Heena Min-Jeowon... 32 on paper, 15 in the face... this "teenage" girl tilted her hard-hat back and squinted up at Legendor’s eastern gate.
Dust-caked overalls hung loose on narrow shoulders. Steel-toed boots two sizes too big made her look like a kid playing dress-up at a construction site.
A single braid, thick as ship-rope, slapped between her shoulder-blades when she walked.
She yawned, freckles stretching across her nose like constellations.
Then flicked two fingers.
"Universal Gravitational Dominion."
The words ca out lazy. Almost bored.
*Whoooosh...*
Four supply crates, each heavier than a city bus, rose like party balloons freed from reluctant hands.
rchants froze mid-haggle, coins suspended in partially-opened palms.
A mule’s hoof hung an inch above cobblestone, the animal too confused to complete its step.
Silence crashed down harder than the crates ever could.
Heena cracked her neck, planted a chalk-mark on the nearest floating crate, and hopped up cross-legged like she was claiming the best seat at a picnic.
Boots dangled. Dust drifted off her overalls in lazy clouds.
Inside a five-kiloter bubble, she was physics’ substitute teacher.
Outside it, she was just a scrappy adolescent who could eat her body-weight in taffy without gaining a pound.
She pulled a worn notebook from her pocket, scribbling calculations on the crate lid with chalk that shouldn’t work on tal but sohow did anyway.
Tongue poking out in concentration.
Numbers that would make university professors weep.
"Structural integrity... check. Load-bearing capacity adjusted for atmospheric pressure differential... check. Gravitational constant inversions stable at point-seven recurring..."
The rchants below stared upward with expressions normally reserved for witnessing miracles or catastrophic accidents.
Heena flicked the chalk away without looking.
It hung in mid-air exactly where she released it, defying every law except hers.
"Okay, gravity. Recess is over."
*SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!*
The crates dropped in perfect rank, stone trembling under sudden impact.
But not a single nail popped.
Not one board cracked.
Perfect placent that made professional movers look like drunken amateurs.
The on-lookers swallowed collectively.
Soone’s mule finally rembered how legs worked and bolted.
Heena scratched her freckled nose, already bored with the display of impossible power that would normally require teams of laborers and complex machinery.
"Gate inspection complete. Structural reinforcents holding at ninety-seven percent efficiency. Leyline interference is minimal."
She hopped down, boots hitting cobblestone with a sound like dropped hamrs.
"Let’s find that miracle-working nun."
***
"Show-off."
The rebuke ca from behind, though it sounded more like a butler apologizing for the weather.
Heena’s head swiveled.
Approaching at a pace that would arrive exactly on the beat of her next heartbeat ca a man carved from midnight formal-wear.
Charcoal tail-coat. Obsidian waistcoat. Trousers pressed to a knife-edge that could probably cut paper.
A single crimson rosebud blood at his throat like a drop of frozen ti, the only color in his entire monochro existence.
His cane – blackthorn with silver ferrule – tapped once against flagstone.
Soundless.
The stones themselves seed embarrassed to make noise beneath it.
William Fordsmith.
Silver streaked his temples like sword-steel glimpsed through silk, giving him the distinguished look of soone who’d witnessed empires rise and fall with equal disinterest.
Eyes the pale grey of whetted razors considered the world over old-fashioned pince-nez he absolutely didn’t need for sight.
They were range-finders.
asurent tools.
Instrunts that calculated killing angles with the sa precision most people used to read grocery lists.
At his left hip, wrapped in midnight-blue sageo, rested Pendulum.
A katana whose hamon resembled ticking clock-hands, the blade’s pattern shifting subtly as if asuring seconds that hadn’t decided whether to pass yet.
He stopped one respectful pace short of Heena.
*Click.*
Heel touching heel with the precision of a parlor door closing.
"Miss Min-Jeowon."
The bow was minimal but perfect.
Head, torso, angle – all economy, all courtesy, zero wasted motion.
Heena rolled her eyes hard enough to strain sothing.
"You’re wearing white gloves to the apocalypse, Will."
"Standards, miss."
His tone carried the weight of absolute conviction wrapped in polite deflection.
"Civilization is stitched, not inherited. The mont we abandon propriety, we surrender what separates us from the darkness."
Behind the courtesy lay the promise.
Inside thirty heartbeats, he could open the seam of the world, step between ticks, and reappear with blood still deciding whether it wished to leave a body.
Yesterday he’d done exactly that to a pack of dire-wolves.
Twelve throats opened so cleanly the snow never noticed the violence.
Just red blooming across white like embarrassed flowers.
Heena’s grin was all teeth.
"Try to keep the upholstery clean, Alfred."
William’s mouth twitched.
The closest he ca to laughter without actually committing to the emotion.
Then he offered his arm with practiced courtesy.
"Shall we?"
***
They walked beneath the portcullis together.
Engineer and sword-saint. Overalls and opera-coat.
Heena talked. William listened with the polite intensity of a butler receiving grocery lists that might kill him.
"My little sister got caught in a temporal shear three weeks ago. Body’s aging in patches – left hand’s seventeen, right shoulder’s forty-three, her face keeps flickering between twelve and thirty."
Her voice carried forced casualness that didn’t quite mask the worry underneath.
"Local healers say the tiline’s frayed around her like bad stitching. They can see it but can’t fix it."
She kicked a pebble, watching it skip across cobblestone with perfect gravitational control that made the trajectory look almost natural.
"Rumor says a priestess here can re-weave temporal damage. So blind lady with divine sight or whatever mystical bullshit makes that make sense."
William’s gloved thumb tapped once against Pendulum’s saya.
An old habit when calculating cuts.
"Temporal decay," he murmured, his analytical mind already dissecting the problem from seventeen angles. "Uneven aging caused by tiline fractures. Difficult but not impossible."
He paused, considering.
"I can reduce the excess seconds and v away the corrupted monts cleanly enough that her body stops trying to exist in multiple tifras simultaneously."
Another tap against the scabbard.
"But the weave must be re-stitched imdiately afterward, or the wound unravels further. Without divine intervention to seal the cuts, my work would only accelerate her dissolution."
Heena exhaled, braid swaying like a relieved trono.
"Didn’t want to ask for help, but... thanks. For being honest about the limits."
He inclined his head with characteristic precision.
"Service is the rent we pay for ti, miss. None of us can afford to own it outright."
"Philosophy at nine in the morning?" Heena snorted, though genuine appreciation colored her tone. "You’re gonna make sappy before lunch."
"And you?" she prodded after a mont. "Why hike all the way to Legendor? Doubt you ca for the tourist attractions."
"I have an appointnt with Sir Percival."
William’s grey eyes focused on sothing beyond the present mont, seeing patterns in ti that most people couldn’t perceive.
"During his Grail quest, he reportedly cleaved a chronofracture – a mont that bled in two directions simultaneously. Created a scar in reality’s fabric that still hasn’t properly healed."
His fingers traced absent patterns against Pendulum’s hilt.
"My ability has begun to echo that phenonon. I can feel monts splitting when I draw my blade, ti trying to decide which version of events should be real."
He adjusted his pince-nez with precise motion.
"I intend to ask permission to study the scar. Perhaps understanding how he created the wound will teach to prevent my own cuts from spreading."
Heena’s grin turned absolutely feral.
"You an duel it until it talks."
William’s smile was a scalpel.
Precise. Sharp. Terrifying in its restraint.
"Conversation, miss. With accents."
***
anwhile, across dinsions in Waifuria’s training field...
"Fireball."
Nero’s voice carried focused concentration as mana gathered above his extended palm, crimson flas materializing with the kind of control that shouldn’t exist in soone who’d studied magic for barely a week.
But this wasn’t the crude spherical shape most novice mages produced.
*Whoooosh...*
The flas compressed into a rotating matrix, geotric patterns forming within the fire itself as it generated its own gravitational field to maintain stability.
Perfect symtry. Mathematical precision. Heat distribution optimized for maximum output with minimal waste.
*BOOM!*
The fireball launched forward and exploded against a reinforced target with devastating accuracy, the detonation contained within precise paraters that prevented collateral damage.
Luna watched from nearby, arms crossed beneath her chest.
Ember eyes widened.
That explosion required years of practice to achieve.
Years.
"Water Splash."
Nero continued without pause, not even winded from the previous cast.
Instead of the typical shapeless wave that novice water mages produced, crystalline liquid ford intricate geotric patterns in mid-air.
Spiraling helices. Interlocking lattices. Structures that demonstrated understanding of molecular cohesion and surface tension that university students spent sesters studying.
*SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!*
The water shot forward like liquid spears, punching through target dummies with force that left clean holes rather than ssy splashes.
Precision that spoke to calculated trajectories and controlled pressure differentials.
"Earth Wall."
The ground erupted upward in response to his command.
But instead of a crude barrier, perfectly layered stone rose in geological stratification that showed understanding of structural integrity most architects couldn’t match.
Load-bearing formations. Stress distribution. Interlocking plates that could withstand impacts from multiple angles.
Luna’s analytical mind worked frantically.
Processing. Calculating. Failing to find logical explanation.
This wasn’t just fast learning.
This was comprehension that defied every principle of magical education she’d accumulated over centuries of study.
"..."
Her silence carried more weight than any exclamation.
***
"Nero."
Luna’s voice carried genuine bewildernt rather than her usual tsundere deflection.
She walked forward, silver hair catching afternoon light as her high elf features showed confusion that bordered on alarm.
"You’ve been studying elental magic for seven days."
Her finger jabbed toward the perfectly executed spells with academic frustration that made her normally graceful gestures look almost violent.
"Seven. Days."
She stopped directly in front of him, ember eyes searching his face for answers that refused to materialize.
"It took three months to achieve that level of elental control, and I was considered a prodigy by the Arcane Academy’s standards!"
Nero lowered his hands, wiping sweat from his forehead with a casual shrug that sohow made Luna’s eye twitch more.
"You’re a good teacher."
The genuine appreciation in his tone only made it worse.
"No."
Luna grabbed his shoulders, her prideful composure cracking under the weight of impossibility like glass subjected to pressure it wasn’t designed to handle.
"Good teaching doesn’t explain this. You’re not just learning spells – you’re understanding the fundantal principles behind them on the first attempt, then imdiately innovating improvents to the basic forms!"
Her grip tightened slightly, urgency replacing her usual composed deanor.
"Your mana circulation is abnormal. Your spell construction shows intuitive grasp of magical theory that should require decades of study. And your elental affinity reads as perfect across every category I’ve tested!"
She released him, running a hand through her silver hair with visible frustration that made several strands stand at odd angles.
"Fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, ice – you don’t just have aptitude, you have mastery-level comprehension after a single week of instruction!"
Her voice rose slightly, academic composure giving way to genuine bewildernt.
"This isn’t just talent. This is sothing else entirely. Sothing that breaks every rule about how magical aptitude should function!"
Nero opened his mouth to respond.
"Don’t."
Luna cut him off with an exasperated gesture, pointing one finger directly at his face with the kind of intensity usually reserved for threatening small children or declaring war.
"Don’t you dare say ’I’m just lucky’ or I’ll turn you into a frog for a week! A small frog! With no opposable thumbs!"
Despite her threats, her lips curved into the smallest smile.
Genuine excitent bleeding through frustration.
Because if Luna loved anything more than being the smartest person in the room, it was discovering phenona that challenged everything she thought she knew.
And Nero was proving to be the most fascinating research subject she’d encountered in centuries.
"So," she continued, her tone shifting from threatening to analytically curious. "We’re going to figure out exactly what makes you... this."
She gestured vaguely at all of him.
"Even if I have to dissect every magical principle in existence to understand it."
Nero’s grin showed he knew exactly how much trouble that promise ant.
But honestly?
He was looking forward to it.
Call him a sicko pervert or what not... because he might already be one after all the crazy things that have happened already.
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