Just before Ciel's blade met undead flesh, the two clear phials thrown by Noel exploded at the vampire's feet.
With a sharp hiss the garden was blanketed in earth-born fog. It was thick enough to block all vision, whether one was a nervous Executor or the bearer of the second most dangerous Mystic Eyes on the planet. Rising after the fog were a sharp wooden crack, a sickening squelch, and an extended crunching and rustling and snapping that traveled from one end of the area to the other. Then a dull thud.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…!"
The woman perched on the edge of the roof held tightly in hand a trio of steel stakes, and yet did nothing with them. She could only wait now, either for the fog to clear or for the vampire to leap out of the fog. This was the plan, the whole plan. Lay down a smokescreen, attack from up close to prevent escape, and finish it in one fell swoop. Ciel's job was to win a blind battle. Noel's was to sit and listen.
Next to rise from the mist was a violent ripping noise, bringing to the Executor's mind a dull blade carving through thick fabric, catching every step of the way yet pushing through with pure strength. A short mezzo grunt was next. Then a barely perceptible click followed by what could only be described as the sound of meat splattering against into concrete. A thick coppery scent drowned out the smell of the flowers. There was a high-pitched wheeze, trying and failing to become either a scream or a moan, and after that, no more sounds of violence. Only the soft swish of plants twisting against each other.
Noel tried to call out to Ciel. The words caught in her throat. Would it be wise to reveal her location? What if the vampire had won? Could she take it on? Could she hide from it? Could she make it out of here?
As she wrestled with herself the steam settled, revealing what had transpired below.
Ciel stood alone in the garden, soaked in blood and water, head hanging. Strapped to the stump of her missing arm was a large contraption of metal and wood that reached up to her shoulder and ended in a black iron stake. Three thin red lines ran from her right hip to her left shoulder, right through her garb. Before Noel's eyes they widened and bled in thick rivulets down Ciel's habit. Yet the girl did not seem to mind; her gaze was given entirely to the woman splayed out at her feet.
She'd clearly been beautiful, once. Now only a wretched corpse remained. The woman's long dress was marred by blood and mud, its delicate embroidery unrecognizable. Cherry red lips were drawn back, baring beastly teeth. Noble cheeks and sharp eyes now sat sunken and shriveled. One could say she was on her back, yet there was no back left; something had blown a hole the size of a cannonball through her chest, which was now a mess of ribs and viscera.
"H-ha."
Ciel averted her eye from the grisly sight. She instead cast it upward, spotting her partner standing and shaking exactly where she'd been left only a few seconds ago. She started to say something and then stopped abruptly. Noel's face had gone pale as she stood, entranced by the corpse.
Wine-red hair and torn lace and tiny rubies had scattered in all directions, glimmering brightly in the deep bloodstain that oozed outwards from the body. The night's red encroached upon the dirt of the ravaged garden, visible clearly from above. Ciel could not see its true form. Only Noel recognized the arrangement as a bloody rose, blooming in the night, with her partner in the center.
"H-ha, ha…"
The Rose Princess was dead. It had been quick and brutal, even for her freak of a partner. Was it possible for an Ancestor, for someone so powerful and feared, to die so quickly? It was. Noel herself had borne witness as the Twenty Fifth's unlife was snuffed out in a single sword stroke. Ciel could do it. Her and no one else. She hadn't lost it after all. Noel's partner was still a monster.
Yet.
Yet, yet, yet.
Yet yet yet yet yet yet yet yet yet.
"H-hahaha… w-we're done for…"
Why, in a garden filled with every bloom imaginable, was this the only rose they had seen all night?
"Get out-!"
By instinct, reacting more to the terror in Noel's voice than the words themselves, Ciel looked away. Away from what? Away from everything. She squeezed her eye shut and blindly withdrew from within her garb another phial of water. In one smooth motion, as the flowers all around her rustled madly and fell wind began to howl in the confined space, she put all her power into her legs and jumped straight for the sky, casting the mist bomb at her feet as she left the garden in the quickest, most direct way possible. That single leap brought her above the castle's eaves.
Only when she was finally clear did Ciel open her eye. Even then she dared not look down. Down was where she waited. Only the night sky was safe. Only the moon-.
The blood red moon.
The moon that beautifully bloomed in the night and cast cold crimson over the courtyard.
The moon, which unfurled layers upon layers upon layers of petals, one after another after another after another after another after another after another. The petals floated away, covering the stars, one by one by one by one, spinning, spiraling, swirling around the castle, around Ciel. She beheld it then: within the center of the moon flower, within the deepest core, peering out at her, was a bloodshot eye.
Ciel's breath caught in her throat. She no longer had permission to breathe. Nor move, nor think, nor feel. All she could do was-.
"I. See. You."
-be witnessed.
The whispers from below sparked a flash of recognition in Ciel. That spark became in an instant a raging fire, an inferno that used her flesh and blood as kindling. Her magical circuits flared open and out poured a torrent of life and light that could not be contained by shackles of mind or soul. Whatever spell had taken hold of her burst apart and could find no second hold as it was washed away by pure magical energy.
Ciel's finger twitched, then her hand moved, and finally her body was hers again. She tore herself away from the moon and back to the roof where Noel waited, frozen in fear. Ciel thrust her hand towards her partner, red sparking about it. It had taken her only an instant to break the rose spell.
That instant would be enough.
Gravity pulled Ciel away from the garden, but thorny jaws snapped shut around her ankle and pulled her back. For a moment she hung still in the air, reaching for Noel, who had reached out as well, their outstretched hands nearly meeting. Then Ciel's momentum reversed. The mist welcomed her back. Air whipped past her head, drowning out the panicked shouts of her partner.
She could only brace herself before the ground greeted her at twice terminal velocity. A normal human would have been reduced to chunks of meat. Ciel merely had the breath blown from her lungs, which were then perforated by half a dozen broken ribs. She coughed up air and blood. Something in her shoulder snapped, the fingers of her hand (which had shielded the back of her head from impact) were smashed flat, and while a ringing assaulted her ears, she found the world wobbling and turning around her as if she'd never stopped falling at all.
It took her only another instant to get back on her feet. So what if her body was broken? She just needed to patch over the gaps enough to grip a sword.
The mist was clearing already. Within it stood another enemy, hazy and indistinct. A woman in a long dress. Now was the time. Before she could be seen clearly again.
Ciel, the bow of the Burial Division, sailed forth like an arrow. The armament on her arm groaned when she tried to pull the trigger, yet the extended stake still sizzled with conviction. More than enough.
Thorny vines came at her as she charged. From above, from below, from all sides they reacted to her murderous intent, reaching for her, enveloping everything, scraping away cloth and blood, barring her path.
Silver flashed and the bars before her fell apart even as those behind tore at her back. Only that which would slow her down mattered. The others could take their pound of flesh. Another instant, another reprieve, another chance was the one thing she couldn't give up. Ciel threw the three blessed blades forward, nailing open a nine-inch hole in wall of thorns rising to halt her advance. Through it the hazy figure waited.
Just a bit further. The hole was already closing, but that was fine. The smallest gap was all she needed.
"In the name of our Lord, pierce through."
The Seventh Holy Scripture blazed with baptizing flame. Plants, spells, all evaporated before it. The magical energy that had gone into supporting Ciel's body was instead funneled into her weapon. If she could kill them before they killed her, that would be enough. Just once more, she would light up the night.
"Seventh cause of death – Conviction!"
All was blown away. The vines, the mist, and the last vestiges of Ciel's strength.
Dimly, she heard a woman's high-pitched shriek of terror, before the light flared and her knees gave way and she collapsed to the ground mid-dash, tumbling head over heels until shoulder met cold castle wall.
"Ugh…"
Times like this, she almost missed immortality. The old her would have been right as rain in a few seconds. Now it took nearly a minute to mend injuries of this caliber.
With one shaking hand, Ciel pushed her palm into the dirt and lifted herself off the ground. Her head hung until she forced it up, feeling her spine creak and crack in protest. There was no time to rest. She needed to confirm the kill and escape before anyone else arrived. Her thrust had met thin resistance. It was no surprise: her weapon was created to make short work of the toughest foes. Not even a Dead Apostle Ancestor could take a hit head-on and survive. No one could.
No one could, so it was strange.
Strange how, in the middle of the garden – which now bloomed with roses in all directions, coating the walls and the ground and the sky – sat a fair lady at a dainty table, upon which were an unopened bottle of wine and two tall glasses. She dabbed at her eyes with a lovingly embroidered handkerchief. It came away red.
She flung forth the handkerchief, where it hung in the air. Ciel tracked its movements as it floated slowly down to the ground, landing like a discarded flower petal.
"Goodbye," the lady said. "Goodbye!" she repeated. Her voice was rich and high and heavy with emotion. "Goodbye, dear Amélie. You were one of my favorite cousins. I shall miss your colourful gossip for the next hundred years."
Ciel did not say anything. She could not say anything. She had missed entirely, struck at an illusion, and paid the price for it. She was now nothing more than a lawn ornament.
The lady scanned the courtyard idly, her eyebrows raised high as she surveyed the extent of the damage that had been wrought upon it. Of the countless rose bushes – and they were all roses, in all colours – several had been sliced into. Others withered, stood crooked, or bore burn marks from the holy water. Her eyes glossed over Ciel with faint interest, lingering on lost limbs before moving on to the rest of the garden.
"How vulgar," the lady mused. "Or is it? Scars tell a story. That's where the vines were sliced, here was the first impact, there was the second… ah, you rolled through the flowers here, Amélie… and there is your corpus, blooming beautifully. This piece will be your greatest." She regarded the body, which seemed to be another woman entirely, one Ciel had never seen in her life. "Of course, the underhanded killer must be present… ah, this must be the one he sliced off." The woman finally peered at Ciel herself more closely. "What a crude cut. On the face, too. Simply unnecessary. To take an eye is to prune a bud before bloom… yet is that empty space not filled with something? Dreams marred by truth. A memory of what could have been. The inescapable fragility of the living. An instant's misdirection and it all falls apart. Hm…"
For a moment the lady of the castle silently took in the ravaged garden. Then she nodded, a bright and energetic smile gracing her moonlit visage.
She stood from her seat and crossed the garden. One long finger caught Ciel's chin and drew the frozen girl's head up. She beheld her captor's gentle, cruel gaze, and the yawning inhumanity in the depths of her dusky eyes. When her finger withdrew, Ciel stayed like that, on her hand and knees, gazing upwards, resignation and despair perfectly framed in every facet of her appearance.
"Perfect. Now, hold still, like that," said Rita Rozay-en, Fifteenth of the Dead Apostle Ancestors. "Just until sunrise. A portrait must never be rushed."