Raven moved through Osov's evening streets like a shadow given purpose.
Years of training—first in her father's household where she'd learned the paranoid caution of merchant-banking families who dealt in secrets as much as currency, then under Ruby's tutelage where that caution had been honed into something approaching artistry—had made her exceptional at not being seen.
She'd changed clothes in a safehouse three blocks from the ramen stall, trading her glasses and professional attire for the nondescript garb of a lower-middle-class shop girl: plain brown dress, hair covered by a simple kerchief, a shopping basket that concealed her surveillance tools.
She was one of ten thousand similar women moving through the city at this hour, invisible by virtue of being utterly ordinary.
Fifty meters. Ruby had specified fifty meters minimum distance.
Raven had already decided to maintain seventy-five. Not out of disobedience—never that—but because she'd learned that Ruby's specifications were often minimums to be exceeded, not targets to be met. The Director valued initiative as long as it served the mission.
She spotted him easily. Charlemagne stood out, despite his apparent attempts at mundane camouflage through sheer laziness.
The academy uniform helped—the black and red cuffs and white dove sigil marked him as a second-year student at the Imperial Magus Academy, one of perhaps three thousand such students in the city. But something about the way he moved...
No. That wasn't right. It wasn't the way he moved. It was the way he didn't move.
Raven had spent years studying body language, reading threat assessments in the cant of shoulders and the position of hands. Charlemagne moved like someone who was utterly, completely relaxed.
Not the false relaxation of someone trying to appear unthreatening, but genuine, bone-deep ease.
She'd only seen that twice before: once in a master assassin Ruby had hired for a particularly delicate operation, a man who'd killed thirty-seven people and slept like a baby every night; and once in an ancient monk at a monastery they'd infiltrated, a man who'd achieved what he called "emptiness of purpose."
Both men had been terrifying in their own ways.
Charlemagne yawned, scratched his side in a way that somehow made his sword belt shift more comfortably, and continued his aimless wandering.
Aimless. That was the word that kept coming to Raven's mind. He didn't seem to be going anywhere specific. He paused at shop windows, watching the reflections of people passing behind him—surveillance technique, she noted professionally—but then moved on without entering.
He stopped at a street vendor selling roasted nuts, counted his coins, frowned, and walked away without buying anything.
He was broke. The realization hit Raven with unexpected force. Ruby's mysterious Master, the man who'd apparently taught her everything, was wandering the city with empty pockets.
Raven thought about the underground fortress, the millions in funding Ruby had accessed, the vast network of resources at their disposal. Ruby could've set this man up in a palace. Could've given him anything he wanted.
But he lived in an academy dormitory and ate cheap ramen with his last twelve bronze coins.
Why?
The question nagged at her as she followed him through the Merchant's Quarter, maintaining her distance, using other pedestrians as cover.
A part of her mind—the cynical part forged in slavery cages after watching her family destroyed—whispered that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't some grand strategic choice.
Maybe he was just a broke student.
But no. Ruby wouldn't dedicate this level of resources to surveillance if he was just... ordinary.
Would she?
Raven thought back to the few stories Ruby had shared about her Master over the years. They'd been sparse, carefully parceled out like precious gems. He'd saved her from the bandit lord's cave when she was eleven.
He'd taught her combat techniques. He'd shared knowledge from his "previous world"—which Raven had always interpreted as some kind of mystical experience, perhaps a vision quest or magical enlightenment, not literal reincarnation, because that would be insane.
But Ruby spoke of him with such reverence. Such absolute conviction.
"Master sees things we cannot," Ruby had said once, when Raven had questioned a particularly convoluted strategy. "He operates on principles that only become clear in retrospect. Trust the process."
Raven had trusted. She owed Ruby her life, after all.
When Ruby had raided that slave caravan, Raven had been three days away from being shipped to the southern colonies, to plantations where her life expectancy would've been measured in months.
Ruby had killed fourteen men that night, moving through them like a red-haired angel of death, and had personally unlocked Raven's cage.
"You have value," Ruby had said, those crimson eyes boring into Raven's soul. "You have skills. You have potential. And most importantly, you have anger. I can work with anger."
So yes, Raven trusted Ruby.
But watching Charlemagne stop at another vendor—this one selling small clockwork toys—and stare at them with genuine childlike interest before sadly walking away, coins still too few...
What am I missing?
The explosion came at exactly 19:10, as the last light faded from the western sky.
Raven's head snapped toward the sound—training overriding surprise—and her mind immediately began analysis.
Western district, probably near the palace.
Mana-based, judging by the particular quality of the boom, not conventional explosives. Medium yield, meant to breach walls or gates rather than maximum casualties.
The infiltration teams.
Ruby had mentioned them. Seven teams in position.
The coup had begun.
Raven's attention shot back to Charlemagne, expecting... what? For him to sprint toward the action? To pull out some hidden communication device? To reveal whatever secret master-operative persona he'd been concealing?
He was still looking at the clockwork toys.
Then he glanced toward the explosion, shrugged—actually shrugged—and muttered something she couldn't hear at seventy-five meters.
Then he kept walking.
Raven felt her eye twitch.
More explosions followed over the next ten minutes. Distant sounds of combat—the distinctive crack of magical discharge, the deeper boom of Gundam weapons systems engaging. Somewhere north, a building was burning, the orange glow visible above the rooftops.
The city's evening crowd reacted with predictable panic. People started running, some toward their homes, others toward whatever they thought was safety. Street vendors abandoned their carts. Shop owners began closing shutters.
The city watch started appearing in greater numbers, blowing whistles, trying to maintain order.
And Charlemagne...
Charlemagne walked into a bookstore.
Raven stood across the street, maintaining her cover among a cluster of worried citizens, and stared at the bookstore entrance with something approaching disbelief.
The city was erupting in controlled chaos. Ruby's carefully orchestrated coup was unfolding across multiple districts. The fate of the kingdom was being decided in fire and steel.
And he was browsing books.
She gave him five minutes, then ten. The explosions continued, more sporadic now. The sounds of fighting seemed to be concentrating in three areas: the palace, the treasury, and the western barracks. Exactly as Ruby had planned.
When Charlemagne finally emerged, he was carrying a small paper-wrapped package. He'd bought something. With what money, Raven couldn't fathom—he'd been broke at the ramen stall—unless he'd had other coins stashed somewhere.
He looked pleased with himself.
Then he started walking north, toward the academy district. Away from all the fighting.
Raven followed, her mind racing. This had to be intentional. Had to be. He was positioning himself away from the action, establishing an alibi, maintaining plausible deniability. Classic tradecraft.
He'd taught Ruby, and Ruby had taught her: never be where the authorities expect you to be when operations go loud.
Brilliant, actually. While everyone focused on the fighting, he'd be documented as innocently shopping during the crisis. No one could tie him to the events.
Except...
Except he'd gone into the bookstore before most of the fighting started. Before it was clear that this was a major incident and not just an accident or isolated attack.
The timing was wrong for establishing an alibi.
Unless he'd known. Unless he'd known exactly when the operation would begin and had positioned himself accordingly.
That made sense. That made perfect sense.
Raven felt her confidence returning. Of course Master had known.
Ruby had sent warning through coded German phrases—a language only the two of them shared. He'd processed the information, calculated the optimal position, and moved accordingly.
The bookstore visit was just... what? A dead drop, maybe? Picking up intelligence from an asset? The package could contain coded documents, not actually books.
Yes. That worked. That made sense.
She continued following as he made his way through increasingly empty streets. The responsible citizens had all gone to ground. Only the foolish, the desperate, or the involved remained out during what was clearly becoming a major incident.
Charlemagne was none of those things. Therefore, he was here intentionally. Therefore, there was a purpose.
Raven clung to that logic like a lifeline.
They passed the city's central telegraph office just as a squad of Reform Movement operatives—she recognized the discrete armbands, three red stripes on grey—secured the building.
Charlemagne glanced at them, and for just a moment, Raven was certain she saw recognition in his eyes.
But he just kept walking.
Testing their discipline? Ensuring they followed protocol? The operatives had orders not to acknowledge non-combatants unless directly interfered with. He might be verifying they obeyed commands even when he was present.
The more Raven watched, the more she convinced herself she was witnessing a master at work.
When he stopped at a late-night tea shop—one of the few still open, the proprietor either brave or stupid—and ordered something with his mysterious remaining funds, she noted the strategic positioning. He sat by the window, perfect sightlines to two major intersections, able to observe troop movements without appearing to do so.
When he struck up a lazy conversation with the proprietor about the "crazy explosions, and the strider race competition being closed" she recognized it as intelligence gathering. Determining civilian response, gauging public sentiment, collecting ground-level perspective that official reports would miss.
When he nodded off briefly, his tea half-finished, she interpreted it as a meditation technique. Conserving energy. Remaining centered during chaos.
It never occurred to her that he might just be tired.
An hour into her surveillance, Raven's concealed telegraph device—a compact model Ruby had commissioned based on Master's descriptions of "wireless communication," though it still required line-of-sight relay stations—vibrated softly against her hip.
She moved into an alley, extracted the device, and read the encoded message:
PALACE SECURED. CHANCELLOR CAPTURED. KING IN PROTECTIVE CUSTODY. REFORM MOVEMENT VICTORIOUS. CASUALTIES MINIMAL. PROCEEDING TO PHASE TWO.
Raven felt a surge of relief and pride. Ruby had done it.
They'd actually done it.
A bloodless coup—well, minimal blood anyway—executed with surgical precision. The Chancellor's forces had been outmaneuvered, out-positioned, and out-gunned.
The new Core System Gundams had proven their worth. The kingdom would wake tomorrow to a new order.
And Master...
She looked back toward the tea shop, where Charlemagne was now apparently engaged in what looked like a friendly debate with the proprietor about something. Sports, maybe? Or food? Something utterly mundane.
Master had known this would succeed. Had positioned himself accordingly. Had maintained perfect operational security throughout.
She coded a response: SUBJECT PROCEEDING ACADEMY DISTRICT. NO SUSPICIOUS CONTACTS. BEHAVIOR NOMINAL. CONTINUING SURVEILLANCE.
The reply came quickly: ACKNOWLEDGED. MAINTAIN DISTANCE. NO ENGAGEMENT.
Raven pocketed the device and resumed her watch.
Charlemagne eventually finished his tea, paid—again, with money he somehow had—and continued his journey toward the academy.
The streets were nearly empty now. The city watch had established checkpoints at major intersections, but they were waving through academy students with only cursory checks. Charlemagne passed through two such checkpoints with lazy waves and half-hearted explanations about "studying late at a friend's place."
The guards believed him immediately. Of course they did. Who would suspect the sleepy student with the book package?
It was, Raven had to admit, perfect cover.
They reached the academy grounds just after 21:00. The campus was locked down, but not strictly—the faculty had implemented precautionary measures but hadn't been fully briefed on the extent of the city-wide crisis.
Students were milling about in common areas, trading rumors and wild speculation.
Charlemagne went straight to his dormitory building, a modest four-story structure that housed second and third-year students.
Raven positioned herself in a small park across the street, behind a large oak tree, and watched as lights flickered on in what she assumed was his room—third floor, corner window.
She settled in for a long night of observation.
The explosions had stopped an hour ago. The sounds of combat had faded. Across the city, Ruby's forces were consolidating control.
By morning, the official announcements would begin: the Chancellor had been removed due to corruption and overreach; the King, in his wisdom, had sanctioned a reform government composed of progressive nobles and successful merchants; the kingdom would modernize and prosper under new leadership.
And Ruby, of course, would be nowhere in any official documents. She'd remain the shadow, the architect who existed in no records.
Just as Master had taught her.
Raven thought about her own story. About her father, Franklin Byron, who'd been one of the kingdom's most successful merchant bankers. He'd loaned money to dozens of noble houses, had held significant portions of their debts.
Had, in essence, owned pieces of their estates. The nobles had hated that. Hated being in debt to a jumped-up tradesman. Hated that their precious bloodlines meant nothing against compound interest and collateral requirements.
So they'd conspired. Manufactured evidence of corruption. Used their influence in the courts. Seized her father's assets "pending investigation." Killed him in a "tragic accident" before trial. Sold off the family—Raven, her mother, her two younger brothers—to recover "stolen funds."
Raven had been seventeen. Had watched her father's corpse displayed in the public square, declared a criminal posthumously. Had been stripped, chained, and paraded through slave markets while nobles bid on her like she was furniture.
Her mother had killed herself the second day. Poison, somehow smuggled in. Her brothers had been sold to different buyers; she didn't know where, didn't know if they still lived.
And then Ruby.
Ruby, who'd appeared like a demon in human skin, who'd moved through the slave traders with surgical violence, who'd looked at Raven—broken, brutalized, barely human—and said: "You have value."
Four years later, Raven was Deputy Director of Intelligence for an organization that had just overthrown a kingdom's government.
Four years later, she was watching the man who'd made it all possible sit by a window reading a book.
She wondered what he saw, looking at the world through whatever lens allowed him to teach a traumatized eleven-year-old girl how to reshape reality itself.
The hours passed slowly. Raven remained absolutely still, a skill she'd perfected during long stakeouts and surveillance operations. The academy gradually quieted as students went to bed, though lights remained on in many windows—people were too wired from the evening's events to sleep easily.
Charlemagne's light stayed on until nearly midnight. She could see his silhouette occasionally passing the window, moving in what looked like the simple rituals of preparing for bed. No encoded signals flashed. No mysterious visitors appeared. No indication of any operative activity whatsoever.
When his light finally went out, Raven allowed herself to relax slightly. She'd remain here through the night, maintaining watch, but the critical period seemed to have passed.
Her telegraph vibrated again. She checked it.
PHASE TWO COMPLETE. TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. KING WILHELM HAS FORMALLY APPROVED REFORM COUNCIL. ANNOUNCEMENT AT DAWN. YOUR STATUS?
Raven coded back: SUBJECT RETIRED FOR EVENING. NO CONTACTS. NO ANOMALIES. POSITION MAINTAINED.
GOOD. CONTINUE SURVEILLANCE. ANTICIPATE SUBJECT MAY MOVE TOMORROW. BE PREPARED TO FOLLOW.
Raven confirmed and pocketed the device.
She thought about Owl, currently sitting in her directorate chair, probably enjoying every minute of temporary authority. The woman was insufferable, but capable.
They'd competed for Ruby's approval since Owl had joined the organization two years ago.
Raven had seniority. She'd been with Ruby longer, had more field experience, had personally recruited and trained two-thirds of the intelligence network.
But Owl had that damned education. Colonial officer training, strategic studies, formal military doctrine. And she had... other assets. The kind that made men stupid and women jealous.
Not that Raven was jealous. She wasn't. Her chest was perfectly adequate, thank you very much. Practical for fieldwork. Low profile. Didn't get in the way during operations.
She definitely wasn't thinking about how Master had looked right past her in the ramen stall but might have noticed Owl's—
No. Focus. Professional. This was surveillance, not a personal beauty contest.
Although...
Raven found herself wondering what Master actually thought of Ruby's organization. Did he approve? Was he proud of what his student had built? Or was this all part of some larger plan where Ruby was just another piece on a board Raven couldn't see?
She thought about the way he'd looked at those clockwork toys. The genuine interest, the small smile when the vendor had demonstrated how one worked. The disappointment when he'd realized he couldn't afford it.
It had seemed so... human. So normal.
But that was probably the point. The perfect cover was the one that didn't seem like a cover at all. Master had taught Ruby about "hiding in plain sight," about how the most effective deception was being exactly what people expected you to be while actually being something else entirely.
A sleepy, lazy student who was actually a calculating mastermind.
A broke teenager who was actually the architect behind the architect.
A boy who looked at toys with childish wonder while kingdoms fell around him.
Raven settled deeper into her position, pulling her cloak tighter against the cooling night air.
She'd watch. She'd observe. She'd document.
And maybe, just maybe, she'd finally understand what Ruby saw in him.
Inside his dorm room, Charlemagne lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his new book—a collection of folk tales from the southern provinces, marked down because the binding was coming loose—sitting on his nightstand.
He was thinking about Maria's lunch. It had been really good. He should probably thank her properly. Maybe see if she wanted to study together sometime. She was nice, and smart, and her friends seemed decent enough even if they'd been weirdly giggly about everything.
He was also thinking about Ruby's warning. Chaos tonight. Hide for a week.
There'd definitely been chaos. The explosions had been hard to miss. Some kind of major incident, probably political given the targets.
The kingdom had been tense lately—everyone said so. The Chancellor was unpopular. The nobles were restless. The merchant class wanted more representation.
Someone had probably finally done something about it.
He hoped Ruby wasn't involved. The girl had a tendency to get herself into trouble, and her grand plans had a way of being more complicated than necessary.
She was brilliant, no question, but she also had the social awareness of a particularly enthusiastic brick and tended to overthink everything.
She was probably out protesting with her fellow university students about some social justice issue or another.
He remembered her from a month ago, cornering him to help create some protest signs and rallying slogans.
He'd only agreed after she promised to buy him lunch—then promptly procrastinated and half-assed the whole thing. So really, that had been his win.
This was probably just teenage rebellion mixed with university students who had too much time on their hands.
He could already picture her enthusiastically waving her protest sign in front of the palace guards or something...
As he started to laugh, an image from his past flashed through his mind, and his expression dulled.
Ahh... maybe I was too harsh on her. That wasn't fair.
She'd looked so genuinely happy with those signs he'd made for her.
Saturday. Let's take her out to some restaurant to pay her back. Can't keep mooching off her—that'll ruin our friendship eventually.
And she had warned him about... whatever this was. He should probably tell her she did well—whatever it was she was protesting—and not to push herself too hard.
Then give her an encouraging pat on the shoulder to cheer her up.
But then a thought struck him.
Ahh crap, I forgot—I'm broke. I spent my last coins on this childr— I mean, adult book. Very mature literature.
Which meant he'd have to be even more frugal and hungry than usual.
Doesn't that mean I have to go beg Ruby for food again?
Wait—it wasn't begging. That's right. It was just... reconnecting. They were family, after all.
Surely she could spare a few coins. They were best friends, and didn't she get that part-time job working for the government or something?
How much does a government bureaucrat make anyway?
There had to be an elegant way to ask for money. You couldn't appear too needy... Hmm.....
Tomorrow? Yes, tomorrow! He'd figure out how to survive on zero coins until his monthly stipend came through.
Tomorrow he'd actually try to wake up on time and maybe even pay attention in class.
Tomorrow.
For now, sleep.
Within minutes, he was unconscious, dreaming of nothing in particular.