The warmth of healing magic faded as Aqua stirred. A dull ache lingered in her limbs, but the sting of Kazuma's sword...
No, that thing's sword...
Had been dulled, her body stabilized. A soft haze filtered in through the worn curtains of Wiz's shop.
"You're awake," said a gentle voice.
It belonged to Wiz, still as kind and reserved as Aqua remembered, though the years had traced faint lines beneath her eyes.
Aqua sat up slowly. Her hair fell loosely over her shoulders, glinting in the shop's mellow light. No longer the loud, impulsive goddess she once was, her every movement now carried an elegance born of time and tribulation.
"How long was I out?" she asked, voice calm, clear.
"About an hour," Wiz replied, placing a warm cup of tea in her hands.
"We used everything we had to stabilize you...
you were lucky Vanfir got to you when he did."
Vanfir crossed his arms in the corner, leaning against the wall.
"Luck had nothing to do with it," he muttered.
"That was no ordinary blade you were struck with."
Aqua stared into the cup, then gently set it aside. "It wasn't Kazuma."
Wiz's expression turned uncertain. "But... it looked like him."
"It was his body," Aqua admitted.
"His voice. His mannerisms.
But something else was behind the eyes. Something old. Malevolent.
It said it made a pact... but that was no pact. It was possession."
Vanfir narrowed his eyes.
"Pandora's Box," he said grimly.
"There were whispers in the underworld... a sealed artifact deep in an unexplored dungeon. A box not meant to be opened."
Aqua nodded solemnly.
"It leapt into him. Megumin opened it.
I... I remember it happening, and yet we didn't know.
Our memories vanished with his body."
Silence followed. Even Wiz, who had seen many tragedies unfold in her time as an undead, looked haunted.
Aqua stood, still pale but composed. She had no time for grief.
"Now that we know where Kazuma is,
I'll go to Darkness.
We need her strength for what comes next."
Vanfir raised a brow. "You just woke up."
"She'll listen to me," Aqua said, striding to the door, cloak swirling around her ankles.
"Or she'll at least hear the name."
The journey to Belzerg.
The lands governed by the Dustiness family...
...Was long and cold. A snowstorm swept over the hills as Aqua ascended the final stone steps to the palace gates. It loomed above her, regal and war-forged, wrapped in a silver fog.
Two guards stopped her at the gate, until one recognized the aquamarine-haired woman beneath the travel-stained cloak.
"...Aqua-sama?" one murmured, awestruck. "You've returned..."
The gates opened.
She found Darkness in the throne chamber.
Not in a ballroom gown, but in snow-white armor polished to a mirror sheen.
A towering shield rested beside her throne, forged from metal and the blackened scale of a great wyrm slain in defense of her people.
A greatsword rested across her lap like a statement.
Aqua hadn't seen her in nearly half a decade. She looked... radiant. Regal. But colder.
"Lalatina," Aqua breathed softly.
The woman on the throne looked up.
Her eyes, once eager, soft with masochistic spark...
Were now sharp and unreadable.
"It's Queen Dustiness," she replied curtly.
"And you look like you've traveled far."
Aqua swallowed the sting of the formality.
"I know where Kazuma is."
No reaction. Not at first.
Then, a flicker. A subtle shift in those light blue eyes, as if a memory surfaced and was immediately forced back down.
"I see," she said after a pause. "And where is he?"
Aqua hesitated.
"Alive... but not himself.
There's something inside him.
Something ancient. Possessing him."
Silence.
"Then he is already dead,"
Darkness said quietly.
The words echoed through the throne room like a blade drawn too slowly.
"No. He's still in there," Aqua insisted.
"Trapped. I know it. I've seen his soul fight back.
Even if just for a moment."
Another pause.
Darkness's eyes met hers. A tension lingered,
wound tight beneath her composed expression.
Something in her grip on the sword shifted.
"I will help," she finally said.
"But before we speak further about Kazuma..."
She stood, descending the steps of her throne like a queen prepared for war.
"There is something I need you to do, Aqua.
Alone...."
To be continued...