Livia, Central, Auxiria. Candoran Calendar, 1887.

“Please, Kato. I need your help!”

Mirabelle folded her hands in prayer as she gave him a hopeful expression with wide puppy eyes.

Kato, on the other hand, sighed in exasperation. Truth to be told, he didn’t want to sound like a whiner in front of her, but he really didn’t want to handle it if he didn’t need to, so he complained anyway.

“You know that I suck at getting up in the morning, right, Mira? You can’t expect me to get up that early and go to school to sit in one place for over an hour by myself.”

“I knew I had to take the morning off to go to a ceremony with my sisters and our father, but I forgot that someone else has to take over for me supervising the third music room next morning.”

“You can’t find anyone else?”

“Not when it’s less than twelve hours from now.”

“So you come to me, for me to take on your troubles.”

“Of course~”

“You’re lucky I’m student council now, otherwise I wouldn’t be qualified to be a room supervisor and have an excuse to not wake up early.”

“Thank you sooooo much! I owe you one!”

Mirabelle’s face turned cheerful as she clasped his hands with hers. Her two silky black pigtails, each which flowed from behind her shoulders and tied at her front, bounced with her change in spirit as her golden eyes, which were nearly hidden behind her bangs, lit up.

“You do owe me one.”

Kato sighed again with one hand pulling at his short and messy auburn hair and feeling thoroughly defeated. He didn’t have a real reason to reject her, so he agreed to go along with her request. Now that he was a class representative and an Assembly member this year, it was his duty to follow directions from the student council president.

“This weekend, we’re all going to the Bozz, so I’ll pay my debts then.”

As they walked up the paved hillside path, Mirabelle skipped ahead of him and winked at Kato, who couldn’t help but be impressed by her flair and figure. After school finished at the end of the afternoon with the orange sun low in the sky but still at full brightness, she stood even more beautiful than her usual form, which was already impressive enough.

Without thinking, Kato quickly paced ahead to catch up to Mirabelle and pinched her nose lightly. As he did so, she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a cute squeak.

“Free tickets for me and the fam.”

“Like always.”

Mirabelle smiled radiantly as they reached the end of the path at the top of the hillside. There, they saw a familiar scene: the old urban playground they and their group of friends grew up in. Beside the main set of slides were the much coveted jungle gym and swings that their group took over whenever they came here, but today it was only the two ringleaders alone at this rubber mulch battleground.

Looking behind at the direction they came from, they could see the sun setting upon the city of Livia below. The city sat in a uniquely warm and rainy valley that brought it fair weather, giving it warm summers and cool winters. So even though it was almost the end of summer as they had only begun school a week ago, there was no sign of the weather turning cold yet.

“Let’s sit on the top for a bit.”

Mirabelle pulled Kato along by the hand towards the dome-shaped jungle gym, which was quite large compared to others and was the tallest playground structure here. It was probably at least ten feet high at the apex, and some soft spongy flooring was underneath it.

“Only for a bit. I’m hungry and I wanna go home.”

They climbed onto the metal scaffolding that was meant for the children they once were. As usual, they took their seats on the top. From here, they could see that looking out over the hillside at the sky and city was just as majestic as it was when they were small children.

“Settled in?”

“Ya.”

Kato put their schoolbags aside and sat contently there, shoulder to shoulder, admiring the view of the city granted to them. The playground today was quite vacant, as only a few other kindergarten children were playing on the slides. There were maybe a dozen trees planted sparsely throughout the area, usually next to the few concrete gazebos that the elderly used to take refuge from the sun. Next to one of them was an analog clock perched atop a tall pole, currently almost at seven.

Mirabelle was wearing the light sailor uniform for autumn, though the white and baby blue colour patterns were drowned out by the orange sunlight. A dull orange tie flowed down her front, while her legs were wrapped in her black pantyhose despite the warm weather. Her golden eyes held a mysterious yet mischievous colour that pulled you in and was hard to avert your eyes from. Out of all his friends, the hardest person for him to read was probably her.

To him, she could only be described as otherworldly in every way, yet they sat here together as if that was never the case. This wasn’t the first time, or the fiftieth time, that they spent their time alone together atop the jungle gym, but Kato felt the same aura of mystery and sense of longing emanating from Mirabelle, every single time.

“It’s only Monday and you’ve already done goofed. It’s not like you, Mira.”

Kato started after a whole minute of silence.

“I’m still getting used to this student council president job. Please forgive my shortcomings.”

Mirabelle answered with a steady voice splashed with some formalities. As expected of a daughter of nobility.

“You first forgot to submit and print papers for the convening Assembly tomorrow, so we had to stay behind an extra half-hour so all our sisters and friends left for home before us, despite them helping you out in student council already. And then forgetting you have duty the next morning... you can’t be getting old that fast.”

“Wait, what’s this ‘bout my age too?”

“Nothin’. You can rejoice that I’ll always be four months older than you.”

“Am I that pitiful that you have to use that to make me feel better?”

“Well, you did trip up twice already and it’s been only three days into school.”

“Nnnnnnnngh! Stop it already! I’m trying my best, all right?”

Mirabelle pouted at him as she perched her head onto his shoulder, revealing that she was clearly still in a playful mood.

Though she has done this many times before, it nevertheless soothed his heart and made him felt at ease, as though this was only natural. Kato truly enjoyed living in moments like these, to admire the perfection that sat next to him and how it made him admire her so.

“And now I have to wake up early tomorrow. Thanks for nothing, Madam President.”

“...”

Mirabelle pouted again, cheeks puffed out, but this time silently, as if she was fuming. Knowing he was pushing her buttons, Kato hid a smile behind his hand before facing her and patted her head with his other.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

Kato mumbled, almost inaudibly to her under his breath. She pulled back from him, turned away and gave him a defiant “hmph”. He then laughed out loud.

“Kato, you’re always like this!”

Peeved, Mirabelle complained to Kato and forcefully leaned into him with her shoulder to show her dissatisfaction. She knew he was only messing with her to see her reaction, and she secretly happily gave it in full.

“But I’m only like this to you, Mira.”

“...”

Her face was flushed with pink as she stopped pushing into him and let her shoulder rest on him. Inside her chest she felt a familiar warmth settle there, a kind of warmth that she only felt with Kato by her side. Somewhat out of her usual character, she remained wordless and let the silence carry between them.

Perhaps it was true. Even if it wasn’t, she wanted to believe it was so. Certainly, he did not expect her to fall silent after that, and only after she did, he realized that it was more equivocal and surprising than he had thought. Mirabelle had let her guard down in that moment, and for once he was able to glean into her true feelings.

Wisps of clouds floated across the sky at a quick pace as the shadows grew longer behind them. For whatever reason, today was a poor day for the playground because the few children who were there soon vacated the slides and went back home with their parents or grandparents.

“Mira, where are you going tomorrow?”

Kato was the first to speak again after another lull had passed by.

“Where I’m going? To a place to perform a ritual of some sort.”

Mirabelle gave a vague answer whilst making it sound like a natural thing to do. Of course, Kato raised his eyebrows at that kind of response.

“A ritual of some sort? Are you secretly an occultist? Alchemy is a recognized branch of science in today’s society, so there’s no need to hide that sort of thing.”

“Oh heavens, you’re such a riot. I’m about as alchemically compatible as hot glue and oil, so there are no secret magicks for me. There’s no way for me to even pretend to be an Avian.”

The Avians were the people of the Kingdom of Ava. They, along with the old homeland of Yue, were the places that modern alchemy originated from. In the vernacular, alchemy and Ava were synonymous with each other due to their historicity.

“Who’s the riot now? Even without being alchemically compatible, you can pretend to be an Avian anyway.”

To pretend to be an Avian did not only mean to pretend to be an alchemist. It was also a popular idiom meaning to easily deceive someone about you. The idea was that even a miniscule display of alchemy could “prove” yourself to be an Avian, deceiving the unsuspecting about your true intentions. In short, that person had a good poker face.

He did not miss the pun she used together with the idiom.

“I’m glad you understand that I’m right either way, but am I that hard to read?”

“Yes, very. Unless being cheerful all the time is in fact all there is to it. If it is, then this is where I claim that it’s because of me.”

Upon hearing that, her heart felt a tiny bit lighter.

“Maybe it is. Who knows?”

“Well, it’s apparent that you know and you’re not sharin’ it, so my accusation still stands.”

“Well then, good to know that all is going according to plan.”

Mirabelle smirked at Kato, who let out a small sigh. There was nothing more he could get out of her on that.

“That’s so strange though. Bianca’s alchemically compatible and you’re not, but you’re physically superior while she’s not. Are you two really identical twins?”

“Eh. My fam’s messed up in a lot of ways.”

“That’s true. Everyone’s fams are messed up in some way.”

“Yours is the most messed up right now. You have a younger sister who looks exactly like you, two very attractive older stepsisters, a grandma with the appearance of a ten-year-old who is also your homeroom teacher, and a caretaker who’s clearly a high-ranking member of the organization.”

“I sense some... edge in your voice.”

“Must’ve been your imagination.”

“My imagination must be really good then.”

Kato said carefully as he grinned slowly at the end. His family was a big part of his life and he was quite proud of them. It also wasn’t hard to guess why her voice was dripping with passive aggression.

“Let’s get back on track. What’s the ritual about?”

“We’re still going on about that? It’s gonna just be some boring thing I have to be present for.”

“Some boring thing that it takes time away from all four of you? Sounds special enough to me.”

“Nah, it’s nothing special. Father will be there with us too.”

Mirabelle shrugged with an unconcerned expression, clearly unimpressed with having the need to go to whatever she was going to. She closed the topic up by playing the father card, which Kato understood it as something that was intimately related to her family.

Mirabelle then turned all cheery again as she turned to him and smiled.

“Let’s go. It’s gonna be pretty late by the time we get home.”

She reached over him to grab her schoolbag, to which Kato lent a hand.

“Mm, let’s call it a day. You and your sisters are only off in the morning, then?”

“Yup, we’ll be back in school by lunchtime, so you’ll only miss me for a few hours~”

“Who said I’ll miss you for a few hours?”

And just as quickly, her face turned red and angry as she began hitting Kato on the arm repeatedly with her tiny fists. She was getting mad for real this time around.

“Yeah, no one said that, you stupid stupid!”

Snagging his schoolbag, Kato jumped off of the rails to break away from her feeble blows and roared with laughter as she tried to use vernacular language. Something about a princess trying and stumbling over using slang made it all the more amusing to Kato.

Landing on his feet neatly on the rubber mulch, he saw that Mirabelle too followed and landed next to him, so he started to run and make his way out and behind the jungle gym, away from the hillside.

Behind the playground and a bit ways further out was a chain-link fence that shielded the area from a wide and busy main street. Walking on that street towards the left went to more built-up areas dominated by the city’s usual tall apartment buildings, while the other direction went to the quieter suburbs. Here, Kato and Mirabelle would part ways in opposite directions, Kato towards the city and Mirabelle towards the suburban districts.

“Please! Have mercy! I take that back! Truly!”

Kato laughed as Mirabelle ran after him. It wasn’t long until they reached the fence and had to stop and open a similarly chain-linked gate to exit the playground for the main street.

“Sure, I believe you and your words completely. And I also understand that there’ll be no one here who’ll miss me.”

Mirabelle’s tone remained very upset while her face remained beet-red at his antics. It didn’t help that Kato’s grin was on his face this whole time.

“But there is! Really! It’s just that, for that someone, it’s not just the few hours; it’s actually the fifteen or so hours separating the next time he sees her again.”

Then Kato stopped and waited. Watching her face transform so smoothly from anger to incredulity to embarrassment to happiness, was magical. If his brain could record imagery with photographic memory, he would replay this moment for all time.

“Ah... I’ll give it to you this time.”

Mirabelle sighed helplessly. She clutched onto her schoolbag closely at her chest as if trying to hide her heartbeat, which was deafeningly loud to her at that moment. She did her best to put on her usual vaguely content expression, but unfortunately the smile was too wide for that.

“Then I’ll see you after midday tomorrow.”

Wanting to sound and feel really cool, he topped it off with a wink and a hand gesture of a gunshot shooting for her heart. The moment he returned to his more goofy self, Mirabelle giggled at his cringe-worthy attempt.

“Actually, I lied. Tomorrow, I’m going to find out if I can pursue the future I wanted, so it’s going to be an important day for me.”

“Wait, wha—”

Mirabelle quickly skipped away from him, leaving him and his surprised gaping mouth behind. With the sweet smile still on her face, she waved and bid him farewell.

“See you tomorrow. Bye-bye!”

The neighbourhood where Kato lived was a cramped city district. In front of the apartment he lived in was a small road meant for pedestrians and small vehicles, while on the other side of this road were the backs of shops that faced the main street: the same main street that led to the playground many blocks over. So, on the way to and from school, he would pass through the narrow alleys in between the shops and onto the main street. There were little natural greenery in this area, and instead trees were planted in concrete-protected pits along the side of the main street at regular intervals. Behind his apartment were village buildings and small plots of farms, before it yielded to the more grassy hills.

Living on the second floor of the fairly old apartment building, the metal gate to the main staircase of his section of the building was behind the building; the front was occupied by garages and small shop spaces, owned by the few residents who could afford to buy ground-level spaces that were as expensive as homes themselves. Wires of all shapes and colours lined the outsides of the building, each tethering to another building or a utility pole, and so on.

His home, the von Habsburg residence, was made of not one, but two suites merged together. They bought the neighbouring flat, and then proceeded to tear down a part of the wall between the two living rooms to connect the two together. They then sealed the main entrance of the other flat so that there was only one entrance to the two apartments, now fused together.

The first apartment belonged to Kato’s long-time guardian, Karl von Habsburg. A man in his late fifties now probably, he picked up Kato and his two sisters from a small orphanage many years ago and raised them as his own children.

But of course, it wasn’t without strings attached. Karl was an agent for Eternia, the secret organization that controlled a vast underground economy across the continent of Candor, in direct opposition to the imperial government in the Auxirian capital. It was a mysterious organization headed by the three Eternal Leaders, all of which were more than three hundred years old and likely have extended their longevity by their sheer talent at alchemy. In a sense, Eternia was the biggest mob, but existed in harmony rather than in begrudging tolerance with normal society.

Fortunately, the city of Livia was one of the first and most important bases of operations for Eternia. Because the mob controlled the city, it was able to maintain its autonomous status from the imperial government and preserve its culture and way of life. Despite being a city of multiple nationalities, everyone spoke the vernacular language of Old Yue, in contrast to the official language of the rest of Auxiria, Standard Candoran.

“I’m home!”

Kato called out to his family as he opened the front doors to their apartment and entered.

“Yo.”

“You’re home!”

Two female voices simultaneously exclaimed in response, while another two remained silent, and instead waved with their arms as a salutation.

The two who called out were his first elder stepsister and younger sister, Evianna Misaya and Teto Danubia. Evianna was a half-Yue and half-Avian orphan who Karl also adopted along with Kato and Teto, and was in the same third-year class as Kato.

Evianna was a tall girl with a glamorous face and a body of a supermodel. There was no doubt she was a target for the boys at school, and she even had the bounteous chest size to boot. She kept her hair platinum hair short in a bob cut, and her bangs held to the side symmetrically by hairpins. Her blue eyes were generally devoid of emotion, as was the rest of her demeanour, but always delivers the ‘yo’ on time.

Teto, on the other hand, was a year younger and was Kato’s biological sister. They looked very much alike; they shared the same brown eyes, facial features and auburn hair, which were somewhat curly and disagreeable with hairstyling. Teto tied her hair in twin drills, and she was shorter than Kato by several inches.

“We started eating already.”

“I already got rice for you here.”

“Thanks.”

They sat around a folding table with a variety of dishes on it. It was probably the most old-school Yue style food as you could get. Steamed fish on soy sauce, plain-cut chicken, pan-fried pork slices with beans, and steamed vegetables. A huge pot of rice lied on the floor, containing enough carbs for five people.

“There’s soup in the kitchen, if you can get some afterwards. Sisi can make the same soups from the Yue homeland’s dried seafood and herbs too.”

Sisi puffed out her tiny chest proudly.

“Understood, Sisi.”

Kato acknowledged as he sat down in the empty seat between Sisi and Teto, and then picked up some chicken with his chopsticks and put it into Sisi’s bowl.

“Not bad, Student Kato Danubius. Respecting your elders at the dinner table is very important.”

“Thank you, Ms Romana.”

Sisi, whose real name is Elizabeth Romana, was the new caretaker in their home in place of Karl, who was now on a new assignment from the organization and would not be able to take care of the children full-time anymore.

She was also his new homeroom teacher at his high school, Korolev Senior Secondary School. In part because he and his two sisters were special existences to the organization, Sisi, who was a very high-ranking member in Eternia, came to this household to watch over them. In fact, Kato and his sisters were destined to become an existence like Sisi.

“But really, Sisi, how can you eat so much even though you’ve hit your seventies? It’s like you’ve never come out of puberty.”

“How rude! Sisi shall eat as much as she needs to. It’s a good thing that Sisi is eating well, since it means that Sisi is not losing her youth.”

“Sisi, your hair is going to get in your food.”

“Oh, mine apologies.”

With that, she threw her long, bright blonde hair behind her, which was already partly tied at the back with a large ornamental pin. Sitting on an elevated seat, she was a midget who looked no older than a grade-schooler, perhaps a middle-schooler, but exuded a serene aura of authority not unlike a grandparent. She also spoke like one, but in an even more archaic manner than most grandparents of today; probably in a manner that her own grandparents spoke.

“By the way, Kato, we got our spirit labels today from Master Chang. Karl then left it in our living room.”

“Ah, we finally have our spirit labels. We can make our tributes to the Hearts in our home now.”

“It’s still kinda weird to be paying tribute to living deities as well as dead ones, but hey, tradition.”

“Yes, and one of such deities is Sisi herself, and that’s why you all shall be paying tribute on a daily basis.”

The deities they were talking about were not supernatural beings. They were referring to very gifted individual fighters: super-soldiers. A person could be considered a deity if they could fight and hold their own against another deity. Most deities gained their statuses through naturally having potential physical ability way superior to the average human, and thus being able to train themselves up to perform near-superhuman feats. This was called physical superiority.

“Sisi, do you know how many deities come out of our school every year? Is there a rate?”

“Most definitely. When Sisi was a student of Korolev, the rate of candidates for deity status was around one every three years. Like the three of you, they usually come in groups so it’s a skewed average. In recent years, Sisi believes the rate has dwindled to an average of one every four years.”

“Is there not enough physically superior people anymore?”

Though physical superiority was somewhat rare, it wasn’t uncommon for a class to have a few students with this disposition; especially Korolev Senior, which was a school known for its alumni becoming deities.

However, to truly utilise this trait, one must train for many years of their childhood to become anything close to the abilities of a deity. This was exactly the purpose of Karl having taken in Kato, Teto, and Evianna: to train them to become deities at the Chang temple, in the hills on the outskirts of the city.

“No, the number of physically superior students remained constant. It’s just that there are less of those people devoting their entire lives to become deities. It’s a dying trade.”

“And we’re one of the last ones in line, probably.”

“Then what about the number of Hearts candidates? I would guess that not all deities graduating from Korolev would aspire to become a Heart.”

The specific group of deities the siblings would give incense to were the Hearts, or the Guardians of Hearts. They were a prestigious group of deities that fought for the organization, Eternia, and admission to this order meant that you were one of the most powerful deities on the continent. In fact, Sisi occupied one of twelve positions in the Hearts and her title was “Number Two, Two of Hearts”.

“Good question, Evie. Sisi would say that most do aspire to become a Heart, but since the Hearts only have twelve positions, they could remain a Hearts candidate for a long time. This is a privilege for life, after all.”

Although she was called Evie here, as a teacher Sisi would use her full name at school.

“Then do you know how many deities are in our year? This is the big turnout year I’m assuming, since we have the three of us here.”

Kato motioned to the two sisters, Teto and Evie, sitting to the right of him. They also watched Sisi with anticipation.

“If the faculty is not mistaken and including Teto’s year in the count, there are at least six deities, eighteen challengers, and thirty other physically superior students.”

Challengers were physically superior persons who had done enough training to have significantly greater physical ability than the average human, but had not yet reached the level of or been acknowledged as a deity. However, deity status was well within their reach, and hence why they were known as challengers. These people were significantly more common than deities, and the modern-day rate was exactly as Sisi just described: around nine per year, for a total of eighteen over both years.

The other thirty were physically superior, but received little or no training to take advantage of their gift. They still possessed above average physical ability due to this natural disposition.

“Wow, including Teto’s year, six deities and eighteen challengers. Three of the deities’re here right now. Where’s the other three?”

“Sisi knows who they are, but since one of them is aspiring to becoming a Hearts candidate and the process is not yet complete, Sisi cannot and shall not disclose this information.”

The three of them stood up in agitation and bewilderment. They did not expect that kind of answer.

“There’s a fourth Hearts candidate?”

“Hearts candidate to-be. Grandma said that person’s not yet a Hearts candidate.”

“Wait, so we’re already Hearts candidates? Then why did Sisi come here to assess us?”

“She’s here not to assess us to become candidates, she’s here to assess us for actually entering the Hearts. She can write a recommendation for us to the Hearts if she thinks we’re good enough. Without a recommendation, you’ll be stuck as a Hearts candidate forever.”

“Oh, that’s right. That’s why we got our spirit labels today, to signify that we’re Hearts candidates.”

“So that person is looking to earn those spirit labels right now. Not bad. Who can this mysterious person be?”

“Sit down, children! The dinner table is not the place for being up and about.”

So they sat back down in their seats obediently.

“Aw, you really can’t tell us who it is? No hint at all?”

“Yes. Sisi shall not tell anything until that person has become a Hearts candidate, or fails to do so. If it bodes well for that person, Sisi shall tell you all in a couple of weeks or so.”

“Then we’ll just have to sit tight and wait, Teto.”

Evie shrugged. She tended to be the most unimpressed of the bunch towards everything.

“Aye, I guess we’ll find out later on, but who could it be? Do we actually know anyone else who’s a deity?”

“Two of my classmates are deities, actually. Valon and Sen. But they still have a year to go before they’re due to finishing their training, so it shouldn’t be either of them.”

Teto said as she fought Kato for a piece of chicken with their chopsticks. Metaphorical sparks flew across the dinner table.

“Then that means the last deity is our Hearts candidate. I don’t really know who in my year that’s an obvious answer. It can’t be Mira or Scarlett, they’re nobility.”

“And I doubt Franco has got any kind of training done, much less deific levels of strong.”

Scarlett was one of Mirabelle’s quadruplet sisters, while Franco was a close friend and classmate of theirs. These were the people close to them who were physically superior.

“Aye, let’s give this a rest. We’ll know when the time comes, anyway.”

Kato threw in the towel as he reached into the rice pot for his second serving.

“Kato, your walkman’s here along with the new tapes you ordered. Karl left it in our living room too.”

This gentle voice belonged to the fifth person at the table, who had remained quiet up until now. She was a classmate of Kato and Evie, Yui Tereshkova; also a half-Yue and half-Avian orphan, she joined their household not too long ago: a week ago in fact. Because she was a victim of bullying and blackmail at school, Kato and his class not only stood up for her, but he also pulled her out of the ghetto, the red-light district and the miserable life she led there.

“Oh shit, that’s lit. Perfect for tomorrow since I have supervision duty.”

“Supervision duty? I get that we’re in student council now because there’s no point in waiting for Eon and Caius to finish student council every time, but I’m pretty sure we don’t need to do supervision duty. That’s the Activity Council’s job.”

Evie raised her eyebrows at the news. Eon and Caius were two old friends and classmates of these children.

“We’re not responsible for it, but we help out with things here and there. Mira was supposed to do it tomorrow, but apparently she needs to go elsewhere in the morning, so I’m filling in for her.”

Evie’s eyes narrowed despite Kato giving her an honest answer.

“What did you and Mira do while you were alone together?”

“Nothing. We finished setting up for the Assembly meeting tomorrow and then she asked me to do that when we were walking home. Nothing else.”

He said ‘nothing’ twice. It was important to make it clear to Evie.

“That better be what happened.”

“That was all you were interested about?”

Kato almost face-palmed as Evie’s gaze threw daggers at him. No doubt there was a certain familiar emotion behind her dead fish eyes, which was the usual whenever Mirabelle entered the conversation.

Meanwhile, Yui smiled helplessly as she watched Evie and Kato go back and forth; partly because of how spontaneous these children were, and partly because she was also interested in Kato’s rendezvous with another girl.

“Are you sure that’s what only happened? This shouldn’t be end of story.”

In a rare instance, Teto grinned mischievously as she betrayed her dear brother. Not only was she a carbon copy of Kato, she seemed to be connected to him on a higher plane, understanding each other without speaking. There was a reason for that, but not a story for right now.

“Teto!”

Kato gaped in disbelief. Evie also knew this fact very well, so she held no quarter.

“So what exactly happened? I could already guess if you passed through the playground, which you should have.”

If her eyes could turn even colder than it already was, this was it. Evie stood up, reached over the dinner table and put her face right in front of Kato.

“Evie!”

Kato put his two hands up and clasped the sides of her head to stop it from inching closer to him. As usual, feeling overwhelmed by Evie’s jealousy, he gave her cranium a little shake.

“We idled at the playground for a while to watch the sun set, that’s all.”

Both Evie’s and Yui’s expressions froze in that moment, and the room turned silent for the first time since Kato returned. Then Evie sat back down quietly while Yui continued eating dinner, both acting as if nothing had happened and let the silence persist.

“Hello? Evie? You just asked about it, no response?”

Evie continued to ignore him, not even a speck of acknowledgement of his existence on her face.

“Yui? You’re still here, right? Right?”

Yui, like an older sister, took pity on her younger brother, made eye contact and then sighed in disappointment. She remained silent and continued her meal, to Kato’s increasing despair.

To his left was Sisi, who was also quiet and had assumed a non-intervention stance. To his right was Teto, that devilish smirk still on her face. Kato’s face was livid. This little punk who he loved more than anything in the world was getting a bit uppity recently with her antics.

He reached out and pulled on her cheek, expressing his anger towards his dear sister.

“I command thee to halt thy insolence!”

“Nuthin’ll shdop me. Am free~”

Kato let out a groan as he let go of her stretchy cheeks. He loved his little sister to pieces, but sometimes he felt that he doted on this sister a bit too much. Now that she had been freed from training as all three of them had their spirit labels, and also now going to school full-time with her group of friends from her year, she was growing out of her big brother’s protective shadow and had a will of her own. Or at least that was what was going through Kato’s thoughts right now.

“Have you heard the news in Lien yet? It was in today’s paper.”

Yui tried to bring the conversation away from the awkward topic of Kato’s situation with other women, which he welcomed gratefully.

“Is it the protests again? What happened this time?”

Lien was a nearby city in the adjacent valley south of theirs, across the border into the Kingdom of Ava. It was similar to Livia in that it was also a majority Old Yue-speaking city, while the rest of the Kingdom of Ava spoke Avian. Unlike Livia, however, the Auxirian government was still the legal administrative authority there despite the strong connections with Livia. The conflicts of interest between authority and people were therefore common, and it manifested itself in violence in recent times.

As an aside, the former Auxirian Empire, now the Confederation of Auxiria, was a massive empire that spanned the continent of Candor. Its emperor also held the titles of kings of its constituent kingdoms that it conquered: King of Ava, Rine, Candor, and Yue. The continent itself was named after the Kingdom of Candor, so to distinguish the two, the kingdom was commonly referred to as Royal Candor instead.

“The protesters stormed the legislature building and defaced the Auxirian symbols and emblems in there. They left the Avian and Yue symbols alone though, and then they occupied it until end of work day and vacated.”

“Whoa, what happened to the police?”

“They were there in full riot gear in a staring stand-off, but neither side pulled the trigger. My guess is that they’re hoping not to use violence and the protesters will leave eventually, which did happen.”

Yui passed the newspaper that was on the floor to Kato to show him the imagery. It certainly was an imposing scene with a bunch of young umbrella-wielding protesters climbing atop a stepladder to reach the huge Auxirian coat of arms hung on the wall and spray-painting it black. The arms of Ava and Yue below it were left untouched.

“Sisi admires their efforts, but Sisi fears that they may be in vain. It shall draw a line between moderates and radicals of the Yue independence movement.”

Sisi got up from her seat to get the soup from the kitchen.

“How are we involved? We as in Eternia.”

“Sisi isn’t sure. For certain, we take part in every anti-Auxirian movement, but Sisi doesn’t think our stance is to use uncontrollable riots to force out concessions. It is the first step to a movement turning radical.”

“Does this mean we’ll see the same situation replay in the Yue homeland as it did in Royal Candor during the Assimilation era?”

Yui asked the child-like grandma as Sisi sat back in her seat with two bowls of soup in her hands, one for her and one for Yui, who was also done with her dinner.

“Sisi hopes we do not, because that conflict was barely lost by the Candoran side and it exhausted the entire continent. Sisi knows because she was in the centre of that conflict. But people’s wills are strong. Sometimes, it takes bloodshed beyond belief to restore peace.”

Sisi sipped on the hot soup carefully. The Assimilation was an insurgency conflict in Royal Candor after the Auxirian Empire had conquered it and unified the continent some fifty years ago. Ending in a stalemate, the eventual settlement was seen as a loss for both sides. Royal Candor became functionally independent from the imperial government in all but name and raising armed forces, as it remained lawfully within the empire. Now, similar signs of the same sparks of war were being seen across the major Yue enclaves across Candor, and it was only a matter of time before it reached the homeland.

“Hey, look. One of the groups suspected to be funding the radical protesters is part of the Lafayette Group. Isn’t that Gilbert’s family?”

Evie pointed out as she and Teto both were skimming across the newspaper that Kato was holding onto.

“Yeah, that’s Gilbert’s family company, all right. I like how the newspapers give no fucks to smearing a family’s reputation.”

“Well, the Lafayette name appears in every one of these protests. Not sure what Gilbert’s family did but the press certainly hates them.”

Teto said cheerily for some reason.

“Why are you so happy about that?”

“Because one of my friends is a Lafayette too. She doesn’t like the infamy that name gives her.”

“So he has a younger sister too, what the fuck?”

“This world is a small one.”

Kato got up from his seat and fetched his portion of soup. Teto followed her dear brother into the kitchen.

“Gilbert, eh? I suspect he’s got an eye on us now. As Class A’s representative, he won’t let our transgression go.”

Evie mused as she too followed Kato into the kitchen.

“Yeah. Our Class F defeated Class E in a Class War last week and we took points from them, so any class above us with more points than us, not just Class A, can declare a restoration of order war on our class.”

The conversation shifted to the Class Wars. It was a martial tradition within Korolev Senior, where each of the third-year classes participated in a physical battle royale and the end goal was to obtain the most score out of a limited number of points available by the end of the school year. True to its martial nature, each class was considered a team, and one class could declare war on another with a valid casus belli, or reason for war, to initiate a physical brawl between the two parties.

Of course, in this day and age, a lot of rules and traditions were now laid out such that these fist-fighting brawls were of honourable nature, and even non-physical combatants could contribute in the Duel system, where it usually featured a trivia-question contest on the academic subjects of the day.

“They’ll undoubtedly try to find a way to counter our ultimate strategy: gaming the Duel system by having Sisi make the contest be a physical brawl instead of trivia questions.”

“It only works because you and I are the greatest deities. If we fight against another deity or challenger, it’ll be a hard fight.”

Kato waved at Evie’s point. The Class Wars were indeed volatile and in theory, anything could happen. But in reality, the homeroom classes were assigned according to merit, so Class A was almost always in control of the game and student government. Only this year, on a rare occasion, Class B’s class representative Callisto Mirabelle Jupiter was elected student council president. For Kato and Evie, who were in Class F, they only had average classmates who weren’t supposed to be able to contest with the classes above them.

This meritocratic assignment meant a stratification of the social setting in Korolev Senior. In fact, Class F was the last of the privileged classes. Classes lower than Class F did not have representation in the Assembly, the legislative body of student government which debated and approved student-related school policies. It was every student’s priority to achieve high marks to get a chance to advance into the higher classes at the end of each school year.

“We’ve got a chance to defeat the status quo this year with you two, and Teto too when time comes for conscription, so Sisi is very excited for this year’s Class Wars.”

Sisi proclaimed like a proud parent. It made sense since she was their homeroom teacher, and also during her student years in Korolev Senior, her class also won the Class Wars, many years ago.

“Let’s clean up quickly so you all can retire to your side.”

Sisi rubbed her hands together as she started picking up the silverware off the table and the children stood up and bowed at their elder. Dinner was done.

The other apartment was unlike the first one. The first one was Karl’s, and it had a fully equipped Oriental-style kitchen, an office, two guest rooms, a small washroom and a laundry room. Its floor was tiled, and in general the rooms were kept very clean. When Sisi moved into this household, she took over from Karl’s responsibilities of maintaining this apartment, and converted one of the guest rooms into her own.

Now, the flat that belonged to the children was in perpetual disarray. Upon entering it through the opening between the two living rooms, one encountered a carpeted flat with your common furniture: couches, coffee tables, the stereo system, the big radio set, etc. The difference with the first flat was the sheer number of personal effects, especially clothes, laid all over the floor and furniture. It was a nightmare when time comes every couple of weeks to vacuum the place, and the whirlwind known as Teto would redecorate the scene once again with her clothes.

Either way, there were only two bedrooms on this side, one for the three deities and one for Yui, who only recently moved in. Yui’s room was clean and proper, while the deities’ resembled the living room’s situation.

“Thanks.”

After Evie finished taping her spirit label to the wooden board, she passed it to Kato who put it on the small altar that rested on the bottom of the metal cage that secured the large room-wide window in the living room, which faced the direction of the main street. The bottom of the metal cage was lined with a hard plastic screen so that nothing resting on it could fall out.

“Your spirit name is so dope.”

“Yours is too.”

“Everyone’s is. They’re supposed to be dope.”

They chided one another as they stared down at their spirit labels and lighting the incense in their hands with a lighter. Behind their black-and-white spirit labels was a traditional Yue altar setup complete with banners of literary gibberish, a small statue of a mythical deity, candlesticks, and a bowl of fruits. In front of the labels was the incense pot, where they would place their sticks of incense.

The spirit labels were in the handwriting of Master Chang, their martial arts master, with characters of written Old Yue. Kato’s and Teto’s read ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ respectively, while Evie’s read ‘sparks’, in literary Old Yue. Master Chang selected these spirit names for them after they were initiated as his disciples, and when they graduated from disciple to journeyman, they received their spirit labels as proof of completion.

“My name makes a bit of sense since it can be a real name, but Evie’s just some thing.”

“It also reads ‘fireworks’ backwards in New Yue, so that’s something. Not sure what that actually means, though.”

“Your name’s to complement Kato’s, probably? It sorta makes sense.”

“Aye, we’re not going to figure out what goes through Master Chang’s mind, and we never did.”

“Well, whoever your master is, knew the three of you really well.”

Yui gave a small laugh from behind them. She was not involved in the trio’s Eternian tutelage at all, but it didn’t mean she knew nothing about them as people. Yui had been in Kato and Evie’s class since grade school.

“Yui knows too much.”

“It’s time to silence her.”

“Kyaaa~ I’ve been had.”

Kato and Teto joked with the red-haired girl behind them.

“I still don’t get it.”

Evie looked comically frustrated as she struggled to think of a reason for her spirit name, her face in her free hand.

“It’s all right. A spirit name doesn’t change the fact that your name’s still Evie. You’re still the same Evie I know anyway.”

Kato put out his incense in front of him to prepare for bowing as he said so, which brought a content expression to Evie’s face. The three of them bowed three times, incenses in hand, before they stopped and placed their incense into the pot.

They then clasped their hands in prayer and bowed one last time. They all said in unison the prayer for this particular tradition. It was the prayer that the Hearts made to their predecessors.

“We shall have faith in thy pride, so thou may grant us strength in our fight.”