Rei had never been ignorant of Crimson's nature.
Though her words were tunnel-visioned on his protection, she was far from mindless. She would admit that while she carried a possessive attachment to the boy, it was not romantic, as Crimson seemed to suspect, but born from a wish and twisted sense of duty that weighed heavily upon her heart.
She hated herself for this very reason, as she believed it was unbearably selfish.
Pushing her desires onto someone so fragile, four years younger than her, that she had watched suffer from night terrors, letting out stifled wails, unable to properly rest.
They had known each other for less than a month. She was not foolish enough to grant blind loyalty so quickly. Her teasing remarks toward him were often nothing more than a form of stress relief, drawn from the quiet satisfaction she found in his exaggerated expressions.
She had developed a type of addiction, an affection that was indistinguishable from sadism yet far more innocent and humane; she herself didn't know why she derived so much pleasure from his awkwardness.
Though the past few days, it had become increasingly difficult to generate satisfying reactions, his mental fortitude had undergone too many transformations, hiding behind walls that continued to grow.
Long before today, she had begun cataloging the boy's peculiarities, recording them carefully within a small journal tucked into the inner breast pocket of her white knight's uniform. It was not idle curiosity that drove her, but obligation. To understand her lord was to better guide him.
The one she had sworn to make king.
Crimson often muttered to himself, blissfully unaware that her birth-given senses alone, even without her Divine Protections, rivaled those of high-ranking spirits. Distance meant little. Even from another wing of the Astrea manor, his words reached her as clearly as if he stood beside her.
While she wasn't fully clear on his passive perception ability, she had found that with her divine protections, if she wished, she could completely bypass it. She had taken advantage of this naivety multiple times to observe him when he believed himself alone.
He continually narrated to himself, even interacting with what could possibly be an imaginary friend or enemy, given his hostility toward the other party. While such an action would appear concerning in a normal setting, given how well he hid this abnormality from the servants, she had decided that, while it was a topic that needed addressing, she should slowly coax him to reveal the ailment of his own volition.
He possessed immense knowledge regarding certain individuals, yet lacked the communicative instincts necessary to socialize properly. Social cues slipped past him unnoticed, or worse, were misread entirely.
When conversation slowed, he deployed strange phrases or abruptly redirected the subject toward matters he deemed more important, skipping small talk as though it were something physically uncomfortable.
In simple terms, he was an introvert.
Curiosity burned brightly within him, but only for fleeting moments. Once he experienced something firsthand, his interest faded with startling speed. Participation no longer seemed to satisfy him.
Observation, however, did.
He appeared far more content watching her experience new things, a tendency that stirred an unexpected melancholy within her.
Given her ability to read the emotional sincerity and fluctuations within a person, it didn't take her long to realise that while he was externally very expressive, internally, it was as if certain thoughts had chains, limiting how much he could feel of an emotion at a time.
That was when she discovered it.
The absence of that emotion.
She wondered if he was born that way.
If so, she found it quite sad.
Could she awaken it?
Despite never having met the Sword Saint before, he yielded to her authority with little resistance whenever she insisted upon something. It was not deference to strength.
No… it was directed at her specifically.
As though he found resistance futile, choosing instead to persuade diplomatically. The dynamic felt almost parental.
Yet with the manor's servants, his behavior shifted. More often than not, he overlooked them entirely, accepting their service as if they were part of the scenery. It was not cruelty. If anything, he was unfailingly kind.
But the pattern suggested something deeper.
Though educated in mathematics and linguistics, he displayed no understanding of money's value. Material possessions stirred no greed within him.
His behavior bore the unmistakable marks of someone raised within a sheltered, secluded environment.
Whenever she gently inquired about his past, panic surfaced. Not guilt or hostility.
Frustration.
The kind born from memories too painful to shape into words.
Yet beneath that turmoil lay a clear desire for connection. He was willing to speak.
Just not yet.
For that reason, Reinhard never pried. She refused to cross the boundary he had unconsciously drawn.
Still…
The revelation that both he and Subaru hailed from beyond the Great Waterfall filled her with quiet amazement.
And questions.
So many unanswered questions.
Could that be the reason why they were deemed worthy?
She unconsciously caressed Reid's handle with her hand, her black leather glove squeaking from the intense friction, swirling her index finger over the golden pommel habitually.
'No,' when comparing the two of them, it was as if looking at two completely different species.
Recalling the moment when the Dragon sword last decided to autonomously unsheath with a metallic click as the inscriptions glowed with activation. When the world lost color and time flowed stagnant, she recalled that while she was mesmerized by the inked words reshaping and reentering the bodies of those around her, she felt it.
An unprecedented, unfathomable evil had entered this world
Something beyond even the witch.
She couldn't help but shudder.
Reinhard Van Astrea, the Strongest being ever to be birthed through out history, shuddered.
Watching the one-sided confrontation between Crimson and Julius, a duel that had devolved into desperate defense, she felt a weight of shame settle in her chest.
'If only I had been more effective… I could have buried Julius's hostility before it reached this point. I could have convinced him of Lord Crimson's intentions.'
Her teeth ground together.
But if she had attempted to negotiate for his safety… would he not have despised it?
A knight bartering on behalf of her lord's life.
Would that not portray him as weak? As someone incapable of standing on his own merit?
Her loyalty pulled in opposing directions.
'If I intervene now… will he see it as protection?'
'Or as an insult?'
He claimed he could defeat Julius.
But claims were irrelevant.
Objectively—
His talent, while boundless, wasn't yet utilized; his physical capability was average. His magic, though specialized and refined in concept, lacked raw power. It required preparation, circumstance, and timing. His Flow Method possessed remarkable potential, but it was immature. Unrefined. It required constant use to be a suitable tool.
Against Julius, such gaps were fatal.
Mana reinforcement was not a temporary enhancement.
Mana was the release of Od. Od was life force, part of the soul itself.
Through continuous leakage and reintegration, a body would adapt, strengthen, and harden. Even without actively channeling mana, years of training altered the baseline state of the body.
Julius, who had refined his mana enhancement through his spiritual arts, possessed a base durability surpassing stone.
Even if he never consciously invoked mana during this duel, the difference remained a vast chasm.
That was exactly why Crimson's provocation toward the purple-haired, elegant knight in using mana enhancement was so dangerous.
Crimson was relying entirely on skill and millisecond prediction based on muscle twitches. Even if he was able to land a blow, it was highly probable that the practice sword would break on impact.
Not to mention the stamina difference.
For Crimson to defeat Julius within the designated rules was an impossibility.
Ordinary citizens could, in theory, train their bodies to similar levels. But such knowledge was carefully restricted, preserved to maintain superiority in law enforcement and the efficient neutralization of threats.
Reinhard was different.
Her gate absorbed mana passively from birth.
From the moment she drew her first breath, she existed in a state adults had to struggle for years to approach.
And yet—
Despite that overwhelming advantage, despite being hailed as the strongest existence in recorded history—
She could not decide.
Intervene, and risk diminishing her lord, gaining his disappointment and resentment.
Remain still, and risk watching him be fatally injured.
Julius was unable to tell after such a drawn-out confrontation, but his restraint had completely disappeared; his casual strikes, if they landed, even with just a wooden sword, could easily shatter bone.
For yet another complication presented itself, how, despite having immense strength beyond imagination, Reinhard Van Astrea felt powerless.
Because of her numerous, multifaceted Divine Protections, she heard the boy whisper.
She saw it.
His lips formed the words.
"Return by—"
Then went slack.
Her enhanced vision caught the precise instant his muscles relaxed. His head tilted forward. His grip loosened. The tension holding his frame together dissolved as though something fundamental had withdrawn.
It was the absence of a soul.
The faint warning that had lingered at the back of her mind since the duel began tightened.
It had been there the entire time. A subtle pressure.
It continued to deepen.
"FHOOOOOM!"
Only she heard it.
The putrid shroud she had unconsciously sensed around Crimson thickened. What had once been a faint, unpleasant residue now surged outward.
And with the transference of a newly granted Divine Protection, her sight expanded.
Black and violet miasma poured from beneath his skin in viscous waves, writhing and folding into itself with a pulse like breathing.
No one throughout the stands appeared to see it.
Julius could feel the density in the air that pressed against his lungs, but lost in the heat of battle, he ignored it.
The seriousness in this moment was completely different from the canon duel with Subaru. In the original story, he had the liberty to openly mock Subaru's weakness and only used one hand. Comparatively, now his mind was tunnel-visioned on creating an opening, and his mouth was cemented shut, unable to notice the discrepancy in his opponent.
Because all Crimsons' moves were reactionary, he would make large pauses between moves to test his opponent's counter.
Meters away—
Due to the waves of erupting miasma that had spread outward, it revealed something that had once been unseen.
Reinhard's uneasy blue eyes widened while the pupils dilated into pinpricks.
A familiar dark silhouette stood watching the duel, appearing and disappearing like a sonar.
Its form was etched into her memory. Its body's outline was revealed thanks to the excess miasma that spilled from Crimson. Its presence is unmistakable to her. Its posture mirrored her own internal helpless distress.
The silhouette of the young girl stomped down with frustration, hands yanking anxiously down on a scarf's outline around her neck like handlebars.
"L lady Felt?" It came out as a whimper.
Reinhard couldn't help but choke on her own saliva at the unnatural sight.
Simultaneously, Julius saw an opportunity.
Crimson's practice sword, in the process of slipping out of his relaxed hand, lowered.
In a blur, Julius raised his sword high, spinning the tip as a feint, receiving no reaction, he lunged. Sand detonated beneath his step, splitting outward, forced aside by sheer momentum.
He closed the distance in an instant.
His knee drove into Crimson's sternum, whose body now relaxed, folded inward, rag-dolled by the sheer force.
A sickening crunch followed the sound of bone cracking and internal organs rupturing.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the sound was muted by the previous sand blast and rain of gravel that followed.
The practice sword flung out of the unreliable grip on impact
The reason the audience seats were so far from the center on raised seating areas was precisely to avoid the small grains from causing ocular complications.
Blood erupted from the boy's mouth as specks of red and unknown tissue caught on the cloth blindfold.
Crimson was hurled backward forcefully tumbling in a series of limp backward somersaults.
His once pristine clothes, untouched, are now dirtied with mud and grime.
feeling his direct hit, Julius wasted no time chasing after Crimson.
The pressure in the back of Reinhard's mind sharpened.
Intensifying.
But she was too confused to form a proper thought.
Julius rotated seamlessly into the finishing strike. His overhand swing carved through the air, its velocity distorting sound itself.
Crimson's body spasmed. Still in the process of rolling backward from the earlier impact.
Then.
As if something had returned into place.
Reinhard watched as her lord's blank expression, emotionless, was replaced by the most expression she had ever seen from him, agony and confusion.
His mouth opened with a frantic and distressed expression upon seeing the looming shadow above him.
He raised his arms above his head in a futile gesture to shield himself.
"Stauguhh—"
Blood drowned the unsaid words as bubbles of black blood frothed from his throat.
The instinct that had been whispering since the duel began screamed.
A violent spike lanced through the base of her skull.
Many believed her greatest strength lay in her physique. In her Divine Protections. In the Dragon Sword Reid.
This instinct could rival them.
And now—
She had hesitated.
Distracted by the silhouette of her failed friend, the hesitation of her lord's possible resentment, and the shock of his invocation of the witch's name, Rei's thoughts had become too sluggish for two fatal seconds.
From the moment the Witch had been invoked, it had only been two seconds, but to her it was all a lethargic dream, nothing having substance, an opaque wonder.
In that dream, she watched her lord's stomach cave beneath Julius's knee.
She saw the terror flash across his face after regaining consciousness.
He tried to speak, only to have a wet, broken sound escape.
She watched the blade descend.
Less than an inch from his head.
All of this happened in slow motion.
Her body moved.
The seating beneath her feet, made with earth magic disintegrated as she vanished at a speed faster than the mind could comprehend. A concussive shockwave tore outward from the space she had occupied, hurling nearby knights backward like leaves caught in a gale. The mortar fractured. Wood splintered.
30 meters.
The sword was at his scalp
20 meters.
Touching the crown of his head
10 meters.
Digging into his skin
5 meters.
Skin broke
All within a 0.0008 millisecond gap
Her arm extended.
His eye, partially revealed by the slipping blindfold, had a single silver crosshair pupil locked onto her blue iris as an image flashed through her mind.
A red haired blue eyed handsome male knight.
Fingers outstretched toward the falling wood.
The distance between them shrank—
5 inches
"CRRUCK!"
Too late.
With a sickening crunch and a splintering impact—
The sound of a skull shattering flesh being mashed rang across the arena.
Blood warm and with a sweet scent spattered across Reinhard's face, with residual droplets reaching the cuffs of Julius's dark cloth pants.
For a fraction of a second, everything stilled.
Julius's golden pupils contracted sharply.
Out of his focused frenzy, he could only stare down in horror as the sword dropped from his hand.
Al moved instantly, planting himself before Priscilla, his back broad and unyielding.
"Do not presume to shield me as though I were some trembling child, Aldebaran."
Despite the bite in her voice, she did not lower her fan. Its edge trembled once before she stilled it.
He didn't move. Not an inch.
Al kept his back firmly toward her, helmet angled just enough to acknowledge her words.
"Yeah, yeah. I hear you, Princess. Still not movin'."
Anastasia's face was deathly pale.
In her mind, she could already see Reinhard tearing Julius apart.
Political backlash? She could manage that.
A kingdom-wide incident? It would be difficult, but with her financial assets.
Negotiable.
But her knight standing within arm's reach of a grieving Sword Saint?
That calculation did not favor survival.
"F–Felix! Sir Argyle, at once!" Julius shouted, his voice Cracking not fitting his elegant knight persona.
"Now, now… that will be quite enough of that," Roswaal murmured softly, as black mana poured from his palms and arced upward, hindering the audience's eyes from the scene below as a semicircular dome fell from the sky in an advanced application of Shamak.
Whether the marquis Mather felt joy or sorrow was unknown; his makeup and whimsical nature had long since hidden his inner thoughts.
Reinhard just stared down at Crimson.
He was dead.
The miasma that he had always exuded had completely dissipated
First, the loss of her mother to a curse, her grandmother's death to the white whale, the ostracism and seclusion of her grandfather because of her grandmother's circumstances of death, the disownment of her father because of fear and jealousy, her misjudgment in prioritizing citizens, causing Felts death now-
Her head turned abruptly toward where the previous silhouette of Felt had been, now just feet away from her. She caught the shock on the little girl's face. Her mouth appeared to be moving, but she was unable to decipher its words. As the miasma dissipated, her appearance began to fade.
She watched in emptiness as the phantom of Felt disappeared; the lack of miasma couldn't sustain its observable body.
Left with nothing, the darkness in her heart had consumed her last will to live.
While the audience was unable to tell the details, the stands at the west wing blowing up suddenly, along with the appearance of Reinhard and the gore on the ground, was an indicator that something had gone terribly wrong.
***
When Subaru awoke, his brows furrowed as he stared up at another unfamiliar ceiling.
This feeling of Deja vu constantly kicked him in the balls.
To Subaru, who usually woke up more quickly than he liked, the brief period of mental vagueness between sleep and full waking was precious. For several seconds, Subaru immersed himself in this boundless, nebulous state as his mind groped for its memories, such as what he'd done before sleeping, what that place was...
Subaru felt his temple throb painfully. That ache brought everything rushing back.
"I...remember… That bastard insulted Emilia and punched me."
He remembered the disgrace he had endured before he ended up where he slept.
"What a jerk. We're both from Earth, so why is he so cold?"
He attempted to raise a hand to his forehead, but his arm was stuck in place. Looking down, he saw a drowsy little blond Loli curled around his arm, imitating a koala, her tiny eyelashes cutely fluttering. Switching instead to his free arm, so as not to disturb Beatrice, his eyes were drawn in by the discovery.
Touching his presumably cracked forehead, he let out a sigh, lamenting that the healing had removed all physical pain. If not for the smoldering feeling of humiliation in his chest, he'd almost think the whole thing had never happened.
(AN:) I recently got a job, and the past week has been nothing but mind-numbing training, which pushed this chapter back. As an apology, this is the longest chapter I've posted so far, over 3,300 words.
I know the pacing lately has been on that One Piece timing. That changes now. Things are about to speed up with Subaru as the MC for a bit. And we all know how that tends to end.
I was trying to figure out how to create real problems for the MC when Reinhard is basically his Stand, and I think I've landed on the perfect villain.
Depression. Cough, cough.
Just kidding. I've already hinted at his appearance a few times. For those of you who care enough to crack this riddle and figure out who the big bad is, alongside the Witch's Cult and the SCP universe siblings, go ahead and try.
Riddle:
Sixty degrees that come in threes.
Watches from within birch trees.
Saw his own dimension burn.
Misses home and can't return.
Says he's happy. He's a liar.
Blame the arson for the fire.
If he wants to shirk the blame,
He'll have to invoke my name.
One way to absolve his crime.
A different form. A different time.