Villainous Me: Help! The heroines are yanderes!
Chapter 74 - 73: We have to run[GTG]

Chapter 74: Chapter 73: We have to run[GTG]

"So you’re telling me you’re a princess?" I scoffed, disbelief lacing my voice.

"I am," she asserted, puffing out her chest in a display of regal defiance. Her fiery pink hair, usually meticulously styled, was now a tangled mess, dusted with debris from the wrecked room. The remnants clung to the strands like a rebellious phase.

"...tch, alright," I muttered, trying to process this bizarre situation. "Let me get this straight. You claim your name is Emily Kingscrown, correct?"

"Hmm," she confirmed with a curt nod, her earlier confidence faltering slightly under my scrutiny.

"And you were supposedly my fiancee before I was... banished from the noble house?" I finished, the last word tasting bitter on my tongue.

"Yes," she said again, though a flicker of discomfort played at the corners of her lips, betraying the ease with which the words rolled off her tongue.

"This... this just doesn’t add up," I mumbled, sinking back onto the threadbare remains of the couch. The possibly once plush cushions were now a motley collection of exposed stuffing and torn fabric, a perfect metaphor for the state of my own mind.

We were both back in the dilapidated building, the air thick with the lingering scent of dust and decay. Emily’s bombshell revelation had left me reeling in shock, the pieces of my fractured past refusing to fit into the narrative she presented. Desperate for answers, I’d agreed to follow her back into this desolate and hollow space.

"But it does!" she insisted, her voice laced with a tremor of desperation. "You’re the reason I came to the academy in the first place. But you’ve changed so much, I barely recognized you." Her vibrant pink eyes dimmed with a flicker of sadness, a stark contrast to the fiery enthusiasm she’d displayed moments before.

"Wait a minute, how’d you even figure out it was me anyway?" I countered, narrowing my eyes. Her confidence wavered again, and she took an involuntary step sideways, a blush creeping up her cheeks like a thief in the night.

"You... you told me after my ability took hold of you," she stammered, her gaze averting from mine and fidgeting her fingers.

Just how messed up can things get?

I thought, a wave of frustration washing over me. I still hadn’t unraveled the mystery of who was trying to kill me, and now this? Hold on...

"Wait a second," I interjected, forcing her gaze to meet mine. "What exactly did I say?"

"Huh?" she blurted out, momentarily thrown off guard.

"You said I told you who I was when your... mind control ability took over, right?"

"Hm," she mumbled, a small, hesitant nod accompanying the sound.

"So just what exactly did I say?" I pressed, determined to wring every shred of information out of this conversation.

She let out a shaky sigh, seemingly gathering herself. "Alright," she said, composing herself with a visible effort. "You said you were Ryan Evans, something about not being from this world, which I honestly didn’t understand at the time. Then you said you lost your memories in an accident." She paused, her brow furrowing in concentration. "And what exactly did you mean by ’not from this world’?"

I see. Seems I guessed wrong. "Just like you, I’m clueless," I lied smoothly. Technically, it wasn’t a complete lie – with my memory gone, I truly was in the dark about my past.

"..... Well, I guess that’s that then," she mumbled, the tension easing slightly from her shoulders.

"So why exactly did you run from the empire?" I cut in, another piece of the puzzle refusing to click into place. Since she was supposedly royalty, wouldn’t her presence at the academy have been common knowledge? At least, there should have been a mission or rumor swirling around about a missing princess. Unless, of course, she wasn’t royalty at all... a possibility that gnawed at me with suspicion.

"As I said before, I escaped," she began, her expression a mask of conflicting emotions. "Things aren’t what they seem anymore in the Empire. The once shining beacon of order has descended into chaos. I sought safety within the academy’s walls, and knowing the dangers lurking outside, they took me in without much question." A small, sad smile flickered across her lips for a fleeting moment.

"What’s going on outside these walls?" I asked, a deep sense ...apprehension creeping into my gut. The carefree life I’d envisioned at the academy suddenly felt like a distant dream.

"Chaos, a maelstrom you wouldn’t believe," she whispered, her voice barely a tremor above the groan of the settling building. Her hands trembled ever so slightly, betraying the fear that lurked beneath her brave facade. "I discovered your presence here a month ago, after a whisper reached my father – rumors of a student stolen through a gate, possibly by THEM." Her voice hitched on the last word, a tremor of terror lacing it. "The Emperor, my father, pried deeper and discovered it was the banished son, the Evans boy, returned with his mana core intact. An anomaly, since everyone who’s been taken through the gates never returns whole. He wanted to bring you back by force, his motives still unclear, but the academy resisted."

"So you came here the moment you knew it was me?" I asked, disbelief coloring my tone.

"Yes," she replied, her gaze hardening for a split second before softening again. But then, a flicker of urgency crossed her features, replacing the feigned composure. "We can’t stay here, Ryan. The prophecy is coming true, the walls between realities are crumbling. This is why I was able to escape so eas-

"Yes," she replied, her gaze hardening for a split second before softening again. But then, a flicker of urgency crossed her features, replacing the feigned composure. "We can’t stay here, Ryan. The prophecy is coming true, things are no longer what the werr. This is why I was able to escape so easily – order is dissolving. Both worlds are colliding."

"What?" The word escaped my lips in a strangled gasp.