The children huddled in the chapel’s shadowed corner, eyes bright as startled sparrows, watching the adults trade warm words like steam curling off tea.

A woman in a winter‑white dress, smeared scarlet like fallen maple leaves, had threatened to kill them minutes ago.

A girl hailed as the Hero, courage blazing yet gaze a little foggy, kept talking to the woman and tossing careful questions like pebbles into a pond.

A venerable old Divine Healer, fingers at his throat like a crane caught in reeds, still smiled and translated, smoothing the muddy parts of each sentence.

They couldn’t fathom how steel‑cold, fish‑die‑net‑torn killing intent had melted so fast into rain‑soft understanding.

In truth, they just spoke, and they understood.

The old Divine Healer stood aside like a lantern at dusk, adding timely glosses, so their meanings bridged the river without falling in.

Stini came to know Kairi’s past, a homeland burned to ash, Heretic Inquisitors fanatical as wildfire, a mother’s empty cradle and the hate that howls like winter wind.

And Kairi learned Stini’s present fog, learned that Andor, though he schemed like a chess player, had done no wrong, yet suffered a cold and crooked judgment.

“You’re all circling the same doubt—Miss Kairi is denying whether the Heretic Inquisition’s deeds are right. Mm. That’s a rebellious wind,” said the old Divine Healer, eyes crinkling like sun on water.

He rarely stepped into the stream of talk; he just tapped the stones that mattered, and his finger found the heartwood every time, which Stini noticed, then set aside like a leaf on the current.

“Yes. The Heretic Inquisition hurt my future husband,” Stini called, voice like a bell in mist. “I won’t seek revenge, but I’ll seek justice.”

She kept her distance as if a line of salt lay between them, remembering hostage and negotiator, remembering heat and keeping her hands cool.

“So, I hope you’ll help me.”

“How could I? I’m the Heart‑Eater,” Kairi said with a bitter smile, like a blade with frost. “Even for revenge, I’ve killed too many. Who’d believe my words?”

“I need your testimony to prove the Inquisition’s injustice. There’s a Divine Art that tests lies. If you speak truth, it will hold like iron.”

So Andor had kept silent to shield Raven. Stini’s sleep‑starved mind, heavy as wet wool, tugged the thread back into place.

“If words can be tested, they say devils slip through with needle‑thin phrasing. But the Heretic Inquisitors have dueled devils for years. They’ve forged tools to break that trick. So Andor could only lock his mouth. Your story’s different. It’s bone‑true. If you speak, it’ll strike the Heretic Inquisition like thunder.”

“I…” Kairi’s heart stirred like a bird under a net, yet her feet stayed nailed to the floor.

Killing scores of Inquisitors was a storm, but it never moved the mountain.

Yet if the Hero held up a banner and asked the Inquisition where its justice lay, others hurt by that creed of “fear evil as holy” would gather like a tide.

“She speaks of the great current,” the old Divine Healer said, smiling like spring sunlight.

“Ah, maybe not so easy,” Stini added, voice steady as a bridge. “But we’ll push. Beatrice’s representative is on our side. The United Maids’ Association stands firm. The Grand Temple’s acting legate offers measured support. More hands are reaching.”

“Soon there will be a peace conference to sign a pact with the Demonfolk. Every great banner will be there. Miss Stini means to ride that high wind and turn the current.”

Stini held out her hand, palm open like a promise.

“Please lend me your strength, and your words.”

Under the old man’s lantern‑light explanations and Stini’s gentle pull, Kairi found herself nodding, like a reed leaning with the river.

She felt it could work. Though they called her Heart‑Eater, at her core she stood with ordinary folk, as when she wished before the Demon King—just to live in peace.

Her ideal of revenge wasn’t tooth for tooth. She longed for human justice, a courthouse sun, a fair verdict on her foes.

“Maybe then… they can rest,” she choked, tears like salt on steel, and her fingers loosened from the old man’s throat.

“Wait,” he said, palm firm as a gate.

After oiling the hinges of their talk, he finally set his own lamp on the table.

“We’re not done.”

“Elder… Divine Healer, you—”

“My worth lies in clarity,” he said, voice like a bell under stone. “Even if I can’t lay it all out for you, I must reach a whole understanding.”

“We can talk slowly. Let me go first.”

“That’s the misstep. We’re still discussing. We can’t pretend the verdict is set. A talk that starts at the finish makes the path meaningless. Lean if you must, but don’t lock it.”

“But…” Kairi bit her lip, fear rising like black tide. “I’m Demonfolk. I don’t know when I’ll lose control. I might kill you.”

“Then kill me.”

“What!”

Panic spiked like ice. She pulled, but his grip was iron root in earth.

She held back, not daring her full strength, yet her demon sinew still met his hand, steady as a mountain, pinning her palm to his throat.

“Words weigh more than life to me,” he said softly. “And this is your moment to prove to Miss Stini your will to bridle the ‘demon’ within.”

“But…”

“Please, let him speak,” Stini said, smiling to Kairi like a crescent moon. “If he doesn’t finish, that stubborn streak won’t stop.”

“Then I’ll begin,” said the old Divine Healer. “Beyond what you said, I saw what you hid between the syllables.”

His kindness fell away like a mask in rain. Something older looked out through him, a height beyond good and evil, a mountain that spoke without words.

“First, Miss Stini. Listening to you, I peered through your language like through frosted glass.”

“For instance, there’s a ghost in your heart.”

“That ghost won’t listen. Won’t learn. Won’t understand.”

“How many times did you glance back at your sword?”

“Are you truly aiming at Miss Kairi’s thoughts, and not at her skull?”

“You believe Andor’s injustice is real, and that the Heretic Inquisition must be questioned. True. No lie there. But do you really wish to work with Miss Kairi?”

Cold washed Stini’s spine like river water in winter.

She felt the dead behind her tug her tongue, twist her jaw, drive a righteous “Exorcise!” out of her mouth, then snatch up the sword, cut down Kairi, and let the world be ash.

If threatened, ignore the hostages. Strike the Demonfolk. Teach them that leverage is straw before fire.

If doubted, bring back a demon’s head first. Prove you can.

No fog. No knots.

A simple path. A simple life.

Stini clamped her teeth, refusing the easy road that gleamed like ice over a ravine.

Because that wasn’t what she wanted.

“Yes,” she said, will ringing like metal struck. “I want to understand Kairi. I want to know. I want to recognize others, and be recognized.”

“What I said is what I want.”

The old Divine Healer clapped, palms light as rain.

“Good. The ghost of a former life retreats… Then, Miss Kairi, can you recognize Miss Stini?”

“Huh? What happened… Why wouldn’t I?”

“You don’t see it, which is fine,” he murmured. “By knowledge or by stance, I’ve said my whole piece.”

He nodded hard. The same high wind spoke through him.

“Next, Miss Kairi, your turn to lay it out.”

“You don’t plan revenge. Or rather, the revenge is done.”

“You killed over seventy. The first, Kasma, died in a storm of your rage, his end torn and ugly. The rest were Heretic Inquisitors. Killed, hearts cut out. Yet in those bodies I saw no emotion. Nothing.”

“Was killing forced? Was heart‑taking a last resort? Or… was there a special reason?”

“In your tale, loose threads and hollow places gather. Together they shape a person. He sits in many of your acts, in narrow and dangerous seats. Who is he? Why hide him?”

Kairi opened her mouth, then shut it, words like birds trapped under a bowl.

She dared not speak of the Demon King. His sentence—“I think you’ll betray me, so I have every right to cut you down”—still rang like iron on bone.

So when she told Stini her story, she dug out every piece that touched the Demon King and stuffed straw into the gaps.

But the old Divine Healer’s eyes were a whetstone. They took no dullness.

Stini felt it too. Priests argue well, but minds this clear are rare as phoenix feathers.

Still, she stepped up and took Kairi’s hand.

She wiped blood from her lip with the back of her hand, tapped her fog‑heavy head, and gripped Kairi tight, anchor to anchor.

“I trust you.”

“Miss Stini, no questions?” the old Divine Healer asked, smiling like a sly fox.

“Doubt’s always there,” she said. “But hounding a good person chills the heart. I’ll trust my gut this time. Besides, you said it: Kairi’s shed her hate. She kills only when she can call it ‘revenge’ to let herself sleep. That’s helplessness.”

She turned and flashed Kairi a perfect smile, little tiger tooth bright as a crescent.

“I believe you. Lend me your strength and your voice.”

The old Divine Healer slipped back like a shadow at noon, watching them finish the arc he’d cut across.

Kairi smiled too. “If you can promise I survive after.”

They both knew the promise was already in the air, yet Kairi framed it as a deal, coin on the table.

Bargains soothe better than a stranger’s kindness.

Three‑o’clock sunlight poured through stained glass like honey, dust motes rose like gold powder, floating and circling them, all of it strangely beautiful.

“By the way, why did you pull Andor out of prison?” Stini asked, casual as a pebble tossed into reeds.

Kairi’s mind snapped to a thread—the Demon King, and that Hero’s odd tie, and that strange, off‑key talk.

Even if she hid the Demon King, she should warn Stini that the Hero felt wrong, like a bell rung out of tune.

Also… she feared the Demon King. Maybe with the Demon King’s world named and the Hero’s understanding, her road would smooth like raked sand.

Just a little should be fine…

“Ah, that Andor seems—”

The stained glass gave a shattering scream, a swallow of noise that swallowed her words.

Wind knifed in on an arrow’s wake.

Exorcise. Slay‑demon. Silver‑poison. Threefold enchantment. A mithril head, a hollow shaft etched with Divine Arts for truer flight and steadier speed.

Heretic Inquisition special issue, Prototype Anti‑Demon Arrow.

Forged to cut down Demonfolk, its power second only to the original Anti‑Demon Arrows the Divine Being blesses each year in a strict, scarce allotment.