[February 5, 2006]
6:58 PM
The first thing Rossweisse heard after the teleportation circle spat them out into the attic was Natsume screaming. It was a raw and ruined sound, a sound that seemed too large to fit inside the narrow space beneath the roof of the restaurant, and it tore at the wooden beams and old dust as though it meant to shake the whole building apart.
Rossweisse staggered once as her boots struck the floorboards, her arms locked tightly beneath Natsume's knees and shoulders, holding the girl in a princess carry that would have looked almost gentle if there had not been so much blood. There was blood on Natsume's blouse, blood on Rossweisse's sleeves, blood soaking through the fabric at her stomach where the light spear had pierced her cleanly through.
The pain had stolen all dignity from Natsume Minagawa. She was still so young, still new to the world that had swallowed her, not yet fully adapted to her devil body. The girl had been sharp-tongued and bright-eyed only moments ago, full of fear she tried to disguise as bravado, and now she was curled in Rossweisse's arms like a broken bird, blood soaking through her torn uniform while the wound in her belly glowed with a pale and hateful light.
"Natsume," Rossweisse said, and she hated how thin her voice sounded. "Natsume, listen to me, you must stay awake."
"No, no, no, please, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts," Natsume sobbed, her hands clawing at Rossweisse's arm with desperate strength. "Rossweisse, what's happening to me? I can't breathe. I can't breathe properly. Am I dying?!"
"You're hurt," Rossweisse said, forcing her voice to remain steady. "You're hurt very badly, Natsume, but you're not dying here. You must listen to me carefully. You are not dying here."
The attic smelled of dust, dried herbs, and faint traces of demonic power that clung to the room like smoke after a fire. Only a few days earlier, this same place had held prisoners taken from the Utsusemi Agency, Doumon Kazuhisa and those two Heaven Reavers who had learned too late that Meruem's curiosity was a crueler thing than most torturers' hatred. Now she was in that same attic with one of his newest peerage members bleeding beneath her hands, and Meruem was nowhere to be seen.
Her King…
Her King was dead. The announcement had come like a blade dropped into a chapel. One moment there had been battle, shouting, and the next Lavinia Reni had appeared amid the chaos with her face pale and her voice sharp and said words Rossweisse had not understood at first because understanding them would have meant accepting a world in which Meruem could die.
Meruem, who was…had seemed invincible. Meruem, who mocked the mightiest Satan to his face with impunity and killed devils centuries older than him with ease. He was dead. Natsume screamed again, and the grief vanished beneath the more immediate terror of blood, and a girl trembling beneath her hands.
No. Later, Rossweisse decided. She could grieve later.
"Rossweisse, please," Natsume whimpered as her eyes rolled in terror. "There is something inside me. It's burning. Please get it out. Please get it out of me."
"I know," Rossweisse said softly, pressing both hands around the wound and sending thin streams of cold demonic energy through Natsume's body. "I know it burns. I know it feels like it is eating you alive, but you must breathe for me. Slowly, Natsume. You must breathe slowly."
"I can't," Natsume gasped. "It hurts. I can't breathe."
"You can breathe," Rossweisse told her. "You're speaking to me, which means your lungs are still working. Focus on my voice and breathe slowly."
"I am going to die."
"No, you're not!" Rossweisse said sharply, more sharply than she had intended, because fear had made her voice brittle and the girl's panic was pulling at her own. "You are frightened, and you are in pain, and that's making you believe the worst possible thing. You're still alive. We've escaped. You're going to remain awake and listen to me, ok?"
Natsume shook her head wildly, tears cutting clean lines through the dust on her cheeks. "Don't lie to me. Please don't lie to me. Kuroka said Devils are weak against light, and I am a Devil now. I am a Devil because Meruem made me one, and now Meruem is dead, and I am going to die too because I was stupid enough to get hit by the one thing that can kill me."
"You're not stupid," Rossweisse said.
"I couldn't even dodge. I stood there panicking like an idiot!"
"You were caught in a battlefield filled with enemies attacking from every side, and even experienced warriors die under less chaotic circumstances."
Rossweisse knelt beside the mattress and lowered Natsume onto it as gently as she could, though the girl still screamed when her back touched the bedding. Her hawk, the manifestation of her Sacred Gear, burst from the shadows nearby with a shrill cry and landed near her shoulder, wings spread in protection. Its eyes burned with intelligence and fear, and Rossweisse found herself absurdly grateful for its presence.
"Stay close to her," Rossweisse told the hawk. "If your bond can help stabilize her life force, then do so now."
The hawk gave a sharp cry, as though it understood. Natsume tried to sit up. Rossweisse pressed a hand against her shoulder and forced her back down.
"No," Rossweisse said. "Don't move. Movement will only spread the light through your demonic pathway faster."
"That sounds bad," Natsume said, half laughing and half choking. "That sounds really, really bad."
"It is serious."
"Don't say it like that." Natsume's eyes went wide with terror. "Don't say serious. Say I'm fine. Say it's nothing."
Rossweisse swallowed. Her mouth had gone dry. "I am keeping you alive. Whatever it takes."
The wound had gone through Natsume's abdomen at an angle, entering beneath the ribs and tearing through flesh that had only recently become Devil flesh. Blood soaked the front of her clothes in dark, spreading heat, but the blood was not what frightened Rossweisse most. Around the puncture the skin had begun to glow faintly, threads of pale gold crawling outward through the veins like molten wire beneath thin paper. Fallen Angel light lacked the full sanctified purity of Heaven, yet it was still light, and Devils were creatures of darkness and sin. Such attacks were deadly.
Natsume had been human only recently and Meruem decided not to grant the new recruits Valerie's blessing. Her body had not yet learned how to endure being a Devil. It was a miracle she had survived the first minute. Rossweisse pressed both hands near the wound and began feeding controlled demonic energy into Natsume's body. The girl arched and screamed, and Rossweisse nearly withdrew on instinct.
"I am sorry," Rossweisse whispered. "I am sorry. I know it hurts. But I need to slow the spread."
"Stop it! Please stop it, please, please, please. It's burning me."
"I know. But If I stop, the light will continue to spread."
"STOP SAYING THAT!"
"I am sorry."
"No, I am sorry," Natsume sobbed, turning her face against the mattress. "I don't mean to yell. I am scared. I am so scared. I don't want to die in this attic. I don't want to die here after everything."
"You will not die in this attic," Rossweisse said, and wished she believed herself. "You are Natsume Minagawa, wielder of [Treacherous Gale], servant of House Beleth, and you are going to live long enough to complain about my bedside manner after this is over."
That earned a broken sound that might have been a laugh if it had not turned into another cry. Rossweisse forced herself to breathe evenly. The chaos returned to her in flashes. Hanezou Himejima and his soldiers pouring from every corridor. Utsusemi agents striking from hidden doors, from false walls, from everywhere at once. If it had only been Hanzo and his men, Rossweisse thought she, Kuroka, and the newly arrived Lavinia might have broken them, even with the others still inexperienced and scattered. They had enough power for that.
But then that… thing arrived. Rossweisse did not know what else to call it. A giant with four arms and six golden eyes. The moment Rossweisse had looked upon it, some part of her soul understood what her reason refused to accept. That was why my Meruem had died.
After that, everything had become flight and terror. The battlefield had changed shape around her. What had been dangerous became hopeless. She had grabbed the closest ally she could reach, and that ally had been Natsume, already pierced by a Fallen Angel's light spear and falling backward with blood on her lips. Rossweisse had teleported as quickly as she could. Now she was here, and the others were elsewhere.
Were they alive? Had they escaped? Could they escape?
Tobio and Kouki had only recently become Devils, and they had neither the skill nor the experience to flee monsters of that caliber alone. Their only real chance was if Kuroka or Lavinia had seized them as Rossweisse had seized Natsume and carried them away through teleportation. Rossweisse wanted to believe that had happened. Rossweisse dared not hope too much. Hope could become a cruelty if one leaned upon it too heavily.
"Rossweisse," Natsume breathed, voice thin and shaking. "Where are the others?"
"I don't know," she said with a heavy sigh.
"I left them," Natsume sobbed harder. "I left them there. I left Tobio and Kouki and everyone else."
"You didn't leave anyone," Rossweisse said firmly. "You were impaled and barely conscious. I carried you out because that was the only thing I could do at that moment."
"You should've taken Tobio," Natsume whispered. "Or Kouki. You should have taken someone useful."
"Don't say that."
"It's true. I'm useless like this."
Rossweisse leaned over her, feeling anger rise beneath her fear. "You will not speak about yourself that way in front of me! You are a member of master Meruem's peerage. You are one of ours. If I had found Tobio first, I would have taken Tobio. If I had found Kouki first, I would have taken Kouki. I found you, and so I took you. That is all there is to it."
Natsume whimpered, and Rossweisse looked down again. The girl's face had gone ashen. Sweat clung to her brow, and her breathing was too shallow.
"Stay with me," Rossweisse said sharply. "Natsume, look at me."
"I'm cold. I thought it would be hot, because it burns, but I'm cold."
"That means your demonic energy is being drained."
"That sounds worse."
"It means I know what is happening, and because I know what is happening, I can treat it."
Natsume blinked up at her, dazed. "You talk like a teacher."
"Well, I was trained in Asgard."
"Lucky me," Natsume whispered. "I get the strict Valkyrie nurse."
Rossweisse's lips curled into a half smile.
Then Natsume's expression crumpled again. "Meruem is dead, isn't he? He's really dead. He turned us into Devils, said he'd protect us, said everyone would have to answer to him first, and now he's dead."
"Don't think about that now."
"How do I not think about that?" Natsume asked hysterically. "How am I supposed to not think about it when the one person who was supposed to be stronger than everyone is gone? If something killed him, what chance do we have?"
Rossweisse had no answer worthy of the question. So she lied with all the dignity she could gather.
"We survive the next hour. Then the hour after that. That is the only answer that matters."
Natsume's fingers found Rossweisse's wrist and held on weakly. "I need a doctor. Why did you bring me here? Don't you have a demonic hospital or something?"
"We do, but I can't take you to the Underworld yet."
"Why not?"
"It's complicated, but the underworld might be even more dangerous for us without Meruem."
She needed proper treatment. But she could not take Natsume to the Underworld. The territory of Beleth would be the obvious place to seek aid, and perhaps the best doctors in Hell could save her, but returning there would mean answering questions she was not ready to answer. She would have to face Meruem's brothers, his sister, and Queen Morena, and mother of King Meruem. She would have to tell them that Meruem, of all people, had fallen. She would have to convince them that she was not lying, not compromised, not a pawn in some enemy scheme.
Would they believe her? Would they help Natsume before politics began? Would they decide that a newly reincarnated girl of uncertain value mattered less than securing the truth of Meruem's death, controlling the narrative, assigning blame, and preparing retaliation? Would they help Natsume before politics began?
Rossweisse could not depend upon it. The moment news of Meruem's death reached House Beleth, every faction would begin to move. His servants, his secrets, and his unfinished plans would become prizes, liabilities, or threats depending on who was looking. Natsume might receive treatment. Or she might be interrogated before anyone bothered to stop the light eating through her body. Rossweisse could not gamble the girl's life on noble mercy. Natsume stared at her through tears, almost uncomprehending. Rossweisse regretted saying so much.
"I don't care about politics," Natsume said. "I just don't want to die. I haven't even begun living yet, I haven't even saved my friend from those bastards yet. Take me somewhere else. Take me to anyone. Take me to a hospital."
"A human hospital can't treat this."
"Then take me to a Devil hospital."
"That would still require answering questions before they help you. The moment we enter the underworld, all eyes will be on us."
"Then lie or use some magic. Just do something."
"I am considering all options."
"You're considering while I'm bleeding out?"
Rossweisse flinched because the accusation was not entirely unfair.
Where was Valerie when one needed her? She thought. If Valerie had been here, sweet, gentle, obedient Valerie with the [Sephiroth Graal] resting within her soul like a miracle, she could have undone this wound as though it had been no more than a torn seam. Then again, Valerie would not have ruined days of planning by acting like a lunatic either. Valerie would not have turned a careful mission into madness because some impulse in her head told her to do something reckless.
Leonardo had done exactly that. That absolute psycho had thrown their plan into the gutter, and now everything was fire and blood and broken circles and screaming allies lost somewhere in a pocket dimension that might already have become a slaughterhouse. Rossweisse squeezed her eyes shut for one heartbeat.
No. That was not entirely true.
The Agency had been waiting for them. That much was not shocking in itself. Any competent enemy could infer from the attack on one of their facilities that someone was hunting them, and any organization with even a modest capacity for strategic reasoning would prepare accordingly. But Rossweisse had believed, as someone who had seen her king do impossible things, that nothing they prepared could truly matter while Meruem stood with them. He was an ultimate-class Devil, one of the strongest beings in hell, a king whose will felt like a natural law. If Meruem was present, then what could truly threaten them?
Natsume's hawk gave a low, distressed cry and pressed its head against her cheek. Natsume turned slightly toward it, sobbing softly. "I want Tobio. I want Kouki. I want everyone. Are they dead too?"
"I don't know."
"I hate honest answers."
"So do I, at present."
A thin smile flickered across Natsume's mouth and vanished almost at once. Rossweisse lowered her gaze to the wound. The light had spread farther than she liked. It was threading through the demonic pathways around Natsume's stomach and chest, feeding on her energy while resisting Rossweisse's attempts to smother it. If left alone, Natsume might last a day at most. Perhaps less. The light poisoning would continue to drain her, and even if the bleeding slowed, her Devil body would eventually fail as its own energy turned against itself.
Rossweisse did not know what to do. Demonic energy was poor for mending flesh. There was one method. Devils born from the same family, or reincarnated through the same King's Evil Pieces, possessed compatible demonic frequencies. Their energy matched closely enough to soothe, and very slowly heal one another through prolonged physical contact. It was one of the reasons peerages were valued among noble houses beyond simple combat utility. A King's power served as the template, and all those reborn through it became, in a magical sense, kin.
Rossweisse and Natsume both belonged to Meruem. Their energy should match. The problem was that such healing required skin contact. Long, uninterrupted contact. Hours of it, perhaps half a day or more, given the nature of the wound and the lingering light. Rossweisse would need to lie beside her, concentrate continuously, and feed her energy into Natsume's body until the poison weakened enough for the girl's own demonic nature to recover.
Hours…
Hours when she should be gathering facts. Hours when she should be preparing for the political storm to come. Hours when she should be searching for the others, confirming Meruem's death, finding Valerie, locating Lavinia, contacting House Beleth, deciding whether the Underworld was a refuge or another battlefield.
Rossweisse looked at Natsume's pale face and hated herself for even measuring the girl's life against politics. She was not so ruthless that she could leave Natsume to suffer and die because there were larger matters to consider.
"Natsume," she said quietly. "Listen to me carefully. The light that struck you came from a Fallen Angel. Fallen Angels use light, and that light is deadly to Devils because it drains and damages our demonic nature. However, it's not the same as the pure holy light wielded by the Angels of Heaven."
Natsume swallowed hard. "Is this really the time for a magic lesson, Rose?"
"It's important," Rossweisse said. "A pure Angel's light carries a holy attribute that rejects Devil existence at a far deeper level. If you had been pierced through the belly by a pure Angel's weapon of comparable strength, especially this soon after your reincarnation, you would most likely have been destroyed instantly. Your body might have been burned away before I could even reach you."
Natsume stared at her with horror. Rossweisse realized too late that this was a terrible way to comfort someone.
"I am sorry," she said quickly. "That was too blunt."
"You think?!"
"The point is that Fallen Angel light is survivable if handled properly. It lacks the same absolute holy element. It still poisons, and it can still kill you, especially because you are newly reincarnated and your Devil body has not yet fully stabilized, but it can be resisted. It can be drawn out and healed."
"Can you heal it?"
"Yes," Rossweisse said, though fear twisted under the word. "I believe I can."
Natsume searched her face desperately. "Say I won't die. Say it like you really mean it."
"You will not die, Natsume. I will not allow you to die." Rossweisse took her hand.
"What do you need to do?" Natsume asked.
"Our demonic energy comes from the same King." Rossweisse's cheeks warmed despite herself. "Because of that, our frequencies should be compatible enough for direct contact healing. It's slow, and it requires concentration, and it requires sustained physical contact."
Natsume blinked. "Skin contact?" she asked weakly. "How much?"
"As much as possible."
Even wounded and terrified, Natsume managed to look scandalized. "You're telling me I'm dying, and the solution is cuddling naked?!"
"In the crudest possible phrasing, yes."
Natsume gave a wet, hysterical little laugh that broke into a cough. "That's the stupidest supernatural healing method I've ever heard."
"It's medically recognized among Devils, and something that might just save your life at the moment."
"That doesn't make it better."
"I will preserve your modesty as much as possible," Rossweisse said. "Your hawk can remain near you. I will not do anything beyond what is necessary to stabilize your life."
It might have been a pointless thing to worry about, and Rossweisse felt somewhat foolish for being so hesitant, but she could not help feeling awkward about asking a girl she had met only five days ago if she would be willing to sleep naked beside her in order to save her life.
"I don't care," Natsume whispered suddenly. "I don't care about any of that. Just don't let me die."
Rossweisse helped Natsume out of the ruined portions of her clothing as gently as she could. The girl whimpered and cried and apologized over and over, and Rossweisse answered each apology with the same quiet assurance until the words became a rhythm between them. I am sorry. You do not need to apologize. It hurts. I know. I am scared. I know. Please do not leave me. I am here.
At last Rossweisse lay down beside her beneath the old attic beams, gathering the now naked Natsume carefully against her own naked body so that their pale skin met along as much surface as possible without putting pressure directly on the wound. Natsume was cold in some places and fever-hot in others. Rossweisse placed one hand over the girl's back and the other near the edge of the wound, then began drawing her demonic energy into a slow, steady current.
Rossweisse placed one arm around her shoulders and the other carefully over her abdomen, avoiding pressure on the wound while letting her demonic energy flow. It moved sluggishly at first, then found the familiar pattern and settled into it with painful harmony.
Rossweisse almost wept with relief. "It's working," she said.
"Then why does it still hurt?"
"Because healing doesn't mean the pain vanishes immediately. It'll take time until you heal completely."
The attic grew quiet except for the naked girl's breathing, the hawk's occasional rustle of feathers, and the distant noise of the restaurant below them. How strange that people might still be eating above this room, drinking wine, laughing over plates of food, complaining about prices or weather or lovers, while beneath them a Devil girl was on the verge of death. Rossweisse stared toward the rafters.
What happened to Valerie? The question would not leave her. Had she seen Meruem die? Was she safe? Did she die alongside Meruem? Otherwise why didn't she come with Lavinia?
And where was Lavinia? If anyone could tell her what had truly happened, it would be the witch. Lavinia had seen more than most, and her mind was sharp beneath all that airy sweetness. Rossweisse needed her. She needs facts before she can make decisions.
Natsume shifted, and Rossweisse tightened her hold.
"Don't leave," the girl whispered. "I mean it. Don't leave when I fall asleep."
"I promise."
"Devils are supposed to keep promises, right?"
"Honorable ones do."
"Are you honorable?"
Rossweisse looked down at her. "I try to be."
Natsume eyes began to close. She did not like how the rhythm of her demonic energy was fading.
"Natsume," Rossweisse said, alarmed.
"I'm tired."
"You may rest, but you must not fall too deeply. Answer me when I speak."
"You really are a teacher."
"So you said."
Rossweisse continued feeding demonic energy through their shared contact, careful not to overwhelm Natsume's damaged circuits. The light resisted her, biting at the edges of her power like frost against bare skin. It hurt even to touch it indirectly despite Rossweisse's immunity to light attacks. She wondered how Natsume was enduring the thing inside her and felt another wave of protective anger rise through her chest.
The Fallen Angel who had thrown that spear was dead, she thought. He had to be dead. If he was not, Rossweisse would find him when this was over. The hawk lowered itself beside Natsume's head, its wing partly spread over her hair like a blanket.
"She loves you," Rossweisse murmured.
Natsume's eyes opened a sliver. "Who?"
"Your Sacred Gear."
"She's not a she."
"What is it, then?"
"I don't know," Natsume whispered. "A partner, I guess."
"Then your partner loves you."
The faintest smile touched Natsume's mouth. "Good. I love it too."
Rossweisse let that answer settle between them. Her thoughts on Tobio, Kouki, Kuroka, Leonardo, Lavinia, and Valerie existed as questions without answers. But Rossweisse could do nothing for them yet. Rossweisse rested her cheek lightly against the girl's hair and continued the slow, agonizing work of healing. The hours ahead would be long. Fear would whisper that she was wasting time while the world burned elsewhere.
Natsume slept at last, though it was not true sleep in the peaceful sense. Her lashes trembled against her cheeks, and now and again her lips parted around a word too soft to understand. Her body remained curled against Rossweisse's, skin to skin beneath the thin blanket Rossweisse had conjured.
She had told Natsume she would live. Rossweisse did not know whether that had been a promise or a prayer. Rossweisse stroked Natsume's hair once, then stilled her hand. Too much tenderness would make her weak, she told herself. A Queen must remain composed. A woman alone in an attic with a dying girl and scattered allies must not spend precious time acting like a frightened older sister. She had never been an older sister to anyone and perhaps that was why she was so poor at it.
A magical circle appeared without warning. Rossweisse's body moved before thought could catch up. One arm tightened around Natsume, the other gathered demonic energy into her palm, and the hawk unfolded its wings with a shriek that shook dust from the beams. A pale circle formed near the far wall, its edges marked by foreign symbols.
Lavinia Reni stepped out alone. The witch looked pale, with her long hair disordered and frost clinging to the hem of her clothes. There was blood on one sleeve, and it did not look like hers. Her face remained soft, almost dreamy, as it so often did, yet her eyes were too awake.
Rossweisse's heart sank. The magician had arrived alone. She had hoped Lavinia would bring Tobio, or Kouki with her. Lavinia was experienced, trained by Grauzauberer, and accustomed to battle in ways the two new Devils were not. If anyone could have reached them and brought them away from that nightmare of a pocket dimension, it should have been her.
Lavinia's gaze moved from the hawk to the blood, then to the blanket, then finally to Rossweisse and Natsume lying close together on the mattress. For one appalling second, a faint smile touched her lips.
"That is a very intimate recovery method," Lavinia observed after a pause. "I suppose Devils do take the concept of peerage bonding quite seriously."
"I'm healing Natsume after she was impaled by a light spear," she said with as much dignity as the circumstances permitted. "If you intend to make a joke, choose a better time."
"I'm only happy that she's alive," Lavinia replied, raising both hands slightly in surrender. "That's more than I feared, and more than I expected after what I saw. I am glad you brought her here."
The answer was gentle, and it disarmed Rossweisse in its sincerity. She looked at Lavinia again, truly looked this time, and saw the way the witch's fingers trembled where they held her magical staff. Magicians were fickle by nature, Rossweisse had always thought. Whimsical, curious, devoted to knowledge until morality became blurry, and far too fond of half answers wrapped in riddles. She had distrusted Lavinia almost from the start. Tobio, Natsume, and Kouki had seemed to trust her, or at least had accepted her presence easily enough, and Rossweisse had first assumed that meant friendship.
But Lavinia had watched in near silence while Meruem guided them into accepting a deal with the Devil through half-truths and carefully chosen omissions. A good friend, Rossweisse thought, would have at least made certain that Meruem was honest with them in every meaningful respect. Though her King had not technically lied, that did little to make the matter sit any easier with her conscience. Kuroka had taken to Lavinia with infuriating ease, as Kuroka often did with everyone. Rossweisse had remained more reserved, and now she found herself bitterly glad of it.
"Where are they?" Rossweisse asked.
Lavinia's face tightened slightly. "I came here first because I thought others might have returned already."
"So you have no one."
"No."
Before the word could become too heavy, another circle flared into being beside hers. This one was familiar. The seven pointed star of House Beleth burned across the boards in proud demonic lines, and Rossweisse felt a wild, unreasonable burst of hope so fierce it hurt. The circle opened, and Kuroka emerged with Tobio Ikuse half falling beside her, one of her arms hooked around his shoulders while his shadow writhed at his feet like a living wound.
Tobio was alive, and for one precious heartbeat that alone was enough to ease the crushing weight on her chest, until Rossweisse realized that Kouki was nowhere among them. Tobio's gaze drifted toward the mattress, and all color immediately drained from his face.
"Natsume!"
He tore himself from Kuroka's grip and stumbled across the attic, dropping to his knees beside the mattress with such force that the floorboards cracked beneath him. His shadow hound rose behind him in a black surge, ears flattened, eyes glowing with rage. Natsume's hawk gave a sharp warning cry from the beam, and the two Sacred Gear avatars stared at one another like guardians meeting over a grave.
"Natsume," Tobio said again, softer and worse. "Natsume, can you hear me? Rossweisse, is she alive? Tell me she's alive."
"She's alive," Rossweisse said quickly, because she saw panic rising in his eyes. "She is wounded badly, and she must stay still, but she is alive."
"Why is she so cold?"
"Because light poisoning is interfering with her demonic energy."
"Can you fix it?"
"I am trying." Rossweisse met his eyes and hated that she could not give him certainty. "I believe I can stabilize her if I am given enough time and no further interruptions."
"She looks dead." Tobio looked at Natsume's sleeping face as though he might break apart from the sight of it.
"She is not dead."
"She was hit because I wasn't watching," he said. "Everything came apart and I lost sight of her. There were too many of them, and then the air changed when that monster appeared, and I couldn't tell which way was safe anymore. I should have stayed closer to her."
"You would've died beside her if you had," Kuroka said, her voice harsher than usual. "Don't blame yourself like you had any control of the situation at all. None of us had control once that thing showed up."
He bowed his head until his hair hid his face, and the hound pressed its great shadowed muzzle against his shoulder. Kuroka shut the circle behind them with a flick of her fingers, then leaned against a support beam as though her legs were no longer entirely certain of their duties. Her hair was singed at one side, and her kimono was torn across the hip and shoulder. She still managed to look beautiful, though now it was the beauty of a cat who had crawled from a burning house with claws full of someone else's blood.
"So," Kuroka said, her voice too light, "that was a complete disaster."
Lavinia gave her a slow look. "That is one way to describe it."
"Where is Samejima?" Rossweisse asked.
The question plunged the room into a heavy silence as Kuroka's eyes immediately slid away and Tobio went completely rigid. Rossweisse understood before either of them spoke, and even understanding did not soften the blow.
"Kouki is dead," Kuroka said, her mouth curved without humor.
Tobio made a sound deep in his throat. The poor boy had gone through a lot in the last couple of minutes.
"What happened?" Rossweisse asked, keeping her voice steady.
"A group of magicians caught him near the collapsed corridor after the barrier split," Kuroka said, and for once there was no teasing in her voice. "He fought. Harder than I thought he could, given how new he was to all of this. His thunder tore two of them apart and knocked another through a wall, but there were too many, and he did not have control yet. One of them used a binding spell from behind him, and another drove a sword through his chest before I could cut through them. I reached him after that, but he was already dead. I had Tobio with me, and the barriers were collapsing, and more things were coming from below. I had one chance to escape before the giant turned his attention towards me, and I could carry the living or die beside the dead."
Tobio's shoulders shook. Kouki Samejima had made a bargain with Devils to save his best friend. In the end, he had not survived long enough to see whether that bargain meant anything.
"We were supposed to save them," Tobio said, so quietly Rossweisse almost missed it. "We were supposed to save our classmates. That was the whole reason. We became Devils, we followed Meruem, we went into that place, and now Kouki is dead. We sacrificed another friend trying to save the ones we already lost."
"Tobio," Rossweisse began.
"What was the point?" he asked, looking up at her with eyes red and furious. "What was the point of any of it if all we did was make the pile of bodies higher?"
Kuroka knelt beside him, slow and careful as one might approach a wounded animal. "The point is that you are still alive."
"That is not enough."
"It has to be enough for now."
Rossweisse reached out with her free hand and touched Tobio's sleeve, unable to offer more with Natsume pressed against her.
"You can grieve and be angry, but don't turn your survival into guilt so quickly that it consumes you before you can use it. Samejima died fighting enemies who would have killed all of you. That doesn't make his death acceptable, and it doesn't make it meaningless either."
Tobio breathed hard, once, then again, and lowered his head. The massive dog lowered itself behind him, and for a long while no one spoke. Then Kuroka exhaled sharply and wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, pretending it was sweat though no one believed her.
"That damned Leonardo," she muttered. "That damned lunatic child. He started all of it."
"What do you mean? Did he betray you?" Lavinia asked, looking between them.
"He went off plan," Kuroka said. "Of course he went off plan, because apparently staying disciplined for one single mission was too much to ask from the tiny psychopath with a Longinus and the impulse control of a lit match thrown into an oil warehouse. Everything was tense, and everyone was waiting for the signal, and then he decided that subtlety was boring and began releasing monsters because he found something that upset him or amused him or whispered to whatever broken place passes for his judgment."
Tobio's hands clenched. "What was Meruem thinking when he sent a loose cannon like that with us?!"
"Leonardo is unstable," Rossweisse said carefully.
"Unstable?!" Kuroka laughed once, sharp and humorless. "He is a psychopath! I don't mind killing when I must. I don't mind monsters, madness, or cruelty when they serve a purpose. I have done plenty of things I would prefer not to list in polite company. But there is a difference between ruthlessness and letting a battlefield become a slaughterhouse just because you cannot keep your hands to yourself."
Tobio nodded, his face pale with anger. "Everybody was scared. I was panicking. But you are supposed to hold that inside and keep moving. You're supposed to follow the plan, protect the person next to you, and survive. You don't start breaking open cages and throwing monsters into the middle of everything."
"Did Leonardo escape?" Rossweisse asked.
Kuroka's ears flattened. "I don't know. And I might just kill him myself if he did."
"I lost sight of him after the giant appeared," Tobio said. "After that, I lost sight of everyone."
The giant…
The word drew all eyes toward Lavinia.
Rossweisse straightened as much as she could without breaking contact with Natsume. "We need to know what exactly happened to Lord Meruem. Lavinia, you were with him. Tell us what happened."
"Meruem told me to wait just outside the Utsusemi hideout," Lavinia said at last. "He and Valerie went inside ahead of the main assault because there was something he wanted to investigate personally. He said I was to wait for his signal before allowing the rest of you to begin moving in."
"Of course he did," Kuroka whispered. "Always schemes within schemes with him."
Lavinia continued, "For a while nothing happened. The wards remained quiet. I could sense movement inside, but nothing that suggested open battle. Then a huge explosion erupted far from the hideout, large enough that the clouds over that region scattered outward like smoke before a gale, and I saw Meruem thrown through the upper layers of the battlefield with something enormous pursuing him. I moved closer to see what it was. The hideout barriers were already warping by then. I could see through fractures in the space, as though the dimension itself had been cracked open. Meruem was fighting something terrifyingly powerful."
"The giant," Rossweisse said.
"Yes. Its body was immense, but it moved with a speed utterly at odds with its size while possessing the crushing strength one would expect from such a colossal creature. I saw Meruem wound it. But its vitality was monstrous beyond reason, and it shrugged off attacks that should have crippled any ordinary Ultimate-class being. Then it caught him. It caught him with two hands, drove the others through his guard, and tore open his chest. Then it ripped out his heart and crushed it in its hand."
Kuroka let out a sound that resembled the cry of a wounded animal, and Tobio could only stare at her in horror. Her King had been made of flesh after all.
Kuroka pressed both hands over her mouth, and tears slipped between her fingers. "No," she whispered. "No, no, no."
Rossweisse wanted to weep as well, but she refused to allow herself that luxury; too many eyes were upon her, and a Queen of Meruem Beleth could not afford to appear weak, for she was his second-in-command, entrusted to lead in his absence, and now more than ever she had to fulfill that role and remain strong.
"What happened to Valerie?" Rossweisse asked.
If Valerie lived, then everything might not yet be finished. [Sephiroth Graal] was the tool that governed life and death. If Valerie had survived, if she could reach Meruem's body, if his soul had not yet fully passed beyond recall, then perhaps his death was not final. Rossweisse clung to that thought as a drowning woman might cling to a splinter of wood.
Lavinia looked at her, and something like pity passed through her eyes. "When the giant crushed Meruem's heart, the entire region seemed to pause for a moment," she said, "Perhaps that's only how I remember it, because I was too shocked to move. Then something began pouring out of the Agency hideout. At first I thought they were soldiers, or familiars, or some kind of mass-produced artificial creature, but there were too many of them and they moved…wrong.
"They were monster-like beings, though that phrase is too vague for what I saw. Some crawled on too many limbs, some dragged themselves forward with half-formed wings, some had faces that looked almost human until they opened and split apart, and others seemed to have been shaped from several bodies made into one creature. Hundreds, then thousands, came flooding from the entrances, the underground vents, and even from ruptures in the floor where there should not have been passages at all."
Rossweisse's heart began to beat faster.
"They came like bees from a broken hive," Lavinia continued. "Even more surprisingly, they attacked the giant. Every one of them rushed toward it with no regard for survival. They climbed its legs, leapt at its arms, threw themselves at its wounds, and each time one made contact it exploded into a pile of blood. The blood was not ordinary, it behaved almost like a spell medium, thick and dark, spreading across the giant's skin and clinging there. The explosions were individually weak, far too weak to injure something like that directly, but there were so many of them that for a brief period they slowed it. They covered its body in blood and forced it to tear them away by the handful."
"Transfigured humans," Rossweisse said at once.
"Transfigured humans?" Lavinia repeated.
"Don't worry about the name," Rossweisse said, too quickly. "It's simply a classification we use for certain victims of forced bodily and spiritual transfiguration."
Her king had called it idle transfiguration on steroids. Neither Rossweisse nor the others knew what he meant.
"Spiritual transfiguration?" Lavinia's gaze sharpened. "What do you mean? Who could possibly do such a thing?"
Rossweisse did not answer directly. She did not trust Lavinia enough for that. "Valerie possesses an ability that can turn people into monsters under certain conditions."
Kuroka looked at Rossweisse, then away, understanding the omission and choosing not to expose it. Rossweisse's thoughts raced. Valerie must have gone on a rampage on the people working for the agency. If her mind had broken under the sight of Meruem's death, if grief had stripped away her gentleness and left only devotion, then she might have used her soul transfiguration without restraint. She might have twisted every living thing she could reach into a monster and commanded them all toward the giant as living bombs to distract the giant.
Sweet Valerie, who smiled shyly and held her hands folded as though afraid of taking up too much space, had turned a hideout full of people into a tide of blood and flesh to buy time against the thing that killed her King. Rossweisse felt sick to her stomach, yet beneath that sickness a fragile spark of hope stubbornly refused to die.
"What did Valerie do after that?" she asked.
Lavinia folded her hands before her. "I saw her only briefly. She looked like a woman who had abandoned reason completely. Her face was covered in blood, and she was crying, though I don't know if she knew she was crying. She ran with the monsters into the fray and attacked the giant herself."
Kuroka lowered her hands. "She attacked it? Alone?"
"With the creatures she had made."
"That is alone against something like that," Kuroka said bitterly.
Lavinia accepted the correction with a small nod. "I don't know what happened after that. I judged the situation hopeless and chose to flee so I could warn Rossweisse and the rest of you about the giant and Meruem's death. Valerie likely died as well. I can't imagine her defeating that creature when Meruem himself failed."
Rossweisse looked down at Natsume's sleeping face, because she could not bear to look at anyone else.
Valerie likely died…
Likely was not certainly. Likely was a gap small enough for hope to slip through if one was desperate enough. Valerie could be surprisingly fierce when it came to those she loved, and she loved Meruem with a devotion that bordered upon worship. Gentleness was not weakness. Rossweisse knew that, though she forgot it often. A soft thing could still become terrible when the hand it cherished was severed. Perhaps Valerie had managed to delay the giant, perhaps she had escaped somehow, perhaps she had reached Meruem in time…perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Hope was a cruel little creature, and it had claws.
"What the hell was that giant anyway?" Kuroka demanded, angrily. "I felt its life force from across the field. It was overwhelming. It was the second strongest vitality I have ever sensed, second only to Satan Lucifer, and it was not normal vitality either. Every part of it felt alive in a way bodies are not supposed to feel alive. Its power was beyond Ultimate class."
Tobio looked between them. "Beyond Ultimate class?"
"At the very least," Rossweisse said. "I was raised among the Norse, and I have been in the presence of gods ever since I could remember. That giant was comparable to one of the lesser Norse gods as I knew them, at least in raw existence and power. It was no wonder Meruem lost to something like."
"It did not feel like a god to me." Lavinia's expression grew distant.
"What did it feel like?" Tobio asked.
"Like an aberration against the natural order," Lavinia said. "A blasphemy."
That realization chilled Rossweisse far more than she cared to admit, for what in the Nine Realms had that thing been. She was certain it had not been one of the Norse Jötnar; she knew their aura well, and whatever had attacked them had felt utterly different from any giant she had ever encountered. For a while, they all listened to Natsume breathe.
"What do we do now?" Tobio asked eventually.
It was the question Rossweisse had been fearing since the moment she arrived in the attic. She had no Meruem to answer it. She had no orders. She had no plan folded inside another plan.
"First," Rossweisse said, forcing each word to be clear, "we rest. Natsume can't be moved unless absolutely necessary, and I can't break contact with her for long without risking the light spreading again. Her wound requires hours of treatment."
Tobio glanced at the blanket and seemed to understand enough to look away quickly, embarrassed even through grief.
"Second," Rossweisse continued, "we wait for the remainder of the day if possible. Valerie may still come or Leonardo may still come. There is a chance one of them escaped by another route."
Kuroka's mouth tightened. "And if Leonardo comes?"
"Then we restrain him before he can make any further decisions."
"Good," Kuroka said. "I want to hit him first."
"You may stand in line," Rossweisse replied. "Third, we have to gather information before moving. We need to know whether the Agency survived, whether the giant remains in the pocket dimension, and whether House Beleth must be informed immediately."
Kuroka looked at her sharply. "You are hesitating to tell them… Because of politics, I take it?"
"Yes," Rossweisse said. "Meruem has not made himself beloved in the last few weeks, be it by the Satans or the noble houses. I'm sure Bael is waiting for a moment of weakness."
Tobio looked ill. "They would let her die?"
"I don't know," Rossweisse admitted. "That's the problem. I might be able to trust Prince Belathriel or Hermon to help us, but neither of them is an Ultimate-class devil like Meruem, capable of shielding us from the rest of the Underworld, and beyond that, there is no telling how Her Majesty the Queen would react once she learns that her son died while his servants survived."
Tobio looked exhausted, hollowed by too many shocks in too little time, and yet there was still something firm inside him. Rossweisse saw it then, the same steel Meruem had seen earlier and meant to shape.
"You people really do look miserable when you try to be serious."
The voice came from the far side of the attic, and Rossweisse's heart nearly stopped. Tobio was on his feet instantly, his hound surging out of his shadow with its fangs bared and its golden eyes burning in the gloom. Kuroka's tails flared behind her, and Lavinia's hand tightened around her staff as pale frost gathered soundlessly beneath her boots. Rossweisse did not move as sharply as the others, because Natsume still lay against her beneath the blanket, but her demonic energy gathered at once, ready to tear through the attic if the voice belonged to an enemy.
Leonardo was sitting on an old wooden counter near the storage shelves, one leg swinging lazily over the edge as though he had been there for hours, his thin shoulders relaxed, his gray hair disordered by wind and smoke, and a large McDonald's cup held in one hand. He drank from it through a straw with a slow, obnoxious slurp, his expression calm and faintly amused.
There was soot on his cheek, blood dried along one sleeve, and something dark beneath his fingernails, yet he looked less like a survivor of slaughter than a truant schoolboy who had stopped for lunch on his way home from mischief.
"Leonardo," Tobio said, and there was so much disbelief in his voice that it almost hid the fury beneath it. "You're alive…?!"
Leonardo did not answer. He hopped down from the counter with his drink in hand and began walking around the attic as though inspecting rented rooms he had no intention of paying for. His gaze moved over the rafters, the old mattress, and the walls. He sipped his drink again, walking with a careless lightness that made no sound on the boards, and the silence around him grew worse with every step he took.
Rossweisse had seen many kinds of silence in battle. There was the silence before a charge, when men gathered their courage by pretending not to hear their own breath. There was the silence after a spell killed too quickly for screaming. There was the silence of the proud, the guilty, the grieving, the obedient. Leonardo's silence belonged to none of those. It was the silence of someone who had noticed everyone else's fear and found it entertaining enough to prolong.
"Really," Tobio continued nervously, "how did you get away? We thought you were still inside the field. We thought the giant, or the Agency, or one of those things might have gotten you. Where were you?"
"This is a very poor time to play mysterious little corpse-child, nya~" Kuroka's expression sharpened with feline irritation. "If you know something about Valerie, Meruem, the giant, or the Agency, then you should begin speaking before someone decides to claw the words out of you."
Leonardo wandered toward the shuttered window and pushed one finger through the dust on the sill. He did not look back. "Dusty place."
Kuroka's eyes narrowed. "That is what you have to say?"
"It's very dusty," he said, taking another sip.
Lavinia watched him with a dreamy stillness that did not fool Rossweisse at all. The witch had shifted her footing by half an inch, and that half inch placed her in the proper stance to cast through her staff without striking Tobio by accident. Tobio and Kuroka were also similarly on guard.
Leonardo turned from the window and came toward the mattress. Rossweisse's body tightened. Natsume stirred faintly against her, lashes fluttering, and the hawk gave a warning cry from the rafters. Leonardo stopped beside them, still drinking through the straw, his eyes moving from the blanket to Rossweisse's hand pressed over the wound and then to Natsume's sleeping face.
His mouth curved into a lazy smirk. There was no lust in his gaze, despite seeing their naked body and somehow that made it worse. This was a boy studying damage the way another child might study an insect beneath glass.
"Everyone is asking you questions," Rossweisse said, forcing herself to remain calm, even as she felt horribly exposed beneath the thin conjured blanket. "You should stop acting strangely and answer them before you make yourself look more suspicious than you already do."
Leonardo did not lift his eyes from Natsume. "Then ask your questions."
Rossweisse hated the little chill that moved through her. Meruem had once told her that Leonardo possessed the highest potential in the peerage. At the time she hadn't given it much thought, merely happy to have someone so strong in their peerage. But now, she could not help but feel tense in his presence. The boy before her was the wielder of [Annihilation Maker], a Longinus whose very essence was bound to creation for the purpose of slaughter.
"Where did you get that?" Kuroka asked, staring at the cup in his hand.
Leonardo finally glanced at her. "McDonald's."
The answer settled into the attic like something obscene.
"...What?!" Tobio stared at him.
"I was hungry," Leonardo said, as though this explained everything that mattered. "And thirsty, so I went there. Their fries were too salty, though. People always say that's the point, but I think they overdo it."
For a moment, no one spoke. Rossweisse could hear Natsume's shallow breathing, the faint wet sound of Leonardo's straw touching the bottom of his cup. Then Tobio's face twisted with a rage so sudden and pure that he seemed almost relieved by it.
"Fuck you!!" Tobio shouted.
Leonardo blinked once. "That was rude."
"You went to McDonald's?!" Tobio asked, each word strained as though he had to drag it past his teeth. "You went to fucking McDonald's while Kouki was dying, while Natsume was bleeding out, while we were being hunted through that place because of the chaos you started?"
"Chaos I started?"
"You can't be serious." Kuroka laughed in disbelief. "You can't actually be standing here with a drink in your hand pretending you don't understand what you did."
"I do understand what I did," Leonardo said. "I got a Sprite."
"You little psycho!" Kuroka said, through gritted teeth. "The alarms went wild because of you! We wouldn't have been found if it weren't for you! And after that Rossweisse was still trying to negotiate the situation, or at least keep it from becoming a complete massacre, and you decided that the proper response to one fallen angel annoying you was to attack in the middle of a hostile facility!"
Leonardo frowned faintly. "The crow clicked the pen."
"The fallen angel clicked a pen?" Lavinia asked, tilting her head.
"Yes," Leonardo said. "I told her not to."
Rossweisse stared at him. "You went on a rampage inside an enemy stronghold because a fallen angel clicked a pen?"
"I don't like it when people click pens." Leonardo shrugged. "It's a very ugly sound. I warned her once like a gentleman would, and she did it again while smiling, so I killed her. That part was fair."
Tobio took a step forward. "Fair?! Kouki is dead! Natsume almost died and we barely got out. We lost everyone. Meruem is dead, Valerie might be dead, and you are standing here talking about a pen as if any of that makes sense. What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"The crow shouldn't have clicked it," Leonardo said. It all probably made sense in that twisted mind of his.
Tobio moved so quickly that Kuroka had to catch him with both hands and pull him back by the shoulders. The dog lunged halfway with him, snarling, and the hawk screamed from above, the attic filling for one instant with shadow and wind and the sharp scent of ozone from Tobio's rising power. Rossweisse nearly broke contact with Natsume out of instinct, making Natsume whimper in her sleep.
"Stop! For Odin's sake," Rossweisse snapped. "All of you stop, unless you intend to kill Natsume with your immaturity."
Tobio froze, breathing hard, eyes wet and furious, while Kuroka held him from behind and murmured something low near his ear. Leonardo watched them with mild interest, sipping again from his straw.
"You got almost all of us killed because you couldn't endure being ignored," Tobio said, quieter now. "You were told to follow the plan. You were told not to act on impulse. You were trusted, for some insane reason, and the moment someone bothered you, you threw the whole mission into blood and panic."
Leonardo turned his cup slowly in one hand. "So what are you going to do about it, doggie?"
The word struck Tobio like a slap. He tore free of Kuroka's grip and would have crossed the attic then if Lavinia had not moved. Ice bloomed between them in a thin wall, enough to make Tobio halt before he shattered it. Kuroka's tails curled around his waist a heartbeat later, binding him gently and firmly at once.
"Don't give him what he is asking for," Lavinia said, and her voice remained soft while her eyes stayed on Leonardo. "He's provoking you because he wants you to give him a reaction. Don't dance to his fiddle, Tobio."
Kuroka's mouth curled. "Listen to the witch, puppy. If you fight him now, I will have to save you from yourself, and I am having a very bad day."
"He doesn't even care," Tobio said in frustration.
"No," Rossweisse said, watching Leonardo's lazy smile, "I don't think he does."
Leonardo raised his cup in something like a toast. "That was touching. Everyone took turns being very dramatic. I almost feel left out."
"You would be wise to speak more carefully," Rossweisse said.
"I am always careful."
"No," she replied. "You are merely lucky that stronger people have found uses for you."
For the first time, Leonardo looked at her properly, and Rossweisse wondered whether she had made a mistake. The room seemed to tilt toward him, as though some great sleeping thing had opened one eye beneath his skin. Then he laughed softly and looked away, the moment gone so quickly that she might have imagined it.
"Speaking of uses," Leonardo said, "I brought you people a present."
"What kind of present?" Kuroka's ears flattened wearily, and the others were tense besides.
Leonardo dropped the empty McDonald's cup onto the floor. It rolled once and stopped near a dark stain that might have been old wine or blood. He snapped his fingers, and his shadow opened. Something huge pushed its way out.
Rossweisse's breath caught. The monster unfolded from darkness in layers of muscle, horn, plated hide, and too many jointed limbs, its head too narrow for its shoulders and its mouth sealed in a vertical line that split down the middle as it breathed. Its back nearly scraped the rafters. Its fingers were long enough to close around a human skull. Drool fell from between its teeth and hissed faintly where it struck the floorboards.
Kuroka immediately stepped in front of Tobio while Lavinia silently raised her staff. Rossweisse could not stand. She could not even move properly without risking Natsume. Panic flooded her with humiliating speed. What if Leonardo meant to kill them now, if Meruem's death had broken whatever chain held him obedient, if he had decided that the attic would be a cleaner place without witnesses, what could they do?
Kuroka was wounded and exhausted. Lavinia was powerful, but how powerful exactly she could not say. Rossweisse herself was naked, unable to move. Against Leonardo alone, perhaps they might have restrained him through surprise, but against Leonardo and a prepared monster from [Annihilation Maker], in this cramped attic, with Natsume unable to move, their chances became grotesquely poor.
The monster opened its mouth. Rossweisse gathered power in her free hand anyway, because poor odds had never excused surrender.
Leonardo snapped his fingers again. "Spit," he commanded.
The creature's jaws stretched impossibly wide, and from within its throat came a wet, convulsive sound. A human body tumbled out onto the floor in a slick mess of saliva and black mucus, coughing, gagging, and dragging air into its lungs as though it had just been birthed by a nightmare.
Rossweisse recognized him at once. Hanezou Himejima, the leader of the Utsusemi Agency lay bound in chains, their dark links embedded into his wrists, ankles, and throat. His clothes were torn, his face was bruised, and one eye had swollen nearly shut. When he lifted his head and saw the people in the attic, he looked positively petrified..
"There," Leonardo said. "Useful present."
"You captured Hanezou Himejima?!" Kuroka said surprised.
Leonardo crouched beside the bound man and patted his head with mock fondness. Hanezou flinched at the touch.
"After I killed the annoying crow, and after I killed the other crows who were standing with her because they became noisy about it, I thought I might as well take this guy. He was the reason we were there, more or less. I was going to kill him at first, because I thought why not? He looked important and killing important people usually solves at least one problem, but then the giant ruined the party and everyone started running and screaming."
"That's when you took him?" Lavinia asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.
"Yes," Leonardo said. "It seemed practical. If everything was going to collapse, then we're going to need information. He's the leader, so he has to know things. Locations, names, which people are worth killing first…All sorts of things."
Rossweisse stared at him, unwillingly impressed despite the nausea he inspired. It was horrifying, that such a mind could be so deranged in one moment and so tactically lucid in the next.
Tobio looked from Leonardo to Hanezou, then back again. "What does it matter now?"
"What?" Leonardo asked, puzzled.
"What use is information now?" Tobio asked, his voice trembling. "Meruem is dead. Kouki is dead. Natsume can barely breathe. The Agency knew we were coming, the giant is still out there, and our friends are still somewhere inside that nightmare if they are alive at all. What does one prisoner change?"
"That's a very sad speech."
"Don't mock me," Tobio said warningly.
"I am absolutely mocking you," Leonardo said. "You're standing there talking like a beaten dog because Meruem is not here to hold your leash and tell you where to bite. Were you only trying to save your friends because the big scary Devil gave you permission? Is that all it takes for you to give up, one dead King and one dead friend?"
"Leonardo," Rossweisse warned.
He raised both hands in theatrical surrender. "Fine, fine, I will be gentle with the grieving puppy."
"You're not helping," Lavinia said.
"I disagree," Leonardo replied. "He's thinking about quitting, and I find that annoying. There is no way Meruem Beleth died that easily, and if he did, then he still gave an order before he died. Save the children from the Agency. Kill the people who need killing. We only need a new plan, and now we have a man who can help us make one even if he has to scream every answer first."
"You actually care about the mission? You?!" Tobio asked, visibly thrown by the words.
Leonardo looked offended. "Don't make it sentimental."
"Why would we trust you?" Tobio demanded. "You could ruin the next rescue attempt the same way you ruined the last one. You could decide someone breathing too loudly deserves to die and turn the entire operation into another slaughter."
"I don't really care if you trust me or not. You can't save your friends without me, though, and that is the part that matters."
Rossweisse despised that he was right. They needed power and information. They needed someone ruthless enough to pry secrets from Hanezou before the Agency moved its prisoners elsewhere or destroyed evidence of its crimes. Leonardo was dangerous, unstable, cruel, and perhaps entirely impossible to command now that Meruem was gone, but he had brought them the one prisoner whose knowledge might still salvage the situation.
Hanezou coughed on the floor, chains clinking as he tried to shift away from the monster looming behind him. "You don't understand what you're dealing with," he rasped. "None of you do. You will never succeed while He stands."
Leonardo's smile widened. "See? He is already singing a little."
Rossweisse considered her options; if there was any way to fulfill her King's orders, then she would see it done. She had promised him she would succeed in her mission, and even though they had suffered a setback for now (and yes, even a godlike being was merely a setback) she simply had to overcome it, to think as Meruem would, to view the entire situation as a puzzle waiting to be solved.
Leonardo turned toward Hanezou and nudged him with one shoe. "While the girls finish cuddling, how about we make this guy sing and have some fun with him?"
For the first time since the attic had become their refuge, she could see the faint outline of a next move, and she hated that it had come from Leonardo of all people.
AN: Thsi won the poll on patreon as usual so here we are. This chapter really shows just how important healing magic is. Having someone like Asia or Valerie in a peerage is practically indispensable. No matter how strong your fighters are, being able to keep them alive and in fighting condition can completely change the outcome of a battle.
Making Leonardo into a bit of a diva has also been surprisingly fun. He's become something of a wild card in the story. With him, you never quite know where his true loyalties lie or what his actual intentions are, which makes every interaction with him a little unpredictable. We've now reached roughly the midpoint of this arc. I think there are only two or three chapters left before it concludes.
Advanced chapters are available on my Patreon. If you want to read ahead, vote on which story gets updated each week, or simply support my writing so I can focus more on it, you can check it out here: https://patreon.com/abeltargaryen?