"What… what is this 'you're not ready' crap you're giving me?!"
Noir shot to his feet so fast the wooden pew beneath him scraped loudly across the marble floor. His fists trembled—no longer from fear, but from a rage so sharp it almost tasted metallic in his mouth. He stormed toward Yuusha with a look that didn't belong on someone his age, a look reserved for people who had already buried too much.
Yuusha didn't flinch. Didn't blink. His face remained perfectly calm, almost serene, as though he'd predicted every beat of Noir's breakdown before the boy even stepped into the cathedral.
"You speak so lightly,"Yuusha murmured, his tone maddeningly composed. "As if you understand the burden of this seat… or the consequences of unveiling certain truths."
"Burden?" Noir spat. "Do you know how many years I spent—how many YEARS I wasted—trying to track you down? Since the day I learned you existed, I searched every single place. Every alley. Every ruined shrine. Every name that even sounded close to yours."
His voice cracked under the weight of it.
"And now you're telling me you're keeping his identity a secret?"
He stood so close their shadows merged, chest heaving, breath hot with fury. Yuusha met Noir's glare—not with resistance, but with something colder: pity disguised as indifference.
"What are you going to do, Noir?" Yuusha asked, voice low, the softness gone. "Tell me. Once you hear the man's name come out of my mouth… what then?"
Noir's eyes widened, wild and unguarded. The dam broke.
"I'll mutilate him with these bare hands!" Noir roared. "I'll sever his limbs! Twist his innards! I'll jab his eyeballs out and rip every nerve from his body while he screams—while he WRITHES—until he knows the world doesn't revolve around him alone!"
His voice echoed through the cathedral like a demon shrieking through cracked stained glass.
Yuusha exhaled a single amused breath.
The smile creeping over his lips was not kind. It was clinical. Observational. Like a scientist watching a specimen behave exactly as expected.
"This boy… his hatred runs deeper than bone" Yuusha thought. "Terrifying—and impressive."
Then Yuusha tilted his head, eyes sharpening. The shift was subtle, but it changed the air entirely.
"And you think THAT," he said softly,"is enough to face him?"
Noir's pupils shrank.
Yuusha leaned forward, voice a blade gliding across silk.
"Show me."
Noir lunged.
He didn't think—didn't plan—didn't breathe. His fist flew toward Yuusha's jaw with every ounce of raw hatred he had.
It never landed.
Yuusha caught Noir's wrist with two fingers.
Two fingers.
Noir's breath hitched. Before he could recover, Yuusha twisted—not violently, but with precision—and Noir's knees buckled at the shock of pain shooting up his arm.
"You're slow," Yuusha said.
Noir tried to swing with his free hand. Yuusha stepped aside, letting Noir's weight carry him off balance, and drove an open palm into Noir's sternum. Air blasted out of Noir's lungs as he crashed backward into a pew.
Noir gasped, coughing, scrambling to stand.
Yuusha waited.
Noir charged again.
A mistake.
Yuusha slipped behind him with inhuman grace, hooked his foot around Noir's ankle, and swept him clean off the floor. Noir hit the marble hard enough for stars to explode behind his eyelids.
His ears rang. His vision swam. But the rage kept him fighting. Noir pushed up, teeth bloodied, eyes burning.
Yuusha appeared in front of him faster than Noir could track. A single, sharp chop landed on Noir's shoulder, sending a jolt through his entire left side. His arm went numb instantly.
Noir staggered.
"You can't even sense my movements,"Yuusha said calmly. "And you think you can defeat him?"
Noir grabbed at Yuusha's robe, desperate, furious—Yuusha flicked his wrist, and Noir's world spun. He crashed onto his back again, ribs screaming from the impact.
"Get up," Yuusha instructed, stepping away as though Noir were nothing more than a training dummy knocked over.
Noir forced himself upright, swaying, breath erratic. Blood dripped from his lip. His vision narrowed around Yuusha's silhouette, glowing in the cathedral's dim candlelight like an untouchable deity.
Yuusha examined him with a cold, clinical interest.
"Pathetic."
The word left Yuusha's lips like a whisper, but it struck Noir harder than any physical blow.
Noir froze. His breath hitched. For a heartbeat, silence swallowed the cathedral.
Then—
"What did you just say to me?" Noir growled, voice scraping out of his throat like something feral.
Yuusha didn't flinch. He didn't blink. He simply watched Noir with an irritating calm, hands loosely folded behind his back as if he were evaluating a misbehaving child.
"You are pathetic," Yuusha repeated, tone unchanging. "All bark, no discipline. All hatred, no direction. A wildfire that burns itself long before reaching its target."
Blood roared in Noir's ears.
"You really think saying that will scare me?"Noir snapped, stepping forward. "Or shut me up?"
"No," Yuusha replied, tilting his head. "I'm saying it because it's true."
Noir felt a tremor of fury run through him—but beneath it, something sharper: humiliation.
Yuusha continued, voice steady and maddeningly composed.
"You want revenge, Noir Adélard. But revenge requires strength. Control. Clarity."
His eyes narrowed just slightly.
"Right now, you have none."
"Shut up," Noir spat.
"I could help you," Yuusha said—calmly, almost casually. "If you joined the Ise Order formally… if you trained under us… you could become a seer. You could gain the clarity and power you lack. Enough to face the man you seek."
Noir's hands curled into fists so tightly they trembled.
"Join you?" he demanded. "After you played with me, withheld information, mocked me?"
"I told you the truth," Yuusha said. "You simply don't like it."
"No," Noir hissed. "I'm not joining you. I'm not becoming your dog. I'm not serving some sanctimonious coward who hides behind titles and talks like the world revolves around him."
Yuusha sighed—soft, almost disappointed.
"Very well," he said, turning away. "The offer remains. If you ever stop drowning in your anger, you know where to find me."
He began to walk—slow, elegant steps, the hem of his white robes gliding across the stone floor.
Noir's jaw clenched.
"No. No way. After everything—after being dismissed, mocked, denied—He's just going to walk away? Like I was nothing?"
A hot, irrational rage snapped inside him.
"No. I'm not letting it end like this."
Quiet as a blade unsheathed in the dark, Noir launched forward.
Just one hit.
Just one to wipe that calm expression off his face.
His fist swung toward the back of Yuusha's head—
—but it didn't land.
A sharp, ringing clang filled the cathedral.
Noir's knuckles collided not with flesh, but with steel—broad, curved steel glowing faintly as if lit from within.
He staggered back, breath caught in his throat.
A figure had materialized between him and Yuusha, axe raised in a fluid, perfect defensive stance.
Short dark hair and wide cat eyes.
"S–Soo Ah?"
Noir's voice cracked—confusion, fury, and disbelief tangling together like snared wire in his chest.
She didn't look at him. Her gaze remained fixed forward, protective, resolute.
"Soo Ah… what are you doing?" Noir demanded, breath shaking. "Move. He—he deserves—"
She finally looked at him.
But the expression she wore wasn't fear. Or sympathy.
It was disappointment.
And that hit worse than Yuusha's insult.
"You shouldn't attack him," Soo Ah said quietly. "Not him."
Noir felt the bottom drop out of his chest.
"Why?" he demanded. "You know what he did! You saw how he mocked—"
"I saw you losing control," she said. "I saw you choosing rage over reason. And I can't let you do that."
Yuusha turned back slowly, watching the two of them with mild interest, as though the entire exchange were part of a painting he had already envisioned.
"One day," he said softly, "you may understand why you're not ready."
Noir's teeth grit so hard his jaw ached.
Soo Ah's axe blade remained between them, unwavering.
And Noir could only stare at her, fighting the urge to scream.
"Soo Ah… move," he insisted once more, in a cold threatening tone.
But she didn't.
And that silence was the finishing blow.