"Regardless, cowardice shall stay my hand no longer."
Saint LeFay's Journal, 2 P.C.
"Don't you think this is too sudden?" Francis asked, following Valeria into the forest camp.
"No. As a matter of fact, I think it's better than working as a Saint lighthouse," she replied, not bothering to turn.
Francis would've preferred to bawl in a corner, but Valeria had none of it—forcing him to go through with the initiation instead.
"I said I won't do it again," he groaned.
"And I appreciate that, but you still need to do something other than feel sorry for yourself in a corner," said the third-rate healer.
"What did you even do after your breakup?" he asked, perplexed by her nonchalance.
"Drank hard liquor until I needed to rejuvenate my liver, naturally."
"Of course you did."
Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—the camp came into view shortly after, revealing a dozen men looking dazed.
"Captain, did you find the source of the Stanza?" Robert asked as he drew nearer.
"More or less," she said, glancing at Francis, which drew a shocked expression from her first mate.
"Are you saying—"
"Yeah. He's one of us now."
Us?
"You mean Robert is also? You know," Francis said, a mixture of fear and excitement in his voice. His focus on Valeria had completely blinded him to the prospect of her crew having similar powers.
Valeria burst out laughing. "And here I thought the night couldn't grow any livelier. Yes, Robert is an Acolyte of the Cognition Shanty."
Her words seemed to agitate Robert, but he internalized it.
"Robert," she added, "Francis is also an Acolyte, but he's of the Dominion Shanty, as you've probably guessed."
"Looks like the Church has a new deer to hunt," Robert said with a humorless smile.
Saint Agnes had mentioned something similar, but Francis hadn't had the chance to ask further, so Robert's words came on a silver platter.
"What do you mean?" he asked, feigning ignorance.
"The Shanty of Dominion is a… special one," Robert said, seemingly forgetting about the paying-for-information nonsense. "The Saint-level power appears to be a miracle among miracles."
"A miracle among miracles?" Francis asked, genuinely confused this time.
"Saint-level Stanzas are called miracles because they're far superior by every quantifiable measure," Robert explained.
"Every quantifiable measure," Valeria mocked. "You two will get along just fine."
She then pushed ahead. "Come on, Francis. The initiation won't do itself."
Francis obliged with a sigh, then took center stage—or rather, center ring—and scanned his surroundings. The men who didn't look dazed appeared eager, while the ones who did seemed to regard him with fright.
"Drunks and vagabonds. I present to you the newest member of our crew," Valeria announced.
Kill me.
The camp erupted with cheers and shouts. Francis could only imagine how rowdy it would've been if he hadn't knocked down half the men earlier.
"Who will go first?" Valeria asked, immediately drawing several interested pirates. "Rodrigo it is, then."
Under normal circumstances, the burly man would've squashed Francis like a fly—but that had stopped being the case a while ago.
Valeria then raised her arm as Rodrigo stepped inside the ring. "Begin!" she added, lowering it dramatically.
Francis' opponent didn't stand on ceremony; he immediately lunged forward with a raised fist. Francis' former instincts screamed at him to duck—or even run—before he realized something. Rodrigo was slow. Too slow, in fact. At first, he assumed he was hallucinating, then quickly realized that it must have had something to do with being a Submerged.
Serves me just fine.
Francis effortlessly dodged, then threw a punch of his own, which unsurprisingly landed. Rodrigo collapsed instantly, seemingly passed out.
The rowdiness immediately gave way to solemnity, most of them not knowing what to make of it. What they'd expected to be a humiliation had turned into something else entirely. If only they'd bothered asking their companions why they'd looked so frightened.
Then again, you can't expect critical thinking from pirates.
But to their credit, they still rose to the challenge, clinging to the "sanctity" of their duel tradition.
Bernardo fell next, then Bruno, then Tim, then Dirk. It was a sight to behold for anyone who'd written him off as a timid bartender. The display brought Francis no joy, though. He recognized that the prowess wasn't his—it was a blessing he never asked for. Still, that blessing kept him alive, so there was no reason to complain.
"It appears to be your turn, Robert," Valeria said with her usual smugness, as if the last few bodies hitting the dirt hadn't been enough proof.
"I yield," Robert replied flatly, drawing a dozen boos from the crowd.
"One more boo and I'll navigate us to a Royal Navy base," he added.
Silence. Total, terrified silence.
Navigator, huh?
Robert's refusal left only one person who hadn't stepped up—well, aside from the frightened lot who had also quietly yielded.
"My turn," Valeria said, a predatory grin stretching across her face as she stepped forward. The crew's renewed cheers only made her walk faster.
"Let's hope this duel doesn't end like our last," Valeria said before she lunged.
She was far faster than Rodrigo or any of the others, fast enough that Francis' breath caught. The pirate captain moved like a blur, cutting straight toward him. For a split second, he froze—remembering the panic of their first encounter, the one that ended with him flat on his back and humiliated.
Never again.
Her fist carved a clean arc toward his jaw. Francis slipped under it—barely—feeling the wind whip past his cheek.
"Progress," she said, grinning as she pivoted.
Her knee came up toward his ribs, sharp and merciless. For a moment, the hit seemed unavoidable—until he remembered the artifact. When he awakened it, something shifted. His feet felt strangely light, unnaturally nimble. He moved without thinking, gliding out of range just in time for the air behind him to snap from the force of her strike.
A Deacon really was a different class entirely.
The crew roared around them, hungry for blood or spectacle—hard to tell which. Valeria advanced again, relentless and predatory, as if the fight itself was her preferred language.
"Come on, Francis," she said, circling him. "Show me what a Dominion Acolyte is made of."
Francis wasn't eager to charge in, opting instead to keep his distance. The moment he did, the second effect of his ring kicked in—an instinctive flash, a quiet certainty—letting him sense exactly where Valeria planned to strike from. He moved before she even committed to the angle.
"Oh, right. The Evasion artifact. Should've guessed as much," she said, her amusement finally slipping.
For the first time since the duel began, Francis let himself breathe. If it kept going like this, the fight might actually end in a draw. He almost allowed himself that fragile bit of optimism.
Then it hit him.
The fierce warrior from seconds ago melted into the prettiest woman he'd ever seen. Her clothes, her cascading blonde hair, her mesmerizing blue eyes—it all crashed over him with unnatural clarity, stunning him in place. He lingered there far too long.
Long enough for Valeria to dart in and drive a fist into his stomach while he stood dazed.
An artifact?
The thought flickered too late to save him.
Valeria's follow-up came fast—a second blow, then a third, then a cascade of punches that didn't slow, didn't hesitate. Francis only managed to curl into himself, arms braced over his face as she laid into him with brutal, efficient precision. He tried to summon Liquidation, but she seized him by the collar and hammered him harder, shutting down every attempt at focus.
The crew erupted around them, roaring her name like it was the only one they'd ever learned.
He was reminded—painfully, literally—of what a Deacon was. Ignition did nothing here. Intimidation washed off her as if she didn't even feel it.
Substitution would work. It would end the fight instantly.
But that was the one Stanza he refused to show her—not now, not ever, not unless he wanted her prying it out of him later.
Backed into a corner, pinned under a flurry he couldn't break, he had only one option left.
"I yield!" Francis shouted, voice strained, the words forced out between blows.
"Huh. You did far better than I expected," Valeria said, rising while gasping for air. The crew surged toward the sprawling Francis, peppering him with questions.
"Just what was that?"
"Are you really the same person from before?"
"You have an artifact, admit it."
Under normal circumstances, he might have appreciated the curiosity. But having taken a beating less than an hour after a breakup, answering questions was the last thing he wanted to do. So, he feigned unconsciousness, hoping to drive them off.