Of the thirteen half-gods discovered by the Divine Registry, twelve of them were easily located and convinced to let Tsubaki register them with the new system. As for the final half-god, he vanished from the system before Tsubaki could find him. According to his coordinates, he had traveled through the Fairy Ring.
Whether this action was intentional or a mere coincidence was hard to say, but the two of them carried on. Once they had finished cataloguing all of Earth’s half-gods, they moved onto the next world. In order to fully complete their net, they had to place these wards around every world that could support them.
Of course, there were not only half-gods on Earth. Desbar and Deckan each had their own as well. However, the real surprise came when they were setting up their wards for Kione…
“Alright, Tsuba, almost done.” Dana said with a small smile as she watched the tablet filling itself out in Kione. Tsubaki and Dana’s registry stones were connected to the overall system, meaning that Tsubaki had been immediately identified once the ward covered her again. “Let’s see… one, two… I’m picking up only three half-gods in this world!”
Give me their locations. Tsubaki responded casually, already used to this. In fact, aside from the smaller world of Desbar, three was the lowest number they had come across so far.
“Alright, the first one is–” Dana cut herself off as another line appeared at the bottom of the registry, meaning another person had been detected.
‘Divinity detected. Domains – Mirrors, Illusions. Unregistered entity. Location…’
Dana? Tsubaki asked, still waiting for the location of the first half-god.
“Tsuba… the Keeper is in Kione.” She was unfamiliar with his illusion domain, but Dana was fully aware that Dale was the God of Mirrors. As for how he acquired a second domain, she wasn’t sure. But, the odds that an unknown figure had risen to godhood in not one, but two domains, one of which being the Keeper’s own… they were too miniscule for her to imagine.
Clover felt his eye twitch slightly as the energy within himself became suppressed. When he was created, he admittedly did not have much of Dale’s godly power, but it was still enough to use. After all, he was created out of Dale’s divine body and soul, even if their souls were no longer linked.
“Everything okay, Mister Kyr?” Lydia asked with a smile, the two of them sitting down to eat dinner while their familiars stood at the side.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Clover nodded his head gently. Inwardly, however, he was shocked. While his soul wasn’t connected to Dale’s anymore, which prevented the same level of fine control that Dale had over it, his mana was. A seemingly boundless mana that should have been able to fight back against this suppression. Yet, it was crushed effortlessly.
“I’m sorry actually, would you excuse me for just a minute?” He asked, standing up, much to Lydia’s surprise. With a wry smile, he tapped his head. “Someone wants to speak to me.”
“Oh!” Lydia gasped, nodding her head quickly. “Of course. I’ll just wait and heat this up when you get back.” She knew that Clover didn’t really need to eat, and only did so because he knew it made her happy to have ‘family’ dinners together. As such, she was fine with waiting to eat until he got back.
“Thanks, Lyd.” Clover reached over, patting her head before walking towards the door. His action caused Lydia to puff her cheeks out in indignation at being treated like a kid, but also happy at the same time.
Val didn’t follow Clover, however, as she could feel that he wasn’t going far. She had also sensed the suppressive effects, but only indirectly. And, if he wished her to go with him, he would let her know.
Once outside, Clover walked around the yard, moving behind a tree and simply waiting. In his mind, such a powerful suppression had to be targeted, so the person responsible would doubtlessly show themselves once he was alone. At least, that’s what he was expecting.
Three minutes passed by, and then four, with Clover expecting that he was simply being toyed with. Then, in a small flash, a familiar figure appeared within the shadow of the tree, her mere presence brightening the shade. “Tsubaki?” Clover asked in surprise, having not expected her to appear.
“My Keeper.” Tsubaki immediately dropped to one knee, bowing her head to him.
“Wait, wait, you’ve got it wrong.” Clover waved his hands, shaking his head towards Tsubaki. “Well, half wrong at least. I’m not ‘really’ your Keeper.”
Tsubaki lifted her head, tilting it slightly in confusion. “Please explain, my Keeper. I’m afraid that I do not understand.”
Clover let out a deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay… you see, I was taking care of something here a few years ago, and I… well, I adopted a girl. Her father had been killed, so I took her in. But, after I was done with my business, I couldn’t just abandon her. So, I created this avatar, and isolated his soul from ‘my’ own. The me you see now is Clover Kyr, not Dale. I have his memories and his knowledge up to the time of my creation, and his divinity, but you can’t really call us the same person.”
Tsubaki blinked, looking from Clover to the house, where she could indeed sense another presence. “If this girl was special to you, why not invite her to live in the Sky Citadel with myself and Dana?”
Clover put on a wry smile at that. “I was undercover. If I revealed myself as the Keeper, it would have alerted the group I was waiting for. And she was young, with nobody else left in her life. Once I was done, I didn’t want to just make it look like I was giving her up, even if it was to the Sky Citadel. I decided that I’d just wait, I’d give her a true Clover Kyr to be the family she needed, and let things play out as they may. I thought about telling her when she was older, but I decided I actually like being Clover.”
“I apologize, my Keeper, but… you just did.” Tsubaki spoke up, and now it was Clover’s turn to be confused.
“Pardon?”
“She’s currently watching this conversation through a spell of her familiar.” Unlike Clover, Tsubaki’s divinity was in no way suppressed, meaning that she could use it to see anywhere that light touched. Out of curiosity, she had looked inside the house, watching the shocked expression of the lycan woman as ‘Clover’ and Tsubaki spoke.
“Ah… f***.” Clover blurted out, rubbing his face out of frustration. “Look, I’m not upset with you or anything, Tsubaki. If you were the one to cause this suppression, can you lift it so I can go back inside and salvage my relationship with my daughter?”
Tsubaki gave a curt nod, bringing out the registry stone and immediately registering Clover. Though, she did so under the name Dale, as this would similarly represent Dale’s own registration. “It is done, my Keeper. I apologize for intruding on this matter.”
“It’s fine.” Clover shook his head with a sigh, turning and walking back towards the house. Inside, Lydia sat at the table, her cheeks flushed and eyes wet as she stared down at herself.
“So, you heard all that, huh?” He asked in a gentle tone, closing the door behind himself while moving to return to his previous seat.
“Yeah…” Lydia nodded her head, wiping her eyes. “You’re… you’re the Keeper, then?”
“Like I told her… yes and no. Before I showed up here, there was no Clover Kyr… I created the memories of him that everyone had. I needed an identity, because I was hunting down the Mowai Halii.” Clover could see Lydia tensing up as he said that name. “I had to make myself a target for them, so that they would take me to their hideout.”
“So… Clover isn’t really real at all?” She asked, her voice shaking.
“He wasn’t… but he is now. Normally, when I do this, I might linger around for just a little while. But I always let the identity I took fade away into obscurity. This time, I just couldn’t do that. So, I paid a price to make Clover truly real.”
That seemed to catch Lydia’s attention. “A… price?” She couldn’t imagine what kind of price the Keeper would have to pay to do… well, anything. He was the Keeper, after all.
“That’s right. I split myself. Both like you heard me tell Tsubaki, and in another way. This side of myself can never ascend again. I chose to keep a part of me in this world to accompany you.”
“But then… why didn’t you just tell me? You could have, after you killed… killed ‘them’, right?” Lydia gave a small sniffle as she asked that, the first of her tears starting to fall.
“I could have, but… I didn’t want to break your heart. You had just lost your father, Lyd. I didn’t want you to feel like you were losing Clover, too. I decided I’d rather just truly become Clover than to put you through that.”
Lydia gave a choked laugh. “You know how much I always hate that in stories. Someone keeping secrets just to make someone else happy.”
“Yeah… me too.” Clover smiled, reaching out over the table to offer his hand to Lydia. “You’re still my Lydia. As far as I’m concerned, that hasn’t changed. You’ll always be the daughter I took in, a part of my own family.”
“You really are an idiot, Mister Kyr.” Lydia shook her head, reaching out and placing her hand in his.
“Eh?” Clover’s eyes went wide in shock at the sudden accusation, but Lydia simply changed the subject.
“So, those times when you always have to go out to meet ‘old friends’… is that when the gods come to visit you or something?” She had been wondering about that for a while now, but never wanted to pry. Now, however, she felt it was worth asking.
“Ah… uhm… not really.” Clover shook his head. “You see… my main self has this really convenient thing called a Perfect Soul. It lets him perfectly hide the aura of power he emits. And he… did not give me that ability.”
“Kind of an oversight on his part, I know. But, it means that my aura is leaking out. I’ve managed to hide it from the senses of people through a different technique to prevent any undue trouble. Hiding it from monsters, on the other hand, is considerably harder. Every now and then, I can sense a monster army forming up to try and attack me, so I go and take care of them before they can reach a city.”
Lydia’s jaw dropped open at that declaration, her hand going stiff. “Why didn’t you just get this ‘perfect soul’ or whatever from your main self, and just prevent the problem altogether?”
“Heh…” Clover chuckled, glancing off to the side. “It’s a bit of a journey to where he’s staying, and I didn’t want to worry you by vanishing for that long.”
“You…” Lydia let out a long sigh. “You get it taken care of, okay? I promise, I’m not going anywhere, and I won’t panic. But this sounds like a big oversight. We’ll talk more once you aren’t a giant monster magnet, okay?”
Clover offered a small, relieved smile towards Lydia. “Sure thing, Lyd.”
As he stood up, Clover suddenly paused, blinking. “You’re right, I am an idiot… If Tsubaki were still around, it’d take only a minute to get to my main self.” Give or take the time to boot up the Fairy Ring to Lorek, but still…
“Just… how far away is your main self?” Lydia suddenly felt herself growing concerned at this idea.
“Uhm… if he is where he planned on being still, let’s see. If I use a portal, I can get to Kiran in just an hour to reach the Fairy Ring. Then wait for the next connection to Lorek. And… maybe a month to actually get there?”
“A month?!” Lydia cried out in shock. “I know you said it was a journey, but I thought you meant you’d be back in just a week or two… You can call her back, right?”
“Well, I can try.” Clover shrugged. “I’m not sure if the call will go through.”
“Please try.”
Seeing the insistent expression on Lydia’s face, Clover simply smiled and focused on initiating the mental call with Tsubaki.
