"Did you push me in deliberately? Yes — you did."
"What? Are you out of your mind?"
"I'm not. And since I'm in the middle of thinking, it would be better if you stayed quiet."
"Thinking about what—"
She glanced back. Ian, still disoriented, felt something go cold as Echinacea's eyes found him. That slight smile. The particular quality of her gaze.
"I'm deciding whether to kill you myself or leave the decision to Senior Baraha. If you keep talking, I might just do it now — you're starting to irritate me."
"Kill me? You're talking about killing me?"
"Obviously, Senior Ian."
Ian's mouth fell open. He stumbled back and gripped his sword. She wasn't joking.
Echi returned her gaze to the entrance and gave him her back, as though he posed no threat worth watching. Her rain-soaked pink hair clung to her body; she gathered it into one hand, wrung it out, and ran her fingers through it.
"I genuinely don't want to kill people if I can avoid it. People I'd rather not kill - there must be thousands. Maybe tens of thousands. I've never counted. But if you've had to kill that many, you'd understand the feeling, Senior. Though knowing you - probably not."
"What are you talking about—"
"I'm saying I'd prefer not to shed blood. I just want to live simply. Wear pretty clothes, eat good food, be with the people I love. A life where no one threatens me and I don't have to kill anyone. That's what I want."
She paused.
"But now that I'm saying it out loud — do I really need to classify barely-a-person as a person?
Dragging you around until I find Senior Baraha sounds like a hassle. And this place doesn't look like it'll go easy on us regardless."
[Master! Me! Use me! We're inside the node — no one else around! This is the perfect—!]
ValderGiosa crackled with excitement, reacting to her bloodlust. Echi didn't respond to the sword. She kept speaking.
"You should have come after me instead. If you had targeted me, I'd have found it too pathetic to bother with. Whatever you tried to do to me, I wouldn't care. But..."
She located Baraha. Not far. Hiding inside a tent somewhere. Alive. The monsters were still occupied with the last of the shadow soldiers and hadn't gone looking for prey yet.
She turned from the entrance to face Ian. His face had gone pale. She smiled.
"I can't stand watching other people get hurt."
Ian held his expression for a moment before forcing a smile - strained, brittle.
"I don't know what you think I did. Cadet Echinacea, shouldn't we focus on getting out alive first..."
"That's not your problem to worry about, Senior. There's something much more urgent you need to figure out."
She tapped the wet hem of her dress and looked at the sword she'd been holding through everything - even after abandoning the umbrella. Then she set it aside without ceremony.
Empty-handed, she walked toward him. Light steps, no threat in the posture. Her face was close to his, her voice soft.
"Do you think you're the kind of person who can actually change, Senior?"
"…I have no idea what you're..."
Ian let the silence stretch a beat, then shifted his expression to something wounded. The color had come back slightly. Slowly, he raised his hand and placed it on her shoulder. She didn't move away.
"I don't even know who you're saying I harmed. You must be seriously mistaken about something"
He spoke gently, coaxing. His hand began to slide from her shoulder toward the back of her neck.
Echi caught his wrist like a snap of lightning. It couldn't move in her grip. She didn't look at it.
"Yeah. I knew it. You're never going to change."
She torqued his wrist. Her silk-gloved hand looked frail; the mana in it was not. Ian let out an involuntary sound.
A small dagger — no larger than a razor — tumbled from his hand. The same dagger that had found Baraha's back.
"Why did you do it?"
"Ugh — let — go—"
"I'm asking why. You're trying to stab me right now because you're cornered. I understand that. But I'm asking about before — why Baraha?"
"You son of a—"
The curse broke out of him along with his composure. His face crumpled into something raw and ugly.
"Let go right now! Do you want to die?!"
Instead of releasing him, she increased the pressure. A crack. She released him. Ian grabbed his broken wrist with his good hand and stumbled back, howling.
"Ahh! You — you crazy—!"
"Your voice."
"Urk!"
"Lower it. You saw what's outside, didn't you? Do you want the monsters to hear?"
She gripped his throat briefly and let go. Ian collapsed, gasping, and looked up at her from the floor.
She crouched in front of him. Slowly, she pulled off the glove from her right hand. Bare-handed, she rested her chin on her knee.
"Tell me why. If you can give me a reason that holds up, I might let you live."
"You're insane! You're a monster!"
"Being honest is good. But you still don't understand your situation, do you?"
She shifted her gaze deliberately to his uninjured wrist.
Ian read the look. His shoulders began to shake. He breathed hard, pressed his face into his hand, swallowed. Then opened his mouth.
"You're really asking why I pushed Baraha in"
"I've been asking since the beginning."
"You're asking like you genuinely don't know?"
He ground his teeth hard enough to hear it. From behind the hand covering his face, his eyes fixed on her.
"I did everything right. I played the obedient subordinate. I put up with being the student representative, acted like a loyal dog, swallowed every indignity. I did everything right. So why?! Some desert stray, not even a temporary squire, gets to be a Giosa owner's squire?! And some hollow-headed girl whose only skill is wearing pretty dresses gets handpicked as the Commander's squire on her first day?! It's not fair! They get everything handed to them while I claw for every inch!"
His voice had started low and built to something raw and ugly.
Echi looked at him steadily. "That's it? That's why you threw Senior Baraha into the node?"
"That's it?! You call that nothing?! Because you walk an easy road, you think other people's struggles don't count? I fought. I worked. I gave everything. And people like you and Baraha just stroll in and get everything for free - how is that fair?! How is any of that fair?!"
His voice broke.
"No effort, huh."
The words came out cold. Ian stopped.
"Is that how it looks to you? That everyone else has it easy? That everything others have is just luck?"
The six years of screaming trapped in a body that moved without her, the nine years of crawling through a ruined world for this second chance - it all surged up from her feet to the crown of her head.
She looked down. The world seemed to go dark at its edges. She breathed in. She didn't want to be taken by bloodlust. Anger was fine. Action had to be cold. She was the master of the cursed sword - she could not lose herself.
She let her eyes cool and thought about what to do with Ian Pelletro.
She gave him one last chance.
Ian noticed her shift. Her head was down; she wasn't looking at him. Her neck was visible through the wet strands of her hair. She was empty-handed. She'd thrown her sword toward the entrance.
This was his only opening. He thought so.
He drew his sword with his good hand and swung it at her neck.
Before the blade touched her pale skin, he felt a burning sensation spread from his chest.
"Ugh…"
Something hot slid down his throat. Echi had moved before he'd finished the swing.
The last chance she had given Ian Pelletro, he had used it himself.
She showed no more mercy. A transparent blade with a black hilt appeared in her right hand - the one that had been empty. Blood gathered in the engraved patterns.
[Ah… It's been so long. I missed this. This feeling—]
ValderGiosa purred like something sated. Echi twisted the blade free from Ian's body. He folded and his eyes closed. Instant.
The blood on ValderGiosa's surface faded, drawn into the sword. The cursed sword hummed quietly to itself.
[Ah. Better now. Aren't you relieved? The bloodlust is finally gone!]
"Not really."
Echi retrieved the sword and let it dissolve back into her palm. She put her glove back on. Stood for a moment over the body.
[Why? Uneasy? Do you think you killed him for nothing?]
"It's not that."
[Then what?]
"I revised something."
[What?]
"My terms for how I'll live."
[Tell me too!]
"You don't need to know."
[Stingy. Always so stingy.]
She looked down at him. If not for her, Baraha might be the one lying here instead of Ian.
In the erased timeline, that was exactly how it had been. Ian Pelletro alive, moving on to knighthood. Baraha Islaf dead in a monster subjugation.
'There won't be a second chance. KairosGiosa said so. No one can be revived after death. So I have to protect it.'