Chapter 95: Valentine Special Chapter 1: It Was a Small Boy

While Benjamin was sitting with Sakura, watching Midori dance wildly with the other festive folks, Usagi received a mental signal.

The plaza pulsed with life beneath swaying strings of red and gold lanterns.

Paper globes drifted in the warm night breeze, casting soft, flickering pools across the stone paving and the gathered crowd.

The air carried the mingled scents of sizzling yakitori, sweet red bean paste, spilled sake, and the faint, persistent perfume of late-blooming cherry blossoms that drifted down like slow snow.

Laughter rolled in waves—children darted between legs with sparklers trailing sparks, old warriors clinked cups in booming toasts, young couples stole kisses in the shadowed gaps between food stalls.

At the center of it all, Midori spun in an increasingly chaotic ring dance, sake cup raised high, fox tail swishing as she nearly toppled a nearby cart of grilled mochi.

Usagi sat a little apart from the main crowed, perched on the edge of a low stone step, silvery-blue short kimono fluttering around her thighs whenever a breeze slipped through the crowd.

The fabric caught the lantern glow in subtle iridescent shifts, making her look almost like a living moonbeam amid the warm earth tones of everyone else.

A sharp soft ping entered her mind, unmistakably urgent.

So she perked her ears, head tilting like a curious cat.

“Where are you going to?” Silverøse asked from beside her, with her voice low and amused.

“Usagi-chan wants to pee~!” she chirped, hopping to her feet with exaggerated innocence.

And before Silverøse could reply, she was already scampering off into the crowd.

She passed people being festive on the way.

A cluster of tanuki children spotted her and thrust sticky rice cakes into her hands, giggling wildly when she bowed dramatically in thanks.

An elderly fox woman pressed a small paper bag of candied plums against her palm and patted her head with a wrinkled, affectionate smile.

A pair of tengu guards nodded respectfully as she skipped past their post; one even slipped her a skewer of grilled mochi drizzled with honey.

She greeted each of them with bright smiles and playful waves—

“Happy festival!”

“So much food tonight, right?!”

“Don’t drink too much, okay?”

—and they beamed back, utterly charmed by the tiny bunny girl who seemed to glow under the lanterns.

But soon she reached a small dark alley branching off the main plaza.

The noise of the celebration dulled at once. Lantern light barely reached here; the walls were close, the ground damp from spilled sake and night dew. Shadows pooled thick between the buildings.

She stepped inside without hesitation.

“You just couldn’t wait for the festival to conclude before disturbing me?” Usagi said, smirking as her innocence vanished, leaving the Silver Shadow there.

And as she spoke, the figure there immediately moved fast and embraced her.

“Eh? Tensei?!” Usagi got startled under the sudden hug.

“You’re too reckless!!” Tensei yelled, his voice vibrating against her back as he held her tighter. His wings flared slightly behind him, the feathers trembling with the force of his emotion.

Before Usagi could say anything, the other agents that were in the Whispering Wilds appeared and hugged her too.

They threw themselves into the hug pile without hesitation.

“Silver-sama!”

“Silver-sama, thank the gods!”

“You’re alive—!”

Usagi was taken aback by their act. Though, she lightly threatened to increase the training regime for that… But…

“I’m fine now… I can’t promise that I won’t jump head first into danger again… But look at me, I’m here now.” She reassured them. “Now get off me before you lose a limb.”

Everyone scrammed to leave her alone.

“How in the world did you manage to save me?” Usagi commandingly asked Tensei “My presence was locked in the Dark Dimension.”

She continued, with a low and edged voice. “You couldn’t have known where I was to retrieve me. So how…?”

Tensei politely nodded. “Of course, Silver-sama. It was more than just a stroke of luck!”

He explained the entire matter to Usagi, as she nodded seriously and took mental notes.

What did he mean by Tensei and Benjamin Mark would merge?

What did he mean by Diana and Earth? Was he referring to the other worlds as personalities themselves?

Who was the small boy that saved my life, and why did he do it?

All of these were Usagi’s questions, but they were not meant to be answered at once.

“I knew Benjamin Mark was a huge question mark…” Usagi thought aloud. “But it seems he influences the affairs of the gods as well as he does with mortals.”

She thanked her agents again for their unrivaled loyalty, and told them to enjoy the festival.

***

The story Tensei told her went like this:

While Usagi was receiving a serious beating, Tensei and the rest were confused from all the blasts and sounds they were hearing from over 20 miles away

And the magic there was getting unstable.

And just as Tensei was trying to convince her through the telepathic connection, it suddenly cut off.

“I hope Silver-sama is alright,” the deer-girl with one arm said, worried.

“Do not fear,” Tensei assured them, “Silver-sama is nearly invincible. Beneath that adorable face is a dark agent of chaos. She will not lose!”

“Normally, you would be correct,” said an unfamiliar childish voice so close to them, they flinched and brought out their weapons, “But you underestimate the Amazons too.”

“Who are you?!” Tensei yelled, in attack stance.

It was a small boy, in a white long-sleeved shirt, and black shorts held together by suspenders.

He had snow-white short hair, and peculiar eyes: two dark pupils in each eye, close to each other in a way it was forming an infinity symbol.

He stood barefoot on the damp grass, his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the group of tense beastkin agents with an expression of mild curiosity, as though he had wandered into their midst by accident.

“Who I am doesn’t matter…” The boy examined Tensei, and started saying things they didn’t understand. “It is a pleasant surprise to see that you turned out great. Diana was lenient with me after all. And Earth also played her part well, Benjamin Mark turned out perfect too. Almost too perfect, honestly… I wonder when you will both merge back together… If you will ever, that is.”

Tensei and his group were too confused, wondering what the small boy was talking about.

“What do you mean?” Tensei demanded, his wings half-spread, and his claws flexing. “What does the god-touched have to do with all of this?”

“Ah!” The boy ignored Tensei and looked toward the Amazon Forest, his deep violet eyes distant, as though peering through miles of trees and shadow. “We’ll talk some other time. The bunny is about to be killed.”

“What?!” Tensei and the other agents nearly shrieked. “You don’t mean, Silver-sama, do you?”

The boy seemed to be hooked on a scene no one else could see, then he giggled—light, musical, utterly out of place amid the distant booms of magical combat.

“What a silly bunny, calling her family for help at her last breath,” he said, tilting his head. Then he turned to Tensei. “I’ll give you the coordinates; open the portal and take her away immediately, okay?”

Before Tensei could respond, an image flashed to his mind—clear as if projected onto the inside of his eyelids.

Maps and lines shaped out someone on the ground, being stepped on, the outline unmistakably Usagi’s small form pinned beneath an Amazon queen’s boot.

Coordinates burned into his awareness: exact latitude, longitude, depth in the forest, even the precise angle of the queen’s heel.

Tensei didn’t hesitate at all, and started the work.

He thrust one clawed hand forward, as purple mist erupted from his palm, swirling into a perfect circle on the ground beneath where Usagi was going to land.

The portal opened with a low, resonant hum.

And not even three seconds wasted, and Usagi was brought out of the portal.

Although, she came out on the other side bruised, bloodied, and barely conscious. She tumbled onto the grass at Tensei’s feet.

The moment she hit solid ground, she forced her eyes open, her aura flaring despite the pain.

And Black fog surged up from her, and this time around all of them. So the forest, the distant explosions, the boy with infinity eyes, and everything else all vanished.

Then they all reappeared in Shishi-no-su.

***

One moment, Elara was stepping on an invader, but the next, they had completely vanished, absorbed by an impossible portal.

The queen’s foot met only air now.

She stared down at the empty patch of darkened earth where the small figure had been, the cracks in the ground still radiating from the pressure of her heel.

The silence that followed was deafening; broken only by the faint rustle of leaves and the distant, confused shouts of Amazons searching for the missing intruder.

…The thing was, portals weren’t supposed to work there. Someone got in the way of their barrier.

“Why did you intervene…?” Elara asked without looking back, voice low and edged with restrained fury. “Are you planning on interfering between mortal problems again…?”

“How harsh of you, Ela,” the small boy stood a few feet away from her, the wind drifting his short pure white hair, as his twin dark pupils focused on her. “I expected you to welcome me with open arms and a feast… We haven’t seen each other for a few thousand years, no?”

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