Coincidence, Slowly, Gradually
By chance, slowly, ever so gradually.
I stare at the small streak of crimson resting in my palm. Look closely, and it seems faintly translucent, tinged with black.
But its essence, in the end, is red.
Whether this sphere harbors a dark aura, whether its slight transparency lets the light of my hand shine through, the fact remains unchanged — it is red.
Just like the eyes of the woman who handed it to me.
"…."
Alone, I bury my head in my hands. Because Robin hadn't explained herself at any length, I have no idea why she's wary of Lize, why she told me to keep my distance.
Still less do I know how she knows about her — or how much. None of it adds up.
I'm asking you a favor. Just go along with it this once, for me.
When I try to press her, this is the answer I get, which makes it awkward to ask anything more.
If she'd flown into a rage instead, I could have refused outright — but I'd never seen her plead with such earnest desperation before, and I hardly knew how to respond.
Perhaps because I'd been swept up in that mood of hers, it was plainly my mistake not to have mentioned this thing to her.
Quietly, I close my eyes and try channeling mana into the sphere. I attempt to fill it with red, with yellow — but it's no use.
Following her advice to figure out how it works on my own, I keep rolling it this way and that, yet nothing much has come of it.
"…Tch."
Same as now, in fact. When I came back to myself, I was in the Library I always frequent. There's no better place to cool my head.
Right — let the anger settle first, then think. It's all too common for a moment's emotion to ruin an entire situation.
Having decided to pass the time until I calm down, I force myself to pick up a book — and then that familiar dark-red color catches my eye.
"…."
I stop dead in my tracks. I've forgotten even to blink, so great is my shock — so violent is the tremor of emotion running through me.
My hand is already moving, because I know that object, because the shape is unmistakably familiar.
Because I recognize, without a doubt, that it is exactly identical to the one sitting in my pocket right now.
A translucent dark-red sphere — the very thing Lize gave me long ago.
By chance, slowly, ever so gradually.
Too late, I finally understand: she has begun to take root in my everyday life.
***
A shift in perspective, for a moment. On a darkened street, a pale woman bathed in silver light walks in silence, eyes closed.
Her gait is as composed as ever, but the emotions churning beneath it seethe, murky and wild — impossible to measure.
Then, quietly, her eyes open, and a piercing violet emerges into the world.
Her pupils are glowing so brightly that it would be strange not to have one's gaze stolen by that violent beauty.
"…My mood is foul today."
Though it's a shame, truly, that it's veered in such a thoroughly negative direction.
She murmurs it low, as though quietly spitting the words out. She tilts her head back toward the sky, but even that is denied her — the indifferent clouds allow nothing.
Ha. A short laugh escapes her.
"You've been spotted, so come on out."
Geek-geek — an unnatural twist of her neck snaps back into place, and the corners of her mouth curve into something crooked.
It's a little too unstable to call a smile.
The one who recognized that distortion — the woman steps out from the shadows without a sound. A woman in black.
Her hair aside, it was the dull black thing in her hand — as if it could drink in every last particle of light in this world.
Robin, whose violet had been stolen from her against her will, lifts her gaze.
"Tocalos, right?"
"…."
"I already had a headache, and now this is what I have to deal with…"
Voice thick with disgust, though her hand axe has long since been drawn from inside her coat. Across from her, the woman has quietly settled into her stance as well.
"Anyone can see the Vice Master's the one who sent you. Honestly."
That ends the conversation. Robin slams her foot into the ground.
It's her opening strike, and yet she's put so much force into it that the earth beneath her boot sinks in slightly.
Along a soft trajectory, a smooth, unbroken arc, Robin carves her way into the woman's guard.
And sure enough, the woman parries it. Chaeng — the shattering clang of metal against metal grazes both their ears.
In that instant, Robin's face twists — then immediately reshapes itself into a bright, blooming smile.
The woman's turn now. She moves to cleave straight through the defenseless Robin, but Robin whips her head sharply aside, hair flying.
To the woman's eyes, there is only silver now.
"Ugh — what a waste."
A bit of her hair has been shorn away, but thanks to that, not a single wound marks her body. Robin clicks her tongue, watching the silver strands tumble to the ground.
Somehow, she looks faintly flushed.
"…."
Distance opens up between them again, and this time the woman advances slowly toward Robin.
Step by leisurely step — that unhurried approach is a window into her temperament.
Or perhaps it's simply confidence: the certainty that even at this pace, she has more than enough skill to finish the job.
Watching her, Robin's blood begins to boil in a dozen ways at once. She draws the two daggers readied at her ankles and grips one in each hand.
The moment the woman saunters within range, she swings that black thing with a terrifying smoothness.
And Robin doesn't move. She merely follows the arc of its end, quiet and still. Her glowing violet pupils track the sword — and what lies beyond it.
"Hoo…"
With the breath of a single instant, she lets her body go slack. She compresses all of her awareness into pure observation — the arm, the shoulder, the chest, reading every shift of muscle.
This is the realm of insight — an act possible only because hers is exceptional even among the exceptional.
Before she knows it, a horizontal slash so perfect it borders on the absolute arrives before Robin's very eyes.
She lunges. Her eyes snap wide open. She tightens her grip on the arm holding her dagger.
Softly — she lets it slide away.
"…!"
The woman is a little surprised. Her expression barely changes, but Robin senses it — and it's true.
Still, it remains the woman's turn. Correcting her stance at once, she swings the black blade again in a furious arc.
A cut sweeping across the mid and lower body — Robin blocks it with her dagger held vertical, then gives her other hand a slight push, tilting the blade aside along its own momentum.
A thrust toward the upper right — she deflects it from the tip downward, flowing with the stroke, then settles into position once more.
A horizontal cut from the left — even as it comes flying at her, she knocks the flat of the blade aside with the back of her hand.
The entire sequence takes less than five seconds. Robin's expression grows feverish by degrees.
Yet in perfect contrast to that, her movements are supple and fluid — the unbroken, graceful lines she traces recall nothing so much as a serpent.
"My turn, isn't it?"
Slipping in to coil around her opponent's guard — all of it, without exception.
In that instant, just before a pair of fangs can claim the woman's throat, her pupils dilate sharply and she throws herself backward. The way she clicks her tongue in regret is a sight to behold.
But her teeth touched. The hair rolling across the ground proves it — no longer purely white.
"Now we're even."
Psh. An open, deliberate provocation. The woman across from her shows no obvious emotion, but something in her has made a decision — that much is clear.
With the shadows at her back, the woman rests her right hand on her greatsword and draws a deep breath. A wavering black aura rises — and pours itself entirely into the blade.
"Crescent moon, the edge of the boundary, the shadow where contradictions entwine."
A spell's chant. Robin's face stiffens slightly. She realizes the woman is stepping into a territory she herself has yet to reach, and the gap in their raw capability makes itself felt.
But none of it puts so much as a crack in Robin's conviction. She takes one dagger in a reverse grip, her stance shifting into something new.
Sure enough, the woman closes her eyes. The measured rhythm of her breathing — there is nothing there but pure fighting spirit.
She gathers strength in both hands gripping the sword and draws it inward. Her legs split naturally front and back, as comfortable as they can be.
Her stance announces the motion, her posture announces the purpose — everything is laid bare. She doesn't even consider concealing her intent.
One of the most primal forms of attack: the thrust.
"Beautiful."
And so Robin takes the posture of defense. Just as before — to deflect, to coil in and burrow close, and to sink her fangs in once more.
The two figures are locked in their own singular motions, frozen in place.
They do not move — so completely still that time itself may well have forgotten it was meant to flow.
Two silhouettes, foolishly explicit in their intent: shield and spear, and the instant of their collision comes—
"…!"
The very heartbeat where their breaths cross paths.
The woman kicks off the ground, kicking up twice the dust Robin had moments before.
The way she moves upon the wind is like a tongue of black flame.
Her whole body becomes the fire — but the sound that rings out is not a roaring whoom. It is a crack-split of rending air, and then—
a thud, and then—
a sharp—
"…."
Both of them fall silent. They stand frozen in the instant just after impact, doing nothing but breathing.
"…Ugh."
For the first time, the woman lets out a groan. In her left arm — a clean, slicing wrongness, and violent pain.
Drip, drip — fresh blood falls like rain, wetting the ground.
The White Snake's fangs found their mark, without question. She had wrenched her way in, bored straight through that black blade, and sunk her own teeth into the flesh beyond.
She doesn't stop there — grrk-creak — she twists the fangs already sunk deep, widening the wound.
The woman's face contorts further. Robin's face splits into a twisted smile.
Slowly, Robin lets her daggers fall. And then she laughs — loud, full-bodied, haha.
"Heh… hah…"
Afterward she breathes even harder than the woman does, gripping the sword that has pierced clean through her own shoulder.
At some point she's been slammed back against a wall, bleeding worse than her opponent. The great gouge in the stone behind her tells the story of the blow that put her there.
"Ehehe… so it did hurt…"
She tries to pull the blade out with trembling hands. By all rights, the vast gap in raw strength should have made that impossible — nothing should have happened at all.
But in a duel whose outcome was obvious to anyone watching, the woman quietly draws the sword out herself.
Thud. The serpent crumples down where she stands.
"Getting slammed hurt more than getting stabbed… what are you, a boulder?"
Even in this state, she keeps grinning and cracking jokes. One might think she'd lost her mind — an easy mistake to make, but from beginning to end, she never once let go of it.
Sensing this, the woman flinches — barely, a fraction. But even that fraction falls short of stopping her.
Slowly, the sword moves. It comes to rest against Robin's throat. Resigned, Robin closes her eyes.
In what may be her final moment, the first thing that surfaces in her mind is—
"The Vice Master gave her orders."
Just as her vision blurs at the edges, that hollow voice severs even her thoughts.
"If you failed to hold out for more than one minute after the ambush, she was to eliminate you on the spot. If you held out, she was to see how far you could go."
"…What?"
Unwelcome information delivered straight into her skull. She asks again, but the answer that returns is fixed and final.
"You held out for one minute. Therefore, you will not be killed."
With those words, the woman surrenders her body back to the shadows. She vanishes without a trace, leaving behind only two colors of hair drifting to the ground and fresh-spilled blood.
And one Robin, with a wounded shoulder, all alone.
Puhaha! Robin laughs up at the sky — because she has just understood a great many things all at once.
"Son of a… who the hell runs a test like this?"
She rises on trembling legs. Her gait is unsteady, but her direction isn't wrong. Her breathing shakes, but it's not impossible.
She pulls the bandages hidden in her coat, wraps them around her shoulder, and staggers off as she is.
And at the same time, in the coldest voice imaginable, she murmurs:
"Heh heh… looks like Zeo, you've got yourself marked by an even crazier woman than me."