Louise Cruentus POV
The infirmary bed looked far too big for him.
Soren lay on pristine white sheets, his small frame swallowing the space instead of filling it.
His academy shirt had been removed, leaving him in a thin under-robe, pale collarbones visible beneath his throat.
His neck…
Louise's eyes kept returning to that spot.
Smooth skin.
A few faint red marks from his own nails.
No wound.
No trace of the blade that she had watched pass through that exact place.
A cluster of students surrounded the bed.
The usual smell of antiseptic and herbs hung in the air, mingling with something sharper: fear, guilt, anger, all packed into one cramped room.
Ivan was nowhere to be seen.
He had been dragged out of the arena earlier, hauled away by a group of upper-year students under the supervision of a grey-faced Overseer.
Alex had gone with them, eyes dark, jaw tight, tension practically vibrating off his tall frame.
The Overseer had apologised again and again, bowing until her shoulders shook.
It hadn't helped.
It wouldn't.
Louise barely remembered the walk from the arena to the infirmary.
One second she had been gripping the railing so hard her knuckles turned white, watching Soren collapse and writhe in agony.
The next, she was here, standing at the foot of his bed with the others, the sound of his ragged breathing still echoing in her ears even though he was now unconscious.
"What's going on?"
Felix was the first to break the heavy silence.
He stood near the side of the bed, fingers flexing uselessly at his sides, hair slightly mussed from clenching his own head earlier.
His usual lazy smirk was completely gone.
Nobody answered him.
Because nobody had an answer.
They had all seen the same thing.
The sword.
The cut.
The impossible survival.
"The blade definitely went through," Esper muttered at last.
She was standing almost opposite Louise, hands still hovering near her mouth as if she were trying to physically hold back the memory.
Airael floated behind her, green eyes unsettled.
"I was right there. I saw it."
Her voice trembled on the last word.
Louise believed her.
Louise believed her because she had seen it too.
Not from Esper's angle, but from her own, high in the stands, close enough that the world had blurred around only that one point: the edge of the sword and Soren's neck.
"Then how the hell is he fine?" Felix snapped.
He sounded less like he was demanding an explanation and more like he was shouting at reality for refusing to make sense.
His fingers twitched with the urge to cast something, anything, but there was nothing to cast at.
The object of his confusion lay peacefully before them, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in slow, regular breaths.
No ruined throat.
No pool of blood.
Just a few dried tear tracks on his cheeks and a faint mark where fingers had scratched too hard.
Louise stared at his face.
He looked younger when he slept.
Almost like the boy she had met years ago in the Arden estate's garden, too thin, too pale, clutching a book that was far too heavy for him, stubbornly pretending he was fine even as he swayed on his feet.
"What's going on?" Felix repeated, softer this time.
Still, no answer came.
Until…
"This is similar to earlier," Amelia said quietly.
Her voice pulled everyone's attention.
She stood close to the bed, on the opposite side from Felix, arms folded beneath her chest.
Her tail was wrapped tightly around one leg, ears angled back.
"What do you mean?" Felix asked, frowning.
Amelia kept her gaze on Soren as she answered.
"After Carlen taught him, he screamed and collapsed. Back then, his eye looked like hers."
She tilted her chin toward Airael.
Everyone's eyes followed the motion automatically.
Airael, hovering beside Esper, blinked.
Esper glanced at the spirit, then spoke up, translating the stream of silent thoughts brushing against her own.
"Airael says that's not possible," she relayed, shaking her head. "She says Soren is human."
A strange quiet fell over the room at those words.
Lilliana, who had been lingering near the head of the bed, fingers clasped tightly in front of her, let her thoughts slip out before she could stop them.
"Is he, though…?"
Her lime green eyes widened immediately after the words left her mouth, as if she wished she could grab them and shove them back in.
Louise turned to her, brows drawing together, her voice a little sharper than usual.
"Are you saying he isn't?"
Her tone held no disrespect for her as a professor, but it was laced with a defensive edge that made it obvious who he was really speaking up for.
"No offence, Professor Roseblood, but don't we do tests when we enrol? To make sure nobody's a demon?" Felix asked.
Lilliana flinched slightly at the directness, then forced herself to straighten, cheeks colouring as she tried to organise her thoughts.
"Y-Yes, that's true," she said, biting her lip. "We do have tests to filter out demonic bloodlines. But there are ways around it. There are races that aren't demons but still face severe prejudice. Some of them hide their bloodline. Some… choose to register as human."
"But Soren is from a noble family," Louise interjected, unable to stay quiet any longer.
All eyes swung to her.
"I've known him since we were children."
Her gaze on Lilliana was sharper than she intended.
It wasn't that she truly believed the professor was accusing Soren of trickery.
But the implication, that he might not be who she had thought he was, not even on the most basic level, sat wrong with her.
The Arden name might have been a curse for Soren, but it was still his.
"B-But you all saw it!" Lilliana stammered, flustered. "He can use blood magic. He can cast while moving. There are… traits that don't match a normal human."
Her words tumbled over each other as if she was trying to prove that she wasn't simply throwing baseless speculation into the air.
"Uhm…"
The soft, hesitant sound came from near the back of the group.
Everyone turned.
Olivia, who had been quiet up to this point, wrung her hands together and looked back and forth between them, clearly nervous about speaking but unable to hold it in any longer.
"Does it really matter if he isn't human…?" she asked, voice small.
She swallowed, then continued, cheeks puffing out with quiet determination.
"I mean… Soren helped me. He was kind to me when almost no one else was. He listens when I talk. He worries about other people too much. I-It's just…"
She looked down briefly, then forced herself to meet their eyes again.
"Isn't it fine as long as he isn't a demon?"
The question hung in the air.
Simple.
Obvious.
And somehow more grounding than any complex theory.
Around the bed, shoulders slowly loosened.
Lilliana exhaled, some of the tension draining from her rigid posture.
Felix scratched the back of his head, grumbling something under his breath that sounded like,
"Yeah, I guess…"
Esper let her shoulders drop slightly, Airael's swirl of mana calming in response.
Even Louise felt some of the tightness in her chest ease.
Because Olivia was right.
There were elves on campus.
Dwarves.
Beastkin.
Rare races with stranger features than anything Soren had shown so far.
Whatever he was, or wasn't, had nothing to do with the fact that he was currently unconscious on that bed.
And there was another, more immediate question pressing on all of them.
"But why did that bastard do all of that?" Felix spat, anger flaring to the surface again now that the shock had somewhere to go. "Soren's never done anything to him."
"Did everyone hear the reasoning for the duel?" Louise asked, voice low.
The responses came one after another.
"Yeah! It was so stupid!" Esper burst out.
"Ren and I are friends…" Lilliana muttered, frowning at the memory of her name being dragged into the justification.
Amelia didn't say anything, but the way her tail tightened around her leg said enough.
The picture was clear.
Ivan had created a story in his head: a "low-ranked, shameless noble" playing with the affections of women "above his station."
A human stepping too far out of line.
A target that, if crushed publicly, would prove his own worth.
It was pathetic.
And it was unforgivable.
"I'll ask Papa to deal with him."
Amelia's words cut through the conversation like a blade through silk.
Everyone went still.
She had said it in her usual languid tone, almost casually, but there was nothing light about the promise contained inside.
Her "Papa" was not just some overprotective father.
He was a king.
One word from him could alter the balance of power in Ivansia.
Bringing him into a school duel, no matter how disastrous, was excessive by any standard.
But nobody argued.
Not because they all fully understood the consequences.
But because when they thought back to the image of Soren clutching his neck in agony on the arena floor, any instinct to tell Amelia to hold back simply… died.
"What Ivan did was inherently evil," Lilliana said softly, almost to herself. "Even in a duel, even among nobles… there are lines."
Nobody disagreed.
Even those who weren't especially close to Soren, like Olivia, who hadn't spoken to him for a while, or Esper, who had known him for less than a fortnight, felt the same heavy disgust toward Ivan's actions.
There were no excuses.
Not for "noble dignity."
Not for jealousy.
Not for some twisted idea of "saving a princess."
A nun in a simple white habit, who had been quietly checking Soren's pulse and breathing every few minutes, finally straightened and turned to face them.
"I am very sorry to all of you, but it would be best to give Student Soren some time to rest. If you would like, I can inform you all when he wakes up."
The dismissal was calm, but firm.
Felix opened his mouth as if to argue, then glanced back at Soren's sleeping face and thought better of it.
"…Yeah. Alright."
He stepped back from the bed, rubbing his face with both hands.
"I'll come back later," Esper said quietly, giving Soren one last look before turning away.
The usual playful lilt in her voice was nowhere to be found.
Airael floated after her, glancing back once, green eyes lingering.
Olivia bowed her head slightly, whispering a soft "Get well soon" under her breath before following the others out.
Amelia stayed a heartbeat longer than the rest, yellow eyes fixed on Soren's face.
Her fingers twitched, as if she wanted to reach out and touch his hair, but stopped herself.
"Don't die," she muttered under her breath, too low for anyone but Lilliana to hear.
Then she turned and left, tail swishing once behind her.
Soon, the only ones left were Louise, Lilliana, and the nun.
"Excuse me," Louise said, stepping a little closer to the bed. "Since I'm family… would it be possible for me to stay longer?"
Her voice was steady, but her hands were clenched in front of her skirt.
The nun studied her for a moment, then nodded.
"That should be fine as long as you leave before it gets too late. He needs a quiet environment."
"Thank you," Louise said, bowing her head.
Lilliana hesitated.
She looked like she wanted to say something, to protest, to insist on staying as well, but in the end, she simply nodded at Louise, eyes soft with worry.
"Please call me if anything happens," she said to the nun.
"I will."
With that, Lilliana left, closing the door behind her with a quiet click.
Silence settled over the room like a blanket.
Louise pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down slowly.
For a long moment, she didn't do anything.
She just… looked.
At his face.
At the slow rise and fall of his chest.
At the way his fingers twitched occasionally beneath the sheet, as if still caught in a nightmare he couldn't quite wake up from.
Her vision blurred.
Only when a hot droplet fell onto the back of her hand did she realise she was crying.
"It hasn't even been a year…" she whispered.
It had not been even a year since Freya had died.
It had not been even a year since the Arden estate had received the letter saying their eldest daughter had fallen in her final mission.
It had not been even a year since Louise had spent an entire night crying after Freya's visit.
And now here Soren was, lying still, surrounded by white sheets and the smell of medicine.
The same fear clawed at her chest.
The same helplessness.
"I'm so sorry, Soren…"
She reached out with a trembling hand and brushed his bangs away from his forehead, revealing his peaceful profile.
His lashes cast faint shadows over his cheeks.
He looked… tired.
Even in sleep, the faint lines of exhaustion were there.
"Please don't leave me," she whispered.
The words were selfish.
She knew that.
But if Soren had truly died in that arena today, if she had watched his head fall, watched his body collapse, Louise wasn't sure what would have been left of her.
Freya had been the person she admired most in the world.
Soren was the last piece of Freya she had left.
The last person she treasured without reservation.
She had tried to act composed around him.
To be the reliable older sister.
To be someone he could lean on without guilt.
But in reality, Louise just wanted to protect him.
To spoil him.
To wrap him in armour and keep the world from cutting him ever again.
Freya's last words rose unbidden in her mind, words spoken on a quiet evening, just before the older girl left for her final mission.
— Please, if anything happens to me, look after Ren.
Freya had laughed slightly as she said it, but there had been an earnestness beneath the joke that Louise hadn't fully understood back then.
— He's weak and can't be alone… He's almost like a rabbit, ahaha… but he's the sweetest. He deserves to be happy, so please, Lulu, take care of my brother.
It was the last serious conversation they had ever shared.
The next message had been a letter.
Louise swallowed hard, blinking away fresh tears.
She tightened her grip on Soren's hand carefully, mindful of his fragile bones.
"I'll do better," she murmured. "I promise."
Her voice steadied as she continued, speaking as much to herself as to the unconscious boy.
"I'll look after you properly this time, Soren. I won't just watch from far away. I won't assume you're fine just because you're smiling."
She lowered her head until her forehead almost touched the edge of the mattress.
"So… please…"
"Keep breathing."
Outside, the academy continued its usual evening routine.
Students laughed in the corridors.
The sun sank slowly behind the walls, painting the sky in soft orange.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell chimed the passing of another hour.
Inside the infirmary, Louise sat in silence beside Soren's bed, fingers wrapped around his, keeping quiet watch over the boy Freya had entrusted to her.
"I promise. I'll look after you better, Soren," she repeated softly, more to the memory of her friend than to the room itself.
————「❤︎」————