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"Auntie, there's something I'd like to run by you." In the girls' dormitory, Iris weighed it a moment longer, then finally spoke up.
"What is it?" A flicker of puzzlement crossed Selene's eyes. Why did the girl suddenly sound like she was tiptoeing around something? Had the Dark Purgatory left a mark on her after all?
It would make sense. To step onto the Card Master's road and run straight into an ordeal like that, of course it would shake a person. In Iris's place, Selene doubted she'd have held up much better herself.
"What do you make of Luke?" Iris drew a slow breath, and her voice shrank a little.
...?
What do I make of my junior brother? The boy's a monster, that's what. The thought all but leapt off her tongue, and Selene throttled it back at the last second. "In talent and in strength both, he's a fair distance ahead of where I was at his age."
Back at that age, she certainly hadn't been able to cut down an Eight-Star extra-domain beast, and she'd had nothing like his stack of original high-star cards, each one absurd past reason.
Hold on, no. To this day I don't have a single original card of my own. Only the pseudo-originals my optimization skill lets me put together. A true original card, and she'd have soared long ago.
And that's beside the point. How did the conversation swerve onto my junior brother at all? This girl wouldn't happen to have her eye on Luke, would she?
"Even you rate him that high, Auntie?" Iris went still. She truly hadn't expected Selene to think so well of him. "In that case, why not take Luke on as your student too?"
Iris steadied herself and delivered the line that crashed Selene's mind on the spot.
"Come again?" For a moment the words didn't register, and Selene sat there frozen.
What in the world qualifies me to take that monster of a junior brother as a student? If the teacher caught wind of it, she'd come knocking to settle the matter with her own two fists.
"Back in the Dark Purgatory, if it hadn't been for Luke, I don't think I could have held on alone until the rest of you arrived." Iris hadn't noticed anything off about Selene, and simply went on in a quiet voice.
"You're not wrong about that." Selene nodded. It was plain fact. Without Luke there, never mind the Black Gate and the extra-domain beasts, Silas Vane and his grudge-beasts alone would have been a wall Iris and the others never got past.
"It stings to admit, but I do owe Luke my life." Iris let out a breath. "And where I am now, I've got no way to pay that back any time soon."
"Besides, Auntie, by your own account he's impressive. Taking him on as a student wouldn't cost you a thing, so please, Auntie?" And with that, Iris even put on her most wheedling voice.
She'd raised the idea in front of Luke once already, that she'd put in a word with Selene about taking him on. She'd never promised it was a sure thing, but somewhere in her heart, Iris quietly hoped Selene would say yes.
So that's the game, is it? Scheming on your own aunt now? Girl, you are one leaky little coat.
So that was why Iris had steered the talk onto Luke out of nowhere. It left Selene somewhere between laughing and groaning, and she reached out and pinched the girl's little cheek. "There's no end of scheming in that little head, is there. Now I finally see why your sister calls you a leaky little coat."
And the draft had blown clean onto her, no less.
"Ah, so, Auntie, is that a yes?" With both cheeks caught in Selene's grip, Iris's voice came out a touch misshapen.
"I most certainly did not say yes." Selene shot it back, exasperated, then explained. "Luke's situation is a special case, and you needn't worry over it. Someone has already taken him on as a student, and they're quite a bit stronger than your aunt."
The teacher could string me up and beat me one-handed.
What? Astonishment washed over Iris's face. She'd never dreamed Luke already had a teacher, let alone one Selene herself would call stronger than her.
Doesn't that mean Luke's teacher is very likely a Sovereign-realm power?
No wonder Luke looked so strange when I brought it up. So he was just waiting to watch me make a fool of myself?
At the thought, Iris's face flushed scarlet in an instant, a row of pearly teeth grinding audibly. That wretch!
"Hm? What's going on?" Noticing a steady churn of updates on Celestial's page inside her personal terminal, Selene released Iris's cheeks and started to read.
One look, and Selene's blood pressure came roaring up. Nearly every topic on the feed traced back to the fight between Luke and Wesley Brandt.
"Junior brother, this is exactly what I'd expect from you." Selene sat in silence a while, then quietly closed the terminal down.
The way she saw it, there wasn't much wrong with what Luke had done. She'd carved her own path the same way, in her day. She simply hadn't been as ruthless about it as Luke, hadn't kicked up a headline this size before her first term had properly begun.
As for the Magus Society looking to make trouble for Luke? That, Selene didn't fret over in the slightest. Luke was far stronger than any of them imagined.
Of course, if the Society decided to try something underhanded, Selene wouldn't mind teaching them exactly how much Luke was worth.
...
"Word is you've been making waves again?" A few days on, in Celestial's dining hall, Elise Hargrove shoveled down the food in front of her, talking to Luke around it.
"Could you not talk with your mouth full." Seated beside Elise, Lily Fairchild caught the sight and kneaded her forehead all over again.
She'd thought leaving home had turned her into something of a wild one, but set against Elise, that was a puddle beside a lake.
"Don't go making things up. I haven't stirred anything." At Elise's question, Luke rolled his eyes. Could this girl not manage one kind word?
"Is it going to be a problem?" Lily let her hand drop, a faint worry surfacing in her lovely eyes.
Lily wasn't the only one. Even Elise paused, fork halfway up.
The business between Luke and the Magus Society had been building for days, and by now it had swept through all of Celestial. Even in their own freshman circle, plenty of people were chewing it over.
Beyond that sat one more thing the pair found genuinely galling. These past days, a steady stream of girls had come to them digging for word about Luke, some from their own year, some upperclassmen.
It left the pair exasperated and amused at once, and quietly on their guard as well. These painted little vixens thought they'd cut in line ahead of them?
"Relax. It's been days and the Magus Society still hasn't come for me, has it? For all we know they've already dropped it." Luke waved a hand, plainly unbothered. "Besides, if I can run them off once, I can run them off twice."
He'd spent the days settling into life at Celestial and working through his new card designs, his hours packed corner to corner. Where would he have found the spare attention for the Magus Society.
If the pair hadn't hauled him out to eat today, he wouldn't have left his quarters at all. He'd very nearly forgotten the fight with Wesley Brandt altogether.
"You're right. You're a monster, plain and simple." Trading a glance, Elise and Lily each said it in a sweet little voice.
"You two really are asking for it." Luke arched a brow and raised both hands like pincers, and the two of them promptly shut their mouths, well aware their cheeks would pay for it otherwise.
"Comfortable, aren't you." A cool voice reached them from behind, and Iris and Serena came over with their trays and settled in among the group like they'd always belonged there.
"Do I have something on my face? What are you staring at?" Luke looked at Iris, puzzled. She'd had her eyes locked on him from the second she sat down.
"You have a mentor?" Iris asked, one deliberate word at a time, and the question left the other girls blinking.
EXTRA CHAPTER FOR EVERY 500 POWERSTONES.