Father And Daughter

Vajdahunyad Castle, Aria's World
10:15 PM

This time we walked through one of the castle's corridors. My father was pushing a wheelchair he had improvised for me out of whatever he could find, though it was not comfortable, nor could I complain. Tamamo was still beside me, healing me, and the twins were behind me. We went into the main room where Maria must still be. The magic show must have been going on at that time, even if it was a repeat of the first time, she would not miss it, in fact, it is likely that she had already forgotten what she had to do at that time. The magician was a famous person from Budapest, so he did not know how to speak Spanish, so he had to do almost all of his show so that we could understand the gestures, despite the fact that the situation was uncomfortable for him. The show went well and everyone enjoyed it.

When we arrived, everything weighed exactly as I remembered it, including Maria in the front row, who from time to time bothered the magician to check the objects he was using. In this case, it was a six-sided die, but this one was quite large, like a ball, and there was no dot on its faces to indicate a number. But as the magician turned it, the dots on the different sides of the die would appear without any explanation.

"Wow!"
"How did he do that?"
"So this is the kind of magic that exists in the West"
"I've never had a chance to see it, but now I see that it might have more uses than I thought."
"I want to challenge a magical battle to see how far western magic can go," said the girl next to me who was healing me with real magic.

"What he does is very different from magic."
"I think I can explain it better as sleight of hand and illusions with mirrors and smoke."
"He is not a real magician, just someone who works trying to amaze people with his stunts," I explained to her before she caused another commotion.

When I finished speaking I noticed how suddenly a person was missing, my father was no longer with us, he was trying to sneak into one of the small rooms when I managed to find him with my sight.

"Very well."
"You two stay here for a while"
"Tamamo, can you do me a small favor and bring Maria here?
"I need to talk to my father for a moment," I gave some instructions as she lifted me out of the wheelchair to walk.

"Ok, but don't overdo it, remember you're still weak from the wound".
"Kazumi, Charlotte better watch him from a distance, if anything happens let me know immediately," she said as she put me aside and started walking.

My father was in a room near the main room, this time the place had a lot of deer ornaments. The castle was primarily used as a city tourist site and agricultural museum, so originally it had a lot of things like this all over the place. But we asked them to remove them in order to decorate everything with the theme of the party, although they obviously did not remove the whole castle because they were too much. He was inside trying to pretend to be interested in one of those ornaments, even though I think he has never seen a deer in his life.

"I already told you that you should talk to her whether you like it or not"
"She deserves to talk to you for a moment."
"You have no idea how sad he will be tomorrow when she realizes that everything that happened here is not a dream and that her father was here but he did not want to talk to her."
"That will surely hurt her even more."

"You don't understand the damage that could come if she sees me."
"She might even go back to her old condition and get sick again."
"And how will I explain to her that I am her father?"
"Just look at me! I look like a totally different person!" My father replied in a slightly annoying way

"How shocking"
"No doubt she won't believe you in the least," I told him while wagging my tail a little to remind him that I actually had a much harder time in that regard.
"She's so much stronger now than you give her credit for."
"Do you think it is fun for me to be here scolding my own father to do something that he taught me how important family is?"
"You need to do something now or you will regret this decision for a long time."
"I just want you to make the right choice."
"That's all."

"Dad?"
"Are you the one there?"

The girl we had argued about so much appeared right behind me near the door. Maria had a sad face as if she wanted to cry, she was holding the wall with one hand and her chest with the other, she was trying to walk but it was clear that her legs did not want to respond to her. My father opened his eyes. He had a surprised face on the same level as if he had seen a ghost, when he processed what had happened he turned to look at me, but when he saw my victory face he realized that he had no way out.

"Maria!?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Shouldn't you be watching the magic show?"

"I knew it!"
"It's really you, dad," said the girl, now completely convinced.

"Why do you think I'm him?"
"How can you be so sure?"

"When Cesar came back, I thought deep down that something like this could happen."
"And since he came back, I thought maybe something like that could happen to you."
"But I never thought that in this case you did it to avoid me"
"Did you really want to avoid me enough to do something like this?
"I can't believe that even someone as irresponsible as Cesar could behave better as a grown man now as a little girl than you," Maria said a little annoyed, but understandable why.

"No, it's not like that."
"It was never my intention to do this to you".
"This is all my fault, forgive me," he walked over to Maria and hugged her.

Seeing the sentimentality of the moment and that they surely wanted more privacy to talk to each other in peace, I decided that it would be best for me to get out of there. So I left silently while Maria cried in her father's arms, I don't know if she was happy or sad, but it would be his turn to fix it because he was the one who caused it. When I left the room, I could see Tamamo waiting near the door with a smug face full of pride. Without a doubt, she was the reason for the bad moment when Maria appeared.

"I imagine it was your idea"
"Thank you for helping me with this Tamamo"

"Don't worry about it, Goshujin-sama"
"I also wanted the two of them to talk"
"When I talked to your sister this night, I understood how important he was to her."
"I also think about how important a family is now that I have been living with you these days".
"It is certainly nice to be around people like you every day."
"That is why we must try to take care of our two new daughters in the same way."
"Don't you agree, my love?"

"So you agree with my idea to treat them like normal people and not like two robots?"

"Well, if what you told me about them is true, they undoubtedly have the potential to be quite important in the future."
"But that is why I think it is undoubtedly important to teach them how important it is to be around people who love them."
"I can teach them a little bit about how to behave like goddesses.
"But it will depend on the love they receive from us on how they will behave on their own in the future."
"Well, even I behave differently now that I am next to you than when I was locked in that old stone."
"If I had seen someone like you passing by back then, I might not have hesitated to kill you."
"But now I can't even think of being away from you for a moment".
"If I had met someone like you when I first came to Earth, I would not have even doubted what your response would have been if they had told you that I was trying to kill you."
"I really can't believe how stupid I was back then to believe that someone as stupid as Konoe really loved me from the bottom of her heart."
"But now that I have experienced the real love, I can tell the difference just by seeing how you treat me even in moments like this."
"But I don't want to change the past either, because then I would never have met you, my darling."

"Ok, I don't expect this conversation to go that way"
"But it's okay, if you want to talk about it, I won't stop you"
"There are times when you need to talk to someone about everything you have accumulated in your life."

"No, I'm done now"
"We'd better wait for Maria and your father to finish talking.
"Maybe we should explain to Kazumi and Charlotte what is happening here tonight."
"I think they are the most lost and maybe they can help us to get out of here.

After almost an hour, Maria and my father finally came out and ran back with us. They had taken so long that the four of us were now sitting at a table eating a cake each. At first I thought it might be harmful to the dolls, but according to them, they told me that they were able to taste and process food to convert it into energy, because despite what the toy joints on their bodies indicated, the idea was that they were as human as possible. And when the two of them tasted the chocolate cake, they were fascinated by it. They ate it in such a fast way that, despite their serious faces, I could only imagine they were happy in the inside.

"So in order to get out of here, we have to destroy my magic book that acts as a catalyst, because apparently I have somehow changed the way it normally works," Maria summarized my explanation of how to get out of here.

"Exactly, so if you give us the book and we burn it, we should have no problem getting it back."

"That's good, I just have a little problem with it." My sister spoke again

"Where was the place you remember the last time you had it?" I asked directly.

"How do you know I lost it?"

"If you didn't have it during the magic show, that means you didn't have it with you to begin with."
"According to Stella, the book must also be in this world."
"So it's probably in the house in the woods where you first appeared."
"Maybe you missed it and it's somewhere in that hut.
"So we have to go back there and look for it," I explain my conclusion about what I had in mind since I was informed about how to get out of here.

"Also not at almost the same time where we go back to eat what mom cooked for family dinner?"
"She'll be there too."

"Well, then we will eat first and then we will look for the book."
"I'm also going to tell mom that this is not a dream."
"And you better talk to her like Maria or I assure you that I will be the worst of your nightmares," I warned my father.

Charlotte and Kazumi were sitting next to us at the table, but they did not speak at all, they just watched us talking. Tamamo, who took care of their behavior, seemed to find out what was bothering them, but what they did not want to say.

"If we make it back, what will happen to Kazumi and Charlotte?"
"Will they stay here or go with us?" Tamamo asked.

"Well, seeing as we saved them and the necklace they put on them without a doubt, I think the idea is that they will come with us."
"In case that does not happen, it will be left to Dad to take care of them for the time being and to get the permits to bring them to Earth."
"In the very unlikely event that the Celestial Security Section backs down and thinks it best to destroy them, you could take them to Oriente 6 and sneak into the Tamamo Temple and ask Urakaze for help while we resolve this situation."

"Do you really think something like that will happen?" asks Maria now.

"As I said, I doubt it, but it is better to have a plan in case".
"I am their father and I promised both of them that we would protect them from now on".
"I will not break such a promise, even if it costs me my life," Tamamo said proudly.

"You can count on me, if that happens, I know people who can help us fix it," my father replied happily.

Once we had everything in order for the rest of the night, we made our way to the cabin in the woods to finally end this long, long night.