CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
The hymn resounded through the chapel.
Unsung by choir nor played by organ.
The air quaked, the marble groaned, the sacred glass rained down in shards of color.
Sophia, Pisanio, Kamina, and Shmuel scattered for their lives. Bullets howled past, cutting through pews, shredding flowers meant for mourning. Sophia ducked behind the pulpit, finger on the trigger of her D-3IS. She fired once, twice, thrice but the rounds dissolved into steam against the molten flesh of what once was Imogen.
Kamina darted across the floor, glass biting into his hands. Pisanio dragged Shmuel behind an overturned bench. The scent of melting wood and burning incense fused together, suffocating.
And in the center of it all.
Imogen moved.
Her form wavered between woman and inferno.
Her hair, once white tipped in red, was now an unbroken plume of living fire.
Her skin split and sealed in the rhythm of the guns that grew from her.
As her molten limbs wrapped around the casket of her promised lover, the metal began to warp, to bend, to sink into her chest. The name Posthumus Leonatus vanished into the glow, swallowed whole by the monster that love had left behind.
And then in the silence, thick and terrible.
The heat bled through the air like breath from a furnace.
A presence, vast and formless.
The voice that followed was born out of molten stone and shuddering flame. It was everywhere. Inside their ears, beneath their skin, in the trembling of the pews and the soft creak of the casket melting into her. It proclaimed as it did not speak.
There was an awful certainty in it, a tone belonging to those who no longer doubt. I am here, it seemed to say, though no words were uttered. I have come to claim what was promised. None shall stand in my way.
The echo passed through the survivors like a fever. Kamina felt his sword-hand tremble, though he'd dared to fight gods before. Sophia pressed herself against the stone, her pulse thrumming with the rhythm of the guns. Even Shmuel, whose reason had held fast through horrors untold, found his breath shallow and strange.
Imogen lifted her head then, and the shape of her was a blasphemy of woman and weapon both. Her body gleamed molten and radiant.
Beautiful.
How beautiful ? Exactly how beautiful is it? What word could describe her right now?
Stunning? Close.
Pretty? Too lesser.
Winsome? Far from it.
Pulchritudinous? Yes, Pulchritudinous. The only word that could describe her right now is pulchritudinous.
From her back, the rifles twisted and aligned, their barrels turning with dreadful grace until every muzzle found its mark.
A whisper rose, faint as a sigh, yet strong enough to split the world.
Keep your distance, it breathed. You cannot touch what burns.
And then her eyes flared and showed two suns.
The rifles screamed.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
Pisanio staggered back, his boots sliding against the cracked marble floor slicked with molten runoff. The air reeked of burning oil and old incense. Smoke coiled between the shots like serpents, whispering through the echoes of gunfire and grief.
He gripped his sword tighter, his voice breaking from disbelief rather than exhaustion.
"What kind of hell is this?"
"Don't know," Kamina said, eyes narrowing on the molten figure before them. "And doesn't matter."
He rolled his shoulders once, the grin on his face a mask against the fear gnawing beneath. His slippers cracked the molten scab underfoot as he lunged forward, sword drawn, voice sharp as the edge of his blade.
"Just try to knock her out or take her down by any means. It worked before so hit her hard, and hit her hardest!"
Pisanio's jaw tightened. His heart trembled at the sight of her—his lady, his ward, now a furnace of sorrow and rage. He raised his blade, and for a heartbeat, his mind went blank. Then he whispered, barely more than breath, "Forgive me, my lady. This is going to hurt a little."
The sword sang.
A crescent of energy slash tore through the air, bright enough to carve shadow from stone. It struck Imogen square in the chest, and the molten shell of her body split open.
For the briefest moment, they saw what lay beneath—the thick, trembling mass of something raw and vulnerable, not yet burned away by despair.
Kamina saw it too. His eyes flared.
"There!" he shouted, the word like thunder.
He surged forward, cutting through the molten mist, his blade slashing and driving deep into the wound.
The sound that followed was not human. It was a shriek that shook the rafters and cracked the stained glass above them. The molten light from Imogen's body erupted outward, scattering in ribbons of flame and grief.
Kamina was thrown back, landing hard against a shattered shot. His arms trembled from the heat, but he could still see her writhing in anguish, her voice tearing through the air.
Imogen's scream shifted from a guttural gasp to a quiet sob. Her body shook with the power, the overwhelming fiery being folding upon itself, until it burst inwardly into a single, searing point.
Everything lost its sound.
The silence was destroyed.
A portal appeared where Imogen used to be. The sides were sparkling with melted gun powder.
Sophia took a step back, covering her eyes from the bright light. Kamina and Shmuel were there in front of it, the distorted light reflecting on their faces like the glow of a fire.
Shmuel breathed out through his clenched teeth, his mechanical arm emitting a slight spark. "We did this only once before," he said inaudibly. "If we step inside right now, we are taking a chance on our return." He looked at Kamina and said, "We could simply stop. It's not a lie that we are brave–it's just reasonable."
"But would your human part let it go?"
"…No."
Kamina looked at Shmuel with one eyebrow raised. "No 'but' this time?"
"No. I only wish it were possible to buy research papers on distortion phenomena prior to diving into one. This was not the part of the job I was expecting. We were supposed to escort a girl to X Corp."
"Alright, alright, cut the crap for now." Kamina stretched his neck and smiled. "The Great Kamina Office never half-finishes a promise."
He was looking at Pisanio as he was turning his face away from the portal and looking at the inscription.
The imprint of Imogen's sadness shooting through it.
"You," Kamina said, pointing at Pisanio with his finger. "You are loaded with words to say to that brat. Use them when we are taking her out of her own damn head."
Pisanio kept silent. His grip on the sword hilt became firmer.
"Okay," Kamina shouted. "Let's dive into the highest heaven."
And one by one, they stepped forward—
into Imogen's mind.
Not a moment had passed since Kamina stepped into the portal.
Kamina stood alone in the white place.
No floor, no sky, only an endless, glowing emptiness that made the edges of his thoughts feel unreal. The silence was not empty so much as expectant, like a held breath waiting to be released.
A step, the faintest rustle of fabric on nothing. He turned. A woman stood there as if she had always belonged to that light.
Fair-skinned, long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and held by a red bear-shaped pin. She wore a lab coat over a brown suit and skirt; sensible dark shoes. Her eyes were red, and they watched him with the calm curiosity of someone inspecting a specimen.
"Ah," she said, the sound of a smile folded into a voice. "So this is what you look like up close."
"I know I look cool, but who are you?"
She didn't so much answer as ignore. The question passed through her like a random noise. Instead she tilted her head, studying him. "I am fascinated by your nucleic-acid double-helix structure," she said, "Your body is unlike anyone else's in the city. You evolve endlessly through that special structure of yours. It is a pity I cannot stand in your world and see it for myself."
Kamina squinted. "You're using a lot of hard-to-understand words."
"To put it simply," she said, "you hold infinite potential and applications."
He laughed. "Isn't that obvious? That's what I call fighting spirit. My logic moto is kick logic to cripple."
Kamina felt a small, pleasant warmth at the exchange. And yet a sliver of wrongness threaded under that warmth, a place where the calm in her eyes did not reflect the rest of her face.
"We plant nudges," she said, casual as the weather. "We seed the people's hearts. Every person carries a light. In their light they make stories and set roots for being."
She enclosed the phrase as if quoting a creed. "He says he will not interfere with the tales. I… prefer to give the smallest push. A shove, perhaps, so they might see their own light.".
Kamina listened, the pleasant warmth cooling to a coiled tension. "Are you the one behind what made the brat into this distortion?"
Her smile unchanged. "Yes," she answered after a beat. "You may interpret it that way. I only grant them the push they need. I do not write their destinies. I simply point them to the truth of themselves."
"If that's what you call truth," he said, "then I'll kick your logic down into the curb."
He turned and walked away and away from the white place, away from the abnormal calm of her voice.
Then, after far too many steps that led absolutely nowhere, he stopped.
"…Huh," he said aloud.
He turned around slowly, and found exactly what he expected: more white. More nothing. More empty. "Tch." He scratched the back of his head with a sigh, sharp teeth grit in mild annoyance. "Alright, alright, maybe walking would work if there was any…"
He pivoted back and walked the same steps backward until he found the woman again, standing exactly where he'd left her, as if she'd never even considered following.
With a sheepish throw of his hands, "Hey. You know how to get out of here?"
She looked at him. This time, the answer was immediate. "Look up."
Kamina did.
The world shattered.
Not like breaking glass—more like a painting peeling apart, the white layers cracking, revealing something desperate and violent under the surface. Color and sound roared in. What had once been silence filled itself with the clang of metal, the grunt of effort, and the shriek of light against steel.
High above and then below they plunged into the battle.
Sophia, Pisanio, and Shmuel fought something.
A knight, but not quite.
A warhorse, but not entirely.
A figure with the upper body of a human encased in flawless silver plate armor that radiated a brilliance almost too pure to look at. Below, a powerful stallion's body churned with equal ferocity. The armor glinted without a scratch. The entirety of the creature was forged from a single divine sheet of metal. Golden light shone like embers from within the great helm and its eyes too ethereal to belong to anything mortal. And around it, heat shimmered a soft haze like sunlight through stained glass.
Shmuel darted in, hands raised. He caught the blade between his palms, teeth clenched but the strength was monstrous. Shmuel's attempt to redirect the sword into a punch failed instantly as the monster twisted its wrist, forcing Shmuel back without so much as a scratch.
Sophia was moving, rifle gripped like it were a blade to commit it to close-quarters swipes and jabs. Making a strike aimed to conserve precious ammunition but still break off the monster's rhythm.
Pisanio slashing his sword. Energy slashes burst from his blade, slicing into the ground and kicking up debris. Not aiming to harm, only worth enough to slow it. To stop the knight from using its equine lower body to build speed and momentum..
Kamina hovered above the scene for a heartbeat, eyes wide as adrenaline lit him up from within.
He cracked his knuckles, spirit flaring, and let himself drop into the chaos below.
The Abnormality turned, its helm tilting. That golden glow behind the visor glowed. Even if it had no eyes, it still saw him.
Kamina hit the ground with brash, unstoppable force, feet digging into fractured church tiles, cape furling. For the briefest moment, his red sunglasses caught the shimmer of that divine glow and the knight reacted. Instinctively, as It recognized a threat.
The armored centaur lunged, sword raised and it split the air itself. It moved like a veteran knight, but with the force of a charging beast.
Kamina rolled in the nick of time, the sword cracking the floor where he'd been, splintering stone and sending echoes into the pillars above.
Then, it struck.
With the speed of a locomotive, the silver-armored knee drove toward Kamina's chest. He blocked with both arms crossed but still sent skidding back, leaving a gouge through shattered tiles.
Shmuel was there in a flash, mechanical arms rotating into combat mode. He dove in from the knight's flank, catching the second blow meant for Kamina.
Metal clashing against holy steel.
The impact rippled up his arm, servos whining. Shmuel shoved the blade aside and spun, aiming a heavy punch at the creature's flank and might as well have been punching a cathedral wall.
The knight turned, sword sweeping with devastation in its wake. The two fighters leapt apart.
From a distance, energy flares disgorged into the battlefield–crescent slashes and gunfire timed with the eyes of one eyed sniper. Pisanio's energy arcs ricocheted off the beast's armor in a sharp cascade of sparks, forcing it to realign its stance, slowing momentum. Sophia fired in controlled bursts, bullets hitting between plating gaps, redirecting its attention moment by moment, each round a call to survive.
For every swing, the knight seemed unbothered. For every coordinated strike, it remained unbreaking.
Kamina's eyes lit up. He slid in beside Shmuel, smirking even through the chaos, and drove forward. They moved as two parts of a whole–Shmuel's heavy metal and Kamina's blazing wildness.
Kamina's hand shot to the hilt of his katana. The Abnormality lunged again, its sword slashing downward. Kamina rotated, lowering his stance, and slammed the sheath sideways into the flat of the descending blade, redirecting its path with controlled grace. Sparks exploded where metal kissed lacquered wood.
In the same heartbeat, Kamina stepped inside the creature's guard, drawing his katana just an inch–enough to slash a glinting strike across the knight's armored midsection. The graze opened a shallow line of molten silver across the plating. He re-sheathed just as quickly, letting momentum carry him into another spin in time to deflect the next attack.
Shmuel's metal arms whirred behind him. As Kamina slid under the next swing, Shmuel pounced–left arm grappling the blade mid-flight, servomotors locking it. His right arm came up, fingers clasping into a hardened fist, and drove hard into the Abnormality's chest. The blow landed with a sound like a bell strike, shaking the knight off its perfect stance.
The Abnormality reacted, wrenching free with supernatural force, sword spinning in an unfathomable slash. Kamina was already moving. He struck the flat side of the blade again with his sheath–sliding the steel just enough for Shmuel to slip past, ducking in and driving a brutal hook into the centaur's rib-plating.
Kamina brought the katana's tip down with a precise, reverse grip strike to wedge into a knee joint. Then he spined and kicked the hilt, forcing the sword deeper before ripping it free.
The knight staggered.
Shmuel took the chance, leaping high to catch the helmet with both mechanical arms, using sheer force and momentum to twist and yank the creature's head sideways. The Abnormality roared, stepping back, the holy light in its visor dimming momentarily.
The coordinated barrage left shallow dents and peripheral fractures across its once untouchable armor.
It was taking damage. It could be taken down.
The Abnormality's blade plunged into the ground. Cracks spiderwebbed outward in brilliant lines, like lightning frozen into glass, and then.
Everything gave way.
Only with wind. Along with the sudden, stomach-sick lurch of falling.
They plunged through an open sky, blue blurred into white distance without meaning.
Pisanio's voice cracked out through the roar of wind. "We were in the cathedral–how are we this high?!"
Shmuel yelled back, "Distortions don't–it's–!" But even he struggled to force words into the chaos.
Because this wasn't normal.
Distorted space danced to the whims.
Sophia was already trying to angle her body, eyes like steel as she calculated the fall. Shmuel looked downward, trying to gauge if he could brace or crash through something. But Kamina and Pisanio had seen it first.
The lake.
Not close. But big enough.
The rest was instinct.
Kamina cut through the air, grabbing Shmuel by the collar of his coat. "Hold still!"
Pisanio moved just as fast. One sweep of his arm and he'd wrapped it around Sophia's waist, angling their falling toward the water below.
Gravity became a sprint. The wind whipped their hair, pulled their coats, fought their way with every move.
Then came the Impact.
A burst of cold. A thunderclap of water.
They surfaced moments later, coughing, drenched.
Kamina spit out lake water. "Hah!"
Shmuel just floated for a moment, blinking up at the sky. "Next time," he muttered, "we're getting hazard pay if we are dealing with a distortion during work."
They pulled themselves out of the lake and onto shore.
Shivering, soaked, and breathless.
Pisanio's eyes rose first. And they widened.
A soft, rolling green. A hill encircled by the stone walls of an old keep. Above them, within view, stood the castle of maidens, its white spires piercing the sky.
Two small figures playing by the great elm that dominated the hill's center. A boy, messy-haired and small, wearing clothes patched and mended. A girl, a little older, in a pale dress, her hair, white with red-tipped strands, falling past her shoulders. Her laughter echoed.
Pisanio stopped breathing for a second.
And then he walked toward them.
His boots made no sound on the grass. He approached them–yet they didn't see him at first. Their world was each other–spinning around the roots of the old tree, hands clasped, faces bright.
Then, Pisanio spoke softly, warmth in his voice despite the chaos left behind.
"You seem to have a happy time together, my lady."
The children froze. They turned, eyes wide with startled guilt–the way only children caught in harmless mischief could be.
The girl's mouth opened, then closed, her small hand tightening protectively on the boy's sleeve.
Pisanio simply smiled.
He had always known. The secret passage that led from the slums to the castle garden. The hours of laughter between Imogen and the orphan boy–her only friend, her only light. He never told a soul. Because she had so little joy.
Sophia sloshed through the grass, her boots squelching faintly with water from the lake. She stepped up beside Pisanio, eyes narrowed as she watched the scene unfold–the two children frozen by the old tree.
She exhaled sharply, reached into her soaked coat, and pulled out a battered cigarette case. With a practiced flick, she tapped one out and held it between her lips.
"Zis place," she muttered, "it feels like a–how do you say–ghost made of longing."
Her fingers moved for the lighter.
Before steel slid against flint, Pisanio put a hand on her wrist.
"Don't," he whispered.
Sophia paused mid-motion, eyebrow arched, cigarette hanging lopsided from her mouth.
Pisanio's eyes stayed fixed on the children–on the way the boy braced himself, on the way the girl reached for him as though she could shield him with her small frame.
Pisanio didn't turn as Kamina and Shmuel finally caught up, brushing leaves and lake water from their clothing.
Kamina squinted at the children, chin thrust forward. "This kid looks like the brat."
"I think that actually is Imogen."
The small girl, hair white with red-tipped ends, stepped forward hesitantly. Her dress was simple, blue linen, worn at the hem. She stared at Kamina and Shmuel, then pulled her hand back from the boy's grasp to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Pisanio... who are they?"
"Idiots," Pisanio said gently. "Idiots who can help."
Kamina knelt down, making himself almost level with the girl, and grinned his usual wide, toothy grin. "Name's Kamina. We're here because your future self is making a heck of a mess, kid."
The young Imogen blinked, confusion washing over her face. "My... future self?"
Shmuel sighed and rubbed his temples.
The boy beside Imogen, eyes wide, stepped half behind her, half forward—all courage and fear blended. He looked at Pisanio, then at the men standing behind him.
"We weren't doing anything wrong," he said softly. "We just... wanted to watch the birds."
"I know," Pisanio said.
Then the air shimmered. The branches of the tree above them rustled in a wind that didn't exist. The scene flickered as though someone were trying to tear the memory apart from the outside.
Pisanio took a step closer to the children.
"Stay near the tree," he murmured. "No matter what happens next."
And the world cracked like glass.
The sky cracked open, and through that rupture, an armored host marched forth. A wave of faceless knights in polished steel, their helmets warped and censored like reality itself refused to show them properly.
Shmuel and Kamina shared but a glance.
With a scream, Kamina charged headfirst into the tide, katana drawn. Shmuel followed, mechanical fists churning.
Sophia, breathing heavy, checked her magazine. One bullet. Just one. She stood beside Pisanio beneath the ancient tree. Little Imogen stared in confused fear, the boy at her side trembling.
Pisanio knelt, lowering himself to her eye level. His voice was soft and yet it's so full of resoluteness.
"My lady," he began, "I've watched over you ever since your mother passed. A servant, yes but one with eyes open."
Imogen shrank back, sensing gravity in those words.
"You have given your heart to a dream," Pisanio said. "A boy that had already frozen in time. That love is sweet, but it is also a chain. And a chain can bind even someone who wishes to fly."
She said nothing, but her small hands clenched tight.
"That fool of a man," Pisanio gestured toward Kamina, still battling illusions mere yards away, "is right about one thing. You are free, Imogen. But freedom isn't sweet if it makes you miserable."
Then he turned, eyes meeting Sophia's.
"Sophia. I ask for your aid."
Sophia nodded.
With only one bullet. She raised her rifle. The targeting sights aligned, on the boy beside Imogen. The boy who watched birds. The boy made of promises. The boy whose name now appeared on the letter of the funeral.
The shot rang out with a crack that broke the heart of the dream.
The boy fell.
Imogen screamed.
The memory shattered similar to that of a blown glass window.
And they were once again in the cathedral.
Imogen towered above them. Her body was a molten colossus, crowned with a halo of living fire. Barrett-11 rifles jutted grotesquely from her form, all pointed outward..
She spoke no words.
Her grief had found a voice.
And it was bright.
And terrible.
Pisanio roared, voice echoing across the cathedral, shaking the very air with his vow.
"By all that I am! By all that I live! I swear, I will dedicate my life to giving you the vision to live freely, my lady!"
The words ignited something within him.
A fire as fierce as Imogen's own molten heart. Energy gathered around his blade, coalescing into long, searing slashese of energy. Each swing carved massive, blinding slashes through the air, the force vibrating the floor beneath them and scattering shards of stone. The energy slashes twisted and curved with near-sentient precision, attempting to pierce through Imogen's molten form, to cut through the chaotic manifestation of her anguish.
Imogen's response was instantaneous. From the dozens of Barrett-11 rifles protruding from her distorted body, gunfire erupted in every direction–tracers of molten light and bullets blending, arcs of destruction tearing through the environment around them.
Each shot tore at the shifting light of Pisanio's energy, sparks and molten fragments exploding where energy and projectile met.
The air thickened with heat, ozone, and the stench of burned metal.
Yet Pisanio did not falter. Every slash he made was to guide where Imogen should put her heart and to pierce the emotional chaos. His movements were fast, weaving between bursts of molten projectiles, striking at the very semblance of Imogen's torment. The cathedral bent and warped with each swing.
Imogen screamed.
Her shots ricocheted and spiraled, some of them hitting the warped surroundings, the others dissipating against the brilliance of Pisanio's slashes. Yet through it all, Pisanio advanced, relentlessly, fueled by a promise deeper than any of the molten rage surrounding them. His sword became a conduit for his life, for his unwavering will to grant her freedom even if he would burn down to ash.