A stream of light jetted towards a dark, gloomy valley. The light, now a golden ball, hovered around the valley for a while before a gate appeared out of thin air, opening its doors before the light flew in. As the light entered, the valley that came into view was different from what was shown outside. Inside was a large swath of grassland, magnificent trees dotting a walkway that led to a white castle, with a sunset that seemed to be eternal.
The light stream seemed to ignore the enchanting scenery and shuttled hurriedly towards its destination, which was an odd cottage stationed at the back of the castle.
The light dispersed to reveal Solace's handsome face. Apparently, even though he left in a hurry, he had taken the time to change his outfit. He was wearing a white jacket with gold inlaid around its edges that highlighted the black tights he had on underneath, hugging and showing his perfect muscles. His short hair and eyes were still golden, and he had an air of solemnity around him, further solidifying the impression of a perfect male god.
"I thought you would finally be in such a hurry that you wouldn't change your suit this time."
A lazy voice drifted out from the cottage. Solace walked in, ignoring the words, and looked at the figure laying lazily on the sofa. She had dark violet hair and a pretty face that seemed to be perpetually tired. Her spacious dark robe did nothing to hide her perfect body, and her purple eyes that glowed with a sense of mystery completed her setting her off as an alluring goddess of love.
Looking at the dark book in her hand, Solace frowned with displeasure. It was this book that had caused the incident between them. When Minerva had just gotten the book some time ago from that exotic outer plane, her powers had gone into a riot. In order to completely conquer the instrument for her own use, she had used a complicated ancient ritual to make the closest person who had her image in his heart bear the price. And so, Solace had to bear the cost of her powers going out of control, which had caused him to fail to break through to a Level 3 wizard, even though he had been on the brink of it a long time ago.
For a wizard, something like that would make both parties mortal enemies, but it had only caused a crack between Solace and Minerva. Although Solace was pretty pissed at the incident and had almost wanted to kill her at the time.
Minerva had been trying to make it up to him since. She even blocked her own breakthrough and followed him to this desolate plane to wait, provide for, and protect him as he recovered.
What made Solace conflicted was that, although she did all this and knew Solace's feelings for her, she never intended to reciprocate. Solace was very clear that when the feeling of guilt she felt for him dissipated, she would start ignoring him as usual again. So even if Solace was already over the incident, he still had no plans on forgiving her yet.
The room fell into silence as Solace was lost in thought and Minerva just sat there in a daze, her hands hovering around the characters printed on the surface of the book.
If Layton were here, he would definitely exclaim the characters were English alphabets and they spelled 'Death Note' the legendary book of the death god.
"I thought you were going to get rid of it."
Solace finally couldn't stand it and spoke. Looking up at Solace and smiling, Minerva said in her unique lazy tone,
"If you are finally willing to be promoted, I would burn it in an instant."
"You aren't getting off that easily, Minerva. I guess the reason you need my forgiveness so badly is so that you can have a perfect promotion unique to your fate witches. And the book, although powerful, won't have that much of an impact on you."
Solace said as he got within breathing distance of Minerva, but Minerva's eyes held no waves, and she still had her lazy, knowing smile on her face.
Seeing he was going to get no desired reaction from her, Solace finally went straight to the point.
"Okay, so what's up with the council's message?"
"Relax. They aren't targeting you. Those families don't have that much influence yet. There was a problem with the dimensional eroder. The quota for an eroding shuttle has become complicated. Unless you fully join an organization, you can't qualify for their quota and even then, the quota is limited and non-transferable. The only way to get a quota as a lone ranger is to teach an apprentice and get him to join the seeded program of the council."
Solace paced around the room for a while before stopping.
"It seems a war is coming again. Seems I need to teach the little guy well."
Solace stared at her for a minute and was sure he was not going to get more out of her. He turned into a beam of light and left. Looking at the spot where Solace had disappeared, a touch of unspeakable emotion flowed through her eyes.
"We don't have much time left. Hopefully, this reincarnation... it will be different."
She murmured with a hint of warmth in her tone that would have shocked Solace if he were present.