Loud footsteps echoed on the stone paved bridge that linked the Silver and Gold Districts of the city.

The woman, who was clad in Venus’ Gold Class uniform, walked in silence across its body.

Her waltz came to a halt before long.

She stood in place, faced the heavens, and sighed as her form shifted like ripples on the water. The armour of Venus’ ilk turned into that of Jupiter’s.

The woman waved her fingers through her hair. Every lock then lightened to blonde and stretched to a length so great as to brush itself against the backs of her thighs.

She faced forward, where her mistress, Lucretia of Jupiter, approached.

With now five of her retainers in toe, Lucretia paused her steps before the sixth of her nine followers.

Before the Princess had ever arrived in person, her subordinates had long infiltrated Venus.

Rapture’s existence was discovered as simply as that by this woman, and he would recognise her.

She was, after all, the very one who had just broken his blade and then cursed Amelia in a fit of pique but mere moments prior.

____________________________________________

Upon the open sea, rocked by wild waves, sat a small two man boat.

The young man laid his head on a pillow of crossed arms. He was in slumber, resting beneath the sun’s dim crimson light.

Over on the other side sat a young woman with a book in her hands. She was quiet, and quite relaxed, though not in the same manner as her masculine companion.

Their legs met in the middle of the boat, his spread open, her’s crossed and closed.

She raised her eyes and parted her obsidian black lashes to glance upon the slumbering youth before her. The young woman smiled an innocent, girlish, smile, but it only lasted for a moment before a few ice cold words poured down upon her like a rainstorm.

“Should I come back later?” Melany said with crossed arms. The girl, Rusalka, turned her head and gave her an uneasy frown.

“Mistress? How long have you been there?”

“Just now. You didn’t notice my approach? I taught you better than that.” Melany scoffed, then turned to glance upon Alexander’s sleeping face. “Although I can see why a girl your age might get distracted by that,” she whispered, and Rusalka shut her book with an audible slam soon after.

The lass turned to face her mentor with a snappish tone.

“Why are you here?” She asked.

“You first, what are you doing this far out to sea?” Melany’s voice contained no small hint of reprimand, and she was justified in it. The open sea was no pond, it was hardly a safe place for the two of them to enjoy the luxury of one another's company. The waters around here might lead to one’s death in any number of ways.

“Alex felt like I was overworking myself and decided to take me out here to relax.” Rusalka said, pouting her lips cutely, purposefully, into a frown. She could easily recall how this morning the boy had carried her over his shoulder out to this boat and then took them both out to sea.

Her “friends” did nothing about it, even Amelia only waved as he took her away. “Traitors,” She said without a hint of seriousness in her tone.

Melany grinned, she grasped what had happened from that word alone and could only laugh. She could not figure out whether to praise the boy’s attentiveness or condemn his overassertiveness.

That said, she knew that Rusalka, her little disciple, was like as not to respond quite positively to both sides of him in this regard. After all, though it frustrated the girl to admit it, she needed more breaks than she gave herself, and she was quite obedient to those who took care of her. Her only flaw, really, was not having the mindset to take care of herself.

She did not at all find this atmosphere unpleasant, indeed, she almost wanted to leave them to it. Sadly, she had no say in it, duty does not wait, and leaders cannot shirk on matters of City and State.

“Lucretia of Jupiter is here in Venus." Those words stung deep into Rusalka’s core. She frowned and then kicked her husband’s leg with the pointed tip of her boot. The young man was roused in that moment, he faced his wife and grumbled.

“Let me rest, it’s too early for another round,” He mumbled, and then Rusalka’s face warped significantly. What was this boy muttering? They hadn’t done anything yet, though not for lack of intent, mind you. She turned her head and found that her mentor was smiling, she found it amusing, clearly.

“Nothing happened!” Rusalka told her. Melany shrugged, she ignored her panicked student’s plea and then turned to walk away. Rusalka trembled. Shame and rage, and something else too, all mixed inside her.

Her mentor clearly didn’t believe a word of her desperate defence. She turned to face Alexander, who was smirking at her, and her grip tightened upon the book in her hands. “Get us back to shore before I throttle you.”

The boy’s smirk didn’t fade one bit, he raised his arms and therein gathered his Ash. There was no need for a paddle, his powers alone could do the job, although Rusalka did feel that this trick, convenient though it may be, broke away too much from the romantic atmosphere she’d desired when they first set out. “How long were you awake for?” She asked, still frowning his way.

“Since Melany arrived,” The young man replied. Rusalka trembled, that meant he’d been awake when she was looking at him, and he’d also heard Melany’s words. However, something intrigued her slightly more than that. She had not noticed Melany’s approach, yet this boy had? How and why was that?

“You detected her presence?” The boy nodded, and then pointed towards the sea. He blasted it with his Ash and soon after, a large fish rose dead to the surface. Rusalka was honestly quite surprised, for even with her own prowess she had neither seen nor heard it before now.

“Right now my Ash is spread out fine as the air itself, grasping all of our surroundings,” Said Alexander, "So finely, you can't even tell I'm doing it." Rusalka raised a brow at his words. Then it came to her, or rather, it came back to her.

Indeed, she’d heard long ago that Saturn’s men could do this, and it was only natural. After all, just like Venus’ lot, who learned to walk on water due to their proximity to the sea, Saturn’s kin had developed this skill to survive the many dangers of their home environment.

The only blemish in her knowledge was the fact that, if she was recalling correctly, Alexander shouldn’t have had this skill himself.

“That's your fault,” Said the boy, seeming to read her mind, “back during our duel that day, when you completely slipped through my detection range, I’ve not stopped training since then.” Rusalka recalled it, that moment during their duel where she’d escaped his notice and leapt up into the waiting sky. She won thanks to that moment, she owed her victory to the opening it had provided.

“Wait," it dawned on her, "does this mean you can now perceive everything, and neither I nor anyone else would even know you’re doing it?” She trembled in feigned disgust.

The revelation that Saturn’s ilk could spread their Ash so thin as to render it impossible for others to sense them even when their own Ash came into contact with it frightened her, rightly so at that.

Worse, this method also expanded the user’s own sensory range, meaning the current Alex could likely perceive the entirety of the Gold District’s goings on if he stood in the middle of it.

Alexander responded to Rusalka’s inquiry with a sly grin, which earned him another kick in the leg. He never did answer her question.

_______________________________________________

The Princess of Jupiter arrived at the Gold District’s residential manor soon after the onset of midday.

She was treated as a guest of the highest order, at least on the surface. The reality however was that she was merely given the hospitality that her standing demanded, she knew she was not truly welcome here.

She was guided to a guest room at the manor’s highest floor together with her nine retainers before the turning of the hour but, in turn, she was also told flat out that the current Lady of the City, Rusalka herself, as it turned out, was “too busy” to personally entertain her.

Her retainers disapproved in silent vehemence toward such a blatant show of rudeness. Their discovery of that strange boy should've already been a shameless enough thing for the Lady of this City, so why must she continue to debase herself so? What, they wondered, did the crown mean to her?

The Princess herself however showed no sign of minding it as she entered the lavish chamber prepared for her. She laid her back flat upon the bedspread as if the depth of that insult had never sank in.

Her people didn’t have to wait long however before she let out a powerful exhale from both exhaustion and frustration.

“Looks like she’s still not forgiven me.” She wallowed in thought as the nine retainers by her side divided up their tasks and worked all around her.

Some scanned the room with intent to eliminate any threat to their princess’ life, others went off to inspect the manor and city around it, properly this time, without disguises.

Those who stayed numbered but four in the end. The room was clean, there was no danger to be found there, not that Lucretia was of a mind to care.

“So...her mom died, recently even. Really? My timing is just the absolute worst.” The Princess’ boots dissolved, they turned to thread-like strips and fused with the hem of her coat.

Her trousers too fused into a long black skirt as her golden coat did the same. She lay barefoot in the end, cladded in an ankle length dress of regal design.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, she willed it, true, but it was done so simply as to look like a natural thing.

She sat herself up in a sulky mood and then looked out of the window to behold the world outside. She eyed the field behind the manor, the area where the Venus’ soldiers trained from dawn till midday hour.

The fact that her retainer had told her of him, of a male youth training here in Venus’ Gold District, was somewhat abnormal already on its own, but she didn’t judge for only that alone.

After all even if the men who married into Venus’ were never permitted to be soldiers, many of them should want to stay in shape, right? Such was her conclusion, anyway.

Certainly not, it was the fact that this youth so resembled Avance, a man whose relationship with Beatrix, who she was investigating, was well known to her, that set off alarm bells for her.

Her unease grew all the more at the mention that this youth, named Rapture, bore Ash of the Platinum Class.

The fact that she, who was Jupiter’s princess, did not know of his existence at all, that alone was a sin that was worthy of sanction in this nation.

Needless to say her retainer confessed to getting spiteful about it, after all she had discovered a young Platinum that Venus City was hiding from Jupiter, from the Sovereign of this nation.

“Ru, oh Ru, what have you gotten mixed up in?” The Princess whispered with worry as she turned to face her subordinate. “Find out which room that boy is staying in.” Her servant nodded, and then obeyed.

She chose to meet him, this boy who should not exist. The Princess of Jupiter, Lucretia, chose to meet him, the Immortal Child, Rapture, before she did anything else. Before she condemned her friend, and was compelled by law to sanction her in the name of her Grandfather, her Sovereign, she chose to meet the boy, he whose existence, that and nothing more, was at the heart, the centre, of everything.