“No way…! This can’t be… happening! How…? How come she can… she can use Erza’s signature attack?”

Lakshman kept saying that while slowly shaking head with a disbelieving expression on his face. He looked at her for a moment before shifting his glance sideways to where Erza was sitting in the spectator stand. The future wife of his was wearing a great smile on her face and was verbally shouting her support towards Raze to win. It did not make sense to him, and that was when doubts started forming in his mind about

In the meantime, Raze continued to pass on her energy into her attack that soared forward and smashed against the oncoming spear of energy. In an instant, a violent burst of wind and energy was unleashed from those two clashing together like that. However, the clear winner of this battle of powers became evident when the spear of energy began pushing the wave of destruction backwards.

“Do it…! Move…!” Raze muttered, sounding desperate while her expression was concealed by her mask.

With sheer will power, she managed to exert a great amount of power towards her attack and, much to the surprise of the others, it completely enveloped the spear of energy and continued flying forward. They shouted in excitement, which quickly turned into shock when they realized it was headed straight towards Lakshman. When they noticed that he remained in the spot while showing no sign of moving, they began shouting to get his attention.

“Hey, Lakshman!”

“What are you doing?!”

“Lucky!”

“Man, move! You’re in the line of fire!”

“Get out of the way!”

“Watch out!”

Their warning, however, fell on deaf ears because the person they were trying to warn was too busy thinking. Having doubts sprung up inside his mind, Lakshman felt distracted and did not notice the attack that was flying at him. At that point, he was facing down at the ground with a hand covering his mouth at the unbelievable event of seeing someone else use Erza’s signature attack, and to make matters even more complicated, Erza appeared as if she is not interest in battle at all.

“This doesn’t make sense…!” He thought in a worried voice. “How can Raze use Erza’s technique? No…! H-How’s this possible…? I-It’s almost like—!”

His thoughts were however interrupted when Asura shouted in his mind, “You can worry about it later! First, focus on the attack headed for us!”

Having been forcefully broken his chain of thoughts, Lakshman lifted his head and saw the attack flying at him. That was when he became aware of the shouts coming from his comrades. Due to this, he reacted automatically by channeling Energy Force into the right of his clenched fist and smacked the attack with an annoyed look on his face. The reason for him feeling that way was due to it being the main reason that interrupted his important chain of thoughts.

With the impact from his fist, Raze’s attack was diverted and it did a half-curve maneuver before flying right back at its caster. Raze and the others were shocked at the unbelievable feat of redirecting an attack right back at its owner. In this case, they were the ones in danger and, having realized that fact, they began to panic. Even without practice in sensing power levels, they could tell the power behind the wave of destruction was immense and would be difficult to stop.

Before any of them could react, however, Lakshman aimed his hand at the wave and shouted, “Maga Distrab!”

In an instant, the wave exploded into particles of light and shocked everyone present. The countless small lights slowly floated around in mid-air for a few seconds before vanishing from view. The people watched this spectacle with an awe and wonderous expressions on their faces. On the other hand, Lakshman was sighing deeply as he realized he had inadvertently returned the attack back without considering the safety measure of his allies defending themselves.

“That was close. I angrily reacted and forgot whom I was facing,” he thought to himself in a disappointed voice.

“At least, you managed to react in time and stop it, so it’s all good I guess,” Asura said, making his statement sound like a question instead. “Anyway, about what you were thinking before…?”

“Yes. The fact that Raze used Erza’s attack means… it means that…”

Lakshman faltered, unable to bring himself to say it because he feared what might happen to him. However, ignoring his feelings, Asura went on and finished it by saying, “that she is the real Erza.”

His past-self completing his statement made him suddenly feel as if a massive mountain had been dropped on top of him. At the same time, his eyes widened in shock by those words and there was no way to just write it off that Raze had coincidentally known to be able to use the technique that Erza used on a regular basis back in his home world. In addition to that, there was something else that he was aware of that made him unable to refute Asura’s words.

***

Within these two years, the God of Energy, Engraut, had been visiting his house back in his home world quite often, and it was doing one of his visits that Lakshman requested him to explain how he and his wives were able to meet each other again in this timeline. To that, Engraut chuckled and said a statement that stunned the Phoenix Titan.

“Why, it’s because of the power of love of course!”

“Huh?!” He exclaimed in shock, not sure whether to believe him or not.

The God of Energy suddenly looked hurt as he said, “Hey, don’t be like that. My wife will feel really sad you know?”

Lakshman blinked and asked, “So…? It really was the effects of the Divine Protection of Love and not because they’re the Nine Destiny Queens?”

“They indeed are known as the Nine Destiny Queens because they are destined for something great, but, but what truly brought you all together was the Divine Protection of Love,” admitted Engraut with a smile. “I suppose you won’t remember but Jena was among those many gods that granted you Divine Protection appropriate to their category.

“Jena? The Goddess of Love?” Lakshman asked, seemingly surprised to hear that name. As he recalled the memories that had happened so long ago, he smiled a little as he asked, “Isn’t she your wife?”

“Oh? So, you do remember?” Engruat said, grinning broadly while appearing to be surprised.

“Vaguely,” replied Lakshman with a shrug of his shoulders. As Engruat laughed lightly, he pressed on and asked, “So, basically we were drawn to one another because we were meant to be together? Is that it?”

Engraut nodded and said, “Yes. Whether it be in the past, the present, or in the future, you and your nine wives, the Nine Destiny Queens to be more precise, are always destined to be together. That’s just how it is.”

This momentarily surprised Lakshman before he raised a question by asking, “I see. It makes sense, but how come we ended up together now and never in the past? I mean, surely they would have been reborn like me each and every time but we never met. How come?”

For a moment, Engraut remained silent as he seemed to be thinking about his response before saying, “I… believe you are correct in thinking that your wives have been going through reincarnation just like you, however… the reason you and your wives never came together until now was mainly due to the curse of the Ancient Evil. I think I don’t need to explain about it since Whamana should’ve told you about it already.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Not too much detail but he did say that curse was the reason I had been corrupted and led a corrupted life,” replied Lakshman, looking a little sad.

“Yes, and because you are, at your core, corrupted, the Divine Protection of Love kept your wives away from you for their safety sake, because, after all, if by bad luck you got together and they were forced to meet their destiny, I’m uncertain if the results would’ve been good to behold, although nothing of the sort happened here so that’s good.”

This caused Lakshman to raise an eyebrow in amazement and ask, “Wait, are you by any chance referring to Time Paradox?”

To that, Engraut gave him a mysterious look and said, “Now you’re getting into the complexities of existence, but let’s not go there. Let’s keep it simple, shall we?” When Lakshman nodded while looking confused, the God of Energy grinned and said, “Well, it’s basically the fault of that curse that led you to lead a life of solitude, never to meet your wives until now.”

Lakshman clenched his fists tightly and looked angry as he muttered, “Damn that Ancient Evil, to go so far as to curse me to a life of loneliness!”

“The past is the past but moving on from it is the most important thing right now,” stated Engraut, smiling serenely at him.

The Phoenix Titan nodded and said, “Yes. I agree.” Then, making sure he understood the contents of the Divine Protection of Love correctly, he asked one more time. “So, the Divine Protection of Love acts like a magnet towards my potential wives, pulling them and me closer to one another through various means. Is that right?”

Engraut nodded and said, “Yes, but it also acts like a link between you all. If one or many of you were to feel anxiety, the rest would sense that members of your family are feeling anxious about something. If one or many of you are in danger, it immediately alerts the rest of the family and possibly even forcefully summons them to that location with the possibility of providing support.”

“Ah. I understand now,” said Lakshman slowly in amazement.

He remembered the time when his wives were suddenly forcefully summoned into the Floria Kingdom’s castle when he was forcefully overloading himself upon learning the loss of his parents. It was because of his wives that he managed to calm down after that, otherwise, it would have been very dangerous for him to overload his power like that with his emotions running wild. He finally understood it was his Divine Protection of Love that truly protected him from himself.

“It’s a good thing then to have such a Divine Protection,” commented Lakshman with a smile.

The God of Energy laughed and said, “Yes, but remember; the stronger you love the other person, the stronger the reaction you’ll get from them. It’s as simple as that.”

***

Having remembered the conversation between himself and the God of Energy, he smiled a little at the joking manner in which Engraut had spoken in. Still, he understood the seriousness behind the words and it helped him realize something crucial in his current position.

“Raze’s been sticking closer to me than Erza as if she’s being drawn to me by some natural force,” he thought, noting the numerous times that Raze had been eagerly speaking to him more than Erza did. “That’s the only possible explanation I can think off given this kind of situation.”

Asura, who had been silent during this whole thing, finally spoke up by saying, “Mmm. Actually, now that it came down to this, I find her name to be strange… Like, I somewhat felt it was similar to Erza… a synonym to be exact. Simply place the ‘e’ in front of the ‘R’ and reverse ‘az’ to make ‘za’. That way it forms the name… Erza!”

This stunned both of them for a moment before Lakshman muttered, “Better check and find out. Elemental Sight.”

In an instant, the surroundings lost their color and was replaced with black, white and gray colors. Only the people had different colors, but he turned to look at Erza sitting in the spectator stands. To his surprise, she was filled with the color green that was represented as neutral. He quickly turned to look at Raze and was stunned to find that she was filled with the color blue, more evidence to the fact of who she really was.

Thus, in a shocking twist of fate, Lakshman discovered that Raze was none other than Erza through his deduction skills. He could not believe that his future wife was the person hiding behind a mask, and it made him wonder why the double was masquerading as Erza. He glanced at the imposter and the real Erza with a muted expression on his face.

“Something must’ve happened for there to be a double right in front of her!” He thought as no other reason came to him to explain away the fact that they were hiding the real Erza in the shadows.

While staring at Raze in shock, he suddenly spotted something strange to the side and turned to focus on it. Suddenly, his eyes slowly widened from the initial shock of what he found but he quickly recovered and decided to deal with it later. For now, he headed over to them with a smile on his face while listening to Bolten scold Raze in a stern voice.

“Now, how many times do I have to tell you, Raze?! You should be more cautious and not take too many risks!” He was saying to her with a look of anger shown on his face.

“My apologies, prince, but I hadn’t been able to contribute much in this fight, so I took the first opportunity that presented itself to me!” Raze replied courteously while a hint of anger could be heard from her voice.

“I don’t care for your explanations!” The first prince snapped, looking aggrieved by her words. “You could’ve been badly injured if that attack wasn’t stopped in time! Mike did a better job of staying out of it!”

“Um… I only thought I lacked the manpower to measure up to the level of the heroes,” said Mike with a small smile on his face.

“B-Bolten, please calm down. Raze did contribute towards a good cause and nothing bad happened,” said Fred earnestly, trying to support Raze while looking imploringly at the first prince.

Lakshman, with a smile on his face as he reached them, said to the first prince, “I agree with Fred, Bolten. She surprised me with her strength that decimated my Positron Lancer.”

Bolten, having realized that he was showing too much emotion towards Raze, coughed and replied, “Y-You’re right but it’s part of my duty as a prince to regard my people with respect and care.”

“Oh! This prince sure can act well despite him showing unusual amount of energy in scolding her,” commented Asura inside of Lakshman’s mind. “Well, it’s because he was worried for the safety of his sister, so it’s understandable.”

“Yes… More proof that she really is Erza,” thought Lakshman in a quiet voice. “I do wonder what had happened for them to hide Erza’s identity by placing a double in her place.”

“I’m more impressed that they managed to have that person impersonate Erza with her actual face and everything relying solely on their technology and nothing else,” said Asura inside his mind, sounding impressed.

His thoughts were interrupted when the first prince turned to him and said, “In future, please use some restraint when launching such devastating attacks because none of us are a match for you.”

Lakshman grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment while replying, “You’re right, Bolten. I was wrong, but I still believe all of you should be trained in a manner that befits the battles that we will be facing.”

“It’s understandable when you put it that way,” stated Bolten, nodding his head in agreement.

“Man, that was one powerful technique you threw at us!” Vikram burst out, looking amazed at Lakshman. “Seriously, how the heck did you expect us to defend ourselves against it?!”

“That’s right. It’s a truly devastating attack! Just look around at the aftermath,” said Natsu, glancing around at the battleground of the arena being in shambles.

“You did quite the number on it if I must say so myself,” added Maxwell from the side with a small smile on his face. “I mean, trying to teach us to anticipate attacks like those are good but… please don’t do something of this level just yet.”

“Sorry, everyone. I got a little carried away,” replied Lakshman, laughing lightly by the looks they were giving him.

“Whatever the case, that’s one powerful technique!” Vikram commented, looking mightily impressed. “What’s it called again? Posy-something?”

“Positron Lancer,” said Lakshman with a smile. “It’s a technique I mastered when I was at the age of sixteen and it became one of my most powerful techniques, although, I rarely use it nowadays.”

“Rarely? It’s been literally twelve years since you last used it!” Asura commented with an annoyed voice.

“They don’t know that,” replied Lakshman calmly with a smile on his face as he faced his allies. Shifting topics, he said to them, “I think it’s best that we stop here for today and get some rest.”

Bolten nodded his head in agreement and said, “Yes. It’s better we get some rest after this, and I have duties to attend to do later.” He turned to them and said, “Please get some rest, everyone. We’ll resume our training tomorrow morning.”

The rest of them agreed and, together, they made their way back to the top of the ground by riding the escalator.

Once they stepped out and were about to go their separate ways, Lakshman asked Mike, “I would like to have a word with you if you don’t mind.”

“Who? Me?” Mike asked, looking surprised at suddenly being singled out.

“Hey! I don’t want you doing dangerous things to my friend!” Santa, the second prince, said as he tried getting in between them.

“I’m not. I just want to talk with him for a bit. That’s all,” replied Lakshman, speaking as honestly as he could to convince the prince.

“It’s fine, Santa. I think he has something important to talk with me,” said Mike, smiling at Santa and managing to convince him.

“Fine, but if he does anything bad, let me know immediately!” Santa said, throwing a glare at Lakshman before he left along with everyone else.

Once the two of them were the only ones there, Mike faced Lakshman and asked, “It’s an honor to have the opportunity to speak with you like this, Solaris Hero.”

He was speaking in a polite manner, but Lakshman did not seem to appreciate it as he suddenly glared at him with anger in his eyes.

“You can stop pretending now,” said Lakshman, keeping his voice calm to not show the anger he was feeling on the inside.

For a moment, Mike looked puzzled, and he asked, “Sorry? Pretend? What are you talking about, sir? I don’t understand.”

Once again, Lakshman spoke in a calm voice but with a little more pressure this time as he said, “Don’t pretend you don’t understand what I mean. Your acting skills are great, and you certainly deceived everyone, but I’m not blind like them so stop this farce, alien.”