The meeting ended on a note no one had anticipated, and despite the decisions being made by vote, many still felt apprehensive.
As the fervor cooled and survival instincts finally kicked back in, many realized they might lose everything if the coming war turned out differently than they had imagined.
With that realization, fear began to rear its ugly head once more, and with it came the predictable cowardice.
This time, though, the choice had already been made, and the train had already left the station—with them on board. Now, they could only pray that the destination was not their end.
That was the majority. There was always a minority that thought differently, and Ashen was one of them.
After all the hardship he had already endured, this was never going to faze him. So, he calmly returned to Esperra for one final goodbye with his family.
His father, as always, struggled to show his genuine concern, offering little more than one-word goodbyes and silent stares. But the real surprise came from his mother, whom he had expected to have to pacify for a long while.
Instead, she simply hugged him tightly, gave him a goodbye kiss, and wished him good health and a safe return.
…though she still ended up making a scene about Lapis, and Ashen had to pacify her anyway.
After his family, it was Dorian's turn. So he left his sister with his lovers and decided to pay him one last visit before heading to Seravelle.
He had a feeling that this time, his absence would be a long one, so he wanted to see his uncle one last time.
When he entered the familiar classroom, he expected to find either Dorian seated upon the throne made of broken chairs, or the throne itself having finally surrendered to its own shameful existence.
Instead, what he found was beyond anything his mind had ever been prepared to receive.
Dorian was indeed there, sitting where he belonged, but he was not alone. Clinging far too closely to the man, who was wearing an exasperated expression and half-heartedly trying to push her away, was a woman so beguiling that she seemed to have fallen out of some deranged divine prophecy.
'No… beguiling? If only that were enough….'
"Ah, Asher… you're here! This… this is not what it looks like!"
Dorian turned toward him and spoke with visible embarrassment, but Ashen paid him no heed. More accurately, he could not pay him any heed.
"Oh, Beloved~ It's exactly what it looks like!"
Dorian snapped a worried glance at Ashen and turned back to berate the woman clinging to him.
"You! This is all your fault, now look what you've done! Hurry up and put up your veil, you incompetent girl."
Yet even with those words, there was no mistaking the softness hidden beneath his voice.
"But I trust my son! He shall not lose himself to Lust, I know it well," she retorted, stubbornly refusing to obey.
"Who is your son?! I clearly told you that Ashen is my nephew at best! He already has a good father and a wonderful mother!"
"Her cakes are the best, by the way." Dorian added with a nostalgic smile, before snapping out of it, "No! Why would he be your nephew or son if he is mine?"
"Well, because we are wed, of course. What a foolish question, my beloved."
"We are not married, damn it!"
The woman ignored him and pressed herself against him even more, nearly claiming his lap as her rightful throne.
"Beloved~ I've always wanted a son~ Won't you let us adopt him?"
"Ah… this crazy…"
Ashen could not hear the rest of their banter, not only because the woman had silenced his uncle with a plush kiss planted squarely over his lips, but also because his own mind had long since been swallowed by the abyssal tides of Lust.
'That golden hair… brighter than dawn breaking through the roof of heaven itself…'
'Those violet eyes… like twin relics stolen from the treasury of a forgotten god…'
'That skin… like moonlit silk woven from the breath of paradise…'
'Those breasts…'
'Those legs…'
'Those proportions…'
'Ah.'
Ashen had never imagined that any sight, no matter how grotesque or repulsive, could rob him of his sanity. Yet who could have foreseen that it would be perfection itself that would undo him?
It was never any single feature. It was the whole of her—assembled in such impossible harmony that it ceased to be merely a woman and became some decadent anomaly of beauty, a blasphemous miracle given flesh.
The scent, the shape, the presence, the movement…
Ashen was one step away from drowning in this sea of Lust when a surge of anger, born from humiliation, jolted him back to himself for a brief instant.
'How could I be reduced to this… because of a woman's body…'
Ashen did not know how he would face his lovers if he were truly reduced to a slobbering beast of craving at the mere sight of… this.
'Help…'
{It is a good exercise for resisting mental corruption, so no.}
'Fuck.'
Ashen could only resort to his final trump card and loosen his seal.
…after all, if there was anyone who could look upon this masterpiece and remain utterly unmoved, it could only be someone as deranged as he.
And so, the Time Magician was let out.
'Huh. My main personality is such a weak thing. Man, it's clear that my beloved Sera is better than this bimbo, anyway.'
'In the first place, I don't understand half of the poetic shit you've been spouting to yourself while you salivated over this random woman.'
Shut up.
'Heh.' A smirk crept onto Ashen's face.
"Hey, uncle, will you stop smothering your face with the lady's lips? I'm getting goosebumps here..."
"Ah, damn it!" Dorian snapped out of his daze and pulled himself free from the woman's embrace.
"Ehem…" Trying to expel the embarrassment with a fake cough and failing miserably, he decided to move on and act as though nothing had happened.
"Asher… meet Lola von Habstein. You may know her better as the Lust Sin Lord."
The Lust Mistress waved once and winked in his direction.
"Oho! So that's why!"
Now he understood why his main personality had been reduced to a simp the moment he laid eyes on her.
"Nice to meet you, I guess? Also, I remember you healed me once, right? Thanks for that, saved my life, back then."
The Time Magician also knew how to be grateful, it seemed.
"Oh, you~ There is no need for thanks. After all… you are like a son to me."
"... Excuse me?"
"Hehe~ Look, beloved! I knew it in the end! I knew he'd be able to look at me and keep his sanity! My son is the best, isn't he?"
"I told you already… he is not your son…"
Dorian now looked less like a mighty Sin Lord and more like an overworked babysitter, but Ashen did not give him any respite, fixing an intense gaze on him.
Seeing his uncle this flustered for the first time was funny, but he had priorities. And the priority now was to understand why he had gained an additional mother.
"Uh… Ashen, I'll explain. Don't look at me like that…"
"Well, I'm waiting, old relic. When did I become your son, and when did you bring me a stepmother?"
"It's not like that…"
"It kind of is, though?"
…The Lady of Lust was not making it easier for the poor man.
"Haah… to understand how this came to be, you have to understand how Lust pathwalkers function first."
"Yeah, my girl is a Lust pathwalker, as you know. Seraphine was also from Lust at one point in time, so I know well." Ashen nodded.
"Good, that makes this easier to explain." Dorian breathed a sigh of relief. "In short, I was this incompetent woman's partner, helping her ascend the steps for the last two hundred years."
"Hey! How am I incompetent~? I'm clearly at the first step…"
"So what? When you learn how to control your Concepts to stop radiating this much Lust. , I'll call you something else."
"Really? Okay, then when I do, I want you to call me Honey~."
"Ah, shit…" Dorian smacked his forehead at the woman's antics.
"I understand. She is your partner, which makes her your woman, which is why she is so nice to me." Ashen nodded thoughtfully. "Is that also why you let your Saintess stay beside me as much as she likes?"
"Part of it~." Lola nodded with a gentle smile. "From the first time I saw you, I smelled his scent on you, so I paid a visit to my beloved here to understand the situation."
"What are you? A dog?" Dorian grumbled from the side, but she ignored him.
"I thought he was cheating on me for a second there! Having a son with another. Turned out he just adopted you. Naughty man~."
Her smile turned even gentler, and the two men felt themselves abruptly shiver for some reason.
"Lady… no one adopted me. I just call Dorian uncle because he was a childhood uncle of sorts. Don't read too much into it."
"No!"
'Ah, fuck.'
"I can clearly see how much he cares about you! Even more than me," she pouted, "and my Saintess is like a daughter to me, you know~. So as her man, you'll still have to call me mother either way~."
She winked.
"Alright, mother-in-law, you win."
The moment Seraphine came up, the Time Magician instantly capitulated.
"Hmph. At last, you understand your place, son of mine. Do not worry, I like to think of myself as a doting mother. You will not lose out."
The two men shared a helpless look before shaking their heads in defeat.
"By the way, Asher, you look a little off." Dorian suddenly said. "Also, your eyes are brewing with so much madness… Somethin' nice happen?"
'This is the first time I'm being asked whether I'm mad in such a unique way…'
Ashen tilted his head, contemplating how to answer. In the end, he just shrugged.
"Eh, I got caught in a nasty trap, and went a bit crazy while escaping it. Now I kinda have a split personality problem."
"Oh."
"Hm."
The two Sin Lords did not look nearly as shocked or worried as they should have been.
"Every powerhouse is crazy one way or another, so… let's just say welcome to the club?" Dorian nodded sagely.
"It's alright, son. We all have our little quirks, don't be afraid." Lola spoke indulgently, immediately putting her new position as his "mother" to use.
"Uh-huh. We just know how to hide and control it better." Dorian added from the side. "Otherwise, everyone is a little crazy anyway. A split personality isn't the end of the world. Cheer up!"
'I'm not sad anyway.' Ashen rolled his eyes.
"Alright, stop looking at me with those eyes like I'm some newbie. I also have a question."
"What is it~? Are you curious about our love story? How cute~."
Dorian was about to shush her again, but froze at Ashen's response.
"Yes, actually."
"Ash… not you too…"
Ashen ignored his uncle's betrayed look and asked him, "Why are you acting so reluctant if she is your woman anyway? Is this some kind of roleplay?"
The moment he asked that question, it seemed as though fireworks lit up in Lola's eyes as she began to secretly gesture with a tilt of her head, as if asking, yes! Tell him, son! Tell him more! Indeed, why?!
"That's what you wanted to know?" Dorian sounded relieved, contrary to the frantic Lola. "It's simply because of how the nature of our relationship started."
"How did it start?"
"This woman came to me on her own when she awakened as a Lust Pathwalker two hundred years ago, saying that I was her destined partner. She was quite delusional, I tell you."
"You are the best fit for me according to my Soulmate's Compass. There's nothing delusional about it." Lola put a hand on her cheek, protesting from the side, trying to defend herself.
"...At the time, this silly woman looked like she would be devoured without even leaving bones behind if I let her go, so in the end, I accepted being her partner under two conditions."
Dorian held up two fingers and folded one down. "One, she would be my eyes and ears in Seravelle. Two," he folded the second, "our relationship would be purely physical, with no feelings involved."
"Sounds stupid." Ashen ruthlessly gave his two cents on the second condition.
The twinkle in Lola's eyes threatened to burst into full bloom as she nearly jumped in place.
"Right?!"
"Why add such a condition, though? This lady seems pretty decent from where I'm standing, anyway." He tilted his head.
"Oh my~" she let out a soft, seductive giggle. "I cannot believe I've charmed the son before the father. How sinful~."
Both men ignored her.
"Well, you see, I had a wife… and even though she passed away, my heart still belongs to her, so I couldn't bring myself to take her wholeheartedly at the time. But I also couldn't bring myself to let her go… and here we are..." Dorian explained with a helpless gaze.
"Oh. I never thought you were the romantic type, Uncle."
"It is what it is…"
"He is romantic, all right. So much so that even after two hundred years, I'm still losing to my predecessor." The Lust Mistress let out a theatrical sigh, but Ashen could see the genuine hurt behind it.
He decided to throw her a bone. She was his self-proclaimed mother, after all. He could do this much at least.
"Is that so? But as I see it, this uncle of mine is already a cooked fish..."
"Oh?"
"You probably did a very good job for the past two centuries... all you have to do now is keep at it. Trust me," he smirked.
Lola licked her lips in response. "Really? I shall take my son's word for it, then."
"Really, really. Just keep attacking. It's clearly working. Hehe."
"You two..." Dorian looked aghast as he watched the spectacle unfold before him. "If I knew you'd gang up on me like this, I would never have let you meet. You truly look like a mother-son duo right now."
"You would dare hide my son from me? Hmph. It seems like some private talk is in order, beloved~."
Ashen saw how Lola was getting handsy once more, snaking her fingers into Dorian's Hawaiian shirt, then looked at how her already short crimson sideless surcoat was somehow shortening even further and took it as his cue to leave.
"Alright, uncle, enjoy yourself. I'm out of here. And, Lady Lola, it was nice to formally meet you."
"W-wait... Ashen, you didn't tell me the reason for visiting..."
"Goodbye, beloved son~!"
Lola cast a grateful glance at how understanding her newfound son was and doubled her efforts on the man before her.
"Come here..."
Ashen had already turned his back on the ongoing spectacle. Waving a hand behind him, he said, "It's not anything major. I just came to say I might take a while to come back this time."
"Now you'd better entertain the lady in your hands instead. Ciao."
"Ah, n-no. This really isn't the time, Lola, damn it."
Ashen heard some shuffling and grunting before one last shout from his uncle reached him as he finally got out of earshot.
"You damn vixen! Let's see how I discipline you!"
'Heh...'
The Time Magician let himself be sealed anew, allowing the main personality to surface. But the smirk did not recede.
"Since she is your woman, I'll keep an eye on her in this war, I suppose."
"I don't want my uncle to become a widower once more... that would be really unlucky."