The Last Rising Sun

The train was about to pull into the station. It had been a few hours since all this awkwardness had started. At some point, Reines stopped being amused by the atmosphere and began to feel uncomfortable as well. The silence, the brief glances Gray was giving Assassin, all of it overwhelmed her after a few hours.

Assassin didn't really seem to care at all. Out of nowhere, he found a bottle of whiskey from who knows where and began to drink the liquor in a glass that Reines lent him. Shortly thereafter, someone in the same carriage as them complained because some of their luggage was missing.

Reines smiled as he watched Assassin drink the whiskey in the most brazen way possible. Add also laughed in amusement at this, but Gray felt guilty even if she wasn't involved in this theft.

"You drink quite a bit, don't you, old enough to drink?", asked Reines. It was a good question, to tell the truth. Gray had been interested in that from the start.

She, when she first met Assassin, saw him drinking the whiskey her mentor kept. The way the servant consumed the alcohol was quite strange, for this one drank as if the liquid were pure water.

"Nope", he replied. "I'm not old enough", for physically he is 16. Mentally... less so... "But that doesn't matter", and he downed another glass of whiskey.

"Are you like some kind of anarchist or something?"

Raising his eyebrows slightly at Reines' question, Assassin thought back to a certain time when he was wearing a black robe with red clouds.

That reaction on the part of the servant made Gray interested in it. It was as if Assassin was confirming this fact with his silence.

"It was a strange time", he culminated. He wasn't going to dare say any more of that. Instead, he was going to ask another question that Gray surely had as well. "Gold and Silver Princesses. I'm interested in the subject. What are those fancy titles all about?"

"I wanted to know, too", Gray added.

Reines nodded in response. Actually, going to this event without knowing anything at all would be a problem. Explaining the revelation of both princesses to them was a good topic of conversation to end this awkward atmosphere.

"Where should I start?", she thought about it for a second, looking out the window. "There is a family dependent of Lord Valueleta, the Lord of the Faculty of Creation."

"Another Lord, like Waver-sensei."

"Exactly. Most of the magus of the Faculty of Creation consider themselves artists in some sense. The family I'm talking about is the Iselma family, who for generations have pursued the creation of the 'most beautiful person'. That is what the Golden and Silver Princesses are. They are the creations of the Iselma family."

"Though more than creations, they must be...", Gray whispered.

"It must be just a beautiful mask that hides the person's inner self", Assassin added. He looked at the cup in his hand silently, thinking deeply.

Gray looked at him and thought Assassin's words were directed at himself, though she had no way of confirming this.

"So, do you think something bad is going to happen?", he asked, his silver-eyed gaze, now without the dark glasses, settled on Reines' blue eyes.

"Does your Assassin instinct tell you anything?"

"Probably."

"What about you, Gray, could you already sense that something strange might happen?"

"Oh-, well. I actually thought about the possibility."

"Well, that's good. There are a lot of rumors that a Grand will be attending this social gathering."

Grand

Brand

Pride

Fes

Cause

Count

Flame

These are the ranks that exist among the magus of the Clock Tower. Of course, 'Grand' is the highest and 'Flame' is the lowest. Waver is in the 'Fes' rank, simply because he is the best teacher in the Clock Tower, otherwise, he would still be a 'Cause'. Reines took care to explain all that in a rather simple way, but Gray felt dizzy from so much information, while Assassin nodded at the valuable information.

After that, as strange and swift as a shooting star, the train ride ended. They arrived in Windermere, the country by the lake. As soon as they got off the train, while in the back a man was claiming to the boy helping with the bags, a carriage was waiting.

"You must be Lady Reines El-Melloi Archisorte. Lord Byron asked me to give you a lift. Please enter", he removed his top hat greeting the visitors.

Reines looked at Assassin and Gray, and nodded for them to enter the carriage as well.

In silence, the road changed the closer they got to their final destination. Wrapped between trees of a lush forest, with a land covered by green vegetation and wild animals living the day to day of their wild lives, the hooves of the four horses pulling the carriage echoed. The landscape they were to enter next was finally shown. The Tower of the Sun and the Tower of the Moon. Two bizarre structures, shaped like two spines sticking out of the ground. In themselves, the towers were not as large as someone would think. Perhaps four stories high was enough to describe the magnitude of the building.

Gray watched Assassin's reaction. He was wide-eyed, looking at every detail of the towers. She thought he looked like a child going out into the world for the first time. A soft smile formed under her hood.

As the carriage stopped in front of the Moon Tower, the guide's voice echoed from the front of the carriage.

"We have arrived. Please enjoy yourselves."

A few seconds after they disembarked, the guide and the carriage... melted like plastic. Toru reacted to this as a threat and leapt in front of the two girls drawing both daggers and sneaking a glance at what was left of the carriage and guide.

Gray and Reines watched him in silence. All that was left on the ground was a small toy soldier and a similar carriage.

"This... Is this physically possible?", he whispered, so stunned by what he had just witnessed.

It was true that he had seen strange things, but this thing took him by surprise. Although this reaction was also because he was a little drunk. His face was a little red from the alcohol in his blood. It seems that he is still in his five senses, but now he is more sensitive to sounds and presences.

"Haa... I don't think I feel my face...", he let his guard down and put the daggers away. He touched his head painfully and turned his gaze to the girls behind him. "A mistake anyone makes", he said, to hide the fact that he had been impulsive after a long time.

"Well, it's a very interesting magecraft. I couldn't expect anything less from one of the major branch families of the Creation Faculty."

"I'm honored to receive your recognition", a grown man's voice broke in.

Assassin took a step in front of the girls and awaited instructions from Reines.

"Welcome, princess of the El-Melloi family", the man, in elegant attire the color of silver, introduced himself to the guests. His look was a bit stern, showing that age was already falling on his face. His hair was short and he had a neatly combed mustache. "My name is Byron Valueleta Iselma. I give you my deepest thanks for coming from so far away to visit us."

"You must be the head of the Iselma family", he curtsied, as a true fairy tale princess would. "I apologize for being late."

"No worries. Please come in. The banquet has already begun."

The man took his leave to go greet the other guests. Thus the group took the opportunity to join the party.

Gray looked in awe at all the glamour of magus high society in this scene. The ceiling was very high, golden and blue-tinted. The voices of the guests echoed so close together that it somehow made her feel a slight headache. She observed everything, and kept it deep in her memory.

Her gaze wandered all over the place until she came across Assassin. Something bad seemed to be happening to that boy. Witnessing all this, he trembled as if he was afraid, but then he took a big breath of air and calmed down.

'What was that?", she thought, dismayed. That was all very strange, even stranger than what happened earlier outside the tower. 'A... a glimpse of his past?', for every question she managed to answer, two more popped up. It was frustrating, but she decided not to think too much about it. She knew that thinking without evidence was just a waste of time.

As expected, it seemed that even life itself had turned into a strange sort of generic sitcom, as Assassin soon found himself surrounded by a bunch of adult women who started asking him a lot of questions.

"What's a young man doing all alone around here?"

"Do you belong to any family that's been invited?"

"You smell like liquor, have you been drinking? What a bad boy..."

"Why don't we talk a little further away from all this riffraff?"

"You look Asian. Are you Japanese?"

Toru's expression at that moment was priceless to Reines. After one of the women took Assassin's dark glasses off, they all started talking about his unusual eye color. The boy looked at Gray and Reines as if he was asking for help.

Reines just smiled mischievously and took Gray by the hand. Together they walked away from the scene so Assassin could suffer some social anxiety.

The women around Toru at the time saw not only the boy's appearance, but the benefits they could get from interacting with him. But since Toru is a rock when it comes to socializing, Toru didn't answer any of the women's questions. Instead, he slipped past the, quite possibly, single women with his ninja skills and joined Reines and Gray.

Assassin said nothing after that. Gray thought the servant was angry that he was left alone in that awkward situation, but that was far from the truth.

There were a few things that Reines explained later as jazz music played in the background. The magus' voices echoed with some strange words based on this moment.

It seemed that the Clock Tower was divided into three fractions. Trambelio, Barthomeloi and Meluastea.

The Trambelio faction represents those who want to run democratically, those who want a democratic system. The Barthomeloi faction supports the aristocratic government of which the El-Melloi family is a part. And the Meluastea faction simply wants to make things peaceful. Basically, the latter is somewhat neutral and they care nothing more than to conduct their investigations without interruption. Although lately the El-Melloi family has been leaning to the side of the Trambelio faction. This is due to the intervention of Waver as a member of the family, who has caused the El-Melloi school to receive students en masse.

Suddenly, some magus present began to argue about the importance of the New Age in the Clock Tower. There were people who refuted that by saying that it was not necessary, as there are the Lords of the Clock Tower itself. It seemed that the discussion was reaching a point of no return, where this colorful party would be ruined by the atmosphere of hatred among the magus. However, someone appeared making a commotion.

It was a drunk guy, staggering among the people arguing. He arrived in front of the three teenagers and fell face first to the ground, dropping his wine glass in the process. Assassin reacted immediately and picked up the wine glass gently. He looked at the drink as Reines bent down to ask the drunken man a few questions.

"To imagine that someone would be able to do something like that...", Reines was intrigued. Magus are normally very proud people. They wouldn't jump to do something so ridiculous to avoid a fight, but this guy had done it. "But it was a good way to defuse the situation."

"Was it that obvious?", the young man asked. He was thin, with short blond hair and brown eyes.

"Not at all. Besides, you're actually drunk, aren't you, how did you do it?"

"...This medicine will get you drunk in an instant", he said, pulling a small pill from inside the chest of his suit. "And this puts an end to that." Between his index and middle finger was another pill.

Hearing that, Assassin bent down and grabbed the pill. "Does this work?", he asked, eyeing the strange medicine. In his right hand was the wine glass, which he handed back to the man as he stood up.

"Uh-, yes. It does."

"I see...", that left him thinking. He looked him in the eye. "Can you get me some of these, about 200 pills to start? I might need more, though."

Gray wanted to say something about that. Maybe Assassin was exaggerating too much by drinking alcohol to excess. Even if it was a servant, that shouldn't be healthy.

"I think I could get them. But-"

"It will cost money. I understand", he pulled a couple of bills out of his suit pocket and rubbed them in her face. "You've got the client and the business. Come on, it's time to make money."

The blond guy looked a little overwhelmed by the butler's insistence. He even wondered if this butler was allowed to act so haughty. Even if it was that way, his body trembled with weakness. Though that was taken away when he saw Trimmau appear behind Reines.

It looks like this guy belongs to the Faculty of Knowledge. His name was Maio Brishisan Clynelles, who is under the care of the Brishisan family. Clynelles is a branch of the Brishisan family, who have a great deal of power over the Clock Tower.

Putting that aside, with Maio petting Trimmau strangely, Gray looked around the surroundings as if to erase the strange scene she had just seen from her mind.

"Maio", a kind voice chimed in. "It's fine to be passionate about someone's work", referring to the admiration Maio felt at the sight of Trim, "but you should be careful when dealing with someone else's Mystic Code. If you get killed, it will be your fault."

A beautiful woman appeared. Her hair was dark red and she wore glasses with oval lenses. Reines whispered the name of the woman who appeared.

"Aozaki Touko..."

And in turn, Touko looked at Toru immediately discovering the Spirit that lay protecting this lady....

To be continued...