It no longer mattered whether they had been on the same path. They were all dead anyway, and the choices the four Masters had made in the past had become history. There was not much to say about them.
Things went far more smoothly than expected. Whether Su Ming's terms were truly tempting or the Ministry of Magic's name carried enough credibility, when he said he wanted to take away the many sealed emotions, all but A'San agreed after a brief consideration. A'San alone voiced a slight objection.
They also filled in the rest of the story about that transfer student from four hundred years ago, including how the child, as a user of Ancient Magic, had fought an evil goblin seeking to obtain the emotional legacy and wipe out humanity, then sacrificed himself in the vault while reinforcing the emotional seal after the battle.
Another classic case of working alone while bypassing the Ministry of Magic. If they had called for help back then, that transfer student would not have died.
None of the four paintings had seen the battle itself. They only knew that the transfer student and a professor named Fitz had gone into the deeper underground sealing vault and never returned.
Principal Blake later told the four portraits about it. Apparently, the evil goblin had absorbed all the emotions and transformed into a monstrous Dragon. Many Hogwarts professors had wanted to reinforce the transfer student, but they had been held back by the villain's goblin army.
In the end, the transfer student and Professor Fitz faced a super monster that controlled emotional energy. Though they won, the emotions overflowed after the battle and had to be sealed again immediately, or they might have caused a terrifying Great Sundering.
So the two, dragging their severely wounded bodies,