Aftermath of the Tragedy

The night of the festival

After the birth of [IRIDESCENT]

A cocoon had formed around Kaede, and Lionheart could only watch from the outside to see what was happening. He wanted to deny it, but the new name, the new concept linked to that world, had already been imprinted in his mind.

No one learns a word out of nowhere without any input. Yet a name had been memorized in his brain, all by itself. It only happened in one case.

When a new Fateless was born.

This inexplicable phenomenon was actually very useful for the sacred knights, as the name of the Fateless often concealed some clue about their power.

And now a name had been imprinted in his mind as he watched the girl with whom he had danced in the square just a few hours earlier.

[IRIDESCENT]

A new Fateless had been born.

Not only that, but the other one had to be [TRAVELER], one of the most cryptic names ever recorded for a Fateless. Its power was obvious: ice. In contrast, [IRIDESCENT] had to be fire.

“It's... not possible.”

With great effort, the knight got up and tried to make his way to the cocoon.

“Kaede...”

A part of himself was scared.

I have no strength left, if those two decide to kill me, there's no way I would be able to fight back.

But still, I need to try and understand.

He reached for the ice cocoon and it immediately started to disintegrate, at the center, the Fateless with the black helmet held in his hands the girl that Lionheart was trying to reach.

"Leave her alone!"

Those words came out without much conviction, there was no energy in his body to give them the emphasis needed to convey what he was feeling at that moment. The stranger turned towards him, in doing so the knight had the chance to take a good look to the passed out maid.

She doesn't seem injured… whatever happened to her, she's fine now.

He sighed out of relief, but couldn't drop his guard completely. Kaede wasn't in immediate peril, but a renown Fateless held her in his arms.

[TRAVELER] spoke.

"Excuse me, handsome, but there's no way I can leave her alone."

"You…should."

"Nope, no chance."

"I…will hunt you down."

"Feel free to."

Even without seeing his face, Lionheart understood perfectly how composed his enemy was by the tone of his voice. Not once cracking, not a single moment spent thinking, he was either a veteran warrior or a gigantic idiot saying whatever came first.

My only chance, is that he is an idiot and doesn't want to bother.

I'll try…

The knight reached for his sword and pointed it towards the Fateless, intimidation was all that he could do, there was no way he could follow through, but still, he wanted to give everything.

"Leave her alone. I'll take care of her."

"Lower your weapon handsome. You have no chance were we to fight."

"Want to find out?"

"What do you stand to gain from this bluff, Lionheart the Exorcist?"

"You know who I am…"

"Quite difficult not to. It's because you were stationed here that I couldn't investigate [ECHOES] plans beforehand. And you also spew your magic words before against [MYTHO]."

Only then did the knight remember the third Fateless in the room, the opponent he had been fighting in the first place. He hadn't done anything since the girl had started glowing. He looked over at the statue; it was on the ground, as if lying down.

"Don't worry, whatever that thing really was, I'm sure it's dead."

"Huh? Aren't you its companion?"

"Who? Me? No way, couldn't care less about [MYTHO]. Still, all Fateless are humans, so somewhere inside there was a human probably. They had no way to protect against the radiations and the heat, so they're probably dead now. Your little shield really saved you handsome."

"Tch."

"Why that reaction? You should be happy. Your fight is won and there's no witness. We'll now leave and you'll be left with the glory of bringing down yet another Fateless. It's a win-win."

"No, you're going to leave Kaede here."

"You're a pain in the ass, you know?"

"Leave her, or else…"

"Look, everything that happened here was [ECHOES] plan, I have no idea what her endgame is, but until I understand more, this chick come with m…"

"Leave her!"

Silence descended on the ballroom. [TRAVELER] seemed to not know what to do in that situation. Lionheart only wanted to kick him and retrieve Kaede. I

It doesn't matter if she's a Fateless. I'll pretend she's not. After all, even if the name [IRIDESCENT] now exist, it's not like anyone can recognize it's her.

But this is only true if I don't let anyone see her with another Fateless…and there's no way I'll let this shady dude that her away.

But how?

Lionheart hadn't dropped his gaze for a second, eye contact was important to try and intimidate an enemy. But that stalemate just made his nervousness grow and grown.

He's not an idiot. He knows I'm not in fighting shape….but can I do?

The answer came the moment he gave up on the eye contact and lowered his eyes, meeting the sparkle of his cross necklace. He grasped it, pointed towards [TRAVELER] and recited the same words he learned from the fox girl.

"En nomine, Patri et Filii, et Spiritus Sanctus."

"Amen."

"Huh?"

"The exorcism spiel will not work on my handsome. I follow the same God you're asking to give you power."

"What…"

"You don't even know…well, that's just how this world is I guess."

Shit, that was my only weapon at the moment…

Who is this guy?

Does he know where this phrase comes from?

[TRAVELER] talked again while Lionheart was stuck into his own internal doubts.

"Look, handsome. I would gladly spend the rest of the night teaching you the word of the Lord, but this commotion at the chain is bound to attract other saint knights and I would like to escape before anyone approached the island. So, goodbye."

Without thinking, Lionheart used up whatever strength he still had to rush ahead. But in a blink, a cold sensation engulfed him and the next thing he saw wasn't the two Fateless escaping, but another saint knight, freeing him from the ice cube he was trapped within.

It was now the day after the incident at the mansion.

He immediately collapsed once freed

*

Three days after the festival

Lionheart woke up staring at a familiar ceiling. One that he wasn't used to look up from that position though. He was in the clinic of First Chain City. Outside his room he could hear the sound of footsteps rushing from one place to another.

"Healer must be busy…"

He muttered to himself, not expecting anyone to hear him.

"You pass out for almost three days and that's the first thing you say? You didn't change newbie."

A woman with a scared eye covered by an eyepatch, short silver hair and a saint knight uniform wa waiting by his bed.

"Instead, I have to say that sitting at a man's bedside is not your style, Kyrie."

"It was either this or helping bandaging idiots out there."

"Terrible, as always."

"Look, we have healers for a reason."

"Are there a lot of injured?"

"Pftt..ahah, still a softheart."

"The mansion collapsed right? How many were injured?"

"You're a pain in the ass Lionheart, at least stop worrying about work while being hospitalized."

"Kyrie!"

"Fine, and here I was trying to get your mind off the mess you found yourself in."

"That's the last thing I need, the first on the other hand, it's knowing what happened after I was knocked out."

"We would have gotten there eventually anyway…after all, even I want to know how you ended up becoming and ice cube."

"Please let's get there immediately."

"Fine. You're a bore. There are injured, but not in the civilian population, the mansion actually is still up there."

"Huh? How is that possible?"

"A giant…ice thing is keeping it in place. So no one in the lower city was involved in whatever happened there. The commotion you hear it's mainly due to injured due to the panicked escape from the surroundings of the mansion. People were so panicked they huirt each other by mistake, how stupid."

"That's… why did he do it…."

"I saw the corpse of a Fateless in there, [MYTHO] right?"

"Yeah, I fought him…"

"Remember his power?"

"Not really…"

"And you still killed him. Hate you kiddo, we work our ass off to take down one of those bastards by studying every possible known information, and you kill them by forgetting basic things."

"I…recall there wasn't much about [MYTHO]."

"Last year there was a major battle against it, we learned a lot. Its power was basically consumption of flesh and blood, it extended its our body and then slowly assimilated others."

"Oh… but what relevance does it have at the moment?"

"You see, there were almost no bodies around when we entered the mansion, and the few that were are burned to crisp. Not just that, people that were in other rooms, hiding, are now having some strange illness we never saw before…these things do not seem to be connected to what we know about [MYTHO]. Basically, it's kind of a roundabout way to ask you…what exactly happened up there?"

Lionheart recounted everything he saw inside the ballroom, from his battle with [MYTHO] to the arrival of [TRAVELER]. Leaving out everything about [ECHOES] as he always did since he met her in his infancy. But there was another relevant difference. It was about the "heat" that ultimately killed whatever was into the statue.
He wanted to leave that part out entirely, but he couldn't. Reason was that Kyrie didn't simply ask what happened in a roundabout way. Every detail she shared has one specific objective, cornering the young knight into saying everything he knew.

His colleague knew that [MYTHO] should have left behind the corpse of his victims.

She always had doubts about me…

[ECHOES] magical phrase to kill Fateless was surely useful, but it does bring a lot of suspicion upon me.

So, when the moment to say what happened to Kaede came, he twisted the story a little.

"When I was about to kill [MYTHO], another Fateless was on the other side of the room. It was [TRAVELER] most likely, it had a black helmet, so I'm quite sure. As soon as I saw him, I started to think on how to handle killing him after dealing with the statue, after all the first fight took all of my power, so I was in a pinch…but then, he used an attack that was never reported before. A heat one. You know how he seems to control ice? It seems that somehow, he unlocked doing the exact opposite…and then a giant heatwave burned down [MYTHO]. I only survived thanks to the holy barrier… I tried to counter, but then…my memories end there… I suppose he was able to freeze me, and that's that."

"Interesting. You really made a mess this time kiddo!"

"Why do you sound happy about that?"

"Because I am! A lot of nobility douchebags dead and my annoying underling demoted? That's a jackpot if I ever saw one!"

"And then you say I'm the pain the ass…"

"You are."

"If you say so!"

"Still, it checks out. I already connected you being frozen up with [TRAVELER], he's the only known guy able to do something like that so efficiently. You were such a perfect ice sculpture! I wanted to leave you frozen!"

"Thanks for freeing me…"

"I was forced to. Annoying or not, I will need your help for at least a week."

"Huh? Why?"

"There's no other saint knight that can come here. Everyone is busy with something…it seems like a lot of Goddess Believers and Chosen rose up all of a sudden…but all issues are far away from here…and somehow I discovered that news of such commotion never reached here."

"Nothing you say makes sense…how is possible?"

"Someone is pulling the strings here. But still, no idea who, so all we can do is deal with the aftermath…and your punishment for failure in protecting all the big shots at the mansion will have to wait! But it will only make the moment I see it sweeter! You'll probably be sent to the emperor to receive his sentence in person! Unfortunately, defeat against a Fateless it's not a major offense, so no death penalty, but I hope you'll be sent to do some boring tasks like reparations or routine checks on a city's border!"

"You do know I was already doing that here, right?"

"Oh, why?"

"It's a peaceful life."

"Fuck you. Now I have nothing to look forward too…"