The deep, rumbling roar of the approaching train shook the iron tracks. In front of the busy station, Lucan stood just beyond the red safety line, watching the two girls with luggage before him.
"Are you sure you don't want to come back with us?"
Under the rising sun, Aoko Aozaki brushed back the strands of hair that fell by her ear. Her red lips parted slightly as the warm light slanted across her face, dappling through the sea of her hair with dreamlike glimmers.
Beside her, Alice Kuonji's expression was blank as ever, but the look she gave Lucan also carried a question—along with hope.
But Lucan only shook his head.
"Not for now," he said. "I'm afraid that one day I'll really anger a certain lady excavator and get slide-tackled into the grave—that wouldn't be much fun."
At his half-joking words, Aoko huffed. Though disappointed, she replied, "Don't worry. With your luck, even if that day really came, you definitely wouldn't die."
"Maybe I'd just end up—like a cockroach in a fridge, half-dead, half-alive?" Alice interjected.
"…"
What kind of bizarre metaphor was that?
Lucan and Aoko exchanged a glance—speechless, but unable to suppress their laughter.
"That's enough."
Lucan said, "Go on back. Don't you still have school to attend?"
"Ugh, don't remind me. When I get back, I've got homework to do… I really envy you. We look about the same age, but why do you get to run around everywhere?" Aoko pouted.
"I don't have to, either," Alice said flatly.
Aoko nearly crumbled.
"Alice."
"Yes?" the witch tilted her head, puzzled.
"Can I kill you?"
"No."
"Then I'll just kill Lucan instead, so you'll regret it forever!" Aoko bared her teeth and lunged playfully at him.
Alice shifted slightly, placing herself in front of Lucan. Her face was still expressionless, but the protective intent in her movement was obvious.
So Aoko could only retreat into a corner, squatting down to curse while drawing circles.
Seeing her still so lively and bright, Lucan exchanged another glance with Alice.
The passersby couldn't help but smile at the sight of these young people parting without a trace of sorrow.
Lucan spoke:
"See you next time."
"…Mm."
Alice gave a soft nod. "See you next time."
"Lucan-kun."
…
Inside the train car.
Aoko set her luggage down beside her seat. As the train began to move, she looked at the witch across from her—sitting straight-backed, graceful, face unchanged as always—and couldn't help clicking her tongue.
On the surface Alice seemed the same. But Aoko could feel it clearly: something about her had changed.
It was a vitality she had never carried before.
Like a goddess who had lived secluded in the mountains stepping into the dust of the mortal world.
Yet Lucan himself… was also someone like a "god."
That free, unrestrained sorcery. That free, unrestrained manner—
"…Truly unbelievable, Lucan," Aoko murmured.
Alice turned her gaze toward her, faint confusion flickering in her eyes.
Aoko then remembered something she had recently learned in history class, and explained:
"He's like a saint, yet also like an ordinary man."
Alice paused, then nodded gravely.
To be both godlike and human-like—only then could one act with such complete freedom, measuring lightness and weight at will, surpassing even "saints" in the truest sense.
"…I wonder when we'll meet him again," Aoko whispered.
She truly envied Lucan's unbound life.
To go wherever he wished.
To see whomever he wished.
"It won't be too long," Alice said calmly. No envy, no sadness—only serenity.
She had already received Lucan's promise.
After the "wish" of the previous night, no matter the distance, they could sense each other's existence. They were destined to reunite again. Until "forever."
"…Huh?"
Aoko stared blankly at the witch's serious expression.
Then she heard her say:
"So… we must strive to become people worthy of him."
We…?
"Of course we will!" Aoko broke into a wide, cheerful grin.
…
Then Aoko seemed to recall something.
"Oh, that's right. Hey, Alice…"
"Mm?"
"I've been meaning to ask—just how old is Lucan, anyway? He feels both really old and really young at the same time…"
"Seventeen years and nine months."
"Seventeen and nine months? He's actually a few months younger than me? Wait—how do you even know that? And down to the exact month?"
"…."
…
"Well then, I should be off too."
Watching Aoko and Alice vanish into the train car, Lucan lingered at the station for a while longer. Only after confirming their safe departure did he relax slightly. But he didn't leave. Instead, he turned toward another train waiting on the platform.
This one headed not toward Misaki City, but in the opposite direction—toward Kyoto Prefecture.
And it was the train Lucan intended to board.
In front of it, someone was already waiting.
"Yagyō Yukinobu. Sorry to trouble you these past few days," Lucan greeted.
The young woman, sharp in her Western-style uniform, bowed respectfully.
"To serve the Lord of All is the rightful duty of us, the Yagyō."
"But I've heard Kyoto's been… quite lively lately," Lucan smiled. "I won't end up being blown up halfway through the ride, will I?"
Lively was an understatement.
Word had it that Yoshimi-in Inori had already launched a grand, mysterious "war."
To pit one household against the Six Great Shinto Associations—even for a Tenma—was recklessly arrogant.
Of course, Lucan himself wasn't afraid.
Not of mystical wars, nor of ambushes.
He hadn't come to the Far East to gift Japan a stable, unified world of mystery.
Though he acknowledged Inori's strength, unless a true deity descended, that incomplete divine body of hers could never hope to stand against this world's alternate counterpart of the "Humanity's Evil."
Lucan even suspected that by the time he arrived, he'd be greeted by nothing more than a scene of peace scrubbed clean of all turmoil.
In the end, while he liked certain people of this country, he had no fondness for the nation as a whole.
He went to Kyoto only to reclaim a few things—and to attend a "meeting" arranged a thousand years ago.
And, incidentally, to help Ciel resolve the infinitely reincarnating "serpent" hidden there.
The reincarnation of Roa—the quarry of the Burial Agency's "Bow" dispatched to the Far East—just so happened to be in Kyoto.
Lucan had no wish to see a highly unified Japanese world of mystery.
But then again—
If unified under his own hand, that would be another matter entirely.
So long as no one interfered, it was… tolerable.
Yagyō Yukinobu, however, broke into a cold sweat at his offhand tone. The boy who had just now bid farewell with the warmth of a gentle neighbor now carried an abyssal terror beneath his smile—his gaze alone enough to freeze her blood.
It was the gaze of something vast, divine, towering far above all life.
She bowed lower. "The Yagyō will never fail the Lord of All!"
"Good."
Lucan nodded lightly. "Then let's depart."
"Oh, and—you'll go to the Tohsaka household. Personally escort that little girl to Misaki City."
"Make sure you go yourself."
"Yes!" Yukinobu dared not defy even a single order.
Lucan slipped his hands into his coat pockets, yawning lazily as he stepped aboard the waiting train.
He boarded the train to Kyoto Prefecture.
At the same time—
He stepped into a new cycle of simulation.
Fifteen days in Misaki City.
Five days in Fuyuki City.
The twenty-day interval had arrived.
"Time fixation… it's finally time to use it for real."