With a dull thud, Roger slammed Gunter’s face into the deck.  Then he gave a pleasant smile.

“Ah, sorry about that, Hades.  Don’t mind anything this guy says.  It’s all good.”
“…At any rate, it’s not like I was bothered.”

Jill, while thinking that Roger had beaten her to it, stepped up to Hades.

“What shall we do, Your Majesty?  I could take down around half of them easily!”
“Wait, Jill-sensei. The dragons… somethings off.  They’re not attacking the city.”

Prompted by Lutiya’s words, Jill blinked.  As he said, the dragons that had taken flight were maintaining their altitude.  They weren’t descending upon the city, ignoring both the screams and sounds of fighting.  Just when the dragons appeared to be heading their way, they flew right over head.

“…Are the crossing the sea for Rave?”
“Ridiculous.  Their target is the residential district.  My research isn’t wrong!”
“I don’t care.  Your pathetic need for recognition is worthless.  Rave, how is it?”

Hades dismissed Gunter’s panic without a second thought.  The entire time, Rave remained perched on his shoulder.

“…It’s no good, they’re not listening.  Now that it’s come this far, we can’t leave it to just human wisdom anymore.”
“—This has exceeded the bounds of what the law of nature can allow?”

“It will if we leave it be.  More than that, unless we destroy the flutes and all the research from this world, stopping them would only be a temporary solution.
–With my power as the Dragon God, I’ll alter the nature of being a dragon and make all that research useless.  I shall rewrite the principle itself.”

Jill clutched at the hem of Hades’ robe, but he didn’t turn to her.  His eyes remained fixed on what lay beyond the sea.

“What about you?  Rewriting the principle, wouldn’t that in of itself would go against the principle?”

Rave gave a cheerful laugh in response to Hades’ firm voice.

“Don’t worry.  I may be using a large amount of power, but this time it’s to correct the principle.  Still, I’m not confident with my current state, so I’ll be using a technique that breaks the rules. 
–You’re the one I’m worried about.  Doing this without a vessel would be too much, so I’ll be borrowing your body for a bit.”
“A technique that breaks the rules?  Don’t scare me.  And I was originally your vessel from the start.”
“Still, even if it’s only temporary, I’ll need to revert back into a former Dragon Emperor in order to restore my divinity.  The last one, the Dragon Emperor from 300 years ago, should do… Little Miss.”

With a quick spin, Rave turned and descended down before Jill who was furrowing her eyebrows.

“In the end, this is a technique that violates the rules.  If anything happens, I’m counting on you.  The Dragon Emperor should still listen to the Dragon Empress.”
“Un- Understood… But, ano, will His Majesty really be alright?  There won’t be anything wrong?”
“With the amount of power this will use, he’ll most certainly collapse.”

Hades knelt down and took Jill’s hand into his own.

“Which is why, can I leave the rest to you?”

Those were the words of a Dragon Emperor entrusting a duty to his Dragon Empress.

After the initial shock, Jill felt a warm feeling gradually spread through her chest.  Hades was probably just as anxious, and surely Rave was too. Nothing good would come if she were to lose her composure there.

She squeezed Hades’ hand tightly in return.

“Of course! Please leave it to me!”
“Well then, let’s go, Rave.  You as well.”
“Kyu.”

Hades kicked off from the deck and rose into the air with Rho on his shoulder.  Jill, wanting to stay with him for as long as she could, also leapt up, going with him to the tip of a sail displaying the national flag from where she watched him float into the sky.

The outlines of Hades, Rho, and Rave gradually faded, almost as though they were being swallowed by the sun.

First came a gentle silver light and golden particles.  Then rose a pillar of light and the entire sky shone with gold.  It was a magic circle.

Even though it was daytime, stars were falling.  Anyone who didn’t know better would have undoubtably thought that.  That sudden spectacle had everyone in the harbor, those fighting and those fleeing, freeze and look up at the sky.

The principle was being drawn in the sky by the Dragon God Rave.

The dragons flying through the sky came to a halt. One that had been flying straight toward some destination banked into a turn while another that had just flown past above Jill suddenly braked, going into a hovering posture. From somewhere, a cry rang out. It echoed like a song, and all the dragons turned back at once.

A sound of destruction rang out behind them. A red dragon crushed the city hall’s bell tower underfoot and let out a resounding roar. The voices of the Dragon God, the Dragon Emperor, and the Dragon King had reached the dragons—and they destroyed the source of the sound that had been manipulating them.

“You did it, Your Majesty!”

As Jill turned around, she saw the once-faded form of Hades begin to take shape again. It was a form she had seen before. She kicked off from the mast to get closer and realized the truth mid-motion.

The form was familiar, but it was wrong.  The length of the hair was off and the features were slightly more mature, but more than anything else was the air that surrounded the figure.  His golden eyes, narrowed and full of suspicion, held a cold sharpness to them.

“…A daughter… of the God of War?”

He was the emperor of the enemy nation, the same one who had once gone and transformed Jill’s homeland into a sea of fire.

Up in the sky, the Dragon God continued to draw the new principle.

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