City of El'bia, Country of Yorba

The sun pierced through the blinds and eventually seeped through the blankets that covered his face. He had no choice but to get up and face the new day that glared at him.

Back then, he had fallen completely to the red hot girl and failed to keep his composure. To think, he was hating on Lawrence before, yet failed to keep to his mission.

In the end, he was far too distracted and ended up falling to the young Ora's onslaught.

"pathetic...I must have looked pathetic."

He got up and looked at himself in the mirror. His health was slowly getting better. But damn...that attack did not spare any room for survival. The amount of pain he felt was immense, and the blow of shadows that occured between Ora and Kars had knocked him unconscious. He was lucky that Iren placed him into his void when he did.

The void keeps things in stasis. Once he was released and revealed to the Yorbian healers, he was in immediate need of attention. If even 5 minutes had gone by, he'd have died. Even now, once he was already healed, he had quite the headache lingering.

"But man...to think they had that kind of fire-power in Sei'O..." no, to think they had that kind of beauty in Sei'O. Even if she was a plague child. Her stone-grey skin shined lustrously...that dark blue/black hair...he couldn't stop thinking of how it shimmered when she moved.

Her sharp, powerful eyes pierced through opponents much greater than her. "If it wasn't for that man, I could've probably spared just her and gained her gratitude.."

"very well...until then. This is why I do this...our paths will cross again. Until we meet, I will get stronger. So strong, that you'll have to acknowledge my power and be in awe! I will save you!"

Mikhail had no idea about what occurred after the turn of events in which he lost consciousness. He had heard a bit of the details. The small 4'4 midget child had apparently exploded with immense power. Power to rival even that of Kars!

This was an outcome he had thought impossible. But, in the world of Relics and Magicians, nothing could be certain. That is always the case.

Kars would not have lost if he didn't have comrades to protect. Had this been a war, he was almost certain Kars would destroy all opposition. He had done so in the past.

There was another reason he needed to train. As he gripped his sword he was thinking. "I will not fail you again, Lord Kars."

A dummy stood before him. His hands tightly gripped the sword he was carrying. On his waist, he was carrying two other swords.

Here we go...

With one launch, the relic disappeared and tore through the dummy. This, of course, would have been exactly what would have happened had he tore through the girl. But he had no desire to do that. For now, he trained on how to control his field of disintegration.

As the hole was torn through, he tried again on a different dummy, and another...and another...and another...and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another... and another... still no avail.

His failure in the previous mission heavily outweighed everyone else's failures. He had killed an innocent because he couldn't control that field of dissolvement that his relic had. Even though he wasn't sure if there was a way, if it was spatial techniques, he was believed there had to be a way to manipulate it.

He trained from morning to nightfall, breaking through trees once he ran out of dummies. That night, he slept, dreaming of his progress. In comparison to his past, he was an entirely different person. He certainly had gained in ability. After-all, this average fighter found himself in the company of Kars.

Mikhail, as timid as he was, was someone who of course, was remarkably unskilled. He had no talents that stuck out entirely. He had lived most of his days in the shadows, afraid of being noticed or seen. Throughout his school days, which...he still goes to, he was often looked down upon and picked on.

The poorer class, unskilled, timid, and weak man that he was, was not built for the high life. And as much as he tried to meld into the background, things never worked out that way. He was constantly bullied and it seemed like the world wanted a piece of him.

2 years prior, during the Cognitive skills tournament, he decided reluctantly to enter it. It was a tournament that allowed fighters, relic wielders, and magicians to showcase their talents to the world. Despite his very meek demeanor, he had a huge drive to change everything that he was.

He looked up to Kars greatly. His father once told him that Kars was much the same as he was when he was younger. So with that inspiration in mind, he participated in the tournament. Using his father's relic for the first time, he cleared through competitors.

Just from its initial use, he was able to guess many different methods of usage, as well as its fighting ability. With just drive alone, he managed to defeat opponents that outclassed him.

In the end, he didn't win the tournament, but he did catch the attention of Kars. Despite losing to one of the top upcoming mages in the country, Kars had chosen him to be his subordinate. The world functions in many different ways.

But this was the last outcome he had expected.

He was told to be off of any extreme labor for at least 2 months. That was the time given until his headache and body ache wore off. It was torture. He couldn't even feel at ease until he was in deep sleep. 2 months? ridiculous. How strong do you have to be to hit someone like that...?

Mikhail sighed, and slowly drifted to sleep. He had no desire to show up to school, though he knew his father would be disappointed if he failed to show up for 2 months in a row.

He sighed and slowly drifted off to sleep.

_______________________________

"Kars..." princess Galifrae looked worriedly at the man. He had just recently returned from his mission in Yorba. From the looks of it, for the first time, this mission was a lot more dangerous from the others.

Kars groaned. In order to make it back quicker, Regalt had knocked him out while he was asleep and dragged the rest of them back to Yorba at a breakneck pace. Without explaining, Regalt dropped both Iren and Kars at the castle and went immediately to sleep.

He refused to answer anything else about the situation due to his laziness.

Kars cursed silently once waking up in a completely different atmosphere than he had slept to. He figured it was the work of Regalt. They had arrived just 3 days ago. He and everyone else were healed of their wounds, but he had to answer many questions.

First, it became clear that Harre had returned to her previous form, so the initial urgency of the mission had been completed. They had expected him to boldly state that the target was annihilated, but when they learned of his reluctance, they were disturbed.

Harre Gibbs had traveled to the future utilizing her relic "Atma". In that world, she had seen the red-haired Lynx subdue her utilizing some strange power.

They succeeded in getting rid of Lynx, therefore that world in which that occurred, no longer bound her. However, it seemed they did not avert the crisis. The power merely got deflected to someone else. This was troublesome. Harre always knew an outcome like this could one day occur.

An absolute outcome. She had once predicted that, one time she will try to avert a crisis, only for time to correct itself and divert that power to someone else. If they get rid of that person, it would divert to another, and another, and another.

This was she called an absolute outcome, a series of events that could not be stopped. If so, it either meant someone had placed it in motion, or that there was such a thing as fate... impossible. There was another being. That could be the only outcome.

Once that being came to the destination to hand over the power, the initial target was destroyed so it had no choice but to find another suitable wielder. If that was the case...she shuttered to think what it implied.

This implied powerful enemies stirring things in the distant lands. It threatened the balance of everything. This peace that had been barely holding on for 80 years was now slowly crumbling. They had known that for a decade now.

"Princess Galifrae." Kars kneeled in front of the princess and swore silently.

"I apologize, this mission was a complete failure. Due to my carelessness, we failed to subdue the enemy."

"I-it's alright. Truly, Kars." She placed her hands behind her back and walked forward while her dress flailed behind her. She was a cute princess, about 5'4 with dark brown hair that came down to her back.

Deep eyes of somber blue peered back at the silver knight. She made her way to him and placed a hand on his head. "You succeeded in your mission. You may not have killed the enemy, but you succeeded in your main objective- saving Harre."

She placed a hand on Kars' cheek and pulled his face up to her. Both hands now clasped each side of his face and she showed him the warm smile that she held. The light blush barely showed on her cheeks. "Kars. You don't need to worry. My father will understand."

"Your father...?"

The king. Aurora Vie XXI. The king of Yorba was a man that Kars had practically raised. They grew up together. Though Kars was 120 years old, his maturation rate was a lot slower in comparison. It wasn't until 40 years ago that he could be fully considered an adult.

During this time, the king's father raised Kars and his brothers all alongside Aurora. They played together daily and trained together. The Kelshung family had close ties to the throne, and thus, always remained allied with the royal lineage.

He was there even for the birth of Galifrae 25 years back. To think time had passed by so quickly and they had grown so much. As someone who fell out of the bounds of time, it pained him to see things progress like that. Soon, they would all die off, and he would still be alive with their successors.

"I see.. so he's back. We'll have to much to catch up on." Kars smiled heartily.

"Do forgive him if the atmosphere is kind of tense. We've recently been told a bit of news."

"News?"

She nodded. "Mh. Kars, do you know what Absolute Outcomes are?"

"It's something that Harre understands in depth as opposed to anyone else. It ties in greatly to the mechanics of her power."

Kars listened intently.

The princess backed up and connected her two index fingers. "Her ability to exist both in the past and the future suggests that time is a linear construct. The fact that she can change the future, means fate does not exist. There are merely outcomes that may happen and outcomes that may not. This is destiny."

"An action occurred in which the red-haired plague child was destined to receive this power. We're not sure when that choice was made, but... when we interfered, that should have been the end of that."

"instead, another child ended up with the relic...and followed much of the same path as what we had witnessed. This normally cannot be."

Kars understood the gist of it. "Then, are you saying that there was tampering different from ours?"

"Precisely. Absolute outcome. There was someone else running the scenes to make sure it occurred. It is very likely that we could kill 13 different children that were destined to receive this power, but it would still be cast to another similar being."

"Then that would mean.."

"Whoever it was, had their mission accomplished. And any mission like that, could only be to spark war into fruition."

"I understand." Kars bowed.

"But, Lord Kars...this isn't why I requested to see you."

"Please- you have no need to address me by Lord."

"But of course I do. You're the silver knight. If you wanted to, you could quite possibly take down the entire kingdom of Yorba. You and your family."

"I- I would never even consider taking action against y-"

"Shhh..." she put her fingers to his lips and giggled. "Lord Kars-"

She leaned into him and kissed him.

This completely surprised Kars and caught him off guard. In 124 years of his life, he had never expected such an outcome from his patron. One would think he was great with women, but in truth, he was entirely dense.

"Please, keep in consideration what my father will ask of you." She smiled, blushing deeply, before running out of the room and waving. The guards outside of the doors followed her. "Bye~"

In the end, Kars was left perplexed and confused about what all of that was.

"....Bye."