Water detonated into a thunderous spray, yet Ciel's heart only felt stuffed.
Her feet shuffled on the shoreline, flanking the water spray as her eyes narrowed.
The expected rainbow spire, strangely, did not arise.
'She's still alive?'
The thought dropped as the veil-like water fell, revealing the familiar catgirl as she lay flat on the water.
Her black hair was a soggy mess. Her torn sleeves fluttered without arms in sight. And one of her legs was a few steps away.
A peaceful smile, curved beautifully in all the right ways, adorned her expression.
"..."
A whisper touched Ciel's hearing, but she ignored it.
She didn't need to hear the dying word from someone who 'killed' her first friend.
A blue ray flickered, silencing the last groan that pierced through the river's torrent.
Ciel took a deep breath. Rainbow color exploded in the serene night, matching the fiery, passionate text in the leaderboard.
Ciel - 9
One more left.
The presence of an elf ghosted Ciel's mind, leaving only the flutters of firefly wings against her cheek.
She could ponder now, alone.
Just like in the peaceful Black Sea.
Though this was the first time loneliness rang hollow.
Shaking her head to herself, a defeated smile crept up Ciel's lips.
One more look at where Quia was, then her feet shifted and pointed at the forest, the towering trees looming before her.
The firefly at her cheek now flashed a cruel red.
Her work was far from over.
'...the last mimic must be still monitoring Miss Dragon.'
Ciel scowled. Yet just as she prepared to sprint away, her vision flashed.
Forest warped itself apart, and the very space tore itself anew. And Ciel froze as the chilling breeze ceased into nothing.
She arrived here again, in the darkness where nothing of life was in sight.
One presence lingered. Familial. Desperate. Intimate.
And she was right in front of her.
Ciel's heart clenched.
She couldn't see anything.
But she could tell the towering Queen of Hunt was glaring straight down at her small figure.
"Sister…"
The whisper was tender. Its aftermath was not.
Ciel's eardrums exploded. Blood escaped desperately from her lips and ears, as her knees gave out to kneel without strength.
Her vision grew a muddy red. The enhanced senses went berserk, as if her nerves tangled and tangled till they each formed into a tight knot.
But her nails scraped at the rough surface, the pain keeping her awake, just barely.
'The moon's link.'
Just hearing the Queen's words up front almost killed her, the consequence of their connections via the System.
But this worked out well.
'I need to figure out where she is. And, if possible…'
If the Witches learned this, Ciel would be recorded as the boldest fool in history.
But she could try.
Precisely because she was still 'their' family.
Her tongue coiled, straining to speak out loud.
"I'm not your sister…"
She whispered, but only received another tender response.
"Liar…"
As if it wasn't enough, the Queen of Hunt added.
"The Dawn only scares you, my Sister in shade…"
Ciel chuckled out loud. It echoed like a stuttering, squeaky cry.
If her eyes didn't weep blood, her look would be mistaken for an infant's innocent whining.
Ciel's soft yet strong voice, however, was anything but that of a clueless infant.
"But you tried to kill me, and failed miserably."
The Everangarde. The cliffside. The forest.
The Queen of Hunt, from the start, had ordered the mimic to kill Ciel.
And emotions were but a byproduct of that very directive.
Her eyes then curved perfectly into a kind smile.
Shire's crazed taunting, Quia's genuine smugness, and Selvara's sheer confidence. They all taught her so, so well.
"From the start, you do not know the meaning of a Sister. How many more families must you slaughter? To realise that longing is not the same as having a family?"
Slaughterers don't deserve empathy.
They also don't deserve the ability to empathise.
Ciel herself was no different.
But-
"Unlike me, Sister." Ciel tilted her head with a cold, piercing gaze. "A shade is all you will be amounted to."
She would die with someone calling her name.
And the Queen of Hunt will always be known as a butcher who put children on a chopping block.
A pause stretched between the two former siblings.
As if after mulling over every word, the air froze with resentment.
Pressure mounted on Ciel's shoulders, her bones cracking with every spark of tension.
Ciel's will remained firm.
Her palm smoothed over the surface where only shadow occupied, feeling every detail.
It was a sand-like sensation. Dry and powdery, it was a grid-like floor that edged like stones, yet fragile like ash that crumpled with a touch.
'What is this?'
Ciel, in her millennia of experience, had been through many battlefields.
And this time, she couldn't truly know where the Queen of Hunt hid.
It didn't matter, though.
"Sister."
As she heard a crack in that unbarbly, tender voice.
Ciel's eyelids slumped. With peace.
She accepted it. The fact that her family, former family, now learned the capability to 'feel'.
Because of her, they achieved something biologically, intrinsically impossible.
That's why: her taunt worked spectacularly.
Like an infant that just learned how to cry-
"You…" The mysterious murmur seethed into a quiet threat, "deserve a better death."
The Queen of Hunt lashed out for the first time in her life.
Ciel chortled.
The child murderer didn't want to be called a child murderer.
What an absolute joke.
"Ah…"
But she wished Quia, or Miss Dragon, would laugh here with her.
A regretful hum escaped her. Though this was probably her last.
Space bent again. Darkness receded to give way to a nightlit forest.
The cold breeze returned, grazing against her sensitive skin.
Waves crashed and fell in a desperate, silent symphony, a peace that Ciel genuinely liked.
She glanced up.
The half moon, both pale and shaded, stared back in the distance.
Ciel realised something simple.
Or perhaps something absurd.
'I haven't been to the Moon before.'
Queens always operated outside of logic.
So, the Queen of Hunt revealed herself, not with a grandiose display of power.
But as a subtle blue spark on the moon's shaded edge, faint yet unmistakable.
'No wonder…'
When Ciel's connection with the moon strengthened, it didn't initially make sense why the Queen of Hunt was connected to her.
That was until she realised: her sister chose the moon as the execution ground.
Not for Summer.
But gladly, for her.
A second of pause, and the blue spark bloomed into a large, menacing orange.
The air shook. The forest's leaves rustled. The sky pushed back with every ounce of pressure, a last stand against a Queen's attack.
Yet the orange radiation drew near. Defiant and all-ruling, it broke into the thin atmosphere, zoomed past the thick clouds, and eventually made itself known.
A simple ray made of an orange-tinged mana. Burned by the friction, it descended like a meteor with a ferocious flame shrouding its body.
Ciel simply watched ahead.
Her eyes, ears and lips, coated with dry blood stains, could no longer feel her sister's might.
She lingered at her right wrist, tracing the spell-bind through which Miss Dragon observed her.
"Miss Dragon…"
Ciel wished her last words heard.
After this exam and all the betrayals from the mimics, Ciel arrived at a simple conclusion.
"I want some companies in hell." She joked lightly. "So please kill all my 'families' for me."
She didn't wish any of the Shadebeast, including her, to live.
Ripples erupted, heat igniting her skin as the arrow finally drew near.
The Queen's heart was a dull void.
"
But a simple command dragged it back into being.