The Iron Rose: Volume 1

“Gudomlay!” Gudomlay turned around on the roof of the academy and gawked to see Tapp running toward her. When Tapp reached her and the others, she took a moment to catch her breath. Bowing forward, she put a hand to her heart. “Thank goodness!” She called. “I’m not the only one that survived,” she went on dramatically, playing well the damsel in distress she often assumed. That she’d come out of the attack unscathed, however, proved just how formidable she secretly was.

“What do you mean?” Gudomlay asked, Zhi and the others also gathering around.

“Every third-year class this side of the star’s part of the academy got hit,” she said looking up at them. “I was the only one from my room able to get out.”

“Where are the others?” The boys called, looking down at her.

She shook her head, swallowing to wet her dry throat. “I haven’t found anyone else, I only overheard the attacking teams talking,” she started, glancing at Gudomlay. “What do we do?”

Gudomlay frowned and looked at the others. They were staring at her, waiting. She gawked. “When did I get elected team captain?” She cried. They simply looked on, so she sighed. This happened way too often. That she liked being in charge didn’t mean that she was exactly the right person in every situation. “All right. We need get the flags out of the classrooms in order to claim victory. And we can’t be caught doing it.” She crossed her arms and glanced at who they had. “Well. We’ve got brains,” she said with a glance at Zhi. He stared down at her innocently as she then shifted her gaze. “Three meatheads,” she added with a nod at the boys who had made it in their class. “And a distraction,” she said, now smiling slyly at her friend.

Tapp’s eyes grew wide and sulky at her mischievous look. Taking a step back, her arms came in at her chest. “W-what are you saying?” She asked, now nervous. It was never good when Gudomlay smirked like that. But the truth was, the plan had already been set into motion. A pair of girls working together, who knew each other as well as they did, was a trap as vicious as a viper’s open mouth.

Gudomlay stepped forward, her hands on her hips. “The attacking team is made up of a bunch of guys,” she said, now raising her head. “They’re not actually supposed to hurt any of us, so...”

That’s when one of the meatheads accepted the bait and lifted his leg to kick Tapp off the school’s roof so she fell. Tapp, wide-eyed and taken off guard, took a full two seconds before she screamed.

“That isn’t what I meant!” Gudomlay roared, whirling around at him.

He stared at her and scratched his ear, unfazed by her anger. They all looked around, watching with anticipation as Tapp caught herself by the edge of a lower roof.

“Tapp! Can you climb up?” Gudomlay called, leaning over to watch.

Tapp glanced up at her, tears in her eyes. “You freaking idiot!” She cried at the boy who’d kicked her. “You broke my leg!” She shrieked as the warm spring air coming up from below reminded her she was in a skirt.

When she said so, his face went gray as the others gave him mean stares.

“Hold on Tapp!” Gudomlay called, now panicking. “I’m coming!” She shouted.

Tapp sniffed, trying to keep her grip. She flailed her one good leg to try to rest it on the sill of the window she’d caught herself at but wasn’t finding it. Even with her and the landing’s reflection in the glass, she wasn’t having any lucky getting herself on anything solid. Swallowing, she then looked in, her eyes growing a little wide as she realized... She’d landed in front of a classroom that had a flag in it.

“Wait! Gudomlay! Wait!” She called. “I think. If I can just...” She finally planted her good foot on the windowsill. And then, keeping herself balanced there with one hand hanging on the roof still, she reached the other to try to open the window. Holding on above and balancing on one leg, she started working her fingers under the window. And then, after getting a proper grip, she started pulling it up.

A puff of cold air came in from the cooled classroom, signaling that she had it part open. But when she looked in through the glass again, a member of the attacking team was staring at her. She gasped but then lowered her brow. Jerking hard on the window so it flew up, she then swung her broken leg in to kick him in the face. He fell back with a loud crashing sound as he stumbled into and knocked over the desks, and she screamed for the pain the attack caused her.

While he was pulling himself up, she reached in and grabbed the flag. But in doing so, she was forced to let go of the roof over her head. Tears in her eyes, she wrapped her fingers around the flag and pulled it just as she lost her balance. Then, with a gasp, she fell backward out the window.

The man she’d kicked looked up and grit his teeth. He started forward, reaching for the flag. She saw him coming, though. And still determined, she pushed up with her good leg still on the windowsill. Vaulting herself up, she snatched the roof over head with one hand and put the flag between her teeth as she managed to pull herself up. The man followed her, crawling out and swinging up easily so he landed in front of her.

Tapp paused, holding the flag tight in one hand now. She turned to try to run the other way but other attacking team members had come on that side also. She swallowed, her adrenaline still pumping hard. She held the flag to her chest and shifted her gaze between the attackers as she took a step back.

“Tapp!” Tapp turned her head and gawked as her and Gudomaly’s friend Britta came hurdling at them. She had a giant board in her hands. The men shouted in alarm at her crazed-eye look and jumped out of the way as she came at them. She skidded to a stop at their first line and swung the giant board, knocking some down with it. Tapp watched Britta lift the thing over her head and then slam it down at the attackers. “Come on, Tapp!” Britta called.

Tapp nodded. She started limping toward her when one of the attackers pushed her back. She yelped, lost her footing, and flew off the roof. This time, she was much too far to hope she might be able to catch anything to save herself with.

“Tapp!” Britta screamed, launching herself at her. She was caught before she could leap off the roof though and was immediately tied down by the attacking team members.

“Britta!” Tapp screamed, clutching the flag against her chest. She clamped her eyes shut, more tears coming to them. And then she looked down and prepared herself to land. She hoped she could do it without further injuring herself by only having the use of one foot. But then she was suddenly caught.

She blinked, surprised. The ground was gone and she was looking down at her own legs. She glanced up then and stared at the attacking team member. He’d flown out of one of the academy’s windows to catch her!

He was beautiful.

She stared at him, her eyes round and sparkling and not noticing that they had landed. When they did, he glanced down at her, his face grim. And then, still holding her, he held out his hand.

“Give it over,” he said. His tone was a no nonsense one, and he obviously expected her to obey without a fuss. He was way over this drill and wanted to go back to have lunch. That there was a bird singing nearby only reminded him more of the coal stove cooked quail already waiting for him to savor. And with that, his stomach growled. Sighing, he looked away with his eyes shut causing Tapp to blink.

Coming out of her daze, she held the flag tighter to her chest. “No,” she said.

He looked back at her and snarled. “Give it,” he growled, craning his face forward to intimidate her.

“No!” She said adamantly as she turned her face away stubbornly.

“Look, kid. I don’t want to hurt you--”

“I kicked one of your guys in the face with a broken leg!” She shouted, shaking her head and clinging to the flag. “You’ll have to tear out my fingernails and jab them into my eyes to come close to how bad that hurt!” She shouted. “I won’t give it up. Not after falling off the roof twice and kicking some jerk with my broken leg. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!” She shouted, shaking her head fiercely and stuffing the flag into her shirt and between her breasts.

Her rescuer gawked, wide-eyed. She crossed her arms and glared up at him.

“It’s mine. I earned it. And you can’t. Have. It. Back!” She pushed on him, leaping out of his arms, and scrambled away toward the academy’s tree garden.

He stared after her as she lamely limped away and then slowly smiled. Scratching the back of his head at his yellow hair, he followed her at a casual pace.

“C’mon,” he called. “You’re going to get me into trouble,” he said, still chuckling.

Tapp looked back at him and stuck out her tongue, still limping to wherever she had deemed a safe zone for herself. The perfectly shaped leaves overhead rustled as if sighing contently for how lovely a day it was. It made the situation that much more amusing to the stripe following Tapp. Nature was in such a good mood, and yet this lovely star was brooding and pouting as if she’d been caught in the rain.

“Where are you going?” He called after her, his head tilted and he grinning.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, a menacing gleam of glee to her face now. She laughed low, and he suddenly found himself on the ground. Tapp turned around and crossed her arms, now putting the full of her weight on her so called broken leg. He lifted his eyes up from her foot, up her legs, and further to rest on her satisfied expression and realized--he’d been played. As if to announce that he’d assessed his situation correctly, she crossed her arms and grinned down at him and Gudomlay who sat on top of him.

“How’d we do?” Tapp asked, coming to stand over him and chat with Gudomlay.

“Zhi was able to help the others get all the flags back. We’ve reclaimed the territory,” she said, looking rather pleased. “You were awesome.” She lifted her fist and Tapp leaned over, smiling so her eyes squint. And then she thumped her own fist against Gudomlay’s, her other hand resting on her hip.

“Sending Britta over was brilliant,” she started. “I mean, I know she’s not the best at memorizing the codes, but she can hold her breath like nobody’s business. Though.” Tapp lost her smile and looked back at the academy’s roof. “When I got knocked off the school that second time... I thought landing from that height was going to break my leg for real.” She squatted down, using one arm to keep her skirt from falling open, put her chin in her hand, and grinned at the man who’d saved her. “Thanks. That was quite chivalrous of you for someone who’s supposed to be playing the enemy.” Now, she looked as cheery as the sunlight coming in through the leaves he thought contradicted her mood so vehemently.

He looked up at her, his surprise melting into a smirk. “Well, we can’t have any of the pretty ladies leaving the academy. Then there’ll be nothing nice to look at,” he said matter of fact.

Tapp blinked, her face heating with a blush but then she lowered her brow. “Wait... You attend this academy?” She asked, her amazed surprise making her tone airy.

His face lost its smile and Gudomlay frowned. She rose off him then and he stood. Thinning his lips, he sighed. “I’m going to hear it from Professor K tonight.” He gave a side glance at Gudomlay with a questioning look in his pretty blue eyes then. “Am I?” He asked.

Gudomlay stared at him, her face falling. “Ugh. Do you know how hard it is to lie to him?” She asked, staring up at him with a look of exasperation. “He’s got an internal detector better than any of those machines he’s got in that dungeon of his.”

“Gudomlay?” Tapp asked, looking utterly confused at how easy she interacted with him.

Gudomlay glanced at her guiltily and sighed. Then, she turned to the man and pointed at him. “If Kunagi finds out you let this slip, I’m going to blame it all on you, got it?” She asked.

He smiled and nodded. “Got it,” he said, looking pleased and relieved.

Gudomlay turned to Tapp then and steered her to a bench, forcing her to sit on its warm face. As she did, her rescuer stood in front of her to the side by one of the garden’s fountains, his hands behind his back. She glanced at him and then at Gudomlay, who flicked a petal of one of the sakura blossoms off her head. Noticing it reminded Tapp of where they were, and so she looked up to admire all the cherry blossom trees that surrounded them.

“Tapp. This is Albert. He’s a third-year stripe student,” Gudomlay said in introduction.

Tapp blinked. “A stripe?” She asked, glancing at him.

Gudomlay nodded, came over, and sat next to her. “The stripe students. Tapp. They’re not what they seem...” She went ahead then and explained it all to her. Tapp stared, wondering at it and then glanced at Albert.

“You mean the academy enlists the stripe students--who they are training to protect star students upon graduation--to attack them in these drills?” She asked.

He nodded, his arms now crossed. “We spend our entire teen life and on at this academy until graduation. And in most cases, beforehand, we start combat and ambush skills elsewhere. The stars are the proper--more elegant fighters. They act according to diplomacy. The stripes, however, protect them using guerilla warfare and whatever else is necessary. We’re learning the dirty part of the job so you don’t have to.”

“And we’re going to be paired up with a stripe?” She asked glancing at Gudomlay, who nodded. “But, what? At random, according to some academic results? This is--stupid!” She stood suddenly, glaring at her. “What kind of system is that?” She glowered at Albert then. “Are you saying then that you acted out of instinct. To protect someone who’s spent most of her time at this academy making fun of you?” She looked back at Gudomlay, horrified. “But! What kind of relationship does that encourage? How are we supposed to trust one another if we’ve been separated from each other our whole lives? Taught to hate one another?”

“It keeps us from getting emotionally attached,” Albert explained, sympathy in his voice. Tapp looked back at him. The way he was gazing at her. She could tell. The academy’s secret, the way they did things. It hurt him even if he put on a brave face about it. “We stripes get it. It’s hard having to watch someone you love in danger all the time. Those feelings make one act irrationally. We can’t do our job right if we’re clouded by our feelings for the person we are protecting. It’s...better that we hate you,” he said, looking a little sad about it.

She stared at him, gawking. This man whom she thought beautiful upon first sight, now seemed like something so far away. Like a story with a sad ending that left you feeling melancholy.

“I...” She glanced at the ground, her hands bunching into fists. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, looking at Gudomlay. How did she live burdened with a secret this horrid?

“I grew up with a father figure killing or whipping these guys into shape,” she said with a glance at Albert who slid his eyes sideways to meet her gaze. “I knew before it was ever decided I would be a star student,” she explained. “I hate the way things are, but... I promised not to say anything. I can’t just go behind Kaguni’s back. You know what he’s done for me.”

Tapp shut her eyes and sighed. Then she looked at Albert, now blushing. She reached into her shirt and held out the flag to him. “I don’t want it,” she said, standing.

He blinked at her and then, smiling small, accepted it. “I’ll treasure if forever,” he said with a teasing quirk to his mouth. It was still warm from her skin. Looking down at it, he ran the thing through his fingers as if to indulge in the sensation. And then he glanced up to meet her gaze, it seeming to be a satisfied look.

Tapp, watching, felt her heart experience that often talked about fluttering in her heart. To her, the way he held onto it almost seemed sensual, and that look too masculine and mature for her to handle without quaking. She scoffed to hide her excitement and crossed her arms.

“Don’t think this changes anything?” She looked back at him, her chin lifted. “If hating me will keep you alive, then I’ll make sure you despise me.” She started off but then slowly came to a pause. “But...if our paths happen to cross...if you want. You can say hi. I won’t ignore you,” she said, her back still to him. And then she hurried off, the bits of sunlight coming through the leaves dancing upon her. Watching, Albert was left smiling softly after her and Gudomlay groaning for the trouble she knew had started.