Glimpse of Power

Shirou stormed through the orphanage halls, a dark frustration simmering beneath his characteristically calm exterior. He had searched every conceivable corner for Ela, the elusive elf he was meant to challenge, but she was nowhere to be found.

"Where is that damn elf?" he muttered under his breath, pacing past dusty, faded portraits and over creaky wooden floorboards that groaned under his agitated strides.

Just as he turned a corner, a piercing, theatrical scream echoed sharply from the direction of Cherry’s room.

Shirou’s battle instincts flared instantly. Sprinting toward the sound with his heart pounding against his ribs, he reached the door and kicked it open with a forceful slam. "Is everything alright, you stupid—!"

The words froze mid-sentence in his throat.

Cherry was standing in the center of the room, half-dressed in a ridiculously frilly maid uniform, her eyes wide with horror and her cheeks flushed an intense crimson. Looming directly behind her was Ela, who possessed a thoroughly smug expression as she mischievously adjusted the lace of the outfit. To make the scene more surreal, an old crone—presumably the orphanage matron—sat cackling wheezily in the corner, clearly thoroughly enjoying the unfolding chaos.

The three of them snapped their heads toward the door, startled by the violent intrusion.

"Shirou!…" Cherry gasped. Big, dramatic tears welling up in her eyes—not from physical peril, but from sheer, unadulterated embarrassment. Her voice trembled with a desperate ray of hope. "Please hel—"

"Nope."

Shirou slammed the door shut, slowly, deliberately, and with absolute finality.

"Wait! It's not what it looks like!" Cherry’s muffled, panicked cries echoed through the heavy wood, followed by Ela’s dark, cooing laughter.

Shirou leaned his back against the door frame, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. "Maybe I should just come back later… or go find Brother Chris. He might actually know more about these Seven Pillars." With a bewildered shake of his head to clear the bizarre image from his mind, he turned away, officially deciding to postpone his duel with the eccentric elf.

As he reached the building's threshold, a calm, steady voice called out from the courtyard, cutting through the quiet evening air. "Hey. Good timing. Could you help me with something?"

Sarah stood by the wooden front gate, looking as composed and grounded as she always did.

Shirou groaned audibly, his posture stiffening. "Why should I offer my help to a war hero who is actively destined to be killed by my own hands?"

Sarah sighed softly, her expression remaining entirely unreadable as she looked at the boy. "So we've made absolutely no progress," she murmured, a trace of maternal sorrow in her voice. "You still see me exclusively as the enemy."

She paused for a moment, then continued with a quiet, unyielding conviction. "Regardless… if you assist me with this task, I will grant you a formal chance to fight me. This matter is highly important."

"I don't want to fight you right now," Shirou interrupted, his gaze lowering to the dirt path. "You're a monster of the battlefield. Right now, I'm simply not ready. If we were to clash today, I wouldn't learn anything from the defeat."

Sarah’s shoulders sank slightly. She had genuinely hoped the carrot of a duel might pierce through his stubborn exterior, but she didn't argue. She merely nodded, accepting his pragmatic calculation without a word of protest.

She turned to leave, but Shirou's voice sharply arrested her stride.

"I'll help you. But instead of a match with you… I want to test my current strength against another Pillar." He took a deep, stabilizing breath, his crimson eyes burning with a fierce, renewed resolve. "I want you to arrange a fight between me and Ela."

Sarah paused, glancing back at him over her shoulder. "You do realize she isn't presently around the grounds, right?"

"She's currently in Cherry's room," Shirou replied flatly.

"Ah… so that is what that scream was about." Sarah’s voice remained perfectly level, though a flicker of genuine pity crossed her features. "Poor Cherry."

"So, what's the task?" Shirou asked, eager to shift the topic.

"A goblin hunt," Sarah stated, her tone turning purely professional. "A horde has been raiding neighboring villages, aggressively stealing winter supplies. The local guild dispatched a party of adventurers, but they were completely outnumbered by the creatures. Most of them barely escaped with their lives."

Shirou narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "But a war hero like you could easily wipe out thousands of goblins single-handedly. Why do you possibly need my assistance?"

Sarah nodded, acknowledging his skepticism. "You're not wrong, Shirou. But if even a single goblin slips past my guard during the chaos, they will call for reinforcements from the deeper caves. That could easily trigger a full-scale attack on our village. I need someone competent to watch the outer perimeter—to ensure absolutely no one escapes the containment zone."

Shirou weighed her words carefully before giving a firm nod. "Alright. Let's hunt."

The forest path deep within the woods was eerily quiet, save for the rhythmic crunch of dry leaves beneath their boots. Shirou walked a step behind Sarah, his eyes repeatedly drifting toward her silhouette every few moments. He wasn't entirely certain why—a volatile mixture of curiosity, deep-seated unease, and tactical observation.

Sarah, hyper-aware of her surroundings, noticed his shifting gaze. "Are you nervous?" she asked softly, her voice rich with empathy. "I understand. The first time facing a true monster horde can shake anyone to their core. Back when I was your age—"

"No," Shirou cut her off, his voice firm and rigid. "Why would I ever be nervous about simple goblins? I have fought their kind plenty of times. My mother trained me herself."

Sarah slowed her pace, her eyebrows raising in genuine surprise. "Really? So… Demon Queen Eliza trained you personally?" Her voice carried a faint, involuntary tremble of awe. For a fleeting moment, she seemed lost in her own memories, picturing the infamous, terrifying Eliza—her dark crown, her blazing, regal eyes, and her merciless, beautiful grace on the battlefield.

"I see…" Sarah murmured, her tone stabilizing as she digested the information. "That certainly explains a great deal about your form."

She continued walking ahead, her steady pace unchanged. Shirou watched her back, deeply puzzled by her lack of hostility when mentioning his mother. He abruptly stopped walking.

"Is it true?" he asked, his voice dropping into a low, intense register. "The rumors… that you actually killed a god? An immortal? A being completely beyond mortal comprehension?"

Sarah halted dead in her tracks.

Her head dipped slightly, her shoulders locking into a tense, rigid line. The gentle breeze that had been dancing through the canopy moments prior suddenly died, turning completely still and suffocating. Then, without a shred of warning, a colossal pulse of raw energy erupted from her body—an oppressive, suffocating aura so immensely intense that it violently scattered the heavy blankets of leaves on the ground and sent flocks of birds fleeing in terror from the trees.

When she spoke, her voice had dropped into a freezing, lethal register that made the surrounding air feel like ice. "Never speak of something so sinful."

Before Shirou could even attempt to process the sudden, terrifying shift, two scouts from the goblin horde burst violently from the underbrush. One wielded a jagged, rusted knife, the other a crude wooden club, their green faces twisted in feral snarls.

Sarah didn't even flinch. She simply turned her sharp gaze toward them, her eyes gleaming with absolute, lethal precision.

In the literal blink of an eye, both of their heads were cleanly severed from their shoulders, a violent spray of dark blood painting the mossy ground. Their lifeless bodies collapsed into the dirt before Shirou's brain could even register the physical movement of her arm. He stared at the carnage, completely paralyzed.

She isn't just strong… the terrifying realization hammered into his mind. She's a literal goddess of war.

The words nearly slipped from his numb lips as he watched Sarah fluidly raise her brilliant blade once more. With a single, elegant swing, she cleaved through the empty air—sending a visible, concussive shockwave of compressed wind tearing through the dense forest.

Trees splintered like toothpicks. Massive bushes erupted into clouds of green debris. Entire squads of hidden goblins waiting in ambush were instantly shredded to pieces in a singular, terrifying instant.

A heavy, absolute silence fell over the decimated woods. Sarah turned back to him, her expression completely blank and unreadable, the divine pressure of her aura fading back beneath her skin. "Stay here. I will finish the rest of this."

And with that single statement, she vanished—one explosive dash, and she was entirely gone from his sight.

Shirou stood completely alone in the clearing, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white. "So this is the real Sarah," he whispered into the quiet, his voice trembling. "A goddess of war… and I actually believed I could kill her?" He looked down at his own shaking hands, a bitter, agonizing frustration boiling deep within his chest. "I couldn't even force myself to move when she unleashed a fraction of her power. How can I ever hope to defeat a monster like that?"

Deeper in the forest, the woods trembled under a silent execution. Sarah moved through the foliage like a lethal phantom—silent, precise, and entirely unstoppable. Her blade shimmered with a faint, volatile violet hue as she stepped gracefully into the absolute heart of the goblin encampment.

The creatures snarled, panicked, and charged her by the dozens, their crude weapons raised high in a desperate bid for survival. She didn't so much as blink.

One goblin lunged wildly with a rusted iron spear. Sarah simply sidestepped the thrust, her sword slicing through the air in a flawlessly clean arc; the creature's torso was split completely in two before its feet could even register the shift in gravity. Another fiend attempted a blindside attack from behind—she spun on her heel, her blade trailing a brilliant crescent of violet light that severed its head cleanly mid-leap. Then came five more. Then ten.

She dashed forward, her movements fluid, beautiful, and utterly terrifying. Each deliberate swing of her sword carved effortlessly through multiple enemies, their bodies collapsing around her like broken puppets with severed strings. Crimson blood sprayed rhythmically across the ancient trees, painting the battlefield in brutal strokes.

"Too slow," she murmured, her sharp eyes scanning the dispersing chaos.

A surviving goblin attempted to break rank and flee deeper into the woods—she casually flicked her wrist, and a concussive shockwave burst from her blade, entirely flattening the thick underbrush and vaporizing the creature in a brilliant flash of pressurized light.

Within mere minutes, the sprawling battlefield fell dead silent. Dozens upon dozens of goblins lay slaughtered, their twisted, green forms scattered across the earth like fallen autumn leaves. The forest, which had been echoing with primal snarls and agonized screams moments before, now held its collective breath.

Sarah stood directly in the center of the carnage, her pristine blade dripping with dark blood, her breathing completely undisrupted. But her eyes narrowed, her senses scanning the perimeter as she noticed the glaring absence of a crucial presence.

"The Goblin King… isn't among the dead." Her voice was low, laced with a cold disappointment. She scanned the tree line, her oppressive aura pulsing faintly as she searched for the escape route.

Meanwhile, back at the edge of the perimeter, Shirou remained seated exactly where she had instructed him to wait—perched on a damp, mossy rock near the clearing. He hadn't moved an inch. In truth, he couldn't.

His mind was trapped in a relentless loop, replaying the scene over and over again: the calm, maternal woman who had gently asked for his help around the orphanage… transforming instantly into a cataclysmic force of nature.

"Why… how can she be so terrifyingly strong?" he whispered to himself, staring blankly at the dirt. "The moment she gets serious, her entire personality completely changes. It’s like she becomes a different entity." He clenched his fists, the phantom weight of her divine aura still pressing uncomfortably against his chest. "That wasn't just mortal power. That was something else entirely. Something divine."

Suddenly, the heavy leaves rustled violently directly behind him.

Shirou turned his head slowly—and completely froze.

A massive, towering figure slowly emerged from the deep shadows of the canopy. Standing twice the height of an ordinary man, the creature’s skin was a mottled, sickly green and black, its corded muscles bulging from its frame like twisted tree roots. One of its eyes gleamed with a piercing, predatory yellow glow, while the other was permanently scarred shut. In its massive, clawed hand, it dragged a blood-soaked battle axe the size of a iron coffin.

The Goblin King.

Its singular yellow eye locked directly onto Shirou’s small frame, and a low, earth-shaking growl rumbled from the depths of its throat.

Shirou’s breath caught in his throat for a fraction of a second. But as the initial shock faded, the sheer absurdity of the situation sparked something reckless within him. A sharp, confident grin slowly spread across his face, masking the cold sweat on his brow.

"So… you're the one who managed to slip away from her," he whispered, his voice steadying as he pushed himself up from the rock.

The forest fell into a dead, expectant silence. And slowly, the massive iron axe began to rise.