ReLive: The Unreasonable Routes To Redeeming The Villainess (ch4)

EARLY RELEASE FOR ALL MY PATRONS!!

This chapter will explain how the play is supposed to play out, based on the girls' previous read-through of it in class.

Disclaimer: I do not own Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.

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                                                  Chapter 4. Ashes of the Phoenix


'Ashes of the Phoenix' is similar to an otome game, as Karen had once put it. Claudine still remembers how she'd made that comment, and everyone else had laughed before ultimately agreeing.

Claudine replays those memories tonight as she lies down in her bed in this other world - the world where she is the Villainess.

But rather than let her thoughts wander back to her own world and her friends, she concentrates on this world. She must refresh herself on the events of this play so that, starting tomorrow, she may begin to act it all out and do her part...

. . .

The play follows the main character - the Village Girl - who is a commoner somehow born with great magic in her possession. This is a fluke that is totally unheard of in that world, but her skill is great enough that she is granted a scholarship to attend the prestigious Magic Academy. And being that the Academy has some all-inclusive motto about inviting anyone with magical power, they accept her enrollment.

This is much to the chagrin of many noble families, including the Viscountess', but the Village Girl enters the gates with pride. She is a bright and cheerful girl who always sees the good in others, though her grades and performances in academics aren't exactly the best.

This may or may not be part of the reason as to why Karen had been chosen to read this role at the time, but that is beside the point.

The Village Girl quickly befriends a shy and timid Dame, whose personality is contrasted by the hyper commoner's. But that contrast also brings light to the Dame's character and to her own desires, and she very quickly takes a liking to her.

The Village Girl also quickly befriends the noble girl with the title of Lady. The Lady wields very strong magic, which she traveled across the land to learn, and though she is reclusive and aloof, she takes a liking to the Village Girl's outgoing and kind tendencies.

The three of them make a request of the school before long to become roommates, and are granted a suite where they spend much of their after school time together studying spells and herbs.

The Village Girl isn't very good with academics, but if there's anything second to her magical skill, it's her ability to make friends.

She next befriends the Marchioness and the Baroness, both of whom are also roommates who had grown very close very quickly. They are a well-known pair who specialize in time-manipulation magic as well as healing magic.

And though many other unnamed minor character students admire them to the point of developing crushes, it is known by the reader and the Village Girl's friends that the Marchioness and the Baroness are kindling their own secret romance.

A romance that is known by all, however, is that of the Knight and the Heiress. Rather, theirs is a romance everyone perceives and hopes for, but the childish Heiress is more focused on keeping her fellow purebred nobles in line than anything else.

She doesn't mind the Marchioness and the Baroness dating, as they are both pure enough of blood. But what she cannot stand is how the purebred Duchess gradually begins to fall for the Village Girl, a mere commoner of humble birth.

This happens mainly after a dragon escapes from the barracks at the Academy and attacks the school. The Village Girl disregards the teachers' orders for students to stay back, and instead throws herself in harm's way, risking her own life in order to protect her friends. The dragon is eventually pacified and returned to its barracks, and the Village Girl is both praised and ridiculed for her actions.

That is when the Duchess first begins to fall for her due to her selfless nature.

But of course, the Heiress doesn't like one of her own fellow thoroughbreds taking an interest in a commoner. In order to get back at the Duchess, the Heiress begins pursuing the Village Girl, too, though only as a ploy and to challenge the Duchess for shirking her responsibilities and flouncing around wasting time with a commoner.

The Marchioness is the peacekeeper between them, and is constantly trying to smooth things over so the Heiress and Duchess won't start casting spells on each other in the middle of the campus.

Eventually, the Heiress does come to recognize the feelings her childhood friend the Knight harbors for her and, once she is aware of how she feels, she doesn't spare a second glance at the Duchess or the Village Girl.

However, the spats between the Heiress and the Duchess are child's play and mere arguments amongst friends more than anything else.

It is the Viscountess who poses the true threat.

Of course she wasn't born evil, but as a normal - if not headstrong - girl, just like the rest of them.

The Viscountess was driven from a young age, inspired by none other than the Duchess herself. Truth be told, the Viscountess had never been the best at magic, but she had trained and worked herself very hard over the years in order to acquire a skill level that would eventually be only second-best to the level of the very Duchess she so admired.

The Duchess is the main reason the Viscountess takes any interest in perfecting her magic in the first place - if not for her, the Viscountess would have gladly lived a normal life and gone to a normal school without having any particular hopes or aspirations. But thanks to the Duchess, the Viscountess had striven to enter the Magic Academy, and at the time of the play, finally achieved that dream.

But her main goal, as she quickly comes to discover, is to win the Duchess' heart.

After admiring her all her life, meeting her and getting to know her kindness in person naturally has the Viscountess falling for the Duchess in due time. But to her disappointment, dismay, and eventual anger, the Duchess only sees her as a friend and would rather direct her affections toward the Village Girl.

The Viscountess' affections are rejected, and her chances of being with the Duchess are effectively ruined by the Village Girl. Heartbroken by rage and jealousy, the Viscountess becomes the villainess of the play and begins to bully the Village Girl in every way possible.

She abuses her verbally and spreads horrible rumors about her, and eventually goes beyond that to take physical action against her. She casts spells on her to cause her to unintentionally make disruptions in class, thus shattering the teachers' image of the well-mannered and happy Village Girl.

And as the Viscountess' ill deeds bear more and more fruit in making the Village Girl look bad, she eventually resorts to even using taboo curses and dark magic on her. She alters the girl's grades and causes her to fail all of her classes, slowly working her toward expulsion from the Academy.

One of the major pivotal events of the play is when the Village Girl eventually does get expelled and is forced to leave the school, her friends, and the Duchess behind.

At that point, the Viscountess uses dark magic to sneak into a locked section of the school's private library, intent to steal a sacred artifact - a rainbow stone that balances and controls the majority of magical energy across not only the campus, but the entire country as well. It is perhaps the most important object in the world of the play, and it is kept away and guarded heavily.

But the Viscountess' hatred of the Village Girl, and the amount of fury and evil that she allows to consume her heart, are greater than even the best security of the country, and she successfully manages to steal the gem. She teleports herself into a deep forest to hide it away, concealing its presence with a spell so no one else will be able to track it down.

The Viscountess then proceeds to notify school authorities the next day to the absence of the gem - something she seemingly just discovered on her dutiful rounds of patrol. And she is sure to note the coincidence of how it seemed to have vanished right as the Village Girl had been made to leave the Academy.

This causes the school officials and authorities to hunt down the Village Girl whom they'd expelled, who had returned to her humble farmland with her family only a day earlier. She is angrily questioned and interrogated about the stone's whereabouts, but of course knows nothing about it. Her denial seems like a cover-up to the panicked authorities who need a scapegoat to blame for the crime, as an entire country's worth of sorcerers are furiously waiting for an explanation and a culprit.

Eventually, the innocent Village Girl is arrested and charged with the crime of treason against the country. She is brought back to the Magic Academy and chained away in the dungeons to await her trial and punishment.

On the day of the girl's sentencing, the Viscountess testifies that she had discovered the stone missing the day after the Village Girl had left.

Subsequently, the teachers and minor characters also testify that, while the Village Girl had started out sweet and cheerful, she had become careless and flippant as time went on, and her grades had suffered as if she no longer cared about magic.

Everyone but the other titled characters are pit against the Village Girl by the Viscountess' hand.

With all of this evidence against her, the Village Girl is ruled guilty of treason and of stealing the gem, and is thusly punished with banishment from the land, never to set foot on it again.

This is a major turning point of the play, as the Duchess and all the Village Girl's remaining friends refuse to believe that she is guilty of such a heinous crime. Being they all knew her personally, they knew the Village Girl had a good and pure heart.

So the Duchess devises a plan and leads the other titled characters - excluding the Viscountess and the Village Girl herself - to the school's library. Together, through their combined efforts, they are able to cast a very difficult and high-level spell to reconstruct the events of the night of the robbery. Especially without the stone, their magic is very weak and limited. But through their desire to find the truth, and their mutual admiration for the Village Girl, they manage to successfully cast the spell.

The images play out in front of their eyes for them all to see, and they watch the memories of that night that had been witnessed by the books and shelves alone.

They witness the Viscountess stealing the gem, and at this point each of them recalls the Viscountess being present every single time the Village Girl had allegedly caused a disruption or done something wrong - not to mention her blatant bullying of her before that.

Infuriated by her tricks, the Duchess confronts the Viscountess in front of the school officials and calls her out publicly for all her wrongdoings.

And in her shock of not only being exposed for her crimes, but by the Duchess - the person she loved and admired the most, and the person she did all of this for - the Viscountess has no words or means to deny the accusations or defend herself.

She breaks down in a fit of maniacal laughter and confirms the Duchess' words, thus confessing to her crimes; for, at this point, she has lost everything - most importantly the Duchess - so the Viscountess no longer cares for herself.

And so, she is rightfully charged for her crimes.

But she is not simply banished from the land. On top of her treasonous acts and her bullying to frame the Village Girl, she is also charged with the mastermind plan of deceiving the authorities and betraying the entire country, and every single sorcerer within it.

As such, the Viscountess is sentenced to death by public execution, where all the country may watch.

Due to the exceedingly high nature of her crimes, she is first stripped of all her magics, which involves various sorcerers more or less ripping the magic right from her body.

Once she is merely human, she is handed the fate that befell accused witches in the real world; she is burned at the stake, and her ashes are scattered across the ocean to drown whatever may be left of her.

In the end, the Duchess and her friends locate the lost artifact where the Viscountess had hidden it, thanks to their reconstructive spell, and they return it to its rightful place in the library.

The Village Girl is welcomed back to the Magic Academy with open arms and offered apologies on behalf of the entire country. Her family is granted a handsome sum of money so they may leave behind their struggling farm and live a life of luxury.

The Village Girl returns to the Academy, and everyone rejoices. The Duchess proposes to her immediately, and the two of them are wed before long.

The play ends with a satisfying happily ever after, with justice being rightfully served to the villainess who had been so consumed by jealousy, greed, and darkness…

. . .

Claudine remembers the entire play now as she lies in her bed. She exhales slowly, understanding all that is required of her in order to fulfill this role.

In this world, everything is certainly real as can be to her, so she just has to pray the pain of the flames won't actually kill her when the time comes. It shouldn't, because even if this is the world of 'Ashes of the Phoenix,' it is still just a play in reality. And even though Claudine will become her role as the Viscountess in order to satisfy the stage, she is still an actress, and won't truly perish.

But even so, she isn't looking forward to the ending.

/But I have to do it. Or else everyone will be stuck here forever…/

She mulls it all over that night as she stares up at the ceiling in the darkness.

She is the villain. The nastiest and most horrible character she's ever played. She is going to have to do horrible, terrible things to her friends - particularly to Karen.

Not only will she have to call her names and try to physically hurt her with pranks and spells, but she'll eventually have to frame her for treason and get her banished from the land.

On top of that, there are also various things the Viscountess does to hurt the other characters as well sprinkled throughout the play.

Her heart aches painfully just thinking about it. Even though they are just in a play, the others don't know that this time around.

They don't know they are merely actresses on a stage, but rather they believe they are truly the characters they are playing.

They don't know Claudine is actually their friend, nor do they know that the last thing she ever wants to do is hurt any of them.

All they'll believe is that she's a petty, terrible girl with a wicked agenda and a twisted soul.

/But if that's what I have to be to them… in order to save them… I'll do it…/

Claudine steels herself and hardens her heart. Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she closes her eyes at long last.

For the sake of satisfying the stage.

For the sake of fulfilling her role.

For the sake of saving her friends.

She'll do whatever it takes.

And so she will become the black-hearted Viscountess - the villainess.

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A/N: That is the expected plot of the play Claudine will be living from this point forward. Next chapter will begin the real 'story' and play!