Some later, after taking care of myself, I walk down the stairs of the Boar Hat and wear a new outfit that someone placed on my bed. My black dress is ruined from the attacks and basically shred to pieces. I find all of Meliodas' friends sitting in the tavern with worried and sad looks on their faces. A few of them lift their heads when I join them but most of them just look at their hands in sadness, shame and worry. It's making me sad to see them like that and I wish I could cheer them up but to be honest, I feel just like them.

I know they would have helped Meliodas if they had been able to. But to be honest, they really wouldn't have stood a chance. Even I was lucky to get off so lightly.

"Whoever created this outfit, you outdid yourself!" I say happily to distract the group and turn to present my entire outfit and then see King blush. "Is that from you?" I ask him.

"Well... Merlin helped" the fairy king says shily.

"Thank you so much" I say to him. "I love it!"

"You sure look good in it" Ban says without even looking at me. I go behind the bar and look through Meliodas' range of wine bottles until I find a wine whose taste I know all too well. It's from a small province behind the Castle of Camelot. I open two of the bottles with a small smile on my lips when I think back to those better days and pour each one a glass. I walk around the tables and serve it while the group looks at me startled.

"Hey guys, I know you're worried. But Meliodas is upstairs and alive. It won't help us making long faces."

The room is quiet for a moment before Gilthunder raises his head. "Lady Yami, when you saved Sir Meliodas earlier ... These attacks. Were those your magical powers?"

"Yes, they were" I announce.

"But ... you were so strong" Diane mumbles worriedly to herself and I'm sure it's a lot for her to take in since she missed all the explaining about Meliodas and my past.

"How can it be that you could defeat the demon so quickly when Sir Meliodas hardly stood a chance?"

"I didn't beat Estarossa" I admit. "I just knocked him out for a few seconds so that Meliodas and I could escape."

"But how was that possible?" asks Gilthunder and I feel everyone's eyes on me now.

"It almost seemed as if you knew each other" Howzer says. "How can that be?"

"Idiot" Hendrickson mumbled and hit Howzers back of the head. "She mentioned living with the demons, don't you remember?"

I sigh and take a sip of my wine. "Well, I think it's time to tell you the whole story" I say. "Let me introduce myself correctly. I'm Yami, Mistress of the darkness and therefore the absolute counterpart to Lion Sin Escanor." It's only when the words have left my mouth, that I realize how stupid I just sounded. Still, everyone gasps in shock and sits there with their mouth wide open.

"H-how's that possible?" stutters Howzer and the still skinny version of Escanor looks at me with fear in his eyes.

"How to explain... There is a matching counterpart for everything in life. Life and death, earth and fire, young and old... Life consists of opposites that find their harmony. And since Escanor uses the power of the sun, there has to be someone that uses the power of the..."

"Moon!" Howzer exclaims but just gets hit by Hendrickson again.

I chuckle. "Probably. But what's light without darkness?"

"Lady Yami, you said that Escanors power comes from the sun...?" Gilthunder asks confused and I realize that they haven't actually seen his powers just yet.

"Oh, right..." I chuckle another time, rubbing the back of my head pudently.

"Escanors power is the strongest of all Deadly Sins. At least, when it's daytime. It rises and falls with the sun. Means, he's strongest during noon" Merlin explain and Escanor blushes by the many mentions of his name.

"Wait. That's so confusing. If Escanor is getting stronger during daytime, why is he still looking like that?" asks Gilthunder.

"W-w-well, L-lady M-Merlin gave me these g-g-glasses" Escanors stutters, his cheeks turning red.

"They're special glasses to help him controll his powers. It's similar to the wristband that I made for Gowther."

"Does that mean that he gets stronger when he puts down his glasses?" Hawk asks.

"If it's daytime, yes" says Merlin.

"I think I got it..." Gilthunder mumbles and Howzer nods in agreement.

"But ... what does that mean for Escanor? If you're... like the opposite of him?" asks Hawk.

"Are you stronger than Escanor or weaker?" Hendrickson asks me.

I grin at the piggy on the floor. "I'd like to have Hawk check this out, but like Escanor, my power level changes too."

"Does that mean you become a similar weakling during the day?" asks Ban.

"Hey Ban, that was not nice!" scolds Hawk.

"Well, Ban, I think we can all be sure that my physical appearance has not changed during the day. Even if Escanors and my powers are similar, they are not the same. As you know, I am only half a demon. And there's always a certain kind of darkness during the day, even if it's just a shadow. So my powers are not depending on the form of the day, although the onset of night intensifies them anyway."

I give the group around me a few seconds to process the new informations before moving on. "Now to your question, Howzer. It is indeed true. I know Estarossa and the Ten Commandments. As you already know, I am a good 5.000 years old. What you do not know is what I did during that time." I take another sip of my wine while everyone looks at me excitedly and interested.

"My mother kicked me out shortly after my powers surfaced. It started slowly and it always happened unexpectedly. When the proportions of my bursts of powers got too big, she told me who I really was. I don't know what happened afterwards. When I woke up the next day, I was in this unknown and frightening environment. I had heard stories about this place, so I knew exactly where I was. But to this day I don't know how I got there. And I knew where my powers came from but I still didn't know how they worked. By now, I know they fed on my negative feelings. The more scared I got or whenever I got angry, I caused chaos. Until the day I met Meliodas. He found me and was somehow able to penetrate through this enormous force that surrounded me. It was Meliodas who took me in. It was Meliodas who was with me, trained me and helped me control my powers." Again I take a short break and meanwhile others in the group are also taking a sip of wine while they are still listening excitedly.

"So I lived with Meliodas in the castle of demons for the next 2.000 years."

"I-in the demons c-castle?" stutters Hawk. "B-but w-why?"

I sigh and take a look around. "Meliodas should told you himself but he clearly is not able to do so currently." I look at Merlin who nods at me supportive. "Meliodas is a descendant of the Demon King. Just like his brothers Zeldris and Estarossa. This is where Meliodas' strong powers come from."

"Sir Meliodas as a descendant of the Demon King?" asks Elizabeth quietly, her eyes filled with confusion and worry.

"So this is what that guy was talking about the entire time..." mutters Gilthunder.

I nod. "Exactly. Meliodas, as firstborn, was chosen by his father to become the next Demon King and lead the Ten Commandments."

"But what happened? Why does he fight them now?" asks Hendrickson.

I sigh and massage my temples when I begin to feel tired and a headache coming up. I shared a ton of new informations and I have no idea how to tell them that he changed because of Elizabeth without actually mentioning her. But I also know that this is not my story to tell. I think, I revealed enough already.

"It's been a long night, everyone. I know you're desperate to understand all of this. But to be honest, I've already told you enough about what Meliodas should tell you by his own." I look into everyones eyes and see their understanding. "If you're having any other questions about myself though, you can still ask me. But I don't feel comfortable sharing details from my friends life when he's not with us."

Silence fills the room while everyone ponders what has been said. "Why aren't you part of the Ten Commandments?" asks King and breaks therefore the silence. "I mean... you've lived with them and the Captain was part of them. What about you?"

I smile encouragingly at King because I know how difficult it is for him to ask this question. At first he despised Meliodas and me because we belong to the demons and when he started to trust us again, he had to watch how we both fought against exactly this race. He is visibly insecure and just wants to understand what was happening. "I have never met the Demon King and have always hated fighting for no real reason. And the fact that the demons fought against other races has always been a big problem for me." I have to grin slightly when I realize how bizarre the whole thing was. "After all, I am half human. But where else should I have gone to? I only had Meliodas and Z-" I begin but break off my sentence. If I tell Meliodas' friends now how close Zeldris and I used to be, I don't know what will happen. It would simply be too much.

"As for the Holy War... I'll tell you all about that together with Meliodas. In any case, I was not involved. But that was a mistake. Not because I should have fought on the side of the demons, but because I should have acted generally. That chance was taken from me."

"How?" asks Diane, who, with her memory loss, still only understands half of it.

But I am not ready yet to tell that part of my story. My shame is too great. So I just keep telling. "I left the demon world during the Holy War and never returned. I use my powers only in battles that are inevitable." I let my gaze wander back to King and look into his amber eyes. "So, King, to answer your question... I simply was not a suitable candidate for the Ten Commandments" I giggle. A satisfied smile appears on his face and he nods thankfully.

"What happened to you and Meliodas afterwards?" Gilthunderasks carefully.

"Well, we lost sight of each other in the meantime. The war caused chaos" I say and then look over at the princess. If she'd only know who she really is and how hard she had fought at Meliodas' side back then. If she'd only know how long Meliodas suffered until he found her reincarnation and understood the whole thing. And if they'd all only know how long it took Meliodas and I to find each other again and how broken his soul was. "It was only many years later that Meliodas and I found each other again and traveled together for a while. But there were always things to do for us and our paths kept separating. In all these years we found each other again and again and separated again and again. The last time I saw him was a few years ago when the Seven Deadly Sins broke up" I say and look at his teammates.

"That's enough" says Merlin, who drinks her glass empty. "It was a long night for all of us. We should rest now." As the only other person who knows about my past, she's probably getting tired of all my explaining.

I gratefully nod at Merlin, because it's really been a long night and I'm dying for some sleep. "That's right. The Ten Commandments know that Meliodas is disabled at the moment. That is, as soon as they have regained their own strength, they will use their chance to advance in the kingdom. We must be prepared to fight them day and night. Even without Meliodas."

◊ ◊ ◊

Together with Ban I accompany Princess Elizabeth back to her father's castle. It will probably be the last peaceful night before another war breaks out. I feel sorry that it was only a few weeks that the kingdom has been able to live in peace. Elizabeth looks very tired and exhausted and I would like to relieve her of all her worries. Had she thought only a short time ago that everything was fine now, she now has to watch her friends fight for her kingdom again.

"Lady Yami" interrupts Ban the silence on the way back from the castle. "Why did you never mention what Meliodas and you really are? All this time, you were just a stranger in our eyes, behaving incredibly strangely around the captain."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Believe me, Ban. It was anything but easy to show up at the tavern in front of you all."

"Forgive me if I get cocky, but where were you during the fight with Hendrickson?"

"On the second front. For a long time, I didn't even know you had gotten back together."

"And when you found out about it, why didn't you come to join?"

"I can't answer that. I don't have an answer for that myself, Ban." It is quiet for a moment as we walk towards the tavern. "Meliodas would probably say, because it wasn't my fight... He still feels like he has to protect me." I let my gaze wander over to Ban and wave him a smile. "You're a lot alike." Because while Meliodas thinks he has to protect me, Ban feels the responsibility to protect his best friend. The love that both men carry within them is greater and stronger than they are aware of.

"I said a lot of bad things to the Captain when I found out that he belongs to the demon race. To this day, he has not let me apologize."

"Because he already knows. Some things in life don't need to be said"

Ban looks at me gratefully, while the Boar Hat is already visible in front of us. But as we come closer, I see the giantess standing next to it and another small figure in her vicinity. "What the..." mumbles Ban, but I stop him from walking further.

"Leave it to me" I say and hurry to Diane and King. "King... Diane" I say their names and look at them questioningly.

"Lady Yami, I'm sorry" says King and looks at me apologetically. "But Diane still hasn't got her memory back and-" But I interrupt King before he can continue talking. "I understand, King."

◊ ◊ ◊

"Oh, Meliodas" I sigh as I sit next to his bed, holding his hand in mine. He is still unconscious. A state he will remain in for a few more days while his body slowly heals. "I feel so terrible. Diane and King have returned to the forest of fairies. He is very worried about his beloved one and I know you would have let them go, too. Still, I feel terrible. And Elizabeth and Gilthunder and Ban... I've never seen them so vulnerable. It's hard to imagine what would have happened if we lost you again..." I start to run my free hand through his blonde hair. "It's hard to imagine what would have been ifhad lost you again. How could you be so stupid?" Tears form in the corners of my eyes at the thought of almost losing Meliodas today. "And the fight between you and your brothers... Just the memory hurts me. I'd like to stop this fight but Zeldris' heart seems so full of hate..." I sigh as I look into the motionless face of my friend. "My hope is fading, Meliodas. Without you, there is no hope." Of course, Meliodas doesn't answer me and so I sit by the edge of his bed for a few more minutes and watch him rest. "I'll do my best to look after your friends, Meliodas." I smile at him softly, very aware that he can't see it but I know that he would like me to smile. "But just until you come back to us."