Synopsis:
Diana found a lost object and, thanks to it, asked Zack and other nobles for help to defeat Rudel. She believes that Rudel plans to take over the country just as he did with the "Kingdom of Altfode."
Meanwhile, the emperor of the Magic Empire of Manaria is desperate to kill Rudel, so he will seek help from an old acquaintance.
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Characters:
Serges Sanson (Looks like to Cerotto from 91 Days)
A knight of the Banfield family.
His skills are mediocre, but he puts genuine effort into his work, which is what matters.
Ruslan Sereh Lytton (Looks like to Upson Thompson from Code Geass)
The prime minister of the magic empire, a man who, like the emperor, mourns the loss of the crown prince.
He seeks vengeance for his loss.
Willys Lars Donner (Looks like to Gaudefroy du Villon from Code Geass)
The strongest knight of the magic empire, nicknamed the Sword Demon. Someone who fought Bandel in the past and felt pained for not having killed him.
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Armor:
Gorius
https://www.deviantart.com/solgravionmegazord/art/X-02-Wyvern-579684043
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Arc: The Fall of the Supreme Kingdom
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Memory is a silent executioner. It doesn't strike with fists, but with details: the scent of damp earth after rain has fallen on the streets.
Diantha Liz Vermillion—or simply Diana, as she now called herself—knew that executioner all too well. In this life, in this world of floating islands and magic, the memories of her past life had not faded. They had taken root like scars upon her soul, stitching together resentment every time she closed her eyes and remembered her past.
Seated on the windowsill of her room, Diana gazed outside without truly seeing the fantastical landscape stretching beyond: archipelagos suspended in a perpetual sky, crisscrossed by the luminous trails of flying ships, crowned by crystal spires gleaming in the light.
Her fingers, long and pale, traced the cold edge of the reinforced glass as her mind traveled decades back, to a planet called Earth, to a gray city, to a family that was not a refuge but a battlefield.
She was a lonely girl. In her previous life, her family was a constant echo of comparisons: "Look at your older sister, how beautiful, how clever." That older sister was superior in everything.
(Always her. Lucy, in this life. My older sister, in the other. Why does the universe insist on giving me mirrors I can't break?)
In her past life, Diana had been the shadow of a brilliant older sister: more beautiful, more intelligent, more loved. Even the boy she fell for, after confessing his clumsy feelings on an autumn evening, asked *her* out. The perfect sister.
That night, Diana smashed every academic award she had won through superhuman effort, crying silently so no one would hear her collapse.
"Everything I've achieved is insignificant next to her!"
The day of the "incident," her older sister returned home with a scholarship to study abroad. The news spread through the house like wildfire of familial pride.
Her parents were enthralled by her.
"Just as expected from my daughter," said the proud mother, and her father added, "Without a doubt, you are the family's pride."
Meanwhile, the younger sister sat on the sofa, consumed by jealousy; her recent exam results were nothing compared to this news.
That day, Diana waited for her in the kitchen, clutching a chef's knife with desperate strength.
(If she disappears, everything will be mine. The recognition I deserve, peace of mind, self-love.)
But when her sister appeared in the kitchen doorway, smiling with that blinding light, Diana hesitated. And as she hesitated, she took a false step, her plush slippers slipping on the freshly polished wooden floor. A sharp twist, a dull impact, and then the thick warmth of her own blood gushing from her neck. The last image she saw was her sister's eyes, wide not with hatred, but with a compassionate horror that was the cruelest blow of all.
She awoke crying. But it wasn't her cry. It was that of a newborn baby, swaddled in silk blankets embroidered with the crest of a noble family.
It took years for her to understand the truth: she had been reborn into a random world. She had fallen into a world of fantasy.
She was happy to start anew. She had been reborn as Diana of the Vermillion family in the Supreme Kingdom of Aster.
In this life, Lucy—her older sister—was as radiant as her sister from her past life had been. Loved by her parents, adored by the servants, naturally gifted with beauty. But Lucy had one crucial difference: her love for Diana was genuine, insistent, bold. As they grew up, Lucy clung to her sleeve, whispered childhood secrets, gifted her wildflowers picked from the gardens. Diana, initially wary due to their opposite personalities, began to feel something she had never known before: the warmth of a bond based not on competition, but on loyalty.
(Maybe that's why I hated my other sister. Because she never offered me this.)
But fate, or the "script," was relentless. She was ten years old when "that day" happened. She remembered with painful clarity the scent of chrysanthemums and damp earth in the gardens, the sound of Lucy's laughter chasing luminous butterflies, the calm presence of the servant Lutart watching them from the shade of an ancient oak. Then, the first scent of smoke. Distant screams. The sky tinged with a sinister orange.
They ran toward the family mansion only to see it engulfed in flames. In the main courtyard, surrounded by armored knights, stood Randolf Ciel Rosenberg.
His face, younger then but already carved from cold stone, showed no emotion. The people inside the house were burning alive; the exits had been sealed so no one could escape.
Randolf's voice cut through the crackling flames like a knife:
"The Vermillion family has been judged as traitors. By order of the Council of Great Nobles, I, Randolf Ciel Rosenberg, assume the role of Interim Chief of the Supreme Kingdom of Aster."
The girls were horrified, hearing the screams of their parents, relatives, and kin, shrieking in agony.
That fire was seared into their eyes, and Diana remembered everything. She remembered her surname, Lucy, the man who had set her home ablaze. It was all part of a game's plot that had to unfold this way—the otome video game that had been her only solace for years, her parallel universe where she could be loved. The irony was a slow-acting poison.
This event triggered the beginning of that game's story. And she, Diana, was not the heroine. She was the older sister, a secondary character destined to die or become a tool for others—that was Diana's fate.
But Diana refused to be a pawn. In the following years, she forged a resolve of steel. Her goal was twofold: to elevate Lucy as the Priestess of the Sacred Tree—the position of greatest influence in Aster—and to destroy Randolf and the great nobles who had murdered her family. She studied hard and tried to forge alliances for that day.
Until "he" appeared.
Rudel van Bradford. The third son of a rural baronial house, a reincarnated person like herself. But while Diana tried to follow the script and twist it to her advantage, Rudel shattered it with a sledgehammer. He destroyed her bond with Jude by winning Lucy's affection—not through schemes, but with disarming honesty.
He allied with Sara Ciel Rosenberg, Randolf's daughter, turning her into his ally. And according to rumors intercepted by Zero—the ancient AI hidden beneath the Sacred Tree—he now held Prince Liam and the royal family of Altfode as hostages, having seized control of the country with insulting audacity.
(He's chaos. A tornado that sweeps everything away without caring about the consequences. He doesn't want to win the game… he wants to smash the board. And he'll leave me with nothing… again.)
That night, Diana was having dinner with a certain person to whom she was telling all of this. It was Romeo Ciel Rosenberg, the youngest son of Randolf and his heir, a young man of simple appearance whose green eyes hid an obvious lack of inner confidence. The meeting place was a secret Vermillion mansion known only to trusted servants.
After hearing her story, Romeo ran a hand through his short blond hair, frayed by hours of nervous tension. The room was small, with walls of ancient oak and a huge pendulum clock whose mother-of-pearl moon turned slowly, marking time.
"Diana," he said, dispensing with respectful formalities. "What you've told me… is hard to believe. Reincarnation? A world that's a game? It sounds like the fantasy of a mad scientist with mana fever."
"I showed you Zero," Diana replied with studied calm, pointing toward the brightest corner of the room where the purple AI sphere floated silently, its green LED eye blinking in a rhythm that seemed to breathe. "I revealed family secrets not even your own father knows. Do you still think it's fantasy?"
Romeo removed his glasses, wiping them with a cloth while avoiding her gaze.
"No… I can't deny the evidence."
Romeo wasn't a reincarnate like Diana, so believing her seemed impossible. But as she recounted things only he should know about his life and his family, he couldn't help but doubt himself.
In the end, he had no choice but to believe her after hearing his father's terrible secret.
"Mother said he had secrets he didn't want to tell anyone, and it makes sense how he became Interim Chief after that day."
"My family sees me as the weak son, and my sister as the best choice for the family. If I get involved in your conspiracy and we fail, they won't just disinherit me… they'll 'suicide' me in some forgotten dungeon."
Diana stepped closer, the crunch of her boots on the stone slabs the only sound besides the ticking clock.
"If you do nothing, Romeo, Rudel will erase you all the same. Ixion, his AI, has surveillance drones on every level of the floating city. They know your insecurities, your movements, all your efforts to be accepted by the family."
Romeo paled with fear upon hearing that.
"But Zero can create interference in their surveillance networks… for a limited time. We need a quick, precise strike before Rudel or Ixion realizes we're making a move."
Romeo put his glasses back on, his green eyes now focused and hard.
"What exactly are you proposing?"
"I need you to lend me your power as heir of the Rosenberg's and that of the other Great Nobles," said Diana, about to whisper her plan. "We must defeat Rudel in a surprise attack. Because that Ixion is more dangerous than we realize."
She continued detailing her plan while being watched by Zero.
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Thousands of kilometers from Aster, on the floating continent of the Magic Empire Manaria, the air smelled of stale incense and damp ambition. The Hall of the Golden Dawn, so named for the polished obsidian slabs covering every surface, was a place designed to intimidate. At its center, Emperor Dixgard Zai Zellgred, a man who seemed carved from old wood and bitterness, lay upon his throne listening to two figures before him.
"The alliance is sealed," declared Dixgard, his coarse voice emerging from a meticulously trimmed but grief-dulled gray beard. "The Holy Kingdom will assist us in negotiations with Aster due to our military history against them. Therefore, we must quickly gather our forces. It seems we are not the only ones who thirst for vengeance against him."
Kneeling before him, Prime Minister Ruslan Sereh Lytton—blond hair combed back with near-military precision, brown eyes filled with unwavering loyalty—lifted his gaze.
"Your Majesty, the plan is solid. But can we trust them? Our relationship with the Holy Kingdom isn't exactly the best, especially alongside Aster."
The prime minister voiced his doubts about receiving help from an enemy.
Dixgard clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles cracked. In his eyes, veiled by age but burning with hatred, danced the image of his son Jasper: red hair inherited from his mother, an arrogant yet beloved smile, reduced to ashes in the failed attack on Aster months earlier. An attack Rudel had repelled nearly single-handedly.
"Him… I want him alive," growled the emperor, each word dripping with venom. "Not a prisoner of war. Not an honorable corpse. I want him chained before my throne, to watch as I destroy everything he protects. And then… I will cut off his head myself. With the very sword Jasper wielded in his first duel."
To one side, a mass of black metal and muscle shifted. Willys Lars Donner, the Demon Sword, struck the floor with the pommel of his giant sword. The vibration resonated through the hall.
"Enough talk!" roared Donner, his voice emerging from a throat hidden by his coal-black armor, his gorilla-like silhouette addressing the emperor. "Give me the coordinates and I'll carve a path from here to his throne! I'll tear out his heart and bring it back before dinner is over!"
Lytton placed a calming hand on Donner's armored arm.
"Brute force is necessary, Donner, but not enough. We're talking about an enemy who fought alone against the crown prince, who was your finest disciple."
"Strategy is for cowards and politicians!" snarled Donner, but he reined in his impulse under Dixgard's icy glare.
Emperor Dixgard left his throne to prostrate himself before his vassals—something a king or emperor should never do.
"I don't care if there are hidden intentions or not. I want my son's killer to pay with my fury. I want to see him dead by my own hands, even if it leads me to the grave."
"Your Majesty, please don't do this!"
The prime minister and the empire's strongest pleaded with him not to bow before mere subjects.
None of them realized they were being observed by their guest, the Holy King, whose eyes held a strange glint.
◇◇◇
Back in Aster, in the private office of Randolf Ciel Rosenberg, the night was deep. The Interim Chief had dismissed his assistants as it was time to go home, yet he remained seated behind his monumental ebony desk, surrounded by stacks of documents requiring his signature as the nation's highest authority.
He wasn't looking at any particular document. His gaze was fixed on a point in the void, lost in an ocean of thoughts his subordinates had begun to notice with growing concern.
"The Chief has been acting strange lately."
"It must be stress; an important festival is coming up soon."
"He should delegate some of the work to us and rest."
They said this before closing the door.
Once alone, he turned off the lights and remained in the darkness, contemplating the clear night sky.
He stood and walked toward the large window facing outward. His steps were silent on the thick wool carpet as he reached the arched window overlooking the entire city alongside the majestic silhouette of the Sacred Tree, whose branches glowed with an inner light pulsing to the rhythm of the world's heart.
"Not long now until the Sacred Tree's Eve," murmured Randolf to himself, his voice a rough whisper lost in the room's vastness.
He placed his hand against the window; that hand bore the emblem of a great noble. But its color was black, for some reason.
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The fanservice is for Diana, because like it or not, she's pretty: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/10443978