~Protocol of The Executioner ~
The air in the clubroom didn't just turn cold; it became sterile, as if the very atoms were being scrubbed of their life.
Ignazio was the first to move, his Knight ring erupting in a frantic, golden defensive pulse that cast jagged shadows against the mahogany walls. Beside him, Vianne's playful energy vanished, her magenta eyes narrowing into lethal slits as she instinctively dropped into a low, predatory crouch.
They all turned as one toward the door, not with the look of warriors facing a monster, but with the hollow dread of students facing an inevitable, final exam.
Then, she stepped through.
Lamina Mortis didn't wear the jagged obsidian of the Grigori frontlines; she wore a charcoal-black suit, tailored with a sharp, funereal precision that made her look more like a high-end liquidator than a holy soldier.
Her long, blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail so tight it gave her pale features a terrifying, predatory sharpness.
She didn't look at Vera, and she didn't look at the others.
Her red eyes—vibrant and clinical like the recording light on a black box settled directly on Luke. She checked a silver watch on her wrist, her voice a low, administrative hum that cut through the Morningstar's violet aura like a scalpel.
"Nineteen hours was an estimate, not a guarantee," she stated, the spectral steel at her hip letting out a faint, singing shink. "The anomaly has been prioritized for immediate deletion. Please clear the area. I'd hate for the paperwork to include collateral damage."
"Lamina Mortis," Vera whispered, her grip on the desk tightening. "I heard the Watchers promoted their 'Little Crow' early, but I didn't think they'd send a mere nineteen-year-old to do the work of a Seraph."
Lamina turned to Vera. "Bold words coming from an eighteen-year-old Devil Princess." She retorted, her eyes narrowing. "However I do not have the time to indulge in such courtesies. Surrender the anomaly, I'd prefer to finish this task quickly.
Vera's grip on the desk tightened even more. The large mahogany desk rattled, almost cracking as if it were swarmed by termites.
Luke took a momentary glance at her. 'This is bad. If this keeps up she'll destroy the school herself.' He put a hand on Vera's shoulder.
"Buchou don't let her provoke you." Luke spoke. Vera looked at Luke and sighed as she let go of the desk. Luke was right; she let her emotions cloud her judgment.
Lamina's eyes narrowed, her gaze a sharp edge."Careful, anomaly," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "Comforting the Morningstar heir is a heavy burden for an anomaly to carry. You're trying to keep her world from shaking, but you're the one whose heart is about to stop. It's almost... poetic. In a tragic, naive sort of way."
"Enough bureaucracy, Watcher." Ignazio spat as he entered a drawing stance. A golden crackle radiating from his side, a sword materialised at his hip in its black gold scabbard. "I will not let your insolence go unpunished. The House of Morningstar evicts threats, and you are one of them."
Ignazio lunged. He didn't just move; he detonated forward, leaving a scorched trail of sulfur and golden aura that made the floorboards groan.
He appeared before Lamina like a thunderclap, his blade whistling through the air in a horizontal arc designed to sever her in two. The blow hit the air with enough force to spiderweb the walls with cracks of radiant gold.
But the blade met only empty air.
Lamina stood three feet to the left, her charcoal suit unruffled. She didn't even look up from her wrist. 'Impressive for a Morningstar,' she muttered, the red of her eyes reflecting off the silver watch face. 'But your movements are inefficient. You're wasting your power on theatrics.'"
Luke watched the brief move. His Apostle Eyes widened,they swiftly inverted colour and back. Luke grit his teeth—to Vera and the others it looked like plain speed, to Luke he knew what he saw. His body shook as he clenched his fist letting the Morningstar sigil on his left hand bleed through the fabric of his glove with crimson energy.
That's not speed, it's displacement. Luke's vision flickered violently between silver and gold, the world stuttering like a broken film reel. She hadn't moved through the space; she'd edited it, deleting the distance between two points in reality.
"Wait..." Luke's breath hitched, the Morningstar ring burning cold against his skin. "That's a Ghost Step. That's a high-level Apostle Knight technique. How does a Watcher know our moves?"
Vera's head snapped toward him, her dark aura flaring. "Luke? What did you just see?
"She used a Vatican technique that displaces the space between two points."
Luke answered. He walked towards Lamina, and each step sent a wave of crimson and gold through the floor.
Lamina closed her watch. Her red eyes were fixed on Luke, her hand reaching the hilt of her blade at her hip. "It seems the anomaly has chosen to engage. Very well "
"Break!"
The golden-white VI of the Apostle Key burned to life, engraving it onto his glove contrasting his left hand now marked with the crimson sigil. The Morningstar sigil on his left and the Key on his right.
"You're obsessed with paperwork, yet you've chosen the most overused funeral act in the business. Pick a struggle, Lamina."
Lamina's hand blurred.
Shink.
She didn't draw her blade; she "deleted" the distance between the scabbard and Luke's throat. To the others, she was a shadow. To Luke, the world stuttered. He saw the Ghost Step footprints—ripples in the air that looked like shattered glass.
He tapped his foot on the floor. The air went static, Luke saw the crack in the space. The white blade whistled toward his throat. Luke's eyes narrowed, the distance between him and the blade was erased.
THUD!
The clash wasn't steel on steel. The spectral blade ceased its momentum. Luke's right hand caught the blade, his gaze fixed on Lamina. Lamina's eyes narrowed, her grip on the blade tightened. For the first time, she saw the Ghost.
Smoke hissed from the seam of Luke's glove. The golden-white light of the Key and the pale-white light of her blade were trying to erase each other. Luke's teeth ground together; he was catching a lightning bolt with his bare palm, and his nervous system was screaming.
Lamina's gaze didn't drift; it locked onto the smoking seam of his glove where the VI was burning through the fabric. Her expression didn't break into shock—it hardened into a look of profound, bureaucratic disgust.
"Sextus Apostolus," she murmured, the syllables sounding like a death sentence. "The Vatican spent twelve years and several forbidden rituals perfecting that 'Key.' To see it grafted onto a Morningstar lapdog... it's a grotesque waste of resources."
Luke's teeth groaned against each other. The gold light was starting to bleed into his vision. "Waste? I call it a severance package, Lamina. Though, I'm guessing the Watchers don't give those out."
"They don't," Lamina replied, her grip on the hilt shifting with a metallic click. "They only issue recalls. Tell me, Luke Kazama... does the Morningstar Princess know she's sheltering a thief, or does she just like collecting broken things?"
"She knows I'm a paradox," Luke rasped, the crimson energy from his left hand finally reaching the blade. "And she knows that if you try to take the Key... you're going to have to take the whole hand with it."
"Besides, you don't know anything about what the so-called Holy place did to me or my family, so I suggest you stop talking." Luke said, his voice tinged with a dark tone. Or you will regret it ."
"Regret is an emotion, and emotions are irrelevant." Lamina retorted. With a flick of the wrist, she twisted the hilt at a ninety-degree angle. The blade's cutting edge flowed through the space between them. Luke pivoted away from the blade, he barely flipped out of the spectral sword's range. The blade had grazed his blazer. Luke breathed a sigh of relief.
But Lamina had found her opening.
"Thirteenth Cut." The words escaped Lamina's lips like a scalpel. She stepped into the fold of space. The world changed into a hall of mirrors surrounding Luke. Before Luke could process anything, twelve spectral blades shot out from each direction. Luke's Apostle Eyes flared briefly.
I can't dodge this. Even if I did, I'll be a goner if the real thing hits.
Luke was cornered. Dodging would be meaningless if the real thing was going to hit anyway. "I have to use it." Luke whispered, desperate to not die. He planted his hand on the floor.
"Apostle Key:Overlo–"
CRACK!
The mirrors started cracking. Violet chains slithered into the fold of the space. The blades burned with violet aura, erased of their white as the chains claimed them. The mirrors shattered instantly, making Lamina jump back instinctively. Luke stood there puzzled, the chains formed a protective cage around him.
"Don't you dare harm my Vassal, Little Crow." A cold voice echoed. Regal and elegant.
Luke turned to see Vera. She stood there with her right hand raised. The master ring pulsing violently, behind her were portals from where the chains emerged. "Listen well Lamina, you're a nuisance to my House so I will make you pay for your insolence and trying to harm my Vassal." Vera declared, her words stone cold. Vianne and Ignazio stepped beside her ready to fight.
Lamina sighed. "Three house-level Devils and a defective Apostle turned Devil." Lamina stood still. Her silence was a challenge to Vera, who didn't care for order.
Lamina didn't reach for a weapon. She reached for the crown of her silver watch and turned it a precise quarter-turn.
Click.
The shift wasn't a roar; it was a sigh. A ripple of translucent, grey energy washed over the clubroom, expanding through the walls, the floorboards, and out into the hallways of Seishu Academy.
Luke's Apostle Eyes spasmed. He watched as the "Blue Signatures" of the students—the hundreds of flickering lives outside the door—simply vanished. The muffled sound of footsteps, the distant laughter from the courtyard, the humming of the vending machines... it all died instantly.
The school was still there. The dust motes still danced in the shafts of sunlight. But the "presence" of humanity had been removed.
The gray world didn't just feel empty; it felt heavy, like walking through chest-deep water made of static.
"Spatial Lockdown," Ignazio grunted, his golden sword vibrating in its scabbard. "She's not just hiding the humans; she's anchoring the reality of this school to her own heartbeat. If we kill her too quickly, the whole building might collapse into the fold."
"Then we don't kill her," Vianne said, her usual playfulness replaced by a terrifying, cold focus. She held her hands out, her magenta energy swirling around her palms like miniature galaxies. "We just make it too expensive for her to stay."
"What did you do?" Vera demanded, her dark eyes shooting a violet glare. Her aura started to bleed into the gray world. Her chains flared intensely, they rattled leaving an ammonium scent
Lamina didn't look bothered by the violet chains or the combined killing intent of the Morningstar elite. She merely smoothed a wrinkle on her sleeve.
"Watcher Protocol, Phase One: Vacuum," she whispered.
The silence that followed wasn't just the absence of noise; it was the absence of reality. Outside the windows, the vibrant afternoon sky faded into a dull, administrative grey. "The students haven't been harmed, Princess Vera. They've simply been... archived. For the next three hundred seconds, this dimension is the only thing that is real. And I am the only one authorized to edit it."
Ignazio didn't give her a second to breathe. He became a whirlwind of gold and steel, his blade clashing against the sterile grey air where Lamina should have been. Every swing of his sword sent out a shockwave of stability, trying to "anchor" her so she couldn't delete the distance. He was the wall that kept her trapped in the center of the room.
From the flank, Vianne was a blur of magenta. She wasn't aiming for Lamina's body; she was aiming for the air around her. With every flicker of her Vice Ring, she "Redistributed" the friction in the room. One second, the air around Lamina was as thick as syrup; the next, it was a vacuum. She was turning the battlefield into a minefield of physics that Lamina had to constantly "edit" just to stay upright.
Vera stood at the heart of the storm, her violet chains weaving a lethal web through the "archived" desks. She wasn't just attacking; she was "coding" the room. Every time a chain rattled, it forced Lamina to expend her watch's energy. Vera's eyes were cold, calculating—she was bleeding Lamina's 300 seconds dry, waiting for the one moment of exhaustion.
"Well it seems that the Little Crow is outmatched." Vera spat, her regal tone sharp. Her chains hissed as they began to wrap around Lamina's body.
Lamina's expression remained strangely calm. Vera's demonic energy crept onto her body, her suit caught the violet energy eroding it gradually. Lamina's lips curved into a twisted smile. "Well Princess, you are promising. But do you honestly think I'd be contained by this?"
Lamina's white aura bled into the clubroom. The gray world started to decay. The atmosphere of Seishu Academy started creeping in, the gray world deteriorated gradually. The space shook like frozen glass. Vera's chains started converting to white. Without warning the white chains wrapped her body. The smell of incense enveloped her. She was immobilised.
"What?! How is that possible?!" Ignazio roared. His grip on his blade tightened. He advanced toward Lamina readying himself to strike.
"Whatever you're planning to do. Don't, or Vera's as good as dead." Luke chimed, his voice unnervingly calm as his left hand gripped his shoulder.
Ignazio turned to face Luke, his hand reaching his collar. He gripped his tie, "are you saying I let her die, Vassal?!"
Luke stayed silent, his stare cold and controlled. He removed Ignazio's hand from his tie and walked to Lamina across the clubroom. " I will take care of that problem, you've done enough. Thank you regardless." Luke said to Ignazio, his eyes locked on Lamina. The golden-silver of his Apostle Eyes faded, returning to their natural black.
"Alright Lamina, you've had your fun. But I don't have time for your ruse. Time for your lesson." Luke challenged, his voice devoid of snark.