“To make sure I’d owe you a favor, you waited until the last minute to act.”
“Complete nonsense, girl...grrr...don’t irritate me too much, or I might decide not to help you after all.”
“I don’t need help from the likes of you...!” Nue placed both hands on the hilt of the slender sword buried in her shoulder, groaning as she exerted force against it. The sword had dug deep into the stone wall and would not budge. Hathaway’s skill with the rapier was truly something to be feared.
“Don’t be so stubborn. I’ll lend you a hand right now.”
“Don’t touch me! I don’t want your help—not after you abandoned mama and me! Get out of here! You’re only after Chimera’s power!” With tears in her red eyes, Nue glared at the Satyr and bared her sharpened teeth to menace him. “I believed you! I believed you were my dad the whole time!”
Nue then began to struggle violently. With each shake of her body, blood poured out of the wound in her shoulder. Unable to withstand the pain, she cried out, writhed in agony, and whimpered. Eventually, she retched up something from deep within her chest and vomited it out into a bloody puddle on the ground. Inside that puddle were squirming lumps of flesh, sporting imperfect humanoid body parts—and they all started to speak.
“Traitor.”
“Jerk.”
“You abandoned mama.”
“You abandoned me.”
“Coward.”
“Keeping yourself out of harm’s way.”
“I believed you.”
“You fooled me!”
“You are not...”
“...my papa!”
The flesh lumps all shouted abuse, their voices overlapping. Lycaon’s hair stood up as he yelled back at them. “Be quiet! What would a little girl like you understand?! Those of us born to noble clans don’t have the right to go willingly to our deaths! Chimera refused to retreat for foolish reasons and even went so far as to join forces with Aegisthus to fight the Ex Machina—she was a traitor! She did all this knowing that if she didn’t retreat, neither could her daughter!”
Two pairs of red eyes glared at each other emotionally, and it was Nue who cooled down first. “That’s enough. You didn’t save me. Even now, you wouldn’t have saved me if you didn’t expect something in return. Dill was the one who helped me back then...and I’m going to go to Dill right now.” Having said this, she opened her mouth wide and shoved her free left hand into it. Still retching, she swallowed her hand, her wrist—her whole arm up to the elbow. Then, after feeling for something with her fingers, she wrenched it out. What emerged was darkness.
Blub-dub-dub-blub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dub. Blub. Blub...dub. Nue spat out a clump of black feathers.
“Stop. It’s no use. You can’t escape from my wolf pack.” Lycaon found himself ignored. The feathers squirmed like insects, trembled, then floated up as lightly as bubbles. Some of them stuck to Nue’s body; the rest, like black snow falling in reverse, climbed silently into the sky. On each feather was a pattern resembling an eye, something like that of a peacock... No. Those patterns were in fact actual eyeballs. Each of the countless feathers bore an eyeball with a red iris.
“Wait!” Lycaon started to lunge at Nue, then hesitated. His formerly coldhearted expression had become more human somehow—it was now a father’s face. The black feathers that had stuck to Nue clustered around her arms and began to grow outward like the branches of a tree. They bifurcated, becoming overgrown before blossoming into wings. Still on each feather was a single red eye, all of them blinking rapidly. The process of her transformation finally pushed the slender blade out of her shoulder, and it clattered to the ground. Starting at her chest, Nue’s torso was wrapped up in a dress made from her own feathers. From the knee down her legs were bare, and a black ooze ran from her wings down her thighs, eventually dripping from the tips of her toes.
“...Do you think I have no regrets?” Lycaon said. “That I fled without caring at all?”
“Bye-bye, Lycaon.”
“Wait, please! Just once more, give me a chance to be your father again...”
The girl floated above the ground, then flew into the air without once looking back. The sound of beating wings receded into the distance, and a fallen feather brushed against Lycaon’s cheek.
Nue Kirisaki—the girl who had once called Lycaon “father.” Lycaon did not pursue her. After a while, he snorted and went to leave.
“Wait. Did you think I’d let you get away?” Hathaway called out to Lycaon. He had staunched his wound, and now he held out his shortsword, blocking Lycaon’s path.
“Don’t get carried away, mortal. I’m the one who’s letting you live. Now get lost.”
The two glared at each other. Hathaway’s desire to kill Lycaon did not appear to wane, but regardless he slowly stepped back, then turned and left—likely to join his friends who still battled atop the Acropolis. The reasons were not important to Lycaon.
“I came all the way to the land of Boreas, but in the end it was for nothing. Looks like the recruitment of the new twelve generals is back to square one.” As Lycaon muttered to himself, he heard something—something screaming with Nue Kirisaki’s voice.
“Noooo! I don’t want to die! Nooo!” A comparatively large lump of flesh from among those Nue had vomited up greedily devoured the other lumps. It was a gruesome scene, and one that made Lycaon want to turn away—the sight of a half-hearted life-form, brought into the world unfinished. If he just left it there, it would soon die. Lycaon turned his back and started to walk away, but then a thought came to him.
“Is that right? You don’t want to die?” He looked down at the largest lump of flesh. It seemed to possess ears. “Then, do you have the wits to make a deal for your life?”