1) Opinions of characters don't necessarily reflect the author's opinions ;)

2) Opinions of characters don't necessarily remain unchanged

CHAPTER ONE

The Albarea mansion was impossibly huge.

Renne looked around curiously, while being walked to the second floor by the butler. A few times, she stopped to gawk at things that attracted her utmost attention, like a big double-door to one particular room that looked suspiciously like it was made of gold. She marveled at whoever came up with an idea of making a door of pure gold to his office. Was he of such a high opinion of himself or just a regular idiot? The butler waited patiently, and if he was surprised that Renne had no tact whatsoever and openly stared at gawdy items and doors around, then he didn't show it.

Finally he opened another double-door in front of Renne and announced her arrival.

A blonde boy dressed up elegantly stood from the sofa to greet her. Renne approached him and heard the door shut behind. The butler was gone.

"Good evening, Lady Bright." The boy bowed slightly. "I hope you traveled safely and with comfort. May I inquire about your title?"

Renne felt puzzled. What an odd guy. Rather handsome, but odd. No one else ever expressed desire to refer to her by her title. Not a single time.

"Good evening, and if you really must know," she said, starting to feel amused. "My enforcer title used to be The Angel of Slaughter."

The boy's face displayed a mixture of surprise and confusion.

"Thank you for this… enlightening piece of information," said Jusis, collecting himself quickly. "However, I was requesting to know your noble title. I'd like to address my guest properly."

Renne kept silent. He was odd for sure to think of her as a noble. And... very fake! She knew, she was sure, she could swear that he didn't give a damn about addressing strangers properly. Of course, he did not. So why pretend like he cared, why follow all these stuffy rules? Was there even a real person behind this official noble façade or was all of him just a fake?

In his turn, Jusis felt confused by Renne's appearance and demeanor. He expected to meet a brash, cynical girl who'd seen too many battles for her own good, but she showed up dressed in a long lacy dress and walked into the room with all the poise of a ruling queen.

He'd never seen a young commoner who could carry herself like that, and commoners didn't dress like this on a regular basis, either. When she dodged his question about a noble title he almost started to suspect that he made a mistake about her nobility, but she didn't correct him, either, so it had to be true, after all. Come to think of it, Jusis was very much used to Rean who didn't behave like a noble, but Rean didn't even look the part, so it was easy. The girl in front of him certainly did.

"If you absolutely insist, you may address me as 'my goddess'," Renne suddenly giggled. "But my name is Renne. Just saying. But if you ask me, 'my goddess' is preferable. And perfectly fitting."

"My apologies," Jusis said, frowning a little. "My name is Jusis. And now I realize that you're a Reformist sympathizer. I didn't realize that nobles in other countries go as far as refusing to be addressed by their titles to show what they think of our class struggle. But please have a seat, I've kept you standing long enough."

He waved to the couch and Renne giggled again before sitting down. Jusis wondered if he said something funny but decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to ask. It was bad enough that Renne wasn't behaving like a proper noble should, that alone made him feel uncomfortable, as if she broke sacred rules that he didn't know he still cared for. The mixture of grandeur and of total disregard towards subtlety that she displayed felt disturbing to him.

There was a knock on the door and a maid walked in, rolling in a trolley with two dishes and a small vase with flowers in between. She served the table, wished them 'bon appetit' and asked if the flowers were to the lady's liking. The lady replied boldly that she couldn't care less. Jusis thanked the maid for her consideration, he thought flowers were a nice touch to their dinner. Renne giggled once again. Jusis really hoped that it wasn't at his expense this time. This wasn't going well, and he didn't expect this meeting to be so awkward.

"Let's get down to business," offered Renne, interrupting the comedy of titles and flowers. "Naturally, I already know your story, Olivert told it to Cassius, so..."

Jusis raised a hand to interrupt her. Renne felt amused. The boy was so well-behaved that he couldn't simply talk over her like an ordinary person would, he had to raise a hand in a gesture of warning. As if her feelings could be hurt if he interrupted her in the middle of a sentence. As if he actually cared for her not to feel belittled! The boy lied to himself a lot.

"I insist on telling you the details," Jusis said. "I may have changed a few while confiding into the prince…"

Renne felt surprised and curious. It was strange that he didn't trust the prince enough to tell him everything. This was getting interesting…

"I'm all ears!" she announced eagerly.

Before starting to speak, Jusis made such a solemn and serious face that Renne had to suppress laughter. He guy was so full of himself that he was golden comedy. She noticed how he squirmed in her company and found a little bit of dark satisfaction in that. He wore a mask and he felt strange when confronted with someone as direct as her. And that noble title bit? Priceless. He was so utterly fake himself he couldn't even see past the appearances of others, and she wasn't going to help and tell him that she was no noble.

"I told the prince that I was hit by McBurn's fire," Jusis said. "And that I felt something enter my mind at that moment, something… aware. It's still in my mind, I know, I can occasionally sense it observing me. But it's not the way it is with Rean, it's something different."

"What of that isn't true?"

"It wasn't McBurn." Jusis stared at the floor intently. "I was breathed on by Zoro-Agruga when we were fighting it. The rest is true."

"Pfff, and they all fell for it!" Renne was dying from laughter. "They give too much credit to Burnie! He's awesome, but not awesome enough to plant living entities into people with fire. How would that even work? Haha..."

Jusis was taken aback. He didn't expect compassion and didn't want it, thank you very much, but he found it oddly disturbing how insensitive the girl was. He was terrified of what had happened and what it meant for him. Not that he'd ever admit it out loud. But the girl didn't care at all and didn't care to pretend, either. Anyone else he knew would express their concern even if it would have to be a lie. It was mandatory to fake concern at certain moments in life, after all.

"The prince told me you used to be very close with another enforcer, Leonhardt," Jusis said, trying to focus on business at hand. "He mentioned that Leonhardt had a sword forged with the so-called 'Divergent Laws', which, according to some, was… aware enough to influence him. So the prince thought it was my best shot to ask you. What do you think has happened?"

"The way you describe it, possession is a safe bet," Renne said with a dismissive shrug. "Although it may be wrong to call it possession if you aren't losing control."

"Do you think I'm going to lose it? Can you help?"

"I know nothing about it," Renne said lightly, taking her fork and digging into the food. "It's the first time I've heard of Loewe's sword being 'aware'... Mmm this is yummy… Someone came up with quite a ridiculous rumor, that's all. It was never aware. I cannot help you."

Jusis was disappointed, to put it mildly. Renne was his last hope and now it was gone. No one knew what to do with a case of possession- no, that's not right, not many people would even believe him in the first place! The Church taught about demons, but who had ever seen them with their own eyes? When common sense met the writings of the Church, common sense usually won. The Church used many metaphors, and demons were likely just a metaphor for people's natural egoistic passions. It was a miracle in the first place that Prince Olivert took him seriously and Cassius Bright didn't dismiss his story and actually told Renne to come.

What Jusis didn't tell even Renne was that Prince Olivert went as far as to contact someone he knew from the Church. He said that the man knew a lot, apparently he'd even seen demons, and that man didn't believe Jusis' story. Maybe telling the truth was now the only option left for Jusis. Maybe that man did know something useful, just not about McBurn's fire possessing people… But if Jusis does tell the truth about Zoro-Agruga, won't the prince become scared of him? He would end up locked up for sure.

Jusis knew he had to be locked up for the sake of people around him, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He was afraid, but he was even more afraid of having people be afraid of him. He didn't want to be shunned and isolated. Was it really the only way left?

"But don't you worry," Renne said, savoring a sip from a cup of expensive tea from Leman. "You could turn out to be simply insane, you know? Did you talk to the doctors yet?"

Jusis' heart fell. If the prince starts to think the same, things could potentially get even worse for him than being locked up. He could end up in some insane asylum. Intentionally or not, this girl with no empathy knew where to hit the hardest.

"How interesting." Gilliath Osborne said slowly and thoughtfully. "The boy could serve us as an object of experiments and a source of new breakthroughs. Good work."

The woman in front of him bowed, flattered and pleased. She looked exactly like the maid who brought dinner to Jusis and Renne.

"I'll keep this orbal recording, of course," Osborne said, carefully putting a flower bud into a small case on the table. It looked exactly like one of the flowers the maid brought to dinner. "You're dismissed."

When the woman left, Osborne turned his attention to a man who was seated on the sofa in his office.

"Bring me the boy," Osborne commanded. "Not tonight, an ex-enforcer could prove to be trouble even for you… But once she leaves tomorrow I'll be expecting to see him. And make sure that he's well restrained. Insane or not, that's for us to discover."

Renne was lying in her bed in the guest room of the Albarea mansion. It was comfy and puffy, a delight to her senses. Jusis politely offered for her to spend the night in his family's mansion, even though he was visibly crushed and not disposed to entertain guests at all. He couldn't keep up his usual façade well anymore. Renne was going to stay the night anyway. If he didn't offer, she'd have simply requested it herself and he'd be forced to allow it, for there was no sensible reason not to.

But Renne had lied to Jusis. She had a few ideas about what could be going on with him. However, Cassius warned her that the last time he visited Erebonia he'd been followed all the time. It was natural for Osborne's forces to follow an ex-enforcer just as closely, so natural that she didn't question it. And for all Renne knew, Osborne had bugged the hell out of the Albarea mansion long ago and would now be easily able to listen in on whatever she had to tell Jusis. She knew from Cassius that Rufus Albarea turned out to be an Ironblood, but a person like Gilliath Osborne would spy even on his subordinates (maybe especially on his subordinates), so it was very likely they couldn't talk freely in a place like this.

And that insanity bit? It was a neat trick to plant doubt into Osborne's mind in case he'd have a chance to learn the details of their conversation. You wouldn't exactly be very eager to obtain someone who could prove to be simply insane.

In about ten minutes, Renne stood up and quietly made her way towards the door. It was dark enough already, she could barely make out the shapes of objects around. Jusis was going to be so surprised! She couldn't simply go to his bedroom and talk, his bedroom could be bugged, too, and she wanted to eliminate all possibilities of being overheard.

Sneaking through the dark corridors, she appropriated a sizable silky napkin from a random end table to serve as a gag and picked up a sturdy flower pot from a window to knock Jusis out. After all, if she woke him up abruptly, he could create too much noise. Besides, it would be amusing to have him wake up somewhere else and give him a shock, too amusing to miss the chance. She was going to drag his motionless body somewhere safe enough from bugs for a private talk, like a bunch of thick bushes in the backyard. Her trip to Erebonia was proving to be fun!