“…I thought I was all alone again in this hopeless world. To live alone and to die alone. That was all I wanted. All I thought I deserved. But…”
That couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Leon was never alone.
For she had always been by his side.
“You were watching over me all this time, weren’t you? …Master.”
And then, he heard the sword’s voice again. Her voice. Claire Redheart’s.
“Get ready, Leon. It’s time to save our family. That means Rheina…and Alice, too.”
Leon wrapped his fingers around the hilt. It was the moment his entire life had been leading up to. He slid the weapon free of its sheath.
There were two blinding flashes of light.
The first came from Rheinhardt. Driven furious by the sword’s actions, he crafted millions of tiny balls of heat out of the sheer vacuum and launched them at Leon.
The second was the glint of Calit Gelius as the blade was exposed to the world outside its sheath. It engulfed and obliterated the incoming projectiles.
“Argh! Goddammit! You’re really pissing me off! See, this is what I always hated about you!”
It was like Rheinhardt had completely forgotten about Alice, lying at his feet. His eyes remained fixed on Leon…and at the spectral image of Claire standing beside him. The two members of his family.
Leon glared back at the suffering of his old friend trapped deep within the angel’s flesh, and said, “Master! Lend me your strength! The strength of protection! The strength of salvation!”
He lunged. Head-on. No tricks, no schemes. Only the courage and determination that burned inside his heart and a desire to save the two that mattered most to him.
“You idiot!” screeched the angel. “Are you really in such a hurry to die?!” He conjured up a stream of projectiles that surrounded Leon before all descending inward from every direction at once.
It was impossible to dodge and impossible to block. There was no way out.
But Leon was a hero now. And a hero never gave up, whether things were possible or not.
“Be not afraid, my child. I shall cut a path.”
Leon felt her warmth in his heart, as the sword let out a glimmer of light that eliminated the projectiles, just as it had a moment ago.
Stunned by the replication of this miracle, the angel grew enraged.
“Tch!”
A blade of steel manifested in each hand, and Rheinhardt gripped the hilts so hard, it seemed they would break.
“Need I remind you?!” he bellowed. “You’ve never won a match against me in your sorry little life!”
The two closed into melee combat. The angel’s deft swing aimed to take Leon’s head. The ghoul dodged. Immediately after, a slash to his flank. Leon caught it on his blade.
And then…
…Rheinhardt’s last gambit, a silent assassin, approached Leon from behind. It was one final projectile, a gleaming ball of light that was otherwise completely undetectable. It was the perfect sneak attack with no way to dodge or prevent its approach.
But although Leon may not have known of its presence, the sword did. And it would not allow the attack to go through. The blade produced a flash of light that eliminated the underhanded projectile.
“Rgh?!”
That slight moment of shock was enough for Leon to take advantage of. With a sharp exhale of breath, he swung the holy sword.
There was no time for the angel to react. His right arm was sliced clean off.
“Nrgh…!”
He couldn’t regenerate. He couldn’t even activate his ability. The holy sword possessed two abilities: that of creation and that of destruction. Anything damaged by it could never be recreated unless the sword willed it. No matter how capable the angel’s power of regeneration, he could never get his right arm back.
“Dammit…! Damn you!”
Rheinhardt’s fury manifested in a frenzied assault. Despite his missing limb, his strikes packed no less punch nor lacked finesse. His talent with the sword was one of the few remaining vestiges of his humanity, and it proved a serious challenge to Leon’s edge in the fight.
“Her soul dwells within that sword! That’s the power of Calit Gelius!”
He raged and raged, unleashing a ferocious onslaught. And all the while, he grinned like a snarling beast.
“I tried to take you completely by surprise, but the sword blocked my projectiles on its own! So I have no choice but to fight you head-on. And you know what that means, partner? I’ve won! Because you’ve never once beaten me at swordplay!”
The angel was right. Losing an arm was no handicap at all to someone like Rheinhardt. Leon had faced his fellow apprentice in battle 1,288 times and lost every single match. When the two were armed with swords, Leon had never even managed to land so much as a scratch.
And yet…
“You have no idea!” Leon yelled. “No idea what I’ve been up to these past four years!”
There had never been a moment where Leon hadn’t spared a thought for his partner. And the same went for Rheinhardt, too. But what had the angel been doing all this time?
Four years. It was hardly enough for all the training, experience, and accolades required to close the gulf of ability that separated the two. But Leon’s foe was not his old friend.
“I’ve done more than enough to catch up to you!”
Leon was still leagues behind his fellow apprentice. But the angel had stayed in the past. Stagnated. And there was no way Leon could possibly lose to someone like that.
“Haagh!”
Counter. Evade. Counter. Evade. Over and over and over again, his strikes landing nearer and nearer, until eventually, the impossible happened and Leon nicked his foe’s flesh.
“Rrgh?! No! How?”
The angel was stunned speechless. To him, taking a blow was unimaginable. But the truth was simple.
Leon knew his friend better than anyone else. He knew his ways of thinking, his vices, and his habits. Leon, meanwhile, had changed ever so slightly over the past four years, in ways that meant the angel may well have been fighting a complete stranger.
“I’ve been moving forward all this time! I’ve had no other choice! It was the only way to save you!”
As Leon gripped his sword, he thought back over the past four years. At their beginning, he was nothing more than a baggage handler. A useless burden. A pathetic excuse for an Adviser. But now he was different. He had walked the line of madness and sanity and come out the other end a changed man.
And the time was drawing near. The time for Leon Crossheart’s first victory…and also his last.
“Goddammiiiiiiiit!”
Bit by bit, whatever elegance still remained in Rheinhardt’s strikes was slowly being chipped away.
Mate in six. Supposing he could remain focused and not screw up, Leon was guaranteed victory in just six more moves.
Five. He evaded the angel’s raging slash and swept the legs.
Four. His foe leaped back. The leg sweep missed. Leon closed in.
Three. He slammed the holy sword into his foe’s weapon, parrying the incoming blow.
Two. This was where his foe’s bad habit emerged. The shock stung the angel’s wrist, causing him to angrily retaliate.
One. Leon caught his foe’s blade on his own, and with a levering motion, flung it high into the air.
Now, with his foe utterly disarmed, the board was set. But just as Leon closed in for the kill, something happened he did not foresee.
“Rgh…?!”
His whole body began to sway.
“No…!”
Claire’s will, within the sword, expressed its surprise.
Neither her nor the angel had expected it either.
For although it seemed that the holy sword had healed Leon’s wounds entirely, that wasn’t quite true. There were scars on his soul the magic couldn’t heal.
Leon had called upon power far beyond his means. That had resulted in damage so great, even the holy sword could not fix it.
“So, fate has chosen me to be the victor!”
A wild smile spread across Rheinhardt’s face as he thrust his bare hand like a spear.
It was too late. Leon could not hope to dodge the blow by himself, and Claire could not distract herself from making sure none of the angel’s projectiles got through.
It was the end. The worst possible outcome.
However, as far as Leon was concerned, it was an outcome he should have predicted.
“I should have known. I’m cursed.”
Leon had worked hard to achieve the same level of ability as his foe, but that was a trivial task compared to overturning the power of his own misfortune. That was why Leon had taken every precaution. This wasn’t just him and Claire facing off against the angel; he had a second ally, perhaps his staunchest yet.
“M-Master!”
The angel, perhaps, had only seen her as a helpless child. Someone for him to threaten and for Leon to protect. But Alice Campbell was no such thing. She longed to stand up for her teacher, and that desire gave her unfathomable strength.
“Master!”
Alice lifted herself off the ground and, with strenuous effort, launched an arrow from her pure-white bow, surprising everyone…except for Leon.
“Excellently done, Alice,” he said.
The present fired at the past to save the future. The arrow unerringly struck the angel’s left shoulder.
“What?!”
The impact dulled the angel’s blow. Fate now rested in their hands. Leon and Alice. Master and disciple.
“It’s time to sever those chains that bind you, Master.”
“Time to face the future…together.”
The final step. Leon was about to finish the job Claire started four years ago. Without a moment’s hesitation, he drove the gilded tip of Calit Gelius through the angel’s black heart.
“Ghh…!”
Rheinhardt’s eyes went wide. Blood spilled from his lips. There were no last tricks up Rheinhardt’s sleeve this time.
Leon pulled the sword free, loosing a spray of crimson droplets into the air. Then he watched as the angel’s body began to liquefy and parted his lips in prayer for his partner’s soul.
“May your rest…”
But just then, he heard a weak voice.
“Part…ner…”
Alice jumped into action, fixing an arrow to her bow.
“Finish him off, quickly!” she screamed.