Conscious of this Déjà Vu

Beta's just meeting an alternate version of a man she's met before. Phantom, on the other hand, sees Aria with red eyes. – Phantom/Beta.

On the island of Ereve, where the Cygnus Knights train and grow their strengths to face the Black Mage, both the empress and the tactician are busy greeting the new Transcendents of Time.

Correction: they're talking to one of the two new Transcendents – the male one named Zero-Alpha.

Beta's crawling around on her hands and knees a distance away behind the dome where no one really passes, searching for her hair band and ignoring what Lapis says about grass stains looking unappetizing because she needs her hair tie. It slipped out of her hands while she was retying her hair and now she can't find it because of the thick grass growing on the floating Island of Ereve.

How troublesome. Alpha's discussing something with the tactician – Neinheart – and she doesn't want to bother him over something this trivial, but it looks like she may have to sometime soon. She can't fight without her hair tie and even if Alpha doesn't call her stupid as much as he used to, she doesn't want him to be frustrated with her for not fighting properly.

Ergo, she must find that hair tie.

"Is this what you're looking for?" a whimsical and familiar voice asks her rather loftily.

She looks up from her crawling position on the ground. It's that thief she and Alpha met in the Mirror World's Ariant, and in one hand he's twirling her hair band around fluently.

"Oh. Hello, you," Beta says and gets up to her feet. In the Maple World this thief doesn't know her. "Phantom, right? I'm Zero-Beta."

He doesn't answer. He's staring at her like he's a bit shocked. Alpha would say that he's seen a ghost.

Whatever he's seen he's too occupied to give her hair band back to her. "Can I have that back?" she asks, pointing.

"Hm? Oh, this? Right, here you go."

Taking it with a small thanks and a smile like Alpha does she begins to retie her hair when he hands her a rose. "You should smile a bit more," he says softly. "It suits you well."

That's a compliment, right? "Thank you," she says and has to release her gathered hair to take the red flower from him.

Phantom salutes her and then countless cards surround his entire body before he disappears completely.

Huh. It seems that Phantom is flamboyant in both worlds.

Tucking the rose away carefully in a pocket, she begins to tie her hair back again.

Because Mirror World!Phantom flirts with Beta and it's cute. That, and in the animation video when Beta falls from the broken ice she looks so much like Aria.

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