[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Heart Kingdom Outskirts]

[Virelheim Mountain Village]

In life there were some fights you could feel slipping through your fingers long before the first blow landed. They were not always announced; more often they arrived as small misplaced things, hesitation when it mattered along with the slow settling of the world into its old, brutal pattern. The world had a way of showing you your place in it. Of dragging you through the dirt until you recognized every stain.

Gretel knew that truth by heart now. She pushed herself up from the ground in a slow, ragged motion, every movement protesting. Her rapier hung limp in her hand; the kick to her ribs still burned.

"You'll still fight, I suppose." Snow's voice was almost bored again. "I still can't fathom why you'd throw your life away. No doubt many here showed you what you assumed to be kind—"

"Just shut up." Gretel cut her off. She didn't want to hear Snow lecture about the villagers, about some twisted morality or fate. Gretel's palms trembled on the rapier's hilt — not from fear so much as from everything that had led to this.

She hated herself for stealing the artifact. She hated herself more for the consequences she'd set in motion. The image of three small faces — Meryl's snuffling grin, Arabella's scowl-turned-curiosity, Andrew's shyness — flashed in her mind and steadied something inside her that nearly gave way. This wasn't abstract anymore.

"Please," she whispered to herself. "Please, you three at least be okay." Gretel steeled herself as she glared at the Mortifer.

Snow said nothing as she continued.

"It's clear that you're a scumbag," Gretel said aloud. "You can tell yourself whatever reasons you had are justice. You no doubt think whatever you're doing as necessity. But there is no justification in taking lives unless it saves another. You save nothing. You only take. You call this justice and I—" She raised the rapier until the tip trembled, "—I will call what I am about to do justice as well. With this putrid power of mine, I will kill you."

The words came brittle. They were meant as a lance of courage. Gretel felt them wobble inside her. She had no illusions about her chances; she only had a current, poisoned resolve. Better to die trying than to stand and watch more mouths go quiet.

"You'll kill me, hmph." Snow's head tilted. "I knew the moment you challenged me you were a fool, but it seems you're a demented one." She tapped a finger lightly against her temple, the gesture absurdly casual in a field of corpses. "You should use that thing you call a brain, girl. The Retorta Guild's Mortifers are Nil. We are chosen. We carry seats given to us by our lady. We are not to be lumped in with other Nil."

Snow spoke it like a creed, like a mantle placed on shoulders by hands far above either of them. There was a finality in it — a world where some names carried entitlement, where orders and titles rewired what passed for conscience.

"And who are you?" Snow continued, voice like ice. "You are no-one. Nothing. Standing there and challenging me." The momentary crack in her façade grew teeth of its own; for the first time her composure leaned toward anger. "In death you will learn your folly. You shall save nothing today, you shall accomplish nothing today; you shall simply die and be forgotten." Her eyes flicked up to the upper platforms where a handful of survivors watched from shadowed doorways. "And again they watch. You fight for them and they merely hide away."

Gretel inhaled. She could feel the village's breath on her back; some faces peered through slats and windows, hollow and frightened. How could she blame them? She thought of the trades, the small kindnesses — the rare laughter, the bookstore's she'd visit with the children, their games — and the ruin these had become.

"You expect normal men, women and children to help?" Gretel spat, the words hot. "To stand in the open and fight like you? They are not soldiers. They have dinner to make and debts and fear. Do you think heroism is a thing you order people to have?" Snow's mouth flattened. "You expect them to run into blade and fire at my bidding?" she said, incredulous.

"No. That is precisely the point. They are not actors in a drama of conscience. They are flotsam to me. I strip away excuses and call the wreckage what it is."

"You're clever at phrases," Gretel muttered, shaking her head. "But that's hardly anything to be proud of."

Snow's expression hardened. "Hmph," she said. "Say what you want, girl. You will not have the luxury of speech any longer."

Without hesitation, Gretel raised her rapier, the tip gleaming faintly as she drove it straight through her own hand.

The sound was a sharp, wet crack, followed by the hiss of her breath being ripped from her lungs. Her body jerked with the shock, but she did not scream. Her eyes stayed fixed on Snow's, wild with pain but also with an eerie focus, as though the agony were necessary.

Snow's calm broke for a fraction of a second; her brows tightened, her lips barely parted. Surprise—not horror.

"What are you doing…?" Snow murmured.

Gretel didn't answer. She twisted the rapier free from her hand, letting blood spill in a thin stream that pattered against the ground. Then the stream thickened—shuddering.

The blood split into veins, then into ropes, then into writhing tendrils—glossy, and wet, hissing faintly as they tore through the air toward Snow.

The Mortifer reacted instantly. With a single motion she bent her knees and leapt as the first tendrils snapped upward, cutting through where she had just been, their edges sharp enough to leave gouges in the stone.

Snow twisted in midair, her body turning with grace. A single tendril grazed her shoulder, burning through fabric before she willed herself into a spiral, narrowly avoiding another that whipped past her thigh.

Below, Gretel's wound continued to pour forth—each drop of blood birthing another writhing strand that sought Snow. Her breath was already ragged but her eyes remained locked upward.

Snow landed lightly several meters away, her boots skidding across the ground. She let out a slow exhale, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

"So that's your Null Schema?" Her tone carried a blend of disdain and faint intrigue. "How messy. All that blood and anger… yet still so unremarkable."

Gretel didn't reply. Her expression didn't shift, didn't even flinch at the insult. The blood still hissed from her hand.

"Like I care what you think," Gretel finally said. "I'll still use this 'unremarkable' power to end you. No matter how much pain I need to experience."

Snow raised a brow. "You sound like every other desperate person I've killed. Always certain your brand of suffering makes you special."

Gretel said nothing as she kicked off the ground. The motion was sudden—the sound of her boots cracking the earth echoed. The tendrils surged forward again, lashing out in arcs to cover Snow.

Snow's reaction was instantaneous. Her eyes narrowed as she leaped upwards and twisted midair, pivoting her body to avoid the crimson streaks slicing past her. She felt the wind of them graze her cheek, leaving a faint sting.

Then Gretel was there—she'd used the pull of her own blood tendrils as leverage, launching herself skyward, straight toward Snow. Her rapier thrusting forward, aiming at Snow's throat—a strike that could end it if it landed.

Snow tilted her head, she moved with minimal effort, letting the blade pass beside her as she stepped into Gretel's blind angle. The two passed each other in the air.

They landed almost simultaneously, boots crunching over the rubble, both turning in the same instant to face one another again.

The distance between them was a breath—no more than a few strides. Gretel's blood dripped down her arm, splattering the ground. Snow's eyes followed the rhythm of those drops, and her voice came.

"You're going to bleed yourself empty, girl," she said. "Your conviction won't outlast your body."

("This is good.") Gretel told herself. Her palm still stung where her rapier had torn through. She let herself breathe in once. ("She still underestimates me, she still thinks my Null Schema is only blood manipulation. Now I only need to close the distance.") The plan was fragile—but it was a plan, and for now that was enough.

Snow's posture relaxed. She folded her hands behind her back as if there was no longer any danger "You're trying so very hard," she observed, voice flat.

"I don't expect the likes of you to understand." Gretel spat the words out.

"Oh, I understand very well." Snow's eyes were as dull as ever as she spoke. She let her gaze drift over the bodies, over the ruin, then settled on Gretel. "These villagers… I once had an obligation to protect them."

Gretel's face contorted—half incredulous, half bitter laugh. "What? Are you joking?" Her disbelief tasted like bile. "Obligated to protect them—then you slaughtered them. So what is it? A vendetta?"

Snow did not flinch. If anything, she seemed to fold a memory into her voice. "I am very serious. Though I doubt most here remember me, even if the fall of my kingdom didn't happen that long ago." It came out almost to herself. "Those who called that kingdom home deserve to be dealt with."

"Then this is all some kind of sick revenge?" The question burst from Gretel before she could weigh it. Her chest shook; she braced herself with the rapier's pommel. "Fine, viewing things your way there are innocents here, people who never swore allegiance to whatever throne you served. You're cutting down everyone for the crime of being alive. That's just madness."

Snow tilted her head, not in confusion, but appraisal. "If they're affiliated with those here then is that not reason enough to cull them?" Her voice was soft now. "A weed in a garden spreads rot unless root and stem are burned."

Gretel found the logic obscene. She looked at Snow hard enough to try to find a crack—anything that suggested the Mortifer's resolve was paper-thin, bought with hurt. There was none. ("This woman… is merely insane,") she thought. Insane and terrifyingly rational.

She tightened her grip. The blood along the rapier's groove caught the light and bled red into the air as she moved her hand in a single arc. From her palm a small wave of viscous droplets tore free—hurtling straight for Snow at surprising speed.

Snow did nothing to avoid it. Gretel's heart lurched: this surrender—was it complacency or arrogance? As the wave neared the blood froze inches from Snow as if the world had hit a stop.

"It is a putrid power I admit," Snow said, extending one index finger into the hanging mass. The touch should have been macabre; instead it was pure in an odd way. The blood did not hiss or recoil—it shuddered, reconstituted, and cleared. Within a breath the crimson had gone, replaced by water: clear and pristine.

Gretel's jaw dropped. The water curled around Snow as if drawn to a center; the droplets glinted. Snow's lips twisted into a smile that did not reach the hardness in her eyes. "But if this is all you have to offer then you're better off killing yourself and saving me the trouble," she said, and the contempt in her voice left no room for pity.

The water snapped apart. Hundreds—no, thousands—of tiny, razor-sure spheres detonated outward, a hail that became a constellation of strikes. Gretel's whole body moved before her thought did. She rolled, felt droplets scythe the air where her head had been a heartbeat earlier. Several slammed into the ground nearby; loose stone blew outward, creating radial fractures that crawled under her boots. One struck a half-standing post and sent it splintering into slats.

"Shit!" Gretel swore, kicking up grit as she lunged clear. The projectiles chewed a path through the plaza, leaving new wounds in the already-opened village.

Snow watched her, calm: "Now, let me show you your mistake, girl."

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