Gungnir missed its mark.
Remilia's heart was in her throat as the matriarch deflected the spearhead away with a forearm that was already returning to the offensive. Remilia backed, twisting and yanking Gungnir with her, the edge cutting across and biting deep into Jill's attacking wrist. The werewolf ignored the pain and followed through, obsessed with gouging apart the face of the girl who had ruined it all.
With her tendons severed, her digits spasmed, though the blunt force sent Remilia reeling backwards, her face lined with claw marks. The werewolf was on her. She met the beast's snout with the butt of her spear. The matriarch shook it off, her following swipe cutting the air where Remilia's head had been.
Remilia ducked and danced, frustration gripping her. She needed to get to Sakuya. She needed to be fresh for whatever fight she found there.
But the enemy before her was a werewolf, one old enough and strong enough to match her, even fast enough to deflect the unerring Gungnir. It would cost Remilia time or blood to beat her.
A grisly third alternative presented itself as the tempo of Jill's assault increased. Remilia's weapon was seemingly everywhere at once, and that was barely fast enough as she was chased by the blurring claws. The matriarch capitalised and bore down on the girl, rushing her with a startling roar. Remilia staggered over something behind her - a chair, a corpse, she didn't know what - and screamed as she was driven into and up the wall, Gungnir's shaft creaking as Jill's teeth and claws raked it in their attempts to reach her.
The magic barrier – once transparent and clean – was now an opaque egg-shell white, a spider's web of cracks running along the breadth of it from the intruder's testing, gouging strikes. Beneath it, the iron doors they protected were now dark with fissures opened from the tension, both frame, face and threshold twisting and bending beneath her power.
The welt on Flandre's forehead stung. Coupled with the obstinance of the barrier, the pain made it hard to maintain a measured approach. But she knew what would happen if she lost her temper.
So she tried to work slowly but steadily. With every wave of Lævateinn, the door and its barrier was twisted, loosened, contorted and tensed before she tested the overall integrity with a sudden closing of her fist. As she worked, she had heard the sound of her elder sister's preachings, the rise and fall of hundreds of panicking voices.
Now, she swore she could hear the bad wolf - and her sister's frenzied cries.
She needed to be in there to help. Swallowing, she increased the pace, hammering the barrier again and again.
An opening presented itself. The silver eyes of the doors opened fully, the sparkling pupils going dark as they contracted, as though pained. She felt it in her crushing hand as well, the unyielding firmness in the palm of her power suddenly flexing and cracking as a spike from within drove deep, then another, hollowing the barrier out and leaving pain-shock and emptiness where there had been strength.
Flandre didn't question where the internal wound had come from. It was an opportunity to open the door faster. Flandre's jaw went tight as she imagined the man in the wall being just on the other side of the barrier. She let her temper slip, let the fingers and thumbs of her power dig into the barrier's wound and pulled.
Red mist puffed through Prosechtikos' teeth as the knives ripped into his body. Sakuya was already stepping back, but the blades were lodged.
Chains rattled up the blades of her knives, the butler offering her a bloodstained grimace as his linkage leapt for her hands. She launched herself back, leaving one knife jutting in his chest as she withdrew the other, feeling the pull as the grasping chains raced up the blade. She let go, wrenching her hand away from the links. As she leapt nimbly back, she rubbed at tested digits as Prosechtikos staggered, muttering to himself as Dreadshanks limped across the carpet to him, crying for him, its inlaid metal sigils glowing faintly now.
He seized as he felt a sharp, hollowing pain open up in the wounds Sakuya had given him, as if invisible hands were pulling them open. He bent over, clutching himself as he vomited blood. He felt Dreadshanks nuzzle his leg and groan in sympathy.
"Barrier's gone. Blast. God in hell. Barrier's gone." He babbled to himself, leaning back hard against the keening sigil-beast, managing to keep the maid in his fuzzing vision. More intruders had broken in. Jill would be wroth with him, if he made it past the night.
He scoffed at that last thought, his left eye twitching as he focused on Sakuya. This dog would not kill him.
The barrier shattered in a shower of fragmented white magic. One of the doors exploded, the shards of red-hot metal missing Flandre by chance, the other swinging into the wall in a sticking mass of molten slag.
All of that happened in time for her to see her blood-soaked sister crash into the far wall, the shaft of her Gungnir crackling bright beneath monstrous pressure. For all of a second, she saw her sister in another place, at another time.
Instead of a dimly lit-lake of blood, she stood within the sigil-daubed foyer of their mansion. Instead of sickly-sweet scent of blood all about them, there was grave stench and battlefield rot wafting in from outside. Most importantly, she didn't see the looming, bestial terror that was a werewolf matriarch, but one of the bad vampires. The bad vampire, with his needle teeth and his hollow eye sockets and his Wallachian black plate.
This time, Flandre dithered, remembering how the whole world had seemed to scream in vengeful mourning when she... when she'd stopped him, how angry her sister had been.
Her gaze met Remilia's, seeing how her elder sister was already screaming at her, already recalling the words from back then, why did you kill him, they'll hunt you for all time, why didn't you stay in the basement-
"FLAN!" Remilia's present words punched through.
Flandre blinked, breathing hard, her gaze following the voice.
"HELP ME!" Remilia shouted through gritted teeth as she pushed with everything she had, the shaft of Gungnir inching Jill's snapping snout just a little higher. The matriarch allowed it, its jaws snagging on the spear as her claws slipped low. She thought Remilia a fool to focus on her imposing teeth, to ignore her claws as they slipped low for her belly to finish the fight.
She neither knew nor cared that Remilia was positioning her for a clear shot.
The matriarch's head was slammed sideways as an invisible force bit through the side of her face. Werewolf's blood blasted across Remilia's front as she was suddenly dropped, the monster holding her suddenly limp. The towering werewolf - its right eye gone and its snout concaved by the all-consuming maelstrom that had come and gone - slumped back, its weight crashing through a table's middle and into the splashing carpet.
Flandre's gaze peeked over the knuckles of her closed fist, feeling a familiar apprehension set in as the werewolf lay still. She'd gone too far, again.
"Flan, what're you doing here?!" Remilia's shout turned Flandre's attention back to the elder sister rising from the wall in her blood-soaked dress.
The volume of her voice made Flandre shudder, hearing the voice chiding her. 'This again?!' Flandre felt her hackles rise as the voice spoke quickly and loudly as Remilia closed with her. 'You saved her. Why? She's only going to blame you anyway! We should yell back. Hit her. Hurt her! Show her how you hurt! Before she hurts you again!'
Flandre tensed, her teeth gritted for a moment. She could raise the Lævateinn. She could put Remilia in the palm of her hand. The thought thrilled her almost as much as it scared her. She could. It would be easy to instruct her in this pain, so damn easy.
'...Surrounded by people who love you very, very much, and they're doing everything they can to keep you safe.'
The memory of the maid's words left Flandre immobile until Remilia almost tackled her off of her feet, her arms locking Flandre down. "I thought they were gonna get you..." Remilia whimpered against her as she squeezed her. Flandre stood there, frozen, the Lævateinn awkwardly trapped between them.
She was hugging her.
"Sis!" Flandre gasped, the shadow of that terrible contemplation leaving her breathless. You were gonna do it, the voice chided as it trailed away, you were gonna. Out of guilt, Flandre tried to get clear of her sister.
"Wait, I need this," Remilia murmured, tightening her grip, "I need this."
Flandre felt her own tears run down her cheeks, the wand of Loki forgotten as she wrapped her arms around Remilia's middle and squeezed.
"Sorry." Remilia whispered, the word coaxing an earnest nod from Flandre.
"I know, it's okay, it's okay," Flandre soothed, "You're safe now. We can go home now."
Remilia flinched, swallowed, then backed, her palm leaving Flandre's back to shove tears from her own face. "Sakuya brought you here, didn't she?" She asked.
Flandre nodded. "Yeah. She went to the inner sankdum."
Remilia shuddered out a breath, her eyes shining. "She's still fighting. I can feel her trying- Olivia, she needs help..." Remilia mumbled, trying to move past the relief and the vulnerability. She needed to be a warlord of Wallachia here, now. Her gaze tracked right, Flandre's eyes following hers to the unconscious human girl who lay sheltered between the tables.
"Who's she?" Flandre heard herself asking.
"A human I've grown to like," Remilia managed, "One that I swore to protect. But I need to press on... Flan?"
Flandre stirred. "Yeah?"
Remilia looked on at her in contemplation, her lips thin. "I need to fetch the maid and lady Olivia there, that we may all go home together. Can you bear with me?"
Flandre nodded, more hesitant now.
Remilia clasped her arms as she offered her little sister a brave smile. "You said the inner sanctum..." She released Flandre, her hand to indicate the locked doors that led to the east wing, "I sensed her this way-"
Flandre turned, her gaze following Remilia's pointer finger and punched her own hand in that direction. The doors crumpled inwards, the lock, the handle and inlaid mechanisms ripped out of existence. Already, the doors began to regrow.
They began to close.
"Excellent, Flan. Will you pick up Olivia? There's little time. Sakuya might be hurt, by the time we reach her." Remilia rushed out as she made for the wound in the doors, stepping through the oblivion-bitten portal.
"Remi!" Flandre called out, gratified to see Remilia turn instantly for her, those curious, tired red eyes focused entirely on her.
She felt herself flush when she realised she wasn't sure what she wanted to say. Part of her wanted to forestall this heart-to-heart, knowing it would be painful, fearing she would be ignored or even laughed at. She was hurt. She was angry. You hate her, the voices surged in again, spit your vitriol! You will find clarity and peace through violence, we promise you! Shout it out! You hate her! You hate her! Flandre's brow twitched, opening her mouth.
"FLAN, BEHIND!" Remilia screeched. Flandre followed her wide-eyed gaze, turning-
The matriarch's fist swung into Flandre's arm, the concussive force buffeting her ribcage. As Flandre buckled, as her feet lifted from the carpet, her free hand awkwardly clutched the massive, fur-covered strut that was Jill's forearm. She saw the wolf was still moving, intent on her big sister. Like Flandre didn't matter. For all the discord in her head, both she and the voices agreed on one thing.
This matters. This. Right now. This moment.
And the bad wolf is spoiling it.
She plunged her fingers into the meat of Jill's forearm, tearing muscle like taffy and snapping bones like twigs, her whole hand shaking with anger as she pulled Jill's arm apart.
A human scream bubbled up through the werewolf's howl as she turned and brought her other claw around to swipe Flandre off of her, the impact sending the little vampire across the room, her tiny fist still clenched and trailing muscle strands as she slapped onto the saturated carpet. Already, Flandre was sitting up, her expression aghast as she looked down her body. The red lines that Jill's claws had drawn across her body weren't healing, but her attention was down her front, the white of her dress - the gift found by Sakuya and paid for by Remilia - was now dark with blood, none of it her own.
She leaned on the Lævateinn as she regained her footing, her dark expression fracturing when she saw Remilia stepping back through the portal towards herself and Jill.
"Stop!" Flandre blurted out.
Remilia froze, startled. "It's a werewolf! An old one-"
"There's not much time, right?" Flandre called back as she watched Jill advance on her, "Go on. We're more threat apart, right?! We can take more of their pieces off the board!" She insisted. She was gratified to see Remilia pause, feeling both nervous and proud to imagine her sister seeing sense in her words.
"You have to destroy her, Flan," Remilia croaked, "She's dangerous. Okay? Take no risks! Break her! You hear me?!"
The matriarch darted forward. Flandre's weapon shone with a crimson light as Jill rushed her, her claws slicing in to burst the little sister's heart. Flandre made no move to defend herself as the swipe fell short. By a trick of Lævateinn's light, the werewolf had misjudged the distance.
That had left her wide open as Flandre swung her staff like a club, the air whistling around it as it cracked into the werewolf's side. The crushing blow sent Jill crashing through a table, affording Flandre the time to snap a command to her hesitant sister, "Got it, now, go!"
Remilia jumped before nodding, removing her hand and her weapon from the rent in the door as she rushed for the portal before it collapsed entirely.
Jill had been painted red by the lake of blood. She rose to her full height, a glassy new orb having grown in place of the ruptured eye Flandre had destroyed. For a moment, she paused, searching for Remilia. Her lips curled into a snarl as she focused on her new opponent. The matriarch howled down at her, splaying her arms, filling the room.
Flandre snarled back as she raised Lævateinn, the weapon sprouting grinning peg teeth as it flexed and bent, suddenly resembling a bow stave. Blood boiled and furniture caught fire as a wall of incandescent rainbow lights rose in front of her.
"STARBOW BREAK!" She called out.
She released the arrows, the lights screaming with her as they blazed down on the matriarch.
If anyone was going to be able to take on Jill and win, it would be Flandre.
Remilia consoled herself with that as she turned and ran down the corridor, flanked by walls bedecked with paintings and portraits of men, women and children of different ages and stations. She shook her head, thinking nothing of them initially.
Then she saw the wrongness in them. She saw a rosy-cheeked baker with a broad smile, contradicted by wide, pleading eyes. She saw a pair of bored looking children, their eyes glinting with tears. In another stood a wavy-haired knight with his helm tucked under one arm, his face set in the three-quarter angle, his pitiable gaze following Remilia.
His eyes suddenly darted to his neighbouring picture. Remilia followed the look, seeing a pale woman standing above a lake, a bow in hand and an arrow nocked, aiming at the viewer.
At her, in fact.
The bow-stave sprang as the arrow was loosed.
Remilia leapt up and over the arrow's passage. She beat her wings as more came on, turning and wheeling as the arrows followed her. She caught sight of her attacker in another portrait, sheltered behind a mournful, grey-haired officer. Already, her assailant - a helmeted, blue-white blur - was diving behind him.
Remilia lunged, grimacing as she saw the officer's chest swell and his eyes mist.
And like that, he was gone, the canvas he stood within shredded by Remilia's claws.
"Too slow!" Her adversary cooed from behind her, the sides, all around her.
"Show yourself!" Remilia demanded, her gaze flitting this way and that.
Her enemy obliged her.
She leapt down from a painting further down the hallway, tangled black hair cascading beneath the silver helmet. She landed gracefully, water splashing across the carpet and running down her blue dress. She turned to face the vampire, wielding a glowing bow in one hand, her other fingers resting on the pommel of a sword belted around her waist.
"Hello sweetie!" Morgen called out, her smile shortened into a bar of teeth by the cheek guards of her helmet.
"Nice to see you're dressed for this occasion." Remilia replied quietly.
"Ah, yes! Behold, the unbreakable helm of king Arthur, a silvered blade of the fomorii, and," Morgen raised a bow stave of gilded moonlight, "the weapon of the hunting goddess, Artemis!"
"I see," Remilia managed, aware now that Sakuya's spirited fight took place just beyond the pair of doors behind Morgen, "With such armaments, I daresay you're now more trouble than you're worth."
Morgen kept smiling, a shiver going through her. "Mmm. Where's Jill?"
Remilia sighed heavily. "My little sister is taking her to task."
Morgen blinked. "Your little-? My, I suppose that's your sister dealt with, then."
Remilia tossed her a heavy lidded stare as she forced down her own unease. "Oh, you don't know how nasty she can be."
There was silence before Remilia lifted her chin to indicate the set of doors beyond. "There's no convincing you to look the other way? I've no interest in your blood."
Morgen smiled all the brighter. "Oh, I'm not leaving this place empty-handed. Your heart will secure my place in Edwin's good graces, and your visage will make a fine addition to my trophies."
Remilia frowned, noticing that the subjects in the portraits were weeping, the cloth spotted with droplets around their eyes now. "Do you love him also?"
Morgen shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
The peevish look Remilia shot her made her laugh. "He has this house and contacts amongst the mortals and our own illustrious kin. What's the harm in joining my fate to his?"
The canvas of the water sources in the paintings - every pond, river and waterfall - were now dripping darkly with moisture. Remilia returned her gaze to the water spirit. "If you cannot comprehend your own folly, I shall instruct you." She promised, a flicker of carmine energy sparking across her fingers.
Morgen tilted her head. "Folly? You realise the danger you court, for the sake of a human?"
Remilia threw out a half-hearted shrug. "The sigil beast had the drop on me. We shall see how it fares if I keep my distance."
Morgen sniggered. "Oh, countess - I mean the danger you're in, right now, in this coffin of a corridor."
Remilia's hand flashed round, the Gungnir leaving it and piercing the space between them like red lightning.
Morgen was gone in an eye-blink, the Gungnir gouging a trio of paintings apart as the picture standing opposite vomited water onto the carpet, displaced by Morgen's occupation.
She's fast, Remilia began to think as the silver-tipped arrow slipped the stream of water and flew straight for her. She leapt back-
She beat her wings and course-corrected as she sensed another arrow behind her, cursing as that arrow was joined by twenty, the twenty becoming fifty, then a hundred, zipping in from all sides.
Remilia sprang upwards, sailing down the corridor on her wings, hearing the arrows whistling around her. To stop was to die. Keep flying. That would see her live.
For a while, at least. She saw that a great number of the paintings were of landscapes and water features, and they were gushing water onto the carpet. Even the people trapped within those frames were producing water, their expressions stricken, weeping things.
"Cry, my pretties," Morgen's shrill command came from every painting, a glittering arrowhead tracking Remilia from every canvas, "Cry! I don't want to see a dry eye in the house!"
Morgen and all her doppelgangers loosed, scores of paintings rippling as a fusillade of arrows spat from them. With a scowl on her face and a curse on her lips, Remilia dove on through the curtain fire.
"Here, boy. That's a good boy." Prosechtikos murmured, his shaking hand brushing down the papery, knife-hewn neck of his pet.
He didn't have the strength to reach the doors. Neither he nor Dreadshanks were going to live much longer, not as things were. This was no time to be sentimental, not any longer.
One of them had to live.
"Oh, my boy. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He murmured, the plaintive tone turning the blinded, arrow-head skull of his pet to face him. "No, no, straight ahead. Keep eyes on that perfidious girl. Watch her, you hear me? Watch her." He commanded as he pulled one of Sakuya's knives free from his stomach. Despite the pain sustained from the servant girl, despite Dreadshanks' own exhaustion, it obeyed fervently, growling harshly, making to advance on ribboned arms and perforated legs to protect its master, turning its head back towards their killer - and exposing the long red seam Sakuya had driven into the back of its neck.
Prosechtikos speared Sakuya's knife into the neck wound, driving in up to the elbow, coaxing a hurt, cut-off roar from the beast. It shook, spasmed, then calmed as lines of chain rolled beneath its flesh like throbbing veins.
"Needs must as the devil drives, and now I drive you to complete this last task, my boy, my friend." Prosechtikos murmured as he mounted the creature's back, his other hand joining the other, his fingers and the borrowed silver digging into its nervous system, the sigil beast shuddering before it shakily arose, chain links hoisting the dead weight up.
"You are so desperate to stop me, you would hurt your ally so?" Sakuya asked quietly.
"You did this. You made it necessary. You, you, you," Prosechtikos slurred as he absorbed what little vitality he could from Dreadshanks, "You ungrateful bitch."
Sakuya slowly straightened her posture and smiled serenely over her raised silver. "I hope I don't come off as ungrateful. I do owe a great debt. With your help, I shall start to repay her."
"Already under her thrall. You poor girl. I'll, we'll," Prosechtikos jarred the knife, causing Dreadshanks to lift, its pale legs shuddering as chains criss-crossed his body, "We'll help you come to your senses, even if it means beating you to within an inch of your miserable life."
The monster seized as the chains took hold of it, the butler directing it to stiffly but quickly crawl towards the servant girl.
Sakuya rushed to meet them.
The battles that took place within the inner sanctum and the hall of memories had at least once worn a veneer of courtesy.
In the banquet hall there were no such reservations. Jill sought to kill Remilia. Flandre sought closure with her sister. To each of them, the other wasn't just an obstacle, they had taken something from them.
The damage that Flandre doled out gave Jill pause. The werewolf had gone willingly into pain before - her unnatural constitution and her regenerative abilities meant she only ever dealt with fleeting discomfort at most - but Flandre's brand of pain, she couldn't willingly walk into. Her feral swings and her destructive magic were backed by a disturbed strength that eclipsed her elder sister's, a strength that promised trauma, anguish, real hurt.
It also made her reckless.
The matriarch changed tactics and stayed out of Flandre's reach, gifting the girl with shallow nicks and cuts, agitating and stinging the vampire until she lost her temper. Flandre charged her, the Lævateinn convulsing in her hand to fit the shape of a flaming sword as she swept upwards, singeing fur and burning skin but never catching.
In a blur, Jill's knee rocketed up into Flandre's chin, sending her wobbling backwards as Jill opened her jaws to bite the girl's head off.
She saw Flandre's off-hand closing and felt the pressure around herself spike. She recalled the absolute nothingness she'd glimpsed when she'd had Remilia dead to rights, knowing she didn't want another look.
With a human cry of fear, Jill called off the bite, banking to the side as Flandre closed her fist-
Jill's ear disappeared along with the hair and the skin on the side of her head. In a panic, the matriarch swept its closed fist into Flandre's body, sending her across the room. Flandre skipped once before rolling through the blood-flooded floor, waves rippling in her wake. She came to a halt, her reknitted limbs slapping into the shallow gore.
As she gathered her wits, Flandre thought of Patchouli, not immediately knowing why.
Flandre planted Lævateinn, pushing herself up from the filth with it as she glowered. Patchouli had promised to help her, and yet, Flandre thought of the unimpressed, bored-with-you look the magician always seemed to wear around her, even when Patchouli was trying to subdue her. No, especially then.
Flandre had raged against Patchouli's defences, despite the witch's assertions that they couldn't be broken head-on, that Flandre's methods were predictable, for all their potency.
It had been spite that had made Flandre develop her powers. It had the desire to express her rage in a way that couldn't be stopped, couldn't be ignored, and… it had been so, so freeing to see Patchouli's confidence melt away before Flandre's wrath.
Jill was not privy to Flandre's nostalgia, first striding, then loping towards her prey, hearing but not heeding the little girl's puerile call-out.
"Forbidden Barrage." Flandre intoned. She raised Lævateinn, the branches of the stave suddenly parting to reveal a single, yellowed eye that glared at Jill as the werewolf leapt, its maw opening, claws outstretching.
Blood blasted upwards as the matriarch landed, her claws vicing down on her prey.
The battlefield was shrinking.
Remilia pushed down the panic as her cast of the Gungnir brought a row of portraits and panelling crashing down onto the sodden carpet. She banked hard as more arrows skimmed her hair and arms and legs, leaving superficial cuts that bled and refused to scab over. She altered her course, maintaining altitude as she searched for one of the illustrations that sheltered Morgen. Or one of her doppelgangers. She couldn't tell, not until Morgen physically emerged from the paintings - and the water spirit was ruthlessly pragmatic, seemingly only leaving the safety of the portraits when Remilia was unable to reach her.
It was suicide to panic, but this was getting hopeless! The silvered wounds weren't stopping, and if she continued bleeding, if the water kept pouring from these manufactured vistas, if the arrows kept coming...
She dived steeply, the arrows thudding into the doors that led into the sanctum, pulling up and landing nimbly on the back of a fallen painting, an arrow thudding by her foot-
"Shit!" She exclaimed as the painting slid an inch on the wet carpet, her foot slipping with it, her balance compromised for the briefest moment.
Morgen burst from a picture of a mountain stream directly in front of Remilia, the sword raised in two hands.
The gleam of Remilia's eyes killed Morgen's breathing as the vampire sprang forward from her heels. Her trajectory took her directly into Remilia's path. There was no escape. The water spirit's gaze flitted elsewhere.
And she was gone, Remilia's claws cutting nothing but air.
"RAAAARGH!" Remilia screamed as she summoned the Gungnir in a crackle of scarlet light, seeing Morgen letting a breathless laugh loose from within a painting of a courthouse.
The bitch only needed to see one of her paintings to get away from her. Remilia could keep ripping at the paintings, but there were still half a hundred left, and her strength was being bled. She sighed deeply. She couldn't win, not if Morgen played this safely. Not if-
"My, flagging already?" Morgen teased.
Remilia's eyes widened as the epiphany struck her. Why had Morgen closed with her just then?
She had a gambit to play, even now, even as victory disappeared between the jaws of defeat.
She did not let her smile surface, instead baring her fangs.
"Shut your mouth! You mewling spawn! You craven upstart coward bastard!" Remilia raged, ladling on the insults as she raised her right hand and grasped the Gungnir's spearhead until it bit her palm open.
Morgen began to laugh, already hopping out of shot as Remilia darted in and obliterated the painting, the water spirit's voice assailing her from all sides. "Such coarse language speaks volumes of your character, countess, nary an ounce of mine!"
Remilia's ear twitched, hearing an arrow spitting from a canvas. Another powerful beat of her wings and she was ascending, Morgen's arrows and her sickly words following her. "Besides… Would you call me a coward for taking the threat of vampires seriously? You should be flattered I went to such lengths for you, miss Scarlet!"
"I swear by my tutor's blood, I'll gut you when I catch you!" Remilia bellowed.
She flew fast as Morgen's laugh bubbled up behind her. "If you want me, you're going to have to stand still, my pretty!"
As Morgen's words and arrows followed her, Remilia realised grimly she wouldn't need to try too hard to play the wounded dog all that convincingly.
You could hear the air move in the inner sanctum. How it whooshed around Dreadshank's mallet-shaped fists, how it swished and flicked around Prosechtikos' whipping chains. But they could not reach her. Sakuya slipped through every impossible gap, dove through every window in their attacks, every lapse of time making her harder to keep track of, every movement frustratingly easy for her. She was no longer armed, but she was impossible to catch.
Sakuya skated to a halt as she made to cross the round table, sensing the desperation bleeding through the doors she fought to pass through.
"It seems," Sakuya breathed, "Seems I may have to opt out of your remedial punishment."
"Hah," Prosechtikos managed through bloody teeth as he dragged one knife from his belly as a clutch of his linkage quietly snaked beneath the table to wrap around its legs, "I have your weapons, you dog, you lowly cur. You don't get to decide anything."
Sakuya smiled sadly at him as she shook her head, her fingers digging into the fabric of her ragged skirt, her posture lowering as she made the approximation of a curtsy. "Goodbye, Prosechtikos. I disliked you the least. You were not unkind to me."
"You were always beneath my notice! A broken, damaged doll and nothing more!" Prosechtikos raved, every muscle tensing as he hauled on the extended forest of chains beneath Sakuya. With that herculean effort, the wooden legs broke, the round table suddenly slanting. Sakuya lost her balance, her feet leaving the table as her hands came away.
That decided it. The girl was human. She could not turn in mid-air or arrest her fall. She could do nothing. He had her. Another chain burst from Dreadshanks' thorax in a puff of desiccated flesh and hooked around, intent on piercing, wrenching, bisecting the maid with a weapon that had been built to bind titans. "Bon voyage!" Prosechtikos barked as his chain swept in on the vulnerable, airborne servant girl.
Confidence surged as he felt his chain limb grazed tattered fabric. It snatched shut, ripping apart cotton, wool, silk.
He faltered as he failed to find flesh. He didn't feel bones snap, didn't taste that forlorn terror humans felt as they realised they were doomed.
Sakuya's hands hadn't moved to seek balance. They had torn at her already ruined skirt, revealing black thigh holsters embroidered with the initials of the Scarlet Devil.
Sakuya's heel had stamped down in mid-air, seeking purchase seemingly from nowhere, her legs lifting and tucking above the chain's horizontal arc.
Prosechtikos' mouth opened as his gaze moved up past Sakuya's legs, spying six silver slivers lacing her clenched fingers. Above that, a loveless smile and lively, glowing red eyes. The daggers began to fly.
He rapidly lost control of the situation. Dreadshanks' branch-like arms and the butler's own chains wearily swatted away knife after knife, the throws coming faster, the air becoming thick with flung silver.
Then Dreadshanks' leg gave out, hamstrung. Prosechtikos kept his balance at the cost of his pet's defences, the knives thudding home, blades striking deep, until the beast struggled to move for the weight of the weapons, how the metal jammed and shredded its lacerated muscles.
"No!" Prosechtikos wailed, flailing and deflecting until one knife got through into his neck. He grasped at the handle as the other hand sent the chains arcing to catch more knives. Then another struck his belly. Two shot into his chest and another took one of his eyes. Another cluster of silver jutted from his other eye socket, his left bicep, his right palm. He mutely struggled as more silver landed. And more. And more, until the human shell he wore was nearly unrecognisable.
His body twitched as it began to lean, unable to fall backwards on account of the chain that bound him to Dreadshanks. The butler - once an enslaver of titans, now resembling a grotesque pincushion - toppled forwards, bouncing off of Dreadshanks' shoulder before the chain that joined his hand to the beast's nape snapped taut, leaving the corpse of the puppet master to dangle at the side of its now inert marionette.
There was silence. Sakuya watched, wide-eyed, as the butler turned ever so slightly as he hung on his chain. She watched the glow of the sigil-beast's silver-inlaid wounds grow dim. She half-expected them to come undone, to right themselves. She expected gales of mocking laughter and cruel blows that would humble her. Part of her wished for these things. She realised then she was still holding her breath. She caught it then, her body shivering as though a mere exhale would enliven the butler and his beast, that the merest sound would bring them back to life. Still, there was nothing. She had killed them. She'd really killed them.
Her hands flew to her head as her knees shook, a convulsive gasp slipping from her. This was more than a mere daydream. This was real now, her fantasy made flesh. She'd burnt a bridge now. They would be severe with her. They would be vengeful. They-
She jerked her head back and straightened her shoulders when she heard a frustrated roar from the other room and from within her own head. Remilia was calling her.
She turned from the mutilated pair, her eyes going to the doors that led into the hall of memories. Knowing the result, she threw a blade, cursing as it bounced off of the dead wood and the rusted adamantium of Prosechtikos' enchantment.
She turned, locking on to the cavern that had been chiselled out of reality. Edwin and his comrades kept their treasures here. She hurried inside, too familiar with the wrongness that permeated this place to allow it to slow her. She found food that never spoiled and fabrics that shone with every colour. She found articles of clothing that could draw out old ailments and cure the sick. She found shields that could repel magic, armour that could turn aside fire, idols of fertility, charms and trinkets, rings and gemstones, gold, silver, riches that might humble kings.
But not one axe to cut through that door, and every moment, Remilia's voice grew fainter. Sakuya kept going, kept searching until her gaze snagged on a tarpaulin covered shape that leant against the cavern wall. She dragged it down.
The framed faces of half a dozen captives stared at her from their two-dimensional prisons. A shepherdess, a cobbler, a pauper and his mother, an accountant, a washerwoman. Immaculately painted, all smiling bravely, all of their eyes begging for release.
Despite all this death, despite the compulsion, Sakuya felt her eyes well up. But she kept moving, turning from the anguished prisoners to return to the cave mouth, her eyes looking past the dead monsters to the roaring fireplace, remembering what had happened the last time she'd disposed of Morgen's special paintings in such a way. Sakuya turned to those paintings now, meeting the eyes of these men, women, and children, all trophies now.
"There will be a moment of pain, but it will be brief, and then you'll be free," Sakuya told them, "To pursue vengeance or freedom, whichever you seek."
They understood what was to happen, only able to watch her. Sakuya moved them to the fireplace, sliding them into the hearth. The flames leapt across the paintings and turned green as purifying fire met hex-ridden varnish. In their last moments, Sakuya thought she could see the glint of fearful gratitude as the canvas warped, bubbled and collapsed into blazing rags, and above them, the ice-blue remnants of their spirits flickered and roiled. Most flew for the windows, keen to seek out their afterlife, though a pair remained, glaring down at Sakuya with faces that even now began to warp. As she'd hoped, they were not satisfied with mere release. She looked to the doors, the gesture backed by a high, rolling giggle that was familiar to them all.
The Sakuya watched the vengeful spirits go, her eyes widening as they landed on the top hat, the plastic smile, and she felt her heart stop as the owner of the house put hands on her.
As the blood crashed away from them, Jill's inhuman mouth grimaced as her talons pierced through Flandre's body, a single, bulging red eye - too large for a child or even an adult's skull - glaring from beneath her mob cap. With a laugh like a creaking tree, the simulacrum's limbs flashed up and grappled at Jill's hand, its skin flaking away to reveal the age-darkened wood of Lævateinn. Jill raised her other claw to brush off the decoy, hearing the splish-splash behind her, turning-
An invisible force tunnelled into Jill's stomach, the pain staggering her.
"And then there were none!" Her enemy declared triumphantly.
Jill cleared the air there with her claws as she backed, her hackles rising as Flandre reappeared and rushed her.
She was inexhaustible. For every sweep of Jill's claws, Flandre threw two of her own. She struggled to match the speed, the strength or even the ferocity of the little vampire, but what threw her off the most was Flandre's unpredictability.
Remilia had changed tactics to suit her shortcomings against Jill, but Flandre seemed to think the point of the game was to change the rules often and without warning. When they brawled, Flandre might play along, or she might fire the Lævateinn at point blank range. She employed her wings well, the jeweled tips clinking as Flandre darted back from Jill's pouncing strikes before filling the gap with light and fire, ascending beyond her swipes before dive-bombing the matriarch. Her magic followed her bewildering trend, fire splashing across tablecloths and scorching the blood soaked carpet before leaping from them to chase the werewolf. Even the Lævateinn itself misbehaved, convulsing into a bladed bow, a flaming sword, a saw-toothed spear, a spade-tailed wand, sometimes mid-swing, to Flandre's delight. Jill wrenched a burning table up and launched it, the long table parting the smoke as it flew. Flandre lifted her fist, closing it, the table cracking as it was bitten apart. Already, Jill shifted her weight to move-
She froze, her muscles seizing. She saw the dainty little fingers locking as it gripped an invisible force, its powerful, rhythmic palpitations trying to beat the hand open.
"STOP!" Jill roared between rapid, shallow breaths.
Flandre sneered up at her. "Got you now, bad wolf." She surmised.
A human whimper emerged from the werewolf's panicking wail. Her eyes flicked about her, barely able to see for the eye-watering smoke, feeling the shadow of Flandre's fingers start to strangle the head-sized heart that thundered in her breast. "WHAT OF OLIVIA?" She growled.
Flandre's scowl deepened. "What?"
Jill gurgled as her heart struggled to work beneath that monstrous grip. "FIRE. SMOKE. CHOKE. DIES."
Flandre's eyes widened. Were humans so weak? She threw a glance to the fort of tables and chairs that Remilia sheltered Olivia in, seeing the fire catching on the chair legs, and realised the wolf was right. It had become a funeral pyre, not a shelter, thanks to her magic.
She was going to kill Remi's friend.
She dropped Jill and turned her powers onto the smoke. Just one strike and-
She annihilated a cluster of particles, but nothing more. She grasped at the blanket of smoke, again, again, coming away with little effect.
Jill wordlessly landed behind Flandre, staggering silently to her, her claw rising and falling, intent on ripping her in two.
The glowing heat radiating from within the inner sanctum suddenly guttered out.
"...Sakuya?" Remilia whimpered, swallowing as she steadied her speech and focused on finding the painting that hid her assailant. "Sakuya! Rise up, and join the fight!" She demanded.
Her maid's pulse grew fainter.
"...No..." Remilia murmured, her shoulders sinking as her stance widened on the shrinking patch of dry carpet.
The arrow storm had abated. Remilia could tell then that Morgen's cruelty had been aroused.
"Oh, you feel it? The ebb of your toy's life force?" Morgen asked from all around her.
"Please," Remilia managed, her concern adding an authenticity to the farce, "Stand aside. I must see her."
"Oh, you needn't," Morgen grinned from the few remaining portraits, "And she's no interest in you anyway, though I imagine you know that."
Remilia discreetly dug her thumb into the fleshy wound in her palm, delaying the healing process. She had to keep it open. To make this count. "I know that she values me." She managed quietly.
Morgen grinned at that. "Want to know how I know just how little she cares?" Morgen's voice came first from her left now, she realised. Remilia threw a panicky glance in every direction, seeing a multitude of Morgen's, seeing the sword held in two hands on the Morgen that mattered. She was preparing to sail past her and take Remilia's head from her shoulders in one cut. She wanted to be able to brag about bravely beheading Edwin's enemy.
That worked for Remilia just fine. Let her come close. Let her come and die.
Remilia forced a sniffle. She knew her response. Blind her to rob her of her escape routes. Ground her. Burst her heart with the Gungnir.
"That wretched night, when Sakuya said those horrible things to you?" Morgen asked.
Remilia flinched slightly at the memory, reminding herself not to show overt interest in the true Morgen. Morgen and all her apparitions grinned down at her. "That was my work," They said together.
Remilia swallowed, her eyes widening. "What?" She asked, her words perilously precise. She threw a wobble into her next words. "H-how do you mean?" She asked, internally repeating her strategy like a mantra. Blind her. Ground her. Burst her heart.
Morgen and all her doppelgangers chuckled as they drank in the pained expression of the vampire. "I was the one to tell her to hurt you. Honestly, I'm astounded that she assented so readily, hexes or no."
Remilia felt the wound re-open. A shaking breath gusted out of her, her eyes impossibly wide, her pupils constricting as she stared at Morgen.
"Why?" Remilia breathed.
Every Morgen's eyes lit up with anticipation, their smiles widening as they spoke in unison. "What reason would satisfy? That I did it for peace? That I did it for sustenance? Oh, my dear Remilia, I did it because I could. Now, square those shoulders!"
Remilia allowed her gaze to glance over the original Morgen and the silver sword that trailed behind her. Her red right hand shook as she raised it towards the approaching spirit, as though appealing for mercy. Morgen's sword hand was joined by the other as she prepared for the final decapitating swing.
Mister Osbourne's blood jetted out from the gouge in Remilia's hand, the crimson ribbon of fluid slashing across Morgen's visor and into her eyes. The water spirit cried out as she followed through, hoping her blade would bite, her nostrils flaring as she felt nothing. She turned and raised her sword, turning for a painting, an escape, the instinctive discomfort of blood in her eyes keeping her eyes scrunched shut for one second - one vital second - as her sleeve flew up to clear them.
Morgen realised then that she had never known fear.
She'd tasted the sickly burst-trickle of sweetness as the light faded from her victim's eyes and savoured their moans like birdsong as they lingered in her halls in perpetuity, but she had never experienced it firsthand. Not until now.
She felt a glacial wind blast over her body. Her skin turned to goose flesh as the tremors rolled over her body. The syrupy taste of inflicted pain became a metallic film on her tongue. She heard a rumbling in her ears from every direction. It was hard to breathe-
Thinking of the fight was suddenly beyond her. She had to escape. Surrender. Throwing herself on the mercy of her foe, even as she glimpsed her enemy's intentions for her, somewhere in that suffocating aura.
She saw herself in one of her own paintings, her blue dress dyed darkly, her face a tangle of hair, teeth and red ruin.
That was the very last coherent image her train of thought held onto before it was hammered off its rails by Remilia's fist.