The stars were high in the dark blue sky, and the moonlight was projecting the long shadows of the towers on the castle garden. A gentle breeze flew between the leaves, refreshing the night air and sending little shivers down the spine of the ones more sensitive to the cold.

However, as the soft wind was moving her white dress, she didn't feel that. The lone girl walking in the courtyard was used to far lower temperatures and more adverse weather conditions. After all, she had spent years into lands made candid like her skin by perennial, magical snow.

Her life in that forest had been monotonous and slow, frozen in its lonely habits like the ancient inhabitants of that place. The days in which the girl had talked to someone were lesser than the ones she had spent in an almost religious silence, with the only companion of the person that met her gaze in the mirror. It couldn't have been otherwise: the young woman's physical features made her the walking image of the greatest enemy of the world.

It wasn't her fault if she had long, silver hair that seemed to shine in the moonlight. It wasn't her fault if the pupils of her large eyes were the same colour of the amethysts that shone on the noblewomen's rings. It wasn't her fault if her ears were slightly longer than other people's ones and their upper part ended in a sweet tip, betraying the nature of her blood that wasn't human, but neither an elven one.

It wasn't her fault, but people avoided her, feared her, attacked her because she was exactly how popular tales and ancient myths described the Witch of Envy: the fearsome Satella, hardly sealed by the Sword Saint of that time, Reid Astrea, the Sage Shaula and the Divine Dragon Volcanica. The same dragon who had chosen her as one of the candidates to the Royal Selection that was going to choose the forty-second King of Lugunica.

Emilia had joined this election with the sponsorship of the greatest wizard in Lugunica, the Margrave Roswaal L. Mathers, who had promised to the girl his help to unfreeze the frozen elves in Elior Forest. She knew this was a totally egoistic reason: she hadn't accurate plans, or management skills, or a leader's charisma. She only wished for a world in which nobody would have been discriminated against due to his bloodline, physical features or ethnic background. A world in which her people would have lived happily, free from the chains of both the everlasting ice and the human prejudice.

A world in which…

…she wouldn't have been alone.

As she was exiting the royal castle with the only company of her shadow and some lesser spirits, entering the courtyard, so Emilia had lonely lived her life. Only two stars shone in her darkness: one was Puck, her foster dad, who had unfrozen her and lived with her since the stagnating years in Elior Forest. He looked like a little flying cat but he in truth was the Beast of The End, the current Great Spirit of Fire, who had saved her life in a fight to the death years before right after contracting her.

The other was…

Subaru, you dunderhead, where have you gone?

…a boy with black hair and nasty eyes she had met during a misadventure in the capital city some month ago. He had helped her and fought to save her life, even if she had never seen him before. Since he had been heavily wounded by the Bowel Hunter, she had taken him with her at Roswaal's Mansion. Some days after, he had managed to save the kidnapped children in the nearby Arlam village with Rem's help, even if only Roswaal's direct intervention had saved him from certain death.

He was also admittedly her friend. My first friend, Emilia reminded herself, smiling slightly and feeling a little warmer. And the boy who had taken her on her first date. Not that she knew why a date was so important for her but, judging by her father's and Subaru's behaviour that day, it had to hold an important meaning she wasn't able to acknowledge.

Natsuki Subaru surely acted cool without having any appreciable strength. However, his heart was one of the biggest the half-elf girl had ever seen. He was just a common boy who kept continuously putting himself in the first line.

The previous smile left Emilia's face, her lips straightened up in a horizontal line. Subaru had been hurt a lot since she had known him and the half-elf still hadn't figured out why he was going through all those things. Her safety seemed to be his utmost wish, but the silver-haired girl had no clues on the boy's reasons and that was worrying her. Nobody had genuinely helped her or tried to reach her before. This line of thoughts had come across her mind multiple times after Puck's words weeks ago, in the morning following the Snow Festival.

"…but I can't say if the Subaru staying by your side one year from now will be happy or not." Puck wondered, floating in mid-air behind a silent Emilia.

"His belly wound, and the Mabeasts' bites, that kid's misadventures are all the results of your actions. I know you're not one to forget that, but you have to keep it in mind."

I reeeally must talk with him about his behaviour. Emilia thought as she crossed a castle gate, greetings the guards with a nod of her head. If he really cares for me, why didn't he keep his promise? Why did he go to the throne place, instead of remaining with Rem as I begged him to do? Why is he going towards all these things for me, if he ignores the promises he made to me?

I hope he didn't get into something dangerous after he made a fuss in the throne room.

Emilia saw in her hind the boy's sad and betrayed face when she had denied every bond between the two of them.

Maybe I've been too harsh to him. The silver-haired girl considered. After all, he has been through a lot recen-

"Heeeeeelp! Someone hel-"

Her pointy ears up, Emilia searched for the source of the cry. This voice seemed…

"-help me, please!"

…No, this voice was his!

"Subaaruuu!"

Emilia created some ice ledges on the walls around the castle and climbed It with a few jumps. As the girl reached the top of a watchtower, she stood there scrutinising the surroundings, her right hand on her forehead to focus her sight.

"Subaru! Where are you? Subaaruuu!"

No answer came to her loud call. Emilia tried to calm herself and closed her eyes, reaching the link with her contracted spirits…

...when she sniffed a burning smell. As the girl looked around again, she suddenly saw an orange-reddish light coming from what seemed like a wooden arena near the knights' quarters.

Someone set a big fire here!

The half-elf suddenly rushed towards it jumping and running, the light becoming brighter at each step she made.

That's way too much for a torch or something like that. That's fire magic!

"Subar-"

"AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAARGGH! GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The scream sent a freezing shiver down Emilia's spine, drying her mouth and tensing her arms and shoulders in goosebumps. A few moments later, she reached the source of the flames: a side access to the stadium under the stands, a tunnel with trunks walls that were being incinerated by the magic fire. And at its entrance…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!"

…someone was rolling on the ground screaming his lungs out, his back set on fire, the clothes on his back ripped off and burning.

"SUBARU!"

Emilia suddenly raised her hands, summoning a stream of water aimed at the boy; as she got near to heal him, the flaming vault of the tunnel let a sinister creak. Sensing the incoming danger, the half-elf suddenly spread her arms.

"Ul Huma!"

Several huge ice pillars sprouted from the ground, embracing the damaged walls and converging in a domed ceiling that held the weight of the collapsing stands.

The girl then hurried to the boy and leaned on him, casting her healing magic with the help of her contracted spirits. However, no matter how much effort she put in it, Subaru's conditions weren't improving.

What remained of the skin on the boy's back was like burned paper soaked in white foam; his exposed fresh meat was pulsing and glowing in its reddish tint and it was bleeding from different cuts and holes it carved. The girl's experience and skills with this magic weren't enough to heal the boy, whose conditions were getting worse from one moment to another despite her trying her best.

Tears started to form in Emilia's eyes as she got aware she wouldn't be able to save him.

"HEEEELP! SOMEONE HELP MEEE!" The half-elf screamed.

Subaru clapped his hands together and exulted.

"Yessss! And that's wh (Emilia-tan's Majorly a Fairy)!"

"PLEASEE! HELP MEE!"

"Ahh, I see. Got it, Emilia-tan. So when I do come back safe and sound, you'll gently hug me to your chest like a baby chick, right?"

Her candid hands were now red under the moonlight.

"I was in a tight spot until I heard Emilia-tan's voice. And, er, also, sorr-"

The apology died on his lips. Subaru swallowed back the word he was about to say and changed his approach with a smile. "…Thank you. For everything."

She grabbed his skinned wrist and checked his heart rate: it was slowly but ineluctably decreasing.

With his left hand on his hip and his right hand pointed in the air, Subaru disregarded the surprised stares coming from all around him, and declared in a loud voice, "My name is Subaru Natsuki! I know there's a ton of things you want to say and a ton of things you want to ask, but before all of that let me confirm just one thing!..."

"I totally just saved your life right now from that terrible weapon…"

In her sobbing and in her cries for help, she never stopped healing him. She wouldn't have let him die.

"I'm the person who saved your life! Your rescuer! Now you are the heroine I rescued. Don't you think that I should get some kind of reward?"

"So my wish is…"

I won't let him down!

Subaru smiled, showing his teeth, then snapped his fingers and then gave a thumbs-up, striking a pose.

"…I want you to tell me your name."

Please, I cannot let him die! Not after all he did for me!"

"-gh!"

As she heard a growl, Emilia raised her head, her vision blurred by salty tears in her eyes…

...and she saw a couple of figures slowly moving away from the collapsed section of the standings. She opened her mouth to call for hel-

"Agravain, can you walk? We need to hurry. We cannot stay here: there would be a lot of troubles for us if we got caught after all we did. We are lucky that we haven't been trapped by the falling ceiling and the half-witch hasn't seen us!"

"I-I cannot move, please help me. That Natsuki Subaru-gh! He... truly pulled a stunt on me."

Emilia's cry died in her throat. Her refined senses, due to her half-elven blood, made her able to hear the two figures' whispers. Looking at them, it seemed that one was limping in his torn and burnt cape while carrying the weight of the other. They both looked damaged, as they had just fought…

The silver-haired girl took a moment to realise what she had just heard; however, as he did that, her eyes glimmered in wrath.

They had hurt Subaru. They were the ones after that disaster. And while he was dying in her arms, they were trying to get away to keep themselves safe and their image clear.

Before she could even be aware of that, she was standing on her feet as an icy aura spread out from her. The two of them probably sensed the temperature drop, 'cause they shivered and slowly turned back, preparing themselves to face Emilia, the shy candidate to the royal selection…

...only to meet the Freezing Witch's piercing gaze.

"Just die."


"Reporting! One of the stands in the parade square has collapsed. It seems someone started a fire there."

Marcos Gildark, the captain of the Royal Guard, raised an eyebrow.

Doing such a thing today, with all the five candidates in the castle... nobody would have the guts to pull out that stunt alone. The ones behind this have to be exceptionally foolish, they're only using this as a decoy to catch our attention and attack some sensitive target in the castle. Considering both the eventualities, it's better if I check here the members of the Elder Council and the candidates. That means I'm going to leave this trouble to the guards, but they don't have to underestimate them. I don't want to have casualties while dealing with something in the Royal Castle itself, the safest place of the whole kingdom.

"Take two handfuls of men and go there to investigate. Observe the situation before attacking and don't approach the enemies all together: if there are major troubles, someone must be in conditions to report here and call for reinforcements."

"Yes, sir!"


"Reinhard, this is all your fault!"

The golden-haired girl pouted, her arms crossed on her chest. Her head was turned sideways, not to look at her interlocutor, in an attempt to show all her dissent.

"Lady Felt, those were important details that had to be settl-"

"You should have warned me about that. Geez, this Royal Selection, or whatever it's called, surely is annoying. Wastes of time like these are something I'm going to delete when I'll have won, along with all that nobiliary crap. When the whole nation is facing such a period of difficulties, those privileged blowhards are talking and talking about bullshit. If a kingdom doesn't care about its people, for which purpose does this kind of stuff even exist?"

"..."

"Reinhard, are you even listening to me?"

Felt was now staring at her knight with her head tilted, a slightly annoyed glimmer in her red eyes.

Reinhard's wide smile, which had been spread on his face some moments before, had been replaced with the knightly equivalent of a thoughtful and worried frown.

The Divine Protection of the Magic Threat Detector had just activated.


Modretus was trembling in fear and his companion, weak on his legs, was shaking like a leaf shaken by a strong wind.

As the fireball had hit the black-haired boy on his back, the young knight had known he had disposed of him. So, he had carried Agravain on his back and started to run towards the other entrance of the now flaming tunnel to avoid being caught under its collapse.

They had been lucky that, as the Witch's offspring had moved to the lying boy, the tunnel ceiling had collapsed behind their back, hiding them from her. Judging by her cries, she had been distracted by her dying friend, who at this point wasn't for sure going to name them. Modretus had managed to wake up Agravain and give him a Bokko fruit he always had in his pocket, then they had started slowly leaving that place without making a noise…

...when an unnaturally freezing air coming from behind had stopped them on their feet.

He slowly turned toward the source of this flowing magic power and saw the half-elf standing there, her fists clenched, her silver hair covering her eyes. Ice was spreading on the ground from her feet, setting off the flames as the white layer advanced.

Then the girl raised her head and met his gaze. Her amethyst eyes were so cold they made him shiver. She was nothing like the girl he had previously said that day. The half-elf before him had all the credentials to be called a Witch without considering her particular genetic heritage.

"Just die."

The girl didn't scream, but her threat couldn't appear more truthful. Modretus knew she was going to attack, so…

"A-Agravain!"

"I got it! Dona!"

As the elder knight summoned an earthen wall, it exploded as if something very heavy had been thrown against it. While the two knights were jumping back, Modretus saw in a heartbeat some big icy shreds falling to the ground. If she was attacking with frost spears or something like that…

"El Goa! El Goa! El Goa!"

The long-haired knight threw three big fireballs in quick succession against the half-elf, just in time to make them collide with a barrage of icy spears. Their attacks canceled each other out in a magic blast. A moment later...

"Ul Goa!"

Without caring of the collateral damage, the younger knight went all-out to anticipate his opponent. Several flaming projectiles were thrown for some seconds from his hands towards the direction where the girl was supposed to be, at the pace of a handful each second, enlightening the night like a day. Clouds of sand and black smoke filled half of the boy's field of view, then he saw a flame curtain separating the knights from the point the witch was.

The long-haired boy stopped and panted, his hands on his knees.

*CLINK*

"What?"

"No way…"

*CLINK* *CLINK* *CLINK* *CLINK* *CLINK* *CLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINK*

As Modretus and Agravain raised their heads at the same moment, they saw the girl standing on the top of what once was a stand. Her white dress was dirtied by sand and blood, but there wasn't the slightest trace of a burnt.

And in the air above them, previously obscured by the cloud of smoke, there were dozens of icy spears that surrounded the knights from every spot.

"-"

"Ul Dona!"

Sensing the danger in which they were, without waiting for a word from the half-elf Agravain summoned a doom of earth and sand surrounding him and Modretus.

*CRASH!*

The wave of the frozen projectiles scattered their shield in a heartbeat.

"Goa!"

The younger knight raised his hands, his mana shaped like a curtain of flames above their heads.

However, it wasn't enough.


In a fraction of a second, both undamaged spears and shreds of ice made their way through the wall, raining on the two of them.

Agravain's left shoulder was wounded. A spear pierced his right arm, another pinned his left feet to the ground. Modretus' right hand was cut at his wrist, and a pointy shred of ice was stuck in the middle of his left palm. His torso presented several deep cuts, as his left knife.

"GH-AAAARGH!"

"Gh-GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

When the magic rain stopped, the elder knight was on his knees clenching his teeth and the younger one was rolling on the ground with appalling screams.

The witch jumped down from the stand to the sand littered with pieces and shreds of burnt wood. The sheer power of her magic skills and her freezing aura had doomed the existing flames, leaving that place under the only brightness of the moonlight.

"P-Please! Spare u-gh!"

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

The half-elf slowly approached them, one step after the other. As she was getting near the two knights, Agravain started sensing a more intense pain where the spears had hurt him; looking down at his own body, his eyes widened and his pupils shrank as she saw little icy gems sprouting out from his wounds. At every step the gi- no, the Witch made, those gems grew a little more, and the bearded man felt less vital energy in his body.

The silver-haired witch stopped a few metres away from them. Agravain started begging her with tears in his eyes, as his companion was feeling too much pain to do something different from crying and screaming his lungs out.

"AAAAAAARAAAAAAARGHHHH!"

"Aargh-Please! Pleas-gh, s-spare u-"

"Just die."

As she signed their death warrant, Agravain felt like his body was too small for what was contained inside it, and yet he sensed his life flowing away in incredible, increased sufferings. He was being eaten from the inside, but he was growing bigger and his wounds were spreading and freezing, aching in unbelievable pain. He could Just scream…

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAH!"

...then it all ended.

Only a pair of amethyst eyes could see the beautiful and at the same time terrible icy flowers, shining in their azure light in the moonlight, that had finally blossomed on their corpses.


Hi guys! I'm back and yes, I know you're asking "Wtf is this?" but this is something that happens when YandEmilia joins the show.

I hope the other innocent oncoming guards won't be mercilessly crushed. Also, I hope Subaru won't die… wait, that happened in the past, he Is definitively not dead here.

Reinhard's DP Is not mentioned in canon, but something like that is likely to exist and come on, this guy has DPs that give him the ability to walk on water and on the clouds, to never mistake salt with sugar, to change the mind of a targeted person (!) and to choose the best outfit for someone. I guess I can just create another reasonable DP for him.

Seeing how this was going, I had to give some (useless) ability to the two poor guys not to have them one-shot killed, like KidLia did several times with that lovely girl Pandora.

Probably it isn't a good way to end the chapter, but I didn't want to write a 10k words chapter or something like that when the average one is about 2.5k words.

Jokes aside, I hope you enjoyed this chapter at least a little.

As always, reviews, criticism, ideas and (almost) everything you want to write to me are welcome.

See you in the next one!