(Part 2)

It was yet another free day, and Kyrano found himself once more in the training grounds, sweat trickling down his back as his protesting muscles struggled under the workout that he was putting them through. His mistress was sitting silently by the wall of the training room, reading her book silently while he practiced.

It was something that Louise had suggested since the day she declared duel. Knowing that her butler might have needed a self-refresher course on sword-fighting, since the last time any butler fought with swords was in their respective training schools. There were little opportunities for butlers to spar against each other after graduation, but duels between nobility was one way it could happen.

Taking in a deep breath to calm his insides, Kyrano raised his sword once more, facing the straw dummy that he had moved to the centre of the training room. Then, as if a cue had been given to him, he lunged forward immediately in a series of successive quick strikes, each aiming at areas of the dummy that would hurt worst but not kill.

The strikes flew, and the only sound generated was the rocking of the dummy on its stand as its weight was thrown around, straw falling to the ground like fake blood. Yet, in the moments before his final blow, Kyrano's concentration was ruined at the electric jolt that ran through his arm.

He made no gasp, but the involuntary reflexes of his arm made him release his tight grip on his sword, the weapon falling heavily to the floor with a loud clatter. Biting his lip to deal with the sudden pain from his shoulder, Kyrano cursed silently at himself as he bent down to retrieve the sword, knowing that he had obviously disturbed his mistress.

"My apologies, Miss Louise," He excused while hanging his head in shame, "I lost grip of the sword."

Louise had drawn her head out of the book, and was now staring at the figure of her butler standing lone in the training room, holding the sword with his left hand -his non-dominant hand.

"The situation of your shoulder; how bad is it?" Miss Louise did not let anything escape her knowledge, and Kyrano knew better than to hide the fact from his mistress.

"Given luck, I will be able to spar on equal grounds as the others. However, the pain comes in intense jolts, which will make hard, ending strikes riskier."

"Was it a right choice to choose sword-fighting, Kyrano?"

"Any choice you made would have had the same outcome, Miss Louise. I would serve you and win victory in all activities that you could possibly come up with."

"I would have expected no less from you." His mistress looked back down to her book, whatever doubts that had been crossing her mind now forgotten. "Continue training, Kyrano, but take care for that shoulder."

"As you wish, Miss Louise." Kyrano answered humbly once more, and returned to his training.

____________________________________________________________________________________

"Sleep well, Miss Louise." Kyrano bade his mistress, watching as she nod at him, then closed her eyes. After watching his lady for almost seven years, Kyrano knew how quickly and peacefully his mistress fell asleep every night. It was their daily routine for Miss Louise to turn in at the turn of 10pm, and she would not stir nor dream until the next day.

His mistress's sleep meant that the butler was finally free to engage to the remaining tasks of the night that he had been unable to attend to. Collecting his mistress's gym outfit and uniform, Kyrano silently made his way to the laundry room to do the laundry for the night, so as to keep them ready for the following day. He next bustled with cleaning the study area in which his lady had occupied for most of the night, arranging her papers and books neatly in her usual organizational manner.

Finally, Kyrano was done with his chores for the night, and could attend to his own personal affairs. He had been planning on it since a few days ago, but had never found the motivation nor energy to do it. However, it was a day left to the duel, and Kyrano knew that he could not afford to drag it out any longer.

Making sure that he still appeared presentable as the Butler in Black, Kyrano carefully locked the doors to his mistress's room in the dormitory, and made his silent way back to the school compounds. In the wee hours of the morning, darkness surrounded Kyrano as eerie mists settled over the school fields. Still, Kyrano fearlessly walked towards the school compound with a goal singular in his mind.

He made a beeline for the infirmary, checked that no one was around, and turned on a few machines. Making sure that he was absolutely alone, Kyrano stripped off his coat and shirt, and pressed his upper body on the cold metal of a standing machine. There was a single flash, and the scan was done.

As efficient as he had removed them, Kyrano was done righting his clothes in less than a minute, buttoning his cuffs carefully as he walked around to the computer screen.

What he saw was not what he had hoped.

The skeletal image captured of his shoulder showed everything -how the 'hairline crack' that Kyrano initially received from the fall three weeks ago had now formed into a growing fracture. Drawing knowledge from his biology classes while in the Imperial Butler Academy, Kyrano quickly drew out the memory of studying about a nerve running close to the shoulder that connected to the arms and fingers. Every movement that Kyrano made on the fracture on his shoulder would hit the nerve, which was the cause of his 'electric jolts'.

It was in no shape for a duel. Kyrano's fear was now realized and solidified as he stared at the x-ray diagram longer. It was not fear that he might exacerbate the problem, but rather problem that he might actually lose grip of his sword during the day of the duel, ending him in a difficult situation where he might actually lose.

"Someone is keeping a secret from his mistress." The intruding voice shocked Kyrano as he spun around, doing his best to hide the results of his scan with his body despite the obvious that the intruder had already seen it.

"Miss Rowena." Kyrano greeted, hoping that he did not sound guilty or accusing. "It is not often to find a lady awake at this hour of the night."

"But this hour of the night is the only time where I am free of Scott and able to roam free around the school to catch straying butlers like yourself, Kyrano." The reply was in a matter-of-fact tone, as if the woman did not view anything strange in her behaviour.

"Still, Miss Rowena, it is unsafe for you to be alone in the darkness. You must exercise caution." Kyrano wondered if Scott, Rowena's butler, knew anything about this. How could the butler forget such an important rule that had been drilled into them during study in the Imperial Academy?

No butler would wake later or sleep earlier than his masters and mistresses.

"I have been running around for months and I haven't met another soul save today, Kyrano. I wouldn't exactly consider caution if it does not bother me." The naïve words of the lady rang clear and determined. "But regardless, we should not be addressing my presence here. What about you, Kyrano? How do you plan to tell your mistress that you will fail tomorrow's duel and shame the name of Crawford?"

"I have no such plans for that, Miss Rowena." Kyrano shuffled his shock away quickly, flipping the internal switch of his composure back on. After all, one important factor that separates Kyrano Reyes from the other butlers was his ability to switch his emotions and feelings. It meant that the butler was able to suppress even the craziest feelings, to hide his intentions and personal emotions to be a representative of the unforgiving nature of the Crawford family.

"Face up to reality, Kyrano. Your mistress will throw you away once you humiliate her name. You will never be seen here in St. Clair ever again, never to be admired by anyone." Rowena smirked, but Kyrano offered no facial reaction.

"You misunderstand, Miss Rowena. I am not here to be admired, I am here to serve Miss. Louise. Even if she throws me away, it is only understandable. It would be utterly disgraceful for me to stay even after my failure."

"Then you will still fight? Knowing very well that you will lose and be cast aside?"

"If I am yet dead after the duel, then I shall pray to be after the duel. No man of the Reyes family should exist without the title as butler to the Crawford family." Kyrano informed more than declared, his lack of expression secretly scaring the lady. Rowena had known of Kyrano's loyalty to the Crawford family, and had been warned by Scott that Kyrano would easily die for his mistress, she had always believed that every man had a limit to loyalty.

Looking at the empty eyes that looked back at her; there was not even a single flash of conviction or determination, simply the plain understanding that the man will not exist without his title. It was scary -to Rowena, at least -how someone could link the idea of his own death after failure so logically almost like the logical idea of eating when one was hungry. There was simply no thought process in Kyrano's head -the instant connection of failure and humiliating the Crawford name to his death and removal of name from the Reyes family.

Scary as it seemed, however, that was what Rowena wanted. Rowena wanted a butler exactly like that, and Kyrano was her perfect match.

"I offer you one way out of this, because I value you, Kyrano." Rowena pretended that none of the butler's words had created any doubt in her heart. She was supposed to be confident of her and her friends' butlers winning the duel against just one Kyrano. Given the evidence of the crack she had seen in the x-ray of his shoulder, Rowena should be feeling very confident... but she didn't. A part of her still believed stupidly that Kyrano was going to win.

"If you promise me that you will come serve me after your mistress graduates from this school, then I will let her off. I will back out of the duel. This way, you can save yourself from humiliating the Crawford name, and I can gain myself a good butler after graduation. I will even throw in the promise that I, and my friends, will not disturb your current mistress anymore." Rowena spelled out, feeling generous already. While the Julian family was not as powerful as the Crawfords, Rowena's family was still powerful enough to have many butlers begging to be accepted into the household. The selection process of butlers in the household was extremely strict, and here the young mistress of the family was; lowering herself and requesting for a young man to be her butler.

"My apologies, Miss Rowena." The answer came so quickly that Rowena was not even sure that she had heard the words at all. "But I will have to decline your generous offer."

"How can you be so daft?!" Rowena's anger boiled as she fisted her hands, disbelieving that her lowering down to his level had not even worked at all. What in the world did Kyrano Reyes think he was? A lady of a much higher standing had bowed her head to him, and still he rejects something so much obviously better? "Don't you know that you're dooming yourself on a one-way track to death if you proceed to take the duel tomorrow?"

"I thank you for your care about my well-being and future, Miss Rowena. But I will be fine enough for tomorrow's duel." Kyrano's polite voice didn't lose any edge at all. It suddenly occurred to Rowena that she had never heard the man's voice in anything other than polite obedience or polite deference. As if the man's walls was always up, always protecting himself and, more importantly, his mistress.

"Will you never consider coming to serve my family? I will treat you better than whatever Louise is doing to you!"

"Miss Rowena, Miss Louise is treating me very kindly. She has accepted my many flaws and yet still allowed me as her butler. She has tolerated my childishness in my growing up years, and yet she still hasn't thrown me away. I cannot possibly ask for another mistress given the perfect one I am serving at the moment." Kyrano's vindication didn't even sound explosive -the simply matter-of-fact polite tone that the butler had not been equipped without since the first day he and his mistress appeared in St. Clair.

It was supposed to turn off Rowena. She was supposed to be disgusted at how a man's existence could completely be reliant on the whims of a woman who did not recognise his abilities.

But she didn't. Instead, for some reason, the desire to possess someone so crazy and twisted on the inside like that grew, and Rowena's heart turned black in the quick moment. Her mind clicked quickly, as she stood there watching the complete subservience of a man to his mistress. A mistress that wasn't her.

"I want you more than ever now, Kyrano." Rowena, for the first time, allowed her guise as a lady fall as she revealed the scary possessive demon that she had been taught to hide while in public. She could not be blamed. The young mistress in the Julian family was used to getting anything that she wanted. To meet Kyrano, the first thing that she could not obtain no matter how hard she tried -it drove her crazy with greed. "I promise you that I will have you serving me. You can tell me about how you will serve Louise, but I will make you mine."

There was no reaction from the butler as well. No reaction whatsoever to the woman's sudden change in composure. Kyrano simply watched the ugly descent of a dignified lady to a petty woman with dirty morals. He didn't doubt -even for a single moment -that the young lady before him would make use of his injury to make him submit to her. He could possibly try to resist her, but if he truly did lose the duel, then he would no longer be Louise's butler, but Rowena's.

It would never happen. No Reyes man would serve another woman as his mistress.

Kyrano wiped any traces of the x-ray scan clean from the school's computer, making sure that there was absolutely no trace of his weakness, then straightened, not surprised to find the lady still standing there, wondering which screw was wrong in his head. The woman had shown him her ugly side, had declared like a possessive maniac that he would be hers, and the man had no reaction to it whatsoever.

"Miss Rowena," Kyrano's deferential tone of voice didn't waver as he bowed slightly, gesturing to the door, "do allow me to escort you back to your room. It is unsafe to walk along these corridors alone."

The normalcy that returned came back so abruptly that for a moment, Rowena didn't understand. It took a moment to process, and the lady, knowing that she had done something she shouldn't have, wiped the ugly side of her from her face. Regaining the composure of an elegant lady, she nodded to the suggestion made by the polite butler, held her head up high, and swept out of the room as quietly as she came, knowing that the butler that she desired so much was about to accompany her walk back to the Dormitories.

Back she was; the Rowena Julian that faced the academy. After tomorrow; Rowena promised herself.

After tomorrow, then she would make Kyrano hers.