I jolted up from the table like a cat shocked by thunder.

“Wait, was it all a dream?” The line slipped out like a curtain falling at the end of a play.

Just kidding—I only wanted to use the dream ending once, like tossing a paper lantern into the night.

It’s such a classic line; a person should say it once, like carving a mark on a tree.

Stini, Raven, and Gloria were sprawled around me, limbs scattered like fallen banners after a drunken festival, a mess that made reality feel like a stage painted too bright.

Of course, it only looked that way, like frost that’s just dew pretending.

“Ugh… my head,” I groaned, as if a drumbeat was pounding inside a cave.

I couldn’t tell if it was the hangover’s fog or wounds still stitched with pain, like rain finding cracks in stone.

After we took down the Son of the Demon King, Yakfarro, who held the Domain of Lust’s Authority, we all collapsed where we stood, like soldiers sinking into snow.

Later, Gloria led those unwilling to leave us to die and stormed the city, like dawn pushing through a smoke-choked valley.

They found the blood-draining banshees gone, and the other monsters clawing each other to pieces, like wolves turned on their own shadows.

After Gloria’s team purged the stragglers, everyone searched the city and tallied the dead like counting burnt stars, then found us deep in the Sanctuary of Life, lying on cold stone like washed-up wreckage.

Raven was using all kinds of special Constructs to stem our bleeding, her hands moving like needles in a storm.

Then the alchemical and mythic folks treated us, and Stini and I crawled back from the edge like embers catching breath.

That night, the whole city held a great feast, a bonfire of noise and relief to celebrate beating a Demon King’s heir and taking the city back, and to say farewell to the fallen with strong drink and louder laughter, like tossing cups into a river for the dead.

Where there’s life there’s death, and where there’s death life returns; in the Silver Era people know it’s the tide, they cry like rain, then they look forward like wheat turning to sun.

A banquet is a banquet, and the drinks were free, the kind of free that’s stamped “Academy expense,” like a seal pressed into wax.

That bliss made broke-as-bones Stini giddy, like a sparrow let loose in a granary.

She forced herself to stay awake for it, stubborn as a mule under a crimson banner.

Her dad had forbidden her to go out while badly hurt, but Augustus is still on the run from debt like a fox ducking hounds, and he has no clue Stini already paid off his tab, so he couldn’t drag her by the ear back to the ward.

Good news: my rapport with the girls seemed to sharpen like a blade kissed by oil; we drank, we chatted, we tossed crude jokes like pebbles into a lake, and no one flinched.

Bad news: they probably filed me under drinking buddy or dear friend, like shelving a book one spine off.

In my last clear memory, Stini got drunk and went for my pants like a bandit grabbing a banner, Raven blocked, Gloria watched with a grin like a cat in the sun, we flailed bigger than we should, my knee-jerk sent a crack through Stini’s ribs like a twig snapping, and my wound ripped open like paper in rain.

The feast migrated to the sickroom like geese changing lakes, and the rest you can picture like a smear of wine on a white tablecloth.

Raven was the last to topple, and judging from the empty medical alcohol bottle by her hand, she couldn’t be bothered to fetch the crate of new wine; she downed the high-proof stuff like a comet plunging and didn’t get back up.

“My clumsy master, you still have the mood for post-nut clarity?” Vega’s voice floated from the darkest corner like a knife hidden in silk. “As your maid, I didn’t interrupt your chance to raise affection stats, but you managed to steer them into a skewed branch route. I’m amazed. With such a favorable board, even you played the bad ending.”

Calling friendship a bad ending… rude as sand in tea.

I want to romance girls too, but I can’t read their hearts, like trying to hear snow fall.

Vega stood in the room’s deepest Shadow, straight-backed like a blade in a sheath, as if she’d been there forever and only now stepped out of night.

That was the landing effect of my retainer’s unique skill—Shadow Step—like slipping between ripples.

“I’m sorry,” I said, voice small as a leaf in wind. “I did mess up today.”

“I’m not just talking about smoothing relationships,” she said, eyes hard as obsidian under moonlight.

Vega glared with a ghost-god’s ferocity, a mask that didn’t belong on a cute girl’s face, like a storm wearing a ribbon.

“When you faced His Highness Yakfarro today, you improvised, didn’t you?” Her words fell like pins on glass.

Before I act, I always plan ahead, sketching a script in charcoal and ash, and I’d predicted the Ironwood Forest raid and Yakfarro taking the town, like mapping currents before setting sail.

I also wrote the ugly line: “We can’t beat Yakfarro with just us; we might have to lose people to win,” like noting where the ice is thinnest.

My countermeasure read: “If Stini can beat Yakfarro, I’ll shield against a desperate last strike that might flip the table; possible last strikes, see p.586,” like footnotes under thunder.

And: “If Stini can’t, I’ll use the Demon King’s power to finish Yakfarro and make up a story; for cover stories, see p.1123,” like spare masks in a drawer.

By rights, I should have taken the second route, like stepping onto the sure stone.

Yeah, it was a whim—I wanted to go crazy with Stini once, like jumping with her across a burning ditch.

“You know how in novels Heroes break the noose and make ‘miracles,’ and in history, most Heroes have moments like that,” I said, hope flickering like a moth.

“Heroes are people and people die. There’s no fate in this world. Those were your words,” she said, each syllable steady as rain.

“…If I say I lied to you, will you forgive me?” I asked, the question light as ash.

Vega pressed her fingers to her brow, then sighed like a lantern dimming.

“Please watch yourself,” she said. “When we wrote the script, we chose the branch with the highest success. For a mist called ‘miracle,’ you overturned consensus and plan… My dear master, even I get stomachaches from stress, and I don’t even have a stomach.” Her smile was a thin winter sun.

“Sorry, Vega,” I said. “It’s just… something in me was moved, drawn to her stance—too pure, too bright—like snow untouched and sky after rain. I felt she could do it. I wanted to try believing.”

“I kept thinking, ‘What would happen if I walked on with her,’ and so I kept pretending to be her ally, kept being foolish with her, like a fox playing pet.”

“I believed it could come true—the miracle breaking despair, the cocoon split, the butterfly born, like a ray through cloud.”

“I knew one missed step could wreck the script, knew if Stini died all our work would molder, but I thought, if it’s her… Fine, I’ll stop preaching miracles,” I said, letting the word fall like a petal.

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I was willful this time,” I said, the apology small as a pebble dropped in a well.

Vega still frowned, but she reached out a hand, intent on lifting me like handling porcelain.

“I’m glad it ended well, my conflicted master,” she said. “I won’t say more tonight,” and the night nodded like a patient cat.

“Then let’s go. There’s an afterparty,” I said, forcing a grin like a lantern relit.

“My frail master, be careful,” she said, the warning a shawl laid on my shoulders.

Even displeased, Miss Vega treated me like fragile crystal as she helped me from bed, the opposite of Gloria’s habit of tossing me like a sack onto sheets.

“This body is only a human shape,” she said. “Even hurt, it’s surface, it’s by design, like paint over steel. My master isn’t that fragile.”

“I thought you were,” she added softly, the tease a feather.

She knelt to slip my shoes on, movements neat as a tea ceremony, and I couldn’t help thinking, who’s the girl here, in this shadowed waltz.

We left the ward and wandered the quiet streets of the City of Heroes, the night like ink that forgot the stars.

The boisterous banquet had ended, leaving barrels and leftovers like driftwood after a tide; it felt like everyone forgot today’s pain and now waited for morning, calm as fields under frost.

I shrugged, letting the silence breathe like a cool pond. “Vega, do you think I did wrong?”

“Didn’t you just reflect?” she said. “Or do you mean deceiving girls? Or deceiving gods? Or deceiving everyone who blessed you after you saved them?” Her questions lined up like crows on a fence.

“All of it,” I said after a beat, the word heavy as wet cloth.

“Then I need a premise, my dimmed master,” she said, voice even as a metronome. “Why ask? Is it guilt for those who died because you withheld truth? Is it love, and you think pursuing with a purpose is a sin? Or do you think your methods can be refined?” Each option was a door in a dark hall.

“Does it matter? I just want to hear your take,” I said, the want small and stubborn as a weed.

“You’ve changed,” she said. “You’re more complex and weaker,” the verdict falling like first snow.

“I haven’t,” I shot back, a spark against wind.

“You have. The old you wouldn’t bend for anyone’s words,” she said, mirror-clear as ice.

“…”

“My pitiable master,” Vega said softly. “As a servant, I won’t ask what you truly want unless you offer it. But in my foolish view, I feel you’ve changed a lot for your goal. You aren’t pure anymore. You think too much. You are fated for Shadow, my master; we belong to the Ocean of Darkness. When you’re no longer the pure, proud, peerless, cruel firstborn of the Demon King, Andor, your power isn’t Andor’s either. It turns into something else, hesitant, a thing that only seems like Andor,” her words flowed like oil over black water.

“Do you think I’m wrong?” I asked, the question a splinter.

“I didn’t say that, nor do I think it,” she said. “My words are to make you look inward and ask if it’s truly what you want,” like holding up a lantern rather than a sword.

“I just want to know how you see me. I…” I let the horizon swallow the end like mist.

I want a good ending for myself and the ones I love, and I’ve been grinding toward it like a millstone; but while I push, I’m shifting too, like clay under rain.

Maybe that’s part of Wisdom God Haydon’s design: to make the completely chaotic Endless Demon King Andreas think about himself, to stir order into pure disorder, and so Andreas becomes less absolute, like thunder taught to count.

In the end, I change for others, I always will, at least for Vega, like a river curving for a stone.

She looked at me with a sorrow she’d buried since the day I took her as my retainer, eyes like stars behind smoke, and it had been so long since I’d seen that look.

“Is it me?” she asked, the words barely a ripple.

“I told you. I came back for you all,” I said, a vow tied with red thread.

“Then kill me,” she said. “Or rewrite me. Aside from my essence from the Ocean of Darkness, everything else was given by you. Don’t say change—take it back if you wish,” her surrender lay like a blade across her palms.

I slipped an arm around her shoulders and brushed my cheek to hers, gentle as a falling petal. “Don’t,” I murmured.

“I’ve done too much to turn back now,” I said, like a bridge already built over the gorge.

We walked a street no longer warm, and I felt cold drops prick my arm like needles, each sting waking the wound’s red mouth.

“But the former you didn’t have the concept of giving up,” she said, voice like a bell under snow.

She was right. The past me was strong because I was foolish, knowing nothing and learning nothing, like a boulder proud of falling; but that road only ends in sorrow, like a song that breaks on the last note.

“Is that so?” I asked, eyes on the sky as if it could answer.

I’ve changed, yes, but can I change back? Even if I lay down some strength and stop being the strongest, I won’t be a madman who knows only Slaughter and ruin, like a storm set free in a nursery.

I looked up, but tonight the clouds smothered the stars, and there was no Haydon, no Bel, no Fiz, and no Ferrel, like a temple with lamps snuffed out.

Nothing goes smooth—past, present, or future—every path grows thorns, like vines claiming a stair.

What a rotten day, I thought, the words tasting like iron.

But at least I’m back, breathing the air of the Silver Era like a man surfacing from deep water, and that alone pushes me on, like a drumbeat under ribs.

For a Son of the Demon King to speak of hope—it’s ridiculous, like a wolf preaching harvest.

This is an age without salvation, and I said that from the start, like carving it into the gate before we stepped through.