The next morning, Alethea woke just after dawn. She felt a weight on her left arm and had no idea what it could be in her groggy state. As she came to the first thing she noticed was a mass of blonde hair. She quickly put two and two together and jumped up out of the bed.

Oh, what’s going on? Kye’s in my bed. What happened? Alethea panicked as she ran more scenarios through her head.

“Morning,” came the blonde’s voice as she rose from the bed.

“M-M-Morning.” Alethea quickly checked herself and was relieved to find she was wearing her pajamas. Oh, thank the goddess. She’s in pajamas, too. Alethea managed to calm down and quickly found herself face to face with Kye.

“You okay?” Kye asked.

“I think so. What happened? My brain’s a little fuzzy right now.”

“You fainted yesterday. Your attendants freaked out when I dispelled your barrier and they brought you in here. We’re in your bedroom. It took a bit of convincing and some bribery, but I stayed with you.”

“Um… uh…” Alethea was still piecing everything together. “It’s really not appropriate for us to spend the night in the same bedroom.”

“Yeah, this world is pretty strict with noble etiquette.”

“Wait...” Alethea finally remembered everything and the look in her eyes changed. “Shiori!”

“I’ve missed you so much.” Kye gently pushed Alethea to the wall. “I don’t care about this world’s etiquette… I want to stay with you every chance we get.” Kye leaned in to kiss the pink-haired girl, but Alethea grabbed Kye and spun her around against the wall. With their positions reversed, Alethea smiled for a moment before she kissed her long-lost lover.

At some point, all four of their attendants had entered the room after hearing the commotion and merely stood silently, waiting for the lovers to finish. When Alethea finally pulled away, the four retainers began clapping in applause. Alethea practically jumped out of her skin and was across the room in an instant, as far away from both Kye and the attendants as she could get.

“Lady Alethea, Lady Kye, congratulations!” said all four attendants.

“W-w-what are y-y-ou guys doing w-w-watching?!” Alethea grabbed a sheet and covered herself to hide the embarrassment.

Kye was giggling the whole time, enjoying the familiar sight as the attendants cheered.

“Cease this embarrassing fanfare at once!” came Alethea’s voice from beneath the sheet.

Kye gave the attendants an apologetic smile and gestured them away. She walked over to where Alethea was hiding and crawled under the sheet with her. “Hi, they’re gone.”

“Yeah, I could tell by their mana.” Alethea had a tear in one eye that Kye could barely see with the sheet covering them. “That was so embarrassing!”

“Oh, it wasn’t! They’re our attendants!”

“That’s why it was so embarrassing! They know us!”

“Yes, and now they know who and what we are.”

“Wait, you told them?”

“Well... Lily and Ally already knew about me, but now they all know about both of us! I had to show them memories of our lives as Shiori and Sayaka to convince them to let me stay with you overnight... and any other night we want... I mean, I was gonna stay regardless, but there are fewer problems this way!”

“You were going force them, weren’t you? You know you shouldn’t use your power like that!” Alethea tossed the sheet aside and tackled Kye. “What if I use my power on you, huh?”

“Ha, you wish!” Kye spun around, caught Alethea from behind, and kissed her cheek. “I win!”

“I don’t mind losing like that,” Alethea said with a giggle. Their eyes met again and they stared at each other for a while until the sound of Andrea clearing her throat interrupted them.

“Lady Alethea, Lady Kye, breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes. Shall I draw baths for you in the meantime?”

“Oh, yes, thank-” Alethea said

“No, wait,” Kye said. “Let’s go spar before breakfast. We haven’t gotten to fight in this life yet.”

“That’ll be fun, let’s go!”

With the extreme motivation of having a sparring match, the two were dressed and out of the building in two minutes with Andrea and Aliana following.

“You two are late,” Allison said. She was sitting on a bench at the training grounds reading a book. “I expected to see you two out here before dawn.”

“Well... some stuff happened...” Kye said.

“No matter, go ahead. I’ve been looking forward to this as much as you have.”

“We could have done this years ago if you had let us meet each other!”

“That’s out of my hands. I can’t upend an era’s worth of cultural habits on a whim. You’ll have to take that up with the rulers if you want it changed, and even then it’s an uphill battle.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the schtick. Anyway, are you refereeing for us or just watching?”

“Of course I’m refereeing. You two cannot be allowed to use your power unsupervised anywhere, much less here.”

“...I don’t think that’s necessary...”

“The rulers are unanimous in disagreeing with you. There’s not much point in arguing. I’m going to be keeping an eye on you both regardless, so just get on with it.”

Kye sighed and turned to Alethea. “What weapon do you want to use?”

Alethea thought about it for a moment, then said with a smile, “Let’s go with katanas!”

“Heh, you sure about that? I grew up on them.”

“Of course! I did, too, you know.”

“Heh, okay let’s go.”

The two took their places opposite of each other in the middle of the training grounds, held their arm up that had their weapon in bracelet form, and chanted, “Convert: Katana.”

Allison stepped between them and said, “No extravagant spells, please. I don’t want anything destroyed, and I don’t want you to cause a commotion.”

“Understood,” Kye and Alethea said.

“Short introductions.”

“I am Kye Akari of Nippon Sekai.”

“I am Alethea Atlantis of Terra.”

Together, they said, “I vow to fight such that I bring honor to my people.” Kye clad herself in golden mana while Alethea did the same with white mana. Before they could begin, a few older students ran up to the training grounds.

“Oh, somebody’s already here,” a girl said.

“Yeah, but there’s plenty of room for us, too,” a boy said.

“You three,” Allison said. “You should stay back and watch if you want to be here.”

“Lady Allison, what do you mean?” a second boy said.

“Look.” Allison gestured to Alethea and the three noticed the white mana-clad girl.

“Oh, holy crap, it’s the Atlantis girl. Who’s the other one that’s about to fight her?” said the first boy.

“I feel sorry for her getting stuck in a match with the white mana girl,” the girl said.

Aliana could not let that comment slide, “You are in the presence of the Crown Princess of Nippon Sekai, Lady Kye Akari. I ask that you do not make snap judgments before witnessing her power.”

“But the Atlantis girl has white mana!” the second boy said. “There’s no way Lady Kye can match that!”

“Do you really think Alethea is going to go full tilt with her white mana?” Allison said. “Your inexperience is evident. I’ll have all three of you attend remedials. Now, be silent.” Allison formed a ball of blue mana and placed it between the two combatants. “When that fizzles out, begin.” Allison joined the onlookers at the edge. As the ball slowly shrunk, Kye and Alethea released more mana in preparation.

“Oh wow,” the girl said. “Lady Kye has quite a lot of mana herself.”

“She is a royal. Of course she has a lot of mana,” Allison said. “She is also my niece and my student.”

“She’s the student of Lady Allison?” the first boy asked.

As soon as the ball completely disappeared, Kye and Alethea rushed each other. A small shockwave from their clash knocked the unprepared students in the audience off their feet. Bands of light and white mana circled the dueling pair as each tried to overpower the other.

“Holy crap, that’s insane!” the second boy shouted.

“Her light mana is so strong,” the girl said. “She’s like... a goddess of light!”

Alethea had the edge with her white mana and was able to push Kye back, but as soon as she started losing ground Kye parried. She quickly moved around and aimed a slash up across Alethea’s chest. Alethea managed to block the swift attack and countered. Several parries, counters, and blocks later the two jumped apart and stared each other down, each with a satisfied and determined smile.

“You’ve certainly been working hard,” Kye said. “Even the Venturi sisters would struggle to keep up with that, yet you handled it flawlessly.” That was Kye’s way of saying, “You have improved since our previous life together.”

“Of course! I have trained for many years, after all,” Alethea responded, actually saying “I’ve picked up some skills in my past lives since then, too, ya know!”

Kye gave her a confident smile and turned it up a notch. She vanished. Suddenly, several afterimages of Kye appeared and launched a wave of light mana toward Alethea from all around her. Alethea poured extra mana into her blade and released a circular blast of white mana that canceled out all of Kye’s light attacks and erased her afterimages.

“Slick move,” Kye said.

“Same to you.”

The two went on for several minutes, trading blows and trying to one-up each other until Allison finally called it a draw and ordered the crowd that had formed to go prepare for class to begin. When the match started there were only a few onlookers, but by the time it finished, there were over fifty watching the royal duel. As much as they wanted to continue, they still needed to return to their now shared rooms and eat the breakfast that Liliana and Elaina prepared.