Spotting the smoke that came out through the shattered window, as well as hearing the explosion, Natsumi finally caught up to Yamato and Yuki. Once she arrived, she extinguished the flames still eating at the wooden walls, which surprisingly managed to withstand the impact, likely due to being reinforced somehow.
"What happened here and are you okay?"
"This crazy lunatic blew himself up is what happened! However his desperate scheme was no match for me, which is why we are perfectly fine~"
"Yeah, what she said."
"You guys… Was there no way to save him?"
Yuki looked at Natsumi with indifference, shrugging her shoulders as she turned around and fix Yamato's hair.
"Why would we do that? Besides, I'm pretty sure he wanted to die. Kind of the point of blowing up a room while you're still inside, don't you think?"
"How do you know it was his decision? And even if, he was clearly backed into a corner! You can hardly speak of him given a choice here! But you had one, to save him!"
"Whatever. He wouldn't function as puppet leader or anything like that since he's the previous emperor, and people need to completely forget him as authority figure. Right, boo~?"
"Sorry, Natsumi, but Yuki is right. You can't and shouldn't save everyone. And in the end, it were his own decision that led to this incident, his last words made that pretty clear."
"But still…"
"There's nothing to do about it now, is there? So you should just drop it. It won't do you any good if you keep thinking about ways that could have prevented his death."
"I won't turn my moral compass off like you two…"
"That's your decision."
"…"
After Yuki finished touching and caressing over Yamato's head and face, she turned back to Natsumi again, dramatically pointing her finger at her.
"Besides, was it not you who was originally allied with the Holy Empire? Thus it would have been your responsibility to save and protect your comrade if anything, not ours. You can go try and win a war with making friends with everybody, or you can actually win it. But if you insist on doing it your way, then you can go get lost again for all we care."
"Alright, alright, I get it. There was no saving him, and it was his decision not yours. I get that you prioritized Yamato's safety, I'm not mad at you, Yuki."
"Really? That's truly a relief…!"
Yuki's eyes beamed with such genuine joy, that it could only be interpreted as mockery. Which of course was the correct interpretation.
"No need to get sarcastic…"
Yuki just stuck her tongue out at her, and Natsumi gave up for the moment, just looking at her sister's childish behavior with acceptance.
"Anyway, Yuki, I think it's time."
"Mhm, that's right~!"
"Time for what?"
Yuki opened her pocket dimension, and pulled out one of the crystal they used for announcements in Grym'valen, handing it over to Yamato. Though a bit more complicated and mana consuming then with the antennas places throughout Grym'valen, Yuki manually broadcast his voice throughout Vancia.
"People of the Holy Empire of Humanity, your emperor has chosen to take his own life, in response to your angel Natsumi's transfer over to the Absolute Empire. I ask you to follow her example, as this land from now on belongs and stands under the protection of the Absolute Empire, as well as all its citizens. As your new emperor, I promise to provide you with guidance and security, as well as bring prosperity with the help of the divine support given to me. All evacuated citizens may return to the city, more information will follow."
As the broadcast ended, Yuki took her crystal back, storing it safely alongside her other emergency gadgets.
"Y'know, I never agreed to help you politically…"
"The fact that you don't speak against me is already support given your divine history. And nothing I said was a lie."
"Arctinus did not take his life because of my deal with you though."
"It's what we will go with. It illegitimizes basically everything he stood for, as well as the current religion. So with that in mind, I'm actually glad you weren't on our side since the start."
"It's still deceptive."
"What would you have said instead?"
"Uhm… I don't know… The truth?"
"Which is?"
"Well…"
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
"Hey, I didn't prepare a speech before coming here!"
"Neither did I. It wasn't even planned that I come here today before you kidnapped me."
"…sorry..."
"Hm?"
"I said I'm sorry, okay!? You are a really difficult person!"
"Well, I'm going back now. You're going with me, yes?"
"Yes…"
"Good girl~!"
Yuki said patting Natsumi's head before taking Yamato's arm and preparing to teleport away.
"Hey, don't leave me behind again!"
"It's like a two second trip or so for you, you'll manage… Also, this city kinda needs lots of repairs, and I've been constructing a lot recently and don't really feel like it, so you do that, okay?"
"It's not about that it's—!"
"Bye, bye!"
As Yuki and Yamato disappeared, Natsumi was once again left all by herself.
"It's about doing stuff together now…"
Natsumi began repairing the main damage to buildings as instructed, though she of course would have helped anyway. Yamato and Yuki returned to the Absolute Citadel, where Yamato found Pheobe on the ground in his office play with a model train she must have taken out of one of the shelves below his desk.
"Hey, Pheobe, where did you find that? And where's Petrisha, weren't you supposed to play with her while we were gone?"
"Misses Maid said Phoebe couldn't go in here without your permission, so she snuck away and hid in here, so she can uncover the secrets hidden inside this room!"
"Oh, I see. Yeah, being told you can't go somewhere does scream super secret stuff is being hidden, doesn't it?"
"That's what Pheobe said!"
"And, did you find anything fun yet?"
"Only this thing, Pheobe doesn't know what it is… But she has fun swooshing it around!"
"It's called a train. It's like a super fast carriage that doesn't need horses and can be used to transport goods and people over long distances, but it only works on train tracks, which are like a special road only for them."
"Pheobe didn't get all that, but she heard it's super fast! But it's way too small for her to fit inside…"
"Well, that's just a model. An actual train is much bigger. And that's just the part that would pull the wagons. They are like rooms on wheels pulled by the part you're holding."
"Pheobe wants to go inside a super fast train!"
"Well, sadly there is no functional one built yet. But I'm working on it, since teleportation is really mana consuming and only works for a small town like this to sustain itself. Not to mention that it only works because Yuki is so awesome."
"Ma—… Yuki should come to the train with Pheobe once it's finished. Will you come too…?"
"Sure. We will be on the first train that leaves the town."
"But Pheobe doesn't want to leave town… Can't the train go in a small circle inside the town?"
"That's… Not a bad idea, actually. Maybe if the town gets bigger, which I will work on in the future. But you don't have to worry. The train will always circle back into town eventually. Also, you can keep that one if you want."
"Really!? Yay! Pheobe will go show it to everyone she knows right away!"
Pheobe stormed out of the room, yelling "Misses Maid", in search of Petrisha, though after a few steps outside the room, she realized running around was much too exhausting for her, and she just sat back down on the floor, deciding that Petrisha would surely find her by herself while she waited and continued playing with the train as she waited and occasionally yelled out to her. Sure enough, it took less then 10 seconds for Petrisha to find her, scolding her for running off but being ignored and instead shown the train model. Pheobe explained it was a "super fast, moving room pulling machine", which did not make much sense to Petrisha. Resulting in her being called a dummy by Pheobe.
Meanwhile Yuki had said she wanted to rest, so she headed up to her private room, locking the door behind her. Sitting down on the floor and leaning against the door while deeply exhaling, cupping her face with both hands as she took in what happened today. The reality was, having once again failed to protect Yamato had affected her much more than she had shown earlier. It was actually quite devastating, which her outburst had of course shown, but it was not just over after Yamato arrived. She looked around her plain room, having moved most of her things into the sphere for comfort. However, there was one or two things still making this room very much needed, as a stress relief, as to call it. Manually moving a heavy bookshelf aside, a hidden room was revealed, filled with pictures of Yamato in all kinds of situations. Sleeping, working, eating, all replicated from memory and drawn by hand hyper realistically since there was no such thing as a photograph in this world. Not that she could not build one herself, but she figured drawing was the more intimate gesture. As well as less creepy. Though, having a hole room full of someone, all over the walls and ceiling, drawn or printed was not all that different. But if it were only about five or ten pictures, drawings would definitely be less creepy than photos, was her logic. Of course, touching the real deal was much more relaxing, but since she was too ashamed to meet him right now, she had to make do with the pictures, which she took in by pressing her face against the wall, covering herself in used sheets and pillows that smelled like him. She had used this room much less frequently ever since their relationship had grown closer, but during their school days she had a similar room which she used multiple times a week, every time Yamato had talked to someone else that day. What was most frustrating about today was that she had promised herself to eliminate all threats at once, which she obviously failed to do by not hunting down and killing Natsumi the moment she made that promise. But since that threat was dealt with for now, she saw it as fate that Yamato covered the areas she herself seemed to overlook. But still, she was now forced to admit to herself that she was unable to always protect him from everything. Which was something she would rather not have to accept.