I am seized from behind, by a pair of Academy security girls.
I look to Ms. Berlin for answers.
"What's happening?"
She rushes to me, to hold my face.
"Alex, stay calm. Just do as they say, and it'll all be fine."
Panic is gripping my chest, as the stunned gazes of the silent audience members remain with me as I'm hauled out through the auditorium doors--Miki, Miko and Blitz jumping out of their seats to follow, only to be held back by another emerging squad of security officers.
What follows is a long walk to the security office, during which I'm told nothing of what ro expect.
Once there, I'm sat down in a waiting room...
...
Huh...
Just now, I...
I killed someone...
Held their still-bleeding half-corpse...
And now, I'm being made to sit in an empty waiting room...
with soft muzzak playing through a speaker...
I try to contemplate what fate has in store for me: but there is surprisingly little precedence in the way of "accidental promo match murders," so I can't be certain.
Will I be detained? Suspended from matches?
Could I even be expelled, altogether?
If so, I would have my Vorpal Knights' modified Charm Ring taken; so, I wouldn't have access to my System powers, or the Vorpal weapons cache, anymore...
What would I do then?
I guess I'd drag my feet on back home...
What about Dusk, though?
Will the other Knights eventually manage to free her?
Or, would she be killed in their crossfire?
After a period of time feeling like ages passes, Chief "Yuna" Yamamoto appears out of a door, in the midst of shoving a stick of gum into her mouth--proceeding to chew it noisily--with a wholly nonchalant air about her, considering the macabre context of our present engagement.
"We meet again, Alex Strangelove."
"Or, should I really be calling you Alice from now on?"
"Alex." I answer back sharply. "I'm still Alex."
How did he learn of my Charming Form's name?
She grasps me by my shoulder--
Grey walls and floors start to emerge, like a growing mold, rapidly forming the cramped 'pocket prison' she'd held me in previously.
Chains emerge, from the floor and ceiling--
Grinding and surging noisily, as though being drawn from an unseen apparatus--
To restrain me, once more.
I scoff, letting my derision show: over being subjected to this whole song-and-dance for a second time.
"Is chaining girls up...like...a fetish of yours?"
Yuna leans back in loud laughter, her hands clasped behind her back--
Facing me seriously, after, with a cold stare.
"Not just any girls, Strangelove--"
She pauses, licking her lips suggestively.
"Only the smart-mouthed, pretty ones who misbehave!"
Ehhhh?! What the fucking shit!
I was only joking, but she really IS a pervert!
Feeling shivers up my spine, I struggle to escape the chains--
She draws up close, patting me on the face.
"I told you before, didn't I?"
"It's useless to try to escape my pocket prison."
A Vorpal Baton materializes in her hand.
I'm sweating, now--frightened out of my absolute wits--as she traces the tip of the baton downward, along my heaving chest, toward my thighs...
"I guess...it isn't surprising..." I say, putting on a strong face.
"Holding girls captive, with a power like this..."
"It must all go straight to your hea--"
My words are cut off, as he abruptly shoves the Vorpal Baton into my stomach, prompting a surprised squeak.
"That's enough chitchat out of you, Alice."
"A...Alex!" I correct her, wincing in pain from the blow.
"Alex, right. Of course," she says wryly, withdrawing the baton then turning her back to me. "Because it was Alex Strangelove's System power that was responsible for killing that girl--Flarelissa, today."
"I didn't mean to!" I yell, before abruptly changing my tune. "Although...I should still be punished."
"I used my powers too recklessly."
"Hmm." Yuna casts me a sideways glance, continuing to shun me with her turned back--
Then, giving a sneaky smile.
"So you believe, Alice, but perhaps not--"
"That is precisely why SHE is here now, to decide."
As I'm watching, confused, Yuna proceeds to point to a section of the wall--just as its smooth, grey surface starts to distort and fizzle away: replaced with a long, flat rectangular panel of non-transparent glass--
Just as you'd see in an interrogation room.
"Someone else is there?" I ask, with a mocking laugh. "Someone to bear witness to you abusing a little girl?!"
"Fool!" Yuna barks at me, hitting a chain.
"No one can see through that glass, unless I will it so!"
I hear a brief CLICK, like a light switch--
As suddenly, the looking-glass becomes see-through, and a figure of a person is revealed to be seated on the other side: a woman, garbed in a pure white hood that covers their entire body and face, save for a thin pair of pink, slightly frowning lips and elegant nose, upon a pale face...
I gasp, recognizing who it is immediately, even though I'd only seen her once before.
It was at the Vorpal Knights parade...
The one I watched with Blitz and my parents, that inspired me to enroll at the academy in the first place...
I remembering seeing this woman.
She was standing on top of a float, waving out to the crowds...
She looked right at me, I think, and I swear--
It was almost like she was beckoning to me, with her hand...
"White Queen!" I utter aloud, in disbelief.
The Captain-Commander leading the Vorpal Knights!
"What's the Captain-Commander doing here?"
For my outburst, I am met with a club to the back of the head by Yuna's Vorpal Baton.
"I'll be asking the questions now, thank you!"
"To start with: please tell the Commander and I how your System power functions."
It doesn't make sense!
This is certainly no small matter, but how could White Queen be involved?
She oversees all the missions carried out by the Vorpal Knights, as well as every academy in Japan--so there's no doubt she must be kept extremely busy!
For her to make time to appear before me today...
Just how much trouble am I in, exactly?
Suddenly, Yuna grabs me by the collar, furious:
"Didn't I just ask you a question?"
She pulls me closer, hovering her baton.
"Don't you know it's disrespectful to keep the Captain-Commander waiting?!"
Just as she is about to hit me over the head--
A resolved, clear voice intercedes:
"Enough, Yamamoto."
We both glance toward the observation window, and see that it was White Queen who had spoken--having risen to her feet and drawn back her hood, to reveal her sharp and gorgeous blue eyes, and flowing blonde hair.
At once, Yuna lets go of me, and offers her an obsequious bow.
"A thousand pardons, White Queen."
White Queen faces me directly, then--proceeding to extend her left arm out from within her robe.
"Commander!" I blurt out, in shock.
"Your arm: it's covered in--"
Bandages, and bright red scarred wounds.
Could it be, they were...
Self-inflicted?
As I watch, she proceeds to materialize a Vorpal Knife in her right hand, and--without a hint of hesitation--slice it into her arm, until blood is drawn.
Both myself and Yuna are aghast, watching it drain from her arm.
"Commander!" she explains. "What are you--"
"This is...my Ifstate:" Is her mild reply. "To inflict self-harm."
White Queen walks forward slowly, and to our combined amazement she phases through the wall--as if it wasn't even there--to stand tall before us!
Yuna is so startled fhat she falls backward, inching away with a string of panicked gasps.
Honestly...it's satisfying to watch.
"H-h-how?!" He exclaims, as he points a trembling finger at White Queen. "Not even the Captain Commander should be able to bypass the walls of my pocket prison!"
White Queen's solemn gaze is fixed squarely upon me--
As she walks softly toward me, almost seeming to glide without feet in her long robe, reaching up to lay her hand on one of the chains that bind my wrists--
On touch, it instantly shatters: freeing my arm to fall at my side.
"Impossible!" Yuna screams, pounding her fist.
As she proceeds to free my other arm, followed by my legs, she speaks softly to me:
"Alex Strangelove..."
"I won't condone such cruelty as this."
"It's...alright." I lie, still very much shaken by the assault. "I'm more concerned about you, Commander!"
As the last of my shackles is undone--
I fall forward, and White Queen catches me.
As she clutches me tight, lowering to her knees as I'm cradled against her chest...
I feel embarrassingly like I'm a child wrapped in their mother's arms, my face running hot as we stare deeply into each other's eyes, her lips drifting into a vague smile.
"Worry not. I have long since grown numb to the pain of my Ifstate."
"Just now...how did you do all that?!"
"My System power: it allows me to negate and nullify any other System power," she says, holding up her still-bleeding arm to show me. "I can do so for as long as the bleeding from my wound persists."
"I-Incredible!" Yuna says--maintaining her distance, seemingly out of fear.
"Now, then..." White Queen says to me--
This whole time, she hasn't shifted her attention from me for even a moment--
As her smile broadens.
"Since I've told you my power, it's only fair you should me yours."
Huh, is the Captain-Commander bargaining?
That's my first thought, but I get the vibe it's not like that at all: it's more like she's treating me as her equal, despite our differences in station, to provide me reassurance.
And...it works--as I swallow nervously, to give my answer:
Recited like a memorized definition--in much the same way as it was mechanically transcribed into my brain, like it was copied directly from an external source into my brain:
"I possess the power to reverse the temporal position of myself, and other live beings."
White Queen shifts away, as I rise to my feet.
"In other words...I can reverse time."
"Ah!" Yuna gasps. "Remarkable!"
As White Queen looks on, watching me with intrigue.
"A demonstration, Alex. If you would please."
Nodding, I start to remove the other earring of Miko's I was still wearing, as I explain:
"My Ifstate is to remove an article of clothing."
"Whether it's my shirt, socks, a shoe or--"
I pluck off the earring, and show it to White Queen.
"A tiny earring, such as this."
I toss it away, then dart across the room--
Breakneck, facefirst into a wall--
I feel the pain of my nose breaking, and taste the blood as it oozes into my mouth-
Then, within that split second, I pull the trigger: being instantaneously reoriented back in the position I was seconds ago, when ai was standing before White Queen.
I feel my fingers along the bridge of my nose--perfectly intact--and turn to face her.
"The condition of a target is also reversed."
"Therefore, any injury they recieved within the span of the reversal is also undone."
Yuna, at this, rises up--angrily pointing at me.
"Ehhhhh?! Hold on, Strangelove--"
"If injuries can be reversed, why didn't you use it to undo Flarelissa's death?"
Hmm! Someone wasn't fully listening.
Either that, or Yuna is eager to find me guilty.
"I said 'living beings'--only a living thing can be affect led by my ability, along with anything attacked to them, like clothes."
"Or, if I tried it on someone tied to a pole--"
"A piece of the pole would also be reversed along with them."
White Queen stands, her eyes narrowed.
"Your power...has a limited radius."
I nod. "There is a 5-foot effect radius around the target's center, and a target with dimensions exceeding that radius cannot be reversed; however--"
My next breath catches in my throat as I am racked by a sudden, intense feeling of grief.
"Flarelissa, she...grabbed unto me..."
"Just as I was was reversing."
White Queen rushes to my aid, as my legs start to give.
"Only part of her fit inside the radius."
She says, to which I answer with a weary nod.
"I...hadn't planned it..."
"I killed Flarelissa by complete accident."