The knight Rei tensely approached Julius from the other side of the large colosseum ground. The floor of the circular space was filled with sand, an arena used mainly for knight training. Many spectators had already begun to gather in the stands, including many of the candidates and their personal attendants, eager for the duel to start and wanting to gauge the strength of their rival for the throne.
The reason for Rei's grudging agreement to allow Crimson's request to be alone was not born out of personal growth but out of confidence. Though discontented, it was because of her failure to protect the previous bearer of the Dragon Stone Insignia that the Sword Saint had taken many precautions. She had requested and gained a multitude of Divine Protections that would never again allow her to fail.
For example, the Divine Protection of Foreshadowing allowed her to predict a selected person's emotional state in the future. Because of this, she had managed to deduce that if she had insisted on staying and hadn't left, her lord would have been in a state of increased mental strain. The Divine Protection of Diagnosis would alert her when her lord's physical state was in critical condition.
And most importantly, her intuition, bordering on a divine sixth sense, told her the best possible course of action was to confront Julius. She didn't understand why, but she would listen to her innate instincts.
Stopping in front of the purple-haired, elegant knight, currently warming up with slow, deliberate upper-body stretches, Rei swallowed, forcing down the knot in her throat before speaking the words of her inner turmoil.
"Julius… I know what you're thinking. But please, don't go overboard. Lord Crim… he's not actually like that. He's… actually really kind."
With a firm, almost hostile expression, Julius shot Rei a glare before closing his eyes, letting his face relax into something colder.
"He insulted us knights in front of the candidates who will one day rule this kingdom. With that attitude, I cannot possibly see that boy becoming our king. He made light of the discipline, the chivalry, we dedicate our lives to."
"I admit he was brash," Rei said, voice tense, "but for something like this, you have no right to become the judge. We are knights, not executioners. I can see that you intend to humiliate Lord Crim in front of the others to soothe their anger… in exchange for your own honor."
Julius froze mid-motion, as if her words had caught him off guard. Rei hesitated, clearly debating how much she should reveal before continuing.
"Lord Crim already told me your intentions… but even if he wants to be the scapegoat, as his sword, it's my duty to protect him, even if he believes it unnecessary."
Julius stood there in silence, his expression turning stony as Reinhard's earlier words came back to him. If what Rei said was true, then that blindfolded boy had deliberately provoked the knights, making himself their enemy to rekindle their pride. And for the candidates… using the same logic, his words must have been meant to force them to take the selection seriously.
Now that he thought about it, Lady Anastasia's behavior after that brief encounter had indeed become more calculating and deliberate, like someone suddenly aware they were walking across a rickety bridge.
Sighing in exasperation, Rei raised her voice just a little.
"All I'm asking is that you don't take it too far."
The ones in the stands could barely overhear the Sword Saint's words.
"Ohhhhhh?"
A cutesy, high-pitched voice sounded from behind Rei, making her reflexively clench her gloved fist.
"Worried that Julius will go too far, and I'll have to pay for your blind boy's treatment?"
Anastasia tilted her head innocently, but her words carried a clear edge of antagonism.
A surge of white-hot anger ran through Rei's body, but she forced herself to keep her breathing steady.
From her VIP seat, Priscilla loudly interjected, clearly having caught part of the conversation.
"It seems the dog's knight already expects her lord's defeat. Such an unfaithful tool you are. However… I will grant credit where it's due. You dislike watching weak creatures tormented by vicious beasts."
"I thought you loved watching that kind of thing, Princess. Don't you?" Al teased from nearby.
"Don't misjudge me with your unfounded imaginings, Al. But yes—" she smirked, "I do love that."
Then, with a sudden scowl toward Rei, as though personally offended, she added one last scathing remark:
"Such a sorry excuse for a knight, going behind your master's back."
Rei felt both rage and guilt stirring under the fiery, orange-haired princess's words, until a hand on her shoulder pulled her back to reality.
Felix, sitting right next to his lady, audaciously smirked at Rei, who was barely keeping her composure.
"Nyah~ it seems he's too scared, had to send his knight out to bargain for face," Felix drawled, his tone sing-song but needling.
"If we are questioning the mock battle," Crusch's voice was calm but sharp, "I cannot agree with stopping it. After Crimson's insults, I believe this humiliation and defeat are wholly deserved."
"He might even piss himself, unable to get out of bed and eat through a straw for a week. I wouldn't heal him, even if you asked me to," Felix added with a glower in Rei's direction, ears twitching faintly.
Crusch's eyes narrowed for a moment; her knight's words were thoughtless and needlessly cruel, but she understood the root of his anger.
At the healer's provocative words, Rei released her restrained fury, focusing wholly on Felix. A wave of oppression blasted from behind the sword saint's brilliant sky blue eyes into the healer's skin as though being encased in molten lava, a crushing heat born of Rei's directed fighting spirit, a manifestation of one's will to kill or fight, usually aimed at a large group of enemies. Only those who had reached the pinnacle of martial skill could apply it offensively. Her grandfather Wilhelm, for example, had reached the heights of swordsmanship without divine protection or a special blade, yet had still mastered this art.
Felix crumpled instantly, the smirk wiped from his face as he slumped over unconscious, foaming at the mouth and twitching.
Crusch's composure finally cracked. "Felix—! What is wrong with you?!" she demanded, shaking the limp demi-human by the shoulder.
It seemed no one else present had recognized the high-level technique, its nature masked and amplified by Rei's specialized divine protections.
Julius remained still, gaze lowered in thought. After a long moment, he raised his head and gave a small, solemn nod.
"As this duel is in accordance with your lord's wishes, and far too late to think around, I cannot go easy on him… however, I will do my utmost, out of personal respect for you, ReiN#@(&—$aM@"
The rest of his words twisted into distorted radio static.
Startled, Rei took a cautious step back. Julius's hand on her shoulder remained suspended in the air.
Frozen in time.
A kaleidoscope of colors burst into Rei's vision. Then, as if life itself had drained from the world, Julius's figure began convulsing, his very being erupting into black-and-white foreign symbols and letters.
Yet she found she had a vague comprehension at what they meant, what they represented.
(Noble.)(Wise.)(Strict.)(Considerate.)(Conviction.)(Disciplined.)(Prideful.)(Narcissistic.)
They defined him, yet now they were spilling out like the building blocks of his existence. Rei stood frozen, too perplexed to comprehend what was happening, as the same symbols began devouring the sky, the arena, the stands, everything for as far as the eye could see was being dematerialized and reconfigured.
The world froze entirely. The letters and symbols expanded, shifting, swirling, evolving.
Rei took one slow step forward.
Only she was unaffected in this world, retaining her color.
If this is some calamity… then even with my strength, what could I possibly do?
A deep fear gripped her. Her precautionary measure to protect Lord Crim had been activated, triggered by an injury. It wasn't life-threatening, but she could not risk another irreversible mistake. Last time she had ignored her instincts, innocent lives had been lost.
The only relief was that her sixth sense wasn't directing her anywhere… yet.
Turning toward the direction in which she felt Lord Crim, she gritted her teeth, only to pause. Something felt wrong.
Her body… felt strange.
Looking down, she saw herself flickering, her frame shifting, breasts shrinking, chest broadening before snapping back to its original form. Her thigh-length shorts vanished, replaced by long white cuffed pants. Her free-flowing, shoulder-length hair disappeared, only to be restored again, as though by some unseen narrative restoration force.
Words in a foreign language echoed through the entire world, as if reality itself had come to an agreement.
The altered symbols and letters were pushed back into place.
Color and tangible forms began to restore, seeping back into the atmosphere.
As if nothing had happened.
What had happened to her? Placing her hands to her chest to check if she was the same size, she couldn't help but breathe out a sigh of relief.
"To make full use of this opportunity while honoring your lord's wishes…" Julius concluded, his voice composed. His gaze swept the area in search of Rei. His brows furrowed slightly when he spotted her lingering farther back. With a faint shake of his head, as if trying to clear away some absurd thought, he murmured to himself in puzzlement.
Then, his eyes caught the exact nature of her distraction, Rei, entirely ignoring him, preoccupied with feeling her chest. Julius's expression tightened before he quickly turned his face aside, a faint flush of embarrassment coloring his features.
"Sword Saint," he said with the utmost politeness, though his tone carried a subtle edge, "might I request that you refrain from such… undignified behavior in public?"
Startled from her thoughts, Rei felt heat rush to her cheeks, belatedly realizing she had not once considered the public's perception of her actions.
From Julius's words and actions, it was clear he had not noticed the bizarre phenomena that had just happened.
If anyone had experienced that strange reality, they wouldn't look so calm and collected, she thought as her head slowly scanned the stands for oncoming arrivals.
So why had she been fine?
Could it have been divine protection that made her immune to whatever that color-draining reality was?
***
The term lone wolf sounded cool, but in reality, it was often just something people told themselves to hide the fact that they couldn't fit in to their surroundings, isolated.
Which was why seeing Felt, currently a soul, a girl who embodied that principle, lean in toward his face without hesitation or discomfort was… unsettling.
Ya can see me. Felt couldn't help but begin tearing up as she was unable to talk with anyone, all alone, wandering the back alleys.
"You crying?"
Felt instantly became defensive at the simple question.
"Of course not yer just seeing things, get yer eyes checked already…" until she actually looked into his eyes, which were the definition of abnormal.
"Wow… whats witcha eyes. They look hella strange."
"Ahh, I guess they do look unique, don't they? Like a sniper optic."
"Naw, I dunno whatcha mean, more like paint scraped off steel. Did someone scrape yer eyeballs?"
"Well… you're more poetic than I thought you'd be. But please don't put that painful image in my head, I've had more than enough for a lifetime."
There was a long pause. The girl, speaking in such an inelegant way despite her refined crimson eyes and blonde hair, suddenly frowned and shouted, remembering what was imperative:
"Damn it, stop messin' around with me! How'd ya know my name was Felt?"
Toyota grinned mischievously before hiding his smirk and playing dumb.
"I haven't the foggiest idea what you mean."
"Ya just said my name!"
"No, I didn't."
"Yeah, ya did."
"You just told me your name now."
"Well, I did, but—"
"So now I know your name."
Felt hesitant, brow furrowed. Wait… did he say my name?
"' Kay, even if ya didn't say ma name, how can you see me?"
Raising his hands dramatically, he fluttered his fingers in front of his face. "Magic."
A vein throbbed on her forehead. Patience gave way to irritation, and she lashed out with a kick aimed at Toyota's side, only for her leg to pass through like a laser pointer over glass.
To give her some satisfaction, he made a polite, "Ow."
It had the opposite effect.
"I'm bein' serious," she fumed. "Stop being a jerk!"
Toyota's face tightened. "I can see you because… I killed you."
"Ya what?!" Felt's mouth dropped open.
"Well, indirectly," he clarified quickly. He wasn't about to give her the wrong idea and regret it later.
"So ya paid the big bucks fer that blue-haired anus to poison me?"
"Blue-haired anus? That's… a little crude, but no. More like… I caused a domino effect that accidentally ended up ordering a hit on you."
"Domino effect? What's dat?"
"Uhh… you don't have those here, do you? Um… have you heard of the butterfly wingbeats theory?"
"Nope."
"What about chaos theory?"
"Never heard of it, but ya sure got a lotta theories. From what I can understand, unlike me, yer still alive and kickin'."
Felt's focus shifted to the glowing pulse of light radiating from Toyota's palm.
"Whatcha doin' to yer hand?"
A bright glow flared from Toyota's palm as he worked, slowly knitting the wound closed. The skin had been the easiest part; internal tissue, tendons, and muscle were proving far trickier.
"I'm altering the composition of a buffing spell into a minor healing spell," he explained.
"I've never seen magic like that before. What is it, fire?"
"I suppose it looks like fire, but no. It's yang, light magic."
Despite herself, Felt's lips curled faintly. She'd been bored out of her mind, so desperate for interaction she'd even tried watching Rom, only to be disappointed by how little he actually did. But this back-and-forth? It was scratching an itch she hadn't even realized she had.
"Ya know who I am, but who are you?"
"I'm… in a way, your replacement for the royal selection. The insignia reacted to me after you died."
Felt's eyes narrowed.
"Ya sayin' ya planned and premeditated this just so you could be king?"
"Nope. I got kidnapped by Reinhard as well."
Her face stayed perfectly still for a second, then she broke into high-pitched laughter.
"Hahahhahahaha, no, I shouldn't laugh… well, at least we're the same. So, whatcha doin' now?"
"I'm going to purposely get beaten up in a way that makes my opponent look like scum."
"Are ya one of those evil misogynistic bastards?"
"I think you mean masochistic… and no, only if it's necessary. Im a… necessary evil."
"..."
"Forget I said that. I sound like some cringy third-rate villain."
Huffing, Felt shook her head. "Ya said ya killed me, so ya should take responsibility like a gentleman and stimulate me."
"Wh, what do you mean by that?" Toyota choked.
"I meant entertain myself, whatcha think I meant…?"
"... Your Phrasing needs work."
Flushing, she coughed deliberately to shake off the embarrassment of the realization of what that could have been interpreted as.
"Yer brain needs work ya perv, Even if I'm long expired, I don' care if yer a villain or not."
Toyota frowned.
"And ya said ye weren't a… what was it… miso-somethin'?" she tilted her head.
"Masochist," Toyota corrected instantly.
"Whatever. If that was true, then why'd ya put a hole in yer hand with that?"
Her glare sharpened, index finger pointing toward something on the ground, a purple-handled dagger with a pink blade, crimson veins running through it. A mana construct… yet unlike his usual ones, it wasn't dissipating or dissolving.
He must have poured more mana than usual into it.
"Well, you wouldn't understand," Toyota muttered. "Think of it as a type of confirmation."
(AN: People don't seem to understand that this is not the same verse as the main storyline Envy route, it's not an IF route either, it's a different multiverse, and I keep getting barraged by fact checkers. I made the majority of mistakes on purpose. maybe it's because of my poor writing skills, but I have confidence in making things come together.