When the portal snapped shut behind us, the air changed immediately. Thick fog rolled across the cliff like restless spirits, and the castle rose before us like a cathedral built by madmen—too many spires, too many windows, too many shadows clinging to the stone like something alive. The lanterns burning in the tall windows cast narrow strips of golden light that cut through the darkness in thin, trembling blades.
Yubelluna stared upward, her pink hair shifting in the cold wind. "Jinx… what is this place?"
"A vacation home," I said.
She turned toward me with the deadpan stare of a woman trying very hard to decide whether I was joking or mentally unwell. "…A castle is your vacation home?"
I lifted a shoulder. "I found it."
"No one just finds a gothic castle."
"Well, I did." I took the lead up the massive stone staircase, each step echoing. "Dutch royal family built it when they tried to colonize Japan. Didn't go well. They bailed. Castle got left behind. I stumbled on it a year ago. Claimed it. Fixed it."
Fixed was a generous word. Parts of the outer towers still looked like they wanted to collapse out of spite. But inside? Inside was different.
As if sensing my presence, the giant wooden doors groaned open. The castle inhaled—loudly, like an ancient beast stirring after centuries. Candlelight flickered deeper inside, lighting hall after hall without anyone touching a thing.
Yubelluna stepped close, almost shoulder to shoulder with me. "It feels… alive."
"It is," I said. "Especially the west wing. It hates when I try to redecorate."
A door somewhere behind us slammed hard enough to shake dust from the rafters.
Yubelluna nearly jumped out of her skin. "What was that?"
"Probably the angry tower telling me it heard that."
A faint whisper drifted through the hall—like someone exhaling right behind our ears.
She moved even closer. Not that I blamed her.
We walked deeper into the castle, passing under archways older than the country outside. Portraits lined the walls—every single one with eyes that followed. Some frames were cracked. Some canvases torn. Some faces scratched out entirely, like the castle had opinions.
After two flights of stairs, I stopped at a thick wooden door, tapped it with a knuckle, and pushed it open. Warm candlelight spilled onto the floor, revealing a surprisingly beautiful room inside. Crimson drapes, a large four-poster bed, antique silver furniture, soft velvet carpeting—classy, elegant, dramatic without being tacky.
Yubelluna stepped in slowly. "This is… beautiful."
"I figured you'd want something that didn't look like a murder dungeon."
A wardrobe on the far side creaked open by itself.
Yubelluna flinched. Hard.
"Does… does it always do that?" she whispered.
"Not usually," I said. "Usually it throws things. Consider this its polite phase."
The wardrobe slammed shut like it had feelings.
She pressed her lips together in a tight line, then turned back to me. "Jinx… what exactly do you plan to do with me? I need to know."
Her tone wasn't defiant. It wasn't fearful. It was honest—and that made her more tense than anything.
I leaned against the wall, arms folding lazily as my earrings chimed softly. "Good question."
She watched me carefully.
"I mean, technically, I could do whatever I want. That's what the bet said. I could break your mind, twist it bit by bit, take you apart until you didn't remember who you were." I lifted my hand and let a faint wisp of purple fog coil around my fingers. "I could make you worship me, fear me, depend on me, scream for me… and beg for me."
Her breath hitched.
"But honestly?" I dropped my hand. "That takes work. A lot of work. And I'm lazy."
"…Lazy." She blinked in disbelief.
"Yeah. Breaking someone properly takes time. Effort. Repetition." I waved a hand dismissively. "Besides, it's not fun if you don't want it." My gaze slid to hers, sharp and amused. "Wait—that's wrong. It's not fun unless you beg for it."
She went completely still. Not frightened.
Confused.
Flustered.
Uncertain how to react to the fact that I said it with all the casual tone of discussing the weather.
"I don't treat you like Riser did," I added more softly. "You're not a tool. You're not decoration. You're not an object that exists to make someone's ego feel less pathetic."
Her expression softened, tension bleeding away from her shoulders. "Then… what am I?"
"Someone useful. Someone interesting." I shrugged. "Someone with potential. Someone who's not garbage. And someone who's here because your old master was too stupid to appreciate you."
The castle groaned as if agreeing.
She exhaled in relief—just a little—but stayed close as we left her room and walked deeper into the halls. Each corridor flickered with candlelight as we passed, and something in the air watched us with old, deliberate interest.
We reached the west wing, and Yubelluna instantly regretted following me.
The air was freezing. Portraits hung crooked with faces either missing or carved out with disturbing precision. A chandelier swung overhead even though the air was dead still. Shadows curled and uncurled like something breathing.
"Maybe we shouldn't—" she began.
The door at the end of the hall slammed open so violently the sound cracked through the whole wing.
Her scream echoed off the stone walls.
"That's the angry tower," I said calmly. "It hates everyone except my mom. She visited once and the ghosts shut up for a week."
"Your mother came HERE?"
"Yeah. Before she got tired of my dad's stupidity."
The chandelier creaked, almost… sympathetically.
Yubelluna studied me for a moment. "Your family… what are they like?"
I let out a humorless laugh. "My father and older twin brother? Trash. Exact same person. Same brain cell. Except Issei is worse."
"Worse how?"
"He's a pervert who doesn't even try to hide it. If it has breasts and breathes, he's on it."
Her face twisted. "That sounds… exhausting."
"That's why I love my mom. She's the only sane one in the house."
I paused. Not out of hesitation—out of heaviness.
"She used to be beautiful," I said softly. "Before she had me, Issei, and my little twin sisters—Kotori and Miku."
Yubelluna slowed. "Used to be?"
The hall grew quiet.
"They were lost after birth," I murmured. "Hospital mix-up. Disappeared. Never found."
She stopped completely, the ghostly cold forgotten. "Jinx… I'm so sorry."
"It's fine," I lied with a practiced smile. "Talking too long about sad stuff ruins the vibe."
She didn't believe me. But she tried to help.
"…What does she look like?"
Instant mood shift.
I snapped my fingers and three photos appeared in my hand, because magic pockets are useful and stylish.
The first was my mother now—brown hair tied back, warm smile, looking like the perfect gentle woman next door.
The second showed her with glasses, hair up, mature, elegant, like she belonged in an office drama.
The third was her without glasses, hair down, giving off the full "devastatingly attractive model" energy.
Yubelluna stared. "She's… stunning."
"I know."
"And your father… ruined that?"
"Yep."
Her expression darkened immediately, sympathy turning to actual hatred. "…I suddenly despise your father."
"Welcome to the club," I said, patting her on the shoulder as the west wing creaked in agreement.
She laughed—soft, warm, surprised—and for the first time since we arrived, the castle's whispers quieted just a little.
Almost like it approved of her.
Of us walking together.
Of her being here at all.
And that was the first night the castle didn't feel lonely.
The castle was too quiet when Yubelluna stepped into her new room, the kind of quiet that made her feel like the walls were holding their breath. Shadows clung too tightly to the corners, and even the furniture seemed to be watching her with patient curiosity. She stood stiffly, trying not to show how unsettled she felt.
A faint tap echoed at the window.
She froze.
Another.
Tap. Tap.
The window was three floors up—nothing should be touching it.
She swallowed hard and approached, pulling the curtain back just enough to peek.
Nothing.
Just darkness and fog swirling like a living thing.
She let the curtain fall, exhaling slowly. "Okay… it's fine. I can handle this."
Then a cold breeze touched the back of her neck.
She spun around, heartbeat spiking—
But the room was empty.
Until the wardrobe slowly, painfully, creaked open.
She didn't wait. She didn't breathe. She definitely didn't investigate.
She grabbed the nearest pillow like a holy weapon and marched straight out of the room, heels clicking hard and fast against the ancient stone. "Nope. Absolutely not sleeping alone tonight. I'm finding Jinx."
She followed the sound of something sizzling down the hall, the scent surprisingly warm and comforting considering the gothic horror of the entire castle. When she reached the kitchen doorway, she stopped in disbelief.
Jinx stood at the stove wearing an apron over his gothic doll outfit, humming softly while flipping food with a casual grace that didn't match his eerie beauty at all.
"You… cook?" she asked, startled into honesty.
He glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I?"
"I don't know. You just… don't look like someone who makes food."
"Insulting," he said without heat, flipping again. "I cook better than my mom. She'll never admit it."
Yubelluna opened her mouth to respond—but then the TV in the corner flickered on.
Static.
Hissssss.
The screen warped, stretching, bending.
Yubelluna stiffened. "Jinx… the TV just turned on."
"Yeah, give it a sec," he said casually, like this was routine.
The static deepened. A pale hand pressed against the inside of the screen, fingers splaying. Then a second hand. The glass bulged as something pushed through.
And then she slid out.
Long black hair hung like wet curtains over her face. Her oversized white shirt clung around an unmistakably curvy, hourglass shape—cinched waist, wide hips, and breasts far too generous for someone crawling like a feral spirit. Her thighs strained against the hem of the shirt, and when she landed on the kitchen floor in a controlled, predatory crawl, the fabric tightened over her backside in a way that should not have been possible for a horror entity.
Yubelluna wasn't sure what disturbed her more:
the supernatural emergence from the TV…
or how unfairly voluptuous the creature was underneath all that hair and ghostly menace.
Jinx tapped his spatula against the pan. "Oh, perfect timing." He pointed. "Yubelluna, meet Sadako. Sadako, this is Yubelluna. Don't eat her."
Yubelluna choked. "E–EAT—?!"
Sadako's hair shifted enough that one pale eye and half a twisted grin showed through—sharp teeth glinting.
But instead of lunging, she crawled past Yubelluna with slow, jerky movements, like a spider with curves, then pulled herself up into a chair at the table. She sat politely, hands folded. Her shirt slid off one shoulder, revealing pale skin and just the suggestion of a collarbone that made her look disturbingly human despite everything else.
"She lives here?" Yubelluna whispered.
"Yeah," Jinx said, serving plates. "We met when some idiot mailed me her cursed VHS tape. She crawled out and tried to kill me. We ended up vibing."
Sadako made a low gurgling noise that might've been a greeting—or a threat. It was impossible to tell.
Yubelluna watched her cautiously as she perched at the table. The ghost's shirt was far too tight across her chest now that she was sitting straight, and Yubelluna had the horrifying thought that the only thing stopping the fabric from tearing was pure malice holding it together.
Sadako tilted her head toward Yubelluna with that dead white eye staring out. Then she inhaled—slow and deliberate—as if smelling her.
Yubelluna froze like prey.
"She's… very curvy," Yubelluna muttered weakly before she could stop herself.
Jinx didn't look up. "Yeah, she knows. She weaponizes it."
Sadako's smile widened, showing rows of sharp teeth.
Jinx put a plate in front of her. "Food's ready. Don't kill anyone tonight. I'm tired."
She made a soft clicking noise that sounded almost disappointed… but she obeyed.
Yubelluna sat down next to Jinx, stiff as a board. "So she just… lives here?"
"Yep."
"And sometimes kills people?"
"Only if they watch copies of her tape. She's got a system." He sat beside her, lifting his fork. "Honestly? She's more organized than half the devils I've met."
Sadako suddenly leaned toward Yubelluna again, hair parting just enough to show that eerie smile, and sniffed her hair gently—like testing if she was edible.
Yubelluna's soul left her body for a moment.
But Sadako pulled back, apparently satisfied, and began eating in small, disturbingly dainty bites.
Yubelluna whispered, "Your life is a nightmare."
"My life is awesome," Jinx corrected.
She slowly—very slowly—relaxed. The food helped. The warmth helped. Even Sadako being terrifyingly voluptuous in a shirt that definitely did not fit helped, if only because it was so bizarre that her brain just gave up complaining.
For a moment, the castle felt almost… domestic.
Weird. Haunted. Possibly cursed.
But domestic.
And Yubelluna realized something as Jinx leaned over slightly and nudged her plate closer:
For the first time in years, she didn't feel like she was walking on eggshells.
Sadako's presence meant death.
Jinx's presence meant danger.
But both of them were her danger now.
And that was strangely comforting.
Yubelluna stood in the doorway of her room long after Jinx and Sadako had gone upstairs. The candlelight flickered against the crimson curtains, throwing soft orange patterns along the walls. The bed looked impossibly comfortable. The furniture seemed harmless enough.
But the silence…
The silence felt like someone holding their breath.
She stepped inside and closed the door. The lock clicked on its own—softly, almost politely—as if the castle were saying, You're mine tonight.
She approached the bed slowly. The mattress sank perfectly under her hand, soft and warm like someone had slept in it recently even though she knew no one had. She sat on the edge, smoothing out her skirt, staring at the door as if expecting it to open.
The wardrobe creaked.
She glared at it. "If you throw something, I swear—"
Nothing came out.
Instead, the candle nearest the wardrobe flickered violently and then steadied again. A cold draft curled around her legs, brushing the lace trim of her stockings. The windows rattled once, sharply, before settling.
It was like the castle was testing her.
Seeing what frightened her.
Seeing what didn't.
She exhaled slowly. "You're just a building. An old, moody building. I am not scared of you."
The ceiling creaked.
She lay back anyway, pulling the black blankets over herself. The bed hugged her like a warm hand around her waist. She closed her eyes.
A whisper brushed her ear.
Not words.
Not breath.
Just sound.
Her eyes opened instantly.
A shadow passed across the ceiling — quick, crawling, wrong.
"…Jinx?" she called weakly.
Something tapped the door in response.
But Jinx wouldn't knock.
She curled tighter under the covers, but the mattress shifted slightly beside her, like someone sat down on the edge of the bed. Slowly, she turned her head.
The indentation was unmistakable—a figure sitting right beside her.
Yubelluna's breath hitched.
"Who's there?" she whispered.
The indentation sank deeper, as if someone leaned closer.
A soft, familiar rattle answered her.
Yubelluna's blood ran cold. She recognized that sound. Sadako's unnatural breathing.
Before she could scream, the mattress bounced lightly, as if the ghostly presence hopped off. The shadow retreated toward the wall and then… vanished.
The wardrobe door stayed firmly shut.
The candle flames calmed.
The room warmed.
It felt like the castle had decided she wasn't prey.
Only then did she fall asleep — slowly, reluctantly — to the feeling of invisible eyes blinking shut.
When she woke, it was nearly dawn.
A pale handprint—small, cold, unmistakably Sadako's—was pressed against the foot of her blanket.
Not threatening.
Almost… curious.
She shivered and got up quickly.
After freshening up, she stepped into the hall to find Sadako standing there, her long hair pooling on the floor, her posture that unnatural combination of slouched and predatory. She tilted her head as if she had been waiting.
"Um…" Yubelluna whispered. "Good morning?"
Sadako's jaw shifted slightly, too wide, too wrong. She reached out her hand—not to grab her, but to beckon.
"…You want me to follow you?" Yubelluna asked.
Sadako nodded once, hair swaying like a curtain.
Against all better judgment, Yubelluna followed her down the corridor, past portraits whose scratched-out eyes seemed to blink when Sadako passed. The air grew colder, sharper. Sadako moved with her usual jerky grace—crawling one second, walking the next, her shirt sliding dangerously with every movement over curves that should not belong to a ghost.
Finally, she stopped in front of a small wooden door half-hidden behind a tapestry.
She scratched at it once.
The door opened.
Yubelluna peered inside and gasped.
Sadako's "room" wasn't a room.
It was an old storage chamber warped by her presence. VHS tapes stacked like bricks. The walls flickered with static in places, as if reality struggled to stay solid. A single old TV sat in the center, screen glowing faintly. The floor was covered in soft blankets—far too many for one ghost—and the air smelled faintly of old electronics and something sweet like sakura petals.
Sadako crawled onto the pile of blankets and sat, back straight, hair falling over her shoulders. In this dim light, Yubelluna could finally see the woman beneath the horror.
Even with her hair hiding her face, her body was undeniably feminine—voluptuous in a way that was almost distracting. Her shirt hung loosely on one shoulder, the fabric stretched tight across her chest. Her hips curved generously beneath the hem, and when she shifted, her backside lifted with a surprising softness for someone who should technically be incorporeal.
Yubelluna tried very hard not to stare.
Sadako seemed amused. She tilted her head again, making that low clicking sound that wasn't quite laughter but wasn't hostile either. She patted the blanket beside her.
"You… want me to sit?" Yubelluna asked.
Sadako nodded again, slower this time.
Yubelluna sat.
The air was cold—but not unpleasant. Static curled around her ankles like mist.
Sadako leaned in close, close enough that Yubelluna could feel the chill radiating from her skin. She didn't threaten. Didn't bare her teeth. She simply watched Yubelluna's face from behind that curtain of hair, almost… studying her.
A moment passed.
Two.
Three.
Sadako lifted a hand and gently, carefully, brushed a strand of Yubelluna's hair behind her ear.
Yubelluna stiffened—but Sadako merely sat back, satisfied, and tapped her TV once. The screen flickered softly like a greeting.
"…You're not what I expected," Yubelluna whispered.
Sadako made a soft croaking sound—not quite language, but warm.
The castle creaked above them.
And for the first time since she arrived, Yubelluna understood something:
She wasn't just tolerated.
She was being accepted.
By the castle.
By Sadako.
By whatever strange, haunted family Jinx had collected around himself.
She wasn't Riser's ornament anymore.
She was something else here.
Something new.
And as she sat beside Sadako in the static-lit room, wrapped in the cold, unnatural comfort of blankets and cursed tapes, she felt—for the first time in years—almost safe.
Yubelluna woke to the smell of something warm drifting into her room — buttery, rich, unfamiliar but comforting. She blinked sleep from her eyes, sat up, and for a moment, forgot she wasn't in the Phenex mansion.
Then the wardrobe door shifted on its hinges, reminding her exactly where she was.
"Right," she muttered. "Haunted castle."
She wrapped herself in one of the velvet blankets and stepped into the hallway. The castle, strangely, felt calmer this morning. The air wasn't biting cold, and the portraits didn't appear to be following her as aggressively. Almost… friendly.
The moment she stepped into the kitchen, she froze.
Jinx stood at the stove again — but this time, Sadako was hanging upside-down from the ceiling like a pale, nightmarish bat. Her hair dangled toward the floor. Her shirt slipped dangerously down her torso, somehow clinging to all her curves despite gravity doing its absolute best to expose chaos.
Sadako blinked her dead-white eye at Yubelluna, then tilted her head upside-down, which somehow made her smile look even more unnatural.
"…Good morning?" Yubelluna said carefully.
Sadako made a soft clicking sound, like nails tapping glass.
Jinx looked over his shoulder. "Hey. Breakfast?"
"You cook… again," she said, still staring at the ghost on the ceiling.
"I do a lot of things," he said proudly, flipping a pan of eggs. "And Sadako likes to… supervise."
Sadako reached down like a spider, brushing her cold fingers through Jinx's hair before drifting back up to her perch.
Yubelluna tried not to stare. She failed.
After a long moment she whispered, "So… what exactly is your relationship with her?"
"Who, Sadako?" Jinx asked.
"Yes. That… ghost… demon… thing… who crawls out of televisions and hangs upside-down like a horror movie chandelier."
Sadako made an offended rattle.
Jinx shrugged. "We're close."
"How close?" Yubelluna pressed, arms crossing.
"You know… close."
"That tells me nothing."
Jinx set a plate in front of her, leaning on the counter with an innocent expression far too practiced to be real. "We get along. Really well."
"Define 'really well.'"
He blinked at her with that doll-like deadpan. "Yubelluna, I'm emo, not pure."
She almost choked on air. "Wait—what? You?! But you look—"
"Innocent?" he said, narrowing his eyes. "I take offense to that."
Sadako dropped slightly lower from the ceiling, her hair brushing his shoulder like a creepy pet.
"Look, she's… affectionate," Jinx continued. "Grabby, even. Especially with people she kills."
Yubelluna's eyes widened. "And you're okay with that?!"
"She hasn't tried to kill me in forever. Honestly, she's clingier now."
Sadako made another soft rattling noise and reached a hand down, almost possessively curling a finger around Jinx's collar.
Yubelluna stared at both of them, speechless.
Jinx sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Let's just say this: if she doesn't… release her energy… periodically, she gets unstable. And if she's not allowed to go after victims for a while, she gets even more unstable."
Yubelluna covered her mouth. "So you—"
"I help her stay sane," he said plainly. "That's all you need to know."
Sadako's hair lifted like smoke, curling around him protectively.
"And don't ask for details," he added. "Ghost physics are weird."
Yubelluna stared at her plate, then at Sadako, then at Jinx.
"This castle gets stranger every hour."
"Welcome home," Jinx said.
Sadako clicked in approval from the ceiling.
And strangely… Yubelluna realized she didn't feel threatened.
Not anymore.
Just… overwhelmed. Confused. And for the first time in her life, fascinated in ways she didn't expect.
(timeskip)
Yubelluna had barely prepared herself when Jinx snapped his fingers and the colosseum groaned into motion. The runes along the walls flared, dim stone turned bright, and the entire arena came alive with a hum that vibrated straight into her bones. Wind stirred from nowhere, swirling around the pillars as if the place were waking from centuries of sleep. Jinx didn't even look impressed—just lifted his hand toward the center of the arena.
"Start simple," he said. "Make the smallest explosion you can."
Yubelluna hesitated. She'd only ever been told to go bigger, louder, flashier. Being told to make something small felt… foreign. Wrong. Weak. But she lifted her hand, letting the magic pool in her palm. The moment it flickered to life, Jinx's eyes narrowed.
"Too much," he said flatly. "Cut it in half."
She tried again. The energy sputtered. A stray spark shot out.
"Half again."
She grit her teeth. "This is already tiny."
"It's still sloppy. Half."
It took an embarrassing number of tries before she managed to produce a spark no bigger than a candle flame. It flickered uncertainly in her palm, trembling with her frustration. Jinx stepped behind her, tilting her wrist up slightly.
"Focus," he said softly. "You're not trying to blow up a city. You're trying to control your own pulse."
She exhaled slowly and the flame steadied.
"There," he murmured. "Good. You're not hopeless."
The compliment, backhanded as it was, warmed her unexpectedly.
The rest of the day was repetition. Hours of trying to grow the flame and shrink it again, until her arms trembled and her eyes felt gritty. Jinx corrected her constantly—adjusting her wrist angle, telling her to lower her shoulder, forcing her to breathe on rhythm. Every mistake was pointed out. Every success was acknowledged only briefly before he made her attempt something harder.
By evening, she collapsed onto the arena floor, sweat sticking her hair to her cheek. Jinx handed her a bottle of water without a word. The sky illusion overhead shifted from deep indigo to a pale dawn, even though it was still night outside. She wasn't even surprised anymore.
"How," she panted, "are you… not tired?"
Jinx shrugged. "I'm built different."
"Painfully arrogant," she muttered, though not without admiration.
"True," he said, offering a hand and helping her to her feet. "See you here tomorrow."
And he vanished in a swirl of frost before she could argue.
Day two began with Jinx throwing a stone at her head.
She barely ducked. The rock exploded behind her in a harmless burst of light.
"What was that for!?" she snapped.
"You hesitated," Jinx said. "Again."
"You didn't warn me!"
"You think enemies warn you?"
She glared at him, but he only flicked another stone into the air. She detonated it instantly, her explosion sharper than yesterday's—but still too wide.
"Better," Jinx said. "Still messy."
She wanted to hit him. Instead, she tried again and again, forcing her power to compress, to tighten, to become smaller and cleaner. Jinx moved around her like an orbiting moon, sometimes close enough that she could feel the cold from his body, sometimes far enough that he shouted corrections across the arena.
When she started shaping the explosions into discs and cones, the first attempts were chaotic. One disc curved upward and vanished into the arena ceiling. Jinx groaned loudly.
"No. Gravity exists. Try again."
"Gravity does not apply to you!"
"It applies to normal people. And you're closer to that category!"
She threw the next explosion at him on purpose. He side-stepped with lazy elegance, letting it detonate behind him in a perfectly contained puff. "Cute," he said. "Stop flirting."
"Shut up!" she yelled, flustered.
Halfway through the day, she collapsed again. Jinx dropped next to her, sitting cross-legged, coat flaring around him like a dark blossom. Sadako watched them from atop one of the pillars, her long hair hanging down like a draping curtain, eyes blank and curious.
Yubelluna stared up at her. "She's been watching all day."
"She likes training," Jinx said. "Or pain. Hard to tell."
Sadako made a delighted croaking sound.
By the time day two ended, Yubelluna had managed to create a series of perfectly controlled orb-shaped explosions that hovered in the air like glowing bombs before quietly fading. Her control was nowhere near perfect, but it existed—truly existed—for the first time in her life.
She fell asleep in her room without remembering climbing into bed.
Day three was different.
The arena was colder, quieter, heavier. The illusions overhead rippled in strange patterns, the sky glitching into static for a moment—Sadako's influence, no doubt. Yubelluna arrived sore, aching, but determined. Jinx stood at the center of the colosseum, hands clasped behind his back, expression unreadable.
"Show me," he said simply.
She lifted her hand. Magic flared.
The explosion that bloomed was small, sharp, and perfectly shaped—a disc as thin as paper, spinning with exact precision.
Jinx nodded. "Again."
She shaped twelve in a row, each identical.
Then a cone.
Then a spiral.
Then a sphere so small it could sit on his fingertip.
She collapsed onto her knees afterward, lungs burning, heart pounding. He approached her slowly, boots echoing across the stone. She expected another critique, another impossible demand.
Instead, he knelt in front of her.
"Good," he said. "Better than good."
She looked up at him, exhausted and proud.
"You're talented," he added. "You just needed someone who isn't an idiot to teach you."
For a moment, she couldn't breathe—not from exhaustion, but from the depth of the words. No one had ever talked about her power like that.
Before she could answer, Sadako slid silently down the pillar behind her, hair dragging over the stone. She crouched beside Yubelluna, head tilting in a way that meant she was pleased.
Even the castle seemed to hum with approval.
Yubelluna rubbed her trembling hands together and finally whispered, "Thank you."
Jinx brushed off the gratitude with a flick of his hand. "Don't thank me yet. Tomorrow we start shaping explosions mid-air while dodging projectiles. If you die, I'm not responsible."
She laughed, breathless and shaky.
After three days, she wasn't afraid of the training.
She was hungry for it.
Hungry to grow.
Hungry to become someone she could respect.
Hungry to stand beside Jinx—not behind him.
The arena lights dimmed around them as if the colosseum itself approved of the beginning of something much larger.
The castle was quieter at night than usual. Even the ghosts seemed to be sleeping, or drifting somewhere deep within the walls where their whispers couldn't reach. The candles burned low in the corridor as Yubelluna walked toward the balcony overlooking the cliffside. She spotted Jinx already there, leaning against the stone railing, the wind tugging softly at his hair.
He didn't acknowledge her at first, just kept staring at the dark sea below. The moon cast thin silver lines across the waves, breaking them into pieces of light.
She stood beside him without speaking for a moment, letting the silence settle. Only when she finally mustered the courage did she break it.
"Jinx… can I ask you something?"
He blinked slowly, as if waking out of some distant thought, then nodded. "Shoot."
"What do you actually want from me? Truly." She folded her arms around herself, the night air cold enough to sting. "Being connected to you… it feels important. Heavy. Like it isn't just a privilege. I can feel it. There's something more to it."
Jinx didn't answer right away. He looked down at the sea again, then up at the stars, as if searching for the right words somewhere above them.
"You're right," he said finally. "Being connected to me isn't just a privilege. It comes with benefits… and with standards."
She frowned slightly. "Standards?"
"High ones." His voice deepened a little, not threatening, but absolute. "If you're tied to me, you don't get to be average. You don't get to be comfortable. You don't get to stagnate." He glanced sideways at her. "Everyone around me has to be the best in at least one category. They have to stand out. Shine. Prove themselves."
"And you think I can?"
"I think you better," he said simply.
She swallowed. "Then what category do you expect me to excel in?"
"That's for you to figure out," he said. "Put it like this: if I'm the strongest cold magic user alive, then anyone associated with me should at least be worth mentioning next to my name." His lips curled faintly. "I don't carry dead weight."
The words stung a little, but not cruelly—just honestly. She understood exactly what he meant.
Still, one part of his claim snagged her attention.
"The strongest cold magic user?" She turned to face him fully, brows raised. "But… Serafall Leviathan is a literal Maou. And Grayfia Lucifuge is called the strongest Queen for a reason. Their ice magic is incredible."
For a moment, she thought he'd get annoyed.
Instead, Jinx threw his head back and laughed.
It wasn't a polite laugh, nor a mocking one—it was a full, unrestrained laugh that echoed through the balcony and down the cliffs. It went on long enough for Yubelluna to feel both confused and slightly offended.
When he finally calmed down, he wiped a tear from his eye, still grinning. "Yubelluna… they're strong. Very strong. But their magic is still just magic."
"And yours isn't?" she asked cautiously.
He raised his hand.
Something formed in his palm—slowly, delicately, like frost crawling across a window. Black ice spiraled upward in thin petals, layering over each other until a lotus bloomed perfectly in his hand. The petals were sharp enough to cut glass. The air around it instantly froze into a cloud of white fog.
And then the temperature dropped.
Not a gentle cold.
Not even a harsh winter chill.
The heat simply… vanished.
Her breath stilled in her throat. The air felt hollow, thin. Even her heartbeat slowed, as if the cold were reaching inside her chest.
"This," Jinx said softly, "is the difference."
He flicked one petal with his finger. It didn't crack. It didn't budge. The sound it made was like tapping on something that wasn't quite ice or crystal or metal—something purer, sharper, emptier.
"What separates me from Serafall, Grayfia, and everyone else is simple," he continued. "They create cold. They manipulate it. They shape it."
Yubelluna forced herself to breathe as frost formed beneath their feet.
"But me?" He lifted the lotus slightly, and its petals pulsed with muted violet light. "I understand what cold actually is. What it truly means."
She didn't dare speak.
"Cold is the absence of heat. Nothing more. Nothing less." His voice softened. "Everyone else tries to stop kinetic energy, slow things down, lower temperature. They imitate cold."
He closed his fingers around the lotus—and instead of cracking, the petals sank into the shadows between his knuckles like ink.
"My ice removes heat," he said. "Actively. Completely. From itself. From whatever it touches. From the world around it."
The balcony railing crackled with spreading frost.
"That is true cold," he said. "Not magical. Not elemental. Fundamental."
The last word hung in the air like a blade.
When he finally unclenched his hand, the frost retreated, warmth hesitantly creeping back into the stones beneath them. Yubelluna shivered, rubbing her arms as feeling returned to her skin.
"I…" she breathed out slowly, "…didn't know."
"Most don't." He rested his elbows on the railing again. "That's why being connected to me isn't something you get for free. There's a price. A responsibility. A standard you have to rise to."
She stepped closer—not out of comfort, but out of determination.
"Then teach me," she said. "Help me reach those standards."
He gave her a sideways smile. Small. Approving. Dangerous.
"That," he murmured, "is exactly why I chose you."
And as the castle stirred in the shadows behind them, she felt—for the first time—that she wasn't just a rescued queen.
She was someone being shaped into something new.
Something worthy.
Something powerful.
Something sharp enough to stand beside a boy who commanded true cold.