My bound chest was painfully tight. A chilly breeze swept through the city and swayed my long, twin-tailed hairstyle that spilled down the front of my chest. A brown curtain of hair blocked off the left side of my vision.

I twiddled with the ends of my twin tails. Did I really need to continue hiding like this? Both Lily and Colette had seen my undisguised appearance and neither had found it odd.

I took a deep breath of cool air. My chest was really bound too tight. Even after nearly a week, I still didn’t enjoy this suffocating feeling.

As I made my way to school, I caught sight of a pair of girls walking together. One had shoulder length, curly ice blue colored hair while the other had her teal hair tied in a short ponytail. I found myself smiling and cheerfulness filled my heart. I leapt headfirst into the warm space the two had created.

“Yaho, Lily, Colette~”

“Good morning, Alice.”

“Morning, Aria. Does it make sense to say morning when we spent the night together?”

Lily tilted her head in confusion while Colette and I both smiled at her. We got a lot of attention from others, but I was starting to get used to it. Wearing track pants and a hoodie to school while everyone else was in rather exposed clothing made me stick out like a sore thumb.

“I am going to be out of town this weekend. Will you be alright on your own, Lily?”

“Of course. Lily is not a child who can’t sleep alone.”

Lily protested with an angry expression, but I knew she was hiding a smile beneath her fake anger.

“Where are you going, Alice?”

“I am going to see my Mom. It has been a month since I last saw her.”

Lily and Colette looked at me with surprised expressions. Now that I thought about it, this was the first time I talked about myself to them.

“That is great. I am sure you will have a wonderful time.”

“Yup, yup. Don’t worry about us. Colette and I will have a slumber party to compete with you to see who has the better time.”

“Thanks, you two.”

The last of my reservations about going to see Mom vanished with Colette and Lily’s assurances. At the same time, a strange pang of loneliness filled me. If Colette could fill in for me from now on, then I no longer had a reason to spend the nights at Lily’s place. I shook it off and chatted freely with my friends.

— ❀❁✿ —

A letter stumbled out of my locker when I opened it.

“Is that a love letter?”

“Open it up and tell Lily what it is about!”

I smiled wryly at how excited Lily was. It indeed looked like a love letter with a pink envelope and a heart shaped sticker sealing it shut on the back. There was just one issue with this letter. It was addressed to Alpha.

I opened the letter and skimmed through it with an easy smile. Once I finished, I placed the letter back in the envelope and slipped it into my pocket. Two expectant gazes urged me to speak up.

“You were right. It is a love letter. The sender even gave me their address and asked me to visit them.”

“Hmph.”

“Wowowow!”

Colette huffed, no doubt wanting to say something like love was an illusion. Meanwhile, Lily’s eyes were sparkling. Her desire for love related stories far exceeded my expectations.

“What are you going to do?”

“I will decline. After all, the letter was not addressed to me.”

“Booo! You are no fun.”

I was touched to receive my first love letter, but I already decided that I wasn’t going to live as Alpha. I was Alice. The pureness and sincerity in Beta’s love letter touched me, but all of that was directed at someone I could be, rather than who I was now.

When Rose joined up with us, Lily quickly filled her in and my friends shared some laughs at my expense. I pulled our school’s princess aside during the first break between classes.

“How are you holding up after everything yesterday?”

“I still can’t believe it, but both Beta and you made a solid case for the troubles looming over the horizon. At the moment, I am focusing on becoming a Magical Girl. Everything else is beyond my reach.”

“That is good. Have you found anyone that caught your fancy?”

“Not yet, but I will keep looking. I am not about to give up when my dream is finally within reach.”

I wished her good luck. Following the ancient tradition to become a Magical Girl required an intimate bond of love and trust between two individuals. It was by no means an easy feat to accomplish.

We returned to class and I marveled at how different school was now that I had the cheating device also known as a Regalia. It was like having a photographic memory. I didn’t suddenly understand everything that I saw, but it made it a lot easier when I could instantly recall it.

Of course, I could always peek at the Hexennacht forums which had a wide plethora of miscellaneous knowledge to look up anything I didn’t know. A small portion of the posts were dedicated to helping Players pass the courses they attended as none of us had any basic knowledge on Spirit biology or Evergarden’s history.

Lily and I snuck notes back and forth while the teacher wasn’t looking. Colette and Rose diligently took notes. I smiled as Gray made a fool of herself when she was called on to answer a question about basic magic principles.

We had lunch like usual at the cafeteria. All of the food at the Saint Freya cafeteria was free for its students. I grabbed my usual sandwich and drink and sat down with my friends. Each of them had different eating styles.

Rose ate gracefully and stylishly that I would expect from a princess. She elegantly used a fork and knife to cut up her meal into tiny pieces, never dirtying her own hands. After she finished, she had a habit of quietly sipping her tea.

Lily practically inhaled her burger and fries. She always ended up with some sauce on the corner of her mouth, which Colette would help her clean up. She was usually the first to finish and she would chat about all kinds of things in the meantime.

Colette was like a small animal. She took tiny nibbles of her food and munched on it thoroughly before swallowing. One time Lily dared her to take a huge bite and the appearance of Colette’s cheeks puffed out was too cute to forget. Colette always finished last among us.

“Zzz…”

All of Lily’s energy seemed to disappear once classes resumed. Nothing the teacher could do would wake her up, so she was forced to let Lily sleep through class like usual. I suppressed a yawn of my own and took note of what was being taught. At the same time, I skimmed through the information compiled on the subject using my Regalia.

Finally, the dreaded class arrived. Gym. I didn’t plan on running away this time, but I also wasn’t going to compromise my moral compass.

“Eh? You don’t need to go to the bathroom, Aria?”

“I am in good shape today. I’ll attend gym class.”

Everyone stared at me in shock. Somehow, my surroundings suddenly became noisy. The murmurs doubled when I skipped the girls changing room and went straight into the gymnasium. I was already wearing the school’s track pants underneath the school skirt. I laughed invincibly at my foolish classmates who wore something as impractical as a miniskirt.

“Alice, at least take off your hoodie while we play. You are going to overheat wearing all those layers.”

“You need to make me sweat first before I would consider taking off my hoodie.”

My cheerful proclamation sent waves of murmurs throughout my class. I was at the peak of physical fitness now that I was a rank F Pilot. My body was bouncing with untapped energy.

“Did you hear that? We could finally see what Alice looks like underneath her hoodie!”

“Hehe, today we will strip Alice of all her layers until there is nothing left!”

A strange energy filled my classmates, with Gray leading the charge. No really, what was up with them? A grin settled on my face. I wasn’t going to lose. We spent gym class playing a game quite similar to basketball.

My motor skills were markedly better than usual. I only had to think and my body performed exactly how I wanted. That didn’t suddenly make me a pro athlete however. I didn’t know any of the techniques or shooting forms associated with the game and there was only so much I could learn by watching others. Lily and Rose carried us to victory.

“Guh, we failed!”

“How is she not sweating?”

My classmates cried as we ran out of time. True to my word, I hadn’t sweated at all. Meanwhile, Gray was drenched in sweat and panting for breath. I left everyone to get cleaned up and changed and took a small break in the shade of a tree in a nearby courtyard while I waited for the next class. The news I was waiting all day for finally dropped in the final class of the day.

“What!? No way!”

Gray shot up from her desk in shock. The teacher yelled at Gray, who helplessly gave an embarrassed laugh and sat down. Even so, her eyes were glued to her phone’s screen. I didn’t blame her. I peeked at the announcement through my Regalia.

Beta had taken every advantage of her preparation time to shock the world. She had gathered up a set of players and a tv station to announce Yggdrasil’s presence to both worlds simultaneously.

The World Flower Spirit sat alone in an office with a breathtaking painting behind her of eight figures. My gut twisted when I recognized three of them. Seven of the women had a flower in their hair while the one in the center did not have anything adorning her radiant, golden hair.

Beta never introduced the girl in the center, but I needed no introduction. That was the girl I saw in my reflection when I inadvertently removed everything I was hiding. That was the pure, unfiltered appearance of Alpha, the leader Yggdrasil desired.

Suddenly, the various devices I used to hide Alice’s true appearance no longer seemed to be meaningless. They were now the only thing standing in the way of the world recognizing me as the leader of a new movement that rivaled the Witch Hunt Organization.