Spy Classroom - Volume 6 - Chapter 1.2

It was the first day of the honeymoon, and it all started with Lamplight’s boss.

“I’ve invited Avian over to Heat Haze Palace.”

““““““““Whaaaaat?””””””””

Klaus was a tall, tidy-looking young man with long hair, and he delivered the sudden news to his subordinates as they were eating breakfast.

Heat Haze Palace was the name of Lamplight’s base. They’d inherited it from the legendary spy team Inferno, and it was situated in a port city in the Din Republic so they could quickly rush to their allies’ aid when their assistance was required. The building’s very existence was a state secret, so they rarely had visitors. However…

“Originally, the deal was for me to become their boss. Even though they were kind enough to release me from that promise, I still want to honor what I can of it,” Klaus explained in the Heat Haze Palace dining room.

The promise he was referring to was the battle they’d had in the Far Eastern nation of Longchon the month prior where Lamplight and Avian had competed over Klaus. The fateful “Academy Washouts vs Academy Top Six” matchup had ended in Lamplight’s defeat, but Avian had decided to refrain from reassigning Klaus out of the goodness of their hearts. Klaus clearly felt indebted to them.

However, none of the rest of Lamplight’s members had been expecting him to make an announcement like that on their very first day back. As far as they were concerned, this was supposed to be the start of their break.

The girls’ reactions were skeptical.

“I-if I’m being honest”—“Flower Garden” Lily, the lovable, busty girl with silver hair, scrunched up her face—“even now, I don’t think I’m all that huge on Avian.” She was picking apart her bread roll. “I mean, their leader did kinda beat me black-and-blue. I respect them, but being around them gives me the creeps.”

Lily wasn’t alone in that. The rest of the team’s expressions were similarly gloomy.

“I-I’m scared of them, too,” Sara agreed. “I know they aren’t bad people, but still.”

“We took ’em on—eight on six, and they crushed us,” Sybilla noted.

“We knocked some of them out, but by and large, they took us to school,” Monika added.

“It hurts to admit, but their skills are the real deal,” Thea said. “It really is kind of alarming how competent they are.”

“…I just hope they don’t come and say that they’ve changed their minds and that they want the boss after all,” Grete murmured.

“I think they’re boring, yo,” Annette offered.

“I—I feel like my safe space is getting invaded,” Erna mumbled.

The team offered a variety of comments, but by and large, their reactions were negative.

The fact of the matter was that Lamplight didn’t know Avian all that well. Both sides had been keeping their cards close to the chest during their time in Longchon, and there were several Avian members they had yet to so much as hold a conversation with. The atmosphere when the two teams parted ways had been vaguely amicable, but they’d hadn’t actually done any real socializing. Lamplight’s impression of Avian was that while they respected them, Avian was still a detestable bunch of elites who’d tried to steal Klaus away from them. They recognized that Avian’s skills were incredible, of course, and that they had a lot to learn from them as spies, but the fact that Avian had very nearly gotten them disbanded meant they held little affection for the team.

“Well, that settles it,” Lily said conclusively as she rose to her feet. “Looks like it’s our job to send Avian packing!”

“You do know that we owe them one, right?”

“That’s not what matters right now,” Lily replied. After shooting Klaus down, she raised her fist into the air. “I’m still holding a grudge over the way they conned us! If they think we’re going to forgive and forget, well, they can think again! Adios, Avian!”

The others all cheered along with equal enthusiasm.

“““““““Adios, Avian!”””””””

“I see you ladies are as noisy as ever.”

An icy voice sounded out like it was echoing up from the deepest depths of hell.

The girls turned around and found a brown-haired young man scowling at them with steel in his eyes.

The man was “Flock” Vindo, Avian’s current boss. His knife skills were top-notch, and he’d scored the highest marks out of the entire academy’s student body. He and his five teammates were standing in the foyer. Vindo had his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and he was giving the girls a stare that could freeze nitrogen.

“I’ll concede that we did try to steal Klaus. I’ll remind you, though, we had a perfectly legitimate reason—your incompetence—and we proved that during the showdown. You don’t have any basis for trying to drive us away. Also, this bit where I catch you shit-talking us is starting to get old.”

““““““““……………………””””””””

The girls froze and began sweating profusely.

“I, um, uh… I didn’t realize you were already, uh, here,” Lily stammered.

Vindo gave her a bored scoff. “We’ve got some time off, too.”

Behind him, the rest of Avian’s members surveyed Heat Haze Palace’s interior with keen interest.

“So uh…,” Lily said, quickly backpedaling. “We didn’t actually mean any of that. We just kinda got caught up in the moment. We’ve got this bad habit of saying whatever comes to mind, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t read too much into it…”

“I don’t care if you meant it or not,” Vindo replied harshly. “I’ll admit that you’re more competent than you look, but that doesn’t mean we want to get buddy-buddy with you. That sounds insipid. The only reason we came here was to exchange intel with Klaus.”

“Urk…”

“If you want us gone, that’s fine by me. We weren’t planning on staying long anyway,” Vindo said dismissively.

““““““““……………………”””””””” The Lamplight girls quivered in their boots.

““““““……………………”””””” The Avian elites glowered at them.

A heavy silence descended on the dining room.

By all rights, Lamplight and Avian had no reason to spend time together. Everything about the two teams, from the way they carried out their respective missions to the courses their lives had taken, was completely different.

What brought those two disparate groups together—

“What? But the whole reason I invited you here was so you could take part in my training.”

—was Klaus.

Klaus was the one person present unfettered by their framework of washouts and elites, and he gave his head a puzzled tilt. He wasn’t paying an ounce of heed to the gulf that existed between the two teams.

Everyone there turned and looked at him in confusion.

Klaus nodded as though he’d been waiting for them to give him their attention. “You defeated Lamplight, so I felt you were due some sort of prize. After thinking it over, I decided that the best option would be for me to give you a training exercise.”

“A training exercise? You’d do that?” Vindo asked.

“That’s right—I’ll train you myself. I’ve fought on the front lines as part of Inferno, and I can show you techniques that the academies aren’t capable of teaching.”

“…Interesting.” Vindo visibly sank into thought for a moment, then nodded. “All right, then. We’ll take you up on that—”

“Defeat me.”

“Huh?”

“Your task is to work together as a group to make me say ‘I surrender’ through whatever methods you want. I’ll still be doing missions throughout the break, but you should feel free to attack me whenever you please. That’s the lesson.”

““““““………………………………………””””””

All six Avian members were left speechless, Vindo included. Eventually, he turned to the girls. “Is he screwing with us?”

““““He’s dead serious.””””

“Can he not just teach normally?”

““““He cannot.””””

“Wait, is this how you people have been training?”

““““For over six months now.””””

“………………………………………”

There was another long silence. Even for the elites, it took them some time to process what they’d just heard.

Vindo stuck his hands back in his pockets, then stared motionlessly at the ceiling. After a moment, he snapped his head back down, languidly combed his hair back with his hand, and shot Klaus a steely look. “The only reason I can think of for offering conditions that are that slanted in our favor………is because you think we’re pushovers.”

Klaus had struck a nerve. Vindo was steaming with such an unbridled fury that Lily and the others gasped just looking at him.

As Vindo fumed, the other Avian members spoke up as well.

“C’mon, man. ♪ Are you seriously lumping us in with Lamplight? ♪”

“This affront shall not stand. Thou doth besmirch our honor.”

“Yeah, I really don’t see us losing. It is six against one, you know.”

“Let’s show him our full miiight.”

“…Aye. Our goal will be to finish it within one minute.”

Their pride had been wounded, and all six of them turned the full force of their hostility on Klaus. They were going to attack him, and they were going to attack him now.

As the Lamplight girls listened to the conversation from the side, the same thought ran through each of their heads.

I’m getting déjà vu all over again…

They themselves had gone down that exact same road.

A moment later, the Avian elites charged at Klaus without even bothering to come up with a plan and got TKO’d in brilliant fashion.

Klaus’s training sparked a major change in Avian.

In all likelihood, it had come as a serious shock to them. Never before had those top six academy elites suffered a defeat that crushing. On the first day, they left Heat Haze Palace with dazed expressions plastered on their faces.

The day after, they returned after having cooked up a plan. They took on Klaus another time and got routed the exact same way. Once again, they left in a daze, and once again, they came back the next day only to have it play out in identical fashion.

A question dawned on the Lamplight girls as they watched it all unfold—what would happen when a group of people that prideful ran headlong into an immovable object?

“We’re back, ladies of Lamplight. Is Klaus around?”

“““““You don’t have to come here EVERY DAY, you know!”””””

By the fourth day of the honeymoon, Avian had become little more than stalkers.

It was quiet in the interrogation room.

As Sybilla spent a few seconds thinking back to the start of their relationship with Avian, Amelie remained silent. The only sound in the room was that of her fellow intelligence agent’s fountain pen scribbling away.

“…Honestly, we didn’t care for ’em one bit,” Sybilla muttered quietly. “But they weren’t just some nobodies to us, either. We want to find out how Avian went down. But there was only one survivor—‘Cloud Drift’ Lan—and after reporting that everyone else was dead, she went to ground.” She gave her head a big shake. “Like I said, we’ve been lookin’ for her for three weeks, but we still can’t find her.”

Amelie didn’t move. “………”

“With that watch store, though, we’ve finally got a lead. Also, I’ve got some questions, too. What was a CIM counterintelligence team doin’ stationed at the store? C’mon, you can at least throw me a bone. Like I said, we’ve got no beef whatsoever with the Commonwealth.”

Sybilla made sure to emphasize her final sentence. Lamplight had no desire to formally antagonize the Fend Commonwealth. All they wanted was information.

“………”

Amelie continued looking at Sybilla with nary a word or facial twitch. There was something eerie about the dark bags under her eyes. Perhaps her code name, Puppeteer, referred to the almost inhuman way she carried herself.

Eventually, she exhaled. “Thank you,” she said with a nod. “I understand your situation now. I imagine that losing a group of acquaintances like that must have been most worrying.”

“Y-yeah, it was. Thanks for bein’ so understanding.”

“However…”

As the word left Amelie’s mouth, she tightened her grip on Sybilla’s arm.

“…your pulse rose a little. You’re lying to me.”

“________!!”

“An amateur mistake. I can see that you’re no great spy, dear guest.”

Sybilla was aghast. Amelie hadn’t just been squeezing her wrist to intimidate her. She’d been measuring Sybilla’s pulse to gauge her emotional state. Amelie’s lips curled into a smirk. She seemed to be delighting in Sybilla’s reaction.

This was the woman who headed the counterintelligence team Belias—“Puppeteer” Amelie.

Amelie was emanating such an ominous pressure that Sybilla could barely breathe. It felt like Amelie could see right through her.

Amelie let go of Sybilla’s arm and rose from her chair. Her shoes clicked loudly against the floor as she began circling the room. “So they sent in spies who can’t even lie properly… Was Avian really that unimportant to Din? Just who are you, dear guest…?”

There was something almost theatrical about the murmurs Sybilla caught from time to time.

Eventually, Amelie did a half spin. Her skirt went fluttering behind her. “Well, all right, then.” She strode elegantly over and stood in front of Sybilla. “Allow me to explain why we were stationed at the watch store.”

“Huh?” That wasn’t what Sybilla had been expecting to hear at all. “You’re actually gonna tell me?”

“I don’t see why not. We have no intention of souring our relationship with the Republic, either.” Amelie smiled. “Tell me, dear guest, how much do you know about our royal family?”

“What?”

Sybilla cocked her head in confusion. Amelie had just gone and completely changed the subject on her.

Naturally, Sybilla had memorized all the basic information about the Fend Commonwealth. In a bygone era, they’d ruled the world. Fend was the first nation in history to have an industrial revolution and modernize their manufacturing, and it allowed them to expand across the globe. They brought Tolfa, the Far East, and the New World to heel one after another, dubbing them “territories of the Fend Kingdom” and forcing them to swear loyalty to the Crown. By doing so, the Fend Kingdom had dyed the world in its colors.

Eventually, the nation renamed itself from the Fend Kingdom to the Fend Commonwealth. On paper, it became a federation with each of its member states having control over their own internal affairs, but in truth, its rule was just as centralized and authoritarian as ever. The Commonwealth was a massive power structure that allowed the royal family to control nations all over the world, and though the role of global hegemon shifted to the United States of Mouzaia in the Great War’s wake, the royal family retained the lion’s share of its power and influence.

“I mean, I’ve heard of ’em…”

“As I would imagine. The Fend Commonwealth is deeply entwined with its royal family. Her Majesty Queen Ribault rules over what was once the Fend Kingdom and its fourteen vassal states, and every citizen in our fair nation has pledged their service to her, her esteemed son Crown Prince Darryn, and her other four sons.”

After speaking at length, Amelie dropped the bomb.

“Currently, Avian is charged with the attempted assassination of that very same Crown Prince Darryn.”

“What?”

Sybilla let out a dumbfounded gasp at the unexpected piece of information.

“From your reaction, I take it this is the first you’re hearing of this.”

“No, like… What are you talkin’ about…?”

“You have at least heard the news, I assume. Last month, somebody planted a bomb in a government office building when Prince Darryn was visiting. The prince was thankfully unharmed, but two employees lost their lives.”

“Yeah, obviously I know about that. But I thought they said it was extremists who—”

“That was the story we released to the public, yes. In truth, though, we suspect that the Din Republic’s Avian team was involved.”

“You got any proof?”

“Naturally. Not that I’m obliged to show it to you, dear guest.”

The new piece of information sent Sybilla reeling.

Avian tried to assassinate the crown prince?

It didn’t make sense.

That was a piece of intel that Lamplight hadn’t so much as caught wind of. For one thing, Avian had no reason to go after the crown prince. Their only mission had been to look into a certain someone.

“Now, I trust that answers your question. The fact is, we at the CIM are looking for Avian as well.”

“W-wait, hold up. Avian’s gone.”

Amelie nodded. “Indeed. We discovered the same thing—that five of its six members perished. What we don’t know is why they attacked Prince Darryn and how they died,” she said. “The only person who knows what happened is the survivor, ‘Cloud Drift’ Lan.”

“………”

“We at the CIM have been tasked with apprehending her, so it was inevitable that we would meet at that watch shop. We were both searching for the same person.”

Amelie picked her butterfly knife back up and pressed it flat against Sybilla’s cheek. It was deathly cold against her skin.

“Tell me everything you know about Cloud Drift, young lady. That’s an order,” she whispered. “You knew her, did you not? That means you have information on her.”

“………………”

Sybilla had plenty of information on Lan. She’d spent a month with Avian.

She knew Lan’s age, appearance, and athletic capabilities; she knew that Lan had a habit of frequently changing her vocal tics and that she was currently obsessed with thees, thys, and thous; she knew that Lan loved apple pie and would eat it three times a week; she knew that Lan’s special ability was called Detainment and that she was an expert at fighting with string; she knew that Lan was scared to death of Annette and ran away at full speed whenever they crossed paths; and she knew that people suspected that Lan’s third-place performance on the graduation exam might have been a fluke.

However, all that information was classified. Everything Sybilla had shared with Amelie so far had been surface-level stuff. She’d kept all the important intel to herself.

“………”

Her breath caught in her throat, and her lungs started aching.

“After all that, you’re choosing to keep mum?” Amelie tutted in disapproval. “How very strange. Did you not just say you didn’t want to be our enemy? Here I was, thinking you would be happy to help us root out a ruthless terrorist.”

“………”

“If you intend to cover for her…you’ll leave me no choice but to resume with torturing you.”

As Amelie spoke, she pressed in with the knife. Its cold surface dug into Sybilla’s cheek. All it would take was a twitch, and it would slice Sybilla’s face, but Amelie was making it perfectly clear that that was none of her concern.

Why am I covering for Avian?

Memories of the time she spent with the team flooded back to Sybilla.

It was eight days into the honeymoon, and after getting trounced by Klaus, Avian had taken to dropping by Heat Haze Palace more or less on the daily.

Of the members, the one who visited the most was Avian’s boss—“Flock” Vindo.

“I’m back, ladies of Lamplight. Where’s Klaus? Oh, he’s out on another mission. I’ll wait for him over in the dining room, then. Are those tea cakes Qulle left here still kicking around? I’ll have some of those. Oh, and I brought Vics and Pharma, too. The others are running a little late, but—”

“““““Go home!”””””

The sharp-eyed, brown-haired youth ignored Lamplight’s shouting and headed on in.

Lamplight had initially treated Avian as guests, but their reactions had shifted as the days dragged on. Lamplight was supposed to be on break right now, and there was nothing more annoying than a group of visitors who refused to respect that and kept dropping by uninvited. By the time the first week had passed, Lamplight had started shouting “Go home” every time they ran into Avian.

It probably went without saying, but it was going to take more than that to deter the elites.

“…Are you guys just bored out of your minds, or what?” Lily asked in exasperation.

“Of course not,” Vindo said as he stuffed his face full of tea cakes over in the kitchen. “We’re taking turns with our time off, but we’ve still got counterintelligence missions we’re completing. We’re just being efficient about it, that’s all. Don’t lump us in with you lot.”

“Wow, how diligent of you.”

“Today, we’re all on break.”

“Wait, so you are just bored!”

Lily and the others renewed their efforts to shoo Avian away, and Vindo scoffed at them. “If it makes you feel better, our work is picking back up tomorrow. It’s not like we’re interfering with your precious little lives just for kicks.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.”

“We’ll only be able to spend three hours here tomorrow, then two hours in the evening the day after that and four hours in the morning in three days’ time. From day four onward, it’ll be two hours after midnight, six hours in the afternoon, one hour in the evening, and another twenty minutes late at—”

““““STOP COMING HERE EVERY DAY!””””

There was a big reason why the Lamplight girls were so desperate to drive him away. The fact of the matter was that Vindo wasn’t the only obnoxious one. When he came, he brought the rest of Avian with him, and they were just as annoying in their own ways. Lamplight hadn’t had much direct interaction with them in Longchon, so they hadn’t known it at the time, but Avian was home to no shortage of weirdos.

For one, there was “Feather” Pharma.

Between her overgrown, disheveled hair and plump figure, Pharma seemed to almost emanate sloth. She also appeared to think of Lamplight’s younger members as something akin to pets and would often wrap them up in embraces regardless of the time or place.

Her primary victim was a certain petite blond who looked as lovely as a doll—“Fool” Erna.

“Ohhh, little Erna. How are you aaalways so adorable? Come on, let me squish your cheeks. Squishy-squishy, squishy-squishyyy. Let’s go take a nap together.”

“Yeep! F-for some reason, that sounds really scary! Everything about that feels like misfortune!”

Much to Erna’s terror, she found herself getting smothered on the regular.

For another, there was “Cloud Drift” Lan.

Lan wore her dark-red hair long and straight, and her sharp facial features gave her a decidedly dignified air. She’d had a traumatic experience with a Lamplight member named Annette, and every time Lan ran into her, she would shriek “The beast comeeeeeeth!” and run for her life. That wasn’t a problem in and of itself, but she frequently crashed into Heat Haze Palace’s furnishings and destroyed them in her haste.

Her primary victim was an androgynous-looking cerulean-haired girl who didn’t have much in the way of distinctive features—“Glint” Monika.

“Why, Dame Monika! Just, um, so thou knowest, I broke thy mug the other day, but I have every intention to use Avian’s operating funds to replace it—”

Monika gave her a look of absolute contempt. “I want that money coming straight out of your pocket. And next time you break something of mine, you’re dead.”

From there, Avian’s rampage continued unabated.

“South Wind” Queneau—a big, mask-wearing man of many mysteries—went and started a vegetable garden on the premises, quietly muttering “Aye” to himself all the while. Without so much as warning Lily, he replanted all the herbs and poisonous plants she’d been growing.

“Glide” Qulle—a girl with a ponytail and a large pair of glasses—was a comparatively functional member of society, but even she had her share of problems. “Gosh, it’s so nice to have someone else looking after them,” she would say, appearing fully checked out as she refused to so much as lift a finger to keep her teammates in check. Instead, she just lazed about in the main hall with a look of utter release on her face.

Avian’s members continued visiting day in and day out, and the Lamplight girls all shared the same opinion.

““““““““I swear to God, these people are driving me mad!””””””””

They were completely at the elites’ mercy.

The problem was that they couldn’t just kick them out. Avian had Klaus’s permission to be there, and they were stronger than Lamplight to boot. Driving them away by force would be all but impossible.

Lamplight had found their natural enemy.

Avian had victimized all the girls in some way or another, and Sybilla was no exception.

In her case, the menace was “Lander” Vics. Vics was a young man who was handsome enough to be a model. He went out chasing skirts whenever he had time to spare, and he often invited Sybilla along on group dates—as a dude.

“Oh hey, Sybilla, want to go on a group date with me tonight? ♪ There weren’t enough men who agreed to come, but if you just cross-dressed, we wouldn’t have to break the bad news to any of the ladies. ♪”

“Fuck OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!”

The rest of Avian’s men had long since lost patience with Vics, so he turned to Sybilla to be his partner in crime instead. When he refused to take no for an answer, Sybilla had no choice but to flee.

She raced down Heat Haze Palace’s halls with all her might.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“’Cause you’re the most interesting person here! ♪ ”

“You makin’ fun of me or something?!”

“Hey, c’mon, don’t worry about it. ♪ Just think of it as training. ♪ Wooing the ladies is an important spy skill. ♪”

“That’s no training I want any part of!”

However, the thing about Vics was that he wasn’t so easily shaken. He’d been strong enough to claim the number two spot out of the entire academy’s student body, and although Sybilla had fought him herself back in Longchon, he clearly hadn’t been giving it his all. He gave chase with a confident grin, as though they were enjoying a fun game of tag.

Sybilla charged down the first-floor corridor and made a beeline for the end of the hallway. Fleeing to the second floor would have been another option, but that was where the girls’ bedrooms were, so she didn’t want any guys aside from Klaus going up there.

She steeled herself to face her foe at the hallway’s end. She’d prepared for just such an eventuality.

“Eat this!”

She set off the tear gas canister attached to the wall.

Vics was right behind her, and she activated the gas at just the right time to blast him. The three-hundred-plus times she’d fought Klaus in Heat Haze Palace had prepared her for this.

Vics snapped his eyes shut and smashed the emitter with his fist.

That should have bought her all the time she needed. Without a moment’s delay, she leaned forward to leap out of the window—

“I’m code name Lander—and it’s time to get smashing. ♪”

—but a roar like cannon fire split the air.

Sybilla could feel the impact from the blow on her skin. Something had just whizzed past her head, and her hair swayed from the wind it left in its wake. She froze and nervously looked in the direction the noise had come from.

There was a brick lodged in the wall.

“The hell…?”

The brick had slammed into the wall right next to the window, and though the raw force of the collision had shattered the brick, it had also damaged the wall and warped the window frame. Try as she might, Sybilla couldn’t get the window to open anymore.

It went without saying where the brick had come from. Vics had thrown it with nothing more than his upper body strength.

“Fuckin’ WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!” she screamed.

She thought back to Vics’s special ability—his superhuman strength.

He didn’t look particularly brawny, but the man was hiding an unfathomable amount of muscle just below his skin. Throwing a brick so fast that it warped the window frame had been child’s play for him.

Vics strode over with a playful grin. “I picked that little baby up in the yard earlier. ♪ I figured it might come in handy. ♪”

“But I would’ve seen you holding it…”

Vics had been unarmed—at least, as far as Sybilla knew. He hadn’t been holding a thing. That was why the long-range attack had caught her so off guard.

Vics stretched out his hands and flashed his empty palms.

“That’s what my Concealment technique does—it lets me steal my opponents’ attention away. ♪”

With that, it all made sense.

Sybilla didn’t know how exactly it worked, but Vics was able to carry weapons concealed on his body. She assumed he held them clenched in his lats or his glutes.

She let out an annoyed exhale at how effective Vics’s technique was at leading his foes astray. She had to be wary of his superhuman strength in any fight, but that just made it that much easier for him to fool his opponents; he kept his weapons hidden until the last possible moment and prevented them from noticing when he deployed his arms.

Superhuman Strength × Concealment = Bottomless Brawn.

There was a trick where you multiplied your techniques and your lies together, and Sybilla knew exactly what it was called.

“Liecraft, huh?”

That was the final lesson the spy academies gave their students before they graduated. It was the only sure way to catch someone stronger than you by surprise so you could defeat them. Aside from Erna, not a single Lamplight girl had been able to get a handle on it.

“Oh right, you haven’t mastered it yet. ♪ That’s hilarious. ♪ What a loser! ♪”

“Shaddap!”

Sybilla returned Vics’s mocking laughter with a front kick. However, Vics was able to easily catch her leg and hoist her into the air. Once he had her caught in his inhumanly strong grasp, there was no escape.

“Now, c’mon, you’ve got a group date to get cross-dressed for. ♪”

“I don’t wannaaaaaaa!”

Vics dragged her away, hauling her through the air like a captured boar. She shouted in protest, but unsurprisingly, Vics was undeterred. Sybilla knew exactly how it was going to play out. He was going to make her cross-dress, and she was going to have to endure the hellish experience of attending a group date disguised as a guy. The exact same tragedy had already played out several times over the past few days.

The question was: How was she supposed to defeat him?

As she was busy trying to think up a plan for next time, a high-pitched noise split the air—a whistle.

“Ah, that’s a bummer. ♪ Looks like I’m out of time. ♪”

“Huh?”

Vics gave his head a disappointed shake and released Sybilla’s legs. “Vindo wants us all to gather. ♪”

Avian was a giant pain in the neck, but Lamplight could have stood to take one page from their book—the approach they took to carrying out their espionage duties.

On Vics’s urging, Sybilla headed to the main hall and found the rest of Avian’s and Lamplight’s members gathered around Vindo. There were fourteen spies in all, and every pair of eyes was on Avian’s boss.

“It’s time. Let’s get ready to take down Klaus,” Vindo said definitively.

“Roger that,” the other Avian members replied. Their expressions sharpened so dramatically that it was like someone had just flipped a switch.

Then Vindo turned his gaze over to Lamplight. “Starting today, you lot are going to be helping us as well.”

““““Huh?””””

“As spies, your overall skills are low, but your special talents are a force to be reckoned with. It stings to admit, but as things stand, we can’t beat Klaus with Avian alone. We need to combine our forces to take him down.”

Qulle, who was standing beside him, showed them a blueprint of Heat Haze Palace and smiled. “We’ve already come up with a plan.”

Even at just a glance, the girls could tell it was a plan that Lamplight would never have been able to carry out solo. What’s more, it was also incredibly detailed, and there was a series of fallbacks laid out in case the main plan fell apart.

“…If you want our help, you could at least be nicer to us,” Lily said.

“This is just the way we communicate,” Vindo replied. His voice rang with the same self-confidence as always. “It’s like I said—together, we can protect our nation on two fronts.”

Hearing how much faith the elites had in them made the girls feel a little self-conscious, but a little happy, too.

The rest of the Avian members grinned.

“Honestly, this was the plan all along ♪,” Vics said. Lan nodded. “’Tis imperative we two teams learn to cooperate.” “I think we all stand to learn a lot from this,” Qulle agreed. “You know, I think it’d be nice if we deepened our bonds eeeven more. Let’s go to a hot spring together,” Pharma suggested. “…Nay. Control yourself,” Queneau scolded her.

Avian was a noisy bunch, too, but there was something a little more mature about them than Lamplight. They were the very image of elite skill the girls so admired.

All in all, there were fifteen of them—one World’s Strongest, six elites, and eight washouts. When they all got together, it was as noisy and chaotic as could be. It got to the point where it was hard to even tell who was talking.

“Hey, Vindo, Lily here. I’ve got a question. If you wanted to train with us, why did you always act like such a snob?” “Because the first thing you did when we got here was try to kick us out.” “Aye. He pouted in a most unbecoming way.” “Oh nooo, my sugar levels are getting low. I want to go out and eat sweets with little Erna.” “Yeep! L-let go of me!” “S-stop it! You can’t have Miss Erna!” “I do like the sound of going out to eat, though. Perhaps we should make a reservation.” “Ooh, that’s gonna be a no-go for me. ♪ I’ve got a hot group date with Sybilla tonight. ♪” “Fuck off! If you need someone to cross-dress for you, that’s literally what Grete is good at.” “Thank you, but I have to decline. I believe Monika would look good in menswear, though.” “Don’t go selling me out. You probably just don’t want to have to eat dinner with any guys aside from Klaus.” “Oh? What’s this? Could it be? Do I smell love in the air?” “I wish to hear more details, too, prithee!” “I don’t remember giving you the right to talk, yo.” “Ack!”

The girls spent every day trying to get rid of Avian, but over time, they all gradually grew closer. The two teams motivated each other, fought with each other, and bettered each other. They were truly the oddest of couples. In time, they developed what could only be described as a rivalry—a rivalry they assumed would continue on for years to come.

“Why?” Amelie murmured.

When Sybilla snapped out of her reverie and looked back up, she saw Amelie looking bewildered, with her eyes wide like she’d just witnessed something she could hardly believe. It was the first time Amelie had expressed anything but consummate professionalism.

Sybilla didn’t understand what was going on. “Huh?”

Amelie took a moment to catch her breath.

“Why are you crying, dear guest?”

On hearing Amelie’s question, Sybilla finally noticed the droplets rolling down her cheek. She reached up and touched her face to see if they were really there.

Shit, they are… I’m actually cryin’. Fucking embarrassing…

This wasn’t the first time she’d experienced loss in her life.

As a child, she grew up in a gang, where violence and exploitation ruled. She’d seen people get murdered with her own two eyes, and she’d lost people she cared about deeply.

What shocked her was that she was crying the exact same way she had back then. Thinking about the elites had caused her to shed tears in a foreign interrogation room.

I can’t believe it. At first, I just thought they were a bunch of assholes, but now…

In Longchon, they’d been out-and-out enemies. Not only had the two teams fought tooth and nail over Klaus, but Avian had stirred up that special feeling of inferiority in them particular to washouts. Then, when Vindo and the others started constantly stopping by, Lamplight had tried to chase them off—“Go away,” they’d said, and “Screw off,” and “If you’re gonna come, at least bring us some snacks or something.”

Now, though, thinking back to the time she’d spent with them was enough to make Sybilla cry.

She wiped away her tears. “…Just now, you said I was lyin’ to you.”

“I did.”

“Well, you’re right. I did lie.” Sybilla looked straight ahead. “When I said we didn’t care for ’em one bit, that wasn’t true. We didn’t hate ’em. We didn’t hate ’em at all.”

That was how she really felt.

She’d never wanted them to die.

She’d believed that they would get to keep on being rivals.

However, the death report had been true. When Sybilla and the others came rushing to the Fend Commonwealth, they’d found a picture of Avian’s corpses. The girls had been holding out hope that the news was fake, but the photo revealed just how cruelly true it was. No amount of grieving would change the cold, hard reality that everyone on Avian except Lan had been killed in the line of duty.

It was the first time Lamplight had ever lost people that they as a group truly cared about.

“They wouldn’t…,” Sybilla spat, clenching her fists.

Amelie raised an eyebrow. “…?”

“That failed assassination on the crown prince? Avian would never do something like that.” Her voice grew rougher. “Even if they wanted to, they’d never resort to filthy Galgad-ass methods like bombs. They actually care about collateral damage. It’s a frame job! Someone out there pinned the crime on Avian, then killed ’em!”

“How unpleasant. Why, it sounds as though you’re saying that somebody pulled the wool over Belias’s eyes—”

“That’s exactly what I’m fuckin’ saying!” Sybilla roared, driven by raw impulse. She was past the point of being able to control her emotions. This wasn’t fear at having been captured by a foreign intelligence team speaking, nor was it anger at the way Amelie had threatened her. She was being confronted head-on by the loss of Avian, and it hurt so bad she couldn’t stand it. “I’m not tellin’ you another goddamn thing.” She glared at Amelie. “I got no reason to. Avian didn’t have shit to do with the assassination. Someone’s playing you, and I’m not sellin’ my allies’ information to someone who gets played like that.”

“…You really don’t understand the situation you’re in.”

Amelie didn’t so much as hesitate. She pressed in with her butterfly knife and tried to slice open Sybilla’s cheek.

Before the blade could dig into her fair skin, though, Sybilla made her move. She kicked the entire desk into the air, then extended her arm as Amelie went flying.

“I’m code name Pandemonium—and it’s time I cleaned you out.”

With that, she stole Amelie’s knife.

Behind Amelie, the Belias personnel sprang into motion. They promptly drew their guns and trained them on Sybilla. Sybilla responded by readying her knife and crouching in preparation to lunge at them. If they fired, she was ready to take two or three bullets to close in on them. Because of how confined the quarters were, her odds of winning a chaotic brawl like that were at least a couple percentage points.

Amelie dusted off her skirt in annoyance. “You really intend to resist us?”

“Damn straight. I don’t have time to sit around gettin’ tortured for bullshit reasons.”

“Now you’re just talking nonsense. Our actions are founded in absolute righteousness. We are always just, and we do not err.”

She pulled a small stick from her pocket. Sybilla braced herself for the worst, but as it turned out, it wasn’t a weapon at all—it was a conductor’s baton.

Amelie elegantly brandished her baton and softly pointed it to her right. “Lotus Doll.”

“Yes, Master.”

On her right, there was a woman dressed in a habit beaming with joy.

Next, Amelie pointed her baton to the left. “Disintegrator Doll.”

“As you command.”

On her left, there was a boy wearing a top hat and a slender suit.

Flanked on both sides by her loyal subordinates, Amelie smiled. “These two are Belias’s aides-de-camp. They’ve put down countless spies in their day.”

“Well, good for them.”

“Programme Number 4.” Amelie gave her conductor’s baton a big wave. “Show our guest some hospitality.”

Apparently, that was how she gave the aides their orders.

All Sybilla was able to see was the woman called Lotus Doll and the boy called Disintegrator Doll launching themselves forward like shots from a gun. Thanks to Amelie’s impeccable leadership, the duo was able to dash in perfect harmony and leap at Sybilla from the left and the right at the exact same time. Sybilla was pretty sure that if that was the extent of it, she would have been able to fight back…

…but then she got kicked in the gut from straight ahead.

It was Amelie. She’d closed in on Sybilla while Sybilla was distracted by the aides.

You’re gettin’ in on the action, too?!

The entirety of the flying kick’s power came from Amelie’s head-on charge, but because of that, Sybilla wasn’t able to completely blunt the impact. Her body slammed into the wall behind her, and the knife she’d been holding slipped from her hand.

Lotus Doll and Disintegrator Doll each grabbed one of her arms. The way they were moving was highly polished and had doubtless been orchestrated in advance. It revealed once more what Sybilla had already learned at the watch store—that under Amelie’s leadership, her subordinates operated in perfect sync. For all of Sybilla’s honed athletic abilities, there was no way for her to fight back against them solo. There was nothing she could do.

“How many should we break, Master?” Lotus Doll calmly asked as she traced her fingers across Sybilla’s abdomen, just below her breasts. She seemed to be enjoying the sensation. Clearly, she was referring to Sybilla’s ribs. “I would like to break three. Last time, Disintegrator Doll got to break two more than me.”

“Because you’re bad at this,” Disintegrator Doll objected. “You even puncture their lungs sometimes.”

“Let me break three, Master,” said Lotus Doll.

“Let me break four, Master,” said Disintegrator Doll.

With Lotus Doll’s voice coming from Sybilla’s left and Disintegrator Doll’s voice coming from her right, it was like they were singing alternating verses in a duet.

“She’s impudent.”    “I concur.”

“She needs to learn where she stands.”    “We need to teach her.”

“What a pathetic spy.”    “What an embarrassment.”

“She found out that her allies died.”    “She came rushing over.”

“She spent three weeks getting nowhere.”    “She scuttled around like a rat.”

“Then she got captured.”    “She’s going to get tortured and die.”

“We should bury her alongside Avian.”    “She’s just as incompetent as they were.”

“Those scum tried to kill the crown prince.”    “They did fail, though.”

“Then they got killed.”    “That’s right, they died just like that.”

“Was it a schism? A fight? An accident?”    “The only one who knows is Cloud Drift.”

“We want information on her…”    “Master commands it…”

““…so we’ll be breaking your ribs on both sides, dear guest.””

Malevolent smiles spread across both of their faces in unison.

Each of them was holding a large hammer, and they made sure Sybilla could see them raise their implements aloft.

Amelie spoke up in a dull voice.

“Sadly, it would appear that we have a new guest joining us.”

A wave of icy malice washed over the room.

The sadistic smiles on Lotus Doll’s and Disintegrator Doll’s faces stiffened. They quickly released Sybilla’s arms and got ready for battle.

“You’ve really enjoyed yourself tormenting my subordinate, haven’t you?”

It was Klaus, Lamplight’s boss. Brimming with wrath, he stepped into the interrogation room.

Every Belias agent aside from Amelie recoiled. Klaus hadn’t introduced himself, but his presence spoke for itself.

“Boss…,” Sybilla choked out. Klaus nodded, then strode all the way over to her side. Lotus Doll and Disintegrator Doll fell back and placed themselves in a position where they could defend Amelie.

Amelie gracefully gave him a small bow. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure, Bonfire. I am ‘Puppeteer’ Amelie, servant to the Fend Commonwealth’s CIM and master of the counterintelligence team Belias.”

“You know who I am?”

“There have been rumors going around for a while about an odd man who calls himself the Greatest Spy in the World.”

“…As a spy, I’m not too happy about this fame I’ve earned.” Klaus let out a long breath. “Well, it is what it is. Can I convince you to let my subordinate go, Puppeteer?”

“You cannot. We suspect that Avian is behind a failed attempt on the crown prince’s life, and this young lady is a person of interest. Releasing her isn’t an option.”

“Hmm… That’s the first I’m hearing about this.”

“Depending on how things play out, this could well spell the end of the CIM’s partnership with your Foreign Intelligence Office.”

The two teams’ bosses stared silently at each other. Sybilla could feel her skin crawling.

Klaus dropped his voice an octave. “I could always take her out of here by force, you know.”

In contrast, Amelie just softly smiled. “I would recommend against it, dear guest. If you put so much as a scratch on my subordinates, the CIM will have no choice but to regard the Foreign Intelligence Office as a foe. For all your talents, you’re but a single man. Are you confident you’ll be able to protect the Republic when the CIM brings its full force to bear against it?”

Klaus knit his brows in confusion. “I don’t get it.”

“Hmm…?”

“Why would me attacking you cause a rift between our nations?”

“I should think that would be obvious, dear guest.”

“But who would report it? All of you would be dead.”

At some point, Klaus had drawn his gun. The intensity he was displaying was so uncharacteristically raw that Sybilla’s palms started sweating. There was no affectation or hesitation in his voice. He was just stating the pure, unvarnished truth—that if he wanted to, he could kill every last person in the building and casually stroll out the front door.

“…………………”

Amelie’s expression didn’t waver.

The air in the room was so tense, not a single person was breathing.

The first person to break eye contact was Klaus. “…No, this is fine. I have no desire to turn this into a bloodbath.” He leaned down toward Sybilla and brushed the dust off her shoulders. “Magnificent,” he told her. “You did a fantastic job buying time.”

“Was that supposed to scare me?” Amelie looked at him mockingly. “Allow me to repeat myself. For all your talents, you’re but a single man. There’s no way you could exterminate us all. My subordinates would flee in all different directions, and one of them would succeed in informing my superiors about your crime.”

Klaus looked back at her, nonplussed. “………”

“What a trifling bluff.” Amelie sneered. “If you try to take that girl from here, we’ll stop you. With all our might.”

“Let’s not walk into any pointless fights. I don’t know anything about ‘Cloud Drift’ Lan’s whereabouts, nor does Sybilla. And this is the first we’re hearing about Avian trying to assassinate the crown prince.” Klaus shook his head. “Torturing us wouldn’t give you the information you’re looking for. Do you really still want to fight me?”

“………”

“If anything…shouldn’t we be looking into pooling our efforts?”

“Excuse me?” Amelie squinted at him in surprise.

Klaus went on. “You want to capture Cloud Drift because you suspect she was involved in the attack on the crown prince. We want to ask her questions because she’s Avian’s sole survivor. Our goals are one and the same—finding ‘Cloud Drift’ Lan. Am I wrong?”

Amelie laid a hand over her mouth in contemplation. “I see. So that’s the way you would have us handle this.”

“If you refuse, I’ll have no choice but to use force to protect my subordinate. Would you like to see if I’m bluffing now?”

As Klaus calmly made his threat, Sybilla couldn’t help but be impressed. Both sides had come in hot, but ultimately, they were all asking the same question—where is “Cloud Drift” Lan?

Klaus’s overwhelming might had turned the situation from a one-sided torture session to an even negotiation.

Gauging Amelie’s reaction, she already knew just how unbelievably powerful Klaus was. It wasn’t necessarily good for a spy to have a reputation that preceded them, but here it worked in his favor. Thea manipulated people by deftly using their desires to her advantage, but Klaus employed a different negotiation style—a style centered around his unassailable strength.

Amelie righted her toppled-over chair and sat in it. One of her Belias subordinates brought over some more tea.

There was only one glass.

The tea was milky white with only a touch of brown—probably mostly milk. Amelie sipped it down with great relish.

“I refuse.”

Her smile was soft, but her tone was anything but.

“We have no desire to quarrel with the Din Republic, either, but our positions here are far from equal. The crime Avian is charged with is a serious one, and we could just as easily announce that fact to the world. No, there’s only one arrangement I’m prepared to accept—one where you and your people serve us unilaterally.”

“Fine by me,” Klaus replied succinctly. “It’s all the same, in the end.”

An hour later, Thea came to the interrogation room.

Thea was a Lamplight member who was normally in charge of the team’s command and control. Her figure was alluringly curvy, and her dark hair was long and beautiful. Her code name was Dreamspeaker. In Fend, she’d been working undercover in a nightclub.

She’d been called to the room because there was a role she needed to play.

“Sorry ’bout this, Thea,” Sybilla said.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. Jobs like this are what I’m here for,” Thea replied with a shrug. “You go find Lan, okay? She’s probably off somewhere crying about how ‘Lo, she doth be alone.’”

“That sounds like her, all right.”

They exchanged a light high five, and Sybilla left the interrogation room.

When Thea went in, in her place, they fixed restraints around her neck and wrists. Each of the heavy iron manacles was attached to the interrogation room’s wall with a chain. Upon seeing the setup, Thea briefly bit her lip in discomfort before smiling. “I suppose it’s nice to do some bondage play every now and then,” she joked.

“Allow me to reiterate,” Amelie said with a satisfied nod. “If you fail to find Cloud Drift within twenty-four hours, the hostage dies.”

That was the condition Amelie had set forth—that as long as Lamplight was participating in the search, they would have to give up one of their members as a captive. It was an insurance policy to make sure Klaus couldn’t just flee. If Lamplight ran away, or if they tried to turn on Belias, Belias would kill the hostage.

Thea’s job was to be that hostage. It was a dangerous task, but she’d accepted it nonetheless.

“You all will aid us in our search, dear guests,” Amelie said. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

The woman called Lotus Doll and the boy called Disintegrator Doll smiled.

“We’ll provide backup.”    “I hope you work quietly.”

“For Master’s sake.”    “For Master’s sake.”

““Shut up and serve us, dear guests.””

The woman in charge was dressed in Gothic garb, the two aides-de-camp were a woman in a habit and boy with a top hat, and the rest of the dozen-odd members behind them were all clad in black. By any objective measure, it was a pretty eccentric roster.

Belias was a counterintelligence team belonging to the Fend Commonwealth’s intelligence agency, the CIM, and Lamplight was a rising star in the Din Republic’s intelligence agency, the Foreign Intelligence Office.

Now the two teams were about to embark on a joint search mission. Their objective: to find “Cloud Drift” Lan, the spy charged with attempting to assassinate the crown prince.

Sybilla’s gun had been returned, and she hid it in her clothes as she lined up by Klaus’s side. “Sorry about all this. Didn’t think things would get so messy.”

“Don’t worry about it. With that big a roadblock in our investigation, we were always going to have to reach out to the CIM eventually,” Klaus replied gently. “Like I said earlier, you did a good job holding out until I got there.”

“I’m great at puttin’ up with shit. Still, I’d rather not go through that again.”

Klaus gave her a small nod. “Then, let’s get started. Our grief isn’t going to shoulder itself.”

“Yeah,” Sybilla muttered back. The whole reason they’d come there was to avenge Avian. She thumped Klaus on the shoulder, then strode forward.

With pain in their hearts, Lamplight got to work.

A battle was about to begin in the Fend Commonwealth—a battle for them to mourn their comrades.