"Back to back!" Soo Ah snarled, her blessed axe flashing into her grip.
They formed a triangle. Piers's hands glowed, the air rippling with heat.
Hina didn't charge. She flicked her wrist. A brown sphere shot at the ceiling above Noir and burst, raining down thick, glue-like strands.
Noir lunged aside just before the glue hardened where he'd stood.
Arata fired. A jet of pressurized holy water sliced toward Piers's leg. Piers slashed a hand down, unleashing a wave of superheated air. Steam exploded between them, blinding and scalding.
In the cover, Soo Ah stomped. A purple shield erupted from the floor. She didn't hold it—she hurled the disc of violet energy like a saw-blade at Hina.
Hina caught it on a conjured earthen shield, but the impact drove her back.
Piers pivoted, focusing his heat on the stone beneath Hina's feet. The flagstones glowed red-hot. Hina hissed, jumping back—right into the path of Soo Ah's returning axe.
Arata shouted, "Hina, down!" and fired a suppressing spray. Soo Ah spun, intercepting the jet with her axe, metal hissing and steaming.
Noir moved—not toward Arata, but toward Piers. He'd seen Hina's hand curl, another sphere forming behind her back. She wasn't aiming at Soo Ah.
She was aiming at Piers's back.
Noir shoved Piers aside as the sphere shot past, striking the wall and bursting into a cluster of razor-sharp mud spikes.
The shove left Noir exposed. Arata's pistol was already tracking his chest.
Soo Ah saw it. With a raw cry, she abandoned her defense and threw her axe—not at Arata, but at his pistol. The spinning haft connected with a crack, knocking his aim wide. The water-jet seared past Noir's shoulder, tearing cloth.
But Soo Ah was now defenseless. Hina's next sphere was already in the air, aimed at Soo Ah's knees. It burst at her feet, and a wave of hardening mud shot up her legs, locking her in place.
"No!" Noir's vision tunnelled. He saw Hina advance, a final, spiked sphere forming in her palm. He saw Arata, wide-eyed, lowering his damaged pistol as if to stop her. He saw Soo Ah trapped, unable to raise a shield.
Not this. Anyone but her.
The void inside him didn't surge. It unclenched.
A wave of silent, chilling nothingness pulsed from Noir. No light, no sound. Pure erasure.
Hina's sphere dissolved mid-air. Arata's pistol went dark, the glowing scripture snuffed out. The very spiritual pressure in the chamber vanished, leaving the air dead and still.
Hina stumbled, disoriented, her connection to the earth severed. Arata stared at his inert weapon.
The pulse lasted two seconds.
Noir collapsed, blood gushing from his nose. The world swam, ringing with a silence that felt like physical pain.
Soo Ah, freed from the de-spiritualized mud, surged forward and slammed her axe-pommel into Hina's temple. The girl crumpled.
Piers, with a final, concentrated burst of heat, superheated the stone under Arata's feet. The seer yelped, losing his balance and falling hard.
But the victory was hollow.
Because the pulse had been a lighthouse in the dark. A signal flare announcing exactly where they were.
And from the main passage, new light appeared—not blessed lanterns but something brighter, purer.
A spiritual pressure so vast and controlled it made the earlier fights feel like children playing at war.
Yuusha stepped into the chamber.
He was not in combat robes but in his formal vestments, crisp and immaculate, as if he'd come directly from evening prayers. Four senior priests flanked him, their combined presence enough to make the air itself feel heavy.
Behind them, moving with the resigned steps of the defeated, came Shin Jin. His robes were torn, a bloody gash on his forehead.
The spiritual aura that usually radiated from him like a low flame was utterly extinguished.
He was not bound, but the look on his face—raw defeat mixed with impotent fury—said everything.
Jean Vouré walked beside him, watchful and sorrowful.
"Enough," Yuusha said.
His voice was quiet, but it filled the chamber, leaving no room for argument or hope. It was the voice of someone who had already won and was simply collecting the pieces.
His gaze swept over the panting, bleeding students. Over Hina and Arata, dazed and defeated by their own juniors. Over the stolen journal in Piers's coat. Over Noir, still on his knees, blood dripping onto ancient stone.
"You have caused considerable damage," Yuusha said. "To property. To tradition. To trust." His eyes settled on Noir with something that might have been disappointment or fascination.
"And to yourself, Noir Adélard."
Noir's face flinched, his fists tightening at Yuusha's personal address.
"That was a reckless expenditure," he finished.
Then he gestured. The guardians moved forward with the efficiency of long practice.They helped Hina and Arata to their feet with care. They took Piers's coat, extracting the journal with respectful hands, as if re-shelving a misplaced treasure.
No one fought. There was no point.
Yuusha walked to Shin Jin, stopped before him. For a moment, something passed between them—years of service, of trust, of shared purpose now shattered.
"Your grief for your niece," Yuusha said, the words soft, almost kind, "has clouded your judgment. You see threats where there is only necessity and cruelty where there is difficult care."
Shin Jin's jaw was a hard line. He said nothing.
"I forgive your insubordination," Yuusha continued, his tone becoming administrative, final.
"Your service to the Order has been long and distinguished. But your judgment is compromised." He paused, let the weight settle.
"You are relieved of your mentorship duties. Permanently."
Yuusha's gaze held Shin Jin's, and for a fraction of a second, the clinical mask slipped, revealing something almost like pity. "I did warn you, Shin Jin."
Then the mask was back, seamless and cool.
"You will retain your rank and your quarters, but you will have no further contact with these students. Your access to training grounds, archives, and sensitive areas is revoked."
It was a gentle dismantling. A humane execution of a career. Shin Jin was being placed on a shelf, preserved but rendered useless.
The man who had sacrificed everything to protect three students had been reduced to a cautionary tale.
Yuusha then turned to the trio. His gaze was not unkind. It was the gaze of a physician separating specimens.
"Piers. Soo Ah. You will return to your quarters. You will be guarded, for your own safety and reflection. Tomorrow, your training resumes under revised oversight." His voice allowed no argument.
Then his eyes settled on Noir, who was still on his knees, struggling to breathe through the blood. The focus sharpened, becoming personal, possessive.
"You, Noir, will come with me. Your condition requires immediate and stable environment. You will be accommodated in the guest chambers adjacent to my quarters."
He gave a slight nod to the senior guardians flanking him. Two moved to Piers and Soo Ah, guiding them firmly toward the exit. The other two moved to Noir, not with violence, but with an inexorable certainty, lifting him to his feet.
Piers threw one last, desperate look over his shoulder. Soo Ah tried to pull against her escort, her eyes wide. "Noir—!"
But the exit swallowed her voice.
Yuusha turned, his robes whispering against stone.
"Come," he said, without looking back.
"Let us go home."
As they moved into the corridor, Mr. Ace emerged from the shadows of a side passage like a ghost summoned.
He did not look at Noir. He fell into step silently beside Yuusha, a bandaged shadow to his master's light.
He held a small, sealed vial in his bandaged hand—dark with Noir's blood, collected moments before from the chamber floor. He offered it without a word.
Yuusha took it, holding it up to the light of a passing lantern. The blood inside looked black.
"The readings?" Yuusha asked, his voice low.
"Total spiritual negation lasted 2.3 seconds," Mr. Ace recited, his tone flat. "Resonance matches Founder Edna's codices on void-states. The suppressor is nearly gone."
"Good."
Yuusha pocketed the vial and continued walking, Mr. Ace a silent attendant at his shoulder. Ahead lay the private halls, the silent galleries.
Noir was led after them, leaving the labyrinth, the murals, and his friends behind.
He wasn't being taken to a cell, but deeper into the cathedral's silent heart, where the only light was the kind that fell on paintings, and the only company a collection waiting for its final piece.