Fern's breath still came quick from the battle, white fog curling in the cold air as Lüngar's body dissolved into nothing. His last words still clung to her mind… accusing,, disbelieving, right before the light left his eyes. Even a high demon capable of manipulating blood like threads snapped beneath true mana concealment.
She wiped her brow with the back of her sleeve.
Hopefully… Stark-sama was safe.
Hopefully he was winning.
He had to be.
She took one step toward the direction he had gone—
—and stopped.
Her fingers twitched around her staff as a pulse hit her senses. A mana light in the air. Soft. Wrong. Demonic.
"…A demon's mana," she murmured, her skin prickling.
She turned her head sharply toward the sky.
A small dot, drifting. No: moving. Cutting through the air in an uneven, wobbling line before adjusting itself. Definitely a person.
As it came closer, the outline became clearer: a small figure, feminine silhouette, strange dress fluttering, something clutched in their hands. Flying. Actively flying.
Her eyes widened a fraction.
That was—
"…Linie?" she whispered.
She blinked once. Twice. Her heartbeat kicked up. Linie wasn't supposed to be anywhere near here… she had been fighting with Stark-sama. So why was she in the sky? Flying?
Her throat went dry..
"Stark-sama…" Fern breathed, gripping her staff with both hands. "Please be alright…"
The demon girl soared closer, closing the distance with imbalanced speed. Fern's stance hardened. It didn't matter. Whatever reason, whatever explanation… she sensed odd mana. Thick. Wrong. Tainted.
Her fingers curled around the polished wood.
Her boots grounded into the soil.
Her breath steadied.
"…I'm sorry," she whispered, voice small but firm. "Stark-sama…"
Her staff rose.
Light gathered.
Her mana pulsed outward, strong, refined, merciless.
Regardless of who it was, she had just killed a high-ranking demon minutes ago.
She would not hesitate again.
"Zoltaraak."
A thin second passed.
Then a blinding blue beam lanced upward, swallowing the approaching demon girl whole.
A scream tore across the sky… raw, cracking, heavy enough to make the air shiver…
And then she evaporated into dust.
~/~
She screamed back into existence, lungs full of air she hadn't meant to inhale, stumbling on her feet as the forest stitched itself together around her like a cruel, familiar joke.
Same trees.
Same moon.
Same damp earth.
Same—
"…you've gotta be kidding me," she whispered.
Because right in front of her, dragging himself upright with that same shaky hatred, was the red-haired boy.
Again.
She had escaped.
She was flying away.
She had won this time.
She had—
A pain crawled up her nerves. Burning. Searing. The memory of that light beam shredding her body apart.
She clutched her chest.
No.
No way.
"Did… did he have accomplices?" she whispered, turning toward the sky she had just been in: before reality slammed back to her with a flat, merciless tone:
"Demons…"
The boy stood fully now, axe in hand, eyes hollow.
She didn't wait.
Didn't argue.
Didn't even breathe.
Not dealing with this moron again.
She clenched her axe, bent her legs—
and rocketed upward.
The wind swallowed her.
The trees shrank.
The ground blurred until the redhead was just a speck.
Up here—
Up here he couldn't reach her.
Up here she was—
"Face me here, demon!"
She froze mid-air.
That— that wasn't his usual script.
"W-what—?!" Subaru sputtered. "You can actually say more words?! You're not a broken NPC?!"
He stood below in the clearing, head tilted back, eyes locked on her, voice echoing sharp through the night. But she wasn't about to question dialogue trees.
She needed to escape.
She needed to leave.
She needed to—
A cold sensation traced across her shoulder.
Not pain.
Not heat.
Just cold.
She blinked.
Turned her head slightly.
Her brain lagged three full seconds before it processed what she was seeing—
Her right arm
was gone.
Completely.
From the shoulder.
"Eh…?" Subaru whispered.
Shock wrapped around her like ice.
She looked down.
The redhead stood below—
calm, steady—
holding a dagger dripping with her blood.
A dagger.
Thrown.
Up.
Over a hundred meters.
"How…?" Subaru croaked, voice cracking.
He didn't answer.
He threw the second one.
It cut through the air with a whisper, then buried itself deep into her abdomen, punching through flesh she barely recognized as her own.
Her breath hitched.
The sky tilted.
Her vision flickered.
She wanted to fly—
to run—
to do anything—
But dying had become an old friend.
A patient one.
One that always waited for her at the end.
And in the strange, dizzy softness of pain, she felt something almost warm rise inside her—
a tired, broken amusement.
Superman can fly. So can Homelander.
She knows which one she needs to be.
She gave him a weak, crooked grin.
"…next time…"
The last dagger flew.
Fast.
Precise.
Final.
"I'll fucking kill you all,"
It pierced her eye—
and her skull shattered like cracked glass—
and everything went black.
~/~
Subaru snapped into existence with a gasp: no confusion, no hesitation this time. The moment her feet touched the ground, she was already moving.
Her body felt electrified, instincts firing faster than her thoughts could form words.
She didn't waste even a heartbeat.
Her hand whipped forward, launching the axe straight at the boy's head just as he began rising from the dirt. The sound it made as it cut the air was sharp enough to make her flinch, and she didn't even wait to see if it hit.
She was already gone.
A burst of wind exploded beneath her as she shot into the air, blasting away in the opposite direction of where that nightmare beam had hit her last time. The memory of pain... of being erased in an instant: shoved her into a frantic, soaring sprint through the sky.
Branches blurred beneath her like streaks of shadow.
Leaves spun in spirals from the force of her takeoff.
Her heart hammered so hard it felt like it was trying to escape her ribcage.
Good.
Distance.
Distance was everything.
"No more resets, no more resets, no more—"
A sound cut through the night.
Thump.
She froze mid-flight and looked back.
He was following her.
Not on the ground.
Not struggling.
He was running... No, tearing through the forest, leaping from trunk to trunk with bone-snapping force, using branches like springboards. Every time his boots touched bark, it exploded under him.
And he was getting closer.
"What?!" Subaru shrieked, voice cracking. "No—no—NO—stop following me! You're supposed to stay down there! On the ground! Like a normal homicidal maniac!"
She tried to push herself faster, clenching her muscles and reaching for the same burst she used earlier when she rocketed into the sky.
Nothing.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
Her speed stayed the same: a brisk flying sprint, but nowhere near enough to outrun whatever monster of a boy was on her tail.
"Why am I capped now?! What kind of stamina system is this?! I didn't sign up for a flight cooldown!"
The wind screeched around her ears as she forced herself to stay steady, scanning in all directions. The forest stretched into a blur of dark green and silver moonlight.
Then her stomach dropped.
A prickle crawled up her spine.
Something was coming.
She jerked hard to the left and a dagger sliced past her cheek, the wind sting sharp against her skin.
"HEY—DON'T THROW THOSE AT ME—!"
She didn't even finish the sentence before the second one whistled toward her face. She twisted her body midair, her back bending almost in half as the blade missed her by centimeters.
Another dagger.
She saw the gleam too late.
"Sh—!"
It pierced her shoulder clean through.
Her breath caught in her throat as a hot bloom of pain spread down her arm, warm blood misting behind her in tiny droplets that sparkled in the moonlight.
But she didn't stop.
She didn't slow.
She didn't dare.
She forced her wings, uh, her legs— her whatever-this-body-used-to-fly to keep pushing, to keep driving forward, no matter how badly her nerves screamed.
"Not… dying… AGAIN!" she yelled, voice cracking.
She heard him shout something behind her, but she didn't look back. She didn't care. She couldn't afford to care.
Because suddenly—
The forest ended.
A massive lake spread out in front of her, black and glossy under the moon. She wobbled mid-air, nearly losing altitude, but managed to pull herself upward just enough to skim over the water's surface.
Ripples exploded beneath her as she passed, the cold spray hitting her legs.
She glanced back—
And nearly cried from relief.
The boy had stopped at the lake's edge, one foot sinking slightly into the mud as he glared up at her. His eyes were sharp, murderous—but he didn't leap. Didn't chase. Didn't throw another dagger.
He just… stared.
And stayed put.
Subaru almost screamed from joy.
"Yes—YES! Hah! In your FACE, reset-inator! I made it! I'm OUT! YOU CAN'T SWIM?! HA—HA—!"
She laughed in breathless, delirious glee, clutching her bleeding shoulder as she soared farther over the lake.
She had escaped the boy.
And that awful beam of death.
Finally, finally, she had a real chance to—
Subaru cleared the lake, panting in ragged bursts of relief, thrusters, or whatever new instincts kept her in the air, wobbling with exhaustion. Her shoulder throbbed like molten metal was buried under her skin, each beat of her heart pumping another sick pulse of pain down her arm.
But she was alive.
Alive and free—
Until the trees gave way to something impossible.
She drifted lower without meaning to, blinking rapidly.
An open field stretched beneath her. Vast. Wide. And filled. Not with crops. Not with grass.
But with soldiers.
At least… bodies shaped like soldiers.
Rows. Columns. Ranks stretching far into the night.
All wearing armor. All holding weapons.
All without heads.
"Um… what…" Subaru whispered, voice cracking like dry wood. "Why… why is this my life…"
They didn't move, didn't sway, didn't even breathe. Just stood there like abandoned dolls waiting for someone to pull their strings.
And in front of them—
Something moved.
A figure with long, magenta hair. Elegant armor clinging to her form. And… horns. Sharp, curved, a pale shade that caught the moonlight.
"Horns… she's got horns…" Subaru muttered, her voice rising in a shrill note of hope she immediately hated herself for. "A demon… like me? Does that make her… an ally…?"
Then she slapped her forehead, well, the side that still had an arm attached.
"No. Nope. Stop. You thought that with red-axe-murder-boy and he killed you a hundred times like it was his hobby. No trusting anyone. No cute horn solidarity. Just fly, idiot. Fly."
She started to turn—
Then she saw her.
Across the battlefield, standing alone against the army of headless horrors, was another figure.
Tall. Slim. Cloaked in pale cloth.
Silver hair dripping like moonlight down her back.
A real elf.
A real, actual, fantasy elf.
Holding a staff as if it weighed nothing, her mana faint.
Subaru nearly forgot how to breathe.
"Holy crap… she's gorgeous…" she whispered, mesmerized despite every instinct screaming danger. "A real elf… with a staff… and magic… whoa—"
The elf moved her hand.
Just a small shift of her fingers.
But the entire row of headless soldiers reacted, stumbling as though a force slammed into them.
She was fighting an army alone.
With magic.
Subaru hovered, stunned into silence—
Until the elf stopped.
Her body didn't turn.
Her head didn't tilt.
Just her eyes.
Cold, pale green eyes lifted upward…
And locked directly onto Subaru.
Even from this height.
Even through the distance of the field.
Even with a battlefield between them.
Those eyes hit Subaru like an ice bath poured straight through her soul.
Her stomach dropped.
Her throat clicked.
She felt her insides twist—
And—
"Oh no—no no no no—" Subaru squeaked.
She totally, absolutely, 100 percent just shit herself.
She didn't think.
She didn't breathe.
She didn't blink.
She just spun and flew—
faster than she ever had—
bursting away from the battlefield like a terrified comet.
She didn't care where she went.
She didn't care who she met.
She didn't care what direction was safe.
She just wanted away from those eyes.
Away—
A hum rose in the air.
Her skin prickled.
Oh.
Oh no.
Not again.
A familiar pressure locked around her chest.
A glow cut through the darkness.
She barely had time to whisper "please no—"
Before a massive light beam erupted from below, swallowing her whole.
Heat.
Pain.
The world turning white—
Then black—
Then nothing.
Her body disintegrated into dust…
Again.