Location: Downtown?

Time: Midday?

“Coming back from the dead is starting to get pretty old.”

I regained consciousness on a couch in a room I’d never been to before. Two of the walls were massive windows, so I could at least tell that I was in downtown Velstand.

“No no no, don’t get confused. Hana’s last attack didn’t actually kill you. She just knocked you unconscious. Then I gave you some drugs to keep you asleep for a while. Couldn’t have you wake up too early.”

Despite her casual tone, I’d never met the woman talking to me. Yet I could be almost certain as to her identity. She wasn’t the kind of person you’d mistake for anyone else.

“Alexis Albright.”

“In the flesh.”

She made sure to strike a dramatic pose.

I tried to stand up, but my legs quickly gave out.

“Oh, I’d be careful if I were you. Sure, you’re still alive, but no denying that you got thoroughly banged up. It might have been absorbed by Devesh first, but you still faced a blast from Acht. Not to mention the damage Hana inflicted with her little game.”

“And why exactly am I still alive? What? Now you plan on using me as well? Am I not even allowed to die anymore?”

I was taking some of my anger out on Alexis, but I needed to let it out.

“Oh, scary scary. Feel free to vent. I understand, trust me. I know what it feels like to be a piece that can’t change anything; just waiting for an inevitable outcome.”

“Someone like you couldn’t possibly understand how I feel.”

“That might be true as well, so I’ll move on to the important part. Grant Glaif is dead.”

“Excuse me?”

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“He went insane and started killing a crowd of innocent people. After that, Henry made short work of him.”

“That’s ridiculous. I may have acted foolishly, but I’d never do something like that.”

“That might be so, but Princess Elodie didn’t ask for permission. She just used your corpse to frame you. Quite a devious plan, don’t you think?”

“That story is more believable, but there’s still a major hole in it.”

“The corpse?”

“Obviously. Despite what she was planning, I’m hardly a corpse.”

“True, but the only people who know that are Vier, Hana, and myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Hana was struggling with what to do, so I decided to give her an out. Don’t worry, I charged her for it though. I made her call me ‘mother’ for the rest of the week. Although, I wanted to help you personally as well. Despite what you may think, I actually did feel some sympathy for a poor fool tossed around by his fate.”

Alexis went on to explain her full plan, as if she were bragging about pulling one over on Princess Elodie. Despite claiming this was a favor to Hana, she had been planning it before Hana even promised to kill me.

If Princess Elodie wanted a body, she would give her one. But any body wouldn’t do. If the body wasn’t capable of using my augmentation, the princess wouldn’t have been fooled.

So she grew one. A fake corpse of Grant Glaif.

No, not quite. Not even Alexis could replicate someone without something to base it on. I would have thought she would have just used my unconscious body, but she claimed there wasn’t time for that.

So she used someone else.

Who was it that killed your older brother?

She asked that with a straight face.

The ARA, most likely, Vier.

Exactly. That Number killed my brother, and before he left the scene, he made sure to grab enough of his body to make a clone. No one would question one of Vier’s victims missing a limb or two.

Alexis used that limb to grow an empty copy of him. And Hana burnt that shell of my brother badly enough that no one could recognize that it wasn’t me.

“Why go to so much work?” It seems odd to say, but even I knew that I wasn’t worth so much trouble. “Do you plan on forcing me to do your dirty work? To owe you a favor?”

“Nope. I did put a fun little group together, but you’re not qualified to join. Everyone else fought against their fate, while you simply accepted it. You’re the antithesis of everything we stand for. You’re free to go. Honestly, I’d rather not see you again. I saved you on a whim, or perhaps out of pity. Growing that corpse was just a test run for the one I actually wanted. Disappointed? I’m sure. Yet that’s all there is to it.”

Was I disappointed? Obviously. I wouldn’t be given a dramatic end or stunning conclusion. A moment of heroics, or even a brave death accepting my sins. I wasn’t even allowed to try again. In the eyes of the world, Grant Glaif died a villain. Nothing would ever change that. I had nothing, and yet, my only choice was to keep moving forward. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise, even after my end, this was an epilogue on pawns.