[Volume 2 | Chapter 52: Orion's Lioness (IV)]

Lorelei's inquiry left Acacia momentarily speechless.

His mind whirled with postulations—questions he scarcely knew how to frame. After several seconds of tense silence, he looked to Pandora, expecting to find at least some surprise or concern on her features. Instead, he saw only resignation... an expression of someone who had already processed this information and accepted its reality.

As much as he hated to admit it, it made sense. She was the one who told him about this «Red Key» since their confrontation at the Windsor Medical Center a few weeks ago.

"You were briefed about me being the bearer of the «Red Key» before you came to rescue me from Ocarina?" demanded Acacia.

"Yes. I was," replied the ebony woman.

"...Do the others know? Leila? Elias? Mr. and Mrs. Trafalgar?"

"No," Lorelei interjected. "Only Pandora, myself, and now you."

Acacia fell silent.

"T-this must be some mistake."

The words sounded weak even to his own ears.

"I'm... I'm just an Irregular. I can't even use basic Thaumaturgy. How could I possibly wield some weird superweapon?" Acacia's hands trembled as he set down his teacup.

Lorelei's expression remained patient, almost maternal, as she observed his struggle.

"The Aeterna Armamenta don't follow the rules of Thaumaturgy, Mr. Belmont. They operate on conceptual principles beyond our mortal understanding. The «Red Key», in particular, responds to negation… the fundamental rejection of imposed reality."

"You're saying I can just... what? Wish things away? Say 'no' and reality listens? If I had that kind of power, don't you think I might have used it before the execution? Maybe when I would get beaten half to death in courtyards? Maybe when some random racist or bigot would try to shank me on alleyways?! Or when my home was burning around me?!"

Memories of a thousand injustices, of bruises and cuts and laughter at his expense, all came flooding back. The helplessness he'd felt, the pain, the anger—he'd been so close to giving up so many times.

He had no power then, so why would he have it now?

Did he not believe enough?

Was she implying that he just allowed them to die?

Pandora's expression tightened minutely. It was the only indication that his words had affected her at all.

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered, suddenly aware of his breach of decorum. "I didn't mean to—"

"No apology necessary. Your skepticism is entirely warranted. I would have questioned your intelligence if you had simply accepted such extraordinary claims without any protest," Lorelei calmly responded.

She closed the Dead Sea Scrolls as the ancient pages whispered before they settled against each other.

"The «Red Key» manifests differently than most Aeterna Armamenta; it's most analogous to the «Azure Truth» in this regard. While most respond to their wielder's will, I believe the «Red Key» requires something more primal. Perhaps a profound rejection of one's current reality. A negation so complete it tears through the boundaries of possibility."

The explanation only fueled the growing pressure inside Acacia's chest.

All his life he'd been denied. He was denied power, denied love, denied family, denied acceptance, denied even the simplest forms of dignity. And now this woman was suggesting that his suffering had somehow transformed him into a vessel for divine power?

"If you knew..." he began, his voice tight. "If you've been watching me for a year, then you saw what they did to me. You saw what happened every day in that academy. You saw them burn the last connection I had to—" His throat closed around the words, a ragged sound escaping before he could contain it.

The silence that followed was heavy, charged with emotions too complex for simple expression.

"Yes, I did," Lorelei admitted.

"Then why now?" The question burst from him like water through a broken dam. "Why wait until I got framed for a crime that I didn't do? Why let me suffer day after day, month after month, if I was so damn important to your plans?!"

He was on his feet now, not remembering when he'd stood. His injuries from the Bloodhound encounter protested the sudden movement, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the anguish clawing at his chest.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to be beaten until you can't stand? To have the one thing connecting you to your past burned before your eyes? To know that no one—NO ONE—sees you as anything but garbage to be disposed of? Now you're telling me you were watching the whole time? Taking NOTES?! What kind of person does that?! What kind of MONST—"

"Acacia—"

"No!" He recoiled from her touch, anger and betrayal warring on his face. "You're still no better! You knew all this, and you still kept me in the dark. You let me think I was just a pawn in your schemes against Helen Vessalius, when all along it was about this... this shitty key!"

A pause, led by only his ragged breaths.

"Was any of it real? Did either of you ever see me as anything but a weapon to be aimed at your enemies?"

Lorelei remained seated, an expression unreadable as fog as she observed the outburst. Pandora, however, had gone rigid, her golden eyes wide with hurt though rapidly concealed behind her professional mask.

"Your feelings are valid, and your questions deserve answers. But first, please, sit down before you reopen your wounds. Dr. Amherst would be most displeased if we returned you to him in worse condition than when you left." Lorelei's voice was soft, absent any judgment or condescension.

Acacia hesitated, his anger battling against the ingrained routine of following commands. But finally, he relented and lowered himself into his chair, posture tense and wary.

"To address your most pressing question," Lorelei continued once he was seated. "I did not intervene earlier because interference would have been counterproductive, perhaps even dangerous. The «Red Key» responds to the internal rejection that wielder has of their reality. Had I plucked you from Ocarina before circumstances reached their crisis point, the power within you might never have stabilized."

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"You're saying that I needed to suffer?"

"I'm saying that the confluence of your particular history, the depth of your experiences, and the precise manner in which the world has rejected you have combined to make you uniquely capable of wielding this power." Her tone remained even, neither apologetic nor defensive. "I did not create your circumstances, Acacia. I just didn't want them to go in vain."

Behind his eyes, images flashed—Gio's sneering face, the burning Omamori, the countless humiliations and abuses that had defined his existence in Ocarina.

It wasn't the most difficult thing ever to classify these instances as people just being evil and cruel to him.

But to say that it filled some necessary "condition" to stabilize this «Red Key»?

It made him want to vomit.

"You're... not human." He whispered it, half to himself, as if voicing his thoughts aloud would somehow diminish the intensity of his emotions.

"Perhaps," Lorelei acknowledged, surprising him with her far too eager candor. "But consider this: had I interfered too soon, you might still be trapped in Ocarina, your potential unrealized, your fate sealed by the very system that rejected you. Instead, you sit here now—alive, free from those who tormented you, with the opportunity to shape a future of your own choosing."

"A future as your weapon," Acacia countered bitterly.

"A future as whatever you choose to be. The «Red Key» is awakening within you, yes, but how you wield it—or whether you wield it at all—remains entirely your decision."

"How convenient." His laugh held no humor. "I get to 'choose' whether to help you, except the alternative is what? Being thrown back to the wolves? Returned to Ocarina as an escaped fugitive? You've set up everything so that my life depends on my cooperation, and then you call it choice?!"

Pandora tensed visibly at this as her hands clenched in her lap.

"I have no intention of abandoning you, regardless of your decision. Whether from practical self-interest—as I would hardly benefit from Cagliostro Narma acquiring someone of your potential—or from simple human decency, your safety remains a priority."

Lorelei leaned forward, her eyes meeting his directly.

"But I won't lie to you, Acacia. I do hope you'll choose to help us. The Empire is rotting from within, corrupted by those who view power as an end rather than a means. Real change requires tools they cannot anticipate or counter, and the «Red Key» is precisely such."

"I don't even know how to use it! I don't know what 'denying fate' means. I can't just warp reality on command!" Acacia sharply retorted.

"Not yet, but with proper guidance and training, you could learn to access that power consciously rather than only in moments of extreme crisis." Lorelei paused, letting her words sink in so that Pandora could deliver the final blow to his resolve.

"When Nemesis was about to kill you before I stopped him," Pandora interjected quietly, "there was a moment when something changed. A red light, similar to what was reported during your execution. It disrupted his Ars Magna temporarily, enough to throw him off balance."

Acacia's head snapped toward her, memories of that terrible night rushing back. He remembered the strange sensation... that crystalline moment when reality bended to his well, when something ancient and terrible had answered his desperate rejection of death.

"That was just... adrenaline. Or hallucination from blood loss. It wasn't real."

"It was very real," Pandora insisted. "I saw it with my own eyes. It was a momentary deactivation of «Deathblossom's» aura, something that should have been impossible unless done by Nemesis's volition."

"Even if that's true, I can't control it! I can't just summon it whenever I want!"

"Not yet," Lorelei repeated. "But the «Dead Sea Scrolls» suggest that an Aeterna Armamenta is tethered to one's soul, becoming part of you. When you truly call for it, when you genuinely desire to reject an aspect of the world, it will answer."

"And what then? I become some kind of... of reality-warping freak? More of an outcast than I already am?"

"You could also become someone who could change things for the better. Someone who could reshape the world, rather than being forever crushed beneath its weight. Though, I cannot in good conscious say that the «Red Key» won't change you. To wield the «Red Key» consciously, consistently—it would require a fundamental shift in how you perceive reality."

"...What does that even mean?"

"It means, that to consciously deny reality, you must first see it as something... malleable. Something that can be rejected. Or so I infer," Pandora interrupted. "It's a perspective is inherently inhuman, and it would change you in ways we cannot fully predict."

The room fell silent save for the distant sound of Windsor's windmills turning in their endless rhythm. If what they said was true, he carried within him the power to warp the world to his will.

But at what cost?

It was terrifying. It was awesome in the original sense of the word. It inspired both wonder and dread in equal sense.

And it was, he realized with a hollow certainty, probably true. The strange circumstances of his survival in Ocarina, the red light during his execution, that momentary disruption of Nemesis's perfect system... they formed a pattern too coherent to dismiss as coincidence.

"I don't know if I can be what you want me to be. I'm not a hero. I'm not a savior. I'm just... me."

"That's all any of us are."

Lorelei did not admonish him, nor did she offer hollow words of comfort.

She just observed his suffering, taking it in as if trying to understand the nature of his anguish.

"Heroes aren't born, Acacia. They're forged through choices made in tough circumstances. I don't expect an answer today. This is a lot to process, and you deserve time to consider everything we've discussed."

Acacia's eyes narrowed, still turbulently fueled.

She turned to Pandora, who had remained unusually silent throughout much of the exchange.

"High Inquisitor Kircheisen, would you be so kind as to give us a few minutes alone? There are some matters I'd like to discuss with Mr. Belmont privately."

Pandora hesitated, her gaze shifting between Lorelei and Acacia. Something unspoken passed between the two women—a silent negotiation concluded with the subtlest of nods from the Viceroy.

"Of course, Your Excellency." Pandora's formal tone had returned, though her eyes lingered on Acacia with an expression he couldn't quite decipher. "I'll wait in the anteroom with Sir Pelagius."

She moved toward the door with her usual grace, pausing only briefly beside Acacia's chair. Her hand hovered near his shoulder for a moment, as if she wanting offer some gesture of comfort or reassurance, before falling back to her side, understanding her hypocrisy in doing so. With a soft exhalation, she exited the study, pulling the heavy door shut behind her, leaving the Irregular alone with Orion's Lioness. A subtle shift occurred in the chamber's atmosphere. Lorelei's carefully constructed political persona—the calculated charm, the strategic warmth—seemed to recede like a tide drawing back from shore. What remained was rawer… more authentic. She moved to the window, gazing out over Windsor's skyline for a long moment before speaking.

"Do you know what the worst part of power is, Acacia?"

She didn't wait for his answer.

"It's knowing exactly how much suffering exists in the world and precisely how little of it you can actually prevent."

She turned back to face him.

"Despite what you might think of me right now, I do understand what it means to be powerless, and how it feels be viewed as disposable by those who hold authority."

Acacia's eyebrows drew together in skepticism.

"You're the Viceroy of the second biggest province in the Empire. How could you possibly know what it feels like to be powerless?"

He knew the statement was childish the moment it left his mouth.

"Because I wasn't born into privilege, Acacia. The Bismarck family has served the House of Acroma for generations. We were vassals on paper, but in practice... we were nothing more than indentured servants, bound by contracts designed to ensure we could never escape our debt."

Lorelei fingers traced the spine of a leather-bound volume. It was an absent-minded gesture.

"In Vladisburg, Pendragon Province, wearing hand-me-downs and eating whatever scraps the Acromas deemed sufficient for their servants' children. My parents worked 16-hour days in the Acroma estate, and still our debt somehow increased each year. It was an impossibility that no one dared to question." A mirthless smile played across her lips as she withdrew a tome and cradled it in her arms, as if embracing an old, dear friend.

Turning back to Acacia, she began to roll up the sleeve of her tailored jacket, revealing a forearm marked by a twisted scar—ragged tissue that ran from wrist to elbow in a pattern that resembled claw marks.

"I was 17 when it happened… when a Crisis Beast, a Fenrir, descended on Vladisburg during the annual harvest festival."

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