Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 64: Green

"If it’s not Arzhen..."

Ruby whispered, then blinked up at Nikolas. Finally, a new idea dawned in her wide, tear-bright eyes. "Then it must have been Arkai Dawnoro, right...?"

Nikolas’s eyebrows shot up. "You think it’s him?"

"I... I’ll talk to Arzhen," she said. "W-we... we shouldn’t be so hasty, Nik. Arzhen is not that kind of person..." Her voice was a plea for the simpler narrative. "Surely if we just talk to him..."

"RAAH!!"

CRASH!

Nikolas’s control shattered. His arm swept across the table in a violent arc, sending maps, reports, and ink pots crashing to the floor. "You and your sentimental feelings for him!" he roared. "You are my mate, Ruby! Even if you love him, right now, and forever, you are mine!"

"Nik, it’s not... it’s not because I love him..." Ruby flinched back.

Nikolas gritted his teeth, his eyes burning as he took in her cowering posture. Women. Of course. She was just a woman.

What did she truly know of strategy, of the brutal calculus of power? Even with her foresight, that was all it was. Ruby, like all women, was a sentimental creature with a low level of comprehension.

How could she see Arzhen’s naked ambition, his aggressive nature, and not see the obvious? It was a classic move. Attack your rival’s father, then stage an attack on your own to muddy the waters and play the victim.

What did he expect? Ruby Vaiva was a vision, a divine vessel, but she was still, at her core, a woman. Too soft, too emotional to be intelligent.

"Fine," he bit out, forcing his tone level. "You think it’s Arkai Dawnoro. Why?"

Ruby looked up, tears instantly tracing paths down her cheeks, a skill that never failed to soften the hard lines of his anger. "I think... something’s happened. I think he was supposed to die on that mountain, Nik... My foresight can’t be wrong."

Nikolas frowned. Was she suggesting something else, something outside her divine preview, had interfered?

"Nik, you believe me, right?" She clutched the front of his tunic, her grip desperate. "I found your mother’s necklace... I told you about the woolen trade... I even revealed the future mines to you. You have to believe me now. I think there’s something wrong with Arkai Dawnoro."

"Ruby..." Nikolas sighed, the fight draining out of him. He pulled her into an embrace. "I’m sorry. I’m just... jealous. I see how much you care for Arzhen. Can you just... stop defending him? Just for me?"

Ruby didn’t answer directly. Instead, she leaned back, her expression shifting to one of ominous dawning. "It’s fine if you don’t want me to talk to Arzhen. But... I think it’s not him. I think it’s truly about Arkai." She paused. "What if..."

"What, Ruby?" Nikolas grasped her shoulders.

"What if... the gods showed me his death... because he was supposed to die?" Her voice dropped to a horrified whisper. "And now the timeline is corrupted because he’s still alive? What if... it was him all along, and because he didn’t die, now you and Arzhen are fighting instead...?"

The theory was perfect. Arkai being alive was an anomaly. His survival had to be the root of all this discord. For her glory to truly begin, for her two powerful men to stop clashing and focus on building her future, Arkai Dawnoro needed to be removed from the board. This way, she could redirect their combined fury onto a single, external target.

But Nikolas looked at her, his expression tilting into incredulity. "Don’t be silly, Ruby. What kind of fantasy is that? Don’t even try to spin theories. It sounds... foolish."

Ruby’s eyes faltered.

"Listen," Nikolas said, softening again as he wiped her tears with a calloused thumb. "Prophecies are given so people can act. To avoid tragedy or seize fortune. If the vision was wrong, then it was simply wrong. It doesn’t mean the world is broken."

He said it gently, but the dismissal was clear. He was humoring her womanly fancy, not engaging with a strategic premise.

And in that condescending reassurance, Ruby saw it. He only loved her tears.

"Now, I know you just want to prove your prophecy was right," Nikolas said. He cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking away the last of her tears. "I’ll send some scouts to dig into everything about Arkai Dawnoro since the eruption. We’ll see what they find. Satisfied?"

Ah.

He was sending men to placate a woman’s bruised pride over a failed vision, not to investigate a genuine threat. She forced a small, grateful nod, hiding the simmer beneath a veneer of relieved sweetness.

"Thank you, Nik."

***

That morning was silence, broken only by the soft, rhythmic shfft of a page being turned. It was a dry, precise sound. Dawn had bled into a hard, bright morning, the light falling in sharp, dusty bars through the high, narrow windows of the desert palace.

Eastiel opened his eyes. The crushing weight of grief was still there, but it was... different. Muffled. He felt the deep, bodily ache of a sleep that had been more like a temporary death than rest.

His gaze slid sideways.

Cecilia sat in a carved chair beside his bed. She was not looking at him. She was engrossed in a sheaf of papers held in her lap. His papers. The detailed troop movements, supply line charts, and vengeful decrees he’d drafted in his manic, sleepless nights.

She read them calmly, relaxedly, one finger tracing a line of text.

She was dressed not in saintly robes, but in a simple, practical desert tunic. A single, impossibly vibrant blue feather was tucked behind her ear, a slash of absurd color against her blonde hair. More absurdly, faint, whimsical lines were painted on her cheeks in kohl, delicate, decorative whiskers.

He lay still, processing the surreal quiet, the mundane sound of paperwork, and this... bizarre vision at his bedside.

Finally, his voice emerged, rough with disuse and utterly deadpan.

"Are you doing this," he asked flatly, his eyes on the blue feather, "so I’ll believe you’re not a hallucination?"

"Smart," Cecilia answered, not looking up from his war plans. "Can you guess what color my tongue is?"

"Green," Eastiel deadpanned, playing along.

Cecilia opened her mouth. Instead of a tongue, she revealed a mouthful of blackened teeth.

"Pffft—"

A strangled sound escaped Eastiel as he jerked back, the movement sending a fresh wave of dizziness through him. He was half-convinced he was about to pass back into unconsciousness from the sheer weirdness of it.

Then, with a casual pinch, Cecilia peeled the black film from her teeth and deposited it neatly on a saucer on the side table.

"Awake?" she asked, her expression bland.

Eastiel didn’t look at the saucer, or the room. His eyes remained locked on her, as if she were the only fixed point in a shifting world.

"Before you ask," he began, his voice still rough but clear, launching into a preemptive report. "I only targeted Dorian Delanivis. I didn’t order harm to anyone else. The escalation... that’s a natural consequence of their own choices."

"I know," Cecilia said.

"I also didn’t touch Anton Vasiliev. Not like Dorian. He did nothing to you."

"Of course."

"You know it was Dorian who ensured your final warnings were intercepted?"

"I see."

A pause stretched between them.

"Done with the justification?" Cecilia finally asked, setting the papers aside.

"Yes."

"Even to your hallucination, you feel the need to justify your bloody plans to me?"

Eastiel smiled then, warmly, softening the harsh lines of exhaustion on his face. "Because you’ll still be clever in my mind."