The Thorn
Ricotta could not tear her eyes from Saya's retreating figure as it vanished down the far end of the corridor.
She grips everything far too tightly, as if terrified of letting a single thing slip away…
It was an assessment she had never heard in her life. Her sword had always been perfect, overwhelming, an object of terror to all who faced it.
And yet—
That single remark
clung like a spiteful thorn driven into her fingertip, refusing to come free, scraping raw against her nerves.
Those words.
That gaze.
That insolent expression.
All of it… grated on her.
She had to confirm it again.
Whatever it was,
she could not simply walk past it.
In the end, as though something had taken hold of her, Ricotta's steps carried her toward the sparring hall where Saya had gone.
And there she saw it.
The girl who, only moments before, had met her eyes with such unflinching boldness was now tumbling across the floor in absurdly clumsy motions before someone else entirely—driven back again and again, rolling over the boards, until at last she lay propped against another woman's knee, receiving a gentle, healing touch Ricotta herself had never once possessed.
Every trace of warmth drained from Ricotta's grey eyes.
Something inside her went strangely cold.
Her lips sealed without a word,
and a tingling force gathered in her fingertips.
…How dare she.
After acting as though she had seen straight through Ricotta's sword to its very core—
to show such a pitiful face to anyone else,
to lean so willingly into a healing hand Ricotta could never offer her own helper.
Someone else's hand was on her helper's body. And with such a look of utter trust, no less.
Another person's warmth was touching what belonged to her.
A scorching, vicious revulsion boiled up from somewhere deep in Ricotta's chest.
How dare you… Do you even know whose she is?
She could not stand there watching any longer. Cloaked in the black fury that had surged up from her heart, she strode into the sparring hall without a moment's hesitation.
Click. Click.
The sound of Ricotta's heels rang out, and the noisy air of the hall sank under a weight that felt almost physical.
The closer she drew, the more even the warm holy power wrapping Saya seemed to shrink before that frigid presence.
"Um… are you all right? The wounds are almost—"
Ravne was gently examining Saya's injuries when a chill swept over her from behind. She lifted her head—and the moment she met Ricotta's icy face standing before her, she swallowed her breath without meaning to.
Saya turned as well. The instant her eyes locked with Ricotta's looking down on her, the color drained from her face until it was pure white.
Ricotta cast an arrogant gaze down upon the two of them sitting on the floor.
"This little game of pity for the opponent you just lost to has gone on long enough, I should think."
Her tone was not merely cold—it was cruel.
As if Ravne no longer even registered in her awareness, Ricotta issued her command to Saya alone.
"Get up."
When Saya hesitated, Ricotta's brow slowly twisted.
She took another step forward, casting her shadow directly over Saya.
"The sight of my helper resting her head on someone else's knee, of all things."
Her lips twisted in a sneer.
"Is rather… disgusting."
In the next moment,
Ricotta's gaze drifted slowly toward Ravne.
She said nothing,
yet her eyes spoke with perfect clarity.
Take your hands off what is mine.
Ravne looked thoroughly flustered, but as befitting a Saintess candidate, she did not abandon her gentle composure.
"But Student Saya is still injured—"
"I will be the one to judge the condition of my helper's body."
Ricotta cut her off cleanly.
And without the slightest hesitation,
she seized Saya's arm where she sat on the floor and hauled her roughly to her feet.
"Ugh…!"
A short gasp escaped Saya as those fingers clamped around her slender arm.
Under that other woman's touch she didn't make a sound—so why does she cry out in pain at mine?
That little noise poured oil on Ricotta's rage.
She dragged Saya out of the sparring hall almost by force. The bewildered look Ravne left behind, the shocked whispers of the surrounding students—none of it registered. Only the sensation of that thin wrist squirming in her grip commanded every nerve she possessed.
The deepest archive of the library.
Behind the closed door, Ricotta finally released Saya's arm with a rough shove. Saya staggered back several steps.
"Explain yourself."
Ricotta spoke. With the fury settled, her voice was only more threatening.
"What, exactly, was that unsightly little performance?"
"……"
"I am not scolding you for losing. But do you truly believe it is acceptable for someone who is my helper to debase herself so wretchedly in front of others? Did you want that girl's pity that badly?"
Saya swallowed a short breath and scrambled desperately through her thoughts.
The real reason Ricotta was furious was not the defeat.
She always shook most violently the moment something that was hers came into contact with another person's hands.
That her possession had behaved "unsightly" in front of others and received "pity."
Having reached her conclusion, Saya decided to redirect the arrow.
"…I apologize. But after watching Basil's spar, I realized something."
"Basil?"
Ricotta's eyebrow twitched at the unexpected answer.
"Yes. His swordsmanship was terrible. And yet… he won. I couldn't understand it. I wanted to test for myself what strength unbound by form truly meant."
Saya paused, then offered a self-deprecating smile.
"In the end, it seems I was different from him. Half-hearted imitation was never going to be enough. I deeply apologize for presenting Lady Ricotta with such an unpleasant sight."
She had shifted her actions onto curiosity about a third party named Basil, admitted the failure of the result, and closed with an apology for offending Ricotta's sensibilities.
It was the excuse Saya had arrived at after turning the matter over in her head as best she could.
The air grew heavier still.
Ricotta crossed her arms in silence, watching Saya with a gaze that was both indifferent and relentlessly thorough.
That artless face. That fluent delivery.
And yet something beyond it kept catching on her.
The explanation just now had been plausible.
But it was too plausible—and that made it suspicious.
A meticulously fitted mask.
Saya had never once shown what lay hidden beneath it.
The fact that she could not understand it,
that capricious current flowing wherever it pleased—
it grated on her past all endurance.
After a silence that seemed ready to stretch into eternity,
Ricotta finally spoke.
"Hmph. The crime of nearly staining my honor with such trivial curiosity is not a light one."
She stepped closer, delivering her warning.
"Never show me such an unsightly face again. Do you understand?"
"I will keep it firmly in mind, my lady."
Just as Saya was about to exhale in relief—
"And."
Ricotta added, her eyes cold once more.
"That handkerchief you used to wipe that commoner's sweat before."
Her grey irises flashed with a chill light.
"Throw it away."
It was an order.
No explanation. No proper reason.
But before Saya could form a reply, Ricotta turned on her heel with decisive finality and left the archive.
Alone, a new system window rose sharply into Saya's field of vision.
The corridor was still.
But Ricotta's mind was anything but quiet.
The lingering feel of Saya's slender wrist in her fingertips,
that defenseless face with eyes closed as she lay across someone's knee,
and the hand that had settled over that face—
another woman's hand.
All of it still scraped unpleasantly across her nerves.
Why did it bother me so much?
…Jealousy?
Ricotta scoffed inwardly.
She dismissed it as a vulgar word that had nothing to do with her.
This is not jealousy. It is nothing more than righteous anger at another person daring to lay hands on my property, and a perfectly justified displeasure at a right that has been violated.
And yet she sensed it, faintly.
That the true reason for her fury lay elsewhere.
That because of one single girl,
everything she was—down to the smallest emotion—was being shaken to its foundations.
That fact was unbearably humiliating.
Rounding a corner of the corridor, Ricotta's steps halted.
To withdraw like this would make her no better than a loser.
Fleeing because she was swept up in feelings she could not understand—that was not her way.
In that instant, the tangled threads in her mind began to unravel.
Until now, Ricotta's world had been simple.
Things she could dominate,
and things she had to destroy.
If she could not understand something?
There was no need to make it understand her.
She would simply tame it.
So that no one else could covet it.
So that no one else could touch it.
Place it solely under her influence, and lock even its whims inside the cage of her control. That would be enough.
That was the answer Ricotta chose—
the most ruthless, and the simplest.
Once the decision settled, it felt as though blood returned to her frozen toes.
Ricotta no longer hesitated.
She turned with absolute resolve.
Her stride was nothing like before.
It was the arrogant, natural gait of a master going to inspect her own property.
Click. Click.
The same sound of heels as earlier, yet the weight carried within it was entirely different.
Every trace of anger had vanished from her face. In its place hung the thin, cool smile of a ruler looking down on all things.
It was almost like the smile of a child who had just acquired a new toy—a cruel innocence that thought of nothing but how to play with it, how to break it in.
When at last she reached the door of the archive, Ricotta stopped and regarded the firmly shut door.
Beyond it, what expression was that girl wearing? Relief? Or still trembling with unease?
Either way, it no longer mattered.
From this moment on, the owner of those feelings would be Ricotta herself.
She slowly set her hand upon the doorknob.
Click—