"I can't thank you all enough for coming to my aid today, especially after all the news we've been bombarded with recently."
"Knowing you, you probably would have broken your back carrying all this weight yourself if Bernadetta hadn't caught you this morning, Ashe." Felix chided the silver haired boy as he carried a large bookshelf into the vacant building with the aid of Leonie.
"I wasn't intending to trouble any of you over something so trivial..." Ashe sheepishly scratched the back of his neck before continuing to sweep away at the dusty floors surrounding him. "My own personal discomfort is only a minor sacrifice compared to the needs of those who have lost everything dear to them."
"Kyle and the other village survivors are due to arrive in just another week, correct?" Byleth asked, receiving a simple nod of confirmation from Ashe in return. "That doesn't leave us with much time to prepare…"
"It's undoubtedly a tall order, but I owe it to Lonato to forge a better future for those he's left behind. With the threat of Ouroboros still hanging overhead, his people need a safe haven to call their own above all else."
"You owe it to him and those who were left behind, huh?" Bernadetta quietly muttered to herself, dusting off an ornate dresser in a distant corner while the renovations continued to progress around her.
"Well hey; I can't really blame you for that. I know I'd do the same thing if the folks from my village ever lost their homes." Leonie readily agreed with the Blue Lion's concerns as she knelt down to place her bookshelf on the far end of the room.
"By the way, did any of you guys happen to see Sylvain on the way here? It doesn't seem like him to skimp out on a big group project with his friends. Hell, even Hilda agreed to show up for this."
"Hey, I can help out when I want to, Claude! Just… so long as I don't have to lift anything heavier than a feather duster."
"Oh, I heard he had a… particularly bad date earlier this week." Bernadetta sheepishly answered, twiddling her fingers together in memory of the fateful event. "Not that I'd know anything about it, of course!"
"Ugh, figures. He always has to act like his hopes and dreams were crushed every time a girl turns him down. It's embarrassing." Ingrid sighed in exasperation, cradling a hand to her forehead as she knelt down to hammer a loose floorboard into place.
"That's actually a pretty accurate way of putting it in this case…"
"Then we'll all have to work twice as hard in his absence!"
"I couldn't agree more, Annette… say, do you think you could help me move this dresser into one of the bedrooms?" Bernadetta requested, having bent down on one side of the item in a visible struggle to lift it off the floor.
"I'll be there in a sec, Bernie!" Annette eagerly complied as she rushed over to the opposite side of the dresser to aid in her fellow student's efforts. "…Yikes, this thing weighs a ton! I can barely keep my grip on the bottom…! Did you pack the inside full of bricks or something?"
"That looks like an awful lot for you two to handle on your own. Want me to pitch in too?"
"I appreciate the offer, Raphael, but I'm sure we can handle this." Bernadetta kindly declined her towering classmate's offer. "We'll pull up on the count of three, Annette." She instructed, receiving a short nod of understanding in return. With a pair of strained huffs from both girls, the two of them proceeded to weakly lift the dresser off the floor and ferry it across the room at an uncomfortably unsteady pace.
Naturally, it wasn't long before disaster struck in the form of a single misplaced plank of wood, causing Annette to lose her grip on the dresser and send it crashing down to the floor below with a resounding boom... where its right leg subsequently landed right on top of Bernadetta's exposed foot.
"AAAAGGHHH!"
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" Annette threw her arms into the air in a panic as Raphael quickly rushed in to lift the dresser off his shorter classmate's crushed foot with relative ease.
"I- it's fine, really. A little scratch won't stop me." Bernadetta attempted to calm the panicking mage with a reassuring, yet clearly pained smile.
"That didn't sound like a little scratch to me. I could have sworn I heard something crack under there, and it sure as hell wasn't a floorboard." Claude commented, his face grimacing with sympathy as he approached the young girl to examine her injury closer.
"Heh… do you really think it was that bad…?" Bernadetta nervously asked, abruptly swinging her foot away from the concerned house leader before he could get a better look at the injury.
"Well, I don't think you should be doing any more heavy lifting in this condition." Byleth pondered aloud at his pupil's current position.
"A- are you sure? I think I can still walk just fine…"
"You've already been hard at work since the early hours of the morning…" the professor noted with concern, his gaze transfixed on the noticeable limp in his student's steps. "If you think you're still up for it, we could have you retrieve some light supplies for us, but I'd much rather have you rest for now."
"No, no, that sounds perfect! Just tell me what you need and I'll be back, er… eventually!"
"Well then, I'd be perfectly willing to accompany you if you would allow me." Dimitri eagerly offered his services without hesitation.
"Ooh, me too! I'm sure you'll need all the help you can get!"
"Nice try, Hilda." Claude instantly saw through his pink haired companion's intentions, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder with a knowing smirk.
"No, that's okay… it's just a minor delivery, right? I think I can afford to take my time here." Bernadetta shortly declined her classmate's offers as she looked to her professor expectantly.
"If you say so... I only need you to collect some painting supplies from the classroom, but please try not to aggravate your foot further along the way."
"Not a problem, Professor. I'll have everything ready before you know it!" Bernadetta returned her professor's words of caution with a cheerful wave of her hand before setting out the front door onto the empty streets outside. Though her progress was largely hampered by the limp in her foot, she steadily made her way back towards her destination, constantly looking back every few seconds in the fear that one of her classmates may still be watching her.
When she finally made sure that she was absolutely out of sight, Bernadetta breathed a light sigh of relief and broke off into a full sprint in the direction of the western side of the academy.
"I can hardly believe that actually worked... you truly have a more devious mind than I have given you credit for."
"What the others don't know won't hurt them, right…?" Bernadetta nervously asked herself as she mindfully swept past the small squadron of knights patrolling the area around her. "I know how underhanded this looks, but this is easily the perfect time for me to slip into the Holy Mausoleum by myself. With the Knight's security spread so thin, the Black Eagles busy patrolling the town, and the remaining houses preoccupied with helping Ashe, I should be able to swoop into the tomb, snatch up the Sword of the Creator, and make myself scarce before anyone suspects a thing!"
"I must admit I have my doubts about this scheme of yours… are you sure this is such a good idea?"
"Don't worry; I've got everything planned out. When those tomb raiders eventually arrive on the Rite of Rebirth to try and take the sword for themselves, they'll all be forced to leave when they find an empty coffin in its place! What could possibly go-"
"Please don't finish that question, for both our sakes..."
Before she could even consider stepping foot inside the monastery's grand cathedral, Bernadetta's first order of business was to pay a last minute visit to her room. Once inside, she deftly locked the door behind her and removed her right shoe to reveal a thin, cracked sheet of metal resting atop her foot. Making sure to discard of the tool behind her faked injury, she then proceeded to retrieve her personal crossbow and pocket as many arrows as she could conceal on her person.
"Expecting a skirmish, are you?"
"You can never be too sure, right…?" Bernadetta nervously answered the Goddess's inquiry as she pocketed a single vulnerary for some extra insurance. "I seriously hope there's no one else down there, but if worst comes to worst, I can at least clear the monastery of threats before Kyle and the other villagers arrive within the week…"
"If there are foes waiting for you in the tomb, should you not consider bringing others to aid you?"
"No way; I can't afford to attract any more attention to myself." Bernadetta immediately refuted her companion's suggestion with a firm shake of her head. "The only way we're going to shake up our enemy's plans is if I do so myself."
"Just take care not to throw your life away on part of a single miscalculation."
Heeding Sothis's cautionary words, Bernadetta quietly slipped out her room's back window and hurriedly set out for the monastery's cathedral. As expected, there were very few knights patrolling this section of the monastery at this hour of the day, but the archer knew full well that her window of opportunity would not last too long.
With the eyes of a hawk, she meticulously scanned the inside of the building for any signs of movement before darting across the deserted hall to her intended destination. With the doors to the Holy Mausoleum left completely unattended, Bernadetta was free to slip right through and descend the lengthy, ancient stairway that lied within.
"It sure is dark down here… I should have brought a torch while I was at it…" Bernadetta commented to nobody in particular. The path leading to the coffin of Saint Seiros turned out to be much longer than she had anticipated, and she had to take great care to avoid losing her footing on the eroded steps beneath her. She had already been forced to make use of a single Divine Pulse to undo an ill-timed tumble along the way.
The girl instinctively froze in her tracks upon hearing even the slightest sound from any direction. She could hardly tell if her mind was simply playing tricks on her at this point, but it was more than enough for Bernadetta to dread the prospect of what could be waiting for her as she finally approached the bottom of the stairwell…
"Oh god…! Look out beloooow!" a loud, boisterous voice suddenly warned from behind. With a startled shout, Bernadetta immediately whipped out her crossbow and turned around to find a familiar head of cyan hair lying beneath her with widened eyes.
"C-c-c- Caspar?! What are you doing here?!"
"Uh, we're following you, duh!" the Black Eagle student answered in a matter of fact fashion.
"D- did you just say we?!" Bernadetta repeated in shock, looking up to find the remainder of her old classmates, sans Edelgard and Hubert, staring down at her from further up the stairs.
"Ugh, dammit Caspar!" Dorothea grumbled as she slapped a hand to her forehead in frustration.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no…! You guys aren't supposed to be here!"
"I believe the same can be said of you, Bernadetta." Ferdinand shot back at the girl's claims with an equally valid assertion of his own. "What exactly brings you to this secluded corner of the monastery on this day?"
"Th- that's none of your concern…! How did you guys even know I was here?! You were supposed to be in town!"
"I'm sure anyone could tell you were up to something if they caught you breaking from an obviously exaggerated limp to a full speed dash in the blink of an eye." Linhardt casually informed.
"Exaggerated?"
"You're not a very convincing actress, Bern." Dorothea giggled, much to her purple haired schoolmate's visible embarrassment. "Take it from someone who's been in show business as long as I have."
"Oh, and Caspar, if you could please lift yourself off the floor… it is very impolite to stare up a lady's skirt like that." Ferdinand added, nearly causing Bernadetta to kick the oblivious boy in the head in a panic.
"Something seems to be troubling you greatly, Bernadetta. Is there something you wish to be telling us?" Petra asked, a strong tone of concern filling her voice as the girl in question hastily backed away from her old classmates.
"Yes- I mean no- it's just… agh!" Bernadetta groaned in irritation under the watchful stares of the Black Eagles looking down on her. "This is all going horribly wrong… that's it, I'm pulling the plug on this-"
"Not so fast!" Sothis warned before her companion could even attempt to jump back in time. "Listen closely… do you hear voices coming from further into the tunnel?"
"…Please tell me it's just the wind."
"Over a hundred feet deep underground?"
"Oh shit…"
"Whoa there Bernie, did you just curse?!" Caspar exclaimed in disbelief as the girl in question suddenly darted off further into the tunnel. "Wha- hey, wait up!"
Faced with few other options, the Black Eagle students quickly followed after their little runaway recluse, seemingly unaware of the voices she had heard from deeper into the corridor. Shortly after arriving, they were all met with a raised hand from Bernadetta signaling them all to stop as the girl remained idle near the edge of a wall.
A single look into the brightened room ahead would reveal a mysterious group of soldiers, all garbed in professional looking jet black armor with helmets that obscured their eyes. Chief among this group was a large, intimidating figure perched atop a horse in the middle of the room. With a fearsome scythe firmly in hand, a large cape flowing behind his back, and an eerie helmet resembling that of a human skull, the identity of this figure was all too clear to the students spying on this hidden scene.
"Hey, that must be the Death Knight I've been hearing so much about!" Caspar excitedly noted, having already fastened a pair of steel gauntlets to his wrists. "Let's go kick his ass-"
"Caspar, no-" Bernadetta immediately turned to quiet the boy before the soldiers could take notice of him, only to find that he had suddenly passed out against the wall with Linhardt's hand firmly placed on the back of his head.
"How else do you think I've been able to stay asleep for so long?" the crest scholar casually explained. "This is a remarkably potent spell."
With the group's short statured brawler temporarily pacified, the students opted to lean in closer in the hopes of eavesdropping on whatever conversation the Death Knight was having with his subordinates.
"How much longer do you expect us to guard this old broken down tomb?" one of the soldiers loudly complained to the Death Knight's face. "My men haven't seen any action for ages at this point!"
"We shall remain here as long as I deem necessary. The seal on the coffin of Saint Seiros is far more complex than you could possibly imagine." the knight firmly informed, not even bothering to look his underling in the eyes.
"Right, you Fódlan people actually believe in all this magical mumbo jumbo." the soldier sneered at his superior's stoic response. "What's keeping us from simply blowing that damn thing open?"
"Need I remind you that your precious orb technology is useless within the borders of Fódlan?" the Death Knight flatly reasoned.
"Gah… it's orbal technology, you stuck up bastard…"
"How fascinating… do these soldiers not originate from Fódlan at all?" Linhardt pondered aloud. "And that strange armor of theirs… I've never seen anything quite like it."
"It… kind of reminds me of the Professor's armor for some reason…" Bernadetta muttered, her mind racing with all sorts of possibilities as she continued to spy on the secret operation unfolding before her eyes.
"Bern…" Dorothea peered into the archer's eyes with an expression of deep concern. "What in the world have you gotten yourself into?"
"Honestly, I haven't worked out all the details myself… but you shouldn't have to concern yourself with that... you guys shouldn't have followed me here!"
"If we had knowledge that you were planning to be fighting a fearsome enemy alone, we would still be following you without hesitation. Our hearts would spill with great sadness if something were to happen to you."
"Petra…" Bernadetta started, clearly moved by the Brigid princess's heartfelt declaration. "I'm sorry to have worried all of you, but you just don't understand what's going on."
"You're quite right; we don't understand your situation in the slightest." Ferdinand readily agreed with the archer's assessment. "You have gone out of your way to avoid us ever since you left the Black Eagles, and you're always darting off from one place to another like your life depends on it."
"It's abundantly clear that something's changed inside you, but you're still a dear friend to all of us, and we're not about to abandon that friendship under any circumstances." Dorothea heartfully proclaimed as she reached out to place a hand on Bernadetta's shoulder, only for the girl to instinctively recoil away on contact.
At a loss for words, the lilac haired recluse instead opted to continue to listen in on her enemy's conversation.
"Look, I'm just saying- there's no way anyone could possibly find us out down here. You'd have an easier time trying to find fish in a volcano!" one of the soldiers proudly claimed.
"Why don't you trying saying that to our uninvited guests over there?" the Death Knight asked as his head slowly turned in the direction of the students eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Argh, not this again…!" Bernadetta cried out in frustration. With her group's cover blown, a confrontation with the mysterious soldiers before her seemed inevitable. "Now's probably a good time to-"
"No, we cannot risk the Sword of the Creator falling into the hands of the enemy." Sothis quickly cut in before her companion could finish her thoughts. "If they have already arrived in the tomb earlier than anticipated, then they may very well claim the blade for themselves long before the Rite of Rebirth begins."
"So we'll have to take them all out here and now. Lovely…"
"What the- how'd a bunch of kids manage to find their way down here?!" one of the soldiers exclaimed in disbelief.
"Consider this an opportunity for your corps to prove its fearsome reputation to me." the Death Knight boldly commanded.
"What, are you just too lazy to help us?!"
"I don't take commands. Or waste my time on weaklings." the Death Knight stoically proclaimed, still refusing to look his subordinates in the eye. "Surely your extensive training and experience must be enough to outmatch a group of lowly students without the aid of your precious technology."
"Tch. Fine, be that way. Nidhoggr Corps, prepare for battle!" the soldier, presumably the commander of his group, fiercely ordered, prompting every soldier in the room to draw their weapons in anticipation of the upcoming conflict.
"Nidhoggr… I feel like I've heard that name somewhere before…" Bernadetta couldn't help but think aloud.
"Alright Caspar, nap time's over." Linhardt shortly stated, rousing the cyan haired warrior from his magically induced slumber with a light smack to the back of his head.
"Oh, what… what did I miss?!" Caspar drowsily asked, his body instantly shifting into a combat pose the moment he regained his bearings. "Hey, did you guys start the fight without me?! I call first blood on the Death Knight!"
"Oh for crying out loud…" Bernadetta grumbled in frustration as the young warrior set out on a one man charge for the enemy. With a simple flick of her wrist, she proceeded to turn back the clock and grab Caspar by the scruff of his collar before he could even think about running off on his own. She had to come up with a plan, and fast. "Okay… our first order of business is to avoid the Death Knight at all costs. None of us stand a chance against him at our current skill levels."
"Seriously?! Are you sure it's such a good idea to just ignore him?"
"He won't bother us if we just leave him alone. Trust me on this." Bernadetta responded to Caspar's protests with a firm nod.
"How do you have such knowledge about this Knight of Death, Bernadetta?" Petra tilted her head in curiosity as she drew her trusted killing edge in preparation of what was to come.
"Th- that's not important right now… Look, if you guys want to have any chance of making it out of here in one piece, I'm gonna need you to follow my every direction. That means no suicidal charges, Caspar."
"Yes, mom." Caspar grumbled in reluctant acceptance.
"It's abundantly clear that our foes severely outnumber us…" Ferdinand dutifully noted. "Should we not attempt to retreat and gather more reinforcements?"
"As tempting as that sounds, there's no way we can outrun all these guys up the stairs. No, we'll split into two groups and take up position behind those nearby pillars. We'll make the enemy come to us, not the other way around."
With the first stages of her battle plan laid out, Bernadetta stepped out from behind the wall to find a pair of soldiers armed with fierce sets of triple bladed claws rushing right for her. She promptly fired a pair of crossbow bolts at the approaching foes, only for them to expertly weave around the projectiles without suffering any loss of speed.
Just as the soldiers began to draw near, Caspar and Petra quickly leaped out from behind their impromptu leader to halt the oncoming charge. The mysterious assailants proved to be an even match for the students as they parried each of their attacks blow for blow. Caspar in particular was soon forced to go on the defensive due to the sheer speed of his opponent.
This engagement left the soldiers with little opportunity to retaliate from an arrow to the heel from Bernadetta and a thunderbolt to head courtesy of Dorothea. Once their foes dropped to their knees in pain, Caspar and Petra wasted no time in finishing them off with a crushing blow to the skull and a slash of the latter's blade across her assailant's exposed throat.
"Wait, they're… human?" Bernadetta muttered in surprise as Caspar's victim unceremoniously lost his helmet as a result of the boy's mighty blow. Sure enough, the man's blood ran as red as any other person and his skin refused to turn to the signature pale white color of the Agarthans.
Faced with little time to reflect on this discovery, the group of students immediately set out to take cover behind the two pillars set before them. Though as the one leading the advance, Bernadetta was soon met with a painful surprise in the form of an arrow lodging itself into her right shoulder. Without missing a beat, the girl rewound time to find a pair of soldiers atop a set of stairs further into the room, armed with crossbows that bore an uncanny resemblance to her own weapon of choice.
This time, she was able to return the favor with a preemptive volley of shots that forced her attackers to retreat into cover.
"Well now, this seems to be going surprisingly smoothly so far." Linhardt casually exclaimed once he came to a stop behind the safety of his intended pillar.
"Your vote of confidence is very reassuring…" Bernadetta sarcastically agreed with the green haired scholar's remarks. "Whatever you do, don't step out from behind these pillars for too long! Those archers in the back have some deceptively good aim with their crossbows!"
"I won't doubt you there, Bern. I've already seen what you're capable of with that thing." Dorothea nodded in affirmation as the rumbling of armor plated footsteps began to echo through the air around her.
Two pairs of soldiers began to circle around the area in an effort to flank the students from two separate angles. Each pair, consisting of one unit wielding a sizeable greatsword and the other with a long halberd respectively, brazenly stepped over the smaller coffins in their paths in their eagerness to engage in combat with their targeted students.
Together with Linhardt, Bernadetta fired at the oncoming soldiers with a short burst of arrows and a magical blade of wind while Ferdinand readily awaited their arrival with his lance firmly in hand. Thinking quickly, the foe with the greatsword adamantly stepped forth to soak up the oncoming projectiles with the flat end of his weapon, leaving his partner to engage in a fierce clash of polearms with Ferdinand. Realizing that a frontal assault on the swordsman would be all but useless, Bernadetta shifted her aim down to fire a couple of bolts into the man's legs. Linhardt dutifully followed suit, conjuring a shimmering pillar of light from beneath the assailant's feet, but these blows did little to deter their target's progress.
With far greater speed than his bulky weapon would typically indicate, the swordsman lunged at Bernadetta with a mighty downward swing strong enough to create a small crater in the floor upon impact. Having managed to sidestep the attack at the last possible moment, Bernadetta didn't hesitate to activate the hidden blade of her crossbow, plunge it into the side of her attacker's throat, and fire a triad of arrows into the wound at point blank before the unfortunate victim could retaliate.
"Ugh… did you have to make that so excessively messy?" Linhardt instinctively recoiled at the sheer gruesomeness of Bernadetta's method of execution, which wasn't helped by the splatter of blood that had found its way onto the archer's uniform as a result.
"It's better him than us, Linhardt." the girl coldly replied before turning to Ferdinand, who had engaged in a dangerous clash with his foe's formidable hybrid of a weapon, and one that he was dangerously close to losing for that matter. Just as the sharp end of the soldier's halberd began to slide down the shaft of Ferdinand's lance, Bernadetta turned back the clock and fired a single arrow into the adversary's gut, causing him to drop his weapon to the ground in utter shock.
"Your noble assistance is greatly appreciated!" Ferdinand lauded his ally's efforts before seizing his chance to slash his attacker across the chest.
"I believe you may need to work on your dueling skills a bit more…" Linhardt nonchalantly noted, conjuring up his signature healing magic with a weary shake of his head upon noticing a deep cut that had formed on the noble's arm.
"Ah, this is merely a flesh wound…" Ferdinand painfully retorted, having apparently failed to notice the injury on his arm until now.
This small moment of victory was abruptly cut short by a startled gasp from Dorothea, who had been caught by surprise by another claw wielding foe while her accompanying partners were still preoccupied with their own opponents. Before the soldier could land a decisive blow on the disoriented songstress, Bernadetta leaped back in time a few seconds to land a well-placed shot in the back of his neck. The gurgle of pain that followed gave his intended victim enough of a heads up to singe him with a point blank thunderbolt.
"How are you even keeping up with all this, Bern?!" Dorothea questioned, her gaze directed on the archer with an expression of pure bewilderment.
"Honestly, I'm kind of just making this all up as I go al- agh!" Bernadetta's response was cut short as a small dagger suddenly flew from the shadows to land directly in her exposed foot. "Ow, seriously…? Is this supposed to be karma for faking my injury earlier?!"
Much to the archer's dismay, yet another claw wielding foe was heading right for her at inhuman speeds, avoiding Dorothea's attempt to fry him with a bolt of lightning with relative ease. Fighting against the searing pain in her foot, Bernadetta extended the blade on her crossbow and prepared to meet her attacker head on, but the speed of the soldier's ensuing strikes proved too much for her to reliably defend against. In a matter of seconds, the assailant fluidly broke through her guard and planted both of his claws directly into Bernadetta's chest, forcing her to rewind time once again to avoid an untimely demise.
This time around, she was able to withdraw her foot just in time to avoid the dagger that had pierced it on her previous attempt. This left her with enough clarity of mind to land a single shot on her assailant the moment he avoided Dorothea's bolt of lightning. The injury did little to deter his approach, but it did dull the soldier's movements enough for Bernadetta to maintain a proper defensive footing against him. All seemed lost when the archer found herself in an impromptu blade lock with her assailant's lethal claws, but she was miraculously saved at the last second when a large arrow flew through the back of her opponent's neck.
A grateful smile spread across Bernadetta's face as she looked up to find Petra staring down at the enemy with a longbow in hand, yet in the soldier's last breaths, he still found enough strength to plunge a dagger into his intended victim's foot before collapsing to the floor.
"Oh, come on!" Bernadetta cried out in annoyance, feeling as frustrated as she was pained by the repeated injury she'd just received.
"Man… these guys are swinging these heavy weapons around like they're made of paper!" Caspar gasped in exhaustion, having finally managed to finish off his respective opponent.
"Indeed. Our enemies are fighting us with great hardness…" Petra agreed with the young warrior's assessment as she took a moment to rest her head against the safety of a pillar.
"We may have lucked out enough to cut down a decent handful of foes, but I fear this may be more than we can conceivably handle."
"Your pessimism isn't helping, Linhardt!" Bernadetta snapped back at the scholar's assessment. "We just have to find a way to move forward from-"
The lilac haired archer's instructions were suddenly cut short by the booming impact of two enemy soldiers crashing against a wall behind her. When she turned around to inspect the commotion, Bernadetta was surprised to find a familiar face staring back with a longbow pointed right at her.
"Heh, I thought we might find you down here!"
"C- Claude?! How did you-"
"We can talk later; just get out of the way!" the Golden Deer leader loudly warned shortly before releasing a single arrow from his bow. It didn't take much convincing for Bernadetta to comply and narrowly duck under the arrow sailing in her direction. Moments later, a pained scream from further into the room confirmed that Claude had managed to take out one of the hostile archers plaguing the Black Eagle students.
"Come on down, everyone, we've got some rats to clean up over here!" Claude signaled with a wave his hand, prompting the remainder of the Golden Deer house to flood into the room one after another.
"Ah, rejoice! It seems the cavalry has finally arrived!" Ferdinand jovially announced with a welcoming fist pump into the air.
"Oh no…" Bernadetta's jaw slightly dropped in realization as her classmates all came into view. "If the rest of the class is here, then the Professor must be-"
"Right behind you."
Predictably, Bernadetta let out a startled scream before turning around to find Byleth looking down on her with an unreadable expression across his face. "Uh… hi there, Professor."
"So tell me, how is your foot treating you right now?"
"Oh, that? It's, er… kind of gotten worse lately." Bernadetta sheepishly answered as she glanced over to the limb in question, which still had a dagger casually protruding out of it.
"So I see." Byleth slowly perched a hand on his runaway student's shoulder, eliciting a quiet yelp of surprise from the frightened girl. "You're going to have a lot to explain, but we'd best save it for after we've routed the enemy."
"Yeah… yeah, of course…" Bernadetta nervously muttered as her professor nonchalantly drew his blade in preparation of the coming conflict.
"Do you have enough of a reason to help us now?!" the commander of the unknown soldiers furiously questioned the Death Knight, who continued to remain idle in the center of the room, only slightly shifting his gaze to Byleth in a mild expression of interest.
"It was your own incompetence that led to this result." the Death Knight coldly shut down his subordinate's request for assistance. "Hired blades such as you are easily replaceable; whether you live or die is of little consequence to me."
"Grr… you stuck up bastard…"
"You may be able to redeem yourselves if you can hold off those children for just a while longer." the dark mage in the back of the room patiently informed. "The seal on Saint Seiros's coffin will be broken any minute now…"
"I trust there should be no need for me to repeat what you just heard?"
"Yeah, not good… we've gotta get over there quickly." Bernadetta readily agreed with the Goddess's warnings as she loaded another round of arrows into her crossbow.
"Hey, uh, before we get started, I should probably warn you guys not to go near that evil looking knight, okay?"
"Hmph, he doesn't look so threatening, Claude." Lysithea brushed off her house leader's warnings with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"You'd do well not to underestimate our enemies, Lysithea." Byleth sternly reminded the youthful mage. "You are not to engage in combat with that knight unless the situation absolutely calls for it."
"I understand, Professor…"
"Good. Now let's begin the operation!" Byleth announced with a dramatic swing of his free arm, signaling the present ranks of the Golden Deer and Black Eagles to engage the remaining enemy soldiers.
As the battle reignited around her, Bernadetta took to the far edges of the room to circle around the skirmishes breaking out near the middle. With the majority of melee fighters being forced to take center stage and the enemy's commander engaged in a fierce duel with her professor, Bernadetta was left with only a single hostile archer blocking her path.
Making sure to swing behind another pillar to avoid the ensuing volley of arrows coming her way, the violet haired student quickly returned the favor with a single shot to the knee. The sound of rapid footsteps coming from behind signaled the approach of another claw user, but this unknowing soul was quickly dispatched with a single precise shot to the back of the head, courtesy of Claude.
After briefly turning around to give her house leader a short thumbs-up in gratitude, Bernadetta refocused her efforts on the archer barring her path to Saint Seiros's coffin. With her foe left idling behind a pillar to accommodate his injury, the girl was entirely free to close the distance without fear of getting shot at. The moment she drew close, however, the hostile archer activated a hidden blade on his crossbow similar to Bernadetta's own, and lashed out in a desperate effort to catch the girl by surprise.
The girl naturally responded with the same tactic, and after a relatively short lived clash of blades, broke away to finish the soldier off with a single arrow to the forehead. She had finally managed to make her way to the very back of the room, but the sound of a loud click from the direction of Seiros's coffin was a sure sign that she didn't have much time on her side.
"At last! The seal is broken!" the dark mage standing before the coffin cried out in celebration as he proceeded to push over the stone lid covering the casket.
"Oh no, you are not getting your hands on that!" Bernadetta cried out as she fired off a single arrow towards the dark mage, who managed to nonchalantly duck underneath the projectile in the process of reaching his body into the coffin.
"You're far too late! The remains of Seiros shall be… what? A sword?!" the mage exclaimed in surprise as he awkwardly pulled the Sword of the Creator out of the coffin.
"Now this is quite a pleasant surprise…" the Death Knight quietly commented, a slight tone of excitement slipping into his voice as he turned to fix his gaze upon the ancient blade.
Instinctively, Bernadetta readied herself to fire another arrow at the mage… only to gasp in surprise upon hearing a telltale click when she attempted to pull the trigger of her weapon; the girl had finally run out of arrows.
"No, no, no, why now?!" the girl internally panicked as she quickly realized the severity of the situation. With Byleth still preoccupied in his duel with the enemy's secondary commander, Bernadetta was left with few other options but to rush at the mage herself. The mage naturally shot a retaliatory fireball at the approaching girl upon hearing her loud footsteps, but Bernadetta easily weaved around the spell and thrust the blade of her crossbow into her target's heart before he could make another move.
As the dark mage's body collapsed to the ground, Bernadetta instinctively snatched the Sword of the Creator out his loosened grip, whereupon it unexpectedly began to emit a blinding orange glow in her hands.
"Whoa… wait a sec, I can't be seen using this…!" Bernadetta mentally slapped herself for her momentary lapse in judgment as her eyes hastily scanned the room in search of the blade's proper owner. "Uh, Professor, catch!" she suddenly warned before tossing the blade through the air with all her might.
As luck would have it, Byleth had already managed to gain the upper hand on his opponent at this point, leaving the professor with enough awareness to nonchalantly snatch the Sword of the Creator out of the air and use it to deal a finishing blow to the hostile commander. The sight of the blade back in the hands of its intended master brought a faintly nostalgic smile to Bernadetta's lips.
Although that smile quickly faded when she heard the fearsome galloping of the Death Knight's steed rapidly approaching her shortly afterward.
"You are a fool to discard of such a powerful weapon so carelessly!" the dark clad knight fiercely reprimanded as he swung his signature scythe at Bernadetta in a wide arc, prompting a terrified scream from the girl as she barely managed to dive away from the attack in time.
"Wh- what is the Death Knight attacking me for?! He… didn't see me with the sword, did he…?" the archer frantically thought to herself as she proceeded to dash away from the imposing knight as fast as her legs could possibly carry her. Along the way, she came across a single abandoned arrow protruding from the floor. In an act of desperation, she quickly loaded the projectile into her crossbow and fired it at the Death Knight's helmet in a vain effort to slow him in his tracks.
The attack certainly hit its mark, but the Death Knight was clearly undeterred by the blow as he retaliated with a black bolt of lightning that suddenly materialized above Bernadetta's head. The spell directly struck the archer faster than she could flee, dropping the girl to her knees with an agonizing scream of pain. Too overwhelmed by the fear and pain that overtook her body, Bernadetta found herself paralyzed to the spot as she awaited what would surely be a fatal blow from the Death Knight's malicious scythe.
…But the fatal moment never came, and she instead felt a terrifyingly familiar splatter of blood across her back. With deeply bated breath, Bernadetta slowly turned around to find Byleth protectively standing behind her, complete the Death Knight's scythe fully impaled through the professor's chest.
"No… no…. please don't do this to me…" Bernadetta's eyes began to water the instant she bore witness to this sight of the fatally wounded Byleth. "Not again… please, don't to this to me again!" she tearfully begged in a tone of pure anguish, completely deaf to the urgent warnings of the Goddess sounding off within her head. The pain surging through her own body no longer seemed to affect her, and the girl's mind had gone totally blank.
All she could focus on was the dreadful memory of that fateful battle in the middle of an empty, barren field. Even when the flow of time suddenly leaped back to undo her future lover's fatal injury, Bernadetta simply remained rooted in place. Her body was uncontrollably quivering in despair and her breath had gone uncomfortably ragged as the Death Knight mounted another malicious charge right for her.
As confused as he was by his timid student's dramatic reaction to his injury, Byleth had to devise a solution right away. Tightening his grip on his old, trusty mercenary's blade, he hurled the weapon at the Death Knight like a javelin, which successfully managed to imbed itself into his target's shoulder. Knowing this likely wouldn't be enough to stop him, Byleth turned to Lysithea with an urgent shout, to which the young mage responded by conjuring a massive array of dark spears all around her.
With a mere snap of her finger, Lysithea sent the barrage of spears barreling towards the Death Knight at speeds faster than the naked eye could conceive. Though the knight managed to swat away at a small handful of the spears with his scythe, he still found himself turning into a vaguely human pincushion as the magical projectiles pierced his body from a multitude of different angles.
"Ugh… impressive… I never expected to encounter such formidable resistance…" the Death Knight remarked, weakly slumped over across the top of his steed. With a weary snap of his fingers, he promptly vanished in a flash of crimson light before anyone could land another blow on him.
Now that the greatest threat in the tomb was finally forced to retreat, Byleth worriedly hurried over to Bernadetta to check on her condition. Even with the threat to her life gone, the girl's body was still shivering uncontrollably as the professor placed a hand over her shoulder in concern.
"Bernadetta…what happened-" Byleth asked, only for his inquiry to be cut short with a forceful hug from the violet haired recluse quivering before him.
"Tell me you're okay…" Bernadetta squeaked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"I'm sorry; I… didn't quite hear that." Byleth awkwardly admitted, unsure what to think of the girl's mental state.
"Just tell me you're okay…" Bernadetta repeated in a slightly louder tone.
"You… want me to tell you I'm okay?"
"JUST TELL ME YOU'RE OKAY, BY!" Bernadetta tearfully begged one more time, her voice having erupted into an intense, demanding shout that could undoubtedly be heard all across the tomb. She couldn't find it within herself to care as the many concerned stares of her fellow students began to fall upon her. All she wanted to do was lose herself in the arms of the man she loved and forget all about the cruel world around her.
