"One minute," Serie repeated. "Speak."
Frieren didn't.
There were things she could have said. That she regretted it. That she wanted to get on her knees and beg for Percia's forgiveness. That she still didn't fully understand why she kept hurting the people closest to her, only that she did, reliably, like clockwork.
She didn't say any of it.
She thought, distantly, that she probably should have told Fern about the emergency funds tucked into the false bottom of her suitcase. At least then they'd have enough to hold her a proper funeral.
The thought made her smile slightly.
The old Fern would have scolded her for it. The old Stark would have laughed until Fern's glare swung toward him. Frieren would have tried to sneak off while Fern was distracted by Stark.
She didn't know how either of them would react now. That was her fault too.
"You're smiling."
A wave of force slammed toward Frieren like an invisible avalanche. Defensive magic flared instinctively around her, woven tightly and layered.
It held for two heartbeats.
The barriers shattered outwards. The backlash sent her skidding across the stone floor, shoulder catching the edge of a low table. Grimoires cascaded around her. Pain ignited up her left arm, hot and immediate.
Serie crossed the room at a stroll.
"I've changed my mind; you no longer get a minute." She said, "Your face irritates me."
The bloodlust rolling off her was thick enough to press against the skin — each step carrying the particular patience of someone who already knew how this ended.
Frieren couldn't breathe.
Serie's mana coalesced — jagged spears of light, Diagoldze, forming in the air around her like a crown.
Frieren answered with Zoltraak. The beams met in the middle and tore at each other, the air shrieking, raw mana raining down in burning sparks.
Serie tilted her head. "Still relying on that little trick? Don't bore me with that spell."
She vanished.
Not teleportation — it was something Frieren didn't recognize. Space simply folded around her, reality creasing like paper, and she reappeared behind Frieren before the motion had registered.
Frieren twisted, mana surging into a desperate barrier.
Serie pressed her palm against it, almost gently.
It collapsed inward. Frieren hit the far wall hard enough to crack the stone in a spiderweb behind her, dust billowing outward in a cloud.
Her shoulder was bleeding freely now — cloth torn, bone visible. She tasted copper.
Serie walked through the settling dust, unhurried.
"You're still holding back." Her voice was almost curious. "You do realize, I'm not the type to speak empty words."
Frieren pushed herself off the wall. Her mana signature flickered — then disappeared entirely.
Silence.
Serie's eyes narrowed, just slightly.
A single Zoltraak lanced out of the dust, razor-edged and precise. It skimmed Serie's sleeve. A thin line of red bloomed across pale skin.
Serie didn't flinch.
Frieren vanished again.
Serie exhaled through her nose.
"Waldgose."
Wind detonated in the heart of the chamber. The tornado tore grimoires from their shelves, pages shrieking free like startled birds. The braziers guttered, blue flames whipping sideways. Dust spiraled outward in violent columns.
The gale found Frieren and slammed her against the wall, pinning her there.
Before Serie could close the distance, thin threads of mana snaked upward from the floor—Sorganeil—restraining her.
Serie collapsed forward mutedly.
Frieren stepped from the shadows behind her, the figure pinned against the wall crumbling silently into dust.
"I'm sorry, Serie." Her voice was quiet. Steady. "I can't let you kill me. I promised Fern and Stark we'd leave for the Northern Plateau tomorrow."
She looked down at Serie's restrained form. Blood dripped from her shoulder onto the stone between them, slow and rhythmic.
"Besides," she added, softer, "you're holding back too. You don't actually want to kill me."
Serie looked up.
The cool gold of her eyes was gone, replaced by something rawer—blazing, unguarded. The anger of someone whose only constant across eons had been hurt by the one standing before her.
"You think very highly of yourself," Serie said quietly, "if you think something like this can hold me."
Something hit the floor with a wet, heavy sound.
Frieren felt it before she understood it — the sudden absence of weight on her left side. In her periphery, she could see it.
Her arm.
Frieren's mana flared wildly, all suppression giving way at once, as she stepped back and reached for distance. She didn't get it.
Serie's hands closed around her throat before the movement finished, the restraints dissolving the moment they were no longer needed. Frieren's legs gave out beneath her.
She gazed up at Serie; her expression was unreadable.
"Go to sleep, Frieren."
The blade hit like an afterthought. The motion was nothing at all.
Frieren's head hit the floor.
.
.
.
Serie stood in the silence that followed. She looked down at her bloodied hand, then at the heap on the stone.
She nudged Frieren's severed head with a bare foot.
It would take a while to clean this up.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
"You're not stopping me?"
"Nope."
"I thought you weren't going to let me out of your sight."
"Please — like I'd want to see your face every single day. That's bad for my health." Kraft flinched as Percia grabbed him by the ear. "Ow — ow — ow — you know most people let go when someone says ow!"
Percia released him with a sniff. "Honestly. You're how many years old now, and you're still the same little brat you always were."
Kraft rubbed his ear with a pout. "What's that supposed to mean? I'm grown." He flexed both arms dramatically. Percia sighed.
"...I don't know what Eisen said to you," Kraft said after a moment, his voice quieter. "But it did something. You seem different. More — present."
Percia didn't reply. She turned back to the supplies she'd picked up at the morning market, checking them over. It would be enough to last until she caught up with the group.
"Just be careful, alright?" Kraft said. "I've said it before — there are humans out there who want us dead. I don't want the next time I see you to be over your corpse."
Percia glanced at him. "You genuinely believe they could defeat me?"
"Yes." His face had gone serious. "They're geared specifically toward hunting mages. They'll have something prepared for you."
Percia hummed. "Lucky for me, I have a few things prepared as well." She shrugged on her cloak and turned to face him.
"I don't doubt that," Kraft said. "Just — be careful."
"…Okay." She smiled, small and genuine, and rose onto her toes to pat his head. He scowled, but didn't pull away.
"Oh — there's a merchant caravan leaving this morning," Kraft added. "You could probably catch a ride as far as—"
They both went still at the same moment.
Mana rolled in from the distance like a wave breaking — towering, ragged, desperate. Reaching for something it couldn't find.
Scared.
"…That mana."
Kraft's voice came out low.
"That's Frieren."