The silver net tightened another notch around Lonia.
Every single thread felt like red-hot iron wire, biting into the fabric of her cloak and searing the skin beneath.
The scarred man crouched in front of her, using the hook of his iron rod to toy with her messy black hair.
Lonia glared at him, her pupils shrinking into needle-like slits. She clenched her teeth so hard that her gums bled under the pressure, filling her mouth with a metallic, rusty taste.
Deep in her mind, that thread vibrated violently.
Rafina's presence was approaching at a speed she had never experienced before.
Don't come—!
The thread vibrated. There was no response.
Fina! Don't come! There are three of them! The weakest is at least Rank Three! You can't beat them!
Still no response. That burning presence was still approaching, its speed not slowing down in the slightest.
Please! Go back!!
“What, scared stiff? Stop struggling. The silver net only gets tighter the more you thrash, and if a little thing like you keeps squirming, your bones are going to snap.”
Lonia didn't look at him.
Her panicked gaze darted past the scarred man's shoulder, peering through the gaps in the bushes toward the path leading into the maple forest—the winding, leaf-strewn trail.
What arrived first was not a person, but an aura.
The maple leaves stopped falling.
The red leaves dancing in the air froze for an instant before plummeting in unison, slamming into the ground as if suddenly weighed down by lead.
The scarred man's expression froze.
“What the—”
A figure appeared at the end of the path.
Pinned to her collar was a red copper maple-leaf hairpin.
Rafina's face was completely expressionless.
It was blank. Like a clean mirror that reflected nothing at all.
It was even more blank, even more devoid of life, than Sera's usual state.
Color was being stripped away.
Like ashes scattered by the wind, the blood-red hue was stripped from the maple leaves, drifting into the air and leaving behind only a pure, stark white.
The exact same color as Rafina's hair.
Lonia lay inside the silver net, looking up at the figure walking toward her from the end of the path.
She recognized her.
Every detail belonged to the Rafina she had looked at for two years and imagined countless times in their mental connection—a figure she knew inside and out.
But that aura was entirely foreign.
Lonia had never felt it before. Not in their countless meetings over the past two years, and not in their late-night mental connections.
Rank Two? Rank Three? Rank Four???
Lonia had seen Eliza release her pressure before. It was like a wall of ice—cold, rigid, precise, and carrying absolute control.
The thing rolling off Rafina was nothing like that.
It was like something far more terrifying.
If she had to make a comparison, it was like a Leviathan beneath the frozen ice, hurtling toward the sky.
Rafina didn't look at Lonia; she stared fixedly at the scarred man.
The scarred man turned his head, trembling.
He had been trafficking people around the outskirts of Maple Town for years, and he had seen all kinds of prey.
Vampires, succubi, beastkin, and he had even caught a lone dark elf child once.
Consequently, he knew how to judge threat levels and make split-second decisions on whether to flee or fight.
His body was telling him to run.
But his brain hadn't caught up yet.
“Another little one?”
His voice was half a pitch higher than before, his Adam's apple bobbing.
“Damn it, buy one get one free...”
Rafina took a step forward.
The pure white crept forward, climbing onto the scarred man's body.
The next moment, all color turned to pure white. Before he could even finish his sentence, he lost all breath and collapsed backward.
He was dead.
“W-What is that?!”
His accomplices bolted the instant he fell.
Rafina raised her hand.
The pure white surged once more. The maple trees, the maple leaves, the humans, the silver net—everything was stripped of color, and then of life itself.
In this dreamlike, pure white world, only Rafina and Lonia still retained their color.
The maple leaves rustled as they rained down. Perhaps because their life had been stolen, they fell in unnaturally massive numbers.
They disintegrated into fragments mid-fall, spinning and tumbling in the white light of the sky, landing on fallen trunks, on the corpses of the slavers, and on Rafina's silvery-white hair.
Then she turned and walked toward Lonia in the silver net.
Lonia lay on the ground, looking up, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open, exposing her two small fangs. She was in a state of absolute, complete, top-to-bottom shock.
The silver net was still wrapped around her, but it was no longer burning.
Rafina crouched down, gently pulling the silver net open. The tough silver threads snapped easily under her light tugs, revealing the young girl inside.
“Nia.”
She spoke softly, then pulled her into a hug.
“My Nia...”
It was highly abnormal; Rafina's current state made her seem like a completely different person.
But Lonia couldn't notice this. She couldn't process anything right now.
All her senses were consumed by a single fact.
Fina.
The Fina who curled up in the old archives to read. The Fina who let herself be dragged by the hand to stroll through the markets of Maple Town. The Fina who leaned on her shoulder and used her tail to shade her from the sun. The Fina about whom she had confidently sworn, “She's probably not as strong as me anyway.”
Had just killed three people stronger than Lonia herself.
“...Nia.”
After a while, Rafina's voice regained a bit of warmth, as if nothing had happened.
“...You're hurt.”
Lonia stared at her blankly.
“I'm sorry... I should have... I should have come sooner... I'm sorry... I'm sorry...”
She stared at that familiar, thin little face, half-hidden by silvery-white bangs. She stared at those crimson eyes, now brimming with tears.
There was no longer that hollow, knee-weakening presence in them, only pain, self-reproach, and endless sorrow.
“You...”
Lonia's lips moved. Her voice was as dry as sandpaper.
“What on earth... did you do...”
Rafina was silent for a moment.
“...I don't know.”
“Liar...”
“...I really don't know. I've only used it once before, and it was an accident. I was reading a sad part in a book, and the book just turned to ash like that.”
“Just now... you... all of them, they're all dead?”
“...I don't know why that happens either.”
Rafina threw the silver threads aside, then reached out and held Lonia's burned left hand.
“Uncle Librarian said that if I ever dared to use it again, I would never be allowed in the archives again. So I never used it.
I never used it after that... I...”
Her touch was very light, just as light as the first time they held hands in the old archives two years ago.
“...I'm sorry. I scared you.”
Lonia looked down at the hand holding hers. It was slender, frail, with dirt under the fingernails. It was the exact same hand that had just killed those men.
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
Then she suddenly grabbed Rafina's collar and yanked her close.
“I told you not to come!”
Her voice was hoarse, tinged with a sob.
“I told you it was dangerous! Why didn't you listen! What if you couldn't beat them! What if they had backup! What if... what if you got caught too!!!”
“...But you were hurting.”
Rafina's voice was quiet and flat.
“I felt it. You were hurting.”
Lonia's fingers gripped Rafina's collar, her knuckles white. Her charred left fingertips left gray marks on the fabric.
Her lips trembled, her eyes reddened, and a thin layer of tears welled up in them.
“...Idiot.”
“...Mm.”
“You massive idiot.”
“...Mm.”
Lonia let go of her collar.
“You killed people...”
“They deserved to die.”
“But... but...!”
She sat on the ground littered with leaf fragments and silver thread residue, her head lowered, her long black hair spilling down the sides of her face and hiding most of her expression.
Rafina sat down next to her. She brought her arrow-tipped tail around from behind and gently rested it on Lonia's knees.
Rate on N.U.
