"Oh, I- I just want to say thank you!" The bride replied.

"So you can speak English,..." Tennant winked playfully, "...that would be easier for me."

"Please follow my lead to somewhere you can be safe, my lady."

"My pleasure!"

The bride lifted her wedding gown and quickly followed Tennant's footsteps.

Until now, the bloodshed still kept going and there was no sign of decreasing in the number of enemies. Though the resistance from guests and both sides of families attempted to create a short time for the patients and children to evacuate, in reality, no one could escape from the enemy's dense siege. As the time flew, more and more people got serious injuries as well as the number of the deceased.

"Those bastards want to eliminate each one of us!"

A man gritted his teeth while holding his injured arm.

"We can't keep fighting like this anymore!" Another man with an X-shaped scar on his chin said, "We need to find a safe place to hide and wait for our people to come as reinforcements."

"To treat the injured!" A woman who had a large mole above her upper lip added.

"Move to the small island!" An old lady with silver hair tied up in a bun said, "To Isola Bella!"

Soon, her words were spread from person to person, to every corner of the massacre in their family's unique code. The men gradually shifted into a defensive state, while women and some teenagers used what they had to lift the seriously injured people and moved them to the old lady's site.

"Aunt Blanca!"

A boy who had some dried blood stains on his face suddenly asked the woman in a blue dress.

"The people who helped us from the beginning don't seem to understand our family's code."

He looked at his aunt with a pair of courageous eyes.

"Can I go there and tell them?"

The woman in a blue dress stopped for a few seconds and sighed.

"I know you are a brave child, Nino." She caressed the boy's curly hair and refused his request, "But other adults will handle that mission."

"Cause we all know that they are our saviors."

Just like she said, some men carefully approached the team of people with special abilities.

"They are sending some codes. If my memory serves me right, it said..."

Pavia, who now retreated to their team's original spot, watched the signals between the people of Marino clan.

"Go to Isola Bessa?"

He didn't remember much of the order of the code. He just learned it because of the requirements of his previous mission. But this was enough for him to understand what they were saying.

"Go to Isola Bella. The small island near this place."

As he told others, the men from the Marino clan finally came in front of them and repeated the name in Pavia's words.

"Please come with us to Isola Bella. It's a safe place where we can hide and call our reinforcements!"

Their team nodded in agreement.

When they met with the group consisting of the Marino clan and some people from the Greco, they saw Tennant and Balloon Party were already there waiting for them.

The people were divided into three groups. The first group would find the weak point of the siege and try to make a way out, while the second group fought to protect the rear. The third group would help bring the injured people and take care of the children.

"We need to find some way to prevent the enemies from entering the island." A man with a handlebar mustache nervously scratched his hair.

"Let us take care of it."

Vertin talked to the nervous man. Despite her young age, her calm face somehow made him feel that they could be trusted.

The evacuation began.

Humans fought along with arcanists, side by side, not with each other.

"What an amazing memory..."

Standing, more accurately, floating before the enemies and at the end of the evacuation line was a man who was holding a camera in his hands. Under the fading sunset, his skin was as gray as a dead body. Facing several gun's muzzles pointing right at him, he showed no emotion on his face. As the final person entered the island, he nodded his head.

"Good, close enough."

Then, he immediately floated higher and disappeared before the enemies' very eyes.

"A historic moment for commemoration."

An army helicopter suddenly appeared from nowhere and it began shooting on the way to the island.

------------

After entering Isola Bella, everybody was still busy arranging the patients, looking for things that could be used and finding food as well as fresh water.

"Is there any doctor here? Please save my husband!"

A woman shouted while tears were pouring down her cheek. Lying on her lap was a middle-aged man whose wound kept bleeding, even though he was already provided first aid.

"I'm a doctor." Necrologist raised her hand and walked towards the woman.

Seeing that, everyone around moved aside to make way for her.

"Isn't she an arcanist?" Someone in the group muttered.

"Shut up, Luigi! She and her people were the ones who gave us a hand and protected our families from the attack!"

Another middle-aged man with a beard scolded him.

"They are our saviors!"

"I'm sorry." The young man lowered his head.

When Necrologist approached the man who was in critical condition, she felt her hands once again shaking because of the haunted red which was covering his wound. The stink of blood made her nauseous as she sat down to watch him closer.

"Here's an eyeglass invented by X. It can make the eyes of the person who wears it see the color they want to see."

Vertin gave the eyeglass to Necrologist. As she wore it, the red blood of the patient in her eyes instantly changed to purple.

"Use this cloth to cover your face, as well as your nose."

A middle-aged woman who had a big bun behind her head gave Necrologist a large white napkin. It seemed she might know something, because she had a sympathetic expression on her face while Necrologist received the napkin from her hand.

"I brought a medical box with me. Please use it." A young girl whose hair was tied into a large pigtail passed the medical box in her hands to another person, who then passed it to others until it arrived in Necrologist's hands.

"Isabella. You still brought it even when you were attending a wedding?" A man in the injured group teased her.

"How could I not bring them? You guys always do some reckless things and hurt yourselves!" She responded to him with a pair of red eyes.

"Don't tease her, Enzo." The woman with short black hair lightly hit the man's head, "Save your strength for screaming when I sew your wound."

"Ouch! It hurts, Aunt Lucia! I may become stupid because of your hit." He pretended to yell.

"You always said that when she hit your head." A little girl who had a butterfly-shaped brooch on her dress replied.

"Luna's right! When will you become stupid, Enzo? I have waited for that day for a long time!" Another man who had a missing tooth in the injured group happily said.

"Keep dreaming, Romeo!"

Sounds of people chatting and their laughter soon spreaded from the young to the old, from the healthy to the injured. There was no doubt that they were a big and cozy family. And thanks to them, the gloomy atmosphere gradually became brighter.

This situation also affected Necrologist's mentality and helped her overcome her fear of blood for a while. Although she wasn't an outstanding doctor, she had various practical experiences in treating people who were on the line between life and death. As long as the patient still had a single breath, she could prolong their time a little longer, until they could receive the proper treatment or at least, say their last wishes.

"He stopped bleeding."

After a while, Necrologist succeeded in treating the middle-aged man.

"Please watch him if he has any symptoms afterwards."

She carefully told the woman who was his wife.

"Thank you. Thank you so much." The woman bowed her head in appreciation.

"Let me help wipe your sweat, Doctor."

The woman who had given Necrologist the napkin before, sat besides her and wiped the sweat on her forehead.

"Thank you, Miss."

"I used to be a nurse in the hospital." The woman said, "Back then I was still living in Palermo. The worst time for me was when they began the bomb raids in 1943."

"At first, bombs fell from the blue sky without the notice of anyone."

"Then BOOM, BOOM, BOOM." She mimicked the sound by her own way, "Many buildings were destroyed in a blink of an eye, as well as the lives of various people."

"I saw many injured people brought to the hospital, which was luckily located outside the bombing area."

"And my fear of blood and death began since then."

She quickly finished her story because she knew that she shouldn't keep the doctor for herself too long.

Somewhere nearby, Balloon Party was also helping people with less serious injuries. Most of her patients were children who all gathered around her and received her balloons.

"The boy's situation is not very positive."

Necrologist told the mother with a serious tone while knitting her eyebrows.

"We need to send him to the hospital right now."

"But with this situation..."

A man with bandages on his head stopped talking the other half of his words, when he saw the mother's actions.

"My child..." The woman whispered.

She caressed her son's hair gently, as if he just fell asleep as every night in her arms.

"My dearest Mario..."

She lowered her head and put a kiss on the boy's forehead, as she always did to wish him a peaceful dream.

"Mario is the only child of Paola." A woman who had a pair of flower-shaped earrings explained, "After her husband was found dead on the sea, Mario became her only happiness as well as her only will to live."

"He was just eight." Her voice choked, "Yesterday, he was still playing cheerfully with other kids in my backyard."

After saying that, she hugged her miserable sister tightly from behind.

"Do you want to say something, Balloon Party?"

Vertin looked at the girl who had a confused look on her face and asked her.

"I don't know." The girl with two black and white pigtails shook her head.

Balloon Party's arcane skill was to exchange the viability of one person for another's illness. For example, there was a boy who had a broken leg and a grown-up man who was healthy. When Balloon Party activated her arcane skill, the boy's leg would be cured immediately, while the man's internal organs were suddenly damaged without any natural cause.

Usually, she would use her ability on a good kid and a bad adult. But now, it was too late to find a bad adult. The kid's life was on the verge of death.

One broken leg of a child could become damaged internal organs of an adult. Then what kind of illnesses would an adult suffer if they exchanged with a child who was on the verge of death? No one dared to think about the result and that was also what made Balloon Party hard to make a choice.

"I don't like it at all..."

In the end, she reluctantly decided to let Vertin tell her arcane skill to others.

Without further ado, many voices appeared with the desire to be the person exchanging with the boy.

"I'm his mother. Let me do this!" The mother looked at them with her begging eyes.

"No, Paola. You need to be healthy to take care of Mario afterwards. Let me do this, I'm his uncle!" A middle-age man who had a big belly said.

"You are old, Uncle. I'm still young and able to recover quicker than you two. Choose me!" A young man with brown hair said.

"Mario's like my little brother. If anyone can be that person, it will be me."

"Big brother Mario shared with me his cannoli. I like him so much. I want to help him."

"Silent, children."

"Let this old lady's short time be exchanged for that child's life."

The oldest lady, who had silver hair in a bun, stepped out from the crowd with her walking stick. She had a hunched back and many wrinkles on her face.

"Nonna!"

"Mamma!"

Several men and women called out the old lady at the same time.

"I have lived long enough." The old lady said, "Don't let me suffer from seeing my children and grandchildren pass away at this age."

She strongly tapped her walking stick on the ground.

"If anyone dares to stop me, I will never rest in peace and always scold you all from my grave!"

Her voice wasn't too loud but full of solemnity. It was because not only was she the oldest person of the current Marino clan, but also the wisest and most respected person of it. No one in her family dared to refute her words, let alone her wishes.

As the old lady laid down on the pillow made by the jackets of her children, Balloon Party began casting her arcane skill.

"Do you have any last wishes?"

Necrologist approached the old lady and sincerely asked her while silently activating her arcane skill.

"Young girl, you want to hear my last wishes? That's so kind of you."

The old lady showed a bit of surprise on her wrinkled face.

"Even though I acted like I was satisfied with everything, I still had something in my mind for a long time."

"Catania, the orange orchards. I still remember them as if it was just yesterday."

The old lady slowly told her story as her life span gradually shortened.

"I have a sister, who is about 20 years younger than me. She's also the youngest child of our family."

"She moved to Catania after her marriage. I had visited their orange chards many times to see her happy smiles when she was with her husband and children."

"She and her family left Sicily after World War I. I haven't heard any news about her since then."

Her time already reached its limit, but it still lasted thanks to Necrologist's arcane skill.

"The only wish I have right now is someone who can quietly listen to this old lady's ramblings."

She looked right at Necrologist's yellow eyes and gently smiled.

"You had a pair of beautiful eyes, my child."

Then she turned her sight to Balloon Party, who had finished her work and was lowering her head.

"Don't be repentant, my child. You just helped this old lady fulfill her wish."

"I like watching your joyful smile."

After leaving those words, the old lady closed her eyes in peace. Around her, the adults covered their faces with their hands and the children called their grandmother's name in tears.

Like a miracle, Mario's face gradually turned rosy and his body's temperature slowly dropped.

Tonight is a night of the full moon.