*knock* *knock* *knock*

“I’ll get it! It must be them,” Emria rushed to the door and opened it.

“We’re here! Damn, this place is fancy!” The masked man ran through the entrance as Emria opened the door, followed by the rest of the boys.

“Huh? Who let the mystery mask guy come?” Asked Emria, confused after he barged in. He stood in front of the rest of the boys, all of them waiting for him to move out of the way.

“My apologies. While I was setting up my room, I found out that he was my roommate. He somehow knew about our meeting and insisted he come. I didn’t see the harm in doing so, so I allowed it,” explained Clyde.

“This is my room you know? You can’t just ‘allow’ people in,” remarked Rein jokingly, which caused Clyde to grow a devastated expression.

“O-oh, my deepest apologies Rein… I wi—”

“Haha, it’s fine. I’d rather have him here anyways. It’d make explaining things a lot easier,” expressed Rein, as he smiled at the masked man.

“Nothing gets past you now, huh Rein? I had a feeling you knew,” said the masked man, beginning to remove his mask.

“Yeah yeah, you guys can do this spooky shit later. Sit your ass down first at least,” Quint pushed the masked man forward, making his way to the spacious couch that could easily host 10 people.

“Come on dude, I was about to make a dramatic reveal! Now the mood’s all wrong!” The masked man sat down on the couch, and everyone could tell that he was pouting under the mask.

Saphrilla entered the room, holding tea and cookies in her hands, struggling to hold them as she usually to used her Spring to carry things like that. Reggie helped her deliver the refreshments before taking his seat, which Saphrilla thanked him for.

3 large couches were situated in the living room. Emria, Saphrilla, and Chloe sat on one, Clyde, Quint, and Reggie sat on the next, and the masked man sat with Rein on the last. All eyes were now focused on the two sitting on the final couch.

“Well, nows as good a time as any I guess,” the masked man sighed, removing his mask discouragingly.

“Ta-da! I bet you’re surprised to see me, aren’t you Greeny?” The man’s blue hair and pierced face were revealed, along with the tattoos that covered his arms.

“Wow!! It’s you Core!!” Emria stood up and pointed at him, then looked over at Rein. “You knew this entire time Rein!?” She looked at him with amazement.

“Well, I didn’t know for sure… But I was fairly certain,” he professed.

“Stop being modest Rein… I can call you that, right?” He asked him, which confused the others in the room.

“Yeah, go ahead…” Rein’s face grew a sad expression. Core’s face turned from a laughing expression into a serious one. The rest of the room didn’t know what it was about but brushed it off.

“Is miss D8 here too, Core? I wanna talk to her again…” Emria asked him, Core then nodding his head.

“Yeah, she’s in the Gulf, but she’s busy right now. I’ll let her know that you wanna meet, k?” Core promised.

“K, thanks!” She smiled at him.

“Hold on. Please explain who you are first,” Clyde asked, whose question was also on the mind of the rest of the people in the room.

“We’ll get there… Let me start from the beginning though…” Interrupted Rein, who caught everybody’s attention.

“There are some details that I have to leave out of this story. First of all, as you may know, my name isn’t really Rein Xilris. Emria and I were adopted by Saphrilla’s father after the war began. Only Emria, Saphrilla, and Core know my real name here, but for certain reasons, I can’t tell the rest of you what it is. I hope that’s okay with you all,” he explained. The room nodded, and Rein began his story.

“I used to live in a town called Lifah. Yes, the very same town that was reportedly slaughtered by Econican soldiers. There, I happily lived with my sister, Leona, who was the Ranger that took care of Chloe during her mother’s sickness.” Rein looked around, seeing the surprise on everyone’s faces, though, Chloe was less surprised than he thought she would be.

“Looks like you already had your suspicions, didn’t you Chloe?”

“Oh, no I—”

“It’s okay. You were right anyways, she’s my sister. I also lived there with Emria, in fact, I helped deliver her, and I babysat her almost daily while her mother was working. Every day was peaceful, but I had no idea about the truth that was brewing behind the scenes. One day, a group of nobles in Orthlys hired a mercenary group to attack our village.”

When Rein mentioned a mercenary group, Clyde’s face tensed up, and he clenched his fists.

“The group was called ‘Checkmate’.”

Clyde let out a sigh of relief before he spoke:

“Checkmate, an infamous group of mercenaries. Their group is structured around the game of chess, with the ‘Chess master’ being their central figure. Though, that does not make any sense. Throughout Checkmate’s existence, they’ve only taken jobs that involved killing criminals, never the innocent. Why were they hired to attack your village?” Imparted Clyde.

“Damn, you’ve really done your homework roommate! To put it simply, we had no choice but to accept. I deeply regret it now, if I hadn’t prioritized myself that day, maybe none of this shit would’ve happened…” Core’s face grew twisted, and was filled with torment and anguish. This wasn’t the first time Rein saw that expression on Core’s face, and his pity grew ever greater.

“Wait, whaddya mean ‘we’?” Remarked Quint, confused along with the rest of the room.

“Oh right, still haven’t introduced myself. The name’s Core. I’m that ‘Chess master’ that my roommate mentioned,” he claimed, everyone growing a surprised face.

“My name is Clyde—”

“Anyways, I still don’t know the reason Checkmate took the job, but I do thank them for some of the things that happened that day.” Everyone’s face became even more confused, with Emria being the only one who understood what he meant.

“The hell are you sayin’. How could you thank us? You remember what we did right?” Asked Core, looking down at the floor.

“Yeah, I do. You let all of the villagers escape and purposefully waited until they were all evacuated until you began the real fight.”

“But we still…”

“If any other mercenary group had taken that job, we would’ve been dead before we even knew what hit us,” expressed Rein sorrowfully.

“But I saw what happened. I was watching. You ran into that burning house to save Greeny. Had she not awakened to her Spring, she wouldn’t have survived…” Core replied.

“That’s not true,” Emria exclaimed.

“What?” Core reacted, looking up at her.

“I had more than enough time to escape. But, at that moment, I manifested my Spring. I couldn’t control it, so it was on for the entire beginning part of the attack. As you know, I couldn’t move while my Spring was active, so I couldn’t escape. It just so happened that that same Spring protected me. That wasn’t your fault,” she explained.

“But, your sister… we still caused that.”

“Perhaps you did… You could see it that way… but the moment those Orthlys nobles ordered the attack on the village, my sister would have sacrificed her life to save us no matter what happened. You lost many soldiers that day, and I still don’t know why you accepted the job, but you prevented an even more merciless slaughter. Had the mercenary group gone for the kill before we were notified, we would’ve been dead before we knew it. Emria and I might not even be here today,” Rein looked at Core with a gaze of forgiveness, Core averting his eyes to not show the tears swelling up.

“Wait…” Chloe’s heart dropped to her stomach. “Leona is… dead?”