"So... Let me make sure if I got all this correctly..." Sabiri mumbled as she gazed at the kids inside her personal office room.

The empress was holding her forehead while sitting on her chair as she processed all the information Saramin, Kurt, Trevor, and Nala shared about the events that took place today.

All four were taking a seat on a sofa right in front of the woman and were all acting as stiff as one could be given the situation.

"So one of your brothers dragged you into a dungeon and kept you all locked in there by using one of the students as a hostage, and he wouldn't let any of you go unless you played into his silly game? Which resulted in all those kids getting injured, two ended up losing their lives, Saramin somehow found her trigger even though she never killed anyone, and Kurt... Declared that he would be the next emperor??"

"Pretty much... Yeah..." Kurt nodded. He decided to be the one to speak as he was afraid anyone else could end up becoming the target of his mother's anger.

"You know, now that I think about it, a lot happened today, didn't it...?" Saramin mumbled.

"To think one of the emperor's sons would be so daring as to pull off something like this" Sabiri continued as her gaze drifted away, showing that many worries were starting to enter her head, "You sure your father had nothing to do with this?"

"Pretty sure," Kurt confirmed, "Hugh just kept going on and on about how one can only be strong through pain or something. He was determined on not letting us go until he engraved this message in our brains."

"I see... That kid always was hard to predict, but I still never expected him to put so many in danger for such a silly reason..."

Saramin began to wonder if there might be more than that, "Was it really just a silly reason?"

The other kids as well Kurt's mother suddenly began to stare at her.

"What do you mean?" Nala asked.

Sarah noticed the gazes but just continued with her theory, "Hugh didn't seem to just want to pass on a message. He seemed desperate. Almost as if... As if something bad might happen in case Kurt didn't unlock his dragon form."

"You think there might be a deeper meaning behind his actions?" Trevor wondered.

"I don't know..." Saramin admitted, "I honestly always did my best to avoid the guy. And he didn't seem all that interested in me either. But he did seem very interested in Kurt. Almost obsessed."

This time Kurt was the target of everyone's gazes. He began to wonder if Saramin might be right and that there might be more behind Hugh's story.

Kurt really didn't want to get involved with his brother anymore after all that he did to him and his friends. Many dragons got hurt, two ended up killed, the school was basically destroyed, and that was just from what happened today.

He already knew that Hugh ordered the ambush on him during his first day of school as well as the fact that he was one of the dragons that took part in the sacrifice ceremony, meaning he at some point took a kid's life in order to obtain his dragon form.

The more Kurt thought about it, the more he couldn't help but think that the lad was just messed up in the head. But at the same time, was it really the right choice to just push him away the way he did?

His words back then, , were they the right words?

"What is on your mind, Kurt?" Sabiri asked while noticing her son's eyes wavering.

"I... I don't know if I did the right thing..." he confessed while looking down.

"About what?" Trevor asked.

"About not trying to understand Hugh more."

Nala raised an eyebrow, "Did you want to understand Hugh?"

"I don't want to... But if I want to change the way things are... Doesn't that mean I should?" he commented while thinking about the small declaration he made, "If I really am to become the next emperor... Doesn't that mean I need to know where everyone is coming from?"

a faint memory spoke in his head.

"I should have asked more questions..."

"Are you serious!!??" Nala suddenly stood up while glaring at him, startling the entire room, "That guy is a murderer!! He killed innocents and nearly got us killed as well just to pull off a stupid prank!! My brother could have been one of his victims!! And now you wanna tell me you wish had sympathized with him more??"

"I never say I want to sympathize with him!!" Kurt shouted back, also standing up, "I said I should have tried to understand him!"

"Understand a murderer!!?"

"Understand someone that was pushed into becoming a murderer!!" Kurt replied, "Nobody is just born evil! I'm sure something must have happened to make him the way he is now. And if I don't know what caused that, it will just keep happening again!"

"You know the cause already! We all know!!" Nala started to raise her voice and stomp her way towards Kurt, "You even said it yourself! Our world is messed up! We live in a society where we need to kill in order to survive!"

"It can't be that simple!!"

"It is that simple!! The faster you accept that the faster you will realize how stupid the things you're saying sound like!!" Nala finally finished saying before decreasing her density and phasing through the floor while still emerged in her own rage.

Everyone present just remained staring at the spot where she vanished wondering if they should wait for her to return.

"What's her deal...?" Kurt mumbled.

"Hold on... I'll talk to her" Trevor commented before bowing to the empress out of respect and diving into the ground after his sister.

Saramin simply pulled Kurt's hand to have him sit down again and try to relax.

"Did I say something wrong?" he wondered.

"Well..." Sarah spoke, "You gotta try to place yourself in her shoes. Again, her brother almost died during the sacrifice ceremony and also today during Hugh's little game. She's probably not that eager to hear that there might be some grander reason for this to happen.

From the perspective of someone related to the victim, it sounded like you were trying to justify the actions of someone who committed a crime."

"What!?" Kurt gasped, "That wasn't what I was trying to say at all!"

Saramin simply shrugged, "Doesn't matter. She's in a sensitive place right now and the wrong words can cause a big reaction.

Words are dangerous. And which words you use, how you use them, and who you use them on can have plenty of different outcomes. Saying that you should have tried to understand more why your crazy brother is such a crazy brother to someone who hates crazy people probably made her feel a little disgusted."

"Ugh..." Kurt simply groned while melting in his seat.

Just when he thought he was acting with more maturity and being more responsible by reflecting on his actions, he ends up having to deal with something like this.

Just once he wishes he could find a way to make things work out for everyone, the same way it did when he had the team battle with Saramin's group. Both sides came out from that happy with the situation.

Why couldn't real life play out just like that game? Was Park right after all in thinking he was delusional?

"You can't please everyone, Kurt" Sabiri commented while staring at his distress.

She was quietly observing how things were unfolding and waiting to see where it was going to go before offering her input. Of course, she decided to do so the moment her son started to look depressed.

"If you keep waiting for everyone to be on board with your decisions before you take action you will never do anything in life. Just let the girl deal with her anger herself."

"You don't think she's right?" he wondered.

"There is no such a thing as 'right' or 'wrong' in life. There are just decisions. Some decisions will affect only you, and some will affect those around you. It's all about whether or not you are able to deal with the consequences of each of them.

You could have tried to talk more with Hugh and learn more about why he wants to make you unlock your form so bad, but doing so would mean leaving those that were in danger to remain in danger.

In the end, you were forced to choose either him or them and you choose them. Now all that remains is to see if both the rewards and the losses you received from the choice you make were worth it. Do you have any regrets?"

Kurt began to consider it. If he had tried to chat more with Hugh, could they have reached some sort of understanding and maybe even convinced him to let them all go safe and sound? The boy tried to picture it, but he just couldn't see it. Hugh looked like the kind of person who wasn't so easily moved by words alone, and Kurt himself was not someone that good with words in the first place.

The only time he ever won a debate was against Dorothy when she dragged him into this new world, and he was pretty sure he just got lucky that time.

"No..." he finally answered, "I don't regret my choice."

"I'm glad" Sabiri commented, "Someone that keeps walking while always looking back tends to have trouble making it very far."

Saramin glanced at the mother and son having a moment and couldn't help but feel a pinch of jealousy as she wishes she would also have someone to teach her these kinds of lessons.

"With that said..." Sabiri continued, "I do believe we have other issues to discuss..."

Kurt and Sarah exchanged a glance.

"My son, you are aware of what your statement meant, correct?"

"I do..." Kurt replied as he started to picture the face of his wide-eyed, wild-red-haired, smiling sister, "It means I just picked a fight with her... Didn't I?"

"You did..." Sabiri sighed, "Of all the things you could do... I should execute these two bodyguards for ever allowing you to go that far. They should have just grabbed you and taken you away from that dungeon! That's literally why I even hired them! They can phase you away from places or serve as meatshields! And yet they couldn't do either!"

"Mom, come on, don't say that... They shouldn't even be doing that in the first place! They're kids just like me, and they had to give up their own lives just to stay by my side! Don't you think they are doing enough already?"

Sabiri pressed her fingers against her ching and just pondered for a moment, "Not really, no..."

"Seriously?"

"You think I'm being heartless?" she asked, "Keep in mind that I might have hired them to take care of you, but their fates could always have been much worse than what they have now.

They could have fallen into her hands... And who knows what she could have done to them?"

Kurt and Saramin exchanged a glance as they both could see the empress starting to look rater stressed out as she kept thinking about this certain someone.

Sabiri simply gazed at her window and began to imagine those disturbing pair of eyes looking back at her from deep within the night sky.

"Who knows what she is doing now..."