Silence stretched between them.
The wind rolled gently over the hills, bending the grass in slow waves, but neither of them moved. Tanaka stood at the foot of the slope, hands tucked into his sleeves. Cepheus remained beneath the parasol, his icy gaze unwavering.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Cepheus exhaled softly, a sound closer to disappointment than irritation, and rose to his feet.
The movement was fluid, deliberate.
"Odglass," he said coolly, "show yourself. And clean up your mess."
The air to his right distorted.
Threads of pale mana gathered like strands of silk drawn together by invisible fingers. They twisted, condensed, and formed a small floating shape.
A head-sized polar bear.
Round ears. Button nose. Tiny paws that paddled uselessly in the air as it hovered.
"This again?" the spirit grumbled, its small voice disproportionately pouty. "You only ever call me to scold me. Why are you blaming me for this?"
Cepheus did not look at it.
"He is spiraling because of the reality you showed him," Cepheus replied flatly. "Despite the fact that I explicitly forbade you from interfering."
Odglass crossed its tiny arms midair.
"I was already punished! You sealed my physical body, remember? I'm stuck like this!" It gestured at itself indignantly. "Isn't that enough? Aren't you taking this too far?"
The parasol cast a long shadow over Cepheus's expression.
Before he could respond...
"Why is that?"
The question cut cleanly through their argument.
Both Cepheus and Odglass turned their gaze toward Tanaka.
He hadn't moved.
But his eyes were sharper now.
Tanaka understood exactly what Cepheus meant.
And why.
"Isn't it just another possibility?" Tanaka continued calmly. "If something can be foreseen, then there should be a chance it won't happen."
The wind stilled for a fraction of a second.
Cepheus regarded him carefully.
They were on the same page.
Tanaka knew that.
He knew why Cepheus was pressing him.
But knowing did not make it easier.
He was searching for a loophole.
A way to avoid the impending disaster...
Without killing Zarestia.
The Night Weeping.
After resolving the Ulgarm incident, Tanaka had spent long hours in the Forbidden Library. Beatrice, in rare moments of tolerance, had allowed him access to unrestricted volumes, records of history, prophecy, and obscure magical theory.
Combined with the fragmented memories he carried, visions of futures he had already lived and died through, the pieces began to align.
One book in particular had unsettled him.
It detailed the existence of the Star Gazers, seers who resided primarily within the Sacred Vollachian Empire. Their purpose was singular: to peer into the future and preserve Vollachia's continued existence at any cost.
According to their records, four Great Disasters would one day befall the four major powers of the continent.
The Vollachian Empire's Great Disaster.
The Holy Kingdom's Collapse.
The Kingdom's Witches.
And...
The City-States' Night Weeping.
The last entry was vague.
It described cities drowned in screams. People crying and weeping as carnage spread across the states like wildfire.
No one knew how it would unfold.
No one...
Except Tanaka.
He had seen it.
Lived it.
Died in it.
After reclaiming her Light Ball, the Great Spirit Zarestia would begin her rampage.
It started in Banan.
It always started in Banan.
The destruction was not immediate chaos, it was methodical. Streets torn apart. Buildings collapsed. People cut down in waves of fury amplified by the artifact's influence.
City-state after city-state fell.
Natsuki Subaru stood before her.
And died.
Again.
And again.
And again.
had tried everything.
Reason.
Bargains.
Threats.
Different words. Different tones. Different strategies.
None of it mattered.
The moment Zarestia reclaimed her Light Ball, the massacre became inevitable.
The only consistent solution...
The only path that prevented the Night Weeping...
Was to kill her before she could begin.
Or kill her at the very start of the rampage.
That was what Subaru eventually did.
Ending her life as the calamity unfolded.
And in doing so...
He earned Halibel's favor.
"That," Cepheus said evenly, "was a single iteration. A one-in-a-million divergence that will never repeat."
His voice was calm, almost clinical.
An astronomically improbable outcome.
That was what he meant.
Tanaka's eyes narrowed slightly.
One thing still didn't make sense.
He turned to the floating polar bear spirit.
"If that's the case," he said slowly, "then why show me that path at all?"
His voice wasn't angry.
It was tired.
"If it was meaningless… if the conclusion never changes… then why show me a future where she was kind?"
Where she laughed.
Where she didn't deserve to die.
If Zarestia had remained nothing more than a bloodthirsty calamity in his mind, his resolve would not have wavered like this.
He could have treated her like a monster.
But Odglass had shown him something else.
A version of her that could have existed.
The small polar bear floated in place, tiny paws twitching as it searched for the right words.
The wind brushed across the hills again.
Finally...
"Because," Odglass said quietly, "I wanted you to have a choice."
Tanaka's gaze sharpened.
"I thought… if you saw it, maybe you'd find a way to reach that ending again," she continued. "But no matter how many times you tried, the result didn't change."
Her ears drooped slightly.
"It might have been wrong of me."
The sky above remained painfully blue.
But Tanaka couldn't let it go.
There had to be something.
A fraction.
His expression betrayed him.
That lingering hope.
Odglass noticed.
And then she said something that fractured the stillness.
"It was Cepheus who gave her the Light Orb."
The wind stopped.
Tanaka's mind blanked for half a second.
"…What?"
The Light Ball.
The trigger that transformed Zarestia's instability into uncontrollable slaughter.
The reason the Night Weeping existed.
He slowly turned his gaze toward Cepheus.
"You're the reason she's like that?" Tanaka asked.
Cepheus's icy eyes shifted toward Odglass, sharp with disapproval.
"Odglass."
"I didn't overstep," she insisted quickly. "You should clear up the misunderstanding."
She turned back to Tanaka.
"You remember the story I told you about that child, right?"
"…Yeah."
"At that time," Odglass continued, "Zarestia had managed to regenerate her lost limbs and regain some of her strength. But she was still wounded. Still incomplete."
Her small voice grew quieter.
"And she hated humans for what they did to her."
The hills around them felt less peaceful now.
"Because she was weakened," Odglass went on, "she couldn't destroy them all. So she began killing one by one."
Tanaka's jaw tightened.
"But that stopped when she met Cepheus."
She gestured toward the white-haired man.
"He helped her restore most of her lost power by giving her the Light Orb."
Tanaka's gaze shifted fully to Cepheus.
The parasol cast a clean, pale shadow over his composed face.
"When I gave her the orb," Cepheus said evenly, "It took some time for her to trust me and settle but at no time did she display those violent impulses."
His tone was factual.
"Something must have happened after I left."
Silence fell again.
The implications settled slowly.
The Light Orb had not created her bloodlust.
At least, originally.
Which meant the future wasn't as simple as orb equals disaster.
Which meant...
"Do you understand now?" Cepheus said calmly. "This outcome is not our desire. It is simply something that will happen regardless."
The words were cold.
Final.
Tanaka's eyes narrowed slightly.
"But you do care about her, right?" he asked quietly. "So why are you giving up on her so easily?"
Odglass immediately snapped toward him.
"Tanaka!" she scolded, clearly thinking he had crossed a line.
Cepheus, however, did not react immediately. He simply looked at Tanaka for a long moment before speaking.
"You," Cepheus said slowly, "have you listened to anything we have said?"
The wind passed over the hills again, bending the grass like waves across an ocean.
"Fine," Cepheus continued. "For the sake of argument, let us imagine your ideal scenario."
He began walking slowly down the hill toward Tanaka, each step measured.
"Let us imagine the future you saw, the one-in-a-million possibility where Zarestia lives and does not become the calamity."
He stopped a few meters away.
"Even though the components that created that reality are not present."
Tanaka didn't respond.
Cepheus continued anyway.
"Rem is not here."
"Subaru is not here."
"No one is present in Kararagi to occupy Zarestia's attention, to anchor her, to change the sequence of events."
He looked directly into Tanaka's eyes.
He understood what he meant, it was as if he was asking for an eggless omelette.
Tanaka clicked his tongue softly.
But Cepheus wasn't finished.
"May I also remind you," Cepheus went on, voice still calm, "that the route where Zarestia lived… was by far the worst one."
The wind stopped again.
"How many people died in that future?" Cepheus asked. "The Emilia Camp was wiped out. The Karsten Camp was wiped out by the Witch Cult."
Images flashed in Tanaka's mind.
Burning camps.
Blood-soaked banners.
Empty streets.
"And Pristella," Cepheus continued, "fell into complete devastation because no one was present to stop the Witch Cult's operations there."
His voice remained emotionless.
But the words were heavy.
"That future you are clinging to," Cepheus said, "is built on mountains of corpses."
Tanaka said nothing.
The sky above them remained bright and artificial.
Then Cepheus exhaled slowly and turned away slightly.
"You know what?" he said. "I don't particularly care what you think. Or what you want to do."
His voice hardened for the first time.
"As long as you stop the calamity from unfolding."
He glanced back over his shoulder.
"You can die a few more times if that is what it takes to get rid of that stubbornness."
The words were cruel.
Intentionally so.
The space around them began to fracture, thin cracks spreading across the sky like broken glass.
This conversation was over.
It had led nowhere.
But as the world began to shatter and Tanaka's vision started to distort, something caught his attention.
Cepheus's face.
For the first time...
He looked frustrated.
Not cold.
Not indifferent.
Frustrated.
And as the world collapsed into white light, Tanaka thought he heard him mutter something under his breath.
"I'm the last person you should talk to about giving up."
___
____
_____
When Tanaka returned to his senses, the first thing he did was lower his head slightly and mutter under his breath so quietly that not even a bug could have heard him.
"…I shouldn't have said that."
He lifted his head.
And immediately froze again.
Two people were staring directly at him.
A small red-haired girl stood right in front of him, holding something in both hands.
Behind her, near the wall, stood Tristan — the tall, muscular cat demi-human in his knight uniform — arms crossed, tail flicking slowly behind him.
The girl's eyes sparkled.
"Oh! He's making eye contact!"
Tanaka blinked.
Then he noticed what she was holding.
His mask.
"…Huh?"
He instinctively reached for his face.
Nothing.
He looked around quickly — and realized he was no longer behind the pub counter.
He was in his room upstairs.
His room.
The small one above the pub.
"…When did I come here?" he asked slowly, looking around in confusion. "When did I leave the bar?"
The girl tilted her head.
"…Don't tell me you weren't aware of your surroundings?"
Tanaka frowned. "What do you mean?"
She pointed at him matter-of-factly.
"You were standing completely still. Like a statue. Not blinking, not moving, nothing. For fifteen minutes."
Tanaka stared at her.
"…Are you serious?"
His mind immediately connected the dots.
He turned toward Tristan.
"So you brought me here?"
Tristan nodded once.
"What other choice was there?" he replied calmly. "You were frozen behind the counter. Anyone could have taken off your mask."
Tanaka slowly nodded.
"I see… Thank you for intervening."
Tristan didn't respond immediately. His sharp eyes studied Tanaka carefully.
"In any case," Tristan said after a moment, "what was that?"
Tanaka paused.
What was he supposed to say?
Oh, nothing. My consciousness was dragged into a metaphysical field so I could argue with a dead king and a sealed spirit about future calamities and predetermined timelines.
"…Don't worry too much about it," Tanaka said finally. "It won't happen again."
Tristan did not look convinced.
Tanaka quickly changed the subject.
"Anyway… how did you come so fast?"
Tristan answered, "I'm always nearby."
That did not surprise Tanaka in the slightest.
"But I came immediately because that woman came to get us," Tristan added.
"…Woman?"
"The one in white," the red-haired girl said. "She told us you suddenly froze and wouldn't respond."
Zarestia.
Of course.
Tanaka suddenly widened his eyes.
"…Crap. I left the shop unattended."
He immediately stood up and headed for the door.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When he returned downstairs, the pub was not in chaos like he had feared.
But it was… close.
Zarestia stood behind the counter.
She was trying.
She was really trying.
But she clearly had no idea what she was doing.
She held a tray like it was some kind of ceremonial object, walking far too slowly between tables while customers gave confused but amused looks. At one table, three mugs sat empty because she had forgotten to refill them. At another, she had brought food to the wrong people entirely.
She looked completely out of place.
Like a goddess forced to work part-time.
Tanaka stopped near the stairs, watching the scene for a moment, trying to process how his life had reached this point.
Before he could say anything, the red-haired girl, Nora, spoke from behind him.
"She said she would take your place while you were unconscious."
Tanaka exhaled slowly.
Of course she did.
"Go rest," Nora told him quietly. "I'll take over."
He nodded his head and complied.
As he was about to head back, his thoughts drifted back to the conversation on the hill.
Fate.
Prophecies.
Inevitable disasters.
One-in-a-million possibilities.
So what if the odds were against him?
So what if fate had already decided the ending?
He would find another path.
He would save her.
No matter what.