(6) Heart’s Content’s Deredere Gardens are highly renowned. Over 1,000 types of flowers and over 100 types of butterflies inhabit these botanical gardens.
(7) Author’s Note: Typical harem moment alert!
(8) Alphamorphic skin is derived from alphamorphic armor. It’s a top secret material that can alter up to 50% of its original shape when electricity is conducted through it. It is developed at Soul’s Edge’s research labs and is valued for next generation variable geometry fighter craft. No clue how Rie got a hold of such a material.
(9) To make the dialogue seem authentic, these lines were pre-recorded by Eric.

< Previous Chapter Story Main Next Chapter >

Story 01: Miss Heart's Content

Chapter 2 - "Red Is Your Color"

Usually every afternoon, after her last class, Julie meanders. One day, she might head to Sanae’s Panera or another eatery in and around Belle Trieste, and, on others, she might go visit the botanical gardens (6) on campus. Or she might go visit her friends. Or she might go feed the squirrels. She meanders. Fia, on the other hand, is a creature of habit. Every afternoon, after her last class, she heads to the music conservatory of Heart’s Content to practice playing the violin.



Today, as she normally does after she is done with her daily practice, Fia takes the 100 corridor of the building towards the exit. Except today, she hears Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 1 being played with such grace and precision, it shocks her a bit. She doesn’t know of any other violin player on campus. Eric—err—Sarah, it seems, has left the door to her practice room slightly ajar. The music has certainly gotten Fia’s attention. Fia’s curiosity overtakes her and she peeks into the room, seeing a blonde girl with her hair tied into two ponytails with two cute red bows masterfully playing a Strauss-class violin. Fia is a bit surprised, but she continues listening for a while, waiting for a chance to introduce herself. That chance never comes as Julie shows up and asks Fia to accompany her for afternoon tea.

The role of Sarah, of course, is filled masterfully by the former XO pilot Eric. For the plan to work, Sarah has to be a viable Miss Heart’s Content contestant; therefore, the job of forming the visible part of Eric’s “Sarah” persona squarely fell onto Julie’s capable meido shoulders. Let’s flashback to last night.



“Red is your color, Sarah.”

“I saw something that will make you look very cute at Haruka’s Amazing Discount Clothes Emporium, Sarah.”

“It’s spring, so maybe a sunflower print dress will be more appropriate. Don’t you think so, Sarah?”

“Please stop calling me ‘Sarah’,” retorts Eric. He’s contemplating if it’s not too late to run away. Not just from Julie’s designs, not just from the plan, not just from Michiru, but from Heart’s Content like how he ran away from Soul’s Fire. “This is a trial. I will be stronger for this,” Eric repeats to himself. This is the path less traveled. He sighs and notices that Julie is still going on about shoes and dresses.

“I’m in hell.”



The day after Fia heard Sarah’s violin playing for the first time, in Fia’s music studies class, Eric—err-Sarah is introduced as the new violin student. “Nice to meet everyone,” greets Sarah, with her red bows looking as cute as ever.

Sarah is wearing Julie’s prescribed outfit, and Eric is praying to whomever will listen that Julie’s makeover ability is flawless. It takes icy cold nerves to be able to stand in front of friends and classmates wearing frilly clothes of the opposite gender, but, fortunately, Eric’s nerves are as icy as they come. And he’s going to need every degree of frost. Julie has Eric in a simple yellow dress with red accent edges. Eric is also wearing a slightly itchy wig that has its hair tied into two ponytails with all too adorable red bows. To make Sarah seem more convincing, Rie built a voice masker that raises Eric’s voice an octave or so.

The instructor, a naturally bunny-eared Miss Vieira-sensei, adds, “Sarah is a violin specialist. She told me that she was very excited to come to Heart’s Content because she has always dreamed of performing on stage for the Miss Heart’s Content competition.”

“Sarah, please take the open seat next to Fia. She’s the girl who has a violin case on her desk.” (7)



After class, Fia politely introduces herself to Sarah, and she compliments her on the Mozart piece she heard yesterday. “I overheard your playing yesterday. You performed that sonata very skillfully. Where did you learn how to play the violin?”

Sarah hems and haws trying to deflect the compliment before Julie haphazardly spills into the scene. Literally spills. As in she was running in the hall (a no-no), trips, and spills. She wanted to see if Fia would join her for afternoon tea at the Hibiscus Garden Café.

“That sounds lovely, Julie. Sarah, why don’t you join us? They have great flower teas over at that café.”

A wide smile from Fia, “We can talk shop.”



The Hibiscus Garden Café is located on campus next to the botanical gardens. It’s a very popular afternoon hangout amongst the aspiring haremettes of Heart’s Content, and since it is such a pleasant spring day, the outdoor seating area is brimming with bustling students. Eric and Shao are already there, with their tea almost finished.

Shao screams over the general noise of the café, “Hi Fia! Julie! We have a table here, come join us.” Sitting next to Shao is Eric, or, in reality, a stiff robotic shell that resembles Eric. Ever since the Carnozoid incident, Rie upgraded Welcome-san with alphamorphic skin (8). Rie is inside the café building controlling the robotic Eric shell. Fortunately, since Eric is a bit robotic himself, it’s not too much of a stretch. Also, Fia is too distracted by her new violin-playing classmate to wonder if this fake Eric was acting strangely or not.

Julie, Fia, and Sarah all get drinks and sit down next to Shao and Eric. Sarah is sitting next to Eric, which is quite a sight... enough so that Shao has to suppress a burst of laughter. Julie sticks with her beloved jasmine tea, Fia picks a plum tea, and Sarah opts for jasmine as well. As much as he wants coffee, black, Eric wants to be out of Sarah’s dress even more. But both of his immediate wants are trumped by his desire to not disappoint Michiru.

Everyone is making small talk and enjoying themselves when Sarah decides—well, not decide but rather follow Shao’s intricate script, “This is so much fun. I know what would make this perfect...”

Sarah takes out her violin and starts playing Mozart’s Violin Sonata No 1. Everyone at the table is a bit surprised, one genuinely, at how appropriate and wonderful Sarah’s rendition is. It doesn’t take long for other tables to notice, and, over time as Sarah plays, the background noise of the café decreases as her violin’s musical pico-scale devices take more of the café’s collective attention.

After Sarah is done, she gets loud applause from the café as well as a “That was awesome!” from Shao.

Fia also congratulates Sarah, as does Eric with a, “That’s the best violin piece I have ever heard.” (9)

Now, Eric has heard Fia play many times, and this comment doesn’t exactly sit well with Fia. It takes a second for the testiness to build, “Wait, what does that mean?!”

“Come on, Fia! You can’t lose to her! Play something!” eggs on Julie.

“Hun, wha... wait a second...”

“Yeah, Fia, let’s hear you play,” adds Shao. They’re very aware that because of Sarah’s playing, the crowd would be focused on Fia if she agreed.

“Hmmph, I don’t think Fia can top that performance,” comes out of Eric’s mouth, much to the real Eric’s dismay. The real Eric is thinking, “I hope this works, or else I’m going to be taking a quick trip to hell.”

Fia’s not exactly happy. “What do you know about music!? Eric Johnson, you can’t even play a guitar!”

Julie quickly follows the next line in her script, “Say Fia, isn’t the Miss Heart’s Content pageant coming up soon? Sarah’s entering, right? It’ll be a fair assessment of your violin skills at the very least.”

“Yeah, Eric’s a nobody when it comes to music. You two need to compete in front of real judges,” says Shao between sips of tea.

“I... I...” stutters a rattled Fia.

Julie helpfully pulls out an already filled out application for Miss Heart’s Content, with only a signature missing. “Here Fia, I have an extra entry form. You can do it! I’m going to cheer for you!”

Fia, not in her right mind, signs the application, not even bothering to question why it is already filled out. Just as important, she doesn’t question why her correct and up-to-date measurements are on the form.

“Oh, to make it more interesting, I have a form for you too, Eric,” winks Julie. She hands the fake Eric a form... and the fake Eric clumsily signs it.

“Wait a sec...” runs in his mind as the real Eric grasps the situation. It’s the same look on his face as when he was in an XO trainer when the stabilizer, backup stabilizer, and tertiary stabilizer all failed at once thus plunging the XO into a tailspin… only more horrifying.

“Hmmph, I’m going to practice.” Fia turns to face Sarah and says, “Get ready, I won’t lose easily!”

Fia then quickly finishes her drink and heads off. It’ll be at least a few more hours before she realizes that she will soon be standing on a stage with thousands of onlookers.

Once Fia is out of the scene, Julie coyly says to Sarah, “Sorry! Michiru’s orders!”

The real Eric wants to say something, but he can't think of anything to say. He can only picture Michiru’s scheming face as he falls deeper into a pit of despair. It doesn’t take long for him to grasp the severity of his dilemma: not only does he have to compete against Fia as Sarah, he needs to compete as Eric as well.

“I’m not going to hell. I’m already there.”

Continue