➨ "What's it to you?"

His gaze darkens and he seems amused. "I knew no normal Clover mage could keep up with me like that. I'm relieved to know you aren't a normal one."

The indigo tunnel vision starts to clear, and you're left staring down at whoever this guy is with clear sight. "Start fucking talking or I swear on everything, you better start praying for whatever God is watching over you."

You didn't care if he took the threats seriously. It doesn't matter because he already admitted that you were keeping up with his attacks. Meaning he knows you have a fair shot at doing some heavier damage.

"Do you think I'll talk because you told me to?"

Another punch across his face.

"No, I don't. But that means I'll just beat the shit out of you for my enjoyment."

Blood pours from his lip and he just grins. "That one actually hurt. Don't think I've been hit that hard since I sparred with Kieran."

"Stop saying his name like you were buddies." You spit.

"Oh, but we were. If you'd let me get up, I'd tell you countless stories." He muses, his sharp gaze studying you as if waiting for you to listen without question. Like he didn't think you were anything else but a child who was throwing a tantrum.

"You can narrate from the ground. I advise you to speak before I bury you in it."

"Like father, like daughter."

He must think you're playing around.

Strike of the Phantom.

Your finger swipes through his wrist. The only reason you didn't go for the neck was because of the off chance you might actually decapitate him. You had a perfect track record for doing so.

Blood gushes out from the wound and he shouts. You look down and see the perfect clean cut through the bone. His hand is no longer attached to his wrist. Guess you made the right call not to cut his head off.

"I'm not asking you again."

His mouth closes and he turns to see the damage you did to him. The initial shock quickly wears off as he admires it. "Perfect precision."

You lift your foot and step on the nub. Crushing him beneath your boot. "Why did you kill him?"

He cringes and meets your gaze which holds nothing but unsettled rage. Instead of answering, he asks you another question. "What makes you think Spade had anything to do with that?"

Is he serious? There was evidence of it. The signs of struggle, the way he was killed in a location only your dad and Spade knew about. It was a break-in. That's what they said. It's what everybody told you.

"I heard what you did."

"Heard? Or saw?"

You chewed on your inner cheek. "I don't want to play mind games with you. I just want to know what he did that he deserved to die for."

He lets out a breath through his nose. "I think you got something confused, child. I don't know what you're talking about."

You leaned down, getting right up in his face. "Your other hand is next, you know."

"Even if I was scared of that, I'd be telling you the same thing. Your misguided judgement is probably exactly how Kieran died. He always had his nose where it didn't belong."

You had every right to hit him again right there. Everything that comes out of his mouth is more incentive to beat him into the dirt. But you weren't stupid; he probably could kill you if he wanted. You dare him to try it though.

"Y/N!" Vanessa's voice calls from somewhere above you. "Are you okay?"

Her voice doesn't move you. All your attention is on him, waiting for him to say anything useful. For the longest time you'd wanted answers. Answers and a satisfying beat down at whoever the hell was responsible. Even if it wasn't this guy, he must know who it was and why.

"If I had really been a part of his murder, I'd take pride in it. No sense in taking pride in something I didn't do." The man speaks as if you didn't just sever his hand off his body. With the way he was moving, he can probably reattach it.

"You expect me to believe anybody else would have it out for him?"

He chuckles and lifts his hand up from the ground. It's barely a move, but his fingers flex and a strong force pushes you off him, smashing into another stone pillar. You hit it so hard that it cracks, and you feel like you might need a full-body cast.

The Spade soldier stands up, picking up his hand in the process. "Strong, but not a very good detective I see."

Vanessa is the first to land next to you. Her hand cradles the back of your head. "Hey hey, it's okay. We're leaving now." She helps you to your feet and you lean against her. "You have to be careful; Rouge saved you twice."

You glance at the cat that's perched on her shoulder. A few loose strands are coming off her tail that weren't there before. You died twice and didn't even realize it. Couldn't even think about which times he landed a killing blow.

"But you definitely were kicking his ass." Magna jumped down and held you up from the other side.

"Good to know. And thank you, Vanessa." The mystery guy watched you get yourselves together. He didn't make a move, and instead, he vanished out of sight.

————

Another long three hours back with only one break in between before you're back at the hideout. The throbbing in your head was replaced by a low vibration. You were lucky that after what you went through it was the least of your injuries.

Sure a few cuts and scrapes that'll turn into bruises in a few days. Your side was hurting; meaning there's probably more you can't see.

The team completely slumps onto the couch. Your exhaustion creeps in and your eyes flutter shut for just a moment. There was a lot to think about. Nothing in your bones trusts a Spade soldier, which maybe is slightly hypocritical, but after what happened, how could you? But one thing he said stuck out to you.

If I had really been a part of his murder, I'd take pride in it. No sense in taking pride in something I didn't do.

There's truth to that statement. Over there, they take pride in everything they do no matter how terrible it may be. If they accomplished something, they'd let it be known. Rub it in everybody's face.

You just don't know who else to pin the blame on.

Outside of that, you have zero clue what happened during that fight. It was complete tunnel vision. You were moving in ways you'd never moved before. Strength and speed that's never come from you.

Coincidentally, Asta, Finral, Noelle, and Nero loudly burst through the door shouting (well, it's Asta shouting). "Guys, GUYSSS!"

Magna groans and lifts his head. "Asta, some of us need ten minutes of peace and quiet."

He waves his arms madly. "We don't have ten minutes. We need to have a very important meeting right now! Like right now right now!"

You tune him out.

With your eyes still shut, you hear them talking and saying they need to gather the entire team. At a point, it became background noise and static bouncing around your skull. Eventually, more footsteps and voices fill the main room.

Something else starts to float around your mind. That woman's voice from before. The one that told you to keep going. It was almost an electric command that you couldn't disobey. She forced you to keep attacking. During the midst of it all, you died two times.

"Do you feel it now?"

The voice makes your eyes shoot back open and you jerk back to reality. Shit, maybe you needed to be locked in an insane asylum.

"...Megicula's in Spade!" Asta declares.

Huh?

The confusion is what you get from not listening to anything.

You lock in and try to catch up with everything else they're saying. A lot of bits and pieces about the Heart Kingdom's queen, Spade Kingdom, and Megicula. You knew the name Megicula from things your father mentioned. Most of it you can't remember, actually, almost all of it you can't recall.

Vanessa speaks up. "If what you're saying is true, that means what we saw makes sense. The Diamond Kingdom is doomed because of the guy we ran into."

"Wait, so you're telling me we're supposed to be able to keep up with mages from the Spade Kingdom? That's impossible!" Asta's hands fly to his head.

"Not completely." Magna shook his head. "I mean, Y/N kicked some serious ass against one. His power was off the rails."

All eyes turn to face you and you still hadn't pieced together what they were talking about.

"Hold on, can we go back like... fifty steps?" You slowly said.

Asta recounted everything pretty quickly. On their visit to Heart, they met with the queen. The queen basically told them that she was cursed by Megicula and has a year or so to live. She needs help from the Magic Knights to go over to Spade and fight so she can save her own kingdom.

Sounds like some fantasy plot.

"Do you know how the stages work, Y/N?" Asta asked.

You nod. The whole stage nine up to stage zero ordeal. Well actually, it goes from nine to arcane. Your mother taught you about it because she felt it was the superior magic scale. She was about to stage three.

"Good, we have six months to have everybody make it to stage one!"

"Wait wait," you stopped him, "you need everybody to make it to stage one in six months? Unless you plan to train rigorously with no breaks, that's damn near impossible. Even Spirit Guardians train for longer than that."

"Queen Lolopechka doesn't have that much time left and she wants to strike before she gets too weak. We have to help her out if we want to find anything else out about the devils." Asta says. "Hey, maybe you can train us, you fought one, didn't you?"

"And I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Vanessa. This is a lot bigger than just training. We're talking high-level demons. That's more than just giving it your best." It sounded a lot harsher coming out than you intended.

Noelle stepped forward. "Listen, some of us have actual reasons that we need to defeat this monster. You're only here temporarily but your life's on the line too, is it not? You should be jumping at this opportunity."

Your eye twitched. "They're ruthless. If they allegedly have the power of Megicula on their side, no matter what rank we are, they might wipe us out. The Wizard King's lost half his power, we can't rely on him like we did last time."

"I didn't rely on anybody last time."

"It was a general statement, princess."

Magna raises a hand. "Woah woah calm down. With all due respect Noelle, I see where Y/N's coming from. You didn't see how that guy was moving. We just need to be cautious."

"And we will be cautious." She flips one pigtail over her shoulder. "That's why we're training for six months. I don't see why we should second-guess anything because she brought it up. Come on now, her dad–"

"You can finish that sentence and I'll demonstrate what I did to the Spade soldier."

Yami loudly shouts. "Hey! I don't see what all the fuss is for. There are obviously some drawbacks and things to be worried about. But that doesn't mean it's completely impossible."

"Show her what you did."

The voice bounces off the walls in your head and you hear a sharp pinging noise.

"Show her."

Indigo seeps into the corners of your vision just like before. She keeps repeating the same thing over and over again. Everything just urges you to attack. Another argument breaks out between Noelle, Magna, and Vanessa. You don't care who's saying what, but you know you need to get the hell up and out of the room.

You stand up and locate the door before things get worse. "Y/N wait you don't have to leave," Asta calls out for you, but you don't listen. You slip outside before he can try and stop you from getting too far.

Once the door shuts behind you, you sigh and hold your head in your hands. Nothing like this has happened until you came in contact with that man. Everything was fine. Or, as fine as it could get.

"I didn't know you had it in you to yell at kids." The door reopens. Zora's voice follows.

"Because I definitely need you to rub it in."As annoying as he was, he had a point. Noelle's words didn't deserve a death threat. You sounded just like Zora when you did.

"What's wrong with you, anyway?"

"So much shit, I don't even know where to begin." You reply and pinch the bridge of your nose. "I'm drained, confused, lost, and aggravated. I also probably have a broken bone somewhere."

He leans against the wall and watches you with a curved brow. It's impossible to tell why he's staring at you so damn hard but you didn't even have the energy to question it. You lifted your head up and glanced at him. When you did that, the indigo started to slowly fade from your vision. It was shortly after he made eye contact with you.

Everything seemed to clear up. That agonizing voice, and the disarray of thoughts.

"That's weird..." Your mutter. You'd been ready to go on a rampage about five seconds ago.

There's a different sound echoing in the back of your head now. It's a steady beating noise—a heartbeat. You placed your hand on your chest, but it couldn't have been the sound of your own heart. Yours was quicker than the pace you're listening to.

So...

You blinked and looked back at Zora.

He furrowed his brows. "What are you looking at me like that for?"

You didn't answer. Instead, you took a step closer, and then another one. The beating picked up a little bit. To test your theory, you came closer, until you were standing right in front of him.

By that point, the sound was a lot faster.

"Do I make you nervous?" You ask him.

He opens his mouth but words don't come out. He closes it and tries again. "Absolutely not. I only came out here to see if you were on another verge of collapse."

"Your heart is beating kinda fast." You say more as an observation.

"Well, you walked up on me like you were gonna do something."

"Like what?"

For a moment, you're curious about his answer. Maybe he expected you to attack him, which crazily enough, wouldn't be the first time. But if you were going to do that, you wouldn't have walked up that slow.

What is he thinking about?

"Is this a goddamn interrogation?" He steps away from you.

You also take a step back and shake your head. "My bad. I'm just... worked up." Or at least you think so.

"Does it have something to do with fighting a Spade soldier?" He asks clearly once he has more personal space. His heart rate also decreases.

"More than likely. He said he knew my dad, but he also said that Spade had nothing to do with it." You cross your arms. "If I was ignorant, I wouldn't listen to anything he says. But... for some reason, it feels genuine. Well, as genuine as they get. But I'm out of leads... unless I ask the Wizard King."

"The Wizard King is one of your leads?"

"Maybe. Dr. Owens told me something the other day that made me think he might know something. But it might be a reach."

He stands still for a moment. You can tell thoughts are racing through his head. "Might not be. The guy has a lot of unlikely friendships. He was friends with my dad too."

That much piques your interest. "Really?"

Zora nods. "Never really cared though. I actually forgot all about that after he was killed by his fellow Magic Knights."

It was never revealed to you how Zara had passed. Nobody told you, so you assumed it was on a mission. But being killed by the people he trusted? That was vile. And up until today, that was how you thought your own father was killed.

But now, some things were mixing around your head. The Wizard King knew both of your dads. And your dad was close to Zara. Now you're realizing how odd it was that your father never informed you on how his friend passed. Unless he never knew?

"How hard is it to speak with the Wizard King directly?" You ask Zora.

He lets out a sharp laugh. "For you? Hell will freeze over before anyone lets you schedule a meeting with the man."

There is a way though. "Why don't you do it for me then? And before you object, listen, you don't have to talk to him. Just say you want to, and then I'll do all the speaking."

He stares at you like you're crazy. "Why would I go through all that trouble for you?"

"Because you want to know, don't you? Maybe figure out why you can't remember childhood memories with me."

"I'm actually quite happy with not remembering you. Must've not been interesting enough."

"Oh please." You roll your eyes. "I'm probably the most interesting woman in your life right now. I'm just asking you to be my escort. Asking anybody else means I have a lot of explaining to do. Why not skip all those steps, and just choose you?"

It makes sense to you, but to him, you probably just sound desperate. Maybe you are, but you have nothing to lose. No— there's a lot to lose, but at the moment, it was either advance or stay stagnant.

He scratches his head and groans. "You owe me. A lot."