Swan Song [Dark Fantasy | Progression Fantasy | Slowburn]

[Volume 2 | Chapter 76: Turnabout]

8:07 PM.

The summer night hung over Windsor like a velvet curtain with stars peeking through scattered clouds as three figures hurried through the shadows of Oakridge's industrial district. Acacia led the way, with Leila and Noelle following close behind, all three bound by a plan that had seemed so logical close to ten hours ago in the safety of the Trafalgar estate. Now, with abandoned factories looming like skeletal giants against the darkening sky, that same plan felt... woefully inadequate.

"We're almost there," Acacia murmured, barely audible over the rusted metal shifting in the wind. "Once we're inside, we stick to the plan. I'll create a distraction while you two locate the children and get them to safety."

Leila bit her lip.

"I still don't feel comfortable with why we didn't contact the IPA at the end of the day. We're talking about a guy who's going to sacrifice childr—"

"Leila, we've been over this. If Alaric gets even a hint that authorities are involved, he might accelerate his timeline. Or worse, he could use ⸢Ephemeral⸥ on the officers. Do you want an entire IPA squad with altered memories walking around Windsor, compromising who knows what else?" Acacia glared back. She agreed with him earlier, why was she being annoying now?

"No." Noelle interjected before the tension between the two could escalate further. "Though... I'm not sure if High Inquisitor Kircheisen would approve—"

"Pandora isn't here," Acacia cut her off, a hint of bitterness lacing his tone at the mention of vexing woman. "We don't have time to debate this again. We have ten minutes before Luna-Spica conjunction happens at 8:17. Ten minutes until Alaric begins the ritual."

The industrial complex loomed ahead, a massive concrete structure with windows like vacant eyes staring into nothingness. Somewhere inside, three children lay helpless, lives measured in minutes unless the three of them intervened.

Acacia stopped walking.

Something wasn't right.

The plan they'd agreed upon: entering together, Acacia creating a distraction while Leila and Noelle rescued the children... it wouldn't work. Not anymore.

"I can't do this," he whispered.

"Excuse me? We're literally standing outside the building where a psychopath is about to murder three children, and now you're getting cold feet?" Leila snapped. Her voice was low but venomous, her patience at its end. "Acacia Belmont, I swear to whatever god that exists, if you're backing out now—"

"That's not what I meant. The plan. It's wrong. We need to change it."

Noelle stepped closer to Acacia. In the brief time she's gotten to know him, she knew the boy's mind worked in ways that were hard to predict, even under normal circumstances. And these circumstances were anything but.

"What are you implying, Acacia? We've spent hours planning this."

"I know, but—! …I think I need to confront Alaric alone."

Leila's face morphed from concern to indignation in an instant.

"Oh, for the love of—are you serious right now? You want to face Alaric by yourself? Have you completely lost your mind?"

He ignored her outburst and turned to Noelle.

"If all three of us fight him together, that risks the chance of one or two of us potentially getting affected by ⸢Ephemeral⸥. It's too dangerous. Two of us can take the children. The other one needs to take down Alaric."

"So your brilliant alternative is to take him down by yourself? Acacia Belmont, you are without a doubt the most inconsiderate trash-brained idiot I have ever had the misfortune of knowing," Leila scoffed, crossing her arms.

"I'm with Leila on this one," Noelle added, though her tone lacked Leila's venom. "Sorry, Acacia, but that's just objectively stupid. What can you possibly do against Alaric's ⸢Ephemeral⸥ that we can't do together?"

Acacia looked between them, weighing his options. There was only one way to make them understand, but revealing the truth now could change everything between them. Still, with lives at stake…

"Because... I'm immune to it."

Speechlessness descended, heavy and thick as the night air around them.

Noelle recovered first.

"That's... that's not possible. ⸢Ephemeral⸥ is a special type of mind manipulation that bypasses even counters to Interference Thaumaturgy like [Inverso]. You can't just be 'immune' to it."

However…

Leila never took her eyes off of him. The memory surfaced—weeks ago, infiltrating the warehouse, her ⸢Empyrean⸥ activated as she'd scanned their surroundings for threats. Every living being had appeared as a constellation of prana in her enhanced vision.

Every being except one.

Where Acacia should have been, there had been only... absence.

A void where prana should have flowed.

She remembered the eerie sensation of looking right at him and yet... seeing nothing. He'd been a vacuum, a puncture in the fabric of the world where the light of prana simply ceased to exist.

Acacia Belmont was an impossible being. One that defied all logic. He should not exist. No creature that existed should have that sort of ability.

And yet…

"You're an Irregular."

A relevation and accusation all the same.

"...Haha."

The sound started small, almost imperceptible, before growing into a sound Leila and Noelle had rarely—if ever—heard from Acacia.

Laughter.

Genuine, unrestrained laughter that shook his shoulders and crinkled the corners of his eyes.

Acacia's shoulders shook as he struggled to contain his mirth. When was the last time he'd laughed? Truly laughed?

"Would you shut up? Alaric might hear you!" Leila hissed, glancing nervously at the looming building.

Acacia's laughter gradually subsided until only a smile remained.

"Well, I guess I've been caught~"

"This isn't possible. Your citizenship documents, your registration... everything lists you as a Wallachian refugee from the House of Belmont! You're supposed to be High Inquisitor Kircheisen's distant cousin! If you were an Irregular, that'd have been flagged immediately in the system and be on your file!" Noelle exclaimed.

"Unless someone very powerful ensured it wasn't," Acacia replied simply, then looked at Leila. "When did you find out? I can tell by your face—you've known for quite a while but didn't know how to express it."

Leila's emerald eyes met his sapphire, unblinking.

"The telecommunications warehouse, back when we were hunting Nemesis and Apollo. I activated ⸢Empyrean⸥ to scan for prana signatures. Everyone has one—even the weakest Thaumaturge emits some trace pattern. But when I looked at you..." She paused, searching for the right words for this "irregularity" in natural law. "There was nothing. Just... emptiness."

Acacia sighed, nodding slightly.

"Yeah, that makes sense. I forgot about your ⸢Empyrean⸥. An oversight on my part, though I suspect Pandora thought it wouldn't be such a big deal."

His eyes met Leila's, searching.

"And yet... you knew."

He swallowed hard.

"But you still treated me exactly the same."

A lump rose in his throat.

"You're... you're a true friend, Leila."

Leila looked away, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "Why wouldn't I? You're still the same annoying, brilliant, unbelievable person. Being an Irregular doesn't change that."

"Does Elias know?" Acacia asked quietly.

She shook her head. "No, I didn't think it was my place to tell him... but I did confide in my mother. She said you had 'special circumstances,' but that you're still just as much a part of the family as if you were any other Thaumaturge."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

For a moment, Acacia felt his vision blur.

But he steeled himself.

This wasn't the time for sentimentality. Three children were counting on them.

He swallowed the useless feelings in his throat, steeled his mind, and turned to Noelle.

"So yeah, I'm the perfect counter to his Birthright. ⸢Ephemeral⸥ can't touch me. Unlike Interference Thaumaturgy which works on tampering with Subjective Reality, ⸢Ephemeral⸥ attacks another person's prana to force subtle changes in their own minds. However, if there's no prana to work on, it should have no effect. It should be like trying to manipulate the mind of a rock or a tree... at least when I asked Mrs. Trafalgar, that seemed to be the conclusion we reached."

Leila and Noelle stared, their expressions shifting from surprise to acceptance.

"Okay," Leila conceded. "Let's say you're right and you can withstand his ⸢Ephemeral⸥. That doesn't make facing Alaric alone a good idea. He's still a trained Thaumaturge. He could easily incapacitate you without resorting to ⸢Ephemeral⸥."

Acacia smirked.

"Leila, let me put it to you this way: what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Yeah, that was a bad joke. I'll admit that."

"You can't face him alone."

"I have to."

"Acacia—"

"I'm not discussing this further. You two need to focus on rescuing the children. Trust me; I can buy you enough time for that. I can't do what needs to be done if I'm worrying about your safety."

Noelle stepped forward, laying a gentle hand on his arm. "What if Alaric overpowers you?"

"He won't. I've been facing people who wanted me dead my entire life. And unlike them, I actually know what Alaric can do."

Leila opened her mouth to argue, but Acacia's gaze silenced her. So, she activated ⸢Empyrean⸥, eyes flashing coquelicot as her perception expanded to the 5th Dimension.

"I can see them," she whispered after a moment. "Third floor, main room. Three small prana signatures, very weak... they're unconscious or sedated. The one larger signature that must be Alaric."

"Perfect," Acacia said, scanning his watch. "8:12. Five minutes until the conjunction. Noelle, you and Leila take the eastern stairwell. It's the fastest route to the third floor. I'll enter from the west and confront Alaric directly after you guys get the kids."

Leila reached into her jacket and withdrew a small metal cylinder, pressing it into Acacia's palm.

"Take this."

It was the gift; she had already explained what it was before they arrived.

"Just clench it in my hand while pointing it, and it will activate, right?"

Leila nodded.

"Just try not to die, trash-brain. I'd hate to have wasted all that engineering effort."

Despite everything, Acacia felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward.

"I'll do my best."

Noelle produced her service-issue Contender from her holster, checking that the muzzle was clear from any debris that could hinder the trajectory of a [Prana Burst].

"On your signal, then, mission man."

And then the three of them moved, each with their own task, their own role to play in this dangerous game they'd found themselves in. Acacia, the Irregular, to face Alaric Ptolemy alone. Leila and Noelle, the rescuers, to save three lives before the clock struck 8:17, the moment of Luna-Spica Conjunction, when a ritual centuries in the making would finally be unleashed.

"Let's go."

Windsor's windmills howled as Leila and Noelle burst from the Oakridge Path Industrial Complex. Three small forms clutched to their bodies. Noelle's muscles strained under the weight of Christie and Lucas, while Leila carried the third unconscious child—a boy no older than nine with sandy brown hair. They didn't stop running until they'd put three blocks between themselves and the abandoned building, ducking into the shadow of a derelict shipping warehouse.

"Is he...?" Leila gasped, carefully lowering the unconscious boy to the ground.

"Let me check." Noelle gently set Christie and Lucas down. The siblings clung to each other like survivors of a shipwreck. She knelt beside the third child and placed two fingers against his neck.

"His pulse is steady. They all seem to have been drugged with some sedative gas."

Lucas was shivering from terror, and his eyes were still wide with the memory of what he'd witnessed. Christie had begun to cry silently, tears streaming down her face as she clutched her brother's hand.

"A-Alaric... is a meanie..."

The third child remained unconscious, oblivious to his narrow escape.

"We need to get them medical attention... I'm not detecting any pursuit, but we shouldn't linger," Leila stated. She kept ⸢Empyrean⸥ active while she continued to assess the surroundings for potential threats.

"...I can handle the immediate concerns." Noelle closed her eyes, centering herself.

"[Sanatio]."

A gentle green light emanated from her palms as she passed them over each child in turn. The spell worked through their systems, neutralizing the remaining sedative, mending the rope burns on their wrists, and soothing the inflammation in their lungs from the gas.

Christie's tears slowed as the spell took effect. Lucas's breathing steadied. The unconscious boy stirred slightly—eyelids fluttering as to complement his groans.

Noelle's heart constricted at the sight.

These children had witnessed horrors that would haunt them for life. The terror in Lucas's eyes, the silent tears on Christie's cheeks... those were wounds [Sanatio] would never be able to touch.

Assistant Inquisitor Lima made her decision.

"Leila, turn around," she said quietly.

"What? Why would I—"

"Just do it. Please."

Something in Noelle's tone made Leila comply without any further question. With her back turned, Leila asked, "What are you planning?"

"Something I was taught never to use except in the most extreme circumstances. I'm about to violate about sixteen different regulations," the freckled brunette steeled herself, taking a deep breath to clear her mind.

As if she made any mistake in casting this spell, it could turn the children into human vegetables.

"This is an order, Leila Trafalgar. You are never to speak of what I'm about to do. Not to anyone. Not even Acacia."

The Integration Sequence for [Veritas Erotidum] was one of the most complex she'd ever attempted. It was a Strategic Class Interference spell that required precise calculation of neural pathways, memory consolidation timeframes, and consciousness mapping, reaching about 1248 computations in total.

Even a slight error could cause irreversible brain damage and personality changes.

Noelle began the calculation. First, she had to identify the exact mnemonic structures formed within the last hour. This required mapping the children's theta wave patterns through their prana signatures, isolating the hippocampal activity from broader cerebral functions. Next came the complex calibration of the erasure parameters. Too broad and she'd erase foundational memories, too narrow and fragments of the trauma would remain, surfacing as nightmares or unexplained phobias.

Finally, she calculated the replacement memories. They were simple, benign alternatives that would fill the void without creating temporal inconsistencies in their subjective timelines.

"[Veritas Erotidum]," she whispered.

Silverly tendrils entered through the children's eyes, momentarily illuminating their faces from within. Lucas and Christie stiffened, then relaxed. The unconscious boy sighed softly in his sleep.

It was done. The last hour of their lives—the kidnapping, the terror, Alaric's ritual preparations—all of it was gone. To Lucas, he had simply been playing in the park. To Christie, she had just finished ballet class. The third boy would remember nothing but a pleasant evening at home.

And then there was the backlash.

Noelle Lima was not blessed with high Prana Reserves like Leila or Pandora. Sure, she had above average reserves compared to the rest of the population, but performing a Strategic Class spell like [Veritas Erotidum] thrice in a row after casting [Sanatio] thrice, beforehand [Flux] to grab the children, and [Repulsa] to break the doors at the entrance... the cost was immense.

She would have collapsed if not for Leila's quick reflexes.

"Noelle! What did you just do?"

"I... erased the last hour from their memories," Noelle admitted. Even whispering was like hell for her. "They won't remember Alaric or the ritual. They won't be traumatized."

Leila's eyes widened.

"That's... illegal. If Big Sis Dora found out—"

"I know... but I couldn't... I couldn't let them live with those memories. I just couldn't."

After a moment, Leila nodded.

"...I understand. I won't tell anyone."

"Thank you."

Lucas blinked, looking around in confusion.

"Where am I? Who are you?"

Noelle summoned a reassuring smile as she knelt before him, despite the exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her.

"I'm Assistant Inquisitor Noelle Lima. You and your sister were wandering on the outskirts, which can be dangerous after dark. I'm going to take you home now. Can you tell me where you live?"

Lucas promptly provided his address, no trace of his earlier terror remaining in his innocent eyes. Christie smiled shyly at Noelle, blissfully unaware that just minutes ago she had been sobbing in terror.

Noelle's chest tightened. It was better this way, she told herself. Better a small lie than a lifetime of nightmares. The only thing that mattered was that these children would grow up whole and happy. Her own career could go hang if it meant she could spare them that pain.

"I should get this one to the station. They'll locate his parents." Leila planned, gesturing to the third child who was just now starting to stir.

Noelle nodded. "I'll take these two home. Be careful. And... Acacia..."

"He'll be fine!"

There was a bright fire in Leila's eyes, even as she deactivated ⸢Empyrean⸥.

"He's faced worse than Alaric Ptolemy! He almost beat Siegfried Eisenberg! We... we have to trust that inconsiderate trash-brained bastard! We have to trust our friend!"

"...Yeah!"

They parted ways at the next intersection, Leila carrying the third child toward the nearest IPA station while Noelle guided Lucas and Christie home.

Soon, they reunited with her mother, a reunion bathed in tears and joy.

"Thank you, thank you! Oh, god... I don't know how to repay you!"

"It's my duty, ma'am, I'm just glad they're home safe. Keep them close!"

She thanked Noelle profusely, praising the Divine Court's diligence.

Unaware that the Assistant Inquisitor before her had just committed a criminal act to protect her children's psyches.

Memory manipulation was reserved for matters of national security, not something one can determine by the judgment of a 19 year old Assistant Inquisitor barely out of training.

It's my sin to bear.

Long after the children had been returned, Noelle sat alone on a bench in Riverside Park.

She wondered distantly if Acacia had succeeded. If he was even still alive. The thought sent an anxious spike through her chest that had nothing to do with professional duty and everything to do with the strange, brilliant boy who had somehow become important to her in such a short time.

Not now.... not tonight.

But her fingers continued their rhythmic scratching, an old habit that had followed her from the slums of Windsor's eastern district all the way to the prestigious halls of the Inquisition when she didn't get her fix.

She gazed up at the night sky, where Luna and Spica had completed their conjunction and begun to drift apart once more. The celestial alignment that had nearly cost three innocent lives their souls was now just another astronomical event, unremarkable to all but the most dedicated stargazers.

What a strange few days it had been.

From babysitting duty to conspiracies involving dark magic, from noble madness to emergency rescues.

Noelle couldn't help but wonder what Pandora would say when she returned from Eichenstadt to find her ward embroiled in such chaos.

Assuming, of course, that Acacia survived his confrontation with Alaric.

That haphazard thought renewed her anxiety... and sent her nails digging deeper into her wrist.

All she could do now was wait.