“Lu... Lucy, sis. Are you... really, seriously revising it?”

Yuna’s voice drifted from behind like a thin thread tugging at the dark.

Lucimia turned. The girl’s small fists were knotted at her chest, a black blindfold like a moonless sky over her eyes as they swept the air.

Watching her, Lucimia’s doubt settled like frost on glass.

She’s blind, isn’t she? So why question whether I’m actually altering the Magic Array?

One chance: she can see after all.

Another: she knows there’s an ambush at the Magic Array, yet nothing triggered while I worked, so now she’s puzzled.

Lucimia leaned toward the second, or both. It could never be just the first.

She ghosted behind Yuna, breath held like a shadow slipping over water. She drew an engraved dagger from her Storage Ring, and laid the blade’s cold face under Yuna’s chin, edge kissing her neck.

“...Lu-Lucy, sis?” Yuna’s voice trembled like a leaf in wind.

Lucimia pressed close, her chest to Yuna’s back. Her right hand fixed the blade. Her left pinned the girl’s arms. Her lips neared Yuna’s ear, cold as winter stone. “Why’d you ask that?”

“...I.”

“Don’t talk yet...” Her mood was a storm without an outlet. “Why are you helping me? I’m a Dark Deity. You were taken by force, a sacrifice for me. Normally, you’d hate me, right?”

“...Because we’re friends?”

“Friends? We’ve known each other two days. What trick made me trust you like this?”

“I... don’t know. So... Lucy, sis, you didn’t... sabotage the ritual?”

“Why would I break it? You and the Church set this up. If I wreck the Magic Array, the Holy Knights pounce, right? You work with them, to capture or kill a Dark Deity. Isn’t that it?”

Her hand tightened. The sharp edge kissed through soft skin. A bead of red bloomed like a poppy in snow.

She wanted to end her. Yet the thought took root: a hostage might buy a path to live. If she couldn’t escape, she could at least take one with her.

“I... didn’t do that...” The girl’s voice shivered, with a crack of a sob. “Lucy, sis. If you don’t break the ritual, it’ll be... very dangerous...”

“Still pretending? Why help me?”

“Because... you’re my friend. My very... very important friend...”

“I. Don’t. Believe you.”

Dong... dong...

The twenty-third bell tolled, clear as ice water poured through the night. The sound washed over the town like ripples on a lake.

The Exorcism Ritual began.

Lucimia looked to the distance, heart clenched like a fist.

Music flared like banners in wind. Mages chanted like surf on stone. The faithful prayed, their voices weaving into a single symphony that woke the whole town.

With the chant rose the Magic Arrays. Five arrays blazed to life, their huge sigils floating into the air like constellations.

Each corner array fired three cerulean beams. Two struck the neighboring arrays, drawing a square of light like a net. The third shot inward, spearing the center array.

Four beams braided. The middle sigil flared again, and a round Magic Array birthed a blue halo that began to sweep outward, a slow tide across the land.

It didn’t rush, but it didn’t crawl. It would drown the entire town soon enough.

She’d seen this in past years. If that ring covered her, her true nature might be laid bare.

Panic burst in her chest like startled birds. Somehow it was already eleven.

Run. Run now. From the sky.

She yanked Yuna close. Her toes kissed the ground. Her body lifted, light as dandelion fluff on a breeze.

It was the Flight Spell she’d crammed this afternoon.

Her gift was sharp, but first flight was clumsy. Her speed lagged like a fledgling’s frantic wings.

The Flight Spell was a beast to master. Learning seventy, eighty percent in one afternoon was a marvel. Many mages never learn it at all, and need tools to fly.

But a seventy-percent Flight Spell couldn’t outrun a sweeping blue ring.

She poured herself into it, yet the ring hunted her like a scythe-bearing reaper, closing fast, the gap shrinking breath by breath.

Whoosh!

The blue ring surged past, through her body like cold rain, and slipped on, covering the far streets in an ever-widening circle.

Is this it?

At the brink, calm pooled in her like deep water. She hovered, silent in the night.

She stopped running. She accepted it. Maybe next time, fate would deal her a kinder hand.

Lucimia closed her eyes, a quiet prayer buried in the dark.

Time passed. Nothing happened.

No instant Purification. No swift release.

“Huh?”

She opened her eyes. Her hands, her skin—untouched, unchanged, whole as before.

What was going on?

She hadn’t sabotaged anything. The ritual was humming along, wasn’t it?

Puzzled, Lucimia looked down from the wide sky. The square was laughter and lantern-glow. People raised cups and clinked them like fireflies colliding.

On the road below, she spotted her parents, Bazeroth and Desty, searching up and down the street.

Maybe I stayed the same, but they reacted?

No. She’d seen it once before. An Evil Entity revealed on the spot, then blown to powder.

So then what?

The crowd’s voices rose, and the answer slipped to her like a tossed rope.

“Lucimia! What are you doing? We couldn’t find you during the ritual. I thought something happened.”

Huh? They don’t sound like they’re here to grab me.

Lucimia drifted down, cautious as a cat at the edge of a pond. She kept a body’s height above the crowd.

“What were you thinking, Lucimia? The time came and you still didn’t show. Do you know how scared I was?”

Her mother scolded first, her voice a whip crack.

“I...” Lucimia wanted to explain, but the words stuck like thorns.

Yuna, ignored till now, spoke up for her, voice halting like a cart on stones.

“Lu... Lucy, sis, said... she wanted to take me up to see the sky. The view’s wide. You can see... clearer.” She paused, then added, “Lucy, sis, also said... she’d use a Flight Spell to chase the blue ring, and see... which one’s faster.”

Lucimia shot Yuna a wary look, suspicion coiling like smoke.

How did she know about the blue ring? Did I say that?

The crowd laughed, the sound rolling like warm thunder, especially Bazeroth.

“Hahaha! Youth’s a marvel. So, did you catch it?”

“...No.” Lucimia shook her head, the motion small as a falling petal.

“Hahaha, that’s fine. Don’t lose heart. Plenty of mages never master the Flight Spell in their entire lives.” Bazeroth praised her with a grin, then turned to her parents. “I’ll say it straight. Your daughter’s talent might outshine mine at her age. She never studied, right? Self-taught and she pulled off a Flight Spell. That’s a bona fide magic prodigy. You sure you don’t want to send her to the Magic Academy?”

“Um...” Lucimia’s mother hesitated, the pause hanging like a held breath. Then she nodded. “Yes. I think we really should send her to the Magic Academy.”