The royal capital before dawn smells of stone. Damp air and thin light filtering through a single ventilation shaft. Lilia confirmed the light had returned, then closed her eyes while keeping her back pressed against the stone wall. The words that had accumulated since last night—"demon blood," "brings calamity to humans," "foreign national"—seemed to recede slightly, even though the darkness hadn't disappeared. (Where is Raid right now?) She stopped counting how many times this question had surfaced. It appeared whenever she grew afraid, whenever darkness fell—she no longer understood it herself. She simply drew both knees to her chest while watching the shaft of light gradually brighten. Her silver short bob brushed against the wall. The faint traces of horns on her forehead throbbed weakly in the damp of the stone cell. Then footsteps echoed in the corridor. Not just one person. Multiple heavy footfalls. Mixed with the sound of rustling paper. Lilia remained motionless, still hugging her knees. The iron bars opened. A man in his forties entered. Well-tailored overcoat, feathered insignia of the empire. A nobleman—she recognized it immediately. Behind him, two young attendants. One held parchment in both hands, the other held a candelabra. The flame wavered slightly in the cold air of the stone cell. The man stood in the center of the room and cleared his throat once. "In the name of the empire, I hereby formally announce the disposition regarding one who bears demon blood." His voice echoed off the stone walls. Businesslike. Emotionless. A voice meant for reading imperial statutes. The man took the parchment and unfolded it. Lilia, still with her back against the wall, looked up at his face. Pale violet and faint amber eyes—heterochromia—reflected the wavering candlelight. No particular emotion. The face of someone fulfilling an obligation. "By resolution of the Nobility Council—the supreme legislative body composed of high-ranking nobles within the empire—the disposition of the subject shall be as follows. First: execution—to be carried out at dawn tomorrow. Second: the corpse thereafter shall be provided for academic autopsy for the Imperial Magical Research Institute—the academic institution through which the empire pursues state-sponsored analysis and application of magical power—" Lilia's fingertips pressed against the stone floor. Academic autopsy. The meaning of those words was literal. After execution, the body would pass into the hands of the empire's magical researchers. Those bearing demon blood supposedly possessed magical structures within their bodies different from humans. To elucidate that—they would be treated as material. The man continued reading. Legal procedures of the empire, clauses applicable to those bearing demon blood, witness names to guarantee the validity of the announcement—each word continued in a tone as if confirming inventory. The phrase "academic autopsy" bounced once in the back of Lilia's ears. Beyond that, strangely, she felt nothing. It was as if the circuits for feeling had been temporarily severed. The announcement ended. The man folded the parchment. He returned it to the attendant. The candlelight wavered. The man looked at Lilia once—a gaze as if confirming something—then turned on his heel. He stopped. "...Hmm." The man was looking at something. When the attendant holding the candelabra approached, he looked at what the man had indicated with his chin. The lock on the iron bars. Old. Rather, quite old. Rust had penetrated inside, and the metal fittings were half-collapsed. "How long has it been like this?" the man frowned. "We haven't confirmed—" the attendant stammered. "Replace it immediately. Have a new one brought." The man's tone changed. There was slightly more emotion in his voice than in the death sentence he'd just pronounced. You could tell from that voice that he was a meticulous person. The man poked at the lock with his finger to check it, muttering quietly, "A rust like this is pointless." The sound of an attendant running down the corridor. The other attendant saying things like "We'll arrange it right away." Lilia observed the scene. The strange gap that had opened between the words "execution" and "autopsy" from moments before and the practical matter of "lock replacement" happening now. The solemn atmosphere of the stone cell had been smoothly shattered by the problem of neglected maintenance on a rusted fitting. The sound of attendants running about. The nobleman saying things like "Hurry, finish before dawn." How stupid, Lilia thought. That was all. She couldn't laugh, but she couldn't bring herself to cry either. There was only the impression of "how stupid," and somehow that fact made part of the fear ambiguous. The nobleman and attendants left. Replacement workers arrived immediately, and the sound of them working on the metal fittings continued for over ten minutes—then that ended too. Footsteps receded. Silence returned to the stone cell. The light from the ventilation shaft had grown slightly brighter. Lilia rested her head against the stone wall and closed her eyes. (Tomorrow morning—this morning, then.) She tried to confirm the weight of those words once more. Instead, something else surfaced. Raid's eyes. That gaze she'd seen many times since returning from the demon continent. Eyes without fear, without pity, without the preface of "because he's a demon." Eyes that simply took it for granted that Lilia was there. (Why does that come to mind now?) To that question, Lilia felt she finally saw an answer. When fear reaches its maximum, the face that appears first is already decided—she didn't fail to understand what that meant. But before she could put it into words, the shaft of light wavered slightly. Perhaps the wind had blown outside. Lilia hugged her knees again. *** Meanwhile, in an alley outside the royal capital's outer wall, the pale light before dawn was slowly staining the stone pavement. Raid stood facing Min and Gen, his overcoat pulled closed. He'd barely slept since last night. The old wound in his lower back was making a low complaint, but this wasn't the time to worry about it. Beneath the sleeve of his left arm, the pale blue scar from magical fusion was faintly throbbing in the cold air of dawn. Min opened his mouth quietly. "Confirmation," Min said. Slender frame, black overcoat suited for movement. The short sword at his waist was in the same position as last night. Sharp eyes fixed on Raid—not appraising, but confirming. "The execution was scheduled for tomorrow morning, meaning—" Min paused for just a beat. "This morning." The expression vanished from Raid's face. "It wasn't tomorrow morning?" Raid asked. "There was an emergency assembly of the Nobility Council last night. Political concerns about the prolonged detention of one bearing demon blood have intensified, and a resolution demanding early execution passed. Confirmation from an informant with access to the council indicates the execution has been moved up to dawn," Min said. One second of silence. Raid looked at the stone pavement. In that one second, he felt something solidify within him. It wasn't that his emotions moved. Rather the opposite. Something came to a complete stop, and in its place, only what needed to be done became clear. Inside his overcoat, his right hand grasped the hilt of a black short sword. Min continued. "Regarding the use of forbidden techniques—let me confirm once more. Magical fusion—the technique that forcibly expands the circuits within the body to directly synchronize with atmospheric magical elements—causes circuit deterioration with each use. Given the current state of your circuits, Raid—" "I heard," Raid said. Raid didn't listen to the rest. Low-pitched words were absorbed into the thin air before dawn. Min closed his mouth. A beat. He tried to open it again. Raid stopped him with just a glance. Gen, who had a sturdy build, stepped forward from beside Min. His round eyes wavered with something like hesitation. "Um, the old wound on your back seems to be seeping more than last night—" Gen said. "Gen," Raid said quietly. Raid called his name. That was all. There was nothing after. But the weight of that single word made Gen close his mouth. Another silence. This one was longer. Min and Gen exchanged glances sideways, a brief visual confirmation as if they were checking something with each other. Then, without any explicit agreement—their timing didn't waver by a millimeter—their voices came in unison. "Safe travels," both Min and Gen said. The quality of their voices and timing were perfectly synchronized. Raid's facial muscles moved for an instant. A small smile. It appeared at the corner of his mouth for just a moment—then vanished immediately. "Did you two practice that?" Raid asked. "We didn't," "We didn't"—the two answered with the same words, though this time slightly out of sync. Raid straightened his overcoat. He began walking toward the outer wall. The sound of his soles striking the stone pavement fell into the quiet alley before dawn. Deep within his left arm, the preparation of the forbidden technique was beginning quietly. Carefully igniting fire in the rusted circuits. There was pain. There should be. It was old news. *** The outer wall of the prison district was made of older stone than other places. More than two hundred years had passed since construction, and the mortar in the joints was powdering in places. Raid stood before one section of the outer wall and placed one hand against the stone surface. His right hand left the hilt of the short sword. Now it was work for the left arm alone. Atmospheric magical elements—the magical power drifting through the air—were being drawn in through his palm. The magical circuits within his body began expanding at many times their normal speed. It burned. A sensation of being burned from the inside, running from shoulder to fingertips. Magical fusion was a forbidden technique that synchronized the caster directly with atmospheric magical elements using blood vessels and nerves as mediums. The reason it was formally designated as forbidden in the empire two hundred years ago was that the caster's body deteriorated from the inside. Raid silently accepted that sensation. He knew what lay beyond the stone wall. He knew where the cracks would run to reach the interior. More than fifteen years ago, as the empire's foremost magical guide, he had walked through this royal capital's structure and memorized it. Only his body had rusted; his memory had not. The circuits expanded to their limit. Every blood vessel in his body burned with heat. The edges of his vision turned white. Raid released it. A roar shook the royal capital. Explosive magical elements concentrated at a single point, penetrating from the interior of the stone wall to the exterior—or rather, from the exterior to the interior—and one section of the prison district's outer wall collapsed. Stone fragments flew. Dust erupted. The vibration traveled through the ground, and the sound of glass trembling in distant buildings could be heard. Raid walked through the smoke. His arm was heavy. The scar on his left arm was generating heat incomparable to before. There was the smell of burned circuits—not metaphorically, but literally, that sensation actually occurred after magical overload. The old wound in his lower back had been aggravated by the impact. Still, his feet didn't stop. He stepped over rubble. The smoke was thick. Dust clouded his vision white. And then he saw it. A small silhouette standing on the stone floor beyond the collapsed wall. Silver short bob, visible even in the dust. Pale violet and faint amber heterochromatic eyes caught Raid in the smoke— Lilia's expression crumbled. The stone wall of fear collapsed soundlessly. That was the kind of collapse it was. Everything that had been