Half‑clad, Adelaide stood barefoot on rough stone, and everything felt like a life peeled away, a dream fogged across centuries.

This wasn’t the spirit world, nor a space Richard VI had shaped; it was the palace’s stone throat, a hidden chamber, the core of the Greatest Sacrifice array, the floor they’d stood on before battle.

Feet on reality’s soil again, yet Adelaide felt more dreamed than ever, like walking a mist bridge over a cliff.

Why was Mira before her, biting her own lower lip till it bled, blue eyes peering through her fingers, dressed in red like flame under snow?

Red?

This morning, didn’t I pick her a crisp white dress, cool as dawn wind?

So why the crimson now, like sunset poured over salt?

Oh. Right. I know.

It’s my blood, a stain like a poppy burst.

When Richard VI slashed me diagonally in two, blood must’ve sprayed wide, a red rain across stone.

Though the Sacred Heart patched my body while the hypnosis held, that one bloom of blood still turned Mira’s white into red, like petals dipped in wine.

It was a strange red—no dye could match that brightness, no words could hold that splendor, like a comet burned into cloth.

No wonder the women of Nuhaman choose that color for wedding robes; beauty fit for a ritual worn twice in a life, like fire lit only at the start and end.

But Adelaide didn’t want that red; this wasn’t a wedding, it was a funeral, a field of cut roses.

Just like the script foretold—the funeral Mira had prepared for herself, a page inked before the day.

Adelaide stepped back; the dream of self‑deception peeled off like wet paper, and a thousand crows wailed in her skull until only cold despair remained.

Why?

Why had they walked to this brink, like travelers led to a cliff by a faulty star?

No paths left but the script’s single track; the walls closed in like stone teeth, leaving no corner for fantasy.

After all, Mira didn’t burn the Savia Rose at the start to hard‑control Richard VI; she let him pilot Adelaide’s body and grind her down, to shatter her sister’s last sliver of lucky hope, to prove it plain: her proud Blood Magic and her Sacrifice Domain were dust before the absolute might of the Greatest Sacrifice, like candles before a sun.

As she said in the spirit world, she knew her sister couldn’t make that choice alone, so she cut every other road, like pruning every branch but one.

And she succeeded, like a door clicking shut in a silent hall.

Now Adelaide held only one card, a blade thin as a breath.

To sacrifice Mira, to seize that power, like drinking poison for strength.

N‑no... I can’t... it’s impossible... her throat felt full of smoke.

She trembled, breaking like frost under a boot; how could she kill Mira? She’d rather die with her than—

No—this isn’t what she wants, not in any world she can name.

Sis... sis... the word fell like a sparrow against glass.

As if reading the ache, Mira called Adelaide in ragged breaths, a thread pulled through a wound.

I... really... really am happy, a smile laid like gauze over pain.

Huh?

Adelaide lifted her face; Mira forced a smile, thin as a moon cut by cloud, light shaking on water.

These six months, traveling with you... were joy I never deserved, like spring stolen back from winter.

You’ve already filled every dream for me, sis, like lanterns lit one by one.

I have no regrets left... so..., the words drifted like snow that won’t melt.

So..., the echo hung like a withheld note.

Before everything turns ugly and shameful, please give our story a fairy‑tale ending with your own hands, like closing a book with clean fingers.

—No. I don’t think you want that, eldest daughter of the Douglas Family, a voice like soot dragged across silk.

Mira’s voice broke off, snapped like a bowstring.

A pitch‑black shadow rose behind her; a hand of fog touched her shoulder, and a sound came that was both shriek and whisper, a storm and a murmur.

No living thing could make that sound; it could only be Richard VI, curse made flesh, a blight rooted in the dark.

Shut... up! Mira struggled, like a netted fish fighting the water.

Ah, I’m not talking to you, he purred, words slick as oil.

Ugh— a muffled grunt, as if hammered from within, rolled out.

Mira buckled as if struck; Adelaide panicked, heart flaring like a torn banner. Get away from her!!

Richard VI leaned in, cheek to cheek, smiling with a knife’s sneer, cold as a winter star.

Don’t be so resistant... I brought you great news, honeyed like rot. You’ll be thrilled, like bells at noon.

What...?

Adelaide swallowed; the despair was so deep that even his “good news” tugged a thread of hope, a pale light under a door.

But it couldn’t be good, not from him, not from a mouth like smoke.

It’s real. If I were you, I’d be overjoyed by it, he drawled, velvet over thorns.

He mocked as the fog arm slid past Mira’s shoulder, reaching for the light in her chest, a thief’s hand for a star.

Naturally, the Savia Rose flared, resisting his approach like a star against smoke, bright as frost fire.

Even at full blaze, it barely held the fog arm; against Richard VI, it had no edge, like a reed against iron.

In truth, it was in total retreat, nowhere near his tier of power, a river pressed by a sea.

To be honest, I was confused. How could an Elven relic suppress me? While you two reminisced, I investigated a bit. And guess what? His words prowled like cats in a grave.

He pushed harder; the fog arm crossed an unseen boundary like a wolf slipping a fence.

Violet‑blue energy erupted, a surf that drowned the Savia Rose for an instant, grinding against the fog, sparking like flint in rain.

The answer lives right here, he hissed, recoiling like shocked wiring. You felt it when I was pressed—the solitude, the grief. A tide of memory. This flood is what truly holds me down.

But whose memory could smother a god‑tier force, like mountains laid over a storm?

Even the legendary Elven Queen can’t have a span that long, he concluded, words sharp as frost; Adelaide froze like a river under moon.

He hadn’t said it yet, but her heart already knew, a bell rung before the hand moved.

The shadow clicked its tongue in delight. See? I said you’d be happy. On the Sumerland Continent, only one life outstrips that ageless queen—a span across the ages of dragon and man, near immortal in the true sense. The recorder of the Dragon Chronicle, a being above time, the ancient dragon every Dragon King calls taboo, a name like thunder kept in a box.

It also has another name you know better, a pet‑name sewn in blue thread.

Your Little Blue.

Adelaide opened her mouth; no sound came, silence pooling like ink.

Richard VI kept talking, words pouring like hot pitch.

Surprised? It’s fine. I was too at first. But then it made sense. She survived the full Tessmi’s Lament refit. At first I thought the Douglas duke got stupid luck, picking a slave with a soul and body one in a million, born tough. But turns out that useless man didn’t just get lucky, not with dice like stars.

He gripped Mira’s shoulders; his shadow‑made body lay across her back, laughter scraping like iron on stone.

In your world’s words, his luck was heaven‑sent; he didn’t pick a person at all. He picked the reincarnation of the Time Dragon, a myth wrapped in skin.

...

What’s wrong? Smile. The tale of the Time Dragon and Emperor Belior didn’t end; it continued another way, like a river finding a new bed. Isn’t that wonderful? Why the long face? Too much info to process? Or too happy to think?

His grating voice kept drilling, like a beetle boring wood.

Adelaide only lowered her head, like willow bowed over water, with no response.

It wasn’t joy turning her numb; it was weight, cold as lead.

She heard him; she understood every word, each a thorn under the nail.

Still, she didn’t move, stilled like a statue in snow.

It wasn’t that “Mira is Little Blue” meant nothing; it wasn’t that she missed his stalling, buying time until Mira couldn’t hold him, until he won, like a tide wearing down a cliff.

She knew. And she did nothing, a candle that refused to burn.

Because none of it mattered anymore, the horizon already ash.

Knowing changed nothing here, like maps in a burning house.

No matter what, she couldn’t beat Richard VI; his power loomed like a mountain’s shadow.

Everything she’d plotted, every scrap of authority she’d stolen, turned to ash before god‑tier might, embers scattered by storm.

And the heart deep in her chest, a god‑tier thing in theory, did nothing now but hang her life on a thread; she had no idea how to call its power, and till now she’d only enjoyed its passive healing, a tide that mended but never surged.

So knowing was useless, a key with no door.

Whether Little Blue or Mira stood before her, the choice stayed the same, a blade laid on a friend. End her with Adelaide’s own hands.

But...

What a joke, a laugh that cuts the mouth.

Of course Adelaide would never do it; that line was a cliff.

She had done so much—by any means—just to build a home where nothing could ever threaten them again, a hearth walled against wind.

She never wanted to be parted from her again; never wanted to lose the one she cherished, a jewel kept close to heart.

Her goal was so simple. Yet..., it curved like a path lost in fog.

Why?

Why? Why did this road bring them here instead, like a pilgrim led to a gallows?

Sis... sis! Don’t listen to him—ahhh!, Mira’s cry tore like cloth.

Mira’s hoarse wail reached her, but Adelaide still didn’t look up, neck stiff as carved wood.

That exhausted voice broke her heart and stripped her courage to meet Mira’s eyes, a storm that felled her inner house.

Because she knew the “no regrets” was a lie, a veil over a wound.

Looking back from now, it all turned clear, like silt settling in water.

If Mira were truly fulfilled, regretless, why bring her that pile of gifts, those little suns? Why ask again and again to stay in Sanda, a harbor she named and named?

Her little sister wasn’t half as carefree as she seemed; she was a smile over a crack.

Isn’t that obvious? Mira... more than anyone, wanted to dodge this destined parting, like a bird refusing winter.

Every time she said she wanted to stay, to live quietly, she was asking her sister for help in her own way, a hand held out in dusk.

She clung to that small hope; she wanted to live; she wanted to keep staying by Adelaide’s side; and Adelaide never saw it—she even called it naivety, a childish kite.

The truth was, the naive fool had always been Adelaide, a crown stuck on a scarecrow.

Climb to a seat none can threaten. Become a king and guard her better. If only she had let go of that gilded‑cage ambition just once, a bright trap she built herself.

Truly, if she had wavered even a little, they wouldn’t be here, the path would’ve bent toward spring.

And she had more than one chance, doors she never opened.

For Adelaide, the truth Richard VI exposed hurt worse than any insult; it meant she hadn’t just made one hot‑blooded mistake—she’d made it again and again, a hammer striking the same wrong nail.

Because that woman named Beniola knew; she knew Little Blue was in that small village, curled in their secret hideout, wings covering their most precious trove, waiting like a guardian over gold.

She had countless chances to go back, evenings that could’ve turned.

And she never once doubted that her chosen path might be wrong, her feet locked like roots.

She was that stubborn; not even one death woke her; she held to it up to now, a ship set on a single star.

Yes. Up to now, to this breath.

Up to the moment she was about to lose her, for the second time, a flower cut twice.

Two lives given to you... in the last life, she waited for you a whole lifetime... and now—will you abandon her again?, the words slid like knives wrapped in silk.

Every word from Richard VI stabbed her deepest weakness; she froze like an ice carving, a figure caught mid‑reach.

She was disappointed, rain on dying embers.

In herself, a mirror spider‑cracked.

Enough. No more thinking, she told herself, snuffing a candle.

This is the end of it, isn’t it?, dusk closing over water.

She wouldn’t kill Mira; she’d rather die with her, winter taken hand in hand.

And with that thought, a strange calm opened like a small, quiet lake inside her.

By now, despair was thinning like fog at daybreak; she saw her lives as a farce and tasted an absurd little thrill, like frost on the tongue.

Heh—like a laugh chipped from stone.

How did that saying go… oh right: dying together is, in its way, a happy ending, like two candles guttering out side by side.

A fool like me probably deserves that kind of wrap-up, like a broken kite snagging on a bare branch.

As for the mess called Richard VI… let Menglan and the Lioness sweep it up, like storm-tossed debris along a cold shore.

Killing so many living things, raising a threat no less than chaos, then shrugging it off—surely that’s the ceiling of cruelty… or is cruelty measured like a pit?

Ah, whatever, whatever; she tossed the thought like stones into a pond and never watched them sink.

In short, it’s vile. But I’m about to die, and a lifetime of wrongs pushed to the cliff’s lip leaves no one to come for the bill, like a ledger burned to ash.

So—sorry, Menglan. And you too, Lioness; the words drifted like soot from a brazier.

Take me for a small-hearted rat, gnawed by envy of your hundred-year bond, staging a bite of petty revenge under the floorboards.

Yes, it’s payback—an arrow dipped in spite—especially aimed at you, Menglan.

“Don’t repeat the same mistake again, my old friend.”

In memory, that pre-departure counsel turned sharper, like a reed-whistle cutting the ear in a north wind.

Menglan, oh Menglan—who told you to be so sharp, so clear-eyed? You were a lantern in fog, seeing my old mistake coming before anything began, and you even said it aloud.

Ugh—damn it, damn it. If only I were as smart as you. If it were you, you wouldn’t trip over the same stone in the same path.

Right. If it were you, you wouldn’t retrace the ruts like a cart stuck in its old tracks…

Eh—how am I this stupid? Your hint was a banner in the wind, bright as noon, and I still repeated—eh?

Adelaide had been chanting “retrace the ruts” in despair inside her skull; the next moment, her eyes flew open like shutters.

Wait… the words echoed down a well: retrace the ruts, retrace the ruts… retrace the ruts…?

Yes—retrace the ruts; let the wheel find the old groove.

She lowered her head and looked at the wound on her chest—the old puncture Mira’s scissors had stabbed, a dark crater like a dead star.

Deep in that scar, the heart of a god was pumping, slow as a tide under moonlight.

“Not to be mean, eldest daughter of the Douglas Family—think. Even if you become an Eternal King, without her beside you, endless years will grind like sand—”

“Heh, heh-heh… heh—hahahahahahaha!!!”

The shadow behind Mira, stalling with words, was cut off by her sudden laughter, like lightning splitting a knotted tree.

Seeing her face brighten like sun breaking cloud, Richard VI’s “face”—a sketch of black mist and crooked lines—twitched.

“What’s wrong? Suddenly this happy?”

“I just remembered something pretty fun, like a spark under wet leaves.”

“Oh? Care to share what’s so funny it bubbles like spring water?”

“Eh, how to put it…” Adelaide shrugged like a leaf shedding rain. Her face kept its mirth, but her mouth turned solemn. “It’s awkward to say. Still, since I remembered, I should set it straight, so everyone knows the truth.”

“Uh… huh?”

Adelaide ignored his baffled look and pointed at the bell hairpin tucked like a small moon at Mira’s temple.

“I think everyone kinda knows what that hairpin means to Mira now. But have you turned the prism—asked it from my side?”

Which is: why did I insist on a hairpin with a bell, as my first gift to my little sister, a caged star that rings?