For Internal Students
“I know,” Yukari-chan said. Her voice was thin now, like paper held up to a flame. “But the Spire is safe. You’re safe.”
By the sixteenth, the outer wards had fallen. The Praetor’s war-golems—each one a three-ton statue of animated black iron—had smashed through the inner bailey. The Royal Guard had given ground, room by bloody room, until only the Spire’s apex remained.
And somewhere, in the space between moments, a girl in a white tunic sat cross-legged on nothing at all, her faded cloth doll in her lap, and smiled back.
Yukari-chan reached down and picked up her cloth doll. It was stained now—with her blood, with his. She tucked it back into her belt. Royal Guards of Ethyria -Final- -Yukari-chan- F...
She moved again. Three strikes. The first severed the tendons in his right wrist. The second opened his throat—not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to drown him in his own blood if he didn’t retreat. The third…
“You’re burning out,” he said. “How many more times can you do that? Two? One?” He drew his own blade—a massive cleaver of black glass, humming with necrotic energy. “The White Shadow technique kills its user, doesn’t it? Every time you cut a thread of fate to avoid a blow, you cut a thread of your own life.”
“I know,” she said.
“Tell your master,” she whispered, “that the last White Shadow is gone after today. But her successor will be kinder. And kinder things last longer than cruel ones.”
The smile lasted longer than the rest of her. For a full minute after her body had faded into morning light, the Princess swore she could still see it—a curve of gentle defiance, hanging in the air like a promise.
But Yukari-chan was bleeding.
Yukari-chan laughed—a soft, surprised sound. “You can. But the universe doesn’t take orders from princesses.”
“Behind!” Sera shouted.
Yukari-chan looked at him. Really looked. And for the first time, something like sorrow crossed her face. “I know,” Yukari-chan said
She knelt beside him.