"The nature of the fog… has changed."
Standing at a distance, Shane's eyes sharpened as he noticed something wrong with the killer.
What had originally just been part of the background—that yellow-green murk—now seemed to have been infused with some thick, malicious will. Its color deepened further, shifting into something even more unsettling.
Hiss—
Like a greedy beast, the fog swallowed the last few gas lamps on the street corners.
The dim yellow flames struggled desperately for a few moments inside the roiling mist before being completely smothered, without leaving even a trace of light behind.
The visibility that Laxus's lightning had forcefully carved open moments ago was now being swallowed up again, like a retreating tide, by this heavy, deathly smog.
And it wasn't just their sight that was being blocked.
Shane frowned.
He could feel that even the magic particles in the air, which had been active and turbulent just moments ago, were being forcibly cut off—or even assimilated—by this thick, ominous atmosphere.
"I can't see what's happening over there anymore…"
Shane narrowed his eyes and tried to pierce the fog with magical perception, but it felt like sinking into a swamp.
"This is… a barrier?"
"No… with this level of purity, a force that overlays reality and rewrites the environment…"
The squad leader from the Department of Law, who had also been watching from nearby, pushed up his monocle, unable to hide the surprise in his voice.
"This is closer to… one of the very rare Noble Phantasms still existing in the world."
"But a mere serial killer? How could that be possible?"
"A Noble Phantasm?"
Shane's ears perked up. Following his lifelong habit of asking whenever he didn't understand something, he immediately turned toward the gentleman.
"What's wrong with that? Why can't a serial killer have a Noble Phantasm?"
He was best at absorbing knowledge from any possible source and adding it to his own understanding. Enemies were no exception.
The man glanced at Shane, apparently deciding that there was no harm in satisfying this "specimen's" curiosity before he was sealed away, and answered flatly:
"In this era, Mystery has already faded. That is precisely why the Department of Law must uphold the First Principle."
"A living human being, no matter how many people they kill or how notorious they become, cannot elevate their own actions into a 'Noble Phantasm.'"
"Unless…"
The gentleman stared at the roiling fog with a grave expression.
"That so-called 'killer' was never human to begin with."
"So it's another twisted version of history…"
Shane muttered to himself.
Still, at least this time, the legend surrounding the 'Ripper' only seemed somewhat skewed. The basic core remained the same…
Looking at the sea of fog that had now become complete chaos, Shane suddenly felt it.
The killer was about to make her move.
Not bothering to wonder whether the people inside the fog could hear him, he rose to his feet and shouted toward the battlefield ahead:
"Hey—!"
"Listen up, all of you!"
"The moment she finishes unleashing that thing, this exam is over!"
"This is your last chance!"
"…"
Hearing that, the gentleman beside him couldn't help glancing over.
The man was about to be permanently sealed into the Clock Tower's Hall of Subjugation as a specimen, and yet he was still worrying about something as trivial as an exam?
How exactly was this person's brain wired?
He felt that something about the situation was off, but with Lord-class reinforcements and the Sealing Designation Enforcement Department on the way, he decided he was probably just overthinking.
In this era, any little trick was meaningless in front of the Clock Tower.
Meanwhile, at the center of the battlefield—
Gurgle… gurgle…
The surrounding fog churned and twisted, producing a wet, skin-crawling sound.
The shadow of the small killer had completely vanished, as if she had dissolved into the endless sea of mist itself.
"Damn it! Where is she?!"
Natsu and Gray stood back-to-back, every muscle in their bodies taut as they stared at the dark gray world around them, where visibility had been reduced to less than ten feet.
"Don't move around."
A calm female voice suddenly sounded right beside them.
"Gah!"
Their nerves were stretched so tight that both of them nearly attacked on reflex.
They turned and saw Mira and Erza.
At some point, the two girls had already stopped fighting and silently made their way over.
"So you noticed something was wrong too?"
Along with the sound of quiet footsteps, Laxus and Ur approached from another direction.
Now that the target had fled and hidden itself, there was no longer any reason for them to keep fighting.
Besides, even someone as proud as Laxus could tell by now that the surrounding environment was deeply wrong.
"Obviously."
Mira snorted, her demonic claw lashing irritably through the fog.
"Just standing in this mist makes it feel like my magic is draining away, and my body's getting heavier and weaker…"
"With something this obvious, how could I not notice?"
"This feeling…"
Erza, who had been frowning in thought this whole time, suddenly tightened her grip on her sword.
"I've experienced it once before."
"Hm?"
Everyone turned toward the red-haired girl at once.
"An ability Shane used on me once."
Erza remembered that endless field of fire.
"It's completely different from this fog, but somehow… I feel like the two are fundamentally very similar."
"Oh, right. Shane once said…"
She lifted her head, her gaze grave.
"He called something like this… a Noble Phantasm."
"Noble Phantasm?!"
"The one he used to beat my father in one hit?!"
"The one he used to crush a Wizard Saint in one blow?!"
Laxus and Ur blurted out almost simultaneously.
Within the guild, both of them had heard at least a few rumors that Shane possessed some kind of unreasonable trump card capable of instantly overwhelming powerful enemies.
"Probably."
Erza shook her head and took a deep breath.
"But one thing is certain. This killer's Noble Phantasm is definitely not as powerful as Shane's."
There was no fear at all on her face.
The familiar feel of the sword hilt in her palm gave her an overwhelming sense of stability and confidence.
"[This place is Hell.]"
At that moment—
the killer's voice suddenly rang out from every direction within the fog!
That childish, hollow voice was no longer merely empty and young. It had become infused with something far more complicated.
There was grief in it. Hatred. And, above all, a pure madness that made the skin crawl.
"Stay calm."
Erza gave the order decisively. At the same time, she shut her eyes and began trying to sense where the enemy was.
"[We are flames, rain, strength…]"
"'We'?"
Hearing that word, Ur felt some half-formed answer stir inside her.
She had already felt something was strange during their earlier clash. Why was that child so obsessed with finding her "mother"? Why did she carry such contradictory emotions?
The question she had nearly reached was now slowly taking shape.
"[We must…]"
"[Return to our mother's womb.]"
The moment the final line of the chant fell—
Boom!
The surrounding fog erupted.
"Move!"
Laxus and Mira exchanged a glance and, in perfect unspoken agreement, grabbed Natsu and Gray before those two idiots could rush forward recklessly.
Then the two of them burst out with powerful magic at the same time, preparing to tear apart the cursed fog and find the enemy's real body by force.
And then—
just as they were about to strike—
they stopped.
Because the fog overhead thinned slightly, just enough to reveal the horrifying scene above them.
Drip… drip…
It wasn't rain.
It was warm, sticky blood.
"That's…"
All of them widened their eyes, their pupils shrinking violently.
In the pitch-black sky, countless malformed fetuses and underdeveloped children—so deformed that some hadn't even fully taken human shape—
were falling from above like rain.
Splatter! Crack!
Tiny skulls struck the hard stone pavement with sickening wet thuds and the crisp sound of bones breaking.
Blood, amniotic fluid, and torn-off organs mixed together and began to seep outward, running along the street in dark red streams.
"Bastard!!"
Laxus's eyes went bloodshot. He slammed a fist into the wall beside him, blowing half of it apart.
For all his usual coldness, this sight had completely broken through his limits.
"That bastard Shane!! Is this really a projection of the past?!"
"A scene this real, this cruel…"
"Did something like this really happen in this world?!"
No one answered him.
Because those children crashing down from the sky had not died.
Or rather—they were already dead.
The children who had been successfully born only to be abandoned. The malformed fetuses violently aborted in the alleys.
Now, every one of them was crawling back up out of the blood.
"[Children who were born… children who could never be born…]"
"[All of us are thrown into the cold Thames…]"
They had no faces. Only mouths twisted with pain and hatred, shrieking like some kind of nursery rhyme from hell.
And their targets were disturbingly consistent—
the three women present: Erza, Mira, and Ur.
"[We must…]"
"[Return… to our mother's womb…]"
The voices suddenly rose higher, growing sharp and shrill.
Hundreds—thousands—of childish, miserable, hate-filled voices merged into a single torrent in the same instant, stabbing into everyone's ears.
Shing—
A streak of silver sword-light suddenly lit up like a bolt splitting the darkness apart.
It was Erza.
Without the slightest hesitation, she was the first to swing her blade.
Slash!
Several twisted heads went rolling at once.
"Erza…"
Mira turned, staring at the knight girl in shock.
She had never expected that, faced with these pitiful-looking children, the first person to strike without hesitation would be Erza—the one who always cared most about life and rules.
"Swollen hatred… and the despair of victims."
Erza kept her eyes shut, her face frighteningly calm.
But on the back of her sword hand, veins bulged violently from how hard she was gripping the weapon.
"They're suffering."
"I can't bear to let them continue existing in such twisted forms…"
"So I will cut that suffering apart."
"I won't hesitate in the slightest!"
Slash! Slash! Slash!
The sword-light danced like a tragic performance.
Each swing of Erza's blade went precisely for their necks.
One strike, one kill.
Never a second blow. Never unnecessary pain.
That was the greatest mercy she could offer them now.
"…"
Watching the crimson figure dance amidst blood and ruin, Mira bit down silently on her lower lip until it almost bled.
"What an infuriating… idiot."
She muttered it like a curse, but in those demonic eyes, once full only of violence, there was now a flicker of recognition.
Bzzz—
Purple-black demonic magic slowly gathered in her palm.
Erza's words had moved her.
If all those children had left was pain, then let her—a demon—be the one to grant them release.
Only Ur—
looking at the twisted children surging forward one after another—felt her hand tremble slightly.
When she had said "I don't have children like you"…
had those words been too harsh?
Remembering the despair in the killer's eyes, she felt a stab of pain in her chest.
But when she looked at Erza's mercilessly resolute sword-light, she could only smile bitterly.
"Cheap sympathy like mine… probably means even less to them, doesn't it?"
"Ice-Make… Roses!"
Ur shut her eyes, and countless thorned vines burst from the ground.
~~~
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