The concept of 'up' and 'down' was violently erased from the Fortress City of Guaral.
It wasn't a sound. Sound required air to travel, and for a terrifying, singular fraction of a second, the atmosphere itself was simply crushed out of existence. When reality snapped back into place, it did so with a catastrophic roar that originated from the southern quarter, flipping the entire world on its head.
The cobblestones of the streets were peeled back like the skin of a fruit. The grand mansion Priscilla had taken over during her stay, serving as a makeshift triage center groaned, its reinforced timber and stone foundations screaming as the invisible tempest struck.
Flop O'Connell, who had been balancing an armful of bandages and clean water, didn't even have time to blink.
The shockwave lifted him off his feet with the careless ease of a child tossing a ragdoll. He slammed into the corridor wall, the breath leaving his lungs in a violent burst as the entire structure shuddered around him.
"―――"
His consciousness flickered, plunging into a dark, suffocating abyss before clawing its way back to the surface.
Flop gasped, his lungs burning as they pulled in air thick with pulverized plaster and the metallic tang of blood. He lay in the wreckage of the hallway, his ears ringing with a high-pitched whine that drowned out the groans of the dying.
Slowly, methodically, Flop tested his extremities. Ten fingers. Ten toes. His legs moved, albeit with a sickening ache, and his vision, though swimming with dark spots, eventually cleared.
He wasn't missing any limbs, and his spine seemed intact.
On any other day, he would have called it a massive profit. Today, it felt like a cruel joke.
"Medium..."
Flop rasped, his throat raw.
He could only hope that his little sister was fairing better than he was.
Forcing himself upright, Flop brushed the debris from his golden hair. The triage center was a nightmare. The wounded they had just finished stabilizing were buried under new rubble. The air was a cacophony of fresh agony.
"Butler-kun?"
Flop called out, stumbling over a shattered wooden beam.
Leaving the terrifying, fiery Princess Priscilla to deal with the dragonkin invader, Flop's only job had been to keep the non-combatants alive.
If the fiercely loyal young Schult had been crushed under the ceiling, Flop knew he would never be able to look himself in the mirror again.
A flash of movement caught his eye near the obliterated front entrance.
"Schult!"
The young boy, his pristine butler's uniform now stained with soot and ash, was standing at the threshold of the destroyed double doors. He wasn't looking at the injured inside. He was staring out into the courtyard, his small shoulders trembling.
Before Flop could reach him, the boy let out a distressed gasp and bolted outside.
"Butler-kun, wait! It's not safe!"
Flop yelled, ignoring the screaming protest of his bruised ribs as he gave chase.
Bursting through the ruined doorway, Flop skidded to a halt. His breath hitched, turning into a visible white cloud in the air.
The burning city of Guaral was freezing over.
Brilliant, crystalline snowflakes were falling from a sky choked with thick, unnatural clouds. It was an anomaly that defied all logic——a magical, ethereal winter descending upon the arid lands of Vollachia.
The sheer absurdity of the sight made Flop question if the shockwave had simply killed him, and this was some bizarre afterlife.
But the cold biting at his cheeks was far too real.
And so was the small figure lying crumpled in the snow, whom Schult was currently rushing toward.
"Flop-san, please hurry!"
Schult cried out, dropping to his knees beside the fallen form.
"She fell from the sky! She's hurt so badly!"
Flop hurried forward, his boots crunching on the flash-frozen earth.
"We'll get her inside, Butler-kun. Just be careful moving her back and――"
The words died on his tongue.
As Flop drew closer, the details of the 'poor girl' came into sharp, horrifying focus. She was small, yes. Her clothes were scorched, and her skin was battered. But jutting from the sides of her head were twin, pitch-black horns.
This was no civilian. This was the Ninth Divine General. The apex predator who had brought an army of dragons to slaughter them all.
As a young child, Schult could not ignore someone in danger right before him――even if the one he was trying to save was the very same person who had almost killed him a few moments prior.
Flop stepped forward, intending to wrench Schult away from the very same dragonkin they had faced earlier.
At that exact moment, Madelyn Eschart stirred.
Her golden, reptilian eyes snapped open. There was no rationality in them, no recognition of the boy trying to help her. There was only the feral, cornered instinct of a wounded beast.
Slowly, terrifyingly, her arm raised, her fingertips elongating into vicious, razor-sharp claws.
She was going to take the boy's head off, simply because he was standing in her blind spot.
"―――"
Time dilated, stretching into an agonizing crawl.
There was no time to draw a weapon, assuming Flop even knew how to use one. Kuna and Holly were nowhere to be seen. There was no hero coming to save them from this snow-covered courtyard.
In the span of a heartbeat, a memory flashed behind Flop's eyes. The face of the man who had bought him and his sister their freedom. The man who had given them the capital to start their lives.
――Listen to me, Flop. A merchant's greatest asset is his life. Self-sacrifice is for morons. It's bad for business.
His benefactor had laughed as he said it, chiding Flop for his reckless habit of putting others first.
I'm sorry, sister. I suppose I'll just have to declare bankruptcy today.
Because if Medium found out he had let a child die when he could have done something, she would cry.
And making his sister cry was the only thing Flop O'Connell truly feared.
"I really am a moron." Flop whispered.
Schult looked up, confused.
"Flop-sa――"
Flop didn't brace himself. He simply threw his entire body weight forward. His hands slammed into Schult's chest, violently shoving the young boy backward into the snow, completely out of the beast's reach.
And in doing so, Flop stepped perfectly into the vacant space.
The dragonkin's claws swung in a blurry arc of absolute violence.
Flesh parted. Bone splintered.
A vibrant, horrifying arc of crimson painted the pristine white snow, and Flop O'Connell collapsed to the freezing earth.
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Humiliation.
It was a suffocating, burning humiliation that boiled the blood in her veins and made her fangs creak against one another.
Madelyn Eschart's consciousness was a fractured mess of pain and rage. She, a proud dragonkin, the ruler of the skies, had been toyed with. She had been battered by a crimson woman who claimed to own the sun, and frozen by a silver-haired witch who commanded the ice.
She had been driven into a corner, forced to play a trump card that shattered her pride, all because she was too weak to fulfill her sole purpose.
If any of her ancestors were alive to see this, they would have ripped her throat out for the shame she had brought upon their kind. But they were dead. She was the last. She was entirely, agonizingly alone.
That is why I have to kill the ones who took him from me!
Through the ringing in her ears, she heard a voice.
It was a human voice. The pathetic, reedy tone of the inferior creatures who infested this world. The same kind of creatures who had mocked her, who had burned her, who had stolen her mate.
Instinct overrode whatever shred of rationality remained in her battered skull. Guided solely by the sound, her muscles coiled.
I'll tear them apart. I'll tear them all apart!!
Her arm lashed out with lethal force. She felt the sickening, satisfying resistance of her claws sinking deep into soft tissue, the recoil vibrating up her forearm as ribs gave way under her draconic strength.
A body hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Madelyn stood there, panting, her breath pluming in the unnatural cold. But the fiery satisfaction she craved didn't come. The kill felt hollow.
Blinking through the blood and snow matting her eyelashes, she looked down at the prey she had just slaughtered.
"…Huh?"
It wasn't the crimson woman. It wasn't the silver witch.
It was a man. He lay crumpled in the red-stained snow, his long, golden hair fanning out around his pale face. He was a complete stranger. Just another nameless, faceless human swept up in the carnage.
Madelyn went to step over his bleeding corpse, to continue her hunt, but her golden eyes caught on a small detail. Something resting on the man's ruined chest, glistening wetly with his freshly spilled blood.
Her breath hitched. Her heart, which had been hammering with rage, suddenly stopped dead in her chest.
It was an ornament. A simple pendant hung from a leather cord around the dying man's neck.
It was carved from a fang.
Not a wolf's fang. Not a tiger's fang.
Madelyn fell to her knees, her hands trembling violently as she stared at the blood-soaked bone. The world around her—the snow, the burning city, the war—evaporated into a horrific, suffocating silence.
She knew the curve of that fang. She knew the texture of it.
It was his. It was his. It was his——!
The pendant that the golden-haired man wore... was the very keepsake of the man Madelyn Eschart had loved.
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"―――!!"
The world was painted a blinding, agonizing white.
It was a light that did not merely illuminate, but rather erased. It erased the shadows of the burning city, it erased the outlines of the screaming dragons, and it erased the very concept of a horizon.
The breath of the Cloud Dragon, Mezoreia, was not a simple flame. It was a pillar of celestial authority, a physical manifestation of a disaster that had descended from the heavens to judge the earth.
Against this overwhelming verticality of destruction, two women stood as the final, defiant horizontal line.
"――Mineself does not permit this insolence!"
Priscilla Barielle's voice was a sharp blade cutting through the roar of the atmospheric collapse.
In her hand, the Yang Sword shivered. Usually, it was a fragment of the sun itself, a radiant authority that brooked no equal.
But now, with the sun having cowardly retreated beneath the horizon, the blade was a flickering, dying ember. The darkness of the Vollachian night clawed at its edges, hungry and opportunistic. The crimson light was thin, translucent——a ghost of the power that usually resided within the world's center.
Beside her, the silver-haired witch poured her soul into the frost.
"Go... away...!!"
Emilia's amethyst eyes were wide, reflecting the descending apocalypse. Her hands were thrust forward, and the air before her didn't just freeze——it crystallized into a jagged, multi-layered rampart of absolute zero.
It was the Ice Brand Arts taken to its ultimate, desperate conclusion——a shield of glaciation that refused to melt even as the heat of the dragon's breath began to turn the cobblestones into vapor.
Fire and Ice. The arrogant sun and the grieving frost.
The two powers, so diametrically opposed, met the dragon's beam in a collision that reshaped the laws of mana.
――Then, the world broke.
The explosion was not a sound, but a physical weight. The shockwave expanded outward, a dome of steam and pressurized air that flattened the remaining ruins of the plaza. The molten earth was flash-frozen into jagged glass, while the falling snow was instantly sublimated into a thick, choking mist.
Silence followed——a heavy, ringing silence that tasted of ozone and copper.
As the white haze slowly thinned, the true extent of the devastation was laid bare.
A massive trench had been carved into the heart of Guaral, a scorched wound that hissed as the magical frost fought against the residual heat. The sky above was bruised, the thick clouds torn asunder by the sheer force of the clash, revealing a few indifferent stars looking down upon the ruin.
Priscilla was the first to move.
She stood at the epicenter, though her hands trembled with a rhythmic, violent cadence. Her dress was tattered at the hem, and the Yang Sword was gone——dissolved into the night air as its final reserves of mana were spent.
"To force mineself to such a vulgar display of effort..."
Priscilla spat the words, her voice a low, dangerous simmer. She looked down at her palms; they were red, scorched by the backflow of her own weakened weapon.
"The heavens truly possess a most tedious sense of humor."
"Priscilla... san... are you...?"
A few paces away, Emilia collapsed to one knee.
Her silver hair was matted with soot and frost, and her breath came in shallow, jagged gasps. The mana in the atmosphere was depleted, a vacuum of energy that left her feeling hollow and lightheaded.
She reached out, her fingers brushing the frozen ground, looking for the strength to stand.
But her gaze didn't stay on the sky. It drifted to the side, toward the red-stained snow where the golden-haired merchant lay still.
"Flop-san...!"
The cry was weak, a thread of sound in the wasteland.
Beyond them, in the center of the crater, Madelyn Eschart remained on her knees. The dragonkin was a statue of grief and horror, her claws dug deep into the frozen earth. She was not looking at the women who had survived her trump card.
She was staring at the man who had traded his life for a boy's future——and the blood-soaked pendant that mocked her very existence.
The Cloud Dragon, Mezoreia, let out a low, mournful rumble from above the clouds, its presence a heavy shadow over the city.
The battle had ceased, but the tragedy was only just beginning to settle.
Under the cold, mocking gaze of the Vollachian stars, the Witch and the Princess stood amidst the wreckage of their victory, while the blood of a Moron continued to seep into the thirsty, frozen soil.
Truly, the world was a cruel stage, and the director was a god with no mercy to spare.
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"―――"
The world, already muffled by the supernatural blizzard, lost its last shred of sound.
Pushed violently by the shoulder, Schult tumbled into the frost-covered surface of the city street. He had not expected the force——the desperate, clumsy strength of a man who didn't know how to fight. The young boy's body rolled across the ground, his breath hitching in surprise.
However, there was no need to ask why he had been shoved.
The answer was written in a vivid, screaming vermillion across the white snow.
"――Flop-san!"
Schult's voice cracked, a high-pitched wail that tore through the frigid air.
Lying on his back where Schult had stood only a heartbeat ago was Flop O'Connell. His slender frame was marked by four deep, jagged gouges that ran from his shoulder down to his waist. It was as if a Great Beast had attempted to shred him whole.
The wounds were deep——so deep they looked like dark mud gouged out by a heavy branch, leaking a continuous, steaming stream of life onto the cold earth.
Standing over him was the girl with sky-blue hair.
Madelyn Eschart stood perfectly still, her arm still extended from the swing. Red droplets fell rhythmically from the tips of her black claws. She had moved with the defensive reflex of a cornered dragon, striking out at the first thing that touched her——and Flop had stepped into that void.
Emilia, having just landed from her skirmish with Beatrice, felt her heart plummet at the sight.
She rushed forward, her boots kicking up sprays of snow. But as she reached for the merchant, a thin, powerful arm blocked her path. Madelyn took a predatory step forward, her golden eyes wild and unfocused, and shoved Emilia back with a strength that defied her small stature.
Before anyone could react, Madelyn's hand shot out, grabbing the dying Flop by the collar of his blood-soaked shirt. She hoisted him up with a terrifying, rough jerk, forcing his limp body to dangle before her.
"Why is a dragon's fang... Why is Carillon's fang friggin' hanging from your neck!?"
It was a shriek. A sound of pure, unadulterated grief and desperation that seemed to vibrate in the girl's very marrow.
Emilia froze. She didn't understand the name, nor the significance of the pendant, but she could see the state the man she didn't know was in. His eyes were closed, his head lolling uselessly. The embers of his life were flickering, ready to be extinguished by the unceasing flow of blood.
"FRIGGIN' ANSWER ME! ANSWER! IF YOU CAN'T DO THAT...!"
"Stop it! You're going to kill him! Please, let him go!"
Emilia lunged forward, grabbing Madelyn's wrist. For a moment, the Ninth Divine General turned her golden gaze toward Emilia—a look so filled with draconic heat and murderous intent that it should have turned the snow to steam. But Emilia did not flinch. She met that gaze with the fierce, unwavering resolve of someone who refused to lose another person.
"I can save him! I'm a Spirit Arts user——I can heal him! But if you keep shaking him, he'll die!"
Madelyn's grip tightened, then slowly, agonizingly, her arm relaxed.
Healing magic. In the Empire, where the strong thrived and the weak were discarded, such a thing was a rarity.
But Madelyn looked at the silver-haired girl, seeing the sincerity in those amethyst eyes.
"...You can save him?"
"I will. No matter what it takes...!"
"Then, friggin' do it quickly."
Without another word, Madelyn shoved Flop's body toward Emilia. The merchant fell heavily into the girl's arms, his blood staining her white and purple traveling clothes.
Emilia didn't waste a second. She laid him flat on the grass and hovered her hands over the gaping wounds.
"This looks... terrible..."
The damage was catastrophic. The claws had shredded through muscle and neared the organs. As she channeled her mana, calling upon the minor spirits of the air to assist, a wave of crushing fatigue washed over her.
"――Hk."
She had already used so much. Between the flight of dragons, the battle with Madelyn, and maintaining the blizzard with Beatrice, her mana gate was screaming. Her vision blurred for a moment, the world tilting dangerously.
"―――"
Minutes felt like hours. Slowly, the terrifying, rhythmic gush of blood slowed to a sluggish trickle. The deathly pallor of Flop's cheeks shifted, just a fraction, toward a faint, ghostly pink.
"Hey, stay awake, don't close fall unconscious!"
She called out to him, her voice a desperate anchor. At the sound, Flop's long eyelashes quivered. His blue eyes opened slightly, and his lips trembled.
He spoke, a faint exhale that was barely a whisper.
"...Don't, heal me... fully."
"――What?"
The shock of the request was so profound that Emilia's concentration wavered.
"What are you saying? If I don't finish this, you'll..."
But Flop's eyelids fell shut again. His consciousness slipped back into the dark before he could explain. Emilia sat there, half-confused, her hands still glowing with a soft, pale light.
Don't heal me fully?
Was he disoriented? Lost in a fever dream from the blood loss? It was the most logical explanation. But Flop O'Connell was a man who chose his words with the precision of a merchant. Even on the brink of death, he was someone who looked at the "deal" being made.
Emilia looked up.
Madelyn was standing a few feet away, her shadow long and menacing against the snow. Above them, the dragons were still shrieking, the city was still burning, and the war was still hungry for more lives.
Then, it clicked.
If Flop was fully healed, he was just another prisoner——or a corpse waiting to happen. But as long as he was the only bridge to the secret of that pendant... as long as his life was a work in progress.
Emilia took a deep breath and withdrew her hands. The glowing mana vanished.
Naturally, the process stopped. Flop was stable, but he was far from recovered. He remained in a precarious, sleeping state.
"――? You, what the frig' are you doing? What for...?"
The air pressure shifted as Madelyn's rage returned. She closed the distance in a single stride, grabbing Emilia by the collar and hoisting her upward.
"WHY DID YOU STOP FRIGGIN' HEALING THAT MAN!?"
Emilia stared back into the golden, reptilian eyes. She felt the heat of the dragonkin's breath on her face, but she didn't look away or tremble.
"If you want me to continue healing Flop-san, I have a condition."
"Condition...? What, are you suddenly rambling about..."
"Please make the dragons attacking the city leave. Every single one of them. Call them off, right now."
Madelyn's fangs snapped together in anger. Her grip on Emilia's collar tightened until the fabric groaned.
"You think you can friggin' bargain with me?! I'll tear your throat out and find someone else to——"
"There is no one else! I'm the only one here who can do this, and you know it!"
Emilia's voice wasn't loud, but it had the weight of a glacier.
"This man is holding onto life by a very thin thread. If you kill me, or if you wait too long, that thread will snap. And then you'll never know why he has that fang. You'll never get your answer."
Madelyn's pupils narrowed into slits. She looked at the dying merchant, then at the pendant, then back at the silver-haired girl who dared to stand in her way.
The Ninth Divine General of the Vollachian Empire, a creature of fire and blood, found herself trapped in a deal she hadn't agreed to.
"You... you friggin' people... you're all so...!"
She let out a turbulent, frustrated yell that echoed across the city, shaking the very frost from the trees.
Negotiations had officially begun. The Witch of Glaciation had found her leverage.
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The morning sun rose over the crimson soil of the Empire, its light possessing a cruel, piercing clarity that seemed to mock the absurdity of the boy standing beneath it.
"I—I truly cannot thank you enough! I don't know what happened, or how you... changed... but you saved my life! I owe you everything!"
The carriage driver's voice was thick with a gratitude that felt far too heavy for Subaru's currently shrunken shoulders to bear. To the driver, this was a miraculous escape. To Natsuki Subaru, it was the result of a grueling, blood-stained process that had already claimed his life once.
The memory of the first attempt——the warm feeling of Louis blood, and the instant cessation of his own existence from the blue-haired boy on the island was a phantom itch at the base of his neck.
"Yeah, yeah... just get going. If you stay here, you'll just be caught up in the next 'unreasonable' thing this country throws at us."
Subaru waved a hand, but the gesture felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. His center of gravity was skewed, and the very air felt as if it were pressing against a body that didn't have enough surface area to push back.
The "Infantilization." A vicious, playful curse from the Vicious Old Man.
It wasn't just his height that had been stolen. Inside his chest, the Gate that regulated the flow of mana, and strangely enough, his Cursed Energy, felt as if it had been clamped shut by a pair of unyielding pliers.
It hurts.
Every time he tried to circulate that familiar, roiling heat, a sharp, jagged spike of pain shot through his nervous system. It was a physical impossibility. He wasn't like that annoying guy——the one who stood at the pinnacle of strength, blessed by the heavens with eyes that saw everything and a technique that controlled space.
Subaru was far, far from the Strongest to begin with.
And now, his energy felt like it were being forced through a straw the size of a needle. If he pushed any harder, he wouldn't just fail to use his abilities——his very vessels would likely burst, painting the red dirt with his foolishness.
"Auu! Au, au!"
At his side, the girl—Louis—tugged on his sleeve. Her eyes were wide, vacant, and filled with a terrifyingly pure innocence that made Subaru's heart ache with a mixture of pity and annoyance at the entire situation.
"I know, Louis. I'm coming."
With a final, confused bow, the driver urged his ground dragons forward, fleeing the scene of his near-death as quickly as the carriage would allow. Subaru watched the dust kick up, the rattling of wheels fading into the vast, oppressive silence of the Vollachian wasteland.
He was a child in a foreign land with a large amount of his power constricted by the confines of this small body.
But even so, the path toward the hellish Gladiator Island of Ginunhive remained absolute.
"Let's go."
Subaru kicked a stray pebble with a foot that was far too small, his shadow stretching out long and thin before him——the only part of him that still looked like a man.
Holding the hand of the monster-turned-child, the boy who was a hero, a victim, and a failure all at once began to walk again.
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The sheer, unreasonable scale of the Sacred Vollachian Empire was a fact that Natsuki Subaru was being forced to learn through the soles of his shoes.
As the largest of the four great nations, Vollachia did not care for the convenience of travelers. A distance that appeared as a mere stone's throw on a map was, in reality, a grueling trek across unforgiving terrain.
Subaru raised a small, pale hand, curling his fingers to shade his narrowed eyes from the glare. Before him stretched a vast, glistening expanse of water, and sitting ominously in the hazy distance was his destination: the Gladiator Island of Ginunhive.
It was an imposing gulf. Yet, it was a gap he had already breached once before.
Though, back then, my legs were a hell of a lot longer.
"Well... I still think I can pull it off, even like this."
Beside him, Louis tilted her head, her blonde hair shifting as she stared at the water with blank, innocent confusion.
Seeing that utterly helpless expression on Louis' face stirred something in Subaru's core, and he pasted that familiar, cocky grin onto his youthful face.
"Heh. Don't look so worried, Louis. I'll just run right across the water while carrying you. Easy peasy."
"U-Uaaa?" Louis's brows furrowed, entirely unconvinced.
Huffing out of his nose at her lack of faith, Subaru raised his palm.
He closed his eyes, reaching into the deepest, darkest depths of his soul, and called upon the Authority of Pride.
It took a agonizingly long heartbeat——as it always did when drawing upon that sinister power, but soon enough, a familiar, chilling surge of darkness erupted from his palm. Pitch-black wisps of darkness coiled around his fingers like living smoke, only to dissipate into the air the moment they were fully conjured.
"Alright. The connection is still there. I can use it just fine."
He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
The same held true for his Cursed Energy Reinforcement.
While his current 'Gate' was constricted, and he was far smaller than normal, meaning he couldn't flood his body with the same overwhelming torrent of energy as he had before his infantilization, the reinforcement was still leagues beyond what any normal human could output.
"Alright, all aboard the Natsuki Express!"
With a genuine grin, Subaru crouched down, tapping his shoulder to give Louis the signal. The girl blinked, her eyes lighting up with childlike interest, before she beamed and practically tackled his back.
He allowed that familiar surge of Cursed Energy to wrap around his muscles. Before, with a deafening crack against the shoreline, he launched himself into the air, flying directly over the vast, sparkling lake of Ginunhive.
"Uaaaa!"
Louis cheered, the wind whipping through her hair as they soared upward, hit the apex of their jump, and began to rapidly fall toward the churning water below.
Just before gravity could claim them, a pair of small, pitch-black platforms defied the very laws of reality, manifesting squarely beneath Subaru's falling feet.
He kicked off the solidified darkness, throwing them forward once again in a massive leap.
The concept was as simple as it was terrifying: using the Authority of Pride, Subaru manifested tangible footholds of shadow mere inches above the water's surface. He was, for all intents and purposes, walking on the sky to cross the sea.
Translating the insane idea into reality wasn't nearly as difficult as it sounded. After all, the boy named Natsuki Subaru had already done it in a previous loop.
He had performed far more complex, sanity-shredding feats with this Authority than simply building invisible stairs. Compared to surviving everything he had up to now, this was a stroll through the park.
Well, I say that...
Subaru thought, his eyes stinging from the rushing wind and the toll of the power.
"But if I get careless and push it too far, who knows? I might just start weeping blood from my eyes again. The limits of this Authority are nothing but confusing to me, even now."
"———?"
Sensing the tension in his back, Louis tilted her head, her confused hum barely audible over the rush of air. Subaru merely shook his head, focusing entirely on the rhythm.
After a disorienting, terrifying span of time suspended between sky and water, the scent of the air changed. The dark platforms vanished for the final time as Subaru's boots hit solid ground, sinking slightly into the soft, white earth of a sandy beach.
"And... we have arrived!"
Subaru let out a ragged gasp, turning his head to offer Louis a weak high-five. She clapped his hand happily, slipping off his back.
He turned his gaze toward the looming structure of the island.
An island meant entirely for bloodsport gladiators probably doesn't have a five-star buffet. I'm honestly regretting leaving that carriage behind. Well... any supplies we had in there were a hundred percent obliterated during the fight with Olbart anyway, so I guess worrying about it is pointless.
Brushing the sand off his oversized clothes, Subaru froze. He didn't take a step forward. Instead, his dark, watchful eyes scanned the dense treeline bordering the beach, his posture taut like a coiled spring. He was waiting.
Louis, noticing his sudden stillness, hopped back over to his side, leaning forward to peer into his face.
"Uaaa...?"
Subaru blinked, the tension slowly draining from his shoulders as the forest remained entirely, deafeningly silent.
"Eh? Ah, don't worry about it. It's nothing."
Subaru offered the girl a reassuring, albeit strained, smile. Finally turning his back on the trees, he began the march into the heart of the island.
The eccentric, blue-haired boy had not come crashing through the canopy to greet him this time.
"Uau? Uaaa?"
Louis pulled at the hem of his shirt, pulling Subaru from his spiraling thoughts. Her head tilted to the side and her blue eyes wide and blinking.
"It's fine. Really, it's fine. We just have to take the initiative! If the welcoming committee isn't going to show up, we'll just have to invite ourselves in. Natsuki Subaru's grand entrance, take two!"
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Natsuki Subaru currently found himself in a rather absurd predicament.
With Louis clinging to his side, he had deliberately stumbled across a pair of guards out on their daily patrol. Now, looking up at the armed men with a face twisted into a mask of perfect, pathetic childish terror, he darted his gaze frantically between them.
Oblivious to the boy's internal calculations, the guards were currently having an irritated discussion about how exactly to handle the two toddlers that had supposedly 'washed up' on their shores.
"Look, I don't care how a pair of runts actually managed to wash up on this island," the first guard grunted, glaring down at them. "Could be an accident, could be on purpose for all I care——but you know the rules just as well as I do."
The other guard just shook his head, letting out a heavy, exasperated sigh.
"Washed up on Ginunhive, was it... Argh, of all the hellholes in the Empire to drift to, how the hell did you brats manage to land here?"
"That ain't important," the first guard snapped, cutting off his partner's grumbling with a sharp, dismissive wave of his hand. "Unless you're itching to get on the bad side of the man in charge, just stop thinking about it altogether. We don't get paid to play detective."
The second guard clicked his tongue, his heavy shoulders slumping in grim resignation.
In the Vollachian Empire, and especially on this island of blood and sand, stepping out of line didn't earn you a reprimand, but a spot in the arena.
"... Haven't you heard the rumors that have been spreading?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
Hearing those words, the guard's expression faltered, eyes shifting to the black-haired boy for a fraction of a second before returning.
"... Forget it, I'll tell you later."
"Whatever, but either way, there's only one thing we can do with 'em anyway," the first guard continued, gesturing roughly toward the cowering children with the butt of his spear. "We're taking the pair straight to the Island Chief. He's the only one who has the authority to decide their fate. If we try to deal with them ourselves, it's our heads on the chopping block."
Hearing those words, Subaru buried his face further into his sleeves, trembling violently as if struck by a fresh, overwhelming wave of terror.
Beside him, Louis simply blinked her round, blue eyes, entirely unbothered by the grim fate being decided for them.
But beneath his hands, hidden entirely from the guards' view, the corners of Subaru's mouth twitched upward.
Bingo~
It was definitely a gamble.
He had bet everything on the slim sliver of protocol these brutes still adhered to, knowing that even in Vollachia, the grunts at the bottom of the ladder were terrified of the ones at the top.
And the gamble had paid off.
Rather than utilizing his limited options as a fighter, trying to fight his way blindly through an unknown jungle and most likely making an enemy of the entire island, he had just secured a direct, heavily escorted tour right into the heart of Ginunhive.
"Alright, on your feet, brats! Don't try anything stupid, or we'll skip the Chief and throw you into the next Sparka ourselves."
Subaru scrambled to his feet, grabbing Louis's hand and nodding frantically.
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The march through the gladiatorial encampment was something Subaru decided to file away for later analysis. For now, he kept his head bowed, playing the part of a terrified child to perfection.
Louis, of course, simply ambled along beside him, her vacant blue eyes completely unaware of the variety of different gazes boring into them from the surrounding cages and training pits.
Eventually, the guards shoved them toward the largest, most imposing structure in the encampment.
It was a brutalist block of heavy stone, lacking any sort of decoration.
As the heavy, iron-reinforced doors were pushed open, the cacophony of the arena was abruptly cut off, replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence. The interior was dim, lit only by the faint glow of a few crystal lamps.
"Island Chief, sir."
Spoke one of the soldiers toward the giant man sitting on the opposing side of a table.
The man had a stern, deeply lined face, and an aura so dense it felt as if gravity itself was heavier in his presence.
But that wasn't what made the breath catch in Subaru's throat.
Resting on the desk, casually organizing a stack of parchments, were four massive, blue-skinned muscled arms.
Gustav Morello. The Governor of the Gladiator Island of Ginunhive.
"———"
For a brief period, Subaru's surprise was so obvious that he had to push himself to hide it.
He didn't anticipate seeing someone who belonged to the same race as one of the "Zombie Cultists" who had attacked Priestella.
"I gave no orders to be disturbed," Gustav spoke.
"Apologies, Island Chief." the lead guard said, his voice completely stripped of its earlier arrogance. "But we found these two children wandering near the shore. The protocol for unaccounted anomalies dictates we bring them directly to you."
Gustav's sharp, uncompromising gaze shifted from the parchment to the guards, and then, finally, down to the two children stood close by.
"More children..." Gustav stated, his four hands folding together in a bizarrely uniform manner atop his desk. "... How utterly illogical."
Those remarks undoubtedly created confusion in Subaru's gut; the message was clear.
I guess he's referring to that blue-haired kid who killed me before.
"——Boy."
Gustav interrupted Subaru's thoughts and asked.
"How did you and the girl arrive here?"
"Uhhh..."
Subaru struggled to articulate his thoughts before speaking.
"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to explain it... or well... no, I don't really wanna say it with these guys here..."
Gustav fixed his gaze on the child for a brief minute before turning to face the two troops and waving his hand.
"B-But sir...?"
"I will call you, if I need you."
"———"
The response came as swift as it was simple, and gave very little room to argue against.
All the troops could do was glare at the two children before leaving.
Subaru looked at the closed door, astonished by Gustav's rapid and decisive order.
"Huh... I wasn't really expecting you to listen to me so fast..." He muttered.
"Well, will you grant me an answer to my question now, child?"
"Uhhh.... I 'ran' here."
Subaru said in a plain tone, a small smile on his face.
"———"
Gustav remained quiet for a short moment, though, his expression remained surprisingly stoic, given the information he'd received.
"I see. Then that means you came to the island through your own will, why?"
Subaru's small faltered as he resumed pondering.
He wasn't sure how he was meant to respond——to put it simply, he didn't know if Gustav was trustworthy.
He wasn't worried of losing a battle, of course, unless the blue-haired child was deemed a 'ace up the sleeve' in terms of military strength. Instead, he required Gustav's cooperation to accomplish his goal.
He had come here to strengthen the revolution's fighting force, after all.
And, more importantly, Gustav is the most likely person to know how to 'deactivate' or at least make it possible to leave the island without immediately dying from the Curse Tool Abel mentioned.
Subaru opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a rather familiar figure.
This person was grinning from ear to ear, staring up close into his face, blue hair blowing as if he had just arrived at breakneck speed.
"Woah, woah, woah! What's this, what's this?"
The boy chirped, grinning from ear to ear as he stared directly into Subaru's face.
"Uh..."
"Hey! I heard you ran on water? Ooooh, incredible! Amazing! I've never tried running on water myself, but I feel like I could probably do it if I tried. Ah, not trying to sound too arrogant by saying that, though!"
"I... see?"
Subaru managed to choke out, taking a cautious half-step back.
"I've been told coming off as too arrogant can make the people around you want to avoid you, after all!" The boy nodded sagely, as if sharing a profound truth. "Must be why I have no friends, haha! Hey, did you know that——"
"...Segmunt."
Gustav's voice cut through the boy's rapid-fire chatter, louder and significantly more strained than before.
"I distinctly recall telling you to remain in the training pits until the upcoming Sparka. Why have you defied my orders?"
The boy addressed as 'Segmunt' gave a wry smile, scratching the back of his head with an exaggerated sigh.
"Hahaha~ Sorry, sorry! I couldn't help myself when I heard what was going on in here, you know? This guy was reaaaally screaming to my instincts that he's something exciting! I couldn't help but think that with all the characters finally set up, the first arc might be coming to a close!"
Subaru's brows furrowed. The boy's words were so ridiculous, so utterly nonsensical, that Subaru almost glossed over the name Gustav had used.
Almost.
——'Segmunt'.
There was only one person Subaru had been told about in Vollachia who carried that name.
The absolute last person Subaru ever wanted to run into.
"Like.... Cecilus...?"
Subaru whispered, his voice cracking.
The blue-haired boy blinked, tilting his head.
"Yes? That's me!"
"...Woah, woah, woah.... you've got to be kidding me——"
Equal——
To Reinhard——
Abel's warning echoed in Subaru's mind like a death whistle. He looked at the talkative, cheerful child standing before him, struggling to reconcile the image with the monster he had been warned about.
But the speed.
Even with his heightened perception, Subaru hadn't caught the movement at all. Cecilus had simply ceased to be outside of the room and started to be inside it.
It was a physical impossibility that was something he could only imagine very few people doing.
A cold, paralyzing fear gripped Subaru's chest.
He remembered the feeling of Reinhard's sword.
He remembered the feeling of Reid Astrea's sword.
He remembered the sheer, suffocating hopelessness of standing before an insurmountable peak.
He forced himself to calm his rapid breathing, drawing on every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his face neutral. He doubted Cecilus missed the spike in his heart rate or the subtle shift of his expression, but he refused to show weakness.
"...But, Vollachia's strongest... is a little kid?" Subaru muttered, genuinely bewildered.
Cecilus huffed out of his nose, taking a small step back and placing both hands firmly on his hips in a classic hero pose.
"Hmmmmmm... why does everyone always react like that? Is it really so surprising? I mean, you're a kid too, aren't you? We're basically in the same boat!"