"...Why...?"

The question hung in the air, trembling, accompanied by the slow, heavy drip of blood hitting stone like a clap of thunder.

"...I destroyed it all... everything... yet I couldn’t save a single soul. Even you... in the end, I’m just too weak..."

The swirl of dark power and black fire roared louder, tearing at the world itself. The man’s shadow shook hard as he fell to his knees, his hands clawing at the dark ground beneath him.

"I was supposed to protect everyone... I was supposed to fix the end..." a final, broken cry came from his chest, swallowed by the roaring chaos. "But there is nothing left. I am sorry... I am so sorry..."

In the pitch black, a soft, pale hand reached out, gently touching his cold cheek. A soft, sad hum tried to answer — a broken song that broke into a tearful whisper against his skin.

"It does not matter... if everything ends... I am glad I met you. I... I love—"

Before the last word could form, a huge crack tore through the void, cutting off the voice. The darkness fell in on itself with a loud pop.

_

Seris jerked forward in the soft chair, her eyes snapping open as her red eyes shook in the dim light. Her heart was beating hard against her ribs like a trapped bird, and cold sweat clung to the back of her neck.

Her hand flew to her temples, her fingers digging into her skin as a sharp, splitting pain spiked through her head.

"These visions again..."

She groaned internally, desperately trying to grasp at the fading echoes — the sound of the weeping voice, the words of despair, the warmth — but the second her mind tried to focus on them, they dissolved like morning fog.

Within three seconds, the details were entirely gone. She couldn’t remember a single word that was spoken, nor could she recall the faces or the voices.

But even though the memory faded into the dark, the feeling stayed in her chest.

A heavy, crushing ache of pure grief that made her throat tight and her breath catch. Even wide awake, the ghost feelings clung to her skin, making her feel like she was still standing in that ruined, burning world.

She didn’t know why the grief felt so real. As if she had lost someone important. As if she had loved someone important.

Letting out a slow, shaky breath, Seris stood up from the chair.

She walked over to the big glass window, staring out at the quiet school under the fading moon. Her red eyes stayed on the horizon, but her mind was far away, stuck on the heavy weight in her chest.

Trying to wash away the cold sweat and quiet the pain in her head, she turned away from the window. She looked at the big bed where Sylvia was still sleeping deeply, buried under the thick blankets.

Moving with perfect silence so she would not wake her friend, Seris turned toward the bathroom.

_

The bathroom was big, with smooth white stone that gleamed softly in the dim light. She walked to the sink and turned on the tap, splashing cold water on her face.

The cold shock made her gasp a little, but the pain behind her eyes did not stop. Giving up on a quick wash, she stepped into the big shower and turned on the water, letting the hot water fall over her head and shoulders.

As the steam filled the room, Seris closed her eyes, listening closely to the steady, heavy sound of the water hitting the tile floor.

Slowly, her thoughts began to drift, pulled toward that exact sound. The rushing water changed in her mind, turning into the steady beat of heavy rain on a wooden roof.

It was one of the only three ghost pieces she could ever remember from her lost childhood. Fragments that made no sense: the rain, a woman’s voice humming a sad lullaby, and a very pale, soft hand holding hers.

She reached for the ghost warmth of that hand in her mind, but her fingers remained entirely cold against the running water. She could not name the faces or place the sounds. Her childhood before the Astra Union was a wall of thick fog.

It wasn’t just a natural lack of memory; someone had blocked it.

Someone had entirely erased it.

Her actual life only truly began the day she woke up on a couch inside the Astra Union, looking up at a young woman in her early twenties with pale silver hair and clear, blind eyes — The Oracle.

The Union had taken her in because they found something deeply interesting about her. She wasn’t just a normal orphan, she possessed an innate connection to the divine. Thinking of the Union brought a quiet, burning anger to Seris’s chest.

The Oracle’s prophecies were always hard to understand, but they always came true. Yet the cost was terrible.

Every vision the Oracle saw through her Oath Contract drained her life force, cutting away her years. Seris hated the system that forced the only person who saved her to slowly die for the world. And she hated being tied to that same web of fate.

Her thoughts moved to her true secret.

No one in the world knew she was the Moon Goddess’s Apostle. The Astra Union knew she had a connection to the divine — that was why they took her in — but they never learned the full truth. Only the Oracle, who had hidden her status, and her best friend Sylvia knew the real secret.

The Oracle was still alive, hidden away somewhere by the Astra Union. But Seris hadn’t seen her in years.

It was a blessing she had carried from the very start, a heavy power woven into her soul. To others, it would feel like she must have done some impossible trial to earn it, but the truth was she had simply been born with it.

She distinctly remembered speaking directly with the Moon Goddess in her past, feeling the comforting presence of the goddess.

But since the day the Oracle saved her, the connection had been entirely dead, as if an invisible wall was blocking her prayers. The only words the goddess ever left her with were: "When the time comes, you will know."

Seris completely hated that answer.

Shaking her head to push those heavy, frustrating thoughts away, Seris turned off the water. The shower had done its job, clearing the fog from her mind even if the bigger questions remained.

_

She stepped out of the stall, dried off, and began to dress. She pulled on a uniform shirt, buttoning it to the collar and smoothing down the fabric.

Stepping back into the bedroom, she saw that the sky outside was starting to lighten with the first hints of morning. Sylvia was still dead to the world, snoring softly. Seris knew she would have to wake her in an hour.

They had to leave early since Sylvia had to go to a mandatory council meeting.

With some time left to spare, Seris walked toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room.

She stared at her reflection, observing her own features.

Her long, black hair fell perfectly over her shoulders, framing a face that many in the academy described as impossibly beautiful, like a sculpted piece of porcelain. Her deep crimson eyes stared back at her, entirely blank and expressionless.

She picked up a brush, brushing through her black strands and fixing her clothes. As she smoothed her shirt down over her waist, her eyes drifted down to her belly.

Her eyes twitched a little. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Suddenly, her mind went back to the thoughts of that chocolate-giving pervert boy from the hallway last night.

Their very first meeting had been incredibly strange.

He had crashed straight into her while running from Sylvia, grabbing her chest by accident in the chaos and apologizing like a flustered idiot. After that, every single encounter between them had been bizarre and awkward, as if fate itself kept throwing them together just to make things uncomfortable.

Strangely enough, she didn’t feel uncomfortable around him.

During their second meeting at the grand gala, she had stepped out into the quiet estate gardens to take a brief break from the suffocating crowd. In the cool night air, she had spotted him sitting alone on a wooden bench, grumbling something to himself.

She had been about to turn around and leave him to his madness, until her gaze focused on his form.

That was when she tried to use her special ability — a subtle sense that let her read a person’s presence, their fate lines, the weight of their existence. It was a power that usually gave her some answers she needed.

But when she looked at Leo that night, she saw absolutely nothing.

There were no fate lines.

No readable presence. It was as if he did not exist within the rules of the world, or stood completely outside them. She had not noticed this oddness during their first meeting, and it sparked a deep, quiet curiosity in her.

As she walked closer to him on the bench, a faint, sweet smell floated through the air. It was chocolate. Without thinking, she had leaned in, sniffing the air near him.

Leo had snapped his eyes open right then, staring up at her in absolute shock. The awkward silence that followed was unforgettable, ending with him reluctantly offering her a piece of chocolate, which she ate without a word, before she offered a dance as "payment."

Which he rejected.

Then she left him with a weird warning about the Crown Prince’s smile and disappeared like she hadn’t just made everything ten times more confusing.

He was truly strange. A complete anomaly, a bit of a pervert with a bizarre sense of humor, yet she found herself completely unable to hate him.

And then, there was last night.

Finding him dragging a drunk, deadweight Sylvia down the hall, his panic when she asked if he killed his sister, and the way he had taken her very last piece of chocolate with such a proud look. He had looked so happy over a single piece of chocolate, leaving her standing there with a quiet wave of regret over her lost treat.

Standing in front of the mirror, Seris turned sideways, her face blank as she pressed her hand against her flat stomach, pinching the fabric of her uniform.

"...Am I really fat?" she asked herself, entirely serious. She truly didn’t know why she was asking herself such a ridiculous question, but the thought refused to leave her mind.

Behind her, a loud, tired groan cut through the quiet room. Sylvia stirred on the bed, rubbing her blurry eyes and holding her head from the wine hangover.

"Huh...? Seris?" Sylvia mumbled, squinting through the morning light filtering into the room. "What are you doing in my room... wait, when did I even come here...?"

Seris did not move. She turned her head slowly, locking her cold, crimson gaze onto Sylvia with deadly seriousness.

"Am I fat?" Seris asked flatly.

Sylvia froze in complete, bewildered silence, her jaw dropping as she stared at her friend.

"What...?" Sylvia blinked, her hangover fog clearing from shock. "Seris, it is morning. We have to leave soon. Did you really stay in my room just to ask me if you are fat?"

"Answer the question, Sylvia," Seris repeated, her voice calm, her eyes locked on her friend.

Sylvia let out a sigh, rubbing her temples.

"Huh? What is wrong with you... No! Haaa.... listen here, I don’t know what is wrong with you today, my friend, but you are not fat. In fact, if you have some sort of secret diet, you need to give it to me right now because you eat like a monster and still look perfect."

Hearing those words, Seris’s eyes lit up just a little, a faint, almost hidden wave of satisfaction crossing her face. She let go of her waist.

"...Good," Seris said smoothly. "You should get dressed. We have less than an hour before your council meeting."

Sylvia groaned, sitting up slowly while holding her head. "Ugh, my head... wait, how did I even get back to my room last night? The last thing I remember was drinking..."

"Leo and I brought you here," Seris said flatly, walking to the wardrobe to pull out Sylvia’s official robes. "You were very drunk."

"Ohhh..." Sylvia muttered, a look of realization dawning on her face as she pressed a hand to her forehead. "Now I remember... ugh, that’s embarrassing. I owe that brat a scolding for seeing me like that."

"He also said you were heavy," Seris added, tossing the uniform onto the bed.

Her voice was flat and her face was blank, but inside, she felt a small, quiet win. Leo had eaten her last piece of chocolate last night and left her with nothing but regret. This was fair payback. Sending Sylvia’s hangover rage straight at him was the perfect revenge.

"Now hurry," Seris said smoothly. "We cannot be late."

Sylvia’s eyes flared with sudden fire, her hangover forgotten for a second. "That bastard... he said what about my weight?! Forget a scolding, he owes me an entire month of paperwork! Just wait until I see him today!"

Muttering complaints about ungrateful brothers, Sylvia swung her legs out of bed and dragged herself toward the bathroom. Seris stood quietly by the window, watching the sun break over the horizon. Golden light filled the room.

She looked at her reflection in the glass. Her black hair, her crimson eyes, her blank face. She touched her belly again.

"...I am not fat," she said quietly. A tiny, almost invisible smile pulled at the corner of her lips. Then it was gone.

She turned and walked toward the door, ready to face the day.