Shoulder to Shoulder.

—

Shaking her head and sighing to herself looking at this girl, Emma Frost walked with Luna Lovegood into Tian Xing's office, where thousands of sisters were seated at their desks, analyzing the river of fate strings related to the Nameless race research. Each sister read the strings one by one, comprehending the knowledge to advance it further and produce new strings to send into the river. Observing the army of comprehenders, which her husband had described as his dream, Emma saw him still being cradled by elder sister Margarita, who was also assisting with the research.

Noticing that the Yin Confusion and Yang Contradiction caused by staying in the dark side had somewhat diminished, easing her husband's migraines and allowing him to act normally, Emma took a seat on a sofa desk beside Luna Lovegood to advance the comprehension herself. From time to time, she sipped her favorite unique wine at her own desk, which essentially served as their small room where they could conduct research while enjoying some leisure time. Observing the ranking of contributions and realizing that elder sister Margarita remained the most significant contributor after her husband, Emma sighed, acknowledging that elder sister Margarita was truly the matriarch who brought them all together.

Despite how fractured her mind might be at the moment, Emma recognized that elder sister Margarita's subconscious actions were still those of a matriarch. Although Tian Ming Dao was personally taught to her by her husband, the knowledge given to the Serene Lotus Pavilion members was all that Tian Xing knew at the moment, giving Emma and the other sisters a fair chance to become the second-highest practitioners of Tian Ming Dao.

Looking at elder sister Margarita in the center of the office, who, despite all her suffering, was still able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tian Xing in contributions while cradling their husband, Emma vowed never to allow the same fate to befall her matriarch or to let her name be disgraced. She made this vow regardless of what might happen in the future, for elder sister Margarita's own goodness and for the pavilion as a whole, to ensure that their Tian Ming Dao could keep up with their husband's rapid advancement.

Especially if their husband, Tian Xing, allowed such things to happen and was foolish enough to let the love of his life become broken, Emma vowed in her heart that she would not allow even a hair on elder sister Margarita to be touched if her husband became a true devil. Reflecting on the person who had acted as the representative to break elder sister Margarita alongside their husband, Emma felt a complex mix of emotions seeing Mai Shiranui, whose indomitable will had been shattered and who now often glanced at her hands that had committed those acts.

At the end of the day, Mai Shiranui represented all the sisters' desires to kill elder sister Margarita and take her place in their husband's heart. Even Emma Frost herself, if given the chance to be reincarnated into a similar position of power, would have likely acted much worse than Mai Shiranui. This made Emma and all her sisters unworthy of controlling their dark desires, unlike Mai, who managed to control her impulses and not replace elder sister Margarita as the true queen.

The fact that even elder sister Tsunade did not assist during the ordeal, demonstrated the extent of the hatred Emma Frost and the other sisters harbored towards elder sister Margarita, to the point where they found her humiliation and death acceptable. Moreover, elder sister Margarita never fought to keep her place, which made Emma tear up as she recalled their two thousand years together and reflected on both her subconscious and conscious actions, where she had tried her best to replace elder sister Margarita in their husband's heart.

Looking at elder sister Margarita, whom she and all the other sisters had manipulated for thousands of years, now in a pod with Tian Xing always beside her, Emma found herself unable to reflect on her actions at that time. She noticed that sister Nadine had nodded to the other sisters, signaling that they could now begin the fusion process. Holding Luna Lovegood on her right and another version of herself on her left, Emma Frost nodded to both of them before allowing herself to become one with elder sister Margarita's mind.

"Margarita… M-melody… Wake up…"

Opening her eyes in confusion and seeing her husband, Margarita suddenly received a large influx of characteristics and existence from all five thousand of her sisters. Knowing the procedure had succeeded without any mishaps, Margarita looked at her husband before tugging at the top of his hair, kissing him roughly, then spitting and slapping him, mimicking what he had done to her. Observing her hand, which was capable of these actions not merely for reprimand, she then saw her junior sister, Diana Prince, emerge from her body before speaking.

"So? Can my elder sister Rita control these dark emotions? If not, let me handle it."

Shaking her head, Margarita replied, "No. It must come from me. If not, my husband will never forgive himself and will remain stagnant for the rest of his life, unable to stand tall against all creations in the future."

Nodding in acknowledgment, finding that her elder sister was able to restrain herself, Diana Prince said, "Okay then, elder sister Margarita. Just make this session a short one. Some of the sisters who have characteristics of your previous self are crying in agony seeing my husband in such a state."

"Yeah, I know that."

Taking a deep breath to compose herself and to make her husband overcome his cowardly behavior, unlike last time when he never regretted a single thing he had done, Margarita, with a cold and emotionless face, began doing the same things he had done to her. She pierced all of his sensitive areas and made him wear a dog collar to parade around the house, inflating his body with Yin Essence.

However, when she employed her own Tian Ming Dao, which was now equal to her husband's, she saw him in an illusion as if he were in dark mode. In reality, her husband had Yang Light Desire, which had become broken because of her actions. Margarita immediately cleaned Tian Xing's body and released all of her sisters to hug him, wailing in agony, with now they were the ones crying tears of blood from the intense and depressing emotions.

"Four thousand nine hundred ninety-four piercings to go. Fifty thousand two hundred ninety-two Yin Essence to go. Two hundred thousand slaps–"

"STOP IT! P-please, s-stop it. O-once is e-enough, husband."

"No, if my melody wants to become my equal–"

"Screw equal relationships! I just want to see you have the firm Dao Heart once again! P-please, l-listen to my wishes… P-please…"

—