As soon as Akako, Sorine and Rai had disappeared from sight and out of earshot, Hanako exhaled and turned towards Aria with a faintly troubled look on his face, “Are we really going to go through the effort of warning Kami about this?” He asked, voice low with a pinch of concern. Aria, who had one hand braced against the doorframe leading into the Restkeep, paused upon hearing Hanako’s question.

Aria had understood what Hanako had meant, of course. Kami was, to put it mildly, a difficult individual to deal with. Convinced of his own divinity, Kami  was proud, haughty, and arrogant in all the wrong ways. That, and the memory of the near disaster during the tail end of yesterday’s festival still sat uneasily at the forefront of Aria’s mind. No matter what, Kami always managed to find a way to make trouble for all those around him, and yet…

“It’s the right thing to do,” Aria said, a grimace in his voice as he ran a hand through his long, pink hair, “We would’ve warned them, if it were anyone else. So we can’t just stand by and do nothing, just because it’s Kami.”

Hanako frowned, but gave a quiet hum in agreement.

“If that visitor- Rai- Does end up confronting Kami, the collateral from that confrontation might be devastating,” Hanako reasoned, coming to the same conclusion through his own logic, “We should avoid that, if we can.”

Then, Hanako’s gaze drifted to the road leading away from the Restkeep and towards the woods creeping in at the village’s edge, “Considering how his schemes were foiled at yesterday’s celebration, the most logical place where we’d find him would be at the World’s End Workshop,” Hanako spoke. Then, in a softer voice, he murmured, “If anything, he’s probably still sulking from his failed sermon.”

“Then there’s no time to waste,” Aria said as he pushed himself off from the doorway, “Hopefully, we’ll get to Kami before Rai decides that it’d be quicker to raze the entire village to the ground in order to find him!”

-

The World’s End Workshop was the artificing store owned and run by Kami. It was situated at the outskirts of Mystorica and, thus, by the time Aria and Hanako finally saw the building come into view, the sun was already beginning to dip below the wooded canopies of the forest. As they neared, the air seemed to smell faintly of burnt ozone, and smoke appeared to curl lazily from a vent that somewhat resembled a chimney. A strange hum pulsed from within the establishment as Aria and Hanako got closer still.

“Kami!” Aria called as he stepped forth, and began banging one fist against the heavy front door, “Are you in there? Open up!”

They waited, but there was no answer. Hanako cast a sideways glance towards Aria, silently questioning if they had made the trek for nothing after all, when- With a sudden click- the door to the workshop creaked open on its own. In response, Aria and Hanako continued to stand at the threshold for a while longer as they were rendered momentarily dazed and uncertain.

Finally, Aria muttered, “That’s not ominous at all.”

Hanako simply gave him a shrug, and with that, the two entered into the World’s End Workshop.

The interior of the workshop was dim, lit only by the glow of strange artifacts that lined the shelves of the walls, some of them even seemed to reverberate with mystic energy. Both Aria and Hanako looked around, but found no sight of the workshop’s owner, until-

“And what could you possibly want now?”

Aria jumped at the voice- It had come from behind them! But how? Aria attempted to whirl around, but before he could turn fully, the door to the workshop had already slammed shut with a resounding THUD, plunging them into darkness. Next to him, Hanako had already shifted into a defensive posture, but he still managed to keep his voice calm and steady as he spoke, “We came here to warn you-”

CRACK!

In a blinding flash of silver, Kami appeared before them, his green eyes blazing with fury and irritation.

“Warn me?” Kami sneered, repeating the words with blatant disdain and mockery, “Ha! After what you did to me yesterday, working with the Ordo Noctis to thwart me at every turn? And just when I finally managed to get my sermon going, you and your bird-brained friend in his stupid little red scarf just had to come in and ruin that for me, too?”

With each word, Kami’s voice rose, growing visibly more agitated and apprehensive with every accusation that he hurled, “Tell me- Just why should I believe a single word that comes from your mouth?”

“Why, you ungrateful little-” Aria’s temper instantly flared the moment he was met with Kami’s unreasonableness, “We just had a second visitor show up today, and we came here to warn you out of the goodness of our hearts!”

“This visitor,” Hanako continued, voice carefully leveled, “Believes you to be some sort of genuine god, and seems to harbor an intent to harm you-”

“What.”

Kami’s icy voice had sliced through Hanako’s calm words like a cold knife, and Aria couldn’t help but draw in a sharp breath as he watched Kami take a step closer towards them. Next to him, Hanako didn’t give any visible indication of his discomfort, but Aria could tell that he was nonetheless perturbed by the sudden intensity in Kami’s eyes as he continued, “...Did you just say?”

“...There’s a new visitor,” Aria began, carefully. Had they done something to trip Kami off? “And he might want to-”

“No,” Kami cut him off, shaking his head, “You mentioned- That he believes me to be a… A real god? A genuine deity?”

Aria blinked, “I- Sure? I guess? But is that really-”

He didn’t get to finish, because Kami had started to laugh. It began as a soft giggle at first. An almost imperceptible chuckle. But before long, it had grown into loud, terrifying cackles that echoed throughout the entire workshop.

“I see!” Kami declared, standing to full height with pride once he had finished laughing. His eyes seemed to gleam with wild elation, “Finally- Someone truly recognizes my greatness!”

“That’s-” Aria felt the instant the color had drained from his face as he understood, with horror, the reason for Kami’s strange reaction. After all, no one in Mystorica had ever taken Kami’s self-proclaimed divinity seriously. Even after Kami had repeatedly insisted to everyone who would bother to listen that he was indeed the reincarnation of the God of the Crescent Half-Moon, everyone had simply written Kami off as having mere delusions of grandeur, and that he was only being egotistical and eccentric at best.

Now, though? Someone finally believed. Even if that someone meant him harm, that someone was still a believer of Kami’s false divinity nonetheless.

“That’s not the point right now!” Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Aria quickly said, hoping to sway Kami against doing anything drastic, “Listen- This new visitor’s dangerous! We don’t know what he’ll-”

“SILENCE!”

A surge of power rippled through the air, flinging both Aria and Hanako backwards. Papers scattered, wood creaked, and chains rattled.

“A mortal who recognizes my divinity?” Kami’s laughter rang out once more, sharp and unhinged, “Very well! I shall grace them with my presence!”

Then, before Aria or Hanako could move, the doors of the workshop had flung wide open, and Kami vanished in another flash of silver light. For a long moment, all was silent. Then, Hanako exhaled slowly as he brushed the dust from his sleeves.

“...This is far from ideal,” Hanako eventually deadpanned, and Aria could only groan and rub at his throbbing temples where a migraine had already set in.