My mind was racing as I ran through the streets still filled with lingering terror and fright.

  Stragglers fled from the nearby explosion and blazing battlefield.

  I saw a man hobbling away on a broken, bleeding leg, doing his best to hold in his tears and screams, biting his way through the pain.

  As I ran past, I quickly slammed my staff into the ground, summoning a pillar of light to mend his leg.

  A few bystanders, petrified by a myriad of confusing emotions, stared with wide eyes as I ran through the streets.

  That was good, the more people that saw me, the better.

  I had to leave as big of a trail as I possibly could.

  The man I kept my eyes on swerved left, disappearing into a narrow alleyway.

  I felt a compulsion in my brain to just stop looking for him then and there, telling me that it was too late, he was already gone, I was just wasting my time trying to chase him.

  I ignored that thought and pushed on, despite my legs wobbling.

  I skidded to a halt as I faced the small crevice in the city’s streets, eerily quiet as it stretched out into darkness beyond what I could see.

  My mind kept telling me there was nothing down there.

  I pushed forward.

  And as I entered the darkness, the loud chaos of the city was left behind, overshadowed by a chilling, eerie silence.

  I could only hear the measured footsteps of the mysterious man in the distance.

  No matter how fast I ran, I never seemed to be able to catch up to him.

  My legs started to burn. I had been sprinting and leaping through the city for close to a dozen minutes by then, having never stopped to take a break since the explosion broke out.

  The heavy fog of ash and dust clogging the once clean air didn’t help.

  Threads of mana twined and danced around my legs and chest as I ran, keeping the sore muscles relieved.

  The dim alleyway slowly lit up from the soft glow of my sun-like magic.

  I felt my breath shake.

  I ignored that feeling, shook my head and moved on.

  And with that small blink, I suddenly found myself impossibly closing the gap with my target.

  I roared, catching the cultist’s attention as I blocked off his path with a wall of earth.

  My breath hitched as an unreadable, mysterious gaze coldly glared at me.

  A cold pit settled into my stomach, as my mind slowly stirred into a frenzy, straining as it tried to get a clear look at his blurred face.

  It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

  I gulped.

  My hands trembled as they wrapped around a familiar oaken staff.

  The world is a cruel and lonely place, isn’t it?

  It will swallow you whole.

  There’s only one retreat.

  Fear.

  An old, forgotten companion of mine.

  That was what this feeling was.

  It would be nice, wouldn’t it?

  To run away from this feeling again.

  An end to the hunger. An end to the starvation.

  Blamelessness. Salvation. Vindication. Meaning.

  Don’t you want it?

  Despite the years I had spent at Nindo preparing myself for situations like this… none of it compared to the real deal.

  This wasn’t a simulation or a test. The danger was real.

  This wasn’t a quest or a commission. I didn’t know what the details were or what the capability of the enemy was, or even what my end goal or win condition really was.

  And above all, I was alone.

  I didn’t have my ever-faithful companions by my side, that team I had braved all those dangers with.

  I was without my friends.

  I did not have Setsuna’s sword to bail me out, I did not have Hayate to take the damage for me or give me direction in battle, and I didn’t have Kagura to support me.

  It was scary.

  But still…

  I thought of Mother, and of Luna.

  I thought about all the people in Arden.

  I swallowed down the fear.

  For their sake, I had to be brave. I had to face this by myself, if only for a little bit.

  I didn’t need to win. I just needed to last just a few minutes.

  “Stop,” a shaky tenseness lingered in my voice as I steadied myself, “I don’t know what you want from us, or what you’re looking for… but I can’t let you pass any further.”

  The faceless man just frowned stoically, regarding me as if I was an insect that had dirtied his boots.

  “Hm? What’s this… it is a witch who stands in my way? A truly alien place I’ve found, it seems. And that clothing…” his frown intensified as he mumbled to himself, “surely not, no? There is a limit to one’s foolishness.”

  He scoffed, narrowing his eyes.

  “It matters not.”

  I found myself nailed to the ground from the deadly intent shooting out of his gaze.

  “A child will not be enough to stop me.”

  A gleaming silver sword slid down his sleeve.

  He flicked it towards me.

  And I found the logical part of my mind screaming at me, decrying what it saw.

  That same sword flew towards me, yet at the same time, it remained exactly where it was, in his hand.

  It had not materialised. Magic had not been invoked, there was no lingering mana in the air.

  It had simply multiplied. One moment it was singular, and the next moment it wasn’t, as if such a thing was a simple mathematical reality of the world.

  And then again, as it travelled through the air, it seemed to split and multiply with no warning, until it became a hail of steel.

  For a moment, I froze.

  It reminded me of what Mother had been teaching me recently, about impossible extradimensional constructs and complex vectors that spun out into infinity.

  That moment of realisation only lasted for a moment before my survival instinct kicked in, and I found myself rolling forward and to the sides, letting the blades pass over me.

  “Hm?” The man hummed dismissively, “Curious. Most witches are not battle-hardened enough to react to close range attacks.”

  He drew the sword closer to himself, pointing the crystalline blade to the floor as he brandished it upwards.

  “Still, you will be no more than a momentary distraction, child.”

  He flicked it downwards and turned away, walking towards the wall I had made as if the matter had already been dealt with.

  It was only a second later that I realised something was wrong.

  Something gleamed above me.

  A hundred silver streaks fell from the sky, promising an inescapable, steely death.

  My instinct told me there was no point trying to block them or wall them off. Any feeble magic I was capable of would be shredded through like paper. And there were far too many, falling far too fast, for me to dodge them all reliably.

  That only left me one option.

  Run out of their area of effect as fast as I could.

  I sprinted forwards as hard as I could, doing my best to ignore the terrifying thundering of the rain of steel behind me.

  A stray sword pierced cleanly through my cloak, but it was so extremely sharp that it failed to pin me, simply cutting through the caught fabric as I ran.

  Another grazed my arm, barely missing it by a hair’s breath, but my skin still touched the wind the blade cut through, and the cut wind was enough to split my skin and draw blood.

  I started to heal myself as I ran again, letting out a sharp yell in frustration as I leapt up, winding up for a massive kick that smashed straight into the man’s skull.

  He paused upon hearing the noise, as if puzzled by the fact that I was not dead, only to be greeted by a flying shin.

  A sickening crack echoed through the narrow alley.

  I tumbled to the floor and rolled, picking myself up and turning around, hoping that I had done any sort of significant damage at all.

  …

  I couldn’t tell.

  The strange magic concealing his face made it impossible to know whether any damage had been dealt.

  All I know is that I had managed to annoy him, given the scathing glare and scowl on his face.

  “What kind of strange abomination is this? A witch who defends herself by running up to her foe and kicking them?”

  To calm my nerves, I tried to find some humour in the situation.

  Well, being best friends with a meathead like Setsuna would rub off on you eventually.

  Even more so, considering I liked fighting side-by-side with her rather than supporting her from a distance like any sane mage would do.

  “Well, it’s not like I plan on getting into the Citadel anytime soon,” I chuckled shakily.

  He just narrowed his eyes distastefully, flicking that glimmering sword of his once more.

  “Fine then. Consider yourself lucky, girl. This sword was a gift from a friend of mine, a great general from whom nations fled in fear. Many warriors considered their deaths blessings at his hand, ‘twas an honour to be felled by thy sword.”

  His speech petered off into a familiar strange and archaic dialect like I had heard Setsuna speak.

  I almost blinked and paused at the sudden odd accent leeching into his words from supposed fury, but I wasn’t given any more time to ponder that thought.

  A silver flash arced towards me.

  A single swing branched out into a dozen different trajectories right in front of my eyes.

  I stumbled back in panic.

  There it was again, that impossible sword of his.

  I hurriedly stood my ground, erecting a barrier of light in front of me, pouring as much mana into it as I could, hardening and strengthening it until it became a pillar of light that broke through above the alleyway, visible from the entire district.

  And still, it wasn’t enough to contain the blow.

  The blade smashed through my barrier effortlessly, colliding with my staff before sending me rocketing backwards, even pushing me through the magical wall of earth I had built earlier, collapsing it as easily as a house of cards.

  At least the staff hadn’t broken. If I was left without it, I would have been in really bad shape.

  I guess the wood of the Hinanhoro wasn’t expensive for no reason. That material could be more resilient than steel at times.

  I was sent flying through the remainder of the alleyway, coming out the other side of it into an open street, with my back slamming into a brick wall, almost collapsing it then and there.

  That time, I couldn’t hold back the pain, and a guttural noise left my mouth as I felt something inside my body crack.

  I fell to the street, the skin of my back scraping and burning and feeling like something in my back wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

  My arms trembled.

  I grit my teeth, biting down as hard as I could as numb legs wobbled back and forth, struggling to stand.

  I had been through worse… I had to remember that.

  Getting knocked around by that giant walking fortress in the final leg of the third-year-exams was worse than this.

  No matter how strange or incomprehensible that sword of his was, it was still just a sword. It didn’t compare to a giant fist of stone and steel that was larger than a building.

  I would start worrying about the sword when the cultist started taking stances and calling out forms like Setsuna did.

  Until then, I just had to think of it as a blade just like any other, just mixed with those stupid theoretical math and physics problems Mother kept trying to get me to solve.

  I weakly tapped my staff on the floor again, knitting the skin on my back closed and setting everything back into its proper position, relieving the burning.

  The faceless man came out of the alley at that moment, the strange sword hanging by his side.

  He regarded me with a strange expression, watching in outright bafflement as I healed myself.

  I ignored his bewildered gaze, staggering back into a defensive position as I caught myself.

  “...So, that silly thought that came to earlier was right, in the end,” he scoffed distastefully at his own realisation, “I had not pondered upon such a silly possibility, but it appears the Symphonias are full of surprises.”

  I quickly took a look around myself, evaluating where we were in Arden while he wasn’t attacking me.

  Why was the street completely empty? There should still be at least some people sti-

  …

  Shit.

  This was already getting into the restricted areas near Arden’s core.

  The only people allowed in this area were authorised personnel – who would have all already fled the premises under protocol or joined the battle at the generators – and our family.

  That meant I was right in my fears of what he was aiming for.

  “Estelle Symphonia,” he spat out my name with a glare, “Arden’s very own ‘maiden in white’... what a distasteful moniker… it brings about no good memories.”

  His grip on the sword tightened dangerously.

  “I had thought it too silly for a healer, a little girl, no less, to be insane enough to show herself on the frontlines of a battlefield. How unfortunate, I have not brought the proper countermeasures for such a case. But very well, if Arden’s cherished idol and their so-called ‘Young Lady’ wishes to waste her life in a fruitless endeavour, I will not stop her.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, thickening the surrounding air with my mana.

  “It’s not fruitless,” I snarled as I fingered my staff and tensed myself, “I don’t know why you’re going after the Paradox Engine, but whatever it is you’re looking to do, I’m not letting you get past me!”

  Chunks of rock flicked up into the air as my staff pierced the street and found the earth below.

  Light crawled through every pore, hole and weakness, spreading into a giant tangle that spread underneath the street until the entire road was encompassed within it.

  I felt a headache start to throb from the sudden loss of mana in my system. The lightheadedness almost made me feel like I was floating.

  I roared, exerting myself as a network of nature burst through the street, rendering it unwalkable as massive branches and roots of plant flesh disrupted the man’s balance.

  “!”

  The man flinched in surprise as the ground underneath him suddenly disappeared into a thorny nest, sending him tumbling into the earth’s embrace.

  I did not stop pumping mana into the spell. I felt the sickness from my excessive output slowly intensify as I swallowed down a small lump of bile.

  The vines continued spiralling upwards, almost smothering the buildings on the street as they continued to grow.

  Green tentacles curled upwards before diving back down towards the ground, intent on piercing the cultist.

  Countless thorn-covered branches and tendrils criss-crossed, striking down onto the body tumbling through the new hole in the street.

  From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell if I had accomplished anything. But I had heard something flesh-like being squished, pierced and strangled.

  I stopped the spell from growing any further, letting the sickness settle into place.

  I retched, hunching over and stumbling as I covered my mouth as my numbing arms shook.

  Even during exams, I hadn’t used this much of my mana at once. And during any occasion I had come even close in, it was almost always on a mass restoration spell, which was something that was much more comfortable and familiar to me.

  But in a situation like this, I couldn’t afford to hesitate or hold back even the slightest bit.

  I had to stop this man by myself. No mass restoration spell was suddenly going to materialise an ally by my side to handle the brunt of the fighting for me. If that meant spending a large chunk of my reserves on an unpracticed version of a spell, then so be it.

  I grimaced, swallowing down the vomit and shaking my head, forcing my way through the growing fog in my mind.

  I couldn’t be complacent, not until help arrived.

  I just had to hope that this little trick of mine was capable of delaying the faceless man even a lit-

  Something flashed.

  I reflexively covered my face, pulling up a small wall of earth as my world was covered in a brilliant, fiery light.

  A thunderous explosion erupted from beneath the street, spilling out into a great blaze.

  I looked upon the sight, holding back my abject horror as my spell simply disintegrated, tendrils of roots, vines and thorns wailing and thrashing in the howling wind as they burnt, reducing into ash.

  All that expended effort and mana, and all it had bought me was a few seconds of reprieve.

  I clamped down on my chattering teeth, hoping that doing so would stop the nervous jolts shooting back and forth from my fingertips, paralysing me.

  A very, very annoyed, guttural growl resounded from the ruined hole in the street as a single bleeding hand climbed onto loose stone and pulled itself out.

  I looked upon that hand with no small amount of confusion.

  Gone was the brilliant, gleaming sword, and instead, in its place was an undying red blaze, harmlessly nested within his palm.

  “I had thought the concerns of my brothers and sisters unwarranted when they gave me their gifts and blessings. Just the sword would have been sufficient. But annoyingly, in the worst way possible, it seems their preparation was warranted. To think a little girl, a healer claiming to be a witch, no less…”

  He spat hatefully at the apparent disgrace.

  I tried my best to see it as a compliment.

  “...would be the one to end up validating them. How humiliating.”

  My nose wrinkled.

  Ash and soot slowly choked the air around us.

  It slowly became harder to breathe.

  After the flames consumed all of the summoned plant life, they did not flame, feasting upon the buildings and covering the entire street in overpowering shades of red and orange.

  Sweat started dripping in uncomfortable amounts.

  My tongue felt far too dry.

  Tongues of flame licked at my skin, sizzling and charring my sleeves in an instant.

  Even just a millisecond of contact with them was as excruciating as shoving my entire arm into a pool of lava.

  And that was not a random comparison.

  I remembered very well what that felt like during the final exams in our second year.

  Calling the blaze surrounding me a simple ‘fire’ felt insufficient, almost. It was unlike anything I had ever felt. Something wicked and malevolent lingered in its dark, hateful wisps. Vitriolic emotions seemed palpable inside the flames, waves of hate lurking beneath the heat and scathing me.

  I looked left to right.

  I was surrounded.

  I was entirely stuck. I could only wait for the fire to encroach on me.

  “I will not mourn you, girl,” the faceless man scoffed, shaking his hand and dismissing the mystical fire held in it, “you have delayed me long enough. Burn and crumble into ash. No life can escape these hateful flames. Know that your effort was useless, and there will not be even ashes to remember you by.”

  And again, he just turned around and walked away.

  My skin charred as the fire lashed at them, not taking more than a millisecond to be burnt black upon contact with the flame.

  The pain paralysed me.

  My legs shook in fear.

  The air became bereft of oxygen, choked and replaced by an essence I could only compare to raw hate.

  Was…

  Was this really it?

  Was there nothing else I could do?

  The moisture in my eyes dried before I could even shed a single tear.

  I’m sorry, Mother.

  Sorry, Luna.

  I closed my eyes, and prayed desperately.

  I clutched the necklace Mother gifted to me, holding it close to my heart, hoping it could give me at least a little bit of solace as my world melted into red.

  I fingered over its runes, solemnly recal-

  I took it into my palms and brought it closer to me.

  I thumbed over the inscribed runes.

  They seemed… familiar.

  I froze.

  A flash of insight came to me.

  I dug my fingers deeper into the necklace, tightening my fingers as I held on for dear life.

  No, there was still one way out of this.

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  This wasn’t its intended use, but Mother had been preparing me for this for several months now.

  I grit my teeth and calmed myself, fighting my way through the pain of being burnt alive as everything around me slowly disintegrated.

  Lumps of blackened skin and flesh crumbled into ash and fell to the floor, disappearing into nothing in the fire as I pumped as much mana through my body as possible, delaying the damage with a persistent healing spell.

  I didn’t have long. The fire was already outpacing what I was capable of healing.

  I calmed myself and recalled Mother’s lessons.

  The first principle of Samsara.

  Before you spun the great wheel, transforming one element into another, you had to first take a hold of it.

  You could not let yourself submit to the cycle. You stood above it.

  Declare dominance. Declare ownership.

  By your hand, wrest control of the flow of all things.

  I let my raw, unfiltered mana slowly pour out of me, touching and licking the flames, dancing in twine with them.

  I felt my nerves start to scream at me, barely able to hold the burden of simultaneously healing myself and feeling out the fire with my mana at the same time.

  I bit down and forced my way forward.

  Counterspelling and dispelling was an obnoxiously difficult art considered to be impractical by even Citadel magi for anything other than dispelling runic formations. It was an absurdly mana-intensive technique that required pinpoint accuracy and the mental bandwidth to instantly deconstruct the structure of any spell flung your way, and microscopically precise mana control to flick and cut away at all the core components of the attack.

  And it wasn’t even guaranteed to be particularly effective. In the worst case scenarios, you wouldn’t even trade one-for-one in terms of mana points spent.

  Mother’s Samsara was an absurd spell which bypassed all of that.

  It was not a counterspell, it was redirection.

  Why bother dispelling an attack when you could simply turn it back at them? Dominate and subjugate the spell, overwrite its ownership and declare yourself its caster.

  Flush out the foreign mana and replace it with your own.

  My mana tangled with the flames, slowly permeating through it until the two elements started to move in sync.

  Fire was a familiar element to me. It was my life and blood as a healer. I had spent months practicing Samsara through this specific element alone.

  Just think of it as another one of Mother’s lessons.

  Ignore the pain. Ignore the stinging and the smell of burning flesh.

  And slowly, the fire stopped lashing at me and encroaching on what little ground I had left.

  It danced in tune with my own mana.

  The intense scorching and brutal pain slowly faded.

  I hobbled forward.

  One step, two steps.

  The effect grew naturally; as soon as one tendril of flame came under my control, it cascaded like a river and spread through all the nearby flames.

  I staggered into a slow walk.

  The fire gently bent out of my way, harmlessly passing underneath me.

  I opened my eyes again, grinding my teeth as I glared at my target, slowly retreating from me.

  I tightened my grip on my staff, which luckily remained intact, though it seemed to be under heavy stress.

  I dug my feet into the crumbling, ashen street and pushed.

  I ran forward, with fire swelling behind me, gathering like a wave.

  It dragged behind me as I ran, swirling and flowing and condensing as it slowly compressed as I outpaced it with my desperate dash.

  And all the while, untamed fire still lashed at me, its hateful heat scarring and slashing me as I pushed through.

  I lowered my staff, sliding down my hands until they reached the lower third of the shaft, holding it behind me like a bat.

  And as I did so, I remembered a familiar face.

  …Well, I was trying to hold it like a sword, but the weight distribution wasn’t exactly working out.

  Sorry, Setsuna.

  Please don’t laugh at me when I show you this later.

  I’m trying my best, I swear.

  I spun through the air as I jumped, clearing the field of hellish flame, gathering all the fire I had reclaimed at the head of my staff.

  My form was undoubtedly shoddy.

  To be honest, I had never held a sword a single time in my life.

  I was just hastily recreating Setsuna’s posture and form from the six years of memories we shared together.

  It was bad, it was sloppy, it was amateurish, but it would have to do.

  Don’t take offense to this, okay, Setsuna?

  I know it’s hard, I’m foolish for thinking I can even try to recreate your sword forms.

  Your art is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. It’s perfect.

  That’s why I’m borrowing it for now.

  Your form is the only thing I can imagine when it comes to finding a way to win.

  The flame solidified at my staff’s head, resembling a torch as I continued to spin.

  What was this technique, again?

  Ah, that’s right.

  “Minamiken!” I screamed out the familiar words of that foreign language.

  ‘Southern Blade’.

  The man froze at the sound of my voice, noticing my descending shadow.

  “Nikata!”

  ‘Second Form’.

  This was just your second form. To you, it was almost child’s play, something elementary.

  It was nothing compared to the grandiose, reality-defying Seventh Forms and above.

  You didn’t even need to chant or call out your stances for anything below your Sixth Form anymore. You haven’t been at that point in three years.

  But for the rest of us lowly mortals, even something as simple as your Second Form was out of reach for most of us.

  “Kyoka!”

  ‘Torchlight’.

  I swung the beacon of fire upwards, illuminating Arden with a tower of fire that rose into the sky like a pillar of Heaven.

  It could hardly be called a ‘slash’. I wasn’t ‘cutting’ through anything with that. The proper technique was a thing that could cleave darkness itself and illuminate a path from nowhere.

  I tumbled to the ground and ducked into a roll, catching myself again as I sucked in a desperately-needed breath of fresh air.

  Quickly, I surveyed the damage behind me.

  …

  That fire of his, whatever its origin was, was something else entirely.

  The street had almost completely degenerated into molten slag. Where a solid paved road once was, there as now nothing but a giant hole of molten rock, lava pouring into it as it slid off buildings that crumbled into hot goo.

  Surely, something that destructive… it had to have been capable of damaging him, right? If not just outright incapacitating him.

  “Twice, now…” I heard a low grumble, dashing my hopes.

  Footsteps echoed through the next street over, emerging from the pillar of flame.

  A ruined, flaming cloak billowed in the cold, deathly wind as the cultist stepped forward.

  The hood had almost completely disintegrated, leaving no shadows over his face, yet still…

  I couldn’t make out any details, aside from a subtle hint of a fresh burn scar.

  I held back a grunt of annoyance. That concealing magic of his was getting really annoying.

  I did catch one thing though.

  Underneath the now burnt sleeve, his remaining hand was revealed, exposed to the harsh air.

  It was the mark that had been described, which the people of Arden now whispered about in fear.

  A serpent eating the roots of a tree.

  “...I have withdrawn my gaze. Twice now, have I assumed you would simply fall over and die. And twice. Now. Have you proven yourself a cockroach. How very, very annoying. Truly, little ‘maiden in white’, what distasteful memories you bring back.”

  He spat out to the side, flourishing his scarred, burning hand.

  Despite the fire that still lingered on his cloak and person, he seemed not even a little bit perturbed by the damage he was still continuing to suffer, only mildly annoyed, as if he was suffering a paper cut or stubbed toe.

  “If you have a death wish…”

  His hand slowly tightened and tensed, sharpening into a vicious claw.

  And the temperature suddenly flipped.

  Blazing white heat snapped into freezing white cold.

  “Then I shall indulge you in it.”

  I blinked, and he dashed forward, a trail of misty ice following his hand.

  I did not have the time to react.

  I found myself breathless.

  My vision blackened for a moment.

  I-...

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My-

  My feet…

  I thrashed around, trying to find some footing.

  My legs dangled uselessly in the air.

  I found myself being held up in the air by a single hand, a steely claw crushing my throat as the creeping chill of death slowly covered every inch of my body.

  “Stare into mine eyes,” the faceless man growled, his voice leeching into that ancient accent again, “thou shalt know this gaze as the last pitiful sight thine eyes will ever see. Engrave its wretched hatred and disgust into thy soul, insect. You are naught but a speck of dust. Thou shalt be consumed by the nothing, by the stillness, know the unmoving cruelty of this world.”

  I groaned as I continued to thrash, my desperate movement steadily slowing down as frost crept into the corners of my vision.

  I felt my legs lose feeling.

  Deathly cold wrapped around my neck.

  All the warmth faded from my body.

  I could barely hear my own heartbeat anymore.

  Ice slowly encased me.

  My thoughts slowly dulled.

  I lost the will to keep on fighting, and my thrashing and screaming ceased.

  All of Arden that I could see, from one corner of the street to the other, become smothered in heartless ice.

  The world darkened.

  You remember this feeling, don’t you?

  The empty coldness.

  The futility.

  You are not special.

  You are not gifted.

  You are just like anyone else.

  You are powerless.

  Your life is not important.

  Nothing remained but the quiet beat of my heart.

  …

  My heart.

  One last thought came to me just before my consciousness slipped.

  It was the only thought I ever needed.

  My heart pulsed again, that sound feeling overwhelmingly loud to my near-dead self.

  My fingers twitched, having never let go of my staff all the while.

  I didn’t need anything else.

  If the stars still shined, and my heart still beat…

  Then…

  I groaned, forcing my eyes open and glaring at the faceless man and his shapeless, colourless eyes with all the hate I could muster.

  The staff in my hands slowly tipped to the side.

  There was still one more thing I could do.

  My body shivered as I flushed it with mana once more, as I did all I could to keep my heart beating and my flesh from freezing over.

  My staff continued to slowly tip to the side.

  My wrists slowly wrenched, and the direction of the movement became apparent.

  I was trying to spin it counter-clockwise.

  After the first principle of Samsara came the second; elemental conversion.

  Normally, I would have felt nothing but nervousness while trying to attempt this step.

  I had struggled over and over throughout the past few months to even manage singular steps along the great wheel of the Four Elements, and a full cycle was still nowhere within reach to me.

  But something… something felt different this time.

  It wasn’t the near-death experience dulling my mind. It wasn’t the blistering hate I was feeling for the person choking me.

  I recalled what I saw just a minute earlier, with that strange sword that existed in multiple states at once, seemingly present at infinite points in time and space.

  Seeing that thing… something about the concept of ‘infinity’ suddenly clicked into place, and I found myself slowly being able to rationalise the concept as a part of the natural world after seeing it in action.

  My staff continued to tip to the west.

  If the faceless cultist saw it, he didn’t care, keeping his eyes locked on me as we viciously stared each other down.

  I did not fight the freezing ice encroaching across my body, locking me in place and smothering me.

  I embraced the cold and made it my own, even as it slowly froze the life inside of me.

  I just had to keep persisting.

  As long as my heart still beat, I couldn’t give up.

  A breaking point was reached, and everything snapped into place.

  Life flooded back into my eyes, and the fire inside of them lit up as I shot the man a deadly snarl.

  He flinched, realising something wasn’t going according to plan.

  I roared at the top of my lungs as my arms thawed.

  I pulled my arms to the left as hard as I possibly could.

  The head of the oaken staff slammed into his elbow, prying me off of his grip and forcing him to leap back in alarm.

  And finally, the staff completed a ninety degree turn.

  The ice on my body, an embodiment of ‘Water’ from the ‘North’, melted into silt and mud as the wheel rotated counterclockwise, reaching ‘Earth’ of the ‘West’.

  My feet touched down on solid ground once more.

  I could not stop.

  Samsara was about maintaining endless momentum.

  Keep on turning the wheel.

  I continued twirling the staff in my hands as the numbness faded and blood pumped through my system once more.

  The chill of the atmosphere slowly faded as a soft wind slowly swirled around my, summoned by the constant spinning of my staff.

  The ice covering the street slowly dulled from solid white into a cold blue, before dripping and melting into water before being collected into a whirlwind of raindrops, gathering into a vortex of water until not a single bit of ice remained.

  Keep on pulling, keep on turning.

  North to West. West to South.

  Waterdrops became heavier and heavier as they gathered smog and dust in the dirty air, slowly solidifying into mud.

  Mud crumbled into dust and soot, covering me in a storm of ash.

  I felt my heart thump with fiery emotions, igniting the storm into a blazing whirlwind.

  From nothing to something. Something to everything. Grind down hopelessness and spin the thread of despair into the brightest of stars. Take your nightmares and crush them, until the pressure of your heart crystallises it into a hopeful dream.

  That was the essence of Mother’s Samsara.

  The wheel of fire condensed into the head of my staff one more time as I held it high above my head.

  Maybe I was a lackluster witch, but I was not without help.

  I had my family, I had my friends.

  Mother, who entrusted me with the name that meant so much to her, who made me her reason to keep on living and dreaming.

  Setsuna, to whom I swore to travel alongside. Two eternal companions, sharing two separate journeys of loneliness.

  “MINAMIKEN!”

  Again, sorry, Setsuna.

  I know my form is bad.

  Please don’t laugh at me, okay?

  I’m trying my best, I really am.

  “SANKATA!”

  I wouldn’t attempt this with any other element. Fire was the only one I was truly comfortable with.

  You’ll understand, right, Setsuna?

  “TOUKANADZUCHI!”

  I brought the ‘Molten Hammer’ down, enveloping my world in a fiery explosion as the ground beneath me cracked.

  I felt the force and heat shear away at my own skin, burning and charring it from the proximity to my own attack.

  I had none of the control or discipline that Setsuna usually employed to contain the recoil and backlash of her attacks.

  I just had to force my way through it with sheer grit and heal the self-inflicted damage as it happened.

  I panted, collapsing to the knees in the cloud of ash, pain echoing through every nerve in my body, the exertion of everything I had just put myself through catching up to me.

  I felt my consciousness slowly slip.

  Vomit slowly rose up my throat from the sudden absence of mana that should have been circulating my system.

  The simultaneous burning and freezing scarred my body.

  No.

  I had to hold on…

  Just…

  Just a bit longer.

  Surely, the giant mess I was making had to be seen across the city, right?

  It-...

  It wouldn’t take long for Mother to arrive.

  I stumbled, tipping left and right.

  I leaned on my staff for balance, but I almost tripped over that too.

  “You…” a hateful growl that was quickly becoming far too familiar for my liking echoed through the clouded street, “You truly, truly are annoying, aren’t you? You truly are just like an insect.”

  A small flame lit up in the dark smog.

  A blazing fire, screaming and roaring.

  I could feel it dripping with hatred from here, strong enough to burn the very essence of the world itself.

  I staggered to my feet.

  I lurched over, feeling a rush of bile leap up my throat.

  I retched, falling to my knees again.

  The migraine from heavy, sudden mana expenditure worsened.

  I tried to hobble to the side.

  Tried.

  In reality, all I managed to do was stumble a bit.

  A gargantuan fireball blew away the smoke, searing and scorching everything around it as it sat in the faceless man’s hand.

  Just a bit longer.

  I grit my teeth, mustering whatever I had left to stand upright.

  The remnants of that deathly chill still lingered in my body, slowing my movement to a crawl.

  It looks like I would just have to brace myself.

  I prepared myself for a burning pain unlike anything I had ever felt, already letting the remaining droplets of mana in me circle my body in a pre-emptive restoration spell.

  I closed my eyes.

  And in the darkness, I heard something odd.

  Pages of a book flipping.

  Something that resembled the striking of a flint. That was the ignition of mana.

  My brain put those two sounds together, instinctively cataloguing it as a mage casting a spell through a grimoire.

  I paused.

  What kind of mage in this day and age still used grimoires to cast their spells?

  Even Mother knew not to bring one onto the battlefield, she kept hers solely for use in her worksho-

  My eyes snapped open and widened in fright.

  Life flooded back into my body, powered by a sudden rush of intense emotions.

  I spun around and faced the source of the sound – coming from a rooftop of a building beyond the smokecloud – and screamed.

  “LUNA!”

  Behind me, where that faceless man stood, the ground cracked open, bursting into a pillar of pressurised water, sending the fireball in his hands veering off course into the sky.

  Despite every nerve in my body screaming at me, I grit my teeth and managed to break into a small, limping run.

  The thick cloud of grey slowly cared, revealing the figure of the last person I wanted to see in this situation.

  My little sister stood atop a nearby rooftop, flicking through her grimoire as its pages danced wildly from the mana running them.

  What the hell was this-

  Idiot.

  Fool.

  All those years and she never learnt anything from you.

  Isn’t she hopeless?

  Does that remind you of anyone?

  I bit down on my tongue, holding down the words that instinctively came to mind.

  No, she was my sister. I couldn’t call her those things.

  It-...

  It wasn’t her fault.

  She was young and naive.

  That was the same lie you told yourself all the way back then, no?

  Anything to escape the truth. You would take any excuse.

  How did that turn out for you?

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?”

  My voice was hoarse and weak.

  I hacked as I sucked in a nasty lungful of ash and dust.

  “YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE IMMEDIATELY!”

  Luna just scoffed at my words.

  “I’m more than capable of handling myself, Sister! I’m not a child anymore! If anything, I’m more qualified than you are! I’m a better witch than you’ll ever be!”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but a flash of light out of the corner of my eye reminded me there wasn’t the time for that sort of thing.

  “You Symphonias, the lot of you, you’re all a wretched lot. I have had enough of this play.”

  Another wrathful fireball was summoned.

  And this time, it was hurtled straight towards Luna.

  She froze.

  I panicked.

  Despite my nerves still screaming at me, I welled up a small wisp of mana to summon a spiralling root that quickly stretched up towards the roof and snatched her from the trajectory of the flaming orb.

  She tumbled down to the ground, scuffing her robes.

  I shot her a stern glare as I pulled her up, immediately pushing her back.

  “This isn’t a game, Luna! It’s not like one of those silly tests at Nindo! This man… he could hurt you, he could… kill you. You need to get out of here, I can’t let anything happen to you!”

  Luna just batted my hand away.

  “You didn’t listen when everyone told you to retreat, why should I listen to you!?”

  I grit my teeth in frustration, feeling something ugly brewing in my heart.

  “That-... that’s not the same!”

  “You’re just a hypocrite!” Luna spat.

  I flinched.

  I heard a tired sigh from behind us.

  “My ears tire of this sisterly spat. Both of you. Reunite in the afterlife and settle your disputes in your graves.”

  A brilliant light of fiery death swallowed the corner of my vision.

  Luna’s breath hitched.

  I didn’t have time for this.

  I pushed Luna away before she could complain, summoning another huge well of mana.

  The dizziness returned, pushing forth another lump of bile.

  That didn’t matter.

  I needed more.

  At any cost.

  That was your oath.

  That fire was unlike anything I had ever seen or felt before.

  If I wanted to block it, I needed everything.

  Remember your oath.

  What would you sacrifice to keep it?

  I couldn’t just bank on being able to heal myself after the damage was done and get by with a subpar barrier.

  Luna was behind me.

  If something happened to her, I-...

  I didn’t know what I would do.

  A solid wall of light shot up from the ground.

  First it was one layer, then two, then three.

  And with each successive barrier I overlaid on top of one another, I felt the chill of exhaustion and manaburn tear away at me.

  The terrifying blazing orb crashed into the first layer, emitting an unholy screech as it effortlessly pierced through, barely slowed down at all.

  I felt the feedback of the shattering barrier pulse backwards through me.

  One by one, the barriers fell, and the hateful howls of flame grew ever closer.

  I had given almost everything I had left, and it still wasn’t enough.

  Numbness danced in my fingertips.

  My vision darkened.

  With my last scrap of consciousness, I spun around and jumped, covering Luna with my body.

  A burning heat scraped at my skin. Claws of flame scratched the flesh underneath.

  I braced myself and closed my eyes.

  Sound faded from my world.

  A familiar otherworldly echo broke through.

  Cool refreshing wind swept in.

  The blaze spun into nothing, replaced by a howling gust.

  I-...

  I was fine.

  I slowly cracked open an eye and turned around again.

  Lightning danced and jumped, crackling and arcing across the street from an incomprehensible spinning object.

  Fire unwound into Wind, and that same Wind unravelled into pure mana.

  The Helios Engine absorbed the remnants of that fire into its core, sputtering out lightning uncontrollably – even that impossible machine was struggling to fully contain the output of that monstrous flame.

  I felt a comforting hand touch my shoulder, gently pushing me back.

  Familiar long black hair dangled messily.

  “So you’re the freak behind this mess, eh?” Mother scowled, her yellow eyes boring a hole through the faceless man, whose face twitched and convulsed in a fit of extreme frustration, “a coward who can’t even show his own face.”

  The cultists' presumed leader just growled incoherently at the new arrival’s interruption.

  “You… wretched… Symphonias. Were it not for your ignorant, foolish gnat of a daughter-”

  “Oi,” Mother narrowed her eyes dangerously, “watch your mouth.”

  She clicked her fingers.

  I saw a radiant flash of blue.

  A mechanism in the Helios Engine opened, ejecting a solid beam of plasma that instantaneously covered the entire length of the street.

  Pure energy ripped apart all matter in its way, leaving only a molten crater in the street tracing its path.

  And despite the attack moving faster than I could even blink, the faceless man effortlessly dodged.

  I bit my lip.

  The gap between an S-Rank like Mother and an ordinary adventurer – even one from the prodigal academy of Nindo – like myself was truly insurmountable.

  And despite that, the faceless man was still on even footing with her.

  What kind of monster had I been trying to put myself up against for the past few minutes?

  I shivered involuntarily.

  I was lucky to have been able to survive in retrospect.

  “My daughter’s a very smart and pretty girl, yeah? Keep your mouth shut if you like your insides where they are. The hell would some fucking hippie worshipping a snake eating a tree’s ass know about her? ”

  For a brief moment, all three of us – Mother, Luna and I – all glanced towards the faceless man’s exposed hand and the mark of worship etched onto it.

  Luna paused in consideration upon seeing it.

  “That… no, have I-...?” she whispered, muttering to herself.

  Mother slowly tightened her grip on my shoulder, catching my attention before pushing me away.

  She smiled gently at me.

  “You did well, Estelle. Sure made a hell of a mess and put up a hell of a show, eh? Go catch some rest, let the adults take it from here, ‘kay?”

  She glared back at the faceless man, cracking her neck as she lazily strolled up, the Helios Engine ready by her side.

  “Give it up, fuckface. Whatever the hell you’re looking to do, it’s already shot to shit. The only reason I haven’t blown you to smithereens already is because I’m ass at interrogating people and I need an explanation as to why you’ve decided to ruin the lives of this city’s people for no reason.”

  Armored boots started clanking all around us, echoing through the ruined district, followed shortly by barked orders.

  The faceless man snarled at the sound.

  “And that would be them,” Mother drawled, “Say, as a cultist, you wouldn’t happen to be familiar with Sol’s inquisitors, would you? Nasty folk when they want to be. Citadel still sometimes whispers in fear about the gnarly shit they do to question heretics.”

  It didn’t take long for platoons of knights and inquisitors to surround every entrance and exit to the street, plugging every crevice and alleyway shut.

  “That being said…”

  Mother snapped her fingers again, bringing the Helios Engine to life, which whirred menacingly as its core lit up with an intense heat.

  “I have half a mind to blow the rest of your ugly face off right here for trying to lay a hand on my daughter. I’m sure the Church won’t mind.”

  The faceless man grit his teeth at her words, clawing at his face (?) in irrational anger.

  “Useless. Useless. The lot of you,” he growled, fixing a hateful glare toward us, “What a terrible, useless day. All interrupted by a foolish girl, calling herself a witch and playing at a healer. How. Endlessly. Frustrating. How. Endlessly. Humiliating.”

  “Oi. Didn’t I warn you about talking about her like that?”

  Mother snapped her fingers again.

  Another blast of lightning shot forward, erasing the stretch of pavement it touched.

  And again, the faceless man just stepped to the side.

  With speed like that, how had I even managed to catch him once?

  Was it truly just because he thought that little of me because he failed so much to even just consider me a threat?

  His gaze landed on me one final time.

  “Estelle Symphonia,” he narrowed those cloudy, colourless eyes at me, “consider your luck today a precursor to misfortune. You have successfully wrought my ire. The next time we meet, I shall stomp you underneath my heel. You were simply lucky I did not consider the possibility of a fucking healer fighting by themselves.”

  “And that’s your third strike,” Mother snapped, “consider yourself the unlucky one here. You have ‘successfully wrought my ire’ by not ever shutting up about my daughter.”

  She flourished her hand.

  The space where the faceless man stood seemed to bend and shimmer, condensing and crushing itself.

  Mother clicked her fingers one last time.

  Gravity collapsed. A star imploded.

  The street was covered in the brilliant light of a dying star.

  Silence.

  I opened my eyes as the light died down.

  Nothing remained.

  “Is-... is that it?” Luna uttered breathlessly, looking upon the devastation with wide eyes, “d-did you get him?”

  Mother just narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the smoking crater that was once a street.

  “Logically, yes.”

  “L-logically?” Luna blinked up at her.

  “There shouldn’t have been a way for him to escape. But something tells me we haven’t seen the last of him just yet. This incident is just the beginning.”

  She frowned as she looked down towards me.

  “Estelle, you were the one who caught him initially. What do you think his intentions were?”

  I paused, finally taking the time to consider what had happened.

  “I-I can’t say for certain, but…” I swallowed, “I caught him travelling away from the energy district and moving towards Arden’s core. I-I think it’s almost certain that it was meant to be a diversion while he moved for the Paradox Engine, b-but… I couldn’t tell you why he was looking for it.”

  Mother narrowed her eyes tensely, muttering to herself.

  “I had my suspicions as to why they’ve been snooping around for a few weeks… it seems it’s as I thought, then. Fine, if that’s how they want to do it, then there’s only one thing for me to do.”

  A heavy set of boots clunked as a towering knight jogged towards us.

  General Hywind saluted Mother.

  “Ma’am, the situation has been successfully contained. We’ve subdued and captured a few of the cultists alive for further interrogation. Do you have any orders for us?”

  Mother slowly balled her hands into fists.

  She closed her eyes, deeply inhaling and exhaling.

  “I need a full perimeter around the heart of Arden at all times. No one gets in or out except the authorised engineers and magi native to Arden, no Church, Royal or Citadel delegate is to be accepted. As for them, they’re to be stationed around the research and energy districts at all times. And…”

  She grunted and furrowed her brow, still keeping her eyes closed.

  “I don’t know where the fuck these cultists are coming from. I don’t know how the hell they got into the city. Even if I know what they want, I don’t know why the hell they’re doing all of this. But… I know this isn’t the end. Wherever the hell they came from, there’s more waiting in the shadows, and they won’t stop throwing themselves at Arden until they reach the Paradox Engine. If that’s the case…”

  She opened them, fixing her eyes in a resolute glare after a couple seconds of silence.

  “I’m declaring martial law. Evacuate every last civilian. Until I say otherwise, Arden is officially a warzone.”