Yuu entered the base of the mountain, alone. She took out her hood and looked around searching with her glance the interiors of the desert cave.
Slowly out of the dark corner of the secret crypt, Aido and Takuma appeared. It was silent and probably safe. She looked at them with a frightful, reserved way.
"Aido-Senpai, Takuma-Senpai, did you get my message?…"
"Yuu, your father got attacked…", Takuma answered.
"But you managed to annihilate the attack in the last moment", Aido added.
Yuu nodded, that was exactly the message of her bats.
"Where are the rest?", Takuma questioned with worry.
"I lost contact, have no idea for now but…I hope that they managed it, perhaps we learn soon", she talked in a defeated way and the two nobles could not pretend that the exhaustion, the tiredness and the tension of the past months had not really started to overcome all of them.
"Perhaps it would be better to restore him, Yuu?", the vague hope inside Aido's eyes could not be hidden but neither Yuu's discomfort.
She shook her head negatively. No, that was not the will of her mother, she wanted him happy and free. She had given her life for his humanity. As he had given up his personal happiness for her mother's protection.
"No, mother would never…"
"What if he dies Yuu?", Aido skipped a beat in his heart. As long as he lived he wanted to protect the one that he loved.
"Do we have the right to interfere?", now she only wished that her brother would be here, to tell her what to do.
"Are ten years of happiness enough for a creature that lived ten thousand years and more in this dark world? Please let's fight them on our own, we shall find a way, let's not interfere him".
"But..", Aido wanted to emphasize the condition. Yuu was far more sentimental.
Takuma interrupted. "Then we shall respect your wish".
Yuu flew away to reach her brother and lifetime companion.
"Perhaps it would have been better if we had not said that to Yuu at all"…
"Well, I did not expect better", Aido highlighted with a angry face. Now they were left with their hands tied.
Takuma able to fully decode his friends reaction, padded him at the back.
"Does it feel so bad Aidou?"
Aidou's grimace changed from stiffness into bitterness and also gratefulness for Takuma. They were not young boys anymore, 1010 years had passed and time now clearly made its appearance slowly reminding them that there would be a departing day from their noble bodies as well.
"Like you don't know. It's a millennium Takuma and we respected her wish for several years but now…"
"Now let him take the pills and let's hope that they will be enough to sustain his memories and also his humanity".
"Yuu did you find anything?", Zero junior just looked at the pitiful face of his sister.
"These were the last ones that I could find at the ruined factory but I do not know if they are going to be enough", she commented in low spirits, demonstrating at his brother two small phials with a violet liquid that she had just abstracted from her pocket.
"They should do…", the younger brother firmly replied grabbing them and finally drawing a gun from his pocket.
"What is this? Where did you find it?", Yuu's eyes fell hard on the metal piece with the large inscription above its cold and smooth surface.
"From his grave…I mend the metal together", he just answered as he targeted the tree in the distance.
"Are we back so many years ago? Have we returned so back? So back?", she felt like crying. All had come to a starting point, all were null again.
"Na…we are just having a good time", Zero answered with a blank stare, putting down the gun.
"My father got attacked last night. I managed to annihilate the attack… I do not know what to do…but I..", suddenly her eyes moved down at the height of her belly.
"What you did is already enough, let's not forget that we are still able to fight and we are not alone, we are not…"
He wrapped his hands around her and their unborn child. It was hard for her but he was there – always there, never leaving her little white hand through the winters and the winds that followed their long living.
For her, and the ones she loved and believed in, this gun would target a pureblood once again. It had only two shots of anti-immortality liquid inside. Kissing her hair on the top of her head and targeting straight ahead at the same time, Zero fully understood, he just could not miss.
Her honey colored eyes could not abandon the view of that window, she was sitting at the rocking chair that she used to sit once and perhaps she saw the same clouds passing by…
Erebus Mort majestically entered.
"Why are you alone?", he questioned. "Time has come for us to finally taste the fruits of our labor.
His long figure with the long straight grey hair turned also to the window and then back to her. He put his hand under her chin.
"Rise daughter…sooner or later this kingdom shall be yours, my beautiful, Astris".
Astris let a smile to escape her lips.
"Are you happy father?", she questioned as Erebus lowered his head to her.
"I am, when I am with you, what more could I ask? Unfortunately many hardships found our family, but now we shall be able to overcome everything together. As long as we have each other…"
As pureblood beast her destiny was him. She kissed the inside of his palm, demonstrating her loyalty, as he passed it on top of her cheek.
"Don't forget that you are the future, this world I struggled to prepare is for you, my princess and my future queen".
This world and what they had made of it.
