"Shk—!"
The dull, wet sound of blades punching through flesh was painfully sharp.
Dark-red blood burst out like a fountain from the demon's broad chest, splattering wildly across the scorched ruins.
A second ago, the massive demon had been arrogant beyond belief, as if it could destroy everything with a casual gesture—
And now it didn't even have time to scream before its enormous body collapsed.
"BOOM!"
A crash like a mountain caving in.
The ground shook. Dust billowed up.
Then the world fell into dead silence.
"…"
It took Ur a long moment to come back to herself from the sheer shock of what she'd just seen.
On instinct—on a mother's instinct—she reached out and pulled her daughter behind her.
And yet, even as she did, her eyes couldn't tear away from that flawless figure suspended in midair.
Who was that knight? When did she appear?
And… what about the boy who had rushed in earlier?
"We leave. Now."
Compared to her, Ultear was far calmer—more precisely, she trusted Shane.
Before Ur could untangle her thoughts, Ultear grabbed her mother's arm and tugged hard.
"We don't know what's happening. Stick to the plan—get away from here first!"
Ur glanced back at the battle's center, swallowed by smoke. Panic clawed at her chest, but seeing her daughter's steady expression, she grit her teeth and nodded.
"…Alright."
But—
The instant the two of them turned to go—
Thump.
Ur's foot hit something soft and heavy. She stumbled, nearly falling.
"What…?"
She steadied herself, then looked down in the dim light under the storm clouds.
Her pupils shrank to pinpoints.
A corpse.
A corpse in strange clothing, throat cut open by a blade, long since dead.
And what chilled her to the bone was that it wasn't just one.
As far as she could see, the street that had been covered in snow had somehow become a slaughterhouse.
Bodies lay strewn everywhere, filling every inch of the ground.
Dark-red blood ran with the rainwater, winding through the street and dyeing it a brutal scarlet.
"W-when…?!"
Ur clapped a hand over her mouth, staring at the scene in disbelief.
Not only had the time shifted from a snowy daytime to a rainy night in an instant—
Even these bodies… had they appeared out of nowhere?
What happened?
Was this the work of that Fairy Tail mage?
A flood of questions crashed through Ur's mind.
Ultear's reaction was much faster. Remembering Shane's warning, she didn't let Ur freeze.
"Don't look, Mom."
She tightened her grip and pulled Ur through the piles of corpses, forcing her to run.
Only after they cleared the blood-soaked street and moved beyond the city's ruined edges did they finally slow.
Ultear stopped on a high rise and looked back toward the heart of the dark rain.
That was where Shane had vanished.
Her lips were pressed tight, and for once the worry in her usually cold eyes couldn't be hidden.
From the moment it happened… Shane's presence had disappeared. No movement. No sign.
…
And meanwhile—
As the one who had triggered this [vision], Shane saw far more than anyone else.
At first, his awareness floated high above the rainy night, looking down.
He saw a quiet clan settlement.
People living peacefully—children playing in the street, elders sheltering under eaves from the drizzle. Everything looked calm and safe.
But—
That calm was shattered the moment night fell.
That peerlessly beautiful knight descended from the sky.
The long, gentle rain instantly became a slaughterhouse.
"…"
The knight said nothing. No proclamation. No warning.
She simply swung the pair of razor-sharp short spears in her hands and began to butcher.
Warriors who tried to fight back.
Women trembling in corners.
The confused elderly.
Crying children.
In her eyes, none of it mattered.
Shk.
The sound of steel slicing through throats was brutally clear in the quiet rain.
Warm blood sprayed, staining her luxurious blue dress—staining even her beautiful face.
Yet from start to finish, her expression never changed.
Even without trying, her movements were elegant and fluid—so cold it made your bones ache.
It was like she wasn't killing people…
It was like she was pruning weeds in a garden.
To Shane, it felt like she didn't see these lives—creatures shaped like her—as her own kind at all.
In her mind, they were just moving, noisy things.
Like a child spotting an ant nest by the roadside and stomping it on a whim.
Pure cruelty.
Not a shred of empathy.
"…"
A wave of physical nausea rose in Shane's throat.
"So this is… Lancer?"
His viewpoint snapped back down—his feet returned to the wet ground.
Even if she had the "beauty of one seated upon the heavens," even if her form could move anyone—
Right now, Shane felt only disgust. A visceral, bodily revulsion.
He'd always known Heroic Spirits weren't all righteous, but witnessing meaningless slaughter like this with his own eyes—he couldn't accept it.
"Is it because she was born from that kind of flesh…? Or because dragon blood runs through her, so she has no human heart at all?"
As he forced the nausea down and hesitated over how to interfere—
The slaughter stopped.
The small knight stood silently in the middle of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
Rain washed over her ornate dress, mixing with blood and dripping to the ground.
Then—
She slowly lifted both hands.
Those hands soaked in countless lives trembled as they covered her face.
It looked… exhausted.
Avoidant.
Like a child who knows they did something wrong—covering their eyes as if that could erase what lay at their feet.
"…"
Shane's foot, which had been about to move, froze.
He stared at that lonely figure in the rain, brows drawn tight.
"Why… that reaction?"
From her otherwise expressionless face, he caught something wildly out of place.
Pain.
"Do non-human lives… feel guilt? Regret?"
Shane paused—then shook his head, eyes hardening again.
"No."
"Every mind is complicated."
He warned himself:
"Even the most evil person can feel empty after doing evil, then go beg gods and buddhas to soothe their conscience. Even good people can be shaken by ugly impulses."
"Don't guess at 'feelings.' Look at what she did."
No matter how much she looked like she suffered now, the bodies at her feet were real. The lives were gone. That fact couldn't be washed away.
Still…
The fact that this "non-human" Lancer could show something so fragile and contradictory didn't change Shane's judgment—
But it did spark a sharp, burning curiosity.
"If you regret it… if you hate it…"
"Then why did you do it back then?"
As he sank into thought, the small knight lowered her hands.
She tilted her head up, eyes closed, facing the moon hidden behind heavy clouds.
Rain slid along her jaw like streaks of tears.
"ROOOAR—!!!"
A deafening roar shattered the silence—Deliora, announcing itself as calamity.
The knight opened her eyes.
Those emotionless eyes found the black-haired boy standing not far away.
The moment their gazes met—
"She's… sizing me up?"
Shane felt like some apex predator had scanned him inside and out. His muscles snapped tight.
But perhaps it was his human shape, or the fact he wasn't like the corpses—
Her gaze lingered on him for only a heartbeat.
"Not… a fairy."
Her voice drifted through the rain—hollow, with a faint, indifferent chill.
"If you aren't a fairy, you aren't the target."
"No need to kill."
Decision made.
She ignored Shane completely, turning instead toward the hideous demon that had broken the stillness.
The pent-up gloom inside her—the pain she couldn't name, the self-disgust—needed a place to go.
"And if that's the case…"
"Whoosh—"
Black, bone-cold dragon wings unfolded, whipping the rain into a gale.
Just as Ur had seen—
The flawless knight rose into the sky, twin spears crossing as their tips leveled at Deliora's head.
Killing intent—pure and razor-sharp.
~~~
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