A while before the patriarch's death
The garden reeked of wealth and rot, a place where beauty had been forced to bloom too perfectly, too unnaturally. Black roses climbed twisted trellises of iron, their petals glistening as though wet with blood.
Marble statues of the primordial witches stood half-shrouded in ivy, their eyes worn smooth as if they had grown tired of watching.
"I still haven't forgiven you for what you did during the entrance exam, Neila".
She shrugged her shoulders feigning ignorance to her, "I told you already. It was better for them to follow me rather than get used by the government".
"You lied, you always lie Neila, that's all that you do, that's your whole schtick". Her long dark hair came to her shoulders, her red eyes glowed, her mouth was slightly open as her tongue poked through, it was split down the middle like it was cut in half.
"Lucy, calm down". Neila moved a single strand of her golden hair behind her ear. "If I was then what are you going to do about it"?
"I-I". Lucy clenched her fists.
"We share the same goals don't we"? Her eyes were calm, eerily so, like they were boring holes into Lucy. "Don't you want to change this corrupt system"? She gave her hand to Lucy as her eyes softened slightly. "And for that, I'll need to become level ten. Won't you help me"?
Lucy looked at her hand.
Then at Neila's smiling face, it seemed real, like she had practiced the same expression thousands of times.
"No".
Lucy slapped her hand away, immediately causing a slight expression of shock from Neila as she moved her hand away.
"Shame". The smile immediately disappeared from her face as she touched the area of her hand where she was slapped, caressing the red patch on the back of her knuckles. "You hit me really hard, you know"?
"That's not your only reason to become a level ten is it? You want to be above the government don't you?! Above everyone! Your superiority complex is ruining the lives of everyone around you"!
"Come on". Lucy leaned against the brick wall. "I'm not that delusional, be serious". She waved her hand, denying it. "Even if I was level ten, it wouldn't make me the pinnacle, there's Sophia Miller at the very top, you know"?
"Who"?
"Lucy, have you been living under a rock? Don't act like you don't know her".
Lucy didn't say a single word, nervously looking around the garden.
"The pinnacle of all witches, Sophia Miller"?
"I have no clue".
"Don't you know the reason that your brother, Dominic, is only the second highest ranked student witch in the entire world? Sophia is a monster, even her family couldn't contain her. Unlike you and me, who were forced into the academy by the government, she came here herself".
Neila scratched her earlobe as she looked away nonchalantly as she kept reiterating her point. "Sophia Miller is a monster, while Dominic is only barely below the level 9s, Sophia completely outclasses all the level tens combined".
"Sooo", Lucy muttered. "You want to compete with her"?
Neila let out a soft, almost patronizing chuckle. "Compete?" She shrugged, her gaze sweeping over the intricate ironwork of the trellises as if Lucy's question was beneath her notice. "I don't even dream of competing with her. She is a statistical anomaly on par with the primordials, the reincarnation of the strongest witch in history. Merlin".
"Stop trying to change the topic", Lucy demanded. "Why do you want to become level ten"?
"I told you that I wanted to change this system". Neila pointed to herself, showing a fake frown on her face. "I feel pressured too, you know? I'm a witch as well, I want this society to be something greater".
Lucy scoffed, pushing off the brick wall, her arms still crossed. "Right, 'something greater.' You just want to be on top, Neila. To be the one pulling the strings, dictating what's 'better for them' – just like the government you claim to hate. You'd replace one tyrant with another."
"And what? Before even thinking about me taking over, think about the government first". Neila's voice was calm, almost bored, but edged with a subtle challenge. "How do you plan to overthrow the government then hmm"? She snapped her fingers, yet no burst of sound came out. "Do you plan to stand in a perpetually wilting garden, instead of doing anything yourself, you hope, pray and try to persuade the government officials to stop this"?
Lucy flinched slightly, her red eyes flaring but she held her ground. "I will find a way! I will find a way for all of us to be happy! For all this prejudice to stop"!
Neila simply smirked, a cold, unfeeling expression. "Hope is such a cruel thing, like a ledge that you can see but will never reach, a sight of heaven that you'll never touch".
"You girls stop fighting".
Dominic came between them, immediately halting their dispute.
"You two aren't at home you know? We're supposed to be protecting the Mirlos".
Edward had followed closely behind him, his posture slouched over as he scratched the back of his neck.
"What do you want now"?
Neila looked over her shoulder, staring calmly into his eyes.
"You usually never get in the way of our arguments unless we're fighting".
"I feel something coming towards us, from inside the estate itself".
"Oh really"? Neila crossed her arms, raising a single eyebrow.
[Have the children really escaped? They were unconscious before, what could have woken them up?]
She held her chin, staring blankly towards the wall.
[Could it be because of that blonde girl leaving the estate? During the message, the patriarch seemed particularly fond of her, could the children be her bodyguards to make sure that she doesn't get out of the estate?]
The ground trembled.
At first it was subtle, like a distant carriage passing, but then the iron trellises shook, and marble dust slipped from the statues of witches long-dead. A deep, metallic groan rippled from beneath the estate—steel straining against something far stronger than it was ever meant to contain.
Dominic's head snapped toward the sound, his crimson aura flaring around his hands. "Told ya".
Lucy's pupils dilated. Her split tongue brushed the corner of her lip as she stepped closer to Dominic. "Inside the estate? What could possibly be-"
Boom.
The reinforced steel walls that lined the lower halls of the estate buckled. With a screech like a thousand knives dragged over glass, plates of alloy warped outward, the edges glowing from sheer friction. Then—
Boom.
The walls shattered. Steel tore apart like parchment, fragments spinning into the night garden. A geyser of dust and concrete followed, blotting out the rose beds.
From the cloud staggered children. Not ordinary ones—stitched frames, nails pinning tendons to bone, skin stretched taut across limbs too long, too jagged. Some had eyes glowing green, some maroon, some both at once. They moved in broken synchronicity, yet the air around them pulsed with raw mana, thick and suffocating.
Dust filled the air.
Neila stared blankly at the children, one hand in her pocket as if this was the most normal thing in the world, "You peasants got dirt on my clothes, you know that"? She dusted her shoulder off. [I guess this might be a way to relieve myself]
"They're children"! Lucy's voice cracked. "Wh-why are they here? And look at them, they look stitched together".
The first child dropped to its knees, then snapped its head upward. Its jaw split wider than human, a shriek ripping out that cracked the nearest statue in half. The marble witch's head rolled across the lawn.
"Move, Walker bitch"! Neila flew past Lucy and towards the child, her hand flashing as mana ignited in the air around her fists, blazing a deep blue as she launched a strike forwards, knocking the child into the ground with a loud thud.
The child stood back up even with its body seared, its stitches snapping but it didn't fall. It crawled towards her, flesh peeling yet eyes still locked. Neila calmly stared at the child, speaking in a condescending tone. "What are you doing now"?
She walked up to the child, holding her hand out in front of the child's face as she snapped her fingers. A sonic wave blasted through the dust, turning the child into an explosion as its crimson organs splattered across the grass . The roses around her detonated into petals, the trellis snapped like brittle wood.
Lucy's eyes widened, "Neila! How could you"! Lucy screeched. "They're children".
"Can't you tell"? Neila looked down at the mess on the ground, she picked up the kid's heart, it was stitched together yet it was still beating without any blood flowing through it. "These peasants aren't human or witches. It's more accurate to say they're amalgamations". She threw the beating heart straight towards Lucy, trying to provoke a reaction out of her.
Lucy's eyes widened even further at the human heart beating in the palm of her hands. The heart slipped from Lucy's trembling hands, hitting the grass with a wet slap, blood pooled underneath her feet, then the heart stopped. Before she could even react, another boom thundered beneath their feet. The ground rippled. The roses tore free from their soil, and the marble base of the nearest statue cracked down the middle.
Then the reinforced walls gave way entirely.
Three more spilled out, dragging chains like toys. One's arm ended in a jagged shard of bone, sharpened into a blade. Another's back was split open, a second pair of malformed arms twitching.
Dominic clasped his hands, as he held them off to the side of his body, "Vigil Hexa". Large transparent hexagons surrounded him, floating off to the side. "How pitiful of these children". Crimson red feathers formed from blood manifested in the air, the edges razor sharp and blinding, cutting clean through children like knives slicing through paper.
A child pounced onto Lucy, as a single bead of sweat dropped down her cheek, climbing onto her as she barely managed to keep its face away from hers.
"I-I don't want to hurt you".
A single steel blade went through the child, as its inanimate body fell down onto her, her hands shook as she stared at its empty eyes.
"Lucy, focus up" . Edward kicked the child away, a steel blade sticking out at the bottom of his shoes, his black eyes staring straight at her as the sunlight bounced off his maroon hair. "You heard Neila, these aren't children. They aren't alive".
"B-but I saw them moving, no one…. no one, not even these children deserves to lose their lives". Lucy replied under her breath.
Edward sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck "Stay behind me then".
The walls screamed.
This time it wasn't just one section of steel buckling — it was the entire foundation groaning as if the estate itself was being gutted alive. The ground heaved under their feet, fissures running through the marble like veins of glass about to shatter.
Then it broke.
A thunderclap of metal ripping open. The reinforced halls below collapsed outward, vomiting forth dozens — no, hundreds — of children. Some small enough to still wear tattered pajamas, others stretched into monstrous silhouettes of bone and sinew. They flooded the garden like a living landslide, stitched mouths howling without sound, chains dragging across the stones, nails gleaming wet with rust.
Lucy staggered back, her split tongue trembling as she tasted iron in the air. "T-there's too many—"
"Shut up already". Neila snapped her fingers, sound detonated, roaring out like cannons. Rows of children shattered, limbs scattering, bloodless organs smearing the roses into black mulch. But for every one that fell, five more pulled themselves out of the yawning hole.
Children dashed towards Dominic, yet their attacks were nullified by the floating hexagons. RIngs of blood started to orbit him, turning into thin razor blades, slicing through all of the children with an unnatural accuracy. "We should run". His voice was monotone, but not wavering, he wasn't the slightest bit scared.
"What's wrong"? Neila questioned him. "For the supposed second strongest witch, you sure do seem afraid".
"That rank is nothing but a title". A thin wall of blood shot up from the ground, acting as a barrier to seal the children in. "We are here to guard the Mirlos, yet we have strayed from them".
The stitched ones didn't fight like soldiers — they fought like broken machines, unpredictable and relentless. One child with legs too long and bent backwards scuttled across the lawn on all fours, bursting through Dominic's feathers like paper. Its jaw unhinged, shrieking inches from his ear.
Dominic clapped his hands, as a string of blood shot through its head, entering through its blood stream, The child's ribs shattered outward, its stitched chest cavity collapsing like a crushed drum.
"Come on, let's run". Edward patted Lucy's back, signaling for their escape.
Dominic grabbed Neila by the wrist, forcing her away from the carnage.
"Hey! What the hell"!?
Dominic spoke in a calm and cold tone. "Let's go".
"Fine". Neila reluctantly sighed.
A large platform of blood started to form beneath their feet, it rose above the garden, but the stitched children swarmed like ants, scrambling over walls, dragging chains that rattled like war drums. Their howls weren't voices — they were vibrations, pressure that made the air itself tremble.
The platform groaned as Dominic forced it higher, hovering above the collapsing garden. From up here the Mirlo estate looked less like a mansion and more like a carcass cracking open, its bones vomiting children. The stitched ones clawed at one another, forming a writhing pyramid of limbs as they tried to reach them.
"Brother! Are you just going to leave them be"? Lucy asked.
Dominic entered through the opening at the top of the building, his feet planted onto the concrete. "With a commotion as big as this, Sophia is surely likely to stop them".
From the corner of his eyes, Adrian was pinned to the floor by officers dressed in blue, his eyes widened with his hands in steel cuffs. "I didn't do shit"!
Elias stood above him, staring down at him with a smile on his face.
"We found your fingerprints at the scene of the murder, you are under arrest for the murder of the patriarch of the Mirlo family, Johan Mirlo".