Aria Vol. 11

At the start of spring, after watching Alice row and Akari make friends easily, Aika wonders how Akira had felt about being grouped with such natural talents as Athena and Alicia. Akira says that it was hard, then tells a story of meeting Aika as a little girl, who made her a four-leaf clover by adding a rose petal, leading Akira to start making up for lack of talent in other ways. Akatsuki invites Alicia to help chose a ring for the quadrennial "Marriage of the Sea" ceremony, but as Alicia already has a ring she misunderstands it as being for Akari. With Akari's help, he buys and gives Akari a rose ring, which she uses in the ceremony. After Alice notes that Akari's five meetings with Cait Sith each took place at one of the Seven Wonders of Neo-Venecia, Akari visits a sixth wonder, a paving said to bring misfortune. As she steps on it, at Orange Planet Athena tells Alice that meeting Cait Sith is itself the seventh wonder. Akari disappears and finds herself falling through the air high above Neo-Venezia with Cait Sith. He tells her without words that because she is becoming an adult this is the last time they can meet, then gives her an aquamarine necklace, after which Akari wakes up in her gondola. On her first day off after a busy spring tourist season, Akari sleeps in, then spends the day drifting in her gondola. The day after Alice graduates from middle school, Athena gives her the Single's test. While negotiating the last canal lock, Alice admits that singing is her weakness as an undine, to which Athena tells her that if she does not enjoy the song, then no one else will. At the Hill of Hope, Athena has Alice sing a canzone, after which she promotes Alice directly to Prima, the first undine to ever do so, and gives her the title Orange Princess.