Evelyn walked through the mirrored corridor, her steps echoing like whispers in the silence. The words of prophecy, her mother's words, haunted her with every step.
Hope of the witches. Salvation of the witches. The covenant of witches.
Yet she kept walking, each step slicing into her resolve as if she were treading on shards of glass. It was a path she had not chosen but one she was born to follow. Born to bear, whether she wished it or not.
The corridor quaked without warning, thin, jagged cracks splintering across the mirrored walls. The air shifted, dense and heavy, a suffocating pause before the shatter of glass sent a sharp note reverberating through the space. A figure emerged from the fractured veil—a tall, formidable silhouette with hair as silver as moonlight and eyes like crimson fire, aglow with fierce determination.
Evelyn's expression remained cold, though a bitter smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "So, tell me, what do you see now?" Her voice was sharp and biting, a challenge wrapped in exhaustion. "Do you pity me? Do you think you should kill me? Or maybe save me, out of some misguided sense of heroism?"
"Lancelot von Silvaria," she continued, spitting out his name as though it burned her tongue. "The great genius. Unlike me, you've lived a life free of chains. What do you see when you look at me now?"
He did not answer immediately. His gaze swept over her, cool and unreadable, studying every line of her defiance and sorrow. Slowly, he reached out, fingertips grazing one of the mirror pillars, now cracked and trembling like a wounded beast. The glass beneath his touch groaned, spiderwebbing outward in a slow, silent protest.
"I do not pity you," he said at last, his voice steady as tempered steel.
Pity was not his to give; he knew it was neither earned nor deserved. He had not walked the path she had. He had not felt the cold grip of fate squeezing the life from him in the dead of night. How could he presume to pity her?
"But I still want to save you," he added, meeting her eyes.
Evelyn scoffed, a sound that held more weariness than defiance. "Save me?" she echoed, the laugh that followed empty and brittle. "Do you think I'll see you as my savior? My hero?"
He shook his head, a faint, almost wistful smile ghosting across his face—neither triumphant nor resigned. "Perhaps not," he admitted, the words bare, unvarnished. "But that doesn't matter. Because I am not a hero."
Once, perhaps, he had carried that mantle, shouldered the crushing weight of expectations until it pressed against the very bones of his being. But that burden had long since fallen away, leaving only a man with a will unshackled by others' ideals.
"It's just my whim, Evelyn," he said, his voice softening, almost gentle.
Her eyes narrowed, disbelief and frustration warring within their stormy depths. "And what can you do, Lancelot? You may be a genius, a prodigy who could make his spear resonate before the age of fourteen, but in the end—"
Her words stumbled and fell silent as Lancelot's hand moved with practiced ease. The air between them shifted, thick with tension as an unseen force rippled outward. Suddenly, the room resonated with a low hum that sent shivers skittering down Evelyn's spine. The sword appeared as though called from the ether itself, its blade shimmering like the edge of dawn, casting a glow that defied the darkness clinging to the room.
The sound was not just metallic; it was a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated through the floor, into her bones. Evelyn's breath caught, a shiver running down her spine. She could feel it—raw, unmistakable. The aura of power that stood on the precipice of legend.
This was the blade that had cleaved through alien hordes, that had brought Lancelot to the rare and revered realm of Sword Unity. The sight of it now, glinting in the fractured light, felt both unreal and inevitable.
"Nonetheless," Lancelot said, the word a quiet thunder, resonating with the weight of unspoken stories, "I'm here. And that will be enough."
For a heartbeat, silence reigned, the shattered mirrors reflecting back two figures—Evelyn, a specter of defiance and unvoiced pleas, and Lancelot, standing resolute, his crimson eyes holding no pity, only an unwavering promise that blazed through the fractured glass like a beacon.
Evelyn's lips pressed into a thin line, trembling as she closed her eyes, a tear slipping free before she could catch it. "Why?" she whispered, more to the broken pieces of her fate than to the boy before her.
"Because even the strongest are worth saving," Lancelot said, his voice as light as a summer breeze yet anchored by an unyielding strength. "Even if they don't believe it."
The corridor shivered, the cracked mirrors reflecting not just fractures but new possibilities, a kaleidoscope of futures waiting to unfold.
Sword Unity—it was more than mastery. It was the seamless unification of body, mind, and soul with the blade itself. A realm so profound that a swordsman could imbue the essence of his weapon into his surroundings, transforming the very air into a conduit for his will—sword mana. This energy coiled around Lancelot, swirling like an invisible storm as his Indigo core surged, alive and relentless. The charged air crackled under the weight of intent, the sound sharp and electric, as if the very room braced for what was to come.
Then he moved.
It was not a simple step or lunge; it was a dance of raw, unyielding grace. The mirrored corridor seemed to splinter in slow motion as Lancelot's blade carved through the enchantment holding it together. Shards of glass exploded outward, refracting light like a storm of stars, the sound a symphony of breaking and releasing. Each fragment shimmered, catching the gleam of sword mana before dissolving into harmless motes of light.
The mirrored corridor stretched like a throat of glass, each reflection fracturing our forms into infinite echoes of pain and possibility. Lancelot's sword sang through the air, not with the harsh cry of steel on steel, but with the quiet certainty of dawn breaking through darkness. Each stroke left trails of light that hung in the air like the last notes of a funeral hymn.
The mirrors didn't simply shatter—they dissolved like years of accumulated frost under the first warm breath of spring. Each fragment caught the light of my blade and transformed it, turning destruction into a dance of liberation. The sound was like wind chimes made of falling stars, each note carrying away another thread of the spell that had bound Evelyn's soul.
She knelt in the midst of this crystalline storm, her form trembling like a candle flame in a draft. The pieces of her prison rained down around us, no longer reflecting what was, but what could be—each shard carrying a different future, a different possibility, until the very air sparkled with potential.
The air was thick with the aftermath, a silence so profound it felt sacred. Evelyn fell to her knees, the last echo of shattering glass fading into stillness. The room was no longer a prison of reflective torment, but a hollow space, free and empty.
'Salvation,' Evelyn thought, numb as she watched the scene unfold, disbelief etched into every line of her face. When the Captain of the Golden Dragon Knights had come to her village, she had prepared for salvation to arrive on the cold edge of a blade, a swift end to her torment. But now? Now salvation wore the face of a boy no older than herself, whose resolve shone brighter than the steel he wielded.
What was she supposed to feel in that moment? Relief? Anger? Gratitude? The emotions surged within her, a storm too fierce to name, until they left her hollow. The carefully constructed prison that had been her life, a cage designed to force her into becoming the greatest witch since the fabled Witch of Time, crumbled to dust.
"I let you leave," she whispered, her voice splintered like the corridor around them. She sank to her knees, the weight of shattered resolve pressing her down. "I gave you the chance to run, to kill me if that was your will. So why, Lancelot von Silvaria? Why come back?"
The room seemed to hold its breath as he stepped forward, the echoes of his measured pace filling the silence. To Evelyn, his form wavered through the tears that blurred her vision, becoming both a symbol of her end and a figure she could not fathom.
"I am a selfish person," Lancelot said, his tone carrying the simple, unassailable truth. "When I wish to save someone, I will save them. When I choose to kill, I will do so without hesitation."
The words hung in the space between them, stripped of grandeur yet infused with an honesty that defied reason. His eyes, crimson and unyielding, met hers, holding neither judgment nor promise of heroics—only a reflection of who he truly was. His truth.
For the first time, Evelyn felt the suffocating grip of destiny loosen, just a fraction. It was enough.
Lancelot stood before her, not as the savior she had conjured in her nightmares or the executioner she had expected, but as something else—an enigma. And perhaps, just perhaps, that was enough too.