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Chapter 20: Nightfall

Year 1872

- Who in the world do you think he was?

Rina's dry question broke the silence as the three young women walked under the sun towards the fortress that was still far from their reach. It would be difficult to tell which one of them was the most exhausted.

Haruna didn't know what to say in reply to her question, and it showed. The leader of the group walked between the other two, now looking down at the rocks on the ground instead of the distant fortress ahead of them.

- Do we have to talk about the obvious here, or...? - Tomomi spoke after almost a minute, and the other two faced her - I mean, it wasn't even just the white hair. They both have the same face, it's like he's her lost twin or something. If they're not related somehow, I'll eat my shoe.

- Which one? - Haruna asked with amusement, and the white sorcerer punched her lightly on the arm - Seriously though, I actually thought it was her at a first glance.

- Now I'm actually mad she isn't here anymore. - Rina said, a bit more harshly than any of the others would expect - Maybe she could give us some answers right about now. I would punch those answers out of her if I had to.

- Rina, come on. - Haruna was now squeezing the bridge of her nose - It wasn't your fault he escaped. I know you wanted him dead, we all did. He was way too dangerous. But in the end, it all worked out for the best.

- You really think that?

- I do. Have you even stopped to think about the fact that it was the three of us who ended that entire battle? I don't think it could have gone any better than that.

- It's good to have you this optimistic, to be honest. - Tomomi chimed in, getting herself a light shove from the princess as they walked. - But it's true. Let's hold onto the idea that we came out of that mess alive and we possibly saved a bunch of other lives too.

- See? That's the spirit. Honestly, I don't think I can make anything out of that whole mess before I can sit down somewhere inside of that fortress with my head away from the sun.

- But if I'm giving my actual opinion about this... I don't think Mami being here would be of much help in this department. - that statement attracted both Haruna's and Rina's gazes straight at her. She blushed a little, she wasn't expecting it.

- Why do you say that? - Rina asked, a truly curious look on her face.

- Like... do you think they actually know each other? I don't think so. He didn't even seem much like a Moon sorcerer to me, he didn't act like one at any point. Mami never mentioned a guy in the Seiryu army who looked exactly like her either, the whole time she was with us-

- Seriously, now you're the one trusting the scarce information she gave us? Come on, Tomomi.

- I'm just saying, she talked about her cousins and a bunch of other things when we first met her. Never mentioned a brother or anything like that. I think she would have told us if she knew she had an evil relative shooting blue light beams everywhere in the continent. - Tomomi's mind was going through every single thing Mami had told them, failing to locate anything about a twin or a brother of any kind, but she heard Rina huff impatiently from Haruna's other side.

- She never talked about her mom, doesn't mean she doesn't have one or doesn't know her. And isn't it really interesting how we found her stuck inside of a Seiryu station? How she told us she worked for them, but not really, because she was a spy, and now we run into this guy in a Seiryu armor who looks like her mirror image? It smells bad, no matter how much you think about it. And I was the one who freed her from that machine...