Mother, the Saintess of Purification
"……?"
The offer came out of nowhere, and Simon could only stare. Lethe set her plate down, a sly smile curling across her lips.
"What's the matter? Scared?"
"No, it's not that, exactly."
A duel with the very person who had saved his parents' lives. Getting caught wouldn't end with a simple scolding—yet Simon could feel his heart being genuinely, dangerously tempted.
The single greatest assignment Kizen had handed down for this vacation was 'competitiveness against a Great Priest.'
If he got the chance to fight the number one first-year of Efnel, wouldn't that yield more hints than months of study?
"Where should we do it?"
He decided to ask, at least.
"Miss Anna would worry. Somewhere a little removed from the house should be fine, I'd say."
Lethe wiped her plate clean, answering in her signature cynical drawl.
"Wait, is that actually going to work on you? I'm kind of a special constitution."
"Ah—there you go spouting nonsense again."
She glared up at him and growled.
"Is that because you took a holy attack earlier and walked it off? You're genuinely asking to die."
Put that way, Simon had no choice but to feel his fighting spirit catch fire.
"I wonder. If I snapped that stubborn pride of yours, would you finally behave yourself?"
"Whaaat? Behave myself? You—right now, come outside and—!"
Swoop.
A sudden touch on both their shoulders made them jump out of their skin. Moments later, like broken dolls, they creaked around to look behind them.
"You two, just now."
There stood Anna, smiling.
"Might I hear what you were talking about?"
In the end, both of them were summoned to the inner room and scolded within an inch of their lives.
Thus the Polentia household gained a new forbidden word. Even the syllable duel was now banned from ever crossing the threshold.
Crackle, crackle.
A stuffed dinner had been eaten, the dishes washed. Settled onto the sofa in front of the fireplace where the firewood was burning down, Simon pulled out his Jet-Black Mechanics homework and set to work.
He tapped his quip pen against the empty space on the paper a few times before, reluctantly, writing out the answers.
Concentration simply wouldn't come. He'd just eaten, so his stomach was full and drowsiness was creeping in.
'I'll pick this up again tomorrow.'
Simon was closing his homework with a yawn when Lethe, dressed in pajamas, came out into the living room.
"Huh? Those clothes……"
"Yes, as you can see, Miss Anna lent them to me. Do they suit me?"
With that, she gave a twirl in place.
There was, it turned out, a surprisingly girlish side to her. Simon answered as he thought it.
"Yeah. They really do su—"
"Shut it. I don't want to hear that from the likes of you."
What was he supposed to do with that?
"Anyway, Miss Anna says she's thirsty. Bring two glasses of water, if you please."
Leaving only those words behind, Lethe swept right back into the inner room.
If only she weren't the one who saved my parents' lives, I'd land at least one punch, Simon thought as he hauled himself up.
"Oh."
Barely had he taken a few steps when Lethe poked her head back out of the room.
"Just so we're clear—you're not actually going to bring plain water, are you? Even garbage necromancers have enough sense to arrange fruit on a tray, or so I'd like to believe."
"……You know what—"
Apparently unwilling to hear a rebuttal, she slid back into the room. And through the wall came the sound of her venting every conceivable complaint at Anna.
"Haah."
She was a guest of honor, after all. Simon sighed and was just heading off to fetch the fruit when—
"Hey."
Before he knew it, her head popped out again.
"If you spit in the water, I'll kill you."
"……"
Apparently she was keeping watch: she pointed two fingers at her own eyes, then swung them toward Simon, before vanishing into the room once more.
'Urgent character education is needed for the students. Staff of Efnel, please take note.'
Simon did as he was told—two glasses of water, fruit carefully peeled and sliced—before carrying the tray into the inner room.
There he found Anna lying on the bed with a smile, and Lethe in her pajamas lying face-down beside her, kicking her legs and chattering away nonstop. When Anna stroked her head, Lethe beamed up at her like a happy puppy.
'Why does it feel like my own mother has been stolen from me?'
Simon was setting down the tray with a sour expression when Lethe whipped her head around.
"You barge into a girl's room without even knocking? Did you eat your manners for breakfast? Honestly, Kizen looks like it needs etiquette training even more urgently than dark magic."
"……The door was open, though."
"Now, now, Lethe. Don't be too hard on him."
"Yes, ma'am~ Teach."
Lethe executed a spectacular about-face and buried her face against Anna's chest.
Simon had reached the point where he simply let things slide. He turned his steps toward the door.
"Good night, my son."
Anna said it with a warm, round smile. Only now did a faint smile finally touch Simon's own lips too.
"Good night, Mom."
Simon was walking the grounds of Kizen.
Familiar sights, familiar alleys, familiar uniforms.
He was strolling along, mind blank, when someone called his name.
He looked up to see Meilin waving at him from an open second-floor window of one of the buildings. Her club friends stood beside her.
Simon raised his arm to wave back—the very moment—
BOOM.
The building exploded. Meilin's body, still inside it, crumbled away without a trace.
This time, riotous laughter and shouting erupted behind his back. Simon spun around to find Dick gathered up with the Class A students, delivering some speech and cackling madly. Simon sprinted toward them, screaming at them to run.
CRASH.
The building came down, and Dick and the Class A students vanished beneath a mound of rubble.
Simon stared, hollow-eyed. He had done nothing. Nothing at all.
'Ah.'
This time it was Camibarez, staggering toward him out of the darkness, wounded.
'No. Kami!'
Not this time. This time he had to save her. Simon gritted his teeth, sprinted, and threw his arms around her.
CHOMP!
She clamped her teeth down on his arm. At some point she had turned into a zombie, her whole body gone a corpse-pale gray.
Simon's pupils trembled.
FWOOSH!
And last of all—
A black cross punched clean through both Simon and Camibarez.
Simon hacked up blood and turned to look back.
Click, click.
He could hear the sound of shoed footsteps. A red-haired woman in a black suit was looking down at them.
[Curiosity killed the cat.]
[You should have left Kizen when you had the chance.]
White flame surged around her, a colossal tsunami. The Pure White Flame swallowed everything of Kizen as it rolled forward.
The world drowned in white fire, and it began wiping out Simon's precious people, one by one.
Simon screamed.
"……Haaaahk!"
He came to, bolting upright.
He looked around—it was his own room. His whole body was drenched in sweat, even his back soaked through.
'It was a dream. That's all ancient history—why that nightmare, of all things?'
Simon felt his throat burning fiercely and climbed out of bed, heading for the living room. His room was on the second floor. As he descended the creaking stairs, his face flushed hot—he could feel heat rising in the air.
'Why is it so warm?'
Then he came down the last step and stepped into the living room.
FWAAAAAAROSH!
Brilliant white flames were spreading across the entire living room.
It felt so unreal he might have taken it for the continuation of the dream. The ceiling was collapsing; the walls of the house burned to nothing, opening a gaping hole onto the night sky.
"……Ah."
No doubt about it.
Beyond any doubt, this was Flema's Pure White Flame.
On the living room floor sat Lethe, a dazed look frozen on her face. Simon rushed over and shook her by the shoulders.
"What's wrong? Lethe! What happened?"
Her trembling finger pointed toward the inner room.
"Miss Anna, she……"
"!"
FWAAAROSH!
Anna was burning in the White Flame. She shrieked in agony, her body convulsing, and every movement spread the fire further—flames leaping from spot to spot across the whole house.
"Mom!"
Even as a massive shockwave crashed over him, Simon's mind snapped into rapid gear.
Had Flema somehow survived and attacked our home in revenge? No. Nephthys wouldn't make a blunder like that. And whatever it was, it wasn't a strike from Flema—Anna herself was the one raising the White Flame.
Then was Lethe secretly a mastermind? That didn't fit either—collapsed on the floor, drained of every ounce of strength, wailing for her teacher, there wasn't a trace of pretense in her.
"Both of you, step back."
VMMMMMMMM!
A vast jet-black magic circle unfurled across the entire house.
<Coffin of Sealing Demonic Powers>
A colossal coffin rose up over the circle, and cloths woven of pure jet-black streamed from it, fluttering like banners.
"Hnngh!"
Richard swung both arms wide. The black cloths pouring from the coffin surged toward Anna.
"Wait! Are you insane?"
Lethe lunged at him, seizing Richard by the collar.
"Miss Anna is a priest! What good is Jet-Black supposed to do?"
"The White Flame is a Saintess's technique—a power that burns Jet-Black."
Richard spoke calmly.
"In a situation like this, the only option is to counter it with its opposite—douse its momentum with Jet-Black."
"……"
Lethe had already thrown every holy spell she knew at it—blessings, recovery magic, all of it—and nothing had worked.
In the end, she released his collar and fell back.
SHRRRRRRRAK!
At Richard's command, the black cloths wound themselves around Anna's body. The White Flame rose and scorched them away, but the cloth flowing endlessly from the coffin only wrapped her tighter, again and again.
Flame burning cloth, cloth shielding Anna—an endless cycle, repeated countless times.
In the end, the battle was Richard's victory. The fire was slowly smothered, and Anna's body was left bound bandage-tight like a mummy, nothing visible but her face.
Her face looked utterly worn. Simon bit his lip, and Lethe turned her head away—she couldn't bear to watch.
"I'm sorry, Anna. I'm going to seal it."
Ssshhhhh.
Countless sealing glyphs carved themselves across the cloths wrapped around Anna's body, and the White Flame's fury began to fade. Richard let out a long, heavy breath, approached, and gently laid Anna down on the floor.
"Miss Anna!!"
Lethe came running through her tears. Wrapped from head to toe in bandages, only her face left free, Anna was nonetheless smiling through her exhaustion.
"I'm all right, Lethe."
"D-did it come from me, then…… the medicine I brought, was something wrong with—!"
"No. It wasn't your fault."
She shook her head slowly, then gazed past Lethe.
"My son."
Thud.
The strength gone from his legs, Simon lurched and dropped to one knee.
"……Mom."
"I finally come home, and all I show you is weakness. I'm sorry."
Simon forced a smile for her—labored, but with everything he had.
"I'm fine. Get some good rest, Mom."
Before long, Anna's eyes slid gently shut. Richard, exhaustion plain on his face, cast one look around the burned-out house and spoke.
"We should move somewhere else to talk."
Leaving the charred wooden house behind, Richard headed for Charles's home.
It was close to Simon's house, and beside it stood an empty annex building that had been used for guests. For the time being, they would impose on it.
"It was a sudden request. Thank you for taking us in, Charles."
"Think nothing of it, my lord! Stay as comfortably as you like for as long as you like. I gave the place a thorough cleaning just last week—it'll be spotless!"
Having finished his conversation with Charles, Richard stepped inside.
Anna, wrapped from head to toe in black bandages, lay asleep on the bed. Sitting before her, faces etched with worry, were Simon and Lethe.
"Tell us, Father."
Simon's face was rigid as he spoke.
"What happened to Mom?"
"……Yes."
Richard closed his eyes and drew a long, long breath. When he opened them, his expression had hardened into something grave.
"Anna has become the Saintess of Purification."