“Please. Just a moment. Let me explain.”
She pulled her arm free of his grip and pushed the sleeve back.
“……”
But seeing the slender wrist saturated with red, Leon’s expression only darkened further. Kasha pressed her lips together in a small frown, then took her other sleeve and rubbed the stained arm clean.
“……?”
Leon blinked in confusion.
Her arm, where the blood had been wiped away, was completely unmarked. Not a scratch. A wound that had produced this much blood could never have been healed by the brief infusion of holy power he had managed.
Kasha let out a quiet sigh at his blank look.
“I’m not the one who was hurt.”
“…Not you?”
“No.”
“Then whose blood is it?”
“The intruder’s.”
Leon’s expression went very serious. Kasha continued, her voice steady.
“I attacked the intruder. That’s where the blood came from.”
“You attacked the intruder. With what?”
Kasha raised one eyebrow slightly — the look of someone who considers the answer self-evident.
She reached into the bushes where she had been crouching and lifted something up.
A long, clear mana crystal pulsing with a faint blue glow. A simple mechanism fixed to one end.
When Leon recognized it, the expression on his face shifted into something quietly complicated.
Leon. I have a favor to ask.
What is it?
One day before Leon had set out for Elhor Bay, Kasha had — for reasons of her own — invited him into her room at the Rüschino estate. It had been possible only because Daryl was out.
Kasha had sat across from a Leon who was quietly trying not to be awkward, wearing an expression of considerable gravity, and showed him that very object.
…What kind of magical instrument is this?
A close-range combat instrument.
Close-range… combat?
More precisely — a self-defense instrument. Designed to subdue someone far stronger than the user.
Leon had examined it carefully. The structure was straightforward: a slender elongated mana crystal with a grip and a control mechanism. Light, too.
But on closer inspection, the outer surface of the crystal was coated in a subtly rough, transparent substance.
He turned it over, studied it, touched it — and finally placed it.
Is this Malkarion?
You know it.
Kasha smiled — that quietly pleased expression she always had — and without entirely meaning to, Leon had thought: she’s endearing when she smiles like that.
He had come to notice that when she spoke about magical instruments, she almost never stumbled over her words and smiled more easily than usual. He had also come to notice — with some private amusement — that he had been steering conversations toward the topic of magical instruments with increasing frequency.
Malkarion is a dangerous material, isn’t it.
Under ordinary circumstances, yes.
Malkarion was understood to instantaneously amplify the magical energy stored in a mana crystal. But it was notoriously difficult to control, and accidents involving it were common enough that even experienced mages had stopped using it.
I’ve adjusted the amplification so that the force it releases travels only into the body of whatever the instrument makes direct contact with — instantly, and nowhere else.
That’s extraordinary.
His admiration was completely genuine, and Kasha’s expression brightened. Her clear pink eyes lit up in a way that was visible. He found himself wanting to keep that look there longer — so he kept asking questions.
Channeling magical force into the target’s body — is that enough to provide real self-defense?
It can’t cause direct physical harm. But for someone without magical training, the sudden influx of external mana should produce a brief paralysis of the body. Just long enough for the user to run — or fight back.
He was genuinely impressed. In open combat it might have limited utility — but for a physically slight woman like Kasha who needed to protect herself, he could imagine nothing more exactly suited to the purpose.
So then — what was the favor?
I was wondering how effective it actually is on a real person — would you allow me to test it on you? Just briefly?
You want to use this self-defense instrument on me.
I’ve tried it on myself, and I went unconscious almost immediately — so I suppose it works. But I was worried it might not be enough against a larger man, someone closer to your build.
Wait — you tested it on yourself? On you, Kasha?
She nodded as though this were an entirely natural course of action. Leon stared at her in silence for a moment. Then he exhaled.
Then he looked at her directly.
Alright. I’ll be your test subject. But I ask one thing in return — from now on, when you need someone to test something on, come to me first. Don’t run an experiment on yourself before asking.
But—
You came to me today because I’m a Holy Knight. Because I can heal myself if anything goes wrong.
She met his eyes with a look that told him he had read her correctly.
…Of course, being sheepish about it and going easy on the test were two entirely different things, where Kasha was concerned. Leon spent approximately thirty seconds unconscious across the top of her bed, and while the experience of lying there was the kind one didn’t easily forget, he had come away thoroughly convinced of the instrument’s effectiveness.
And now, here it was — in Kasha’s hands.
Whether to say well done or how could you be so reckless — he couldn’t decide on either. His voice stayed stuck.
Then he noticed that the blood still soaked her sleeve.
Whether she was injured or not, he wanted to find whoever was responsible and make them pay for it. Immediately.
But the moment he opened his mouth, he saw: her hands were shaking.
Not just her hands. Her entire body — soaked through with rain — was shaking. The composed expression she wore on her pale face was a careful construction, nothing more.
The brief infusion of holy power hadn’t been enough to steady her from the shock.
He stayed silent. He simply placed his arm around her shoulders. He felt the slight trembling of her body begin, slowly, to ease against him.
She was far too cold. He pulled her closer and lowered his voice.
“Come inside. You can tell me everything once we’re in.”
Kasha had no energy left to refuse. She gave a faint nod, letting her head fall slightly — and allowed him to bring her in without resistance.
“I was in a light sleep. I heard something — or thought I did — and opened my eyes. There was a silhouette coming in through the balcony.”
Washed and wrapped in a thick blanket, Kasha began her account with a face as clear and open as a child’s. A cup of hot chocolate steamed in her hands.
The two of them sat side by side on the sofa in Leon’s room.
He had needed to hear what had happened — and could not bring himself to leave her alone in that room — so he had brought her here.
Kasha turned to look at the early grey light beginning to seep in through the window, and shuddered faintly — as though the terror of first seeing that silhouette had resurfaced. Her fingertips, white-knuckled, gripped the edge of the sofa cushion.
Leon felt a quiet ache at the sight. He wanted badly to take hold of that hand — to steady her with it. But reaching for her again while she was still shaken felt like a kind of intrusion he had no right to make, and so he held himself back with deliberate effort.
He kept his voice as warm as he could make it.
“You don’t have to tell me everything right now. Rest first — there’ll be time for the rest once you feel better.”
But Kasha shook her head. Her lips were pressed together in a line that held firm.
“…I’m fine. I can do this.”
He felt the familiar ache of watching her deny herself rest — as though she believed she had no right to it.
But if this is what you need.
He let her lead.
“Then — was the cry the guard heard yours? He said he heard a sound from the room.”
“It was probably later. I had only just woken up — my voice wouldn’t come immediately. So instead I reached under my pillow for the instrument. I’d practiced enough times that I could do it even half-asleep.”
There was a quiet fierceness in her eyes as she said it.
In that look, Leon could read what those nights had been: lying in the dark, alone, reaching again and again for what was hidden under the pillow. Practicing until it became instinct.
The deepening shadows under her eyes over the past several days made sudden, perfect sense.
She had known something was coming. That was why she had switched rooms with Eve. She had been preparing, quietly and without telling anyone, for exactly this.
And the thing she had prepared for had come.
How had she known?
What did she know?
“……”
And yet — for all that still unsettled him, all that remained unexplained — all he could truly feel, looking at her, was the pain of watching those small shoulders carry it alone.
The fear she must have lived with through those nights. The loneliness of it. The thought of her bearing all of it in silence made something inside him turn.
The secret she was holding was too heavy for her alone.
That he still couldn’t take any of it from her was its own kind of torment.
“And then I waited for him to come closer.”
Her voice continued, and Leon brought himself back to it.
“You waited for him to come closer?”
“The instrument only works on direct contact. It’s useless from a distance.”
“Of course.”
He nodded — struck, genuinely, by her clarity under that kind of pressure. To hold still and wait, with a stranger moving toward you in the dark, knowing everything depended on a single moment — that was not something most people could do.
“At last he came close — and leaned over me to see my face. He looked startled. And in that instant — I pressed the instrument against him.”
“And then?”
“He went down immediately.”
She said it with the certainty of someone stating a fact, and straightened her shoulders.
“Why didn’t you call for the guard then?”
“I tried. But he fell directly on top of me — and I couldn’t get free easily. While I was struggling, he started to regain consciousness.”
The cry the guard had heard was most likely from that moment — Kasha trapped beneath the man, fighting her way out. The image coiled in his chest, cold and ugly. He kept his expression even.
“As I felt him waking up — I was still pinned, the instrument had slipped out of reach and I couldn’t get to it again — so in desperation I reached out and grabbed at whatever was on the side table. A letter opener. Just as he was pushing himself up — I used it on him.”
