Late at night, the camp transformed. Torches were planted in a wide circle around the central clearing, their flames casting dancing shadows across the snow. Soldiers gathered in groups, their armor set aside for the evening, their weapons stacked in neat piles near the edges. Someone had brought out drums, and a steady rhythm began to echo through the valley, a deep thumping sound that seemed to come from the earth itself.
It was some kind of pre battle ceremony. A feast, or maybe a celebration, or maybe just an excuse for the soldiers to forget about the coming fight for a few hours. There was dance and drinks and laughter that sounded almost desperate if you listened closely enough. People moved in circles around the fires, their boots stamping against the frozen ground, their voices rising in songs that Subaru did not recognize.
The drinks were passed around in wooden cups. Subaru disliked drinks even in his real world, in his real body, back when he had a body that felt like his own. The taste never appealed to him, and the feeling of losing control was something he had always avoided. Here, in a demon body, in a camp full of soldiers who would kill her if they knew what she was, drinking seemed like an even worse idea.
A soldier approached her, a young man with a round face and a friendly smile. He held out a cup. "Drink?" he asked.
Subaru shook her head. "No thank you."
He shrugged and moved on. Another soldier came a few minutes later. Another cup. Another refusal. Subaru lost count after a while. She stood near the edge of the clearing, watching the celebration, her arms crossed, her turban tight around her head.
Übel did not drink either. She sat on a wooden crate near one of the fires, her staff leaning against her shoulder, her green eyes watching the dancers with an expression that was hard to read. She did not look bored. She did not look interested. She just looked, as if she was cataloging everything for later use.
No one dared to ask Übel for a dance. Subaru noticed that. The soldiers gave her a wide berth, their eyes sliding past her like she was a piece of furniture they had been told not to touch. Probably wise. Subaru had seen what Übel did to people who annoyed her.
Some soldiers asked Subaru for a dance. Several, actually. Young men with hopeful faces and too much courage from the drinks. Subaru turned them down strategically. A polite smile. A small wave. A vague excuse about being tired from the journey. Most of them accepted the rejection with good grace and wandered off to find other partners.
Then Wirt walked up to her.
He was not wearing his armor. His dark red hair was loose, falling across his forehead. His reddish eyes looked softer in the firelight, less like a commander and more like a normal person. He held out his hand.
"Miss Subaru," he said, "would you like to dance?"
Every instinct told her to decline but she looked at the man who held the keys to the city's defense, and her payment. In her world, harmony wasn't just a virtue; it was a survival strategy. To refuse him here, in front of his peers, would be a public slight he might not voice, but would certainly remember.
However, dancing with a man…
"I'm afraid I'm a rather poor dancer," Subaru said, offering a slight, apologetic bow. It was the standard opening, a polite way to invite him to withdraw the request.
But he didn't budge. "I'm sure you're being too modest," he insisted.
To push back a second time would be an open confrontation, a breach of the 'Wa' she had spent her life maintaining. In this hierarchy, a second refusal was a bridge she couldn't afford to burn.
"Then I shall try not to step on your toes," she said, accepting his hand.
Wirt smiled and led her toward the circle of dancers.
The dance was not complicated. Subaru had expected something elaborate, some kind of formal court dance with steps she would need to memorize. But it was simpler than that. People moved in a circle, holding hands or not, stepping forward and back, turning occasionally. More like a group activity than a proper dance.
Still, it was uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Subaru's body moved awkwardly, her feet not quite finding the rhythm, her arms not quite knowing where to go. She kept bumping into Wirt, then apologizing, then bumping into him again. Her face grew hot. Her ears burned. Her hands felt sweaty inside his grip.
Wirt did not seem to mind. He moved with her, adjusting his steps to match hers, leading her gently when she looked lost. He did not laugh at her clumsiness. He did not comment on it. He just danced, calm and steady, as if this was something he had done a thousand times.
Subaru somehow did not die again from sheer embarrassment or something. It was a close call. Several times, she considered the possibility that her heart might simply give out. But she kept moving, kept stepping, kept smiling even though the smile probably looked more like a grimace.
The song ended. Subaru stepped back quickly, almost tripping over her own feet. She bowed her head to Wirt, said something that might have been "thank you," and retreated to the edge of the clearing before anyone could ask for another dance.
The celebration continued. The drums kept beating. The soldiers kept dancing.
Eventually, Wirt climbed onto a wooden platform that had been set up near the largest fire. He raised his hand, and the crowd grew quiet. The drums stopped. The dancers stopped. Everyone turned to look at him.
Wirt looked out over the gathered soldiers. His face was serious now, the softness gone, replaced by the hard lines of a commander preparing for battle.
"Tomorrow," he said, his voice carrying across the clearing, "we face the demons. Tomorrow, we fight for our city, for our families, for everything we have built and everything we hope to protect." He paused, letting the words settle. "They think we are weak. They think we will break. They think they can sweep through our walls and take what is ours."
He pointed toward the hills where the demon camp waited. "They are wrong. We have faced worse. We have survived worse. We will survive this too."
The soldiers cheered. Some raised their cups. Others pounded their fists against their chests.
Wirt waited for the noise to fade, then continued. "We will prevail. We will destroy the demon invaders. And when the sun rises tomorrow, we will still be standing." He raised his fist. "For Vorig!"
The soldiers echoed him. "For Vorig!"
The cheer went up again, louder this time, a wave of sound that rolled across the camp and disappeared into the dark hills beyond.
Subaru stood at the edge of the crowd, clapping politely. Prevail. Destroy. For Vorig. She was supposed to be on their side. She was pretending to be on their side. But the things they were shouting about destroying were technically her kind now, even if she had never met another demon, even if she did not feel like one, even if the word meant nothing to her.
She pushed the thought away and walked back to her tent.
Later, night came fully. The celebration ended. The torches burned low. The soldiers retreated to their tents, their laughter fading into the quiet murmur of a camp settling down for sleep.
Inside the tent that Subaru shared with Übel, two beds sat on opposite sides of the space. Simple cots with thin blankets and lumpy pillows, but better than sleeping on the ground. Subaru lay on her back, staring at the canvas ceiling, her hands folded across her stomach. The turban was still on her head. She never took it off except to wash, and even then, only when she was certain no one could see.
Übel lay on the other cot, her green hair spread across her pillow, her eyes open and fixed on the ceiling.
"These warriors are quite strong," Übel said.
Subaru turned her head to look at her. "That is why you beat them black and blue?"
Übel ignored the question. She was good at that. Asking things and then deflecting when the same kind of question came back at her. "Do other demons know if someone is a demon without seeing horns?" she asked. "Can they sense it somehow?"
Subaru actually did not have the answer. She was not a demon, not really. She had woken up in a demon's body less than ten days ago. She had never met any other demon in her life. She did not know how they thought or what they could sense or whether they had some kind of secret handshake for identifying each other.
So naturally, she lied.
"I never met a demon hiding as a human," she said. "So I never really realized it. I do not know."
The words felt clumsy in her mouth, too many negatives, too much hedging. But Übel did not comment on the quality of the lie. She just nodded slowly, her eyes still on the ceiling.
"I see," Übel said. "Well, tomorrow is going to be very tough for you. It is easy. Do not let any demon see that you are a demon. And if one demon finds out what you are, kill them instantly."
Subaru swallowed. "Yeah. I know."
Übel was quiet for a moment. The canvas walls flapped slightly as the wind picked up outside. Somewhere in the distance, a soldier laughed, the sound sharp and brief.
"Do demons feel bad when they kill their own kind?" Übel asked.
Subaru stared at the ceiling. She thought about the question. She thought about what it would feel like to stand across from another demon, someone who looked like her, who had horns like her, who might even understand what she was going through in a way that no human ever could. And she thought about what she would have to do to survive.
"I do not know," she said.
Übel turned her head to look at Subaru. Her purple eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, catching the light from the dying fire outside the tent. "Hmm," she said. "For a demon, you are awfully unaware of such basic things. You are hiding a lot of things from me."
Subaru's heart beat faster. She kept her expression neutral. "I cannot?"
"Should you?" Übel challenged.
The word hung in the air between them. Subaru did not answer. She did not know how to answer. The truth was too strange, too complicated, too dangerous. Lies were easier, but Übel had already seen through some of them.
Then Übel laughed. It was a soft laugh, quiet, almost gentle. "Relax," she said. "I am not going to dig further. Now sleep, if you can."
Subaru let out a breath she did not know she had been holding. "Yeah," she said. "I can sleep. I might be a demon, but even I can feel exhausted at some point."
She closed her eyes.
The tent was quiet. The wind blew outside. Somewhere across the camp, a torch crackled and hissed.
Subaru did not sleep well. But she slept.