Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On the continent of Zemuria, in the country of Erebonia, in a certain hanger on a certain school’s campus, was a girl. This girl was one well acquainted with struggle and world altering events. In fact, this was part of the reason she had come to this place. To see the changes sweeping the continent with her own eyes. Of course, that was later in the future, for now she was trying simply to focus on her school life.

Without much thought, the girl reached up to pull the box of parts down. Normally a simple action, one of little consequence. And perhaps on any other day it would have been. But today was different. Today there was a hitch in the universe, a single shift that led to things unravelling just enough for something that shouldn’t exist to slip through. The girl grabbed the box-

-and the whole thing tumbled down on her head.

--

You awoke to the sound of clattering metal and someone shouting. You shot up off the floor (why are you lying on the floor?), hand instinctually reaching out to stop the metal object rattling around on the ground before the noise of it splits your skull open any further. Blinking blearily, your eyes try to focus on the other source of noise in the room.

It was an older man, maybe in his sixties or later, wearing a white lab coat. Something about him strikes you as very familiar but you can’t quite grasp it, barely able to stop the room from spinning around you. At the very least he’s stopped yelling, though he still looks kind of mad, staring down at you with that huge scowl on his face.

“Unbelievable. I would have expected someone of your caliber to be better than this. Such a beginner mistake doesn’t befit your lineage”

“Yes…?” You manage after a moment. “I-I mean, yes sir! I’m sorry for the mistake sir, it won’t happen again!"

You weren’t totally sure what was happening, but your ingrained manners kick in, and you figured apologizing for whatever you seemingly did would be the best way to de-escalate the situation. “I, um, I can clean this up!!” You continued nervously, reaching out for the metal objects scattered around.

“No, don’t bother.” The man cuts you off sharply, reaching into his pocket. From within he pulls out a small tin of some sort, which he hands to you. “You wont be any good to me in this state and I’m sure those children will pitch a fit if I don’t send you to rest off the injury. Put that on your wound and go rest. I expect better of you tomorrow.”
“Yes Sir!!” You yelped, staggering to your feet. You threw in a polite bow before skittering off to what appears to be a little restroom towards the other end of this….building your in, wherever it is. You locked the door behind you, sagging against it in relief. You had no idea what was going on but at least you managed that situation alright. As you stepped further into the room a flash of golden yellow in the corner of your eye stops you dead.

Slowly you turned towards the mirror.

Porcelain skin, blonde hair, stunning blue eyes set in an angelic visage. It’s a familiar face.

But it isn’t yours.

Stupidly you reached your hand out, only half surprised when the one in the mirror does the same until your finger tips touch.  

You recognize the girl staring back at you but that’s impossible, ridiculous, utterly absurd! Though even in your own mind those protests sound weak as Tita Russel’s face in the mirror echoes the terrified shock you feel.
Is…Is this an isekai? Have you been isekai’d???

You’d have thought that the Divergent Laws or whatever the hell McBurn was monologuing about at the end of CSIV would have made reincarnating into the Trails series impossible (all other reasons it should be impossible notwithstanding of course).

A sort of detached numbness settled over you, and very intentionally not thinking about it you began applying the ointment the man had given you to the bump on your head. Once that was done, you screwed the lid back on, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

You didn’t see the old man anywhere, but it looked like the mess on the floor had been cleared up. Had you been in the bathroom for a long time? It probably didn’t matter. You walked out of the large, garage like door that he’d gestured to earlier when he’d been kicking you out, not surprised when it opened automatically. Stepping out into the sun, you felt another pang of recognition. This was…Thors Branch Campus, you were sure of it. You’d dumped so much time in the Trails games, especially the Cold Steel Quadrology, there’s no way you could fail to recognize it, even if seeing it in real (?) life was a totally different experience. You forced yourself to take a step forward, and another, and another until your body moved without you having to put much thought into it. And while you knew the route to the dorm from the game, you couldn’t shake the feeling that your body was operating on more than just that.
Were Tita’s memories shifting around up in your brain too?

God, this sucked, maybe you didn’t have a concussion but your head was still killing you, you couldn’t be expected to think in these conditions! Thankfully you didn’t run into anyone on the way back to the dorm, so you could zone out and give your poor brain at least a little break. Tita’s muscle memory carried you up the stairs and in front of her dorm room door, which you pushed open gingerly. Luckily her roommate didn’t seem to be in at the moment (Oh fuck, wasn’t she rooming with Musse? You were so screwed), so you slid into the chair at the desk unimpeded.

First things first, you needed to figure out when you were. This was Thors II and that must’ve been Professor Schmidt you had been talking to earlier, who else would be so rude to an injured little girl? So it followed that this had to be post Cold Steel II at least. Glancing around revealed a calendar hanging above the desk, the most recent date x’d out being April 1^st 1206.

You mentally went back over the timeline, this put you in the beginning of Cold Steel III, like one day after orientation, if you weren’t mistaken. Well, that was just great. You were here just in time for everything to go to hell, though at least you had some time before you were gonna have to confront Agate, or anyone else that should know Tita well. You leaned back in your chair and considered your options. You had apparently been isekai’d into the world of your favorite game series, into the body of an existing character who played a crucial part in what was to come. This body also belonged to an unparalleled tech genius who would be expected to produce results matching that reputation and who’s best friend was a superpowered, formerly murderous munchkin who would notice the slightest bit of out of character behavior.

Resolutely, you stood from your chair, and collapsed face first into Tita’s bed. This was all a dream, it had to be! A weirdly realistic one, where you could seemingly actually feel pain but that was fine! You’d go to sleep and wake up back up in your boring, normal world. That or you’d suffocate yourself laying face first in the pillow like this, either was preferable to facing this situation at this point.

--

“Tita, wake up.”

A hand was gently shaking your shoulder. With a groan you propped yourself up on your elbow. You could tell instantly you had not in fact achieved your goal of either returning to your old world or dying. The same dorm room and a voice calling you Tita were pretty good indicators, but the final nail in the coffin was the owner of the voice. The amused purple eyes of Musse Egret were staring at you curiously.

“S-sorry Musse, I was just—what is it?” You mumbled, rubbing your eyes.

She titled her head in what would have been an innocent gesture if you weren’t aware of her true nature already. “I haven’t seen you since classes ended, and you didn’t come down for dinner, I came to check on you.”
“Oh…Yeah, I, um, I got a little hurt when I was doing something for Professor Schmidt earlier, so he told me to go get some rest, I guess I fell asleep. I-I’m not really hungry anyway.”

It was hard not to fidget under Musse’s scrutiny but you forced yourself to stay as relaxed as you could. Tita would have no reason to be wary of her roommate, and you’d rather not give yourself away immediately. The green haired girl stared for a moment longer before offering a gentle smile. She reached out and ghosted her fingertip over your bump. “I see. Well thankfully the injury doesn’t seem too severe.  I’m sorry to have interrupted your rest then, I’ll let you get back to it.”

“Thank you Musse.” You yawned out, dropping back into the pillow. You didn’t think for a moment you’d actually managed to fool Musse completely, but at this point you just wanted to sleep off the rest of this headache. Everything else you could worry about later, if you were indeed going to be stuck in this body for the foreseeable future.

--

You were laying in a field of flowers.

Somehow, you instinctually knew this was a dream. You glanced down at your hands, and were a little disappointed to find they were still Tita’s. You turned your head to the left to try and find some sort of landmark and let out a shriek of surprise. Lying next to you…

…Was Tita Russel.

She was in her Thors Uniform just like you, and she appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Hesitantly, you reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. When she didn’t react, you gave a gentle shake, which prompted no response. A feeling of boiling frustration overtook you at this whole situation and you raised your hand, bring it down across the sleeping girl’s cheek with a sharp smack. Aside from the force of your strike turning her head, she didn’t so much as twitch.

The anger left you abruptly and your laid back down on your side next to the girl. “Hey…” you whispered sadly “You really gotta wake up. Some total stranger is piloting your body during this important period in your life, you don’t want that do you? I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here either.”

Tita kept breathing softly and you couldn’t help but give humorless laugh, squeezing your eyes shut “Yeah, I didn’t think that’d work. Now what….?”

As the world slipped into darkness, you couldn’t shake the vague feeling you and Tita weren’t fully alone here.

--

Your eyes snapped open to the sound of an alarm blaring next to your ear.

You body immediately started moving on instinct, switching the device off and swinging off the bed to get dressed. It seems like Tita must’ve been very diligent even first thing in the morning, somehow you weren’t shocked.

“I have something to take care of this morning so I’ll get going first.” Musse informed you brightly “I’ll see you in homeroom.”

“R-right, see you there!”

The girl giggled as she slipped out the door. Geez, while at least for now she more amused than your behavior than suspect. Shrugging on Tita’s signature blue hoodie, you started your familiar ritual of patting yourself down to make sure you had everything before walking out the door. School Bag, keys, wallet, phone—

Or, Arcus II, rather.

You pulled the object out of your blazer pocket and inspected it. Until you got a closer look at the Gundams  Soldats, this little thing was probably going to be the most unbelievable tech you’d run into. The mechanism was like nothing you had ever seen in your life, and yet you could feel a pressing at the back of your mind, whispering all about how it worked, how to disassemble and reassemble it, everything you could need to know. Your host’s memories, you thought, flipping the device open. It was a bit of a surprise to find every slot filled with a quartz, had Tita really already managed to fully deck out her orbament? You tapped your finger against one of the little orbs.

You nearly dropped the whole damn device as a freaking in game menu popped up.

You stared blankly for a moment before deciding ‘fuck it, life can’t get any more ridiculous at this point’. It took a bit of trial and error but you figured out that by ‘touching’ the menu, you could interact with it similar to if it was a touch screen. Your eyebrows rose incredulously the further down you scrolled. You weren’t 100% positive but you were pretty sure this was every single quartz, both for CS III and IV. You noticed the one you’d originally tapped seemed to be glowing slightly, so you decided to test out your hypothesis. You tapped a different quartz on this list, Seraphic Ring, and the blue quartz (Aqua Bleed the little pop up informed you) disappeared, leaving the golden orb in its place. And lastly, you tapped the same spot, this time selecting to insert Seraph. As you suspected, the quartz went in no problem, meaning this Arcus was definitely fully unlocked.  You snapped the lid to the device shut, dispelling the menu in the process.

Well now.

Was this your so-called ‘Cheat Skill”? If you’d been isekai’d, you supposed that sort of thing would fall well within genre conventions. Every quartz, the master quartzs, even all of the Lost Elements, not to mention a fully upgraded Arcus was quite the boon. You would have preferred something that gave you any sort of idea as to what was going on but for now, you’d take what you could get. For now, you needed to get to campus, the last thing you wanted was to be late on what was essentially your first day.

--

‘Well at least there was one good thing about all of this’ you pondered as you sat in class.

You could see all your favorite designs up close and in person!!

You were in your heart of hearts, a huge nerd, and you loved Jrpgs with your whole soul. When you’d been introduced the Trails series you fallen in love, not with just the deep world and interesting combat system, but especially with all the characters. They were all so fleshed out and so so pretty. So you were a sucker for a pretty faced, sue you. You knew what you liked, and you had excellent taste if you did say so yourself.

You’d nearly shrieked in delight when Towa walked in to homeroom, and the urge only grew the more recognizable faces you saw. You figured if you were sticking to the genre norms, this would be where you’d start dividing the whole cast into who is supporting cast and who is a capture target. But a.) You weren’t gonna run around messing up Tita’s life like that when you had no idea if when you were going to peace out. And b.) your tastes ran a bit on the older side, so your absolute faves probably weren’t going to be interested in a kid like Tita anyway. Not that that seemed to stop Agate now that you thought about it—

A finger jabbed into your side. Blinking, you realized Rean was staring at you expectantly, and the rest of the students were looking at you with varying degrees of sympathy and amusement.

“I’m terribly sorry Instructor Schwarzer, could you repeat the question?” You squeaked out.

 The history teacher had mercy on you and repeated the question. The answer popped into your brain (Adios bless you Tita you little genius) and you blurted it out, which earned you a smile and a nod, before the lesson continued. You sank into your seat, cheeks burning, well that was smooth of you. You flashed your seat mate, Louise, a grateful smile, and she returned an encouraging one of her own.

 Ahhh, all of your fellow students were so cute, it was refreshing to interact with them~! The same went for Rean, while he certainly was handsome in his instructor get up (those glasses? Perfection), after playing as him for four games, you couldn’t see him as a target of romantic affection. He was more like your son or puppy or something, watching him healed you. Still, he was your teacher, you should probably actually listen to his lectures.

So, as you picked up your pen with a stupid smile on your face, you failed to notice a pair of eyes staring at you from elsewhere in the classroom.

--

You tapped the desk in front of you in a disjointed rhythm, trying to sort your thoughts.

It had been a week since you woke up in Tita Russell’s body, and you learned a few things since then. First, you had access to more than just the Arcus menu. Checking a specific pouch on your belt provided the in game items menu, where as reaching for your gun holster provided a weapons list of guns, none of which you recall Tita actually being able to use in Cold Steel. You had x99 of each item, though you hadn’t yet experimented to see if they restocked or not. Opening you student notebook gave you the same menu you were used to from the games as well, full of character profiles, recipes, the whole shebang.  Your second discovery revolved around Tita’s memories. It seemed that all of her ‘knowledge’ was available to you if you prompted for it, you had no issues with any of the engineering Schmidt was having you do, nor with any questions in class you might reasonably expect your host to know. Her personal memories were nowhere to be found though, so anytime your classmates asked about your past you had to give them a bit of a run around, basing everything on what you remember from the Sky trilogy. Lastly you confirmed what you’d already been pretty convinced of, this was definitely the world of the Trails series. Aside from your presence here, nothing you could dig up information on was not a one-to-one match to what you knew from the game.

And where exactly did all of that leave you? You weren’t too sure where to go from here. You supposed you could just let things play out like they were supposed to…But it felt a little icky to know all the bad stuff that was gonna happen and not do anything about it. On the other hand, what could you do? You were going to have your hands full keeping people from realizing you weren’t Tita, let alone messing with international events.
Aahhhhh!! This was so frustrating!

“Well you seem to have a lot of free time on your hands today, Disciple Candidate.”

“Ah, sorry sir!”

Professor Schmidt shot you an unimpressed look as he descended the stairs. He stopped in front of you and dropped a stack of papers on the desk. “Deliver those to Instructor Irving.”

“Yes, sir!” You chimed obediently, though he had already about-faced back up the stairs. You managed to resist rolling your eyes. This professor was a real piece of work, but honestly even with Tita’s knowledge rattling around in your skull it was still mildly stressful to be tossed in the deep end of engineering, you’d rather play secretary in some ways.

Tucking the papers under your arm, you exited the hanger and headed for the main building. Since this day wasn’t explorable in the game you weren’t sure where the Head Instructor would be, but the teachers’ office was as good a place as any to start. You knocked on the door, calling out a polite ‘Excuse me!’

“You may enter.” A voice responded from within.

You opened the door, relieved to see your target was sitting at his desk. Excellent, that saved you the trouble of running around campus! You’d noticed it to an extent when playing the games, but this place really was quite big, you almost felt bad for how much you had made Rean run around it before.

“Russell, what can I help you with?” Instructor Michael asked, setting down his pen.

“Hello Instructor. I won’t take much of your time, Professor Schmidt just asked me to bring these to you asap.” You explained walking over to his desk and handing him the stack of papers.

The Major’s eyes flitted across the first page, and his expression shifted to one of minor exasperation “These really could’ve just waited until I saw him this evening. I apologize you had to make the trip over.”
“It was no trouble sir!” you assured him. It was a nice excuse to leave the hanger and see some characters you like more than old Soldat-grandpa anyways. “I’ll let you get back to your work now though, please excuse me.”

Your hand was on the door knob when he stopped you. “Ah, this reminds me, how is your injury?”

You turned back around in surprise “Huh??”

Instructor Michael frowned slightly, looking serious “I heard you were injured on the second day of school, in the hanger. How is it?”
“You heard--? Oh, did Musse mention it to you?” How odd, what would she gain by doing something like that? You flashed a cheerful smile to reassure him. “I’m alright, instructor! It wasn’t that serious of an injury, and the Professor gave me some Teara Balm, so I’m all healed up!”

“I see.” He sighed “Well, if something like this happens in the future, make sure to stop by the infirmary regardless of what the Professor says, understood?”

“Understood!”

“Thank you for bringing the documents.” The instructor said, picking back up his pen “You’re dismissed.”
“Yes sir, have a nice afternoon.”

You shut the door behind you, smile growing on your face. It was at times like this, your situation wasn’t all that bad. New interactions with the characters you had come to love, it was truly an experience like nothing else. You whistled a song from your world as you headed back to the hanger, hands in your pockets. You had approximately a week until the plot picked back up, and you should probably figure out what your game plan was going forward.

--

You were back in the field of flowers again.

Turning your head left, you confirmed Tita was exactly where you left her, sleeping soundly. Looking right however yielded something new. A large wooden gazebo, painted white and adorned with flowers sat approximately ten feet away from where the two of you lay. You weren’t sure if you just missed it last time or if it had spawned in since then. Mumbling curses under your breath, you pulled yourself up. You ought to investigate the new landmark, maybe it held a clue about what was going on.

“Huh, and here I thought I was alone in here.”

Startled, you jumped back eyes snapping up towards the voice. A familiar blond haired young man stared down at you from the railing of the gazebo with an expression of mild disinterest.

“C-Cedric…?”

Chapter Text

“I’m fairly certain there should be a ‘Prince’ in there somewhere.”

Despite the critical nature of the words, the speaker didn’t seem to actually mind all that much. In fact, the smirk beginning to stretch across his face suggested Cedric was more amused than anything.

“I-but, but you—Huh??” You were struggling to form a coherent thought, and the young prince decided to take pity on you. Vaulting over the railing, he sauntered over and offered you a hand. “Cedric Reise Arnor, former Crown Prince of Erebonia. A pleasure, I’m sure.”

As smug as you’d expect from a post CS II Cedric, but hey, at least he was offering you a hand up, that counted for something. You gratefully let him yank you to your feet before his words caught up to you. “Wait, ‘former crown prince’?”

“Well,” He dropped your hand and offered an exaggerated shrug “It was former there for a bit, but now I suppose I’m back to being a Crown Prince again.”
“I... don’t follow.”

“It’s nothing I feel comfortable spilling to a total stranger anyway.” Cedric’s eyes honed in on you, pinning you in place “Which brings us to my probing question: Who the hell are you? Because you sure aren’t Tita Russel.”

Wait, what?

“You can tell?!” You grab the prince’s arm, shaking it slightly. “How?! Do I look like someone else to you?!”
“Stop that.” He admonished lightly, grabbing your wrist to stop your movement. Glancing over your shoulder he continued. “No, you look identical to the real Tita lying over there, its just—" Cedric gave a frustrated huff and gestured vaguely. “Your aura, I guess I’ll call it, is totally different.  I didn’t ever meet Tita prior to being able to see these things but when I look between the two of you, your aura is just strange, like it doesn’t belong in this world. So I ask again, who’re you exactly?”

“Oh, right I’m—”

Your mind went utterly blank, and a cold sweat began to accumulate on your back. It was a deeply unpleasant sensation to not be able to remember your own name. Now that you stopped to think about it, what could you remember of your old life? You remembered things around you, videogames, and pop culture, and food. But your family, what you did for a living, where you lived?

There was nothing.

What the actual fuck.

“You still there stranger?”

Blinking, you realized Cedric was looking at you expectantly. “I-I don’t know. I can’t remember my name, o-or anything else about myself except that I’m not from Zemuria, or this world at all.”

“Hm, so I was right about that then? Strange indeed.” The prince scrutinized you for a moment sighing “You don’t seem to be lying. So, you’ve ended up in completely different world with no memories of who you are or how you got here. Wonderful. Fair’s fair though, I suppose, you told me your weird circumstances, I guess I can tell you mine, Sunshine.”
“Sunshine?”

“I can’t exactly call you Tita when we both know you aren’t her, now can I? Besides your aura is bright in a way that’s mildly painful to look at directly, so it seems fitting.” He rolled his eyes as though this was all the most obvious thing in the world and you were a fool for needing it explained to you. “I say I’m the former Crown Prince, because I betrayed my family and my country trying to plunge us into a massive war with Calvard—Do you know who Calvard is?—And then instead of owning up to it, I ran away and joined a terrorist group.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong but that seemed like a bit of an oversimplification of what caused him to join Ouroboros.

“But…Erebonia isn’t fighting Calvard.”
“And there we reach the reason I’m formerly former. I laid my traitorous head on the pillow one night, and when I awoke—” Cedric snapped his fingers dramatic effect “I was a little more than a year in the past, the day I entered Thors Military Academy.”

Huh.

“So what? This is a reincarnated into a game world and a time travel isekai? Aren’t we getting too muddy here…?” You muttered to yourself, rubbing your chin thoughtfully.
“What on earth are you talking about?” Cedric asked, baffled

“Sorry, it’s nothing. If you’ve traveled back in time, what’s you plan now?”

The prince smirked “It’s just my luck that I traveled back to after I was already in league with the Chancellor. I don’t intend to passively follow along but I can’t just jump ship either. Still, while I’m a bit upset with the Iron Bloods and I regret betraying some people, I can’t say I’m not a little miffed about what happed during the Civil War either. And thus, I think I’ll play both sides, sow a little chaos in the plans until I can finally jump ship off the Iron Blood train.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Maybe, but I want to live my life with no regrets now, and this seems like a fine place to start.”

Made sense, you supposed. It’s the same attitude that led to him joining Ouroboros in the end, a desire to live life on his own terms. Though you didn’t necessarily agree with dropping all responsibilities and becoming an international terrorist, you couldn’t help but respect the way he owned it fully.

“How about you, Sunshine?”

“Huh?” you blinked away your thoughts and found Cedric closer than he’d been before. He was still smirking of course, but the expression seemed more sly than arrogant this time. He leaned down so the two of you were face to face and raised an eyebrow.

“Weeeelll, I was just thinking. You’re stuck here in Zemuria for the foreseeable future, inside someone else’s body to boot. It would be nice to have someone in you corner and while I’m by no means an expert, I do have some experience with the supernatural and unexplainable of this world.”

“You want me to cooperate with you, you mean.” You responded, crossing your arms.

 “The three of us even share this strange dreamscape! Surely this must be fate?”

“What do you want me do exactly?”

The prince’s eyes narrowed slightly and his smile widened, looking for all the world like a pleased cat. “I won’t be asking you to do anything that would hurt someone--well no one good anyway, so you can drop the suspicious glare. You and your classmates are going to start going on field exercise all over the Empire, and you’ll be running into some pretty major events as you do. I just want you to…meddle, a little bit, in my stead. We can share information when we show up in the dreamscape, you on what the branch campus is up to and me on what info I’ve managed to scrounge up about your situation. As an added bonus I’ll do my best to support you while you’re being Tita Russell. I may have been garbage crown prince, but if nothing else I know had to use the position to my advantage. If you end up in a sticky situation, all you need to do is call me and I’ll start pulling strings.”

It wasn’t a bad deal all things considered. You had been thinking that you wanted to interfere in the plot, and having an ally would make things a lot easier. Cedric certainly wouldn’t have been your first choice, but you had no concrete reason to doubt his intentions at the moment. At the very least, he was telling the truth about having memories of the future.

“Okay.” You said after a moment, reaching a hand out. “If things are going to end up as crazy as you say, I’d rather have you on my side than not. I look forward to working with you, Your Highness.”

Cedric gave a surprised blink, before the smirk returned full force. Straightening back up to his full height, he took your hand and shook it firmly. “Right back at you, Sunshine. Oh, but you can drop the formality, no has called me ‘Your Highness’ in ages, least not before I came back. Every time someone says it, I swear I can hear Shirley laughing at me.”

“Understood Pretty Boy.”

A short bark of laughter escaped his lips. “An insolent one, are you? Well, I suppose that bravery will only make you more useful in the day ahead. Let’s sit for a moment and talk details before this dream ends for both of us.”

The prince dropped crossed legged into the grass, gesturing for you to do the same. Once you followed suit, he propped his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand.

“So,” he began, tone far to casual “How much of the future do you know exactly?”

You felt your blood freeze.

“I’m not sure what you mean..?” you tried

Cedric simply smiled and you got the sense that you may be at risk of bodily harm if you did not produce a satisfying answer. Shoulders slumped, you gave him a petulant look. “How’d you figure it out?”

“It was pretty obvious.” He waved a dismissive hand. “You said my name as soon as you saw me, so clearly you knew who I was. Despite that nothing I said about my defection or the war with Calvard seemed to phase you at all. That being the case, it only made sense you knew the future too, it was only a question of how much.”

You really wished the characters in these games could be even slightly less clever. You were going to be exhausted long before you got to the Ebon Knight at this rate.

“…Sorry for trying to hide it. I was worried you wouldn’t believe it on top of me being from outside Zemuria. I know up to the defeat of Chancellor Osborne and the Iron Bloods.” You floundered for a way to explain it. “It…It was a story I heard once? And the story followed Rean, so I don’t know everything, and I don’t remember it all either, but I have an idea I suppose?”

“Huh.”  Thankfully the prince seemed more contemplative than distrustful. “An odd turn of fate, that. But if a soul from beyond can find its way into my world, there’s no reason our history can’t find its way into yours. Of course it followed Rean though, that man practically has ‘Protagonist’ written across his forehead.”

You huffed a laugh at that “You can say that again. But yeah, I know some stuff, but if there’s specific actions you want me to take you’ll have to let me know. Oh, and don’t worry I have all of Tita’s engineering know-how rattling around in my head, just none of her personal memories, so I won’t be useless on that side of things.”

“Good to know. Might as well strike when the iron is hot and start planning—”

Cedric cut off with a pained grunt, hand flying his forehead. Your own vision started swim and a sense of exhaustion swept over you.

“I think this means we’re being kicked out.” The prince surmised “We’ll pick things up next time. See you soon, Sunshine.”

“ ‘kay. Bye, bye Pretty Boy.” You mumbled as everything went dark.

--

With a sigh you crouched down to your tool box, mindful to catch your skirt between your heels and the rest of you. Another week and some change had flown by since your initial conversation with Cedric. As he had predicted, you both returned to that garden dream every night when you fell asleep. The second night had been spent filling each other in on information you both had of the future but subsequent nights found you both lying either in flowers or under the gazebo trying to get some actual sleep. Seemed time spent in that world didn’t correlate to much real rest. So far, per the prince’s request and your original plan, you had mostly been following the o.g. Tita’s example. You helped create the cooking club, made quartz for people, and ran around to the Professor’s whims. Which is how you ended up here, watching with mild curiosity as watching as Panzer Soldats slid into position on the asphalt field.

Leave it to that crazy old man to put a 16-year-old in charge of a live military training operation comprised of freaking Gundams. Well, not that anything was gonna go wrong at this one, but it was the principal of the thing. Though speaking of principals, you supposed with the attitude of your own there was every chance Tita would have landed in this role regardless. Aurelia and Professor Schmidt really operated on their own level more often than not, it was wild to witness in real time.

They weren’t the only ones though. You could hear Juna frustration about being gone easy on from here, which meant of course it was time for Ash to take center stage of being a cocky little shit. Its what people loved about it him. But then again, if things were ever to start going south today, seemed an easy bet that this would be where. You pushed yourself back to your feet, trying to ignore the way a smiling Musses stared at you for just a moment. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Staring. And given you kept catching her, there was no way she didn’t want you to know she was doing it either.

Scary.

A clamor on the other side of the field clued you in that Ash had unleashed his scythe.

“That thing can DO that?!” Randy shouted in alarm. Hm…you were pretty sure you’d drawn up specifications of all the students’ Panzer Soldat weapons for the teachers when they showed up last night.

…50 Mira said Professor Schmidt just couldn’t be bothered to pass them along.

Thankfully no great calamity befell the battlefield, so while Randy tried and failed to chew out Ash, you stuck your head back in the hanger to let Paublo know you needed him to help you run a quick check up on the Hector.

It was gonna be a long morning, but at least today was finally the day the students were getting their marching orders. You weren’t necessarily thrilled to run headlong into danger, but at this point you’d take just about anything over these anticipation nerves. And hey, now maybe you could find some actual use for your ‘cheat skill’.

--

You were trying not stare, really you were!

But damn Claire was even prettier in person somehow.

Actually, now that Towa and Instructor Michael had joined the Crossbell duo in pestering her and Rean, the hotness scale in the building skewed quite unfairly on that side of the hanger. It only titled further when Principal le Guin strolled in, the Professor by her side (he may be too old, even for your tastes, but that didn’t make him unattractive and thus he did not lower their overall score).

You decidedly did not laugh at the Majors’ faces when they found out the principal wouldn’t be joining you all. You didn’t, but judging by the unimpressed eyebrow Valerie raised in your direction, you didn’t quite manage to keep a straight face either.

You schooled your expression into calmness by the time you all were corralled together for the send off speech. It was short and to the point, but still carried the gravitas that bled into everything Aurelia did. When the Professor pulled you aside for what counted as his version of a pep talk, you were starting to feel the excitement, at least a little bit.

You were in Trails of Cold Steel III.

You were going out on a field exercise alongside Thors Branch Campus on board the Derfflinger.

You’d know that logically course, but it hadn’t sunk in fully until now. There were going to be scary, painful parts without a doubt, but in the end this was an adventure. One you could never have dreamed of your old life. As the door slid shut behind you, you couldn’t resist a huge grin.

“Aaaaalright!” You cheered with a hop and a fist pump “Operation Cold Steel is a go! Come what may, I’m going to 100% this one for sure!’