Something immediately flashed in his eyes, prompting him to quickly cross the room and stop only a small distance from her body. The sudden proximity startled Corrin into pressing her back against the bookshelf behind her. As she slowly lifted her eyes from his chest to his face, she could feel her head pounding with blood.

"L-Leo… What are you…?"

"Shh. We mustn't be overheard if this is the case." His low voice was no louder than a murmur.

Corrin nodded as much as she was able to with her head still pressed against the bookshelf. Suddenly, a realization dawned on her. "Wait… does this mean that you know?"

Leo released a small sigh, and she could have sworn she felt his breath tickle her face. "Don't take me for a fool, Corrin. I've been trying to ascertain the identity of that… imposter for a while now. To think that this was the reason you began to avoid me…"

Not exactly, Corrin glibly thought. "I'm sorry, Leo… I shouldn't have kept this from you. I was afraid that Garon might punish you if he ever found out… or even that you wouldn't believe me. But that's no excuse, I know."

Leo slowly shook his head. "I wouldn't ever doubt your words, Sister. But I suppose all's well that ends well. To that effect… why are you here?"

Corrin shifted uncomfortably, wondering if her brother was equally as cognizant of their close proximity. "Azura told me the name of the imposter. Anankos, is what she said. He's the Dusk Dragon himself, descended into madness."

Leo's complexion considerably paled, but he said nothing.

"I decided to search the library archives for any information about him, but I should've known that such a task would be too much of an undertaking. For me alone, at least." She left her unspoken request hanging in the air, looking at him with pleading eyes.

"You'd like me to assist you," Leo murmured, his expression unreadable.

"Please, won't you? If I had to deal with this alone… I have major doubts about my ability to handle it, let alone succeed in unseating that monster from the throne. And I can't risk telling anyone else."

Leo fell silent as he held her gaze, his expression still frustratingly indiscernible. Corrin could feel her heartbeat thrumming in her ears as she resisted the sudden urge to look away. Had she said something out of place? Was she asking for something impossible?

Finally, he closed his eyes and sighed, dissipating some of the tension in the air. "Dear Sister… I had already resolved myself to helping you the moment you confided in me. You have no need to worry yourself."

Her cheeks flared up from the sound of his affectionate nickname. "I can't thank you enough. But do you really think we won't rouse any suspicions if we both regularly commune here at night?"

"It's too risky. Your coming here alone was enough to raise a red flag. I propose that we return here to search, but only during the day, and only under the pretense of studying strategy."

Of course, Corrin reasoned with herself. Leo has tutored me a countless number of times in the past. If we pretend to look for strategic books, surely no one would have the grounds to question us!

"Brilliant, as always," she replied. "Then we'll do just that."

"There is one more thing we may want to do," Leo continued, his speech slightly more hurried. "I have a small library of my own in my private quarters. You've seen it, yes? It contains books that I've gradually amassed over the years. Not all of them pertain to strategy, so they may be well worth looking into. That is… when we have the time."

The twinkle in Leo's eyes made Corrin smile, despite the gravity of the situation. "So… probably not during the day, since we'll have our hands full with our investigation here and our daily duties."

He nodded. "Right… you'll have to visit my quarters at night. Unless you consider that to be a potential burden on your health?"

More like a burden on my heart, Corrin weakly thought. "I… yes! I mean, no, that's completely fine. Anything to find answers." She forced out a meek laugh in an attempt to conceal her flusteredness. "Shall we begin now?"

Much to her relief, Leo finally took a step back. The air around Corrin already felt a bit colder. "I'm certainly willing if you are," he consented.

She quickly unpeeled her back from the bookshelf and smoothed out her dress. "I've never been more ready."

The two siblings stealthily proceeded through the darkened castle and back up the main staircase, luckily running into no one along the way. Had Corrin's room been their destination, they would have continued all the way up the staircase; instead, they exited on the third floor, where Leo and Camilla's quarters were located.

As they neared Leo's room at the end of the hall, a tight knot formed in Corrin's stomach. The last time she had set foot in his private quarters had to have been well over a few years ago. He had contracted some sort of flu, a strain severe enough to render him bedridden for several days. Much to the chagrin of her servants, she had insisted on making him breakfast and personally delivering it to him. Back then, she hadn't paid much attention to her surroundings, or anything that wasn't her sick brother, for that matter.

But now, as Leo unlocked his door and ushered her inside, she became acutely aware of everything around her. The bookshelves to her left, the bed to her right, even the lone clock on the far wall - everything seemed to simultaneously etch themselves into her memory. Moreover, all of the furniture was placed in an organized manner that basically screamed… Practical. Efficient. Logical. How had she not realized before that Leo's room was practically a perfect embodiment of his personality? And why did such a realization bring her so much happiness?

"I'm impressed," Corrin spoke, attempting to distract herself from her sudden surge of emotion. "How in the gods do you keep your place so clean? You have no servants, and your retainers offer very little in the way of helping you."

He chuckled in response, closing the door softly behind him. "Old habits, I suppose. And I find it terribly difficult to think clearly in a cluttered environment."

"Mmm… Makes sense," she absentmindedly replied, her eyes still wandering around the room. Several seconds passed before she realized with a start that his eyes were still trained on her. "Ah! I'm sorry… It's a bit rude to gawk, isn't it?"

Leo averted his gaze and shook his head. "Not at all. Since we're siblings, you should treat my quarters as if they're your own. You should feel at home here."

Although she knew that such a thing would take some time, she mustered a small smile. "Thank you, Leo."

He curtly nodded in acknowledgement, gaze still averted, before deftly walking over to the bookshelf and trailing his fingers along the spines. As he began to pluck out select books from the shelves, Corrin shuffled over to the small table in the middle of the room and lowered herself into one of the two chairs. It was then that a wave of exhaustion suddenly swept over her, threatening to rob her of her consciousness within mere minutes. In a defiant effort to keep herself awake, she aggressively pinched her forearm. Perhaps a bit too hard, she thought, as she grimaced from the pain.

Just a moment later, Leo returned with a small stack of books in his arms. With a soft thud, he set them down on the table and settled down into the chair next to Corrin. "We can start with these," he began. "They focus on Nohrian history, so we should-" He suddenly cut himself off, his eyebrows pinching together.

Corrin blinked, slightly alarmed. "Is... something wrong?"

Leo remained frozen in his current position, hands on either side of the stack. "You're spent."

"Spent?" she echoed, trying to play off his accusation with a smile. "What do you mean?"

"You're not fooling me, Corrin. Exhaustion is written all over your face."

She sighed, her shoulders drooping in the process. "Gods, Leo… Why are you so perceptive? I may be tired, but I still have an hour or so of reading left in me."

He fell silent once more, searching her expression for anything insincere. Finally, he closed his eyes and leaned back against his chair. "If at any point you feel like stopping, please tell me. We can't have you roaming the castle during the day like an undead zombie."

"You and your outlandish metaphors," Corrin muttered before she could stop herself. Upon realizing what she said, she plastered on a sheepish smile, shifting her gaze from the table to her brother. "I'll definitely let you know, though."

He was smirking now. To her surprise, he neglected to respond to her comment and handed her a few books from his stack. "Well, good luck to the both of us."

Through sheer force of willpower, Corrin pushed away her fatigue and glued her eyes to the pages in front of her, meticulously scanning its contents at a rate that hopefully wasn't too sluggish. The Dusk Dragon appeared constantly throughout her readings, although the texts only seemed to touch on his power during the Nohrian founding period. By the time half an hour had passed, she had gleaned that Anankos had the power to possess, manipulate, and resurrect. Which was undoubtedly useful information, but if she had nothing to counter him with, then what was the point?

She blew a puff of air at her bangs, her concentration already waning. If only she possessed the ability to focus for hours on end, like her brother! She decided to steal a glance at Leo and discovered that he was completely absorbed in his readings, his eyes lowered at the book in his lap. As he flipped a page and blinked, the mesmerizing movement of his eyelashes instantly captivated her attention. I'm staring, she weakly chastised herself. But even so, she knew she couldn't pry her eyes away from him if she tried.

Corrin had unwittingly forfeited her sense of time the moment she resorted to admiring his physical features out of the corner of her eye. So when his eyes flitted to hers, returning her gaze through those damned eyelashes, she distantly wondered just how long she had been distracted. But only distantly.

"I assume that you've found something of worth?" he slowly questioned, lifting his head to look at her fully.

The sound of his voice seemed to jolt Corrin's surroundings back into focus. Now thoroughly embarrassed for having allowed herself to stare, she quickly looked away and tried desperately to come up with an excuse. "Well, ah, no, actually." She twiddled her thumbs in her lap. "I know this isn't exactly the best time, but... I found myself… reminiscing."

Leo blinked, eyes narrowing slightly in scrutiny. "Surely you don't mean to imply… that I've somehow regressed in my transition to adulthood?"

If only you knew how wrong you are! Corrin mentally screamed. "No, no!" she immediately denied, still refusing to look at him. "You've, er… grown to be a very fine young man. I was just thinking about…" Her gaze landed on the lone comb atop his nearby nightstand. "...how we used to comb each other's hair as children."

If her brother had any reservations about her honesty, he made no indication. Instead, he lifted a hand to his head as if reliving the memories. "Ah, that? Surely that must have been decades ago, at least."

I can't believe he actually remembers, Corrin thought with bewilderment. "Yes… undoubtedly. I preferred to keep my hair long back then, too… so I was the recipient of the combing, more often than not."

Leo folded the corner of his page and softly closed the book, electing to keep it in his lap. As he did so, a hint of a smile tugged on the corner of his lips. "Not that I minded."

The sincerity of his statement winded Corrin as if she had been hit in the stomach. "You… You didn't?" she lamely asked.

For whatever reason, his smile transformed into a smirk. "What did you think, Sister? That I did so merely as a favor to you? Even as a child, I was aware that any of your servants could have easily taken my place had I requested it."

The heat rose in Corrin's cheeks even though she knew that this was just Leo's way of teasing her. "Well, I don't know! You seemed content to do it yourself every time, so I figured I'd let you."

He perked an eyebrow, lowering his eyelids slightly. "Not because you favored me?"

"Wh-What?!" She would be borderline shouting if she raised her voice any further - but she continued anyway, motivated by a desire to mask her embarrassment. "Why would I? It was all the same to me, no matter who did it. Xander could have done it, for all I cared, and it wouldn't have made a difference!"

The smirk vanished from his lips, the warmth immediately disappearing from his eyes. When he next spoke, the coldness of his tone sent an acute shiver down Corrin's spine. "Xander? He wouldn't have concerned himself with such… trifling matters. The sword was his calling, after all."

Corrin blinked in surprise, immediately regretting having blurted out that last statement. Such a claim couldn't have been farther from the truth, and yet she had thrown it in his face without any regard to his reaction. Oh, Gods… what she wouldn't give to turn back the wheel of time, even by just a few seconds!

She desperately floundered for anything to say. "Look, Leo… I didn't mean-"

"It's alright." His curtness of speech suggested the complete opposite. "I'm well accustomed to it by this point - being compared to my brother. It's nothing I can't handle."

She sighed, closing her own book as well. "No, that was unfair of me to say. And I truly didn't mean it. I…" She ignored the butterflies in her stomach and reached out, gently resting her hand on his knee. He flinched at her touch, but made no move to shirk away. "I genuinely enjoyed spending time with you, Leo. I still do. If given a choice, I would have you comb through my hair over anyone else. Er… I mean, if we were still kids."

Throughout the duration of her speech, Leo had his eyes closed and his eyebrows furrowed in what appeared to be a bout of irritation. But after Corrin finished speaking, she noticed the splash of color slowly spreading across his cheeks. He's embarrassed, isn't he? she thought - and with such a realization came a wave a relief. Her brother may have been easily incited at times, but he was also self-aware of said flaw. Which, more often than not, meant that he easily became embarrassed over his susceptibility to emotion.

He remained like that for another long moment before releasing a long exhale from his nose and opening his eyes. In them, Corrin could see no more remnants of the incensed spark to which she had just borne witness. "To taint those fond memories with my negativity would be regrettable… and completely unwarranted on my behalf," he expressed. "I was the unfair one among us."

Corrin slowly drew her hand back, for the longer she kept it rested on his knee, the more likely she thought she might never take it away. "We might have both been a little unfair," she replied with a giggle.

He responded with a chuckle of his own, prompting Corrin's heart to perform a somersault in her chest. "Allow me to make it up to you, then. Do you ever wish we could return to our childhood days?"

She wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but was suspicious all the same. "Sometimes, yes. How so?"

"Well, you might be surprised to hear that I've been diligently keeping up with my grooming skills over the years."

He surely couldn't be implying… "O-Oh, is that so? And you plan to repay me by…?" She couldn't bear to finish her own question, lest she jinx this wonderfully impossible moment!

He seemed to be enjoying her reaction, for a mischievous smile danced upon his lips. "Anything you wish, as long as your hair is involved. I'll have you know that my plaits have received substantially high praise."

She couldn't believe her ears, let alone the very prospect of his fingers handling her hair. "That would be wonderful, but… I find it difficult to braid my own hair myself." As she spoke, she reached up and twined a few strands of her hair around her pointer finger. "These curls seem to possess a mind of their own."

His eyes lingered briefly on the source of her motion. "That's not a problem. Elise's hair is much worse."

Ahhh…. so that's what he had meant by practice. "In that case… please, go ahead." She hoped her rising excitement didn't leak into her voice as she turned her back to him and nervously folded her hands in her lap. When was the last time they had technically made physical contact? She couldn't remember, nor could she recall what his touch even felt like. That hole in her memory did nothing but fuel her current bout of anxiety.

Thankfully, she didn't have to rely on her imagination for very long to fill in the missing gaps. While she had been preoccupied with her thoughts, Leo had rose from his chair and retrieved the comb from his nightstand. Comb in hand, he repositioned himself directly behind her and scooped up a fraction of her hair, snapping Corrin's senses to attention.

He worked deliberately, holding the same section of her hair with a grip that was neither too firm nor too loose. As he gently teased out the tangles, Corrin could perceive a faint heat emanating from his fingers on the back of her neck. In that instant, she was suddenly struck with an intense wave of longing: she desired nothing more than to lean her head back, to press his fingers against the skin of her neck. If only for a brief moment, she would know his touch again. Consequences be damned.

But she didn't. Instead, she lowered her head so as to make her brother's task just a bit easier. It didn't take him long to work out all the tangles, and he set the comb back down on the table. With both of his hands now unoccupied, he began to part her hair into four sections. Just as Corrin began to wonder how he learned to fishtail, his fingertips lightly brushed across the nape of her neck.

She involuntarily jumped, his touch igniting a perceptual spark at its point of contact. His hands immediately froze, and somehow she sensed that he had stiffened as well. "Did I hurt you?" he questioned, his tone suggesting that he didn't quite believe in the possibility.

"N-No, you're okay," she stuttered, still recovering from that small surprise. "I can't even feel a thing. Please… continue."

"Do let me know if I pull too much, alright? This would be beside the point if I caused you any pain."

"Yes… of course." Did emotional pain count?

And so he continued, beginning to tightly thread her hair together at the point just above her ears and work downward from there. He adopted a slow, meticulous approach, occasionally reaching for his comb and smoothing out any bumps he may have created. The pace with which he proceeded required Corrin to hang her head forward for a good length of time - good enough, in fact, to leave her significantly drowsy. In an effort to keep herself awake, she picked up the book from her lap and flipped it open. Mentally cursing at herself for neglecting to mark her previous spot, she proceeded to blindly flip through the pages.

After some scanning, she encountered a page that was completely devoid of any ink or text. She stared at it for a moment, eyebrows pinching together in confusion. She was fairly positive that this book was handmade, so why had this careless mistake been neglected? Had this been a deliberate decision on the behalf of the author? Surely not; there was no benefit to withholding information from the reader, especially considering the pedantic nature of the book. For reasons unknown to her, an inkling of uneasiness began to creep into her bones.

She turned the page, her stomach twisting into a knot when another blank piece of paper stared back at her. Perhaps she had reached the ending of the book? No… an excess of 20 pages rested under her thumb. Fueled by an inextricable need to know, Corrin flipped to the next page - and to the next, and the next - when she continued to encounter nothing but blankness. At last, she resolved to forgo the rest of it and open the book to its very last page, if only to assuage her uneasiness.

But what she saw made her heart drop in her chest.

Scrawled across the entire length of the page were seemingly disjointed letters, discernible only after a moment's worth of scrutiny. As to their source, their dark crimson hue and rough, jagged edges left no room for debate. This message was clearly written in blood, and with some sort of sharp, pointed object. Whoever left this did not impart good intentions, and of that she was certain. Her belief in this fact was made all the more resolute by the content of the message, which read as such:

Death is mine, and mine alone. None shall take it from me but myself.

Corrin had barely registered the message's meaning before a raw wave of fear suddenly overtook her. Slamming the book shut, she whirled around and prepared herself to relay what just transpired to Leo - but discovered that he had vanished into thin air. "Leo?" she softly squeaked, rising slowly out of her chair and searching frantically around the room for any signs of her brother. "Where are you? Where did you go?" Just a moment ago, his fingers had been handling her hair! In no conceivable way would he have left her without firstly making his motives known… and in no way would she have failed to notice. At a loss for what to do, she tossed her braided hair over one shoulder and learned with a chill that it was left unfinished. As she did so, she gradually became aware of a cold draft at her feet. Her gaze drifted over to the door leading into the hallway, under which she suspected was the source of said draft. And although every cell in her body screamed at her to ignore it, to immediately distance herself from its source, she found herself running. Running straight to the door and yanking it wide open.

A vast expanse of black nothingness spread out before her, the hallway - or anything including some sort of solid ground - leaving no trace of having even existed. As soon as she was met with this unworldly sight, a blast of cold air hit her in the face, physically knocking her back a few feet. Terrified to her core, she struggled back against the force of the gale until she stood at the edge of the void. "Leo!" she shouted, her voice cracking from the strain of her exertion. After receiving no reply, she tried again. "Leo!"

"Your beloved brother does not exist here," a voice hissed from the abyss. "You and I are the sole inhabitants of this place. And soon… only one we will become."

Corrin recoiled in response, convinced without a shadow of doubt that the voice belonged to the unnamed entity of her dreams. "You," she began, her voice very nearly carried off by the raging winds, "Who are you? What have I done to deserve such torment from you?"

The voice laughed - a deep, bellowing sound that seemed to shake the ground beneath Corrin's feet. "Oh, ignorant child. You should know that you and I are the same; we share fragments of the same soul. For you are my flesh and blood."

Flesh… and blood? As in… family? Such a notion caused anger to bubble up within her and intermingle with her fear. "Impossible! To identify yourself as Sumeragi would be an insult to him."

"How mistaken you are. Sumeragi is long dead, and he never had the right to call himself your father. Your true father is much grander than he." Another bout of grating laughter ensued, serving only to exacerbate Corrin's anger.

"Don't you dare insult him," she seethed through gritted teeth. Her voice had dropped down to a low volume, barely audible even to her own ears. Nonetheless, the entity whom she addressed seemed to have no trouble comprehending.

"Your baseless words mean nothing in the presence of Anankos," the voice proclaimed, turning Corrin's blood ice cold. "So too will your body matter no more."

Before she had a chance to fully process the severity of his claims, the void before her began to expand, advancing toward her in a semi-solid, gooey form. She reflexively jumped back and slammed the door, but that posed no hindrance to the black mass, which continued to seep through the crack under the door. Corrin could no longer prevent herself from panicking, searching the area for something, anything that she could quickly stuff under the door. Leo's bed sheets - they could work! Darting over to Leo's bed, she yanked off the top comforter and dragged it over to the door, giving the menacing ooze a wide berth on the way.

When she attempted to stuff the comforter under the door, the advancing entity halted in its movements. She paused as well, wishing fervently that for whatever reason she was no longer being pursued by that… thing. But unfortunately, her hopes were short-lived. As she warily watched the ooze, tendrils of black smoke began to slowly rise up from its surface. They reached a height of about a few feet before starting to coalesce into solid, tentacle-like forms.

It was at this point that Corrin knew how futile her struggle would come to be. Even so, she mentally steeled herself against her enemy and resolved that she wouldn't go down without a fight. Tapping into her inner reservoir of power, she focused her energy into one of her arms, thereby reverting it into its lance-like form. As soon as it transformed, she took aim at the black mass and rapidly extended her reach, successfully puncturing the entity.

Or so she thought.

While her lance had surely made contact with her target, it seemed to elicit no antagonistic reaction from the receiving end… for but a short moment. As her arm remained impaled into the ground, and as she desperately tried to come up with a Plan B, the newly-formed tentacles suddenly shot toward her arm and wrapped themselves around it in tight coils. Corrin screamed, hastily reverting her arm back into its human form in an attempt to slip free. But the tentacles were too quick, constricting themselves so tightly to the point where they were painfully digging into her skin.

And then… they began to tug her toward the door.