"A fine duel, I'd call that." Guran trotted to them both.

His students had shown their promise, either now standing with the blazing pride of the setting sun, their unwavering resolve shimmering in what remained of Kyoya's cerulean embers.

"Fine may be an understatement, master..." The Rose shook her head, both approaching their mentor at the battlefield's edge. The Miscreant finally did it: after four years and 181 sparring matches, he'd finally won...

...with a record of 1-180.

Still panting lightly, it took Reika having to shout in order for him to jump back to reality. "Kyoya!" She barked, making him flinch before he was able to completely find himself.

"What?" The boy whined in reply.

"I just wanted to tell you congratulations, dimwit. That makes us 180 to 1... The very last duel we'd have; who'd think you'd come through when you needed to."

"Oh, come on! I'm the king of reliability, you should know!" Kyoya echoed her taunt from the battle, earning a hearty laugh from the spectating Guran.

"And what makes you say that?" His foster sister challenged, gravely endangering his personal space in doing so.

"I dunno, maybe when I took the heat for breaking Guran's old chimes, or that time I covered for you when you forgot to buy grains because you were too busy thinking about-" He was swiftly cut short by a girlish shriek from the rose-haired maiden, having to fight himself not to continue despite it.

"Okay! I get it, jeez! What's it take to shut you up, Miscreant..." She groaned, showing that not-so-refined side again, completely unknowingly.

All the while, Guran had to wipe tears away from the uproar of laughter he'd made among himself, as the shared peril his pupils instilled upon one another seemed just too much.

"If it helps either of you at all, I'd known all along what really happened all those times-"

And yet, he too was caught with a swift verbal right-hook.

"IT'S THE PRINCIPLE, GRAMPS! IT'S ABOUT CREDIBILITY!" Kyoya heaved a sigh, plopping down on the dirt with a resultant thud, followed by contemplative silence. "But... on the real."

He shook himself and sat up.

Suddenly, the world seemed... heavier?

The tranquility of their escape was punctured and left to hang by an unknown sense of inevitability, the realization that time wasn't eternal beginning to set in. "...What am I supposed to do, now?"

That same utter helplessness, the one he'd sought to drive to extinction ever since being in whatever realm his dream sequence conjured up, slowly crept back to the forefront.

Same as in the dream, the intensity of this sensation could be felt with as little as a breath, the air around them outright smothering him. Just as the life he'd lived before, it had only just come to pass that even this one was destined to be temporary; so much as thinking of having to leave Reika, Guran, and whatever force accompanied their sacred ground, it instilled a deep emptiness, one similar in nature to that left in the wake of Sera's passing.

Though, the sun, even what was left of its light cresting the horizon, seemed to burn away some whatever it may have been. The reinforcement came in inches, but it was there, no doubt.

These ominous realizations persisted in their assault until a leaf fell upon his shoulder.

When he went to brush it off, he felt a hand.