Part 3: Peccatum Mortale (Mortal Sin), Chapter 3.
Byleth continued on with a heavy heart, slowly leaping from building to building, careful to watch her step, lest one wrong step send her sprawling into the sea of rotting corpses in the streets below. But each building around her looked the same, and it was difficult to tell where they were heading, even if Byleth could tell they were vaguely heading west to the Officer's Academy.
"Hubert!" Byleth called out, attracting the tall man's attention from ahead. "Where do we go from here?"
Hubert paused as he turned around, his face looking ghastly pale as he fell to one knee on the building across the street from Byleth. "Not far now, Professor. The Officer's Academy is a strategic position we need to survey the town."
Byleth nodded at the idea, turning over to Yuri and Shamir, the two fastest members of the group acting as silent rearguards after Ashe had drawn the monster that was Lysithea away. Each of them nodded at that, not saying a word in the process, as if doing so would draw more unwanted attention to them.
"Come Professor." Hubert called. "Follow quickly."
Byleth took a deep breath, but she realized very quickly that the jump from her building to the one Hubert stood on would require her to climb back down onto the street, and looking over to Shamir behind her she saw the obvious disgust on the markswoman's face as she slid from the building she was on.
Byleth took one more look at the ruined rooftops before she climbed down by an open second story window, pressing the rounded block of her heels against the windowsill before she pushed off, trying for a graceful landing in the pile of dead bodies below.
It was the smell that hit Byleth hurt, even before she landed. The smell, mercifully missing from the rooftops, struck Byleth like a punch to the stomach, and she blinked furiously as she tried to get her disoriented mind to focus on the task at hand.
When Byleth looked up again, Shamir was standing over her, the mercenary's hand outstretched, though she wasn't looking down at Byleth, instead watching their surroundings like a hawk.
"Up," Shamir barked. "We don't want company. We can't win here, not like this."
Byleth nodded at that as she stood, testing her strained legs after the jump, but she stopped by the building and fell to one knee, her hands out to press Shamir up in the same way Ashe had done for her.
"Thanks," Shamir grunted, giving the street behind them one last look before she took a step up, her bow carefully strung over her shoulder and her hands reaching high up to reach the roof of the building.
She never made it.
A roar of from an inhuman throat ripped across the field of the dead, and Byleth wavered at the shockwave that seemed to follow, her head spinning to the source to the sound, only to see the sight of Hubert plunging into the pile of the dead, followed by Shamir losing her balance and falling back hard, her bow snapping like a twig under her body weight.
"Hubert!" Byleth called, rising back up to her feet to stumble over to the mage. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," Hubert barked, his face pale as he staggered to his feet, trying to crane his neck to the source of the sound, but giving up the futile effort a moment later. "It sounds like Lystihea came into contact with an enemy."
"Ashe," Byleth murmured as a second roar, this one of obvious agony, tore across the field, silencing them all for a moment as the echoes from the sound reverberated along the empty, bloodstained walls of Garreg Mach.
"Unlikely," Hubert said, rising up to his feet before he staggered over to the wall where Shamir waited, her broken bow discarded, replaced with a sharp throwing knife. "Ashe would not have the firepower to bring down an armoured beast. To do that would require a considerable amount of arcane might."
Byleth paused at Hubert's words. "The Verrat?"
"His agents are likely still in the area," Hubert replied, gesturing to the dead around them. "Perhaps wanton destruction was not their goal, or perhaps some of their number have yet to escape in the chaos."
"Could be a rearguard unit," Shamir suggested.
"Unlikely," Hubert replied. "A rearguard action would not include battle mages. They would be slow to move and valuable in their operations elsewhere."
"Then what do you believe it is?" Byleth asked.
"A kill team, perhaps." Hubert replied, shaking his head. "Highly unlikely they intend to take Lysithea alive as they did Flayn."
Byleth grimaced at the mention of Flayn, or as she had learned later on, Cethleann, the daughter of Cichol and one of the last Nabateans alive. She was out there somewhere, in hiding after the counterattack on Garreg Mach.
"Those who Slither…" Byleth muttered, a new idea forming as she tried to articulate her thoughts. "Hubert, do you believe it to be possible that Seteth could have insight on their plans?"
Hubert paused at that, his lips pursing, as if he had eaten something that disagreed with him. "Possible, but he last clashed with them centuries ago, and that is assuming we can still find him."
"Assuming," Shamir said with a shake of her head.
Byleth bit her lip before she looked back over to the direction the scream had come from. Garreg Mach was quiet now, but she knew that couldn't last, so she gestured for Shamir to climb back up to the roof above.
"Professor," Hubert said when Shamir had disappeared over the ledge, his voice low. "Given the… state of affairs, I believe the situation with Lysithea must come to a fatal end."
"You mean to kill her," Byleth said, though she regretted the words as soon as she saw Hubert's eyes harden.
"We cannot secure Garreg Mach without it," Hubert replied, his arms crossed around his chest. "Furthermore, without access to the bakeries of the town, our soldiers will starve, which gives us only a short window to act."
Byleth swallowed. "And you tell me-"
"Because it must be done," Hubert said. "Lady Edelgard may hesitate, she may cling to…"
"Hope," Byleth said.
"Delusion," Hubert replied, his dark eyes merciless. "If there was a cure to transformation, then their cadre in Enbarr would have used it a decade ago. I have gone through their words many times, and there is no such cure, and no amount of torture has changed that answer. If Lady Edelgard was to hesitate for even a single encounter, then I fear we may lose days in chasing The Verrat, and thus, our hand is forced."
Byleth said nothing to that.
"When the time comes, the final blow must fall," Hubert said. "We will see to it that Lysithea is avenged, but we require our soldiers to be fed and our flanks to be clean before we can challenge The Verrat."
"Professor?" a soldier from the rooftops called. "Our scouts have confirmed that the Officer's Academy is still standing, but it's been badly damaged. Preliminary reports suggest survivors still remain, though they are hidden."
"Then we need to get a move on," Byleth said, nodding to Hubert. "Come, we will… finish this later."
"So be it," Hubert replied, dropping to one knee. "Professor, be quick about it."
Byleth took a shaky step onto a living support for the second time that day, and she moved off Hubert quickly, one hand holding onto the soldier on the roof, the other grappling the heavy, study tiles of the ledge and pushing herself to safety before she returned to Hubert, unwilling to move until she felt his hand firmly grasped in her own.
"We should go," Hubert said, taking a slow, shaky breath as he staggered to his feet. "Watch your step, Professor."
AN: Much shorter chapter than usual, but I'm busy with other work and I couldn't quite get this chapter any longer.
