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The mana-screen was now showing a commercial about the movie, Glamour: A Love Story. “Are there always matches in the Friday nights?” I asked Shura, who was now behind the counter, checking the contents of the register. Thea had told me that this guy was the owner of the Trump, which I found very dubious.

“This month’s the 317th Annual Scholomance Student Tourney. Only university students can enter the tourney, itself, though,” it wasn’t Shura who answered but the grumpy-looking, young man beside me. “The name’s Isaiah Alistair Croft. Call me Isa, if you want.” He had a glass of amber liquid in front of him. “Don’t bother introducing yourself. I heard your name from Thea.”

“Um, okay.” I looked down at the counter’s surface.

I felt someone ruffling my hair, I looked up, and it was Thea. “Don’t be sad, Savvy…” she said, “Isa’s just being an ass because Rai left him alone, to have a date with his girlfriend.” Her hand felt soft atop my head. I could have her do this for eternity—I have to stop thinking about stuff like this.

“He’s not! He told me, he was…” Isaiah hesitated for a bit, “Rai’s just on a quest! And she’s not his girlfriend. They’re… just very close friends. In fact, I’m the one that she’s in love with, not Rai.”

Thea was now back in her seat, and she stuck her tongue out at Isaiah, who mouthed a curse at her, and went back to drinking what was inside his glass. “You hungry, Savvy? I bet you are,” she said and she was right, and what is with the Savvy nickname?

I was a bit hungry, so I decided to say yes, and to my surprise, Signy was the head-cook of this establishment. She still looked very pissed – must be the result of working under Shura. I was now having second thoughts in accepting his job offer. “Why’d you bring me here, anyway?” I asked Shura, who just came back from the kitchen with food in his hands, I assumed it was for me.

Shura placed a plate of food – fried fish and some sort of greens – and a small bowl of chicken soup, each, in front of Isa, me, and Thea. “Things needed to be clarified, regarding your place in the Olden Academy of Scholomance for Higher Magical Learning. Don’t worry, 'tis nothing much to be afeard about,” he said before disappearing back into the kitchen, again.

“I feel my death approaching, again,” I said.

Thea laughed, almost choking on her soup. “You’re… not going… to die…” she tried saying between giggled coughing. She coughed, again. It seemed to be the last one. “Not yet, anyway,” she laughed after saying that.

I let out a breath of exasperation, and looked at Isa. He was busy eating with his right hand, while fiddling with his mana-phone on the other. Perhaps, he was busy trying to get a hold of this Rai fellow. He looks very attached, obsessive even.

Thea abruptly stood up, seeming to leap off her chair. “Mana! Ali! Liv!” she shouted, went over to the door, and then I turned around, curious to what the commotion was.

Three very beautiful girls had just entered the Trump, followed by a horde of other people. “Thea!” all three girls shouted, and they hugged Thea at the same time. A weird thought occurred to me: if they hugged each other, hard enough, their internal energies might converge, forcing them to fuse together. Whether they create a higher, super-attractive class of woman, or they become a grotesque mass of flesh with three heads, would be interesting—seriously, what the hell is going on in my head?

While pondering what was happening to me, a hand was shaking my shoulder, I turned around with my seat – apparently, it was one of those revolving stool-chairs –, it was Manami, and she had a very hypnotizing smile, either that or I’m just very desperate. It would be sad if it was the latter. “Um, hi, Manami…” I said, verily smooth, if I say so myself.

Absent-mindedly, I was sweating from the glares of the male members of the horde. I glanced at what was my right now, and saw Isa rolling his eyes at me, before resuming to his phone-tapping. I looked back to Manami’s direction, I smiled, a very crooked one.

“You actually came!” she said—wait, what? She was joking? “I mean, I thought you weren’t going to show up…” she gave me a smile of assurance, “you were with Shura, you see, and he doesn’t like me inviting people to the Trump… says it’s bad for business.” She bit her lip, as if saying she was sorry and hoped that I would forgive her.

Why that Shura! I’ll be having a talk with him, later. Is what I would like to have said, but I’m pretty sure, he has his reasons. There were at least a hundred people outside, and the Trump could only fit in so much. It must be why I was glared at: me inside, them not.

I was starting to sweat now, scratching my ear. “So, um…” Apparently So’s and Um’s were my stock words when conversing with Manami. “Why, um, did you invite me to the Trump?” I asked rather timidly, hoping she’d say she wanted to know me better. God or gods, I’m pathetic or is this just normal? I hope it’s normal.

“She’s recruiting,” a bored voice came from behind me, behind the counter. I turned my head around and there, Shura stood. “Were my warnings about unneeded invitations, unheeded?”

Manami smiled, and I felt cold for some reason. I didn’t notice but two girls – who where Alina Sultan and Liv Falk – were flanking her sides, hands on their hips while Manami crossed her arms. “If I remember, you said you weren’t going to let them in, but they’re outside, so no harm done,” she said and I swear, I could see mist coming out every time a word came out of her lips—wait, why was I looking at her lips, anyway? Though, they did look delicious…

I was now sweating bullets, because of the fact that I was between a rock and a hard place. Isn’t there a more civil way of doing this? Why are they doing this, anyway? I could now feel their mana pressuring the very building, the lights were now flickering, instantaneously, as to be unnoticeable, slight shaking could be felt, and the crowd outside was getting jittery, whispering things to each other.

I moved my eyes around, Isaiah wasn’t any bit bothered and was still on his phone, Thea was sitting beside me now and chatting with Signy over the counter, and the two girls flanking Manami looked to be very bored.

I pivoted my chair, I was now parallel to the counter, then I retreated to Thea’s side, and from the corner of my eyes: I could see Shura with a blank face and a hand scratching his chin, while Manami was practically forming attack spells with her glaring.

“Discussions shall commence in a more private space,” Shura spoke up, easing the tension, slightly. He started tracing a large rune that enveloped all of us. Why am I dragged along?

I felt dizzy and so desperately wanted to find an artificial orifice that I might release parts of me into. I shook my head, trying to calm my stomach.

We found ourselves seated around a large round table in a small black-bricked room with a very high ceiling, dimly-lit too. Murals of grand entities at war with each other surrounded us. On the table’s surface was a mosaic of an immensely large tree, its roots over a sleeping dragon and on its leaves, a giant eagle roosting.

I was seated across Isaiah, Liv and Alina sitting beside him, while beside me was Signy to my right and Thea to my left. Between Liv and Signy was Shura and across him, sitting between Thea and Alina was Manami. They were both facing each other. It looked like they were having a magical duel with their stares, and when I looked closely and focused on the surroundings, they were doing just that. Damn. Is Shura Godborn, too?

Shura was subtly tracing runes while scratching his chin and Manami was smiling but through some kind of ventriloquism, she was summoning spirits as normally as a witch could, except without the chanting. The spirits that Manami summoned must have been very powerful, because they were visible and looked to be capable of more complex tasks, judging from the mana-veins pulsating on them.

“Um… they’re kind of, uh, pressuring the whole place with their mana,” I said to no-one in particular—okay, maybe to Signy or Thea. “Aren’t you two going to do anything?” I saw the both shake their heads. “Aren’t you a Godborn, too, Thea? Surely, this is nothing to you?”

I took a peek in front of me, Isaiah and the other two girls were talking, indifferent to the tension.

Signy, who had her upper body sprawled over the table’s surface, decided to answer for her: “Godborn don’t interfere with each other, except for Tourneys and such…” Signy took a peek at Shura, and rolled her eyes. “Besides, this is normal Friday nights for th—” Then, a small spark of light exploded on her face, startling her into standing up.

“Apologies,” Shura said.

Signy’s golden hair was now a fiery red. Fiery as in… it was on fire. “APOLOGIES MY ASS,” Signy shouted at him, a fireball forming in her hand. It must be a quirk of magic that it did not emit any heat, perhaps the fire activates on impact? Then again, how did she do that without casting a spell or making a rune?

Shura calmly took a glance at Signy and with his right thumb still cupping his chin, made a rune that cancelled Signy’s fire, angering her greatly but with reluctance, she sat back down. He looked back to Manami. “So, what is it this time?” he asked, his face still blank.

“You know what we want, Polzin,” she replied and a cat-spirit flew across to Shura, who dodged it with a tilt of his head. “The Student Council has already approved of the Trump’s expansion and is even willing to pay for a substantial fraction of the needed expenses.”

Another cat-spirit was now sitting in front of Shura. He hurled it back to Manami with a flick of his wrist. “Immaterial. Possession of the Trump is mine. The Council could approve that draconic fecal matter grants immortality for all that is relevant.” That was actually kind of funny but then a specific part of hell broke loose, and Shura and Manami started throwing arguments at each other.

“What exactly is this all about?” I whispered to Thea. I would’ve asked Signy but she was sulking. “I mean, it feels really intense.” I looked back to the argument, Shura was throwing tiny runes at Manami’s spirits while she in turn, made more – there was an army of cats sitting on her side of the table, now.

Thea sighed. “Manami wants the Trump to be expanded, so it can accommodate more people, but mostly, this is just politics. Both of them are the Designates of their respective countries that means they represent their country’s interests. You see, Scholomance has a very tight grip on their affiliate nations, meaning: the happenings inside the campus ripple outside. It’s really weird, if you think about it, giving the fate of entire countries—No. The world to college students.”

“But what does that have to do with the Trump’s expansion?”

She bit her lower lip for a bit, before turning back to me. “Well... have you ever watched, read or heard about Hetalia?” she asked, I shook my head in reply. “You should, because it’s a classic! Now, where were we? Uh, yes. Think of the Designates as the nations themselves. Yes, yes. I know what you’re thinking what does that have to do with the Trump’s expansion, correct? Just as the Designates are nations, all of the students and societies here represent organizations.

Only the elite of the elite are enrolled here. That’s why your enrolment here is a real shocker to me, because you don’t represent anyone and add it to the fact that you have a very low mana-cap, you’re a true wild card. The Trump is one such example – it is sponsored by the Ordo Omni, the group that oversees all of the mage orders. Did Shura ever tell you, he’s the Russian Federation’s Designate?”

“No. He didn’t. But wait…” I pondered on what she said for a moment. “If Shura owns the Trump, that means, Russia has control over all the different mage orders in the world! And what does expanding the Trump have to do with that?” Is that question never going to be answered?

“Well… Russia doesn’t really have full-control. They just have more privileges concerning mage orders, and expanding the Trump would mean the formation of more mage orders. Judging from your expression, you’re going to ask the same question, again. The Trump is very exclusive. It only allows entry to forty-four people – representing the forty-four seats that the upper echelons of Ordo Omni and the Trump, itself, has… literally. The Trump can only fit in forty-four people, but if it expands it would have to create new seats. That is what Manami, and incidentally, the Japanese Imperial Court wants. You got in because you were invited by Shura.”

“Wouldn’t that be beneficial to him? He does own the Trump. Wouldn’t he have the power to choose who takes those seats?” I asked, “and even if he didn’t: he’s still the President of the Duel Committee, which does represent something right?” I looked back to the arguing Designates. There was now a tide of cats on the table being blocked by an invisible wall and a humming sound – maybe from the mana. I turned back to Thea.

“The selection of seats is done through the ranking system and those most likely to be chosen, if additional seats are made, are under Manami’s thumb. You are right that he still has power, even if the Trump expands, because of his ties with the Duel Committee, which on a larger scale is the United Nations Security Council. Meanwhile, the Garden Society that Manami is a part of is the Grove of Druids and besides, Shura just hates the paperwork associated with such things and he doesn’t really care about the politics, that’s why the world still has nations, not a nation.”

Damn. Shura’s kind of a good guy, huh? I nodded, gave my thanks for the information, and went back to looking at the argument that was still in play. They had calmed down now, I guessed from the absence of cats and humming noises. Across, Isaiah was back on his phone, while Live was staring at Shura – a bit too intently for a girl to be staring at Shura – and Alina was taking a nap on the table.

Shura breathed in through closed teeth and sighed. “Look… an expansion of ten chairs is the sole offer that I shall give, and be appreciative that I even considered your proposal for a pointless power struggle.” In front of him, on the table, were a stack of documents. He was now tracing something on the first sheet of paper. He made the documents, too? I don’t envy him.

“I-I haven’t even accepted your offer! Don’t go and start making the contracts,” Manami said. Her face was furiously red. I felt that she wanted, very badly, to summon another spirit but, fortunately, she refrained from doing so. Probably because this is the best outcome, she’ll get. “Very well… I accept your offer!” she acted like she wasn’t the one begging. She's still pretty, though.

Shura had the finished contracts float beside his head, and with a casual gesture, the stack of papers flew to Manami’s side of the table. “Whether the agreement is mutual or not, is immaterial to me,” Shura said before snapping his fingers, a couple of times and bringing us back to the Trump.

At least, I got used to the teleporting.

Or not.

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