Sora knew this was a big deal for Jin but didn’t know how to handle the sudden depression that overtook the celebration; luckily, her Aunt Seiōbo spoke in the following awkward silence.

“Aren’t we jumping to conclusions, dear?”

Everyone turned to the four-tailed vulpes, and Jin’s colossal frame radiated a ruby light, revealing the apprehensive Korean girl.

“Why do you say that; can’t you sense the same resonance within me as my brother?”

Eyia was swift to concur with Seiōbo. “The motives of our parents are not so easily perceived, friend; perhaps it was a necessity for some foreseen battle?”

Sora wanted to smack her face at the blonde’s response; of course, everything the valkyrie thought about had to do with conflict and war, but it seemed to make Jin laugh.

“I’d expect nothing less from you, frost-brain.”

“My brain is not frost… though perhaps you could say such a thing when I change my form,” Eyia hummed, pondering the no doubt deep and multilayered meaning behind the dragon’s words.

“Hmm… I wouldn’t say you are exactly like your brother.” Seiōbo turned her gaze to Sora. “Why don’t you spend some time discussing it with my niece; I’m sure she will have a rather profound insight as you explain your troubles.”

The relief that swept through Sora at her aunt’s intervention was washed away by the cold water she dumped over her head.

“Huh?”

Nari swooped in around her side, flashing her teeth while ushering her forward with her tail. “You have such a unique perspective compared to the way Founders are raised since you were brought up as a humble human.”

“I wouldn’t call growing up in a life of luxury ‘humble,’ Aunt Nari…”

Emilia’s eyes sparkled, probably not totally aware of what was going on. “Yeah, Mom always has the answer!”

Jin’s tight expression moved between Eyia, the vulpes Founders, Aiden, Liz, White, and Tola before settling on Sora. “Hmm-hmm… Well, what do I have to lose? Right now, I don’t really know what to do, so…”

The smiling twelve-year-old beside Sora threw a fist in the air. “We’ll prepare the afterparty for you guys when you get done! Double celebration means double the sweets!”

Nari cheered. “Yes! To the sweets factory, Doctor Cupcake!”

“Right you are, Doctor Truffle!”

Sora felt whiplashed into the spotlight as Jin transported them to an endless ocean on the blue planet, hovering over a sapphire ocean; the frigid breeze was practically arctic levels, yet not a single piece of ice was in sight.

“Umm. So, heh, we’ll have sweets after… I guess.”

Jin chuckled, reaching up to touch the end of her jade accessory that kept her hair together. “It sounds nice. I don’t expect much, Sora… I don’t know anything anymore. I feared this day, and now that it’s here… Now I know for certain… That I don’t know… Heh, huu-haaa-haha.”

“Hmm…” Not really having any basis to go on, Sora scanned the environment and swirling cobalt clouds overhead. “Why here?”

Jin pointed below them without comment; the waves peeled back as Sora felt a gentle wave of power—unlike the dragon’s previous chaotic force—create a pocket for them to descend into.

Following her into the sphere, Sora thought of her discussion with her mother at the beach, yet, what met them took her breath away. The seafloor twinkled like space, displaying nebula-like clouds, stars, and fish of magnificent colors moving through the ocean—a bustling metropolis.

“There are many secret places like this within your grandmother’s realm,” Jin whispered, holding her hands at her front while pulling them through the ocean to new grand vistas. “Really, this reminds me of my sister’s sea temple… at least, from what memories my mother gave me… Everything I have is from her and my brother.”

For the first time, Sora found something she could push back on. “Heh. Like your sarcastic personality and making fun of Eyia? Why did you want to bring Eyia somewhere sunny?”

Jin’s brow furrowed, and she sucked on her bottom lip for several seconds while gazing into the pristine ocean view. “Eyia was… something new, I guess. Again, I don’t know for sure. Ever since I woke up, there haven’t been many things that are a first for me due to how much knowledge I have.”

Sora crossed her legs in the void-like space Jin created for them within the moving sea, studying the dragon as she did her best to focus on anything else besides herself.

Jin didn’t hate herself—that wasn’t really the impression she got—she also didn’t hate her mom. If anything, she was just disappointed in the answer she’d received. Seiōbo saw something more, hinting that Jin was too fixated on something unimportant to grasp what was right in front of her face.

The dragon truly looked lovely in her traditional gown, yet it was her stoic, distant expression that sold the image, pulling Sora back to the many Japanese dramas she’d seen.

“Maybe at first,” Sora eventually replied, recalling everything she knew about the pair, which wasn’t much if she was being honest. “Eyia was lonely, and you filled that hole of growing up in isolation and battle.”

“She’s still obsessed with only battling,” Jin mumbled, rolling her eyes. “It’s so difficult talking to her because she knows so little about anything but combat.”

A smile brightened Sora’s mouth. “You want to help her see there is more to life than just swinging around a spear. Hehe. Yet, it was she that stopped you from ripping out my heart?”

“Yeah-heh… when you put it like that, I did sound pretty off-the-rails, but I had a different perspective of Inari at the time…”

Jin’s eyes widened. “Inari wasn’t as bad as my memories told me…”

“Didn’t we already talk about that in the past?” Sora questioned, connecting the dots herself. “Oh. So, your memories are from her perspective, and there are angles to every story?”

“I suppose…” Jin lifted her gaze to the black surface of the lake, somehow repelling all light from the surface. “It doesn’t change the fact I’m just a replacement for Gong-Gong… His essence lives within me, which means my mother will use that collected source with my orb to restore him… killing me.”

Sora’s ears flew up from their drawn-back position. “Eh?! Okay, come again; how does this work again? I didn’t have to kill anyone to bring back my aunts or grandmother.”

“Hehe. No, but you had Gloria’s power, which has a fragment of the Spark of Existence within it… My mother may be as powerful as she, but… in different ways, and Gloria won’t help bring back my eldest brother…”

Jin forced a laugh, seemingly looking beyond the oceans and into dimensional folds. “Then again, maybe she can pressure Gloria to help since she broke her rules for you… I’m sure Gloria is not happy with whatever position you placed her in to do that. I wish I could have seen the look on her face… Haaa.”

Expression falling, Jin rubbed the back of her neck. “That… was my mother talking. Haha. Wow, sometimes it’s hard to separate what would make my mother happy versus myself.”

Sora sucked on her cheek as she drew around her chakram, peering through Existence and using it to scry on her daughter, already in their kitchen, baking up a storm.

“You know… as a mother myself—heh, although not in the traditional means—some things don’t add up, including what I know about restoring someone to life.”

Jin turned a half-smile to her that said she’d love to hear it. “Oh?”

“Haha! I know,” Sora mumbled, pulling around her thick hair to absently comb it out to have something to look at as she thought. “This arrogant seventeen-year-old girl is trying to lecture me—a dragon Founder with the wisdom of countless ages, more than even my aunts—and I’m supposed to learn what?”

“I wouldn’t call everything my mother gave me ‘wisdom,’ ” Jin scoffed, taking them to an orange forest that appeared to be in a perpetual state of fall as if stuck in time. “Your aunts weren’t wrong when they said you had a different point of view on things due to your unique upbringing amongst Founders. Go on.”

Taking a deep breath, Sora looped her main chakram around the tail end of her hair again before smiling and saying, “Jin, I hate to break it to you, but you’re a girl.”

‘Pfft! Haha! Very astute, Sora—groundbreaking discovery—yes, I… am.”

“Mhm! And your brother was…”

“A boy?”

“Heh. I’m just saying it’s a bit of a blunder if your mom went for the whole clone angle,” Sora shrugged, spying on her daughter again.

She knew it was wrong, but sometimes she did this at night to see what Emilia wrote in her ‘secret’ journal she kept invisible between her box springs and mattress; it was fun seeing what the girl felt important enough to record.

“If your mother cared so deeply and wished to have your brother back… Then why—given all her control over creation—would she create a daughter instead of a son? To me, it feels like she wanted to use Gong-Gong’s essence as a guide for you like my Aunt Inari left an Intelligent Construct for me.”

A sad look crossed Sora’s face while thinking about her own life. “I’m sure my mom would have done it if it wouldn’t have caused problems with my development. Plus, I had my dad, but you… you didn’t have anyone, and if your mom couldn’t be there, then she probably would have wanted to give you another leg up.”

“My mother is… not your typical mother, Sora,” Jin whispered, yet her words appeared to have introduced a hint of doubt. “Still, you’re not wrong… I may have the same essence signature as my brother, yet I hadn’t considered my core foundation within that wasn’t mirrored to Gong-Gong’s… It would introduce issues with reviving him.”

“See! Not so simple,” Sora grinned. “I don’t know much about many things, but I think I’ve had a lot of experience regarding key topics that most Founders have never had to deal with. One thing is for sure.”

“Go on,” Jin mused, showing an actual smile now. “What sly comment are you going to throw in?”

Holding her hands behind her back, Sora shook her head. “No sly comment, just a promise… If your mom does want to kill you to resurrect Gong-Gong… I’ll save you.”

“Wha-haha! Do you hear yourself?” Jin doubled over. “You do realize you just said you’d fight my mother—one of the Three Pillars—you’d sooner stop Gloria from doing what she wanted, and you met her… someone Sakura—the master of The Herald—respects and would not cross!”

Sora’s expression softened. “And I meant it. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t lose anything else, and you have a place in my heart—we’re friends—and with me, it’s ride or die!”

Jin wiped away a single tear, shockingly composed while processing the statement. “Well. I suppose you do still owe me for saving you from Eric, right?”

“True! But I don’t need an excuse,” she snickered, opening her scrying chakram to become a gateway; she could only do this to places she’d thoroughly scanned beforehand. “Now, should we go get some chocolate cake and show off how amazing you look?! It’s your birthday, so let your friends be here to help you be happy when you’re not feeling it.”

Crossing her arms, Jin wore a reluctant grin. “Well… if you insist.”

Floating forward, she paused just before entering, creating a sound barrier around them with a wry smirk that caught Sora a bit off-guard. “Do you know what dirty hope I do have that seems unlikely?”

“What?”

Jin turned her gaze to Eyia, wearing an apron while helping Emilia with her war in the kitchen. “I’d like to see Eyia and Kari play basketball together… I’d like to see that hole in her heart healed, and I think my mother would kill me for that.”

Dropping the shell, she left Sora to puzzle through the admission. Eyia was Jin’s first real friend, so she could see why the dragon wanted to help the valkyrie get over the loss of her father, even if just accepting Kari as a fenris wolf.

Heck, Sora wanted to see that, as well—it would solve so many headaches—yet, why Jin’s mother would kill her was a mystery.

Taking one last look at the turning leaves around her, Sora breathed out a long stream of air. There were so many mysteries when it came to the two, but that was the fun of growing friendships; they were all learning about each other’s struggles and interests.

Entering the kitchen, Sora was just happy Jin was seeing something more within herself than just being Gong-Gong’s clone, even if that was just the fact she was a girl, which was ridiculous the dragon hadn’t made that connection; it showed how much it consumed her.

Sora hoped there was more to the Dragon Mother’s decisions than met the eye, just as it had been with her own family. If not, then they’d deal with it when the time came. For now, it was time to celebrate Jin’s 100th birthday.

The day concluded with—to Sora’s astonishment—Jin challenging Eyia to basketball—something the dragon had zero experience with—despite the valkyrie’s superior handling of any and all items would serve an almost guaranteed loss for the dragon.

Unfortunately, Jin didn’t want to experience the embarrassment alone, and, surprise-surprise, the first pick when choosing teams was Sora; Eyia’s leery eyes said Jin’s choice was an act of war for choosing her sister, which also put Sora in the line of fire.

Eyia’s choice: White.

It was over, except Jin did the unthinkable—to the snow-locked man’s horror—the dragon chose his kryptonite.

Jin’s choice: Tola, the 30,000-year-old virgin.

He’d have to throw in the towel before long, and Tola sucked at the game, but that didn’t matter when White was pit up against the colossal monster that was pheromones; Eyia had to praise Jin’s ‘tactical genius’ at the exploit, which had all of them laughing and Tola’s face red.

Eyia’s choice: Emi, the terror of the kitchen!

Naturally, Sora’s daughter wanted to “put her mother in the dirt”—her words—and show her the magic White and Tola were teaching her.

Jin: Aiden, the songbird of self-destruction, as Sora cried to his disbelief.

It was over—Jin was throwing—and Eyia saw the blood in the water.

Eyia’s choice: Liz, the breaker of causality.

Aiden couldn’t let his girlfriend lose, which meant Sora was struggling against Existence itself, but it was a good thing she ate Existences, because she’d need every advantage she could get; yet, Jin threw a fast one.

Jin’s choice: Seiōbo, the tsundere vulpes, as her sister introduced her; it was telling that she had her tail pulled against her front while snickering at the title.

Eyia’s choice: Nari, which was shocking that the blonde was chosen last, which had her seething when Seiōbo pointed out Liz, a typical vulpes, was chosen before her lustrous self.

The game was on, and Sora didn’t keep count, but it didn’t matter in the end; everyone but Eyia, Jin, Aiden, and, surprisingly, Nari was left to a two-on-two when their other members collapsed due to exhaustion, playing as mortals.

Sora sat with Emilia’s head lying against her lap while watching the teams go back and forth in the bright light Seiōbo crafted overhead for them to play; the jabs thrown between Jin and Eyia were hilarious since the dragon’s smack talk everyone else caught, but the valkyrie and the frost maiden’s were so dry it made them laugh at her inability to tell a joke.

Overall, it was a wonderful night; everything worked out, and Eyia wouldn’t have to worry about her best friend isolating herself anymore, which meant Sora could finally focus on what she should have been because next week would definitely be filled with preparing Tola for her final countdown.

It was time to delve into this duality between her parents’ powers; it was time to get her magic back.