Alphard walked briskly until he reached home. He pulled out his keys, turned the lock, and crossed the threshold. The stillness of the first floor told him instantly that the ground level stood empty.
Without wasting a second, he climbed the stairs to the second floor and headed into his room to set the heavy tome down alongside the other volumes he'd already accumulated.
Right after, he made his way to Helena's room and studied the interior carefully; to his growing unease, the room was completely empty. Checking the adjoining room, he found no trace of his uncle Alexi either.
With the house sunk in an oppressive silence, Alphard walked slowly back to his bedroom, rubbing his forehead to ease the throb of stress building behind it.
Alphard sat on the edge of his bed, overwhelmed by the tide of events threatening to sweep him under.
Though he'd made the firm decision to keep working with Noctis, an enormous weight pressed down on his shoulders — not just from the accumulated responsibility, but from the cold awareness of the lives he'd end up taking with his own hands.
He knew the stain of being a killer would never fully fade from his mind, but he'd make every sacrifice count if it meant guaranteeing his way back home.
With a tired motion, he turned on the mattress toward the nightstand, grabbed his notebook and pen, and began hastily transcribing everything Antonie had taught him onto the page.
Still, as the ink spread across the paper, a knot of worry tightened in his chest: to what extent would these sacrifices, and the cracks forming in his own soul, end up interfering with his plan to return to Earth?
What if the sacrifices get even more extreme than this? What does it actually mean to retain thirty percent of whatever I sacrifice?
There's a real chance I could end up almost completely changed by all this. But if that's really how it works, then there's also a chance of holding onto whatever's left of me if I keep ascending through the Keys — and maybe I could still hold onto the will to go home.
Not everything's lost yet.
Alphard forced his mind to set the anguish aside and focus entirely on the architecture of power. The pieces began, with some difficulty, to fall into place: a Door's relic had to be tied either to its Key's name or to the very nature of its sacrifice.
Still, the void of information regarding higher-ranked Keys and their respective offerings made tracking down other relics nearly impossible.
An unsettling suspicion surfaced then: did the religious institutions hold privileged information, superior to what ordinary people or even Noctis itself possessed — or were they all simply racing blind, competing in the same dark?
In the midst of his musings, a forgotten detail resurfaced in his memory: Valentin had mentioned the Lord of the Apocalypse.
Running back through every volume he'd flipped through that afternoon without finding a single trace of such an entity, Alphard formed a preliminary theory: it had to be some minor, little-known church, or a sect buried deep in strict secrecy.
Alphard could only hope the day of the expedition to the ruins would arrive soon, shedding light on so many unanswered questions. In the midst of his thoughts, the sound of someone knocking at his door broke the silence.
A cold sweat ran through him as he swallowed hard; he desperately hoped it wasn't Helena. But opening the door, he found himself staring straight into his sister's furious, unforgiving glare.
"Hey, little sister..." he stammered, visibly afraid.
"You absolute idiot! I'm going to beat you so hard you won't be able to get back up!"
Helena lunged immediately, throwing a punch, but Alphard's physical reflexes worked in his favor. He reacted in a split second, dodged the blow, and broke free with a flawless sprint. Using the momentum, he tore down the stairs at full speed and ducked out of sight behind the living room sofa.
This is terrifying! She's actually going to kill me. Please, Goddess, I know I'm not one of your followers, but protect me from my sister's ferocious claws.
Helena came flying down the stairs and burst into the sitting room. She swept the space with her eyes, determined not to leave a single hiding spot unchecked, but found no trace of her brother anywhere. Where's that idiot hiding? she thought, edging cautiously toward the back of the sofa.
The tension in the air was thick, and her heavy breathing gave away just how close she was to landing the blow. Just as she lunged, certain of her victory, she found the spot completely empty. Frustrated, she puffed out her cheeks in rage and kept up the hunt.
Meanwhile, Alphard had already leapt out the window, putting several meters of distance between himself and the house before finally feeling safe. Still, once he came to a stop, common sense overrode his instinct for self-preservation: his sister deserved an honest explanation, even if it meant taking the beating anyway.
He took a deep breath and, with slow, cautious steps, made his way back toward the front door.
Realizing he'd left without his keys, he knocked gently, timidly, hoping she wouldn't react too drastically.
Before he could pull his hand back, though, the door flew open at breakneck speed, leaving him face to face with his sister as he stared back at her with an expression of pure disbelief.
Without a second's hesitation, Helena drove a hard punch into Alphard's stomach and followed it with a stinging slap that set his cheek burning. Her face was a tangle of anger, distress, and the quiet relief of having him back.
"Where were you yesterday, Alphard Quinn Aurelius?!" she shouted, beside herself.
"I'm sorry, I was working, and — ow!"
Alphard clutched his stomach, choking back a groan. He was genuinely impressed by the force of the punch; at a glance, she didn't look like she carried that kind of strength, but the impact had knocked the wind clean out of him.
"Don't apologize, your apologies don't change anything! What on earth have you gotten yourself into? Ever since that whole cathedral thing, you've been acting so strange... Where did my real brother go?"
At that question, a knot tightened in Alphard's throat, and a sudden urge to break down crying swept over him.
Still, a vague but deeply unsettling awareness stopped him cold: he realized that reaction wasn't born of genuine sadness, nor from the shock of seeing Helena so distraught. It surfaced as something that felt natural on the outside, but rang painfully hollow underneath — a simple, empty shell of emotion.
It's probably just because so much has happened these past few days. My mind feels like it's about to explode.
"Helena, I'm sorry. I'm still me, still your same brother — there was just an emergency at work yesterday, and we had to stay all night. I work at a print shop, Printworks & Typography. Virginia's father recommended me for it. It's on Rue Valrose."
Helena studied him sidelong, deep worry etched across her face. Still, Alphard's evasive answers came nowhere near convincing her, or easing the anxiety his constant shifts in behavior kept stirring in her.
"I should come with you to keep an eye on things, but I've got my own responsibilities too," Helena said, the first tears slipping free. "And this still doesn't mean you've actually answered my question. Why have you gotten so strange lately? I still don't understand how you ended up in that cathedral, covered in blood... You probably think I'm still just acting like a child, but I can't keep carrying this weight in my chest anymore."
The tears finally overwhelmed her, and she could no longer hold her composure. Alphard looked away, disarmed by guilt, unsure what to say. Still, he closed the distance between them and pulled her into a warm embrace.
In the end, a single tear slipped from Alphard's own eyes, though he wiped it away quickly.
"It's not that I've stopped being me," he said softly, "but remember what I told you before. I'm growing up, and I need to find my own path — that doesn't mean I'll ever leave you or our uncle behind. I'm just... making sacrifices right now. Even though you're already seventeen, you're still my little sister, and you always will be."
Helena's crying slowly eased, comforted by the feel of her brother's hand gently ruffling her hair.
"Besides, the job's exhausting. If you come home worn out from your classes, imagine how our uncle and I feel," he added with a tired smile.
"I guess that's true..." she murmured.
Helena looked away as she pulled gently out of the embrace. She managed a faint smile and wiped away the last traces of her tears with the fabric of her dress.
Alphard shut the front door, and the two of them climbed to the second floor. Making the most of the free afternoon hours, they resumed the lessons on that so-called "made-up language."
Bit by bit, the heavy atmosphere around them dissolved completely; Helena's sobs and anguish gave way to shared laughter over the clumsy faces she pulled trying to pronounce the complicated Japanese words.
Night eventually settled in, and the crimson moon rose in stately splendor over the sky.
Beneath the soft, intimate glow of the gas lamp, Alphard watched Helena's notes as she carefully scribbled out her first simple sentences in Japanese, while he finished organizing his own thoughts.
It wasn't long before he rose and walked quietly toward his sister's room.
"See you tomorrow, sister," he said softly from the doorway.
"Sleep well..." Helena managed to answer, stifling a small yawn.
Alphard returned to his own room, put out the lamp, letting the shadows swallow the space, slipped beneath the covers, and, exhausted, gave himself over to a deep sleep.
― ― ―
Meanwhile, deep in the underground level of the station, a figure stood motionless in the darkness. It waited only a few steps from the vault meant to safeguard the building's sacred artifacts and mystical objects.
With utmost care, it pressed its fingertips against the freezing surface of the stone door; even sealed away within the Mirror of the Reverse River, the latent power of the Lament Gem resonated through the seal with a chilling clarity.
"Soon, you'll be mine... and I'll finally achieve my purpose," it murmured to itself.
After whispering the promise, the figure withdrew into the silence and dissolved into the darkness like a spectral shadow.