Encounter with a Fiery Princess

by Yuu Miyazaki

  “Don’t be stupid. The other morning when I chased after you was the first time. Although it is rather convenient.”

  As she approached, Ayato noticed that she held an envelope in her hand. “A letter?”

  “Um—yes. Something like that.” Julis seemed reluctant to dwell on the subject, but she also looked happy somehow. Maybe it was a letter from someone close to her.

  Even in an age when video chat had become prevalent and e-mail was standard, the culture of writing letters hadn’t died out. There were myriad reasons why, but one was that there are some things that simply can’t be transmitted as data. A less savory reason was that electronic data could be more easily traced.

  “So? What are you doing out here at this hour?” said Julis.

  “Um… Taking a walk?”

  “A walk?”

  “Right. I told you I like to walk around.” That part wasn’t a lie.

  “Hmph. Forget it. Are you free on Sunday?”

  “The day after tomorrow? Sure, I don’t have any plans.” He’d just moved here. Of course he didn’t have plans.

  “Good. Then I can show you around the city like we discussed. I promised, after all.”

  “Oh, thanks. That’ll be really helpful.” He remembered that she had told him to leave open one of his days off.

  “S-so, about that… Just to be clear, you asked me to be a guide. Isn’t that right?”

  “Huh? Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Then, um… This time, I don’t want anything to, uh, intrude or throw me off my pace, or…”

  Julis seemed unusually inarticulate, but Ayato understood what she wanted to say. “I don’t think you need to worry about Saya.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “She was assigned to make-up class, remember?”

  Julis clapped her hands. “Oh, right… Now I remember! Then it’s fine. Yes! Good night, then! We’ll talk later about how to meet up!” Satisfied, she nodded, then briskly waved her hand and headed back to the dorm, taking the conventional route back to her room.

  “The day after tomorrow… I don’t think they would try to attack off campus, but I should keep an eye out anyway.”

  After taking a moment to catch his breath, Ayato, too, headed back to his dorm. His roommate’s healthy curiosity might be the death of him if he spent too much time out at this hour.

  He looked up to the night sky to see a thin veil of cloud hiding the starlight.

  CHAPTER 6

  A HOLIDAY FOR TWO

  “Hi, Julis. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too…long…”

  “No, I just got here myself. I should commend you for being so punctual—hmm? Why is your mouth open like that? You already have a dopey face. Don’t make it worse.”

  It was a clear, bright Sunday. Ayato reached the front gate of the school, where they had agreed to meet up, and found himself frozen at the sight of Julis.

  She was wearing a cute black-and-pink dress, rather short, with frilled over-the-knee socks covering her slender legs up to her thighs. Holding a parasol in her hand, she looked girlish—a total one-eighty from the image she cultivated at school.

  Ayato had known from the beginning that Julis was a beautiful girl, but because she usually carried herself so fiercely, he found himself that much more conscious of her present appearance.

  “Do I have something on my face?”

  “Oh—uh—sorry! No, it’s just that…you look different from usual.”

  “Wh… I do?”

  “Yeah. But you look good.”

  “Huh? Sh-shut up! Are you trying to make me self-conscious?” Julis turned her face away, leaving him with a full view of her blushing cheek. “Th-these are just things I had from home. It’s not as if I picked it out special for you…”

  She was mumbling with a complicated expression, something between embarrassed and annoyed. Then, looking at Ayato again, she said curiously, “You, on the other hand… Maybe there’s a better way to put this, but you don’t look much better in your own clothes.”

  “Yeah, I don’t have a lot to work with. These are pretty old.” Ayato was dressed very casually in a pair of jeans and a three-quarter-sleeve shirt over a T-shirt.

  “Well, it’s not that you look bad, but… Hold on.”

  “Huh?”

  Julis leaned in to put her face close to Ayato’s, then started to pat his hair.

  “Whoa! Wh-what is it?”

  “You’re full of cowlicks! I mean, come on. You’re not a little kid. You could at least comb your hair before you go outside,” Julis scolded, but then giggled at him, her face open and innocent. Meanwhile, Ayato’s heart beat faster with every little thing she did.

  “All right, let’s get going!” Julis led the way in high spirits, whether or not she was aware of his state of mind.

  The city of Asterisk was divided into the central district and the outer residential district. A monorail loop line ran through the outer district, connecting the harbor block, the residential area, and the six schools. The main mode of transportation in the central district was a separate subway system. This setup was reportedly intended to prevent duels between students from interfering with public transportation.

  Julis and Ayato were in the central district, in front of the main stage of the Festa.

  “This is the main stage, the largest stage in Asterisk. All of the championship matches of the Festa take place here,” Julis explained, gesturing to the enormous domed structure.

  It had a capacity of approximately one hundred thousand. It hosted sellout crowds throughout every Festa tournament. Even now, tourists could be seen here and there taking pictures.

  “The design is said to be inspired by the Colosseum of Rome, but it’s a different beast altogether,” she went on. “There are three other large stages and seven medium-sized stages. And countless smaller outdoor stages.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot.”

  “Inside the city, you’re supposed to use the stages for duels. But…not many people actually do.”

  “So there are duels in the streets?”

  “Yes.”

  “That has to be pretty dangerous, right?” If Julis were to launch attacks like she had done the other morning, Ayato thought, entire blocks would be scorched.

  “People who live here know the risks. So do the tourists—no one enters Asterisk without signing a waiver first. And any damages to stores and residences are compensated.”

  “So anything goes, huh? I still don’t get why everyone wants to come here.”

  “From a business perspective, having a store in Asterisk is a status symbol and a way to advertise your brand. So they deal with it. There are even some events where the entire central district becomes the stage.”

  “I wouldn’t want to live in a place like this.”

  “Neither would I,” Julis said with a sarcastic smile. “Well? What do you want to do now? Do you want to look around here some more?”

  “No, I think I’m set here.”

  “Hmm. I could take you to the administrative area to see the therapy center. It employs Stregas and Dantes with healing powers, and that’s where you end up if you get seriously hurt at the Festa. Although if it’s something like a broken bone, they’ll send you off for more conventional treatment.”

  Those with healing abilities were extremely rare, which led to an agreement to gather them in one healing center, so that students of any school could have equal access to care. Because of the limited capacity, however, only patients with life-threatening or debilitating injuries were triaged to the healers.

  “Let’s see…what else?” Julis mused. “Maybe I should show you the redevelopment area. There’s some urban blight that way, bad neighborhoods, but you should know where they are so you don’t wander in by accident.”

  Ayato had heard that the bad neighborhoods were populated with students who were forced to leave the schools for whatever reason and Genestella criminals taking refuge inside the extraterritorial cit
y. It was unsettling, but probably inevitable, that a city with this many people should have a darker side.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “Saya told me that she went shopping and got lost in a shady-looking part. She said there were a lot of run-down buildings and shuttered shops.”

  “That would be the redevelopment area. It would make more sense to go to the commercial area to shop… How did she end up there?”

  “Saya has absolutely no sense of direction.”

  Julis gave him a teasing smirk. “You’re one to talk. You have quite a habit of wandering into the strangest places.”

  Caught out, he flinched. There was no arguing with the truth. Now that she mentioned it, Ayato could recall several occasions when he and Saya had gotten lost together as children.

  “So, next up…” Julis opened an air-window to consult a map.

  “Hey, Julis? I really appreciate the tour. But do you want to get lunch soon?” Ayato suggested. The hour, as well as his stomach, indicated that it was a good time for lunch.

  “Well… I suppose it is about that time…” Julis didn’t seem too enthusiastic.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “No, er, it’s just… Lunch sounds fine, but I’m not sure…where to go.”

  “Aren’t there lots of places to eat in the commercial area? Oh, or is everything there superexpensive?” Ayato could imagine that the restaurants there made a business practice of overcharging tourists. But there had to be reasonably priced places as well, considering all the schools.

  “No, that’s not it. Oh, how do I say this? I’m really sorry!” Julis bobbed her head in apology. “I don’t really, um— Actually, I almost never go to the commercial area. So I have no idea where I should take you to eat.”

  “Oh, okay…”

  “I’m such a useless guide… Oh, but I did do some research on the Net! Here!” Julis took out her phone and displayed a list, apparently from a review site.

  Ayato’s jaw dropped as he looked at it. Everything on the list was a top-notch gourmet restaurant. These were not places that simply gouged tourists. The prices were two digits longer than the ordinary lunch budget. In any case, Ayato doubted that they could sit down in any of these restaurants without a reservation.

  “Um, I think those might be a bit much…”

  “I—I’m fully aware that these aren’t ordinary prices! But these were the only places I had heard of. I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking you somewhere I don’t know, even if it did have good reviews…”

  Indeed, every restaurant on the list was universally renowned—three stars or an equivalent reputation.

  “That’s okay,” Ayato told her with a laugh. “Let’s just walk around a bit and see what looks good.”

  “Is—is that all right?”

  “If it’s okay with you.”

  “I’m fine. It’s just…you’re not upset?” she asked nervously.

  “Why would I be?” Ayato said, surprised.

  “But…it was so negligent of me.”

  Julis sounded entirely sincere. Is there anything she doesn’t take so seriously? he thought.

  “I keep wondering, doesn’t it make you tired, being so overly conscientious all the time?”

  “Well, that’s just the way I am, so there’s not much I can do about it!” She went sullen, turning away in a huff.

  “I’m just worried that you’ll get burned out if you keep taking responsibility for everything.”

  “I like having that kind of weight on my shoulders. That’s how I live my life. If you ask me, you’re the one to worry about. You’re like a cloud, floating and impossible to pin down. Why don’t you take things more seriously? You’d feel more grounded.”

  She said the words casually enough, but they stung.

  “Uh…” Ayato ham-fistedly changed the subject. “Anyway, should we go over to the commercial area?”

  Julis didn’t bother to reply aloud. They headed for the most lively part of the commercial area, Main Street.

  “Wow, it’s packed here.”

  “Yes. It is the weekend, after all.” The neat stone-tiled street overflowed with students—none of them in uniform, but they all wore their school crests, making their status clear. In Asterisk, students were required to wear their crests at all times.

  No vehicle traffic was allowed inside the commercial area except at certain hours, so there were only pedestrians to be seen in the street. All sorts of shops were lined up on either side, but the stretch that they were in boasted a high concentration dealing in food and drinks. And the prices advertised on the signs were perfectly reasonable.

  “Okay, should we pick something around here?” Ayato turned around to ask Julis—but she wasn’t there. “Huh?”

  He looked every which way and finally saw her dazzling rose-colored hair a little bit back the way he had come.

  “You had me worried. You disappeared all of a sudden,” he told her, relieved.

  Julis intently turned toward him and asked, “Can we have lunch here?”

  “Here…?”

  The shop Julis was looking at was a burger franchise. Like the restaurants she had looked up ahead of time, it was also universally well-known, but for an entirely different reason and with entirely different prices.

  “It’s fine with me…but this is really what you want?” said Ayato.

  “Yes! I want to eat here!”

  At first he wondered whether she chose this place out of aristocratic curiosity, but from the routine way she ordered and paid, it wasn’t a curiosity for her. Ayato asked for a burger and fries with a medium cola—a rather standard order—and the two of them sat down at a patio table.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve asked you this…but are you really a princess?”

  “What do you mean?” She even bit into her burger like a regular. But Ayato had to admit that the way she held it in both hands was adorable.

  “Well, princesses don’t usually eat at fast-food chains, do they?”

  “That’s a stereotype. You have an actual counterexample sitting in front of you. Accept the facts.”

  “Well, sure. But…” Ayato leaned back in his seat as he munched on a french fry. It tasted the same as any french fry he’d had since he was little, as any french fry the world over. The constancy of globalization. There was something comforting in that.

  “I learned about this place from my friends,” Julis said softly after a while, as if recalling a fond memory.

  “Friends?”

  “I do have some, you know. Well, not here—in my country.”

  Then, Ayato made the connection. “Oh, the letter you were holding the other day—was that from your friends?”

  “Urk!?” Julis appeared to choke on her bite of burger. She thumped at her chest as her face turned blue. Hacking, she managed to say, “H-how did you—!?”

  “You really are easy to read, Julis.”

  Now flushing bright red, she turned away from him.

  Turning red and blue and red again—what a busy life, Ayato thought.

  “Y-you know, this place didn’t come up on any of the review sites. Why is that?”

  “Well, no one would bother with a place like this.”

  “Why not? The food is so good,” said Julis, genuinely mystified.

  Yup, there is something off about her, he thought.

  “By the way—can we talk about something serious for a second?” Ayato asked, after she had finished her burger.

  “Hmm? What is it?” Julis straightened and looked at him.

  “It’s about when you were attacked…” Ayato relayed to Julis what Claudia had told him earlier, mostly verbatim. Claudia had not asked him to keep the matter secret, and he thought that having the information would help Julis defend herself.

  He left out the part about how he had been asked to help her. He already knew how heartily she would object.

  Julis sipped on her cola through a straw as she listened. “Yes, this all sounds plausible.
A scheme by another school.” She nodded, looking quite unfazed. “I must be their last target. That would explain why they let themselves be seen as they tried to finish me off.”

  “So, I was thinking maybe you might not want to go out alone or get involved in duels for a while…”

  “That’s absurd. Why should I have to act differently because of these dirty cowards?”

  “…You’re right.” I knew she’d say that.

  “I choose my own path. And my will is mine alone.”

  “Heh. So valiant, as usual.” An enormous figure approached from behind her.

  “Hello, Lester,” she said bitingly without turning around. “Eavesdropping? Such interesting hobbies you have.”

  Ayato looked up at Lester in surprise. Running into each other on Sunday, off campus and all—for better or worse, Lester and Julis really did seem to have a connection.

  “As if I wanted to listen to you,” Lester scoffed. “I just happened to hear you talking.” Behind him stood the two usual sidekicks. “Heard about you getting attacked by those mystery men. I think you’ve been pissing off too many people.”

  “I’ve done nothing to anger anyone,” Julis replied with a straight face.

  Lester, in turn, looked astounded. “That. You know that attitude is what’s getting you so many enemies?”

  “No, I don’t. I haven’t done anything wrong. If that earns enemies, then I’ll take them all on.”

  “Hah. You talk big,” said Lester. “Why don’t you back up that confidence of yours right now?”

  “How many times do I have to say it to get through to that mush you call a brain? I’m not interested in facing you again.”

  “Just shut up and fight me!” Lester slammed the table so hard that Ayato thought it might snap in two. The patio shook with the noise of the impact, then went silent as conversations ceased.

  “L-Lester! You can’t force someone to duel in a place like this!”

  “He’s right, Lester! If you make a scene here, the city guard will be all over us.”

  Silas and Randy tried desperately to calm him down. Lester didn’t seem to hear them.

  “Maybe you should back off,” said Ayato.