"Rejoice! Our Prince has finally returned!"
The crowd's voices rose like a tide as Kourin walked through the castle gates between Raymed and Crown Prince Mikoto. She kept her eyes low, letting the cheers wash past her, hollow against the quiet ache in her chest. Beside her, Raymed was already waving — wide, easy, like a man without a single thing to hide. Mikoto caught sight of him and laughed, then lifted his own hand to the crowd. An unusual thing for a crown prince to do. But they had saved the country, and perhaps that earned a little unusual.
***
The private chamber was warm and smelled of grilled fish. A servant laid out sushi, sashimi, and himono across a low table, and Mikoto settled into his seat with the ease of a man finally home.
"I want to thank you both," he said, bowing his head with a genuine smile. "To think the Hero of United Front would answer so quickly — it's nothing short of a miracle."
"Don't mention it." Raymed reached for a piece of sashimi. "Though I did ask something in return. For Indonexta."
"You have my promise. I'll see to it personally."
Raymed nodded, chewing thoughtfully. "Was there anything strange before the Demon Lord arrived? Anything out of place?"
Mikoto considered. "There were new scientists — demi-humans. We were cautious at first, but they were civil enough. Nothing like the Leviathans. I let them in."
"Makes sense. They're not as naturally gifted as Elves, but they work harder than anyone to close that gap." Raymed set down his chopsticks. "Anything else?"
"A shipment of Pseudo Artifacts. Listed as coming from the elves of the British Isles." Mikoto opened his receipt book, flipping until he found the page and turned it toward them.
Raymed looked at it for a moment without touching it. "There are no Pseudo Artifacts produced in the British Isles. I've been there — I know."
"Is that so." Mikoto closed the book slowly. "Then where did they come from?"
"I'd rather it not be who I'm thinking of." Raymed was quiet for a beat. "Has someone named Zuatha Il Zikmel ever visited Japan?"
Something shifted in Mikoto's expression — not surprise, but recognition, old and uncomfortable. "That name. Yes, she visited, around 2022, before the conviction in South Jaka City. It says here she worked alongside Konoe some years before that as well."
Kourin's head came up. "Konoe? Why would he work with Zuatha?"
"Why wouldn't he? He's a researcher, same as you, Kohime." Mikoto's eyes moved to her. "I imagine you know her too."
Raymed glanced at Kourin.
"My memories are fragmented," she said, quieter. "There are things I can't reach. But, I never even began to think I have met her anywhere."
Flashes — not quite images, not quite words — pressed at the edges of her mind.
"Kohime." Mikoto's voice dropped. "What exactly happened to you?"
"I don't know. I know they were erased. But the reason—" She pressed her fingers to her temple. "I can't find it."
"We should rest." Raymed's tone was easy, but his eyes when they met Mikoto's were not. "It's been a long day for us."
Mikoto rose and walked them to the guest settlement himself.
Arriving, he rested a hand briefly on Raymed's shoulder.
"Make yourself at home." Then, low: "Come back tonight. Alone."
***
The castle had gone quiet by the time Raymed returned to his chambers.
Mikoto was standing when he entered, not seated — standing the way a man stands when he has already made a decision and is only waiting to say it out loud.
"You need to leave," Mikoto said. "Tonight. And leave Kourin here."
Raymed didn't stop walking until he had crossed half the room.
His magical aura rose, slow and deliberate.
"Talk."
"Kohime is not someone you want to keep protecting. She will be dealt with."
"Dealt with." Raymed let the words sit. "You mean killed." He clearly understood what Mikoto meant but not the reason.
"I mean justice."
"I know she fled your empire. That's the only reason is it not? And whatever she was before — that person is gone."
"Memory loss changes nothing." Mikoto's voice was harder now, something personal underneath it. "She had endangered all of us. The reason we walked into Zuatha Il Zikmel's trap. The reason we helped set it. Is because of what we know about Kohime. The Pseudo Artifact shipment wasn't just free weapons. There was also a copy of an archive. Reconstructed memories, pulled directly from her brainwaves."
Raymed's expression didn't move. "Brainwave reconstruction can be fabricated. You must be idiotic to be basing your judgements on that."
"Zuatha provided her own analysis alongside it, cross-referenced against documented facts. Kohime's disappearance in 2012. The timeline matches everything we already knew." Mikoto opened the book again, differently this time — not to show, but because he needed something to do with his hands. "In 2011, she was here. Researching magical energy and how to bring it back to our world. A groundbreaking work, the kind that drew attention from Europe. Then, she began traveling. Frequently. Then on the last day of that year, she stopped responding. Vanished."
Raymed watched as his eyes began to flare with magical energy.
"She came back in 2013. Unharmed. But she wasn't the same person who left." Mikoto set a stack of documents on the table between them. "She became obsessive. She funneled her personal wealth into the research first, then ours — embezzling from state funds to build institutions that existed nowhere on any official record. Konoe when he was a researcher enabled it from the beginning. When they were discovered, they ran. Left the debt. Left all of it for us."
"And then?" Raymed's voice was flat.
"Her memories show a facility near the South Pole. Years of travel between Europe and there, over and over, trying to find a way to regenerate the earth's magical energy. It failed." Mikoto paused. "In 2019, someone found her. Offered her a way out — a purpose. A white-haired individual. The name in the documents isn't hidden."
Morgwyn.
"After the incursion, Konoe came back. He tried to make things right. Enrolling as a detective starting over a new leaf. He helped us find the criminals he originally funded in secrecy to embezzle the state funds." Mikoto's jaw tightened. "Only for him to be killed. By her demi-human fiancée. The kind of coincidence I stopped believing in a long time ago."
"You don't have enough proof." Raymed didn't raise his voice. "Not to do what you're planning."
"No. I don't." And for just a moment, something behind Mikoto's eyes looked almost tired. "But she was my previous fiancée, Raymed. And she burned everything I built. If there is any chance she is guilty — I will not look away a second time." He drew his blade.
Raymed watched him. "You know you can't win this. I have recovered my strength. I certainly won't let you do an unjust ruling such as this."
"I know." A breath. "I was stalling. I am sorry, that part of talking was only a guise. My retainers are already in her room."
Raymed smirk at his words, "They won't find her."
I already notified her via telepathy.
Mikoto's eyes sharpened in confusion.
Then the door opened behind him and a retainer stepped through, expression tight.
"Lord Mikoto. She isn't there. We've searched the whole settlement."
Silence settled over the room like snow.
Raymed opened his palms. "Last chance. Walk away."
"I can't."
Raymed formed the sign with his fingers.
"Alterity Shift."
Light swallowed the room whole.
***
The courtyard was quiet when Raymed returned.
Kourin stood near the stone railing where they planned to meet once again. Her arms folded, watching the castle lights shimmer across the courtyard. She turned at the sound of his footsteps saying, "Well?"
"It's handled."
She held his gaze a moment longer, then looked away. "Then, let's get-"
Footsteps came from the corridor behind them.
Mikoto walked into the courtyard.
The Crown Prince looked untouched. No sign of the fight that had just happened. He walked with his chin up and his shoulders square, expression almost serene.
"As expected from Raymed the Hero."
He stopped a few paces away.
Raymed felt it.
Something wrong in the air around him.
Raymed's eyes dropped to Mikoto's hand.
The sword that he usually held was gone.
What he held instead was enormous — a great hammer. A weapon of something that had once fought him. Raymed knew that weapon and its owner. His jaw tightened.
"Before you ask," Mikoto said, and the voice was Mikoto's voice and also not, layered underneath with something else entirely, "It is Belial. I am currently using his body. You did outstanding damage to me before, Raymed. I needed to preserve my energy so this is my way of compromise." A slight tilt of the head. "The boy offered himself willingly. A convenient arrangement for us both."
Raymed was quiet for a moment.
Then he exhaled slowly through his nose. "Belial." He let the name settle. "To think you would return this soon."
"Are you disappointed?"
Raymed glanced at Kourin. She had already moved — feet set, one hand on Ezel's grip.
She met his look and gave the smallest nod.
Then, from somewhere above.
"Yooo Hooo! Don't look so down, Great Hero — for I, Puck, have arrived! PUCK SANJOUUU!!!"
Raymed's head snapped up.
The jester of Oberon appearing out of nowhere changing the mood suddenly.
"PUCK?" Raymed stared. "What are you doing here?"
"Saving you, obviously!" Puck straightened up, grinning. "It turns out Zuatha Il Zikmel has been behind the appearance of the Demon Lord Envoys! All of them! So King Oberon is — how to put this — furious. Crazily angry, really. So he specifically dispatched me to aid you in this battle!" He spread both arms wide. "Rejoice! Rejoice!"
Raymed looked at the great hammer in Belial's hand, then back at Puck. "How exactly are you going to help me fight that? Can you even fight?"
Puck smiled the way he always smiled — like he knew something everyone else was about to find out.
"Well." He turned to the empty air beside him. "Here comes King Oberon."
He conjured the portal with a single gesture.
The aura came through first. Gushing like a torrent of magical energy. King of Fey, Oberon stepped through the portal with furious eyes. He was exactly as Raymed remembered. The green-luminous crown sitting against his blonde hair glowed radiantly.
He take a look at the courtyard, Belial wearing Mikoto's face, Raymed and Kourin, and his expression changes to something that could be described as dangerously calm.
"This has been such a troublesome problem," he said. "If Puck hadn't moved as quickly as he did, I might have arrived too late."
"Oberon." Raymed stepped forward. "How did you piece all of this together?"
"The Fey Queen, Titania, helped me paint the whole picture. She told me everything about Zuatha's project." Oberon's gaze moved, and it landed on Kourin. Something in it shifted in his expression. He reached into his coat and produced a sphere, holding it out to her.
"I have a favor to ask of you. Complete your memories. All of them. I am sorry that Lizwell Von Wistik had reproduced your memory without your knowledge. Again I am so sorry for that, but its not about that anymore." He paused.
"We have greater matters to attend to. But, I won't force you. Consider it carefully. What you experienced — what you know — may be the only thing that tells us what's truly happening in this world. Even with everything at our disposal, Fey technology cannot inherit human memory. It isn't compatible. Only you lived it. Only you can know it in full." His eyes were steady on hers.
Kourin looked at the sphere in his hand.
Oberon didn't push. He simply waited.
Then he turned away, reaching up to unclasp his king's cape. It fell from his shoulders. He let it lie where it landed.
The magical energy that rose from him was cyan filling the courtyard like the first light of something enormous waking up.
"Any who." His gaze settled on Mikoto — on what was wearing Mikoto. "So this is one of the Demon Lord Envoys I have been hearing about."
"Oberon, this one is—"
"I know." His voice didn't change. "Ars Goetia recorded him as the Prince of Hell. Belial. I also have read your reports thoroughly, Raymed." He rolled one shoulder, then the other. "My priority remains protecting you, Kourin, and this country. What happened here happened mostly was due to my own shortcomings. That is something I intend to correct personally."
Belial looked at him from across the courtyard. The hammer shifted in Mikoto's hand.
"HAHAHA!" The laugh was enormous and uncontrolled. "King of Fey. This shall be interesting."
Oberon's expression didn't move. His eyes didn't leave Belial.
Raymed turned to Kourin and Puck. "Stand back. Stay with Puck." His eyes found the jester's and held them.
Puck gave a single nod, the performance gone from his face for just a moment.
"Let's do this, Oberon."
"Don't mind me," Oberon said, almost mildly, the cyan energy now rolling off him in waves. "Not fighting often does not mean I have forgotten how."
Belial charged.
Oberon raised his right hand and a magical lance formed impossibly fast driving itself through Mikoto's chest before Belial had closed half the distance. The impact stopped him cold.
Then Oberon swept his arm sideways, casual as a man brushing dust from a table, and Mikoto's body was sent flying and crashed through the wall of a building. Erupting stone and dust.
Raymed stood very still for half a second.
I've underestimated him
Then he began running with Oberon beside him without a word spoken between them.
***
Behind them, Puck turned to Kourin.
She was already looking at the sphere.
She was thinking about what Oberon had said.
About what she carried.
Her memories were too valuable to leave buried.
She knew that.
But fear ruled her heart even now.
But now, she is ready.
She knows whatever happened Raymed will take her side.
She is sure of their bond.
BADUMP...
BADUMP...
BADUMP...
She pressed the sphere to her chest and slowly began trying to absorb mana from it.
For a moment nothing happened.
...
Then everything happened at once.
...
"AAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
She screamed and her knees hit the stone.
Her hands went to her head.
"What— what happened?!" Puck dropped to his knees beside her, his voice pitched high with alarm. "Dear oh dear, Lady Kourin—!"
She didn't answer him.
"What..." Her voice came out barely above a breath. "What have I done... I have doomed this world...."
A black moth flew away from that courtyard.