Night had deepened over the lower districts of Little Garden's Eastern Block, and a faint, cool breeze swept across the barren, desolate land.
Black Rabbit knelt carefully at the edge of the cracked, dried-up pond at the center of the lot, gently pressing into the earth the "water tree sapling" that Kudou Asuka and the others had brought back. The moment it touched the soil, pinpricks of soft luminescence bloomed outward — and from the fractured, sun-baked clay of the pond floor, thin threads of clear, sweet water began to seep.
"Oh, thank goodness... with this, the children won't have to worry about drinking water anymore. No more walking all that way just to fetch it..."
Black Rabbit straightened up, pressing the back of her slender hand against her damp forehead. The tight furrow between her brows eased, just slightly.
But that small measure of relief lasted only a moment before it was swallowed once again by a deep, gnawing worry.
They had water now. But what about everything else?
No Name, as it stood today, had no banner and no name to speak of — and even the land they had once called home had been carved in half. They had nothing.
With that gentleman as their neighbor, at least they didn't need to fear being raided or suddenly wiped out. But the road back to their former glory — the path of rebuilding the community — still felt impossibly, achingly distant.
"Just holding onto what we have now is already taking everything we've got... so what do we do after that..."
She breathed a quiet sigh. Her long rabbit ears drooped lifelessly against her shoulders.
They could hold the line. But they couldn't push forward.
To put it in dramatic, almost self-mocking terms — No Name, Black Rabbit thought, was something like a small nation kept alive only by the protection of a far greater power.
She was staring up at the stars, lost in her own thoughts, when a set of steady, unhurried footsteps reached her ears — coming from the direction of that newly completed ivory-white courtyard not far away, its elegant silhouette gleaming softly in the darkness.
"Black Rabbit — out wandering this late?"
The voice, faintly teasing, snapped her out of her reverie.
Black Rabbit spun around — and found Suke, whom she hadn't noticed approaching at all, now dressed head to toe in farmer's attire, a purple-handled hoe of some unfamiliar material slung over one shoulder, strolling toward her with an entirely relaxed air.
Walking behind him were two girls.
"Lord Suke?"
Black Rabbit blinked, then shifted her gaze to the figures trailing behind him — and in the very next instant, her breath caught in her throat.
Standing to Suke's left and slightly behind him was a golden-haired girl dressed in a black-and-white maid's uniform. Her head was bowed, her expression faintly ill at ease. That gleaming golden hair had been carefully arranged, and even the modest maid's outfit could not conceal the quiet, unmistakable aura of distinction that surrounded her.
"L-Leticia... Lady Leticia?!"
The cry that tore itself from Black Rabbit's lips came out an octave too high, and she went rigid on the spot as though she'd been struck by lightning.
As one of No Name's core members, how could she possibly fail to recognize this woman — the former Little Garden Knight, one of Arcadia's most steadfast pillars of strength?
But... why...
Why was this great lady dressed in a maid's uniform, following docilely behind Suke?
Had she turned away from No Name to pledge herself to Lord Suke instead?!
"Good evening, Black Rabbit."
Leticia lifted the hem of her skirt with a faint, slightly awkward air and performed an impeccable maid's curtsy, her voice barely above a whisper.
She didn't appear to have regained her freedom — not truly. But Black Rabbit could feel it nonetheless: that suffocating, dead-eyed oppression that had once clung to Leticia like a shroud was gone. In its place was a lightness, an ease, the quiet relief of someone who had set down every burden and simply let go.
Before Black Rabbit could even begin to process that shock, a soft *crunch-crunch-crunch* from Suke's right drew her attention away.
It was a girl — one who looked even younger than Leticia, somehow. Her double pupils were a deep violet, and there was something about them that made the back of Black Rabbit's neck prickle: a layered, fathomless depth that sent a crawling unease down the spine.
At that moment, the girl was entirely focused on gnawing away at a golden star melon that gave off a tempting, sweet fragrance. Her cheeks were puffed out, juice running freely from the corner of her mouth, and she couldn't have cared less.
"Mm... the texture on this one... Al-chan really didn't pick the wrong master. A fruit that carries the blessings of the earth like this — it really can restore Al-chan's Spirit Origin..."
The girl mumbled indistinctly to herself between bites.
Black Rabbit had only glanced over out of idle curiosity — but in the moment those violet pupils narrowed slightly with the drowsy satisfaction of being well-fed, Black Rabbit felt something deep within her soul convulse with a violent, instinctive shudder.
It was the raw, bone-level pressure of being in the presence of something far beyond her.
It was the survival response that fired when one came face to face with the terrifying Spirit Origin of an earth goddess from ages past — the kind of power that could turn an entire planet to stone.
"That... Spirit Origin... that..."
Black Rabbit's hand trembled as she pointed at the melon-devouring girl, all the color draining instantly from her face.
"Is she... could she possibly be... the one who was defeated by Lady Athena in ages past... *Alger*?!"
The Stellar Spirit Alger — one of the three legendary "Problem Children" of the old Little Garden, sealed away within the head of the Gorgon?
Black Rabbit's mind went a little numb. She didn't even have the energy to begin thinking through what consequences Alger breaking her seal might have triggered. That was not the kind of thing a Moon Rabbit of her tier was supposed to worry about.
"Good — you know who she is. That saves time."
"Since I can't always be here, I went ahead and found a couple of backup hands to keep an eye on things for your No Name's sake. Isn't that right, Leticia — and Miss Al?"
"...Yes. Al-chan will do her best to look after your safety going forward — as long as you all keep Al-chan well supplied."
Suke smiled and gave Alger a light pat on the head, which earned him a displeased, serpentine hiss in return.
"L-look after our safety..?"
Leticia was one thing — she was an old friend, and Black Rabbit trusted her without question.
But Alger...
*A Problem Child? Looking after our safety?*
Black Rabbit was fairly certain her brain was about to overheat and shut down from the sheer processing load.
She stared at this Stellar Spirit — an existence capable of making even four-digit and three-digit powerhouses deeply uneasy — who was currently sitting there like some sheltered little girl who had never seen the world, cheerfully demolishing a star melon.
She half-suspected she was sleepwalking. Things were happening far too fast.
"Alright, Black Rabbit — I came to find you for something important."
Suke set the hoe down on the ground, and his expression shifted into something more serious.
"The situation No Name is in right now — a few Gift Games alone won't be enough to pull you back. Even if you win some water rights or a plot of land, your predecessor was a big name that drew a lot of attention. The moment you step outside the area under Shiroyasha's protection, you'll have targets on your backs."
He reached out and gestured across the wide, untamed stretch of land surrounding them.
"So what I want to do is let you all build your strength in peace — through farming."
"Starting tomorrow, every remaining member of No Name — including those three Problem Children who just arrived — will be coming with me to work the fields."
*Wait — this isn't farming in the metaphorical sense?!*
For a moment, Black Rabbit genuinely wondered if she had misunderstood something.
"F-farming? Lord Suke, are you joking?"
"Farming does yield something, of course, but Gift Games are the primary path to a community's development — that's practically the consensus across all of Little Garden..."
"Let me finish."
Suke cut her off.
"The crops I'm going to hand over to you aren't ordinary food. As you just saw with what Al-chan was eating — under Little Garden's own classification system, they count as a kind of 'Gift' in their own right."
"All I need from you is to help me cultivate the wasteland. I'll provide the seeds, and after harvest we split everything fifty-fifty. That alone should be enough to solve your worst resource problems in one go."
"Raw combat power without anything to back it up is useless. And you know as well as I do — Izayoi and the others are capable, but this is about the community's development as a whole."
"B-but..."
Black Rabbit hesitated, her gaze drifting involuntarily back to the star melon in the violet-eyed girl's hands.
She'd been staring at the melon for a beat too long, trying to confirm for herself whether it truly qualified as a Gift.
And as a result — Alger noticed, and lifted her head with visible irritation.
"Hey. What are you staring at, ugly?"
Alger dragged the back of her hand across the juice on her chin.
"What's your problem? Keep staring and Al-chan will turn those rabbit ears of yours into a stone garden ornament for the front gate. Got it?"
"Eeeek——!"
Black Rabbit flinched hard, her survival instincts snapping into full alert. The girl before her was a genuine, universally acknowledged Problem Child of Little Garden — not someone she could afford to provoke even slightly.
Having a Problem Child standing guard over No Name still felt surreal, almost unbelievable to Black Rabbit — but right now, there wasn't exactly a better option.
"Well, well — I have to say, this is the most entertaining revival plan I've heard in the past several hundred years~"
And at precisely that moment, a voice that belonged to none of the four of them drifted through the night air.
Accompanied by the soft rustle of a folding fan being waved, a petite girl in exquisitely embroidered traditional robes stepped leisurely out of the empty air itself — white hair catching the dim light, golden eyes gleaming with quiet amusement.
"Lady Shiroyasha?!" Black Rabbit yelped, as though she had just spotted a lifeline thrown from a sinking ship.
"Don't make such a fuss, Black Rabbit. I merely sensed an old acquaintance finally finding release, and thought I'd come take a look."
"I didn't expect to overhear such an interesting proposal on top of it. Well — I'd say the trip was worth it."
Shiroyasha snapped her folding fan shut. Her gaze swept across Suke, Leticia, and Alger in turn before finally settling on Suke himself — dressed, of all things, in his farmer's attire — and gave him a slow, top-to-bottom once-over, a glint of mischief flashing through her eyes.
"For someone who keeps insisting he doesn't have a lolicon streak — take a look at the girls you've surrounded yourself with, Lord Suke. My, my~"
"...Would you believe me if I said it was a coincidence?"
Suke's expression went dark. What was he supposed to do about it? It wasn't his fault — if anything, it was Little Garden's fault for having nothing but young-looking girls at the top of the power ladder.
"Well, I'll charitably take that at face value~" Shiroyasha chuckled softly — though in the back of her mind, she made a private note that next time she came here, she should probably wear her older, taller form.
"Speaking of which, Lord Suke — your speed is something else. You moved faster than even I anticipated."
"The entire estate of that Perseus community — gone in a single encounter. You really don't hold back, do you? To think you'd actually take lives in Little Garden as it stands today~"
Her tone took on an uncommon edge of seriousness, tinged with exasperation:
"You really do know how to make trouble for me, you know. If the Heavenly Army gets involved, things could spiral out of control very quickly~"
"Spiral out of control? I think we'll be fine, personally."
"Fine, yes — they were small fry in the end... well, what I mean to say is, Lord Suke, please try to avoid taking lives so casually going forward. If it truly can't be helped, stripping someone of their freedom and selling them off as a servant is also an option, you know~"
Shiroyasha forced a wry smile. She was beginning to realize that carrying out her original reason for being here was becoming rather difficult — especially after catching a glimpse, from where she stood, of the subtle but unmistakable aura emanating from the small courtyard not far away. An aura that ran fundamentally contrary to the very nature of Little Garden.
That was the origin point of the "unknowable" — the existence called the Land of Return. A domain that stood in complete and utter opposition to everything Little Garden was.
If anyone ever dared call her, the former White Night King and a proper Solar Stellar Spirit, a good-for-nothing slacker who couldn't be bothered to do her job — she would slap them across the face without hesitation.
Because right now, all of Little Garden was resting squarely on her shoulders. Shiroyasha was starting to think that perhaps, even after she recovered her full Spirit Origin, she'd be better off staying in this small form after all.
"Oh — that reminds me, little Black Rabbit. Accept Lord Suke's proposal."
Shiroyasha had started and stopped herself several times, clearly wanting to say something more. In the end, she let her gaze fall to the star melon in Alger's hand, and breathed out a sigh that carried a thousand unsaid words.
"He's not wrong about any of it. Honestly — farming might let you grow faster than running Gift Games."
"Things outside aren't peaceful right now either. For the foreseeable future, it would be better for all of you to stay close to your community grounds..." She paused, then turned her eyes to Suke. "Also, Lord Suke — I've managed to gather some intelligence on a matter you've been keeping an eye on."
"Won't you invite me inside your place so we can sit down and talk things over properly?"
____
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