Archive of Our Own ^beta

IGNITION: TSUN TO TSUNDERE TO DERE

By Yingfei

© August-December 2020.

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“We are ignorant of the Beyond because this ignorance is the condition of our own life. Just as ice cannot know fire except by melting and vanishing.”

—Jules Renard.

"The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it."

—Thomas S. Monson.

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i: TSUN.

IN A QUIET ROOM full of purple-hue light and many trinkets and Dynamos that swarmed the area, a seat was occupied, and bright, hovering, futuristic computer screens were being used all at once as heavily-gloved fingers rapidly swiped left and right.

The sixteen-year-old male that caused all the technological activity—Add who, thank you very much, was tooootally not going to try to steal Eve's codes again in a few days—stopped his work briefly as a Dynamo came towards him, a large chocolate bar right in its grip.

"Ah, it's time for food again, kek? Fine…"

The Dynamo peeled down the upper portion of the wrapper that held the sweet and hovered it a few inches from Add's secretly watery mouth.

Just as Add was about to munch on a large section of the sweet, however, it was not only snatched away but the crunchy, sloppy sound of a vast portion of the desert being bit in and swallowed was able to be heard in the scientific capacity.

Add looked behind him and scowled at who he saw.

"Elesis."

"Add."

"..."

"..."

"...Why are you here? Actually, no, the real question is how did you get in here, and why did you decide to eat my chocolate bar?"

Elesis, who had separated the candy into two pieces before she ate the top half of it, gave Add back the bottom half. She had an aluminum-wrapped plate of food, a silver fork, and a silver knife in her right hand.

"I brought you dinner since you didn't come out of here to eat anything. You know, Add, if you keep staying in your lab all day, you'll weigh less than a piece of paper!"

Add frowned at the bottom half of chocolate in his hands. "Don't avoid the other two questions, kek."

"We had roast potato, lamb, stuffing, and a few vegetables to eat"—Elesis placed the meal on Add's table, which caused grease to leak on a few papers—"and since you seem like a skeleton nowadays, I got you an extra-large plate of it."

Add tsked at the redhead's continuance of changing the subject, but ultimately let it go as he knew she would do the same thing again until he would drop it.

"...Thanks for the food," the scientist quietly muttered out.

As the boy unwrapped the aluminum covering his dinner, Elesis suddenly rested her chin right on top of his head. It took all that was in him to not throw her to the ground.

"Why...are you still here?"

"To watch you eat."

Add ordered his Dynamos to clean up the spills that the top part of his chocolate Elesis messily ate and the grease from the food she got for him had left on his papers. "I'm not even going to attempt to respond to that, Elesis."

Elesis was lucky that the papers were simply scrapes of rejected research, for had they been the inquisition files that were advancement to his study on Nasods, he is sure this would've been the day he finally snapped and killed her, her annoying kid brother, and the rest of the imbeciles in the El Search Party—or, at least, the ones that wouldn't be able to kill him in an instant.

When Add finished the food (and his chocolate, albeit grudgingly), he ordered a Dynamo to throw it away for him. When he still felt Elesis's jaw on his hair, Add sighed.

"You're not leaving anytime soon, are you?"

"Nope, and in fact," the knight responded happily as she wrapped her arms around the tracer, much to his chagrin, "I was thinking of trying to lure you out of here so we can go to the park around here!"

"No."

"Awww, not even for a liiiiittle bit? We can go to the shops that you would prefer after we're done."

"No."

Elesis pouted. "You're no fun."

"If I was your definition of fun, I'd never get anything done, kek."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard this speech from you a thousand times before, Add."

"Then you should know to stop asking me."

"One day you might say yes, though!"

"I doubt it, kek," Add responded as he rolled his eyes.

For the next four minutes, Add was using his digital interface to look at any of his Dynamos that needed an upgrade, and he did an excellent job at ignoring how much Elesis's chest was pressing unto his back and an even more excellent job at giving short, cynical answers to Elesis's many long and vexatious questions.

Just when he was looking at improvements he could make for one Dynamo's camera, however…

Glomp!

Add's eyes widened as he turned brashly to Elesis, pointed his finger at her laughing figure, and yelled out with a blush on his face, "Did y-y-you just poke at my ear?!"

Elesis nodded casually. Much to Add's horror, she poked at his ears three times.

"I never realized it before—cause, you know, you're always in your room—but for someone who claims to be a human, your ears are so...pointy! Are you of elfen descent or something?"

Add glared at her.

"Y-You think I'm gonna k-keep this c-conversation going with you after what you just did?!"

Elesis nodded once more.

"Sorry, but your ears are just so adorable! You should show them more!"

Elesis looked up at the interface Add had of his Dynamo, and then to her right where that exact Dynamo was, and her eyes beamed even more. "I just remembered that your toys have cameras. That's so cool!"

"They're not toys, kek, and I thought it was obvious that my Dynamos have—"

"So, you usually say 'initiate camera on HD mode' to take pictures, right?"

The Dynamo began to fold itself in half, and Elesis made a sound of triumph.

"Camera HD mode has been initiated," one of the digital interfaces of Add's stated, much to the white-haired male's dismay.

"Now, Dynamo, initiate 'take a landscape shot' in twenty seconds, please! Come on Add, let's get you in position…"

Add's eyes bulged as Elesis spun him in his chair towards the right. It seemed that Elesis paid more attention to him using his technology than he thought.

"Oh, hold on, Add," Elesis rambled to herself more than him, "let me just…"

Add gave out a tiny squeal as Elesis rubbed at his cheeks. "W-Why did you just t-touch me a-a-again?!"

"You had a piece of chocolate on the side of your cheek. Now, smile for the camera."

"I don't want to—gaaah, d-d-don't h-hug me like t-t-that!"

"Come oooooon, Add, this is a picture to last you for the ageeeees!" Elesis cooed out as she positioned the left cheek of her face near his right cheek. Add contemplated on committing suicide.

"N-No, get away! I don't want to—"

Snap!

"...Take the picture…"

Before Add could run up and grab and destroy the picture, Elesis took it from the Dynamo and taped it to the only empty bulletin cork board in the tracer's workshop. Add looked at it and saw that the picture was of him blushing and struggling to push away a bright-eyed, grin-beared Elesis.

It was also clear that Elesis performed the infamous "bunny ears" tactic behind Add's head. Typical.

"J-Just get o-out a-a-already," Add mumbled out at the other sixteen-year-old as he swiped his cat hoodie on his head and turned away from her. Elesis did what he said and laughed; the knight told him that she would come around to give him leftovers from dinner again tomorrow.

…

Add was really starting to wonder if all redheads with red eyes were something to watch out for, as well as if Elbrat might not be as bad as his sister.

The sixteen-year-old mentally reminded himself to put a passcode in his Dynamos before camera and video mode was commenced by a voice, and also make sure that it was set to his and only his voice.

Most of all, that dreaded picture he was forced into needed to be burned to shreds, kek.

(Years later, the picture would be covered by lab reports and papers full of data and research, but it never was taken down, "oddly" enough...)

ii: TSUNDERE.

"You lost your bikini top, didn't you?"

Add sighed when Elesis responded with an embarrassed, distressed laugh.

This was not the first time Elesis had lost her bikini top—as Add could never forget the number of times he laughed and 'keked' when, back when the two were still sixteen and even seventeen, she would throw back a volleyball too hard at Elbrat or Ara and end up with a loose bikini bra—but, this time, it was much different.

Elesis had...to put is as least perverted and gazy as possible, developed physically.

The now Pyro Knight wasn't voluptuous in the matters of Rena or Ara, and due to her chest armor and demeanor as a knight, it wasn't as obvious when she was heavily clothed, but whenever she'd dress casually or in a swimsuit, it was clear as day that her current body had matured.

Elesis, who focused mostly on bravery, swordsmanship, and the wellbeing of others, barely paid attention to her physical attractiveness and development, Add noted, but a lot of males around the villages the El Group would travel to sure paid attention.

Whenever she'd be wearing non-knight attire, many times would she receive a whistle or a compliment from guys, at least until she would challenge them to a duel and scare them away after she accidentally sprained their ankles and wrists, or would be electrically shocked by a certain person's Dynamos that tooootally wasn't Add's.

When the El Group had arrived at the beach of the current town they were residing in, compliments and far-away eye-googling towards Ara and Rena were plentiful.

There were a few attempts of males trying to court either two, but those who tried to go for Ara were stopped by the interference of Elesis (and two times Ara herself momentarily dropped her act of innocence in order to give sharp warnings), and those who dared to get too frisky in their face-to-face compliments of Rena would cease their talking when they saw Raven's quiet but unamused stance.

Elesis herself got a few guys who complimented her beauty, but she paid them no mind as the compliments were mild. Add felt that something, something stirred inside him, but he decided to ignore it.

When Ara, Chung, Elesis, Elbrat, Lu, and Raven decided to go play volleyball in the sea, Add, as usual, decided to simply stay under an umbrella on the beach, next to the relaxing Rena, the smiling Ciel, and the observant Eve. Aisha would usually be under the umbrella as well, but Elbrat had forced the magician to come into the water with him.

Add took a few glances at Eve here and there but was stopped from probing at the Nasod any further by the watchful eyes of a certain nearby Combat Ranger, who had a rather threatening aura around her as she relaxed on her green reclining chair.

Some time into the volleyball game between Chung, Elesis, Elbrat, Aisha, and Ara, a group of guys, who were playing their own game of volleyball, had passed by Elesis and Ara in an attempt to catch their own ball.

The males had given a few smiles at the duo, and while Ara sheepishly turned away from them, Elesis gave a small friendly wave of acknowledgment at them before she went back to the game.

Add didn't pay much attention to the scene, at first; the beach they were at was public, and it was obvious that Elesis and Ara could defend themselves, and if not, Aisha, Elbrat, and Raven would plummet out the boys if they got too frisky.

However, at a time when Raven, who was the referee (forced by Lu who was the ball-catcher when the ball went too far away from the game) in the whole thing, had to go in between Aisha and Elbrat who were once again arguing over silly nonsense as Chung sighed—this time the two quarreling because Elbrat was so busy staring at a nearby busty woman who was swimming around the Elgang, the fifteen-year-old had let the ball pass by him two times—and Lu was watching and laughing at the quarreling duo, while Ara had to temporary take Lu's role and go get the ball, something had happened.

One of the guys that had been around the Elgang—some tanned male with emerald green hair in a Caesar cut—had brushed extremely close to the redhead who either didn't notice or didn't care enough to turn around. In honesty, Add did not take too much thought into that and believed that if it was truly something to pay a second glance to, Elesis would've confronted the boy.

Quickly, however, Add realized how wrong he was.

40 seconds after the tanned boy had brushed against Elesis, when Aisha and Elbrat finally stopped their squabbling and the game was back in session, Elesis had thrown the ball and was able to get it to go over the head of Aisha and score a point.

Elesis and Ara jumped up in joy—and when Elesis got back into position, there was a jolt in her movement and her face was one of shock.

Elesis immediately ducked her head under the water, and after a whole minute, came back up with a confused face. She went below once more—this time for only about fifteen or so seconds—and, when once again her face showed a sense of bewilderment, she looked at her brother and Aisha.

Add didn't know what exactly she said, but Elesis said something to the others, and when they responded, Add saw that the redhead had waved her hand off and Lu took her place. The others were clearly confused but said nothing else.

Elesis was obviously looking for something as she waddled herself far from the game and ducked down and up constantly.

When Elesis popped her head back up, she was biting her lips and stealthily not making anything below her shoulders be able to be seen in the public eye. The group of boys—especially the one with green hair—had looked at Elesis and gave a few entertained glances at her before returning to their game.

Minutes after Elgang continued their game without the Pyro Knight, Elesis was so far away from both the companions of the Search Party and the group of boys that only the top of her currant-colored hair could be (barely) seen from Add's position on the beach.

Rena, while looking at the direction Elesis was swimming around covertly in, flipped a page of the elven-oriented magazine that tested on her lap, her eyebrows perked up as she looked to Add, Ciel, and Eve, and asked softly, "Is it just me, or is something wrong with Elesis? Poor dear seems to be a bit...paranoid, I'd say?"

Ciel nodded. "Very much."

"The upper part of her two-sectioned swimwear attire is misplaced from her torso," Eve—whose golden eyes were squinted—robotically and verbosely commented, which reminded Add once more on why he needed to find a way to hijack her codes, "and my program detects that the strings that held the apparel in position were loosened. Perhaps the force she availed in delivering the beachball is the cause?"

This would be the time where Add would call Elesis an imbecile and laugh, but this time, Add did not feel comedy in the situation—instead, he felt a sense of uneasiness at Elesis's misfortune.

...The fact that the last time the situation happened a few weeks ago, Rena had thrown a look so unamused and threatening at the tracer that he shuddered, also contributed to Add's reason for being quiet this time.

(Ugh. For how energetic and kind-hearted elves generally are, they sure can be terrifying when the situation calls for it.)

"I believe that's right—and I don't think she's going to find it anytime soon. Hopefully, the boys over there don't go near her or go under the water and accidentally end up seeing her," Ciel said.

"I will attempt to extend the abilities of my program in order to detect the location of the maillot and inform Elesis where her disarranged bikini top floats."

The silver-haired robot got up to do just that, but Add stopped her—he blamed his reasons for doing so on that unknown, uncomfortable sensation that kept prodding at his insides. Once again, he tried his best to ignore how much the sensation was increasing internally.

"I'll do it, kek."

Ciel let out a sound of surprise. "Really? I'd thought you would be delighted in Miss. Seighart's misfortune."

"I guess it gives me an excuse to go get, as Elesis would say, 'a tan' and all that. Also, I don't want Eve's components to get damaged or jumbled up, kek," Add responded after he shrugged.

Rena giggled—a type of giggle she gives that Add instantly recognized as the one she lets out before she teases someone—and flipped another page of her magazine.

"You may say that, Add, but I believe it's not just Eve that you wouldn't want to get in danger."

"...I have no idea what you're talking about"—the Arc Tracer shot a dirty look to the Combat Ranger who in return just giggled harder—"but I am not doing this for Elesis's sake if that's what you're inferring."

"Hmmm….? I do not recall ever saying I was talking about Elesis. Why would you think my comment was instantly referring to our dear knight, Add…?"

Add felt a faint blush form on his face—which, due to his pale skin tone and much to his chagrin, was easy to spot—and quickly turned away from Rena.

"Whichever implication you're prodding at me means nothing to me and won't work. I have no connection or care for either that knight or her brat of a brother, kek."

"Then why didn't you correct me for saying our dear knight instead of the dear knight like you usually would've done?"

Add turned to go respond to an insult to Rena, but the words died in his throat. Instead, the Dynamo-user just blushed harder.

Ciel gave a tiny chuckle himself and then said as he made an amused glance at Add, "Seems that Miss. Rena's theory has a basis after all."

Eve nodded.

"My programs have noted a rise in embarrassment and what Rena would call 'the fluttering of butterflies in one's stomach-region' in Add."

Add looked down at his sandals-bound feet before he rolled his eyes.

"W-Whatever, I'm g-g-going now," Add told the three other people—a little bit of a stumble was evident in his tone. With a tsk, the time-user walked under and away from the umbrella as Rena continued her laughing.

Add frowned at the way the water surged around him as he began to come in contact with the water that the Elgang was continuing their game in. Once again, he was reminded why he preferred to be under the sanctuary of parapluies whenever he was dragged to beaches.

As he went more and more into the water, past the area where toddlers in duck pool floats swam in the perimeter of their watchful parents and the elderly took tiny toe dips into the water next to their laughing grandchildren, closer and closer to the scorching sun, he began to spot Elesis in a clearer and clearer fashion.

When the El gang's and the group of suspicious boys' respective volleyball games were much behind him, Add was able to see a few standing upward strands of hair that were in the fire user's long ponytail.

She had been so frantic in looking for her top that was definitely long gone that she did not notice Add until he had laid out the short question:

"You lost your bikini top, didn't you?"

Which led to the current moment where Elesis had just let out an embarrassed, distressed laugh, her eyes shunned with uneasiness and a rare flash of meekness.

"How'd ya' guess?" the abashed female asked in a quiet tone that was uncharacteristic of her. Add looked away as Elesis unconsciously stopped covering her breasts with her hands to throw off a large piece of seaweed that had gotten on top of her head.

"Every time you lose your bikini top, you go swim to an isolated area and make sure the water is up to your chin."

Elesis went back to covering her chest, her cheeks flushed. "That obvious, eh?"

Elesis gave a weak smile; Add just rolled his eyes.

Typical.

"Yes, that obvious, kek—it's obvious that you're not going to find it anytime soon. Seriously, Elesis, you need to start tying the back of your bikini top tighter."

Elesis looked to her left in a downcast matter. "I...did, though! I made sure to double-tie it, in fact. I just don't know how it could've fallen off of me like that."

Elesis grabbed the top of her hair in frustration, and Add caught a peek of the upper portion of her chest this time before he once again rapidly turned his head to his right, wherefrom a long distance, he could tell that Rena had binoculars and was using them to gaze at Elesis and him.

The tracer was about to send a glare at the ranger when he noticed that from a distance he could also see the boys from earlier staring at them—and they all were laughing and high-fiving the boy with green hair and tanned-skin, who had a grin on his face.

Add was able to spot that in the boy's right pocket, he was able to see a bit of the cup-area of a scarlet red, aerie-wrap halter bikini top, the exact type that Elesis had worn.

Add had no idea how the boy managed to get the bikini top in his hands so quickly and discreetly until he saw the same boy raise his hand up and caused a moderate amount of water to rise up from the air and splash a nearby swimming woman.

The force was so strong, the left and right strap of the woman's yellow triangle bikini top broke apart, and her chest was on full display.

Hydrokinesis, Add thought to himself.

Of course. Water manipulation was exactly what the boy would've had to possess in order to have stolen the bikini top surreptitiously.

Due to a man who was controlling water (unlike the boys in an innocent way as he was making shapes with the water to entertain some nearby children) being closer to the woman, the woman immediately thought it was the man and slapped him hard. As she turned around and angrily started to swim her way back to shore and the man was confused and clutched his red right cheek, the boys laughed hard.

Add made eye-contact with the boy that had green-hair, and the white-haired eighteen-year-old scowled when the other male flashed a grin at him.

Disgusting.

Add turned back to Elesis and realized that she had been rambling some nonsense. The only thing he was able to decipher was her last word, which was "Alright?", which she clearly expected him to respond to.

"Yes," thus Add responded, and it was soon clear to him that he should've asked her what she had been going on about, as the redhead then decided to swim past him, her hair down—her hair ribbon was on her wrist—and all in front, but barely covered her breasts.

She was going to head back to shore, Add quickly concluded, and when he noticed that one of the boys in the group of depraved idiots had turned to her and noticed her coming, a wave of peril for the female swam inside him.

This was not the first time Elesis was going to go to the shore and put back her normal clothes or go borrow a towel. She had done this some of the previous times she lost her top—however, this was the first time where Elesis was topless because of sabotage.

Elesis was topless because a group of perverted idiots wanted to see her exposed. Topless because a group of eyes would be leering at her. Topless because it would have her on display for degenerates.

He shouldn't care. He could've just left and told Ciel and Eve and Rena that, yes, Elesis lost her top and that, no, it was not something that he would think about and wonder over and that, basically, the original plan where Eve would retrieve the top was, indeed, the best choice.

Something, however—something, just something in his consciousness, made him grab her by the arm to immobilize her as he swam in front of her.

He did what he should've done at the start, which was turn around and look at his Dynamos that were hovering around Eve. Add signaled his eyes at a beach towel that was unused and in Aisha's beach bag that the Dark Magician left by Ciel.

In an instant, two Dynamos were flying towards the two eighteen-year-olds, and their lights flickered brightly even under the bright, wide sunlight.

Elesis looked at Add, a befuddled look on her face. "Uh...Add? Why'd ya' stop me?"

Add didn't look back and instead looked down at where his hand clutched Elesis's arm.

"You're exposed. I'm not allowing you to pass by those boys in that state."

"Well, my hair is covering my chest enou—"

"No."

A Dynamo that held the spare black towel from Aisha's bag suddenly dropped said black towel on top of Elesis's wet head. The female peered up at the towel that was above momentarily before she returned her focus of vision to Add.

"I still think that my hair would be able to—"

"Just take it."

In a rare moment of silence and compliance from her, the knight grabbed the towel and wrapped it around her chest. She opened her mouth and attempted to say something, but Add delayed anything she would have let out as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"I'll...escort you to shore in case your towel ends up falling off, kek," Add let out as he began to do exactly what he stated he would. He glanced at Elesis and saw that, once again, she surprisingly went along with it and was silent.

The Dynamo-user thought it was strange that the boisterous girl had suddenly become almost...docile in her demeanor. She had an unreadable face that was able to rival the signature stoic expression that Eve donned.

For a period, Add wondered if she had started to take in how the situation she ended up in was a very embarrassed one, or if she had realized that the boy with green hair untied the back of her bikini top and snuck it in his pockets.

When the two eighteen-year-olds swam to the area where the El Gang was continuing their volleyball game, however, his question was answered—

Add felt a tug at his right hand. He looked at Elesis and saw that she had an analytical expression on her face as if she literally attempted a search inside his soul to find out information on him.

"Hey, Add…"

"What is it, kek?"

The Pyro Knight smiled warmly and nabbed at his hand again. "You know, if you keep doing this, I might end up thinking you actually do care about me and the rest of the El Gang!"

"Well, you need to stop thinking that, because I don't care," the Arc Tracer replied in an instant. His face was deadpan, and he turned away from the other young adult when she omitted a chortle.

"Whatever you say, Add, but I know deep, deep down, you consider yourself a permanent member of our group!"

Add looked back at Elesis and then looked away once more.

"Just continuing swimming, Elesis, kek."

When Add had looked back at Elesis, he had seen that the fire user's brother briefly glanced at them and seemed to attempt to go over to them, but whatever the pest wanted to do or say was interrupted when Aisha threw at him the beach ball they were using for the game, and thus the two brats started to argue once more for the millionth of times.

When Add and Elesis were about 20 feet from the El Gang, they had reached the area where the green-haired idiot and his equally asinine group of friends were.

A few of them gave smirks to Elesis, who did not notice because she was waving at her brother, but none of their smirks were as wide as the smirk of the tanned boy who had snatched Elesis's bikini-top.

With a sharp glare, Add turned to one of his leftover Dynamos that were hovering over Rena and Eve. In an instant, the machine went towards the boys, and about 30 feet of water rose up from around them...

"Woah , w-w-what the h-hell?!"

The tanned boy with green hair was able to only let out those few words before he, despite his powers enabling him to at least push some of the water away, was warped into the mass of waves that Add's Dynamo lifted up.

With a sense of swiftness, said Dynamo managed to snatch back the top of Elesis's bra before it unleashed the water on the delinquents. The string that held the back of the bikini top was ripped beyond repair. Elesis has not noticed the Dynamo at all, as she simply just looked at Add, her face in shock.

The Dynamo went back to Rena and Eve (the elf gave a disappointed look at Add that then turned into a look of awe at the way Add held Elesis while the Nasod had a look that could almost be said to be a slightly surprised one) in seconds. Ciel gave a knowing smile.

Add did not look behind him, but he heard Aisha scolding him, Elsword questioning his actions, and the laughter from Lu. All three of the brats were very loud. The amused commentary from Ara was the quietest.

The volume of their far-away voices combined, however, was nothing compared to the volume that Elesis's voice was at when she started bombarding Add with questions.

"Why did you do that?!"

"I did it for the simple reason that—"

"Add, we're part of the El Gang! We must always act like leaders and innovators!"

"It's not like I—"

"They seem to have been able to get out of that water thrown on them, but that could've killed them!"

"It wasn't aimed to k—"

"I just don't understand, Add. Why would you do that to anyone?!"

"..."

"Well ?!"

"...You know the guy that had green hair?"

"The one with the tan? What about him?"

"He was the one that took your bikini."

"..."

"..."

"Oh ."

"Yeah, kek."

"...Well, if that's the case, then I'll just make some fire, go over there, and teach 'dem a lesson or two about—"

Add immediately grabbed Elesis's left wrist. "No. I already dealt with it, and I really don't want you to burn people in public, as much as I wouldn't feel bad for them."

"Oh, come on, you threw a whole mass of water over them to temporarily drown them! All I would do is get close with my flames and make them think I'll use it, but at the last minute, I'll back off!"

"Knowing you, you'll accidentally be finding that too humorous and will end up actually burning one of those idiots, kek."

"..."

"Exactly."

Add entangled his arm with Elesis and continued to move closer and closer to the shore, and the boys that were submerged underwater, who incorrectly thought the culprit was a snickering grown man and his two friends, began to swim towards said adult group and argue with them.

Elesis attempted to tease Add about him helping her multiple times, but he just shut it down every time, although the white-haired male had to endure Elesis poking fun at his flustered expression each time he defended his choice to help her.

The second the two eighteen-year-olds' feet touched the soft and seashell-covered sand of the beach's shore, Add untangled himself from Elesis's and quickly walked ahead of her.

When Add reached the area right in front of the three El Gang members that did not go in the waters, he had a deadpan expression at Rena's fake smile, Eve's analyzing look, and Ciel's enjoyment of Add's clear embarrassment.

"...I brought her back, kek, and that's all I had to do, so shut up," Add told the trio as the Dynamo that had Elesis's ruined bra dropped it on a laid down towel and went back to hovering around the area.

Rena slowly closed her magazine, rolled it up, and placed it in the straw tote bag to the left of her. "I see."

"I'm not apologizing to those guys, by the way."

"...I see," Rena repeated, her insincere smile still on her face.

Add rolled his eyes at Rena's subtle but pierced glare directed at him, though as the male sat back down in the same area he was situated before he went to fetch Elesis, he definitely felt the small bead of sweat that poured down the right side of his forehead.

The air was intense when Rena gracefully yet roughly patted Add's back and said "Thank you very much" to him in a too sweet tone.

"Add, move over," Elesis, who had caught up to Add, said as she sat down on the same large towel he was on. Much to his chagrin, the redhead scooted right in his personal bubble.

Eve turned and looked at Elesis. "I'm glad that you've recovered your upper garment, Elesis."

"Aww, were you worried about me? Thank you, Eve."

Elesis lifted herself up to pat the silver hair of the Nasod, which made Add scowl as she leaned on his shoulder to do so.

"Get off," Add demanded as he pushed the fire user off of him. Elesis laughed.

"Oh Add, I barely was on you! Anyways, Ciel, do you see anyone approaching?"

"Hmm? Ah, no…"

"How about you, Eve? See a stranger coming around here?"

"...There is no one unknown that seems to be close to coming around, Elesis."

Add furrowed his eyebrows at the half-demon and Nasod, and then he looked to Elesis, who looked at Rena and shouted, "Good on your side, Ren'?!"

"I believe the coast is clear now, Elesis," Rena responded to the other female as the elf got a water bottle from her beach bag.

What?

Elesis flashed a smile at the elf. "Finally! I was worried that I'd have to ask you to stand in front of me with the umbrella."

As Elesis went behind Add, searched the insides of her beach bag that was behind Add, and pulled out something red, Add opened his mouth and turned around, faced herd and began to ask her what she was doing—

The words, however, died off halfway as he saw Elesis without any towel wrapped around her chest.

Add instantly looked the other way and facepalmed, his cheeks flushed. Ciel took one look at Add and chuckled before he turned around.

"Elesis."

"Huh ?"

"...What are you doing?"

"What'ya mean?"

Add scowled. "Why are you changing behind me? Wouldn't it have made more sense to change in one of the beach dressing rooms?"

"It'll just be easier to do it here. 'Sides, Add, you're right in front of me and blocking the sight, so…"

"That makes absolutely no sense. Did you get hit in your head when you were playing that volleyball game?"

"No, I didn't...well, okay, I got hit a bit," Elesis admitted as she—for some reason Add could not comprehend—decided to poke at his back, "but it isn't anything more than I usually get hit, so you don't have to worry about it."

"With how you've been acting, I think you got hit harder than you thought, kek."

Eve glimpsed at the two eighteen-year-olds, a crab in her hands. "Elesis's behavior does not seem unorthodox to me."

"Add's behavior, however, seems rather odd, wouldn't you agree, Eve and Ciel?" Rena asked. Add turned his head towards the elf and scoffed, and he then shook his head to rid himself of Elesis's unnecessary touching of the ends of his hair.

With a nod, Ciel responded, "It does—maybe the heat of the sun got to him?"

"Impossible—I don't have any weaknesses. Besides, even if I did, it wouldn't be the sun, kek. You're confusing me for an amateur," Add angrily replied before he made an attempt to push Elesis's hand off his hairs once more. He missed again.

"All humans have weaknesses"—Eve picked up a seashell and examined its cockled figure—"especially you. That is why you haven't successfully stolen my codes."

Add gave a deadly glare and grin at the Nasod. "I haven't 'successfully' taken your codes because the other idiots are too frequently around you for me to take them and dip. However…"

Add lifted his left hand up. Two Dynamos that were lurking a couple of feet behind Rena, in an instant, hovered above Eve. Ciel's looked at Add in confusion while Rena made a sound of displeasure. From a distance, he saw Elsword watching the fiasco, a face of inquiry on the Magic Knight that had the Dark Magician inquisitive of the situation as well.

Eve, meanwhile, kept her trademark look of apathy.

"...If you wish to see me successfully tear you apart, I have no problems doing that right here and right no—GAH!"

"Add, you can't try to steal codes in a public area! We have an image to be faithful to!" Elesis shouted. Add rubbed the middle of his head and tsked.

"Well, with how you almost gave me a concussion to go along with the one you probably have, I won't try to again," Add responded.

Elesis always was noticeably strong, but Add noticed that in recent times, the knight's strength disturbingly had a noticeable increase. Combining that with her newfound abilities to emit uncontrolled fire and she was a deadly combination.

It was why he didn't allow her to reliant any attacks on the group of males from earlier. Add wouldn't dare ever admit to her or anyone else, but...he almost felt a bit afraid of how Elesis's abilities would progress in the future.

He was also annoyed at the fact that...despite that, something almost akin to awe always built up in his chest at thought of her possibly becoming an ultimate knight of pyrokinesis.

"Oh, opps. Well, at least I didn't burn you this time, right?"

More annoyed, however, was the Arc Tracer with the Pyro Knight's insistence to poke and touch him.

Add rolled his eyes before he looked at Elesis's chest, which had the tube top on. "I'm pretty sure that didn't long to put on, so you should've moved away from behind me a long time ago. In fact, maybe move away from me altogether."

Elesis looked behind her back and before she turned to Add and gave him a thumbs up.

"Yep, it's secure."

"Okay, so move already, kek."

"Okay, I will, I will. I'mma rejoin the volleyball gam—oh, look!"

Elesis touched at the left back side of Add's knee. His cheeks turned a bit red, and he was about to yell at the other young adult until he saw that she pulled something from his knee.

"This looks like an interesting seashell. I think I might bring it back with me. You know which one this is?"

She was reaching for a seashell, Add noted.

Oh.

(The Arc Tracer pretended that he didn't hear the Sniping Ranger's giggles, the Code: Exotic voicing her confusion on Add's constant blushing, and the Dreadload implying to the Nasod hat Add kept getting flustered for a reason.)

Add reached for Elesis's wrists—this time, the white-haired male succeeded—and looked at the little dents inside the shell. For some reason, rather than reprimand her for coming into contact with him, he informed her specifics about the seashell.

"Conus Gloriamaris."

Elesis perked her eyebrows up. "Huh?"

"The seashell you discovered is a Conus Gloriamaris. Well, it's also called the Glory of the Sea Cone."

"Are you sure?" asked Elesis. Eve turned to the duo, touched the shell herself, and then went back to her petting of the crab that clung to her.

"It is indeed a Conus Gloriamaris," Eve confirmed, "and a very long one for its kind. I recognize it from when Elsword once gave me and Lu one on a previous visit to the beach."

"The sea snails that usually have this cone have a specialized radula system that creates a poisoned barb they use to wound and intimidate predators," Add added as he handed the shell back to Elesis.

"Wow, Add. I didn't expect someone who's a borderline shut in to have a lot of knowledge about the beach!"

Add gave the knight a deadpan face. He knew he wasn't and would never be anything close to a...a social butterfly, but it wasn't like he would only know the relations of Dynamos, Nasods, and technology...

The crab that was in Eve's hands decided to crawl out and launch itself into the right shoulder of Elesis. Elesis laughed.

"What a pretty red crab. So nice-looking you almost make me hungry," Elesis noted before she gave the crustacean back to Eve, "but I think Eve wants you as a pet, so I'll give you back. Consider yourself lucky!"

"I do indeed want it as a pet. I see him to be a valuable creature."

Add rolled his eyes at the conversation between the two females, and was about to say something until he noticed a bit of a tear on the upper left part of Elesis's tube top.

"I think the crab tore your tube-top."

"Where?" Elesis asked as she looked over her body. Add told her that the rip was around the upper left portion of her bikini top, and she spent twenty seconds trying to find said rip. She was not able to find it.

Add sighed and placed his left index finger around the tear. "The tear was here. Hold on, I think I can fix it…"

Add scooted a bit closer, got a bit up on his knees, and used both hands to grip on the short tiny edges of the tube's upper portions that were cut.

Add made a tiny bow, and then said, "I think this will hold it. I suggest getting one-piece bikinis, next time."

Add moved to get up and back to his original spot, but his right knee fumbled on an area of sand and he tripped a bit. He caught himself before he fell on Elesis, but he had to grip at the right side of her hip.

"Ah, Add! Are you okay?" the Pyro Knight asked as the Arc Tracer felt his face turn a tad scarlet.

"Yes, Add, I also wonder if you are alright. You had to hold unto Elesis heavily just to not end up falling on her," Rena commented in a tone of adored amusement.

Add ignored the elf and instead looked down at where his hand was on Elesis's hip. "Y-Yes, I...am, k-kek."

Add cursed himself for being so flustered. All he did was simply hold her sides, and the action managed to make him feel baffled and like a child, as if he weren't a scientist with digital-expertise.

This was not the first time he made physical contact with Elesis and yet, for a reason he couldn't explain, he felt a certain unusual and creepy sense of muddled apprehension. The sentiment was something that kept increasing more and more, the more time he spent with Elesis.

It was erratic. A perplexing feeling. An innervation that pulled at his chest and made him feel something, not quite akin to euphoria, but not relatively or leaning contradictive at the same time. A newfound perception that he wanted to pay no mind to and dismiss it as youthful disquietude and yet catechize every new layer and curve of what Elesis had somehow input into him and, without her awareness, managed to increase with each and every day and every word she would gleefully say to him or gleefully shout and—

"Why are you holding my sis' like that?"

Add blinked. He looked at Elesis, who was not looking at him but instead to her right. He saw that Rena's eyes were in the same direction as Elesis's.

Slowly, Add looked at his left, which was Elesis's right and the frontal-view of Rena Eve and Ciel were looking in the same direction as well. Standing in front of Add and Elesis, with arms crossed and a half-confused, half-unhappy expression on their face was Elbrat.

The fifteen-year-old's ruby orbs were right in the direction where Add's pale left hand was pressed against the upper left portion of Elesis's tube top and where his right hand grabbed around Elesis's hips. "What are you trying to do to Elesis?"

Elesis tilted her head in confusion. "What are you talking about, Elsword?"

"Elesis, don't you find it weird how he's holding you? That's not the only time too," Elsword answered. Elesis's eyes darted down at where Add had held her, but it was clear by her facial expression that she was still unsure of why her younger brother was freaking out.

"...What, kek?"

"I went to go get sunglasses for Aisha," Elbrat informed Add as the redhead went towards Aisha's bag and got said sunglasses, "and as I was walking to the shore, I saw you touch her! Not to mention I remember you guys swimming hand and hand earlier…"

"What? Hand in…hand…?"

Ah.

That's right. Elbrat had looked at them a few times when Add went to fetch his sister.

"Yeah! Hand in hand with her. Since when are you all buddy-buddy with us? Or all touchy-feely? Like right now?"

"Well, right now, he was fixing a tear in my bikini top," Elesis told Elbrat. Elbrat's face of dissatisfaction and skepticism made it obvious that Elesis's words only fueled his idiotic accusations and suspicions.

"That's another thing...Elesis was wearing a bikini top with strings, but after you went to talk to her in that secluded area in the water, she ended up with a towel around her. Now, she has a tube bikini! What happened to the original one?"

Add sighed. "Well, I was forced to go get your sister—"

"Why didn't you simply use your weird Dynamos to get her, then? I don't believe you. I think you're trying to sabotage her, and that you found a way to get her out of the volleyball game in order to do so. You made all that water go down on those guys that were playing their own volley-ball game as well. Were they witnesses to whatever plan you were gonna do?"

Add rolled his eyes at the teenager and looked at Rena and Ciel for support. Rena, however, was busy rejecting yet another group of males that had been attracted by her and attempted to court her, and Ciel turned the other way and began a conversation with Eve on crabs and lobsters.

After he rolled his eyes once more, Add turned to look at Elesis, who had open her mouth in order to give out a response to her sibling.

"He was just getting me as Rena told him to, Elsword."

"Is touching your body what Rena told him to do too?!"

Elesis took another look at where Add's hands were and so did Add. Add removed his hands from Elesis and Elesis turned her head back to Elbrat.

"No, but it is what he did so that when he fixed the tear, it wouldn't get more torn apart. You're being so paranoid, Elsword! What's up with you?"

Elbrat glared at Add. "What's up with me? What's up with him? Elesis, your fire powers can get really burned out if you're under a heavy amount of water, and he decided to pull up a large amount of water near you. He even used his Dynamos around you, and he usually is all rude about other people using or being too close to them. Doesn't that worry you?"

Elesis repeated a few of Elbrat's words for a few seconds before she shook her head. "I don't see anything wrong with it. Although that waterfall was a bit too close to me…but I don't think Add would try to hurt me in broad daylight."

"He could've attacked you and use us checking to see if you were alright as a distraction to get away with stealing Eve's codes, though," the bane of Add's existence said to the other knight, and then he looked at Eve.

Eve simply said to Elbrat that "It is possible that he could've used this as an opportunity to take my codes" before she then went back to her conversation with Ciel.

Add wasn't thinking of literally taking Eve's code at the beach, but he started to wish that he had attempted to isolate her from the group and steal her codes if Elbrat was going to keep trying to play investigator and Eve, Ciel, and Rena were just gonna let him.

"Look, Elbra—er, I mean"—Add peered away from Elesis's glare—"Elsword, I had no bad intentions, as hard as that is for you to believe. Again, I was just following orders, kek, so go along now back to your volleyball game, and bring your sister with you. Please."

The forced and strained way 'please' came out of his own mouth made Add internally cringe.

"Since when do you follow orders so easily? That's it," Elbrat responded as he pointed right at Add's forehead, "I can't take this any longer! I challenge you to a duel!"

Add tsked; he was tempted to electrocute the fifteen-year-old to shut him up. If he straight up allowed his temptation to take over and began giving the brat a lesson, however, Elesis would either put Add on fire instantly or make Add challenge her instead of her brother and then put him on fire.

At this point, however, Add was wondering if that would be a better outcome, for Elbrat was pushing every button of Add even more than he usually did.

"I am not going to duel y—"

"The duel will be with wooden swords, and, uh, everyone will watch! When I win, I'll prove you are trying to hurt the group!"

Add facepalmed. The Seighart siblings were absolutely insane.

"Elsword, you don't need to duel him. You are taking this too seriously!" Elesis yelled at the fifteen-year-old as she stood up and grabbed his shoulders. She shut her eyes and sighed. Elsword shook his head.

"No, we gotta duel! Right here, right no—"

"Elsword, come on, the game can't start without you!"

Elbrat turned around and gave a look of confusion as Aisha, the other annoying brat that Add wanted to constantly electrocute, grabbed him by the hand. "W-What? Wait, Aisha, I'm in the middle of—"

"Elsword, you're so immature! Add isn't doing anything," Aisha said as she whacked him on the side of his head, "and if he was, Rena and the others would've been sure to put him in his place. Now leave him and your sister alone and come back already."

"I'm not being immature!"

Aisha started to drag the other teenager away. Elbrat whined and attempted to get out of the purple-haired girl's grasp, but she whacked him into basic submission to her hold.

As the duo got into the water, Add couldn't hear exactly what the conversation was about, but judging by the red-haired boy's smile and the purple-haired girl's blush, he concluded that he would be safe from Elbrat's rambling and whining...at least until they all leave the beach.

When Elbrat and Aisha began to swim their way to the area where the El Gang members in the water were, the short girl turned around and looked at Add and, with a serious face, moved her eyes towards the direction of Elesis, looked back at Add, and nodded at him before she turned around and went back to carrying Elbrat by his arms to the volleyball game.

For once in his life, the Arc Tracer was sure that he actually appreciated the Dark Magician and that perhaps she wasn't just another annoying, loud brat like the Magic Knight.

"Eve, you were supposed to say when someone was coming around!" Elesis said, which made Add stop looking at Aisha and Elbrat and instead back at the people he was around. Ciel, apparently, went up to go talk to an elderly man off in the distance.

Eve turned to Elesis. "You said to make sure to be on the lookout if any strangers came up. You said nothing about your brother or the rest of our group."

"Huh...I guess I didn't," Elesis responded with a strained laugh. Add did not laugh with her.

Elesis got up and stretched. "You know, Add, all fiasco with Elsword aside, it was nice what you did for me earlier. I didn't think you had it in you!"

"Well, despite having to go through that interrogation by your brother, it wasn't like anything awful would happen with me being a…'good samaritan' or whatever, kek."

"In a way, you were like a chevalier of passionate chivalry, Add," Rena said before she gave a light chuckle.

Add gave a death glare at Rena and scowled. Elesis laughed, though she did slightly cocked her head to the side, a tad bewildered.

"A chevalier? How'd he be a knight like me?"

Add blushed and simply responded to Elesis, "J-Just ignore her…"

Add was sure that he'd blushed at least a dozen times in the last hour.

Elesis's left eyebrow rose a tad up before she shrugged and stretched her arms and legs in the direction.

"Well, getting a bit of rest on the beach was nice," Elesis told Add, Eve, and Rena, "but my hands are practically begging for me to go back into the game. See ya!"

Without waiting to see if they would respond—which Add was somewhat fortunate for, as he did not think he could handle the teasing from Rena about Elesis any longer—Elesis began a run to the direction where the volleyball game was. Right before her feet touched the water, she turned around and waved back to the members of the El Gang on the beach. Add was the only one who did not wave back.

He did, however, give out a sigh of relief at that all seemed to be good.

"Oh! By the way, Add…"

Add turned to Rena.

"You must apologize about the situation with the boys from earlier."

Add scoffed. "No. Serves those idiots right if they got harmed, kek."

"That is true, which is why I believe you need to apologize to the three men that were blamed for what you did," the long-haired woman explained. She sat a bit up in her chair.

Add glanced at the ocean where he saw that the said three men had just finished their argument with the boys Add performed a hydrokinesis attack on. The boys headed to shore in a direction far away from where Add was.

The trio looked extremely confused, and the group of young males looked extremely mad—especially the one with the green hair and the tanned-skin. They neither looked in the direction of the part of the El Gang that decided to dwell in the waters or the part of the El Gang that pertained themselves on the sand.

"Well, they seemed to solve their issues themselves. It's not like the water's going to permanently affect either group, kek, so…."

The forced strain of the Sniping Ranger's smile and the foreboding way her eyes were closed shut the Arc Tracer up.

"Add, you need to go and apologize to the three men who were falsely accused of making the waterfall," the elf repeated again as her emerald orbs gave a too deep stare to him, "as they were innocent of the whole thing."

Add tsked, pretended that he did not feel a small bead of sweat fall down the side of his face, and got up. "Fine, I will."

Damn elves.

iii: DERE.

As the enemies that they faced became more strong and sly, the Elgang and its allies thus followed suit and became at least 3 times more robust and clever than the upgraded and improved forms of their foes.

Any chance of letting their opponents gain the upper hand in abilities and counteraction, after all, would lead to the doom of not only the Elgang but society as they knew it.

Add, a scientist whose inventions had always been conceived and created with the intent to possess a heavy amount of calculated strength and revolutionary wisdom, took this realization that every other single member of the Elgang also had to heart.

The white-haired male's Dynamos when he was an Arc Tracer were brought to a higher level when he combined his wits and years of studying his father's works, large amounts of El energy, and the ancient schematic that he received from Echo the Alchemist, who got the schematic from her father. This created Dynamos with programs more akin to his sharpness.

It wasn't enough, however.

His quest to gather enough El energy and resources to send himself back to the past was tedious and his Dynamos, while competent enough to gather some of the El energy themselves, were not advanced enough to go beyond being satisfactory-level maids and task-doers.

They needed to be more proficient and beings of technology. It was not enough that they were mechanical assistants who he was able to have full control over. He needed more than to be their master that they were programmed to follow with every command to obtain this and search for that.

When Grenore himself advanced from the first class of an Arc Tracer to the second class—the Mastermind—he, in turn, raised the class of his Dynamos.

As Mastermind, his Dynamos were no longer electronic components that just fetched supplies like errand boys but, instead, adroit and formed. They could take shapes beyond his imagination and omit powers and abilities that were beyond the restrictions of little bots.

To of found some of the instruments he needed to enact this desire, Add scavenged and rummaged through the nethermost sectors of the Altera Core, and to of found other instruments, he spent hours searching through the most secluded and desolate areas of the vacant valley that is Feita, including even the sacred Feita Temple.

Little by little, his Dynamos became more and more on par with Nasods, and then they arguably became distinct—not in the physical form of Eve were the advanced Nasods, but instead with abilities beyond the initial simple capacity and expectations.

They were able to be in the form of pylon and atom-like structures one minute and, the next minute, in the form of big brother drones that either formed large portals or threw out never missing laser beams.

Add's Cubic Nasods as well were refashioned like never before, their movements synced literally with his own.

"Limits" were no longer a word associated with Add's devices. It could even be said that "unlimited" was associated instead.

Add had his work under his complete control, and if he could figure out the correct way to return to his past, he was sure that he'd even have time and fate submit themselves to him in due time.

It is perhaps for this goal of his—as well as how he has made technology bow to his desires—that, in Add's view, was why he found Elesis Seighart to be such a fascinating contrast to the world he idealized.

While Add's preferences were for servility and the ability to prevent former errors to the point where he developed a wish to change the past, Elesis chose to be as rebellious as she chose to laugh at her mistakes and move forward to the present and future.

While Add worked in combat by a linear set of commands that at times he would change to either smaller branches of controls or a better linear set, Elesis simply did whatever she could to blaze through her enemies.

This, thus, earned her the title of Blazing Heart and made her a woman whose abilities was reliant on physical strength and the upfront, spontaneously controlled fury of her heart and passions—a divergence from his title of Mastermind which made him a man whose abilities relied on mental strength and the latent, computed desire of his brain and woes.

Sieghart could be considered, in fact, to be the exact opposite of Grenore—as he was with a demeanor not so far from ice, she was a direct contrast due to both the metaphorical and literal fire that was the female. It was hard for Add at times to not glance at her in all her fierceness and not think of her as a goddess made of an actual fire.

Yes, fire.

Everything about Elesis reminded him of fire, both physically and symbolically. Her currant-shaded hair went down her hair like a stream of volcanic lava, and during windy weather flung in the same rapid and bright matter as fierce flames lit on a wick.

Her ruby orbs could brighten up even the lightest of rooms—dare he even say the darkest parts of his soul—and whether she was euphoric or enraged, the bright red of her eyes were as captivating as they could say a 1000 words on what she thought or was going to say.

She wore a black attire that reminded him of burnt fumes, and she had a signature long jacket that, although as white as his laboratory coat, stood out due to the scorched and ripped ends and the only whiteness on her, a direct parallel from the neat and straight edge of his outerwear that made it blend in with ease with not only his outfit but with those of other scientists.

Her crop-top was unzipped both from the bottom and the top, and the zipper stood in the middle, and the fierce beauty of her bust signified by the pendant necklace she wore added to the lore of it all. Her pants were ankle long on one side and a bit below the hips on the other. Free-formed and abnormal, just like the flames she had the ability to create.

The clicking of her knightly boots was akin to the sizzling of a stomped on and long-dyed out magma, and her sword, just like her belt, was as fierce and intimidating as a growing firestorm. Her single diamond earring on her right ear also stood out like an exquisite and brilliant blaze.

Beyond her physical attire and design, of course, was the internal heat and passion of her personality.

Elesis was a fierce and confident woman who did not hesitate to shine amidst the struggles she and others faced.

When they had first met, Add was revolted and put-off by her leadership's focus on fearlessness and valor over emotional restraint and shrewdness. She was crafty in skill and planning, but he felt that aspect of her downfall by her instance of physical intimidation before mental intimidation, which made his opinion of her not the best.

(It did not help that he held—and somewhat still does, though he had to admit that the brat wasn't as annoying these days—a major grudge and disliking of her brother due to the younger Seighart's destruction of the Altera Core after the hours and hours Add spent damaging his body and straining his mental limits to find the center of Altera Island.)

Multiple times during the start of their meeting did he confront her and berate her about it. Even as he had to dodge poorly structured but heavily dangerous fumes whenever his conversation escalated to him laying out the flaws of Elsword the boy copied from his sister, he did not hold back his tongue.

(A fool, he was.)

As time went on, however, he began to put more into the mind and respect the actions of caring foremost for others of the leader of the Red Knights. He realized how much she would try to fix her brawn over brains mentality when she realized that her younger brother used her as a role model for most, if not all his major actions. How she trained and trained to form her fire more accurately and prevent unnecessary and out-of-nowhere burns and strikes.

In turn, Add became more…"accepting" of his emotions towards the other people in the Elgang. He didn't go around telling those that tried to converse with him that he would one day gain control over them via making them like his Dynamos and make sure they'd suffer anymore, for starters. When one laughed or the other was sad, in his heart he felt strains. He actually put into mind empathy for them more.

Rather than continue all the way with his initial mentality that he would fight entirely by and for himself, the concept of "all for one and one for all", while not fully in his methods of battle and structure, was not brushed off and at once mocked at. He would never admit this to the others of course, and especially not Elsword, but in a strange, yet not entirely unwelcome way…

The interactions between them all reminded him a tad of the concept of a "family". If they were back to when he was stalking Eve in the shadows and keking to himself, Add was sure him at the age of sixteen would have given a disgusted face at both the other El Gang members for attempting to converse with him beyond what he thought was required and the nineteen-year-old him for showing such "mindless behavior".

Most of all, sixteen-year-old him would probably scowl like an animal at Elesis for her constant successful attempts to ease Add into interaction with the rest of them as an ally and as a person on the same level as them.

"Add? What's wrong?"

Add blinked once before he returned to reality.

"You've been staring at me for the last five minutes," the voice that woke him up from his memories said, "and you've even started sweating! I guess the heat of this village is really getting to you, huh?"

Heat? Add thought before everything clicked.

Ah, yes, heat. That was right. The gang was staying in Lanox, the village of fire that's surfaces were designed in cracks that held fuming lava, and where the Priestess Ignia dwelled. The area where Scar some time ago had attempted to manipulate in order to control all of Elrios.

They were back at the Fluone town in order to do a minor mission for the Lanox Village Chief Edel, and they had chosen the returning as the opportunity to celebrate the birthday of Elesis or, rather, a late party.

Elesis's birthday was a couple of months ago. On August 21st, however, Elesis was on a long mission, and the days following consisted of the whole Elgang engaging in countless tedious and lengthy journeys.

The middle of December was the only time that the number of requests given to the members of the Elgang was low enough for them to set up a surprise birthday party.

When they arrived at Lanox and talked with Edel, the group sans Elesis realized that the mission from Lanox could be done by just the minimum of two members, and decided to have Elsword declare he'd do the mission with Elesis as a way of 'sibling bonding'.

Needless to say, when the brother and sister duo returned from the mission and entered the rented house that the group was in, Add distinctly remembered how Elesis's eyes bulged in shock and adore when she saw that the rented living room was full of balloons, desserts, and large packaged and boxed gifts.

The party was... interesting, to say the least. After two minutes of Elesis hugging everyone tightly and saying thanks hundreds and hundreds of times—Add awkwardly tried and failed to hug her back—as well as some of the members explaining how they got the living room set up, Elesis said that she wanted to go consume the cake they made before the gift-giving.

As the redhead took off her coat and tucked her side-bangs behind her ears, Add felt a bit of stir in his heart at the gentleness of it all.

Elesis blew out the candles in a delicate matter that was very rare to see from her, and the way the flames on the nineteen candles quickly succumbed to her blowing on them was done so smoothly and majestically that he thought she'd consume the fire and omit out flames.

The eating of the cake was festive, and Add was able to be happy amidst Aisha and Elsword getting into yet another argument. It was a vast contrast to the beginning of Ad's time with the other members of the El Gang, when Add would threaten both of the younger members to get them to stop their quarrels.

When the Rune Slayer threw a piece of cake at the Void Princess but the Princess dodged which had the Mastermind, who was behind the Void Princess, end up receiving the desert to the face instead, the ponytailed male was even able to laugh.

Of course, Add then choosing to throw the remainder of his cake at Elsword's face as retaliation most likely accounted for why he took the brat's mistake well.

When the two males got napkins and towels to clean their faces and everyone else finished their slices, all the members gathered around Elesis, each holding a box or bag that contained gifts they got for her.

Some of the gifts were outfits, like the three dresses from Rena and Ara's hairpin set. Other gifts were based on weaponry, such as Elsword gifting his sister a new sword sheath and a golden pair of gloves that's knuckle areas were spikes that were specifically tailored for people with pyro abilities, as the spikes strengthened fire magic.

Everyone made sure to practically shove their gifts into Elesis's hands as she went to each person.

Everyone except Add, that is—

When it was his turn to give her his gift, Add made Elesis go outside with him instead of letting her open the package in front of everyone else, which prompted a few teasing remarks from Rena and Lu, and caused Elsword to initially huff but reluctantly nodded his head in approval when Aisha told him to stop being a baby.

Add led Elesis from the housing area of Lanox to the entrance of the Silent Night Shelter, passing by the iron-armor covered civilians and a few children who look in so much awe at the two nineteen-year-olds that Add—who only did it because Elesis forced him to—and Elesis spent a few minutes signing the children's toys and little drawing books like the children begged them loudly to.

(When they left the children, Add remembered blushing heavily as Elesis teased him for his shyness and stumbling at signing his autograph unto the children's works.)

When they reached the entrance to the hot springs and hot geysers, Add looked behind him—wherefrom the near distance, he could see upper parts of volcanoes through the semi-fog that surrounded the area between the Silent Night Shelter and the many lava-stricken and lifeless canyons and hills beyond it—in order to glimpse at the lunar eclipse in the sky, and then he turned to Elesis.

It was at that moment, however, that he began his analysis of the woman and the difference between her and him, as the quietude and serenity of it in the dark reddish bluish night sky compared to the loud, popping sound of lava bubbles bursting in the crack and ridges of the abnormally-shaped skinny rock walls by the geysers, the fumes from below covering the latter half of the structures holding the geyser pools, and the sound of the rising and falling mini-waterfalls behind the structures of the abnormal rocks, oddly enough reminded Add of the dynamic between Elesis and him.

Shaking off more recent memories of his mind, Add wiped a sweat that he felt drop from the left side of his face to the center of his neck. "Yes, I am alright. Sorry, kek, I was just thinking of some things."

"Sweating about some things as well," Elesis said before she chuckled. Add scowled as more sweat formed from the side of his head.

"Gah, I need to install a cooling system in my outfits—this fire village makes me feel like I'm about to melt in my suit."

Elesis laughed again, playfully hit Add on the shoulders—he stumbled backward a bit and told her that she needed to work on lowering her physical strength around allies which made Elesis laugh even more—before she looked behind him.

"So, Add, are you gonna give me my present now? I'm seriously wondering what you got me since you went as far as to bring me to the geysers alone to show it to me"—the redhead stepped forward and tried to take a closer peek at Add's dynamos which held the present—"especially since the box you put it in makes it hard for me to guess what it is. I reckon it cost a lot of money though, with tall it is."

Add followed Elesis's eyesight, and clicked his tongue at his dynamos. In an instant, they swung in front of Elesis. When Elesis took the present, Add told the female, "I felt more comfortable giving you this present in private."

Elesis wriggled her eyebrows. "The best private place you thought of was a hot-spring? Why, Add, If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to propose or seduce me!”

"J-Just open the box a-already," the male quickly responded as his cheeks flushed and he looked to the side. Elesis laughed—the deep yet seductive tone of it making Add blush even more—and did as he told, and then she gasped.

"A...falchion?"

Add looked back at Elesis. Her eyes shun bright at the weapon in her hand. It was a 40 inch Falchion sword, with a crimson blade and an obsidian handle that dissolved into an ombre of flames. The end of the handle was shaped like half of a crown.

"Yes, kek, a falchion. I saw it a month ago during a personal quest and thought it would be perfect for you," Mastermind responded. Blazing Heart rubbed at the handle, and the already large grin on her face widened even more.

"Add...This is wonderful…I can't believe you went out of your way to get such a magnificent gift for me…"

Elesis brought the faction right to her face, and her left hand traced every intricate section of the weapon. She had lit so brightly and joyfully at that moment that Add could not for the life of him understand why his younger self would've ridiculed and belittled such a state of happiness and cheerfulness.

As minutes went by with Elesis still holding the falchion, Add decided to speak."Your welc—GAH!"

Add bumbled with his breath the second Elesis dropped the sword back in its box and flung herself at him to hug him tightly. She stepped on her tippy-toes to get a tighter hold on him, and as he was able to take stronger whiffs of the apple smell of her shampoo, he attempted to loosen her grip on him a bit before he gave up and let his arms swing to his side.

After all, her affection was not different from the real reason he wanted to bring her to such a secluded area.

"...Elesis."

"Thank you so much for this present, Add…"

"...No problem. However…"

Elesis gave him a confused face as Add lifted her chin up. "Eh? What are you doing now, Add? Is some cake left on my face?"

"..."

Add hugged Elesis back, and in fact almost as tight as she hugged him. Elesis raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"I...Kek, it's not easy for me to say this. I'm...not great at social interaction like you. It's hard for me to express this in the way the male in the situation should. You're also kinda squeezing me to death, please let go."

Elesis did as he asked and mumbled sorry as well as that she forgot about her strength for a bit; she had a sheepish smile on her face. Add nodded before he continued.

"I...I-I-I…"

Add felt beyond the concept of "butterflies in his stomach". Just directly facing to face with Elesis was giving him anxiety and a paranoid rush he never felt before.

He had always thought of Elesis to be pretty, even when they first came into contact with each other as sixteen years olds, but at this moment—at this time—he was not sure he could handle to what extent she was appealing to his eyes.

Her ruby red eyes that shunned as bright as the fire she would wield, her locks of currant that moved as if they were the tresses of a goddess, her pearly whites that could be seen when she grinned or smiled…

To say Elesis was pretty was an understatement. It was as if Elesis herself was a glorious flare and the swirl of her fire itself—a phoenix that with just one glance at her could make a male captivated and moved for years and years to come.

She was as close to a fire goddess in both looks and personality as a human could be, to Add. The way she appealed to him prevented him to continue the conversation the way he planned it in his head.

"You are so gorgeous, I think I might be at a loss of words."

Add blinked in confusion at Elesis's sudden shocked face, and then he realized that he stated his thoughts out loud.

In an instant, Add blushed so hard that he was sure Elesis would've thought he was as hot as the lava that surrounded them. He took a few steps backward when he realized Elesis was still shocked, no sense of happiness or mutual feelings from her.

"Did you just...call me gorgeous…?"

Add froze, and he was not sure how he managed to respond despite the mental breakdown he was sure he was 5 seconds from having. "Y-Yes."

Elesis looked like she was about to respond with something that was not the answer Add wanted. Add did not believe he could handle rejection from the Knight without him at least being able to successfully convey even just a bit of what he truly wanted her to know.

So, with a sigh and an attempt at a brave face, Add ordered his dynamos to bring Elesis right to him. Before she was able to question him, he caught her by her chin again.

"Elesis. T-This...This is hard for me to convey properly. I am just gonna show you what I'm trying to say instead."

Add gave a quick and passionate kiss to her lips.

Well, while quick, at least an attempt at a passionate kiss. Add, expectedly, had no clue that proper alignment was necessary to kiss without bumping noses or heads. When he kissed her, he accidentally hit her nose with his head.

She clenched her teeth and held her nose; Add gave a quiet gasp and panicked.

"E-E-Elesis, I didn't—"

As quickly as she held her nose did a smile come back on her face, and then laughter from her mouth. "That hurt a bit, and your kisses suck."

Add went from being concerned and sorry to embarrassed and hiding his face.

"L-Look, it's my first time being in a situation like this—"

"Trust me, I know, heh!"

Add gave a slight glare before he continued. "It's...I...I thought that's how people did it. Anyways, I know you're probably just only finding this amusing and would never take it seriously, so just reject me already, kek."

Despite the "laughter" at the end of his sentence, Mastermind did not smile or clench his stomach guffawing.

Elesis did, however, continued. It was so loud and over-the-top that Add started to get pissed off.

"You could have just said you didn't have feelings for me," the male told her as he crossed his arms. He scowled when she continued.

He didn't think she would be the type of person to do this. He sighed and turned around.

(To think that he was contemplating on the idea of accepting his past and giving up on traveling back to 300 years ago, and to instead try to make a future with Elesis.)

"Okay, you have made it obvious that you don't feel the same way. I'm just gonna head back."

Add took a few steps away from her. He looked down at his shoes, and a deep frown was on his face.

" ...!"

"Add."

Add turned around.

"What? You still need to let some of your laughter out?"

Elesis smirked. "You could say that."

Before Add responded, Elesis grabbed him by his tie, made him lean down, and smashed her lips unto him. He had no time to react. She fell on top of him and continued. She forced his arms down on the hot ground and bit at his lip. Her tongue circled around the blood that came out of the mark before she reeled back.

"I'm sorry for hurting your feelings, Add," Elesis said as she pulled his white hair out of its ponytail, "it's just...you are, like, really bad at this. It's okay though—as your newly appointed girlfriend, I will teach you the ropes!"

"...You mean...you…"

Elesis smiled. "I do like you too. In fact, I think I have for some time. I'm just happy that you feel the same way."

Add sat up and grabbed Elesis by her shoulders, and made her sit more into his lap. A wicked grin was on his face, and his pink eyes were bright with joy and pride.

"Kek, it took yo—I mean, us long enough."

Elesis ruffled his hair and moved her face right to his. Her lips were barely an inch away from his.

"Far too long, Add."

She engulfed him into a kiss far deeper than Add ever would’ve known to enact, her tongue entwined quickly with his. She dug her extremities into his white tresses and pulled at them, but not enough to cause pain. 

Add, at first, did not know what to do. The first few times he tried to engage in the kissing as well, his teeth almost bit at her tongue by accident three times, and then he did bit her tongue.

When Elesis pulled back and a bit of blood dribbled down her tongue, Add’s heart raced with fear, and he began to think up a few apologies.

Rather than express the anger he thought she would, however, the knight’s face lit up in excitement and deviancy.

She sucked up the red liquid and dived back into engulfing Add’s mouth, and bit at his tongue and lip multiple times, the redhead more akin to an animal marking its captivating mate or appetizing prey than a young woman embracing a lover.

While Add was not very fond of the mess she was making, he oddly did not want at all to object to it—if anything, it could be said that the dirtiness and lecherous of the nature in which she osculated with him unlocked something not so different in terms of restrained lust and unlocked rapture.

Add‘s gloved hands wrapped tightly around Elesis’s back, and when she undid his tie and collar and began to leave kisses and bite marks at his pale neck—even around the area that was scarred from his times of enslavement—he groaned.

Despite anyone able to enter the Silent Night Shelter at that moment, neither Elesis nor Add cared. Add ignored the danger of doing such a thing in an easily accessible area.

He did not care for the immense heat from the nearby geysers and the scorched lava down below. He did not care for the little specks of dirt and coal that got on the back of his suit as he let Elesis continue nipping at his skin. He did not care for the fact that he almost ripped apart Elesis's crop-top when he rapidly and recklessly yanked the zipper on it down and exposed her breasts to the feverish night.

He—as well as her—forgot about the other members of their group that would wonder why they took so long, or why they were semi-disheveled. All that matter on either of their minds was each other and that they’d finally be able to express how much they intensely desired each other.

✦

✦  †  ✦

✦

2 hours later, the pair were hand in hand and walking back towards the village area. Add’s suit and demeanor was, while fixed, with hints of dishevelment, and Elesis’s face was flushed as she leaned into his shoulders. Add's Dynamos carried around the falchion he got her.

When they entered the village area and got to a street with a fountain that pumped out fire, they were surprised to see Elsword, Aisha, and Chung walking around. Chung immediately ran to them and informed them that the whole group was curious and worried about where the two nineteen-year-olds were and that thus they went out to look for them.

Aisha, meanwhile, looked at the way Add and Elesis held each other’s hands and on the dishevelment of Elesis's crop top and was shocked, but she said nothing about it, and instead gently placed her hand on Elsword's left shoulder as she questioned him on if he wanted to enter. It was clear when she grabbed Elsword by the shoulders that she attempted to prevent him from noticing, but it was in vain.

"Sis?"

Elsword took one look at the way Add's hand was entwined with his elder sibling's and his happy expression turned into a rather dumbfounded one. He then looked at Add.

"Add...you...Elesis...together...?"

"Yes, we're together," Elesis quickly responded to her brother before she tightened her grip on Add's hand, "and we've liked each other for a while, Elsword."

Add saw that Elsword was about to say something, and thus to delay the most likely objective response Elsword would have, decided to say, "I am not with Elesis in order to plan anything diabolical. It may be hard to believe for you, but I have sincere and strong feelings for your sister, kek, and I am not changing my mind. I will go as far as to drop my plans of returning to the past for Elesis." 

Add knew Elsword would most likely not be fazed by Add's words and would try to challenge him to a duel, but as Add gave Elsword a determined look, the scientist at the very least wanted it to be known that he would not submit to any foolish or childish attempts from the younger male to separate from Elesis, and if Add had to give up any of his interest in knowing even 5% of what made Eve such a success or even his wish to meet with his dear mother once more to end Elsword's attempts to prevent him from being with his sister, Add would give them up in seconds, right then and right no—

"Fine, I accept."

...

That was not what Add expected.

"I cannot stop my sister from who she likes"—Elsword sighed and rubbed the back of his head leisurely before he continued—"and although you're sometimes mean, I think you are a good person, Add. However, know this..."

Elsword pulled out his sword and aimed it just a few inches from Add's neck.

"If you hurt my sister or use her as a way to get Eve's codes, I will burn you alive," Elsword told Add before he put his sword back and extended his hand for Add to shake.

Add took it, and as their hands intertwined, he felt a spark of respect that he never thought would be had between the two of them, yet an actual tinge of fear at Elsword's seriousness on the wellbeing of his older sister.

Despite his tendency to still bicker and taunt the younger male, there was something about the sixteen-year-old’s more rogue and fierce like demeanor compared to when Add first met him that made him give off an intimidating aura not so different from that of his sister’s.

The sixteen-year-old nodded to his sister in genuine approval before he left and Aisha and Chung trailed right behind, the Rune Slayer mentioning something about wanting to go to the local Lanox accessory merchant for some equipment.

For a few minutes, the two nineteen-year-olds stood in silence, Add in relief and Elesis in a rare moment of humbleness.

Add did not know what Elesis was thinking, but he knew that was thinking. He said he would give up his attempts to go back to the past in order to protect and be with her.

For years, the only goal in his mind was to be reunited with his mother. He had missed her eyes that shun with care and kindness, and the warmth that he received from her hugs whenever he’d disappointed his father and ran to the woman’s greenhouse for refuge and comfort.

The times where he’d sit and watch her water the many daisies, lilies, roses, and many more flowers were ingrained into his mind. He never forgot the name of the flower seeds he would help her plant when he was not forced to make experiments and be a part of experiments done by his father.

The times he spent with his mother and father had as many ups as they had their down—Add’s father had an offspring with the intent to make his dream of a human weapon out of the amazement that was Nasod technology, and saw Add more akin to a crucial goal than a being born from the move between his wife and him.

Add—no, Edward—was raised up with the forced remembrance and studying of blueprints relating to the components of Nasods and the many different shapes and purposes of the machines. Every moment he spent with his father was for the purpose of his father’s goal, and when the child met his limits for the day, his father completely abandoned him and ignored his existence, something Add was sure his father did even when he was a mere infant.

Towards the end of his parents’ lives, Add remembered that his father even went as far as to inject him with bizarre substances that had questionable side effects that were as ominous as the frantic, rushed behavior his father displayed during the final months of his life.

When Add stood behind the door of the room where he heard his mother confront his father—where he learned that for his father his birth was simply a central plan—his doe-eyes had protruded and his mouth wide open is hurt and disbelief, and he later did not stay to hear the rest of the conversation due to fear of being caught and fear of what would be said, but his mother’s insistence to defend him from whatever his father planned had given him a sense of comfort and assurance only a mother could give that he’d never forget.

Even on the eventual day where his father implemented Nasod technology in him and manipulated organs to work under the devices, and even when the whole mansion fell to flames and his parents became but crisped skeletons, Add never lost the sense of hope and protection his mother had for him.

Her maternal instincts were a sight that he focused on and remembered dearly, even at the nights where he’d cry to sleep because of the agony he felt on his back that was marked by the whips of Nasods and his neck was dug into by the collar that proved of his enslavement. 

Most of all, his times stuck in the library where he did self-research of Nasods and created the Nasod Dynamo, when he was not combing information from the library books about Nasods with the information he was belted by his father if he dare forgot to remember, and even when talks to himself became the norm and laughter despite nothing particularly being funny was no longer questioned, his mind went into daydreaming of the times his mother would give him lessons of kindness and morality his father never would’ve.

(His dreams were of being reunited with his mother through death and his nightmares were of her beautiful white skin being sizzled and disintegrated by rapid fire.)

When he finally was able to step foot out of the library only to realize he was somehow in a future where no one knew or cared about the surname "Grenore" and the Nasod race had long since been a fallen race, the first thing on his mind was the beautiful smile that always dawned on his mother’s face when she held his hands as he used her water-can to water her many lilac-covered bushes. 

His finding of Eve and interest in her code only fueled his desire to be able to return to his mother.

Yet, despite how many hours he spent researching and investigating ways to discover a way to return to 300 years before, despite how he pushed away members of the Elgang, and despite his instance of being a lone man and for oneself only, Add not only slowly begun to stray away from his desperation to return to the past and instead catered more to the present and future but began to see himself more and more as a person apart of the group

With the Elgang—even the members he did not get the best along with—Add was able to make mistakes and confuse a Nasod part for another without his hand whipped with the paternal belt and manifestation of disappointment and impatience, and he was not starved and the recipient of 20 lashes across the back for attempting to cover his neck.

Birthday parties that he once spent rolling his eyes in the back became celebrations that he eventually would come to be the main person who baked cakes and got the necessary amount of candles. Fights with other members getting injured went from him teasing and laughing at their failure (he’d only attempt to aid Eve) to instantly—for all members that were injured—ordering his dynamos to bring them to safety and avenge the wounded companion.

“I, Myself, Only” slowly became “We, Ourselves, Everyone”. The words “unity” and “working as a team” went from making Add roll his eyes to agreeing and keking that everyone would win whatever battle they were entangled in.

The group, speaking of, went from the “Imbeciles of the El Search Party” to the “So-and-So El Group” to, despite how much Add used to scowl when the members tried to make him say it when he first became a member, the “Elgang”.

Elbrat became Elsword (at least when Elesis was around and Elsword did not bug him, that is—when Elesis was not around and Elsword became bothersome and would fumble with his cubic Nasods, Elbrat was back at being at the tip of his tongue).

With the people of the new world, he was not in constant worry of instant death for a desire to know more about the world around him. A flourish of opinions and views of the world were allowed and accepted as long as they did not intend to harm the innocent and rise up the guilty and sinners. Villages were with a diverse population and their people for the most part were free to roam the deepest depths of their homelands without ending up on an execution list or a slave.

His mother may have been long dead, and he would no longer be able to stay hours in her hugs, but Add found himself with a deep sense of comfort and security along the Elgang, even during the times where they’d poke fun at his obsession over cleanliness and his fear of ghosts. A little teasing, but with good intentions. 

Most of all for Add, in the present world of Elrios there was one factor that distinguished it for the better compared to the time that Add came from:

A successful, heroic sense of revolution.

In the time of the Grenores, the people who wished to change the world were either heroes that failed miserably and never recovered or successful people that only attempted to create a new world for sinister and inhumane meanings.

The former type, while heroic, was unlucky, and was eradicated and eliminated time and time again until, eventually, there were no more significant idols to save the world from its overabundance of depravity. The latter type, while successful, was cruel and sly, with the intent to only increase the discord of Elrios instead of rid the world of it. The world under the latter’s control was despairing and despondent.

Elrios of the past was one manipulated by malevolent hands, thrown into a stage where the poor and kind suffered while the rich and cruel flourished. Children, such as Add, were created and used as instruments rather than treated as sons and daughters by their own parent(s). Villages were raided and damaged and never able to get vengeance. Blood was splattered relentlessly and people were put into the same standard as chess pieces and objects.

In the times of the current generation of Seigharts and Landarz, there was a clear change. Warriors who desired to change Elrios for the better were more successful. The sky was brighter and the air was calmer. Dictation and dystopian values were called out and had massive (some successful, some still working on it) backlash and attempts to overthrow such dismal viciousness.

Of course, despite these improvements, there were still issues in the present.

Chaos still ensued and the wars still prevailed. There were beings that still existed who for centuries even before Add’s time have planned and implemented annihilation time and time again, and some even have still yet to be subdued, while other beings were barely twenty-year-olds and getting the final touches they needed to bring the world to their knees. 

Children were still orphans and their cries, as well as the sobs from their mothers, could still be heard. Blood while not as much as before was still frequently shed—Add knew this most of all, as several times did his pure white outfit and gloves become splattered with blotches and streaks of crimson that omitted metallic-like stenches—and in a few areas were still inequality and mistreatment.

There were still days of uncertainty towards the present’s stability and the future’s brightness. There were still moments where Add thought about how things were going in remaining towns and continents that still had wars and wondered if they were able to be saved. There were also still times where he thought of just giving up and succumbing to the most repugnant doubts and tormented recollections that dwelled in his mind.

Despite all these still existing negatives, however, Add was still able to move on. The hope he had for this current era of Elrios was far more massive than the hope he had for the time he grew up in. There were too many bright-eyed fighters and developing towns and groups in the current times for Add to of given up.

Sander. Lanox. Elysion. East Lurensia. North and Central Fluone. Elrianode. Areas either with progression or into the middle of progression. Places that regardless of the number of people in the population were in the attempt to remove conflicts that have haunted their history and background for decades. Places that in the worst times managed to hold a sense of hope. Places that did not hesitate to team up and defeat any attempts of evil the second they found out of the existence of crisis and attempts of terror.

Everyone the Elgang had met that was good was with a sense of hope and dedication that, regardless of the varying levels, was enough to enact change. The level of adherence to the people both in the Elgang and in the towns they traveled to slowly rid Add of his initial low opinions of the current world and instead replaced his opinion of it with a more grateful and impressed perspective. The interactions and fight for a better world removed the many layers of self-oriented and pessimism (though some layers were still yet to be scattered away) he once viewed the world in.

Most of all—

“Add!”

—Elesis Seighart, the Leader of the Red Knights, had managed to show to him the wonders and beauty behind present Elrios.

Add jolted a bit in surprise at the fingerless black gloves that held tightly unto his shoulders. “Did I space out again?”

Elesis nodded. 

“That was the fifth time I called you. What were you thinking about?”

“...Just a few things about my past, kek,” the male replied as he raised his right hand and grabbed softly at the small right hand of the female that was still on him.

Elesis stiffened at the word “past”. “Add...did you...did you really mean it when…when you...”

“Hmm?”

Add was surprised at the hesitation in Elesis’s words; she was not one to stutter and be unsure of finishing what was on her mind.

“Did you... really mean it when you told Elsword you’d give up on going back to the past in order to be with me?”

The Mastermind simply stared at the beautiful, curious scarlet orbs of Blazing Heart.

If he were in a situation in the future where he’d have to give up his plans of returning to his true time in order to continue living with Elesis by his side, he would not only possibly never be able to get closure of what happened to his dear mother but, ultimately, would have to lock away that part of his life for good. 

Never again would he likely be able to hear his mother whisper sweet promises of sanctuary and affection. Never again would he be able to reach for her to be engulfed into a hug and intake the scent of marigolds and primroses.

He’d never see her pink eyes shine at him again. He’d never see her pink eyes shine at him as he showed her an invention he learned from his wretched father again. He’d never see her pink eyes shine at him as he gifted her gladiolus flowers for Mother’s Day and carnations for her birthday.

The woman that he escaped to in order to be distracted from all the negative visions that impacted his mind as a side effect of his father’s experiments would never again be able to sing him soothing lullabies and tell him folktales she learned as a child. 

She would be forever a memory, one yearned for but unable to be physically there for him in the flesh. His recollection of her would only be through centuries-old memories, and not updated and recent memories from possible recent visits.

He would not be able to know if he could bring her with him—if he could have her right there at that moment, her sweet smile on her face as he introduced her to the people he had met in the future. Introduce him to the young woman that had changed him for the better.

If he chose Elesis over his mother, however, his mother would be a woman who ended up as a skeleton, burned alive and with a finishing death because of the avarice and corruption of her disgraceful husband.

Add did not care about the agony his pathetic father faced during his death, but his heart ached constantly at the undeserved anguish and misery his mother no doubt felt as her snow-white skin crumpled up and thawed into hot pieces of destroyed flesh, as her eyes dissolved into a puddle of bloody gore along with her beautiful face that no doubt melted and singed apart into chunks of sizzled meat, her bones peeking through charred flesh and her whole body floated above a pool of her ruined skin, leaked cruor, and half-disintegrated chrysanthemums floating around her frail body as her hands raised up in the air for mercy and her seared and disfigured head afloat above a burning and swimming flower bed...

The recollection of the slow, torturous murder of his beloved mother was something he was sure he would not be able to completely forget for the rest of his life, no matter how many years will pass.

Yet, with all this pain and misery acknowledged, and with all the work he has done in an attempt to return to the warm arms of his mother, he has had a new outlook on the situation.

While he will continue his attempts to return to his own time if possible, he had in his time with the Elgang established a place in the present world that was too developed and with depth to return to his wretched timeline and attempt to change what has been set in stone.

Time, after all, was a fickle thing whose sinisterness and ominous effects when tampered with were deadly. The attempts so far that he made to return to his original time have had a mixed result ranging from unsatisfying to almost dangerous outcomes. What if the next time he attempted to manipulate the structure and rules of time, he distorted the natural flow of time?

There was a major chance that he would accidentally become part of time itself and not only lose his ability to return to either the past or future but would cease existence and become a small spectacle of components that was lost in the fabric and wave of timelines and eras.

“Do not focus too greatly on the past when it becomes too distant and regressive. Instead, look for what is there at the moment and build from there a better future.”

Those were the words his mother told him in a dream a month ago. She had never said this to him in real life 300 years ago. 300 years ago, she had told him to not be too fixated on his mistakes, and for him to not ignore the importance of kindness even in times of mistreatment and despair, but she had never mentioned anything about focusing on the past.

If he had this dream before he was officially a member of the Elgang, he would just laugh it off as a delusion. If he had this dream when he was just made into an official member, he’d blame it on the other members of the Elgang and claim that they “poisoned” his sense of logic. 

The Add he was a month ago, however, made a deep analysis into the meaning behind the words and compared their truthfulness and standpoint against how his life had been with the Elgang.

Add returning to his original timeline and preventing his mother’s death would either be an impossible goal that would result in his death or a deadly accomplishment that only delayed her death for a few days, weeks, months, or years, as well as cause the current world to drastically change for the worse.

He loved his mother. He always had and always would. He wanted nothing else but to go stop her death and spend the rest of his days under her care. However, it was time for him to accept the truth, especially with the recent few errors he has discovered while attempting to go back to his original timeline:

The line that connected the current Elrios to the time of 300 years ago was most likely too distant and complex for him to return to his specific time in the past, and thus the door was most likely closed for good.

However…

Add cupped Elesis’s warm left cheek. “I meant everything I said to your brother.”

The present was with an open door, and the future was not set in stone.

The time he had spent with Elesis—the many times she had dragged him to social events and to see what the world of Elrios had to offer—had resulted in Add, while not fully replacing his time with his mother, discovering similar elements of joy and connection with the present Elrios.

It was not perfect, and Elesis would not be able to completely fill in the void that was created in Add’s heart when his mother died and he was thrown into a future far away from her.

Despite all that, Add believed that he would be fine.

“I will stay by your side as long as possible!” Blazing Heart told him before she flashed him a bright smile. Mastermind nodded.

“I’d want nothing else, kek. I will also stay by your side.”

Add kissed Elesis—although still a bit clumsily, much better than his earlier first attempt—and as the sound of the sizzling fire of the fountain behind them continued, Elesis kissed back and lifted herself up on her tippy-toes to engage her hands into his white tresses.

In a way, it could be said that Elesis’s fire had successfully burnt out shields of ice that covered his heart, and although there were still parts of himself that were secluded and stuck in the past—parts he still was unsure of letting out in the open—the scientist was ready to move forward.

There was a life for him in present Elrios.

 [FIN.]

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