Lily remained silent for a moment, the wind gently swaing her dress and tousling Loid's hair. Then, calmly, she looked at him and spoke.
"You're still blaming yourself."
Loid said nothing at first, his fist clenching, voice strained with something he had carried for too long.
"If I was there to save her back then."
Lily sighed, a soft smile tugging at her lips.
"You'll never change."
But the look on Loid's face made her well up.
His eyes didn't tremble-but they looked heavy like something inside them was about to spill.
His lips parted slightly, not to speak, but like he had forgotten how to breathe.
He wasn't crying. He would never allow himself to.
But there was a fragile shine in his eyes, the kind that appears when a man tries to shallow his pain instead of showing it.
"She wanted a birthday gift from me. But I couldn't manage to get her one because of work. Before that..."
Silence.
Lily quietly cut in,
"But I don't think she's dead."
Loid looked at her, confused.
"What?"
Lily crossed her arms, one hand resting against her jaw.
"We haven't found her body yet. You know that. Until I see proof... I won't accept it."
...
"Don't blame yourself," she added quietly.
"It wasn't your fault."
Loid said nothing. Lily noticed the silence stretching for too long. She looked directly into his eyes — and they told her everything.
She let out long sigh, forcing a casual tone.
"Don't make that face. It's ugly."
She forced him into the chair with a firm press on his shoulder, then, sat beside him. She hooked her arm around his neck, crossing her legs with a teasing grin.
"Remember when we three tried to sneak out of the castle for the carnival?"
She just couldn't hold back her laugh.
"And the most funniest part of that night was the rubber bullet hit that man right into his balls."
Hearing that Loid dropped his head, shoulders shaking with laughter — half amused, half embarrassed for that poor man. Just that one memory was enought to shift everything.
"Why are you bringing that up now?" He managed between laughs, barely able to get the words out.
Lily tilted her head slightly, eyes drifting somewhere distant like she was watching that night play out all over again.
"Because it was our first and last time enjoying our life like normal kids. Dad never let us have that."
Loid's laughter faded. He had nothing to say. But Lily's face carried no sadness. She was the same as always... and she had said those words with a smile.
Still smiling gently, she said,
"She was the only one who ever gave us the chance to feel alive."
Then, Lily turned to him — the kind of look that she had been holding something back for a long time. She reached into her dress pocket, fingers wrapping around something inside.
"The reason... I said that I don't think she's dead is because of this pendant."
Loid noticed the pendant but barely registered her words. Something else had caught his eye. A dark shape in the distance, near the kingdom's gate. He stood up without a word, without even glancing at Lily, and moved straight toward the edge of the balcony.
Lily watched him go, confused.
"Loid?!"
He didn't respond. His focus was locked entirely on that dark shape. Her eyes followed his. She rose and stepped to the edge beside him, narrowing her gaze at the distant figure.
"What is it?"
Loid's jaw tightened.
"A portal."
But neither of them panicked. Within seconds, they already knew what had to be done.
"Go warn the castle guards and the people,"Loid said.
"My team and I will investigate the portal."
Lily nodded in agreement, without hesitation and without wasting any time she left the balcony to warn the guards.
Loid went other way, vaulting over the edge without a second thought.
Lily pushed deep into the castle, making her way down the stairs. But halfway down, her body began to betray her — her legs growing weak, her vision blurring at the edges. She could barely see straight. She felt like she was going to faint. But she didn't stop. Gripping whatever she could, she pushed herself forward until she reached the floor where the villagers lived and the guards stood post.
Barely holding herself together, she warned the nearest guards about the situation and told them to notify the people and to make sure nobody panicked.
Then she went deeper, all the way to the last rooms on that floor.
Emi and Arashi's rooms. She knocked on both doors.
Arashi opened the door first, then Emi. His eyes were half shut, barely open. He had clearly been asleep.
"What do you want at this hour?"
"A portal has appeared near the kingdom."
The words hit both of them like a slap. Arashi and Emi's eyes went wide at the same time.
"What?!"
The shock on their faces was expected. But Arashi's fear ran deeper than Emi's. He had faced one of those monsters before. He knew what they were capable of. What was the conclusion of it.
More than the portal itself — he was afraid of himself. Of what might awaken inside him.
But before any of that could settle, Lily's symptoms came back. This time she couldn't manage to fight them off. This time there was nowhere to run from them. The pain dropped her to her knees. Her eyes bled red, dark red veins crawling up from beneath her skin. She didn't scream but the struggle, the low, strained moans slipping out between clenched teeth.
Arashi and Emi froze. Neither of them understood what they were looking at.
Arashi stepped toward her, his voice tight with worry.
"Lily... are you okay?"
Emi saw something before Arashi did. She called out for him to stop... but it was already too late.
The moment Arashi's hand came close to her skin, something erupted. A dark substance, thick and black, liquid in appearance but not quite liquid spread outward like it was alive.
It swallowed Lily whole, consuming her completely. Then it burst throwing both Arashi and Emi back hard into the nearby wall.
Arashi turned to Emi, breathless and injured.
"Emi... you good?"
She nodded.
They both looked back toward where Lily had been kneeling. But they weren"t ready for the thing they saw.
Lily wasn't there anymore. She vanished with that black thing like she had never been there at all.