Ruthenia Empire. November 17, 1927. 1400 HRS.
Pleasant rays of sunlight stream into Alexander's office who are scribbling mathematical equations on the board. Tiffania is writing on her notes while at the same time listening attentively to Alexander's words.
"Well first and foremost, you must grasp one of the basics and at the same time important to understand for future engineering topics. Differentiation and integration. So what's the difference between the two? Well for starters, integration is used to find an area underneath a curve while differentiation is used to find the gradient of the curve," Alexander fluidly explained as Tiffania nodded her head in understanding.
Alexander continued. "So imagine this, a rectangle is drawn by a line in a cartesian plane. You are tasked to find the area, what would you do?" he asked.
Tiffania took a closer look at the cartesian plane and the shape drawn on it. She then began formulating ways to solve it and seconds later, an idea popped inside her head.
"We can find the area of the rectangle by using the formula to find the area of the rectangle," Tiffania answered. "According to the cartesian plane, the height is five units and the width is seven units. Multiply the two and you'll get 35 units."
"Good," Alexander praised her for getting the correct answer. He then proceeded with a new question. "Now, how about we take another example? Find the area underneath this line," he drew the line but instead of having a definite shape, it was curved.
Tiffania immediately panicked inwardly as she couldn't use the first method to calculate the area under the line. If she uses a rectangle here, then there will be gaps, if triangle, there will be gaps also. Square? There is also a gap.
"Quite hard right?" Alexander noticed that Tiffania's mind was in turmoil and decided to make her feel better with something else. "As I said to you before, don't panic when you are faced with a complex question. Analyze it."
"I'm sorry, dearest brother, I have no clue what you are saying now," she apologized with a pout, making Alexander chuckle.
He turned back towards the board again and resumed explaining what they had done previously. "Well we can use rectangles again but this time let's make a series of them. Now, are you noticing something?"
Tiffania's eyes widened. "Yes...I think I know now. How about we make the rectangles a little bit more smaller?"
"That's the idea of integration. You see we start by approximating the area with rectangles. The clue here is that, as you reduce the width of these rectangles to be smaller and smaller, this approximation gets more and more precise, and becomes perfect when the width of the rectangle gets infinitely small. The sums of those small rectangles will be the area under the curve."
Tiffania let out an enlightened gasp. "So that's the logic behind integration, dearest brother?"
"Yeah, that's it...and anyways, why are you calling me 'dearest brother';? It's kind of new to me."
"Why? You don't like it...dearest...brother?" she said seductively
Alexander gave her an amused smirk and shook his head, "It sounds weird coming from your mouth...I prefer you call me 'brother'. But I kind of like the sound of that so you can keep doing that."
Tiffania giggled as she successfully teased her brother.
"Well, let's move to differentiation which is the opposite of integration..." As Alexander returned to face the chalkboard, a knock on the door interrupted him.
Alexander and Tiffania looked at the door curiously.
"Who is it?" Alexander asked the person behind the door.
"It's me, Your Majesty. I have something important to report, may I come in?"
Alexander recognized the voice, it was Sevastian's. Alexander sighed. "Come in."
The sound of the doorknob turning came echoing in the room and Sevastian entered. Sevastian had an odd expression on his face, which made Alexander frown slightly.
"What's the matter, Sevastian? The look on your face is positively grim," Alexander observed.
Sevastian shot a cursory glance at Tiffania before shifting back to Alexander's. "Your Majesty, it is a matter of big concern. Can I talk about this with you in private?"
Alexander glanced at Tiffania who also looks concerned, though her expression is different. Tiffania's gaze flickered to her brother.
"Tiffania, this is it for today, we'll continue this again later."
"It's okay, dearest brother," Tiffania rose from her feet as she sighed melancholy. Then she quickly made her way out and left their study without a single glance back.
Alexander was saddened by her sudden departure. Why does it hurt him to see Tiffania looking that gloomy?
"Sevastian, this better be worth it. What is it that you want to discuss?" Alexander began as he strides across the room and sat in his chair.
"Your Majesty, I have news," Sevastian started as he approached him. "First of all, the Yamato Empire is suing for peace, effectively surrendering to us."
"I didn't expect it to be early. Are there others?" Alexander prompted him to continue.
"Yes, Your Majesty. You remember Zero, right? One of the Foreign Intelligence Service's agents tasked to gather intelligence in the Yamato Empire."
"Yes, I do know him, I believe he is the one who warned us about the impending assassination attempt by the Yamato militia."
"That's him, Your Majesty. Well, the Foreign Intelligence Services has been investigating and studying the intel he gathered from the Yamato Empire. The business tycoon, Shinzo Sakawa, is actually linked to Haru Takashi, the Prime Minister of the Yamato Empire."
Alexander's attention suddenly rose up after hearing the mention of those names. "What are you implying?"
"Your Majesty, Haru Takashi, and Shinzo Sakawa actually planned the assassination attempt of the Grand Duchesses of Ruthenia Empire."
Hearing that, Alexander's vision began to blur as the anger within him began to rise. His fists clenched tightly as he felt the overwhelming desire to punch someone in the face or to throw him into the nearest wall.
Sevastian noticed the change in the air around Alexander and instinctively took a step backward. He had never seen the emperor emit such intense rage, it was as if he was ready to kill whoever dared to hurt his precious family.
He continued apprehensively. "Your Majesty, we have proof to support this fact. Documents, recordings, and dialogues. The Foreign Intelligence Services deduced that the Yamato Empire's government intended to provoke us into going into war in hopes of reclaiming the territory they deemed theirs."
"Haru Takashi?" Alexander repeated the name of the man who tried to kill his little sisters. He growled under his breath. "Where and when is the negotiation going to take place?"
"That would be in Vladivostok, Your Majesty. In the Golden Horn restaurant. 1200 HRS in Vladivostok Standard Time."
"Tomorrow huh? I shall give him a visit."
