[Arc 5:The Unveiled Heart]

  "I’m sorry..." Grey’s voice flickered through the corners of Carol's mind. But as she tried to reach for it, the sound distorted, glitching into static before fading into silence.

  "Who...?" Carol whispered.

  She opened her eyes, slowly turning her head to survey the vast, empty white void within her. Every memory of the war, every fragment of the chaotic battle, every precious moment of the adventure with her friends, it all began to glitch. The images tore like paper, dissolving into the nothingness.

  Mindless and hollow, Carol began to walk. She moved forward with no goal, stepping through the white abyss like a doll whose strings had been cut... until she stumbled upon a figure standing in the distance.

  "Remember, dear..." The figure turned her head over her shoulder, a gentle smile gracing her face. "For though the world may be black and white... your heart must remain strong."

  Carol didn't understand the words. She had no name for the woman, no context for the advice. Yet, an agonizing ache bloomed in her chest, a pain so sharp she felt she would do anything just to hold that person once more. She reached out, her palm extended toward the figure, but the void suddenly erupted in a blinding radiance, pushing her back.

  "Remember, my daughter..." The light became a tidal wave, too brilliant for Carol to bear. She shielded her eyes with her arm as the voice echoed one last time through the fracturing space. "Live... and choose... your own path."

  The light swallowed the figure, the void, and Carol herself, erasing the last 'red string' connecting her to her past.

  (A few days later: Inside a private infirmary at Ordeus's Mansion)

  Carol slowly opened her eyes, greeted by a harsh light bulb on the ceiling that blinded her sight. She sat up carefully, looking around the room with a curious, vacant expression. Her quiet observation was interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open.

  "C-Carol..?" It was Saria. She gasped, her face a mixture of shock and profound relief. Their eyes met for a fleeting second before Saria panicked and ran back into the corridor to find the others.

  "That girl..." Carol whispered to herself. A strange, heavy feeling stirred in her chest at the sight of Saria, yet she couldn't find the words to describe it. Choosing to ignore the sensation, she turned toward the window, where a group of birds chirped loudly against the morning sky.

  "P-please..! It was an accident! An accident! There's no way she would..." Saria’s frantic voice echoed down the long hallway, growing louder as footsteps approached. Suddenly, Rein threw the door open. His hands were clenched in frustration, his gaze landing on Carol, who turned toward him with a confused tilt of her head.

  "Re—" Saria tried to stop him again, but Noire gently grabbed her shoulder, shaking his head. He knew Saria's logic wouldn't be enough to cool Rein’s fury. Revir stood behind them, his expression hardening as his eyes fell upon Carol’s broken wand lying on the bedside table.

  "Seems like you’re doing well enough. Good for you, Carol," Rein said, his voice cold, though an unmistakable anger radiated through it.

  "I don't know what you're talking about, but... thanks, I guess," Carol replied, her confusion deepening. "Though... who are you guys, exactly?"

  At her question, Revir, Saria, and Noire widened their eyes in disbelief.

  Rein, however, let out a mirthless chuckle. "That’s a good joke, you know?" he said, his mood shifting as he stepped toward her. With every footstep, the floorboards beneath him froze, a clear sign that his magic was reacting to his boiling emotions. He stopped directly in front of her, looming over her with a menacing stare. "But let’s get to the point. What the hell happened to you back there? Why did you slaughter thousands of soldiers? And why... why didn't you tell us about your pain sooner?"

  The weight of his questions pressed down on Carol like a physical burden. She stared at the floor, searching her mind. But she found nothing—not a single detail of the battlefield remained. "I’m sorry. I truly cannot remember anything. Although those questions... for some reason, they make me feel guilty."

  "You can't remember anything?" Rein gritted his teeth, the temperature in the room plummeting as his magic responded to his annoyance. "After everything you did to them... after what you did to Aria and Sir Grey... you think you can just walk away from this? You selfish, nonchalant girl!" he shouted, finally lashing out with everything he had been holding back.

  "I..." Before she could answer, a flickering image glitched through her mind: Aria, skewered by dark needles, and Grey, lying in a pool of blood. In response, tears began to stream down her face. "Huh? Why am I crying all of a sudden..?" she mumbled, trying to brush the tears away. But the more she wiped, the faster they fell.

  Rein let out a heavy sigh at the sight of her breakdown. He decided to leave her be for now. "Sorry for lashing out. It seems you still need time to recover," he said, turning toward the door. "If you need anything, just call for me."

  "Wha... what is your name..?" Carol asked, looking at his retreating back with teary eyes.

  Rein paused. "Rein Azerin. Just call me Rein, if you want."

  She nodded silently. Rein closed the door, leaving Carol alone as the other three followed him into the hall.

  "Rein Azerin." Carol gripped her blanket tightly, her tears soaking into the fabric. "Why does that name sound so familiar..?"

  As four of them walked in awkward silence, Revir decided to start up a conversation. "Are you sure you want to leave her like that, Rein?" he asked, casually resting his hands against the back of his head.

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  "You noticed it too, didn't you?" Rein asked back, stopping as they reached another door further down the hall.

  "Apart from the fact that she’s surprisingly lost her memory? Yeah. Her wand was snapped in half on the bedside table," Revir replied, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets.

  "Snapped in half..?" Saria whispered, her eyes wide with surprise. "Was it because of her corrude state? Did the transformation break it?"

  "Maybe. But as far as I know, the Corrude state only twists a person's ideals, desires, and appearance. It shouldn't shatter their fundamental connection to their element," Rein said. He pushed the door open, and the four of them stepped inside.

  Within the room, Aria and Grey lay motionless in their beds, still unconscious. Both were covered in thick layers of bandages, particularly Grey, whose missing arm was a grim reminder of the battle. Yuno and Hana sat in chairs beside Grey’s bed, while Erick leaned against the wall in visible annoyance, and Dulcinia hovered nearby with a worried expression.

  "Have either of them woken up yet?" Rein asked in a low voice, his gaze flickering between Grey and Aria with a look of deep guilt.

  "Of course they haven't. What did you expect, Margias?" Erick snapped. He didn't even bother to look at Rein, his voice dripping with frustration. "She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She acted friendly, but she was a monster deep down all along. How pitiful."

  "You..." Rein’s knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists, struggling to suppress his rage at Erick’s taunt.

  "Erick, there’s no need to taunt them. They are already well aware of their mistakes," Dulcinia said gently, trying to prevent the tension from escalating.

  "You want me to forgive them for befriending such a creature?" Erick’s expression hardened as he turned toward Dulcinia. "Not only were they too weak to stop the chaos, but they actually let her live among them. Don’t you think it would have been easier to just kill her back then instea—"

  Before he could finish the word, Yuno’s wand whizzed through the air, embedding itself into the wall with a sharp crack just inches from Erick's head.

  "Please, use your brain before you speak, Erick," Yuno said. He wore a smile, but it was a menacing one that made Erick gulp in terror. "You have no idea how much these friends of that 'monster' have already suffered. They certainly didn't expect her to become what she did. So again, please," he closed his eyes, then snapped them open with a gaze of cold steel. "Don't make this harder for everyone. Cooperate, because we have a great deal of business to settle after this."

  "Y-yes, Sir Yuno," Erick stammered, his legs trembling as he slumped against the wall, silenced by Yuno’s sudden intensity.

  "Never change, Erick. Never change," Revir mumbled to himself from the back of the room. He had fully expected Erick to be the one to light the fuse in such a tense situation.

  Meanwhile, Carol forced herself to stop crying. She turned her head toward the bedside table and noticed the wand, the final remnant of her mother, snapped in half. Curiosity overcoming her dread, she reached out and took the broken pieces, staring intensely at them as they rested in her palms.

  As she gazed into the wood, more scenes from the battlefield flickered through her mind. Glitching screams echoed in her ears, vibrating with a chaotic intensity. When she noticed a tiny spark of Dark Ender leaking from the fracture, a whisper hissed into her ear.

  (How does it feel to be a murderer?) The voice sent a jolt of horror through her. Her eyes widened, and in a fit of disgust, she instinctively hurled the wand against the wall.

  However, the wand never hit the stone. Instead, it levitated mid-air, frozen by an unseen force.

  Normally, Carol would have been wary of such an unknown phenomenon, but in her current state, she simply watched with the wide-eyed astonishment of a child discovering something new.

  "You've changed quite a lot, Priest—no, Carol," a voice said. A pool of shadow expanded beneath the floating wand, and Mary stepped out, followed closely by Mira.

  "Uhm... may I know who you are?" Carol asked, her voice small. She was overwhelmed by the number of strangers who seemed to know her. "How do you know my name?"

  "Hmm, it's far worse than I thought," Mary stated, her eyes tracking Carol’s vacant expression. "I suppose all that trauma and the blood you spilled has truly forced you into dementia."

  "Dementia? What are you talking about?"

  "Oh, nothing for you to worry about now. You can call me Mary, or Aunt Mary, if you’d like."

  "Mary..." Carol looked down at the floor, falling into deep thought before looking back up. "Tell me... do we have a personal connection? You’re very bold to declare yourself my aunt."

  "You'll know soon enough, Carol," Mary replied with a teasing smile. "For now, you must believe in your feelings, with or without your memories."

  As Mary spoke, a harsh gust of wind blew the window open. Erika stood on the sill, her mechanical wings spread wide and a smug grin on her face.

  "At last! The hour has struck for us to knit our souls as sisters!" Erika proclaimed, offering a dramatic hand toward Carol. "Come! Let us gird ourselves to face the very mountain of ruin!"

  "Uhm, I don't know who are you this time. But saying that we're a sister out of nowhere seems off... So—" Before Carol could finish her sentence, Erika lunged forward and grabbed her arm, sensing Carol’s hesitation.

  "A choice of rare wisdom!" Erika cried, her wings humming as they prepared for high-speed flight. "Now, let us hie us forth, for the moment stays for no man!"

  "W-where are we going?" Carol asked, her voice rising in a panicked worry. "You know that I didn't say anything like accepting or something, right?"

  "I am mindful of it! Wherefore we shall set forth into my ancestral domain, whether it pleaseth thee or no!"

  With a thunderous burst of speed, Erika took flight, dragging Carol out the window. Carol’s panicked screams echoed across the morning sky as they vanished into the clouds.

  "Are you sure she’s going to be okay, Miss Mary?" Mira asked, finally speaking up once the room grew quiet.

  "I hope so. Right now, she’s just an average girl, without that Leviathan inside her," Mary replied, catching the broken wand as it drifted into her grasp. "Though, I doubt she would accept that side of her at this point anyway."

  "For now, at least. Right, Miss Mary... the 'Double-Faced' Apostle?" Mira said, looked away for a moment as a tease.

  Mary cleared her throat at the statement. "Although that title is true, I only serve the 'real' Carol. Not Irene, and not even this version trapped in dementia."

  "Quite an irony, hearing you say that," Mira replied, looking out at the bright sky with a small smile of relief. "But I suppose this 'irony' only exists because of her mother’s promise."

  Mary snorted but didn't argue. She looked down at the floor, reminiscing about a pact made long ago.

  “Whatever you do, please don’t interrupt Carol’s life. If she clings to this comfort, she will never be able to survive or live happily on her own.” The memory of Lydia speaking to her in a quiet kitchen flickered in her mind before Mary snapped back to reality.

  "That’s why I never liked you, Lydia. You always took things to such extremes," Mary mumbled to herself, leaving Mira watching her in silent confusion.