Chapter 1.

(Part I)

The morning sunrise barely clipped the tops of the buildings ahead of him.

Getting up earlier than was usual for him, Eiji Seiun had debated his method of travel to the Asakusa Academy.

He could either walk the two kilometers from the apartment he shared with his older sister, or he could take mag-lev that ran past the residential complex.

In the end, he decided to walk and use the time to think of the day’s problems lying in wait for him.

On his way to the Academy, and dressed in the summer uniform for boys, Eiji looked up, ignored the glare through the gaps between buildings, and noticed the clouds tinged with the subtlest of emerald hues. That alone made him stop in his tracks and pull out his palm-slate from a trouser back pocket. Thumbing through the menus, he called up the weather report and then read the entry regarding the Ether’s predicted levels for the day: high to very high.

He thumbed through the rest of the weather notifications before pocketing his palm-slate, and resumed walking down the broad sidewalk.

The Etheric Reflectors mounted atop every building in Pan Pacifica would be working overtime today warding away the Ether from the city-state’s skyline. If the Ether’s density was too high it affected complex photronic systems, contaminating them by transmuting the delicate material into Etherite, the emerald-like mineral that was a conductor of the Ether. For a civilization that depended on those advanced photronic systems, the Ether was a bane.

Ever since the arrival of the Settlement Fleet to the terraformed world of Pantheon, some forty five years ago, humanity had been searching for ways to deal with the Ether. The Galactic Ley Line had led the fleet to the terraformed world of Pantheon, but it had also led to them a world of problems. The Ether, the energy the spilled from the Ley Line, was one of those. Eventually, scientists and engineers broke the problem down into two camps: the benefits and the non-benefits.

When used in conjunction with Etherite, the Ether could power clean energy systems. With a higher energy conversion efficiency than solar energy, the latest transducers provided enough power to supply the entire city-state grid. The downside to this was the need to draw the Ether away from the city-state to power stations outside of the city limits, convert the energy to electrical power, then feed it back to Pan-Pacifica.

In short, the Ether could be manipulated to benefit a modern civilization, but it was a shaky relationship.

The biggest problem with the Ether was its transmutation property – its ability to convert inorganic matter, regardless of its chemical composition or atomic structure, into the crystalline mineral aptly referred to as Etherite. The process was one that took thousands of years, and when done leisurely it produced a high quality Etherite that could then be refined for use in Etheric Reactors.

Despite this, there were finite deposits of Etherite within the planet’s crust. It wasn’t as though Pantheon was covered in fields of glowing emerald Etherite. To get to it, deep mines had to be constructed. In addition, Etherite could not transmute water any more than it could affect organic matter.

However, it did have an effect on humanity.

It altered the Symbiote – the Thread – that existed in a harmonic relationship with its human host from cradle to the grave, and it separated the genders of men and women in a unique way.

The evolved Thread gave women the ability to magically weave the Ether with their will. They also gained an empathic talent, allowing them to write or cleans emotions that were imprinted on the Ether.

Men were not without their talent either, but in a society like Pantheon’s, it wasn’t as important. In fact, men got the short end of the straw when it came to talent. Maybe in another world or another time, men would have been able to use their Ether Kinetic ability to great use, but on Pantheon it was a wasted ability. While women gained the talent to weave the Ether, men could use the Ether as medium to express a telekinetic power that allowed them to move objects imbued with Etherite.

Even now, as he walked down the street, Eiji could feel faint traces of Etherite in the sidewalk under his feet. It was a minute amount, like a handful of tiny grains of sand mixed into hundreds of cubic meters of permacrete, yet he could sense it because Eiji Seiun had an immense Ether Kinetic talent…that he couldn’t put to use.

No, that’s not true. I could put it to use, but I lack the intention to do so.

Using his Ether Kinetic ability wasn’t something he needed to further his goals.

His feet carried him subconsciously to the intersection, and stopped at the crossing.

Morning traffic whizzed by, the sounds of electric motors in the air.

An elderly woman stood at the crossing, a few feet to his left. Eiji glanced at her and two thoughts crossed his mind.

The first was what the heck was she doing up so early in the morning?

The second was that she was undoubtedly one of the First Settlers to have arrived at Pantheon forty-nine years ago after the long, cold sleep aboard the immense arks of the Settlement Fleet. He briefly wondered what it was like for her to have stepped onto a world unblemished by humanity.

With faint unease, he looked up at the slowly brightening morning sky, and his gaze focused on the large, pale moon hanging there.

Somewhere up there, orbiting Pantheon’s celestial neighbor, was the alien Arcology responsible for terraforming the world and preparing it for humanity’s arrival. Though he couldn’t see it with the naked eye, the Arcology was an immense thirty kilometer long ship that was unlike anything humanity or the Archons had ever constructed. Yet humanity had encountered something like it a long time ago…in the midst of a giant nebula that was now thousands of light-years away.

Eiji suppressed a shiver, relieved when the crossing began to chime a repeating melody that indicated it was safe to walk across the street. Actually, all the crossing light and tune indicated was that pedestrians had right of way for the moment. Whether it was safe to cross the street was another matter. In any regards, the traffic this early in the morning was extremely light for a city-state the size of Pan-Pacifica with three quarters of a million inhabitants, though at one time the population had been higher by thousands.

When the Genjitsu Seeds fell en masse upon the world ten years ago, having travelled between worlds using the Galactic Ley Line, Pan-Pacifica was hardest hit out of Pantheon’s seven city-states. A quarter of the city damaged and ten thousand lives lost, before Archon and human weaponry succeeded in terminating the last of the Genjitsu Seeds that crashed with destructive force into the city, and manifested into the giant Genjitsu warriors composed of the Ether made solid.

However, it was not the first time the Seeds had fallen upon Pantheon. The Genjitsu had been dripping onto Pantheon for more than twenty-five years, and during that time the orbital defense batteries had destroyed the majority of the Seeds when they emerged out of the Ley Line and into real-space. Only a few hundred had ever made it to the planet's surface, and they were defeated by the city-state Self Defense Force that included first, second, and third generation Battle Faeries in their ranks.

What made the event ten years ago so memorable for all the wrong reasons was the sheer scale of the deluge. It wasn’t a few dozen seeds crashing onto the planet at once, but a few thousand. The orbital defenses had been overwhelmed, and even the vaunted Divas and Asuras – warlords created by the alien Arcology and gifted to a select few – had been unable to stop the Seeds while still in space. What ensued was the wide scale destruction of the seven city-states, and the realization that enemy was serious about destroying humanity. The question of who the enemy was, and why they attacked was something best left to the survivors to argue.

Eiji arrived at the opposite side of the street, and glanced over his left shoulder.

There was no sign of the elderly lady.

He looked behind him, and saw the old woman had only travelled halfway across the wide street.

The crossing had changed its tune, issuing a soft warning melody that was designed to alert pedestrians to hurry and get off the street.

Eiji turned away and started walking again.

Why doesn’t she use the overhead bridge? It has an escalator and moving walkway as well.

With a sigh he stopped, then turned around and jogged back to the crossing.

However, he found his help wasn’t needed.

A young girl with dark blonde hair, and dressed in an Asakusa Academy summer uniform, was helping the lady across the street, and they arrived shortly at the sidewalk just as the “don’t cross” chime sounded.

He stopped walking, and stood a few feet away from the girl and old lady, latter busy thanking her while the girl politely advised her to take the bridge the next time.

“After all,” she said, “that’s why they were there.”

Then she began advising the old lady about the latest model pedway floaters, that used a low power effect-field called a levitator-field to elevate the floater a few inches off the ground. Equipped with a variety of different seats to accommodate a variety of different backsides, the floater was the equivalent of the single seat scooter, but designed for pedestrian use.

All this information she imparted with surprising precision upon the old woman by using her palm-slate. The girl described various different models to elderly lady, sounding more and more like a saleswoman looking for her next commission.

Eiji’s mind gradually grew blank as he watched and listened to her drone on, and a vacuous expression settled on the woman’s face, clearly indicating that her mind had entered a different zone courtesy of the girl’s incessant sales chatter.

Even so, he wasn’t able to help himself and his gaze quickly ran over the girl’s shapely, yet lithe body, making the obvious stop at her impressive chest before hurriedly and quite guiltily moving along. His gaze chose to travel back down, and Eiji wondered why the female summer uniforms of Asakusa Academy were so short, although he wasn’t complaining.

He turned quickly on his heels, and walked away, feeling a little dirty for having scoped her out so early in the morning.

Not my fault. It’s an autonomic response. A primitive response encoded in the gene sequence of every human male. I’m a victim of evolution. Blame god for giving girls breasts and long legs. Blame the Thread inside their bodies for making them even sexier. Thus, I enter my plea of not guilty.

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, fearing they would start to sweat.

What the Heck is she doing here? She normally doesn’t come to the Academy this way?

True, he’d not been expecting to run into her, and he knew she wasn’t the kind of girl who liked getting up early. Then again, the next three days were special occasions, and today marked the start of the Summer Faery Knight Tournament held at Asakusa Academy.

Wait—was she planning to walk with me to school?

The thought sent a warm shiver down his back, which embarrassingly settled in his groin.

He groaned quietly.

I really can’t get used to her now…not since I realized how I felt about her….

It wasn’t long before the source of his emotional distress ran up to him and fell into step beside him.

“Morning, Eiji,” she politely greeted him with a melodious voice.

“Morning….”

They walked in silence for a little while, until he couldn’t contain himself and asked, “I didn’t know you travelled this way to the Academy.”

“Um…no…not normally. I thought I’d try something different today.”

A faintly nervous giggle escaped her lips. Her voice was undeniably soft and tender, making his heart skip a couple of beats. In his pockets, his hands were definitely breaking into a nervous sweat.

I can’t keep going like this. She’s bound to notice sooner rather than later.

Hiding his hands was one thing. Hiding his feelings was another. The Ether was carrying the emotions his body was imprinting on the flows, and he knew the girl’s talent as an Empath Weaver was at the top of the charts. There was little chance she would fail to read his feelings on the Ether.

The Ether wasn’t just a bane on complex systems. It was the enemy of every high-school boy carrying a crush.

While a girl could hide her feelings by cleansing the flows with her Empathic talent, a boy couldn’t so he was essentially like an open book revealing every dirty little thought in his head. It was a constant source of conflict for the guys who were unable to hide their feelings from the Ether or the girls in class. This was especially a problem for guys harboring feelings for their heart’s desire.

Eiji sighed inwardly.

There was no doubt the girls were troubled by all the male desires wafting in the Ether during class, like pheromones in the air. More than a few times a boy had been slapped for thinking something about a girl and was then betrayed to her by the Ether. Though the issue of separate classes had been proposed throughout the decades, in the end, classrooms were still co-educational, and girls and the Ether continued to torment the male student body. However, girls did have the option to weave the Ether into a protective layer around their bodies that prevented emotions flowing in the Ether from reaching them. In effect, girls could cocoon themselves with the Ether, and thus isolate themselves from outside feelings imprinted on the flows.

That was something men couldn’t do.

Eiji sighed outwardly this time, and focused on trying to calm down.

Easier said than done, he told himself.

“Eiji, you’ve been bad.”

His heart jumped at her faintly scolding tone, and he shot her a glance. Did she notice? Yes, of course she did. Great, the big reveal yet again in the morning.

“What do you mean?” he asked, noticing he sounded nervous.

“You didn’t help that nice old lady to cross the street.”

He stared at her this time, wondering if she was joking.

Releasing a self-conscious shrug, he replied, “She knew what she was in for when she decided to walk and not take the bridge.”

“Still, you could have helped her along. After all, it’s the Asakusa way.”

He stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

She showed him her palm-slate. A section of the Asakusa Academy handbook was displayed on it. “See, it says right here. Respect your elders.”

“It says respect, not help your elders. The two are not synonymous.”

She tapped the screen and the next page displayed animated two-dimensional images of a female student helping an elderly woman across the street. “This is the Asakusa way,” the girl intoned in a serious voice.

“Yes, and that’s a girl. You’re a girl. I’m not a girl.”

“Now your splitting hairs,” she muttered belligerently.

Eiji grimaced and changed tack. “Does the manual say you can launch into a sales pitch as soon as you arrive across the street?”

“I was simply advising her on alternative means of transportation.”

“More like you were trying to sell her a pedway.”

The girl frowned, then scowled weakly. “I only had her best interests in mind.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with that part-time job you were after?”

The girl shook her head, and her dark blonde hair swished gently about her pretty face. “No, not at all. You know I barely have enough time for the photography club these days.”

Eiji turned away, trying not to hurry.

Damn. She really has grown prettier.

The girl grumbled, “Kanata-senpai really shouldn’t complain so much about my club attendance. It’s her fault I have so much training in the afternoons. She dragged me into the Crimson Force Team kicking and screaming.”

Eiji rolled his eyes. “That’s not true. You fell in love with the power of a Battle Faery the first time you merged with one.”

“Yes, but I didn’t think it was going to be so much work being a member of her team,” she muttered.

“No pain no gain, Mirai.”

His heart jumped again as he said her name, and he fell quiet.

In the corner of his left eye, he saw Mirai Suenaga brush back a lock of long dark blonde hair.

She spoke softly. “I called out to you but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

He frowned faintly as he searched his recollection of the last few minutes. “No…I guess I didn’t.”

A soft sigh escaped into the air. “Well, I guess it’s because I just can’t use the Ether as well Haruka can.”

His frown deepened a little, and despite himself he gave her a sidelong look. “What do you mean?”

“I imprinted my feelings onto the Ether, and then used my Weaver ability to send them to you.”

“You did?”

“Well, it’s something we were practicing last week in class with Holly-sensei.” She released a feeble shrug. “I guess I have a lot of practice ahead of me.”

“Why would you want to?” he asked, openly wondering what purpose it served. “The practice of imprinting emotions into the Ether and using it to subvert another party is illegal. You can get arrested for doing it.”

“I wasn’t trying to subvert you,” she protested.

He shook his head. “I can’t believe your Empath Studies teacher is teaching you that.”

“It’s not subversive,” she stated adamantly. “And it’s part of our studies curriculum.”

“Oh, so last year when the girls were trying to get gifts out of the boys on White Day wasn’t subversion?”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“I didn’t say you were a part of that.”

“Eiji—”

“You know it’s not fair for a guy to have his feelings twisted by a girl.”

Her lips parted but she said nothing.

Eiji realized he was like a rolling boulder, unable to stop. “I don’t think it’s fair. Girls shouldn’t have that ability.”

“What?” Mirai looked aghast. “Eiji, you can’t say something like that.”

“Yes, I can. At the very least, men should have the ability to protect themselves from being unduly influenced.”

“Unduly…influenced….”

“If only anti-personnel void-fields were mass produced and cheap. I’m sure the first person to market them will make a fortune.” He realized something obvious and clicked his fingers. “Wait, the Archons already have that technology. Maybe someone can convince the Regiss to hand it over?”

“I don’t understand why you have to be so hostile about it.”

“That’s because you’re not a guy. You’re a girl,” he retorted flatly.

“We’re not subverting anyone. It’s not brainwashing,” Mirai complained. “The Ether can be used to cleanse a person’s pain, and it can be used to calm them down. In emergency situations it is used like first-aid.”

“Yeah. Right. And you can use it to turn a person murderous, especially if that person can’t protect himself from the Ether.”

“That’s not what we’re learning to do.”

“Well, tell that to the women serving time in detention facilities.”

“I’m not like them, and the girls in class are not like them?”

“Well, power corrupts.”

Mirai sucked in air loudly. “Well, I don’t have absolute power so I cannot be corrupted absolutely.”

Hefting the straps of his school carry-bag higher onto his right shoulder, Eiji picked up his walking pace. “Sorry, but I need to go on ahead.”

“What?” Mirai sounded surprised. “Eiji—”

He gave her a quick wave without turning. “I need to visit the Faery Pit before homeroom. I still have work to do on your Faery.”

He started jogging away, then heard the sound of running footsteps behind him.

“Eiji, you’re mad.”

“I’m not mad. I’m busy and short on time.”

“Eiji, don’t lie to me.”

“Mirai, I’m busy. And you shouldn’t run while wearing a short skirt.”

“Eiji, you can’t hide your feelings from me!”

He skidded to a stop, then whirled around to face her. “Mirai—!”

Running hard to keep up with him, she failed to stop in time, and crashed headlong into him.

Somehow his preternatural reflexes saved him, and he shifted his body to take the collision and then slide along the sidewalk with it. But in doing so he had to wrap his arms around her body to keep her from falling. Holding her in his arms, her body and breasts pressed against him, Eiji felt his heart pounding like a taiko drum in his chest.

It was impossible for him to hide his feelings from her.

It wasn’t just the Ether betraying him, but his body too.

With her so close to him, Mirai was certain to feel and hear his heart beating away and the blood roaring through his veins.

“Eiji—?”

He released her quickly, grabbed his carry-bag that had fallen to the sidewalk, and threw the straps over his right shoulder. “I have to go. I need to run diagnostics on your Battle Faery. Sorry, but don’t follow me.”

He turned quickly and walked away. A handful of meters down the sidewalk he started jogging again. Keeping his run at a steady pace, a few minutes later, he turned down the wide avenue that led all the way to the Academy.

He knew that if he turned around just once, he would lose his resolve and probably run back to her, so he concentrated on his running form and kept his eyes forward. The warmth of her body, and her scent lingered in his mind, and not even the onset of exhaustion could make him forget how fragile and soft she felt in his arms.

Now I’m just like every other lovesick idiot attending school.

Slowing down as he approached Asakusa Academy, he noticed students trickling through the entrance, walking either alone or in small groups, some excitedly, some lost in thought.

He tidied his appearance while regulating his breathing, though his heart continued to pound inside his chest. As he walked under the arch spanning the open entrance, Eiji looked up at the banner hanging from the archway.

FAERY KNIGHT SUMMER TOURNAMENT.

The words were printed in bright colors.

Eiji read them at a glance, his mind already falling into a well-practiced pattern of thought as he began running through a mental list of the work to be performed on Crimson Force Team’s Battle Faeries before the start of the tournament today.

At the top of the list was checking the customizations he and Ayato Kiriyama had completed on Mirai’s Battle Faery, Rhoswen. They had worked on the machine over weekend and finished late last night, but were unable to test the changes due to a lack of time. That said there was only a limited amount of testing that could be accomplished with the Battle Faery in its maintenance alcove. If Mirai didn’t test the improvements in the morning before the tournament commenced, she would be entering into battle with an untried machine and that made him undoubtedly nervous.

Making those customizations this late in the game was a risk, but he knew that Mirai would need a special machine to get her through to the last couple of rounds, and he believed her Battle Faery Rhoswen was up to the task. He and Ayato had made those customizations with Mirai’s skills in mind.

However, there was one thing about the Battle Faery he would neither change nor compromise on, and that was the machine’s color scheme.

He would rather run a lap around the Academy naked than paint the Faery in Mirai’s favorite color – orange.

Instead, Eiji had ensured the Battle Faery’s wings were painted immaculate white, thus befitting the name of Rhoswen, the White Rose. In fact, there wasn’t a speck of orange anywhere on Rhoswen’s body.

Mirai the White Rose sounds a lot better than Mirai the Orange Rose!

Perhaps thinking about work helped settle his feelings, and he noticed his heart had eased down to a gentle jog in his chest, rather than a mad war sprint.

Gripping his carry-bag that bumped gently into his right hip, Eiji walked with renewed purpose and clarity to the large oval shaped building in the near distance that served as the home for the eight Faery teams fielded by Asakusa Academy, otherwise known as the Faery Nest. With the time barely six thirty a.m. in the morning, he had two hours before homeroom commenced, and barely enough time to make a start on the Faeries of the Crimson Force Team.

As he walked, he noticed other young male students heading for the large building.

It appeared he wasn’t the only engineering student intending to make an early start.

It was true the girls would be the ones shining out there in the four battle arenas of Asakusa Academy. But the ones supporting them were the boys who not-so-secretly cherished them. He knew of more than a handful of male students who’d entered the engineering curriculum just to get closer to the girl they liked.

I guess some things will never change.

Suppressing a grin, Eiji strode to the Faery Nest, determined to show them what a truly talented engineering prodigy he was, and how much Mirai meant to him.

A sudden thought crossed his mind.

If she wins the tournament, then I’ll confess my feelings to her.

The thought lingered in his head for a while, before quietly making a stage exit.

In its wake, Eiji was unable to suppress a smile.