The sound of gravel fell into the silence of the ruined city. Just one step. That was all it should have been. But that single step changed the atmosphere of the entire battlefield. Aira stepped forward. The Demon King's black eyes caught the movement. The next surge of magical power was being compressed—that sensation pierced through her skin like a needle. The air of the ruined city grew heavy. The density of atmospheric mana—the magical essence drifting through the air—spiked sharply, and with each breath, the inside of her lungs ached. It's coming. The moment Aira braced her feet, the third wave arrived. This time it was a straight line. Compressed force narrowed to a single point, striking Aira's left leg from the side. Her knee buckled. She dropped to one knee on the gravel, her right hand pressing against the ground. Fragments of shattered stone bit into her palm. Before the pain came the sensation. —It was cold. Dry. That feeling of the ruined city's gravel. Aira lifted her face. Vector's voice reached her from behind. "Don't stop them. Let her through." A knight who seemed to be an adjutant was shouting something. "We'll be annihilated at this rate—!" Vector's response was brief. "No one retreats until Aira reaches him." There was a pause. "...That's assuming she reaches him?" "If she doesn't, there's no point." That was all. The adjutant seemed to have nothing more to say. That atmosphere reached all the way to this end of the battlefield. Aira felt something close to a bitter smile forming at her lips. Even though this wasn't the time to laugh, she wanted to. (Assuming she reaches him. Well, if she didn't, she wouldn't have come.) She put force into her right hand gripping the gravel. She stood up. Her knees screamed in protest. But she could stand. If she could stand, she could move forward. That was enough. ──── As she stood, her fingertips touched something completely different. Not the cold of gravel. A different sensation—something with texture, with ridges. Alternating rises and depressions, the surface of dry skin. The inside of a left arm. The feel of a scar from magical fusion. (…That person's arm.) Aira had lost count of how many times she'd touched the scar on the inside of Raid's right arm. Every time his magical circuits—the pathways naturally present in the body for drawing in and releasing atmospheric mana—grew hot, she'd confirmed their path with her fingertips. Where was the heat concentrated? In what direction did the power flow? Which parts had hardened? It was a tactical confirmation. At first, certainly. While rewrapping his bandages and hearing Raid grumble "that's annoying," she still hadn't stopped moving her fingertips. With each new scar, she'd memorized the shape of the previous ones. Those ridges on the inside of his right arm. That slightly harder part just above where her pinky would rest. The shallow groove running from there toward his wrist— She'd learned with her fingertips exactly where the forbidden magical fusion technique—the art the Empire had prohibited two hundred years ago, which forcibly expanded the body's magical circuits—placed the greatest strain as it passed through. It was a place she'd confirmed many times. And now, rising from within the sensation of gravel, it came back to her. Aira realized her face was hot. It might have been from the burns. The aftershock of the third wave had scorched her skin. It might have been that. But right now, Aira didn't have the composure to judge which. And she didn't need to. Either way, her reason for moving forward didn't change. Close the distance to the Demon King. That was all she thought about. ──── From a high point in the ruined city, Lilia watched the scene unfold. The edge of a crumbling tower. Broken stones were piled at her feet, and one misstep would mean falling. Silver short bob hair swayed in that precarious place. Pale purple and pale amber-colored heterochromatic eyes fixed intently on the battlefield below. Lilia's lips moved ever so slightly. What she whispered, no one on the battlefield could hear. Whether she'd even spoken aloud was questionable. The wind blew, and a single strand of silver hair stuck to her cheek. Lilia didn't bother to brush it away. The Demon King's next movement was delayed by half a beat. Delayed—whether anyone on the battlefield noticed it was unclear. It was only the slightest thing, a mere instant. But in that single beat, Aira's feet had advanced two steps. ──── When Aira closed to within three steps, she released her grip on the sword's hilt. She didn't draw it. But she didn't let go either. The hand resting on the hilt, she slowly extended forward. Her free right hand, she held out ahead of her. She wasn't taking a combat stance. But she wasn't surrendering either. With the same motion she'd used to confirm the heat of his scars, she simply extended her hand. On the back of Aira's right hand ran the marks of burns. The scorch marks from the throne room of the ruined city still remained. That same hand had examined Raid's arm countless times. Those same fingertips had traced the ridges of his scars. That fact was now quietly confirmed within Aira herself in this place. (This hand knows.) Her fingertips were hot. Whether it was the aftershock of mana or something else, she couldn't tell. Either way, it didn't matter. "..." Aira made a sound. She might have called his name. She might not have. She didn't even know if it was words. But the air of the ruined city changed at the quality of that sound. It was absorbed into the accumulated stone walls, drifted through the mist, and reached into the depths of those black eyes—she felt that sensation. Something trembled in the deepest black of the abyss. Like something submerged beneath the water's surface becoming visible for an instant as the waves shift—that kind of trembling. The way the coat hung. The angle of his shoulders. The way his arm rested on the armrest. That form from when he'd been leaning against the stone chair in the throne room of the ruined city—it was there, beyond the black. The motion of compressing magical power froze. Aira stepped forward. Her fingertips touched the inside of the Demon King's arm—the inside of his right arm. The sensation returned to her fingertips. Dry skin. Ridges. Alternating rises and depressions, that familiar texture. There was heat. It was the coordinate where the magical circuits had been under the greatest strain. The place she'd confirmed with her fingertips every time she rewrapped his bandages. The exact point she'd touched so many times—Aira pressed it precisely. "—" She didn't know if she'd made a sound or not. But the black light trembled from within. It wasn't an explosion. It was the way something that had been compressed suddenly dispersed like mist. The deep black lost its density. From within, quietly. Like something that had been soaked in was being drawn out, slowly but surely— The entire battlefield fell silent for one second. ──── In that one second of silence, one of the knights in the front line tapped the shoulder of a comrade who was half-collapsed beside him. "...Is it over?" The comrade, still with one hand on the gravel, answered. "Don't ask. I'll collapse if you do." "Why would I collapse?" "I don't know. But if you ask now, I definitely will." A silence of complete exhaustion fell between the two. Then—neither of them quite sure which—a sound came out that was somewhere between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry. That sensation rippled across the entire battlefield like waves. Vector lowered his shield. The adjutant tried to confirm something, but words wouldn't come. The soldiers gradually began to release their tension. The sound of armor scraping. Someone taking a deep breath. The crunch of gravel underfoot being shifted. These sounds slowly dissolved into the air of the ruined city. ──── Weight settled against Aira's arm. A body collapsed. She caught it instinctively. She wrapped her arms around it, pulling it close. The scarred left arm fit within Aira's right arm. —It was warm. That body heat was the same as in her memories of tending to him. When she'd been wrapping bandages. When she'd been checking for fever. When she'd been placing her fingertips on the edges of wounds—that exact temperature. Aira's fingertips touched his back. Through the fabric of his coat, his body heat transmitted to her. It was the same body heat she'd confirmed countless times in her memories of caring for him. The recognition that "this person always had this temperature" descended from deep within her body, before thought, before words. It hadn't gone through reasoning. It didn't have a name like emotion. Her fingertips simply knew. Aira knelt down. Slowly. Both knees on the gravel. Careful not to drop the weight she was holding. Drawing the collapsed body closer to her chest. For a while, she couldn't say anything. Not because she couldn't find the words. Her throat had closed before she could even search for them. A hoarse voice was heard. "...What did I do?" It was a low voice. A voice that was regaining composure. But mixed within it was a clear confusion about his own actions. While maintaining a hint of former dignity, in this moment alone, that dignity rested entirely within Aira's arms. Aira didn't answer. She couldn't answer—or rather, it felt like she didn't need to right now. Aira knew what Raid had done. But before she could put it into words, something else was pressing against the inside of her face. She couldn't tell if she was crying or laughing. She lowered her face. Her forehead touched his shoulder, at that angle. The sensation of his coat's fabric against her forehead. Raid's body heat was close. (He's alive. He's warm. He's really here.) That alone descended as certainty into her body. Not logic. A fact her fingertips had confirmed. ──── From the high point of the ruined city, Lilia looked down at the scene. The edge of the crumbling tower. Silver short bob hair swayed in the wind. Pale purple and pale amber-colored heterochromatic eyes fixed on the two figures below. A smile appeared on Lilia's lips. It wasn't a clear smile. But she was definitely smiling. It wasn't a smile meant for anyone to see. It was simply what happened naturally when she saw that sight. No one could see it. The knights on the battlefield were exhausted. Vector was moving to check on his unit. Aira had her face lowered. Raid was recovering the color in his eyes, though his focus hadn't quite returned. Lilia's smile was complete unto itself, alone on the high point of the ruined city. The wind blew. Silver hair caressed her cheek. This time, Lilia gently brushed it away with her fingertips. The sky above the ruined city had passed dawn and was growing slightly brighter. The mist was thinning, and the outlines of distant stone structures were becoming clearer. The morning light illuminated the gravel of the ruined city in white. Aira's reddish-brown hair, as she knelt on the gravel, swayed gently in that light. Raid's eyes—had returned to a deep amber color. ──── After a while, Aira lifted her face. She said nothing. She tried to speak, but before words came, Raid's face entered her vision and she stopped. Eyes that hadn't quite regained focus, but were returning—that was the color they held. The face of a forty-two-year-old man. Black short hair with white streaks mixed in. Deep amber eyes that slowly looked at Aira. "...Are you alive?" He said it in a hoarse voice. Whether he was asking Aira or himself was ambiguous. It was very like Raid. Aira received those words for a moment. Then she answered briefly. "I'm alive." Her voice was hoarse. She hadn't realized it herself. But the voice came out. It reached Raid. Raid seemed to try to say something—and stopped. He tried again, and stopped again. Then he simply fell silent.