3. The Crown Prince

 

Flashback to two months earlier in New York, USA

 

Rigel, the classic-looking man, stood on the dusty roof of an empty building. His face looked very serious and his eyes were narrowed. Occasionally, he closed his eyes and seemed to be trying to read something with his mind. As soon as he opened his eyes, his pale blue eyes suddenly flashed white. He turned to his companion, Antares, who had been following him.

“She’s not far from here,” Rigel said in a voice that echoed off the walls of the empty building.

Antares nodded and put her forefinger to her lips. The very modern-looking man with blond hair leaned against the wall and smiled. His reddish-brown eyeballs looked up at the roof, and then with a sardonic smile, he pointed one index finger at the roof and looked at Rigel.

“On three,” Rigel told Antares in a whispered voice. Antares nodded. “One… two…”

Woosh!

 

Suddenly, Rigel disappeared from Antares’ sight and made Antares, who had not been prepared for Rigel’s fake signal, upset. “Damn it, he said three!”

Within a second, Antares had disappeared from the room and reappeared on the open roof of an empty building. His body was immediately greeted by the cold night breeze blowing strong above.

He saw Rigel there, looking intently at a girl with red hair and long curls. When she realized that Antares and Rigel were there to ambush her, the girl darted away in an instant, leaving a trail of light in the air.

Rigel didn’t stand still, he too darted after the girl and was immediately followed by Antares with a flash of light. This time, they appeared at the very edge of the skyscraper and looked at each other.

“Betelgeuse, don’t do anything stupid,” Rigel hissed angrily. “We’ve been looking for you for a long time. You’d better turn yourself in before the emperor and crown prince find you.”

Betelgeuse chuckled. “You forgot something — I know lots of things. I knew it very well that they would kill me.”

A second after uttering that sentence, she sped up again with a red glow and left them behind. Rigel was about to give chase, but this time Antares outpaced him. The three of them reappeared this time atop a towering satellite tower.

“I’ve got you!” Antares exclaimed, grabbing Betelgeuse by the shoulders.

Betelgeuse’s black eyes suddenly turned yellowish with anger. “Antares, are you going to behave impolitely towards me?”

“Ah yes, I forgot you’re the daughter of a respected universe elder. But… you’re even younger than me, you should—“

Woosh!

 

Betelgeuse disappeared again, and Rigel gave Antares an annoyed look.

“Tsk tsk, you always talk too much,” Rigel said to Antares. The two looked at each other before darting off again.

That night in the sky, between the skyscrapers and their beautiful lights, there were various streaks of light from all three. Meanwhile, on the streets below the buildings, office workers returning from work and other people in New York continued their normal activities.

Everything was happening so fast like the speed of light that any normal human wouldn’t have been able to notice. No one knew that up above, there was a fierce chase and battle between the three lights.

“Stop!” Rigel shouted as he untied his hair and sent his long hair fluttering in the wind. He threw his hair tie at the red ray that shot before his eyes and instantly the blue tie entangled the ray, making the girl named Betelgeuse appear bound.

“Let me go, Rigel!”

Rigel ignored Betelgeuse’s words even though he knew she was upset. With a look in his eyes, he only made his bonds tighter around Betelgeuse.

“I’m sorry I have to be harsh on you,” Rigel told her with an honest look on his face. “But the crown prince really does need you.”

Rigel was about to lead Betelgeuse away, when suddenly his hair tie burst into red flame in an instant.

“And I’m sorry I had to do this to you!”

Before Rigel could move to move away, a flash of red light slapped the man and Antares hard in the face simultaneously. Both men’s cheeks were instantly reddened, and as the men froze in place, Betelgeuse disappeared before them.

“Did you see that? She just slapped someone older than her,” Antares said incredulously. “That damn witch!”

“You’re cursing your own cousin?” Rigel taunted.

“She’s my cousin, but I’m not descended from a royal shaman elder like her. Besides, she never had good manners with the crown prince.”

“If we had etiquette, we wouldn’t call the crown prince by name alone,” Rigel said casually to him.

“Ah, that’s right,” Antares recalled. “But that’s because he’s our childhood friend, right?”

Rigel rolled his eyes. “I’m going after Betelgeuse. Are you going to wait or what?”

“Let’s go!” replied Antares, this time darting ahead of Rigel.

Alaska, USA

 

Betelgeuse landed just seconds away on a vast icy plain and gasped for air. She looked exhausted and upset. Her mouth couldn’t stop swearing. 

She was about to lose all trace of herself there, but just as she was about to turn her body around, a flash of lightning suddenly struck her. The girl fell onto the ice and suddenly went limp.

Just as she was about to look up again, a pale hand with long fingers grabbed her neck hard. Betelgeuse’s body suddenly shook violently. She could not move at all and could feel a fierce heat as if it was burning her neck.

“C-crown Prince,” she said in distress while staring at the silver-colored mist in front of her. The mist slowly turned into the figure of a man with eyeballs the same color as his aura.

 

“If you knew exactly if I or my mother would kill you, you should have been more careful, shouldn’t you?”

Betelgeuse felt helpless. Her body floundering as the man in front of her increased his grip on her neck until her entire body was lifted off the icy plain. She couldn’t make a sound at all but her body struggled for mercy.

“Now you have to choose, do you want to face me… or face my mother?”

Betelgeuse’s eyeballs immediately turned white and dilated due to the extreme fear that was suddenly felt throughout her body. She knew very well that she would not survive if she faced the mother of the crown prince.

“Xynth!”

A voice suddenly appeared behind them. Antares and Rigel treaded hard on the icy plain and were surprised to see Xynth there.

“Xynth, you’re here?” Rigel asked the crown prince.

“You’re supposed to be receiving treatment, why did you come here?!” Antares said to him.

Xynth did not answer them. He looked back at Betelgeuse angrily and grabbed her so hard that the girl’s face began to turn white from near death.

“W-wait, Crown Prince,” Betelgeuse said with difficulty, gathering all her remaining strength with a choked throat. “I-I already know the answer to your problem.”

The man in front of her looked at her coldly, but the grip on her neck loosened, and Betelgeuse could now catch her breath a little.

“You should do another body swap soon, you have six months left on earth,” Betelgeuse said again.

This time she managed to make Xynth hear her. She could feel the shocked gazes of the three men there, and instantly, Xynth released Betelgeuse and sent the girl tumbling on the icy plain.

Quickly, the red-haired girl stood up and bent over. She placed her right hand on her left shoulder as a sign of respect to the crown prince.

“What do you mean that Xynth is really going to die?” asked Rigel with a dumbfounded expression.

They had all heard from doctors on Earth that the brain of the body Xynth was occupying had cancer and that he was dying. That’s why they were all chasing Betelgeuse all this time. But they didn’t know that Xynth’s human disease would be able to make the crown prince really die.

“Yes, the fourteenth human’s body that you are currently occupying was supposed to have a long life ahead. However, at the last moment, the fate of the fourteenth was swapped with another human. It was unexpected event that I failed to foresee.”

 

Xynth looked sharply at Betelgeuse. “What do you mean you failed to foresee?! You’re a descendant of Methuselah, you should be able to read everything!”

 

“I-I really don’t know exactly what happened,” Betelgeuse replied honestly. “But what I do know is that the lifespan of the fourteenth is no longer long and you are in danger of dying too if you don’t make a new exchange soon.”

“Wait,” Antares interrupted, “how could number fourteen die early? Aren’t all bodies handed over to the crown prince destined to live a long life?”

“True,” Betelgeuse said weakly. Now, she knelt. “Everything was fine at first. But something suddenly happened on the night of the crown prince’s exchange with number fourteen. Crown prince …. err, crown prince—“

“What’s wrong with me?!” snapped Xynth impatiently.

“Crown Prince, that night… you gave the blessing of longevity to a human cursed by the universe unknowingly. You broke the hereditary curse on that human’s bloodline.”

 

“Me? I gave the blessing of longevity? I broke a human’s hereditary curse?”

Betelgeuse nodded fearfully. “Yes, no human on earth should be able to directly see you or your mother in the sky. Only the descendants of our royal servants, such as number one to number fourteen, are destined to be able to see you as a silver star. That’s why you can only occupy the bodies of those who are descendants of our royal servants on Earth.”

Betelgeuse caught her breath before continuing. “But, there was one pure human who was able to see you that night. According to thousands of years of tradition, if pure humans are able to see you from the earth with their naked eyes and make a wish, then you will grant their prayers. But—“

“But what?!” shouted Xynth with a glare.

“But here lies the problem,” Betelgeuse continued with some hesitation to explain. “That human was cursed by the universe because of the great sins of that human’ ancestors in the past. All descendants of those cursed by the universe are destined to die before the age of thirty.”

“That human should have died that night,” Betelgeuse continued. “But at the same time, that human asked you for longevity and you granted it unknowingly. The powerful curse of that human’s bloodline was broken at that moment, and it was thrown into the body of number fourteen, Sega. That night, Sega – number fourteen – should have died, but none of us knew about it.”

Betelgeuse noticed the puzzled look on Xynth’s face. “When you occupied the fourteenth’s body, the misfortune of his death only retreated for a moment. But it seems that… now his body that should have died a long time ago… is no longer strong enough to be occupied by your soul and resulted in number fourteen getting brain cancer. So, I’m sorry, Crown Prince, your life will be truly threatened if you don’t make the exchange again.”

“Another exchange, huh?” asked Xynth after a moment of silence and seeing Betelgeuse kneeling there in fear.

“How will we find the fifteenth body if in every eighty years, there is only one human whose body I am destined to occupy? This body is only twenty years old and there’s no way I can wait another sixty years. You said six months from now I’ll be dead?”

“This is what makes it strange,” Betelgeuse said. “The human you blessed earlier was your fifteenth body. You broke this human’s hereditary curse, you blessed this human with long life, but your rays that night not only fell on the fourteenth, but hit number fifteen even more fiercely.”

“Supposedly,” Betelgeuse continued, “just as the fourteenth and previous bodies had silver scars on their limbs, the human destined to become number fifteen must also have a silver scar.”

“How is it possible for a pure human to receive Xynth’s soul? So far, we have only been able to make exchanges to servant descendants. A pure human body would not be able to accept an exchange with a crown prince of the universe,” Rigel said in a still incredulous tone.

“Indeed,” Betelgeuse replied. “But the crown prince has already blessed the fifteenth body with longevity. So, there will be no problem with that. The problem is…”

Betelgeuse looked down again when she saw the still shocked Xynth glaring at her. “T—the problem is that… the crown prince must kill the fifteenth’s soul first in order to occupy the fifteenth’s body. The fifteenth is not a servant and only a pure human, so this human’s soul must be killed.”

“Are you crazy?! Our rules don’t allow us to kill pure humans! None of us have ever been allowed to!” said Antares with a high intonation.

“This time, it’s something we’ll have to do. It’s the only way we can save the crown prince as soon as possible. After all, the crown prince must quickly settle into his new body.”

“When did you know about all this?” asked Xynth after a long silence.

“During the exchange of your body with number fourteen,” answered Betelgeuse with an upturned face. “I saw a human child peeking into the crown prince’s soul exchange ritual. No human should have been able to see it, let alone be able to move in the time span we froze. But the child was able to do it. I’ve been investigating that child ever since.”

“Wait, I’m still confused. How is it possible for a pure human to see us do it? What’s even odder, this human was able to see the Xynth rays in the sky. Shouldn’t that be absolutely impossible? The highest noble family of the kingdom since long ago should not be able to be seen by any pure human,” Rigel asked with a curious look.

“That’s why I’ve been investigating it all this time, but you all came after me and wanted to kill me as if I were hiding the fact of the fourteenth’s destiny,” Betelgeuse complained irritably. “Only my father should be able to answer such questions.”

“Methuselah?” Xynth asked her.

Betelgeuse nodded. “Yes, but as you know my father has been in suspended animation. I cannot get answers from him unless he appears as a visual in my head.”

Antares looked quite compassionately at Betelgeuse. His cousin was indeed the only descendant of Methuselah or the all-knowing one. Since Methuselah’s state of suspended animation, Betelgeuse had struggled to become her father’s successor pillar in the kingdom.

But as a young girl, her strength is not yet as perfect as her father’s. It was obvious that Betelgeuse was often careless and bore a heavy burden as a substitute for the royal advisory elder. Even so, none of their family clan was supposed to be disobedient to the emperor or the crown prince.

Their family clan was one with the strongest loyalty to the emperor’s family since long ago. Despite this, Betelgeuse still had to fulfill her responsibilities as the ‘eyes’ of their empire. But the crown prince’s condition was clearly one of Betelgeuse’s negligence which had a considerable impact. Antares’ cousin could have been put to death by the emperor, even though her father was one of the most respected in the universe.

“So, when are we going to do it?” Xynth suddenly inquired. “My mom and Rigel’s dad are in serious problem and can’t be disturbed. Should we proceed without them?”

“You should make the exchange soon, but it’s best to wait for your mother. Moreover, you still have to learn everything about pure humans. When you’re ready, we can do the exchange with her,” Betelgeuse replied casually, but suddenly the three men in front of him froze with shocked looks on their faces.

“‘HER’? What do you mean by ‘her’?” asked Xynth in a deep and dangerous voice.

“I-I… I mean… didn’t I mention it earlier? The fifteenth crown prince’s body is female,” Betelgeuse replied timidly as he saw the change in everyone’s faces. “That human is Fortuna Ramaya, she’s Sega’s… I mean, the fourteenth’s childhood friend.”

“Fortu—” Xynth’s words trailed off. Suddenly his head was dizzy as he shook his head in shock. “You knew all along about that human and you’re saying lightly now… that my body for the next decades will be a female’s body? I… Xynth, Crown Prince of Kiklios, future emperor of the universe, must occupy a FEMALE’s human body??!!”

Betelgeuse stepped back from her position. She just realized that her words would be a big problem for the man in front of her and the whole of Kiklios. “Wait Crown Prince, I also didn’t know that—“

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, FUCKING SHAMAN!!!” shouted Xynth as he grabbed the woman’s neck hard again. But a few seconds later, Xynth’s hand relaxed and Betelgeuse saw fresh blood flowing from the crown prince’s nose.

“Crown Prince, are you alright?” asked Betelgeuse frantically, in unison with Rigel and Antares who immediately moved closer.

Xynth suddenly fell down. His head felt swirling and his human body felt so painful. He held his own head and felt blood coming from his nose. It wasn’t the first time it had happened in the past year, but this time, for the first time… Xynth fainted.