A few days later.
The final class before the holiday wasn't fundamentally any different from the rest. The oxygen levels in the room hadn't magically depleted, nor was there a sudden influx of mysterious gases slowing down human cognitive function.
"Seriously? Why am I so sleepy?" Kiana mumbled, slumping over her desk, completely drained of energy.
"Because Idiot Kiana is biologically programmed to look like this the moment she enters a classroom," Bronya sighed. Honestly, even she was a bit distracted today.
With the holiday looming, her soul had already flown back to the villa; the entity sitting at the desk was merely an empty husk.
Despite having experienced battlefields, wars, and life-or-death struggles, Bronya still felt that going to school was exhausting and bitter work.
But that was all it was.
Exhausting and bitter. You grit your teeth and push through it. If you can't, you quit. It wasn't the end of the world.
Did people really think that students who struggled with school only did so because of the school itself?
If you lined up the parents of those students and shot them one by one, there might be a few innocents caught in the crossfire, but the guilty ones definitely wouldn't escape.
Unlike those kids, Bronya didn't have overbearing parents forcing her to study herself to death. If the St. Freya class ever held a parent-teacher conference, she would just drag Shu in.
As for Kiana, sure, her parents were both alive and well now. But if she actually needed a parent's signature on a failed exam, she'd probably be too terrified to ask Siegfried or Cecilia. She'd end up begging Shu to sign it too.
Mei was a different story entirely. Sister Mei was a genuinely perfect student.
And since St. Freya no longer had Class Monitor Fu Hua competing for the top spot, Mei was so far ahead of the curve that even Bronya couldn't catch up to her.
Why?
Because of the humanities exams.
Bronya could easily get full marks in every STEM subject. Mei could too, dropping maybe one or two points at most. The gap was negligible.
But when it came to humanities—especially subjects like Ethics and Rule of Law—Mei completely obliterated Bronya... while Bronya and Kiana fought brutal, muddy trench wars against each other.
Kiana's ethics versus Bronya's knowledge of the law was a clash of titans. Kiana's knowledge of the law versus Bronya's ethics was two toddlers fighting over a sandbox.
You couldn't exactly expect a Kaslana, a bloodline renowned for resolving legal disputes with excessive physical force, to have a nuanced understanding of the Rule of Law.
And you certainly couldn't expect a girl raised as a child soldier and assassin to possess a highly developed sense of societal ethics.
Bronya's worldview was rooted in a deep, fundamental kindness, but if you asked her to objectively outline the three pillars of modern social morality, she'd just stare at you blankly.
"Mei~" Utterly sapped of her life force, Kiana didn't even have the energy to bicker with Bronya. The normally energetic girl was completely wilted, dragging out her syllables to summon her guardian angel.
"Kiana has been working very hard," Mei smiled at the two of them. Kiana nodded weakly.
"Exactly... I haven't slept in class for half a month..."
Bronya: "..."
She had ten thousand retorts lined up, but she couldn't bring herself to utter a single one.
"Besides... the holiday is almost here! It's our first real break since school started! Aren't you excited, Bronya?" The moment the word "holiday" left her lips, the previously listless Kiana's eyes practically shot high-beams.
Bronya maintained her silence.
Ignoring the lack of response, Kiana immediately began detailing her highly ambitious holiday itinerary.
"I'm definitely going to sleep in! I'm not getting out of bed until the afternoon!"
"The afternoon?" Mei chuckled helplessly. "Are you sure you'll be okay skipping lunch?"
"Pfft, whatever time I wake up is whatever time I eat! I'm definitely not missing a meal!" Kiana was incredibly confident about this.
Skip a meal? As if Kiana Kaslana would ever suffer such an indignity!
"What if Sister Mei isn't home when Kiana finally wakes up?" Bronya quietly introduced a very real variable. "Is Kiana going to cook for herself?
"If Idiot Kiana goes into the kitchen, she'll only..."
"I can just go next door and have Shu cook for me!"
"What if Shu isn't home either?" Seele chimed in, seamlessly finishing Bronya's thought.
Kiana's confident expression instantly froze.
Wait a minute... Considering how busy he's been, the chances of Shu not being home are actually way higher than Mei not being home, aren't they?
But this was a matter of food. Such trivial obstacles couldn't defeat Kiana!
"Then I'll just go out to eat! Is that so hard?! I'm a grown woman, you think I'd actually let myself starve?!"
"Highly debatable," Sirin interjected smoothly from the side, delivering the killing blow. "According to my observations, Sister Kiana has been completely spoiled by Big Brother Shu and Sister Mei. If she's left to her own devices, she probably would starve to death in her own home."
"Ugh... that's totally biased!" A faint blush of embarrassment crept across the girl's face. "Dammit... I'm not... I'm not..."
Normally, Kaslanas spoke and acted without running things through their brains first. But for once, Kiana actually paused to think before she spoke.
And she couldn't find a single logical counterargument.
Am I really that useless?
Crap! I think I actually have been spoiled rotten!
"Mei~!" Kiana lunged at Mei again, clinging to her. "You have to take care of me! You... you..."
Kiana giggled, burying her face into Mei's chest. "You wouldn't want to burden Shu anymore, would you?"
Everyone: "?"
"Did Kiana really just say that to Sister Mei, who was born in the Far East?" Bronya stared at the utterly shameless Kiana in shock. Seele, meanwhile, was staring at Bronya in sheer horror for actually saying the quiet part out loud.
Sin Mal, who had wandered over to see what all the fuss was about: "?"
What does that even mean? Is this a trap?
"Kiana, please don't do that..." Mei blushed softly, gently supporting Kiana as the white-haired girl nuzzled against her. She maintained her elegant composure, not making the slightest move to push Kiana away.
As for what Kiana and Bronya meant...
It was true she was from the Far East... everyone knew that. Was there a problem? Did it mean something else?
As established, Mei could be a little dense sometimes.
"Hehe..." Kiana didn't explain, simply reveling in Mei's warmth.
Bronya, meanwhile, had her mouth clamped shut by a furiously blushing Seele. Seele didn't say a word; she just kept her head down, her face entirely red.
Sirin: "?"
"What are they talking about?" Sirin frowned. Mei was just a bit slow on the uptake, but Sirin, having grown up isolated in the Babylon Labs, genuinely felt a massive generational gap with these girls. "What's wrong with the Far East?"
Flora smiled gracefully and raised her hands, covering Sirin's ears.
"See no evil, hear no evil, little one."