to see exactly what she’d baited Djibril into.
It was an IS Academy uniform.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ugh... I can’t believe I’m wearing this in my twenties...” She was obviously embarrassed by the high, high hemline of the skirt, to Maya’s cruel pleasure.
“Everyone, meet your new classmate, Djibril. Be sure to make her feel right at home.”
“Wait! If I’m stuck here, wasn’t it supposed to be as a teacher?!”
“Really? I’m pretty sure I heard you turn that offer down. And if you don’t want to be a teacher, well, there’s only one option left.” Maya stuck out her tongue, taking obvious pleasure at her victory.
“This is so humiliating...”
“Uh, I mean, it does look good on you?” Ichika said. His warm words were met with cold steel.
“You little—”
“N-No, wait! I meant that as a compliment! So why...”
Djibril’s mind raced, imagining her future, as she chased after him.
“Ugh, whatever! I don’t care anymore! Just kill me now!” She passed her sword to Ichika.
It was only Princess Iris—no, now, just Iris, a fellow student, who calmed her down.
“It hurts to see you like this, Djibril. I’ve made my peace with my own future as Alice. The least you could do is follow my example.”
“But, Princess!”
“Call me Alice!”
“Understood... Princess Alice...”
It took another half hour to drive it into her head that the ‘princess’ part was no longer necessary.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Djibril.”
“Yes, Alice?”
In a room in the IS Academy first year dorms, Iris spoke from one of a pair of beds lined up side by side. “My brothers, my sisters... They must really care for me.”
She understood, now, why she had been given her own IS. And she regretted her own embrace of her position as the spoiled youngest sibling. Her father and mother had died soon after her birth, and her six siblings had battled for authority. She’d always wished that she could have staked her own claim. But she’d always thought that the gift of an IS had been specifically to remove her from the picture.
“Maybe they were trying to spare me the burden of the crown...” Iris trailed off.
It may have been a noble path, but certainly not a royal one. But, it had bought her freedom. A path to survival, no matter what twists and turns palace intrigue led down. That’s what Seventh Princess meant to her.
“Alice, I think you’d make a wonderful queen.”
An open heart, willing to take on the burdens of the people, was the true mark of fitness to rule. And it wasn’t only her siblings who had hoped that someday she’d develop it. Djibril, always by her side, had felt the same. When she’d observed young IS trainees, Djibril had always been sure to grant them an audience with the Princess. And she’d always been impressed by Iris’s youthful earnestness and royal magnanimity.
“Anyway, Djibril.”
“What is it?”
“Do... Do you know how to make guys like you?”
“What?!”
When Iris had said ‘guys’, she had obviously meant Ichika.
“...I think you should give up on Orimura Ichika,” Djibril bluntly replied.
“What?! Who even mentioned Ichika?! Who? When? Where?!” If it hadn’t been obvious even beforehand, her idea of bringing him back to Luxembourg would have made it clear. “Anyway! Djibril! I know someone like you has to have a lot of experience with men! Don’t you?”
“I, uhh, yeah, of course I do! I’m an Imperial Knight! Obviously I have a boyfriend for each day of the week!”
That was a dangerous lie to tell, and the danger was in it being believed—which it was.
“Oh really? That sounds like a lot of fun!”
Djibril tried her hardest to not sigh out loud as she sunk deeper into her mattress. To be completely truthful, she’d never even held hands with a male, nevermind going any further.
“So you know exactly how to get a guy to fall for me?”
“Y-Yes...”
A new chapter in their strange master-and-servant yet teacher-and-pupil relationship was beginning.