“Good morning!”

As Kye stirred, the first thing she noticed was pink hair nearby. “Alethea?”

“Yes, how are you feeling?”

Kye tried to sit up, but her body ached like no other. “To put it simply... like shit.” Alethea helped her sit up. “What happened after I passed out?”

“Not much. The evacuation was no longer needed, so the citizens were allowed to return to their vacations. Other than that, we’ve been here in the hotel waiting for you to wake up.”

“You make it sound as if I was out for quite a while.”

“Three days, in fact.”

“Three days? I’m really gonna have to put some more development into Aether Drive.”

Alethea giggled. “Yes, that certainly needs some work, but I’d even suggest not using it at all until you have it fully ironed out.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Kye one-handedly tapped in the air a moment, using the touchscreen only she could see from her NeuraPhone, and called Liliana. “I’m awake. Please come to my room.”

“Of course, Princess. Aliana and I will be there right away.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m having Lily and Ally-” The door burst open before she could finish, Liliana and Aliana rushing inside. “-come help me.”

“I see. Well, I’ll leave you to it then. I’ll go see about food.”

“Something not solid, please. Some type of soup.”

Alethea nodded and left after having Aliana support Kye so that she could remain sitting.

“Princess, how are you feeling?”

“Sore and weak. I couldn’t raise up out of bed on my own, and I can’t stay sitting up right now by myself either.”

“Should I fetch a doctor? Hannah and Evelyn are both qualified.”

“Not right now. I want to bathe before I see anyone. I’m afraid you two will have to do everything for me as I am right now.”

“That’s no problem, Princess. We are your attendants, and this is but one of our responsibilities.”

Kye smiled. “Have I told you how much I appreciate the both of you?”

“Many times, Princess. It is not necessary.”

“But it is. We grew up together as best friends. You are royals no less in status than myself, and yet here you are having to carry me to the bath.”

“Well actually, you are higher in status. We are Royal Candidates, whereas you are a Royal Heir. But regardless, everyone needs help sometimes. After what-”

“Maybe if I reinforce a little...” An aura of mana covered her body and she tried to take a step, but the mana disappeared as quickly as it appeared and she stumbled. Liliana and Aliana did not let her fall.

“No, Princess. Leave everything to us.”

“Dammit!” Kye had tears in her eyes. “I really messed up.”

“After what you accomplished the other day, nobody will blame you for needing a little help.”

“I know, but it just feels wrong. Lily, send for my mother. Yours, too. I’ll have Hannah look at me... maybe I should call her before you bathe me. Yeah, go ahead and call Hannah.”

“Not Evelyn?”

Kye averted her eyes. “I don’t think I can look her in the eyes right now.”

“Very well, Princess.”

A few minutes later, Liliana opened the door for Hannah, who immediately rushed over to Kye upon seeing Aliana holding her up. She held a hand up and encased Kye in an aura of light green mana, the signature color of healing magic. After a few minutes, she looked Kye in the eyes. “I won’t mince my words. It’s bad. Many of your bones have small fractures, some are broken outright. Your muscles are very badly torn and they’re not repairing naturally. There’s a number of other things. Put simply, your body is failing and could even die without immediate treatment. Lay down and do not move an inch. Forget bathing for now. We have to get you home. Your mother and I will be able to heal you, but it’s gonna take a few weeks. You’ll be out of commission probably until the next school term begins.”

“I see. Whatever you think is necessary.”

Hannah nodded and teleported out, returning quickly with Allison. “We need to get her to Alcanus immediately. She has private chambers in the castle, so we’ll take care of her there. I’d say Nippon Sekai, but the less we move her the better. Carrying her through a gate is out of the question.”

“Understood. I’ll transport us right now.” Allison began chanting a spell with her aether swirling around each of them. After a lengthy chant, she invoked the spell. “Unlimited Teleportation.” As with describe in her incantation, she brought them directly to Kye’s private chambers in the royal palace. Allison left them to inform Edward and Layla, the latter of which teleported into Kye’s room right away.

“Kye!” she immediately began to cast healing magic, but Hannah stopped her.

“Not so fast, Layla. Examine her first. Calmly.”

Layla nodded and examined her just as Hannah did only a few minutes prior. “I see. I can handle this.”

“Not alone, you won’t,” Hannah said. “I’m not leaving until she has recovered. You don’t need to do this alone.” Layla nodded in agreement and Hannah turned to Kye. “You don’t need to be awake for this, so I’m going to put you to sleep, okay sweetie?”

“No, not yet.” Kye reached up to access her NeuraPhone, but Layla stopped her.

“Tell us what you want. The less you move, the better.”

“Alethea. She’s still on Atlas. We teleported without her.”

Layla nodded. “Okay, I’ll send for her.”

“And, two more.”

“Two more? Oh, Astraia and Astarte, right? Since they’re-”

“No. Them, too, obviously, they’ll come regardless. I mean Doran and Michelle, from Drachenheim.”

“Your classmates?”

“We’re da-da-” she coughed, “dating.”

“Okay. I’ll send for them, too. Go to sleep now.”

Kye nodded as best she could. “Okay.” Hannah reached over and placed her hands over Kye’s eyes. After a quick healing spell, she pulled her hand away and Kye was asleep.

Layla, now in full royal mode, started giving orders. “Lily, Ally, she’s your number one responsibility. You’ll have to bathe her in bed. Hannah or I will remain in the room at all times. I’ll request more healers on our level to come help so that we can rest, too. Fifteen-hour-long shifts will be manageable, but if we could get four people total that’d let us do seven and a half hours each with one hundred percent uptime. Evelyn is a possibility.”

“They just met the other day and seemed to hit it off,” Hannah said.

“Oh, good. As for the other...” Layla pondered her options. “Probably-”

“If I may, Princess was averse to asking Lady Evelyn for help. I cannot speak as to the reason.”

“I see. Very well then. The other two options are Draenara Maya and Keiko Tachibana. I’ll also have Mikan come as an attendant. The two of you will need rest. I’ll see about who else I can ask as well.”

“No thank you, Lady Layla,” Liliana said adamantly. “My mother and we will be enough.”

“I accept that, but if another good candidate comes up I will still ask them.”

“Very well.”

“She asked for us by name?” Doran asked.

Doran and Michelle were with Draelana and Draenara in a meeting room listening to Hannah give them a report personally.

“Will she live?” Michelle asked.

Hannah could see the concern in both of their eyes. “Yes. She’ll be okay, but it’ll take us a few weeks to heal her. The damage she did to her body is... frankly I’m surprised she was able to do something that caused that much damage.”

“Do you know what did it?”

“Yes. She’s gone and invented another spell. This one seems to be based on Dragon Force.”

“Can you give us the details?” Draenara asked. “She examined Dragon Force from me, so I-”

“No. Don’t,” Draelana said. “The spell she created would have come to be with or without your help. It’s probably better she did examine you using it, or it could have been worse.”

“What was she able to accomplish with it?”

“She multiplied her output by five hundred times,” Hannah explained. “That was with aether, not mana. And she consumed one hundred times of that output to maintain it.”

“That’s unreal,” Draelana said. “The sheer amount of aether that girl can already use is frightening enough, but... five hundred-fold and a hundred-fold of that... that’s fifty thousand times her normal output in consumption.”

“Her normal output is 950M now, estimated.”

The four Drachenheim royals went wide-eyed.

“That means, if the math is correct, she was putting out 475B in aether, and consuming 47.5T to maintain that.”

“And she’s younger than us?” Michelle said. “What... the hell? How is that even possible? That’s so much higher than us it’s not even funny!”

“She was able to boost to a point higher than most of the older adult royals can manage. But obviously, she can’t do that just willy-nilly. Anyway, she’s in recovery due to how badly her body was beaten up from using Aether Drive. We’re asking for more healers to help so we can get proper amounts of rest between our own shifts. Right now, it’s just Layla and me. I will be visiting Keiko Tachibana next. Draenara, I’m asking if you would come to Arslade for a few weeks to assist. And Doran and Michelle, Kye asked for you two as well when she asked for Alethea. Clearly, you’re important to her. And yes, I know you’re dating.”

“Yes, I’ll help,” Draenara said. “That girl is far too precious to ignore. And I get the feeling my daughter here would force me into it either way.”

“You’re damn right I would!” Michelle said matter-of-factly. Hannah gave Draenara an apologetic smile. “If I’m invited, I’ll come of course. Doran?”

“Of course. I have to scold her for being so reckless.”

“What even prompted her to do that in the first place?” Draelana asked. “You mentioned she was in a fight, but what in the world could have pushed her to go so far? Surely it wasn’t a mere sparring match?”

“Remember the attack on Arslade back in January? We know more about that now. It seems the man that was behind that sent an S+ Class beast after her.”

“S+? Where was this? Is disaster relief in place?”

“Relax, it’s fine. That is why she went so far. Kye singlehandedly killed it. She used ultimate-tier spell after ultimate-tier spell. For a minute there when I was watching, if Allison wasn’t standing right next to me, I would have thought it was her out there.”

“She killed an S+?” It looked as though the blood drained from Draelana’s face.

“Okay hold up, hold up. You’re not talking about someone else are you? You mean Kye, our classmate, our girlfriend! The sixteen-year-old heir to the throne of Nippon Sekai, that Kye?” Michelle’s face betrayed her skepticism, but she felt as though she had to question it anyway.

“Yes.” Hannah glanced at Draelana and Draenara. “Do they not know yet?” The two mothers shook their heads.

“Not know what?”

“Okay, it’s one ridiculous thing after another,” Michelle said as she paced around the room in front of Doran and Alethea. “First, you two have ridiculous mana. Two, you both have white mana. Three, you both invent spells, ultimate-tier included. Four, she uses something based off Dragon Force and kills a freaking S+ Class demon beast. Five, you’re reincarnations! What the actual f-”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a long story.”

“You were married and had a child in a past life together. Kye was Shiori Sakaguchi, you were Sayaka Sakaguchi, and your daughter, whom you say Kye is pregnant with RIGHT NOW, was Suzuka Sakaguchi. And there was this tyrant emperor named Shiro Shikigami who is also in this world and seems hell-bent on killing her and doing whatever else. What is this some sort of revenge plot? He’s pissed off because Shiori killed him and reformed the world? The hell with him! Sign me up. I’m down to join the ‘piss off Shiro’ brigade.”

Doran held back a laugh to the point that he snorted while Alethea giggled.

“So, she had eyes on me all the way back to the opening ceremony?”

“Yeah, that’s what she said before we all hooked up a few months ago. She said she was holding herself back, but when we figured out who each other is she got a little more vocal about you.”

“And then the four of us ended up making it official all the way around.” Michelle shrugged. “So, you two are hitched, and Kye has a bun in the oven.”

“Two buns, apparently. Remember what I said about Kaede? Azalea is making her way in, too. So, we’re having twins.”

“I’m surprised, by the way. You get depressed with the mere thought of... certain parts of your body.”

“Yeah... I uh... would’ve felt really bad if I made her use a doner.”

“Could you not have just waited? I mean, pregnant at sixteen-slash-seventeen is kinda... rare. I mean, it’s happened before, but most royals are several thousands of years old before they even think about having a kid. Some, like Kye’s own mother, held off for ten million years!”

“Yeah, this world is definitely different from the norm. In most worlds I’ve been through, marriage and kids are usually anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five. Though, lifespans are typically upwards of a hundred years on the high end. The pseudo-immortality that some people seem to have in this world kinda throws that out the window.”

“Regardless of the reason, I’ll support you both,” Doran said. “You two may have gone ahead with marriage but that doesn’t change a thing to me. I love the three of you equally and in my mind, we’re in this together.”

Michelle smirked and Alethea had a teary smile as she lunged at Doran into a hug. “You’re so nice!”

“H-hey!” Michelle ran over and tried to pull Alethea away from Doran, but she was firmly glued in place. “Hey!”

“Aww, do you want one, too?” Alethea turned and jumped at Michelle. Michelle stepped back, but Alethea kept trying.

“Take it easy!”

“Hehe!”

Doran watched thinking, I wish I had some popcorn.

“You won’t escape!” Alethea managed to get ahold of Michelle, but since she was trying to get away, instead of a hug... they kissed.

“Oh, nice.” Doran smirked.

“Hey, horndog, don’t just watch and laugh!”

“Oops. I’d say sorry, but I enjoyed that.” Alethea had a sly grin.

Suddenly, a knock came at the door. Alethea went to check and it was Liliana. “Princess stirred. She’ll be awake for a little while.”

“Let’s go!” Doran ran off ahead of them.

“Wow, he beat me to it. Color me impressed.” Alethea bolted after him.

“I feel like I’m babysitting children.” Michelle shrugged.

“I know what you mean.”

“Shall we?”

Liliana nodded and the two headed off to Kye’s room.

Kye was sitting up. The bed had been switched out with one that could be adjusted. She smiled at her visitors as soon as they entered.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Doran asked.

“Not great, but well enough to have company.”

“Jeez, Kye, what did you do?” Michelle asked.

“I... made mistakes in a fight.” She shrugged. “Oops.”

Layla was on healing duty at the time and scolded her. “Oops doesn’t cut it, young lady.”

“Whoops? I added a ‘w’ and an ‘h’ to it.”

“Smart ass.”

Kye grinned. “So, what are you guys up to?”

“Alethea kissed Michelle a minute ago,” Doran blurted out.

“Oh really? What about me?” She glared at Michelle.

Michelle averted her eyes. “N-no way! I’m not some harlot that goes around kissing everyone for the hell of it.”

“Well damn.”

Layla sighed. “Good grief.”