Lady Phenex was ashen. She held onto clumps of her dress as she stared at Griselda.
"If your story is to be believed, you're saying that the church tried to kill you and your ward—two of their best exorcists—because you discovered that the One you follow is…"
"God is dead." Griselda's voice was hollow. "There's no mistake. I don't know when or how it happened. In the Great War, presumably, though it could have been after. My only certainty is that He is no more."
"You aren't scared to admit that?" Kuroka asked.
"I'm terrified," Griselda said. "I have lived for the church since I was old enough to stand on two legs. The devils who chased me were not wrong. I have cut apart more creatures of the night than I can count or remember. The church has always been my life. So yes, I am scared. Scared that I will lose Xenovia to those I considered allies. Scared that if I have been lied to about this, how else have men and angels pulled wools over my eyes? I'm not scared to admit my fear. Nor am I afraid to say that God is dead. He lived once and left us His teachings. Those cannot be taken from me. Not by the Witch of the Purple Flame. Not by Ewald Cristaldi. Not even by Michael himself if he appeared to me from heaven. I am Griselda Quarta, a christian woman committed to ridding the world of evil, and I will save my sister's life."
"How can we trust you?" Lady Phenex spoke softly. "You speak proudly about being our enemy. You sit on my couch and tell us you've slain so many devils you forgot their faces. What's to stop you from putting a blade in your new master's back as soon as we do your bidding?"
"She's not the type," Naruto said. "C'mon, Mom. Can't you see her eyes?"
"Expressions can lie, Naruto!" Lady Phenex said. "Humans can be as crafty as devils! You're practically a baby, you haven't seen what is out there!"
Kurama had returned to the room while Griselda told her story. She was currently sitting the wrong way in a recliner, lounging with her legs over the armrest. She had found a can of sardines somewhere in the kitchen and was tossing them into her mouth two at a time.
"If she betrays us, I'll eat her." Kurama chewed a few times. "I don't know what the big deal is."
"A deacon tried to kill me," Griselda said. "He stabbed Xenovia through the stomach for telling an inconvenient truth. The belief I had in my faith may not have been shaken, but I cannot view those who share my faith the same way anymore. If exorcists can turn on each other while calling each other brother and sister, who is to say a devil cannot do good?"
"On our doorstep, you said you would do anything, provided we save the unconscious one," Lady Phenex said. "Now you speak of doing your idea of 'good'. Was that a lie?"
Griselda knitted her fingers together, pushing her weight forward and leveling a blank gaze at Lady Phenex.
"I desperately want to be a good person," Griselda said. "The pursuit of that is how I've lived my entire life. Recently, I've recognized that there's something which means more to me. Xenovia. If it means she can live a happy life, I'll be a villain until my last breath. If that's what it takes."
"Mom," Naruto said. His voice was calm and direct. "Give her the tear. I'll take responsibility."
Lady Phenex didn't move. Not yet.
"How did you escape?" Lady Phenex asked. "Ewald Cristaldi is a name even I know. He's a monster in the skin of a human, as dangerous as one of the Seraphs themselves. You claim to have fought him. Perhaps he let you go. This could be a trap. How do you claim to have beaten him?"
Unconsciously, Griselda reached to the side, bumping the back of her knuckle against the handle of her sword.
"Luck," Griselda said.
LINE BREAK
Her body was moving in ways that she had never experienced. Every movement that Griselda made caused the air to sing in her wake. Her swings let off bursts of wind that toppled walls and brought stones crashing down from the ceiling. Unearthly noises came from her throat. Things that promised pain and violence.
A blow that could have crumpled a tank ran into Ewald's blade and stopped. He looked at Griselda with sad eyes.
"You're like a wild animal. Why did you have to take up that sword, Griselda? It would have been better to die in God's image," he said.
He leveraged his sword down, launching her back. Griselda dug the tip of her blade into the floor to slow her backwards flight. She snarled again. Xenovia was on the ground behind Ewald, unmoving. There was so much rage inside Griselda's body that she couldn't tell what was from her and what was from the sword.
"I'll destroy you," she said.
Destroy, not kill. Half of her was looking at Ewald. Half of her was looking at the sword in his hands. It was Excalibur… But not. The pieces of the Holiest Sword were split up around the world. She had seen two of them in the vault below their feet.
"I never would have guessed you would stray," Ewald said. He was crying as they fought; eerie, because his lips were flat.
He sliced the air with his fraudulent sword and very real power burst forth.
The wave of energy roared toward Griselda. She set her lower body and held up the flat of Arondight. When the power hit her sword, it disappeared, flooding into her limbs like the strength had always been her own.
She crossed the distance faster this time, laying an overhead strike down on Ewald's blade.
Walls were disappearing around them. Other exorcists had seen their battle but realized there was no room for them to intervene. It was beyond their abilities. Two blurs, one black and one silver, flashed around Griselda and Ewald. They traded blows at such a pace that even trained eyes couldn't catch more than glimmers of the clash.
Sweat appeared along Griselda's forehead. She was being pushed back, not that the eyes of any exorcist watching could catch that. Ewald's eyes didn't miss it. He pressed his advantage, taking a step forward every time she was forced to move back. If not for her anger fueling her, Griselda's arms would be growing heavy. It started to feel like she was a youth taking a lesson again. That helplessness caused her to howl.
"Lay down the demon sword, Griselda," Ewald said. "A sister ought to die as a being of God. There is nothing you can do—"
And he was right. There was nothing Griselda could do. He had only forgotten what sword she wielded—or underestimated Arondight as nothing but an unruly errant sibling.
Arondight was enraged by the mere sight of his sword. It was a replica of Excalibur. Somehow, in a project so secret not even Griselda had heard whispers of the accomplishment, the church had created a fake with the abilities of the real thing.
Still, something had to be sacrificed. If the copy had the powers of the original, it needed to lack something else.
Durability.
With a triumphant howl, Arondight met the Excalibur Copy in a clash of steel and chewed straight through. Ewald found himself holding a third of a sword with dark steel speeding toward his throat.
He slapped the black blade away with his palm. In the process, Arondight cut his fingers. Not deep and certainly not crippling; the injury was nothing but a flesh wound.
Griselda still found herself flooded with newfound stamina. It was the same effect that had occurred with the guard on her trip to Xenovia's cell, only she found herself ten times more energized, and Ewald didn't hit the floor in the embrace of unconsciousness. He looked at the wound, then up at her.
Griselda realized a few things quickly. First, he had been going easy on her. The sliver of energy she'd taken from him was immense, so big that if he had tried to kill her with no reservations, she would surely have been dead. Even now, without his legendary weapon, she didn't trust herself to kill him quickly. It was a risk.
The second thing she realized was how exhausted she had been. Before Arondight siphoned stamina from Ewald, her whole skin had been drenched with sweat. She'd been close to collapsing. If this surge of energy wore off, she would find herself on the floor.
Finally, in a moment of hesitation, she looked at Xenovia and spotted the rise and fall of her stomach.
The choice was obvious. Griselda slashed at Ewald just to make him dodge, blurring over to Xenovia and hauling the girl onto her shoulder. Griselda turned toward the exit, which happened to be in the same direction as Ewald. Her old teacher looked at her, still crying.
"You'll never get away," Ewald said. "You'll be hunted forever, you must know. She will die too. Won't you make it easy? Kneel and I will give the last gift to you painlessly."
"A true Christian is never afraid to suffer for what is right," Griselda said.
She was past him quickly. She fled through the rest of the cathedral. Anyone who tried to stop her met a slashing black blade and no longer barred her path. She tried not to kill, but could not say if all those she struck would live.
Xenovia would. That became Griselda's focus and only concern. Xenovia would not die, no matter what she had to do.
Or who she had to go to.
LINE BREAK
"That's all I have to share. I've answered as many questions as I can. It's your turn to speak. I would have an answer," Griselda said.
"I already gave my answer," Naruto said.
His voice was firm but he wasn't talking to Griselda. He was looking at the blond woman biting her lip a few steps away.
"Ruval could trade one of his knights to you, Naruto," Lady Phenex said. "Then he would take Griselda. That might be safer—"
"Mom," Naruto pleaded. "I made my choice!"
Bafeel cleared her throat. "If this is not my place to speak, then I apologize, but I must say… my King has always had good instincts when it comes to such things."
"He's usually not wrong when it comes to judging people," Kurama said. "Much as it pains me to admit it."
No one questioned how she could know something like that after meeting him a few days ago.
"He's not alone. If there's trouble, we'll have his back, nyah!" Kuroka declared.
"I…" Lady Phenex didn't finish her sentence, closing her mouth. She created a yellow magic circle no bigger than her palm. It was some kind of storage spell, because a clear vial fell out into her palm.
Lady Phenex walked to Xenovia and poured the tear. Xenovia shifted in her sleep—if the unconsciousness could be called that—while her breathing quickly became more stable. Underneath her stained bandages, her flesh and insides healed back to a perfect state. Naruto and the others didn't have to see the wound to know it was happening. Phoenix Tears didn't fail.
Lady Phenex turned back.
"I don't agree with this," she said. "I think you will endanger my son. It is taking all that I have to trust his judgement. So, Griselda Quarta, protect him. Swear it."
Griselda slid out of her chair, kneeling. She did it on both knees out of muscle memory, more like she was praying than like a knight.
"Any harm that befalls him will come only when I am dead or helpless," she swore.
Grinning, Naruto stepped forward, using Griselda's lowered position to put his hand on her shoulder. He spoke in a loud voice:
"Until the end of time or when the last spark sputters. Through hot and cold, danger and peace, sin and succor, fly at my side. Burn my enemies and warm my friends. Serve and be received. I name you Rook, the feathers that will shield my breast."
He produced a chess piece in the shape of a castle tower.
Griselda clasped her hands as if praying. Maybe she was. Naruto knelt onto her level, holding the piece out and pressing it against the semicircle of skin above her collar. Eyes closed, Griselda allowed it to enter her body, passing through her skin.
A moment later, bat wings ripped out of her nun's outfit, shredding the back of her top. Griselda lifted her eyelids, looking into the eyes of her new master.
Naruto grinned back.
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