“Don’t you see that we’re kind of busy here, Vallière?”
“Zerbst! Whose familiar do you think you’re touching?”
Saito was at a loss. Louise’s brown eyes glimmered with fiery anger.
Kirche raised her hands above her head. Stuck between the two, Saito only panicked. It seemed that letting the whole situation develop into Kirche kissing him had made Louise extraordinarily angry.
“Love and fire are the Zerbst family’s destiny. It’s a fate that burns in our bodies. It is our lifelong goal to embrace this passionate flame. You should know that.” Kirche shrugged, while Louise shook in anger.
“Come here, Saito.” Louise stared at her familiar.
“Oh? Louise… he is indeed your familiar, but he has his own will too, don’t you think? Please respect his choice.” Kirche said at the side.
“Sh-she’s right! Who I hang out with is my business!” Saito added.
Louise raised her voice. “You… by tomorrow you’ll be run through by magic from at least ten nobles! Is that all right with you?!”
“Oh, no problem with that. Didn’t you see how good he was in the Vestri Court ?”
Louise flapped her right hand. “Hmph… so his swordfighting skills are good, but that doesn’t matter when he’s attacked by fireballs from the back and whirlwinds from the front.”
“No problem! I’ll protect him!” Kirche gave Saito a passionate look.
However, because of Louise’s words, Saito thought it over.
If those guys that just visited us at the window find out about me, maybe they would attack me. Kirche won’t be able to cover me all the time, even if she said she would. That and Kirche changes her mind pretty often. She’ll be bored of protecting me in no time.
After some calm reasoning, Saito reluctantly stood up.
“Aww…are you leaving so soon?” Kirche sadly peered at Saito, with her hair spread to her back, and her twinkling eyes seemed to painfully tear. Kirche is one addicting beauty… if a girl like her sticks to me, who cares if I get hit with magic left and right? Saito thought wildly.
“That’s her usual tactic! Don’t be fooled by her.” Louise tugged Saito’s hand, and walked out.
Back in her room, she closed the door with a deadly silence, and faced Saito. Forcefully biting her lip, she sent him a murderous glare.
“Like some stray dog in heat…” her voice was quivering. Louise’s hands moved faster than her mouth, and her feet moved faster than her hands. Her voice was getting shaky, and anger filled her face.
“W-what now?”
“I almost saw you as a person. Looks like I was wrong.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Yeah. See me as a person? Sounds like a lie no matter how I think about it.
“And you went to wag your tail at that Zerbst witch…” Louise reached into a drawer in her desk for something. A whip.
“Uhh…M-miss…” Saito started to stutter.
“Dogs must be treated like dogs. I’ve been too soft on you.”
“But why the whip?” Saito eyed the whip in Louise’s hand. It was quite well made.
“I’m going far out of my way to use a horse’s whip on you. You’re just a dog.”
“A dog, huh?”
Louise started whipping. Pishi-Pishi-!
“Ow! It hurts! Stop, you idiot!”
“What? How is that girl better? What is so good about her?” Louise yelled and whipped.
Saito noticed an opening, and grabbed Louise’s hands. She struggled, but the strength of the girl was not enough. Saito kept his grip on her wrists, and then she stopped.
“Ahh! Let go, you moron!”
“Are you…” Saito bore into Louise. Brown eyes stared back. Up close, one can see an irresistible face.
Cute. Kirche is a beauty, quite sexy. But Louise is like an empty canvas. Not a single speck of dirt…a clean canvas. It’s just that her character is a bit… No matter how Saito said it, he liked Louise better. His heart started beating in sixteenth notes. Is she jealous? Does she have a crush on me? In Saito’s eyes, thinking like this made Louise look even cuter. All things considered, Saito was as weak as Kirche in romance.
“Are you jealous? Do you like me?” said Saito. “Were you angry because I didn’t sleep with you and went off with Kirche doing all that? Oh, I didn’t notice. I am sorry.” He lowered his head, and raised Louise’s chin.
“I think you’re not bad either. Look, when you helped bandage me you were really…”
Louise’s shoulders shivered.
“…I should be going for you because I’m a guy. Tonight, I will sleep on your bed, so you won’t have to go to mine.”
Louise’s right foot suddenly moved like a gust, and shot Saito one between his legs.
“……ahhh….ohhh…….” Saito went on his knees, his body covered in cold sweat. Oh…that hurt. I think I’m going to die. That REALLY hurt.
“Like? Why…would I…like you?” Louise angrily stepped on his head.
“Did…did I get that wrong?”
“Obviously so!” she continued stepping.
“Al-all right…I was wrong…”
Louise sat on a chair, crossing her legs, her breathing still uneven. After fiercely torturing Saito for a while, her mood seemed to slightly improve.
“Sure…you can go out with anybody you choose. But, no matter what, you must not go out with that woman.”
“W-why?” Saito hopped around as if to minimize the pain.
“First, Kirche isn’t a Tristainian; she’s a noble from neighboring Germania. Just that makes going out with her completely unacceptable. I hate Germanians.”
“How do you expect me to know these things?”
“My house, Vallière, has estates on Germania’s borders, so we’re the first on the field against Germanians the moment any war starts. Even worse, right opposite to us on that border is Kirche’s birthplace.” Louise bit down hard on her teeth. “So basically, the Zerbst family is our sworn enemy.”
“And they call themselves a passionate family.”
“Just a low, unworthy family. Kirche’s great-great-grandfather stole away my great-great-grandfather’s lover! That was around 200 years ago.”
“That’s quite a while ago.”
“Plus, that Zerbst constantly slanders Vallière. My great-great-grandfather’s fiancй was stolen away because of that.”
“Huh?”
“My great-great-grandfather’s! His wife was taken away just like that.”
“Okay, whatever…so basically, this is all because your family lost a lover to Kirche’s family?”
“Not just that. We've lost count of how many family members we've lost from the wars.”
“I’m just a lowly little familiar…it’s not like I’m worth being stolen.”
“No. I will not let Kirche steal a single bird. I’ll shame my ancestors if that happens.” With that, Louise poured a glass of water, and downed it in one gulp. “That is why Kirche’s forbidden.”
“Your ancestors have nothing to do with me.”
“Yes they do! You’re my familiar, right? As long as you eat from the Vallière family, you are to follow my orders.”
“Familiar this, familiar that…” Saito stared discontently at Louise.
“You have a problem with that?”
“No, because I can’t live if I don’t do what you say, so I’ll just have to live with it…” Saito stuck up his lip, and sat on the ground with a thump.
“And I think you should thank me.”
“Thank you for what?”
“If the word that a commoner became Kirche’s lover gets out, do you think you’ll survive?”
Saito remembered the men Kirche shooed away, and blasted like flies to the ground…if that was me…what would that feel like? Saito also remembered his fight with Guiche, and a shiver went down his spine.