First reunion

A massive area in the middle of Valebryn had been reduced to nothing, and in the middle of this ashen wasteland, two of the world’s most powerful people faced each other.

One clung to the precious memories of the past.

One looked towards a brighter, more peaceful future.

“You’re not my Alcestrus,” Hisora said, pointing her weapon at Naoya. “I’ll bring you back once I erase Valebryn for what they’ve done.”

He shook his head. “A powerful, cunning man with a thirst for knowledge, and no regard for the methods he used to get it. But when I was with you, I was silent, awkward, and I struggled to express my affection. After taking over a kingdom during the day, you would visit me in my library while I was studying the newest artifact I found… we’d spend some time together, and you would leave me so I could continue with my work.”

Naoya walked towards her scythe, stopping right in front of the blade.

“That was the daily routine of the Demon Lord and his Lady, and who else would have these simple, precious memories?”

Without warning, she cut him down with her weapon, his bisected body falling to the ground.

“Ahh, yes. Classic wife. Always so ruthless, probably more than me. You know, I actually learned a term for girls like you back in Japan,” he remarked, as if everything were still normal.

“My husband isn’t just made up of memories. Who are you?” she asked his upper half.

“That’s a good question… I actually just relearned that myself.”

His lower half stood up on its own, and with a stomp of his foot, their surroundings changed in the blink of an eye.

Gone was the ashen battlefield around them, replaced instead by something even worse. They were surrounded by incomplete death, as if time itself had preserved the moment when everything ended. Crumbling buildings with their pieces floating around, ever so close yet never truly whole anymore. Unknown human shapes wandered around aimlessly, leaving behind a trail of dark, inky substance — and perhaps even their existence itself.

Hisora looked around, immediately recognizing the place.

“Why are we here?”

Naoya spoke as his torso climbed onto his lower half and reattached itself. “I wanted to tell you my story.”

“I don’t have time for this!” She lunged at him with her blade, which he effortlessly dodged. Her violent attacks tore apart the environment around them, but the new destruction she created did not look out of place. Every attack carried the anger and pain she had been carrying by herself after all this time, which worsened when her only source of hope returned to her in a completely different state. He was no longer the powerful paragon of a man she had dedicated her life to — the one she trusted would cherish her above everything.

“Alright, I know you’re letting your anger out, but I won’t have time to tell my story like this.”

Naoya caught the edge of her blade with one hand, completely unfazed. With a single, sudden motion, he pulled the scythe — and Hisora along with it — closer to him. She stumbled into his chest, leaving her breathless as he steadied her with one arm around her waist and the other holding her weapon.

His familiar warmth, something she never thought she would feel again, drowned out every other thought in her mind, but her anger resurfaced after a while. Hisora let go of her weapon and used both arms to push him away, and she noticed the unfamiliar structures that stood to her right.

Two crumbling marble pillars with letters etched into them, the only recognizable words being “…Futur… Beg…” They formed an arch, leading into the remains of a grand academy, a place that used to nurture the dreams of young children… or make their life miserable.

“I think this is the only place that deserved what I did.” Naoya looked up at its towers. “Everything else, though… yeah. All of those villages, those kingdoms I ruined… I didn’t really have a reason to destroy those.”

Hisora turned to him with an expression of pure disbelief and anger, which confused him for a bit, until he remembered.

“Ohhh, right. Yeah, your old kingdom deserved it too. I still remember how beautiful and happy you were while leveling everything in the city. But see, that’s the thing I realized…

“All of that boast and self-idea of being this logical, unfeeling person who’s the smartest in the world, but I never even realized that I turned myself into the biggest irony.

“It was never about a quest for knowledge… it was just my emotions taking control of me.”

Hisora simply listened as he rambled about his thoughts, just like how it was in the past.

“But… you promised the world to me… you promised you would make me happy! Why are we wasting time here when we could be rebuilding our empire? If everything you did was motivated by your feelings… then the fact that you’re not keeping your promise… does that mean you no longer have feelings for me?” The questions spilled out before she could stop herself.

Naoya smiled. He walked towards her and held both of her shoulders. In the blink of an eye, they were no longer in the cursed remains of a kingdom, but instead in a small, unfamiliar bedroom. Before she could have a chance to scan her surroundings, Naoya pushed her down, and instead of the cold, hard floor, she landed on a soft, white bed, with Naoya right on top of her. Realizing the situation they were in, she hid her blushing face and tried to blast him away with her mind.

But nothing happened. She tried again, only to realize that she could not feel even a trace of aether. Her surroundings felt strange, unlike any place she had ever been before. She pushed Naoya aside, with her arms this time, and stood up, her eyes sweeping around the room and the unfamiliar objects within it — like a black, rectangular slab made of glass, sitting on a table along with another rectangular object, which had tiny, unfamiliar symbols written on its many grooves.

“Welcome to my room, and welcome to Japan as well,” Naoya said, spreading his arms around as he lay on the bed, looking at the ceiling. “This is my home during my time in the other Earth.”

“We’re… did you just bring us into another world?” she asked in disbelief, unable to process the sudden change in surroundings.

“As much as I want to show you around Tokyo, I don’t know how to do that yet. This is a place from my memory, and I want to show you around my old house.”

Naoya stood up and walked to the door, opening it to reveal the rest of the place. Unable to stop her curiosity, Hisora followed him and took his hand.

They walked down a narrow set of stairs, into a house of strange simplicity — smooth wooden walls, pale light, and a faint scent of woven straw clinging to the air. At the bottom of the stairs, they turned to a doorway on the left, which, despite the alien-looking furniture, Hisora recognized as a kitchen, at the sight of the lady they found within, who was currently cooking a fragrant dish.

“That’s my mother in this world. Very caring and sweet, and now that I’m seeing her again, I’m starting to feel bad when I imagine her reaction to me dying… oh man.” He raised his head and tried to fight back tears.

He brought her over to the doorway behind them, and they entered a room with some beautiful decoration, along with several sofas and cushions.

“Over here is my dad. He’s fun, we share the same hobbies, and he never fails to give us all a comfortable life. And the girl sitting on his shoulders is my sister. Yeah, it’s crazy. I had a sister in this world, and she was annoying sometimes, but I would do everything to keep her safe and happy. Which… doesn’t really mean much if I get myself killed…”

Hisora watched as he silently teared up. And even though she did not know who these people were, she felt how important they were to him.

“Oh god, okay,” he said as he wiped his tears away. “I was not expecting that.”

“So why…” she asked, “... why have you shown me this?”

“Because I wanted to show you what really changed me… I didn’t become weak, and Valebryn didn’t turn me against you. The Hero Party gave me a chance to experience what a normal, peaceful life is, and now… that’s how I’ll fulfill my promise to you.”

He took her hand and they walked to the front door of the house, but before they could leave, Hisora stopped.

“Why are you acting like everything’s just going to be fine now…”

Their eyes met, and Naoya saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Don’t you know how long I’ve been suffering… all of those years on my own, trying to protect everything we’ve built, so that when I brought you back, everything else would go back just the way it was… And now you’re telling me none of that matters anymore?”

Through her anger, she felt her powers return, and she launched Naoya away, blasting him through the door and into the dark place behind it.

She followed him through, knowing that they were back in the real world when she recognized the ruined remains of their castle’s throne room around them.

“All those years of loneliness…”

She took out her scythe, and a dark mist covered everything. Naoya couldn’t sense anything around him. He tried to stand up, but as he did so, the glint of her silver blade flashed through the air and sliced him, sending blood flying everywhere.

He simply waited as her unseen form flew around him and continued to mutilate his body, opening up wounds that sliced through every inch of his skin.

“All those years of planning and preparations…”

He fell upwards as gravity inverted around him and into a set of thick spikes on the ceiling, impaling his body like a pincushion. He continued to get launched around the ruins, through fires, blades, and other traps that she had set up everywhere.

“You can’t just say everything will be alright now, because it can’t be! We will never have a second chance in the world we almost destroyed. All we can do is go back to how we were and finish what we started! That’s the only way we can have our happiness.”

The dark mist disappeared from their surroundings, gathering around her blade as she raised it high above her head.

“So why… why did you let yourself be killed? Why did you sacrifice yourself for me? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!”

With tearful eyes and a trembling voice, she fired a dark beam of pure destruction from her weapon, directly towards Naoya. It effortlessly cut through the rubble, erasing everything in its path and even reaching the kingdom of Valebryn far behind its target, which would have suffered damages if not for the Archmage’s timely arrival.

From the center of the beam, Naoya stood up, his clothes and body battered. He slowly absorbed the pure power of destruction as he walked towards Hisora, slowly weakening the attack until it was no more. As the last of her power left her, she collapsed to her knees in exhaustion, and he knelt down in front of her.

“I realized my Demon Lord campaign no longer served a purpose, because throughout all the knowledge and power we collected, I was only really looking for one thing.”

He gently took away her scythe and wiped away the tears from her face, twisted in an expression of anger and sadness.

“I was looking for you, and everything we shared together. So when the time came, I chose to lay down my life to protect the most important person to me.”

His confession finally answered every question in her mind, and after decades of longing, she could no longer contain her emotions. Hisora jumped into his arms and cried her heart out, cherishing the reunion she had been dreaming of for so long.

Naoya gently caressed her head, cradling his long-lost love in his arms.

“I’ve missed you, my dark flame. I’m sorry for leaving you alone.”