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School Without Victorique – Part 01

And while the queen was sewing and looking out of the window at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. And the red looked pretty upon the white snow, and she thought to herself, “Would that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window-frame.”

Soon after that she had a little daughter.

—The Brothers Grimm, Snow White

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Prologue: The Crashing of the Virgin Mary

Beelzebub’s Skull, December 10, 1914.

The night sea was calm, as though the world was devoid of any horrible conflict. Frothing waves crashed and retreated.

On the boundary between the dark purple night sky and the black sea, there floated what seemed like an odd artificial island. A warship. Waves crashed and retreated. Crashed and retreated. Abruptly the sea was partitioned by a high wall—a huge sluice gate. Closed at high tides, it stood tall between the dark sea and the pale, shimmering beach.

The sandy beach was bathed in moonlight, glimmering ominously as each grain reflected the light from above. Waves crashed and retreated. Crashed and retreated repeatedly. At the edge of the sandy beach, there sat another mass, like a warship, black as darkness.

Everyone in the country knew it as a man-made fortress called Beelzebub’s Skull. Shaped like the head of a giant fly, it stood stolidly on a sandy beach against the backdrop of the Milky Way.

And apart from the twinkling little stars in the night sky, a strange sound, like the buzzing of insects, but an artificial one, was growing louder.

The sound was coming closer and closer.

To Beelzebub’s Skull.

Soon it filled the night sky. It was a swarm of black, ruggedly-designed fighter planes, approaching from the distant skies.

Light flashed toward Beelzebub’s Skull. The bombing had begun.

1914.

It was the year when the conflict that would later be dubbed the Great War began, a war that triggered major changes across the globe, shaking the foundations of the world.

Shells roared, and red flashes streaked across the night sky. A swarm of lights shot toward the fortress. A small silhouette rushed out of the fortress, stopped as the lights rained down on them, and toppled onto the shimmering beach. It was a young woman in a white nursing uniform. Other women in the same attire rushing toward her were also struck by the red flashes and fell on top of each other, motionless.

“How dare you!” one of the fallen women cursed. Her blue eyes wide open, she turned to the night sky. “There’s only the injured and nurses here. This is not a military base. Curse you Germans!”

With trembling hands, she clutched the rosary hanging from her chest and repeated the words over and over. The rosary was stained red with her blood and that of her colleagues. The fighter planes flew away, circled around, and came soaring back.

“Curse you.”

The young nurses, bleeding and lying on the sand, mumbled over and over in the sweet voices typical of schoolgirls laughing together in class before the Great War began.

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you Germans!”

“Curse you.”

They all took out their rosaries and prayed. Holding hands, bathed in their own blood, they repeated.

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you.”

“Curse you…”

Slowly, their voices grew softer and faded. Some closed their eyes and stopped moving. Some held their friend’s hands, tears streaming down their cheeks. Through the tears, in their dying breath, they murmured.

“Curse… you…”

The swarm of fighter planes was coming closer.

Suddenly, something rose in the purple night sky.

One of the girls gasped. She clutched her bloodstained rosary and held it up to the night sky with quivering hands.

As if encouraged by the girl’s prayers, its contours became clearer and clearer. It emerged from the sea and soared far into the night sky, almost as if reaching the moon itself.

It was a huge image of the Virgin Mary.

The girl’s voice began to tremble with both gratitude and joy.

Standing over a hundred meters tall, the image of Mary stood out clearly in the night sky. She wore white robes, and her long hair hung down to the sea. Her large eyes were wide open, and even the iris was clearly visible. The image of Mary’s face twisted sadly, and tears began streaming from her eyes.

The baby in her white arms was sleeping peacefully.

A fighter plane lost control and collided with another, bursting into orange flames right in front of the weeping Mary, and crashed at sea. The other plane also plunged tip first into the beach. Several fighters went haywire and crashed in the waters. Orange pillars of fire rose like beacons on the beach. The ominous stench of burning oil filled the air. Girls covered in blood chuckled.

Eventually, their laughter faded.

There was not a single plane in the night sky. Most had crashed, and those that remained drifted away into distance at breakneck speed. Crackle. The girls were quiet. The image of the Virgin Mary was still floating in the air. She looked down at the humans with a face full of sorrow.

The girls had passed away, smiles on their faces, their eyes turned to the sky.

Soon, other girls bolted out of Beelzebub’s Skull to help their fallen colleagues. They cried and screamed and howled to the night sky as they held their friends in their arms.

There was nothing more high above.

No fighter planes. No apparition of the Virgin Mary.

Only stars, twinkling for eternity.

Orange flames crackled on the beach.

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Chapter 01: School Without Victorique

It was the last day of a long summer break that passed so slowly it seemed like an eternity.

The dazzling sunlight, still carrying with it the last vestiges of summer, shone on the vast campus of St. Marguerite Academy.

The huge U-shaped school building was surrounded by lawns and flowerbeds that resembled a French-style garden. The white fountain, decorated with elaborate sculptures, stood like a pillar of ice that was melting in the heat, continuously spewing crystal-clear water.

Squirrels scurried across the well-kept lawn. Students dressed in various outfits were chatting in the cozy gazebos that dotted the garden. They were not talking about the second semester classes that would start soon, but how they spent their summer vacations.

A boy was walking along a path a little ways away from the lively chatters, looking around restlessly.

He was of a small and thin build, with jet-black hair, and lonely, jet-black eyes. He walked with his back straight, looking to his right and left. He seemed to be searching for something.

“Victorique, where are you?”

He poked his face behind a flowerbed, peered under a bench, and squinted at the tree tops. As if looking for a missing cat, the dark-haired boy—Kazuya Kujou—wandered around for a while.

“Victorique?” he mumbled, puzzled. “Where on earth did she go? Up until yesterday, I saw her sitting in a gazebo, or under the shade of the tree outside the boys’ dormitory, munching on snacks while reading books.”

Kazuya surveyed the surroundings. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the garden, boisterous with the voices of students of noble descent. While yesterday the academy was filled with silence, this morning it was noisy, almost as if it was a different place altogether.

A moment later, Kazuya nodded to himself. “Maybe she’s in the library,” he murmured. “All right. Let’s check the place out.” He started walking.

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The year is 1924, summer.

The Kingdom of Sauville, a small European country.

An endless expanse of green vineyards sprawled along its border with France. On its border with Italy was a gorgeous summer refuge facing the Mediterranean Sea. A dense green labyrinth of lakes and forests separated it from Switzerland. This small country, long and narrow like an enigmatic corridor, was called the small giant of Western Europe, having survived the last Great War despite being surrounded by numerous powers.

If the Gulf of Lyon facing the Mediterranean Sea was the grand entrance to the kingdom, the Alps were a secret attic hidden in the deepest part of the country. St. Marguerite Academy, standing quietly at the foot of a mountain range, was an educational institution for the children of nobility, boasting a long and grand history, though not as long as that of the kingdom itself.

But after the end of the war, the academy decided to accept students from some allied countries. Brilliant kids came here, carrying their country’s prestige with them. One of them, Kazuya Kujou, struggled with life in this foreign country, but he worked hard in his studies, made a few friends, and was just getting on track in his life as an international student.

One of the friends Kazuya made was a bright and energetic international student from England, Avril Bradley.

And the other was an enigmatic, golden, mystical girl with a wicked tongue. Surrounded by frills and books, she possessed a bizarre intellect—Victorique de Blois.

Before he knew it, Kazuya’s life as an international student had begun to revolve around this mysterious girl.