Lucid and Arthur watched as the crowd cheered with fake enthusiasm, their voices carrying a hollow quality that seemed to echo through the festival like a poorly tuned instrument, and Lucid could not shake the feeling that everyone was performing, that every smile was painted on, that every laugh was scripted, and then he saw something that made him pause. A figure with yellow curls accompanied by a tall woman with pale skin as smooth as silk even under the harsh light of the afternoon sun, she wore dark robes and carried a humongous red blade that caught the light and seemed to drink it in, it was a demonstration, and Arthur giggled for a second, Lucid as well, realizing it was Valen and Ayame.
The magistrate stood beside Valen, her eyes distant, carrying a sense of apathy that seemed to have settled into her bones, she was a hollow shell, a woman who had been broken and remade into something that barely resembled her former self, and Lucid observed the people around them, many of them wearing the same expression, the same distant, disinterested gaze.
He speculated that it was the Domain of Mercyros that had frozen their other selves leaving their other self in that domain, leaving them as empty vessels going through the motions of life, and he realized with a quick grim determination that it was still a problem, that the Domain was still affecting everyone in Port Vexis, that the town was still being choked by the Monolith's influence.
"What is the Domain?" Alice asked, her voice carrying a note of genuine curiosity.
Lucid immediately broke his deep thinking, he did not like the question, he never liked it, the way she cared too little to intrude upon his thoughts, but he did not voice that out loud, he kept his thoughts guarded, his walls up more than ever.
"It is well, a Monolith," he said carefully, his voice meameasured.
"A Monolith?" She sounded much more confused and questioning, like an innocent person who had just encountered a concept they had never heard before.
That made him immediately suspicious, how could she have traveled through all their time together and not know what a Monolith was.
Suddenly he stopped himself immediately.
He carried other thoughts somewhere else, he could not think about her, he could not think about the one he had consumed.
Alice spoke "Neptune?"
He panicked, this was worse than ever.
He stuttered mentally, "Well it's a planet! I read about."
It was technically true in a sense.
"You consumed a planet?" Alice asked, her voice sharpening, and he could feel fingers dissecting his own spirit, prying into whatever he was trying to shield.
He thought quickly, desperately, "a lot of information, about the planet I mean..." he thought of the countless textbooks he had read and all the senseless geopolitical states of the scattered realms which probably held no purpose, or maybe some did, he sighed deeply, letting his mind drift to neutral thoughts.
He spoke nonetheless.
"A Monolith is an appointed deity by Mother Fate," he said, his voice carrying the cadence of someone reciting from memory, "they seemed to be the children of Mother Fate that resided with her in a place beyond the scattered realms, Celestia, for reasons unknown that place is no longer, and her children, the Monoliths, who were tasked to safeguard the scattered realms, now drift aimlessly with no purpose."
"Oh, I see," Alice said, her voice sounding like she was told something valuable that she had missed and that suddenly made sense.
He did not buy it, anyone spending enough time with a person close enough could tell signs, he had suspicions that she knew, and she had suspicions that he knew that she knew, it was a game of chess played in the dark, with neither player willing to reveal their hand.
"Well, one of them has made it his duty to choke hold this town," Lucid said, lingering for a moment, seeking any clarification towards Alice which he knew at the back of his mind was unwise.
"Which is why I entered a rift with Arthur to uncover the past through a girl's past," he continued, his voice carrying a note of grim determination, "there seemed to be some naval warfare and well, the rest is unknown to me, because I drowned."
For a brief moment there was only silence, he could feel her contemplating, processing, and then suddenly the boy on the platform, accompanied by his Oni companion, spoke, his voice carrying across the crowd with practiced ease.
"This is a pearly fish caught in the shores of Port Vexis," Valen said, his fingers hovering over its scales, tracing the shimmering surface with obvious reverence, the sight of it made Lucid sick, he detested fish and the ocean in any kind of way, he had to force himself to move in that rift, everything making him nauseous, he admitted that he was not particularly fond of water, not after everything that had happened.
"This is our biggest haul yet," Valen continued, "and the price of a single pearly fish is a modest thirty eight platinum marks, there is no bid, I am selling it at that price as per agreed by the magistrate, oh valiant one."
He made his way behind her and placed both of his hands on her shoulders in a gesture that was equal parts possessive and performative, he seemed like the one in control, the one pulling the strings, and then suddenly the yellow haired boy gestured toward the figure of Ayame, who brandished her red blood blade and swung it in a single sharp arc, in a brief moment the pearl fish was cut into individual pieces, sliding apart from each other with surgical precision, the pearl at the fish head near its eyes slid up and she held it in her pale hand, inspecting it with quiet detachment.
Her eyes landed on Lucid through the crowd immediately, he felt himself being observed, studied, analyzed, Arthur bumped his elbow toward Lucid, signaling what was going on, and that Ayame had found them.
Was this the plan? The fish, if Valen planned this from the very beginning then he was certainly no amateur, the level of coordination and planning that went into this must have been bewildering.
Suddenly Alice spoke, her voice carrying a note of speculation, "What if, in her final moments, that girl yearned with all her soul for Alisia herself to descend... yet it was not the Mother who answered."
A faint smile graced her spectral lips, touched by quiet pride.
"Instead, one of Her children came in Her stead and brought an end to that from which she so desperately fled."
She lifted her spectral chin with serene dignity.
"Would that not, too, be an answer worthy of the Divine?"
Lucid's eyes immediately went up, he recalled what Arthur had said, the fleet and this supposed Enlightened of the Dao Mandate, it all seemed hopeless, but something pivotal must have happened at the end for her to resolve this whole thing.
"She entered into a contract with Mercyros," Lucid whispered, the realization settling over him.
That had to be what happened.
The two warships he had sunk must have bought the fleet just enough time to escape. Arthur's stand had done the same. Together, they had delayed the inevitable long enough for the girl's fate to realign with its original course.
But they had not been there to witness it.
Somewhere along the way, just as Alice had suggested, she must have fallen to her knees. With nowhere left to run, no strength left to fight, and no one left to save her, she had done the only thing she could.
She prayed.
And Mercyros had answered.
The deity himself must have descended upon the battlefield himself, annihilating the Shenzhou Mandate's fleet without mercy. Even that Enlightened would have been powerless before a true deity.
In the end, history had corrected itself.
It all made sense.
Lucid nodded in confirmation. "Thank you, Alice," he said in a confirmational tone, he was surprised that she even aided in any way, maybe she could be trusted after all...
Alice chuckled inside him, her voice carrying a teasing edge that made his skin prickle with irritation, "My, my, Lucid, you are quite the detective, piecing together fragments of a puzzle you were never meant to solve, it is almost endearing how you try to make sense of a world that was never designed to make sense."
He sighed and put on a tired smile against her nostalgic teasing, "I am not trying to make sense of anything, I am just stating what is obvious."
"Of course you are," she replied, her voice dripping with mock sincerity, "and I am simply a humble observer, watching my chosen one navigate the treacherous waters of mortal politics and divine intervention, it is quite entertaining, really."
He chose to ignore her.