WORLD: EARTH
BRANCHED WORLD: SAIJAKU MUHAI NO BAHAMUT
LOCATION: WASTELAND
"D—Dragon P—p—paladin!?"
The shock wasn't lost on them as the knights, even Lux's princess, stared at him in utter shock.
Officially, he was said to possess powers equal to a Dragon Paladin, yet he wasn't one, and that his existence was illusory.
A few delegates from Ymir Theocracy had made their way shortly to Atismata and declared information.
"W–wait, you're saying you know a big shot like him?"
Lisha stared at Lux with an almost serious yet cute expression, making chills go down his spine for a reason.
Now he thought about it...
Perhaps Lux did have it better than him.
"Uhm. From other places, Lux too is also a big shot. Oversees, they call him Knight."
With his hand brushing past his front hair, lips curled up, eyes closed, he said that, prompting them to turn to Lux.
'What is he yapping about now?'
Lux's expression soured.
Before the interrogation could deepen, a low hum rolled over the wasteland. Both he and Laurel looked to the horizon.
From the far distance, ten sleek drag-rides approached in formation, all piloted by women.
"Reinforcements are here."
Laurel said, glancing at the short numbered squadron of about ten, all girls.
Really, in the future, these girls will be fighting over his attention. 'Even the Triads too.' Laurel shook his head.
"Although I have exposed my identity, I'd like you to keep it under wraps for a while. When I'm ready, I'll come in with our full force."
As he said that, they all stared at each other, with the words lost on them. They turned to Lux only to see an unreadable expression.
Laurel, however, didn't elaborate, and right in front of their eyes, a dark portal appeared behind him.
Slowly, he turned back, taking two steps toward the portal.
"Ahhh, by the way, I await good news, Princess. Lux."
With a smug smile that bothered them, he tilted his head upwards before heading into it, leaving them a blushing mess.
WORLD: EARTH
BRANCHED WORLD: DATE A LIVE
LOCATION: JAPAN, SORAI
She waited.
In front of the crossroads that split the city in half: tiled brick roads, a staircase that led to a bridge hung over the express.
How to describe it?
A station-like place with multiple people going around as they please. And there, in front of a store...
She waited.
A girl whose smile was so beautiful. It was beautiful yet deadly.
Black hair cascaded down her back, one silken strand drawn across the left side of her face like a half-veil.
Her clothes were entirely black.
A gown with lace-trimmed sleeves, stockings that traced the shape of her legs, polished shoes that clicked lightly against the pavement.
"Oi. Look at that girl."
"Damn..."
"What year do you think she's in?"
A few passing voices, half-whispered, half-awed. She was used to it.
She was eye-catching, to say the least. Yet, this girl seemed to be waiting for someone.
Every lead pointed to a male, but however, there were always those who dared brave the lightning's glow.
A few encircled her, about three of them, peeled away from the crowd—tall, broad-shouldered,
And dressed in the kind of layered street style that announced delinquency as loudly as possible.
Loose shirts, gleaming chains, caps worn low. Sunglasses even though the sky was overcast.
In terms of height alone, they completely dwarfed her, yet this wasn't a hindrance.
"Hey, I saw you from over there, and I couldn't help it."
"You must be waiting for someone. How about you follow us and have some fun with us?"
The tone was casual, the words rehearsed, something they'd probably used a dozen times before.
She had heard it all before. Every line, every approach. And in truth, she wasn't in a bad mood.
Quite the opposite—she was in too good of a mood to let this annoy her.
Which made it all the easier for an idea to bloom.
These scums, they need a bit of a do-over, right?
Some life-changing rehabilitation.
Permanent rehabilitation.
The thought alone drew a soft sound from her lips that was light, melodic, but just a shade too slow to be innocent.
"Ufufufufu."
The leader's eyes lit up as if she'd just agreed. He leaned in, his shadow spilling across her shoes.
"So that means you'll agree, right?"
Before she could answer, a hand clapped gently against his shoulder. Not forceful, but just enough to make the thug glance back.
"Uhm, buddy, I'd advise against hitting on her. For your safety. But, well... I suppose it's your choice."
"What?" the leader barked, straightening.
The three turned fully now, facing a white-haired man with glacier-blue eyes and an expression so uninterested it was insulting.
"Who are you?"
Their bodies shifted into practiced fighting stances. The man only scratched the side of his head.
"Uhhh... the one who has an appointment with the girl you're bothering."
Laurel hadn't come here to play hero. He didn't particularly care about street punks, but he knew her.
He knew what she was capable of.
And if these three were unlucky enough to have her full attention,
they wouldn't just end up with bruises, they'd vanish from the flow of life entirely.
Kurumi's lips curled as she tilted her head ever so slightly to the side, eyes wide in that way children feign confusion.
"Ufufu. It does sting a little, you know—hearing you talk to me like that."
Sweetness in her voice. A flower in her hair. A predator's patience under it all.
She would never harm a fly. Unless, of course, she wanted to.
To that,
Laurel said nothing, even he and Lux had just mercilessly... and even when he thought about it...
He felt nothing at all.
While he still felt emotions, the lingering perks of once being human,
the kind of hollow ache that came from burying people with his own hands...
Oddly, that strange sense of remorse wasn't there anymore.
In a way, perhaps he was like the girl standing before him.
"Tsk. She already has a man."
"Kusso, aniki. Better luck next time."
The blonde-haired leader gave a resigned shake of his head, then reached out and patted Laurel's shoulder.
The gesture, simple, almost brotherly, didn't fit his look as a delinquent at all.
It caught both Laurel and Kurumi off guard.
They'd judged him too early.
For a moment, the noise of the street dimmed. Laurel's hand came up to cover his face, half in thought, half in amusement.
Kurumi smiled, but it didn't touch her eyes.
The silence stretched just long enough to make the air feel heavier.
Then Laurel let out a soft, tired breath.
"Haah... forget it."
Laurel barely had the words out before Kurumi stepped forward, too close.
Her face hovered inches from his, red eye locked on his, the other hidden behind a curtain of black hair.
Sniff. Sniff.
"My~... where did you go so that you had so much fun?"
Kurumi pulled her head back and tilted it, still with a smile on her face. Unfortunately, in Laurel's case...
'Threads of Fate' didn't apply to him.
Well, it applied and at the same time didn't apply. At the very least, because he was the embodiment of calamity.
Those people he 'did in'... under universal records will be classified as "Calamity Befall".
Even the book of death will classify any entity killed by him as such.
[They simply met their end]
[Killed by unknown person]
[Done in by person X]
And all attempts to find them will be null. It was that much of a broken skill.
"I won't sugarcoat it. Perhaps we really are the same. And I won't deny it."
At his words, her smile grew larger.
Of course he was.
"So? Why have you called me here?"
Kurumi's answer came with a languid tilt of her head, her left index finger resting against her lips in that calculated, too-innocent way.
"A date with you."
He could have guessed. In fact, he had guessed the moment she'd contacted him.
Laurel let out a small sigh, as if scolding himself for planting the idea in her mind earlier.
Well, it couldn't be changed.
"Alright? Now you have my attention."
Kurumi didn't say a word, and simply led him around town, to at least, the various places she loved visiting.
They both walked around the city's central, where there were parks, aquariums, street stalls to eventually,
A shopping mall. And one of the places she decided to enter on a whim...
Such place was here,
'...'
Laurel sweat dropped. For real, Kurumi was in every way trying to get him to fold.
"I won't be entering a lingerie store with you."
With a perfectly serious and deadpanned expression. He said that seriously, looking at the store sign uphead.
"Oh?"
The girl on the other hand tilted her heqd ever so cluelessly.
"Are you scared?"
She then said so with a rather confident expression.
But Laurel turned toward her with the kind of tired, unimpressed gaze that only someone who's already survived worse could give.
"Forget it. I have two women at home who can do pretty much anything. I'm not suicidal. Even my immortality won't save me. No thank you."
And then, almost as an afterthought:
"Not to mention, the overprotective father of the woman I love is already sizing me up like fresh meat."
Cheating with all that in mind was stressful enough without adding... whatever this is.
It really is stressful and not worth it.
At the very least, Mei was aware that he had a thing for Luminous, and that was where he planned to stop.
Yet,
Even those that are 'Fate-less' tends to attract themselves.
Kurumi studied him, amused. "I see. A pity. I thought you might be more... adventurous."
She then turned her heels. Well, she also did reason it... she was no fool.
Regardless,
"Well, I'll still fufill my promise to you. After all, you are already part of the family."
Laurel said walking a few steps, standing beside her,
He took another step, then glanced back over his shoulder, one brow lifting.
"Follow me."
He said those words.
She nodded. They then walked past the crowded mall that stretched out in front of them.
An escalator at the center point of the huge mall led to the upper part of the mall.
At the top, an open café waited at the left part with glass walls, the faint clatter of cups, and the smell of roasted beans in the air.
They took a table near the edge, where the view looked out over the moving crowd below.
"What will you order today, sir?"
A waitress approached them, with a brown-and-white vertically striped uniform smiling down at them.
"Just a latte will do, what about you, Kurumi?"
"I will... have the same."
Kurumi said,
prompting the waitress to let out that same practiced smile, jotting it down before disappearing into the counter area.
At first, there were a few seconds of silence, before Laurel then spoke up.
"I know about your goal. The one you'll see through no matter the cost."
Kurumi's gaze drifted toward him, curious.
"But what if I told you..."
"Revenge is pointless?"
She finished the sentence for him, tilting her head slightly.
Her smile this time was different, stripped of the coy edge, almost faint, almost brittle.
"You are angry because you were tricked, sad because you became the one thing you didn't like... and ultimately. Killed her."
As Laurel let out the last part, beneath the tables, shadows stirred. However, Laurel remained there, unflinching.
He didn't even attempt to register the shadows on the floor.
"Here is you order."
The waitress finally came back, setting the cup filled with latte on the table, before giving another practiced bow before ultimately leaving.
Laurel, reached for the latte, sipped it once, and then continued.
"What if I tell you that, your overarching reason for revenge... is somewhat not valid."
"That.. the reason for your revenge... that girl. Yamauchi Sawa. Is still alive."
A bombshell was dropped.
Kurumi froze. Her eyes wavered. Her hands began to tremble, fingers twitching against the ceramic edge of her cup.
Even her breath caught in her throat.
Not once in years had she allowed herself to break character. Not once had she let anything slip past the mask.
She didn't even want to believe it.
Yet, because these words came from his mouth, she was inclined to believe. Yes, he knew so many things about her.
And this world,
then what he said must be true.
"H–how—"
Her voice cracked under the facade she attempted to but up with, yet, that name, those words.
Laurel rested his left elbow on the table, his right hand holding the latte as his gaze wandered casually toward the café's glass wall.
"At this point in time, she's alive. Living in the Neighboring World. The current her hates your guts, but that's beside the point."
Yes. Time travel wasn't involved nor some other bullshit like reviving the dead. It was a plain and simple fact.
"Sawa was currently alive. And her condition can be fixed, at the very least, I can fix her condition."
However,
"She's stuck... in a complicated state."
Since she became a Quasi-Spirit before death, she couldn't go to the afterlife or paradise, as they call it.
Rather, her soul was stuck in the neighboring world, which was like heaven and hell for spirits.
There, she met the illusory [Inverse] of Kurumi, who by the time she saw the dead Sawa, reverted to the inverse state.
Somehow, the [Inverse] followed Sawa to the neighboring world and merged with her.
"Thus, White Queen was born."
Kurumi's trembling didn't stop. But she didn't cry either.
The mask was cracking, and Laurel could see it, but she held everything in, staring down, lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
It must have been tough.
She didn't know.
"Is there a way to reach the Neighboring World?"
Slowly, Kurumi raised her head. Laurel met her gaze for a moment, then shook his head.
"At the very least, I believe the dimensional coordinates are hidden. And I don't know where the key to open the gates is."
"If I forcefully break into that place... there's no saying what could happen. Though, I believe there's a requirement."
A requirement to access that place.
From what Laurel knew, it was after Kurumi 'died' that she reached the Neighboring World.
And he speculated that the Kurumi there wasn't even the original, but a clone that died and reached there.
Of course, eventually, these were speculations.
"What's the requirement?"
Seeing her resolved expression, Laurel had that feeling she would do whatever to get there.
"I am not entirely sure, but I suspect the death of a Spirit."
Her expression hardened, all trembling gone, replaced by a cold stillness.