With the conquering of Kyoya's first Demon, and another first in the form of shaking hands with royalty, the boy's choice to follow Lyric has only been accompanied with fortune. Albeit not for free, the rewards of such ventures still proved more than worth his while, ultimately resulting in his decision to commit himself to her pursuits.

As it would go, he's been provided an opportunity to converse with some that can shed much-needed light upon his ordeal, and he couldn't be happier that his partner had such a way with connections...

...And now, the only thing keeping him from going mad with excitement is the reality that he'll be hearing it all from a King and his more-than-excitable daughter—but he was told to mind his manners. What a shame.

The Pinnacle was a fitting title for the place of their meeting.

The four of them sat at a large, circular table, in the dead center of a moderately sized, conference-style room decorated with medieval flair. The table itself was mostly normal, save for the astoundingly smooth gold plating and studs lining almost every inch of its legs, rim, and frame. From both the wood and metal, he could see himself as clearly as a mirror—likely even more so. A velvet carpet with threaded gold woven into the patchwork served as the floor-boarding's cover, wrapping effortlessly around ivory pillars that held up a chiseled granite ceiling.

Paintings and sculptures surrounded them on the walls, such a scene ringing to what one would imagine laid within a haunted mansion or other similar attractions. Though, thankfully, none of the paintings of knights and maidens seemed to track Kyoya when he turned away...

...That, or they just did it when he wasn't looking.

Kyoya and Lyric sat parallel from Altar and Alexandria, the Reclaimers' chairs being only very slightly less fashionable than their hosts'. They were made of dark wood, with silvery bolts and frames decorating points of connection or operation. The only difference with the royal family's?

Theirs were gold.

With the only thing keeping the room from dead silence being Alexandria's metal greaves ravenously tapping the floor, the Seraph took it upon herself to get their little meeting going.

"Alright!" she began, resting her cup of tea down lightly on its plate. "The meat of the matter here is that I've got a certain somebody who I'd like to believe might help with our legend problem... As far as I'm able to delve, it checks out. I need to know, for one, what you two think—and, for two, what we'll need to do from here on, should the same go for you."

Altar nodded, looking to his daughter, then to Kyoya, and finally to Lyric.

"That's quite the workload, miss Seraphim," he chuckled. "While I'm not capable, myself, of identifying any resemblance to one of the nine, if you believe his talents can assist in your search, we can conduct an evaluation."

Alexandria seemed to perk up at this, for reasons unknown to the Miscreant.

"That does sound appropriate! How do you feel about a statistic evaluation, mister, uhm..." She caught herself at a loss, the both of them seeming to remember that he'd actually yet to introduce himself.

"Right, I'm sorry! I'm Kyoya! I totally forgot to mention that before we got started—"

She was quick to regain that supremely excited pep.

"That's quite alright! Mister Kyoya, then! How would you feel about a statistic evaluation?"

Unsure as to exactly what this evaluation would entail, the boy took his liberties in knowing what he'd be getting himself into.

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"How's it work?"

"I suppose it would be a better idea to have made that clear, now that you mention it," the Princess agreed. "With no better way to word it, all I have to do is place a hand on your body and allow some of the Magic to flow through you. From that, I should have a clear view of your individual Power Levels, which would give us an idea of what we're working with."

Following his daughter, the King addressed another note.

"If you'd yet to reach a conclusion, young Kyoya, myself and other elders of Takera have managed to deduce that your partner is likely a holder of one of the fabled Defiant Virtues... Specifically, that which belonged to Lioleas: the Virtue of Hope."

Something like a static shock ran up and down Kyoya's spine at the mention. His jump alerted Lyric, who raised a finger.

"Let's try and steer clear of that D-word... by the looks of it, he's got a pretty similar bug to other candidates when it comes to hearing stuff about them out loud."

"So, that means she's..." breathed the Miscreant.

"That means she's one of nine with the potential to prevent the next coming of the Great Schism..." Alexandria chimed in, less excitedly than before. "Or so we'd hope. Her earlier mention of Fate having some sort of 'dysfunction' was in reference to the current state of the legend. If she hasn't related it to you already, should you hold any connection to this, Lyric would have broken a step of a curse that was meant to kill you the very moment she did so; she was never meant to have found you, and you were never meant to know about any of this..."

She shuddered for a moment. "...And if any of those conditions were ever met, you wouldn't just be getting headaches when hearing of it; you would have died."

Lyric, unsurprisingly, found it necessary to add her own input to the young miss's statement.

"Which is why I was so adamant on letting you put two and two together... I just—I didn't want to risk any of that. Especially not knowing you now."

Kyoya took a moment to breathe.

He had to.

He'd already been floored to learn that the bright-eyed, care-free soul he'd met less than a day ago was some sort of re-emergence of a legendary hero. Now, though, the scope was widening to include him.

It wasn't just bells that were ringing, anymore.

They were war drums, bellowing their roars of brutal contemplation with every passing statement offered by their royal audience.

"With that being said," Altar began, forcing him back into reality, "It should go without saying that we would all like to know where you may fall into place with this dilemma. As it stands, the Virtues are believed to be scattered throughout the greater reaches of Takera—a result of the Denizen tampering with Fate's method. Odd as it may sound, officials around the world are on the lookout for powerful Reclaimers in hopes of identifying those Virtues that remain."

Looking at her father, Alexandria picked up the tail end of his point.

"And with your sudden emergence and the complete denial of what was told to be the only outcome of this millennia's cycle, it's only logical that we try our hand at every opportunity that we have. If the Denizen was capable of outright modifying the tendencies of Fate, there's no way to tell what else could come if we choose not to act."

There wasn't even a moment to rest before the Miscreant gave his answer.

"Well, whatever the hell this is about... It sounds like something I can't back out of, legend or not."

Though, this time, no signature grin found its way to him, nothing igniting his trademark competitor's urge... Even if the thought of something so massively outrageous involving him of all people was a good step up from intimidating, it was even more intimidating to think of what Alexandria had mentioned.

Behind his stoic front, he shivered.

Kyoya bid a loathsome thought to the name of the Denizen.

"The Mad God, the Devil Himself..."

Sorely attached to that title was the phrase he'd lost to time—condemned, lest it ever ail him to recall again. He who stood at the center of the Miscreant's plight; He who brought upon Kyoya the ire and enmity of his own home.

Anything capable of so much as putting a dent in the Fate that had been so graciously talked up by so many would already have put up red flags. Yet, this wretched soul could alter, or even nullify Her method.

If the Denizen could do that, surely it could do a lot worse to something merely mortal, merely of this world...

Kyoya thought first of his family: parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles, albeit in places unknown to him—but living, no less.

He gritted his teeth at what could become of that, should a being so dire as the Denizen will it. Furthermore, he dreaded the possibilities of the shrine grounds, of Reika and Guran, and Lyric, and Ryder, and Altar and Alexandria, and the boy they'd saved, and all of the crowd from the courtyard... "Of course you'd get brought back into things now."