42 - Butterfly Effect

Momo read Burn's mind.

Compared to the previous loops, Yvain's attempt at conquering the Elysian Kingdom was practically a hallmark of gentility.

He rolled out the red carpet for evacuations and gave them ample time to pack their teacups and tiaras—a real gentleman of a young king.

It was all to lessen the number of casualties.

And yet, amidst this courteous conquest, Yvain allowed the kingdom's desperate schemes to unfurl—apparently indifferent to their dreadful nature.

In the previous loops, Burn hadn't given them a chance to even 'harvest' the Crown Prince's seed. But post-conquest, whispers of their wild plans reached his ears through the grapevine of gossip and official snitching.

Burn was as skeptical about whether these horrible strategies would ever come to fruition. However, today served up the cold, hard proof.

And Yvain had to be the one to witness it himself.

After Momo grasped the situation, she pieced together the possibility and wanted to meet Yvain quickly, just to be safe.

She was afraid of being right, and that fear came true.

Thus, the moment the two saw the capital in flames, and Yvain in the center of it, they confirmed it.

"A—n!" 

"—n!" 

Her voice faltered, swallowed by the dense mana field enveloping them. Undeterred, Momo infused her own voice with mana. 

"AIN!" 

"WAKE UP!" 

The boy turned, his eyes vacant yet somehow responsive to her call. 

"I'm back. I'm here, Ain." 

He remained motionless, his senses dulled and distant. 

But surrender was not in Momo's nature. She pressed forward, fueling her every step with her Vision.

As she drew nearer, the violent mana began its assault.

Thirty feet away, and her sleeve disintegrated into nothing as she reached forward.

Twenty feet, and her skin began to blister and peel.

At ten feet, her flesh was rent, piece by piece. 

Now, just three feet away, the bone in her arm lay bare, her hand stripped entirely of skin, nerves, and flesh.

Yet she moved forward.

"Ain, I'm back."

Perhaps if she pressed on, her very bones might begin to crumble into dust. Maybe, just maybe, if she pushed a little further, the rest of her body—her already half-vanished face included—might just decide to vanish completely.

But would she stop?

"Have you decided to die again?"

It was weird.

When he touched her skeletal arm with his equally bony hand, stripped of flesh, it felt like a proper grasp—warm and sturdy, despite the total absence of nerves.

At that moment, his Force touched her Vision.

Supported by Burn's support, Momo took the final step. When she finally managed to tap Yvain's head with the palm of her bony hand, everything—miraculously—began to simmer down.

SSSSSSHHHH!

As if someone had finally found the off switch, Yvain's mana rampage and its accompanying fire tornado began to dissolve, like sugar in tea—only far less sweet and rather more eventful.

It was over.

As the chaos unwound and the fiery swirls gave their final flicker, Yvain's body, which had been hovering mid-air, started its unscheduled descent towards the ground.

Gravity, no longer manipulated by the pure mana field, was back in business.

Momo and Burn lunged forward. As they reached out, Yvain's falling form nestled perfectly into their arms, creating what could only be described as a skeletal group hug—warm in intention, if chilling in appearance.

"Mas...ter...?"

Yvain's eyes fluttered open, awake. There, in front of him, stood the very woman he had been waiting for, though she had undergone a bit of an extreme makeover.

Her face was now a charming mix of flesh and bone, showcasing a daring half-skeleton look, while the entire side of her body boasted a bold, flesh-free finish.

"Master?!" he exclaimed, confusion mingling with a hint of horror.

Before Yvain could further process everything, the other figure, clearly unbothered by the skeletal chic before him, reached out. 

Burn grasped Momo's partially destroyed chin—a bold choice of handholds—and pulled her into a kiss that was as surprising as finding a rose growing in a battlefield.

"Eh—?"

But the real jaw-dropper came post-smooch.

Momo's flesh began to regenerate. Her beauty bloomed anew, her skin smoothing over. The red on her cheek transformed from gruesome to a glowing blush—the kind you'd expect after a good kiss, not a horror show.

Her body followed suit, knitting itself back together, right down to her once skeletonized arm.

Reborn.

"It's enough, Your Majesty. You need to heal yourself too—mmh…"

"Your Maj—"

"Stooop~" 

Yvain's face morphed from shock to outright disgust in record time.

"Ugh! COUGH! COUGH!"

Right on cue, Momo chose that moment to cough out blood, her expression blank from pain. Meanwhile, Burn, ever the pragmatist, looked on with irritation.

"Don't you dare spit blood on my face. Get kissed obediently," he commanded, shooting her what could only be described as a 'death glare'.

His body, too, had begun to regenerate, as if his cells were in competition with his ego.

"Yeees~"

Momo found herself melting into the kiss, as if she were a pat of butter on a hot skillet. His Force surged through her, coursing through the freshly minted veins in her body.

And just like that, Momo was back to her full health.

Meanwhile, Yvain had caught up with the plot, his memory now fully refreshed. As he turned to survey the aftermath, the scene before them was less 'picturesque kingdom' and more 'disaster'.

The palace of Elysian, once a beacon of grandeur, was now just a footnote in the annals of "Oops, we blew it up."

The capital was still an impromptu bonfire, though now it seemed more people had found their buckets and hoses. They scurried about, throwing water with a newfound enthusiasm, perhaps motivated by the fact that the source of fire had been distinguished.

"I'm sorry."

Yvain's voice carried a new weight, the kind that comes with freshly unpacked self-awareness. "I am… dangerous."

Momo sighed, "That's why, you must wear the charms and artifacts I gave you. The Frostbearer's Heart could've prevented all this from happening—or at least, lessened the damage."

Yvain looked down, his youthful face etched with deep guilt. His emotions, a whirlwind as potent as his magical misfires, had clearly gotten the better of him.

Shock, a new and unwelcome guest in his emotional repertoire, had nudged him into a full-blown rampage.

But as the dust settled and the fires dwindled, it was clear that at the end of the day, his master had saved him again.

She had returned… to him.

"Now, we have to clean this up," Momo declared, attempting to straighten up with the grace of someone who'd just survived a minor apocalypse.

She twisted her waist, probably checking if all parts were still operational, before getting down to business.

Raising her hand to the sky, she summoned the greatest mana she could muster with her Vision.

In the blink of an eye, she absorbed the flames scattered about the capital city, snuffing them out like candles on a birthday cake, much to the relief of its beleaguered inhabitants.

As she performed her magical fire extinguishing routine, Momo turned toward Burn, catching his intense gaze. "Can you help the injured? You can distribute healing items and aid, right?" she asked, hopeful.

"What are you doing, using your power for such a useless thing?" Burn retorted, his question dripping with the kind of disdain usually reserved for those who use fine wine to put out a barbecue.

"You thought helping them was obvious, so you ignored my request, huh?" Momo chuckled, her laughter tinged with the delight of understanding exactly what the man had in mind.

She then gathered the flames and condensed them into a small ball of light—mirroring Burn's feat with the laser beams from the mech armors. Smiling at him, she quipped, "I learned a lot from you."

Burn frowned, irritated.

This woman was just too—

"AIN, GET DOWN!"

It was a split-second act. Despite screaming at Yvain to get down, Momo was already leaping toward Burn, pushing him out of the way—when a blast of light struck her skull, killing her instantly.

Burn turned, his movements feeling like slow motion, his brain processing the information ten times faster than normal, even before he landed on the ground from her push.

He saw a person in a mech suit, holding a gun, pointed right at the spot where he had been standing before. It was a weapon this world had not yet seen—but he had seen it in his previous loops.

The White Dwarf.

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