Entrance Ceremony

This and future chapter will use First Name:-variable under the customization tab for your character name.

Quiet conversation and speculation buzzed around you from the lines of young women as they waited for the student council president to make her address. Your white, purple trimmed blazers shone brightly in the warm summer sun and you felt the silken fabric of your matching skirt fluttering against your stocking covered legs from the cooling breeze. Surprisingly Earth-like attire, but didn't feel out of place in the verdant and fragrant garden you were gathered in with the sprawling academy forming the backdrop of this paradise. Closing your eyes for a second, the myriad colors of the flowers briefly playing on your retina before fading away.

"Know anything about the President, Makoto?" With all the rumors flying around her, Ionne joining in with her question made a certain amount of sense. Not from one of the noble families, officially at least if certain of the more scandalous tales were believed, and her skill piloting a knightmare were few of the only consistent threads connecting her description. Also the fact she was the undisputed ruler of this place, whispered about as the 'Little Empress'.

The academy encouraged rivalry and one of the ways it did so was putting power in the hands of the students, both for those who achieved academic success as well as those who could command it through other means such as family ties and alliances. The Student President, naturally, was a the top of that pyramid. Another were the dorms, or houses, students were sorted into. Crescent Glaive, Oath Sword and others. As much at odds their names were with the serene nature of this place, they were an apt description. Family lineage would separate your and your adoptive sister's path here, but never the bond the pair of you shared.

You didn't have time to answer before the gathered students fell silent. Even the faculty seemed to straighten their backs as the speaker introduced the Student Council President who strode confidently onto the stage wearing an elegant white dress with a crown of lilies adorning her head, her ankle length blonde hair forming a sweeping train behind her. To your side, Ionne's eyes were glittering, looking somewhere far away into the future.

"Petite Sœurs. Welcome to Académie de Lis..." The rumbling roar of a mana core discharging excessive energy, soon joined by several of its siblings, drowned out her next words. Her pure expression of joy was undisguised as several of the students scrambled for cover while others pointed at the sky, mouth agape when a flight of Knightmares descended from the sky like angels prepared for war. Landing surprisingly gently behind and around the stage, forming a semi-circle around the archangel at the center. Motes of light fell from their energy wings that granted these titans flight, carried by the wind they seemed to almost dance among you, greeting you with their revelry.

With blood pumping into your, excitement filling your very being it was hard to concentrate on the rest of her speech, the clarion ring of her delicate sing-song voice the only thing placed firmly in your memory. The majestic constructs almost occupying the entirety of your attention.

Your eyes roamed the curves forming their exterior shell in a simulacrum of knightly armor which only an artist unbound by the laws of physics could've carved. Though knowing in the back of your head it was the design of the pilot sitting inside a cavity in the chest where the swell of the Knightmare's frame gave the impression of breasts and the slight movements of the titan added the illusion of breathing by her chest rhythmic rise and fall. She wielded a spear, its head swelled with an orb of crackling mana, energizing the blades by its side. Blushing, you averted your gaze when you felt the trio of burning eyes set in an armored helmet swept over the crowd, certain you only imagined the pause when she looked directly at you.