Chapter 4: The Royal Academy (8)
~4.8~
*****
Elizabeth opened with a simple bolt of lightning that Kye blocked. The attack was a feint, and Kye knew it. She twisted around and blocked Elizabeth's follow-up. A wave of gold and orange mana blasted out from the clash. Elizabeth sent out a stream of electricity through her blade to incapacitate Kye through her weapon, but that electricity didn't go any further than Elizabeth's weapon. It reached Kye's weapon and stopped. Unsure what was wrong, Elizabeth continued with a physical assault. Kye blocked every attack. After a short exchange, Elizabeth jumped back.
"Not bad," she said. "Your ability to channel mana is quite impressive."
Kye nodded. Elizabeth raised her left hand to the air and orange sparks began crackling around her. Dark clouds formed in the sky above the academy. "<<Dragon Lightning>>!" A large orange bolt of lightning descended from the cloud. It reached the ground in under a second, traveling no slower than natural lightning. Kye had already raised a hand to block it and merely redirected it to another area of the sky.
"What?" Elizabeth mumbled under her breath. "No matter." Her aura of orange mana began crackling with lightning as she started mixing dragon mana and lightning mana. "<<Convert: Iaitō>>." Elizabeth vanished, leaving behind sparks in her wake. Kye transformed her weapon as well. Elizabeth's output had increased, but her speed became the real focus. Elizabeth's next attack seemingly came from out of nowhere. She appeared to Kye's left and attacked with a lightning-imbued strike.
"What are you trying to do?" Kye asked as she held up her left index finger and blocked the attack. "The goal of this is to gauge combat capabilities for class. This is not a duel."
Elizabeth was focused on the finger that held her blade at bay. "How are you blocking this attack with just a finger?"
"The mana flowing through my finger is greater than the amount flowing through your sword."
"You are so smug! Will you not fight earnestly?"
Kye glanced over at Doran and then the instructor. Doran gave her an apologetic smile and the instructor was sighing at the exchange.
"So be it. I don't understand why you seem to have a problem with me, but there is no point in this. I'd much rather talk it out, but for now..." She knocked Elizabeth off balance and quickly formed a double-layered magic circle beneath her feet. "<<True Binding>>. <<Gravity Well>>. <<Rune of Exhaustion>>." Chains of golden mana appeared from the magic circle and wrapped themselves around Elizabeth's arms, legs, and waist. Gravity Well increased the gravity on them tremendously, and between that and the chains, Elizabeth couldn't move. The second layer of the magic circle activated next. The Rune of Exhaustion drained her mana at an incredible rate. Soon, Elizabeth collapsed, unable to maintain her mana output. Kye canceled the spells and rejoined Liliana, Aliana, and Alethea.
"The hell just happened?" asked one of the students. The archnobles and royals were equally shocked, aside from Kye's group.
"My apologies, Instructor Line. Do you have sufficient data from that exchange or shall I-"
"No, no, Lady Kye, I have more than enough data," Line said. "That match was enough to give me a better picture of your abilities in all three areas. Though it was entirely unnecessary, I can still use all of it."
"Would you mind if I took Doran's place and sparred against Alethea? I feel I was not able to properly demonstrate my physical combat abilities."
Line glanced over to Doran who only shrugged in response as he was picking his blonde sister up off the ground. She glanced at Alethea next and received a nod. "Very well." Kye and Alethea soon began sparring using only a minimum amount of mana and focusing on their swordplay.
*****
Once class was over, everyone was given free time for the day so that the instructors could meet and discuss the results. Alaira, Rika, and Luka were confused at Kye's sudden display of magic at the end of her fight with Elizabeth and decided to ask her about it before she and the others left to visit James.
"Hey, hot stuff, you put on quite a show today," Alaira said with a smirk.
"What's up, Lara?" she replied. Kye was used to that sort of speech from Alaira. The lot of them frequented both of the palaces in Arslade and New Tokyo, so they spent a lot of time together whenever their parents had business with each other. With the restrictive childhood all royals and nobles have it was rare that any of them got to meet, and even when they did it wasn't often. "Yeah, sorry, I wanted to show off some, but I was kinda backed into a corner in that fight with the Drachenheim royal being so aggressive, so I ended up going quite a bit beyond what I wanted."
"Yeah, no kidding. I thought you were actually in trouble there for a minute, but then WHAM! You just blocked that super-powered slash with a FINGER. Then you insta-casted two advanced-level spells and one epic-level spell at the same time!"
Kye feigned a smile, but nobody fell for it. Luka glared at her, Rika raised an eyebrow, and Alaira crossed her arms. She was getting cornered from three directions. "Well... you see..."
"Uh huh?" Alaira pressed her.
"You can cast some high-level spells, too!" Kye fumbled to argue against her fellow royals. "You can cast Pyroclasm! That's an epic-level spell! Rika has Ikazuchi Shinten and Luka-"
"You're not getting out of this that easy! Sure, we can cast some gnarly spells, too, but you insta-casted THREE. I thought we all agreed to hold back and not make a spectacle of ourselves while building our reputation over time!" Alaira was not particularly upset, but her scores were already locked in place, so she was stuck with lower scores than she wanted. "And YOU, little miss white mage."
"Huh! M-me?!" Alethea jumped back. "Eep!"
"Are you just as monstrous as Kye? Your skills with the blade are solid and your mana was pretty high, but I bet you were holding back, too!"
Alethea felt like Alaira was staring into her soul. She hid behind Kye instinctively. Alaira couldn't help but burst out laughing. Rika and Luka sighed and tried to stop her, but it was too late. Kye already smacked her with a mana infused chop to the head that sent her to the floor.
"OWW, what the hell?!"
"You were getting out of control," Luka said.
"You deserved that," Rika added. "Look, you scared Alethea."
Alaira jumped up, rubbing her head. She saw that Alethea was still hiding behind Kye. "Oh, sorry. I guess I went too far. That's a surprise though. As strong as you are though I'd never guess you were timid, especially after that speech yesterday."
"She doesn't have to put on the brave façade with us," Kye said.
"So, what's the deal here, anyway. Do you two know each other? The way she hid behind you... it's almost like you are sisters or something."
Liliana and Aliana grabbed Alethea together and forced her out from behind Kye. Alethea bowed and apologized, as unnecessary as it was.
"So..." Alaira curiously watched as Alethea looked to Kye for answers.
Kye smiled at Alethea and asked, "What do you want to tell them?"
"They're your friends aren't they? We should probably-"
"Alaira and Rika are cousins, actually. Alaira through James Marshall and Rika through Ginchiyo Tachibana. And Alaira and Luka are cousins through Alexandra Romanov."
Alethea pouted. "I know the royal family trees!"
"Of course, we are friends!" Alaira said. "Kye might not think so, and we're certainly not as close as Liliana and Aliana, but we've also known her for a long time! So, what about you? I know full well that you were more sheltered than the rest of us. I don't understand why the Atlantis sisters kept you locked up so tightly. I mean, we never got to go out either, but our parents brought us along between palaces often enough. Ugh... Kye, when you take over Nippon Sekai can you please try to get rid of this ridiculous restrictiveness for noble and royal kids? Cabin fever for an entire childhood is too much!"
"...I agree." Kye said with a solemn nod.
"Hey, you're trying to dodge the question again!"
Kye sighed and looked at Alethea as if to say "I gotta think of something don't I?"
Alethea nodded, as if saying, "Yes, please."
"Alright, fine," Kye said. "We've been secretly dating since we were eight. Only our guardians knew, which is why the lot of you haven't seen us together until now."
Alaira's jaw dropped while Rika's and Luka's eyes widened.
"Wh-what?" Alaira was dumbstruck.
"Uh huh..." Luka muttered.
"Okay, well, it was good talking! Let's catch up properly sometime!" Kye said as she began to push her group out of the door. "I'm busy today, but I'm free tomorrow! Bye!"
*****
Later that night, Doran was in his room with Michael and Michelle. Normally, it was unheard of for a girl to be in a boy's room, but a special exception was made for Michelle due to Doran's condition. He was on his knees with his head hanging in the toilet. Michelle was holding his hair out of the way. The door was shut, so Michael didn't know what was going on.
"Please, take the medicine! You've put it off long enough! This is not healthy!" She held a small blue pill out for him. "Adele, please!"
Doran raised up out of the toilet and shook his head. "No."
"You're that deadset on having a child yourself?"
"And I can't have one like you can. I have to... be the sire." Doran closed the lid on the toilet and sat up on it. "What about Kye? And Alethea? Those two are immortal aren't they? They're too out of the ordinary not to be."
Michelle averted her eyes, not wanting to answer. Like Kye, Michelle was able to see souls clearly and could identify them. She knew exactly who Kye and Alethea were. "... yes."
"Who are they? Do you recognize them?"
"Elysia and Maya."
Doran's eyes shot open wide. "What?! You're serious?!"
"Yes."
Doran buried his face in his hands. A stray tear could be seen falling around one of his hands. "Finally. The four of us can be together again."
"Yeah." Michelle smiled and tried to get Doran to take the medicine again.
"No. I want to have children first... and... what about Elysia? Can you tell if she has her first life memories?"
Michelle shook her head. "No. She doesn't. There's still a part of her soul under a very heavy lock."
"I see. Well, maybe we can-" Doran suddenly jumped up, flung the toilet lid open, and dropped his head over it again.
"Adele! Please! I can't stand seeing you hurt like this! Your dysphoria is so strong that you get sick like this every night! Please!"
After a minute, Doran raised his head. "No. I can put up with this to get what I want."
"This world has medicine for transgirls to be fertile enough to produce for a female partner. You don't need to put yourself through this!"
"That medicine isn't gauranteed to work. No. I'll wait. It's fine. You being here with me helps enough to get through it. Just stay with me a while longer."
"I'll do whatever you need, love."
*****
Revision: 7-13-2023