DID YOU KNOW? YOU CAN NOW READ THREE TO SIX CHAPTERS AHEAD. CHECK MY PROFILE FOR THE LINK.
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"That can't be right."
Everyone paused, turning towards the ten great saints, or rather, the one standing at the head of the group.
Even the saints themselves turned to to look at their comrade.
Renard's voice was quiet when he said it. He looked like someone trying to deny what was happening before him.
"Lady Hinata lost, so the terms of the wager are in effect, but..." He paused, his brow drawing together. "There must be some allowance for circumstances. Given everything that happened in the fight, the deception with the spiritrons, the unconventional methods, surely the terms can be reviewed before any final decision is made."
Luminous looked at him without particular warmth. "The terms were agreed upon before the fight began. They do not require review."
Renard's jaw tightened, but he held himself together.
"Then perhaps a modification. Lady Hinata's presence in Lubelius is not a trivial matter. There are ongoing responsibilities, active duties that cannot simply be suspended for a full year without serious consequence to the people who depend on her."
He turned toward Hinata directly, desperation beginning to creep into his voice despite his efforts to keep it level.
"Lady Hinata. Surely you can see that there has to be another way. You could still come home with us. Whatever needs to be negotiated, we can negotiate it differently, find something else to offer that satisfies..."
"Renard."
"The Sanctuary still needs you. The Great Saints still need you. I still..." He stopped. "Is there really no way for you to come back with us?"
The silence that followed his question was its own answer.
Something changed in his face.
His hands, which had been clasped in front of him, slowly came apart.
"This is absurd." His voice had dropped again, but the quality of it was entirely different now. "This is completely absurd. Lady Hinata lost to a monster. In a fight arranged by a monster, judged by a monster, with terms set by a monster, and now the conclusion everyone is simply accepting is that one of the most important human beings alive should go and serve one?"
He looked around the garden, his eyes moving from face to face.
"She was cheated. Everyone here knows she was cheated. That creature used deception and trickery at every turn rather than fighting with any real honour, and we're standing here calling it a legitimate outcome?"
"Renard," Hinata said again, more firmly.
He wasn't listening anymore. "Lady Hinata is the greatest Holy Knight Lubelius has ever produced."
His voice climbed, filling the garden. "She has spent her entire life in service to humanity, fighting against exactly this kind of threat, sacrificing everything she has for the sake of the people monsters like these would happily destroy, and the conclusion to all of that is that she should kneel to a Demon Lord!?"
He turned on Kaede, his finger rising.
"She was put on this earth to oppose beings like you. To protect humanity from beings like you. Whatever you think you've won here, whatever agreement you think has been made, Hinata would never, she could never, willingly submit herself to serving a monster. It goes against everything she is. Everything she stands for."
Rimuru had stopped smiling. He turned toward Shion, his voice low and measured. "Shion. Restrain him, please."
Shion moved immediately.
She had crossed half the distance to Renard before the nearest Saint registered what was happening, and by then she had already closed her hand around Renard's arm with a vice grip.
"Hands off him big tits!" Saare immediately drew his blade. "Crazy as he sounds right now, he's still one of us."
Around him, several others followed. Steel left sheaths in a quick, ugly sequence, turning the garden into somewhere considerably more dangerous than it had been moments ago.
Fritz had his sword out. Arnaud stepped forward. Even Garde, whose expression throughout the afternoon had been more restrained than most, had his hand at his hilt.
Benimaru's eyes sharpened. He said nothing, but his stance made it clear he was ready.
Soei appeared at Rimuru's flank.
Hakurou simply watched, one hand resting lightly near his sword.
Kaede had not moved. Hanae had placed herself half a step in front of her mother, while Hachi, still carrying the evidence of the fight across her armour, turned toward the drawn blades with relaxed attentiveness.
The garden held its breath.
"Enough!" Hinata's voice was like a blade coming down flat.
She stood straight, the exhaustion still written across her face, but her eyes carried the authority of the leader of the Ten Great Saints. They swept across her subordinates, the drawn swords, Shion's grip on Renard's arm, and then settled on Renard.
"Sheathe your weapons. All of you. Now."
Steel returned to scabbards. Not immediately, and not without reluctance, but one by one the garden became still again.
Hinata walked toward Renard.
Shion released his arm and stepped back without being asked.
Hinata stopped in front of him and looked at him for a long moment before finally speaking. Her voice had lost its commanding edge.
"Stand down, Renard."
"Lady Hinata." His voice cracked slightly. "You didn't do anything wrong. You've never done anything wrong. You fight for humanity, you always have, and I don't understand why you're the one who has to..."
"I killed someone who mattered," Hinata said simply. "I killed her because of assumptions I chose not to question, and because of anger I chose not to examine, and the people who loved her have been carrying that ever since."
"Love..." She whispered, although everyone heard it. "It feels so foreign to me."
She held his gaze. "I accepted the wager because I wanted to do something about that. Not because I was forced to. Not because I lost and had no choice."
A faint, tired smile touched her face. "I chose this, Renard. It was my choice to make, and I've made it. Respect that."
Renard stared at her. His hands were shaking slightly. "But you'd be serving a monster." His voice had gone very small. "You'd be serving the thing we're supposed to..."
"That will be enough." Hinata ordered yet again.
His voice rose again despite himself, the familiar fervency returning. "A Demon Lord doesn't get to decide what counts as honour! They don't get to set the terms of what we owe them and then hide behind a wager when..."
"Look." Kaede's voice reached them without preamble or heat. Her face was very still, and her eyes when they found Renard had become considerably colder.
"There is a certain amount of pushback I'm willing to tolerate. I have been tolerating it since the moment I arrived here because I understand that discomfort is a reasonable response."
She paused, and then spoke words that hammered absolute fear into the hearts of a few certain people. "I've reached my limit. Luminous."
Her gaze shifted toward the Vampire. "Control your subordinate before I do."
Renard laughed. "Threats," he said. "How very Demon Lord of you. Using threats because earning what you want is beyond you."
His chin rose slightly. "Lady Hinata would never follow someone who operates like that. She has standards that a creature like you couldn't begin to understand."
"You know what." Kaede's voice had gone completely flat. "This has been a waste of my time."
She looked at Luminous. "Take Hinata and return to Lubelius. Wait for me there while I..."
"Let's not be hasty."
The remarkable thing about Luminous saying those words was the quality underneath them, something almost like pleading, which from Luminous Valentine was far more significant than most of the people present understood.
She raised one hand, then snapped her fingers.
And Renard died.
He was standing perfectly normal, and looked unharmed for a moment before folding quietly to the ground.
He did not get up again.
The remaining Saints stared at him. Most of them in shock, which meant that they were also speechless.
"We reached a consensus," Luminous said pleasantly, lowering her hand and adjusting the fall of her sleeve. "There's no need to revisit it over something so trivial."
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Rimuru had positioned himself at Kaede's side during those few seconds, angling toward her carefully in hopes to deescalate the situation.
"Kaede." His voice was gentle. "I'm sorry. I didn't want for this to reach this level of... I just wanted my friends to get along."
Kaede turned her cold glare to him. "Why? Why are you so adamant about this? This incessant naivety of yours."
As she spoke the sky began to darken, taking on a strange, refracted quality, as though something above them was bending the afternoon through itself at the wrong angles.
Then the clouds came.
Colour erupted across the sky.
Except these rainbows weren't the beautiful kind that followed harmless rain. These were hard geometric lines of light fracturing outward and colliding at impossible angles.
Shapes accumulated into halos and crowns of prismatic brilliance, spreading until the entire canopy above the garden looked as though it were under enormous pressure.
The colours at the edges deepened as they spread, gold bleeding into amber, amber into a red that held nothing warm within it.
The clouds moved contrary to the wind.
A low resonance passed through the air, and the stone paths carried it beneath their feet.
The barrier Rimuru had constructed flickered.
"Kaede." His voice had climbed.
"What exactly did you think would happen if you didn't intervene?" Kaede asked, turning to face him fully. "That I would embark on a killing spree in Lubelius? Challenge Luminous and burn her and her kingdom to ash? Demand Hinata's head on a pike? Is that a thing that happens in this world? I don't know."
Rimuru didn't take a step back, knowing that he really did mess up.
Kaede sighed. "I'm angry at you Rimuru. You know at some point, it was us against this world. Two humans in somewhat the same circumstances."
"We were both lucky to have met the people we did, and we were happy. We were both happy." She took Hachi's hand into her own pulling her to her side. "I'm not going to risk that happiness, even for revenge, and I hate that you think so low of me."
Hinata looked down at her hands, a small breath leaving her. Beside her Luminous had a look of thought on her face, as if seeing Kaede in a new light.
"So I'm going home, Rimuru. We're still cool in case you're wondering, but I expect a heartfelt apology from you." Kaede turned to leave. "I don't want us to fight either, Rimuru."
Rimuru grit his teeth. 'I really didn't think this through.'
"Uhm, mother?" Hanae suddenly said. "Please control your energy." She was looking at the sky which looked like it was literally about to fall upon Tempest.
Kaede looked up at the storm. "That's not me."
"Are you sure?" Veldora asked, his hand over his face as he peered into the storm. "That looks a whole lot like you, you know."
He suddenly flinched. "Hang on a minute. Kaede, why is there another you up there?"