Chapter 18: Almost a Fairy Tale
The Duchess stared into the cradle where the young blue-haired prince slept, swathed in his christening gown. The aging Queen proudly rested in a chair near her grandson, watching as the Crown Prince and Princess Consort mingled with their assembled nobility. The monarch still possessed a sharp wit, but her age and health were sapping her ability to participate fully in the ceremony, hence her decision to largely babysit while her grandson and daughter-in-law handled social duties.
Leaving the Duchess trying to contain the revulsion in her throat as she observed the oblivious infant.
Everything had been so carefully planned. The Duchess saw a future for Estmarch, nay, the entire continent, one that the current Queen was too weak-willed to attain. But she saw such promise in the ambitions of the ascendant Crown Prince and especially in the machinations of his bride. A woman who believed herself to have the right to rule over others.
The Duchess never forgot her first meeting with the daughter of a once-noble family, forced to live as a mere mortal by the politics of Westheim. In their conversations, the Duchess saw something familiar – a thirst for power. But where she was content to tug at the levers of power from out of sight, the Princess Consort desired everyone to know of her.
Which only made her a more desirable piece to maneuver, to stand in front of Estmarch as it was cleansed and shaped into what it must be to survive.
A few connections to the Crown later and a meeting was arranged between the Crown Prince of Estmarch and the lady of Westheim. As expected, their mutually aligned ambitions made them irresistible to one another.
And so the Duchess allowed her new pawn to call herself "Cinderella." Never mind that she was no child of ashes – to her, it only mattered that she'd risen from her "pauper's" life to become a Princess.
All according to plan, as the Duchess began to carefully align herself with the coming shift in power. Ensuring her alliance with the next Queen remained strong. She quickly became a confidant, hearing of plots for the future that the future royal couple dare not share with the reigning Queen until after the end of her rule. And the Duchess had been playing a key part in drumming up the whisper campaign that only grew into open speculation that the Queen's ill health would lead her to stepping down from her formal duties in favor of her son. It was all so perfectly planned…
And then the royal heir was born.
She should have anticipated the threat sooner. A royal family had need of an unending bloodline to secure their future and the quick conception of the first heir was a necessity. But the Duchess had failed to plan around being upstaged and soon the balance of power tipped away from her. Her grand plans fell out of favor as the royal family saw the strength of their son as their future, not a mere Duchess.
The sleeping child stirred momentarily, the Duchess trying to plot her next move. He would have to die, but she couldn't simply strangle him in his crib in public no matter how much she wanted to. Besides, even if an assassination could be carried out, he could easily be replaced given the youth and the apparently fertile couple's desire to produce more. His death now would stop nothing.
But was she to merely let him grow, guided into a leader that had not the slightest inkling for the true path of Uralia? A spoiled, sheltered boy that had no use for the advice of his betters? What future could he possibly create?! And how many more like him would be born?
The Princess Consort approached the cradle, lightly stroking her child's cheek. "My dear son, someday you'll be Prince Charming…"
Always the fairy tale.
Suddenly the Duchess' ill mood lifted as a smile played upon her lips. She approached the Princess Consort for the first time all afternoon, gently resting her hands along the edge of the wooden cradle. "Prince Charming should be raised with the utmost safety and care," she said softly, "For someday he will have to dance with his own Cinderella. And what were to happen if he never survived to meet her?"
She could almost see the words settling in the Princess Consort's mind. She touched her son again, but this time it looked far more protective. "Indeed… this is such a violent world…"
"We have had peace for the last 40 years, my dear," the Queen interrupted, trying to intervene but powerless to overcome the lure of the fairy tale.
"Peace is but an interlude…" the Princess Consort murmured, "For my son to be Prince Charming, he must be kept away from all that threaten him."
"He should be allowed to grow into a leader," the Queen said again, her concern growing.
"And so he shall," the Duchess interrupted, already knowing that the Queen's advice would again go unheard. Her role in the story was swiftly drawing to an end. "But only if he has his Fairy Godmother to watch over his every move. He must be shielded from the corruption lest he become tainted by it."
"Indeed… my Prince Charming shall always be safe… he must become a symbol to all of Estmarch of the goodness and purity of our kingdom..."
The trap was set. The Duchess could feel the shift in power once more. With just a few simple words, her enemy was trapped within a fairy tale. To grow in the place of an heir, holding the attention of the royals away from any further family expansions but protectively shielded from the reigns of power. He would be nothing more than the fragile fairy tale prince…
As she melted back into the crowd, she looked over the faces of her fellow dukes, lords, and ladies. Her plans for the future were secure now. She foresaw a continent covered in a cleansing war of thorns, and she already began to plot which of those assembled today would need to be struck down to allow that war to happen. And of course, how to eventually deal the killing blow to the enemy she'd subdued today.
And she began to envision girls in innocent white gowns. So pure and innocent they would move undetected, quietly snuffing out anyone who stood in her path. An army of Cinderellas.
'Then I must hurry to raise them all… and keep one set aside just for him. The true Cinderella.'
She tossed one last look to her defeated foe, an infant who had already had his crown snatched away before he could so much as walk.
'When the time is ripe… Cinderella will slay Prince Charming.'
At midnight you will kill the prince.
The incessant ticking of the clock tower's mechanisms echoed in the halls. Miku thought she could hear the sound of a violin being tuned as the bell tolled. To Miku, it felt as if a song was carrying her down gilded steps at the magical hour. To her she perceived herself as covered in rags, with every step transforming her into something magical and beautiful.
A woman's voice sounded out, one long high note that carried as a choir chanted around her. Whose voice? It was at once her own and someone else's. The tear that fell from her eyes belonged to them both. The orchestra played as her sad song continued.
"Let me dream of dancing till the dawn, the bells of the clock would break the magic…"
She climbed the stairs in a hurry, as she thought she saw someone calling out to her…
"Vaguely those fingers beckon me to the stairs… I leap them taking three at a time…"
To Miku it was as if she was passing back in time, to the night everything all began…
Kaito hurried through the aging clocktower, barely able to take in the decorations as all he cared about was making up for time. He had to find Miku before Miriam did away with her. "Did she have to pick such a massive tower?!" Gakupo wheezed behind him.
"The Grand Godmother is quite fond of symbols," Luka quipped, not sounding remotely winded.
They were his only companions. Gakupo out of necessity – he needed him. If Luka's speculation of Miriam's plans was true, a doctor was critical…
Luka was coming in case she was wrong and force was necessary. "I am as responsible for Miku's pain as Miriam is," she'd explained, "I cannot be forgiven until both of you are free."
Anyone else and Kaito feared that Miku's life would be taken at the sight of an incoming army. He had to trust Meiko, Len, and Gumi to keep Prima contained and handle the fallout of Tonio's death.
They ascended a spiral staircase, Kaito's hand on his pistol in case of any more danger.
"HALT!"
He stopped at the top of the steps, in front of him a young red-haired girl in a maid's uniform. "Only the Prince is invited. Those without invitations are not permitted further."
Kaito moved to protest as Luka dashed ahead. "I'll deal with her," she said, "Kaito, you have to get through!"
The maid quickly met her furious charge, Luka's knives meeting the girl's own. He felt something placed in his hands and felt Gakupo's hand on his shoulder. "I can't abandon her," he said calmly, "Despite what's she's pretending, she's still injured. I can't be a doctor…"
He stopped and shook his head.
"Heh, well, it doesn't matter if I'm a doctor or not, I can't leave her. We'll catch up."
The doctor didn't need to explain any further. Kaito quickly managed to sneak past the two combatants, gripping a ladder and pulling himself into the top of the clocktower…
"In the carriage you were shivering."
Her Prince serenaded to her as he entered her sight, led to him by a bearded man in a white mask. She wanted to dance with him, to get closer to him, to finish her terrible work. To pierce his innocent heart and fill her own with sin.
Kaito entered the top level of the tower and closed the trap door behind him. He glanced around him and was surprised at the exquisite decorations, framed around the reflection of the exterior clockface. Candles and a chandelier lit the entire room, casting light upon a black and white checkered floor. Curiously, a pattern of standing mirrors framed the room, standing in several rows. 'A defensive formation?' he thought. 'But this looks like a ballroom…'
He stepped further inside and his heart caught in his throat when he saw Miku, standing upon a marble sigil on the floor etched in a pattern of grey and black flowers. He recognized her white gown, a near copy of the one she'd worn when the two of them had met.
She stood before him, her head slightly bowed.
Kaito began to approach her even as he kept trying to look through the curtains and mirrors to try and find his opponent. The mirrors had been arranged in an almost mazelike fashion, making it hard for him to discern anything beyond them. Only the woman in front of him.
"Miku…" he whispered.
"Flick up the miserable rags and dance in the ball at night!"
The Prince's bold invitation to the dance floor drew Miku into the crowd of white masks of deception. She practically ran to be close to him, letting him twirl with her amongst his many enemies.
She was an enemy.
Kaito barely had time to react as Miku rushed towards him. He saw a glint of steel and managed to grab her wrists before she plunged a dagger into his heart. "Miku! Miku, wake up!" he shouted, trying to force her back without hurting her as the tip of the blade hovered so perilously close.
He hadn't wanted to believe what Luka told him. That such a potent poison could exist as to tear out Miku's heart and transform her. But what else could he make of the person in front of him now, the opposite of the woman who'd risked everything she had to save his life?!
"So you were warned. A pity. My Luka must have survived. For someone so impotent in the face of fate, I daresay I underestimated her resilience."
Kaito tried to find the source of the mocking older voice that echoed in the tower for him. "Miriam! You're Duchess Miriam!"
Just the brief distraction allowed Miku to overpower the Prince, pushing him to the ground. Kaito rolled along the marble to dodge another knife jab, then tried to grab her wrists again as he fought for his life. Despite the overpowering fury in her attack, her empty icy eyes revealed nothing.
"So even you know my name now." The older woman sounded disappointed. "Well, none of it matters if you die here. And you will die here. My name may be sullied, but a power vacuum is a useful thing to have as well."
'She's already planning to start this over again!' Kaito thought to himself. "You care nothing for how many people you kill to have Estmarch for your own!" he shouted while trying to preserve his own life.
"Oh? And this war you're fighting, the people you're destroying, are you any different? At least they follow me because of what I built with my own two hands! You were handed a crown and everyone was told to follow you! To claim you're any different from me… preposterous!"
Kaito tried to steel himself as he pushed Miku off him with all his might and dove into the maze of mirrors for his own safety. Miriam had to be close by, if he could at least find her, it might give him a chance to save Miku as he'd planned…
"A whispering voice orders me to search for your unfamiliar face, and then with the blade gripped in my hand, to snatch everything from you!"
She danced with her Prince, across the ballroom, his voice quietly mirroring her own as she clenched the knife tightly. To her she only saw the sea of white masks, the Prince alone with a bare face as he sang to her once more.
"In this castle where orphans gather, I'm a seraph who, with a smile sketched onto my mask, embrace everything with my wings, even deceitful love."
Her love was only deceit, wasn't it? Her mere existence for another, to charm another. Cinderella existed because Prince Charming existed.
Fate.
Unchangeable, immutable fate.
"When Prince Charming dies, what becomes of Cinderella?" she whispered.
"In the ashes, the glass slipper melts with a crimson glow," he sang sadly as she reached out for him again…
"I want to save you… I don't know how…"
Kaito found himself smashed into one of the mirrors as Miku caught up to him. He knew what he needed to do as his hand passed by his holster, but he couldn't try anything so delicate with her fighting him so furiously. He hadn't expected Miku to be so swift and mobile when she was drugged. He only had one chance to save her, and if he failed…
"Miku… please… I want to help you… I don't believe her that she destroyed you… I know you're still in there and I know you're fighting too!"
But Miku wasn't answering, the illusions in front of her eyes too powerful for his voice to penetrate.
The cruel voice of the Duchess echoed again. "Miku was my perfect Cinderella. Did you really think something I created was ever capable of loving you, dear Prince Charming?"
She barely sounded concerned with him. Like he were just a gnat escaping a fly swatter.
"Stop talking about Miku like you own her! No matter what you've done to her, she's not your pawn!"
"Oh? And how many of my Cinderellas are in your hands now, just waiting for me to free them and bring them back to me? Willing to die just for their Godmother?"
She cared so little for these girls that willingly flung their lives away for her. "Your choice to keep them alive is more proof of your weakness," the Duchess taunted, "A wise leader would have killed every one of them lest they have the chance to strike back. Because you preserved them, it will be but a trifle for me to free them and scatter them once again."
Kaito had been criticized by some of the other military leaders under his command for leaving so many alive. But to him, there was never a question of it – to break the Cinderellas under his heel so readily was to take part in their suffering. After knowing them, after loving one of them… how could he harden his heart and dispose of them?
The Duchess' cruelty had yet to cease. "Never forget, oh Prince Charming, that I made every one of them because of you. You are just as responsible for their existence as I."
'No! I won't let her make me feel guilty for this!'
But even as he tried to argue, he felt a sickening truth in her words. How had he last treated Miku? He tried to make her into a "Cinderella" of a different kind.
Because he had to be Prince Charming.
He hadn't allowed her to ever truly escape the fairy tale because he still needed it, didn't he?
'Why… why was I so selfish…'
Kaito just barely managed to slip away from Miku again by sliding down the surface of the mirror. Miku was only momentarily stopped, but he had nothing on him that could stop her when she caught up to him again.
Save his pistol.
In the corner of his eye he spied the exterior clockface reflecting inside, which in the mirror's reflections allowed him to see the time quickly approaching midnight…
"Knowing too late, I get shivers and wish to go back, as you glance at the clock…"
"I'll be obliterated…" she whispered to her Prince, "I can't exist without you."
"Running through the slope where I dance barefoot, I extend my fingertips all the way to your throat."
Her gloved hands reached up to touch his face as his own reached to her cheek. For a moment she wasn't at the ball, but back in the bedroom where she shared her passion with the one person she loved. It was him holding her face instead.
"Please… Cinderella… please trust Prince Charming."
"You're going to hate me when you know what I am," she apologized, "It would have been better if we never met."
"I kiss your tears held in my hand, as an impulse runs through your back in that instant…"
He kissed the tears from her cheek. "Cinderella…" he pleaded, "Why do you always run? Why won't you let me help you?"
She knew the time was approaching. That she had to kill him. That when the clock bells struck, she would be powerless in the face of the enchantment she was under.
Once again, they were back at the cursed ball and Miku was begging for time to cease.
"Why Miku?! Why did you choose her?!" Kaito shouted in rage as he briefly saw the woman he so hated, only to realize it was merely a reflection as she calmly walked away from him.
"Because she was perfect. I created Cinderella as easily as I created Prince Charming, but her story was so close, her mind so malleable. It has to be her to end you to write the perfect ending to my life's work."
Kaito wanted some kind of real answer out the Duchess, but to his dismay he was merely finding an extremely talented but also extremely insane person. It didn't matter that none of these events made sense if they made sense to her.
He wasn't going to find any satisfactory answer for why she killed so many.
He kept searching amongst the mirrored maze, trying to stay alert for Miku's position as he kept trying to catch the Godmother herself…
"Please don't ring the bell, as I kneel to you…"
"When the midnight clock tolls, you will stab the prince in the heart."
The command raced through her as for just one moment she didn't see the ball but the clocktower, with the time counting down. Their time. That only one thing in front of her wasn't an illusion. She spied the unaware Prince as he fled through a pathway of mirrors meant to conceal her from him.
Her hand shook. She didn't want to kill him.
'How… how did I change fate?'
The illusion came back, but Miku began to rebel against it. Kaito was here! This was really Kaito, even as Prince Charming started to take his place.
'I changed fate because I wanted to be free! And… and… Kaito… because Kaito… wanted to be free too.'
"I changed fate because you asked me to."
But no matter how much she desired a new fate, here they were together again. Cinderella and Prince Charming.
"Cinderella, why do you always run? Why don't you trust the Prince to help you?" he asked sadly.
Was this her true fate?
That night surrounded by roses, she hadn't even warned him.
She'd driven her knife in to save him, alone.
She'd always protected him, alone. Spent every second thinking of how she could save him. As if he wasn't capable of saving himself. As if he was too weak...
If he was Prince Charming, then she could always save him. Always protect him and shelter him.
"I'm… I'm no different…" she whispered.
She couldn't see herself as needing to be "saved?" No, she had refused to accept that her own life was worth saving.
'I never changed fate the first time… because we were both still imprisoned. The only way to let him survive… to save him… is…'
She fought the visions in front of her eyes, the wretched commands in her head, focusing every single thought and emotion into just one action to alter fate one more time…
Kaito saw the hint of green hair in the mirrors and he turned quickly to try and find Miku. The disorientation of so many reflections of her made it hard at first to perceive which was really Miku as she stumbled towards him weakly. He tensed up to fight but something wasn't right about the way she was walking and the weakness as she held her knife.
"K…Kaito…"
For just a brief second, Kaito saw Miku hesitate and whisper his name.
"Help… me…"
No sooner had her quiet plea passed her lips, Kaito rushed towards Miku without any concern for his own safety. "I'm here," he said, drawing her close to his body in a comforting embrace and trying to reassure her as he reached down towards his holster.
The midnight bells rang out around them, so loudly the clock tower began to vibrate from the force…
The resonating bells forced Miku's hand forward, gripping her knife so hard she felt the muscles in her arm pinching tightly.
"Although screaming "no," my right hand thrusts out to you an eternal farewell…"
She realized too late that her "orders" weren't just that – she had been conditioned to act on the sound of the bells! Her hand was moving on its own as she thrust her knife forward against her will.
"NO!" she shouted, "I have to change his fate! I HAVE TO!"
Changing fate… only meant that he had to survive…
With all her might, she tried to change the trajectory of the knife… to force this unwilling action to miss…
… she saw only rose petals falling where her blade struck Prince Charming…
Kaito fell backward, clutching at a fresh wound, an empty syringe falling to the floor…
The pounding of the bells seemed so loud as to tear everything apart. Cinderella clutched her poor Prince Charming to her side as the ceiling caved in, stained glass and rubble smashing down around them as rose petals continued to pool around their feet.
"A princess who wears gunpowder smoke as perfume."
His singing voice seemed to grow weaker even as he smiled at her. "Your unyielding pupil cleaves through my frigid mask."
Even as the chaos of destruction tore away at everything, the music, the song never ceased. Miku dropped her knife as she held him against a wall of mirrors, trying to stop him from falling.
"Now your sighs penetrate my ears. It all seems like a faraway dream." She sang sadly to him.
As the stained glass left a pretty pattern of broken colors on the floor, the Prince sang once more to her. "Through the stained glass, the moonlight covered you with a veil..."
"Miku."
Kaito felt her body going limp as she embraced him. "Miku, it's really you now? Isn't it?"
"Yes but, Kaito, I wanted to change your fate but I… I…" she cried.
He lifted his now blood-stained hand from where he was trying to cover up a fresh wound. "You did."
He saw Miku's eyes moving towards his side to a slight surface cut through Kaito's uniform. Already the bleeding had stopped. "You were so strong," he said reassuringly as he saw the light coming back to her eyes. He was certain the effects of the Midnight's Tears were finally wearing off.
"No! How did you do it?! What trickery have you played upon my perfect Cinderella?!"
Wherever Miriam was, she'd clearly seen everything. Kaito tried to pull Miku closer to him, afraid of letting the Duchess hurt her any more than she already had. "Luka risked her life to get the antidote to your poison to Miku," Kaito said calmly, "The girl you cast aside as nothing worked tirelessly to undo your influence."
He stroked Miku's hair tenderly as she held him, her eyelids twitching. "But I only just gave it to her. The plan was to inject her and give it time to counter the Midnight's Tears. This is how powerful Miku is on her own. She fought you… the same way Luka fought you. These Cinderellas, they don't belong to you anymore than I!"
He saw Miku's eyes meet his own once more. "We've set ourselves free from you!"
The ballroom faded in and out, the chaos of the destruction of the fantasy still in her vision but a slowly growing awareness filled Miku of where she really was.
"At the knee I tear the dress and throw away the tiara!"
She tore away her false gown, letting her rags show and unveiling her true self. But despite her fear, Prince Charming stayed with her, his gaze loving of even the ashen girl standing before him.
"This is me. The true me. I'm Miku."
"We gaze into each other's eyes and sparks fly."
But she became aware of danger in her line of sight. The Fairy Godmother was not so easily foiled, and she was about to strike!
'Quickly! I have to-'
A gunshot rang out in the dark, Kaito getting pushed over into the mirrors as he heard one shatter further away from him. It took him several seconds to realize what had happened when he saw a silver haired woman collapse through a now shattered glass window disguised as a mirror. The hilt of a knife stuck out of her chest as blood flowed from the fatal chest wound, a smoking pistol falling out of her hand to the floor.
"Miku… you… you… pushed me out of the way…"
But then he saw blood spreading across Miku's pure white gown and he realized in horror what had just taken place.
'She pushed me out of the way… because she took the bullet for me!'
"MIKU!"
He caught her as she collapsed to the ground, picking her up to carry her away in a panicked run. "Gakupo's here!" he tried to say with confidence even as he spotted the deep bullet wound in her stomach, "He's going to save you! Please, I know you're strong! Please fight back!"
"Kaito…"
In Miku's ears she still imagined the song playing out, allowing the comfort of the last dance to take her into the beyond. She didn't want to die in the clocktower, so she would simply pretend she was elsewhere.
"If I can't save your tears, then this will all have been a one-person game," her prince begged.
She smiled despite her pain. He was here. She would die with him close, satisfied that she'd finally saved him from everything that would ever harm him.
The trap door burst open and Kaito froze in fright when he saw the maid enter. "MISTRESS!" she screamed, utterly in a panic, "MISTRESS!"
But instead of attacking, the maid dashed into the mirrors and a few seconds later he heard a blood-curdling scream. "NO! How?! You always had a plan! You always had an answer! It wasn't him, it wasn't! No… no please…"
He saw the familiar pink-haired visage of Luka, followed by the doctor. "Gakupo!" Kaito shouted, "Miku's been shot! She's bleeding out!"
The doctor was all business as he dashed over. "Quick, lay her out on the floor! It's not sterile, but I'll at least get the bullet out!"
He threw down his satchel of medical supplies and began cutting Miku's dress apart. Kaito rested closer to Miku, grabbing her hand and trying not to think the worst. She gazed over at him and he hoped she wasn't delirious yet.
With her prince so close, she wished time would cease. That in this moment they would have only each other for eternity. "Oh time, stop now. I've been completely drawn in to you. I want to count out every one of your unstable heartbeats."
No, they weren't his heartbeats but her own…
"I wish… time… would stop…" Miku whispered.
Kaito stroked her hair helplessly as he watched a grim expression overtake the normally hopeful doctor's face. "Kaito… I'm certain she has internal bleeding given her color and her temperature. If I can't replace that blood, she'll go into hypovolemic shock before I even have a chance to operate…"
Kaito held his arm out without being asked. "Eh… it's more blood than that," Gakupo said, "Or I'd have already been giving her mine."
He'd never seen the doctor looking defeated. "Gakupo, you don't give up! You saved my life…"
Gakupo rested the bloody bullet on the floor with his surgical tongs. "If we can get her back to the hospital, I can save her. But I need something to stabilize her vitals or we won't make it that far. You lived because Miku gave you that sleeping poison when she stabbed you. I… well, it doesn't appear Miku has any such poisons in her possession and Luka used her only vial to escape the Cinderella…"
The purple haired doctor looked sick even as he was trying to keep focused on his job. "I… I won't give up on a patient. I'll try and stabilize her with whatever I have… I don't admit defeat!"
Miku already looked so pale and weak…
'Why can't I save her?! I came so far!'
'Dammit, Miku, I don't want the kingdom!'
'I don't want to be a Prince!'
'I don't want any of it if I have to lose you!'
Her prince was with her as the castle began to burn. The ash maiden would become ashes.
"Remain in my surging emotion, and be soaked hot," he sang.
It didn't matter if she lived, she changed fate. Everything was done. She would rest. Finally, she could belong to the ashes she yearned for.
"I cannot move anymore," she said in her final moments.
She saw angels coming for her in red and pink as she fell into darkness, singing the last part of her song.
"It's almost like a fairytale."
The ash maiden swept down by the fire place, as she did every day. The day after the ball, where she'd danced with the prince. 'Why didn't the prince leave? He doesn't have need of me anymore…'
She stared into the flames of the hearth and she saw the people who she lost behind it. Her mother and father beckoned to her to finally be at peace and join them.
"I'm not Cinderella. So there's no reason to stay."
The fire place suddenly seemed large enough for her to simply walk through the threshold. "When I pass through… I won't come back… will I?"
Was she all right leaving this way?
"CINDERELLA!"
A panicking voice cried out her false name as she stepped closer to the heat, reaching out her hands to her parents. To walk into the fire meant there was nothing behind her that she wanted to lose. She clutched her hands to her sides.
"CINDERELLA, PLEASE!"
For a moment she felt lucid. She was in a room with a mask on her face, air rushing into her lungs. She was resting on something soft. She tried to open her eyes but didn't have the strength. She thought she heard people around her, but it was hard to understand them. One of them sounded so desperate and sad.
Someone gripped her right hand tightly, but with tenderness. She felt a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"Miku, I love you. Not Cinderella. Please don't go."
Then the room seemed to fade as she saw the fireplace. She stood mere inches from oblivion. She heard footsteps behind her.
She reached out…
… and grabbed his hand.
"Miku?!"
The old house felt clear again, as she clutched her beloved's hand tightly. She wanted to speak to him, to explain her choice, but she kept finding her words didn't seem to fit.
He understood her silence. He gestured to the front door and led Miku outside. Along the long road they walked hand in hand, until they reached the fields. She clenched his hand tighter as the urge to just run overtook her.
Together, they ran under the warmth of the sun as the soft grass cushioned the soles of her bare feet…
Miku heard the soft hum of the medical equipment, feeling the oxygen mask resting snugly over her face.
As the dream left, she tried to grip that hand she'd remembered but her fingers were empty.
'How… how long ago was it?'
This time her eyes felt light enough to open the lids. Her vision was blurry but the color of blue was unmistakable in the sunlit hospital room. "Kaito…" she whispered, behind the mask.
Miku saw the blue figure stir and gently approach her. She could barely make out his face until he was almost upon her, but as it came into focus, she could see dark circles under his eyes, lines from worry along his face. The hints of tears as she stared deeply into his face.
Kaito gently touched her forehead with white gloved hands.
"You made it…" he whispered, his voice quiet and calm. "I was so frightened when you fell asleep again, but I didn't want to give up… after you grabbed my hand I was willing to wait forever if I had to…"
As Miku's vision came into focus again, she noticed more details about Kaito's appearance. In spite of his haggard face, he was otherwise well groomed. He was dressed in a crisp white uniform with a blue sash bearing Estmarch's emblem. A small crown rested on his head.
"Kaito… you're the King of Estmarch now…" Miku said in awe.
Kaito smiled gently. "Not… quite. I haven't faced a coronation yet. Things are rather delicate now that the war is ended and Estmarch has many debts to pay. But I'm all Estmarch has to serve as a representative so for all intents and purposes… well, I guess I am."
So he was still a Prince, for just a little while longer.
"How did I survive?" Miku asked.
Kaito's smile grew more somber. "When Gakupo operated on you, the bullet had gone through one of your kidneys. He had to conduct an operation on you in spite of your blood loss. But you survived the trip back to the hospital because of the sleeping poison."
The same one she'd given to Kaito on the fated night. "But I didn't have any!" she protested.
"No. And neither did Luka, but…"
Luka searched within the mirrors. She had to see the face of the woman who burned and destroyed so many. If she couldn't have the satisfaction of knowing she had killed her, she could at least have the satisfaction of seeing another Cendrillon's vengeance justly claimed.
She heard Iroha's sobs and saw the blood pool in the mirrors. As she approached, she saw more and more mirrors all reflecting a different angle of the silver haired Godmother's corpse being clutched tightly by her distraught servant. The once collected and playful Iroha was now nothing more than a weeping girl without purpose.
"Mistress, what am I to do… I'm nothing now…"
Luka pursed her lips tightly. She had what she wanted, right? She began to turn when she heard Kaito and Gakupo's panic.
"…I need something to stabilize her vitals… I… well, it doesn't appear Miku has any such poisons in her possession…"
Luka's hand raced to her thigh and she cursed as she remembered using her own vial of the sleeping toxin to trick Stardust.
She glanced to the sobbing Iroha and without hesitation grabbed her arm.
"NO! DON'T YOU DARE TAKE ME FROM HER!"
The girl started to fight back but Luka pinned her arms back and saw the telltale vials flash by as Iroha's skirt waved and briefly showed a small satchel on her thighs. Luka reached down before the girl could stop her and pulled the gleaming silver toxin.
She released Iroha, who simply turned back to the Godmother out of desperate devotion.
'She'll never leave her… will she? She can't see anything else but the life she was living as a killer. Taking life after life.'
She had to break the cycle.
"No, you're not staying here. You have one more job to do."
Luka practically dragged the protesting maid across the floor, to the doctor and the Prince and his fallen Cendrillon. "You've spent years taking lives. Now you're going to do something else."
Luka knelt with the trembling maid, taking the toxin's cork out. She gripped one of Iroha's hands, putting the vial in her fingertips and slowly lowering the poison to Miku's lips using Iroha's shaking hand.
"You're going to save one."
'Luka saved me… and she tried to save Iroha's soul as well…' Miku thought to herself in awe. How far her old teacher had come.
"We didn't know if it would work," Kaito finished explaining. "You were still under the lingering effects of Midnight's Tears. That plus the antidote… either one of those could have reacted badly to your sleeping poison. You didn't wake up for an entire week… save for those few moments you looked at me and grabbed my hand. But that was three days ago."
The Prince held his head low. "I've had no difficulty conducting official business from this room, so I've done all my duties from right here."
"You didn't have to do that!" Miku protested.
"You tried to give your life for me all over again. The least I could do for my protector was to stand in vigil for you."
As a moment of silence passed, Miku recalled the potent truth she had uncovered during her time away from Kaito. "I have to tell you something. Kaito, I didn't lie about my past, but… the Grand Godmother, she changed my memories. To make me sound more like Cinderella. My stepfamily, they…"
When a deeper sadness overtook Kaito she was momentarily afraid she'd offended him. The lie she'd lived as a truth had been so critical to his understanding of her…
"She turned you into Cinderella… because of me…"
As Kaito spoke, a remorseful tone weaved through his words. "Miku, I was so caught up in my Prince Charming fantasy that I never thought of what I was doing to you. I made you keep being Cinderella even when you wanted freedom. I'm no better than the Grand Godmother, enslaving you to my silly fairy tales-"
"Stop."
Miku wouldn't hear anymore of this. "You told me you wanted me to trust you… but I never let you get close enough to me. I wanted to be your protector and I was so obsessed with it I only let myself get captured and turned against you. Perhaps you saw Prince Charming as a way to be a hero, but I was holding you back as well. My life had so little meaning… protecting you gave it meaning. Instead of… instead of loving you."
Kaito looked awed at Miku's words. "You… you still…"
Was this doubt? When she ran away, leaving only the slipper behind, had he thought she'd abandoned him? She never intended to leave him with such uncertainty…
"Kaito. I love you. I will always love you."
With those words Miku felt weakness approaching once more. She wanted to stay awake with Kaito, to tell him more. To stop him from feeling shame and regret.
To be with the man she loved.
Kaito leaned down and kissed Miku's forehead lightly. "Please take care of yourself, Miku," he said, "I love you too."
For a few moments, as Miku drifted off to sleep, she felt an odd sensation passing through her. Wrapping itself around her heart and sheltering her.
Peace.
Kaito never let go of her hand.
A/N:
There, this was a much shorter chapter. As I was hinting at last chapter, this was meant to be more experimental. After hearing the Cendrillon 10th anniversary mix, this idea jumped into my head of framing the chapter around Miku hallucinating a re-enactment of the song and using the lyrics to punctuate the action. I mostly used one translation for the song lyrics, mainly to ensure that references to the chapter titles were preserved, but I played with it a little – there's not really one good translation of this song but a lot of them that are pretty okay.
I toyed with ending earlier and having the resolution of Miku's survival be left up in the air but frankly it didn't seem to serve a purpose to leave the cliffhanger this time. I also really wanted to include the flashback with Luka and that wouldn't have felt right pushed into the next chapter.
Also, I actually did turn up a translation of Signal-P's recent sequel song, "Catastrophe," but ended up not wanting to use it because it tells a much darker story than I was aiming for compared to the ambiguity that "Cendrillon" left behind. Interestingly, "Catastrophe" does use an image of Kaito and Miku running to escape a collapsing castle but I actually had the first draft of this chapter done in early March 2019, so it wasn't meant to be a reference and I didn't end up changing to fit that song.