Chapter 3 - Until the Unseen Ends

The next day, I arrived at the council room earlier than usual.

I had assumed — foolishly, in hindsight — that everyone else would show up at the regular time, which would have made me the first one there for once. A small, petty ambition, maybe, but I'd take my victories where I could find them these days.

That assumption lasted all of three seconds.

The moment I pushed the door open, warm morning light spilling in behind me, I found the room already alive with motion. Papers rustled. A kettle hissed somewhere. Everyone was already inside.

Of course they were.

I sighed, and let the door click shut behind me.

"Good morning, Katsuhito-kun. Or should I say, President?"

Shirohana was standing right in front of the door, sensu fan half-raised, as though she'd been counting down the seconds until my arrival and had positioned herself accordingly. Her golden eyes caught the light at an angle that made them look almost amused.

Behind her, the others turned toward me as one.

"Good morning, Katsuhito-sama."

Celestria and Reinhardt greeted me in perfect unison, their voices overlapping so precisely it was almost comedic. Both of them had been busy arranging things around the room — she with a stack of ledgers, he with the tea service — but the instant their voices collided in the air, they turned to glare at each other with a suddenness that suggested this was not the first time.

Seems like they've developed a rivalry.

I filed that thought away for later amusement and let it go.

Reinhardt recovered first, pulling out my chair with the same brisk efficiency he always did, his expression carefully arranged into something professional. At nearly the same moment, Celestria hurried over with a cup of tea — one that Shirohana had evidently prepared herself, judging by the faint curl of steam and the particular shade of amber.

Shirohana's eyes drifted toward her.

Her expression barely shifted — the same half-lidded calm as always, fan still concealing the lower half of her face — but the almost imperceptible narrowing of her eyes betrayed her displeasure plainly enough, at least to anyone who'd learned to read her.

Celestria noticed a beat too late.

She froze mid-step, cup rattling faintly against its saucer.

I decided not to interfere. Whatever silent war was being waged over the correct protocol for serving my tea was not a war I intended to enlist in.

I also didn't drink it.

By the time anyone remembered to hand it to me, it had gone stone cold, sitting there on the corner of my desk like a monument to unresolved tension.

Apparently it's destined to remain a decorative object.

To restore some semblance of professionalism before the commander arrived, I cleared my throat and began assigning tasks, my voice settling into the clipped cadence I used for council business.

"Celestria, make a list of the returns we're getting from our current budget consumption."

"Yes, President." She straightened at once, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she reached for a fresh ledger.

"Reinhardt, make a list of the resources we're using the most and the ones we're using the least. Adjust the supplies accordingly, then submit the list to Celestria so she can calculate everything."

"Yes, Katsuhito-sama." He gave a crisp nod, though the enthusiasm in his eyes suggested he was already three steps ahead of the actual instruction.

"Shi—"

"Yes, President?"

Shirohana tilted her head toward me, her expression as unreadable as ever, eyes half-closed, the lower half of her face still hidden behind that same sensu fan she seemed to treat as a permanent extension of herself.

I paused.

"...Nah. Nothing."

She tilted her head a fraction further, studying me the way one might study a puzzle box that had failed to click open on the first try. I let it pass.

Having her standing there as vice president does make the council look presentable enough, I suppose.

Whatever silent question had crossed her mind, she didn't voice it. I turned back to the documents scattered across my desk and began reading through them, the scratch of my own pen the only sound for a while.

A short time later, someone knocked.

"Come in."

The door opened.

A woman stepped through and stopped a few paces inside, her posture immediately drawing every eye in the room. She stood with the kind of rigid, disciplined bearing that came from years of drilling — spine straight, chin level, hands clasped loosely behind her back. Her armor, though practical, was polished to a near mirror shine, and a ceremonial cloak the deep blue of the Knights of Order fell from her shoulders.

"I am the commander of the Knights of Order."

Her voice rang out loud and clear, carrying the kind of authority meant to fill a room twice this size.

"My name is Isolde Vaelgrave. I have been informed that members of the student council will be working with us to solve this case."

She delivered the greeting without so much as a flicker in her posture, her gaze sweeping across each of us in turn.

"Nice to meet you."

I offered her a polite smile and rose halfway from my seat.

"My name is Katsuhito Kurogane. I'm the president of the student council."

Then I turned toward Shirohana.

"My name is Shirohana Yukimori. I'm the vice president of the student council." Her tone was as light and unbothered as ever, the fan dipping just enough to reveal the faint curve of a smile.

Celestria and Reinhardt introduced themselves next, each accompanying their names with a proper bow.

As always, Reinhardt didn't quite manage it — his bow came a half-second too fast, more of a jerky nod than anything resembling grace.

Well. At least he tried.

"It seems like this conversation will get long."

I gestured toward the seating area near the window, where the morning sun laid soft gold stripes across the cushions.

"Take a seat, Vaelgrave-san."

"Hah..."

She exhaled — not quite a sigh, more the sound of someone bracing themselves — before lowering herself onto the sofa with the same rigid posture she'd walked in with.

Once seated, however, something strange happened. She went quiet. Utterly, statue-still quiet, hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed somewhere just past my shoulder.

Where did her voice suddenly disappear to?

Do I need to ask her about the details myself?

"So... Vaelgrave-san, can you fill us in on the details of this case?"

I rested one arm on the desk, tilting my head slightly to catch her eye.

"Ah... yes."

She blinked, as though only just remembering why she'd come, and fumbled briefly with the leather satchel at her hip before producing a thick sheaf of documents. She held them out to Reinhardt, who accepted them with visible relief at having something to do, and passed them along to me.

Celestria, meanwhile, set a fresh cup of tea in front of Vaelgrave with practiced grace.

"Thank you."

I nodded toward Reinhardt as he attempted to hand me the documents with a flourish clearly meant to look effortless.

Nice try. But your face and movements aren't matching.

I let a faint smile show and turned my attention to Vaelgrave instead.

She sat with her hands wrapped around the teacup but didn't drink, gaze drifting somewhere distant. She didn't seem comfortable around people she didn't know — every line of her body radiated the particular stiffness of someone far more at ease commanding a formation than making small talk in an unfamiliar room.

Or perhaps she's simply more comfortable leading an operation than dealing with people.

Well. None of my concern, I guess.

I opened the documents and began reading, the room falling into a companionable quiet broken only by the occasional shuffle of pages.

They contained the full record compiled since the start of the investigation — witness statements, sketches of wounds, notes in a cramped, hurried hand that suggested whoever had written them had been running on too little sleep.

If I summarized the case so far, it went something like this.

It had started a month ago, when someone stumbled across a corpse near a noble's estate. As one would expect, the knights had responded and begun their investigation — combing the surrounding streets, questioning the neighboring households. They'd contacted the Information Department to trace the victim's identity.

They'd come up empty.

According to the department, they hadn't managed to find so much as a name.

The knights had continued patrolling the area to prevent further deaths. Several days later, they found a second body, some distance from the first. This victim wore the same style of clothing as the one before — a detail specific enough that the knights concluded the two cases were connected, and that the victims likely belonged to some shared faction, since there was little to suggest the killer had simply dressed them to match after the fact.

From there, the case was escalated. The search widened.

Then, one morning, four knights were found strung up from the roof of a noble's mansion, boards hanging from their necks. Written across each board, in the same blocky hand, were three words:

"I'M USELESS."

The strange part — the part that made my stomach turn even reading it secondhand — was that the knights hadn't been killed. They'd been left alive, dangling there for the whole street to see.

The public reaction had been immediate and furious. The knights threw more personnel at the case. The Information Department, once again, offered nothing of substance.

Days later, two more bodies turned up. Same clothing. Same silence from every official channel that should have had answers.

After that... well. Many more things had happened, each one worse than the last, each one adding another loose thread to a case that seemed to have no center.

I lowered the document, letting it rest against my knee.

"Vaelgrave-san, can I ask you one question?"

"Yes. What is it?"

She set her teacup down at once, sitting a little straighter, as if grateful to have something to focus on besides the awkward silence of the room.

"Does the Information Department always behave like this?"

I rested my head against my crossed fingers, elbows braced on the desk.

"I mean, their responses are extremely vague. On top of that, almost all the information they've given us is so basic it's practically useless at this point."

Vaelgrave's expression tightened, something flickering behind her eyes — frustration, maybe, or the particular exhaustion of someone who'd already fought this battle and lost.

"I thought the same thing," she admitted after a pause, "and tried pressing them for more information. But then they simply showed me their processed data. I couldn't press them any further — I lacked the evidence to support my accusations."

She straightened her posture and lowered her gaze slightly, jaw tight.

It's like she wants to solve this case with everything she has.

But her own organization has become another constraint on her.

"Hm..."

I thought for a moment, tapping one finger against the desk.

"Then how about this — is it possible the people who died were also members of the same faction the criminal belongs to? And now, for some reason, the criminal is killing them and hanging knights on top of it?"

Vaelgrave looked up at me sharply.

"It's less likely," she said, a touch too quickly. "There hasn't been any revolt in this kingdom for almost a decade."

So this got her invested.

"From the reports, it seems the killer is trained in combat, and possibly male."

I leaned back in my chair, watching her reaction.

Something shifted in Vaelgrave's expression — not quite surprise, more like renewed attention.

"Well, I do agree the criminal seems trained in combat. But how can you say the gender is male?"

There was a faint eagerness creeping into her voice now, the stiffness of earlier starting to crack.

"Because it's less likely a woman could stab someone with this much raw force and hang four grown men from a mansion roof — unless she used magic, a skill, some mechanical trick, or had trained her body to an extraordinary degree."

I paused, letting the thought settle before continuing.

"Though, let's say the criminal is female, and she did use magic, or a skill, or something mechanical."

I rested my head against my hand.

"Why?"

Vaelgrave listened in silence, brow furrowed.

"It's possible she was enraged, and used her ability at full force before leaving the knights like that without thinking it through. Or maybe she's doing it on purpose — trying to make us believe she's male."

I shifted slightly in my chair, folding one leg over the other.

"Since several scenarios are possible, I used 'possibly male' as a placeholder rather than a conclusion."

"Ah... that makes sense."

Vaelgrave nodded slowly, visibly settling into the reasoning, her earlier stiffness melting into something closer to genuine engagement.

"Also — I think you've probably already noticed this, but it's likely this criminal has something against knights specifically."

She paused, considering.

"Though, as far as I remember, in the cases I've personally handled, we've tried our utmost."

The last part came out differently than the rest — sharper, almost defensive, as though she'd taken the implication personally.

Well. How wonderful it would be if effort and willpower alone were enough to guarantee the results we intended.

I kept that thought to myself and leaned back, letting the silence stretch for a moment.

There was only a pool of possibilities swirling in my head right now, none of them solid enough to stand on. I needed more.

"Show me the crime scene."

I stood up abruptly, chair scraping against the floor.

"Haa...!"

Vaelgrave flinched, startled by the sudden movement, and hurriedly set her cup down before it could tip.

Shirohana, Vaelgrave, and I set out for the crime scenes not long after, riding in a wagon belonging to the Knights of Order — considerably more luxurious and sturdier than the last one I'd been dragged around in.

For some reason, Shirohana didn't seem particularly interested in the case at all. She hadn't so much as glanced at the documents the entire ride, choosing instead to gaze out the window with her fan resting idly in her lap, the picture of someone entirely uninvolved in the conversation happening around her.

Well. Maybe it's good for my psychological stability that she isn't doing anything.

But if she's actually thinking about something useful, I might want to hear it eventually.

Just as I was starting to get comfortable against the cushioned seat, the wagon rolled to a stop.

The commander climbed down first, boots landing firmly on the cobblestone, followed by Shirohana, who descended with the same unhurried grace she did everything else.

Getting down from that wagon myself was, psychologically speaking, harder than dragging myself out of bed on a winter morning. Still, I managed it, and once my feet hit solid ground, I took a moment to look around.

We stood in a part of the kingdom where the mansions grew noticeably larger, their gates wrought from iron twisted into elaborate crests. Everyone passing by wore clothing that probably cost more than most people's yearly wages. Even the storefronts here looked expensive — polished glass windows, gilded signage, awnings that had clearly never once seen rain damage.

For now, let's focus on the case rather than sightseeing.

Wait...

Nah. Sightseeing is also part of the investigation.

I fell into step behind Vaelgrave, taking in the details as we walked.

Then I noticed something.

Or rather — someone.

We had another guest along for the trip, one who hadn't bothered sitting in the wagon with the rest of us. He'd apparently chosen to keep pace by leaping across the rooftops of the surrounding mansions instead.

I glanced back from the corner of my eye without turning my head.

There he was.

Valdrik.

Trailing us, as expected.

I'd already had my doubts about Valdrik's master.

But now... I think it's time I start taking his intentions much more seriously.

The wagon hadn't brought us all the way into the narrower parts of the district. The main road split into smaller streets, which split further into alleys barely wide enough for two people to pass shoulder to shoulder — the kind of place you'd want to avoid at night if you valued your safety.

Naturally, that was exactly where we were heading.

We eventually reached the site of the first murder. A perimeter of knights stood guard around the area, their formation tightening slightly as we approached before relaxing at the sight of Vaelgrave.

They saluted her as we passed.

"Thank you for your hard work," she said, returning the gesture crisply.

"This is where the first corpse was found." She stopped in front of a weathered stone wall and pointed toward its base.

"The body was lying here, upper half propped against the wall."

I crouched down, examining the area closely. Several deep cut marks scarred the stone, and cracks spread outward across both the wall and the ground beneath it — jagged, violent lines that told their own story if you knew how to read them.

According to the report Vaelgrave had given me, investigators had interpreted these marks as evidence of a struggle preceding the murder. But looking at them more carefully, another possibility began to take shape in my mind.

The killer had possibly been drawing the fight out.

Every mark on that wall had been made by the sword belonging to the victim — not the murderer's weapon. It was as if the killer's own attacks had been too precise, too controlled, leaving nothing but the desperate, wild swings of prey allowed to struggle in vain before the end.

Though there was another possibility. It could simply have been a coincidence — the killer never within range when the victim swung. But one thing remained certain regardless: the killer had overpowered him completely.

Wait.

There could have been more than one victim present. Or more than one culprit.

I dismissed the second thought almost as quickly as it arrived.

No. There couldn't have been multiple culprits.

Every killing followed the same pattern. Carried out the same way. The same type of weapon. The same style of message left behind. And the timing between incidents felt too consistent, too deliberate, to be the work of separate hands.

Multiple culprits were unlikely.

But then... what about the prey?

"Vaelgrave-san, is there any victim who had a wound older than the day they were killed — but not much older than a week or two?"

I straightened up, still scanning the wall and the ground for anything I might have missed.

"No. As far as I know, none of the victims had that kind of wound."

That narrowed things down, at least a little. Either this victim had been alone when he died, or someone else had been present and simply hadn't been killed.

"By the way — was every victim found in the same position as this one?"

I gestured toward the wall.

"Yeah. Every victim was found in this position. But out of eight bodies total, two were found lying differently."

"Did those two seem to have died more recently than the others when you found them?"

"Yeah..."

Vaelgrave's eyes widened slightly, comprehension dawning across her face a beat later than I'd expected.

"So these bodies were intentionally arranged like this."

"And the killer didn't have time to arrange those last two."

I finished the thought for her.

"Though then the question becomes — why arrange the bodies at all?"

I looked around the scene again, scanning the surrounding walls, the shadowed alcoves, the faint scuff marks along the cobblestones.

"It is possible that it didn't have any meaning."

Shirohana spoke for the first time since we'd arrived.

I turned toward her. She was standing a short distance away, gaze fixed on the spot where the corpse had been found, expression unreadable behind half-lowered eyelids. It was the first time she'd opened her mouth about the case at all.

If I think about it that way — and add up everything we've learned so far — it's possible the killer's intention wasn't specifically to kill these people at all.

That single possibility, small as it seemed, eliminated a surprising number of other theories in one stroke. Of course, I couldn't say with certainty that the arrangement was meaningless. But since the assumption explained several inconsistencies at once, it was worth holding onto for now.

We moved on to the next crime scene. There wasn't much new to glean there, save for two details: first, its location sat almost directly opposite the first scene, on the far side of the district; second, there were no significant scratch marks matching the knife the victims had reportedly been killed with.

Before we could reach the third location, the sun had already begun its descent. The sky bled from gold into deep amber, the last traces of daylight retreating behind the mansion rooftops.

"Well... it's already gotten this late."

Vaelgrave glanced up at the darkening sky, exhaling.

"Let's continue the investigation tomorrow. I'll drop both of you at your homes."

She turned and started toward the wagon.

I stayed where I was.

"Why not..."

Vaelgrave stopped mid-step and looked back at me, brow raised.

I let my gaze drift toward the rooftop of the mansion across from us.

Valdrik was still there. Watching.

A slight, knowing smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. My eyes met his through the gathering dusk.

"...I assist you with your night patrol?"

The instant our eyes met, Valdrik startled — visibly, his whole body going rigid for a fraction of a second. His eyes widened, and his grip on whatever he was holding tightened noticeably even from this distance.

And yet, he didn't retreat. He kept stalking me regardless.

So he was going to follow me whether I let on that I knew or not.

Guess that answers that.

"So, you will accompany us on our night patrol?" Vaelgrave asked, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and genuine curiosity.

"Well, I have a theory about the pattern of these crimes. If I'm right, I know where he'll show up next."

I raised a hand and rested it behind my head, affecting a casualness I didn't entirely feel.

"Ah..."

Vaelgrave hesitated for a beat.

"Though — can you fill us in on that theory of yours?"

"I suspect the criminal lives in the area where the first body was found."

I folded my arms, glancing once more at the darkening rooftops around us.

"If we map every crime scene, the center of the radius lands right around that first location."

"Though, even if that's true, how can you determine where the next crime will happen?"

She asked it the way someone asks a question they've already half-answered themselves.

Hearing her reasoning, I can't help but think she's sharper than she lets on.

For some reason, though, she seems to restrain that side of herself.

"You don't need to pinpoint the exact location of the next crime."

I let my gaze sweep across the surrounding buildings.

"We only need to block the criminal's exit from his hideout."

"Though—"

"Yeah, I know," I cut in before she could finish. "It risks letting another crime happen if my theory's wrong."

I met her eyes directly.

"And that's exactly why I'm staying. You knights keep doing your job — I'll cover the area I'm suspecting."

"Well..."

Vaelgrave paused, clearly weighing the proposal.

"Then we'll keep in contact. If any of us find the criminal, we let the others know."

As she said it, her gaze slid toward Shirohana, silently including her in the arrangement.

"Hmph. I would prefer my sleep over this game."

Shirohana looked toward me, the lower half of her face still hidden behind her sensu, though I could just make out the faint sound of quiet amusement drifting from behind it — as if she'd just laughed at my expense and didn't care whether I noticed.

I watched her turn and walk away without another word.

I see.

"Are you fine with that?" Vaelgrave asked, still watching Shirohana's retreating figure.

"Well... she may have understood what I'm doing."

I started walking, boots scuffing softly against the cobblestones.

"What does that mean?"

"It means she knows exactly when and where she prefers to spend her energy."

I continued toward the site of the first murder, the streets around us growing quieter, darker, the last of the merchants shuttering their storefronts for the night.

"Well... I still don't fully understand."

Vaelgrave fell into step beside me.

"Though, how are you planning to get there? You're welcome to take the wagon."

She gestured toward it, still waiting where we'd left it.

"Well..."

I glanced at it — sturdy, comfortable, entirely too slow for what I had in mind.

"Thanks, but there's no need for that."

I lowered my stance.

Then I launched myself forward.

A blast of displaced air erupted behind me as I accelerated away, leaving Vaelgrave and the knights standing there in the sudden gust, cloaks snapping against the wind.

For a moment, none of them said a word.

"Oh..."

Vaelgrave stared after the direction I'd vanished in, something like reluctant admiration crossing her face.

"It has been a while since I've seen someone faster than me."

A slight smile of acknowledgment ghosted across her lips before she turned back to regroup with her subordinates, and their patrol began in earnest.

I kept running, weaving through the narrowing streets toward the area I'd targeted, the wind cutting cold against my face.

If I assume the murderer is a noble, another question immediately follows.

Why would a well-established noble go on a killing spree? Why act against the knights and challenge the integrity of the entire system?

Then again — what about a noble who wasn't yet in a position of power?

Nobles weren't the only ones living in that district, either. Those who served them lived there too — servants, tutors, retainers, all tucked away in the smaller buildings behind the grand facades. If I narrowed the possibilities down, it was highly likely the culprit was either the child of a noble family or one of their servants.

Adding everything together:

The killer is male.

He's trained in combat.

He's likely stronger than the people he's killed.

He's either a noble's child or a servant.

Killing itself isn't his true goal.

And he has something against the knights — or against the integrity of the system itself.

I knew someone who fit more than half of those criteria. And from our previous conversations, I could guess the rest fit him too.

Though... isn't this too big a leap in my reasoning?

Yeah. It is.

That was exactly why I was calling it intuition rather than conclusion. I wasn't going to lean on it any further without evidence.

But before that thought could finish settling—

I stopped abruptly.

My hand moved on its own.

I pulled a knife from my sleeve, wrapped it in a thread of fire magic, and threw it backward without turning around. The blade streaked through the darkness, trailing flame that lit the alley in flickers of orange, arcing straight toward Valdrik's face.

He jerked to a halt, attention snapping fully onto the incoming attack. He twisted his body just in time to dodge, the knife shrieking past his ear close enough to singe a few strands of hair.

And that split second of distraction was all the opening I needed.

I slipped behind him in an instant, closing the distance before he could recover his footing.

"Yo..."

I murmured directly behind his back, close enough that he must have felt my breath against his neck.

"When—"

Valdrik's expression twisted with alarm as he tried to spin around.

"Don't turn back."

I pressed my palm flat against his spine.

"Or I'll blow up your internals."

I severed the connection to the commander's communication link for the moment and layered a barrier around the two of us — a thin, silent dome that would keep our voices from carrying any further than the space between us.

Valdrik went rigid.

"What are you trying to do?"

Annoyance flickered plainly across his face despite the position he'd been caught in.

"Well, that's my question."

I pressed my hand slightly harder against his back, just enough to remind him exactly how little effort it would take.

"Did Julian send you?"

I let the silence stretch a beat.

"If yes — what is he trying to do?"

"Heh..."

Valdrik let out a faint, humorless laugh.

"You think I'll betray my master to save my own life?"

His voice carried a strange mix of defiance and something close to genuine conviction.

"Kill me if you want. I can't tell you his plans."

"Oh..."

A slight smile crossed my face.

"Well then, let me ask a different question."

I leaned closer to his ear, my voice dropping lower.

"Your loyalty to Julian..."

A pause.

"...or your brother."

My voice went quieter still.

"Which one means more to you?"

Valdrik's expression changed instantly — the defiance cracking, something raw and afraid slipping through.

"What are you going to do with my brother?"

His voice had lost its edge entirely, replaced by open anxiety.

"Who knows..."

I kept my hand pressed firmly against his back.

"Though — what if Julian ordered you to kill your own brother?"

"That..."

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, jaw tightening.

"I have my loyalty to Julian-sama. He—"

Tch.

I didn't let him finish. I struck him at the base of the skull and knocked him unconscious before he could say anything more.

His body went limp in an instant.

In the last flicker of awareness before he lost consciousness completely, he tried to twist around and look at me, straining against the dark to hold onto those final seconds. My reflection settled in his eyes just before they slid shut.

Then he collapsed.

Useless.

I looked around at the rooftops surrounding us.

Seems like I'm popular enough to still have stalkers.

Apparently Julian doesn't trust his own servants.

I assumed the others watching from the shadows were probably around Valdrik's level of strength, give or take. Though I'd expected at least one of them to move the moment I attacked him.

None of them did.

What exactly is Julian's intention here?

Ignoring the remaining watchers, I continued roaming through the district, moving with deliberate unhurried steps. In the quiet of the night, several more figures kept pace with me from a careful distance — some perched atop the mansions, others slipping along the roads and narrower alleyways below.

I kept my expression neutral, my pace steady, and didn't stop anywhere for long. Even when something relevant to the case caught my eye, I forced myself to keep moving, observing instead through the corner of my vision.

The mansions. Their nameplates, half-obscured by ivy or freshly polished to a shine. Their current state of upkeep. The people still lingering near their gates this late. The general mood of the district as a whole.

Everything.

I need my stalkers to believe I haven't found anything.

That I'm just patrolling aimlessly.

Even after locating what I'd actually been searching for, I kept wandering for a while longer before finally turning toward the commander's last known position. I reopened the communication link and requested her location, then headed that way.

Just as I was closing the distance, a knight's voice cut through the link, tight with urgency.

"Dead body found."

The location followed immediately after.

"Kurogane-kun."

Vaelgrave's voice came through next, clipped and alert.

"Yes. I'm heading there."

I changed direction at once. Behind me, the stalkers hesitated for a split second, thrown by the abrupt shift, before rearranging themselves and falling back into pursuit.

The commander and I arrived at the reported location almost simultaneously, converging from opposite ends of the same narrow alley.

We both began scanning the scene immediately — any fresh evidence the killer might have left behind, any change in the surroundings, anything at all that felt out of place.

We approached the body slowly, careful not to disturb the scene before we'd had a chance to read it properly. For one brief moment, the commander and I locked eyes across the alley before both our gazes dropped to the corpse between us.

A knight stood nearby holding a lamp aloft, its warm light spilling across the body and throwing long, uneasy shadows against the alley walls.

The moment the light fully illuminated the scene, both our eyes widened.

We stood there in silence.

The body lay in the same position as the others — head tilted back against the wall, the rest sprawled against the ground, both hands open at its sides, palms turned upward as if in surrender.

But this time, something was different.

The victim's mouth had been carved into a grotesque parody of a smile, the cuts precise enough to suggest deliberate care. A thin wooden board hung from the corpse's mouth, suspended by a length of cord.

Words had been carved into it.

"END MY SUFFERING."

Yesterday, that body had been taken into the custody of the Knights of Order after I'd parted ways with them and made my way home. The stalkers hadn't followed me all the way there.

Though if they had...

I would have had to deal with them this time.

Today, the fountain in the academy courtyard was peaceful — no crowd gathered around its edges, the water catching the morning light and scattering it in shivering fragments across the stone basin, like scattered crystal. It was almost beautiful.

It was unfortunate that I had no inner peace left to spare for appreciating it.

Something urgent needed confirming, and it had been gnawing at the back of my mind since the moment I woke.

I quickened my pace toward the academy, one name repeating itself over and over in my head, refusing to let go.

Edevane.

As I approached the entrance, I immediately noticed Edevane wasn't in his usual spot — not crouched by the gate, not patting the stray cat that always waited for him there. But the cat itself was still present, calmly eating a scrap of fish someone had left behind.

Which meant he was somewhere on the grounds. Somewhere close.

Not that I intended to seek him out first. There was something else I needed to check before that — something that had been sitting wrong in my chest since the previous night.

I quickened my pace further, cutting across the academy grounds toward the student council building with barely restrained urgency.

I was impatient.

And, despite myself, more than a little anxious.

I reached the council room quickly and pushed the door open. Everyone was already at their usual work — everyone except Shirohana. She stood behind my chair instead, silent, as though she'd somehow already known I wouldn't be in the mood for her usual games today.

They greeted me as I entered.

"Ah... good morning."

I barely managed the words before crossing the room toward my desk in long, hurried strides.

Reinhardt didn't even have time to rise fully from the sofa and set his work aside before I'd already reached the drawer. I pulled the chair back just enough to yank the bottom drawer open, hinges creaking in protest at the force.

Shirohana remained behind me, gaze fixed quietly out the window, watching the courtyard below without comment.

Inside the drawer were the student records — thick, bound folders organized by class. I pulled them out and set them down on the desk harder than I'd intended, the sound sharp enough to make both Reinhardt and Celestria look up in surprise at my uncharacteristic impatience.

I flipped through the pages rapidly, scanning for one particular name among the many listed under my class roster.

For some reason...

I don't want to see what's written here.

I had doubted him already. But I hadn't wanted to see the answer laid out in ink like this.

Then I found it.

My fingers stopped moving.

For a brief, suspended moment, I froze completely, staring down at the page.

Beside the given name

Ravian

sat the family name.

Velrath.

Not Ravian Edevane.

Ravian Velrath.

I'd confirmed something that stung far more than I'd expected it to — even though I hadn't spent all that much time with him. Even though attachment to anyone outside my own family was, by every rational measure, inefficient.

Though... this isn't attachment.

It's something else. At least, that's what I want to tell myself.

I'd seen a shape of my own childhood in him. Those eyes, when I'd first met him — there had been something in them I recognized instantly, even if I hadn't let myself name it at the time.

The eyes of someone who simply wants it to end, but is too afraid to end it himself.

Or too afraid to let the people he refuses to abandon end it for him.

A memory surfaced, unbidden.

Yesterday, while roaming the district where the first body had been found, I'd passed dozens of nameplates fixed to noble mansions and wealthy estates. One after another, gilded letters catching the moonlight.

Among them, I remembered now, had been one belonging to the Velrath family.

The instant that recollection surfaced, something else clicked into place — a scrap of information I'd overheard once and dismissed as irrelevant at the time. The Velrath family had adopted a son from the head of the Edevane household.

According to what I'd gathered, the Velrath and Edevane families had once been on good terms — before the Edevanes were stripped of their status over accusations of spreading false information.

The head of the Edevane family, Caelan Edevane, had once led the Information Department. His wife, Elara Edevane, had worked as a researcher.

For a noble family, having such a thin public record had always struck me as suspicious. At the time, I hadn't paid it much attention.

I certainly hadn't expected it to surface here.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and let it settle. When I opened them again, I turned my gaze toward the window.

Shirohana was standing there, soft morning light falling across her figure, catching in her hair like scattered thread of gold. The lower half of her face remained hidden behind her sensu, but her eyes met mine directly over its edge.

She looked as though she already knew.

As though she'd known the answer all along, and had simply been waiting — patiently, silently — for me to find it myself.

My eyes widened slightly.

I closed the folder and shoved it back into the drawer, then stood and started for the door without another word.

The abruptness of the movement caught both Reinhardt and Celestria's attention. As I approached the exit, Reinhardt rose to follow, his chair scraping against the floor.

I stopped.

Without turning around fully, I glanced back at him over my shoulder.

"You stay here. I have something to do personally."

"But—"

Before he could finish, I looked directly into his eyes, letting him see whatever was written across my face in that moment.

Whatever he saw there was enough. He stopped mid-step and settled back, something like understanding — or perhaps concern — crossing his features.

I continued out of the room without looking back again.

The moment I left the student council building, I began searching for Ravian in earnest. I checked the classrooms first, then the backyard, the training grounds, the battle stadium, every club room I could think of. I extended my sensory range as far as it would reach, straining to catch even the faintest trace of his presence.

Nothing.

Eventually, I found myself standing beneath a tree at the edge of the academy grounds, staring up at a sky slowly beginning to dim toward evening.

Thought after thought churned through my mind, restless and half-formed, until finally one of them locked into place with a certainty that settled cold in my chest.

You don't say.

He is—

I turned at once, breaking into a run from beneath the tree toward the far corner of the grounds. Without slowing, I vaulted the perimeter wall in a single fluid motion.

The principal will find out about this eventually.

I'll just file it under investigation purposes.

That should be enough. Probably.

I pushed forward into the nobles' district, alleys blurring past on either side. But barely a few streets from the academy, I sensed three figures fall into step behind me, keeping to the shadows.

Tch. These monkeys.

I stopped abruptly. The three figures stopped as well, caught mid-motion as they scrambled to conceal themselves.

Before they could settle into their hiding spots, I accelerated toward the nearest one, closing the gap in a blur of motion. He didn't have time to react before I was already behind him, my hand striking the side of his neck with practiced precision. His body crumpled instantly, unconscious before he even hit the ground.

The other two lunged at me the moment they saw their companion drop, rushing in from either side.

I caught the first hand that reached for me, twisting it aside, then pivoted and kicked the second attacker away hard enough to send him skidding across the cobblestones. Using the momentum from the first attacker's own charge, I wrenched his arm and threw him bodily into the nearest wall.

A waste of time.

I didn't linger to see if either of them got back up. I kept moving toward the nobles' district, breath steady despite the brief skirmish.

But as I ran, something occurred to me, cold and sudden.

Valdrik wasn't among the stalkers this time.

And that realization confirmed one of my growing fears.

It was my mistake, not weighing the variable named Julian carefully enough.

As I entered the nobles' district proper, I began sweeping the area methodically, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, careful to stay out of sight of the people still moving through the streets below.

...

This way, it'll take too much time.

I stopped and checked whether anyone was still tailing me.

No one was.

Then it occurred to me — I didn't need to keep playing detective the slow way. There was a faster method available to me.

Oniki.

A skill that let me pinpoint voices within its domain — a sensory technique, essentially, though in my case it demanded a fair amount of focus to use properly. It also required familiarity with the specific voice I was searching for.

Fortunately, I was more than familiar with his.

I extended Oniki outward, the sensory field spreading across the nobles' district and beyond, threading between buildings, streets, and shuttered windows.

I focused. Searching. Listening.

Then—

There it is.

Ravian's voice.

Ah. There it is.

He was fighting someone.

"Ah, so now that I've become a problem, you'll get rid of me, huh?"

His voice echoed faintly through a narrow alley somewhere ahead. The unmistakable ring of two blades meeting followed close behind, sparks flashing bright against the darkness with every collision.

I altered course immediately, sprinting toward the source.

Ravian stood locked blade-to-blade with his opponent when I arrived, weapon trembling under the strain of the exchange. The other figure — Valdrik — was pushed backward a step from the force of the clash, landing briefly against the alley wall before kicking off it and launching himself forward again, knife gripped tight in one hand.

"Hah... before dying, may I also take the head of a servant whose master was one of the roots of my suffering?"

Ravian let out a laugh, sharp and humorless, shifting his stance to meet the incoming strike.

The two were about to collide again.

"Like I'll let you get away with this."

My voice cut through the alley before either blade could connect. In the next instant, I teleported directly between them, my kick knocking Ravian's weapon aside while my free hand seized Valdrik's knife-wielding wrist and forced it upward, redirecting the blade harmlessly past its target.

Valdrik's eyes went wide.

Shock flickered across his face as he struggled to process my sudden appearance — the same trick that had felled him once already tonight, now turned against him a second time.

"You—"

His voice carried equal parts irritation and disbelief.

I didn't give him the chance to finish. I drove my heel into him and put him down for the second time that night, his body collapsing limply against the ground.

I straightened up and brushed off my shoulder with an almost casual air, as though dusting off something trivial, before finally turning to face Ravian.

He stood directly in front of me, though for a moment he wasn't looking at me at all — his gaze had drifted upward, toward the sky, where the moon hung faint and pale, its light barely piercing through the fading evening haze.

Then he tilted his head down toward me.

I watched something shift in his eyes — the emptiness I'd noticed before slowly filling with light, like a candle catching flame. A slight smile spread across his face.

It was almost as if he'd simply been waiting for me all along.

Silence stretched between us. Neither of us moved.

Then Ravian spoke.

"I was waiting for you, my friend."

I clenched my teeth.

Annoyance. Anger. Worry. Perhaps some tangled mixture of all three at once — I couldn't tell anymore where one ended and the next began. All I knew for certain was the tight, suffocating pressure building in my chest.

"You are aware that this will not end in a good way for you," I said.

Ravian looked back at me in silence. There was no surprise in his expression. No fear, either. Just a quiet, resigned calm, as though he'd already made peace with whatever consequence was coming.

"Then why?" I asked, my voice carrying a thread of anxiety I hadn't quite managed to suppress.

"Why..."

He repeated the word softly, testing its weight. A faint smile touched his lips, but it slowly bled into something closer to sorrow — the kind that seemed difficult even for him to fully understand, let alone put into words.

"I wonder what was in my hand... and what was not."

His eyes narrowed slightly, gaze drifting somewhere past me.

"Who to blame, and who not to..."

He paused.

"Maybe I wanted relief."

His eyebrows lifted a fraction before his head tilted downward, as though he were reaching into some hollow place inside himself, trying to grasp at something that had long since slipped away.

"Relief from this unknown future... the feeling of futility..."

His voice dropped lower.

"I don't know what I'm doing. What it's even for."

He raised his head again after a moment.

"Don't you understand this emptiness?"

He looked directly into my eyes.

There was a smile on his face — a breaking smile, fractured at the edges. His eyes widened faintly, filled with a strange, aching mixture of excitement and hopelessness, as though he'd finally found someone who might understand him, even while some part of him already knew that understanding alone wouldn't be enough to save him.

There was something else there too. A person adrift, with nothing left to anchor him.

Even with our reasons and circumstances entirely different, I could see it plainly.

Some part of him resembles the person I once was, in my past life.

Just... in a different shape.

A memory surfaced without warning.

Faces fade with time, but scenes and voices have a way of staying.

A boy stood in the mouth of an alley.

From the narrow gap between two buildings, he stared out at the main road, where crowds moved past in an endless current and cars rolled continuously along the street. His eyes were blank, hollowed out.

He didn't know where to go. He didn't know when he'd last eaten, or when he might eat again. But none of that occupied his mind in that moment. Nor was he envious of the people passing by — some carrying groceries, some carrying toys, some clutching books to their chests, others dressed in clothes that had never once been someone else's first.

He simply stood there. Without blinking. Watching the road. Watching the cars pass.

Thinking about jumping into it. Ending every last piece of suffering he knew was still waiting for him.

But his body refused to move. Every muscle strained forward while some deeper, stubborn part of him held everything in place. His heartbeat climbed. His breathing turned ragged and shallow.

Before every other thought could vanish from his mind completely—

A baby's cry rang out from somewhere behind him.

The boy snapped back to himself. The blankness that had begun creeping over his mind receded, just enough.

I shook my head, wrenching myself free of the memory.

Tch. What am I doing, thinking about that now?

I took a slow breath and looked at Ravian again, my expression carefully neutral.

"Then why were you provoking the knights?" I asked.

Ravian looked away for a moment. When his eyes returned to mine, they'd sharpened considerably.

"Each time I hear the words 'justice' or 'righteousness' come out of their mouths, I can't help but feel furious at them."

His voice climbed slightly, an edge of real heat creeping in.

"Like they weren't part of the reason I lost my family."

He paused.

"If only someone had bothered to actually confirm anything."

A faint, humorless laugh escaped him.

"Though I wasn't targeting them specifically." He looked toward me again, something almost apologetic in his gaze. "But they just had to go and show themselves in front of me."

His gaze dropped, and a faint smile crossed his face.

"So I just hanged them with words I thought suited them well enough."

Silence fell back over the alley. We stood facing each other beneath the pale wash of moonlight spilling between the buildings, its light cold and blue against the dark stone. Valdrik lay unconscious a few paces away, forgotten for the moment. Nothing moved except a thin drift of dust caught in the night air, glittering faintly as it passed through a stray beam of light.

"Without confirming...?"

I broke the silence, a puzzled expression crossing my face.

Ravian lifted his head slowly and looked at me with sudden, unexpected gravity, his lips parting to answer.

"It—"

I waited, eyes fixed on him.

Then, in the same instant the word left his mouth, I sensed it.

A beam of light. Coming from above.

My eyes went wide. Before I could fully process what I was sensing, my body was already moving — I lunged toward Ravian, throwing up a barrier between him and the sky.

I was too late.

The beam descended, searing through the air with a sound like tearing silk, and pierced clean through his chest.

"—!"

The sight froze me for a fraction of a second I would never get back.

As the brilliant light passed through his body, I caught a glimpse of the faint smile still resting on his face, the glow illuminating his features in something almost peaceful, almost serene — as though the light itself had come to carry him somewhere gentler.

I didn't have time to think about where the beam had come from. Who had sent it. Why. Perhaps, in that moment, I simply hadn't allowed myself to prioritize those questions at all.

The beam had already done its work.

Ravian's body began to buckle.

I lunged forward and caught his head before it could strike the ground, lowering him carefully until it rested against my lap. My hands moved on instinct, already gathering mana, already casting.

I knew I wouldn't be able to save him.

Healing magic on others was my weakest area.

I kept going anyway. I poured mana into the spell in reckless, desperate quantities, light gathering warm and golden around my trembling hands.

"Get healed..."

I gritted my teeth, forcing more power through the spell.

"Get healed..."

More mana. More desperation.

"Get healed!"

I pushed the output to its absolute limit.

But that beam hadn't been ordinary. It had punched a perfectly straight hole clean through his chest, and no matter how much I poured into the wound, it refused to close.

"Why—?"

I concentrated harder, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

Why isn't this hole closing?

I tried again. And again.

My focus narrowed until everything else around me simply ceased to exist — the alley, the moonlight, Valdrik's unconscious form, all of it fading into irrelevant static. With every passing second, my chest tightened further, the suffocating feeling from earlier returning tenfold as I watched the life visibly draining from him.

Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.

How incompetent can I be?

Ravian's hand moved.

It trembled as he raised it, using what had to be the very last reserve of strength left in his body, and grabbed weakly at my sleeve.

I looked down.

His fingers barely had the strength to close around the fabric. He looked up at my expression — whatever raw, unguarded worry must have been written across it — and gave me a faint, exhausted smile in return.

A smile of relief.

Seeing it only made me push harder.

Why isn't this hole closing?

I kept pouring mana into the wound, desperation bleeding into every motion.

Then Ravian tugged gently at my sleeve, pulling it toward himself with what little strength remained.

His voice came out barely above a whisper.

"My..."

He struggled for breath, chest hitching weakly.

"Diary..."

His fingers loosened. His hand slipped from my sleeve and fell against the ground, the last of his strength finally spent.

His pale face lay bathed in the soft blue glow of moonlight, peaceful in a way that felt wrong given everything that had just happened.

I kept casting anyway.

But Ravian didn't respond. His head simply rested against my lap, unmoving.

My eyes had gone wet before I even fully registered it. I stared down at his face — that same faint smile still lingering there — but there was no life left behind it anymore.

I simply stayed like that for a while, sitting in the silence, unable to think straight, unable to move.

Then, not long after—

"Kurogane-san..."

A familiar voice reached me from behind. Several sets of footsteps stopped at the mouth of the alley.

The voice snapped me out of whatever locked, frozen place my mind had retreated to.

Vaelgrave.

She stood there with several of her subordinates behind her, the warm orange glow of their lanterns spilling across the ground.

I forced down the emotion rising in my throat, swallowing it whole, and gently lowered Ravian's head to the ground before rising to my feet.

I turned to face her.

Her expression was caught somewhere between confusion and dawning horror.

"What are you—"

Her words died in her throat as her gaze slid past me, landing on the two bodies lying in the alley.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The pale blue light of the moon mingled with the warmer glow of the knights' lanterns, casting the scene in an uneasy blend of colors.

I barely registered any of it.

Only one word kept circling through my mind, refusing to let go.

Diary.

I stared at Vaelgrave and her knights with sharp, deliberate focus, my decision already made.

I need to find Ravian's diary.

I decided, in that instant, to leave his body in the knights' care. Just as Vaelgrave started toward me, I jumped backward, landing on the roof of the mansion behind us. I took one last look down at Ravian, then at the knights surrounding the alley, before finally turning away and vanishing into the night.

"Kurogane-san!"

Vaelgrave's voice rang out behind me, urgent, as she tried to follow.

She jumped for the rooftop, but couldn't close the distance before he'd already vanished from sight. She landed back on the ground and looked up at the empty roof where he'd disappeared, her expression tightening with confusion and something closer to genuine anger.

She didn't understand what had just happened. And worse, she'd lost the chance to see the culprit held properly accountable — not by her own hand, not through her own authority, but simply gone into the dark without a word of explanation.

Meanwhile, across the rooftops, I kept moving — jumping from one ledge to the next, my concealment skill folding around me like a second skin. My mind had already narrowed down to a single, consuming question.

How do I reach Ravian's diary?

At first, I assumed it would be somewhere in his current residence. But I stopped myself almost immediately.

Think from his perspective. From Ravian's, as I knew him.

Would I write a diary in a place where I was suffering?

Nah.

Then where?

Somewhere that felt safe.

Where?

...

Intuition supplied an answer before logic could catch up.

The Edevane family's house?

If Ravian had been adopted after reaching a certain age, it stood to reason that the old Edevane residence might still feel like home to him, even now — maybe especially now.

It was only a possibility. But it was enough to move on.

I stopped my aimless leaping and settled on a rooftop, closing my eyes, running through every search skill in my repertoire that might help locate the old Edevane mansion.

...

I searched. One location after another. Mentally eliminating anything that didn't fit — too far, too recently rebuilt, too well-maintained to have been left to a family that no longer existed in any official capacity.

Then, after working through nearly every candidate I could think of, I found it.

The Edevane family's mansion.

Its location was unexpected, to say the least. I took off toward it at once, maintaining my concealment skill the entire way, just in case.

The mansion wasn't situated among the district where nobles typically built their estates. It sat some distance away — closer, uncomfortably so, to an area that had long since been reduced to ruins.

As I approached, I slowed my pace, scanning the surroundings. Not a single other noble residence stood nearby. The Edevane house sat almost entirely isolated, cut off from the rest of the district by both distance and, it seemed, deliberate neglect.

I'd guess the house — or at least the land it stands on — was never sold.

Now it wore the unmistakable atmosphere of an abandoned ghost house, the kind children dared each other to approach and never quite managed to.

I stepped through the broken remains of the front door.

Silence greeted me the moment I crossed the threshold. Furniture lay scattered throughout the entrance hall — some pieces shattered outright, others still standing but buried beneath a thick layer of dust. Fungi had crept along the damp corners of the walls in several places, and thin green shoots had begun forcing their way up through cracks in the floor, nature slowly, patiently reclaiming what had once been a home.

And yet, despite all of it, the moonlight spilling through the broken windows painted the ruined interior in a strange, pale silver that was — almost unwillingly — beautiful.

I began searching methodically. Dust. Creeping plants. Broken furniture. Piles of fallen stone. Every surface had to be checked, every shadow accounted for.

But I wasn't searching randomly. I was looking for anywhere that seemed just slightly cleaner than everywhere else — evidence that someone had passed through recently enough to leave a trace, however faint.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, turned right, and pressed deeper into the corridor. The farther I went, the quieter the mansion became, until even the faint creak of settling wood seemed too loud.

Eventually, I reached a balcony at the end of the passage, moonlight pouring through its broken frame in a wide silver column.

I stepped closer.

There — less dust here than in the surrounding rooms. A chair sat beside a small tea table, faint disturbances in the grime suggesting someone had sat there, and recently.

Someone's been here. Recently enough to disturb the dust.

But there was no diary in immediate sight.

I searched the surrounding area more carefully. My eyes caught on a lantern hanging nearby, oil still sloshing faintly inside when I lifted it. I examined it closely, then noticed the small iron rod it hung from.

I pulled it.

Click.

A small block of stone dropped away, revealing a narrow hollow behind it.

My eyes widened slightly. I reached inside and felt my fingers brush against something solid.

A book.

I pulled it free. Its cover was worn soft at the edges, dust clinging to the leather, but there was no mistaking what it was.

A diary.

Ravian's diary.

I opened it and began to read, bracing myself for whatever waited inside.

I am writing this diary in case I am unable to tell you everything I know. Though I don't think much will change because of it, consider this my farewell gift.

It all goes back eight years ago.

My mother, Elara Edevane, was conducting research on the Mana Force. For some reason, the Mana Force prevents us from using outer mana. My mother wanted to understand exactly how it worked.

However, to conduct her research, she needed information that wasn't available to ordinary people — information accessible only to certain members of the royal family. She submitted an official request for access to that data.

It was rejected.

But my mother couldn't give up on her research. So she tried to sneak into the Forbidden Information Library. She was caught by my father, Caelan Edevane, who was the head of the Information Department at the time.

When he asked her why she had broken in, she told him everything — her research, what it could mean. She said: "If this research succeeds, and if we're able to find out more about the Mana Force, then maybe we can find a way to breach through it and use outer mana. That will surely lead to major developments."

My father was reluctant at first. The information had been intentionally sealed away from the public. Not only was it forbidden to access, most people weren't even supposed to know it existed at all.

Still, he agreed to help her steal the data. He believed that if they could produce results, the royals might eventually reconsider. So he began secretly accessing the places where the information was stored and copying it.

But he needed help. He hired one of his subordinates, Darius Velrath, offering him money and resources in exchange for assistance.

Their work progressed smoothly — until a member of the royal family discovered what they were doing.

They knew they couldn't simply arrest my father and mother. Even if they did, they wouldn't be able to erase the information already copied. So they devised another way to silence them.

They kidnapped Darius Velrath's daughter. She was only ten years old at the time.

An uproar broke out. My father and Darius abandoned their work temporarily while the knights searched for her. Then, after a day passed, my father received a letter. It implied something about the location where they'd been copying the forbidden documents. The moment he finished reading it, the letter caught fire on its own and burned away before he could do anything.

My father rushed toward that place. I still remember watching him run out the door in a hurry. I didn't know it would be the last time I ever saw him alive.

He reached the location and opened the door. Then he froze.

Inside was the dead body of Darius's daughter.

He tried to approach her, wanting to confirm whether she was truly dead. But at that moment, knights came charging into the room — led there, it turned out, by a man who had been planted among them for exactly this purpose.

They surrounded my father.

When Darius heard what had happened, he rushed to the scene. He saw my father standing beside his daughter's body. He slowly approached her. His expression looked as though he wanted to cry but didn't know how.

Silence. He stared at her for a long moment. Then his gaze slowly rose to my father.

"You..."

Darius believed my father had killed her — that she'd somehow discovered his work and been silenced for it. It didn't make sense, not really. But a father who has just lost his daughter isn't in a state of mind to think rationally.

My father raised his hands toward him, trying to explain.

Then one of the knights smiled. He'd been waiting for exactly this moment.

"The suspect is trying to harm Darius!" the knight shouted.

His sword swung. The blade sliced through my father's chest. He fell to his knees, eyes still fixed on Darius's face, an apology written across his expression that he never got the chance to voice.

Blood splattered across Darius's face. He froze, eyes wide, uncomprehending.

The other knights panicked immediately, shouting at the one who'd struck him.

"Ah... I'm sorry," the knight said, dropping to his knees, his voice trembling with what looked like genuine guilt. "I thought he was trying to harm Darius-sama, and my hand just moved with the intention of protecting him. I'm sorry..."

The knights and Darius had no choice but to proceed with the story that had just been handed to them. My father's "crime" of stealing the documents became public knowledge in a very convenient, very timely manner. My mother was arrested for assisting him and for conducting research on a subject the crown had deemed dangerous.

She appealed before the royal court. She tried to explain her research — what it could accomplish. She was suppressed before she could finish speaking.

Soon after, she died in prison. An article followed shortly, claiming she'd taken her own life over ongoing mental struggles.

One thing happened after another. I couldn't comprehend any of it at the time. I didn't understand what was happening around me. But from that day forward, a kind of numbness began creeping into everything.

It felt as though everything was simply... going.

Meanwhile, Darius received sympathy from nearly everyone. He also received a letter — one that most likely explained what had truly happened, and implied that he and his family would suffer if he ever opened his mouth about it. It likely also contained instructions regarding the son of Caelan Edevane.

Me.

I still remember the pitiful expression on Darius's face when he came to collect me. At the time, I didn't know the crimes my parents had been accused of were entirely fabricated. I was sad. But I didn't know whether I should cry, or rage, or simply do nothing at all.

Darius announced that he was adopting me. He said he would not become like my father.

Even though he knew the truth of what had happened, he used me anyway — and in doing so, built himself a reputation as a virtuous man.

The knight who killed my father — or rather, the royal servant who'd ordered it done — was recalled to the palace under the official explanation that he would be punished personally for his crime.

Meanwhile, I was bullied relentlessly by the Velrath household. They believed my father had murdered Darius's daughter. Her elder brother especially held a grudge against me.

I thought it was natural. I probably would have hated me too, in his place.

Some days I wasn't given food. Some days I was given food that had already gone rotten. Some of their servants beat me under the pretense of "training." My back was burned, more than once. Pins were placed beneath my bed. No maid ever came to clean my room — I had to do everything myself.

But whenever Darius or anyone from outside the family was present, they behaved perfectly. Darius himself only ever acted kindly toward me in front of others. He never did anything to actually improve my situation.

Well — I'll skip over my inner state during that period. I'm not good at putting it into words.

But during those days, the only person who ever truly supported me was a butler from the Velrath household, assigned to look after me. He did everything within his power to help. He brought me food when I had none. He helped clean my room. He healed me after training left its marks. He even trained me properly himself — said I had talent.

I loved spending time with him. He was the only reason I still had any hope left. Time with him felt like heaven carved out of the middle of hell.

I still remember the birthday present he gave me once. It wasn't for show. He gave it to me simply because he wanted to.

A ring. He'd made it himself.

When I saw it, I was so happy I promised him I would treasure it for the rest of my life. Afterward, he taught me how to make rings too. I made one in return and gave it to him for his own birthday. He wore it in front of me, and with a warm smile, said he'd treasure it just the same.

That day, everything around us was filled with something close to joy.

Neither of us knew it would be his last birthday while he was still alive.

Some time after that, I returned from training and wondered why he wasn't there waiting for me as usual. Then I overheard some of the maids talking about him — I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So I decided to find out for myself.

I searched everywhere I could think of. The surrounding mansions. The market. The park. Every place he might have gone.

Eventually I found traces suggesting he'd gone toward the mountains — which was strange, since he almost never went there. So I followed the trail, and when I reached the area, I climbed a tree and hid among the branches.

I saw several people dressed in black, faces concealed, burying a body deep in the earth.

I only caught a glimpse of his face before they covered it.

Just seeing him was enough to send rage tearing through me. I lost control completely. I killed both of them, took his body, and fled.

I walked a long way before finally laying him down in front of me. I stared at his body for what felt like hours. Something inside me twitched — like a rope that had been holding something taut had suddenly been cut, with nothing left underneath it to catch the fall.

I sat there for a long time, unable to form a single coherent thought.

Eventually, I buried him.

But whatever was building up inside me never fully came out. And once I had nothing left to lose, only one thought remained.

I want to know.

I wanted to know everything I didn't already know.

So I started investigating. Sneaking out of the Velrath mansion at night became routine. Eventually, I discovered he'd been poisoned — and further digging revealed it had been someone from within the Velrath family itself.

But following that thread led me further, into the truth about my own parents. There was far more to their story than anyone had ever told me.

I kept investigating in secret, night after night. Eventually, I found the knight who'd killed my father and tracked him down. I tortured him for information. I managed to pull a little out of him — but before he could tell me anything about the royal family's involvement, he killed himself rather than continue talking.

I never got what I wanted from him.

Soon after, Darius discovered what I'd been doing. He decided to kill me before the royal family found out that information was leaking. So he began sending men after me every night whenever I slipped out of the house — while continuing to treat me perfectly normally during the day.

He wanted my death to look like an accident. A mistake of my own making.

And after that... well. You already know the rest of the story.

...

Though...

Katsuhito-kun.

Meeting you was unexpected. I can't quite put it into words. But if I had to try, I would say that meeting you was the second most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.

Your best friend, Ravian Edevane.

The diary ended there.

I sat motionless for several long seconds after finishing the last line, the pages still open beneath my fingers.

I pressed my lips together and drew a slow, deliberate breath, holding back whatever threatened to rise in my throat. Then I lifted my gaze toward the sky beyond the broken balcony.

Countless stars stretched out above the ruined mansion, their light cold and distant against the deep black of the night.

I stared upward for a long while before finally lowering my eyes back to the diary in my hands.

"Friend..."

The word came out quiet, barely more than a breath.

I took another deep breath.

"I don't think I liked the outcome of it."

I closed the diary. The sound of its cover shutting felt strangely loud in the silence of the abandoned mansion, echoing faintly down the empty corridor behind me.

The next morning, there was a knock at my door.

I opened it to find the commander of the Knights of Order standing outside, formal and composed. Vaelgrave gave me a crisp salute, her posture as disciplined as ever.

"I have come to pick you up," she said.

Her expression remained composed, professional — but there was something sitting just beneath the surface of it, something she seemed to be deliberately holding back behind the mask of duty.

I stared at her with a puzzled expression, dark circles heavy beneath my own eyes. I hadn't managed to sleep at all after finally returning home, and my head throbbed dully for reasons I didn't particularly want to examine.

I don't need another damn shit job.

"His Highness the Prince has held a reward ceremony for you and has granted you the title of 'Savior,'" Vaelgrave continued, her tone unchanged.

"The Velrath family has also held a funeral for Ravian. You have been invited."

Something in my chest went very still.

Meanwhile, I fought to keep my expression completely neutral, forcing down the rage threatening to boil up from somewhere deep and ugly inside me.

So this is how they're playing it.

In short — they were killing two birds with one stone. With this arrangement, the Edevane case would receive the clean, convenient narrative the royals wanted written into history. And I would become bound by obligation, folded neatly into their story whether I liked it or not.

If I spoke out now, it wouldn't only affect me. My family's reputation would be dragged into the wreckage right alongside my own. And even if I revealed everything I knew publicly, without solid proof, there was every chance the story would simply be reframed again — reshaped into whatever version suited them best.

They knew I had no way of obtaining definitive evidence. Not yet.

That's what makes this whole strategy so irritating.

It grated against something raw in me, in more ways than one. I nearly clenched my fist before I caught myself.

It's not as though I'm seeing this kind of strategy for the first time.

In my previous life, I'd witnessed maneuvers just like this more times than I cared to count. I'd even been the one forcing people's mouths shut, once upon a time. The machinery of it all felt uncomfortably familiar.

Somehow, I managed to calm myself. For now, I complied.

There was nothing else I could do — not if I wanted to protect what I currently had.

We arrived at Ravian's funeral first.

A crowd had already gathered in front of his grave by the time we reached it, most of them dressed in the muted black favored by nobility in mourning — though I doubted more than a handful were there for Ravian himself, rather than for the sake of being seen attending.

The funeral was held in a wide yard reserved for the Velrath family's dead. Ravian's grave sat among them, though tucked toward the far corner of the grounds, set apart from the rest almost deliberately — as though even in death, he wasn't permitted to stand among the family that had claimed him.

I stepped down from the wagon in silence and took my assigned position beside Darius, the weight of the entire scene pressing down on me at once. The atmosphere. The murmured condolences. The careful, performative grief on display all around. It all pressed in against my chest, suffocating in a way I hadn't quite braced myself for.

Darius stepped forward to address the gathered crowd.

"I did everything I could to take care of him."

His voice trembled — convincingly.

"He was like my own son to me."

He lowered his head, shoulders shaking faintly.

"I... I can still picture his face in front of me, calling me 'Dad' with a smile."

His voice cracked on the last word.

"Was it my mistake...?"

He swallowed hard.

"I don't know where things started going this way."

Then, in the middle of his own speech, Darius began to weep openly.

The mourners around the grave were a study in contrasts — some clearly thinking about entirely different matters behind their solemn expressions, others genuinely moved, a few crying in earnest, and a handful wearing an odd mixture of anger and sentiment that didn't quite match the occasion.

The atmosphere hung heavy over the yard.

I couldn't help but stare at Darius, something close to grudging admiration twisting uncomfortably in my chest.

I'm almost impressed by his acting.

For one unsettling second, even I couldn't have told the difference between his performance and genuine grief.

After a suitable interval of tears, Darius straightened, sniffled once, and drew a steadying breath. Then he walked toward me and took both my hands in his, his expression arranged into something soft and sorrowful.

"I want to thank you for stopping Ravian from making further mistakes."

He looked at me with rehearsed grief.

"You have my thanks."

He placed a hand on my shoulder and turned me slightly to face the gathered crowd, presenting me like a trophy.

A ripple of emotion moved through the mourners — whether genuine or performed, I honestly couldn't say anymore.

I've seen this sort of thing more times than I can count.

I still haven't gotten used to being used like this.

For someone else's benefit. As someone else's shield. It was humiliating in a way that settled deep and cold.

And once again, right there in front of everyone, Darius Velrath's name was being polished a little brighter — the grieving father, the virtuous man who'd lost a son and accepted the help of a young hero to stop that son's descent into ruin.

A perfect narrative. A convenient one, built entirely on someone else's grave.

The ceremony eventually wound down. I lingered near the trees at the edge of the forest bordering the graveyard while the knights waited near the front of the yard, expecting me to rejoin them shortly.

That gap gave me exactly the opening I needed.

I slipped away quietly, ducking behind one tree, then another, moving deeper into the forest with each step until I was far enough to break into a full run, concealment folding around me as I went.

I had no intention of attending the reward ceremony that would follow. Instead, I took a roundabout route toward an alley I knew, one suited for teleportation, and vanished from the district entirely.

I reappeared at the ruins along the kingdom's border — more precisely, in a shadowed corner where sunlight could be seen filtering through the wreckage but never quite reached where I stood.

Inside the crumbling remains of some long-forgotten mansion, I let out a slow breath and sank down against a wall, closing my eyes.

The surroundings felt strangely, unexpectedly nostalgic. Sunlight slipped through gaps between fallen stones, and trees had grown up through the broken structure, their branches threading past shattered windows. Thin rays of light filtered down between the leaves, scattering soft patterns across the abandoned interior.

So many things have happened.

So many different feelings are still fighting for space right now.

I let my head rest back against the wall and exhaled slowly, thoughts drifting loosely through my mind.

Velrath family. Edevane family. Research. Forbidden data. Royal.

The moment the word

royal

surfaced, Julian's name followed close behind, unbidden. The threads were beginning to feel like they all traced back to him, one way or another.

But then I caught myself.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

A faint, tired laugh escaped me.

"Well..."

I opened my eyes.

"For now, maybe I'll just observe."

I tilted my head back, gaze drifting upward. Then, from the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the broken staircase behind me — most of it collapsed entirely, what little remained barely clinging to the second floor above.

"How about you come out..."

I paused deliberately.

"Shirohana."

"Oh... I got found."

Her voice drifted out from the shadows above, unbothered, almost pleased.

Shirohana descended the ruined staircase with the same effortless grace she carried everywhere, stepping carefully over the broken stone before settling herself onto a fallen pillar nearby. Her sensu rested in her hand this time, rather than concealing her expression — the first time I could recall seeing her whole face uncovered in a while.

She looked down at me.

"What are you doing here?"

I shifted slightly against the wall.

"Or rather — why have you been following me this entire time?"

I let my face fall into my hands, exhaustion finally catching up with me all at once.

"Don't ask me obvious questions."

Her tone stayed light, almost playful.

"By the way, you know — if you'd used your powers to solve this case instead of playing detective, things might have turned out differently."

My eyes opened slightly at that.

"What are you trying to say?"

Also — what exactly counts as obvious around here?

"Nah... nothing in particular."

She waved her sensu lazily through the air.

"Though 'differently' doesn't always mean 'better,' does it?"

She wasn't being clear. As always.

"Did you know about all this?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Nah." I closed my eyes again. "Just felt like it."

Shirohana went quiet for a moment, the silence stretching just long enough to feel deliberate.

"Even if I had known, I wouldn't have any obligation to tell you."

Her voice stayed strangely calm, almost gentle.

"How could anyone know whether I know something or not?"

She tilted her head slightly.

"Either way — Edevane would have died regardless, unless..."

She paused.

I opened my eyes fully this time.

"Unless?"

Shirohana looked toward me, something unreadable flickering behind her gaze.

"Well... you could say, unless some much bigger force had stepped in."

"Bigger force, huh..."

I looked down at the dust-covered floor between us, the phrase settling uneasily in my mind.

A bigger force. What exactly is she referring to?

Shirohana studied me for a moment longer, then her eyes narrowed with faint amusement.

"Heee..."

She leaned down slightly, trying to catch a better look at my face.

"Now what?"

Her voice turned teasing.

"Do you want consolation or something?"

I lifted my face slowly.

"Consolation..."

I stared at her, something hollow settling behind my eyes.

"What would it even do?"

My voice came out quiet, rougher than I intended.

"Will it bring him back?"

Silence.

"Will it change a single damn thing?"

A faint, humorless laugh slipped out of me.

"Ah..."

My gaze dropped again.

"Thinking about it... even I don't have the right to be sad over him."

A bitter laugh followed, sharp and short.

"Hahaha..."

I shook my head slowly.

"It's weird, isn't it?"

I stared down at the floor, the words spilling out faster than I could properly examine them.

"What would my feelings even do to anything?"

My thoughts kept spiraling, tangled and directionless.

"Should I?"

A pause.

"Or shouldn't I?"

Another pause, longer this time.

"Why?"

The words kept coming, one after another, and somewhere along the way I lost track of whether I was even asking Shirohana anymore, or just myself.

Everything started to blur at the edges. My eyelids grew unbearably heavy, the exhaustion of the past two days finally catching up all at once.

Then I noticed it.

Shirohana did something.

My body felt strangely, suddenly heavy, weighted down in a way that had nothing to do with tiredness alone. I tried to force my eyes to stay open.

She rose from the pillar and moved closer, her expression softening into something I couldn't quite name before my vision blurred entirely.

The last thing I registered was my head coming to rest against something soft.

My consciousness slipped away after that.

"For now, rest."

Her voice reached me faintly, gentle in a way I hadn't expected from her.

Then everything went dark.

"Shiro—"

I opened my eyes with a start.

I was lying in my own bed.

I looked around slowly, taking in the familiar shape of my room, morning light filtering soft and pale through the curtains.

A full day had already slipped past without my noticing.

I lay still for a long moment, trying to piece together exactly what had happened — and exactly how much of it I was going to have to carry with me from here on out.