Chapter 98

“He must have some reason.” “What do you mean?” “He has a duty he’s carrying out. Let’s just bear witness to his bloodstained path…” “What?” Right as Alexia looks at Christina in confusion, her attention is demanded elsewhere. “SHADOWWWWWWWWW!!” Millia’s scream splits the air. This time, they hear it clearly. She definitely just called out Shadow’s name. “Is she…getting her voice back?” Millia is starting to sound like a human girl. She continues attacking without letting up, and with every opening she leaves, more bluish-purple twinkles flash through the air. It keeps on clinging to her, and before long, she’s covered from head to toe. “L-look at that!” Millia’s body has grown noticeably smaller. Chunks of her engorged, monstrous flesh have been shaved off, leaving patches of pale girlish flesh visible. She’s turning back into a human from a monster. “The bluish-purple magic is curing her…” Christina just noticed that in the places the magic is densest, Millia’s body is healing. Now her soft white skin, hideous monster flesh, and stringlike tendrils are all mixed together. Millia lets out a cry of sorrow. “Shadowwwwww!!” At this point, they realize she’s sobbing. Half of her face has returned to being a young girl’s, and there are tears of blood streaming from her human eye. “ShadowwwwWWWWWWWW!” She’s crying. As she wails, she takes her half-human, half-monster body and sets her tendrils and right arm into motion. Her movements gradually shift from the bold, tremendous gestures of a monster to the keen, nimble actions of a human. Tendrils burst from her fair skin, so many they fill the entire arena. “Sha…dowwww…!!” An anguished cry. Agonizing trickles of blood spill forth from the spots the tendrils grew out of. Using those tendrils, Millia finally manages to bind Shadow’s limbs. She brings her right arm crashing down. However, Shadow slices through the tendrils, then lops off the incoming arm as well. The severed monstrous appendage goes flying through the air. In the end, it never does end up turning human again. That said, Millia is still left with a human left arm, and in her hand, she’s holding a dagger. Where could she have been keeping that? All this time, she’s only ever used her right arm to attack. She must have been hiding the dagger in her left hand all the while. She clutches the dagger like it’s precious to her. “SHADOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!! She thrusts with the dagger in an attempt to pierce Shadow’s heart. “Excellent work,” says Shadow. As he speaks, he engulfs Millia in a torrent of bluish-purple magic. Her dagger stops just short of his heart. “Ahhh… Ah…” The light of reason returns to Millia’s eyes. The tendrils vanish. The dagger clatters to the floor. It’s inlaid with a red jewel, and it has the words To Millia, my beloved daughter engraved on its handle. “P-Papa…,” she mutters, then collapses. It’s unclear if it was Shadow who stopped her blade, or if it was Millia herself. Shadow catches Millia as she faints, then waves his arm. When he does, a group of women dressed in black bodysuits appear around him. Where could they have been hiding? Nobody so much as noticed them. They kneel and await their master’s orders. “Take care of the cleanup.” Shadow hands Millia over to the person who looks to be the group’s leader, then vanishes. Upon confirming that Shadow has left, the women spread out and get to work. After collecting Millia, her right arm, and her knife, the leader turns and looks over at the girls’ hiding spot. She gestures with her chin over to the exit. The look on her face makes her message perfectly clear: We’re willing to let you go, but you need to leave. Alexia breaks out into a cold sweat. “G-guess we’re busted…” “Ah-ah-ahhh!” Kanade stammers, terrified out of her mind. “What do we do?” Christina asks. “We should at least make it look like we’re leaving,” Alexia replies with a sigh. She heads out through the secret passageway. “It’s fine. I’m sure they’ll be gone before long.” Kanade scurries after her, but Christina takes one last look back over her shoulder. “This is the choice you’ve made, then?” The man said he was going to walk a path stained with blood, yet he chose to save that monster. Just as he once rescued Christina herself from peril, she has no doubt that he’s given salvation to countless people in the course of his duty. To her, that bloodstained path of his shines with radiance. After shaking the capital to its core and killing the Thirteen Nightblades, Jack the Ripper vanishes. People have all sorts of theories about who he is. They speculate that he’s everything from a Velgaltan assassin to a legendary dark knight who returned from the grave as a vengeful spirit, and rumors without a shred of truth to them spread like wildfire. There are some who even say that Jack the Ripper is Shadow, but the Knight Order denies that as a possibility. In the end, Jack the Ripper’s identity remains a mystery. However, the story about his killing seven of the Thirteen Nightblades in a single night after they fortified their defenses with scores of knights both dark and otherwise quickly attains legendary status, and the popular conclusion is that given Jack the Ripper’s unnatural strength, he must have been some manner of demon or ghost. I bet that in a hundred years or so, they’ll make a movie called The Shocking Truth Behind Jack the Ripper! or something and broadcast it across the world. In any case, that basically couldn’t have gone better. I accomplished everything I set out to, and Jack the Ripper will be remembered by history as a legend. “Did something good happen to you?” asks the man sitting across from me. If I’m remembering right—which I definitely might not be—he’s Gray, chief of the Knight Order’s criminal investigation department. At the moment, I’m currently being questioned in their interrogation room as a person of interest. “Oh, I was just thinking about how with people as skilled as you on the Knight Order, Jack the Ripper’s gonna get caught in no time,” I reply, lying through my teeth. “You can count on that, son. You’ve got a good eye for someone your age.” Gray nods a couple of times in satisfaction. “Now, one last thing before we’re done. You didn’t go into the White estate, did you?” “Oh, of course not. That’d be trespassing. I was too scared to even go near it.” “Princess Alexia is going to be the death of me, I swear. The fact that she went in there without permission calls all her testimony into question.” “A-and, um, what do you think the rumors about Jack the Ripper secretly being Shadow?” “Oh, that stuff’s all bunk. Shadow’s been running roughshod over the capital, and people just want to smear the Knight Order’s name by saying Shadow got the better of us again.” “B-but Princess Alexia says she saw him…” “It was dark, so she probably just mistook what she saw. She was the only witness, and she’s getting to be that age where she wants to be the center of attention.” “Oh, really?” “Yeah, really. Now, I’d say that’s about it for us. Thanks for being so cooperative. I doubt we’ll need to bring you in for questioning again.” “I-I’m glad to hear it.” “Take care.” I bow to Gray and step out of the windowless room. The guy’s deductive abilities are garbage, but his skills as a dark knight aren’t half bad. I feel like they’d be way better served by having him go out and fight people instead of running investigations. I idly wonder if Kanade is the next person they’re gonna question. They did call her in at the same time as me. I walk down the hallway and head for the waiting room. As I do, a man I pass catches my interest. “Hmm?” I stop and take a look at him. “Yes?” He stops and takes a look at me. He’s a tall man with thin, narrow eyes. He gives me a mild smile. “No, it’s nothing.” “I see. Are you…? No, it’s nothing.” He starts to say something but stops himself midway through. After giving me another smile, he walks off. I walk off as well, feeling out his presence behind me as I do. The man heads into Gray’s interrogation room. “He seemed pretty strong,” I say under my breath. A man steps into the interrogation room and takes the seat across from Gray’s. Gray hurriedly offers him a bow. “I—I didn’t know you were here, sir!” “You were slow,” the man says with a sigh. “Slow how?” “To notice me.” “I-I’m terribly sorry. You muted your presence, so I didn’t notice you until you were right before my eyes…” “The boy noticed me.” “What boy? You mean Cid Kagenou?” “I don’t know his name. He was a boy with dark hair. I passed him in the hallway just now.” “He is a dark knight, but his grades are middling. Could it have just been a coincidence?” “Perhaps that’s what it was. Coincidence can happen at the strangest times in the strangest places,” the man replies with a smile. To him, this is nothing more than idle small talk, and he’ll likely have forgotten all about the boy by the time tomorrow rolls around. It was a minor oddity, nothing more. “I’m not happy about losing the Thirteen Nightblades,” the man continues. “My apologies, sir. We did what we could, but we have so few forces we can freely deploy here in the Midgar Kingdom.” “It is what it is. Thanks to that idiot Fenrir, our influence in Midgar has plummeted. The Shadow Garden saw that opening and took full advantage of it.” “…Will this affect the plan?” “No, we’re all right on that front. The Shadowhunting Jaw will succeed.” “Shadow was stronger than we anticipated. According to what I’ve heard, Experiment No. 227 Millia was completely helpless against him.” “That’s within expectations. Everything is just fine.” The man chuckles. “With the Thirteen Nightblades dead, we have even fewer pawns to use in Midgar. I might need to put you into play directly, so make sure you’re ready for that.” “As you wish, Master Loki.” “Don’t let me down.” The man vanishes, leaving Gray alone in the windowless room.