—One more hit and I'm done.
The thought did not arrive dramatically.
It did not echo like a heroic realization.
It simply settled inside Subaru like a quiet, undeniable truth.
His legs were already trembling.
His fingers, wrapped around the practice sword, felt distant—like they belonged to someone else.
Every breath scraped through his throat as though he had swallowed glass.
His vision had narrowed into a swollen tunnel where only one figure existed.
Julius.
The onlookers had long since understood the outcome.
The whispers in the parade square had dulled into uneasy silence.
Some knights watched with stern disapproval.
Some nobles with detached curiosity.
Others with poorly concealed disdain.
But Subaru didn't see any of them.
Inside his skull, there was no audience.
There was only him.
And Julius Juukulius.
He knew the next clean strike would finish him.
Even if—by some miracle—his blade connected, even if wood kissed flesh and landed true, he would not be able to follow through.
His body was done.
His lungs were collapsing inward.
His arms were shaking.
So why challenge him?
Why keep standing?
Why reach for something he knew he could not grasp?
He couldn't even remember.
The original reason for this fight—his pride, his anger, his humiliation—had blurred into something simpler.
Hatred.
Not noble hatred.
Not righteous fury.
Just a raw, burning resentment at the sight of Julius standing there so perfectly composed while Subaru was reduced to this wreck.
Julius stood straight despite the dust.
His uniform, though marked by combat, still carried dignity.
His breathing was controlled.
His gaze was steady.
That calmness infuriated Subaru more than any insult could have.
If he was going down—
Then he would at least break that composure.
He would shatter that perfect bridge of a nose.
"—"
His lungs screamed when he inhaled.
Even exhaling sent spikes of agony through his ribs.
His lips tasted of iron and dirt.
One of his eyes was nearly swollen shut.
Painpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpain—
It wasn't a thought anymore.
It was the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Still—
He waited.
He gathered what remained of his strength like scraps from a broken table.
He watched Julius carefully.
Just one lapse.
One flicker.
One moment of arrogance.
That would be enough.
—Painpainpainpain—
Julius's gaze shifted.
Just slightly.
Not even toward Subaru.
Something else.
Something above.
But Subaru didn't care what had distracted him.
This was it.
This was the opening.
He lunged.
There was no sound in that instant.
No crowd.
No wind.
No dust.
Just the violent narrowing of his world into a single point.
He raised the wooden blade with every scrap of willpower he had left.
Julius had not reacted yet.
Subaru felt something flicker at the edge of his hearing—
A distortion.
A tremor.
"—ru!"
A voice.
Someone is calling him.
His mind wavered for half a heartbeat.
Ignore it.
Ignore everything.
Just swing.
"—baru!"
The voice became clearer.
Desperate.
Familiar.
If he let it in—
If he acknowledged it—
He would hesitate.
And if he hesitated, this final blow would die before it landed.
So he did the only thing he could.
He screamed.
"—SHAMAAAAK!!"
The incantation tore from his throat like a confession.
Blackness erupted outward in an instant.
The reddish soil of the parade square vanished beneath a suffocating bloom of shadow.
Light was swallowed whole.
Sound collapsed inward.
The world died.
Within that artificial night, Subaru charged blindly.
In this realm where logic held no dominion—
He could win.
His body moved on instinct alone.
His arms obeyed the last command his brain would ever give them.
Swing.
Reach.
Strike.
"So this is your secret weapon, then?"
The voice pierced the void.
Clear.
Unbothered.
Inside a space that should have erased all sensation.
The darkness trembled.
And then—
Light returned.
A blade of polished wood cut cleanly through the black mist.
Subaru barely registered the motion before something slammed into his ribs.
The impact crushed the air from his lungs and sent him skidding across the dirt like discarded trash.
The black cloud dissolved.
The sky returned.
Blue.
Unforgiving.
"I did not expect that you would use Dark-type magic," Julius said, stepping forward, his wooden sword resting at his side.
"I admit you caught me by surprise."
Subaru lay sprawled, arms and legs useless.
His body would not respond.
The sky spun above him.
"However," Julius continued, voice steady but no longer scornful—merely clinical, "your training is deficient. Such low-level magic can only work on someone of lower ability… or perhaps an unintelligent beast."
The words were not cruel.
That made them worse.
"Such a plan would not work against a single Knight of the Royal Guard."
Subaru felt something collapse inside his chest.
It wasn't a bone.
It wasn't a lung.
It was hope.
"You are irredeemably powerless."
The crowd was silent now.
"You have no place by her side."
That—
That was the one line Subaru refused to accept.
Even if everything else was true—
Even if he was weak—
Even if he was pathetic—
That line was unacceptable.
He forced his neck to turn.
Forced his swollen eye to glare upward.
He would refute that.
He would deny that.
He—
"________"
He stopped.
Because something had changed.
A shadow moved across the sky.
Not a cloud.
Not a bird.
Something larger.
Something wrong.
A ripple tore through the air above the parade square like fabric splitting under tension.
The knights looked up.
The nobles stood.
Julius's composure fractured—not from fear, but confusion.
The sky distorted.
A circle of light formed.
Golden.
Not natural sunlight.
Not magic, either way, not that Subaru recognized as everything has been a surprise to him.
Brilliant.
Blinding.
And then—
BOOM.
Something fell.
No—
Someone.
The impact shattered stone and sent a shockwave rolling across the square.
Dust erupted upward in a towering plume.
Guards were thrown off balance.
Capes snapped violently in the blast.
When the dust began to clear—
They saw her.
A girl with long golden hair streaked faintly with bright blue strands, shimmering like threads of starlight woven into silk.
Her clothing was unlike anything in Lugunica.
Not knightly.
Not noble.
Not priestly.
It shimmered with metallic accents that floated subtly around her frame, orbiting like fragments of a broken halo.
Three figures were in her arms.
Two girls—unmistakably beautiful, their features foreign, their attire alien.
And—
A man.
Carried in a princess-style by the most beautiful girl in the group with golden-blue hair.
Subaru's brain, barely functioning, fixated on that detail.
Why is she carrying him like that?
The golden-haired girl landed with impossible grace, one knee bending slightly as the shockwave dissipated outward.
Her eyes opened slowly.
They glowed.
Not metaphorically.
Actually glowed.
The air around her hummed with pressure.
Knights instinctively reached for weapons.
Magic circles flickered defensively around the royal guards.
Julius stepped forward, blade raised.
"Identify yourself!" one knight shouted.
The girl did not answer.
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