A woman—the catkin's wife—stumbled forward, her hands reaching for the headless corpse. Her face was a mask of anguish, tears streaming down her fur-covered cheeks. A small child clung to her dress, maybe seven years old, too young to fully understand but old enough to know her father was gone.

Leo glanced at them. His expression didn't change. Empty. Hollow.

He turned to leave.

Clink.

Something small hit his head. A pebble, barely larger than a marble. It bounced off his temple and fell.

Leo stopped. His eye twitched.

Slowly, very slowly, he turned around.

On a pile of rubble near a collapsed house stood a girl. His age, maybe slightly younger. Catkin, with silver-white fur and a tail that lashed behind her. Her eyes—bright yellow and swimming with tears—fixed on him with pure, undiluted hatred.

"You..." Her voice shook with rage. "You killed my father!"

She gasped for air, her whole body trembling. In her hand, she clutched another stone, as if that tiny rock could somehow avenge the man whose head lay separated from his body.

Leo's eyes narrowed. For the first time, something flickered in those yellow depths. Annoyance.

"Capture her."

The guards moved immediately, boots pounding toward the rubble pile. The girl gasped and ran, leaping from debris with feline agility. But she was young, untrained, driven only by grief and terror.

"Bella, run!" The wife—the mother—suddenly burst into motion. She grabbed her younger daughter with one hand and sprinted after the older one with speed that shouldn't have been possible. The air around her shimmered.

"She's an ability holder!" A guard shouted. "The woman—she has speed enhancement!"

They blurred through the burning streets, the mother's power pushing them faster than any normal human could follow. For a moment—just a moment—escape seemed possible.

Then the arrow came.

THUNK.

It punched through the mother's back, right between her shoulder blades. The steel tip burst from her chest. Her eyes went wide. Her enhanced speed cut off instantly.

They fell together, mother and daughters, tumbling across the bloodied cobblestones. The younger daughter rolled away, wailing. The older girl—Bella—tried to catch her mother, but momentum sent them sprawling.

"Mama!" Bella scrambled to her mother's side. Blood pooled beneath them, spreading fast. "Mama, no, please!"

The mother's hand lifted, shaking, and touched her daughter's face. Blood flecked her lips. "I'm... sorry..."

Heavy footsteps approached. The mother's eyes lifted, saw what was coming, and filled with despair.

"Bella... run..."

The sword came down.

CRACK

The blade cleaved through the mother's neck in one brutal stroke. Her head separated and rolled, coming to rest near her husband's, their dead eyes staring at each other across a sea of blood.

"M-MOOOTHEER—!!" Bella's scream could've shattered glass.

She stared at her mother's decapitated corpse, at the blood still spurting from the neck, at the head—her mother's head, the woman who'd sung her lullabies—lying in the dirt like garbage.

Something moved in her peripheral vision. She looked up.

Leo stood over her, sword in hand, blade now dripping red. His blonde hair glowed like a halo in the firelight. His yellow eyes gazed down at her with the same expression one might give an insect.

Nothing. He felt nothing.

"Third Prince Leo Wanhen Eldrian," a guard announced unnecessarily, as if the title mattered to a girl who'd just lost everything.

Leo stared at her. She stared back, yellow wide with shock, with grief, with a hatred so pure it burned.

He raised his sword again.

Bella didn't move. Couldn't move. Her body had given up. Her mind had shattered.

The blade caught the light as it lifted, preparing to fall.

And in that moment, as Leo's hollow yellow eyes met her broken yellow ones, the world held its breath.

Then—

"WAAAAHHHHH!"

A baby's cry shattered the silence. Sharp, piercing, the kind of wail that could make a grown man flinch.

Leo's sword stopped mid-swing. His eye twitched. His head turned toward the source of the noise—the younger daughter, the infant who'd rolled away during the fall.

She lay on her back near a pile of debris, tiny fists clenched, her mouth open as she screamed.

But something was wrong.

Light poured from the baby's body. Not reflected firelight or moonshine—something else entirely.

White-gold radiance that pulsed with each wail, growing brighter, stronger, like a heartbeat made visible.

Bella's vision swam. Blood loss, shock, grief—everything crashed down on her at once. But through the haze, she saw it too. Saw the light emanating from her baby sister. Saw the Prince's attention shift.

No.

'No.'

Not her too. Not Kira. Not the only family she had left.

"I hate this ridiculous noise." Leo's voice cut through the baby's cries, cold and irritated. He turned fully toward the infant, his bloodied sword still raised. "Shut her up."

He took a step toward Kira.

"No..." Bella's voice cracked. Her body refused to obey. Every muscle screamed in protest, locked up from trauma and exhaustion. "Don't... don't touch her..."

Leo took another step. The light from the baby grew brighter, almost blinding now. It swirled around her tiny form like a protective cocoon, pulsing with energy that made the air hum.

"Fascinating," Leo murmured, tilting his head. "An awakening? In an infant? How rare."

He raised his sword higher, preparing to bring it down on the glowing child.

Something inside Bella snapped.

Her body moved before her mind caught up. Pain vanished, replaced by pure desperate need. She scrambled to her feet, blood-soaked dress clinging to her legs, and ran.

Her hands scooped up Kira's tiny body, clutching her to her chest even as the light burned against her skin.

"I won't let you!" Bella screamed, her voice breaking. Tears streamed down her face, mixing with blood and soot. "Not her! Kill me instead! KILL ME!"

Leo's sword descended.

The light 'exploded'.

Bella's world turned white. The burning sensation against her chest intensified, spreading through her entire body like liquid fire in her veins.

She gasped, tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Her vision blurred—not from tears this time, but from something else. The light consumed everything.

Her mother's corpse. Her father's severed head. The burning buildings.

Leo's cold yellow eyes.

All of it vanished into pure, blinding radiance.

She felt herself falling—no, not falling. 'Moving.' Space bent around her, reality twisted, and for one impossible moment she existed everywhere and nowhere at once.

Then—

'Silence.'

Bella hit solid ground hard. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. She lay there, gasping, arms still wrapped around something small and warm.

Slowly, the white faded from her vision.

Trees. Tall, ancient trees with bark so dark it was almost black. A canopy of leaves blocked out most of the moonlight, letting only scattered beams through.

The forest floor was soft beneath her, covered in moss and fallen leaves. The air smelled of earth and pine and old growth.

Nothing like Ashvale.

Nothing like home.

Bella's arms tightened instinctively, expecting to feel her sister's small body against her chest. But her hands closed on empty air. The warmth was gone.

"K-Kira?" Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper. She sat up, ignoring the way her body protested, and looked around wildly. "Kira?! Where—"

Nothing. The forest stretched endlessly in all directions, silent except for the occasional rustle of wind through leaves. No baby. No crying. No light.

Panic clawed at her throat. Bella scrambled to her feet, spinning in circles, searching the shadows.

"KIRA!" She screamed now, not caring what might hear. "KIRA, WHERE ARE YOU?—!"

"Haah... Haah...!", Gasping within an old manor's room, seated while clutching her chest, her ragged clothes and messy hair a testament to her disturbed sleep, Bella felt her body trembling and her eyes widening as she saw someone seated near her.

"Y-YOU—!?"

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