The younger version of Councillor Rozenaur went over to Hyacinth's side. He was not wearing his usual mask of white butterflies, that's why there's no way for Ronin to recognize him.
"Why are you kneeling, Hyacinth? Did you do something wrong?" He frowned.
Ronin just came up with an alibi. "We were enacting a play. I was playing the role of a king and I was knighting him."
Zephyros Rozenaur did not pay much attention to him, because this was not his Neverland. He waited patiently for Hyacinth, offering his hand.
Hyacinth did not take it and stood up on his own. "Don't touch me."
The apparition of Rozenaur was surprised by this. "What happened, Hyacinth? You seemed upset with something….. Was it yesterday—"
"Come on, Stella." He said to the Emerald priestess. "Let's go have lunch."
Brother Rozenaur stared at the two as they left, the priestess a little confused by the way her future husband was acting.
He looked at his hand, and clenched it.
"You think you can marry Stella and leave just like that? I was only telling you the truth yesterday, Monks are for Monks and Artisans are for Artisans. Why can't you accept that?"
Ronin was interested and followed after them. It seemed that Hyacinth had given up, and was letting him see how this certain day was playing out.
He observed them during lunch, the couple sitting beside each other, while Brother Rozenaur sat on the opposite side. They were acting lovey-dovey and feeding each other.
The Golden Monk just ate with great disdain, chewing down his own hatred.
Jealousy tainted his gentle face a tinge of red. It lasted until the end of lunch time, where his 'friends' did not pay attention to him at all.
It seemed that he had been bottling up his hard feelings for a very, VERY long time now.
When Hyacinth and Stella parted ways, Zephyros Rozenaur took it as his chance to talk to his friend. He tugged at his sleeves, looking desperate despite being the larger one of the two.
"Hyacinth... I'm sorry if I upset you yesterday. I didn't mean to blurt out all those hurtful words, I was just shocked." He said sincerely.
Hyacinth turned around. He responded coldly with:
"Whatever you say will not affect my decision. I will marry Stella after graduation and make her my wife."
They were in their last year in the Academy, so that won't take long.
Rozenaur frowned. "But you're an Artisan, and she's a Monk. Not to mention that you're a Pearl, and she's an Emerald. It will never work out."
"Who are you to decide that?" Hyacinth snapped back.
"What would you do if one day she gave birth to a deformed hybrid child, huh? Or she gets jealous of your fellow actors in the theater? She would leave you one day to a Monk and—"
"Like you?" Hyacinth shoved him. "You bastard, I knew you had been jealous this whole time, but I thought that you'd get over it and be happy for us!"
Brother Rozenaur's face darkened when he was shoved. He had fallen to the ground, but did not fight back.
He stood up and brushed the dirt from his clothes. "Who are you? My friend Hyacinth would never shout and yell at me like this."
Hyacinth gritted his teeth. "Leave me and my lover alone. She's mine."
But Brother Rozenaur sounded so out of it. His voice was hollow, like something inside him had snapped. Making him numb and empty.
"This isn't like you at all... No, you must have been possessed by something else. Yes, it's all because of your sinful deeds that's why you're being influenced by evil."
Hyacinth pushed him again. "What are you even talking about!? I'm reacting the way any man should when his friend keeps on trying to get in between him and his beloved!"
Ronin was very interested by what was happening. This wasn't going like how Calla Lily made it to be at all.
When she showed Marigold a presentation of what happened between the three, she was making it look like Hyacinth was the innocent victim that merely loved a Monk woman and got punished for it.
But this was different. This was much more complicated than black and white.
This kind of scene was stirring another memory of Ou in him, a scene about him arguing with Min Cheng.
"Why should I hide for her sake? Does it really disgust her that much that you're friends with a dark-skinned freak? And you want to get stepped on by her like some doormat!?"
"I'm not being like a doormat at all! She matters to me, and you're kind of being controlling over me, gege! All I'm asking is some distance, we're not kids anymore and there's more to life than just childhood friendships!"
"Controlling!? When was I ever controlling??? I let you ignore me for days so you can hang out with your girlfriend, and all I asked was for you to be there on my birthday!"
Ou was exasperated. "See? She's poisoning your view of me! Are you seriously going to marry a liar like her?"
But Min Cheng would not listen. "Bai Lianhua was only looking out for my sake. And I will marry her because I love her, we were lucky that our parents agreed to let us marry once we turn 22."
Ou retorted. "Because they want your riches and her riches to combine together! It's all business to them, not support for 'love'!"
"That doesn't matter! At least they support it! While you, who was my best friend, keep on going between us!"
Min Cheng then said something absolutely ridiculous.
"She told me about the way you were stalking her and her social media. Be honest with me, gege, were you really against us because she's bad….. or was it something else?"
"Oh, you're blind, Ah-Cheng! She just told you that I was gay and spread rumors about it, and now she's saying that I like her!? Does that even make any sense to you!?"
The logic did manage to shut up Min Cheng a bit and make him think, but he was far too poisoned at this point that in the end, he still did not listen to him.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
His reverie was broken when he heard those shouts. He was so lost in his own memories that he completely forgot that he was watching the past of Hyacinth and Zephyros Rozenaur unfold.
Hyacinth was the one screaming as a branding iron was pressed on his forehead.
But he wasn't the only one hurt.
Brother Rozenaur's eyes have three slashes, looking like claw marks. There was blood dripping from Hyacinth's long fingernails. It can't be anything other than the Gold Monk's blood.
So that's how he came to wear that mask.
Hyacinth really wasn't completely innocent as his daughter thought.
"You're a Daemon! The Lord of Daemons himself, possessing my friend! I banish you from this premises, forbidding you to return ever again!"
His eyes were ablaze by great anger. "I forbid you to step foot in Sephyrine and stain it's soil forever!"
As he declared this, a million butterflies came in a swarm to take Hyacith away, and he vanished like that.
Stella had appeared too late at the commotion, seeing her lover taken away. "Hyacinth!" She called out.
Brother Rozenaur turned to her, smiling evilly as he touched her face. "Forget about that Daemon. He would never come to harm us again."
Ronin really doubted that this part happened. It was very out of character from how he understands Brother Rozenaur's psyche.
This was possibly Hyacinth's own imagination of what happened. Since he was already taken away by the butterflies, he couldn't possibly know this.
Hyacinth appeared beside him with a swarm of butterflies, and the scenery changed back to Ogygia.
"Now you see why I must accept the gift? I lost my wife due to her heartbreak from seeing me suffer every time I try to return to Sephyrine."
"I can't even visit her parents with her, or visit my daughter when she's studying there. Everyday she saw me suffer, getting splitting headaches from the mark that stained my forehead."
"People give me juding looks too because of this mark. I know they are judging me and thinking that I'm a Daemon, even if they don't say it out loud. This hurt my wife very much."
"Eventually, her faint heart got so weak... And I lost my beloved. It's all Zephyros' fault."
Ronin was quiet, his mind still a little lost.
Hyacinth continued to tell him his side of the story.
"When your brother came to our island, his people killed and pillaged everyone as they pleased. But he tried to stop them, not wanting to hurt those who were already hurt. Those who were persecuted."
Ronin narrowed his eyes. "So you consider yourself a victim?"
"Of a vile, cruel man, yes. I wanted to make him pay for what he had done to me and my family." Hyacinth said. "And now I can."
He showed Ronin what was happening below the cliff, waving away the fog and the Neverland completely.
"I cannot set foot to Sephyrine... But the whole island can." He chuckled with wrathful glee. "The more bodies it gains, the bigger and faster my island becomes."
"Don't you see how powerful I am, My Lord?" Hyacinth turned to him. "I can turn the whole of Sephyrine like this too….. The whole Magecia itself!"
Ronin muttered. "Yes… You really are the most powerful Daemon created by Maellan."
Hyacinth was excited. "All I ask is for you to let me kill Rozenaur and—"
Ronin wrapped his whip around his neck.
"Too bad this power was wasted on someone like you, someone who likes to think that he's the poor victim of the story."
"It's better if I consume this power for myself."
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