Poor Man’s Intro

Here’s the Epilogue. The Epilogue was translated by _USER_NAME_, and is not a machine translation. Do enjoy!

Epilogue

The next morning was busy for Yuji.

Right after his morning training and while Shana was in the bath, Yuji had to listen to Alastor lecture him about Blutsauger and how infusing it with Power of Existence gave it its special properties. Yuji had already heard this lesson during last night’s training, but Alastor was repeating it again nevertheless.

“Again, I thank you for your actions, yesterday,” Alastor finished his lecture. As receiving Alastor’s praise was extremely rare, Yuji could not help but do a double take.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Alastor asked.

“No, nothing” Yuji responded. “The idea of you thanking me… ha!” he laughed. While sitting on the floor, he asked, “But why are you guys going to such lengths? I’ll be usually fine if I’m with Shana.”

“Don’t get too familiar with the girl, as that other Flame Haze will probably be watching you.”

“I guess I’m still not trusted by her, huh. Well, at least I was able to resolve the most pressing problem between myself and Wilhelmina.”

“Still, you yourself are not prepared enough,” Alastor seriously said.

“But-“

“From now on, Shana will probably become more active as as Flame Haze. It’s your duty, as the Mystes with the Midnight Lost Child, to be able to keep up. At the moment, you aren’t ready.”

Yuji would have to face the reality that they would need to confront enemies from outside Misaki city and possible enemies within himself and the Midnight Lost Child. He recognized that he would also need to help Shana, just as she helped him.

“I will protect Shana!” Yuji declared.

“…”

Alastor’s silence meant that the Crimson Lord was dumbfounded in either amazement or in cringe. When Yuji realized the heavy dose of teenage naivety in his words, his face turned red.

For a moment, both sides were silent before bursting into laughter.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Is that so? That’s your intention? Ha, ha!”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”

They kept laughing until Shana entered the room with a confused face.

Yesterday, after seeing that the kids were alright, the Sakai parents left them with Wilhelmina. They had gone to a high-rise bar in a hotel where they had made reservations and drank all night.

While Chigusa was cooking breakfast, Kantaro encountered Shana.

“What? You’re leaving already?” said Shana in a tone of astonishment. She had recognized that his actions announced his departure.

“I’m actually not on a break,” Kantaro explained. “I was worried about my family, so I was able to force some time to allow me to return. Since I arrived unannounced, I will also be leaving unannounced.”

Shana remembered something Ms. Sakai had once said. “Don’t worry about it, Shana,” she had told her. “He’s not a guy who would let himself get caught by me so easily!”

Right before noon, Kantaro stood at the front gate of the house, wearing his standard gray suit. Chigusa, Yuji, Shana, Wilhelmina, and Yoshida all hastily assembled to say their farewells.

Yuji handed Kantaro something wrapped. “I had some pocket money left,” Yuji explained, “from yesterday’s date.” He smiled. “You should ask Mom to contribute more.”

“I’m sorry, but your mother has the financial power in this house. Negotiate with her yourself!” Kantaro chuckled. Holding the package carefully, he opened it to find a dark navy blue tie inside. He nodded and put the package back into his coat.

“Well!” he declared his departure. “This was quite an exciting return! He leaned in towards the girls “He’s a careless, child, so don’t go easy on him!”

“Yes, leave it to me.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll do my best!”

“Dad…” Yuji reproachfully said. Kantaro grinned at his son and at the three responses. With a beaming final smile for his wife, Kantaro Sakai left.

The Treasure Tool Seireiden wandered through the air somewhere in the sky. A peculiar female voice echoed within a dome surrounded by a bleak landscape.

“The research is taking quite a while, isn’t it?”

A beautiful woman wore a decorated tight dress. An eyepatch covered one of her three eyes. She stood amongst the Trinity as one of three leaders of Bal Masque.

“Yes,” spoke the tall well-built man. “While we can never be too careful, three months is quite a long time.”

“Well, I did say it would take at least three months…” a man wearing a business suit tried to explain.

“What!?” Being roared at, the timid man apologized, then continued with a murmur.

“Y-y-you see, I’ve been implementing new discoveries in analyzing the structure of the technique…”

From his pitiful appearance, I could hardly imagine him as a powerful Crimson Lord, much less Bel Peol’s right hand man, and definitely not the gatekeeper and the man in charge of Seireiden’s defenses.

“With Domino’s assistance, we should be able to speed up completion of the requirements in accordance to the Priestess’s specifications.

With her back turned, Bel Peol looked up and sighed. “Well, alright. In any case, we still have to make preparations as well. The operation should still be able to proceed without delays.”

“Yes. Stolas is readying a war report as well. I will send it to the General as soon as possible.”

“Gehinnom,” Bel Peol said. The black ashes within the stone bowl drew a map of the world. The map then changed its focus from Japan to Europe. “Everything is changing…” she muttered. She began to laugh.

“Nothing lasts forever…”

People enter and leave our daily lives. Perhaps we never meet them again.

Throughout all this, time continues to pass and the world continues to move.