Chapter Text
In a reverie—The Fool dreamed.
In a reverie—The Fool awakened.
...
The slippery tentacle, its patterns now faded and dull, paused for a few seconds—as if hesitant—as though it had forgotten something... essential.
Then... it lifted its head—curling slightly and slowly—lowering itself inch by inch. And beneath the sunlight, in the soft warmth of acceptance, it met that tiny palm in a gentle high-five.
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It began simply enough. With Klein—neither as The Fool, nor as the Lord of Mysteries—inviting the Evernight Goddess over to some tea. Then, before long, the uncomplicated invitation quickly snowballed into a biweekly routine of arranging and hosting their meetings.
At first, it took place in the Sefirah Castle. Where he deliberately recreated the old house he and his siblings had once lived in. Back when he was still a new Nighthawk. Very bright-eyed and so oblivious of this world's ironic cruelty.
At times, the memories stirred a fragile sense of nostalgia within him. Like sudden ripples in an otherwise very still, undisturbed waters. It's not quite grief, yet not quite anything else either. It's simply... existing. Ticking like clockwork. Barely there yet undeniably present. The pressure lingered as a quiet, gentle reminder that he had once been Klein Moretti. Even if that life now was forever beyond his reach. Lost within history's unforgettable moments. Grasped within the past's unchangeable inevitability.
'Ah,' he quipped internally, 'even now, as a full Great Old One, I still can't help but dwell on the good old days...' Klein quietly sipped his tea, basking in the taste of peace and quiet. He'd never thought he'd relish in the vestiges of dreams before. Back when he was still a naive, ordinary person with a rather normal life at the office. 'There's always a first for everything,' he sarcastically commented, distantly amused at the ironic humor of fate and destiny.
Klein let out a quiet breath through his nose, forcibly suppressing the urge to sink into futile reminiscence. Instead, he smoothed out the wrinkled creases inside his mind, turning his attention to the noticeable fragrance lingering in the air. The subtle, ineffable scent that belonged to the Evernight Goddess' Divine Kingdom. A realm forever suspended between dusk and starlight.
'I wonder,' Klein thought suddenly, 'did the Evernight Goddess do some decorations?' He found himself rather fond of the faint silver radiance that suffused his surroundings. From what he could remember, Tenebrous Heaven had always been quite dark, gloomy, and obscure.
Klein's lips twitched into a hidden smile, feeling the Astral World's conceptual existence seeping into his bones, caressing his skin, and merging with his metaphysical spiritual body. The Goddess' haven was neither dazzling nor cold, but it carried a gentle, melancholic warmth that feels quite familial. Like a distant home given form. Close enough to touch yet never truly grasped.
The odd sensation stirred a quiet approval deep within him. A subtle resonance that coursed through his intricately non-existent veins. At that moment, a simple truth became clearer than ever. The sky—like the world outside—lay beneath the soft glow of a silver moonlight. 'How thoughtful,' Klein mused, a bit touched at the considerate demonstration of kindness. 'I wonder if the Goddess would take a liking to Chinese cuisine...' Then, he lifted his teacup, and took a long, measured sip. '... But hm,' he reconsidered, 'would a coffee shop be more suitable?'
Klein's movements halted—curious and alert at something that has yet to happen. Then, after vaguely sensing the subtle shift in the surrounding area, he made no attempt at divination or prophetic dreams. Out of genuine mutual respect for a fellow transmigrator, he decidedly waited. 'Does She have something to say?' he wondered internally, when a soft sigh drifted through the haze. It's like a gentle, unassuming wave in an otherwise immortally peaceful river of darkness. The Evernight Goddess set down Her teacup upon its glass saucer, producing a faint, restrained click that seemed to ripple through the stillness. Curious, he followed suit, placing his own cup down with deliberate care. 'Is this to be business... or merely idle conversation?' He supposed he's about to find out.
The Evernight Goddess gave a soft hum, as though gathering Her thoughts from the depths of an endless night. He did not dare interrupt. He simply waited patiently—as curious as ever—faintly noting how the entire realm responded to that single, light-hearted sound. It was as though the Tenebrous Heaven itself trembled in silent reverence. Something that, in Klein's experience, was not unlike the way Sefirah Castle responded to his rightful dominion over it. Under the silver moonlight, clusters of night vanillas bloomed in silence, their petals unfurling with an eerie, mesmerizing grace. 'Look at that,' he mused without meaning to, watching.
The fragrance they exuded was otherworldly. Lethal to lesser beings the instant it was inhaled. To Klein, however, it was something more. As an existence perpetually resisting the suppressed will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings, the scent felt like a balm upon an ever-aching wound. One that refused to fully heal—fated only to scab over, and over again—for all of eternity.
Klein blinked, sighing through his nose as he tried to anchor himself in the present moment. Then he lifted his teacup once more, taking another deliberate sip and wondering when the Evernight Goddess might decide to ever express Her thoughts. 'Is it serious?' he thought, 'or is it one of Her bits again?' The Lady of the Night was... unexpectedly full of personality. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. After all, She had once been human, just as he was. Someone who had lived in a world they believed to be ordinary. Until the Great Oldest One stirred from His ancient slumber, and shattered that fragile illusion.
"I forgot to mention something," the Lady of the Night said serenely, Her voice rippling through the Tenebrous Heaven. Each word resonating like the steady toll of an unseen bell. Klein was pulled out from his thoughts at once. Then, he paused. 'Forgot?' he mused, internally turning over the implications, 'did She, really?' A faint trace of amusement surfaced within him. Did a fellow Great Old One truly forget—or had She simply chosen the moment She deemed appropriate? With beings of such height, coincidence was often just another form of intention. Some truths, after all, demanded the right time to surface. 'Alright,' he thought, coming to a simple conclusion, 'let's hear it, then.'
Klein hummed to indicate he was listening, casually raising his teacup, and taking a sip. "I still have your body's original soul," the Evernight Goddess informed him. 'Hu—' The words landed precisely as he swallowed. 'Who?'
Klein choked, spraying tea as he coughed violently. "What—" He thumped his chest—some of the liquid going down the wrong way—his composure shattering in an instant. "Excuse me—what did you just say?"
"The little Moretti proved quite useful at times in tracking down your movements," the Goddess continued serenely, as though Her previous revelation wasn't shocking at all.
Zhou Mingrui's eyes twitched faintly as he processed Her words. "Useful..." he repeated dumbly, "in tracking?"
The Lady of the Night hummed as She calmly took a sip of Her tea.
"You used his soul as some kind of GPS," Zhou Mingrui continued incredulously, "and you're only telling me now?"
The Goddess silently placed Her teacup on the glass saucer, then looked into his eyes. "Today seemed convenient," She explained.
Zhou Mingrui's lips twitched, on the verge of an irritated smile. "Convenient?" he demanded, "convenient, you say—please explain yourself—"
Zhou Mingrui cupped the cocoon the Evernight Goddess had bestowed upon him, his hands forming a deliberate cradle. 'How weird,' he thought, 'it's so, so weird.' It appeared rather diminutive—almost fragile—resting quietly within his palms. Perhaps a consequence of perception itself, where impression and abstraction were nothing more than the byproducts of one's sequence and belief. And within the boundless expanse of Tenebrous Heaven, neither he nor the Lady of the Night had bothered to impose a fixed scale upon themselves. In a realm vast enough to accommodate two Great Old Ones, size had long since lost its meaning. 'But how,' he wondered, 'how, how, how—'
As Zhou Mingrui's thoughts spiraled, the Divine Kingdom of the Evernight Goddess stirred in response. Ripples spread through the darkness, and the manifested stars quivered faintly, as though voicing the questions he had yet to ask. Yet, even as the urge to divine deepened—threatening to unearth the endlessly repeating currents of history—he restrained himself. The only barrier he needed was his respect for Her boundaries. If She wished to speak, She would. Until then, he would not pry into the eternal, looping embroideries of the past.
"You should be able to easily guess," the Evernight Goddess said calmly, a faint sight escaping Her soon after. Zhou Mingrui did not so much hear the shift in Tenebrous Heaven as he felt it. An intangible settling. As though the boundless darkness itself exhaled. A gentle, soothing presence brushed against his being, carefully smoothing out the aggravated swirls within his spirituality—attempting to restore balance where instability had begun to form. "You already know most of what I have done in the past," She continued, Her voice soft and dreamlike, carrying an almost distant serenity. "So tell me, what was it that I possessed at the very beginning?"
Zhou Mingrui paused, the realization arriving almost at once. And he quickly understood what She intended him to do. "Antigonus," he answered simply, vision filled with the lingering echoes of bygone moments. It was not as though he possessed every answer. The Goddess presided over concealment, after all. Yet, what he did know was sufficient. Enough, at least, to let him piece together the missing information. 'Looks like the Half-Fool had its use,' he sarcastically thought, carefully loosening the tightly woven threads. And letting them unfurl bit by bit.
Just as he was about to pry it open, Zhou Mingrui was suddenly struck by a sharp intuition—he did not know what to do with Klein Moretti's soul. "What should I do with him?" he asked, lost and uncertain. Almost instinctively, he sealed the cocoon once more. The Goddess remained silent for a long time, Her fingers idly tracing the rim of Her cup, again and again, as though caught in an unending cycle.
"How should I know?" She replied at last, Her tone plain, almost indifferent. Zhou Mingrui's lips twitched in exasperation. "I merely thought to return him to you," She explained, "you already know what to do, don't you?"
Zhou Mingrui tightened his grip on the cocoon, his fingers curling instinctively, as if to anchor something slipping beyond his control. He knew what ought to be done. Knew that he should release the soul back into the world. And yet, he did not move. 'Vagueness,' he mused, when a faint intuition pressed against him, 'what does this mean?'
His brows knitted together. 'Maybe it doesn't need to happen now...' With that thought in mind, Zhou Mingrui took his leave—bidding the Lady of the Night farewell—before returning to the Sefirah Castle. "If that's the case," he murmured to himself, "when would be the right time?"
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"Goodnight, Melissa," Klein murmured, a strange calm settling over the quiet resignation in his chest. 'Farewell,' he concluded internally, as the last fractured pieces of his memories drifted past his vision. 'Isn't it odd—'
Click!
Welch's gun was pressed loosely against his temples—warmer than it should have been originally—while the cold curve of the trigger lay beneath his fingertip. Waiting. As though it knew Klein was only a moment away from pulling it. Above him, the moon burned with a sharp, crimson glow, its merciless light cutting clearly through the haze of strangeness. Then came the gunshot. After that, there was only darkness.
Yet, strangely, it wasn't the end. At least, not entirely. 'What...' Klein asked, bewildered, when he felt something tug at his soul. First upward. Then sideways. It was as if an unseen force was pulling him away from where he should have been.
The darkness lingered, deep and suffocating, before giving way to a faint, distant lullaby. Soft, beautiful, and endlessly repeating. Like a dream he could neither escape nor fully grasp.
A fragrance drifted through the numbness. Flowers, perhaps. Though in his unnaturally drowsy state, Klein could not recall their names. Only their scent pierced through his senses. Delicate. With a trace of vanilla. It reminded him—faintly—of freshly baked bread. The kind he would occasionally smell outside of Mrs. Smyrin's bakery. He tried to think, but before he could, something dragged him deeper still. And then... nothing.
...
It was as if he had abruptly become real. No longer vaguely existing in nothingness, but something real and tangible. Klein gasped sharply, as though he had been deprived of air for ages. A cough tore through his throat, then another in quick succession. "Oh, God," a woman choked, her voice thick with overwhelming emotion, "he's alive!"
Klein spluttered, instinctively trying to wriggle free. It felt like he'd somehow entangled himself with the blankets. Like an infant swaddled without care. It wasn't unfamiliar. On colder nights, when the chill crept in through unseen cracks, and the wind bullied its way against his skin, he would often cocoon himself like this.
'I want to get out...' he immediately thought, forcing his eyes to open. If only by a sliver. Everything seemed to be blurry. Indistinct... as though a veil had been drawn over his vision. Klein blinked, then squinted, a faint crease forming between his brows. For some inexplicable reason, the shapes above him appeared enormous. 'Are they humans?' he asked internally, 'why are they so big?'
Unable to make sense of it, Klein shut his eyes once more, a faint frustration rising within him. He wished he could at least free his arms. If only so he could rub his eyes clear and dispel the stubborn haze clinging to his vision. Then he froze as something that felt like skin pressed against his forehead.
Klein blinked his eyes open, a questioning sound slipping from his lips as his mind quickly dulled and blurred. It felt as if his awareness were slipping away. Something small and wet fell against his face, followed by the soft, trembling press of someone's lips against his cheek.
He winced, letting out a low grunt as the arms around him tightened considerably. It didn't hurt. Just felt uncomfortably constricting. And through Klein's muffled, fading hearing, he caught the faint sound of a woman quietly weeping. "Oh—you lived," she murmured, breath hitching, "how blessed by fortune you are."
'Who?' Klein wondered as his eyes finally cleared, struck by the realization that he was looking at a human face far larger than any he had ever seen. She didn't seem familiar, and he didn't think he had ever seen her before in his life. 'What is happening?'
Then, the woman smiled, her lips trembling as she placed a long, tender kiss on Klein's forehead. "Hello, son," she said, her voice thick with tears. "Welcome to the world, Klein."
Lucy giving birth to their first son had been so sudden that it was deeply worrying. But thank the Goddess, their son had survived. "You already named him?" Benson blinked, gently brushing his finger against the little one's tiny hand. The sight reminded him of Alice when she had been this small all those years ago. 'How time had passed by so quickly these days,' he thought, melancholic.
His wife blinked, before offering him an awkward smile. "It just felt right, hun," she explained, slightly embarrassed, "but now that I think about it, do you want to change it?" Benson took a moment before answering. His thoughts drifted to his brother. The one he had believed lost years ago. Only for him to suddenly return as a God.
Carefully, he pressed against his son's tiny palm, watching the little fingers spread at the gentle touch. It reminded him of doing the same with his siblings when they were still small infants. "No," Benson finally said, a soft smile forming on his lips as he thought of Klein, "it's perfect." Then he leaned down, and pressed a gentle kiss to his son's forehead.
...
The trip home had been exhausting. Especially after the rush of adrenaline, and the long wait at the hospital to make sure both mother and child were safe. Still, they had all made it home without trouble.
And just like that, another member had been added to their ever-growing family.
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— Two Years Later.
Klein woke after his birthday with the strange feeling that the world had suddenly come into sharp focus. He stared at the ceiling, memories flooding his mind. Reminders that belonged to the twenty-two-year-old Klein Moretti who had once existed in the past. A moment later, he glanced around the room, and quickly realized he was alone. Judging by the quiet atmosphere, Benson and his wife were probably already busy with their usual daily routine.
He lazed around for a while, clutching his pillow and blanket close as he stared at the door, waiting for his supposed parents to return. After a few minutes, however, Klein quickly grew bored. Rolling onto his stomach, he tried to push himself up and peered over the edge of the bed, gauging whether he could jump down without hurting himself too badly. A moment later, he shook his head, settling into a seated position instead before scooting carefully toward the edge to soften his fall.
Just as his foot touched the floor, Klein heard the doorknob rattle. He watched, curious, as a thin streak of light drifted past the door, spilling into the dark room. "Good morning," he greeted, turning over to look at his mother behind him. Lucy gasped dramatically, and a beat later, scooped him up to pepper his face with kisses in quick succession.
Klein giggled when one kiss lingered longer than all the rest. And with a final peck to the bridge of his nose, Lucy pulled him into a tight hug. "Good morning to you too, sweetheart," she said brightly, ruffling his hair. "You're up early today, aren't you? What a good boy!"
He beamed at the praise. "Am two," Klein announced proudly, holding up two fingers. "Am very responsible!"
Lucy laughed, and pressed another light kiss to his forehead. "You are, you are," she agreed without hesitation, "a very responsible boy indeed! Right, right?"
"Yeah!" Klein chirped.
...
Klein and Benson were busy idling away the time in the living room when he realized there seemed to be someone missing in the household.
"Where's Ella?" he asked, peering up at Benson with open curiosity, wondering if the maid had taken the day off.
Benson let out a long sigh. And Klein blinked, a little thrown off by the sheer dismay over a simple question. "She's not here, unfortunately," his father-brother answered with exaggerated despair. "Little Klein is playing with Papa, and he's thinking about Ella. Horrible, isn't it?"
Klein immediately winced. Even now, it took a considerable amount of self-encouragement to think of Benson as his father while pieces of his past life still existed in his memories.
And yet, accepting his brother in that role wasn't exactly difficult, either. Klein had spent two years as his son, and Benson had always carried himself like a father figure.
It was just... surreal. And no matter how much time passed, Klein still couldn't fully settle into it.
"That's 'cause you're a poopy pants," Klein said, then immediately burst into giggles when Benson's expression fell. "A poopy pants!"
"Ma!" Benson called after Lucy in the kitchen, "little Klein just called me poopy pants! The travesty!"
"It's a very endearing title, dear!" Lucy exclaimed, clearly amused.
"What?!" Benson demanded, sulking.
Klein only laughed harder.