We'd won. The adversary of the void had returned, and with the light of the stars we banished it back to whence it came. A victory brought about through a grand finale.

In the end, this life of ours was not a fairy tale. There was no ending. The adversary of the void was destroyed, and we returned to our lives. We enjoyed what we had. We mourned those that once were there. And we made peace with what was to come.

I did. Everyone did.

They slathered me with titles. Savior. Archmage. The One Who Bears The Stars. None mattered. My name is all that mattered.

I was a mere student once. A failure. A mage with no spells. A mage whose spell would always end with catastrophic explosions. A failure. Zero.

And so I lived. I lived alone, in a mansion that was given, followed by ghosts of those who once was. I would live. I would grieve. And as my eyes closed with age, I would make peace and be fulfilled.

Ah. What a life it was. What a journey I had gone through. All I gained. All I lost. In the end, against the flow of time, they were nothing but mere footnotes in this Pilgrimage we call Life.

My name was Louise. And I was happy to have lived.

…

But I did not expect to return.

"Ha! The Zero summoned a commoner!" Laughter fills her ears, and she blinks to find herself surrounded by a slowly descending cloud of dust. All around her are vaguely familiar students. With them is a bald man. And just before her, sitting on his back, is a boy. He turns his eyes up to her, confused and wary, and her jaws fall.

Saito. Saito Hiraga. The boy-, the man that was once her familiar.

She looks around. Everything becomes more clear then. The students-, she recognizes those clothes. They are clothes given to Students of Tristain Academy. Her Academy. The bald man-, that was Professor Colbert. Agent Flame Snake.

But that should've been impossible. The late professor had died in the conflict with Albion, and Saito had perished to give them all precious time to finally defeat the Beast. Yet now they are both alive. And young.

An idea fills her then, and she feels the sting of cold realization fill her.

Time. She has gone back in time.

But how? Time has never been her domain. Nor were there any Void Mages capable of manipulating it to this incredible degree. How has she returned to this time? And why? For what reason? They'd won. She'd lived until her elderly days and peacefully passed away. For what reason had she returned?

Or is there no reason at all? Maybe the skies had looked upon what she'd done and given her this chance?

She doesn't know. She isn't sure she wants to know.

In the end, shall we make our way through this pilgrimage we know as Life.

Slowly, with a gentle smile she extends her hand to the wary boy. "Hello there." She says. The boy only looks more confused, and she realizes he doesn't yet understand this language they speak. She quickly casts upon him a translation spell, and she sees him wince slightly. Good. It seems her spells haven't reverted to becoming explosions. "Hello. Can you understand me now?"

"Uh-, yeah?"

"Apologies. I didn't mean for our first meeting to be so…dusty." She coughs into her fist. "Sorry-, my name is Louise de La Valliere. But do please call me Louise. What is your name?"

He blinks. "Um. Saito. Hiraga Saito."

She nods. Nothing has changed it seems. She supposes that's a good thing. She wouldn't know what to do if she had somehow summoned someone different.

"Miss Valliere, please finish the ceremony." She hears Colbert say. She barely manages to restrain a snappy retort and instead turns to him with a calm smile.

"I would rather not kiss a man on the lips in front of an audience, professor." The field quiets down then, and Colbert looks particularly pale at her words. "I will bring this man to my room, and there I will decide whether to make him my familiar. This is my decision and mine alone." Her smile widens. "Do you understand?"

"Y-Yes. Forgive me for my words, Miss Valliere." He quickly readjusts his glasses. "The Summoning Ceremony has finished! Everyone is dismissed!"

And with the still stunned students as her audience, she helps Saito up and leads him along. His jaw drops as he finally sees the place he was brought to, and she smiles. "Welcome to Tristain Academy. A place for noble students to learn and train their skills for their future. I am a student."

"Ooh…" Saito is clearly not listening, captivated by the whole place. She doesn't bother making him listen.

They soon make it to her room. It is a strange feeling; to stand in front of the room she hadn't seen in decades. With a small breath she pushes it open, and she is greeted with the ever familiar sight of her teenage room. A fairly barren place when compared to the rooms of other students. She can't quite recall why it is so.

She leads him in. She sits down on the edge of her bed. He carefully sits on the chair just by her desk.

"If I may make a guess, would you be an otherworlder?"

"Whu…?"

She sighs. "Does your night only have one moon?"

He looks at her as if she is insane. "Uh, yeah?"

She smiles wanly. "Then yes, you are an otherworlder. Because the nights in this world are lit by two moons."

Saito freezes then. The realization finally sinks in then, and she watches as his expression sinks. "I must apologize. I hadn't intended to bring you away from where you came from." She bows shallowly. An empty gesture. "Please forgive me."

"Ah-, uh, please lift your head! Y-You hadn't intended to do it!"

She smiles wryly. Had she? She can barely remember what she'd wished for all those decades before.

"And…so, you called me to be your…familiar?"

She nods. "Yes. A…partner." She refrains from saying 'servant'. Because that's what it really is. The barbaric spell that is the Summoning Array is a barbaric and ultimately cruel thing. Ripping beings from the beyond, placing them into this world, and forcing upon them a False Motive to keep them subservient. It is no different to collaring a slave. "Someone I can fight and live with."

Thankfully, she is a Void Mage. Refitting the Familiar Binding is no impossible thing.

"And you need to kiss me!?"

"No." She deadpans. Why is that the thing he focuses on? "Or-, well, yes, but I don't need to. That's only done by the mages of old." Which are the mages of today, but that is just semantics. "All we need to do is swear a vow, and I can weave a spell to bind us together."

"Oh." He sounds awfully disappointed about it, doesn't he? "So-, uh, what's the vow?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Are you just going to accept? Without asking for anything?"

"Uh-, well, you did summon me, so…"

She sighs. Oh dear lord. She's completely forgotten because of the Saito she knows, but by the stars, this Saito is just a teen. Things like duty and being careful just hasn't entered his mind just yet. Something the young her had exploited.

She won't do the same.

"Doing this will bind us for life." She warns with a frown. "And don't you want to return back to where you came from? Will your parents not miss you?"

He flinches, and immediately she knows something is wrong. "I…I think I'm going to be fine." He tries to smile. It comes out more as a grimace than anything else. "So, yeah, sure. A life in a new world? Might as well take the chance."

Something ugly settles in her gut then. She doesn't know this. She never thought to ask. But why was Saito so willing to stay with her? He'd opted to remain even after she managed to reverse engineer the Summoning Spell and create the World Door. And now she knows. And she feels conflicted.

Because she feels guilty for bringing him into this world, but it's now clear that his own world isn't great either.

She takes a breath. "Very well." She glances down at the wand strapped on her hip. She turns away. She doesn't need her wand. Not anymore.

She gathers the willpower within her, and her fingers glow with the familiar white fluorescent glow of magic. She hears him gasp in shock, and she smiles as she begins drawing out an intricate array, weaving each line over another like a complex piece of clothing. Then, gathering it all together, she shrinks it between her palms and slams her hand shut.

And on the floor below lights a magic circle, slowly spinning beneath their feet. "So I decree this: For let our fate be intertwined as one. For let our souls ring as one. For let my life lay in your hands. For let your life lay in my hands. Shall we walk together upon this road destiny has laid." She looks at him and smiles. "Do you accept these terms, Hiraga Saito?"

He snaps his jaw close, and slowly, he says, "I do."

She closes her eyes. "Then let this contract be done."

The magic circle beneath them fades, and for a moment nothing happens. Then she hears something sizzle, and Saito shouts as he holds his left hand tight. The runes are carving themselves on the back of his hand, one rune at a time, pulling from the dormant willpower beneath his chest.

Then she grimaces as pain burns through her left hand. She turns down to see runes slowly carving themselves on the back of her palm. One identical to the one Saito has. It feels as if someone lit a flame just over her hand, and she manages a pained sigh as the runes finally finish carving themselves.

There is no need to do this. To carve these runes onto herself. But she wants to. Needs to.

It's more apt to say that the contract formed between them is a Mages' Contract more than a Master-Familiar Bond. It is a sharing of power. From her he gains the strength of Gandalfr and the awakening of his latent willpower. From him she gains a protector and a student. A fair trade instead of a collaring. She much prefers this.

But it seems all the pain he experienced has drained what energy he has, and she lets loose a smile as she quickly catches him before he can fall from the chair. She's forgotten that this happened the first time as well. With a small laugh she carries him and drops him onto her bed. Her young, dainty arms shouldn't normally be able to carry someone his size so easily. But some coiling of willpower through her arm easily does the trick.

She groans. She'll need to recover her strength. Her magic may have somewhat carried over, but most of her stronger spells will burn her from the inside if she doesn't get stronger. A pity. Training has never been a thing she particularly enjoys.

But alas, heroes don't get to choose what they can and can't do. For now, the evils lie in wait, and this weak body of hers is too frail to last until the end of the battles.

She glances back at the sleeping boy.

…Well, first, she'll need to grab a meal. She's feeling rather peckish.

Teenagers are horrendous monsters, and she now has the displeasure of facing an entire academy filled with them.

Great.

Not all things are terrible though. She does have food. And she does have a field she can use. All in all, that's enough. And if some upstart noble comes to mock her? She can always fill her arm with willpower and slam their faces into the earth. Not that she would. But she could. If she wants to.

There are classes for her to attend, that she should attend, but she doesn't. Because there is no point for her to. This academy teaches how to use willpower to bend the elements to their will. But that's not something she can do. She will never learn elemental magic. And she doesn't have the desire to either.

Her Void Magic and what few Auxiliary Spells that exist are enough for her. One of her explosions can easily outperform some of the strongest spells a mage can cast. And she can do it with nothing but a flick of her fingers.

Not now, however. This body of hers won't be able to handle such a tremendous surge of willpower. At most, the explosions she can cast would tear through a small house. Exploding entire mountain ranges will have to wait.

And so she trains. Slowly, she builds back the strength she lost. Builds back her body's tolerance for willpower. It's a slow, painful process. Of tearing her muscles and rebuilding them. Of pushing herself far past what should be safe and using her Void Magic to reconstruct her body. To break herself and remake herself better.

Some students will occasionally pass by the empty fields. They'll stare. Some will laugh and mock. They all fall silent when she sets the air alight with tens of explosions. Colbert comes to her, asking why she isn't in class. She'll stare before asking what the point was. He says it is to learn. She says that she's already learnt all she can. He leaves after that.

She trains. She trains even as the sun sets. She trains even as the moon rises. She trains and trains and trains. She goes back for a quick meal at midnight. And then she goes back to the fields and trains again.

She continues the day after, burning herself dry as she slowly reclaims what she lost. Saito awakens just an hour past noon, and she has a maid bring him a meal for him to enjoy. She remembers him being hungry after he first wakes, and she won't let the boy starve himself like she did all those years before.

Eventually, she manages to cast a Silence spell over the little courtyard. Something that'll silence all the noise she'll soon make.

With no one but herself as her audience, she begins the spartan training she'd gone through in her younger years. One she will now do a decade before she first did it in her previous life.

The willpower inside her rages, the previous calm rivers growing into a furious river. She feels pain of untold magnitude, and she sees lines of bright red begin to crawl all over her skin. They glow like veins, and under the sunlight they appear almost like cracks spreading all across her body.

She supposes that isn't wrong.

This is something she learnt from the elves. A technique to push her body beyond its normal threshold. Of bringing her might beyond what is safe. But that strength comes at a cost. Far too much willpower is flooding her body, and it begins to break down, each part shattering as minute explosions.

That is why she waited until she could cast her Silence. All these explosions will no doubt attract some unwanted attention. Then, with her Void Magic, she reconstructs her own body, and everything turns to white noise as she doubles over in pain.

Void Magic is, truly, a misnomer. There is nothing about Void Magic that actually connects it to the Void. Instead, Void Magic was any magic not related to the elements. Magic outside the conventional standards. Each Void Mage has a different sort of magic they are partial to. Joseph of Galia's is Speed. Tiffania's is Memories.

Hers is Deconstruction, and later, Reconstruction. It's why all her spells end in explosions. Because any element she attempts to bring out will immediately be broken down to their most basic form. And that form is Power.

So now there exists a balance inside her body. The breaking down from an overloading of willpower is offset by the reconstruction of her body via her Void Magic. A precarious balance, kept steady through an intense amount of pain. If she isn't who she is, if she hasn't endured being torn apart by the Void, then she would've fallen unconscious and died.

But she doesn't. She bears it all with gritted teeth and a silent grimace. And finally, she begins her training anew.

She trains from noon to dusk, and soon night falls. The Silence spell breaks as she leaves the courtyard. She comes back to her room to find it empty. For a moment, she feels fear grip her. Saito is gone. She fears he's left. That he's a mirage. That everything is a dream. But then she sees the note he left, and she feels her fear drain away.

He's out at the moment. Eating dinner with the maids. It's fine. He's alright. He's simply hungry. He's fine.

Her tension bleeds, and she drops onto her bed. Her eyes fall shut minutes later.

She wakes to find Saito sleeping beside her. She spends a few minutes staring, completely and utterly lost as to what to do. It has been decades since she last found herself in a situation like this, and it takes her a minute to remember that this life is a different one. Slowly, she removes herself from the bed, and grimaces. Everything hurts. It feels like her limbs are on the edge of falling off.

But she feels stronger. It is a painful thing to undergo, but doing so compresses what could've been months of repetitive training into a single day. And for that? Then this pain is a fair price to pay.

She glances at him. He's soundly asleep, and he's mumbling something with a smile on his lips. He looks peaceful, unbothered, young. He looks exactly like what a teenager should look.

A sad smile came onto her lips. The Saito she knew had lost that smile too early.

She'll do her best to make him as comfortable as he can be.

She heads for the cafeteria, dearly hungry after missing out on both lunch and dinner. Hardly anyone is awake by this time, and she takes her blessing gratefully. The maids are surprised when she calmly asks for some food, and their surprise multiplies when she thanks them and carries the plates herself.

As she eats her meal, she thinks. Discrimination is clear here. The nobles easily subject the commoners to whatever whims they have. It's a wound, with an infection that slowly rots as time goes by. And somehow this much is better than how it is outside. She sighs. There are nobles who live up their names, but many don't. Too many.

She finishes her meal and returns to her room. She doesn't train that day, as much as she wants to. She can weather the pain, but her body will crumble under all the stress. This day will be one of resting. Her training can return tomorrow.

Instead, she returns to her room. Saito is still sleeping then, and with a sly smile, she brings up her hand and snaps. A Silence spell is cast. No one will know what happens now.

Then, with willpower swirling in her palms, she claps. The following sound that comes out is a loud, horrid smack, and Saito quickly wakes up in alarm, eyes turning left and right before he finally sees her. His jaw falls for a moment, surprised, before his cheeks turn a bright red. "Um," He begins, a weak smile forming. "Sorry?"

She frowns, confused at his apology, before she realizes he's most likely speaking about how he slept on her bed. "For what?" She asks anyway. He looks down at the bed and points at it. She smiles. "There's no need to apologize for that. As I mentioned, this room of mine is wholly unfit to house another person. Sharing a bed is fine."

"But-, uh, isn't is…weird?" He grimaces. "Like, you know, a boy and a girl sleeping together?"

She frowns. "It is weird if you make it." She says. "I have no issues with sharing my bed. It is just a bed, after all." And it is. She's slept on surfaces far worse, slept in spaces far more cramped. Sharing this luxurious bed with a boy isn't something new. "I'll do my best to find another bed soon. Or maybe even give you a room of your own."

"A-A room? For me?"

"Well, yes. All mages will receive a room in this academy."

He blinks. "But, I'm-, not a mage?"

She grins. "Who says?" She throws her wand to him. He fumbles and it drops onto his lap. "Use that wand. Try to cast something." He stares, and she blinks. Right. He's new. He doesn't even know how casting works. "Think of a weapon. Imagine firing it."

"Uh-, okay?" He closes his eyes, eyebrows scrunching, and sees him mumbling something as he brings up the wand. Nothing happens for a few seconds, before, suddenly, light begins to gather at the tip. Slowly he opens his eyes. "Nothing happened-, woah!?" Then, like a bullet let loose from a rifle, the light shoots off with a thunderous clap, racing straight for her head.

She quickly floods her hand with willpower and smashes the orb of willpower apart. It shatters in a shower of white light.

"Well," She begins. "I'd say something happened, didn't it?" She smiles. "Congratulations. You are now a mage."

"Uh-, sorry."

She frowns. "Why?"

"Uh-, I shot you?"

She shrugs. "I've experienced worse." The boy stares then, unsure of what to say, and she sighs. "No, truly. I have." She doesn't elaborate any further.

…

"Well, it's nearly time for class." She says with a small smile. "Get ready in a couple minutes. We'll be heading for our first class." Slowly, he nods. He tries to hand the wand back to her, but she simply pushes it back to him. "I don't need it." She says, and though reluctant, he takes the wand as his own.

And as he creates another orb of willpower with his wand, she turns away, lest he sees the broken smile on her lips.

The spark of excitement in his eyes. The clear smile he has on his cheeks. She remembers being like that once. Remembers learning magic for the sake of learning. But that her is gone. Torn and burnt away as Halkegenia descends into chaos.

She takes a breath. She doesn't really know what will happen now. Saito has become a mage. A commoner has become a mage. If the world knows of this, chaos will ensue. And if the world knows that she is the one who caused it, then she can easily imagine what will follow.

She has no particular feeling about it. If enemies try to kill her for allowing a commoner to become a mage, then she eagerly waits. If the commoners come to her hoping to become a mage, then she will help them as best as she can.

Because, in the end, she has faced all of this. She has faced opposing nobles. She has faced armies of soldiers. She has faced beasts and monsters. She has fallen into the Void. She is the one to bring down the adversary of the Void. She has faced all that. And she has survived.

So come. She thinks; a declaration against the world. Lay your bodies before me. Spill your blood upon me. I have taken it all before. I will bear this burden again.

"Are you ready?" She asks Saito. He nods. She smiles. "Then let us leave."

…..

To say that everyone was surprised when Saito appeared was an understatement. And everything promptly exploded when he displayed that he was capable of transmuting stone into a pile of copper. "A commoner can cast magic!" They say, before it turns to, "The Zero has summoned a noble!" Because their common sense can't accept that a commoner can even wield magic, and she lets their assumptions run wild as she calmly sits at the back of the theater.

She is quickly forgotten.

Or, at least, she assumes so, until Tabitha suddenly sits by her left. She turns to the quiet girl. Tabitha remains fixed on the book she's been reading all throughout the lecture. She shrugs and returns to watching Saito attempt to waddle through the chaos he'd accidentally created.

…Now that she's here, she remembers something. Charlotte. That is her real name. The princess of Galia, turned into an attack dog by the mad Joseph. Doing all she can to one day find a way to cure her maddened mother. A madness brought about by a poison her mother drank to save Tabitha from drinking it.

A poison made by elves.

For a moment she contemplates what to do about it. Given time, she can certainly heal Tabitha's mother. She can eventually brew a potion to counteract the madness. Or even use her own Void Magic to deconstruct the artificial madness. But doing so will bring about consequences. Both choices.

Brewing an antidote will oust her. Many will come to ask where she learnt of that knowledge, and once they learn that the madness was brought about by an elven poison, she will be chained by suspicion.

Using her Void Magic will mean putting herself out as a Void Mage. She will gain protection from Tristain, and enmity from all other nations. They will come to try and take her, and as confident as she is in herself, she doesn't know if Tristain can bear all the duress it'll suffer if that scenario is to come.

In the end, she doesn't decide anything. She leans back and simply waits as time goes by.

Saving Tabitha's mother will have to wait.

…

By the end of the day, Saito is given a room of his own, and enlisted into the Academy as a mage. Saito is overjoyed. The commoners he interacted with are just as happy. The students are surprised. Only Tabitha is suspicious.

She doesn't show it, of course. But Louise has known Tabitha long enough to see the slight crease on her lips. The way her eyes would inconspicuously turn to her when she thinks she isn't looking. Louise doesn't mind it. Her caution is natural. Because she is acting too calm for someone whose familiar can use magic while she herself can't.

It doesn't matter in the end. Saito is beginning to learn how to use magic, and she now has privacy. And it isn't as if Tabitha will barge into her room to pull for answers. She's too shy for that.

Midnight soon comes, and she takes another hour watching the stars glimmer before she sleeps.

She wakes early the next day. She goes down for breakfast. The maids are, again, surprised at her politeness, and she heads back to the courtyard. She casts a Silence spell over it, and with a breath her willpower rages. Cracks spread all across her skin, and pain fills her mind. Her body begins to break down, and her Void Magic works to reconstruct what has died.

And then her training begins anew.

A week later, she's surprised to hear about how Count Mott stormed out of the Academy. She then learns that he came with the intention of 'hiring' Siesta. His request was then denied, because Siesta works for Saito, who now is officially a mage. Angered but unwilling to fight for it, he leaves.

She's honestly forgotten that this happened. But she's pleased with the outcome. Siesta doesn't get taken. And Saito doesn't need to injure himself trying to save her. Their peace is kept for a little longer.

Then another week goes by, and the Familiars Exhibition is a day's away Henrietta will arrive at noon to watch the new familiars the student has brought. And as the exhibition ends, Foquet will arrive to steal the weapon Osmond has hidden inside the Academy's Vault. It'll lead to them chasing the thief, finding out that Longueville is Fouquet all along, and Saito using his runes to use the weapon and bring Fouquet down.

Or it doesn't have to.

Because now she has a choice. Does she let the events play out as it did, or does she take on Fouquet. There is no telling what'll happen to Saito if she lets him fight her. He doesn't have Delflinger. He is an amateur mage instead.

But Louise? Fouquet is a Triangle Mage, but she is a thief. She is not a fighter. She can use her explosions to bring her down, and there will be little suspicion cast her way. After all, explosions are all Louise de La Valliere can do.

She spends her day training, and as night falls, she returns to her room and simply waits. If everything goes as it did, Henrietta will soon appear by her doorstep. And she does.

She opens the door, and there, standing in a dress Louise hasn't seen in decades, with a face far too young to be the queen of Tristain, Henrietta smiles. "Good evening, Louise."

And for a moment, she stays silent, overwhelmed by wonder over just how everything has returned. Of how everything looks as she remembers it through those rose-tinted eyes. "Good evening, princess." She eventually replies. "Please, come in."

Henrietta pouts. "Mou, call me Henrietta!"

She smiles. "Well, that wouldn't be fitting for the princess, would it?"

Her friend smiles then, and Louise pulls back the chair from her desk and sits on it. Henrietta sits on the edge of her bed instead, curiously glancing around at her room. "It feels…homely." She says, and Louise barely manages to restrain a wry laugh.

"I believe you meant 'bare'."

Henrietta grimaces, having been called out. "That is far too blunt, I think. I would say 'quaint' would fit better."

The talk moves on. Henrietta asks how her life in the Academy has been, and with what little she remembers about her younger days, she begins to speak. Most are probably not true, but they're close enough. And she doesn't bother hiding how her younger self had been bullied for being unable to cast anything but explosions.

Henrietta, bless her, is understandably appalled, and swears to talk with the headmaster about this. She quickly stops the princess from going on her crusade and explains that it doesn't bother her. Henrietta reluctantly agrees.

They then talk about the upcoming Familiars Exhibition, and Louise bluntly states that she isn't joining. Henrietta blinked before she asked why. Louise shrugs. "My familiar is a mage. There is little to show about that." And she wants to see when Fouquet will appear, but she doesn't say that. The princess is, understandably, intrigued by it. She mentions Saito, and how he's been enlisted as a student in the Academy.

Soon, Henrietta needs to leave, and they share one last hug before they part. Louise manages to hold herself long enough to cast a Silence spell before she drops onto her knees and screams. Because it's finally sunk in. Because now she knows that she isn't going to meet the people she's come to know. Because she isn't meeting her family again.

So she screams. She screams, but she doesn't cry. She doesn't grieve. She knows they're still alive. Somewhere. Somewhen. They may be worlds apart now, but she knows they're alive, that all the memories they share are true. And for the moment, that is enough.

She eventually picks herself up and drops onto the bed, thoroughly exhausted. She falls asleep in seconds.