Breath
Mm… That should be my everything I need. Skirt, tie, gun, blades, coat…
This room’s pretty nice. A nice wide bed, closet, mirror, private washroom right next to the Pontifica Cohors, connected eventually. More like a dorm. For me while the house is being scrubbed clean of heresy. Probably Ezell’s digging through that and that other sharp-haired Executor, though I doubt anything else of interest is there…
What’s that noise…? A quickly hastening set of stomps sounds like it’s getting… closer and closer. It shakes my bones, rattling the door step by step until-
“Wooooooo!”
Lemuel crashes down my door with the force of a freight train, flashing the widest of smiles with a wave of laughs before putting up her hands, sticking out two fingers.
“By the LAW Lemuel!” I shriek, “How’d you break the door?!
“Whaaaaat? It’s your birthday, Leggera!” she taunts, grinning like an idiot, “Also it was unlocked!”
My precious little idiot.
She’s finally picked out her own outfit as a Legatus, and it’s not terribly different from the others, albeit with her own sparkling flair to it. Looking at it… it very much resembles her old uniform.
A light yet formal jacket, black in colour, with stripes of white and accents of gold haphazardly drapes her shoulders. She’s taken the liberty in rolling up both the sleeves too. What a gremlin…
On its shoulders, the holy emblem of Laterano in quartz whites highlights her shoulders while her name in rigid capital text upon some shoulder flash.
Resting on the other shoulder, a small radio with a curling black wire up to her ear.
Her shirt’s a regular dress shirt, as white as snow, tucked hastily yet still somehow well-kept, protruding just the slightest bit out from her chest. A short black tie with a stripe of gold at its base knotted perfectly in a windsor knot rounds off her top.
Around her waist, a short straight skirt with a small triangle cut out in the side, lined with gold and whites, cutely framing her body and toros. Her legs, warmly and snugly wrapped in black tights, and finally, shoes of well-laced boots, much like Lemuen.
She’s… beautiful.
“Uhh Leggera? Heellloooooo?” she waves.
“Huh?”
“You’re staring again!” she pouts, crossing her arms.
“Sorry, I’m just admiring something beautiful~”
“W-Wah… I-It’s your birthday…”
“Right, yeah,” I whisper, “Thanks… Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome~” she giggles, recomposing herself, “C’mon! Let’s go have fun today!” she urges, yanking on my arm.
“H-hey!” I gasp before chuckling, “Be at least the slightest bit careful?!”
“Nahhh this day is for you! My… sweet sweet ember~”
“You…” I mutter, “Alright then, El. The sweetest… apple pie~”
“A-ah… T-That’s not fair!” she flusters, sharply freezing before turning away with a wrist in her mouth.
“You’re going red~”
“I-I-What… This is supposed to be your day!”
“My greatest gift… is you, El~”
“A-Ah-ah…”
“Nice…” I chuckle.
“W-Well… C’mon, let-let’s go!”
“Go where?”
“Chocolate store~”
“Now you’ve got my attention!”
“Race ya to it!”
“Game on!”
She swerves out of the door leaving me in a cloud of dust, wings brightly shining her way as my fires rise between my own heavenly flairs.
Thunderous footsteps, rocket-like speed. Flames blaze upon my heels as her speed never seems to wane. Door, battered open.
Bouncing across the halls. Across a desk, blistering by some shocked Sankta and the occasional Liberi, all either panting with relief or cackling along with our insanity.
She’s quick. Her hair happily flaps about alongside clothes. Meter by meter, stride by stride, the distance between us closes. Much like that distance between our hearts a few months ago… it shrinks.
Eventually, subtly, until the very end a burst-!
I leap, shooting my arms out with an explosion of force barreling down my legs, wrapping her tightly around her body and tackling her to the ground, of course vigilantly careful that neither of us injure ourselves.
“GAH-!”
“Got you!”
“This ain’t your first rodeo huh?!” she gasps, squirming as we laugh and roll around the floor.
“No~ I used to do this with my sister a bunch… and then I did it when I met her again!”
“Ah-! So… so tight…” she winces, attempting to bend herself out, “Mm-!”
“Nah, you’re mine.”
“E-eh?!”
“Mwah~”
My lips gently plant a kiss right on her neck as I finally release her, letting us flop upright before brushing down our outfits and hair.
“A-ah…” she stammers, flushing nearly as red as her hair.
Catching our breaths, we shift on over to the edge of a staircase, staring out to the lively city ahead.
The untainted sun dances from building to building as a cloudless sky fills every gap in the towering city skylines. Pillars of white stone, glass, and polished metal rise as tall as mountains. Waves of pedestrians, Sankta, Liberi, and just sparse amounts of other races, shift to and fro like waves ebbing and flowing.
Cars roll down packed streets, carts of ice cream, cotton candy, and other sweets litter the streets as numerous as lamp posts all while cacophonies of volumes radiating from engines, gunshots, explosions, laughs and chatters fill our ears.
The air refreshes my lungs and the mild warmth of Laterano soaks my skin, yet it isn’t nearly as embracing as Lemuel’s abrupt hand clenching around mine.
“A piece of me misses my friends,” she sighs, “Lungmen… It was really fun! One day, I want you to meet them all. Boss… Emperor is fantastic~ Get drunk every night, party hard!” she cheers, rubbing into me.
“Sounds intense. Nerina can’t hold her alcohol for shit,” I reply, recalling Aefanyl’s birthday.
“Pfft- Don’t have to remind me… One can and she was gone. What about you?”
“I think I’m also light,” I shrug.
“Think~?”
“Well… It’s been a good while since I drank, cause the last one I had was… with Cielo.”
“… Ah,” she somberly whispers, pushing closer into me, “How… How is that going?”
“About them all? Oh, much better. Thanks for asking.”
“Of course~”
“It’s… a lot calmer. In my head and whatnot,” I sigh happily, sticking a hand to the sun.
My fingers stretch apart as my palm faces up to it. Playing with my fingers, I open and close them as the slits of light beam into my eyes or end up blocked.
“Used to be that I’d wake up in a cold sweat seeing how they died or how I could’ve saved them but… But the past is the past, yeah? And… and I can’t forever live in their deaths. How else… could I have lived in the present if I can’t step out of the past?” I ask to no one at all.
“That… That’s true,” Lemuel giggles, holding my other hand tighter, “I’m… happy you’ve done that with Fiammetta’s help.”
“Everyone just a bit really. But yeah, mostly her,” I concede, “What about you?”
“Me? Well… Lungmen. Nothing really special happened in my childhood really,” she shrugs, “Laterano! I think… I got all this from my parents!” she grins with a giggle, closing her eyes, “And… well, I may have blown up… my school uh… 17 times in three years…”
“Who hasn’t,” I cough, “One time I threw a grenade at a fountain… That explosion was great, but the cost… not so much. Wait a minute. Y… you went to the same school as Nerina!”
“Eh?!”
“You almost blew her up!” I playfully accuse.
“W-well I-I mean… c’mon, it was fun…”
“Eh, fair enough,” I relent.
“I thought you were gonna turn me into ashes…” she whimpers.
“I can take a joke!”
“Bleh~”
“Alright you-!”
“A-Ah L-Leggera! T-th-that tickles- ah!” she stammers as my hands and fingers rampage around her neck and torso.
“Yes that’s the point smartass~”
“A-ah-! Hehe-! Ah-!”
“You’re too cute,” I exhale, yanking her into me.
“Wah-!”
“Mhm mhm… Tell me a bit more about your friends!”
“Oh, yes!” she sparks, “There’s Texas, Croissant, Mostima actually, uhh Sora and Bison! Though I haven’t seen the last one in a good while,” she murmurs, “Penguin Logistics!”
“Think I’ve heard of that one,” I whisper, “Transports anything, anywhere… Even people.”
“You got that right~”
“Y’know that last one kinda sounds like… human trafficking…”
“W-Wah? N-No it’s nothing like that!” she jumps.
“Just playing~”
“Hmph…” she pouts, “Well, all my friends… They’re all on their own paths now. Texas is dealing with her past in Siracusa, Sora’s off to make her own songs…”
“That’s kinda how life goes,:” I shrug, “I didn’t want to leave my sister, but… I wanted to come back here. Maybe… fix the things we both had to run from. Our parents, finding out what they truly thought and believed. She told me that… when we killed Eclissi, she heard something that said… ‘He regrets.’ If… if that voice was the collective last will of our mother… then… there was only one person who’d that apply to.”
“Your father…” Lemuel gasps, “But… why would she want to… give you guys a lead? I suppose it might make sense in her dying breaths but…”
“Yeah that… I’m not sure about.”
“Say, whadya think Giocatore dug up by now?”
“Either he’s… reeling from the past or fighting it. Considering his… everything, I can’t imagine anything good happened.”
“You’re right… He gives me like, creepy vibes,” she starts, shivering a bit, “N-Not that I think he’s weird or anything! It’s just that… I’m kinda scared for him y’know?” she mutters, “Just… Like, I know Nerina’s past. I know your past. And it’s all… not great. And well, we’ve never see a Sankta like him. He’s so strong, but how did he get there?”
“… I get it,” I nod, “Well, when there’s something discovered, they’ll tell us. Or not… It is his past after all.”
“Mhm… Oh, we should get going!” she jolts, leaping to her feet, “C’mon! Chocolate~”
“Oh, yeah,” I chuckle, “A-Agh Lemuel my arm!” I scream.
Of course, she doesn’t care that much like the blissful bolting girl she is, dragging my entire body, strained arm, and loose legs all around the city.
The people we fly by all give us shocked glances, yet nonetheless she prevails. Yanking me here, there, around a corner, careful not to plough anyone over. Stumbling through streets, trampling around the flow of people, laughing all the while.
“Oh hey! It’s that pastry shop!” I beam, “Agh- Wait!”
“One from your childhood?” she mutters, instantly halting and facing it.
“Yeah, actually,” I breathe, finally catching my breath as Lemuel swings around to me, “Nerina and I… we’d come here sometimes after school. And maybe other days, I’d buy her a popsicle and we’d climb all the way to the roof of our school again, staring off at the sunset and soon the moon.”
I lift my palm to the sky, the prosthetic one, listening to its delicate hums and clicks as the various noises of a busy city turn to a muddle.
“… What I’d pay to have that peaceful life back… Her wings and halo were… so bright. So innocent, so lofty and… heavenly…” I recall, “Mine… Mine are just blazing. That’s why they’re bright.”
“You have a picture?”
“Oh, I do,” I remember, taking out my small digital terminal, “I uploaded the photo I had of us… ah, there.”
The two of us, radiant, with both our eyes. Nerina, a normal Sankta. A normal girl. Backs to a railing, to the setting sun, as our wings and halo spread high and wide.
She was laughing, playing with her hair as I was nudging a bit closer to her. We were… young. Maybe just… just before I got sent to the Cohors.
“She’s… that smile,” she happily sighs, “I can see why you want to protect it.”
“Well… I failed to. When… when she was shot and ran, I… felt so powerless. I stewed with guilt… it boiled in my mind that night when my mother told me. And for all the nights after it. In the house, back at the building…”
“Fiammetta was training you during that time…?”
“No, this was just a bit before the Summit… she didn’t notice. Doesn’t help that came basically off the heels of my squad dying and Cielo killing himself.”
“… Right.”
“But now,” I reset, closing my palm gently as I lower my arm, “Now… she has that smile back. That radiance. I can’t have her wings whole and her wings innocent anymore but… that smile. She has… people. Friends, even. And I have her back. I have her truthfully back, not as an idol who’d… who’d always act and please others.”
“Yes… yes, certainly,” Lemuel hums gently with a bright smile, “And she’s grown too.”
“Absolutely,” I nod, finding myself grinning too, “I… couldn’t be happier, honestly.”
ʚїɞ
“Ambriel, Sniper, former Pontifica Cohors Lateran… Is that enough?” the Sankta moans.
I flick my eyes up from a digital display as I turn over to her.
Long, flowing, strawberry-pink hair. A worn expression of constant sleepiness, bright teal blue halo and wings. She carries an ancient long rifle in her arms, but with a few choice modifications.
A well-fit outfit of black jackets and stockings, nice boots and suitable equipment sorted all between the pockets. Hanging from her shoulder, a large case of sorts dangling about. Is that where she puts her gun…?
“Pontifica?” I let out, “My sister is a captain there.”
“Ohh… Leggera Fiorella, is that right?” she dreamily murmurs.
“Huh? You know…?”
“Your name’s on the file. Nerina Fiorella, Rhodes Island Elite Operator Waterlily,” she sighs, rolling her eyes up from her notepad, “She’s good, y’know. Her gun skill, her Arts, yeah there’s a reason she’s the youngest captain of the Cohors. Doctor, why did you call me here…?”
“Well,” she starts, “I thought it would be nice talking with some of the newer Sankta here.”
“Eh?”
“You are quite bored and lonely, aren’t you?” she smirks.
“I watch TV and munch on snacks. Nothing better than that,” she pouts, “Say Nerina… Your wings. What happened?”
“Fell,” I shrug.
“Fell? Like what? Down the stairs?”
“No…” I blink, “Falling as a Sankta.”
“… Ohhh… Weird. I can still feel your thoughts. You’re very… calm and humble right now. Oh… that’s…”
Her eyes widen, perhaps prodding into the repressed emotions of the long past. It’s behind me now… but those scars and all those memories remain…
Shutting my eye, I let those all fly forwards again.
The wraiths clawing at my skin, tearing apart its flesh with their knives and pipes and nails. Kicked down into the streets, stomped on, all while I try to shield my face only to get a facefull of ice water. Kicked again… Victoria was a mess.
Sighing, I open my gaze again, quietly staring towards Ambriel.
“… Huh…” she breathes.
“In a way, you relived my memories,” I shrug, “But that’s really just pieces of it. I wouldn’t… ever want you to experience it as reality, Ambriel.”
“It’s time to look a bit further, m’kay?” the Doctor hums, “I’ll get you another pack of chocolate pretzels in the meantime. Or, well, more like a parcel.”
Although her blank face tells me she’s still just calculating everything she just felt.
“I see,” Ambriel whispers, “Seems you have quite the experience as a sniper, miss.”
“You can call me Nerina out of combat and Waterlily within~”
“Okay Miss Nerina,” she nods, “Doctor, you still haven’t explained what this is about…”
“Simple. You’ll be trained by Waterlily, one of our most adept snipers aboard Rhodes Island, and maybe learn a thing or two about CQC!”
“U-uwa… close combat…” she grumbles.
“You’re a sniper,” I reason, “Yes you’re going to reasonably be a fair distance away from the fight… but you can never be too prepared.”
“Huh… Is that why you have bandages around your neck?” she points.
“Ah… That’s because my Arts are quite damaging if I use them…” I chuckle nervously, rubbing the fabric.
Ah-! T-That stings… Gah…
“And your wrists?”
“And my wrists yes…”
Running my hands over them, I suddenly feel the pricks of shards scratching my palm. Sharply tearing my palm away, shivering, my eye locks to it, flickering all over it.
“Uhh… Doctor? Nerina’s hand is… bleeding a lot…”
“H-Huh…?” I gasp, staring at it.
Yes. The ice on my wrist tore my hand open… A pool of red begins spewing upon it, leaking through the veins and my skin.
“I got it,” I wince, shutting my eye and letting my strength blast through my veins. A charge of frost explodes out of my palm, freezing the blood in a short instance.
“… Your bracelet,” the Doctor points, “Let me see it…”
Raising my arm, I slowly open my eye again as she taps my infection monitor, staring at its blinking lights with contorting concern on her face. Moments later, the ice upon my palm melts away into the air before the Doctor starts wrapping it up with a bandage.
“How’s your hearing?”
“Dampened,” I mention.
“Mm… It’s acting up again. That filter should be working… I’m going to up your dosage. Seems like your hearing is going down too. Ambriel, take a small walk with her. Nerina, I’m tuning some hearing aids for you.”
“R-Right then… Thank you,” I bow gently, “C’mon Ambi, let’s go.”
“Ambi?!” she shrieks.
“Do you not like that nickname…?”
“Well…” she pouts, “I don’t exactly mind…”
“Alright, then let’s go. I’ll buy you some chocolate on the way.”
At that mention, her eyes light up.
“Pft, Sankta,” I giggle, shaking my head, “See you, Doctor!”
“Take care,” she waves, leaping over the desk in an unexpected vault and immediately returning to the computer and clattering away.
“W-What the…” Ambriel gasps, following as we both exit the office, “She’s normally always like that…”
“Tell me about it,” I laugh, “Never a boring day here… Why’d you leave the Cohors?”
“Boring,” she yawns, “I was stationed at a guard tower… did nothing all day but keep people from crossing some walls. But I really, really did not care so… I left. Rhodes Island is a lot better honestly.”
“Hey, do what makes you happy~”
“Ain’t nothing truer than that… Made the evening bells ring 45 minutes earlier. That’s the true glory of Laterano,” she smirks, “God, my old brass… Never shut up about protecting Lateran’s honor or glory, blah blah blah,” she grumbles, “Goodness, here you’re pretty free to do whatever you want.”
“That’s true,” I whistle, waving to Perfumer as she flashes me the widest grin.
Podenco closely tails behind her, carrying around a big bundle of glorious roses with a beaming smile.
“Say… You’re a Sankta. But you’re Infected and Fallen,” she starts, tossing her gun on her back as her wings twitch a bit, “Can’t go back to Laterano?”
“Nope. Not that… I really want to, but I kinda do. To see my sister again, my friends, and, well… my partner.”
“Damn… You’re quite the woman y’know. Oh, vending machine.”
“W-what do you mean by that?!” I gasp.
“Hm? Oh, I dunno. Just that you’re pretty, have a decent life here…”
“Had to work for it. I don’t regret a thing though~ Rhodes Island… really helped.”
“Mhm.”
“Alright… B… 7…” I mutter, poking its buttons as Ambriel leans against the wall, “Three LMD? Fine fine…”
Slipping a few bills into it, the vending machine beeps with contentment as mechanical whirs fill the surroundings. The towering jet-black steel container jitters a bit as a smooth arm sticks out from within the machine. Beyond the pane of glass, it rises, arm and jaws twisting with elegance and fluid-like grace sweep to the pack of chocolates, snapping it from its place and dragging it down with it before dispensing it right in my palm.
“Here you are, as promised,” I grin, handing it to her.
“Oh… Thanks!” she smirks, ripping open the packet in an instant and popping a chocolate stick in her mouth, “Want one?”
“Oh, no thank you… I don’t really like chocolate or sweets all that much…”
“Eh?! A Sankta that doesn’t like sweets?! What happened?!”
“Being shot in the face might’ve done a thing,” I jest with a laugh, fixing my hair so my eyepatch is just a bit more visible.
“O-oh…”
“D-Don’t feel bad… It’s better now! Sorry for uhm… laying that on you…”
“Oh, no it’s quite okay, it’s just… Sankta shooting other Sankta isn’t something you see that much.”
“Mhm… As for sweets, my sister tells me I used to like vanilla sweets a lot. Ice cream, cookies, candy… all of it. Though I… barely remember liking it. Even if I eat sweets now, it’s just… kinda bland?”
“Huh?! You’re missing out y’know…”
“I’ve been told…” I wince, “Mm… My sister loves chocolate, but I… have always hated it.”
“Mmh?!” she squeals, flicking her head to me with her mouth full of a chocolate stick.
A second later, it snaps between her teeth as she swallows the rest in an instant.
“B-But how?! It’s just… so good!”
“It’s always bitter to me…”
“That’s only dark chocolate!”
“Fair, but white chocolate… kinda just tastes like nuts to me,” I shrug.
“Something’s deeply wrong with your tastebuds…” she whimpers.
I may be hallucinating, but I think her wings and halo just shrank an inch.
“Maybe maybe,” I chuckle, “But hey~ If you ever meet my sister, you two can fawn over all the chocolate in the world.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she smirks, “Up some stairs… ugh…”
“You got this~”
“I know I do… It’s just…”
“Very fair.”
I push open the doors, reminiscing for fragments of time as metallic clicks fill the air. My shoes clattering up the cold staircase, the light ahead getting ever closer and ever brighter.
“I come here a lot. It’s… a breath of fresh air, really. And when it rains, I love coming up here and dancing,” I softly say, spreading my arms to the sky while taking a deep breath.
“Don’t you get cold?”
“I mean, yeah,” I shrug, resting my body as I walk up to the railing, “But hey. It’s worth it~” I wink.
Well, more like blink.
The air’s somewhat chilly with a noon sun, but it’s been getting a bit warmer lately. The sun’s high, piercing through small amounts of clouds, deflecting off Ambriel’s wings and gun with some sort of holy illumination.
“I wouldn’t do that… All I do is sit inside, eat, watch movies. Nothing quite complex, y’know?”
“If it works and makes you happy, then it’s quite fine~”
“Mmhm.”
“Though… Maybe you should try something new here and again,” I offer.
“I dunno,” she whines, leaning against the railing, “It’s hard…”
“Oh, trust me it is,” I laugh, “Anything new is… hard.”
“… Yeah,” she agrees, swiveling her eyes to mine, “I wouldn’t say leaving Laterano was hard but it was different…”
“Going from that city to here… It’s quite a change.”
“And I don’t regret it. Not a piece of it,” she happily hums, “How’s your hand?”
“Should be fine…” I wince, staring at my bandaged palm, “Mm… It’s a bit bloody, but it’ll be okay.”
“Oripathy…”
“… Yeah.”
“Ever wonder how unfair that is?”
“Yes.”
“World’s cruel,” she shrugs, turning around and setting her back to the rails, “Sucks, really.”
“Tell me about it…”
“I… don’t think I need to. My life’s been pretty easy. Lucky, even. Laterano… being a Sankta is as lucky as it gets.”
“… You’re quite right. So… why did you choose an ancient gun? Come to think of it… I think those are the rifles the saints use in their statues? My memory’s a bit shot as it’s… been quite a while since I’ve seen the city.”
The woman blinks at me a few times, as if processing those words for the first time. But then she looks around, away. Thinking, calculating… and then returning her vision to me.
“It’s just because… I liked how it looked.”
And with that, she smiles quite widely for once, munching away on those chocolate sticks.
ʚїɞ
“Logos.”
I dig through the files sifting between my brain.
“These… files. I reanalyzed them after countless renumerations. It only contains… a general overview of the blacksite’s events.”
“I’ve come to realize,” he sighs, tapping on a terminal before turning to me, “Doctor, have you seen that too?”
“Yes,” she whispers, “Yet everything that happened there is… nothing short of atrocious. However… the letters delineate that this Eclissi fellow was… a master pathological liar and manipulator. The gun who this belonged to was allegedly a close guard of Falsità.”
“He… was studying the Collapsals,” Aefanyl squints, “The letters mention he had friends up in Sami. The exchanges went on for several years, until…”
“… They all perished,” the Doctor nods, “Fallen to Collapsal corruption. The letters became less and less cohesive, more mutated, stained with blood even.”
“Seems then another reason to the construction of this blacksite was to avenge those fallen friends.”
“Or a catalyst into making something that could destroy them all.”
“My condition,” I murmur, “Was diligently recorded. I… don’t wish to speak on it… until I have the opportunity to divulge what I can to the others. Even then… I don’t have the memories back. I only have a recount of the past.”
“I see,” she nods, “That’ll… come within a few days then. You’ll go with Waterlily.”
“Will she be alright?” Aefanyl raises, “She’s a Fallen and Infected Sankta.”
“One, she’s an Elite. Two, Lightfall’s here. Three… everyone else is going to make sure she will be fine.”
“Right.”
“I don’t want to believe anything the past held for me,” I breathe, raising my eyes to the Doctor, “I’ve come to realize… that I cannot alter anything that has happened against me.”
My mechanized hands instinctively crush upon themselves. The wires between them cry with misery. The fluids churn, boil and pump as my ‘blood’ begins to seethe.
Yet my mind remains taciturn, null and void to constant emotional annihilation.
Within, a hurricane. And without, stasis.
My fingers dig against my palm, threatening to split the metal coating into splinters.
“… My purpose… is to destroy… all the demons of the north. Every last one… for… that was what was bestowed upon me, and that no one else can perform those goals.”
“You can have more than a purpose,” the Doctor opposes, “You can be more than a definition or a label.”
“I was created, forged, and hammered into a blade,” I reject, “A blade… all it does is cut, tear, and sunder. A blade is best used on the battlefield where it is akin to a paintbrush. The canvas is the world, and the pigments the bodies slain. A blade… then, is only to be used to cut. So relegate me to combat, and combat only.”
The Doctor simply sighs gently. Not out of disappointment but out of pity. She sets her hands down by her chair, lifting herself to her feet before slipping her helmet off and planting it on her desk.
Her silver eyes shimmer, one with a scratch, with the faint light from her screen and the dim moonlight spilling behind her. It borders her frame, igniting her hair and coat in a most regal way.
Beneath her eyes, the darkest of patches lie. Wrinkles corrode her visage. Her skin’s far paler than I first remember, and even then, she gives me a pained smile.
I hear Aefanyl gasp the slightest amount, a tune so infinitesimally mute that a single heartbeat would suffocate it away.
With trembling lips, her mouth parts.
Her voice… fragile like fresh now.
“Yet that same blade you are… You can cook with it, create with it… Flesh isn’t the only thing you need to sunder. You guide the edge of your blade, and you decide if its death or delight you carve.”
“… I…”
Do I see?
Do I see the future… painted so beautifully for me?
Do I see a reality where this knife lodged in my soul is torn out?
Or is the reality that… this very knife carves me apart from the inside out?
ʚїɞ
“Good God, how many candies did you buy…?” Fiammetta mutters as Lemuel kicks the door in.
Stuffed in her greedy clutches and a face-full of chocolate, she pops her shoulders up for a moment before dumping the goods all across a table.
“Hey, it’s her birthday. Cut her some slack~” Mostima pokes while fixing a flower within a vase.
Fiammetta’s specifically positioned herself between the back of a certain wall holding nine candles and nine vases with a single spider lily sitting within it.
“Ezell… is this what you meant by ‘preparing my house’?!” Leggera cries as her eyes dart all across the living room.
“Why yes,” he chuckles, popping around a corner while carrying a small tower of presents, “Happy birthday!"
Cecelia comes barreling around that same corner too, drifting in little circles before skidding along the ground and leaping right into Leggera’s chest with the force of a train.
“Woah-! Y-You’re getting a lot bigger!” Leggera laughs, scooping her into her arms.
“W-Wha?!” the child mumbles, “I-I’m only ten!” she protests.
“Hehe, imagine what Nerina will say when she sees you again!”
“It’s been like, three months,” Fiammetta blinks.
“Awh, you telling me Cecelia can’t grow much in three months?” Leggera pouts, spinning herself to face the Liberi.
The girl’s adopted an all too adorable, guilt-inducing glance as she stares right towards Fiammetta.
“… Forget I said anything, I guess,” she grumbles, but still stealing a quick glance at the brimming girl.
“Happy birthday Miss Leggera!” Cecelia cheers.
“Thank you~”
“Happy birthdayyyyy!” Lemuel shouts.
“Happy birthday~” Mostima sings.
“Happy birthday you… stubborn son of a…”
Fiammetta’s words start hastily, but upon noticing the child peering directly at her, she suddenly realizes that something’s blocked her throat.
“… Son of a cow.”
“Pft-!” Leggera chokes.
“Oh Fiammetta,” Lemuen sighs, “For shame… remember that there’s a child in our vicinity~” she teases.
“I know that!”
“Ehe…” the girl in question giggles.
“Well, thank you all of you,” Leggera finally lets out, “Ezell, you God damn bastard. You didn’t have to do all of this…”
“I wanted to,” he shrugs, dumping the gifts on the table, “Besides, the sister of my girlfriend deserves an ample amount of praise too.”
“… You sly, sly gentle man…” she sighs bashfully, “Right… let’s get tearing.”
Jewelry, flowers, little trinkets and memorabilia.
“Alright this bracelet is… so pretty,” Leggera blushes, flipping her unharmed wrist about, “Pearl beads… Ah, this necklace too! And this hairclip…”
“I never do see you with jewelry,” Fiammetta notes, “You eye your sister a lot when she wears hers though.”
“Well that’s just ‘cause she’s pretty!”
“No truer words have been said…” Ezell dreamily admits.
“Alright man, we get it,” Mostima taunts, prodding his shoulder.
“I guessed you wanted some for a good while,” Fiammetta continues, “So we all got some for you.”
“… I really do, thank you so much… Oh? Cecelia?”
“Here!”
At some time before, the girl somehow wormed her way out of Leggera’s grasp and retrieved a quartz vase. A wide base, thinned neck, and ridges all swirling to the right form this gift presented by a girl who’s arm barely surpasses its length.
“A vase?” she murmurs, picking it from Cecelia’s hands, “Oh my… It’s… gorgeous…”
“Nerina might bring flowers when she comes!” she judges, “So… So I wanted to make sure you had a special place for her gift!”
“Ezell, did…”
“She chose that all on her own,” he nods, “Just for you.”
A most proud and soft smile forms on his face as he gazes between the girl and Leggera, almost a brotherly or fatherly glance.
“… Cecelia…” Leggera whispers, almost breaking through tears, “Thank… you…”
“A-ah… y-you’re crying!”
“It’s okay…” she sputters, “It’s just…”
Leggera shifts her eye to the curious display behind Fiammetta.
“… It’s just a way… I can forever remember those that I love.”
ʚїɞ
“… About this… thing that requires disposal…”
“Your Highness, it’s… a difficult task.”
The Ursine emperor sighs.
He sits at the head of a tremendously long wooden table as tension as thick as ice, surrounded and filled with officers as two Blades stand as sedentary as death itself. The officers, pale as snow itself, take turns exchanging information, delineating facts and debating the angel of death scouring the countryside.
“The contract outline by that Lateran stated the following. We would provide an ample route into Sami and its snowfields, and in turn their soldiers they’d produce would be used to crush the remnants of the norther demons. However, if their project failed, we also agreed to contain whatever hellish creatures may have escaped.”
“… It has been documented that it has joined Rhodes Island. It seems that… it doesn’t want to obey.”
“I don’t need your understanding,” the emperor sighs, “I need your compliance to find and hunt that abomination to its end.”
“Your Highness, it’s fought three Royal Guards! And defeated two! The last time we saw it, it was wielding their weapons as its own.”
“Then figure out a way to neutralize it. Separate it from that Banshee. We aren’t looking to start a conflict with the Island, but that beast cannot be left to roam Terra. It may believe it fights for Terra, but it knows what occurs in that site. If it ever comes to light that the blacksite existed and all those experiments were done, all at the behest of eight hundred children and Ursus had a hand within it, this nation will be internationally humiliated again, akin to Chenrobog.”
“… There has been progress with the traces left by Falsità.”
“Do explain.”
“His influence lingers in the holy city. Bound by both loyalty and riches, they’ll do their best to suppress those of alleged higher moral standing from unearthing the truth.”
“And how deep do they run?”
“As I’ve heard… They’ve infiltrated the Notarial Hall and the Pontifica Cohors Lateran. Yet even within it, there’s a small group… working to uncover the truth.”
“… Hm…” the emperor grimaces, “Don’t make any action. We cannot be seen in this involvement but keep constant eyes and relays upon the beast that needs hunting. And of course, report what happens in Laterano. However… do tell them that it’s time to… escalate.”
“Of course.”
“This whole atrocity… must not ever come to light.”