The day of the Harvest Moon Ball had arrived. The rays of the setting sun dyed Rubyca with a myriad of ember glows. The citizens flocked onto the lavishly adorned streets, walking in a long procession towards the Garnet Palace. The men wore elegant black suits, while the women by their side paraded in colourful ballroom gowns.
The courtyard quickly began filling up with guests. A small orchestra rehearsed in one of the corners, at the same time making sure that the magically maintained sound system was functional, considering that they provided the music for the entirety of the city. In another corner were the tables laden with food: appetizers, main courses and desserts alike. To pass the time that remained until sundown and Queen Meiko's speech, some couples were already practicing the waltz steps.
Lily, Luka and Gakupo arrived at the Palace well in advance. Iroha had graciously lent them suitable clothes for the event, so as to remain inconspicuous among the guests. She had also given Luka a classy bag to keep the box of the Treasure in, not to mention Simetra and her arrows. They indulged in the refreshments being served while awaiting the arrival of their companions.
The next to join them were the Kagamine twins. To signal their positions as spellcasters, they both wore a cloak over their ballroom attire. Shortly before the event was scheduled to start, Miku made her appearance alongside her Teal Rose comrades. Since this was considered to be a royal event, she came in her knight's armour. After their arrival, it was no longer necessary for them to stay with their own kind, so it was possible for the group to stay together with all their members currently present.
The clock tower of Rubyca struck 6 o' clock. The final shafts of sunlight dipped below the horizon, leaving an orange tinge at the bottom of the sky. When the last tolling of the bell came to an end, the main doors of the Garnet Palace opened. Queen Meiko slowly strolled through them, wearing a breathtakingly gorgeous dress, with Kaito as her escort to the podium near the doors. All those gathered turned their gazes towards her.
"Welcome, citizens of Rubyca!" she began her speech to the crowd. "It's the most anticipated evening of the year: the Harvest Moon Ball. It is a chance for us to reward ourselves for our hard work in the past year. It is a time for merriment and joy. Less than a month has passed since the former King and Queen moved on from this world and I know that the pain in our hearts is still great. That is the reason why I have decided to carry on the tradition of the Ball. Even in the darkest of times, I wish for my people to press forward whilst processing the pain, to carry on with their lives in high spirits. Without further ado, may the Harvest Moon Ball begin!"
She raised her outstretched arms into the air, thus giving the signal for the orchestra to commence playing. The guests flooded onto the main area and began to dance. Meiko descended from the podium and returned to the Garnet Palace with Kaito; it was customary for her to only join in on the celebrating at a later time during the evening.
"Now's our chance," Miku announced to the others. Forming a single line, they followed the knightess. They would've attracted too much attention by using the main doors, so they opted for entering the Palace through one of the secondary doors.
Just as Miku had suspected, the Garnet Palace was scarcely guarded on the inside, so they had a relatively easy time with getting around the Crimson Wolves, thanks to the many archways of the building. After a little while of wandering around, they heard the clacking of high heels on the marble floor, which guided them straight to Meiko and Kaito. They remained at a fair distance, to keep from alerting them of their presence. As they turned around one of the corners, Miku noticed that he was carrying a big, black box.
Someone please tell me it's not what it looks like...Kaito can't be helping her with such an evil deed, can he? She began to doubt the man whom she considered to be her friend already.
They were guided through several hallways and corridors until they reached a narrow flight of stairs leading up to the tallest tower of the castle. The group strayed behind the pair, waiting for them to reach the top before going after them. Once they had also ascended the stairs, they were relieved to find that there was a small antechamber before the door that had a small sign with the word 'Observatory' carved into it. This allowed them to remain hidden until the right moment came for them to intervene with the Queen's plans. She had left a crack in the door, thus enabling them to sneak a peek at what she was doing.
The Observatory's roof was partially opened; like so, the Harvest Moon's light overflowed the space. In the center of the room, a square piece of black fabric was laid out. Meiko stood to its left and gave her orders to Kaito from there. He took out four containers from the box and placed them on the edges of the cloth. The first one had a pure white substance in it, the second contained something yellow of a grainy constitution, the third held a couple of branches and the fourth was full of water.
At the same time, the group made their own preparations. Luka took out the Treasure from its box and skilfully placed the hair pin into Lily's sun-yellow tresses. The girl took the fan into her hands.
"Uhh, I still have no idea how to use these things," she commented.
"Just improvise. Let's hope that it's an instinctive Maiden reflex and the Treasure will start to work on its own," Len suggested.
Simultaneously, the arrangements continued on the inside. Meiko placed herself in charge of carrying out the last task. She retrieved a small flask from her pocket, which held a bloodstained handkerchief. She screwed off its lid and pulled out the item. Taking her time, she walked to the first container. Directly above it, she began to wring out the cloth: a few drops of blood dripped down, tainting the sparkling whiteness. She repeated the process with the second and third container as well.
"I just want you all to know that I had a really fun time on this adventure," Miku confessed to them. "So let's finish our quest and save Diavolco!" The others nodded in agreement. Prepared for battle, they chose that moment to burst through the door and interrupt Meiko's ritual.
"Stop right there!" Miku shouted at Meiko. The woman looked up at the intruders with surprise.
"Who do you think you are, daring to bother your Queen?" she angrily snapped back at them. "Kaito, attack the insolent fools!"
The knight dashed forward, targeting Miku. She promptly unsheathed Tezafiris and stood in a defensive stance, in anticipation of his first blow. As he approached her, she was frightened to see that his familiar deep blue eyes had been replaced with an eerie jet black. They engaged in a duel; while the man violently slashed at her, almost in a mechanical manner, she tried her best in keeping him at bay without injuring him.
"Kaito, don't you see? It's me, Miku!" she attempted bringing him back to his senses; unfortunately, it yielded no positive result.
It wasn't a possibility for her friends to come to her aid, since something else occupied their attention. Meiko didn't lose her concentration, thus succeeding at contaminating the water with blood from the handkerchief before they had a chance at stopping her. The Harvest Moon's shine glinted on the bloodied materials: at that second, a ruby red ray of light shot out from the containers. They gradually started converging to the same point above the center of the black fabric. That point served as the center of a ball of ruby light that began to form. When it was about the size of a person's head, Meiko took a spherical piece of black onyx out of her pocket and threw it into the ball.
"Kurageo, liberaris!" Meiko shouted the spell of release. The strong scent of liquor circulated in the air. The gem began to hover at the center of the light. Dark smoke began seeping out of it, swirling and spiralling in the ruby radiance.
An expression of panic flashed across their faces; they missed their chance to stop Meiko by a hair's breadth. The black smoke began to solidify and grow in size. Luka fired an arrow straight through it, but it only resulted in speeding up the process. Len sent enhanced fireballs into the creature, while Rin supplied the extra energy needed for the spell. Lily started to wave at it with the accessory in her hands, but nothing happened that was to their advantage; the shadow-being started to sprout several limbs.
"Seriously? That thing looks like a jellyfish," Rin commented.
Her observation was entirely correct: as the mass of shadows grew bigger, to the point where it now reached from the floor to the ceiling, the limbs prominently resembled tentacles. Acquiring a small level of self-awareness, it started to lash out with its tentacles towards them.
"Mwuahahaha, you stand no chance against the powers of darkness!" Meiko cackled maniacally.
Luka's awareness faltered for a minute while she adjusted her bow. The shadow-jellyfish used that as a chance to try and knock her over. It accomplished to come into contact with her, but she evaded the impact with the ground. At the last moment, Gakupo caught her, while fending off the tentacle with his sword.
"Gakupo, why aren't you trying any spells? Nothing we're doing is helping with defeating it..." she said, desperation in her voice as it trailed off. She looked straight into his eyes and noticed something strange. "Hey, weren't your eyes..?"
"Yes, the amethyst has been replaced by azure. During the Ritual, I had to sacrifice my magic in order to unseal the Treasure," he rapidly explained. "Nevertheless, I'm still capable of helping, for I haven't lost my skill of swordsmanship, which was unrelated to my powers."
Luka had no time to react to the unexpected news; another tentacle was fast approaching, so Gakupo quickly pulled her out of its path. Instead, it ended up stinging his shoulder, though his expression showed no sign of the pain.
While her friends were preoccupied with the released beast, Miku was still sparring with Kaito. She tried various phrasings to release him from whatever was holding him captive, like mentioning the times they spent together, but it all remained ineffective. She had one last idea to try out.
"Hey, Ice Cream Monster, come out!" she shouted between two parries. For the duration of a split second, his eyes regained their original color, but the darkness soon returned.
"Your beautiful lady needs you!" she continued to yell, hoping that the effect of previous momentary release still lingered.
All in all, it resulted in a strange outcome: the dark shadow appeared and reappeared rapidly, causing to Kaito to stop his attacks and let his sword tumble to the ground. He fell to his knees, clutching his head, screaming in agony. Miku joined him on the ground and wrapped the man into the embrace of her arms.
"Your beautiful lady knows you can do it, Ice Cream Monster. Dispel the darkness holding you," she cheered him on, reusing the efficient words.
The struggle against Kurageo continued. Len changed tactics and began shooting balls of light instead of flame at it, which proved to be capable of keeping the tentacles at a distance, though it did no persistent damage. Lily was still fumbling with the fan, unable to activate it.
"C'mon, pretty accessory, kill the darned thing already!" she finally screamed in exasperation. At that moment, the hair pin started to glow and a beam of pink light shot out from the fan. It pierced through the shadow creature, decreasing it in size.
"Awesome, it worked!" she exclaimed in triumph. Her incantation, albeit a much paraphrased one compared to traditional spells, seemed to be the key to using the power of the Treasure. She continuously repeated it, while being choosier about her words, and each time the beam had a stronger effect.
Soon, Kurageo was diminished to the size of the spherical black onyx. Lily ran up to it, pulling the hair pin out of her hair. With a decisive stab, she pierced the crystal with the hair accessory. It broke into sharp fragments that sublimated a few seconds later and the ruby light had also dissipated.
Due to the fact that Kurageo had been abolished, so was Kaito's Shadow Puppet state that Meiko had induced. Miku eased her hold on him and gazed right into his eyes. There were no traces left of the dark shadow, only deep blue remained.
"Miku, what are you doing here?" he asked in confusion. He looked at his surroundings. "What am I doing here?"
"There was a little bit of a 'world destruction' situation, but it's over now," she gave a rough explanation. "And you sort of tried to kill me on Meiko's orders, but it was really no big deal. I'll tell you the full details later."
"No, you foiled my plans!" the Queen screamed out in anguish as she saw her scheme fall to pieces right before her eyes.
"I tried to hurt you because of Queen Meiko?" Kaito asked. It was the only part of Miku's explanation that he took an interest in. She nodded in reply.
Kaito stood up and took his sword into his hands. He menacingly approached the brunette woman, his gaze burning with rage.
"I'm aware that I'm breaking my oath to protect you, Your Highness. But I was already a Crimson Wolf knight before I became your servant. As such, I can't let someone live who attempted to hurt someone dear to me," he declared his perspective. "For their sake, I'll even carry the sin of treason."
The others could only stare in amazement as Kaito brought his sword down onto Meiko, stabbing her through the heart. The strangest thing happened: she melted away into a puddle of black goo, which quickly evaporated.
All of a sudden, cherry blossoms fluttered down through the Observatory's opened ceiling. They formed a whirlwind of petals, which soon melded into Mizki's humanoid form.
"Congratulations, brave adventurers. You brushed away the menace," she praised them. "I believe that I need to make some clarifications."
All of them energetically nodded their heads in agreement. Any way you look at it, a melting evil queen is a bizarre phenomenon.
"Meiko's very existence was an illusion. She was a vessel that Kurageo had created in order to be finally released from its seal," Mizki revealed to them.
"What will happen now? Diavolco no longer has a member of the Royal Family to crown," Luka brought up the crucial question. "How will it be explained to the people?"
"All excellent queries. This is where being a Guardian Spirit with unlimited magical power comes in handy," she began to reply. "I shall alter their memories in order to make the Maiden into the new Queen."
"Well, I'm not objecting to that in the least," Lily declared her opinion of the idea.
"Perfect," Mizki commented. She clapped thrice. "It's done. With that, my role is done here."
As suddenly as she had appeared, Mizki's form scattered into cherry blossoms that floated back towards the sky.
"I guess we really did it, then. We saved Diavolco," Miku concluded. She looked up at the gorgeously glowing Harvest Moon.
"I don't know about you guys, but having fun at the Ball seems like a really good idea right now," the knightess suggested to her friends.
With that, the group left the Observatory and returned to the courtyard of the Garnet Palace to do exactly that, since they earned it. They spent the past month travelling all over Diavolco, experiencing various challenges in order to fulfill the counter-prophecy.
In the end, they succeeded before the shadows consumed the light.