It was Judgment Day.

Today, I wasn’t myself.

Or more accurately, I was wearing someone else.

My appearance right now was Charlotte’s. The same face as well as the same presence with the same figure that had once drawn all of the Prince’s attention. Out of everyone, she had always been his main target, basically the one person he couldn’t let go of no matter how much time had passed.

And now, here I was, standing in her place.

Everyone around us moved as they were supposed to, but there was nothing behind their actions. Their steps, their breathing, as well their reactions, like they were following a script they didn’t even know existed. They were Automatons, after all.

Well...

Except for one.

Hertrude.

She was real.

Completely real.

This entire setup had been arranged with that in mind. Every movement with every moment leading up to this had been aligned with what she had already seen in her vision. I made sure of it. If she recognized the flow of events, she would trust it. She would believe that everything was proceeding exactly as it should.

And in a way, it was.

Just not in the way she expected.

Her visions were flawed. They always had been. She could see the cause or the beginning of something, but never what came after. The outcome was always missing, like a story that stopped right before the ending.

So what happened next?

What result followed after the moment she saw?

That part remained hidden from her, completely out of reach.

"W-What...?"

Hertrude’s voice broke through the silence. She stared at me like she was looking at a stranger, like she was trying to piece together something that didn’t quite fit.

That made sense.

From her perspective, I was Charlotte.

And Charlotte standing here, acting like this, saying anything at all to her, was already strange enough.

Before she could process it further, someone else reacted.

Julius.

The moment his eyes found me, everything changed.

There was no confusion in his gaze as well as no hesitation. Just immediate recognition, followed by something much more intense. His expression twisted, and his eyes burned with a kind of heat that didn’t feel natural.

"Charlotte!"

His voice came out low and rough, almost like a growl forced through clenched teeth.

The air around him shifted, and I could actually feel it. That heat wasn’t just for show. It pressed against me, like standing too close to something you shouldn’t touch. It stung enough to make me raise my arms, instinctively shielding myself to dull the sensation. At the same time, I moved slightly, placing myself in front of Hertrude.

"Hertrude, run," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Right now, you’re the only real person here."

"H-Huh?"

Her confusion was obvious. She wasn’t even close to understanding what was going on.

"This is about to turn into something destructive," I continued, a bit more firmly. "I’ve already hidden the citizens somewhere safe. There’s no time to explain everything properly, so just trust me and go. Now."

She hesitated.

Of course she did.

Anyone would. I was speaking to her using Charlotte’s face, saying things that Charlotte would never say. It probably sounded like nonsense to her, or worse, like some kind of trick.

But then her expression shifted.

It was recognition.

She realized who was actually speaking to her.

Once that clicked, she nodded, still uncertain but no longer frozen. That was enough. She turned and left, choosing to get out of the way before things escalated any further.

Good.

One less thing to worry about.

I turned my attention back to Julius.

He hadn’t moved. He didn’t need to. His presence alone filled the space, heavy with anger that he wasn’t even trying to hide. His expression was tense, his eyes locked onto me like I was the only thing that existed in his world right now.

"You’ve got some nerve showing yourself here... after everything you’ve done to me," he said.

His voice carried weight. Not just anger, but something deeper... something that had been sitting inside him for a long time.

"I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Your Highness," I replied. "As far as I know, I haven’t done anything that would deserve that kind of reaction."

"You really talk like you don’t know anything," he snapped. "I loved you. I’ve always loved you. And what did I get in return? Nothing. You didn’t give me anything back. That’s selfish, don’t you think? Instead of returning what I gave you, you handed it over to someone else. Tell me, how fucked up is that?"

So that was it.

He was still stuck on Charlotte.

Still unable to let it go.

It fit him a little too well.

"Now you’re going to suffer the same way I did," he continued, his voice dropping, turning darker. "I’ll kill that man in front of you. Then I’ll make sure you’re completely ravished while your body is soaked in his blood. I want to see you break. I want to watch you drown in despair while you’re forced to have sex with me, right next to the corpse of the man you love."

There it was. It was a completely unhinged expression.

For a second, I almost felt like laughing, but I held it back. It was wrong timing.

Before anything else could be said, something shifted again.

Two red wings burst from his back, spreading out sharply. The movement was sudden, almost violent, like they forced their way into existence. The air around him distorted slightly as he moved.

And then he was already in front of me.

Fast.

His hand reached out, aiming straight for me without hesitation.

I reacted instantly.

"Ayuru."

The name left my lips, and in the same moment, the weapon appeared in my hand. There was no delay. She just existed. My grip tightened around her.

Taking his head off right there would have been simple.

But before I could act, something interrupted.

A figure rushed in from the side, slamming into Julius mid-charge. The force of it drove him straight into the ground, hard enough to crack the surface beneath him.

"Wha...?! What the hell are you doing, Moriarty?!" Julius snapped, glaring upward. "Didn’t I tell you not to get in my way?!"

"Sorry, but..." Moriarty replied. "I don’t think this is who you believe it is."

His gaze shifted toward me

"I had my suspicions," he continued. "And it looks like before I even got to Sara, this man had already taken control of her."

So he figured it out.

Faster than expected.

"I didn’t think you’d catch up this quickly," I said, letting a small smile show. "That’s honestly a bit surprising."

"I’ll give you that," he replied. "What you’ve done here is impressive. Even I didn’t expect you to pull something like this off."

Then his hand moved.

A blade appeared, as if it had been waiting just out of sight the entire time. The moment it came into view, the atmosphere around it felt different. Heavier. Darker.

A Cursed Sword.

Figures.

"But right now," he said, adjusting his grip slightly, "everything has led to this exact moment."

Yeah.

That part, at least, we could agree on.