"Wh-Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!"
"E-Explain, Director! A-Am I meant to share a room with this lecher?!" Stella was taken aback.
"That is exactly the situation, Stella Vermillion; do you have any objections?" "I have a lot of issues with it!" "I do too," Yoma chimed in. "I know the dorm can fit two people, but I've never heard of opposite-sex pairings."
"You're stuck in the past, Nephew; everything changed when I entered the office, and I've already told you my policy."
"Isn't it a purely merit-based system with a focus on combat abilities?"
"Yes, that is my policy. Hagun is the runt of the litter when compared to the other six schools here in Japan. All seven help sponsor the Seven Stars Battle Festival every year, and yet ours loses every year, which is why I was brought on as director. The first step to saving Hagun is redefining the dormitory system. Your student number and gender don't matter; instead, classmates of similar strength are put together so they can push each other forward". Yoma wasn't convinced despite the continual, blatant tooting of her own trumpet.
"It only adds to the strangeness: Stella is the indisputable number two in this school second to her sister, so why is she coupled with a bottom-of-the-barrel flunk like me?"
"'Flunk'?!" Stella couldn't believe her ears.
"You mean you failed?!"
"Embarrassingly, yeah. I'm a Rank F."
Kurono raised her voice to get their attention.
"Dear nephew, I knew you'd try to fail on purpose, but because you went to the Mage's Association, I got the Grand Master to place you under surveillance before, during, and after that exam," she smiled innocently, and Yoma was taken aback.
"Wait, you did what?! You breached my privacy?!" Yoma said, pointing accusingly at her with a betrayed face.
"Yes, and with the information acquired, you easily earned A-rank with the physical part but not the other one, even with that disadvantage of yours hehe, but excellent attempt," Kurono stated as Ayato simply stared at his aunt disheartened as Stella looked at him angrily.
'What does she mean by that disadvantage of his to not earning an A-rank on every test'Stella thought for a moment, but she quickly disclose as he tried to fail on purpose!
"You attempted to fail on purpose! Why would you do that, you coward?" Stella questioned, drawing Yoma's attention to her.
"Shut it... You don't know anything about Yoma to say that" Kurono calmly said while Stella scoffed.
"I know that only a coward, which Your Nephew is, would attempt and fail on purpose," Stella remarked.
Yoma's look became sharper, which jolted her a little.
"It's none of your concern, Stella, and I do what I want to do, so shut your mouth while you still have it," Yoma said coldly.
"Oh, you two are exceptions," Kurono said.
"To put it bluntly, there are not many students who are better than you, it can be only counted with two hands, Vermillion, and there's nobody worse than Yoma. You were leftovers since you're both on such extreme ends of the spectrum and nobody else could reasonably be paired up with either of you. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"I don't get it!" Stella said, her fists clapping! when she banged them against the director's desk.
'Oi that desk is expensive you know!' Kurona thought for a moment
"B-Besides, it's c-common sense that a woman my age shouldn't be sharing a room with someone of the opposing sex! What do you plan to do if something bad happens?!"
"Ooh, fascinating. What kind of something horrible' do you expect to happen, Vermillion? I'm curious."
"W-Well... Eurgh..." "You're tripping over yourself like you're intoxicated," Yoma said as Stella stopped to wipe the tears from her eyes at the insult. She kept laughing and insisting that she was simply fooling around, but she also refused to reverse the decision.
"Sorry, kids, but the choice is definite; there are other coed pairings as well. And this convenient system's blindness to other priorities is also a nice aspect; it means you don't receive special treatment for being a princess, Vermillion; if you don't like it, there's the door."
You can leave. Stella was taken aback by the sharpness of those statements. She was relocated from Europe to Japan. Yoma wasn't sure why she wanted to be here so much, but he knew she'd be hesitant to go.
"...Yes, ma'am," Stella could only say to Kurono. "Are you certain about this?" Yoma inquired.
"I-if that's your academy's policy, then I'm stuck," Stella said. "But if we're going to share a room, I have three requirements for you to meet!" she said, holding up three fingers.
Yoma was also dissatisfied with the arrangement, thus he had no reason to meet her requests. Yet, being the oldest of the two and a man, he elected to at least comply.
"As long as they're not 'tall, smart, and rich', I don't care."
"None of it matters to me; my requirements, even for someone like you, should be easy," she mocked.
"Don't talk to me, don't open your eyes, don't even breathe," she said.
"He'd probably die, y'know," Kurono butted in.
"If you can follow these three rules, I will allow you to be my roommate!" Stella stood her ground.
"I'll be evicted in minutes!" retorted Yoma.
"How come you're not a man enough to obey me?"
"No one could comply with those expectations! At the very least, let me breathe!"
"I won't! You simply want to breathe close to me so you can smell my aroma, you lecher!"
"Then I'll mouth-breathe; that way, I won't smell you."
"Not good enough, you pervert! You simply want to open your lips and taste the oxygen I breathe!"
"Do all princesses have such strange imaginations?"
"Why don't you simply leave then? I'll have the room to myself!"
"This is absurd."
"Good Lord, you two are never going to go anywhere if you keep acting like chivalrous knights and letting your swords do the talking. We'll have a mock fight; the winner chooses the rules, and neither of you will have any excuse to complain about the conclusion."
Kurono, clearly fed up with their bickering, presented a solution. Fight a fair war, and the winner gets exactly what they desire. A fairly traditional approach to resolving disagreements among knights.
"Yes, that seems fair. Let's do it, Miss Stella," Yoma said, waiting for Stella to agree.
"H-Huh?" she said, her eyes and mouth wide open in surprise. "What's the problem?"
"N-nothing, but... Do you hear yourself talking?"
"Yes, did I say something strange?"
"You're an A Rank who tried to fail on purpose against me? Forgive me for being harsh, but there's no way someone who looks to be a coward can overcome an experienced A-rank like myself," Stella responded.
Before shrugging, Yoma was entirely undisturbed.
"You should never be so sure of yourself; in the fight, you never know the outcome until you've fought your opponent," he remarked before putting his left hand in his pocket and clenching his right palm into a fist. "Moreover, I'm doing everything I can to control what may kill me; I've been working too hard for too long and-"
"Urghhhh! How dare you, commoner?! Was peeping on me when I was exposed not enough for you?! Now you of all people claim superiority over me as a Mage-Knight?! I have never been more humiliated in my life!" Stella said, flames of hatred in her stare.
"OK, fine. I accept your challenge, but now that you've gotten me down to your level, I'm not just after the rules! Now, the loser must dedicate his life to serving the winner! No matter how humiliating the command, he must follow like a dog!"
"Wh-Whaaat?! I-I think you're taking this a little too far."
"You can't back out now, coward! You'll regret speaking to me so casually! A pretend combat won't do; this requires a full-fledged duel!"
"That appears to be decided then," Kurono stated. "You are welcome to utilize the third training field."
"D-Director?! It's not settled simply because you say it is!" Yoma couldn't argue back.
Stella walked out of the director's office, exclaiming, "Get ready to lose, dog! Hmph!" She was presumably on her way to the third training field.
"Wow, this really blew out, Auntie," Yoma remarked.
"Are you sure you don't want to be her servant?"
"No, I don't, and if I win, I don't even want her to be mine."
"You've seen how strong she is, and there's a reason she's so famous. Her two flames can melt anyone who even approaches her. Her presence alone is an overwhelming threat to others. Nobody else out there has that much offensive power, let alone the gall to use it. You're one interesting guy if you still think you can beat her."
"You know I'll have to beat her at some point; after all, you're the one who promised I could graduate if I won the Seven Stars Battle Festival, and she'll be there as well, so it's only a matter of time before we battle."
Kurono, on the other hand, merely smiled and said, "You'll do fine, Yoma. I'm confident you can win; after all, you did quite well in the Little Magic Emperor League and the U-14 World Tournament"
"Is there any use in delaying then? You only need to win. After you've done that, you may create whatever rules you want for your dorm room and disregard all of this servant bullshit. That's all there is to it." Kurono patted Yoma's shoulder and went away, sighing for the millionth time that day.
"All you have to do is win," you say. She's not entirely wrong. Yet he knew it was easier said than done. His adversary was the most powerful of the powerful. Her power was astounding; an aura of pure phoenix fire that would even respond to her emotions despite her will. Yoma's physical might was substantially higher against her under his Seal. He was a Dragon battling an elephant; comparing them on the same scale was an insult.
Yet he'd been preparing for something like this for a long time. "No matter how dismal things seem, there will always be wars where a man must not lose or leave," Yoma had decided the day he saw his grin and heard those words.
"I guess I'll have to do this," he muttered as he exited the director's office. He was on his way to the arena to cut the strands of fate with the blade of his soul.