I Am The Game's Villain

Chapter 766: [The Rewritten Lost Past] [6]

A month had passed since Amael had casually suggested that the most efficient solution to an ongoing Holy War was for both its most powerful fighters and also rulers to simply cease to exist.

In that time, Lisandra and Alphonse’s visits had become noticeably less frequent. Once or twice a week at most, rather than the near-daily appearances he’d grown so accidentally accustomed to. The campfire felt different on the nights they didn’t show up, not unbearable, not even particularly notable, just... quieter in a way that was slightly more noticeable than it should have been.

Amael, who had spent the better part of his life actively cultivating solitude and defending it like contested territory, found himself mildly annoyed to discover that he actually missed them. The noise of Lisandra’s running commentary on everything that irritated her. The way Alphonse would say something quietly shocking in the middle of an argument and then look mildly surprised that it had landed. The campfire conversations that had somehow, without any formal agreement, become the best part of otherwise unremarkable days.

He’d grown fond of them. Quietly, without meaning to, without quite noticing until the absence made it obvious.

He filed that information away somewhere and tried not to look at it directly.

Today had started out looking like a perfectly ordinary one. He’d woken up, done his morning routine, finished washing up, and was now standing in front of the unlit campfire in the warm morning light, completely shirtless, deciding that the combination of the pleasant sun and absolutely nothing pressing to do constituted an excellent argument for a long and uninterrupted nap.

The sky was brilliant. The forest was peaceful. The sun was already warm enough to be felt properly.

He was just beginning to lower himself down onto the log when he heard footsteps.

He glanced up with minimal effort.

Lisandra and Alphonse were approaching through the trees, which was already strange, they always came at night, never during the day.

But that wasn’t even the strangest part.

They were dressed from head to toe in plain, with unremarkable clothing, nothing that reflected their status, nothing that would draw attention or invite recognition. Heavy cloaks over everything despite the warmth of the morning. And on each of their backs, a pack stuffed so full it strained at the seams.

Amael raised himself up onto one elbow and stared.

”What are you doing here?” He asked.

Lisandra reached out one hand in his direction, pointed it somewhere above his collarbone, and turned her face sharply away.

”For Eden’s sake,” she said, ”put something on.”

”I’m fairly certain you’ve already seen me without a shirt,” Amael said, sitting up fully.

”Yes! That doesn’t mean I want to keep seeing it!”

”Then why do you keep stealing glances?” He asked, the corner of his mouth doing something it was trying not to do. ”You, and Alphonse over there.”

”We are not—” Lisandra turned completely around so her back was to him entirely. ”We are absolutely not doing that!”

Amael picked his shirt up from the log beside him and pulled it on.

”Alright,” he said, straightening the collar. ”Why are you here in the middle of the day dressed like you’re trying not to be recognized, with everything you own on your backs?”

Both women turned back around to face him.

”Because we’re leaving,” Alphonse said simply, with a small nod.

Lisandra’s expression broke into a wide, genuine, slightly triumphant smile. ”We are officially dead.”

Amael looked at her. ”...Come again?”

”We did it,” Lisandra said. ”Your plan. We actually did it. It took about a month to work out all the pieces, making sure the deaths were convincing, managing what came after, setting things up so that neither Kingdom would have a reason to keep fighting and would have more than enough to deal with internally without starting anything new.” She spread her hands like someone presenting the finished work. ”But last night, we met on the field, we fought each other, and we died. Spectacularly. Very convincingly.”

Alphonse’s small smile hadn’t moved. If anything it had deepened slightly.

No more war. No more throne. No more being used as weapons by people who feared rather than respected them. Just done.

Amael looked at them both for a moment, genuinely surprised despite himself. He’d offered the idea the way he offered most things, without particular investment in whether it was acted on. He’d honestly doubted they’d go through with it.

But they’d done it.

”Well,” he said, turning back toward the firepit. ”Congratulations.”

”That’s it?” Lisandra’s voice pitched upward. ”We stopped a war, Amael. An actual, ongoing Holy War that was eating the continent alive. And you’ve got—congrats?”

”That’s good for you,” he said, settling onto the log and reaching for his fire-starting kit.

”Then, when are we going?” Alphonse asked approaching.

Amael looked up.

Both women were standing over him, looking down at him expectantly.

He understood what they meant within a few seconds.

He then decided, with the reflexive self-preservation instinct of a man who suspected this conversation was going to be complicated, to pretend he didn’t.

”No idea what you mean,” he said pleasantly. ”But I’m staying here.”

Lisandra blinked. ”We can’t stay her, —we’re dead, Amael. We have to leave the continent entirely. That’s how this works. You can’t haunt the same forest you died near and expect nobody to notice eventually.”

”I don’t remember,” Amael said, ”the part of my plan where I volunteered myself for a joint trip afterward. That section doesn’t exist in my memory.”

Silence fell between the three of them like a dropped stone.

”...What?” Lisandra said.

”You’re staying,” Alphonse said.

”Yeah,” Amael confirmed.

”Why?” Lisandra stared at him. ”You’d rather sit in this forest alone than be with us?”

”When did I say that?” Amael asked.

”Then why won’t you come?” She asked, rising her voice in frustration.

”Why do I have to?” He asked back.

”Because...because maybe—” Lisandra made an annoyed sound. ”Maybe because you’d actually have fun for once instead of sitting here doing absolutely nothing? Maybe because you’ve been alone out here for longer than is healthy for any person? Maybe because, I don’t know, we’re asking?”

Amael looked up at them both.

”You actually thought I’d come with you?”

”You were the one who said we’d have to leave,” Alphonse said. ”That if we did this, if we became dead, we’d have to go. We couldn’t stay.”

Obviously Amael said it and in the following nights after he gave them the idea, he gave them plenty of places to leave for, ideas and stories about the world.

Naively may so be but they both thought Amael would be on board to come along since he was this enthusiastic in his speech.

Amael grimaced remembering how he spoke, yeah, it sounded like he was definitely going on adventure with them...

”I said that, yes,” he nodded. ”Which means you should probably go quickly, before Michael somehow traces any of this back to me and I have to deal with the headache. He will find a way.” He picked up his stoking stick and turned back toward the fire.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then blue fire erupted across the campfire with a sharp sizzling.

Amael was on his feet instantly, jumping back from the sudden bloom of blue flame that consumed his carefully built campfire in one clean burst. He stared at the destroyed firepit, the wood, the arrangement, the meat he’d been about to start cooking, all of it just gone and then looked up at Lisandra baffled.

She was already turning away.

”Enjoy your very lonely life then, Amael. Come on, Alphonse. He doesn’t care. You saw it yourself. We’ll move on our own.” And then quieter, and almost to herself: ”I can’t believe I even felt...whatever. Never mind.”

”Felt what?”

Amael was in front of her before she’d finished the sentence.

”Kyaa!”

The sound that came out of Lisandra was, objectively, extremely cute from Amael’s perspective, cute enough that he smiled.

Lisandra stumbled back half a step, face flooding red the instant she realized she’d made it, and immediately swung her fist, trying to cover their embarrassment with aggression.

Amael caught her wrist without looking at it.

Her fist stopped in the air between them.

”What did you feel?” He asked her again.

Lisandra stared up at him, her face burning.

And then it all came out at once.

”We just thought you were like us!” She said, the words tumbling forward. ”Someone who understood what it was like! And we thought, maybe we could be better together, all three of us, than apart! It wasn’t bad, was it?! All those nights with us?! You actually enjoyed it, I know you did! Any man would have with two Princesses like us! And you know it, so stop pretending you didn’t, stop acting like you don’t—!”

She stopped herself. Seemed to hear how her own words had come out. Went, if possible, even redder.

”Your words are really something, aren’t they,” he said, not unkindly. ”Or is that just how both of you have chosen to interpret these past months?”

Amael released her wrist as Lisandra just looked away.

”I did enjoy it,” he said quietly. ”Both your company.”

Alphonse, who had been standing a few feet back through the whole exchange, looked at him. ”You did.”

”I did,” he nodded.

”Then...” She took one step toward him, closing some of the distance, and tilted her face up to look at him directly. Her sapphire blue eyes staring up at him. ”Why won’t you come with us?”

Amael was quiet for a moment before he made his decision.

”My terms,” he said. ”It would be on my terms, and by my rules.”

Alphonse’s expression changed. The careful, guarded flicker behind her eyes gave way to something warmer, something that had been waiting for exactly the right door to open.

”Anywhere away from this,” she said, and smiled.

It was a small smile but something he had never seen on Alphonse’s lips ever before.

Amael felt his heart clearly skip a beat like it had on a few occasions whenever he was with either Lisandra or Alphonse but purposefully chose to ignore it.

But right now, he chose for a bit, to be selfish.

He smiled back at her.

He genuinely couldn’t remember the last time the future had looked like something he wanted to walk toward rather than something that was coming for him regardless of his preference.

”When are we leaving?!” Lisandra’s voice crashed back into the moment, and when Amael turned to look at her she was also excited.

Both of them were like that, actually. Standing there at the edge of something enormous, half disbelieving it was real, two young women who had spent their entire lives being powerful symbols for other people, finally, just being themselves.

Free and nburdened. Ready to see what the world looked like when you weren’t obligated to destroy parts of it.

And apparently, for whatever strange and unplanned reason, excited to do it with someone like Amael who seemed to know much more about the world.

He would indeed be the perfect guide.

...

...

”What are you waiting for?”

Amael looked between Lisandra and Alphonse with a calm, questioning expression. He’d gathered everything he needed, which wasn’t much, given that most of his life fit into a spatial ring and was ready to go.

The transport, however, appeared to require some discussion.

He’d already explained it twice. Flight was faster than anything ground-based, quieter than a carriage, and most importantly he could mask their presence entirely while carrying them. No trail. No trace. Nothing for Michael or any of the other nuisances to follow.

But for that, he needed to actually carry them. One on his back, one in his arms.

He’d presented this information and was now waiting for them to sort out whatever they needed to sort out.

Lisandra was standing very still, which for her was unusual enough to be notable on its own. Her eye had drifted downward toward her breasts.

She had a problem.

The back was objectively the less embarrassing option. In theory. Except that she was built the way she was built, and Amael would very obviously feel that during the entire duration of the flight, and she would have to spend however long the journey took being acutely aware of that fact with absolutely nowhere to put the awareness.

But the front meant being cradled against his chest and having to look at his face or trying her best to not. In both cases, it was peak embarrassment.

There was no good option. There was only less bad.

”W—We can fly by ourselves!” She blurted out, which she recognized even as she said it was a reach.

”I’m faster,” Amael said, with a deadpan face. ”And I can hide our presence completely. You can’t.” He looked at her tired. ”I’ve told you this. Twice. I don’t want Michael or any of the other assorted problems finding us. Where we’re going is a secret, it stays a secret because I’m the one getting us there.”

Lisandra opened her mouth.

Alphonse stepped forward.

”I’ll be carried,” she said, clearly and without hesitation.

Lisandra turned to stare at her with an expression of ure disbelief, not at the words exactly, but at the complete absence of embarrassment accompanying them. Where had she kept it all this time?

Then her brain caught up with her and she grabbed Alphonse’s arm before any further decisions could be made.

”Syl.” Her voice dropped to a husher, her face already going pink. ”Please. Let me have the front.”

Alphonse blinked at her.

”It’s...it’s less,” Lisandra continued with a stuttering voice. ”The back is worse, trust me, for reasons that are, it’s just worse. For me specifically. You understand. Please.”

Alphonse looked at her for a moment then her gaze dropped briefly to Lisandra’s chest.

”He might feel them regardless,” she said, ”depending on the angle.”

”It will be less!” Lisandra shot back ”And you—” She gestured vaguely at Alphonse’s chest. ”you don’t have as much to, I mean you have less!”

Alphonse frowned a bit.

Obviously treated as man and forced to be a man all her life, she didn’t like her feminine attributes being downplayed when she could finally back a woman.

”I do have breasts,” she said, glancing down at herself. She was simply more disciplined about the concealment. Lisandra had always more and bigger though.

”Can you two possibly stop comparing your chest sizes and actually make a decision?” Amael asked from behind not hiding the fact that he head eveyrtihg.

Lisandra made a sound she would later deny making and lunged forward.

”I’m taking the front!”

She marched up to Amael and then stopped approximately one foot away. She stood there rigid, hands at her sides, staring at a point somewhere near his collarbone.

Amael didn’t wait for her to resolve the paralysis.

His arm slipped beneath her knees and his other arm moved behind her back and he simply lifted her. Smoothly, easily, like she weighed feather.

”Ahh!”

The sound came out before she could stop it, small and startled and as the ground disappeared beneath her and she found herself completely airborne in his arms, her back against his forearm, her legs draped over his other arm, entirely and completely at the mercy of physics and his grip.

She stared up at the sky for a second, then brought her gaze down and found his face very close and looking at her with an expression of subtle amusement.

Her hands balled into fists at her sides. She refused, absolutely refused to wrap her arms around his neck like some kind of helpless person who needed to hold on. She was a Demigod. She had fought a Guardian Spirit. She could survive being carried.

She was very obviously lying to herself and they both knew it.

In the end she brought her fists up and covered her burning face entirely, which was at least a solution of sorts.

Amael was a bit speechless seeing Lisandra like that, even his strong heart having hard time to resist such a sight.

Then Alphonse appeared at his back, moving with her usual quiet grace. She placed her hands on his shoulders first, then looped her arms carefully around his neck from behind.

”Is this alright?” She asked, her voice close to his ear.

”Yeah,” Amael said. ”Hold on tight.”

”I will,” Alphonse said softly.

The warmth of her breath against the side of his neck was...quite a thing.

Regardless, he focused.

He shifted his weight slightly, making sure both of them were secure; Lisandra in his arms, Alphonse at his back and then lifted off easily.

And he accelerated without waiting.

The direction was set.

An island hidden even from the Gods.