The sunset of Seishu brushed over the grand stature of the Morningstar estate, painting it in orange. The molten light bled through the windows in the foyer. Vera was still in Vianne's arms, her face still buried in her shoulder.
The faint evening sunlight touched them. Vera raised her head slowly–the golden bloom on the amethyst wool was still there, but for the first time it looked beautiful to her.
A reminder of her Vassal.
Vera's hand hovered over the carpet. The golden scar didn't feel like a stain; it felt like a wound in the reality of her home.
She could still feel the faint heat of the blooming stain on the wool–an echo of Luke's presence.
She wanted to know. She wanted to feel if the "light" drying on her floor was the same as the light Luke had left in her.
Her hand descended, the air between her skin and the rug shimmering with a stagnant smoke.
Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt.
The vibration didn't just break the silence—it insulted it.
Vera's hand jerked back as if the rug had suddenly turned into a bed of needles. Her eyes snapped toward the heap of Luke's school blazer lying a few feet away.
The pocket glowed with a frantic blue light that looked cheap against the amber warmth of the foyer.
Vianne let out a low, sharp exhale. "His 'other' world is calling him, and it's impatient."
Vera didn't move to answer it. She just stared at the glowing pocket. To her, that blue light represented the tether she couldn't cut–the sister, the mother, the 'normalcy' that kept Luke from truly belonging to the House of Morningstar.
"Ignore it," Vera whispered, her voice tightening.
Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt.
The phone didn't care about her command.
It was a persistent reminder that while she might own his soul, she didn't own his life.
Vera didn't wait for the buzzing to stop. She reached into the blazer pocket and took out his phone.
Vera's fingers closed around the device, and for a moment, the resonance in her palm flared in a sharp protest. It wasn't the cheap plastic she expected.
The phone was a sleek slab of engineering, protected by a titanium protector that looked like it could deflect a stray blade.
It was a tool built to survive the high pressure of the Ghost Step.
She flipped it over, and the breath caught in her throat.
The case was a matte black-gold composite, the colours of a Knight, but it wasn't a Morningstar design.
At the center of the casing was a sharp, engraved roman numeral VI—the brand of the Sixth Apostle, a reminder of the serial number he was. But there, slapped over the bottom corner of the golden numeral, was a faded glittery kitty sticker.
The sticker's cheerful, wide-eyed expression felt like an insult to the Sextus mark beneath it. A piece of Miku's world—a soft, sticky anchor holding a weapon of God down to earth.
Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt.
The blue light of the screen ignited again, bleeding through the edges.
[Miku 🐱: Onii-chan, if you're ignoring me because you're with that "Queen" girl, I'm going home without you!]
Vera's eyes narrowed until they were thin slivers of violet darkness. The "Queen" girl. The casual, bratty tone of Miku's text felt like a scratch to Vera's pride.
She looked from the cat sticker to the closed door of the East Wing. The phone felt heavy with the weight of the life she was inevitably stealing him from.
Vera's grip on the phone tightened, the case creaking under her pressure. In this manor of ancient blood and demonic contracts, the sight of a little girl's bratty text felt like an insult.
"Vianne, sort this issue," Vera commanded, handing over Luke's phone to her. "Just make sure that girl doesn't…"
Before Vera could continue, a certain presence made Vera and Vianne's skin crawl.
WHOOM.
Vera and Vianne turned toward the presence. The burn on Vera pulsed violently at the change, the scent of ice invading the foyer.
Smoke entered the room from the East Wing doors–the room filled with cold mist. Their vision blurring in the thick air.
Vianne didn't wait for Vera's permission. She raised her hand, with a small wave, her ring flared magenta. A dome of demonic energy formed around them—the mist dissolving as it met the barrier.
"Well, it seems our Luke-kun is still unstable," Vianne sighed looking at the dimly lit corridor of the East Wing.
Vera watched Vianne's barrier hiss as it touched the white fog. It wasn't just cold; it was holy. It was the silver steam she had breathed in during Shatter Space, now exhaling out of the very walls of her estate.
"He isn't just unstable, Vianne," Vera whispered, her hand still burning from where she'd touched his face. "He's breaking."
The door to the East Wing didn't just open; it shattered inward. The corridor was like a thousand-year winter.
The fog stopped. Not cleared—but still.
Then she stepped out of it.
Kiyomi.
Wrapped in her blanket. The hem of her skirt was caught in a thick frost—her small frame stopped in the foyer.
She didn't look at her Master or Vice. She breathed out lightly.
"It's loud." Kiyomi murmured
The frost on the hem of Kiyomi's skirt wasn't melting; it was growing, leaving her legs shaking.
Ice crawled up the doorframes as crystalline structures formed.
The cold crawled toward Vera and Vianne, but it dissolved as it met Vianne's barrier.
Vera looked at her Warden."Kiyomi," she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous tone. "Explain. Now. Why aren't you with Luke?"
Kiyomi didn't look up. She clutched her blanket tighter, her knuckles as white as her hair. "His soul is screaming, it's… painful, and I… I can't…"
"What do you mean you can't?!" Vera interrupted, her fist tightening as the burn on her palm grew.
She raised a small hand toward the East Wing. "Ignazio-san is trying to hold him down, but… Kazama-san is too unstable. It's like he's trying to reject us. Every time Ignazio-san touches him, his holy power fights back."
Vera's eyes flashed. She looked at her burned palm, still pulsing with the light of Luke's phone.
"He's just stubborn," Vera whispered, pushing past Kiyomi and Vianne. She walked toward the East Wing, her heels clicking against the cold wood.
As she entered the corridor, the temperature dropped to nine degrees below zero. The air tasted like smoke and incense.
At the end of the hall, the door to the end room was shaking. Gold and crimson light bled through the wood, turning the shadows into finger-like projections.
Inside, the sound was deafening —a high-pitched shout that sounded like a choir of angels screaming into a temple. "Luke!" Vera shouted, her voice barely audible over the spiritual noise.
She saw Ignazio backed into a corner, his golden aura at its limit, his suit scorched by silver lightning. In the center of the bed, Luke wasn't lying down; he was suspended an inch off the mattress by the pressure of the energies in his chest.
"Vera-sama, we need to contain him." Ignazio grunted, his ring barely maintaining its glow.
The Morningstar Imprint and the Apostle Key were no longer glowing—they were bleeding light.
Vera didn't hesitate. She threw Luke's phone onto the nightstand and lunged for him. She didn't use her chains. She didn't use her power.
She used her weight.
She slammed her body against his, her cold arms wrapping around his neck, her chest pressing against his soul.
"Stop it!" she hissed into his ear, her skin beginning to blister as the holy and demonic energies fought for dominance between their bodies. "Luke! I'm your Master! I am the one who holds you! Come back to me!"
The loudness reached a crescendo. The windows in the room shattered outward.
And then, the phone on the nightstand lit up one last time.
[Miku 🐱: Onii-chan, Okaa-san is crying. Please. Just come home.]
The shriek died instantly.
Luke's body slammed back onto the mattress, the light retreating into his pores with a wet sound. The frost in the room turned to slush.
Vera stayed on top of him, her breath coming in gasps, her blazer ruined and her skin smoking. She looked down. Luke's eyes were open—the gold and silver gone, replaced by the hollow blackness of a boy who had just heard his mother cry.
"Vera …" he whispered, his voice a ghost of itself. "I… I have to go."
Vera's grip on his shoulders tightened, her nails drawing blood through his shirt. "You can't even stand, idiot."
"I have to," he repeated, his hand reaching blindly for the buzzing phone on the nightstand. "I need to… ," before he could continue, something shut his mouth.
It was Vera. Her hand instinctively went to his face. "Shut up!" She shouted, her voice cracking, " why are you doing this to me Luke? Am I really that shallow to you?"
Luke stiffened. Vera's words echoed through his mind. Her words felt like a habit he couldn't stop. 'It's always like this, but I can't stop, but I can't let her suffer because of me.'
Luke reached for Vera's wrist, removing her hand. He wasn't mad at her, but himself for pushing her like this. "Vera," he called. Vera didn't look at him, her eyes were still on the nightstand.
Luke's head snapped toward the nightstand. He saw his phone, still vibrating, but the problem wasn't the phone.
It was Vera.
'She's broken, but… she can't stay like this.'
Luke's hand lingered halfway between Vera and the nightstand, trembling like it couldn't decide which world he belonged to.
The buzzing phone filled the silence that followed everything else.
Vera still hadn't moved.
Her grip on him was firm, but it wasn't power now—it was hesitation. The smoke on her skin curled upward, like the end of a fire that didn't know victory.
Luke swallowed hard.
"Vera " he said again, quieter this time.
That was enough to make her flinch.
Not because of his strength—because of how weak he sounded.
The kind that wasn't physical, but the kind that came from hearing a mother cry through a phone you didn't answer.
Luke pushed himself up slightly, ignoring his body's protest. The white and violet residue in his veins pulsed, unstable but no longer violent. The room smelled like a collapsing temple.
"I'm not leaving because I want to, "he said.
Vera's eyes narrowed, but she didn't interrupt.
Luke's gaze drifted—not to her face, but to her hands still on him.
"You keep saying I'm your possession, " he continued, his voice cracking at the edges." But I think you're starting to see... I don't fit in your grip the way you want me to."
That hit harder than any blow. For the first time, Vera's fingers loosened—just slightly.
Behind them Ignazio straightened from the corner, coughing through the scorched air. "Vera-sama... his stability is cracked. If he stays like this he'll break into..."
"I know," Vera snapped without looking at him. But her voice lacked its usual certainty.
The phone vibrated again.
Once.
Then stopped.
Silence filled the space like it was waiting outside the door.
Luke turned his head slowly toward the nightstand. Not with urgency—but resignation.
"I have to go home, " he said simply.
Vera's expression tightened. "That's not your home. "
Luke gave a tired exhale that almost looked like a laugh.
"It is to them."
The words were clean. No metaphors.
Just the truth.
Vera's hand finally slipped from shoulder.
Not like releasing him—more like she'd been forced to notice she was holding on to something that was already slipping away.
The temperature in the room dropped another degree.
Kiyomi, still at the corridor entrance, lowered her gaze further into her blanket. "The screaming stopped..." she whispered. "But it still feels empty."
Luke reached for his phone, his fingers brushing the titanium glass. The kitty sticker was peeling at the edges from the frost.
It was a tiny, glittering casualty of what had just occurred in the room.
He didn't look back at Vera as he stood. His bones shook, a sound like wood snapping, but the Morningstar resonance in him acted as a temporary, jagged splint.
"Ignazio," Luke rasped, his back to the Knight.
"I need a coat. A long one. My blazer is…
well… gone. "
Ignazio didn't look at Vera for permission. He saw the way the boy's hand was shaking—not with fear, but with the desperate need to be elsewhere.
Without a word, the Knight shed his golden trimmed overcoat and draped it over Luke's shoulders. It was big, swallowing Luke's lean frame, but it hid the blood and ruins of his shirt.
Vera remained on the bed, her hands clutching the silk sheets where his heat was already fading. She looked like a statue left in a blizzard.
"If you walk out that door," Vera whispered, her voice regaining a sliver of its edge, "you're walking back into a lie. They see a son. I see the Sixth Apostle. Which one is going to survive the night?"
Luke paused at the threshold. The hallway was a dark, frozen tunnel leading back to the world that felt "real". He didn't turn around.
"The one that shows up for dinner," he said.
The heavy oak door clicked shut with a finality that felt like a bone setting back into place.
Inside the room, the silence was deafening.
Vera looked down at her palm—the burn was now a deep, permanent scar. She closed her fist, trying to trap the last of his light inside her skin.
"Vianne," Vera murmured into the dark.
The Vice stepped out of the shadows of the corner, her magenta eyes dim. "Yes, Vera?"
"Follow him. If he collapses before he reaches that house... don't bring him back here."
Vera's voice broke, just for a millisecond. "Take him to his home."
Outside, the first evening stars began to cut through the Seishu sky. The House of Morningstar was still standing, but for the first time in centuries, the Queen realized that some gates were meant to be opened from the outside.