Izzy: Maybe I'm wrong but I think our director is stressing out.

Mimi: You can't really blame him. He has to apply to colleges and retake the SAT and he has no idea how to do the former.

Sora: Shouldn't we be giving him moral support or something?

Davis: You seem to forget that he created this story in order to torture us.

Kari: But his other stories are made to keep us happy in some way.

Tai: And this one isn't all bad. You know, aside from the part where I DIE!

Zero Unit: All of you shut up! I'm having an inner conflict with myself right now and I don't need you guys making it worse! Just please go out on set and get into your first positions. After that, you guys have to move to the Children of the Present set for the next act. We only wrapped up a third of it. Move it people before I get my air horn!

Yolei: And he's back to being director slave driver whom we all know and love.

Zero Unit: Go! And I'll handle the disclaimer this time. I own nothing except what is clearly mine.

-X-

"You're stressing again" Mimi sighed as she watched the prince pace around the room. "Why don't you just sit down and finish your cup of tea before panicking over your coronation. It's not like its tomorrow or at the end of the week. Besides, you knew it would happen sooner or later."

Matt paused. After the death of his father, Mimi had come to the royal palace a lot more often than usual to check on how the princes and the queen were doing during such a time. It made sense since Mimi's grandmother was a trusted family friend and she was always there for moral support. And this was the time when Matt needed moral support more than ever because he was freaking out about his coronation a month away. But he was also wishing his father was still around, not so he wouldn't have to take the crown but so that he could have those last few regal lessons before the big day would arrive. But it would seem he would have to take the throne with the limited amount of knowledge he had of being a ruler.

"I know you're right" Matt nodded. "I was just hoping it would be later."

"You have your little brother to cut your duties at least to two-thirds so it can't be all bad" the princess reminded him.

"Yeah, TK did promise to help me out once I took the throne" Matt huffed.

The prince finally decided to sit back down across from his royal visitor and took a sip from the tea. This was where they would resume their chess game. Though neither of them seemed like the type to play such a game, it certainly calmed them down after recent events.

"We used to play like this a lit when we were kids" Mimi smiled. She really missed the old days, when King Hiroaki was alive (Even if that wasn't too long ago) and when there was no evil warlock to worry about.

Matt gave her a solemn nod. "Yeah, we did."

"Whatever happened to us?"

"What do you mean?"

"We used to be such good friends" Mimi explained as she moved her bishop. "We would play together and I would show you to that secret grove near my castle. Those little childish escapades were over in a blink of an eye and I sometimes wonder if we can ever go back to such a time. Back when we were still naïve to the world's negativity and crises."

Matt scoffed. He knew exactly what the maiden was speaking of and he dearly wished for them to return to that time as well but that seemed to be what was on everyone's mind lately. They all wished to turn back the hands of time and go back to being a senseless child but what would that change? There will still be poverty; natural disasters, and heartbreaks, people would just be unaware of such a thing. If everyone had returned to the mindset of a youngling, then they would never see the ones who suffer at the hand of fate.

"We have to grow up Mimi" Matt told her. "If we don't grow out of that immature state of mind, then who will change the world for the better? It will always be diseased but we can at least make it better. And we can't do that if we don't know what the problems are in the first place. Heck, we wouldn't even know there would be problems to begin with!"

"I guess I never thought about it like that…" Mimi said. "But what if things were different?"

Matt raised an eyebrow at the notion, not quite understanding her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, what if the world was exactly how our naïve minds believed it to be?" Mimi explained. "If the entire world was as pure as it had seemed when we were kids then wouldn't that fix the original problem?"

"That's just wishful thinking" Matt said in response. He hadn't meant it to come off as that harsh but it did. "We can't change the world just like that. I obviously wish that we could but it's just not possible."

"I know" Mimi sighed. "You really don't need to tell me that though."

Matt nodded. "Yeah, I know. And I'm really sorry for putting you down like that."

"No" Mimi shook her head. "I understand what you're saying and it really doesn't bother me. I mean, you're right, it's just wishful thinking. Don't take it seriously."

"Yeah, I know I shouldn't have" Matt nodded. "I was being pretty stupid."

Mimi put a hand on Matt's shoulder as she tried not to laugh. "No, you weren't. But right now, you are kind of being silly."

"Sorry."

"Hey, no need to apologize."

"Yeah, I guess I'm still being silly."

"You are" Mimi nodded. It was at that point that the princess remembered something she was supposed to tell him. She wasn't quite sure how to break it to him without having him freak out over it but she knew that he deserved to know. "Matt, I just remembered something really important."

Her tone didn't sit well in the prince's ears. "What is it?"

"Izzy found out that there was a second intruder during the dinner that evening of the incident" Mimi confessed. She was staring at the chess board but she wasn't contemplating her next move, she was just afraid to see the expression on Matt's face. Her imagination was enough though, she knew that his eyes had grown wide and he was waiting for her to give him the full story.

"What do you mean there was a second intruder?" Matt asked. He knew that if his father hadn't gotten up to see if Mimi was okay, then his father would still be alive. But what had prompted the king to go check on the princess was the fact that someone had perpetrated the castle. It was a known fact that Ken was unable to perform a cloning and duplication spell so that meant that he had an accomplice. It was because of that one distraction that the king and one of Mimi's most trusted knights were dead. "Who was it?"

"Joe" Mimi blurted out. "He was the one responsible for killing my knight and because of him, Ken got his hands on your father's life."

"Joe?" Matt repeated, stunned. Out of every person he knew, the doctor was probably on the bottom on that list to be classified as a traitor. "I can't believe it."

"Well, it's true, it couldn't be more evident now" Mimi sighed.

Matt was listening anymore, he could only concentrate on the fact that the person who had once saved his brother's life had indirectly taken his father's.

"TK, what do you think you're doing?!" Matt shouted as he watched his little brother drift out to see in his boat. He was more than tempted to leap into the cold water to drag his sibling back by the ear.

"I'm going to prove to you that I don't need you watching over me all the time!" TK called back.

"Are you crazy?" the prince shrieked. "The demon fish Leviathan is still out there!"

TK stopped shouting though Matt knew exactly what the younger male was thinking. Matt was always telling TK to be careful or trying to keep the young lad away from all sorts of danger since both of their parents were busy with royal duties. The chambermaids and knights could babysit TK all the time so Matt took it upon himself to take care of TK.

Ever since sightings of the demon fish Leviathan occurred by their shore, TK had wanted to see it. Matt had prohibited TK from going anywhere near the beach and they would stay several feet away but TK was still a child, he didn't understand how dangerous it was. So TK stole a rowboat and was now far away from the safety of the village.

Matt bit his lower lip at the thought of the giant shark creature biting down on his little brother. "I have to find Izzy" Matt concluded as he ran off. The wizard was probably the only person who could save TK from being eaten whole.

When the prince had come back with the mage, he just stood at the shore as he watched a massive beast retreat back into the deep. TK was coughing up water and there was a scar on his chest that cut down from his shoulder to the lower corner of his waist, a rather deep and ugly wound. By the young prince's side was a young teenage boy with his spectacles by his side. He was treating TK's wounds and judging by the soaked clothing and wet hair, he had jumped into sea and saved the prince's life.

"Joe?" Izzy gasped. "Your arm!"

Joe glared at the wizard for pointing out the obvious but that didn't stop him from continuing to fix the gash on TK's chest. "I'll deal with it later. Right now, I have to make sure this kid doesn't die."

That's when Matt took a closer look at the doctor and noticed that his left arm was torn clean off. "You saved my brother at the cost of your own arm? Why would you do something so reckless for another person's life?"

Joe paused as he glanced at his arm and then back to the prince, his stone cold expression never leaving his face. "Because my father was a doctor and so am I. Both of us knew that at any rate, the patient's life is worth more than our own. I've held on to those principles and even though your brother wasn't my patient before, he is now."

"Thank you" Matt breathed, he felt like he was about to cry.

"Don't thank me yet" Joe replied. "Your brother is in a critical state between life and death just from that monster's tooth grazing him. If it had closed its mouth down then he would be dead."

Izzy's body was starting to disappear but it was obvious that he was just transporting to another location. "I'll get your medical supplies; just try to keep the prince alive until then."

Once the wizard was gone, the doctor scoffed. "The prince, huh? I thought you two looked familiar."

"You didn't know?" Matt asked as he sat by TK's side, holding onto his little brother's hand.

Joe shook his head. "I couldn't really tell from the shore, I just knew I had to save him. Besides, whether he was a royal or just a villager, I would've saved him anyway. I became a doctor to correct the wrongdoings of my own brother, but I remained a doctor to save lives."

"The village is really lucky to have you."

"I'm glad you think so."

"Matt?" Mimi called out, snapping the prince back to the present. "What are you thinking about?"

There was a long pause. "…About a world where the naïve mindsets of children were true, that the world was pure and all things negative didn't exist like we were talking about before. I was just thinking that if such a world were to exist then the people would have to be modeled after someone who was truly kind and pure. Joe would've been that person but now I realize how that would be a big mistake."

-X-

Joe's eyes fluttered open and he simply stared at the ceiling of his room. He silently laid there as he thought about random subjects. He sat up and stared at his arm for a while, turning it this way and that, flexing his fingers and his arm until he seemed satisfied with what he saw and felt.

"Can't even tell it's fake" he muttered.