The moment Kaito touched Bipper's hand, he felt it immediately, a bond seeking permission to be formed, it was a binding contract between both parties.
On Kaito's side, he only had one thing to do, unsummon Bill. On Bipper's side, he would have to fulfill two absolute requests from Kaito as long as he was capable of doing so, and even if he could not, he would have to find a way to make them happen. He would also guarantee Kaito's absolute safety until Kaito left the island, not only by being unable to harm him either directly or indirectly, but also by being unable to allow anyone else to do so.
Other than that, there was nothing else. It was a short and straightforward contract, with no fine print or hidden tricks, no formal or confusing wording. Bipper was clearly desperate.
Kaito accepted the contract and, without needing to command it himself, his body unsummoned Bill on its own, fulfilling the agreement.
"We'll meet again" Bill said before disappearing, looking at Kaito with interest.
Kaito simply stared at the place where he had vanished for a few seconds, wondering whether it had been a real threat or merely a promise.
He decided not to think about it too much.
"It'll take me at least a month and a half before I can use a Domain at full power again. Bill was far too powerful" Kaito noted after briefly checking his own condition, but then he shook his head. "No, I'm just too weak."
With his determination to become stronger renewed, Kaito turned toward Bipper.
"Time for you to fulfill your side of the deal."
"Yeah, yeah" Bipper said, waving a hand dismissively. "Just tell me what you want."
"First, give Heekapoo and Marco their freedom back" Kaito said.
Bipper did not reply. He simply snapped his fingers indifferently before speaking.
"Done."
Almost at the exact moment he spoke, a portal of red, orange, and yellow hues, resembling spiraling fire, opened beside him, and Marco and Heekapoo stepped through it.
"Kaito. That thing controlled us. Let's kill him" Heekapoo said angrily while pointing at Bipper.
"Go ahead if you want. I can't beat him" Kaito replied.
"Tsk. Damn kid in a suit. Why is everyone wearing suits lately? And why are there so many psychopathic kids in this place?" Heekapoo clicked her tongue before muttering complaints under her breath.
"What about the crown?" Marco asked.
"I was just getting to that" Kaito replied, turning back toward Bipper. "My second request is for you to return this crown to its original state. Exactly when it still had one wish left."
"Do you know what it'll cost me to reverse time, especially on a magical object, using only the amount of power a child's body can handle?"
"I don't know, and I don't care."
"I wouldn't care either if our positions were reversed, but being on this side of the coin isn't any fun" Bipper complained. "Fine, hand me that piece of junk."
"Can't you do it without touching it? We're already inside your territory anyway."
"You know, too much caution is incredibly boring." Even though Bipper complained again, he was still forced to act.
There was no flashy effect or impressive movement on his part, but by the next second the crown Kaito was holding had already returned to its original form.
Kaito inspected it before nodding.
"Well, it's been a pleasure doing business with you." Kaito smiled in satisfaction, irritating the suited child in front of him, who merely shooed him away with one hand as if he were an annoyance.
"Now get out of here. I'm really enjoying this whole being free thing."
"Heekapoo."
"You don't have to say it." Before Kaito could even finish saying her name, she had already opened a portal.
After Heekapoo and Marco stepped through the portal, Kaito also prepared to go through it.
"Maybe I'll come back someday, Bipper. If that day comes, and I'm strong enough, I'll kill you" Kaito said as a farewell.
"No one would ever come back to this place of their own free will. If you return, it'll be because someone stronger than you sent you here. If you're injured and weak enough by then, I'll kill you" Bipper replied with an equally threatening answer, but his childish appearance, dressed in a suit, with yellow eyes and a twisted smile no child should have, made him far more unsettling.
...
"It's finally over. It feels like an eternity passed." Heekapoo stretched once they were on the other side of the portal.
"Even though you spent the whole time partying?" Kaito joked.
"Is that my fault? I told you we shouldn't go with the guy who manipulates reality, and what did you do? You went with the guy who manipulates reality" Heekapoo defended herself.
"And minds. He manipulates reality and minds" Kaito corrected.
"That doesn't make it any better, you know."
"Ladies, gentlemen, I think we should stop arguing. We have something more important on our hands, don't we?" Marco said, staring at the crown with undisguised anticipation.
"About that. Can we wait a few days before acting? I'm a little tired right now."
Kaito lay down on the ground, finding it as soft as a bed.
"Are you alright?" Heekapoo asked.
"Yeah, I just... pushed myself too hard. Wait one day, maybe three at most, please."
"..."
"Alright. They say distance only strengthens love, and I've already waited centuries to see Star again. Three more days won't hurt." Marco agreed and sat down on the ground as well, simply looking toward the horizon.
"Marco, even though you sound like an early seventeenth century writer most of the time, you're a good person."
"Ha, the seventeenth century? I'm much older than that" Marco laughed.
...
"Bring Star Butterfly before me."
Three days later, with the crown once again resting on his head, Kaito declared his wish to it.
And as Kaito had learned over the past few days, reality manipulation had no special effects.
As if she had always been there, another person now stood before them.
She looked like a young girl, or maybe not. Kaito had already met too many people there who looked like children but were centuries old, so he did not dare guess her age. Her skin was a fusion of purple and gold, the purple portions being solid and lumpy while the golden parts resembled melting gelatin dripping down her limbs. She had six arms in total, three on each side, along with six wings on her back. Her hair was tied into two large cone shaped buns resembling horns, and her eyes looked like two enormous glowing hearts. Finally, she wore a violet dress reaching her thighs, long stockings covering her legs, and tall boots of some unrecognizable color somewhere between gold and purple.
It should be said that, besides her skin, the rest of her body also appeared to be a mixture of two different species. Her wings were half violet and insect like, half golden and made of energy. Similar patterns repeated all across her body, giving her an extremely bizarre appearance.
"Quick, she can open portals and run away at any moment."
The instant she appeared, Heekapoo went on alert, ready to stop her from escaping.
But nobody moved. Everyone ignored her.
Instead of trying to flee, Star simply looked at Marco like a curious animal while Marco gazed directly into her eyes with adoration.
As if by instinct, both of them moved at the same time, meeting halfway and kissing.
"Eeew, I can't believe he's kissing that thing" Heekapoo said from the side, looking somewhat disgusted by Star's current appearance.
But soon, something changed. Star's previously grotesque appearance slowly began to disappear. Her skin, which had become dry and hard like a chrysalis, became moist and soft again, while the golden portions turned solid before transforming into ordinary skin. In less than five seconds, the butterfly monster had become a completely ordinary young woman.
"Oh, oh wow, what did I just do?" she said in surprise as she came back to her senses, stepping back and blushing like a normal teenage girl. "Marco? No, wait, why do I feel like you're Tom? Tom, tell me you didn't possess Marco out of jealousy."
"Of course not. Tom and Marco ceased to exist a long time ago. Now we're a single entity called... Devil Marco."
"...So your name is basically still Marco?"
"Devil Marco."
"Devil isn't a name, it's a race. Wait, so you fused and you're still calling yourself Marco? Hahaha, Tom, it looks like you're destined to lose to Marco forever." Star laughed for a moment like a normal preteen before stopping and widening her eyes in surprise as a flood of memories rushed into her mind.
"...A lot has happened" she finally said after several seconds of silence, recalling the past centuries.
"It has, but as long as we're together..."
"Excuse me, excuse me, I really don't want to interrupt" Heekapoo interrupted shamelessly.
"Heekapoo, what are you doing here?" Star asked in surprise. As nothing more than the preteen princess of Mewni she had been when she was brought here, she not only knew the members of the council, she still respected them as beings from a world above her own.
"I came here by accident, that doesn't matter now" Heekapoo said dismissively. "The point is that we need your scissors to get out of here."
"My scissors? Oh, here they are." Star quickly took out her dimensional scissors and handed them to Heekapoo.
"Well, time to get out of here" Heekapoo said, holding the scissors in the air and beginning to cut through empty space.
However, where a portal should have appeared, nothing appeared.
Faced with this, although everyone's expressions turned uneasy, none of them were actually surprised.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)