Until we made it to the island, nothing felt real to me at all. In fact, I purposefully remained in the water just so I could help speed up the rowing by pushing the raft from the back. I mean, I was already wet from falling in anyways, so I should at least use that to my advantage.

"Careful now." I ran out to help her down the raft, "Here, hold my hand."

"Pfft! Ed, come on, it's not like I'm immobile!" She laughed, "I knew you were gonna end up like this. That's why I hesitated to tell you until just now."

This cheeky girl standing before me, coming to a potentially life-threatening strife zone in nothing but a hand-knit sweater and some incredibly curve-accentuating tight pants, with her long jet Black hair tied into a ponytail, is pregnant. Of course I know my sudden overprotectiveness is jarring, especially given it's not noticeable at all on here just yet. Wait...

"Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but are you sure you're pregnant?" I thought to ask.

"Are you saying I mistook getting fat for pregnancy?" She frowned, "Dear, if you want a divorce, there are better ways to go about it."

"N-No, that's not what I want at all!" I backpaddled as soon as I realized I hurt her, "I just meant like-! How and when did you notice, that's all! No one called you fat! You have the perfect body!"

With her arms crossed and death glare tense, she kept silent until my sanity wore out completely waiting to hear if she forgave me or not. Thankfully, this was just her way of pranking me, 'cause after that she once again burst out laughing.

"You should see your face! I don't think I've ever seen you so terrified before!" She laughed and laughed, "I'm not mad, geez. But to answer your question, how and when I found out—I found out when my period was late, same as anyone."

"Yeah, but there have been many cases where overzealous women jump to hopeful conclusions only to get disappointed when it ends up being a false alarm." I recalled my years of going to Med School.

"It's been over a month already." She shrugged nonchalantly.

"Month-!?"

One whole month!? Wait a second, so this isn't anything new then! She's relatively far into it, in that case. That leaves 8 more months of waiting, then... W-Wait, I'm focusing on the wrong thing here!

"How come you didn't tell me sooner?" I asked, "I mean, why now of all times?"

"Dear, your brain shuts off when you're elated." She grumped, "You just said I shouldn't rush to conclusions, so I waited until I was 100% certain."

"But did you really have to risk your life stowing yourself away in the airbike just to tell me?"

Upon hearing this question be asked, her Eyes opened wide in surprise. I guess she didn't expect me to pry so much, but I'm just being curious. I don't know her reasoning, and though I can find out, I make a point not to read Anna's mind too much. What's the point of loving someone if you're constantly breaching their privacy by taking a peek in their mind, after all?

"I... Heh, this is gonna sound dumb." She blushed lightly, "You wanna know the real reason I followed you guys here?"

"Yeah?"

"I was scared." She revealed.

"Scared?" I furrowed my brow, "Of what?"

"Scared that... you might not come back to hear the news." She awkwardly stood there, twiddling her thumbs as she laid the truth out bare, "When I found out, I immediately thought of Cecily. Though it ended up fine somehow, it's still a fact that we were all left pretty messed up from Lune's death. While I was thinking up how to break the news to you, this whole situation suddenly occurred, and you were adamant on leaving with the others."

Yikes, guess that's my fault. Eh, but wait, if she had just told me before we left, I could've talked to Grim about not going after all. She really didn't have to go through all this trouble if that's the case... No, this is a dangerous mission, and I can understand wanting to be there if anything goes awry. Right, Anna's my other half, so to have us separated while she still had such incredible news to share—A death flag, I think Issei calls it.

"Dummy." I smirked, though it was soon followed by a hug, "Thank you for telling me."

"Won't mean much if we don't both make it out of here alive." She stated.

"Yeesh, no pressure." I chuckled, letting go of the embrace but still holding her by the hand, "In that case, so long as we find one of our allies, we should be golden. Let's go beat that stupid old man up for screwing us over and head home to celebrate."

Hmm, I wonder if she told anyone else before me? I'd like to think I was the first to find out, but as a health advisor, I'd probably suggest she'd have told my mom or Cecily first and foremost. After all, they would know to discreetly take her for a health checkup to make sure, and she wouldn't have to wait around until now to tell me. On the flipside, if she did do that, then I'd kinda feel like a lousy husband for not taking notice myself. Ugh, now that my head is cleared, I'm suddenly feeling super tired. Dammit, these guys better not have dealt with the old man before I get there, 'cause I definitely owe him a punch or two personally!

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Trudging along through the island's jungle-like shrubbery and forests, we eventually made our way to what looked to resemble a large hospital building. A tad farther off in the distance was the rest of the residential area, which I assume was done to quarantine any diseases that may have struck the island people. It's smart, but kind of bad if someone got hurt and had to be transported all the way over here until they could get treated.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Scary..." Anna looked inside through the wide open doors as we passed by it, "Looks haunted."

"Let's go up." I entered without a hint of hesitation.

"Eh!? Quit joking around!" She tried pulling me back.

"Joking? Not at all." I shook my head, "Look, there's like, what? 6-7 stories to this place? If we climbed up, we could practically see the entire island from there. It'd be a huge vantage point, especially when it comes to finding our friends."

She heard my logic, and still refused to trust my judgment. Fear had taken over her sense of reason and she stood petrified in front of the entrance.

"But what if people are still in there?" She sheepishly whispered, "They might attack us!"

"If a hospital is visibly empty from the entrance, that means it's either been abandoned or an emergency situation forced everyone to evacuate." I told her a fact I learned from experience, "If this place wasn't empty, then we'd see the receptionist standing at the booth, y'know?"

"Hrmm..."

Climbing up the flights of stairs until we reached the roof, we happened to stumble upon a most wondrous vista of the island as seen from high up. Though we flew over this place a bit ago, we didn't really see anything too detailed. Not to mention back then it was the dead of night, whilst now it's already looking like noon. Beautiful indeed.

"There!" Anna shouted as she pointed her finger to a place far off into the distance, "It's the Red guy!"

"Auros?" I squinted until I saw him too, "Oh yeah, looks like there are some other guys on his shoulder too. Probably the rest of our group."

"Let's hurry, then-!"

Not a second after we turned around to hastily rush to them, a devastating explosion could be heard in the opposite direction. Quickly darting our heads to the source, we had found another relevant group fighting like a pack of wolves.

"That's... Lem!" Anna gasped, "He's outnumbered, he's gonna get killed!"

"Hold on, don't underestimate him." I reassured her, "Actually, I think the more important person is one of the enemies he's fighting. The old man is there, see?"

So the situation was already like this. Guess we arrived to the party pretty late, but thankfully we now know what's going on. On one side, we have Auros and the others, while on the other side we have Lem and the old man. Now the only question left is...

"Where do we go?" Anna finished my thought, "If our goal is to stop the old man and help Lem, then we should go there, but if we went to inform the Gods, then surely we'll have better odds in the long run."

"Going to Auros is a must, his Favor would all but assure a flawless victory." I reasoned, "Ah, but we might be too late by the time we reach Lem, then. What to do...?"

"Hey, what're you doing up there, Ed!?" A voice called out from the hospital's base, "Enough sightseeing, get a move on! We're gonna need your Analyze!"

"Cecily?" I looked down in disbelief, "Wait, where's Grim?"

"Just get your ass down here, I'll explain everything on the way there!" She hurried me to come down, "We got a lot to tell you!"

In that regard, same here. Well, seeing her kind of made me relieved. At least now we know where to go, 'cause I think we'd have been stuck here for a while before we made the choice ourselves. Heh, leave it to a Grimheart to always move the story along!

"Ed, over here! Eh?" She noticed Anna walking alongside me, "You... Wait, were you on the airbike with us the entire time?"

"Yes and no." She chuckled, "But let's leave the explanations for later. Right now, you should focus on telling us what the plan is."

"We learned some new info that's gonna seriously help us deal with the old man." She pulled out a Purple Book, "While we were running towards that explosion that happened just now, I just happened to see you standing up there and ran back to get you. I told Lune to continue by himself, though, so we shouldn't dawdle too much."

Right, but what about that Book, though? Wait, Grim told us before that the old man's entire shtick revolved around some sort of magical Book that brings Fortune or whatever. So is that it? Did they somehow steal away his Book from him?

"The plan is simple, or at least it should've been." She continued her explanation, "Originally, we wanted to burn this thing the moment we got ahold of it, but a certain someone told us not to."

"Certain someone?" I tilted my head as I muttered.

Eventually, we made it to a tent embedded deep within the jungle. It was so hidden, I don't think even the people that lived here knew about it. Inside sat a couple of familiar faces.

"Nelly!" Anna shouted with glee.

"Mister Lee!?" I stood surprised, "And...! I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Just a certain someone." He waved calmly, "Yo, it's a pleasure, amigos. The name's Shaid."

Shaid? Sounds familiar.

"Okay, anyone gonna explain the situation here?" I got straight to business.

"I'll do it." Cecily nodded, "But first, now that everyone is here, we should go help out Lune and the others."

"We still haven't found Lem though." Lee sulked.

"We saw him fighting the old man in that direction." I pointed inside the tent.

"He is!?" He and Nelly jumped, "Then what the hell are we waiting for, let's go!"

So that's the situation. Lune and Lem are fighting the old man, Issei and Auros are rushing to help them, and we're gonna be getting there soon enough as well. Ohohoho! Old man, you are SO fucked!