The skeleton rubbed his smooth skull again and sighed. "I had no way of predicting this. She should actually have known that even if she killed Laio, she wouldn't die."
"Because to her, being locked away forever was more terrifying than death."
"I know that, but I never expected her to go to such extremes. That's the flaw of the Wise Ones. The harder you try to calculate how something will unfold down to the last detail, the more potential flaws there tend to be in your plan."
"Are you making excuses for yourself?"
"Think whatever you like. It doesn't really make any difference to me. I've been through similar things before. As long as I don't Look-Away at the crucial turning points, that's enough.
"Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. Once I leave, I'll pick up my brush immediately and paint the scene of our battle today."
"The scene... of our battle?"
Kallen didn't think he and the other man had really fought, if that could even be called a fight.
"I'll take plenty of artistic liberties. Hehe. I think that thirty years from now, this painting will utterly enchant me. Or perhaps it won't take thirty years. It might happen sooner.
"If there were a voice-over,
"I would want the voice at this moment to say:
"This was a meeting destined to go down in history."
Whoom!
A black vortex appeared beneath the skeleton's feet, and his body began to sink. Before he disappeared completely, he left one last remark:
"Perhaps there was something unusual about the death of this Little Girl's father."
As he left, Kallen sensed a dense series of cracking sounds all around him. These were the sounds of the defensive formations being stripped away. Clearly, the other man was cleaning up.
Kallen pressed