The Pendant's Call
The Academy had been thrown into chaos. Word had spread like wildfire that Quinn—said to have died saving Bayul—had come back to life. Students who had flatly dismissed the rumor this time as utterly impossible caught sight of him strolling openly into his dorm room, and for a long while, they couldn't find a single word to say.
"…Is that really Quinn?"
"I can't trust my own eyes anymore…."
"Wait, is dying and coming back to life trendy these days? Should we try dying too, so we can just resurrect whenever?"
Even seeing it with their own eyes wasn't enough to make them believe it, so nonsense kept spilling out of their mouths.
"Do you think Duke Randert brought him back?"
"What?"
"He came back to life the moment the Duke arrived, didn't he? The Duke probably saved his own son Bayul, and Quinn too out of gratitude!"
"Whoa, Duke Randert has powers like that? Incredible! That's insane!"
His renown aside, the Duke of Randert—who kept the youthful vigor of a man in his twenties well past fifty—was nothing short of an object of admiration for the students.
The Duke was mysterious in so many ways that a few of them sincerely believed he possessed the power to raise the dead.
"I want to be in that circle too."
Quinn wasn't alone. As always, his roommate Bayul and their friends Aidan, Eli, and Logan were with him. Schubik, who had come sprinting at the news, tried to follow them inside—but was stopped at the door.
"Aw, come on! Why can't I go in?"
"Didn't you hear? Quinn's changing his clothes! He's been wearing the same outfit for days—how gross do you think it is?"
"Then what about you guys? You shouldn't go in either!"
"You think we're the same as you?"
"Wow, so it's just you guys who are extra close, huh?"
"Then get out of the way!"
BANG!
Aidan went 'phew, phew!' fanning the air, then slammed the door shut like lightning.
"Ugh, that leech! He's gonna cling to us forever now."
Schubik had appeared out of nowhere partway through the walk from the temple to the dormitory, and he'd bombarded them with one question after another without pause, leaving everyone—not just Aidan—with ringing ears.
He'd bawled his eyes out when Bayul came back, and now he'd bawled them out again at the sight of the resurrected Quinn.
"The kid's got some loyalty at least, I'll give him that."
The only flaw was how short-lived his tears were. Afterward, he'd glued himself to them, firing off questions in a relentless campaign to find out how the resurrection had happened.
"Maybe I should've just stayed put at the temple and croaked there?"
"We couldn't hog Priest Wagner's office forever."
"Fair point. The dorm is more comfortable anyway. Finally starting to feel like living again!"
Aidan stretched both arms overhead in a long, satisfying stretch, then flung himself onto Bayul's bed. Bayul watched him from his chair, smiling.
"Hey, Bayul…."
"Yeah, Logan? What is it?"
Quinn was opening the wardrobe to pull out fresh clothes, while Aidan and Eli snickered and rolled around on the bed together.
Everything was exactly as it had been before the disaster.
Father is here at the Academy too.
Could anything be more perfect than this?
He'd been through something harrowing, but Bayul felt genuinely, deeply happy. He never wanted this happiness shattered again. As long as things stayed like this, he felt like he could do anything.
"There's something I really need to tell you…."
"Hey, Quinn! What's it feel like, being reborn? Since you're at it, are you gonna swallow the Eye of the Ocean whole?"
The moment Logan worked up the courage to speak, Eli shot upright and hollered at Quinn. His voice was so thunderous that Logan's words got completely drowned out.
"Logan, sorry—Eli, I couldn't hear you. Could you say it again?"
"If you're not gonna give it back, you should just keep it! It's from the Mermaid Kingdom anyway, right?"
This time it was Aidan. Like they were competing in a shouting contest, he hollered even louder than Eli.
"You two are going to burst my eardrums! Don't you know I have sensitive ears? Lower your voices!"
Quinn, mid-change of clothes, scowled and snapped at them. When Logan looked at Aidan and Eli with a strange, questioning air, the two of them shook their heads as if they'd rehearsed it.
'Later.'
'Not now.'
Everyone was overjoyed to be together again, healthy and whole—there was no need to ruin the mood. It was something that had to be said eventually, but not now, at least.
'Ugh, that oblivious idiot!'
'Give it some time!'
Aidan and Eli were truly desperate, resorting to nothing but expressions and glances to keep Bayul and Quinn from catching on. Holding their mouths and their thoughts separate made it even harder.
"Finding the Eye of the Ocean was your whole purpose, wasn't it? So what are you going to do with it now?"
"You're not heading straight back to the Mermaid Kingdom, are you?"
"You enrolled, so you'd better graduate. No dropping out!"
"Drop out? As if."
Quinn, freshly dressed and looking sharp, came over to join his friends. On the second finger of his right hand—unlike before—three rings now gleamed.
"You asked what I'm going to do with this?"
Only when the three came together did they become truly complete. His friends didn't seem to realize it, but Quinn could feel the tremendous power flowing from the Eye of the Ocean.
That strength wrapped pleasantly around his entire body. Perhaps that was why he felt lighter than air. He had never known such fullness, even in the Mermaid Kingdom.
"First things first—let's have a proper talk with Innocent, shall we?"
"Innocent?"
"She's here?"
"You call yourself a dragon, Eli, and you can't even sense a spirit?"
Truthfully, Innocent had been circling Bayul since a while ago. Guilty conscience, maybe—she couldn't quite bring herself to come close, and was watching for his reaction. Though even then, not a trace of remorse could be seen on her.
"Oh, should've mentioned sooner—I'm fire! That little squirt is water! You think we're compatible?"
"Huh? Now that you mention it, that's true. So that's why Innocent hates you?"
"Well, I hate her too!"
"I hate her MORE! Nyah!"
At Eli's declaration of hatred, Innocent, who had been sulking in a corner, shot across the room in a single blur. When she suddenly appeared right in front of him, Eli startled and scrambled backward in a hurry.
"Innocent! Not again!"
She used to at least ask permission before showing herself, but at some point she'd taken to popping up entirely whenever she pleased.
"You did it earlier too! Father is here, and you're going around drenching people? Didn't I tell you never to do that again?"
"Aren't you happy I became an Intermediate Spirit, Bayul?"
"…What?"
"I did it because I was happy! Even now I'm struggling SO hard not to burst out and brag about it! And you don't understand me at all!"
Who exactly was supposed to be getting scolded here? All of a sudden, Innocent's face had crumpled. Absurdly enough, her enormous eyes looked ready to spill big crocodile tears at any moment.
Bayul, who had somehow ended up as the perpetrator(?), was left speechless, his mouth opening and closing helplessly.
"Innocent, shall I play with you?"
"Quinn…."
At Quinn's gentle voice, Innocent sniffled and drifted smoothly over to him. As beings attuned to water, the two had gotten along well from the very start, but now—with Innocent rising to Intermediate rank and Quinn wielding the Eye of the Ocean—their bond felt deeper than ever.
"Congratulations on becoming an Intermediate Spirit."
Innocent nodded silently, as if to say thank you. To Bayul, it looked exactly like she was saying, 'Who needs anyone but Quinn?'
"Ugh, that sneaky water fox!"
Eli came over to Bayul with a look of warning.
"She's faking it, acting all beaten down. Don't you dare cave."
"I can't say for sure, but still, shouldn't we congratulate her? Knowing her personality, she probably leapt before she thought, out of sheer joy."
Aidan quietly took Innocent's side. Bayul was too flustered to catch it, but in that instant, the corners of Innocent's mouth had twitched—just for a heartbeat.
'Was I too hard on her?'
She had always envied Spinel for reaching Intermediate first. So of course Bayul knew how happy she must be now that she'd made it herself.
Still, drenching none other than his father with a torrent of water—no matter how many times he replayed it, that had been too much, even for her.
"Innocent."
At Bayul's call, Innocent lifted her misty eyes to look at him. Or was he imagining it? Somehow, she seemed to have drawn even closer to water than before.
She'd always been water itself, but had she grown more concentrated somehow? He couldn't put it into words, but something had definitely changed.
"Just this once."
"…?"
"You mustn't do it again. Next time, I might get really angry."
"Okay, Bayul! I won't do it anymore!"
She answered well enough. Come to think of it, though, that had always been the way with her.
"And—congratulations. Truly, on becoming an Intermediate Spirit."
"Innocent, congrats from me too! Ingrid would love to see you like this!"
"Eeek, Ingrid! I want to go show her right now!"
Moping clearly didn't suit Innocent. Watching her bounce around the room with joy in an instant, Bayul couldn't help the smile that crept across his face.
Is this what it feels like to raise a child, once you become a parent?
He had never even dated anyone properly, let alone come close to marriage, yet the thought occurred to him all the same.
"You've grown, so the least you could do is grow a little more refined. Tsk tsk!"
Eli hollered at her to behave, but not a word of it reached Innocent's ears. Now that Bayul's anger had dissolved, she had nothing left to fear. Water balloons of every shape and size bloomed and vanished in midair, one after another. It was a mercy—and only a mercy—that the room wasn't flooding.
"By the way, where are the other spirits? They're all right, aren't they?"
"Still recovering. They're getting better little by little, but I think they'll need more time."
Between the resurrection and everything after, he'd had no spare moments to check on them properly, but he'd been doing his best to stay in constant contact with the spirits. The ones gravely wounded in the fight against the intruders had been doing nothing but sleeping, day after day, near the Spirit Stone.
When the spirits were hurt this time, Bayul felt their pain alongside them for the first time. They must have been in agony, and yet they hadn't fled to protect themselves—they'd stood and fought the intruder, for his sake. He was grateful for it, and sorry, both at once.
"So how did Innocent become an Intermediate Spirit, anyway? It's not like she grew spinel earrings like Spinel did."
"Good point. Could it be because of the Eye of the Ocean?"
"The Eye of the Ocean?"
"They're both water energy, aren't they? Maybe she awakened with the power that was left over after Quinn was brought back."
"Hey, little squirt! Why on earth did you show up at the temple, anyway?"
Innocent had taken as heavy a beating in the battle as any of the other spirits, and she'd been resting at the Water Garden. Eli hollered his question—what had brought her to the temple of all places?
"I was called."
"Called? By who?"
"No idea. Me neither."
"What kind of answer is that? What do you mean, you don't know?"
"There was just a voice, coming from here. A voice calling me."
Innocent flew over to Bayul and pointed at the pendant with her finger.
"…A voice calling you came from this necklace?"
"Yep! Something about how the time had come for me to awaken, or whatever. It was such a sweet, soft voice."
The pendant spoke?
Bayul's mind spun. Like the Eye of the Ocean, the necklace was his mother's keepsake.
Could this, too, be a Primordial Relic?
"Oh! Right—the memory fragments! Innocent, has anything new come back to you?"
In all the commotion, he'd forgotten. When Spinel had risen to Intermediate Spirit, she'd shared a great deal with him. Innocent was bound to have something too. Preferably something Spinel hadn't already told him.
"Nope, nothing like that!"
"Nothing…?"
"Nope!"
But she was as innocent as her name suggested. Whether or not she realized she'd just crumbled Bayul's hopes to pieces, Innocent beamed and confirmed it once more, hammering the final nail in.