Distracted by the unfamiliar fabric against her skin, the young woman had momentarily forgotten he was there. When her gaze snapped back to his, she flinched.
Her face was delicate as porcelain. Even now, the little girl she used to be was written plain across every feature. Leonhart didn't need to reason through it. Pure instinct screamed the truth.
It was Lilietta del Nissa Laskail. His sister, gone without a trace for ten years.
The world around him drained to blinding white. He reached out blindly.
“Lili…”
Before his arms could close around her, she darted back, slipping his grasp. Her eyes narrowed, sharp with suspicion.
“…Who are you?”
Leonhart froze. The chilly, guarded exhaustion in her eyes was nothing like the bright girl etched in his memory. Yet there was no mistaking her. The curve of her cheek, the timber of her voice, even the hem of the nightgown—every thread belonged to Lilietta.
Why didn't she know him? That struck him as far more uncanny than seeing her a decade older, wrapped in the very nightgown she had vanished in.
Still dazed, he managed a quiet murmur.
“…Don’t you remember me, Lili?”
“Lili?”
She tilted her head. After studying him for a long, skeptical beat, she blew out a sigh.
“Look, you seem on the verge of tears, and I hate to burst your bubble. But…”
“…?”
“You’ve got the wrong girl. I’m not Lili. The name’s Rita.”
“…Rita?”
Leonhart turned the syllables over in his mouth. It sounded like an abbreviation of Lilietta.
Had she lost the memories of her childhood? Perhaps Rita was the only piece of her true name she could cling to.
He tried once more, giving her the full weight of it.
“Lilietta.”
“Nope. Just Rita. Never heard that dusty old name in my life.”
“What’s your family name?”
“Pascal.”
Rita Pascal spat it out irritably, wringing river water from her locks with both hands.
“What a joke. Why is it this long? And what’s with the color?”
Her breath caught. Staring down at the damp strands curled across her fingers, glowing like molten gold in the dusk, she stooped toward the water. Her jaw went slack at her own reflection.
“…That’s… not me.”
A bewildered mutter slipped from her lips. She traced the contours of her face in disbelief, then froze, holding her hands before her eyes. Pale, slender fingers without a scratch or a callus.
“…No. No way. Whose body is this?”
Leonhart, having watched in silence, finally broke it.
“Lilietta del Nissa Laskail.”
She turned toward him. Meeting her bewildered stare, he forced the words through a tightened throat.
“My little sister. She disappeared ten years ago.”
“…You’re telling me this body belongs to your sister?”
She jabbed a finger at her chest as though it belonged to someone else entirely. Leonhart answered, deliberate and steady.
“No. I’m telling you that you are my sister.”
Silence hung between them. Then, from the bottom of her lungs, she dragged out a weary breath.
“Fabulous. I’ve seen some insane shit in my life, but this really takes the prize.”
“Lili, I know you’re overwhelmed. Just calm down—”
“Listen to me. I am not your sister. Whatever freak accident happened, I ended up stuffed inside her corpse or whatever this is. I’m a completely different person.”
“…A different person?”
“Exactly. This isn’t my face, and this isn’t my body. Either we swapped places, or… I kicked the bucket and my soul took over your sister.”
She dug the heels of her palms into her temples as a thumping headache bloomed.
“Considering the last thing I remember before the lights went out, I’d bet on option two. I really died. Damn it all.”
Leonhart stared at her, swallowed by a wave of conflicting emotions. Her coarse tongue, her guarded stance, the cynicism carved into her expressions—it was all alien.
And yet, why did every fiber of his being refuse to let go of the idea that she was Lilietta?
Was it simply because she wore Lili's flesh? Or was it something deeper?
He pushed the thought aside. Lilietta or not, he couldn't leave her out here.
“…For now,” he murmured, shrugging off his coat and offering it forward, “let’s get you home, Rita.”
“Home?”
“Night is falling. You can’t wander around soaked in a nightgown. Come. My home isn’t far.”
She hesitated, measuring the darkening sky and the clammy fabric plastered to her skin, before finally taking the coat.
“…Fine. I won't turn down an offer like that.”
As she draped the coat around her shoulders, Leonhart closed the distance between them. She flinched back at once, watching him like a stray.
“Do you intend to walk barefoot?”
“Oh.”
“Come. I’ll carry you.”
He bent his knees and offered his back. She stood frozen for a few seconds, let out a resigned breath, and hopped on.
“…Thanks.”
Leonhart said nothing, quietly setting off along the path to the estate.
The gentle sway stirred the ghost of a child who had fallen asleep beside the lake, and the boy who had carried her back. Both had grown tall since then, yet the weight against his shoulders felt unchanged, as if time had folded back on itself.
As the lake receded behind them, she glanced back over his shoulder and murmured,
“…The sunset looks like a silk shawl.”
Leonhart’s boots came to a sudden halt. She tilted her head against his neck.
“…What’s wrong?”
“…It's nothing.”
He shook his head and strode forward once more. Only this time, a quiet certainty had rooted itself deep in his chest.
***
Pascal was a legendary sorcerer and the premier combat instructor of their era, renowned for gathering orphans and turning them into lethal soldiers.
The children who survived his training were sent to the front lines before they even saw their mid-teens. Once deployed, their lethal efficiency was uncanny, adapting to blood and butchery faster than seasoned veterans.
People often asked where Pascal managed to scout such extraordinarily gifted children. He never gave an answer, offering only a subtle smile and calling it the fruit of special training.
At the end of that brutal regimen, whenever he dispatched his fledglings to the slaughter, Pascal always drilled the same parting oath into them:
“Do not fear death. For your death… your d-death will…”
A brown-haired boy was fumbling through the words, his voice quivering.
Click.
Rita slammed a fresh magazine into her rifle, racked the slide back, and finished the phrase without missing a beat:
“Your death will sow the seeds of hope.”
The boy looked back at her. Rita met his eyes with a steady grin. Swallowing the knot in his throat, he squeaked out,
“…Aren’t you scared, big sister?”
“Scared of what?”
“Everything. Those abominations out there, the mess we’re stuck in, the fact that we’re all about to—”
His cracked voice snapped before he could finish.
Die.
The single syllable he couldn't bring himself to utter.
Rita reached out and ruffled his hair with rough affection.
“H-Hey! Quit it!”
“You aren't dying today, Luca.”
“Huh?”
“You've got a whole line of seniors who’ll kick the bucket long before your turn comes. Why would the runt die first? Stop crying.”
“That’s not—Ow!”
She shoved his head down, grinning ear to ear. “Big sis has got your back. Pull yourself together.”
“I’m supposed to protect you!”
“Since when does a battlefield go according to plan? When the hell breaks loose, surviving is the only duty that counts. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, kiddo.”
“Ugh, stop babying me! I’m a Pascal too!”
“Rita.”
A cool, level voice cut through their bickering. A bespectacled young woman with cropped dark hair strode toward them.
“Ollie?”
“Hand it over.”
“…Hand what over?”
“Don't play dumb. The gun.”
Ollie pried the weapon from Rita’s grip, inspecting every millimeter before letting out a sharp sigh.
“I knew it. Pushing it past its tolerances again. Have you got a death wish, Rita Pascal?”
“Oh, come on! It still shoots, doesn't it?”
“Is that your standard? Firing until it blows up in your face? How many times do I have to tell you? Absorbing the recoil with your bare muscles while the frame is boiling will rip your body to shreds long before it breaks the metal.”
Ollie scolded her with sharp efficiency, stripping the firearm down in seconds. She plucked out an internal module and locked the mechanism back together with a series of clean snaps.
“Take it.”
“Wait, what did you just yank out of my baby?”
“The part designed to keep you from acting like an absolute idiot.”
“What does that even mean? When did you put that in there?”
“I installed a safety choke so you wouldn't run it until it exploded, but you're such a lunatic that it was only making you strain your frame harder against the dampener. So I took it out. The limiter is gone. If something’s going to shatter, let it be the steel, not your bones.”
“Wait, seriously?! Full output?! Hell yes—wait, what happens if the barrel blows?”
“Then I’ll build you a new one. Better a scrap heap than your corpse, right?”
“I love you, Ollie! You're an angel!”
Rita threw her arms around her neck in an exuberant hug. Ollie nudged her glasses up her nose, sighing once more.
“Only an idiot like you would celebrate having a weapon made more dangerously volatile.”
“Did I hear that right? Rita got her limiter pulled? Sounds like a riot.”
A mop of brownish-blonde hair poked up from the half-collapsed brick wall they were leaning against. It was a tall, lean youth with an amused grin.
“You always chew me out for being reckless, but you’re ten times worse. Don’t tell me I’m wrong.”
Rita scowled and tossed him a glare.
“Shut your trap, Ethan.”
“Come on, let me feel how rowdy that thing is now.”
Ethan reached for the barrel, but the moment his fingers brushed it, a sharp static discharge cracked against his skin.
“Ow! What the hell?!”
“Keep your sticky fingers to yourself.”
“Save the zapping for the monsters, you lunatic! That hurt!”
Ethan nursed his stinging hand as if it had been severed. Rita swept the weapon out of reach, a smug smirk tugging at her mouth.
“That’ll teach you to touch my gear without asking.”
Before the words could even finish echoing, a broad hand reached from behind and effortlessly lifted the gun from her grip.
“Rita Pascal. What on earth did you do to this piece?”
He was a striking man with jet-black hair and a broad, powerful build. A jagged scar slashed down from beneath the eyepatch covering his right side, and a solitary pale-ochre eye looked down to examine the weapon.