The next morning arrived with the subtle elegance of a sledgehammer.
A lot of people were giving him dirty looks, and wondering if he was the famous boy who has been missing for a month.
Aresando sat in the headmaster's office, trying to look contrite while his mind wandered to mirror beasts and trap runes, to Jade's teasing grin and the way Valkirya always tried to pretend she wasn't happy to see him. None of it made the lecture any shorter.
"And so," Headmaster Vercetti said, slapping down a thick folder full of absence reports, "you disappear without a word, miss a full month of school, and now waltz in with that expression? Are you even listening to me?"
"Yes, sir," Aresando replied with perfect politeness. "Deeply sorry, sir. Life-threatening family emergency. Very spiritual."
The headmaster squinted. "You were found asleep in your grandfather's garage."
"Which is a very spiritual place," Aresando added helpfully.
There was a long pause.
Vercetti sighed and leaned back. "You're lucky your grades were exceptional before this… episode. But this can't happen again. One more stunt like this, and you're expelled. Understood?"
"Crystal clear, sir."
He was released shortly after, with a stern warning and a pile of make-up assignments that could suffocate a lesser man. But as he stepped outside, into the crisp morning air of the real world — with no monsters to slay or quests to accept — something gnawed at his chest.
He missed it.
Not just the magic. Not just the dungeons. He missed them.
He missed her.
Jade.
He could almost hear her voice as he walked down the street.
"Master, are you lost again? Or is this just one of your mysterious 'human detours'?"
He chuckled to himself.
People stared.
He didn't care.
He made his way home, stopping by a corner shop to grab something vaguely edible. But even there, when he reached into his pocket to pay, his fingers brushed the coin.
Still there.
Still warm.
Still waiting.
That night, he sat back in the garage again. It was quiet, the only sound a ticking clock and the creak of old wooden beams. He lit a small lantern — the kind his grandfather had left behind from Solarnis — and studied the coin in the light.
"It brought me there," he muttered, turning it over between his fingers. "Twice now. And both times… I didn't want to leave."
The coin didn't reply. Coins rarely do.
But something tugged at him. A whisper on the edge of his thoughts.
Aresando closed his hand around it. Slowly. Deliberately.
He exhaled. "Let's see if you've got one more trip in you."
He stood, heart pounding, and placed the coin in the center of the floor. He drew the circle like before — not from memory, but from instinct. The way his grandfather might've done. The runes flared faintly. The shadows danced.
Then — a flicker.
A sound.
Wind, in a room with no open windows.
And light — soft, violet light that shimmered in the edges of the circle.
His heart jumped.
Then—
SLAM!
The garage door flew open.
"Aresando! Are you summoning dark spirits again?!" shouted Mrs. Nardelli, the next-door neighbor, holding a garden rake like a halberd.
He leapt back, frantically kicking dirt over the circle. "No! Just sweeping! With fire!"
She narrowed her eyes, grumbled about "teenagers and their cults," and stormed off.
The magic fizzled.
Aresando sighed.
"Of course."
But as he turned to clean up, the coin flared once. Just once — like a wink.
He paused.
He could feel it: Solarnis wasn't finished with him yet.
And neither was she.
—— Solarnis moment of Aresando's disappearance
Back in Solarnis, the Guild of Valkirya was its usual symphony of chaos.
Tanky dwarves argued over ale. A mage in a cloak too large for his body was stuck headfirst in a barrel of enchanted frogs. And at the bulletin board, Jade stood, arms crossed, tail flicking with mild impatience.
"Aresando," she said, tapping her foot, "you promised you'd pick the next mission. And no, 'mysteriously vanishing for dramatic effect' doesn't count."
But there was no response.
Not from behind the counter where Valkirya was sipping tea and pretending not to stare at the front door. Not from the table where they always sat. Not even from the upstairs rooms, which she'd already checked twice — once as a girlfriend-in-denial and once as a concerned wolf-girl with professional tracking instincts.
Jade's ears twitched.
She sniffed the air.
His scent… had faded.
Suddenly, a chill ran through her spine.
She rushed out the guild hall doors, into the early dawn mist, heart thudding like a war drum. "Res?! Don't you dare pull another dimension-jumping stunt on me!"
She ran through the cobblestone streets, down the alley near the baker's, past the old teleportation stone they'd used last week. Nothing. His trail ended as if it had never existed.
She stopped.
Her breathing was ragged. Her claws were flexing without her realizing.
"…You're not here."
The realization came slowly. Painfully.
He was gone.
Again.
She stood there in silence, staring at the place where his scent vanished — where the world had stolen him from her again.
A long pause.
Then… a small sound.
Valkirya.
The guildmaster had followed her, quiet as a shadow.
"…You knew," Jade said, without turning around.
Valkirya nodded softly. "I saw the coin glowing in his pocket. He was trying to hide it."
"Why didn't you stop him?!"
"Because…" Valkirya paused. "He didn't want to go. But the coin chooses. Just like it did before."
Jade's fists clenched. "So what? I'm supposed to wait again? Sit by the fire and wag my tail until he drops from the sky with a smile and a dumb excuse?!"
"No," Valkirya said, stepping closer. "You're supposed to be Jade. And Jade doesn't wait."
Jade looked up sharply.
"…You want me to go after him."
"I want you to choose. Either wait, or start hunting for a way to bring him back. The girl I know wouldn't sit still."
Jade's expression shifted — sorrow giving way to something fiercer, something older.
She wiped her face with a sleeve and stood tall. "Then I'll do it. I'll bring him back. Even if I have to bite a god."
Valkirya smiled. "That's the spirit."
The wolf-girl turned and sprinted toward the mage quarter — toward libraries and spellbooks and dangerous old men with half a beard and a taste for interdimensional theories.
And as she ran, one thought blazed in her heart like fire.
Wherever you are, Res… I'm coming for you.