Her eyes shot open.
Her whole body lurched upright as air tore through her throat. She could not stop shaking. Lucifer's face was still burned into her mind. She had been swallowed by that black hole with no way out and no reason to believe she would survive.
But she did. Somehow she did. And the relief of being alive was so overwhelming that she forgot where she was entirely.
The door to her hospital room burst open.
A nurse rushed in, her eyes landing on the heart monitor. She crossed the room fast, hands already reaching out to her.
"It's okay, you're safe. You need to lie back down, your body needs—"
Her words cut off.
Conquest's hand shot out and closed around her throat. The nurse clawed at her fingers, legs kicking uselessly beneath her.
"P— please! Let m—"
The words fell on deaf ears. Her eyes remained distant, still trapped in the last moment before everything went dark.
The heart monitor screamed beside them, the beeping collapsing into one long continuous wail. Her arms swung out instinctively and the needles buried in both arms tore free.
The nurse's face had gone completely pale, her mouth opening and closing without sound.
Conquest blinked as she realized what she had just done. A woman was hanging from her hand, tears streaming continuously.
The last thing she remembered before waking up was Lucifer's face inches from her own. The rage she felt in that moment must have carried over into the waking world, and her body locked onto the first thing that got close.
She let go of her throat instantly.
The young nurse grabbed the nearest surface to keep herself upright, coughing and dragging air back into her lungs.
On the other hand, all Conquest could do was watch. She had done something horrible to this young woman who had only been trying to help her. She wanted to say something, anything, but no words came to mind.
She thought maybe she could at least apologize but it felt like something she would never do, but maybe Yuki Ayano would, so perhaps she should attempt to do so.
"Uh..I..I'm s..sor—"
Apologizing felt impossible. It went against her nature as a ruler. She would rather die than apologize. The worst part was that the memories of Yuki Ayano almost drove her to apologize. That one act almost made her vomit. Had she always been this awful? It certainly felt that way.
The nurse scrambled to her feet and shoved past someone at the doorway, her sobs echoing down the corridor behind her.
A man stepped inside. Snow clung to the fur lining of his black hooded jacket. His golden eyes moved across the wrecked room before settling on her.
Conquest narrowed her eyes at him, hands still resting in her lap. He was a sorcerer, there was no doubt about that. But the trace of mana coming off him was almost nonexistent. The katana on his side had glyphs carved into the handle.
She could tell It was a relic item, though the mana it demanded was barely worth mentioning.
On second thought, this man is no doctor. So what business does he have in my hospital room?
"Who are you?"
He pushed his circular sunglasses up with one finger and sighed.
"You seemed stronger on TV…"
He turned around and walked out, closing the door behind him.
"What a waste of time. I'm leaving."
Her eyes lit up in shock. That was the second time someone had called her weak. However, this time it stung more coming from a pathetic looking human.
She launched off the bed so hard the frame snapped beneath her. Two steps and her hand was on the door handle, ready to rip it open and chase him down.
But a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror caught her eye and froze her in place, her hospital gown still swaying from the sudden motion.
She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her hair was blonde. Not white. Blonde. The same color Yuki had carried her entire life. But the face staring back at her still belonged to Conquest. Older, sharper, in other words a woman in her late twenties. The black crown, however, was still there.
Another thing that bothered her was her eyes. They were no longer black. They had reverted back to Yuki's deep ocean blues.
At the very least her height had not changed. It would have been embarrassing to insult that man's stature while being short herself. She was still as tall as she had been when she first transformed.
That was the one relief she could hold on to. But her hair and eyes were wrong. Completely wrong!
Then she heard it. Screams and heavy footsteps closing in down the corridor. She opened the door and looked to her right. The nurse she had choked was marching toward her, flanked by several police officers.
"Officers, that's her! That's the woman who attacked me!"
Conquest raised an eyebrow. She had just woken up a couple of minutes ago and there were already guns pointed at her. Over choking one nurse? She almost wanted to laugh at how ridiculous this was.
The officers raised their M60 revolvers, ready to fire on command. They wore blue uniforms with black vests, their expressions tense but disciplined. None of them moved without instruction.
Then a figure stepped through from behind them. He was an older man, dressed in a dark blue uniform decorated with medals and insignia that marked him well above the rank of anyone else in the corridor. He was most likely the superintendent.
A hat sat low on his head, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes. A white surgical mask covered his mouth, and black gloves wrapped both of his hands.
He raised his palm toward the officers.
"Hold your fire. Wait for my signal."
The officers in the area stiffened and lowered their weapons slightly.
Conquest narrowed her eyes. Something was wrong. She could feel it. The mana coming off this old man was thick and rotten, nothing like what a human body would produce. It didn't flow the way a sorcerer would either. His mana leaked from him in such a way that made her skin crawl.
This man was no superintendent. A demon had taken his place. She was sure of it. It had devoured the real one and shapeshifted into him. And for what? To walk into a hospital and take her out while she was still recovering.
Bastard!
Still, she couldn't help but almost respect the timing. This was truly the best opportunity for any demon to kill her. She was weak, her mana was still recovering, and no matter how hard she tried the white ring on her pinky finger refused to respond. If there was ever a time to strike, it was now.
The officers kept their eyes forward, unaware that the superintendent had turned his head toward her. He pulled his surgical mask down just enough to flash a row of sharp, jagged teeth, as he grinned at her.
I knew it. This thing isn't human.
"Fire!!"
Bullets tore through the corridor. The first three shattered on impact, dissolving into nothing. Her passive barrier held. A laugh escaped her lips as relief flooded through her chest.
"Would you look at that, my passive barrier is still in effect." A grin spread across her face. "I wouldn't bother wasting your bullets on me. It's pointless."
The superintendent's eyes flickered behind his sunglasses.
"Keep shooting! Do not listen to her!"
Conquest stepped forward. As she marched straight into the hail of gunfire, each bullet crumbled against her projectile negation. The superintendent shuffled back, positioning himself behind his officers.
"What? Too scared to face me yourself?" She kept marching. "You wanted to kill me, didn't you? So face me, you coward!"
Then a bullet broke through.
It hit her square in the chest. The impact slammed her into the wall as blood sprayed across her hospital gown and rushed up her throat, forcing a violent cough that splattered across her fingers.
Her projectile negation had never failed her. Not even against Death himself. It was the one thing she never had to think about, the one certainty she carried into every fight. And yet a single bullet, fired from a human weapon, had torn through it.
The corridor went quiet as the officers stopped firing.
W...wha— this…this can't be possible!