friends: the blank principal          



Chapter 5

The Exile could be seen arriving through the low-hanging clouds.

It's been eight months since Claus disappeared, I feel ashamed to face the children like this.

Princess Sophia's expression was dim.


* * * * *


"Miss Sophia!" Lavie and Al greet the princess with a hug after they had disembarked the Exile.

"I'm here too, you know!" Vincent spoke as he raised his arms up, expecting a hug as well.

"Uncle Coffee's here, too?"

"Uncle Coff ... eh? I'm still young, in my twenties!"

"No way?!" a wide-eyed Lavie and Alvis gawked at him.

"Do you think I'd be able to do this if I were in my thirties?" Pulling Alvis up onto his shoulders with ease, the 29-year-and-11-month old Vincent Alzey ran toward the pier. Though puzzled, Al smiled over his shoulder. Lavie and Sophia followed slowly behind them.

"Anything about Claus?"

"I'm sorry ... not yet." Sophia shook her head apologetically.

"I see ... hmm, Miss Sophia, I have a request."

"Anything, if there's something I can do."

"That pendant Al got from Lucciola..."

"The communication equipment they used in the Guild?"

"Yeah, Claus left with it."

"I see. I'll immediately see what I can arrange."

This is good, we might be able to get in touch with Claus now.

Lavie smiled, looking slightly relieved.


* * * * *


"They are the ones who made Lucciola that way." Coccinella's whisper echoed in Dio's mind.

They ... they did that to...

"You must kill them, kill them, kill them, for Lucciola."

Yes. I'll kill them. For my Lucciola.

His white unit fired at a vanship that was trying to escape him. The duralumin alloy body split off, pieces of iron scattered to the wind. A stray screw flew into the windshield of Dio's vanship, a crack forming in the glass. And with the sudden impact, Dio regained his sanity.

"Where am I? What did I just do?" The escaping vanship broke apart before his eyes.

'Are we going to die?' the eyes of the navi that sat behind him appeared to question.


* * * * *


We've been on Prester for a week, already.

They had split up and looked for Claus until the very last moment before sunset, but found absolutely no clues. As the moonlight shone through the clouds. Lavie stood on the terrace of Sophia's quarters, calling out Claus' name.

"Claus, answer me, Claus! Where are you? Hey, Claus!" Her throat was getting sore, and the outline of the moon was blurry through her tears. Holding the pendant to the night sky, Lavie kept calling Claus' name.

"... Lavie." At that moment Alvis, noticing something strange, took the pendant from her.

"It's you, Alvis," a familiar voice spoke from the pendant.

"Di--"

"--o! It's been a few days."

Alvis couldn't speak, her breath taken away when she realized the voice was actually coming from outside the terrace.

Huh? What was that? What floor did it come from?

White shoes tiptoed and leapt along the railing of the stone structure. With a carefree smile, Dio moved as magnificently as a dancer as he embraced both Lavie and Alvis.


* * * * *


"What kind of place is the 'blue star'?" Dio asked while curiously touching the luxurious furnishings of the vast drawing room; it was about two hundred square meters big.

"Hey, hey, that stuff is expensive!" Lavie watched him nervously, and her eyes seemed to say 'Please stop, if anything breaks, I would never be able to pay for it, even if I worked hard for the rest of my life'.

"There's a large lake full of fresh water. People call it the 'Grand Lake', and it's very sacred to them." Alvis answered him to make up for Lavie's lack of response from worry.

"The Grand Lake, huh." Dio's mused as his eyes landed on his next target. "Immelmann tuuuuuurn!" He suddenly jumped onto the plush bed that caught his sight.

"Kyaa!" Alvis, who was sitting on the bed, reacted with a start.


* * * * *


"Immelmann is missing?" Dio shielded a hand over his eyes to block the light shining through the skylights.

"You don't know anything about it?"

"No, I didn't see him." Dio and Lavie sat on the bed, Alvis sandwiched between the two of them.

"Dio ... where's Lucciola?" Alvis asked, unaware that Lucciola had died. "Back then, Lucciola helped us ... I haven't gotten to say thank you yet."

"Lucci ... ola?" Dio muttered, the pupils of his eyes fickering, shrinking.

"Or maybe, have you heard anything about him from somewhere else, maybe? Claus, I mean..." But Lavie's voice didn't reach Dio.

"Lu... cci ... o ... la."

To Lavie, Dio seemed to be acting like a broken music box, his feeble breaths resembling the last dissolving notes of a metallic-sounding musical scale.

It hurts ... my head ... it feels like it's going to explode...

"I ... I have to go ... to look for Immelmann..." Dio coiled his arms around himself, trembling.

The curses echoed in his head, never disappearing, commanding him ... "ki ... ll..."

No ... I don't want to ... I don't--

"... Kill."

"I ... wasn't ... supposed to ... come here." The anxious looking figures of Lavie and Alvis began to blur and fade away in Dio's gaze. "I don't want to!" he cried, before running out of the room. And before the repeating words of the curses completely took over his consciousness, Dio disappeared into the darkness.


* * * * *


Claus and Lavie's hut had been built on top of a crossbar that passed over the waterway, and bore an old hole in the ceiling. The bed was still broken from the starfish attack, and there were square marks on the wall, outlines of where pictures had once been. The smell of the kitchen, of the ham, bread and mayonnaise that Lavie would always make was almost ingrained in the house itself. Claus' most important times were spent in this house with Lavie. The sound of the water flowing gently below could be heard.


* * * * *


Illuminated by nothing but the light of the lamp in the hangar, the silver vanship Claus was given was resting its wings. Where the navi seat should have been, there was a vapor pressure lever and a claudia pressure adjustment lever that he could control from the pilot's seat. Claus had finished removing all of the bulletproof plates to even out the additional weight from two steam mounted machine guns he had gotten from a crashed unit, and decided to equip on it.

Even if it's by myself, I'll fight with that white vanship.

That white vanship piloted by a Principal.

I might die. As if to cancel out his worries, Claus turned off the lamp and wrapped himself tighter in his blanket.


* * * * *


Immelmann?

The question was asked by the movement of slender fingers.

"Yeah, you remember him too, right Lucciola? Immelmann." Smiling broadly, Dio used his hand to mimic a vanship, mirroring a halfroll off of a somersault. "I've never seen such a beautiful turn!" The boy's palm changed direction to turn 180 degrees before leveling off from the back.

Did something happen to Immelmann?

"I'm going. Yeah. I'm going to find Immelmann!" Getting up and bouncing from the sofa, Dio bolted for the bridge.

That smile is really ... so bright.

The girl smiled as he took off. Though once he was gone, a voice spoke from nearby nearby. "So is the Principal a friend today? Or a murderer?" Leaning over the back of the sofa, Coccinella smiled.

Huh? How long was he behind there?

"He'll listen to anything you request of him, Ros of Aspis."

"You really do look just like Lucciola."

"Yes, very similar."

The face of the girl named Ros was stiff. Sitting by the window, Apis looked up from a book he was reading.

They're scary, scary, always appearing like this without any warning.

The girl's thin fingers trembled with fear.

"Everything we have done so far as been for nothing else but the sake for Queen Delphine. Just like true young brothers."

"Scary, scary, scary..." Apis turned the page of his book with shaking fingers. "Yet sometimes, she could be gentle." Coccinella curled a trembling hand around Apis' shoulder to hug him from behind, as Apis placed his hands over that arm. "This time we'll avenge our Delphine."

"Yeah, let us return the favor to the woman who killed our precious {older sister}."

"Princess Sophia."


<— Chapter 4 | Chapter 6 —>