TBATE - CHANGING FATE

Chapter 11 - The Birthday Present

____________________________________________________________

ARTHUR POV:

*crack*

Letting go of Sebastian's neck, his now lifeless corpse dropped loudly onto the ground. Cleaning off the blood on my hands, I noticed that my suit – no longer black and white – was dyed in a deep red colour. Sighing, I undressed down to my underwear and took out the small black and gold cube; one of the relics which I had initially thought to be useless. When I put my clothes near the cube, it suddenly absorbed them – similar to my storage rune – and started to let out a low hum.

"Hurry up Princess! I don't want to look at your almost naked body all day!" Regis teasingly barked at me. "Also... what should we do with this guy's corpse?"

"Leave it be, they won't know what happened to him anyway" I replied, taking my clothes which had finished cleaning and putting them back on. "Now get inside me, I'm going to cancel static void."

I could hear him muttering complaints under his breath, but he followed my orders and quickly hopped inside. Moving back to my original position, I checked to make sure no splatters of blood were on me. Seeing that I was clean, I deactivated static void and let time run normally again.

"HONEY!!" Dad yelled out, expecting that the spell was about to hit Mom and would severely injure – or worse – kill her. Ms Tabitha and Vincent were shouting in fear, but realised... the spell was gone.

"AAAH!"

Turning their heads, everyone saw that Queen Priscilla was screaming at the sight of Sebastian's deceased corpse, his body a mess and barely recognisable. Not wanting anyone else to see such a sight King Glayder took off his cape, covering the body with it and ordered everyone to leave the room except the guards and Vincent.

While waiting in the front lobby, the Twin Horns managed to find us and were told of what happened. After an hour of sitting through the tense atmosphere, Vincent came out of the room with a glum look; telling us they couldn't find any clue on what happened to Sebastian.

'It's not like they've got Sherlocks's help or anything, so no shit they couldn't find anything!' Regis remarked.

Wanting to forget this incident, Vincent told us to head back to the manor without him while he stayed back to help with the clean-up. In the carriage ride back, no one spoke up or mentioned what happened; everyone being slightly traumatised by what happened.

Heading off to a nearby inn, the Twin Horns said their goodbyes and got out of the carriage a few minutes before we arrived at the manor. Once we arrived Dad told us to head to our bedrooms and get some early rest, his voice clearly exhausted by watching Mom nearly get injured.

The following morning, a representative of King Glayder came to us and offered tens of gold coins in an effort to ease the situation. While initially refusing to accept the money, I managed to convince Dad to take it as no one – baring Sebastian – was hurt and that we should move past what happened.

While helping Lilia and Ellie meditate in the living room, Vincent came up to me with a wrapped parcel in his hands. "I couldn't find the time to give this to you yesterday, but here's the items you wanted Arthur!" he proudly explained, practically throwing the parcel into my arms.

Opening it up, I saw my nostalgic note mask and cape; both of which I wore for several years when I was much younger. Thanking him with a grin, I stored them away and asked if I could have one last favour. Returning to the auction, I walked down to the familiar room and pulled out Dawn's Ballad from underneath the sheet.

"It's good to see you again, old friend!" I happily spoke to it. After having it partially destroyed by Jagrette and fully shattered by Cadell, I thought that I would never find another weapon as good as this one. Although I could easily manifest aether swords with just a thought, it felt good to swing something around with weight.