Two shadows flashed through the moonlit night, heading towards the north. The Phrontistery of Scientific Reasoning had set up camp near the troops of the Mortal Light Republic, and that was Gaius’ destination.

Following behind him closely was Xanadu, who he had extended an invitation to. Their arrangements were simple; the Phantom Blade, who was going to vanish soon, would spend her last days in peace with Nakama and Isabelle. Frankly, Gaius thought that she should have been honoured by the entire world a few times over, but it seemed that he wasn’t the first to ask her about it.

The Pinnacle’s suggestion of a pompous ceremony had been rejected, and one reason why Xanadu was so keen on going with Gaius was to pre-empt any sort of ceremony from happening.

“Still,” mused Gaius, “it’s a bit sad, isn’t it? To just up and vanish like that.”

“I was never meant to exist in the first place,” she replied. “Did you know? I was supposed to steal something from the phrontistery, but now that the Constellations have been wiped out, there’s no point in me doing that. I’m not receiving any more guidance now either, no more instructions. The others are vanishing too, one by one.”

She looked up at the moon. “I wonder when my turn will come.”

“You won’t be lonely. This I promise,” Gaius replied. “I cannot promise much, but we’ll be by your side to the very end. You will not be forgotten. Years later, books will record the presence of heroes, whose entire existence was for the sake of Orb. Kolya will gladly record this hidden history for everyone’s sake.”

“That is heartening to hear.” She smiled at the moon. “Thank you.”

Her white hair, which had taken on a silvery slant under the moonlight, fluttered madly as the two dived down into their camping grounds for the first few weeks of the field trip. The field trip was ending soon, which was another reason Gaius wasn’t going to watch the rest of the conference live.

No. He was intending to make sure nothing untoward happened on the return trip, and then teleport back to the Central Circle. Once done, he would wait for the Pinnacle’s clue, and then ambush the Eastern Paragons as they left the Central Circle.

It was convoluted, but it couldn’t be helped. So long as the students — or rather, Nakama and Isabelle— were around, Gaius wasn’t going to stir up any conflict. A single stray shot from a Paragon would lead to untold tragedy, which was why Gaius had eventually desisted from even attempting to assassinate Paragon Shizo.

Furthermore, there were ordinary people on the Central Circle too, taking up really normal jobs like cooks or administrative staff. Getting them killed just for revenge left a sour taste in his mouth whenever he even considered contemplating it, and after a while, he’d gave up. For some reason, harming innocents in the course of work didn’t gel with him at all.

“Still, Isabelle might get mad at me,” Gaius mumbled gloomily. “It’s like she’s prescient or something.”

“How so?”

Gaius thought back to the time when Isabelle warned him not to go bring back Xanadu as another retainer or employee, and then forced a grin out. “Let’s just say that she saw today happening, and leave it at that.”

Xanadu had question marks all over her face, but she fortunately didn’t continue down that topic. Gaius had contemplated finding some male guards and retainers to help his little family with their daily life, but Nakama and Isabelle were girls. What these guards could do, Gaius could do too, and what he couldn’t do, those guards couldn’t either.

The Phantom Blade, however, had met his expectations perfectly, so he hired her as a live-in guard. There were no other reasons to it. It was definitely not because he felt sad for Xanadu and her fate. Definitely not.

By the time he processed this line of logic to its very end, the boy had landed in front of his tent. Instead of bursting in, however, he rang the bell at the side — he hadn’t forgotten the bathroom incident over at the Kusanagis’ ferry — and waited with Xanadu outside.

“Give me a moment!” Isabelle replied.

“Sure, sure.” Gaius looked around the tent, and thought of Heritage Basestation. The Intersection was perpetually snowing, and as a result, little snowmen had surrounded his tent there. Here, there wasn’t anything for Nakama to make, so the tent’s vicinity had remained depressing empty.

“Where’s your tent?” Gaius asked.

“Don’t have one,” Xanadu replied. “They whisked me off as soon as we arrived, remember?”

“True.” Gaius smiled calmly; he wasn’t going to reveal that he hadn’t noticed much for the duration of the field trip. Most of his days had been spent tinkering with artefacts and researching qi channels, and as a result, the hours had melded together. If the Pinnacle hadn’t picked him up… well, the conference might have come and went without him even noticing all that much.

It was rather scary, now that he thought about it.

The tent flaps opened, and a golden-haired head popped out. “Welcome back.”

A smaller, black-haired head popped out a moment later. “Welcome back!”

Gaius smiled. “I’m back.”

“And I see you brought a new retainer along,” Isabelle said, her eyes shifting over to Xanadu. “I kinda saw it coming when I heard her speech; there’s this lovable idiot near me who has some compulsion to help people for some reason.”

Gaius didn’t know to answer that, but he was quite sure that Isabelle was rating him too lightly. Clearing his throat, he said, “She’ll be your bodyguard from now, although her powers will dwindle over time. Take good care of her, okay?”

“Will do.” Isabelle pulled Xanadu into the tent, but stopped Gaius from entering. “We’ll be giving her a good wash-up, so go wander around outside first. Our items have already been packed, don’t worry.”

With an air of rejection, the tent flap closed. Gaius stared at it in disbelief, and then decided to find some shop to sit down at.