Encounter with a Fiery Princess

  CHAPTER 1

  GLÜHEN ROSE

  Something floated down softly from above. Ayato caught it mostly out of reflex.

  Gleaming brightly in the morning sunlight of early summer, it had looked for a moment like a pure white feather—but once it was in his hand, he could see it was just an ordinary handkerchief.

  Judging from the cute yet clumsily stitched flower embroidery, it was probably not store-bought, but handmade. It did not feel very new, and with a closer look, he could see where it had been mended.

  He could practically feel the affection its owner had for it. This handkerchief couldn’t possibly have been discarded on purpose.

  “Did it get caught in the wind…?” he wondered. But from where? As he turned to look around for the answer, he let out a self-deprecating laugh.

  Ayato himself had just come to this city—to Seidoukan Academy. He had arrived a little earlier than planned and decided to take a stroll around campus to kill time. But the grounds were so vast that now he had no idea where he was. He wasn’t exactly lost, since he had simply followed the promenade. Still, there was little hope of a newcomer like himself finding the handkerchief’s owner.

  “Oh, well. I guess I’ll just take it to the office later.”

  He was about to meet the student council president anyway, so he could just hand it over then. With that thought, Ayato neatly folded the handkerchief and placed it in his pocket.

  It was still early but a nice time to be outside. The promenade wound through lush trees full of the cheerful chirping of birds.

  Surrounded by such natural beauty, it was hard to imagine that he was on an artificial island. But this was Asterisk, after all—the world-renowned Academic City. They must pay close attention even to environmental aesthetics, he thought.

  Just then, Ayato noticed a voice with a hint of dismay that carried from beyond the very trees he was admiring. It rang out like a bell, no less lovely than the birdsong, but conveyed a vividly forceful will.

  “…Argh! Of all the times, why—why now!?”

  But as he listened more closely, he heard a litany of foul language that could scarcely be described as lovely.

  Searching for the speaker, he looked up to see a single wide-open window. It belonged to a room in a neatly kept building with classical architecture, just beyond the promenade.

  “I have to chase it down before it flies away any farther!”

  He could hear obvious panic in the voice descending from beyond the fluttering curtains.

  “So that’s it.” Ayato glanced down at his pocket and then back up again toward the room. He wasn’t the keenest of observers, but even for him, this particular situation was easy to grasp.

  “The fourth floor… Well, there are some footholds, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Between the promenade and the building was a steel fence about six feet tall. Ayato leaped effortlessly atop it, without so much as a jogging start. He then took hold of a nearby tree branch and smoothly climbed up. Such maneuvers would be unthinkable for a normal human being. But for one of the Genestella, it was nothing at all.

  “Here goes…!” His destination was even higher than the treetops, but with one more jump, he reached the windowsill from a conveniently located branch. Curling his body like a cat, he landed on his feet almost soundlessly.

  “Um, sorry for barging in this way. But did you happen to drop a handkerchief…?”

  From Ayato’s perspective, all he did was to take the simplest course of action. The person he’d overheard seemed to be in a hurry, so he thought it would be best to return the handkerchief as quickly as possible.

  He acted out of kindness, pure and simple. There was no doubt about that.

  However, if one were to find fault with what he did—and there were indeed some glaring faults—two issues would immediately come to mind.

  The first was that this building happened to be the girls’ dormitory of the Seidoukan Academy High School.

  The second was that the girl to whom this room belonged was, at this very moment, in the middle of getting dressed.

  “Huh…?”

  “Wha…?”

  Ayato and the girl, who was just stepping into her skirt, stared at each other with matching blank looks.

  The girl was about the same age as Ayato—sixteen or seventeen. Azure eyes, as pale as a sprouting bud. A sleek, shapely nose and skin like fresh snow. Her hair, flowing down to her waist, was a brilliant red hue, not dark enough to describe as crimson but too vivid to be pink. Pressed to put a name to the color, he would have to call it rose.

  As a matter of fact, the girl was remarkably well put together. Ayato was not the only person who would have been captivated at the first sight of her.

  At that moment, the girl happened to be half naked. Her uniform blouse was unbuttoned, revealing her underthings, and she was bent over in a way that exposed the shape of her breasts to full view.

  Her curves there were rather modest, but her body was unmistakably feminine, with a waist so slender it looked fragile. Her healthy, supple legs were trim all the way down to her toes, and a glimpse of adorable white panties peeked from between her dazzling thighs. Her awkward state of dishabille made the sight far more enticing than if she had been simply naked.

  For a while, the two did not move, as if frozen stiff. Considering that the girl was on one leg the whole time, she must have been blessed with an extraordinary sense of balance.

  The scene looked exactly as if time had stopped. Of course, this was not the case.

  Ayato was the first to come to his senses.

  “S-sorry! Um, uh— I really didn’t mean to—at all—!” He tried to explain himself, but the words just wouldn’t come out right. He tried to cover his eyes, but between his fingers, he could still see her alluring figure.

  “Wh-wh-wha—!?” The girl, too, seemed to finally comprehend the situation. Her face flushed bright red and her mouth moved without quite forming words.

  Humiliation? Anger? Both? Whatever she might be feeling, Ayato was steeling himself for either a shriek or an outpouring of invective. Instead, hurrying to cover herself, the girl drew a deep breath and glared at him hard, even as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

  “T-turn around!” she ordered in a low voice, full of forcibly suppressed emotion.

  “Huh?”

  “Just turn around already!”

  He rushed to obey, the authority in her tone beyond question.

  From behind him came the faint rustling of her clothes. And a strangely pleasant scent. Ayato could not have been more uncomfortable.

  On top of that, he was still perched on the windowsill. He was one wrong move away from a deadly fall. He waited like this for several minutes, while the wind on several occasions threatened his balance.

  At last she sighed and said, “O-okay. You can turn around now.”

  When he did so, he saw now a girl blooming with radiance.

  Wearing her uniform impeccably, she cut the very picture of class and elegance—such a stark contrast to her earlier appearance that he wondered if he’d imagined it. Her sullen expression and fierce glare loudly declared a foul mood, but even that seemed somehow endearing. Ayato couldn’t help but gaze at her.

  She bluntly interrupted his trance. “So, the handkerchief?”

  “…Sorry?”

  “You were saying something earlier. About a handkerchief.”

  “Oh—oh yeah! Um, here it is…” Ayato took the handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to her. “I found it floating along in the wind and picked it up. Is it yours, by any chance?”

  The girl inhaled sharply, opened her eyes wide for a split second, then le
t out a deep sigh of relief. “Thank goodness…”

  She took the handkerchief and gently held it to her chest.

  “Thank you. This handkerchief…it’s very special to me.”

  “Oh no, I mean, I just happened to find it…”

  “All the same. I really do appreciate it.”

  As Ayato stood embarrassed by her gratitude, she bent forward in a deep, formal bow. But then—

  “Well, then… That’s settled, I’d say,” she muttered, her head still bent low. Her voice had completely changed, simmering with an emotion that might detonate at any second.

  “Huh?”

  The girl slowly looked up at him, a grin illuminating her face. There was, however, not a hint of mirth in her eyes. Even as her mouth made the arc of a warm smile, he noticed the corners of her lips twitching.

  “Now, you die.”

  In the next moment, the air in the room changed completely. The girl’s prana heightened explosively, and the atmosphere rumbled in response. Mana, given direction, converted the elements in the air and set a phenomenon into motion.

  That aura! he thought. Is she…?

  “Burst into bloom—Amaryllis!”

  That instant, an enormous fireball materialized in front of the girl and flew toward Ayato.

  “A Strega!?”

  He pushed off backward from the window, regained his balance midair, and landed.

  A deafening roar rang across the grounds in his wake. Ayato looked up to see a huge flower made of fire opening its bud to bloom—a giant wheel of flames, overlapping petals of scorching heat.

  The air wavered and gusts of hot wind blew over him. It was an incredible force, exactly as if a bomb had gone off.

  “…Aw, no…”

  As Ayato stared in awe amid the falling sparks, the girl leaped out of the open window. Just as he had done, she landed four stories down with effortless grace.

  She had to be a Genestella—one of those gifted with an affinity for mana that bestowed wondrous physical abilities. And judging by the power she had just displayed, she had to be Strega—a special class even among the Genestella.

  Most of the students in the six schools of Asterisk, of which Seidoukan Academy was one, were Genestella. Even Ayato, who had little interest in the Festa, knew that much. He also knew that Stregas and Dantes, who could bend the laws of nature by linking themselves with mana, were not commonly found.

  According to the theory he’d heard, even among the Genestella only a few percent manifested the talents of a Strega or Dante. And while they were gradually increasing in number, Genestella made up a very small fraction of the population to begin with. So it would go without saying that Stregas and Dantes were exceptionally rare. Ayato himself had only met one Strega in his life—before this.

  “Oh… So you managed to dodge that. Not bad.” The girl sounded slightly impressed, though her voice still dripped with anger. “Very well, then. I’ll give you a real fight. For a bit.”

  “Whoa—hold on, okay!”

  “What now? Just don’t give me any more trouble, and I’ll be nice and turn off the grill when you’re well-done.”

  “…You mean, you want to cook me all the way through?” said Ayato. That didn’t sound at all like being nice. “Wait—I’d at least like to know why you’re trying to kill me…”

  “You peeped on a young lady getting dressed. It’s only natural that you should pay with your life.” She issued this disturbing proclamation with perfect sangfroid.

  “But then, why did you thank me just now?”

  “I do appreciate that you returned my handkerchief, of course. That, however, has nothing to do with this.”

  “…Maybe you could be a little more flexible?”

  She rejected his plea with a smile. “Unfortunately, I hate that word—‘flexible’!”

  There was no getting through to this girl.

  “Anyway, if you wanted to give me the handkerchief,” she went on, “there was hardly any need to barge in through the window! Degenerates like you who sneak into the girls’ dorm deserve to be beaten by an angry mob.”

  “Huh? The girls’ dorm?” Completely dumbfounded, Ayato stared alternately at the girl and then the building. A bead of sweat trickled down from his temple.

  “You mean…you didn’t know?”

  “How could I? I just transferred in. I’m supposed to start today. I only got here a little while ago. It’s true, I swear!” As Ayato pleaded his case, he pointed to his crisp new uniform. Having hardly been worn, the jacket and pants still looked stiff.

  The girl spent a few moments staring suspiciously at him, then let out a long sigh.

  “Very well. I believe you.”

  Hearing that, Ayato exhaled in relief and put his hand to his heart.

  But then, without pausing, the girl continued, “However, that still has no bearing on this.”

  As she smiled, more fireballs had already taken shape around her. Smaller than the one before—but this time there were nine.

  “Burst into bloom—Primrose!”

  “Ack—!”

  Nine fireballs resembling graceful primroses flew at Ayato on nine different trajectories.

  He contorted himself to dodge them. Some of the fireballs hit the ground, bursting with dull popping sounds and taking large chunks out of the sett-styled concrete paving. They may have been less stunningly powerful than the earlier explosion, but these were plenty lethal.

  Genestella were much tougher than ordinary humans. By focusing their prana, they could defend themselves against bullets of light without any armor. Still, a direct hit from one of these fireballs would do more than tickle.

  The remaining fireballs pursued Ayato from all directions. Shouting in alarm, Ayato evaded each one by a hair’s breadth. He could just barely elude them by leaping in one moment and ducking down in the next.

  As she watched his maneuvers, the girl’s eyes widened again. “I see… You’re not just a normal pervert.”

  Hearing an unmistakable note of praise in her voice, Ayato wiped his forehead. Maybe she’s changing her mind about me. Maybe I can get out of this alive after all.

  “You’re one remarkable pervert.”

  Or maybe not. “Why is it so hard for people to understand each other…,” he grumbled, thinking aloud.

  “Hmph. That last bit was a joke.” Glaring at him with narrowed eyes, she tossed her hair with a flick of her wrist. “It does appear to be true that you delivered the handkerchief out of goodwill, and I’m also willing to believe, for now, that you didn’t mean to…to peep at me, um, changing… But only for now!”

  “…Really?” Ayato couldn’t help but be cautious after already getting his hopes up several times in vain.

  The girl nodded reluctantly and went on. “But it is your fault that you didn’t make sure what the building was first. And barging in by the window—that lacks any semblance of common sense. You do see, don’t you, that just because you didn’t do it on purpose doesn’t mean that you weren’t wrong?”

  “Yeah… You’re right.” He had no argument against her logic.

  “You have your defense, and I still need to quench my anger. So, I suggest that we settle this according to the rules of our fair city. Fortunately, you seem to have the skills for it. No objections, I trust?” The girl gazed straight at him. “What’s your name?”

  “…Ayato Amagiri.”

  “Mm-hmm. I’m Julis. Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld, ranked fifth at Seidoukan Academy.”

  Having named herself thusly, Julis lifted her right hand to her chest and touched the school crest there—the Red Lotus crest of Seidoukan Academy.

  “In the name of the unyielding Red Lotus, I, Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld, challenge thee, Ayato Amagiri, to a duel!”

  “A duel!?” Indifferent to Ayato’s shock, the crest on his uniform shone red in response to her words. It was demanding his answer to the challenge—to accept or to decline.

  “If you win, I’ll accept your de
fense and leave you be. But if I win, then I get to do whatever I want with you.” Julis smirked, as if to add, “obviously.”

  “W-wait a second, I—”

  “You transferred to this school. You must at least know about duels?”

  There was no dodging the question. “…Sure, I’ve heard a little bit.”

  It would be entirely fair to say that all the students living in Asterisk were gathered there for the sole purpose of fighting. Asterisk was the site of the Festa, the largest battle-entertainment event in the world, and the students of each school were candidates to be its contestants.

  “Then accept already. See, people are here to watch.”

  Ayato looked to see a ring of students forming around the two of them. They must have come to see what the commotion was. Most of the spectators were girls, probably because they were on the grounds of the girls’ dormitory, but there were also a few boys looking on.

  “Oooh, what’s going on?”

  “The Witch of the Resplendent Flames—the Glühen Rose—is dueling!”

  “For real? She’s a Page One! Couldn’t pay me to miss this!”

  “So, who’s the lucky opponent?”

  “Dunno. He’s nobody I’ve seen before… Did you check the Net?”

  “I am checking… But he’s not listed in the Named Chart.”

  “Unlisted, huh? This guy has some stones on him.”

  “How long can he last? The Princess isn’t the type to hold back. Like, at all.”

  “I give him three minutes.”

  “One minute.”

  “Hold on, the odds are coming up on the Net now. Let’s see…double for three minutes or less.”

  “There are bookies on this already? How do they always get their intel so fast?”

  “Some news clubs are broadcasting it live now. See, right there? And over there, too.”

  Listening to the crowd, Ayato scowled uncomfortably. There were few things he liked less than to be the center of attention. “Why is everyone staring at us…?”

  “Two reasons. The first is that they want to collect data on a top-ranking student—which would be me. I’m a Page One at this school, and there’s no shortage of students who’d like to take my place.”