Their pinkies slowly separated.

The space between their hands felt warmer than it should have, like embers left behind after a flame was gone. Aubrelle drew her arm back, careful, measured, as if any sudden movement might betray how flustered she still felt.

The color remained on her cheeks.

It crept beneath the bandage that hid her eyes, spreading softly, like dusk bleeding into the horizon. She stood very still, focusing on her breathing, smoothing it out one inhale at a time. Not rushed. Not obvious. Or at least, that was the intent.

This wasn't the first time Trafalgar had done this to her.

The memory surfaced on its own. That quiet room. His voice, calm and sincere, telling her her eyes were beautiful. Even with the scar. Especially with it.

She had left immediately after that. Too flustered to stay. Too certain he hadn't seen the color rise to her face.

And now, here, under the cover of night and open sky, she believed the same thing again.

Darkness protected her.

Or so she thought.

What Aubrelle didn't know was that Trafalgar's gaze cut through the night with ease.

The Primordial Body sharpened his senses far beyond what any common race possessed. Shadows lost their meaning to him. Subtle shifts in posture, the faint tension in her shoulders, the warmth blooming beneath the bandages, all of it reached him as clearly as if the world were bathed in daylight.

He noticed.

He simply chose not to say a word.

A thought crossed his mind, unbidden, quiet and almost sheepish.

'If I knew it would embarrass her this much, maybe I shouldn't have said it.' Then, softer, more honest. 'But… it really was cute.'

Another realization followed, gentler still.

She was almost eighteen.

He was the one nearing seventeen.

For a moment, that simple truth grounded him, like cool water on overheated skin.

Aubrelle finished steadying herself, her breathing evening out at last. The effort made her gestures a touch awkward, movements just like someone trying to walk across ice without slipping.

Trafalgar turned his face away slightly and pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, holding back a laugh that never quite reached the surface.

After a heartbeat, she spoke again.

"Remember," Aubrelle said softly, her voice composed once more, "you promised. You can't tell anyone. Please."

Trafalgar glanced back at her hand, then lifted his own with exaggerated care. He extended his pinky again, mirroring her earlier gesture, a faint smile touching his lips.

"Pinky promise," he said lightly. "You remember, right?"

The color on Aubrelle's face deepened, like a rose catching sudden sunlight. She cleared her throat, nodded once, and straightened.

"…Yes. Pinky promise," she replied. "Right. I was at—"

Her voice steadied.

And with that, she stepped forward into the memory once more.

The closeness lingered behind them, fragile and human, like glass left warm by touch, just before the story descended back into fire.

The memory swallowed her whole.

The Ritefield no longer smelled of wet earth or churned blood. The ground beneath her vision was no longer brown or red, but drowned in blue. Fire spread in waves, not flickering, not fading, but rolling forward like a living tide that refused to die.

Flames clung to everything they touched.

They did not go out.

They crawled.

Where Aubrelle advanced, the fire followed, flowing around her presence as if she were its current. The battlefield became an ocean of blue heat, vast and merciless, its surface broken only by bodies thrashing within it.

The lycans screamed.

Their voices tore through the air, sharp at first, then breaking apart as pain stole their breath. Skin split and peeled away, muscle blackened and fused, fur curling into ash before it could even burn. Some threw themselves into the mud, clawing at the ground in blind panic, smearing filth over their bodies in desperate attempts to smother the flames.

It did nothing.

The fire did not care for water or earth. It burned through both as if they were only suggestions.

Above it all, wings unfolded.

Pipin no longer wore the shape he used to watch and scout. His true form filled the sky, colossal and radiant, a being closer to legend than beast. His body resembled a phoenix carved from living sapphire, feathers trailing fire instead of light. Each beat of his wings shed flames that breathed, twisted, and hunted.

The air itself warped around him.

Stone softened. Structures sagged and ran like wax left too close to a forge. Wherever Pipin passed, the world reshaped itself under the pressure of his presence.

This was a Unique Familiar.

One of the strongest known to exist.

And Aubrelle was the one holding the reins.

The cost came immediately.

Mana poured out of her like water through cracked glass. Every breath felt heavier than the last, each step dragging more than her body should have allowed. Her talent kept her standing, her control kept Pipin bound to her will, but the drain was merciless. It chewed through her reserves with no regard for tomorrow.

Still, she did not stop.

Around her, the other summoners moved in unison. More than two hundred familiars answered their calls. Beasts of fang and scale. Monsters of shadow and horn. Creatures born of pact, instinct, and will. They surged forward together, a living wall of summons pushing back against the chaos.

That push was enough.

It tore a hole through the pressure choking Karon's forces. Space opened. Breath returned. Lines that had been moments from collapse found room to move again.

On the edge of that opening, Karon struck.

The lycan captain never saw it coming.

Distracted, turned just enough toward the sudden shift in the field, he left his guard open for a heartbeat. That was all Karon needed. Steel flashed. Roots surged. The blow ended the fight before it could begin.

For a moment, just a moment, it felt like the tide had turned again.

Like the scales were finally tipping back.

But Aubrelle felt the weight settling deeper in her chest.

Power like this did not come without consequence.

And even as the flames obeyed her, even as the battlefield bent around her will, guilt burned alongside the fire.

It came from behind the smoke.

At first, Aubrelle thought it was just another lycan stumbling through the chaos—wounded, disoriented, dragged forward by instinct alone. But the longer she watched through Pipin's eyes, the clearer it became that something was wrong.

Its movements were wrong.

Too stiff in some moments. Too loose in others. Like a body being pulled by strings that didn't quite match its joints. It walked without urgency, without fear, without pain. Each step landed with purpose, yet there was no intent behind it—only continuation.

Its eyes were empty.

Vacant, like windows left open in a house long abandoned.

A rule echoed in Aubrelle's mind, old and absolute, drilled into every heir and commander worth listening to:

If you see something like that—run.

No hesitation. No heroics. No second chances.

Because that wasn't a wounded soldier.

It was a carrier.

Contaminated by Icarus di Valtaron.

A living vessel for a plague twisted and sharpened by a unique talent—one that did not spread blindly, but chose. A sickness that hollowed out the will first, leaving the body behind as nothing more than a delivery system.

Karon saw it at the same time.

His blood ran cold.

"Retreat!" he roared, voice reinforced with mana, tearing through the battlefield like a breaking bell. "All units—fall back! Now!"

This wasn't a tactical loss. This wasn't pride or positioning.

This was survival.

The order rippled outward, sharp and absolute. Lines broke—not in panic, but in grim obedience. Soldiers turned and ran, dragging the wounded when they could, abandoning ground they had just reclaimed.

Behind them, the thing kept walking.

Aubrelle felt her mana screaming.

Still, she raised her cane.

"Pipin," she whispered. One word. A plea wrapped in command.

The great blue phoenix turned in the air.

Flames gathered, dense and brilliant, spiraling inward before erupting forward in a single, focused torrent. Blue fire crashed down over the lycan vessel, swallowing it whole. Heat warped the air, the ground cracking beneath the intensity.

The fire burned.

And burned.

And burned.

The creature did not scream.

It did not flail. It did not beg. Wrapped in living flame, its flesh blackened and split, yet it kept moving—one step, then another—until the fire finally reduced it to something unrecognizable.

Only then did it fall.

By then, it was already too late for many.

In the retreat, wounded soldiers were left behind. Those with shattered legs. Those too slow to keep up. There was no cruelty in the decision—only the brutal math of war. Staying meant more would die.

Aubrelle saw them through Pipin's eyes.

One of them—a lancer—lay in the mud, breath coming in sharp, broken pulls. His legs wouldn't move. His hands shook too badly to grip his weapon properly.

He understood before anyone told him.

With what strength he had left, he lifted his spear.

And drove it into his own neck.

The body went still.

The battlefield did not pause for him.

That was how the Battle of the Ritefield ended.

An overwhelming defeat for the Sylvanel and their allies.

A victory for the Thal'Zar, claimed with almost no losses of their true forces.

The memory loosened its grip.

The blue fire faded into night air and silence, replaced by the gentle hum of the flying vessel cutting through the sky.

Aubrelle's thoughts lingered on the lancer.

On his final choice.

On the family that would never know how he died.

'Poor lancer,' she thought.

'Poor lancer, left behind.'

'Poor lancer, forced to choose.'

'Poor lancer, dying afraid.'

'Poor lancer…'

And then, inevitably—

'Poor family.'

Beside her, Trafalgar's voice was quiet. Flat. Unadorned.

"Weak."

The word hung between them.

Aubrelle did not flinch or argue with him.

Because deep down, she knew it was true.

The lancer. The soldiers. Everyone who had died there.

They had all been weak.

And the world had punished them for it.

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