Prelude to Ending

The following day

Lionheart was back patrolling the streets of the city. It wasn't a hard job before, criminality was not high around there and the indestructible nature of the chain meant that Goddess Believers wouldn't try to harm the city.

Now it was an even easier job, but for a much worse reason. The people od First Chain city were used to peace, and were used to always see the same things. And the centerpiece of their horizon was the mansion inside the sphere.

Count Khirem didn't have a particularly good reputation, but he didn't have a bad one either. The truth is that whoever was inside that mansion, people didn't care. The important thing was that the sphere was there, every day.

Now, it wasn't. Given that multiple Fateless attacked just four days before, damage was minimal, casualties inside the mansion were a lot, but Fateless battles usually dragged hundreds if not thousands of victims in their vortex. Aside from the political standings of some of the nobility invited to the mansion, the body count was almost negligible.

Lionheart knew that, but even one lost life would have weighed heavily on him. Walking by the streets, that weight was greatly amplified by the atmosphere. The people lost the horizon they always clinged to, and so they barricaded inside their houses.

"It doesn't make sense… there's no actual danger."

The Fateless that destroyed the mansion was gone. The one that escaped alive, missing and famous to have never tried to attack a chain. The only unknown variable was Kaede…but no one aside from him knew about her.

People were hidden simply because that was the easiest response to the situation.

"This will probably continue until the envoy from the capital arrives huh?"

The young knight strolled around the empty city; his heart couldn't help but ache at the sight of such desolation. But there was nothing he could do. The only issues he was able to solve were the ones where active conflict was happening.

At that moment, there was no conflict in sight. So all he could do was walk around, eventually he met with the only other saint knight in the city.
"Yo, kiddo. There's no soul around here, how cool is that? If only it was only so simple to patrol."

"Why are you laying down here, Kyrie?"

"This park is great, comfortable grass cover, perfect temperature, sun covered by the perfect amount of clouds so that light doesn't blind me and temperature is not hot, but at the same time there's no risk of rain."

"Come on, go back patrolling."

"What a terrible thing to say to your former mentor."

"You're showing your former pupil a terrible way to do our job."

"Come on! You would be crazy to not take advantage of the situation here! Everything's calm, do you have any idea how chaotic everything will get once the capitol guys arrive here? Between stupid paperwork and interrogations, we will lose who knows how many days. And the worst thing is that I will be interrogated too because I got here first, but I have nothing to say and I've done nothing of note. You're the whole they need to crack down on… how is that fair?"

"That's the job you chose."

"I didn't choose shit; this was the only way for a slum kid like me to eat a decent meal. You know that, you're like me on that front."

"Still, you're paid fairly well."

"No shit, no one would still do this if not for the money. Didn't you ask to be sent here to cash in your years of service and keep being paid while doing nothing?"

"That went well…"

"You know, when the emergency call came through from this place, I was so happy. Serves you right, leaving us older folks fighting the cult while you enjoyed retirement."

"You're in your late twenties Kyrie."

"And I'm already this tired, can you imagine how bad I will be in a few y…"

The woman stopped talking, she was still laid down but had closed both eyes.

"What's going on?"

"We got company"

"Huh? I don't see anyone."

"They're going towards the chain."

"Wait, so you were actually working!"

"Told you so."

"No you didn't."

"I can see them…it's two people."

"Are you sure they're not civilian?"

"Even if they are, the sigil they broke is too close to the chain. We still need to check it out."

"Can you describe them?"

"Yes. One seems to be a man, it's fully clothed in a strange plastic like suit…it has a black helmet. Description matches what we know of [TRAVELER]. Then there's a girl with a ridiculous cutsy outfit."

*

On paper, convincing Gabbro to help me was the hardest part.

Or the second hardest, after convincing myself to act.

Now that we agree on destroying the chain, all that's left is simply go there, have Gabbro construct a cocoon strong enough to imprison myself and the radiation, and then discharge the power inside me. Even now, that I'm doing nothing, I can feel the energy inside of my body ready to be triggered.

Controlling it was out of the equation, maybe it was possible, but surely not in a matter of days.

But having it go wild for a bit and then stopped by the heat death power wielded by Gabbro was more than feasible. Given how scary my power is, it's strange to even think of using it in a controlled destruction scenario, but this was exactly the only possible combination that would enable me to avoid razing to the ground the entire city.

Having convinced him, everything was supposed to be smooth sailing from here…unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. After our discussion we exited the cave, Gabbro using his power to freeze a staircase from the cave exit to the top of the cliff to ease our way out…kind of.

I still almost slipped to my death like a dozen times. I guess eternal ice is not the stable thing in the order to walk on. But we still managed to climb up and started moving towards the city…only to see from the distance that something was up.

Well, I say we, but actually it was just him seeing that something was strange around the city.

"That's concerning…"

He said without giving any context, waiting for me to ask "What?"

"After the mansion fell, the city was obviously going to be put under martial law for a bit. That, I was expecting…but what I'm seeing from here is…concerning."

"Quit circling around the point, what's happening?"

"There are…very little soldiers around."

"Huh? Did they already go away?"

"Impossible, Saint Knights are a hassle to deal with as a Fateless. Every time a hint of our presence is found, at least a dozen gathers to search and destroy us."

"A…dozen!? Isn't that overkill? Lionheart the other day seemed almost enough to fight [MYTHO]…"

"Your little boyfriend is an exception to the rule. He has a bit of a reputation for being a freak of nature, having killed multiple Fateless, one without receiving any help and he was a child even!"

"Who, Lionheart or the Fateless?"

"Lionheart."

"Oh…"

"What a stupid question Kaede…"

"It wasn't clear…"

"Whatever. Still, he was probably enough for [MYTHO] actually. In the moments between your death and your explosion, the fight had shifted in favor of the knight."

"Great…so not only was I transformed into a Fateless, but it was also useless…"

So, he really would have been able to kill [MYTHO]. If he really was in the city thanks to Tama, then she really wasn't lying about placing him there to avoid the city's destruction…even if my transformation into a Fateless was what killed the statue from what Gabbro told me.

"Already changed you mind little girl? We can go back to the cave and call it a day!"

"Don't try me old man."

"Who are you calling old?"

"Let me see your face and I'll decide if your young or not!"

"No."

"Then let's just keep going. Why having less soldiers around is concerning? Isn't that better for us?"

"Not sure…it's different from what I was expecting, so that means it's harder to predict what the situation is inside the city itself."

"Maybe no one was called here due to how strong is Lionheart?"

"No, if there's one thing that's a constant in every Fateless hunt is that the Emperor doesn't take any chances. If he think two saint knights are enough, he'd send twenty."

"That seems an exaggeration."

"We are calamities, remember. Calamities are hard to predict. And he hates us with a passion, after all we want to destroy chains, so you know, we're kind of a big danger for an empire built on the imprisonment of the Goddess bound by said chains."

"Makes sense…then why is it bad that there are no soldiers around? You think it's a trap?"

"No idea. But this gives us a chance to make a plan."

"Didn't we already come up with one? We sneak through from the sewers, go all the way below the chains, to the point where the reverse waterfalls came up before the mansion's destruction, then you do your thing, trap me inside a gate of pure ice and then I explode, melting the chain."

We discussed this right after exchanging our names. It wasn't hard to come up with such a simple plan, so there was not much story to tell about that moment.

"That only works if everything aligns perfectly for us. But there's bound to be some obstacles."

"City's not well guarded, why are you more worried than before?"

"Less soldiers means less chances to be spotted…but as I said, the Emperor is always quite attentive while choosing who to dispatch on each fight. If there's no garrison waiting for us, that means that there's something equally as effective."

"So…less people, but stronger?"

"That's what I fear."

"Then maybe they really are betting on Lionheart pulling it off, or at least resisting until the reinforcements come."

"Normally, you'd be right. But we're can't think as if we're in a normal scenario anymore. So, one quick change to the plan."

"What is it?"

"If they find us, you run away. No using your power, you can't control it, so you'll simply explode again. If we both make it to under the mansion, then the plan is on, if I fall, you just run away."

"O….ok."

"Lovely."

A strange word to conclude a briefing about making what essentially would have been considered a terrorist action in my own world. But still, the plan is on.

We resume our walk, changing from the main road and going through a swamp leading to a smelly hole from which water came out. I know, bad description, but that's exactly what it was…

Obviously, it was the sewer discharge…which unfortunately was also our way into the city. I look at Gabbro, he looks at me, I feel at a disadvantage given that he is basically in a full space suit while I'm wearing gothic Lolita clothes. There's one of us who's a lot less enthusiastic about waling through a sewer than the other."

"Disgusted much? We can still go back."

"How many times will you try to make me change my mind about this?"

"This is most likely the last. Once we're in, I'd have to stay focused on the possible enemy ambushes. I don't know what to expect."

"You did handle Lionheart easily the other day, didn't you?"

"Yes, but he was already out of gas and also uncustomed to my powers. If we do encounter him, it will be a lot harder to fight him."

"Can you…not kill him if we do meet him?"

"I told you, my mission here is to not kill anyone. I can simply temporarily freeze him."

"Great…"

I'm not sure why I'm caring for that douchebag wellbeing…but I know that killing him would not sit well with me. After this last chat, we enter the city through the sewers. Let me tell you, thank God there are these little walkways in both sides of the canal taking the water out of the city. I can't even imagine how badly the wastes would have tainted my beautiful socks. Still, this attire is giving me issues moving around here.

For a city as big as the First Chain City, the sewers were very narrow and dark.

"Should we light a torch?"

"No, we move slowly, letting our eyes adapt to the darkness. There's manholes above filtering in light, it's enough and we want to minimize risk of getting caught."

It really seemed like a stupid idea, after all if we meet someone on these dim hallways, they will see us whether we have a torch or not. And we can't pass as civilians…not with Gabbro's giant black helmet. But I don't want to argue again, I need him and he's more trustworthy in situation like this.

He's also used to traverse strange environments now that I think about it. He's a space explorer. You can't find better explorers than astronauts like him. My world's astronauts were still very limited, but from the story he told me, his world was way more advanced and planet explorations was similar to the explorers of old in my world.

All that's to say that even if his decision seems stupid, I'm in good hands.

"Oh."

"What do you mean with oh, Gabbro?"

For a moment, something lightly flashed under his boot.

"Didn't see it…"

"What's…it?"

"Let's run."

"Huh?"

"I think that was a seal of some kind…"

"And that means?"

"We've been found!"

And this this what I deserve to blindly trusting an idiot. We start to run towards what we expected to be the right direction to reach below the mansion, but more and more seal appeared all around all, and they did more than appear.

Some started to explode into white arrows. Gabbro stopped twice the magic traps, luckily he was ahead of me and by using ice shields to stop the attacks, he also protected me, but then the pace of run we maintained got to my lungs and I stop for a breather.

"W…wait Gabbro…I ca…n't keep up with you."

I maintained my body by touching the wall at my right with the palm of my hand. But the moment I touch it, a seal appears and a second later white arrows are shot toward me. One pierces my hand and get stuck in there, it hurts…but that's the least of my worries.

Because two other are reaching for my face. Evenly spaced, they are in a collision course with my ice. I feel the time slow and can perceive my sight being slowly engulfed by whiteness. I'm about to be blinded. Maybe even die. From within, a heat is starting to grow.

I know what's happening.

I'm going to panic.

I'm going to unleash my power instinctively.

I'm going to explode.

Then I feel a wave of cold.

*

The next thing I see is the sky. My whole body is wet, freezing water all around me.

"That was a close one!" said Gabbro mimicking the gesture of wiping away sweat…with the helmet still on. This guy. My heart is still beating like crazy, but the power within is more manageable. I can contain it. The arrows are nowhere to be seen, and given the view, we are not inside the sewers anymore.

"What happened?"

I ask before sitting up and watching around, getting my question partially answered by my surrounding. I was in the city center. The point in which my reincarnation story went from the dream of dancing with a charming knight, to the nightmare of the mansion tragedy and subsequent Fateless awakening.

"I froze you to intercept the arrows."

"…the first thing you thought in order to protect me was freezing me?"

"It was the only option that would have also stopped your panic explosion. Don't think I didn't notice, temperature rose absurdly in a matter of seconds!"

"O…ok."

He was right, he made the right call, still it wasn't really nice of him to freeze me. He has the power of heat death! Ok, his ice can be melted as long as entropy still exist outside his magic, but couldn't he kill me by exaggerating? Wasn't that dangerous?

"And here are the rats."

A voice unknown to me reached my ears. Gabbro was standing between me and the new interlocutor, his stance was everything I needed to understand that our new guest wasn't good news.

"Kaede, remember the plan. I'll handle this, in the meantime, prepare yourself to run."

"Alrig…"

But then I see them. There's a woman with an eyepatch, with white hair and a white knight light uniform. She was the one the voice belonged to…but she wasn't what I was interested in. Instead, my attention was on the guy near her.

A young, blonde knight that was watching me with eyes that seemed like they wanted to cry.