Aunt Cage left the curled-up ball on the ground. The mark of a Hunter was one of persistence. Just because Zee was defeated, did not mean that she couldn’t yet succeed—

“Hunter Zee?” Kalender said. He’d noticed her sulking to one side of the arena. He thought that maybe he’d stepped on something important to her, so he came to apologize.

She looked up to him from the ball that she was. He was just supposed to apologize, but there were things that Kalender didn’t understand—like why she had such angry and disappointed eyes.

“You really should walk away from this…” Zee said.

“Why?”

“Wh— ‘why,’ he said? U-unbelievable!” Zee shot up to her feet. “And what will you do when your child is left fatherless? I don’t suppose one of them is the mother, huh? Do you think just having three mothers makes up for the loss of one father?”

Kalender took a step back. “W-woah there.” Where was this coming from? He had a few ideas, but… “I think there’s been a miscommunication, here. I don’t have a kid.”

Zee squinted. “Lies.” She pointed at Minimine, an entire twenty meters away, sitting on Page’s lap on the stands. “Who’s that, then?”

Kalender sighed. “Me and my friends are just taking care of her.”

Zee’s eyes narrowed enough to conduct a double-slit experiment. “So she’s adopted. That doesn’t help your case.”

In his mind, he groaned a groany groan. It was clear to him that the lady was just trying to keep someone from being orphaned, which was admirable, but at the same time, he was getting tired of lying.

He was about to pull out the Inquisition card when there was a commotion in the stands.

Arpeggio approached Hunter Zee from behind. She winked at Kalender, who felt his hairs stand on-end and knelt down as fast as he could. She felt more like a princess now than at any other time they’d spoken.

This was a matter of course for Princess’s Poise.

Zee watching him take a knee and wondered for a split second what on Gaia he was going on about—then she slowly, and carefully, turned around.

She, infamous for never bending a knee for even a marquis, bent both.

Arpeggio chuckled. “Please, stand. I am only interested in that man’s fighting style.”

Huh? Kalender looked up, catching a glimpse of Her Higness’s mischievous smile.

…It was entirely clear to him that she just wanted to bully him for a bit. Okay, maybe she was doing him a favor and bailing him out of this awkward situation with Zee, but those eyes, those were not the eyes of a saintess.

“Well? Dear Kalender, please do stand,” she said.

Zee picked up on the subtext. T-they know each other? It was clear to her now that Kalender was not an ordinary man.

Kalender got on his feet. “Well, Your Highness, I’m not sure what brought this on, but are you asking me for a demo?” he said. The edge in his tone made Arpeggio take a step back—and Zee internally screamed, “What are you doing! Do you want your head to roll!”

The only things rolling here were Kalender’s eyes.

He was publicly showing such an attitude towards Arpeggio, a Princess, but she liked him too much to have him executed for it, so she couldn’t do anything about it! Never before had she been so bullied before, ugh!…but that was also why she liked it.

It was just a bit of playful teasing, was all. Maybe they could even do this regularly and warp Kalender’s reputation into something so far removed from his actual personality. Yes, that would be fitting revenge for this moment.

From Zee’s dealings with nobility in the past, she could tell, in a few lines of speech, who were allied with whom, and which others were apt to backstab their ‘friends’ as soon as they turned around.

…Which was why this was just strange. This was royalty, you know? She may have been rebellious towards nobility, but nobility and royalty were not the same. Nobility stabbed people in the back, but royalty did it from the front, with witnesses, if you so much as got their name wrong!

Despite the undertones of their conversation just now, why were her instincts telling her that it was all just fun and games? These two? Friends? No way.

“Hunter Zee, please leave us be,” Arpeggio said.

“R-right away, Your Highness.”

Fun and games this might be, Arpeggio was serious about one thing, however.

An attendant approached her, a rapier in her two hands. “Indeed. Show me how you fight.”

Kalender’s eyebrows shot up. “You…actually wanna fight?”

“Yes. Fight.”

“Like, right here, right now?”

“That is the proposition, yes.”

Kalender chuckled. Outside observers would think it some sort of villainous sound, but deep inside, he was just thinking, “Wow. Crazy. Surreal.” He wasn’t uninformed about Arpeggio’s reputation. In fact, Jyn had just told him all about her this morning. It was like being told a fairy tale, and then two hours later, you were confronted with it.

His MP wasn’t topped up yet, so he crossed his hands into a T. “Give me 5 minutes.”

Arpeggio planted the rapier into the ground and dilligently stood sentinel. “Very well.”

Witnesses were at awe. Kalender had made a request of the Princess Knight, and she fulfilled it. He had bossed around literal royalty. Would this man live to see tomorrow? Naturally, people started betting large amounts of money on that question.

Jyn pitched in. It wasn’t even a bet for her. Insider knowledge was nice to have, sometimes.

Meanwhile, Kalender re-assessed his situation. He was facing someone whose Occupation said ‘Princess Knight,’ and he only knew one other Knight, Jyn. Now, Jyn kept saying that she, herself, was not actually that good, but after having seen her match with Lilia just yesterday, that might’ve just been Jyn being humble.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Seriously, even if they were moving at a speed his eyes could understand, some of their movements were like they were floating off the ground at some point. It was like one of those physics gimmicks where it only looked physics-defying, but there was just a nuance that helped the whole thing move along. He was sure Jyn and Lilia were using their momentum in ways he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

That was the baseline he had. Copy-pasting that onto Arpeggio, and he…didn’t really know how to fight her.

Seriously, she was just itching to bully him, wasn’t she?

Just a while ago, Zee was swatting his bullets out of mid-air. Even if she was ultimately defeated, that’s only because he’d taken out a second gun. She didn’t have the same finesse as Jyn, which meant that Lyrica’s sword-wielders were nearly all capable of swatting bullets out of mid-air, and the better they were, the more bullets they could take.

Naturally, he had to ask why, because a sword culture wouldn’t naturally develop impressive skills like that as a hobby. However, following that thread of thought to its conclusion wouldn’t help him right now.

If people’s stories of Arpeggio were anywhere close to the truth, that just meant she could take on several machine guns at the minimum.

Then, what about explosives?

He remembered Tak conjuring some sort of magic barrier that took a pretty big fireball head-on. There was also that unalive Black Knight with a peculiar magic barrier that only allowed other Knights through.

In short, Arpeggio could probably survive a tank’s cannon at point-blank range, so grenades were out of the question.

In short, she was invincible, impossibly fast, and very much deadly as the deadliest hecks—though he didn’t need to worry about being killed, coz she wouldn’t do that.

He picked through his memories, remembering details about her that he could take advantage of. Even if everyone expected him to lose, and nothing would really change if he did, he felt there was something else hanging on the outcome of this fight.

If he were to lose, nothing would change.

…But if he were to win, he’d have unconstitutional bullying rights over Arpeggio.

Being royalty aside—he respected her job, of course—she had such an amusing reaction to being bullied back. No doubt, she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end.

Above that, however, in order to have a more equal relationship with her, he had to win. Even if it wasn’t in the sense of defeating the Princess Knight in battle, what he really wanted to do was win over Arpeggio, and show her that there was at least one person in this world whom she could see eye-to-eye with.

…And that he couldn’t be bullied without consequences.

He knelt and scrounged up some dirt, magicking it into becoming a sort of primitive paintball. There wasn’t really any paint, so all it would do was turn into a plume of dust. It’d hurt to be hit by one, but even without armor, it should be safe. He made fifty of these, chunking his MP. (18/29 MP)

That time when Page was hit by a magic that displayed a cryptic poem…he was going to do that here. Though, that time, it was some sort of magical projectile that hit Page, and here, he was thinking of using physical bullets—all very experimental, he wasn’t even sure how to make it work. The only thing he could do was be hyper-specific about it.

{For this projectile, upon breaking, display System message: LET’S BE FRIENDS, for the closest Princess Knight within one meter of the projectile’s point of impact.} (17.95/29 MP)

{For this projectile, upon breaking, display System message: LET’S TALK OVER TEA, for the closest Princess Knight within one meter of the projectile’s point of impact.} (17.9/29 MP)

{For this projectile, upon breaking, display System message: OR DO YOU LIKE COFFEE, for the closest Princess Knight within one meter of the projectile’s point of impact.} (17.85/29 MP)

For all fifty projectiles, he appended a different message. (15.5/29 MP)

Although he had meant for this to simply catch Arpeggio off-guard, his heart started leaking into each and every message. He just couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop. She was someone who deserved his honesty.

He stood up. To the witnesses of this historic fight, it looked like Kalender had just finished imbuing terrifying magics into his bullets. What sort of thunder would his guns fire? More bets were placed.

“Are you ready, dear Kalender?” Arpeggio said. She cut her rapier up and down—some sort of ceremonial blade play before a duel.

“Your Highness,” Kalender smiled, “sorry in advance.”

His eyes were soft and gentle—in this context, putting anxiety in Arpeggio’s heart. “Why is he looking at me like that?”—she thought—“What manner of attack has he prepared?”

“Oh?” She smirked. “Let’s see about that. As part of Knightly courtesy, I shall let you have the first strike.”

He raised his gun

He fired normally.

She slashed at the bullet normally.

It quietly exploded into dust.

[LET’S BE FRIENDS] —the System showed her. For a full second, she froze, and everyone watching felt the cessation of her motion as abnormal as the sudden calming of the turmoil of an open sea.

Satisfied with the change in Arpeggio’s face, Kalender fired another shot. She flicked her wrist, cutting through the bullet with only a minute motion.

[LET’S TALK OVER TEA]

N-no way. She cut at another bullet.

[OR DO YOU LIKE COFFEE]

There was another pause, longer than the first. Everyone watching, from Aunt Cage, to Hunter Zee, to the serial killers in the crowd, and even Lilia, Jyn, and Page, held their breaths. Even Minimine had to churn through several possibilities before she realized what Kalender had done. Behold, the true power of my Level 2 Champion!

Arpeggio’s lips turned upwards, showing no teeth, calm yet satisfied. The impossible was accomplished. This Princess Knight, who fought her opponents with a bored expression, smiled because of this Level 2 newcomer—and that wasn’t the smile of someone power-tripping.

Anyone who saw that smile realized that Kalender’s attacks were hitting the Princess Knight in a much different place.

Kalender brought both guns to bear. He fired in rapid succession.

[I KNOW YOU DIDN’T MEAN IT]

[BUT IT’S OKAY]

Arpeggio gleefully wanted more. She was happy. For every step she took to close the fifteen meters between her and Kalender, she cut at three bullets moving at snail’s pace to her eyes. She merely tapped each one, as gentle as a kitten’s paw, to reduce them to dust, but it was never boring. Each one was different. Each one told her something.

[NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE]

[YOU ASKED ME FOR FRIENDSHIP]

[I THINK YOU’RE A GOOD PERSON]

[A LITTLE BIT MEAN, THO]

She laughed at that. No one’s ever heard her laugh.

[THERE’S ONE THING I DISLIKE]

[AND I BET YOU DO, TOO]

[I CAN’T MEET YOU IN THE STREET]

[AND SAY HI LIKE FRIENDS DO]

She cursed at that. From a smile to a frown, what was he shooting at her? The witnesses knew nothing.

[I’LL MAKE YOU PROUD OF ME]

[SO NO ONE WILL SEE]

[YOU AND ME]

[STRANGE AS FRIENDS TOGETHER]

She missed a cut. It hit her in the shoulder. Painful, but it was just a sting.

Painful…but not the pain she wanted.

Painful. Too painful.

She cried, and she cut, faster and faster—cut faster into the volley of stings, let the words come faster than she could read them.

[…WHATEVERYOUWANTI’LLNEVERTHINKGBADLYOFYOUBUTIHOPEWECANGETALONGEVENAFTERYOUGOHOME—]

Before Kalender could fire the final bullet, faster than the eye could see, Arpeggio knocked one gun away, and swiped the other from his hand.

Suddenly, he was unarmed, and Arpeggio was pointing his own gun, right above his own heart. He raised his hands in surrender.

She fired. [YOU HECKIN’ BULLY.] —her System finally said.

The bullet turned to dust, and a plume wafted over Kalender’s face. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and spat out the dirt, fanning away the dust with his hands.

Arpeggio chuckled at the dumb idiot. She planted her rapier in the ground. Even if there were tears in her eyes, she laughed. That last line totally caught her off-guard.

“I do not wish to hide our friendship, no,” she said. “It would be problematic, but…thank you for helping me realize something.”

Kalender looked her seriously in the eyes as his reply. This was important to her. Of course he’d listen.

“My station in this life,” she continued, “means nothing if it is empty. The things that truly matter are so…so embarrassingly basic, I can’t believe someone as high-born as me could miss it all this time.”

She looked him dead in the eye. “In my name, I order you to never again tell me that I may disregard you. From now on, you are to greet me anywhere and anytime I greet you, even out in the street.”

Kalender smiled so wide he had to cover his face. Arpeggio openly valued this arrangement so much, and he saw it showing from her cheeks.

The person in front of him made a decision, and she looked so much happier for it.

She was less hidden, now—crescendo Arpeggio.

…She also formed a primitive paintball in her hand—copying Kalender’s technique from a while ago—and loaded it into the gun still in her hand.

“Uh, what are you—”

Then she shot him in the chest before he could finish his question, putting in enough MP to punt him off his feet.

“You bully! You made me cry!” She laughed. “You’ve won this time.”