"You are not allowed inside."

"You have said that twice already."

"Then why don't you leave?"

"Because I have an appointment with Aiko." A man in his young twenties sighed in frustration. His eyes were fixed on the two women in front of him who denied him from entering the room behind them.

They stared back at him expressionlessly and firmly stood on their spots. One could even say that the two of them were dead set on not allowing the man inside no matter what.

'Maybe I should've come prepared…' He sighed for the second time, his eyes looking at the gate behind the two women.

It was a plain blue metal door with nothing special about it, not even a single design or pattern visible on it. Anyone could have such a door in their house and no one would spare it a second glance.

"Lord Noah, her highness specifically told us to not allow anyone to enter her room for the next week. If you have an appointment with her, please show us some sort of proof." One of the women finally replied with a stern expression, her eyes fixed on Noah's face.

Noah could only massage his forehead as he had heard the same words twice already. He would have produced a proof the first time, that was if he had one.

"Aiko, why do you always do this to me…" He muttered under his breath while trying to think of some way to get past the two women.

His mind went through a collection of ideas which went from asking the women on a date to straight-up burning them in a nuclear explosion.

"Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have come to get you. You look as though you are minutes away from creating a master plan." A teasing female voice suddenly entered Noah's ears, making the hair on his back stand up.

"Aiko…" Noah murmured before turning back to look at the owner of the voice.

Aiko was a beautiful woman who looked as though she was in her twenties, even though she was much older than that. Her face mostly had a teasing or a playful expression whenever she would meet with Noah.

"Who else could it be?" Aiko asked while cocking an eyebrow. "Not like you know anyone else here."

Noah's jaw twitched a little but he had the perfect reply ready to do the same to her.

"The same goes for you. Do you even know how many people are here currently?"

"All right, all right." Aiko raised her hands in surrender before offering her right hand to him. "Let's just go."

"But my lady..." One of the women began interrupting but when she saw the look Aiko gave her, she shut her mouth.

Noah smiled slightly over his victory before he held Aiko's hand without any hesitation. Her soft, slightly tanned skin came in contact with his hand yet Noah maintained his cool.

"Hmm, that's a new look." He commented while looking up and down Aiko's body.

She was wearing a purple dress that tightly clung to her body and highlighted her womanly curves. It was also split at the right upper thigh, thus showing plenty of her legs as well.

Noah wasn't interested in any of those as his eyes curiously moved towards her face. Aiko had her amber red hair tied back in a ponytail and her ocean blue eyes seemed to be sparkling a bit.

"Mhm, I was getting bored of the previous looks. Doesn't hurt to try something new." Aiko shrugged before focusing a bit. Noah suddenly felt the ground slip away under his feet as his body hovered in the air.

His vision went black for a few seconds yet he didn't panic. He had experienced the same thing in the past and remained still until his feet touched the ground again and his vision returned.

Noah found himself standing in a concrete closed room with no source of light inside it. Every inch of the room was cut off from the outside, making it impossible for anyone to look inside either.

"You want to talk about the past again?" Noah asked in a gentle voice as he knew that every time Aiko took him to the bricked-up room, she wanted both of them to talk about the past.

She wanted to make sure that no one would be able to hear them. That way they would be able to talk more comfortably and not have anyone eavesdropping on them.

"We will talk about the past," she replied slowly. "But it won't be mine. We will talk about yours."

Noah blinked in surprise as he hadn't expected Aiko to ask him such a thing directly.

"What do you want to talk about?" he got over it rather quickly since he knew that Aiko wouldn't ask such a thing if it wasn't related to anything important.

"If you had the power to undo every regret of your life, would you do it, and if yes, what are the things that you would change?" Aiko's gaze aligned with Noah's and he was able to tell that she was being completely serious.

Noah didn't even have to wrack his brain to remember the regrets he had made in his life. After all, the biggest and most painful of them were etched in his soul, haunting him whenever he would stop to think about his life.

"The first thing I would do was to choose the right alliance. The second would be to save all of 'them' alongside others I held dear. The third would be to kill every single one of my enemies and ascend here again."

Noah had a strange glint in his eyes as he remembered all of the regrets he had in his life. The time when he had seen those who he loved dying in his arms, his screams and cries of agony roaring through the heavens.

Even worse was the time when he had come back home only to find the dead body of his best friend lying at his doorstep. A letter written in blood lay right beside his body, the words still etched in his memories.

Aiko already knew why he had chosen those three things. She had listened to every major moment of Noah's life through his very own mouth.

"Noah, do you know why I met you the moment you entered the palace of time?" Aiko suddenly went off-topic as she placed her right hand on Noah's shoulder.

"You said it was due to my handsome looks." He replied immediately, making Aiko smile.

"That was what I told you back then. The real reason was that you had gone through the same things as me. But where my power got to a whole new level and stagnated, yours was left suppressed under a mountain of pain."

"I don't get what you are trying to say…" Despite saying that, Noah had a feeling that if he tried hard enough, he could understand what Aiko was trying to say. He was acting dense on purpose.

"Noah, you are the only spirit magician I have known who has climbed from the Mortal Realm to the top 10 of the palace of time. The reason I approached you back then was due to my selfishness.

But the more I got to know you, I was reminded of myself. However, there is one major difference between us." Aiko suddenly paused as though considering what to speak next.

"That you are a woman and I am a man?" Noah asked half-jokingly yet he felt her words awakening something inside him.

"That and the fact that you are the first human I have met who has an affinity with time. Sadly, you never got to awaken your true powers due to your human bloodline." Aiko smiled sadly as she saw the expression of shock on Noah's face.

"That means…" he started saying but his voice soon trailed off. It was as though the idea on its own seemed impossible to Noah and his body refused to say it aloud.

"You can go back in time, that is if you are provided with enough energy and a fellow time magician," Aiko finished his sentence yet he didn't look convinced.

"But I have a human bloodline." He pointed out the same thing Aiko had reminded him of.

"And that's where I come into play." Aiko grinned excitedly. "Being in seclusion for so long is finally going to pay off."

Noah opened his mouth slightly and closed it. The entire thing sounded like a cheap fantasy plot created by a thirteen-year-old but despite that, he could feel the excitement running inside his blood.

Noah knew that Aiko was also a time magician, albeit one with a weaker affinity. But if she stored her energy for more than a century, she could have enough power to do the impossible.

"When do we start?" Noah finally managed to get some words out of his throat after repeated tries.

"We start now. First thing," Aiko's hand suddenly slid down his shoulder and appeared at the first button of his shirt. "Take off your clothes~"