The sconces along the corridor were lit two lamps ahead.
Kaito did not slow his stride. The prime minister's room lay just past two turns in the hallway, warm light spilling out from beneath the door. His knock was sharper, louder than it had been the night before. Without waiting for a response, he shoved the door open.
"Prime Minister!"
"Oh my, Sir Hero. Whatever brings you here tonight?"
The old man sat at his desk, flanked by an unfinished document and a sconce on either side—the exact same scene as yesterday. Before Seifert could even look up, Kaito was already standing right before him.
"Use that thing right now!"
"By 'that thing,' you mean...?"
The prime minister tilted his head quizzically.
Why can't he just grasp what I'm saying? Incompetent fool.
Kaito raised his voice.
"The thing you gave Shirakawa! You can hear what's happening on the other end, can't you?!"
"Ah... you mean the Gemina."
Setting down his pen, the prime minister spoke.
The recall-slash-communication tool he had handed to Yuna was apparently called the Gemina. Kaito vaguely remembered hearing the name in the hallway three days ago, but it hadn't registered in the slightest.
Kaito slammed both hands down on the desk.
"Yes, that! Use it right now! Shirakawa might be in serious danger. Think about it! With barely any food or water, it's already been three whole days. It's only natural to assume something went wrong!"
To Kaito, he was merely pointing out the obvious.
Seifert, however, knitted his brows.
"Be that as it may, Sir Hero, Lady Yuna and I came to an agreement that it would not be used. That was my promise to the Saint."
What the prime minister said was entirely reasonable.
Kaito knew about the promise, too.
Even so, this was hardly the time to be hung up on such formalities.
Yuna could be in grave danger. A classmate's very life might hang in the balance—how could anyone casually insist on honoring some petty promise?
"And what if Shirakawa is in mortal peril right now?! The kingdom will lose its Saint, won't it?!"
He struck the desk with an open palm once more.
A loud slam reverberated through the study.
Seifert's eyes widened slightly, and he brought a hand to his chin in contemplation.
"That... is indeed a fair point."
After a brief glance at Kaito, the prime minister lowered his eyes to the desk drawer. Hooking his fingers around the handle, he pulled it open.
What emerged was a violet crystal orb. Sized comfortably to fit in the palm of a hand, its surface reflected the twin flames of the sconces. It was the first time Kaito had ever seen the artifact.
Placing the orb in the center of the desk, the prime minister rested both hands on it. His lips moved, chanting an unintelligible string of words that made no sense to Kaito's ears.
A third flame flickered to life within the crystal.
And then—bringing the present across the distance—sound began to spill from the receiver orb.
It was faint, muffled, and difficult to make out.
Catching Kaito's urgent glare, the prime minister raised the volume.
And what poured out was something Kaito could never have envisioned in his wildest dreams.
"Huh...?"
Kaito stood frozen in utter disbelief.
The first thing drifting from the crystal was the ragged breathing of two people. Quick inhales and sharp exhales, their cadences intimately entwined.
Then came Yuna's voice, soft and breathy. But it sounded nothing like what Kaito had braced himself for.
It was impossibly faint, strained as if trying to hold something back.
At first, he thought she might be wounded.
Yet it wasn't that at all. It was not the sound of someone enduring pain.
Laced with heat, sultry abandon, raw sensuality, and a tender hesitation trying desperately to conceal it all—it was a sweet, melting voice of Yuna's that Kaito had never known existed.
Between those breathless sighs, wet, slick friction echoed intermittently. Each time the rhythm paused, ragged gasps spilled freely into the air.
In a voice dripping with sweet devotion, Yuna called Kuze's name, clinging to him. Then, she whispered words of love.
As if answering her every desire, Kuze murmured his love right back.
Though Kaito had never experienced such intimacy himself, he knew more than enough to understand what was taking place.
It was—unmistakably—the sound of a man and a woman making passionate love.
"Ah... ah..."
A pathetic whimper slipped past Kaito's lips.
He couldn't reach for the orb; he couldn't tell the man to stop. He could only stand rooted to the floor, paralyzed, listening. His knees quivered violently, his body swaying with every breathless gasp.
The prime minister cast a subtle glance toward Kaito's groin and let out a quiet sigh.
Lifting his hands from the orb, the third flame inside flickered and died.
"There is nothing quite so distasteful as eavesdropping on pillow talk in the bedchamber. Let us leave it at that."
Seifert returned the crystal to his drawer.
Picking his pen back up, he turned his eyes back to the unfinished document. Then, in a voice as calm as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, he spoke.
"...It seems Lady Yuna is unharmed. Judging by the circumstances, Sir Kuze is as well. Perhaps some change has taken place within the abandoned village."
Not a single word reached Kaito's ears.
He couldn't remember whether he had said thank you before stepping out of the room. He couldn't even recall if his own hands had shut the door behind him.
By the time he came to his senses, he was back in his private quarters.
He had no recollection of the walk back. People often said drunks made it home on sheer autopilot, and he wondered if this was what it felt like.
Out of pure instinct, he dropped the latch into place.
What on earth had he just heard? Why had he listened?
Bitter remorse churned furiously inside his chest.
There were so many reasons not to listen. In fact, he hadn't intended to eavesdrop in the first place.
And yet, he had heard it all.
Because of that, Yuna's ragged pants and those breathless, stifled whimpers refused to leave his mind. Burned into the back of his eyelids, they looped endlessly through his head.
Then, he remembered the look the prime minister had given him right before cutting the transmission.
(Come to think of it, he gave me a strange look earlier...)
Almost mechanically, Kaito glanced down at himself.
His trousers were pitched like a tent, bulging prominently outward.
He had reacted purely on instinct.
To the shameless, unfiltered moans of the girl he loved.
"Why... why the hell are you doing this?! Go down, damn it!"
Kaito struck his own member with a clenched fist.
A sharp jolt of pain shot through him. Yet even through the ache, her voice continued to replay in his mind, showing no sign of subsiding.
"Dammit... dammit! Are you kidding me?! Shit!"
Grinding his molars together, he let out a furious scream.
His mind desperately rejected the reality, but his body betrayed him without remorse.
That realization was more humiliating than anything else.
"Eiji Kuze... You think you can make a fool of me?! I'll never, ever forgive you!!"
Spitting curses through gritted teeth, he stripped off his trousers and underwear, his right hand wrapping around his own member to find relief.
The voice of the girl he yearned for echoed through his head. Bitterness, humiliation, and raw arousal tangled together into a frantic spiral, and before long, white desire stained his hand.
However—a body enhanced by the laws of another world was far from satisfied with just a single release.
"Why... Damn it... Shit! Why wasn't it me...?!"
Spitting pure venom and hatred, Kaito the Hero.
Continued to pleasure himself straight through until morning.