SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 669: Two Announcements

Trafalgar glanced at Cynthia after Zafira's words.Cynthia glanced back at him.

Neither of them said anything for a breath, though the cafeteria had suddenly become a much less forgiving place to be standing. Zafira's comment had fallen across the table with the terrible innocence of someone who had noticed something obvious and decided to give it a name in public.

Trafalgar did not get nervous.

That, in Cynthia's opinion, was almost more irritating than if he had.

Barth, on the other hand, looked as if someone had lit a festival lantern behind his face. His eyes brightened, his ears reddened, and his attention bounced between Trafalgar and Cynthia with a dawning excitement that made it painfully clear he understood exactly what Zafira's sentence implied.

Trafalgar exhaled once.

"We are dating," he said.

Cynthia stiffened beside him.

She had expected many things from Trafalgar. Some sarcasm. Some dry deflection. Perhaps a comment aimed at making Zafira regret speaking before breakfast. She had not expected him to state it in front of both of them with that much ease, as if there had never been anything complicated about it.

But that was Trafalgar.

He had told her there was nothing to worry about, and apparently that meant he would simply say the truth in the middle of the academy cafeteria and let everyone else survive it.

Barth's mouth opened. "Y-you are? Really? Since when? When did it happen?"

His excitement came out so nakedly that Cynthia's embarrassment softened despite herself. Barth looked less like a brother processing something troublesome and more like someone whose favorite ridiculous possibility had finally been confirmed by official decree.

"In Aurevane," Trafalgar said, taking a seat with the same calm he would have used for discussing weather. "Several things happened. On the way back, I told her I liked her."

Cynthia sat down beside him, face warm, though she kept her posture steady through sheer stubbornness.

Barth leaned forward at once. "You told her? Just like that?"

"More or less."

Barth looked at Cynthia next, almost vibrating in his chair. "And you said yes?"

Cynthia gave her brother a flat stare, though the blush on her face ruined most of the effect. "Do you think I followed him to breakfast holding his hand because I got lost?"

Barth's grin widened. "I knew it. I mean, I did not know it, but I hoped it. This is good. This is really good."

While Cynthia and Barth continued speaking, Trafalgar's attention drifted to Zafira.

The demon girl sat across from them with her usual strange stillness, gray eyes half-lowered, purple hair falling around the curve of the two horns rising from her head. She had not made a scene. She had not said anything dramatic. That almost made it worse.

There was a small wound in her expression.

Trafalgar knew why.

Zafira liked him. She had never been as discreet as she probably believed, at least not when they were alone. Trafalgar appreciated her too. He had known her for a long time, longer than most people in this academy who thought a few shared classes counted as closeness. But appreciation did not change the world.

For anything to happen there, too many things would have to change first.

Laws. Bloodlines. Families. Perhaps even Zafira herself, because wanting something and surviving what came with it were different things.

Trafalgar did not mention any of it.

He would only hurt her further by naming something they both already understood.

Barth, unfortunately, had never possessed the timing required to avoid emotional landmines.

"Isn't this good, Zafira?" he asked, still bright with simple happiness. "Two of the most important people to me are together now."

Zafira's attention lifted toward him.

For the first time since her comment, surprise broke through the duller expression she had been trying to hide. Barth had asked it with such open sincerity that there was no room to be angry with him. He was happy. Genuinely happy. That made answering harder.

"Yes," Zafira said, her voice quieter than usual. "It is good when someone important to us is happy."

Barth's smile faltered a little.

He did not understand why she sounded that way. Cynthia did.

Her fingers tightened briefly around her cup, and for a moment she did not interrupt. Perhaps she had guessed more than Trafalgar expected. Cynthia's tongue was sharp, but she was not blind to people when they were standing right in front of her.

Zafira changed the subject before the table could sink any deeper.

"I heard there was an attack on the train to Aurevane," she said. "Are you all right? What happened?"

Trafalgar accepted the turn without complaint. "A terrorist attack. They wanted the cargo. The value was high enough to make fools feel ambitious." He picked up his cup, though he did not drink yet. "The First Concord appeared too. That was the first time I saw them in action."

Zafira hummed, some of her steadiness returning now that politics had replaced feelings. "That makes sense. The group was created recently, but they have been gathering attention, especially among people outside the great families. I remember the council session when the vote passed in favor of forming that force."

Cynthia's expression shifted. This was a subject she could enter without blushing. "It is a good force for people like me. Commoners. People without a great house protecting them."

"From your position, yes," Zafira said. There was no cruelty in the answer, only the dry edge of someone raised close enough to power to know how it guarded itself. "But for the Eight Great Families, the First Concord can become a nuisance if they grow too strong. Everyone praises the idea now because it sounds noble and useful. That does not mean they will be allowed to gather real power."

Barth frowned. "Is that true?"

"Yes," Trafalgar said. "No one will be placed above the Eight Great Families. Not under the current balance, at least."

Barth's excitement faded into troubled thought, and Cynthia's mouth pressed into a thinner line. The academy cafeteria continued around them, loud, bright, and ordinary in the deeply annoying way public places always were when people discussed things that could one day decide who lived and who became a convenient footnote.

Before the conversation could continue, Trafalgar's attention shifted.

Two figures were walking toward their table.

Xavier and Vivienne.

That alone would not have been strange. Xavier had been circling Vivienne with the awkward devotion of a man trying to pretend he was not doing exactly that, and Vivienne had never been unaware of it. Trafalgar had expected something eventually.

He had not expected this.

Xavier was holding Vivienne's hand.

Both of them were.

Barth stopped mid-thought. Cynthia blinked. Zafira's head tilted slightly, all previous sorrow buried beneath sudden curiosity.

Trafalgar stared at their joined hands for a beat longer than necessary.

"Now that," he said, "is something I did not expect."