Reinhard took the order and vanished, leaving only an afterimage.
His tall figure wove through the village at blistering speed.
Within a blink, he was already inside one of the houses.
The door's lock yielded to a light push. The door swung open without disturbing a soul.
Inside.
Two Demi-humans slept.
Reinhard crossed to the window, tapped each of them lightly on the neck, and dropped them into unconsciousness. Then he hoisted both onto his shoulders and took off toward the far end of the village.
The village wasn't large, and fifty Demi-humans didn't spread across much ground.
From where Gojo and the others stood, Reinhard registered as a series of flickering afterimages, crossing and recrossing.
One by one, the sleeping Demi-humans were carried out, spirited to safety.
"Come on. Let's head over too. Give our leading man some room to perform."
Gojo spoke to Felt, then turned and went to rouse Subaru.
"What's going on?"
Subaru sat up, still fogged with sleep, no clue what was happening.
"The Sin Archbishop of Lust is here."
Short and to the point.
"Lust?"
Subaru didn't tense much at the word.
"So we're clearing out?"
"That's the idea."
Gojo nodded. "Emilia too. I might have to knock her out so she doesn't make noise."
"Understood."
Subaru cared about Emilia, no question. He also knew when to prioritize.
Gojo brought Subaru with him, reached Emilia's room in short order, and put her under while she slept before carrying her out.
The group assembled at the far edge of the village.
"How's it looking?"
"Village cleared out?"
Gojo turned to Reinhard.
"Aside from the Margrave, every villager has been moved."
"Good. Now we sit back and enjoy the show."
Gojo glanced at Meili and Elsa beside him, the corners of his mouth pulling into a slow curve.
"Elsa. Lust got the crystal?"
"She got it."
Elsa wore a matching smile as she answered.
"Then let's watch."
"I have a feeling our Margrave is going to put on quite a performance."
Gojo stood on the high ground, gaze fixed on the direction of Roswaal's quarters. Anticipation hummed in his voice.
Meanwhile.
Roswaal was still deep in sleep. He had no idea the entire village had been emptied around him.
Or that an unwelcome guest had arrived.
In the silent village.
A voice rose out of nowhere.
A bright female voice, humming a lilting tune.
At the village entrance, a small figure walked in with a bouncing step.
She had short golden hair, and red eyes. The same red as Felt's.
In terms of features, she bore the royal-family markings Felt carried.
At this hour, appearing in this place, the strange girl was none other than the one Gojo and his crew had been waiting for. Capella Emerada Lugunica. Sin Archbishop of Lust.
"What a tucked-away little spot."
"You really went through the trouble to hide from me."
Capella turned the crystal over in her fingers, tone curious, talking to herself.
Alongside the crystal, she held a slip of paper.
The instructions were simple.
Hold the paper, and you could enter the village.
Elsa had wanted zero chance of crossing paths with Capella directly.
If she'd waited for the woman to show up, then handed the crystal over in person, she was dead certain she'd never make it back to the village alive.
Gojo and the others might not have a firm grasp on Capella's strength. Elsa did.
So she hadn't waited. She'd simply pinned the crystal to the most obvious tree at the entrance, guaranteed Capella would spot it the moment she arrived.
Crystal in hand, Capella strolled through the village.
"Hmm. Signs of life everywhere, and yet nobody home."
"So you knew I was coming and ducked out ahead of time."
"Still, there's a flavor in the air I know. The scent of the Witch~"
Empty village or not, that scent kept her interested.
She followed the little path further in, then stopped. Her head tilted, and she inhaled slowly toward a particular direction.
As she did, her delicate nose shifted, lengthening and darkening into something canine.
"Ah. Found you."
"Somebody's home after all."
Her voice lilted, as if she'd stumbled on a pleasant surprise.
Far away.
Through the Six Eyes, Gojo watched the whole thing unfold across the dark, crystal-clear.
Saw the nose change, shape and all.
"Free transformation of her own body, and she keeps the abilities of whatever she turns into. That's an interesting Authority."
He watched Capella cross toward Roswaal's house, a trace of genuine intrigue in his voice.
"What's happening? Has she gone after Roswaal?"
Subaru, unable to see a thing, kept his voice down beside him.
"Yeah. She's almost at his door."
Gojo nodded. "Let's see how our Margrave handles it."
Capella stopped in front of Roswaal's door. She didn't burst in. She knocked. Polite as any guest.
"Moshi moshi."
"I know you're in there."
"Come on, open up~"
The sound carried cleanly through the quiet night.
Inside, Roswaal stirred awake, pulled out of sleep by a voice he didn't recognize.
He lay there for a moment, disoriented, combing back through memory. Nothing matched.
An unfamiliar voice?
He sat up, puzzled.
Every person in the village, human or Demi-human, had left some impression on him. Forgetting someone like that shouldn't be possible.
But if the voice belonged to an outsider, the question became how they'd gotten past the Sanctuary's wards.
The more he turned it over, the less it sat right. Instinct said something was off, without pointing to what.
He pulled on clothes and moved toward the door.
Even now, he wasn't particularly alarmed. If a real enemy had breached the place, Gojo and Reinhard were a stone's throw away. And he wasn't exactly helpless himself. No need to cower.
With that reassurance, he reached the door and opened it.
A small girl he'd never seen before stood there, smiling up at him.
Two small, sharp fangs peeked out below red lips, giving her grin a playful edge.
Yet what snagged Roswaal's attention first wasn't the unfamiliar face.
It was the royal markings, the same ones Felt carried, and the blood-thick reek that hung around her.
More precisely.
The residue of someone who'd killed so many times the smell had set in like a stain.
Dangerous.
On instinct, he registered the threat radiating off her.
Don't let her get any closer.
The thought formed sharp and clear.
From their vantage point.
Gojo had fully settled into play-by-play commentator mode.
"There we go. The Sin Archbishop of Lust has picked up on Roswaal and is heading for the house."
"Pretty mannerly for an Archbishop. Knocking instead of kicking the door in."
"Here it comes, here it comes. He's opening up!"
Felt and the others clustered around him like spectators at a sports event, soaking in the narration.
"So is Roswaal any kind of match for a Sin Archbishop of Lust?"
Felt couldn't see clearly but still stared hard into the distance, curious.
"Don't sell him short. He's the kingdom's strongest mage."
"Guy can hold his own as a one-man fortress. Even if he loses, he won't go down easily..."
The words had barely left Gojo's mouth when a massive boom rolled across the distance.
Boom!
A dazzling column of fire shot up into the sky from the village, cutting him off mid-sentence.
"It's started, it's started!"
Felt's face lit up.
The fire threw enough light to make the scene visible from where they stood.
Roswaal's little cottage had already become an inferno.
Both figures had vanished inside it. The flames swallowed them whole.
"Where'd they go?"
Subaru squinted at the distant blaze.
"Up in the air."
Gojo's sight beat everyone else's by a country mile.
A shape was moving across the night sky above the fire, flying.
"That's Roswaal!"
Felt followed his finger and picked out the silhouette overhead.
"What about the Sin Archbishop of Lust, she dead?"
"Not a chance. Mother doesn't die that easily."
Meili shook her head quickly.
As she spoke, another burst of fire climbed.
Heads turned.
Within the blaze, a figure walked slowly out, wreathed in flame.
The firelight made every detail cruelly clear. Skin split open, flesh charred raw.
Injuries like that would have put anyone else one foot into the grave.
Yet.
The figure emerging from the fire moved like none of it mattered.
No screaming. No thrashing.
Just an unhurried walk out of the flames and onto open ground.
"My, aren't you a warm host. It's been a while since I got a greeting this enthusiastic."
"So. My daughters think of you as someone worth leaning on?"
The flames had done something to her throat. Her voice came out hoarse and a little wrong.
Her face, though, showed no sign of pain. She was still smiling, bloody and ruined and smiling anyway.
"I don't know who your daughters are."
"More to the point, who are you?"
Roswaal's brows drew together as he stared her down, nothing adding up in his head.
While the exchange unfolded, the flames on Capella's body guttered and died.
And then something remarkable happened.
In full view of everyone watching, the blackened char on her body began to slough off. Her flesh liquefied into a dark slurry, crawled over the burned areas, and rebuilt itself.
Impossibly fast.
A blink, and the regeneration was done.
Gojo rubbed his chin.
That speed. It might actually outpace his Reverse Cursed Technique.
He wondered where the limit on that regeneration sat. Whether cutting off her head would be enough to finish her.
By the time the thought finished, Capella had fully restored herself.
Not just the body. The clothes too. Identical to before, down to the seam.
"So was this one running around naked underneath?"
Gojo stared. He couldn't help himself. She'd regrown clothing out of her own flesh.
"How is that the part that caught your attention."
Betty wrinkled her small nose and grumbled at him.
"I am the Witch Cult's Lust. Capella Emerada Lugunica."
Restored, Capella tilted a thin smile at Roswaal and gave the name like an introduction at a garden party.
"Sin Archbishop of Lust?!"
Roswaal's expression shifted visibly. Her showing up here didn't fit any scenario he'd anticipated.
Over on Gojo's side, Reinhard had noticed something else.
"Lugunica."
"That is the royal surname. And she seems to bear royal traits."
Reinhard watched the figure below, frowning.
"Huh?"
"I thought I was the last of the royal line. Where'd this other one come from?"
Felt glanced over at Reinhard, genuinely curious.
Royal blood carried no sentimental weight for her. She'd grown up nowhere near any of that. This was just curiosity, plain and simple.
"I don't know for certain. She may have changed her body deliberately."
Reinhard offered the possibility with a shake of his head.
If the woman could conjure clothes out of her own flesh, simple surface features hardly posed a challenge.
"You said daughters. Who are your daughters?"
Roswaal kept his eyes on Capella, mind racing.
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