The battles raging across every corner of the city were gradually beginning to subside.
The damage wrought upon the various areas that had served as battlefields was severe, and there were far from a few locations that had sustained blows devastating enough to cripple the city's infrastructure.
That fact alone served to illustrate the sheer magnitude of the crisis that had befallen the city of
Yet amid this landscape of catastrophic destruction, there existed a single battlefield of an entirely different color.
Or perhaps calling it a battlefield was not quite fitting.
Here, there was nothing but the ceaseless ringing of clashing steel, white blades flickering as they sought only each other's lives.
Having pared away everything superfluous, directing their tips toward nothing but the barest, truest object of their desire — two swordsmen engaged in a clumsy, desperate dance of mutual pursuit.
"————"
The flashing blades still reflected the moonlight as the swordsmen exchanged love through steel.
The sharp ring, the scattering sparks, white hair and crimson hair dancing beneath the moon — all of it a sword dance so exquisitely refined that it captivated the eyes and seized the hearts of any onlooker, enough to bring even the Sword God to his knees in admiration.
From the longsword's fluid, water-like movements, no one could have imagined such ferocious destructive power.
The twin blades' rapid-fire counterstrikes that whipped the wind into a frenzy were like bolts of lightning tearing through the sky.
"————"
As though performing a choreography long since committed to memory, the two blades locked together again and again.
Wilhelm received the blows of the beautiful young Theresia before his eyes head-on, answering in kind with strikes of his own, and found lament in the feel of the blade's resistance against his palms.
From the deepest reaches of his body, what welled up was the applause of his own heart — still immature, still lacking, even after all these years.
He was burning.
He was rejoicing.
He was radiant.
Let me be honest, and let me say it plainly.
The Sword Devil Wilhelm looked back upon those days of old, and he yearned — yearned so fiercely it felt as though his very heart would burn away — for this moment, here and now, where he could cross blades with the young, still-beautiful wife he remembered.
The desire grew so consuming that he could almost throw everything away, if only this sword dance, this tryst, would never end.
"But—"
Such self-indulgence — even harboring it was an act of blasphemy.
Blasphemy against the endless days Wilhelm had devoted to the sword.
Blasphemony against the vow that had allowed him to defeat and claim Theresia — the former Sword Saint.
Blasphemy against his loyalty as a swordsmen, and the deep debt of gratitude he owed his liege.
The love burning in
Therefore, the decisive clash must not be postponed.
No matter how blissful this paradise might feel for the Sword Devil.
"————"
"Daaaaahhh!!"
Silent blade-flashes surged like a storm, met by countless counterstrikes.
With her long crimson hair streaming behind her, Theresia flipped her white robes as she moved without a trace of hesitation.
Like a leaf borne along the current, the lethal sword was launched from a place of absolute natural ease.
Up, down, left, right — the death-dealing strikes chose no particular angle.
And yet, even as he layered slash upon slash, Wilhelm felt a faint sense of unease. The understanding that came with it, too, he received through the feedback of blade against blade.
There was no denying that even during Wilhelm's physical prime, this was a realm he could never reach in a contest of pure swordsmanship alone.
Now, the blade of the silent Theresia facing him truly harbored that same transcendent skill.
The art of a Sword Saint who showed no mercy in dispatching her adversaries, and who brought an almost ecstatic sense of relief to those under her protection.
And yet — there was a critical difference between the Theresia of now and the Theresia of then.
"————Light."
The twin blades and the longsword collided head-on, and sparks flew with a screech of grinding steel.
Engaging in a contest of leverage, Wilhelm glared at the blue eyes visible on the far side of their crossed weapons.
"Light beyond comparison, Theresia. —Is this what happens when you lay down your burden? Your sword has become this light?"
"————"
His words carried a measure of disappointment, yet the beautiful face did not so much as twitch a single brow.
Theresia stared back at him with those clear blue eyes, now devoid of any emotion.
There was no rebuttal, no animosity, no hostility.
She had been a woman who laughed freely, raged freely, sulked freely.
Silent, she was a woman as beautiful as a blade — but she was almost never silent.
She had been like a great blooming flower basking in the sun.
And now, she was nothing but sorrowful.
"————"
Only the empty shell of his silent wife stood before him.
Every time he crossed blades with this beloved figure from the past, Wilhelm's heart was torn in a thousand ways.
He bounced back as though the old days had returned, then faded as he realized they never could, and drifted into a doze in a fleeting dream because he could not let them go.
— Fifteen years. What kind of days had Theresia lived through?
When he thought of the time he had spent seeking vengeance after losing her, Wilhelm's unhealing wound made itself known.
The wound inflicted by the Blessing of the Death God could never vanish.
It was a blessing separate from the Blessing of the Sword Saint — a grace that Theresia had received from the Sword God to bring an end to those days of war, one could even say.
A single cut birthed a river of blood; a dazzling slash built a mountain of corpses.
Therefore, no petty trickery was needed whatsoever to sever a life.
To defeat Theresia, there was no way but to acquire swordsmanship that surpassed her own.
The Wilhelm of old had pared himself down to the extreme, pushing himself through an ascetic ordeal so severe it turned his very being into a sword, and had achieved it in the end.
To defeat Theresia — who, under the Blessing of the Sword Saint, had drawn out her swordsmanship to its absolute limit — there had been no other way.
And now, crossing blades with the Theresia of her youth, Wilhelm understood.
—Her swordsmanship was exceptional, honed to the peak of mastery. But within that power, there lay a vast shadow.
"I used to worry before gripping the sword, but once I held it, I stopped worrying. You were a woman who understood that far better than I."
"————"
"Do you remember our farewell? During the Great Campaign, you broke free from my grasp and carved this wound into my shoulder. —I have not forgotten a single word you said that day."
There was no reply. He did not expect one.
This was merely Wilhelm's own private ritual, looking back on that day.
Together with the pain in his shoulder, the memory carved into his flesh resurfaced.
When departing on the Great Campaign — a journey from which he might never return — Theresia had pushed Wilhelm away, literally, and said: —When you come back, you have to tell me the words you didn't say that day.
"I've come to fulfill that promise from that day—!"
The twin blades howled as Theresia's longsword was deflected.
The former Sword Saint utilized even the recoil of that impact to swing again, but Wilhelm did not even bother watching the counter — he read the trajectory and evaded.
He knew.
Where the blade would come from. It was almost painfully, unbearably endearing.
"Haaaaah!"
The habits were the same. The techniques were the same.
The sword of the Sword Saint — the very form he had envisioned and chased through the depths of his soul, during that savage ordeal that scraped away at his very spirit.
He had sworn to surpass it, to seize it, and had yearned to reach that level, yearned until his soul was on fire.
She looked exactly like the woman who had set his heart ablaze.
"————"
Even Wilhelm's impassioned plea could not so much as disturb the crimson beauty's composure by a hair's breadth.
Silent, speechless, emotionless blade-flashes lanced forth, and Wilhelm shot every single one of them down.
He had loved her enough to recognize her strikes with his eyes closed.
And so now, without closing his eyes, he would gaze upon her and love her to the very end.
"—!"
— Upper, counter, thrust, rising slash, kesa-giri.
He caught the descending blade, deflected the counter with a flowing motion, dodged the thrust, twisted his body away from the rising tip, and caught the kesa-giri in his crossed twin blades before turning the exchange to offense.
By overwhelming her in sheer number of movements, he forced strain into Theresia's sword speed.
Unable to endure, Theresia retreated, and into the gap that opened Wilhelm plunged without hesitation.
"————"
For an instant, emotion flickered through Theresia's eyes as they fell upon the Sword Devil.
No — it was an illusion. His weak, sentimental heart had merely dredged up a memory from a time when the very same situation had occurred.
—Before the eyes of countless citizens, Wilhelm had defeated the "Sword Saint," the very centerpiece of the ceremony, and stolen Theresia the girl from the Sword God himself.
This was an exact reproduction of that moment.
Then the outcome, too, would be— "Theresia—!!"
Wilhelm dove in, and the longsword met him head-on.
The Sword Devil deflected it with his twin blades, the stress causing fractures to spider across the blade. But at the same time the longsword was launched straight upward, leaving Theresia's entire left side exposed.
In a great sweeping arc, the twin blades came back around.
From the start of this tryst until now, Theresia had never been this open. Wilhelm's arm muscles swelled, his grip so tight on the hilts that the metal groaned.
And with every ounce of strength, he would end this reunion that should never have been— —Would end it.
"—!"
The surge of emotion clogged his throat, and every emotion flashed across his widened eyes.
Tearful, furious, sulking, smiling — every face the same, every one the face of the woman he adored.
Shaking them all off, Wilhelm brought the blade down.
The slash raced straight toward the woman's neck and torso— "————"
At the very last instant before the blade would connect, a figure entered the corner of Wilhelm's eye.
In the midst of absolute concentration, this flicker of awareness should have been impossible. But in the end, that was all it was — something trivial, something that could be ignored.
In a life-or-death duel where two swordsmen wagered everything, there was no room for a third party.
He should have poured everything into the existence before him and achieved his goal with a strike befitting the Sword Devil.
He should have done that. He could have done that.
—If only that figure had been a complete stranger.
"...Father?"
The distance was too great.
A whispered question with that bewildered ring should never have reached Wilhelm's ears.
And yet the voice came through as clearly as if spoken right beside him.
A red-haired man with blue eyes, staring straight toward him.
The desperate sword duel between his own father, Wilhelm, and his mother, Theresia — its lethal conclusion — he watched with vacant, blank eyes.
—In that instant, the blade's flash dulled.
"—!"
It should have been the decisive blow.
The strike that would have tilted the tide of the duel and ended this long dream — that flash wavered, creating an opening for counterattack.
"————"
Theresia twisted her body back, and the longsword returning with a snap of her wrist knocked the twin blades aside.
The shriek of steel against steel rang out. The strike that should have guaranteed a fatal blow devolved into a sloppy, unfocused exchange, scattering sparks and drifting further from its purpose.
"Kuh...!"
—Why had he noticed?
Catching the sweeping slash and softening its weight with all his strength, Wilhelm collided head-on with the doubt rising in his chest.
If he had not noticed Heinkel, or had been able to ignore his presence, or had focused entirely on Theresia — he would never have let himself look this wretched.
He had been prepared to wager his entire life to take Theresia from the Sword God.
And this sorry state was the result of that grand resolve?
Once more, the light, rhythmic sound of clashing steel resumed.
But the transparent, crystalline exchange of earlier — that sword dance — was already lost.
Impurities had seeped in.
They had poured everything they had into each strike, raising the purity of steel with every exchange, but the illusion of two blades that existed as one had vanished into the distance.
What remained was a single aging Sword Devil, clashing with the wife he loved in front of his own son.
Unable to become a sword, unable to even remain the Sword Devil — insufficient as a father, as a husband, as a swordsman, as a man. He was aware, now, of his own inadequacy in all things.
He could not prevent impurity from seeping into the fighting spirit he should have poured into his blade.
Perhaps this outcome had been inevitable after all.
"—!?"
Both blades were knocked downward, and the successive impacts sent a shudder through his straight sword.
Caught in a contest of raw strength with Theresia — who was rooted to the spot, absorbing every ounce of his offensive power with unflinching honesty — Wilhelm drove forward, and at the moment he was about to push through, her slender body pivoted, and a void opened before him.
His front foot shot forward, and a half-step gap was born.
"————"
Immediately after, he felt death bearing down from behind.
He caught the super-powered slash aimed dead straight at his back with his sword, swinging it around not a heartbeat too late.
The staggering impact would not be stopped. The flat of the blade he received dug deep into his own shoulder. He stomped, stumbled forward, and blood sprayed from his mouth. Bones ground, and the tearing of muscle sent lightning crackling through his brain.
He had caught it with the right blade. The left blade remained.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and Wilhelm used the right blade to lever Theresia's longsword upward again, shoulder-ing the force.
His aim was true — the longsword rose above Theresia's head.
At the same instant, the sword slipped from Wilhelm's right hand. No matter. If his right hand was empty, he would pour his soul into the remaining left blade and drive it home.
A left-handed slash into Theresia at his back.
It traced a clockwise arc, the ferocious cut driving straight toward Theresia— "————"
Sparks flew.
And then the shrill ring of steel.
The weight of the steel in his hand halved, and Wilhelm was forced to confront his own blunder — and the weakness he had already recognized many times over during this fight.
In the instant he had driven his blade into Theresia, Wilhelm had unconsciously made a choice.
Which direction to release the blade in his left hand — counterclockwise, or clockwise.
A trivial, almost inconsequential difference.
But at the same time, for two swordsmen who had reached the pinnacle, it was a fatal distinction.
Speed in choosing left, or power in choosing right.
If he had simply hesitated over that choice and erred, there might still have been salvation.
But Wilhelm had wavered for a single, decisive instant over whether or not to face Theresia head-on.
"————"
The blow of the Sword Devil struck the single blade that should have already left Wilhelm's hand.
Theresia snatched it from the air and inserted it into the arc of his strike.
The moment their blades caught and froze against each other, the longsword came crashing down. It slid along the flat of Wilhelm's sword and sheared through the steel without any resistance at all.
The longsword's strike split the blade, and Wilhelm realized his weapon was gone. Instinct — the reflex of a swordsman — made him clutch the broken hilt and ready himself for the next blow.
But even that resolve was only effective to the degree that a gap in pure swordsmanship allowed.
And in that sense, the woman before him was the worst possible opponent.
A Sword Devil without a sword, facing the "Sword Saint" beloved by the Sword God.
The difference was absolute, and needed no words.
—in a blinkless instant, Wilhelm watched the longsword pierce through his right leg.
"————"
It was a breathtakingly beautiful strike.
The blade passed clean through the old swordsman's right hip, the tip stained with no more blood than was strictly necessary.
Without causing unnecessary destruction, threading between muscle fibers and nerves, it stripped away only the function of the leg — a display of supreme swordsmanship.
The sensation of offering no resistance at all, like plunging a blade into water.
Experiencing it through his own right leg sent a shiver down Wilhelm's spine.
Whether that sensation was yearning, frustration, or love — even he could not say.
All he knew was the reality of defeat being thrust upon him.
"Guh...!"
The blade buried in his right leg slid, and his knee split vertically.
Just as it had entered without a sound, it withdrew from the flesh just as silently. Wilhelm groaned at the pain that arrived belatedly and crumpled.
Blood poured from the wound in his leg, and strength drained from his lower body.
When the power of the Blessing of the Death God activated, no healing magic could mend the wound. The closer the distance between the Blessing's owner and the wounded, the greater the effect — even a trivial injury would become a curse that slowly gnawed away at the victim's life, forcing endless bleeding.
"————"
The wound to Wilhelm's right leg was far from minor. Left alone, it was deep enough to kill, and the Blessing of the Death God would forcibly deny any recovery.
He should have read it as a deadline set far too short.
"...How futile."
Even as his brain was seared by pain, a sigh escaped before any groan could.
His senses of pain screamed under the relentless, violent stimulus, but Wilhelm himself registered it only as a slight furrowing of his brow.
It was not endurance. It was not stubbornness.
No matter what, the sharp pain of physical injury could not overcome the darkness that engulfed his soul.
When disappointment, dejection, and disdain for himself were burning his spirit to ash — how much could physical pain possibly mean to this old swordsman?
"————"
He let the sword fall from his hand and pressed his palm to the wound.
Bleeding was the draining of life, but the defeated had no intention of tidily stemming it. He merely felt that, as a matter of propriety, he should avoid the kind of end that came from bleeding to death.
To fight as a swordsman, to resist as a swordsman, to be defeated as a swordsman — then the defeated man's life should be claimed by the victor's blade.
"Theresia, I..."
"————"
The crimson-haired swordswoman, the longsword resting on her shoulder, looked down at Wilhelm.
Her eyes, as before, held not the slightest trace of emotion. She had recalled nothing to the very end, thought of nothing — a blade-wielding death god who would now harvest Wilhelm's life.
He looked up at her impossibly beautiful face.
Theresia slowly raised her sword before Wilhelm. When that blade fell, his life would end.
But— "I won't... I won't let you go alone—!!"
In the instant the longsword descended, Wilhelm reached out with his right hand. There — one half of the twin blades, the blade Theresia had discarded — lay on the ground.
Wilhelm caught it with his fingertips, clinging on with the same stubborn refusal to die that had carried him to the very end.
Defeat — that was fine. That was unavoidable.
But he could not die here, leaving Theresia behind. Not her.
He could not stop his wife, who was being forced to wield her sword, with his own hands — and yet he would not allow her to be sent to face the great benefactors, Crusch and Subaru.
If burning through this life was not enough, then he would gladly sacrifice his soul in the afterlife.
—And yet, that final, resolute flash— "————"
"Theresia...?"
Mid-guard, Theresia had leaped a great distance backward.
Beyond the range of even the thrust of the blade clutched in her right hand. Positioned well beyond Wilhelm's reach, given his injured leg, Theresia tilted her head ever so slightly.
Those emotionless eyes — seeing the horribly vacant color in them, Wilhelm felt fear for the very first time.
It was the kind of fear that struck at instinct — at the very core of Wilhelm's being as a swordsman.
The cold, dispassionate judgment of a death god who felt no need to finish off a prey that was already mortally wounded.
A death god who held no pride as a swordsman.
"Wait... Wait, Theresia!!"
Overwhelmed by the terror of being left behind, Wilhelm screamed.
His leg did not hurt. Forgetting the pain in his right leg, Wilhelm tried to chase after the retreating Theresia. But even without pain, the wound was real. He could not put weight on it and collapsed. He struck his shoulder hard against the ground, but the old swordsman lifted his face — would he be allowed this much?
Theresia, her crimson hair swaying, drifting further away.
And in the direction she was headed, Heinkel stood frozen, petrified.
The longsword, still brimming with killing intent, had fixed upon him as its next prey.
To cut down a man who was not her husband, and then cut down a man who was not her son — and for that purpose— "Stop, Theresia! How can you... How can you think that's acceptable?! Fight me! Look at me... Look at me, damn it! Look at me, Theresiaaaaa!!"
With a voice that sounded as though he were vomiting blood, Wilhelm called out to Theresia.
Again and again, as many times as it took — the name he had wanted to say before her so many times, now twisted into a form utterly unlike what he had imagined, filled with rage instead of love, with madness instead of passion.
But the woman did not turn around.
With the sword housing the Death God's blessing held ready, the woman drifted gently toward Heinkel. Heinkel swallowed hard at the sight of her approaching and drew his knight's sword with trembling hands.
"W-Wait, hold on. You... Theresia? No way. That can't be... There's no way you're my mother—"
"————"
"No, even if you're not Mom — it's not that! Dad — Father looks like that, and you're just — What the hell! What is this, what are you doing?!"
Before him stood the young Theresia.
Her image and the image of his mother would not overlap in Heinkel's mind. He shook his head vigorously from side to side, desperately trying to deny what lay before his eyes, spilling incoherent words.
His knees buckled, his vision swam, and even the way he gripped his sword was weak and faltering.
If he was truly facing the former "Sword Saint" like this, he would not last a single exchange.
If this continued, Heinkel would undoubtedly be cut down by Theresia.
That was the one thing that could not be allowed to happen.
"Theresia! Over here! I'm still alive! If you want to kill someone, kill me first! Heinkel can't fight you! Run, now!!"
Propping himself up on his sword, Wilhelm forced himself upright with the desperate resolve of a man gripping stone. There was no room to hold his leg wound in check, and the added strain sent fresh blood spraying.
The cobblestones were already stained crimson with spilled blood, and trailing threads of it, Wilhelm chased after Theresia's retreating back.
Too far. Far too far.
Too slow. Far too slow.
Once again, Wilhelm could not make it in time. Once again, he could not reach her.
"Aah—"
"————"
Theresia's longsword described an arc, and Heinkel, shrinking his shoulders, caught it on his knight's sword.
Without even a moment's hesitation, the knight's sword was wrenched from Heinkel's hands and went bouncing across the cobblestones with a high-pitched clatter.
"St-Stop... Stop it, Mo—Mother—!"
Disarmed, the terrified Heinkel collapsed onto his backside. Desperately scrambling with arms and legs, he tried to drag himself away.
But his trembling fingers, his terrified heart, and Theresia's emotionless eyes all pinned him in place with fear, rendering him almost unable to move.
His throat seized, cold sweat poured from him, and Heinkel's face had gone deathly pale.
He might have wet himself — there was simply no energy left to feel shame over it. Heinkel could only stare at the tip of the longsword being raised above him.
—As though splitting the moon, the straight blade extended straight toward the sky.
At death's doorstep, Wilhelm could do nothing as his wife was about to cut down his son before his very eyes.
He cried out. It did not reach.
He reached out his hand. It did not reach.
"Theresia—!!"
The cry of a Sword Devil who could not pour everything into his blade — a voice that could only shout, with no power behind it.
The longsword descended mercilessly to end Heinkel's life— "—Enough."
The voice came abruptly, yet it cut cleanly through the suffocating tension.
It was a clear, commanding tone with not a trace of hesitation, containing no mercy whatsoever. It simply hammered an overwhelming presence into the listener and conveyed its will — something born, not made.
Wilhelm froze. Heinkel froze. Even Theresia stopped moving.
Where the three gazes converged, a young man stood.
Hair the color of roaring flame — red. Eyes the color of a clear, brilliant cerulean sky — blue.
His white attire was soiled with blood and mud, but his upright, unwavering stance needed no adjective other than heroic.
The young man stepped forward, slowly, into the space between them.
In his hand was a scabbard bearing deep, keen gouges, and from it he had drawn a knight's sword.
Its blade had been polished to an unnatural sheen — the Dragon Sword, Reinhardt.
It was the Sword God's laugh that Wilhelm seemed to hear ringing so loudly in his ears.