What You Carry VII

Flames devoured the cathedral. Sacred banners drooped from the ceiling, igniting into dark ribbons of ash. Stained-glass windows erupted outward, hurling jewel-bright fragments through the air—holy visages splintering as they struck the fractured floor below.

He hovered above the ruined nave. Mana shuddered around him, compressing into a rippling sphere at his outstretched palm—a tiny black sun bending the world’s edges inward.

The cathedral floor had become a killing field.

Leon fought for his life among the debris, each footfall landing on broken stone as he pivoted in desperate circles. Evelyn the Promised was everywhere and nowhere—a golden phantom ricocheting off fallen columns, dropping from shattered rafters, dissolving into smoke only to reappear with her blade singing toward vital arteries. His swap sigils blazed blue against the chaos, each activation dragging her away just beyond reach—a throat uncut, a spine unbroken, a heart spared by margins measured in half-seconds.

He kept his focus pinned to Renfield, unable to risk even a moment’s distraction.

Across the devastated sanctuary, the Saint hovered like a vengeful apparition. Heat currents whipped his tattered vestments into a frenzied dance. Blood had turned his once-pristine white armor into a grotesque canvas—gold filigree crusted black, a gaping wound carved through his side. Yet nothing in his bearing suggested defeat. He floated spine-straight, chin lifted, his gaze burning with the terrible brightness of absolute conviction.

The gravity sphere warped space—a hungering void swallowing stray embers. “It’s over,” he forced through a scorched throat, each breath tearing. “You’ve lost.”

Renfield pressed his palms together in mock supplication across the ruin. Crimson droplets slid from his wounded hands but defied gravity, gathering into a throbbing blood-red star. His features twisted into something like joy.

“Over? My sweet marionette. Did you truly believe you were pulling your own strings?”

The words cracked a fault line through his certainty. His concentration slipped, and the sphere in his palm pulsed dangerously.

Renfield laughed—ecstatic and cruel. “Your life was never yours,” he whispered.

Heat crawled along his back as cathedral columns ignited behind him. Down below, Leon’s barrier shuddered under Evelyn’s blade.

“You are exactly what I wanted you to be.” Renfield’s voice swelled, gaining strength as the confession poured out. “A shattered home. A grieving boy. What better vessel? What better seedbed for hate than a child? All that innocence turned to loathe.”

The sphere of red light thickened between his hands, veins writhing.

“I let you live,” Renfield continued, head tilting as if relishing the memory. “I recognized what you were. A freak of nature. An aberration. A hollow vessel that takes from the world and keeps what it steals. You were the perfect instrument.”

The crimson sphere bulged, dark veins crackling across its surface.

“My little Demon King. How proudly you wore the title.” Renfield tightened his grip on the crimson sphere. “The vintage is perfect,” he whispered. “Time to shatter the cask.”

The chant began.

It wasn’t language—it was desecration. Serrated syllables that shouldn’t exist slashed the air. Each sound scraped his bones, burrowed behind his teeth, reverberated behind his temples.

The red orb writhed.

“Ren!” Leon screamed. “END HIM!”

The black hole begged for release. One second of hesitation was too long. Logic screamed. Unleash it. Finish this! But Renfield’s truth numbed him. The purpose he’d lived for—the grief, the rage—felt suddenly stolen.

His life’s purpose—a lie.

“REN!”

He caught his reflection in the mirrored blade Evelyn carried—his own face, bloodied, drained, disbelieving.

The Sword of Saint Luciann gleamed despite the carnage: a cruciform titan of a blade—leather-wrapped hilt darkened by centuries, a marble-white body veined with crystal prayers so fine they glowed. Golden filigree snared fragments of firelight, turning ruin into holy radiance.

The blade flashed.

His world became agony. A scream tore from him as steel carved through flesh and bone, tearing across his chest and splitting his lip. The cathedral pitched sideways. A dark shape spun through the air, spiraling away in a spray of red—his severed arm.

Renfield’s chant drowned everything. The crimson sphere burst. Corrupted radiance collided with the gravity well. Two magics warred, screeching through the cathedral.

Runes ignited beneath his feet—a swap sigil.

The world seized his skeleton and twisted. His lungs collapsed. His thoughts scattered. Evelyn crashed into him, fingers twisting in his hair. Her face hovered a breath away. Light swallowed the entirety of his vision—the cathedral’s burning bones, Leon’s outstretched hand. And at the very end, before the cosmos folded them whole—

Star-bright eyes.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Ren jolted awake. Light filtered through the broken dome overhead—a soft blue glow that left him momentarily disoriented. For one suspended heartbeat, the cathedral flared behind his eyes—flames licking his skin, reality fracturing, the taste of blood thick on his tongue.

Warmth against his arm pulled him back.

Reina lay curled beside him, her cheek tucked into the hollow of his shoulder. A single red strand crossed her lips, luminous in the muted dawn.

Last night unfurled in his memory like something too gentle to belong to this world. Her fingertips gliding over the scar on his chest. The way he forgot how to breathe when she leaned in. Her body curved against his, a constellation of gentle touches and whispered breaths that spoke what neither dared say aloud.

The memory lodged in his chest—something precious and painful at once. He should have stopped it, should have known better. And still—

Sleep had smoothed the tension from her features, restoring a softness he hadn’t seen since before the world collapsed. He watched her—the faint rise and fall of her chest—and felt something coil tighter with every second. The longer he studied her, the heavier his guilt grew.

In certain angles of light, she became Sera’s echo.

Not perfectly. Not entirely. But enough that when shadows pooled along her cheekbones, he saw another life. Another girl. Fierce and brilliant and gone too soon. All the unspoken words. All the almost-confessions he’d buried like artifacts too delicate to touch.

Reina wasn’t a replacement—never that. But her presence had been a quiet, selfish comfort he’d clung to before he even realized he was doing it.

A knot tightened in his throat.

No. That wasn’t the whole truth. Last night hadn’t been an attempt to resurrect what was dead. It had been real—a choice—between two people grasping for something they’d both wanted for too long.

Which only made his departure more cruel.

He brushed the copper hair from her forehead with steady care.
She didn’t stir.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, barely sound at all. He tugged the blanket up to shield her bare shoulders from the chill, then lingered just long enough to brush his lips against her temple in silent farewell.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Shadows pooled around the mall’s southern service exit, its concrete throat yawning from the underground loading bay. Aki waited there, the predawn breeze slipping through the cracked door and stirring her hair with a cold, restless whisper.

Two men stood flanking her, their bloodshot eyes and sagging posture betraying days of frayed nerves and too little sleep.

The taller one tugged at the straps of his scavenged vest, the makeshift armor sitting awkwardly on his frame. The younger man gripped the coil of rope like it was alive, knuckles bleached white. Fear clung to both of them like a second skin.

But not to Aki.

She stood as if carved from the concrete itself—firm, immovable. One pistol rested at her thigh; the other balanced steady in her hand, her finger laid along the guard with disciplined precision.

Ren’s footsteps drew her attention. Her gaze flicked over him in a swift appraisal.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “Tanaka, Mori. This is your protection. You’ll leave now.”

The technicians exchanged a jittery glance.

Tanaka’s voice cracked. “Is this… really the plan? You’re sending us with one guy? You said we would have at least a dozen people here! You’re tossing us to the wolves.”

Mori swallowed hard, tightening his hold on the rope. “We’re power techs, Sumire-san. Not soldiers. And he—” he gestured vaguely toward him without meeting his eyes. “You expect us to trust that he can get us to the plant? Clear it alone? How’s he supposed to keep anyone alive?”

Aki didn’t blink.

“If you don’t trust in him,” she said, “trust in me.”

“That’s not—that’s not enough!” Tanaka snapped. “We’ve seen what’s out there. We’ve lost people to humans, not just those… things. One slip and—”

Aki raised her gun. A sliver of cold light slid along the barrel.

Both men went silent.

Her voice sharpened to a cutting whisper. “You’re already dead,” she said. “Out there. In here. Hiding in some hole. It ends the same. But with him—” she angled the muzzle slightly toward Ren without breaking her focus on them “—I swear to you. You will live.”

Fear drained from their expressions, replaced by washed-out shame.

She holstered her weapon—an ending, not an apology.

“I didn’t keep you alive this long just to throw your lives away now,” she said, her tone softening without losing its edge. “Trust that, if nothing else.”

Tanaka worked his throat. Mori wiped sweaty palms down his jeans. Their resistance collapsed.

“I was… out of line,” Mori muttered.

Tanaka nodded. “We’ll… prep the gear. Five minutes.”

They disappeared into the shadows. Silence settled over the loading bay. Aki’s shoulders eased—barely—but Ren noticed. Her focus returned to him.

“I had no right to put this on you,” she said quietly.

“I want to,” Ren replied. “For the first time in a long time, I know that I’m doing what’s right.”

She stepped closer, resting her hands on his shoulders.

“Tonight would have been movie night… our Wednesday get-together. Tetsuya and his awful cop movies.” A fragile laugh slipped out. “He thought if he could just get you and Haruka in the same room enough times…”

“I’ll bring him back to you.”

A promise threaded with steel.

Aki’s composure finally cracked. Tears welled, sliding down her cheeks. She pulled him into a tight embrace, arms wrapped with a desperate strength he didn’t resist. When she stepped back, her attention lingered on him as though imprinting his outline into memory.

“Whatever happens… remember I will always love you.”

━━━━━━━━━━Author's Note━━━━━━━━━━

I just want to take a moment to say THANK YOU for all the support so far. It’s kind of surreal—there are maybe fourteen chapters left, and posting twice a week makes the finish line feel a lot closer than I expected haha.

WCA was something that lived in me for years, and I needed to finally get it out before I could move on to the much larger fantasy project I’ve been building behind the scenes. Nostalgia aside, thank you for reading and sticking with me through this ride. See you all on Sunday!

Oh—and the final Intermission: Roster chapter will be going up after this as a bonus!