"Master, I told you—you can't run."
Watching the golden-haired girl standing at the edge of the crater with sword in hand, Veiloria was already cursing up a storm inside.
In her past life she'd been a full-grown man, only to transmigrate into a Vampire princess. Her talent was extraordinary; at a remarkably young age she had received the First Embrace (the Inheritance), and her strength had even surpassed that of the Eternal Night Empress.
Ignoring the part where she'd become a girl—this was supposed to be a dream-start.
But who could have guessed that the little beggar she'd casually saved a few years back while training inside human territory, using a different identity, the one she'd gone on to teach for several years—had now become the youngest Saint of the Holy See, and had come to her door with a sword.
What was worst of all: her human identity, "Veilo," had clearly already died right in front of that girl's eyes!
How on earth had she recognized her?!
"Um......this beautiful young lady," Veiloria forced out a smile even uglier than a grimace, "you've definitely got the wrong person. What master? I have absolutely no......"
Before she could finish, a killing gleam flashed in the girl's eyes. The Holy Sword swept out in a casual arc, and a blade of light shattered the air in an instant.
Veiloria's whole body went rigid. She threw every last bit of her strength into a sideways roll.
The blade of light grazed her cheek as it flew past, then slammed into the ground behind her. The shockwave that erupted sent her flying once again.
“Cough—cough, Cough......”
"After all this, are you still going to keep pretending?"
Several chains condensed from Holy Light shot out from between her wings, instantly binding Veiloria head to toe.
"Master."
The girl raised her hand and clenched it. The chains snapped taut and dragged Veiloria toward her.
Veiloria crashed heavily at the girl's feet. Where the chains touched her skin, wave after wave of searing, stinging pain radiated outward.
She forced her head up with great difficulty, and met a pair of bloodshot eyes staring back at her.
"All these years......" The girl's voice was no longer cold—it had begun to tremble. "Do you have any idea how I've lived?"
"Every day......every single day I relived the way you looked when you died." Her voice shook harder and harder; tears swam in her eyes. "Arcane energy piercing through your heart......you falling into my arms, your blood so hot......you said, 'Live on, Ximilita'......"
Hearing that name, Veiloria's pupils contracted ever so slightly.
Ximilita—that was the name she had given the little vagrant when she had taken on a human form.
"I survived." Ximilita's tears finally broke the dam, crashing down in heavy drops onto the ground.
"I fought to survive......joined the Holy See, trained day and night without rest—all because you once said that only strength can protect the people who matter to you!"
She suddenly lunged forward and seized Veiloria by the silver hair, forcing her head back.
The Holy Sword rose. Its ice-cold blade pressed against that slender, fragile throat, and the flat of the sword cast light on 2 equally pale faces.
"Ten years......I spent ten years becoming the youngest Saint the Silver Radiance Holy See has produced in 300 years. Through the bloodline of the Judgment Angel, I ground my way up from Two-Wings to Four-Wings." Her voice grew progressively hoarser.
"I campaigned east and west, razed city after city to the ground, and finally led the Holy Judgment Army myself to breach the Vampire capital—the very Twilight City you once said 'ought to be purified sooner or later'!"
Veiloria's breath caught.
"I burned their Ancestral Blood Altar in the Eternal Night Palace......and cried out toward the north through a sky full of ash: Master, I've avenged you!" Ximilita was laughing and crying at once, her expression bordering on savage.
"And then......I found your diary."
"Do you know how long it took me to believe it......that the person I treated as my light was actually a Vampire?!"
"Wait," Veiloria said, her throat bone-dry, her head buzzing. "Twilight City—the one that fell last year......you're the one who took it?"
"What else?!" Ximilita released her hair, her voice saturated with despair. "Other than avenging you, what else was worth betting everything on—even to the point of turning the entire war between humans and Vampires on its head?!"
Veiloria was completely stunned.
Last year she'd been training in the Northern Reaches, and when she heard that her homeland had been sacked—that even her bargain-bin mom had been taken prisoner—she'd been utterly shocked.
The Vampires had once been the overlords of the continent. Even in their decline, how could their capital have been taken so easily by the humans?
Fortunately, her bargain-bin mom still had the presence of mind to sob and blubber over a Voice Transmission, so she didn't seem to be in any serious trouble......
But the mess still fell to Veiloria to clean up. Traveling ten thousand li, risking life and limb to reach Kronos, the human capital—wasn't that precisely why she'd come? To rescue her own mom?
After all, they'd lived together for over a decade since the transmigration. "Bargain-bin" was a stretch—that woman, aside from being a little insufferable on a normal day, a little too controlling, a little too clingy, constantly treating her like a body pillow, and occasionally taking the odd bite out of her for no particular reason......
Well. She had still fulfilled a mother's responsibilities.
Especially for Veiloria, who had been an orphan in her previous life.
A sudden weight dropped on her chest, cutting off her train of thought.
Ximilita planted a foot on her back, and her voice returned to cold:
"Don't worry—I know you have a lot to say, and I have a lot to ask you......Tonight, we'll talk at our leisure."
"Rest assured, I won't hand you over to the Holy See. Everything that happened here tonight is contained within my barrier; in a moment I'll use my Time ability to restore it all, so no one will know."
"So......stop struggling."
"Are you sure?"
Veiloria suddenly let out a low laugh.
"Hm?" Ximilita's brow furrowed.
"Don't forget—most of what you know, I'm the one who taught you."
Before her voice had even faded, alarm bells erupted in Ximilita's mind. She lunged forward and grabbed for Veiloria's throat—
But she grasped nothing but air.
Her 5 fingers passed straight through. The texture was coarse and gritty—nothing like smooth skin at all.
She froze.
Beneath her feet, the "body" was rapidly softening, shifting shape......in no more than 2 or 3 seconds, it had become a lump of clay that had lost all magical support.
"......Ha."
After a brief, stunned pause, a strangled, distorted little laugh was squeezed out from her throat.
Then the laugh shifted in pitch.
She staggered back and withdrew her hand, staring at her fingers caked with flecks of mud, then slowly looked down at the clump of clay on the ground that had fully collapsed.
"Tricked me again......"
Her voice was very soft. But in the very next second, ten years' worth of pent-up grief, fury, and despair detonated all at once.
"Ugh......Aaaaaah——!!!"
Ximilita's strength seemed to drain from her all at once. Her knees gave out and she crumpled to the ground. The Holy Sword hit the earth with a clang.
She was no longer the dignified Saint—only an abandoned child, sobbing until it felt like her heart was being ripped apart.
Tears crashed in heavy drops into the scorched earth, sending up faint wisps of ash.
"Why......why run again......I searched for you for so long......so long!!!"
"Do you know how much it hurts......like my heart is being torn open again and again......I thought you were dead, I avenged you, I burned an entire city to the ground......and yet you were alive and well this whole time, watching me lose my mind over you!!!"
"I finally, finally saw you......and you refused to recognize me......and tried every possible way to run......"
The sobbing echoed within the barrier, full of despair.
After a long while, the crying slowly quieted.
She raised her head.
Tear tracks crisscrossed her cheeks, dusted with dirt, wretched and disheveled.
Yet in those deep blue eyes, every last emotion had vanished—leaving only a sheet of cold.
She rose to her feet, stared at the clump of mud with a blank expression, then swept her gaze across the ruined battlefield around her.
She raised her hand and gave a light wave.
"Temporal Sequence......Rewind."
The spell formation lit up, and ripples spread outward.
Time flowed in reverse. The craters were filled in, the snow restored, and the collapsed buildings quietly rose back into place.
Snowflakes drifted down once more, settling gently on the tips of Ximilita's hair and on her shoulders.
She made no move to brush them away.
"......Very well."
The corners of her lips curved, extremely slowly, into a smile that held no warmth.
"Since you have chosen to disappear again......"
"Then run."
"Use every last bit of your cleverness—run to the ends of the earth, to the edge of time and space."
She reached out a hand and caught a drifting snowflake.
"I will find you."
"Next time......there will be no more conversation. I won't give you any chance to speak."
Her 5 fingers closed.
The snowflake shattered without a sound in her palm, turning to frost dust and scattering on the wind.
"Master."
—Tutu