Meanwhile, above Malfarothian Stadium, faint reverberations fluctuated through the shadow mana dome, trickling down the shadowy veil and weakly into the ground below. The mass of people, clad in the merchandise of Kurai Melody's band, stood in utter bewilderment at finding themselves abruptly outside. Confused murmurs and whispers from the fans crawled through the air, speculation filling the group's collective discussion as a few directly investigated the shadow mana dome.

  Among the crowd, Nola stood upon the drowsy Minia's shoulders, using her sister to raise her sights above the droves of music fans and giving herself a clear view of the shadow veil. Nola scoured her fiery gaze across the veil, searching it for any opening or weak point she could exploit. She clicked her tongue in frustration, damming the veil for its traversal block and forcing her hand as she shifted her eyes to their God of Fate mode.

  As Nola's vision shifted to a silvery hue, silhouettes of all the surrounding individuals appeared, showing Nola the peoples' future movements with them slowly lagging behind their silhouettes. She furrowed her brows in bewilderment, her eyes locking onto the shadow veil as a chill ran down her spine. With waves of unease hitting her in tow, Nola's fate vision revealed the blurry slithers of persian green and dark azure blue swirls within the shadow mana veil.

  The slithers were like a tangled web of intersecting courses of fate, intricately weaved together and infuriatingly designed to prevent her from seeing through them. Nola slumped her shoulders, her expression soured with discontent at feeling directly targeted by one of Kukorama and his lackeys.

  "Those things again?" Nola uttered, covering her mouth to muffle her words.

  "What thing?" Minia asked groggily.

  "You remember the Great Sea Era?" Nola grumbled as she deactivated her keither eyes.

  "Oh, that thing," Minia remarked nonchalantly before yawning and closing her eyes. Seeing any further discussion with her sister was mute, Nola huffed defeatedly and plonked her hands firmly on her hips with a small slap, her grip tightening as her annoyance grew.

  Her agitated mannerisms made her mood evident, but the feelings slowly faded as she resumed scrutinizing the shadow veil. With her focus back on the veil, Nola noticed something, catching the minor ripple travelling across the veil. She followed the ripples' path with self-directed disappointment before a hearty sigh escaped her lips all at once. High above the dome, a gleaming yellow light hung suspended in the air, obnoxiously obvious it bordered on insulting Nola's intelligence.

  "How'd we... I miss that?" Nola remarked, causing her sister to snap an eye open. Minia gazed up at her sister, torn between amusement, curiosity, and anger at the implication of Nola's change in pronoun. Seeing how deep in thought Nola was, Minia rolled her heavy eyes and smirked as she decided to let what little anger she had go.

  "I should be mad... but you're right, I would never have noticed Solus," Minia remarked cheekily with a sly grin. Nola rolled her eyes at Minia's remark, deciding not to humour her with a response verbal retort. Instead, Nola responded by wrapping her scarf around Minia's waist before levitating up towards Solus with Minia dangling behind her, leaving her limbs to hang like a helpless cat's would.

  Within the pulsing spiral of spirit-aligned light mana, Solus reeled a fist, gathering his ambient spirit mana together. Channelling the mana with ease, he funnelled it into his fist and allowed it to flow through him as he kept his line of sight locked on the small crack in the dome.

  Solus tensed up his body, enveloping himself in a layer of shimmering light mana that functioned like a second skin. As the energy beamed off his body, he steeled himself, letting out a slow drawn-out breath before zipping away.

  Solus burst through the air like a comet, his body a blur of light as he raced towards the shadowy dome. The shimmering mana enveloping him hummed like a choir as it left a trail of glowing particles in his wake. As he neared the dome, Solus clenched his fist, mustering all his strength and unleashed an untraceable punch. His fist collided with the veil, unleashing all of his charged-up mana into it.

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  The impact erupted through the dome's shadowy surface, imprinting a spider web of colossal cracks into it as Solus' mana surged through it and cracked it further. The cracks seeped across the dome, spreading over and overtaking half of it as Solus's mana surged out of them. However, despite the devastation Solus dealt, the cracks on the shadow veil didn't last and swiftly restored itself to a prior state.

  "Well... talk about a tough nut," a snarky and bratty-sounding woman taunted, her voice dripping with amusement as it permeated through Solus' mind. Solus groaned involuntarily, the emergence of the snarky woman's voice filling the teen with exhaustion. The echoes of her voice rippled through his mind, the mere idea of dealing with her, delivering more damage to Solus than he had done to the shadow veil.

  "I believe people say cookie nowadays," a male stated calmly, his voice a deeper-sounding version of Solus' voice.

  "You don't say? But they're not really known for being tough; although, whom am I to nitpick words?" the bratty voice retorted cheekily.

  "Do you lot mind?" Solus grumbled, gripping with tearing the bratty being out of his soul and having her deal with the shadow veil.

  "Sorry," the group uttered in unison before Solus felt the group's presence slink away. Solus lowered his gaze to the shadow veil, glaring at the minor crack left in it beside his foot.

  "I know you're my kid and all, but could you show some restraint?" Minia requested. At the mere sound of the inky-kitsune, Solus flinched, jumping to his feet on the shadow veil and reflexively reverting to his base form. He briefly cleared his throat before he turned to face his mother and aunt.

  "Don't listen to her, your gramps would gladly repair any collateral you'd cause if it meant saving Master Lola," Zalka mentioned as she and Kunai popped their head out from behind Minia's tails.

  "I doubt granny would let him, given his condition," Solus retorted, causing Zalka's cheeks to turn a light shade of pink.

  "True... but Zalina could do it instead?" Zalka offered as she awkwardly raised her arms and tails into a weird-looking shrug. Solus raised an eyebrow, his now blonde eyes with lime iris' focusing on the bizarre expression Zalka had managed to contort her wobbly smile into.

  "So... any other ideas?" Solus asked while scratching the back of his head. He averted his gaze from the embarrassed kitsune ego and turned it to Nola, leaving Zalka to awkwardly stand behind Minia as her face got pinker and pinker from shame. Nola placed a hand to one of her ears and pulled at it, allowing it to boing like a spring as she mulled over what to do.

  "Not at the moment... but if Pop and Ma haven't come to deal with it the moment that masked person appeared, then it'll probably be fine," Nola explained calmly. Despite saying things would be fine, Nola's concern was as plain as day on her face, not giving Solus the best of impressions.

  "So, we should stop the princess' butlers I take it?" Solus asked wearily.

  "They aren't going to do what you were doing are they?" Minia retorted, averting her gaze to the sky and looking for any sign of the butlers. Solus shook his head, denying his mother's question as a wave of relief washed over him.

  "No, they just flew past me, saying something about Candy Catz sweets," Solus uttered worriedly, rubbing the back of his head once again. The mention of such a sweet caused Nola to raise her brows. She knew the exact confections the princess' were after, and the distance required to obtain them from their current location.

  "Yeah, they aren't coming back for a while... oh wait," Nola remarked snarkily, her tone travelling from fake worry to contentious glee. She raised a hand above her head and snapped her fingers with a commanding crackle. A conjuration of her Dimensional Portals portal formed over her head before a torrent of wind erupted from them. The mentioned duo shoot out of the rainbow portal like bullet trains, carrying bags of cat-themed candy with bubbles of mana.

  "Guess they're faster than I gave them credit for," Nola murmured, a sly smirk manifesting on her lips as she pointed to the shadowy dome. "Oi, Number Mech, scan this thing for me.". Xero darted his visor to the Nola, delivering her a swift bow of acknowledgement.

  He robotically passed his mana bubble to Tokui, practically shoving it in the dragon's face and knocking the floating dragon off his balance. Lowering the output of his thrusters, Xero descended through the air and hovered over the shadow dome as the entirety of his visor turned a solid blue.

  The mecha began his inspection, leaving the others to their own devices as he worked. Nola peered down to the gathering below, watching them with minor annoyance and concern etched into her eyes. She glanced at Solus, who groaned as he knew what she wanted from him. He swung his head back, resigning himself to crowd control as he coated himself in black mana before jumping off the dome and slow-falling towards the crowd.