➨ When your eyes opened again, you inhaled the dry air. Your body felt like it was on fire, but that burn only lasted for a few moments after you woke back up. You looked around but couldn't find Mimosa anywhere.

You felt the ache in your right shoulder. Thanks to Mimosa, you weren't bleeding anymore, and the wound wasn't actively see through now. It was stiff, and you were grateful for that being the only negative sign.

A loud crash made you turn around. There was a swarm of elf-possessed knights attacking the same area that you swore was just empty. Everyone was taking a short break here not even ten minutes ago, so where did all of them come from?

Next to you, you saw there was an unusually large bowl of food. That definely wasn't there before you knocked out. You inspected it carefully. It looked... extremely delicious. But you had to wonder who found the time or energy to whip up a meal that fast.

As you were thinking about the meal, a body flew across your vision and crashed into the rubble. The groan sounded familiar, and if that didn't tell you who it was, the white magic circle blocking the next attack did.

The red hair popped into your view shortly after. He dragged himself up to a seated position. "Finally done sleeping?"

Another knight came from behind him, one in your squad's attire. Vines shot out from her arms and Zora was still wedged in between rubble so he wouldn't be able to dodge it. At that moment, all you could think about was getting in the way to stop them.

Without thinking too hard about it, Aegis rose up from the ground right behind Zora and blocked the incoming attack with just his body. The vines then grabbed onto Aegis instead. Similar vines wrapped around the girl's arm, creating a bracer, and she flew forward, ready to strike Aegis down.

If it had been Sylvania, that would be a killing blow, and she would be marked with Sylvania's poison curse mark.

At the thought, Aegis' body started melting into a black ooze.

Through the murk, Sylvania's dainty and posed figure took his place. Once the girl made contact with her, she broke apart and crumbled into the ground. You felt the same pain in the similar spot, but it was nowhere near as bad as it would've been normally. The pain synthesis was much weaker now.

"What the–" She stops in her tracks and clutches her stomach. You were already running towards Zora as she collapsed onto the ground. You climbed up to where he was stuck, and saw the reason why.

Zora's leg was caught underneath a fallen fragment of rock. He took one look at you and frowned. "Like hell you can lift that up."

And you proved him wrong.

It was like raising a sack of grain from the ground, but you did it. Once it was off his leg, he moved it out of the way. Then he stared at you like you sprouted an extra head. "How did you..."

You weren't listening and tried to summon Sylvania back to the field. When she didn't return, you remembered that your father had said that your creations are always out. Meaning, after she was taken out, realistically she's back in the realm unable to battle for the time being.

"Wait for a few more minutes. I can bring her back in a sec." You told Zora.

"Don't bother, I'm fine." He groaned and pushed himself up with a limp. "Since you were knocked out, let me recap for you. You see that right there?" He gestured up towards the dark floating mass in the sky. "That's the reformed hideout of the Midnight Sun. Both of your friends went in there, so did the shrimp, and a few other people."

Yuno, Mimosa and Asta went inside that thing?

"So what's going on out here?" You asked about the current chaos. The Black Bulls were still fighting out there as well, but it still looked like everyone was reaching their limits with how far they could go.

"The usual. They're tryna kill us."

"Fun." You gave him your hand so you could help him stay steady. A look of hesitation crosses his features, and ultimately, he declines the offer. "Also, where did that food come from?"

Zora glances over and looks at the bowl which is still untouched. "That glutton left it for you before she hitched a ride into the Shadow Palace. It restores your mana, so I'd eat it if I were you."

It would kill him to reference people by their names.

"I don't think there's time to eat right now." You mumbled and looked into the distance to where chaos is continuing to erupt. That mage that uses the mirrors was clutching onto the little girl you noticed earlier. Not far from him, Magna was launching fireballs at everyone who came his way.

"So you're just gonna let your mana run out?"

You grinned. "I'll be alright."

Since he claimed he was fine (you doubted it), you left him to sit on the sidelines for a moment while you jumped into the fray alongside the others. It was odd not being with the Golden Dawn though. Well, this entire situation was odd, so there wasn't a ton of room to complain about who your temporary comrades were.

One woman stuck out to you in particular. She had the appearance of a witch, and used string– no, thread magic. Watching her use them to her full advantage was honestly pretty satisfying. While you could use strings of your own, her control over hers was fascinating.

Magna jumped next to you with a bat made of flames in his hand. "We're back on a team together, huh?" He pushed his fist out towards you.

"Damn right." You bumped your fist with his. "I've learned to be a little more useful since last time though."

"Oh please," Magna summoned a fireball in his hand. He threw it up and then hit it with the bat, striking a homerun at the incoming elves. "You weren't totally useless last time."

Your grimoire pages flipped and your hand swiped forwards. Puppeteers Tempest. The rampant little minions leaped out from in front of you. Now, there were more of them than normal. Their sizes and speed increased as well.

The elves flew out of range, not expecting them to get hit in the air. With the help of the elvish powers, they multiplied once more, creating a staircase of screeching puppets to reach higher up. One of the ones near the top took a leap of faith and bit down onto the leg of a fleeing knight.

He fell down right into the swarm of puppets.

"Um," Magna cringed. "They're not gonna eat him alive, right?"

You sure hoped not. Just in case though, you made them disperse and clear the area. With a closer look, the knight just had a ton of bite marks over his body. Nothing looked fatal though.

A sharp alert rang through your body. It was almost telling you that something dangerous was heading your way. That wasn't unusual because you had a decent sixth sense for those types of things. However, now your radius to detect these things was wider.

You looked behind where it came from, just in time to see a shard of glass being hurled in your direction. Bringing your hand up quickly, a clown-esque mask blocked it from hitting you.

"How long do we have to keep this up for?" Another crash came from where Luck was battling someone in the sky. Lightning streaks painted the air.

"I don't know." Magna grunted and kept firing a barrage of attacks. "Until we see who dies first."

Was your best bet really a stamina match? There had to be another option, and you had to think about it quickly. Everyone can hold their own, but you guys were only human. Your limits were going to approach way faster than theirs.

Your heart started beating quicker. Really, it was going at an abnormal rate you questioned if you were having a heart attack. You put your hand up to your chest, and when you did, there was a faint red glow.

In order to protect yourself and others, you have to use the power that the elves are trying to force onto you.

Don't fight it.

You breathed calmly and gave it your best attempt to not freak out. That red burned brighter, so bright that it turned pink. Then, it expanded out of your body and covered the area, blinding yourself, and everyone else that was around you.

Suddenly, you felt connected. Connected to the magic in the area, not just inside of you. Even the people around you, you could feel trickles of them throughout your body. You felt light and fluid.

"Woah, what's going on?" You heard the witch say from behind Magna. "Is that... is that her?"

Your grimoire appeared in front of you and flipped all the way to the end to a blank page. Wine colored text scribed itself right in front of your eyes. Time seemed to slow as you read the spell that slowly appeared before you.

"Ragdoll."

With that, every possessed knight that was fighting you, collapsed on command.

Then, the glow was gone.

You froze and looked around. There was no movement, just the bodies that were so rampant a few moments ago.

"Hey," the witch who's name you never caught spoke up in the silence. "Was that Mana Zone?"

"I... I don't know." You admitted and walked up to one of the ones who had fallen. Bending down, you pressed your fingers to one of the fallen's pulse points. Thankfully, she was still alive.

The mirror mage and the little girl walked over. He glared at you with his one visible eye. "What the hell did you do? And why the hell didn't you do it a lot sooner? You could've saved my sister from the trauma."

You raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Don't mind him." The woman said. "You just saved all our butts... What was your name again?"

"Y/N."

"You saved all our butts Y/N!" She exclaimed and threw her arms around you. "I'm Vanessa by the way. The creepy sister lover is Gauche, that's Marie."

Hugs from people you weren't close with weren't your thing, but you didn't recoil from it. "You guys seem fun to be around."

"We totally are!" Luck dropped down not too far away from you. "Hey, can we fight some time? You look really strong!"

"I'll pass."

He might actually murder you.

"Do you idiots take anything seriously?" Zora limped over to where everyone was. "She might've taken these guys out, but more are still running wild all over the city."

"Geez who shit in your cereal this morning?" Magna crossed his arms. "She also saved your ass from that vine chick earlier, the least you could do is say thank you."

"I don't do 'thank you's', you damn punk."

"Oh so you think you can throw on our robe and start talking any type of way? I don't think so!"

You listened to their bickering and shook your head. Zora was still just barely getting by with his leg, so you summoned Sylvania back to the field. He noticed this and when she started walking over towards him, he took an unsteady step backwards. "I told you–"

"You're a liability with one working leg. So shut the hell up and let her fix you."

Unlike his quick retort with Magna, he couldn't say anything back. Not with the fact that you did save him earlier looming over his head.

So he did indeed shut the hell up, and allowed her to heal him.

While everyone took another cautious break, you stayed standing. You were watching the Shadow Palace, waiting for any sign of movement. Something was happening and it wasn't good. You knew that because of the pit that was growing in your stomach. Sensing the danger that was building up.

Minutes passed, still nothing.

Nearly fifteen minutes, and that's when you felt it.

The Shadow Palace was crumbling apart. There was strange purple stuff oozing out of it, and pieces were falling off. Whatever it was, it didn't feel like it belonged to an elf. No, something more sinister appeared. Considering everything was going to ruin, it must've been taken care of.

People were flying out just as things were getting worse. You stood up when you saw... an odd combination of characters. Captains, knights, elves, and there were two people you couldn't properly place.

A girl with red eyes and dark hair.

A boy who frankly, looked like he could turn to dust at any moment.

"I am so confused." You muttered.

"Captain Yami, you guys are back!" Vanessa leaped up when everyone reached the ground.

When your eyes landed on Mimosa and Yuno you felt like you could pass out. The amount of stress those kids put you through was most likely going to give you gray hairs. "You two are gonna kill me."

Yuno looked rough. Beat to hell. "There's a lot to explain. But there's no time right now. We need to stop the elves from continuing their rampage."

Your gaze skimmed the elves that were standing with them. One of them being Rhya, who clearly had seen better days. "Uh-huh. Just what the hell are they doing here?"

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "Like I said, too much to explain. But that guy is in Captain Vangeance's body, and he needs to switch back so he can use his World Tree Magic to save everybody."

"Are you high?"

"He's right." The alleged body thief spoke. "Asta, you have to end me now. The sooner the better."

You really had no idea what they experienced there. What you did watch though, was something ethereal. You learned that the dude in Vangeance's body was named Patry, and when Asta worked his anti-magic-magic, they switched back. Or... Patry left Vangeance for good? Damn, you couldn't tell.

But in the end, your captain used his World Tree Magic combined with another elf (who you swore looked exactly like Patry... except his name was Licht). Basically, Licht was telling everyone that this whole thing was a misunderstanding.

Hilarious. All this hatred and revenge bullshit was because of a misunderstanding.

Oh yeah, and those people you'd never seen before? One of them was the first Wizard King who came back to life! The other one was apparently Asta's pet bird.

Maybe you were high.

In the end, you got to watch all the little elf souls start to leave and ascend back up to the heavens. Yuno stood next to you, and that's when Licht revealed that the elf inside of him was actually his son.

"So... Do you have any idea who possessed me?" You asked.

Licht examined you with uncertainty.

Oh great.

He cleared his throat just before you could tell he was about to fully be released from that body. "It appears to me that you caught a vengeful spirit. An elf, yes, not exactly one of my friends."

"Why me?"

The markings on Licht's face deteriorated and he became unsteady. "Perhaps you upset her in a past life." He grinned, and it made you have the suspicion that he was lying. Leader of the elves and you guess he didn't even know.

But whatever, or whoever it was, did depart your body. You felt that extra presence leave you, and you looked up to see if you could at least get a glimpse of the spirit. Except you didn't see it.

Well, that's because the spirit didn't go up. She went down.

You didn't know whether to laugh, or be mortified that whoever she was, she didn't even deserve to go be free with the rest of the elves.

In the end you didn't do either. Instead, you crashed on the ground in exhaustion.