“Raph!” Raph-chan pointed toward Raphtalia. She was dashing right toward me.

“Mr. Naofumi!” she cried.

“Raphtalia!” I responded, instinctively rushing toward her myself. I caught her in my arms.

“Mr. Naofumi?” she asked, surprised. I heard her voice, a little uncertain of what was happening. She smelled nice. I was happy, really happy, that she hadn’t been caught up in anything as complicated as our last visit here.

“Are you all in one piece? I was worried about you,” I said.

“That’s my line. Not to mention that amazing, almost unnatural boost to our stats. What was that?” Then Raphtalia pushed me to arm’s length and looked me over from head to toe. “Those wounds you took—what about those?” Raphtalia had stayed behind to let us escape from our first encounter with Takt, during which I had been seriously injured. All sorts of things had happened after that, but she had no way of knowing any of them.

“All fine. What about you, Raphtalia? If you need any healing, just let me know right away,” I said.

“I’m fine too. No serious wounds. My katana teleported me before things got too serious,” she explained. Raphtalia also looked relieved to see my shield. That was because, just before parting with Raphtalia, Takt had stolen my shield.

“My shield? You bet I got that back. In fact, it’s like it was never even taken from me,” I reflected.

“So was it stolen or not?” she asked.

“That’s a tough one. How best to explain . . .” While we talked, L’Arc, Therese, and Glass came over.

“You saved us. Without your aid, we would have suffered hard for such a victory,” Glass said.

“You did seem to be struggling. What if something had happened to Raphtalia?” I asked. I had to ask. I knew it wasn’t their fault, but I still had to say it anyway.

“Mr. Naofumi—” Raphtalia started.

“I know,” I cut her off. I knew her all too well. “Under these circumstances, you’d never run off and be safe all alone.” If she did run for her life, she’d no longer be Raphtalia at all.

“Naofumi, it sounded like you were in pretty bad shape yourself,” Glass said.

“My lady Glass, cool it. Look at what he just did—he clearly dealt with the problem,” L’Arc responded. I was glad he was quick on the uptake.

“Anyway. Sadeena and some of the others are here too, so let’s get them involved,” I suggested. We proceeded to move away from the battle in front of the gates, meeting up with Sadeena and the others. We started to chat in the courtyard of the castle.

“Little Raphtalia! I’m so happy to see you again,” Sadeena said.

As soon as Sadeena saw Raphtalia, she grabbed her and started hugging her.

“Sadeena, please. You’re suffocating me,” Raphtalia managed to say.

“Has that settled this problem? Is this the equivalent of defeating Takt?” I asked.