"Then allow us to prove it," The third prince stated, self-assuredness radiating from him like a cape of royalty "Let us decide if we're old enough to deal with this mess you people are most certainly not equipped to."

"You talk as if you've seen our work." Dan replied, neither his voice nor his face betrayed any discomfort at being talked down by the prince. He did show a troubled expression, but he had worn it since the beginning "Nicol, is this how you feel as well?"

No. That wasn't the case.

"Yes." But he couldn't back down now. He survived, barely, but anyone else… They wouldn't be so lucky.

His father sighed.

"I see this is karma," Dan covered his eyes "So this is how I looked when I was your age…"

His smile was bitter, but Hachiman only had a moment to notice before he realized an eerie aura was emanating from the man.

"Guess we only ever learn from our own mistakes." The Ascart patriarch stood up. Both the prince and Hachiman had backed away without realizing "So be it. As the Prime Minister I shall grant you your wish: One chance to prove centuries of work and research are now obsolete, and that this generation can already be entrusted with the darkness that encroaches the magic of this world."

Hachiman raised his hand. He didn't like the sound of it, the sheer emotion the man talked with. He wanted to believe if he spoke now, his father would let him back down. He hadn't understood the gravity of what they had done until Dan Ascart stopped pulling his punches. Dan raised a hand, one of his many rings flashing with green light and Hachiman's spell became undone before he could finish building it up.

The studio flashed with different colors. Statues and paintings that looked like simple decorations coming to life with magical energy to absorb the backlash of the dispersed magic. Hachiman didn't have time to turn to the prince, but he understood he had placed too much trust in this so-called genius.

His father looked on the border of tears all the while.

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on you. You are still a child, after all." The dark miasma swallowed Hachiman, light, senses, and even time getting away from him like they never existed. Only the void remained "You just need to see for yourself what you're dealing with."

He should have stayed in bed that day.

Campbell's magic didn't knock him out, that was all his doing. When the memories flooded back to the forefront of his mind, Hachiman was overwhelmed with the sense of failure. He felt as he had in his previous life, alone and lost, unable to do anything but crawl between his sheets and let the feeling drain naturally. Except he was in someone else's house, and there was no bed to crawl on. He ended up on the floor, hugging his knees with the same sense of loss of an animal attack survivor. Someone this close to a terrible end to the point nothing would ever be the same.

He didn't quite recognize his mother coming upstairs and sitting besides him. But he did recognize her embrace and slow caressing of his hair. Her fingers tracing straight lines on his head while his mind swirled into something ugly. It helped him anchor himself, but it still took time for the guilt to subside enough for him to take in his surroundings.

It was all his fault. Nothing of this should have happened. Had he known his place… Had he not listened to Stuart he could have…

"There, there." His mother's tender voice helped him keep himself in the here and now. To not go back to being the Hikigaya Hachiman from the other world "Everything's alright, everything's fine."

"Nicol-sama?" Claes' voice made Hachiman face the people surrounding him. Her mother, as well as her friends were looking at him with the kind of pity one showed to a hurt animal. He closed his eyes, trying to disperse the idea, but it was hard to do so now.

"I'm fine." He lied, trying really hard not to think of Sophia. And whether he feared more if she had been altered like Alan and Hachiman or if she hadn't.

Dammit. Damn this world, damn the stupid student council president, damn Hachiman himself for thinking he was someone because he was reborn with status and power.

He wasn't, never would be. He was still the silent kid that was too scared to ask his classmates for their notes even if he was close to failing the subject.

Hachiman sighed. He didn't feel better, but that direction was familiar to him. Bearable. He had spent years knowing this much, and doubling down on it now didn't change anything.

He stood back up.

"Is it true?" Campbell was the first to speak "What Radea-sama told us… Is that the truth?"

Hachiman turned to see his mother giving him a hand and he obliged, helping her stand up while he ruminated on the question.

"I didn't hear most of it, but yes." He could have lied there, but he didn't have the strength to come up with something believable. Nor did he deserve to be scot free from the consequences.

Campbell frowned, eyes downcast and her hands shaking slightly. She was in the right, of course. The princes almost attacked her because of Hachiman's idiocy, after all. He braced himself for recrimination, perhaps even a hit when she realized she could have been hurt because of him.

"I see." Campbell breathed in a lungful of air and backed away. Hachiman saw her get away from the nobles alone, with Claes indecisive if she should go after her.

The brunette looked really hurt too.

"I…" Alan spoke up, scratching the back of his head to buy himself a bit of time to think "I have to apologize to her."

"It is fine." The Ascart matriarch spoke softly "Alan-sama cannot be faulted for action taken when he was out of his mind. I'm sure Maria-san will understand."

The prince smiled bitterly.

"I still should say something." He replied just as softly.

"That is so." Hachiman's mom stated.

He turned to her, already knowing the answer, but her carefree expression demanded him to ask.

"Did you…?"

"Yes." Her smile cracked a bit "Dan knows better than anyone else the dangers of what he did, and I'd have opposed with all my strength if I didn't have a safeguard at hand. I trust him, but decisions taken as the Prime Minister aren't always the same as the ones taken as a father."

I'll go easy on you.

Hachiman shivered. He wanted to believe his father had indeed not known how to hold back, because otherwise Hachiman would be faced with horrors he didn't want to think about.

He really, really hated the idea of working with the Ministry all the more now.

"Nicol." Claes-sama's expression was as hard as stone, her tone severe like she was talking to Claes after catching her on her antics. It was incredibly off-putting, to have that tone be sent his way for the first time ever "You are incredibly foolish."

Nothing he didn't know already.

"While I'm thankful for what you've done for my family, I cannot in good conscience encourage you to keep taking the same decisions as you did now. Even if you did it for my Keith's safety." That was part of it, but not the whole thing. Not like Hachiman was going to correct her "It seems like I was mistaken, that in comparing you to Katarina I mistakenly believed you to be developed beyond your age."

Hachiman was older. He would probably be an adult by now. The fact that he was still making mistakes like a teenager was nothing if not…

Claes-sama hugged him, interrupting his thoughts.

"A lot of people could have been hurt by your choices, child." Her voice was still severe, but somehow warm all the same "I know not if it's worth anything, but you'll have to forgive me. If I burdened you with the responsibility of growing up too fast for our sake, please forgive me."

"You're all growing up wonderfully." His mother intervened, voice soft but hands firm in separating Hachiman from Claes' mother "I'm sorry if my Nicol troubled you too much, this won't happen again. Right?"

The question was directed to him. Hachiman's stomach turned.

"No. It won't." He eyed Alan, Hunt, and Claes. They all looked troubled, but Hachiman couldn't fault them. He… He almost couldn't look them in the eye.

"I already knew Nicol-sama's shortcomings." Hunt stated with a sigh, only some of her usual bite present in her voice "I… I'll excuse myself."

"Thank you for your support." Radea nodded.

Hunt's expression contorted "I could never not do it."

"You'll have to apologize." His mother commented when Hunt was gone "It was pretty funny to see that child acting, but it would not have been for her."

Hachiman scoffed. How could that woman talk about fun when she saw all of them make fools of themselves like they had?

"I know."

"Nii-sama." Sophia smiled thinly at him, a bit of worry in her eyes but she otherwise looked the least affected.

"Sophia." Hachiman swallowed the knot in his throat. He had to know "Did you…?"

Sophia raised a hand, a small necklace wrapped around her fingers with a gem the size of her thumb as the main decoration. It was pale, but traces of golden light could be seen coming out from its core from time to time.

"I don't know if it worked." She spoke slowly, as if Hachiman would bite her if she did so too fast "But I took Nii-sama's words to heart and did my best to protect myself."

"Where did you get that from?" Hachiman smiled bitterly. He should have procured it for her, should have stopped to think maybe going to challenge his father about the dark magic wasn't the best idea ever.

Sophia turned to Alan.

"Alan-sama gave it to me."

Hachiman stayed silent. He supposed he had no room to complain, but something in the way the prince avoided his gaze didn't sit well with him.

"So, huh…" Claes' voice interrupted his thoughts again. She looked unsure, oddly shy for the girl Hachiman knew "What will happen to Gerald-sama?"

Yes, the prince still had the effect in him. No, Hachiman had no idea how to break it without Campbell doing so.

"That, I do not know." Radea answered, still as calm as she had while hugging Hachiman "I ignore if Dan placed a timer on the spell, or if it is meant to be forcefully dispelled by a third party in case Gerald-sama is unable to break it himself."

"Radea?" Claes' mother frowned, taken aback by how careless that admision sounded. The Ascart matriarch shrugged.

"Gerald-sama is no child of mine. And, if I can speak honestly, neither is he the candidate I'd favor among the Stuart." She smiled at Alan and Sophia, and her daughter snapped her face the other way immediately "Dan is the one that should deal with that. I only got myself involved because it pertained to Nicol."

"I… I see…" Claes clearly didn't like the answer, if her downcast expression was any indication "Wait. What about Keith, then?"

"What about him?" Radea parroted "Rest assured, Keith is fine. He is not being 'trained' if that's what you're fearing."

Hachiman did not like the way his mother said that. Nor did the Claes.

"I remember getting him to the Ministry." Hachiman spoke up, taking some of the heat towards himself "He's safe. It's no different from being in his own room."

Claes perked up a bit at that "That's good."

Then her expression changed again, making even Alan grow suspicious of what she was thinking about.

"Claes?" Hachiman fell back to old patterns, warning the girl to not do something stupid. Even if he didn't have that right anymore.

"Please let me see him!" The brunette raised her hands in an oddly girly motion, right below her chin "It's fine if it's incognito, we can sneak in and…"

"Dammit, Claes." Hachiman groaned "No, we're not sneaking in there. I'll ask if you can visit."

Claes blinked "Is it that simple?"

"It isn't." His mother clarified "But, y'know…"

"The Prime Minister is my dad." Hachiman smirked bitterly "And I have to talk to him anyway."

Yeah, he wasn't looking forward to the 'told you so'. Nor to seeing the man in person anytime soon. Some things weren't erased with just saying 'I'm sorry' and Hachiman didn't know if either of them was in the right mental place to say it first.

After all, the day the prince and Hachiman went to confront Dan, they had barged in on a meeting with all the department heads.

It wasn't fair, but the selfish part of Hachiman wished it all went wrong for them as well. His hands still shook at the idea of the Ascart patriarch holding the power to rewrite his whole being, after all.