"So. First day is over," Rachel announced, resting her chin on one hand and looking for all the world like a portrait of grace sketched by soone trying to win an art contest and a political alliance at the sa ti. Her golden hair flowed over her shoulder like it had sowhere to be and didn't particularly mind being late.
"Yes. It is," said Cecilia, with the asured patience of soone keeping a ntal tally of how many tis they'd let soone else speak first. Her own golden locks shone under the room's ambient lights, but her crimson eyes sparkled like warning lights you really ought to pay attention to.
"Why did you call us here?" Rose asked, her voice practical, direct, the tone of soone who had enough noblesse in her bloodline to skip over the flowery preamble. She sat across from Cecilia with the calmness of a woman trying not to get caught between two thunderstorms. Her auburn hair had clearly been combed with the kind of care usually reserved for diplomacy.
Seraphina said nothing. As usual. But the silence from her corner of the room was thick enough to spread on toast. She watched the three of them with the distant curiosity of a glacier slowly inching its way across a continent, which, in her case, was probably a perfectly accurate taphor.
Four of the most powerful young won on the planet, all in the sa room. Not a tea party. Not a diplomatic summit. Just sothing even more dangerous.
Competition.
The room itself seed to understand the gravity of the situation. The plush furnishings of Rachel's dormitory suite—all imported from regions that considered "expensive" to be a complint rather than a description—shrank back against the walls as if trying to avoid being caught in the crossfire. Even the lights appeared to dim slightly, perhaps hoping not to draw attention to themselves.
"I believe it's been, oh… five months?" Rachel said, tilting her head like a swan deciding where to stab. "Since we all gathered like this. So much has happened, hasn't it?"
"Stop circling and say it, Saintess," muttered Cecilia, resting her cheek on her fist like she was trying to smother a yawn and a threat at the sa ti. The title "Saintess" hung in the air like a slightly patronizing pat on the head.
Rachel's eyes narrowed. Her golden aura flared for a second, just enough to make the temperature rise like a passive-aggressive thermostat. Then she chuckled, the kind of laugh that echoed down the bloodlines of saints and troublemakers.
"Fine, fine," she said sweetly. "I suppose you'll want to know that Arthur and I will be together for the mission evaluation. Sa region. Sa camp."
There was a silence. Not the awkward kind. The sort of silence that lingers politely just long enough to see who throws the first fireball.
"You?" said three voices, in sync like an ancient prophecy finally being fulfilled.
"I'm going too," Rose said coolly, leaning forward just enough to suggest that she wasn't intimidated in the slightest, which ant that she almost certainly was. "In case you've forgotten the assignnt pairings."
"Yes, but unlike you," Rachel said with the sort of smile that should have co with hazard warnings, "I'm uniquely equipped to support him. Healing, purifying, comforting... you know, useful things."
"As opposed to what?" Cecilia asked with a delicate snort that sohow managed to be both aristocratic and deeply insulting. "Paradox manipulation? The ability to bend reality? I suppose those are just party tricks compared to your glowing hands."
Rose accepted this unexpected defense with a gracious nod, careful not to look too grateful lest Cecilia change her mind and decide to verbally eviscerate her next.
Rachel leaned back, looking satisfied with herself despite the barb. Her chair, sensing her mood, seed to beco even more comfortable in response. Then, casually—too casually—she added, "Also, I figured it out."
Cecilia and Rose blinked. Seraphina arched a single eyebrow, which for her was equivalent to raising a sword and challenging soone to a duel to the death at dawn.
"Figured what out?" Cecilia asked, voice low and suspicious, the kind of tone that made small animals burrow underground and stay there until spring.
Rachel's cheeks pinked with the unmistakable hue of smug embarrassnt. The color spread across her face like a victory flag being hoisted slowly and with great ceremony. "He liked it."
"You didn't…" Rose began, eyes narrowing to the point where one had to wonder if she could still see anything at all.
"Did you show him?" Cecilia asked, and it wasn't quite a question. It was more like an accusation in designer heels. The temperature in the room dropped by at least three degrees, which was impressive considering the advanced climate control that was supposed to prevent exactly that kind of emotional weather.
Rachel shook her head far too quickly. "Not yet! Not yet. But soon. Very soon."
The temperature dropped further.
A blue rose blood in mid-air, humming with mana like a polite warning that happened to be attached to thorns.
A crimson strand of aura slithered into the space between them, like a whisper made of chaos that was considering becoming a shout.
A spear of ice manifested, hovering just above Rachel's rug. The rug, which had been imported from the Southern Continent at a cost that could have funded a small city's defense budget for a year, seed to cringe in anticipation of its imminent destruction.
"Hey! This is my room!" Rachel snapped, golden light flaring from her hand. Her light washed through the room like an annoyed sunbeam, purifying the magical tension before it could redecorate the wallpaper. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get scorch marks out of Celestial Silk?"
It was a minor clash. Barely a spark. The tiniest echo of the imnse power each of them wielded. Still, the walls creaked in complaint and the table whimpered quietly in the corner. A frad photo on the wall, showing Rachel in flowing white robes accepting so kind of humanitarian award, tilted slightly to the left in what could only be described as passive-aggressive interior decoration.
And sowhere, just barely above a whisper, the universe itself sighed and muttered: 'Here we go again.'
The tension was broken by the sound of a teacup being placed deliberately on its saucer. All eyes turned to Seraphina, who had sohow acquired tea without anyone noticing her move.
"Childish," she said, in a tone that could have flash-frozen a volcano.
"Well, even then you're still dreaming like always," said Cecilia, pivoting away from Seraphina's judgnt with the smugness of a woman who'd just found the last slice of cake and was making sure everyone saw her eat it. "I made out with him. For an hour."
Rachel's expression dropped faster than a governnt budget promise. Her violet eyes glead, not with tears but with sothing far more dangerous: competitive spite. The temperature dipped with it, as if the very air had decided to side with her mood.
"I did too, Cecilia. You're not special," Rose chid in, her voice casual, but there was a frost to it. The temperature dropped another degree. Sowhere in the room, a decorative plant gave up and wilted.
"Bickering idiots," Seraphina said, without even looking up from the cup of tea she wasn't drinking. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. Her words had the weight of ancient glaciers. "I slept in the sa bed as him."
Rachel's head snapped up so quickly it might've caused whiplash. The air in the room seed to crystallize, hanging suspended for a mont as if the laws of physics themselves were waiting for elaboration.
Before she could ask, Seraphina added with an edge sharp enough to etch glass, "With consent."
"I had consent!" Rachel protested, clearly offended at the implication she hadn't. But her defence was t not with words, but with a collective, perfectly synchronised expression of doubt from the other three. It was the kind of synchronized facial expression that competitive teams trained years to achieve.
Dismissive looks: three. Dignity: zero.
"Anyway," Rachel sniffed, twirling a strand of golden hair like it owed her money, "as long as I have him, he'll give in to first."
The other girls turned toward her slowly. Not to her face. Oh no. Their eyes were locked with the intense focus of satellites on a heat signature—on one particular, gravitationally significant part of her.
Even Seraphina tilted her head, her usually placid expression twitching ever so slightly. The movent was almost imperceptible, like watching continental drift in real ti, but for Seraphina it was practically a double-take.
Rose muttered sothing under her breath, the kind of thing you didn't say unless you were already halfway to a guilt spiral.
"Even if it's Arthur..." she murmured, trailing off like a sentence that decided it didn't want to start a war.
Rachel didn't need to ask what she ant. She already knew. And her smile was pure, radiant victory.
The kind of smile that said: 'Checkmate. And also, you're welco to forfeit any ti.'
"Ladies," Rachel said, rising from her seat with the graceful inevitability of soone who knew exactly when to make an exit, "this has been delightful, truly. But I have preparations to make for our mission. A week with Arthur in a war zone..." she let the thought linger in the air like an expensive perfu, "I intend to make the most of it."
As she gestured toward the door, a subtle hint that the eting was concluded, Cecilia stood as well, smoothing her uniform with the precise movents of a predator grooming itself before a hunt.
"Don't get too comfortable with your advantage," she warned, her crimson eyes glinting. "War zones have a way of changing plans. And people."
Rose and Seraphina rose as well, forming an unintentional tableau of power and beauty that would have made even the most jaded artist reach for a capture device.
"Until the Western Front, then," Rose said, her tone deceptively light.
"May the best woman win," Rachel replied with a smile that could have illuminated a small city.
"I intend to," said all four won simultaneously, then glared at each other with the kind of synchronized hostility that suggested they'd been practicing.
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