Frieren wasn't dead
Serie knew this with unshakable certainty. She didn't make mistakes. She had said as much, and she meant it.
The spell she had used on Frieren was one that she had recently developed: A spell to manipulate the consciousness.
Its origins were unexpectedly drawn from folk magic.
A spell to bring life to a doll. A mother had made it for a sick daughter so that the child would have company. The spell had been donated to the association with the child's passing. According to the reports, she had not lived long enough to see the spell be cast.
Serie didn't quite understand the logic of it. How could one imagine instilling life into an inanimate object, yet fail to imagine having a healthy daughter?
Nevertheless, the spell had given her something the mother probably hadn't intended— a way into the theory of being itself.
Flamme had once approached the same question differently. Existence in three parts — the breath of the body, the consciousness of the mind, the spirit of the soul. Elegant enough. Incomplete, like most things.
If that stubborn girl had stayed by her side instead of going off to fight demons, she might have gotten somewhere with it.
Serie turned her hand and deflected an incoming shard of mana without much thought. Percia's casting had gone sloppy — fast, hot, driven by something that wasn't technique. Anger rarely helped precision.
She wouldn't win today. Not like this.
Her face was still tight, hands trembling slightly as she casted. Serie had the urge to cross the room and tell her everything— that Frieren was fine, that everyone was okay, that there was nothing to grieve.
Yet, she didn't.
A part of her wanted to see how far Percia would go.
Would she actually try to kill her?
And then what — grief? An attempt to put Frieren back together herself? Serie smiled faintly at the thought and redirected a burst of compressed mana, sending Percia toward the far wall.
Percia dissolved into mist before she hit it.
Her eyes raked across the room, trying to track Percia down.
There—
She hit the ceiling. She'd caught the tell a fraction too late, only having enough time to soften the stone above her before impact.
The presence was now gone.
No — not gone. Just elsewhere.
Gravity closed in around her, her mind catching up a second too late as she slammed into the floor, hard.
Frieren's arm was now somewhere near her left hand. She could feel the edge of it. She'd need all the pieces to stitch Frieren back together. Hopefully, their scuffle hadn't damaged Frieren's consciousness any further.
Serie pushed herself up. Something in her back complained.
The next blow didn't come.
"Is that it?" She bent one knee, rested her chin on it. "Do you feel bad now?"
Nothing.
Percia was no longer present in what Serie perceived as reality. Unfair, really. Borderline cheating. Percia had always looked beyond the present while Serie had chosen to immerse herself within it.
She supposed the difference was due to the nature of Percia's duties.
She had never been told much about them. Where they took Percia. What they cost her. It was kept separate — not hidden exactly, just never offered.
But Serie had always listened to everything Percia said, whether she meant to say it or not.
She stood and picked up Frieren's arm, placing it back with her body without ceremony.
"There was a time when you were overprotective of me," she said. To the room. To wherever Percia had gone. "Early on, when your duties were still new. You'd tell me things you weren't supposed to, when the world wasn't paying attention."
She crossed to Frieren's head. Glassy eyes stared up at her as she picked it up and carried it back.
"You told me that the unseen stays unseen. It remains so in equilibrium. But something foreign — something that doesn't belong — disturbs that equilibrium. It makes it visible, even without any special sight."
She set the head down beside the body and cast a simple barrier around the whole arrangement.
"You also told me the world is more fragile than it looks. That enough force, applied correctly, can make it fracture."
She turned toward the far corner. A shadow pooled beside a fallen brazier — stretched too long, angled wrong, the geometry of it slightly off.
She looked at it for a moment.
"So," she smiled faintly. "I'll follow your advice."
She raised one hand.
"Reelseiden."
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Percia looked back at the gash Serie had torn through the air. It hung there like a wound that hadn't decided whether to close.
That had been unexpected.
To take something Percia had mentioned in passing — offhand, eons ago, not even as instruction — and reverse-engineer a mortal cutting spell to affect a dimensional border.
Serie was truly a genius, far greater than any other being.
And it seemed that she was keeping a bit more from Percia.
Percia moved through the space carefully, giving nothing away, and came to rest beside Frieren's body.
Something was not right.
Serie didn't do this—protect the fallen. Not anymore. Neither of them did. They had both lived long enough that standing vigil over the dead had stopped meaning anything. This barrier aimed to protect the dead.
It was a move too human for Serie.
Percia crouched and looked at Frieren properly.
No mattter how Percia looked at it, she was dead.
Rigor had begun to set in. The hair — once that particular iridescent white — was dull now, matted with blood. Every reading she could take told her the same thing.
Frieren was dead.
"There you are."
Percia leaned aside and let Serie's spell pass her.
"Admiring the work?" Serie's voice was light. "Or are we starting to move onto the next stage of grief? What comes after anger — bargaining?"
Percia wasn't listening. Layered deep into the barrier spell, was stasis. It was a careful spell. A deliberate one.
What would Serie gain from preserving the body?
"Honestly, even as I'm talking to you, you ignore me for a corpse. Should I be taking this personally?"
Percia reached out. Her hand shimmered through the barrier.
If sight wasn't telling her the whole truth, perhaps touch would.
"And what do you think your doing?" Serie's hand closed around her wrist and pulled. Percia shimmered back to reality.
"You just gave your position away. You reached through my own spell."
"It's not like your trying to kill me." Percia didn't look up. "I'm the one trying to kill you."
Serie snorted. "You've been doing a poor job of it. And don't assume I won't defend myself. Do you think I'm too sentimental to kill you?"
"Yes."
A pause. Then Serie laughed whilst draping herself over Percia's shoulders from behind, her mana spreading across Percia's. It was warm — comfortable in a way Percia didn't want to examine.
"Is that really how you talk to someone holding your life in their hands?"
"You're not holding it." Percia glanced up at her. "You don't have it in you. The intent to kill. Not with me."
The mirth in Serie's eyes faded. She considered the words for a moment, her head tilting slightly.
"...And you do? With me?"
"Yes."
She knew that with certainty. She had done it before, after all.
Percia turned back and reached through the barrier again, pressing her palm to Frieren's cheek.
Cold. Slightly stiff. Expected.
But the blood that came away on her hand was a tad too warm. Too fluid. Not old blood — fresh blood, or something behaving like it.
It was as though the body was still bleeding.
"What did you do." The accusation was no longer there. This was a different question.
Serie said nothing.
"Every instinct I have says she's dead. But something is wrong with that." Percia wiped her hand slowly.
"Just tell me." A pause. "The last couple of days have been long. I'm sure your students told you the details."
"You don't get to guilt trip me." Serie's eyes narrowed slightly. "You're cheating again."
"Yes."
Serie exhaled long, the sound of someone conceding a point they'd hoped not to concede. She let go of Percia's wrist and straightened.
"I separated Frieren's consciousness from her body," she said. "The consciousness is dormant. As long as the body and soul stay intact, I can put her back together."
Percia was quiet for a moment. "You're manipulating aspects of creation."
"If it were truly forbidden, the world would have steered me away from developing this spell." Serie shrugged. "It didn't."
"The world," Percia said. Not quite a question.
"Mm." A beat. "That's what brought you here today, isn't it."
Percia didn't answer. She reached out and ran her fingers slowly through Frieren's hair, working through the tangles with the same care she would have given something that could still feel it.
"It interfered for her."
She felt Serie's mana waver from behind.
"It hasn't done that before. Not for anyone."