"...Can we talk about a few things?"
Jay looked at the Archangel with an unchanging, cold gaze. The air around them was still heavy with the scent of ozone and the metallic tang of dried blood, a stark contrast to the divine warmth radiating from Michael.
"Sure," Jay replied, his voice devoid of inflection. "Let's talk."
"Thank you. Let us find a more suitable place, perhaps away from the crowd," Michael suggested, gesturing toward a partially standing structure away from the crowded plaza.
Jay didn't move. "No. Let's talk right here."
Michael glanced at Gabriel, who merely shook her head slightly, signaling that pushing the matter would be fruitless. The Archangel of the Heavens sighed, his golden wings shimmering faintly as they folded against his back.
"Very well. The first thing I wish to address is the nature of your black flame," Michael said, his eyes narrowing as he tried to peer into the void-like essence clinging to Jay's presence.
"What about it?"
"Dulio informed me that it serves as your Sub-species Balance Breaker, as you are the current wielder of the Incinerate Anthem. However, as the one in charge of the Sacred Gear database, specifically the Longinus records... I must tell you that your black flame is not recorded there. Hence, it is not part of your Longinus."
Jay's expression remained a mask of indifference.
He wasn't surprised.
In fact he had expected this, yet hearing the confirmation from Michael himself only deepened the mystery. If the black flame wasn't from the Sacred Gear system, then its origin raised even more questions.
"So, what exactly is it?" Michael pressed.
"I see," Jay muttered.
He recalled Ophis referring to it as, The End, The Zero.
But what did that mean? Why did it manifest as a flame that erased existence itself? Why had it chosen him?
There were too many questions. Too many unknowns. And no one had the answers.
"But what does my power have to do with you, Archangel Michael?" Jay said, returning the question.
"I..." Michael hesitated, searching for the right words.
"Illya-san," Gabriel stepped forward, her voice soft and pleading. "Please, do not take this the wrong way, as if we wish to pry into your secrets. It is just that to my brother and me, your power... even though it is so vastly different from our Father's... it somehow gives us the same feeling as His power. That is what my brother truly wishes to understand."
She paused, her eyes searching Jay's dark hazel eye.
"Why do you possess such a power?"
Jay didn't answer immediately.
'Father… Is she referring to the God of the Bible? The one they call the Creator…' He thought.
"I cannot help you with that," Jay answered truthfully. "Because I don't know the answer myself."
The response didn't fully satisfy either Michael or Gabriel, but Michael sensed no deception in the young man's heart. He bowed his head slightly.
"I see. Thank you for your candor. It satisfies my curiosity for now."
"But don't you think there are more important things to discuss?" Jay shifted his gaze toward Carmilla. His dark hazel eyes locked onto her crimson ones, and the temperature in the immediate area seemed to plummet.
Suddenly, Ame-no-Habakiri manifested in Jay's hand with a sharp, metallic hum. He took a predatory step forward, catching everyone off guard. Queen Carmilla startled, her breath hitching as she instinctively recoiled.
In an instant, Michael and Gabriel moved to block his path.
"Hm. Seraph Gabriel, I was under the impression that the stance of Heaven did not include protecting Vampires," Jay said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I thought your kind never took back their words."
"W-wait, Illya-san!" Gabriel cried, her expression one of mounting panic. "Are you truly intent on killing Carmilla here and now?"
Jay didn't answer with words, he only tightened his grip on the hilt of the jet-black sword.
"Illya-san, please be calm," Michael urged.
"I know you believe the Carmilla Faction has committed atrocities similar to the Tepes, but Queen Carmilla has already freed the remaining captives. She claims these acts were committed by some of the nobles without her permission, and she has already issued death sentences to those responsible."
"Why would I care about her excuses?" Jay asked.
"Get out of my way, Archangel Michael."
Before the confrontation could escalate, three more golden flashes streaked down from the morning sky.
In their wake stood three more Seraphs, each identifiable by their twelve magnificent wings. Jay scanned them with the Avesta.
Two were notably weaker than Michael, but the one in the center possessed an aura that rivaled Gabriel's in sheer intensity.
The sudden arrival of more high-ranking angels drew the attention of the survivors. The children stopped eating their soup, their eyes wide with fear as they watched the tense standoff.
Lavinia, noticing the shift, set her ladle aside and hurried to Jay's side.
"Please stop there, Dragonslayer," the middle Seraph spoke. He was a white-haired man with a stern, unyielding face.
"No more blood should be spilled this day. The Carmilla Faction has admitted their sins. As our Father forgave our sins, so should we. For vengeance will not resurrect the dead."
"Nor will it undo their suffering," Jay retorted.
He raised his left hand in a sharp, mocking gesture.
"And who are you supposed to be? 'We'? You didn't care about these people when they were rotting in cages. You abandoned them. Who gave you the authority to grant forgiveness in their name?"
The white-haired Seraph frowned, his aura flaring with righteous indignation. "You do not have the right to judge them either, Dragonslayer."
"I know. So let's just say I'm doing this for personal reasons...," Jay said.
"That is evil," the Seraph declared.
"If the mighty, righteous Seraphs say so, then I guess it is," Jay said, his gaze turning sharper than his blade.
"But so what?"
That question made the white-haired Seraph's brows furrow.
"You need to be stopped," the Seraph said, his tone turning cold.
"You know you can't stop me."
Jay's aura began to flare, a dark, suffocating pressure that warred with the golden light of the angels. Gabriel moved quickly, placing her hand on Jay's left arm.
"Illya-san, please stop! You haven't fully healed your soul and life force yet... you'll destroy your own body!" she pleaded.
At the same time, Michael placed a firm hand on the middle Seraph's chest.
"Uriel, please behave yourself."
The tension was broken not by the angels or the Dragonslayer, but by Carmilla herself. As the morning sun began to rise over the Romanian horizon, the surviving vampires, mostly women draped in heavy black coats, emerged from the ruins and stood behind their Queen.
"Mr. Illya... may I speak?" Queen Carmilla asked. She stepped forward, her coat fluttering in the breeze.
Jay's dark hazel eyes sent a cold gaze her way.
To everyone's horror, she reached up and pulled back the hood of her coat. The moment the direct sunlight touched her pale skin, a violent sizzling sound erupted, and white smoke began to rise from her face.
"Your Grace!" one of the Vampire women cried out, reaching to cover her, but Carmilla raised a hand to stop them.
Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and even Lavinia stared in shock. Jay's expression did not change.
"I know our sins are heavy," Queen Carmilla said, her skin beginning to blister and redden under the sun's glare.
"For thousands of years, we have lived this way. I will not justify it by claiming it is a necessity of our race, for we could have sought other means. My people have caused unimaginable suffering. The lives lost to our hunger... as you said, there is not enough forgiveness in this world to justify our past actions. Hence i do not seek that forgiveness."
She then fell to her knees, bowing her head low until it touched the scorched earth.
The Vampires behind her began to weep openly. Even Michael found it difficult to process that the Queen of the Carmilla faction, who had ruled for millennia, kneeling in the dirt before a human boy.
"But please, spare them," she begged, her voice trembling with pain as the sun continued to burn her. "As their Ruler, all their wrongdoings are entirely my fault. Please, kill me instead. Torture me, do as you wish... but please, let my people live."
Jay stood over her, his eyes unreadable.
He raised his sword as if her words doesn't even move him a bit, the edge gleaming with the promise of an end.
But before the strike could descend, the sizzling sound of burning flesh stopped.
A shadow had fallen over Carmilla.
A little girl stood there, small and shaking, blocking the sun with her tiny body.
Jay didn't recognize her face, she wasn't from the Tepes basement. She must have been one of the captives the Carmillas had released.
She looked up at the Queen of the Vampire, then turned her innocent face toward Jay. Her voice was tiny, barely a whisper against the wind.
"...Please don't hurt her."
The world seemed to go silent.
"I- I don't know big words," she said quietly, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve. "And I hate the ones who killed my mum. I hate them so much."
She looked back at Carmilla.
"But she isn't the one who killed her. She saved me. She punished the bad guys who took my mum away."
"You know she's doing this because she's afraid of being killed, right?" Jay finally said, his voice harsh for someone speaking to a child.
"She isn't doing it to save you. In the end, she's also responsible for your mother's death." He continued.
The girl looked at Jay with a profound, simple clarity.
"Maybe... But she already said she was sorry. So I forgive her."
Carmilla's eyes widened, and then she squeezed them shut, a sob racking her frame. The little girl took a small step closer to Jay.
"So... can you please let her live?"
Jay didn't know what to say.
He looked around at the faces of the victims, both from the Tepes and the Carmilla territories. There was no bloodlust in their eyes. No demand for the Vampires' death. He looked back at the child.
"How can you forgive the one who took everything from you?" he asked, his voice losing some of its edge.
"The one who caused your suffering…"
"Because my mum would do the same," she replied.
'That doesn't even makes sense.' He thought.
Jay looked up at the sky, his mind conflicted. 'These people... they are either brainwashed or fools, he thought.' But as he scanned the crowd, he saw no mind control, no magical influence.
To Jay, forgiveness had always felt pointless. It couldn't undo the damage, nor could it bring back the dead.
He sighed heavily and reached out. The Sephiroth Grail, blazing with a dark, ethereal light, manifested in his left hand.
"I'm sorry," Jay said. "But I cannot let her live as a Vampire."
Michael tensed. "Wait, Illya-san-"
Jay ignored him. He looked down at the kneeling Queen.
"Your sins will never be truly forgiven. Not by the dead you have caused. Do not think of this as a second chance, for you deserve none of that."
He tilted the Grail. The black flame began to dance along its rim. And as the grail began to draw in the darkness, siphoning the very essence of the Vampire race from the survivors of the Carmilla faction.
As the darkness was stripped away, a transformation took hold.
The deathly pale skin of the Vampires slowly gained the flush of life. Their pointed ears softened into human curves, and their elongated fangs withered, replaced by flat, human teeth.
The sun, which had been turning Carmilla into ash moments ago, now simply felt warm against her skin.
As the sun did not burn them, Queen Carmilla and the rest of the surviving Carmilla faction were surprised by the changes in their bodies. They felt as if all of their dark energy was being stripped away.
"From today onward, there will be no vampires in this world, and all of your lives will be dedicated to helping these people and living together with them.
Live like humans, eat like humans, and die like humans."
As Jay said this, Michael, Gabriel, and the Seraphs widened their eyes. Especially Michael, who had not known the Sephiroth Grail was even capable of doing something like this. Something that defied the laws of the universe, yet Rizevim had once used it to revive a long-dead Evil Dragon.
It truly was a device that governed the concept of life and death.
'But still...' Michael thought.
A race-wide transmutation, effectively wiping out the vampire race from the face of the world.
Jay looked into the now-brown eyes of the former Queen Carmilla.
"This is your punishment."