Royal Secret: I'm a Princess!

[THAT blasted Commander Ruto is still in Neoma's room at this hour?]

Nero wanted to go to Neoma's palace and dragged that commander out of his twin sister's room.

He didn't care if the two were lovers.

He didn't care if Neoma wanted to marry Commander Ruto.

Nero would still hate whoever his precious twin sister ended up marrying.

[It's okay if Neoma ends up having a child in the future because I'm pretty sure I'll end up loving a child who looks like her. Since our blood is the strongest bloodline in the human world, it's already certain that Neoma's child would inherit the de Moonasterion traits.]

"Are you sure about that?"

Nero frowned when he appeared again.

By 'he,' he meant the older Emperor Nero that Princess Neoma– the older version from the first timeline– had left for him as a "gift."

"Why are you still here?" Nero asked, frowning. "I don't need you."

"I don't care about your opinion," Emperor Nero, who was sitting on the sofa as if he owned the place, said haughtily. The old emperor was in his Spirit form and yet, his aura and big presence filled Nero's vast bedroom. "I do what I want. That is what it means to be an emperor."

"If Neoma was here, she'd say that's what you call a 'tyrant.'"

"Well, listening to me and following my orders would always be for the sake of the empire and its people. If that is what it means to be a tyrant, so be it."

"Neoma would hate your guts."

"Unlike you, I did not love my twin sister so it does not matter if she ends up hating me," the old emperor said. "I may have loved her during my final moments, but not as much as how you adore the Neoma of this world."

"It was your wish, wasn't it?"

"My wish?"

"I retrieved some fragments of my memories recently," Nero said, pausing for a moment before gathering his thoughts. "And I remember your final moments."

To be precise, he could still hear the conversation that Emperor Nero and the Neoma of the first timeline had before the old emperor drew his last breath…

["I wish for us to be reborn as twins again, Neoma."]

["Are you trying to curse me?"]

["I promise to be a better brother to you the next time we meet again. I will love you to death, dote on you until you get tired of me, and kill anyone and everyone in the world for you."]

["That sounds scary."]

["Are you crying, Neoma?"]

["Shut up. I don't need you to love me the next time we meet– just don't die before me again, okay? You have to outlive me and you have to be happier than me."]

["Well, you have a point. We were born together, so we should also leave this world together. See you later, my baby sister."]

"Ah, your last didn't come true, though," Nero said to the old Emperor Nero, smirking. "You weren't born as Neoma's older brother, so you didn't gain the right to call her your "baby sister.""

Emperor Nero gave her a dire stare. "Why do you look so proud? We're the same person. If I'm not Neoma's older brother, then so are you."

Nero scoffed at that stupid comparison. "Unlike you, I actually grew up being a proper brother to Neoma. Hence, even though she was born first, I still gained the right to be called her older brother."

"I'm done talking to you," the old emperor said, standing up. "Let's go."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere with you."

"As I said earlier, I'm the emperor so I do what I want," Emperor Nero said, snapping his fingers. "I only have a limited time here, so I want to meet her."

Nero immediately glared at the older emperor. "The Neoma of this world is mine–"

"I want to see my mother."

Oh.

***

HMM?

Mona looked around when a sudden shift in the air blew their way.

Even Nikolai, who was getting ready to join her in bed, suddenly got alarmed.

[We can't tell whose presence this belongs to, so it's a little worrying.]

But both Mona and Nikolai were relieved when Nero suddenly appeared out of thin air…

… but their precious son wasn't alone.

There were two Neros standing before them now.

The first one was, of course, their young son.

And the other one…

"Greetings, Imperial Father," the older Nero greeted Nikolai politely, then his ash-gray eyes landed on Mona's face. His cold face softened up as he greeted her. "This is the first time I get to greet you in person, Imperial Mother."

Mona covered her mouth with her hands when the realization hit her.

[This is the Nero of the first timeline!]

In the first timeline, Mona died because no one actually knew that she was stuck under the Black Ocean.

Hence, she had never met her children and vice-versa.

"I apologize for greeting you at this hour," the older Nero said awkwardly. "Please excuse my rudeness–"

Her older son stopped talking when Mona suddenly hugged him. "You don't have to apologize, Nero," she whispered softly between sobs. "You're always welcome to come and see me– to see us, my son."

***

NIKOLAI felt a pang in his chest while watching Mona hug their son.

The one who came from the first timeline.

[And the son I failed to protect…]

"It was the other Neoma's present for me," Nero, their young son, explained while standing next to him. "Emperor Nero will stay here for a certain period. I don't know what he's planning, though, for meeting you like this."

"What do you mean by that, son?"

"I'm sure that old emperor has an ulterior motive for coming here."

Haaah.

[Nero is a great emperor for his age, but he still has a lot to learn about empathy and other forms of love.]

As Nero's father, it was his duty to teach his son some great lessons in life.

[I can't just rely on Neoma when it comes to teaching Nero about emotions.]

Nikolai gently patted Nero's shoulder. "Son, your older version simply wants to meet your mother because you didn't get the chance to meet her in the first timeline," he explained. "Nero, even a great emperor gets reduced to a child in front of their mother– and it seems like it was a good lesson that the you of the first timeline had learned in his later years."

***

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