Date: X791, July 7
Location: Crocus – North Sector, Burning Ruins
A deep, rumbling roar rolled across Crocus like a storm front, shaking broken walls and making the fires gutter. The eighth dragon was advancing—each of its three heads snapping, hissing, and spewing streams of black-green fire. The flames ate through stone and metal as if they were paper. Every step splintered streets, crushed gates, and sent chunks of buildings tumbling into the ash-choked air.
Families ran in panicked clusters. Some fell and were dragged back up by trembling hands; others shielded children with their bodies, praying for some force—any force—that could stop this thing.
Romeo ran toward the sound, lungs burning, sword blazing with violet fire. He hacked down a wave of smaller dragons, each strike painting bright arcs in the smoke, but his eyes stayed fixed on the monster ahead. Its three burning gazes swept over the streets, searching. It was hunting.
He skidded to a halt, chest heaving.
"Come on…" he muttered, fingers tightening on his hilt. "Come on…"
High above, Teresa stood at the edge of a shattered rooftop. Her white cloak tugged and flapped in the wind, pale hair streaking across her face. Below, her sharp silver eyes tracked the monster's every move—the way its weight crushed the road, the angle of its head, the civilians pinned in its path.
Her fingers curled once.
For a heartbeat, she hesitated. A fragment of memory surfaced—her hand holding a much smaller one, the sound of laughter she had almost forgotten. A warmth she had decided long ago could never last.
Her eyes hardened. She breathed out slowly.
"Warmth is a flaw," she said, voice flat as ice. "I do not protect. I cut."
The dragon's central head lunged toward a knot of trapped civilians.
Teresa moved.
One instant, she stood still; the next, the air cracked open behind her. She was already above the beast, hand reaching back for a weapon that wasn't there—until it was.
Light rippled, and her Claymore appeared, the great blade wrapped in coiling, humming yoki energy. The transformation came with it.
Wings of pale light burst from her back, so wide they shadowed the street. Silver armor shifted and fused to her skin, engraved with glowing lines that pulsed like veins. Her eyes lit with cold, unwavering moonlight.
The Pale-Winged Valkyrie had awakened.
The dragon felt the change. All three heads drew back, hissing. Fire belched upward in thick torrents, but Teresa slid between them with perfect, impossible precision. No wasted motion. No hesitation.
Her Claymore sang.
One flash of silver, one clean strike—
And a head crashed to the street below in a spray of blood and fire.
Romeo stared up, frozen mid-step. The dragon's roar rattled his bones. The other heads lashed in pain, smashing walls and scattering rubble like toys.
Teresa hovered above, wings flared wide, eyes locked on her prey.
Another head lunged. She twisted in the air, blade cutting through the creature's snout with such force that the street itself shook from the impact. Glass shattered for blocks around.
The last head struck blindly. Teresa flipped above it, driving her Claymore straight down through the skull. Yoki energy ripped through bone, bursting outward in a violent shockwave.
The sound died.
The dragon swayed, then toppled backward into a collapsing tower. Its necks dragged across the ruins like broken chains before it disappeared into the dust.
For a moment, the city went still.
From shattered windows, faces appeared. Soldiers and civilians alike stared upward at the pale-winged figure above the ruins. Children cried softly into their parents' arms. Even the battered mages who had fought tooth and nail stood frozen.
Romeo fell to one knee, still breathing hard. He looked up.
"Teresa… you really are… a blade from another world…"
Above, Teresa hung in the air, wings dimming to a softer glow. Blood streaked her silver armor, soot smudged the edges of her cloak. Her gaze swept the streets below—cold, measuring. There was no triumph, no relief.
A blade existed to cut, not to comfort.
Far off, Macao and Kinana caught their first clear view of her.
Macao's mouth tightened.
"That's… Teresa…?"
Kinana's hand gripped his sleeve.
"She looks… like an angel."
On another street, Erza had just helped Lucy to her feet. She turned at the flicker of light in the sky and froze. Her sword slipped from her grasp.
"Is that… what she truly is?"
Lucy's voice trembled.
"She… she looks like an angel… but a monster too."
Gray stood nearby, blood drying along his temple. His gaze didn't waver from the figure in the air.
"That's not a mage," he muttered. "That's a living weapon."
The last echoes of the dragon's death faded. Teresa descended to a cracked rooftop, wings folding in tight. The Claymore's light dimmed as she drove it into the tiles beside her. The yoki energy seeped back into her body.
Her expression didn't change, but somewhere deep under the armor, a faint flicker of something warm sparked—only to be smothered before it could grow.
She turned toward the horizon. More dragons still raged there. The faint heartbeat of courage still pulsed in the streets.
"Edge remains," she said. "Echoes… scatter too easily."
For a fleeting second, her lips curved in a ghost of a smile. Then it was gone, and the Valkyrie stood in cold silence once more.