Reunion
The scenery raced past in a blur.
All that could be heard was the footsteps of three people.
And their breathing.
The breaths they shared, all aimed at a single place, a single person, all carrying the same heart.
Every other sound, every other sight, gradually closed off and vanished.
Instinct said nothing else was needed. Everything but one purpose faded to black. Simply blacked out.
I want to see him.
I want to meet him again.
I've held back for far too long.
The three of them had been together through the hardest times, the happiest hours, the very moment they overcame everything — so without a single word, they understood each other completely.
That in this moment, they all felt the same.
That they were all thinking the same thing.
Luca flexed the right hand gripping her sword hilt as she ran.
She had always been alone.
No one held any memory of her birth, but her senses had followed her all her life.
For Luca, that sense had been loneliness.
Every bond formed before she became a slave had been severed.
Severed by that murderous blade — the thing called a sword.
Luca had hated swords.
But the first time she met her master, she finally understood: a sword was not something that wounded, but something that protected.
That it was not a means of returning loneliness to her enemies, but a medium that could carry her own bonds onward.
That with it, she could protect the precious Tia and Yuri.
So even after parting from her master, she trained, and trained, and trained again.
The weak version of herself had failed to protect her master.
She had failed even to honor his heart — the heart that wanted so badly to protect them.
She resolved to grow stronger, and stronger still.
Hoping that someday, the day would come when this sword would let her protect him in return.
If he saw me now, would he praise me?
Would he still play along with my jokes like before, train with me again?
People liked to say that memories are most beautiful when left as memories, and other such truisms — she didn't care for any of that.
She only wished to sink herself once more into that feeling from back then.
And this time, above all, she ran with the resolve to shield her master from any danger whatsoever.
For that one simple purpose, Luca kept her legs moving.
Tia had wanted to see it for herself, one more time.
The humans who despised her for being a dark elf.
The slave merchant who shredded her heart and, in the end, even kidnapped her — also human.
Her relationship with her master had begun in hostility toward that entire race called humanity.
Looking back now, she wondered — wasn't it she who had been the one carrying prejudice?
Because he was just... him. Not a human, not a slave merchant. Simply himself.
So much time had passed. In that time, Tia had learned a great deal. Her mind was sharp enough that even inside the small room of a Magic Tower, she had come to understand the whole world.
And yet one thing remained that she simply could not grasp.
At some point, whenever she gathered her thoughts, her mind drew nothing but him, obsessing over the faint orange mana he had left behind, still circling weakly within her body.
Was this affection? Passion? Just a heart that wanted to repay him?
Elves were said to sometimes keep short-lived humans as beloved companions — perhaps it was some instinct like that.
...I don't know.
It's not written in any book.
Every answer is only a guess. Even I don't understand my own heart.
So if I meet my master again, I want to start from the very beginning.
I want to take it slowly, and find out.
And if, when I see him again, this pounding in my chest hasn't changed —
...no. I want it not to change.
Yes. I probably already...
Love him. From the very start.
As if in answer to that certainty, a passing wind swept through Tia's swaying golden hair.
Yuri's mind was on the verge of exploding.
Her blood was already burning hot, her eyes rimmed red, her tail standing bolt upright — if she lost focus for even an instant, she felt she would drop to all fours and bolt.
Master, master, master, master.
My master.
The contest and the rules she had agreed to with the other two beneath the Goddess's name had long since evaporated from her mind.
The reason she had kept for so long as a Saintess, the compassion she had built up layer by layer — the moment his familiar pheromones touched her nose, the wolf's instinct began devouring it all.
Thirteen years. Long was far too mild a word.
A wolf, a warm-blooded creature, needed warmth to fill the body heat she had lost.
When did I become like this? Why did I turn so blind?
Perhaps because before I met my master, and after, and even now, there has only ever been him.
Call it instinct, if you like.
Curse it as base, and it would still be fine.
Because her feelings for her master — the passion she had kept secret, confided to no one — would lose to no one alive.
I have just one wish.
Just once more, like back then.
May I call you Orabeoni again?
Without anyone deciding to go first, their steps quickened. The ground cratered beneath their boots, and the landscape swept past them without a moment's pause to take it in.
"Luca, over there!"
"Yeah."
Tia had spotted the target.
A barrier of west wind — unmistakably Aisha's aura — stretched sky-high above the center of the colosseum-shaped building.
"I'll close the distance!"
"I'll support you!"
There was no need for long explanations; years of fighting side by side let them coordinate with a glance alone.
As Tia cast physical enhancement over them, Yuri wrapped her arms around the other two's waists and leapt skyward in an instant.
A thunderous boom, and a massive crack yawned open where they'd pushed off.
The three surveyed the situation from midair.
"Oh, come on — why won't ANYTHING go right?!"
Aisha, face crimson, sweat pouring down, was venting her aura at its absolute limit.
The three understood immediately what she was trying to contain. They had learned mid-battle that the demons they'd just been fighting had lost their warlock.
It was clearly a void-expansion phenomenon — the warlock's death sending his pact raging out of control.
"Going in."
Luca raised her sword behind her and released her aura. Riding the recoil, the three hurtled toward the black void within Aisha's wind.
Each of them readied a technique.
A beautiful longsword wreathed in blue aura,
Sixth-tier flames burning with passionate intensity,
A gleaming iron fist cloaked in divine power.
"HAAAH—!!"
With a exhilarating battle cry, they charged, collided at a single point — and exploded.
―――The wind blew.
They landed one after another in the Main Arena, where only a peaceful silence remained, caressed by Aisha's gentle west wind.
The cloud of dust that had spiraled up from the floor stilled and slowly settled.
The purified black magic glittered as it drifted down, like meteors falling through a night sky.
"―――Ah."
The first to find him was Tia.
The golden-haired dark elf, still holding her staff, rose slowly without thinking — and her black eyes met his gaze.
"...Ngh."
Luca, too, took in the sight of him.
Even in this dangerous place, all he carried was a single wooden sword — yet there was not a trace of fear in his stance.
The way he stood, back straight and unbowed, was without a doubt the man of her memories.
"Mast——"
The word caught in Yuri's throat as she instinctively tried to call his name.
Because of the wager's contract with the Goddess, she could no longer speak it.
Only then did Yuri realize what a foolish condition she had bound herself with.
How agonizing it was, this moment — to be forced to hold back the urge to run to him right now and be held, to stop her trembling hands and feet from shaking.
Luca, too, buried the pain behind her expressionless face, gritting her teeth and tightening her grip on her sword.
The contest had begun. She couldn't ruin the first impression she would show him.
I want him to see me as a splendid, capable, talented new student.
That's how it has to be.
That's... how it has to be.
Tia, barely holding onto an expression that felt ready to crumble at any moment, prepared her first greeting to him.
Hello, Professor Pidia.
It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Testia.
Hello, Professor... Pidia.
Hello...
Every time she rehearsed the words in her head, her heart's chambers tightened, her veins constricted.
Thud. Thud.
She could hear his footsteps crossing the arena's dirt floor.
One step. Another.
Toward them.
The distance closed.
As the dust settled, his figure came into sharper and sharper focus.
"...Ah."
The sigh escaped before she could stop it.
He had changed. Changed so very much.
The easy, approachable ease of a street adventurer was gone, replaced by the measured gait of a nobleman, drilled into him through etiquette and form.
The body of a young swordsman in training had finished growing to its very limit — muscle shaped and perfected for survival in the wild.
His face, once rough but laced with playfulness somewhere underneath, now seemed melted down and patched over with layers of iron — no crack of emotion left to find.
And yet, the four letters floating above his head remained exactly the same.
While the three of them had fulfilled their duties to shed their nameplates, he too had devoted his entire life to shedding his own — .
But because he had not managed it to this day, he had become... this.
The instant the three laid eyes on their master, they understood him — and regretted, all at once.
We shouldn't have left him back then. Deep in their hearts, they regretted it bitterly — that they should have stayed by his side, even if it meant letting the world end.
But they were given little time to sort through their feelings. Their master's stride, long-legged as he was, was wide, fast, and somehow hurried.
And at last, the master of the three stood before them.
And then.
From the moment they came flying out of the sky, burst the void, and landed, he had known.
Their nametags were hidden by the dust and the whirlwind — not that he needed them in the first place.
Of course he didn't.
No matter how their looks had changed, no matter how different their presence felt, no matter if he had even been wrong about their gender or their race.
How would these children grow up? What would they become?
What would their faces look like? Their voices? Their special talents? Their personalities?
Is Whitey still a scaredy-cat? I bet Blacky's turned outgoing and confident. And I bet Yellowy turns out to be surprisingly good with jokes.
He had imagined it every single day, countless times, without end.
There was no way in the world he could fail to recognize them.
He walked.
It was not a decision made by thought. At some point, his body had simply begun moving on its own.
He felt like a child going to receive candy. Before he knew it, his steps had quickened.
He could see their faces now. All three were looking up at him with expressions that wavered somewhere between hope and fear.
He couldn't quite say why, but his arm reached out before his mind caught up.
Blacky on his left arm, Yellowy and Whitey on his right.
As if afraid that even one of the three might slip away, he spread his arms as wide as he could and pulled them into his embrace.
Holding all three tightly against him, he finally put into words what he had wanted to say for so long.
"Welcome home. All of you."
Without anyone going first, all three of them burst into tears.
"We're home..."
"I-I missed you..."
"Sob — we're, we're hooome...!"
And for a long, long while, they simply felt each other's warmth.