An Assassin Must Know How to Paint
An assassin must know how to paint a picture.
Of course, I don’t mean dabbling with paints and brushes. Painting is every step of the assassination itself.
It begins with knowing exactly who the target is, then imagining how they will move, how they will react, and crafting the optimal plan inside your head. And it never stops at one or two plans—sometimes you map out dozens of possibilities.
After that comes the endless waiting. Hours at the shortest, days upon days at the longest.
Then arrives that single fleeting instant. The moment when reality overlays the picture you have painted a hundred times in your mind—and you never let it slip. Failure is not an option. For an assassin, failure means death. Being able to die is already a mercy.
And if you have cut the target’s breath short, the cleanup afterward must be flawless as well.
All of that is the process of assassination. Miss even one piece, and it is no longer assassination—just simple murder.
In that sense, I was already disqualified as an assassin.
I hadn’t even properly sized up my opponent, and the plan to draw him in had been clumsy beyond belief.
Fortunately the duel itself had somehow come together, but an assassin who should never let emotion rule her had let emotion rule her actions.
The price had been rather steep.
If I had been at full strength it might have been different, but the four previous sparring matches had left their mark. Forcing a quick finish had only exhausted me further than usual.
Ordinarily I would have aimed for an easy win even if I couldn’t overwhelm him outright. But the fight had already turned dirty.
Thud!
The instant I slipped past his swinging blade, he seized a fistful of my hair and yanked. My head followed his hand.
A sword came whistling toward my dragged body—a dangerous moment—but I used the pull itself to twist just clear of the edge and snapped out a kick. In my old body it would have been impossible, yet the newfound flexibility of a woman’s frame forced out a movement that bordered on acrobatics.
Thwack!
The impact must have stung; his grip on my hair loosened for a heartbeat, and I slipped free of range at once. My scalp still burned, but at least nothing had been torn out. Small mercies.
Heh.
I had enough breathing room to think useless thoughts like that, apparently.
I took a moment to steady my breath and tossed out a line.
“All that talk about being a noble, yet the way you fight dirty makes you look exactly like some back-alley thug.”
“Hah—dirty? Thug? What the hell are you talking about? Class 2 is survival of the fittest. If you’re weak, you just stay crushed underfoot.”
Behind him, Selen’s expression did nothing to contradict the words.
“Survival of the fittest, is it? Fine. Let me show you exactly who the weak one is.”
I charged. The longer this dragged on, the worse it was for me. Every muscle in my body was screaming. Still, I forced the pace higher, swinging my sword again and again.
He settled into a defensive stance, just as expected. He knew I was overextending; if he could simply weather this flurry, the counter would be his.
His foot edged half a step back. I took a longer stride and stamped down hard on the retreating foot.
No real pain for him, of course—but for a split second the unexpected contact opened a gap. A tiny one.
Not enough room to swing a sword. So I widened it myself.
I closed in far too tightly as he tried to recover his stance.
Crack!
My skull smashed upward into his face. The human cranium is one of the hardest bones in the body—a perfectly serviceable weapon.
I had called him dirty, called him a thug, but I was the one far more at home in that kind of brawl.
Tangled feet and a suddenly battered face. His body toppled backward of its own accord.
Even then he tried to salvage the situation with a wild swing—
Clang!
A blade swung from a collapsing posture carried no strength. His sword went spinning far away.
And mine—
Thunk!
—skimmed past the side of his fallen neck and buried itself in the floor.
My sharpened senses caught the twitch of movement; I tilted the blade just enough toward his throat.
A thin bead of blood welled up. His half-raised arm froze in midair.
My long hair, fallen forward, shut out the surrounding stares until only his disbelieving face and mine remained.
I smiled down at him.
“Move and you’re dead, got it?”
A whisper meant for him alone.
“Enough!”
At Ferent’s shout I yanked the sword free and slid it home into its scabbard. In a true duel taking a life would have been no issue—at least on the surface—but his family would never have let it rest. My “Frentz” name was still nothing more than a label; his neck was simply too expensive.
“Elicia, since you clearly have no intention of taking his life, we’ll call this your victory. I, and everyone present, stand as witnesses. You may demand anything you wish as the price of his life.”
I glanced at the pathetic figure sprawled on the ground.
“The life of a third-rate like that wouldn’t be worth the dirt it would put on me.”
Then I turned my gaze to Selen.
“Instead, may I say just one thing?”
Our eyes met. Selen was a powerhouse on a level I had yet to reach. This was pure gall, no question—
“Professor’s ‘survival of the fittest’? Doesn’t look like much.”
I lifted only one corner of my mouth in a smile. Open mockery. Anyone could see it was no way to address a superior—just a cheeky pup that didn’t know enough to fear the tiger.
I had braced myself for at least a slap of the sword from Selen. He wouldn’t kill me… probably.
What he did instead was something I never saw coming.
“Kh… kkh…”
Without the slightest regard for the stares around him, he suddenly burst into laughter, cackling openly.
I, Ferent with a hand already on his scabbard ready to intervene, and every student ringing the sparring ground all stared at Selen in blank confusion.
“Haa…”
After laughing long enough that time itself seemed to blur, Selen finally caught his breath and faced me again.
“So, my teaching methods are wrong and I should just hand over your precious friend, is that it?”
I gave a single shrug.
“I’m not even the strongest in my class, yet I just took down five of your Class 2 students. Doesn’t that at least suggest Professor Ferent’s methods might be a little more correct?”
That was the flimsy justification I had forced into existence. Honestly it was full of holes. Selen could simply ignore it and walk away.
“What do you say, Professor Ferent?”
“I can hardly dismiss my own student’s opinion out of hand.”
“Kkh… fine. It’s a bit thin, but considering the effort you put in, I’ll send Yuri over just like you—wait a second.”
?
Selen suddenly fell into thought, stroking his chin and nodding to himself several times.
“Better idea—why don’t you transfer to Class 2 instead? That way you could look after Yuri from right beside her.”
So Selen had flipped the proposal on its head. True, if I moved to Class 2 in Yuri’s place, the bullying would stop just the same. But Selen had already earned a permanent black mark in my book. Why would I willingly go?
Before I could even voice the refusal—
“No!”
From among the watching students, Cielian shot to her feet and cried out.
She seemed to realize only after the fact what she had done; under the sudden weight of every gaze her face flushed scarlet.
“I-I mean… El won, so… it shouldn’t be El who goes. Miss Atilea should come over here… that’s what I think…”
Tomato-red, voice tiny and nothing like her usual easy tone, Cielian still managed to say everything she needed to say—then sat back down, buried her face against her knees, and refused to look up.
A brief silence settled. I was the one who broke it.
“Ciel’s right. I have no intention of going to Class 2. I simply don’t like the teacher.”
At my words Ferent covered his face as if he had given up entirely, while Selen clutched his stomach and howled with laughter all over again. Only after a long while did he finally stop and speak.
“Kkh… all right. Yuri transfers to Class 1 effective immediately. But if you ever change your mind, just say the word.”
Whenever you decide you like me—
With that, Selen gave my shoulder a couple of light pats, gathered his Class 2 students, and left the sparring grounds.
Left behind were the members of Class 1 and Yuri.
I swept my disheveled silver hair back with one hand, looked at Yuri, and gave her a bright grin.
At that smile the girl who had been standing alone came running—straight toward our Class 1, straight toward me.
And then she buried herself deep in my arms. Head pressed to my chest, she clung for a long time.
She looked as though she had a thousand things to say, so instead I simply held her in return. Something damp was spreading across my front, and her body trembled, but I only stroked her back in silence… or tried to, until my fingers caught on a strap beneath her clothes. I switched to gentle pats instead.
“Don’t hate Professor Selen too much. Things just turned out this way somehow—he’s a decent guy at heart.”
At some point Professor Ferent had come up beside us. Yuri was still nestled in my arms, but he spoke anyway.
“In any case, Professor Selen and I will handle Yuri’s transfer paperwork, so don’t worry. I’ll take the other students inside first—come in once you’ve calmed down.”
“Class 1, assemble!”
At Ferent’s call the rest of the students lined up in front of him. He led them away, giving us space. Far off I could see Cielian walking with her head turned stubbornly toward me the whole way—a little unnerving, but it only meant she was worried about Yuri too.
Anyway, this was about as good a resolution as I could have hoped for. I tightened my arms once more around the girl still crying against my chest.