The beginning of the reversal of the roles of the genders began when Josette decided to chant the Holy Names of the men aloud whilst dancing on lava.

Before that historical event of pride and joy, just as Josephine had predicted—

"Dear children," Father bellowed, narrowing his eyes. "How dare you look into the books of Nom? You two are girls born only to keep our generation going forward; no more, no less. Hasn't Mother Nature divided our roles perfectly?"

Father's disappointment in them.

"My dears..." He trembled with guilt as Josette and Josephine were collared, forced to bow down to the King and rub their noses on the ground. "Was it truly so necessary to break the rules? Didn't Father teach you enough?"

"Throw them to the soldiers until we prepare for the sacrifice." The King, Lottie Porcher, waved his hands to in annoyance. "I do not care about anything but their lives – not their chastity, not their bodies, not their blood. Two alive sacrifices, well-dressed, is all I require. I hear the initial sacrifices had a severe heart seizure out of pure fear; hence, we have been saved from needless trouble."

The hungry eyes of the guards followed the girls: certainly minors, but ladies no less.

Father's love for them.

"Please have mercy upon my girls, my Lord." Father's eyes, uncertain and watery, pleaded for their deaths silently, as if to say, I love them very much, and now that they shall be sacrificed, a small compensation will not do for the huge loss I am to suffer.

He knew the King couldn't refuse; Lottie regretted his previous statements. Nevertheless, the message went through, and though Lottie said quite several harsh words, he agreed to the Priest's proposal.

Father's tears for them.

But, of course, though uneducated, Josephine and Josette weren't fools. Only cowards would come in the Holy Palace without backup. Certainly, these people didn't know that if the girls wanted so, they would've escaped without notice. If they wanted, the chains on their necks would have been torn like paper; losing an arm or two to do so wasn't a big deal. If they wanted, they could've killed the men just as easily as they breathed. Men or whatever, they were, in the end, idiots who dominated on the other gender just because of their physique and women's submissive nature – nothing more, nothing less.

But the two stayed.

They were experimented on brutally because Ordinary folks wanted to see the extent of their abilities – so that the Nameless never surpassed the majority with their powers.

This sounder of swine forgot two things: The Nameless girls with eidetic memory and had seen the darkest weakness of Humanity.

The two stayed to see them cower beneath them.

Josephine needn't even be said the plan. She only wished that her opponents were worthy of her time and energy; perhaps if God could have knocked some sense into these arrogant fools, maybe then Josephine would come to respect them, even if it was a little bit.

Ah, but God was indeed fair.

Josephine smirked. Josette could do every other thing, and she'd never object... but just one, just this one...

"Father!" Josephine called out, fake tears adorning her blonde eyelashes. "Father, this is too scary! I-I am scared, Father; I dislike the gazes falling upon me."

Josephine was ashamed. No matter how much I deny it, you – who has looked after me so very 'lovingly' since birth – I truly—

"Father Alexander will save me from these beasts, right?" Josephine laughed beautifully; some of those dark vines curled around her heart were starting to disappear. "I know very well! Louis XVII cannot hurt me – oops, did I just say your Mother's dream out loud, my Lord?" Josephine mocked the two individuals with their Nom, the two who seem to have frozen quite obediently. "Just like the previous Monarch. You. Too. Shall. Fall. If not by the peoples' hands, then by mine. Constitutional Monarchy means nothing to the abused. And you all, who dared to think of molesting us..."

—I truly resemble you, even to the point of fakeness.

"Aillard Deniaud, Aloys Lefèvre, André Lachance, Astor Béranger, Célestin Séverin, Chandler Faucheux, Constantin Gosse, Damien Roussel, Everard Lavoie, Godefrey Lavigne, Jehan Caron, Lancelot Richard, Modeste Tremblay, Pons Marie, Renard Daniau, Reynaud Gagneux, Stéphane Lestrange, Valérian Marchand." Josette clapped gleefully. "Beautiful names and wonderful expressions. Good job, my dogs. Thank you for not interrupting, you boys are the best pets ever."

"THEY MUST BE BEHEADED THIS INSTANT!" Lottie screamed after grasping the situation and calculating a few odds, his veins popping with anger.

"Look, you have no Magique currently. And we can just regenerate even if you behead us. And the Goddess needs to cannibalize on her Birthday, or she goes rampage and destroys France. That's all you have against you." Josette shrugged, indirectly targeting the King with her sharpened words.

"In other words, you're doomed. Prepare me a carriage to Paris and I'll think about—" Josette narrowed her eyes; she truly loved her dramatic pauses. "—About not revealing your names and secrets to others. Ah, it can't be helped now. You're all technically powerless Nameless, ah, how shameful! You wouldn't want anyone to know, right?"

Individuals who were 'made' into Nameless due to the revelation of their Nom did not possess any of the special characteristics, such as regeneration, eidetic memory, or resurrection, that a Nameless usually did, and are, hence, Powerless Nameless.

"Throw them in the nearby Volcano for all to see – right below the Etoile; we must please our savior." Lottie gulped, afraid of speaking the next few words. In a low voice, to his aide, he slowly muttered, "...And prepare the carriage; remove the Royal Emblem on it."

Josephine truly despised the cruel reality she was born into. Perhaps this was the first time she had smiled so bright – and unknowingly Josette sighed in relief. She didn't recognize the feeling, but certainly – and alarmingly – Josephine was more than only a puppet to Josette.

"I'll keep my word. I will allow no one to exploit on this opening of France."

—That's what Josette said before being thrown into the Chaîne des Puys Volcano, whilst additionally teaching Josephine, on the way, about lava's density being so high that sinking in a volcano is impossible.

Oh, but...

"Abélard Rome, Alain Guillory, Albain Savatier, Ange Mathieu, Benoit Lavigne, Damien Giroux, Didier Victor, Dion Christian, Gaspard Descoteaux, Godard Marion, Godefrey Marie, Guillaume Rey, Horace Gauthier, Iseult Bouchard, James Comtois, Jérémie Traverse!" Josette danced gracefully upon the lava as if she dreamed of being in a Ball. "Lance Béranger, Laurent Gagneux, Léonard Desrosiers, Léonois Courtemanche, Mainard Babin, Marcel Favreau, Marcel Soucy, Mathis Pan, Maximilien Lémieux, Océane Poulin, Thibault Marchand, Tristan Roy, Vincens Bernard!"

Albeit dancing, Josette's voice cracked not once; mocking of the Goddess' love for dance by a Nameless was quite a sight to behold. "And for the finale – an apparent fellow Nameless whose name I very disappointingly found in the Book of Nom – let me grant your wish! Déodat Fay!"

Promises are meant to be broken.

"What do you think, fake Goddess?" Josephine called out to the Heavens, regenerating her legs and brain all the same – yet losing a few pieces of herself in the process. She felt absolutely nothing, the vast emptiness within her had been there from the very start. This was certainly not the initial time she had died.

She had been born dead in the first place; a soul forever destined to be Nameless.

But God didn't give away anything without ulterior intentions – the extraordinary powers of a Nameless come due to the lack of parents, Nom, and humanity.

And resurrection?

Josephine didn't know how it would be – Josette and she were indeed overindulging in their powers – but they were so helpless without them that perhaps even God would take pity. For now, however unsettling, Josephine has pinned the price to be a shorter lifespan – though she really knew deep inside that she had somehow morphed into a Josephine she never was meant to be. She was living a life not meant for her and would die someone else's death.

She was anyone but Josephine.

They, the Nameless, could instantly regrow their lost parts in moments. Being in the volcano was burning them; and the density of lava was higher than a person's, so drowning in lava was deemed impossible.

Josephine's mind was suffering, but literally every part of her was regrown again and again so many times simultaneously that it reached to a point where she couldn't really take the time to feel the pain.

They were crazy strong. That was certainly why the majority kept the Nameless in strains, while the uneducated Nameless didn't even realize it how mistreated they were.

What did Diane have to do with this, though, fake Goddess or not?

It was printed even in elementary books – about how the Goddess saved human civilization from being torn apart by the Nameless. However, the Nameless themselves weren't aware of anything – not of the outside world, not of their own world either.

Was the core of Magique within them so... powerful and destructive?

"We'll find it!" Josephine uttered softly, making a secret promise to Diane. "We'll find your Nom. Enjoy your big day, Diane." A second jeer at the Goddess, done by a seventeen-year-old Nameless who found enough courage to speak out the name no one dared to summon on their tongues.

How she wished she could kill those Ordinary folks made into Powerless Nameless.

But she restrained herself. The rest will be taken care by the people who torture the Nameless anyway! It's compulsory for the Church to adopt the Nameless. These people will surely have the taste of their own medicine.

All that remained was to leave. They had done their part.

They were free.

Just like that, after putting on a magnificent show, the two girls occupied their Magique-infested carriage for a six-hour journey to Paris from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, a region in southeast-central France – not giving a care about the chaotic and upturned France where the females suddenly found themselves capable of suppressing the opposite sex.

It was good to be free, feeling the fresh air beating down on one's face as the carriage speeded towards Paris. Threatening the King was a good idea, he did prepare quite a praise-worthy carriage.

The tired girls would never forget how hauntingly beautiful the world seemed that time.

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= 1783 words

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